#i think this is the reason i've felt so horrible and lonely for the last two years

[cryptidscries]

// vent post

its really frustrating to me that people dont understand the attachment i still have to him. Yeah so what if its been almost two years since ive talked to him. Idc, i still have the worst connection to him and i would still drop everything and everyone for him if he asked. And its frustrating that people dont understand why i would do that. Like theres only one other person that i would do that for. Idk its just UHGHGKJHG its so frustrating that i cant talk about this to people, and its so frustrating to me that i cant talk to him. its frustrating to me that he makes me uncomfortable and that im scared of him but i still want him here Idk man i just miss him. and i know i'll get yelled at for saying that but omg i miss him so much man

[justmenoworries]

Lore Olympus Episode 251 Spoilers

"Yet in spite of everything, [...] look at the man you've become."

You mean, a slave driver, an abusive dipshit and a horrible parent. Yeah, that's not the best argument, Persie.

I find it funny how LO often goes out of his way to have characters assure Hades that he's nothing like Kronos, but honestly? Hades is extremely similar to Kronos. Uncomfortably so.

They were both lonely and filled that void with women much younger than them, whom they were also in a position of power over, Kronos with Hera and Hades with Minthe and then Persephone.

Both like to play victim. Kronos loves to guilt-trip Hera for deceiving him and ignores that his actions would most certainly have doomed the world and Hera and the other Six Traitors had basically no choice but to fight back by any means necessary. Hades frequently whines to Persephone and others about how he feels oh-so-lonely and oh-so-isolated as King of the Underworld, ignoring that he himself is a huge reason for why other immortals percieve him as scary and unapproachable. He's constantly intimidating and bullying people with both his status and his money, see him threatening that one poor nymph with closing her business if she didn't give him private information about Persephone or him constantly antagonizing Demeter for no reason.

They're both tyrants. Kronos is self-explanatory. Hades is downright proud of exploiting the shades who come to the Underworld. He literally brags about making them perform unpaid labor. Hades also seemingly doesn't give a rat's ass about his people. He threatens both his employees and regular citizens on a daily basis. The only person in the Underworld he shows a modicum of care towards is Hecate and that's only becaus she's a long-time friend of his. And also because she actively enables all the shit named above. If you wanna cheat you could say that extends to Persephone, since she's also officially a citizen of the Underworld, but let's be real here, that's only because he's in love with her. I sincerely doubt Hades would put up an embargo and show up at a trial as the lawyer if any other citizen of the Underworld was being unfairly persecuted by Zeus.

Both Kronos and Hades are horrible parents. Kronos ate all of his sons alive but one and the only reason he didn't eat Zeus was because Rhea was wise enough to hide him away. Hades emotionally abused and neglected Thanatos for all his life, didn't show concern when Thanatos was M.I.A and when confronted by Thanatos over being a shitty father, instead of apologizing or showing anything even resembling remorse, he instead made excuses about how Thanatos wasn't throwing himself into his arms eager to be fathered after his own mother gave him up into child labor. I've said it before but I'm genuinely afraid for Dionysus, Hades isn't father material and I'm positive he'll repeat the same neglectful bullshit he pulled with Thanatos.

"There were times in the last few years of my life where I felt truly hopeless."

Sure would've been nice if we could've seen those times instead of time-skipping right over them. Persephone keeps talking about how hard the years in the Mortal Realm were, but all evidence we've had of that were her hands going green. And even that's gone now.

"But then I thought about you and [...] your capacity for love despite all the cruelty you faced."

Excuse me, what????

Name one person in this goddamn Webtoon Hades was ever genuinely loving towards that wasn't someone he once fucked or wanted to fuck.

I see the child is only referred to as 'the interloper' now. I'm guessing RS doesn't want readers to think too hard about the fact that hxp have been doing fuck-all to save an endangered child for several episodes.

And we're officially going for the "Delusional Jealous Woman" route with Leuce it seems. RS' hatred for all women that aren't her self-insert is so palpable it hurts.

"I miss Minthe."

Me too, Thetis, me too.

I'm honestly scared of where this whole Kassandra/Apollo thing is going, I don't want any more Apollo woobifying.

[starakex]

Wurmple Build Log

Guess who's back to drop another overly detailed post about a cosplay project. Another Pokémon one, unsurprisingly! My dumb ass made a Nargacuga fursuit head back in 2020 so I could learn how to work with upholstery foam. It looked... alright... but I know in my heart it was a horrible, horrible mess. Fast forward to 2023, I go to a 3-day convention, wear a bunch of different heavy wigs the whole time, get a rash on my forehead and think, fuck it, I am cringe and I am free, I'm gonna finally live the dream and make a Pokémon suit. It'll be great, and I won't have to wear a wig; I'll just have to worry about heat strokes instead. Fun! Of course, in true shitpost fashion, my perfect fursuit candidate has 10 legs and is shaped like a sausage.

Click on over to read the wondrous tale of building a Wurmple Partial Suit in like two weeks.

1. The Worm

Wurmple started as a dumb little sketch in the corner of my notebook. I have a lot of cosplays and plushes under my belt but the last fursuit (head) kinda looked like it would belong in a bootleg Freddy Fazbear establishment, so I brainstormed over a bunch of Pokémon I like that would work as a partial and are simple enough in design to avoid accidentally creating Uncle Uncanny 2.0. The goal was something that would be relatively comfortable and easy to bring to events 'cause I'm just not mentally prepared to drag a suitcase in public transport and wear a full body sweat carpet yet. I ended up doodling a few ideas like Haunter or Koffing, but then I pictured a Bug Catcher trainer with a bug head and I thought it was funny as hell, so the choice was made. I picked up my copy of Alpha Sapphire to get a good look at the model and immediately ran into a problem; the eyes on Wurmple are literally on the side of the head. They sit so flush you literally cannot see them if you look at them from the front. Not a great start. I figured I could probably hide a small hole for vision right above the mandibles where the red and cream colors separate. I wasn't super confident it would work, but dammit, I was already commited to being a stupid Bug Bug Catcher. Similarly, I looked at the side profile and figured I could open a hole behind the mandibles at mouth height to breathe out of. With an disproportionate amount of confidence for the bullshit I'm about to summon into the world, I began the project by patterning out the tail.

2. Bug Ass

I'll be honest, I started on the tail so I wouldn't have a reason to back out of it if the head ended up being a hot mess. I've patterned out and sewn a few plush before, so making a big ol' headless grub sounded like a reasonable goal. I usually make plush patterns by building out the shape with newspaper and tape, but Wurmple's tail got pretty big when scaled to fit a human, so I searched for alternatives. I ended up building the base shape to draw a pattern out of by taping two pillows together. I tied down small sections to shape the belly and slapped a layer of masking tape over half of it to trace my pattern. Once everything looked good, I cut the pattern pieces out and laid them flat. The pillows were returned to the couch safely once they recovered from the barbaric treatment.

I dug through my materials storage (a sad lonely plastic bin) for some Trash Fabric ™ leftovers from other Trash Projects ™ and tested the pattern out to see how it looked. I made the pattern for the spikes and legs at that point based on the test build and adjusted some seams on the tape pattern to refine some shapes, but overall the first pattern was a great success!

With the mockup done, I pulled out the minky fabric and got to sewing the tail together. I picked minky for the project 'cause it felt right for the cartoony 3d models to have that smooth short-pile look in real life (kinda like the official mascots, really). I was aware the margin for error when your fur pile is 3mm long is basically non-existent, but hey, at least I could work without a respirator on unlike fur! Sewing the body of the tail was pretty straightforward; I assembled the belly panels together, stitched the darts on the red parts to form the curve, and attached the backside of the zigzag spikes to it. I assembled the top and bottom halves together, tacked each zigzag down in place by hand, and filled the whole thing with polyester stuffing to see my beautiful bug sausage take shape.

Once I was sure it everything looked good. I stitched six little white legs and attached them onto the belly by hand using the belly seams as a guide.

Before moving on to the top spikes, I took a break from handsewing to build the tail base. It's a little nub made out of sandwiched upholstery foam with a belt running through a channel carved into the foam. It's topped off with a layer of high density EVA Foam glued at the base to keep the anchor point sturdy. Huge thanks to Neffertity for her tail tutorials as this was the main inspiration behind the method I used for the tail attachment. The foam nub goes about a quarter of the way through the tail, with the rest of it being filled up with the polyester stuffing that was added earlier.

Once the tail attachment point was secured, I started sewing all the spikes for the top half of the tail, stuffed them, and then stitched each of them to the tail by hand. Once they were all stitched on securely, I sewed the back closed with one last minky piece and Wurmple's tail was complete!

(Looking back, I could probably have machine stitched the legs and spikes on... But I was watching some really good Resident Evil Randomizer streams while handsewing these, so I didn't wanna get off the couch to work on the pattern again)

I'm so glad I started with the tail. It was basically a big plush, and I was so proud of the results when I was done that I was energized to start working on the head. Oh right, the stupid worm head with no vision.

3. The Head

Building up the shape of Wurmple's head was simple enough. I began by building a bucket head base out of upholstery foam by following Skyehigh's Studios old tutorial (new one linked here) and slapped some paper on it to figure out the size of the main elements; the mandibles and the eyes. I immediately regret following the tutorial steps for the eye holes, since I Forgot We Weren't Gonna Be Doing That, and mark where my cyclops eyehole is generally going to be instead.

Once I was satisfied with my patterns, I cut some more upholstery foam slabs, carved them with scissors until I got down to the general shape of the mandibles and horns, and glued them onto the base. I immediately got another stress injury carving everything down and realized I did not learn from my wig ventilating mistakes. I took a break to add a turkey carver to my online shopping bookmarks, which I immediately forgot about until I sat down to write this post. Since I was using minky for this project, I needed to make sure my base was as smooth as possible. The fabric is so thin it would pick up every wrinkle ever and look sad if I didn't. I dug into the bin for some Trash Felt ™ and glued it over the mandibles to smooth things out and added some mesh to the holes of the bucket head base to keep the curved shape of the head going without sacrificing those sweet ventilation holes. I also added my vision hole and marveled at my horrifying Mando helmet abomination. At that point in time I'm having some big doubts about the vision hole, but I trudge on because I'm not just gonna wear a bug ass to these conventions.

With the base complete, I covered the whole thing in tape and drew over it like I did with the tail to create a pattern, made sure to forget to take pictures of said pattern so that this step is lost to time, and started sewing the head fabric so I could slap some skin on this bad boy, starting with the horns. At the same time, I stitched the darts on the mandibles, pinned that to the head for later, and assembled the red halves of the head together on the back seam to test the fit.

With the test fit successful, I pulled the red part off in order to machine stitch it to the front half of the head along the zigzag edge and slipped the whole thing over the head again. With everything in place, I painstakingly handstitched everything up, including the side of the mandibles and the horns.

Somewhere in the magical stretch of time between midnight and 5 in the morning, I somehow summoned the inner lining of the head out of french terry knit, a tape pattern and a dream. I also painted a little piece of buckram for the eye mesh to match the red fabric and glued that to the inside of the head. I included a little velcro pocket on the back of the neck in the lining to insert a powerbank for the fans (which I then proceeded to procrastinate on installing for a whole 4 months afterwards). Since I'm an idiot and took no pictures signed an NDA with the Midnight Craft Wizard, here's a picture of the fan installation in the mandibles with velcro so they can be removed to wash it. (Fan kit by Henry's Helmet Fans)

Once the head was completed, I finally went to sleep. And then I woke up at noon and remembered I forgot the eyes WHOOPS I cut four circles out of high density EVA Foam (Two of them smaller for the pupils), heat shaped a slight curve to them, and covered them with minky. I glued the pupils to the irises and then I glued those suckers to the head and NOW THE HEAD WAS ACTUALLY DONE WOOHOO

Turns out hiding the vision hole right over the mandibles was... Actually a decent idea, in the end. It blends pretty well into the face at a short distance. The mouth opening also isn't visible in most angles so I can actually breathe pretty well, and I can even wear a portable necklace fan and have it blow hair into the head without making poor Wurmple eat the fan.

I took it for a test run and realized the eye vision in the suit was actually pretty damn bad overall because the minky covered half of the original hole up, especially on the sides. I took a heat gun and some scissors to the head so I could peel it back around the vision hole, cut some material out to open it up more, and glued everything back down with a new piece of mesh. Now I have like 40 more degrees in my cone of vision, which puts me on par with some of the guys in Metal Gear Solid.

With those adjustments done, the head was finally complete!

4. Get Worm'd on

Turns out I like it a whole lot, whoops. It's definitively not perfect (what costume ever is?), but it looks leagues better than I expected it would, so it works out. Looking back, I don't think I'd really do anything else differently on the build. I still got to make the Bug Catcher outfit to go along with it, but with winter in full swing there's no rush to do so. Definitively looking forward to making a net, though!

If you're still reading, thank you for getting through my ramblings! I hope it was an interesting read, and maybe even provided some insights or inspirations for your own future projects.

❤️

[kyouka-supremacy]

Ryu for the ask game?

Omg thank you all for asking this character I totally didn't specifically ask to be asked about and who I love a perfectly normal amount giggles and twirls hair

Favorite thing about them: He really strives to be good. Good at something, anything, but just good. He constantly fights against his own narrative and I find it very admirable. He was doomed from the start to fail and I feel like he knows that, and I don't know how he finds the strength to keep trying anyway but he does and it's really neat. Maybe his skull really is too thick to listen to the words of a predetermined fate. Just the whole thing about being the tragic character of all time is very compelling to me. Also, his inherently meaningless seeking a validation to live he shares with Atsushi makes me like him for reasons similar to Atsushi.

Least favorite thing about them: MMMHHHH,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Like I really like his flaws, I'm happy he has them, I wouldn't like him the same if he didn't? But at least I can safely say it's someone I wouldn't like to deal with irl lol.

Favorite line:

<3

brOTP: GIN AND RYUUNOSUKE!!!!! They make me go insane. Holding hands while working in the darkness fr. Being lonely together. Someone who's seen you at your worst FOR REAL but still hasn't abandoned you for some unfathomable reason. I don't know what goes through your mind but I see your eyes and they're the same as mine. Also mmmmhhhh sskk. Chuuaku. Kyouka and Akutagawa though I'm not sure that can count as brotp. Lucy and Akutagawa.

OTP: Sskk is like, pretty cool if you ask me <3 Imagine a fully rotten individual who was never meant for anything but killing and making people suffer since they were born, loving someone. Imagine the “I will kill you” being replaced by “I will love you”. But also imagine being so deeply interlaced with another person, your existence just can't escape the other. Destined to be together and destined to fall apart at the same time. I'll never be able to move forward until I've denied your very being but if you die my existence will stop having a meaning. Don't tell me what to do. I will follow you to the end of the world. I will kill you. I will die for you. I just think them <333 Chuuaku too, have already spent countless words on them but. Finally a ship that's real and relatable. Finally something that doesn't feel ethereal and idealized and distant and untouchable, but real and stained and messy and human. What if I didn't understand you but I wanted to. What if we walked together home. They're neat <333 Other Akutagawa ships I vibe with would be Akutagawa × Beast Atsushi, Akutagawa × Tachihara, Akutagawa × Kajii, akuatsulucy...

nOTP: 🤨🤔🧐

Random headcanon: I think he's numb to pain. And I don't mean it in the “oh no he suffered so much he's used to it at this point :((( ” pitying way, I mean it in the “he's felt such very strong spikes of pain in multiple occasions, his pain detectors just gave out” way. The “he won't notice a wound because he just can't feel it” way.

Unpopular opinion: In the last period, it's been bugging me a little how Akutagawa and Dazai's relationship is portrayed in fancontent. It's just always so black and white, while actually I feel like there's so much nuisance to it that just gets lost in fandom. Yes, the way Dazai treated Akutagawa was horrible and inhuman. Yes, to an extent Dazai thought highly of Akutagawa's abilities and cared for him. Yes, Akutagawa was victim of Dazai's heavy abuse. No, Akutagawa isn't entirely subject to Dazai, he explicitly gave his consent to an hard training (which, I reiterate, doesn't justify it at all; but does give more nuisance to the whole situation) and did oppose him in multiple occasions. I just think sometimes Akutagawa is framed as this helpless damsel in distress and Dazai as this inhuman monster whereas their relationship is indeed unhealthy, but still so much more complex than that. And just, really, I feel like portraying Akutagawa so helpless in Dazai's hands makes him a disservice? Even though in canon he said to be willing to kill Dazai on multiple occasions, has punched him more than once, has told straight “no”s to his face. I just think... People tend to make Akutagawa a lot less aware than he actually is. Here, there it is, that's what really troubles me. Akutagawa does know Dazai hurt him. He does know Dazai's treatment of him was cruel, and unfair. He is aware of what Dazai did to him. That just can't stop him from seeking his approval, even against his will. But to think that Akutagawa is blind to everything Dazai did to him does him a disservice, because he really is not that stupid or with completely null self-awareness. The fact that he tends to run after Dazai despite knowing how much he's hurt him is just further proof of how complex and human-like Akutagawa's psyche is. Also, he does NOT like reading. All my homies hate booknerd Akutagawa.

Song i associate with them: Well, I associate with him songs I definitely shouldn't associate with him alcfjyalfiygaslfiya. One song I always listen to that infallibly makes me think of Akutagawa although it really DOES NOT fit Akutagawa is Patchwork Staccato by toa, with its delicious sewing symbolism and words of toxic codependent relationships and the line you, I'd really rather you just stop existing I just can't help but link to him. Or Vampire by DECO*27, which. self-explanatory. but really shouldn't be associated with Akutagawa. On the side of songs that do fit Akutagawa, Tokyo Teddy Bear (AKUTAGAWA SEWING SYMBOLISM MY ULTIMATE BELOVED) and Lost One's Weeping (“Who stained that heart black? Who was it? Who was it!?” “Can you untie the rope around his neck? Can we keep going like this? What're you gonna do? I don't care anymore!” “But why does this lump in our hearts // Say we want to disappear? Say we want to die?” “Can you remember the dreams of your childhood? Who threw those dreams in a ditch? Who was it!? You know who it was! When are you going to grow up!? What is a grown-up anyway? Who has the answers? What're you gonna do? I don't care anymore!”) and basically everything from Neru. And Rolling Girl by wowaka, obviously.

Favorite picture of them:

Favourite panel from the manga: The one above LMAO. I. Really like that scene and think it's the most beautiful climax Akutagawa's character arc could have ever had. Here's my second favourite though:

Favourite illustration: There's a lot of beautiful ones...

Favourite illustration in the anime art style:

BUT ALSO this please don't make me choose. And various anime screencaps. I feel like I'm cheating but maybe it's unethical to ask from me to pick a favourite Akutagawa picture in the first place.

Favourite Mayoi card:

Send me a character?

[altocat]

so i'm trying to get back into the swing of things after almost a decade of being out of ffvii fandom and ever crisis has rekindled a very powerful desire to write and write until my fingers fall off. so i'd like to ask, since you're in the tags and seem quite knowledgeable: what is your opinion of genesis's writing in crisis core?

i've always been of the opinion he was woefully mishandled, and i'm currently trying to reconcile what we were given with what i assume they were going for. got about 2k of a fic with a slightly difficult to explain premise written so far, but sephiroth is pre-nibelheim in post-advent children time (no dirge of cerberus) where genesis is about a decade older than him now. and they're navigating the fallout of the last time they saw each other.

i'm using a lot of what we're learning about sephiroth to color their relationship, too -- my boyfriend skillfully pointed out that it feels like genesis may have developed a parasocial attachment to the version of sephiroth that shinra fed him through propaganda, and when he met the real thing he was let down and became resentful.

so i'm wondering, how do i handle it without making it into a personal vendetta against how horribly i felt genesis was written? heh

The writing on Genesis in CC is....yeesh.

I'd chalk that up to many things--general mishandling, the fact that Genesis is only limited to appearing when Zack is present, and some translation issues from the Japanese language over to English. Lots of his arc as a character doesn't really feel earned, or they don't take enough time to establish his good qualities to make the player care about him.

It's important to note that, despite the fact that the game failed to shed proper light on this, Genesis DOES have many good qualities. He's kind to the lower ranking soldiers, whom he reads to. He and Sephiroth, for all their rivalry, seemed to be close at one point. He was presumably a good friend to Angeal. And even Gackt himself has said that Genesis has a "sweet" streak hidden beneath all that bluster.

It's equally important to note that the Genesis we see in CC is desperate, dying, and under the influence of the Degradation Process. Angeal himself points out that the process seems to dull the mind, clouding it. Sephiroth may or may not have some variation of this as well once his Jenova cells are activated in Nibelheim. So Genesis is really not "himself", warped and twisted, trying to preserve his life, angry and bitter at what Shinra did to him. He's at his lowest point emotionally and psychologically, hence why he does what he does. The writing....just doesn't convey it well.

As for his relationship with Sephiroth, I feel like Sephiroth was closest to him out of all his friends, and Genesis' previous idolization of Sephiroth is the primary reason why he WANTS to be the best. He wants to beat Seph to prove that he's WORTHY of being around Seph. As a boy, Seph was his hero. He HAS to surpass him or become his equal to prove that he can stand toe to toe with the person he feels is a real hero. The dilemma is that Sephiroth never wanted to be a hero and would have always valued Genesis just as he is. Genesis already had what he was looking for...he just didn't realize it until it was too late. They're a complicated pair, with lots of miscommunication, unresolved tension, and poor decision making shared between them. I think they needed to talk to each other more than anything else. Because there was something genuine there. They could have kept it, they could have shared the apples just like Genesis always wanted.

Post-CC, I see Genesis carrying a lot of guilt. Both his friends are "dead" and he basically kicked off the events that led to it. He's been pardoned by Minerva and will now act as the planet's hero and protector, but at the cost of the people he loved. There's no real room for arrogance anymore. He's a hero not out of pride, but shame and remorse. He's tired, lonely, and now fully recognizes the pain of what heroism truly is. He's "grown up" in a sense, become a different person. Crisis Core is a coming of age story in many ways, not just for Zack but for Genesis as well. It's too bad they kinda bungled the delivery.

Hope all of that helps! Genesis is actually a really interesting character when you dissect him. He's sorta become one of my top faves over time, even if I fully recognize him as a complete trashlord. But I think there's more to him deep, deeeeep down.

[femmeclefable]

kind of just posting this to get my thoughts out there bc i dont know what happened to my physical journal

been feeling mighty anxious lads i dont rly know why. i'm not a particularly anxious person but today it's been like a steady pulse of anxiety all day long the whole day i've felt it. last week in therapy i explored how stress feels to me like a reverse lightning rod, or a plasma ball without the glass or something, like a rod with these huge beams of lightning shooting out and growing and developing offshoots and part of me has to keep the lightning at bay and not let any part of it grow too big. it kind of feels like that today, like there's so much lightning. i really like this analogy for stress. electricity (stress) can charge and (em)power, but too much can debilitate and paralyze. i've been having this horrible sense of inadequacy. i am smart enough to identify it as "imposter syndrome" but it won't go away. i thought this was the sort of thing that's supposed to go away once you know its name. rumpelstiltskin is supposed to run away. i'm supposed to say "oh i'm feeling this way because of imposter syndrome! i'm actually quite adequate and capable!" and it's supposed to go away. but it doesn't actually! i've been working on an application for a research fellowship and i have no idea how to describe my research. i published a paper and i have no idea what my research is. i have no idea how to approach research and i can't begin to imagine what i'll do next. i want someone to tell me what to do. i want a professor or advisor or someone who knows better to sit me down and say "emmy the next thing you will do is take a look at these films located in such and such archive and compile an argument about them." i think i could do that so easy. but now i'm supposed to be the person who takes care of that sort of thing. but i have no idea what i'm doing. i have no idea what my research is or what i can do for the institute i'm applying to. it's all so stressful. and i have to assume all these things are related. the anxiety, the inadequacy, the stress. bad feelings are back (in a major way). i chronically feel left out even when i'm not, or even when it makes sense that i would be. is there a name for when you're feeling chronically left out? does it need to have one? in therapy i call this part of me the black sheep, for obvious reasons i think. she's small and scared and lonely and so often i am her and she is me. i want her to be okay but it's so hard to reason with a feeling. i don't like when all these feelings well up like this. i don't like it one bit.!!!!!!!!! i havte feeling like a crazy person. i think the fact that i'm "not an anxious person" is kind of biting me in the ass bc i have developed 0 skills for handling anxiety

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi i know my last ask was filled with joy and humor and insanity but this one is.......... different. So, back when i joined tumblr, it was um i dont remember but feb-march, i think? because i had exams going on at that time. and i was in a state which is like unutterable. it was BAD i was locked in my room stressing the shit out of myself and i was studying and my only social was, well, tumblr. and i was badbadbadbad mentally because of many reasons, not just exams, but i dont want to talk abt that, (btw, it was also why i left tumblr, it felt like it was connected to that time somehow and i just couldnt) but now, im back, and things have changed, and its summer but my school opens tomorrow (after 50 days of summer break) and i have just this sort of writhing knot in my stomach and like this sinking feeling which reminds me of that time and i just hatehtehatehate it. i hate school and its so horrible it just reminds me of how pathetic and lonely i am. my 'best' friend who i had a crush on (during THAT time btw) and she just uses me for when shes bored or needs help, and the other time she hangs out with my other 'friend' and we're supposed to be a trio, but its fucking shit, tbh, they think its fun hiding stuff for me, spreading rumors/talking shit about me, and when they're alone, bored or need help, they come to me. and i fucking hate it because i think they have changed but guess what? notheyfuckinghaven't. sorry i just needed to vent. and as u may remember i have no one to went to.

Hi hon <3

I'm so sorry that you're feeling this way. Trust me, I've been there and I know how hard it can be. I know it's hard to imagine right now, but remember that things will get better <3 This isn't forever, you know? And you know you deserve better than what you friends are giving you.

Remember too that there are people who care and who are cheering you on (me!). You aren't alone, even though it feels that way. I hope the first day of school went well. Send me an update if you want!

[despite-everything]

im

just going to write this out because i need to get it out somewhere and dont know where my little audio recorder is. i know its hard to live with parents for a lot of people, and i knew it'd be hard for me but thats really hitting right now.

today wasnt the worst, but it also kinda sucked. some geriatric asshole stopped his working vehicle in the middle of the street for no reason, and nearly got me t-boned because of it, then i got an energy bill for a place i dont live despite cancelling the policy in july, then i got a message from my insurance agent saying my policy would be cancelled if i didnt pay (but nothing was due?) and then when i tried to call i learned that this house often doesnt have cell signal in the afternoon. i eventually managed to talk to the insurance people and got that sorted, but i couldnt get through to the energy people, so that's still unresolved. im still rattled from the car thing - i was almost killed in a car last year, so im very sensitive around crashes and near-crashes (no flashbacks today, though, so thats better than the last near-incident i dealt with). tomorrow my dad and i fly out to visit his aging parents - his dad is basically wasting away and his mom is losing her mind, so its a bit of a lets-visit-one-last-time thing. i havent seen them since 2018 and rarely talk to them, but i know theyve fallen down this horrible fox-news-christian-conservative hole lately, and before that they werent great, so i have a horrible feeling this trip is just going to be painful and sad. i know that best-case-scenario, we talk about nothing meaningful at all, and they dont comment on my appearance. but they're going to hate it. and if they actually knew me, they'd hate me, too. and i feel bad leaving my cat behind to live in the basement for 3 days - my stepmom will look after her, but she's going to be very lonely. so there's that, too.

but honestly i needed to write this out because my dad and i were driving our dog to the park to let her run around and we were listening to the radio. he asked me why i dont always use my radio voice, and i told him its because it takes extra effort to stay low and smooth for the persona and the microphones, and that after a few hours its tiring. he said he knew that, but then basically asked again - i tried to get him to clarify, but he didnt have the vocabulary to explain it, so he tried to mimic my voice (i guess?) and it was fucking mean. like i felt my heart drop and almost teared up immediately. i said something like "haha i don't sound like that" and he doubled down and said i did. and the thing is like... i know my natural voice is a bit nasal. im from texas and was raised with a mother and an aunt with nasally, high-pitched southern accents, and i inherited some of that. i HATE my natural voice. for years, any video taken where i spoke at all, i hated rewatching it. i thought i sounded annoying and could barely fathom people wanting to be around me. i hear any recording of my self earlier than 2021 and i want to turn it off and erase it completely. i don't think i'll ever get over that hatred. but as i've gotten older, my voice has dropped a bit. and i make a conscious effort to have much less of a texan accent (some words still trip me up - aisle, line, fire, wild... "i" is hard to not sound texan on), and i try to sound "smoother" and more pleasant. but i know i don't always succeed, especially if im excited. and the thing is, my excitement is always too much for my family. it's annoying and immature and overwhelming, apparently. so my entire life i've tried to tone myself down, but sometimes i fail, and sometimes i'm so wound up and anxious i fail then, too. and i know it's annoying, but jesus christ that imitation hurt.

when i tried to express that, my dad got pissed and was like "thats just what you sound like" and i said something along the lines of "you don't have to mean about it" and he got more upset and was like "im not being mean you just sound like that. but fine. i just wont bring it up ever again" and im sitting in the passenger seat thinking... what am i supposed to do? what am i supposed to say? if i cry, he'll get even more upset and think im overreacting and being immature, but todays already been hard (to self-regulate earlier, i bit my arm so hard i accidentally drew blood, and screamed so loud in my car my hearing was temporarily dampened, but while that helped, it didn't fix anything), and i could cry any moment. and my mind just loops back to the impression of me, which was startlingly similar to his "whiny voice" he uses to mock assholes. it just felt fucking awful and yet i felt kinda crazy because he keeps saying he didnt mean it in a bad way, and he isnt the type to play mind games but my mother did that sort of thing all the time, and i was tired and upset and wanted to go back home. after the park, i tried to continue the conversation, but never really understood what part of my voice or cadence he was referring to,but i think i smoothed things over enough. but it just sucks so much.

im living with him and my stepmom right now as i look for a job, and im more than an hour away from any of my friends. while i could drive to see them, it doesnt make sense to waste that gas when im unemployed and heading for the airport in the morning tomorrow. and i dont really call my friends. i could, but its not a thing we do, and i honestly would just want to say what this post said and then move on. i just wish i had company. but im outside trying not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes but theyre getting me through me jeans, so i just have to suck it up and go inside to wash the dishes.

[what-if-nct]

TW// anxiety, social anxiety, depression, and trauma dumping (which I apologize for in advance for you and your followers)

This past week has been really emotional for me for a few different reasons but mainly because I have felt myself drifting more and more as a person. I don’t feel real anymore…

I’ve been dealing with isolation for a while and feel like my friends aren’t really my friends. I always see them going out and doing things and not once have I been invited. I know it’s partially my fault though. Cause I kept denying invites years prior due to “responsibilities”.

Work. School. Family. Chores.

They’ve all taken precedence and now I don’t have anyone anymore. Meeting new people makes me want to scream and making small talk makes me want to pull my eyelashes out. I even feel it with people at my job. I don’t trust anyone. I feel like they all talk about me behind my back, and any word I say will be used against me. So I just make jokes and go with the flow all the time. But I am so, so, so tired of always pretending to be easy going. It’s hard knowing that other people are forming genuine relationships and I’m left in the background trying to answer a question from last week.

Idk what it is mentally or socially but I’m tired of feeling unloved and unappreciated. I’m tired of feeling like I’m being dramatic cause I’m seeing other people live life with a crowd and I’m crying myself to sleep for the umpteeth weekend in a row. I feel like I just can’t trust anyone or myself anymore. I think I gaslit myself into a mask and I can’t take it off or I’ll seriously crumble…

- 🏝️ anon (if this isn’t taken, cause I’m stranded on my own little island)

I completely and totally understand how your feeling, it's similar to how I've been feeling well in a way. I've just been feeling really lonely and unwanted, I could be in a room full of people and still feel alone and like no one wants me there, and like no one actually like me and I'm annoying and everyone is just tolerating me. I've felt that my whole life. And when it's proven time and time again you just start accepting that it's true so you just withdraw yourself or create someone you think is likeable but isn't you. It's a horrible feeling. The loneliness and isolation and thoughts. So I understand. And even though I don't have an answer, I'm still looking for it. But what I can tell you is one you're not alone especially in the way you feel. Also its so much easier said than done but give yourself a break, relax, don't put so much pressure on yourself and look for the one thing, the one person anything that helps you feel happy, that gives you even the smallest spark of joy and remember that there's millions of other lights like that waiting when you are ready to allow them in. It's hard when you're guarded because you've lost trust with the word but if there's a reason that leads you to believe there's kindness and understanding and gentleness out there hold on to it and let it remind you there's more out there. Sometimes the smallest glimmer of hope can mean so much. So try to keep an eye open for that glimmer. I

[missusdiary]

Sep 7th. 2024

tw: mentions of abuse

soo i have recently (for a couple of months) been seriously thinking about becoming an age regressor.

a while ago i followed an age regressor who makes sure that people know that age regression is not something to be fetishized or perverted, and getting a glimpse of their experience, of the way they deal with their own trauma made me feel so seen. i just felt this relief of knowing that age regression is something that is pure and there never has to be any expectation of having to regress purely for someone's sexual fantasies. and while i do feel some people take it too far (ie. wearing diapers and shitting/pissing themselves) i do understand that everyone is different, and trauma manifests in so many ways that it's hard to pinpoint the boundary of what is acceptable.

i have known about age regression since i was like 12, and at the time i only knew of it in the sexual/bdsm/kink aspect. i had a fleeting interest in it and thought about it for myself but obviously as you grow older you realize that certain things just shouldn't be sexual period.

i understand that there are FEW legit regressors that are comfortable with regressing in a sexual setting with their trusted partners, but for the most part, it is clear to tell when something is being fetishized simply for the sake of it being taboo.

knowing this, i stopped having an interest in it all together, but over the years -even at as a child- i would always reminisce and focus on the past simply for the feeling of nostalgia.

eventually, because i was so worried about growing up -paired with the fact that i suffered multiple different traumas in a very short period of time- i really missed out on a lot of my childhood innocence and whimsy.

part of this is my fault because i would constantly try to act older than i was and be involved in things that were for older people. however, i feel the reason i did these things is because i have an old soul, and i genuinely believe that i have always been older than my actual age.

(someone get her a psychiatrist)

but seriously, i never acted like other kids, i never liked talking to other kids, i could hold a conversation with an adult about any topic at a very young age. my mom had my iq tested at the time and it was very high.

i've always felt very deeply and had complex thoughts, and having this as a child just made we want to hurry up and get older.

eventually, when i started going through puberty, i was actually forced to grow up a bit. my father had me and my sister practically raising our baby siblings. he was emotionally abusive, neglectful, and an overall horrible parent. we never knew peace when we were around him, never knew when he was going to blow up on us and tell us we were idiots, call us ungrateful bitches, or simply because he decided it; take away our freedom. my sister and i yearned for freedom. we wanted to be rid of him, we could not wait to grow up so we could finally have some peace.

we would think: "if we are being expected to act like adults, why aren't we treated as such?"

now, i am an adult, and life fucking sucks ass. being an adult is not fun, it is not full of freedom and whimsy and whatever else i thought i was missing out on as an adolescent. now i literally stay up at night wishing i could go back and do it all again, and appreciate the things i took for granted because i didn't know any better. i feel more lost and immature than i ever have. i have nothing figured out, and i wasted so much time the last couple of years doing fuck all. my anxiety is the worst it has ever been, and i'm more lonely than ever.

i just want to do it all over.

but, as we know, time machines do not exist. as much as i want to go back a just be a kid, i can't...there is a grief i can't explain attached to that sentiment.

so now, as an adult who doesn't want to be an adult, i cling to the things of my early childhood. when i'm feeling the depression more on a certain day, i watch movies i loved when i was little, i cling to my stuffed animals, i talk to myself. i pretend, just for a little while, that there are no expectations from me, i have no responsibilities, i can simply exist without the burden of feeling like i'm not doing enough.

and it's so peaceful.

truly, it is a beautiful feeling that i cannot get enough of. there is no sadness, there is no feeling of failure. there is just the bliss of being a simple human enjoying something that brings me comfort.

[vtori73]

Personal post below

(just ignore):

I'm just putting this out there for myself because no one's really here except me, lol. Anyway... it just seems weird to start off your first kiss with someone with tongue. I'm sorry but it just seems like borderline boundary crossing unless you know for a fact they like that or are okay with that sort of thing, it just seems so presumptive at the very least.

I guess I'm just not over how my first kiss went which was when I was in college & was with tongue (sort of, basically just slipped it in my mouth at the end of the kiss, which I will admit I wasn't prepared for any of it & didn't really do shit because I'd never kissed at all before). It may have not really meant anything or could have been a possible red flag because tbh that first relationship of mine was... wasn't great. Just a lot of boundary crossing on their part that they didn't really want to or like to admit to & honestly is probably why they broke up with me, or what I theorized a long time ago closer to when it happened which was that I just became too much of a handful and they wanted out. They just wanted me because they were lonely & on the rebound and I was there, inexperienced and easy to please/take advantage of. I think I really was just their sexual gratification honestly, or at least that's what it seems like I was when I think on this shit nowadays because it just kind makes sense.

Not saying it was all bad though, there were good times but I don't think there is a good enough reason to think of them. But, part of me wants me to be nice and open to the idea I'm being one sided/overreacting about my past relationship but another part of me also knows Im not and just trying to make excuses so I don't really have to face the actuality that I was basically taken advantage of. I'm not saying it was intentional intentional but basically it's kind of what of happened. Even though I didn't expect a lot I did have some expectations that were basically crushed a lot that I never voiced to them because I figured I was being unreasonable, mean, picky, whatever.

Like one thing I will never get over was a card I got for my birthday from them that was... bad, it was bad. It was a homemade card that barely said anything of substance & literally barely said anything. It was just sad and seemed like something someone much younger could/would make & was either something done with the least amount of effort or something done at the last minute and I remember feeling nothing but disappointment however I knew I couldn't voice those feelings, I mean they made me a card so who am I to complain? I mean it would be wrong to expect more since they didn't have money to spend at the time but their roommates actually got me something for my birthday which was a surprise to me and I honestly thought it was very sweet and kind of them, I do hope they know how much I appreciated it. Part of me does wonder if they felt bad for me, not necessarily because of that, I feel like I may possibly have some vague memory pointing in that direction but I honestly can't recall so *shrugs.* I don't remember any other details about the card, I got rid of it long ago & have a horrible memory but I had kept it at first because I'm a sentimental person regardless.

Anyway, I don't really want to get into the worst stuff that happened in the relationship, that's a little too personal and raw for me that while I think about occasionally is still different from actually typing or talking about out loud its... just too personal. I just wanted to get into the more light/petty stuff I've never had the chance to say to anyone, literally I've never told anyone the about the card (or at least I don't think I have). I think there were other petty things I took issue with but I honestly don't remember anymore that one was honestly the biggest one. I'm also going to say this because I feel like I have to but I don't for one second think I was perfect and made mistakes, I know I did, I may not know or aware of everything but I do know I did make some mistakes, my memory no longer remembers much so I don't really know if certain things were my fault or theirs but regardless this doesn't apply to the things I know for a fact they did wrong that hurt me back then and probably still affect me today.

Honestly, after this relationship I had/have a hard time seeing myself pursuing romantic relationships. I actually haven't liked anyone since and honestly im thankful for that because I'm definitely not in a place to be in one and wonder if I ever will be or if I even deserve to be in one. I just can't help but feel like I deserved what happened and that I'm at blame for it all and especially with how I handled some stuff so I just can't help but feel it would be better if I just stay single to not get hurt but to also to avoid hurting others.

[kath-artic]

aforementioned talking

was sitting in the shower thinking of things I'd like to say to him and its so funny the way I've become obsessed with the concept of cohesion. like I really read one essay on coherentism like 4 years ago and said "yeah kinda if you account for the fact that moral imperfection is not necessarily evil and also if you account for the fact that most contradictions can be solved by taking a step back because even the most opposing points branch out from the same source." like I was reeeaaallly explaining myself in my head there just to make sure my logic was airtight for no damn reason. anyway one thing I thought was silly (and its something I've realized before but its a realization that kinda faded from the forefront of my mind) was that I started thinking about how to explain that I try not to concern myself with outcomes and that lead me to the example of the situation with my friend wherein I haven't "decided" if I want to still be her friend in the future because my concern in the present is having space away from her--why close a door that may better serve me open and why ask someone in when they may be better off outside and why concern yourself with doing either when there's no one at the door to worry about--and to determine an absolute outcome is to limit myself and then I thought "what if he says 'oh I would've cut her off'" and I thought I'd explain my whole thing about avoiding cruelty because cruelty is the first seed that turned me from being in touch with myself as a woman on account of my not-so-good relationship with my mom growing up and THEN I started giving examples in my head and started reflecting on when I was little and she'd ask what I wanted for dinner and I'd accidentally pick something expensive (I was a kid w no idea how much things cost) and she'd get mad and start yelling at me and then I'd say "I'm sorry I didn't know, I'm fine with anything we can afford" and she'd still get the expensive thing to prove a point. Anyway this final bit is the point I was getting to because its been a while since I've reflected on this memory and like. 1) its why I struggle so much whenever people ask me what I want to eat and they're paying because I'm hyper conscious of the fact that I'm putting them out and I have no concept of how much is too much (like whenever people ask what I want to eat I almost always ask some vague question like "what are the parameters" because I never feel like I have enough information to make an informed choice) 2) its part of why I cant understand what my friend was expecting of me. because whenever I tell someone "no its okay" and they STILL do the thing I initially wanted it feels like a guilt tactic. so why would I read into subtext and not do something I was given permission to do when all my life that has been a tactic used to make me feel horrible.

anyway lol that one other memory is starting to finally fade again I think. it just pisses me off in so many ways that it was ever back to begin with. like she's not really To Blame for it being on my mind, but that situation is what triggered it. like 1) having that one incident where I went catatonic because she brought up the topic my first ex would threaten me with whenever he was raping me at knife point like 9 times in one week compared to her getting upset over something I DIDNT DO because it reminded her of when she was lonely on her birthday in middle school kinda pissed me off 2) if comparing traumas is the name of the game then how's 'having your best friend's abusive boyfriend get into a whole public fight with her over the fact that she's coming to your birthday so she has to leave early and then your first boyfriend sexually assaults you once she's gone' for bad birthdays 3) her telling me that I will never experience the kind of connection I've dedicated my life to finding in her last message just to hurt me 4) the only other time I've ever felt the kind of betrayal she made me feel (and obviously it was on a far greater scale in this latter case) was when I realized what my first ex had been doing to me. all 4 of these things have just been making me so anxious again and I make such a point of not letting the fact that I was raped instill distrust in me. I still believe people to be fundamentally good. but its been hard recently and that's what hurts me even more. I trust the guy I'm seeing. I trust him so much and I want to let myself be close to him, but it's been hard to talk because now there's this specter of cruelty looming over me. I don't want it to affect my ability to speak anymore. I don't want to be haunted by the ghosts of things that cant hurt me anymore

[oncetherenowhere]

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've come to the realization that the basis for many of my problems is that I don't fundamentally believe that I'm a human being. I've been trying to change my mindset by reminding myself, "I'm a person, too. I'm allowed to do human things."

The way I was raised, the way I was treated- I wasn't allowed to have boundaries. I wasn't allowed to ask questions. If I had weird interests, they were shut down. The fact that I was bullied seemed to be more of an embarrassment to my family than anything else; I heard a lot of "Why can't you just be normal?"

My parents taught me to lie, to tell other family members that I was fine, that home was fine, school was fine; speaking out of line got me into huge amounts of trouble. A doctor diagnosed me with depression at 13. I told someone I was close-ish with in another class, because I was so lonely. I remember how angry my mother looked when I told her that I talked to someone about it.

Every time I tried to stand up for myself, or share an opinion, I was shut down with severity. This pattern started with my parents and teachers, then friends, partners...I don't think I attracted that treatment through the Secret or whatever, I think people saw how I behaved and capitalized on it. I was a quiet pushover with no strong sense of identity, so naturally, people who wanted to exploit that got closer to me.

I'm starting to try and really convince myself that it wasn't my fault. For years, when I thought of this, I thought, "If so many people had issues with me, it had to be my fault. I just need to keep trying." And by "keep trying," I mean, I'd repress myself more, destroy more of myself, become a blank slate.

I'm scared to answer questions like "What sort of music do you listen to?" without knowing the other person first. Even something as innocent as that has lead to anger and mockery. In high school, I had an abusive friendship with someone who got so angry that I said I liked Taylor Swift that she hit me. She'd do that kind of thing a lot. I could only like her music, her shows, her stuff. When I told my last therapist that, she didn't believe me. She looked incredulous, and kept asking me questions to prove the situation had happened. I know how bizarre it sounds! I was hurt in such weird ways, for such weird reasons!

I have bladder problems because I was too scared to use the bathroom for years. Why? In middle school, I was bullied for being "born a man." I'm not amab, but for some reason, the kids in my class decided I had masculine features, and would harass me for it constantly. It got to a point where I was convinced they had to be right. I asked my parents to look at my birth certificate, I looked at my features for hours, I felt like I was going crazy. Going to the bathroom was a nightmare. They'd laugh at me and make comments, even pull my skirt. I had trouble even going at home, because leaving my room often meant walking into fights between my parents.

So many weird bad things happened to me, and I remember them all, and nobody believes me. I have a good relationship with my mother now, despite everything, and that seems to disqualify me from being traumatized. I married someone who's a genuinely good partner, so that means I must be fine.

Fine? I'm fine? I don't see myself as a human being!! I struggle to answer basic questions about myself! I was raised to lie and pretend I'm whatever the other person wants me to be, I can't form genuine relationships. The fact that I have a genuine marriage means I'm actually fine?! I got LUCKY! I managed to meet ONE kind person. I got so fucking lucky, and I thank heavens for H every single day, but holy fuck, I can't make friends!

I am so scared all the time. I think people know. I think they can tell that I'm less human. I think subconsciously, they see me and something in their head screams "not like us! Not like us!" and I have 27 years of proof to show it.

The horrible thing is? I love people. I want friendships. I want connections. I want to talk to people and have fun and be extroverted. I love listening to people, I love getting to know them, I have so much love in my heart, but it's wrong. I'm wrong. The way I work is wrong, my brain is wrong.

I don't even know if this is because of trauma or autism or both. I'm trying to do all this mental work myself because I can't find a therapist who gets it, but man, I just wish one of them would believe me. It hurts so much to actively seek out help and get doubted for it. Because of the way my brain works, if someone thinks something about me that isn't true, I believe it anyways, because other people's thoughts and opinions are always higher than my own; so when someone doesn't believe me, it throws my mind into a spiral. I want to believe THEM, I want to think that I'M lying, that I'M making it all up, that I must have misunderstood- it takes me a while to snap out of it and remember that my truth is TRUE, even when other people don't believe it.

I feel crazy. I feel less than human. I feel so alone. Is it better to be alone? Is it good that I'm alone? I can't get close to someone and get hurt again. I can't do it. I can't do it again.

I'm trying to do the work myself in the meantime. It's hard.

[missinghalf]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about promises lately. My ex and I always promised we'd be together forever. Cliche, I know, but I meant it. Eight years is a long time to be together. I really thought we were in it for the long run.

I wasn't the one that broke my promise. My ex was. They insist that there was some fine print to that promise. The primary reason they cited for leaving was that I hadn't been helping out much around the apartment. Which is true, I hadn't been. I was trying, but I've got severe depression, and it was difficult. My ex had recently started a full time job and had very little energy left at the end of the day to be doing that sort of thing. They were struggling and they tried to communicate this to me, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make myself help that much more.

Eventually, my partner broke down and explained how much it was hurting our relationship. I guess that phrasing, or something else they said during that conversation, kicked me in to high gear. I started working as hard as possible. I learned that my depression liked to lie to me and tell me I "couldn't" do something, when really I did have the energy. I started doing a lot, really putting everything I had into it.

This wasn't enough for my ex though. It became clearer over time that they had already sort of checked out of the relationship. It took several more months of my working as hard as I could and my partner still being unsatisfied before they just gave up and left. I tried to fix things as best I could, but they told me it wasn't just having to do chores by themself that made us incompatible somehow. They also told me my interests put their brain to sleep. That the things that I was passionate about inherently made them unhappy. I love technology and they had grown this new found hatred for it, but that appeared to be a selective hatred just for things I liked. They continued to spend large amounts of time on the internet and almost all their friends were online, but that didn't count as technology somehow. They told me repeatedly that we just weren't compatible, without really explaining any further.

Whenever I had questions or was confused about why they decided to leave me, they would start to get angry. They started lashing out at me when I didn't understand right away. Then they started stonewalling me, cutting off conversations soon after they started. At first after the breakup they felt terrible for having done it. They spent a lot of time crying and apologizing. But soon the anger replaced that. I think that the guilt of breaking their promise, the one we made so long ago, was too much for them. So they decided to try and cover that guilt with anger toward me. One day things wouldn't be my fault, the next day they would be. One second they'd be empathetic, the next they'd be cold. Over the last few months before the breakup they had gotten cold and unaffectionate. They didn't want to be touched or to touch me.

When I was hit by that car I had to start sleeping on the couch. We had a loft bed and I couldn't climb the ladder into it. I asked them to sleep on the couch with me or blow up the air mattress we had and out it next to the couch, but they refused. They've always been a bad sleeper and they've got chronic insomnia, but that had never stopped them from supporting me before. I basically begged them to sleep next to me, because I was in so much pain abd I was so lonely. I could barely sleep because of how fucked up my shoulder was and I was trying to take as little of the opioids the hospital had given me as possible, to reduce the risk of addiction. But they always refused.

For a month it was like that. Then they dumped me. And all of a sudden they wanted to sleep next to me every night. They felt horrible and didn't want me to sleep alone anymore. All of a sudden they wanted to lay on top of me or hold me or hug me. I went on a walk to clear my head one day and they were in tears when I got back. They said all they could think of was how I might be out there crying by myself somewhere. But none of this changed the fact that they didn't want to be with me.

In a way my ex taught me a really important lesson. People can and will say whatever they want and they don't have to hold to it. They can say one thing and do another and no matter how much you love or trust them, they can still do that to you. No matter how many years you spend with them, being vulnerable and taking care of each other, they can still stab you in the back when you least expect it.

That isn't to say that all people will, probably modt won't. I think people are inherently good at heart. But promises won't mean nearly enough to me anymore. Because to my ex, the promise of staying together forever had a disclaimer afterwards that read "unless your mental illness gets really bad, or I start to dislike your interests, or I start to resent you for things I didn't say anything about."

So I'll believe people are good. I still think my ex is a good person. I love them very much. But I don't think I'll ever trust someone like that again. How could I? I would have bet my life they'd never do the things they've done now. And I would've lost that bet.

[night-garden-fic]

Interlude: A Heart-Shaped Prism

(Read on AO3)

"How did this go so horribly wrong?"

Interlude: A Heart-Shaped Prism

     When Sabrina first arrived in Kardia, Lady Ann didn't think much of her.

     Neither party was particularly at fault for this  The newly-widowed Lady of the Inn simply found the young fisherwoman's light, careless approach to life a bit difficult to stomach alongside her own struggles and still-fresh grief; though she knew, on some level, that Sabrina must have seen some struggles of her own, given that she was raising an infant son on her own in that tumbledown shack by the sea.

     Nonetheless, and despite their differences, it was almost inevitable that the two would form some sort of friendship.  They were—discounting asocial ageless oddities like Mei and Sharron—the only grown women in their tiny village for quite some time, and that at least counted for something; even if, at the end of the day, they had little in common besides motherhood and men.

     It helped, of course, that it had often been the same man.  In good times and bad, they always had something to discuss over tea.

     "...You're still seeing Russell, right?"

     Lady Ann watched as Sabrina refilled their cups, and couldn't help but notice that her typically bright-eyed friend looked strangely pensive.

     "I am, yes."

     Sabrina blew ripples on the surface of her cup, brow furrowing slightly.

     "How does he seem to you?"

     Lonely.  Tired.  Desperate.

     Lady Ann blew on her own cup with a sigh.

     "Oh, you know...  He's Russell.  Seems a little spaced out, maybe a little down..."

     Sabrina gazed deep into her teacup, as though trying to read the leaves before the tea had even been drunk.

     "So, nothing out of the ordinary?"

     What, indeed, was ordinary?

     Lady Ann remembered their last meeting; the glassy eyes, the bad hangover, the vulnerable gaunt ridge of the spine.  The frenzied ardor in his posture as he leaned across her desk, and in his jaws as he bit down on her hand.  It all painted a somewhat concerning picture, but surely they had both seen him worse.

     "I don't know...  I guess he seems off, but I think we've all got a little cabin fever right now.  And he's been losing weight all winter, but didn't you say that was normal for him?"

     It must have been, because Sabrina looked troubled, but not at all surprised.

     "Russell...  Slows down this time of year."

     Lady Ann wasn't sure if "slow" was quite the right word.  Russell had seemed a bit run-down and depressed of late, but there was a frenetic core beneath all that listlessness; a careless urge to test his own limits that went beyond even her own considerable comfort zone.

     He keeps asking you to touch the candle flame directly to his skin.

     "Well, then I can't wait for spring...  You know he...  Well, we both know Russell likes to play rough.  But honestly, I've been afraid to even do anything to him lately.  The way he's been...  I'm scared I'll hurt him for real."

     In spite of her troubled mood, Sabrina smiled slightly.

     "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that...  He's always been sturdier than he seems."

     In her gut, Lady Ann felt that, at least for now, the opposite was the case.

     But that was just a feeling; those notoriously unreliable old things.

     She briskly cast it aside, allowing the conversation to move on to Neumann's good-natured bumblings and Nicholas's wild adventures, both of which brought to mind her own feckless son.  Yet more masculine mayhem, to be sure, but of an almost comforting kind.  The two friends laughed and sipped and commiserated, until it was time for them to return to their respective duties.

     On the short walk back to the Inn, Lady Ann's mind returned to Russell once more.  Absent-mindedly, she stroked the edge of her hand, where he had briefly sunk in his teeth.

     It didn't even leave a mark.

     For some strange reason, she almost wished it had.  It was just so sudden, and so unusual, that it should have left some tangible proof.  A tiny, ephemeral souvenir of her lover's passion.

     Is that why he likes it so much?

     She supposed there could have been any number of reasons.

     Lady Ann could dissect Russell's odd, brittle psyche forever, but often found herself disinclined.  Theirs was a casual affair of the heart; more like a pair of friends who occasionally met for drinks and conversation followed by chess or lawn games than a standard romance, and that suited them both just fine.

     A least, I know it suits me.

     She knew, on some level, that Russell wanted more.

     Perhaps not the full love-and-marriage package, but more.  More nights with her breathing next to him in bed, more mornings where he didn't have to wake up alone, more reassurance.

     More, in a word, feelings.

     I think that's what they really mean, when they say men only want one thing.

     If she thought about it too long, she also thought about her departed husband; a tender, romantic man who died senselessly in a caving accident.  The similarities between him and Russell were relatively few, but they still weren't lost on her.  The reticence overlaying a disquieting lack of caution, the sensitive, heat-seeking bodies.

     The way they made me want to do things to them.

     And then came another thought, which made Lady Ann sigh as she entered the warmth of the Inn and took her place at the front desk.

     I think I'm done with men.

     It was a thought she'd had before; most frequently after she'd been widowed in such a pointless, tragic fashion.  And she assumed it was the truth back then, until Sabrina—bawdy and potted as usual—had to go and gossip about Russell, and all the interesting things he'd let her do.

     Lady Ann—who had also done her part to drain the bottle of wine they'd been sharing—found herself oddly intrigued.

     "...Do you think I could borrow him from you for a night?"

     "I don't see why not!"

     Lady Ann had meant this as a joke, but when she realized that Sabrina's reply was completely serious, she decided that she might as well be, too.

     It took a few weeks to get Russell into bed, and a few more to tease out the extent of his proclivities.  But once she had, she couldn't believe what she'd managed to find.

     Apparently, the quiet, drab-looking man who employed her daughter was a wanton daredevil between the sheets.

     For the first time in her life, Lady Ann found it deliciously difficult to keep up with this enthusiastic new lover.  Russell would let her do things to him that she had previously only savored in fantasies; his delicate skin able to absorb surprising amounts of pain, which he took into himself with an almost unsettling zeal.

     He was everything I'd always wanted.

     Of course, few things were ever quite so simple.

     For one thing, though he worked hard to keep the extent of his damage to himself, it eventually became apparent that Russell was a bit emotionally unstable.

     And then there was the matter of that tender, withered scar; the skin stretched over the arched junction of his ribcage so thin that it seemed to give unwanted access to something inside him, something perpetually sore.

     Needless to say, these contradictions had led them into some peculiar situations.

     She could flog him all night, but an accidental brush across the chest could elicit a different kind of shudder entirely.  They could talk and laugh for hours, but one drink too many might make him start crying.  Too often, she found herself scrambling to pick up pieces of Russell that she hadn't even wanted to see, let alone touch.

     Lady Ann hated to use the phrase "damaged goods," mostly because she knew it could just as easily be applied to one such as herself, but she could find no other words to describe him.  Russell had been treated, for years, with inhuman roughness.  And it had damaged him terribly.

     But, in those golden early days, she figured his damage didn't really matter.  Or if it did, it did so only in that Russell needed to be handled with a bit of finesse, like all fine things.  And truly, she had taken as much pride in her ability to do so as she did in the countless marks she had left on his skin.

     And now...

     ...Now, well, she was tired of finesse.

     And perhaps, once more, tired of men.

     But are women all that much different?

     Lady Ann didn't have the experience to say.  Sabrina had propositioned her a few times, but—fearing the inexperience in question—she'd always declined.

     So, she supposed she had lost her chance to ever find out.  Sabrina was married; clinging to monogamy for dear life against the gale-force winds of her enormous, hungry, wonderful heart.

     No, I suppose we aren't.

~*~

     You dressed different back then.

     I remember that mismatched garb well; the trousers from your old uniform, a cotton tunic that you buttoned all the way to the throat, a blue wool cloak that you clutched protectively around yourself in all seasons.

     And you looked different, too.

     Your hair fell nearly to your shoulders, and had a way of hiding your face.  It surprised me when I learned you'd wandered into town after a lengthy tour of duty; not because you were so quiet and bookish, but because you seemed so frail.  You didn't square with my image of a soldier.

     But then I got to know you, and it all made sense.

     The trials of war hadn't built you up.  They had only worn you out, leaving you as thin and threadbare as that old third-hand cloak of yours.

     Well, worn-out or not, I knew I liked you very much from the very first time we met.

     You said your name was Russell, and I thought of dead leaves and dog-eared pages.

     I thought it sounded like you.

     When I first arrived in this town, I found myself all alone, save for my son.  And I found you all alone, save for your daughter.  I loved the sea, you loved your books.  And, before we even realized it ourselves, we came to love one another.

     Our children would grow up together.

     So, in a way, would we.

     You probably guessed that it doesn't usually take me so long to act on my feelings.  But, with you, I found myself strangely hesitant.  You were so emotionally and physically tremulous, and I felt like it would be all too easy to hurt you; so easy that I might not even notice it happening.

     By then, I knew enough about you to know that the last thing you needed was more hurt.

     So I'm thankful, to this day, that we both like to drink.

     It was something we did often; put our kids down for an afternoon nap, walk together to the Pub, then wander back to the Shack in a blissful haze and maybe catch a quick nap ourselves.  It was a much-needed reprieve from the stresses of new parenthood that we both seemed to appreciate greatly.

     And, honestly, I loved those afternoons because back in those days, they were the only times I ever saw you pink-cheeked and smiling.

     Then, one day, we decided to go out in the evening, and everything changed.

     Looking back, I can't say what it was.  Perhaps it was one more glass of wine than usual.  Or, perhaps, it was the sheer size and brightness of that dazzling moon, pulling the tides of our twin seas into one.

     All I know is that something compelled me to take your hand in mine; not with the playful roughness I had so often in the past, but with a new, lingering tenderness.

     And I said, "Your hands are so cold."

     And you said, "They are.  But I think that one's warming up."

     Gods, how I wanted to warm you up.  I didn't care anymore that you were fragile, or that my heart didn't always know its own strength.  All I wanted in that moment was to pull your body into mine.

     So that was exactly what I did.

     And, before I knew it, my mouth was pressed against yours.

     At first, you seemed a bit stunned, and when your back began to stiffen up, I was prepared to pull away.  But then your spine seemed to melt under my hands, and I felt the shy tip of your tongue beginning to part my lips.

     I'm not sure how we decided to crawl under the pier that night, but we couldn't get there fast enough; couldn't undress fast enough, either.  You spread out your cloak in the sand and lay there gazing at me.  So patient, so eager.

     When I first saw you in your totality, lit by the slivers of bluish moonlight that shone through the worn slats of the pier, your scarred ribs and sunken belly made me so sad that I almost changed my mind.

     Then all of that was blown away by one look at your face.

     Still, I took care as I climbed on top of you, straddling those rawboned hips and entwining my fingers with yours.

     I said, "Seems like your hands aren't cold anymore."

     And you didn't say anything at all.

     You just smiled up at me like you thought I'd hung that dazzling moon with my own two hands, but couldn't quite believe I'd accomplished such a grand feat.

     When it was all over, I lay there with you in the dark, listening to the wild surf.

     My first thought was that holding you felt like carrying a bundle of driftwood.

     My second thought was that I never, ever wanted to let you go.

     (I haven't, have I?)

~*~

     As Sabrina washed the dishes clean of the stew she'd prepared for dinner, she found her mind repeatedly wandering back to the afternoon's tea.

     "...A little spaced out, maybe a little down..."

     "I guess he seems off..."

     "...Didn't you say that was normal for him?"

     She supposed those vague statements shouldn't have surprised her.  The intimacy between Russell and Lady Ann was primarily relegated to the physical; they were buddies and playmates more than anything else, and Russell wasn't exactly quick to trust when it came to the internal conditions of his body and mind.

     At least, not when he's sober.

     Or unless something is going horribly, horribly wrong.

     Sabrina knew he trusted her; indeed, that she might be the only one he truly trusted at all.  And, the last time they'd spoken, it was an understatement to say that he hadn't been sober.

     But is something going horribly wrong?

     Frustratingly, she couldn't say for sure.

     Russell had certainly seemed a bit unstable, and there was reason to worry that he might be ill.  But then again, he was drunk, and had never been one to thrive in the cold.  Perhaps she'd seen nothing more than a particularly bad night?

     No, that doesn't make sense.

     Sabrina knew full well that, in the driftwood-smooth ribs and shoulder blades quivering beneath his worn flannel pajamas, she had felt a long string of bad nights.  At least a month's worth; poorly-concealed behind his usual air of cheery, impassive detachment.

     Oh, Russell.  You're not doing so good, are you?

     Briefly, she hated herself for not being able to know.

     Though, it wasn't for lack of trying.  As promised, she had tried to check in on him the previous afternoon.  But Tori had said he was sleeping, and Sabrina supposed that was fair enough, having lingered in bed until late morning to sleep off a mild headache of her own.  So she came back just before dinnertime, but this time Tori told her he was out.

     Probably, she assumed, with Lady Ann; making some sort of strange attempt at finishing what they hadn't quite started.

     What would you have done if he'd gone to you instead?

     Sabrina's hands froze around a freshly-dried plate, where she studied her faded reflection in the glossy porcelain.

     I think we all know.

     Deep down, Sabrina knew she was naturally disloyal.

     Are you really?

     It depended, she supposed, on who you asked.

     She had friendly hands and wandering eyes that made her seem, upon first appraisal, a somewhat disloyal spouse.

     The problem was, saving all that love for one person felt disloyal to everyone else.

     Another problem was, as much as she loved Neumann, she loved Russell equally well, and with all her heart.

     And now she had, she felt, all but abandoned him; left him at the mercy of the cruel winter and his own terrible pain.  All because she'd feared squandering her second chance, and because of an agreement made years ago, before she was really sure how she felt.

     "He may win me back yet, you know.  And I'll probably take him if he does."

     "I understand.  That's probably what I would do."

     Of course Russell understood.  At the time, he'd spent the majority of his adult life being treated as something interchangeable, an unfeeling warm body to be moved around and used up and thrown away.

     And, in the end, Sabrina supposed she'd only reinforced that.

     (Took advantage of it, more like.)

     I'm just trying to love everyone as best I can.

     Sometimes, it felt like there was no trying hard enough.

     And other times, it felt like she was the only one who was actually trying at all.

     Even Neumann, for all his jealous insecurity, had faltered.  All that fretting over those days when he'd caught her giving a shoulder rub to one of her fishing buddies, just for her to catch him drinking from one of her family heirlooms with a total stranger.

     Suddenly, the whole mess seemed incredibly silly, so Sabrina turned her disloyal back and ran; skirting up and down the coast for the better part of two months, chasing fish and lovers without a care in the world.

     Until, one foggy morning, she found herself violently ill; huddling around the commode in her tiny rental cottage, knowing in her bones that everything was about to change forever.

     Knowing, she supposed, that the arc of this new life would one day lead her back into her once-upon-a-time husband's arms.

     I knew.  The timing didn't quite line up for anyone else.

     (...Well, maybe one person.  But I seriously doubt Nicky could have been hers.)

     And, in the end, that's what it came down to: together, Sabrina and Neumann had begun work on a person, and it seemed only right to finish the job together, disloyal as they both had been.

     Besides, we're even now.

     Getting even, of course, hadn't been why she'd done what she did, though it was a comforting thought whenever she remembered the incident with the chalice just a little too bitterly.

     No, she'd done it because she and Russell hadn't had a last time.  At least, not a proper one, where they knew it would be the last.  Simple as that.

     Considering the circumstances, it was an uncomplicated affair, but Sabrina remembered it with an almost aching fondness.

    It was golden.

     (...We were.  We were golden.)

     The sweet, cozy dimness of the bedroom above the Library enveloping them protectively, shielding their bare, tender bodies from the judgemental afternoon light.  Russell at his healthy springtime best; slim and reedy as always, but with a hint of solid muscle at the shoulders, the slightest lamina of temptingly soft flesh around his middle, a youthful fullness to his cheeks.

     They fell into each other as easily as they always had, almost drunk on a bittersweet sort of joy.

     And then, it was over.  For good this time.

     And now...

     ...And now, Russell was gods only knew where; in obvious pain, possibly sick, knees still bleeding, nothing solid or soft left to protect him.

     You think you're not disloyal?  Then prove it.

     Sabrina slid the last of the dishes into the cabinet, then called out towards the sitting area, where her husband and son were making up some silly game as they went along.

     "...Hey!  I'm all done here, so I think I'm going to take a little walk."

     Neumann mumbled something to Nicholas, then raised his voice in reply.

     "Have fun!  We're gonna hit the hay in a little bit, right Nicky?"

     Gods, these silly early risers of mine.

     Sabrina smiled at them fondly, threw on her coat, then vanished into the snowy night, on her way to the Library.

     When she arrived, it was Tori who answered the door.

     "Hey, Tori...  Is Russell in?"

     The shy young woman shook her head, looking deeply worried.

     "I-I don't know where he is...  I c-came back with Cecilia, and he wasn't here, s-so..."

     Sabrina felt her mouth go dry.

     "...So you really don't know?"

     Tori shook her head again.  Sabrina, absurdly, felt herself nod.

     "Right...  Well, I'm going to go ask Emmett now.  Thanks, Tori."

     Thanks for nothing.

     At the Pub, the response was less stuttered, but even more ominous.  Emmett offered her a free drink, and said something cryptic and evasive about having seen Russell early in the evening.  When pressed, he simply stated that he didn't trade in gossip, and would say no more.

     Okay, so he's almost definitely with Lady Ann.  This'll be a little awkward, but we'll all have a good laugh.

     Except, the Lady of the Inn was stationed behind her desk, fully clothed and wrapping up work for the night.  And she hadn't seen Russell, either.

     Where else?  The Church?

     No, she'd never known Russell to be particularly religious.  And anyway, the Church was closed.

     The Bathhouse?

     Sabrina found no one there but Melody, who immediately began trying to sell her ridiculous teas and soaps.  It was all she could do not to bite the poor girl's head off.

     Maybe he finally went to the Clinic.  Maybe Ed had to keep him there.

     As it turned out, Edward had seen him, but it was while visiting the Library, and that was several hours ago by now.

     Okay, now where?

     But there was, she realized, nowhere else.  Unsure of what to do next, Sabrina stood for a while in the middle of the street, snow gathering on her shoulders and in her dark hair.

     Something has gone horribly wrong.

~*~

     How did this go so horribly wrong?

     Lynette sat alone in her dark cabin; half-dressed at the foot of the bed, the last few hours feeling disjointed and surreal.

     A moment, Russell smiling pleasantly at her from the other side of the Library.  Another, the two of them drinking together, her falling fast for his strange, subtle charms.  Another, and he was half-delirious and bleeding from the mouth in her bedroom.

     What had he taken?  Had he been out of his mind with fever the entire time?  How did she fail to notice until he was half-naked in her house?

     Remember, you were told to stay away from him.

     Not long after Lynette had defected and settled in Kardia, the stern innkeeper had noticed that—if only from afar—she had taken something of a liking to Russell.  It was nothing serious, no deep yearnings.  She simply thought he had a pleasant face, and found his quiet bearing relaxing, so she enjoyed watching him sometimes.

     Even so, the innkeeper issued a warning: Russell had spent quite a bit of harrowing time as a Norad soldier, and probably wasn't interested in friendship—let alone anything else—with the likes of her.

     Lynette replied that she wasn't expecting him to want anything, and that she didn't even want anything herself.

     And, until tonight, she'd presumed that was the honest truth.

     What I should have said was, "I think it's you that sees me as the enemy."

     She'd seen them together, and it didn't take a strategist to figure out what was going on.

     In the end, the ominous warning only served to intensify that casual interest.

     For one thing, she was a soldier, and wasn't about to let some territorial harpy push her around.

     For another, she hadn't assumed that she and Russell would have anything in common, and was interested to learn that they did.

     But, I guess we were a bad match after all.

     Lynette thought about this for a minute.  Whether they were or they weren't, that didn't seem to have anything to do with what had just transpired.

     In fact, the most troubling thing was that it didn't seem to have much to do with anything at all.  Russell entered her home of his own free will; broke down mentally, physically, completely.  Then he left just as quickly as he'd arrived.

     Was that the point?  And if so, did he even know?

     Sighing to herself, Lynette stood, turned on the lamp and resumed her place at the foot of the bed, staring at the floor.  Some flimsy, unfamiliar garment was crumpled there; abandoned next to a few drops of glistening, darkening blood.

     When she realized what she'd done, Lynette's own blood chilled.

     I should never have sent him out there by himself.  What made me do such a thing?

     It didn't take long for her to realize why.

     This was simply how she'd been taught to treat people.  And it was how she, herself, had been treated.  The last time she'd ever seen one of her former superiors, she was flatly commanded to die, and had been fully prepared to go through with it until the young farmer intervened.

     I guess I still have a lot to learn from this place.

     (Or, you're really irredeemable after all.)

     No.  He can't have gone far.  I can still change this.

     Without bothering to dress, Lynette leapt from the bed, and hurried, dishabille, for the front door; cracking it open with an unexpected tentativeness.

     "...Russell?"

     Stepping out onto the porch, her bare feet stinging in the snow, she scanned the white blur of the landscape around her, but couldn't find him anywhere.  There were a few indentations that might have been footprints, but they were rapidly filling up with snow.  In mere minutes, tracking him would be all but impossible.

     Don't tell me you failed another mission.

     As the biting wind goose-pimpled her naked, delicate skin, Lynette wished she had never been convinced not to raise that cruel blade to her chest.

~*~

     Sharron didn't see things before they happened.  Not precisely.

     But she often found that she knew things.

     Usually in odd or vague ways, but sufficient to guide her with a strange certainty; if she only paid close attention, if she was wise enough to heed herself.

     On this night, for example, she knew to let her explorations in the ruins run long, and to not return to the Inn come nightfall.  When she stepped out for a bit of brisk air and found the snow nearly blinding, Sharron figured she knew why.

     I understand.  Thank you.

     She would sleep tonight on a soft patch of moss, in the ruins' springlike warmth; waiting out the storm in those mysterious corridors that felt, to her, more like home than any inn.

     But, when bedtime finally arrived, it brought with it another knowing, leaving the wise oracle uncharacteristically stunned.

     I have to leave, don't I?

     (I have to head for town.)

     At first, Sharron was hesitant.  She had never known her intuitions to so rapidly contradict themselves.

     But, then again, she had never known her intuitions to so rapidly contradict themselves.

     Whatever she was feeling, it must have been urgent.  So she took a quiet moment to center her mind, then left her blessed stone fortress to brave the storm outside.

     In honesty, she had never much minded the cold.  In fact, she almost seemed born to it, nearly blending in with the ethereal silver-white of the scenery.  As she walked briskly along the path through the forest, her long skirts trailed in the snow, growing damp and diaphanous as the ice sheathing the branches overhead.

     Slow down now.

     Again, she wondered what her intuition was trying to tell her.

     Was this not an urgent matter?

     On the other hand, she was quite close to town, so perhaps it was simply time to greet her mysterious purpose.

     What is this?  Perhaps a meeting at the crossroads?

     Cautiously, she pressed on, keeping her eyes open for signs, for portents, for strangers.

     And, when she saw the dark shape at the bottom of the roadside gully, she knew.

     At first, she didn't know who it was; or indeed, even whether it was a "who," or merely a "what."  But she knew that this—whatever it was—was that to which her arcane mind had led her.  She gathered her skirts, and descended the shallow slope.

     Oh no...  Is he alive...?

     Now that she knelt beside the prone, snow-dusted form, she realized that it was indeed a "who."  Moreover, it was no stranger.  They hadn't spoken often—for Sharron rarely spoke to anyone but Melody—but she knew this face well.  They had passed many times, in the dim hallways of the Inn.

     The innkeeper's lover.

     (That's none of your business.)

     She knew his name was Russell, and she knew that he ran the Library in town.  But she did not know, with any certainty, whether he was alive or dead.  He was awfully pale and still, and there was dried blood caked around his nose and mouth, as though he had smashed his face on the way down.

     Poor thing...  Let's see...

     Upon centering herself once more, Sharron felt the flame of his life; so dim that it was nearly drowned out by her own, and those of the scores of dormant trees around them.  Then she watched as his back arched in a rattling, laborious breath, and a weak puff of white escaped his slightly parted lips.

     Thank goodness...  He won't last long out here, though.

     Sharron knew, in the more pedestrian sense of knowing, that she had to get him to the Clinic.  What she didn't know was how.  Russell wasn't large or heavy, but the years spent honing her mind had left her body somewhat wispy and frail.  She'd never be able to lift him.

     But who could?

     (The Clinic!)

     Suddenly, her mind was flooded with images of a sturdy young man, who spent most of his days hoisting great bales of hay for a stable of grateful Monsters.

     Camus!  He lives above the Clinic!  He's the doctor's son!

     Turning towards Russell again, Sharron almost whispered "wait here," but this struck her as absurd, so she said nothing, briefly pressing one hand to his frigid face.  Then she scurried up out of the ditch, gathered her skirts once more, and ran the rest of the way to town.

     All the while trying, with all her considerable psychic might, to hold that dim flame in her mind.

~*~

     Edward still wasn't entirely sure what, exactly, was going on.

     Not ten minutes ago, he and his son had been woken by a ferocious banging at the front door, then an unfamiliar, somewhat feral feminine voice shrieking Camus's name into the night.

     It was Sharron—the strange scholar of the ruins—and something was wrong.

     Someone was hurt, but that was all he could gather.  He wasn't sure who or how, because Camus had taken off after her into what had, in the hour they'd been sleeping, developed into a light blizzard.

     Which left Edward standing alone in the Clinic's waiting room, trying to figure out what the hell could be happening at this hour.

     If Ann's halfwit son was out caving, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snowstorm, I swear...

     Edward felt himself growing irritated, but he didn't have time to get truly worked up.  For Camus soon returned, and the limp form he carried didn't belong to Zavier.

     It was Russell.

     And, at first, Edward was almost certain that he was dead.

     Fortunately, a rather breathless Camus set the record straight.

     "I don't know what...  He's breathing, though...  What should I...?"

     Edward rushed into the exam room, snapped up a clattering assortment of tools, and returned to the waiting room, the sheer panic leaving him feeling a bit out of breath himself.

     "Just lay him out flat on the floor!"

     Camus did as he was told.

     "...Okay!  What now!?"

     Edward winced as he heard himself snapping at his frightened son.

     "...Now you go to bed and let me work!"

     The strapping young man seemed to shrink a bit, then vanished upstairs; where both he and his father knew full well that he wouldn't sleep a wink.

     That was no concern of Edward's.  The important thing was making sure he wouldn't be distracted as he attempted to put his closest friend back together.

     But first, he had to work out exactly how Russell had fallen apart.

     Blood from the nose and mouth, and he's not responsive.  Check his pupils.

     Upon inspection, they appeared mostly normal.  However, Edward did note that they seemed slightly constricted.

     Please don't tell me you...

     Edward felt himself growing frustrated again, but it flared out quickly, fading to a dull, flat despair.

     ...I'm sorry.  I knew something wasn't right.  I should have pushed you to come see me when I dropped off the book.

     The despair and guilt soon faded as well; to a quiet, resolute determination.

     Well, I have you here now, and I'll fix you up.  I promise.

     For the first time since he'd escaped it, Edward found himself longing for the city.  For the hospitals there, filled with strange, shining devices; for the slender lines that could deliver air directly into the lungs, fluids and medicines directly into the veins.

    Here, in this small country clinic, he had no such magics.

     All he had were his own two hands.

     And, in that moment, they were looking terribly inadequate.

     They'll have to be enough.

     The first step, he figured, was to get Russell dry and warm.  And, to accomplish this, Edward would have to remove his layers of cold, wet clothing.

     This is a cruel joke, isn't it?

     Edward had, of course, imagined undressing Russell before.

     It was something he found himself doing whenever a particularly charming man entered his life.  His was an active, inquisitive mind, and he had always found a bit of fantasy to be the very thing when he was feeling particularly lonesome, or just in need of a few quick thrills.  He was aware that it could make things feel awkward down the line, but he never let that bother him too much.

     The doctor was, after all, excellent at compartmentalizing.

     He had simply cut Russell into three, and gotten on with things.

     Well, it looks like there's only one of him now, and this is the one you get.

     (I don't want this.)

     He diligently undid Russell's various findings, and found the task so sad and repellant that he nearly wept.  This was nothing like all those warm, sentimental mid-afternoon fantasies.

     In fact, it had more in common with the cadaver dissections Edward had participated in during medical school.  Russell's skin was freezing cold; drained paper-white save for a bluish cast to the lips.  His slight muscles offered no resistance.  Only the occasional shaky breath broke the illusion.

     It's okay.  You're not dead.  I'm not going to cut you open.  Don't be scared.

     He did, however, have to cut Russell out of his undershirts, and the sensation was unpleasantly familiar.  Except instead of the sick grey of pickled viscera, Edward's surgical shears had only revealed more pallid, bruised skin, stretched over a heartbreakingly corrugated sternum.

     Cautiously, he ran his knuckles along those delicate bones, applying some mild pressure.  This made Russell's breath hitch a bit, but failed to rouse him.  Then—hating himself for what he was about to do—Edward slid his hand downward, onto the withered skin over the solar plexus.

     That, too, was not quite enough to wake him.  But it had, as Edward thought it might, induced a stronger response.  Russell flinched and exhaled with an unhealthy sputter, spraying them both with fine droplets of blood.

     Edward—having lost all sense of medical protocol—scooped Russell's cold, limp body off the floor; holding him close, whispering "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," with no thought as to whether his friend could hear him.

     All he knew was that he needed to gather Russell in his arms.

     Every last bit of him.

     That ingenious, knowledge-hungry, broken brain.  His gentle heart, his hard-working liver, his blood-drenched lungs.  The strange, lopsided tattoo that Edward hadn't even known about until now, and the stained plasters on his knees.  The slack joints, which gave his body the impression of something falling to pieces.

     I need to put him back together.

     Edward fought back tears.

     "I'm sorry I hurt you...  I just needed to know you were in there."

     Russell, of course, gave no reply.  But Edward knew from the painful, one-sided quality of his breathing that he would soon need to hurt him even worse.  And he wasn't sure if he could bear to.

     Of course you can.  You'll do whatever it takes to get him well.

     Whatever it takes?

     Whatever it takes.

     Gently, Edward laid Russell back down on the floor, resuming the examination.

     By the time he was finished, dawn was beginning to break, and Lara was arriving to start her shift.

     When she saw the scene before her, she nearly froze solid in alarm.

     Calmly, Edward looked up to meet her wide, terrified eyes.

     "Help me get him cleaned up."

[herriblog]

Week 35/36

I am on my second pregnancy. I am in my Week 36. I was having difficulty in sleeping at night. I always had to put two-three pillows under my head to sleep. Somewhere about week 28, I had this same issue, and i slept with two pillows and a neck pillow. After a while, my upper back would hurt so I would remove one pillow and sleep at my side. But this time, everything is not comfortable. I just feel like I am going to die lying down. I even tried to take piriton to calm myself down but I can't. I finally slept at 2plus last night. It brought back memories of my slipped disc. I remember to kill my time during the night, I would randomly chat with people on whisper. But this time, I do not have the mood, motivation to chat with other people especially on whisper knowing that they are there for one main reason; Hook ups. It's very hard to get someone to have a heart to heart conversation without them thinking that you can be something more. Yes, you may say why don't you chat with your spouse? He has had a whole day of working. Busy. Tons on his mind. I am just going to add in more stress to his already stressful day. Even if I share, he is probably going to just say relax, it is all going to be fine. This anxiety is a killer. Reassuring your loved one like that or any other way isn't going to cut it. I did the same thing to him many years ago when he had anxiety, until he switched off sharing what he experiences.

I feel like as though I am too bloated up that causes me to feel this. But at the same time, I am hungry. I don't want to eat because it will make me feel more bloated and feel more breathlessness. I started to have these palpitations every 3-5 mins. I do not know if its normal or should I get it checked out. I googled it and they say its normal. But I never felt like this during my last pregnancy. I know. I know. Every pregnancy is different. I do not want to feel like a hypochondriac. I've already been googling every single symptom that I have. It's not helping.

To add on to my whole emotions, My friend had texted me and told me that the areas that I cover are being distributed out to my other colleagues permanently. So it seems like my boss is trying to get rid of me. Boss actually said that since I have not been around in most of the areas and the department HODs want someone permanent there (which sounds like im always on HL, but she makes it sound like I sneak off somewhere to get rid of work, which i do but i still come back to the departments to check on them in the afternoon). I told her that as much as I feel horrible being in this department and that I plan to leave this area, it should not affect me. I take more leaves than anyone in the department. I do not contribute (I used to but I always get slammed down). And I already have intentions of leaving the department to either do part time nursing or agency nursing. I keep telling myself that I shouldn't feel bad or upset. But I still do. I told my husband about this and he said she shouldn't have texted you this especially at this time. It is causing unnecessary stress on me which I agree to. She clearly knows I am not coming back to work. Why make it sound like my boss is trying to get rid of me. it may mean that I am not going to be around for the rest of the year so she is giving it to others.

So in short, I feel damn lousy. I think I feel depress that I am not going to work and top it off, my son went to school today after almost a week of not going to school so I feel lonely.

I think I should just take up the trip to KL with my husband and be away from all this. But at the same time, I am also worried about my son who has grown attached to me. He is always finding me somewhere in the house to get me to be with him. I wonder if he will be able to sleep with the new helper, Khawl (She is about 1.5 months old). I am so fickle minded.

Thats all for today.