#but I’m proud of myself because I actually told them the truth

[pikp0kcas3]

The Hazbin Hotel fandom’s issue with accepting aromanticism and asexuality

Now that it is officially Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, I want to talk about this!

I find that, as an aroace myself, I am constantly grasping at good representation and coming up empty— it usually ends up in one of two ways.

One: the character is portrayed as emotionless, cold, and robotic in nature. It’s the question aromantic and/or asexual people are often asked: “Are you heartless?” The answer is no, of course, but general media makes it out to be the opposite.

Or two: Their lack of attraction is seen as something to “fix” because they “haven’t found the right one yet”, and they end up with a partner as a “happy ending”.

It frustrates me greatly because of how little people actually see aromanticism or asexuality as a true part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

So when I watched Hazbin Hotel, and I found out about Alastor being aroace, I was over the moon. I was on cloud nine. I also saw how his voice actor has looked up the term as an attempt to learn about aroaces, which makes me OVERJOYED?? Amir is truly a blessing, and I love that he’s proud to embody a character that’s part of our community. It’s so beautiful to finally have a proper character, a fan favorite at that, who just so happens to be aroace— and that’s another thing I love about this.

It’s never explicitly stated in the show (though it is stated in interviews), but it’s rather clear when you’re watching, isn’t it? Alastor’s aversion to any sort of sexual advancement, coupled with Rosie’s blatant “I know you’re an ace in the hole” comment sort of spell out his asexuality pretty clearly, as well as what side of the spectrum he falls upon. In addition, his Valentine’s day card was strictly platonic, which caters to his aromantic side. It feels so validating to finally be represented, to finally have a character in media who shares the same lack of interest in romance and sex as I do.

When I entered the fandom to look for more content, I kind of expected to see the same respect for Alastor’s orientation there too. But that… wasn’t the case? I am fully aware that aromanticism and asexuality are both spectrums— of course, aromantic and/or asexual people can enter those kinds of relationships. I’m not denying that and they belong in the community as much as anyone else on the spectrum.

But, the more I see the same line again and again and again, the more it feels like an excuse to just ship what you want.

Usually I don’t mind shipping? I’m often a firm believer in people shipping what they like as long as it’s harmless and they don’t go crazy over it. I also know for a fact that Viv doesn’t have a problem with people shipping her characters. They are fictional, after all.

But in this case, people are ignoring the very thing that makes Alastor a part of the aroace community! People are ignoring his lack of romantic or sexual attraction!

Is this not the same as changing a gay character’s orientation to suit a straight ship? If not, how so? I’m told that we are a part of this community, so why aren’t we being treated like it? Why is it so hard to accept the people on the end of the spectrum who aren’t interested?

Something I’ve been noticing throughout my life is that society has not exactly progressed very much on the idea of accepting asexual or aromantic identities. Maybe we have, a little, since the old days— but hell, people in “the old days”, which in truth wasn’t very long ago, believed that asexuality was a medical condition to be “fixed” by taking the right medication or having sex. That’s a pretty low bar to clear. And on the romance side, you’re seen as a “late bloomer” or “boring” if you don’t express interest. These days, being friends with someone is treated like a gateway to them possibly becoming a lover. Not getting married, not going on dates, not wanting a partner— it’s all treated like a crime when it’s not.

Maybe I’m selfish, or sensitive, or I’m butthurt over nothing, or I’m making it all about me. Maybe I’m gatekeeping or whatever the term is. But please, please, please, I just want an aroace character like me who simply is not interested in sex or romance.

And I want fandom to respect that. I admire the creations that fans make— the art, the animatics, the writing and the character analysis. And I want people to keep creating because creation is indeed a beautiful thing.

But I really would like people to treat aroace identities like they’re important. Like it’s more than just a spectrum to get wiggle room to wrangle in another ship.

[hangmatts]

Where do we go now?

Prompt: “i don’t want to fight anymore”

Ship: eddienick (eddie kingston x nick jackson)

Word Count: 659

—

“You’re so stuck in the past, you’re not even looking at how good I am right now! This is the best version of myself! I’m better than I’ve ever been.” Nick raised his voice. He was in the middle of an argument, all because Eddie stated he didn’t like how Nick changed.

“No, you’re not! You’ve just become an asshole with no awareness of how other people feel. I don't know what’s gotten into your head, what someone told you, but you are so much worse now. What is this even going to achieve in the long run?” Eddie asked.

“What do you mean? We’re already champions, we go on there and put on our best and win. Every week.”

“Do you? Because the last time I checked, you didn’t need to cheat to put on “your best”, and what are these people even doing here? What are they bringing to the table? What do they even give you?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nick scoffed. “They were there before you even knew I existed.”

“But they left! I didn’t! I’ve been here the whole time, trying to support you and you’re making it really fucking hard to do so.” Eddie responded.

“Why? Why is it so hard for you when I have a whole group of people out there that support me.”

“Is that what you think? Cause I’ll tell you right now, the only person in that group that actually supports you, is Matt. Everyone else is just using you. Especially Kenny.”

“Shut up.” Nick looked away.

“What’s the matter? Can’t handle the truth?”

“You’re just wrong! You have no idea- Kenny has always been there for us. He shows us that he cares.”

“What and I don’t? I’m sure you know so much about caring. You care about me so much that you didn’t even think of asking me about this- this whole turn thing.” Eddie gestured to Nick.

“Cause it didn’t matter! What you thought about it didn’t matter because it’s my decision! I don’t care about your input or what you think!”

Eddie sighed. If he had known this whole thing would turn Nick into as much of a dick as it has, he would’ve told Nick to stay far away from it.

“Your decision, huh? So, Kenny had nothing to do with it, right? You really think he has your best interests in mind? You think, after all this is over, that Kenny’s gonna care about you?”

“God, why are you so damn obsessed with Kenny?! Are you mad that I’m spending more time with him? Or that we’ve been friends longer? Or are you jealous because he’s actually successful?” Nick snapped.

Eddie let out a defeated laugh.

“I don’t wanna fight anymore, Nick. I’m tired of it.”

“So, that’s it? This conversation is over? You’re just gonna stop?”

“I can’t do it anymore. I’m done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Eddie?” Nick sighed.

“This. Us.” Eddie gestured between the two of them. “It’s over. We’re done.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” Nick’s voice cracked.

“I tried. I really fucking tried to reason with you, but you are not the same person I fell in love with. I don’t think you ever will be. You made it clear you don’t wanna change, so this is it.”

Eddie grabbed his belongings and headed towards the door. He stopped and turned around to face Nick and say one last thing.

“You know I wish you and Matt all the success in the world. I’ll always be proud of you, no matter what. That being said, when this success goes away, when everyone leaves you, when you find out I was right, don’t come crawling back to me.” Eddie opened the door and left.

Nick stared at the door, dumbfounded. He may have just ruined the best thing he ever had. He could feel tears welling up. Where does he go from here?

—

A/N: little late night angst for y’all!

if you like my work, consider supporting me on ko-fi! i also have requests/commissions open!

[chiyeko-kurea]

Miscarriages (tw: vent)

I never really believed in spirits or reading into someone’s mind or anything. I mean, for some people, you can see in their eyes that their soul’s broken but I never believed to be a part of them.

One day, at was at the « microkinesiologist », a doctor my mother insisted to take me to. It sounded like a crappy scam, but my mother is the kind to really believe this sort of stuff and was ready to pay a scammer if it even gave us a tiny hope to relieve my pain. I was lying down on the table, my mother sitting next to me, this woman examining my knees, and I remember already feeling uncomfortable with the contact. She touched my knees, turned to my mom and said a year, i don’t remember which one, and asked what happened that time. My mother froze, and told she had a miscarriage. It was a few years before I was born, and my mother never told me about it, I heard it from my sister when I was young. She didn’t specify to the doctor she actually had several miscarriages all the following years, until I finally came, yet the doctor nodded and said something, again I don’t remember exactly what, but she just somehow knew. And she told my mother, like i wasn’t right there under her fingertips, « you can tell her to let go of that. »

I have no idea how she knew that i felt guilty for all of them, the dead kids before me, and how i feel unworthy of being the one born, and how i sometimes wonder how they were named, and if my parents would have been happier if another kid before me was born instead of me. The twisted, bad-tempered, mean and ill little me.

Maybe one of them would have been a lovely little girl, a ray of sunshine and health, talented in science and naturally destined to be a doctor, and would’ve filled my parents with happiness even in their darkest days.

And never, ever would’ve made them cry like I do.

And instead, here’s me, and I wonder if my parents did the right thing to keep trying to have a second kid, or if i am the living proof that sometimes giving up is better.

Sometimes I feel like I have to live up to them. The fetuses. Which is dumb, because you can never outdo someone who never existed based of what they maybe could have done. Their imaginary successes have literally no limitation inside my mind and no matter how hard I try, I always think « maybe they would have done it better ».

I have to be worthy, worthier than them. And sometimes, the truth is that I am jealous of these dead bloody fetuses.

I absolutely want to be a doctor, but deep down I know that even if I didn’t want to, I’d still choose that path because it makes my parents proud in a way they don’t really want to admit and maybe one of the dead fetuses would’ve become a doctor. In the same way, I don’t really know if I want kids and I’m most definitely sure my body can’t handle it because it can’t even handle itself, but maybe one of the dead fetuses would’ve had kids. And in the same way, I taste food I know I won’t like because my parents want me to and because maybe one of the dead fetuses would’ve always tasted everything. And in the same way, I go drive with my dad even when it fucking scares me, because maybe one of the dead fetuses would’ve always happily say yes to drive when he offers.

I know it’s stupid, it doesn’t matter, I should stop comparing myself to other versions of me that could have been born before and stop competing with them, and at least I get credit for actually surviving and living when these fetuses didn’t, right? But still I feel guilty, because I tried to kill myself several times, and even if I never actually managed to, I fucking tried. And oh, how freaking cruelly ironic would that be, the child who finally lives, ends up dead once again, and they lose it to its own hands. And they just keep losing children.

And my mom wouldn’t be able to bear the guilt and my dad would lose another child he poured his soul into.

And « all your parents want is for you to be happy » but then again, I feel guilty, because I not even am. I can’t even give that to them.

[charmedreincarnation]

this is gonna sound so dumb but there’s one thing i know for sure, nothing is illogical when it comes to desires. But i’m in a sticky situation. Yes this is a 3D and a time crunch issue and i just know anyone and everyone who knows the law wants to yell at me through the screen😭 but here it goes!

So basically i’m supposed to be flying tomorrow to see my extended family and the only thing they care about asking me is what i’m doing for work (in my 4D i have my dream job and moving out for it v soon) I obviously won’t be getting into how terrible it’d be for me if i don’t have an answer for them, u get the gist💀

i visualise myself already working, having inner dialogues and other stuff. i know time shouldn’t matter because it’s not linear and i know 3D shouldn’t matter either. I’m just trying to save myself from all the bs that would follow. the embarrassment, shame, guilt, the list goes on but i’ll stop. (i’m gonna be there for 2 weeks there’s no way i can dodge this conversation😭)

truth be told i didn’t let myself be phased this entire time bc i assumed i have nothing to worry about (by now) but now i’m packed and everything just preparing myself to understand that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, I want to tap in the void and have my dream job. and i have been so close to it (tapping in) but the pressure is too much. I just have one night to do this. I know i can tap in other nights as well but i want it to be at my convenience, in my own bed, which would be tonight. I remember one of your anons had a really shit day and cried before tapping in and entered. HERE’S HOPING I MAKE THE CUT TOO.

I understand if you don’t want to reply to this and maybe i’d also not like my dirty laundry to be aired out but i have faith, in the law, myself and you. I just wanted to be seen i guess. I can’t talk about this with anyone. I know it doesn’t make it okay for me to vent here regardless i’m doing it. I’m sorry

The law has never failed me. I know it is this good and true. It’s just that this is my biggest manifestation and it’s urgent. I don’t care if it sounds desperate bc i think i have the means to look at it as finally putting my foot down and actually tapping the fuck in and not live like this anymore.

If there’s only one thing i can kindly ask you to do, it would be to please think about me and idk how to word it but just keep me in your thoughts and hope i make it. That’s all. I’m sorry for ranting and i’m sorry this was too much.

(please don’t answer this if you’re annoyed or anything. I tried fighting the urge to not send this, so so sorry😔)

Awe no worries ofc <3! You’re gonna do great and tap in asap! Super proud of you for making it this far Keep my updated 💗

[always-coffee]

The Kind That Might Drown a Man

I have a piece of art that I love. It’s a siren, clearing drowning a man. It was painted by an artist who I considered a friend, who I spoke to nearly every day for three years. He used a rather artsy photo I had taken as a reference photo, with permission. (If we are mutuals, you may ask to see it.)

I was elated when he wanted to use my photo, to make art out of a piece of art (photos are art) I was proud of. I said yes, immediately. He was going to do a series of mythological characters, and I'd be the perfect siren.

When he showed me a photo of the finished piece and also when he posted it, I was happy. Then, he sent the original painting to me as a gift. I was over the moon. It felt cool. I felt cool. Seen, valued. It did something to combat an old wound of mine.

In the past, artists—people who I thought were friends, but who were only ever actually interested in getting into my pants (nooooope)—had asked to paint me. Reference photos were even sent. But the interest quickly fizzled when they realized that what was on offer was only friendship. It wasn't good enough, so those connections faded like sun-seared fog. No one is required to make art of someone, but when something flattering turns out to be wildly disappointing it is, at best, weird. At worst, it’s dehumanizing.

But back to the point: my friend made gorgeous art out of a photo I dearly loved of myself. It felt good, and I felt special. Fast-forward to years later, and I have severed that friendship. It turns out that, despite all the conversation and all the camaraderie and even the co-working we did together, he was a liar.

There were things he casually and purposefully lied about for no discernible reason. And when I discovered the truth, it gutted me. It felt worse than a romantic breakup in a lot of ways. I don’t like being lied to. At all. Tell me the awful truth, and I’ll deal with it. But purposefully, repeatedly, and knowingly abuse my trust? Absolutely unforgiveable.

I’ve spoken elsewhere on the internet about the details of the lies—the utter pointlessness of them. (Imagine, for instance, lying about who redid the landscaping in your backyard.) It was during the pandemic where we began talking in earnest, having entered each other’s orbit through a mutual friend in the art world. He seemed safe. We shared good news with each other, vented about the insanity of the world, swapped cute animal photos and funny memes. But the context of it all was impossibly and completely different than what I was told. The curated image I was given was a lie. Things were deliberately kept from me, information was twisted and distorted—and the kicker was that he lied to other people about me.

Again, for no reason. We’d done professional work together, and it was very public! And very fun at the time. But he apparently claimed we weren’t friends. The moment things started to feel wrong between us was easy to brush aside. Easy to explain away. Easy to understand. He was stressed, job hunting. I was dealing with myriad stresses of my own. No relationship is unmarred by life’s more than occasional weirdness. It’s easy to shrug things off. To ascribe to something banal, innocent.

Then, the truth came out. And honestly, I’m still sifting through the ramifications. The ways the deceit stuns me, even now, not just in the moment. How it felt peculiar to suddenly and wildly not know someone.

In the moment, I took the piece down. I put it away. I didn’t want to look at it. I couldn’t. It was too big of a reminder. It felt like mockery. Because what was it all about? What was the point of any of it? (These are questions that will never have answers.) I was—and still am—angry. Angry at the broken trust. The carelessness of it all. The cruelty too, so unnecessary in its articulations.

But what do I do with the art? Initially, I thought I’d burn it dramatically like Sylvia Plath and the letters. Or chuck it in the trash, as symbolic gesture of getting rid of it all, of closure. (Because there is none of that here, and that is fine. I do not want it. Nothing said could fix or mend or ease.) Getting rid of it, however, feels wrong.

It’s still beautiful. It’s still art. It’s still me.

But for now, it won’t hang where I can see it. It will not be a reminder of heartbreak and betrayal. It will not sit a monument to a lost friend, who was such a small, sad creature in the end. Because to act with such malice—and there was malice in the threads of it—is not the act of a kind or good heart. And I do not have space in my life for anything other than warmth and genuineness.

Someday—I don’t know when—I’ll put it out of the dark and either hang it up or give it away. Someday, maybe someone I love will want it, and I will want to give it to them. A moment of captured beauty, the kind that might drown a man—offered with love.

I’m glad I didn’t burn it, even as I am glad to have burnt that bridge.

[stargazer-sims]

Journal Entry #60

Journal Entry #59 // STORY INDEX

Yuri

At the beginning of September, Victor and I moved into our forever home.

We thought we might go in the middle of the month, but I knew Victor wanted to have time to begin training with his new coach before the start of the competitive snowboarding season, and I wanted to be settled into our house in time to celebrate my birthday, so I suggested that we should arrange to go sooner. Victor seemed surprised, but he was pleased, and it made me happy to offer something he genuinely wanted without feeling like I was doing it as some sort of repayment for an imaginary debt I owe him.

That's one truth I've come to realize over the course of this year; the debt really was imaginary. Victor loves me, and he does things for me because he wants to help me and make my life easier. He never expects me to repay him deed for deed. All he wants is for me to do my best to help him whenever I can.

Sometimes my best is quite a lot, and sometimes I’m not physically capable of doing much of anything. Either way, it’s okay. Not being able to do everything all the time doesn't make me a bad person or a failure as a husband, and I'm beginning to understand that it was only my insecurity and lack of self-worth that made me believe it did.

Learning to trust myself and to believe in my own abilities and my value as a person hasn't been easy. Some days, I struggle to find even one affirming thing to say, and that's when I know I need to ask for help.

Doing that was difficult at first, because I had to get over the hurdle of thinking that asking for even the smallest thing made me a burden to Victor or my family. Releasing the guilt and shame is an ongoing process, just like teaching myself to be more positive and self-confident is, but I'm determined to succeed. I owe it to everyone I love, and I owe it to me.

When I can't come up with an affirmation, Victor always knows what to do. Rather than simply saying something good about me and asking me to accept it, he challenges me to name something I accomplished during the previous few days. It might be something big like planning and cooking an entire meal on my own, or maybe it'll be something small like folding laundry or sending an email, but there's always something. Then, he gets me to stand in front of the full-length mirror in my room and congratulate myself aloud.

Initially, that felt like an utterly silly thing to do, but Victor told me his first coach used to get his students to do it before competitions. He said the coach used to tell them to look at themselves in the washroom mirror and tell themselves things like, “I am brave and I am strong. I want to win, but even if I don’t win this time, I won't give up trying.”

Now I look forward to my little early-morning pep talks. As ridiculous as this may sound, these days it actually feels good to look myself in the eyes and say something like that, because it's not just a rote exercise any more. I am brave and I am strong, and even if today's not my day, there's always tomorrow. It's an effort to pick myself up and keep going, but I won't quit, not when I've gotten this far.

Honestly, the thing I’m most proud of lately is eating. I still don’t really love consuming most foods, but eating feels less stressful to me now, and most of the time I’m able to look at food and think about eating without becoming anxious.

I'll admit, I have moments when I wish I could go back to formula and not have to put anything in my mouth. I still have my tube, and fresh formula is only as far away as the pharmacy, so the temptation is certainly there. When I feel like that, I have to remind myself of my goal and push through as best I can. Victor encourages me on my bad days too, and I always look at my sticker chart to remind me of the progress I've made so far.

Yes, for those who may be wondering, we did bring my sticker chart with us from Japan. Mama rolled it up and put it in one of those cardboard cylinders normally used for maps or architectural plans, and I carried it with me on the plane. it's hanging in our kitchen here in Willow Creek now.

If you're looking for an update on it, tomorrow is the twentieth of September — my twenty-sixth birthday, incidentally — and I'll only have twelve more days to go before I can say I've been formula-free for sixty consecutive days.

I’ve earned four small rewards so far, and in a couple of days I’ll earn the fifth one. I already know what it is, but Victor says we can’t bring it home until I complete this current ten-day stretch. It’s garden boxes, by the way. My previous reward was gardening tools, and the one before that was a book about growing vegetables.

I won’t be able to start my garden till next spring, but I’ve already picked out a spot for my boxes, and having the things now means a lot even if I have to wait to use them. Choosing what to grow and reading up on the best cultivation methods will keep me busy during the winter, and then I’ll be ready to plant my little crop when the time comes.

Victor says strawberries do well in this climate, so I think they’ll be first on my list. I’m already imagining eating strawberries I nurtured myself. Do you think love and hope will make them sweeter?

I haven’t even planted them yet and I have a whole multitude of emotions about them. Mostly, I’m excited. I’ve always wanted my own garden, but I pictured it as flowers, not vegetables and fruit. The idea that we have room here for both makes me happy, and I can hardly wait to grow my favourite Japanese lilies and hydrangea alongside my strawberries.

Anyway, please excuse me for getting slightly off-track. I was trying to tell you about my progress. Day sixty will be October first, and then I’ll get the big reward. I know what that’s going to be as well, and it is very big. Victor told me this morning. I guess he couldn’t keep the secret until my birthday, which is when he and my parents had evidently planned to tell me, but I forgive him. It was still a fantastic surprise, and to be fair, it’s a gift for both Victor and me, so I can’t blame him for being enthusiastic about it.

I’ll tell you exactly what it is in my next entry, but suffice it to say, keeping my eyes on this particular prize is going to motivate me through the next fortnight.

Unfortunately, even when I reach the sixty-day mark, I'll still have my tube for a few more weeks because my first appointment with Dr. Kim, my new specialist here in Willow Creek, isn't until the twenty-second of October. Meanwhile, I'm still having follow-up by way of video conferences with my nutritionist back in Kyoto, and Dr. Kasongo is technically still my doctor. When I finish my sixty days, I'll get to report my progress to them, and then Dr. Kasongo will probably write a letter to Dr. Kim to tell him I'm ready to have my tube removed.

Apparently, he can do it right there in his office in about five minutes. From what I understand, he'll numb the area with an injection of some sort of local anaesthetic, maybe something like the dentist uses, and then when I can't feel anything, he'll pull the device straight out. He'll put a dressing on the area, and we'll have to watch for any signs of infection for a week or so until the tube site heals closed.

According to the information sheet I read about G-tube removal, I'll have to rest a lot and eat several small meals of bland foods like rice and yogurt for the first forty-eight hours after it comes out, and I'll have to take showers instead of baths until the hole closes, but that's about it. It's not even supposed to be particularly painful. I'll have a scar, of course, but I can live with that.

Victor says it’ll be my badge of honour, a tangible reminder of having survived one of the toughest situations I’ve ever experienced.

“It’ll prove you’re a warrior,” he told me. “You fought the battle, and you came out on top. That’s the thing with courageous people, you know. They might be scared, but they don’t let their fear win.”

I will never, ever let my fear win again.

But, you’ve probably had enough of me going on about my health at this point, haven’t you? Let me rewind and tell you a bit about our lovely summer and about our move instead.

The biggest highlight of the summer for me was having everyone I love most all together in one place. I didn't think Victor would agree to stay at my parents' house. When Papa invited him, he said he'd have to think about it, and I was convinced he'd say no, but I'm glad he decided to take Papa up on his offer in the end. We shared my old room, and even though we’re married and it's totally normal for us to sleep in the same bed, somehow this felt like I was a teenager having a sleepover with my boyfriend every night.

Victor and I spent a lot of time together, going for long walks and visiting parts of town we hadn't seen in a while. We went to the public onsen in Kiyomatsu several times, and we visited the local shrine. On sunny days, we usually packed our lunch and ate it down by the lake. I've taken a liking to eating outside, and now I want a picnic table in the back yard so we can enjoy meals outdoors here as well.

Aside from our dates, picnics and leisurely walks, Victor and I also made time to hang out with our friends. I'm relieved to say, Fox forgave me for the horrible way I treated him. He seemed a little perplexed by my apology at first, not so much because of what I said but because of the way I bowed to him. Takahiro had to explain it to him, and then he ended up making a wholly unnecessary apology to me for the cultural confusion.

While I'm on the subject of Taka and Fox, I should mention that Taka passed his immigration English test. He also got accepted into the college program he applied for, and received his study permit in August. In a cosmic stroke of good timing, Taka's Canadian study permit arrived on the day Fox's Japanese work visa expired, and they left Japan together a few days later.

Back in the winter, Victor and I offered to let them stay with us, but a lot has changed for all of us since then. We were supposed to have arrived in Willow Creek ahead of them, but obviously that didn't happen. In the meantime, Fox was busy applying for jobs back home, and he got offered a social worker position with the Department of Community Services, beginning in September. He has a Master's degree in social work, so the offer was ideal, as the position is exactly what he'd trained for.

Fox's parents still aren't speaking to him, but his sister hasn't abandoned him. She helped him find an apartment that's affordable, close to the college so Taka can walk to school, and on a bus route that'll take Fox downtown to his office. They stayed with one of Fox's cousins for a few weeks until the old tenants moved out of the apartment, and then they moved into their place around the same time we moved into ours.

I can't even begin to describe how reassuring it is to have my friend Takahiro nearby, and he confessed that he felt similarly about me being here. As safe and content as we are with our respective partners, it's daunting to realize we're in a whole new country without our families and all the things we're used to. There's no escaping the fact that we're newcomers, but it's less scary knowing we're not alone in the experience.

I wish I could say things were going as well for Seiji as they are for Taka and me. Victor and I took a weekend trip to Kyoto in July, and we decided to visit him while we were there. We got the impression he didn't really want to see us, though, and we only stayed at his flat for about half an hour because the atmosphere was so awkward.

We made a lot of small talk, but he did tell us that he hates working at the convenience store and is trying to figure out what to do next. His mother wants him to come home and be her apprentice, but he said he can't picture himself as a tailor. That statement, when the only real furniture we saw in his flat besides a shikibuton, a thrifted table and two rickety chairs was a purpose-built desk with a sewing machine on it, was incongruous. But we didn't question it. Seiji is the only one who can decide which direction he should take.

Victor's theory is that Seiji does want to come home, but he's too embarrassed or ashamed to, after leaving the way he did. If that's the case, nothing we could've said would have convinced him anyway. He'll have to make up his own mind to set aside his pride or fear or whatever else may be holding him back.

It makes me sad to think of him being all alone in that bare, depressing flat. Despite all the hurtful things he said to me, I still consider him my friend and I want him to have a full and happy life. I'd like the chance to talk to him one-on-one, to explain some things and to let him get his feelings out. That may never happen, I realize, but I like to think I'm keeping the door open for the opportunity, should it ever arise.

The uncomfortable meeting with Seiji notwithstanding, Victor and I had the most magical weekend in Kyoto. We revisited all the places we went to during the week we'd gotten married. On one evening we attended an absolutely glorious performance by a local string quartet, and on another we went skating at an indoor rink where I was able to teach Victor a sporting skill for once. Would you believe I'm a better skater than him? Well... perhaps not better, but more graceful at least.

As for the rest of the summer, August passed in much the same way as July, with plenty of walks and outdoor meals and precious time with my family. One thing of particular note from August, however, was my meeting with Mr. Tanaka and the human resources representative from our firm. Dr. Kasongo submitted a report to our HR department recommending that my short-term disability claim should be extended until the end of the year. Her opinion is that I'll be medically ready to return to work in January, and both my boss and the HR department approved the extension.

I'm looking forward to getting back to work, but I'm also glad that I'll have the rest of the year to keep getting better. I was working remotely before, but now I'll be working extremely remotely, and I think it's great that I get to keep my old job even though I'm living in an entirely different country. Much to my delight, Mr. Tanaka seems to think so as well. He said it was a chance he couldn't possibly pass up because with me being fluent in English and physically located in Canada, our firm will be in a much better position to attract more North American clients. Mr. Tanaka said he'd contact me early in December to work out a schedule for regular meetings, and so we can discuss my job duties and responsibilities going forward.

Although he didn't directly say so, I think he may have given me a promotion of sorts. I'll be sure to let you know if that indeed turns out to be the case.

The other big thing in August was that Victor and I departed Japan on the thirty-first. We said our goodbyes to Mama and Yuki at home, and then Papa took us to the airport.

I could not have predicted how emotional that would be.

Papa and I have grown close this year, and I wish I could find the right way to express how much of the previously empty space in my soul he's filled. I knew I was missing him all those years when our relationship was so strained, but I could not have comprehended exactly how much until we both dropped our stubborn pride and opened up our hearts and minds to each other. Saying goodbye was even harder than I expected, and even though I knew it wouldn't be a permanent goodbye, part of me didn't want to let go.

He went with us all the way to the security area. We all stopped outside the big glass doors, and Papa held out his hand for Victor to shake.

"Take care of yourself, Victor," he said. "And take care of my son."

"I'll take the best care of him, I promise," Victor assured him. "Don't worry."

"I'm going to, regardless," Papa said. "But, I trust you."

"Thanks." Victor grinned mischievously at him. "But, you know, if you ever want to come check on him in person, you're welcome to visit us whenever you're able. We'll offer you a non-haunted bedroom."

Papa smiled. "Expect us for Winterfest, and tell Miss Sachiko that we wouldn't dream of taking her room."

"Will do," Victor said.

Then, Papa turned to me. For an instant, I thought he was going to shake my hand too, but at the last moment he pulled me into a hug. I can't remember the last time I was hugged by my father and didn't feel uncomfortable with it, but I had no problem this time. I put my arms around him and held on tight.

"We'll see you in a few months," he whispered into my hair, and I was startled when I realized he was crying.

But I guessed I couldn't fault him for it because my eyes certainly weren't dry either. "I'm really going to miss you."

"Me too," he said. "Think of me when you’re having your strawberry milkshakes."

"I'll think of you every day, no matter what I'm doing. You and Mama and Yuki."

"I love you, my treasure," he said quietly. "Be brave. Mama and I believe in you, and we know you're going to have a wonderful new life in Canada."

I was sobbing by that point, but I managed to get out, "I love you, Papa."

I meant it. Watcher help me… with every fibre of my being, I meant it, and I hadn't even grasped the full magnitude of my love for him until that very moment.

When he walked away, I couldn't watch. Victor held me while I cried my heart out, right there in the middle of the crowded airport.

"It's gonna be okay, Yuri," Victor said. "He's right, you know. We're gonna have a wonderful life."

It was hard to believe that when I felt like my heart was breaking, but once we were in the air and away, I began to feel better. On the plane, we looked at pictures of various places around Willow Creek that we'd taken back in June, photos of Dr. Grace and Dr. Julian's wedding, and some funny snaps we'd taken of ourselves and Yuki in my room at my parents’ house. We talked about our plans and dreams, and we made up stories about ourselves in the far future. Cute old men in rocking chairs on our front porch, Victor said, and the image made me smile.

We arrived at the tiny Willow Creek airport around mid-morning the next day, where we were met by Victor's mother. She drove us home, and as we were getting out of the car, she handed Victor a set of keys.

"Here you go," she said. "Your grandpa was supposed to be here with the set you gave him, but apparently he and Juliet went on a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Oasis Springs. He said to pass along his apologies. He’ll be here next week."

Victor looked amused. "How much you want to bet they're eloping?"

"Victor!" Dr. Grace exclaimed. "Michael wouldn't do that."

"You don't think?" Victor's raised eyebrow said he might've known something his mother didn't.

Dr. Grace shook her head. "You're impossible, you know. You and your Grandpa Michael.”

"Yeah, we get that a lot."

"Well, I'll leave the two of you to settle in," she said. "Come over around five o'clock. Julian's making his famous chicken parmigiana."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Italian food," Victor replied. "I think you'll like it."

“Strawberry cake for dessert,” Dr. Grace added. “Because I heard somebody around here really enjoys strawberries.”

Victor winked at me. “I wonder who that could be?”

“I’ll see you boys at dinner,” Dr. Grace said

She wished us a good day, and then she got back into her car and drove across the street. It's nice, living across the street from Victor's mother and stepfather. I know Victor's happy about it, and I like knowing we have somebody close we can rely on if we ever need anything.

Once Victor's mother had left, I was ready to go inside. I started for the doorstep, but Victor held up his hand to stop me. "Just wait right there, okay?"

"Why?" I asked, as I watched him bound up the steps.

He unlocked the front door and flung it wide open before rejoining me on the walkway. "Because," he said. "I'm gonna carry you over the threshold. Isn't that what they do in those historical movies you like?"

I laughed. "That's for newlyweds, Victor. We've been married nearly a year."

"Yeah, but we didn't have our own house when we were newlyweds, did we?"

"Are you certain you can even still lift me? And your arms—"

"My arms are fine, and you're not that much heavier than you used to be. If I can't still carry you a few meters, I think that'll be a sign to go harder on the weight training."

"Okay," I said. I was a little dubious, but also secretly thrilled at the thought of being carried. It'd been a long time, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it.

"Okay," Victor said. "Ready?"

I nodded, and a second later he scooped me up as seemingly effortlessly as he ever had. He carried me up the steps and through the door, and then set me down carefully in the front hallway.

"Welcome home," he said.

I wanted to run through the place and look at everything, touch everything, and soak in the knowledge that this was our home. Mine and Victor's. It was the place where we'd truly build our intertwined lives, where we'd finish growing up and growing old together. Our goals and dreams would spring from here, and we'd live happily ever after because even if the world around us was in chaos, happiness comes from the inside. Victor taught me that, and once I finally understood it, my outlook changed completely. Life may not always be smooth sailing, but together we can survive any storm and come out smiling on the other side of it.

Before I ran off to explore every corner of the house and garden, there was something I needed to do.

"Thank you," I said.

"For what?"

"For not giving up on me. For being my soulmate and my superhero and my... everything."

Victor leaned down to kiss me, and I let myself melt into his embrace. I closed my eyes, breathing in the soft, sweet scent of coconut sunscreen and relishing the solid warmth of his body against mine. It was comforting and familiar, and it felt like the fulfillment of all my desires. For a moment, I forgot that I was in a foreign country, forgot that I had responsibilities... forgot everything that wasn't the sensation of being held by my husband.

"You are the most amazing person," Victor whispered with his lips still almost touching mine. "I'm lucky, getting to share the rest of my life with you."

I'm the lucky one, I thought. I don't know if I'd even be here to recount this to all of you if it weren't for Victor. I know he'd never take credit for saving me and would probably say I saved myself, but I couldn't have done it without him. I no longer think of repayment, but it's still important to me to show gratitude for everything he's done, and I think the best way I can do that is to appreciate the life he's helped me reclaim and live it to the fullest of my capability.

I stood on tiptoe to kiss him one more time and then, hand in hand, we set out to acquaint ourselves with every detail of our beautiful new home.

[blorbology]

how i learned to love outlining

For the last year or so, I’ve been compiling ideas for stories and then outlining them, mostly because I genuinely love the planning stage of the writing process, but also because if 2023 taught me anything about writing, it’s that I can finish a project if I know where it’s going—if I can point myself in a meaningful direction. If I have a realistic and attainable goal.

I spent years of my life writing aimlessly. I wrote every silly idea that came to mind, no matter how stupid it was and with no regard to whether or not I was bothering to tell a story anyone would want to read. I had plenty of fun concepts but the actual works themselves were largely mediocre—unmemorable, as someone once told me—or, in the cases of a few, embarrassingly bad. Terrible, even.

In 2004 I started writing a longfic for ToS. I had no direction. No plan. I didn’t write anything down for where the story should go next. What the fuck were character arcs? I sat at my computer and I typed words. I put them out into the world: chapter by godawful chapter.

I’m not saying this to be self-deprecating; it’s just the truth. I was not a talented writer in 2002 when I started posting online. I was self-taught. I didn’t write a real paper until I was 26, the first year I attended a college English course. In 1999, I was 13 years old. We were all given an assignment to write a short story with a title that began with the word “Almost.” I hated school. Rather, I hated the social landscape of it, and I was miserable that year. I didn’t take this assignment seriously. I thought, I’ll just make some absolutely stupid shit up, who cares. My story was called “Almost Mowed Over” and it was about a blade of grass named Bob who watched in horror as his friends were murdered while he was, for reasons unknown, spared. I remember very little about the story other than that, and the fact that this got me nominated to write for Power of the Pen for reasons that still confuse me. I went with a few others to compete that autumn and, when I got my stories back, I was more or less told they were shit.

It felt bad, but a few years later I started posting fanfiction anyway. Why? It looked fun. I felt inspired.

So I wrote.

A lot.

I got attention, my stories got traction, and I even finished the first three longfics I ever started. They were shit, too, but I had fun, and through one of them, I met my now-husband—on April 22, 2003. We were married on April 22nd, 2017. Strange how fanfiction can bring people together. Strange, that he felt compelled to not only read my shitty fanfic, but then to email me about it afterward—something he had never done before, and hasn’t done since. I’ve known him for more years of my life than I haven’t known him, all thanks to some shit I typed up off the top of my head without a plan.

 And it was the success (or at least, overwhelmingly positive and kind response) of those first fanfics that propelled me into other fandoms.

So there I was in 2004, writing a longfic for Tales of Symphonia. Those of you who knew me back then might remember the story in question. I’m not proud of it. Actually, I’m embarrassed by it. I deleted it in 2016 and I’ve no regrets about deleting that or the 600 other stories I had online at the time. I’m certain that story was a stepping stone to greater things (it was Baby’s First Foray into darker fiction, after all), and for that reason alone I can’t bring myself to be ashamed of it, but…it was shit.

Drama for the sake of drama, no end goal, the worst summary imaginable. I had no idea what I was doing. But people read it anyway. I stopped writing that story early into 2005, and when I deleted it, it was sitting there abandoned at 8 chapters, 32k words, 138 reviews.

I wrote a lot of other ToS fics back then; they were all shit. Some were unhinged nonsense. But for some reason that ‘fic has staying power.

Probably because I’m embarrassed by it. I guess it always just feels kind of bad to know that even though you tried your best on something, it still somehow turned out poorly.

And I’m sure there’s a lot to say, too, about the fact that I honestly didn’t learn from this experience. I went on to start a bunch of other longfics over the years and, unsurprisingly, finished absolutely zero of them (though some went on longer than others).

And the truly insane thing here is that out of nowhere, very suddenly in 2023, after years of barely writing (and even then mostly just re-writing old stories): I had some kind of…epiphany?

One night I dreamed that a baby was more or less dumped on Raine Sage’s doorstep. The dream was pretty detailed up to a point very shortly before I woke up. I told one friend about it and then another. I let it marinate. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, which is weird, because my experience with ADHD is that far too often things just slip through the cracks never to be considered again. But this dream—that idea, the concept—stayed with me.

And then one day I thought, well, I’ll just…outline it. It can’t hurt anything. It won’t be a huge waste of time even if I never use it. It could be fun to try to puzzle out a real story. Real character arcs.

I’d never finished an outline for anything in my entire life.

-

So let’s go back a few years.

In 2011, I began doing more serious RP. I RP’d as Regal, actually, in a ToS RP I did with a friend of mine. It was my first introduction to multi-para RP. My previous experience had been pseudo AIM RPs and the Dressing Room RPs on Livejournal. They were fun, but this was on a completely different level; it felt like cooperative writing, like cowriting a real story with someone else. I was immediately taken in by it, by the process. I grew obsessed waiting for responses. My eyes were always on my email. The two of us stayed up far too late typing responses back and forth to one another. It was a great time.

When that fizzled out after a couple hundred thousand words (probably due to lack of overall planning and the expectation that we should match one another’s reply lengths) I coerced I MEAN LOVINGLY SUGGESTED to a different friend of mine, someone I’d known much longer, that we should try doing RPs together. There was no expectation of either of us matching the other’s reply length, and my favorite response ever from her was just a character saying, “No.”

We wrote a million+ words together over the course of a few years, and it was all for the Fire Emblem fandoms. It was addictive and fun. If you’ve never participated in RP, or you aren’t really a writer yourself, I think it’s hard to really understand the appeal of what looks to be a glorified group project. After all, in RP you’re giving away 50% of your control over the story. But with a good partner who vibes with your writing style and characterization, and with the (get this!) addition of Communication, it never really feels that way.

In 2014 I started doing RP on Tumblr. I can’t even begin to tell you how many character blogs I had.

I hopped around RPing characters from a bunch of different fandoms, and in 2017 I stopped RPing on Tumblr (because it fucking sucked) and instead roped the bestie into RPing with me. We shrugged off the mantle of multi-para blah blah email bullshit and instead RP’d like lazy slobs. This is not an exaggeration for the sake of humor. Dialogue tags? No thank you. Asides? Yes. Retconning? Sometimes you get halfway through a story and want to change a detail from the beginning! Proper capitalization? Absolutely not. Screaming/crying/emoting/posting gifs in the middle of RPs when someone’s reply just hit right? Yep! Doing the same exact storyline with a different combination of blorbos? Oh, definitely.

We continued to do this until mid-2023 with startling regularity. We’d have at least 3 RPs going at once most of the time. We kept having to make more discord channels to start new RPs in.

And you’d think the years I was busy RPing sloppy-style instead of writing fanfiction would mean that I was getting rusty at the craft, but really, it helped me cut out all of the fucking bullshit with regards to the process of writing.

Like, what matters in a story is that a story is being told. I want to hit THIS point and THIS point and finally THIS point. I want to cover THESE THEMES. THIS is where I want my characters to end up. As writers it’s so easy to get lost in the detail sauce…to the point where the story and themes, and sometimes even character arcs, just get buried beneath the rubble of intricate details.

And while multi-para RP definitely taught me a lot (particularly about the importance of discussion and communication with a writing partner), I think it’s the sort of environment where it’s really easy to let yourself get lost in that stuff. The typical expectation is that you reply to your partner with a response of equal-ish length, even if the story being told doesn’t require it. This forces you into the head of your character more to try to suck out the details, but in my experience what this tends to do is just…bog down the story, and therefore the RP. Responses start to feel like a chore instead of like a fun activity you’re doing with a friend. And yes, it is, 100% just writing words to fill some kind of arbitrary word count. Nobody has five paragraphs of thoughts to cycle through between every sentence of dialogue they speak, and writing that way can be exhausting.

This is just my personal opinion, of course, but what I personally get enjoyment out of is seeing stories come together, seeing character arcs tie up and end on satisfying notes. And the expectation of having to write five paragraphs when all my character needs to do is say “No” is just…not it for me.

Writing the way my bestie and I do helps us fly through stories so that we end up with a completed story relatively quickly…and can then fill in those details—the ones I used to get lost in, which led to me never finishing anything. Better yet, when the structure is solid, it’s much easier to sprinkle those details into the story in a way that manages to also feel very meaningful.

Again, don’t get me wrong: I love multi-para RP. And RP in general. I think it’s fun and engaging, and if you can find the right partner it’s a wonderful hobby. Hell, I’m RPing as Regal again with the same partner I had in 2011. I’m having a great time. We’re communicating. We’re not stressing too much about matching RP lengths. We’re past the 200,000 word mark. We know where the story is going.

-

So in 2023, I had that dream—the doorstep baby dream—and I decided after a few weeks of it lingering at the back of my mind that I would try to outline it. Again, I’d never outlined anything in my life. This was a safe option to work on, because, at the time, I thought, “I probably won’t even finish this.”

A few hours later, and…it was finished. I then thought, all right. Now I guess I outline by chapter? It didn’t have to mean anything. I probably wouldn’t finish it anyway.

But I did. And when I say these chapter outlines were short I mean that. I didn’t want to get bogged down by details. I asked myself what was important to cover in each chapter and only wrote that down. The details would follow. Multi-para RP taught me how to fill space.

Here’s an example for you. Chapter 2’s outline was:

If you read the story, you know the outline seems completely at odds with the actual events of the chapter. I did not ‘outline’ any of those specifics.

I started writing. The story got away from both outlines. I reined things in again and restructured the story to make room for the changes by adding two more chapters to it.

I finished the story.

I started writing a new one, and then I outlined it. Weird tactic, but it worked. I finished it.

And I have spent the last year just. Coming up with ideas and then outlining them. I haven’t written more because in the throes of hyperfixation I completely and utterly destroy my health (and I have never operated much outside of that), so I’ve been avoiding sinking into it despite the allure of having more completed stories.

But maybe I should practice doing that anyway—writing like a normal person instead of a crazed lunatic.

But we’ll see.

I don’t know. I just wanted to talk about writing…and while I started this intending to talk about all the stories I’ve been outlining, I ended up just kind of walking you (if anyone actually read this far!) down the path I took to learning how to write the way I write now.

And the very weird path I took to learning to love outlining.

[station-aspenville]

Chapter 3.

I haven’t heard from Alistair for the past week. Despite that, I still have been checking the radio everyday since the last broadcast, in hopes of hearing his voice. I did so partly out of boredom, and partly because I’ve begun to worry about his well being. It wasn’t my conscious attempt at caring about him; after all, he’s nothing more than some kid I've never even seen in my whole life. Yet, the warm “Hello, Aspenville!”, I heard this evening, came as a relief.

- I feel like I owe you an apology for my absence. - said the boy on the other side of the radio - The past week didn’t offer us any new information worth sharing with you, therefore I saw no point in even starting an audition. If I’m being honest, I began to question the very point of what I’m doing.

Alistair seems to still take himself way too seriously. This poor boy is too blinded by his own hopes and delusions to see that what he’s doing is nothing more than playing a game. He seems to believe that the faith of Aspenville lies in his hands. Do you really think you can save the world, Alistair?

Or perhaps I’m actually the one in the wrong…

- Luckily - the boy continued - I’m not coming to you empty handed today. What I managed to accomplish, in the past couple of days, may not be a lot, and I can’t blame you if you find it rather underwhelming, but I’m proud to say that it surely gives us hope for the future. Let me tell you about everything that happened lately:

I’ve spent the past week searching for answers. Day and night, I’ve been focused on one thing and one thing only - the truth. It wasn’t an easy search. I managed to find my dad’s phone book, containing the full list of numbers belonging to his former researchers. I have to admit, looking through my dad’s belongings after the late events wasn’t a pleasant experience. I try not to think about my parents. Looking back and getting stuck in the past would bring no good to my research, in fact, it would slow it down. After all, I’ve been told multiple times to always value reason over emotions.

I made multiple calls over the past week. Both to the research centre and the individual researchers themselves. It didn't take me too much time to realize that contacting the right people isn’t nearly as difficult as getting them to actually hear me out. Most of them dismissed my calls right away, the few who didn’t thought I’m crazy and hung up after realizing that they’re talking to a 17 year old. Perhaps I was crazy. Perhaps I still am. Perhaps me trying to find a way out of our current situation is actually a sign of pure insanity. None of that mattered to me. As long as I can help someone with my actions, I couldn’t care less. 

Being viewed as a particularly immature teenager, who has too much time on his hands, by the very people who I considered to be my only hope wasn’t helpful. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I smiled purely for the sake of not raising concerns, and for that matter, I couldn’t even cry. Just laugh; laugh at the absurdity of this all. The world is absurd, the calamity (the public named it that, I never liked this term) and for all of it, my research is absurd. I questioned everything. I doubted myself. I became paranoid and then so very tired. And then a miracle happened. When I reached my lowest, I found what I was searching for. I finally found the truth - a young researcher by the name of Virgil Montgomery.

- I would love to eventually get Dr. Montgomery to talk with me on this program, however, from what I’ve noticed, he’s a rather shy person, and I don’t want to put pressure on him - Alistair continued - For now, I’m going to share with you the details of our research via radio, and we’ll see what future brings us.

He sounded ecstatic, I could just imagine how much all of this meant to him. After all, despite all the difficulties he had encountered, he managed to find someone just as passionate as him. Or perhaps just as insane. I’ve begun to question whether his research was actually child’s play, as I initially thought.

- Oh listeners - the enthusiastic voice spoke again - you have no idea how wonderful it feels! To finally have someone listen to what you have to say… I used to believe that credibility isn’t for me. Not right now, at least. I used to think that you gain a voice once you enter adulthood. Before that you can listen to what the elders have to say and obey them quietly. You may question what they say, but you’ll never be able to voice your concerns. It’s just like trying to scream under the water - no one can hear you. Since drowning is silent, without a solid voice to take a lead, this entire town is doomed to go down, and then - maybe the entire world. If Virgil Montgomery is the brain willing to help humanity overcome this crisis, I want to be the voice giving him a means to do so. As far as I know, he also knows how terrible it feels to be looked down on and ignored because of age or an uncommon approach to the problem. Well, it’s all in the past now. Isn’t it beautiful how both of us can help each other in helping the world?

I understood where Alistair’s excitement came from. Having an authority figure listen to what you have to say may feel like a blessing at his age. However something about all of this felt rather bittersweet.

Prioritizing his research, no matter how important wouldn’t it be to him, over his own emotional well being is something I can never consider admirable. Avoiding what brings him anguish, instead of trying to cope with it, seems like a rather foolish choice, one that might end in tragedy at that.

- I can’t say that I agree with every idea proposed by Dr. Montgomery - Alistair continued - in fact, we tend to disagree on quite a lot of matters. For example, Dr. Montgomery is very much in favour of the sunflowers theory, the one claiming that Strangers tend to be drawn to sunflowers, which I’m very much against. He claims that based on our current research this is the most logical explanation, however something about it just doesn’t sit right with me. I can’t even say why, it just feels terribly wrong…

Alistair seemed to get rather upset whenever the topic of sunflowers was brought up. It wasn’t difficult to understand why. With how much meaning those flowers held in his life, it was reasonable for him to get upset whenever his view of them as a symbol of joy and childlike hope was challenged. If he wants to actually contribute to finding a scientific explanation of the current situation, he would eventually have to let go of this nostalgia. I think it’s clear to see that Alistair tries to approach every problem with sheer cold logic, the same way as the people he admired growing up did, however he tends to get lost in his emotions while doing so. There’s nothing shameful about being a sensitive person, yet in his position this dissonance should be considered a fatal character flaw.

- During our last talk Dr. Montgomery mentioned working on some big theory, something that might possibly entirely change our perception of this situation. I don’t know about you, listeners, but I’m very excited to hear what he had been up to. I’ll make sure to keep you updated with every new information I receive. Both of us share the belief that in order for this program to be a trustworthy source of information we can’t hide anything from its audience, therefore I’m going to be absolutely transparent about our research. 

I’ve noticed the sun beginning to set, and at that moment it occurred to me that I don’t actually want the broadcast to end. I missed Alistair’s voice and I didn’t want to wait another week to hear from him again; especially considering that the news he’ll have to deliver likely won’t be of pleasant nature.

- On a different note, I decided to work on making the radio station’s atmosphere more welcoming, since it doesn’t seem like we’ll be leaving it anytime soon. The small garden in the building’s backyard looks nothing like the one from my childhood; aside from a few sunflowers here and there - which as you already know are nothing uncommon around this area - it feels rather empty and neglected. I want to change it. Not only would it help to make this place feel more like home to both Neil and myself, gardening would aid me to occasionally focus on something else than our current situation. Who knows, perhaps I’ll even be able to harvest some fruit and vegetables as a food supply. This morning I found a package of narcissus seeds while looking around the station building. Since it’s early November, they most likely wouldn’t bloom if I planted them now, but I’ll make sure to do so as soon as their season starts. I was never a huge fan of those flowers, however now I think I’m beginning to like them.

Hearing Alistair get excited about flowers right after discussing his research on beings possibly serving as a threat to humanity, felt oddly innocent; almost in an unsettling way.

- Anyway - he went on - I feel like I’ve begun to ramble again. Goodnight, listeners, hopefully we’ll get to hear from each other again soon enough!

Sleep well, Alistair.

[girl4music]

Wow. Yeah, I think this just goes to show how backwards and twisted we’ve actually got it as a majority social community or a collective consciousness if oppression and suppression seems to be the grave treatment of every and all minorities.

So many famous people (which I do consider a ‘minority’) - actors, singers, writers, philanthropists - are coming out and coming home to their true authentic selves because of how much the art/entertainment industry just restricts and limits them.

To hear Dom speak about their journey and experience all the while living in the spotlight as a famous actor and talking about how much fear and shame and anxiety they felt at being able to live authentically. I won’t lie - I welled up a bit because I can imagine that it is much more difficult for famous people to do this knowing they have a reputation and they don’t want to let anyone down or make them feel alienated. But at the end of the day, they’re human beings too and they need to be able to express themselves as they truly are just as much as we non-famous people do. And at the end of the day art/entertainment is made to express, not impress. Appeasing others is overrated - and whether conscious or not - is a violence of self.

I’m very proud of Dom for being brave and strong enough in heart to do what must have been the most difficult thing they’ve ever done as a human being on this planet - and to do it publicly and transparently as their journey into self-acceptance and self-love continues. I assume that Kat helped them since she came out first and was immediate support for them. And I know that the LGBTQ Earpers rallied behind Dom immediately too. They’re not alone and never will be. It’s an intimidating journey but well worth treading through and on until we get to our most authentic self.

As Tracy said - you could live most of your life and still keep realizing and learning things about yourself. So the journey never ends. It just becomes less scary because at that point you’ve experienced enough life to know how best to navigate through it. Or so I’m told. I don’t know how true that is being young myself. I am where Dom is at. 30-something year old and constantly being thrown left, right and center by the Universe because it wants me to come home to it. And I trust my higher self to guide and direct me onwards.

Sometimes I think that this confusing LGBTQ stuff really is just a way to help us come home to our truth as human beings after being so estranged from it and forgetting that we are just as much a part of the Universe as a star or planet is. We’re not separated. We just live as if we are and it’s completely wrong.

I believe all this “starting the wave” business really is just us aligning with our fundamental beginnings again because we’ve strayed so far from that very process due to centuries of lies and betrayals and repressions. We lost the plot a bit. So now we’re coming back to it one step at a time because it’s what the Universe or God or whatever higher power we believe in asks of us in order to heal the wounds that we’ve caused and effected in us all as a collective consciousness. And we’ve come so far but we have got so very far to go.

I am obviously very supportive of the LGBTQ community and part of it myself as a bisexual but I do think we rely on it too much to recognize and define ourselves. We’re letting the letters be the experience instead of allowing the experience to carry us through. I genuinely feel that people are far too caught up on the labels of identity and sexuality and not living them. The experiences and interactions that simultaneously lift us up higher and ground us when we need them to. I talk about gender identity and sexuality a lot but I very rarely ever use the labels because I just don’t think they’re all that relevant to the process of coming out and coming home to our true authentic selves and I think eventually when we’re wiser as a collective consciousness, we will discard the labels and letters because we will no longer need them to be authentic and align ourselves with what we’re supposed to be before all the bullshit pushed us so far away from it.

Gender identity and sexuality is but a crossroads on the journey of spirit. It’s what we have to cross to get to the other side where we’re really meant to be. We can and will use it for the meanwhile, but ultimately we’ll just leave it behind like everything else we do. If it’s what people need to elevate themselves in their evolution, that’s great because it’s certainly a step in the right direction. But I just know that it won’t last. Whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer… or any other word or term of reference, it doesn’t matter as much as we seem to think that it does. We will eventually get to this understanding and drop it and instead just allow ourselves to be human beings.

[listlessnessss]

the reasons why body facsism remains rampant amongst the trans genders are complex, limited to but not including

-they’re white

-they’re PMC

-they’re [privileged]

-they still hate themselves along gender dysphoric lines

But I think that you basically have in this shithole society

1.beauty

2.normality

3.intelligence/‘marketability’

and by foregoing normality, and potentially marketability, there’s this push to lean into beauty/find truth in beauty because it’s the one way you could possibly stay with society instead of going full they them ted k up in this bitch (me tho if i had the technical knowledge to go off the grid). True for cis women too, they lose out on marketability so they lean into beauty, and some ugly women are really into being trad or religious because they’ll corner down a niche that way, by hypernormalmaxxing(?).

basically where is the place to be ugly and proud of it, actual levels of attractiveness being irrelevant? i’m never going to be beautiful and i’m never going to be normal, so i must be of use, I must “save myself”; just not in the way the other girls were told to and thought they could.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

2022 Writing Review

Tagged by: @ttimbradford on the LAST DAY OF THE YEAR because she wants me to scramble

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 14

2. Word count posted for the year: don't make me say it 386,717

3. Fandoms I wrote for: 9-1-1, The Witcher

4. Pairings: Buddie and Geraskier

5. Story with the most: 

kudos: The Best Lie is a Truth (My Best Mask is My Face) - 2,149 bookmarks: same as above - 997 comment threads: Let My Ink Stain Your Pages - 671

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why): This is a difficult question. I'm proud of a few stories I worked on this year - Direct Deposit and Further Than Blood (Or Than Bones) had me pushing myself as a writer and delving into topics I knew wouldn't necessarily be popular. However I think I have to go with In the Gray You are Golden, one of those magical moments where the inspiration hits like something divine, the words flow like water, and it all comes together.

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why): Don't Play Games (Come My Way) - I'm a perfectionist and while I can't quite articulate why, I don't feel like I quite nailed this story the way I should have. Like I just missed the bulls-eye.

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received: @mistmarauder never fails to delight me and make my day with her in-depth comments and general screeching. I think her responses to Further Than Blood (Or Than Bones) and In the Gray You are Golden are my favorites, actually, although I know Curl Up In My Heart and Let Me Keep You is probably her favorite of mine from this year (no one is immune to cat!Buck).

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: Honestly, writing I'll Scrawl it on Every Wall I See was more of a challenge than I expected. I just had a lot going on in my real life so finding time and focus to work on it was difficult.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: Buck babysitting Chris during the tsunami and while Eddie goes to fight club in I'll Scrawl it on Every Wall I See didn't come to me ahead of time - it just happened as I was writing and I literally stopped and stared into the distance for a second in delighted surprise.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: Oof. This was a tough one. Probably a tie between the entire segment of Eddie's thoughts when he's shot in Further Than Blood (Or Than Bones) - the fic wasn't quite where I wanted it to be until I wrote that segment and then went back and sprinkled those quotes throughout the fic, turning the fic into one long flashback (which the reader doesn't realize until they reach the shooting). A small excerpt is here:

The thing he never told anyone is when his lover was unnamed and fed from him all he thought about was love. Love is poured into his mouth and he swallows and he b r e a t h e s.

The other would be frankly the entirety of In the Gray You are Golden but I really liked how I incorporated the tsunami/Eddie Begins into the fic with the flash flood and how I wrote it happening. I got a lot of comments saying how much the last few lines hit them like a gut punch and I'm so proud of that:

Christopher’s mouth is right at Buck’s ear. “Dad?” Buck starts shaking. He clenches his entire body to get it to stop. He shakes his head. Christopher is a child of the wasteland. He knows how to be silent when he cries.

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: I wrote situations where there's a lot of trauma and emotions going on (including during sex) and got a bit darker in that then I usually do, I wrote a couple tropes I hadn't thought I'd ever write or hadn't written before (such as a Zombie Apocalypse AU), I dipped my toe into HTML coding for the emails in I'll Scrawl it on Every Wall I See, and I incorporated poetry into a fic with Eddie's mental landscape as he's shot in Further Than Blood (Or Than Bones) (yes fun fact I approached that segment as a poem).

13. How do you hope to grow next year: I hope to continue to find new and interesting situations to play with for my annual Halloween fics.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer, beta, cheerleader, etc): @extasiswings who always reassured and encouraged me when I was doubting myself - and of course she co-wrote A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (But Love is Undefinable) with me.

Can't believe I almost forgot @catdadeddie whose Castle AU moodboard inspired me to write a fic that ended up being over 100k words long goddamn you Nova.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: If it did, I wouldn't be admitting it.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: If you don't make yourself take breaks to recharge your brain is going to make you and trust me, you will not like how that goes. Give yourself time to rest.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: Nothing in the fanfic world. I actually woke up with ideas for next Halloween and wrote them down so I wouldn't forget them, but those won't be until October which is a full ten months away.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

@extasiswings @kitkatpancakestack @tripleaxeldiaz

[growandrecover]

ive been in recovery for about 4 years but the “you’re not sick enough” voice hasn’t left my head at all and what i keep getting stuck on is i know people with eds who had lower weights than i did and who restricted more than i did. and i know it’s illogical but i feel like i can’t have actually had an ed when other people ate less and weighed less. particularly i found out the other day that someone i know had a lowest weight that was just over half of what my lowest weight was. like i was twice as heavy as they were at my smallest. and this person ate less than me at their worst too. I know that eating disorders aren’t diagnosed based on what you weighed or when the specifics of your restriction. Like I’ve been in treatment and I’ve been diagnosed and no one has ever even asked how many calories i ate in a day. But I harbor this fear that if I told people how much I ate at my worst they’d be like “that’s not that bad” or that it wasn’t really an eating disorder or that I wasn’t really starving. And I know logically the truth of the matter but I can’t make it stick in my brain. Idk if you can actually help but I’m desperate

Hi!

I totally understand what you're going through. I've experienced this as well.

Starting off with the person you know, the two of you don't share the same genetics, so you being their lowest weight could be unfeasible for your height/family history/or even just your body. My childhood best friend and I could eat the same amount of restricted food, and exercise the same, but she'd always be smaller than me. Because I've always compared my body to hers, that's been a huge struggle for me as well, but I have to remind myself that we simply do not have the same genes, and now matter how hard I tried, my body would never look like hers. And that's okay.

If you were diagnosed with an ed, I'd most likely say that if you were to tell someone what you were eating in a day, they'd find that it's not as much as you think it is. During mine, I ate all three meals and some people didn't believe me when I told them I had an ed. But if you were to put all of my safe foods on a table, it wouldn't be enough to satiate the average person my age's appetite. If a professional could look at your behavior, diagnose you, and send you to treatment, you were starving and you have an eating disorder.

Just because some people restricted more than you or had lower weights than you doesn't mean you weren't as sick as they are. Someone once added a note to one of my posts talking about this, but with a cold metaphor.

To very roughly summarize, they said that if you had a cold and your friends had the flu and covid, their bragging about being very sick might make you feel like having a cold doesn't make you sick enough, even though fevers and other cold symptoms warrant medicine and time off school and work. Here's the link to the post in case you want to read it yourself.

From an outside perspective let me say this: the people in your life who aren't sick aren't thinking about you not being as sick as someone else they may know. They either know you're sick or they don't. If they know that you went to treatment for an ed, they probably think you were as just as sick as anyone else, and I'm sure they're glad to see you in recovery.

And also, you don't want to be as sick as some people are! I know your ed is telling you that it's the only way to feel valid, but some people with dangerous weights may still feel like they're not as valid as someone else. Your ed is giving you life during it through rose colored glasses. Being sick was not fun. It was not enjoyable in any sense of the word. Being sicker would only make your life worse, and that's what anyone's ed wants for them. You're in recovery now, and you should be really proud of yourself. If you can't say it, then I will. I'm so proud of you, anon. You don't need to be sicker. Your ed is valid, and you *were* sick enough. Anyone that is struggling with an ed is sick enough. Their weight, food intake, and other habits don't matter. If you have an ed, you are sick enough, and you deserve all the help you can get.

Finally, if you're able to, you might want to reach out to a therapist and see if they could help you with this issue. I'm giving you things to think about on your own, but I'm not a medical professional, and if you continue struggling with this, it could impact you more intensely than it already is.

I hope this helped, and feel free to send another ask or a message if I missed something or you just need to talk.

Best of luck to you in you recovery, and I hope things get better for you ♡

[emmettsmantiddies]

A Goodbye

it’s been literal years since i’ve posted on this account, but i have been thinking about and reflecting upon my time as a Twilight Content Creator™. i’m going to be talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly, so brace yourselves. everything is under the squiggly line.

i started this account to send twilight memes to my best friend and keep them all in one place. I started making silly little memes as a joke, and then kept making them for enjoyment. I was really isolated during COVID, as i have an autoimmune disease, and then i had a lot of major things happen in my real life that caused me to seek even more solace within the fandom and the connections i made online.

i wrote a fanfic, and to this day i’m proud of it. i don’t think i’ll ever make the sequels i planned on, but the door is always open. 

i met some amazing people, and was invited into a group. it was one of the first times i felt a sense of belonging and like i was integral to a group. maybe that’s self aggrandizing a bit, but hey, this is a goodbye post, so i should be allowed to, i think. 

it’s actually this group that i’ve been thinking about lately. i want to make it clear that my actions and reactions are on me, but that’s it. this will come into play later. this also isn’t about clearing my name or anything like that. i think i need to write this and send it for some closure to myself. 

as time went on, i slowly started changing, and not always for the better. i think my real life had a lot to do with it, but it also had to do with me. i was using the group as escapism, and rather than see the group as just that--a group, i treated it like ‘holly and ensemble’ which was incredibly wrong of me. i sincerely regret how self-centered i was at that time. i also look back at who i was and i’m not happy with her. i’ve changed (thankfully) and i truly believe i’m a better person. i took jokes too far, made poor comments, and caused real harm to people i cared about.

but as is common in groups, slowly it becomes more of a hivemind. this group was no exception--and this is not in any way me trying to escape culpability or shade anyone. we were all complicit. a lot of little incidents and grievances piled up without being addressed and boiled over after i made, admittedly, bad and ignorant takes and doubled down on them. by the end of my time there, it was no longer ‘let’s discuss this issue’ but ‘this issue has one answer and if you don’t agree you’re ‘<insert -ism of choice here>’.

once i caused that lid to open, the toothpaste was unconditionally and irrevocably out of the tube. what followed was a messy friendship break up. i take full responsibility for my actions, and have learned and grown in the 2+ years since then. i discussed this incident in therapy lately, and something my therapist told me was that “you are not responsible for other people’s feelings. you are not responsible for other people’s actions.” so while yes, i messed up in a major, major way, a lot of the stuff that went down after my attempts to apologize and do everything in my power to rectify the situation was not on me. that’s hard and honestly scary to admit. because when you have so many people telling you that “you are x, you did y, you caused z” you believe it. especially on the internet. 

i gained and then lost a lot of the people i considered friends on the internet. and while that may not seem consequential--as they’re internet friends, a lot of them came into (and subsequently left) my life at a turbulent time. i felt completely isolated after. now i’m sure people will say, ‘boohoo, you said ignorant stuff you deserve that’ but i have a hard time believing that when your friend makes terrible decisions, you just drop them. it’s a lot easier to do on the internet than in real life. it’s also a lot easier to make things fit your narrative. everyone has a narrative. the truth is somewhere in the middle. the fact of the matter is that i was not the only one making those jokes, i was not the only one going hard towards other people, but i was the one who took the fall for most of it (this does not include some of the comments i made, this is about some of the less major things i was called out for). again, i cannot be responsible for other people’s emotions or reactions. i don’t want this to come across as defensive, but after two years i can realize that i was done dirty. if you do not bring something to another person’s attention, they cannot do anything to fix it. period. if you don’t say something because you are too scared to upset someone--that is on you. by the same token, you are not responsible for how someone reacts when you bring something up. you are not responsible for the fallout when you set boundaries and those boundaries are broken.  

i’m actually physically shaking writing this. that is how much anxiety and fear i have developed when talking about what happened. i finally had the nerve to read through what people said about me in the tags. regardless of what anyone says, there are two sides to every story. one side may be blatantly right, but that does not negate the fact that there are two sides. the fact of the matter is people will believe the first side to come out because they feel the other party has something to hide. i am honestly terrified of what will happen when i do post this. this group knew everything about me, my name, address, etc. and even though i haven’t been involved with any of them for years, i still have that fear of retaliation. i don’t think they ever would, but i also never thought i’d be in a callout situation (we as a group had discussed on many occasions how we would never do that to each other). i don’t want to minimize the hurt and pain i caused others, but also looking at it from the grand scheme of things, i made some offhand, harmful jokes and statements, doubled down, but then learned from them. that is all you can ask of people. i will not pretend that i am the poster child for ‘what to do when called out’ because again--i was self-centered and unyielding at first. but if we as a whole do not allow people the space to grow, there’s no motivation to change and a fear of being wrong and avoiding tough conversations. that doesn’t mean anyone is entitled to forgiveness, but someone should not be held back from continuing to better themselves.

if i could go back, i would’ve handled the situation differently. i would’ve asked for more time before having a major conversation, as emotions were flying high and the result wasn’t nearly as productive as it could’ve been. decisions i made in the moment were held against me, but the same decisions were seen as justified in other people’s hands. 

i have so many good memories from that group, and i still think about them with fondness. i also have bad memories from my mistakes and mishandling of the situation. both can coexist. i want to thank the people of that group and of my broader ring of mutuals (both current and former) for the laughs, conversations, and friendship, however brief it was. to the chat: thank you so much for all of the support you gave me during the hardest time in my life, i am forever grateful for that. i genuinely do not believe that i would be where i am if not for all of you. as strange as it may be, thank you for the call out. i may not agree with the methods, but at the end of the day, it did open my eyes and give me the opportunity for some serious self reflection (not the kind that happens 3 days after a major incident) (that’s a dig at myself) and now i’m a better person because of it. i apologize for all of the pain i caused. i absolutely despise goodbyes, so i will simply wish you peace and happiness and healing in all of your endeavors. 

i wish everyone who ever followed me, interacted with me, or glanced at my silly little blog nothing but the best, and i hope that you have grace for those who make mistakes and poor decisions. i will be logging out after i post this, but i will not delete my blog. sometimes i like to reminisce and have a chuckle at the content i’ve made.

For anyone curious about Wilbur, he’s doing well and is still the best menace to society.

Much love,

Holly, formerly known as emmettmantiddies

[notacountable]

Why?

Because you’re perfect. That’s why.

It’s what I’ll say, and it’s what I’ll mean. It will be the truth.

There simply isn’t any other answer I could give.

You know every little thing about me.

I hate cinnamon, but my favorite pie, pumpkin, is riddled with it.

My favorite color, pink, I could bathe in, but only in certain shades and hues.

The person I love most in this world is also the person I hide the genuine parts of myself from.

You know of the indifference and attention that plague my mind, emotions, and decisions.

Their constant battle of dominance, which one will win me over today?

Will it be lazy, self-absorbed, “ I don’t care, why should I?” attitude from my father,

Or the incredibly caring to the detriment of myself and those who rely on me, from my mother?

You understand every angle that I come from, 

My thoughts before I’ve even had a chance to hear them myself, to gather them, lay them out to wear.

You understand that although I get the ideas, I lack the willpower to see them off,

And you couldn't care less, It's another reason why.

Another reason I hate you.

You, who's perfect,

You, who knows every like or dislike that has anything to do with me.

You, who would never even entertain the idea of changing me,

The idea of making me think outside of my box.

But that's exactly what I can't stand, 

You, who doesn't push me, not even as much as a nudge.

You, who simply exists alongside me, waiting for me to make my move.

You, who everyone, including me, deems as perfect.

The perfect spouse, perfect friend, perfect person to spend a life with.

But that's what makes me hate you, you are perfect, everything you do, everything you've done was to make someone else happy, to appease them. To prove something.

At least that's what I used to think.

Of all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you get something right about me, or anyone, anything, for yourself or because you seemed to care, it was always to prove you knew, listened, paid attention, and were right.

And it makes you happy.

That's the part where you lose me in any understanding of you.

If the understanding of you was the one subject in school I needed a passing grade for, in order to graduate.

well then, it would just be unfortunate for me.

Don’t get me wrong, you don't do this to prove “ I’m the best!”, or to prove just how goddamn perfect you are, it's what satisfies you.

I used to think there wasn't a single selfish thing about you, I mean, how many people have you met that seem to know everything about you without even trying?

Or at least not that you noticed? 

But then, I realized one day you absolutely are selfish, you don't listen because you care,

You don't go out of your way to make a small gesture that screams “Look at me! I remember the small things! I care!”  because of anything genuine,

You do it because you see the way it lights people up. 

The way they will praise you not only to your face, but to others.

The way it makes them proud, makes them feel better.

You treat their enjoyment like trophies, something to collect. 

Like some game, a raffle.

And it's hard for me because I see it, and I know it's not real.

But then I see the enjoyment you carry,

 Like a dog called “Good Boy!”.

A people pleaser, not necessarily a bad trait, 

But unfortunately for you, it's the one trait I hate with my whole being.

In my defense, it's the mommy issues.

You sat there and listened to every word that came from my mouth, 

Words of endearment,

Hatred, 

Sadness.

I told you how I felt as a child, and how as a teenager, finally able to put an actual word; neglected, to the feeling.

And you sat, and hugged me until my breathing was even again and my face dried off.

You did that more times than I could ever even begin to try and count.

You listened, you paid attention, you remembered,

Yet when I tell you I hate you, your surprised?

It’s because you hate yourself.

That’s what you will say in response.

You will tell me this is a mistake, it’s self sabotage.

You will say you know it's the mommy issues, because oh? What's that!?

You listen, you pay attention, you remember!

And it just makes me hate you more.

Is it so wrong to want someone to push me?

To encourage some change?

To want to make new memories instead of keeping old ones and giving them the good ole Reduce, Reuse. Recycle?

To not just hear the things I say, but to notice the things I do?

The way I’ll sing along to a song, how my voice will crack and whine, how off-key I am?

The tremble in my last three fingers, and how I manage to drop almost everything because of it?

The way I wear disgust on my face when someone mentions coffee?

How I sneak glances at you, entirely enamored with something as simple as a rogue eyelash?

To know things about me, not because I tell them to you, but because I exist, and you care.

You just care, nothing else, not to make me happy, to make others happy. 

You. 

Just. 

Care.

And I would love you for it.

[angeltreasure]

Hey I’m coming here and saying this because I’m desperate and I no longer care that I probably sound disgusting, embarrassing and like I do not know what the heck I’m doing because I really don’t. I’m just in desperate need of prayer and support rn

I have such a bad rep of making terrible decisions and I recently (not something I’m proud of) have come away from the church quite a bit and not really been trusting God. I’ve been quite depressed if I’m being honest and had multiple people in my life really making things quite difficult for me, so I’ve just found myself not talking to anyone about how things have really been.

Now that that’s out. I had a relationship break down around Christmas time and it was a really unhealthy one so I’m glad it did. I think the way I have and still am processing it is not good though as a guy I used to like and still am very attracted to (but literally pretty much JUST attraction) told me he liked me. We had this on/ off thing and nothing went too far and he basically left me in the city alone last week whilst he got drunk and probably high with his friends. I still didn’t care though which shows my lack of self respect right now… and then his friend told me he has trust issues and doesn’t want something serious. Because this is purely lust for me, I think I’ve been desperate to just be around him and last night his mate invited me out to this club tonight cause’ he’s gonna be there and basically said I can give him a bday treat but basically that he just wants sex. I am actually that unhinged right now that I want to go and my own friend who has never been a believer wants to go so it’s almost an excuse for me now but I have enough sanity left to tell myself I wouldn’t actually sleep with this dude but I also do not even trust myself and UGH I know I just typed out so so much and most of it is just disgusting and just honestly a truthful piece of what’s been happening in my life lately. Please offer some sane advice or prayer idk what to do anymore

I think when we get overwhelmed it’s important to first step back. Grab a piece a paper and pen. Then, write down in bullet points what you told me like

- I haven’t been trusting in God

- I’m away from the church

- family and some friends are making it difficult for me

- I just got out of a bad relationship not too long ago

- I’m so desperate to feel anything I’m consider the birthday gift to a guy who doesn’t even like me for who I am but just wants me in lust

Now we can go through those things together. You just got out of a bad relationship. I’m so glad you did because you wouldn’t have been safe if you stayed in that one, probably. I know breaking up hurts and we want to feel loved again, because I know that feeling.

Now look at the rest, family and some friends are making it difficult. You have to ask the why’s to that, and also remember to have any relationship build you need two way communication not one sided. You build trust slowly but communication is key. Falling for some guy just for his looks a quick pleasure isn’t going to satisfy you. That’s not love at all. To love, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, is to will the good of the other. Peace starts in our world when we bring peace at our own home. Instead of wandering, come back to your family and good friends. Tell them all you’re going through. You have to spiral out alone. If they are good family and good friends they will help you.

I know it hurts in your chest, all that pain you have gone through. I know you feel a disconnect with God. The only thing that can fill the void you feel in your heart right now is God. Don’t go to that party. Come to to Mass. come sit in the back pew. You don’t have to talk with anyone, you don’t need to know all the prayers or understanding the readings to their full. God knows exactly what you need right now and He is love and mercy itself. Please come to Mass. God loves and I love you. I’ll keep you in my prayers.

Have you read the story of the Prodigal Son? I think you can connect to it so much. Read it. Take a moment to be alone to read it.

[straycatboogie]

2023/05/27 English

BGM: The Jam - In The City

Last Thursday a Discord friend of mine taught me an interesting word. It's "gaijyu naigou" (if I write it literally in English, then it could be "soft to outside, but hard in oneself"). He also suggested his opinion like this. "That's different between 'enduring' and 'being tolerant''". I accept this word as "I should say what I have to say even if it would cause some troubles in our relationship". Probably that affects me exactly now. Today I worked early and attended a meeting of my whole company. At there, I noticed a typo in the power point my big boss had shown to us. Indeed, it was really a little one but typo is bad I  thought. After that meeting, I told her about that. Then she said to me "I am going to fix it". I thought I was really glad about that action I had done (I even made a sigh). Readers, you might think this as "I have read this a lot". But I want to say that this is because of my job coach. Because she has been helping me a lot in my company, I can enjoy the environment I can say my opinions/suggestions easily. Now I can even help my company a little. It's really like a dream.

At lunchtime, I told about that event to the job coach on LINE. She soon answered me. "Your character works exactly! I'm glad to hear that". And, of course I'm also pleasant by that comment, but that word "character" also caused an interest from me. Yes, it's profound. "Character"... This is certainly one of my characters. I notice various things people don't notice or overlook. Once, at the time I had blamed myself terribly and thought I wanted to disappear, I would think that this character must be an useless element. At least, I wouldn't think that this noticing/finding skill as a tool which can work actually in my company. This change has been caused by the connection/relationship with that job coach and also the friends from the meeting about autism. That has made me grown up like this... Maybe I could give up and drank a lot when I didn't meet them. And I thought that "'I'm alright" and "Everything is OK".

As you know, I am just a Japanese autistic guy. Autism is a really "funny" or "charming" concept... In English, I heard that the word "handicapped" can be "differently abled". "The people who can do their works in a different way from others". "The people who do things in their ways". In short, it says that "handicapped people are not the ones who can't do things, but who do things in their characteristic ways". I guess this. Me, I am not useless at all. Indeed, I can't drive a car or do small talk because of autism. But I can write or speak English like this (although the English I speak must be "very Japanese"). It says my characters appear in different forms. In other words, people can show their greatness with showing their characters in various ways with a full of variety. That means "It must be OK if they are themselves". I think that the days I had been bullied and beaten because I had been different from others were really like a terrible nightmare.

Ah, What an enigmatic world. We, the human beings, must be different from each other basically. That's the meaning of being the one (or having one's dignity). It must form the wonder of this world. At least, I have kept on thinking/trying that I want to touch that wonder. Therefore I have read a lot of books and kept on thinking. Once I tried to find the wonder in the outer world. A lot of books I have read (about 80% of them must be just a bunch of paperbacks). I also have wandered/hanged out with really great music heritage... And now, I look at the wonder in the things I have already known well. For example, in myself who I have been with about 48 years. I once had hated this myself and autism. It must be happier if I could live without this "cursed" autism... I even thought like this exactly, but now I am thinking that it is a sign of my possibilities or talents. In other words, I can proud of my opinions/truths even if they look so weird. Through the long time I have experienced, and also the connection I have built... People can change. Everything can change. So I shouldn't hurry up.