#I was anorexic for three years

[wizardnuke]

i understand this is like. objectively a wild thing to bitch about when yr average woman wants to lose weight but it is really so fucking bizarre and disheartening to be asked "how are you so skinny how do you do it" by women who are really honestly beautiful and healthy and i am genuinely so jealous of their bodies' ability to maintain some semblance of body fat. i have to say "i wish i weighed more" and they look at me like i'm crazy and then i have to say "every time i manage to gain 5-10lbs i inexplicably get really sick and lose all the weight i gained and it's a vicious cycle of never really feeling healthy" and that's not the answer they want to hear and they still don't understand why i want to gain weight and like. hhhh. makes me sad. i love you you're so pretty and i am chronically ill

[drunken--raccoon]

Starting today I'm going to start posting food pictures every day again, and starting tomorrow I'm gonna update my weight in my intro post every day again

I want to get bad again. I want everyone to be scared of me dropping dead again.

[inmirova]

my ex loved heartstopper and left me because eating disorders make people evil, apparently, so realizing that the new season has the ed plotline in it is very funny to me. curse of realizing that you can actually be empathetic about eds instead of baselessly accusing someone who has had one their whole life of being a bad person for it.

[diapause]

dude you need to put on some pounds..

"dude" don't judge people's bodies online especially as that is I believe the second of only TWO photos of me on this whole blog

[sugary-sheep]

tired of anorexic tgirl shit, fat girl fall is coming up and you WILL be eating whether you like it or not. my mission to every trans girl is to gain (at LEAST) 5 pounds before the end of the year. if you can afford to eat three square meals a day, you'd better act like it. high calorie food is your friend!! i love you meat i love you cheese i love you avocado i love you sugar i love you oil. mood too low to make food? eat ice cream!! or cold meat and cheese sandwiches!! cold sandwich texture bad? try the cold cuts on their own!! get peanuts if you like them, they're tasty and good for you and high in protein and fat!! pretzels!! toast!! have cereal for dinner!! spam is really tasty if you crisp it up in a pan!! pickles!! canned beans!! frozen salmon is really easy to cook in a pan (make sure to get out the pin bones). eat it over rice (it can be microwave rice) with storebought teriyaki sauce and you've got a banger fucking meal. cut up some green onion into the bowl with kitchen scissors and you've got vegetables in the meal too!! I've gained 18 pounds since the start of the year and I've never been happier with my body. skeletal twig tgirl season is OVER. it is time to feed yourselves.

[femsolid]

Last month, the Daily Mail reported on the shocking case of 15-year-old Olivia Maunder, who was told by Frimley Park Hospital to try a mindfulness app to deal with her ‘indescribable agony’. It turned out she had a tumour in her pelvis. On one of the many occasions she was taken to A&E, she was told to ‘calm down’. On another, she was told that she was just ‘mirroring [her] mum’s pain as she had had back problems’. She and her mum were told it was all down to stress. By the time the tumour was discovered, it was so extensive that surgery was no longer an option. Olivia now has a few months to live. I had a personal experience of this some years ago, when a friend lost the use of her legs and was offered mindfulness classes rather than a mobility scooter. No doubt she was expected to use the power of her mind to teleport. I wonder if men are told to go away and be mindful as much as women are? I very much doubt it. We didn’t need the arrival of terms like ‘cervix-havers’ and ‘menstruators’ – but never ‘prostate-havers’ and ‘ejaculators’ – to know that the medical profession has always treated women differently. Women are 50 per cent less likely to be diagnosed after having a heart attack, are given less CPR than men, and are more likely to be given sedatives – rather than painkillers – for pain than men. While the NHS has been busy erasing such hate-speech terms as ‘mother’ and ‘breastfeeding’ from their public-information bulletins, NHS maternity negligence claims have doubled in the past decade. Last year, it was revealed that more than 200 babies and nine mothers had died due to bad care at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust alone. Sadistic doctors no longer perform lobotomies on women as a cure for promiscuity, or diagnose any female behaviour unpleasing to men as ‘hysteria’, but as Caroline Criado-Perez’s 2019 book, Invisible Women, pointed out, the medical system is ‘from root to tip, systematically discriminating against women, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated and misdiagnosed’. Women are still being told that extreme illnesses are all in their minds. Nicolette Baker, a woman from Cornwall, shrunk to three stone because her doctors insisted that she was anorexic, repeatedly sectioning her. She is dying of Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome. Kirsty Maxwell, from Perthshire, was repeatedly told she had an eating disorder and was given everything from Gaviscon to antidepressants. She had terminal cancer. Doctors certainly seem to know what a woman is when it suits them – someone you tell to ‘calm down, dear’. This is the most lethal kind of gaslighting. It needs to be tackled, not zhuzhed up with twaddle like mindfulness. It’s thought to be worth around $4 billion, taking in everything from meditation apps to the 60,000 books on Amazon including the word ‘mindfulness’ in their titles, including Mindful Finance, Mindful Leadership and Mindful Dog Owners. This is all despite the increasing evidence that too much navel-gazing can increase depression and decrease your ability to withstand pain – even though dealing with pain is precisely what mindfulness is often prescribed for.

[daughterofapollo-official]

Leo Vadez son Hepheastus.

So when we are first introduced to the Character Leo Valdez we are informed that he was sent to Military School by the court.

But Uncle Rick never told us the crime!

Leo Valdez is Anorexic. Now I do say this out of malice. In fact I find find him to be one of the most impressive demigods.

But if you pay attention to how he is written it’s pretty obvious.

Leo will forget to eat unless you eat with him. And you have to tell him you’re hungry.

Leo can go three days without eating and not get hungry.

He fits in Georgie’s clothes and she is a 7 year old girl.

Leo wears layers and long sleeves and pants. Even in the summer. And keep in mind, Leo was born and raised in south and Wild West. Texas and Arizona. The boy spent the first 15 years of his life in desert with said attire.

He doesn’t show it. But his very insecure about his body type. He uses the terms skinny and scrawny all the time. Becuase he’s heard it as a way to refer to him so often that he just accepted it. He says it too take away its power. But it doesn’t work. It still hurts when people point out his body type.

Leo is used to not eating. He is part of Disney’s dead mom club.

No one cooked for him growing up. That’s why he is such a good cook. He had to learn.

But who has the money for groceries all the time? Not him. So he developed the habit of not eating to often. And things snowballed…

Leo Valdez has had many run-ins with the law.

Under age use of substances. Yes, multiple. His main vice? Cigs. Lights them up with his own finger tips. Who cares if you’re homeless when you look cool, right? (And no I do not think smoking cigarettes is cool but for a Hispanic misguided teenager who already has a criminal record and no family. It’s pretty clear he’d look at the older kids in his social group smoking and he’d smoke too.)

Breaking and entering. Sometimes he needed a place to hide.

Shop lifting. It’s not because it was fun. He just needed to.

Truancy. He just didn’t give a shit about waisting his days at school in a classroom. And with his grades? With all his learning disabilities and lack of a support system. There wasn’t much hope anyway.

He’s grades all suck. So there was no point in trying.

Fights. He tried to avoid them. It’s not like he went out looking for them but he ain’t no bitch. You punch him he’ll punch back. And leave a Leo Valdez hand shaped burn on yo face!

Leo was a foster kid he wasn’t put into some fancy orphanage he was put in the foster system. Meaning he had mini foster homes, but no one adopted him. I mean, why would they when he first got there? He was already eight years old and then he hit puberty and then he was a teenager and he was brown. No one wants a brown kid. And he was a teenager he masturbated no one wants a teenager. Everyone wants babies white babies. So obviously. When ever his white foster moms would try to encourage him or tell him he could do better in life if he just tried he’d call bullshit and sneak out to smoke cigarettes and drink beer with his friends.

He’s been in the back of a police car more times and he can count because his foster parents thought he was missing.

It doesn’t really put much effort in with foster parents at a point. He did it first when he was 89 1011 by the time he turned 12 he stopped giving a shit.. he hated when his foster parents would Taco Bell and attempted to make him feel welcome in their home. at a certain point he realize that no matter how hard he tries to connect with these people how hard he forgives them for their stupid misguided decisions she’s never gonna fit in and they’re never going to adopt him so he stopped trying.

He’s an amazing mechanic and an absolute comedian, but other than that, his greatest talent is wiggling out of windows and with his little body, it is easy. And climbing, jumping over wall (Mexican joke, not intended, but a happy accident)

Mid he is bored, which he is. He will leave.

[butt3rfly-anna]

I’m starting again. I’ve been pretty much in full recovery for about a year and a half (small minor relapses in between) my Ana brain is still always talking to me, but she’s quiet and she doesn’t yell. It got really easy to just ignore her after awhile. I never spent much time or talked on this side of tumbler much, even with being anorexic 8 years. So I’m new to all this, but I think it’ll keep me accountable on weight loss. I miss my old body, I miss that it took up all my thoughts. I have so much so drown out, and the one person I could always count on was Ana. So….

Ive decided to say fuck it today, I want to get as bad as I can get. I miss the dizzy. I miss the fog. I miss being at the gym til I threw up and passed out. Ana gave me this sickly energized feeling, all my devotion being into the rituals and rules, the obsession. I need it back. I’m tired of feeling. Tired of eating. But I need some support to urge me on, keep me going. I’ll take tips but…

Here’s the plan:

Step one: I’m starting chew and spit first. Trick my brain into feeling like it ate.

Step two : I’m going down to a 500 calorie intake first. I used to be able to go 4 days easy but that always ended me in a binge. So I need to go low calorie and keep my body slightly well so my mom doesn’t catch on. I know this will make it go slower but gotta start somewhere.

Step 2: get my gym membership back, since I’m 18 and have a car now, going whenever I want should be easy. I’ll find a routine that works •Lots of running!

Step three: I need to start documenting everything. So I’m going to go grab a new notebook in the morning and get started.

Step 4: Get a new scale too. The one in the bathroom isn’t accessible enough. I need to always be able to check.

Step 5: pick a goal weight and a goal time to lose it. I plan to go plenty deeper than the goal weight but short goals are easier.

Current lb: 104

Gw: 99

Goal time: one week

I think this should be easy…but it’s been a while

[pls-46-kg]

Atually help my parents almost caught me in a MASSIVE WAY i had a scale in my room for a few months that they didnt know ab and they found it omg i was SO SCARED but i made up a lie so quick and im not sure they ompletely believed it. i assured them i am not anorexic but they dont know that at one point i didnt eat for three days... they told me a story ab my much older cousin from like 8 years ago and she had to go to the hospital. So theyre very alert about our eatng since then. amazing.

[raycatz]

hey hey hey guess what! I was hospitalized around this time in May in 2014 for anorexia nervosa. I spent two weeks in the hospital and then three weeks in an inpatient program. I struggled with anorexia through high school and college and returned to restrictive eating multiple times. Food for the longest time wasn't safe. It's something I thought about day in and day out and it brought me a huge amount of anxiety and distress.

It's been a decade since I was hospitalized. I've come a long way since then and I'm proud to say that food isn't something I'm afraid of anymore. For four years now I haven't restricted or done any of my anorexic habits. There are still things that trigger that ED feeling, and I think there always will be, but I haven't felt the need to listen to it. I eat what I want, when I want, without any guilt or fear. This is something that would have been unimaginable to 2014 me. I've come so far. I'm so relived to be able to find joy in food again. I'm really proud!

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"Body Heat: a Snowpiercer-Marvel Mashup Story pt 2

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Curtis Everett x ofc

Tags: food insecurity, post apocalypse, age difference (18/34), dark!fic, implied/referenced suicide, poverty, arranged marriage, implied/referenced past cannibalism, hurt/comfort, attempted sexual assault

Summary: She’s too young for him to be eyeing her up the way he has been, but this is the Tail section, and Curtis has caught other men looking more than once. Everything is a commodity in the Tail. Everything. It won't be too long before he has to step in and claim her.

Author's Note:

On Tumblr, forbidden ToS content categories are: "terrorism, hate speech, harm to minors, self harm, sexually explicit material, violence, threats, gore, and mutilation."

And while you ARE apparently allowed to write a fictional story about incestuous, torturing, anorexic racists who rape their siblings, murder babies, kidnap, hate minorities, cannibalize, terrorize, and self-injure in the plotline of said story,

you ARE NOT allowed to write a teenage character who engages is any sort of sexualized conduct in a story.

For this one category and this one category alone, Tumblr staff (or at least one particular individual 🧌 😏on staff) makes no distinction between fictional stories with teen sexuality and C.S.A.M (which is frankly gross and unintelligent). They can and will delete your blog without any notice.

So, in the face of this VERY SPECIFIC criteria for Tumblr's censorship choices, I have changed the age of a character in this story from 16 to 18. That's not how the story was originally written, and the story can still be read on Ao3, which does not arbitrarily censor their content. But my m/f stories seem to be most popular on Tumblr, so I wanted to include the altered version in my library here.

(To be spiteful, however, I have changed the ofc from 16 to 18 and Curtis from 28 to 34, thus WIDENING the original age gap from 12 yrs to 16 yrs😆) 🖕you, staff troll

🖤With that said, this is a dark story regardless, so if you're looking for fluff, I suggest you look elsewhere.🖤

(Wait! I haven't read Part 1 yet!)

Part 2 - "A Microcosm of Humanity, Boiled Down to its Base Elements"

Mealtimes in the Tail are more about social interaction than they are about food—Kind of hard to have a dinner party when the only things there are to feast on are protein blocks and a meat that you’re pretending is chicken, after all. But they make due.

They have dishes now, at least. A couple hundred plastic bowls and cafeteria cups, dimpled and chipped at the rims, but still serviceable. They’re some of the newer amenities, part of the package that the council negotiated for in last year’s talks. It’s never much but it’s something, brings them just a smidge closer to being able to live like human beings, rather than animals.

It’s been twelve years, and still they’re celebrating over bowls when they should be aiming for antibiotics. But conditions were so miserable after Boarding that even the smallest concession from uptrain feels like a luxury now. Curtis would prefer the progress be faster, but he’s not in charge. He’s Gillam’s second in command, and Gillam’s so old and frail now. After the turmoil of the Year Two (and Three, and Five) Revolts, Curtis made him a tacit promise to not resort to such violent measures again lightly. For now, negotiated castoffs and increased recyclables from uptrain will have to do.

He doesn’t see Rose again for the rest of the afternoon. Four hundred people living in a metal box tend to brew discontent and interpersonal problems over the tiniest of things, and as one of the Tail’s five elected, a big chunk of Curtis’ days are spent solving petty conflicts between the Tailies. He navigates his way through a list of waiting disputes in the market car and in the bunks, making his rulings on what’s fair, and trying not to worry obsessively over Rose and where she is and how she may be doing and who may be bothering her.

But he’s not entirely successful, because something still loosens in his chest when he catches sight of her—looking peaceful and sitting quietly alone at dinnertime. He walks over, grinning the closer he gets as she continues not to notice his approach. “... Hey Petal!” he whisper-yells right beside her as he taps her shoulder and sinks down to sit next to her on the floor.

She gasps and almost drops her bowl, but a relieved smile splits her face when she sees that it’s him. “Curtis! Hey. It’s you.”

“Course it’s me.” He frowns quizzically at just how relieved she looks. “Who’d you think it was?”

“Nobody,” she excuses quickly, shaking her head and inching over to make more room for him. “Just glad to see you, is all. Today’s been … long.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Did you get the clothes to Gilliam?”

Her smile softens and she nods. “Yeah. And the arm to Coulson.” She gestures down the car to where Phil is sitting, using the rudimentary limb with clumsiness but steadfast determination. “He has to practice, but I think it’s gonna work pretty well for him.”

“I’ll bet.” Curtis smiles, happy for him. Phil’s also one of the elected, and along with Gilliam, Curtis, The Man, and Banner, he’s always done his best to help the people in the Tail survive. … That’s why he’s currently missing his arm from just above the elbow.

Curtis remembers the taste of human flesh. He wishes he didn’t, but he does. And what’s more, he wishes it’d tasted worse than it had, wishes he didn’t have the memory of how his mouth had watered when he’d finally gotten to eat for the first time in over a week. He averts his eyes from Coulson, ashamed, setting his bowl on the floor and sliding his right hand up under his left coat sleeve to trace the jagged evidence of his own failure.

It hadn’t tasted bad. That’s something he’s never said out loud. Because it’s too shameful. Talking about the early days isn’t forbidden, per say, but there’s an understanding amongst the Tailies that you don’t discuss the actual experience of eating human flesh. Unless it’s in private with someone very, very close to you, you don’t talk about the worst things that went down in those days.

Curtis glances back to Phil, wondering. He doesn’t actually know who he’s eaten. Back in the Desperation, there had been a decision amongst the volunteers that their donations would be mingled and prepared anonymously, to avoid people knowing—even family members, even the donors themselves. Curtis gets lost in the horror of the memory for a minute or two as he stares across the car at Phil, wondering, remembering the taste …

He snaps out of it when Rose says something to him, and he realizes that he’s still got his right hand stuck up his left coat sleeve, touching the scar. Rose’s voice pulls him out of it, like a fog suddenly lifting, and Curtis hastily picks his bowl back up, asking Rose to repeat herself and then mustering a cheerful answer for her as he puts the memories of the past back in the box on the shelf in his mind.

He and Rose sit shoulder to shoulder and converse over their bowls of stew. It’s one of only a few things that Tailies ever get to eat, and consists of broth made from cooked down protein blocks, and chunks of meat from the only other animal that shares the tail section with them.

Yeah, they eat rats. Curtis has stopped caring at this point. In fact, he’s not sure he ever really cared in the first place. Once you start with cannibalism, the only way to go is up. And it doesn’t taste too bad—especially since they’ve graduated from catching the rats to actually breeding them in cages. Between that and the artificial salt substitute that Curtis negotiated as part of last year’s package, things have a nicer flavor to them than they used to.

“Didn’t you work in the kitchen car for a hot second?” he says between one sip and another, when he’s paused to try and use his fingernail to get a stringy bit of meat out from between his teeth. “What’d MJ have you doing in there?”

Rose makes a face. “There are only a couple steps to making this slop, Curtis. Use your imagination.”

He laughs at the comical shudder she gives, and she kicks him for laughing at her. “So dramatic,” he teases. “What do you have to compare it to, anyway, huh?” He rolls his eyes. “Train babies. Don’t realize how good you have it.”

She gasps and pokes him as though he’s heaved a grave insult at her. “I am not a train baby!”

“Barely.”

“I’m eighteen!” she says, as if that makes her a full fledged adult (Curtis swallows heavily as he thinks that in some ways, it does). “I remember food from Before,” she insists, and Curtis shakes his head in amusement at her.

“Fine. What do you remember?” He’s breaking one of his own rules for her, talking about Before. It should alarm him but it doesn’t. “What food?” he taunts.

She sticks her chin out haughtily and thinks about it, before declaring, “Goldfish. And noodles. I remember noodles.”

It takes all Curtis has inside him not to snicker at her expense. He does want this girl to like him, after all. He looks down at his own bowl of stew and smiles fondly. “Goldfish crackers and noodles. That’s very specific.” The kind of thing a young child would remember. “Is that all?”

She twists her lips and admits, “Yeah.”

You have blocked a lot of it out, Curtis thinks sadly. Just not the parts that happened after Boarding. “It’s better that way,” he tells her. “Makes all of this more bearable.” Rose has never really had a life that was anything other than “bearable,” and while that is something of a mercy for her, it also makes Curtis want to be the one to give her more; be the one to introduce her to finery and pleasure, show her what it can taste like, what it can feel like. “There’s things I want to get for us,” he tells her, speaking quietly because he doesn’t need the people nearby overhearing and getting themselves worked up. “Things for the Tail, food I want to negotiate for. I think this might be the year.”

Rose looks intrigued. “What?”

“Lean closer,” Curtis whispers. “This is top secret.”

She smirks and scootches even closer to him, until they’re pressed together from hip to shoulder. “What?” she whispers.

Curtis looks her in the eye and lets the tension build for a moment, trying his damnedest to keep his expression serious, and then he declares, “Goldfish and noodles.”

She gives an outraged squawk and moves to swat at him for making fun of her, though she’s laughing herself. “You suck!”

Curtis stays her hand, pulling her into a one-armed hug and apologizing through his own laughter. “Wait, wait, wait. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Shh. I’ll tell you.” He calms down from laughing. “I’ll tell you, I will.”

“Jerk,” she mutters, but he can hear the fondness in her voice.

“Chickens,” he whispers in her ear. “You remember those?”

She purses her lips thoughtfully, then shrugs in a way that tells him she really doesn’t. “That’s an animal,” she says, in what she doesn’t realize is a sad demonstration of her limited knowledge. “A bird.”

“Yeah,” Curtis says. “Yeah it is. You know the New Year’s eggs?” Every year since Year Five, a wheelbarrow from uptrain arrives on New Year’s Day bearing the coveted gift of hundreds of gleaming white, hard-boiled eggs—one for each blasted soul who lives trapped in the Tail section. Rose hums and Curtis nods. “Those come from chickens. They lay the eggs and you can eat them. It’s a good source of food. And you can kill the chickens and eat them, too. Eat their meat.”

“But … don’t baby chickens come from the eggs?” Rose asks naively.

Curtis smirks. “Yeah, but that’s when they’re fertilized. If a male chicken isn’t around fucking the hens, then the eggs just come out, and you can eat ‘em. They don’t have baby chicks in them.” He watches Rose’s face screw up at the stark visual, and is surprised when she bluntly declares,

“Oh. So … like a period, with us.”

Curtis almost swallows his tongue. First of all, he wouldn’t have expected Rose to be able to make the comparison. Because she may be old enough to bleed, but they don’t exactly have comprehensive sex ed in the Tail. As far as Curtis knows, the girls are taught young—very young—what sex is, what it leads to, and how to avoid it at all costs. Curtis doesn’t think he’s heard a person talk openly about these things since before Boarding. It just isn’t done. The women handle their stuff themselves, and the men have their heads bitten off if they interfere.

“Um,” he says, face heating. “Yeah, I guess. Except you don't lay eggs." Rose snorts and Curtis winces and scratches awkwardly behind his ear. “So anyway, I want to get us some chickens. If we had those, it’d help a lot.”

Rose stares pensively into the depths of her soup bowl, with its globulous broth and stringy bits of meat. “It’d taste better than this?”

Curtis scoffs. “Most things do, Petal.”

“Oh God, you’re really sticking with that, aren’t you?”

He wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze, laying out his vision for the future. “I want to negotiate for another car. With dirt and chickens.”

“Dirt?”

“Yeah. They grow things uptrain. Crops. We could too. We could raise chickens in half of it, grow potatoes in the other half.”

Rose looks at him like he’s just announced he’ll be negotiating for the moon. “They’ll never give it to you,” she whispers. “Why would they?”

“If I could threaten them with something big enough. We might have the bargaining power.”

“What would you threaten them with?”

He smiles sadly and squeezes her shoulder. “I dunno. That’s what I’ve gotta figure out.”

“But you’re not gonna … I mean there’s not going to be another war, is there? Not like before …”

There’s genuine fear in her voice when she asks, which makes Curtis feel like crap. Everyone had suffered back then. Many had died. He thinks about how Rose would’ve only been eleven or so, during the Year Five Rebellion. Just a kid, still playing with the crummy little doll Curtis made for her. “No, Hon,” he promises gently. “No. There are other ways. Other things we can do to gain leverage. It just takes time.”

“What ways?”

He shakes his head and smiles. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t help it,” she pouts. “I may not know many things. But I like to know them.”

He smiles fondly. “I know, Petal. You’re curious. Always have been. You like to know the scuttlebutt, as they say. You’re not afraid to ask questions. I like that about you.”

“You do?”

“... Among other things.” He sees her cheeks color prettily, and realizes he’d better stop talking. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’d tell you if I could, but these things are above your paygrade. Me and Gilliam’ll figure it out.” He shoots her a wink. “That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

She titters at that, because they both know that there’s no such thing as money in the Tail. Oh there’s currency, for sure, just not the kind that’s handed over as stacks of bills. Curtis lets his eyes drag over the few parts of Rose’s body that he can see: her attractive face and the slope of her neck, the delicate suggestion of a collar bone where it peeks out before it’s swallowed up by her sweater. He looks away. “I want to improve things for us. Change is possible. There are things we can get. We just have to work for it.”

“What things?” she presses, leaning closer.

He thinks about brushing her off, but he can see that she’s genuinely curious, and the interested gleam in her eyes sways him. Because ideas can mean hope, and he wants her to have hope. They’ve both seen what can happen when there isn’t any.

He tells her about the basic medicines and medical supplies that could be useful, tells her about the items they could receive if people uptrain were more willing to bargain. “More castoffs would go to us, instead of into the recycling machines,” he tells her. While it is true that some old and unwanted items eventually make their way into the Tailies’ “market,” the sad fact is that many more materials are cleansed, disintegrated, and recycled for use through the train’s 3d printing machines. Curtis has never seen them, but due to his yearly talks with a woman named Melanie, he now knows that they exist, and they’re why not much gets sent back to the Tailies.

“We’d have more clothes, toys and books, all sorts of new things.” Of course when he says “new” he only means new in the sense of new to them. To people in the front, Tailies are second class citizens at best, subhumans at worst. The funny thing is, Curtis doesn’t take offense at it like he used to. He’s learned by now that it’s human nature to kill, cheat and steal, clamoring all over each other whenever resources are limited. They’ve literally eaten the weak in the Tail, after all. It’d be hypocritical to hold the first class passengers to a higher standard.

No, Snowpiercer is just a microcosm of humanity boiled down to its base elements. Nine-hundred people surviving on a miserable little train, barreling endlessly around the frozen corpse of the planet. Of course there’s going to be subjugation of the weak so that others can have more. Curtis doesn’t hold it against them anymore, but he sure as hell isn’t going to take it lying down. The Tailies were never ticketed passengers. They forced their way on, they scraped and scrounged and earned their survival. And if they ever get the chance, they’ll turn the tables on the passengers uptrain in a heartbeat. Curtis makes speeches about “leveling the playing field,” but he doesn’t have visions of utopia. Not really. He just wants to die in a feather bed.

“What would we have after chickens?” Rose asks, drawing Curtis out of his gloom. She knows as well as he does, what the definition of a “pipe dream” is, but it’s fun to pretend with someone you like, and Curtis likes her. Always has. He likes that she hasn’t turned grey and dull like everyone else in the Tail. So he indulges her “what ifs” and they continue to tease each other over various colorful and increasingly stupid imaginings: how they’ll have potatoes, and then beef, then televisions, bathtubs, a swimming pool.

At some point, Curtis realizes that he’s actually managed to make her smile, and giggle. Even sitting on a cold steel floor slurping at a bowl of rat and god-knows-what stew, he feels like a king knowing he was able to do that. “You’re really beautiful when you smile,” he blurts out, soaking up the way that her eyes get just a little bit wider and her lips part in surprise. He averts his attention back down to his bowl, pleased as punch. “‘Course, I always think you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, fully intending for her to hear.

She gets quiet after that, bashful and seemingly deep in thought. Curtis doesn’t worry though, because when everybody settles in to listen to that night’s story, she goes to fetch one of the blankets off her bunk and brings it back. She plops herself right back down next to Curtis and hands him a corner of the blanket to wrap it around both of their shoulders. He obliges. The assembly car fills up for that night’s entertainment, and just before the lights are dimmed down to their lowest level, Curtis locks eyes with Tanya from across the car, who’s shooting him a scrutinizing look. He’s grateful to escape her judgment for the moment, but he knows she’ll be on him before long.

They set out the tall stool at the head of the car, and Painter, the Tail’s historian, climbs up and settles on it.

A quiet man of short stature, Painter’s been performing the nightly stories since almost from the very beginning. He has a way of seeing things that others don’t, a way of weaving words and details together in graduating, elaborative cadence; like his drawings, like strings on a loom, always managing to convey the true heart of a matter in a way that resonates with people. It’s the closest thing to watching a movie any of them will probably ever get again, and in Curtis’ opinion it has just as much value as the food they feed their bodies with. People need more than just food to survive. They need community, they need love, they need hope.

Painter sits silently at first—a sign that he hasn’t decided on the topic and is taking suggestions that night. Someone calls out in the dimness to suggest The Man for tonight’s story, and a murmur of general agreement goes through the crowd. Up ahead on his stool, Painter nods. The Man was well known in the Tail, having long-served on Gillam’s council, among other things. Curtis hadn’t been lying to Rose, when he’d said that her father had been a good leader.

In the crook of his arm, he feels her shift subtly. Aware that this might be hard for her, he leans over and kisses the top of her head. “Hey, are you okay?” he whispers, giving her the option. “You want to go?” But she shakes her head and tucks herself further into him, so Curtis relaxes back, looking forward to getting to hold her in his arms for the next hour or two.

Painter does The Man justice. Children are always kept in another car during storytime, so that the plotlines don’t have to be watered down for their sensibilities, but even still, Curtis doesn’t doubt that Painter knows Rose is present, because he takes care to soften the corners of the story where she features, and to use gentle words when the most painful memories are fleshed out.

For over an hour, Curtis lets his eyes slip closed and the words wash over him. He tucks his nose into Rose’s hair and breathes the scent of her in, holding her small, soft body against him. He can feel every shift and sway that she gives as she hears the story, too, and they enjoy their time together, connecting over the shared intimacy of Painter’s words.

At some point, he brings her into his lap, and she comes so easily—like she was just waiting for the invitation, and is relieved that he wants her there. This isn’t something they’ve done before. Not like this. And he can tell by the slight tension in her body that she knows it, too. This is new. It could be the first time a man has ever showed her attention like this, and Curtis wants it to be good and easy for her. He gently rubs her back as the story stretches on, relieved when he can feel all the tension slowly leaving her. “Good girl,” he whispers against her hair.

She hums and rubs her cheek on his chest with complete trust, and Curtis suddenly remembers what it used to feel like to sink into a full, hot bath. Is this what it means to be touch starved? he wonders. Probably. It’s been so long since he’s been genuinely intimate with another person, that he’d almost forgotten the feeling.

Eventually he can hear the tone of Painter’s words changing, can hear it all coming to a close as he wraps up his retelling of that night’s story. Curtis has never hated anything more. Please, he thinks. Please let him keep going. Let him keep talking just a little bit longer so she’ll stay in my arms. He doesn’t want to let her go.

… Maybe if he plays his cards right, he won’t have to.

Tanya does confront him that night, cornering him by her spot before he can follow after Rose on her path to the wash car. “Pretty sure that girl knows how to bathe herself,” she says, hand planted firmly on Curtis’ chest. “She doesn’t need you, Curtis.”

Curtis loses sight of Rose going into the next bunk car, and he settles back onto his heels, glaring at Tanya. “I’m trying to look out for her.”

Tanya raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “You sure that’s all you’re trying to do?”

Curtis’s eyes narrow. “Have you been paying attention? Look around.” He nods at the crowded bunk car around them and speaks in a hushed tone. “You’re in charge of all the female stuff, you should know better than anyone what’ll happen now that her father’s gone. I’m only trying to protect her.”

Tanya purses her lips. “Uh huh. Protect her with your penis, is that how?”

“Jesus.” Curtis takes a step back, crossing his arms in frustration. He leans back against a metal rail. “I’m just being realistic,” he eventually says, after sulking over it for a moment. He respects Tanya—she’s a crucial part of the Tail, helping the women who get pregnant and give birth, helping the girls when they start developing (and, eventually, when they start attracting the attention of the men). “You’ve seen them looking?” he asks, not having to look at Tanya to know that she understands him. “So what am I supposed to do? Just wait until somebody else stakes their claim?”

Tanya makes an angry sound, though it isn’t directed at Curtis. “I stop them.”

“You stop the ones you can,” Curtis says lowly. “But eventually—”

“Eventually is eventually. Right now is right now,” she hisses.

Curtis turns back to her. “We play it your way and the first guy who stakes his claim gets her. That’s how it works. You know that. Is that what you want, huh?” Tanya’s face works in frustration, and Curtis softens. “Hey,” he says, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. “I don’t like it either. We do the best we can with what we have.” He feels her shoulders rise and fall in a beleaguered sigh.

“I boxed Batroc’s ears last week,” she tells him; her way of giving tacit approval. “Keep an eye on that dirtbag.”

Curtis nods. He’s aware of who the biggest threats are, currently. It’s the men in their twenties and thirties who prey on the up and coming girls. Marriage isn’t a thing in the tail so much as claiming is. The men have a sort of ‘first dibs’ honor system that Curtis despises, but that he can’t change on his own. Not when the majority is so set on it. “I’m not going to force her,” he promises Tanya. “Okay? I’ll give her the choice. You know I will.”

Tanya’s jaw works, but eventually she nods and turns to the side to let him pass. Curtis pats her shoulder in thanks and heads off in the direction that Rose went with her towel.

He gets there just a few seconds too late—or at least, that’s what he thinks when he hears her crying out from the women’s side of the wash car. Curtis barrels around the partition, heedless of whoever else may be in there when he can hear Rose in distress.

There’s a man standing at her back, pushing her face up against the wall of one of the stalls. She’s naked, the shower spraying aimlessly not even a foot away. She’s struggling, crying … and the man’s pants are halfway down his thighs.

Curtis sees red. “Get the fuck off her!”

Everything happens in a blur: him pulling the man back by his shirt and throwing him onto the floor at the opposite side of the car, the man’s head hitting the wall, Rose crying out in fear, Curtis going over to gather her naked body into his arms. “Are you okay?” he asks breathlessly, holding her as she sobs and presses her head of soaked hair against him. His hands slide over the water-slicked skin of her back, his heart in his throat. “Did he hurt you?”

She sobs and shakes her head, clinging to him. “Curtis!”

“Shh, you’re okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He looks across the car at the man, who’s now rubbing his head with a pained wince. Curtis feels rage consume him and he has no control over his actions as he abandons Rose by the stall and stalks across the car to punch the guy square in the face. He immediately grabs his shirt collar and hauls him back in. “Who the fuck do you think you are?!” he roars.

“Stop!” the man—a guy Curtis knows only as Hodge—coughs out, speaking through blood and what’s likely a broken nose. He holds up his hands to defend himself from further assault, and Curtis shakes him with a furious growl.

“Did you touch her?! What did you do? I’ll kill you!”

“I didn’t!” Hodge coughs, pushing against Curtis. “I didn’t do anything! I was just—”

Curtis slams him back into the wall of the car. “Then why’s your dick out?!” Hodge sinks down the wall to the floor and Curtis follows him down. “Answer me!”

“I just wanted to talk to her!”

He’s about to reach down and rip this guy’s nuts off, but Rose calling to him from the other side of the car draws his attention away: “Curtis, please. Curtis!” She’s standing there—naked, wet and shivering, futilely trying to cover herself. She looks at him pleadingly through her tears. “He didn’t. You stopped him. He didn’t.”

It’s enough to make Curtis rein himself in from further violence. Rose needs him more than he needs to hurt Hodge. Still, he shakes the man again as he hauls him back up to standing and shoves him towards the exit of the car. “This isn’t finished,” he warns him at the door, pushing him through hard enough that he falls to his ass on the other side. Curtis points at him. “You’ll pay for this.”

He slams the door and goes back to Rose, who’s still standing there looking lost, shivering, cold. The shower’s still running, so Curtis hurries over to turn the water off. He grabs the towel that’s hanging on the hook and brings it to Rose, intending to bundle her up as quickly as he can. She takes it and wraps it around herself, but it ends at mid thigh and Curtis’ eyes are drawn to a trickle of red running down her inner thigh. All the blood drains from his face. “You’re bleeding,” he says, horrified.

Rose looks down at it and sniffles. “Oh.”

“I’ll fucking kill him,” Curtis breathes, already turning to go back out and finish the job.

“Curtis! Curtis wait!” Rose grabs his arm with both hands as she shakes her head frantically. “I’m fine. It’s my period. He didn’t hurt me.”

Curtis calms down, his chest heaving from adrenaline. “You swear?” he urges, grabbing her upper arms and holding her in front of himself to get a better look at her. Now that he’s paying attention, he can see that she’s dripping wet and rattled, but not visibly hurt.

“I swear. I’m okay.”

His eyes track back down to the blood on her leg, suspicious until he looks beyond and sees her pile of clothing sitting over on a shelf. There’s a small folded rag there the likes of which he’s seen before; what the women pass around silently amongst themselves when they bleed. Curtis calms down as he realizes that Rose is telling the truth and not just lying to keep him from murdering Hodge. He lets go of her upper arms, suddenly aware that she may not want him touching her right at this moment. “Sorry,” he mutters, not knowing what else to say. He feels like he’s just run a marathon, his heart is beating so fast.

Rose surprises him by throwing herself into his arms again, a sob making her whole body heave against him. “Thank you,” she cries, hugging him, hiding her face against his chest. “Curtis, god. If you hadn’t come in …”

“Shh. I did. I did come,” he reassures her, wrapping his arms around her fully again now that he knows it’s welcome. She feels so small. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

They stand there for who knows how long. Minutes, at least. Calming down together. Rose’s crying fades, and Curtis’ blood pressure re-enters the stratosphere. He can feel the red hot anger and instinct to kill bleeding out of his mind the longer that time stretches on. He becomes aware of how cold Rose must be in only her towel and still all wet. “Here,” he says, ushering her back towards the shower. The stalls have changing areas right in front of them, and he steps back so that she can have privacy. “Get dried off. Get dressed,” he says. “I’ll …” his gaze falls back down to the trail of red on her leg. He swallows thickly and averts his eyes. “I’ll be right here.”

Shakily, she nods and pulls the curtain. She gets dressed, and when she opens the curtain again, her hair has been towel-dried and hangs limply about her face. She looks shyly up at Curtis. “Hey.”

“C’mere, Honey.”

She folds back herself into his arms eagerly, whining and pressing into him. “Thank you,” she whispers. “God, Curtis. Thank you.”

“I should’ve been here,” he grunts, thinking of how Tanya had held him back. He silently curses her. “I knew something like this would happen,” he hisses to himself, though he regrets saying it when he feels how it makes her shudder against him.

“Can we get out of here, please?”

He nods and starts to lead them towards the door of the car. He’s not surprised to find Hodge gone on the other side. Curtis silently fumes about what he’d walked in on, as he leads Rose backtrain. They walk through the car where her spot is, and Curtis gives her hand a squeeze when she looks back at it and makes a questioning noise. “I want you with me tonight,” he tells her, gentle but firm, because no way in hell is he leaving her alone now. “Please?” he coaxes, pleased when she looks up to him and nods.

“Okay.”

He smiles softly. “Good girl.”

Curtis has a good sized spot. Certainly big enough for two, which he’s grateful for when he guides her to scoot in across the bed. His is the third bunk up out of four, which means climbing a few rungs, but once you’re up there it affords a fair sense of privacy, especially once he draws the curtain across to close them in together. He flicks the small lamp on, its dim bulb flickering to life and giving just enough light to see by.

He’s got his blankets spread out on the bed. There’s plenty of room enough to sit up and move around, all of his worldly possessions hung to the wall or else strapped against the top of the bunk above. “Home sweet home,” he says, gesturing around half heartedly. “Nothing special.”

“It’s nice.” Rose looks around with a little curiosity before tucking her head down. She shrugs. “You’ve got one of the lights. Our spot doesn’t. I mean … my spot,” she amends quietly. “Our neighbor has the light.”

The lights are built into the walls, meant to faintly illuminate what were once the train’s original baggage racks, powered by the Arc Reactor and impossible to move. But some people have managed to rig up their own lamps from salvaged materials and a little creative wiring over the years. There are no windows in the Tail. Curtis has heard that there are windows uptrain, but he doesn’t know whether to be jealous or not. Would it really improve anything, to have a view of the wasted, frozen world they left behind? He’s not so sure. At least this way they can pretend that Snowpiercer is all there is, the delusion only ruined whenever the Jackboots arrive to deliver food or raid them.

Curtis settles beside her and knocks their legs together. “I’ll keep my eye out for something in the market,” he promises. “Someone as pretty as you shouldn’t be in the dark.”

She smiles as though pained, looking down at her lap. “Being pretty is what got me into this mess.”

Curtis sighs. “No. It’s not just that, Hon.” He cups her face, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone. “It’s not just that.”

“What then?”

He smiles sadly. “Look, if there’s one thing you gotta understand about men, it’s that we covet the rare … and the pure. You’re good. Truly good, in a way most of us aren’t. In a way we can’t afford to be.” He drops his hand and turns away, feeling gross for having told her that, for having included himself in the roster of ‘men’ who think like that. But it’s true. “That’s why you stand out,” he mutters. “None of us are good the way you’re good.”

“What? But you’re good.”

Curtis scoffs. “Please.”

“You are! You’re on council aren’t you?”

He rolls his eyes. “That means I’m good with people, not good. There’s a difference.”

“No,” Rose insists. “No, you help everyone. You lead us, try to make life better for us.” She gets incensed when he continues to disagree. “You do! You … you make dolls for little girls who’ve lost all their toys. You protect us.”

Curtis slumps back against the wall. “Is that what I did back there? Protected you?”

“Yes. Curtis you saved me. You stopped him from …” She falters, unable to say the word, and the silence grows uncomfortable between them. Eventually she stares down at her lap and scoffs bitterly.

Curtis looks over. He doesn’t like the pinch that’s settled between her eyebrows. There’s something strangely self-deprecating about it, and he can’t figure out what’s going on in her head. “Hey.” He nudges her knee with his. “What are you thinking, Hon?”

She shakes her head. “Hodge,” she whispers. “He said things.”

“Oh god. Don’t. Rosie, don’t pay attention to anything that cretin said. Did he threaten you? Because if he did, you know I still have half a mind to rip off his—”

“He said that somebody would choose me, and if it isn’t him it’ll be someone else ‘staking their claim’.” She looks rather mortified as she repeats it. “And he’s not wrong. I mean that’s the way it’s done, isn’t it?” she asks bitterly. “The men. They choose who they want. We don’t get a say. Not really.”

“Rosie,” Curtis mourns, wishing that he could spare her, wishing he could tell her that she has choices, choices that people will respect. But he doesn’t want to lie. She doesn’t deserve to be lied to. “Hey,” he says instead. “You know I care about you, right?”

She nods, sniffling. “Yeah.”

“You should sleep here. Not just tonight but every night.” He can tell by her reaction that she realizes what he means, and he’s pleased when she leans against his side, still seeking comfort in him. He relaxes now that the hardest part is done. “Would you like that, Petal?” he asks softly, wrapping his arm around her and holding her close. She scoffs at the nickname, and Curtis kisses the top of her head. It’s been a long time since he’s had another person in his bunk—a long time. Not having a partner is lonely, sure, but with the way things are in the tail, it’s easier just to jerk off. Romance is all but dead, as is evidenced by the Tailies’ near-transactional customs regarding sex and relationships. “Will you?” he checks, relieved when she gives a little nod and a sniffle.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“I don’t want that either.”

They sit there in silence for a while, and just as Curtis starts to wonder if Rose has fallen asleep, she whispers, “What was it like?”

“What was what like?”

“Men and women. Before. How did it …” she pauses, considering what she wants to say, or perhaps how to ask. “My dad and my mom,” she settles on. “They were married. They loved each other. Nobody chose my mom. They chose each other.”

Curtis nods and gives her arm a squeeze. “Yeah. That’s how it was.”

“Tell me?” she asks, sounding for all the world like a child asking for a bedtime story. “Please?”

Curtis rubs her back, resigning himself to telling her the truth. “People met,” he says. “At school, at work, through friends. If they liked each other romantically, they dated.”

“What’s ‘dated’?”

He winces where she can’t see. “When you liked someone, you’d ask them out on a date. You’d meet them and go do something nice together. Something fun. Get a drink or see a movie, eat a meal in a restaurant.”

“Did the man decide the dates?”

He frowns. “Sometimes. Women would too, though. Sometimes they’d be the one to ask the guy out. It just depended.”

“What happened next?” Rose asks.

“Well … you’d just keep spending time together, you’d keep dating. If the people decided not to date anybody else, they’d agree to be a couple. Boyfriend and girlfriend. … Or husband and wife.”

“What’s the difference?”

Curtis winces at how sad it is that she doesn’t know that. The long term implications of their confinement in the Tail section are obvious and jarring, at times like this. He licks his lips. “Marriage was more serious than dating. More permanent. You might break up with your girlfriend eventually, but if you made her your wife, then that was like saying you wanted to be together forever.” He doesn’t bother getting into the concept of divorce, knowing that she just needs a basic understanding of the matter. “That’s how it was,” he finishes. “Before.”

Rose is quiet for a long while, thinking it over. Eventually she says, “And now the men choose.”

Curtis hates how resigned she sounds about it. “What happened in the wash car isn’t allowed,” he says, aware of the way her body tenses against him. “I’ll make sure Hodge is punished. But the thing is, Sweetheart … I’m worried he won’t be the last.”

Rose sniffles. “It’s ‘cause my dad’s gone, isn’t it?”

“That doesn’t help the matter. But you’ve been old enough for a while now, for some. And I’ve seen them looking.”

“For some?” Rose peeks up at him. “Not you?”

Curtis hesitates to answer. “... You’re young, Honey.” It’s not like he can say that he wants her. But saying that he doesn’t would be a total lie. He might not be looking yet, if he didn’t have the other men to worry about; but he does have to worry about them, and so he has been looking. “I’ll make sure Hodge is punished,” he reiterates. “Severely. Even with the way things are now, that was completely beyond the pale.” He feels that hot surge of fury boil up inside him again as he thinks about it: Rose standing there, shivering and crying, Hodge with his hands on her, his dick hanging out of his pants. “He was going to rape you,” Curtis growls. “He needs to pay.”

“And the others?” she asks. “You’ll stop them?”

His chest aches at her unshakable faith in him and what she thinks he can do. “I can only protect you one way,” he murmurs, pulling her close and burying his nose in her hair so that she can’t look up at him with those big doe eyes again. “Has Tanya talked to you much?” he asks. Her head moves against him in a little nod, but she doesn’t say anything. Curtis kisses her hair. “What happened in the wash car could happen again. Someone’ll want to claim you.” She whines and rubs her face against his sweater, clinging to him. He pulls her into his lap just like he had during storytime, earlier that night. “Hey,” he soothes, “I wish it could be different, you know? Wish I could take you outta here, make other people respect your choices.” He sighs sadly. “That’s just not how it works anymore, Petal.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “Would you take me on a date, Before?” He hesitates, and she notices. She looks up at him. “You wouldn’t?”

“You’re too young for me,” he admits. “Or you would’ve been. Before.”

“Now I’m not?” she asks, and Curtis averts his eyes uncomfortably, because of course she’s still too fucking young. If they were still in the World she’d be in highschool, going to prom and the mall, glued to her phone. Learning about sex from school and porn and from fumbling encounters with boys her own age, not from some jaded midwife in a squalid train car.

“Now …” he sighs. “Now, it’s different. It doesn’t make it right, but girls become fair game once they’re about your age. And any man who’s interested can try for you.”

“I know that,” she whispers. “But what about you? Are you interested?”

Curtis’ mouth is dry. He can’t answer. So he nods smally instead. He’s surprised when she doesn’t seem frightened or upset by this admission. He lets his hands hold her more securely, fingers dipping into the curve of her waist from over her sweater. “I care about you,” he croaks. “I want to protect you. And the only way I know to do that is to claim you myself.”

“Will you?” she asks. She lays her cheek back against his chest and yawns. “Claim me?”

Above her resting head, Curtis grinds his teeth. “Let’s just take it one day at a time, okay Hon?”

“Mm.” She nods sleepily. “Okay. I trust you, Curtis. Thank you for helping me today.”

He doesn’t answer her, just holds her against him and rubs her back as she gradually falls to sleep. He’s not the man she thinks he is, and she should be in her own spot right now, not tucked away in here with him, because sooner or later he knows he’s going to take advantage. He’ll have her, and he’ll make sure that every other man in the train knows that she’s his. That may not be what she really wants, or even what’s good for her.

But oh well, he thinks. At least it’s better than the alternative.

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how do I write a character with emetophobia?

Writing Characters with Emetophobia!

from your neighborhood emetophobia haver, aka me!

TW for emetophobia things under the cut (emetophobia is a fear of vomit or vomiting)

so you want your character to have some quirky fear, and the fear of puking is what you landed on! I’m here to tell you what it’s like to have severe emetophobia and what that entails for my life. all of these struggles and symptoms are personal and doesn’t apply to everyone with emetophobia. it is a very individual phobia, this is just how my body and mind reacts

Living with Emetophobia ↴

this post has no real structure, it’s more or less just things that have happened to me. i’ve had this phobia since my inception, so here’s a list of things your characters with emetophobia might do.

Avoiding foods or actions that (probably won’t, but could) trigger sickness: I was terrified to eat anything that contained dairy because — one singular time — I heard that milk makes you throw up if you have a fever and I swore it off from the time I was 8 until I was about 12. I was literally nine years old reading labels in the store for dairy and violently throwing it back on the shelves if it contained it. Not to mention my mother was lactose intolerant (Which I’m not) but seeing her fall at the hands of dairy didn’t make me feel any better about it. During this phase I only ate about three things and you literally couldn’t get me to eat anything else to the point where I was nearly anorexic. Once my friend told me she coughed so hard she threw up and I didn’t let myself cough when I was sick for a long time after. I also ran away from anyone who coughed near me. (I was such a psycho.) Now I will eat most foods given to me, but if something repeatedly offends my stomach, I usually just stop. I’m not so dramatic about it anymore lol. (I am much healthier now, too.)

Literally running away from sick people: I will never forget one time, my brother got sick. I wasn’t even in the same room as him. My mom yelled “maccreadysbaby, can you bring me some wipes?” I did. And as soon as I saw what happened I threw them at her, ran across the house, hid behind the couch, covered my ears and started crying. Another time, my mom informed me that my brother had thrown up while I was not home for a few days, and I avoided him like the plague. Literally like I would die if I touched him. My parents stopped telling me if my siblings got sick while I was away after that. When I was in gradeschool, a classmate got sick on a Tuesday and I was fine for the rest of the week. Then I puked on Saturday. For years afterwards, if I was ever around a sick person, I’d always count four days and if I didn’t throw up on day four, finally relax. (Again, I was such a psycho.) This instinct is still here as an adult. For example, my sister just recently thought she was gonna get carsick (while I was in the back with her) and let me tell you I was so squished up to my door I couldn’t breathe. I still sort of do the day counting thing if I’m completely honest, but I’m not so terrified and incessant about it.

Thinking that they’re sick all the time: This was a terribly big thing for me. For a span of 5ish years, at the same time I swore off dairy, I basically categorized myself as gonna throw up all of the time, even when I was perfectly freaking fine. I woke up, assumed I would puke that day, because why wouldn’t I, and triggered my anxiety. Which would actually trigger stomachaches and stuff. I would sit on the stairs and beg and cry until my parents let me stay home from school, and we almost had to go to court for the amount of school I was missing because I pulled this crap every day. This phase of my life only ended when my mom took me to the doctor (while I was literally fine) and made him tell me I was just anxious and not actually going to puke. (As you can see, I was a very fun child to raise.) I don’t behave this way anymore, but if my stomach does hurt for some reason, I immediately spiral into oh SHITE not HAPPENING territory.

Have debilitating anxiety: This is one of the things on this list that still happens to me regularly. If my stomach hurts in any capacity (even on my period) I am immediately thrusted into I’m gonna freaking puke mode. I get really cold, start sweating, start trembling (like, shake the whole couch trembling) and just sit there while my anxiety eats my brain. I can’t move because some part of me thinks moving an inch is going to make me puke. No matter how much I tell myself you’re fine, you’re not going to puke, this happens to you every day and you haven’t thrown up since you were twelve, you’re being so dramatic, it doesn’t stop. I just have to sit there and wallow in my pain and anxiety until my stomach stops hurting. Then I laugh at myself for being stupid and move on, even though I routinely worry about it coming back throughout the day. If it does I rinse and repeat. If I do puke (which I fortunately haven’t done since I was twelve) I can confidently say there’d be a lot of crying and minimal screaming about how I’m gonna die.

Here’s a recent (as of literally this morning) emetophobic thought pattern for you to analyze, to help you understand what your characters minds might be doing when they’re freaking out:

I received a text that my cousin, who I saw last night, was throwing up. I was still asleep but I woke up and checked my phone anyways. This was my exact thought process.

oh SHITE I was around him, wasn’t I? Well, I guess not a lot, he spoke to me a few times and I was near him at the campfire, but I maybe not enough to make me sick. But you know who was around him? My freaking sister. And if she gets sick there’s no hope for me. oh my GOD does my stomach hurt right now? I think it does. Wait, shut up, maccreadysbaby, you’re being stupid. Think about something else and go back to sleep. Why are you SHAKING stop being so pathetic. Your stomach totally hurts right now. You have plans today maccreadysbaby you can NOT get sick you can NOT be the reason your plans are canceled. I’m totally going to throw up today as life’s way of spiting me. Shut up and go to sleep, you weren’t even around him. But I WAS we ALL were, sitting across the table doesn’t count as being far away. Maybe he just got carsick or has acid reflux or something. Today is Saturday so if I make it to Wednesday I should be fine. But what if I ACTUALLY throw up I don’t even want to think about it oh my God what if I do? Okay, you’re fine, shut up and go back to sleep.

I went back to sleep (eventually) and woke up twice more to go through that entire process again before my alarm went off. It’s basically that on repeat every time I hear of a sick person or my stomach hurts. Fun times 😬👍.

[houseofbrat]

So what you want Kate to not get chemotherapy so that she gets even more worse and more unwell? Who even thinks like that and William doesn’t smoke

First off, it's well known that William smokes. Just because he hides it better than Harry doesn't mean he doesn't do it. He clearly has smoker skin. That's why his skin looks so terrible & dry. So dry that soon we might be able to grate cheese on it.

"You want Kate to not get chemotherapy so that she gets even more worse and more unwell?"

Your ignorance is clearly showing.

This is how people die from cancer:

Catabolism: the body breaks down on a cellular level; substances released by tumor cells are strong anorexics.

Secondary infection due to immune system suppression.

Blockage of vital structures: trachea/esophagus, superior vena cava (SVC) syndrome, impacts to the spinal cord, pericardial effusion, pleural effusion, etc.

Side effects of medication/treatment: immune suppression, pulmonary fibrosis, Graft-versus-Host-Disease (GvHD), etc.

You do not die from cancer just because you have "cancer."

I wrote a long post yesterday differentiating that different people have different physiology. Just because you have "cancer" does not mean that it poses a threat to your life or health. Plenty of people have "cancer" that does not progress at all or affect them in any way. Just because you have "cancer present" does not mean it will affect your life or health in any significant way.

The situation is really like the anon said:

"Catherine has a much more serious cancer than they are letting on, hence, the decision to have chemo is not even a discussion point,"

"she’s not having chemo and there’s another reason why she’s missing in action,"

"she and William are panicking and she’s receiving chemo regardless"

My bets are on numbers two or three.

Kensington Palace is clearly lying. Can't wait for it to be revealed! KP's strategy before Kate's cancer announcement was to release the news that her medical records had been breached and paint Kate as a victim. After the cancer announcement, it was those pesky conspiracy theorists and the axis of evil who was to blame for Kate's reputation being slagged around the world, not the utter incompetence of William and KP.

Let's not forget that William is an emotionally damaged, thin skinned, control freak with a privacy fetish.

Let's also not forget that next Monday, 01 April 2024, begins a new fiscal year for the BRF.

[taduki]

Asra, Nadi, and Muriel art (based on @iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia’s hcs)

You can also erase and draw your MC in the place of my own, but please credit me. 🥺 Also, do not remove any of the watermarks please.

[heartshapedhackjob]

I will make this post and then be done with this childish behavior. I feel as though every other person on earth is having a good time except for me. They say that these should be the best years of my life but I feel chained to these feelings about my body and my abuse and my worries about the future of my loved ones. My mother called me while I was writing this post and I answered and hung up without speaking. I've done that three times this week. I don't know how to have a conversation with her. I don't know how to live in a body that's suffered this much abuse and I know I'm not the ONLY person who has ever been abused but if you had as many vague health issues as I do if you could not leave home for longer than an hour or two because you are too scared to use a public bathroom. If you had to hear everyone talk about your abuser and his recovery on a constant fucking daily basis. you would feel this way too. Friends tell me about their sexual escapades and it makes me sick with bitterness and envy because it will never be that easy for me again. Sex is the scariest thing in the world to me. I told others yesterday that I would give up sex for food which is so rich coming from an anorexic. everyone tells me my emotions are too much and they all have a different diagnosis for me borderline histrionic schizophrenic etc but I feel like nobody cares about why I feel this way to begin with it's easier for them that way to act like it can be wrapped up and fixed with a pretty little bow. I am obsessed with how my body looks. Getting skinnier consumes most of my waking thoughts. I have so much I should feel happy about. I keep telling myself when xyz happens then I will get sober, feel better, get my shit together , it will all be okay then and then that day comes and those thoughts drift away like fog. I don't talk to anyone in real life outside of my immediate family and significant other. I'm going to quit my job probably or get fired. My new therapist told me I'm histrionic which is probably why I'm making this post; I probably have clinical depression too. I'm drinking again. Alcohol feels like my only higher power. I'm not allowed to grieve about it all

[lavenderpanic]

I Am Ash From Your Fire

Okay I feel bad not updating and honestly it's been almost a month and I thought I'd be feeling better or up to writing or something and I haven't been but I managed to write a teeny little scene today so I figured I'd share it because idk how long it will be before I have a chapter to publish. TW for past abuse, victim-blaming, brief mention of past underage and ED

Bucky digs his fists further into his pockets and slouches ‘til his shoulders nearly touch his ears. Dr. Raynor stares at him. She’s been staring at him, for the better part of a minute, a tortuous, sisyphean minute. “I feel insane,” Bucky eventually blurts.

“Why’s that?” Dr. Raynor asks with an impassive eyebrow raise.

“Like… ugh, for so long, I kept having to defend Brock to every goddamn person in my life. My parents thought he was abusing me, my friends thought he was abusing me, every doctor I saw for three years thought he was abusing me. And now, I’m like… like, not in denial, I guess? And I know what he did to me was…” He stutters. “Y’know, wrong. And it’s like… now that I get it, now that I’m not defending him anymore, suddenly the whole world is on his side! Like… I tried to get an order of protection, and somehow I didn’t get enough evidence to prove he was abusing me, but every fucking time I went to the hospital, they were tripping over themselves to tell me I was being abused. Like… like, what changed?”

Dr. Raynor shrugs slightly. “Nothing has changed but your perspective. Everyone who believed you before still believes you.”

Bucky chews at his lip. He can taste the soft, metallic tang of an unhealed split, reopened again and again and again under his teeth. He hates her stupid non-answers. “Why don’t they believe me?” he whispers feebly. “Like… I… ugh, like, I know I myself didn’t even think I was being abused until recently but, like… why don’t they believe me?”

“Brock is manipulative, clever…” She shrugs again. “And it’s difficult. You did consent, for so long. The lines are blurry.”

Bucky’s ears fill with static and he nods dumbly. He consented. For so long. When he was sixteen and anorexic, he consented, and when he was seventeen and manipulated, he consented, and when he was eighteen and trapped in that apartment, he consented, and when he was nineteen and terrified, he consented. And now that’s twenty-year-old Bucky’s problem to deal with. Because he seems to be the only one who remembers the whipping and the pleading and the hospital visits and so it must just be in his head. Because if Brock tells him it was so, tells him he loved it, it must be so.