#my sleep schedule doesnt exist anymore i think

[ritz-writes]

Me: *sees the sun has risen*

Me: ah, time for bed

[sneakyspades]

ok yknow what im just gonna straight up vent about work rn bc i ran out of tags on the other post

its become such a fucking shitshow down there jesus christ i cannot fucking stand it anymore. communication doesnt exist, i dont even remember the last time back of house had a fucking meeting. the owner pushed for us to stay open during a blizzard where it was a wind chill of -40. i mean holy fuck, the city said dont travel unless its an emergency

i had issues on sunday that i wasnt sure about, but our chef was out of town doing a show with his band, and our sous chef was sitting at the bar in the restaurant a good 5 or 6 beers deep by the time i ran into this problem. i asked the other supervisor (who agrees with me that this is a shitshow) and he wasnt sure either so we straight up guessed

i only make 15 an hour despite having been there for a whole fucking year, because i only get supervisor pay when im clocked in as supervisor. which is a measly 8 of my 40 hours. but god forbid i dont act like a supervisor for all 40 hours

insurance is unsustainably expensive there. my coworker who makes 13.50 an hour takes home *more than i do per paycheck* at this point. and he works 32 hours! i havent taken home more than 750 a pay check since getting insurance! i used to be grossing 1000! IM LITERALLY PAYING 175 DOLLARS EVERY PAY CHECK! AND THATS ABOUT TO GO UP TO ALMOST 180 WHEN I TURN 27! im not making any fucking money! im not getting any savings!

not to mention they fucked up my insurance not that long ago! i was told at the doctors office and the pharmacy that i had zero coverage! but they were still taking money from my fucking paycheck for it! like holy fuck i shouldve talked to goddamn lawyer about that instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt!

i was 110% fine with making 15 an hour and doing nothing but pizzas. because the trade off was that i could cut out early, i could trade shifts, if i got sick it wasnt fucking everyone else over. but now i cant do any of that. i have to close on saturdays, dont get home and in bed until 1:30 some nights, and then have to get up and go do a 10 hour shift every sunday. every weekend! every fucking weekend! and im the only one that does that anymore! im not the only one doing a double on sunday, but im the only one who has to close the night before. and because im just exhausted by the end of a sunday, my mondays are practically wasted because im catching up on sleep!

i like. cant fucking do this anymore. i cant think of any reason why im still there. i could go worl at fucking sams club in the bakery, start at the same wage (if not more), have *less* responsibilities, be doing something i want to do, and they close at 8 every day. i dont think theyre even open on sundays!

why am i still working there? its not sustainable for me anymore. my body is fucked. its falling apart ahead of schedule. i cant even open my door in the morning because of carpal tunnel. im 26 and when i crouch down i cant always get back up. the other night my ankle just started popping every time i turned around. what am i doing? what am i doing. i dont know.

i dont even have energy left over to draw. or make stained glass. or even do a discord call. the last time i had an actual date with my partner was, what, like 4 fucking months ago? i dont have any energy left over. im using it all for a place that i dont enjoy working at anymore, and i know i wont get better hours. our sous chef has been here since the place opened and he only has night shifts. the only day he doesnt is sunday. which is 8am to 3pm.

our new hire has sunday-monday off. why cant i have that? i want a weekend day off. its not gonna happen in this industry. its not gonna happen in this kitchen. i cant do this for the next however many years,

[empiresblrmybeloved]

One day left.

So uh, bit of a long read but if your willing, click read more.

Dear Future Z,

How's life been treating you so far? Did our family ever accept us? I hope so, how's the vtubing going, is it going at all? Do you have an OK sleep schedule? How's the drinking coming along, have you sobered up a bit? I hope your doing well by now, are you gonna go to college? What are you planning to study now? How about your freinds? Are.you still in touch with Starshell, Icarus, and Fallen Stars? What about Ray? Or Draven and Sam? How was Halloween? How do you identify now? Did Carlos ever get you that gc2b binder he said he'd get? Did you graduate? Sorry! Alot of questions, but im curious, and excited, oh! I should tell you about myself!

Our family doesn't accept us, but the number 333 has been popping up alot, like it has since we realized we were trans! The number means to take a bold leap forward. I think moving out is gonna be our bold leap! Vtubing, it's starting, streaming to freinds for now, but im excited for the future! I.. it's almost 11pm when I'm writing this, I have no sleep schedule! The drinking is uh. Not the best, I learned from our dad, but I don't drink as much as I did when I was 16! Can't even finish a whole Beast Unleashed can anymore! Getting high asf though. MAN it is weird to DM while high, it's fun though! I think I'm gonna go to college, I wanna study therapy and music production! Right now, I am in touch with all of them! I don't talk with them much now cause of school, but I'm gonna try and chat them up more! Rays gonna be my DM, Draven is in my poly, actually considering from breaking off from him,, I don't know, our feelings have been a mess, sam,, eeeh, we exchange trans tips and witchy tips every so often! I do numerology readings. I've called people out with UNO cards. Halloween!!! Our mom is letting us celebrate, albeit, she's making us go as a hufflepuff, but the fact is, she's letting us celebrate. This is gonna be our first Halloween!!!! Still a trans pansexual! I'm gonna bug Carlos abt the binder tommorow, promise! And I don't know if I will, I got alot of catching up to do..

Listen, if things have gone to shit, and we did something stupid.. I just hope things are better now, but, in gonna hold out hope- my goal is to get 2 months clean, dod we ever reach that goal? I hope so..

I hope your happier now.

Sincerely, Past Z, September 12, 11:01pm.

[And, the response..]

Dear, Everyone...Life isn't doing the best. But I'm trying, that counts for something I'm sure. Our family didn't accept us. It's dangerous here, but we're getting out, we have too. Our sleep schedule, uh. Non existent, sorry about that. I don't drink anymore, I use weed! :> college isnt actually needed! Im becoming a tax preparer and that doesnt need college! Still in touch with icarus and starshell, havent talked to sam in a while, Rays been close, pur Taurtis fictive is going on a date with their sam on the 5th! Draven can rot in fucking hell, bastard. We didn't do Halloween, we do have a binder though! Gc2b and it's RAINBOW! And– we fucking did it. We graduated. I didn't think we would. None of us did..Our family hasnt changed, but weve been seeing 333, 222, and 555 arpund alot. Positive changes. I hope I'm making the right decision moving out, its scary... we had to stop tubing cause our pc fucking DIED its almost tomorrow when writing this and i am wide awake, i still dont have a sleep schedule. I don't drink, I get high, it's good, I've learned to hide it– I haven't DMd since icarus and Jon came over last year, but yeah, existing while being high is nice. Helps, alot. Veil is with Ray, and Creed is poly with Ray and icarus! We ditched Draven. He was a red flag. Havent dont numerology in a while.. she LIED. She didn't let us celebrate she keeps lying it's horrible. Still a trans pansexual though!...I haven't reached two months, but I did reach a month clean. We were almost two months! Had a week left but, our brother starting saying stupid shit....We don't like this house. They claim their Cristian and forget about love thy neighbor, they'd choose the bear but they don't know that the body's brother is the man we all want to avoid. We dont want to be here any longer. Dad's getting mad because we've been counting down the days till we're 18, moms encouraging us to eat less. Our brother. I don't want to talk about him. It got worse. He did it.... I'll get better once I'm out, I'm sure of it.Sincerely, Future Xander.

[goremet-chef]

maybe ill tell my mom im hungry? im so. my entire LIFE i have always always hated asking for things like so much so that i stopped asking for things on my BIRTHDAY because im like. terrified of being seen as selfish? idk its funny cuz parents will like. god forbid i get a treat when im a kid, then all the grown ups in my life look down and call me spoiled as if they didnt give me the treat, and they still think children arent capable of complex thought so they didnt anticipate that id internalize it for the rest of my life but here we are 😁😁

so i just. god i hate asking for things it makes me feel so shitty but i think shes gonna go somewhere anyways? and EVENTUALLY hes going to run out of things to cook so maybe if i ask she'll bring home some food (vent/rant)

that is one thing that always bothers me tho ive got? idk my mom is. shes my mom i guess, currently she treats me very nicely but when her bf was gone for a few years all that anger was directed at me so yknow. i guess shes over it? or she tries to make up for it, but if im not given an apology, i wont forgive or forget even. it was mutual, lots of arguing on the basis of politics at time, but sometimes it was just fucking nothing, to the point where she'd even admit that i didnt deserve that treatment its just. SIGHHHHH im over it at this point im just trying to get out atp yknow? but like

my sibling asks for LOTS of things. and they get all of them. money for computer parts? sure. money for literally any thing? sure. new game? sure

im not bitter about it, as long as my mom can afford it i dont care. but like....... whenever I ask for things, its usually a no

because of my BPD, i take rejection really hard, its the worst pain in the world so i kinda just stopped asking for anything at all to avoid the feeling. then they always are like "ohh what do you want for yr birthday we cant just get you nothing" but i actually DID ask for something on my birthday. i asked for a copy of pokemon black for the ds. it was the only thing ive directly asked for in years, and i didnt get it which is super embarrassing. like whats the point of bothering me about what i want if you dont listen to me when i do? they always get me what they THINK i want and its this really outdated version of me that doesnt even exist anymore, its makes me dissociate knowing thats what they see me as when im just not that anymore. even when i tell them its null

IDK its jsut a whole thing, idk how to feel about it anymore. its to the point where like. my friends take me out sometimes but i mean. they know im broke, they know i have no job, they know i have no income. but im terrified the entire time that theyre gonna like. ask me to pay or something, and i always do my best to just do nothing when we go out cuz i really like. even when they offer to get me things it makes me feel so fucking shitty man i feel like im just leeching off of them even when they offered. even when they tell me they like getting me things it just. it feels so bad. and GOD its embarrassing, when we're walking around stores and all im doing is just following them around because i have like FIVE DOLLARS in my pocket at most. things like that make me want to never leave my house again, it just sucks.

im jealous of them if im honest, because they have jobs and i dont. but i dont think? i genuinely am unsure id ever be able to get a job. im not well adjusted like them, im constantly dissociating, constantly tired, my sibling yesterday, i made a comment about my mom leaving without telling me at all and he was like "well she said she was leaving on the weekend didnt she?" like yes, she did, but i genuinely have no idea what day it is at any given point. all i know is the number, i dont know the day of the week ever.

like im so. fucked, im fucked! totally, even if i managed to get me shit together, relearn the days of the week, set a good sleep schedule, im fucked anyways because i dont know how to be a person at all. an interview sounds fucking terrifying, ESPECIALLY if i dont know the questions theyre going to ask. i do really REALLY poorly with actual human conversation, like its painful. and pretty much everyone around me thinks im kinda creepy or weird in some way, so theyd DEFINITELY be able to tell. i have no resume, i dont even know what that IS. like im so fucked!! i wasnt able to pass highschool, i cant partake in a conversation if i dont somehow have both sides planned perfectly.

little unsure about my odds, gotta be honest

but at the same time like? i keep hearing people say "if you cant work then get disability insurance" am i disabled? everyone around me tells me im just not trying hard enough. they laugh at me when i say i just cant. even if it covers mental illness, i? i dont know. im constantly in denial of things because my family specifically my mom like. a long time ago she told me i just couldnt be autistic, because im "too smart"

?????? it showed me immediately that she has absolutely no fucking idea what shes talking about ever, i bet she couldnt list more than 2 symptoms of autism like genuinely. im not even smart also????? maybe id be a genius, if i could retain information after 5 minutes 💀💀 its complete bullshit man, im just. im at a loss

and then they have the audacity to mock me for not knowing how to be a person in the world, when THEY shouldve taught me. it was THEIR job to help guide me through it, and they didnt. they laugh and roll their eyes and scoff when i tell them oh i dont know how to use a stove, i dont know what food stamps are i dont know how to dress for a job interview ETC

they expect ill know, that i wouldve jsut picked it up over time but surprise! i didnt. i need instruction i need CLEAR instruction and no one will give it to me. its so frustrating man, they suck ass and they just make me feel WORSE about myself. like good fucking god, give me a break

idk im just. exhausted. im tired of just cramming my problems down because the people around me are incapable of seeing me as anything other than a child, and children dont have problems, right? i have no right to complain if my backs constantly hurting, if im too tired to feed myself properly, if i cant leave my house for 2 seconds without feeling the deepest dread. like be so serious bro

i cant wait to fucking move out, but.. how? my friends said its okay if i cant always make enough money from art to pay rent, but no. i dont believe them at all. theyre just being nice to me and i dont even deserve that, i fucking refuse i cant just. im always dead weight, its so frustrating. it frustrates the people around me, too. i feel like such a fucking burden man, its so tiring. if its not things i just dont know how to do, its fear. oh i cant help clean the garage because its crawling with spiders, i cant take out the trash because the trash bins are crawling with spiders. i cant walk down the stairs because i saw a spider on the ground. they fucking hate me man

i know what they see me as, but i have no idea how to convince them that its not me. they think im rude because i dont know how to properly communicate, i say things and its rude to them and i feel bad because i didnt intend to come off that way. everyone thinks im selfish, they think im overdramatic. exaggerating. if they could live in my head for one day, they wouldnt think that anymore

its so exhausting because you dont even get any sort of sympathy from them! just like. awkward pity, and it makes me wish i was never born. never oh im sorry yr feeling that way, do you wanna talk about it? never

they see me as such an obvious burden but they? i dont know! i genuinely cant understand, they think i just have no complex emotions? they think i cant hear it, cant see it? they think i dont feel like a burden when they tell me i am. its so stupid

i cant stand being around anyone, and it just pushes me FURTHER into dissociation. ive got an interesting thing with that. see, typically when yr dissociate with a dissociative disorder like OSDD or DID, that hazy period in time opens up for another alter to front, you dissociate away and get tucked inside yr head. except i get maladaptive daydreams. so im fully dissociated in another world basically but im still physically present. its like i just always take up space thats never meant for me, in every conceivable way. i hate it.

i know, when i finish typing this, ill feel a lot better. which is just embarrassing, bpd fucking sucks. having no emotional permanence is EMBARRASSING when im over here crying on my knees about my problems and then the second i get it out i feel completely fine. it just makes me invalidate my very real emotions even further and its so.

im just. whatever.

just spit it out and stop looking that way

[ferretrade]

a prequel to the prequel to the grad school something au (1)(2)

For Cody and Obi-Wan, it starts with bumping into each other in the library and making eyes until they strike up conversation and the nerve to go out.  

But it really starts like this:

"My brother's driving me crazy," Anakin groans. He just got off a call with Obi-Wan (who calls anymore when texting exists?) that involved plenty of nagging, when all he wanted to do was hang out with his friend and destroy him at Call of Duty. He drops down on Rex's couch exasperatedly. 

"At least you don't live with yours," Rex answers back, tossing him a controller. "I've been crazy for two years." 

Anakin's mouth screws up. There's never been a competition he didn't try to win, and he isn't about to give up that streak now. "Yeah, well Obi-Wan texts to check in on me like eight times a day! He just called to remind me about Ahsoka's senior showcase, as if I don't see her more than he does." 

"Cody makes weekly schedules and chore charts for everyone." 

"Obi-Wan keeps bringing me leftovers."

"Cody still packs lunches for me." 

"Well." Anakin thinks, running his tongue over his teeth. "Obi-Wan doesnt have friends or a partner, he spends all his time bothering me and Snips." 

Rex snorts. "You think Cody has a life? He hasn't even gotten laid in two years." 

Anakin is about to argue back, but the thought of Obi-Wan sleeping with anyone makes his nose wrinkle and he's not particularly interested in talking about it. "Fine, we're equal," he drawls, a little annoyed about it. "Both our brothers take all their loneliness out on us." 

For a second Rex looks like he wants to argue (stubborn bastard, no wonder they're friends), but then he just shakes his head in agreement. "Too bad they can't find something better to do." 

"Huh." Anakin blinks, a thought popping into his head. A truly awful, amazing, Anakin™ thought. "They both could use a…" Again, the thought of Obi-Wan, basically his second father, and sex makes him grimace. "Night out, right?"

"Yeah," Rex agrees slowly. 

"What if we set them up? Two birds, one stone." Anakin sits up straighter, the plan coming together beautifully in his mind (as long as he ignores the torrid one night stand details of it). 

His partner in crime looks skeptical. "Cody would never go for it." 

Anakin frowns. "Yeah, Obi-Wan probably wouldn't either," he admits. So… what if we don't tell them?" 

"And how exactly do you set someone up without telling them?" Rex asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Anakin grins dangerously. "With great skill. Are you in or out?" 

There's barely a moment of hesitation before Rex nods. "In." 

"Nice. Now all we have to do is give them a little… motivation, and get them in the same place at the same time. Where does Cody go when he's not here?" 

"The library."

[spicy-tomato]

Hello can you do a post about maybe Swaggersouls when he thinks that the reader is bored of him. When she actually was only with zuckles on some party and he thought he was with someone else because she didn't answer the phone. (the battery died) some angst please also have a nice day.

okay lets go boys! this isnt nsfw but its long so im gonna do a keep reading cut. mentions of drug use and alcohol so be warned

You and swagger had been together for about a year now and with his revent streaming schedule it was getting harder and harder to spend time with him. That doesnt mean you dont love him, you just wished he would spend some time with you instead of you falling asleep in an empty bed while he streams. A few days ago you had been invited to a party with mason, so you decided why not? Maybe itll cheer you up after months of going to sleep alone and waking up to a still cold bed. You kept trying to tell swagger but he would just brush you off, so you said fuck it and went.

Zuckles

You here yet cunt?

You sigh and text him back a quick yes before walking in and spotting him. It wasnt a huge party but there were a good few people there, most drinking or smoking on the porch as you smiles and made your way through the crowd.

“Took you long enough! I set up some shots for us” you smile as he passes you a shot glass and you down it quickly. He drags you to the kitchen and sets up more shots. You and him down them quickly before grabbing some beers and moving to the smoke circle, passing the bong in a circle until someone tapped out.

“Thanks for inviting me mase, this is a nice break from whats happening” you sigh and drink more of you beer, finishing it off before standing up. “Do you want anything? Im gonna go grab another beer.” mason shakes his head and you head back to the kitchen and grab a beer before stopping and looking at the table. You see a few bottles of fancy liquor and decide to get some of those instead. Grabbing a cup you mix three of the bottles and drink some. It burns your throat and you gag a little before walking back, determined to finish it and get fucked up. With half the cup down, mason takes it from you with a worried look. “I think youve had enough of that, youre definitely not driving hand me your keys.” you sigh and hand him your bag, dropping your phone in the process to see 15 missed calls from swagger.

“Oh shit” you pick up your phone and rush to the bathroom to call him back.

“Where the fuck are you i was so worried are you okay?” he answers the phone with an anxious tone.

“Like you fucking care, you always choose yours streams over me.” you slur, tears forming in your eyes. Its like i dont exist to you anymore! Im so sick of falling asleep in an empty bed, only having bear there to cuddle. I go to bring you lunch and you tell me to set it on the desk and leave! I feel more like a maid than a partner now!” at this point you were almost sobbing.

“Where are you, im coming to get you.” you sniffle at his answer.

“Im not telling you, i tried to tell you for the past two days but you kept blowing me off, why should you care now?” your face is red and puffy at this point, not sure if youre crying from sadness or anger at this point. “At least mase cares enough to ask how im doing! He took my keys so i cant drive like this!”

“Thats where you are, ill be there in 30 minutes to get you and we can talk about this.” he hangs up and you break down in complete sobs, mason now banging on the door to check on you.

“Let me in, whats wrong?” you shakily unlock the door and he swings it open, grabbing you and pulling you into his chest. You tell him everything, how you feel more like a maid than a partner, how you always wake up without him, how he blows you off or acts like you dont exist, everything. He sighs and holds you closer, petting your hair and trying to calm you down. A slamming door can be heard as swagger gets there, moving quickly to the bathroom and shooting mason a glance that says for him to get out. He quickly stands up and leaves before swagger shuts the door and sits next to you.

“Let me explain...i felt like you were getting sick of me and got scared. I thought if i distanced myself it would hurt less when you ended it. I feel like i havent been enough for you over the past year and i thought you figured that out, that you were going to leave me. I never wanted to hurt you like this i just figured it would be easier for me if i did that.” he sighs and moves a hand to your cheek.

“Why didnt you just talk to me? Why just up and ignore me? I felt like a ghost in our own home” you wipe your eyes and look at him sadly.

“I dont know, i was scared of facing you and hearing you say it to my face. Please, just let me take you home and make it up to you. Let me take care of you through your hangover and take you to breakfast. Let me win you over like the first time again.” you sniffle and smile at him.

“Fine, but i wont be easy to impress this time.” he chuckles and helps you stand up, one arm around your waist to keep you upright as he leads you to the car.

“Ill shoot mason a text and tell him to drop your stuff by the apartment tomorrow.” you nod and step into the car, moving to hold his hand. He quickly accepts and starts a drive home. You start to fall asleep on the way back and once home, he picks you up, carrying you to the bedroom and laying you down softly before crawling up next to you. He moves the covers over the both of you before pulling you to his chest and kissing your head.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” you mumble back half awake.

“Ill never hurt you again”

[patchdotexe]

Explorers of Arvus: uhhhh / 3.23.21

today's notes are different from usual bc. well. you'll see

LAST TIME ON EXPLORERS OF ARVUS i broke my sleep schedule and am barely existing so this is fine. we went back to camp vengeance an uhhhhhhhhhhhh we are now going to fuck off into the forest to die or prove a very important point

oh god we forgot to level up

[mgd voice] BOOSTING NYX TO MAXIMUM LEVEL

im so fuckin tired. what on earth am i doing. how do i level again

k is not here this time but instead we've got mae+nii bonking their heads together to simulate 2 braincells and so far it is not working. i might just have to like fuckin, drop out n zzz partway thru or somethin. would be fun to see how chaotic michael makes charlie in my absensce

oh wait i can do d&dbeyond i think. how do i work this again. will i ever remember i have shield

what level am i. level 6? pog. oh shit i think i have a new thing

. new spell

. 3 total 3rd level spell slots

. bend luck! i can now screw people over on purpose (and will probably use my sorcery points FINALLY)

michael is leveling charlie up bc my brain is apple sos

ASDXFKLJFH I FEEL CALLED OUT zec rb'd my most recent art of MaX with "all i know about xem is that leo likes xem a lot that's the extent of my knowledge" THANK U FOR SUPPORTIN ME ANYWAY

there will be less blaseball distractions than last time bc blaseball is now on siesta. however i will still have MaX brainrot in the background bc i was drawing xem

wyatt mason my beloved

OKAY I GOTTA MUTE THE TACO STAND FOR THE ENTIRETY OF D&D i cannot and will not get distracted. we can do this. we

nintendo wii

we havent even started yet and im already incoherent

ok i have made a decision and that decision is that i do not have the brainpower to play. however i do have the brianpower to take notes hopefully! so ill just like. vibe. this will be a first

oh man im gonan pick up Blink. charlie is gonna be a fucking menace to herself and others

oh my god its not concentration so charlie may continue teleporting while unconscious. thorne is going to hate this

[charlie gets her soul eaten by a ring] [charlie singing dragonston din tei at halvkWAIT JORB HAS A PRIZE

jorb got a thing! an evil genius thing! figure man. fugrine. figuring. help

GREEN HAS DIAGNOSED ME AS TIGREX MONSTERHUNTER i love this

my notes are a disaster. this is so sucks

serotonin is stored in the wiggly zoomy jorb camera

jorb: his pinky is the size of the rest of his fingers

leo: he has a disease

jorb: he has a disease.

jorb: that disease is male pattern baldness

leo: [reduced to tearful giggling for mysterious reasons]

LAST TIME, ON EXPLORERS OF ARVUS: we've returned to camp vengeance! taure is still unconscious, which is not very great. camp vengeance is doin better tho!

michael, as part of the recap: ingrid is getting railed by her new girlfriend,

first dice roll of the day is michael rolled a 1. good start

OH THORNE IS AN ARTIFICER NOW thorne took a level in artificer!

"...it's like figuring out the right mathematical equation to summon a gun."

group is gonna go check out the statue that we passed by now that we're not WHAT DO YOU MEAN PONK AND GEORGE CANONICALLY HAVE IBS thats it im not looking at 772 anymore

im doing a bad job of paying attention but at least im Present

SIERON LEARNED FLY AND USED IT ON CHARLIE

michael: what do you want to do with your new flying powers?

leo: how many problems can i cause in 10 minutes

guard 1: ...why is the halfling flying?

guard 2: [rolls a 3 on intelligence] i think they can just do that

groundhogs, the real scourge of the campaign

silje and sieron are gonna hunt a big elk. they got distracted and sieron is putting grass on silje's head. i think

WAIT WE'RE ON WATCH NOW FUCK

we have discovered kali's tragic backstory whoops

update i am. too sleepy for this. good nigh everyone

[ and then leo went and somewhat took a nap! solar, normally playing thorne, started playing charlie in my stead. @jorbs-palace, local hero, started taking shitpost notes in my stead. ]

jorb's ghostwritten notes for leo:

help solar is immediately doing a cursed voice for charlie. charlie can do so many crimes

congratulations, charlie is now temporarily immortal!

dwarves can hit things with their beard

kali wants to know if she's legally allowed to bail

she'd feel really bad if she had to loot our corpses for payment if we died.

we have entered the Tree Zone

one of the corpses is now a flamingo (has one leg)

silje has decided to stab the ground. take that, dirt

kali was large size for a second there but then she remembered to not be a giant

"you accidentally deleted my cat?!"

silje has learned naruto cloning jutsu

be gone, thot

oh boy, making an int check to look at a statue! 11! silje is dumb apparently.

hmm. the statue has divination magic. it's also affecting silje.

SILJE LEARNED A 6TH LEVEL SPELL? its only single use but still

you solved my statue riddllllleeeee

thorne forgot to have eyes

its a shame mac and cheese doesnt exist in the d&d universe

wizards are just math criminals (the criminal part is setting people on fire)

sieron crit fails a check but it was still a 9 because of having +8

thorne is looking for what's weird!

uh oh music got scary, never a good sign

hmm. those leaves over there weren't dead a moment ago.

UNDEAD TROLL TIME! rolling initiative

"it's ok, im a wizard, it's my duty to be correct." "wow! waow!"

woooah here he comes

IT JUST DID HALF SIERON'S HEALTH AS A PASSIVE END OF TURN EFFECT?

thorne backed up and cast eldri- oh, ray of enfeeblement. character development continues

charlie is going to just blink out of existence for a minute.

big chungus has grabbed silje and sieron. BIG CHUNGUS HAS THROWN SILJE AND SIERON.

sieron is using hit and run tactics! isn't good at his extra attack yet though

silje is activating bid bid blood blood blood

thorne uses beam of skipping your leg day. troll's legs are now skipped.

michael is trying to determine what a 'clavicle' is

"does that mean the star trek kind, or the bdsm kind?"

charlie wants to cast magic missile.

charlie has vanished back into the ethereal plane mid-taunt

silje has decided to not get bitten today

silje may or may not have stats.

oh, right, trolls are weak to fire! and also we forgot to upgrade sieron's firebolt. so it actually hurts now!

silje is full of knives and blades and does 31 damage in one turn!

charlie shouts words of encouragement from the ethereal plane. a nearby ghost vibes with this.

🎉 eldritch blast 🎉

kali remembered she hates the sun

silje is enthuasiatic about charlie saying "get him cat boy!"

charlie contemplating using fireball to nuke the troll and also the entire stonehenge

charlie has decided to use magic missile instead, probably for the best

the troll bit at charlie SO POORLY it broke some of its teeth on the ground

charlie is too small to hit

accidentally rolled advantage on a firebolt, so got to learn it WOULD have done 29 damage with a crit but instead it missed because it was not actually with advantage

silje has just sliced open its entire back and made a spray of frozen blood! radical. big boy is down!

we have burned the body because we are not stupid. well, we ARE stupid, but not stupid in the way of leaving a body full of necrotic magic around

[dr coomer voice] i think it's good that he died!

we're also doing a funeral pyre for the other corpses that were around. just to be sure.

our loot is: the satisfaction of a job well done

thorne is cosplaying as charlie

charlie has located the direction troll came from! she found the 'the way to sweet loot' sign

thorne is apparently better at survival checks than our hired guide? wack

we found a viking house! it has: mead, a shield, gravestones,

found a gold coin in the mead! maybe it was thirsty

oh theres a LOT Of coins in there actually. 60 gold and 120 silver!

have successfully pointed out a hole in the DM's logic :)

there was a raven! it cawed and left. ok bye buddy

and that's where we leave it! heading back to camp vengeance next time.

someone rated this session a 7.2 out of 10, which is very specific

good night mr coconut

[sciencography]

Long overdue update!!

At long last the much promised and oft delayed blog post update that I've been promising off and on for MONTHS. Going to cover a huge range of topics here, therefore nothing that I cover will get extensive depth or attention. Will cover the App Store status, nControl, chimeraTV, electraTV, uicache / ldrestart recent changes / snafu, DalesDeadBug update, cycripter and any known issues that are occuring with any of the above. Will also include a link to a handy tutorial for saving OTA blobs for the 4K AppleTV, just in case we find a way to make them useful!

Saving 4K OTA blobs covered by idownloadblog:

nitoTV App Store

This is several months behind schedule, and at this point its pretty much entirely my fault. I still need to do some payment processing work on the amazon front regarding declined cards / failed payments, etc. Im going to be looking into this immediately after i finish writing this post. 

If you hadn't noticed the new nito.tv website launched at the same time chimera(TV) did. You may have also noticed a beta code for people to help beta test it before i finally launch it, there is no way to get this code yet, not until i finish the payment work I mentioned above. Off the top of my head, this is the only thing holding us back anymore. 

nControl

Obviously nControl was released a few months ago, to resoundingly positive response (thank you!) It's available on chariz repo for 10$ and is currently my only source of income, so all purchases are greatly appreciated! If you need any additional details about nControl in general I kindly redirect you to the exhaustively documented wiki page that I maintain on the subject: https://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/nControl

The tvOS version is only available through patreon and i'd actually prefer that people no longer go that route, patreon makes it WAY too much effort to get the money they owe you so I massively regret doing that in the first place, just didn't want to launch iOS and tvOS separetely and honestly thought the store would wrap up shortly thereafter.

chimeraTV

For the first time (potentially ever) the tvOS jailbreak was released in tandem with the iOS version of the Electra Teams *OS 12 jailbreak. This was a momentus occasion and was a large source of me being delayed from focusing on completing the nitoTV App Store. Its a rock solid jailbreak (especially with latest release) and I'm quite proud to maintain the tvOS version of it. It covers 12.0 - > 12.1.1 on tvOS, this is due to the fact the Apple staggers version numbers between iOS and tvOS for some unknown and maddening reason. For instance (12.1.2 on iOS == 12.1.1 on tvOS). It drives me just as mad as it does the rest of you, but it's been like that since the beginning of ARM based AppleTVs (send gen +) So I doubt it will ever change.

Candidly it was a bit of a challenge to get AppleBetas awesome UI to cooperate on tvOS but i'm glad iIforced myself to use the same code as much as possible (lots of ifdefs), since its written in Swift you can imagine the fight I put up to avoid using the same code base for the UI stuff. Eventually I acquiesced (yes I do make concessions!)

electraTV

Wow it's really been a long time since i've updated this blog (sorry!) electraTV was released several months before chimera (well the initial versions were, the 11.4.1 iteration wasn't THAT long ago) The electra jailbreak covers ALL versions of 11 (11.0->11.4.1) In its latest jailbreakd2 based iteration it is incredibly stable and reliable. Not much else to say about it!

uicache / ldrestart changes

I wasted most of last week fighting against issues with ldrestart. If you aren't familiar with ldrestart it is responsible for running after jailbreaking or loading any new Tweaks to make sure anything they may inject into gets restarted. With the older version of jailbreakd (in backr00m & versions of electraTV that supported 11.2.1->11.3, but not 11.4.1) couldn't handle the speed at which all the daemons get reloaded by ldrestart, this would lead to a lockup that would result in the system eventually rebooting (after being locked up for several minutes).

ldrestart has actually always been an issue, even when i used a kpp bypass in greeng0blin (Im fairly certain thats accurate!) So as a workaround i used to 'killall -9 backboardd' That would respring enough different things (PineBoard, HeadBoard et al) that i would be sufficient for the things i most commonly injected. Obviously this is a hacky stopgap, and uicache used to also kill a variety of other processes to cover them as well (lsd, appstored, etc) to help cover things like DalesDeadBug. 

After coolstar re-wrote uikitools (including uicache) i decided it was probably a good time for me to take a look at uicache again. If you want to know how much of a hassle and challenge uicache was in the earlier days (pre APFS) read some of the older posts on this blog. It's history is covered ad naeuseum.

Since we no longer need to load from /var/mobile/Applications, a lot of the extra hurdles in uicache have ceased to be necessary, essentially all that is really needed is [[LSApplicationWorkspace defaultWorkspace] _LSPrivateRebuildApplicationDatabasesForSystemApps:YES internal:YES user:NO]; + tweak to force App states to return TRUE for isEnabled. 

In the course of thinning down uicache I decided it'd be a good time to try and get ldrestart working on tvOS. After battling with it off an on all last week I came up with something that appeared to work pretty consistently on tvOS 12. Instead of being thorough and testing on 10.2.2->11.4.1 as well I hastily released it. This lead some people to get stuck in respring loops / lockups that eventually restarted the device. This was due to the fact that uicache:restart in postinst scripts would trigger ldrestart instead of uicache in nitoTV. 

In the older version of uicache there was an issue that existed once our new apps were loaded in the UI, a respring was never "required" but if it didn't occur all applications would exhibit weird behavior where they wouldnt launch, or wouldnt exit once launched, etc, to "fix" that I made it always kill backboardd as a compromise. Since this was also no longer necessary I made uicache killing backboardd "optional" by appending -r. Lack of forsite here, the old nitoTV wouldn't know backboardd wouldn't respring anymore, nor to run ldrestart when finish:restart was received, this lead to people getting stuck with a red progress indicator forever when trying to update to latest (at the time) version of nitoTV.

Due to the depth and gravity of the issue I sidelined getting ldrestart working in backr00m (one of the only places it has show stopping issues still) I reverted to uicache always respringing until I have time to revisit the issue.

In conjunction with deciding I was pouring too much time into this issue Chimera 1.0.6 was released the other night with massive stability improvements. Libtakeover & related injection was stripped out into inject_criticald  which provided massively stability improvements for the jailbreak, this made focusing on getting that out a few hours after the iOS release a very high priority.

The big takeaway from all of this:

* uicache run by itself (no arguments) is sufficient to gets apps loaded / removed after installing them into /Applications.

* ldrestart is part of uikittools on tvOS now and should be safe to run on latest electraTV release and chimeraTV release, but won't work at all on backr00m.

if you have installed a tweak and it doesnt seem to be working, try running ldrestart, it should help.

sleepy/wake

Part of the uicache update came the addition of 'sleepy' and 'wake' binaries. Use them from the command line to sleep or wake your AppleTV.

DalesDeadBug

This was recently updated to spoof newer versions, if you can't seem to get it working after installing it, prime candidate to run ldrestart after installing or making changes to that don't seem to be propogating. It works to get SteamLink installed on tvOS 10.2.2, but crashes immediately, not sure if im going to be able to fix it. It won't be possible to make that a priority (I looked into it briefly, thats the best I can do for now). 

If you need more info on what DalesDeadBug does, please read the wiki page: https://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/DalesDeadBug

Cycripter

If you didn't notice, yesterday I decided to take one more brief detour to rectify a glaring deficiency in recent jailbreaks, inability to use cycript. I might have my differences with saurik recently, but this is still one of the most amazing projects he ever undertook and gifted to us. 

cycripter / CycriptLoader.dylib have been updated and open sourced to make it easier to use cycript on iOS or tvOS. All details necessary can be viewed on the wiki and the git.nito.tv repo. 

More Details: https://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Cycript

Known Issues

I havent kept a very exhaustive list of these, so I'm only going to cover two that I can think of right now.

* Infuse doesn't work on chimeraTV. 

Try launching infuse before running the jailbreak (so if you are currently in a jailbroken state, reboot first) 

if you run the jailbreak after Infuse has already been open it will work. I don't think it is necessarily any jailbreak detection, but it may be some kind of a protecetion from code injection, im honestly not sure.

* Music app doesn't work

Try updating to the latest version of chimeraTV on https://chimera.sh it didn't work in the prior version for me either, but after the latest install it started working.

Wrap-up

That's it for now, my core focus after this post is going to be to wrap up work on my long delayed tvOS App Store. I really hope to get it wrapped up this week or next. Stay tuned! And if you made it down this far, thanks!!

[ghoulstars]

i Sure Would Like to not have to be literally relieved/excited when my mom goes to bed every single night because otherwise i feel constantly tense and at risk of something happening to make my living situation unsafe, again, even if we’ve had a good/normal day

shes back on her fucking bullshit today and she usually confronts me on things that have made her Mad(tm) that ive “done” but today she hasnt said jack shit to me. all i can figure is: shes upset that i didnt get up and help her stain the wood for the porch we’re building where our old shitty side deck was shes upset bc i didnt wash all the dishes ?????????? who fucking knows

heres the kicker though folks: i didnt wash all the dishes because for some reason, since replacing our water heater, when the water from the sink starts getting cold it doesnt gradually get cold, it literally goes from like scalding hot (even thru gloves) to hardly lukewarm and i was only washing dishes for about 20? 30? minutes last night before the water temp fucking plummeted so i couldnt finish. bonus is that there were literally only like 5-7 things left to wash and it was literally just 3 styrofoam cups, one pot and like...2 or 3 forks/spoons. absolutely incredible and worth spitefully giving your daughter the cold shoulder over, am i right folks

and me helping stain was only even a fucking a possibility because she gave me an open ended offer to help her last night and i gave an open ended response. she asked me if i wanted to try to go to bed early enough and she would call me in the morning and just see if i wanted/felt up to come out and help, and i said i would be willing to try and id do my best. so when my manic ass had a manic moment and i slept for 3 hrs from 6 am to 8 and was dying and couldnt pass back out for any reason of course i texted her and told her i couldnt fucking help lmao. my fucked sleep schedule is a result of my Crazy Quirky Wacky Bipolar 2 anyway and like she refuses to help me or sympathize with me abt my mental health so ??? guess ill die?????

i didnt get back to sleep around fucking like 12/1 pm and i noticed that she stopped fucking replying to my texts literally right after i said i couldnt help and then every time she walked past my room, where i was Clearly Awake And On My Phone With My Door Open, she flat out ignored me. wouldnt even spare me a side glance.

and when i woke up at 5 pm today, no matter how late i wake up my mom always comes and wakes me up no matter what, today she walked by my room twice EVEN WHEN IT WAS THAT LATE AND I WAS STILL IN BED without saying jack fucking shit to me, and only came in on her third time walking back by to her sitting room and just blankly went ‘youre not laying here in the dark’, turned on my light, then swiftly left

then before that she’d texted me, after telling me for weeks to just use our limited data even if it runs over bc our wifi cant handle my phone being connected along with all our other devices anymore, that im going to have to use my laptop now bc she isnt paying another 200$ phone bill this month. here’s kicker number 2: after literally outright giving me her food plans for tonight and tomorrow yesterday she also texts me that she didnt cook. just a flat “I didn’t cook”. im so fucking depressed all the time that i physically and mentally cannot handle getting up to find and cook myself my own like ACTUAL MEALS and making food that requires actual cooking is often times out of the fucking question, and shes been not cooking for SEVERAL nights here recently, sometimes days in a row, and with my depression being wholly unacknowledged by her, once again, guess ill fucking perish??? unless i can miraculously find the energy to make chicken fingers or ramen noodles im going to be doing what ive fucking done almost every goddamn night this past month she hasnt cooked which is live off of snack foods and ensure lmao. KICKER NUMBER 3: she promised me that either tonight or tomorrow, bc she has a Big Foobaw Game, she wouldnt cook and would instead get me my alltime favorite chinese food from my alltime favorite chinese restaurant that she knows i love a lot, and regardless of what night her game was, she didnt cook tonight and i LITERALLY heard her say less than an hr ago that she’d be cooking tacos (which she intended to originally cook tonight) tomorrow. that being said, her specifically saying she ‘didnt cook’ today when she promised to get takeout in general at some point this week makes me think tonight was just supposed to be tacos (esp if what i think i can remember serves). and now she hasnt cooked anything at all! and tomorrow its gonna be tacos! :) fucking knowing how she is and how she works and functions with her abusive behavior towards me i would not be surprised and am also partially convinced that for whatever reason she’s all DooDoo Angery at me that shes doing this on fucking purpose to deprive me of the treat she promised out of spite/as some kind of passive aggressive ‘punishment’ HAHAHAHA ECKS DEE SO FUNNY XDDD

the only other time shes acknowledged my fucking worthless existence(tm) today was to pull one of her Iconic “im only saying this really ridiculous shit that ive never said before and we’ve never talked about before, ever, just to take digs at my daughter bc she Displeased Me” moments, where she walked by, almost totally ignored me again but stopped like. like she was gonna just keep walking but caught herself and she ended up like...halfway obscured by my doorway anyway and quickly said to me “i need you to sweep.” and then she went to the bathroom and i hear “and take your (cat) poop out too. litterboxes get done every night.”

we have two litterboxes. never in the history of ever has she said anything to me about they get done Every Night >:( and that has never been an established rule, nor have we ever even spoken about me doing that. i do them every few nights, usually on different days, bc there’s Two Litterboxes. and surprise surprise my depression impedes my ability to keep up with them without her having to tell me to clean them most of the time which pisses her off, except i literally did them 1-3 nights ago and theres no way that they both need cleaning again already and now shes suddenly on her shit like. they get done. every night. in that fucking vaguely militant voice she gets when she’s mad like that and is fucking with me on purpose

but fucking like even regardless of all this other shit, point blank, she is the one who has not expressed any of her annoyances with me today to make her act like this. how can i fucking communicate about the issue when she doesnt TELL ME WHAT HER ISSUE IS and instead opts to mentally and emotionally screw with me for her own satisfaction--and even then!!! she has no right to be this mad with me over not helping with the porch bc SHE left it OPEN ENDED and NONCOMMITTAL, SHE could have easily asked me why there were dishes left (though bc i have to do them so late at night/early in the morning bc im fucking depressed shed prolly just blame me FOR doing them at that time bc if i do them TOO LATE at night then the WATER TEMPERATURE GOES DOWN because its COLD AT NIGHT or something like that) but she didnt and now like everything else, fresh off my period, still manic, always rapid cycling, just got off the manic depression train slightly after being on it for two days and then before that it was Severely Uncomfortable Euphoria, feeling just so fucking wrong in my own skin and feeling too many emotions that are too strong that i dont want, so on and so forth, im the one whos suffering because of her unresolved neuroses and narcissism

and like....to be honest, real shit? with how fucking unpredictable and fucky she’s become since our Big Fight i also would not be surprised and sort of have half a mind to think she’s just mad for literally no reason (related to me or otherwise) and is doing this just because lol

[doki-mocha]

I’m just going to ramble here. I guess I can’t focus on my work until I flush out all the things clogging up my brain. Maybe that’s why I always cry whenever I can’t get my work done. Gotta empty out my luggage before putting in new clothes. I thought cleaning my room would help but I just made a bigger mess. I am giving away some of my things though. I ain’t doing anything drastic, it’s the season of giving and I want to give my friends a piece of me haha

Anyways

It’s a shame that i have to keep up a certain image on my social medias. It’s just I don’t want to push my problems onto people who follow me, but I like having people there willing to listen. I can easily type out all my thoughts and share it indirectly to people online, but face to face with a counselor, I won’t be able to spit out a sentence before crying.I’m just like, who do I turn to? I don’t have it bad, but my emotions tell me it’s terrible. But that’s my experiences and how I react to it. It’s like that trope about the straw that breaks the camel’s back. You drop a pencil on the floor and suddenly your room is turned upside down.

I want to be known as someone who makes others happy. And consistently. I’ve made people happy years ago. A constant in people’s lives because of how often I posted. I’ve improved in my art and humor (i guess) but things died down because I couldn’t keep up with the lifestyle. School work, mental health, physical health, trying to enjoy myself in games, anime, books, movies, shows. I mean, that was to no avail, but I’m starting to play games again. (Free games from the itch.io racial justice bundle pack.) But you know, my brain ain’t one to finishing games. It’s always harder to start or to get back into motion. It’s the momentum that I struggle with because If I’m starting something, I’m cutting off doing something else. 

So many things I look forward to doing and never getting to it. I wanted to make webcomics, but knowing my hand I know I can’t. But video game making, there’s something. Maybe not expressed through images, but expressed through words and experiences controlled by other people. I hope I’ll find the time and momentum to work on these games. It seems like fun. But there are other creative things I want to do. I want to paint, make plushies, 3d model, animate, write, cook, and every kind of drawing style. 

But there’s my arms. Yeah, I got carpal tunnel. How did this happen? Well, there ain’t no rest for the wicked. All I need is rest, that’s all I need to heal, but we just keep pushing. My brain needs to do things but I can’t do anything without my hands. And my brain doesnt even want to sit around and watch a movie, or watch anime like I used to. So many manga I had bookmarked. I havent even finished one punch man season one and i started that 3 years ago. i dont even start new games...because its hard to start. Sometimes I have to be like fuck it and just do it. But sometimes my brain is like fuckit, go to sleep.

I don’t want to be like this, I’m oversleeping and i’m so weak after eating i feel like i could collapse. Not intensely but I feel the weakness in my legs and the drowsiness in my brain. I want to eat healthier and stuff, but there’s just so much food in the house that I don’t want it to go to waste. I’m trying so hard but I have no discipline. I don’t shower on my designated days, I don’t brush my teeth everyday like I promised, I never even tried exercising, that’s just a time slot on my schedule full of lies, and I sleep on the floor. I don’t think that’s a problem, I sleep snuggly, but that’s a problem for my dad.

Sure, I am depressed I guess. My doctor gave me medication for it, but the side effects are very intense. It knocks me out cold and makes me super weak and fatigued. I can’t do this when I have work to do. I wouldn’t say I’m “kill myself” depressed anymore, but I am just a huge amount of unhappy with the way I’m handling things. I don’t know what I need to fill in the hole in me. A hole that if it were filled would give me the energy to keep going and get work done. 

I’m listening to slow minecraft music and it’ s really helping me get the cry going.

I’m going to lose everything that is here. The house, the parents, the items inside, the photos. I know if I move out, I would want to get as far away from this as possible. No more house, no more family photos, no contact with the family, just the things that make me happy and a fresh start. But it makes me sad to think, if I don’t hold onto this stuff, everything will die with it. Even if I’m unhappy with everything my life has been so far, should I let everything fade away into the universe? The house, the furniture, the decorations, the objects that hold memories of someone will be redistributed and have new memories built on top of it. Or thrown in the bin and recycled to be something else, but there are still memories spread out through the minerals and whatever.

Even if I hate what has been, I don’t want it to be lost. I may greatly dislike my parents, but I want someone out there to hold onto that. Know that they existed. I know I would push all memories aside, sell are their belongings, and the house, and forget them, but then who will remember them? My brothers are getting old too, would generations hundreds of years in the future still hold on to a photo of my parents? Should we keep holding onto the past like this. If we made statues of everyone to honor, will there be room for us to live? Will photo albums be big enough to carry on a legacy. I want to gain independence and live a life I choose, but I don’t want the lives my parents built to go away. I don’t want to live in this house and keep all these decorations and useless shit, but I don’t want their efforts to get these things be naught.

What do I do?

Things are meant to move on.

And I’ll be forgotten one day too.

And I guess I am scared. 

It’s not an individual case such as mine that scares me, but the general idea of losing everything to time. I do like to imagine that when I die it will just be the start to a different life, maybe not here but somewhere else. A different time. A different body. Different circumstances.  All the problems that hold us back are all because of the experiences. The life we are in, the physical realm we are tied to at this moment. But if we are to just change into something completely new, outside of our now, then everything would be different. Of course. 

What else.

I am behind on a lot of my homework. JUst piles of shit I need to do, but it felt good to get this out. Maybe I’ll get work done. 

I hope one day I’ll get the epiphany that will wake me up and get me to change my life. I know I had those quite a few times, but it always goes back to the norm. 

Discipline.

I just need a reset and I’ll try again. But for now, I’m just barely hanging in there. Holding onto to the fast tracks of life right now. It will be over soon. My parents will retire, I’ll move out, find a job, clear my belongings, clear my mind, reinvent myself, and go back to being happy. And go back to making others happy. In due time...

[tamiddyinyourcity]

WHOOHOO NOTHING MATTERS

Things on my mind:

A terrible nightmare about my ex reminds me of why I specifically hated him so much when it all ended (really didnt need yet another big chunk of my memory missing, and it all happened since he couldnt communicate like a fucking adult)

Making content just for niggas to not watch it..... for fucks sake

Overall depression about how fucked my sleep schedule has gotten

Unsure of if I genuinely like Rowan without sex. I probably do, but he's become a lot more distant lately. One can say "its only been a week and hes been juggling like three different friendships with suicidal and very depressed people outside of me", but geez, even today we are not talking......

And yeah, kinda still gives me the idea that if he doesnt need to vent and lacks the urge to feel attraction toward me, he doesnt need to speak whatsoever. (Or, is very dry with it....)

If the whole point of us connecting in the first place was that it felt good, having a sexy dude that I also knew wasnt busy whatsoever, bonding, and mutual fucks given.... (plus, sexting since sexting is dope,) then none of that happens anymore... whats really the point?

We do occasionally have nice convos, he put in the effort last night. But now that he did that kinda shady shit the other night and isnt owning up to that or apologizing, i see why I should stop talking to this dude entirely now.

He said it himself, with that other girl, he claimed "she found a reason to be mad every day, and didnt want to feel guilt every time that i wake up".... and i knew myself that i didnt wanna be paranoid, he doesnt wanna be attached, but he likes me being attached to him.

This is gonna hurt like a bitch and i might cry.

I just dont want him hurt. Idk. If he does that thing where he posts about not wanting to live on this planet anymore at the first sign of me taking a break from him, ill be sad. But ill also be sad at no response.... better to just cut him off, and end the dynamic, but still leave the door open a bit.

I just think it's too weird to pretend our dynamic would be the same.

I want to leave and forget all traces of him, so that I don't have another person to podcast about on a low night.

The instagram being available would mainly just be so he doesnt do anything idiotic, like stop taking his meds, or kill himself.

I just dont see us as the same friends as before, but moreso he does go through a tough time. So if he were to flip shit, or start tripping out and claim he wants to take his life...

Then, he knows where to find me.

But anything else? Maybe not for awhile. It would take a lot to make me feel comfortable bonding with him again, in a way where both people feel safe, but, are not the only crutches that we have.

His other crutches are his other friends, who I hope he can trust to lean on in this current situation, and aren't just draining him of energy they would never give back, you know?

And my crutches are......

Marco, only temporarily. He's yet again broke up with his girlfriend, claiming he doesn't want it to be temporary this time. He's a twat and i would never ever ever subject myself to him romantically unless its for a laugh or as a time killer, but we just talk for now i suppose.

I talked to Cam a bit. He helped remind me that yes, the outdoors do exist. A walk would help me feel less depressed. Id have to go with a bandana on my face and gloves, but the sun still will shine brightly all the same onto my skin in a nice fabulous glow.

My goals. Fuck it, we may or may not die, time to sing that song about weaponized piss I've made.

[okwilliamson]

21 things I learned while being 21

1. Growing out of friendships happens faster than you think, and people who you thought were the most important in your life at the moment can sometimes really not matter in a years time. 

2. During times of turmoil its okay to cry, being seen as tough or someone who doesn't display their emotions isn't always the best thing for yourself. 

3. It’s ok to separate yourself from people who are using up al your energy, if someone is asking too much of you, its ok to say no. 

4. seasonal depression is very real 

5. at this point in life boys have been nothing but trouble for me, its fine to be single even if it stings. theres more pressing matters rn 

6. In this past year ive been outgrowing lots of people and things like feeling like i dont belong in old habits anymore 

7. smoking weed is not as cool as i thought lmfao at this point in my life i kinda have a bitter attitude about it 

8. time keeps going faster 

9. keeping a semi tidy room really isnt that hard, ive been trying this year to keep things neat and during high stress times it gets bad but overall ive done ok! 

10. for me at least, when youre 21 drinking lost appeal lol i havent been really drunk since like feb

11. speaking of feb, LOL sleeping w boys drunkenly will fuck up ur feelings 10/10 dont recommend 

12. trying to streamline a wardrobe to take out wild patterns and colors is really helpful, then its like all your clothes go together and you dont have to think when getting ready 

13. a consistent sleep schedule is so lit, you dont feel so gross when you get up 

14. theres a strange satisfaction in planning your dream apartment & thinking about cooking for yourself 

15. being broke still sucks, but its doable 

16. growing out a buzz cut is really awkward lol 

17. it feels good to sit in a library all day and work on stuff, but for some reason this semester specifically ive struggled so much with motivation on papers but mostly its just bc i dont like art history 

18. last year i worked two jobs and went to school full time and I never had time to think and I believe thats why everything got all fuckin weird this year 

19. I had (am having) some kind of identity crisis this year about how i look, and who im friends with, and the art im creating its been hard and really tiring. 

20. having a support system to rely on & alone time to reflect is so important 

21. I have opinions on art now, and feel like I can think critically. I really feel like this year I’ve learned a lot and formed my own opinions about things and that feels really nice. 

In general this past year has been very tough and trying. I have two best friends who are struggling all the time with depression, my own feelings and stuff that I usually stuff down but have been trying to embrace more and more. I’ve like formed opinions on big things in life like whats really important to me right now, and how having a boy string you along can really damage your self worth and self esteem. I think that turning 22 isnt obviously gonna change anything over night, but I think at least I will be having a new year full of possibilities, and full of potential to make myself better and be the best me, and a me that I really like. i’m getting there. I love to psycho analyze myself and sometimes I get trapped in that, and all my friends seem to want me around as a support system and that can become trying and difficult but theres honestly nothing more satisfying than seeing my friends grow and come from a place of darkness into something better and something different. I’m really blessed with the people who are in my life, who want me around, and who value me and my opinions. I hope that while being 22 I can continue to exist in a way thats on the way to happiness, im for sure not happy all the time and im so moody lol, im thankful for all the bullshit that happened to me while I was 21 bc at least now i know i can come out of that and reflect back on it in a way thats not sad or hateful. This has been a long introspective paragraph, I kind wanna start a youtube channel just to talk and put my shit out there for someone to maybe relate to. Anyways, tomorrow is my birthday. I hope when I tyoe this in a year from now I can think back on this post and hopefully update in a good way, but honestly who knows. I just hope 22 doesnt suck. 

[patchdotexe]

So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird

[kyifucius]

so theres been a lot going on in this smol head of mine.

I dont make this kinds of post regularly, just therapy isn't working out how I would like and im feeling like i can have somewhat clear thoughts right now so im gonna try and jot them down in the least tiring least confusing way possible. (using the 6 components of health as my guide) CW: eating disorder talk, trauma mention (no details), transphobia mention, gender talk, love talk.

Tbh, im gonna start looking for new therapist so if this comes out well ill just use this as an about me rn (because I can be different later)

Physical:

I feel fine, Im okay, trying to fix the damage my bulimia did to my body, I’ve seen a dentist, that had much less than desirable news given to me on that front (but things will be okay seeing as my school gives free dental care to its students). Bulimia is still its own hell hole but ill get to that in emotional health. Other than that, I still dont really eat on a tight or strict schedule and I dont actively exercise outside of my one physical fitness course which isn't much. Next.  

Spiritual: God, you there?

This isnt the time of my strongest faith, I dont pray everyday but pretty close but i do sometimes wonder if anyone hears me...I believe my life wont always be so tragic and difficult, theres no signs of it changing anytime soon but something is giving me hope and faith to keep pushing that things will get better and it’ll all be worth it, i guess thats god. It doesnt feel like much but its enough to keep me from considering not being alive so...thank god lol 😅. Next.

Social:

I love my friends, I hate myself, I dont really see my friends as much as I should Im really fighting to just exist at this point I dont feel like im the most fun to be around anymore but hopefully they’ll be understanding to my isolation and forgive me until I pull myself together. I dont see myself making anymore friends than the few I already have. Next. 

Mental: 

Depression(PTSD). Anxiety. Despair. Inferiority. Tiny glimpse of contentment. Depression. Anxiety(PTSD). Despair. Inferiority. Tiny glimpse of contentment. Depression. Anxiety. Despair(PTSD). Inferiority. Tiny glimpse of contentment. Depression. Anxiety. Despair. Inferiority(PTSD). Tiny glimpse of contentment. Depression(PTSD). Anxiety. Despair. Inferiority. Tiny glimpse of contentment. Depression. Anxiety(PTSD). Despair. Inferiority. Tiny glimpse of contentment. Depression. Anxiety. Despair(PTSD). Inferiority. Tiny glimpse of contentment. Depression. Anxiety. Despair. Inferiority(PTSD). Tiny glimpse of contentment. 

Issa cycle 😒 Next.

Emotional: (here comes the heavy stuff)

*deep inhale* Gender. well maybe i should say gender identity. It all feels so strange. I dont feel like anything, I dont feel any ties to being a “male” or “female” I feel like a person. I feel that Ive been going along with looks and expectations that society placed on me because I didnt feel there was really another option. Im comfortable with the clothes i own, most of them being feminine but im not big on super tight clothes, I kinda want to escape the possibility of being sexualized as much as possible. (it could be a trauma thing). Im going by They/them pronouns by those closest to me that are nonfamily members. It feels okay, I dont wanna make a big deal out of it I dont think I should Im the same person i've always been just no longer trying to meet “womanly” expectations, no more push up bras or underwire *amen!*  But I do think about being a cis woman, I think how much easier it would be to not have to define my identity myself and to just already have a rulebook to follow, as oppressing as it may be, which may connect to my next topic...

Eating disorders...so when I think of my body, I don't think of who I am or how I look now and how it could be okay as is, I only think of how I could look and the the easiest look I can perfect, which for me personally would be a something along the lines of a conventionally attractive woman, I think for me to do that I’d need to lose weight...(because of my anxiety i like to know what to do next to get the best/least problematic results) in times of stress or when i feel completely lost and directionless, even purposeless at times. I always go back to losing weight because to be like that woman I imagine I could be that would just be the next step for me to continue to fit the status quo of what society wants and then I feel like even if everything else is going badly at least im making progress in one area of my life and with that I can let out a sigh of relief. 

Last but definitely not least, drum roll please... *smol snare in background* Im in love! Its really the best. I don't know if i should @ him or not...but hes really just been the best most supportive and understanding boyfriend I would never even have the audacity to ask for. I really love him and I have to say things are looking really good for us. Hes trans, my mother is transphobic so thats a real stressor at times but whenever i spend time with him I just really remember that he's so worth her nonsense because if she ever takes the time to get to know him shed see he's just the type of person she’d want me to be with. No one is perfect, not him, not me, and definitely not my mother but we all deserve healthy love and relationships and i really get that from him which is “v fulfilling” and I hope I get to spend many more years with him. Also he puts up with EVERY aspect of me which isn't easy, he listens to me whine and complain and holds me when I cry and laughs with/at me laughing at my own jokes and does my laundry when I leave clothes with him and he lets me sleep late on the weekends and understands my need for mental health days. What a lovely boy 😊. Next

Environmental: 

Im actually tired of writing but this should be simple. THE EARTH HAS HAD ENOUGH! I do what i can to take care of the spaces I occupy but I believe there will be another mass extinction and hopefully i'm not around to see it. The end.

Fun Fact: 

Trauma trauma, trauma in the air trauma, trauma trauma I feel it everywhere. 

[notgoingtohappen]

Revenge, Interrupted (Part 10)

[Ch 1] [Ch 2] [Ch 3] [Ch 4] [Ch 5] [Ch 6] [Ch 7] [Ch 8] [Ch 9]

A/N: I actually rewrote this to add a particular scene (youll know which when you read it), something I promised to do if my exam results were great, which they were (98%!!) So I was smiling the whole time writing this. Also, I hope now that the angst and mixed signals have set in, it doesnt seem to confusing or directionless. The plot is going to pick up next chapter, I promise. Happy reading!

Stefan closed the door behind Caroline and glanced around his bedroom, trying not to stare at the wet dress clinging to her body as she took her jacket off, shivering as she rubbed her bare arms.

He was still drunk.

She turned around and looked at him. Unconsciously, he felt himself stepping towards her, thoughts impossibly disorganised. She moved closer too and her hand brushed against his. He started. “Your hands are freezing!”

She nodded absently. 

He took her hand between his, vaguely noticing once again how his engulfed hers, and rubbed, warming it up. “Don’t wanna catch a cold.” He said, as much to himself as he did to her.

When it was warm enough, she held up her other hand. “Couples help warm each other,” she said. “Being realistic.”

Stefan found himself smiling back as he rubbed her other hand. Soon enough, they were standing there, hands clasped in between them, staring at each other. 

The mood shifted.

His gaze instinctively dropped to her lips which parted a little and an image of them making out against the wardrobe popped into his mind. Her expression became more intense and both of their breathing became uneven.

The kiss in the park had been mind-blowing. He hadn’t felt like that in ages, that mixture of lust and feelings, and now standing in front of her in a dimly lit room it was all he could think about, and given the way she was staring at him, so was she.

Then her hands were on the back of his neck and she was kissing him, pushing him against the wall, and the hunger and chills he’d felt earlier were back. His hands were in her soft hair and he kissed her back, mind going blank as she pressed her body against his, all burning pleasure in the pit of his stomach.

She broke the kiss as Stefan pulled his soaked jacket off, tugging at the sleeves to help him, and as soon as it had hit the floor his hands were holding her face, and they gazed at each other for a split second, pupils dilated, before their lips crashed together again, passionate and urgent.

The voice in the back of his mind telling him this shouldn’t be happening was so faint it need not have existed.

He pushed her against the wardrobe, and as they slammed into it the soda bottle fell off the table next to them but neither of them cared. She grabbed his face and pulled him closer as his hand snaked up her back and was in her golden waves again, moving instinctively as they kissed headily, the air getting more and more charged. He felt her hand on his elbow, gripping it tight, and then he lifted her up, her back pressed against the wardrobe and legs wrapped around his waist.

He wasn’t sure what was more intoxicating, the alcohol or Caroline. It was happening too fast and felt too good and he didn’t want to stop or think, just give in to the pure lust that ran through his every nerve ending. She gripped his hair again as he carried her over to the bed and lowered them onto it, gripping the small of her back, firmly pulling her into him. Their hips were pressed together, and he felt another current of aching desire as he felt her leg slide up his.

Her hands were on his belt, the movements halting yet urgent, as he reached to pull his shirt over his head. Caroline’s hands stilled as she gazed at his torso, eyes darkening, and the look on her face made him reach down to kiss her again, slowly and softly this time, his hands gliding up her damp dress, against her silky smooth, burning skin, making her let out a little gasp.

The sound nearly drove him crazy, and he moved his lips to her delicate, pale neck, wanting to hear it again. He worked at it for a few seconds, her breathing growing more erratic, littered with sighs as her legs wrapped around his.

Suddenly, there was a sharp knock on the door.

“Caroline, have you changed yet? We’re waiting” came Bonnie’s voice.

They snapped back to reality. Stefan pulled away and scrambled off the bed as she sat up, both wide-eyed and struggling to think a coherent thought.

“Uh… could I borrow some clothes?” She mumbled.

“Yeah” he replied throatily. He busied himself with looking through a half-unpacked suitcase for clothes and handed her a hoodie and sweatpants. “Sorry, it might be too big…”

“That’s okay.” She looked a little discomposed and incredibly beautiful with her hair tangled up and cheeks flushed. He wondered what she was thinking, how she was processing this.

He moved away swiftly. “So yeah, tell me if you need different clothes.”

She nodded and went into the bathroom, and he sank down against the bed, clutching his head that felt way too light.

What the fuck had just happened?

He went to the living room, where Bonnie and Enzo stood at the front door, waiting for Caroline and Elena to drop them back to their hotels. Luckily, they were too busy talking to each other, but Enzo smirked slightly on seeing Stefan.

“Okay, never doing that again.” Bonnie said on seeing Stefan.

“Come on love, it wasn’t that bad.” Enzo said.

“That’s because you barely drank. And you lived in London. We aren’t used to freak showers!”

“Bonnie’s right. Rain is fun until you’re soaked and shivering and running to your building late at night.” Stefan said.

Elena joined them, eating a granola bar in hopes of avoiding a hangover. “Ugh. I don’t care about the moving schedule, I’m sleeping in tomorrow.”

“You have my permission” came Caroline’s voice from behind him. She stood in the doorway of his room, refusing to meet his gaze. Stefan liked the sight of her in his oversized hoodie way more than he should have and cleared his throat.

“I’m turning in for tonight,” Stefan said.

“See you, mate. Next time you’re the designated driver.” Enzo muttered.

“Goodnight.” Stefan said, before turning to Caroline and awkwardly mumbling “Bye babe”

Finally, she looked up at him, her expression guarded. “See you tomorrow.” She said.

He nodded and made his way to his room, grabbed a change of clothes and locked himself in the bathroom. He stood gripping the sink, staring into space. His clothes were still damp and cold but he didn’t move to take them off.

His inebriated mind tried sorting through the rollercoaster of emotions he’d felt since Caroline had walked back into his loft that night, actively trying to ignore what had just happened minutes ago.

They’d had fun in the day, exploring the city, and he’d been able to chalk his feelings off to friendship until they’d kissed in her loft. She was a really good kisser.

She was distant after that, so reluctant to go to the old park, that he thought she wasn’t comfortable with the plan anymore and wanted out, but she refused when he offered.

And then before he knew it they were drunk and lying under the stars with nature around them and music playing in the background and it was like everything else had stopped existing at it was just them in the entire universe. Him and Caroline and the stormy night sky and the overgrown greenery. It had felt magical, like they could have been at any point in history. It felt new but also a thousand years old.

Wow, he was wasted.

And then she was talking about making out and seemed to glow in the moonlight and her hand was behind his neck and his was on her waist and then they were kissing. It happened so fast, so naturally, he didn’t even question or fully process it. And they didn’t stop. And they weren’t going to, had it not started pouring. He realised that he didn’t want to. Just like back in his room. And he had a feeling she didn’t feel the same way, that it had just been the alcohol on her side.

He shook his head, suddenly unsettled and angry at himself, forced himself to change, and then collapsed on the bed, pulling the comforter over him. Immediately, he noticed something was different, but it took a few seconds for his vodka addled mind to put his finger on it.

The sheets smelled like Caroline. Also her perfume. And now he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

As sleep weighed down Stefan’s eyelids and he began drifting off, he hoped in vain he wouldn’t dream of Caroline Forbes. ~*~*~ Stefan awoke to a pounding headache and stumbled outside, running into a coffee-bearing Damon. “Hello, brother. Here, it’ll help with the hangover.”

Stefan groaned and took it, forcing himself to drink. Unsurprisingly, now that he was once again capable of rational thought, his thoughts jumped straight to Caroline.

They were, he was breaking the unspoken rules. Earlier in the evening, her reluctance had made it clear that she wasn’t okay with being so close all the time when Elena and Bonnie practically had to drag her outside. Whatever he felt or was starting to feel had to take a backseat. It was nothing more than a fake relationship, and he had to give her space. Something like that kiss couldn’t happen again.

Last night was intense and amazing and wrong. His feelings, knowing he was ruining the pact and being unfair to her, unnerved him. What he refused to admit scared him the most was the thought that maybe he was starting to feel something for her as a product of the fake relationship and she didn’t; that it was all the plan to her, a plan that seemed to be getting too much. It made his chest ache a bit.

He decided he wasn’t going to drink again as long as they were dating. It wasn’t worth the risk.

“So, how are things with Caroline?” Damon smirked.

“Good.” He answered tersely. “You and Elena?”

“Great. So, have you two sealed the deal yet?”

Stefan flashed his brother a look and Damon held his hands up in mock surrender. “Oh, my bad. Forgot it was you I was talking to. So, do you loooove her yet?”

Stefan’s head snapped up in surprise.

The question unsettled him. Seeing his clenched jaw, Damon mouthed “Okay then” and told him to call their mother who had been wondering why he wasn’t picking up his phone.

“We haven’t been to Mystic Falls in so long.” Stefan sighed.

“I miss the boarding house. And Sarah.”

Stefan nodded. “I’m glad she’s happy after the divorce.”

Damon smiled at his brother. “Just wish she’d moved there when we were kids. Who knows, we could have met the others ages ago.”

That was another thought that gave him a strange feeling. He changed the subject quickly. ”We wouldn’t have ever met Lexi. I miss her.”

“And Rose.” Damon added.

Stefan went to shower, and after eating the waffles his brother so obligingly made him, played some Xbox with Damon before he remembered the time. He quickly dialled Caroline’s number, ignoring his ridiculous sweaty palms and nervousness.

Was he twelve?

“Hi Stefan” she sounded completely normal, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He was taken aback and wished he could see her face, try and gauge what was going on from her expression.

“Hey. What time should I come to pick up the rest of your stuff?”

“Oh that’s okay, Enzo already dropped it to the loft a few hours ago.”

“Uh, okay.”

“So… what are you going to do today?”

“Read, wait to hear back and see if I got a job, skype Lexi I guess. You?”

Her voice perked up. “Girls’ day! I’m checking out right now, and we’re going shopping before we officially move into the loft.”

Right. She was moving to his floor. He swallowed. “Great.”

Caroline’s tone changed. “Stefan, about last night…”

So she did remember. “It was just the alcohol.” He added swiftly.

Silence. He wished once more that he could see her face right now. “Yeah, of course. The plan is still on, right?”

“Yes, we’re doing a pretty good job I think.”

Maybe too good a job. Now she seemed to want the plan? The mixed signals were confusing the hell out of him.

“Okay, see you later.” She hung up.

Stefan stared at his phone and then flopped back onto the couch. He picked up the laptop and saw Lexi online. He called her and seconds later, her familiar face popped up on the screen.

“Stefan!” she beamed.

“Hey Lex!”

“Oh my god, how are you? Why do you have dark circles?”

“Long story.”

“Do tell, I’m bored.”

Stefan looked around, and saw Damon’s door ajar, so he walked into his room and closed the door. “So.” He started. “Do you know what Damon and Bonnie and Elena pulled on me my first week in town?”

“Knowing your brother, a prank?” she ventured.

“Exactly. And not just on me, on their best friend too. Her name is Caroline and they set us up on a blind date.”

Lexi’s eyes widened. “Oooh, is she hot?”

Stefan realised for the first time he could just be honest about all of this. “Yeah.”

“So are you two dating, then?”

And then he was telling her about the whole plan, the words spilling out now that he could finally tell someone about it.

“And yesterday, we got drunk and made out twice.” He concluded.

Lexi pursed her lips.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Uh. Okay. Stefan, it’s an interesting plan. God knows Damon has it coming, but be careful, because you could be way in over your head before you know it.”

Stefan scoffed. “I’m fine.”

She nodded. “I hope so.”

He looked away.

“What?” Lexi asked with narrowed, scrutinising eyes.

“I’m kind of confused.” He admitted mournfully. “I don’t know what’s real or not, from my side and hers, and yesterday neither of us stopped. And I didn’t want to.”

Lexi’s expression softened on seeing his face. “Cheer up. Maybe it was just the alcohol.”

“I don’t want to be that guy, put her on the spot and ruin our friendship by wanting more. Especially given how we’re fake dating, it’s completely unfair.”

It felt good to finally voice that.

She sighed. “How long until this ends?”

Stefan thought. “We’d decided on a month or two. It’s been like five days.”

Lexi was deep in thought and suddenly glanced at her watch. “Oh, time for work. Listen, don’t stress out or turn into dark broody Stefan. Maybe you’re overthinking. Wait to see how things are when you’re both sober, and hang in there. I’ll call you when I get back, okay.”

“Bye.” He smiled at his best friend.

Yeah, he thought as the screen turned black.

Hang in there. Maybe it was nothing.

[Ch 11]

[revol-lover]

need to vent.

This weekend was a shit show and I took a mental health day from work today. I promised my husband I wouldn't dwell on the issues of the weekend and I would try to take it easy but I need to let this out, I need to vent. And then I can move forward. Its so important for me to write these things down because I can only be strong for so long before I become weak willed again and let toxic people start their cycle of abuse all over on me. I need to have written reminders of what I’ve gone through to remind myself that I don't deserve this abuse and I need to limit contact.

So as I previously posted, I haven't visited my parents in a couple weeks. They haven't bothered to check in on how I am doing even though I usually visit on weekends. No one checks in on me. I’ve put a shit ton of effort into my relationship with them since getting married (well since forever but especially since moving out, keeping in touch. Its all been one sided effort coming from me). I was legitimately busy and exhausted with everything we have going on, being in my third trimester of pregnancy. I work all week, I have things to do after work nearly every single day of the week except for occasionally one or if I’m very lucky, two days, and most weekdays I work, come home, rest for an hour, make dinner, husband comes home, we eat, then we do errands and things that we have to get done during the week (groceries, laundry, house tidying, tending to the plants at the cemetery, visiting his grandmother, visiting his father at the hospital).

Being pregnant has been for the most part easy for me, and I don't take that for granted. Regardless, I’m still getting bigger and less comfortable, I have to drink a gallon of water a day which is getting difficult. I’m just tired. Most weekdays we arent home from our responsibilities until 7 pm. Then we unwind and spend time together before going to sleep and starting all over again. Therefore, my weekends have become very precious to me, as they should be. And I haven't been feeling up to visiting my parents. I am never invited over. But I’m apparently just expected to make an effort, one they do not make.

Well this weekend was my godmother’s 50th birthday. Her boyfriend wanted to surprise her with birthday cake and have family over. I wasnt sure I’d be up to going but I got suckered into buying the cake because her son had to work and no longer could and her boyfriend was surprising her with this so he couldn't go get it himself. So now I “had” to go. My parents were going so I figured this is fair enough. They will see me. It kills to birds with one stone. Well as I’m standing on my godmother’s porch waiting for them to open the door my parents walk up to the porch. My dad says hello and how have I been doing, before I have time to even properly answer he follows it up with a very bitter sounding “haven't seen you in a LONG time”. He really is trying to give me a guilt trip when he doesnt even text me. He hasn't sent me a text since April 4th and that was a “lol ok” reply to a text I had sent to him trying to make conversation about the baby. He has not called me. He has not been in touch, but he is mad that I have not gone by to visit. So I told him, straight up. “Well, I’ve been busy. My week days are busy, we have had a lot going on and I have been trying to get things done and still relax on the weekends, Oh and I’m pregnant. Also you could text me to check how I am doing and you haven't so. “He of course got mad that I had the nerve to say whats the fucking truth and was like “ I know your pregnant what is that supposed to mean” and then he stuttered angrily on “what do you mean about texting”  (does this even need an explanation? no. he doesnt get in contact with me but expects me to put him first at the busiest time of my life.) but I ignored the rest because my god mom opened the door and I Wasnt about to have an argument on her door step. So I go inside. And he persists the issue. He starts questioning me. “What do you do during the week” “what do you do during the weekend” as if I owe an explanation!!!!!! At this point I was getting flustered because I honestly wanted to fucking tell him off but being a decent person unlike apparently him, I wasnt about to have this conversation at someone’s birthday celebration! If you have problem with me address it at an appropriate time! How hard is that to comprehend. So I quickly listed off that I have been busy working and doing things we need to do to get ready for the baby and also, you know having a midwife appointment once every two weeks, soon every week. I shouldn't have even had to try to defend myself. i don't owe him a breakdown of my schedule and why he doesnt fit in it. Especially when the doesnt try to get in contact with me ever and was so disrespectful in the way he attacked me immediately with a guilt trip. The rest of the dreadful 30 minutes I was there was spent not looking at him or my mom and trying not to talk to them because I just can't do it man. I can't. My mom wasnt as bad as she couldve been but it doesnt matter. He made up for it. The annoying thing she did is, so my little niece was there, she’s 4. I haven't seen her either in a few weeks. So I picked her up. My mom literally SCREAMED “Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! don't do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! your stomach!!!!!!!!!!!!” at me as if I am a fucking imbecile or flower petal who can't pick up a SMALL CHILD while I am pregnant. As if I don't know my own limitations. Oh that pissed me off and I told her that its not dangerous for me to pick up my niece and I know what I am able to do. Omfg god though. like seriously does she think I’m not going to pick up and give affection to my first child when my second comes? It was such a stupid thing to have her freak out about. As if she cares. She didnt care when I was a teenager and intentionally hurting myself because of her abuse  but she is going to freak out about me holding a child while I’m pregnant..

As we were leaving my mom handed my husband a birthday card but not without “well we didnt see you last weekend so I couldn't give it to you sooner”. They did not contact me to tell me to tell him happy birthday lol. They live two minutes away. they could have easily dropped it off themselves. But its our fault, right? Then she tried hinting that I should try to visit sometime during the week “if I want” to which.. I didnt even respond. I just ignored it. I’m not doing this guilt trip shit. I don't owe them a visit. I’m not coming to them. If they want to see me they need to make an effort because all they do is bring me stress which I don't need right now. It could have been handled so differently. All my dad had to say was “How have you been?” and left out the guilt trip. There was no need for it.

So anyway. I kept my cool on the entire situation  as best I could. But then we got home. And I just.. idk. I unravelled. I was so angry. I AM still angry. I twas out of line. I hate that my dad thinks he has the right to treat me that way. That I owe him something when he puts 0 effort into the relationship. When we do visit he's glued to his phone. He doesnt even interact. He had no right to attack me with a guilt trip. I was so upset by this when I go t home. I was pacing and shaking and having chest pain and I know this is all really bad for the baby but I couldn't calm down and this is exactly why I can't do this shit anymore. I shouldn't have to live my life afraid of when I’ll see them next because god forbid I have been making my own health and child and marriage a priority. I shouldn't have to apologize or explain that. I wrote a long message I was going to send him but didnt. I don't feel like theres anything I can say to get through to someone who doesnt understand the basic simple point of me putting myself first right now. Largely pregnant, less then 2months from the birth of my child with still a lot to do and decreasing energy and ability to do it, never mind making mentally exhausting visits to unappreciative people.. 

 I thought about calling instead of texting it. But again. I was already stressed out. I was having chest pain My husband was worried sick about me and our baby. My father isn't worth the stress but I can't just turn a switch when it comes to being treated the way I was. How can I just turn a switch and not care? I do not like cofrontation or being attacked. And I didnt deserve it. I’m being attacked for doing the right thing. For taking care of myself and my child. I’m being attacked for having my priorities straight. Do you realize how fucking much that fucks with my psyche? Its not something I can just let go.

I thought for a second I should send him an article on how stress during pregnancy can affect the baby. Yeah except I saw a scary statistic about how third trimester stress can spike up your chance of having a stillborn and went into a legitmate panic attack and my husband had to just take the phone from me. I eventually calmed down but the situation hasn't left my mind. I am home today trying to mentally recoup. I’m trying to just take care of myself but it keeps creeping into my thoughts. The disrespect. What his attack caused - the chest pains and crying and freaking out. That didnt need to happen.. that hsouldnnt have happened. That could very seriously pose a risk to me and my child like pre term labor or other terrible things. Like it just fucks me up that my own father can be so immature and careless in his actions and not even realize how it affected me. Because I care too much. Because I can't believe that after being such a good daughter despite the abuse I’ve received in my childhood, and despite his complete life long lack of protecting me from my mother, the times I’ve thought about cutting my mom off entirely but didnt because I didnt want to lose him.... the fact that all of that exists and is a part of my life, and he doesnt even care enough to treat me with the most minimal amount of respect. That he caused me so much stress it caused physical pain and put me and my child at risk. It just baffles me. I feel like he needs to know what he has done. He needs to know it wasnt ok and he hurt me. But I dint have the strength to even try to talk to him again. And it sucks because I’m forced to see him sunday at my baby shower. Then the week after is fucking fathers day. Then what am I supposed to do with that? I don't even want to see him again period and I’m forced to. I can't be having these things happen every single weekend when Im supposed to be relaxing and I don't know how to avoid it. I’m so fucking stressed out.  I wish I could just move far away and never see or speak to them again. I’m at my wits end and legitimately do not care anymore who I lose in the process but I can't do it with them being so close. I feel so trapped.