#sometimes I'll give in

[abel-draws]

My brain processes info v e r y slowly

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Assisting Acquaintance Acquired.

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[mellific]

hey everyone i'm BACK with a new and updated cat commission format! here is the deal:

this form will be open 8AM - 8PM pacific time tomorrow july 15th

pay-what-you-want on completion

these will be slow, i'm hoping to get a pool of cats that i can randomly pull from over like.... many months

essentially what you're signing up for is "probably a cat picture one to twelve months from now" at pwyw rates! $20 per would be lovely but slkfdslkj these are going to happen so far out so please pay whatever circumstances permit at the time

>> COMMISSION FORM HERE &lt;<

[deafening-radio-silence]

I think that Dr. Christina "I was an excellent soldier" Raynor needs to deal with some personal things before she's anyone's therapist, because she strong-armed more of Bucky's autonomy away from him than Zemo did within the series.

[royalarchivist]

[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]

Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?

[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*

–

Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.

Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!

Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.

* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.

[cerise-on-top]

Ooh, what if Price/Ghost/Gaz/Laswell came across their childhood best friend? Reuniting with reader who was there for them through thick and thin, until they joined the military and lost contact 🙏

I've been reading/re-reading some of your works!! They're so good! Also, I'm sorry those teenagers were pricks to you, hope you have some better days soon!

Hello! I have to say, I'm genuinely surprised anyone reads my rambles in the tags, I didn't think anyone would, but thank you! You don't know how much I appreciate it! Today was already a much better day, which is why I decided to write and post two requests today! This is a lovely request, very nice! Love me some platonic stuff as well! Sometimes all you need is a good friend by your side!

Price, Gaz, Ghost and Laswell Come Across their Childhood Best Friend

Price: He actually thinks about you from time to time, more often than he’d like to admit. You were a good person in his eyes, always there for him no matter what he went through, which is something he could appreciate. His childhood wasn’t particularly bad, but he had some days where he would have loved to simply throw in the towel, which is normal, though. Price was a rowdy guy when he was young, so you likely either went along with some of his ideas or were kind enough to talk him out of them. Either way, he appreciated having you around, so seeing you again would be quite the surprise, he didn’t think he ever would again. If he’s on a mission, then the talk will be kept short, but afterwards he’ll make sure to seek you out again, catch up a bit and ask you how you’ve been. Price didn’t expect to have missed you this much, but he only realized that once he saw you. You’ll either be going to one of the cafes you used to visit nearby, or maybe sit down on a park bench and maybe eat some sandwiches together, just like you used to during the good old times. Since you’d likely be around his age, so roughly 37-38, you’d have a lot to tell. Roughly 22 years you need to catch up on. He’s willing to talk to you, tell you about his career, how he's been doing, about the people he’s met and how he’s feeling. Considering this much time has passed, there’s a good chance you’ve both mellowed out quite a bit, but it isn’t unpleasant, you’re both mature people now. He likes hearing about everything you’ve accomplished, it’s like you became a new person during all those years. It’s so lovely to him, he sort of can’t believe it. Whether it’s a coincidence, or maybe you sought him out, it doesn’t matter, spending time with you again brings back all those memories he thought he had since forgotten about. He laughs, he smiles, he frowns. He’s a bit more expressive with you, but really wants to reminisce about the good old times. Even so, he hopes to be able to see you again more often, so you’ll likely exchange numbers. This time he tries to make sure to not lose contact with you and will text you every once in a while.

Gaz: When he was a child, Gaz was a lot calmer than he is today, a very quiet kid. He had always been a good boy, a gift in the eyes of many, but he wasn’t as active a child as one would imagine. Ergo he didn’t have very many friends until he became older either, but he was loyal to the few he did have. You were one of them. As you slowly started to grow apart, he started to miss you, but didn’t want to bother you either, as much as he would have loved to do so. So I’m sure you can imagine the surprise on his face when he found you at the mall the two of you would hang out in during rainy days. Gaz has become more confident, so he’d immediately walk up to you once he recognises you and start talking. Like Price, he’d be pleasantly surprised to just see you in such a mundane place, but won’t question it. Or complain about it either. In fact, if you’re not carrying anything heavy, he’d be the one to suggest going out to eat or drink something. Again, either a small and quiet cafe or a small restaurant. Maybe you’d go to a place you liked when you were kids, if it’s still open. Regardless, it’d be hard to get him to shut up with how excited he is to have you around. It’s a calm kind of excitement, but he’s happy, and that’s what’s important. It’s very likely that he’ll pay for your food, even if you insist he shouldn’t, but it’s not like he has any other use for his money. Chatting with him about the good old times is very sweet, he likes to bring up all the good things. But eventually, he’ll thank you for everything you’ve done for him and how happy he was to have you as a friend. Considering there were very few people who tried to get to know him, he was quite lonely, but you fixed that. You made everything better. From the pain on his knee when he fell as you gave him a band-aid, to the pain in his heart when the other children ridiculed him. Like Price, he’ll ask you if you want his number so you could continue to keep in contact with each other. He knows it’ll likely never be the same again, but he can pretend everything is as good as it used to be back when he was young. He’d love to spend time with you again.

Ghost: This man has had one of the worst childhoods imaginable. He was abused by his father, and the only friends he had aside from you were his mother and his brother. Barely anyone was kind towards him or accepted him considering he had always been the weird kid. No one but you wanted to spend time with him. Needless to say, Ghost had taken a liking to you when he was younger. You spent your time with him, you even defended him when some of the other kids ridiculed him. And now, 12 years later, he finds you running after a coin you accidentally dropped on the ground, bumping into him as you did so. He’d be wide eyed at first, a bit quiet as well. Once you left he never would have thought he’d ever find someone like you again, but here you were, just as quiet and surprised to see him. Ghost would pick up the coin for you and ask you how you’ve been. It had been a while. Although he’s not usually one to smile, especially not in public, you could see him faintly do so. He’s become a quiet man, so he won’t be talking too much about everything, especially not everything that happened after he joined the military, but he’s more than willing to talk to you about other matters. His life has become better over the past few years, but that doesn’t mean he isn't scarred still. He’ll offer you a walk to just about anywhere, really, even if the final destination will always end up being one of the places you used to hang out in as children. An abandoned house, a park, a mall. Manchester is a fairly large city, so there’s much to see. It would be a bit rough to catch up with him entirely, but he loves to hear about everything you’ve accomplished. You’ve become such a mature person, it warms his heart to see how far you’ve come in life. Back then, when everything was so bleak, when neither of you thought you’d see your 28th birthdays, everything was different. But now, you’re smiling at him as you’re drinking your milkshake. You seem to be better off, and so is he. It makes him nostalgic to see all of this, but he’s happy. Ghost will offer you to come to his home if you want. Even now, he still loves you dearly as a friend and couldn’t be happier about the fact he’s found you again by chance.

Laswell: When she was young she was a healthy mix of rowdy and good. While she never caused much trouble, she did stand up for herself when she needed to. However, this alone was enough to get the attention of some awful people. People either liked her or hated her, there usually was no inbetween for them. Some people did try to bully her, but it never ended well since she would fight for herself, plus she had some good friends who would do the same for her. However, none of them could compare to you, as you were her best friend. All her joys she would celebrate with you, and all of her sadness she would share with you. Back then, things were simpler, something small meant the end of the world, but you always had each other’s backs. Laswell tries to not think about you too much since you slowly drifting apart is quite painful to her. As she grew older, she learned to live with the pain and it didn’t bother her as much. Still, she was very happy when you were sending her a message after all this time. She may have been at work, but responded to you immediately, having missed you just as much as you missed her. Once you meet up it’s evident you’ve both grown a lot older. Laswell has been working for the CIA since her twenties, so it’s been almost thirty years. You have a lot to catch up on, but you take your time, eating at a fancy restaurant and spending hours there, laughing at everything that’s happened. Laswell would show you photos of all the places she’s visited during her downtime. She’s seen almost the entire world, some of it with her wife, some of it without her. Although she doesn’t usually tell people she’s married, to another woman too, she knows you’re a safe person, you’ve always accepted her as she was. Considering how happy you looked when you saw her wife, she continued to tell you about the world. But you get your chance to tell her about everything that’s happened to you as well. If the conversation goes especially well, Laswell might invite you to a few outings every once in a while, after you’ve met up a few more times. Plus you get to meet her wife eventually as well, which is a real privilege. Considering how much she loves her and wants to protect her, not many know about her. It’ll be fun either way since you get to make more memories together again.

[ariadne-mouse]

asking the critical questions

[flowercrowngods]

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 (these make one big story, you won't understand this part without the others)

day 04: here come the tears

a/n: the people have requested a surprise eddie pov and i have decided to pull a eurovision and ignore the public vote, just a little bit. but you get a tiny eddie pov, as a treat 🤍

Steve is crying. It's 1:07 a.m. and Steve is crying. And there is nothing Eddie can do about it as he's lying in bed, his heart breaking further with every passing second that they lie there in silence, quiet sniffles carrying over the phone. 

Steve is crying and Eddie is breaking. Steve is not talking to him and Eddie is breaking. Steve is not okay, and neither is Eddie. They're both breaking. 

And Eddie doesn't know what to do about it, how to fix it. How to make it better. How to tell Steve that he misses him, how to ask him to talk to him, how to keep him. To stop him from slipping through his fingers further and further until all there is is silence. 

"You know," his mind wanders back to years ago, his heart cracking at the memory. "I had the biggest crush on him for the longest time. Forever, really."

He remembers the way Steve's eyebrows shot up, his eyes round with... shock? Surprise? Or maybe something bad? 

"Oh?" 

"Yeah," Eddie had chuckled, fiddling with the straw in his drink to give his hands something to do. "Remember that kiss?" Steve nodded. "Well." Another chuckle, awkward this time, and possibly too revealing. 

Steve grinned at him, a self satisfied smirk that wavers just a little. "So you're saying you did fall madly in love with me, Munson?" 

Eddie's breath had hitched a little because Steve remembered those words so perfectly that had since doomed Eddie completely. But he covered it up with a laugh so easily, he was sure Steve didn't notice. 

"Maybe," he grinned. "But eh, that's in the past." 

It wasn't a lie; not really. But wasn't the truth either. 

The truth was that Eddie had moved on. The truth was that it's the kind of crush that was never really a crush. The kind that is a Forever more than anything else. 

The kind that will always be there, a flame burning inside my chest that carries your name and keeps it alive, keeps me warm. The kind of flame that will always be ready to become a bonfire again. Just say the word, Stevie. It's written in the universe. Say the word and I'll be yours. 

"Good," Steve said after a while, and Eddie remembers frowning, remembers that he wanted to ask what that tone was, what Steve was thinking. If he was worried or disgusted or felt betrayed that Eddie's been so hopelessly and helplessly in love with him. 

But all he said was, "Yeah. Remember Chrissy? We're kinda official now." 

And Eddie had known then just as he does now, that he'll be a happy man with Chrissy. She's his best friend, a sunshine on bleak days. She's no Steve, but she makes him happy. He had to move on from Steve – to try – and allow himself his own kind of happiness. He'd never expected to find it with Chrissy, but he loves her so much. He's grown to love her in the past years – not the movie kind of love, not the all-encompassing Steve kind of love, because that flame inside his chest can still only carry one name. 

But life is not a movie. And love is not always a fire. But he's still warm, still content, still happy. And so is Chrissy. She knows about his flame, says she understands. Eddie thinks he has one of her own, but he never asked; just held her that night, creating more of that silent happiness.

…Is he happy? Lying in bed, listening to Steve's quiet breaths that are barely audible over the phone, remembering the kiss, the confession, the Forever that he tried to move on from, he wonders what he's doing. Wonders if that contentment is worthwhile if it somehow lead him to losing Steve. 

Did he miss something? Did he fuck up without realising? 

He can't ask; Steve won't talk. 

All he can do is lie there and feel that flame that still carries Steve's name after ten, eleven, twelve years scorching his insides. 

All he can do is wonder if the whispered, "Good night, Stevie. I miss you," is some kind of goodbye. All he can do is lie awake all night and wonder where they started losing each other. 

~*~

Missing Eddie is worse than loving him. Missing Eddie makes it feel like all the heartbreak songs are written for Steve and his pain that will persist.

It’s been three months since the engagement party, and the sharp, biting heartache that cut into his lungs every time Steve tried to take a deep breath has dulled now, turned into a constant ache, an emptiness, the sorrowful traces of where an I love you turned into an I miss you. 

He’s barely talking to Eddie anymore, and with every passing day he just misses him more. 

Steve types the words I miss you over and over and over again, but never hits send. Just stares at them, wondering if Eddie knows. Wondering if he’s doing the right thing. He isn’t. There is no right thing. Nothing is right. Not without Eddie. 

He scrolls up in their chat, past Eddie’s questions if he’s okay, past his very own I miss yous, up and up and up to the strings of hearts, to the inside jokes, to the gentle teasing, to the You’re my favourite persons, to the happiness and joy and good, good times. 

He scrolls and scrolls until his phone vibrates and tells him there’s a new message in the chat. Steve frowns, his hollow heart racing as he scrolls down again to see Eddie’s new message. 

Eddie Munson: — Can I come over? 

Steve frowns. 

— why? are you okay? 

Eddie Munson: — No. — Nothing is okay. You’re gone and you’re not talking to me and I miss you and I’m losing you and I don’t know why — I dont know anything. — I just wanna know, wanna talk, wanna understand — I wanna fix this. I fucked up, I think, and I wanna make it better. — I need to talk to you — Please. Please can I come over 

Steve swallows hard, as he reads the incoming messages over and over again, watching the little bubble that says Eddie’s typing still. Watching as it disappears and reappears, reading until his eyes begin to sting and his vision is blurred with tears for the first time this week. 

Letting them fall as he types, 

— no. please dont 

Eddie doesn’t reply to that, and Steve breathes out long and hard, throwing his phone to the side, not caring where it lands on the couch as he slumps over to the other side, turning up the music even louder. 

Oh, can you tell I haven’s slept very well Since the last time that we spoke. I said, ‘Please understand I’ve been drinking again And all I do is hope.’

It consumes him, this song and the way it was written for him. The way it was written about him. Because he has no right to ask Eddie to stay. He’s the one who’s leaving. He’s the one not telling Eddie what is wrong, why he’s pulling back so suddenly. 

I’m not strong enough for the both of us. What was I supposed to do, You know I love you. Please, stay.

Please stay. Please, please, please stay. It’s about him. It’s about Eddie. About them. 

And Steve listens to it over and over again, not caring that his neighbours will know it by heart by know, will be so tired of him wallowing for weeks and months, and will come knocking soon. He doesn’t care, not when Mayday Parade are singing, All the love’s still there, I just don’t know what to do with it now. 

He types that into Eddie’s chat. Doesn’t hit send. Sends it to Robin instead, and gets a shaking hands emoji in return. It makes him smile as he re-starts the song. 

~*~

That night, he wakes around 2 a.m. to a missed call an hour ago and one new message on his mailbox. He lifts his phone to his ear with shaking hands and bated breath, a pit opening in his stomach when he hears the Judas Priest song that’s been in his Sad Eddie playlist since the beginning. 

His heart cracks open when he hears Eddie’s sniffle, a heavy sigh, and another sniffle, followed by a little, Fuck. 

“Stevie? I’m… You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to just— to just disappear. To slip through my fucking fingers, or float away like a— a dream, when you wake up, and you wanna go back to sleep because it was a good dream, and you— I don’t wan’ you to be a good dream Steve. You’re like… Fuck, man!” 

Eddie’s voice is breaking, and so is Steve’s heart as his hand begins to tremble and he sits up in bed, closing his eyes, squeezing them shut because he doesn’t want to see the world as Eddie’s rambling at him. 

“I miss you. I miss you so much, and I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t… I don’t wanna miss you. How do I get you back, Stevie? Please just… God, please just talk to me. I’d do anything for you, you know that. Just tell me, just say the word. Just… Just say the word, please.” 

There’s silence after that, only Judas Priest’s Here come the tears over and over as the song is ending. Steve is crying as he listens to Eddie’s silence. 

“Just. Just… Please, Stevie.” 

The call ends then, the line cutting to the staticky voice instructing him to save or delete the message. Steve saves it. He doesn’t know why. 

He also doesn’t know why he’s scrolling through his contacts with trembling hands and hits Call when he reaches Eddie. 

The call doesn’t even get to the second ring before it’s picked up already. 

“Stevie?” Eddie sounds breathless, wild, and just a little hoarse. Like he was still crying. 

“Hi,” he says lamely, still shaking, a little breathless himself, and with absolutely no idea what he should say. 

“I’m… Hi.” 

Silence falls, and Steve wipes at his eyes. He’s still in bed, just sitting there with his phone pressed to his ear, and the ball that’s coiled inside him is growing larger and larger with each passing second that he doesn’t say Sorry, that he doesn’t say I miss you, too. That he doesn’t say I love you. 

“Can I come in?” 

He blinks, the question throwing him off his thought spiral. “Huh?” 

“I’m sort of… outside your building right now.” 

Why, he wants to ask. No, he wants to say. You’re gonna see, you’re gonna know, you’re gonna hate me forever. 

“Okay,” he breathes and climbs out of bed, blanket around his shoulders despite the summer heat, because suddenly he’s freezing. He buzzes Eddie in, listens to him on the phone as he walks up the stairs, neither of them thinking of hanging up, and opens his doors with shaking, trembling hands. 

tagging: @sexymothmanincarnate @mcneen @livsters @eddiemunchondeeznuts @abstractnaturaldisaster @steddie-as-they-go @hyperfixationgoddess @goodolefashionedloverboi @stxrcrossed186 @imzadidragonfly @eddiemunsonswife @bidisastersworld @ghost-ly-s @romanticdestruction @walkingaftermidnight07 @anaibis @rainydays35 @mightbeasleep @sunfloweringstories @korixae @tuesdaycats @totoroinatardis @ilovebookshowboutyou @musical-theatre-gay @theluckyalien @copingmechanizm @srra @changelingbaby @sassygoop @obsessivelyme @r0binscript (sorry if i missed anyone just give me a shout if i did <3)and thanks to everyone who said nice things about this 🤍🌷

come back tomorrow/later for [redacted] | read here

[somegrumpynerd]

Headcanon that Killer sometimes tries to do puppy dog eyes when he wants something, forgetting that he doesn't have eyelights so he's just staring with big empty voids

[kenobihater]

of all the star wars movies, which of them do y'all 1) enjoy the most 2) consider the best quality and 3) think you've rewatched the most. add your answers in the reblogs or replies, i'm genuinely curious how much of an overlap there is within everyone's three answers. mine don't overlap at all! they're revenge of the sith, empire strikes back, and the force awakens :^)

[tricoufamily]

they had to hire kit as a ranch hand on very short notice. they bought an old camper from the 70s and put it on the property for him to live in. we're not sure which is weirder, that kit showed up with nothing when he moved in or that they hung a goat head in the kitchen before he got there.

[poetrysmackdown]

some informal thoughts

hello! hope the holiday season has been kind to all of you. and i hope all my jewish followers had a lovely hanukkah! anyways, since i said a few months ago that i’d pick poetry smackdown back up sometime around this time of year, i thought i should make a post. the gist of it is that i’m still quite busy, i have a break that’s about three weeks shorter than I was planning on, and i don’t currently have the mental bandwidth required to read, contemplate, and sort through poem submissions in a way that does justice to them, even if i were to recruit some friends to help out. since running a tournament format requires at least five weeks of continued engagement once it’s underway, and since i’m not at capacity to offer that right now due to the change in my schedule, i’m gonna have to bow out for now. sad bc i was looking forward to it!

my hope is that i’ll have some more time over the summer to hunker down with it, in which case you’ll be hearing from me. it’ll frankly depend on the kind of job i land in for the summer, but i find that my unemployed spirit can typically keep me doing stupid shit regardless of workload...to a point. i don’t want to make any promises because i don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up just to let them down again LOL. i do admit the amount of exposure the first tournament got has made me feel like more of a perfectionist this time around, doubly because i don’t feel that i’m very suited to being a public online presence (even a relatively quite small one)—i’m bad enough at responding to emails for my own real life responsibilities, let alone tumblr asks for the silly responsibilities i invent for myself lol. that’s not to say i no longer want to do it, or i don’t enjoy it, or even that i don’t feel capable of making a really interesting bracket—just that if i am working to put something new together, and if people are taking the time to submit poems they care about, then i don’t want to half-ass it.

my second admission is something like this. I made the original bracket as a celebration of poetry and our relationships to it. yes it was silly and competitive, and the poems were very tumblr, but still, celebration was the intention—I wanted to have conversations about poetry. I stand by the bracket format as a fun and valuable way to foster conversations about poetry, but truthfully, the poems i’m wanting to have conversations about right now—the poems that we should be talking about right now—are ones that i'm not comfortable putting in a bracket. I reblogged The Baffler’s Poems from Palestine collection on here earlier, and Najwan Darwish’s “Who Remembers The Armenians?”, which I still often find repeating through my head when I'm traveling from one place to another, walking home or riding the bus. I came across this beautiful thread recently where people have been translating Dr. Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die” into their own languages (this just makes my translator's heart sing!!!!!!). @havingapoemwithyou has been posting some great poems from and for Palestine as well—check out their tag here.

There's always more to add, and I'll be posting more on here as I come across it, but that's what I feel anyone should be focusing on right now when it comes to poetry. i think poetry can be an escape but it should never be a distraction. does that make sense? i wouldn't be against doing a one-off poll here or there, but it feels weird to be making a tournament for poetry right now, or anytime soon. i feel like what free time i have right now is still best utilized helping my friends with organizing in the real world. and god, a bit off-topic but while I'm talking, fuck poetry foundation—I have so much respect for all the poets keeping up the boycott, because while i think it's a simple decision, it's not always an easy one (Aurielle Lucier discussed that here).

anyways, if you read all of this, thank you for your time!! I could go on and on, but really this was just meant to be a message telling y'all that there won't be another tournament for a while lol. even so i'll be trying to use this small silly platform as best i can until palestine is free because that's the absolute least i can do.

[sebastian-ciel-mutual-bullying]

Sebastian: Young master, do you want uppies?

Ciel: of course i want fucking uppies

Sebastian: Yes, of course. If i couldn't provide my master uppies, what kind of butler would i be?

(Uppies in Question)

[laufire]

see, it was thinking about jason and roy as they were prereboot, about their potential and how they could get together, about how I would get them together, that inspired in me a kernel of curiosity about the pairing. canon is always the jumping point for me with ships, one way or another. every post about how roy! would never!! even LIKE jason!!! because [insert something that mr. cheshire would NOT find to be a dealbreaker sns] it gives me another push to iron out the plot I'm building just to get them fucking though, so that's nice.

[thranduel]

You're right. I can be better than him.

[inkskinned]

i've been in pretty much constant pain for the past 4 months. i have a slipped disc. the mri this weekend finally confirmed what i'd already suspected. mostly, i just put up with it.

i've been in a pretty bad mental space since winter began. my brain is leaking out from between my ears. i just don't care enough to listen to the rabid wet whispering of hope. i'm mostly just bored of being here, the swaddled joyless apathy.

the back pain ebbs and flows, but it's there, so i take care of it. i do my physical therapy. i get in with a specialist. i'm lucky - there's no immediate need for surgery. it's bad, but it could be worse. when i talk about how i did it (it was a very bad sneeze), i usually start laughing. it's funny! i am never comfortable, but hey. i'm young. i'll bounce back, or so they keep saying.

i just found out it's not normal to wake up every night with a category-five panic attack. i'm lucky if i am still able to remember how to spell my name right. i spend my days in a weird blank haze, exhausted, desperate for respite - only to be unable to rest during the night. i say with a laugh - i really hate it when my mental illnesses start working together. i mean, sure. unionize. it's fine. i have lost all sense of myself. there's nowhere that's actually warm in my mind.

i feel bad how often i complain about my back. my friends immediately shush my apology. dude, you slipped a disc. continue complaining.

as a kid, i think i only really admitted to the bad things... twice. for some reason, when he didn't just dismiss it - it made my dad angry. he slammed a door at me. you're fucking ungrateful. what do you have to be sad for?

what an odd delight: the slipped disc gave me the oddest wave of relief. i'm allowed to actually hurt about this thing.

i have chronic conditions which aren't "real" things. i could write a novel on the weird ways people respond to my POTS & the rest of my fun physical acronyms. i am kind of ashamed to admit - i like the way it feels to be able to say well, because of a slipped disc. a slipped disc is a real thing. a slipped disc is serious and painful. there's diagrams and infographics about slipped discs. upon my diagnosis, they immediately offered me narcotics.

i haven't been able to get up out of bed for more than a few hours. i do less and less and less and less. i have started to sit down in the shower. sighing my way from deadline to deadline. this again. in one day and out the other. people tell me i don't really need my meds. i have run out of times saying i have depression, it's become almost transparent. it's so bad my therapist suggested meeting more than once a week, but i don't want to worry her, so i never finish setting up a second meeting. every creative spark in my soul has been entirely ravaged - but that's just capitalism, baby. i don't even take the day off of work. i just show up and do a bad job and get yelled at for it.

it's not real, after all. the pain is just imagined.