#I was gonna do a whole background but this was already taking too long™ so enjoy this corner of scenery XD

[mercilessflowchart]

Hank and Sumo for @anonymousedward!

[spacedace]

I’m glad to find a fellow Stella stan!!! 😄

I just feel like she’d want something other than Danielle (that came from Vlad & implies that she’s just an off-brand Danny) after she figures herself out more and that Danny would give her a space themed name (plus also, you can get Elle out of it, which is my favorite nickname for her haha).

And thank you!! 😭😭❤❤❤

I’ve actually had this sitting for a bit now and was chewing on ideas for it again (my mind is nothing but memes and never ending fic ideas lol) and figured I’d post this since it was the most complete thing I had for it before I ended up leaving it to gather dust again

Also would love an AU name! I saw you tagged it as Snaring Bonds AU and I already love that so much, it really fits how much of a whole thing ™ Elle’s messed up Bonds end up being

and oooohhhh @catastrophic-crow you have made a mistake telling me I can info dump fic idea stuff at you, you’re stuck now there’s no getting of this wild ride 😂

Gonna put the info dumping under the cut to save as many as possible from a “Do you like the color of the sky” length wall of text 😂

Okay so, background world building info: in this fic when a ghost is close to someone and has a great deal of love for them (platonic or romantic) their Cores will form a Bond with them, which appears to the supernaturally inclined as strings/ropes/what-have-you that reach out and tie the two together.

In universe lore it’s where the idea of a “Red String of Fate” comes from. If two or more ghosts that have mutual bonds reincarnate, those bonds will still exist between them in their new lives. As ghosts the bonds appear green, and as living people the bonds appear red. If the bonds are shared between a ghost & and someone living the bond will appear as green & silver.

Platonic bonds can just attach to the person the bond creator has love & affection for no problem, while Romantic ones have to be “anchored” in place. Typically this happens when the romantic love is reciprocated though that’s not always the case. Sometimes - like with Elle, Jon & Damian - the person/people the bond creator loves has to take steps on their end to help anchor the bonds.

Bonds aren’t necessarily forever, they can change or fade or even been removed if need be. Though removing the bonds is a pretty delicate & potentially dangerous process, and really only the Yeti’s in the Far Frozen are skilled enough to do it safely. Removing bonds forcefully can cause massive damage to the ghost’s core or even destroy them outright.

Way too long outline of the context on the fic side of things (and heads up that it gets pretty angsty throughout most of it):

The fic roughly breaks out into 3 parts. With part 1 taking place in the Dark Universe.

Elle, Damian, Jon, Constantine, Bruce, Dick & Zantanna end up getting temporarily sent to an alternate timeline where something happened that caused that universe to experience an apocalyptic event where darkness & void took over, causing the sun & all stars to disappear and the dimension to be cut off from the Infinite Realms permanently (there's no more ectoplasm in this world outside of what is found in people's souls/ghost cores and Elle realizes pretty quickly that if she stays there too long she'll effectively starve to death). While there they meet the Jon, Damian & Elle of that universe who among the very, very few survivors of whatever happened.

AU-Elle is super messed up and feral/animalistic, she's lost grip on her humanity and has only survived in this world by eating ghost's cores or consuming people's souls after they die which is the biggest of biggest taboos in the Infinite Realms. Despite this she still remembers AU-Jon & AU-Damian and does everything she can to protect them and keep them safe. AU-Elle, AU-Jon & AU-Damian have completed bonds and a few months prior to the apocalypse that hit their world they all actually got married which makes things kinda awkward for everyone (though only Elle & Constantine know about the bonds portion of things).

Things happen, they all get separated with Elle ending up with AU-Jon & AU-Damian while AU-Elle ends up with everyone else (sticking close to Jon & Damian, but helping to keep everyone safe. Elle, AU-Jon and AU-Damian end up sleeping together, and end up all feeling weird & guilty about it.

Eventually everyone reunites & gets sent back to their home dimension as the spell that originally sent them there finally ends. Elle decides to go to the Infinite Realms, Damian & Jon assume something bad happened between her and their AU-selves because of how she started avoiding them, and Constantine realizes "Oh, I'm a Dad" right as Elle is leaving and he's not sure he'll ever see her again.

While she's gone the same thing that had happened in the Dark universe starts happening, with stars disappearing and entire galaxies being swallowed up by an ever encroaching blackness.

Which then leads into Part 2: trying to stop the apocalypse.

Elle comes back from the Infinite Realms as everyone is in the midst of trying to figure out what's happening with the encroaching darkness, revealing that she researched it while she was away.

I don't have a name for it yet (been playing with the idea of calling it The Bleak or the Hungry Dark or something like that) or a concrete idea of specifically what it is, but basically it's a corrupted Ancient or something similar that devours universes, infecting them with darkness and slowly killing them bit by bit until nothing is left and moving on to the next one.

Attempts have been made in the past by the Ancients to fight & stop it but nothing has worked and eventually the only option that the Infinite Realms has figured out is to keep it contained by removing the infected universe from the Infinite Realms and basically quarantining it so other universes/the Infinite Realms won't eventually be consumed themselves.

When Elle & Co were sent to the Dark universe, they unintentionally opened a door for the entity to escape into their universe and begin feeding again.

Elle was sent back from the Infinite Realms to try to start the process of organizing evacuation of as many as possible into the Infinite Realms as the plan is to do to the DC universe as what was done to the Dark Universe (the Dark Universe was hit by a full powered entity so there wasn't as much time, the DC universe is being consumed at a much slower rate because the entity was starved for so long).

Neither Elle nor anyone else is willing to just give up like that though so they try and figure out a way to stop it, even knowing that the Ancients weren't able to find a way, with Danny helping to buy them time with the Ancients as long as he can while they do.

Elle keeps avoiding Jon & Damian during all of this, which only makes their fears that their AU-selves did something to her worsen.

Constantine talks to Elle about her Bonds again at some point because they've only gotten worse since he's last seen her, now to the point that she is in physical pain and even passes out from them being wrapped around her neck so tightly. He tries to convince her to get them removed at the Far Frozen, at which point Elle reveals to him that she did try but that Frostbite & the Yetis couldn't actually remove them no matter how many times it was attempted. Elle was effectively told that without them anchoring or changing naturally and without being able to remove them or them, that eventually they'd likely kill her.

This becomes relevant later when Elle discovers that the story behind how the entity was created and comes up with the theory that the entity devouring everything is a result of its core being messed up & its ability to create bonds distorted to the point that it thinks this is the only way to bond with others anymore, and that it keeps devouring entire universes because the more it consumes the more lonely it becomes, unaware of what it's really doing. Elle thinks that if she can get close enough to its actual core, she might be able to stabilize it with her own un-anchored core bonds.

She & Constantine get into multiple shouting matches over it as Constantine (rightly) points out that if she wasn't consumed in attempting to get close to the entity's core, using her own core bonds in such a way would probably kill her.

Everyone goes back and forth on other ideas and time is running out. Elle is out-voted on what plan to go with and the attempt is made, but Elle decides to undermine them and impliment her own plan having everyone taken to her Liar in the Ghost Zone as part of the Infinite Realms' evacuations while she goes to confront the entity.

Elle's plan works and the entity is finally stabilized/healed, but her core bonds are violently ripped out in the process. It doesn't kill her (thankfully) and she is rushed to the Far Frozen because of fear of her Core being damaged.

She ends up waking up and seeming totally fine, with the exception of having permanent bruises around her neck from where her Core bonds used to be.

However, it ends up being revealed that she has no memory what so ever of Jon & Damian anymore. They've completely been deleted from her memories and she just has gaps in the places they used to be.

Which leads to Part 3 where everyone tries to figure out what comes next.

Elle doesn't remember Jon & Damian and is even angry with them to a certain extent because of how much of her life was lost seemingly due to them (from her perspective at least). She knows logically that she must have cared for them deeply for a long time for the forceful removal of her bonds to effect her so much, but at this point they're complete strangers that she has no memory of.

Jon & Damian are heartbroken and trying their best to reconnect with Elle, but it's proving difficult. At length they reveal to Constantine (who is awkwardly dad-ing his way through all this) that they fear that part of the memory loss was willing on Elle's part due to what they suspect their AU-selves did to Elle in the Dark dimension. (They still don't know about the Core bonds or what they mean).

Constantine finally reveals to them what's actually been going on and the two of them are slightly relieved but then even more heartbroken because they feel like all this happened because they unknowingly made Elle believe they didn't reciprocate her feelings.

Then angst, angst, angst, they all end up spending more time together for missions and stuff, Elle realizes that she does actually like them, starts falling for them all over again. And then something something happy ending (the very end isn't super clear in my mind lol).

Anyway yeah that's the rough context of the above.

Believe it or not that's the "short" version 😅 There are some other bits & pieces I didn't add here like a whole subplot with Klarion being around from Part 2 onward and having feelings for Elle and some stuff with Elle trying to get their AU-selves out of the Dark Dimension at some point and some stuff like that.

(I guess I might as well throw this out there again that if anyone is interested in any of this feel free to take it as a prompt lol).

Snippet/prolog thing from a DP x DC fic that lives almost entirely inside my head outside of this & a few other bits.

Please feel free to take this as an overly long prompt haha

If anyone wants context to this let me know and I'll be happy to info dump at you lol

-

The kid had been eleven the first time John Constantine met her.

A little ghost girl, too small for the crowns and dominions that were rightfully hers, wandering the world alone and unattended because to stay in one place would drive her mad - or worse. He didn’t think himself as having a particularly soft heart, but there was something about little Stella Phantom that grew on him - a bit like a mold, he liked to explain. Maybe it was the way she swore like a sailor and kicked a demon in the low hangers with a feral grin the first time he met her. Maybe it was just how lonely she looked, small and slight in the large world she was so obsessed with exploring.

She had a family. A Grave of her own that worried about her, but who couldn’t follow her on her constant travels no matter how much they wanted to. Proof that being some of the most powerful beings in existence wasn’t enough to prepare you for parenthood.

Somewhere along the lines she started following John around. Interested in what he was doing, where he was going, who he worked with. It hadn’t taken long to get her folded into JL Dark. Zantanna had blanched when he’d shown up with little Elle, pulling in the big wigs from JL Light to argue about the ethics of involving a child in their work. As if Supes and the Bat had legs to stand on with their own brood so often in the thick of danger. Elle was safer under his watch than she’d be under the loose oversight the Titans had or whatever fresh hell was going on with Young Justice but hell if anyone would listen to him on that front.

He lost the war when she met Superboy Jr. and Robin V.

She’d adored them from the start, delighted at having children her own age around to spend time with. They formed a little team, working together here and there, then more often as they got older. She still worked mostly with JL Dark, but she was growing up. Spreading her wings a bit.

Elle was seventeen when the Bonds first formed. The spider-silk thin threads finally winding themselves into the heavy binds that spilled out of her Core and reached out for anchoring in the boys. It was sickeningly sweet, in the way puppy love always was. She was too young for Core Bonds like that to settle, of course, in the way children were always too young when they fell in love the first time. It was normal though. Ghost children the Realms over made Bonds only for them to fade or change as they grew, almost never anchoring to anyone til they were full grown.

She’d blushed as red as Marvel’s suit when she realized John could see them, stuttering and embarrassed. He’d teased her about it for a long time, about how much she’d grown up, how much trouble she was going to cause, how he was going to have to fight the big bad Bat and his pet boy scout when she inevitably dishonored their poor, innocent sons. It was entertaining, endearing.

He waited for the Bonds to fade or shift. Weeks. Months. Years. As she turned nineteen, he started to wonder if they would stick around. If in another few years they might strengthen, begin the slow process of anchoring.

She was twenty-one when her boys - calling themselves Flamebird and Phoenix now - started dating each other.

The Bonds remained, steady and solid and painfully unanchored.

John stopped teasing her about them.

They hadn’t changed to accommodate platonic bonds, nor had they faded any. Their tendency to tangle around her like snare was another point of concern. Core Bonds weren’t meant to cause difficulty for the ghost they were born from, and they certainly weren’t meant to wrap around the ghost’s limbs and body in painful loops like that. They weren’t supposed to hurt.

When she was twenty three he started suggesting it might be time for intervention. The irony that he of all people would be trying to get someone to take steps to cut out the thing harming them was not lost on him. Nor was the way the fond feelings he had for the girl had skewed decisively paternal over the years in a way that his younger self would have mocked him for endlessly.

He felt better about broaching the subject knowing that her Grave had been suggesting the same thing. That he wasn’t overstepping the bounds of whatever odd partnership they’d developed over the years. John was, he had very reluctantly come to accept, the girl’s mentor if nothing else. His job was to teach her and guide her, not be her parent.

No matter what his old, battered heart might try and suggest.

Even still, he couldn’t help but be concerned.

She was twenty-five when they got temporarily launched into that broken, bleak world. When they met the Elle and Flamebird and Phoenix of that horrible dimension.

The three alternates’ bonds were anchored completely, tying the triad together in threads of silver and green. Not even Other-Elle’s complete, sickening deterioration into something cannibalistic and feral had been enough to break them. He can’t imagine how much it must have hurt to see that, for his girl to glimpse a world where something she’d longed for for so long happened, only for it to seemingly be at the expense of reality itself.

He helped cover for her, after their two groups had been mixed up and separated for the night - or what might be called night in a world that no longer had any light to make those kinds of distinctions in time. When she came back with the Flamebird and Phoenix of that world, after their little separation from the larger group he kept her two boys misdirected. Distracted Nightwing and Zantanna so they didn’t go asking too many questions he knew Elle wouldn’t want answered. The Bat John was helpless to do much about, but thankfully the big brooder seemed too intent on the desolate, lightless world itself to notice the way Elle’s gaze was going distant, bittersweet at the edges.

He didn’t know what, exactly had happened in the hours she was gone. He could guess, from the way the Other-Phoenix and Other-Flamebird looked at her, the way she avoided her boys. Loneliness and desperation made for an easy slide into bad decisions. John might just have to admit that Zantanna had been correct, all the times she’d said he was a bad influence on the girl. Not that there was any surprise there.

Elle’s Bonds were even more of a knotted mess than before. Offered something so close to anchoring only to find no purchase. They twisted about her throat like a noose now, ready to strangle the life out of her one day.

He signed off on her leave of absence when they finally made it back to their home dimension.

Anyone else would want details to write down. Would want to know the specifics of why and for how long and a whole mess of other details she either wouldn’t or couldn’t answer. He’d get his ass roasted over the fire for the mess the paperwork was in, but that was fine. He’d endured far worse for far less important reasons.

Personal leave, he’d written.

Duration of leave: indefinite.

Reason for leave: None of your fucking business, Bats.

They shared a cigarette on one of the high catwalks in the Watchtower watching dawn break on the world below. Grateful to see the sun and stars again after those two days in utter blackness. They didn’t talk about her Bonds. About what happened. About how she hadn’t talked to her Boys since coming back. Just stood and smoked. He pretended not to notice her tears. She pretended not to notice his. Neither of them had ever been any good at goodbyes.

When the time came she bumped his shoulder in thanks - for the cigarette, for the company, for the years of friendship and family - before turning and stepping through the bright purple door standing impossibly in the middle of the walkway.

He glimpsed the green of the Infinite Realms and the distant shape of her Lair beyond. A world of worlds, paradise to one that never stopped, always off to find something new, something never seen before. It was against all odds that she’d even stumbled upon this one in the first place. A small speck in the crushing infinite.

When the door closed it did so slowly, a painful whine and a soft, mournful click all that marked her leaving.

John watched it bleed out of existence, and wondered if he’d ever see her again.

Six months later, the stars started to disappear.

[babyyatusabes]

what kind of friendship do you have with each of your mutuals

omg this is gonna be so long. I’m only gonna do mutuals I interact w often (most of these I talk to literally every day) so it’s not too bad but I talk to so many ahsjejksjeek

my girls: @lostinzabdielito @papichriscnco @cncosangelita @brightdarkeyes @smoljoelito - our conversations are SO funny. honestly the content would make great reality tv. literally could never be bored. just hyping each other up, talking trash, vlogging, meming— anything you could ever want or need.

gotta do them individually too

@lostinzabdielito - my literal soulmate. can talk to her about actually anything ever and I do. we comfort each other, yell at each other to take better care of ourselves, give advice, make fun of one another— the whole nine yards. my everything. we even have each other as our phone backgrounds 😬

@brightdarkeyes - has my whole actual heart. our friendship is just filled with understanding. I know her and she knows me in a way that usually takes a lifetime to gain but somehow we managed within like five minutes. and that’s all we need.

@papichriscnco - 👀. no I will not elebroate.

@cncosangelita - my babyyyy. we have the same brain for some reason ?? we lowkey a lil shady together (especially paired w @smoljoelito) but we love to see it. can and will throw it back with her ✊🏼

@smoljoelito - a girl got me laughing. always brightens my day with the funniest stuff but we can also be serious and help each other w assignments and personal things in a way that’s kinda incredibly seemless?

💫 ♡

@cncopmhoe - erick to my chris 🤧 literally idiot duo but boy do we have fun doing it. know for a fact that we would make a lil too much trouble together lol. talk almost every single day since we met and have probably discussed everything under the sun. kind of friends that can talk about nothing and still feel like we know what’s up. insults 24/7 but I know she loves me 💅🏼

@cnc-oh-boi - private friendship but super loving. also talk basically every single day since we met. mostly we talk about our creative endeavours over text but when we call we give every single update on life and random ideas we have that we can think of lol. soft for them in a special way.

@yatusabess - ummmm my wife? always makes me laugh and we both know we always there for each other even if we don’t always bring up our personal issues. always check in w one another if we worried and honestly, we cute as heck together. I take her on dates because she can’t go out rn but it’s gonna be less adorable when we meet up. I just know we’d be the exact right kind of messy together and y’all just gotta deal. got a special kind of love for you

@marveling-under-many-skies - somehow I’m the big sister but she acts like my mom?? don’t really get it either but it works. our calls always go ridiculously long and we talk about everything from clubbing to mental health to just blasting random music to listen to together. made her a playlist but she didn’t appreciate 😔

@zabdielmuch - mostly we just scream at each other? but I love it.

@glossedchaos - either we are arguing about her view of me or we’re talking about p heavy stuff/being very supportive of one another and there’s no in between

@jaehdeyun - we just Get™ each other. have a level of comfort that feels like we’ve been friends for years. always know how to calm each other down ♡

@just-another-cnchoe - literally her constantly dealing w me being dumb and yet she always hyping me up?? I mean get you a friend-

@anninhiliation - lol our convos would probably make about like zero sense to anyone else but we always be vibinggg

@peachyvinyl - literally probably the cutest friendship you’ve ever seen. she sends me animal videos when she knows I’m down or wants to make my day. I tell her when music reminds me of her 🥺 basically we adorable 💅����

@zabdielsprincesa - ok honestly we just met recently but we already hella tight. always laughing together. she might— dare I say it— make me self aware 🥺

@virgato - canadian duo. 🤍 either discussing important topics in depth, giving compliments, talking about how incredible yoandri is or about who we’re gonna fight next 👀

@ctrlcnco - talking about things that annoy us lollll. relate a lil too much on gay topics, knowing too many languages, thoughts on chris 👀 and being non commital 💀 but always there when I got questions that only she can answer. a real one ♡

@im-justatrashcan - talk literally every single day for like a year now. ready to fight together at any time. discuss important issues but also get really angry together about someone stealing a half drunken bottle of cola 💀

@laleylaw - our friendship consists of us affectionately roasting and/or talking about global issues. get you a gal who can do both 😤

@hoelpimentel - we both yell at each other to sleep. neither of us do it. we stay up talking. 💜

and yes I can and will fight for every single one of the people on this list and many others too 😤💕 i love y’all and sorry to people I missed

send me asks

[perce]

me, who hasnt written much of anything in the past year but has been reading way too much fluffy ml fic lately: haha what if i drug up one of my old ml AUs to work on

vague, procrastination/indecision induced rambles beneath

i have 6 in mind that seem like fun to work on. one is best done in bullet point fic bc thats how it started here and thats all it deserves but its still fun. two is mostly just shenanigans with a side of background actual plot. third is chloé-centric set post s1 w/o s2 bc thats when i started it. another 2 are sad and i love them ( 4 being in a weird limbo state of probably being doomed to being an off-putting set of drabbles bc im not sure how i want to end it but the beginning and at least some of the middle are vaguely planned. 5 is. :) haha. i really like this one and the only reason ive not already finished it is bc i got stuck on a chapter but an idea came to me a bit ago that i think might help that.) and finally 6 i actually thought of the other day while reading a fic, despite it, honestly having no connection beyond ladybug-centric, i guess. and puns? i thought to myself a Funny Joke™ and decided that was delightful for what that one shot would actually end up being. which is to say. not as angsty as 4 or 5 bc itd get a light ending but. Potential for sadness on that one.

that all said, i think im especially itching to work on 2, 3, 5, and 6. 4 is tempting but w/o clear direction or inspiration its not. gonna kill me if i dont. lol. 1 is. actually u can search my blog for that its “gabriel isnt a terrible father au” which. christ that’s 3 y/o now. its cute and i have plenty of fun ideas in mind for it but. no clear story for it to follow atm so again not worried abt it seriously. 2, 3, and 5 are like my ml au babies or w/e we call that these days. older concepts bc i kinda fell out of the fandom a good bit before s2 came out, but im a pro at ignoring canon and will happily disregard s2&3 for them. i dont care. i mean 5 is well beyond canon anyway, and 2 is an origins au (i posted the first chapter on ao3 on a whim and have since regretted it in part bc its poorly done but also bc its been sitting there for 2.5 years w/ no updates in sight). 3 is... i guess a post s1 au that id vaguely considered attempting to get at least up and running before s2 started but alas. i love it so much though.. ik ive told sim abt a couple of these and i think i told mickey about 5, and they drew a sad mari in response to that, iirc. 

anyway i just cant seem to pick one and stick with it so here i am rambling really vaguely about them instead bc fuck it. i like ml aus but insist on keeping them to myself (mostly) until ive written them but then not actually writing them. rip. side eyes my danphan raised by ghosts au. my old friend. and all my other dp aus.

i even have a red pencil and pen to write with i just gotta DO IT. hh

edit: you know the real disappointment here? i have pv aus, one i really wanna try my hand at, ahem bc the other pv fic id actually want to bother with would be my straight up whole entire take of however that wouldve gone over, its been too long since ive interacted with a lot of pv content and id need to brush up quite a bit. and thus am not feeling as inspired for it rn. or my hyper niche pv warcraft crossover au thing that i cannot imagine anyone else out there would care about. also i think ive forgotten most of the ideas i’d had for it before which sucks.  guess this is just how im gonna be sad about the pv for now. ironic considering my icon lol

[lotsofplanetshaveadeathstar]

Why is this feeling?

Hey look, a Rough Day™ that's not a Monday, plot twist! (Tuesday wasn't wonderful, but I'm generously saying that 40% of that was bc I was some kind of sick, so I'm just gonna leave it at that and move on.)

So for a looooong time, like YEARS, I didn't go on any social media that wasn't Twitter basically ever. No FB (except for the work page to do shift trades/giveaways, but that was it), no IG, no Snapchat, no Tumblr, nothing. I was solely active on Twitter, and it's still my preferred site (I really do hate everything going on with the new management though, it's horrible), and I saw a tweet not too long ago that summed up why that was - it was a words site, not a picture site. I am definitely a words person. I can take and edit a picture like the best of them, but the way some people treat it, as if their profile and what they chose to post there is what defines their life, has never been overly appealing to me - when I post, it's usually for something important or celebratory or my annual pumpkin carving reveal, not a filtered selfie with a "quirky" caption or a shot of myself weirdly posed in front of some mildly interesting background for no reason. I can express myself and my thoughts in words that are truer to me than most pictures could ever be, and I can mostly do so in 280 characters or less, which is honestly quite a skill for a person who is great at taking a short informal phrase and turning it into an essay-length formal statement. (Also, you can retweet things on Twitter with two clicks, you can't share anything on Insta nearly that easily, just saying...)

So what does my self-imposed distance from social media have to do with today's emotional mess? Well, one of the reasons I stopped going on the more photo-based sites was because of how seeing everyone's *posted* lives (HEAVY emphasis on *posted*, bc I am keenly aware that the overwhelming majority of social media users only post the A roll stuff that makes their lives look like sunshine and rainbows 24/7, which they absolutely are not) was starting to have a negative effect on my mental wellbeing.

Like a lot of people, probably 99.99%, my life didn't follow the path I thought it would when I was a bright-eyed baby adult fresh from high school. I thought that I would go to college and meet people and maybe get a boyfriend and then I'd get a job right out of graduation and have a place of my own and everything would just fall in line and be perfect.

HA

This VERY MUCH did not happen. I mean, some of it did, but the whole picture never came together in that way. I did go to college and meet people and made some really wonderful friends, but I never got my "dream job" (I still don't even know what it is, tbh) and I'm still single and I don't have a place of my own (honestly a blessing and a curse at this point).

I am very much aware that everyone's path in life unfolds in its own time, and that it is incredibly frustrating that most of the time there is nothing that can be done to change this.

Rerouting back from this little tangent, what was happening was that I wasn't where I thought I would be in life at that point, and seeing people's happy (and curated) posts showing off their great new job or fun relationship or some other milestone that I hadn't hit yet, and it was starting to make me feel like I was failing at life in some way and that everyone else was doing so much better than I was and how could I ever figure it out if I hadn't already done so by this point? It was just a constant stream of everyone showing off their successes (which they absolutely should, no shade there, everyone should be able to celebrate their accomplishments in life, it's well-deserved), and the pressure seeing all those posts created, as well as the pressure to constantly be online to see all those posts and to try and time my own posts to when they would be seen by the most people, was creating so much negative energy inside myself directed towards myself that I stopped going on FB and Instagram pretty much cold turkey. Almost immediately, I noticed a positive change in my brain, which, for me, was worth being out of the loop on people's daily lives and falling out of touch with those whose only relationships with me was commenting "Happy Birthday" when prompted by the FB reminder notification. I would still occasionally post on Instagram and have it cross-post to FB or add to my IG story when at a "show-off worthy" event, but other than that, I almost never used either app for more than a few moments a month for several years.

Fast forward to now, where, for some inexplicable reason, I have started browsing on both apps again, often to the point of refreshing to get new content (mostly funny reels on FB bc I refuse to download TikTok). Most of my long-term FB friends from high school rarely post on the platform anymore, so the content I do see, if any, is usually something along the lines of a vacation photo dump or a holiday outfit or a couple's pic, and Instagram is usually along similar lines with stories showing off a night out at a concert or vacation or some other fun excursion. These kinds of posts are mostly harmless to my psyche, probably bc most of the posters are more on the acquaintance level at this point, so I can look at their lives from a more objective outsider's perspective. Even the posts that deal with life milestones I thought I'd be celebrating as well by this point are usually fine bc I know I'm not at the point in my life where I'd be ready for them (I honestly don't know how some of my classmates have multiple children already, even the idea of having to keep a small human alive exhausts and frightens me).

But sometimes, there's a post that feels like a dropkick to the emotions and we end up here at another Rough Day™.

I don't want to go into details about what the post was, but I think I can figure out why it affected me the way that it did.

Obviously, I'm happy for the person who made the post bc it was celebrating that person being comfortable in their own skin in all the ways for the first time in a very long time, and that is a great thing. However, I think this just happened to kick me right in my insecurities about similar things and that's where my feelings are coming from.

I know that there's no reason to be jealous of what this person posted, because this person has had challenges that I haven't had to face, and for them to be at this point is a huge win. But I think I always kind of held on to the idea that we were both insecure and upset about where we were for certain aspects of our lives as some kind of lifeline, however ridiculous that might be in hindsight, and now that lifeline is gone (whether actually or perceivably makes no difference for the present moment) and I feel left behind once again, just like I did when it seemed like everyone on my social media feeds were achieving all kinds of great feats while I was stuck down below.

I know where my insecurities about this come from, and I am hoping with all my heart and soul that everyone is right in saying that I will look back on this in the future and think how silly I was to be so unconfident about my life and to have these insecurities at all.

I know that my decision to go back to school and be close to a decade older than most of the other students is a major cause of some of my insecurities. It's really hard to escape the idea that my age will only be a hindrance, and tbh I don't know what would make me not believe that, so I hope there's something out there that will someday.

I know that nobody is going to hold themselves back for me, and obviously I agree, nobody should. But sometimes it feels like I'm floundering out here on my own, and having someone else who feels similarly is sometimes the greatest sense of relief, and having to let that go is almost physically painful at times.

I'm fairly positive that feeling like everyone else is outpacing me is a huge negative factor in my current emotional state. It's just really hard to feel like everyone else is on track and going full-steam ahead and you're just stuck in a tiny canoe paddling with one oar and going in circles.

I have a final in two days for a class that I almost certainly will fail if I don't do very well on the exam, which would be a first for me and is probably adding to my Rough Day™. I've mostly accepted my fate either way, but it's hard to say how I'll feel if and when it actually happens. But the idea of failing definitely isn't boosting any morale in conjunction with the aforementioned post.

Sometimes I get really lonely and I miss people who have left or even people who never really were here to begin with, and sometimes people who never existed outside of my brain. That definitely doesn't help anyone's mental wellbeing.

I think this is kind of devolving from its original purpose...

So I saw a post that really kicked me in my insecurities and I needed to get it out to get through this Rough Day™, which is how we got here. Now how to deal with it...

First, I think I'm going to go back to restricting my social media consumption. Maybe it won't be as harsh as it used to be, maybe it will, we'll just have to see what balance is healthiest for me. I also think I might start posting a little bit more on Instagram, maybe as a way to celebrate my own milestones and accomplishments and have a way to look back on them in the future.

Second, once Saturday has passed (and it's gonna be a beast between the exam and then work afterwards), I'm going to make a list of all the things I need and want to do, of all levels of importance and difficulty and size. Maybe this way I can get a little more organization into my life and then use that as a way to keep moving forward with other aspects.

Third, I'm going to aim to do something at least once a month that is just for me and that works as a sort of reset moment, whether it's a trip to a park by myself or making my own double feature at the movies, just something to re-ground myself and help build up my confidence in myself and doing things by myself for myself.

I think it helped, at least a little, to get this out. I think I just needed to take a moment and sort through the emotions and breathe and remind myself that someday soon, there's gonna be a day that I'm gonna want to post about, and while it might not be for the same reasons as this post was (I can all but guarantee it won't be, if and when that day comes, it'll be wayyy in the future), it'll be important for me and that's the only part that matters.

I'm still a little emotionally jumbled but I can get through that soon enough. Here's hoping there's no more Rough Days™ ahead for this year, because I'm really getting tired of them.

(If you've made it to the end of this and are not my future self rereading this, please reevaluate your life choices bc even watching paint dry would have been a more productive use of your time.)