#there was something wrong that was going untreated. he was an alcoholic. he needed alcohol

[lord-radish]

I don't talk about this openly because it's a touchy subject, but I've really gotta get out of the drinking game. I've got issues with alcohol, and I've had these issues for years at this point, but I can't seem to escape it due to both mental problems and general proximity.

Like I have a friend who frequents a bar next door to where I live. I'll be passing through as a shortcut and say hello, and he'll like. repeatedly prompt me to get a beer. Like genuinely badger me until I give in and have a beer with him. Same thing on Sundays, he pushes me to drink repeatedly even if I clearly and repeatedly state that I don't want a beer. My family is full of alcoholics, and being drunk lets me be more social with them, so when I see family I can't escape it.

But I'm also really insecure and have a lot of trouble being around people when I'm sober, and alcohol loosens me up. It helps to be around other people and to get on their level when I get drunk, when my sober self is clearly running at a diminished capacity on that front. I stutter, I don't have timely comebacks and it's hard to maintain conversation. I was bullied for years and have reduced social skills because of that.

But I'm at a point where I have to stop. I drank two bottles of bourbon this weekend. It was a fun time and a good weekend, but it makes me feel so sick for days and I get caught in this loop of binge-drinking that eats up all my time and money. It's having an effect on my physical and mental health too, and I'm just flat-out less productive when I'm drunk and subsequently hungover. I feel sick all the time. I want to get out of this.

I vent a lot about my former best friend - and that's a situation where I acted extremely shittily, but the hatred for that guy is just sort of in me now. There was a point right at the end of our friendship where I had just been sober for three and a half months due to a health issue, and due to an ongoing mental health episode and a growing sense of isolation and detachment from my friends, I gave in and began drinking again.

In that moment I needed alcohol. It was a bad choice but it was a dark, dark time. But in hindsight, one of the most disturbing parts was the morning after. I felt fantastic, I was full of energy, and I gladly left the house after breaking my sobriety and went to hang out with my former best friend. We'd been growing apart because while I was sober, I began to notice how uncomfortable and hypervigilant of myself I was around him, and that led to avoidance and a few tense moments between us - but hungover and rushing on endorphins, I went to hang out with him.

And he told me that I seemed "like myself" again.

I've thought about this, and one reason I began binge-drinking the way I do was to pacify myself and be more pliable to my surroundings, where everyone else is calling the shots and I'm just along for the ride. A lot of that came back to my former best friend - he always took the passenger seat when we went driving with friends, he always had the aux cord, it was always about him. The decision to binge-drink to cope with my negative emotions was a personal decision that I made, and the negativity encompassed more than just our friendship, but I was having a prolonged negative experience with my best friend of the time, and that didn't help.

The disturbing part, in hindsight, is that alcohol abuse made me more agreeable. When I stopped drinking, things got tense between us. When I began drinking again, I was "like myself" again. Granted, I was happier after a mental health crisis and a growing sense of agitation and dissatisfaction. But I was wallpapering over my unhappiness and dissatisfaction with that friend by binge-drinking, and maybe that tenseness was justified considering how hard our friendship imploded just two months later.

Now I have a job and my own place to live. My personal issues are more general than they used to be - I was living in an actively hostile environment, and I was friends with someone who made me feel like I was always walking a tightrope. I have my own space, and I've made new friends - one of which actively drives me to drink when I don't actually want to, but things are just outright better, warts and all.

But it all comes back to alcohol. I'm not drinking as hard as I was during the pandemic - that's what gave me the health problem that I went sober for - but I am drinking a LOT. I drank two bottles of bourbon this weekend. I'm taking the day off work and losing money because I just need one day to myself to sort my shit out. Alcohol is ruining my life. It helps with my social issues, but it is ruining my life in so many other ways. And I'm not going to mention just how deep this all goes, but it's bad.

I don't really know what to do. I can't just announce it publically, because I'm almost certainly going to backslide on it at some point. I think quitting drinking is going to alienate me from some of my current friends, and I genuinely like them. Even the guy who badgers me to drink is a good guy who's treated me very well in the aftermath of losing my previous friends. I like spending time with him. But the writing is very clearly on the wall; I need to stop.

The issue is support. My entire world is built on the back of alcohol. My family and friends are both strong links to alcohol. I was seeing a counsellor for a long time who didn't think I needed to quit, I just needed to learn to moderate - that's been out of the question for years, I know what this is. I had another one before her who made me feel really judged for my issues with alcohol. And I've had very intense codependent internet friendships before that I don't want to even risk slipping back into, so this isn't a cry for help in the sense that I'm looking for a sober buddy on Tumblr to try and help me. I'm not putting any of you through that. I'm not.

Mostly this is just me getting my thoughts in order and expressing myself. It helped to get this all off my chest. I don't know where to go from here, but talking about it was a big first step. Like just as a disclaimer, I'm going to be fine going forward and I feel a lot better having spoken about this, so don't feel too concerned or alarmed - in the immediate sense, removed from the broader issues I discussed in this post, I'm fine. But yeah I just really needed to talk about my issues with alcohol, because my continued alcohol abuse is really bad for me in a lot of ways and it's really hard to take any sort of first step y'know. Hoping I can leverage this post into something more productive for the long term. Sorry for trauma-dumping on main.

[kalivodas]

Craving sum Fluff and comfort from John price 🙏🏻🙏🏻‼️‼️ how gentle and Wholesome he is whenever he's not deployed 😭😭

SNAKE IN MY BOOTS — john price

oh captain my captain we all chant in unison!! cod requests make my brain go brrrrr

warnings: she’s tending to his wounds this is so wattpad. descriptions of injury. ps i think the twisted part of me can’t really write fluff. so checks notes and shoves papers at u take this

IT WAS EVIL, had it not made your heartbeat run wild under your chest. it knocked on your ribs like an outstretched palm to a tall oak door.

john price was staring at you, gaze intent and heavy as his eyes drew. a familiar smile hung tight on his lips.

“i’ve missed ya, princess.” he purred. but his words and his eyes weren’t following what his hands were doing. calloused palms ran gingerly down his sides, cargos stained and caked in crimson that had dried into something brown, unrecognizable amongst the red dirt.

your gaze was menacing.

he was hurt, yet finally standing here infront of you for the first time in four, long, treacherous months. every spark in your brain wanted to jump on him. hold him to your chest and never let him walk out of that door again, world be damned.

“don’t distract me, john price,” is what come out of your mouth as you jumped to the soles of your feet. your hands fell in some sort of synchronous motion, arm looped in john’s thick one as you drug him off to the bathroom.

you let the toilet seat lid down and gesture your head there once. sit.

he huffed. “it’s not bad, just a graze wound.”

your head cocked to the side, eyebrows drawn high and unyielding. “i’ll show you a real graze wound if you don’t sit your ass down.”

his eyes roll, but his knees have already buckled. he sits, and that tight smile is splitting his face. his little spitfire.

he raises his arms high, lets you peel that sweaty dri-fit shirt off of him. you toss it in the sink, already running through the stain treatments you’re gonna attempt to scrub the sin out of it with.

being a military spouse came hand in hand with blood and grime. if it wasn’t caked on his face, or he hadn’t tracked it in, his clothes were adorned with it.

you stare at his graze wound. he meant knife wound in his lower belly, untreated and oozing crimson. you want to kiss his face, thank him for coming home to you in one piece as his beard tickles your cheeks.

a deeper part of you, the one that’s got two rows of pearls gingery grinding against one another, wants to smack him upside the fat of his skull. you throw a quarter in the wrongful conviction jar and hit him anyways.

“why wouldn’t you stop by medic, honey? i need you safe, not bleeding out on your way home.”

his palms find the fat of your hips, soothing. “i know, princess. i just figure only my wife could patch me up like i needed.”

guilt swells in the soft underbelly of you. conniving son of a bitch. john price had always been a man of solemn words, but he seemed to save the best ones for you.

silence blankets the two of you after that. you clean his wound, let the vice of his white knuckles clutch you unforgivingly when you flush it with alcohol. wrap it up nicely, pat his abdomen and place a cool, open-mouthed kiss there on his gauze.

he stares down at you, some filthy idea gaining traction on the backside of his mind when he sees your mouth so close to him.

couldn’t help it, he’d say. pretty wife on her knees, so forgiving and so damn sweet to him that he thought his heart might rot of out of his chest.

later that night, after you’d made him shower while you threw something together on the stove to satiate your husband’s vast appetite, you feel thick forearms wrap around your torso. constricting, yet gentle. like a snake who’d been taught to take his war-riddled boots off at the door.

his mouth finds it’s heaven on the right side of your neck, and he plants a few wet kisses there. the burn of his beard tickles, makes your head jerk and a snort fall from your mouth.

“i missed you,” he says. “i miss you horribly when i’m away.”

you want to reply, to snake your own arms tight around him and vow to let 141 go without its captain. you don’t get the chance.

“i can’t breathe when i’m not without you.” his hands find the supple of your ass, squeezes there and grins when you yelp. he urges your legs to wrap around his waist, and he sets you up on the counter between him.

his eyes are blown, the deep brown like whiskey that ignited heat in your cheeks. he kisses the scarlet there.

[0ut0fgrace]

CHARACTERS : Hong Boyeon, Ciara Rhee, Nuala Rhee, Oona Rhee, Ronan Rhee, Topher Rhee

WARNINGS : Mentions of past violence, mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation, mentions of sex, mentions of self-harm, toxic relationships, overall just a toxic ass family

SUMMARY : A Sunday dinner, just like every Sunday dinner before.

WORD COUNT : 2.3k

Family dinners were always something to dread. Mother would clutch her pearls and hurl insults as their father. He would stab his knife into the oak table, wishing it were lodged in his wife's throat instead. The children would watch on, not in horror but in boredom. Only so many fights could get their adrenaline flowing and force them to intervene. After witnessing a dozen or so fights just like this one, they couldn’t find it in themselves to care.

Nuala watched as Boyeon ripped off her necklace before storming out of the room. Delicate pearls bounced on the marble floor. Their housekeeping staff, haggard old twins Junghee and Jungsook, collapsed to their knees. In their shaky hands rolled the delicate pearls. Had they not feared the family, one of the twins would have slipped a few pearls into her bra to pawn off on their way home.

Topher stormed after her, shattering a wine glass in his haste.

The dinner had not been too bad for a majority of the night. The family of six enjoyed two lovely courses and were awaiting a hearty dessert; a chocolate stout cake with peanut-butter frosting. It was a family favorite, they always had it at the end of a grand Rhee feast.

It wasn't until Ciara brought up feeling "forgotten" that things went to hell.

' ' ' '

"Forgotten? What the hell do you mean forgotten?" Laughed Topher, gulping down bitter red wine.

Ciara brushed crumbs from the table onto the floor. "Like in my group, Dad. Dispatch doesn't want anything to do with me."

Ronan chewed at his thumb. He had been tuned out of the night's conversations for a while.

"That's not bad," quipped their mother. "Dispatch likes to start trouble. The Rhee family name and trouble should never be in the same sentence."

"No, Mom, that's not what I mean." Ciara directs her gaze towards their father, totally disregarding their mother. Her eyes grew mushy and soft with emotion. "Can you fix my problem, Daddy?"

Nuala rolled her eyes. Of course, the baby needed to beg for something. She threw back her smoked old fashion. Her head throbbed, from alcohol and general annoyance. "Jungsook, another old fashioned." she commanded. Nuala wasn't tipsy enough to watch a fight.

Jungsook, the more skittish twin, retrieved the glass and scurried into the kitchen.

"I can try pushing a few stories to friends of friends and see what happens."

"You've never offered to do that for any of us," snapped Oona.

Ronan let out a puff of air, one of his “here we go again” sighs.

That's where it all went wrong. Their mother, emotional and unstable per usual, launched into a tangent about them being ungrateful children. She made sure to berate all of them, even Nuala and Ronan who had been silent for much of the dinner.

"What if we cut all of you out of the will?" Boyeon shrieked, pale face now red from anger. "What will you leeches do without the money? Be fucking grateful for your father. He could’ve forced you to go to some shitty company, but no he took you in and gave you everything. He gives you the world and you never thank him."

Jungsook nearly spilled the old fashioned as she placed it on the table. The yelling always scared her. There was far too much yelling in the house of Rhee.

It didn't take too much for Boyeon to scream and cry. The Hongs were a messy bunch. Untreated mental illness ran rampant on their side. Grandfather Hong didn't believe in modern medicine for silly "mental deficiencies." The Hongs didn't have anything wrong with their brains, no matter what quack doctor had to say. His children were perfectly fine, after all they directly represented him as a person and he was perfect so by default they too were perfect.

Topher tried desperately to calm her down. He lovingly cooed her name. He tried appealing to her more irrational side. He tried and tried and tried until he cracked.

"Boyeon, shut the fuck up!" he hissed, driving his steak knife into the table.

The room fell into a hush, even the air conditioning unit ceased to make its usual din.

' ' ' '

The children watched the maids sweet up the glass. None of them moved from their seats. There was no need to comfort either of their parents, it would just turn into a bigger fight. The last time Ronan tried to comfort their mother he was met with a swift slap to the face. Their father had to pull him out of promotions to let his skin heal without the public speculating how he earned the mark.

"Why can't they just be normal and get a divorce." Oona huffed, pulling out her phone. It was a sin to eat with a phone in hand, but their parents were out of the room and the lovely stout cake would no longer be sliced and divided up.

"Mom would threaten to kill herself. She's done it before."

The girls all turned to stare at Ronan. How could he so calmly drop that piece of horrific information?

"You guys didn't know?" He handed his plate to Junghee as she made her rounds, clearing the table.

Nuala tapped her nails on the side of her glass. "When did she do that?"

They all understood their mother was generally unstable, but threatening to kill herself was very new to them.

Ronan picked at his fingers as he spoke. "When we still lived in Anaheim Hills. Dad was over here doing stuff with the company and Mom had a rough time with the change." His finger began bleeding. Ronan grabbed a white cloth napkin and wrapped it around his index finger. "It's why you guys had to live with Aunt Porsha. I was at home talking her off the ledge pretty much daily."

"Did you call anyone?"

"Oona, I was fourteen."

"Did Auntie Porsha try to get her help?" Inquired Ciara, eyes wide with shock.

He held back a laugh, it would be insensitive to laugh at the question. "You know Aunt Porsha hates Mom."

Nuala nodded, their aunt did hate their mother. There were a few different rumors floating around as to why she hated Boyeon. Ronan assumed it was because Boyeon came from a background where she didn't have to work for things. Nuala chalked it up to Porsha being jealous her sister-in-law was graced with four beautiful children and she was left husbandless and barren. Oona didn't have a theory, the tension between them didn't concern her so she never thought about it. Ciara heard from one of their great aunts that Boyeon allegedly had an affair with Porsha's ex-fiancé, but that was all just word of mouth.

"Do you think Dad hates Mom?" Ciara and her questions. She was always the most talkative out of the children.

The Rhee children never had a picture perfect view of what love was or what it could be. They were so used to venomous words hurled across tables and glasses shattering that kisses looked like suffocation and hugs were strangulation. Everything sweet and good about love was foreign to them, especially Nuala.

Nuala was dating a man nearly twenty years her senior and she confused his disgusting infatuation with her for pure love. She associated the word "good" with him. He was good to her, most of the time, so he was good. Kiyoung never hit her, so he was gentle. He only called her vulgar things on occasion, so he was sweet. He fucked her often, so he clearly loved her if he wanted her writhing body beneath him.

"I think we all hate Mom to some capacity." said Nuala before slamming her drink. The whiskey stung her throat.

For the second time that day the room fell into a hush. There was some truth in her statement. Nuala for a fact hated their mother. She hated their mother and father because they made her feel like she was never enough. Ronan didn't have a hateful bone in his body, he just hated what Boyeon put him through as a child. He was just a boy when he had to act as a father for his sisters. Oona disliked both their mother and father. She disliked Boyeon for talking her into altering her face before debut and she disliked Topher for morphing her into something she was not. Ciara was not yet aware of the hatred festering in her stomach for both parents.

"I don't think we should talk like this in their house." Ronan whispered, listening for the clicking of heels or raised voices.

It was like they were children again, waiting for the fighting to stop.

Oona pushed out her chair and stood up. "I'm going for a smoke."

"That's not good for your lungs."

"No shit, Ronan."

Oona rolled her eyes and stomped her way to the coat room.

"Wait, I'm coming with you." Nuala quickly got out of her seat to follow Oona.

Ciara watched them, jealousy burning a hole in her belly. She wanted to be invited to do adult things. Her eyes flick to Ronan, their eyes meet. "I wish they would include me."

"No you don't. All they're gonna do is complain and get lung cancer. It's better to stay here anyway." Ronan smiled. "In here we can have our own fun."

' ' ' '

The night sky was full of stars when they stepped outside. Smoking at the bottom of the driveway was a tradition dating back to when Nuala could legally buy cigarettes for herself. At first smoking was a secret between herself and the stars, but as much as she'd hate to admit it, smoking by herself became lonely. Oona would get dropped off--by one of their father's drivers, she was the only trainee allowed to live at home--after her practice at the company, and each time without fail Nuala was sprawled on the pavement with a cigarette between her lips and clumps of ash on her cheeks. At first Oona would watch from a distance, but before she knew it she and Nuala were sharing cigarettes while they bitched about songwriting and prepping for idol-hood.

Nuala hadn't smoked in a few years. She developed a nasty habit of burning her flesh on the nights Oona didn't smoke with her. Oona was the one who discovered the burns. She screamed at Nuala. Oona called her crazy, and said the family would be a laughing stock if people found out she intentionally hurt herself. Nuala hadn't touched a cigarette since.

The sisters sat on the pavement. Nuala pulled her phone out, hoping to see a text from Kiyoung. He isn't a good texter. She told herself. He loves you. He loves you.

Oona whipped out her box of disgustingly cheap cigarettes and a neon lighter she got for free with her purchase. She lit the cigarette before sitting next to Nuala.

She never failed to cough on the first inhale. Oona was bent over, hacking as Nuala stared at her.

"Maybe you should just start vaping. I’ve heard it feel smoother on the throat, whatever that means."

"God no," Oona said between coughs, "vapes fucking blow up in your pocket."

"But they don't make you stink."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Nuala put her phone on the pavement. "You're always bitching about Dad criticizing you and being controlling and shit. If you don't do shit like this he won't be on your ass."

Oona scoffed. She inhaled then blew the smoke right into Nuala's face. "You're one to fucking talk, Nu."

Admittedly, Nuala missed the scent of fresh cigarette smoke.

"But I'm right. As long as you're under Dad's company he is going to nit pick. The second he and Mom come back to the dining room they're going to give you a lecture on lung health and the possibility of crazies snapping pics of you doing this." Nuala watched as Oona rolled the cigarette filter between her thumb and index finger; she was contemplating something. "Just do us all a favor and get a fucking vape."

"Oh, so you don't think I can quit?"

"No! God, that's not what I'm saying at all."

She hated it when Oona became defensive over nothing.

"Should I quit?" Oona murmured. She never asked for Nuala's opinion.

"I dunno."

Without a second thought, Oona put the cigarette by her foot and stomped it out.

"Is that you quitting?"

"Who knows." She laughed, a genuine little laugh before reigning herself back in. "When are you going back to your place?"

Nuala glanced at her phone. 11:30. She had a writing session at 7 the next morning. "Soon. I was planning on leaving after cake, but I don't know if that's going to happen anymore."

"One of the maids can give you a slice."

"It'll somehow start a fight. I don't want Mom to accuse me of stealing more than just cake." Nuala brought herself to her feet, shoving her phone in her pocket as she stretched. "I'll see you next Sunday."

Oona nodded. "Yeah."

Nuala sniffed before turning on her heels. It wasn't uncommon for her to Irish goodbye her family. Sometimes she didn't want to sit through false pleasantries after a dinner full of screaming and crying.

Her black Range Rover was parked at the end of the driveway. Ronan and Oona had personal drivers bring them to the dinner. Doing stuff like that was above her salary. Well, their father paid for the private drivers so it really did not hurt her siblings' pockets.

She opened the driver's side and hopped in. Nuala hoped texts from Kiyoung would flood through her speakers, enveloping her in his love. She turned the car on. There was complete silence.

He’s probably asleep. She reasoned with herself.

Nuala looked through her windshield, watching Oona as she made her way into the house. She wished every family dinner didn’t dissolve into a battle. She wished she had a normal family, but wishing for something never changed reality.

[aindreisblythe]

{Aindreis Self-Para}

"My god, my god, whose performance am I watching? How many people am I? Who am I? What is this space between myself and myself?" -F. Pessoa.

For many years, ever since he'd left his very first rehab, Aindreis had felt like he'd failed. He'd failed at everything. He didn't have a degree and the idea of trying to go back to school terrifies him to this day. He wasn't able to stay sober, and he honestly didn't see a point to it. And keeping a job was impossible. When he'd gone to the very first interview at Gemini, he was hired because he was essentially a "swiss army knife" in human form. He'd done so many jobs, in so many countries, in so many cities, that the only skill he hadn't acquired was staying. Sure, he got fired a few times. Because of one mistake too many. Because he was late. Because he showed up drunk. Because he'd ended up losing it on someone. But he'd also quit his fair amount of jobs. He didn't know if it was his ADHD, mostly untreated for a number of those years, or if it was his alcoholism, or his imposter syndrome or simply that he couldn't stand being there anymore; the thing was he often quit out of nowhere. Some times, that even came with leaving the country. Running at become a past time. When he came back to North Berwick and he'd taken a job at a fast food, while working for his parents as a fisherman part time, he'd never thought this would last. It didn't. 6 months in and he'd already quit the fast food job.

But then came Gemini. They believed in him and his capacities more than any job before and for once, he loved it. He was good at this job and he had no intention of quitting. Which led to East Haven. Never would Andy have thought that any company would give him the responsibility of managing a branch, especially not overseas. Between the need to prove himself and the excitement of novelty, Aindreis took a deep dive thinking he knew how to swim. Turns out drowning happens faster than he could have imagined, and screaming to yourself to learn to swim leaves you with nothing but water in your lungs.

Drowning was indeed the best way Aindreis could've described what was happening to him. Something had been wrong for a while and he refused to see it. It all culminated to that day when he just bailed on work. Going back after that had been too difficult. He'd tried but he'd lost the shield of pretending everything was fine. Maybe stopping therapy hadn't been the best idea. Last of time he said and look where that got him. He should go back is what the psychiatrist said when he went... "Close to burning out" was the other takeaway from that appointment. Aindreis wished he could've been surprised.

So there had been a video call after that, explaining the situation Sam, the CEO of Gemini, and while doing this added an enormous amount of stress of Aindreis' already high levels, he knew this had to happen. The conclusion had been that he would have to take time off. Sam didn't let him have too much choice in the decision. He would eventually come back of course, but they'd still make some changes in the meantime so it would not happen again. Aindreis knew this probably meant hiring someone to fill-in for him that would stay on after he came back. He did try to protest but Sam ended the call by telling him he would be fired if he tried to come back earlier than recommended. Even just to check in. Message was clear.

“So, you fled?”

“That sounded judgy, Jeremy.”

“Did it feel like fleeing?”

“It was fleeing in its simplest form, don’t you think, Doc?”

Aindreis had conversations about fleeing with about every therapist he's had, even the one he never told the whole truth. In retrospect, that also had been a form of fleeing. While that specific conversation wasn't about our present situation, it came to his mind anyway. He felt like he was giving up.Ali had told him he shouldn't try to play the hero, to try to fix everything because he couldn't, but he had tried anyway. How was he supposed to tell Ali about all of this? He'd been right. Not only were the past few months not good for their relationship, but Aindreis hadn't followed Ali's advice. He'd seen that it had started to lead to coming home to an empty flat and an Ali drunkenly getting into bed late. What would Ali say now that they had the confirmation that it almost went too far?

He wanted to go home and cry. He wanted Ali to hug him so he feel the relief of not having to hold on, of pretending, pretending, pretending. He's been drowning for so long, so deeply that he felt wary of taking a breath. Was he really out? For someone who loved the water so deeply, it wasn't a habit of his to be scared of it. He'd been forcing himself to swim deeper and deeper, leaving Ali behind and now that he'd stopped swimming, he wasn't sure how to ask him for help.

So he got home after a long walk to gather his thoughts. He was going to tell him. He had to, right? Ali would be happy to have him back at home, right? Well, the issue was that when Ali got home, he'd sure been happy to see Aindreis, but he was also really excited about something at work and Andy simply didn't have the heart to cut him off with his news. He'd tell him eventually. For now, he was home and it's all that mattered.

[unsafepin]

Saw’s Adam Faulkner-Stanheight and Queercoding

In today’s day and age, I believe any relatively media-literate person would be able to tell you what “queercoding” is in the lamest of terms.

It’s the flamboyant male sidekick in Disney movies who is comically gender non-conforming and is played for laughs. It’s the punky girl in sitcoms who seems to despise all men and is mean to everybody she encounters, while still having a heart of gold she extends to her female friends. That's, no offense to media critics who spent years unpacking the never ending layers of undeniable queerness in these characters, baby’s first queercoding. For the context of this essay, let’s call this extremely obvious type of coding “Cishet Queercoding” - coding largely done by cishet people, easily recognizable by cishet people. What I want to unpack in this essay is “Queer queercoding”.

The most obvious example that comes to mind and got plenty of media attention recently is, of course, Supernatural. You’ve got to hear me out here. In its grueling 15 season run, a hodgepodge of people of different ideas and ideas for the show worked on Supernatural, but fundamentally it was a show conceived by cis straight men for cis straight men. This resulted in its two leads, Sam and Dean Winchesters, being comically masculine. Dean’s demonstration of masculinity (enjoying rock’n’roll, women, cars and alcohol, preferably at the same time) is so comical every queer person who laid eyes on this character immediately went “Oh, okay, you’re overcompensating”, while the writers of the show simply tried to fulfill their ultimate cishet dude fantasy. No one is this macho all the time, except if you are performing cishet masculinity.

Hence by my definition, “queer queercoding” isn’t necessarily LGBT characters by LGBT folks for LGBT folks, but rather coding a character as queer (accidentally or not) in such a way it’s painfully familiar for LGBT people but largely goes over the head of cishet folks. So where does Saw fit into all this?

Saw’s whole premise is a complicated, morally gray mix of one man both exacting revenge on people who wronged him and teaching them to appreciate the sanctity of life. While the main antagonist, Jigsaw, isn’t afraid of collateral damage, his main targets are people who somehow ruined his life and don’t appreciate their own. This is why Dr. Lawrence Gordon finds himself in the trap - for cheating on his wife and cold heartedly breaking the news of untreatable cancer to Jigsaw. His companion in the trap though - a downtrodden twenty-something photographer Adam Faulkner-Stanheight - seems to only be there as an accessory to Gordon’s torture. He doesn’t have any immediate connection to Jigsaw and his only connection to Gordon is that he was hired to spy and photograph his activities. Gordon’s condition to escape the trap is that he must kill Adam. Adam doesn’t get a solution to escape.

Adam’s only function in the film is seemingly to be an audience self-insert and then to suffer. The audience for gory, tacky horror flicks is obviously much closer to Adam’s character than to Gordon’s thus while we can sympathize with the latter’s struggle, the former’s is much more visceral. Adam’s only crime seems to be taking a job to earn some money and not being satisfied with a life that’s frankly hard to be satisfied with (In his own words - “I remember going to sleep in my shithole apartment and then waking up in a literal shithole”). And he dies in the end - abandoned, on the edge of escape, not knowing what he did to deserve this fate - while his fellow prisoner, as we later find out, becomes Jigsaw’s apprentice and goes on to torture other people.

Cool, so I’ve explained why Saw is scary beyond a guy cutting his foot off, why is Adam queer again? Well, besides his artistic career, general cynicism about life, comically crippling addiction to nicotine (queer existence and addiction to substances is a well-documented problem in real life, a coping method for living in an unaccepting society) and a cut dialogue line revealing he doesn’t speak to his parents (I don’t think I need to explain how many queer children were disowned by their caretakers), being put in a narrative only to suffer, die and be outlived by some cishet douchebag is possibly the oldest queer trope in cinema. Leaning into symbolism even more, Adam was cunning and on-guard the whole movie, obviously recognizing the only other person in the trap with him is just as likely to be a foe as an ally, but by the end he put his life entirely in Gordon’s hands. He shot Adam to escape and Adam still helped him, believing he will return with help. To make it painfully obvious, Adam was punished for putting his trust in another man. Adam Faulkner-Stanheight, bleeding out from a bullet wound inflicted by Gordon, still embraced him and begged him not to leave.

I don’t think it was Leigh Whanell’s, screenwriter and Adam’s actor’s, intention to make a veiled kill-your-gays metaphor. On the contrary, I think that the ephemeral queerness of suffering elevated this movie far beyond its successors. It becomes a commentary not only on needless violence, sanctity of life, but on how queer people suffer both in media and in real life. Perhaps by not considering this perspective, Saw was able to look queer pain in the eye and not flinch.

[jester-writing-things]

Sorry to bother you but could I request the succubi with a s/o whose depression is really bad. I've not had the best of times recently and surprisingly they are comfort characters to me. Sorry if this is an inconvenience.

Oh I’m so sorry to hear that! Don’t worry, you’re not inconveniencing me, it just takes a while to write em since there’s so many of them. I understand comfort characters, I use em too when my depression gets sever.

The Succubi with a depressed s/o

Verosika

She may not notice at first, she’s easily busy with music and her fans, though she eventually notices you being less interested in, well, just about everything.

She is beyond alarmed thinking someone might have done something to you, she sits you down to have a one on one, she needs to know what could be the cause of it and if you’re seeking any treatment.

She’ll pay for the treatment, she just wants you to get the help you need, other than drugs and alcohol, she doesn’t know how to help

She’s there if you need a shoulder to cry on or if you need to speak to someone she’ll be there.

Josh

He’s very physical with the comfort, he’s not super good with words so he chooses to simply hug you and give you kisses whenever you seem down

He makes you treats he knows you like and will take you anyplace you like, he just wants to keep you distracted with things you like

Hell, he’ll take you to arcades in the human world too if it gives you even a fleeting glimpse of happiness

Coco

She finds out on her own, she knows you very well and she knows that you’re more down than usual. She isn’t shy about asking either, she’ll ask you as soon as you two are alone

She is concerned and she wants to talk about it before making any decisions, she doesn’t want to jump the gun and make things worse.

She ends up having the both of you sit on the couch and listen music/watch tv. She will get take out so you two can spend the night in and not have to worry about anything

Apple

You’d have to bring it up to her, she genuinely doesn’t know the signs of depression, she knows it’s common in hell though.

As soon as you tell her she jumps and is very worried. Did she make it worse?? How long has this been happening?? What can she do to help??

She bombards you with questions, she wants to know what she can do to help but she doesn’t know what to do. The things she is best at is really listening and cuddling, so if that helps she’s the master!

She’ll ask you more about your days and subtly change the topic to happy memories hoping it helps

Kat

They brings it up randomly one night, just saying you seem down and like you could use a pick-me-up. They tell you it’s bad to ignore it and that you need to talk to them about how you’re dealing with it

They probably are going to push you into get a therapist, depression is bad enough on its own, but to leave it untreated? That’s a horrible idea

If you are scared of going to a therapist they will go with you and wait outside, they will also take you out after each visit to help ease you’re nerves

Milky

She’s all about communication, as soon as you start acting different, she’s asking you what went wrong and how can she help make it right again, she wants you to be comfortable

She’ll listen to you and help you every way she can. She’ll also watch comedic movies with you, they are so stupid and funny, it dose ease your nerves a bit

She’ll get you little surprise gifts from time to time just to cheer you up. They are small but they are enjoyable

Kiki

She’s not the best at listening but will sit through everything you have to say, if it helps she’ll get alcohol, it tends to loosen the tongue so you’re more likely to tell her what’s actually wrong

Don’t think she doesn’t remember what you said, everything you say is important. She makes sure to remember everything you like and use for comfort, then she gets em fore you

There is a room in you’re home that is now filled with plushes and blankets, it is the comfort room. You two go there when upset.

Ace

He won’t bring it up straight away, you just come home to a nice homemade dinner and then while eating he ask you what’s been bothering you.

He’ll do what he can to make you happy and one of the sillier things he likes to do with you is watch nonsensical videos on the internet. (Like perfectly cut screams or cheesy romcoms

You two just make fun of the videos and chill. He wants you to just relax and have fun, he knows talking about you’re feelings isn’t easy so he won’t push it if you seem uncomfortable

[ellaintrigue]

"ABUSIVE TYPES HIDE THE FACT THEY'RE ABUSIVE, WEAR THEIR VICTIMS DOWN AND ISOLATE THEM, SO THEY NO LONGER HAVE ANY SUPPORT BUT THE ABUSER, THEN START THE ABUSE, MAKING THE VICTIM BELIEVE THEY DESERVE IT AND EVEN HAVE THE VICTIM DEFEND THE ACTIONS OF THE ABUSER. YOU NEVER KNOW SOMEONE IS ABUSIVE UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE."

Growing up I knew what abuse was. It was when someone called you bad names and made fun of you, or it was when someone hit you or was otherwise physical. But those are the basics, I had no idea. It was the 90s and early 00s. No one had cellphones, let alone internet in our rural community. Mom raised me well but we didn't know what we know now. Abuse, even simple harassment, is being talked about now on a level it never was and the internet alone is in an uproar. It's a good thing.

It just passed the anniversary of my grandmother's death and the 1 year anniversary of when I first met up with the last guy (no abuse). That stings a little. But now it is about to be the 5 year anniversary of when I became a victim of domestic violence. It haunts me and I used to talk way too much about it to people, a trauma effect. But it's one of those things that will stick with you.

I never considered myself a victim until the day he got physical, which is when I left him. That is when something clicked in my head: THIS IS NOT OKAY. I was in a stupor after the assaults but I knew to escape. I'm going to approach this topic from the standpoint of a cis female, because let's face it, this is a huge issue with men against women in particular. Let's not candy-coat that. That said, remember no one, male, female, or otherwise has the right to put you down, control you, or put hands on you!

It all starts somewhere. Like the person above says, everyone is nice at first. Forget the bad boys versus nice guys shit. Nice guys are creeps (Google Nice Guy Syndrome). Women sense outward creepiness right away especially with all the whining, but the rest of mankind is a gamble. You never know what you're going to get into.

The standard list of an abusive partner is pretty clean cut, describing fear, a lot of control, and violence: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/mental-domestic-abuse-signs

I could never be fully controlled and ended up punching him several times in fact, which was wrong and made me an abuser. I should have left. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO LEAVE OVER THE THOUGHT OF HEARTBREAK OR BEING ALONE. THERE ARE ZILLIONS OF PEOPLE OUT THERE EVEN IF DATING IS A BITCH.

There were good times and he did things for me but there's always a bright side to an abuser, that's what makes you stay. There was never any name calling or put-downs. He had mental illness breakdowns and was worried about me cheating mainly.

Here is my self-compiled list of abuse warning signs that happened to me:

1 Your partner dislikes and doesn't trust your family and close friends, encouraging you to distance yourself from them. He says they are abusing you.

2 Your family and friends nearly all dislike your partner, saying he's not acting right or something doesn't feel right.

3 Your partner is worried about you cheating. He worries about your boss, your coworkers, and customers at your job. He doesn't like you being anywhere without him.

4 Your partner is always calling or texting you, even if it's "just to talk." Normal relationships have space, you should be able to go a few hours without chatting or being around each other.

5 Untreated mental illness. I WOULD NEVER CLICHE OR BASH ANYONE WITH MENTAL PROBLEMS CLEARLY I HAVE THEM MYSELF. But when someone chooses to refuse treatment and starts victimizing those around them, being ill is NOT an excuse. Never ever feel sorry for an abuser because they are bipolar or have schizophrenia, etc. NEVER let them use their health as an excuse.

6 Establishing a relationship right away and wanting to have kids soon, even if there is no financial stability. They want to tie you to them.

7 They need reassurance that the relationship is "forever" and that you will never leave.

8 While ignoring all the red flags due to inexperience, previous abusive relationships, or whatever reason, you are still nervous and feel the need to ask the person if they would act out if you ever did have to leave them.

9 They threaten to kill themselves if you do try to leave or have any sort of space from them.

10 They can't hold a job. That's not a moral failing, it's a sign of instability that is not healthy for anyone. It will often fall on you to provide for them. That should be consensual, not forced, like when a man or woman stays home and cares for children while their partner agrees to work and is okay with that.

11 They destroy your belongings in fits of rage. YOU ARE NEXT, NO JOKE THERE...

12 They tell others that you are controlling and abusing them. They tell people that you did things that they actually did, like smashing a vase for example.

13 They threaten to call the police and tell them you assaulted them (these are times I was not hitting him although I admit I was wrong when I did that). They threaten to have you taken to the mental ward. They hit or cut themselves to threaten to tell the police you did it to them.

14 They steal from you. That's a pretty obvious one but yeah it happens anyway, and of course you don't want to press charges because they are still your partner. Some was paid back but it's still not okay.

15 They say their meltdowns and actions were never as bad as how you saw them (gaslighting).

Don't put up with any of this shit. Last week I went to the grocery store and this angry man was huffing through the isles talking to himself. He grabbed some things and piled them on his woman, who wasn't walking too fast and acted nervous. The man bitched at her and she moved towards the checkout line as I was walking up with a big cart full of shit. She told me to go ahead and I said, "no, you go ahead, you only have a few things." She was also in her work scrubs, a healthcare worker. She turned to me and said in this small nervous voice, "I also need to buy gas, will that be a problem?" I didn't really process what she said at first because it didn't make sense but said yes, of course. That would only take seconds after she paid for her 3 items.

This woman seemed timid and worn-down. This couple appeared to be in their early 50s, her with her hair done and clean, and him in dirty clothes with wild eyes. He demanded money from her and then shoved past me and another woman to go into the alcohol section of the building. As I left, he came out of another exit and cut close to me, babbling to himself while carrying a 6 pack of beer. He was yelling to himself that he got the wrong beer. She exited with the food and he huffed after her. This was 9 AM.

Don't let yourself be that woman. And if you are that woman, it's never too late, especially if you work and support that man. Save up, get support, bail. Please run before he kills you.

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Mommie Dearest (Ethan x MC)

Summary: After 26 long years, Ethan finally comes face to face with his mother

Author’s Note: I wanted this to be out in time for Mother’s Day, but my writer’s block was like “lmao”, but better late than never, right?

Tags: @fanmantrashcan @ao719 @x-kyne-x @colourmeshy @writinghereandthere @paulfwesley @ramseyandrys @a-i-n-a-a-s-h @perriewinklenerdie @aworldoffandoms @thatcatlady0716 @drakewalker04 @canknot @hatescapsicum @lapisreviewsstuff @senseofduties @badchoicesposts @ethandaddyramsey @the-soot-sprite @chasingrobbie @zodiacsign1 @choices-lurker @miyakokurono @trappedinfandoms @my-heart-beats-for-ya @adrian-motherfucking-raines @riverrune @edith-eggs1 @thatysn @bellcat2010 @theeccentricbibliophile @cecilecontrera @junehiratas @choices-love-affair @openheart12 @kaavyaethanramsey @caseyvalentineramsey @adrex04 @desmaranj @mal-volaris @whatchique @nazario-sayeed @aestheticartwriting @mvalentine @nooruleman @ruinedbypixels

~v~

Ethan Ramsey has never been so nervous in his life. Not when he did interviews for medical school. Not when he met Dr. Banerji. Not even when he finally asked out Naomi for a date.

Walking into an Italian restaurant to meet his mother has him at his peak.

She’s been trying to reach out for months now and he’s been able to rebuff her at every turn, but she’s really kicked it up these past few weeks. It all culminated in her showing up at Edenbrook, in front of his office, telling everyone within a few feet of her that she’s Ethan Ramsey’s mother.

Alan wanted him to reach out at least once, to see if the mother and son could actually make amends. Naveen thought so as well. An hour or so of his time could answer a lot of questions, and maybe help him seek closure.

It wasn’t until Naomi spoke up did he actually agree to give it a shot. She said he deserved answers, he deserved to be heard, and his mother owed it to him more than anything to sit down and face him.

So now he’s here. Coming face to face with Margaret Ramsey for the first time in over two decades. He wants to turn around and run. He wants to hide somewhere. He wants to call Naomi and tell her to come to the restaurant and help him muddle through this dinner. But Ethan doesn’t do any of that, instead he powers through.

She’s sitting at a table right in the middle of the restaurant, casually glancing at a wine menu. A gasp catches in his throat at the sight of her. She’s so much different than he remembers her, his memory only ever able to produce a hazy figure, but she’s still so similar, just older. She’s skinnier than he can recall, more frail. She’s wearing a simple green sweater and jeans, her hair in a bun, with a pair of cubic zirconia earrings, but Ethan can tell this is her version of getting “dolled up”.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been standing, gaping at her like she’s some sort of museum exhibit, but Margaret breaks the trance, staring up at him. A wide grin breaks out on her face and she instantly stands up. “Oh my goodness, I’m so glad you came!”

She reaches out to hug him, but Ethan bristles and takes a step back, recoiling from his mother’s touch as if it’d burn him. Margaret flinches, but she doesn’t make a fuss over it. “Sit, sit!”

Ethan slides into his seat as Margaret does the same. For a long while, they just stare at each other.

Again, Margaret is the first one to break the tension. “I know you said you’d come, but I’m still shocked to see you. I really thought you’d change your mind.”

He did change his mind. Multiple times throughout the day, Ethan went back and forth on this decision, unsure if it was the right one. “Well, I’m here.”

“I’m glad.” Margaret looks him up and down. Gone is the lanky 11 year old she remembered, and there’s a grown man in his place. It feels surreal, the amount of time that’s passed. “You look so good. Parents often wonder what their kids are going to look like but wow, seeing you so grown up is...mind boggling.”

She isn’t some distant aunt or third cousin twice removed he’s seeing at a family reunion, but his mother. His growth wouldn’t be such a shock if she actually stuck around. “A lot changes in 26 years.”

“Touche.”

Tense silence hangs above them like a dark cloud. The only reprieve they get is when a waiter comes to the table to take their drink order. Ethan springs for a bottle of wine, needing alcohol to get through this.

“Your father tells me you’re some sort of hot shot doctor,” Margaret starts. “And you have a whole team of people under you.”

“I do,” Ethan confirms. “It’s a diagnostics team.”

“A what now?”

“Diagnostics. We treat the untreatable. When no one else knows what’s wrong, we step in and get things figured out.”

Margaret oohs at the explanation, smiling. “You sound so fancy. Like Dr. House!”

“Sort of. I’m not addicted to opioids though.”

“My son, the doctor. I always knew you were destined for greatness. You came out of the womb smart and wise beyond your years.”

The anecdote might’ve been nice coming from his dad, but hearing his mom say it makes him shift uncomfortably. She’s a stranger, for Christ’s sake. She doesn’t know a damn thing about him, about his potential for greatness.

Quickly, Ethan lifts his glass to his lips and takes a sip. He exhales slowly, carefully measuring his next thoughts and words. “What are we doing, Margaret?”

The question catches the older woman off guard. “What do you mean? We’re having dinner.”

“Okay, but why? Why are we here? Why now? I’m 37 years old, why did you pop back into my life at this point in time? What do you want?”

“It would’ve been a lot sooner, but you weren’t too receptive to a reconciliation,” Margaret points out.

“So it’s my fault? Is that the angle you really want to go for?”

“No! No, of course not.” Margaret’s eyes shift around the dining room, casually observing her surroundings. She feels anxious now, jittery.

Eventually her gaze reruns to Ethan and she gives him her full attention. “I guess I’m just tired of running. I know I’ve missed out on so much, more than I can ever make up for but, I’m here now. I’m here and I’d love to be in your life again. You asked me what I want, I just want you, in whatever capacity you’ll have me.”

“Why’d you leave in the first place?” Ethan asks. “I thought we were a family, I thought we were happy.”

“Ethan…” she doesn’t want to go down this road. “Can’t we leave that in the past?”

“No.”

“I don’t have an answer.”

Ethan shakes his head. “That’s not good enough. There had to be some reason you left your job, your home, your husband, your child. You left and you never looked back. I deserve an answer, any answer. Witness Protection, alien abduction, anything.”

“I was young,” Margaret says. “I was 19 when I had you, I was still a baby. And we just settled into...monotony and routine, and I felt antsy. I didn’t think I could be a good wife and mother, my heart wasn’t in it. I thought no mother or wife would be better than a crappy one, and you guys would be better off without me in the picture.”

“You have some extremely flawed logic, Margaret.”

She only shrugs in response. “I know, but you weren’t anticipating a perfect answer. So...can we please just try to enjoy this dinner?”

Ethan ponders the question. He is starving, and this is a restaurant he’s been meaning to try. While the company isn’t what he’d usually want, Ethan is sure he can make do.

“We can enjoy dinner.”

Margaret smiles, her eyes crinkling slightly as she does so. “Yay! I hope they have a good chicken marsala because I am starving.”

~v~

By the time they’re finishing appetizers, Ethan has relaxed considerably. Maybe it’s the glass of wine, maybe he’s finally ready to ease up around his mother, but whatever it is, Ethan is grateful.

“Tell me more about your job,” Margaret probes. “I may not know all the medical mumbo jumbo, but I’ve seen E.R. I can kind of follow along. How long have you been in Boston?”

“Since I graduated medical school, 11 years now. I did my internship at Edenbrook, and I never left.”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it.”

“You don’t ever want to be somewhere else? Like Stanford? Or Johns Hopkins?

“They’re great, but no. And I went to Hopkins for medical school, I’ve had my fill of them.” Ethan’s phone vibrates in his pocket. “Excuse me.”

He slips his phone out and looks at the screen. It’s a text message from Naomi.

How are things going?

He quickly sends her a reply.

I think they’re going...ok.

And you know I hate texting.

It takes her less than 10 seconds to respond, his phone beeping multiple times.

Yay!! I’m so glad things are going well!

And you love me, so you’ll deal

Ok, I’ll leave you alone now.

That makes Ethan roll his eyes, but he smiles at the message.

“Talking to someone special?” Margaret asks, gaining his attention.

Ethan’s head snaps up and he looks at his mom. “Huh?”

Margaret points to the phone. “Your face just lit up when you read your messages. Your dad told me that you’re seeing someone. Is that her?”

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

Ethan doesn’t know if he’s willing to talk to Margaret about something as precious to him as Naomi. Does she deserve to be privy to his personal life?

He decides to take the leap. “Naomi.”

“Ooh, like the supermodel,” Margaret coos. She raises an eyebrow. “Are...you dating the supermodel?”

“No, I’m not dating Naomi Campbell. Naomi—my Naomi—is a doctor at Edenbrook.”

“How long have you guys been dating?”

“Seven months now.”

“Do you love her?”

“Very much so,” Ethan confesses, not a hint of trepidation in his voice.

“Well what are you doing still being boyfriend and girlfriend? Sounds to me like you should lock things down and marry her.”

Margaret Ramsey is the last person Ethan will ever take relationship advice from. “Naomi and I are perfectly fine with the pace of our relationship. I’m not going to rush anything.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Margaret sighs wistfully. “”I just...I've wasted so much time, and I’ve missed so many moments. And now that I’m back, I’m projecting. It’s misplaced, and I overstepped.”

Ethan softens slightly. “It’s fine, no need to apologize.”

“Besides, there’ll be plenty of time for me to one day see you gg walk down the aisle. I don’t know if your father told you, but I’ve been looking for a place of my own.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. I got a job at a local grocery store, and I’ve been trying to find something close by, ideally in Boston or close by.”

“Good for you.”

Margaret looks around, unable to meet Ethan’s gaze and she rings her hands together. After staring at the passing waiters and patrons for a while, she turns back to the table, though her eyes remain fixed on the tablecloth. “I’ve been trying my hardest recently to get my life back in order after spending so much time aimlessly flitting around New England. But no one tells you how challenging it is to do that.” 

Finally she meets Ethan’s eyes. “In my hunt for a place of my own, I’ve come to realize that it won’t be smooth sailing. My savings is abysmal, and my credit is shot, so passing credit checks is hard and banks want such high down payments on houses and even higher interest rates.”

“I know you’ll probably think I’m ridiculous for bringing this up, and I hate to even mention it, but I just thought if in order for you and I to get on the right track, you’d maybe want to help. I guess it’s safe to assume you’re doing well…”

Ethan sees his mother’s mouth moving, but the rest of her spiel fades out like white noise. This is what she really wanted to meet with him for? Money?

A chill runs through his body, starting at the base of his skull, traveling down the length of his spine, and moving outwards. He feels frozen in place, like he’s being forced to sit in this chair.

Everything is jumbled and he can’t form a coherent thought to save his life.

Whatever it is, he wills it to pass. He doesn’t want to cause a scene in the restaurant, and he doesn’t want to be emotional in front of this woman.

It takes a long time for him to regain control of his person, but when he does, he releases a breath. Margaret is still going on, talking about a loan manager, but he holds up a hand to stop her in her tracks.

“You’re good,” he says. “Like...really good.”

She feigns confusion. “Good at what?”

“Acting. You’re so good at being a grifter, the lies and tall tales come so easily to you. You begged me to meet you, forced my dad to beg, and for what? Because you’re flat broke.” Ethan chuckles humorlessly. “What, did you Google me and dig for my net worth? Find out what type of car I drive? Research how much condos in my neighborhood cost?”

“Ethan, I–”

“Save it!” His tone is so sharp, it makes her flinch. The couple at the table next to them stop talking in order to stare. “I can’t believe I let my guard down around you, even slightly. You’re still the same piece of garbage you were 26 years ago.”

“You know Margaret, I would’ve respected you more if you would’ve been upfront and said you wanted money. Sure, I would’ve still said no, but there was no need for the disingenuous long con. You didn’t have to pull my dad into this, you didn’t need to show up to my job, you didn’t have to pretend to care about making amends, about being a part of my future, any of it.” Ethan hastily stands, pulling out his wallet. Hands trembling and clammy, he pulls out a crisp hundred dollar bill and throws it on the table. “Don’t ever, in your pathetic excuse for a life, reach out to me again.”

Ethan doesn’t bother grabbing his jacket. Instead he just turns around and walks away, ignoring Margaret’s pleas and shouts.

~v~

The drive home is long, silent, and tense, but Ethan makes it without snapping his steering wheel in half or causing a rage induced accident. He’s trying his hardest to remain calm, because who the fuck is Margaret and why does she have the right to get under Ethan fucking Ramsey’s skin? But it’s not working. He can feel all of the emotions simmering under the surface, crackling with a sharp intensity.

He opens the door to his apartment and crosses the threshold. His eyes fall on Naomi, sitting on his couch, curled up in a thick blanket, watching some silly reality show. Jenner’s on her lap, happily watching the show with her as she scratches his ears.

His entrance garners their attention and they look up. Naomi’s eyes widen and she cranes her neck, hoping to get a look at the time on the microwave from her spot on the couch. “Ethan! What are you doing here?”

“I live here, Rookie,” he quips. Ethan kicks off his shoes, leaving them at the door

Naomi rolls her eyes. “Obviously, smartass. I thought you’d still be having dinner with your mom.”

“I don’t have a mom,” Ethan says, his voice taking on an edge she’s not used to. “I had a surrogate who stayed 11 years too long.”

Naomi stands up and walks towards Ethan, who’s heading into the kitchen. She watches as he rinses out a glass and pours himself some scotch. “What happened? I thought things were going well.”

“I thought so too.” Ethan downs the drink in one gulp. “We were doing okay, she asked about my work, she asked about you, about us. And then it all culminated in her asking me for money.”

“What?”

“Yeah, she claims she wants a down payment for a house close by, but who knows if that was the truth. I could cut her a check and she’d be out of the state within an hour.”

Naomi frowns. “Baby, I am so sorry.”

“What is there to be sorry for?” Ethan asks. “Seriously, what? This isn’t your fault. Margaret showed me the type of person she was 26 years ago when she said she was going to the grocery store and she never came back. She showed me who she was when she never once tried to see me. I didn’t hear from her on my birthdays. I didn’t hear from her when I graduated high school, college, medical school, nothing. She wasn’t there when I got my tonsils removed, or when I won the science fair.  She disappeared like a thief in the night without a backwards glance and without a shred of remorse. And even tonight, not once did she apologize, she just gave me a shitty excuse about how she thought I was better off without her, and you know what? She was goddamn right. Margaret Ramsey showed her true colors a long time ago, hell, even all those months ago when she stole out of the convenience store.”

“Birthdays, Christmases, 26 Mother’s Days came and went without her. You know what was really fun? Seeing my friends in school have moms that participated in bake sales, and ‘Back to School Nights’ and field trips. It was great having the other parents and classmates take pity on me because I was the motherless child.”

“And she just waltzes back into town thinking, ‘Oh wow the kid I abandoned actually made something of himself. I researched doctor’s salaries in Boston, Google tells me he lives in a multi-million dollar apartment complex, he drives a Mercedes. Maybe I can swoop in and upend his life once more.’” Ethan takes the tumbler in his hand and throws it against the wall. Naomi jumps back, startled by the loud crash. “Fuck her! She’s dead to me.”

Naomi sucks in a deep breath and takes a step closer to Ethan. “You don’t mean that.”

“I absolutely do mean it,” Ethan argues.

“No you don’t. Because if you were truly done with the situation, if you were truly healed, you wouldn’t be so worked up over it.”

Ethan glances at the shards of glass littering his kitchen floor. “No, I think that did it. I think I got it out of my system.”

“I think you should–”

“You know what I think?” Ethan interjects, not giving Naomi the chance to speak. “I think we should move on.” He turns to his girlfriend and takes a step closer, eyes raking over her. “Moving on, hello. I don’t think I greeted you properly.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. I’m sorry I even let thoughts of that woman follow me home.” Ethan surges forward, his hand curling around Naomi’s waist, pulling her closer. He bends slightly, inhaling her scent. Her skin is soft and she smells like coconut. “You smell good.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I even went to that dinner,” Ethan murmurs. “I could’ve been here and showered with you.”

Naomi can see right through him. He’s deflecting, trying to push his feelings aside. He’s so good at it, bottling everything up, but she doesn’t want that to happen. “Ethan–”

He cuts Naomi off again, this time slanting his mouth over hers, enveloping her in a kiss that threatens to steal the breath straight from her lungs. She scrambles, arms flailing as she tries to hold onto something that will keep her upright. Thankfully Ethan walks them backwards until her back is pressed against the fridge.

His tongue sweeps across her bottom lip before invading her mouth, deepening the kiss. Desperate to touch her, Ethan grips her hip in his hand, reveling in her warmth. Naomi is here. She’s here. She’s real. And she’s not going anywhere.

She breaks the kiss, the urge to inhale too strong to ignore. Her palms rest against his chest, and she can feel just how erratic his heartbeat is. Sparing a glance upward, Naomi’s breath catches in her throat as she sees Ethan looking down at her, tears in his eyes.

“Ethan, talk to me,” Naomi pleads, taking his face in both of her hands. “Don’t shut me out, don’t try to deflect.” Ethan shakes his head, unable to find the words, unable to say them out loud. Naomi sighs. If he won’t start the conversation, she will. “I love you. I love you so much, and I am so sorry. I’m so sorry about your mom. You deserve so much more than she’s ever given you.”

That seems to help push things in the right direction, as Ethan slumps forward and rests all of his weight on her, his false bravado gone

“Why does it s-still matter?” Ethan asks, his voice breaking as the sobs settle in, wracking his body. “Why do I still care so much?”

“Because you’re not the robot you pretend to be.”

“I’m so stupid. I should’ve never agreed to do this.”

“You’re the furthest thing from stupid. You needed to see her for yourself. She owed you answers and closure.”

“I didn’t get it.”

“You did, it just wasn’t pretty. Now you know for certain the type of woman she is.”

But why did he have to throw himself back into the lion’s den in order to find out what he already knew? Now all of the old wounds have come back to surface, open and raw, ripe for picking. He feels like he’s been turned inside out and left for the taking.

“All these y-years later, and she still doesn’t...love m-me,” Ethan cries, fat tears rolling down the apples of his cheeks. “She st-still doesn’t want me. What did I do?”

Standing in front of her isn’t her 37 year old doctor boyfriend, but a heartbroken 11 year old who desperately wants his mom to come home from the “grocery store”. His pain is palpable, and Naomi’s heart aches for him. Ethan was dealt a shitty hand, and he didn’t deserve it at all.

His weight becomes too much for her to bear, and they sink down on the kitchen floor. Ethan buries his head in Naomi’s lap and she just cradles him. She’s never seen Ethan this upset and out of sorts, not when Delores died, and not when Naveen was on the brink of death, so she feels like a fish out of water.

“You didn’t do anything. You’re the child, you can’t carry this burden. Your mother is at fault, and it’s all her doing.”

She doesn’t know what else to say to him. She can tell him that he’s smart, and successful. She can tell him that he’s a wonderful guy, and that he deserves the world, and his mother is a selfish idiot for not seeing what she sees, but she doesn’t know if it will help. All the compliments and platitudes in the world can’t make up for your own mother not wanting anything to do with you.

So she doesn’t say anything. Silence falls between them, the only sound to be heard coming from the television and Jenner occasionally whining from his spot on the couch. Naomi simply strokes his hair and other places she can touch on his body.

They stay in that position for a long time, but the cold tiles of the kitchen floor become too uncomfortable to ignore after a while. Naomi stands up and drags Ethan along with her as they make their way to his bedroom.

Ethan is dead weight and doesn’t offer much help, so Naomi rids him of his clothes by herself, until he’s left in nothing but his boxers. His last bout of energy is used to collapse into bed, where he curls into Naomi’s side, holding her close.

“I’m off tomorrow,” Naomi says, breaking their silence. “I think you should take a personal day. You deserve to get some rest.”

She expects him to argue. He’s Ethan Ramsey, a workaholic, and if anything, he’ll use this as a reason to bury himself further in his work.

But he doesn’t argue. He nods and says, “Okay.”

“I’m sorry if I was too aggressive earlier,” Ethan continues, his voice still soft and quiet. “Yelling, throwing that glass, kissing you like that, it wasn’t appropriate.”

“Apology not needed. But thank you anyway.”

Ethan rolls over and stares at Naomi, analyzing her features. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Naomi kisses his bicep, too lazy to stretch up and kiss his lips. She rolls over and turns off the lamp at his bedside.

It doesn’t take long and she can feel herself getting sleepy, the events of the past hour taking their toll, a heaviness settling in her bones. As she starts to doze off, Ethan calls out for her. “Hey, Naomi?”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re the most important family I have.”

And with that, he falls asleep.

[khunfounded]

If I’m Kindling

[ This fic is based on the wonderful song Boreas and as such dedicated to the even more wonderful @ashe-is-here for introducing me to it! I hope you enjoy :D]

Blood was dripping from his nose, and Khun could taste the metallic burst of iron on his tongue. He didn’t bother wiping it off. He was only a few hours into his training session with Evan, and his face was bound to get worse. 

Khun almost relished in it. The pain, the marks. The broken nails and the singed hair. They were signs that he was getting somewhere, doing something real.

“Let’s try this again,” Evan said, in a voice that was firm and unyielding. Khun prepared himself, and actually managed to last a few seconds longer than his previous attempt. The crater his broken body was thrown into was another rung on the ladder that led its way to Bam.

His chest heaved. Up. Down.

He dragged himself up with scraped hands and scraped knees, cutting his palm on one of the broken shards of floor. He looked at it, squeezed his hand into a fist and watched as blood flowed sluggishly between his fingers. Three droplets fell onto his trainers.

But it wasn’t enough, he realized. No matter how much blood he spilled or how many hours he put into training, it was never going to be enough. He was a minnow in a vast ocean he couldn’t see the bottom of, and even when he was able to catch up with the sharks, he was useless.

Maybe Evan was wrong. He wasn’t a minnow, he was a leech. 

The real person spilling blood here was Bam, and it was Khun’s teeth that drew it. All he did was take and take, with no idea how to give, from the very start. He remembered a bright eyed Bam, so new to the world, how he was dragged into the abyss, and Khun hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. Then, when they had finally met again at the Hand of Arlene, Khun wasn’t even able to recognize him until it was too late, until Bam was gone from his sight.

At every turn, every step of the way, Khun was a nuisance and a burden. He took and he took and he took. It was a wonder how even Bam’s endless patience wasn’t worn down.

All Khun wanted was to be of some use. Even for a minute, a second at least.

Another droplet fell onto his shoes, but it wasn’t red this time.

“Kid,” Evan said, something off in his tone, “Maybe it’s time to take a break”.

Khun didn’t look up.

“No”.

Evan sighed, a sound that was ragged and worn.

“Let me rephrase that. Get out of here and take a break”.

Khun gritted his teeth, but he knew better than to argue. He took heavy, shaking steps towards the door, fist still clenched. Before he was able to open it, Evan spoke again.

“If you keep going like this, you’re going to burn yourself out”.

Khun turned his head, meeting Evan’s eyes for the first time in hours.

“Does that really matter?”

If he burnt out, at least he could be the kindling to keep Bam warm. His friend deserved warmth.

Khun opened the door, and slammed it shut. The trip to his room was silent except for the echo of his footsteps and the heavy sounds of his breath. He wondered if Bam was back from the Rice Pot. He hoped not. Khun needed a few hours to just exist without the worried eyes of his friend, without the downturn of his mouth and the twitching of his fingers. He knew what Bam would be like if he saw him like this. 

Really, Bam was too kind for his own good. No one had ever worried about Khun before, and it was better that way. He could handle himself, and Bam had more important things to think about.

Luckily, when he opened the door to the room he shared with Bam, it was dark. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, simply trudged his way to his bed and fell face first onto the covers. 

“-un. Khun, wake up”.

Warm hands shook Khun’s shoulders. He turned over, grumbling.

“What?”

Blinking his eyes open, he saw Bam hovering over him, eyebrows creased. Oh god, he was worried. Khun turned back around, mashing his face into his pillow.

“Five more minutes”.

“Khun, get up. You look terrible”.

Khun sighed, before sitting up and reluctantly looking at his friend. His eyes were like molten gold, and Khun couldn’t handle them on a good day, let alone now. He turned his head downwards. Blood was crusting on his fingers, and he watched as some of it flaked off when he flexed his hand. He must have been asleep for an hour or two, at least.

“Gee, thanks. You really know how to make a guy feel special”.

Bam huffed. Obviously he wasn’t in the mood for jokes. 

“I’m serious, Khun. I got back from training and you were lying face down, covered in untreated wounds. I thought something was seriously wrong”.

A calloused hand came into view, and gently took his injured one, turning it over. 

Bam’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper, “Maybe something is”.

Khun looked up. What did he mean by that? Everything was fine. Khun was fine.

With his other hand, Bam picked up something from the floor. It was a first aid kit. He took a packet out and tore it open with his teeth. Bam rubbed the alcohol wipe over Khun’s palm with the utmost care, but Khun still hissed at the sting.

“Khun, are you okay?”

“Of course I am. What would make you think otherwise?”

“Besides all this? You keep coming back from training later and later. You’ve been eating less. Sleeping less. I hear you getting out of bed in the middle of the night and not coming back for hours”.

“And,” Bam’s voice wobbled, just a little, “And you never look me in the eyes anymore”.

Khun turned his head up, “I’m looking you in the eyes right now”.

“Don’t be like that. You know what I mean”.

“No, I don’t”.

“Yes, you do”.

“No, I don’t”.

“Yes, you- Oh my god. Khun, please”.

Khun watched the alcohol wipe turn pink as Bam cleaned the rest of the blood off his fingers meticulously. Khun didn’t deserve this gentleness. He deserved to be argued with, yelled at, maybe punched a little. He knew he was being impossible, so why was Bam still treating him like this?

“Please, talk to me”.

“What do you want me to say?”

Bam was silent for a few moments as he rummaged through the first aid kit. When he pulled out gauze and bandages, he finally spoke.

“Just, the truth. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“I- I need to catch up”.

Bam paused in wrapping Khun’s hand, “What does that mean?”

There were so many things that Khun could say, and he didn’t want to say any of them. He wished Bam didn’t ask, that this could have stayed an unspoken truth.

But Khun could never say no to Bam, could he?

“You’re so far ahead of me. You and everyone else. I’m useless to you right now, and I need to change that”.

To his surprise, Bam let out a scoff. He tied off the bandage and Khun missed the warmth when Bam’s hands left his. But then, his cheek was being cupped, and he couldn’t help but lean into it. The hand holding his face nudged it up, and now Khun had no choice but to meet Bam’s eyes, golden and bright and everything he was afraid of.

The other hand took another wipe and started cleaning out the cuts and scrapes on Khun’s face that he had forgotten even existed.

“Khun, you’re not useless. And that doesn’t even matter anyways. I don’t care if you’re useful or not. I care about you”.

Khun tried to shake his head, but Bam’s grip was firm, “You don’t understand”.

“I do. I promise you, Khun, I do. I feel that way sometimes, too. But you’re always here to make me feel better. Remember that time I punched a hole in one of the walls of the train?”

“Yeah, it was our bedroom. We had to find a new one, you idiot”.

Bam chuckled, rubbing the wipe under Khun’s nose, before tossing it away. He pulled out a butterfly bandaid and pressed it to the cut crossing through one of Khun’s eyebrows. After he was done, his other hand came up to cup his face, too. Khun felt his cheeks heat up, and he knew he was probably absurdly red, but it wasn’t fair. Bam was surrounding him, encompassing him, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

“You cleaned my wounds and let me rant to you for hours. I felt better after that than I had in weeks”.

“Khun,” Bam said, before starting again, “Aguero, you don’t have to burn yourself down to warm me up. I’ve never felt warmer than when I’m with you”.

Khun blinked. Then blinked again. He didn’t know when it had happened, but tears were spilling down his cheeks, impossible to control. Gentle thumbs brushed them away, and Khun had never felt more of anything in his life.

“I love you, Aguero,” Bam whispered, eyes soft like the kiss of a sunflower’s petals.

“I-” Khun choked, “You can’t just say that. You can’t mean that”.

“But I do, I’ve never meant anything more in my life”.

“Oh,” was all Khun could say, because he knew that voice. It was the voice Bam had when his mind was set, when he couldn’t be convinced to take any other path than the one he was on.

So, really, there was nothing else to do but ask, “Kiss me?”

If Bam was all in, so was he.

Khun was treated to a gorgeous smile, slow to rise, but so, so bright. He wondered if that was what the real sun was like, but he figured that anything paled in comparison to Bam’s face right now.

When Bam’s lips met his own, Khun could feel himself melting. He felt warm, like he never had before in his life, and it was addicting. He wrapped his arms around Bam’s neck and tugged him in closer, as close as he could get.

“I love you, too,” Khun whispered into Bam’s mouth, smiling uncontrollably, “So much. You keep me warm”.

[btswishes]

What we were and what we are

One Shot/ Random

A/N: Take it as an emotional dump. I will put a keep readying line since I don’t think anyone would want to read this. XD Have fun anyways if you wish to stay friend. Who knows maybe it could be a Yoongi x Reader , friends to lovers story, idk. 

Word count:   2,535

Playlist recommended for this : Jin-Epiphany   Big Bang- Loser  Big Bang- Blue   at the end you can try BTS- We Are Bulletproof The Eternal

Warnings:  dark, anxiety, talk of trauma , be yourself please

                   ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  The sky was covered with soft cotton candy like clouds, tinted in the colors of the ending day. Oranges, reds, blues, yellows, you name it it was there. The wind was warm and but a whispering tender sensation over your exposed skin. The grass pillowing your body under the roughly placed cover, as your head moved up and down by Yoongi’s breath. Laying onto him felt like a antidepressant pill to you.Time had stopped. He was leaning onto his left arm as you both were looking up at the sky. His free hand from time to time brushing over your hair. 

“Your mom is calling.” he said taking a glance at your lit up phone screen

“Leave it.” you didn’t even use all the breath in your lungs with this sentence. 

“Shouldn’t you pick up tho? I mean she is your mom.” Yoongi’s eyes now focused onto you 

“Nah man, she is probably mad at me for something. My mom or not, good or shitty relationship, no matter how much parents say ‘i understand you’ or ‘i was your age once too’ .It never works, telling them anything ends up being a pain in the ass later. Asking for help when you fuck up is the same.” you tried following a lonely cloud with the corner of your eye

“I guess them not accepting that something is wrong with their kids is a defense mechanism.” 

“That fucks us up tho. Just because they want to lie to themselves to feel better, leaves their kids untreated and undiagnosed ,messing them up. Years of being bullied and not knowing why, can’t study even if they try, can’t be themselves. Such an easy solution, yet such a hard choice to make to take the first step.” you sighed as you spoke out, a bit of disappointment mixed in with your breath. 

“Ha ha ha.” Yoongi laughed under his nose before laying back down 

“The fuck did I say?” you cut him off, thinking the giggle was a bit displaced in this talk

“And when you take the first step? What then? The so called professionals lie to us too, give us chemistry and tell us all will be ok as they turn us into addicts to fake serotonin. Psychologists? The word comes from Greek meaning the study of the soul, yet those assholes look at us as bags of meat that you can stuff with pills. Yet we would do anything to get that drop of calmness, that feeling of being a bit happy for being alive right now. And when the effect passes? You want more and more, pill after pill, pharmacy after pharmacy. What difference is there between us people with anxiety and disorders and drug addicts? The medical degree probably.” 

  You smirked after his last words “ Not all doctors are bad, but you can feel how genuine they are, the rest are health merchants. I don’t think there was a difference in the first place. Drugs, alcohol, smoking fuck it, even sex, man. It’s all to fill that void with dopamine, serotonin and all the bio crap.” 

“Isn’t that chemistry tho?”

“We learned it in biology class so it’s bio to me. Do I look like a professor to you?” you rolled over and flicked his nose earning a ‘yah!’ “Hey.” 

“Wasup?” Yoongi pulled his hand from under his head and spread his arms wide like a star in the vast sky. 

“You know that thing where people ask you, if you saw your younger self in front of you right now and they were having the same feelings as you. What would you do?”

“I don’t know honestly, probably give the little guy a hug and some money ,or buy him something to eat. Someone out there for sure has it shittier than me, but I guess one of my mistakes was to undervalue my own emotions and mental state. Fuck, i got myself in such a hole. When people say ‘after you hit the bottom there is no where more to go but up’ , honestly that is straight up crap and bullshit. Some of us keep clawing and digging fearing that there is more to come. “ 

“Ah.” a memory popped up in your head on it’s own “That shit hole. Yeah, either you lose yourself laying there with bloody fingernails and hands, or you start crawling back up like a bug. You know, the blood is gonna stain the walls so next time you fall you will remember and catch yourself...if you make it that far.” lifting your hand, you covered a bit of the sky with it, noticing the colors around it “What about the times we reach out but no one grabs on?”

“Fuck! Y/N! We were supposed to have a nice walk in the park not a whole ass depressing talk session!” Yoongi hissed out, unlike his words his voice wasn’t angry

“Oh come on, you know that somehow we always end up talking about this shit.We are both broken pieces, but I think that isn’t bad at all.” you felt his breath stop under you for a split second “I feel like that is why we fit so well together.”

“Oh for real?” he asked a bit surprised by your words “I always thought it was because we were both hella toxic.” you swung your hand and hit him in the stomach “OOF!” he folded in half, sending you sitting up “I forgot how aggressive you were too.” Yoongi’s voice was coming from between his teeth.

“I am serious! I feel like we went through our hard times and learned to manage, that is why we can talk about all these things like this.” 

“Makes sense, we were each other’s shoulder. You start falling, I pull on you and the other way around.”

 You noticed the contagious smirk on his face that mirrored onto you almost instantly “We fall together, we crawl back up together. Damn we sound inspirational.”

“I told you! We should make one of those vlog channels where people wake up at 5 am looking like damn models, meditate and finish all their work before 11am.” throwing your body back you fell onto the cover, but Yoongi didn’t join you. He staid sitting, letting you focus on his back as he continued “You know we are losers, right?” 

“The biggest losers out there.” 

  He looked towards the sky letting the wind play with his hair, when suddenly you both burst out laughing. Your voices were so loud the birds flew away. “Yeah, we are.”

“Honestly tho Yoongs. Why did we care so much what people thought of us? I mean sometimes I still do but-”

“Same, same.”

“Don’t cut me off stupid!” you kicked him a bit “As I was saying!” you emphasized on ‘saying’ ,when he pinched your leg in retaliation a couple of times “Body types, dudes, girls, genderfluid or no gender at all. Being cute or stylish, pretty or ugly, was a mad waste of time. The nerd is gonna probably become rich, the ugly people will end up becoming better lookin that those basic Karens. I swear, even with all that bulling and people wanting be to be the top. With or without them the Earth keeps spinning .”

 “Did you just discriminate flat earth people!?” he gasped cartoonish “Y/N, i didn’t know you were this type of person.”

“Yah! You really out here trying to cancel your best friend, Min Yoongi!” 

“You don’t need me to do that, you already do it yourself with the stuff you say.”

“Says you, loser.” your words made him lean onto his elbow next to you, eyes focused on your face as the colors of the sky began fading over your bodies and skin 

“I like that word, loser.” he said “It sounds rude, but at the same time no one calls you that if you aren’t different. Different means unique, special. Who tf would want to be the same as others?”

“That was us too stupid, back then.” Yoongi pocked your cheek a couple of times gently 

“Yeah, but it’s not back then anymore Y/N. It’s now. We grew up. With our jaw and fist clenched we fought and made it here. They shot at us, they threw rocks and called us cowards, weirdos. But we made it through the darkness. After all that we are and will forever be bulletproof.” the sudden rustle of the grass under you two signaled him getting up and spinning, hands to the side. His head leaned back and he looked so happy. Yoongi’s eyes were closed, he could fall and not even notice, but he wasn’t afraid no more. Whatever happens will happen. 

“You make us sound hella dope man. I love it.”

“Anxiety, social issues, any kind of mental problems and disorders. They level us up, as long as we try. At the end of the day you lose something to win something.”

“The end of the chapter is the beginning of the next.” you began to notice he was starting to lose balance from all that spinning around “Hey stupid, you will fall and hurt yourself like th-” you couldn’t even finish the sentence when his legs tangled up and he fell onto you “You ok?!That was such a stupid move! Open your eyes next time!”

“Why?” he became serious, his eyes looking into yours. Yoongi crooked his head to the side,as his fingers caressed your cheek “If I was looking I would have been too afraid to fall. At the end of it all i ended up failing and found a little angel. See? Win win to me. You can’t always see where you are going, but you gotta believe that good things are on the other side.”

“You are bleeding, that is what is on this side.”

“I am WHAT!” his forehead was a bit scratched “Damn it! My handsome face!”

“Oh come on! Wait till I glow up like that! I will get the best looking SO out there.” the child in you was pouting at Yoongi

“You know damn well we are too messed up for a relationship with others. We try and try, get used and then we either lose interest, or fall completely out of love for months. By the way...” his fingers found your cheek again, but this time it wasn’t a gentle poke but a sharp pinch. Your hands flew in the direction of his arm to try and make him let go of you. “Who told you you don’t look good?”

“Ow ow Yoongi! Let me go!!!”

“Not until you tell me who said all that crap to you!?” prying yourself from his grip you continued rubbing the now red and warm spot

“People i liked or others in general. You know how shit goes.” 

“You for real need to get your eyes checked! People stare at you when you walk by cus you look TOO good.” his words were like a low growl of a jealous pet

“Nah man, they are either judging me or they want to fight me. There is no middle ground here.” 

“You really!” with all the power in his hand he flicked your forehead 

“Stop inflicting me wounds!”

“Then stop talking shit about yourself! I swear your bodydismorphia needs to join Jimin when he has talk sessions about his day with Hoseok.Plus, people do stare at you when you walk in town in the attracted way. On our way here at least 5 people turned back and continued looking.”

“Ew creepy!” you said “Why do you count them!”

“You little!!!Come here!” your neck found itself in a chokehold in a matter of seconds 

“HYUNG!”Jungkook’s voice echoed through the park reaching your direction “Y/N AND YOONGI ARE BEING THE DEPRESSED AND FLIRTY AGAIN!”

 “This kid I swear I will kill him some time soon!” you hissed at Jungkook

“You two really can’t drop this habit.” the slow and calm footsteps pulled your attention and soon subsided your anger 

“Joon, you know how we are.” you added, leaning back onto you elbows 

“I know, we are all like that.” Joon looked at you two sitting on the ground

“Y/N is right, broken pieces do find each other.” Yoongi added, but Joon sighed and rubbed the back of his head. He squatted down eye level 

“Broken pieces find each other because they fit together and make a beautiful new bottle that they can fill up with happy memories. Our sad and hard pasts make us titanium that can’t be broken. Even if one of us cracks, we are all going to help him become stronger.” he reached his hand out, standing up “ You are not alone Y/N, we are going to be forever titanium. You have us and we have you now. We are not lonely or misérables with you.”

“WE ARE BULLETPROOF GUYS!” Jungkook yelled out again

“Yeah...we are.” with a smile shining brighter than ever ,you grabbed Joon’s hand.He pulled you up as you were holding onto Yoongi. When the chain starts no one can cut the bond. We pull each other up...is what you realized. 

“Oh and.”

“Yes Joons?” 

“Can you two date already or at least go out on a date. It hurts looking at yall like this.”

“What!?” the blanket in your hand turned into weapon as you began hitting him with it in a moment of panic. His words hit a nerve.Yoongi wasn’t the one to rush or to run. With his hands in his pockets he followed you down the hill. His footsteps stopped for a moment to look at the now dark sky. 

 We may not be able to see the stars during the day, but at night they are too many to even count. Nothing is truly hidden forever, even who you are meant to be. It’s ok not to know now or later. When we are young we dont really know. We try to fit in a mold that was created, but we can’t, we just can’t no matter how much we try.

 We end up being labeled by the things we are different. Some come from a darker past, others don’t. Yet everyone is important, the way they feel, their emotions and inner state. If I could, I would grab your hand and show you a bit of the future. Think of this, your future self, the one that did it all finally and continues to dream big, is looking at you through memories. They grab your hand and push you forward towards the good. The tunnel may be dark, cold, lonesome and scary but it always leads to something. Just don’t give up.

  Regret, unsuccessful love, residual feelings for someone who used you. They are all a stepping stone, don’t look at them. Now you know what not to do, EXP( experience points)  come in many forms honey. Be who you want to be, life is yours. Be the main character in your story, not anyone else’s. Even if you fall sometimes, show everyone how amazing you are by standing up. Baby steps turn into miles, whispers become yelling, crawling becomes flying. Breaking the mold becomes you. 

[anxietycalling]

how i spent my summer vacation

Or, where the fuck have I been these literal years? (I can’t believe it’s been years.)

I feel like I need to, at some point, talk about everything that happened between now and the point where I dropped off the face of the earth. And, like, actually talk, not that thing I do where I make a joke out of everything. So... I’m doing this up front, so if anyone actually still follows my shitshow of a life, you know what you’re getting yourself into before it’s too late.

Okay. Where to start.

Um, obviously, after the 2016 election I gtfo’d the US. Because I couldn’t legally work in the US at that point, I had pretty much no savings and no money because every dollar I did get went to supporting me and Dash because of the absolute nightmare that happened there. I’m not... mad at her anymore, not quite - I recognize that a lot of actions on both sides were the result of severe, untreated trauma and mental illness, so it’s hard to look at either of us and say that someone was the villain there. It’s hard to recognize when you’re in survival mode that your actions are self-destructive. But, anyway, because of that, I had no choice other than to move in with my parents. Which many of you are aware is not the healthiest choice for me mentally or physically.

And, again, it’s not that my parents are bad people. They’re good people who are trying their best, but there are two factors that lead to me living with them being a terrible idea. 1) My mother has a lot of unprocessed intergenerational trauma due to mental illness that she is still dealing with, and 2) Neither of my parents have ever lived in an urban center, which lends itself to a specific mindset when it comes to dealing with mental illness and LGBTQ+ issues. Which is to say, it’s hard to have a regular dating or sex life when everyone knows your business while your parents are simultaneously trying to pretend you don’t have genitals that they’re uncomfortable with. Also, I didn’t have my license at the time because I let it expire before getting my permanent one, so I was pretty much at the mercy of whoever could drive me places. (I lived in cities before that, so not driving was never much of an issue. I am highly proficient in public transit.)

So living with my parents was this precarious balancing act of trying to do everything they wanted me to do, because they were letting me live there for free, and meeting the demands of my bosses (who immediately demoted me once they found out I wasn’t planning on living there forever), and trying to have a social life outside of my family. And, like, I had just come out of the closet, so I was also trying to date without my parents finding out, because, like? It gets exhausting trying to explain why you have a right to exist and love who you want to love and I tend to get defensive when I feel like I have to justify myself. But all that secrecy really wears on you. I think in the worst of it I was probably sleeping 3-5 hours a night between the anxiety, having to walk or wait for rides everywhere, and staying up late enough after my parents went to sleep to try to meet guys on dating apps. 

Dating apps when you live in a rural area are the worst. Not only is there a limited dating pool to begin with, it sucks when someone ghosts you and then re-signs up for the same dating app using a fake name and you catch them at it. I get it to some extent; people are afraid of being outed, even if on paper we’re one of the premier retirement destination for gay couples near Toronto. (Read: affluent, white, cis gay men.) It’s gotten better in the last couple of years, but... Yeah, there just was nothing for me there. 

Obviously I had to widen my perimeter for who I was willing to date, and that’s how I met Husband. Completely by accident. My phone provider was out one day, so I didn’t get any messages from anyone for almost 24 hours while I was figuring that out. His message to me was one of the ones that got pushed through when my phone service restored itself. (I still, to this day, don’t know why or how this happened.) And there was nothing there that was inherently like, “Hey, you’re going to date and then marry this guy,” other than the fact that he actually put effort into his message instead of sending “hey” over and over again to get a response. But he was funny, and he was charming, and we fell for each other really quickly. Pretty soon all my money (which, again, limited, because the awful ladies I worked for decided I wasn’t leadership material even though they gave me no training or direction, ever) was going to taking the train here pretty much every time I had a day off from work. And I was lying to my parents about it, because they decidedly do not like or approve of dating apps or internet friendships in general.

Something happens in relationships where one or both of you are chronically ill. There comes a sink-or-swim moment in the relationship where you either step up and deal with the shit that happens, or you realize you can’t handle the intensity or uncertainty of it, and you gtfo. And... obviously, I chose the first option. Pretty much immediately after my first visit (as in, I was still on the train) Husband calls me, because his doctors are afraid that he has cancer. I go home, work exactly one day and turn the fuck around and go back so we can meet with the hematologist and find out whether he has bone cancer, Jesus fuck. Thankfully, it turned out that he didn’t; it’s something that comes up a lot because he doesn’t have a spleen and that, apparently, makes it look like you’re dying a whole lot. We ended up moving in together a month later because living at my parents was making me suicidal, which isn’t the greatest love story of all time, I know, but I had wanted to move out anyway and living with him was a much better option than random roommates.

I didn’t talk to my mother for... a month and a half, after I moved out. She kept trying to contact my friends on Facebook one day and I was ready to freak out on her for being controlling or something. Turns out, my biological father died. At the time, I was calm. Like, I wasn’t surprised - he had nearly died of alcohol-induced cardiac failure before I moved to the US, and it’s not like he had done anything to make his situation better - but it turns out I was actually in shock, I guess. The whole situation was fucking terrible; not because he died but because it kind of cemented that my only value to his side of the family was being “the only granddaughter” and not that they gave a shit about me as a person. They misgendered me in his obituary; they spelled my brother’s girlfriend’s name wrong.

I think the worst part is that they tried to make his celebration of life thing about how great he was as a person, though. And, like, I’m sorry, but great people don’t molest their children, or their children’s girlfriend. They don’t have sex in front of their children with their children’s physical abuser. They don’t make their teenage child in charge of being the sober adult when they want to go drinking. They don’t let their partner physically abuse their child when that child tries to get them both help for their drinking. They don’t trap their kid on a boat for a week with a creepy adult male stranger and freak the fuck out when that child has their first anaphylactic reaction to a novel food 20 kilometers from land or the nearest hospital. They don’t call that child on their birthday every year to remind them what a woman they are and always will be when they were the first fucking parent I came out to. 

Actually, no - the worst part of him dying was that I had to deal with his hellbeast girlfriend afterward, because apparently there was money for me in an RESP that he had never cashed, but all that got me was a shady financial representative who repeatedly wanted my mother and me to break the law over it. Like, my mom got her lawyer involved and everything, and once the legal letterhead came out the financial dude dropped off the face of the earth, stopped answering my calls and I never got my thousand pity dollars. 

And, like, things were okay for a little while after that because Husband and I were close with our roommates up until the point where it became clear that one of them had severe, untreated borderline personality disorder. I’ve lived with someone with BPD before; I’ve lived with a hoarder before. I was not prepared for the level of hoarding that this woman could produce. Or just, like, generally weird and shitty behavior and refusal to seek treatment for her condition. We tried everything we could think of, but ultimately we had to have secret meetings outside our house with our other roommate (who was dating her at the time) to figure out what to do with her. The things we found out... I’ve never wanted to genuinely harm a person before. Because she had been r*ping our roommate for months, and convincing them we didn’t want to be their friend, and using all their money because she wouldn’t go to work or apply for welfare or do the bare minimum required to be a human being. We had to get her removed by the police (who I do not advise contacting unless there is genuinely no other options) and the police acted like it was a typical roommate squabble even though we had fucking proof. So, anyway, we had to contact hell roommate’s parents and sister, and do all the packing to get her shit out of our house.

I will add that there were a few golden months right after hell roommate moved out. We got very close with remaining roommate, and it was nice, but then they started dating their current boyfriend and it just got... uncomfy for everyone somehow? They never outright said they were dating him, it was weird, one day they were like “Hey, I have a friend coming over!” and then he was just... there all the time? And they never told us they were dating? And, like, I’m happy for them, they’re great together and genuinely like each other, but it was weird. It was uncomfortable when we had to have the “We want to move out” conversation, too, because originally we had wanted to move to a bigger place with all of us, but ultimately we ended up keeping the apartment.

So that should have been fine, right? Especially since they moved in with one of Husband’s friends. Except that that friend turned out to be secretly awful and took advantage of everyone around them, and accused good roommate of being secretly racist and a bunch of other stuff that wasn’t true. (Trust me, good roommate would rather sever their left leg than do something that would hurt someone’s feelings.) And, like, I’m sorry, but you can’t use your master’s degree in social work to push around people who you know freeze during confrontations and have memory issues due to trauma, and then turn around and lead healing from trauma workshops. No. You’re a garbage human being who deserves to step on a thousand Lego. (Legos? Anyway.)

OH. Right. Before that, I had surgery. I had surgery and then pretty much the day we got home from that, the pandemic happened. At the beginning of it, good roommate and a woman who would later become one of our best friends came to stay with us because, again, horrific garbage pile of a human being in their house. Recovering from surgery took forever - I still don’t have feeling back 100% in my chest - but thankfully I was better enough by the time they moved to be somewhat helpful there. (They were incredibly smart and hired movers. We were pretty much there because we had just bought a car and could move breakable stuff.) 

Ugh. God. Sorry, I have to jump back to 2018 for a second, which is when I was diagnosed with OCD. Like, officially, I mean. It was probably pretty obvious to everyone who wasn’t me, but I always kind of thought that since I wasn’t on My Mom-level germophobic, there was no way I could have it. Uh! Turns out! Normal people don’t cry when a garbage bag that is clearly about to be taken outside touches the floor while they are putting their shoes on to take said garbage bag outside. So... I take pills now. And go to therapy. Which is very expensive. But, yeah, my symptoms were pretty fuckin’ bad then. And continued to be bad - like, bad enough that I had to quit my job in 2019 because my bosses weren’t taking it seriously enough or even listening to me. (It’s Mcdonald’s, it’s chill, they ruin or fire all their best employees.) 

Okay. Back to now. Pandemic! School! Suffering through all my pre-requisites so I can take actual interesting classes! Somewhere in there we started watching Twitch streams - I think it was because Husband found out Felicia Day streamed, and he loves her, and it kind of spiraled from there? But anyway, I somehow ended up part of this weird, delightful community that’s genuinely nice and non-trollish, and now I stream sometimes. Or attempt to stream. Or attempt to keep a regular schedule. It’s nice, though, to feel like there’s someone to hang out with when you pretty much can’t leave your house. There’s a sense of normality to being in a place at a specific time and seeing specific people. And Twitch has given me a lot of ideas on research topics I’d like to pursue in grad school. 

Like I said, it’s been a pretty mixed bag. There have been some really bad parts, but there’s a lot of good stuff that happened too. I just. I miss Old Me a lot, lately. I miss who I was before all the trauma. (I mean, obviously not all the trauma, because I don’t miss being a literal child, but like... 18-23 or so.) 

I think this might be the most I’ve written outside of a school context in actual years. Part of me keeps thinking about adding in APA formatting, but uh. You can’t really cite something when it’s just memories inside your own head. Anyway. I need to work on liking myself more, and working through some of the baggage that goes with trauma, and... I don’t know. It’s nice to have an outlet that’s not my husband or my cats. (Again, Husband is awesome, Husband is amazing, but we’re around each other 24/7 right now. I think he deserves a break sometimes.) 

So... Yep. Thanks, if you made it this far. I promise not all my posts are going to be like this. I just figured, if you were going to stick around, you probably deserved to know what happened while I was gone. 

[youarejesting]

Quarantine.30

[Masterlist] Editor: [Yoongisauce] Pairing: BTS x reader Friends2Lovers Genres: friendship, drama, romance SLOWEST OF BURNS. until the anticipation kills us all… Rating: PG-13 and above Summary: Your brother works with a few BigHit dance teams and whilst having permission to accompany him at work the city shuts down banning anyone from stepping outside for a whole WEEK while they disinfect the streets. If you step outside you might get arrested, shot or poisoned by the chemicals they are emitting through the city. Words: 1.6k Announcement: I am sorry if the tags haven’t been working hopefully they are working now. please let me know if they still aren’t working and I will look into it further. Hell I will personally send you a link in your DM’s if it doesn’t work. 

I also changed my lay out on my tumblr page and I don’t particularly love it but it was the one I like the most still working on finding the right look.

[Part 1]  [Part 29] [Part 31] [Tag Yourself Here]

With all the courage he could muster, Seokjin zipped your suit back into place; patching up the suit with some medical tape he found in the bag and securing your breather back into place. Tears fell as he knew you were fading away. You woke to the sounds of his movements.

Realizing the need to get up and move, you could feel yourself getting worse. The morphine had long since stopped working. You forced yourself up, opening the backseat and properly fastened your breather. You moved to the front of the car reaching into the glove box for the spare key to your brother’s apartment, finding the spare car key attached.

Your eyes fell shut for the briefest of moments before forcing them open once more. You started up the vehicle and drove off before Seokjin fully emerged to sit in the passenger seat. You knew the general area you were in, having traveled it a few times previous.

“Let me drive?” He asked and you shook your head immediately, regretting the action when your head started to spin. 

“I have driven in the fog multiple times, let me.” You were so close. Your injured leg was completely numb but still managed to cause so much pain. Seokjin watched you like a hawk, looking scared out of his mind.

“We are almost there. That’s the clinic right theee…”

You fell forward against the wheel both hands sliding down off. Lunging across the centre console, Jin grabbed the wheel sliding his foot onto the brake. He engaged the hand break causing the vehicle’s back tires to spin out and slide across the road. He covered your body with his as the car bumped into the street pole with no more force than a bumper car.

He immediately exited the car, running around to your side of the car and scooping you out. Glancing at his surroundings he noticed the tires had left black tread marks down the street. You did have a habit of crashing headfirst into situations. He shook his head, getting back to the fact you lay unconscious in his arms. 

The clinic was two buildings back and Seokjin carried your practically lifeless body to the health centre. Looking down at you he remembered everything. You knew how to make an entrance into someone’s life that was for sure. 

From the moment you crashed through the door on the day you met. Joking with them over dinner and teasing them like you were old friends. You were as timid as a category five Typhoon, laying waste to the land around you. Making hearts skip a beat when you flashed a smile or gave a flirtatious comment. 

There was something exhilarating about you that kept him coming back, the kindness in your heart was the new life growing stronger after a storm. The way you moved so smoothly in the dance studio. He wanted nothing more than to suffer through it all, to see the clouds disappear and for sweet gentle hands to embrace him like a soothing balm.

“So, you think Lee Jong-suk is better looking and makes a better male lead than, the, Kim Seokjin?”

“Who is Kim Seokjin?” You had said looking up at him curiously, hiding a playful grin behind wide eyes.

“Me!” He almost screeched, “This handsome face right here— I am Kim Seokjin.”

“Handsome?” You tilted your head as if examining a work of art in a museum and honestly you felt like he was truly a majestic being. “I mean I guess some people might find this sort of face attractive”

He chuckled remembering how he started blatantly showing you tweets and memes of himself and Army calling him ‘worldwide handsome’.

“See! They call me ‘Worldwide Handsome’ There is no face more handsome than this”

“Then why did Taehyung win ‘Forbes most handsome man’ in 2017 and tell me Hyung how many times you have… Oh right, you haven’t won have you?” Jungkook had cut in, loving to tease the eldest 

The pillow fight that followed was filled with flushed faces and your sweet giggles. Seokjin remembered Hoseok unable to stay awake any longer, the alcohol taking effect on him.

Reaching the clinic, Seokjin realized he had been talking to your unconscious form. He was begging for you to hang on. Pleading for your forgiveness and admitting his feelings without hesitation. He regretted never telling you in person how much you meant to him. Sure, he brushed the surface of the topic but it was the wrong time to tell you his true feelings. 

The middle of a rescue mission wasn’t the time for a confession. “When you wake I will tell you every day how much you mean to me.”

A gloved fist thumping against the glass door of the clinic alerted a doctor, who hesitantly approached before realizing you were regular citizens in trouble. Even though you both dressed like the gunmen.

Allowing you in, Doctor Chang immediately recognized your face and directed Seokjin to the examination room while collecting equipment. “Get her out of the suit and tell me what happened. I need to know everything. When did this happen?”

“Jungkook was kidnapped. We planned a rescue mission and left later that morning. As we headed back she was shot. We’ve been hiding in the trunk of a car waiting for the men to leave.”

“So it has been roughly how many hours?”

“13 hours?” With shaky hands, Seokjin wiped your forehead with a cool towel, “She wouldn’t wake up.”

“Well, grab this pack and follow my lead. We are going to scrub up.” Doctor Chang watched him reluctant to leave your side and sighed, “Quickly, we have to clean and stitch the wound and— judging by the time frame— attach a drain. I will need your assistance while the nurse goes to fetch the fluids, painkillers and antibiotics.”

Seokjin was concentrating on the doctor's words, following his orders while trying to hold himself together. The doctor had finished suturing the wound and began delicately attaching a small drain to it. “Her injury is badly infected from how long it was left untreated. But this is a critical time, if she makes it through the night then the worst is over”

“The hospitals have been notified that the military is on their way to deal with the gang of gunmen, so let’s have some hope.” Doctor Chang patted Seokjin’s broad shoulders, something that he would usually describe as strong and protective, now looked nothing but weak and helpless. He felt as if they were hollow, empty shells trying to hide the idol from the horrors of the world. 

Hours passed and Seokjin watched the nurses move you to a small cot to recover comfortably. In the next bed over, a soldier looked over empathetically. Seokjin walked the quiet halls, as the night grew dark, thinking about the boys and hoping they were okay. He had left the walkie in the vehicle two buildings away, so he had no way of contacting the boys.

Walking along, he saw a vending machine selling different ramyeons and despite the situation, he longed for the comfort food brought him when he was feeling sad.

As he pressed his hand against the glass his stomach called out. The sound of a coin being inserted into the machine followed by another made him move out of the way, “I am sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, you looked hungry. Pick whatever you  like,” Doctor Chang smiled, moving to the next machine and ordering a coffee. 

Seokjin chose a flavour he enjoyed, listening to the doctor’s tired speech. “I haven’t slept well in days. When this fog lifts I think I will be much happier. I want to feel the sun on my back and let the warmth seep into my skin. What about you? What do you want?”

“I want my home. I want my family.” Although Seokjin said he wanted to see his family, which was true, at this moment he meant the boys. If he closed his eyes he could picture it now; each of them in the comfort of their own home, away from prying eyes. Where they could be themselves with more than subtle touches and glances. 

They would all be cuddling on the couch in the living room. He would lay his head on Namjoon’s shoulder and reach over to lazily rake his hand through Taehyung’s soft hair, singing deeply. His arms stretched out tickling the side of Jimin’s belly causing his giggles to fill the air. Yoongi would be asleep, his head in your lap and legs over Hoseok’s, while Jungkook carried lunch to the coffee table and the argument would be heated about what movie to watch.

Not one would be able to settle on a movie huffing at one another. But within a few seconds, Jungkook would wiggle between you and the couch, his legs either side of you and wrapping you in his arms. He would bury his face in your hair, inhaling the sweet strawberries and cream scent that lingered from your shampoo and everything would be alright.

He pulled away from his daydream realizing the doctor had fallen asleep. Taking the full coffee cup from the tired man’s hand and setting it down, Seokjin stripped off his coat and rolled it up. He rested the doctor's head on it, hoping the man would be able to sleep well. He finished the coffee and food before heading back to watch over you. The morning was an hour out and then you would be out of the danger zone.

[Part 1]  [Part 29] [Part 31] [Tag Yourself Here]

Tags: @hi-itstt @bubbletae7 @lovemusicandotps @taetaebq @seveniefive @w0lfqu33n @anaiss97 @moccahobi @maddymal @lilacdreams-00 @lethargicalyssa @knjkitten @pieislife @bunnyboyenthusiast @vividwoosan @seesawsmin-flower @tinyunknownflower @gguksfilter @fawnzilla @passionate-love-57911 @btrombley13​

[pamprinninja]

Cellulitis

For the uninitiated, cellulitis is a bacterial infection under the surface of the skin. It isn’t so bad by itself - some redness, some swelling - but by virtue of being trapped below the surface, it often takes medical intervention to clear. Additionally, if untreated, it can lead to some nasty and potentially fatal complications (like necrotizing fasciitis and blood poisoning).

I’m familiar with the premise as a couple of years ago I had a bout on my kneecap thanks to - of all things - the tiniest of ingrown hairs; one course of antibiotics and all was well in the world.

Until. Until.

As I have reported previously, my first few months of Estradiol shots went well (barring a period of psyching myself out). Thereafter, everything was good... Until the day I got a big, red, ugly patch at the injection site.

“Oh,” I say to myself, “I’ve really screwed up”. I fastidiously ensure that my medicine vial, needles, and leg are sterile; but evidently somewhere along the way I missed a step.

I went to see my family doctor; he agrees that it’s cellulitis (even deeper than normal as the bacteria was fundamentally injected an inch into my thigh muscle), proscribes doxycycline; and I’m on my way. (There was a slight detour where I suffered the most agonizing heartburn of my life in response to that particular antibiotic, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Fast forward: next shot, and the same thing happens. Like an idiot, I suddenly realize: “I’m using the same vial of Estradiol as last time; and it’s contaminated”.

(I should have thrown it out as a precaution; but the cost of American healthcare tends to breed a conservationist approach to medications. Plus, it honestly didn’t occur to me at the time.)

My doc probably thought I was an idiot but thankfully did not offer his opinion.

I bought more Estradiol, and was perhaps three shots into the new vial WHEN THE SAME THING HAPPENS AGAIN.

And I’m in tears. I don’t understand what it is I’m doing wrong; there’s so much surplus alcohol on my skin that the needle burns going in. There’s simply no way I can carry on with an injection regimen that results in an infection each and every time.

Thankfully, in this particular instance, it was a very small instance of cellulitis and cleared by itself. I was pretty shook up all the same.

My next best guess was that the Estradiol was being stored at the wrong temperature. It’s supposed to be at room temperature (which is classified as something like 68 - 75º F). I kept my medicine in our bathroom closet; and while I checked the temperature in there and it never seemed over range, the closet does back directly only the location of our furnace.

I also asked my endocrinology clinic if I should be storing my Estradiol in the refrigerator, and their answer could be summarized as: “IDK, maybe? It’s worth a try”.

(This isn’t an attack on them - they are great! As much as I wish it were otherwise however, trans individuals represent a small slice of the population. Medical provider experience is directly proportional to the sort of ailments they treat; and Estradiol storage issues are not something that commonly end up on their radar. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important for trans folk to become experts in and advocates of their own medical needs.)

Anyhow, I moved the medicine to the bedroom and so far, that seems to have done the trick!

My reason for mentioning this however is as follows: yesterday, post-injection, I had some major soreness in my thigh (as if someone had punched me right in the muscle). Most likely it was just regular, garden-variety soreness; but the sensation was close enough to the early onset of cellulitis that I seriously started freaking out.

Thankfully it’s calmed down today, and there isn’t a patch of redness in sight. Still: the trials and tribulations to go through!

[cxlvins]

...000. INTRODUCTION.

helloooo lovelies ! my name is naomi (he/him), i’m twenty-two and from the gmt timezone ! i’m super excited for this to open because i’ve got so much muse right now. i’m down for any and all plots, seriously, i love plotting ! this is calvin, he’s an angry mess of a character, but he’s fun to play, so ! if you just wanna get to know the character, you can skip past the other sections and just focus on personality, i’ve also put some wanted connections in there too ! if you would like to plot, then either shoot me a message here or on discord (heterosexual? how vintage!#8600) or alternatively, like this post and i will message you !

caution: alcohol, drugs, mental health, death.

°☼ ◜ xavier serrano, cismale, he/him ◞ ∗ ∘ good to see you again, calvin marx. you're twenty-three now, right ? i heard you’ve been streaming professionally on twitch  … crazy how time flies. you were always known as the crimson. i’m glad to see you’re just as gregarious as always — and volatile, too .. kidding ! bella used to always mention it …you were her bad influence, after all. don’t worry, we’ll find her soon. what matter is that we’re together now, right ? not really.  + thrift-store clothing, bruised knuckles, a scent of cologne & cigarettes.  + watermelon sugar by harry styles.

...001. BRIEF HISTORY.

calvin grew up very underprivileged for the first 11 years of his life in brooklyn, ny.

his father died when he was 5 years old to a drug overdose, leading his mother became a single mother to him and his younger sister, essentially meaning that calvin had to grow up and be the ‘man of the house’ without having a choice.

because of her new single-mother status, calvins mother had to work 3 different jobs in order for the family to pay rent (a cleaner in mornings, a store assistant in the day and a bartender in the evenings), which meant she was rarely home and left calvin to raise both himself and younger sister.

from a very early age, it was apparent that calvin suffered from anger issues, dyslexia and adhd, constantly getting into fights at every opportunity, his complete inability to focus and never managing to make it through a week at school without a phone call home.

these issues remained untreated, due to his mother putting it down to the ‘boys will be boys’ ideology, and concluding that calvin was just an energetic one at that.

because of this, calvin fell into the wrong crowd pretty quickly and settled into his mindset that he was never going to achieve all that much anyway, because no matter how hard he tried, he could never score well on any test at school.

at the age of 9, calvins mother met, fell in love with and soon married a former client for whom she cleaned for.  calvins new step father was incredibly wealthy, due to being a successful franchisee and also being very largely into stock trading.

calvin, his sister and mother were all moved to his home in wilmington, which calvin struggled to adjust to, as he missed his friends back north.

he quickly made friends with the clique as he was brought into it by jordan and it did put some ease on his pressure, but part of him always felt like he should still be back in brooklyn.

now having access to as much money as he want led him down an early path into experimenting with drugs and alcohol, which soon became a bad habit.

although he wanted to drop out of school, his new step-father would not allow it, which became a large source of conflict for the family over the course of the next few years.

failing to graduate high school at age eighteen, calvin couldn’t deal with living with his family any more and left the house to move into a small apartment, 30 minutes away, with a roommate (possibly a member of the clique).

calvins only real passions were for gaming and sport, and as he smoked and did way too many drugs to make it in any sporting profession, he turned his attention to twitch streaming. he began this pretty soon and built up a solid fanbase (which he wanted to call the marxists, but in calvins words, apparently some dead man already claimed that title). 

...002. PERSONALITY.

calvin is a naturally angry person who can lose his cool and go from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds, he rarely gives off signs that he is getting angry until he boils over, so people tend to watch what they say around him.

calvin is self-serving, his feelings will always come before those around him. although he is getting better at managing this, if something will result in calvin gaining something at the expense of somebody else, he will most likely go ahead with it.

calvin is not well educated, so he doesn’t tend to enjoy arguing with words, as he can never seem to find the ones to correctly express how he feels. instead, calvin is much more likely to act physically when something has irritated him (whether this be on a person or inanimate object).

calvin is an awful liar, he cannot lie to save his life as his face always tends to show when he doesn’t agree with an idea/opion/thought that somebody says. because of this, he is very outspoken, and will just say what he’s thinking regardless of if it’s going to hurt somebodies feelings. he’d rather upset them with the truth, than get caught out for lying.

calvin is an extrovert and gains energy from being around people - the more people the better, because of this, he has become a major party animal and loves attending any and all parties that is going on, despite if he’s fond of the hosts or not.

calvin is a heavy user of drugs, alcohol & cigarettes. this is primarily down to his naturally addictive personality and constant need to feel like he’s happy, so that he doesn’t get sad again. there will rarely be a day where he will not  be intoxicated in some way and he will have a cigarette at least once an hour -- and that’s on a good day.

calvin is very much into sports. although not a natural athlete, nor somebody interested in playing sports competitively, calvin loves watching any and all sports, and he likes to play them when he can. due to his smoking habit, he can’t play sports for too long, but will always give it a good go.

similarly to this, calvin is very much into gaming. calvin loves fast-paced games, because they manage to keep his attention despite him not having a very long attention span. most games that he plays are first person shooters, and he’s usually the guy on the mic screaming when a teammate fucks up during online play. a big appeal to him was that games were the only thing he could focus his mind on as a child.

calvin is very much a boys boy, he genuinely abides by the bible of ‘ bros before hoes ‘ because he’s stupid.

calvin hates movies but loves tv, he finds that watching moves involves sitting still for too long, but tv allows him to take more breaks and keeps his interest for longer. although. he’d probably trade both of them for a chance to leave the house.

...003. TRAITS.

[ G R E G A R I O U S ] (+) — a person fond of company; sociable.

[ I N T U I T I V E ] (+) — using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive.

[ F O R T H R I G H T ] (+) — direct and outspoken.

[ V O L A T I L E ] (-) — liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse.

[ V E N G E F U L ] (-) — not willing to forgive or excuse people's faults or wrongdoings.

[ H E D O N I S T I C ] (-) — engaged in the pursuit of pleasure; sensually self-indulgent.

...004. BELLA KIM.

when calvin met bella, he never took too much of a shine to her, deeming her to be a rather fake individual and not understanding the rest of the groups investment with her. however, because he was a new introduction to the group and not there from the beginning, calvin felt he couldn’t really speak up and vocalise that without being dropped from the group himself.

for whatever reason, bella herself took a liking to calvin and he decided to use this to his advantage. for a girl with such a clean reputation, it seemed only the sensible thing to try and corrupt her -- which proved successful. 

calvin introduced bella to the world of bad decisions and the two spent many nights breaking several laws and it created a sort of bond that only the pair really understood. they never talked about anything personal -- or, if they did, they were too high to remember -- but calvin saw a side to bella that not many others did, which he liked.

after moving out, calvin and bellas meetings became much less frequent as the group drifted apart. they would still meet up for occasional meet-ups, their last one being 3 months before the disappearance of bella.

calvin does not believe that she is alive and is dealing with it, as expected, not very well.

...005. WANTED CONNECTIONS.

CURRENT BEST FRIENDS — Possibly a boy squad? I live for a good boy squad. This person will have similar interests to Calvin, or be able to tolerate his volatile mood.

CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS — Someone with a similar upbringing from Brooklyn, most likely they grew apart when Calvin moved to Wilmington.

RIDE OR DIES — Although he primarily looks out for himself, I’m down to have Calvin have one person who he’s loyal to and will refuse to betray, we can come up with a fun reason for why he cares so much if you’re interested in this one.

HIS ROOMMATE — Somebody that moved with Calvin into his current apartment when he moved out at 18.

A GOOD INFLUENCE ON CALVIN — One of my favorite connections for Calvin to have is somebody who knows all of his flaws and attempts to help fix them. They’ll have to be patient, though, as Calvin doesn’t see himself for having any issues.

SOMEBODY HE IS A BAD INFLUENCE OF — On the opposite, I love when Calvin has somebody that he can introduce to bad things, corrupt easily and get a kick out of watching the commotion.

EXES ON BAD TERMS — Cheating on each other is usually an easy one to go with, but if you want, we can think of something more unique as to how it all fucked up and why they now hate each other.

EXES ON GOOD TERMS — Maybe they still occasionally fuck? There could still be an attraction there, but just no romantic chemistry. Alternatively, they tried it and both just couldn’t see it going anywhere.

EXES WITH LINGERING FEELINGS — There’s a ton of different reasons for why there’s still lingering feelings. The feelings could be one-sided or both ways.

EX FLINGS — Started as friends with benefits, one of them wanted more, the other didn’t, they decided to stop before someone got hurt.

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS — No romantic intention, just a good way to kill time at 2 AM, or maybe it’s easy to know you have someone to go home to if you don’t find someone at a party.

FRIENDS FOR NECESSITY — This friend may not have that much in common with Calvin, they may not really get on in day to day life, but they are always there to get high, attend a party or do something dumb. an easy person to talk to when they’re both bored and wanna get out.

HIS YOUNGER SISTER — If anybody fancies a second character, I’m always down to have Calvins sister in the roleplay. They can either get along or not, we’ll just figure out the details.

EX FRIENDS — Used to be close but now aren’t, plenty of reasons as to why.

ENEMIES — Despise each other, seeing this person literally makes Calvins blood boil. Possibly sexual tension too if that would work, if not, they can just fight a lot.

WILL THEY / WON’T THEY — Lots of leading on and teasing each other, maybe they both think they’re stringing the other along but it turns out neither of them are interested? Maybe they start out not interested and it backfires later, by that time the other could’ve lost interest.

ANY OTHER IDEAS YOU THINK WILL WORK !

...006. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.

Calvin is bisexual but heteroromantic, so any sexual-based connections can be taken by any gender.

Calvins Pinterest can be located here. Please note that it contains triggers for alcohol, drugs, blood & violence.

[bitegore]

1, 7, 44, 50 for rex (and any other ocs you wanna do)?

:3

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything? 

Rex’s full name is Rezkierelayxl, because when I was coming up with the closerverse dragon culture i was really vibing with the idea that the names are like. theirs, picked out by them, and they keep their real names hidden except with maybe like a close friend or significant other. Rex is honestly a nonsense word for him*. Someone else picked it out and he was just like “yeah ok i didnt like my old name very much” Of course in the metatextual version his name is rex because i had a dream where the entire closerverse story happened and that was just. his name. Didn’t really pick it out from anything other than the aether.

bc i feel like it, i’m also adding Taz, whose full name is. shit. idk. who even cares its just long and basically alphabet soup with a whole bunch of unrelated syllables in there, and his name is “Tazryx” which roughly translates to “Freedom” in my dragon language conlang. this is ironic. for reasons. his name also fell out of the aether, but like with meaning intact.

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood?

Rex? HAHAHAHAHAHA NO. He had like a few friends as a child but they got murdered and then he was like [angst and brooding] and then he made new friends but they were frankly awful people and he killed like two of them and was like [angst and brooding x5] and now he just has like. no friends. a few acquaintances, his ten billion cousins and assorted relatives, and like 2 immortal demigods who are bound to keep him alive that he’s like sort of friends with but not really

Taz? Yeah. But like half of them are dead now and he’s veeeeery smad about it. he channels that and constructs a city. it is very cool and like half the plot of the book

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most?

For Rex, it’s highly dependent on location; he prefers spring in foresty areas and summer in desert types. He likes being human in thunderstorms and being a dragon in dry heat. He’s not really great in either extreme in his human form, but he’s really bad with cold in his dragon form, and he complains LOUDLY AND OFTEN about snow. It is his opinion that snow is the worst thing that the sky could ever drop on them. (He’s probably been hit by a meteorite for saying that and still adamantly thinks that snow is worse.)**

Taz hates winter. He doesn’t really care much for any season (summer is too hot, spring is too rainy, fall is too chilly) but he like reaaaaally doesn’t like winter. His favorite ‘season’ is like 1 week in the middle of late spring. He’s awful in both the cold and the heat and whines long and hard about both. He mostly complains about inclement weather, though; if it’s sunny he’ll suck it up and be like “yeah ok this is kinda nice actually” eventually

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

oh this one is actually canon-relevant, thank you! according to him, rex’s essential travel bag contains:

at least two knives, one for hurting people and one for skinning animals

between five hundred and a thousand dollars cash in local money***

some sort of tradeable good in case he doesnt have the right local money. this is typically just another knife or two

a small bottle of something to drink for the trip because he doesn’t want to buy alcohol in places he doesnt know

two changes of clothes

condoms

and apparently sometimes he’ll also bring letters from people but he pretty much doesn’t have stuff that he’d take with him while traveling. even if he had to literally uproot his whole life the only difference would be the quantity of knives coming with him (upwards of like 200. hobbyist knifemaker in a blacksmithing clan = collecting lots and lots of knives and he only sells them sometimes). he also has like... a coat with many pockets full of knicknacks that he keeps on him at all times but those are like it.

Taz would bring like. clothing, food, water, and a whole bunch of knicknacks like. books and toys and shit. and then discover that he didnt have any of the things he needed and call someone in the middle of the night like “heeeeeyyyyyy i forgot to bring ANY money and i need to buy a TOOTHBRUSH, pls come take me home :(” and his poor siblings would have to mobilize to go rescue his stupid ass.

He’d call like, probably clothing and whatever hobby he’s on at the moment his essentials but he’d be wrong. his actual essentials are not his two-week hyperfixations, he is just [jazzhands] undiagnosed untreated adhd and based heavily off my untreated shortsighted self

--

*closerverse is like a thousand odd years after the apocalypse and rex is like uneducated. he doesn’t know latin. the people who picked his name did and they find it incredibly ironic for reasons he doesn’t know but would laugh at if he did know

**The gods of his world canonically do not like him very much and they would absolutely be like “hey now. snow is nice. fuck you. see how you like THIS” and then, because Rex never ever, ever, EVER does what they want, is just like “...that sucked. OH GOD IS IT FUCKING SNOWING, can’t i EVER catch a break!” and then brin and deva are just like [facepalm] and the entirety of the abyss curses his name and the bets they’ve placed on him again

***there are no banks in the closerverse. there are like fifty different systems of currency in the continental america alone at different exchange rates, many don’t consider other currencies valid, there is almost no standard, and its just a nightmare to deal with having the wrong currency.

[darthbloodorange]

Cold and Alone

Rating: Teens Universe: Marvel Cinematic Universe Pairings: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark Characters: Capwolf (Werewolf Steve Rogers), Tony Stark Warnings: Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Injury Major Tags: Fantasy AU, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pre-Relationship, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Fantastic Speciesism (Fantastic as in fantasy. Not that Speciesism is great and wonderful 😝) Word count: 1,217

Summery: Capwolf curls up as tight as he can against the cold, biting wind, burring his nose under his paws to keep it warm.

For the: ✦ Steve|Tony|Bucky Bingo prompt “Falling Through the Ice” [B1] + “Alcoholism” [B2] + “Tied to a Pole” [B3] + “Fur” [B4] + “I can do this all day” [B5] ✦ Hurt/Comfort Bingo prompt “Near Death Experience” [I5]

Read below or on AO3 >HERE<

Capwolf curls up as tight as he can against the cold, biting wind, burring his nose under his paws to keep it warm. His neck chafes where the elvin rope was tied around his neck, fastening him to the elderwood post.

He eyes the small rabbit standing by the edge of the frozen lake, his stomach rolling with hunger. It had been so long since he’d eaten. But there was no way that rabbit was going to come close enough for him to catch. The men who captured him tied the rope so that he had as little length to move around as possible. With a tired huff he looks away, licking his wounded paw.

A sharp crack comes from the forest, startling the rabbit away. Capwolf’s ears twitch towards the sound, trying to work out what made that noise. It sounded slightly bigger than a deer, but smaller than a bear.

He could make out the quiet mumblings of a voice. The words are slurred, he can't place the accent to work out if it were a man, fae, mer or otherfolk.

From the bushes a man stumbles out, clothes dirty and torn, reeking of alcohol. Capwolf’s noise wrinkles up in distaste.

There wasn’t much he could tell of the man from what was left of his clothing. He could be a metalsmith, ranger or a royal, it was hard to tell.

Maybe he could eat him?

Capwolf normally wouldn’t eat human, they were too stingy and gamy. He preferred sheep and cattle, it was got him into this situation, tied to a post in the middle of a frozen lake. But he was hungry and cold. Maybe if he could get the man close enough…

He whines, trying to get the man’s attention.

The man turns to him with an expression that actually makes Capwolf draw back.

“SHUT UP, MUTT! I DON- I DON’T NEED ANOTHER PERSON-… ON MY BACK!” The man shouts, waving the bottle in his hand, spilling some of its contents. “I CAN DO-… I CAN DO THISH ALL DAY!!!”

The man stumbles, tripping over a tree root. Face planting into the snow. The bottle flies from his hand towards the frozen lake. The bottle lands on its neck, piercing the ice. As it lands there’s a sicking cracking noise. And he knows that it wasn’t the bottle…

The ice begins to crack and give and fall away around the bottle. Capwolf watches as the lake sprinters, watches in horror as the cracks head towards him. He can feel the ice grow weaker under his paws. He flattens out, trying to scoot backwards, away from the braking ice. But it is no use, he is stuck to the spot by the post he’s tethered to.

He lets out a scared, panicked whine as he watches the cracks get closer and closer.

The ice he’s standing on, dips forward into the water. He turns and tries to scramble up the ice, trying to keep himself out of the water. He tries to claw up the post as his hind legs sink into the freezing water below.

Broken up, the ice disappears, sinking and slipping away, leaving Capwolf treading water. He bites down hard on the rope keeping him tethered to the post, trying to keep himself above water. But his legs are cramping and seizing up. His jaw hurts. He eyes the icy water around him, knowing it was a matter of time before he sinks under.

He closes his eyes with a panicked whine.

Something twitchy and alive brushes against his foot. He flinches. It was probably a fish, but he didn’t want to find out, he knows there are more dangerous creatures out here than him. Desperately he tries to get his hind legs up onto the post, his claws, as sharp and powerful as they are, are unable to get a hold in the ancient elderwood of the post.

Regardless, Capwolf does the best he can to keep himself up. His jaw aches with the strain of basically holding his body up. His front paws are losing their grip. He tenses, trying to summon all the strength he could to cling to the post.

The water below gurgles, air bubbles rise to the surface of the icy water. Before Capwolf could even wonder if it were a monster, he notices that the post is looser, shifting freely under his weight. The post was coming free of the lakebed below.

With a stomach dropping creak the post begins to sink backwards, taking him with it.

Capwolf yelps as he hits the water. He lets go of the post and tries to swim towards the shore. But as the water soaks his fur he finds it harder and harder to keep afloat as the weight of it pulls him down.

It is too much for his tired, cold limbs to keep himself afloat. He watches the light fade as he sinks deeper and deeper into the lake…

___

Capwolf wakes to the crackling of a wood fire. Slowly he opens his eyes and looks around. He wasn’t in the middle of that frozen lake anymore. He was somewhere warm. Someone’s home, as far as he could tell.

He stretches out his aching limbs, rubbing the pads of his paws into the plush rug below him.

A soft click gets his attention. Capwolf turns towards the door behind him, watching anxiously. The door opens, revealing the man from earlier.

Capwolf tenses, his fur raising up. He growls in warning, hopping the man would stay back, that the man wouldn’t shout again… like the other men did when they captured him. Things always seemed to go wrong when human started shouting.

But the man doesn’t take the warning, seemingly ignoring it entirely.

Capwolf backs up against the couch as the man comes closer, eyeing the space for an escape. But the only escape was through the door the man had just come through, and Capwolf couldn’t be sure it wasn’t trapped. There weren’t even windows for him to jump through. If he were to guess this room was part of a much larger building. It was probably going to be very hard to escape. He was trapped, again.

He didn’t want to be trapped again.

Didn’t want the shouting, the fire, the burning sticks, the arrows and blades. The metal jaws the humans laid out on the ground to bite him, the nets and rope.

He didn’t want to be put out on that lake again, left to die of cold and hunger, his wounds left untreated to feaster.

Capwolf sits up, trying to make himself as large and as threatening as possible to the man.

“It’s alright” the man says, raising his hands. “You’re safe.”

Capwolf snarls, baring his teeth at the man. Humans weren’t safe.

The man kneels down beside him. “I’m sorry.” He says, looking actually remorseful. He misses Buckwolf and Samwolf.

Large, callused fingers dig deep into the fur behind his right ear, scratching just the right spot. It doesn’t hurt. It feels really good actually. His tail beats against the floor as the man picks up speed, scratching even deeper.

Capwolf drops his head back down onto the carpet, with a soft, pleased whine.

Maybe this human wasn’t so bad.