#i think i might be okay being unmedicated for the rest of my life as difficult as that will be

[mandareeboo]

SU Music Rankings

Bc I can and I wanna start some Disk Horse rip. These are all in order of preference, with explanations, etc. It’s a long bitch. That said, I’m not counting little short jingles or small joke songs like Little Butler. This is the meat and potatoes of SU music- just under 30 songs. I might do the rest if people like my takes lol.

I scored it mostly on three bases- how dear it was to my heart, how much/often I relisten to it, and also what it means to the plot. That said, little fun songs don’t automatically go farther down than big, plot-heavy songs either! It’s a strange little balance.

Special Note: I don’t dislike any of this music! I love SU and that includes its bumps and glitches. I just pick favorite children lol.

1.) Change

Was there ever a more Steven moment than when he wiped the blood off his face and kissed it into sparkles? I think not. 

If “Be Wherever You Are” is an ode to young Steven, then this is teen Steven’s. Talking about change, and how much and how little it can do. How he holds his arms up for Spinel to hug him, so trusting. How he seems able to just. Break into soft tears at will, and not to be manipulative- it’s just his kind nature. The warmth in his voice. Fuck yesssss.

2.) Change Your Mind

This song is only fifty five seconds and it’s EVERYTHING to me. It really felt like someone was speaking the words I’d always held deep inside of me, unsure of how to say. It feels like a goodbye to someone who never really loved me. 

As much as I enjoyed Future, if this was the finale of SU, I would’ve been perfectly okay with that.

3.) Drift Away

This song gave me legitimate shivers the first time I heard it, and it still haunts me to this day. Spinel stayed, and waited, and all she got was a transmission thousands of years later. Fuck.

4.) Here We Are In The Future

THE MOVIE IS SU AS ITS BEST AND I WON’T BE SWAYED ON IT. Steven being a teen who loves his weird family but is growing just a bit sarcastic to their drama. The adorable love he and Connie share. His slow realization that he will always be working, always have things to do, is both somber and real. The Crystal Gems won’t be safe with one epic battle. They’ll be safe with years of hard work and love. HIS LITTLE HANDSHAKE WITH AMETHYST.

This is a helluva bop and a great way to summarize the main character’s backstories.

5.) Let’s Only Think About Love

Did ya’ll know that Zach Callison killed his throat with that last note? He gave his all for this performance in a vocal range he no longer comfortably do and by god did it SHINE. The FLAIR. The FORESHADOWING. All of the Gems all being awkward about Rose and Steven trying to bring them to the present. Peridot having a mini-existential crisis in a cute yellow dress. I love Zach Callison’s normal singing voice but man is that a fucking bop. Nothing will ever beat it.

6.) Here Comes A Thought

This bad boy helped me out a LOT with some mental issues I was dealing with in high school. I was unmedicated, unsupervised, and full of anxiety. I’d have break downs when I tried to speak about certain things. I couldn’t function. This song inspired me. It helped me feel okay with my intrusive thoughts.

And the episode! -chef’s kiss-. Once again bringing up the morally gray area of training child soldiers. Connie expanding her social group. Steven’s trauma hauling ass in that second half. The ANIMATION. Stevonnie’s gorgeous singing voice. GOD yes.

7.) It’s Over Isn’t It?

Just barely squeaking above Stronger Than You, this ballad is everything gorgeous. The whole episode is. I think Mr. Greg stands in the top five of my episodes for the entire show. It even got nominated!

There’s just so much about this song that I love. The gentle melancholy of Pearl’s voice. How the crew had to redo the shots for this bit bc Deedee went so fucking hard. The hard cuts between Pearl, remembering the love of her life, and Steven, who has begun to feel like he took her away. I’d recommend this song to anyone, regardless of what they do or don’t know about SU, simply bc it tugs so many heartstrings of love, loss, and responsibility.

8.) Stronger Than You

Did you realize this episode aired SEVEN years ago? This bitch was what got me into SU! Hearing about Ruby and Sapphire made my little gay heart so happy inside, and then getting a whole song confirming that they were a couple, that their love powered the strongest Gem on the team? Aaaaaaaaa

To this DAY I get excited when I hear Estelle start singing. This song is timeless. This song will live in media history. God I fucking love this song.

9.) Other Friends

I’m not the biggest musical person, so I hadn’t heard of Sarah Stiles before her casting as Spinel, but JESUS CHRIST the lady went hard. She went SO fucking hard. Sarah Stiles started on 100 and somehow just kept CLIMBING. You can just hear the sheer manic energy building in her voice, the anger and resentment. 10/10 Sarah Stiles is a queen.

10.) Independent Together

This made the list entirely bc the crew was like “you’re gonna get a himbo ass Steven-Greg fusion singing with Opal while Garnet flies across the moon on Lion while floating” and I am forever thankful to them for it

11.) Who We Are

Bismuth deserved more songs. ‘Nuff said.

12.) Peace and Love (On the Planet Earth)

It Could’ve been Great is EASILY one of my favorite s2 episodes. I love the entire concept of this song. Of Steven making music to reflect how much Earth means to him and his family. Of him teaching Peridot some self-care. Also Peridot’s singing voice is really cute and squeaky. 

I know it’s silly, but I would’ve really enjoyed a flip around of this in Future! Like Peridot reminding Steven how much he loves music, that he needs to take time to relax for himself, maybe with a new verse or just a remix of the original song!

13.) Something Entirely New

I watched this episode as it aired, and I legitimately almost cried. I love Charlyne Yi’s voice so much ya’ll- her raspy, not perfect singing voice against Sapphire’s deep soothing lull is great.

And to have Ruby and Sapphire’s meeting be the way it was- for Ruby to bemoan Sapphire losing Homeworld, to being stuck with a single Ruby, while Sapphire is a noble who has always been taught everyone in her “caste” is vitally important (and has, in her own mind, taken that to mean every Gem, as she should) and how they come together and make each other happy. Good shit good shit.

14.) I’m Just a Comet

The fact that Greg’s music career never really blasted off pisses me off to this day bc Tom Scharpling’s voice is fucking BUTTER. Also the song really feels like a jab at his parents now that we know the kind of dynamic he had growing up. “This life in the stars if all I’ve ever known” is definitely him wiping away their existence after reminding them (and himself) the things they used to say about him.

15.) Do It For Her

This episode. This fucking episode. This episode got me permanently hooked on SU. I’d just binged season 1 and was kinda meh about it overall after the bop of Stronger Than You. “Oh,” I thought to myself, foolishly, “I’ll probably just casually watch this from time to time.”

Like three days later Sworn to the Sword aired and that was it. I was hooked! Pearl’s gentle training song turning darker and darker, Connie’s accompaniment from nervous to determined to fully into such a toxic mindset. The fact that SU had the BALLS to discuss the repercussions of training child soldiers, now and later. This episode was everything to me, STILL is everything to me.

Six years and well over 100 fanfics written later, I think it’s safe to say this show swallowed me whole and never let go.

16.) System/Boot.pearl_final(3)

I debated putting this on the list because it’s not anything crazy important, just a way to show things are Wrong, but I had to do it entirely bc Pearl is so damn SALTY.

Like telling us about the Gems makes sense, she felt like she was given a duty, but she went so damn petty. WHY is that Ruby alone. Gross. This Amethyst is a trash dump. Wtf are you people.

17.) Full Disclosure

This episode really feels like a turning point for SU. Before, the show had its dark moments- but now we’re in the thick of it, and it’s not going away. Full Disclosure felt like an rebuff to the idea of returning to any normal we’d established in season 1. Gems are actually a giant species now. Gems tried to kill us now. There’s this Yellow Diamond bitch who got namedropped. Something about a Cluster. 

The song itself is BALLER, with its ingenious use of Steven’s ringtone and photos as he tries to decide whether to clue in Connie on all this nonsense. Meanwhile we, the audience, already know damn well Connie about to yeet some common sense into him.

18.) What’s the Use of Feeling Blue?

I’mma admit it- I’m a Yellow Diamond stan. I’ve always loved her- her anger, her poise, her hardworking nature. I actively argued against the “Yellow Shattered Pink” theories back in the day. But, man, when this arc leaked? I got so overexcited I was too jittery to watch it for like two days. It’s easily my favorite arc of the series. The sheer alien nature of the zoo, the Famethyst, and absolutely Patti Lupone’s beautiful ballad. Goddamn. Yellow singing to Blue to try and help her regain her old status, the warble in her voice as she reminds Blue she misses Pink too, the movement of the bubbles as she talks about attack. It gives me shivers to this day. FUCK.

19.) Tower of Mistakes

This is, fun fact, that only SU song I have completely memorized. The story itself is kinda funny! See, we lost internet at my house for a solid 5 to 6 months when these episodes aired, so I only got a very brief window to view them all. But this was the first Amethyst song in a long while, and I didn’t want to forget it! So I keep replaying it in my head for ages. And that’s still definitely a thing.

Anyway will never not be sad that this entire song was about making it up to Garnet for Amethyst’s perceived slights with Sugilite (which was a two-way road), only for Garnet to pressure her into fusion later when pissed and never discuss it again bc Garnet probably never thought twice about it and Amethyst has the emotional openness of a clam that’s just been told its ugly. Helluva way to make someone feel like shit, G. Helluva way to bottle that shit, Ames.

20.) On the Run

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Amethyst! Needed! More! Songs! 

The dichotomy between Steven’s play and Amethyst’s honest desire to run away from home is so well-done, especially when you consider a lot of Steven and Amethyst’s actions are playing together. The song is also near and dear to me simply bc it’s my favorite Amethyst episode to exist (well, maybe second to What’s Your Problem, but not by much). Moments like these are all the proof I need that they were right to fuse first.

21.) Be Wherever You Are

This tune really just feels like an ode to who Steven was as a kid. Trapped on an island with no way home, and he’s just happy to be with his friends. The stars are beautiful and not oppressive. Also that one animatic with Lars and the Off Colors playing in the Homeworld Kindergarten to this music was iconic and made this song get stuck in my head for a solid month.

22.) Familiar

I ADORE how the crew use bright neon colors to show how alien Homeworld can be. And Steven recognizing that the Diamonds treat him how the CGs used to, and how prepared he is to “fix” a broken family. It’s a soft, gentle tune about melancholy. Also the Pebbles are beautiful.

23.) Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart

Such a cute little love ballad, but every time I listen to it now I just imagine the heart attack Rose must’ve had at the line “And if we look out of place/Well, baby, that's okay/I'll drive us into outer space.” like there’s a Vietnam war flashback if I ever heard one

24.) What Can I Do?

I’m kind of neutral on this one? Rose and Greg both have great voices, but the song itself lacks many lyrics. I think it was definitely a good way to show Rose’s flaws in thinking.

Also, I’m shocked they managed cram that much vaguely sexual innuendo into two minutes, followed by how Not Hetereo that dance between Rose and Pearl was, and not get their asses chewed by it. You go guys.

25.) Cookie Cat

I love a lot of the vibes this song has. The lyrics are so damn prophetic, but they also sound like the kind of weird 90s commercials I grew up on. It’s been like two decades since I saw the Shirley Temple commercial but I’ll be damned if I don’t remember “Animals crackers in my soup! Monkey and rabbits loop-de-loop.”

26.) Giant Woman

I am. NOT the biggest fan of Steven’s original singing voice. I feel bad saying that, since it was just Zach Callison as a kid, but he never jived well with me for some reason. So I wouldn’t listen to this on the fly. 

The song itself is still really good though, with all sorts of fun animation of Amethyst and Pearl being bitchy to each other. It’s a bit sad in hindsight to see tiny Steven trying to get his moms to get along. Ahh, season 1.

27.) Strong in the Real Way

This song has SUCH a strong start. Pearl reflecting on Sugilite’s problems, but the show making sure to show us that Pearl’s lack of enthusiasm towards her also lends itself to jealousy as well as just general malaise. How much she cares about Steven, and wants him to grow up strong. 

And then Steven just kinda. Ruins it? I appreciate his enthusiasm for tryna bulk up but to take what was starting as such a rich, personal song and broadcasting it to random strangers just makes me a bit sad. Almost a bit angry on her behalf?

28.) That Distant Shore

I KNOW this is gonna create some discourse, but I’m just not the biggest Lapis stan. I love her voice. I love the visuals of the song. And I get why she felt afraid and needed to flee.

But Lapis never got to take responsibility for her own actions. And, in the end, the song feels hollow to me- because we all know she’ll never talk to anyone about it, know she’ll burst back in and destroy the barn, and no one will ever question it. I like Lapis a lot, but I feel like her arc never was fully finished. She never got help. She never learned to feel safe.

29.) Dear Old Dad

I’ve yet to meet a single human being who likes this episode tbh. There’s some great discussion about what kind of parent Greg is from it, and what kind of dynamic he has with the Gems that he felt he had to fake an injury to hang out with his son. Honestly the first half was fine and dandy. It’s just that then they Greg just went out of his way to drag Steven away from missions and such. It never jived well with his character before or after.

Also, is it just me, or does Zach himself sound like he hates the song as he sings it? There’s no passion or heart in his voice. It sounds like they told him to read off cue cards and he did. Tom Scharpling’s best attempts didn’t save this one for being a skipper. But the episode, unfortunately, isn’t, so it gets a spot on here.

[sixstepsaway]

cw personal stuff, mental health, menstruation, adhd, medication, passively suicidal thoughts

so i have PMDD, which isnt great, and over the last decade or so i've been tweaking my entire life to try and make said life livable

a rundown: if i am unmedicated, have no vitamin supplements and do nothing in particular to handle my pmdd, i have three weeks out of every month where i am incredibly depressed, fatigued beyond reason, passively suicidal (as in: i do not think i would move if a boulder was going to run over me, but i am not going to go onto tinder to try and match with a boulder any time soon), apathetic about everything except (if i'm LUCKY, else the depression is worse) my current hyperfixation, unable to focus on anything (so my adhd is worse, which took me until a year ago to realize) and just...terrible

three weeks of every month

i figured out quickly that the pill helps, but i cant have the combined pill (i have migraines) so i'm stuck with the minipill (which is progesterone only, i believe?) of which one brand doesn't give me horrible side-effects

this brings me down to like.. a week and a half before my period is shitty? still passively suicidal, still terrible adhd issues, but less time

i called up my doctor who offered me antidepressants which i didnt really want and she recommended vitamin... B6? which i take a big supplement of, and i will admit helps a lot

but the thing that i hadnt realized was having a really strong (positive) effect is i started taking 5-HTP a few years ago in the hopes it would combat my depression and apathy, which it does! and i did not realize

until i got on my ADHD medication and came off my daily caffeine supplement (which i was using to self-medicate said ADHD) and the 5-HTP in the concern it might have a bad reaction

i'm being titrated on the ADHD medication rn (so week 1 is 20mg, week 2 is 30, week 3 is 40, week 3 (current!) is 50, and finally week 4 is 60, and the goal is to find the dose that has the best effect on my ADHD

this medication is amazing and my fatigue is all but gone, which is astonishing and makes me want to cry with a combination of relief and, i guess, grief? because i've lost 15+ years of my life to thinking my problem (CFSME, which I might still have but i dont KNOW and honestly probably never will) couldnt be medicated/fixed (CFSME they just send you home to rest and reduce stress like meh over here) and it actually could??? i just had the wrong target?? i thought my brain was okay but my body was fucked but actually my brain was broken this whole time? hahaha fuck

anyway that brings us to today where i am sitting here, really low, genuinely wishing a boulder would hit me up on tinder, not really giving a shit about anything (including going downstairs to wake my ducks up for breakfast, you know, the ducks i've been sewing diapers for, the ducks i love more than life itself), kind of wanting to cry

my apathy came back a week or so ago, and i've realized the apathy is what the 5HTP was effectively medicating as well as it was. and now i checked my bujo and sure enough this time last month was my pre-period week so no wonder i want to goddamn die

and i'm still stuck on mobile data (some guy did 60 in a 20 and knocked out the pole that held up all the wires at the bottom of our street and we've had no internet ever since, we're on tethered mobile data and have been this whole time, i have bought 22GB of mobile data and the first 10GB i went through like a flash because it turned out the tumblr app on my phone was using background data like crazy and i hadnt realized and now i'm refusing to buy more data because this is STUPID) and everything just feels helpless and hopeless

and i'm finally feeling all the things about the fact this could have been fixed. this could have been fixed years ago

i didnt have to live like this

[tarysande]

Hey, I see you reblogging adhd stuff every now and when. I hope you're ok with me asking, how long have you known you have adhd? I am currently wondering if I have it and am sups unsure what to do about it.

I’m always okay with people asking about things I post!

Of course, because of the ADHD, I’m not always great at answering ;)

I’m especially willing to talk about ADHD because I know my journey to getting a diagnosis doesn’t follow the stereotypical path, and I’d be thrilled if my experience ends up helping other people out there.

My family doctor was the first person to ever mention ADHD to me. I was 36 at the time. Maybe 37. I’m 40 (wtf) now, turning 41 in a month (haha, wtf). I’ve had depression most of my life. At the time, I was deeply frustrated because my depression was well-managed, but I still couldn’t focus to save my life. When my doctor asked if I might have ADHD, I laughed and said, “With my grades*? Yeah, no.” *I was a straight-A student from elementary school through to the end of my BFA. HOWEVER, at uni I had a handful of ‘lower’ grades: a B-, a B, a B+ in classes I found A G O N I Z I N G L Y boring. I was also never a disruption in class—mostly because I entertained myself by writing novels and reading under my desk and listening to music by keeping my earphones under my long hair. The key was to answer a question in class right away, thereby diverting the teacher’s attention and leaving me to my own devices for the rest of the time.

The focus issues continued unabated. Months later, a good friend of mine who was also diagnosed with ADHD as an adult brought it up again, and this time I did a lot more research. And ... yeah, puzzle pieces started clicking together. A lot of them. 

I brought it up with my doctor, and she sent me to the one (1) psychiatrist in Vancouver who was a) covered by provincial healthcare and b) would deal with a potential ADHD diagnosis in a patient of my (advanced) age *stares into the camera like it’s the office*. He was a Real Jerk, but I did his bevy of tests and he reluctantly agreed that I matched all the criteria except that I had never done poorly in school or been a nuisance in class**. **these criteria are ridiculously outdated, often don’t apply to girls (or those who have inattentive-type or mixed-type ADHD), and should BY NO MEANS exclude anyone from an ADHD diagnosis. If, like me, you’re what they call “twice exceptional” (where being intellectually gifted can often mask the struggles associated with ADHD, autism, physical/learning disabilities), it’s EVEN EASIER to slip through the cracks. 

The psychiatrist upped my anti-depressants, which helped, but still did nothing for my focus. By the way? ADHD, especially in adults, is FREQUENTLY comorbid with other conditions like depression or anxiety. It’s almost like ... when your brain doesn’t do what you know it should do, WANT it to do, TRY TO MAKE IT DO, and you feel like a failure who’s not living up to her potential ... it makes you REALLY DEPRESSED!! Who knew?? After almost a year, I finally brought up the focus with my family doctor again, who was like, “Okay, let’s try some things, then.” Finding the right dose of ADHD meds is ... trial and error. And it’s exhausting. And sometimes you think you’ve figured it out, but you haven’t. I still haven’t landed on the BEST POSSIBLE solution for me, but I will tell you this: the difference in unmedicated-ADHD-Tara and medicated-ADHD-Tara is like night and day, even when my meds aren’t optimal. 

To give a very specific example, I’m a freelance writer and editor. My income from my first (medicated) year of running my own business full(ish) time was almost three times that of the unmedicated year before. This year, even with COVID throwing a lot of wrenches in a lot of gears, I’ve remained booked three to four months in advance, my focus is better, my self-worth is better (i.e., I charge what I know I’m worth), I’ve stood up for myself, I’ve *gasp* started planning(???). I’m not rolling around in piles of money, but I’m above the Canadian median.

I also speak to my therapist every two weeks (she’s wonderful—and she’s online, which is both cheaper and more accessible for me). I’m slowly understanding the value of meditation (if you have the Calm app I HIGHLY recommend Jeff Warren’s How to Meditate 30-day program. I’m on day 13. There’s no BS or vagueness; I love him.) I made an effort to change my diet and spend more time moving around outdoors. (Exercise is even more important for ADHD brains, it turns out.)

Now, none of this has been a magical cure-all. I’m in the middle of struggling with med dosage at the moment, which is freshly irritating. Even medicated, there are good days and bad days—which is totally normal. I just finished an editing project that nearly destroyed me because it was SO boring and I couldn’t get out of it (because I’d ADHD-procrastinated too long). Learning how to function in the neurotypical world with an atypical ADHD brain is WORK. There’s also a lot of emotion—grief, anger, frustration, joy—as you process the new information and mourn the time you spent lost, underachieving, “failing.”

One really great, really accessible resource is the YouTube channel How to ADHD. For people who want to dig into the science, I recommend Russell Barkley (HE IS SO SMART) and Ned Hallowell. There’s also a ton of information on ADDitude. Anyway, this is a lot of information, I know. There are some good self-tests on the ADDitude site. If you think you have it AND IT’S IMPACTING YOUR LIFE***, bring it up with your doctor. Know that you might run into some resistance because most ADHD meds can be (and are widely) abused, and people with actual ADHD get caught in that crossfire. Even though it’s hard because of ADHD’s effect on emotions (TOO MANY!! TOO STRONG!!), be prepared to face some scrutiny.  *** they’re always going to ask about how it’s negatively affecting your life.

[rora-s]

My Coming Out Story

Disclaimer: Due to the personal nature of this story names have been changed as to not reveal peoples identity.  I’m not sure why I decided to post this story now. It’s something I’ve hadn’t written for awhile but never knew when or where to place it. I’m posting it now and I hope that if someone needs it now in their life they can read it and feel a little better about how things are going.  When I was little I really didn’t have a concept of what gay was. I grew up in a loving christian home with my mechanical engineer turned youth minister mom and my current electrical engineer dad who was also the music leader at church for a number of years. There were also my three siblings of which I was the second oldest. My life revolved around church. It was literally where I went to preschool and I spent at least five days a week there well into my teenage years. 

Growing up in this way wasn’t bad. I had a great community and family. However, that changed. I remember thinking during my elementary school days that I thought of guys and girls the same. The only thing was that I understood that when you get married girls marry guys and vice versa. That’s just how it was and I thought everyone felt the way I did. You just had to pair up like that. 

I had heard the word gay and understood the concept of it when I was in elementary school thanks to my church and one kid at my school. My mom told me he was gay and I didn’t believe it because he was so nice and from what I understood gay meant bad. (He came out when we were in middle school and was one of my inspirations later on.) 

Still the first time I had a personal connection with having that label was when some girls started a rumor that me and one of my best friends who was also female had kissed on the playground during recess. This was an outright lie and my violent tendencies at the time due to (at that time) unmedicated ADHD caused me to lash out and beat up the bully which got me sent to the principal's office. I didn’t tell anyone why I had beat up the girl just that she was being mean to my friend. As I was a frequent flyer in the office at that time they didn’t really question me all that hard anyway. Now that I’m older I can’t really tell you why I didn’t tell anyone what the girls said. Whether I was embarrassed, scared, or just too stubborn to give them an answer I don’t remember I just know I didn’t. 

Fast forward to middle school and I was a far more awkward, less violent teen. At this point I was still pretty unaware of the world around me in regards to the LGBT. I knew that there were some kids in my grade that had come out as LGBT that kid I mentioned before among them. Still to me it was something that was viewed as a bad thing they were sinners. It was all what church had taught me whether it be explicitly by some or implicitly by the majority it was still something I picked up on as a child. 

Then one day my mom told me that we had been invited by two of her friends from college to have lunch with them. It was at one of my favorite little cafes so I was really excited. She told me they were psychologists and that they were together. She also told me they were two men. I was shocked. I didn’t think gay people could have significant relationships like straight people. On top of that I couldn’t imagine my mom -- who by all accounts was the symbol of a perfect godly woman to my entire church community -- could be friends with them. 

Her response to my shock: “We’re christians, they are not, we hate the sin but we love the sinner. Despite being gay they are still good people but since they aren’t christians we can’t hold them to the same standard as us. They simply don’t believe in it.” (I paraphrased but this is the general idea of the conversation) 

It was the first time I had heard such a sentiment and I went into that lunch with a curious perspective. I was still a little shy so I didn’t ask about it but I watched them together, made note of their wedding bands (gay marriage wasn’t legal then but they were symbolic to them), and witnessed their love for each other. After that I started finding myself paying more attention to my peers who had come out. Many of which I ran in the same circles as. The more I watched and interacted and bonded with them the more my bigoted thoughts that gays were these lustful bad people faded and I realized they were normal people. 

That’s when I realized something. Not everyone loves both guys and girls and just picks a side. I learned that bisexuality existed. The next step I took in my journey was repression. I was a christian. Christians were not gay. I was not gay. I could not be gay. I was just imagining it and it’s not a big deal. Afterall I still like guys so we're fine. 

This lasted until my sophomore year of high school, choir class, and a girl with freckles, short multi colored hair, dazzling eyes, and the singing voice of an angel. The panic was real and my emotions would not shut up. I couldn't come to terms with it. With any of it. 

I denied my feelings for most of that year until one day I was with two of my friends. We were all writers and talking about different stories we were working on. Then one of them paused in the middle of what she was saying and turned to me saying “these characters are gay. We know you don’t believe in that stuff but that’s what it is” 

I looked back at her in shock and I responded with “that’s okay. I am a christian and while I might never practice that myself I’m okay with other people doing it. Hate the sin, love the sinner” my friend smiled at me and said that was the first time she’d heard such an accepting thing from a christian and continued telling us about her story as we headed to class. 

I was glad I put a smile on her face and made her feel accepted but honestly I felt like a complete piece of garbage. I’d simply parroted back to hear all the stuff that had been shoved down my throat for my entire life. Did I really believe it though? I couldn’t stop thinking about that conversation for the rest of the week. I also couldn’t stop thinking about that girl from choir class but that was honestly nothing new. 

About a week later our school had standardized testing going on. Which divided up kids into computer labs by grade and last name. Me and one of my guy friends we’ll call him Cane had luckily been seated near each other. During one of our breaks when we were allowed to talk. I went over and leaned on the desk next to him. He vented to me about how he had a crush on one of our mutual friends and was thinking about asking her out but was nervous. I gave him encouragement as best I could then he inquired whether I was interested in anyone. Before I really thought about it I answered yes. He asked who and after only a few moments of deliberation I admitted that it was the girl from my choir class. He acknowledged and agreed that she was cute before continuing on. I looked at him in surprise and pointed out to him that she was female. He said he knows and that it wasn’t that big of a deal if I liked girls. I thanked him and asked him not to tell anyone because I still wasn’t sure. He agreed to keep it under wraps but did tease me a little for my crush. 

After that conversation. I finally took the leap and began to look up the LGBT community online. I found forums and support centers and ted talks and messages and christians saying that LGBT was okay. I was ecstatic but still I was worried so I prayed and the more I prayed and researched and talked with other LGBT people the more I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my chest. Finally I could admit to myself that I was in fact bisexual and I was okay with that and so was my God. 

I still wasn’t comfortable coming out to anyone yet. So I spent more time on online forums for LGBT youth and writers. I learned about the community and I embraced my crush on the girl in choir. Even though it didn’t pan out and I fell for a boy we’ll call him Reese and started dating him my junior year. It felt like things were going okay. I was able to tell one of my friends call them Alex finally that year and they intern told me that they were asexual. We were able to support each other in our closets and were happy. 

During my Junior year even though my feelings for the choir girl faded I ended up meeting another girl in my Fire and Rescue class at the career education center that partnered with my high school. We’ll call her Polly. She was an incredible person, bright and beautiful and unabashedly herself all the time. We bonded over marvel movies and writing. Even though I was dating Reese at the time I was falling head over heels for this girl. It took me a while to figure it out as slowly me and Polly became better friends but I was developing feelings for her.

Finally, my senior I got the courage (with support of Alex) to come out to my main friend group. It was at a marching band competition and everyone was super supportive. My best friend you can call her April she said she wasn’t surprised and Reese who was still my boyfriend at the time said he loved me and would always support me and this didn’t change that. I even came back out to Cane again because I had genuinely forgotten that he already knew. He reminded me of what he said that day. That it didn’t matter and he wouldn’t tell a soul. They were all proud of me for owning who I was. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

However, it couldn’t last. When I was telling April one of the band mom’s overheard and gave me a shocked and disgusted look. She didn’t say anything but she didn’t have to. She was known for being the gossip of the group and she was a religious friend of my moms. If she had overheard then it was only a matter of time before she told my mother. 

I was terrified. When I got home from the competition I watched my mom to see if she was going to react at all to me. She didn’t and I realized she hadn’t been told yet. I was relieved but knew that I wanted to be the one to tell my mom. I didn’t want her to hear it from a secondary source, especially not the gossip. So I got on one of my forums and talked to some LGBT friends who encouraged me before I took a deep breath and headed into my parents room. 

My dad was away on business so it was just my mother. I told her I had something to tell her and she gave me her attention. I explained that I had come to accept myself as I am and that I knew God had also accepted me as the way I am. I told her I was bisexual and waited watching her. 

She stared at me for a long moment. Her face was a mixture of confusion and fear and the next words out of her mouth I will never forget she asked “does this mean you’re going to hell?” 

I felt like someone had just pulled the floor out from under me. She didn’t understand and spent the next couple minutes trying to convince me I was mistaken or that this was wrong. We stayed civil and eventually she just said she needed to process this and sent me back to my room. I cried myself to sleep that night. 

The next day at school I told my friends what happened and they comforted me. When I got back from school and band practice I hid in my room until that evening when my father got home from his business trip. He came to my door and told me we needed to talk. My younger sisters were banished to their room as me, my mom, and my dad - who had been told by my mom - sat in the living room to discuss the fact that I was gay. 

Shortly after starting the conversation/argument a boy (Derek) who was like my older brother came over. He wasn’t biologically related to us but he had a key to the house, would often come over, referred to us as his siblings/parents, and was referred to by us as our brother/son. Me and him were very close and despite my parents wanting to send him to the other room I insisted he stay as things had already begun to get heated between me and my father. 

Derek helped keep the tension down but there was still plenty of yelling. He acted as an impartial mediator for most of it. My dad yelled a lot, my mother cried, I both yelled and cried. It was a rough night. It ended with me storming back to my room. A while later Derek came to my room and talked with me. He explained that he didn’t understand or know if he agreed with it but he’d make the effort and be there for me. I thanked him.

My house after that was tense to say the least. My parents avoid the subject at all costs. My sisters knew thanks to the yelling that night but didn’t comment on it. The next time my mom brought it up was to tell me that I couldn’t tell my cousin about it because she would spread it to the rest of my dad’s side of the family. She also said I couldn’t tell her mother, my grandmother, because she had a heart condition and it could kill her. Sometimes I still wonder how my grandmother would have reacted had I told her before she died. She once told me she had a friend who was gay and that she cared about him deeply. I think she would have accepted me. 

The first time my siblings brought it up was when me and my two younger sisters were left in the car while my mom ran into the store. We were listening to music and chatting when my sister asked “so how long did you know you were bi” I was surprised because up until then I hadn’t realized my sisters knew I was bisexual. I explained it to them briefly and asked what they thought of it. They both said they agreed that people should be able to love who they want to love. Though my sister Greta thought it was kinda gross because she didn’t get how two of the same gender could have sex. Still it didn’t change anything for them and they apologized for how our parents had been handling it. I was so thankful for their support. 

By the end of my senior year I was out and proud to all of my peers. I came out to my friend Hannah and Derek's girlfriend Mary at the same time as a casual drop in a conversation. Neither reacted at the time but asked me about it later. Mary more directly wanting to understand as both her and Derek are very religious. While Hannah was more of making a comment about me eyeing a girl that I had a crush on and being obvious. I can’t remember when I came out to my older brother James who lives in a different city. However, he never really questioned it beyond being tense when I brought it up around our parents. I was becoming bold in my identity. I had even written a love poem about about girl (Polly) for an english class assignment to stick it too a homophobic teacher. 

I ended up breaking up with Reese pretty early on my senior year as I realized what I felt for Polly. To this day I still consider my feelings for her the first time I fell in love with someone. I cared about Reese deeply and still do but only ever as a friend. Since we were in middle school people had been pushing us together and while we fit together on paper and from the outside. My feelings inside didn’t match and I didn’t want to lead him on. Polly was the one I truly wanted to be with but the same couldn’t be said for her. She had met a boy in her senior year and they were starting to talk. She really liked him and I was her main confidant for her feelings. I took them and I encouraged her to pursue a relationship with the boy because I knew she felt for him more than she did for me. She loved me but only as a friend. As her and her boyfriend got closer I worked to let go of my feelings for her gradually. 

Meanwhile my parents were like a looming dark cloud and it felt like I was stuck in a cage of some sort anytime I left the shelter of my friends. This only got worse when I graduated that spring and summer rolled around. I tried to get out of the house as much as possible but I didn’t drive and this made things difficult. The relationship between me and my parents began to get more and more strained to the point I almost ran away one night after my mom punched me. 

I began to view leaving for college that fall to be the holy land. My montra became that if I could only survive the summer I could make it. Me and my friend Hannah were going to the same college and going to be roommates. I was going to get to study what I loved and be who I was. I went into survival mode. Then the biggest mental strain hit. 

Every year since I was nine years old I went to church camp for a week in the summer. I had been going longer than I was supposed to because my mom was a leader of the camp and my whole family got to go even Derek and Mary. Normally Hannah would come as well but she had something else come up that year and couldn’t. I knew the place very well and absolutely loved it. It was a time of year I looked forward to and couldn’t wait to go back too especially since I was now a worker at the camp instead of just a camper. 

This year was tougher than most. I was given a lecture about not telling anyone that I was bisexual before I left because if they found out I was gay I wouldn’t be allowed to come back to camp. I was horrified at the idea and tried my best not to think about it. Even when I got a crush on my fellow female camp worker. It was a stressful week and it all culminated one night. 

I can’t tell you whether I believed what I felt in that moment. It all felt like a blur like I was about to shatter under the weight of everything bearing down on me all the lying and fighting. I think part of me wanted to believe that me being gay could be prayed away that night and that I could just stop having to deal with all this pressure. So that’s what happened. I told one of my leaders and they asked me a bunch of questions like had I kissed a girl or had sex and then they prayed for me.  

Afterward I told my mom and she literally cried about it hugging me and thanking God that I was healed. I felt sick and I threw up before I went to sleep that night. 

I went to college that summer as a straight girl and I held on to that label for most of my first semester. I loved college. Me and my roommate/best friend Hannah met three great friends that first semester, Sylas, Kurt, and Randall. Sylas was busy a lot so we mostly hung out with Kurt and Randall. All of us played D&D together and had movie nights. Me and Hannah also found a christian group on campus and got settled there. 

I thought I was happy with my life however I still felt sick and disjointed anytime the concept of homosexuality got brought up. It was a hard time and I prayed about it alot. I talked to some of my church friends about how I had turned back to straight. Until one day a video ended up in my recommendations and it was a ted talk. I clicked on it not realizing what it was and found that it was a gay christan woman talking about how these two factors don’t have to be mutually exclusive in life. I was riveted, I watched the entire video twice and felt my heart be convicted. God never wanted me to be straight; he never wanted me to change who I was. I loved me how I was. It was the people who had the problem. 

The minute Hannah got back to the dorm I came back out to her. Her exact words were “ah so you finally figured that out”. I was so grateful to have her in my life and we talked for hours after that. Not long after I started coming out to people again and in turn Randall came out to us about how he was bisexual as well. I finally felt free again. Going back home that winter was tough, however, it was made better by the support of my friends with regular skype calls and group chat messages. Not to mention since my parents thought I was straight they weren’t pressuring me anymore. 

When I went back to school things were still going great and I ended up meeting a girl named Eve in my EMT class. We immediately hit it off and started talking. It wasn’t long before I formed a huge crush on her but she was getting over a break up and I didn’t want to push. Still we became extremely close. Eventually, she did start dating a guy me and Hannah knew from a gamers club on campus. I had missed my shot. Then I went home for spring break and had to stay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was hard being away from my friends and stuck in my parents house. Still we all had regular skype D&D sessions and texted a lot on the groupchat. 

During the months I was stuck at home I got a job working at the local Home Depot. I was excited to work as it was my first real job. My grandmother had owned a family business but I didn’t do much other than stock shelves there. Here I was a cashier and I enjoyed my job a lot even though it could get crazy. Then one day I was at my register and a fellow coworker I was aware worked in the paint department approached my register with a polar pop and asked where her wife was. I was confused and she noticed I was new and said not to worry about it and have a good day. I watched after her and saw her go up and greet my head cashier who was a female and give her the polar pop before heading back to the paint department. I was astounded. 

Not long after I had it confirmed that her and the female head cashier were married. Another cashier came out to me as non-binary and another cashier told me her brother was gay and she’d be the loudest ally ever if anyone tried to mess with me. I felt accepted like nothing else. It was incredible to feel so validated and free to be myself in my workplace. 

Going back to school that fall was difficult due to COVID-19. Me and my friends (Polly as well as she began attending college with us that year) could no longer host D&D at my and Hannah’s dorm like we did before because of the regulations. Thankfully Eve came up with a solution. She was the only one of us who lived off campus in a house she rented. We were welcome there anytime. I still had a massive crush on her and when I found out she had broken up with her boyfriend over the summer I almost asked her out. However, another guy had beaten me to it. We ended up going over to Eve’s house multiple times a week and I would go even when the rest of the group wasn’t before long I was sleeping over at her house regularly. Often when it wasn’t even planned. I was even dubbed the most responsible friend by her grandmother who absolutely loved me. 

Then her boyfriend at the time dumped her. The entire group rallied to comfort and support her. She took it really hard and I stayed over for a weekend to make sure she was alright. My feelings really started to grow as we got more physically intimate with cuddling and laying in bed together still it was all considered platonic. I really wanted to ask her out but didn’t know when it was too soon. Hannah and Polly both encouraged me to ask her out. 

Then another boy showed up in her life. I was greatly concerned and disheartened as their relationship was progressing in her typical pattern. I thought I had missed my chance. However, the boy made a fatal mistake as Eve is demisexual. She doesn’t like moving into physical contact beyond cuddling too quickly if at all and he started to push her to kiss him. She immediately stopped the relationship after he made overt moves that disregarded her clearly made boundaries and he was derogatory toward her. 

About one or two weeks later I was over at her house one evening and we were talking about him and dating and life. I finally took a deep breath and told her there was something I needed to tell her and I was afraid it would ruin our friendship. I confessed to her that I liked her and wanted to date her. I didn’t ask her out specifically though because she has told me in the past she has trouble saying no so I left out the question and simply told her how I felt to do with what she felt was right. 

She was shocked and immediately started smiling saying she liked me too. I was elated. We talked more about how we had been feeling and how we had both been worried about what the other would say and how she had been blind to my pining which apparently her last serious boyfriend had picked up on and was why he dumped her. (He later told her that he saw how we were together and began to see that me and her fit better than him and her and he wanted us to be together.) We started dating that night and I immediately called Hannah and Polly to tell them the news joking that since I couldn’t tell my parents that I wanted to tell them and they jokingly responded by giving Eve a talking to about not hurting me. 

The next couple months were ups and downs but me and Eve had each other to support and our relationship was very steady. One night when I was having a depressive episode because of my school situation (I was failing my virtual classes). I called my brother James to vent to him. While he was comforting me I told him that I had a girlfriend and he was immediately accepting, asking all about her and acting like it was normal until I brought it up specifically her being female. He assured me it didn’t matter and that he still wanted to meet her but wouldn’t tell my parents. 

That winter I had to go home again for break which would be a couple months. Eve gave me her spare PS4 and a headset so we could play games together long distance and we spent our last couple days together as much as we could. Prior to me leaving she surprised me with necklaces for us that were each half of the star wars rebels symbol. Her’s had the phrase “I love you” engraved on it and mine had the phrase “I Know”. 

That winter I missed her even after going back to work and finding that another character that is a part time drag queen got added to the staff. They also pretty much adopted me and my head cashier came out to me as gender-fluid. All of them were proud to hear I had a girlfriend and I was finally able to tell someone not my family all about her. I missed her a ton. So me and Eve came up with a plan. 

After some figuring with my parents she was able to come visit for a couple days between Christmas and New Years as my “good friend”. It was a great time. My three siblings that were there all knew she was my girlfriend, my little sisters having figured it out when the three of us were talking. One of my sister Georgie admitted that she was considering herself to maybe be asexual and my sister Greta (who at one point said being gay was gross) came out to me as also being bisexual. We all are able to support each other. 

Eve’s visit went really well and my parents adored her and she adored my parents. Though it was stressful especially right after she left and my grandmother who was visiting asked -- at the dining room table where me, my grandparents, my parents, and all my siblings were sat-- “did your girlfriend leave?” There was a split second where me and my siblings shared a telepathic moment of panic before remembering that in my grandmother’s vernacular she simply meant my friend that was a girl and I simply answered yes. 

As winter break moved along I began to discuss other options with my parents about my schooling. With my ADHD and my manner of learning, virtual classes were not working for me. I had failed most of my online classes meanwhile being near the top of my classes in my in person classes. It was an obvious disparity the only exception being my math class which was a hybrid class and I will admit was a failure mostly due to my lack of ability to understand math. 

I’d already been considering the idea since my depressive episode calling James who’d been the one to suggest it during the fall semester. But now the conversation was whether or not I would sit out the spring semester. After some discussion and the fact that I didn’t have a job in my college town but did at home and Hannah wouldn’t be coming back to school after graduating early. Meaning I wouldn’t have a roommate. (Polly and me had a fight and are not on speaking terms). The decision was finally made I would not be returning to college in the spring. 

It was a hard decision and I had to tell Eve. I took sometime to figure out what I would say since I knew it was going to be hard. Finally I worked out the words and told her that was going to be gone for longer than planned. I knew long distance would be hard and suggest we try to make plans to stay in closer contact with each other that way it wouldn’t be as bad. I’d told her when we first started dating that communication was the most important thing to me in a relationship. 

A week passed and we didn’t really discuss it as we were both busy with our individual jobs. Then I got a text from her saying she wanted to talk. The next text I received was her breaking up with me. She said she didn’t want to be the only one making the effort to see each other since she had a car and license and I didn’t. She further said she didn’t want me to feel like I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of the relationship since she was into physical intimacy. She’d decided we should break up and that was that. But she still wanted to be friends because she liked my family. 

I was very placated in my response. It was a complete shock. Both because it was over text and also it had seemingly come from nowhere. She’d never communicated such feelings to me. 

I reassured her that I never felt like I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of the relationship. I also told her we could still be friends but that it would take us time to figure out our balance with each other. 

I called texted James when it happened and he asked if I was okay. I responded with I don’t know and he immediately called me. We talked for a while and he comforted me about the situation. The next person I told was Alex. They comforted me as well and we figured out a day where we could hang out, watch movies and eat ice cream as the normal break up fix it. I was grateful for both their support. 

I was hurt by Eve’s actions. I took a risk bringing her to my home with my parents. If they had found anything out about us. I don’t know what would have happened and to call it quits without even trying to work through it or communicate how she was feeling. It felt like I wasn’t worth the effort of her feelings or time and investment. 

I’d made the first draft of this before the break up and the ending had read “I hope one day I will be be to get support from my parents as well but even if I can’t, I hope that I will st least be able to be my true self around them and introduce Eve as my girlfriend” 

That’s changed now. I don’t just hope that I can introduce someone as my girlfriend I hope that whoever I bring home will be accepted by my family for who they are and me for who I am. I’m not straight. I never have been. I might marry a man someday I might marry a woman but whoever I bring home. I will still be bisexual and I will never stop trying to be a voice for those who can’t speak up. Once I’m not under my parents roof. I hope I can live my true life and help those who have been muzzled and closeted for far to long as I have.

[my-brothers-corrupted]

My Brothers, Corrupted

Final Section of Chapter Three: Is the Time Not Come Yet?

Chapter One l Chapter Two l Chapter Three

Trigger warnings for heavy discussion of suicide.

Overwhelmed, afraid, and unmedicated, Dapper needs help dealing with everything that’s happening before he makes a lasting decision.

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Dap, honey, what are you doing?

Hypnosis, Henrik advised you, always causes a dam break eventually.

Anti can soothe the water back into place again and again. He can build the walls higher and higher. He can lie, manipulate, deceive, and ignore.

But at some point, no matter what he did, Henrik knew there would be a moment where Trick wound up distressed and confused and terrified, sobbing about all the ways in which he can feel that his head has changed, that his thoughts have changed, that his very person, at Anti’s behest, has changed.

Two weeks of heavy influencing. Some months of lighter work before that. And Trick feels like the world is ending. Trick feels like the person he was before was killed in front of him. Through it all, he still loves Anti.

That might be the most torturous part - to see him clearly for what he’s done, to know that the reason he wants to protect him is because of the hooks buried in his brain, and to still know he wants to protect him anyway, to make him feel okay, to be there for him.

Two weeks and pieces here to here as the months went by. It’s nothing to laugh at. His pain has been high for a long time and all of them suffer different.

But Dapper -

Dapper and the dam that Anti built high, high, high -

Dapper has been under Anti’s influence for most of his life.

Years and years and years.

The seams of his world are falling apart. In moments of clarity, you have heard him whisper truths too terrible to believe - he made me do things I didn’t want to do. He made me happy to do them. I was a happy and loving person learning to find my place in the world and he took that person and made me kill him with my own two hands.

Now, he not only knows them but feels them. Feels the truth of them. They burn like white fire in his chest and he wishes that he could scream.

This isn’t what I wanted! This isn’t who I am! Where did I go? What did you do to me? How many times have I fought and fought and fought! Why can I never, ever get free!

This is the quiet, violent undercurrent of his agony, tearing his feet out from under here. The riptide of his despair. And the rest?

You feel Dapper’s hands signing rapidly, desperately, incoherently, his breaths coming in short, horrified wheezing, small jolts running through him every now and then as his hallucinations prod and snap at him, disorientation making him dazed and unresponsive on the ledge of that path overlooking the ocean, paranoia pounding against his skull in a hateful rhythm as terror of Anti returning mixes with terror of being without him and Dapper is - Dapper is -

Your camera crashes to the pavement behind the ledge, so you can see his body seizing up, his hands signing nonsense to himself, his face twitching.

Dapper is not able to deal with this alone.

Anonymous asked: Dapper, hang on, okay? It'll be okay. I promise, it'll be okay. We're gonna get one of your brothers to come find you, where are you? We'll try and keep Anti away, if you want us to. Hang on, buddy.

You can see the rocking ocean curling and uncurling her arms beneath the cold lights of a public beach, down past the highway and the people below you. There are voices chattering from all around Dapper. A small, fragile tree is growing out of the side of the cliff to brush leaves into his hair. The ledge is man-made steel and runs along a path that zig-zags up the cliff. Everything is bright and everyone around him sounds happy. Dapper cries quietly, hugging his bear and his knife to his chest. When did he get over a ledge? He needs to remember the plan. He needs to escape something. His bear whispers at him and he nods, slowly, trying desperately to orient himself.

spicydanhowell asked: red, dapper is on the ledge of a building. he can't have gotten far but he dropped a key , so if you see that on the ground, he'll be up above! go quickly

“He could have gone anywhere,” says Ro, his voice calmer than you might have expected, his gaze set and determined, though he’s so dazed he’s having trouble walking in a straight line. “There are so many high buildings around here.”

“The cathedral,” suggests Dok. “He loves churches. He would want to be close to his God.”

“He’s not in his right mind right now,” reminds Red nervously.

“There’s a belltower attached to the monastery near by, very high up,” adds Trick, teeth still chattering from his panic attack. “And the government buildings lead up, up, up.”

“There are armed guards on the government building past six o clock, not that that would necessarily stop him,” Anti puts in tersely. “I can send him messages through the cameras but he’s not answering.”

Anonymous asked: I think he's up the mountain path on a ledge where your old house is!

“Our old home is very far away, but if he’s on some kind of mountain path - ”

“There are cliffs leading all the way down to the ocean,” Red connects quickly. “Come on, we have to head north. Anti, can you keep going?”

Blue’s body is beginning to wear down, Anti’s eyes growing dark with shadows, clutching tightly to the cane as his legs and knees tremble. “Of course,” he pants, shaking his dizzy head. “Of course, don’t insult me. We need to get to him now.”

bupine asked: trick, dok, anyone, where are you? do you know where dapper is?

They race through the streets together, the four of them no longer fleeing each other but moving as one towards the north, helping keep each other on their feet. Henrik keeps trying to leave Anti behind, but Trick always pauses him, fear in his eyes, shaking his head, and Henrik tries to quell his terror enough to soothe Trick’s.

“The ocean, the ocean, the ocean,” chants Red to himself.

“A steel ledge on a path up the cliff,” says Trick, gripping his arm to stop him and point. “Look, the mall is built into the side of a cliff, do you see? There are three high stories.”

“There’s a path,” adds Dok, panting, racing towards it. “We’ll take the elevator up and split up to find him. He’s facing the ocean. He could be on the balconies of any of the restaurants and shops or down on the path somewhere, looking out over the highway.”

It’s supposed to be a nice, beautiful place to wander around and shop and eat and look at the shining ocean from the zig-zagging pathways. To throw himself off the side of it… onto the highway below… his baby brother’s little body broken on the pavement…

Trick stops in the elevator to wipe the tears from his twin’s eyes, holding Dok to his chest.

Anonymous asked: DAPP NO.

Dapper is lowering himself carefully down.

Gripping the ledge in one hand, he slides his feet down the side of the cliff and slowly finds a delicate place to set them. The dirt is like the dirt of the mountain where they lived, loose and shifting, shifting beneath his feet. He keeps a precarious grip on the ledge, letting himself stand tenuously over the height below him.

Flickers of clarity interrupt his confusion. This will be easier. This will be nice. No more hurting. Always hurting. No more little rooms. No more pounding his fists against the wall or waking up to a rope around his throat or pretending he’s having conversations with brothers he can hear through the walls. No more loneliness.

And most importantly, his brothers will be able to do what the magicians told Henrik they would have to do - all find a way to be free together.

He can’t fight. He can’t get away from Anti. He can’t ever get away from Anti. This - this is what he can do. Maybe Anti will even make the others forget him, so it won’t hurt, and then they’ll all be able to be happy without him.

The image of Trick’s bleeding, impaled body flickers in front of him. He chokes on a sob. Trick might have been reversible, but so few of the deaths he caused were. He doesn’t deserve to live anyway.

Anonymous asked: Dapper, hey, no. Hang on. It feels like the best choice, I know. But it will get better. I promise you, Dap, it will get better. Hang on. Please.

Dapper groans and shifts slightly, his back beginning to ache from this position. Maybe this wasn’t the plan? Did he have one? Is he trying to save someone? To give Anti a scare or force one of his brothers to come find him? Why did he come down here? He wants Last Rites before he dies. But maybe this is his only chance.

He gives a choking gasp as something imagined licks his ankle, immediately trying to yank his foot back. The dirt beneath him shifts and he makes a noise like he’s been punched, scrambling at the cliffside, almost going sliding down it. The dirt is turning his white bear brown. He clutches it to his chest and signs Hail Marys one-handed.

spicydanhowell asked: red is coming to help you, baby, it's okay. just hold on tight

It used to just be him and Red. No, it was him and Jackie. He remembers watching him die in more ways than one. He remembers waking up one day and realizing that Jackie was gone. Maybe the night Red chained him into the bathroom because Dapper didn’t want him and Anti to go out fighting, or the day Red shoved him off when he tried to stitch him back together, or the first time Red didn’t come to check on him before bed, whispering reassurances just for the two of them, memories of home and freedom shared in soft hands. He wipes at his wet face, trying to remember when he started crying. He just wants to go back to how things were, before this all happened. But all those people are dead and all that remains are the ghosts of them. He doesn’t want to see Red. He knows he won’t be Jackie.

bupine asked: anti, when you find him, i think it'd be best if dapper's other brothers handled the talking to him. he will definitely be more upset if you say anything, he's confused and scared after years of abuse and i feel your presence won't help. remember that you won't be able to rewind anything that happens today. so you should be careful.

“What?” laughs Anti, brushing sweat from his eyes with trembling hands. “No, you don’t understand anything! Dapper and I - what’s between us has never been like what the others have. If he won’t listen, I’ll make him. Anyway, he’s not getting a choice right now. I’ll grab him and drag him back up, and if I have to do it while he’s kicking and screaming, fine. He’s not in his right mind and I won’t lose him.”

He grips at Blue’s shirt, panting. “I c-can’t lose him.”

Anonymous asked: Guys, hurry. He's on the cliff now, I think he's at the top.

Anti splits from Red along the path while Trick and Dok hurry around the mall at the top of the cliff. Blue’s hands grip at the bar of the path, his cane tapping quickly across the ground. Anti stumbles once and goes crashing to the ground, but he gets up just as quick, his palms bleeding. He reaches the end of the path with a low cry of desperation, slamming his fist against the wall of the cliff hard enough to make a small tree lose leaves.

He pauses, letting his mind flicker into Dapper’s abandoned camera and finding his view duplicated. He scoops up the second camera hurriedly, staring around him.

“Dapper!”

Anonymous asked: He's on the cliff face itself, guys. He's standing on dirt. If you can see him anywhere from the ground looking up, that should give you a good idea of where to aim to get next to him.

He’s on the cliff face itself. Anti races to the ledge and looks down over it, a veritable howl of relief moving his voice as he sees his youngest, his most powerful, his most important standing there shaking against the cliff wall, his gaze glazed and terrified, blood still dripping from his beard from how much power he exerted today.

“Oh, baby, is it so confusing? I know, I know. You needed a break, huh? I understand. You’re not in trouble. You just got scared. I’ve got you, come here.”

Anti reaches down to snatch his wrist. Dapper sucks in a scream, tearing his arm away, sliding another few inches down the mountainside.

“Stop it,” cries Anti, tears welling in Blue’s eyes. “Stop it, I’m not angry, I promise, my love, I promise. Talk to me, talk to big brother. It’s going to be okay. I’m here.”

“Lock me in my room again!” scream Dapper’s hands between desperate bids to tear at his over-grown hair. “Doll boy, puppy!”

Anonymous asked: Anti, full offense, you're falling apart. All Dapper will see with you like this is Blue and he'll probably feel like he's talking to the wrong person. And you'll probably scare him shitless as just yourself because clearly that's an even bigger mess. Just admit that you aren't in control for once and let the others take care of this, or you really WILL have no control over anyone or anything without Dapper.

Anti rears back, panting, clutching at Blue’s clothes. He has to make him stop. He has to grab him. This cannot happen. It can’t.

“Baby brother,” he repeats, trying to be soft, trying to be soothing. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Hurt me!” screams Dapper. “I know you’ll never let me go! This is me escaping! This is the only way I can help my brothers get away from you! All fight together…”

Anti hears a raw scream from above him and turns to see Dok and Trick staring down at them, Trick’s eyes huge and Dok’s dripping water.

“Anti!” screams Dok. “Let him have Blue! Now! Get away from him! You’re the fucking problem!”

“Come on,” calls Trick, pulling on his arm, and the two turn to race towards the path to get down to them. Anti hears Red calling for him from the other side of the path, headed his way.

Anonymous asked: Fight Anti, Dapper, don't hold back!

“No, don’t fight anyone right now!” screeches Anti. “Just hold still, goddamn! I won’t try or possess you or hurt you, just don’t fall!”

Anonymous asked: You're killing him, Anti. You're killing all of them. Look at Dapper, look at Blue. And yeah, I know you don't care about most of them, but I'd have thought you'd at least care about Dapper enough to stay away from him. You can't help him, Anti.

Anti shakes his head wildly, leaves growing on the tree beside him as fear races over him in dizzying circles. He’s never felt so lost in his life. Blue’s body is his last vestige of control and he just wants to get Dapper up from that ledge. He can’t let this happen. It can’t happen!

“Just don’t let him fall,” he groans to you through gritted teeth.

Anonymous asked: Anti this isn’t about you! Shut the fuck up and let the others handle it. You have already done enough.

Anti stands in the middle of the path, feeling weak and frozen. Red comes racing up to him and takes one look over the side before Anti sees panic grip him too. Red’s mouth opens and closes as he tries to find the right words, but he’s never trusted himself to be good at any of this.

“I’m - I’m here,” is all he can manage finally. He tries to reach down for Dapper’s wrist, but his little brother jerks away, sobbing and hiding his face in his bear.

“Monsters and ghosts! Don’t touch!”

Anti and Red both exchange desperate looks. As different as they are, they both have the exact same instincts in this situation - grab him and drag him the fuck to safety. Nothing else matters.

Anonymous asked: Come off it, Anti. "Baby brother," psh. Dapper's not a fucking baby, he's a grown fucking man you've insisted on infantilizing even as you've forced him to kill. And he sure as hell isn't your brother. You don't love him, you just love using him. Let someone who actually gives a shit about him help him out of this, not someone who only pretends to care.

“No!” screams Anti, his fists gripping together hard, his eyes watering. “No, that’s not - even if it is true, he belongs to me! He’s mine, he’s my little brother, you don’t have the first idea what we’ve been through. He was always meant to be the way I molded him to be. I don’t care if he’s happy with it! His head has always been fucked up!”

“Anti, listen,” cries Red. “He’s scared and getting scareder so just come away from him for a moment. We can talk about it later, once he’s okay!”

Anti pants, jerking away from the ledge, gripping at Red’s shoulder to feel like he controls at least one person here.

spicydanhowell asked: henrik will be here too, hunny. and he is himself at least. i promise you he will not lose himself. he's.... almost like the brother he was in the past. you're going to be okay.

Henrik is there.

And Henrik is there in a hurricane.

“Let Blue out now!” he screams, grabbing Anti by the collar and throwing him back against the cliff wall. Trick lets out a cry of terror, biting his lip as his twin breaks multiple rules in one go. “You let him out now, I swear to fuck, Anti!”

Anti’s eyes burn at him, fury and fear mixing together in his face, gripping at Dok’s wrists. “Get the fuck off me,” he hisses.

“No!” screams Henrik, beginning to reach hysteria. “No, you’ll give him Blue, now, now, or I’ll - ”

He grips Emmanuela’s raven, panting. Anti’s eyes burn and narrow.

“That won’t be enough to kill me, you know,” he hisses like a snake. “There are very few things that ever could.”

“Maybe we should find out,” pants Henrik. “Don’t lose Dapper to your own stupidity, you selfish nightmare. He’s hurt enough for you. You gave up Blue to take care of us, right? So let Blue take care of us.”

Anonymous asked: Hen, even if you convince Anti to let Blue go, I don't think he'll be conscious and back in his head enough to help. I think you have to help Dapper.

“Two heads would be better than one,” replies Henrik coolly. “And believe it or not, I’d prefer for Blue to not be possessed whether or not he’s available to help me, so why don’t we just double-check?”

“Playing such a dangerous game so early,” hisses Anti. “When did you find your courage, my brother?”

“When did you lose all of yours?”

Anonymous asked: Ro, remind him of all the progress and trust you two have built together in the last couple weeks. It seemed impossible at first, right? But now you have so much common ground and understanding and love. Let your words act as your hands.

Red leans carefully over the ledge, staring down at his little brother. “Dapper,” he calls. “JJ.”

“No, no,” Dapper shakes his head hard, pulling on his hair. “No, no, I’m not anyone anymore.”

“You’re my little brother,” says Red.

“I need to get you free… all have to fight together… this is the only way I can fight him. He owns too much of me.”

“We’ll worry about the fight later, Dap. Like this week. No worrying about fighting or what’s going to happen. Just resting and looking after each other. Playing card games and eating all the food we can get our hands on and taking hot showers and whistling music. Just come up here to me, Dap. I’m right here and I’m not going away this time. You’re still your own person and I love you. As much as I can remember ever having loved you. Dap? Are you hearing me?”

Anonymous asked: Anti please just let Blue get to him or talk to him before it’s too late

“You do what you want, then,” spits Henrik, drawing away, eyes shining with tears. “But if he dies you’ll get to know you didn’t even try to help.”

He turns back to his little brother, leaning over the ledge to talk with him. Anti pants, closing his eyes. Trick moves forward to put a hand on his shoulder, ducking his worried head down to look at him, but Anti just takes his hand in his own and tries to think.

cest-mellow asked: quit being a piss baby, anti! let marvin out!

Anti grits his teeth and spares you one bitter glare before he turns to Trick, touching his cheek for a moment, and despite the pain and chaos in Trick’s head, the bond between them is still strong enough to soothe Anti.

“Look after me,” he requests coolly. “If anyone tries to hurt me, shoot them.”

Eyes wide, Trick nods.

Anti closes his eyes and slips out of the body.

hollenka99 asked: We can't give you the brothers you once knew, the ones Anti stole from you. I am so sorry that that was never in our power. I wish it could be. But there's still Trick and Dok. Dok is closer to Henrik than he has been in a while. Would you rather have him at this moment?

“Here I am,” whispers Henrik, leaning over the edge towards him. “Dapper, are you hallucinating? Can you hear me?”

“So many people yelling at me…”

“Nobody real, my darling,” says Henrik gently. “Just voices.”

“Just voices?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m your doctor, yes? Always tell my patients the truth. Dapper, it’s Henrik. So listen, have you had your medication this week?”

Dapper’s eyes cloud painfully and he bites down on his lip. “I… I don’t know, I’m so lost…”

“Do you trust me to tell you?”

“I… you’re really Henrik?”

“Enough of him,” he answers softly. “A part of him. You haven’t had your medication in more than two weeks, my little brother. That’s not good, is it?”

Dapper shakes his head numbly.

“Pretty ocean…”

“Stay with me, my brother, listen to doctor. You have not had your medication. So you are psychotic, uh-huh? What happens then?”

“I… get bad ideas in my head. And my thoughts jumble and sometimes I can’t move or can’t talk. And I see things that aren’t there. Believe things that aren’t true. Get depressed, feel bad, can’t focus, can’t stay calm. Act crazy. Paranoia.”

“Yeah,” says Dok softly. “So can we agree we are not in the best headspace to be making big decision, ja?”

Dapper whimpers softly, closing his eyes.

“Dapper? Can we agree on that?”

“Yes… but maybe this is my only chance…”

“Okay. Okay. Just stay with me.”

Anonymous asked: Blue, Marvin, are you awake? Do you know what's happening?

He feels like he’s slipping from one reality to another.

A painful darkness cocooned him like a womb, holding him taut in its grip as words and images flickered painfully down to him like dew pressing into his skin. White strings pulled at his wrists and legs and throat, leaving stinging pain across his skin, and what’s worse is the exhaustion, so heavy it makes him want to go back to the darkness, go back to the darkness, go back to the darkness and rest for as long as you can.

But he’s seen parts of today. He’s heard parts of today.

Henrik clutching his necklaces, glowing with a light Marvin suspects Anti cannot see. Trick dissolving against his brother’s body, trying to put the world Anti has broken inside of him back together. Dapper struggling, Dapper hand-cuffed, Dapper crying.

And Red, his Red, his Rojo, his Roser, not the same man he was two weeks ago. Blue can see it in his face. In his movements. In his eyes.

Do you know yourself better now, my brother? Did you come out of the water that was drowning you?

Red catches him in his arms as he stumbles, dropping the cane, and sensation rushes back to Blue so suddenly all he can do is lie against Red’s chest, holding on to a soft blue hoodie, breathing in the smell of him. Henrik is talking somewhere nearby, and a few feet away, Anti has collapsed.

“Blue?” whispers Red. “Azul?”

“Ro,” answers Blue softly, managing a smile for him even as he feels the trembling consume his whole body, leaving him so frail he’s not sure he can stand on his own.

“Oh,” cries Red, touching his hair. “My poor brother. We - we have to talk, but now…”

“Dapper.”

Right now, his brothers need him, and that - that is all that matters.

That is all that has ever mattered.

“What do I do, Blue? You were always so much better at this than me.”

“Help me up,” murmurs Blue. “Help me stand.”

Red pulls him back to his feet. Blue sets his shoes against the earth and closes his eyes.

“Okay,” he says, and he opens blue eyes and looks at you. “I’m ready. Let me talk to him.”

Anonymous asked: Dap just hold on. I know there's not much we can say to help, but please talk to your brothers, okay? They want you to be with them and they need you to be safe.

His feet shift against the dirt. He’s crying in earnest now, hard and steady, swallowed up between his confusion and his despair. He just wants this to be over.

Henrik’s smooth voice and familiar accent continue to fall down at him, murmuring reassurances. He doesn’t want Dok to blame himself for this. Dok is nice to him. Dok has always been good to him. Gentle. Held his hand. Faintly, Dapper recalls the sound of his laughter, the feeling of Henrik running his fingers through his hair, and a warm body laid beside his own on a mattress.

But he’ll only ever be a prisoner if Dapper can’t get free too. And he can’t do that. He can’t. He doesn’t think he can even start to hope.

“Stay with me,” a voice is saying, and it takes Dapper a moment to realize it’s not Henrik. “Hey, star, can you hear me?”

“Are you real?” he signs faintly.

“Yeah, I’m real. They’re right. We want you with us. We need you to be safe. We love you, Dap. Don’t make us lose you, okay? Are you going to at least talk to me?”

Dapper stares out at the water, breathing slowly, eyes wide.

“Dapper.”

“His real name,” offers Ro softly. “Is Jameson.”

“Jameson,” says Blue, gentle, quiet. “Can we talk for just a few minutes before you do anything?”

He manages a stiff nod, hiding in his bear. He wants someone to make some of this make sense.

He doesn’t want to do this. He just needs it to stop. He just needs everything to stop. No more. No more. He didn’t know being alive could hurt this badly. He sobs and someone touches his hair, stroking at his curls, reaching down to him.

“I’m going to come down there with you,” says Blue.

“What?” says Dok and Red together, but Blue is already getting up.

Anonymous asked: Blue, love, be careful okay?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” protests Ro, alarmed. “Hey, you shouldn’t put yourself in danger too. You’re really, um, kind of weak right now, Zul.”

“I’m not in danger,” says Blue, a little blunted from his long day of numbness, but still clear-headed enough to decide. “Because you’re going to keep me safe.”

He turns to look up at Ro even as he swings over the ledge, turning his back to the cliff, getting ready to slide down towards Dapper.

“Blue,” murmurs Red, nervous.

“You’re strong, Roser,” says Blue, holding out his hands to him. “You won’t let me fall. We’ll pull him back up soon as he’s ready. Right now he could fall even by accident. I need to be down there to hold him.”

“Are you sure? Blue, I… I…”

Blue looks up at him, worried. They don’t have much time for self-doubt.

“I left you behind,” croaks Ro, and his eyes water up and overflow. “I betrayed you.”

Blue reaches out his hands. Ro takes his wrist in shaky fingers.

“Rojo,” he says. “I forgive you.”

Red’s hands tighten around his wrist. His blue eyes, sharp as a bird’s, seem to burn with the sight of his twin. Red holds him tight. Blue knows he will not let them fall.

“There’s my big brother,” he says proudly, trying to find his smile. On shaking legs, he slips slightly down the side of the cliff face, trying to ignore the highway far below, and finds himself beside a shaking, miserable Dapper, close enough to touch him.

hurricael asked: Anti, stop. Get away from him. You're making it worse. Let Henrik help him, I think he's the closest to what Dapper needs.

“No, get me up, get me up, I have to see him,” chokes Anti, gripping at Trick’s shirt.

Trick is more concerned with the blood welling up in Anti’s stomach.

“Anti. Anti. Just rest.”

“My little brother, my little brother,” babbles Anti, running his fingers rapidly through Trick’s green hair as the stab wound in his chest begins to re-open, seeping blood out of him. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you act like you don’t care.”

“No, I do care!” cries Trick, holding him close, his eyes roving desperately between Anti and the edge of the cliff where his brothers are huddled. “I love Dap.”

“You never talk about us, you never come looking for us, you act like we never existed - ”

“Anti, Anti,” soothes Trick frantically, trying to keep pressure on his wound. “Sh, sh. You’re going to scare him worse. Let’s try to keep quiet and let them handle this.”

“I n-need to see him.”

“You have to leave it to them, Anti.”

“You never give me any relief, do you?” sobs Anti, pulling at his clothes. “Jack, please, just stop everything.”

“It’s Trick, Anti. It’s your Trick. Hold still cause you’re losing a lot of blood.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, back off. The best thing you can do for him is to give him space. You don't want him to fall, and we don't either. Let Dok or Trick get him off the edge, okay? Same for you, Red. I know you're worried, but you gotta give him space.

“Yeah, yeah. Just a little space, Anti. They won’t let him get hurt.”

Anti’s eyes roam desperately over his face, trying to make sense of the situation as blood runs out of him. He breathes shakily, letting Trick knock their heads together.

“He could, though,” chokes Anti. “He could. He’s had to reverse Trick killing himself and I couldn’t stop that, I couldn’t, I just had to have Dapper reverse it, if that happens now, I, I - I can’t - ”

“Focus on me, Anti. Focus on me.” Trick works on grounding him, listening close to what Dok and Red and Blue are saying, wishing he could hear Dapper too, just to know he was still there, still okay. His little brother. He wants to help, but this is the most helpful thing he can do right now.

Anonymous asked: No one's going to die, Anti. They're not going to get hurt.

“He can’t,” breathes Anti, nodding his head, and you watch his form begin to shape-shift uncertainly, like he’s trying to find some version of himself that isn’t there. “No one is, yeah, yes.”

He mumbles something in Irish Trick doesn’t understand and closes his eyes.

Anonymous asked: You’re doing great Trick, just keep Anti calm okay? The others are doing okay for now.

“Okay, okay, okay,” pants Trick, stroking his brother’s green - no, blue - no, brown - hair. “Yeah, just please tell me if you - I don’t know, if you need me for something. It’s going to be okay. I know w-what it’s like to be suicidal but he just needs someone to be there for him. To understand. Don’t let my little brother go.”

Anonymous asked: Dapper, what are you doing? Is there a reason for this?

Blue can hear the cars growling down the road far beneath them. The waves are silent and rocking, dark for the most part, with the edges of the waves ashine in scalding beach lights. The birds scatter across the sand. He reaches for Dapper’s hand, but his little brother draws his hand away, closing his eyes tight, working hard to keep breathing steady.

“Dapper,” calls Blue. “Do you know who I am?”

“Brother,” signs an anxious hand before reaching back to brace against the dirt of the cliffside. There’s someone peering up at them from the next level down of the pathway, but in the fading light they can’t be sure they’re seeing bodies, and eventually they keep walking. It’s just Blue and Dap on the side of the hill, side by side above the pavement and the water.

“Yeah, I’m your brother, your sibling. It’s Blue, my starlight. Tell me what’s going on. How clear is your head, scale of one to ten?”

“Three.”

“Do you know that we’re in danger?”

“Yes. Yes. I wanted to… I need to fall down…”

“Tell me what’s going on. Why do you think that? Gotta talk it through with big brother before we make that big of a decision, okay?”

“I can make my own decisions! You don’t know everything that I know!”

“Then talk to me!”

But the downside to discussion in this scenario is that Dapper’s hands have to leave their position against the cliffside and move in front of him. He swallows and leans back against the wall of the cliff, staring at Blue with frightened eyes.

“Let me just hold your collar,” suggests Blue, trying to keep his voice calm. “So we can talk and you won’t fall.”

“You’ll try to stop me!”

“I just want to talk. It’s Blue. I’m not going to hurt you. Can I grab your collar?”

He doesn’t wait for explicit permission - right now is one of the few times in his life Dapper’s consent takes a back burner. Blue reaches out and when his little brother doesn’t jerk back, he snatches the back of his shirt.

“Here I am,” he says, panting at the height, feeling slightly dizzy. Fuck, isn’t one of them scared of heights? “Here I am, love. Please don’t leave me behind. What happened? Why are you doing this?”

Tears flood over in Dapper’s eyes. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut, panting through gritted teeth.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore!” his hands cry, his feet shifting on the shaky earth. “Please don’t make me! I deserve to die, I keep hurting everyone around me. I’m just Anti’s weapon and I always will be. Let me go. You have to be able to fight together and I’m never going to be able to do that. Let me go, Blue. You’re supposed to look after me. It will be much nicer to be dead than to be locked up again. I’m so, so tired of living like this. I’m scared all the time. I’m ashamed of the person I am. Don’t you just want this to stop?”

Dapper’s eyes flash up to him, silver and blue and desperate and shining, and he sees, in the face of his brother, a mirror.

“I know what you mean,” croaks Blue, trying to smile at him. “But that doesn’t mean we’re giving up, my heart.”

Dapper whimpers and reaches out to try and touch his brother’s beard. The sand shifts again and Blue gasps, hanging for a moment only by the grip Red has on his left arm before finding his footing again.

cest-mellow asked: jameson, all five of you need to fight together in order to beat anti once and for all. they can’t do this without you, and i don’t think they want to, either.

“We don’t!” calls Ro, gripping tighter to Blue’s wrist, wishing he could grab Dapper too. “Dap, I know I haven’t always been the best brother to you. You have to give me a chance to change that. Dapper, JJ, I love you. I lost Max today. Don’t make me lose you too.”

“This isn’t your fault,” signs Dapper desperately. “Please don’t think that. I love you too but I can’t do this anymore!”

“Carver, you’ve been fighting longer than any of us.” Henrik is leaning halfway off the ledge himself, trying to find a way to get down there with him. “I just need you to hold on just a little longer. Just a little longer. My brother, for the first time in months I see light on the horizon. But I don’t want any future that doesn’t have my little brother with me. So rarely I get to see you, and yet whenever I do I know you are like a piece of me.”

“No more talking,” cries Dapper. “Please just let me go. I don’t want you to talk me out of this.”

Anonymous asked: Dapper, is it okay if you and Blue go back up to the ledge with Red and Dok? I'm worried that you both might slip and fall

“No, no.” Dapper wipes rapidly at his tear-streaked face. “No, Blue should go back up. I need to go.”

For a second his whole body jerks forward. Blue screams and grabs him back, barely keeping him from falling.

“Something’s touching me,” complains Dapper frantically. “Something is coming to hurt me!”

“You’re not on medication, please don’t do anything until your head is clearer, Dap!”

“I remember things I want to forget! Blue, I want to stop hurting people! I want to stop, I want to stop!”

“Who’s hurt?” protests Blue, shifting his grip lower on his shirt. “Who got hurt today?”

Dapper chokes and shakes his head, wiping at his face.

“Dapper, people are alive because of you, my darling. In Singapore, I know that was you… the cameras all knew what to tell us to do before we’d even got in the house. An innocent man lived because of you, my brother, and a nice girl too, a girl who was kind to Trick and I.”

“Max is alive because of you,” croaks Ro.

“You just don’t remember how horrible the things I’ve done in the past are,” cries Dapper.

“It doesn’t matter,” soothes Blue. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all done things we should never have done. You are still my family and I still know that your heart is good. Don’t you believe in forgiveness, Dapper?”

“Anti won’t even let me go to confession! I’m scared to go to h-hell.”

“I promise, you come back up on this ledge and I’ll make sure you get to go back to church, okay? Maybe not soon, but someday.”

spicydanhowell asked: do you think maybe... you guys should just pull him up? get some water and talk where it's safe?

“Blue can’t grab him like this, he’s only got one hand,” mumbles Ro. “He can maybe snatch him around the waist but I’m not sure if he’ll be able to hold him. He’s not very strong right now. But yes, absolutely if he gets the chance he should just grab him. Negotiation we can work on later - what’s most important is getting him safe.”

Anonymous asked: Keep yourselves honest, boys, and speak from the heart. Reach down and find all the love and humanity that's yours and show it to Jameson. He needs it.

“Hey, bruder?” croaks Henrik, reaching gently for him, managing to touch his hair. Dapper closes his eyes and lets him stroke his dirty, tired curls. “Hey, listen. I’ve been living a long time just hoping to keep myself and Trick alive. He’s the only thing I’ve lived for. But these last few weeks, I had time to be myself, time to think about my life and about other things. And I was free, for the first time in a long time. Not everything is fixed yet. But this time, just being free for a little white - I feel awakened again. I don’t want to die, Dapper. I don’t even want to live just for Trick’s sake. You have to give yourself a chance to be free for a little while before you decide this life has nothing worth surviving for left in it, my friend.”

“Dok,” whimpers Dapper. “I’m never getting free.”

“Don’t believe that,” he answers. “You are strong, my little brother, stronger than anyone I know, I think. I know, I know. You’ve been struggling and struggling. But you are not alone. I’m here, Dapper, and I’m tired too. I want to fight.”

Dapper’s eyes flicker and he turns his head up to look at him.

“To… you do?”

“Yeah,” whispers Henrik, nodding, his eyes shining.

“But… no, Dok, you’re good for Anti. You’re like me, we just have to endure it, we have to make the best. We know we’re never getting away.”

Dok shakes his head, biting down on his lip.

“I,” he begins, feeling frail and strong all at the same time. “I’m giving that up. I’m giving that hopelessness up. It’s kept me safe. But you know something, Dapper? It’s not enough. I want something else. I think, in secret, you want something else too. You’re courageous, Dapper, I know you are. Can you wager your heart one more time, and try to hope for something?”

Dapper stares out at the ocean, breathing shakily.

Anonymous asked: Dap, Anti made you do those things. Maybe not all of them directly, but had he not caught you i highly doubt you would have done them. You were someone who wouldn't do them before Anti. Your brothers are trying to get free of Anti, and they have a fighting chance. And they don't want to do it without you. You can't be blamed for what Anti made you do, and you deserve a chance to become someone who doesn't need to do things like that. You deserve a chance to heal, Dapper.

“Dok’s right,” calls Ro. “And they are too. Dap, none of us want to lose you. You don’t have to feel alone anymore.”

“You don’t want to fight.” Dapper shakes his head, tears sliding down his cheeks. Blue sidles slightly forward and manages to clutch his shoulders. “I see Anti in you all over again. Everything, this whole time we’ve had together, gone just like that. And I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t get you to England with somebody who loved you. You’re just Anti’s again.”

“I do still love Anti,” chokes Ro. “And you know what? I think you do too. But that doesn’t stop you from wanting something more than what he offers. That’s why you’re here, huh, buddy? I understand. Not everything is gone, Dapper. You… you saved Max for me. Even though it made you sick.”

“How do you even still remember him?”

“You told me to offer loyalty for Max,” says Ro, smiling wearily. “So I did.”

“Anti… Anti will strip him from your head soon enough. And me too, I bet. Or at least the parts of me he doesn’t want you to know about.”

“No,” answers Red, closing his eyes. “No. Even if I forgot… I won’t let go of this anymore - this knowing that there are better things in the world. This knowing that I love you, and that I have to protect you. Dapper, I’ve screwed up a couple times and I’m sorry, so, so sorry. But I have never - I have never stopped loving you.”

And Dapper remembers food smuggled to him from under his door and shouts from downstairs when he fainted, Christmas presents and arguments with Anti over his medication, even at the risk of Red’s own health. He closes his eyes, trying to breathe.

“And I don’t think you ever stopped loving me either. Some things don’t go away, Dapper. They just don’t.”

Cleaning the blood from his face. Sketches of a brother who felt a million miles away. A timeline where Jackie was happy, eating Starbursts in a house surrounded by big, beautiful trees.

“So don’t break my heart, bud. Please come up here. I swear to you I will always be your fighter. I will always be on your side. You are everything to me.”

Anonymous asked: I think Blue understands Jamie better than anyone right now.

“Listen, Dap.” Blue tries to scoot closer to him, but his little brother flinches and he draws back again, breathing nervously through his nose for a moment. “I… I thought about ending it, in that hospital with Anti looming over me and Trick losing himself while I watched. It felt hopeless. Actually, it kind of still does.”

“Oh, no, my Blue.” Immediately Dap’s fear seems to be replaced with concern, and Blue gives a shaky laugh as his little brother ends up being the one to scoot closer, reaching out to touch Blue’s cheek. “No, no, no, big brother.”

“Well, why do I not get to die, but you do?”

“I’m being selfish. I know that. I’m tired…”

“It’s not selfish, you’re just sick,” whispers Blue, reaching out to pull him slightly closer. “I am too. Dapper, the situation we’re in? It really, really fucking sucks, love.”

Dapper giggles weakly, his reddened eyes fixed on Blue.

“Yeah. It does.”

“Like, it sucks so much fucking dick, Dap. It’s the pits, it sucks. I know. And I wish it could just be done, but it can’t. Not yet. We gotta keep going.”

“Why, though, Blue? I don’t think I have the strength to keep fighting for something I don’t believe will ever happen.”

“Here’s something you can believe,” answers Blue softly, stepping forward, into his space. “I love you. Do you love me?”

Dapper cries quietly, touching his beard again. His eyes clear slightly as he looks at him.

“Yes, Blue,” he signs, clear and certain. “I love you.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” whispers Blue. “Stick around for me for just a little while longer, and I’ll stick around for you.”

“How… how much longer?”

“Let’s say a month,” says Blue, reaching out to wrap an arm around his waist. He smells coconut shampoo and the dry dirt of Peru and Dapper’s soft pertrichor scent. “A month, and then we’ll talk about dying, okay?”

It’s a lie. Blue would never encourage him to suicide. But Dapper needs firm ground to stand on in more ways than one right now. When he’s on medication, they can really talk. When he’s safe and not bleeding and isn’t rambling about having killed Trick within the past twenty-four hours, then they can really talk.

“You have to keep living for us,” murmurs Blue. “And one day start living for yourself again. Cause right now, none of us can lose you, Dapper. You gotta help me, baby. I’m sick right now. Not strong enough to survive losing you.”

“Love you,” swears Dapper, stroking his beard. “Don’t want you to die… but I… I don’t know… I’m scared.”

bupine asked: we've seen your brothers become the men they once were. i know they like to say they're dead and gone, but we've seen it ourselves. we've seen red become jackie when he's around max, seen blue become marvin when he recites poetry, and we've seen henrik reclaim his name entirely in the past week or so. you can be jameson jackson again, or even an entirely new man, if you like. you don't have to be who anti makes you. we'll always be here to remind you of who you are, if you think you dont know.

“Do you feel any calmer?” murmurs Blue, managing to hold him pretty close now. “You look so exhausted.”

“I might just fall asleep,” admit Dapper’s hands. “But yes, I… I feel calmer, much calmer, actually.”

He was really freaking out for a moment. Dok was right. He shouldn’t be making decisions while he’s that scared. But even now, there’s a deep void calling hungrily to him. He knows Blue is making good points! Everyone is! Logically, he should be able to clamber back up and start the road to recovery or whatever the fuck.

But it doesn’t feel like safety, in his brother’s arms. It just feels like getting ready for another fight.

“Can you reach out for Ro to pull you up?” asks Blue.

“No.” Dapper shakes his head quickly, ready to yank himself away. “No!”

“Okay, okay,” he whispers, trying to regain his shaky hold on him. “Okay, sh, sh. Can we listen to the cameras for a minute? That’s nice, right? You like the cameras. Aren’t they nice to us?”

“Yes,” admits Dapper shakily. “I like the cameras. Except the person who said, Anti, Dapper has a bird! And the one who said, Trick and Dok, Dapper keeps secrets from Anti.”

Blue manages to laugh, pressing their heads together. “A time traveler never forgets, huh?”

“And he never forgives,” vows Dapper, and he feels a little lighter when Blue laughs again.

“Dapper, listen to them. You can’t blame yourself for things like what you’ve done, not with the way Anti’s treated you your whole life.”

“I killed people you loved,” protests Dapper. “I watched Anti kill your… your cats, Blue, I…”

“Oh, baby,” murmurs Blue, his eyes watering. “Oh, baby. So much weight you gotta carry.” “Everyone else forgets,” mourns Dapper, closing his eyes. “But never me.”

“I love you no matter what you did, darling, I do.”

Anonymous asked: Marvin, maybe some information will help you out since you must be confused too: he's reversed several times already to keep Jackie's fiance from bring killed. He's safe now, but on the last reverse he killed Trick in order to go back and correct things again. He's muddled in timelines and riddled in guilt. It's years upon years of trauma, he even sent Jackie back a few years to get an idea of how powerful and out of it he's been the past couple weeks.

“What?” Blue stares at the camera, eyes wide. “Red’s fi - ”

His eyes dart up to Blue. Ro chokes on a sob and shrugs, trying to smile.

“Tell you all about him later,” he rasps.

“And you really did have to kill Trick, my heart? And - wait, a few years?”

Dapper all but leaps against his chest, terror striking across his face like the scar of a knife. He shakes his hands wildly, putting a finger to his lips, shaking his head, shaking his head, shaking his head -

“Okay, okay!” soothes Blue quickly, and in his gentle hug to wrap him close to his chest, he’s got him, he’s got him, he’s secure in his grasp. “Okay, I see, it’s a secret, it’s a secret. No one needs to know about a few years of time travel, huh? Okay, starling, it’s okay.”

Dapper shivers against his chest and buries his face in his shoulder. Blue looks up at Ro again. There is a silent, taut exchange between them. Ro nods, sharp and sure. Blue grips Dapper’s waist.

Anonymous asked: HANG IN THERE MARVIN!!! STAY STRONG!!!!

Blue lets go of Ro’s hand for just a moment, pushes his body back against the most stable outcropping to be found, and heaves himself up towards Ro. Dapper gasps, writhing to get out of his grip, but then Henrik and Ro are both grabbing him and Blue both. Ro’s strong hands snag his arm and wrap beneath his shoulder and he is heaved bodily back onto the pathway. Blue cries out for a moment of terror as his feet struggle to stay grounded, but Dok is there keeping him pinned against the face of the cliff until Ro is able to turn back and grab him too. Blue collapses against the concrete, groaning as his body seems to melt like a candle, all his strength leaving him and a wave of dizziness drowning his terror out.

“We got you,” he hears Ro swear, watching through his exhaustion as he turns to pin a struggling Dapper to his chest. “We got you, bud. I know, I know. I’m here.”

Anonymous asked: Red, you and Blue seem to have a plan? What do you intend to do?

“We got him, we got him,” Blue reassures himself, his eyes fluttering. He wonders if he’ll just pass out and spare himself the pain of whatever the rest of the evening will hold. “Ro - Ro, his little knife…”

Being pulled so suddenly up has terrified Dapper all over again and he’s panicking and thrashing against Red’s chest, sobbing and trying to get back over the ledge, but Red won’t let him go again. They both go scrambling for his knife at the same time, but Red is strong and determined while Dapper is trembling and sobbing, and he yanks the blade away from his little brother’s hands before he can do anything. Dapper makes a noise that always turns Ro’s blood cold and makes him shiver - the closest thing he can give to a real groan, sucking in air so hard it’s like he’s screaming.

“My knife, mine! My Christmas knife!”

“Dok, do you have anything to - ”

“I don’t have any medicine with me, I’m sorry. We just need to calm him down the best we can on our own.”

“Is he okay?” calls Trick, and Dok turns to smile shakily at his twin.

“It’s going to be okay now, Trick. Oh, goodness.”

Anti is more of an outline than a real form now, a flickering silhouette laid across Trick’s blood-stained lap.

Doktor hates that his first instinct is to help him. Fuck.

“Help with your brother,” Dok tells Trick, moving to Anti’s side and kneeling. “I will hold the wound closed.”

Anonymous asked: Jameson you're so much more than what you seem. You lose clarity now and then, you slip into roles you don't like and your conscience weighs heavily on you. But you're kind and funny, you have your own hard-headed opinions, your incredibly introspective and many of the times I've spoken to you, for better or worse you've always managed to show me a side of you I'd never seen before or presented an ideology I've never thought about. There's a path and future ahead of you, please take it

“Yeah, yeah,” breathes Red against his sobbing brother’s head. “They’re right, ha, you… you are like that, always thinking about shit that would probably go right over most people’s heads. You are funny, too, do you know that? I never expect it but then you really make me laugh. Opinionated, that’s why you and Dok seem to get along so well if you ask me. And you are kind… I don’t know how anyone could… could be forced to do some of the things you’ve done and still come out of the other side loving and caring and risking your heart for other people.”

Dapper’s head falls back against his shoulder as he cries.

“You can find yourself again, Dap. You can be a new person, one you’re not ashamed of. And I know I’ll like that person. I like you. I know how often you get lost. We just want to help you get found again, JJ.”

pixie-in-trebleland asked: Dapper, Jameson, honey, they love you. They all love you so much. Hang in there, okay?

Trick races to Ro’s side to kneel down with him and Dapper, reaching forward to take his little brother’s grey, terrified face into his hands.

“We do love you, we do,” he promises, putting Dapper’s hand to his chest. “Here I am. Here I am. I understand, man, I do. I do. But it’s going to get better soon. I swear. Okay? Just need you to hold on for us. You’re going to be glad they snatched you up some day, okay? I know.”

Dapper quiets slightly, whimpering, pressing his fingers to Trick’s chest. There, his heartbeat. His unpierced skin and living pulse. He’s not dead. He’s here. Dapper shivers and closes his eyes.

Anonymous asked: JJ you can't keep shouldering all this guilt. Your may not agree right now, but you deserve forgiveness from yourself. It won't come all at once but you can see least give yourself another chance right? Don't settle with Anti and the role he's given you. Settle with yourself and whoever you become from here.

“Everything came crashing down on you today,” murmurs Ro, rubbing his back. “Yeah?”

“Yeah… yeah. I usually remember bits and pieces, or I feel bad about just a couple things, or I at least know that Anti will make the bad feelings go away, but today - and I got so, so confused, Red, I didn’t know what to do… I just… please… make this all stop.”

“I can’t give you everything you need right now,” confesses Red. “But I can keep you safe and healthy. And soon, your medicine will kick in, and honestly just that will make this all a hundred times better, right?”

“That… that does help. I’m really twitching, Red.”

“You are.” Ro strokes his jumping jaw. “Does a number on your head, right?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Can you promise not to try anything dangerous until we’ve got your episodes under control?”

Dapper sniffs and rubs his eyes, turning back to the cliffside for a moment.

He should be glad he’s safe, but there’s little relief to it. He’s gotta keep going. He’s gotta keep fighting. And the truth is, that as much as Blue is right, that this sucks, it sucks ass - the times he’s had before this one were even worse, and he’s had to survive, survive, survive them all, survive things still a hundred times worse than what you’ve been with him for.

But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

He’s so fucking tired.

But he’s not alone. He’s not alone like he was back then. And he has more to lose, now that he can see the old souls of these ghosts growing stronger and stronger - but that’s also more to fight for.

And Dok is right. Dok was right. He shouldn’t be making decisions while he’s psychotic and sick and he’s just had a day this horrible. He needs sleep and food and medicine. He needs to let his mind settle and his body rest. He needs a hug.

“Okay,” knock his exhausted hands. “Okay, Red.”

The ocean shines its lovely light at him one more time, the whole of the water swimming with sirens.

Then Trick is there, babbling his relief and his joy and his love, engulfing Dapper in a hug so tight even Red gets squished, and Trick’s shoulder soaks with salt water, and Dapper is warm and safe and loved between them. His brothers. His family. He can hear their heartbeats.

bupine asked: dap, listen to us. none of you deserve to die. you've been abused your whole life, and the constant abuse of both your mind and body is absolutely going to take a toll on you. but i can guarantee it's not always like this. people can recover from things like this, even you. i know you might find it so hard to believe that, and i'm so sorry that it's been put in your head that you can't. but you are human and this isn't your fault. you've always just been trying to survive, like any human would.

Red and Trick are twin reassurances in his ears.

“You’ve been through too much. It wasn’t your fault. I know how hard you must have fought. My fierce little brother.”

“There’s my Dap, I’m so fucking glad you’re okay. Fuck, man, I know it seems impossible right now, but you gotta trust me. I’ve been there and things will get better. I promise, I promise.”

“I’m sorry this happened at all. I’m sorry you had to fight at all. Forgive me for all the times I didn’t protect you. I will. I swear. I’ll always protect you, with my life.”

“You’re just human, Dap. We’ve all fucked up. Dap, I’ve done horrible things. You don’t hold it against me, do you? You have to see yourself that same way. We just gotta try to keep being better people.”

“You’re a survivor. You had to be. I love you.”

“You were so tough today, you were so strong. I’m so proud of you. I love you, Dap. I love you.”

Anonymous asked: Blue, you doing alright?

“Alright might not be my word of choice,” mumbles Blue, managing to draw himself sitting up. His face is as white as his hair and despite the slight humor of his words, he can’t muster any matching amusement for his voice. He stares blankly at the ground and for a second you think he’s fainted, but he bites down on his lip and draws himself a little straighter.

“Can you tell me where my cane is?” he coughs, his hands patting along the ground. “I can see mostly okay in the daytime, but the sun’s setting over the ocean.”

She is. In orange and red and pink and yellow, glowing over the cold, endless water. She’s going down. The day is ending.

“I’ll help,” calls Dok before you can answer. “Here I come, Blue.”

He finishes a skillfully tied bandaid made of a strip of his coat, pausing to check that it’s as secure as it can be around Anti’s somewhat tangible, somewhat intangible form. He sees Anti’s eyes - brown now, brown and soft and reddened - look up at him from a deep exhaustion.

“Going to… have to put you back in your place,” mumbles Anti. “You… you… Dok, my Dok… traitor.”

Dok stares down at him.

How pitiful he seems.

“I know you’re just saying that because you’re scared,” he answers wearily. “You lost control and you need it back. So you can hurt me if you want. I won’t go, Anti. I’ll be here with my family. Don’t die, little brother. I am not yet ready to lose you.”

Anti groans and reaches up to touch him. His fingers drift down Henrik’s soft hair.

“When did you find your courage?” he repeats, in a voice very small, and in his eyes Henrik recalls the words Emmanuela spoke to him: Moment to moment, perhaps he truly loved you.

But for the most part, you were only a pawn.

Henrik knows - yes, Henrik knows, and he always will - that Anti is a monster. But he is Henrik’s monster, and he has been for months, for months, for months and Henrik loved him no matter what he did. He was good for him. He was. Even on the days Anti was cruelest, Henrik looked him in the eyes and told him what he thought he needed to hear. The thought of turning against him is a bitter poison, but Henrik will take it. Henrik has chosen to take it.

Just not tonight. Not tonight. Tonight, they all just need rest and safety.

Henrik sighs and leans down to kiss Anti gently on the cheek. Anti shivers and his fingers curl around his hair.

“Try to stop being terrible for five minutes and lie still,” he advises. He gets up and hurries to Blue’s side, bringing his cane with him.

Anonymous asked: Trick, how are you doing? I remember you being upset or something but I can't remember if that was last time or this one

Trick bites down hard on his lip and shakes his head at you quickly, putting a hand to his head for a second and trying to breathe. Red looks up at him and nudges his knee, worried.

“Yes, I’m - I’m pretty shaken up,” he admits. “When I saw Dok it was like a dam broke, and now there’s all this shit in my head that I know doesn’t make sense, but it still… feels true? But it’s not? And I have memories in fragments - but listen, I think Dap’s going through the same thing, but even worse, huh? So we can focus on him. I want to focus on you to distract me, okay? We’ll keep each other put together.”

He clings to Dap’s hand, tears dripping down his cheeks. The thought of Xin Yi, shattered into pieces as it is, haunts him. He doesn’t know what he would do if Anti had made him kill her. Anti really did make him a crueler person. Is that what he does? Blocks everything out?

He shakes his head and squeezes Dapper’s hand tighter. When it’s just him and Dok and everyone is okay, he’ll be able to work on processing some of this. Not now.

Anonymous asked: It’s okay to be scared Dap, but you’re not alone anymore. Sometimes when we get tired of pulling our own weight be have to trust others to lift us back up and help carry us forward. Right now you can put that trust in Blue and the rest of your brothers, okay?

“I am tired,” he admits, rubbing at his face, slumped back against Red’s chest. “I am tired. I am. I can’t hold myself up right now.”

“I’ll hold you up,” swears Red, hugging him to his chest. “All of us will. No matter what happens. No matter what you’ve done.”

“Yes, without question,” promises Trick. “That’s what a family is, Dap. We’ve all kept each other floating before.”

“It’s a shaky little lifeboat,” agrees Henrik, coming to kneel down with them, bringing Blue with him. “But it’s ours and we’re going to help each other keep going til we find land.”

“Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat,” whispers Blue, leaning in to kiss Dapper’s soft hair. Tagore-Thakur, the culturalist, the quiet fighter. “Free as waves, free from all bondage of words. Is the time not come yet? Are there works still left to do? Lo, the evening has come down upon the shore and in the fading light the seabirds come flying to their nests. Who knows when the chains will be off, and the boat, like the last glimmer of sunset, vanish into the night?”

Dapper opens his eyes to hear his poetry, his brothers all close around him, and he sees the soft light of the sun drifting away.

She comes back in the morning though.

A new day is coming for them. Dapper holds onto his brothers, his heart quieting in his aching chest, brushing the last of tonight’s tears way.

Anonymous asked: Okay, got it Trick. Dap, how are you doing?

“Been better,” he whispers, closing his eyes.

“Just rest,” murmurs Dok. “Soon, it won’t be so painful.”

“Swear to me?”

“On my life. On my life.”

“No, not on that,” pleads Dapper. “Not on that.”

Dok smiles softly at him. Looks up at the rest of his brothers.

“I promise,” he says. “I swear. Soon, it won’t be so painful. A little time. That’s all I need.”

“One more time,” answers Ro distantly, almost too deep under Anti’s influence to understand what the words mean - but not quite. “One more time. Can we do this one more time? Fight one more time? Survive one more time?”

“For you,” answers Blue, meeting his gaze.

“For all of you,” agrees Trick, entangling his hand with Dok’s.

bupine asked: you're doing amazing, jameson. you've definitely made the right choice, and we'll make sure you don't regret it.

Dapper closes his eyes.

A hundred thoughts in his head. A hundred waves of discord. A hundred aches, a hundred sins, a hundred confusions, and a handful of brothers.

A couple voices from small, familiar cameras, too. You’re sitting somewhere in the middle of them, strewn across someone’s lap, white fingers holding you so you do not fall.

“You did make the right choice,” murmurs Trick. “Dapper. I love you.”

“Yeah,” mumbles Dok, slumping slightly down onto his twin’s shoulder. “I love you too.”

“Don’t leave me out of that, I love you all way better than you love each other,” adds Red.

“Oh, fuck you, Roser, loving you all is my job. I love all of you.”

“But I think we can agree that littlest brother is supposed to be everybody’s most loved, right?” offers Dapper, and he hears their laughter around them, hooking his exhausted arms around Blue and Red, pulling them close to him. “I love you.”

The air flickers slightly and they turn to see Anti pulling himself to his feet, staring at them with something haunted in his eyes.

They fall silent, holding each other on the pathway, the pathway to the cliff that rises like a monument before them, entangled in each other despite the fact that all of them find themselves disagreeing about how exactly Anti does or does not fit into their family. Trick still loves him. Ro is a loyalist with doubts. Dapper is two halves, torn. Dok, with every moment, prepares himself for a fight. And Blue, for his part, would sell him to Satan for a packet of crisps and a spare lemon grater.

Anti hears himself laugh.

He lost all control tonight.

“Get up,” he tells them, his voice rough and weary. “Red. I need a body.”

“No,” cries Blue, but he doesn’t have the strength to stand. Ro touches his shoulder to tell him it’s alright and rises to his feet, smiling sadly at Anti.

“Let’s go, then.” He holds out his arms and Anti does not hesitate. Trick rises to catch their body before they can crash to the earth. Anti’s eyes flicker open.

Red obeyed him and the body slakes his weakness and pain. A little more control. A little back.

He’ll get it all back, soon enough.

He’s tired of games. He’s tired of giving them chances. Something is broken in his system. Something is broken in the way he treats them.

Things have to change.

“Can you walk?” he asks, turning to Blue and Dapper. Blue’s glare burns holes into the ground. Dapper looks up at him with something despairing returning to his face. “Well?”

“No,” croaks Blue, gritting his teeth hatefully.

“Dapper?”

“Maybe,” answers his youngest, managing to rise. “So tired, Anti.”

“Come here, baby.”

“No,” Dok cuts him off, rising beside him. “No. Tonight you let us look after him.”

Anti sees a fight in his eyes and knows he doesn’t have the standing to oppose him. He backs off, eyes burning, and Dapper hides against Dok’s chest, his brother’s arm wrapping around him, his fingers plucking the ravens on his breast.

Anti throws a knife. Dok shrieks as it tears through the side of his neck, sending a stream of blood down his throat, though it doesn’t cut anything important.

“Anti!” screams Blue. “Leave him alone!”

“That’s the first of a great deal of blood you’ll spill for those birds you’re wearing,” hisses Anti. “I don’t need mind control to snap you back into pieces, stupid boy. You’ll pay for every moment of rebellion you’ve given me tonight.”

“Make me pay, then,” laughs Henrik, wrapping his hands around the wound on his throat, his eyes burning with tears and with fury. “Because guess what, Anti? This is the start of a fucking war, even if you don’t want to admit it. And it won’t be long now.”

“Before what?”

And Henrik, Henrik the doctor, Henrik who fixes hearts - Henrik steps right into his space and looks into his eyes.

“Before I’m ready to kill you, little brother,” he answers. “For everything you have done to my family.”

Anti feels his blood burn as he hears Blue’s words echo in his little brother’s. He turns his eyes to the broken magician himself and, simmering in eyes a little too blue to be human, he sees a great and endless hatred.

I will kill you for what you have done to my family.

Anti leans back, turning his eyes back to Henrik, gesturing for Trick to come to his side. The gunman answers immediately, darting forward to hold his hand, though his terrified eyes are fixed on his bleeding twin.

“Well, then,” says Anti, his hand gripped in Trick’s, wearing Red’s body like an outfit. He throws the blue hoodie off his shoulders and leaves it lying in the dust, turning his back to Blue and Dok.

“To war.”

Anonymous asked: Henrik, I was planning on telling Trick a big truth thing that might shake him up more, but when he was a bit more stable and stuff. You would want me to not to that now, right? Or should I tell him anyway?

“Oh, I don’t know,” murmurs Henrik, holding you in his pocket as they get up and begin to walk. He’s supporting Blue on his arm and trying to watch Dapper at the same time. “If you have something to say, be quick, you know Anti always seems to turn you off when we’re moving around, to keep you in the dark. It may be some time before we see each other again, my friends.

“I would say, though - Trick knows many truths, but still he is loyal to Anti. If you have something powerful, you might save it for a day when he is truly shaken, and we need him with us more than ever. Or leave him to chew on it for now. It’s your call.”

Anonymous asked: Oh no, please hen can you grab that blue hoodie? Max got it for Ro and I think he’d really appreciate still having it.

Henrik obeys, leaning down to pick it up, lovingly brushing the pale dirt from its soft back. Blue tries to stay awake, listing against him as he rises, and Dok wraps it gently around his shoulders, letting him breathe in the smell of the twin he has not had the chance to speak with for weeks now.

“Thank you,” murmurs Blue.

“Yes,” answers Dok quietly.

cest-mellow asked: henrik, we’re all here for you in this fight. we just have to get trick and maybe a little bit of red on our side and you guys can get out of this for good. antis gonna pay for everything hes done and he’ll deserve it.

Henrik smiles, but even grim does not describe the way it curves - grief and fear and hurt all war together in the slant of his pale lips. He wants to agree with you, to rally himself and his allies, to be strong - but he knows what all of this will mean for himself and the others, and, in the end, all he can do is take as much comfort as he can in your words and hold tighter to Blue beside him. His older brother’s head presses against his own.

“You’re yourself,” whispers Blue.

“Enough of myself,” Henrik whispers back, turning to give him that same mourner’s smile.

“I’m with you,” says Blue, and these words seem to matter more than the light of the sun. His trembling hands close around Henrik’s. “I’m with you, my courage.”

Reunited at last, arm in arm, they exchange one last look, and follow their family into the night.

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

Trick steps slowly through the aisles, feet padding on the mundane blue carpeting beneath his shoes as he makes his way back to his seat. He passes quietly by Blue and Dok with Dapper in between them. His twin looks up at him for a moment and Trick lets his fingers brush across Dok’s, though he does not disturb him - all three of them are curled in on each other, deep asleep, bandaged and cleaned of blood.

Trick sits down beside Anti, and for a long moment there’s just you and him and the view of the black night sky outside the little oval window. Eventually a jolt of turbulence jostles Anti and he shifts, rubbing at his eyes, interrupted from a light, anxious sleep, dreaming of Emmanuela’s burning light and despairing blue eyes and the body of an animal trapping him within its writhing musculature and stiff snapping bones.

“You okay?” whispers Trick.

“Mmh,” mumbles Anti, shaking the sleep off of Red’s body, rubbing at his eyes.

“Need anything?”

“If the stewardess comes by get me orange soda,” mumbles Anti. “He hates other fizzy drinks and this brain flips out about bad sensations.”

“I can’t believe you know that,” chuckles Trick, lying his head down against Anti’s shoulder.

The black night sky and the dark ocean below them.

“Where are we going?” asks Trick.

“Somewhere nice,” sighs Anti. “For Dap to recover. And maybe… there’s someone who might help me there.”

“Okay, Anti.”

He doesn’t need specifics. He trusts him.

Anti strokes Trick’s hair until he is half-asleep against him, nuzzled into Red’s shirt.

“Trick?” murmurs Anti.

“Anti,” he mumbles back.

“You’re on my side, aren’t you?”

Trick looks up at him, his chest aching. He doesn’t want there to have to be sides in his family - just Blue and Anti fighting was bad enough. But he understands.

“Yes,” he says, hiding against his shoulder. “Of course. I’m on your side, Anti.”

Come to think of it, was it really Blue and Anti fighting? It wasn’t… a disagreement, now that he thinks about it. Didn’t Anti hit Blue? Was that Anti? Can it have been?

“Trick,” says Anti. “Those magicians really got into Dok’s head.”

His poor twin. His poor confused twin. Trick sniffles and nods.

“And Blue is still… hurting.”

“Yeah,” mourns Trick.

“I’m going to put everyone back in their places,” promises Anti, curling his fingers through his hair. “But Trick, sometimes I might seem cruel. I might seem mean to them. I might seem like a little fucking tyrant. But I just want to keep our family together. You know that, right?”

Trick looks up at him.

Memories flicker back to him, all of them shaky and shattered, all of them painful. Blue’s nose purples with bruising, his breaths shallow as he sleeps at Trick’s side. Trick sits in a soft, small bed and listens through the door of the room for any word from Dok on the other side of the house. He swallows too many painkillers. His head connects with the floor of the kitchen and his cheek stings.

He… he knows.

But he doesn’t understand.

Not anymore. Not right now.

Dok’s face awakened something he’s been trying to forget.

“Yes,” he says, because he loves Anti, and he doesn’t want cruel things to be true. “Yes, I know.”

He manages a smile for him. The relief in Anti’s flickering eyes is worth anything. Trick settles back down on his shoulder, contented, breathing in the smell of him. Red’s body and Blue’s magic and Anti, Anti, Anti.

“Going to take you somewhere nice,” murmurs Anti.

“Okay,” says Trick, listening to his heartbeat and trying to soothe his own. “Okay.”

He just has to trust Anti. He just has to trust Anti and everything will be alright.

Right?

Anti falls asleep beside him. The stewardess comes by. Trick asks for an orange soda - an orange soda and a rum and coke. He does not sleep.

“Oh,” he says after a couple minutes, laughing at himself. “I forgot about the camera on my jacket, haha.”

He turns you off.

End Section Twelve of Chapter Three: Is the Time Not Come Yet?

End Chapter Three: Remembered Things

[sibyl-of-space]

no one asked but im fuckin emo about relationships and communities online in 2020 so im going to go on a rambling essay like only someone with unmedicated ADHD can

When I turned 13 I was allowed to have My Own Computer With Internet in my room. The first thing I did was find and join an online forum about video games (this was early 2000′s, forums were a thing). I made over 100 posts my first DAY because I was so excited to talk to other people who liked video games and stuff and could talk about how actually I learned in biology that one of the ocarina of time bosses being a giant single-celled amoeba is unscientific.

Like, before I was allowed to be On The Internet TM, I talked to friends at school about video games by forcing my 3 friends to play the games I wanted to talk about, and then we would talk about them. And even once I joined these online spaces, it was totally different because everyone got to kind of just pick their own name and their own image to represent them so it was like a totally different, separate life.

Growing up, having these online communities where I had a sort of anonymity but still could interact with and meet people and form really close relationships, in addition to niche IRL friendships, was really important. I didn’t really have a lot of drama in IRL friend groups but boy there was forum drama and I feel like I got a lot of exposure to social interactions and stuff that way. I feel like I got the Authentic Teen Experience TM more online than in person.

(My first relationship was an online relationship with someone I met on this forum. Not to entirely derail, but it started out as a ‘joke’ and we pretended to be dating, and I have like insanely long AIM chat logs of the whole event to prove it.)

Anyway, I think I would be having an easier time with this if the forum had just gone under 10 years ago like all the rest of them did, but it has kind of been on life support this whole time and is still alive, and I’m having a LOT of feelings about it.

I really don’t want to talk about details here, I kind of don’t even care about them anymore, it’s just sad that this forum more exists as an animated corpse of what once was that a lot of us old farts still log onto every now and then, but there’s no real effort or desire to re-invest into trying to keep it alive or fresh and live on as a space new people might want to come to. I’m a mod of one of the sub-forums because I was modded 10 years ago and there’s no one to replace me. And now we are at a place where a known racist asshole is possibly going to be banned and somehow that is a line some people are mad we might cross.

At this point, I am tempted to just log off and never log back on again. I would be legitimately interested if there was a desire to re-invest in this community and make it welcoming to people who might stumble across it seeking refuge from all the huge corporate viral social media sites; somewhere they could call home if they managed to come across it and want to make an account. I’d be willing to put in the work to help draft new community guidelines, assist with elections or appointments for new mods, whatever it might take to make it feel like the place belongs to anyone who wants to be there.

But as it stands now, the only mods are people who were modded 10 years ago, the newest new member joined 2 years ago, and almost no one wants to start any topics that touch anything serious because some dickwad is gonna come in and talk about how actually SJWs are ruining america or some shit.

I don’t like feeling like a part of this site that sort of just exists as a nod to some heyday from like 15+ years ago. I’m ready to let it go, but I would rather either pull the plug on it or try to make significant changes so it has a chance to be a refuge to someone else. As it is now, it just seems kind of sad.

I’m DOUBLE emo about it because I am really really frustrated by the fact that in 2020 it seems like there is NO way to engage with people that isn’t being filtered by corporate-owned social media platforms, and they are less interested in helping people form healthy relationships and more interested in what can go viral and make them more money.

I can’t imagine being a teen right now trying to form friendships in this landscape. I had hoped to make an effort to go back to this small forum this past year to kind of get that small niche interaction but.. well, you know, now This. I’m just frustrated all around.

I still have a few outlets. I live with my roommate of like 10 years, I have a girlfriend (who lives in texas RIP), I have made a lot of friends in the Tales of Symphonia speedrun community and a few from cosplay, I have a couple IRL friend circles. But... I don’t know; I am missing this kind of purely online, niche community. And maybe that’s fine and they just don’t exist anymore, but that was such a huge part of my social sphere growing up that I don’t really know how to make up for that now?

I miss doodling some amateurish fanart, posting it on DeviantArt as a host and then putting it on this forum where like 2-3 friends who were also amateurish artists would comment on how nice the shading was and post their own art in their own art threads. Now it feels like, okay I can put it on twitter or wherever but I’m competing with professionals who do this for a living.

I need to find new communities that are healthy for me, and I am trying to grapple with the fact that it definitely will look different from how it did in 2006, but that’s okay if I can still meet people and grow from it.

[EDIT: I did try the fandom discord server thing but wew... man any server with overlike 50 people in it just turns into the equivalent of a subreddit real fast. I dunno. If your sole engagement with these people is about how much you both like X thing, it stops being meaningful pretty fast I think? Maybe I’m just being old and grouchy. But I’ve left or muted virtually every fandom specific discord I’m in. The only ones I’m active on are the Tales Speedrun discord and uhhhh... hm that’s about it.]

[wifeymomz]

PREGGO JOURNEY

We were instructed to take a pregnancy test 2 weeks after our insemination. Wifey was working the midnight shift, so she was on her way home. I woke up and had to use the restroom already so I couldn’t wait. I took the pregnancy test with wifey on the speaker and after a minute it had the + sign which meant we were pregnant!!! i screamed and started crying (of course). We couldn’t believe it! Was the test correct? Were we really pregnant? It was a Friday, so I couldn’t go into the lab until Monday where they would draw blood and check my HCG levels to confirm that I was pregnant. I can’t remember, but I believe I had to do this blood draw twice to make sure that the HCG levels were increasing, which they were!!! Looking back I wish we had told our parents in a special way, but we just called them to let them know we were pregnant. Of course both sides were excited since this would be their first grandchild. On a side note, this was new for both sides of our families so had to educate everyone on the process of how we got pregnant.

FIRST TRIMESTER: morning sickness/nausea galore! I was at work and I was craving french fries. One of my coworkers surprised me with McDonalds french fries (my fave at the time). For lunch, I had chicken and broccoli that I had warmed up. The smell of the broccoli started to make me feel nauseous which it normally didn’t so I couldn’t eat it. I started eating the fries which were delicious. We had a OT followed by a rehab meeting that afternoon and I drove to our other center in East Oakland. When I got there, I felt so nauseous I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Every time, I sat down and thought I was okay I ended up running to the bathroom several times to throw up. Unfortunately, this was how I let our rehab team know the news. For weeks, I relied on saltine crackers, ginger tea and ginger chews. I had them next to the bed, in the car and at work. Every morning, I ate a few saltine crackers to decrease my chance of getting nauseous which helped 50% of the time. I had to call off of work more often that I wanted. We had our 12 week appointment where we would have an ultrasound of the baby. To be honest, I was beyond nervous for this appointment because I had a few friends that had this appointment where they couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. I always try to stay positive but also didn’t want to be disappointed if I had my hopes too high. Wifey and I went to this appointment and there was the baby! Our eyes watered as we looked at each other and the ultrasound. I had to take the glucose test (where you drink that sugary drink) to determine if I was diabetic since diabetes runs in my family. Luckily I got the results back and they were within normal limits. We shared the news with the rest of our families and friends during Thanksgiving. During this time, I mostly craved soups and spicy food plus it worked out since it was the fall/winter season.

SECOND TRIMESTER: nausea & horrible headaches continued until 20 weeks then all of a sudden it disappeared. I’ll never forget we had a thanksgiving potluck at work and all the smells made me nauseous. I tried to eat a little bit but I had such a horrible headache. I took tylenol and ended throwing it up. It was the end of the day and I still had to drive home in 45 minutes of traffic. I felt fine until I was 15 minutes from home and felt like throwing up. I found a plastic bag in my lunch bag and threw up while I was driving (should’ve pulled over). Then I realized the bag had a hole and stuffed the bag in a ziplock bag. What a mess. I almost made it home but had to throw up more and it ended up all over my lap (yuck). I tried calling wifey but she didn’t answer. I got into the house so pissed from embarrassment that I took ti out on her. She asked how i was doing and I screamed…DON’T LOOK AT ME. To this day, we both still laugh about it. I went straight to the shower and washed off. At our 20 week appointment, this is where we went in not only to find out the gender but where they look at the anatomy of the baby. Gosh this appointment was so uncomfortable because they had to poke and prod at different areas of my abdomen and try to make baby move to change positions. At one point, they asked me to use the restroom to see if that would help the baby move. Thank goodness it worked. She put the results in an envelope for us to give to my cousin, Lyss, for our gender reveal. Honestly, I would've waited until birth to find out baby’s gender but of course wifey wanted to know beforehand. The whole time everyone kept telling me I was having a boy, so I started to believe that. I asked wifey if she cared what we were having and she said no. We had picked out names beforehand for a boy and a girl. We waited until March to do our gender reveal just based on when my in-laws were back in town and the availability of the community room we wanted to reserve. Finally, March 7th came around and we found out we were having a girl. Bless my cousin, Lyss, who held onto this secret for so long!!!

At one of my appointments, I had to do the blood glucose test again which i think is pretty standard. The results showed that my blood glucose was slightly elevated! Wahhhh! That meant I had to do the 3 hour glucose test at the lab. I had to fast beforehand then had my blood drawn and at the one-, two-, and three-hour marks after I drank that sugary drink. It was torture being pregnant and hungry!  was already hungry to begin with because I had to fast then wait another 3 hours before I could eat while drinking those sugary drinks. I definitely didn’t feel good that’s for sure. After the test, I drove straight to Chipotle and got a burrito bowl and devoured it!  The results came back and one of my values were elevated so they referred me to a dietician. We reviewed that I should eat more protein and less carbs because carbs equals sugar.

Side note: One of my close friends gave birth around this time and told me her birth story and let’s just say it got me thinking.  Up until this point, I wasn’t sure what our birth plan would be but it made me think that I didn’t want the epidural and wanted to do unmedicated…

THIRD TRIMESTER

We went on our baby moon in Hawaii at 32 weeks. Flight was slightly tough since I couldn’t sit for long periods of time and needed to get up to either use the restroom or walk up and down the aisle. We definitely enjoyed ourselves by eating all the food and lounging at the beach (our favorite).This trimester, I was definitely bigger and more swollen especially in my hands and feet. I had to use a reacher to reach for clothes in the washing machine and wear compression stockings which were so hard to put on. I was still pretty active overall…walked everywhere, a little slower of course, and still did things around the house. Wifey would say, you’re so active, sometimes I forget you're pregnant haha. This trimester prepares you for a life of no sleep because I would try to find a comfortable position, then had to go to the bathroom multiple times then have a hard time falling asleep again. Plus this is when baby girl was the most active, kicking and rolling around in my tummy. To be honest, that’s the part I miss the most is feeling her movement inside me. Wifey loved it when she could feel baby girl kick and move; she’d always sing and play the ukulele for her and read to her.

Luckily Kaiser offered classes for free so of course I took all of them from breastfeeding to postpartum care to birth preparation (where they discussed the different options for pain management). At this point, I was set on an unmedicated birth. I didn’t want the epidural because I wanted to be able to move around when I needed to and I didn’t want the other pain medications because I didn’t want it to cross the placenta and affect the baby, but they did discuss nitrous oxide which was a gas that I might consider. They had us practice various positions and strategies to manage the contractions too. I remember they had us put a clothespin on the skin of our forearm and try to breath through the discomfort for one minute. At home, we practiced with an ice cube (a tip I got from someone on facebook). I would hold the ice cube in my hand for one minute while trying to breathe and wifey would try the different positions we learned in class. I also did a tour of the hospital twice (Kaiser Walnut Creek)…once with my MIL because they had the midwives present for Q&A since and she was available to come with me and another time with wifey when she had a day off. During this tour, they showed us “room 7” which was the only room with a tub. They had mentioned it is first come first serve and women with unmedicated birth plans take priority. Luckily at this hospital, the midwives are assigned unless the birthing person prefers not to have a midwife or they have complications that require an OB. Our ultimate goal: have a midwife and be in room 7

I took the month off before babygirl’s due date to be at home, rest (I was getting much more tired from the commute to and from work and hated being in the car that long), nest (get everything ready) and spend time with wifey since it would be our last month of just the two of us.

[loreleious]

Quetiapine

There isn’t a lot of information surrounding the medication that is Quetiapine. Since being on this anti-psychotic medication for almost a year now, I thought to make a post on it and the advantages and the disadvantages along with the dangers of doing what so many of us do- stopping our medication without consulting our psychiatrists and/or GP.

Before continuing to read this post I just want to make you aware that I am not a health professional and that I have had very little experience with medication (10 months is not a long time at all) and neither have I have been given an official diagnosis (not yet anyway). All views stated here are completely from my own experiences.

I started taking medication when i was twenty-one years old. I began on Aripiprazole and this medication worsened my symptoms. Needless to say that I did acquire a few hamsters, tattoos, and a few trips to A&E because of it but overall it was found that I did not suit this medication well so after finishing my degree, I came home and was prescribed Quetiapine.

It is a known fact that the main reason a lot of us stop taking our medication is due to the side effects of anti-depressants/anti-psychotics etc and let me tell you now- the side effects of Quetiapine were some of the worst I had experienced. I began on a low dose (50mg) and what this did was make me tired. Tired isn’t really the word. Exhausted, flat-line and completely lifeless are more really suited. It was terrible but I was promised that the longer I gave quetiapine a chance- the more likely it was that the side-effects would, in time, wear off. 

I have always been a morning person. I was born with morning bird-song DNA and I would often judge how good my day had been by how early I had woken up. So when Quetiapine stole my mornings away I was less than forgiving. I would wake up at 10am- groggy, dizzy, and stumbling around my house like an angry drunk man. I would walk into walls, have to lie-down after climbing the stairs to my bedroom and one memory that will always stay with me is falling to the floor in despair after having no energy to even make my bed. It really was an awful, awful time.

So. I gave up. I stopped taking my medication and whilst I do not claim to be a health professional I am telling you this- never do this without consulting someone first. I thought I was okay for a few weeks. I would awake in the morning feeling as though I had really beaten Quetiapine. I stuck my middle finger up at the horrible, horrible pill and really thought I was better. Until one day I was more manic than I ever had been and long story short- ended up in A&E. Oh, another note- overdosing on these buggers is not the way to go. It will leave you feeling like the back of a dog’s backside and it is never ever worth it. Please take this from me- it’s painful. Very, very painful. A few weeks after this, I did end up taking some time out in a psych-ward for another manic episode and what I ended up realising was that no mornings for a few months is better than mania. If you’ve had experience within the psychosis department you will be nodding your head here. 

After this I ended up back on Quetiapine. 100mg and this slowly increased to 200mg but this time I was put on the extended release version. Now what I really want to stress is this. Do not bite into, crush, or chew this medication. It is just as bad as not taking your meds if not worse. I did this a while back. I bit into the medication thinking “I’m reducing the dose” but what I forgot to remember was that I was not a pharmacist and I did not know that biting into an extended release version of this medication actually increases the amount of Quetiapine in your system. For weeks I suffered from a long bout of depression and the only way out was to do what I had been instructed to do in the first place- taking the medication properly. 

If you are prescribed any sort of medication and you want to stop it what you have to remember is that you were prescribed that medication for a reason. The hard part is sticking with it and waiting out the side effects. I have been on 200mg for the past three months and I still feel groggy in the mornings but I have had to work around it. Now, I run in the evenings instead of the afternoons, I have written all activity off between the hours of 9am and 12pm because I know that I will be tired. Another handy tip- if you need to be up early in the morning- take your medication early the night before. I know this seems to be incredibly simple advice but trust me - there is a big difference between taking your medication at 8pm and taking it at 11pm. It will make such a big difference to your day after.

I am writing this post- not only for anyone who might be taking this medication/anyone who is interested in the workings/side effects of Quetiapine- but also for myself. If you really want to get better, you have to be committed. You have to take your medication and you really do have to make it work because you have a responsibility to yourself. A responsibility of care. I’m not saying that you have to stick to it for the rest of your life, of course not. If the medication you are on really does not work for you then please please please talk to your psychiatrist or your GP. There are other medications out there that you can try but being unmedicated is really not an option for some people. Please try and make something work for you. Work at it and work hard. Don’t do what I did and look for reassurance on forums because there are rather dangerous opinions on there. “I stopped my medication and I was fine so you can do it too.” Absolutely not.

I now see what this medication does for me. I no longer suffer from bouts of hypo-mania and the long depressions that would follow. I used to argue that it had alleviated my creative spirit but I was wrong. Quetiapine did not take my writer’s bone away from me at all- as is obvious by this post. Yes, I now have to work a little harder at my poetry- but that is much preferred over what I used to suffer from. I no longer spend days drenched in suicidal ideation, I don’t hear voices and I rarely get a visit from depression and when I do, it’s no longer for months but for days instead. Quetiapine really has turned my life around for the better and for that I am very grateful. 

I hope this helped someone today.

Please remember to take your meds.