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maandags · 5 years

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Eidolon (Angel!Keith x Demon!reader) {part iv}

i have no excuse for the wait except that im an idiot who took this school year too lightly yeet

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Summary: Keith is an angel, and he’s completed mission after mission for the Upper Hand, the organisation controlling all of the Above. He’s only failed a mission once: when he was assigned to kill you, a surprisingly charismatic demon. He roamed Earth–Middle Ground–for years before he was caught by the Upper Hand again, and things quickly go south.

Genre: angst. because whats new

Word count: 8.7K

Notes: CW: graphic violence/blood, emotional manipulation - masterlist - {previous} -- {next }

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if heaven's grief brings hell's rain

then i’d trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday

~ Just One Yesterday, Fall Out Boy

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You wake up from a deep, dreamless sleep, disoriented and shivering despite the multiple layers you have on and thick comforter stacked upon you. It takes a moment before the events of the previous night rush back into your mind and cloud your thoughts, and you throw an arm over your face, inhaling deeply.

A huge weight has fallen off your shoulders. Last night, you didn't realise as much, your tired 3 A.M. mind already struggling to focus with the fact that Keith--who had been deathly sick only hours before--was up and about and sitting at your kitchen table and eating chinese takeout. But now that you had the quiet of the early morning to yourself you could feel the knots in your shoulders loosen and the lead seep out of your limbs.

You slowly shift your legs out of bed, still slightly dazed. Sunlight peeks out through the cracks in the shutters covering your window, and you cast a look at the alarm clock sitting on your nightstand. It's barely 7 A.M. And it's also a Saturday. While that doesn't matter much in terms of noise–a city is a city, after all, and this one certainly is never quiet–your neighbours' kids aren't allowed out of bed before nine on Saturdays, which gives you at least two small hours of peace and quiet.

You stagger to the bathroom and let the hot shower water beat down your stiff muscles, trying to draw out the permanent chill that seems to have settled deep into your bones. It works a little bit, but when you get out of the steamy little cell and wrap a towel around your torso you can feel it trickle back into the pit of your stomach, like an icy worm that's decided to make your body its home. It's more of a discomfort than a true pain, though, so you decide to ignore it.

Your hair is still damp when you pull an extra thick sweater over your head, stick your feet in warm socks and tiptoe your way over to the living room.

Keith is still asleep. You don't blame him–he's still recovering, even though he already looks so much better than the previous night. The colour is back in his cheeks. The dark circles and the hollowness under his eyes have started to fade away. He's still thin, and he doesn't smell too good, but you decide against waking him just yet.

In the kitchen, you put on the kettle and pull open the fridge in search of something to eat. The unfinished boxes of chinese sit in front, half-open from when you hastily stowed them away. You pull one out, sniff it, then shrug as you grab for a spoon.

The kitchen windowsill is probably not the spot a lot of people would pick to lounge on, an early Saturday morning. But you've always liked to watch the sun rise over the tall buildings, and the soft orange glow you're treated with today is worth waking up so early for. You rest your face on the knee you've pulled up beside you as you shovel another spoonful of rice into your mouth.

The orange slowly fades out into yellow, then into blue. It's soothing to watch, and you find yourself slow your breathing and close your eyes as the city wakes up beneath you. Noises of starting cars and motorbikes drift up to your window, and chattering fills the street. People exit their homes, throwing delightful glances up at the sunny sky; unexpected after the heavy rain of the previous night.

You finish your takeout, do some chores around the house. Change your bedsheets. Prepare a change of clothes for when Keith finally wakes up. Open the windows to let in some fresh air. Prepare a cup of tea and claim back your spot on the windowsill. It's a peaceful morning, and the air doesn't feel quite as heavy as usual.

And then there's a rustling in the room beside you, and a crash as–you assume–Keith tumbles off your sofa and hits the ground. A faint groan floats past the kitchen doorway and you try to hide your grin. A couple of seconds later a very dishevelled-looking Keith stumbles into the kitchen.

"Morning," you tell him, rolling your shoulders once so they won't go stiff against the windowsill. He nods at you, dark eyes bleary. "Feel better?"

He sniffs. "I don't feel like I just got struck by lightning and dragged behind a racecar over an especially rocky road. So I guess that's improvement."

You blow on the hot tea in your hands. "I'm glad. Would have hated to have gone through all that trouble for nothing. You're quite the guest, you know."

Keith winces at the words, despite your light tone. For some reason, his frown and pained expression tug at your stomach. "But I don't mind it," you add hurriedly. "I mean–it was my own choice to take you in. I very well could not have done that. But–but I did." Shut up, shut up, shut up, you shouted internally.

The corners of Keith's mouth lift ever so slightly. "Lucky for me."

"Lucky for you," you agree with a grin.

It's silent for a while, and in the sunlight, you can clearly see how thin Keith really is. His shirt hangs from his frame in a shapeless lump of cloth, his trousers sagging and almost slipping from his bony hips. While he does look better–the life has returned to his eyes–he still doesn't look good, and the sight of him makes your guts twist. You point to the fridge. "There's leftovers from yesterday. Grab whatever you want–but be careful not to eat too much. I don't want you puking all over my kitchen."

But Keith has already found the other chinese box, and you show him which drawers contain cutlery and in which cupboard are stashed the glasses. He scarfs down the rice in ten minutes flat, and you shake your head in silent judgement. "I'm going to find a way to make you pay back everything you'll cost me, food-wise. You're in debt, starting today."

He gives you a shy grin, but his attention is quickly taken up once more by the food in front of him. You quietly sip your tea, staring out of the window, occasionally glancing at the angel sitting at your kitchen table.

That's when it truly hits you how much of an idiot you're being.

Last night, it had been late. Five days of nothing on your mind but the thought of trying to keep him alive, and finally finding a way to do so, had left you shaky and dazed. Seeing him up and about after getting used to the sound of his ragged, unsteady breathing floating through your apartment had been a shock.

But now the full weight of what you'd done–and what you hadn't done–crashes into you, and you realise you have absolutely no idea how to feel. The air charges with tension, and the angel leans back in his seat. He looks about as uncomfortable as you feel. Your mind whirls with thoughts, all seeming to want something different–the part of you that's curious where this whole situation would lead and is whispering to you to let him stay; the part of you that's still a loyal soldier to the Below and is screaming at you to turn him in; the part of you that wants nothing to do with any of this and is growling to throw him back out on the street. You shake your head, downing the last of your tea and hopping off the counter.

"Take a shower when you're done with that," you mutter. "I have to get back to work soon. My co-workers are gonna ask questions and I need to be prepared."

Keith nods. Your phone is already in your hands and you fire off a quick text to the shelter's manager to inform him you'd be in this afternoon. You don't know Anthony that well–he mostly keeps to the side and handles potential adopters. You prefer to stay with the animals. Almost immediately you receive a reply: he says he's delighted that you've decided to return so soon after taking your unexpected leave. You resist the urge to roll your eyes at the barely-veiled passive-aggressiveness.

"Oh, yeah." You turn and point at Keith with your phone. "You can stay for as long as you need to, like, get your bearings and feel somewhat okay again, but then I'm kicking you out. I don't know if you have any idea of how much of a risk I'm taking here, but–"

"I get it," he cuts you off, and you can tell he means it. He needs to work on concealing his emotions, you think off-handedly. He's an open book. It's distracting. "Thank you. Seriously."

The tension builds until it's almost tangible. You shake your head, trying to shake the dizziness away. "It's–yeah. My pleasure, or whatever. I'm locking the door behind me." He gives a brief incline of his head to show he understands. "All right then. Later, I guess. Make–make sure you've showered. You kind of smell," you say apologetically. "No offence."

"None taken," he laughs. "You're right, anyway."

You make a gesture that's in between a nod and a headshake, then make a blind grab for your coat and your scarf before pulling the door closed behind you and locking it.

The shelter's lights are on, and its illuminated windows stand out starkly in the dim grimness of the gloomy street. It doesn't rain, for once, but grey clouds hang overhead and block the sun, the little light that makes it past them flimsy and thin. You pull the door closed behind you. The little bell above the doorway rings once, softly, and barking immediately pipes up from the next room over. You smile.

"Hey, loves," you mutter to each animal as you pass their cages, stopping here and there and sticking your fingers through the bars to give a furry face a pat, or to scratch a scaly butt, or to stroke a feathered head. "I missed you guys."

"They missed you too, I think," comes a quiet voice from behind you. You crouch and open a cage, plucking out a small cat and scritching it behind the ears. "They've been rather unruly in the days you weren't here. Restless, you know."

"Hi, Tony."

"Y/N." He inclines his head. "Did you have a nice leave?" It's a question purely out of politeness, you know, because he's your employer and he's supposed to be polite. As far as employers go, Tony really isn't the worst of them. But you can't shake the feeling that he's fishing for something.

"I did. I've been busy," you say cautiously, not taking your eyes off of the kitten you're cradling. "Sorry for it being so unexpected."

"Oh, not at all," Tony replies smoothly, sailing over to where you sit and leaning on the wall behind you, "We've managed. It was your week off, anyway, and just because you've insisted on working in your free time before doesn't mean that you always will." But it doesn't take amazing detective skills to hear the suspicious edge to his voice.

"That's right," you say, maybe a little too sharply. You can almost smell Tony's raised eyebrow behind you. "Sorry. I've just–I've been a little on edge, lately. I'll–" You scramble up, depositing the kitten back in its cage and dusting fur off your t-shirt. "I'll be in the back." You have the weird urge to salute, but you manage to suppress it. He's already suspicious, you remind yourself. Don't make it worse by acting weird.

It is a shame you can't spend more time with the animals, but you're not the only one who decided to come in today–it's actually quite crowded for a Saturday–so you get storage room duty and instead spend your afternoon putting away boxes of food and medicine and cleaning products. Emmie, one of your co-workers, sticks her head around the corner of your door at the end of the day.

"Hey. We're gonna go get milkshakes, wanna come?"

Your back screams when you push off the chair, eager for an excuse to cut your day short. "You're a godsend." The expression is actually used exclusively as an insult in the Below, but you find you like the Middle Ground version better. "Let me just grab my shoes, I'll be right there."

Hopping on one foot as you finish tying your laces, you join Emmie, Nirina, Adam and Zach as they stride out the door, Emmie and Zach's arms linked. In the back of your mind you recognise that's strange: Emmie and Zach can't stand each other. A smile curls the corners of your lips. You did miss quite a lot this past week, didn't you?

"We're going to this new place a few blocks down," Emmie shouts over her shoulder. You try to chat with Nirina for a bit, but she's more silent than usual, barely saying a word, and eventually she retreats to walk next to Adam behind you. When you don't focus on it, a black, vaguely animal-shaped shadow seems to sit on her shoulder, but when you look directly at it nothing's there.

Something isn't right here.

The feeling creeps into your very bones, making the hairs on your neck stand on edge and your shoulder blades tingle. The sense that you're being watched, and more–as you realise that with Nirina and Adam behind you and Emmie and Zach in front of you, it almost feels like you're being escorted. Guarded.

"Hey, Em," you call. Your hand creeps towards your pocket, but with a start you remember you left your knife at home. Stupid, stupid, stupid. "What's the place we're going called?"

Emmie turns around and flashes you a fanged grin. Your blood turns to ice. "So Above, So Below." And then she pounces--and pushes you straight through the pavement. You don't even have time to scream.

You lose all sense of direction. Up is down and left is right as you fall, fall, fall through a black hole, Emmie's nails still digging into your shoulders, though you're sure if you actually opened your eyes you'd see they're claws. You try to tug yourself loose, but her grip immediately tightens. You hiss when you feel her talons draw blood.

"No getting away, Y/N dear," she giggles into your ear.

Well, at least you know what she–and the others too, by the sound of it–is. Only Bountyhunters can get to the Below or the Above without using one of the doors or passages, instead creating their own temporary ones. You've travelled by Bounty Tunnel before. It's not a memory you cherish. The only thing you can do is close your eyes and hope it'll be over soon.

When you finally make contact, all the air is knocked out of you and for a moment you see nothing but black spots dancing in front of your eyes. Then you suck in a scorching breath and blink, and the familiar stark white ceiling of the Offices comes into view. You groan, and when you try to sit up, your hands catch in ashy grey feathers: your wings have popped. You flush, already feeling Haggar's disapproving scowl digging into your back. How unprofessional, she'd mumble.

Haggar has always hated your guts–even back when you were still loyal to the Below.

Emmie–except she looks nothing like Emmie anymore–tosses her long dark ponytail over her shoulder and sighs. "That was almost too easy. We were told you'd be a challenge."

"I haven't been feeling well," you reply, voice icy as you stand up and shake out your wings. You don't miss the way Emmie's expression sours and suppress a smirk. Bounties don't have wings, and they'll never stop being salty about it. "Also, four against one? That seems a little unfair, even for Management." You pause. "I'm assuming you got hired by Management."

"Of course we got hired by Management, demon," Zach snarls. He runs his fingers through his hair and glares at you, his fangs growing by the second and soon touching his chin. And then his face begins to change, his jaw softening (though not by much), his eyes growing more cat-like, his lips plumping. You frown, because you know this face. You know her.

Zethrid grins, fangs shining in the white LED light. "Long time no see, Y/N." You give a sarcastic wave.

"Yes, Y/N," comes an icy voice from behind you. Your shoulders tense, and your feathers puff involuntarily. "Long time no see indeed."

Haggar glides out of her office doors, and you feel all the stony calm and resistance leave you in one fell swoop. Her yellow eyes bore into yours, and it takes every ounce of willpower inside you not to look away. She nods her head, once. "My office, Y/N. Now."

"You're so dead," mutters Zethrid as you pass her.

"When I get out of here, you're the first person whose throat I'll slit," you hiss in return.

Haggar slumps in her seat and plucks her looking glass from its stand, making it levitate over her hand and glaring like she has a personal vendetta against it. "If it were up to me, I would already have you burning and hanging from the Grand Hall ceiling," she says, vanishing the mirror in a cloud of smoke. You try to ignore the pang of fear stabbing into your chest. You're gonna be fine, you tell yourself. You're going to be okay. But you find it hard to believe the words.

"But–" the mirror reappears in her other hand– "a certain Prince insisted on keeping you alive." She whirls the looking glass around and it floats in front of your face. Prince Lotor of the Below looks at you with a scrutinising gaze, as if gauging how much you'd be worth on the night market.

"Y/N," he says in a clear voice. You nod, then quickly incline your head in a slight bow. Watch your tongue, Y/N. Watch. Your. Tongue. "No need for that." Lotor snaps his fingers, and you look up again, eyes fixed on the rim of the looking glass, determined not to meet Lotor's. You're afraid of what you might see.

It's silent for a moment, and you keep your mouth shut for as long as you can, but you eventually break. "Forgive me, Lord, but–"

"Shut up." It takes all of your willpower not to cock your head and narrow your eyes in indignation. Lotor leans forward, elbows perched on his desk and fingertips pressed together. His cold gaze is calculating and cruel, and your entire body reels with disgust and hatred. "I didn't keep you alive because I care about what happens to you. Because I don't," he clarifies with a raised eyebrow, and this time you can't keep the grimly sarcastic smile at bay. "I kept you alive because I need you to do a job."

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think I'm the right person for any job." You try to keep your voice light and your fists unclenched, but it's a harder task than you want to admit.

"Told him so," Haggar mutters from behind the mirror. You can tell she thoroughly disagrees with being used as a TV-stand. "There are so much more competent candidates for this assignment who actually want to prove themselves and their loyalty to us." You have the feeling she's talking directly to Lotor now. "But no, you just had to get the one rogue who'll do everything in their power to get out from this–"

"Enough," Lotor says coolly, and Haggar clamps her jaw shut, though her eyes flash with murder. You don't know who she wants to kill more at the moment: you or Lotor. "Y/N will do the job, and they'll do it without complaining."

"You sound awfully sure." You've since given up on trying to be respectful. Lotor might be the Prince of the Below, but you had wriggled yourself out of more difficult situations than these before. You're already carefully plotting an escape.

Because the mistake most people make when they see you is that they underestimate you. They think they have you pinned down, and then they loosen their hold and up till now, that has always worked out in your favour–you know how to manipulate people and you know how to get out of the Below. You know every single of the dozens and dozens of passageways leading out onto Middle Ground, and from there on you know how to hide. You've done it before, and managed to keep off their radar for quite a while.

In fact, the only reason they caught you now was because you had been too preoccupied with a certain angel to keep your thoughts straight. A mistake, and one you won't be making again.

"I am sure," Lotor's clear voice cuts through your thoughts and pulls you back to the present. "There's a contract on the desk. Sign it, and we'll give you the details."

You can't stop the startled laugh that bursts past your lips. "A Blank Contract? You expect me to sign a Blank Contract?"

Lotor merely cocks his head and smiles that lazy smile of his.

And then the little looking glass shatters and you yelp, taking a step backwards in surprise, feeling your muscles tense. "I do," his voice says from behind you, and you whirl around just in time to see Lotor sail into Haggar's office.

Haggar gives a sharp sigh and brushes shattered glass off her uniform. "Do you always have to do that? Those mirrors are expensive, you know. I'm gonna have you pay for them if you insist on making a dramatic entrance every time."

Lotor ignores her, his gaze fixed on you. He waves his hand, and a piece of paper appears between his fingers. It's mostly blank, save for one thickly outlined black square with an inscription you can't read from where you stand, but you know what they say: Candidate's signature. "I'm not signing." But your voice has a tremor to it, and you suddenly feel a lot smaller as Lotor strides towards you. It was a lot easier to disrespect the Prince of the Below through a looking glass.

His eyes flash with irritation. "You will." Somehow, those two words hold more threat to them than all the insults the Bounties threw at you earlier.

But you set your jaw and clench your fists. "I'd rather die. I'm. Not. Signing." You had vowed to not ever help the Below in any way, shape or form again. It wasn't worth it.

"Told you so," Haggar sing-songs from behind her desk, a maniacal glint to her eye. "Just take one of the actually competent ones. Let me string them up."

Lotor gives a sharp sigh. "Touch them and I'll be stringing you up." Haggar pouts and crosses her arms. He turns to you, and the coolness in his eyes sends shivers up your spine. The realisation hits you like a freight train. He's done something. He knows something. He would never be this sure of himself if he didn't have an absolutely airtight plan.

Then Lotor waves his hand again, and another mirror you hadn't noticed before–a looking glass spanning from the floor to the ceiling, partially hidden by a black curtain–lights up, and the image you see has all the colour drain from your face and your heart skip a beat.

Allura is tied to a chair and breathing hard, her nurse's scrubs hanging crookedly, torn and dirty. A nasty cut spans from her cheekbone to her eyebrow, and blood runs down the side of her face. Tears mix with the grime and blood smearing her cheeks. Behind her stand Emmie and Zethrid the Bountyhunters, crazed smiles painted upon both their faces.

As soon as she sees you, Allura lets out a strangled cry that is muffled by the gag strung over her mouth. Her eyes widen, and you rush forward, stopping just short of the mirror's surface, afraid to break it. Your shaking fingertips hover just shy of the surface before you pull them back to your chest. Tears threaten to spill past your eyes, so you push them down and try to take a breath.

"Is this real?" You know how hallucinations work. You know how powerful illusions can be, and you know exactly how useful of a tool they can be in manipluation. It's a tool you've used yourself.

"Maybe. Maybe not," says Lotor's soft voice. His breath washes over the side of your face, and you can feel sick rise in your throat. All compusure is lost. It's all or nothing now. Thoughts muddle and get mixed up in your mind until all you can focus on is Allura, terrified and hurt, sitting in front of you yet separated by a thin sheet of glass and who knows how many miles.

A crazy thought of Maybe I can free her pops up, but you beat it down immediately again. You don't know where she is. You don't know if this is even real. Lotor would immediately order her killed if you attempted anything remotely similar to a breakout. Then kill Lotor, a ragged voice in your mind screams.

"Come, come, no rash decisions now," Lotor says as if he just read your thoughts. His hands ghost over your shoulders, sliding down until they reach your elbows. He gently forces them to your sides, and you don't even have the strength in you to resist. A fresh stream of tears runs down Allura's cheeks, and she weakly thrashes against her bonds, and in the end, that's what yanks you out of your stupor.

Your chin snaps up. "So you'll let her go if I sign the contract?"

Lotor rolls his eyes. "Look whose wits have returned to them." He lets go of your elbows and takes a step toward the mirror, hands clasped behind his back and his hungry gaze raking across Allura's form. She looks up at him with a mix of hatred and fear in her eyes. She's given up struggling against the ropes, but her jaw is set, and her eyes are steely; terrified, but determined. Her gaze flicks back to you and she gives the tiniest shake of her head.

Lotor reels back and laughs, the sound booming within the office walls. He shakes his head, still chuckling, his long silvery hair swishing behind him as he stalks back to the desk and swoops up the contract. "Feisty. I like that. Doesn't have the slightest clue of what's going on but still tells you to not do the thing you obviously don't want to do." He flashes you a fanged grin that makes your blood run cold. "I just might pay her a visit later myself."

"That's Middle Ground, my Prince," you manage through gritted teeth. "I'll find and kill you before you even have a chance to knock on her door."

"That's some confidence you've got right there, Y/N. Keep it for the job."

"I haven't signed your contract yet."

Lotor cocks his head and his grin widens. "Yet being the keyword here."

You turn back to the mirror, scanning Allura for any sign that she might not be real, looking for something that might hint that her image is off. Something. Anything. But your manic brain is running in circles, looking for loopholes that might not even be there, and you know you're not making sense, because the chance that she's just an illusion is there, but on the off-chance that she isn't, that she actually is in danger–

You would never forgive yourself if she were to get hurt and you could have put a stop to it.

"It's possible," you breathe, your hands curling to fists. "It's possible that none of this is real."

Lotor nods as if your words are perfectly reasonable. "True." There's a beat of silence, and his feverish eyes bore into yours. "But are you willing to take that risk?"

Anyone else–any proper demon–would have laughed in his face and torn the contract to shreds, watching gleefully as Allura got tortured in front of their eyes. But you had left behind your demon ways a good while ago, and you had always been a rotten pupil anyway. So you bite your tongue and snatch the contract and pen from Lotor's waiting fingers, scribbling your signature down hard enough that you pierce the paper.

"See, I knew you'd come around in the end!" He claps his hands in delight and throws a triumphant glance Haggar's way. "I told you so."

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbles, waving a hand as if to dismiss his words. She gives you a slightly disapppointed stare. "I was rooting for you, kiddo. Show some spine next time."

You fight the tears threatening to spill and slap the now-signed contract back onto the desk. "All right. Details, Lotor. What's the assignment?"

His eyes flash. Business; there's something he knows. "We received word that one of the Above's most prized angels has just gone rogue." He starts pacing, and your eyes keep finding Allura's behind him–but she looks at you with pity and something that's almost disappointment, and you have to look away before you break down completely. "It came out of nowhere, too: stellar record, followed orders without a second thought. A great soldier." You don't miss the punch behind the words.

"And you want me to do, what, kill him?" That wouldn't be too hard. At least, you think. Your mind is still a bit muddy, but something ugly and twisted inside you is still desperate for Management's approval. Still eager to prove yourself. I can be a good soldier too.

"Oh no, no," Lotor says with a dismissive wave of his hand, "I just want you to find him and bring him in. It shouldn't be that hard to do–after all, who better to track a rogue than another rogue themselves?"

There's still something else. Something he isn't telling you. Sure, you're good at what you do–at what you used to do–but was it worth going through all the trouble just to get you to sign the stupid contract? As much as you loathed to do it, you silently had to agree with Haggar on this one. There were so many young demons scrambling for their chance to prove themselves and their worth–why not let them take this assignment?

"That–that's it?"

Lotor cocks a brow. "I mean, unless you wanted more work, I guess that's it.'

You give a cautious nod. "Okay. So what do we know about this guy?"

"Not much. My sources weren't able to provide very recent information–"

"Get better sources."

"–But what they do know is that this particular angel has been off the map for years. Quite like you," he adds as he raises his other eyebrow. You roll your eyes. "He's impossible to find, quite hard to track, and a very skilled fighter. Rumour has it he's scouring your city's streets at the moment."

You resist a frown. If this guy has been prowling your streets and you haven't noticed, something is definitely amiss. Might just be that you've been preoccupied with Keith and everything that happened around him, but if this has been going on for as long as Lotor is implying it has... this just might prove an actual challenge.

The old feeling of excitement and anticipation starts to run through your very bones again, and you hate the way it makes you feel–energised. As if you can handle anything thrown your way. Ready. It's a feeling you haven't known in years, and one you haven't missed, though now that it courses through your veins again there's no point in denying that you're enjoying it. The thrill of the chase.

But then Lotor speaks the name of the angel you're supposed to bring in, and everything falls into place, only to shatter into a million pieces a split second after.

You see his lips move. Hear the words spoken, though they take a moment to get processed, and when they do they leave behind an emptiness that has you stare at him, too dumbfounded and untrusting of yourself to speak.

It can't be. This must be the universe's idea of a cruel joke. The very guy you'd risked everything for–the very angel that had caused your distractedness and is the reason you were here in the first place–is the same rogue angel about whom you had just signed a contract.

The crushing weight of it settles on your shoulders. All five days of you struggling to keep him breathing, for nothing. The weird excursion to Coran's shop, for nothing. The goddamn chinese takeout you'd bought for him, for fucking nothing.

But somehow you manage to keep your face straight, and Lotor hadn't been watching you as he said it, instead gazing intently at something over your head, so you can only hope he hasn't noticed the lurch in your expression at the mention of Keith Kogane.

"All right." You're almost shocked at how steady your voice is. "Okay. I've agreed. You got what you want. Now, free Allura." Even though your voice is pretty steady, you curl your hands into fists to hide their shaking.

Lotor doesn't move for a moment, and you seriously begin to think he's having a seizure until he snaps his fingers and Emmie lunges forward.

In her hand is a knife, and she plunges it into Allura's chest without a second of hesitation.

You rush toward the mirror, a strangled "No!" ripped from your throat. Your fingers claw at the smooth glass surface and you watch her slump, blood gushing from the wound and staining her scrubs a dark crimson. Your knees buckle, and your eyes stay glued to her form as she convulses, coughs up blood twice, then goes limp. Her head falls back...

And snaps back up, and you lurch back with a startled cry. Allura's eyes have gone red and are shining with mania. Her skin turns the colour of wet ash, and her hair falls out of its updo and cascades down her shoulders, tendrils black and writhing as if they have a mind of their own...

Demon.

Shapeshifter.

Your breathing comes in short and shallow rasps as the full realisation of things settles in. Allura was never in danger. You were right all along. If only you had put your foot down. If only you hadn't let your feelings cloud your mind.

It doesn't matter now. You signed a contract–and there's no going back from that.

Lotor fingers through the file that bears your signature in black ink. Slowly, the words explaining just what you signed start to appear on the sheets, snaking their way along the curves of the paper as if written in by an invisible hand. A steel fist clenches around your heart, and you struggle to stand up, your muscles turned to jelly. The surface of the mirror has gone black again.

A shaking hand comes up to cover your mouth, and your teeth clench down on your lower lip so hard that they draw blood. Lotor flicks his wrist, and the contract disappears. The fingers of your free hand twitch as if they wanted to grab at the file. You level your gaze with Lotor's, and evidently your years of training finally paid off in the end, because in his eyes you can see how passive your expression is. You'd be a good poker player, your fleeting mind thinks randomly. The only thing giving away your current emotions is the hand mindlessly tugging at your bottom lip, and the fact that your breathing is still rather fast.

"Now," Lotor drawls in his honey-coated voice–sugary sweet, sticky, suffocating–and snakes an arm around your shoulders, "that wasn't so hard, was it?"

And you know you should keep your mouth shut, because he is the Prince of the Below, and Haggar has already expressed her desire to string you up and set you on fire in the Grand Hall for every new recruit to see–but on the other hand, you just signed a contract, and that makes you technically untouchable until Lotor has reason to believe you won't be able to complete the task set out for you.

The very foundation of a plan starts coming together in your mind. You jut up your chin and break free from his grasp. "So do I get assignment-issue gear? A blade? A gun, maybe? If this angel is as good as you make him out to be, perhaps I should need some more useful weapons than your average kitchen knife."

Lotor scrutinises you for a moment, then waves his hand. A set of gleaming double blades appear on Haggar's desk, along with their sheaths and long black gloves. Haggar huffs with an indignant mutter of Sure, use my desk as your summoning surface. Don't mind at all. You ignore her and lift an eyebrow. "That's all you're going to give me?"

"If you're as good as you say, this is all you will need," Lotor replies in that smooth tone of his. His eyes glint; he's gotten what he wanted. He's already won.

But that's fine. Lotor may have won this battle, and you need to make him feel like he has, but in the end you'll do everything in your power to win the war. And Lotor just handed you the weapons that just might be able to get you there.

"Fine," you mutter, snatching up the knives, pointedly refusing to strap them to your back like is procedure, instead securing the harnesses to your thighs as a small act of defiance. Irritation flashes in his eyes. "I'll report to you how often?"

"No reports," Lotor says with a wave of his hand. "We don't want to make any potential spies of the Above suspicious. Just make sure you find him, and when you do..." He tosses you a little disk about the size of a large coin, and you startle at how heavy it is. It's pleasantly warm to the touch, and you have a creeping suspicion as to what it is that is only confirmed with Lotor's next words. "Portal pass. Use it wisely."

You turn the pass over and over in your hands, the familiar weight of the knives at your thighs comforting and seeming to pull you down to the ground at the same time. "Is that–will that be all?" Risky words, risky questions–you're going out on a limb and assume Lotor won't have you hanged for running your mouth: he did just pretend to torture your best friend to coerce a signature out of you, so you suppose he has to give you some slack.

He sails to a halt in front of you, face so close his nose almost touches yours, and you have to stop yourself from recoiling. His expression is cold, his gaze calculating–and the smile that creeps up his lips sends shivers up our spine. "Yes. I think that will be all." He raises a brow and throws a glance Haggar's way, which you find comical as he didn't seem to give a solid fuck about her opinions when he used her office as his personal torture chamber.

Haggar shrugs. "I still think we should string them up and burn them to a crisp."

"Yes, Haggar, I know. Why did I even bother." He gives you a lazy flick of his hand, but you've already turned and your hand is resting on the doorknob, when something occurs to you and you cast a look at him over your shoulder.

"My Prince?" The title feels like hot oil searing down your throat, but you expect the words you're about to say require this small bit of courtesy. He raises a brow and nods. "I'm going to kill the Bounties that brought me here." Your voice sounds oddly bored.

Lotor chuckles. "They're no demons. They don't have a place in the Below." It's like his gaze issues a challenge, and a fresh wave of loathing for this Prince washes over your being. "Go right ahead."

You flash a cold smile and slam the door shut.

– – –

You wipe your blades with some wet wipes and discard them in the trashcan beside you when they get too filthy with blood (the store clerk barely looked up when you came in and purchased a single packet of wet wipes and a duffel bag–apparently the average cashier sees weirder stuff than a maniac with bloodied hunting knives the size of their forearms slamming a pack of wet wipes on the counter on a daily basis). Emmie, Adam, Zethrid and Nirina's bodies have long since turned to dust, and you have to work to keep your breathing steady and to stop your eyes from glowing red as the phone wedged between your ear and your shoulder rings.

Allura picks up on the fourth ring. "'Sup?"

It was just a check. Just to make sure. But if Allura truly did just get tortured, you have a feeling she wouldn't pick up a phone call with a simple 'Sup?

"Hey. How was your day?" Your speech comes out slightly slurred, and Allura laughs on the other side of the line.

"Fine. Work, you know. Routine." You can almost hear the grin on her face as she says, "And you? Weren't you supposed to be at work too, today?"

Work. Work feels like such a long time ago--when it was in reality only a couple of hours back. You nod slowly, though it's more to convince yourself than anything else. "Yeah. I was. Some co-workers and I went to get smoothies afterwards. To welcome me back," you joke.

"Did they pay?"

"Yeah."

"Good for you. Free milkshake. I'm jealous."

You laugh, but it feels hollow in your chest. "Hey--I need to run now, but I'll call you later, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Sweet of you to check in, Y/N."

You eye the gleaming blade, running a finger along its razor-sharp edge. "No problem."

After you hang up, you sit back against the wall digging into your back, forcing down the pumping feeling in your limbs.

It's something you've missed, and you can't deny it. The absolute exhilaration you feel when your blades make contact, the thrumming of adrenaline in your veins as you dodge to avoid the blows that four individual enemies are throwing at you. The fear in Zethrid's eyes when she realises she is the only one left standing, and the life seeping from her eyes as you slit her throat.

It doesn't make you feel good, exactly–especially now that the thrill of the moment has worn off and you just feel tired and there's an ache that has burrowed itself deep into your bones–but there's no replicating the rush of power that courses through your very being when you're the one in control.

When the blades of death are yours to wield.

The knives are now securely stored in your new black duffel, and you try and figure out how you're going to pull off bringing two huge knives home without rousing suspicion from Keith. You internally debate whether you shouldn't just find a safe space to stash the duffel until you need it. There are quite a few nooks and crannies you know no one in their right mind would look, but then again, this was a big city. There were plenty of creepier people prawling these streets than the occasional demon.

And then you pass a gym, and an idea sparks in your head.

After casually shoplifting a bunch of sportswear from the nearest Nike store, you return to the gym with the knives in your bag hidden by the copious amounts of t-shirts and trainers stacked on top of them. You get a locker and stuff the bag inside before making your way outside again, smiling at the desk guy as you leisurely stroll out of the gym. The guy narrows his eyes at you–your clothes are still slightly torn and dirty, and you're pretty sure you have a bruise forming on the right side of your cheek, but you don't pay him any mind. He works at a gym. He's seen stranger than you.

But the closer you get to your apartment, the heavier the portal pass starts to feel in your pocket, and the more insecure your steps become. The sun hangs low over the city skyline, but hasn't completely started to set yet, and soft golden light washes over the streets, making them look... wrong. Bleak. Colour in a place where colour shouldn't be. You had just killed in these streets, and nobody noticed.

The thought makes you feel kind of sorry for the Bounties. They would be missed by no one.

You're still lost in thought when you almost hit a door and you snap back to reality. Your feet had carried you all the way up to your apartment. You blinked hard, rubbed a hand over your face and fumbled for your keys.

"Hey. It's me. Did you burn the house down while I was gone?"

Keith looks up from where he sits on an armchair–your armchair, but you understand he wouldn't want to spend another minute on the couch he spent five days on, hallucinating out of his mind–and grins, and your heart does a leap. And then he frowns, and you freeze, and your immediate thought is Oh fuck, he's found me out, he knows everything, he's going to call the other angels and he's going to kill me–

But the words he speaks are soft with concern. "What happened to your face?" And it takes all of your willpower not to break down right then and there.

He puts down the book he was reading and walks over to you, eyebrows knotted with worry, and reaches out to touch your forehead. Only then does he seem to realise how close to you he's standing, and he quickly pulls his fingers back to his chest. They're red with blood. "Let's get that disinfected, yeah?"

Before you can answer, he's already started towards your kitchen. You blink, still stunned, before following him like you're in a daze. He looks over his shoulder and points to a kitchen chair. You plop down, and it's when the weight is taken off your legs that the exhaustion comes crashing into you at breakneck speed, and it takes all your strength not to plunk your head down on the kitchen table and just pass out.

"Where do you keep your first aid kit?"

You vaguely point to a cabinet below the sink, and moments later Keith plops the kit down beside you on the table and plucks out a wad of cotton and disinfecting spray. You don't even feel it sting when he gently dabs at the cut on your forehead and cheekbone. His eyes are firmly trained on the cotton, his dark brows furrowed–there's a little crease between them that your foggy self finds most endearing–and he's chewing absent-mindedly on his bottom lip.

With a shock, you realise this is the closest you've been to him. Ever. This is the first time you can properly study his face, and you can always blame your muddy mind later if he brings up how blatantly you were staring at him, so you let yourself drink in every feature of his face. You find yourself drawn to his eyes most; they're a stunning deep violet, the colour of the sky at twilight, when the sun has just set and the last rays of light streak the heavens with purple. Most of all, they're soft with concern and simultaneously fierce with a kind of fire you haven't seen on him before.

"Aren't you going to ask what happened?" you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

Keith's eyes briefly flicker to yours, and he gives an awkward shrug before going back to gently rubbing at your wounds. "It's none of my business. You haven't asked me about what I was doing on Middle Ground in the first place, and I won't stick my nose into what doesn't concern me." But the words sound like he's reciting them; like a lesson he learned at school. You can see in his eyes that he is in fact curious, but also that he isn't going to press further. How very angelic of him.

You purse your lips, fingering the portal pass in your jacket pocket.

Your mind is a jumble of thoughts, like someone took all your emotions and threw them in a blender. Every moment you spend with Keith in your kitchen–how is it you always end up in the kitchen?–you grow more sure that you can't turn him in. But the contract pulls at your insides, and you know that if you keep ignoring its contents it will keep gnawing at you until you can't take it anymore and snap.

The contract is the contract. Binding and eternal.

"Keith."

His hand freezes, and you carefully guide it to the table, gently forcing him to put down the cotton. "Thank you, really. But I'm okay. I promise."

He nods. Slowly. "Okay."

And oh, how you want to wrap your arms around his neck and press your lips against his, but that would make things a thousand times more complicated than they already are–

Your breath leaves you in one fell swoop. It's the exhaustion talking, you firmly tell yourself, before you yank your fingers back and stand. You're a bit wobbly, but you manage. Keith wisely doesn't attempt to help you, but you can feel his eyes boring into your back as you make your way to your bedroom.

You change. You brush your teeth. You splash some water in your face to clear your head. Everything happens in a haze, your mind too tired to think about anything at all.

But then your eye falls on a piece of paper resting on your pillow. You frown and pick it up, and your eyes widen when you recognise your own scraggly handwriting littering the little parchment card. A hand flies up to your mouth to muffle your startled scream, and you drop the card as if it just burned your fingertips, though your eyes stay glued to its surface.

The words I want Keith to be okay stare back up at you, and with every passing second your breathing gets quicker and more ragged. Your fingers tingle, and as you draw a tentative breath you sink down onto the mattress. Your fingers tingle, but they tingle with warmth, and the feeling is not unpleasant.

Where Keith's own skin brushed yours, the chill that had seeped into your very core and had burrowed there for days, leaving you in a constant state of stiff cold, dissipated. The feeling is so weirdly foreign after having only felt cold for days that you dumbly stare out into nothingness, trying to shake the heat out of your hand. It doesn't work. It feels good, and you want more of it.

For a moment, the contract leaves your mind, replaced by Keith's eyes, the way he'd looked up at you, all softness and worry; the gentleness of his fingers as they cleaned the shallow cuts on your face. You close your eyes and lean back, the little parchment card on the floor seeming to beg for your attention. You never knew paper could be this loud.

For just a moment, you allow yourself to think of Keith and not just see an angel–but something more.

#keith x reader #keith kogane x reader #keith voltron #keith voltron x reader #keith vld #keith vld x reader #vld keith #vld keith x reader #voltron keith #voltron keith x reader #voltron keith kogane #vld keith kogane #voltron keith kogane x reader #vld keith kogane x reader #keith kogane #keith fic #keith fanfic #keith voltron fic #keith voltron fanfic

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franeridart · 6 years

Note

Hey! So sorry if you already answered this but what application and tablet do you use??

I use Easy Paint Tool SAI and a pretty old wacom intuos tablet! Both questions are answred in my faq, actually~

Anon said:You. You awesome person. You are my new fav artist. 💘💘💘

AW thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:I love your art and the style, it’s all so cute and it might give me a heart attack

He c k let’s hope not! Thank you so so much!!! ;^;

Anon said:hey, can ya do more tokage, pls

Sure, I mean to draw more 1B in the future anyway~

Anon said:nori is soo adorable!! I love your art and seromina so much and seeing them combined makes me mega happy!!! I gotta ask though, how are sero and mina as parents and how do they handle nori’s quirk?

They’re disasters as parents but they try their best and are always having fun - Nori adores them! In their house not a minutes goes by without someone laughing, they’re all super loud and cheerful always~ neither of them has any problem dealing with Nori’s quirk, Sero has spent a whole lifetime learning how to deal with sticky stuff and tape and glue so he knows all the tricks to save clothes and furniture from accidental quirk usage and so on, while Mina’s own quirk makes it easy to counter any glue that might end on her - the main thing actually is that the quirk itself was a surprise! Since Nori looks a lot like Mina, both she and Sero had expected her to have acid like Mina so when she started gluing herself around in places and walking along walls and stuff it was a surprise (they had expected to have to deal with the house being constantly half destroyed by acid though, so glue is nothing compared to that haha)

Anon said:Heyy I saw your twitter account and was wondering if you could link some of those “fics about them boys sharing a bed..“ I’ve been following you for a while now and absolutely love your work (: I hope you don’t mind lol. I need more kiribaku in my life gahaha ❤️ thanks !!

I didn’t really bookmark any and most were old things I had read in the past and spent time rereading lately, but the newest one I read is this one - honestly though at this point 99% of the fics set in the dorms have them sharing a bed, you just need to open ao3 and scroll down less than a page to find stuff lol

Anon said:If you’re not an Adventure Time fan this ask will make no sense to you (so skip it), but when I saw your drawing of Katsuki with a guitar, I immediately thought he was singing some edgy Marceline song, like the teasing-aggressive “I wanna bury you in the ground / I wanna bury you with my sound” (which he actually says at some point I think XD) or the romantic and melancholic “Slow Dance with You” and Eijirou M-E-L-T-S.

Not an AT fan, but the concept is adorable so I’m keeping the ask anyway

Anon said:Do you think you might draw more of your fantasy AU children while you’re playing with you’re new pencil tool? It would be neat if you did! Regardless, I’m grateful for anything you draw!

Yup! Can’t promise when it’ll happen but I love the fantasy AU and I love childhood friends AU, so the chances of me going back on it are pretty high!

Anon said:Are you going to draw Mako and Taiyou again? They are so wonderful.

YAH that’s definitely in the near future plans! Thank you for liking them!!

Anon said:I just…I love all your art. It’s so amazing you’re awesome

THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!! ;^;

Anon said:Stavo scorrendo il tuo blog e ho notato che hai risposto ad una domanda in italiano? Ho seriamente pensato fossi inglese tutto questo tempo! Amo seriamente i tuoi disegni, i tuoi oc sono meravigliosi e non vedo l'ora di scoprire più di loro.

AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH grazie infinite omfg ;^; specialmente per i miei oc, è sempre incredibile per me sapere che alla gente piacciono abbastanza da volerli vedere di più ;^;

Anon said:Hewwo! I’m a huge fan of your artwork!! I was wondering if you have any time could you draw some more of those dorm room scenarios?

Anon I’m sorry but I need you to be more specific, which dorm room scenarios are you talking about? Most of my comics at this point are set in the dorms hahaha

Anon said:I just noticed that on every artwork you sign “do not repost” and I hate it.I don’t hate that you do it, but the fact you NEED to do it. Artists all over the Internet say to not repost their art but people still do it…I hope this will stop someday Sorry for my english btw

Yeah well, I guess as long as people keep on following and giving notes to reposters that’s not really gonna change is it orz

Anon said:You should draw Present Mic x Aizawa *awkward finger guns*

Hell I really should, shouldn’t I

Anon said:my god im gay for your kiribaku like they’re so good aibdjsbsknwnx and i love the interactions between the bakusquad ahh keep being awesome :)

HECK THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

Anon said:Honestly, this might be an odd question I don’t know, but would you ever consider putting your art together in a art book to sell? Cause to be honest, there’s not a piece by you that I don’t adore and I’ve seen some artist do things like that before so I didn’t know if that was something you’d consider. Maybe like all your BNHA pieces or something?

It’s not like I never considered it? It’s more like I dunno how worth all the work to figure out how to make it/where to print it and then to actually make it would be compared to the interest people would have in buying something they can have for free on my blog? It’s just doodles after all haha

Anon said:Would you be willing to draw a little lavi (dgm) doodle for me? Anything tiny, I just love him and your art!!!

I’m not doing requests right now, sorry, but soon enough the new chapter is coming out so I might draw him around then!!! I always fall in a serious dgm mood around the time of the chapter release haha

Anon said:More abuse of the ask function: 1- I love your art and have been for months. On top of that, it often feels cathartic, which is amazing to me. 2- I love how balanced you can make KiriBaku. You even manage to make me appreciate that overrated attention hogger that is Bakugou, you can handle him so much better than the author, because your character dynamics make so much more sense!! 3- I always, ALWAYS find myself reading through all your tags. They’re awesome. Thank you for everything.//Avevo finito lo spazio nell'ask precedente, so I’d only like to add that aside from cutie-smoochy (“It’s not about whether you break” and “I don’t need you” might be my favorite, and for what’s worth, I remember writing something exactly like the latter in the past), you also make mu burst into laughter. Like, the comic where Katsuki is about to out Eijirou on his red hair, I am still rolling. Kiri’s giant mouth is seriously hysterical XD

Thank you for the compliments!! I’m glad I can make you like a character and a relationship you’re not much of a fan of in the actual manga? ? ? Bakugou’s actually one of my favorite characters ever though so………. maybe……….don’t offend him and the way Horikoshi writes him while talking to me………….orz

Anon said:I am starved for Bakukamikiri stuff in this fandom……..But you got some good shit.

I’m!!! happy to be able to help there!!!! haha

Anon said:They mama Mitsuki art you drew 👏💯💖☺️💕👌 I love your art so much

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:Yessssss you have Twitter! It is boring at the beginning but then you’ll love it! I can’t wait to see you here and there! Now all my Bakushima favorite artist have one I can die of happiness!!

I’m!!!!!!!!!! Still trying to figure it out but!!!!!!!! For now it’s not that bad? Just!!! Very different from tumblr so I’ll need to get used to it first!!!!

Anon said:Omg do u shade jirous hair like its a heartbeat line? Dhdisbdisb thats so fuckibg good

THANK she actually has it in canon too, tho, so I can’t take credit for this!!!

Anon said:Im crying on how you draw kirishima’s soft hair

S O B I’m glad you like it!! ;^;

Anon said:Can I ask what your stance is on bakugo’s mom being abusive and sorry if you’ve answered this before

I love Mitsuki with my whole heart and while I don’t think she’s perfect I do think she’s loving and caring and trying her best and always looking out for what’s best for Bakugou 👍 no abuse anywhere, for me

Anon said:OMG I LOVE SEROMINA LOVE CHILD NORI

Thank you for liking her???? heck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:I wish I could use your art for my phone’s background ;^; You’re amazing! I love youuuuuuuuuu

No one’s stopping you from doing that, anon!!! Unless you don’t have a phone that allows you backgrounds, in which case ;-; thank you for liking my stuff that much tho!!

Anon said:Hey! I followed you way back when your main output was haikyuu!! comics and once you started putting out more bnha, i had to unf because i had no idea who everyone was rip. but now that ive finally had the chance to watch it i’m glad to come back and see how much you’ve improved!

HECK THANK YOU???? I’m glad you decided to come back????? oh man that’s super flattering !!!

Anon said:Yolo bakusquad bakubowl ?

I don’t really like the whole concept of [character]bowl, sorry!

Anon said:I absolutely adore your art style😍 every time I see your art it makes me happy:)

THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:Can you draw Hawks and Tokoyami together? You are rlly creative and amazing! So I believe you will produce sth. awesome!!!! (If you don’t want to draw Hawks, could you draw a Tokoyami fusion?)

I can draw that! I’m just waiting to know how tall Hawks is compared to him before doing that 👍 be patient pls relative heights are something I’m stupidly fussy about

Anon said:Burn the whole world to ashes for you? R U serius?! You always killing me dude. I ascended to the heaven of soft things. I N C R E D I B L E. Im sorry for the break down, i was without tumblr 2 months and the firts thing i do is go to your profile. Keep doing this plis im trully love it 😭💖

mAN I’m so glad you liked that one this much, drawing the boys being unreasonably soft with each other is my fav thing to do tbh !!!

Anon said:Omg I can totally imagine Nori and bakushima’s daughter being friends!!!

THEY ARE !!!!!!!

Anon said:Your seromina is amazing!!! I love that ship I feel like it is so underrated! Thank you for this blessed image!! 😭

No prob!! thank you for liking it!!!!!!! I’ve been in such a seromina mood lately, I might actually draw more soon enough!!

Anon said:Omg imagine a Tetsuwase love child. Something tells me they’d be adorable and one rather angry child, considering who their fathers are

I can see them as being quiet and grumpy………. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Anon said:Hey just wanted to tell you I love your art. It’s so soft and beautiful. My dad doesn’t ship any characters from the series, but he does like the series and he thinks your art and style are really pleasing. We were talking about how nicely you shade and that the style is well developed and lovely to look at. Thanks for making such great art that makes me smile and giving me and my dad yet another thing to bond over.

YO THAT’S SUCH A COOL THING TO HEAR!!!! Thank you to both you and your dad for liking my stuff????? h e c k !!!!!

Anon said:Thanks to you I started reading haikyuu.

I hope you’re enjoying it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#fran answers #so much chatter yo #hope I didn't miss anyone !!! <3 #anonymous

191 notes · View notes

incendavery · 7 years

Photo

gosh, thank you! that is so sweet??? I hope you (and any other of my followers who celebrate!) have/had a very happy Eid!💖 💕

on another note, I’ve finally gotten around to cleaning out my askbox! under the cut is almost every ask I’ve gotten that i haven’t answered in the past.... I’m not sure. it’s been a WHILE though.

as a warning, there’s all sorts of stuff, and it’s all untagged! also also, if you sent one of these asks and want me to remove it, just let me know!

yes!! @fuckaspunk IS super sweet and talented and i AM very lucky to have them! and I’ve heard from reliable sources that the feeling is mutual~~💕

i’m glad my comics make you feel less alone; that’s a rough situation you’re in. i really hope you find yourself in a better environment soon!

thank you!!!💕

thank you for understanding! and yes, aidan is a huge help to me??? even when they’re not answering asks, they’re always supporting me in some way, whether that’s making sure I’ve eaten enough, or talking me through my anxiety, or all the other ways they’re there for me every single day💕💕

ok, my tips are!!:

draw as much as possible! even if it’s just lines and shapes with no meaning, you’re still developing your hand/eye skills

BUT: dont draw if you’re not feeling it! if you’re feeling fried, it’s better to take a break. go on a walk to somewhere scenic, read your favorite book, listen to some new music, hang out with friends, or just take a nap! rest up and find some inspiration! you can come back to your sketchbook when you feel energized again

draw stuff that you like! you’ll improve way faster if you’re passionate about what you’re doing

look at art you like with a critical eye. try to examine the different components and figure out what you think works or doesn’t work. try incorporation those components into your own work

read a lot of tutorials and other resources, but take what they say with a grain of salt

ultimately, remember that the only real rule to drawing is that doing it should make you happy

good luck!! i do my best not to pick, but it’s a real struggle; i have lots of scars from it too. ;v; im cheering for you!!!

ALWAYS!!!! if you do, please show me!! my notifications get real busy, but anyone is welcome to IM me any time!

thank you! i actually get very worried about my style; i tend to admire artists with complex linework and delicate shading, so i often feel my style is far to simple! so thank you!!

that is really high praise????? gosh??!?!?!? best of luck with the next three years; i hope you grow to be someone you like even better than me!

thank you!!

peanut time is the best!! i haven’t gotten to do a proper one in a while though ;-; i’ve mostly been feeding the crows on my way back home from night shifts, when i give them the reject eggs from the continental breakfast.

wow, neat!! chickens are so wonderful; i cont wait until i can have some of my own :>

dont be nervous! i know i can be hard to get ahold of over the internet (bc i get overwhelmed easily) and hard to talk with irl (bc i get so nervous and interacting w ppl doesn’t come naturally to me AT ALL) but honestly i?? love making new friends??!

thank you!!? im thankful every day that someone as radient as aidan is in my life for the long haul

thank you!!!!!!!💕

i completely feel that? its ok to hit rough patches! just do your best!!

i dont remember what i felt bad about but THANK YOU💕💕

honestly its done me worlds of good to share my art?? hearing people talk about how they go through all the same shit i do makes me feel so much less alone, especially on the toughest days! so i guess thank you, and thank you?

youre welcome!!!! :>

huh!! i dont know much about shoegaze (other than thinking abt that post abt the guy who pronounced it like fugazi I THINK ABT THAT EVERY TIME) but thats real neat!! im glad youve found something that works for you!!

hey, neat middle name! and youre very welcome; i hope things have been looking up for you since you sent this?💕

i dont remember when this was from but im currently doing really well with my meds!! i switched to a combination of lexapro in the morning and benadryl in the evening, and its been working super well!✨

thank you??!! ;o; i would love to see all your favorite birds!!

hey, right back atcha!!!

ty!!!

hey. thank YOU

you’re absolutely not bothering me! thank you so much!!

!!!!!!!!!!

hey, nice! im glad you like both me and my music!

gosh thanks?!?!

she is the most beautiful and handsome!!!!!!!!!!!! i love her! thank you from both of us!!!!

aw, gosh! im sure i like you too!!

this was from.... A WHILE AGO.... but youre welcome?? i just wish i could have done more

hey, thank you so much!!!!!

thank YOU and a very very belated merry christmas!!!

that does make sense!! reconciling friendships and crushes is tricky business. the best i can say to you is to be as honest and open with each other as you can

i dont personally get those, but ive heard of people experiencing them as a sideeffect when coming off or switching meds

i think these two are part of the same message? but oh man yeah that sucks when ppl are misgendering you AND hitting on you at the same time. on a different note, ive never heard of using a corset to stim before! neat!

i mean, 1. depression doesn’t care if you have a “””good””” reason and 2. ive literally never met anyone w depression (including myself) who thinks that they do have a “””good””” reason for having it. thats the insidious part of depression, is that it makes you think that theres nothing wrong and that its all just you not measuring up in some way

so i guess that would make you.... someone with depression?

real BAD

💕 💖 💞 💓 💗

not yet haha THANK YOU

hey, im glad you like it!! since this blog has gotten so big, its kinda my happy place to be? (for anyone wondering, my reblog blog/personal is @spinels!

that IS a fun fact!! thank you!

it’s absolutely ok! i get a little bitter when people take my work WAY out of context (for example, straight people removing the caption that says “im just really gay” before tagging their bf/gf) but i am 100% ok and happy with people relating to my work in a different way than i intended (ex: a comic i made about being ashamed of my derma getting reblogged by someone struggling to be ok w their visible burn scars)

hoo gosh, thank you!!

glad to have you here!! im glad people can relate to some of the weirdly specific shit i write about tbh???

i’m sorry its taken so long for me to get back to you; that a terrible situation

if you have a teacher you trust, i would absolutely bring it up to them. that is 100% not an ok thing for those kids to be doing. at all.

im glad you at least have your friends that support you!

:0 WAIT is this someone i know through ucsc?? :0 :0 :0

aaaa thank you! that is high praise ;v;

i have no words; this is such a touching message. thank you so much ;v;

this is belated but!! the main creative community i can recommend is kzsc, the radio station! i had a real cool time there, and its a great way to make friends and connect with ppl of all sorts! :0

yeah, its totally normal! ive had roommates ive been super tight with, and roommates who i barely ever hung around with. its natural! i doubt you’ll finish college w/o finding a roomie that you get ~The Roomie Experience~ with though, even if its like a housemate or s/t!! ;0

i’ve never been told that, actually! neat!! (and wow?? i cant believe i inspire ppl.... wow......... what a concept tbh??)

oh yikes... i do hope youre feeling better :( im glad my comics can help a little bit at least!

💕 💖 💞 💓 💗!!!

HUGS

i dont remember what this was in reference to, but good to know?

also good to know!?

i think the crows and jays do! i dunno about the squirrels and other birds. and thank you!!

the youth gang..... i love it..... how good???!

i wrote about getting yuri right here! he’s a southern alligator lizard and i love him to bits.

heres a pic of the Long Boy doin his thing:

hey neat! i’m glad youve chosen a lame you can be proud of!!💖

ive never heard of that!! wow

what play is this?? :0 :0 :0 im so curious now!!

oh SHUCKS...,,,,,,,,,, ;v;

hahahaha omg thank u

i dont actually have any more of them interacting, unfortunately! the owl isnt one specific person, like a lot of my characters are meant to represent. the owl more represents as a whole all the people i run into in my life that i am very very gay for.

thank you!!!

youre very welcome! im glad you feel better!!!!

aaa gosh thank you!!!

hhhhfgh ive gotten less of it recently BUT YEAH that was bad times™️

thanks for the info!!! :0

no problem! a lot of the credit honestly goes to @fuckaspunk, who is always keeping me updated on that sort of stuff.

i didn’t know that! a lot of the symbolism seems to come from multiple sources sometimes, from what ive seen?

aaaa gosh omg thank you ;v;

aw thank you???!!

nice!!! oct 24 bdays go!!!

thank you!! it really does mean a lot actually!!!!!!!

of course?? antisemitism cant be ignored in this fight

aw, thats so cute! id love to hear what headcanons you have tbh???

hey thanks?! this is really cool to hear, tbh. i try to be positive most of the time, but im not going to like,,, kid myself when im not feeling it and im glad that other people can appreciate that too, ya know?

wow!!

(this one!) thank you i love that one too???!

hey, im glad you found your way here!! thank you so much!!!

aaaa ty!

hmmm i have two leopard geckos, and they made very good beginning lizards for me and aidan! but i would maybe ask someone a bit more experienced than me, like @kaijutegu or @wheremyscalesslither!!

thank you!!

one day at a time! (but seriously, thank you!!)

yummy yummy sauce...... ty!!!

awww, gosh! thank you!?

AAAA TY BOTH I GET SO SELF-CONSCIOUS ABT MY VOICE,,,,, ;o;

:0 i havent watched that, but it sounds rly cool!!

i like that fun fact a lot! ty!!

pae stands for paerlin, which is what @fuckaspunk‘s internet handle used to be! i used it to refer to them on my blog in secret back when they still didnt know i had a crush on them.... ;//v//;

aaaaa thank you!!! ;o;

nice nice nice ty!!

>:0 get back down here!! (jk that’s rly neat! highfive!!)

those are all good words that i like!! thank you!!!!

i dont know anything about him, but i looked him up and i guess i can see it?!

@fishcrow is really cool! ive never really interacted with them, but im p sure were mutuals...? anyway yeah their comics are rly cute and cool!

that is me! thank you; i hope things go well for you as well!

hello to you too!

aaaa ty!!! tbh the number of nice anons i get way way way outnumbers the mean ones <3

thank you! thank YOU for existing!

:0 chocolate croissant, here i come!!!

thank you!!!!!!💕

its literally my pleasure!!!

aaa ty!!! 💕💕

hehe im glad!

sldf;j;sfjdklfdslfjs thank you so much?????? what a compliment omg gosh

yeah!! i have a hard time on settling what class id be, but i feel like id be a heart player!

ohh um! im not sure which pens youre referring to, but if you mean the ones I use for my comics, i color them with Winsor & Newton ProMarkers, and I do the lines with a purple fine-point Sakura Gelly Roll Classic pen! i also use micron pens of all different sizes and colors in some of my non-diary comic art!

aww thank you so much!!

:0 :) :0 !!!!!!

ty!!! ive grown to love him very much as well!!

thank you! i hope you are doing well also!!

i love them very much?!! id put a picture but i dont have one with all four of them so instead imagine me lying on the floor crying abt how much i love them bc thats me basically every day

you dont mean......

?!?!?!?!?!?!

awwww ty!!!

HEY WOW

aaa gosh thank you!💕

DOUBLE FOLLOW

gay dragons combine the best of both very good things: gay and dragons. im glad you appreciate them w me tysm ;v;

aaa what a lovely message! ty💕

3rd-shift-working, depression-having, corvid-loving solidarity fistbumnp!!!!

huh! ive never heard of that; ill check it out maybe!!

ah im really glad? tysm!!💕

my understanding is that it helps people who have text-to-speech readers? but im honestly not as well informed on that as i should be!

hell yeah!!!!

gosh!!!!!

hnmngnhng youve probably already made a decision but i just gotta say.........shadow rulez

delicious!!

i havent!! i really want to though!

oh man ALL THE TIME. i usually try to either reality check with someone i trust, or to do an activity thats easy and i know i can do, or both!

i love andre and karl!!! its actually a huge influence on me and my art tbh???

i had a good (and safe) trip! ty!!!

hey, thank you!!!

oh jeez thats bad :( i think this was in response to when i needed to wait between med refills?

i cant give a precise reason, tbh! when it comes to whats lucky, i just sort of.... go with my gut, ya know?

thank you!! 👍

that sure sounds like insomnia! its almost hard for me to say tbh, bc ive had trouble sleeping for as long as i can remember, so NOT having trouble sleeping is bizarre and unrealistic to me haha... but i think the bottom line is, if its interrupting your daily routine and making it hard for you to have enough energy, then its something you should look into remedies for!

:0 :0 :0

ohhh how nice! ill give it a try! :>

omg,,,, nope, just me!

thank you!!!!!!

honestly? thats such a good way to look at it i love the idea of my blog as a big zine

always!!!!! go for it!!!

hey, thank you so much!!!!!

omg, thats so great! thank you!

im so glad; thank you!!!

thank you so much!💖 (and mexico, neat! i love hearing where people are following from??)

aaaaaaaaaaaa ;//v//; thank you??? i get so happy whenever ppl tell me they like my singing aaaaaaa

aw, hey, no worries! money is all well and good, but in some ways, messages like this mean just as much!

its cool that comic gave you plural feels! im def not a system though :>

its tricky, isnt it? i still feel like im no good at it lmao

LISTEN,,, there is a 99.9999% chance i wont notice, and a 100% chance i wont judge. reblog away!

THANK YOU ARENT THEY THE BEST I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

thank you!! i hope you have a good day as well!

aaa ty!!💖

aa ty! (what a cool name!!! im kind jealous ngl!)

awww thank you💖

i do my best! i just worry when im not active, bc i tend to connect my self-worth to my output (;^; )

aaaaa ty!! 💖

!!!!!!!!!!!! omg wow i love being called a pretty boy???? ty???????

hey, neat! crow high-five!

aw, thank you!!! 💖

im doing my best! thank you so much, messages like this really help when im in a place like that tbh ;v;

gosh this is so sweet? thank you so muhc !!?

thank you all!! im sorry that saying thank you over and over sounds so repetitive, but i truely do mean it for every one of you!!!

i am..... one of those things!

well thank you!!

ohoho~✨

thank you! and honestly im sure it does??

hey, cool! good for you!!!!!!! and ty!!

aw gosh thank you!💖

hey, wow! thats super cool; thank you so much!

(i dont follow the first person i followed on tumblr anymore.... they became a hockey blog rip haha)

aaaah, thank you so much!!

almost???

i do!! drunken lullabies is an absolute banger!!!!!!!!!!

i am!!!! thank you!!

aw, ty!!! 💖

hee hee, thank you!

my biggest tip honestly?? have someone who can be by your side to help you with... basically everything... during your recovery. bc trust me, i was n o t a v a i l a b l e. i spent a lot of my recovery playing 2048 at the same time as watching tv, bc doing both at once distracted me from how much the bandages itched.

thank you!! (i think this was in reference to getting top surgery!)

how shitty??????? yikes. i hope your supervisor has your back??? bc wow????

hey!!! thank you!!! i draw all my comics traditionally on paper! im not sure what you mean by the writing though? if you mean the word bubbles, i do those by hand on paper too!

I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THAT FEELING,,,, im so happy ppl talk to me, but i get really nervous about saying the wrong thing.

when i’m down, i usually crave validation. i like being reminded about things ive done right! i also like gentle reality checks, like, ‘hey: this is the situation, this is what we can do about it. ok? ok’

i unfortunately dont have any!! i had a couple at one point, but they’ve since been lost to the depths of my old laptop. and hey, thank you so much!!

now thats a nifty trick!! im terrible at telling all my white tablets from each other lmao

!!!!!!! ITS ME!!!!!!!!

maybe you just need some space? i know i sometimes temporarily block people i know, if i need some private space or if i dont trust myself to keep cool and solve problems constructively. do what you need to do to feel at ease, and go from there, ya know?

thank you!!!

its,,,, up somewhere above in this monster post lmao i,m so sorry,,,,

thank you so much!!!

WOW NO WORRIES??,,,,,,,,, INCREDIBLE 10/10???????

all four of these came right after i gave myself a hair cut and THANK YOU SO MUCH??? i live for validation and it feels so good to have my actions affirmed ;o;

#WOW THAT TOOK LIKE THREE HOURS HAHA #hopefully next time it wont be as long!!#daveanswersstuff #long post

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enstarsrequests-blog · 7 years

Note

I just realized that you don't have too many HC requests! NEVER FEAR I (that 18 yr old Anon) AM HERE FOR YOU!! So, what do you think about Knights+Fine reacting to an s/o who transferred from an Idol Girl school? Like, she was an idol but she decided producing was more her thing (but she's Quite™ a popular idol too).

Ahhh thank you! I admit I don’t get as many headcanon requests as I do other things. I do have a few in my inbox though, but not many up because of my…. very slow pace…. im sorry….

I NEARLY HAD A HEART ATTACK!! IVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR A WHILE, AND WHEN I WENT TO COPY IT, I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE WHOLE THING ,,, luckily i learned how to undo…. that doesn’t really matter to the request, but there’s a little story for you i guess ?

AH I didn’t realize until after I finished, but I made the pronouns gender neutral out of habit… It’s too late to fix now, so I hope you won’t mind? I’m sorry aaaa !! I hope you still enjoy these ;;;

Leo:

They’re constantly having to remind him about their past as an idol whenever he seems confused. He seems to always forget; but the moment he’s reminded, Leo is the proudest boy in the world! He’ll watch old videos of you, and usually uses it for inspiration. He likes to play dress up with you, too, asking you to wear various idol outfits. Pretty much anything that pops into his head! He’s unpredictable.

His s/o can sing? That’s it, he’s sold. He already gets most of his inspiration from them, but now he can compose songs that they could possibly sing? He’s!! So Excited!!

Leo specializes in improv dance, mostly because he has trouble remembering set choreography. Since that’s the case, he takes advantage of his s/o’s past as an idol. They end up having to teach him his own choreography over and over; usually with him running into them on accident, or start improving his own dance.

Sena:

They had already managed to make him fall for them, since they were already a couple; but once he was told about their old career, he felt… lots of emotions. Why didn’t they tell him before? He mostly seemed annoyed with them. But really, he was ready to die over how cute and amazing they are. Plus, he felt a new, strange connection with them. As he transferred out of modeling, he understood how they probably feel.

His love turned into almost an obsession, in a way. His room transformed to almost look like a shrine for them, covered in posters and pictures of them on stage. But he hangs the most recent pictures, of them as a producer, near his desk. He’s incredibly proud of them; not only for who they were, but who they are.

When he learned how popular they were, and still are, he got even more protective of them. If that was possible. He feels a need to accompany them whenever they go out.

Arashi:

Arashi knew that they used to be an idol without having to tell him- he recognized them when the two first met. Though he brushed it off at first, he eventually realized his suspicions were correct. So when they told him about their past as an idol, he wasn’t surprised.

He constantly worries about them- if something had prompted them to quit their work as an idol, wouldn’t being a producer bring back bad memories? How could a big sis not worry? Even if he’s assured that they enjoy work as a producer, he can’t help but be a little worried.

One of his favorite things to do is watching their old music videos. He always comments about how cute their outfit is, or how pleasant their voice is, or how well they perform the choreography.

If given permission, Arashi loves singing with them! Their voice is just as lovely as it used to be, and he loves getting to perform duets. Even if it’s only them two that can hear.

Ritsu:

Ritsu is pretty indifferent to it. He didn’t give them much a reaction when they first mentioned it. After all, what they used to do doesn’t really matter, as long as they’re happy now, right? Though he was a little curious about it. He ended up watching a few videos, and was pretty shocked by their talent and popularity. He saw how much your fans adored them- causing him to get insanely jealous. The way they smiled at the crowd, and sang for their fans. He’s honestly glad they quit being an idol. Now he can have them all to himself!

Occasionally, he’ll ask them to sing lullabies. Though he doesn’t particularly need it to sleep, he loves having an excuse to hear them sing. Especially while knowing the fact that their song is for him, and him alone.

For some reason, he felt even more intent on keeping them away from Rei. That brother of his used to be a fan. Ritsu makes sure to never let the two encounter. But when they’re not with him, Ritsu loves rubbing it in his face.

Suou:

When they first told him, he was in shock. They were an idol? that idol? He suddenly felt undeserving of them. He admitted to being a huge fan. And also feels pretty dumb for not noticing the resemblance.

After he gets over his embarrassment, and manages to accept, yes, this is his favorite idol, he constantly asks for lessons from them. He strives to become an idol worthy of being with them! Despite them constantly telling him he doesn’t need to earn his title of their boyfriend.

He digs up all his old videos and merch that he had collected during their popular years, rewatching all the videos, and displaying all the items in his room.

Suou would tell everyone, and I mean everyone, that he’s dating the famous idol! He loves to tell others about their skills, and the fact that they are in a relationship with him. That’s his favorite part- the fact that he gets to keep them all to himself.

Eichi:

Having a family that’s very big in entertainment, Eichi knew them before they even really knew each other. They probably saw him randomly around, too. But neither of the two really recognized each other. When they officially met, it was as idols. So he was surprised when they quit their work, and is always asking them questions about it.

He’s always glad to have such an experienced and knowledgeable person as a producer. It’s nice for him to know that he can rely on them. He always lets them know that he counts on them.

He loves to tease them over it; especially over suggestive themes. Whether it be the song, their outfit, or the dance, he’ll poke fun at them. But, to know about any of those, he had to have watched the videos with those… and how many loops of watching would it take to remember the exact lyrics and choreography?

Wataru:

This boy is always spontaneous and unpredictable, and it got even more… dangerous, I’ll say, once he was notified of their past fame. He’s always planning random things, usually without thelling them. It ranges from performing a magic trick on stage, during a live, and make them appear, to putting on unannounced concerts during breaks. He even enjoys dressing them up, as he does to Tomoya. (Tomoya shares a mutual understanding with them.)

As much as he flaunts their talent, he makes sure that they’re well aware that they need to be a capable producer still. Changing careers means changing careers- just because they were a popular idol doesn’t automatically make them an amazing producer! He’s always pushing them to work harder as a producer.

Of course he’s proud, though! But he’s mostly proud of how determined they are now, as a producer, compared to what they did before.

Tori:

Tori was also one of their fans! He’s always complaining to them- why did they quit? How dare they! He loved their singing! His fits usually end up with him sitting on their lap as they sing to him. He’ll get over it eventually. But that doesn’t mean they’ll get to stop singing for him.

He never shuts up about them. Literally every conversation he ever has with anyone, he manages to pop in a few (or more than a few) comments about how he’s dating one of the most popular idols around. Though some people are hapoy that he’s not bragging about himself as much, it got old quick. At least he’s talking about how amazing someone else is this time?

As much as he whines about practicing with Fine, when they’re overseeing the practice, suddenly he’s all fired up. He’ll always call out to them, make sure they’re watching. He gets pretty nervous at times, especially during lives. He reeeaaally wants to impress you…

Yuzuru:

He felt a new sense of comfort when he was informed of their past career. Before, he was worried that they saw him as someone better than themself. So hearing that they used to be an idol as well put those feelings to rest. He loves it this way. He thinks it’s perfect, and always tells them that. He couldn’t ask for a better person as his s/o.

Learning of their work as an idol made him feel slightly stupid, though- how did he not realize? They had so many traits that are generally sought after in idols, and mandatory when working as one. He’s so, so proud of them, though he tends to keep that to himself. He could tell that being an idol built their personality, and he admires their qualities.

Yuzuru can be pretty nervous at times, regarding their popularity. One of his worst fears is to have some fan of theirs finding them out in the public. Who knows what could happen? Though he’ll admit that not all fans are bad; unless you two are trying to be alone. Then he hopes that nobody, even the harmless fans recognize you.

#ensemble stars #ensemble stars imagines #ensemble stars headcanons #knights #fine #leo tsukinaga #suou tsukasa #sena izumi #arashi narukami #ritsu sakuma #eichi tenshouin #wataru hibiki #tori himemiya #yuzuru fushimi

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therecoveringcatho-holic · 5 years

Text

mannn.. life is just getting so much better!!! i just have to share where i'm at y'all bc ive been pretty excited about who i'm becoming bc i'm actively working on my spirit and who i am thru Christ.

first off - i'm fortunate for past, current and future *pain* bc it's brought me many blessings and will continue to bring me more.. just watch. it's just all about perspective and mines slowly but surely turning around! 💕 pain is a blessing bc without it we wouldn't know joy & we wouldn't be able to help others with similar problems!! i def struggle with my own share of health issues, a lot more at 31 than i ever wanted to have but i gotta be realistic about it: i treated my mind, body and spirit like a trash can off and on for the better part of a decade, i have trauma that i wouldn't dive into - like for real, for real - until 2 years ago or so bc i kept wanting to mask it. all that did was make it fester and then i projected it on others so what should i expect you know?? i used to complain constantly that 'life is not fair' and until very recently, i couldn't turn that around in my head and look at it positively .. like I AM ACTUALLY GLAD it's not bc if it was fair then i should have died yearssss ago.. one way or another esp if you look at it from a scientific standpoint. i may not know what my purpose is in life y'all but it's not my job to figure that out, it's my job to trust The Lord and His plan for me even if it doesn't always make sense to me. He is a God beyond my understanding and letting Him run the show makes life a lot better. we're not meant to have it easy but we weren't designed to make it so hard on ourselves or others either. He provides us the tools, it's just a matter of if we choose to use them or not. we all struggle so let's help each other out but the right thing is usually not the easy one so be proud of yourself when you make good decisions, no matter how small. the small things become big things; choices become habits -- that can be good or bad so make it a good thing 😘

one main problem i've always struggled with is consistency, esp when it comes to obeying The Lord. i am finally aware that my behavior does NOT affect Gods love for me bc He's an unconditional, loving God but my behavior dictates how much easier or harder life becomes for me.. and it's a daily thing y'all but it is for a lot of people, not just me. i just know that when i impulsively react to somebody or something, my

m o u t h is the first to go 😬😏SOOOO now im pretty good at waiting it out and if i think the same thing 2 mins later or so, you bet i'm gonna say it bc i'm blunt like that and i don't care to sugarcoat my thoughts BUT i also don't have to be hateful/disrespectful about it.. so that's been a turn around, for sure! 🙏 most people have a filter and i seem to lack one so i'm trying to develop one.. haha, it's funny but it's not at the same time.. actually it's been quite debilitating, really. my impulsivity and my mouth have burnt a lot of bridges in my life. not everybody or everything deserves a reaction and i don't need to waste my energy on things that arent my business -- and huge surprise here guys -- there is a LOT of stuff that is not my business so i take my nose out of it now 😜. i thrived off the drama and chaos for so long bc i didn't wanna look inward at myself and work on what was actually wrong -- which was me and my spirit. i am blessed for awareness and personal perspective.. it is everything.

ive been going back to AA and someone mentioned that theyve been praying for people that they have issues with, don't like or whatever the case may be and it's been helping them change their reaction/perspective towards that individual. at the end of the day, people are gonna do what they're gonna do but the way i choose to respond to it says everything about me, not them. that's why i love "The Four Agreements" book so much -- seriously life changing bc it's helped me realized that like i had so much displaced anger for so long and made it about everybody else and "what they did to me" , how "i'm not like everybody else", "why do they have a career / family / house and i don't?" WHATEVERRRR blah blah blah 😑 when at the end of the day, it had nothing to do with them. i was unhappy with myself, pissed that i got "cursed" with alcoholism and depression, sleep issues, etc. so instead of looking at it my difficulties as strengths and blessings, i had my own definition of what successful, happy people looked like or what they had and i was straight up mad and jealous of y'all. like how dare y'all have it so easy, right?! 🙄 omg hahaha how delusional is that!!! NOBODY has it easy!!! we all have something man and just because others may not see it doesn't mean it's not there!!!

"be kind.. for we are all fighting a battle others know nothing about." amen!!

my life has turned out to be nothinggggg of what i thought it was gonna be .. and i'm at a place of acceptance about it now and what a blessing it is to feel at peace more often than not. i think the real definition of serenity is when you stop wishing you had a different past and appreciate what God trusted you to go thru bc He knew Y O U could handle it 🥰

my alcoholism has about damn killed me but i'm resilient and ive been able to help others who battle my demon too; my depression has helped me understand deep sadness and how not running away or being scared of somebody bc of that can really change another persons life for the better.. one conversation can literally save somebody's life so don't underestimate what it means when someone disabled from depresssion reaches out to you bc you could be a life changer to them, i know this from experience. sleep issues suck but i've had a lot of deep, thought provoking conversations at 3a, ill tell ya that! but lately i sleep better bc i'm getting the garbage out of my soul and giving myself some grace. i'm blessed to not hold on to people who left me during my darkest hour bc they weren't meant to see me grow and to take part in my joy now.. it's all how you look at it!! i tried holding on to soooo many people for so long and now i just feel free of that negativity .. and i'm sure some people feel the same about me these last few years.. i was very toxic to some people so they were right to let me go as well. there's always two sides to everything y'all -- like be blessed for those who have let you down!! now you have room for people who are loyal and worth your damn time!! but as i just mentioned, i had to look in the mirror though and humble myself bc at one point or another, i was "that person" on more than one occasion that let somebody down and perspective on that is key to moving forward and not hurting somebody like that again. hurt people hurt people and i was the queen of that. when i get what i feel is a proper amount of time under my belt, i have so many amends to make that its quite.. sick, really. in the 5 years i've been in and out of AA, ive only been told to F off and/or burn in hell twice after trying to make an amends so that's better than i deserve lol most have been receptive of my amends but this will be the second round for some of those same people and i don't expect the same forgiveness i got the first time bc i don't deserve it. i'll also be frank with you .. some people i don't want to make amends to bc i don't feel they deserve it so clearly i still have work to do on my heart and hopefully thru the program and in time, i will feel differently but right now that's honestly how i feel.

to sum it all up, here are some things that help me:

-if you have to hide it, don't do it. -chaos always proceeds change.

-people will treat you with as much respect as you show yourself (thank you Lord for helping me with this one!!)

-validation may come from other people but that's just temporary. if you ain't happy in YOUR heart, with who YOU are.. check your morals and standards my dear! it doesn't matter if the entire world thinks you're great -- you need to KNOW & BELIEVE you are and that begins with the belief system you set for yourself!

- the saying "one foot in front of the other" goes a long way.. act blessed and you'll become blessed; no matter how stupid it sounds in your head, talk kindly to yourself until you believe it -- affirmations work, i swear!!! most importantly, show others grace so you'll eventually show yourself some 💕

i am a sinner but i am not my mistakes. my alcoholic demon is strong but God is stronger.. and thru Him, so am i. without my community from TN to NC to GA, my friends, my family of choice, my medical team and The Lord God, id be an empty shell of a person still at the bottom of a bottle at all hours of the day wanting to die every second i was breathing.. yes, it got that bad more times than i can count so THANK YOU to everyone who has given a shit about me and this crazy life i've had!!! once i realized that roughly 10% of my life is whats happened to me and came to accept that 90% of my life were problems that i created myself, was when i was able to become grateful for all the problems i DONT have & blessed that although some bridges are forever burned, there are many that are not!!! if i continue to act right, i have beautiful opportunities to improve myself and my relationships, the most important one being with God.

i know ive got some haters but i don't view them as enemies anymore bc i don't like harboring anger in my heart anymore .. it doesn't feel good and it only speaks to my own personal insecurity when i've talked poorly of somebody in the past. ive never quoted tupac in my life but there's a first time for everything 🤣 "i want you to eat, just not at my table." to the people i don't like and to those that don't like me, let's pray for each other. everybody deserves happiness and to thrive in their own way.. i'm not gonna be apart of some people's lives and BOTH of us are better because of it! God, i loveeee acceptance!!!! 🙌

above all.. do & be YOU, boo boo!

if it matters any, i think you're pretty great! 😋😙

as alwaysss, much love from knox & prayers to friends in mid tenn!! hope everyone is safe!! 🙏

xoxo

kels

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jess-oh · 5 years

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reflection

hey journal,

im not fine. but im trying to be. or at least trying to pretend that im fine.

im surprisingly good at pretending im fine when im not. the reality is, i still feel so miserable. i tried to just drown my sorrows away in the form of food and YouTube videos and i am left feeling just as empty as I did on Saturday. Listening to, “I’m Fine” over and over and over has allowed me to at least try and convince myself that im fine.

i am upset with Amanda but it’s not because of anything she did wrong so i dont want to tell her why. im trying to protect the people i care about. i know im being irrational and just overthinking all of this and i just need to solve it and get over it to preserve my image and be of the utmost help for other people.

i dont want to tell jason how im feeling bc im worried he’ll just get mad and i know ive been too reliant on him in the past and i feel bad that i wasnt able to help him in the same way. i was sad he got more letters than me in his journal? well hes also just a better person than me. a part of me feels like i deserve the same amount, if not more letters than him because i put so much more effort into movement than he did. he never came out to the bible studies or prayer meetings and missed a whole bunch of sundays and i did my best to come out to every sunday and saturday and have been active on tuesdays. i feel like i do and sacrifice so much for movement but in the end, it doesnt even matter.

i feel really broken and i dont know why.

but ultimately, i know jason did better than me. bc he actually genuinely cared. i was just trying to prove i was worth something. i didnt act out of care. i acted out of pride. and people knew. their job isnt to reach out to me and give me a pat on the back for all the things ive done. their job has been to receive and act naturally in accordance with how God wants them to live. and i havent encouraged them. ive judged them. did i even do anything worthwhile this past year besides just leeching off other people? was i just a shitty person entirely?

im fine.

even when jason did feel down in the dumps, he still did care for them. i didnt. i just pushed people away.

i tried to be transparent and open and for what?

i think it encouraged joyce to speak up a couple times maybe. and i am glad david prayed for me. but as a whole, did i really ever do anything meaningful or worthwhile? or was it just all for show to make myself feel better.

i feel like im losing amanda.

i dont want her to feel bad for me or reach out to me just because she can. i want to actually be loved and cared for and i dont believe she does feel that way towards me anymore. i feel like ive been left behind. again.

and i know this was never her intention and i do genuinely want her to be happy which is why im journaling about all this instead of telling her how i feel. because i dont want her to feel guilty for the choices she made and i do genuinely want her to be happy. i know that she has been quietly suffering for a long time now and i do really want her to get better and if she is encouraged and challenged to do that through Johnathan, then so be it. I would rather she get help, even if it isnt from me. i do really care for her and love her and i want to write her and the rest of the MAST members a letter soon but i cant think super clearly right now.

i just keep beating myself up over and over and over for the things that i couldve done better. i couldve been a better friend. i couldve been more open. more attentive. more caring. more understanding. more open-minded. but i didnt.

and i guess the only thing to do from here is move on and look forward and figure out what i can do better.

i want to know what i can do better and the areas in which i fell short but im also so scared of finding out bc i already hate myself so much anyway and being told what i failed at would only add to this already heavy burden.

im fine.

i also just feel really bad because i feel like im taking such a huge step back by pushing people away and isolating myself. i know i have grown a lot this past year and i have been able to become more trusting of those around me and it has been really nice to know that i am cared for and loved by others. and in acting like how i am now, im worried pjosh and other people wont be proud of me anymore or the ways that i have grown.

have i even really grown at all? or was i always just forcing myself to make a different choice but now im just reverting back to how i naturally handle things? i dont want to disappoint them. i dont want to seem like a failure.

and God, i want to rely on you. I really do. But I can’t. Because at the end of the day, as much as I want to believe you and trust you and your pain, I really can’t understand why you’ve let me be in and put me through so much suffering and for so long. What did I do to deserve so much misery? I can’t handle it on my own anymore. I really can’t. It’s consuming me from the inside out.

i really want to call amanda and just clear everything up with her and be honest with her but i also dont want to hurt her. i know i can be too open and share too much and i dont want people to think something is mentally wrong with me bc that just means people will always look at me differently and pity me and never actually see me as human and i dont want that.

when i asked amanda what we should do with our small group and proposed hanging out in evanston instead, i was hesitant to ask at all because i knew what the “right” move to make was and wasnt sure if we should just opt for the easier route so more people could come.

and i was worried she would just say it’d be better for more people to come so we should just all meet in evanston instead. i was surprised when she actually mentioned how the original agreement was to meet in chinatown so thats what she wanted to do. and with that, i pushed for chinatown again and was thoroughly surprised when david actually decided to come through and travel with us. and i was really happy we all got to spend that time together. it was only once and i was so discouraged everyone bailed last minute. but the fact seoyeon and david did come was really heartwarming and encouraging to me. and it was for her too. our kids are growing up.

im also salty that a good handful of our members wished for more small group outings. which, i understand. but, i feel like theyre discrediting the fact that amanda and i really tried to plan outings but things fell apart bc of their schedules a lot of the time. whether it was bc people backed out last minute or we couldnt find a time when we were all free or people half hearted committed but flaked out when the time actually came closer and didnt took it as seriously. i get that other groups, especially p. josh’s, had more hangouts and i am genuinely happy for them. and maybe our group wanted to have more fun times like that.

was i just too serious this past year? and i didnt have as much fun as amanda? i always perceived her non-seriousness as a bad thing bc i thought she was just using it as a front to cover how much pain she was actually in. when she cried with me and actually shared her fears and insecurities, i felt how genuine that was. her normal “fake” personality didnt seem genuine to me. but maybe i was wrong. she does seem genuinely happy now. and im happy for her too.

i know i have a big mouth and have spoken when it wasnt my place to and i am getting better at managing it. i just didnt realize shutting my mouth would hurt me so much.

everytime jason has given me one of these “talks” on what i can work on, i end up feeling more hurt than challenged to do better. and i am actively trying to work on everything he told me to do and i know he told me out of a place of care. but now i just feel so paranoid that i am constantly being judged and messing up in ways that im not even aware of. and it sucks.

but i also dont want jason to not tell me ways i can improve bc i do genuinely want to know and how to grow and get better.

i had the opportunity to go to northwestern and hangout with familiar people again yesterday but i didnt go. because i was afraid of seeing amanda and johnathan there. and i was afraid of feeling left out.

even though i didnt know anyone on the softball team and i was the only college student there, it was so much easier for me to be happy with them. i made friends and i didnt care what i said or how i was being perceived. i just did my best to boost our team’s morale and cheer everyone on and that made me feel genuinely better. even if it was just for a few hours. i didnt care how i acted and chances are, i wouldnt interact or even see them ever again. or at least not for a while. but with the college kids, i dont understand why it’s so hard for me to be real with them. i am so much more afraid of being judged and gossiped about bc i know i have to keep working with them and i will see them again the next sunday. or the next. or the next. or the next.

i got along really with songbee the other day and being friends with her makes me feel like im betraying jason bc i know he doesnt get along with her very well.

i got along really well with jennie lee the other day. why is it so much easier for me to get along with adults? anyway,

we got along really well and i definitely want to keep in contact with her and get to know her better. we joked around a lot and it was fun!

maybe thats why i get along better with the adults. because i have such a surface level friendship with all of them. but with movement, ive been open and vulnerable and i actually have more to lose so im more afraid to be myself.

hm.

but yeah, i just hung out with jenny chang’s family after and i really valued our time together and how much they take care of me. they feel like my picture perfect family that i never had growing up. they’re what i always imagined a family should look like. but mine never fit that description.

#reflection #im not fine #im not even close to okay

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themoneybuff-blog · 5 years

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Inspiration from Sathya Sai Baba, Stephen Fry, Son Volt, and More

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Bob Dylan on regrets I dont believe in regrets. Regrets just keep you chained to the past. You gotta make peace with the past. Theres no reason to regret it. Youve done it, just make peace with it. Bob Dylan A few weeks ago, I was digging through some very old journal entries, some of my oldest ones from the mid-1990s. I read an entry about an old friend of mine who passed away several years later. Our friendship had faded and I actually didnt hear about his passing for a while, well past his funeral, and it filled me with huge regret when I heard about it and I actually felt some regret when I read this entry. As I thought about him, Im reminded of what one of the best people Ive ever known, who Ill call Tony, once said about friendships. He told me that some friendships are for a day, some are for a season, and some are for a lifetime. They all fill a need for us, but its okay for some friendships to only be for a day and its okay for some friendships to only be for a season. Just dont let them end with a cruel word. We were great friends at a key point in both of our lives and then our lives went in different directions. I dont recall ever saying anything cruel or intentionally leaving him out; I simply moved several hours away and then, shortly thereafter, he moved away as well and we simply didnt see each other any more. I dont regret letting that friendship end any more. Rather, Im glad we were friends at that time when we needed that other person in our life as someone to hang out with and talk about the inherent difficulties of figuring out what came next in our lives. We both needed that, and then we didnt, and thats okay. [embedded content] This song comes straight out of that time period I wrote about above. This song, the entire album it comes from, and some of the albums of two closely related bands (Wilco and Uncle Tupelo) were the soundtrack of that period in my life. Over the last few weeks, Ive played so many of those albums over and over again, out of a mix of admiration of the beauty of that music as well as the way it can transport me to another place and time if I let it. Music has an ability to do this. Art has an ability to do this. Its somehow tied to feelings deep inside of us, and for me, this song taps into that sense of doing something familiar but knowing that the familiar is about to end. I think it comes both from the song itself and from the period of my life that I identify with it. 3. Sathya Sai Baba on when to speak Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence? Sathya Sai Baba Im trying to move in this direction with my own conversation, moving away from meaningless chit chat and trying to save my words for things that actually have meaning and are better than the silence. The big challenge that I often have to overcome with this is that, for several hours a day, Im mostly silent. I work from home, by myself, and theres no reason to talk. Thus, when my kids and my wife get home, Im anxious to simply communicate with another person and sometimes Ill end up just talking for the sake of talking. Thats a bad habit and I want to trim it out, so Im focusing on being more purposeful with my words. Am I communicating kindness? Am I communicating anything useful? Am I communicating worthwhile information? If not, why speak? 4. The Five Minute Method Im not sure where I picked up this idea, but its something that Ive done both consciously and unconsciously for years and its been particularly powerful as of late. The idea is this: whenever theres something you need to do that you really dont want to do, agree to just do it for five minutes literally setting a timer if you want and then you can quit with no guilt afterwards. Thats it. Dont want to exercise? Agree to just do some exercise for five minutes. If your timer goes off, you can quit, or you can go longer if you want in either case, its a win. Dont want to meditate? Set a five minute timer. Dont want to do that dreadful work task thats hanging over your head? Set a five minute timer. Dont want to dig into that project thats going to take all day? Set a five minute timer. Quit after the five minutes if you want. Do it another day. This really works for me for some reason. Quite often, once the five minutes are up, I want to keep making headway on the project at hand anyway. If I dont, I know I can quit with no guilt because I know I made just a little progress. It goes back on tomorrows to-do list. Try it. Use it with every task that seems miserable in your life. 5. Aaron Sorkin on learning If youre dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If youre smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you. Aaron Sorkin This is spectacular advice. If you want to genuinely understand the world better, surround yourself with people who know things that you do not and learn from them. Theres only one problem with this strategy: there are enough people in the world who are genuinely opposed to being exposed to new ideas that many people have their guard up and immediately get defensive when discussing ideas. If you ask a question, they assume theyre just being attacked by someone who isnt actually genuinely interested in an exchange of ideas, but rather in just creating conflict and discord. In other words, this approach does not work well online outside of specific, carefully moderated situations. It works best face to face, with people youre interacting with directly and who you have some form of real life social connection with. It is that social connection that encourages those involved to put down their defensiveness and exchange ideas. Its why I go to meetups. Its why I like to go to lectures and presentations when I can. Its why I often have really deep discussions with friends I trust. Its why I read books that challenge me. I dont know a lot of things about the world, and even in the areas I do know well, I dont know every perspective or idea. I want to know those things. [embedded content] From the description: Thubten Chodron is a Tibetan Buddhist nun, prolific author, and world renowned teacher. She is the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey, and co-author of a book with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Want to be happy? Join Venerable Thubten Chodron to learn how. By becoming aware of how our actions affect those around us, as well as ourselves, she offers ways to identify and overcome our self-centered attitude that pretends to look out for our welfare, but is actually self-sabotaging and primes us to make unwise choices. The core idea that she presents is that taking purely self-centered actions ones where we dont even consider the impact on others rarely brings us lasting happiness. Rather, considering how the things we do affect others and filtering what we do to center more on things that benefit others and ourselves often becomes a source of lasting happiness. Think about the things you do in a given day. How many of them are things that you do entirely because they benefit you? How many of those things are things that youve even considered in terms of how they affect people besides yourself? Heres a good practice: spend a day logging everything that you do. Then, a day or two later, go through that log and ask yourself how many of those things were done solely because they benefited you. Then, for each of those things, consider alternative things you could have done that might have been good for others, too, without shortchanging yourself (or only having a minor relative drawback for you). I did this a week or so ago and I found a lot of little things that I could do differently. It was pretty surprising how I could tweak lots of little things in my life to be a little less self-centered without adding a whole lot of effort, and then doing things in the less self-centered way felt a whole lot better. For example, I redid my morning routine so that I could make a better breakfast for my kids; in the end, it didnt cost me any time, but by thinking of things in terms of them, they wound up with a better breakfast most mornings that they could eat with their dad. 7. Malcolm Gladwell on self-contradiction If you dont contradict yourself on a regular basis, then youre not thinking. Malcolm Gladwell Its worth noting here that Gladwell is talking about contradicting yourself in terms of ideas, not in terms of behavior or lying about what youre up to. His point is that if youre actually thinking about an idea and turning it over and over in your head, your understanding of that idea deepens and your opinions on that idea likely change a little, and that results in your current views and comments potentially seeming hypocritical compared to earlier views and comments. I think its good for society to move past looking at a persons evolving views as being a bad thing. We should want people to turn over ideas in their head, understand them better, and thus evolve their views on those ideas. Sticking to the same ideas in the face of a lot of contradictory evidence isnt a good thing. Its not hypocritical to change your views when you learn new information. A person who does this isnt a hypocrite. Rather, theyre just being thoughtful. 8. Heath Ledger on happiness Everyone you meet always asks if you have a career, are married, or own a house, as if life was some kind of grocery list. But no one ever asks you if you are happy. Heath Ledger This is a good point, but its also a difficult one. Having a conversation with someone about whether they are happy feels really awkward. Asking someone if theyre happy often opens the door to a conversation that most people dont want to have even with people theyre very close to. Ive been turning this over in my head for a long time and lately Ive moved to using a pretty standard conversation starter that I think hits on this in a meaningful way. I simply ask people Whats good in your life right now? If they dont seem sure of what I mean, I explain it simply: What have you done lately that youve really enjoyed? Have you read a good book? Watched a good movie? Spent time with someone cool? Finished off a big project? I find that almost everyone has something they can talk about here, and its usually something that gets them excited and positive and animated. Not only that, I learn about all kinds of interesting things, and I usually learn something pretty interesting about that person, too. This is the single best free introductory course to computer programming that I have ever found. If I were to point someone toward a resource from which they could learn the basics of computer programming without shelling out significant cash, this would be it. The catch is that its an online course that runs somewhat irregularly. Its often hard to catch it right when it starts sometimes itll be in the middle of a session and other times its not running at all. Im mentioning it here because a new session of this class starts at the beginning of June. Its completely free and its really, really good. This is highly recommended if youve ever wanted to dig into computer programming a little to understand what exactly it is. This is good teaching at its finest. 10. Jim Rohn on discipline and regret We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. Jim Rohn I have dropped this quote before in inspiration columns, but it has been incredibly powerful for me over the years. In general, you have two choices most of the time. You can be disciplined right now, or you can have regrets later on. You can eat that unhealthy meal right now (no discipline) and suffer some negative health effects down the road (regret), or you can eat a healthy meal now (discipline) and be fitter and healthier in life (no regret). You can spend your money on something frivolous (no discipline) and then have to deal with financial difficulties later on (regret), or you can skip by most unnecessary expenses (discipline) and achieve your big financial goals (no regret). Its true for many of lifes challenges exercise, building relationships, and so on. We always have a choice discipline or regret. The catch, of course, is that discipline isnt very painful at all often just a little uncomfortable at the moment while regret can be incredibly painful and long lasting. 11. My in-laws My wifes parents both recently retired. They spent the last decade or so really stabilizing their finances so that they could afford to retire and still enjoy travel and doing things with their grandchildren and having hobbies. They visited us for the first time since theyve both retired and I swear I could tell a difference with them. They both just seemed a little more relaxed, but at the same time, a little more interested in doing things. Often in the past, they would visit us and both seem a bit tired from their busy lives and would treat their visit as a mini-vacation of sorts where they could relax. When they came up this time, they wanted to help us with a couple minor home improvement projects and they threw themselves into painting a room with gusto. They seemed upbeat and happy and possibly more energetic than Ive seen them in a while. They talked about things they wanted to do in the very near future and seemed excited about all of it. In other words, theyre doing exactly what I want to do when I retire. 12. Stephen Fry on depression If you know someone whos depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isnt a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Stephen Fry Ive had periods of deep melancholy in my life that probably swung into mild depression, though I was never treated for it. I went through most of a year once where I had minimal motivation to do much of anything at all other than the absolute bare minimum. It took me a long time to climb out of that hole. Lately, Ive been watching a good friend of mine fall into that kind of depression spiral. Hes gradually become more and more withdrawn from me and from other mutual friends. He doesnt respond to text messages or other methods of communication much at all. Even when I do manage to get him out of the house, hes largely uncommunicative. I know from others that he rarely leaves his home. I am really at a loss as to what I can do to help. In the end, I think the best thing I can do is to just keep inviting him to do things, keep sending him positive things about the things weve had a shared interest in, keep checking in and poking without actually talking about the elephant in the room that is depression. If he does decide to talk about it, Ill just listen and empathize, but I wont push him to talk about it. I want him to remember that people care about him without blatantly saying people care about you. I miss him. I wish I had a magic way to help, but I dont. Rather, I think the best thing I can do is to just not let that thread of connection between us wither and die, not push him to talk about the depression, but rather to talk about the positive things we share and if he decides to open up about it, Ill just listen and be supportive and not try to jam my own experiences into it. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/inspiration-from-sathya-sai-baba-stephen-fry-son-volt-and-more/

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viralhottopics · 8 years

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How I Survived Cutting Out Dairy For A Full Week

Quitting dairy was the very last item on my Find Out Whats Causing My Chronic Congestion to-do list. Ive been struggling with this issue since I moved to Tampa five months ago, and I am pretty sure its related to allergies, but I wanted to exhaust every possible scenario before opting for an ENT specialist. So far I have tried: prescription allergy meds, saline sprays, a neti pot, hypoallergenic pillows, a humidifier, an essential oil diffuser, nasal sprays, and Breathe-Right strips. I even had the maintenance team at my apartment community do a mold inspection. Though, since these apartments were built in 2014, I was pretty certain they wouldnt find anything. They didnt.

So, dairy. Dairy is on the list of things to eliminate if you struggle with congestion. Ive always had a certain sensitivity to milk, but its never been something that has affected my life so much that I needed to eliminate it. I just need to be close to a bathroom after drinking a Frappuccino, is what Im saying. But, I figured, lets try eliminating dairy! Who knows maybe my sensitivity morphed into a full-blown allergy and just randomly coincided with my move. Stranger things have happened, right?

Last week, I eliminated dairy from my life and it led to some really interesting epiphanies on my end. First of all, I never realized how much dairy I consume on a daily basis. I drink a cup of coffee with full-fat creamer most mornings. I like pizza and pizza rolls and cheddar-and-bacon potato skins and cereal with cows milk and sub sandwiches with mayo and butter on my veggies. I like cheese string cheese, feta cheese, mozzarella cheese, all of the cheese. And chocolate. Oh, do I love chocolate. Milk chocolate, not dark chocolate. I love creamy, delicious, soothing milk chocolate.

My diet? Was going to have to go through a drastic shift for this dairy-free experiment.

But I did it. I went a week without eating dairy. (Mostly, I had some oops-I-didnt-realize-this-contained-dairy-until-I-ate-it moments.) It was a good week and it was a bad week, and I want to start with what didnt go so well.

It was boring.

I derive a lot of enjoyment from food, and I love looking forward to a meal. I did not look forward to any of my meals during this experiment. What I ate was fine: Nutrigrain waffles with peanut butter, salads, clementines, chicken and rice, etc. But it was just food. It tasted good, but it didnt excite me. I want my food to excite me.

Dairy is in every good thing in this world.

Eating out was fairly impossible, which is why it only happened twice for me. I even had to turn down pizza and cake at my nephews birthday party, and I think I may have hurt my sister-in-laws feelings in the process. (Oof. Not intentional!) And dairy is in. I didnt realize this until I started taking a look at the ingredient list for many of my favorite foods. How does someone with a sweet tooth eat dairy-free? Riddle me this, Batman, I want to know.

I was so hungry the whole week.

This was probably the hardest part of this week. I washungry every single day. It makes sense, though: dairy has a lot of protein and in the process of eliminating dairy, I essentially eliminated a good chunk of protein. Rookie mistake.

The first few days were outrageously hard.

But arent they always?It was hard not to give up. I desperately wanted to in those first few days when I was so hungry. I knew I just needed to get over a hump, and it would be smooth sailing from there, but man, getting over that hump is so damn hard.

Okay, so now that Ive laid out the difficult parts of last week, lets dive into the positive aspects of my dairy-free experiment!

Ienjoy eating healthy

I know this contradicts my first point above, but hear me out. Eating healthy does not come naturally to me. I dont reach for fruits and veggies, lean meats and brown rice. I reach for the bad stuff and I eating the bad stuff. I do not naturally eating the good stuff, but when I do force myself to eat it, I realize I enjoy healthy foods and its tasty. Healthy food can taste good! (Rinse and repeat.)

I slept better and felt more energized than I have in a while

Sigh, this happens when I clean up my diet and start exercising more frequently. My sleep improves! I feel great! My energy levels are up! And yet Ive never been able to stick with eating healthy for the long-term. But this week lets just say I finally slept soundly, which leads into the next point.

My congestion (mostly) cleared up

!!!!! Okay, okay, I was hoping the congestion wouldnt clear up because I didnt want to actually have to consider eliminating dairy full-time.But my congestion really cleared up. Not completely, but enough to make a huge difference in my sleep and, to be dramatic, my life.

So, where do I go from here?

Essentially, eliminating dairy from my diet did exactly what I wanted it to do it helped to clear up my congestion. That said, I am going to see a doctor about my congestion. My congestion never fully went away, so I think its time to get a specialist involved.

Even still, I am truly interested in eating mostly dairy free. It was a hard week, I wont lie, but it also felt really good. I lost 3 lbs, which is a feat for me lately, and I was sleeping better. I want to aim for the 80/20 rule 80% of the time I eat dairy free with 20% allowed for indulgences. Pizza with friends, dessert at book club, things like that.

My plan for the week after my dairy-free experiment was to begin reintroducing different dairy products into my diet to test how my body reacted to them. And Ive been doing that, and in the process, my congestion has come back with a vengeance. It is quite frustrating, but it just shows me that my body is now reacting differently to dairy than it has in the past. Thats life, right? Bodies are weird, complex organisms and we have to learn how to adapt to them.

Im really glad I experimented with eliminating dairy, and now Im excited to figure out how to lead a dairy-free existence. Ive already discovered vegan mayonnaise (Veganaise), which I find to be incredibly delicious. This weekend, Im going to try my hand at vegan baking (< something I never thought Id say.)

Also? Im really proud of myself for sticking with eating dairy-free, especially when it was intensely difficult, and not giving up. Thats something to be proud of, no matter what.