#every so often i remember that it exists and my brain goes

[sparrowsoupp]

they are the working dead! and they lurch for minimum wage!

[bixxelated]

if yall ever see me foaming at the mouth with dilated eyes dont be worried its not rabies im just going feral over how good a movie paranorman is

[kunaigirl]

Happy Disability Pride and awareness month! Let's talk about Epilepsy!

Hi there! I got tired of seeing my condition (that impacts my literal every day life) being left out or forgotten about during discussions about disabilities, so I made my own post about it! Let's go!

First Off! What the heck is epilepsy? Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder in the world, and it's a chronic medical condition. Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes recurring, frequent, triggered, and unprovoked seizures to occur.

The official Epilepsy Foundation describes seizures as follows: "Seizures are sudden surges of abnormal and excessive electrical activity in your brain, and can affect how you appear or act. Where and how the seizure presents itself can have profound effects...Seizures involve sudden, temporary, bursts of electrical activity in the brain that change or disrupt the way messages are sent between brain cells. These electrical bursts can cause involuntary changes in body movement or function, sensation, behavior or awareness." (Source link)

Sounds like a lot of fun right? This is our life. Even with medication, we can be VERY limited to what can be safe for us. Seizure medications are NOT a cure, they only exist (at least as of now) as a tool to help have your seizures less often, or be triggered less intensely. Even on medication, seizures can still happen.

If you have epilepsy as a child like I did, it impacts your entire growing and developing experience. I spent MANY times as a child in and out of hospitals, neurologist and specialist offices, an getting so many EEG tests done. The pain of scrubbing the glue out of your hair for DAYS is horrible.

At a young age my seizures were so frequent and serious, it impacted my brain's ability to retain information. I had to re-learn the names of things at age 8 and 9. I had to re-learn HOW TO READ at age 10. I had to be home schooled because the public school system of my state at the time refused to work with me. I have VERY distinct and vivid memories of crying over my little baby ABC's book that I needed as a 4th and 5th grader. I knew I should've known this by this age. I knew that at one point I already did, and it was TAKEN FROM ME.

As an adult, I'M NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE A CAR. And I can NEVER go to see a movie in theaters or go to see concerts or live music. There are entire TV shows I don't get to see. I can't go to clubs, arcades, dances, or raves. I miss out on A LOT of fun things. I always do, and I'm WELL AWARE of the fun I'm missing out on. The social, casual, and fun life experiences I'll never get to have. That WE'LL never get to have. And oh yeah! Seizures can KILL SOME OF US. Yep.

And the list goes on, and every person with epilepsy experiences it differently. There are multiple different types of seizures you can have, they're NOT always convulsing on the floor. For example, I have complex-partial-myoclonic-seizures. Meaning my muscles DO twitch when I have seizures, but I'm not always completely unconscious and sometimes I'm even able to stay sitting up. However, I'm still very "off" and can't focus or remember much for a good while after the fact. I can't talk or communicate during one, even with my slight bit of consciousness.

My experiences are not universal, I just wanted to talk about it and bring it up. It helps to talk about it even a little bit. Here's more about different kinds of seizures. Here's more about common seizure triggers. Here's more about CORRECT seizure first aid. And here's more general information/resources.

Please stop leaving us out of disability awareness. Please stop ignoring us or saying we're "not really disabled" or anything else like that. Please. Why does it always feel like the only people who care about epilepsy, are people WITH epilepsy? We're so tired of being ignored by others who don't have our condition.

If you're an epileptic person reading this, I see you. I love you. You're so strong, we all are. I believe in you, I believe in us. We're so much stronger than we get credit for, and it's going to be ok. Your anger and frustration are valid. Your emotions and struggles are real. You're valid, and I see you. Hang in there, we got this.

[scuttling]

Flicker in the Dark - Jacob Black/Reader

Fandom: Twilight Saga Pairings: Jacob Black/Female Reader Word Count: 12,598 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Pining, Unprotected sex, Slightly aged up (Jacob is 20), Fix it fic Summary: My take on New Moon, if all of the characters were a bit more mature and Jacob got his girl. A/N: This is a third-person story that pairs Jacob with a girl who isn't Bella but who fills her role in the story; Bella doesn't exist in this universe because I find she's not as interesting to write as an original character, for me personally. The character has no name and no physical description, so treat her as an OC or a "reader," your choice there. :)

Keep reading below or link to AO3!

Bringing the idea of fixing the bikes to Jacob was the best thing she’s ever done: the best, and one of the dumbest, by far. 

They both have adult obligations now—she has class, and a part-time job, which are thankfully both online, and Jake works full time—so when the stars align and they’re free at the same time, they spend every moment in his garage like a couple of bored kids. They listen to music on his dad’s old radio, eat pizza and tacos standing up much more often than they should; Jacob isn’t twenty-one just yet, but they’re on the rez, so they sip beers sometimes, especially on the rare warm days where the sun shines into the garage and sweat prickles at their hairlines. 

He’s taller at twenty than he was when he was younger, broader and more filled out, like he’d said back on her birthday; she notices, sometimes, things like the tightness of his t-shirts stretched across his back, the way his jeans fit just, extraordinarily well. Those kinds of things you can’t help but notice, even if you’re emotionally, physically, and mentally unavailable, the way she is. 

He pokes fun at her age—forever a sore spot, especially when Edward is and will be twenty-two forever—but she catches him noticing her, too, sometimes, so she’s not a total embarrassment at least.

It doesn’t happen right away, like magic or anything, but hanging out in his garage does make her feel better; he makes her feel better, if she’s being honest with herself. He quiets the chatter in her brain, the anxiety, the self-doubt, and she smiles more when she’s with him, laughs more, gets out of her own head. She’s happier when she’s with him, too, bikes or no bikes—though the roar of the restored motorcycle engine certainly doesn’t hurt—and he’s good for her, there’s no denying that.

She remembers her dad’s advice, even more meaningful now that she’s moved out of his house and living on her own—sometimes, you gotta learn to love what’s good for you—and she even thinks she could, some days. 

That’s easy enough to say to herself, but so, so much harder in practice. She can tell Jacob is… interested, when they go to the movies, with the way he lays his hand on the armrest, palm up, in case she wants to hold it. Part of her wants to, really wants to; part just thinks about Edward and she clams up, can’t do it. She feels guilty, like she’s doing something wrong, even though he left her and not the other way around. 

She still loves him, will always love him, but Edward made his choice; she just wishes she felt free enough to make her own.

She feels guilty when they ride, too, because the one thing he’d asked of her was not to be reckless, and now she goes out of her way to find a rush wherever she can. Anything legal, be it motorcycles, rock climbing, running, skydiving, really, really big roller coasters—you name it, she’s done it, and though none of it ever worked as well as she’d hoped it would, she never stops trying. 

She knows better than to give herself over to things like drugs or binge drinking or meaningless one-night stands, but aside from that the limits to what she will try are almost non-existent. She loves the thrill of it all, loves feeling brave, feeling strong; In the end, she may wind up with a few cuts and bruises, but as long as she’s hurting no one but herself, she doesn’t feel too bad.

When she hurts Jacob, she feels awful, terrible, and she does hurt him—he’s so hurt for a while that he doesn’t want to see her, doesn’t even return her calls. She feels weak for the first time in a long time, like if she’d just been able to be what he wanted, to hold his hand, to kiss him, to get over herself, they both would have been happier. Now she just feels sad, and selfish, hurting the one person who has always been there for her, who’s always eased her pain.

She wants to respect his space, can’t bear the thought of hurting him more than she already has, but her anxiety gets the better of her; no amount of kickboxing or rock climbing has been able to take her mind off of him since that night at the movies, when he left in such a hurry. Even Edward has shifted to the back of her mind, though she has no idea when exactly that happened.

So she goes to him. Against his wishes. In the pouring rain. 

She’s so, so stupid.

He’s so, so shredded, even more so than usual; it’s the first thing she notices only because he’s soaking wet and shirtless and that makes it pretty obvious. The second thing she notices is his hair, no longer long and pulled back with a cord of leather, but cropped short, though inky black as always. The third thing she notices is the tattoo, a large, tribal design on his shoulder that looks well-healed even though she saw him less than a week ago.

She catalogs all of that, and then she remembers he’s avoiding her and that she’s here to ask for forgiveness (she’s willing to beg, but it’s sort of a last resort.)

She calls his name, but he doesn’t turn around at first, not until she’s right in front of him, fists balled angrily at her sides.  

“Jacob, I’m sorry… I’m sorry about the movie. Can we talk about it?” He huffs an unamused laugh, takes half a step closer; that kind of thing used to be playful, but now it seems almost menacing, between the muscles and the tattoo and the deepening frown on his face. 

“This isn’t about that. You–you need to leave. Now.” The tone of his voice leaves no room for argument… but then again, that’s never stopped her before. She steps closer too, more of a challenge than anything.

“Well if it’s not about that, what is it? What happened?” He turns away as if to leave and she reaches for him, fingers latching onto his wrist. She knows right away that when she tugs, and he turns, it’s because he let it happen; there’s no way anyone could force him to do anything now, not with how big he is, how strong, how solid beneath her hand. “Is it Sam? Did he get to you too?” 

“I was wrong about Sam. He’s helping me through it—just like he helped the others,” he says, but it sounds odd to her ears. If something was wrong, if he’d needed help, he would have come to her… right? “I can’t do this right now—you have to go. Please go.” 

Before, he was stern, but this time he’s pleading for her to leave, and that’s just not Jacob—they’d hash it out before he cut her off without so much as a word, instead of ghosting her and making his father lie for him and keeping secrets with Sam Uley.

“Jake,” she pleads too, but instead of tightening her grip on his wrist she brings her hand up to the nape of his neck, to brush through the short hair that lays there, drenched in rainwater. “Please don’t do this to me.” 

He closes his eyes like it pains him, and it very well might; she knows the similarities to the night Edward left are becoming almost too much for her to bear. 

Maybe that’s why she came here, after all, because she could, because at least she still knew where she could find him. Because even if he didn’t want to talk to her, at least she’d know he was okay. 

“I’m not doing this to you, I’m doing it for you. I’m not who you thought I was, I’m not good for you. You can’t be around me anymore.” 

Fuck that, she thinks immediately, because she is so absolutely tired of people telling her what she can and can’t do, what she’s strong enough for, what’s safe. 

She doesn’t want safe. All she wants is Jacob. 

“I decide what’s good for me; I decide,” she says, voice raised and rough, jabbing a finger in his direction, and he grabs both of her forearms and holds them between them. He looks like he wants to shake her, he’s so frustrated, but his grip isn’t tight. “You think you’re going to hurt me, or something? Because look at us, Jake.” Her gaze moves to his hands on her, holding her still but doing it gently, carefully. “It’s okay. You won’t hurt me, I know it.” 

He drops her arms like she’s burned him, like he didn’t even realize he was holding them, and takes two steps back, away from her.

“You’re right, I won’t—because you can’t ever come here again.” 

He turns and runs to Sam and the other guys, leaving her standing in the rain, soaked and alone, her stomach in knots. The chatter is back, the self-doubt, louder than ever now; if they could both do this, both leave her so easily, would she ever be enough for anyone?

She’s not sitting around her house moping about this, not again. She did that with Edward and it got her absolutely nowhere, so this time she resolves to just skip to the front of the line. She packs a bag for the trail and goes hiking, plans to take a long path deep into the woods, away from the bear attacks or whatever’s going on out there. Her dad would have her head if she walked headfirst into danger, and she knows better, anyway, isn’t going to actually risk her life just to get Rocky Mountain high. 

She hadn’t planned on risking her life, anyway, but how was she to know the formerly peaceful Laurent was back in Forks, red eyes and all, and that he was working with Victoria? That wasn’t on her supernatural drama bingo card, that’s for damn sure. 

She listens to him do the villain rambling for a moment, but irritation wins out over fear and she loses her temper, slips up and says that Edward is gone and he’s not coming back, and if he wants to kill her, well no one’s stopping him! 

He looks amused by her outburst, but the smile melts off of his face when an enormous black wolf steps out of the trees, followed by several others of all shades, shapes, sizes. She doesn’t get a chance to count them, just runs like hell in the other direction, but when she risks a look back they are going after Laurent with a precision she wouldn’t expect from wild animals just looking for dinner. 

She tells no one about the wolves—who would believe her anyway?—just runs back to her truck until she’s breathless, goes home and takes a steaming hot shower to rinse away the cold clamminess of his touch. She makes a cup of tea and changes into a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, then parks herself on the couch with her laptop for the rest of the night. 

Until the knock at the door that comes around 1 AM. 

It’s Jacob, and she’s so happy to see him that she forgets all about her day up until that point and wraps her arms around him, hugs him where he stands in the doorway. He hugs back, thank god, his embrace tight and warm and comforting, and then she ushers him in, offers to make more tea while they talk. 

“About the other day,” she begins, filling the electric kettle with water and plugging it in, but he cuts her off, panicked. 

“I wish I could explain,” he says, and he’s almost got those puppy dog eyes that always get him his way; he doesn’t even do it on purpose, just looks like that, and it’s incredibly hard to resist. “But I literally can’t.” 

“No, I know, I… I mean, I think I know.” She has a box of tea in her hand and she’s gesturing a bit wildly with it, so she sets it on the counter, walks closer to him, so there’s about a foot of space between them. “First rule of fight club is you can’t talk about fight club—wait, it’s not an actual fight club, right? Because you’d dominate.” 

He laughs, a real one, with his head thrown back, and she all but grins. There he is. Her Jacob. 

“No, it’s not a fight club, but you’re right. I can’t talk about it, I can’t tell you anything.” His tone of voice hurts her, because it’s clear this is something he wants, needs to share; she moves closer, eyes on his.

“And what if I guess? Is that against the rules?” He shakes his head fervently, rests his palm on the counter beside him.

“No, no—in fact, that’s exactly what I need you to do. Sam can’t stop you, and I know you, you’re smart, won’t stop until you figure it out.”  He reaches out with his other hand, tentatively, and links their fingers together like he did at the movies; when he brings their hands up to his chest, this time, she doesn’t pull away. “It would be so much easier if you knew.”

His face is so soft but so serious, his brow furrowed, and she squeezes his hand.

“I’m going to feel really silly if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. I’ve been working on it all night.” With her free hand, she pulls her phone out of her pocket, shows him the same screen she has up on her laptop in the other room. It’s a list of all the facts she has, her own speculation, and finally, in size 42 font, one very important eight-letter word. “You said before that Sam was collecting disciples—a pack of them, Jacob, right?” 

“Yes. Fuck,” he breathes, and though she’s heard him say it in the garage many times, this one is special because it means she’s right. He slides down to a seat on the tile floor, looks so relieved it makes her chest feel tight, and she kneels in front of him, hands on his bare shoulders. 

“You’re a werewolf, Jake, just like the legend—your tribe is descended from wolves. Tell me I’m wrong.” 

He doesn’t say a word, and at first she’s afraid she is incorrect, but then he reaches out and pulls her close, crushes her to his body. He breathes hard into her hair, holds her tightly, and she can’t help it, she cries, hot tears leaving tracks down her cheeks.

He brings his hands there after a moment, wipes the tears away with his thumbs, then holds her face like she’s something precious, lips turning up into a half-smile.

“Thank you. I knew you could do it.” He tips forward, presses their foreheads together, moves his hands to her waist. “You don’t know how badly I wanted you to know.”

“Oh, Jake. I’m sorry—I should have caught on faster. It’s obvious, when you put everything together, when you… You know. When you’ve seen what I’ve seen.” He nods his head and swallows, presses his fingertips into her side. She shifts closer, or he does, maybe they both do, so their breath mixes between them, soft and warm.

“It’s okay, you’re here now. You’re here, it's okay,” he repeats, and she pushes fingers through his hair, softer now that it’s dry. 

“I’m here, and I don’t have to stay away.”

They don’t quite kiss, because she’s still nervous, maybe even more so now—they were so close to being separated, and now that he’s back in her life, in her house, she doesn’t want to risk breaking this delicate, fragile thing between them. His mouth just brushes over hers, more a swipe than a press of lips, and she turns her head so the rest of it catches her cheek instead. 

He sighs, but he’s not upset, and he lifts a hand to smooth through her hair before dropping it altogether. 

“I should go,” he says, but she can’t bear the thought of losing him again already. She stands when he does, takes his hand the way he did before. 

“Can you stay the night? Please?” She squeezes his fingers, tries her hand at her own version of those sad puppy eyes. “I understand if you can’t, but I’d feel… I want you to,” she’s clear to say, and eventually, he nods. 

She makes up a bed for him on the sofa, intends to head upstairs when he’s comfortable; she doesn’t know what stops her, but she stretches out on the other end of the couch instead and they put on a movie, something black and white, volume low. She couldn’t say for sure who’s the first to fall asleep.

She’s the first to wake up, so she takes a quick shower, does some work, brews some coffee. He’ll probably head out the moment his feet hit the floor, so she prepares herself for that—she just hopes that the rest of his pack knows he’s there, that they aren’t worried, or frantically searching the preserve for signs of him like she would be. 

She asks him that when he pads into the kitchen an hour later, eyes sleepy, bedhead evident, and he pours a cup of coffee and sits across from her at the table. 

“Nah, they knew I was coming,” he assures with a sip. “They know by now that if they can’t find me, I’m probably here with you.” That makes her smile, though she looks down into her mug and tries not to show it. He takes a few more quick gulps despite the temperature and sets down his empty cup with a smack of his lips. “Speaking of the pack, I think you should meet them. We gather at Emily’s—that’s Sam’s fiancee—sometimes, and they’ll be there today.”

“Will they be angry that I figured it out?” she asks, genuinely curious. She wants to meet them, wants to know more about the group of guys Jacob is now supernaturally entangled with, but she’s not so sure a house of angry werewolves is somewhere she’s ready to be so soon after her last brush with death. He breathes a laugh and shakes his head. 

“They won’t be angry. They’ll probably be irritated with me, because I couldn’t just let you go…” Their eyes meet, and she thinks of reaching out to touch his hand across the table, though she doesn’t in the end. “But as for you, they’ll probably just be impressed.”

The pack is both impressed by her and slightly irritated with Jacob, but stern glances and eye rolls quickly turn to laughter and playful shoving, as they pile into Emily’s small but cozy kitchen and make introductions around a batch of fresh muffins.

She gets official confirmation on things she’d only read about—like their ability to hear each other’s thoughts when shifted, the accelerated healing, their speed, their power—right from the wolves' mouths, and they learn from her too, everything she knows about vampires like Laurent and Victoria. She doesn’t talk much about the Cullens, mostly because their secrets are not hers to tell, but she can see Jacob’s brain working as she mentions Victoria’s vendetta, as she shows the group the pale, silvery bite mark on her arm. 

“If she’s here, she’s here for me,” she tells them, and Jake tenses, his jaw tight, veins visible, shoots Sam a look that conveys they have a lot to talk about when she’s not around. 

Later, she suggests to Jacob that he take a walk with her, because she can tell how all of those stories have put him on edge. Together they amble slowly toward the beach, close but not touching, and this time she does take his hand, leans in so their forearms brush. 

“It’ll be okay,” she murmurs, tilting her head to look up at him. “You guys are strong, fast. You took down Laurent—I have no doubts you’ll get her too.” 

“Before she hurts you?” he says, staring ahead, voice rough because he’s been mostly silent all day, listening closely to her and taking everything in. “Because if she does…” 

“She won’t. The others are watching her,” she says, hoping like hell that’s still true, “and even if she finds me… I trust you to protect me.” He stops there, on the wet sand, and she turns toward him so she can see his expression, to get a better idea of what’s on his mind. 

“If they come back, I’m not allowed to fight on their land—I’d be breaking the treaty,” he says with a pained look. She understands the words he’s not saying: if they come back, I wouldn’t be able to protect you in your own home.

“They’re not coming back,” she whispers, because she can’t say the words any louder than that, even though they’re true.  “He made his choice, and that’s—that’s okay.” 

“Is it?” Jacob asks, leaning in, and she gets it, gets why; she hasn’t exactly been positive about Edward’s departure, how his choice affected her, took his family away from her too, and now suddenly she’s okay with it?

It isn’t sudden, though, not really. It’s been a gradual acceptance, something she’s been coming to terms with since the day he left. She knows Edward’s decision wasn’t made easily; she knows he didn’t leave because he didn’t love her, but because he loved her so much he put aside his feelings for her and did what he thought was right. 

He went about it all the wrong way, removing every trace of himself from her life, banning his family from communicating with her, taking her choices away, but in the end his heart was in the right place, and she’s found a way to respect that, despite everything. 

Maybe it’s just Jacob. He brought her out of her post-breakup shell, made her smile again, laugh again, feel important and wanted and cared for. Maybe he filled in the cracks of her broken heart so she could use it again, without the need for exhilaration and adrenaline to cover up the pain of what she’s lost; maybe it’s just Jacob, bright like the sun they so seldom see, special and rare and wild. 

“It’s okay,” she assures him, voice steady with her conviction. She raises their conjoined hands and presses her lips to his knuckles, just briefly, before dropping them back to her side. 

Jake nods, accepts her answer, and they walk further along the beach until the sun goes down in a hazy blend of blue and orange and red.

He offers to drive her home, and even though it’s impractical, and she’d usually put up a fight, she wants that extra time with him. Wants to be that close to him. She sits in the middle of the bench seat, neither up against him nor really on the passenger’s side, but close enough for Jake to throw an arm across her shoulders, and they listen to the radio and talk about his pack while cruising down the road. 

“I better go,” he murmurs before she can even unlock her front door, and she tries not to let her face fall; she’d been hoping he’d stay over again, or come inside for a little bit, at least. 

She must fail at controlling her expression, because Jacob smiles softly, like he’s pleased with himself, and leans in, brushing his fingers over the line of her jaw. 

“We’re patrolling tonight—got a vampire to kill. But I’ll call you tomorrow?” 

She nods beneath his touch, and he pulls back and turns to leave, jogging down the street and toward the forest that’ll lead him back to La Push.

He does call the next day, but it’s brief; Victoria’s back, just as Sam expected, so they’re running all night, all day, trying to catch her off guard, taking breaks only to eat and sleep when they absolutely have to. Jacob promises to check in when he can, but after three days with no contact—and a voicemail from her father about locals spotting wolves in the woods—she’s on edge again, less concerned for her own safety, more worried about Jake’s. 

She’s an absolute idiot for doing it—going to the beach, to the tall cliffs that loom over it—but she needs the rush again, doesn’t feel right when it’s just her own troubled voice in her head. She needs to hear the purr of an engine, the hum of a plane, the crashing of pure, white water against rocks… or maybe Jacob’s heartbeat. But the cliffs are the simple option at the moment, and all she can think about until she’s actually there, looking out over the ocean, the gritty scents of sand and salt in her nose. 

She takes several deep, long breaths. That’s the key to these things that bring her so much excitement—using all of her senses, so she’s not just herself but everything around her too. She needs to see the sun on the horizon, taste the spray of seawater and clean, crisp air. She needs to smell the damp earth, touch the frothy bubbles that lap at the shore, hear…

She hears a wolf, actually, howling solemnly in the distance, but doesn’t register the sound until after she’s already jumped. 

The waves are choppier than they’d appeared when she was looking down at them, and it knocks the breath out of her lungs when they crash into her body, pulling her down into the dark vastness of the icy sea. Her arms and legs move instinctively, fighting to bring her back to the surface, but the water is deep and heavy and she’s already so tired of trying. 

She’s so cold all she can feel is cold, her teeth chattering, so even when she hits her head on a boulder and it starts to bleed, she doesn’t realize what’s happened until everything turns black.

She’s warmer, suddenly, that’s all she knows, though the ground beneath her back is rocky and wet, uncomfortable. She thinks maybe it’s a blanket that feels so warm, but quickly realizes it’s Jacob above her, soaked to his bones, a sigh of relief passing his lips. 

“Oh thank god. Can you hear me?” He cradles the back of her head in his palm and helps her sit up, then presses his fingers tenderly to the sore bump beneath her hair. “Your head’s not that bad, but I bet it hurts.” 

“Hmm. Hurts,” she mumbles, her throat raw, temples throbbing. She’s cold and tired and thirsty, but ashamed above all else; maybe she really does need someone making the decisions for her, if this is the kind of stupidity she gets up to when she’s alone. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” he answers quickly, and he runs his hands over her arms and legs, her neck, her face, checking for further injury. “I’m just glad you’re alright. The waves are bad today; you could have been swept away.” 

“I didn’t realize that until it was too late,” she admits sheepishly, and when he brings her closer she rests her cheek against his chest, feels tears stinging her already tired eyes. “I’m sorry, Jacob.” 

“It’s okay, I’m here. It’s okay.” His voice is as soft as his hands as they curve around her, holding her against him, and they sit like that for a couple minutes, until Sam runs over and tells him to get her home. 

He drives again, but this time she’s even more grateful, because there’s no way she could have done it herself. She feels so much at once—dumb and scared and childish, but also brave and calm, while somehow her mind races with thoughts of the wolves howling and Jacob’s hands in her hair. Her focus is shot, and even though she’s wrapped in one of Jake’s thick, fleece lined hoodies, she trembles, heavy and cold, as she peers out the passenger side window, watching the trees go by.

“Hundred and eight degrees over here,” Jacob says eventually, with a half smile, and she blinks for a moment before giving in; with a sigh, she scoots closer, wraps an arm around his waist. She can feel the heat of his body even through the layers they wear, and she shivers involuntarily at the pleasant but abrupt change in temperature.

“You still want me this close? Not afraid the bad decisions will rub off onto you?” It’s a joke, a self-deprecating one, and an apology all bundled together. “What I did was stupid, I know. I could have gotten really hurt, and you should have been out there with the pack, with Harry, not saving me.” 

He tilts his head, leans closer so his cheek rests against her hair.

“Well it wasn’t smart, but we all have our moments. And you couldn’t have known about Harry—don’t be too hard on yourself.” A long beat of silence passes, and she turns toward him, pressing her icy nose to his neck with another sigh.

“Mmm. You’re so warm. It must be nice, never getting cold.” 

“It’s a wolf thing,” he says with a shrug, but it’s not, not really, and she can’t let that stand. 

“Maybe, but trust me, it’s a Jacob thing too. You’ve always been warm.” She just sits there, breathes him in, lets him warm her hands and nose, so content she almost doesn’t notice when he pulls up in front of her house.

“This is better. Now that you know about me,” he says, tipping his face down, after he turns off the truck. She pulls back just enough to look into his eyes, to try to gauge his intent.

“But?” He swallows hard, looks away for a moment before returning to her face.

“You saw what happened to Emily. Sam got angry, lost it for a split second, and Em was standing too close. He’ll never be able to take that back.” He shakes his head, as if imagining the two of them in the same situation. What he could do to her. What she would think of him. “What if I get mad and I hurt you?” 

“You’re new to this—even if you are a natural,” she says, remembering a comment Embry had made when they’d last spoken. “You’ll learn how to control it, how to read the warning signs, and you’ll either stop yourself from turning or get somewhere safe. We’ll be okay,” she promises, resting her hand soothingly against his neck, and he sighs softly.

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m gonna disappear. Like one day it will be all wolf and no Jake.” He leans in, close enough that their noses just barely brush, and the way he looks down at her is something like… 

Yearning, she thinks to herself after a beat. It’s a powerful emotion, but she’s never seen it look quite so beautiful before. 

“You’re not going to lose yourself. I won’t let that happen.” 

“How?” he asks, bringing a hand up to cover hers, and she wets her lips, shakes her head to clear it; it’s swimming again, in this small space, so very close to him—especially when he’s looking at her like that.

“I’ll tell you all the time… how special you are to me.” She looks up, feels like she’s showing her soul to him, like this incident has stripped her down to bare bones and she’s letting him see her, once and for all. He stares into her eyes for a long moment, then leans in slowly, tentatively, and this time she doesn’t stop herself from meeting him in the middle, from pressing her mouth to his. 

She can actually feel the relief wash over him when she doesn’t reject his kiss, like he’s been tightly coiled and tense and can finally relax because she wants the same things, feels the same way.

She expects his lips to be warm, soft, but he is scorching against her skin, even more so when he moves his hand to her cheek in a gentle caress. With the palm against his hip, she pushes up his t-shirt, gets her fingers on his body, and they both gasp softly into the kiss, deepen it. 

“Jacob,” she sighs when they part for air; he seems okay, if a little shaky, but she feels flushed, eager, almost vibrating with the need to keep kissing him. She wants more, even though her throat burns like the last time his lips touched hers, when he forced the water out of her lungs and saved her life. 

That’s what he does best, her Jacob—like a flicker in the dark, he always pulls her away from the dangers of her own making and brings her back into the light.

“Is this real?” he asks, his breath a ghost on her lips; his other hand, on her lower back, pulls her closer to his body, and she turns her head and kisses the palm resting on her cheek. 

They kiss again, hands a bit less careful, hers sliding up his back, his weaving into her hair to control the tilt of her head. She gives in to it all, lets him set the pace, gripping him like a life preserver and letting his heat warm her from the inside out. She feels like she can’t get possibly close enough, wants to be pressed skin to skin, but she settles for sliding into his lap, ducking her head so she doesn’t hit it on the metal roof of the truck. 

He groans as she twists fingers into his hair, as she pulls him into her and feels the long, hard line of his body against hers. She kisses faster, harder, and he matches her fervor, wraps an arm around her waist and catches her chin with tight fingers. 

They kiss for a long time, and the cabin heats, windows fogging up as they share breath and saliva, as they murmur each other’s names like prayer. Her lips are red and raw when she finally needs to pause, and she rests her head against his chest and listens to the thunderous, wild beating of his heart. 

“Will you stay the night? Please?” she asks, voice a little broken—rough with need, and soreness from nearly drowning, and breathlessness caused by the most intense kiss of her entire life. 

Jacob nods, and he sets her carefully back on the seat, removes the keys from the ignition and climbs out of the truck. She slides out behind him, and he closes the door, takes her hand in his just like she did on the beach.

He locks the front door behind them when they’re finally inside—as if that will stop anyone we need to worry about, she teases with a soft laugh—and she takes the lead, walks up the stairs toward her bedroom with Jacob trailing behind. 

Despite his surreal body heat and the thick, warm sweatshirt he’d given her to wear, she’s still cold down to her bones, and wet like a drowned rat, so she pulls off her shoes and socks and sets them down by the radiator. Jacob watches her every move from a couple steps away, eyes lingering as she shrugs out of his hoodie, then pulls her damp sweater over her head. 

There’s nothing sexy or seductive about it, it’s not a striptease by any means, but he doesn’t look away when she’s down to her bra, and she doesn’t want him to. He bends down to take off his boots, to line them up next to hers, then bridges the distance between them and leans in for a deep, slow kiss. 

It’s not long before they both sink down onto the bed, and her fingers slip open the button of her jeans, then hesitate, wait at the button of his. She looks up at him, and the confirmation is all but written there, in the darkness of his eyes, the swipe of his tongue over his lips, but she needs to be sure. 

“I want you, all of you,” she murmurs, and then she brushes a hand through his hair, leans in to just rest her mouth against his. It’s delicate like the first time, but full of meaning, and he presses up into her kiss. “Do you want this?” 

“I want this. You. All—all of you.” He nods, licks his lips again, eyes softer but no less hungry, and she flicks open the button and kisses him like she did in the truck: hands on his body, in his hair, her breath all his. 

They don’t part, not really, just fall back against the pillows and tug at clothing, pressing kisses to throats and palms. His t-shirt drops to the bedroom floor, then her jeans and underwear, his, and the room is quiet except for the sounds of eager, wet kisses and soft, needy moans. 

She sits up, reaches back to unclasp her bra, and Jacob drags the strap down her shoulder, helps her take it off, leaving it somewhere in the bed; his mouth moves to hers, then down her neck, over her collarbone, and finally caresses each nipple with a gentle reverence that makes her ache all over.  

“You’re still sure?” he asks when she is shaking beneath his touch, strong arms wrapped around her back, and she nods and shifts up into his lap. 

When their lips meet, the kiss is hard, and she curls an arm around his shoulders, weaving a hand into his hair. They’re both panting when she leans up, guides him inside her, and when she sinks down it’s like a flash of tingling heat takes over her entire body. 

Jacob groans, holding her securely, thrusting up as she works her thighs above him. They kiss, deep and messy, graceless but passionate, her fingers tugging, his pressing hard into her skin. 

It’s not at all how she’d expected her first time to be; she’d imagined it would be with Edward, of course, and slow, but she can’t get enough of Jacob and it seems like he can’t get enough of her either. She’d imagined a cool, pale body above her, but it’s Jacob’s deep, rich, hot skin she presses her lips to, her fingernails against. She’d expected Edward’s hard, marble arms around her, and while Jacob is strong and firm he’s still soft, skin slick with sweat as they move together. 

“Jake,” she murmurs, the taste of him on her lips, his scent in her nose, woodsy, clean. “Jacob.” Her body trembles and he holds her tighter, presses his face into her neck. 

“I’ve got you.” She sighs happily at that, grabs his hair more roughly, rides him faster. 

“You’ve got me. You’ve always got me.” 

Jacob looks up at her, eyes fiery, liquid, then pulls her in with a hand on the back of her neck and kisses her like the first time—soft, nervous, sweet. The juxtaposition of that gentle kiss and his possessive grip makes her dizzy, and when he pulls back his face is all she can see, all she wants to see, all she needs.

“I’ve always got you,” he promises, his gaze tender, unflinching. “Always.”

He’s got her when he comes, holding her tightly with one thick forearm and dragging his free hand over her breasts, then lower, to rub her clit as she bounces herself to climax in his grasp. “Oh, god,” she breathes, voice like a shiver, and her fingernails dig half-moons into his biceps as they both slow, slow, slow, then stop altogether.

He eases them both down against the bed, arms around her, their legs entwined, and they catch their breath, just look at each other until the exhaustion of the day catches up to her. Her eyes flutter closed, and pressed so close to him, so warm, all she can do is sleep.

When she wakes, it’s still mostly dark, and she desperately needs to clean up in the bathroom and get a glass of water. Jacob’s t-shirt is the first piece of clothing she sees—or the first she wants to see—and she pulls it over her head and pads to the bathroom for a human moment—a very human moment indeed. 

She pauses, while washing her hands, to look over her reflection in the mirror. Rationally, she knows nothing has really changed, but at the same time everything has. 

The bathroom water is never cold enough to drink, so she treads down the stairs, across the kitchen, turns on the tap and lets it run until the water is icy and crisp. She fills a glass, takes a couple of sips, then almost drops it when a cool hand is suddenly pressed to her shoulder. 

It’s Alice, and she uses her other hand to catch the glass before it can hit the floor and shatter. 

“Relax. It’s just me.” Her eyes are soft, and it’s clear she is happy to see her, but there’s something else in her expression, something inquisitive. “You’re alright.”

“I’m fine. I’m… good, actually.” She shrugs, which bares her shoulder, in the large t-shirt she wears, that she’d forgotten she was wearing. She freezes—she knows how she must smell to Alice, like Jacob and like… Jacob—but her friend just shakes her head. 

“I couldn’t see you; well, I saw you jump off a cliff, and then you were gone. I thought you died.” 

“Alive and well,” she says with a tone that’s hoping for lighthearted, but… 

She has no regrets about being with Jacob, not one—she just hadn’t expected to be confronted with a vampire she once considered a sister almost immediately after. She doesn’t know what to say right now, how to act. Who to be.

“I was cliff jumping, recreationally. It was fun... for a minute.” Alice rolls her eyes, but it’s clear she’s happy she’s unharmed—though perhaps irritated by her tendency toward life-threatening idiocy.

“That doesn’t explain why I couldn’t see you, why your whole future went black.” Her golden eyes stare seriously, unblinking for a moment, and then she looks away. “Though maybe I owe that to the wolf in your bed.” 

Of all the nights for Alice to come back to Forks, she thinks, a suddenly uncomfortable pit in her stomach. Then she hears footsteps on the stairs.

“Not in her bed anymore,” Jacob says, voice low, from the doorway to the kitchen; he takes half a step forward, an aborted move, like he wants to put himself in between them. 

“This is Alice, Edward’s sister. Alice, this is Jacob,” she explains, trying not to focus on his shirtless torso, or the pained expression on his face. She blows out a deep breath. “It’s okay. She won’t hurt me.” 

“She’s hurt you before,” he counters, no doubt remembering every heartbroken, aching expression she’d worn in the months prior. He takes a step closer, so he is next to her, his forearm grazing hers, and Alice takes a step back. “I’d like to stick around, if it’s all the same to you.” 

He’s posturing, that much is clear, but she can't find it in herself to be irritated, because at least he’s giving her the option, letting her choose.

“I thought you couldn’t protect me here,” she says, turning her face up to look at him, and Jacob’s response makes heat pool low in her belly, just like the night before. 

“There is nowhere in this world I won’t protect you—treaty or no treaty.” 

She wants so badly to kiss him, but Alice is there, Alice, right in front of her after all this time, and she’s conflicted. Torn. He can tell, she knows, but he doesn’t take it personally, just reaches up to scratch his head, sighs. 

“So are more of you coming? Is–is he…?” 

“I came alone. And no,” Alice replies after a moment, but she’s looking at her instead, probably knows that he’s just saying what she’s too worried to ask. “He only calls in once every few months. Says he wants to be alone.” Jacob scoffs.

“Great. He wants to be alone, so you all leave her behind, unprotected? That red headed vampire is after her because of him.” 

That gets a reaction out of Alice, whose eyes darken protectively.

“Who, Victoria? I haven’t seen her.” She stares off into the distance, like she’s searching for memories, visions, sifting through what she’s seen and trying to piece together what she hasn’t. “Just like I didn’t see you get pulled out of the water. There’s a lot I haven’t seen, apparently,” she adds under her breath, and the other girl presses her lips together, sighs. 

Not the time or place for this discussion, and they both know it, but that doesn’t mean it’s avoidable for long. 

“So you can’t see around Jacob. The wolves,” she guesses. “I’ve been with them a lot lately.”

“With him a lot lately,” Alice corrects. Jacob huffs, but it’s not untrue, so she lets her think what she wants. Her silence must speak volumes, because Alice takes a deep, wholly unnecessary breath, and gestures toward the door. “Should I go?” 

“Please don’t,” she says quickly, nearly begging. It’s the first she’s seen of Alice in almost a year and she cannot let her leave as abruptly as she’d shown up. “If you could just give us a minute…” 

“Take two,” the vampire says, and it’s with a half-smile that turns into a smirk. “I’ll go Febreze the living room while I wait: it smells like wet dog.” She turns to leave, a bounce in her step that the other girl can’t help laughing at, shaking her head. 

She sobers up when Jacob turns toward her, takes a step that moves the both of them, so her back is pressed up against the kitchen counter. He looks so serious, and her heart beats for him everywhere. 

“Do you believe her? When she says she came alone?” he asks, and she tilts her head, nods softly. 

“Of course I believe her. She just had to make sure I was okay, that’s all. There’s… there’s nothing for them here.” 

Even as she says the words, she hopes they’re not true—hopes that, even if they really aren’t meant to be together, that she and Edward, she and the Cullens, can still be… Friends isn’t really a strong enough word, but she wants them in her life, potential bloody accidents be damned. 

“So if he came back,” Jacob says, leaning in closer, his lips hovering over hers, “you wouldn’t go to him?” His tone is light, but she understands the weight of his question, takes a moment to find the right words to answer it. 

“If he came back, I’d want to see him. Just like I want to see Alice.” She reaches out to touch him, his warm, bare skin, places her palm over his thumping heart. “But I wouldn’t go to him. Not like this.” 

It’s true, and she wants to say more, to promise him, reassure him, but just after she says it, the landline rings. Jacob sighs, his breath on her cheek, and reaches out a hand to answer it. “Hello?” The person on the other end speaks in a low tone she can’t make out, but she can see the tick in Jacob’s jaw, a hard set to his eyes. “He isn’t here right now, but that’s not who you really want, is it?” 

There’s another moment of conversation she can’t hear, and Alice walks into the room looking stunned; Jacob hands the other girl the receiver, and she looks from him to Alice and then speaks into the phone. “Hello?” 

“You’re alright.” 

It’s Edward, his voice cool and smooth but thick with emotion. It makes butterflies flutter around in her stomach, just like it used to. 

“I’m alright.” She doesn’t give him more than he asks for, doesn’t take more than he offers. She’s aware of two sets of eyes on her, feels more nervous than before, in her oversized t-shirt and sleep-mussed hair.

She’s glad he can’t see her and wonders exactly what that means.

“Good. Rosalie said Alice had a vision…” He trails off, but they both know what he’s not saying: everyone thought she’d given up and killed herself. She crosses her arms.

“The vision was incomplete. I’m fine. Stupid, but fine.” Edward huffs a laugh down the line, and she can imagine the exact cant of his mouth, the glimmer in his eye that always seemed to be reserved for her.

“You are many things, but stupid is not one of them.” There’s more he wants to say, she can tell; as a man of few words, many of their conversations were punctuated with heavy, meaningful silence. Part of her wishes she could see his face, at least. That always helped. “Who answered the phone? Jacob?”

She looks up at him involuntarily, notes the tightness of his mouth, his arms folded in front of his bare chest. 

“Yes, Jacob. He’s the one who pulled me out of the water, the one Alice didn’t see.” 

“Hmm. He still doesn’t seem to like me much.” Her lips turn up at that—understatement of the century—and she wonders if Jake can hear him too. Based on the stoic expression he wears, he either can’t, or he’s not paying attention. 

“No he does not.” A beat passes, then two. “You should call your family more often, go see them. They miss you.” 

“It’s difficult,” he says, swallowing, and she nods at no one. 

“I know, but don’t punish them. Please.” She knows how it feels, to be totally cut off from people she loves, to constantly wonder, always fear the worst; she doesn’t say it because she knows he knows.

“I’ll consider it, if you don’t go jumping off those cliffs any time soon.” She laughs softly, surprised at his humor; this was not how she would have ever anticipated a call like this to go, but she likes it. Likes them, like this. 

“Deal. Alice is looking at me like she’s going to steal the phone any moment,” she warns, which is putting it mildly. “So I’m going to put her on. You can call when it’s not life or death, you know,” she adds quietly. “It would be nice to hear from you. If you ever want to talk.” 

She doesn’t know if he responds, because Alice takes the receiver, winds the cord around her arm, and scolds her brother with love in the way only a sister can manage. 

While they talk, she walks toward Jacob, then past him, toward the staircase, but she takes hold of his hand as she goes, and he follows just like the night before. This time, he closes the bedroom door behind them. 

“I’m sorry this happened like this,” she says, sitting down on the bed, one leg beneath her and the other hanging over the edge. “I’m not sorry Alice is here, but I’m sorry that’s what you woke up to. If you were… worried.” Jacob takes the space next to her atop the rumpled duvet. 

“I was worried when I smelled a bloodsu- vampire,” he corrects quickly, “and you weren’t beside me.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again, this time leaning closer. “But thank you for giving me the phone, letting me talk to him. I’m sure that wasn’t easy.” He shrugs, like it was no big deal, even though she remembers how angry he’d looked at the sound of Edward’s voice. 

“I almost didn’t. I mean, technically, he didn’t ask for you.” She rolls her eyes—definitely guy logic—then stands up, scoops his jeans off the floor and hands them over to him. Her face heats at the memory of removing them in the first place, but she snaps out of that for her own sake and grabs fresh clothes, steps into the bathroom to make herself presentable.

When she’s done, she heads back to her bedroom, where Jacob is now clad in jeans and boots, sitting shirtless on her bed. She deposits the borrowed t-shirt onto his lap, and when he thinks she’s not looking he brings it to his nose, inhales long and slow, before pulling it over his head.

That action does things to her, and she wishes for a moment that she had his senses, so she could smell the two of them the same way he does, their scents deeply saturated and blended together.

They head downstairs when they’re both dressed, and while he rummages in the refrigerator for something to make them for breakfast, she treads into the living room and sits down next to Alice on the couch. 

“So,” Alice says, and then she gestures to a cup of tea. The other girl picks up the mug and thanks her, brings it to her lips. “How long has that been going on?” 

She feels her cheeks heat, and she hides behind another sip of tea. 

“Really? I haven’t seen you in almost a year and that’s what you want to talk about?” 

“Oh, forgive me for being curious about what it’s like to date a werewolf when last I saw you were grieving the loss of my brother.” Alice’s tone is more playful than it would seem, and her eyes smile even if her lips don’t. 

She always knew that Edward wasn’t telling the truth when he said he didn’t want her. He just couldn’t bear it, knowing that being with him put her in so much danger, caused her so much pain. She knew it was worth it, but if he didn’t… there’s nothing she could have done to change his mind, she knows that now. She can’t feel guilty for moving on when it’s exactly what he’d wanted her to do in the first place. 

“Okay, you’re right. Let’s talk about how I’m going to comb the woods, find Victoria, and rip her into confetti for threatening to hurt you.” 

“You don’t have to do that,” Jacob says, walking into the room with… a cup of tea. He looks over at the mug in her hand, then sets the one he brought her down on the table without a word. “The pack’s got it covered.” 

“All due respect, but if the pack had it covered, she wouldn’t be a threat anymore, would she?” Alice tosses over her shoulder. The other girl sets her tea down and sighs. 

“Alright, can we not do this? The age-old vampires versus werewolves thing? Especially if I’m in the middle of it. Maybe you guys could work together for a change; Alice can’t protect this part of the territory all by herself.” She picks up her drink—a drink, the one Jacob made, this time—and takes a long sip, looks up at them over the rim of the mug. 

“The pack could help, if you give us the authority to amend the treaty,” Jacob says to Alice, though he’s kind of looking at the ceiling, his arms crossed. “But wherever she is, I’ll be.” 

“You can’t be with her every second,” Alice counters, and her exasperation makes it  sound like an argument she’s had before. “It’s not good for either of you and could put her in danger; if Victoria picks up on it, she’ll be able to use your scent to track her anywhere. Trust me, yours is a lot stronger than hers is, and it’s all over her.” 

She thinks Jacob makes some kind of noise, like a low growl in the very back of his throat, but it’s hard to hear. Alice raises her eyebrows like she’s trying not to roll her eyes. 

The three of them discuss potential ways to coordinate with the pack, and Alice mentions calling in Emmett and Jasper to see if they could help with the search; the sooner Victoria is gone, the better, is the general consensus, and Jacob thinks he can get Sam on board with that as well, even if it means more Cullens coming back to town. 

She finishes both cups of tea, then a plate of eggs and toast Jacob put together from the bare-bones contents of her kitchen—she reminds herself to make a shopping list, then absently wonders if she’ll have a grand escort to Trader Joe’s. 

“I’ll make some calls while you’re gone,” Alice says as she is taking her last bite; she looks up from her plate, confused, and Alice waves a hand. “I saw a glimpse of you at the grocery store, but then it went dark; I assume that means he’s going with you.”

“I thought about it for a split second, as a joke,” she clarifies with a huff of laughter. “I don’t think I need a bodyguard in the produce aisle at eight AM.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Alice and Jacob say, at the same time, and her lips twitch in amusement. 

Looks like they’re not so different, in the end.

She gives in and allows Jacob to drive her to the supermarket, though not without a long look from Alice as he walks her to the truck with his hand on the small of her back. 

They breeze through the store thanks to the list in her head—she buys a little more than she usually would, because it seems like Jacob plans to be around. She likes the thought of that even more than she’d expected, likes choosing things solely because she knows he’ll enjoy them.

“I think we should talk about last night,” Jacob says, voice low, when they’re nearly back to her house. She cringes internally, because that’s never a sentence a girl wants to hear after a night like that, and he clears his throat. “I know cliff jumping ended up being kind of traumatic for you, and it didn’t feel like it last night, but if I took advantage…”

He looks over at her, his expression pained, and she shifts closer and wraps her hand around his forearm.

“God, no, Jake—that’s not what happened.” He brings the truck to a stop in her driveway, puts it in park, and she presses her palm to his cheek so he’ll focus on her instead of fixing his gaze out the window. “I wanted everything, every moment. I still want it,” she murmurs, and he looks over her face like he’s still not quite sure he believes it.

“You do? Even after… after you spoke to him, and everything?” It’s a fair question, and again, one she answers very carefully.

“I think we needed to talk, he and I, but it didn’t change anything. You’re the one who changed everything,” she admits softly, tentatively, wetting her lips. She hopes her eyes convey the certainty her voice can’t seem to. “Do you want to kiss me?” she breathes, leaning closer, her fingers winding a path through his hair, and he nods his head and presses his mouth to hers. 

She gets up on her knees so she can be closer to him, but she doesn’t climb into his lap like before—she does have some self-restraint, despite what it may seem. She curls one arm around the muscles of his back, pulls him in for more contact with the hand in his hair, and it’s a few minutes later when she remembers they’ve got bags of perishable groceries in the back and a vampire with excellent acoustic abilities just inside her home. 

She pulls back, smiles a little at the soft, unfocused look on his face, then runs her hand down his chest before lifting it away entirely.

“I know we’re kind of at DEFCON 1 right now, but more of that a little later would be nice.” 

“Hmm. Very nice,” he agrees with a nod, his voice slightly rough, and he turns off the ignition and carries all of her groceries into the kitchen with one strong arm. 

Emmett and Jasper do come back, with Rosalie and Esme, to her delight and Jacob’s discomfort. Between the pack, who comes to get the vampires’ scents so there’s no friendly fire, and the family, who split time between her house and the one they left behind, the place is a revolving door of the supernatural for the next few days. 

All of them take turns watching over her house at night, while the others patrol the woods. She catches up with everyone she’s been separated from—even Jasper gives her a crushing hug, so at least the time away was good for something—and it’s wonderful, but it means there’s not much time to be with Jacob aside from planning sessions and the occasional quick check in. The most time she spends with him is when they attend Harry’s funeral, something somber and intimate, with ethereal music and a glowing campfire and endless stories about the Clearwater line. 

She is introduced to Leah and Seth, Harry’s children, and while Seth seems welcoming and friendly his sister is cold, standoffish—though not without reason, she soon learns from the pack. 

“She’s not always like that… mostly just when she’s around Sam,” Embry says where they stand on the edge of the forest, away from the thick smoke that burns her very human eyes. She looks over at the pack leader at the mention of his name. “Now that she’s part of the pack, we have to live the Leah/Sam/Emily painfest all over again.” 

She turns back to him, to Quil, who’s standing beside him, and tilts her head, curious.

“I don’t think I follow—Sam left Leah for Emily?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s not what you think. He hates himself for hurting her, but he couldn’t help it. Emily was ‘the one.’” Quil says it almost sarcastically, with air quotes for emphasis, and she frowns.

“The one?” She doesn’t mean to sound skeptical, but these days she’s not as big a fan of providence and destiny as she used to be.

“Sam imprinted on Emily. It’s kind of like… soulmates, but bigger. Cosmic. They were literally meant to be together.”

“Like fate,” she says, filling in that blank, and then a large, warm hand is splayed across her back, fingertips pressing into the fabric of her dress. 

“We make our own fate around here,” Jacob says tightly, and she looks up, regards him curiously. He’s not just upset about Harry, or Victoria… there’s got to be something else making his jaw tense, his eyes hard. “And I think that’s more than enough of the pack soap opera for tonight. Are you ready to go home?” 

He turns his gaze to her, and it softens, for which she is grateful; he is her guardian on duty tonight, and despite the solemn evening—or maybe because of it—she wants to spend the night as close to him as she possibly can.

She nods, and after they say their goodbyes he walks her to the truck, opens the door for her, closing it carefully when she’s safely inside. He takes the spot behind the driver’s seat—his usual, now—but doesn’t drive straight to her house like she expects. 

“Ice cream?” she asks when he turns off the engine outside of a mom and pop shop selling sundaes, cones, and shakes. She exits the car at his indication, and the two of them walk hand in hand up to the illuminated window that says Order Here. An older couple is ahead of them, pointing at the chalk menu board, and Jacob leans in to speak in a hushed tone. 

“This place was Harry’s favorite. You like chocolate, right?” 

“Has anyone ever answered ‘no’ to that question?” she asks softly, playfully, and it works as intended, lightens the mood just enough to bring a brilliant smile to his painfully beautiful face. “I think this is a wonderful way to remember him, Jake.” She wraps a comforting arm around his, and Jacob nods, lips pressed together, eyes sad.

“Just kind of feels right.” 

He orders for them when it’s their turn, two waffle cones with two scoops of chocolate ice cream each, and they sit at a picnic table on the side of the building, eating their tributes with heavy hearts and looking up at the stars.

The ride home is quiet, contemplative, at least for her; by the time they arrive she has been running through thoughts of mortality, finality, how short life is and how very precious. 

These are all normal thoughts for a person to have, and certainly after a celebration of life like the one on the reservation tonight, but she thinks seriously for the first time about Jacob and his desperate need to protect her, the way he puts himself in danger—stupidly, recklessly, completely—every day to keep her safe.

When they’ve made it inside, she exhales deeply, looks up into earnest, curious eyes, and wraps her arms around him, presses close so she can bury her nose in his clothing.

She breathes him in long and slow, his usual scent of crisp air and rain and oak dulled by the smoke of the bonfire, and then his hands are in her hair, tipping her face up for a decadent, passionate kiss. 

God, how is he so good at this? she thinks as he sips at her lips, glides his own down the tender line of her throat. She sighs and grabs for his arms, something to ground her as her desire threatens to take over, to leave her a whimpering, begging mess beneath his hands. 

Jacob turns them so she’s got her back to the kitchen table, sets her on top of it, and she parts her knees for him, pulls him closer. Her fingers itch with the need to touch his skin, so she tugs at the hem of his shirt and gets her hands beneath it, skims them over the taut muscles of his bare back. 

“I can take it off,” he murmurs against her neck, and she nods breathlessly and helps him pull it over his head. His hands bracket her hips, palms flat on the table, and her arms curve up around his back, bringing him closer; she kisses him eagerly anywhere she can reach—his throat, shoulders, face, everywhere.

She whispers his name into his own skin, presses her lips to his biceps, scrapes her teeth over the lobe of his ear, and he shudders at her touch, tilts his head to look up at her, his eyes dark and almost… dangerous.

What does it say about her, that she finds that look so goddamn attractive?

“I’m sorry, I—I need a minute,” he says, panting through gritted teeth, and she lets her hands fall away, leaning back a little to give him space to breathe.

“Take all the time you need,” she assures him calmly, patiently. It’s the first time she’s ever seen his wolf so close to the surface, and she’s completely unafraid, would hold him and help him ride out the tension in his body if she thought he would let her. “It’s just us, Jake, just me and you.” 

“Just us,” he repeats, his fists clenching and unclenching, taking a long breath with his eyes closed. She breathes with him, has always found that helpful when she herself is overwhelmed, and after a few moments he presses closer and she runs a soothing hand over his chest. “I’m okay,” he says eventually, leaning in slowly for a kiss as though he’s afraid it will be rejected. She brings her hands to his face, deepens it, so it’s still soft and easy but with enough meaning behind it to convey her thoughts. 

“I know,” she murmurs, just to be certain he believes her. “You did so good; so good, Jake.” He nods, pulls back a little so he can look into her eyes. 

“It’s not that I can’t control it, I can, but…” He looks away for a moment, swipes his tongue over his lips. “The instincts are so strong and I don’t always want to fight them. Sometimes when I’m with you, I want to let the wolf win.” He says it like he’s ashamed, and she puts her arm around his shoulders and brings him down for another kiss, this one just a gentle press of mouths.

“I understand that more than you think I do.” His breath on her lips makes her crave more of his heat, but she knows it has to be slow now, or he’ll get too in his head and never let himself enjoy their night together. “I may not be supernaturally inclined, but sometimes making decisions with my body is all I want to do. Especially with you,” she adds, just a sigh between them, then touches their foreheads together. 

They stay like that for a moment, embracing in their own way, until he initiates a kiss that is so thorough it makes her toes curl. She brings her hands to his waist, guides him closer, and he rests a broad palm at the base of her throat and kisses her, again, and again, and again. 

Her arms curl around his body the second they separate for air, and he lifts her from the table, carries her up the stairs with an ease that makes her long for more frequent displays of his strength. 

Getting his clothes off is quick enough, since he’s already shirtless, and his hands are tender and gentle as he sweeps her hair away from her neck, pulls down the zipper of her dress, slides it off her bare shoulders. 

Neither of them bother to pull back the covers, simply lay back on the bed, her knees apart again, Jacob hovering between them and letting his eyes move over her like he’s committing her body to memory. It makes a wave of heat rush through her, and since tonight is less hurried she does the same, lingers over every curve of muscle, every sharp line of bone. He leans in, lays an arm behind her head, glides his lips over her jaw, her cheek, her mouth.

“I was right, before,” she says after another satisfying kiss, letting her fingers press into the flesh of his hips. He looks into her eyes, tilts his head curiously, and she smiles a little, can’t help herself. “You really are beautiful.” 

Jake breathes a laugh, even blushes a little, then kisses her until they’re both panting; her fingertips press harder when he pushes inside, then glide up his back to keep him close while the two of them move together. 

Jacob feels so different this way, is so much deeper, filling her in a way that makes it so she really can’t tell where she ends and he begins. He is heavy on top of her, but not uncomfortably so, and when her body shifts up the bed with every thrust it’s thrilling, incredible—she’s never felt so much in her life.

His face is serious, eyes focused, and she weaves her fingers into his hair and catches his lips in a kiss, moans into the end of it when he finds a spot inside of her that takes her breath away. 

“Oh, god, Jake.” He leans in for another kiss, deep and wet, nods against her lips. 

“You’re perfect—so perfect,” he huffs, breathless; he moves his hand to her hip, runs it over her stomach, then presses his palms to the bed and repeats his previous motion, over and over, her body coiling tight with pleasure. “Can’t believe I get this.” 

“We get this,” she corrects in a whisper, won’t let him think for one second that she’s not as completely in awe of him as he seems to be of her. She skims her nails over his lower back, his ass, tightens her thighs on either side of him and tips her head back just as he makes her come. “Don’t stop, Jake, please,” she whines, shaking, holding him so tightly with her entire body—she never wants it to end, never wants to be separated from him again, and he agrees, if the way his body presses down on hers is any indication. 

“Can’t stop… need you,” he groans, pushing her leg up further, so he feels almost impossibly thick and deep. Her arms wrap around his back, pulling him closer, holding him there as he ruts into her, scorching flesh pressed against flesh. 

“Yes, oh—”

Before she knows it she’s quaking again, gasping when he brings his teeth to her throat, scrapes them over her throbbing pulse. He growls in her ear, a deep, low, animalistic rumble she can feel in her stomach, then comes inside, claiming her with a broken, raspy, “mine.”

He lays half on top of her, half on the bed, after, their skin soft and damp with cooling sweat. She can’t stop looking at his face, his dark eyes, sharp jaw, and he cups her cheek with a gentle palm and gazes just as intently at her. 

“Come here,” she murmurs, a soft smile on her lips, and he kisses her slowly, makes her sigh with a pleasure so complete—mentally, physically, spiritually—it feels like she’ll never be the same. 

He gets up after a moment, comes back with a glass of water and a towel, and helps her clean up well enough to hold her over until she’s ready to get out of bed. She pulls the covers back while he’s gone, slides in between the cool sheets, and he follows her lead, pressing close to her beneath them.

“Are you upset you didn’t imprint on me?” she asks carefully, propping herself up on her elbow and using the other hand to run fingers through his hair. “I noticed that when the guys were talking about it, you got kind of tense.” He shrugs slightly before shaking his head.

“No, not upset… I was just so sure you were meant for me; I really thought it would happen sooner or later.” She understands that, can picture him wishing and waiting for something that would never come to pass. So patient, her Jacob.

“Do you wish it had? Do you think it would make this more real?” Her hand moves from his hair to his collarbone, down his chest, over his stomach, so very low. “Because when I’m touching you like this… nothing has ever felt so real.” 

He presses her against the bed, hovers over her, kisses her breathless, and it goes without saying that he agrees with every word she says. She softens beneath him, tired and pleased, and he shifts into a more comfortable position, laying behind her, that she knows means sleep for the both of them. He drapes an arm over her, and she draws circles into his skin with her fingertips, feels his warm breath on her neck, closes her eyes and revels in the weight of him at her back.

“Anyway,” she whispers, one last thought on her mind before she succumbs to sleep, “I almost think it’s better like this, that we have to fight for each other. No help from fate—just your will and mine.”

A/N: I got my start in fandom spaces by writing Twilight fanfic fifteen years ago, but I never posted it because it was... bad. Last week was a crummy week for me, so I found comfort in watching New Moon, and I literally couldn't help myself from re-writing it in Jacob's favor. There's no Edward hate here, and he'll play a bigger role in the next part I have planned, but Jake took hold of me in this one and didn't let go.

[tartarduck]

words about tot chapter 9

Gave myself a solid day to stew in my thoughts about ch9 and I just want to say that mihoyo is EVIL for timing it right before the anniversary. I don't know if I can be happy knowing Luke is suffering all alone in every conceivable universe other than his personal story/card timeline.

Point 1: How the chapter explored Luke's feelings of guilt for... Existing I guess?

I've been eagerly awaiting the reveal of Luke's survivor's guilt. The whole [wanting spirits to exist so he can at least apologise, or do SOMETHING, but knowing they don't] is such exquisite angst. I'm very happy they took the effort to write it in (though fortune tellers actually scare me in real life).

And now onto the related Point 2: Luke's feelings of guilt for literally everything else

I was reading through Luke's birthday greetings, and realised how often he calls himself greedy for literally wanting anything. God damn, SHE IS YOUR GIRLFRIEND IT'S NOT GREEDY OF YOU TO WANT TO SPEND TIME WITH HER --

That aside, it comes back to the theme of Luke Pearce's thought process, which in my brain goes a little something like this:

Good thing happens -> I do not deserve this

Bad thing happens -> It is completely my fault and no one else's

Which, might I add, vaguely reminded me of something from a lecture I forgot from my psych undergrad years. I'm worried for you, Luke. Please, Dr Yishmir, refer him to one of your colleagues for mental health.

In his personal 'route', he finally starts to come around with the idea that sometimes bad things... just happen and it's no one's fault (thank you, strategically placed rainbow in iridescent heartbeat). But in the main story? He's been feeling guilty ever since he saw MC after avoiding her for YEARS. There's no Aaron meddling with the two of them, or MC helping him clean his mess of a house to kick-start a card story. This is the man who hid in the attic after sending his confession after a YEAR of dates with MC -- the main story doesn't even give him a chance to start forgiving himself.

Basically, Luke Pearce is a mess in the main story, because everything that makes him un-messy happens by pure chance.

Point 3: Luke's black and white thinking of good and bad

One of the highlights of this chapter for me was Luke's anecdote about him faking a cold so MC would go out with her other friends and forget about him. Now, that's all well and good until he compares himself to the mum with Munchausen's syndrome, who is the closest thing we get to a 'villain' in this chapter. On top of his guilt, this whole I'm either a good or completely bad person mindset is really not doing favours for his mental health.

His anecdote also happens to be an interesting parallel to shape of you, because I remember Luke specifically wished to be forgotten in that card. He wants what's best for MC (because he thinks that he's taking everyone's love from her) but he also wants something for himself. And because he doesn't believe he's able to do both, but also because he isn't able to let go of his 'selfishness' sometimes, he thinks he's an awful person.

And now, to the last to do in my rant agenda.

Point 4: what happens in chapter 12. (Spoilers for CN server, but only about the Luke scene)

1. Ohmygod. He's going to run away. I can't see main story Luke NOT blaming himself for nearly hurting the MC. In whichever timeline, his priority is to keep her safe, and god, if he thinks he's a danger to her, the only way to keep her safe would be by disappearing again.

2. I'm going to read too much into this but MC trying to get Luke to recognise her while she's being pinned to the ground is such delectable angst. He's always worried that she'd forget about him -- whether it was the 8 years or literally just hanging out with other kids at school. But here she is, in a situation where he's essentially forgotten about her. The voice that my brain concocted up for MC was extra desperate in that scene.

Anyway, that's all I had to say about the recent main story developments in ToT. Keep the angst coming, writing staff. What a power move to send this out right before anniversary on BOTH servers. If there's anything I've taken away from this, it's that Luke stans are absolutely unhinged. Twitter circle people, I see you requesting more angst. How can we get even angstier than Luke nearly hurting MC while he's dressed in the outfit that he wears for his proposal card ??

[avicryptidbard]

tell me what’s going on in your wonderland au!!!!!!! aaaaaaaa!!!!

Oh boy !!!

I have so much about this au stored in my brain or dms with friends lol one of these days I’ll make some master posts on details of the characters, but for now, essentially, it’s Alice in wonderland !!!! /lh

Basically, we’ve got Hatter Heart (The Mad Hatter), King of Spades/Spades Mind (queen of hearts), Cheshire Soul (the Cheshire Cat), and Tycho/Whole (Alice)

I’m gonna go into a bit of detail here under the break, so PLEASE feel free to ask questions, give any thoughts or theories or anything <3

All three have gone considerably insane over time. Heart has quite lost their mind, often not even remembering events in their past until there are moments of clarity, which sends them into a sort of still spiral for a bit. Otherwise he is quite eccentric and talks in elaborate words and senseless sentences.

Mind is stubborn and cold outwardly, but he is quite lonely. He has his card subjects who fold and bow to his every word in fear, when really he misses his brothers. He tries to ignore the falseness of his rule.

Soul is highly eccentric and carefree, often pulling little pranks, being an annoying little shit for his own entertainment. He is very catlike, with ears, a tail, and her hands forming more like paws with claws and pads on his hands. The classic Cheshire smile is in the form of a bandana he often wears over his mouth, which becomes a strange, warped mouth/smile.

Tycho is caught in a loop of going through wonderland, he comes and goes again and again. Time for Tycho spent in wonderland does not pass any time in the real world. If it’s June 1st, for example, when Tycho falls back into wonderland, and he spends say 12 days in this particular loop, when he gets back out, it will still be the exact same time as when he fell in. Time will move on until he falls back in. No real time passes for Tycho when he’s wonderland. He will age in wonderland, but be “reset” when he gets back to his time/world.

Time passes continually for HMS in wonderland, though I don’t think they quite age, time comparisons are confusing, and frankly, I haven’t the energy to think that far in detail. The point is, HMS do not loop when Tycho does, the continue on.

HMS have an interesting relationship here. It’s more of a Soul and Mind and then Soul and Heart; Heart and Mind are almost fully separated and distant here, going back to The Blinding. I am keeping the details of The Blinding secret for now as I’m commissioning the beloved duck sky social climb to draw it, so that will be shown eventually.

All that needs to be known there is Heart is very distant from Mind, and this causes tension between all three because they all want to come back together and exist all together in wonderland. I’ll share more details again later.

Soul is often found hanging around Mind’s palace or Heart‘s tea table in the forest.

And yeah like I said, I have SO MUCH about this all, so PLEASE ask any questions, I want to try and draw some bits and scenes and stuff for this too, so please come talk to me about it!!

[devildom-moss]

Since you menioned Simeon and Barbatos in the same sentence, its my time to rant about how much i love Simbarb!!

I AM LITERALLY ON MY KNEES FOR THAT SHIP. EVERY SCRAP OF SIMBARB CONTENT I CAN FIND, I WILL DEVOUR IT LIKE THERES NO TOMORROW. DOESNT MATTER IF ITS FLUFF, ANGST, OR HECK EVEN SMUT. I LIVE FOR SIMBARB. THERES NOTHING ELSE THAT WILL SATISFY ME MORE THAN SIMBARB. LIKE THE SHIP IS JUST PERFECT IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE. AND BOTH BARBATOS AND SIMEON ARE PERFECT AS WELL. I WANT TO LIKE, SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF THE TWO OF THEM, AFFECTIONATELY.

I think i went a little off course.. oh and i read this simbarb fanfiction once and now ive created a whole au with lore and backstory with Simeon and someone else (which can technically be MC but the actual MC also exists in this au). And i really wanna talk about it to someone, but there's no one who wants to listen, but you're now back, and im happy so maybe ill talk about it to you if youre interested!

Anyways have a nice day! Remember to eat, sleep and dont do drugs <33

Sincerely, 💜

You are so right for this. Those two are not only my favorites, but they are probably my favorite ship (I don't know if I've made that clear in my writing, but I feel like there have at least been hints). We are on the same boat here (I apologize for the pun, but I'm sending it out into the world anyway). I am right there with you. They are precious individually and together. I generally am not a touchy/hugging person, so I wouldn't want to squeeze them, but I would make them a delicious bowl of soup, give them pats on the head, and tell them that they're both good boys.

Especially as a fellow SimBarb lover, you are welcome talk about your AU here! Also, in general, I love reading about how people view character relationships (romantic, platonic - in any form, really).

While I'm here, I would like to fuel the SimBarb love with a few thoughts of my own it won't be too much because I'm going to head to bed soon, so my brain is in wind down mode.

Okay, so I lied to myself about the "a few" and rambled for 10 bullet points, so more under the cut:

Canonically, Barbatos and Simeon just often find themselves on outings together. Barbatos phrases it like it's unintentional; it just happens; they just have accidental dates. Well, considering that Barbatos seems to always have good luck, maybe there's a reason he keeps finding himself on outings with Simeon. Wouldn't it be lucky if he happened to run into a certain handsome angel while he was out?

I think it took Simeon longer to realize he liked being around Barbatos than it took Barbatos to notice how much he enjoyed spending time with Simeon. Simeon probably used Luke as a kind of affection proxy for a long time. A lot of "Luke really likes Barbatos," and "Barbatos is so sweet to Luke. It really warms my heart." Really? Is it just Luke who likes Barbatos?

They probably pick up groceries a lot together, and they both like to menu plan as they browse the markets, so they end up taking ideas from each other. Sometimes they'll plan to cook the same dish on the same night. It makes them kind of giddy. Even though they don't share meals often, when they cook the same thing on the same night, it almost feels like they're getting to eat together.

Whenever Luke goes to Barbatos for cooking/baking lessons, Barbatos tries to ensure they have leftovers for Luke to take back to Simeon. Additionally, Barbatos is especially motivated to help the final product turn out good (outside of just wanting Luke to learn and succeed) because he knows it's a reflection of his own skills and he wants to impress Simeon.

Also, I could see Barbatos sending Luke back home with two bouquets of flowers (especially edible flowers and sometimes herbs) from his garden. One is for Luke, but the other one, Barbatos will casually suggest that Luke "give it to Simeon, if you'd like."

These two both love taking care of others. Can you imagine how often they just try to out-spoil the other? I think it would occasionally end up in arguments that are basically just "sit down, and let me take care of you for a change."

Barbatos would be the least comfortable being taken care of because he's a demon. Being doted on by an angel. That's weird, right? He feels incredibly unworthy.

These two could flirt back and forth so well.

Barbatos would get extremely flustered if Diavolo commented on how wonderful it is to see a respectable demon such as Barbatos and a regarded angel like Simeon getting along so well, and that it gives him hope for the future between the Devildom and the Celestial Realm.

This is kind of angsty, and I don't remember if Barbatos and Simeon actually met before the war, but I have this thought (maybe a future story idea if I decide to lean into ships or something) that while Diavolo was enamored with Lucifer, Barbatos took a liking to Simeon. Actually, it was initially just an interest in the angel whose cooking skills could almost compare with his own. Then he realized how similar they were and how well they would get along. I just imagine younger Barbatos thinking hoping that when the war came around, Simeon would fall with Lucifer. Selfishly, he wanted the opportunity to even just be around Simeon. When that didn't happen, Barbatos was silently crushed but he carried on. He held his excitement the entire time when he first heard that Simeon would be one of the exchange students, and he was even more delighted when Simeon treated him with kindness.

[goodluckclove]

The Archivist no. 1 - Control

so fuck it i'm trying this anyway. here's a long-form, but ultimately singular piece i wrote trying to process the singular Terrible Event of my upbringing. if unaliving stuff is triggering for you now you shouldn't read this.

i'm not going to do this that often because it's nice to work things out in my head but holy shit this was weird to come back to. if someone finds it relatable in that oh hey your shit sucked too and you survived huh?? way i'll get into it again at a later time.

otherwise uh. yeah. enjoy? legit though read the tags before you do this i don't want anyone freaking out.

The Archivist no. 1 – Control

Mom wasn’t sleeping much in the nights before she killed herself. It wasn’t unusual given her rampant insomnia. Dad would pass out in the bedroom, and I would come out of my room at the end of the hall tin the middle of the night and find her watching bad crime dramas and reading the news on her iPad. I didn’t sleep much back then either, I guess.

Sometimes I would sit with her for a while, but the shows didn’t interest me much. Mostly I’d make a joke and continue to the kitchen to grab a snack before going back to my bedroom to keep on writing. I was almost sixteen years old and I had completed two novels that stood, unread, on an elephant’s graveyard of abandoned projects. So it goes.

Near the end of summer I came down with some sort of head cold. I woke up in the middle of the night, feverish and frustrated, and went out into the hall to see if Mom would be awake.

Time flickers and I’m lying on the couch with my head in her lap. She’s stroking my hair. She’s telling me that in the morning we’re going to go out in the mall and she’s going to buy me new pants. I don’t know why she told me that. I don’t know if it was a lie. She solved a lot of problems by shopping for clothes, so it sounded like something she would say. Mom even insisted in a voice that hung quiet in the dark that we would go to Macy’s, a rarity when she only ever bought my wardrobe from Goodwill.

I believed her then because I was a child and I loved my mother. I was sick and I loved my mother. I was looking forward to her buying me new pants.

Did she know then? I don’t know. She’s had two rounds of electroshock therapy since then, so the memory has been thoroughly wiped from her brain. It’s just gone. That moment exists solely in my own recollection, which is barely better than it never existing to begin with.

Later that morning she left saying she had some errands to run. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I had no way to, really, being that they had me on nine hundred milligrams of Seroquel at the time – one hundred more than the recommended dose for an adult man. The mornings left me in a sticky daze and I usually wasn’t able to gain any lucidity until a few hours after I woke up.

Once that happened I felt a little stirred by the circumstances. Mom had errands? What errands? She didn’t do the grocery shopping, she had my brother and I make that trip every week. She didn’t have a job or friends to meet. More than that, her agoraphobia crippled her at times and made leaving the house for anything a feat. But no, she just let for errands and told me that as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

I told myself it was fine.

When I texted her a few hours later she didn’t respond. I called her after that and she didn’t answer. I think I called her a few times.

She didn’t come home at all that day. I remember feeling the dread clinging tight to the top of my rib cage like something toxic just about to drip. It was a feeling I didn’t know how to communicate, and in retrospect I know now that it is a deeply-rooted instinct from my childhood. The warped insight that tells me that, when Mom leaves under mysterious circumstances, or when she leaves after you make her made – she’s going out to drink.

But that couldn’t be it. Mom was sober now and proud of it. She marked her sobriety date as Cino de Mayo and laughed every year at the irony. Mom was sober now. Things were different.

Dad came home from work and I was lingering in the living room, standing guard like an anxious animal. My older brothers were in their bedroom, on their laptops, no knowledge of the panic I was feeling.

Dad greeted me and asked where Mom was. In a voice that mimicked neutrality I said that she left to run errands. He took that with a nod and went to the backyard. I don’t know why he did that – he wasn’t smoking anymore, but by this point he might’ve been using e-cigarettes. Or maybe he was just enjoying the evening air. I just know I was sitting inside the house, very aware that the only other adult I knew was outside, and my mind was racing.

Do I tell him? Should I tell him?

Eventually I opened the sliding glass door and stood in the kitchen until I drew his attention. In my imagination he sees the look on my face and knows that something is wrong. I don’t know if this is true.

“You have to look for Mom,” I said.

He did. No questions asked. I didn’t linger over that at the moment, but thinking now I know that must mean that he understood what was happening. He wasn’t surprised.

Mom had no intention of taking me to Macy’s.

I don’t know what I did while he was driving around looking for her. I don’t really have a clear playback of finding out what happened. The extent of my trauma has severely limited what I am able to remember, and for this specific part of my life what I know happened now is influenced heavily by the many times my Dad recounted it to me.

A few years later he took me for ice cream and we sat in the parking lot to eat it, staring out at a night bathed in orange streetlamp haze. At one point he put his cup on the dashboard and pointed.

“You see that motel?” He said, drawing my attention to a nondescript line of buildings. “That’s where I found her.”

He recognized her car in the parking lot. The manager didn’t want to tell him what room she was in, (“I bet he was worried I’d catch her in an affair,” he’d remark darkly) but I imagine he explained the situation and got the help he needed. Apparently they found Mom after she took all of our medication. Well, I don’t know if it was all our medication. I just know that she had taken my psych drugs, as well as my dad’s and her own, and decided to mix them with a six pack of beer.

Did someone specify it was beer at some point after that? I don’t know why I would know that. I also don’t know why I would assume it was that over any other type of alcohol.

My Mom took my medication to end her life.

It didn’t work, though. Dad told me later that she died for a little over a minute.

I told them I was worried about taking more Seroquel than both of them put together and they promised me it was very hard to overdose on Seroquel.

Was she counting on that? Or did she forget?

I never liked anything at Macy’s.

At some point I found out that Mom was stable and in the hospital. She was in a coma. In my head I have a memory of standing at the kitchen counter and watching my father call Kaiser to get a new supply of all of our medication. He wrote them all down, every name and their proper dosage. I listen to him speak kindly to the pharmacist on the other end of the line.

“The thing is,” he explains, “we packed to come home from vacation, and our luggage got lost on the flight…”

Inside myself is a vacancy so haunted that ghosts are too afraid to dwell there.

Dad ends up sleeping on the couch. He does not want to sleep in an empty bed. He tells me that he will leave in the morning to go back to the hospital, but he just wants to get a little bit of rest. Once he closes his eyes I slide a quilt above his sleeping body and put on a Jim Gaffigan stand-up special that I only process every third word of.

I don’t know where my brothers are in this memory. I am not thinking about that when it is happening. I’m thinking of my father, and my mother, and how if I didn’t tell my father to look for her he might’ve waited and ended up too late.

Years later I will learn that my father never told my brothers, or my older sister who lived on her own, that Mom tried to kill herself. I can’t bring myself to say tried – she succeeded, and was only brought back by the marvels of medicine. While I am thinking of my mother’s death none of them have any idea what is happening.

I am the one that told my siblings how our mother died for a moment years prior. We learn at the same time that they had no idea. When I ask my father why I was the only one he told about her death and not them, he told me that I agreed they shouldn’t find out.

When did this happen? I was fifteen years old and I have no knowledge of this conversation. Was I there? Or was only my body present and he decided that was enough.

Mom wakes up after three days. My sister joins my brothers and myself and we drive to the hospital to visit her. I can’t imagine what I am feeling. Maybe everything, maybe nothing. I remember riding up the elevator and going down the hall, and then my brain skips again and I am standing at my mother’s hospital bed.

She looks sick and she looks the same. There are tubes. I think she’s probably sedated. She is my mother and I love her and she took all of my medication to try and kill herself.

“Why did you do it?” I ask her, voice soft. I am trying very hard not to cry.

Mom smiles. I don’t know if this is true. She smiles as if doesn’t realize that she didn’t stay dead. When she speaks her voice wavers, faint and weakened.

“I didn’t feel – like I had control,” she pauses to catch her breath. “So I did this...and now I do!”

She is pleased like a child presenting an interesting leaf. My mother is proud of what she was able to accomplish. In some part of my brain that hasn’t fully learned how to speak up enough to defend itself, I absorb the knowledge that she has told me something that will ruin me time and time again for the rest of my life.

All of that is gone now. Mom doesn’t remember, and Dad has decided that it is our job to make sure she never has to.

I wonder if he heard what she said to his child. If he is able to process the deep, permanent damage his wife has done in two simple statements. A sympathetic part of me says that I wouldn’t know what to do in his shoes either, but is that true? I’m not sure.

Pull the child aside in the hallway of the hospital. Take them by the shoulders and lean in close so you have a semblance of privacy.

She is sick, I would say. She is unwell and she is lying. When she is like this, you do not have a mother.

Most of the time I do not have a mother.

When I am in the psych ward after my own suicide attempt my parents are the only ones I allow to visit me. I love my parents and my mother sometimes offers to take me to Macy’s. My Dad crafts little notes like cootie catchers written in red ink. I peel tangerines from the bowl in the cafeteria while they tell me what the dog is doing. He does not treat me like I am sick. Perhaps he considers me more suitable for survival.

I wonder if Mom does what Dad did to me in the parking lot with the ice cream. Does she press her palms into the sheets of her bed and think this is where my child came and told me they tried to drown themselves.

She probably doesn’t. I don’t think she remembers anymore.

I don’t think about the night Mom killed herself as often as I used to, and when I do I don’t really feel anything anymore. As I heal I’ve been warned that things might emerge, and that time might actually make the memory more vivid instead of distant. I don’t know what to say to this. When the possibility emerges I just tell myself that all of that is gone now. It isn’t real.

By this time next year my parents will have no way to find me. I’ve taken control my own way – not through death, but by cutting them off entirely. Whether that is something they understand, or even remember, is not my problem anymore.

[creature-wizard]

Here’s the trouble with hypnotic regression...

Back when BBC boards were popular, users would often play a simple game called “word association.” It’s exactly what the title says - forum members would look at the last word posted in the thread, and then post the first word that came to their heads. So you might have a thread where the sequence goes: Bob: “Cat” Jane: “Dog” Bob: “Collar” Jack: “Leash” Jane: “Training” And so on.

Why am I bringing this up? Because it’s an illustration of how the human mind works. We don’t remember things atomically; we remember things in connection to other things. Everything we know exists in a network where it’s connected to other things. For example, the concept of cat is associated with concepts like “animals,” “fur,” “claws”, cats we’ve owned, cats we’ve met, and every fictional cat we know of.

The human mind doesn’t place real things and fictional things in separate, untouching categories. Yes, you know that Garfield is a fictional cat. Your brain does have Garfield tagged as “fictional cat.” But nonetheless, your brain still tags Garfield as “cat,” so if someone asks you to list as many cats as you know, you might also think of Garfield.

So, let’s say you go under hypnosis to try and remember your past life. Immediately, your brain starts thinking of anything it’s got connected to the whole entire concept of the past. That's going to include things like the history you’ve studied, what other people told you things were like “back in the day,” and also the period fiction you’ve engaged with, and even fiction that’s set in a highly fictionalized version of the past.

Therefore it’s easy for your brain to go past life -> past -> medieval -> BBC Merlin.

(BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation - Merlin is on my brain right now due to thinking of BBC - Bulletin Board Code - boards.)

So when the hypnotherapist asks you to visualize your past life, you might find yourself standing in a medieval castle and also the king wants to kill you because you have special gifts, and then you were burned at the stake and that was how you died, because you’re probably also remembering the stereotype of the middle ages as that time when people were all about burning witches. (In actuality, the widespread witch hysteria was later.)

The same problem holds true for trying to retrieve memories from your early childhood. Now of course, you probably do have a lot of childhood memories. But it’s not as if you remember everything perfectly, and your brain may fill in the blanks with some... not so accurate information.

Let’s say, for example, that somebody you knew had a dog that terrified you as a kid. There may not have been anything wrong with the dog, per se; it might have just been a dog that was too large and rambunctious for your tiny kid self to handle. And because of this, you remember it as a scary dog.

So you undergo hypnosis, and your brain starts remembering other scary dogs, including attack dogs and monster dogs from horror media. So your brain could end up going scary dog -> attack dog -> demonically possessed dog -> Satanic cult -> Satanic rituals -> human sacrifice.

And thus real memories of a bouncy Labrador can blow up into fake memories of Satanic ritual abuse.

This isn’t to say that people never recover lost memories, because that’s definitely a thing that can happen. What I am saying is that hypnosis is not a reliable retrieval method. People thought it was because they didn’t understand how memory works. But at the end of the day, hypnotic regression doesn’t bring back real memories so much as create new ones out of a network of concepts your brain has linked together. It’s no different from playing word association with yourself.

[nroibdodyl3e1r]

Hi ! here is the first chapter of my fiction. I just finished it so maybe I'll edit it later.

Olive's babysitter

Notes: I aged Dwayne because in the movie he's 15 and I didn't feel comfortable writing about him at that age, so I gave him 18 (he's a senior in high school.) Also, this is my very first time writing. Don't hesitate to tell me what I can improve, and give me your opinion and ideas! I hope that you will like it! English is not my first language, I do my best to correct myself but there may still be some mistakes.

Chapter 1 a strange day

You have been babysitting Olive for 3 months now. You pick her up from school, take her home, help her with her homework and of course, you help her practice. Recently you even stay for dinner.

Sheryl is happy to be able to rely on you. Grandpa often offers you to smoke a joint with him and gives you questionable advice about men. Richard talks about his 9 steps all the time and you have acquired the very useful skill of pausing your brain to not listen to him but still knowing when to nod your head to give the impression that you are listening. Olive sees you as the best big sister in the world. You don't know what Dwayne thinks of you, the fact that you've never heard him speak and the fact that he's very explicit about how much he hates everyone doesn't help.

-----------

"Oh shit I'm going to be late!" was the first thing you said this morning. Putting on your t-shirt and sneakers at the same time, you storm out of your room, grab your bag, and leave your house.

By some miracle, you arrive just in time for your first class of the day. You look around when you get to your classroom and see Dwayne sitting in the same place as always; in the back by the window. You smile slightly at him as if to say hi and sit down where there is still a seat. Dwayne has a few classes in common with you but your schedules don't match up at all. You made yours so that you would finish early enough to pick up Olive from school every day.

High school is not really your thing. The day went well and thank god no one came to talk to you. It's not that they are bad but your social anxiety keeps you alone most of the time. You do have a few friends but you're not very close to them, and it doesn't bother you that much.

As soon as you arrive at the elementary school Olive comes to you with a big smile. 

"Y/n!"

"How are you, your majesty?"

"I'm doing great!" she replies with an even bigger smile than before.

You grab her backpack and head back to the Hoovers' house together.When you arrive only Grandpa is there, he is taking a nap on the sofa with his mouth wide open and his arms crossed over his belly. You take a waffle out of the freezer and put it in the toaster while Olive puts her bag in her room. Then she comes to the table and tells you everythings about her day while eating. After a while Richard arrives, tossing his keys on the kitchen cabinet.

"Hello y/n. How are you?"

"Fine and you?"

"Great, I had a lot of people at my conference today."

Suddenly Grandpa wakes up.

"How much did you have to pay them to listen to you talk for so long?"

"Hello, dad." replies Richard losing all his good mood.

You look away quite amused.

After finishing her waffle Olive goes out into the garden with Edwin to repeat her choreography. So it's time to start your homework, you're still working on an essay for your English class. After 20 minutes of trying to write the same paragraph, you throw yourself back in your chair and let out the biggest sigh possible. Dwayne arrives at that moment. You sit up suddenly, a little nervous. He goes straight to his room as always.

You remember the first few weeks you were babysitting Olive how your heart would jump in your chest when he came home. That's when you realized you had a crush on him. Although you still didn't understand why. He acted like you didn't exist, but that's changed now, he would pass you the bottle of Sprite at the table when you asked, and once he even let you into his room to lend you his history textbook. You felt more comfortable around him even though you were still nervous. 

After a little while, he comes out of his room and comes to you. He hands you his notebook where it says "Want need with your essay?". Surprised, you look at his face and he is completely inexpressive. This is the first time he has offered to help you. Slightly shocked you just say a brief "yes". With a sign of the head, he tells you to follow him into his room. You stand up quickly, grab your notebook and follow him with your eyes wide open. Are you dreaming? That's so unusual coming from him.

Without a sound, he sits down at his desk, takes your notebook, and starts reading and making notes on it. You hesitantly sit down next to him on his bed and remain completely silent. After a while he gives you back your notebook, he had corrected some sentences and written some things that you had to add.

"Thank you, Dwayne, that's really nice. I- I don't know how to return the favor."

He scribbles something in his notebook "Don't hesitate if you need help".

"T-thanks." You were completely shocked, this is the first time you'd ever seen Dwayne be so nice to someone.

Dinner is ready!" shouts Sheryl.

"y/n, honey how are you?"

"Fine thanks” You finish setting the table with her and the whole family arrives.

You sit in front of Dwayne, staring blankly at your plate without saying a word, still in shock at what has just happened. You are snapped out of your thoughts by Edwin.

"What about you, Y/n? How are the boys doing in high school? There must be a lot of them after you?”

You laugh nervously and answer in a semi-serious tone "Actually no".

"WHAT!?" shouts Edwin "I don't understand young people these days."

You laugh nervously one last time. Your gaze turns again to your plate and you cast a discreet glance at Dwayne without him seeing you. His face has a strange expression that you can't define. You finish clearing the table, hug Olive, and tells her "good night Olive. See you tomorrow" with a sweet smile. You greet the rest of the family and look at Dwayne for a second, you gather what little courage you have left for the day and throw him a big, sincere smile.

And that’s the end of this long and strange day. You go home, still in shock. That night you struggled to fall asleep, dissecting every second you spent with Dwayne to try to understand his behavior. Finally, you fall asleep with even more questions than before.

[citizen-zero]

god it is very hard work trying to not turn into a cranky old “kids these days” bitch and it is a conscious effort that goes into it this work. it’s not hard to be compassionate and empathetic to kids and teens and it’s not hard to give them healthy validation and it’s not hard to remember the general principle that every generation of kids goes through the same basic struggles and challenges that don’t get easier no matter how much new tech they have

but then you’ll encounter some youths giving absolutely brain rotted takes online about like sex and relationships and social issues and other things that they have little or no real world experience with and then it’s like holy shit you are so fucking dumb you don’t know what you’re talking about oh my god

but also you are mandated by Heaven to be a stupid fuck at this age, and I too was a stupid fuck at your age. I was even a stupid fuck about the same exact topics and issues. It seems an exercise worthy of the zen masters to try to keep in perspective that everyone is a stupid fuck at many points in life but being an especially stupid fuck from ages 12-18 is inevitable. It can’t be helped. You have no agency over your life and you’re aware of it and you’re full of impotent rage. You are often compelled to exist under living and working conditions that no adult would tolerate and the state allows it as long as you’re not being physically harmed. You don’t have the ability to vote and so your power to affect change is reliant on the willingness of adults to take you seriously. So your only real recourse is to be a stupid fuck with extremely flawed opinions on the internet. But holy shit is it infuriating and often worrying.

Perhaps the real anger lies with your parents and other adults around you for not being better stewards of your mind and psyche. Maybe I’m just unfairly mad at my younger self for not knowing better. I’m definitely pissed off at the authorities whose stupid fucking policy and legal decisions are creating a world where it’s more difficult for you to self-educate.

But the point again is that it is that it requires conscious effort to not be a cranky old bitch about this kind of thing. I’m not always good at it and often I fail at it. It’s a work in progress.

[copperbadge]

hey sam! i don't want to dump a research question on you, but just in case this is your remit - do you have any apps or browser extensions or similar for adhd and studying? i know about screen tinting and white noise, but if there's anything out there (paid or not) that you recommend, please wax lyrical! i'm collecting a doc of links for study tools beyond pomodoro style apps!

Man, screen tinting and white noise is already well out ahead of me, Anon :D I never did either of those while studying. I can't deal with screen tinting, but I did eventually start using ASMR videos as white noise when I was in my thirties, when I was working. Lo-fi beat music (often designated FOR studying on youtube!) often helps. Other than that I'm afraid I don't have any tools to link to -- no apps, no programs, no sites. I simply don't use any for learning/studying. I have a lot of tools but they're for managing personal life and very finely-tuned to me, so it's stuff like using google sheets to keep my calendar, and using Tasks to manage my chores. It's not to say you can't or shouldn't use apps and extensions, it's just not something that existed when I was in college and not something I make use of now.

My work, while very focus-intensive and intellectual, and involving synthesizing a lot of data, is also very temporary -- the data arrives in my brain, is put to use, and then goes immediately back out again. I've actually trained myself to have no long-term memory for some things, which is probably a bad thing, but every job I've had since 2008 has involved remembering very specific data for somewhere between five minutes (answering phones, remembering names) and two days (building a profile of a donor).

My study techniques when I was in school were less about environment and more about structure -- how I built my lecture notes and how I transferred them to a method for study.

In class, I found it helpful to take notes on blank paper, unlined, so that I could draw pictures and diagrams and structure my notes in a less linear fashion than lined paper would have encouraged. I should dig some out and take some photos sometime. So I had this artist's 8x11 pad of paper with diagrams and outlines and paragraphs all over the place. (I also tried graph paper but didn't like that, too much visual interference.)

I would start reviewing my notes for the eventual exam pretty soon after taking them -- about a month after any given lecture I'd go back to my notes and start review, which sounds a little insane, but was for me super helpful. I would get a deck of 3x5 cards and start moving what I thought were the vital points from those month-old notes over to the 3x5 cards. I didn't use them as flashcards (except for Latin class), I just put notes on various cards when they seemed to go together, and I'd carry the cards around with me and take them out and read them over. It made them very portable! And it meant that I could study in small chunks across a long stretch of time, which probably was very ADHD-compatible because it meant I saw everything a lot and it became "background noise" in the sense that I retained it.

I did kind of have the classic "gifted child" habit of not studying much because I rarely needed to, and for me that fortunately did carry over into college and grad school. With a few exceptions, I didn't have to study much for my exams, and the index cards covered what I needed. The struggle that I had was writing papers -- the classic ADHD "can't get started, hyperfocus once I do". I did eventually figure out the pattern, and so what I'd do was just block out the weekend before the paper was due (often I set the due dates ahead of the real ones in my calendar) and sit down and do the whole-ass paper across about 18 hours. If I knew the time was blocked out for it ahead of time, then that would propel me into actually getting started, and I'd bang the thing out.

So yeah, a lot of my study techniques for living with ADHD, not that I knew I was, came down to stretching studying way out over several weeks to months, and compressing paper-writing into weekends.

But also like...IDK man, cut yourself a lot of slack, I was studying and writing papers before smartphones existed, before my undergrad campus had wifi. If I wanted to check my email, because I didn't have a computer freshman year, I had to go to the computer lab across campus. It made research harder, of course, but it stripped me of a lot of opportunities to goof off. And because my brain was never trained to expect instant digital gratification, I never had the urge to put my notes down and check my smartphone.

So, maybe there's that, too -- if you find that while studying you get distracted a whole bunch, it may be useful to do some digital "hygiene" -- train yourself to go stretches without checking your phone or your browser, starting small and moving up to five, ten, fifteen, sixty minutes. I can't say that will help everyone or even be possible for everyone, but I think it's something to try.

Readers with ADHD (including self-diagnosis), feel free to chime in with the ADHD-centric study tools you use! I'd like to ask that neurotypical people not share their techniques here, only because people with ADHD tend to get a lot of well-meaning advice that is unfortunately not super applicable to the neurodiverse, which can be really frustrating and depressing. And remember to comment or reblog, as I don't repost asks sent in response to other asks. Thanks everyone!

[acupofqueercoffee]

“Love and hate, how much more are we supposed to tolerate?”

whumptober 2022 // Ambessa Medarda x Reader

ao3 — https://archiveofourown.org/works/42234144

There lives a cat in the neighbouring establishment. A chubby chunk of golden fluffiness oozing charisma, I usually take it on myself to caress and play with her.

In the beginning, she does not appear too keen on garnering my attention, but as time goes by, every time I make a move to scratch behind her little ears, she will readily tilt her head, putting her head rather eagerly into the palm of my hand. Then, she will happily revel in the attention as I proceed to rub beneath her soft little chin.

In all honesty, the cat does not leave a lasting impression on my mind. When I am elsewhere, I do not think of the cat. Nor do I mention the cat in the conversations with my friends.

Not once, even in passing, does the cat flash through my mind as I go about my day. Nevertheless, every time I return home, or whenever I cross paths with her on my way out, almost always, I will indulge the creature.

There are times when I am in rather a hurry. Believing that I am about to shower her with belly rubs and ear scratches, the cat tends to meow expectantly at me every time her obsidian, marble-like eyes lock onto me. On such days when I have a lot on my plate, I will whip past her with only an acknowledgment thrown her way, often even forgoing the gesture and disregarding her existence altogether.

Even though I have no place for the cat in my head, I wonder if the cat on the other hand thinks of me otherwise, or perhaps it is possible that she, too, enjoys the moment while it lasts, but carries me in her mind no more beyond our few interactions.

It gets me ruminating on the subject.

What if, contrary to my earlier assumption, the cat does in fact look forward to seeing me every day?

How will she feel, I ask myself, when she realises that despite her calling for me, I have wilfully ignored her?

Will it hurt her to understand that she is as important to me as a piece of fodder?

Before now, I have no way of knowing.

But, I think I have come to understand how the cat may have been feeling.

I am presently living the life of the cat.

While she has only but quenched her own thirst by humouring me, I have been a fool to mistake a fleeting fancy on her part as an everlasting craving.

Only the most foolish of fools could have dared harbour the feeble hope that someone who thinks nothing of them, someone who have no place for them in her life would waste her affections on them.

Such fool is me.

Who else can I blame but myself?

Turning a deaf ear to my brain’s cautious reminders only to naïvely pursue my juvenile heart.

“Do you think sweetmeats are meant to be consumed on a daily basis? Do people?”

She has asked me out of the blue.

“I don’t think so. My confectionery receives familiar faces but only once in a while.”

My eyes have moved from staring straight ahead into particularly nothing onto studying the valleys and mountains of her face.

“I do however have one patron who frequents the shop. I find it peculiar because she doesn’t strike me as someone with a sweet tooth.”

“Looks, little one, can be deceiving. Do you still remember what I’ve said to you during our first meeting?”

“How can I forget?”

“Contrary to what my appearance likes to suggest, I am not immune to pretty things. Nor am I unsusceptible to sweet stuffs.” so she has said.

“Ever since your first visit, you have come here almost every day. And yet, to this day, I’ve never seen you ingest anything close to sweets. It only fuels my suspicions when I find you one day throwing your purchases away.”

“Hmm…so you were aware. One may declare themselves a possessor of massive sweet tooth, but can they confidently say that sweets are all they need to survive? After all, not only can too much sweetness do more harm than good to your body, they also do not give you any real sustenance. They are merely titbits to occasionally indulge oneself in.”

“This is no longer strictly about the sweetmeats, is it?”

“Ever the brightest girl.”

“Lady Medarda, why exactly do you keep coming here if not for the confectionery?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head. It will change after today. In fact, everything will. But, to answer your question, do you really have no idea?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am going away.”

“What? Where? How long?”

“Far. Indefinitely.”

“And? Why are you telling me this?”

“For once, I don’t have an answer. I think when all is said and done, I want you to at least be aware that I am not here for the sweetmeats, but for the person who is behind their creation.”

“And will knowing it change anything?”

“Frankly, I don’t believe so. As pretty a sight as sweetmeats are to feast my eyes upon, I must accept that they come with damaging risks. I, as a person with more foes than friends, cannot afford a thorn in my flesh.”

If I tell you that I use to hate her guts, will you find it believable?

I do wonder at times when does the line between love and hate become but a blur?

Where does hate really end and love truly begin?

One thing I do know is that before I know it, I have started hanging onto her every word like a clingy little kitten.

How much of what she has said have been the truths and how much, the lies?

Then, when she hugs me suddenly, and my body is cradled close to her chest, I have half the mind to believe that buried in all those lies is at least a truth somewhere, or perhaps mixed between a few truths are lies everywhere.

“I have been taught that the only real effective way to deal with your weaknesses is to get rid of them once and for all. A wolf, after all, is never known to be merciful.”

But at the end of the day, as I lie motionless on the frozen ground, the only source of warmth coming from the gradually increasing pool of my own blood, I decide how ironic it is that the hands that, once upon a time, have breathed life into me have essentially become the very ones that have all the intentions of plucking it right out of me.

“Say goodbye.”

Will you think me crazy when I confess to you that while being cocooned in her surprisingly gentle arms, even taking a knife to the chest has felt more like a triumph than a downfall.

[system-of-a-feather]

Other Side to Body Memory

I wouldn't be shocked if I wrote something about this a year ago cause I used to think about it a lot more actively when I had first started Wing Chun since Wing Chun highly emphasizes this concept in relation to learning and fighting, but I was thinking about it and if I did, I'm going to rehash it with a year more of sitting on it

But in a lot of PTSD spaces, "Body Memory" I feel is a term a lot of survivors and peers say with at least a mild sigh or disdain as most of the time we talk about body memory in the haunting sensations, feelings, and trauma that the body holds which sometimes is even more deeply ingrained and seared into our memory than our conscious "mental / psychological" memory (for a lack of better words at the moment)

Body memory is often talked about as a symptom, a problem, an inherent trauma aspect, and that is totally normal, valid, and honestly correct - but a perspective and opinion I live by and have spent over a year pleading (more accurately shoving, but ya know the saying) my case to the system, but Body Memory isn't ONLY a symptom or trauma aspect, its a COMPLETELY normal and adaptive feature of the human and most complex organism's body and survival mechanism grown over years to deal with stimuli that is either abstract, fast, or complex of a "calculation" to consciously run.

Body memory in regards to trauma sucks fucking ass, but its important to remember that while there is a trauma aspect / dysfunction / problem to it that can bring feelings of pain and triggers and flashbacks - body memory, even with people with trauma, still probably serves a very unrecognized function in day to day life. You ride a bike easily because of it. You pet your dog without hurting it because of it. You can bite hard enough to bite a carrot but you can't bite hard enough to break your finger. While its not as obvious or seen, body memory - and your body - works every day to keep you safe and functioning and it does deserve that acknowledgement, even if some days - maybe even most days - it throws haunting pain.

That's just to say that your body isn't your enemy - even if it might feel like it. Your body is doing the best it can. It's your friend, it just sometimes struggles to understand how to use some of the things it's learned in a way that helps as it too is likely overwhelmed with what had happened.

And once a relationship with your body goes from "not enemy" to "struggling friend" you can really start to think about ways to work with your body, with your friend, to help both you and it out. Your body is extremely smart and a fast learner, for better or worse. It literally "calculates fucking physics and predicts" how much force to move XYZ and do all sorts of shit just to allow you to walk and not break everything both in your body and not. It won't talk to you like an alters does (unless you have a manifestation of that in your system) but it is probably by far the smartest part of your existence. It does however, depend on what you feed it, how you interact with it, and shape it's memory and how much you engage with it's sensations.

Back to the first paragraph, Wing Chun is heavily based on teaching your body - particularly your hands - to recognize how the touch of another person's body moving in a fight. It encourages a lot of keeping your hands on primary offensive / defensive parts of the body of the opponent at all times (wrists, arms, elbows) so that the body can constantly stay in contact and feel the opponent as they flex and twitch every so slightly - then training it how to respond to each movement with a counter and a strike. Very little of it's actual practice is cerebral past the training because much of any thinking is done by the body. A large part of training is regularly drilling and often times you are encouraged to chat and be distracted while drilling so that you can turn your brain off and let your body do what it does best and respond. It helps you build speed and response after you've made sure you are teaching it the right moves.

After a while, your body learns to break grabs, block, trap, and strike back without it ever properly registering in your brain to do so and the only switch you have to actually flip is "do I actually want to hit by stepping in to make my strikes reach, or do I maintain the distance since this is just sparring"

Before Wing Chun I largely trusted my instincts and my body because that is largely how I survived - I've been fighting and going with my body's instincts since we were young so the body memories I have from trauma have served me far more than they've hurt me, but after Wing Chun it really instilled this principle of conscious trust and awareness of my love and trust in my body to a new level.

My body is 5000x smarter than I could ever be, and its 5000x faster at making critical decisions than I will ever be and so long as I nurture it, it is always going to be my best ally. I don't need to worry about someone jumping me, not only because I can kick ass, but because my body is well trained to respond to threatening invasion of my personal space. I don't need to worry or stress about my ability to drive or respond to a dangerous unexpected situation like a crash or a crazy driver while driving because I trust that my body knows how driving feels and how to maneuver a car appropriately. I don't have to worry about if I know how to play a scale on the guitar how have to worry beyond originally learning the technique - cause thats something my body is better at learning, recalling, and doing.

I have a stupidly huge fucking ego and I do think I'm better than everyone in the system in 90% of all metrics (the elders will kill me for that but bitch theyd have to fight me first) but the only thing that I can say I genuinely respect the expertise of more than my self in 90% of realms is the body that we share. That shit while having not the best judgement on what is helpful in the long run, keeps us alive and functioning on the daily, hourly, very second to second of life and through some of the most mild threats to the largest threats were able to make fast short term decisions and calculations to keep us alive.

That bitch might sometimes need someone to curate the content it consumes and learns from, but that bitch is a fucking survivalist BEAST and god damn does it have my warriors bond and respect so god damn will I curate that survivalist to be the god damn best AND societal functioning survivalist I could give.

That bitch is my evolutionary horned over three billion years knife against the rest of the world. I don't CARE how much of a badass and combat bitch I might be, I can not beat Over Three Billion Years of Evolutionary Selection for Survival in being good at living. I'll treat that bitch likes its a god damn three billion dollar knife or sniper or whatever. It's my precious and most valuable asset in my collection of weapons and skills.

TLDR: Body Memory isn't inherently only a negative symptom / experience and while it can be hard, your body can be your god damn best friend if you nurture a relationship with it.

Post Script: If Riku is willing / has the time / sees this it would be kinda funny and helpful if you took this post and translated it from "XIV-ese" to whatever functioning language you use on this blog to actually make good self care / self help posts cause I think I did a functional job but I also know saying "that bitch" at our body 20x is off to say the least 😂

[no-where-new-hero]

since I love your thoughts on Dean Priest I also need to know your thoughts (if any) on Leslie Moore

AHHH I love this ask! Anne’s House of Dreams was my choice of Best Anne Book when I was about 16 (alongside Rilla of Ingleside; when I told my aunt this, she made a face and was like, “but those are the saddest ones!” so I’ve wrangled a lot about why in the subsequent years lol and a lot for AHoD has to do with how LMM shapes the plot around Leslie). I will say that a lot of these thoughts did come from my 16-year-old brain since I haven’t reread the series in a while, but here goes.

Basically, I love Leslie because she feels like one of the most real women LMM ever wrote, despite the faint melodrama of her plot circumstances. LMM has written a lot of real girls and real older women (Judy Plum and Susan Baker are my special favorites) who exist as bold individual characters, but she often doesn’t explore that middle range (I am also incredibly interested in Gertrude Oliver from that point of view as well). Of course, she does it through Anne with having and then losing a baby, as well as taking responsibilities of house and home, but Anne still always has her Anneish halo of a charmed life and loving people around her. Despite the pain of her first 11 years, we don’t feel them in her quite the same way as we do with Leslie, who has always been trapped by the worst of society and continues to suffer the repercussions of it: a repressive family and then a frankly terrible husband. LMM is patently showing how we might love and want to be Anne, but being Anne simply isn’t an option for a lot of women. 

One thing I’m thinking about now as I write this is how much of LMM might have vented some of her own frustrations through Leslie and identified with her as someone who also had a husband battling mental illness and felt very alone in that position. Though not creative, Leslie has a huge passion for life that makes me think of Ilse, actually—her preference for wearing bright colors (I always remember some line where Anne notes she always wears some thing red on her clothes), her beautiful appearance, her friendship with Anne—that goes wasted because of what traps her.

I always feel like LMM has a “secret” main character in every book of the Anne series after maybe the original trilogy, and Leslie is definitely that for AHoD. If LMM ever set out to right that “book for grown-up people” she once talked about in the years before writing the Emily Trilogy, I feel as though someone like Leslie could have been the heroine of it (I personally have never found Tangled Web or Blue Castle to feel particularly grown-up, despite being marketed for adults. Blue Castle is still a Bildungsroman at heart, even if it does bring its heroine to the marriage bed, and Tangled Web comes closer but it’s also so much a comedy that I never feel quite sure LMM was taking any of those characters seriously. It certainly wasn’t the intense portrait of human nature she wanted that grown up book to be.)

I’d love to know your thoughts on her too! It is really time for a reread and focus on what I might have missed.

[jurassic-amber]

Prepare thyself mortal. For I have questions to bestow upon thee.

1. Do you have anything resembling a story / route planned for Abigail? Supporting characters, ect?

2. Ever drawn a metal guitar before?

3. Regarding your Digimon artwork, what inspires you to create digimon? Do you have a favourite digimon you’ve designed? Is there anything in particular that inspired their design?

4. I *know* you’ve got a character who transforms into a monster somewhere in that brain of yours. Tell us about them. All of them.

5. What is your favourite Iterator OC? Why? Is there anything that particularly inspired their design (both art and character wise)?

6. How are you so fucking good at art?

7. Do you have any Pokémon OC’s? Or hell, OCs from existing works you haven’t talked about?

Love you and your art, please share more :happyhugs:

1: I’m very vague on Abigail’s story overall, but I know how it ends, specifically. If they were in a game it’d be a very short game compared to base game Undertale, only going up to Waterfall before encountering the “final boss” they couldn’t beat. (Hint: it’s not undyne) Gonna leave it mostly in the dark besides that for the time being (because it’d take too long to draw)

2: Nope, but here’s a quick sketch of an electric guitar

3: Ohhhhh well, in the beginning I just drew a bunch of rookie level digimon to practice and do a sort of “attribute swap” where I draw stuff like plant digimon as dragon digimon or dragon digimon as birds, etc etc. But a lot of more recent work is actually modern designs for pen and marker drawings from when I was like 7! Some have changed names, some have improved colors, all of them have improved designs. Here’s an example!

When I get around to drawing their champion and ultimate levels it’ll probably diverge even more as I get different ideas as to where I want the lines to go. I also just love making digimon cause I often draw to fill empty niches in works I notice, and digimon basically has infinite of those cause you can partner a digimon up with any character and then try to think of a special line for them! As for my current favorite… it’s a strange choice, but definitely CryoGreymon! Most of the body is traced from official art of the normal Greymon, but I liked the modifications I made. I redrew an entire leg to give him a wider stance, added more spikes and stripes!!

It’s a champion form of Snow Agumon cause they never gave him a digivolution despite being the coolest variant (Hehehe cool and snow, get it?)

4: At first I was gonna do Aria for this, but then I remembered Cloe and fuck yeah let’s do her.

CLOE, pronounced Chloe is a character for a sci-fi mystery game, and when I say sci-fi, I mean space travel and aliens sci-fi. She’s an early game red herring meant to be reasonably suspicious to the characters, but obviously innocent to us, along with being a parody of every horror movie alien. She’s from a species that grows to disguise itself as other creatures and infiltrate their society. Her species needs a very high protein count. However being a species means they don’t all think the same. Some eat the creatures they disguise amongst, others steal prey, some intimidate others into satisfying their hunger. Cloe herself is an orphan and only survivor of an alien ship that crashed into a human controlled planet, and isn’t a species allowed on human controlled planets. Fortunately the agency that ends up handling the case where she’s exposed also was established in the first place to handle these type of situations. She follows one of the protagonists around after it’s obvious she’s innocent, and post game she goes under his care for the foreseeable future. As an alien she’s not allowed in normal school, so she spends her time at his house both studying and finding hobbies, like speedrunning in video games.

5: Not sure if you meant my favorite one I’ve made? I’m still trying to come up with all their designs tbh. But my favorite concepts ever were the vague one of Gifted Order and I also really like Two Bloodstained Hands. Gifted Order basically makes a part of themselves into a Slugcat, but gives themself rot in the process. They don’t quite see it as themselves, but are satisfied to give part of themselves freedom. This is inspired by a plot point in a game I like, leaving it vague which. I also like Two Bloodstained Hands’ concept of being feared just because they associate with violence in their work even though they aren’t a violent iterator

6: A lot of it is really just doing it over and over again, but aside from that I might have a couple tips? Most objects are made up of basic shapes, then you smooth them over. Depending on your art style, you don’t have to use every shape either, just a circle for the head is fine if you’re drawing something simple. Hair can be done with just wavy lines usually. And one thing I learned recently is practicing line weight!! Balancing thin lines and thick lines can give more direction to artwork or help highlight the silhouette if the outside is made thick.

7: god, I have so many… but in terms of Pokémon, I do have a bunch of fakemon designs! Remind me later and I’ll put up I’ll the fan-eeveelution designs I made