#and thus sometimes cope with feelings in adult ways

[strawbubbysugar]

The implications with Arche calling Elio a philanderer have raised concerns in me

Oh I won’t leave it to implication, Elio slept around a LOT

[candiid-caniine]

support needs and sex

having trouble with words recently. during this, I don't post much. have autism, have talked about it here before, but only small things.

but lots of frustration recently about representing. how people with low support needs have louder voices. people with cute, quirky autism get represented more because neurotypicals don't feel as uncomf. still they have their struggles but you know. middle to high support needs are uncomf. have to hide, have to be quiet. people with low support needs, also sometimes think *their* autism is *all* autism. don't want to talk about mid/high supports people, or be associated.

but, speech loss bad enough that I don't want to go into it today. stick to what is doable.

autistic people have sex. autistic people do kink. lot of positivity here about this. i've seen it. you've seen it. you've seen me also do it.

but autism in sex, not just:

cute stimming because sex feels good

sensory overload, in a good way

hard to speak because of good feelings

person getting flustered/shy/nervous

not only cute. not only shy. not only because of good feelings.

autism can be ugly, scary, difficult, bad communicating, hard to know how to support, getting in the way.

for me:

speech loss; not cute speech loss because of good feelings, speech loss because life is exhausting; exhausted, don't want to have sex

handling rejection poorly. have to use a lot of energy to keep from being a bad partner because of overreacting

sensory overload because good, but i dissociate because sensory overload

use sex to escape bad feelings, not in a healthy coping way

can't explain why i react poorly. in most circumstances. but also happens around sex

frustration because i can't think how to explain

meltdown because so frustrated

cycle repeats

have trouble understanding un-firm versions of "no" (have to work hard to communicate with partner, and i do, but hard work af)

have trouble understanding "maybe"

have trouble predicting how i "will/would" feel

thus frustration. meltdown. cycle resumes

or, know what i want; don't know how to explain

AND YET: i am not:

too dysfunctional for sex/relationship

"basically a child"/too immature

unsafe person

too fucked up for marriage

bad person for dating

someone who should avoid sex until burnout ends

...because i am adult. my partner is an adult. we talk about things. we know good expectations. i don't lie about can/can't do things. they don't lie about can/can't do things.

sex is only one slice of this. this blog is about sex, so i post it here. but these issues are big in my life. need support in school, in work; i seem so functional to a stranger, but only because support needs are met.

support needs met = big privilege. i acknowledge this. not so easy for many people, who seem less functional to others, only because support needs not met.

anyway. conclusion:

neurotypicals/non-autistics: don't expect sex + relationships with autistics to be like sexy imagine posts on tumblr. can be sometimes, but often not.

autistics, even: don't expect sex + relationships with other autistics to be like sex + relationships for you.

low support needs autistics: you guys have a problem. (maybe technically i am you guys, don't really know, so maybe *we* have a problem.) some of you don't like when autism represented as mid-high support. don't like to think you're like us. not cool. either way stop speaking like *your* autism is *all* autism. if you have energy + time + emotional resource to do so, tell off other low support needs when they act like this.

high/mid support needs: i see you. you belong. you deserve healthy, good sex if you are adult. support needs =/= being unworthy/not well enough/not functional enough for relationship. possible to have relationships that work for you, allow for the kind of support you need, from other person/medical team/support system. don't mask to get through relationship. hurts you, you should be loved for who you are.

[peachdues]

Phantasmagoria -- WARNINGS

It's almost ready.

I estimate Part One will be uploaded sometime tomorrow, if edits/reviews take about as long as I believe they will.

That said, I wanted to post warnings for the entirety of Phantasmagoria well in advance so that people are properly aware of what this story entails.

Phantasmagoria is my most adult-centered work to date. Not only is it sexually explicit in all three parts, but it deals heavily with drug and alcohol abuse as each character struggles to cope with their own problems in some way.

First and foremost, I do want to promise that there is a happy ending to this story. I've said in an earlier post that the epilogue to Phantasmagoria might be one of my favorites that I've written to date, and you can rest assured that it is a very happy and wholesome ending.

Now, onto the warnings. Sanemi and Reader are 20 years old for the main part of the story, but their fallout happened when they were around 18. There are flashbacks to various points in the pair's childhood, and I try to signal about how old they are in each flashback for your reference.

For the recurring warnings, there is explicit sexual content ahead, as well as repeated instances of drug and alcohol abuse. Not once do Sanemi and Reader wrap it, but Reader is on birth control.

For the other warnings, Phantasmagoria features the following, potentially triggering content, in the following parts:

-Reader does not tell Sanemi it's her first time when they first sleep together, and that might be seen as dubious consent by some (part one)

- reader has a bad trip and later an anxiety/panic attack (part 2)

-implied attempted S/A that occurs off-page, but a mention of an injury being texted around is briefly described (part 2)

-explicit violence between characters (part 2 -- Sanemi beats the fuck out of Douma). Sanemi is briefly handcuffed but released pretty quickly.

-One character OD's and is rushed to the ER (not the reader) in part 3

Generally, just be aware there is a lot of angst in this, but also a lot of feelings and emotions as well.

Now, just to make a few points about part one:

Part One reads differently than the other two parts, and that's intentional. For starters, there is a nearly two-year time skip where the Reader sort of covers everything that's happened up until the present day of the story. Second, for most of part one, Reader is under the influence, and thus, the story reads like she is.

Parts Two and Three will involve the fallout/consequences of the group's abuse of Wisteria and the club scene, and will feature a lot more angst, smut, and tension between the Reader and Sanemi. Part two will also feature the first POV change to Kyojuro near the end. Part Three will finally feature Sanemi's POV, and the title of Phantasmagoria will make a lot more sense.

That's all my COVID-addled brain can think of right now. I'm going back to editing/finishing up part one. I hope you all enjoy it.

Happy reading!

-Peach

[daebraeksan]

Getting triggered in a (pre)sexual situation with Nagi & he is patient and kind about it

contents 

NSFW elements, vague age, could be seen as college student or adult!Nagi, Reader with DID/PSTD (anxiety/depression/mental illness) who has gone to/is currently in therapy [as always anyone can read this, but i provide this extra info for context :) /], reader with past history of sexual trauma, exploring feelings about sexual, physical, and romantic aspects of relationship, height difference (short reader), reader is triggered during kissing and starts crying; some mental health event happens during kissing i don't know, nagi is very patient and respectful; abandonment issues, reader is certain nagi is going to break up with them (nagi will not)

tags 

Everyone is an adult in an unspecified location AU, nagi has his own apartment AU, the apartment is really the only important physical location that matters so like, i don’t really care lol, go wild, established relationship, reader has never dated before, reader little to no romantic/dating experience, implied past sexual trauma,

word count

3045

!#@!@#!@#!@#!@#!@#

Poor Nagi didn’t get any Valentine's chocolates when he was in school. Times when he felt sexual frustration were so few and far between, and when he did, poor Nagi was often too lazy to do anything about it. There’s nothing sad about being a late bloomer; everyone is different. Having fun in a specific way now versus later are incomparable or equal, but not better or worse than each other. 

For various, and some of those were surprisingly similar, reasons, your relationship with Nagi started slowly. Both of you were uncertain whether the other liked you. Both of you were hesitant to admit to yourselves you liked the other. For both of you, it was too much of a hassle at first. Feelings are complicated and you both didn’t want to get into anything that was going to harm or disturb you. It was Nagi who, by inadvertent accident, finally steeled your resolve, and spurred you to make your move, which started the “romantic” (?) aspect of your relationship.  

Hardly anything in your life is “easy” but for all the struggle you go through to live a “normal” life that other people take for granted, Nagi is an excellent partner to go through it all. Your head spins as you are treated with gentleness, humor, love, and respect. Your paranoid brain questions every act of kindness, moreso now that a “romantic” element throws your body in a tailspin. It’s new territory you don’t know. Your friendship with Nagi brought you so much joy, and those aspects haven’t been removed. You are always grateful to have a person who provides a safe space for you in your life. You cherish these people, few and far between, who you hold tightly to your heart, a dragon guarding less than 10 gems which feels like piles and piles of countless gold coins. 

All the work in your life hasn’t been for nothing. You are aware of how distant your insecurities feel sometimes. Their presence remains, memory cells floating in a busy abyss. You're grateful for your coping strategies that saved you. You are grateful for your new experiences and new strategies that can allow you to live the life you want to live going forward. You aren’t quite stuffing your insecurities to the bottom of your brain, the tartarus of your memory, but only because you don’t want any part of you to feel abandoned, lost, or hated. 

The thought of roadblocks and stumbling stones in the romantic (?) aspect of your relationship causes you worry sometimes, and you accept the newness and confusion with as much grace and compassion as you can.

The physical and sexual aspect of your relationship is going to drive you insane. It already is, and it will continue to do so.

Physical touch is already a stressful thing for you. Always. With anyone. You did not have positive physical touch growing up. You went through your childhood and adolescence touch starved, and have gone through your adulthood thus far incredibly touch starved, as well. You know what you want, you don’t know what you want, you know other people seem to be getting what they want (and what you want), and you don’t know how. Whatever they do won’t work for you anyway. You’ve tried and failed, with results ranging from unfortunate to disastrous. You can’t handle any more worst case scenarios. (You can, and will if they ever emerge. But you will not put yourself in those situations on purpose, and you will always leave a dangerous situation because you are capable of protecting yourself.) 

“Nagi is permissive.” This is one way to describe an aspect of his personality. That word stresses you out. You are so scared of hurting people (the way you were hurt.) You have long isolated yourself because you didn’t think you could get your needs met and keep people safe at the same time. (You were very hard on yourself and when you let people be responsible for their actions instead of taking the blame, you can learn that you were trustworthy all alone, and people, your loved ones, already trust you!)

“Nagi is too lazy to care either way.”  This is another way to describe Nagi in many situations. This also causes you pause, worry, and sends you in a tail spin sometimes. While your communication in other aspects of your life has improved drastically through your dedication and hard work, communication about physical touch causes its own problems because of the subject matter. Mainly, you can’t ask for what you want. You’re too protective of yourself (well, you’re alive, so it worked) and you don’t want to throw yourself in situations where you could be rejected and disappointed if it’s going to cause you so many problems.

Yet, you want emotional and physical intimacy, so you have to accept the fact that you want opposing things at times, sometimes at the same time. And it’s very frustrating and confusing. And, you’re not going to lie, in your worst moments, your insecurities about being too much, and too much trouble, emerge regarding this aspect of your relationship with Nagi. You only have one option, which is to work through it. You’re not giving up, and you’re not giving up on your relationship with Nagi. You're not giving him up for anything. (Unless he wants, but he doesn’t, so you don’t have to go through that qualifier. But you’re you, so you still splatter your disclaimers on anything and everything, because you don’t want to hurt people like how you've been hurt.) 

All of this is to say, with help from your loved ones, you were able to figure out that Nagi is okay with you cuddling with him, and he was okay with that before you started your romantic endeavors with him, too. You can’t hold his hand when he’s gaming, but sometimes he’ll still let you lean up against him. 

All your romantic firsts with Nagi are special to you, and all your first time experiences in general with him (or to be fair, anyone) are special. First time going to the amusement park together, watching a movie, cooking together (he is mostly moral support, but you still count it <3), first “date.” You cherish your first kiss. Your first and every subsequent makeout session excites you. You have days where it’s all you think about. Your sex drive is far higher than Nagi’s, but he’ll play with your pussy almost whenever you ask. Sometimes his full attention is on you, gaze hot and excited, enraptured with your pants and sounds, and sometimes he’ll play with you while he’s watching his shows or streams, something casual enough to where he’ll throw in an occasional deadpan observation of you that flushes you with the kind of humiliation and desperation that is so exciting to feel (the kind you only feel safe enough to feel with Nagi.) You can’t pick a favorite. His attention and praise fills you with white hot pleasure and your brain feels overflown in the present moment with him. The feeling of being carried away safely, because it’s Nagi, allowing you to be solidly grounded in the moment, because you don’t want to be anywhere else except overwhelmed by Nagi. 

Excited at the thought of experiencing these feelings again, you close the door to his bedroom and stand on your tiptoes and you still can’t reach his face. You cling to his shirt, pulling to coax him down to where you can reach. He towers over you, a hand over your head. You stare into his beautiful eyes and let out a tentative whine. 

“No patience at all.” Nagi’s lower, rough voice sends a jolt through you, and then he’s kissing you. Finally. 

There’s no pressure for Nagi to be creative when he touches you. For as bad as you think you are at communicating, you give him just enough to fill in the blanks that your body language leaves. Your body and voice are so expressive, and he doesn’t know how he knows what you want, but he does. You also seem pretty happy with anything he does. It makes him feel so powerful to make you so happy without even trying (that hard). Especially as time goes on and you get to know each other’s likes and tastes more and more, he likes the way you make him feel like in these moments, he is your whole world. He is all you need. Your enraptured expression, completely taken by him, the way your attention can’t be dragged to anything else makes him feel seen, and he likes the feeling. He wants you to see him.

He knows how to make you happy. When he doesn’t feel like putting in effort, but still wants to spend time with you, he knows how to make you feel good. He knows how to get results. 

But the way you motivate him surprises him every time. He knows you like it sometimes, when he pretends he’s more focused on his streams than you. You like it, so he lets you believe he is more focused on his streams than he really is. But making you feel good is like no game he’s ever played. It’s a fun game, an exciting game, riveting, all-consuming, to try and read you, try and figure out what it is you want him to do, what your body language and whines are leading him to do. You’re so easy to read, it feels like you were made for him. When you whine louder and louder, he wants you to feel like he was made for you, too.

He has to let you catch your breath eventually. He uses this time to feel proud of himself, smug at his handiwork, as he looks down at your dazed expression. You look like you miss him already. Your shy, worried expression you get as you feel better and better with the sinful way you move against his body, begging for more.

He feels protective of you and never wants to let you go. He never wants you to feel hurt again and he wants to be the one to make sure of that. He wants to be there to support you through everything and he wants you by his side always, too. 

He crowds you to the bed and you scramble up, and he crawls after you, and looms over you, the only image you want to see. 

He descends, body heavy on yours, kisses you more. You never would have thought you could like the taste of someone’s mouth like you do Nagi’s. You can’t get enough of the way his tongue feels, the strength of his hands when he grips you. You’re so loud, which Nagi loves, and is fun for you, too, but the moments when you’re about to hear his noises, grunts and gasps and exhales, makes your tummy swoop, and you cling to him tighter. You tangle your fingers in his beautiful hair. It calms you to touch it. You like holding his head like that while he kisses your neck. You hate that he has to stop kissing your lips in order to kiss your neck because you love both so much.

Nagi is patient and attentive. He can’t get bored when he sees and hears how much you are enjoying it. 

The silence has dragged on a bit too long, much longer than you need to catch your breath, and he knows you’re impatient. You act like you don’t care about breathing anymore when you kiss him, which makes him feel like king of the world, of course, but also, he wants you to breathe. 

He pulls away to assess the situation. Your fingers are still in his hair, which he loves, but your body is heavy, a lot less pliable than normal, and your gaze is frozen somewhere else, expression not dazed and needy like he likes seeing you. You look like something else. Lost in thought or somewhere else in general. 

“Baby.”

You twitch your fingers in his hair, but don’t look at him or say anything. 

“Angel?”

You remove your hand from his hair and squirm under him. He rolls off you onto his side and watches you.

“Are you okay?”

You curl away from him slightly, so he adjusts his body too, giving you some more space. 

He’s really worried, but he doesn’t want to worry you more, if something really is wrong. He knows and trusts you will tell him eventually, even if you can’t right now. 

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too,” you say quickly.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

You look conflicted. 

“I don’t have to. I just want you to know I love you. What do you need right now?”

You’re frozen. You don’t even feel like you can bury your head in the pillow like you want to. Well, actually, what you really want to do is bury your head in Nagi’s chest, but you definitely don’t think or feel like you can do that.

“Do you want me to go? Do you want me to take you home?”

“No,” you choke out. “I want to stay.”

“Okay,” Nagi says. “If there’s something you want me to do, when you can, can you tell me?”

Horrified, you feel tears welling in your eyes.

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Okay,” Nagi says. “I want to help you, and can if you want me to, but I don’t have to do anything, either, if you don’t want.”

As focused as you were when you were kissing him and into it, you are now equally and opposingly scattered. Of the millions thoughts and anxieties and worries freefalling in your head, what a lot of them boil down to are: a) you are horrible; and b) he’s not going to like you anymore.

“I’m here for you,” he says. “It’s okay if you want to cry, if you feel like it.”

The sobs escape your mouth without you feeling like you let them. 

He hands you tissues and stays with you quietly. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, which doesn’t feel good to say. It feels like you are betraying yourself. But there was no way you were going to win the fight to overcome the urge to say it. Not right now. 

“I don’t want you to say that,” Nagi says. “About crying to me ever again.”

“Sorry,” you say, because at this point you’ve given up, and have fully accepted that Nagi will probably most definitely never want to see you ever again.

“You can say sorry, and I’ll tell you it’s okay, but I just want you to know. I want it on record that I don’t want an apology for you sharing your emotions with me. Thank you for trusting me with them. I am honored.”

You cry some more, hiccupping and loud. 

Once you have a tiny pile of tissues, which you push off the bed into the bin Nagi got up and retrieved for you, you feel satisfyingly empty, like how one does, after having a good cry.

“I love you,” Nagi says promptly.

“I love you, too,” you rasp out. 

He gazes at you calmly.

You and him are opposites in some ways. One important way is he is never in a rush and you are always in a rush. So even though you know he would never rush you into anything, whether it’s talking or sex or leaving the house for some event or activity, your own traitorous brain yells at you, guilts you, warns you that he’s going ot leave no matter what anyway, so what are you even doing?

“Can I stay?” you ask in a small voice. 

He blinks at you. “...what?”

“Can I still stay here? Even though we’re not.” You gulp around nothing. Your throat convulses. “Or I can go,” you say quickly because you don’t want to cause trouble or be shameless or assume or any of the horrible things that you could do wrong.

“You should always do whatever you want,” he says. “But if you’re asking me, I’d like if you stayed.”

“Okay,” you whisper, searching your chest for the relief you think you should be feeling. A win! Right? You don’t have to do something you’re scared of, and you get what you really wanted in the first place. All you ever want is Nagi. 

“Can I still.” You wish words weren’t so hard. For all that everyone makes fun of you for constantly talking, why can’t you when it really matters? You search for the extroverted part of you, and you feel tumbleweeds where a peppy, bubbly personality should be. 

Great. Abandoned. As per usual. 

Nagi doesn’t rush you. He never rushes you. Logically, you know this, from past experience, and he continues in this moment. He’s so still. The opposite of your racing thoughts. The opposite of the fight or flight response pumping your body up to prepare for maximum danger and threat levels. He’s so still as he watches you, with his ever lidded eyes, eyes you usually feel so secure staring into, and would for hours on end, if you could. 

You know these eyes are open to you. They demand nothing. You try to remember that he would never implore you for anything, and the only person rushing you is you.

“I want to stay,” you say. 

“I want you to stay,” he says.

“I want.” Why is it so horrifying to ask for things? To ask for anything. “Can I touch you?”

“Yes, please,” Nagi says.

This time, relief crashes through your system, louder this time, bursting through a window, the sound of glass shattering cascading through your veins. 

He opens himself up to you, like he always does, and you slot yourself against his body, like you’ve been wanting this whole time. You try to calm yourself down. You try to stop trying. You try to let Nagi take care of you, like he is so good at doing. 

He kisses the top of your head, and he waits with you until you feel better. And you do, eventually. You always do.

[arotechno]

Carnival of Aros December 2022: Aro adulthood and growing older with the aro community

When I heard that this month's theme for the Carnival of Aros was about getting older, I knew I had to write something from the perspective of someone who has been here a comparatively long time, but it still quite young. I realized I was aro in the spring of 2014, when I was 15 years old, a freshman in high school. I’m 24, now, and while I’m far from being able to call myself an older aro, it does certainly feel that way sometimes.

When I was a little kid, I assumed that I would one day marry, with the two and a half kids and the white picket fence and the whole nuclear family song and dance that I was, of course, expected to strive for. I never held any judgment for people who didn’t have that life, but I didn’t have the knowledge or the self-awareness to ever visualize anything else for myself. As I grew a bit older, into my early teen years, it was something that I just stopped considering entirely. I knew a traditional marriage wasn’t something I wanted anymore, and I didn’t know or really care if that was something that would one day change. By the time I learned what aromanticism was, I had long since concluded that I had never had a real crush before, didn’t want to, and maybe, just maybe, never would—I just hadn’t realized this wasn’t how I was “supposed” to think.

My journey with aromanticism today as an adult looks vastly different compared to eight and a half years ago, partly due to the ways the aro community has grown and evolved since then and partly due to the natural progression of age, wisdom, and circumstance. Being aromantic was really isolating when I was younger, and I was closeted for most of the last decade, aside from a few close friends who knew. As a teenager, my biggest problems were equal parts trying to cope with my peers getting into their first relationships and leaving me behind, and trying to hide the truth from them about their being anything abnormal or mockable about me.

That’s changed as I’ve gotten older, of course. I’ve written about aro adulthood somewhat extensively lately, and the thing about coming to terms with being aromantic—and later, nonpartnering—that blows your whole future wide open. When the path that has been laid out for you in life turns out to be an illusion, you have not only the freedom but the obligation to create a new one, something that will actually make you happy. Unfortunately, you often have to do a lot of clawing and scraping to get there. Much of my adult life thus far has been about trying to prove to other people, whether out of necessity or out of perceived inadequacy, that I am a Real Adult, that I am a complete person with a place in this world, even if I never cross many of those traditionally expected milestones to get there.

As I’ve said, I often feel older than I am when it comes to being aro, simply because I was here at such an early time in the community, watching, lonely. There are folks twice my age who have known they were aro half as long, and at the same time there are kids now younger than I was who are aro themselves and have more than one aro friend at school. In a way, I sometimes felt a little stunted—there were kids now as young as 12 or 13 who were out and proud as aro to everyone they knew, and here I was, a grown adult still too afraid to tell my parents after the better part of a decade, even after moving out and building a new support system on my own.

I know now that of course it didn’t matter, that everyone is on their own trajectory in life and there’s nothing wrong with being in the closet forever, if you need or want to. The truth was, when I was a teenager we didn’t live in a world where I could have been out as aro. My aromantic journey has been inextricable from the shame, guilt, and fear of mockery that came with it, made particularly potent by the environment that came to be on tumblr and the rest of the internet just a year or so after I came to terms with being aro. And I am happy that we have created a world, now, where that doesn’t have to be the case anymore, and I’m proud to have had any small part in creating that world. And I know that this is still only just the beginning.

[weeandfrank]

Dear Frank,

I still sometimes write you letters here even though I know you no longer have access.

There's so much rattling around in my brain. So much I've wanted to say...to someone.

Life has felt so strange for some time. I have a hard time describing what I mean. I don't feel real. This doesn't feel real. I so often feel as though I'm playing pretend at living. At life. At being an adult. All the while at various times becoming bored of this game, of the rules that I don't really follow because I find them dumb or nonsensical...I lose sight of the point of the game...of how to win...I lose my competitive edge...it seems as though the other players have become distracted or wandered off...as often happens at parties ...the game has lost it's novelty...or sometimes I'm the one that's wandered off...

I was inspired to write back here by a book I recently read--I've been reading a lot lately...a healthier [relatively speaking] check-out coping mechanism for this existential depression as I'm momentarily terming it, than other alternatives. The book, I think know you would love, is called Normal People. The main characters, Connell and Marianne, write lengthy emails to each other as a means of staying in touch through long periods of physical distance. The dynamic between them is different--they are in love and you and I are siblings...but they understand one another better than anyone...I'm not going to attempt to give a synopsis as I'm notorious for butchering them; you'll just have to trust my judgement and look it up for yourself.

This book has elicited in me...longing. Heart ache. It's re-opened this yearning to be seen and to be known and to be the main character in my own tragic romance. I long to feel passion and to have my heart ache for someone. I long to feel. I've been in this strange, liminal space of...existing. I've strangely lost my sense of how to socially maneuver, how to flirt and, at times it seems, how to even hold a basic conversation; especially if my mind is set on existing publicly in my own space. Just yesterday I was at the diner down the street from my place...I ordered my food and took my table number scanning the tables for a seat. I awkwardly made eye contact with these two guys, obviously not from here...handsome...and tucked into a table next to them. Several more times we made eye contact and I shyly smiled but my mind went blank...one of them smiled and complimented my leg warmers as they left...I looked back at the anatomy notes I'd nerdily brought in with me to study while I ate and contemplated how I'd lost my mojo. Not that I ever had any mojo...and thus soared back down that mental spiral of my deficits and how many times in my life I've shut myself off to letting people in.

I tipsily allowed emotions to wash over me this evening. Recollecting that feeling that I used to have that "no one really knows me." The realization that I've sunk back into this self-protective space washed over me. Why would I continue to share parts of me that I find significant, vulnerable, valuable to have them disregarded and not valued...each time that happened perhaps I shut myself off a little bit more from exposing these parts of me...

And then I remember that I'm likely creating a dramatized story of these occurrences in my life because I feel insignificant and lacking in...gumption for life...

A friend asked my recently how things were going. I responded:

"I'm pretty good. I'm in the thick of school which...I don't think I ever fully wrapped my mind around the intensity this would be. It's been great. Life-altering. I'm dealing with a strained thumb which is just part of it I think. I need to find alternative ways to do things that doesn't hurt my body ... Turns out I have hyper-mobility in my joints. Don't know how I've gone 36+years of my life not Knowing that but alas, now I know."

It felt true. But...came lightyears short of answering the question of "how are things?" How can I answer this when, the truth is, I don't know. I couldn't answer with "nothing feels real" or "I'm just waiting for civilization to unravel" (as that's the direction we seem to be heading)...or "they're fine, just fucking fine."

It's been a long time since I've had a lengthy conversation with someone where I felt utterly unrestrained and not self-conscious in the sense that not only is it ok to share about my experience, it's desired and appreciated. And vice versa, I was eager to hear about the other person. Or that I felt a connection with a kindred spirit.

It at least feels nice to get some thoughts out. Even if they go un-witnessed. Even all this doesn't come close to capturing what I'm feeling, experiencing, the depth of longing. But, then again, I'm just remembering that an intention I had for this 36th year of my life was to embrace the ordinary, the mundane experience. Perhaps that's what's being called for here. Sitting with the strangeness that is existence and embracing the ordinary.

[ryttu3k]

had this conversation with a mutual and wanted your take on it

so Christopher the toreador elder was embraced at 13 and remained mentally stagnant his entire unlife, forever both physically and psychologically a child. meanwhile, ilias cel frumos was ghouled at 15 and embraced not long after, but he has the mindset of an adult despite not having aged physically. so that opens two distinct paths that cainites embraced as kids could follow, and of course everything in between those two extremes. there’s also the factor of christopher’s embrace being traumatic and ilias’ being empowering. which culminates in this: what else could contribute to the fate of an embraced teenager? and why such a wide variation of outcome?

Oh yeah, it's interesting as hell. Part of it may be cultural - Ilias was born in the 11th century, Christopher in the 17th, and teenagers in the dark ages may have had to grow up a fair bit quicker, whereas Christopher would have still been considered a child. Ilias' exact age at Embrace is unknown, just that he became a ghoul in his mid-teens (which is anything between 14 and 17), whereas Christopher was Embraced on his thirteenth birthday, and there is a big developmental jump between "was twelve years old the day before he died" and "older teen, spent indeterminate amount of time able to develop mentally as a ghoul before Embrace".

There are also child vampires like Nicolai Antonescu, who was ten, has a creepy, overly-grown-up aspect and a ton of responsibilities, and 'Child' as his Nature, and then characters like Damien, who still sees himself as a teenager after his Embrace at fourteen, but only has 'Child' as his Demeanour, not Nature. Just a few years between them, but while Nicolai tries to act like an adult but still feels like a child, Damien recognises his adolescence and thus is almost... able to grow beyond it? I can see Nicolai as being comparable to Christopher, then, and Ilias being closer to Damien.

Other child/teen characters: Halsey in Swansong, who was Embraced at nine and acts precisely like a nine-year-old (although that's attributed to her being Malkavian), Madame Guil, who was Embraced at sixteen but is treated like an adult by the narrative (possibly because she was treated as being on the cusp of adulthood anyway prior to her Embrace, she was about to marry her sweetheart when Vollgirre found her), Genina (aged nine), who responded to her Embrace by going full monster but never quite going full wight, Elaine (aged ten), who explicitly is described as not being able to cope with her Beast due to her age and did go wight in response, tragic cases like six-year-old Cherubim, who still very much is a child even after over a century but has horrifically un-childlike behaviours due to her traumas (but is still a solid 4 on the Path of Nocturnal Redemption and so not in danger of going wight in the near future), and... whatever the hell is going on with Ur-Shulgi. Lots of ways to do child/teenage characters.

Anyway, really quite variable in how child and teenage Embraces are treated. Some may be cultural, some may be just that character's personality. Ilias may have seen himself as emancipated by leaving home and finding Dorinta, maybe a few years before true adulthood but he was never going to be his parents' son again. He saw himself as an adult, and so he carried that mindset through to his unlife.

I could see Ilias' age at Embrace coming up in things like... oh, he's learned to think things through, absolutely, but he still sometimes makes rash decisions like eating the seed, just because the parts of his brain that determine decision-making weren't fully developed or something? So coming across as adult, but there are some developmental areas that never finished 'cooking'.

(I actually hc that this is the case with LaCroix, too. Like he's a 200-year-old Prince, but he also has the impulse control, decision-making skills, and temper of a twenty-one-year-old guy. He's an adult, yeah, absolutely, but the Embrace meant he never got the chance to fully develop those skills.)

[givemaycoffee]

It seems you're feeling better today. I'm glad! Have some more questions :)

11, 39, 47, 78, 90

I am! :) And capitalizing on it as best as I can. Thanks for more of these 🥰

11. Do you have any strange phobias?

I don’t know if it’s strange but I have trypophobia. It’s strong enough that I have developed coping mechanisms to deal with it. It can become like an intrusive thought once it’s on my mind. I filter for it on here, and I’m always grateful when someone I follow actually uses the tag so I don’t have to see it. I also haven’t bothered to internalize how it’s spelled (even tho looking at it now it’s really not complicated), but I have the word saved in my notes app because originally I had to Google it and let me tell you… not a fun experience!

39. What time is it?

Aha, speaking of geography. It’s 4:53 pm :3

47. Do you have any obsessions right now?

Not really! Thank goodness tbh. I hyperfixated on Fire Emblem: Three Houses pretty hard when I got into it (June or July), and went down the Dimileth rabbit hole first, then Sylvix. I’m still enjoying Sylvix, but it’s not compulsive like it was when I was well and truly hyperfixated. I’ve been avoiding finishing the CF route, tho, so I’m currently playing Spiritfarer.

78. Can insanity bring on more creativity?

Uh oh! You’ve unlocked Opinions™. The first of which is that insanity is a word I find uncomfortable because it isn’t an official psychological term anymore, it’s mostly used in law these days to indicate severe mental illness, and when the average person genuinely uses it to describe another person they’re often using it to demonize said person’s mental illness. However, I don’t think anyone involved here intended that, so I am just mentioning it because I have met a lot of folks for whom it is a word that personally hurts them, and thus I feel the need to say something.

To answer the actual question, I think it’s looking at it wrong, really. Rather than bringing on creativity, I think mental illness tends to result in unique experiences, both positive and negative, and art is an outlet for all of it. Van Gogh had what seems to be manic depression, and art was a way to express himself. Art therapy is very much a thing for folks with all sorts of mental illnesses. It allows you to explore life, yourself, whatever you want in a way that doesn’t require words (or does, if you express yourself through writing), and can maybe communicate some of what’s going on in your head to someone else who otherwise might have very little understanding. And it can even help you understand yourself, too, sometimes.

So yeah, I think ultimately unique experiences and perspectives make a person more creative, especially in the eyes of someone whose own experiences are very different. It’s all relative, baby! This is also why diversity is super important (beyond just being fundamentally a good thing), because diverse people have diverse ideas and diversity of thought leads to creativity and innovation :3

90. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

First of all - this one is hilarious. Secondly… cry. Fun fact about me, if a zombie apocalypse were to happen, I would like to die, thanks! Don’t wanna deal with it, too scary and depressing. Anyhow - after crying, I would probably do the boring thing which is see if they react to anything, including movement and speech, and go from there. If no movement, J and I get up and leave and probably call my in-laws because they’re the real adults around here. 😂

[gothnitsa]

How does one get over Irony poisoning?

Ok, so I already know this is going be something I don't think anyone can give me solid advice on, but I saw Ethel Cain's post about how no one takes anything seriously anymore and I feel like this is something that has seriously infected my thinking too.

I am already a deeply self-conscious person due to my upbringing and the pretty severe ridicule I suffered as a child and I feel like I've been very slowly drip fed poison over the course of my life.

I feels as though I can't make or do anything without being observed by an unknown and deeply judgmental audience and must thus make things a joke. This isn't just an online thing for sure. I feel like any attempt at sincerity will be met with people making jokes about it. I think part of my coping regarding this is to embrace it. "I'm making people smile, I'm making them laugh; so what if it's at my expense, they find it funny." But This just makes my life and creative endeavors feel kind of hollow. Like, don't get me wrong, I love to laugh and I love making people laugh. But sometimes it just feels so mutually exclusive. You either have to be the most stone faced unmovable bitch alive or the sunny smilely girl.

It's honestly gotten to the point where it's infiltrated my sexuality: I feel like I can't even be "unironically horny" anymore. I feel like I have to even make my own sexual arousal a joke. My own attraction to people has to be couched in several layers of irony and humour and scarcasm. I can't confess love to anyone anymore. I can't even say I love you with out peppering jokes or cutting in with "jk I actually hate you" and then immedately appologising and trying to say I love you again before the instincts come in and tell me to call them a "butt face" or something.

I just wish I knew how to shut these little nagging voices up. The voice in my head that is rolling its eyes are every attempt at expressing myself in a genuine way, not just online or even just creatively.

When I try to tell a story of something traumatic that happened or express my love for my friends I feel like I have to couch it in humour to disarm the judging voices in my head. Or maybe that's just the fear of intimacy talking and that's a separate issue altogether. I just hate being like this tbh. I wish I didn't feel like I had to live in this binary of being a clown or being a statue. I am tired of needing to make people laugh, I hate that I feel almost uncomfortable if I don't make people laugh. Like if someone doesn't laugh at my story of the worst things that have ever happened to me in my entire life I failed somehow. Now that I think about it, it honestly feels like I am afraid of being treated like a child. Because that's how I feel whenever someone laughs at my sincere attempts at anything. I feel like a kid. I feel like everyone around me is a grown up laughing at how funny it was that the stupid little girl tried to do something and it's so cute how she is trying. I feel a weird amount of remorse over this since i myself have a chuckle at really self-serious Shadow the hedgehog fan edits with Three Days Grace playing in the background. But, at the same time, I know this is something that I myself would have made as a kid. There's a weird perverse sadomasochistic pleasure in laughing at yourself. Like, it's fine to not take yourself so seriously, but I feel like so often I become my own biggest bully. Like I'm just paroting everything that the kids who made fun of me used to say and do.

This is a rather long and nonsensical rant but I just wanted to put this all out in writing because I think it's been a problem that's plauged me my entire adult life and is greatly hindering me now in many many ways. I recognise that this is a problem that has been building over the years and is not entirely my fault —as my therapist once said "you did not put those voices in there"— but I do still feel a lot of responsibility to fix myself and it's frustrating that it feels so impossible.

Anyway, I should probably watch the Contrapoints cringe video again. I feel like that woman has made videos specifically addressing each of my brain worms and i just watch them and am like "Wow, awesome, I will internalise none of this and only remember the jokes and cunty outfits she wore."

[straightuptreatment98]

Recover from OCD by building Self Esteem

Self-esteem is the opinion that you have about yourself. It showcases how confident you are about your capabilities, identity and sense of belongingness.

Improving your self-esteem is not a day’s task it requires patience and consistent efforts. As the deep-rooted energy of low confidence and under estimation, seeps strongly in the subconsciousness. But with constant efforts and positive affirmation, one achieves the state of strong sense of self-esteem.

Are your juggling with self-judgement and self-sabotaging. Are you doubtful about yourself? Do you feel like you aren’t enough? Do you beg for love and friendship? Do you put yourself down more often?

If all these aspects are the areas of your concern. Then you must learn about the healthy way to improve your self-esteem with OCD treatment online in Los Angeles.

1.    Firstly, to improve your self-esteem, you need to connect with yourself. Wherein journaling your thought, emotions, feelings and wounds are the best way to know yourself better. And in the process of building self-esteem be kind and honest with yourself.

2.    Secondly, focus on positive self-talk, boost your confidence and self-esteem by speaking good things about yourself in front of the mirror. Don’t compare yourself. Always remember each one of us are unique and special. Likely, embrace your flaws and perfection. 

3.    Thirdly, set your boundaries, and start saying no to people, places, and situations which doesn’t make you feel good. Don’t become a people pleaser, prioritize your emotions and value your self-worth.

4.    Fourthly, take care of yourself by doing things which you enjoy, like cherishing hobbies, watching movies, going on a vacation, etc. Celebrate your success, even if it’s a small one.

5.    Lastly, accept yourself the way you are. Remember, everyone makes mistakes. Thus, forgive yourself for the past happenings. Learn to have a happier and healthier relationship with yourself.

Talk to OCD therapy for adults Los Angeles and seek assistance in coping with the issues of self-esteem.

Life is a rollercoaster ride, there are things that happen for a greater good whereas sometimes life throws us at the worst scenarios. Our world seems to shaken and we eventually tend to lose ourself in the process of coping with the adverse situation. Thus, heal your issues of OCD by building self-esteem with Straight Up Treatment’s experts.

There are multiple ways to developing the self-esteem, for instance you can write the list of things which you like about yourself. Praise and appreciate yourself. Let go of the toxic and negative traits. Focus on things that are in your control, and leave the things that are beyond your control.

Release the negative people from your life. Exercise regularly to get rid of the negative pattern. Thereby, surround yourself with positive and supportive people. And develop a sense of security.

You achieve the sense of self-esteem when you are confident, and you feel a sense of belongingness towards family and friends. Whereas book an appointment with OCD specialist in Los Angeles and learn to practice meditation and mindfulness.Likely,get support on your journey of healing and achieving self-esteem. 

[empyrangel]

you hating the harbingers except for scara is a little hypocritical and the way you say arle’s stans are bad? like as if scara fans aren’t just as bad? girl almost every genshin character have horrible stans. well i’m not surprised, you just have a thing for characters who look like little boys. i think it’s also ridiculous to be so uptight about morals in a video game like damn you’re boring and you’re probably an outcast irl

Gonna assume you’re not the same anon from yesterday cause at least they seemed to have good intentions.

Pretty fucking ballsy for you to try to claim moral superiority here when you admitted to stalking my blog like a creep, called me a pedophile for no reason, and then threw desperate insults at me. If you think that being short and having a round face makes someone a child, then you’ll be pleased to know that I have those features, thus making me a child, meaning I can’t be a pedophile. Oh wait, that logic doesn’t make any fucking sense. Adults will have “childish” traits sometimes. Cope. The characters I like are adults whether you like it or not. I like younger feminine men, that’s my type, and I’m not ashamed of it. Sorry I’m not into dilfs (of which this game has 0) or whatever but idc.

I’m fully aware that most characters have their undesirable fans. These fans are, at worst, really fucking annoying. Arle’s fans are, on average, abuse apologists. Not comparable in the slightest. And honestly, Scara’s Chinese haters have done more actual harm than his batshit stans.

It’s not hypocritical to like Wanderer but not the rest of the harbingers, you’d know that if you knew my reasons instead of just assuming them. Arle is a cult leader and child abuser, Signora’s only done everything she’s done because she was weak and couldn’t cope with the same grief everyone else in Teyvat was feeling without becoming a terrorist, Dottore is annoying and he preformed those experiments on Collei, Childe is just really fucking obnoxious with how he acts like he’s friends with the traveler after all he’s done. I like Wanderer because he reminds me of an oc I have. I don’t even like him romantically.

So yeah, assumptions, on top of strawmans, on top of second grade insults, real solid argument you have there, bud.

I have no reason to care that you think I’m boring. You personally sent me an angry rant because I made one or two posts simply voicing my personal opinions on a public social media site by saying mean things about your blorbos in the form of memes, that didn’t have anything to do with you, and that you could have just blocked me for. And on top of that, you’re too much of a coward to show your face while doing it! That’s pathetic.

Oh, and it’s pretty hypocritical of you to say I’m the one being “uptight about morals in a video game” for not wanting to interact with real life abuse apologists, when you’re the one who insinuated I was a pedophile for liking a collection of pixels. Just saying.

[filaantrocrowdfunding]

Helping Kids Cope: Childhood Depression Awareness Day On May 02, 2023

“Depression is being colorblind and constantly told how colorful the world is”.

- Atticus

Depression is a common mental disorder. It’s characterized by persistent sadness and lack of interest or pleasure before rewarding or enjoyable activities. It disturbs one’s sleep and appetite making that person feel lethargic and poor concentration.

Depression has become a leading cause of disability around the world and eventually contributes to the global burden of disease. The effects of depression can be long—lasting or recurrent and can dramatically affect a person’s ability to function and live a rewarding life.

Sometimes parents or caregivers notice certain behavior changes in children, they may be upset or moody and such emotional fluctuations are normal but when these persist for more weeks it may be a sign of depression which is called Childhood Depression.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4.4% of children aged 3–17 years (approximately 2.7 million) have been diagnosed with depression in 2016–2019. This rate of childhood depression has been increasing in the last few years and thus to create an awareness ‘Childhood Depression Awareness Day’ is observed every year on the 2nd of May.

It was created to protect and help children who are suffering from this draining disease. We often have a picture in our mind that childhood is filled with children playing and living their life to the fullest but this is not the case always. Childhood Depression does exist and if left untreated it can cause different mental health issues.

Childhood Depression may have symptoms common to adults, but these little birds have difficulty expressing their feelings because of their limited emotional vocabulary. Certain kinds of symptoms children would face are irritability, anger, change in behavior or temperament, decrease in appetite or sleep, frequent physical illness, and expressing negative thoughts.

There can be various reasons for a child to go through depression like Physical health, Stressful events, the atmosphere where a child grows, or family history. In such scenarios, it’s the responsibility of parents to identify their child’s problems and help them in coming out of this situation.

Parents should make their kids comfortable and help them in speaking up about their sadness and depression, they should get their children to consult a therapist and provide proper treatment, be patient and kind: connect with them in a calm way and guide them to get better with their behavior, they should also spend time with their child doing things that both can enjoy.

Go for a walk

Play a game

Cook

Read stories

watch a funny movie

spend time outdoors.

These things encourage positive moods.

The Bottom line…

Every youngster has the freedom to have a lovely and remarkable life without any restrictions. To foster a child’s development, society and parents have a duty. We also want to make these kids happier by helping their emotional health along with their physical health.

[annarborcounselingservices]

How An ACE Can Impact Your Health

What is an ACE score?

ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. An ACE score is determined by the amount exposure to abuse, neglect, and difficult environmental stressors in a person’s childhood.

Examples of Adverse Childhood Experiences IncludeVerbal and Emotional AbusePhysical Abuse and/or IntimidationSexual AbuseNeglect (food insecurities, financial hardships, etc.)Parental Divorce/SeparationWitnessing Domestic ViolenceLiving in a household with..a problem drinker or someone who abused street drugsSomeone who is mentally ill, depressed, and/or attempted suicidesomeone who was incarcerated

About 61% of adults surveyed across 25 states reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE before age 18, and nearly 1 in 6 reported they had experienced 4 or more types of ACE.

How does a person’s ACE score impact their mental health? A higher ACE score can sometimes result in a dysregulated Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). ANS takes care of your automatic bodily functions–such as your heart beat, body temperature, and how you digest food. ANS is also in control of your survival and stress response. Therefore, ANS is constantly on the lookout for danger and safety in your environment.

When a person experiences trauma or chronic stress it can prevent a person’s ANS from functioning in a healthy way. Thus, resulting in being stuck in states of survival. For example, a person may consistently shift back and forth between fight, flight and/or freeze mode. A person may feel they are constantly in a state of danger, when there is no threat.

Oftentimes when a person is consistently living in a state of survival they turn to coping mechanisms that feel helpful in the moment but are harmful over time.

Adults with an ACE score of 4 or higher were 12 times as likely to have attempted suicide than those with an ACE score of 0.

Men with an ACE score of 6 or higher were 46-times as likely to have injected drugs than men who had an ACE score of 0.

How is physical health impacted by a person’s ACE Score? It can change the way the body responds to stress. A high ACE score has been linked to chronic health problems such as..

Coronary heart disease

Stroke

Asthma

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Cancer

Kidney disease

Diabetes

Obesity

Are there childhood factors that counteract the impact of an ACE Score? Research suggests that there are several protective factors that help lessen the impact of a person’s ACE score on mental and physical health.

These protective factors include growing up with…

A consistent family life where a person feels safe and supported

Strong social support networks and positive friendships

Caring adults/mentors outside of the family

Caregivers who can meet the child’s basic needs (food/shelter/healthcare)

Caregivers that provide supervision and consistent household rules

Adults who approach conflict in a calm manner

Research suggests that even having one relationship with an adult that is caring and safe significantly lessens the impact of ACE on a person’s overall health.

Contact AACA to connect with a therapist and heal from the impact of ACE.

Check out some of the resources for an impact of ACE here.

[greens-spilled-tea]

TW talk of abuse.

So, I've been away from my parents (aka my abusers, aka the source of a LOT of my traumas) for years now. Every once in a while, we need to contact each other. This year especially after I lost my job, I've had to be in contact with them a LOT.

After having done so much recovery and healing work while being away from them and thus relying less and less on dissociation as my main form of coping, I can appreciate just how much dissociation itself has sincerely protected me and helped me through so much of my life. My parents call me out of nowhere and start yelling at me? I'm able to very calmly talk to them to get them to calm down and actually hold a productive conversation. Had a bad run-in with my mother while picking something up from my old house? No worries, I can still do job and school apps and not take my feelings out on my partners.

Sure, these are examples from my current life and I definitely see how too much dissociation can be maladaptive... but as a child, I had no other way to escape. I had no other adults I could turn to for comfort, I couldn't just close my door and expect my parents to leave me alone (they'd just barge right in and start yelling again). The need to dissociate so I could function in other parts of my life made it so that I could be alive right now, with 3 loving partners in a comfortable home and many cats and a strong support network of friends.

Putting more of a focus on the alters now, I really appreciate having the others with me, even if most of us weren't consciously aware of being a system until our adulthood. Having someone be able to comfort me when I'm down, having a part of me be able to handle schoolwork when I was too busy stewing in my own anger, having me being able to stand up to those who hurt us for the rest of me who were too scared and too deep in their self-hatred...

I understand why we're so fragmented. I admire the other me's strengths, and they rely on me for mine. We support each other as much as we can, especially now that we're more aware of each other. We get jealous of each other which spurs us on to do better and try harder. And, uniquely, we all share the same history. Even if we don't have the same memories or thoughts or feelings, our history is still there tying us together. Not even siblings can say as much. It's sometimes nice to have someone who can understand where you're coming from so deeply and intimately.

Also, my DID experiences helps me better appreciate silly shared body tropes, alternate universe selves, and time travel shenanigans in media. Yes, I am counting this as a positive.

There's a lot more I can talk about but I think these touch on the things most precious to me.

Time for a syscourse syscussion-

What benefits has your system had for you? This includes all aspects of systemhood, so not limited to simply the concept of plurality. I particularly want to hear from traumatized systems, but nontraumatized systems can also speak up.

I think there should be more discussion of the positives regarding systems, alongside all the negatives. Often, I felt in pro-endo spaces, that I could only be positive about the plural aspect of my systemhood, as if the traumatic aspects of my life were solely negative. I’ve also felt frequently like this in anti-endo spaces, like enjoying my systemhood was “enjoying” my abuse. Yikes!

I’m curious the responses.

[born-to-lose]

Never Stopped Loving You

Pairing: current!Slash x fem!reader

Requested by @being-worthy

Summary: You and Slash get hate from the media because of the age difference in your relationship, so he has to make a hard decision...

Tags: breakup, angst with happy ending, age gap

Words: 1,417

A/N: I know I haven't posted fics in ages and this is one of my first attempts at writing since June, so I'm even prouder of myself that it turned out so long. Also, count this as one of the belated annual coping fics.

Tag list: @warriorteam1924 @slashscowboyboots @losers-yurio @lost-in-the-80s @yoshidas-girl-forever @jennyggggrrr @tuffduff @jonesyownsmyheart @rhyetaylor62 @smells-like-perfect-senses @whered0wego @rumoured-whispers @stradlin-cold-heartbreaker @aggressive-slytherin @cherry-jams

Tip me if you want!

You never would have thought you would meet Slash at an opening night for an art gallery somewhere in California, but what was even more surreal was that he was the one who started talking to you.

"Are you one of the artists?"

You turned to look at him and smiled, shaking your head. "No, but one of my friend's artworks is exhibited here. She's somewhere…" you looked around, gesturing to the staircase. "Somewhere over there probably."

He chuckled lightly. "That's cool! I'm Slash, by the way."

Slash offered you his hand and you shook it. "Nice to meet you, I'm (y/n)."

You had no idea how, but your conversation didn't end there and you kept talking and talking until he called you a taxi as it got late and your friend was nowhere to be found. But not before he gave you his number with the words "Feel free to call me sometime if you like".

That's how it all started and at some point, you were dating. Neither of you ever really made it public, you just went out together and left it to people to figure it out themselves. At the beginning, there were some worries about your age difference, but you were both happy and his children liked you too, so why should you let something small like this get in your way?

Of course, your relationship was good fodder for the media. Headlines on tabloids like "Slash dates someone who could be his daughter" or "Who is the girl dating the rockstar 30 years her senior?" were not uncommon. What was worse than this, though, were the nasty comments on social media and the speculations that you were just after him for his money and fame.

What they didn't seem to realize was that neither you nor Slash posted any couple photos, which you definitely would have if you had really wanted to become famous as Slash's girlfriend. All they had was photos of the two of you shot by paparazzi in public and the name of your private Instagram account, which was on account of some dedicated fan who went through his entire following list and compared profile photos to the blurry pictures of you which could be found on any celebrity gossip website now.

Then again, you were not the only one who got hate. More than a few people called Slash a creep and a predator for dating somebody this young. However, this didn't seem to bother him much as you were in your late twenties and thus an independent, consenting adult who had already built up a life. He was more upset about the comments about you, calling you a gold digger, a whore and whatnot.

However, after a couple of months of pure bliss - aside from all the hate from outsiders - Slash made a hard decision.

"So this is the end?" you asked, a lump in your throat as you attempted to hold back the tears.

He sighed, his voice shaking as he replied, "Believe me, it wasn't easy for me to make up my mind at all, but… you know I only want the best for you and I can't keep watching you getting your reputation ruined just because you're dating me. You deserve so much better than this."

You really wanted him to stay, but at that moment you weren't able to come up with arguments why he should rethink that decision. Your mind was all over the place and you were too busy crying to comprehend everything else he said.

Slash held you in his arms, staying silent because he had no idea how to save this situation when he was the one who ruined it in the first place.

You understood where he was coming from and it was more or less inevitable that this day was going to come sooner than you would have liked, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

But as time passed and you reconsidered everything that had happened, you were beginning to question if the critics really were the only reason why he left you. After all, he had never said those three words to you. Admittedly, your relationship was less based on words than on actions, but you would have liked to hear him explicitly say he loved you too from time to time. Perhaps some of your friends were right when they had asked you if you were sure it was a good idea to date someone 30 years older than you - and a famous musician at that.

One night, shortly after you got home from work, your phone rang without you expecting a call from anyone. Still, you answered it and you stopped breathing as you heard a familiar voice you hadn't heard in five months.

"Hey, it's me, Slash. I… would like to talk if you have time. Can you come over? I don't want to have this conversation on the phone."

There was a short pause before you murmured, "Yeah, I'm on my way. See you."

It was pretty late and you wondered why he would want to talk to you right now, but what would it hurt to come see him just this once?

He didn't live too far away from you, so you arrived at his house in less than 10 minutes. Slash already opened the door when he heard your car stop and he was biting his lip as he watched you walking towards him. "Please come in," he said quietly and you followed him inside.

The two of you walked into the corridor and then the living room, sitting down on the couch. You had almost forgotten how much you had missed this place.

Before he started, he took a deep breath and told you what was on his mind without further ado.

"I never stopped loving you. That's why I only called you now. I thought I could get over you if I kept some distance so I could forget about my feelings for you, but I couldn't. There hasn't been a day that I didn't regret breaking up with you. I just thought it's for the best because I hated how everyone made you look like the villain. I've heard a lot of shit being talked about me, I don't care about what they say anymore. But you… you always said it doesn't bother you but I could tell it did-"

You blinked in confusion, processing everything he had said so far, before interrupting him. "Wait, what? No, it really didn't bother me as long as we were together. I knew what I signed up for and I knew we would get hate from people, but we agreed that we wouldn't let something like this come between us."

There was a pause during which Slash was clearly trying to think of what to say. As you briefly looked around, a framed photo of you and Slash on the wall caught your eye and you bit your lip, looking back at him. "You never stopped loving me?"

"Yeah… I feel stupid now for breaking up with you over this and I don't even expect you to give me another chance, but I would be really grateful if you could. I swear I won't let you go so easily this time."

His teary eyes told you that he really meant what he said. Thinking about how to respond, you kept still for a moment.

Sure, the breakup hurt, but why else, if he didn't genuinely want you back, would he have called you to have this talk now after five months had passed? There hadn't been any problems in your relationship besides the media, so why shouldn't you try again? Some may say it won't work out this time if it already hadn't in the past, but you'll never know if you don't try.

"To be honest… I still love you too," you confessed. "And I think we should try again, but please promise that this time we really won't let some haters get between us, okay?"

Obviously relieved, he smiled and nodded. "I promise. Thank you for giving me another chance."

Softly returning the smile, you opened your arms to wrap him into a hug and rested your chin on his shoulder. A part of you wanted to say something, but you would have enough time to talk with him later now that you were together again, so you remained quiet and hugged him tighter.

[princeescaluswords]

Forget vague fanfic asks, I have a hugely specific one! I recently MAINLINED one your fics, the name escapes me, but it was an alternate universe where Scott goes with Deucalion, and needs help escaping the Alpha Pack. I am so curious about how you came up with the idea for Stiles's character in that fic. It was so original to me, and consistently unnerving as he referred to himself/Nogitsune as "we." Please also say the name of the fic so I can scream at anyone who sees this ask to READ IT READ IT READ IT.

The story you are referring to is The Last Part of Me, which is one of my earliest stories. I can tell because after your glowing praise I reread a chapter and realized how much I needed to revise it. I'm still glad you enjoyed it though. Thank you very much.

I had three goals when writing this story. First, I wanted to underline what sometimes gets lost in the fandom, that the villains in Teen Wolf were ultimately defeated not because of 'plot armor' but because of a theme consciously embraced by the writers: the morality of compassion and resiliency, exemplified by Scott, would be able to overcome the vengeance-driven strength of the villains in the end. Yet, for the sake of dramatic action, the narrative could never act as if it were a foregone conclusion that Scott and his pack would win. One critical incident going a different way, and things could have ended quite differently. Fandom, to their detriment, tends to extract individual scenes from their context and then evaluate them in some sort of pristine blank space. Of course, that's going to make certain people look worse or better than they are.

Second, I wanted to reinforce the idea that Scott and Stiles (and Allison and Lydia and Jackson and Isaac and so on) are teenagers in the show, and thus have only a limited amount of skills and resources to draw upon when confronting the horrors that they do. That is not to say they're incompetent; they're young! When Scott gets distracted by Allison (something that happens though not near as much as fandom implies), he's a 16-year-old feeling romantic love for the first time, not a 30-something social worker ditching his responsibilities. When Stiles mocks people's abuse and disabilities, he's a neurodivergent child coping with stress by projection, not a professional politician who should know better. The reason Scott and Stiles end up as they do in my story is because they're teenagers going through hell who simply don't have the life experiences to cope as oppose to, say, veteran first responders with access to training and support would.

Third, I wanted to write a dark story that actually explored the dimensions of defeat. In this tale, Scott and Stiles suffer mental and physical violation and social exclusion to such an extent that they can't possibly be okay at the end of it. Outside forces -- adult forces -- make deliberate decisions that leave the burden of consequences on these two characters. (To be clear, in this story it's the Hales and the Argents who make those decisions). I hope I got through to the reader at the end of the story while Scott and Stiles aren't dead, they're not in a good place and they won't be any time soon.

What I usually find when I read supposed dark stories is what I call exploitation stories. These stories are where characters commit rape and/or murder, indulge in torture and/or sexual abuse, or espouse tyranny and brutality as a lifestyle and yet the end result could be summed up as "and they lived happily ever after to the end of their days." For example, do you know how many stories I've read where Peter or Stiles murder Scott for the crime of not kissing white ass yet there are no emotional consequences for Stiles, all their friends and families either agree with the result or don't care, and not a single authority makes even an effort to investigate. Not only is the story they created morally repulsive, it's incoherent. Scott may have been the lead protagonist, but if Stiles truly believed that Scott should have submitted to the Hales, the story would have been different.

But that's academic. The point of these particular and so-called 'dark' stories isn't to explore the consequences of the break down of society and individual morality; it's about indulging in the darker aspects of the writer and the reader. I'm not arguing anything like the censorship of exploitative fiction, but it's not the same as a thoughtful exploration of a dark topic, and I reject conflating the two genres.

So I tried to write one of my own. I'm glad that someone enjoyed it.