#i've been doing pretty bad mentally over the past half year and getting back into mcr has made me so happy

[savventeen]

you say the stupidest (sweetest) things

pairing: seungkwan x gn!reader rating: 16+ (for swearing) wc: 4.5k prompt: seungkwan + "things you said at 1am" summary: you say stupid shit on the best of days, so when seungkwan comes over when you're having a bad bout of insomnia, the last thing he expects to hear from you is an accidental love confession warnings: insomnia, mental health issues, dissociation mention tags: fluff, friends to lovers, first kiss, reader is a little unhinged but who isn't tbh, they're also highkey allergic to genuine expressions of love/affection but they're working on it, banter, stimming, wrestling like children to try and work through emotions, reader is some flavor of lgbt+ (they make an "i've never done anything straight in my life" joke), reader's pov is dramatic bc they're dramatic oops a/n: this is for @dokyeomin as a part of my emergency commissions (check out the post here) and this was only supposed to be 1k but it 100% got away from me... i hope you still enjoy the fluff and all of the attached nonsense <3

From: Y/n 🔪 [11:47pm]

yo kwannie if i impulsively decide to go to the 24h convenience store how harshly do u think they'll jusdge me for buying every flavor of gummy candy available *judge i wanna see if i can melt them down into one Ultimate Gummy u know for Science

Seungkwan pauses brushing his teeth and stares down at your messages.

To be fair, it's probably not the strangest thing you've ever texted him. He's known you since your second year of college, after all, so he has about half a decade of experience with all of your various y/n-isms under his belt now.

Which is how he knows to trust his gut when it tells him that this probably isn't your usual brand of nonsense.

He spits the toothpaste into the sink and dials your number. You answer on the second ring.

“Before you say anything,” you start, “I was only half-serious about the gummies thing. Like, it's a fun idea, you know? In theory. But in actuality? I do not want to deal with the mess that it would create. Or the smells. Well, the smells might actually be pretty good depending on—“

“Uh-huh,” he interrupts dryly. “Y/n, when's the last time you slept?”

The beat of silence that follows is enough to confirm his suspicions, and the hesitant “Um” that follows is just the icing on the cake, really.

He sighs. “The fact that you have to think about it says enough.”

“I don’t need to think about it,” you argue petulantly. “I just… don’t wanna tell you.”

“Y/n...” he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, I know, I'm sorry.” And you do sound a little bit sorry, at least. “I'm just. Having an episode. Don't worry about it.”

His shoulders droop as the words sink in. “Episodes” are what you've taken to calling your intermittent bouts of serious insomnia.

Generally speaking, you sleep about as well as the average twenty-something with a caffeine addiction. But every few months or so, it's like your brain completely forgets how to shut off and you end up staying awake for 40+ hours straight.

“Well,” he says, putting his toothbrush away and going back to his bedroom. “You know that ship has sailed, right? You know I'm gonna worry about it.”

Your deep sigh crackles over the line. “Yeah, I know.”

“So. Where're we at this time?”

He mentally braces himself. The two of you have done this enough times now that he knows that you know there's no point in trying to lie or beat around the bush.

“Uhhhhhhh, I'll be hitting the 46-hour mark in about 20 minutes.”

“Aish.”

The fact that you can say that so casually makes his heart hurt. He knows that whenever he doesn't get enough sleep, he makes sure everyone knows it and thus babies him accordingly. But you've always been so intent on hiding anything and everything you struggle with. It's taken years for him to bully himself past the walls you keep hidden behind shit-eating grins and an over-willingness to help.

“Okay,” he says, moving to the dresser to grab an extra set of clothes. “I'll be over in an hour.”

“Wait. What?”

“You heard me.” He tosses the clothes onto his bed before going to grab one of his duffle bags, firmly asserting, “You've got an hour to mentally prepare yourself for my arrival.”

“Honey, you've got a big storm comin',” you quote at him without hesitating.

“You sure do,” he assures with a snort. “Better get ready to feel the wrath of my friendship.”

“Why do you have to love so aggressively?”

He rolls his eyes while he throws his clothes into the duffle bag with one hand. “Because it's the only way you'll accept it, idiot.”

“No, it isn't.”

Your pout is so audible through the phone that Seungkwan has to stop and glance at the screen in disbelief.

“Y/n. Y/n L/n. Do not stand there and lie to my face like that.”

“I'm not lying!”

“Not—” He gesticulates wildly with one hand like he's going Can you believe this shit? to an invisible TV audience. “Okay, tell me this: what did you do the last time I sincerely monologued at you about how much you mean to me as a friend, hmm? No bits, no bullshit, just me telling you how much I love you and how amazing you are.”

A beat. “I'll hang up on you, Kwannie, don't test me.”

He barely resists the urge to shove his face into the bedspread and scream. “You're literally proving my point right now!”

“Kwannieeee,” you whine, because you know he's right.

“Also, because I'm never letting you live it down, I will remind you exactly what you did."

You say his name again, but it's muffled, and he assumes it's because you're hiding your face in shame.

“I gave you a sincere, heartfelt speech about how much your friendship has changed my life for the better and made me become a better person—” he ignores your wordless pterodactyl screech, “—and how do you respond? By staring at me like a deer caught in the headlights, slowly raising your arms to give me double finger guns, winking, and then slowly backing out of the room like an awkward mannequin!”

“...”

“Well?” He puts his free hand on his hip. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“… I’ve changed a lot since then.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes before moving to continue packing his overnight bag. “It was literally three months ago.”

“Yeah, and? Doesn't change the fact that I've changed,” you assert.

“Into even more of a nuisance? Yes, you're absolutely right.” He smiles when he hears you scoff playfully.

“Listen here, Boo Seungkwan. You know that well-rested Y/n is ready to throw down with you at a moment's notice. What do you think sleep-deprived, zero-impulse-control Y/n is going to do the second you get to their front door?”

“Stop referring to themself in the third person, hopefully,” he mutters, finally zipping up his bag and heading to the door. “And then after that, they're going to let me bully them into resting.”

“Hmm. The council has heard your proposal, briefly pondered it, and deemed it “unnecessary” on the basis of: they're a bad bitch that can't be stopped by neither time nor physics nor any god of your choosing.”

Seungkwan scoffs as he puts the call on speaker and sits to put on his sneakers. “Well, “the council” can go fuck right off.”

“What if the council would like to fuck right on?”

Pausing in the middle of tying his laces, he blinks down at his phone. “I'm— what?”

“Okay, real talk, what do you think it would mean in this case? Like, would this be like a 'hop on' versus 'hop off' situation? Or more like an 'I'm down for this' versus 'I'm up for this' kinda situation? Because it would have very different outcomes depending.”

Seungkwan decides that this is a debate better left for another time. “I think it means that I'm going to be at your house soon and that if you're not in your pajamas with hot Sleepy Time tea and the series Planet Earth ready to go, there will be consequences.”

“Booooooo, you whore.”

He finishes tying his laces and jabs his finger at the phone. “Consequences, Y/n.”

“Ugh, fine.”

“See you soon, love you, bye.” He hangs up before you can get another word in, but doesn't move from his seated position in the entryway.

Slowly, he takes a deep breath in and lets it out, taking a moment to lean back on his hands while he stares at the back of his front door. Specifically, at the large collage of sticky notes and pictures and doodles that have taken up residence there.

A few of the notes are ones he's gotten from other members of your shared friend group over the years (the one from Chan that reads "if u eat my rice i'll eat ur kneecaps xoxo" hangs proudly in the center, right next to a picture of him sleeping that Seungkwan managed to capture from an extremely unflattering angle). But most of them are from you.

Dumb puns, meme references, bullshit animal facts you made up just to get him to laugh… almost all of them are stupid in that extremely charming way that only you somehow manage to pull off.

But the one he's staring at now is almost completely hidden by other notes and pictures that have been added to the collage. It's a pale blue, the ink starting to fade a bit with time — the first note you ever gave him, back when you two were just people who happened to sit next to each other in an astronomy class.

Even though most of it is hidden, he doesn't need to be able to see all the tiny words you crammed into the small space to already know exactly what it says.

how do u make a space party? u planet :P u looked sad today, hope this makes u feel a little better also if this is 2 forward feel free 2 pretend i don't exist. or punt me in2 the sun idk u'd be doing me a favor tbh

He'd almost skipped class that day because of how bad he'd been feeling, but he'd decided to try and push through. And before that day, neither of you had interacted with more than a polite greeting and the occasional question about the homework.

But then you'd passed him that note, and he'd passed one back that said “that's dumb. but thank you” with a smiley face, and you'd passed another one back that said “do u think lizard people have ever been to space?” and the rest, they say, is history.

Seungkwan shakes his head with a sigh before standing up and grabbing his bag and his keys, striding determinedly out the door. He's got a best friend to take care of.

Seungkwan should be at your place soon, and you're not quite sure what to do in the meantime.

You have your laptop hooked up to the monitor in the living room with Planet Earth queued up, you have the kettle filled with water and ready to go on the stove, and you have mugs and teabags ready on the counter next to it.

The Required Tasks™️ have been completed as much as possible without the arrival of your best friend, and now all that's left to do is wait.

Which, normally, you're not the worst at. You're excellent at entertaining yourself, actually, mostly because there's always something to think about. Whether it be about cute dogs that you've seen over the past week (I wonder if the pomeranian down the street will let me pet him next time), potential plot twists for the new fantasy drama you're a little bit obsessed with (what if Gregothy was cursed the whole time???), or generic ponderings of the human existence as a whole (do souls have the metaphysical equivalent of a fingerprint?), you're pretty much always thinking about something.

Which is totally fine and dandy and cool or whatever when you have the ability to, you know, shut it off. For example, when you need to do something simple and necessary like, oh I don't know, go the fuck to sleep.

You also hate when that manic mental energy somehow translates into kinetic energy as well. It makes you feel like a hamster in a cage, watching yourself running and running and running on that stupid wheel until you exhaust yourself.

Tonight's metaphorical wheel: stimming like wild in the kitchen. Flapping, rocking, (gently) slapping, making weird and fun mouth sounds, the whole shebang.

And again, normally stimming is fun. Stimming is great. But stimming because you feel like if you don't stop moving you're going to literally vibrate out of your skin is, to put it lightly, Not It.

It takes you about ten minutes to work out all of the energy until you no longer feel like your blood was replaced with pop rocks.

With a groan, you lower yourself to the kitchen floor and lay down face first. Because despite how exhausted you feel in every possible way, there's still something like an itch in your conscious, a fucking pea underneath the miles of mattresses that refuse to let you just. Fucking. Sleep.

Your pity party must've lasted longer than you realized (or, more likely, you dissociated for a hot second there) because suddenly someone's knocking at your door at the same time you get a text from Seungkwan.

And you know it's a text from Seungkwan specifically because you got Vernon to help you change your notification settings so that whenever Seungkwan texts you, the "i love you.. bitch" sound clip plays instead of a normal text tone.

For a fraction of a second, you contemplate slowly inching your way to the door like an uncoordinated caterpillar, but you swat the thought aside like you’re swatting a gnat and you awkwardly roll to your feet and make your way to your front door.

Without hesitating, you unlock the door, swinging it open with a flourish and sticking a finger right in Seungkwan's face before he can utter a single syllable, forcing him to cross his eyes.

You open your mouth wide like you're going to say something, pause for a moment, then tap your pointed finger to his nose with a quiet "boop."

He blinks, expression turning deadpan, and sighs. "I should have expected this, honestly."

“Yep!”

You let him into your apartment, and he makes himself right at home, mildly bitching at you as he goes to get the tea ready, and something within you shifts.

The inside of your head is still a bit of a dumpster fire, unfortunately, but inside your chest... something clicks into place that you're not sure that you're ready to name. Whatever it is, though, it's soft and warm and kinda feels like your heart is being hugged.

Smiling to yourself, you follow him into the kitchen.

💤 💤 💤 💤 💤

It was pretty much straight to “business” after that, and it only takes Seungkwan one cup of tea and two episodes listening to David Attenborough's dulcet narrations for him to knock right out, leaning heavily against your shoulder on the couch.

Which means it's now the perfect time to sit there and Admire Your Bro™️.

It's rare to see him so still, you think. He's an active guy, in pretty much every sense of the word, and you always feel a little honored when you get to be witness to his quiet, vulnerable moments like this one.

He looks so serene, face smoothed out and painted in soft twirling shades of blue from the screen of the monitor, though you can't see too much of it from this angle. Mostly you just see his cheeks and stupidly adorable button nose.

And you've seen the same thing a million times before — in all kinds of states and expressions — and despite how much you've tried to ignore it, each and every time you've caught yourself noticing just how cute Seungkwan is, it's caused that thing in your heart to scrunch up, full of the L-word feeling that you've kept unnamed for what feels like forever now.

Except, maybe that thing in your heart is tired of scrunching up. Maybe it's decided that it's tired of forever.

Maybe that thing has finally decided to burrow itself out of the walls you've built up because you find yourself finally allowing yourself to think, Holy shit, I think I'm in love with you.

You don't realize that Seungkwan has completely stilled against you, but you certainly notice when he suddenly throws himself forward so he can turn around and stare at you incredulously. Only he overshoots a little bit and ends up falling off the couch with a squawk and a dramatic flail.

"Oh my god, Kwannie are you okay?!"

He stares at you from where he fell, wide-eyed like you've grown a second head or like the time you'd tried to convince him that birds weren't real and actually just a government conspiracy.

"Am— am I okay? No??"

Now it's your turn to move off of the couch, coming down to his level to see if maybe he hurt himself when he fell. "Fuck, okay, did you hit something? Do you need an icepack?"

Seungkwan being Not Okay is maybe one of the worst things that could ever happen in the entire universe and you're trying not to panic as you reach out to check for injuries.

"No, no, stop—" he bats away at your hands and you stop in your motions, now kneeling in front of him. "I'm not hurt!"

Your brain does the cartoonish screech thing as it comes to a halt, and you furrow your brows. "But.. you just said you're not okay?"

"I'm not!" His eyes are still wide in shock, but he also looks confused and maybe a little bit like he's about to cry?

Oh no. If he cries and it's somehow your fault (because it has to somehow be your fault) you think the world might actually end.

"Okay, uh. I am— confused,” you start, sure you must look as lost as you feel. “But, um, what can I do to help?"

He swallows, and a part of you realizes that he's looking at you with an expression you've never seen before. "Did you mean it?"

Knowing that it's significant but not yet knowing why, you maintain eye contact. "Mean what?"

"What you just said."

You blink. "...that I'm confused?"

He shakes his head. "No, before that."

You have a hard time remembering what you just said when you're not sleep-deprived and worried you've just somehow accidentally caused irreparable emotional damage to your best friend. "Uh... when I asked if you were okay?"

"No, fuck," and it's a shock for some reason, hearing him cuss right now. You hear him say much worse things all the time, but you think it might be the way he said it — with a kind of desperate vulnerability that you're not sure you've ever heard from him before.

That thing in your chest twinges and you think maybe you're the one who's gonna start crying.

He says your name like a plea, and then he's on his knees right in front of where you're kneeling on the floor, reaching forward to cup your face in his palms. "You said— Y/n, you said "holy shit I think I'm in love with you.””

Oh.

You're pretty sure your heart falls right out of your ass and bounces across the rug, judging from the way it comes to a dead stop. You blink at him. Full of new and sinking kind of dread, you whisper, "...I said that out loud?"

He laughs, but it's tinged with incredulity and sounds a little too close to a sob for comfort. "Yes! You did!"

And wait, no, your heart is still stuck in your chest, because you can feel it start pounding against your ribcage in double, triple, quadruple time. He must see the fear in your expression, because suddenly his eyes are narrowed in a determined scowl and he growls, "Oh no you don't."

Then you find yourself going down with a yelp as Seungkwan octopuses himself around you, trapping you within the confines of his surprisingly strong arms and legs as he basically tackles you to the floor.

You try and wiggle away even as you know it's useless, and he grits, "Y/n dammit, answer my question."

"Why were you even awake?” You deflect, getting an arm free and trying to give him a wedgie. “You were supposed to be asleep!"

"I was supposed to be asleep?!” He screeches, easily evading your reach and poking your ribs to get you to reflexively pull back your arm. “You're the one who hasn't slept in literal days! And stop avoiding my question!"

"No!" He has you trapped once again, and you resort to licking his arm.

"Oh my god!"

He muffles his scream into your shoulder, long and frustrated, and then he just... goes limp. He loosens his hold and just lets his full body weight kinda crush the parts of you he's ended up lying on and just... lays there.

This is your chance, you know — to wiggle free and escape and run away from your feelings just like you always have.

But, for some reason, you don't — that scrunched-up thing in your chest holds you back. You stay there, lying beneath Seungkwan on the floor of your living room at one-something in the morning, and the two of you just breathe.

"It's okay, you know," he murmurs after a moment, so quiet you barely hear him over David Attenborough still narrating softly in the background. "If you didn't mean it. It's okay."

Holy shit, I think I'm in love with you.

And you realize how easy it would be to play it off, to blame it on the sleep deprivation, the way you blurted it out like that — to say (to lie) you meant it completely platonically, like the way you propose to Mingyu at least once a month when he cooks you all dinner.

And you also realize, quite shockingly, that despite how a part of you still desperately wants to run away, the larger part of you wants to stay. Doesn't want to run. Doesn't want to lie anymore.

You swallow heavily, briefly close your eyes, and take in a deep breath. "And if I did? Mean it?"

This time, you do notice when Seungkwan goes still. Slowly, he lifts his head so he can look you in the eyes.

When he doesn't say anything, just continues to look at you with an unreadable expression, you try to continue.

"Would you— would that— would it be okay? If I meant it? When I— when I said that I'm in love with you? Is— because um, like you said, it's okay if it's not, and uh—"

Your nervous rambling comes to a stop when he once again cups your face, but it's gentler than before, closer to a caress. The whole time you'd been talking he'd been slowly sitting up, and now he's on his knees next to where you're still lying down on the floor, looking down at you like all the hope in the world is somewhere to be found in your expression.

"Y/n." he says your name like it's something precious, and you feel the absurd urge to burst into tears. "It would be very okay." His thumbs make gentle arcs across your cheeks. "And just to be clear: you mean it in a non-platonic sense, right?” He chews on his lip. “Hopefully, in a very much romantic sense?"

Staring at him staring at you, eyes bright with hope and a little bit of wonder... you can only imagine you must be looking at him the same way. Your chest feels like it's full of helium but also like something warm and gooey is sloshing around in there. And all that hope and wonder and holy shit is this actually happening? is causing your tongue to stick to the roof of your mouth, and all you're able to get past your lips is a breathless, "Hopefully?"

"Oh my god," he groans in frustration, but it's light and airy and makes you think of amusement park rides and fairy lights and how you want to annoy the shit out of this man for the rest of his life, if he'll let you. He's shaking his head, smiling, beaming, and he asks, "Why can you never give me any kind of a straight answer, huh?"

"Because it's my life's purpose to be the bane of your existence until the day we die," you say, reaching up to hold his face too. "Also because I've never done anything straight ever in my life."

And then your body is moving before your brain can think it though, dragging him down until you can press your lips to his and finally, finally know what it's like to kiss Boo Seungkwan.

He makes a little noise of surprise, one that you can feel buzz against your lips before he melts into you. And oh, any thoughts you might have had are forcefully ejected from your brain because all you can focus on are his lips pressed to yours, the way they move slowly, gently, turning this chaste kiss into the most scorching experience of your life. His nose bumps against yours and the heat of his warm breath sends tingles throughout your body, and his hands, fuck, his hands are still holding you gently but also with a firmness that feels like he doesn't want to let you go.

And then he's pulling away, and you whine at him because this may be the cruelest thing he's ever done to you ever in your entire life. "Noooooo, why'd you stop?"

"Because, as much as I'd love to continue to make out with you on your floor while an old British man narrates about life on the Serengeti—” he mercifully ignores the way you choke on your spit at the way he talks about making out with you so nonchalantly "—it's past someone's bedtime."

Your mouth drops open in offended shock. Was he actually going to put you to bed like a child? Like you both hadn't just declared your romantic love for each other? "Are you fucking serious?"

He just stands up and crosses his arms, looking down at you with a single raised eyebrow. You take the part of you that finds it annoyingly attractive and promptly smother it, crossing your own arms from your position on the floor.

"I'm not a baby," you definitely don't pout.

"Hmmm...” And then the bastard fucking pouts at you. “But you're my baby."

You blink at him.

"Welp, that was nice while it lasted,” you grunt, rolling to your feet, “but I suddenly need to relocate to Antarctica and become a penguin herder.”

He pulls you into his arms with a laugh, and you let him, burying your face in the crook of his shoulder.

“You know,” he starts after he's held you for a few moments. “This isn't how I ever imagined how us confessing to each other would go.”

You snort.

“But also,” he continues, “it feels very 'us' doesn't it?”

"Yeah,” you murmur, not bothering to lift your head from his shoulder.

“Mmm, is someone finally sleepy?” he teases, starting to waddle you both towards your bedroom. “Did all the emotions finally wear you out?”

Instead of nodding, you lightly kick him in the shin and the sappy part of your brain that is currently in charge of everything thinks that his indignant squawk is one of your most favorite sounds.

The sappy part of your brain is right, of course, and when you wake up in your bed 15 hours later and accidentally smack him in the face, the urge to run is a little bit smaller than it was before. And the way he flushes bright red after you sleepily kiss him on the cheek is an image you're going to cherish until the day you die.

[sazzujazzu]

Hello, as the days count down and the Bad Batch finale draws closer, may I show to the fine folks of tumblr my first Star Wars OC in 20 years, created thanks to this show? 😃

Too bad, I'm showing them anyway 😊 somberly chilling while listening to their bestie talk.

Please excuse the poor background (I got lazy) and half-finished Tech (I got sad)

there's, uh, a big mess of words under the image because I wanted to put into words the importance this show has for me, and I am bad at doing so.

I want to get some thoughts off my chest, because I have no one in my day-to-day life who cares about the animated Star Wars shows, and especially the Bad Batch. (well, other than my mom, but I don't want to bore her with my rambling too much. she already banned star wars from me once, i won't let that happen again lol)

I can't stop thinking how much I don't want Bad Batch to end.

This show has been so dear to me. I can't remember the last time I've loved something this much.

Before the second season started, I had an artistic block that had lasted way too long. Anything I drew or wrote, mostly turned out a horrible mess after staring at a blank page for hours and hours, if I ever managed to create anything at all. For someone who tends to draw whenever their hands aren't otherwise busy (aka all the damn time), such a block weighed down on my mental health.

Well, then season two happened, and full-on gave me back my love for Star Wars, a love that had somewhat gone out over the last few years. Then, Plan 99 happened, and broke me because again my favorite character "died" (I'm in team Tech lives until I draw my last breath or until proven correct. That chocolate-eyed cutie-pie is alive nothing will convince me otherwise). Pretty much after finishing the episode and staring at a wall for another 30 minutes, I said "nope" and began writing.

I wrote for hours. I believe it's been well over a decade since I last wrote fanfiction, but here I was, creating a Star Wars oc, something I'd last done as a ten-year-old. And now, roughly a year later, I think I've written over a hundred pages of (very self-indulgent) fanfiction with the Batch, and with my oc that I've come to love.

And drawing, oh boy, have I been drawing!

(... Sure, I've mostly been drawing Tech, over and over again, to a point I once actually considered lying and saying "yeah that's my boyfriend haha!" to a man at my job last summer, when asked who it was that I was drawing for maybe fifth day in a row 😂 likely would've been a more acceptable excuse for someone my age. But, I mean... I just really love drawing him, not only because he is my favorite character of maybe all time, but because he is just so fun to draw! And most of all, at least I draw again!)

And it is all thanks to this wonderful show about a bunch of defective and effective copy-paste boys and their sister.

It's probably something many say, but I've always felt like a bit of an outsider. I've felt like I have no place; when I was a kid, my interests were very different from the other kids of [gender assigned at birth], and trying to play with them while inserting my own interests into the games, often didn't go so well. I was... kind of an odd child (although now, older and questionably wiser, knowing that I might actually be autistic, many things make more sense now. me kind of discovering this about myself is also partially thanks to Bad Batch)

Also, growing up trans/non-binary, while not even knowing what that is or having a word for it, didn't really do much to help with the feeling of "I'm different and an outsider because of it". Perhaps it was one more reason I fell in love with Clone Force 99, because I could see some of myself in them. Being different from the "regs".

I love this show, and these fictional people have become my family, and I am not ready to say goodbye to them.

Alright, weird pile of thoughts over. In case someone read all this, uh... thanks 😊

[fairydares]

Reminiscing on the Hard Road (A Gruvia Fic)

Rating: M

Summary: While on his way to a mission, Gray reflects on the hardships, tears, battles, and triumphs which led to him and Juvia finding their happiness together. (Or: the story of how they finally, officially got together told through memories).

AO3 Link ; FFNet Link

Words: ~8,000

Warnings: Please read with caution as this contains adult themes & situations (though nothing explicit). Also swearing and allusions to mental illness, dissociation and depression symptoms especially. Man this feels like the end of a drug commercial. Enjoy!

AN: I realized how long it'd been since I updated Chasing Tails and was feeling really bad about it. I'm so sorry, guys! I've just been really busy! I don't have time to get Chapter 5 up tonight, but I do have the time to share this Gruvia piece I wrote a while ago as a karmic sort of apology.

With that in mind, this is a bit of a rough, long one-shot. It comes from a chapter in a larger, mostly Nalu-focused fic which I may or may not ever actually finish writing. Sooo it's not even really a one-shot so much as it's, like, a segment of a chapter from one. I also barely had time to clean it up ever so slightly.

However, I thought Gruvia fans would appreciate anyway. Maybe one day, I'll write the whole thing because I honestly think it could be a story, or maybe a series of drabbles? This is all you kids get for now, though, lol. no fucks given (just kidding this will keep me up nights.)

o(O)o

Ignoring Natsu's whining about still being motion sick from beside him, Gray buried his hands in his pockets and let his eyes engage in their favorite past-time: roaming the curves of the blue-haired woman walking in front of him.

Him and Juvia had officially been together for over half a year, but his eyes still snagged on the same places they always had. The sway of her blue hair, now long enough to partly obscure the pinch of her waist and flare of her hips with each swish. The pretty, cute flush that lived on her cheeks as she listened attentively to Erza, who was chattering about a famous desert shop in the area. The way shadow and light shifted over the curve of her rear. And—forever his most favorite—the exposed skin of her legs. Long, toned, moon white...and fucking perfect.

Gray felt his cheeks heat, but couldn't find it in himself to drag his eyes away. The solidness and length of their relationship did absolutely nothing to diminish the novelty of her beauty, like he might once have feared it would. Instead, it hypnotized him more surely than ever. Noticing all the men drooling over her figure as they walked past, Gray was aware of the sting of possessiveness and annoyance which rose in his chest, but was also easily able to ignore it.

He was as comfortable as any guy with a stunning girlfriend could be in his own jealousy, these days. More shockingly, so was Juvia, a fact that was plain from the way she shot only perfunctory glares at the women eyeing him and whispering to each other as they passed.

As he stared at her back, his lips quirked ever so slightly. It had taken time, tears, and work—more work than he could ever have anticipated—to get to this point in their relationship. But work had never been more worth it.

His mind wandered to reminiscence. To where it had all started, when they had started, after the 100-Year Quest had ended and he'd finally—with Lucy, Levy, and Erza's help—managed to ask Juvia to be his girlfriend.

"Not just 'yours'," Levy had insisted, explaining that phrasing would confuse her. "Your girlfriend."

He'd actually fought them on it. Not really because he had a problem with commitment anymore (okay, it was a little embarrassing, but not too much) but because the words "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" felt ridiculous, considering everything they'd been through. How deeply he cared about her. For crying out loud, they'd tried to kill themselves for each other. He'd kill for her, die for her, and—most importantly—he would live for her. Beyond making his ears feel like they were going to melt off, the word "girlfriend" felt trite.

But when Lucy and Levy demanded to know if that meant he was going to propose, he'd balked. Actually, having the m-word shoved right up against his nose kind of made his soul flee his body. As ready as he was for a romantic relationship, he wanted to go through the actual experience of having one. Like, with all the steps involved. In order. He was at the point in his life that he wanted it more than anything.

More importantly, he wanted to give Juvia that experience. He was determined to do right by her.

With the girls' reality check, and the point they'd made that ambiguity might make Juvia jump to the wrong conclusion or even hurt her, they'd convinced him. He'd been committed to making his long-awaited confession as special for Juvia as possible, complete with saying any embarrassing words she wanted to hear.

Gray still hadn't felt worthy of the love she gave him. He still struggled to believe he was a man who could protect her. But after everything he'd been through during the 100-Year-Quest, seeing how much she'd missed him the whole time, and his talk with Juvina-sama, he'd understood it was completely unfair to ask Juvia to wait for him to decide he was worthy enough to love her openly. He also wasn't above admitting that Juvina-sama's suggestion that she wouldn't wait forever had disquieted some irrational part of him enough to make him antsy, impatient to make absolutely sure they were exclusive.

He'd been completely flustered throughout his confession, but known it had gone as right as it could. Lucy, Levy, and Erza—who thought they'd been slick, hiding in a nearby bush to watch him confess—had agreed. (Lucy had annoyed him to no end by teasing him over how "adorable" he'd been.)

And yet...Juvia's response hadn't been quite what Gray hoped. Lucy hadn't noticed it, but he had. He didn't know exactly when it had happened, but at some point, he'd learned to read the Water Mage like an open book. For how sincere a person she was—a trait he was all too familiar with—Juvia could also be surprising, even mysterious. As transient as water, with hidden depths you'd never know a thing about unless you were willing to dive beneath the surface.

When Gray confessed, he'd braced himself for joyous screaming. He'd planned to freeze a literal flood of tears before it could wash them both away. He'd been prepared to get a concussion from how hard she'd glomp him in the street. But while she had said yes, demurely accepted the roses, and hugged him plenty tight...her response had been subdued. In hindsight, he could see the pattern her reaction fit: the way her gaze had dropped to the street despite her happy flush, the hesitant, nervous gleam in her eyes, the limited verbal response.

The only times she'd ever acted that way had been when he actually reciprocated some of her affection. When he'd promised to give her a straight answer, after he defeated END. When he'd given her a one-armed hug and said he was glad her "body" was safe, after he'd saved her from that wood bastard.

Something had been wrong. But when the girls who'd spied on him only gushed afterwards, not seeming to have noticed anything off, he'd shrugged off his concerns, assuming it was his own lack of romantic literacy. He'd been nervous, but also really excited to learn.

But as their relationship officially began...it quickly became obvious that there was a problem, and that a one-sided approach to fixing it just wasn't going to cut it.

Juvia had always been prone to mood swings severe enough to make Gray's head spin, but as soon as they started dating, her mood seemed to sink. He'd try to ask her about it only for her to put on an obviously fake, cheery front and insist she was fine.

At first, he was sure it must be his fault. He'd had no idea what he was doing wrong. At that point, the guilt he felt for not taking Juvia's feelings seriously for so long, for abandoning her in Amefurashi Village, and for nearly letting her die in an attempt to save him had been taking a serious toll on him. The guilt had sometimes left him ragged. Every time she seemed down, he beat himself up and tried to do better. Talking, dates, spending time together (even when it meant ditching missions he really wanted to go on with the team), accepting her gifts and acting happy about them (no matter how much they creeped him out).

But the more he'd tried to make up for everything, the worse it seemed to get. He watched her frustration rise as he tried to be more openly affectionate, her denials that she was frustrated getting louder. More and more, she gave, but when he gave back, she'd look ready to explode or burst into tears.

What had made everything come to a head was the sex. A surprise in itself. For all the ways their relationship had suffered, sex had never been one of them. It'd started back in the cabin they shared in Amefurashi Village. From the first night they'd moved in together, Juvia had not-so-surprisingly tried to edge her way into Gray's bed constantly. She'd use excuses of cold weather, make puppy eyes, and sew nauseatingly pink coupley bed sheets to try to lure him (when, he still had no idea).

Meanwhile, he struggled more and more to pretend he didn't find (most of) her antics adorable. Not to mention incredibly tempting. Things escalated to where he'd feel his excitement rising towards the end of their daily training sessions, to the point his body became conditioned to react when he saw the damn sun set.

He also felt increasing dread at the notion of having to turn Juvia down—and for having to sneak out in the middle of every night to "take care" of the problem she always left him with (cold showers didn't exactly work for an Ice Wizard).

Finally, one night, she'd pouted and whined that she was sore from training and begged for a massage. Gray didn't know if it was the fact she was asking him for something instead of offering; the unbelievably cute, sparkly-eyed, hopeful glances she kept sneaking at him; or the fact he could tell she actually was sore from the way her face would pinch as she attempted to stretch provocatively in front of him, but his resolve had shattered.

Before he could think and without a word, he'd lifted his covers and held her gaze, not bothering to hide the dark promise in his eyes.

Her reaction had been priceless. He'd never forget it.

His acceptance seemed to knock the breath straight out of her. Her eyes had gone round as saucers, staring into his eyes like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her cheeks had darkened. She'd stood stunned for so long that he'd started to get nervous, wondering if she'd only been being playful all this time, not really meaning to come on to him or maybe not expecting him to ever accept. But just as he'd been trying to field the disappointment sinking his heart and trying to think of how to promise he wouldn't do anything she didn't want, she'd hesitantly approached the bed, trembling.

After giving her the massage she'd asked for, he'd rewarded her bravery three times over.

After that, for the very first time, the dynamic of their relationship shifted in one, important way—the one which would force him to finally confront his own heart:

In terms of their physical relationship, he became the more dominant one. In this one aspect of their shared life, he chased. Gray flustered Juvia. He hadn't been able to get enough. What had once been a relentless, one-sided pursuit (one where she had, admittedly, been gaining on him without his notice) became a dance which had addicted him before he knew it.

The notion of reciprocating her feelings had once had him running for the hills. So it had been a huge shock to learn just how much he liked it.

She was so obviously happy and disbelieving that first time he slipped her clothes off in the moonlit dark, cursing over her beauty. Utterly awestruck when he'd seen to her pleasure (twice, he still liked to remember proudly) before even considering his own. Sex was the first time he heard her speak in the first-person, the first time she said his name without adding "-sama" (since that battle in the rain, anyway.)

It was when he lost himself in her soft skin, her passion, and her pleasure that some part of him was able to accept the truth she'd had the grace to surrender to from the very beginning.

The shift in their sex life was also when he'd started to twig something wasn't right between them. After Alvarez was when he'd started it back up. His plan had been to wait until he was able to reciprocate her feelings verbally, like he'd promised, but almost losing her had broken him in a way some part of him would never truly recover from. Between that and his final, full acceptance of his own feelings, there'd been no restraining himself. He'd come onto her with all the subtlety of a freight train the second they were alone.

Even then, something hadn't been quite right. She hadn't been herself, quiet enough that—even as...compromised as his critical thinking skills had been, at the time, and even in his heightened emotional state—he'd noticed. He'd pulled back and asked if she was okay, but when her response had simply been to drag him back in for a kiss that made his knees weak, he'd taken it as a yes and matched her passion enthusiastically.

She kept staying quiet in bed. It bothered the hell out of him, and he badgered her about it more than once, but would ultimately let it go when she insisted she was fine. In his defense, there had been a lot of reasons she could've become subdued. They had just fought a war. They were all exhausted from fixing the town and working to build peace in Fiore.

But after the 100-Year Quest and after his confession, she got even weirder. He noticed it all the time, in every aspect of their relationship, but it was especially noticeable in bed, when they were so close to each other, both completely vulnerable.

When they'd cohabitated, he'd almost always been the one to start something. He'd enjoyed that. He'd even (hell, especially) enjoyed the way she'd flirt, pretend to be oblivious to his advances, pout and blush and make him impress her, coax him to the brink of losing his mind before finally caving to both of their desires. Those times where he went from prey to predator had balanced their entire relationship, satisfying both of them.

Gray wasn't some slimeball who needed sex, but he did need some balance in their dynamic. The private, physical side of their relationship was just where it'd happened to play out. It could've played out anywhere in their relationship, if they were off sex for a while for whatever reason.

But as soon as they became official, it became clear she'd fight tooth and nail to make sure that never happened.

She came onto him. Every. Single. Time. He'd been a little surprised, but happy enough. At first. But as he pushed her to talk to him harder and she denied louder, he'd started to guess that something was genuinely, really wrong.

She didn't speak in the first-person when they were intimate, any more. She didn't drop the "-sama." Even worse, he started to suspect she was seducing him even when she wasn't really in the mood. Almost like she felt like she had to.

It had been one such time when he finally flipped his shit. Even now, walking behind her and appreciating her curves, the memory made his mood falter a little.

He regretted how he'd handled things. It shamed him to remember how he'd all but shoved her off him and refused to do anything else with her until she was ready to tell him whatever the hell was going on inside that crazy, watery head of hers. It was an ultimatum. A cruelly-put one, at that. He hadn't realized just how hurt and angry he was until the words flew out of his mouth.

Juvia had opened up, alright.

In fact, she'd exploded.

They'd screamed at each other, horrible things Gray could hardly stand to repeat even in his own head. She'd demanded that he quit wasting both their time and leave her again, like they both knew he would. He'd asked how stupid she could be to think he'd do that, when he was obviously dedicated enough to put up with her psycho stalker gifts. She'd retorted that her "psycho stalker gifts" didn't seem to have any affect on his libido. He'd yelled that she was the one jumping his bones, ever since he'd asked her out. She'd said that was because she actually cared about his happiness, implying that was something he'd never understand.

She'd ended the black, ugly fight with four hoarse words that ripped his heart out of his chest: "This is over, Gray-sama!"

His apartment door had slammed behind her.

He'd been too shocked and devastated to do anything but watch her go, not even managing to stagger to the door and chase after her until she was long-gone. Black curse power had swirled across his skin as he pelted to the guild, growling in frustration when he didn't find her there. Then he'd run all the way to the female dorms at Fairy Hills only to be deterred by Erza, who met him at the gate. She hadn't known anything about his and Juvia's fight, but she'd been drawn by his yelling.

His older sister figure had knocked him out "for his own good."

The next afternoon, Gray had woken up in his own bed. Not bothering to see if he was dressed (it would turn out he wasn't) he'd booked straight to the guild only to be devastated by the news that Juvia had taken a long-term S-class quest just that morning, news which was delivered by a sympathetic Mira.

Sure that it was over, that he'd ruined everything, he'd drunk himself sick—then kept drinking, swinging fists at anyone and everyone who tried to console him until, finally, in the wee hours of the next morning, Gajeel managed to knock him out of it.

The hostility, Gray had expected. Gajeel was Juvia's best friend; of course he was angry to learn that Gray had done something to upset her so much, she'd left for a Quest that could take months or even years to finish without so much as a word to Gajeel or any of their other comrades.

What did surprise Gray was the understanding Gajeel eventually showed.

Gray got his ass knocked flat by the Iron Dragon Slayer. From his back on the ground, he started to spit out what happened. With each word, the larger man had visibly calmed. After enough had come out, he'd awkwardly helped Gray to his feet (his own, gruff brand of apology.) He'd helped Gray sober up, then he'd given him a pep talk.

He'd refused to explain his own guesses as to what was going on with Juvia, insisting "who knows what goes on in that water witch's head." But he'd also insisted that whatever was going on, it for damn sure wasn't what Gray thought, which was that he'd hurt her too badly for her to love him anymore.

"She's obsessed with you," the man had said, scowling in disgust. "She's always been obsessed with you. She's way too stubborn to let it go that easy. It's annoying."

By six AM, Gajeel Redfox—of all people—had talked Gray into chasing after the love of his life. He'd even used his Iron Magic to create a lockpick which got them into the archive room, where they'd found Mira's records...and Juvia's location.

He'd barely had the time to register the irony of her quest's location before he was gone, shooting Gajeel a gruff "thanks" over his shoulder and running home to pack.

It'd been raining when he finally walked into Amefurashi Village.

He hadn't consciously known where to start looking when he arrived, but his feet—following some combination of muscle memory and the fate he'd fought for so long—had carried him to the place where the word "home" had changed for him: the cabin he and Juvia had shared. Where they'd grown together. Taken care of each other.

Where he'd left her. Hurt her. Even if most of the reason to do so was because he wanted to protect her, he couldn't stop hating himself for that.

She was standing outside the place, drenched and shivering, when he got there. As if sensing his arrival as surely as he'd known where to find her, Juvia had turned to look at Gray with eyes that were glassy above flushed cheeks. She'd wavered on her feet.

As soon as she'd whispered his name, she'd toppled. Gray's bag had landed in a puddle with a splashy thunk. He'd lunged to catch her like his life depended on it.

Shouting her name had earned him no response, but pressing the back of his hand to her forehead had been enough to convince him that she had a seriously high fever.

Strangely, as worried as he'd been about her, he hadn't even thought to bring her back to Wendy or seek a nearer healer. In hindsight, he was sure that deep down, he'd realized it would do no good; she wasn't physically ill, but heartsick, just as he was. He'd felt lower than the mud gathering around his boots.

He'd been surprised to discover that he had to break into their old home, and rapidly deduced that Juvia hadn't been staying at their old cabin even though she'd been standing outside of it, both from that fact and the fact that none of her stuff was there.

As soon as he lay her in the bed which had once been his before becoming theirs, she'd begun shivering. For the first time in his life, Gray cursed that he was an Ice Wizard instead of a Fire Wizard.

He'd run outside, grabbed his bag, then come back in—only to curse again when he unclasped the bag only to discover that all its contents were soaked. Thinking quickly, he'd stripped his wet clothes, then hers. He'd climbed into bed with her.

"'M sorry, Gray-sama..." she'd slurred her sleep. "Juvia's so sorry...Juvia had to...I just had to..."

He'd shushed her, rubbing her arms to try to warm her up. "It's okay, Juvia. I know, my love. It's okay..."

He'd kept holding her and whispering soft comfort to her until she'd finally stopped shivering, at which point his frantic worry had abated enough that he could fully admit to himself how good it felt to have her in his arms, her skin against his. How warm she was. How perfectly she fit against him. How much he missed her. She was right there, as close as another person could ever be to him. Yet with how things had been between them lately and how lost she was to fever, he'd never felt further away.

Apparently, he'd fallen asleep at some point, because when he awoke, it was to the rising sun blazing at him from the center of the cabin window. Ignoring his body's reaction to waking up in the arms of the very naked, beautiful woman he happened to be in love with, Gray had instantly dropped his hand to Juvia's forehead, sighing in relief when it became clear her fever had reduced. She wasn't better, but she was getting there.

Quickly figuring out what needed done, he'd dropped a tender kiss to her warm forehead, murmuring a threat against her sweaty hairline: "You'd better not even think of running away again, crazy woman. We are going to talk when I get back."

Gray had dressed, glanced back, and left. He'd met up with he client—a rich and unfortunately good-looking asshole about Gray's age who was way too disappointed Juvia, herself, wasn't the one who'd shown up. Through gritted teeth, Gray informed the bastard it would be a couple days before he and his partner (he was sure to emphasize those words several times) would be able to begin investigating the dark guild threatening the area, as she'd fallen ill.

It annoyed him to no end that the creep seemed genuinely concerned about this, trying to insert himself, demand to see her, and attempting to coax Gray into revealing her location (Gray couldn't help the pleasure and hope which rose in his chest, when he learned she hadn't told this guy wherever it was she was staying; obviously, she'd had no interest in sharing that information.)

The client had thrown a rich boy tantrum when Gray refused to tell him anything, but ultimately let him go when Gray promised Juvia would be there in a couple days (not bothering to mention that he would absolutely be there, too.)

He'd gone to pick up medicine and food. He'd grabbed all the ingredients he could remember for something hearty, mild, and delicious she used to make him when they lived together, a chicken stew that tasted like something he could remember from childhood. Those ingredients, medicine, ginger tea...anything he could think of that might help her feel better, he purchased, barely noting price.

Juvia had been waiting on the porch wrapped only in a blanket when he returned, flushed with both fever and anger.

They'd both been pissed at each other. While Gray locked horns with Juvia's amorous creep of a client, she had apparently been discovered by the landlord who owned their old cabin and only barely managed to talk him out of his anger, ultimately having to pay double their old monthly rent to keep him from calling the authorities—all while wrapped only in a blanket.

A brief yelling match had ensued. It ended when Juvia began coughing rather violently, Gray dropping his groceries in the mud to run to her. Even as she insisted she was fine, he'd ushered her into the cabin, forcing her to sit before he went back out to grab the food he'd bought.

Her face had gone funny when he began grouchily unloading chicken, rice, broth, veggies, and herbs. When he (somewhat defensively) asked what the hell she was staring at, she'd haltingly asked if he'd bought all of that for her. Exasperated, he'd told her of course he had, she'd had him worried sick.

The groceries had been abandoned when she burst into tears.

It had taken several minutes of heart-wrenching sobs on Juvia's part and coaxing on Gray's for the conversation to actually begin.

During their ugly fight in his apartment, she'd exploded.

Here, in the lonely home they'd once shared, she imploded.

While the groceries thawed and dripped on the kitchen counter, Juvia sobbed the whole, messy, painful truth into his chest. She told him everything. She told him how, deep down, she'd always known she wasn't worthy of having her love reciprocated by him. It had been true from the moment they'd met, when she'd been part of Phantom Lord, but remained true no matter how long she'd been at Fairy Tail. That was how she'd put it: "I always knew I wasn't worthy of Gray-sama's love." Not only because of her past, but because of how annoying she was. How gloomy. How creepy and obnoxious.

Gray hadn't even had time to express his horror at the fact she thought those things before she'd been plowing on, her tears only getting thicker and her words only making his heart sink lower.

She said knowing she didn't deserve his love had turned to knowing she didn't deserve to love him at all, when she'd killed Keyes to free Gray's father from his undead life. But even though "Gray-sama had been wonderful enough to forgive Juvia," she'd continued to hate herself, deep down.

She told him that sharing a life in the cabin they were currently in had, for her, been the sweetest kind of torture. That she'd never been so happy—and never felt more undeserving. For the first time, she told him that she'd only had one lover before Gray, some piece of shit named "Bora" who'd never cared about her or her pleasure. Gray had been nothing like him, attentive, caring, and as invested in her pleasure as he was in his own. At first, feeling so cared for had been as overwhelming as it was amazing, but by the time Gray started to pull away from her for his mission, the overwhelmed feelings had slowly begun to fade, letting her forget everything but the happiness she felt with him.

Juvia told him that the day he abandoned her to infiltrate Avatar, everything which she'd started to believe could feel right began to feel wrong, and everything which had felt wrong began to feel right. She'd never felt she deserved to be loved by Gray the way she loved him. Being left by him had, in a horrible way, made her feel like the world was how it was supposed to be.

But it had also ripped her apart.

It had destroyed any confidence she'd begun to gain in herself.

She told him that she resented being abandoned. Resented not being told about his mission to infiltrate a Dark Guild, not just because of their relationship, but because she had once been in a Dark Guild, and could potentially have helped his and Erza's Mission. She'd not only felt betrayed on a personal level, but disrespected as a Mage with no small amount of skill and experience.

It was a side to the issue which he had, shameflly, never considered.

He was mortified when she'd finally let herself chastise him for this—especially when he'd tried to defend himself by bringing up details of his mission only to be instantly struck down and ripped apart by someone who was, in fact, very obviously more knowledgeable about the inner workings of Dark Guilds than either he or Erza ever had been. Hell, Juvia could probably have run the mission almost as well as Jellal had.

For the first time, he saw just how beneficial it would have been to have her on board, despite Erza urging him not to get her involved. He should've gone against her orders, asked forgiveness instead of permission. Over the course of that one conversation, it was clear that having her on board would have shortened the length of their mission by probably several months.

But worse than the benefits they'd missed out on, in infiltrating Avatar, worse than the fact that she resented him, was her admission that she hated herself for that resentment.

She'd apologized. So many times. Too many times to count. Each apology was another crack in Gray's heart. He'd tried to ask her to stop, but they'd just kept slipping out anyway. It was like she couldn't help it.

She'd told him that over time, as she got to know the other women in Fairy Tail—Lucy, Cana, and Levy—she'd realized just how unworthy she was of the care Gray held for even just his friends. She just hadn't been forced to confront her own lacking sense of self-worth...until he openly reciprocated her feelings.

She said that the second he confessed, part of her felt wrong. Like she'd donned someone else's skin—someone who was worth being loved by Gray. Her guilt, her knowledge that she wasn't worthy of him, her bitterness, her self-hatred...all of it had come rushing to the surface.

She told him that, as unworthy as she'd felt, she'd been too selfish to reject him. Too angry at the thought of him being with someone else. Her own selfishness made her feel even worse than before. She'd been determined to be worthy of him, and so she had sought to pay every ounce of love he gave her three times over. At least.

It hadn't made her feel any better. No matter how hard she tried to be sure to pay him back, every time Gray took her on a date or made love to her, it made her skin crawl, because she didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve his love, his affection, or even his attention. He deserved better, and she was nowhere close to deserving him. She never would be.

If there had been even one last, single sliver of a doubt as to how he felt about this woman, it died then and there. Nothing—not his own guilt, being screamed at, or being broken up with—nothing could hurt worse than being made aware of what a hard time she was having. Learning just how badly she'd been dissociating during all their most precious moments. How much pain she was in. How little she thought of herself. How deep her scars ran.

He'd have given anything to take her pain away. He'd have given anything to change it. Right then, he couldn't think of a single thing he wouldn't have done to make her see herself as he saw her: the energetic, caring, fierce Mage he'd come to know. The woman who always eclipsed everything else for just a second, the first time he saw her every day.

He'd wanted to tell her all that, and more. He wanted to apologize. He'd wanted to tell her how badly he missed her after he'd left her here, that this place had been home for him, too. He'd wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, that no day without her smile even felt real, but his voice had been stuck behind a lump of misery and all he'd been able to do, for a very long time, was lay in their bed and hold her while she cried the rest of it out. He wasn't too ashamed to admit he lost a couple tears in her hair, too.

Over the twilight of time it had taken for her sobs to turn hoarse, then to whimpers, then sniffles, guilt, emotional exhaustion, an anguish washed over Gray in their turn.

Until finally, he hardened all of those feelings into resolve.

"I'm really thankful that you're here. For always being beside me..."

Those were the words Gray had said to her before Alvarez, and he'd meant them. For years, Juvia had done nothing but be there for him. Even when he didn't want her there, she stayed right next to him, quietly piecing together his heart and his trust. It killed him that the woman who'd confronted him with her love, made him face down his own weakness, always thought of him, and helped him so much more than he could ever truly thank her for had been hiding so much of her own pain. He wished she would have told him any of this all the times he'd pushed and asked.

But he couldn't blame her for that. Maybe she hadn't opened up to him before then, but her mentions of her days in Phantom and of that shithead ex of hers had driven home, with stark clarity, a realization he wished he'd made a lot sooner: Juvia didn't know how to open up like Gray had tried to demand, because she hadn't grown up somewhere like Fairy Tail.

Unlike Gray and Natsu and the others, she hadn't been taught to bare her pain, hadn't always known there would be someone to listen to her, cry with her, be on her side. While Gray had been fought, teased, and accepted for exactly who he was (more often his whole self than not) Juvia had been abandoned by every single person in her life except Gajeel and those who'd wanted to use her for their own ends. Gray abandoning her had only confirmed what she'd been taught was inevitable.

But the Ice Mage wouldn't linger on that. He wouldn't give any more time to despair.

It was his turn now, he realized. His turn to stay beside her even when it was hard, and do the work. Now, he just had to figure out how. But while he'd been trying to do that, had been gathering his words, Juvia had recovered enough to speak once more.

She'd apologized again. She'd told him that she knew this was too much, that all of this was too much...that she was too much. For the times they'd shared, she thanked him quietly, eyes bright with yet more tears and refusing to meet his as she continued that she'd had to let Gray go because she wanted him to be happy, and she'd finally, finally realized she could never do that for him, not really. Then she'd tried to push him away, and as Gray had tightened his grip, he'd realized he didn't need to figure out what to do, what to say, or how to love her.

She'd been showing him all along.

After a deep breath, the words had come low, and easier than he'd thought. He told her she was right, all of this was a lot...but also that he was so, so happy she'd finally told him what was really going on. He'd been as gentle as possible when he told her he could see how difficult and scary it had been for her to open up about all this and that he was proud of how brave she'd been for doing so, but she'd started crying again anyway, so he'd had to carry on with a shakier, hoarser voice.

He'd apologized. For everything. For not taking her feelings seriously for so long, for not seeing her when she needed to be seen, for leaving her behind and hurting her so badly she'd gotten sick. He hadn't been dismissing her abilities as a Mage so much as he'd been trying to protect her, but that was no excuse. "High-handed and cruel" was a generous way to describe his behavior, and he finally saw that. He'd told her that if he could take it back, he would. But he couldn't. He could only promise to never, ever leave her like that again, and he was more than ready to make that promise. He had been for a long time, since well into the 1oo Years Quest. If she'd only give him another chance, he'd show her.

At this point, Juvia had obviously started to twig that this conversation wasn't going to go how she planned, with Gray accepting she was too burdensome and unworthy for him and leaving her alone like everyone else had left her, because she'd started kicking up a fuss, forcing him to hold her there again.

"Let Juvia go, Gray-sama!" she'd demanded shakily, sounding like she was barely clinging to her determination. But Gray had refused. He refused to let her go like this, not until she'd heard him out.

As brief as the ensuing argument had been, it was also one of the most frustrating conversations Gray had ever taken part in (and he'd fought Natsu on basically every cock-and-bull-ass plan he'd ever come up with.)

He'd tried desperately to insist that while Juvia could be creepy and he did find rain somewhat gloomy, she was not worthless or annoying or obnoxious. He'd tried to tell her that she did make him happy. He'd tried to tell her how he felt about her.

Juvia had not responded well.

A wall had slammed up in her eyes, the same blank one he'd met on that fateful, rainy day so long ago. As she'd kept denying, and he'd kept pushing, their voices had gotten louder. Eventually, Gray had realized it was raining outside the window next to their bed again, and that was the one thing that had forced him to take a step back from his own frustration. Lucky, because if he hadn't, he might have flown off the handle and ruined everything all over again.

Looking down at her, he'd forced himself to cool off and realized he was being unfair; he was asking her to take an entire journey in one leap, to unlearn a lifetime's-worth of lessons about her own worthlessness over the course of a single conversation. No one could do that. It was an unreasonable thing to ask.

And so, when he'd finally gathered his wits and perspective enough, he'd said, "You don't have to agree with me. You don't have to agree with my feelings for you. But you have to believe that they're real...and you have to at least consider my side."

Juvia's eyes had gone wide. As they regained their sparkle, he'd refused to break eye contact. Slowly, the rain had stopped, leaving them in the silent hut.

After what felt like years, she'd shakily whispered, "O-okay."

And Gray had known that they were finally, finally getting somewhere.

Quietly and slowly, with their hands intertwined between their chests and their foreheads pressed together, they'd pieced together a fragile plan. They would stay together and be as they had been, but from now on, they were both going to make a concerted effort to be honest and rebuild trust. Gray started by admitting that missing out on Quests with his team had really started to bum him out, and while this seemed to sadden Juvia at first, she admitted after some thought that in being with Gray, she hadn't been nurturing her own friendships with her friends like Gajeel and Meredy. Lucy had also asked for help training her in Water Magic, and Juvia had declined so far even though she was interested in having someone to teach.

Gray had encouraged all of this...and he'd encouraged her to visit Porlyusica, too, when they got home. The old lady was hardly a Mental Healer, but she'd hopefully be able to help them find someone who was, someone objective and removed from the situation who Juvia could talk to openly. One thing which had sunk in fully for Gray over the course of Juvia's heartrending speech was that it was going to take a lot of time, work, and love to get Juvia to a better place. There was no way the two of them could do it alone.

They'd talked and planned until their voices were hoarse...and then they'd not talked for even longer. Juvia once again dropped the "-sama." She let him come to her. She didn't just surrender herself to him the way she had when they had each other before in their cabin, she'd given him even more—in his arms, she'd bared a small and precious part of herself Gray had never even realized she hid from him.

Over the course of the month they spent in that cabin, he'd cherished everything she gave him more than most men could've in twice the amount of time. How they'd managed to deal with that Dark Guild months and months ahead of schedule, he would never understand, because his head had never been less in the game. Neither of them had been able keep their hands off each other for more than an hour when they were alone together.

Neither had been particularly disappointed when that crotchety old landlord refused to give them back any part of their months' rent. Instead, they'd stayed till June was up breaking the place in thoroughly.

"It's payback for him being a jackass to you!" Gray had once playfully defended against her neck, pinning her against the kitchen counter and grinning as she gigglingly scolded him.

He only prayed no one ever took a UV Lacrima to the inside of that place. They'd go blind. He'd taken her on the couch, over it, against the walls, on the counters and tables, and in more positions than he'd previously known existed in that bed. When they returned home, a bunch of people had pointed out that they both looked like they'd lost weight. Gray didn't doubt it, after all the—

"...seriously, none of you know what it's like, every time we travel...OI, STRIPPER, YOU MAYBE WANNA QUIT EYE-FUCKING YOUR GIRLFRIEND WHEN WE'RE IN PUBLIC, YOU GODDAMN PERVERT?!"

The absolute last voice Gray wanted to hear when he was thinking about such great, intimate things yanked him out of his reflections in the most unpleasant of ways. An expression crossed between a scowl and a grimace consumed his features.

"Gray-sama!?" Juvia spluttered, craning her neck to peer at them over her shoulder with wide eyes. She looked half-scolding, half...affected as her cheeks went rose red.

Gray felt his own face grow hot as he turned to glare furiously at the pink-haired, disgusted-and-disgusting-looking bane of his existence.

"Would you keep your voice down, Dragon Boy?! I was not 'eye-fucking' Juvia!" His cheeks burned hotter as an elderly woman passing by shot him a deeply disapproving look.

"The hell you weren't!" Natsu snapped, drawing even more attention. "I could see all your gross, perverted thoughts right there in those droopy eyes of yours!"

"ARGH! So what?!" Gray just wanted this fight to be over, and figured that sort of admitting to what he'd been doing was the quickest way to make that happen. "Can't a guy even look at his girlfriend without pink-haired, flame-brained losers getting involved?!"

"THE HELL YOU JUST CALL ME?!"

"OH, SO YOU'RE DEAF AS WELL AS BRAINLESS, NOW?!"

"THAT'S IT, I'VE HAD IT! YOU'RE DEAD, YOU ICY BAS—"

"That's enough."

Uncharacteristically subdued and uninvolved though Erza's command was, it was enough to have both Natsu and Gray cringing and sweating in fear almost instantly.

"A-aye!" they squeaked, then sighed in relief as she shot them one last glare and clanked away.

"Ah, it always goes this way." Happy folded his little blue sausage arms over his chest and tsked. "If only Gray had kept his perverted eyes on himself, we wouldn't even be talking about this."

"And just how the heck is one supposed to 'keep their eyes on themselves', huh?" Gray growled up at the floating Exceed.

"By not being you, apparently!" he cackled back, Natsu soon joining him in his obnoxious guffawing.

"Why, you—! Get back here, you little shit!" Gray made a random grab at the little creep only to curse as he missed his tail by about a centimeter.

Meanwhile, Juvia clasped her still-red cheeks with her hands and donned an all-too-familiar, starry-eyed expression. "Juvia does not mind at all if Gray-sama...covets Juvia in public! How Juvia adores Gray-sama's passion!"

Gray flinched as if he'd been whipped in the back. In a second flat, he was blushing again. "O-oi, Juvia—!" he started, scrambling to find a way to get her to calm down before she came onto him in public.

(Again.)

"However," she continued before he figured out how to distract her, turning to look at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "If Gray-sama is going to covet Juvia on a public street, Juvia thinks he should at least wear clothes."

"Wha—?! CRAP!" Gray shouted as soon as he realized he'd stripped down to his boxers. "When did that happen!?"

Juvia wrinkled her nose cutely and giggled while he scrambled for his clothes. When he was finally yanking his jacket on, he shot her a playful glare only for his lips to quirk when she winked and sauntered after Erza.

That little...she'll get it later, he thought with a huff before shoving his hands in his pockets and strolling after her. He was well aware that he was full-on grinning, now, and didn't care in the slightest.

Little interactions like that...those were the fruits of all the hard work they—especially Juvia—had done when they got back from that S-Class mission. Gray had been prepared for it to be grueling and difficult, to fight. "Relationships take work" was a piece of advice he'd heard plenty, since he started asking for advice about how to love Juvia.

But what he'd never expected to find was that, while it was hard sometimes, it was work he was all too willing and capable of doing, because it was for her. For them. And what no one had told him was that, while loving someone meant their pain became yours, it also meant that their triumphs became yours, too.

Some days had been worse than others. Even though she'd been talking to a friend of Porlyusica's and made an impressive effort to spend more times with her friends, there were moments where Gray had felt like Juvia was back at square one. But he'd been there beside her, encouraging her every step of the way while she healed, learned that he wouldn't leave her again, learned that she was worth all of it. And slowly but surely, she'd healed.

That was what no one had told him: that every time she huffed at him to do his own laundry, teased him, sassed him into taking her on a real date, and even turned him down for sex, that he would feel such a huge rush of pride and triumph.

It was true that the road had been hard, but Gray had walked it with Juvia, and that had made every step worth it.

o(O)o

AN: Ah, sorry I don't have the time to edit this now and make it more cohesive! Also that I can't publish my next chapter of Chasing Tails just yet! I definitely, definitely will come back to edit this piece one day and make it better after I've done that. In the meantime, Happy Belated Gruvia Day!

P.S.: Fun Fact! I named this partly after one of my all-time favorite fics from a completely different fandom. The Hard Road by wthtonibelle, a Kacchako fic (from the My Hero Academia fandom) which is written in a similar way and has similar themes, only it's longer and better lol. check it out if you're so inclined!

[zhiroaesthetics]

Mid-Summer Writing Updates

Was told that giving updates about non-major works is also valid to prove that this page is alive so...teehee!

Mental Check

To say that I've been slacking this year is a grave understatement. It frustrates me because posting in December 2023 (Kaveh) then January 2024 (Haruaki) truly made me believe that I had found my groove, then I saw my stats and gave up, yay! It's just hard writing when I already don't have the healthiest approach towards writing (it's really bad, like I cried so much writing both of those drafts), and that level of effort goes unnoticed by both the audience and myself. But I've slowly been accepting the fact that I can't gain the audience I want if I don't prove that I exist. After all, posting since 2021(?) but not even having ten entries is silly. With that being said, I have been writing consistently over the summer, but have been slowed down because I've been active, like this is the first week that I've been in my room this entire month.

Goals for Pre-Fall 2024

I'm definitely going to have at least three posts before the end of the year. I always try to have more than the year prior, and considering how little I have to my name, it's been pretty doable.

I've been going back and forth between Bowman (Granblue Fantasy) and Kyo (King of Fighters) for the past two months, and I know for the latter that his second draft is going to be posted before fall, though I'm not sure about the former. My writer's block on his draft isn't the worst despite the fact that I have to rewrite the first half of what I currently have, but I struggle trying to prioritize that draft over Kyo's given that I don't know how well a NSFW Bowman entry would be perceived. Regardless, if I post twice before Late August, expect for it to be these two bums.

Goals for Fall 2024

This is tricky, as it HIGHLY DEPENDS on what I end up fixating on, but definitely expect Tai Gong Wang (Fate/Grand Order). I've been wanting to write him since the beginning of time, but lack of knowledge on his character thanks to me exclusively playing FGO on the global server and things implied under mental check made it hard for me to prioritize writing the idea that was practically given to me. But what was initially supposed to be a collector's item ended up being NP3 and LVL 100, so I'm taking it as a sign to - at some point - lock in, and I think doing so right after clearing out my current drafts would be perfect timing.

Do, however, look out for these people:

Blade (Honkai: Star Rail)

Diluc (Genshin Impact)

Charlemagne (Fate)

Goals for Winter 2024/5

Yae Miko. Despite her being a December 2024 goal, she's one of my more ambitious projects due to research and it not being a one chapter entry. Even as I'm currently working on Kyo and Bowman, I'm immersing myself within The Pillow Book, as Sei's story is what most of Yae Miko's story will be in reference to. Also Haruaki, again, hopefully January 1st.

Do, however, look out for these people:

Kaveh (Genshin Impact)

Saichi Sugimoto (Golden Kamuy)

Miscellaneous

Girl if you saw how far I made it into my Senji draft, when I started, and when I stopped, you'd be wondering why my #1 isn't in any of my defined goals. And I'd say shit happens! Senji's draft had a very extensive outline, and I lost that very extensive outline, so I lost my motivation yay! Nevertheless, I still want to get it out there because I think it's a really funny one chapter entry.

Also Toji. Very much an outlier, but I've been putting him on the backburner because his draft is also one of my more ambitious projects, but one that challenges my writing skills in a duller way because of the amount of mundane scenes present. Also not a one chapter entry.

Anyways uh, thanks for peeping the yap session, meow!

[infinityactual]

Ngl, being (apparently exactly) half your age is fun because making people about my mom's age feel Old is enrichment for me (love u, have a nice day)

Hey man I love feelin old.

It's funny, growing up undiagnosed autistic and adhd in an abusive, authoritarian household really messed up my perception of what growing up is like. I have since officially cut contact with my abusive family (they didn't even react aside from signing the registered mail receipt lolololol) but even before that, I often thought a lot about what its like being in my thirties.

(Brief mentions of assault and abuse below he cut, nothing detailed just mentions as examples for context. This got a little rambly, I've had a lot on my mind regarding age the last few years.)

And being that old? It's. Not different. The phrase 'the more things change, the more they stay the same' never really made sense to me as a kid, but it hits home nowadays. I'm still me, but between growing and learning as I age and the realization that I'm probably not who I was told I was, it makes sense. I change. But I stay the same. It's like adding extra paint to a canvas. It's still a canvas, but there's more to it now. It will always be a canvas, but it's a canvas that is also different than it was before. It's changed, but it's the same.

My mom is one of those people who (literally at times) beat into me that if you got assaulted or raped or murdered, it was somehow YOUR fault for being too stupid or dressing too provocative or some other bullshit reason, and that I was sooo trusting and sooo stupid that I would probably end up dead before I hit 25.

And being on the spectrum and adhd and...well, a fuckin CHILD, I believed it.

It took three therapists and a psychiatrist, plus pretty much everyone I talk to going "Uh hey [x] isn't normal, that's abuse and you probably have [y] issues" for it to really sink in that my mother was wrong. That happened in 2020, right at the start of lockdown. Almost 5 years later and I still get kicked in the head with past traumas. I'm still sorting everything out. It's gonna take a while.

But I'm 38. Over a decade past the age when I thought I'd be dead. And only this year after deciding not to let the trauma and bad memories surrounding my birthday did I really understand how fucked up it is to fully expect to be dead at a young age without any sort of preexisting issues going on (it's also not a good way to live if you DO have medical issues that could kill you, but that is not what I'm getting into today).

I still feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it's not a 'my death could happen any second' feeling, it's a more insidious 'what if my death comes from my spouse, whom I love and trust implicitly?' thing, with an added feeling of anxiety because on bad brain days I try to look for red flags where there are none.

And the real kicker: that sort of trust was already violated when I was a toddler, possibly younger, and kept being violated till I left home.

It's a lot to think about. Like several boxes of puzzles all dumped on the floor at once. I pick through the pieces, sometimes things click, but mostly it's just a mess.

But I am glad I lived. I'm glad that I am still here to prove that I'm not 'too stupid' to survive. I like being the server dinosaur on Discord. I like being there for younger folks who went through or still are in the shit. Cos I'm proof it gets better. I'm proof that abusers are liars and so are the mental problems abuse instills in a mind. They're liars that tell you horrible things. I argue back. I have gotten into the habit of responding to the thoughts in my mother's voice yelling at me by telling her she can fuck off.

She can fuck off and I'll still be here loving the same shit I did in school. In fact, things I loved have been coming back to me. I'm still me, but I've changed. The only thing adult about me is my age and that I have bills and taxes. I've cultivated patience. Learned that I was never wrong to give kindness and expect it in return. I've grown. And I love being old.

[elskamo]

More Shitty Life Updates

TLDR for those who wanna know but don't wanna read the whole thing: Mum forced me to reveal trauma that I wasn't ready to share, followed by getting Sciatica then being made redundant the next day. In pain, need money, you know where this is going.

The whole thing: I've been struggling a bit (okay, a lot) more than usual over the past week or so, yet again I've had quite a few negative life events one after the other. I am in the process of getting help for everything happening right now, I'm doing all I can to take care of both my mental and physical health.

Last Monday Mum realised my mental health has been getting worse again and refused to leave me alone until I told her what was going on. She kept badgering me for information and making up random accusations about what could have happened. She also kept sneaking into my old bedroom and looking through my belongings to try and find... fuck knows what honestly.

I've recently started delving into a past trauma with my counsellor that I'm not ready to share yet with anyone, let alone my mum, I will not be elaborating on it any further than this. Eventually it got to the point where I was forced to tell her, she cycled between being disgusted, accusing me of making things up, getting mad at me, and attempting to be supportive for a couple days. Frankly I feel violated as hell and it made my mental health nosedive even further.

By Wednesday morning I suddenly started getting shooting pains from my lower back going all the way down my right leg. It got to the point where I collapsed from the pain and had to be sent home from the office early. It took hours getting bounced back and forth between 111, the GP surgery, and out of hours care. Eventually they diagnosed me with Sciatica and managed to arrange for me to pick up some prescription painkillers the next day. The pain is nowhere near as bad as it was last week but I'm struggling to walk because of it and I haven't been outside in days.

The nail in the coffin came on Thursday morning when one of my bosses called to check up on me. He let me know that at the start of the week three of the staff had a meeting where they agreed that when my probation period finished at the end of October they were gonna let me go because they've decided my position at the company isn't what they need right now. Since I had to go off sick from the Sciatica they said they'd instead just make me redundant now.

It really came out of the blue, especially as I've been uncovering a lot of marketing, commerce, and general technical issues since I've been employed there and there's definitely no shortage of work for me to do. My mum is convinced they're lying and don't want me because of my health issues but there's no way of proving that. It does mean that I'm unemployed again and need to go through a few meetings with Universal Credit who will want me to get a new job ASAP regardless of my health.

So yeah, right now I feel like garbage. I've got help from one of my friends to sort out the UC stuff, particularly with proving my health issues. I'm still waiting to find out what I'm getting paid for work this month, since the phone call last Thursday no one has reached out to me to discuss pay or handing over tasks or logins. When the Sciatica isn't affecting my mobility anymore I'll be able to start reaching out to my contacts again and get help with job hunting and networking.

As usual all this means I'll probably be cycling between being ghostly silent or desperately looking for comfort content. Hopefully it's not gonna take another half a year to find a new job but if anyone is able to please donate on Ko-Fi or buy something off Redbubble or Ebay (the latter is UK only right now). Etsy is still pretty barren as things got kinda manic while I was setting it up but it should be properly up and running soon now I have a lot of time to spare again. I feel crappy to have to keep doing this but please do help if you're able to!

[javacad0]

Finally explaining my absence

https://www.deviantart.com/jay-javacad0/journal/Finally-explaining-my-absence-1064284972

"+ MORE SOCIALS BELOW

This will probably be the last post I make on DeviantArt so LISTEN UP!

And don't worry, nothing really serious has been going on aside from the typical mental shit we all get sometimes. Either way, I just felt the need to step away for a few months.

As for why... well, for starters, I just couldn't keep up with the pace. Part of why I made a Discord is so I could still interact with some of my followers and mutuals without having to commit to such a rapid schedule and post everything on here all the time (except it's not actually everything, just the best looking things), and that's what encouraged me to finally take that big break I didn't even know I've been craving the whole time.

I'm glad to have DA and have made it as far as I did, but lord it can be draining trying to stay active, especially for someone who just doesn't like to run around constantly working on shit in general.

The more time I spent away, the more I questioned whether staying here was even worth it anymore. And I mean, specifically here.

To make a long story short, I'm actually leaving DeviantArt and moving socials. I'm sure I don't have to explain why.

It's really a shame that I must do this, I have quite the history with this site (eight on-and-off years) and it's where I met some of my closest friends currently, but if DeviantArt wants to reject humanity and become Deviantron 3000, then I'll let it. I'm not necessarily proud or happy for her transition, but I respect her.

And like I said, I have a list of links to all my new accounts at the bottom of this journal. As of now, pretty much all of them are completely empty, but if you want to support me, I encourage you to please follow them! As for this account, I'm not going to deactivate it, I'm just going to leave it as is to serve as a little old archive for all my older Pokemon related work. Which brings me to my next announcement...

As for another decision I've made within my break, which could be good news or bad news depending on how you take it...

I am now fully committed to transitioning "Street Cat" (now Flea Season) from a Pokemon series to an original one. Some of the later images in my gallery may give you an idea of what it will look like, but a lot of changes are being made every day so those designs are already more than outdated.

Reasons include more creative liberty and freedom, an excuse to just restart from the ground up without the pressure of forcing in all these Pokemon elements and PG filters because there are more kids, and uhh... the relief of not just being followed because of a fandom but rather my own general interests.

I hate that I'm coming back here after about three months, only to tell everyone I'm leaving DA and discontinuing my series... sort of, but it's what needs to be told. I'm sorry I've put this journal off for so long, I've been so caught up with real life stuff, and constantly battling exhaustion, anxiety, ADHD, amongst other likely issues in between. So in terms of productivity, I'm basically frozen in place. It certainly hasn't gotten easier, but I want to at least try to pick myself back up before July.

So I will be doing ArtFight this year. By the time it comes around, that account will be showcasing all my current designs and where everyone is at now. I can't promise there will be much to present aside from a rushed lineup, or that I'll participate much in general, but at least it's something.

I've also had thoughts about a more public Discord server, but there's usually a lot of responsibility and general bullshit that comes with maintaining one, so I'll have to think carefully about that.

I don't know how to conclude this aside from saying I appreciate y'all for the support you've all given me on here over the past year and a half, I'm so glad to have made it this far and feel good about what's to come next.

That being said, here's all my current accounts you can expect me to continue my work on, from most to least likely to be active (plus my AF again just in case).

https://artfight.net/~javacad0 https://sheezy.art/javacad0 https://javacad0.tumblr.com/ (main blog and the only thing that isn't currently completely empty) https://str33t-c4t.tumblr.com/ (current series blog, will either be reconstructed or replaced)

(Just... just trust the process. I'll get to posting and makeovers after July.)

It is 4am as I am finishing this journal, but if you're reading this the next day, then uh... have a great rest of your day and I hope to see you again soon.

I will respond to comments here and notes, and may comment some add-on info myself. Otherwise, I'm signing off. Love y'all."

[tips-from-a-tech-worker]

It's been some time, eh?

Howdy folks! It's been some time since I last properly posted on here, huh?

Just as a warning, I am going to be getting into some deeply personal stuff, as well as deeply distressing stuff relating to myself and wider society, so if you're not in the right place for that, I suggest you skip past this.

Firstly, I just want to say thanks so much for all of you still engaging with this rarely updated page. I post maybe once a year, and a lot of the time it isn't even anything to do with what I originally created this page for: to show off code that I thought was particularly pretty, or code that made something particularly pretty.

I still enjoy all that stuff, no doubt about it. But I've honestly found it quite tricky to be enthusiastic about writing code at the moment.

For context, I work at a university developing apps and websites for medical research. That sounds quite valuable and fulfilling right? I mean I thought so too for such a long time. But lately, I've been having my doubts.

A lot of what we do make creates so much added overhead for doctors, where they already barely have time to see patients as it is. It also adds so much overhead to the lives of patients who engage with these apps. Most of our apps are for mental health help, and our research studies show that participants always engage and love it.. But they're research participants.. They're already self-selecting to be engaged and interested. As it turns out, a lot of mentally unwell people do not have the capacity for any of the stuff we make - myself included!

On top of not feeling like my work is contributing - on the contrary, it feels like it is making things worse - universities here are, in practice, dictated by private interests and the "market", whatever the hell that is. It is nominally funded by the government, but they largely do not do that. Because of this, they run as businesses.

Oh, your department isn't profitable anymore despite doing incredibly important work? Well, the market says you gotta go. You and 10,000 people who work there.

Some academic staff have half an hour of free time in the middle of the day? Well, that obviously means that we can fire a tonne of admin and put all that labour onto the backs of the researchers.

Oh, we fired all the cleaners at the beginning of the pandemic, but now things have opened again we have no cleaners? Well the students can handle that one! That's free labour!

It's all a bit maddening.

On top of all that as well, our university has decided that rather than solve any of these issues, it's going to ignore them, on top of many other issues of racism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism, islamophobia, you name it! All this, in the face of raking in millions in profits every year.

I know a lot of that is nothing to do with software development, but as software development is part of my job, and my job is within the university, you might imagine that this leaves a slightly awful taste in my mouth.

What stings even more is that I thought working in the university was the preferable choice. I worked in a couple of privately ran tech companies a while ago, and it was hell on earth. And now, finding out that the supposed "escape route" is also as bad.. Code is the last thing on my mind. It's the last thing I want on my mind.

Just a bit about me. I am a non-binary person. I've known this all my life, despite not really having the language to describe it. Since I was very young, every encounter I had with "gender" REALLY distressed me for some reason. I had put it down to patriarchy, sexism, all that horrible stuff, and for a large part that was true. Like all that stuff is SUPER distressing. But it didn't explain the whole picture.

Over the pandemic I had time to properly sit down and reflect on myself and my identity - and SO much more but I'm trying to keep things focussed here! I finally put a pin in it, and that helped so much. A lot of the gender distress, whilst still there as background noise, went away. Clouds were lifted. ...Until now clouds found their way in..

Not sure if anyone is aware, but the UK (yes sorry I'm British) is a deeply transphobic society - well, at least the parts of it you are allowed to see through the lens of the privately owned media. Discovering, or at least admitting to myself, that I was non-binary was a huge step forward into the gaze of this society. A society whose public conversation is largely captured by transphobic actors. Lord Alan Sugar - ruling class in every aspect, JK Rowling - a castle owning bigot who wrote a few books that people seem fixated on, almost the entirety of the Conservative and Labour party, just about every newspaper column that exists (including the supposedly progressive ones).

On top of that, none of these people who are in control of society, or at least have a lot of influence over it, seem to want to do anything about the existential problems we're facing. Climate change, multiple health crises, poverty, etc. You name it, god forbid they action anything to resolve this.

But what has this got to do with coding? Well not much honestly.. But whilst all this is rattling in my head, and I am trapped making code for people that do not care about me - or at worst, actively want to see me removed from society - and I'm making code that doesn't do anything useful, I know I'm not doing anything that could help all this. I'm too shattered after a day of doing a job I hate to do anything positive.

I've taken the last month or so off work on sick leave, and honestly I am tempted to take more off. The ONE good thing about working at the university is it's sick leave policy. As an employee of 3 or more years, I am entitled to 6 months sick leave at full pay. I feel like I should probably make use of that, eh?

But during my time off I have been focusing on myself. Playing video games, streaming a bit, and hey, even faffing around with bits of code! But also..

I don't know if it's obvious from my videos - I mean, you'll have probably figured this out from this very post - but I am very politically engaged to say the least. And over the years of seeing issue after issue not being addressed by people supposedly there to help us, I've come to the conclusion that we should probably start helping ourselves. We live in a society where everything is dictated by a few very rich individuals, and the majority of us have to just accept whatever decree is issued upon us. I don't particularly think that this is a fair, just, or even effective structure of society. And over the past few years I've come to the realisation that it doesn't have to be.

Society is built and maintained by people who do the work. Farmers, mechanics, shop assistants, doctors, firefighters, teachers, and yes even coders. We spend our lives answering to a series of bosses telling us what to do, how to do our jobs, when we should work, when we should go home, and things really do not have to be this way.

As a bare minimum, I have become quite the advocate of worker-cooperatives. That is, companies that are owned, managed, and ran entirely by the people who work at them. There are quite a few examples of this across the planet but the largest of which is Mondragon.

But I don't necessarily think that is enough to fix the issues in the world. Sure, they help in the immediate. Give workers a chance to be able to control their lives, make a decent living, etc. But workers-cooperatives still have to engage in "the market" - again, nobody has explicitly told me what this is yet. But because they do, then the threat of climate collapse is still there. Some of you might have clicked as to where I'm going with this.

To put it plainly, I am a communist. Now already that is conjuring some fantastical image in your minds of a glorious (or despotic) workers' republic, men with big beards, and big red stars (which personally I am at least a little sympathetic to but I get why people would be hesitant of this). I just wanted to dispel a few myths whilst I'm here.

I advocate and am actively trying to help build a society where everyone in a community - be that a workplace, where a group of people live, or where a group of people play - has an equal say in how that community is ran. History has thousands of examples of collectively ran communities from early civilization right up to the modern day. And whilst none of them were particularly perfect (nothing ever is), they put people in a position where if an issue came up, people could coordinate and try and resolve this issue.

To do this, I am actively involved in IWW union organising. I think the best way for workers to gain collective and equal control of society is by capturing it one workplace at a time so that each and every workplace is fair to the people who do the majority of the work.

But what does this have to do with climate change? With transphobia? Any of it? Well, as said before, a lot of our society is owned by some very rich individuals who will do anything they can to keep hold of what they got. These people aren't inherently "evil" or whatever. But the system of which we exist in encourages them to hold onto what they have by any means necessary. To do this, and they might not even realise they're doing it, they will try and make sure that everyone else is at each others throats by pushing transphobia, racism, all that horrible stuff.

As well as this, those individuals often have friends who own the coal industries, the oil industries, the gas industries, etc, etc. All of whom make their living off those pollutants. It is in their interest to make sure those industries make money. They're not going to change their minds because that is how they survive. But were society controlled by everyone, especially those who would be actively affected by climate change, then something could actually be done.

Okay. But what the HELL does this have to do with coding? Well.. It was a starting point for me. It led to all these thoughts. All these realisations. I started thinking about what I was doing, what I was making. Then I thought about why I was doing it, why my boss wanted me to do it. Then kept expanding from there. Eventually, it painted this whole picture.

I know by this point I will have lost a lot of you. Some people will have immediately seen the long post and gone "Nah, I ain't reading that" and honestly I don't blame you. Some people will have seen the word "communist" and flown off into a rage-induced coma. Again, I don't necessarily disparage people from reacting like that in the face of everything people are told about communists. But I felt that saying all this in the open was appropriate. Every year it feels like we're coming closer and closer to collapse. We can already see it around us. Wear and tear. Cracks slowly expanding. And nobody is doing much to stop it. People are barely pointing at the cracks. Some people are insisting they've always been there, or that they're not there at all. I NEED people to know, and to do something, and to want to do something.

Congrats for making this far. I know the tail end of this has gone into a bit of a poorly structured ramble (as if the rest wasn't..). All this to basically say, I don't think I want to use this page to show off code. I think it can be much more useful than that.

From here on, the posts you will see here will relate to community organising (mostly workplace union organising) and practical things people can do to try and gain some sort of control.

I understand that this will upset, confuse, and even anger some people. But I need to do this for myself. But not only that, I want to do this for everyone else.

Feel free to unfollow, ask questions, do whatever. But please understand that things are getting a bit desperate.

Once again, thank you all so much for all the support and interest over the years. I started this in 2014/15 when I was in a bit of a pit of dispair and wanted to show off something I was passionate about to keep the darkness at bay, and you all helped so much with that. I don't think I'll ever forget this community, but I must move on.

Stay safe, and solidarity. xox

P.S. Apologies for the typos. I was going to run through this a second time. But I REALLY just want it all off my chest now. We can work through it together if need be. <3

[tracybirds]

Hi! I know you opened your asks for this half a day ago, but . . . did anyone ask about #2? or number #19?

Kat, don't you know I would do anything to talk about random ideas that I've never managed to pull into Real Fic in the past *checks notes* three and a half years? This might be the only time some of these see the light of day, they could use a good airing!! So of course I'll look stuff up no matter how many days (or single half days) have passed lol and thank you for being curious :DD

#2 say "Gordo getting Heart Shaped Cookies for his Bday"

And of course he does it's tradition bc he's born on Valentines :D And he'd fully lean into it too maybe when he was a kid he thought everyone giving each other gifts and love was simply what you were meant to DO on birthdays (and I think that suits the kind of generous and cheerful soul he grew into don't you??)

Being one of the earlier ones on the list, it's def more developed and was meant to be like, he has this tradition of making and decorating vanilla cookies to give out to people on his birthday (bc he used to do it with his mom T.T) but one day he gets called out on a rescue the day before his bday and it's all miserable and he has to cancel a bunch of stuff and he doesn't want to make a fuss but he's pretty miserable about it and about the rescue and Virgil gives him a change of clothes and says look go shower and pull yourself together, I can wait before taking off, and anyway he comes back from freshening up following said rescue and it's ticked over to his bday and by the time they get home it'll practically be over and he just wants to sleep and sitting on his chair in the cockpit is some cookies because Virgil saw some in a bakery and had gone off to purchase them so he'd know he hadn't been forgottten and bc Virgil knows what the tradition means to him <333

And yeah that's that one it's just meant to be super sweet <33

(another hmmm maybe I should write this before said birthday lol)

#19 - ooh sentence starter...

"Virgil knew what he was looking at when Scott first brushed him off one day and made a beeline for his bedroom and not the couches in the living room. He let him go with narrowed eyes and made a mental note to check in later."

I mean... that's pretty self-explanatory ahaha Scott has a bad day (or more likely series of days and everything's spilling over) and Virgil's gonna go make him feel better

ooh but now that I'm thinking about it, maybe Virgil's got something urgent and he's like let's finish this and give Scott a few but then when he slips upstairs to check on him, someone's already there and bc it's my not-yet-fic I'm grabbing Jeff for this one, give him a chance to be a dad to Scott <333

[sabakos]

.

So the mountain dew thing I posted the other day is um. Hm. I'm going to turn reblogs off on that actually. It's very good I posted it and got to see people's reactions and I think I made some people laugh with how I presented it, don't feel bad if you reblogged it. but uh. yeah. Not only is it unfortunately true, if anything I downplayed it a bit and left out the parts that weren't funny. Which I now realize I don't really want to think about every time I check my notes tab for the next few weeks. I never kept count but I'm pretty sure I spent more than just a few nights in high school curled up in pain in front of the toilet. I lost over 50 pounds in a year from that.

Kind of maybe also some not-so-unintentional self-harm was going on there I think. It fits in a pattern with some other past habits of mine that I don't post much about because, well, I don't want to turn this into a trauma blog. If you really wanna know, I was a high-functioning alcoholic until age 26. Like, rarely sober outside working hours, most of my calories from alcohol level. End-stage. Due to other personal issues ("wait sabi, weren't you in a serious LTR then?" yes and also my mom was in a psych ward, we don't have time to unpack any of that), I quit drinking cold turkey in 2019 and realized looking through old pictures on my phone that I barely remembered most of what happened in college, let alone anything before that. I don't even know if it's technically amnesia, so much as dissociating so severely from my past. I had a "bit" of a major mental collapse in fall 2019 after quitting drinking as my mind slowly remembered how to have emotions, real clutch scheduling that right before a global pandemic.

Thankfully due to doing nothing for two and a half years, I remember most of college now, and I've been able to recover almost 3 full years of high school from basically fragments in the past year alone. My liver doesn't hurt anymore. I'm also physically repulsed by alcohol as a result of the withdrawal. But it's starting to get back far enough to start reminding me of the previous mental breakdown that I had in middle school that made me almost get held back in 8th grade. I... might decide I don't need to know about anything before that for a little while. Not sure I actually have the ability to make that decision though. It will work itself out nonetheless, it will just be less pleasant.

I've actually almost never actually been suicidal or intentionally thought "oh I'm doing this to hurt myself." But I'm not just shitposting about the whole body dysphoria thing, beyond any gender stuff I just also would prefer not to deal with being a body. I hate every photograph of me as soon as I take it, I can only bear to look at any of them once enough time has gone by that I can trick my brain into thinking it's not me. I believe I drank alcohol for the same reason I drank horrifying concoctions in high school and still sometime make too spicy food or eat so many sour patch kids and takis my mouth bleeds. I only hated the stomach cramps in high school because I didn't know why I had them, but when I finally vomited so hard I puked blood and burst blood vessels in my face, it felt good. I enjoy pain, I like the feeling that my body has been hurt when I'm the one directly causing it. I'm punishing it for existing. I know a couple mutuals of mine probably know exactly what I'm talking about based on their own posts. I also know now that I'm doing this, and that I need to stop doing it. I'm not too worried now that I've figured this out.

But also I think for the first time I can remember, I actively want to continue to exist. I know on some level that I need to accept that that will include my body and not just living out my social life on the internet. I... like other people, not just in a flirty way, and I know I'm saying this on Tumblr of all places but I promise if I ever meet any of you I'm one of the weirdest fucking interesting people you'll ever meet because it's what people are telling me all the time. I'm really shy and don't know how to initiate an interaction with a stranger, but if you can get me to say anything at all, I talk endlessly in my (apparently, strange) voice, I hold my body wrong in distracting ways, I abruptly change topics when I'm not supposed to. None of this occurs to me at the time I'm doing it, and I do know how to act correctly in any situation, I'm just wholly incapable of doing so. But somehow this reads as charming and eccentric rather than horribly rude to most people I meet? People tell me I'm the strangest person they've ever met as a complement. I don't really know why.

All the memories I've recovered have contradicted my past beliefs that I've always struggled to make friends. I think I just... didn't notice? But dozens of my peers consistently made the decision to go out of their way to spend time with me almost the whole time I knew them. I don't think that was out of sympathy, I sure wasn't the Special Ed kid. So I think I actually had close friends almost my whole life from age 10 onward, many of them even? all despite the fact that I wasn't really capable of consciously reciprocating a lot of the time, and that I totally forgot in the years since that some of them even existed until later. So I want to do that again somehow, have a bunch of people I know in real life that I'm close friends with. And actually realize it this time. And I hope I'm not deluding myself with what I remember, though I've been able to independently corroborate enough that I don't think so.

Anyway if anyone was curious, that's... most of my whole brain problems deal from the parts of my life I remember. Or as much as I can condense into a post anyway. Much of it was in fact rather happy and I usually present things in a much more positive light. This post was just not about that.

[mourningrefrain]

Finished rewatching Eighty-Six!

I've haven't used Tumblr in what feels like ten years but today I made a Tumblr and finished rewatching Eighty-Six during an important time in my life.

And the show still hits. Especially the second cour. Don't get me wrong, the first cour isn't bad by a long mile, in fact, it's some of my favorite piece of war media since Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans.

In the second cour, we get to look inside Shinei Nouzen's head a lot more and see his internal struggle after losing Shourei. Something about that overall struggle is very poignant to someone like me going through the grief of losing a lot of loved ones in the last year and a half.

I love the early juxtaposition of us going from seeing Spearhead fighting for their lives day in and day out to getting to live a normal life for a bit, much like a lot of us do in our present. There's something about it. This brief moment of calm, even if you know it's temporary, resonates because it shows what life for them can be like when all of this is over.

Another thing I really loved about the second cour is just how people like Raiden begin to notice there's been a genuine change in Shin. It feels realistic. It's not like Raiden noticed it overnight. He suspects something like Shin losing his reason to live now that Shourei is gone might happen back in Episode 10 but he only realizes his worst fears have come to light later on in the second cour. It feels real!

Overall, I felt Shin goes through a rather interesting struggle, especially in Episode 22 fittingly titled just "Shin" I feel those of you out there who also struggle with depression, anxiety, and self-esteem issues probably got hit hard by this episode like me. To me, I felt this was the best episode of the series. It felt genuine to me. It felt real to me. A lot of shows have a problem where they have some mental health issues in their undertones but never really follow up with it or don't treat it with the level of respect I felt Eighty-Six did.

The fact we get pretty much an entire episode dedicated to looking into Shin's head and seeing how he feels about his past and how he feels there's no future is great, as bad as that can sound. It's when I realized Eighty-Six really is something special.

The pay-off in Episode 23 for all of this is great though. Even if it's just a simple dream, Shin found a way to continue forward even if it's just for the others for now, and left some of his baggage behind. He's still got problems but he's not gonna keep letting that hold him down and he'll confront them over time. It's cool!

This was a bit of a ramble to basically just boil it down to "Wow, Eighty-Six is awesome!" but on my first watch I felt the show was great and on my second, paying closer attention to details I might've missed earlier, I felt I walked away from it realizing "Wow, Eighty-Six is something special!" Cool show and a great light novel as well, since I started reading it recently. If you haven't had a chance to watch it/read it, please do!

Fun little tidbit but I actually cosplayed Shin at Anime Central 2022 this year. It was a bit of an impromptu thing and I cosplayed the Giad Federacy pilot uniform version of Shin but it was fun. Only three people recognized me though so perhaps I didn't do as good of a job as I was hoping I did, haha.

[aqueeriumwrites]

haha vent (tw: severe s/h ideation, mention of past suicide ideation, homicide ideation)

don't you just love it when a family member is deriding your personality and mental state, knowing that you're very likely to self-harm, and you fucking tell them that if they keep talking like that you are going to severely injure yourself, and they keep fucking talking like you didn't say shit.

like bitch, I did not say "hey, could you please stop, I might get a bit sad." I said, fully seriously, "I've been having a lot of intrusive thoughts about cutting my entire face open lately and I'm about ten sentences away from doing it."

And this is the same person who gets so upset whenever I self-harm, like she isn't the REASON for 95% of those times.

I have to live with her. No one else is able to support me, including myself (not by choice, I'm ready to fucking sell my organs if I have to, I'm just unable to). She's also gonna be unable to support me soon. I've been living with her for over a decade, and I have at least another couple of years. The only other option is my biological father, who called trained psychologists (who dragged me back from the edge of dysphoria-related suicide) pedophiles (because they affirmed my gender), and was tentatively diagnosed over a decade ago by such a trained professional to be a psychopath. That man has guns. he knows how to use them. If I have to live with him, at least one of us is being taken off the census pretty fucking soon.

At this point I'm half willing to burn this house down with the two of us inside. You know shit's bad when you're empathizing with people who kill their entire family and then themself.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I'm finally out of my work probation and back on medications. They're all topical but they improve my quality of life in a way that feels a bit profound. Especially when it costs forty eight dollars for all four of them. When I lost my job I was on Cobra for a year and a half. The cost of my insurance was pretty much rent. So there's been all sorts of ways to drain my life savings over the past three years. I don't think normal people like me are meant to survive but I'm not exactly normal. People confuse me with world famous t-shirt designers. I haven't made a shirt in a minute. I haven't done anything life fulfilling for a minute either.

People really fucked my life up so bad that I'm the one who gets the pleasure of showing you how I move forward. I write about it thinking someday the world will know just how worthless and dangerous it is to believe other wise. But honestly, I'm not sure anyone understands just how dark it is. And it's been a personality trait to handle it while trying not to crack mentally. When you constantly hate life because someone took away your job, your artistic narrative, your musical career, your medications and pretty much anything that makes you stand out. It's a big and subtle change to at least have something to be positive about. Especially when you know how evil what was done to you actually was.

I'm exhausted with everything. People around here especially. They never learn how lame and dangerous it is to be half assed about talking about someone they intend to never greet in public. You unmake someone's world that way. Constant energy trying to write and tell people what really is going on with me. And they'll never process it because most people don't care about other people. I've lived this and this is not me. I do something or make the time to make a gesture in some way or another it is me opening up my heart. You following me around in public looking for an opening to stab it? I heal pretty well. Faster with medication. Whatever else is happening they don't prescribe medication to get rid of those people. Or if they do it's not covered by health insurance. <3 Tim

[theweefreewomen]

I saw eleven plays this year, most of them local, and I want to talk about them, so here are some quick-fire reviews.

in chronological watching order:

The Mousetrap

The classic murder mystery play. A very good start.

Labour of Love

Local; focusing on a Labour MP, starting on the election night of 2017 and going backwards through his career in the first half, and then forwards back to 2017 in the second. The chemistry between the two leads was fantastic, and solid acting all round. The back-and-forward timeline lent to a lot of really good set-ups and payoffs.

On Monday Next

Local; a play about putting on a play. A bit of an odd play to perform, since it didn't seem to give much room for the actors to do much. There were altogether too many characters, and only one and a half good roles. The play-in-a-play is meant to be bad, and just beginning rehearsals, so there's a lot of just standing around reciting lines. Both acts begin with a character breaking the forth wall, which is never again broken, which was really strange - why was only one character able to 'see' the audience? Pretty boring overal, and I would have hit the bricks if I wasn't there with a friend.

After All These Years

Local; four old friends and their dramas. When looking back at what theatre I've seen this year, I kept forgetting about this one. Inoffensively boring.

Romeo and Juliet

Local; an all-female retelling of the classic. The programne described this version as being set on a counsel estate, but I didn't really get that while watching. It did feel quite modern though; the Capulet party at the begining had Paris serendating Juliet with Elton's 'Your Song' karaoke. During the wedding scene between R+J, the body of Tybalt was still on the stage for that character's funeral, which I think was a great staging idea. The scene where Nurse finds Juliet's body, thinking she's dead, was heartbreaking and I was fighting back tears.

Anthropology

A woman builds an AI based on her missing, presumed dead, sister. I saw this in London for my birthday this year, and it was so good! The 'AI' sister was played using a combination of pre-recorded video and off-stage voice work. An interesting look at the tendency to romanticise dead loved ones and how difficult it is to cope with not knowing what happened. Very interesting family dynamics.

A Doll's House

Local; Ibsen. I really liked the set design in this, which used both the stage and the area in front of it. The actor playing Krogstad was perhaps overacting a little in places, but the actor playing Nora was very strong.

Past Tents

Local; two men at a campsite over the course of one night. The only play I reget seeing. It was trying to explore men's mental health, but seemed unwilling to actually be earnest about it, and kept undercutting itself with gross-out humour and over-the-top performances. Would have hit the bricks if there had been an interval.

Apologia

Local; the birthday dinner of an artist and activist with her sons and their partners. Explores the family dynamic and history between mother and sons. The acting all round was excellent, except for the one gay character who felt very flat and stereotyped. I really loved the set of this, it felt lived in. One of my favourites of the year.

It Is I, the Seagull

Local/touring; a one-woman show about opera and the first woman in space, written and performed by Lucy Mellors. A lot of fun and really poinant. Balances humour and seriousness really well. Another favourite; if you're in the south of England, look this up and see if she's touring it near you.

(sidenote: one of the credits in the programne was for 'Artist Wellbeing Practitioner', and I hope that becomes more of a thing.)

The Walkern Witch

Local; about a woman sentence to death for witchcraft. Part play, part script reading. This was a lot of fun, a nice mix of fun accents and singing. The actors were clearing enjoying themselves and that was infectious.

--

So, what's the takeaway from this? Partly that it's so good not to be working evenings constantly, but mainly that good theatre isn't limited to the West End or Broadway, that local and amatuer theatre is worth checking out.

es, sometimes it will be bad. Not gonna lie, sometimes it will be awful and you will wish you had just stayed in. But then sometimes it will be amazing and you'll be raving about it to your friends. And sometimes, you'll be dragged onstage to be part of a ballet line and getting emotional over 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.

[penname-artist]

[warning: long; TW for bad work stories and mental health shit]

It's not a great evening for me.

I don't know if it's going to get better yet.

I don't know when the storm is going to pass.

Most of the time my problems are only emotional. They only affect me mentally, it's only ever just, things happening around me, or, because of me, that regardless of my involvement I know I can't stop from falling down. But it hasn't taken turns like these in a long time. It hasn't kicked me in the stomach this hard in a long time.

I had just hit a milestone, too. I had been with the company I worked for for two years now, nearly to the day. That's the longest job I've held so far, as...rocky as it got.

I went home halfway through my shift the very first day I worked there. I was lost, I didn't know what I was doing, and then I made a pretty big mistake. I was so overwhelmed. I locked myself into the darkness of the women's bathroom and just. Cried. Til there wasn't anything left in me. I couldn't see straight. My body hurt from convulsing and laying tight in the same curled up position for as long as I did. I phoned home, I let mom explain the situation for me to my then-manager on the way out the door, because I couldn't look anyone in the eye. I couldn't do it.

I don't know how I did it, after that day, either. Somehow I got up, somehow I went back, and somehow I found a way to make it work. The people helped. Most everyone there was very understanding, supportive, accommodating. There were moments of course; oh, there were moments. Times the higher ups got to me. I tried my best to steel myself from a breakdown, but it didn't always work. And I think they thought I was a depressed robot when they spoke to me sometimes. I tried, I did try.

I can't say I didn't try.

And I think deep down they knew I'd been going through some heavy shit. I remember the day I got into an online fight with someone while AT work, getting up and pacing and sitting back down and just stewing in that agony (that my nervous system was also willfully ingesting as fast as it could because hello, it's work). Practically every day I scanned the truck in I would start fuming over the rumination of past situations and their shit outcomes. Sometimes it was anger and sometimes it was sorrow. But either way the scale tilted, I think some people knew.

We changed managers last winter, and I was a nervous wreck about it. I'd already seen many coworkers come and go, and it was harder and harder to trust anyone, people who just, didn't really get me, didn't understand how differently I behaved and how differently I had to behave in order to stay functional. I'm not lazy, I'm stressed, every time I sit and doodle on a piece of paper. I work too quickly, and then I have to sit there to watch the clock. I worried and fretted that my new manager wouldn't understand, and then I'd be on the curb.

I was so glad that I was wrong.

My second manager was probably the best I'd ever had in my work history. He wasn't just a good manager, he was a good person. He took care of his people. He learned from them, he worked with them, we all made it work, and it worked out wonderfully.

And he really did the best that he could've to ensure I was okay. I tried to leave then, when he first signed on, but he begged me to stay if only for a few hours a week to help the new trainees. From that point on my schedule was...flexible. I came in when they needed my help, and everyone was always so thankful when I could do so. I organized things they'd never have time away from the counter to fix. And even if it didn't feel like it was much they made me feel like it was a lot. I enjoyed doing it. Helping them.

The boss even drove me back to my house a few times, when I couldn't get my usual ride and had to walk (work is only a few blocks away from my house). Without hesitation, even. Hell one time I didn't want to bother him and started walking home, he realized and got in the company truck to drive a half a block down the road to pick me up to take me the rest of the way. I could not have asked for a more understanding person, and truly I don't think we deserved him, as awesome as he was.

It should stand to reason that's why it didn't last long.

The second manager only stayed for six months. He went on to a larger store in a neighboring town. We had another manager coming, and I knew, I knew...I knew we weren't going to get this lucky again.

I hate it when my intuition is right. I hate it. It's so right, it's been so right so many times. I could take one look at someone and tell you whether their vibe is great, just okay, or destined to become a weapon of your destruction. I've seen it before. And I saw it again.

Thursday was hell. Yesterday, even. Fuck it's been a really long two days. I walked in the door and sat to do computer things. Instantly, the new new manager - manager number three - makes a beeline for me and calls me to the office. The DM is there.

Joy. Oh sweet, sweet, motherfucking joy.

It's an evaluation, which is par at best. My position doesn't look good on paper, it never did because I was never a normal-case employee. I never worked the counters.

I received multiple write ups for no call no shows. I was scheduled for days I didn't know about, wasn't told about, and blamed for not attending because the old manager's system of schedule was no longer in effect. This wasn't my fault, this was the new guys fault and his lack of information. Oh, and following this information I then learned my shift for the day was six hours longer than I thought it would be.

That was the first strike of the day. After an hour of going to my work as usual, I retreated to the bathroom for a quick cry and to psyche myself up to deal with this new guy. Surely we'd find common ground eventually. Right?

I went to sit for a minute to catch my breath later on. Anxiety spiking again. He immediately found me again the moment I sat down and asked whether I was on break.

After telling him I wasn't (without him really replying but obviously not seeming happy that I was, y'know, sitting), I asked about editing my schedule to work shorter shifts. I changed to part time when my second manager came in because I intended to leave from the exhaustion of working full-time. My body has a fluctuating capability, and some days I can work just fine and some days I can't keep my head up and my legs refuse to work the way they should.

And he tells me he can't change my schedule. He 'needs' me for these two back to back eight hour days, so there's no changing it. I'm being bent to fit someone else's schedule.

Strike two.

After another bathroom safehouse cry ("I gotta stop doing this, what is wrong with me?") I complete stock and start putting things out on the floor. He finds me out on the floor and tells, in an asky kind of way that makes it seem like he's not telling me, to rearrange the entire wall of hoses we have in the backroom. Y'know, because I told him I specialized in store organization.

I panicked at the beginning of rearranging the hoses; I was so stressed already and I'd never touched these things yet because they were so oddly organized. I gave up when I knew cry #3 was fast mounting, and dipped from store reality for another half an hour.

When I emerged, I headed back to the desk where I could talk with my one and possibly only favored co-worker there, and do some stress doodling (for context my co-worker friend loved all the doodles I made, so much so that he taped all of them to the topside of the desk I was at to showcase to customers when they came in).

Again it happened: the moment I sat down, legs a tense twitchy mess at this point and in dire need if it, the manager with a million eyes finds me and chips into my damaged disposition again. Oh, what are you doing? Are you on break NOW? What's wrong with your leg now? Do you have paperwork for that? I can't have you sitting back here drawing.

I was rendered mute, mind a muddled mess of fight or flight. I felt like an animal, cornered. I waited for him to walk away, and I made my way to the computer to clock out three hours early.

I need to go home.

I can't do this.

I can't be here anymore.

Manager Man catches me again. What are you doing? Are you leaving? Are you quitting? Can you sign something to show that you're quitting?

Then and there, he had me write my resignation, shakily scribbling my name onto a sheet of paper. I paced at the door waiting on my ride, waiting to get out of this prison, away from this horrible person, away to tell my family I had failed, again, to leave a job the right way, to keep a job and work a job and be happy in a job, while my nervous system has a bloody conniption, and my knees jerk and twitch, and I get dizzy if I stand for too long or lift too much, and I can't ask for help, and I work through headaches and sensory overload and the constant, constant, exhausting pressure of just being a good employee. I just want to do a job well. That's all I wanted. And it's all I had to show anymore to prove I was just like everybody else, I'm not broken, I'm not injured, I'm not mentally unfit for work now...

But I guess having papers to prove that is my next course of action, while I'm out of a job.

I think I'll be...okay. I don't really know anymore. I don't know what the next right step is supposed to be and I hate the step no matter which one it is, because one of them will put me back between a rock and a hard place, and the other one is a crutch no one wants to believe is real because 'they can't see it'.

So...yeah that's been on my mind. And I already got to visit my favorite text hotline (again) so I've exercised all the professional help I can pay for right now. Might have commissions open again soon, might not. Never been a fan of commissions but I guess you have to do what you have to do. I'll post again soon if I decide to though.

In the meantime I'm still here, existing at home with my family and waiting on my mom's spinal surgery at the end of this month, which I'll need to be here for anyway.

Thank you to any of you who actually managed to read all of this, I know it's far longer than even my normal long posts are. I appreciate it. You take care and have a wonderful whatever time of the day it is where you are right now. Until the morrow.