#idk how i convinced myself this would be easy but way to go J now you HAVE to figure this shit out

[creekbed-burial]

In sheer mental illness mode i ordered a midi keyboard and here i am boopin around on garageband in awe of how anyone uses this now

[amazingphilza]

DSMP!OC HEADCANNONS

i dunno if ppl on here make dsmp!ocs for themselves outside art but here’s my long list of headcannons?? idk what to call this, but assume all names have c! before it ofc :]

,, this is kinda messy & probably has a lot of plot holes but i just needed a space to write out all my thoughts LOL

also cw / ment of manipulation & ib: dsmp wiki <3

character origin :

previous life was the l’mantree :D

allegedly planted by schlatt, we will never know who’s my canonical parent(s)

reborn as a dryad after niki burns the l’mantree

i think being a dryad would fit especially since they’re typically nymphs of oak trees :]

appearance :

my character’s mc skin has long light brown hair & is seen wearing a flower crown with petals that are around the color of a pale violet and navy blue

clothing would consist of black shoes & a long light grey sweater that falls down to the legs and covers most of the hands which adorned with 2 black stripes on the upper arms

lore / history :

since my past life was the l’mantree, i would’ve known the ins and outs of the history when l’manburg was still standing, up until niki burned the tree

after witnessing everything, i’d hold a grudge on niki (+ allies?) and loyal to wilbur since he’s the whole person that made a meaning of the land of l’manburg

however i’d still be on edge w any side because i could sympathize with everyone to some extent after seeing some sort of distress from everyone at some point

i think seeing both sides of the spectrum when l’manburg/manburg still stood could change my perspective of some other characters

but at the same time, not everything was completely centered in l’manburg so i wouldn’t know the whole story of everyone’s character

i’m currently writing this just after tommy has left the prison & mostly everyone is treating him differently, so i’d try to befriend him by not showing that i dont care about his past & trauma but also not being fully faithful about our friendship ahaha,,,

he seems like the type that needs someone to see through his past history but tommy would definitely disapprove of my character visiting dream at the prison (i would do it anyway :))

vowing my current life to wilbur, i would help dream escape to revive wilbur & follow along with their plans of chaos

i don’t fully support dream but he is the only way to wilbur, making me comply with dream’s decisions

“growing up” in my past life and witnessing endless conflict, it is the only thing i know and understand; chaos

but i think during the process of helping dream & wilbur i’d keep my connection with them secret, being the person to obtain all the inside information they need

i could see myself as a type of equilibrium like ranboo but in a bad way, i don’t know how to explain it

but i would try befriending ranboo since he seems like he is involved in many things and would know a lot, despite his short term memory

unfortunately i’m not sure how much his character actually knows since i haven’t been able to watch his pov that much but i’m sure there’s a lot in his memory book...

to blend in as a normal person within the rest of the characters, i’d surround myself with connor a lot

not only because he needs more lore, connor is one of the “normal” citizens of the smp so i believe being with him doesn’t bring as much attention to myself, unlike people that’s related to the egg and their noticeable features after associating themselves with the egg

he is currently only on bad terms with techno which is rly good when comparing that to other characters and their relationships with other people

connor could probably sense my real intentions eventually & tell everyone else that i’m not who i say i am but if that’s my flaw & my downfall is caused by connor, so be it! sorry dream & wilbur

i feel like for being a young dryad, i’d still fool around with dream/wilbur & help give tommy an small “advantage” to defeating the two ?

like yes i’m supposed to be on your side but where’s the fun if tommy can’t do anything to begin with?

i honestly don’t know if wilbur was revived he’d actually be his vassal but let’s assume that happens, but either way i’m with wilbur on his decisions

but ya dream seems like the type to punish me for helping tommy and send me to the afterlife to learn & become smarter like wilbur had done or smth

in the end, i just want to give tommy bits and pieces that tease him from ending all the wars and problems he has been faced with

like here’s some info about dream and wilbur but it won’t be no where close to enough

but who knows, ghostbur said ‘villains are just heroes that aren’t convinced yet’ & maybe tommy could eventually grow on me & change my ways,,

maybe me fooling around & teasing tommy with answers he’s been searching for is a way to mask that i want to be a good person

ok but imagine after knowing so much about dream/wilbur, the revive book, & the afterlife & then i switch sides,,,

surely if tommy can’t put and end to them, dream would make sure i’m gone for good instead

but also if me & connor are in good terms & he’s canonically a necromancer & can bring ppl back to life,,,,

personality :

to all besides dream & wilbur, i’d try to act passive and friendly on the outside to get on everyone’s good side

however under the mask i am more mischievous & strive to cause more problems for everyone on the server from the inside out

in a way, i’ve taken up some of dream’s manipulative personality but still very understanding

i’d like to think of my character as a good listener,, trying to do less talking than others so i do not open up about my true self and intentions

i’ve seen rumors about schlatt & mexican dream also being revived along with wilbur & i feel like i’d have some soft spot for schlatt & pick up a few things from his own character, not sure what though

schlatt planted l’mantree theory, dad!schlatt au part 2 !! /j

because of my character’s closed off and quiet personality, i feel like i’d be pretty analytical

i would know how to slip between the cracks with some characters & notice the smallest things to make them question themselves

maybe my character is good at holding their composure, and not that susceptible to being “emotional” in a way so it’s easier to face people

like i understand when a situation is sad, etc but i can’t show emotion towards how i feel about it (i don’t know if that makes sense but ya!)

i wanna try to elaborate more,, like imagine my character before tommy visits the prison, i would be unfazed from when i found out he died to the point he’s released and we find out he’s been revived

everything is a constant blur hehe

i just can’t fully process everything i guess? i dunno if that’s helpful but yeah!

in the end though, my moral compass has been very tainted; despite wanting to show my loyalty, it can be slightly easy to sway me, making me internally feel guilty to other people

but me trying to get on everyone’s good side to impress wilbur/dream to seem useful to them would ruin me before i would even realize that i’m another “pawn”

we know damn well dream is faking it till he “makes it” but yk,,

but i’d be stuck in this kind of dilemma of not knowing what thoughts are my own or just something trickled down from wilbur or dream

there’s like maybe something that clicks in my head like “maybe i wanna think for myself for once” or smth

like who am i really?

powers , bonuses , etc :

since dryads can technically manipulate plants in some ways, theoretically i could control the blood vines to some extent ???

i’m pretty sure dryads can communicate with plants so i could understand what the blood vines are saying as well

maybe i could get a good sense of what the egg is all about and stuff

assuming that i understood anything that was happening with the egg in the first place but anyway—

i guess similar to ranboo like how he can’t really be around water without some type of amour or something, it would make sense for me to primarily reside in a type a forest or be near one ?? who knows

seems a bit morbid in a way because of the whole history but if i can somehow easily get rid of the blood vines without it affecting me (if there is still some there) i think it would be kinda pretty to build a tree base in the middle of the l’manburg crator (iskall tease)

like it can show a sign of some rebirth, not the same government repeated once again but a new era in general

you know how you see like destruction years after it the disaster or smth happened and it gets all overgrown with plants and stuff? ya that’s what i’m going for in my head (mumbo jumbo s7 tease)

i know it’s covered in glass already but i dunno, some broken glass and a giant tree emerging from the whole thing and all the rubble seems cool

i’m not a good builder but i have the vision LMAO

omg puffy is like a sheep human hybrid im pretty sure & like there’s a specific type of dryad that are a protector of sheep & other animals?? i’m not exactly sure but that seems like an interesting element to incorporate somehow

also glatt randomly planting a oak sapling in quackity’s lore stream yes pls feed my nonexistent dsmp character lore /j

i honestly dunno how to incorporate the fact dryads can turn shapeshift into trees when trying to escape something but i read something that if a dryad stays in a tree form for too long they’ll forget who they are and stay stuck as a tree?? which like woah that’s cool & some material but at the same time what—

since everyone’s backstory is kinda a mess, mr beast parent tease bc he planted a bunch of trees /hj

i have realized wilbur saying like “the whole reason i built this nation is gone” & blowing up everything or whatever is kinda a plot hole in like ‘why would i follow wilbur if/when he’s revived when he said this?’ but i’d like to think he was the one that made some meaning of the area lmanburg was on, which includes the lmantree

like he was the one that started everything and created that sentiment of that land, and however he views it now is how i would see it now

he gave meaning to my past life and now in my current life, i feel this obligation to repay him for it

not really lore bc i think it was cc!tommy talking to cc!ranboo about his height & age when he first joined but yk it would funny to make my dsmp character than his just to slightly spite him anyway

canonically 6’4 dryad yes . /hj

also i have no idea anything about hannah and her lore but we do be flower buddies :D

also omg like this isn’t at all important but the way ranboo can pick up grass blocks will just have me at awe, i dunno seems in theme with the forest/plant stuff

and i remember reading like there was something about dryads and apples but i can’t remember but i’d give tommy a bunch of apples /hj

apples am i right chat,,,,,

i’ll just have infinite apples in my inventory, like kill me in game, not like losing lives kinda deal but just in general and boom stacks of apples

“bee i get you’re half tree but do you just poop apples out like they’re nothing??” “girls don’t poop” /j

ok but like no matter how many streams i watch i cant grasp where everything is but omg but no if i was new to the server & stuff, canonically & not, i would feel my character to be the curious kind to explore everywhere

like besides a mini tour from some other person in the server, since my character only knows things in the bounds of lmanburg, i’d go off exploring different places like pogtopia, the sewers, showchester, etc

i feel like my character would be really into history, like they would have questions about what happened to lmanburg after the last war? what was life like before wilbur? what was the whole history about the antarctic empire? i dunno but reading a bunch of books from a library seems really interesting

oh but in theory, me and tubbo are loosely related if you wanna count schlatt as my “dad” because he supposedly planted the lmantree ???

i mean could make sense but it seems like a stretch

also if my character ever got close to schlatt, i’m not sure if this is canon, but i swear one time he mentioned how the whole dsmp sever is just a game/server in a game & he’s the only one that knows that ??? but like imagine if i found that out canonically,,,,,

big existential crisis pls

and i’m not 100% sure how dryad shifting works with like going from female to tree form and stuff but if i’m able to morph into different girls on the server & act as them,,,, the about of problems that can cause in the lore omg

lemme frame niki real quick and get inside information /j

oh ya and like hey bee do you support the government then? yes but no. whatever my “fav” person is canonically (assuming this is based in the beginning of this whole hc) whatever wilbur thinks, i think. head empty. but subject to change as the dsmp storyline progresses and stuff :]

ngl i wanna throw in some like random lore that doesn’t make sense to throw people off but i can’t think of anything

not actually really lore related but my choice of stream music like how ranboo has his undertale stuff that makes everyone cry, i will have in love with a ghost

yup i like in love with a ghost sm & i’m pretty sure their music is like not dmca too which yay but yk theoretically never gonna stream on the dsmp but still a fun aspect to think of bc i love listening to music & it’s very impactful to a story & associating something to it makes it more meaningful :D

like i could imagine the chill pop lofi piano stuff fits witha few lore streams of like exploring the whole smp before my character would really go out with being this lost villain in a way?

tubbo’s gangnam style who?

like i feel like i made my character bad/evil so they could have potential to get better in the future

on one hand, i’ll end up w dream and/or wilbur for the rest of my life, which is okay but i could also switch to be with tommy or even disregard all of them and be with techno/phil or quackity & potentially schlatt even who knows

also i cant wait for more connor lore tho, like as much as i tried to make my character give him more content i wanna see how everything goes with him having connections to schlatt & stuff

anyway i would’ve made concept art for my character but i honestly don’t rly like my art currently but who knows LMAO

and lastly if u read all of this ily /p

i might update this later when there’s more lore but ya

[kiara-carrera]

“actually i’m…i’m really not okay.” + Leah for the comfort starters?

convinced you can somehow read my mind across the internet because you're always picking the best prompts for them like this allowed me to write a hc that's been living in my head since may anyways. i also wanna fight myself bc this is like 3 fucking thousand words and its super fucking sad idk why i did this to myself. 

content warning for parental abuse and a mention of alcoholism.

In the middle of the night, something brushed against her face. 

She was asleep on her side, some of her hair falling into her eyes, but it was swept aside, the feeling tickling her skin and it caused her to stir briefly. But her eyes stayed shut and she merely burrowed deeper into her pillow.

Leah had never been much of a light sleeper, but the feeling of her bed dipping next to her seemed to rouse her enough. 

It took her a moment to settle into waking, eyes fluttering and lips smacking together tiredly to combat the dryness of her mouth. A tiny yawn escaped her, her eyes doing their best to adjust to the darkness of her room, the only source of light being the sparse moonlight that trickled in through her window.

It was enough to make out the shape beside her.

Her heart nearly stopped at the sight of them sitting on her bed, arm pulling back towards itself. It felt like something out of a horror movie or perhaps the evening news with the headline of a teenager being stolen from their bedroom. Fear gripped at her with icy hands, eyes widening at the realization that someone was in her room with her.

Lips parted, she was a mere second away for screaming out for her father and brother before a shred of moonlight at just the right second highlighted the unruly blond hair of the intruder.

Pushing up on one shaky hand, she asked, “JJ?”

Leah’s sleep addled voice cut through the silence, a harsh and hurried whisper into the dark. If it truly was JJ sitting on her bed, the volume would need to be kept near silent — she wouldn’t put it past Jack Thompson to treat JJ like an actual intruder.

The voice that replied was unmistakably that of her boyfriend’s, a little tired and a little sheepish. “Hey baby.”

Relief flooded her body and she allowed herself to slump back down into her pillow, a quiet groan escaping her lips. “Jesus fucking Christ, JJ, I thought you were a serial killer. What the hell?”

She couldn’t really see the expression on his face, but she saw him look down at his hands. “Wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me at —” She paused, turning to squint at the alarm clock beside her bed, neon numbers vibrant in the dark. “Two am? How the hell did you even get in?”

“Window.” He jutted a thumb behind him in its direction as if to make his point. In an attempt at lighthearted conversation, he jokingly added, “You know, you should really lock that thing.”

Leah pulled a face, disbelief coating her features. Sleep was still mulling in her brain and she couldn’t for the life of her make sense of this situation. It wasn’t the first time JJ had ever snuck into her room. Even before they were dating, he’d mastered slipping in through her window often enough that he even knew which floorboards would creak loudly under his boots.

But the difference between then and now was that this was the first time he’d done it without warning. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d come unannounced like this. It had to have been months ago, when he’d shown up after —

Fuck.

Leah pushed herself back up on her elbow, a sense of unease washing over her as she squinted at her boyfriend in the dark. The last time he’d shown up unannounced in the middle of the night, it hadn’t been for a midnight make out session or because he’d randomly wanted to spend the night — he’d had a bruised cheek and a busted lip, compliments of his father.

He’d dripped blood on her floor by accident and she’d nearly woken up her brother while getting the first aid kit from the bathroom. She’d gotten a mini one from the dollar store the next day to keep in her dresser just in case.

Except, she didn’t want there to be a just in case. Didn’t want there to be a next time. She’d cleaned JJ up from multiple fights in her time as his best friend and now girlfriend, but nothing left her with a pit in her stomach like cleaning him up after his dad was through with him.

“You didn’t come here from the Chateau, did you?”

It was phrased as a question, but it was more of a statement. JJ shifted awkwardly in his spot beside her. Even if she could make out his expression in the dark, he wouldn’t look at her anyways.

“Lee ...” He trailed off, almost as if he wanted to ask her to drop it.

But he knew her and he knew she wouldn’t. “J, did you go back to your place tonight?”

A small noise of discontent escaped him, but he nodded his head.

“Got into it with my dad,” he finally admitted, letting out a chuckle. It was meant to play off the situation, but there wasn’t a single trace of humor in the bitter sound.

Despite how tired she felt, eyelids heavy enough to drag her back under, that single sentence seemed to wake her up just enough. She squinted at him in the dark, heart thumping a little quicker in her chest as she blindly reached for the lamp on her bedside table.

It switched on, bathing the room in a soft glow as Leah pushed herself up into a sitting position. She blinked a few times, letting the now lit room to come in to focus, a hand reaching up to try and rub the rest of the sleep from her eyes. 

Her gaze eventually landed on her boyfriend, looking uncomfortable as ever under her gaze. His hat was in his lap, hands wrung into it, while his hair looked like he’d raked his fingers through it anxiously a number of times on the way over. And his eyes, normally cheery and mischievous, looked almost hollow, a glossy sheen to the redness that surrounded the blue of his irises. 

He looked ... broken and Leah’s heart stuttered a bit at the dejected expression he wore.

She’d never considered herself violent or capable of truly hurting anyone, but it was moments like these where she swore she could put Luke Maybank six feet under if she put her mind to it.

Unless he drunk himself to death first.

JJ watched on quietly as she let her eyes trail across his face intently, no doubt scanning for new scrapes or bruises or split lips. A twinge of guilt flickered in his eyes, one that Leah ignored. She didn’t care if he felt like he was burdening her or that he felt bad knowing she was expecting him to be dripping blood on her floor like he had one too many times before.

She didn’t care about that, because all she wanted was to make sure he was okay.

Leah hated when he went home. She knew that JJ was too proud to spend every night at the Chateau and knew he thought he could handle himself on the off chance that he ran into his dad. Rarely, though, did that seem to be the case.

“It wasn’t like that,” JJ supplied, noticing the way her eyes strayed to his shirt, more than likely wondering if there were bruises littering the skin it covered. “He was too drunk to start anything physical. Probably would’ve tripped over himself before he got two feet.”

Leah nodded, though his admission didn’t do much to quell her nerves. She didn’t know much about Luke Maybank to start with, but something told her his words were probably as painful as his hits.

After a moment, once she decided that his face looked the way it had when she’d seen him yesterday, save for the frown and his bloodshot eyes, some of the tension in her shoulders relaxed. Not all of it, though, because her mind had already started jumping to the next possible idea of what exactly had happened in the Maybank home earlier that night.

“Do you ... do you wanna talk about it?” she asked gently, tucking her legs under her.

Getting JJ to open up was ... tricky. Leah had been around him long enough that she could clock his bad moods at the drop of a hat, could read most emotions swirling in his eyes like second nature.

Noticing something was wrong, that something was eating away at him, was easy. Getting him to verbalize it and let her in fully was the hard part. Even around the Pogues, around Leah, JJ held a certain level of walls up. Thoughts and secrets and the level of abuse at the hand of his father that he kept guarded for one reason or another. There were things that they knew, things that they found out on accident or because he’d hit his breaking point, but Leah wouldn’t be surprised if there was a whole slew of things she didn’t know.

Her heart clenched painfully at the thought, but it didn’t surprise her when JJ waved off her question.

“Nah, it's not a big deal,” JJ replied easily, brushing it off as he adjusted his position on her bed.

He forced another smile on his lips as he regarded her. It was one that almost looked genuine. Almost. It might have fooled someone who didn’t know him well into thinking that he was fine, someone who wouldn’t pick up on the way he was fidgeting with his rings or how he seemed incapable of looking her in the eye for more than a brief moment before glancing away. But Leah wasn’t just someone and she could pick up on his unease just as easily as she was taking her breaths.

Because Leah knew when JJ wasn’t okay. She always knew.

Treading lightly, like she was dealing with a deer who might spook, she said, “Well, it must have been if you came all this way here.”

Annoyance wrinkled his expression. Tossing his hat to the side, he asked, “Can’t a guy just stop by to see his girlfriend?”

“JJ, it’s two in the morning,” she told him seriously.

His frown deepened. She could see his jaw clench and he nodded his head a few times. “Yeah, okay, you know what, this was fucking stupid. I’ll just leave then if you’re gonna keep looking at me like that.”

She knew the that in question was the pity he was probably reading across her face. But the problem was that she didn’t pity him, she was worried for him, but JJ never seemed to know the difference between the two.

The sight of him getting up and turning to head back towards her window had Leah lurching forward, hand circling around his wrist. “Hey, hey,” she whispered, giving his arm a tug. “No, J, don’t leave, please, c’mon.”

At her pleading tone, he halted, a sigh escaping him. It took another moment before he was sitting back down, a frown still etched on his face.

Leah’s hand slipped from his wrist and she longed to twine their fingers together but she didn’t in favor of scooting a little closer to him on her bed. She tilted her head a bit, trying her best to get eye contact with him.

He finally sighed and looked up at her, another sigh slipping past his lips. “Lee ...”

“Look, I’m not trying to push it, okay?” She bit her lip, thinking over her next words carefully. She didn’t know how many times she could successfully talk him out of leaving tonight. “I just ... I get worried. If you really don’t wanna talk, we don’t have to. We can just go to sleep and leave it, but I need you to know that I will listen if you wanna talk. You came all this way here and it’s so late and I know —”

“I just wanted to see you,” he repeated, cutting her off. There was no edge to his voice. Instead it was softer, a tone that suggested there was more to it. Unconvincingly, he added, “I’m fine, Lee.”

A shaky breath left Leah’s lips, tears beginning to sting at the back of her eyes. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

Her words sat in the air for a few moments. Or maybe it was minutes. JJ was watching her intensely and Leah could almost see the legions of thoughts bouncing around his head at her statement. His eyes were glassier than ever, tears brimming along the edges. He chewed on his lip anxiously and Leah could do nothing but wait for him to make the next move. 

When he did, she was certain her heart broke.

“Actually I’m ...” JJ’s voice was thick with emotion and his breath hitched in his throat as his bravado began cracking under her thoughtful gaze. He couldn’t meet her eyes again when he choked out, “I’m really not okay.”

The first tear betrayed him, dripping down his cheek and disappearing somewhere on his shirt.

“Oh, JJ,” Leah whispered, her soft voice, laced with unmeasurable concern, nailing the coffin shut.

Within seconds, tears began streaming down his face as the dam finally broke.

Leah was quick to shuffle across her bed, the last bits of sleepiness washing off her like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over her head. Her arms were curling around him tightly, pulling him into her as the first sob racked through his body. His face was pressed into her neck, the collar of her shirt dampening with his tears.

He was mumbling into her, words muffled by her skin and her shirt, fragmented by the sobs that snuck through. She could only make out pieces, the words hate it and hate him and sorry repeating more times than she could count.

“I’ve got you,” she mumbled into his hair, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “I’ve got you.”

His arms snaked around her waist, pulling her even closer, impossibly close, like he didn’t think she’d stay with him.

But there was nowhere else she’d ever dream of being, not when he was like this.

This wasn’t the first time Leah had seen JJ cry. While he always tried to hold up a devil may care attitude, the wild Pogue image, the view of a kid from the Cut with no worries besides keggers and weed, there were times where he’d hit his breaking point in the past. She’d seen it before, seen the facade shatter like glass against the floor. There was only so long he could go on being strong, feelings bottled up inside him like a ticking time bomb, before he’d burst.

Another sob wracked through him, a quiet and painful noise buried into her neck.

“I just want it to stop,” he told her between hurried gulps of air. “I’m so fucking sick of it.”

Leah’s eyes squeezed shut and she ran a comforting hand through his hair. She told him, “I know, J, I know,” because what else was there for her to say? What else was there for her to do in moments like these?

Anger burned in Leah’s chest, a sudden hot feeling, akin to a pot left to boil over on the stove. It was seeping into her veins as she listened to his cries, 

Anger at the world, because it took people like JJ and put them through hell. He was sixteen. Sixteen fucking years old and this was the shit that he had to deal with. This was his reality. It was two in the goddamn morning and instead of being asleep in his own bed, safe and loved by his own fucking father, he was here in pieces because of him.

Anger at his father, for being such a useless sack of shit. Who did this to their child? Who could look at a kid like JJ and do nothing but tear them down until they started believing the lies being fed to them? Leah hated him, she’d decided that long ago. Hated him more than she’d ever hated anyone in her life and the feeling of JJ shuddering under her hands only seemed to make it run deeper.

And then there was the anger at herself, because she knew there wasn’t enough that she could do. She could patch up his wounds and hold him tight, could let him cry in her arms until he had nothing left to give, and it would never be enough. She couldn’t fix the world for him and there weren’t enough words in the world to describe how important he was, how special, how loved. His father’s words would always exist somewhere in the back of his mind and she wasn’t sure she knew how to combat them with ones of her own.

It pained her to think he’d believe any of it. To think he was worthless or going nowhere or a waste of space. She wasn’t sure exactly what Luke had said to him tonight, could only guess, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt, with every fiber of her goddamn being that they were lies. 

Leah knew JJ. She knew every reason that she loved him was because he was unapologetically him. He could be brash and impulsive and crude and he didn’t always say or do the right thing. But she also knew that when it came down to it, he was loyal and brave and selfless and better than anyone on this goddamn island. He deserved the goddamn world. He deserved a mansion on the Eight with a koi pond and a ridiculous marble statue or Yucatán and lobsters and surfing all day and whatever else he wanted and it was because he was better than the world gave him credit for.

Tears of her own were pooling in her eyes, steadily dripping down her face as she rested her chin against the top of his head. She knew in that moment that this, being here with him right now, letting him deal with this pain in whatever way he needed to, was all she could offer him. She knew it didn’t come close to what he needed, but she’d hold him as long as he wanted.

As he clutched at her like a lifeline, Leah held him a little bit tighter.

[neshabeingchildish]

Hensley & Char: Friends or Whatever || Part 6

I have to warn y’all, this chapter has some sadness in it. I tapped into 15 year old me and how I was trying to navigate what I thought back then was me being bi, which IF someone calls me bi, I am not opposed to the able, even being technically ace, but for that time and for my feelings/experience and the language I had access to, that’s what I was considering myself as, but nobody knew that (though I was rumored gay by several people in high school, despite never seeing me in any relationships and me only ever speaking about male crushes to others) LOL, yes, Mama used to have male crushes irl, when I was a kid. But, I tapped into some of myself, but made it more Charlotte-like and leaned on the gay. Idk how well it will or won’t resonate, but I hope that I at least did Charlotte justice in her experience with looking inward, though her results may be disappointing, I hope that they at least come across as realistic, if not relatable or understandable. @just-a-j-reallly @junknstu1f @henryharts I’m not in a rush for feedback, as I know everybody has things going on. Hopefully my tags work out. A lot of people never get notified of them.

Also, as a heads up, the next chapter, whenever that might come, might also be sad too. I’m so sorry. 

The Jasper Juxtaposition

They had been trying to get Jasper into the fold of their outfit for a while. Ray wasn’t having it. Even whenever Charlotte basically throw her pride into a burning bin, seeping with trash juice, to pretend that she was secretly dating Hensley, but that they couldn’t tell anyone because, “Charlotte’s not out of the closet.” At this point, Charlotte was very heavily debating this ruse. 

There was an element of “people shouldn’t lie/joke about being in the closet,” which she strongly and firmly believed in… But… She went along with it anyway, because as she did her backstory for this test on Jasper, she found that she comfortably created the guise. 

“I can say that I’ve been curious about my sexuality for a while, and seeing you out of the closet, living your best gay life inspired me to come to you for advice on how to navigate figuring it out and in the process, we fell for each other and started dating secretly.”

Hensley laughed in her face and said, “It’s Jasper, Char. You don’t have to say all of that. Just be like, “We’re gay together, Dude.” He’s gonna accept it and be super chill about it. I’m not convinced there’s a pile of homo rattling around in him, if we’re being honest. PLUS, he thinks we’re both hot. He’s gonna get a kick out of us kissing and stuff.”

“I’m not kissing you!” Charlotte squealed.

Hensley turned up her nose, “What? Ew. No! Of course not. Ugh. This incites disgust, to think of it.” She shook her head, “Kissing a straight girl… in the mouth? I don’t know where your mouth has been. On boys, probably. I don’t want boy kiss transfer.”

“You kissed Chloe all the time!” Charlotte argued, unsure of why that was her response instead of arguing that she didn’t want to kiss Hensley (and hadn’t been kissing any boys, unless you counted kissing Jack Swagawitz at camp… which… she didn’t), and furthermore…

“Chloe was different, though. I really liked her,” Hensley said.

“You went out with Bianca as soon as you had a window,” Charlotte muttered.

“You told me to go for it! What? Now, I gotta stop listening to my smarter half?”

They bickered up until the moment that Jasper came over for them to feed him the lie. Whoa, were they bad at lying together… Fortunately, it was Jasper. Who, Charlotte was very disturbed by his fascination with the thought of them kissing. “Jasper is fetishing us, and I don’t like it,” she told Hensley.

“He’s not fetishizing you. He’s fetishizing fake lesbian you. It’s different.”

“Yeah, but… He’s… fetishizing lesbians!”

“He’s a dude. Dudes do that,” Hensley said, waving a hand. Charlotte didn’t like that explanation and it was often Hensley’s excuse for a number of sexist and problematic things that happened on her watch. Maybe it was for the best that Jasper didn’t pass the test. Then she’d have a problematic Hensley, and ANOTHER problematic guy at work. Ray was alright. He was nice, enough, but he said stuff sometimes that made her uncomfortable and he didn’t really listen whenever she pointed these things out. (Something that she had no idea would get worse over time, but that’s another subject.

Currently, the subject is Jasper. 

It took a while before Jasper came on board with the team. It took a while before he was ready for this secret. From the time that Hensley and Charlotte “broke up” until then, there were a lot of adventures that Hensley and Char saw together that made them really close in a way that Charlotte and Jasper were not, and even that Jasper and Henry were not. And in a way, for Charlotte, it was a lot like the fabricated story that she had spun - their secret involvement and the connecting together that nobody knew about… Also, since then, she had really been thinking about how easy it was for her to think of that, and how… relatable it felt, how natural it was to even imagine herself, keeping that sort of secret because she couldn’t tell people that she maybe… well… she didn’t really think it was so much a maybe these days… liked girls. 

More specifically, she maybe (and this WAS still a maybe), liked Hensley. Her hopeless heroine who she helped on a daily basis, and loved being so close to, even when she complained and fussed at her about the things that she deserved to be fussed at about. She would probably NEVER let her live down almost getting killed by Jasper’s crazy ex girlfriend, and she was so tired of Hensley always coming to her to get her out of stuff that she warned her about prior to the decision - like when she tried to go to the dance with Chloe as Kid Danger and Bianca as herself… STUPID HENSLEY! Charlotte decided, right around Jasper Dunlop Day that she wasn’t doing this anymore. She was going to explore her options and see what felt right. 

She bought a project board, some cards, and a science journal and she set up, literally in her closet, a little experiment center. She decorated the board, and across the top, had lettered, “Am I Gay?” Her hypothesis?: “I might be gay.” Procedure: Well, she supposed, she had to talk to some people, go on some dates, maybe kiss somebody? She shuddered. The amount of germs in saliva was terrifying to her. In fact, whenever she kissed Jack, she had threatened, “If you slip me any tongue, I’ll slip my fist right into your ribcage!” Needless to say, he slipped her no tongue.

But, her “experimentation phase” generally was not very successful for a number of reasons. 

First and foremost… meeting people? She wasn’t a fan. She joined the Student Council as a means to help her with a bit of self diagnosed social anxiety, but cared a lot about issues, so that she genuinely stayed in it to do community stuff and be a helpful member of the club. She met cool people, too! It was one of her things away from Hensley and away from Jasper, and wasn’t primarily academic, so she held it close to her heart as something for herself and decided against using it, and the fine people she met in it as lab rats for her orientation exploration.

Then, there was the little problem of personal space and unnecessary touching. There were very few people that she allowed into her bubble. Her parents, Uncle Roscoe, Hensley, Jasper, Piper, and Ray, and even with Ray, she tensed up for the longest time whenever he entered her bubble without warning. Even with that select amount of people who could be in her bubble, the only people that could casually touch her were her parents and Hensley. Sometimes Piper, but Piper had the respect to not touch her for no good reason. Unlike Hensley, who she simply had to get used to the fact that the girl was simply GOING TO just stand close, throw her arm around her, hug her, pick her up, play with her hair, tug on her backpack, or whatever she felt like doing at the time, and saying, “You should get permission before touching people,” just became background noise for Hensley, after a while, so Charlotte simply stopped saying it and adjusted. 

Jasper still sometimes got elbowed. It just wasn’t the same thing when a dude just touched you casually, she had initially thought. Maybe that wasn’t it at all and she just didn’t mind girls touching her as much, because she liked them? But… in order to figure that out, she’d have to let people in her bubble and let people casually touch her and see how she felt about it. 

So often, when it looked like somebody was getting too close, she stepped away, creating the distance of comfort for her and also, very clearly letting them see where it was. To the point that everybody who knew her knew not to get too close and everybody in her extracurriculars always did stuff like, “Hey Charlotte, I’m gonna take this lint off of you, okay?” (to which, she’d tell them to show her where it was and get it herself) or “Hi, Charlotte, do you mind if I sit here, or is that too close for you?”(To which she’d tell them to go ahead, but she’d move over more). She’d have to start telling people that being near her was okay, if she wanted to see her reactions to boys and girls and others in her proximity… And nowadays, they didn’t even ask anymore.

Even Mitch Bilsky would take one look at her and say, “UGH. The only space is by the queen of “don’t stand so close to me?” He’d then still do it, and even purposefully make her squirm, but she would resolve to ignore him and he’d get bored and move along.

But, she didn’t have very many times to test this out, and had to eventually rule out trying to get close to people (or let them get close to her) to see if she might feel a little flutter or not. 

Lastly, in addition to not being a people person and not wanting anybody in her personal space, The Man Cave was a whole ass full time job to maintain. She began to wonder what happened to people who previously worked for Ray/Captain Man? Even the ones that were there when she got there, and ones that would pop in and out for little assignments… after a while, she just didn’t see them, and she either was assigned their jobs, or took it upon herself to do them for worry of things going terribly wrong if she didn’t. Things went wrong in general, and she often felt like if she didn’t step in whenever she did, they could be downright disastrous. This job basically became her life. She never signed up for another marathon after dropping out whenever she thought the Super Volcano would kill them. She still had StuCo, but that was school related and when push came to shove, she only forsook the Man Cave for educational purposes, unless it was an extreme emergency.

In fact, she completely gave up on testing it all out and just let it bother her beneath the surface. Her conclusion: I’m more confused than ever, but technically… going to consider myself in the closet.

Imagine if I was as comfortable with myself as Jasper is…

You couldn’t tell that boy nothing. He protested stupid Swellview laws, jumped into hero mode to get his own hero day, wore belly shirts to everyone’s chagrin, was willing to go to tremendous lengths - sometimes extremely embarrassing ones - to get girls, and he overshared weird facts about his body with great excitement that just let you know that he adored these things about himself… 

She couldn’t even with certainty say that she MIGHT like girls, which, she was sure that she absolutely did, but she could hardly admit it to herself, much less out loud. What if it hurt her? What if it affected how she was seen by people on college boards or in the job field, once she left Swellview. Sure… there were YEARS before this happened, but Charlotte had been thinking ahead since she was small, and the moment she felt an inkling that her feelings may be… counterculture, she began to research related laws and statistics. 

Swellview didn’t have a big Black population. In fact, the demographics indicated that there were a lot more lgbt citizens than there were people who weren’t white, period. So, in Swellview, perhaps it wouldn’t be anything to be open about her sexuality… but… what if it was different for her, like a lot of things were. It was often different for her as a girl to be accepted in some spaces, to be listened to, to be respected. And it was frequently double different for her as a Black girl. Even the “good” people made her feel things that she often didn’t want to complain about, because they ALREADY thought she was an angry girl, when she couldn’t think of very many instances in which her anger was not justified. Research told her that was a common issue for Black girls and women. She didn’t have enough around her to touch base with, and was frustrated that she had to consider all of these intersections to even consider whether she would be free enough to have a sexual identity. 

Even with her academic record, immaculate articulation, and non-threatening appearance, Charlotte didn’t have many friends and didn’t have the best reputation. She was a nerd, but also, unfriendly. A Black girl in a male dominant world, in a white dominant city, and to possibly also be gay… she just… she couldn’t just toss that out there and have it attached to her name without knowing, and she felt like a coward for feeling like that. 

What would be the big deal, Charlotte? If that’s who you are… what would be so wrong about that? People be gay all over Swellview… but then again… everyday, she would see people be able to freely do things that she previously thought she WOULD never do, but as she got older realized that she wouldn’t do certain things, because she COULD never do them… not without possibly losing something. Chances? Respect? Heck, in certain areas of the world, her life. But, thinking this hard about it and not coming up with anything to push her to believe that she was indeed a straight girl, despite all of the reasons that it would be SO easy, and she loved easy things, despite her knack for tackling hard things. Why wouldn’t she just accept that she was straight, if that would make all of this anguish and confusion go away? She could just tell herself that she was straight and get it over with and move on… IF she was indeed straight. And if she wasn’t, no matter how much “experimentation” and hypothesizing she did, nothing would make her feel those feelings that she sometimes felt around Hensley, for some boy. 

So… She just sat with it. In her closet. She didn’t experiment and she didn’t hypothesize. But, in her science journal that she had previously been writing all of these things in, she scratched out her conclusion and wrote. 

Conclusion: I’m gay. 

But, she tore the page out and wadded it up. Then, she felt bad, straightened it back out, and slid it back into it's space. She tucked her cards into it and stuffed it into a lock box where she kept keepsakes and stuff, locked it in and got rid of her project board in the Junk n Stuff dumpster. 

She had been handling Kid Danger’s secret for a couple of years now and planned to hold on to it forever. She had time to figure out what to do with her own.

Besides… by the time Jasper got in on the secret… Things changed a lot, anyway.

[survivormetaverse]

Finale - "I. Love. Power." ~Jodi

I'm having a very emotional moment right now, let me just write about my feelings. I spent this entire game countering advantages. Because I wanted to put this game in my own hands. If I had not gotten rid of Dennis in that twist with no advantages, Dennis would've cruised through and when time came, decided to target me when he wanted to and he would have protection. Same with Colin for example, sure, maybe he wouldn't gun for me but he also could've just cruised from Final 7 to Final 4 with his 3 advantages and my fate in this game would've been in HIS hands. If he wanted to keep me he'd do it and if not then he wouldn't. I wanted my game in my own hands, and that's what I did. People kept thinking I was playing a backstabbing game for no reason, but in reality, I just wanted a fair shot at this game and creating my own fate. I don't think that's unfair. Having 9 advantages in the merge as somebody with nothing terrified me, as I suspected they'd all be concentrated in one place. I was not wrong. I rightfully targeted Dennis for having 2 huge advantages, then rightfully targeted Colin for receiving all of Dennis' stuff, then Elle for literally sitting on 2 (suspected) idols and a steal-a-vote. I do not know why I am being crucified for just wanting to have a fair playing field. Even sitting here at final 5, we still have one final idol to counter. When Josh approached me to flip on Colin, Elle, and Amy, I found a light in this game again. Somebody who had the same objectives as I did wanted to play this game with me. He didn't see me as a threat to win, which meant he would've taken me to the end. So many unlucky things happened to me in this game and I just know that people want me out of this game so bad but I just wanted to survive and have a real shot at this. That's all it really was. 

~

I think this is the biggest immunity I need to win. Because if I'm in F4, I think I can at least force fire making. But here today, I believe I need to win it not just to take immunity away from Amy or Elle, but that I think if Jared wins it, my game is literally dependent on a literal 50/50 guess of who the idol is going to be played on. Elle made it obvious that they want to target Jared from last night, so if Anastasia wins it, I might still be ok. I don't want Jared to win this. Straight up. He said he'll cut me at 4 anyways so I'm not going to play with my heart this round. I seriously want this immunity win so bad. You know, I'm sure the jury disagrees and despises me, but I truly think I played one of the most brilliant strategic games, at least for a newbie. I battled 9 advantages with NOTHING in my pocket since merge, with nothing but a social and strategic knack and love for the game of Survivor. At the merge, I got included into a 6-person majority alliance and a 3-person ride or die alliance. I knocked out a guy with 2 huge advantages at F11. I had control over every single pair at F10. I got knocked out at F9 with a CHAOS idol, despite the premise of Survivor being to NOT get votes. I fought back in at F8 as somebody who is incredibly bad at comps. I then voted out one of my #1 allies, the one that would NEVER cut me, even at 4, to create trust and move me further into the game. I created immunity for 3 people at F7 to keep my only 2 close allies left safe, by far my game winning move. I did this and knocked out my biggest competitor without having to write his name down, and with an idol in his pocket. At F6, I had a strong enough alliance to split votes. Unfortunately lost Josh to rocks, but I'm still here. My job at F5 is to either guess correctly to place votes on Amy or Elle or to win immunity. Because at F4, I could at least get Anastasia or Jared to force fire for me. I am so close. So close. 

Ahahahahaha well I have regrets about giving the steal to Elle. One - I forgot to tell them it was good until 5 so elle played it to remove anastasia? (Idk if I've already written about this but oh well) from the possibility of rocks. During the discussion once Josh said that he would vote elle I knew I was going to rocks one because it was fun and spicy and two because they were all set on elle and it seemed josh wasn't really going to vote with us so like it would have been rocks anyway. If I had known the round would be like that I would have held it myself and if I was rocked out lol but if I had it I wouldn't have played it and then elle and myself would be in as much control as is possible at 5. I mean I have the merge idol still plus having 3 of 5 votes please ugh the dream but OH WELL. I cannot wait to just list all my mistakes in this game 🤣🤣🤣 whoopsies. Anyway I'm excited to be immune I'm just worried that the others will just vote out elle because it's easy and / or they will just say to. I have my money on jodi to win this unfortunately because she is so social and would know the most about everyone. And I know nothing about these children bc I was on vacay the whole time. However I also think Jared still has his necklace. I would prefer f3 not have any of the j names lol. However we will see how it goes. I need to get there first and f4 is going to be tough. That's why I want elle still here so we can force fire for more spice. This is such a fun game which consists mostly of me saying whoopsies. Anyway that's all I got bc I am in a travel nightmare weeeeee.

I CANNOT BELIEVE I JUST PULLED OUT INDIVIDUAL IMMUNITY AT FINAL 5 I am an anti comp beast but I win when I need it 😭😭

Sigh... At this point it's like, might as well fight to the end, right?? Might as well fight like hell and make it to FTC. Jodi's almost a sure fire, and part of me is like, "let's see what'll happen when there are 3 hella strong players at FTC". Not a single goat present. I think I want Jared and Anastasia gone for that to be a reality. Granted, I'm not sure I'd win, but also wouldn't it be spicy to find out??? Anyways, I wouldn't be surprised if I go this round.

Nobody is talking to me, does everybody have idols??? I must be the loneliest F5 immunity winner ever

~

I. Love. Power. That’s it that’s the confessional 

~

https://youtu.be/Yt5OI_LfEiQ

~

Roses are red, I'm good under pressure, Who will sit next to me at the end of this adventure?

https://youtu.be/yB5WoxgC-FA

I think I am toast at f4. It sounds like either everyone wants to take anastasia or vote her out but I'm about to play the idol and then I just told anastasia I'd go to rocks for her bc people are between wanting to take her or take her out at 4. I can't believe it sounds like elle wants to take jodi to f3 to be spicy like Jodi will win hahahahaha I have been trying to vote her out since the chaos idol but she had such a hold on people you know what congrats to her 🤣 I can't believe she's even still here rn. Maybe I should have tried to flip it onto jodi rather than go to rocks at 6. Apparently both anastasia and jodi are saying brayden doesn't like them in the game but that literally makes no sense 1 bc brayden is anastasia's bestie irl and 2 bc brayden literally wished good luck for jodi to win before he was gone. I hope they put the votes on me here so I can idol someone out and not just to be safe lol. I kind of hope jared also idols but in that case I'm definitely toast at f4 lol bc idk why they all want to sit by jodi she has convinced them the jury hates her but we literally all said if she makes it to the end she wins ☠️ and tbh I cant say it in the game or they will definitely vote me out but I will vote jodi to win if I'm in the jury and she's f3. If it's anastasia elle and jared I probably vote elle tbh but that one I'll have to hear cases more. It's a fun one for sure! But like the fact that I literally flipped on everyone and had a hand in everyone sitting on the jury.... And I still haven't received any votes is wild. And people just handed me immunity twice. Hahahaha I really think f4 is my end unless I can force fire between anastasia and jodi like why is that even an option. I guess it's not currently on me? But wtf is this I just can't see wanting to take jodi 🤣 everyone loves her despite what she is claiming lol. But I really think everyone in f5 has a solid case. Anastasia never needed immunity or advantages. Jared was last of the fools by merge and made it here and had an idol. Elle had me hand them an advantage lol was able to force rocks to avoid being out and had an idol. Jodi made it this far after having been chaos idoled out then won her way back and still was the biggest threat yet everyone wanted to keep her. Then there's me who no one knows I was the cause of the fake idol, the steal a vote (though played WEIRD), the merge idol yet (though they suspect), the mistake of fucking up the colin vote, the mistake of the 150 buy am advantage thing, the mistake of handing away my advantage, the mistake of not just trying to switch it to get jodi out instead of rocks, but yet here I am lol. It would be a fun one to win that's for sure because it's a hilarious story that I legit wasn't going to play at all. Maybe had I not been drinking so much on vacay and prevacay I would have made sounder decisions but sometimes it pays off to not seem as calculating and just blend in. Here's hoping 1) my merge idol is real (that would be evil if not) and 2) final immunity is something I can win. That's all I got I've been on planes for 12 days it feels like. Love to everyone hosting, in the game, and in the VL.

https://youtu.be/BqX6sSSPOqc

~~~

Power Ranking Update:

Jodi: Immunity has given her the ability to dictate who goes home. She is in the middle of two sides right now: Elle & Amy vs. Anastasia & Jared. She’s giving more consideration to Elle & Amy since Jared, apparently, has explicitly told her that he would cut her at Final 4. This has given their relationship a lot of tension. Thus, it seems that Jodi is making the move first before he can make the move against her.

Elle: Doing everything they can to save their own ass. Has decided to make a deal with Jodi that seems to be very tempting and good if they want to make it to the end. Has the most power because they are on the bottom giving them the biggest credibility. This late game allyship will prove very beneficial.

Amy: Is going to idol. Is safe. Not doing much. Just vibing.

Anastasia: She has not done much in terms of planning this round. However, she has correctly deduced that Amy has the idol. Despite that, she is going to be left out of this plan if it comes to it which may put her in a very precarious spot at Final 4.

Jared: Explicitly telling Jodi that he was going to target her at Final 4 was the Wrong (Capital W) move. Now, he is mega on Jodi’s radar and has since been on Elle’s and Amy’s radar. His under the radar game is being exposed by a poor choice of honesty so close to the end.

~~~

This is my time to shine. I've studied the game since preparing for my buyback. I have a notebook from June 8 that says all the past vote outs, rounds, challenges, etc. I will stay up all night to know this game front and back. This win is mine. 

~

11:06pm PST check in: So far, I've memorized all challenge scores and times (honestly some of these times were really easy, like 57:50.17 or 1:02:26.69) and I'm working on votes against next, then twists. Doing well so far!

~

12:05AM PST Check in: I have now completed the placings, votes against and order of vote out. I am 99% I'm the only one here who knows the actual breakdown of the invisible round votes, so I hope that makes s difference for me. I mainly did this because I don't know how Raffy wants to call us. For example, Dennis was the 8th person voted out, in 11th place, with 10 votes against, and the 1st member of the jury. That's a lot of titles! My next hour is going to be dedicated to learning the names of the twists. These are hard terms that I might not necessarily remember. I don't even remember the buy back one, it's like Samaraasdfa;s something I'll figure it out lol

~

1:04am PST check in: Studying the hunts and twists of the season! Hunts: Chidori yoshino Futuba sakura Shadow Yu Nyx Shadow Teddie Nyarlathotep Twists: Patience Decisions, Decisions (Fortify spirit, debilitate, transparency) Fusion First and Last Samarecarm Survivor Market Invisible Round All or Nothing Jared goes home 🥺💔

~

should I give up immunity and take Amy out in fire? 

The second I saw what the challenge was, I knew it was Jodi’s to win. The first thing she said to me was “I studied your game” and then she studied for the buyback, she’s been studying this whole time. Sorry I’ve been drinking at Disney then had 1 hour after work to study and all that helped with was the names one lol. I kept track of the ones that I mathed wrong or knew but the time countdown was too stressful to think and it was 4 meaning we would have tied LOL oh well.I just hope elle doesn’t turn on me and I can at least go to fire. I told anastasia before that I would force fire for her is the others want her gone but if it’s me or her sorry girl.The difficult part is IF I make it out of this tribal, I still truly believe it’s Jodi’s game to win. If I’m in the jury I’m probably voting Jodi but maybe Elle. I have a lot to convince the jury of because I was so behind the scenes. I think I have Dennis and Colin for sure for votes, Babs is a mystery. I think Josh hates us all but I’m the direct reason he was rocked out. Jodi has Brayden and Jared and probably Jay I think. So it would be really tough to beat Jodi. I will have to use the exact arguments that I don’t actually agree with that were used against me in subrosa (though there I wasn’t voted at 9, it was like 24 lol) saying I was at least never voted out and you shouldn’t need to win challenges to keep yourself alive. I will have to use her own words and say it can be seen as being a coward to not commit to a vote and instead try to keep your hands clean (the Jared vote) so whoever survived she could be good with but also good with the jury members even though he straight up said he made Jared play his idol on her to be able to vote him out soon after lol. Idk I’m thinking ahead of myself bc honestly if I were them I’d vote me out right here. I do want to reiterate that I think Jodi is amazing and we play pretty similar game styles overall. I just made messy moves all game channeling my inner Raffy. I wish this challenge would have been the chop style bc I think jodi loses and Elle wins. Oh well. I’m sunburnt and dehydrated and exhausted bye! Hope I make FTC but we will see lol

So idr what i said last. Ana's gonna have to go. I'm gonna tell her tomorrow morning. I feel bad bc I did mean it at the time when I asked if she wanted to go to fTC with me like 2 rounds ago but then I kept thinking about a spicy FTC and then Jodi reached out and :/// i feel bad but at least i'll tell her. But yeah! Looks like we're going to FTC, guys :) watch me get voted out tomorrow for getting cocky 😂 you truly are never safe in this game

I have decided what I'm going to do tonight.... Who ever thought I'd get here? I guess my studying paid off. Tonight is a big tribal council, because it's more nuanced than just sending 2 people to fire or voting somebody out. Whoever wins fire also has a "cherry on top" in terms of a final comp win to earn their spot into FTC, so as a Final Immunity winner, this becomes a dilemma of do I try to take out my biggest threat to win, at the risk of giving them a possible final flashy move? Essentially, the obvious situation is whether or not I send Amy and Anastasia to fire tonight. I owe my life in this game to Anastasia, who was my most loyal ally since I came back into the game. Amy flipped and played Colin's game and is the representative of that "side"'s game. She is definitely my biggest threat for votes. If she goes, she has to go, she can't win fire. Elle won't flip on Amy, Anastasia's not confident, so what do I do? 1) Vote out Anastasia 3-1, fight with Elle and Amy in the end. This option means there's no fire for either Amy or Anastasia to have on their resumes. This option means I must get 5 votes, as Anastasia sitting beside me meant she would've given me the final tiebreaker vote. Elle and Amy vote for each other, so I have to win straight out here. 2) Convince Amy to vote Elle and then me and Anastasia vote Amy in a 2-1-1. Same reason as Elle, Amy won't vote Elle out. She went to rocks for them even while holding an idol! 3) Give my immunity necklace to Anastasia, and ask her to send me to fire with Amy, and I take out Amy myself. This not only robs Amy of the final flashy move (if I win), but I would directly take control of who I want in the final 3. Pulling an Underwood is obviously risky, but for the Amy stans on the Jury, they literally cannot be upset at me if I take her out like this. I've flirted with this idea ever since making Final 4, but of course, there's a really small (but still existing) chance of me getting Erik Reichenbach'd here. I had to gauge how my chances are at the moment and how much they'd change with a successful fire challenge, but alas, in the words of Jay Bee themself, this would be "the most Jodi move" to cap off my game. I won't reveal what I'm doing tonight here, but I promise it's what's going to win me the game. Tune in to tribal council tonight to find out 😈

Im about to be voted off of this game. I did have the choice to go to rocks because Jodi said she would but I really am fine with getting 4th. Also I want to ask the ftc questions because I had no hope of winning over them. It's sad but true. I'm looking foward to talking to Colin and Jay and Jared!!

~~~

Power Rankings Update:

Jodi: Her winning immunity was crucial for her winning the entire game. She definitely played the Messiest game out of everyone on this cast, but that has more than earned her a spot at FTC. She is most likely to win out of this Final 4, and her vote will be the most crucial for tonight to determine if this will be fire or Anastasia’s vote-out.

Elle: She is the safest person without immunity tonight. From being targeted at 6 and 7 for having an idol they did not have to being assured FTC, Elle has had a journey from under the radar. They are not at threat of being eliminated from this game with whatever Jodi decides to do.

Amy: She is in a very precarious position now. While Elle will vote Anastasia, Jodi might not. This means that Amy might have to go to fire, but I think she got in good enough with Jodi at this point to be higher than Anastasia.

Anastasia: Most definitely receiving votes.

~~~

Wow hahahahahahahaha what a journey this has been. From saying I won’t be playing the game, to saying a have to hard quit by May 28, to winning 3 hunts and knowing where every advantage was, to playing while on vacation literally in Disney World for a week, to avoiding any sort of target from either side somehow, to being here in FTC. Is this how I imagined FTC to be comprised? NO hahaha I still think Jodi is going to run away with it and I have a lot of convincing to do in my speech to try to win over the jury. I had a moment that I was going to have to do fire in my car at f4 haha but I offered Anastasia fire and she didn’t want to do it. Also my original plan to force fire was to try to get Jodi out haha but that girl earned her spot in FTC. I just want to say it’s been an incredibly fun game to play and I’ve enjoyed playing this game with everyone and I hope that I can get to know everyone better when I’m not doing a million other things too. I think my goal in FTC (depending on time limits, Raffy please give me 10 minutes for a speech haha) is to reveal my hunt wins, strategy to keep targets elsewhere, the flip and undercover agent for 3 rounds, being gifted immunity twice, risking my entire game for my allies, not asking anyone to play advantages on me (actually the opposite- please DO NOT play them on me), not needing to win immunities to make it to the end, being in a position to be ale to give away advantages (which benefitted me by making the rest believe Elle somehow had the other idol to ensure the votes were on me instead thus assuring we both made f4 with my idol play), and never being voted out of the game. I want to show thatI played a messy game actually trying to be voted out early with the two alliances set up following my plan of having Dennis and brayden believe I was their ideas all while becoming closer with jodi so she wouldn’t ever go against me. I played deliberately making moves and owning vote outs, never playing only to keep my hands clean. I was on the right side of EVERY vote except Colin - my biggest mistake of the game since had he played his idol there chances are he’d be sitting here too. I want to thank Dennis and the survivor gods for bringing Colin and I together at the perfect time to flip the game completely. I want to show my game was imperfect and I never tried to control people’s every move. I was flexible and worked collectively even going against my trust issues. I put my life in others’ hands and at any point people could have easily turned against me. Frankly I’m not sure why they didn’t. I want to show that I respected everyone and was able to make all the moves I did while being in constant transit or being Epcot drunk. I want to explain that a messy and imperfect game with big moves, never being voted out, many mistakes, hunt wins, a lot of information flowing to me, and a lot of fun in possible and deserving of the title of sole survivor. I kept my cards close as I usually do in games, but I played more risky than ever. Even being in a minority alliance I was never receiving votes nor was my name even being mentioned until it was too late. I’m really proud of the game I played, but I recognize much of the jury might be really bitter toward me and view Elle’s underdog story or Jodi’s power and comeback as more deserving. Either way I think it’s a great F3 and I look forward to a fun FTC. I won’t be stressing as much (hopefully) as my previous FTC. Thank you to everyone who made this game what it was. It might be my favorite game I’ve played even though I still refuse to learn anything about Persona. I look forward to many game nights (if I don’t hard quit skype again lol).

(Imagine "My Way" by Frank Sinatra (or even play it 👀) while you read this ty I'm creating an audio visual experiential mindscape, now imagine that I'm sitting at the edge of a stage clearly after a show but all the patrons are gone, one knee is up and I'm leaning on it casually while looking around at the auditorium, my eyes pausing and flashing with emotions as I pause at the seats where old friends or family may have been sitting.) Well, we made it 🙂 Typical that the game I put the relative least amount of effort into is the one I go to FTC, but that tracks, I suppose. I honestly don't know if I'll win. But I kind of like that, you know? ^_^ I love the mysteryyyyy✨. I hope no one's mad at me at FTC, either for just being there or something I did :/ I mean it's bound to happen but I hate both just people suffering in my vicinity and confrontation. Plus, idk how I'll take it 😂 not like, crying or anything I don't cry in front of people EVER like I'd have to be... idk literally stabbed or something, I'm more worried I won't be able to respond in the "survivor"-y way, and instead I'll go into comfort/validation mode and solutions based conflict management 😅😅. I hope people like my Rites of Passage jokes, I tried to tailor them to every person at least a little. I also people like Ingary, which I'll have 5 dedicated days to plan and prep the rest of it with Dylan 😂 jeez. Me making FTC in the game I thought I'd last like, pre-merge is So Typicallll 🤣 Stay breezy and easy cheesy, Elle ^_^ 💖

https://youtu.be/Dy4zhccMhRw

~~~

FTC Power Ranking:

Amy: Amy had the strongest Final Tribal Council out of the three. She exposed a lot of her game to people turning Amy supporters to Amy simps and people who were on the fence about her into people who recognize how well she played. The secrets she kept were very important to reveal as it changed how the game was viewed. She did an excellent job at unveiling all of the shadows in this game, and I think she impressed the jury the most.

Jodi: Jodi did not have a lot to reveal like Amy. Most of Jodi’s game has already been talked about and/or known about as she played very openly and vocally. This made her Final Tribal Council turn into defending her own play style for most of the time she was given. She certainly did demonstrate a lot of passion which is good to sway some people off of Amy with an emotional plea. I think her biggest issue was that she did not adequately acknowledge the flaws in her game that people had and refute those flaws.

Elle: Elle had a very chill vibe at Final Tribal Council. They mostly answered all of the questions in the same way with the same answers. This definitely hurt them as it felt like Elle didn’t explain how they got to the end of their own merit. Instead, they made it seem like her allies carried her to the end rather than anything they did explicitly. They were a Hero to the very end by simply being themselves and hoping that it would net them votes. However, they were definitely the weakest at Final Tribal Council out of the three present.

~~~

Edgic:

Season Edgic and Overall Edgics:

Power Rankings:

[survivorcordillerablanca]

Episode 9 Confessionals

dammit i aligned with the one person everyone wanted out in the merge first.. why is jordan pines still here? well im using my power and bouncing the fuck out next round--- see ya suckers!

i hate blindsides. like people are always like "omg BLINDSIDE haha this is so fun!!" no. theyre not fun. do u rlly like having to own up to everything after tribal to people u just betrayed and u cant tell them EVERYTHING that happened but u have to tell em something and tey always feel betrayed. not fun, and katies obv pretty hurt while bryce is hiding it. like im not gonna blindside if its always this unfun. i dont wanna spill my guts and be all weird bc i dont like doing it :/ but telling people who im voting isnt fun either idek

So the vote didn't go my way. Someone is working with jordan and luke. i think the way the votes fell it was me and chris on jordan, katie on luke, willow on me, and charlotte, luke, jordan, carson, zach on chris. everyone is saying that it was last minute and just wanted to go with the majority. but that doesnt add up. i was told that i wasnt clued in because they didnt know if i was close with chris or not. and that they wanted to flush the idol that jordan has. but if you all vote with him he obviously wont play it?? also i wasnt told because chris chose me to go on the wishing well im  pretty sure which is lame. we werent even close and i would be fine voting him even if i think its the wrong move seeing as how luke and jordan need to go sooner or later. im most betrayed by carson because i told him hes my number 1 and he said the same but he doesnt let me know saying it was last minute. but he talked to me right before the vote and said it was jordan so clearly it wasnt too last minute. willow voting me is so random but i need to make sure i get her back with me b/c i think i can use her. this vote has brought me and katie closer i think which is good, she really seems to think that charlotte was the mastermind of the vote and i kind of agree. i just dont get why charlotte wanted us to split and then do this. she convinced chris to split too i believe which is sad for him. but like why would she make a split if she already had 5 votes. so i think its maybe not her, or she was doing that for extra caution. anyway people still have these advantages from the auction so im wary and just want to win the immunity to secure myself. i need to work on my relationship with luke and willow i think b/c i think that can be beneficial moving forward.

katie used her power.. like why?? i love katie but like.. that was dumb. after me incessantly telling her, youre fine, youre safe. but whatever. (but i get her point of view too because i wouldnt trust me after telling her i was voting jordan then helping her split votes on luke then voting chris out lmao) hopefully the plan of getting jordan out can work this round even though katie using her power semi? nto really complicates the plan. patience sucks by the way

Jordan won immunity which is PERFECt because it means he can't be voted out but now I'm just worrying about me. I know we managed to get the numbers last round but I'm nervous about whether or not people will vote me off this round or not, especially since I'm the only vulnerable Copa at tribal council. That being said I /do/ have 2 idols in my pocket so I could just pull one of those but I wanna try and wait as long as I can before I have to use those. Ideally I want Willow out this round, I don't really talk to her and I don't think she trusts me especially after we played Dead Sea together and I had a hand in exposing the idol that she played incorrectly (oops?)! Zach didn't really like the idea of getting Willow out but Jordan wants to so I'm gonna see what I can do. It ain't over yet

*play like jenna.. play like jenna... play like jenna... PLAY LIKE JENNA*

I hope to be a swing vote next round 

Carson: What do you want to do about tribal? Me, probably: Blindside Zach. 

So we're talking about voting out Willow this round.

She's nice, but there are no real allegiances (as far as I know) that she has in this game. Her vote was wild last round for Bryce, so it should be easy to get him on board to vote for her too. Jordan and Zach both need to go at some point but right now they, and Carson, are the only people I enjoy talking to so ... maybe I'll play this out and just bring a bunch of threats to the end with me. Why not? Can you imagine a final three filled with people who actually played decent games? It'd be a blood bath to see who wins and I am SO here for that.

this vote is a little intricate. but before I get into that, I want to explain other stuff. I was so close to copying Jordan's score because I knew from a past game he got perfect, so I would only assume he'd get it again. That being said, I would've felt really shitty and it may have potentially fractured my relationships with some of them. anyway the five person alliance type thing of char/luke/jordan/carson/myself aint going to stick much longer because..... everyone wants me out. I wanted Bryce out and i got it going but unfortunately people are doing willow. 

Willow leaving is kind of bad for my game, but nonetheless it's the decision and I can't resist it much. I plan on telling her the truth, and getting her to use her golden fan so that I can maybe get a new power because my rope fucking sucks (well, sometimes it can, but its a tiebreaker rip) I think if she didnt use it, she'd give it to me? and i think thatd be fine but i dont want to use it because luke would be mad, so if she's leaving, then why not just let it be her since  she's leaving anyway? I love Willow to death though so her leaving is going to be sad :( I think ideally the next person i'd want out is Jordan. One of the trio of L/C/J have to leave, and i'm least closest with Jordan and despite Char being like... opened about wanting me out because i can go on a comp streak, i don't want her out bryce can leave too. i dont talk to him much, but he's a nice guy! the game's the game, and it sucks though. Also it's fucking crazy how already its final 8 like?? it feels like the game started lowkey like 2 days ago and .... we're almost half way done.. wait we are DSMGODSMGDS okay done

"honestly i love how in this game votes are determined like ~6 hours before the vote and its settleede easily for the most part" zach even tho we've only had three votes including this one and the last one he said he was" told last minute" so what the truth!!! I think we're voting willow here everyone seems to be on board but i was blindsided last time and theres no saying I wont be blindsided again. I really wanted to win immunity but i flopped big time but maybe itll make people think im not a threat. Im gonna try to bring me carson zach charlotte back together and hope for the best because it would be 4-3. but also i want to remain close with katie even tho she ditched me... iconic queen. She told carson before hand but not me so thats interesting i guess!

willow targeted charlotte and spread her name, and charlotte acc does have some power so... ppl (bryce) ratted to charlotte and now willow's on the chopping block. sigh. im fine with willow going i guess ill just need a new final 3 person for me and zach?? whatevs. also willow has a golden fan apparently that mixes up the golden fan so me + zach r gonna try and get her to use it before tribal so we can possibly get some items. also.. at the start of this tribal EVERY name was tossed out besides me and zach. this could be because people know we're close or maybe we actually are in a good position. i think its the former but who knows. hoping this vote can be pulled off easily and i won't be the blindsidee tonight.

Currently trying to get the votes to get Willow out. So far I think I have me, Jordan, Charlotte and Bryce and with Katie gone that's majority for this vote. Zach still doesn't want to do it but I may just have to go behind his back on this vote and not do what he wants but that's the game. Hoping this works because I have a really weird feeling about tonight. 

Okay so as of currently I think Carson, Zachary and Charlotte are the biggest threat and I want Charlotte gone lowkey 

But I'm at my friends house so I don't have lots of time as usual ugh, also I'm a dumbass who got the challenge time wrong also Bryce suspected it was me who voted for him last round rip 

I've been being jewish all day so im just here now, so first confessional - hooray jordan finally won a fucking immunity challenge, it took way too long rtp. like seriously wtf

Anyways splitting this confessional up into 2 cause tribal is soon and i got nothing to talk about, but like bye willow, you were cool i guess, we didnt talk. sorry hon

Okay so like its definitely gonna be me tonight and I sorta tried but I think it's gonna be a unanimous vote and I just wanted to say I love Zach and Carson and I hope they do well in this game and I'm excited to use my fan and stir shit up right before I leave and continue only ever getting 8th in side seasons  

i gave zach my idol bc im a paranoid bitch and have a bad feeling about this vote. also FUCK everyone for wanting (or faking) to vote out literal ANGEL Willow. i just like told her im voting her and love her and wanna be friends after :// Also idk. i have a weird feeling. if i am blindsided, then good game bitches.

[disparais]

above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim

eventful first week back at college. trying not to list anything in exceedingly great detail like i was previously wont to do, so-

monday:

first day of school! skipped last lecture to go kayaking with l, h and a. we didn’t end up doing much kayaking + just talked a lot, but being around people i’m genuinely comfortable with was so relaxing it was liberating.

quite proud of myself for having the willpower to stay up and craft l a decent card. i’d feel bad calligraphing her something because it smacks of no effort.

tuesday:

a came in the day to crash a lecture, and she loved the penyet wuhu.

highlight of the day: cf. well, more specifically, running into s at hv (where she proceeded to spectacularly embarrass me by yelling my name across the street), running into s and c at daily scoop, having to sit beside them because the place was ridiculously crowded, and the ensuing invigorating conversation on the panopticon + gender + capitalism + predestination + moral subjectivism with p, s and c.

(nearly burst out laughing when p told j “give me 10 minutes” HAHA)

wednesday:

skipped my first lecture of the year (abnormal bleeding) for an emergency fc meeting.

got stressed af at night when jp arrived at my suite because i hadn’t responded to a’s texts (hey i’d really been busy with ifg training and all). i hate having my personal space invaded by people i’m not close to (i.e. if i didn’t invite you in, you shouldn’t be here) and i was especially rankled by the fact that jp himself was clearly colossally stressed (and i uncharacteristically mirrored him). he’d spent the week speaking in this annoying as fuck hushed tone which made him supremely hard to hear, and he oscillated between sounding exasperated and exhausted which made things difficult because i was torn between frustration (with him, and with the situation) and sympathy/guilt (because he really did have a lot on his plate and the stress, while poorly-managed, was understandable).

i’m ashamed to admit i got snappish and chased g away (as nicely as i was able to, under the circumstances) to protect her from my immediate ire. i wish i’d had better control over my emotions - i seldom melt down this severely under stress, but the pressure that day was somehow overwhelming and her attentions made me feel suffocated and distracted (i mostly needed her to go away so that i could focus on my work). felt so bad thinking these thoughts because she’s so genuine and sweet and sincere and deserved better than what she got from me that night.

g whipped out her strawberry paper and wrote me a card + got kt to write as well. so grateful for them both.

thursday:

lunched with l at bv - my paleo buddy hehe. g gave us some strange butterfly pea-blue cake from chalk farm (sobs mad throwback to london).

fc, d-day.

was mildly triggered when g texted me about it raining because i was in lectures and i’d honestly have preferred it if she hadn’t, but i’m also frankly amazed that i was on her mind and that she was filled with dismay on my behalf - that is moving, and so very selfless.

was bitter and angry about the rain at first, but the bitterness quickly gave way to a sincere desire to understand His will for me.

i was no closer to finding answers/peace by the time the event came round, but i soldiered through with the wet-weather plan i’d firmed up the night before (grateful that jp convinced me to bother with a matrix). was livid with m and jp though, because they failed to keep their promise about letting me call the shots re wet/dry weather, but when it came to the crunch, they opposed me. foolish optimists.

closing ceremony was beyond excellent. electric atmosphere, heard the event heads cried and DO loved it...ahh so fulfilled. and l came! l told me about how the rain’d prevented her from exploring lab park and how all her friends just so happened to be unavailable, resulting in her hanging out with her last resort - her sister. i was so touched by her story, and was more than a little grateful (both towards her and God) for having a reason to be joyful even given the circumstances.

came back completely wiped (my parents gave jp and m a lift back to utown at midnight), and shared my day with g and kt. (took a lotta courage to invite kt, because g and i both agree kt seems to be feelin’ the suite thing less and less these days) was frankly surprised kt acquiesced. i miss how easy things were between the 3 of us last sem; y1s2 feels like an eternity ago now, and kt feels so much more distant all of a sudden.

anyway, things were almost strained, which was beyond heartbreaking - i tried drawing her in/engaging her, but she didn’t really want to take the bait, and eventually she left midway through the conversation. it’s hard to believe there isn’t something inherently broken within me, socially, whenever things like these happen (okay, the rational part of me knows that this is my full-blown shame trigger, but still. i’ll keep this thought here, because it’s frightening that it even crossed my mind.) (it’s not like she offered a “i gotta sleep soon, sorry” or anything. and i think i saw her light on? even close to 3.). i felt really bad because i think the topic of conversation was too moralistic and religiously-tinted, which made it by nature exclusive.

i don’t know how to achieve the same kind of balance that suitefam had last semester. right now, things have just been distilled into me + g. but then again there was the card that came just last night. idk what’s up la sigh don’t overthink this girl this is just gonna go the cupcake route.

got mad abdominal colic after that (can’t tell it if it was a drawn-out sympathetic response to the social anxiety) and excused myself for a while before returning to a half-asleep g. /end convo

friday:

s ahhh i can’t help but admit i feel like he gets me better than j does these days and that makes me so so sad + filled with helplessness

he’s so demanding and i always somehow find it in myself to indulge it sometimes; i can’t believe myself. i always did have a thing for 霸道 people and indulging their whims though - and j used to bother, i think. maybe he still does. i hope he still does - i love him first and foremost, and i really hope he understands where i’m coming from (more on that later).

logically this isn’t going anywhere, s isn’t able to do this and i’m still hoping against hope that j+i can work out somehow, but there’s a tiny traitorous portion of my heart that’s like nope i don’t think so. a much larger portion of my heart is like yas this is the elder brother i never had ;___; the thing i have with s is super precious and all la i really hope we last long friendship-wise haha

anyway. s walked me to nuh the staff way - it was super cool haha and i totally noticed he walked me far further than he originally said he would. was xiao touched la all the words of affirmation and encouragement and sdgl;kgetnrv that day he really read me shockingly well (i guess i trust him to the extent that i don’t throw up (m)any barriers - my occlumency is pretty legit ok) and bolstered my confidence + determination a whole lot.

arrived at nuh only to discover j talking to b and nearly chickened out of telling him a single thing but thankfully b wised up and left. (b is with sb omg) was lowkey annoyed by j settling cgl stuff during dinner (though at least he apologized, not that that makes it acceptable), and was extremely miffed by him cutting me off mid-sentence to deal with more things on his phone. really?

s told me to get up and walk away HAHA but i’d never had a flair for the dramatic, and i certainly wasn’t about to start then.

walked all the way to acjc + ticket saga which mercifully got resolved. he wanted to study gs for the extra hour we had before the concert began and that was when something inside me snapped - seriously, we hardly get to meet and you want to use our one precious hour of free time to study?

/c i’m too tired to go into my discussion with j now (i grade his performance at a solid B- though. and s gave me my first A of medsku wuhu)

came back and called s (see he’s like my de facto bf. ok just kidding he’s a very good friend who is somehow very invested in making sure my relationship works since it involves his near&dear sorta-childhood friend + his “counsellee”) for like 1.5h (mostly post-mortem-ing the discussion) + suppered with j and j.

saturday:

overslept so i didn’t go for commserv in the end haha.

party at js’ house-

i think s was oblivious re the contact (!! wholly initiated by him) but he broke that barrier like 10 times or something haha. as someone who’s fairly sensitive to touch i was kinda shocked but it was nice - touch is the most reserved and special of love languages for me with exceptional close friends/+ and s somehow qualifies. (but of course it would be Inappropriate of me to initiate HAHA)

also s is fucking fantastic at floating. literally the best i have ever played against, m included. don’t think anyone can top m as my best contract partner, though.

+ s told me something and ahh let’s just say i’m certain we won’t get entangled in the near future so it’s all fine for now; my conscience is clear.

also qx --> s. he literally hates me lmao s noted how he actively avoided talking to me at all costs. rip. and c is a parrot

 so yeah, as i said, eventful week. week 2 hmu!!! ok 3.17am i really need to sleep because 9am haem tutorial tomorrow (today) sigh. s is coming over for dinner + berries and that’s all i have to be excited about apart from breakfast with g s i g h long day ahead go sleep you silly creature you

[empiresage]

convo(luted) | thoughts

the following serves as a record, as well as a means to elucidate my thoughts:

went for 3rd service today with some of the SMU NCC grads (for perhaps the first time ever with this group), and we hung out for a bit after service (which was exceptionally short - courtesy of guest pastor john j canon). first time talking in a group again for a long time, and it was nice getting to know these people better... but along the way the conversation just reminded me of my inadequacy. i find myself struggling to properly join the conversation and to really just engage myself (oh god i can’t even do this) or even the others. i guess a part of being able to engage is really just ‘inborn’ charisma or the lack of it but i think a large part of it stems from a truth - that what we do daily becomes what we are. and for the longest time i have been quiet. been repressed and not properly expressed what i thought or felt. the constant repartee between people is what makes people eloquent and just capable of properly expressing their thoughts, and i think i really lack this at the moment. i know there is some substance somewhere in me; a part that just wants to emerge from its cocoon and dance like a fabulous butterfly, but it really is struggling to come out properly - amidst this ‘lack of practice’ and also just low self-confidence from this (and then a lack of practice because i don’t speak up enough - really, a vicious cycle). i was definitely born a quiet person by nature, but i think in recent years i just became quieter and quieter. i think there are definitely deeper roots to this - roots which also bear troublesome fruits in my life. 

for one, as the so-called ‘stabiliser’ in the family, what with mum being stressed with sis (largely, although i know i contribute sometimes too), and sis being hearing-impaired and also kinda depressed and ragey at times, i find myself repressing what i really feel or how i feel like acting so as to not add on to the burden in the family. this really means that i can’t properly relate to my family - or rather, i feel i shouldn’t. as ‘stabiliser’, it is difficult for me to say that “oh i have troubles too” or “oh i feel so down i can’t even move” or anything of the sort. i never really had a rebellious phase - which, idk, could be how people discover themselves - i think largely because i felt my sis was rebellious enough for the both of us (can blame her but also can’t blame her - she was born with many problems with hearing impairment being a big issue). not to say that i’m the perfect kid because i did and still do cause problems. 

secondly, i feel like my mum, for all the good and all the careful planning and ruggedness and intelligence and so on that she has shown through the years in bringing us up, has a rather serious ‘flaw’ (for lack of a better word). she can’t let go of things, always mothering over us and being too soft with us. i really wouldn’t have minded being thrown into the deeper end of the pool (i mean, i might have hated her then but i think it would have been better), and being made to earn my keep during university for example. i feel like she also overcompensates for my quietness sometimes, such that she can carry a whole conversation without me saying much, and my lazy self just doesn’t because i don’t need to. i find it difficult to carry a conversation now or to come up with interesting topics of discussion (perhaps i’m just boring lol, but still i feel that it could be better) perhaps because of this ‘lack of practice’. that being said, as an adult (officially for 4 years already) and as someone who wants to do well, i have to admit that i can’t keep blaming external influences or factors because that would just mean i don’t improve and don’t work on my flaws. i know things can be changed but it would just require God to work His miracles and just make me some eloquent person (like PS Prince please). 

thirdly, i feel like my schooling environment really played a role in how i turned out. from being consistently top 3 in my cohort in the early primary years, to being just an average performer in my later primary years onwards because i was constantly surrounded by smart people (GEP, RI, RJC), i think i just slowly kept even more quiet because i felt that people around were saying things that made more sense (inferiority complex perhaps). no doubt there could have been a better response to this environment (like just striving even harder and just muscling my way through), and not saying that there was no benefit to such environments because i surely would have been not as exposed to some stuff/ to how smart people think or behave without having been through these environments. 

tired of analysing, but another thing this afternoon’s conversation brought up was my readiness to just let things go or whether i have actually let things go. T seemed to click rather well with S just now, and my mind just went into overdrive again - what if they end up together? and i found myself just not liking that thought at all. what does that even mean? will i always keep thinking like that or is that indicative that i haven’t really let go fully/ have some feelings? dwelling in the past is really not healthy... and i really have to learn to let go too. i mean, i’m trusting that God has a good plan for me, and i have been praying and been slightly convinced that God still has a plan for me and T (however crazy and unlikely that sounds) and yet also been keeping the reins loose in terms of whatever happens - i.e. understanding that she is going to find someone who may not be me and having to deal with it. i mean, if He has a plan for us, me holding on so tightly and trying to take the reins from Him is clearly frustrating the grace He has for this; if He doesn’t, i just have to move on and just trust that there is a better person out there. that being said, how she is now is not the best person for me nor am i the best person for her the way i am now. that part is clear. it is also relatively clear that whatever i’m doing for her, i’m not doing it in a bid to ‘chase’ her - i know in and of myself that would just end up failing - i just do whatever it is because i feel like it and i just want to stay close to her. or is that indicative of feelings? i don’t think so but i also question why the heck am i still staying close to her when it still hurts to think of what was lost or what will possibly never be.

.

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messy thoughts. too tired to revise what was typed for sense or grammar or completeness of analysis. perhaps will look at it another day. but yea, here’s to elucidating more thoughts and just not avoiding deep stuff which i always tend to do (as an easy way out) and also trying to keep things real (inspired by all these godly people i’ve been seeing recently), and yep by God’s grace things will turn out well. 

[survivorathena-motunui]

Ep. 7: Like Juggling Chainsaws ~Kevin

Okay so. that worked out well. I think that was pretty much the best way it could go, like obviously there's no perfect outcome or anything. So. I'm now in my third alliance that has Jay in it, and fourth alliance overall. Ashley's also in an f3 with JD and LA but anyone in that position would know they're the third wheel so thankfully she's like no. This is still good because she's gonna tell us all the tea they give her which Jay and I can compare to find out the truth. It's kinda amazing how the stars have aligned so that we're in the middle of everything. It's a stressful position but it feels great. We hold the power and we get all the info so we can make the best and most informed decision. I think it's best to come clean about our alliance with JD and LA (or J-LAD as Jay called them) lest we get exposed by them. Being in all these alliances is like juggling chainsaws, but like juggling chainsaws if you pull it off correctly you look really cool. Also it's good for our game and stuff. ________________________________________________________________ Okay I hate being in all these alliances like Drew's complaining to me about being on the bottom and like that sucks but I don't know what to tell you bc like I'm in this messed up tangled up web of alliances like I can't make any promises to you when I'm already committed to like half of the people in the game okay? Also Drew told me that like the f6 would be me Jay, JLAD, and Keegley, and that JLAD would be the swing bc there's no way that Keegley would align with Jay and I'm like OprahFingerWag.gif.  

Kevin for the past YEAR AND A FUCKING HALF: Oh, Drew is such a rat, he's never worked with me, even though he always says he wants to, he would have flipped on me in Pompeii too, remember PI All Stars, remember Motu Maha, never trusted, always dissed, never stanned, he's a snake, why do you fucking do this to me every time, we could have worked together, we could have had everything!! Me: Kevin, I am with you and Jay above all others, this is my team, this is my family, and nobody is getting in the way of my family, this is it for me, y'all are it for me, let's do this Kevin: Well actuallyyyyyyy :~) Kevin: https://gyazo.com/4e0bbd0baf3d7d7c5b0da7c6557bb2c7 Kevin: okay so i'm sorry about that. it was kinda my uncertainty with jack like i mentioned before and paranoia and also i just wasn't like certain about steven since like this was my first round with him Kevin: this game just so messy Kevin: i'm honestly just taking this game one step (or round i guess) at a time Kevin: and i wish i could tell you something but i don't want to lie even more or make any promises yet bc like i said it's figuring things out one step at a time What's a guy gotta do to make a damn friend? Because the answer is clearly not "To make a friend, you have to be a friend." Not even for family. Not anymore.

Drew needs to stop fucking winning so I can get him outta here. Next I thought Jack would be going but I guess no one else wants that?????? Saying its too easy to get him out.... Like bitch aint that what we want? I mean I could see Drew seeing a Jack vote coming and playing his rainbow idol on Jack to vote out whoever they want. But Kevin mentioned not even going for Jack and finally separating JD and LA. I like that idea but then I am scared some people will then just flip to Drew. And in an alliance of 4 that wouldnt be so great.

Me: thankful that this round might be easier because everyone sane person in this game would want Drew out Drew: wins immunity Sigh. So I guess it's time for yet another fun round of screaming, panic, stress, overthinking, and even more screaming. It's time for us to separate the JLAD duo. From what Keegan said we're gonna split the votes between them and Jack. I personally wanna get rid of JD because I feel like she trusts me less than LA does, and idk she feels...shadier and like the more stubborn one. I feel like I have more wiggle room with LA? Probably? 

Oh man. I dun goofed. I played an idol so wrong it's almost right. Everyone and their mother was saying the vote was between me and Steven but someone lieeeeedddd. Jay lied. And Kevin lied. I guess drew talked to both of them about blindsiding LA. And yet neither told me it wasn't my name so bye bye idol. Aaaaand now I'm in the "Wholesome Happening" alliance with Jay and Kevin. So that's interesting. Ashley is also in that with us. She says she's also with JD and LA in an alliance chat. Hopefully she sticks with us. I guess the plan for tonight is to break up JLAD, while throwing Jack's name out there in hopes of drew playing a rainbow idol on him. It's unlikely but maybe. Either way, as long as the four of us vote for JD or LA, we should all be safe moving forward. And now we have to hope Drew doesn't win immunity next challenge. 

hhhhhhhhhhhso. Drew got immunity, which is annoying, because it means he probably won't play his idol tonight as we were all hoping. The plan is kind of....unsure at the moment. Kevin and I are still playing the middle, which kind of sucks and kind of is great because it feels like we have some power. I think I might actually be in a really good position on the tribe. Keegley trusts me and J-LAD trusts me, and Kevin trusts me. I might be able to wiggle in with Dreck. So that's good. The easiest thing would be to pick off Jack - probably everyone could agree on that and it wouldn't be too hard. But long term, this could be Kevin's and my only opportunity to separate LA JD. It feels like this may be the vote where we have to pick sides. But, from past games, I'm of course wary of making a big move and making myself known as a strategic threat. Hopefully I can pin it all on Keegan? I'm CONSIDERING the possibility of self-voting so that, after this vote, I can pretend that I was with everybody. If there's a majority on LA without me, that might be the best thing, but I still have to get the keegley+kev alliance to choose between JD/LA. My goal is to be able to make Keegan or WHOMSTEVER think that voting LA was their idea, not mine. Basically, after this vote, I want everybody to still love me and for everybody to be in my pocket. I think the self-vote might be the only way to preserve my position, because if I vote with either group, I'm gonna lose trust somewhere, and if I throw my vote, I'm going to seem like I was torn. With a self vote, I can pretend that I was 100% with EVERYONE and just blame it on...an excuse I haven't considered yet. Stay tuned. Hopefully tonight we'll see a bLAndside (Ali suggested that pun to me I'm so sorry.)

I've done some research and the results will SHOCK you. Drew is basically the Jordan Pines of this season. -He's kinda a duo with Jack C -Jordan's close ally, Jack C, went home at f9. Drew's close ally, Steven, went home at f9. -Both have the Rainbow Idol -Everyone wants him gone but he keeps fucking winning immunity The facts don't lie. #StayWoke I just realized I'm killing two of my Taveuni children in a row I'm a horrible parent

2. Who is in the best position? 17. Who has the most final two deals? 20. Who would you like to go on a romantic date with? I would say that me and lori are in the best position but that done not mean I have the most final two! It's it a final three anyway? Or did I not read something again? I'm flattered, that two people would want to go on a date with me <3 I know I'm hella cute~ hahah But okay, enough of the fun. The game is really starting to get me stressed, I don't wanna be the person that goes home with an idol in their pocket but I don't wanna waist it. I don't believe that the vote is for Jack, just doesn't make since at the point. I know I was all for sending him home before but at this point you need to keep the numbers, with eight people and there is always the possibility of flipping so me and LA need to decide asap who we are going to go to the end with but I think that we are leaning towards Ashley and Keegan just because we don't have that much trust for Kevin at this point. If we voted Keegan or Ashley now then the other one would get pissed and flip. On that I think that Jay would stay with us if we explained that we thought Kevin was playing both side, which I think he is and I know she is but at least she is telling us what is going on. This is literally the make or break it vote, I would use the idol to save the people that I want to but again, I don't want to waist it. But maybe if I can convince Jay that I'm throwing her name out there cus I think she is the flipper, tell her I have the idol and that I will use it on her then maybe we can still win this.... I might have to give her the idol and just pray that the vote isn't for me or LA again. I just  don't know if it is worth it... Is it worth it  or is it not worth is... THAT is the question! 

Amanda So its been a while since I gave my thoughts on the game so here we go... We have 4 pairs right now. Keegan/Ashley, LA/JA, Kevin/Jay, Drew/Jack. Everyone wants to split up LA/JD, and it seemed to be working so far, but JD is catching on that these pairs are gonna have to cannibalize on each other soon, so she wants to get a head start on that. Then Jay had this crazy idea about intentionally self-voting? Like, I get her strategy but like, seeing it from this end, every vote is gonna count and if she doesn't vote, it could go very badly for her. I dont know what Drew is thinking because the kid hardly makes confessionals and he isn't in any alliance chats. ugh... To be perfectly honest, I really don't know how this vote is gonna go. 

Okay! Game changer! JD just messaged me saying shes potentially willing to vote out LA and not work with her in order to advance her game and I'm......shook. I don't need to do anything devious if JD is willing to just go with the plan. I'm. whew.

njkdhbfboajniog I DONT KNOW WHAT I AM DOING! I NEED ALI!! OKay so i don't know if I am really planing on doing this but I mean... maybe? I'm really worried that she is going to go home and I think that it's stopping my game. I need to stop worrying about what is happening in her game and just play mine. dear god.................................. If this is what happens then Ali is right and I am like... The chick that voted out her mom o.O If I think that I actually have the people voting for her though, we can vote where ever we want and I can play my idol on her but... My game... I dont know yet. A) 

or B) 

________________________________________________________________

okay so my 'i dont know what Im doing' really just fucked me over. I'm dumb and I panic and I dont think about what I say and this is a prime example. ________________________________________________________________ I suddenly feel like Matt Fucking Summer in.... My season. ________________________________________________________________ Truthful I think that me and LA are on the bottom, that Drew is really good with talking with people and that he is ether in the process of flipping or has already flipped, you, jay, kevin and keegan. I think that if LA went home then I would be able to play my own game and maybe me, Ashley and Drew could go to the final, just with no alex. I also think it's stupid to take Drew to the end. so that's a no go if she goes home I dont have to worry about her but I also dont have to that solid extra person ether . ________________________________________________________________ After the mental mess I put myself though and the mess I made of things. I wouldn't be surprised if I go home tonight, but I still feel like Lori will go before me so I mean... Maybe. Hopefully. Well see if I life to make another confession

Alright so I have a quick question, what the fuck. Jay told me JD came to her and was like hey I'm voting Kevin and Jay's like um maybe don't do that and JD's like so you're good to vote Kevin?? I know she's cracked but??? This is a new level. I have a feeling Drew might be up to this mishap but idk? That's kinda my automatic assumption but oh well. If any idol hijinks happen tonight I'm playing my idol because I trust approximately 1.5 people in this game. 

Okay we're trying to vote LA again. It will hopefully be me, Kevin, Jay, Drew, Ashley, and Keegan, but who fucking knows anymore. All I know is I'm going to try to exploit my current confused status to get people to take me to the end.

I'm way less certain about this tribal council than the last one. Last time I was confident about where everyone else was voting. With the way JD's been acting I'm a little nervous. And if Drew has done some crap then it's 4-4 with the other side having the advantage since Drew has immunity nnnn. I know Drew does want the other side out so hopefully he's not snaking me. Also just nervous because Jay and I's mist has been kinda fading. Our mist isn't even mist it's like, water vapor. Our status as a duo is obvious but since it's kind of a duos game at this point that doesn't make us a threat. Still though...yikes

This is why Drew is going to win. I broke one time and told jay and Ashley that I wanted to vote for Lori and drew got a hold of it and now that's it. They are going to send her home and if I use my idol on her then I'm fucked because then no one will believe that I will vote her out. But then do I trust that they are voting out Lori and not me? Im not going to turn on her right now, not if it's to help someone else. If we vote Kevin and it doesn't work then I guess I'm gonna have to kiss some ass but otherwise... 20 minutes to go

Either Kevin, me or JD are gonna get blindsided tonight. It's been too quiet. And its that kind of day. Rip.

[2017isforlovers]

reasons to worry, reader: i looked down at the train tracks and thought about what it’d be like to jump on them right when the R came. on the first night in my new room at swarthmore i got scared because it’s a straight shot to the ground from my window and it seemed too easy to jump. the thing is that i don’t want the option. i tear up at magazine articles and podcasts. i read girl, interrupted and suddenly she described suicide as coming because you felt bored. i googled “wanting to die” and instead of the hotline it came up the poem by anne sexton “wanting to die” and she said that death always speaks to you but it doesn’t mean you hate life, which read true. i read “this is water” by david foster wallace and it also read true and then i remembered he committed suicide because he couldn’t get out of his head. i read “signs of suicide” and on them was “hopelessness” and “the conviction that it won’t get any better” and that read true, too. 

reasons not to worry, reader: if people worry about you then they think of you as a burden and do not want to spent the type of love on you that you need they do not spend time with you because it is time worrying and worrying and the people in my life already do the emotional labor of three other people each and have no time for themselves which was me once too. if people worry about you then they want to put pills in you which robs you of your personality and libido and your humanity (evidence: mom). 

reasons why i think there is no future and no hope:

feeling: after college everyone hits that transitional time. you are unhappy but it is growing pains. you are unhappy because: 

you are lonely. you are far from your friends. so you live with friends or near friends. but then everyone has their own schedule now and no time to see you (evidence: conversation with laura l) so you are mostly lonely. or else your friends eventually date someone and drop you (evidence: conversation with lily) and do not want to just sit with you and do nothing. 

[in short - the fear that there is nothing after college. or more pain & tumult than this small one]

the cure: you find things you love to do on your own and find strength in solace and look forward to your time alone and eventually strong relationships come or you join clubs and put yourself out there and everyone comes around and you make one or two good friends which is all one needs in life anyway, right? or so they say. or else when you least expect it you enter into the light from the hole underground and meet your partner and they are your life. and then you make a family and the moment the children are born is the happiest of your life. and then you live for your children (evidence: sociolinguistics class, mom). and then your children leave and you are once again sad and figuring out what to do with your life and are thrown into loving yourself once again or your partner. and so you start traveling with other people your age (evidence: nana and popo) or keep busy by volunteering or join the church until you get cancer (evidence: tom f) or live in perpetual pain and turn to alcohol (evidence: sarah j) or die (evidence: everyone else). 

the optional cure, the secret: you find what you love. you find what you love and you do it in a job and then it doesn’t feel like work (evidence: conversation with paul). you keep a garden (evidence: monica). if you are lucky, you travel. if you are even luckier, you travel with others. you consume art and make art. you share the art with people and make art with people. you die knowing you have not wasted any moment of your life because you were breathing and creating and loving fearlessly.

the limitations to this model, its cure:

ok, so i’m lonely now and i’ll be lonely. so about the cure: 

1. you become okay with being alone - i feel i cannot do this though i have done it before because i have had such a lonely time living by myself this semester. it is my first time ever living in a room alone and my first time since college that i have not been dating anyone and the result is that i live my life with no one to say goodnight to every night. or someone just to check in with, how are you doing? how was your day? and the thing with dating is that i got tired of that constant check-in, exhausted (evidence: jordan, james). and with friends too, exhausted of texting - i cannot even text them back now. or of speaking. my life just a series of checking things off a list and then i fall into a dreamless sleep and then wake up and keep going. 

2. you live near friends - how will i live near friends if my friends exhaust me? how will i live near friends if no one is a friend because i am convinced that no one ‘knows’ me? how can i make friendships when i am convinced that ‘loving’ me requires ‘knowing’ me requires knowing all the details of my mind and of my days and also just laughing easy together (evidence: jordan)? all i want is to laugh? ALTERNATIVELY, how can i live near friends if no one wants to live with me? how can i get people to move to me (evidence: tom, whose life turned around when friends moved to him) if i cannot even think of people to go on spring break with? if i cannot even find people who want to come somewhere warm with me and just sit quiet in the sun in somewhere we have never been? sure that i have not voiced these dreams to anyone: of traveling again with friends, have not asked, “will you go to x with me?” and i am also afraid of asking my friends who may say yes to love me in the way i need; know that i am not their first priority and should not ask to be, do not want to be the burden. 

3. you meet your partner / love devotedly / love fearlessly - how can i meet the partner who will sustain me for the rest of my life and alleviate this loneliness, as i have described it, when i never want to stay in one place for more than a year? or less? when i never have stayed with one person for more than a year? when i get exhausted and have feelings of “we are incompatible?” when i have thoughts of “incompatibility can be worked out if both sides are willing to put in the work” but then have the thought of “but i don’t want to put in the work / do not have the time / do not have the energy?” how can someone so selfish in love ever deserve the type of love i hope for? how can i associate exhaustion and performing love with men, but be afraid to date women? and by being afraid to date women i solely mean being afraid to have sex with women, because it feels like it’d be difficult and an art and i don’t know how to do it, how to make someone enjoy being with me or to make a woman feel good? and the secret of course is just to communicate and then to try? but obviously i haven’t communicated because i just have never told a girl i like them or tried to ask them out and also don’t think i have the physical dexterity or stamina for quality sex? so i guess i’ll just be alone? because i don’t want to burden anyone either with being so...questioning and unsure and self-conscious, so that’s what i feel? that i’m better off alone? and really so if i’m better off alone what’s the next step then, because i don’t want to be alone? so i guess i just give up and am done? also i have crushes on everyone but if i follow through on all of them then everyone gets hurt in the end and also you can’t have sex with everyone you want to forever? right? and anyway sex shouldn’t be a metric for happiness because probably the urge subsides after a while / soon

4. and then they say the secret to life is children - but the framework is that you bring up a child in a happy home with a partnership, or at least with a village - and what if i’m too tired for a child? not cut out for long-term love of any kind? what if i hit them or scream at them? what if i become that? what if the world is overpopulated and i don’t want to bring a child into it? what if i have my children too late and then die? what if my parents die? better that i die then 

5. find the career that you love by hopping around for a while and winging it - okay so I'm signed up to be a teacher for the next year and it feels like there’s no flexibility in that. like i’m signed up and then maybe i do love it because signs point to that i’ll love curriculum development and working with young people and talking to educators and talking about education stuff. i haven’t tired of it yet. but so then i feel that i’m locked in. because turnover hurts kids. and then i stay for three years and have to get my master’s. and then i stay in the same district teaching, leading, back and forth, taking my work home, losing sleep, loving it (evidence: dr. g), but as a workaholic i miss the loneliness but make people in my life lonely, can’t let my work go (evidence: idk? books? movies? lisa?). or else i don’t like teaching - or else i like teaching AND i like other things, like non-profit management and community development. which i love but don’t have the capital to be doing in high-poverty neighborhoods. as a white woman i feel like i shouldn’t be doing shit anyway. that’s another thing. that’s another thing i guess. want to do something, want to build capacity, want to have control, don’t want to ruin shit - want to work hard - want to be recognized and loved - want to be loved - 

6. you keep a garden - i kill all my plants

7. you create things - my singing voice is going and i have a bad ear. i never took a poetry class in college so never deepened my writing skill. i am too out of practice and don’t have any way to challenge myself by myself. i am bad at putting myself on a schedule and sticking to it. i don’t know what to read. my schedule is so full that poetry feels like extra and so i won’t get to it and when i do it will be half-assed and i’ll never get to that vulnerable brave space. 

8. you travel with others - i’ll never again travel with people so aware of their impact on the world. the option would to be to travel with folks who did IHP with me but they’re hard to pin down and don’t have fun doing the same nerdy things i do. i don’t have the money. i don’t have the money. traveling without talking to people who live there about people places and politics seems meaningless and wasteful. i don’t have the money. i don’t have the money. i won’t have the time until i retire, especially if i teach. if i teach i can get traveling fellowships but you have to mostly be a secondary teacher and also be teaching for at least five years. otherwise it’s out of my own pocket. and probably by myself. 

side concerns: i don’t get ahold of my panic attacks and one day embarrass myself so bad that i lose a job or get scared enough to not go to work anymore and want to die. i don’t have any dreams, like samantha’s dream is to live alone with her plants and her free time and mine is just to somehow be living contentedly with a full bank account and a purpose and a network or else to be floating in the dead sea or else to be fluent in spanish. high expectations. too high? the secret to happiness is low ones. 

logical explanations for my feelings:

- it is the first couple months of your life that you have not been in an intense time- and emotion-intense relationship since freshman year; the other months were spent surrounded by 30 people

-your diet is shit

-you’re not drinking any water

-you’ve sat on your butt for the last four months with no exercise

-the weather is shit and it feels like it’s going to be bad for the next 4 months with no out

-you broke up with your one consistent friend at swarthmore this past semester and spent the rest of the semester avoiding the rest of your friends, especially mutual friends, and limiting yourself in the spaces you had to go

-you feel you are behind on work for your thesis and are not enjoying the work when it comes

-you often defined yourself as a resilient optimistic person and a caregiver, especially vis a vis your mom, and thought therefore you had avoided the genetic gift of depression, so feeling any sort of bad feels like a major shift in character and a failure 

-you often defined yourself in terms of rochester, but having lily visit felt like it was time to move on and be bigger. or that it was not all of you anymore. and in fact it made you sad. so those are two big blows to your identity at this point

-you feel that this semester will be just as work-heavy as the other, with no room for new relationships that make you nervous anyway so better stick to the comfortable

-you know that your tendency is to try and do everything if you think it can be done - you do not know how to relax [in college]. you don’t

-on your last day home you kissed tom and then you sent each other the nicest parting messages that said “maybe see you someday,” but you didn’t want to but still, to have lost that love so recently - that pure soul who is also so much of this framework of “after college” - who is sad but makes up for the sadness by seeing friends and reading books and keeping plants and traveling - who offered me his love and some growth and i said no - and i said no - and oh i am crying - i do not know how to mend this one

-i know that the way forward is to exercise and take care of myself first and to let some things go. i know it. i know it is to join with others in a fight and to say what i feel. but oh, i am so tired. don’t you see? i am tired of the long long long long lists there is no way out of. i just want to sleep for a week. maybe finish a book. maybe write a poem. maybe dream a little, some space for dreaming. to wake up somewhere warm and where the only thing to do is to enjoy the ride and to smile big and to listen and nod and know you are doing enough, just listening and trying to take it all in