#basically a journal entry except I can’t stand writing in a journal so now it’s on my *blog* wow

[vortexs]

I’m usually a vivid dreamer.

I’ve had dreams where I had powers. Or dreams where I saved the world. Or dreams where I go through an apocalypse.

Sometimes it’s just going through an exaggerated day. Sometimes it’s not me at all. I find that it’s an odd mashup of my feelings, stresses, and fears coming up & encouraging me to deal with them. More often than not, if I don’t deal with the issue, I continue to have the dreams.

Dreams are a fun place for me, and I haven’t had nightmares – true nightmares – in so long. But for the last year they’ve been more apparent, and for the last month, almost every night.

I know it’s because I’m grieving, and I’m not sure /how/ to grieve.

My grandma’s death was something I always saw coming. Looming over the horizon, peeking over the fence every time I looked at her. She’d been sick my whole life. Nearly every birthday wish I had was for her. Wishing for another year. Wishing for her health. I stopped wishing when I visited her one year and she was practically bed ridden, turning black and blue in the tips of her fingers and on the soles of her feet.

My stomach would fall, and my eyes would water. I knew it pained her to live more than it would pain me to see her go. I started dealing with her death long before she passed away.

It still hurt of course. But she lived a long life. A happy one. Full of love, and family. She loved me so much. I loved her so much. Its enough for me to know she is no longer suffering.

My cousin’s death gave me the entirely other perspective. He was young, younger than me. Still, we grew up together. He was the goofy one. The positive one. Always calm. Always kind. The kindest of his brothers, & the most determined to do life Right. No gangs. No violence. No drugs.

His death didn’t make sense to anyone. Didn’t make sense to me. His death was…complicated. Complicated because it was one of those deaths that many people wouldn’t feel bad for when you told them the story. One of those deaths where people /said he deserved it/ when it hit the news.

They didn’t know him. That’s what I tell myself. That it doesn’t matter what other people say, but fuck it still hurt. He deserved everyone to miss him. He deserved everyone to give their condolences and mean it. He deserved to graduate college, and achieve his dreams. He deserved to live longer.

This one hurts because I never saw his death coming. When I looked at him I didn’t see skeletons in the closet, or tragedy in his eyes. I dealt with this by trying to be there for everyone else. For my aunt and uncle who gave him his chance, for his siblings – my cousins who grew up with him. I wanted to be there for them to lean on, for us to celebrate him the way he deserved to be celebrated. That’s how I dealt with this.

But my dad. My father passing away. I don’t know where to begin.

It’s funny that I said my cousins’s death was complicated, because my dad’s feels 100 times more so. His is the type of complicated where I was told to lie. His is the type of complicated where I have to keep track of what I say, and who I said what to.

If I thought I couldn’t tell people how my cousin died, I definitely cannot tell people how my dad died. /Why/ he died.

I wish I could. I want to. But the reasons for it create complicated feelings in myself.

My dad was a great man. He raised me with stars in his eyes, & laughter on his lips. Growing up, I’d meet his friends or talk to extended family & they’d lean back, smile at me, and say “Ah, you’re definitely his daughter.”

My dad was goofy, and positive, and tough. Always encouraging, always behind my decisions. I adored him. I was a daddy’s girl through and through.

That’s not to say he was perfect. He wasn’t, and his faults are what ended he & my mother’s marriage. But like I said, he was tough, & he pushed forward. He’d tell me that later in life. To keep pushing forward. To not let anything keep me down.

“Look at me,” he’d go. “I’ve been through a lot. But I keep going. You have to do the same.”

As I got older, I could tell things were getting to him. Whether it was because life was harder for him, or because I’d been hardened, I don’t know. I began to see the tiredness in his eyes, the stress. Instead of him asking if I was okay, I started asking him.

“I feel bad,” he’d go. “I wish I could help you more. I wish I could be there for you. I wish you called me.”

I always told him that it was okay. That he was. He was there for me when it mattered, that I never thought of him and wished he’d do more. I told him that it’s hard for me to call anyone. He never believed it. That I knew. I chalked it up to some weird, macho man thing. You know, men always want to be the providers. Be the one for everyone to depend on. Everything I said was true. Still is.

He was remarried. He had a wife, and more kids. He did great with me, & I thought he’d be even greater with them. Everything that bothered him about our relationship he could fix and improve on with them.

And he did. For awhile. I like to believe it was all the way until the end.

The last time I saw him was on Father’s Day. My sister and I spent the day with him, and I could tell he was happy I came to see him. I was happy I did, too. He was very open this visit. I’d asked him for help (with getting my license lol) & he was very adamant that we would get it as he was teaching my step-sister as well.

“Of course! Come any time. I’ll teach you, and you’ll definitely pass.”

Maybe it was because it was the first time I’d asked something of him. Maybe he felt good that we’d share this milestone together. Maybe he was just happy I wanted to spend time with him.

I never followed through. The summer was so busy, and I was too short on money to make it back to him. I didn’t tell him this. Why? Because I knew he’d send me the money. I knew he’d give me the time. Neither of which he had much to spare (he’d vented to me many times about his money issues). I didn’t want to add to that.

I thought that once my job started I’d be able to go to him in the fall, instead.

He contacted me, which he rarely does. It was a strangely emotional text, in a good way.

“Hi baby! Are you still coming to see me? I really want to help you get your license!”

It made me happy, and I felt guilty I hadn’t told him why. I was reminded of how he felt like he failed me, and that I didn’t want to depend on him. That I thought lowly of him, or something. I told him I just didn’t have the money at the moment, but that I would see him as soon as I did.

“I want to get my license with you too!!” I’d said.

“How much do you need?” He’d sent back. I didn’t respond. I didn’t want him to send me money.

He still did.

A day later: $500, and a caption that read “My baby.”

I cried. I don’t know why, but I did. I think it was because I felt the weight of his love for me in that moment. Not that I ever thought he didn’t love me, but…he always struggled with showing his emotions. To me, this showed a lot. Not the money, but the caption. My baby. My baby.

I saw a lot of my dad in me. From his interests, to his ideals, to his personality. I never realized how much of me reminded me of him until he passed away.

It was a few days after my birthday. He sent me a nice message, & I told him how excited I was to see him. “See you soon.” I’d said.

A few days before he passed, I was informed that he’d done a terrible thing, & that he’d left his house & was unreachable. No texts. No calls. No tracker.

Knowing my father, as soon as I learned of the situation, I knew it was the beginning of the end. He was a prideful man. He wouldn’t want sympathy, he’d just want justice. He would never let himself get away.

I cried that day, when he was still alive. I just knew my father was gone. The man I knew, he wasn’t there anymore. The next few days were full of anxiety. I kept checking my phone, waiting for a call or text. About him. Or from him.

I actually did text him. I was afraid that if I contacted him & he knew that /I/ knew, that it’d speed up the process. That it’d send him over the edge.

I texted him, asking him to stay. Asking him not to hurt himself. Asking him to come back. I told him I loved him, that I appreciated him, & that I needed him.

He texted me back. He told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him. He told me that he wished he could’ve done more for me. He told me he was ashamed. Of what? Of everything, I think. Of his whole life.

He told me he only wanted 3 things from me. To be a strong, independent woman. To take care of my sister. And to always be grateful to my aunts.

I texted him multiple times after that. I never heard from him again.

A couple days later his body was found in another state. A “hiking accident” the police ruled it. I knew it was a suicide. I knew his reason for it. I knew that he said he didn’t want a funeral. I knew that he said he didn’t want us to mourn him. I knew that he didn’t want to be remembered at all, as he deleted all his social media, all his pictures.

Hardly anyone will ever know the man I adored ever existed.

The police said he needed to be cremated. They were adamant about how much we should not see the body. They told us that he was unrecognizable. That they only identified him through fingerprints. Out of everything I knew, I wish I never knew that.

I’ve never seen the body, but when I go to sleep at night I see it. I see him standing on the edge of the cliff. I feel his pain, his turmoil. I feel him thinking of his family. Thinking of his life. Thinking of me. I see him make the decision. I see him take the step. I see him fall. I hear him scream. I see him become mangled beyond recognition. I see him. I see him.

In my dreams I see him clear as day. In my dreams I speak to him. I chase him. I beg him to stay. He tells me no. He runs away from me. He tries to go away, but I see him.

I wake up, and I don’t see him. I wake up, and I know he’s gone away. I know that if there is an afterlife he will not see me, he wouldn’t allow himself that. I know that the last time I saw him, on father day, is the last time.

So then the dreams. The dreams where I chase him. Where I beg him. Where I look at him & he looks at me with pain in his eyes & guilt under his skin. Still, I wake up and fall into another nightmare where I lie about how he died and why.

I’m torn then. I want the dreams to stop, but I like seeing him. I’m scared to lose this, because then I will have lost all of him, maybe. I don’t know. Grief sucks. This sucks. I know I need to deal with this, but I don’t know where to begin. Or how. Maybe this is the first step. Getting this down. Even after writing this much about it I can feel how much more needs to be said.

Like, maybe I haven’t driven home how much he meant to me. Maybe I haven’t driven home how traumatizing it all is. Maybe I haven’t explained how my childhood was filled with him teaching me all the skills I utilize today, or how all my favorite interests started with him. Maybe I haven’t made it clear how I look in the mirror, or I speak, or I do my favorite hobbies and am reminded of him.

Grief sucks, but at least in my dreams, everyone is still there.

[whoistheasshole]

How do I get out of this unsatisfying life I’m living?

Anonymous asks: So the thing is that I feel incredibly stuck - I have all the basics of life which I'm grateful for but also that was my BIG dream as a kid, to get tf out of my parents' house - but now I have that and idk what to do for the rest of my life. Like, if I try those "visualize your future" things I'm just like, "I'd like to sleep for a month, maybe longer" & it feels like I don't really WANT anything so I can't plan, you know? Just flailing here honestly. Pretty tired of it.

I wrote back: I got your question. To pinpoint my answer a little better, can you tell me about your current situation, like how long has it been since you moved out? Which are the things you have in order to your satisfaction? Some vague idea of your age range would also be helpful, but I can work without it too if you’d rather not share.

Anonymous answered: Ah, sorry. I was trying to fit in the character limit & also whenever I think about this my mind just goes flbbbbth. It's been about 5 years? That's about the only thing I'm truly HAPPY about, I'm not thrilled with my social/love life, career, etc & have pretty much been just coasting tbh. I'm almost 30. Thanks for entertaining this.

Alright, thanks for adding some background. I will come at this from different angles and you can pretty much pick and choose what sounds helpful and leave the rest, okay?

First, while there are people who have it all figured out, methodically planning their next career step or fully certain that there is no greater joy than raising a child, there are tons of other people who just, to quote, go „ flbbbbth“ when asked about their next steps or, god forbid, their life plan. I would say I fall in the latter camp, but I don’t mind because I think there is nothing wrong with that. I let myself be guided by the things I need to be happy (more on that later) and by current necessities – if my job becomes shit, I need to find a new job. If a friendship goes sour, I need to end it respectfully. But I couldn’t tell you specific career or personal goals, except...

... let’s talk about the „later“ now.

I’m an organizer, maybe even a worrier, and therefore I like lists. And for that reason I made a list a while ago that I still have and expect to keep for a long time. It is a list of everything that I need to be satisfied with my life. It consists of 29 entries and has three of them checked, though several others could be counted as half-checked. I wrote down everything that came to mind, paying no attention whether it was reasonable or feasible to want. That wasn’t the question.

It covers stuff like a clean flat (not checked), restful sleep (not checked), friends that I see regularly (checked) or a job with purpose (not checked). This list is my guide. Well, generally my needs are my guide, but it can be hard to be aware of your needs sometimes, so I got this list. And if I wonder what I need or want to focus on, I can turn to it and choose one of the entries and see what I can do about it. I can also look over the list every few years and see if things have developed in the right direction. Little progress is no reason to chastise myself, but helpful information to see whether I need to re-direct my focus.

Please note that I wrote „satisfied“, not „happy“. Being happy is a passing emotional state. It is completely normal and okay not to be happy all the time. But quiet satisfaction with where you are or where you are going, that is pretty achievable. It certainly is a process, but an enjoyable one.

This list is not a race and it is not really a to-do list because most of the things I wrote down aren’t easy to accomplish with a single action. They take months and years and, for some items, I can only try and hope it works out some day (see anybody who ever purposely looked for a partner).

So maybe this kind of list could be an exercise for you. Maybe it provides you with some insight, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s not the right point in your life. But if you sit down and the only thing you can come up with is „cry forever“ or „sleep forever“ then, you know, that’s a sign.

Which brings me to my next point: Journaling or automatic writing. This method is especially helpful for those „I feel some kind of way and I couldn’t even tell you how“ moments – so maybe exactly where you are right now. Captain Akward has introduced me to a website called „750 words“ and I’ve used the principle of „morning pages“, though not the website, since then whenever I felt like some emotions were starting to boil over.

I sit down, ideally in the morning, and just barf it all on the (digital) page. There are only two rules: 1) Don’t edit or judge yourself, write everything as it comes to mind (that’s the automatic writing part) and 2) Don’t stop before you’ve reached 750 words. You are not looking to write anything readable or clever or lyrical, you’re looking to get all the weirdness out so you can move on. Repeat this as many days as you feel queasy or weird or confused or angry or sad. Each day, as soon as you’ve reached the 750 words, you can walk away. Heck, you could even delete/burn the document if that feels right. It’s just about giving your thoughts the room they need so you can continue with your day, hopefully feeling somewhat relieved.

While we’re at writing, I also have a question for you: Where is the pressure coming from to „do something with your life“? Is it truly coming from inside you or are there outside factors? Are people in your life asking you when you’ll have kids? Do you live in a culture where it’s expected that everybody does something of note, works certain prestigious jobs? Do you compare yourself to the people around you and feel like you’re „late“?

Maybe mull this over on a leisurely walk or write about it, using the method above. No matter where it’s coming from, the feeling of pressure won’t go away just by knowing its origin, but the knowledge can help you keep it under control. And if you find it is truly your own wish, you will have tools to shape your life according to your needs.

So, next, sleep: Maybe do that?

You wrote "I'd like to sleep for a month, maybe longer". I understand this was half a joke, but also … it was probably more than a joke.

How are your energy levels? How does life feel? Are you trying to jog through jello most of these days?

If we’ve been overachievers or had a tough home life or needed to take care of ourselves pretty early, we can become accustomed to everything being difficult. This feeling and behavior can become a way of life, even when circumstances change and we have a chance to act differently.

Do you feel rested? Do you have regular moments of quiet in your life that let you breathe? If not, this is where I would start. Forget about lists, though morning pages might be a helpful accompanying tool (if they don’t become a task to punish yourself with if you don’t find the energy).

Take some weeks or months, maybe even a year to make rest your priority. You will have to find a way that works for you. Yes there is a lot of clinically proven stuff out there, but you will not see me do yoga or meditate. Though feel free if that’s up your alley. If you love cycling or taking photos or drawing or just plain lying on your bed and staring at the wall, see where you can add more of that to your day. Whatever brings you closer to yourself and makes you feel like you can exhale and stand still for a moment, that’s the way to go. Do this as long as sleeping seems like a fine choice. And for good measure maybe a month longer. You are ready to stop when you cannot wait to do something else goddamnit I’m bored!!! (you might say)

If you are in this picture, please start here. Any kind of life plan, next steps, strategizing, solving of riddles would set you back and perpetuate your exhaustion. Rest is not time wasted, rest is how you get your life back.

If you are in this picture, you will likely find that if you really pull through, if you truly rest, as long and boring or even scary as it may be, the other questions will probably have an intuitive answer afterwards. Not like „this is my 20-year career plan“, but „I feel like doing x this week“. And that is enough. Because you won’t need to strain to hear your needs through the fog of exhaustion anymore.

Finally, some practical information and links for when you do have the energy and inclination to tackle your job and social life. I am not saying you need to change anything if that’s not what you want to focus on. These are just some tips, in case they become relevant.

For your social life, I recommend what others have recommended before me: Pick an activity that you do with other people and stick with it long enough to become a familiar face, see also here and here (yes, meeting gay people is similar to meeting other people). If you try out new stuff, go there at least 5 or 6 times before you decide it’s not for you – of course assuming nothing bad is coming up like racist or abusive people in the group. Shop around if the first group/activity doesn’t work for you until you find something that you’d like to do permanently. Maybe you’ll gain some friends, maybe you’ll find a romantic opportunity. In any case, if it’s something fun that you like to do anyway, you will have found an outlet with a social group attached. It is absolutely not as easy right now, with Covid and all, but if nothing outdoors-y comes to mind, you could also use this time to brainstorm what sounds like fun for when things are safer again.

Of course you can also look at opportunities online, like Discord servers, online interest groups etc but I do understand if that’s just not appealing right now. I am certainly over sitting in front of a screen.

To round this up, don’t sneeze at contacts that you already have. Are there acquaintances, friends of friends, colleagues, family members who you would like to get to know better? Then go do that! Suggest a time and place to meet up and see how they react. Say yes to the potential friends.

Speaking of which...

The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes might also be interesting. Sure, it’s a little pop culture positive thinking kinda stuff, but I did like the impulse it gave me to consider when I say no to opportunities out of anxiety or worry. It made me accept some social invitations from colleagues (… in the before times) that I would not have otherwise considered. I did not gain life-long friends, but I did learn another valuable info: That my FOMO wasn’t justified for these events ;)

It also lead me to the decision to do one new thing every month – visit a new place or try a new activity or cook a new food. If the concept sounds appealing, just think about what sounds interesting and achievable to you.

And finally, the advice blog recommendations that I’ll always have. For social life, love life, and general life planning turmoil: Captain Awkward. For everything job-related, including how to write a good cover letter or interview well and, of course, how to get out of the dreaded current job you have: Ask A Manager.

To sum it up:

1) Figure out if you even have the energy to tackle any of this right now.

2) Figure out your pillars for a satisfying life – nothing big and shiny, just … basic needs, wishes, social needs.

3) When you feel like it, pick what you want to tackle next and see where it leads you.

4) Stay flexible. This is your life and it’s okay to go where it takes you, even if it doesn’t look „cool“ or „impressive“ from the outside. All you need is to make it your own.

And if you want to, let me know how it goes some time. :)

[m-u-n-c-h-y]

Arthur and Abigail’s Relationship

To piggyback off of my Eliza Hot Take post, I have another fan theory/ramblings about the very interesting relationship between Arthur and Abigail. And no it’s not because they’re my guilty ship okay...

Everyone likes to talk about Arthur’s journal entry that appears at the “A Fisher of Men” mission. It’s a nice touch, in that, it establishes their close relationship and why Abigail trusts Arthur more than anyone to look after Jack.

However, everyone also has to take a second glance when Arthur writes about how he should have married Abigail. And while my guilty shipper heart would love to go down angst lane, let me be clear that my feelings towards this statement are similar to the last post I made.

Just like with Eliza, I don’t think it was out of romantic love.

Personally, I think a large part of Arthur caring for Abigail and Jack the way he does, is very much connected to Eliza and Isaac and his own guilt surrounding them. One could easily find this in canon and draw some parallels between Eliza and Abigail. Such as their young ages when they became pregnant (Eliza at 19 and Abigail at 17/18), or their status of being mostly single mothers with complicated relationships with the father of their children.

Now to make sure this doesn’t go off track, I’ll try to be focusing mostly on Arthur and Abigail’s relationship rather than Arthur and Jack’s. We can easily draw the Jack/Isaac parallel... because there is only one parallel. We know virtually nothing about Isaac except that he’s Arthur’s son, we really can’t draw too much between the two, but we at least know that Arthur definitely cares about Jack a lot, and a lot of that most likely stemmed from Isaac.

Anyway...

I believe that Arthur took a special interest in Abigail’s well being when everyone in camp found out about her pregnancy. Most likely because it brought up old memories of Eliza. And I can imagine Abigail being somewhat surprised by Arthur’s sudden helpfulness, but not being completely opposed by it due to her own lack of knowledge and understanding of motherhood, something no one is really prepared for honestly, but Arthur having experience, would help.

And when Jack’s born, the fact that Arthur actually knows how to handle a baby, unlike any of the other members of camp, is a weight off of Abigail’s shoulders (now whether she’s aware of Arthur having had a child isn’t stated in canon, and I personally think she didn’t as it seems Arthur never talks about Eliza and Isaac). She would have appreciated his help especially when John seems to be so... absent, both emotionally and physically. And probably set a high bar for how a father should act in Abigail’s head. Poor John didn’t stand a chance.

But really, I believe Arthur was doing all this for more than a little selfish reasons.

As I mentioned in my Eliza Hot Take post, Arthur would have carried over the guilt and bitterness of not being there for Eliza and Isaac as much as he should of. That his misunderstanding of Eliza’s rejection for marriage, culminated in even more self-loathing. And later, when they died, Arthur would’ve blamed himself for their deaths, for not being there like a father/man of the family should. The associated guilt, bitterness, and self loathing, coupled with the similarities between Eliza and Abigail I pointed out earlier, probably made him subconsciously start associating Eliza with Abigail, and after Jack was born, with Isaac. 

Essentially, replacing them. 

I think he saw Abigail and Jack as a means to make up for past mistakes at first. To be there for them like he hadn’t for Eliza and Isaac. And thanks to John’s disinterest in taking responsibility, it was rather easy for him to form a trusting and close bond with Abigail.

When John leaves, Arthur is obviously bitter about it, as he views it as an unforgivable act that he himself committed against Eliza and Isaac, which he believed got them killed. But I also think Arthur saw it as an opportunity to fulfill a want he’s had since maybe even before getting Eliza pregnant. To have a family of his own. 

So, Arthur began making advances without realizing it. Yes, he had the intention to marry Abigail for a brief time, probably convinced it was to do right by her, something Arthur failed to do with Eliza because Eliza straight up rejected that notion. That Arthur was trying to insert himself as a father/husband figure into Abigail and Jack’s life, due to the guilt and bitterness he harbored and this need to make up for it. To get Eliza and Isaac to stop haunting him. However, I don’t think he was consciously aware that that’s what he was doing. 

But, unfortunately for him, I think Abigail caught on, and being the “ride or die” kind of woman that rejected every man that tried to do the same after John ran off with his tail between his legs (her pov not mine), she rejected him too. And she rejected him just like she had rejected all the others, in that very blunt but very honest way that she does. Not that she does it to be cruel, but because, like Eliza, she cares about Arthur. That she doesn’t want to cause them more pain later down the line because they got together for the wrong reasons.

Personally, I imagine the scenario rather vividly, so this can be taken as my own version of how that rejection when down. You know... for funsies~

I can imagine Arthur taking Abigail and Jack out on a picnic of some sort as a little break from camp. It’s a nice day and the three are having a genuinely nice time for once, as the mounting frustration of camp duties and John leaving have been hitting them hard. When Jack waddles off within eye shot, Arthur makes a rather promiscuous comment about how Abigail hasn’t found a new man yet, sense at the time, it seems rather obvious that John doesn’t want to come back. There’s also this underlying tone of Arthur asking her why she hasn’t chosen him. A subtle thing that Abigail picks up on, because she’s seen it before while working as a prostitute.

And without missing a beat, she turns to him, looks him right in the eye, and says, “Mr. Morgan, I like you plenty. But I got this feelin’ that whenever you look at me, you’re lookin’ at someone else.”

And that... shatters Arthur. 

It’s not the rejection that hurts initially, but the fact that Abigail made Arthur keenly aware of the fact that he was basically replacing Eliza and Isaac with Abigail and Jack. And as a result, even more guilt and self-loathing sprang up. Leaving him bitter at himself for thinking he could even do that and think it was okay. At Abigail for ripping that bandaid off so viciously (he can’t stay bitter at her for long, but sometimes it reers up without him meaning to). And, of course, even more bitter at John for having a woman like Abigail, for having that love he has craved for so long, but hasn’t gotten.

[creaturebloom]

the end of things

so in october of last year i ended my incredibly intense and all-consuming relationship with crush man. it was the right thing to do.

i was more open on twitter abt like all the things that happened, negatively speaking, but i know at least a few people were somewhat invested in this story so here is my final thoughts on things

crush man was ... great, until he wasn’t anymore. we were very close and i very much loved him, and as we know he did not feel the same. after that things really started to change. before that things were not always so great. i felt angry a lot and didn’t know why.

the thing of it is, when you spend a lot of time around someone who is angry, it makes you into someone who is angry.

once he moved back to the states it was ... strange. a quick spiral, let’s say, downwards.

it was a relief once he got a job and was busy all the time. it was a relief and i remember those months before thinking to myself that i only had to hold out a little longer. that i only had to wait it out and then we would just drift apart and that would be fine. i would be fine with that.

that did not happen.

a few months in he quit his job and by this time i had gotten, for once, back into my own life. i realized how much i had been missing out on. how much freedom i experienced in those months when he was working was more than i’d had in the last year and a half.

i no longer felt compelled and obligated to spend all of my time with him. i no longer felt the sincere need to work my schedule around his, and always, always make plans that involved him. and this filled me with an extreme sense of guilt, which is something i have always struggled with. guilt.

the signs were always there. he was always controlling, and he was always manipulative, only i didn’t know it then. maybe he got worse at hiding it, or maybe i started paying more attention.

at some point during the course of our relationship to one another i came across the book “why does he do that?” about abusive men, and i didn’t read it then because i thought it would only make me anxious, because i thought it would only put ideas in my head. the truth of it is that i was scared to have my anxieties confirmed. i was scared that he was being emotionally abusive.

but i loved him, you know? i really did.

and i felt responsible. i felt so responsible for him. if he was having a bad day, it was my fault. if he got upset over something, it was my fault. if i could just do things the right way and listen to him enough, well, then things would be fine, wouldn’t they? i could calm him down. i could help him work through whatever recent crises he was having, of which there were many.

the thing about angry people, though, is that eventually they turn that anger on you. no matter what, they do it. you become available and easy to target. the easiest target, maybe.

it’s hard because it’s hard to recognize abuse when it’s scattered with good things. when it comes cloaked in a personality that makes you laugh so hard your face hurts. when it is disguised as someone who genuinely cares for you. i’m not saying he didn’t care for me. he did, in his own way, i’m sure. he cared for me the way someone cares for the person they think is going to save them.

he drowned me, the way someone drowning clings to their savior, the one that is foolish enough to get into the water and swim out to them.

but you can’t save someone who is drowning that does not want to be saved. he did not want to be saved. he did not really want my help. he would ask for my advice, wrap himself up in my assurances, and do nothing. he would do nothing to change his situation though he had all the means to do it.

it was hard, often. going back through this tag sometimes i wonder if i really wrote these things. if i really felt that way. i know that i did. i know that i wrote often of our closeness and how i had never felt so comfortable with someone. but that didn’t last. not really.

i became wholly uncomfortable, but didn’t quite realize it. i was afraid to do anything that he might not like, even when he wasn’t around. because he would get so mad about things, such little things. i died in a game once, and he got mad about it. i didn’t follow his exact instructions, and he would get mad about it.

i tried to, over video chat, help him to build his computer, which i had picked out all the parts for because he could not or would not do it. he got mad because i wasn’t understanding a question he had. he got so frustrated about it all. i told him i’d never done it before, never built a computer, but he still got so mad at me, like it was my fault for even trying to help him.

other things, worse things, but i don’t want to speak of those. just always he was angry. at me, at his family, at his life. maybe at himself. perhaps mostly at himself.

how do you help someone who has been traumatized? how do you help someone who turns that trauma into rage? who feeds off of it, who cannot let it go, who uses it as a reason to be the way they are? maybe that’s unfair to level at him. maybe he didn’t want to be that way. maybe he didn’t want to be so angry all the time. but he was. he was and he was angry at me and i don’t know why.

far in enough and i wasn’t allowed to have other friends. i wasn’t really allowed to have anything to myself. he wanted to insert himself into every aspect of my life all over again, but i had stopped being in love with him a long time before this. i think i resented him.

he wanted everything to go back to how it was when we met, but that wasn’t going to happen. i was doing things, living my own life, accomplishing things i had not been able to do for almost two years at this point. because he took up all of my time. an obsession. we were, without a doubt, obsessed with each other.

it was not healthy from the get-go. i didn’t know it then but i know it now.

he was unkind to me, moreso in those last months. the last time we spoke he basically threatened to do some irreparable harm to himself, all because i was not spending enough time with him.

he asked if i would just try. if i would just try to save him. over and over and i said no. i said no and could not bring myself to say that i had been trying. that i had been trying so hard and for so long. i could not bring myself to tell him that he did not want to be saved.

that’s the other thing, really. you can’t save someone. you can help them to save themselves, surely you can, but you can’t do it on your own. changing someone’s life only works if they’re willing to make changes, too. he was not willing.

i tried too hard and for too long to make our relationship something that worked for the both of us. establish healthy boundaries, and all that. he hated it. he absolutely hated it and he resented me for taking my life back.

see the thing is, he loved, loved, loved the fact that he was the center of my life. but i was not the center of his. not by any means. if he didn’t contact me for a week it was “sorry, i lost track of time” and that sad little voice. apologies. he apologized so many times for so many things, and i always forgave him.

but if i wasn’t around, it was a crisis. it was unforgivable that i not be there for him when he needed me. and i felt that. i felt guilty all the fucking time for it.

that’s what emotional abusers do, though. they make you feel guilty for not doing what they want. they make you feel like you’re the bad guy here. it was my fault, of course, always, for everything.

the funny thing is that he once told me that he’d been in abusive relationships, both sides of them. he meant physical, i’m sure, but i don’t think he realized what he was doing to me also counted as abuse. and it does. i can admit that now.

did i have a bit of stockholm syndrome going on? i don’t know. i definitely had a guilt complex. i definitely thought that all the good things we had between us were worth the awful things. they were not worth it, it turns out.

earlier today i read a post somewhere that was sort of humorous but it boiled down to “pretty sure your soulmate isn’t the guy making you cry every day”

that was me !! i was crying every day ! all the time !

i thought he was going to fucking kill himself. i thought if i didn’t behave a certain way or do things just how he wanted, he would kill himself. he would get so upset sometimes, truly he would, and i didn’t know what to do about any of it.

anyway this post is very long. i’m still processing, i guess, these four months later.

our last phone conversation was awful. he woke me up and immediately started crying and ranting. the point of it was, though he did not say so many words, that i was not spending enough time with him. that he was so upset because he missed me. no. that’s what he thought the truth was, maybe, that was what he had convinced himself of.

the truth was that he could not stand to be alone, and i was the fool willing to put up with him. in my journals there are many entries where i refer to myself as his companion animal, and it truly felt that way sometimes.

it didn’t matter that i was me. it only mattered that he wasn’t alone. it only mattered that there was someone willing to take all of his shit and all of his anger and all of his abuse and put up with it. because i loved him. because i didn’t follow my gut and leave much earlier. because i thought there was good in him.

and there is. good, i mean. there is good in him. the thing that makes it so confusing when you’re inside a relationship like that is the good parts. if it was only ever bad, well, i would not have stayed. who would? but there were good parts. you can read about them.

anyway, after this final phone conversation i wrote him a letter and very maturely and delicately explained things to him, and that i was leaving. i blocked or deleted him on everything, except for email. i said that if he had something to say to me it was only fair, and he could write me. he never did.

he tried to call a few times, but i set his number to go straight to voicemail. he never left a message. i have heard of him, through a mutual friend. he seems better now, so has been said. i hope that’s true. i hope he’s doing better.

but i cannot speak with him and i will not put myself in that position again.

my favorite way to phrase it is: i don’t want to talk badly of him, but also fuck that guy.

[hendratds]

Religious Robots

Esh’s Dream Journal: Entry 4

Bringing this back, because why not. But this time, I’m writing it all out in a full fic. Warning, this is a long post (it was 22 pages long in Word)

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The following is a recalling of a dream I had. This is by no means meant to be accurate. Characters are guaranteed to act OOC and events are sure to be jumbled and will make no sense. After all, this is a dream and not a well thought out fic. But anyway, enjoy!

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             When I fell into the deep void of sleep, I had a very strong feeling that things were about to so into weird dream town. As the world of reality faded and I felt myself diving into the deep abyss that is the mind, I started hearing something. It sounded like rain drumming against the roof of a car. There was no engine running, but I felt like I was sitting in a car seat.

           When I finally opened my eyes, I was indeed in a car. It looked like the inside of a Jeep Cherokee. No memories of my life in reality were present. All I knew was my name and my powers from my imagination world.

           I was wrapped in a soft blanket (that I later remember to be a larger version of my childhood kiddy blanket), seated in the passenger side of the car. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how I got here. After a few moments of contemplation, I sat up and began examining my surroundings in more detail.

           There was no one else in the car. The keys were in the ignition but were not turned. There were no decorations other than the plush toy bunny hanging from the rear-view mirror. After freeing myself from the softness that was my blanket, I grabbed the car keys and exited the vehicle, determined to find out where I was and what to do. When I got out, there was no rain. Had I imagined the rain? Was it a part of a radio broadcast? I don’t know.

           I found myself on the outskirts of a city. To the back of the car was a large, towering cityscape. The buildings rose up into the sky, and the silver and glass made it shine in the setting sun. The sky showed it to be nearing dusk. A clear day, with the sun setting behind the buildings and giving the city an almost ethereal glow.

           To the front of my car, down the road I was parked on, was a flat plain with no end in sight. The road went straight into the horizon, which showed no faraway structures. I could only guess that it was a vast meadow with no real end. The next settlement must be far away.

           As I twirled the keys around, trying to decide on my next course of action, I hear a voice.

           “Hey! Over here!”

           Startled, I turned to see someone approaching. A tall young man with silver hair and bright aqua eyes. I recognized him almost instantly as Riku from Kingdom Hearts. He was wearing the attire he wore within the game Dream Drop Distance. He was waving at me and jogging to approach.

           I waved back, of course. I couldn’t just be the broody girl on the side of the road. When Riku reached me, he spoke again.

           “Hey, are you okay with giving me a lift?” he asked. “I need to get to the next big city,”

           “Of course!” I replied. “Though… I can’t guarantee I’ll know the way. I mean, I don’t even know where I am right now,”

           “What do you mean?” Riku asked.

           “I kinda just… woke up here?” I looked up into the darkening sky, squinting my eyes as I try to find the right words to describe my situation. “I don’t really remember much of what I was doing before this, but I do know that I just woke up in this car. I don’t know where I am or what to do,”

           Riku seemed to take a moment to take in what I said. He looked like he wanted to ask a question but couldn’t find the words. He also seemed concerned, as if my situation was something he was familiar with.

           “I mean, if it’s a straight shot down this road, I could probably take you there. I know the basics of how the drive,” I continued, my memories of only having one driving lesson in a run down parking lot evading my mind. “Maybe it’ll also help me remember what happened to me,”

           “Maybe,” Riku replied. “Do you know anything else?”

           “I know who you are,” I said immediately. This caught him off guard, as he seemed to tense up a little. “Like, I don’t know why I know who you are,” I added quickly. “I know your name is Riku, and I know of Sora and your journey with King Mickey and all that. I don’t know why I know, but I do,”

           Riku didn’t respond. I can only guess it was from being on guard. I could see why, though. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to respond if someone was telling me the same thing.

           “My name is Esh, I know that,” I said. “I’m not sure I can really remember much else except my powers, but I’m not too sure if I can use them or not. I don’t know my situation,”

           “Perhaps… You can test them out?” Riku said slowly, as if he was unsure whether or not to say it. “We’re in a rather big field right now, after all,”

           “That is true,” I nodded, looking down at my hand and flexing my fingers into a fist a couple times. For a moment, there was a bout of silence. Riku seemed to be sizing me up, wondering if I was a threat or not. Given the information presented, I’m not surprised he was on his guard. I decided to take the bull by the horns.

           “I… I think I can understand that hearing me say I know about you and stuff would come off as… untrustworthy. I’m pretty sure I raised a lot of red flags,” I told him. His eyes widened, as if he wasn’t expecting me to address this. “I don’t know how to prove it to you, but I can assure you that I’m telling the truth. I really have no idea how I got here or where I am. And frankly, I just want to find out what happened. And if helping you is what I need to do, then I’ll do it,”

           After my speech, I stood up straight and sighed. I really didn’t like making speeches like this. I was always afraid of messing up my words. I’m glad I was able to get it out without any hassle.

           “I see,” I heard Riku mumble. My head shot up to face him. He was deep in thought, his arms crossed and fingers on his chin. “If you really have lost your memories like it seems, then perhaps I can help. Where I’m going should be a place that can help you,”

           “Really?” I asked. I found myself smiling with relief. I really didn’t like being kept in the dark about this stuff. “Thank you, Riku. I mean it,”

           “It’s the least I can do, since you’re offering to take me on a road trip,” Riku replied. “It’ll be a long drive. Are you up for it?”

           “I’ve sat in a car for an entire day, for three days before. I can handle this,” I responded, giving my chest a light punch. “Ah, but… I do still need to test if I can use my powers. I don’t want to be a burden in battle, you know?”

           “What powers do you have?” Riku asked as we began making our way away from the car and towards the open grassland.

           “I have an elemental control over something called Atomic Fire,” I explained. “It’s a really bright blue fire that sparks a lot and explodes on contact with… anything really,”

           For a moment, I almost began explaining to him my powers over Darkness as the Incarnation of Darkness. But knowing his experience with the dark, I kept my mouth shut on that. I probably wouldn’t need those powers anyway.

           “Really?” Riku tilted his head a little. “Sounds pretty useful for area damage,”

           “When you have a lot of control over the energy of it, you can do a lot of things,” I explained. “I can use the heat and energy from the fire to create a strong laser beam, I can set things on fire without it exploding, I can use it’s power to give myself a speed and power boost… It took a lot of training and a special artifact to help me learn all I could about it,”

           “Well, let’s see if you can do it,” Riku gestured to the open pasture. There were not animals from what I could see. I stepped forward and breathed in. I really hoped I could use my element. I didn’t want to look like a fool in front of my favorite Kingdom Hearts character by dancing like a drunken pelican.

           I closed my eyes and searched for the unstable heat I had grown to know, deep within my Being. I opened my eyes and swung a hand back, fingers clenched like I was holding a baseball and arm ready to fling forward as if I was throwing one. I swung my arm forward, and out came a wave of sparking, scorching hot blue. The Atomic Fire raced out of my hand and into the air, quickly igniting the oxygen and exploding out like a missile.

           The blast startled me, and I found myself jumping back as the explosion flattened the grass and scorched the ground in front of me. The flames soon turned into black smoke, rising up from the aftermath. I turned to Riku, who looked just as startled, if not more, as I was.

           “Well… I guess it works!” I said as the resonating boom faded like rolling thunder.

           “That is some power,” Riku told me. “I’m sure nothing would stand a chance against that,”

           “Well, it’s only if I can do anything to them,” I replied, shaking my hand out. “You fight Dream Eaters, Heartless, and Nobodies. Heartless and Nobodies? Yeah, I think I’d be able to do that. But Dream Eaters? I don’t know,”

           “They are a tricky bunch,” Riku agreed. “But you never know until you try. If we run into any Nightmares, I’ll take care of them,”

           “If my fire doesn’t work on them, that is!” I told him with a wagging finger. “But your Keyblade is one nifty weapon. I’m sure we’ll be safe,”

           “I agree,” Riku said. “Now, shall we go? It’s better to go before the sun completely sets,”

           “Agreed,” I followed Riku back to the car. This time, he took the passenger seat and I took to the drivers seat. I started up the car, we buckled up like good people, and began driving down the road.

           “It is basically just a straight shot,” Riku explained. “This road directly connects the two cities,”

           “If I may ask, what’s in the next city?” I asked him. “You know, the reason why you’re going there?”

           “Well- Ah, you said already know about what happened… The keyhole for this world is in the next city. I need to get there to unlock it,” Riku explained.

           “So, this is a slumbering world, I guess?” I pondered. Riku nodded, responding with a mhm! before continuing.

           “Master Yen Sid told me and Sora that we needed to enter the Sleeping Realm,” Riku explained. “It took a couple of tries for Sora to get into it. I think this is my second attempt. I found Nightmares in the city behind us, so I can only guess that I made it,”

           “For your Mark of Mastery Exam, right?” I asked.

           “Yeah,” Riku said.

           “It must be so cool to be a Keyblade wielder,” I said, leaning back onto my seat. “I mean, I get all the training and discipline and experience, but I’d choose that over my life before I woke up here. It’s pretty boring,”

           “You can control an explosive fire, how is your life boring?” the silver haired boy asked me.

           “Well, I do remember that I was kinda stuck in a way,” I began explaining. Memories of my fantasy situations in reality came forth, but I believed them to be reality. “I’m not sure how, but I was stuck in full human form, all my powers locked away. My current theory is that I was blasted back in time and forced to live a human life. Frankly, it’s getting a little tiresome,”

           A paused for a moment. “I guess this is a little breath of fresh air. I can use my powers again, but it looks like I’m still in human form,”

           “What form are you usually?” Riku asked.

           “Well, it’s a little complicated,” I said, watching the passing scenery as we went down the road. “I’m about… less than 25 percent human? The rest is alien, alien deity, and Primordial. It’s all really confusing. I don’t even understand it totally yet,”

           “That does sound confusing,” Riku told me, though I could tell he didn’t fully believe me. To which I could understand.

           “It’s all really jumbled,” I sighed. “It would take an entire book series to explain it all,”

           “Well, we have time. Explain away,” Riku assured me.

           I took a good three hours explaining my origin story from my fantasy worlds. The sky turned black with the night and the stars shone like there was no light pollution. Riku was an amazing listener and asked plenty of questions. I also caved in and explained to him my powers over darkness. At the end, he nodded in understanding.

           “What is your… opinion on Darkness?” he asked me. “I know you have powers over it and were born into it… but what do you think about it?”

           “It’s a part of our existence,” I answered with full confidence. “Dark. Light. It makes up everything that we know. Darkness isn’t evil. And Light isn’t good. It’s what a person does with it that matters,”

           “I… I didn’t think about that,” Riku said after a moment of silence.

           “Balance is… What I strive for,” I added. “I know a perfect balance is impossible, but I do try to keep it as centered as possible in my life. Because tipping the balance is never a good idea,”

           “I do agree with that,” Riku said, staring off into the dark sky.

           “It’s pretty late. Why not get some sleep?” I offered to the Keyblade wielder. “I just woke up, technically,”

           “That sounds good,” Riku said. He shifted into a more comfortable position and began to doze off. I leaned into my seat and let my mind wonder while still focusing on the road. It was a lot to take in at the time. I woke up in a weird car, in a strange place, with my powers back. It was so ethereal it didn’t feel like it should’ve been real. It was kind of ironic.

           I didn’t know how long it would take to actually make it to the next city. I hoped it wasn’t too long, as I was getting hungry. After a good long while of driving, I saw something up ahead. It was a rest stop. The brightening sky showed that the sun was on its way to rising. Slowing down, I turned into the rest stop and parked. I then turned to Riku.

           “Hey, Riku,” I called, shaking his shoulder. He started, looking up and around as if disoriented.

           “We stopped?” he asked, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

           “At a rest stop,” I confirmed. “We don’t know how long it’ll be until we reach the next city. Might as well stock up on some food while we’re here,”

           “Good idea,” Riku said. We exited the car in unison and entered the rather fancy looking rest stop building. The inside was dressed with marble and carved stone, with silver chandeliers hanging from the pointed ceiling. I found myself gazing around at the décor, wondering if I should take a picture for future reference for my drawings. As I looked around, I heard one of the vending machines vend something. Switching my gaze from the room to the machine, I saw Riku grabbing a couple of drinks.

           “Here,” he held one out to me. I couldn’t discern the label. It was a brand I had never seen before, but I took it nonetheless.

           “Thanks!” I replied. Opening it, I took a swig. It tasted like a citrus soda, with a hint of Mountain Dew. It was really good.

           “Ah, that’s good. Lemme get us some breakfast,” I said, pointing to the other vending machine that was filled with snacks. “Any preferences?”

           “Just no sour stuff,” Riku told me. I took out my wallet, but Riku stopped me from taking any money out. “Watch this,” he said.

           Summoning his Keyblade, Riku punched in the number of what he wanted and then proceeded to hit the side of the machine with his weapon. The vending machine then proceeded to vend out the wanted product.

           “Whoa,” I said. “I didn’t know that Keyblades could do that,”

           “I didn’t either until now,” Riku responded. We proceeded to get one of each item and three of each of our favorite snacks.

           “If I can down this,” I was holding a large chunk of black licorice. “In one bite, then you have to drive,”

           “That stuff is horrible,” Riku looked disgusted at the mere thought of eating it. “I highly doubt you’ll win that bet,”

           “You wanna wager?” I said before stuffing the black candy into my mouth. It tasted like burning rubber and NyQuil, and I nearly gagged it back up. But I kept a straight face (Lord Chaos knows how I did that), and then swallowed it. Riku looked stunned.

           “Did… Okay, I guess I’m driving,” Riku said. I silently tossed him the keys and took a deep breath. He caught the keys, and then stepped forward to look at my face. “Are you okay?” he asked.

           “That shit was horrendous,” I said in an overly dramatic voice and as blank of a face as I could keep. The result was worth it. I grinned as Riku chuckled, clearly amused by my antics. Mission accomplished: make Riku laugh.

           “Hey, let’s see if there a map somewhere,” I said, slinging the bag of snacks over my shoulder. “That way we can get a better grasp of how far away our final stop is,”

           “Sounds good,” Riku agreed.

           We looked around the building and found no map. There was no other floor other than the ground floor, and I wasn’t one for acrobatics. Riku made sure to check above in the rafters for some reason. The walls were bare of any map or indication of a map’s whereabouts. I thought maybe there was a map somewhere outside?

           “Hey, I’mma go check if there are any maps outside!” I called up to Riku.

           “Wait! What if Nightmares-” Riku called back, but I had already turned and exited out the door.

           The air outside was crisp and clear like it was in the winter, yet it wasn’t cold. It was quite warm, but a comfortable warm. Like the kind of warm you would feel when you’re wrapped up in a blanket.

           I looked around the front of the building. Through the window, I saw Riku jump down from the rafters and onto the floor. He raced out of the building and to me.

           “Hey, don’t just go wondering off like that,” he said.

           “Sorry, I thought it was a good idea,” I said, not feeling much remorse or guilt. “You know, splitting up to cover more ground?”

           “Nightmares could appear anywhere,” Riku argued. “We need to stick together in case they ambush us,”

           I placed my hand up in surrender as Riku wagged an accusing finger at me, as if he was scolding a child for breaking the movie the parent’s had planned to watch that same night.

           “Okay, okay!” I said. “Lead the way then,”

           Riku gave me a curt nod of approval, then began leading me around the building. We checked the right side first, which consisted of a few cobblestone columns and flat marble walls. Using the parkour skills I had apparently developed, I climbed the cobblestone and checked the roof. Riku followed close behind.

           As I examined the shingles, I noticed a tall chimney that reached four or five times higher than the actual rest stop building. I thought to myself Hey, maybe I can try and get a better vantage point from up there!, and began to climb. The chimney was made of a reflective metal that crunched easily in my hands, allowing me to create hand and foot holds for myself as I climbed. The actual structure of the chimney didn’t seem affected by the dents I was creating, as it stood tall and proud and unmoving.

           Once I reached the top, I balanced myself into a one foot crouching position, holding on to the chimney with one hand as I shielded my eyes from the sun with my other. The plains were vast and ongoing. There weren’t even any trees or shrubs, it was just flat grassy land with no imperfections in the landscape.

           To the south I spotted the tiny dot of the city me and Riku left behind. It was so small that I almost didn’t notice it had I not checked the road. To the north, the road continued on. For a moment, I did not notice anything else until I squinted my eyes and saw the faint, foggy outline of buildings in the distance. They resembled skyscrapers.

           “Hey, Riku!” I called down.

           “Did you see anything?” Riku called up.

           “Yeah, I see a settlement up ahead!” I announced. I jumped down without a second thought, landing hard but unscathed. I dusted myself off. “Did you find anything?”

           “Yeah, I think I saw someone near the back of the building,” Riku responded. “Let’s go talk to them,”

           “Roger that!” I saluted, following Riku again as we hopped down from the roof and into the back of the rest stop.

           The back area was shaded my a large stone canopy, with benches sitting comfortably in the shade and two pill shaped garden beds under both corners of the awning. On one of the benches sat a middle aged man with a greying beard, a pipe hanging from his lips, a fishing hat on his head and fishing attire adorning his body. I wanted to question why a fisherman was out here in the middle of a pondless plain, but I knew I needed to focus on the task at hand.

           The man was holding and reading through a newspaper. He didn’t look up as me and Riku approached him.

           “Excuse me?” Riku started. The man did not move other than turning the page of his article of literature.

           “Uhm, hello? I need some directions,” Riku tried again, with no response once more. Riku looked to me, as if hoping I would step up. And step up I did, walking up to the mand and flicking his newspaper to get his attention. The man started violently, looking up at me with wide eyes.

           “Oh, I’m sorry!” he said. He had the voice of someone who had smoked a lot, as the voice was hoarse and gravely and it grated on my ears. “I get so distracted…”

           “It’s fine,” I say, taking a step back. “Sorry to startle you, but me and my friend here need some directions to…?”

           I turned to Riku, who nodded and aided me.

           “Satellite City,” Riku responded. “We’re heading to Satellite City. You wouldn’t happen to know how far it is, do you?”

           “Oh, that big town?” the man rubbed at his beard, as if it itched and he wanted to rip it off. “It’s a good three day drive if you’re coming from Crown City, to the south,”

           “That’s where we came from,” I say with a nod. “And what about the settlement just north of here? I saw some buildings,”

           “Oh…” the man seemed to shrink back and deflate, as if he was trying to hide away from the topic and mere thought of my question. “Regional Center. It’s a messed up place, kids. You best just drive pass it without lookin’ at it. It’s nothing but trouble,”

           “What do you mean?” Riku asked.

           “They used to be the most advanced settlement between the two main cities,” the man explained, his eyes darkening and his face growing solemn, as if he was dragging out a horrid memory. “But they’re under a new management, and since then the place has become akin to a cult haven,”

           “Is there anything else we should know?” I asked, my curiosity about this place growing by the second.

           “If you do end up stopping there… Don’t speak to anyone. Their words will crawl into your brain and never leave,” the man whispered.

           “Thank you, sir,” Riku said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I took that as a sign it was time to leave before things got weird. I gave the man a warm farewell, and we made out way back to the car.

           “Three days, huh?” I sighed, resting my head in my hands as I reached up to place them behind my head. “Well, we already got passed one night, so we have two and a half days to go,”

           “And we don’t have time to spare,” Riku said, making his way to the driver’s side of the car. “Get in, let’s go,”

           I got into the passenger’s seat and watched as Riku started up the car and began driving down the road. I eyed the silhouette of the town that was named Regional Center as it got closer and closer. It looked like a cluster of skyscrapers in the area of a small town that could barely fit 500 people.

           “I wonder how bad it really is,” I pondered out loud. “From technological prodigy to cult club haven? That’s a story waiting to be told,”

           “If they are in trouble, then maybe we do have to make a stop,” Riku commented. “Even then, we’re running low on gas. We need to stop to refill anyway,”

           “Oh, that sounds fun,” I drawled out sarcastically, rolling my eyes. “Let’s hope we don’t have to talk to anyone. I know how it feels to get words stuck in my head. It’s not fun,”

           Regional Center was, indeed, like a miniature city. The signpost that told that we were entering the town was old, rusty, and told of a population of under 500 people. As we drove around in search of a petrol station, I surveyed the land and the people. The people seemed okay, though their outfits looked to belong in America’s colony days. The buildings were mostly old and run down brick buildings. The tall skyscrapers with modern perks and designs seemed further down the road. The architecture was all over the place, giving the settlement a wacky aesthetic.

           “I can’t see one, you?” Riku asked, eyeing the people staring at us as we stopped at a stop light.

           “Nope. Perhaps we have to ask around?” I offered.

           “Good idea,” Riku agreed. After the light turned green, Riku exited the intersection and pulled to the side of the road. I rolled the window down and waved over a couple of old ladies. They hobbled up to me with identical smiles.

           “Excuse me, can you tell me where the nearest gas station is?” I asked them.

           “The only fuel you need is His grace,” the ladies said in perfect unison. “He shall make us human, like the Father promised us,”

           “He?” I asked. “And what do you mean human?”

           “The one called God,” said one of the old ladies. “We’re modern creations of men, with metal skin and electricity for blood. He will turn us to flesh and bone,”

           “Ooookay…?” I raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re all robots?”

           The ladies nodded.

           “And you believe that Christo will turn you in humans?”

           A synced nod.

           “That’s great. Can you please tell me where the nearest petrol station is?” I asked, wanting to end the conversation.

           “We already said-“ the ladies began, but Riku tapped my shoulder.

           “We can probably find it in that modern looking place,” Riku said to me. “Let’s look there,”

           “NO!” the old ladies screamed, bringing attention to our car from the surrounding automatons. “You mustn’t go where the sinners go!” the old women said, reaching to me. I quickly raised my window, and they knocked on it.

           “Sorry, but we’re trying to get to Satellite City. We need gas,” I told them as Riku began to pull away.

           “Don’t let them drag you down!” the ladies screamed. “They’ll doom you to the pit!”

           “Oh great, religious robots,” I mumbled, leaning back into my seat.

           “It’s quite weird, I’ll give it that,” Riku said with a nod. “I’ve seen some weird things, but this takes the cake,”

           “If I’m right…” I started. “If they call the modern place the place where sinners are, then that probably means the people there don’t follow the religious teachings. Extremists tend to outcast those who don’t agree with them,”

           “Do you think we’ll get more info on what’s going on from them, too?” Riku suggested.

           “Probably. Maybe we can even help them,” I offered with a mischievous grin. “You know, overthrow the corrupt extremists and save the town and become small town heroes?”

           “Your mind is weird,” Riku said. At that moment, I had a small jolt in my body. My mind was weird. My mind usually came up with weird things. Things as weird as this. I began looking around at things in more detail. Though I didn’t know why there was something buzzing in the back of my mind, I feel that this was the first hint of the true nature of this adventure.

           As we approached the towering silver buildings, the denizens were all waving at us and yelling, trying to tell us to turn around before we entered the territory we were heading towards. Some of the robots even tried to jump in front of our car, but Riku deftly dodged them and kept driving forward.

           Once the road went from gravel to asphalt, the people in the town behind us stopped yelling. They stared at us with unblinking eyes filled with sorrow, disappointment, and anger. Oh well for them, I thought.

           The modern part of the town was mostly desolate. No lights were on, the streets were empty, as plastic bags and paper flew around like modern day tumbleweeds. Riku pulled over and parked. I immediately climbed on top of the car and looked around, trying to see any movement.

           “Hello!” I called out, cupping my hands around my mouth to amplify my voice.

           “Hey-“ Riku looked ready to shush me, his brows furrowed. But I continued.

           “Is anyone there?” I called out. “We need some gas for our car!”

           My voice echoed off into the distance, bouncing off the buildings and fading away. There was a long pause, and then I saw movement in the buildings. All of the buildings. Metal heads began popping up, their eyes glowing blue and staring at us. Human shaped machines, looking more cybernetic than the robots of the older looking part of town, began emerging. They had silver and white plating for skin and black, wire covered indo-skeletons.

           “Over here,” came a heavily automated voice. Me and Riku turned to see a robot sporting a platinum blonde wig and wearing a scarf like a sash.

           “Hello!” I greeted as a slip down off the car and to Riku’s side.

           “Greetings,” the adorned robot said. “I’m glad you got through our counterpart’s territory. They can get drastic when it comes to stopping people from coming here,”

           “Well, I’m Riku. This is Esh,” Riku introduced us.

           “You may call me Andra,” the robot told us. “I am the… leader of these outcasts,”

           “If I may ask, what made you all outcasts?” I asked.

           “Before that, allow me to do you a favor,” Andra said. She turned to a group of five robots. “You, go and scavenge the gas from the petrol station for them,”

           The group wordlessly got up and began jogging away.

           “Thank you,” Riku said, watching the robots run towards their quest.

           “It’s no problem. Please, let us sit down,” Andra led me and Riku to the sidewalk, where some more cybernetics had laid down some blankets and milk crates for seats. I took to sitting up against the nearest building.

           “I’m sure you’ve heard, but our village was once the center for all technology,” Andra began as Riku sat down. “That is why a majority of the population is synthetic. However, the scientists once guided this town perished to disease. And in their place rose… the Father. He and his group quickly began spreading the words of their beliefs around. Now, this wasn’t a problem. We synthetics didn’t mind following the belief,”

           “So, what happened that made everything go downhill?” Riku asked.

           “It wasn’t long before the Father began preaching illogical things,” Andra said. “He told us that if we followed his word, the almighty would turn us human. He and his human followers had fed us all the wonders of being biological. We didn’t think anything of it until he began making us follow a mundane, repeating schedule. Wake up from recharging during the night, go to church, pray, and then sing to the heavens in hopes God will send an envoy to grant us true life. We were forbidden from diverging from this schedule,”

           “What happens if you do?” I asked them, leaning forward like an excited child listening to a campfire story.

           “We’re sent here, to the last remnants of the old days,” Andra responded. “We oppose the word of the almighty by opposing the Father’s word. Thus, we are banished here to rust away,”

           “You all don’t seem to be rusting,” Riku pointed out. Andra gave us a rather poor attempt of what seemed to be a smile.

           “The Father didn’t count of us being able to build charging stations and sustain ourselves,” the adorned robot said.

           “Maybe we can help?” I offered, earning a glance from Riku. I ignored him and continued. “Is there any way to talk to the Father?”

           “The Father is very set in his ways,” Andra said, shaking her head.

           “I can be very persuasive,” I assured Andra. “Here,” I stood up, placing my hands on my hips and standing proudly. “I’ll go talk to the Father. I’ll see if I can plant the seeds of doubt into the circuits of your brainwashed brethren by hitting them with logic,”

           “I hope you can,” Andra said. Riku stood as well.

           “I guess we’re doing this…” he said with a sigh. He shook her head and rubbed the area between his eyes with his knuckles, then looked to me. “In that case, I’ll stay here and work out a strategy for these robots. If Esh can talk to the Father into letting you guys back into their society, or something similar, then you will need some strategy of entering,”

           “I concur,” Andra said, standing up and extending a hand to each of us. Me and Riku shook her hand, which felt strangely warm for a hand made of metal.

           “Alright! Any idea where I can find the Father?” I asked, pumping my fists like an excited child.

           “You may find him at the church near the road,” Andra pointed to the northwest. “Today, the town should be gathering to sing chorus,”

           “Alright! Good luck, Riku. I’m off!” I said, and I turned to run back into the run-down part of the settlement. In order to save time, I leapt onto the building’s roofs and began jumping from roof to roof. The streets and sidewalks were now bare of any denizens, probably gathered at the church to sing.

           I closed the distance to the road and followed it north until I saw a red brick, rectangular building with a stone cross on each wall. I heard the echoes of singing automated voices coming from that building, so I could only conclude that it was the church.

           I hopped down from the roof and snuck around the building to the front. I slowly peeked around the corner and bore witness to the largest congregation of singing robots I had ever seen. They were all wearing block robes (except for those who resembled old women), and were throwing their voices up towards the sky. I stepped out of hiding and tried to wave at them, but they didn’t seem to notice me in the slightest. I weaved around the congregation, trying to spot anyone who looked like the Father. As I realized that I should’ve asked what the Father looked like, I spotted someone walking through the mass.

           I quickly gave chase and found the man slowly walking down a pathway walled by the mass of robots. The Father wore a long black rode with dark blue and faded yellow trim. He resembled the fisherman from the rest stop, only his beard was shorter, scruffier, and was dark brown in color instead of grey. He wore large framed, black glasses and had his arms spread like he was expecting someone to hug him.

           “Excuse me?” I called. The Father didn’t seem to acknowledge me.

           “Hello? Father? I need to talk to you!” I called, but to no avail.

           I raced up to him with plans to grab his robe to get his attention, but the Father turned at the last second and dodged me without losing a beat to the harmony of the music. This continued for a long moment, with me calling to him and him dodging my attempt to grab at his robes.

           It was as he dodged me again and I stumbled to land on the ground that I had an idea. I got up, dusted myself off, and made my way to the church building. I used some loose bricks to help me climb to the flat, brick roof. Once I was situated and was looking over the entire group, I took a deep breath.

           Reaching in and tapping into the darkness I had come to know and represent, my form made a very flashy and very noticeable change. In a flash of light that turned into rays of black shadow, I found myself cloaked in a vantablack cloak. My hands were adorned with black, clawed gloves, and I wore black boots with rattling chains wrapped around them. Giant, black, feathered wings exploded out of my back, spreading up and reaching up to block out the dawn sun.

           Needless to say, the mass ceased singing.

           “Who are you?” called the man who I thought was the Father.

           “What my name is is none of your concern,” I announced. “I have a few questions for you and your followers, Father. Let us all speak inside,”

           I gestured to the doors of the church, which swung open on my will and wordless command. The robots were all looking amongst each other, whispering about angels and finally being able to call down one of His messengers. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as everyone poured into the church.

           I entered last, closing the door behind me. The entire church was just one big room. Everyone was sitting on the floor, their only cushions being white colored blankets. The entire room was lit with only candles. On the far side of the room was a small, Christian themed alter made of marble and gold. The Father and I were the only ones standing. He glared at me, clearly knowing that I was not here as a messenger from big gun’s upstairs.

           “Are you an angel?” asked one of the robots. Before I could answer, another one piped up.

           “Are you here to grant us humanity?”

           “No,” I told them. “I am here to grant you a reality check,”

           “What do you mean?” asked a teenager looking robot. One of their eyes was missing, replaced with a red marble.

           “I want you all to tell me exactly what your Father here,” I pointed to the Father, my eyes glowing red. “has taught you. What has he said about the word of the almighty?”

           The robots all took turns telling me what Andra had told me, but in a more suppressed way that told that these robots thought that they were in the right.

           “And sin is bad,” one continued. “We cannot sin, not if we want to be healthy when we become human,”

           “What do you mean? If you want to be healthy?” I asked. I was slowly walking around the robots like a lion stalking its prey.

           “Sin is a mental illness,” one of the robots told me. “If we sin, we’ll get sick when we turn human. We’ll get covered in boils and we’ll be marked, doomed to the pit and never to regain true humanity,”

           “We sin when we go against the word of His mouth,” someone else stated. “The Father is his voice. We sin if we don’t listen and heed his words,”

           “If we diverge from his words, we sin. We must stay on His path forever and always.”

           “To oppose his word is to doom yourself to the pit,”

           “I’ll tell you right now,” I started, cutting everyone off. “That this total bullshit,”

           The gasp that resonated through the room was almost comedic in style. Had I not been seething with anger towards the Father, I would have laughed.

           “Sin is not a mental illness,” I announced before they could start protesting. “What you have been taught is not sin. There is nothing wrong with practicing your free will,” I shot a harsh glare towards the Father. “Something your Father here seems to have taken away,”

           The Father stayed silent.

           “Sin will not make you into a deform monster,” I continued. “If we were to go on that, then I would be deformed, covered in boils, and whatnot. Do you see me as deformed?”

           “No,” the robots said in unison.

           “I don’t follow the teachings of Christianity,” I told them. “I follow my own path. I do what I want to do. There’s nothing wrong with following a belief. But when it starts taking away your basic freedoms and teaches you to outcast those who dare to be themselves, then it’s time to rethink what you’ve been taught,”

           There was pause, and the synthetics were all mumbling amongst their own. I heard phrases ranging from disbelief to words that proved that I was getting through to them. I looked to the Father, who was red in the face and looked ready to tear apart the nearest robot circuit from circuit.

           “According to your belief, Christo gave life free will for a reason. To take away that free will would technically be going against his word, would it not?” I offered. Heads turned towards the Father, showing that everyone knew who I was referring to. There was another long pause, and then…

           “So… we don’t sin if we follow our own wishes?” someone called out.

           “As long as you’re not hurting anyone, I don’t see anything wrong with following your own path,”

           “What about our humanity? Is it even possible?” someone else called.

           “I think you shouldn’t worry about becoming human,” I told them. “Embrace who you are and what you are, and work to be the best you can be. You don’t need to become human to be alive,”

           The robots began talking amongst themselves again, this time with increasing fervor. I watched as some robots began standing up and stripping off their robes, revealing their metal bodies and slipping off the masks they were wearing to make themselves look human. They looked a little too real to me, those masks. I had many a dark idea as to where they came from.

           “You all are doomed,” the Father finally spoke, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. He turned to the only door in the church, one that he was leaning on. I did not notice it before, but I’m guessing that it led to another room.

           “You all are listening to a creature of darkness, a black wing,” the Father growled, swinging the door open. “It’ll drag you all down to the darkest parts of the pit,”

           “But… You did take away our free will,” said one robot. “I used to build street lights before all this,”

           “I was once a caretaker at our orphanage,” said another. “I miss it so,”

           “I’ve always wanted to run track!”

           “I can take up magic again…”

           “I can work on my wing invention. Soon we’ll all be flying like angels!”

           “Doomed idiots, all of you!” The Father barked. He turned and entered the dark room, slamming the door behind him. I growled, marching up to the door and quickly kicking it back open.

           “I’m not done with you, Father!” I roared out. As the door fell to the ground, I bore witness to the Father raise his hand up. I spotted a translucent glass ball in that hand before he threw it to the ground in an explosion of red dust and blinding white light.

           When I opened my eyes, the church building was gone. The synthetics were all safe and unharmed, but they were all fleeing the area coated in red dust. Suddenly, the light from above was blocked out. I looked up and watched as clouds formed and swirled like a hurricane. Thunder rolled and the clouds darkened into a thick, dark grey mass. In the eyes of the storm, the clouds opened up a path to a bright white light. I noticed something, someone, was coming down from this light. Feeling the presence of someone powerful, I leapt into the air to meet them halfway. I hovered below the cloud line and watched as the figure approached me.

           The being before me was all black, with stars in his skin and eyes shining like the sun and moon. A black, dark blue, and purple robe fell from his shoulders, and six enormous black wings were spread wide like my own. A bright halo of light shone behind its head. I knew I was looking at an Archangel. As I stared, a name etched itself into my head, as if I knew who this was, and I was realizing their name. This was the Archangel Gabriel.

           This Gabriel looked like nothing like the Gabriel from the show Supernatural. He radiated power. I knew, as he pulled out a black blade, that I was in for a fight.

           Without a word, Gabriel launched himself forward. At the last second, I was able to summon my own weapon to block his attack and push him back. In my hands was a dual scythe that was taller than myself, with dark blue and purple blades on either end of the dark silver staff. I recall its name being the Dual Scythe of Obsidian Fear.

           I held my ground, determined not to make advances towards this being. I had never fought an Archangel before, I knew I needed to stay on my guard. From below, I heard the Father shout “A servant of the Lord shall vanquish you! Let it be your last attempt to tempt any more souls!”

           As if his words were a trigger, Gabriel charged again. He darted to my right, to which I swung by scythe and quickly swung around to keep facing him. Our wings clashed in a mass of black, ethereal feathers as I blocked his attacks with the black blade.

           At one point, we clashed our weapons in unison and then proceeded to jump away from each other. As his large wings folded forward, I rushed him the blunt of my weapon aimed for starry his chest. I hit true, but he quickly grabbed the staff and threw it to the side. Since I was still holding onto the staff, I was thrown off balance. I saw the edge of Gabriel’s blade swinging towards me, so I reached out with a hand to grab the sharp blade. I caught it with my hand, but the blade easily sliced open my gloves and my hand. Garnet colored blood ran down my arm and soaked into my cloak, but I held onto the blade and yanked it out of Gabriel’s own hands. Flipping it so that I was holding onto its hilt, I charged Gabriel once more.

           Gabriel’s glowing eyes had widened, as if he was astonished that I was able to even wield his sword. Using my scythe and my own wings to keep his wings away, I grappled with Gabriel as he tried to grab his weapon back from me. I felt the wind rushing through my hair and cloak, and I barely noticed that we had begun plummeting down towards the earth.

           Taking the moment into consideration, I yanked the sword away and tossed it. Gabriel turned and looked ready to dart after it, but I blocked his path with my scythe and dashed forward to grab at his neck. We sped down and hit the ground, the force sending up a cloud of red dust.

           When the dust settled, Gabriel was on his back with me standing above him. One of my hands was resting on his color bones, holding him down with my claws close to his neck. My other hand held my scythe above and behind me, red to swing down in case I need to knock him out. His sword landed a few meters away, landing blade first and sticking up from the ground like the sword in the stone.

           The spectators watched in amazement. I didn’t see their faces, nor did I see the reaction of the Father, as I was focusing on Gabriel.

           “Release me,” he said, his voice sounding like the howling winds of a hurricane.

           “Why were you summoned?” I asked him, tapping my claws on his vitals.

           “I was summoned to dispose of a dark entity,” Gabriel responded, not making a move to try and escape.

           “Well, as the Incarnation of Darkness, I would be considered dark,” I told him. “But I’m not the one who took away these robot’s free will and turned them into husks,”

           “What?”

           “You heard me. The one who summoned you has been siphoning the free will from these robots and teaching them lies, saying that Christo would turn them human and that sin would deform them into beasts that were doomed to Hell, without any hope of forgiveness,”

           “Let me get up,”

           “Why?”

           “I have business with someone now. I plan to deal with him,”

           I slowly moved off of Gabriel, allowing him to rise up to his full height of seven feet tall. He opened his hand, aiming it to his sword. It rose from the ground and into his hand, to which he placed it on his belt. With a wave of his hand, the world shifted, and reality warped to make it look like he had opened an invisible door that led to nothing but white. Gabriel entered in, but left the door open.

           I heard footsteps and turned to see the Father marching up to me with eyes seething and face red with rage.

           “You beast! What have you done?” he screamed at me, spittle flying from his mouth and barely missing me by centimeters.

           “I don’t know what I did yet,” I answered.

           “You-“ The Father suddenly jolted, looking down at his feet. I followed his gaze and watched the as the ground seemed to open up. The fires of Hell burst through as scaled red hands adorned with black claws rose up from the cracks and grabbed onto the Father’s legs, dragging him into the fiery pit.

           The Father screamed and clawed at the ground, trying to keep from being dragged down. He even reached for my own cloak, but I stepped away and watched as he was swallowed by the earth. Once the cracks closed, Gabriel emerged from the door of light once more.

           “Was he dragged into Hell?” the Archangel asked.

           “Very dramatically,” I confirmed.

           “Good. I called a demon to drag him down,” Gabriel said. “He was doing a great evil, keeping these synthetics from practicing free will,”

           “Yeah. Hey, sorry for the whole body slamming thing,”

           “I’ve been through worse battles, Esh. But I do hope you realize precisely why you won that fight,”

           At that moment, it clicked. Everything rushed back into my head so quickly that I almost flinched. Why my powers were back despite me still being in human form. Why everything seemed so wacky and out of place. Why I was able to defeat an Archangel.

          A dream. I was in a dream.

           “Farewell, Esh,” Gabriel said, clapping me on the back before heading back to the door of light. “Your friend Riku comes,”

           The door to the light shuts just as I hear Riku’s voice call to me from behind me. I quickly quelled the darkness that altered my form and returned back into my normal human shape, then turn to see Riku running up to me with the rest of the synthetics from the skyscraper district in tow. Riku hurried over to me and looked me over.

           “Are you okay? I saw the battle from the city!” he asked. He had a Keyblade in his hand. He was clearly ready to fight. But my body felt stiff, I felt light headed. He wasn’t going to fight anything any time soon.

           “I’m okay. We cleared everything up. The Father is no more,” I told Riku with my best smile. Riku sighed with relief and patted my shoulder. We turned to see the two groups of synthetics converging, reuniting with each other. Andra was jogging up to us with her weird smile.

           “You did it!” she exclaimed, taking me in her arms and spinning me around. When she put me down, I felt dizzy. Luckily, Riku was there to be a good support figure. “My kind has come to its senses!”

           “It took a bit more than just talking,” I told her. My arm refused to move from its position. It was glued to my side, and I felt the fabric of my bed sheets rubbing on it. I tried to force myself to stay asleep. I needed to stay asleep for a little while longer. My arm began to move again, the feeling of my bed sheets fading.

           “We all agreed that I will be taking charge,” Andra said. “I will lead this town to a better future, now that we’re not tied to a schedule. We can just do what we wish, within reason,”

           “That’s always a good thing,” Riku said. “I’m glad we were able to help,”

           “You two are headed to Satellite City, right?” Andra said, reaching into her metal plating and pulling out a rolled up piece of paper. She handed it to me. “Here’s a map of the city for when you get to it. It’s a big city, so I bet this will aid you in your quest there,”

           “Thank you!” I said, handing the map over to Riku. The silver haired boy took it and placed it in his pocket. “But now, we should get going. Riku’s got something he’s got to do,”

           “We both do,” Riku said, flashing me a small smile. “Thanks for all your help, Andra,”

           “No problem. Here comes your ride,” Andra, Riku, and I turned to the sound of a car pulling up on the road. It was our Jeep, in mint condition. The robot driving it exited and made its way to us.

           “Let’s go,” Riku said. We waved goodbye to the synthetics and went to meet the robot who drove our car halfway. It gifted Riku with the car keys, wished us goodbye, and went to join its brethren. Riku and I got into the car and breathed simultaneous sighs of relief.

           “That was a wild ride from start to finish,” I commented.

           “That was a really intense battle, as short as it was,” Riku said, turning to me with a worried expression. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem dazed,”

           Riku’s voice seemed to echo around, the world growing fuzzy. I knew I couldn’t stop it this time.

           “As well as I can be,” I told him. “I’m a little sad, though. My journey with you is about to end,”

           “What do you mean?” Riku questioned, placing a worried hand on my arm. I barely felt it. “We still have a whole two and a half days until we reach Satellite City. We still have a long way to go,”

           “You have a long way to go, Riku,” I said, turning to him with a pained expression. It hurt to leave him. “Thank you, Riku. I had a lot of fun on this trip. But I have to wake up now. Goodbye,”

           As I muttered the last syllable, I found myself blinking open my eyes. The blurry sight of my room filled my near-sighted vision. Everything that transpired in my dream replayed in my head, and I found myself letting a few tears fall from my eyes.

           I didn’t even get to hear Riku say goodbye.

[insomnolence-nonsense]

30 Aug, 2021 - entry seven:

haha. guess who’s baaaaack?

and right when school starts again? wow! who would’ve thought!

basically this is just me ranting about my first day in my sophomore year since i only seem to feel the need to write this journal thing when school is in session? how strange? it’s almost like school has a direct correlation with my mental health and it’s annual rapid decline?

who would’ve thought. /s

so, in our freshman year, i, along with literally every other student in my grade, signed up for Spanish 1. (you can’t graduate without one foreign language credit, and despite having six language classrooms my school only offers Spanish.)

since everyone signed up for Spanish, they didn’t have enough room in the classes to put me into one so i didn’t have Spanish that year.

i didn’t think that would be such a bad thing, until i realized all of my friends took Spanish 1 last year and now are in Spanish 2 and 3. and just to add to that lovely bit of crushing disappointment, the class i’m in now is full of freshman with the exception of two boys in my grade (they have classic midwest country asshole mullets, use slurs regularly, and held a protest against the hour of silence our school held for George Floyd by screaming and dancing down the hallways).

so none of the freshmen—students who have basically known each other since kindergarten—wanted to talk to me. understandably.

which was fine, since i didn’t want to talk to them, either. i didn’t want to talk to anybody, i’m a mentally ill teen diagnosed with severe social and general anxiety.

but then our teacher decided to make us pair up with anyone of our choosing—i’m sure you’re about to see the issue if you haven’t already—and greet each other with the basic sentence starters he taught us.

of course, Assholes 1 & 2 paired together immediately, as well as every freshman, leaving me alone, standing awkwardly at my desk until the teacher forced a group of three boys to split and have one of them work with me.

i’m not sure if you’ve been in this situation before, but almost nothing makes you feel more like shit than watching someone whine about being forced to work with you since you were literally chosen by nobody and had to have the teacher pick someone for you.

the kid ended the "conversation" in less than fifteen seconds before running back to his friends.

and honestly, that was fine by me.

i don’t learn by working with others. i learn by writing stuff down, studying it on my own time, and testing myself. i don’t learn well with groups or pairs due to my anxiety and having to help someone else through the lesson is a hindrance to my own education.

but the teacher quickly made it very clear that the class would not be based on taking and reviewing notes and more on practicing in (you guessed it) pairs of two. of our choosing. every fucking class. figures.

so that’s fun.

also.

(there always seems to be an also, huh?)

this teacher, along with all of the other teachers in our school, is not Spanish. which is fine, i’m not saying you have to be from Spain to teach Spanish, but i have heard every single teacher pronounce the same words completely different from one another.

one of them (probably many) is wrong, and none of the students know which one fucked up.

in fact, there are no teachers of color in my entire school. not important to this specific rant, but it’s still annoying how painfully racist my school district can be at times.

anyways.

my teacher walked into the classroom and immediately started speaking in Spanish, knowing full well that nobody in our class was able to understand. then he started asking kids at random a question in Spanish, waiting for a response, then asking louder to another student when the first didn’t answer or got flustered.

this went on for twenty fucking minutes. then someone guessed that he was asking for their name and then he made us respond to the question in Spanish, again, knowing full well that we weren’t able to do that.

i don’t know if this was some weird-ass introduction to the course or a power-play, or just a move to make us all feel like idiots, but whatever it was, i can say for a fact that it was basically just a massive waste of time.

because now, not only did this man (who’s name we wouldn’t even fucking know if it weren’t for the syllabus we were sent that morning) waste nearly half an hour of class time, but he also made every person in that class feel inferior, stupid, and unprepared for his class.

now, we weren’t going into the class excited to learn a new language (which, yes! it’s a very cool thing and you should be excited about something like that!) but instead we were all terrified and felt like we were way in over our heads.

this is a terrible mindset to be in when starting something as already-daunting as learning a new language—or school in general!

so now i’m freaking out over this fucking class on day one and i can’t even change it to another language because our school doesn’t teach anything else.

it’s going great.

it’s fine.

it’s gonna be fine.

in conclusion, i don’t care.

[miraculouslyminty-blog]

Bionn Halthcharon’s Basic Journal

im reposting this from my account on the MH Fandom wiki! Its Bad™️ its got that ye olde prototype flavor and it was before i got a grip on his character and the comment about his power source being held in an alternate dimension? its a scrapped concept now. his power source is in his body.

Hey! So instead of starting this thing off with a entry, I'm just gonna write down what I can do in the first place. Why? Well if you had super cool gadgets and abilities wouldn't you?

Here's some of the stuff Dad decided to outfit me with! But I've only got one ability that I got from my mom.

The ability to create interdimensional portals to teleport anywhere and any part of me wherever I want. It's actually pretty handy for when I'm lazy and don't feel like moving. Also I can access alternate dimensions including a pocket dimension where I keep my main power source.

I also come with nanotechnology which I can use to create whatever I want. Anything made with my nanites is surprisingly solid. It can also pick up other monsters and things. Things just kinda float in this wobbly blue forcefield.

Super strength to pick up the real heavy stuff.

I have a program that lets me control technology. It's good for accessing hidden files and getting past firewalls on a combooter but I can't do anything super intense like create a giant computer monster. That would be cool though.

I breath fire because of a flamethrower in my system. A tiny trail of fire does leave my mouth whenever I sigh but a bigger burst of fire tends to come out whenever I sneeze. ....I've set a lot of stuff on fire this way. I'm not proud of it...

July 17th

I still can't understand why we had to move to New Salem. I mean, just because I busted up a few buildings and half the city all those times isn't a good reason to move. The people of Motor City were safe in the end and that's important. Besides, the city repairs itself, so no big deal right? Well, I guess it's a pretty big deal. So Mom and Dad talked it over and decided to pack up everything and move to New Salem. And by "they" I mean Mom said "We are moving to New Salem, don't argue with me." She runs the house, so who the heck are we to question her decision? We do, but it just runs the risk of getting yelled at. So now here we are.

This place is okay, I guess. It's bigger than Motor City and that's kinda jarring. We're still getting settled into the place but once we get stuff wrapped up, we'll explore more of town. Might have to wait until tomorrow seeing how long it's gonna take Dad to set up my recharge station.

July 18th

I must've shut down sometime yesterday because I woke up in my room. And I'm not gonna lie, I freaked out. I mean, I guess it happens when you move somewhere and are in a place you've never been in before? I wouldn't really know since this is the first time it's happened. I'm in a new house after all. Speaking of the house, this is bigger than the old house back in Motor City. It's nice. It's a great change that I like because we lived in a tiny apartment back home. A plus side is that I can distance myself further away from my little brother, Pat-ick. I can't STAND how obnoxious he gets at times. Not to mention how he picks fights with me every two seconds. The worst part is that it usually works.

And then we fight and Mom yells at us. Then we stop shouting and awkwardly sit there. Anyway, we explored more of New Salem today and it's a pretty sweet place. I dunno but maybe it's because I've never seen a town like this before. But at the same time it feels wrong to be here. Maybe I'm just so used to living in Motor City. Or maybe it's because I still don't get why we're here. Also they have a Maul here. It's been a while since I've seen one of those. Going in there was so weird though!

I mean... if felt like we were stepping into a food-scented fantasy land. It was so clawesome! We did see more of the town and you know what? I think I'm starting to like this place.

August 18th

You know what I like to do when I wake up? Stretch, flop back onto the bed and just lay there. It's a good way to start the morning actually. And then I make myself get up and get dressed. Coming into the living room was weird... Mom, Dad and my sister Shelley were talking about a place called Monster High and how it's time she went to school again. They were seriously thinking about this?! I knowy sister enough to know that even if she's bright and sunshine-y, her anxiety would send her through the roof of that school in five minutes flat. I pointed out only to have a bombshell dropped on me.

I was going with her. Way to just throw it out there Mom and Dad. The last time I was even in a school was when I was little. And I had to be pulled out due to huge stress issues. For all I know, this'll be a repeat of elementary school all over again! Except I'm taller. And with different people. To add insult to injury, Mom told us we were already registered and that our first day would be in September.

Sometimes I really question what goes through Mom's head.

September 6th

Y'know what's a lousy way to start the day? Arguing with Pat-ick, that's how. It was over something dumb as usual, which normally how all our fights start. Mom stopped the fight and well I got most of the blame. And Mom broke her yelling records. Which is nice and all but I really don't think I needed to be shouted at for two hours. It hurts a manster's feelings y'know? Anyways after that, Shelley decided we needed a day to fang out and calm down, which I don't mind considering that the new scaremester's right around the corner.

So we did what all the cool kids do: we went to the Maul. Shelley decided to take me shopping for new clothes since my old ones don't really suit me. She's a literal ray of sunshine and I'm okay with that. It was a pick whatever I want kind of deal too. So I just pieced together what I liked and well, I have a really colorful jacket. Also when she saw me in my new stuff, she looked so happy. I even helped her out her out with her shopping. I know what she likes. You have to, it's sibling code.

Also we went by a place called the Coffin Bean. We don't even like coffee but we needed a break and a snack so why not? And I'm not gonna lie, those strawscary tarts were pretty clawsome. Then we decided to go ahead and go home but on the way out we kinda didn't pay attention to where we were going and we bumped into three ghouls. I don't think I've ever said sorry that much in my entire un-life. Aside from that, going to Monster High doesn't seem that bad now that I think about it...

[dolmen-gate]

THE TOMB INCIDENT (Tapes #1-3, Engineer 11′s Journal: Big Moon)

[THE FOLLOWING SERIES OF ARTICLES ARE TRANSCRIPTIONS OF VARIOUS RECORDINGS (VISUAL AND AUDIO, VISUAL ONLY, AUDIO ONLY) AND PAPER DOCUMENTS COLLECTED FROM THE REMAINS OF THE NORTHERN ALASKAN “TOMB” RESEARCH CENTER 17. ALL SHARED DOCUMENTS WERE MADE PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE ON JUNE 7, 2015 BY RUSSIAN FEDERATION AUTHORITIES. CONTEXT GIVEN WHEN NECESSARY. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY INCIDENTS THAT MAY DERIVE FROM YOUR VIEWING OF THESE ARTICLES]

TAPE #1 “TOASTER” 11/27

DESCRIPTION: [VISUAL AND AUDIO LOG OF A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ENGINEER 02 (HENCEFORTH REFERRED TO AS A “02″) AND A COMMON HOUSEHOLD TOASTER (HENCEFORTH REFERRED TO AS “Toaster”) THAT APPEARS TO MIMIC ENGINEER 06. THE CONVERSATION IS HELD IN THE CAFETERIA OF LAB-01 AT POINT-A. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF BLOOD ARE VISIBLE ON ALL SURFACES OF THE CAFETERIA. THE ARM OF AN UNKNOWN INDIVIDUAL IS PRESENT IN FRONT OF THE TOASTER. 02 IS EITHER VISUALLY IMPAIRED, DOES NOT NOTICE, OR DOES NOT CARE THAT A TOASTER IS MIMICKING ENGINEER 06]

02: William.

Toaster: That is 06. It’s important that we avoid using our civilian names when possible.

02: It’s been a year, 06. You can cut the serious shit now.

Toaster: I will not. What is your issue?

02: Hmm, not much, just everything.

Toaster: Your sarcasm is unnecessary and unprofessional.

02: Your sarcasm is unnecessary and unprofessional.

Toaster: Do not mock me.

02: Do not mock me. Are you a fucking robot? Everything’s gone to shit.

Toaster: You are wasting my time. What is it that you want?

02: Your assistance please.

Toaster: I need a point and a purpose. I would also appreciate cessation of your needlessly sarcastic and antagonistic tone.

02: Who the fuck do you think you are? A fucking Vulcan? Some kind of edgy anime character? I came here because I saw that someone else was alive and I thought you’d like to help me escape. But, instead you’re still obsessed with playing whatever fucking part they gave you back at Base. Here comes reality dude: it’s all gone to shit. They’ve abandoned us. Everyone you worked with for the past 12 months is fucking dead, except for me.

Toaster: 02? Can I ask you a question.

02: Wow, this is new.  Ask away.

Toaster: What is anime?

02: Well, considering we basically have unlimited time here, I’ll explain to you everything you need to know about the happy medium of Japanese animation.

Toaster: I am listening.

02: Okay, here goes. Wait, I’m not going to do that because I was just fucking with you, moron.

Toaster: Wrong. It was I who was doing the expletive to you. I attempted humor on you.

02: Well, I’m not laughing.

Toaster: Neither am I. That was an exercise meant to show you how much time your humor wastes.

02: What the fuck is wrong with you?

Toaster: I can ask the same expletive to you.

02: I’m [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

[THERE IS A TWO HOUR SKIP IN FOOTAGE. THE REST OF THE FOOTAGE IS A STILL SHOT OF THE CAFETERIA. 02 IS GONE AND THE TOASTER REMAINS UNMOVED. THE LIMB IN FRONT OF IT HAS DISAPPEARED]

TAPE #2 “COLD TREK” 4/7

DESCRIPTION: [AUDIO AND VIDEO LOG OF AN ENTITY (HENCEFORTH REFERRED TO AS “Pilot”) WALKING FROM A REMOTE REGION AND TOWARD THE CAMERA MONITORING THE OUTPOST AT POINT-Q. THE PILOT IS DRESSED IN THE TYPICAL FLIGHT SUIT WORN BY MEMBERS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN CONFEDERATION’S AIR FORCE. SUCH A SUIT CANNOT PROTECT FROM THE HARSH CLIMATE OF THE REGION. APPROXIMATELY TWO HOURS PASSES AS THE Pilot WALKS FROM THE REMOTE REGION AND STANDS IN FRONT OF THE ENTRANCE TO OUTPOST. CAMERA MALFUNCTIONS AND RECORDING ENDS. THIS IS THE ONLY KNOWN VISUAL RECORDING OF THE Pilot, THOUGH THERE ARE SEVERAL WRITTEN DOCUMENTS REFERRING TO APPEARANCES OF A SIMILAR ENTITY, AND AT LEAST ONE AUDIO LOG IN WHICH IT SEEMINGLY MAKES AN APPEARANCE. NOTED MATERIALS SHALL BE SHARED - IF NECESSARY - IN THE FUTURE]

TAPE #3 “GAS STATION” 2/28

DESCRIPTION: [AUDIO AND VIDEO LOG OF ENGINEER-04 (HENCEFORTH REFERRED TO AS “04″) HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH ENGINEER-07 (HENCEFORTH REFERRED TO AS “07″ IN THE MAIN RESEARCH WING OF LAB-01 AT POINT-A CONCERNING AN INCIDENT 04 EXPERIENCED SIX MONTHS PRIOR TO THE RECORDING]

04: So, that’s when I wake up and notice that I’m fucking freezing. It’s snowing.

07: In Texas, in the middle of summer? You’re making things up.

04: I can’t believe you’re so shocked by this. I mean, what I’m going to tell you pales in comparison to what we saw in the briefings.

07: Yeah, I’m trying to play things up a bit, like old times. Remember when I was still afraid of UFOs.

04: How can I forget man.

07: Anyway, so I wake up and I’m fucking freezing. It’s snowing like crazy outside and I think I’m losing my mind. So, here I am, stranded in the middle of nowhere. Outta gas, outta food, and now it’s fucking snowing about as hard as it snows around these parts. I thought I must’ve entered purgatory. I figure I’m probably going to freeze to death no matter what happens, so I got out of the car and just started walking. Coul[ᵂᴿᴱᶜᴷᴵᴺᴳ ᵂᴼᴿᴰ]dn’t feel my feet by time I found the gas station. I was so relieved. It was like finding home again. So, I explain the situation to my cashier. Says he never saw it snowing like this in his entire life. Tells me I’m lucky I still got my feet on me. Seems like a normal guy, but I think he had dementia.

04: Oh?

07: Yeah, like he starts talking about how he used to be a fighter pilot. Starts talking about his mom in a really weird way. Sounded like he was trying to be a little kid or something. Freaked me out. If I was in any other situation, I’d have beat the shit out of the guy, but y’know, huge job coming up in a few months. Plus he sorta of saved me.

04: Yup.

07: So, the next morning I wake up. There’s no snow and the place is abandoned.

04: Then what?

07: I leave.

04: That’s it?

07: Well, I found someone to fix my car.

04: What about all the spooky shit you told me would happen.

07: That was the spooky shit.

04: Sounds like your insane drunk ass hallucinated the whole thing.

07: I mean, yeah, but it’s nice to revisit it and wonder. Especially considering what we know. It could’ve meant something.

04: Doubt it.

ENGINEER 12′S JOURNAL: BIG MOON

Ice.

Ice.

Wet.

Wet.

Wet.

Dry.

Ice.

I sat in a chair near the table, but I couldn’t see or I couldn’t picture some-such object sitting in front my being. I felt, half-shattered, I had done the wrong thing. Ice, ice, wet, wet, wet, dry, ice.

Dear mom,

Hey...

M

[DRAWING OF A KITTEN]

03′s name is Elisa. I don’t know why I know this. I woke up and I just knew it. We’re not supposed to know names.

I feel stupid writing in this.

Ice.

This was a bad idea and already illegal in the first place.

Who am I writing to?

Big MOON [WRECKING WORD]

Told myself I was named 11 again so I would stop worrying.

Somehow I knew it. I knew I was lied to.

[DRAWING OF A DAISY]

[DRAWING OF A DEPICTION OF ENGINEER-11 AND KISSING A DEPICTION OF ENGINEER-02]

^^^^Not Happening!^^^^

[ENTRY 1: END]

[thetravelersjournal]

UnderGone

Day 2

I had decided to reset again. Meeting my friends and family… it always fills me with a warm sensation. I feel that they are the reason I keep going, the reasoning behind my DETERMINATION. I woke again in the small field of flowers so familiar to me. I slowly got up and made my way to where Asr Flowey always waited.

Except he wasn’t there.

This didn't really bother me, though. He’s never showed his face half of the many times that I’ve reset. What disturbed me was that he wasn’t there even though I performed a true reset.

I continued to make my way through the Ruins, rather upset that Toriel hadn’t found me yet. Usually she appeared first thing.

I had made it all the way to the rock puzzle before I realized that not one monster had attacked me. I hadn’t seen any monsters whatsoever, not even the Mad Dummy’s friend. The only reason I forced myself to come to this conclusion was that Miss. Rock was no longer there either. Not only that, but the puzzle itself was broken, the spikes stuck in the ground. I was scared. I ran to Toriel’s house, a little frantically.

No Napstablook.

No spider bake-sale.

No Toriel.

I didn't know what to do. I got somewhat panicky. I started yelling Toriel’s name. Napstablook’s. Even Flowey’s. “Someone! Anyone! Is anyone there?” I shouted until my throat was hoarse. I shouted for anyone to say hi, give a hug, even fight me.

… … …

But nobody came.

By then I was really tired. I went to my room, turned off the light, and collapsed onto my bed. I fell asleep wondering what I had gotten myself into.

I woke up this morning, hoping it was all a bad dream, that maybe it had been my imagination, but after searching the whole house I found no one.

I’ve decided to set out through the Underground in hopes of finding anyone. I found this diary on Toriel’s desk and figured that I could record my thoughts on it.

...All the previous pages are blank.

Day 3

I arrived in Snowdin a little later than I had hoped. All the puzzles were still activated, and to keep myself sane for a little while longer, I played the crossword puzzle that Sans had left.

Still no sign of anyone.

I had left the house without any food, but thankfully there was a cart full of Nice-Cream bars lying next to the snowball challenge. I felt a little bad about just taking them, so I left some money I had found in Toriel’s desk on the counter, before continuing on to Snowdin. No one was there to announce my arrival.

I looked through all the shops, buildings, and houses. No one was home.

I continued through Waterfall, passing Temmie village, Gerson’s shop, the mountain where Undyne usually waited for me. I got the same results as before. At this point I decided to take the River person’s boat back to Snowdin, and crash at Sans and Papyrus’s. But- surprise, surprise-they weren’t there, and neither was the boat. My only choice was to continue onward to Mettaton’s resort.

On a whim I looked through Alphy’s lab to see if I could find anything useful. I was sadly mistaken. All the lights were off. I didn't want to set foot anywhere near her secret lab when it was pitch black. It gave me goosebumps every time I went through there.

I finally arrived at MTT’s resort, still without having seen anyone. Not even so much as a bug. How could they all have disappeared? All their food was still here. It doesn't make sense.

I’ll try to make some more sense of it in the morning. Right now, I’m tired.

Day… 4?

It’s occurred to me that I have no actual way of telling the time down here. Monsters had never bothered to make clocks, and I didn’t have one on me when I fell down. I was only assuming how much time had passed based on when I went to sleep and when I woke up. I suppose there's no more accurate way to tell.

I continued through the Core, meeting no one. I arrived at Asgore’s castle, filled with dread. Why was everyone gone? Did something happen when I had reset? These thoughts swirled through my mind before being replaced with a more important one; could I leave the Underground? I started running now, my heart pounding. I ran through New Home, past the long hallway, into the throne room, and reached the barrier.

Except it wasn't there.

In its place was a tall dark stone wall. There wasn't an exit. It was like there had never been one in the first place. I slowly sank to my knees. Nothing was here. There was nothing for me to do here.

I consider my options. I could continue, or I could reset. This place is creepy. Maybe if I reset, everything will go back to normal…?

Ok. Here goes…

Day… 4.1, I guess.

I reset, but nothing changed. Not only that, but all my previous journal entries are still inscrebed inscribed on these pages. It was right where I had left it when I reset. As if I had only left the room for a minute.

I cried. For a long time, I cried. I sank to the floor, put my head on my knees, and wailed.

After a while, I slowly got up, and left the castle. I traveled back to the MTT resort to rest. No one greeted me on my way there.

I checked the room to the right of the throne room before I left the castle.

… … …

I…

… No. I don't need a reminder of what I saw in there.

Day 5

I decided to explore a little further today. I went down into Alphy’s secret lab. I wasn’t scared of it now.

Not after what I saw in the castle.

It was empty, as I expected. All of Alphy’s logs of her experements experiments were missing too. Only one monitor lit up when I approached it. I remember the log. It was supposed to say ‘The flower’s gone’.

But now all it says is ‘Gone’.

Day 6

It took a while to backtrack to Snowdin (the river person is still nowhere to be seen), but I finally made it back. I’ve decided to make my base in Papyrus and San’s house, for the time being. The shop seems to have an unlimited number of Bisicles and Cinnamon Bunnies, so I don't think I’ll starve anytime soon. Right now, I have to figure out why I’m here, and how to get out.

I busted into San’s room and took his backdoor key. I went to the back of the house and turned the key in the lock. I opened the door…

But it didn't lead anywhere. A solid wooden wall was where a room should have been. I sat in the snow. That had been my last idea on getting out of here. I was stuck, for the time being. Out of sheer frustration, I yelled out again, hoping that someone would hear me.

… … …

But, nobody came.

Day 7

I decided to try and run an inventory of basically everything edible in the Underground. So far, I have 4 Monster Candies, a dozen Spider Donuts, 5 Spider Jugs, 15 Nice-Creams, 22 Cinnamon Bunnies, 18 Bisicles (about 36 Unisicles), and 50 packages of noodles (from Papyrus’s house). Which I guess means that food isn’t as unlimited as I had thought.

When I went back to the Ruins to make inventory, I stopped at the entrance. Gears spun in my mind. I might be able to use a rope to climb up through the hole to the Underground.

But no light was shining through the entrance. Either it was night, or the entrance was sealed as well. What stumped me was how I didn’t notice this before.

What was also weird was that the small field of flowers I usually landed on had grown significantly larger. I watched it for a little while, and saw a few flowers pop out of the ground and bloom after a few minutes. Strange.

I could worry about it later, though. I still need to find the rest of the food in the Underground.

Day 8

A total now of 90 Nice-Creams (45 of which are slightly melted), 32 Sea Teas, 45 Crab Apples, 2 Astronaut packages, 1 Ghost sandwich, more than 500 Temmie Flakes (which aren’t very appetizing), a package of Instant Noodles, 4 bags of Popato Chisps, 30 Hot dogs, 1 Hot Cat, 30 doggy bags of Junk Food, 134 Starfaits, 121 Glamburgers, 24 Legendary Heroes, 1 Steak in the shape of Mettaton’s face, and 1 Abandoned Quiche.

The food that I’ve found should last me a long while, as long as I ration. I won’t need to worry about starving right now, at any rate.

Day 10

I’m reading my way through the library’s books. Not much has happened otherwise.

Day 15

I’ve been walking around a lot, trying to keep my strength up. Or maybe I’m still looking for an exit. Who knows.

A part of me still wants to go back up to the castle, but… I can always explore there later.

After all, I have plenty of time on my hands.

Day 21

Still not much to write about. I’ve already gotten halfway through the library’s books. Food supplies are ok.

Day 34

I had completely forgotten up till now that Alphys had a bunch of anime in her lab. I’ve never really been interested in it before, but it can’t be all that bad, right?

Day 35

...I… think I’ll skip the anime for now.

Day 45

Ok. I think I’ve finally gained the courage to go back into the castle. Into that room. I grabbed the last Cinnamon Bunnie and I’ve started to head up there. Hopefully it won’t take too long.

Day 46

I need to write this before I forget.

The first time I entered the room with coffins, I was shocked. The walls of the room were covered in… well, what looked like blood. The coffins were all gone, except for one that was standing up at the end of the room. Lit candles adorned the top of the casket. A large star with a circle surouding surrounding it was drawn on the floor. I didn’t understand why the symbol was there, but that wasn’t my main focus. In large letters above the coffin, there were written the words “every reset brings you closer to death. soon this coffin will be home to your corpse”.

It was too much to take in, so I had fled from the room. I didn’t know what it meant, but… It was frightening, to say the least. So when I went back to get a better look at the room, I was surprised to see that some things had changed.

All sorts of methods of torture were now hanging in the chamber. Stakes were thrust into the wall, ropes with loops hung from the ceiling, and I think there was even a guillotine in the corner.

The words above the coffin had changed, too. They now read “CHOOSE A METHOD OF DEATH, HUMAN. IT MAKES IT EASIER ON THE REST OF US”.

It took me a good while to realize I was shaking. Why was this happening? What did I do?

I eventually left the room. While a part of me wanted to be nowhere near that room, I decided to sleep in New Home for tonight. Maybe the room will change again in the morning?

I hope it doesn't.

...But another part of me hopes it will.

Day 47

I’m writing this after a forced reset. I had woken up a little miserably, and had decided to check on the coffin room again. Just as I entered the room, however, spears came from out of nowhere and impaled me.

I made my way back to the morgue from my last save point. The writing on the wall had changed yet again, along with the room. Black goop slowly ran along the walls and ceiling, puddling on the floor. The stench was enough to make me vomit what little was in my stomach. The dark pudding absorbed the contents of my belly, creating an even more intoxec intoxicating smell. The goo was leaking from the coffin, and didn’t show any point of stopping. The words now read “If you don’t kill yourself, Punk, we will gladly do it for you”.

I quickly left the room once again. I ran as far away as I could. I ran, and ran, and ran, and…

Now I’m back in the Snowdin. I think I might rest here for a while. Or…

I could try resetting again. It’s worth a shot, right?

Here’s hoping.

Day 48

I need to calm down.

When I woke up in the bed of flowers again, my first realization was that there were a LOT more of them. My second observation was that vines from the flowers were trying to grab my ankle.

I ran away from the plant life, not wanting to find out what it was going to do to me. I barely made it to the first save point before the vines came up from behind and strangled me. As I reloaded, I dodged the vines and continued through the Ruins. The flowers had grown at an incredible rate, and were growing even faster in their attempt to reach me. I made it to Toriel’s house, jumping down the stairs as plant life burst through the front door. I reached the door to Snowdin, managing to shut it as more flowers tried to force their way through.

I sat in the snow for a while, listening to loud bangs coming from the door. After some time, I finally made my way back to Snowdin. I cried for a little while, before I remembered my journal.

...Why is this happening to me?

Day 49

I haven't done much of anything lately. I still tired from running so much.

Day 60

Flowers have started to spread at the outskirts of Snowdin. I’ve relocated to MTT resort for now.

Food supplies are running low, not sure what to do about that. I know I had more food than this. Where did it all go?

Day 73

Watching some anime to keep me from losing my mind.

Day ?

I’ve lost all track of time now. I haven’t slept for a while. I can’t.

I checked the morgue again. A big dentist chair laid in the middle of the room, attached to a rope that lead to a slightly opened coffin. Sharp dentistry tools sat on the table next to it, as well as unconvi unconventional tools, like a chainsaw and a hammer. The words had changed once again, this time to “Think of it like taking a trip to the dentist”.

Day ?

The flowers are growing rapidly. They’ve almost made their way to Hotland now. Food supplies gone. So hungry.

I’m so hungry

Day ?

hungry so hungry so hungry so hungry so hungry

[Incoherent scribbling]

No food no cinnamonBUnniesnoTemmieflakesNOBisiclesimsOalonetheresnoboDYatallCAnsoMEbodypleasefindmeidontwanttobealone

[Incoherent scribbling]

flowers everywhere THEY’RE EVERYWHERE THEY’RE TEARING ME APART OVER AND OVER THEY’RE GROWING FASTER AND FASTER THERE'S NOWHERE TO RUN AN-

[Incoherent scribbling. The next paragraph is barely legible]

THEY’VE BLOCKED ME IN THE COFFIN ROOM THEY’RE STILL GROWING IT’S OPENING OH [Illegible] ITS OPENING ITS HOWLING ITS HOWLING AT ME, “You are the future of [Illegible] and monsters” THE VINES THEY’RE DRAGGING ME IN I CAN’T MOVE HELP ME HELP ME SOMEONE PLEASE HEL-

[The rest of the journal is blank, except for the inside back cover. Small words at the bottom are burned into it]

DETERMINATION

Greetings, Diary!

I was quite surprised to find a human child laying in the flower bed this morning. I tried to lead them home, but the fall must have hurt them somehow. They seem… well, empty, almost, and they don’t respond to anything I say. Their eyes appear hollow, and they keep muttering about flowers. It’s very disturbing, and I do hope they are alright.

While checking their HP to see if they were injured, I noticed the oddest thing. The human appears to have no soul. How are they alive? It is most troubling indeed.

Nevertheless, as caretaker of the Ruins, it is my responsibility to watch over them. I will make sure they are comfortable living down here in the Underground.

-Toriel

Frisk and Toriel belong to Toby Fox

[lindseyjune]

More Danger My Ass

Pairing: DEAN X READER 

Summary: You knew that you needed to tell Dean how you felt but you didn’t know that this was how it was going to pan out. Will Sam, who you didn’t even know had caught on to your feelings, confronting him give you the chance at a life with Dean that you always wanted, or will your worst nightmare be the end result; loosing them both?  

Word count: 1600+

Warnings: Language, little bit of self hate, negative emotions, then just pure fluff (is that a warning or a blessing? you decide) **let me know if I missed anything** 

A/N: So, this is the first piece of fan fiction I’ve ever written. I’m nervous to put it out there considering I’ve read some bomb work from a lot of people in the fandom but I’m hoping to keep working on improving my writing so I can potentially be as good as some of the people I follow. Constructive criticism is always welcome! Much love to you all. 

p.s. i kept it super vanilla but i swear if people want me to keep writing ill get more chocolate or whatever fanfics that aren’t vanilla are 

GIF CRED GOES TO @hunterchesters 

Picking up your journal and favorite pen, you began writing down your thoughts. Writing was your go-to when something in your life wasn’t going the way you expected it to go. To say the least, you wrote in your journal a lot. Life as a hunter came with the expectation that most things didn’t go the way you had planned.

Things were different this time though. It wasn’t a hunt that had you seriously frustrated and borderline in tears... well maybe not so much borderline considering you were actually crying.

Releasing a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, you wiped your tears from your face and then your hand to the material of your denim-clad thigh and picked up the pen again to begin writing,

June 25, 2017,

Well things sure as hell aren’t going any better as far as Dean goes. Yup, got that right, I still love him and guess what? He still has no clue. Have I tried to tell him? No. I shouldn’t have too. Aren’t the hints I give enough? I basically follow him around like a shadow and waste no opportunity to get my hands on him. 

Who do I always pick when there only two beds and I’m required to share? Dean. Who do I sit next to no matter where we are? Dean. Who do I go to when I need advice? Dean. IS IT NOT CLEAR? I’ve done everything except tattoo that I love him on my forehead. 

The cherry on top of this tragic situation is that he went out to the bar last night and brought yet another tragically, horny bar skank back to his room to get him off.

I honestly haven’t felt this low in a long time. He isn’t meaning to affect me this way and I know that. I mean fuck, he has no clue how I really feel. That I love him more than I have ever loved anyone or anything and that I have absolutely no idea what to do about it.

If I tell him, I could ruin our friendship; the only one other than the one I share with Sammy that means anything to me. I’d be lost without the two of them. How could I jeopardize that? Or risk being rejected and feeling even more like the fat piece of shit that I identify as already?. 

This rant is over. To whoever is out there listening; Chuck, God, whoever… could you please help a sister out cause this seriously sucks.

Yours truly, Miserable sidekick of Sam and Dean Winchester

“One more depressing journal entry, check.” You muttered to yourself walking out of your room and to the library in your true home; the bunker. You were so relieved to leave the hotel and head back home this morning after the events last night left you feeling peachy. There is literally nothing better than listening to the man you love pleasure some chick he doesn’t even know through the thin walls of connected hotel rooms. 

Almost to the library, you stopped in your tracks, picking up on two male voices having a hushed conversation. You knew you shouldn’t eavesdrop and just make your presence known but you couldn’t help yourself. They told you everything so either A; they were hiding something or B; their conversation had something to do with you. You heard deans voice first;

“Sam, what the hell are you talking about? What would her being upset have to do with me? I didn’t do anything!”

The youngest Winchester laughed, a laugh that gave way to the fact that a smart ass reply was coming next,  “Dude you really are more stupid than I thought.” He continued, ignoring the bitch face he got from Dean. “Dean, Jesus. She loves you. Haven’t you noticed how upset she gets when she sees you at the bar flirting shamelessly with some woman that she knows you’re going to bring back with you? Or the way she looks at you when you laugh or even breathe, for that matter. She chooses you in everything. She’s crazy about you and don’t argue that she isn’t. I know that look anywhere because that’s exactly how Jess looked at me.”

Holy shit. Holy mother of shit. This was not happening. You couldn’t back out from listening now. Or even from peering around the corner to see the look on Dean’s face since he wasn’t responding vocally to Sam. When your eyes landed on Dean, you could see the way he was looking at the floor right in front of Sam’s tall figure, brows knitted together in confusion, or was it realization of what he had been missing this whole time? His head shot up so quick at Sam that it almost startled you causing you to jump back around the corner that was hiding you previously. Thank god you were a hunter and were quiet, because that skittish move could have easily caused any rookie eavesdropper to be found out. 

Dean’s mouth opened like he was going to say something and closed it. This process repeated itself a few times before Sam felt the need to jump in and break the uncomfortable pregnant pause that had clouded the library.

“Dean, just answer one thing for me?”

“Hmm?” He replied looking up from the ground and into his brother hazel eyes.

“Do you care about her as more than a friend?” 

Here it was. The moment you had been waiting for. And you almost couldn’t listen to the words that you expected to leave his mouth at any moment. You debated on darting back to your room and acting like nothing ever happened. But you couldn’t do that. The pain this situation was causing you was going to kill you. You wanted to know, no scratch that, you needed to know. If the feelings weren’t reciprocated you were going to have to leave the bunker, leave the two boys that had been your family for the last 3 years, and hunt on your own again. Steering your mind back to the conversation being had about you and halting your racing thoughts, you listened to the words you never thought you’d hear Dean say.

He didn’t answer immediately. Then out of nowhere, almost as if he was waiting for you to begin paying attention again he blurted out, “I’ve loved her since the vamp hunt in Philly the second summer we knew her. Maybe even before that.” He continued after standing up to begin pacing in front of his younger brother. “But Sam, she thinks not being with me is painful but being with her is going to hurt her more. She’ll be in even more danger Sam. I can’t put her in that situation. If something happened to her it’d kill me.”

Ending his anxious pacing he stopped to look at Sam, but he didn’t know what to say. He was thankful his brother didn’t shove his feelings deeper down and that he was opening up, considering Dean didn’t open up very often at all. He also knew there was truth to what he was saying and that he loved her in a different way than his brother did. She was family and the sister he never had. He didn’t want her to be in anymore danger either.

Right when Sam had decided what he was going to say, you decided you were going to intervene. This was bullshit.

“More danger my ass.” You said in a stern tone while coming around the corner that had kept you hidden. Two sets of eyes were staring at you nervously wondering just how much you had heard. Directing your gaze and words towards the man you were in love with, you decided it was time to put on some big girl panties and get this shit out in the open.

“Don’t worry, I heard everything. Thank you, Sam, for not being blind to my emotions. For picking up on things that I thought I had made pretty damn clear. Dean, I have loved you for a long fucking time. Longer than I’d like to admit. No amount of pain from a hunt or even the amount of pain I was put through that week Crowley’s minions locked me up and tortured me could compete with the pain I feel knowing that we are wasting our time not being together because of the life we live. I want you. All of you. And I’m sorry but I can’t live here anym-“

Dean didn’t let you finish before he was crashing his lips to yours. It was like time stood still as cliché and borderline ridiculous as that sounded. It was like something in your body was brought back with something that it had been missing. Of course, you had to realize all of this BEFORE your body decided to react to the kiss and by that time Dean was backing away looking terrified, thinking that maybe he had made a mistake by jumping in so quickly. 

Reaching back out for him, your right hand landed on his cheek, where he leaned into your touch and your left hand found his. Pulling him back to you and molding your mouth to his, you didn’t waste any time before your tongue was running itself across his lower lip. In less than 30 seconds you were full on probing each other’s mouths before the other person in the room, Sam, oh yeah he was there watching this whole thing, cleared his throat.

“Thank God you two are finally doing this, but could you take it elsewhere because I have shit that in here that I have to do and I can’t do it if you two-“

You sprinted to Sam and wrapped your arms around his waist. He immediately returned the hug, engulfing your tiny body with his and lifting your feet off the ground. With tears in your eyes, you pulled back after he set you down to thank him for opening his idiot brother’s eyes to how you felt. Except you didn’t have to say anything. He just gave you a knowing nod and a smile before pushing you towards Dean.

Dean didn’t hesitate before intertwining his fingers with yours and walking the both of you to his bedroom. He smiled, looking over his shoulder at his brother before rounding the corner and finding Sam giving him his signature look that screamed, “I told you so, idiot.” 

When you both arrived to his door he looked at you with those gorgeous forest, green eyes and breathed out, “I love you, Y/N, and I’m sorry I didn’t do anything about it until now.” 

Smiling you kissed him chastely before resting your forehead to his. “I love you, and it feels so fucking good to say that.”

This was just the beginning of a life you were more than content with living. The next journal entry definitely wasn’t going to be anything like the last, considering you couldn’t picture life not going your way with Dean by your side. 

[art3mislance-blog]

How Physics Scored Kim a Date

Here’s my entry for Trimberly Week! Also posted on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11643270 

          Everyone told me not to do it, that there were much easier courses that I could be taking to fulfill my physical science requirement. Take astronomy, geology, even food science. But no, I had to insist on taking the harder course so that she could prove her friends and family wrong. That I wasn’t just a pretty face, that I actually had a brain and not just looks and cheerleading skills. But I never expected it would be this hard.

           The course from hell that I was talking about was Physics 151: General Physics I. To the naked eye it seemed like a generic, easy gen-ed. But it was actually a two-faced bastard, made to cause procrastinating students to sign up without further investigation past the name, lulling them into a false sense of safety. That was until they showed up to the first day of class to find that it was not as easy it seemed to be, that this physics was the one for the engineering students, one of their prerequisites. Stupidly I had stayed in the class even after hearing this, I mean if a bunch of engineering freshman were taking the course, then surely I, a superior sophomore, could handle it. Right? God was I wrong.

           I got a C- on the first exam. My heart had jumped into my throat when I had seen that score staring back at me from my laptop screen. After that I had really buckled down and made sure that all my homework was done and that I was studying a little bit each day and attending every class. But it still wasn’t enough, I just scraped by with a solid C on the second exam. I still had two more exams in the semester and I needed a B+ on both of them to be able to get a good grade in the class. But at the rate I was going it didn’t seem like that would happen. I couldn’t even hate the teacher because he was really nice and understanding, but I just couldn’t seem to grasp the material.

           I groaned and ran my hand through my hair, still surprised a bit when my hand stopped short, unused to the short locks. I shouldered the door open, not even looking up at the old auditorium. It had been jam-packed with around three-hundred students for the first few days, but now only around sixty or so showed up. I bee-lined for my unassigned seat, second row, three in from the left. I shuffled in, slipping my bag off my shoulder, ready to throw it under my chair, only to stop short when a pair of legs come into view. I narrow my eyes and allow my eyes to travel upward. My heart stutters in my chest as I take in the girl who has claimed my seat. Her dark brown hair falls in waves to her shoulders, a yellow beanie covering her head. She’s decked out in a pair of skinny jeans and a yellow, plaid shirt to match her beanie. She’s doodling something in her notebook, lost in her own little world. Before I can even think I blurt out, “You’re in my seat.”

           I press my lips together, regretting saying it as soon as the words leave my mouth. The girl’s eyes lazily looks up at me, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

           “That’s my seat, I sit there every day,” I wave my hand at her, emphasizing the seat she’s in specifically.

           A smirk makes its way over her face and she leans forward, looking behind her. She scans the back of the seat for a moment before her eyes turn back to me, eyes sparkling with mirth. “I don’t see your name on it.”

           I huff, “I’ve been sitting there every class since the start of the semester.”

           She shrugs her shoulders, turning her attention back to her doodles. “Well you should have gotten here sooner, princesa. Besides there’s plenty of other seats open,” her eyes dart along the row, which is completely empty except for her.

           I frown, heaving a sigh before dropping my bag and taking the seat next to her. I pull the small desk out before I begin to riffle through my bag for my notebook and pen. When I have them and I’m all settled I look up to find the girl staring at me. “The entire row is empty and you had to take the seat right next to mine?”

           “I like the view from my seat and this is the closest thing that I’m going to get to it. If you’re going to steal my seat then you’re going to have to deal with me,” I say stubbornly.

           She glares at me for a moment, but I maintain eye contact, though it’s not easy. Her eyes are pools of chocolate and I could feel myself getting drawn into them. I want to allow myself to get lost in them, but at the same time I know I should look away, lest I scare her off. Thankfully she just narrows her eyes at me before dropping her eyes, going back to her doodle once again.

           For the next few minutes an awkward silence hangs over the two of us. She scratches away at her paper, doodling random things like lightning bolts to pass the time. Meanwhile I glance around the room, taking in all the bored faces, staring at their phones until the teacher starts the lesson. I soon get tired of this though and turnmy attention back to her, “I’m Kim by the way.”

           “Nice to know, princesa,” she mutters, not taking her eyes off of her paper.

           “You’re not going to tell me your name?” She glances over at me, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. Unfortunately the teacher takes this moment to start teaching and I have to tear my eyes away from the beautiful stranger, diverting my full attention to the PowerPoint. I sit through the lesson, hastily writing everything I can down, barely understanding anything about it. I know that we’re learning the conservation of momentum, and I get the basic principle of it down. But when it comes to the practice problems he shows I can’t make head or tales of it.

           By the end of the lesson my hand was cramped from all the scribbling I had been doing and I tighten it into a first before relaxing it, trying to ease the ache. “You really like physics, huh?” the mystery girl asks, causing me to jump lightly.

           A snort breaks past my lips before I can stop it, “Quite the opposite, actually.” She raises an eyebrow at me, “I’m actually doing horribly in the class, I need to pay attention to try and get better than a C on my next exam.”

           She furrows her brows, zipping up her bag before standing. I follow suit and we both shuffle out of the row, slowly walking out behind the other students. I figure that is the end of our conversation and that we’ll part ways once outside the building, but she surprises me when she asks, “I could, uh help you sometime if you like.”

           I shoot her an incredulous look, “You don’t even like me!”

           She frowns at my words, “Why do you say that?”

           I roll my eyes, starting to walk in the direction of the dinning common. “You won’t even tell me your name for starters.”      

           She rolls her eyes at me, checking her watch. “Look I have chem in five minutes, we can talk more during class on Wednesday.” With that she abruptly turns and starts speed walking away.

           “I still don’t know your name!” I yell out.

           “See you Wednesday, princesa!” she calls over her shoulder.

             Giddy excitement rushes through me, I haven’t been this excited to go a physics class since, well, ever. Next to me Jason nudges my shoulder, wiggling his eyebrows at me, “Getting pumped to see your girlfriend?”

           I ram my shoulder into him, making him stumble to the side. “She’s not my girlfriend, and can’t I just be excited for physics?”

           “No you hate the class,” he deadpans, “Besides, all I’ve heard for the past day and a half is about this sarcastic little shit in your physics class who stole your seat. Going on and on about how beautiful her eyes are, how her raspy voice is just great, and-”

           I punch his shoulder, “Shut up, so maybe I have a crush on this mystery girl, but nothing’s going to come of it. I don’t even think she likes me.”

           He shoots me a glare as he rubs his shoulder, “Dude she said she’d help you in physics, if she hated you she definitely wouldn’t be signing up to spend more time with you.”

           He’s got a point, even though everything else about our interaction makes me believe that I’m just a nuisance to her there’s no denying the fact that she offered to spend more time with me. Clearly she can’t dislike me that much, right? Unless she plans on making fun of me the whole time for being unable to grasp General Physics. I groan, “I’ll see you later, Jace.”

           He sends me an encouraging smile before I break away from him to head into Hasbrouck, the building I have come to loathe. When I make my way into the auditorium I find that the mystery girl is in my seat again, glancing up at the door. We make eye contact for a moment before she looks away, a bit of pink tinging her cheeks. My hope rises, maybe I do have a chance after all.

           I make my way over to the seat next to her, hesitating for only a moment before sitting down. “Hey there, Sarah.”

           She turns to me, confusion plastered all over her face. “Who’s Sarah?”

           I shrug, “Not you, I guess. I don’t know your name so I thought I’d give it a go.”

           She rolls her eyes at me, “So you’re struggling with physics?”

           Deflecting I can deal with that, “Yeah it’s not my strong suit, I took it to get rid of a gen-ed. Obviously it’s not my strong suit, unlike you Carry.”

           She sighs in exasperation, “Not my name, princesa. Besides, physics not for everyone, what’s your major?

           “Journalism, how about you, Lucy?”

           She groans, “Would you quit it with the names?”

           “Not until you tell me yours,” I shoot back.

           She just shakes her head at me, “I’m a mechanical engineering major,” she mutters, “So what are you struggling with?”

           I shrug, “The problems, I guess. I usually can understand the theory behind everything, but when it comes to putting it to action I crash and burn.”

           She nods, biting her lip. My breathe catches, oh god was it hot in here or was it me? Actually it’s the mystery girl, she was definitely causing the room to go up a few degrees with her presence. I wet my lips, my mouth suddenly dry as I find myself staring.

“Kim!” she says, snapping her fingers in my face.

I blink, dragging my eyes away from her lips up to her eyes. “I can’t meet with you tonight at 4 if you want? We could go to the library and I can see if I can help you.”

           “Really?!?” I ask, excitement evident in my tone. I throw my arms around her without thinking, “You are literally a life saver!” She squirms in my grip and I let her go, unable to stop smiling. “I can pay you if you want? I’d feel bad if you helped me with nothing in return.”

           The girl hesitates for a moment, her hands playing with a hairband, showing her nerves. “Well you could buy me dinner, in return.”

           Oh my god. Did she mean as in a date? Was I making this up? I didn’t even know this freaking girls name, Christ I had only known her for a few days. But god would I love to take her out on a date. “D-dinner?” I somehow manage to squeak out.

           She blushes and turns red, dropping her face down to her notebook. “Forget it, it was a stupid idea.”

           “No!” I yell, drawing the attention of a few people in the area, I don’t care though because a pretty girl might have just asked me on a date and I can’t let her think that I don’t want it. “I would love to have dinner with you! Would, uh, would it be a date?” My voice cracks on the word date and I cringe, god I just sounded like a fifteen-year old boy.

           She looks at me through her lashes, biting her lip once again. “Yeah, as a date.”

           A grin stretches across my face. “Deal, but only if you tell me your name.”

           She rolls her eyes at me, but holds out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

           “That’s not your name,” I shoot back, even though I’m unlocking my phone and handing it to her anyway. She rolls her eyes at me and takes the phone. She messes around with it for a moment before handing it back to me.

           I look down at it to find that she has created a new contact and sent a text to herself with my name. I quickly look at the top of the screen to find the name Trini with a yellow heart next to it. I grin, turning back to her, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Trini.”

[cosmosogler]

today i got almost everything done!

my mother woke me up at about 5:45, and then again at 6:20. i was super angry. then my brother and sister were in both the upstairs bathrooms so i had to go all the way downstairs and across the house just to go to the bathroom before i went back to sleep.

i dreamed that i was getting annoyed with a conspiracy theorist. “video games are downloading scientific theories into your brain!!!” it was the science that scared them apparently. and the computers. the person wasn’t even present, i was just hearing their voice as i played dream mario, which is only slightly like nintendo mario. i told the voice that video games are just another way to tell a story. i pulled a children’s book out of somewhere, i think it was “goodnight moon” actually. except the cover was wrong. but i was telling the voice that there wasn’t nothin wrong with telling a cute or simple story.

sometimes the story is “i got really good at jumping over hills and across floating spinners and on turtles.”

i only put on the snooze for five minutes because i really, REALLY didn’t want to get up with less than like seven and a half hours of sleep. i got up anyway and showered. i didn’t get to spend long in the shower though... i really need to shave but i haven’t had much time at all the last five, seven days. i shower every other day since it’s a little better for your hair and skin...

anyway as i was heading out to go to therapy dad decided to start asking me to do some chores. i sort of started one, i let eve outside, but i seriously didn’t have time to wait for her to take a sunbath and let her back in. then someone (not naming names, because i’m not 100% sure) decided to park their car in a way that made it impossible for me to pull out of the garage. so i had to go back inside, get that car’s key, move it to the other side of the driveway, go back inside to drop off that key, and then i could get in “my” car and get going. then people on the freeway kept cutting me off without using their turn signals and also were generally going below the speed limit so i would have to stand on the brakes. this happened more than once. then i almost hit someone trying to get over to the exit because as i passed them apparently they sped up while passing through my blind spot so they were farther up than i thought they would be when i started changing lanes. cool!!!!!!!!

in individual therapy i brought up a bunch of emotional problems i had started to explore a little bit in group therapy. i ended up talking for the whole 45 minutes straight basically. like, my therapist asked a few questions, and reassured me a few times, but it was like a huge information dump so hopefully in the coming weeks i can start addressing each problem individually. i also got my semester refund paperwork sorted out with her. i’ll be able to pick it up next week. i mostly focused on how none of my problems feel “big enough” unless they are unsolvable since i really didn’t get to talk about it in group yesterday. i said one thing that i kind of liked though. i said “i feel like if i didn’t have so many problems, i wouldn’t have so many problems.” 

what i meant to say was “if i didn’t have so many mental and personality problems, i wouldn’t have so many life problems,” but the vagueness was silly enough that my therapist made a face and laughed. i said i didn’t know what to focus on first and she said “you’re already working on everything.” i had listed the multiple projects i am trying to keep up with therapy wise... i dunno. i feel like if i can get over that big “problems have to be impossible” hurdle things will start feeling a little more manageable and i’ll be able to make progress more quickly.

guess i gotta spend more time thinking about that. i’ll keep you posted as things come up.

after that i picked up my paperwork from my physician’s office since i was on that side of town and got the number for the radiology lab that wants to do the last test. when i got home i shoved some leftovers in the microwave and called the lab and scheduled my “hida scan,” which is a gall bladder test i guess where they put a bunch of glowing stuff through your digestive system and see if it goes through normally. the scheduler said it normally takes two hours unless they find something, in which case it will take longer. luckily my next therapy appointment is 4 hours after my procedure... i hope that will give enough time. i will have to let her know. i definitely wouldn’t be able to do it on a group therapy day and the lady seemed pretty keen on doing it as soon as possible. and i can’t do it in the afternoon in case it goes long and dad isn’t able to get to work.

so 8 am next tuesday it is.

so i had my ravioli and went upstairs and then after a short break i watched the iron giant with oz. the movie is even better than i remembered. then we talked about physics stuff while i worked on gathering study materials with my classmates. i had a great time, and i hope oz did too. it felt nice to do an activity with someone that took up all our attention, so i didn’t have to, like, feel self conscious about not baring my soul or something.

i think when asher gets back i will talk to him about maybe spending an afternoon at the pottery lounge thing by the amc. it’s not cheap, but last time i checked i didn’t think it was too expensive at least. and i still have the ceramic dog i painted like 15 years ago so the stuff lasts. basically you pick out a little ceramic statue and you get to paint it using a selection from like 200 different shades. and i think you can stay as long as it takes to paint it. the smaller stuff wasn’t too bad cost-wise.

got sidetracked. after i hung up with oz and got all my emails and google docs in order i went and got groceries for mom. she was making quesadillas for dinner. i unfortunately had to pay for them with my own money, and it felt weird buying meat after all these years. but i guess i buy dog treats often enough that it’s not really, like, a compromise of my morals or something. i noticed that the dogs really went wild over the chicken strips i bought last time, so i tried to expand to “turducken.” (spoiler: they loved those too.)

so i dropped off the vegetables and stuff with mom, checked on the cactus mouse, and watched a couple of the videos i had loaded up while talking to oz. i try not to spend too much time reading or watching videos while talking to people because i get super focused on what i’m looking at and don’t hear what they say any more haha.

then i went downstairs and had my veggie quesadilla. it was... ok. i was still a little hungry afterward, but i also felt kind of ill so i didn’t want to eat any more. eating with mom was the WORST. she breathes loud and chews with her mouth open so it’s just a constant avalanche of awful squishy mouth noises. it made me so angry and annoyed that i think that’s what made me sick more than the food. i kind of abruptly stood up and put my plate away and took the dogs outside after trying out the new treats. i tried to play fetch with wiley but he was having none of it today. which is very odd... maybe it was just too hot for him to want to run around. 

i have been experiencing kind of horrible pain between my shoulder blades. i’m pretty sure it’s not my bra pinching anything because it’s way above the strap... probably a pinched nerve. i tried stretching my arms and shoulders and that seemed to help a lot, so i’m thinking i slept in a bad position.

then i went back upstairs and whined to myself about my therapy homework. i did more “self care” research and added a few more posts to my queue. and i talked with some discord guys a little bit. then i caught up on my self esteem journal and picked out one of my “short term goals” from my hospital-issued treatment plan. i used that as a base to expand on for my goal worksheet. i finished all that around 11 so then i got started on the owl picture for 40 minutes or so. now i am 35 minutes into my journal entry, which puts me at a comfortable time to finish up and try to sleep. i got another 10 minutes before i hit my target “get ready for bed” time.

my group mates and therapist expressed interest when i let slip that i like to draw on monday. the therapist asked what i draw. i wasn’t sure how to answer... “furries” isn’t really something i wanted to get into. and i haven’t drawn my own characters except for a reference for one of the art trades in a long time. i suppose i should post the uncolored version of that since i scanned it in and haven’t worked on it with the tablet yet.

so i just said “characters and people.” i like landscapes, but i have trouble spending enough time on them to really get into the details. i’m hoping the coloring pages will help loosen up my patience so i might start feeling like spending a million hours on one picture again. it’s been a couple years since i did anything complicated.

i’m thinking about maybe taking my sketch book... but i don’t want to spend a lot of time on explaining what the picture is of when i have more urgent things to work on.

tomorrow i have more things to do! i NEED to work on the welcome packet for ufl. i need to scan in a bunch of stuff, like my immunization records and my doctors’ notes for my refund file. i need to send an email to the preliminary test coordinator to figure out how to proceed with my studying... i need to know how much to panic about this. then after group therapy i need to drop off my sister’s old prescriptions at the police station. that won’t take too long. if i got energy i’d like to organize my desk and maybe also tidy up my room a little bit. write some things down to put in the jar. then i will work on my self esteem journal, continue reading through the self care resources i’ve got open in a million tabs, and work on the coloring page a little bit. that sounds good. and at some point i need to write my 1- to 2-paragraph essay for the refund. and also i gotta email my apartment complex about stuff like the bed size and some cupboard dimensions and whether there’s a microwave and stuff like that. some of those things i’m pretty sure i can just look up somewhere.

i think i can manage those things. the student orientation videos might have to wait until thursday but i can compile the paperwork and read the faqs and stuff. none of these tasks take long by themselves. so as long as i remember to take little breaks and stay motivated i think i can get it done and not have to worry about it so much any more.

ok, it is 12:30, which is only 5 minutes after my target time! i’m gonna do the daily pokemon stuff for 2-3 minutes and then get ready for bed. gotta practice giving myself credit for reaching/working on goals and stuff, even when i don’t want to.

[roland-terrasold-blog]

Journal 56

We saved Sandpoint. Again. We’re well on our way to clearing Elkin’s name, too. I should feel like celebrating. I don’t. I really don’t. Things have taken a turn for the better, mostly. But I managed to really screw up in the meantime. I hurt Elkin. Badly. After the situation with his room I would have thought I’d learned my lesson about letting Unae’s panic rub off on me, but it would appear that I can’t go a day without hurting Elkin worse while trying to help him. I loathe this situation. It feels like every choice I’ve made recently has been the complete wrong decision.

I guess I should start from the beginning. After I finished writing the previous entry, I left the demiplane to see if I could find Amara. I assumed she would likely scry on me sometime early in the day since she made a point of contacting my friends, so I didn’t doubt if I went looking I’d find her fairly quickly.

Along the way I noted that the murals and statues of our group had been heavily vandalized, especially the depictions of Elkin. At the time, I considered it the first sign of the damage I’d caused by turning my back on Zalbrag.

While I examined one of the vandalized sites, Amara snuck up behind me. She’d probably intended to try to spook me, but honestly I’m so used to her eccentricities I expected something like that. What did take me by surprise was “Stumpy”. That is to say, the lich Linda mentioned. Apparently my old friend had the bright idea to track down an ancient and powerful lich and jam its phylactery into her left hand. With the right kind of magic tinkering she was able to basically bend the lich to her will. I’m none-too-comfortable with the implications of this. It’s basically enslaving another creature, albeit an evil creature that would have done a great deal of harm if left to its own devices. Knowing Amara, this was less for the noble ‘protect people from an evil lich’ aspect and more for the ‘no one’s ever tried this magic before so it’s time to experiment’ aspect. I never know whether to have respect for Amara’s scholarly ambition and boundless curiosity, or fear for what horrors she’ll almost certainly unleash someday testing experimental and morally grey magic.

I haven’t mentioned Amara in my journals before (my apologies when you read this, Amara, my magic studies just aren’t something that’ve come up). She’s a brilliant, if not eccentric, wizard whose brother Alaric is a cleric of Desna. When I first began following Sarenrae’s path, I came upon Amara being attacked by wolves and saved her, then healed her wounds by accident, as I had no idea how magic worked back then. Amara, for her part, had been running late that day and had neglected to prepare magic to defend herself, thinking the roads she’d travelled a dozen times before without incident were perfectly safe. Knowing her it’s entirely possible she stayed up until sunrise experimenting and decided to sleep in rather than prepare her magic. It wouldn’t be the first time. I suspect there wouldn’t have been much left of those wolves by the time I showed up if she had been better prepared.

Regardless, after I healed her, Amara took note that I seemed inexperienced, and offered to teach me what theoretical knowledge she had on divine magic, and what light Alaric could shine on the subject. I tried to turn her down, but she wouldn’t drop the subject. One thing lead to another, and I ended up spending nearly half a year studying both divine and arcane magic with her help. I have Amara to thank for almost every bit of magical knowledge I’ve used on this journey. I knew next to nothing about magic, whether divine or otherwise, before I met her. Even simple healing or channeling positive energy would have been beyond me if it weren’t for her. I don’t know if Amara would agree, but I feel that Sarenrae guided me to her that day.

Eventually she had to get back to her research, and I wanted to get back to traveling and following the Dawnflower’s path, so we parted ways. We’ve exchanged letters a handful of times since then, and apparently she’s been scrying in on occasion.

Anyways, Amara and I caught up a bit. She told me a little about her ventures that lead to her binding a lich to herself (that sentence will never quit being disturbing). She also mentioned that she’s working with the Pathfinders Association now, and that she was going to be joining their expedition into Hell. I was surprised to hear this, generally in the past Amara had always been a bit apathetic towards actually using her skills and knowledge for another other than hording more skills and knowledge. She made it sound like I’d inspired her to do some good with her abilities. Even though that good seems to have included binding a lich to herself (I’m not letting that go), I’m glad to hear she’s putting her skills to good use. Maybe next time we meet she’ll be the one with heroic stories to tell (and unlike me I’m sure she’ll love the spotlight).

Before I parted ways with her, I shared the formulas I’ve been sketching out in the margins of these journal entries and the location of Runeforge. I hope she’ll put my divine-arcane formulas to good use. I can only really decipher them when I’m using my Suzaku holy symbol. I think if anyone can actually crack how to mesh divine and arcane magic without the Suzaku, it’ll be Amara. As for Runeforge, that was on her insistence. I warned her of how potentially dangerous Runeforge is, that time moves differently and that there’s no guaranteed exit, but she was insistent that I give her the location for her studies when she’s back from her current expedition. I’m sure she understands what she’s getting herself into, and surely Runeforge isn’t worse than literally traveling to Hell…yet I can never help but worry.

We parted ways once again, and I returned to the ship. On the way in I spotted Ichibod leaving. I was too distracted thinking about having seen Amara again to ask him where he was going, or to consider it was a bit strange that he might wander the streets by himself. I wish I’d taken a moment to think. A lot of trouble could have been avoided if I’d stopped Ichibod right there. My second mistake of the day.

I took some time to meditate and then to train some. Eventually Unae burst into the basement of the demiplane in a panic. I don’t remember her exact words, this next part was all kind of a blur. But it boiled down to  this: the sheriff wanted Elkin brought in because people were accusing him of the vandalism in town, Unae had gone to the temple of Desna to get a gift for Elkin and arrived just in time to see Ichibod get arrested for something he did, Zalbrag cornered Unae and demanded that Elkin be turned over to him, and afterwards Unae ran into Linda and Linda formed a plan she wouldn’t share involving everyone in the group dressing nicely. I tried to calm her down and talk to her about what to do, but in the end it seemed I didn’t have a firm grasp of the situation. My third mistake, because afterwards Unae asked me to talk to Elkin about it and explain the situation. With my poor understanding of what was going on, I apparently did a piss poor job of explaining the situation to him, as I later discovered. He came out of what I said thinking the main issue was Ichibod being imprisoned, while the real main issue was that two people wanted to jail Elkin as well.

Linda eventually returned and had us all dress up (except Elkin who blatantly refused). She told us that she planned to use her political standing as the new queen of Blackwell to try to keep Elkin from being jailed, as he’s technically a member of her military. I pointed out that few people knew that Blackwell even exists, but I had to admit it was a better plan than anything the rest of us had thought of. So we did as Lady Linda commanded and dressed like proper members of her court. Linda and Unae were quite stunning dressed up. They looked like true nobility. If I didn’t know better, I would never guess that the two of them were warriors who could fell creatures ten times their size. Nel and I dressed in our finest clothes as well. I don’t think I’ve ever dressed in such fine clothes. I’ve never had the money or the appropriate situation before. It’s a shame we were dressing up to fight for Elkin and Ichibod’s freedom rather than for a party of something a bit more pleasant. Maybe when they hold the parade I’ll wear them again.

Befitting of the less than pleasant situation, we had to consider that there might be a fight. Although Linda insisted we go unarmed, Nel refused to relinquish his ranseur, which he disguised as a walking staff, and Unae hid her daggers on her person. For my part, I left my blade behind but I had my holy symbol act as a pin, so that I could easily cast spells if necessary.

We finally headed out, and to my surprise we went to the church rather than to meet with Hemlock. Zalbrag cornered us here, along with a number of guards and a tied up Ichibod. He told us to hand over Elkin. Elkin bristled at this. He was under the impression that this was entirely about Ichibod. I could have sworn I told him about the vandalism, and that Zalbrag and Hemlock were looking for him, but it seemed I didn’t make myself clear in our rush. Elkin felt that we’d betrayed him, that we were going to hand him over to Zalbrag because he was inconvenient to us now.

Linda stepped in and put a stop to that, claiming sovereignty as queen of Blackwell and arguing that as a member of her army Elkin couldn’t be detained by Sandpoint or the church, especially without definitive proof that Elkin had committed the crime he was being accused of. Unae and I brought up the point that the physical evidence near the vandalism sites didn’t match Elkin’s abilities. From what Hemlock had told Unae, there were large footprints near each site, but they always vanished not far from the crime scene. Elkin doesn’t have any magic of his own, nor does he own any magical items that allow teleportation. His footprints wouldn’t have simply vanished into thin air. Zalbrag brought out that leather bound book again and claimed that if Elkin was the demon lord depicted, teleportation was an ability easily within his grasp.

I questioned why, if he truly was this terrible evil demon lord like the Cardinal claimed, Sarenrae time and again allowed me to use her power to protect and heal him. Zalbrag told me that this was a test, and I was failing. Considering what happened later…well, just remember that part for later.

Linda returned to her original plan, arguing that regardless of what the Cardinal thought Elkin may or may not be, he was still under the protection of Blackwell and had diplomatic rights. Zalbrag didn’t even hesitate, he told her that a country had to be recognized by at least two other states to be considered a true sovereignty and to be recognized has having diplomatic rights. Otherwise, he said, assuming Blackwell even exists, it was little more than a guild, and the church wouldn’t recognize Linda’s authority. A guild…on the moon.

Linda and Zalbrag argued politics for some time. I admit to getting a bit lost. Magic, religion, medicine, fighting, these things I understand well. Politics, not so much.

Eventually, Mayor Zalag and Lord Grabanath made an appearance. The newly formed city-state of Sandpoint and the long established city-state of Magnamar both recognized Blackwell as a sovereign power, and Lady Linda of Blackwell as a legitimate ruler and ally to their respective states. With that established, Zalbrag lost the right to seize Elkin from us.

However he could still take Ichibod, as he pointed out. He said that he would use his authority to have Ichibod jailed for life on charges of heresy and for attempting to modify church documents. Specifically, Ichibod had tried to sneak into the Cardinal’s office to nullify my excommunication and reinstate an official biship title instead. I found out later that Linda and Amara had helped form the original plan, and I suspect Unae was in on it as well given how she was acting the night before. Ichibod had gotten impatient and acted on his own, but if he hadn’t basically all of my companions would have been in on it.

I…have mixed feelings. I was indignant at the time. I’m still a bit angry about it, if I;m honest. I couldn’t believe the others had been going around behind my back about something that directly affected me, which they admitted to knowing I wouldn’t approve of. If they had succeeded, Zalbrag would have found out eventually and it would have incriminated me rather than any of them. So I was pretty livid with them, especially with Ichibod. On the other hand, they really were just trying to help. I don’t like how they went about it. It was illegal and poorly thought out and could have blown up in our faces (and, in fact, it did). But they really were just trying to help after how Zalbrag had been treating me and Elkin. Their hearts were in the right place. I did, however, very pointedly tell Linda and Ichibod that maybe in the future they should keep this in mind if they want to go behind the back of another member of the group, especially regarding something that directly affects them.

Zalbrag said that he would be willing to let Ichibod go in exchange for Elkin, which obviously we refused. Linda didn’t try to protect Ichibod, however, seeing as he really did break the law. It’s a bit hypocritical if she’d planned on helping to do the same thing later, but I digress.

I brought up that while Ichibod may have attempted to trespass, he did so in a temple of Desna, not Sarenrae. If anyone should have the right to hold charges, it was the priests of Desna, not Zalbrag and his followers. Zalbrag became indignant, citing the fact that he’d donated a great sum to the temple for himself and his followers to stay there, and as such he had every right to Ichibod. At this Father Zantas stepped in, Sarenrae and Desna bless him. He agreed that Zalbrag had donated a large sum to stay in the temple, but that was the extent of it, and he was dropping any charges against Ichibod. Father Zantas explained that regardless of Ichibod’s intentions, the only thing he’d actually done was try to enter a room in the temple, which he claimed he would have gladly let Ichibod into himself if he had just asked.

Without the temple backing the charges, the city guards let Ichibod go. They seemed rather happy to be rid of him, to be honest. I think he was chatting their ears off the entire time. Probably reminiscing about his own time as a city guard.

This could have been the end of it. But of course, Zalbrag had one more card up his sleeve. One of his attendants whispered something to him, and Zalbrag told us that a witness of the events the night before had come forward to testify. The person in question was Habe, the sanitarium worker we’d met many months earlier. Habe was jittery, likely because Linda was staring him down (I’m about half a foot taller than her and often the only person keeping her alive, and I’d probably hesitate if she shot me that glare). He told us that the night before he’d seen Elkin entering a store, hidden under a cloak. Later he heard a commotion outside the sanitarium, and when he looked outside he saw Elkin leaving and later found the statue nearby vandalized.

We tried to find a hole in his testimony, but before we could get far Elkin took things into his own hands. By that I mean he turned himself over, even though he didn’t do it. Zalbrag took Elkin, telling us that he would be tried at the high cathedral to Sarenrae. Just to rub salt on the wounds, he added that no one in our group would be permitted to enter, as we lacked a ranking member of the clergy. Whatever else I may think about him at this point, the Cardinal has proven he can be rather petty when angered.

After Zalbrag took Elkin away, Unae told us that she needed to talk to us in private. She had us return to the ship, where she revealed that she was able to get through to Elkin for a moment with their mental connection. He told her that if he didn’t take the fall then the two tieflings who work for Habe would be the ones blamed for the vandalism.

While we tried to discuss what to do to clear Elkin’s name without accidentally implicating his friends, Meinus arrived at the ship. Linda had sent him to try to catch Habe to see if we could get more information from him, but the man got away. Instead, Meinus had run into the two tieflings, who told us about what the two of them knew about the night before. The two of them had vandalized a single statue in frustration at how the town was treating their fellow tiefling. Elkin was out of the ship and spotted them. He took them back to the sanitarium to keep them from being caught, and the three of them spent the night drinking. They were only the cause of a single case of vandalism, the rest were someone else.

Unae kept talking with Elkin’s new friends while I talked with Linda and ichibod about how we would save Elkin. Ichibod wanted us to try to sneak into the cathedral using disguises and magic. Considering his recent track record with that, I told him absolutely not. I thought that Unae was bad at bluffing. From now on, in my opinion, Ichibod absolutely cannot be trusted with stealth.

Ichibod argued the merits of his plan, which is when he threw Linda under the carriage by telling me that she and Amara had been a part of the original plan to doctor church documents as well. I told them my thoughts about them plotting behind my back, but I couldn’t say everything I wanted before Unae popped into the conversation and let us know that Elkin’s friends had given her something to help Elkin, which she would be keeping in Linda’s bag of holding until further notice.

We went back to planning, but we weren’t getting anywhere fast. I dryly commented that I almost wished that some of Karvoug’s minions would show up, since he was likely getting impatient at how long it was taking for us to get to Xin’Shalast.

At that moment there was a sound of panic outside. Linda demanded to know what I did (hopefully joking) and we rushed outside. There was a fire and some sort of commotion outside the town wall. We ran towards the source of the smoke to see if we could help calm the situation.

Just outside the town walls was a huge pillar of fire and a smashed carriage. To one side was Cardinal Zalbrag, gravely injured and shielding a number of priests and reformed goblins with his own body. Near the smashed carriage was a huge figure: a huge hairy demon which held a hexagonal shield and a sword swathed in black flames. It was the real perpetrator of the destruction in town. And the monster was looming over Elkin, who had his shield raised to defend himself.

The creature faced us. He introduced himself as Malfeshnekor, and told us that he was the demon that Nualia had been trying to summon nearly a year prior. When we’d swayed Nualia into letting go of her wrath and seeking repentance for her actions, we’d inadvertently left this demon half-summoned and trapped in the ruins below Sandpoint. He was left weakened at the time, and he taunted us that we should have found him and killed him back then. As Sandpoint grew, he gainted a larger pool of human sin to feed off of, and was eventually able to regain a large portion of his lost power. Enough, at least, to escape the Ruins of Wrath. Now he wanted revenge on us for thwarting his original return, and to use our deaths as a sacrifice to realize his full power.

The demon summoned two enormous fire elementals and stood back to let them try to take care of us.

Meinus, Elkin, Unae, and Linda focused on the demon and his minions. In the meantime Nel and I worked to heal Cardinal Zalbrag. Even Theo borrowed some of Unae’s magic to help patch the Cardinal’s wounds. As much as I still hated him at the time, he was trying to protect innocent people from being killed and had been hurt in the process. I couldn’t turn a blind eye to his injuries.

After I finished healing Zalbrag, Ichibod cast a spell which affected everyone but Unae and Elkin. Time around us seemed to slow, although Linda surmised that it was likely that we were actually moving much faster than before. I didn’t have much time to think about it at the time, but my guess is it was a variation of the haste spell cast in a way that suited Ichibod’s time magic.

Linda took advantage of her newfound speed to attack the nearest fire elemental, which had set Meinus on fire. Nel was attacked by the other elemental, and both he and Meinus retreated to put out the flames.

In the meantime, Elkin and Unae focused on the demon. Malfeshnekor seemed to realize the danger he was in facing the two of them. He retreated and cast an invisibility spell on himself. I cursed myself for preparing neither true sight nor invisibility purge. I believed we’d be forced to try to find him, which had never worked in our favor with invisible enemies in the past.

Fortunately, I hadn’t taken one thing into account: Cardinal Zalbrag. The Cardinal asked if such magic was all the forces of darkness had to throw at us, and he cast invisibility purge, breaking through Malfeshnekor’s spell without any sign on strain.

I didn’t much want to be shown up by Zalbrag’s spell casting. I faced the elemental which had attacked Nel. Using one of my vials of holy water as a focus, I cast banishment and sent the enormous living flame back to its home plane. At the same time Linda took her usual approach with the other fire elemental and destroyed it with her axe.

This left only Malfeshnekor to deal with. Elkin charged the large demon. Backed into a corner, the demon had one final trick up his sleeve. He cast killing order on Elkin, dominating his mind and turning our friend’s blade against us.

Blessedly, we didn’t have to fight Elkin. I was prepared to try to dispel the magic controlling him, but before I could even begin casting Zalbrag cast his own spell. He activated one of his magical rings, which allowed him to magically lift the remains of the carriage and crush the demon under it like an insect. When we were skeptical that the demon had truly died from the physical wounds, Zalbrag finished the job by casting destruction on it. A pillar of holy light engulfed the demon and when it faded there was nothing left.

I am so glad we didn’t take Unae’s advice and try to kill him. There is absolutely no way we would have survived that encounter. I thought I was a fairly powerful magic user at this point. I now feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what magic, both divine and arcane, can really do.

With the demon gone, Zalbrag cast a mass heal spell on us and on the people he’d been protecting. There was a moment of silence between us. It was clear now who the real culprit was, but we didn’t know if Zalbrag would still try to take Elkin regardless.

Blessedly, Zalbrag had a change of heart. He told us that while he’d said before that Sarenrae had been testing me, in reality he was the one being tested, and he felt he had failed. As he put it, while he’d been paranoid of an evil within Elkin that no one could see, he’d failed to see a real evil lurking within the city. He told us that before we arrived Malfeshnekor had attacked their carriage, and Elkin had jumped in the way of an attack meant for Zalbrag, despite the treatment Elkin had received from the Cardinal over the past three days.

The Cardinal promised to revise the church’s stance on Elkin and to help fund a recreation of the lost art works in Sandpoint, this time reflecting a more accurate depiction of Elkin. He also told me that he would have me officially reinstated as a fully fledged bishop. This took me by surprise, honestly. Just an offer to not excommunicate me would have been more than enough. As much as Zalbrag’s way of going about it had been scummy, he was right that I had little working knowledge of the actual church. It would seem I’ll have to learn, sooner rather than 

I’m glad that we came out of this on better terms with the Cardinal than we’d had. Writing the recent events, I still think he was overly petty and spiteful on a few occasions, but much of what he did was out of a belief he was stopping someone evil before they could do harm. I hope that he’s truly learned his lesson from this, and that next time he’ll heed the words of those who know the person he’s accusing rather than assuming that everyone else is naïve and blind. I get the feeling from our parting that he’s truly going to take the lessons he learned today to heart and quit blinding himself in mistrust because of his past, but I suppose only time will tell. Change is hard.

Unfortunately, as I implied at the start of this entry, all was not well. After the Cardinal left us, Linda went to check on Elkin to make sure he was alright after being freed from the demon’s spell. Elkin rejected her concern. He was livid with us for how we’d handled things the last few days, especially for invading his privacy that morning and causing him to believe that we were handing him over to someone who wanted him locked away or dead. Both were directly or indirectly my fault, as you may recall.

Ichibod tried to reason with Elkin in a very Ichibod way, telling him that it was stupid to think that we would ever hand him over, and that we were his friends and only wanted to help, and that we’d been fighting tooth and nail to keep him free and to clear his name. Elkin, in so many words, told Ichibod to shut it. He said he knows, and that if a logical argument was all it would take for him to calm down he wouldn’t need the ring that keeps him from going berserk. He told Ichibod that he was lucky to have never met him without the ring, because the rest of us likely had flashbacks the moment Malfeshnekor took control of Elkin. I…cannot deny that.

Elkin stormed off back to the ship, needing some more time alone. The rest of us were left outside the city walls. Linda was fuming, Unae looked hurt, and Ichibod was likely just confused and concerned. I felt like the lowest creature alive. I still do. Writing this, I can see every place where I made a misstep. Every place where I could have done something to keep from accidentally screwing Elkin over. Every place where I made the exact wrong decision. I hate it. I hate how I always manage to hurt the people I care about the most. I hate how I can’t think of anything to make this up to Elkin, to show him I’m sorry and that I didn’t intentionally hurt him. I betrayed his trust, even if unintentionally. I hurt him, even if I didn’t mean to. I don’t deserve someone like him in my life. My head is fully of white noise, I can’t think straight right now. I need to lay down.

[somberspectraltrees]

So My Best Friend and I Keep a Journal

… We mail it back and forth after writing in it. Whatever comes to mind. Sometimes we keep it for a few weeks, sometimes we keep it for years before writing in it and mailing it back. I have had the journal since March 22, 2015 and haven’t mailed it back. We like this because no deadlines mean we will only write what we think is substantial. He really is my best friend. We just fucking get it. We were each other’s first loves (we met when we were both 15 years old) so we have known each other for over 20 years. There are no romantic entanglements with us now but that has never been the goal. We just aim to be as honest with eachother as possible. To make the relationship about romance would, I think, seriously degrade it. If soulmates are real, he’s mine. Anyways, I watched a documentary on HBO today (1-5-17) about binge drinking and alcoholism. Being that my ex-husband is an alcoholic and I “bravely” (i.e. stupidly) stood by his side for over 5 years after he finally admitted his problem (and then proceeded to drink and lie and hide things from me), what I saw didn’t surprise me. The stories captured were pretty run of the mill and I was unmoved. Living with an alcoholic I got very good at disconnecting but I was a bit shocked at how quickly and effortlessly I shifted into neutral while watching people’s lives spiral to a dark hell because of alcohol. One guy looked into the camera, crying, and said, “I’m going to lose my family if I can’t stop drinking.” Straightfaced I said, “Good. They are better off without you.” I felt the same about the other stories except the last one. The last one hit on my fears … The last guy is a severe alcoholic. The kind that goes to his car during his break at work to chug some beers. My ex did that. He kept a flask in the car so he could drink during breaks, before class, after class … he hid his empty bottles even after I pleaded with him to just leave the bottles on the counter. I enabled him by cleaning him up, putting trashcans next to his side of the bed -whatever was needed to make his disease easier, I did it. I woke up a few times in a panic because I heard him choking on his own vomit and had to turn him on his side. A few times I woke up to find him passed out on the couch with foam around his mouth, not breathing. I blamed myself for not being enough reason for him to get sober. I simply wasn’t enough and I punished myself every day for it. I left him once in 2012 and it nearly killed me. I left the situation for good in June of 2015 and wanted him to get better. But he didn’t. So … I got better instead and though, during our “fine-we-are-getting-a-divorce” fight, he accused me of leaving him and giving up on him, I knew in my heart I didn’t leave him. I left a situation that had slowly been killing me for years. I didn’t give up on him. I gave up on myself ever being enough reason for him to change. I loved him. Fiercely and often defiantly because that was all I knew. I struggled with guilt though about leaving him. “He could drink himself to death if I’m not there!” I thought. “I am a bad wife and an even worse friend to just leave him!” I reprimanded myself. But I didn’t “just leave him.” I tried for years and the only thing that happened was I hated myself more and I grew to hate the smell of old alcohol. To this day, if I smell it on someone’s breath, a hatred boils up inside me and I am disgusted. It’s an automatic response now. Like Pavlov’s dogs. In the documentary, the man says of his wife, “She is a saint for staying by me all of these years. It says a lot about her character that she didn’t leave me.” Fuck. Ouch! There it was. I really WAS a bad friend. Maybe I left too early. Maybe 5 years wasn’t enough time. I am a dick. A heartless dick that gave up on her friend. But then I opened this journal between my friend Joshua and I, and I read this entry where I confide in him that my ex (then-husband) confessed he was an alcoholic: “He finally broke down and told me he had a problem. I knew he had a problem but I didn’t know how big until he started to tell me. Stupidly, I tried to help change him but he played everything down. He went back to denying anything was wrong. Okay, I’m stopping the explanation. Point is, I have been getting better. It sucks to see R___ not getting better but I can do absolutely nothing. If I cared about that, I would die every day so I just don’t. My brain basically shut itself down in that department and it has been so long I forgot what it was like to care about, well, anything. I am working at caring about other things but I have to control where I put my energy. I have to restrain how and when I care, especially about R___. Is that awful? Maybe, but everybody I know who has had an alcoholic loved one has left them to save themselves. This is simply not an option for me. Though I can’t help him, I can keep an eye on him. What I see fucking sucks sometimes but if I’m not there with him, I feel like I am leaving him alone with a murderer. People can do what they want, but I do not leave my friends when life gets too hard to live.” Oh, Mary. Ohhhh, me. You didn’t fully understand that you were agreeing to die. Not with him, not for him, but in addition to him. You were fighting for his life, but he was not fighting for yours, even though he knew you were dying. Then, this entry the next day: “It’s 4:30 in the morning. I knew he had been drinking about 30 seconds before he walked in the front door. I could feel it in my bones.i felt myself shut down. It really is amazing (and borderline alarming) to watch/feel it happen. I don’t hate people so I have to wonder what it is when I see him like this and feel anger and hate. It’s not him but something is there that my soul cannot stand. I don’t think any part of me can stand it because I am on the couch now. I came here when he landed in bed next to me. I do not want to lay next to him right now and that is not like me. Usually I find such solace lying near him. I just know that if he were to even accidentally brush my skin right now, I would resent it. I have a hard time believing that a stranger ISN’T in my bed. This is bullshit. Need to think on things and not seethe. Don’t waste a moment, right?” Then I wrote the lyrics to “I Gave you All” By Mumford and Sons, and the lyrics to “Fragile Bird” by City and Colour. Why? Because I had run out of things to say but I still had more to get out. Anyways, it’s been a hell of a night tonight. I am tired and have been focusing on practicing my uke (its joyful plinks seem to realign my mind) but decided I need to write my thoughts down somewhere. Somewhere none of my friends (who know my ex) know about. I just needed to get this out. NOW! … . Back to my uke …

[designmeblogss]

Among One Of The Most Vital Winning Online Poker Publication - Your Journal

Why Have a Texas hold 'em Journal?

On the internet casino poker is a long-term game. It's really not that various from investing, except you can not have somebody else do it for you 토토사이트. You have to make the cash by yourself. Yet you would not spend without having a plan, maintaining records, tracking outcomes, evaluating brand-new possibilities, and also checking out brand-new selections. Right? The very same is true of online casino poker. Poor gamers (fish) never ever before record anything. They never ever before track anything. They don't pick today based on historic truths. They do not recognize the distinction in between playing the website they get on (or the table) and the various other sites in the online texas hold'em world. They just sit down, blind in, and additionally begin playing. Fish do not play texas hold 'em for the lasting. They wager the Now! This hand! This minute! This session! If they win they are thrilled. If they lost they are depressed. They are ... in brief ... PATIENTS!

You intend to be a lot more than that, certainly. Nonetheless, great deals of gamers that intend to be more miss out on the Most Effective Device poker needs to offer - HISTORICAL TRUTH. Historic fact is what HAPPENED. Specifically exactly how it happened. Why it happened. Since, presume what ... It'll happen again!

If you do not maintain documents after that you can't find out as quickly as you require to from your mistakes. Perhaps you will not get from them in all. Perhaps you'll find out for a while and after that forget it again. Your casino online poker journal is how you touch the most powerful texas hold 'em device that exists.

If you do not keep records after that you lose out on one of the most Powerful Device on-line casino poker requires to offer - YOUR MENTAL ABILITY. Your mental capacity is what is probably to take you into the future. It's what's mosting likely to establish the training course for your future success or failing. Considering that ... As a male thinketh ... so is he! The Holy bible: Proverbs

You spend humans resources considering a computer screen, playing hands, making checks out, finding out lessons (good as well as bad). You evaluate write-ups as well as magazines, consult with various other casino poker players, along with observe others that are a lot extra competent than you. Where does all this details go? It can not just enter your head. Your head is a terrible document keeper. It's adjusted by sensations, it has lots of non-poker work to do, as well as it commonly has a tendency to fail you at one of the most horrible times in online casino online poker. So, instead of relying on your head, trust your gambling enterprise poker journal. A casino poker journal constantly bears in mind. You should examine it often. As well as the truth that you have recorded points, will absolutely prompt you to expand them as well as consider them a lot more.

The just how's as well as additionally why's of keeping a texas hold'em journal.

Ideally I have actually encouraged you that a texas hold 'em journal will really include worth in addition to results to your on-line casino poker video game. Basically the HOW is standard. Just start doing it! But, right below are some things I have really provided for years with my texas hold 'em journal. Ideally you can use a few of them.

While you can maintain a texas hold'em journal digitally on your computer, I do not suggest it. As well as additionally while any old spiral note pad will definitely do, I would encourage you to obtain something more substantial 사설토토사이트. Your following time out, take a buying journey for a journal. Concerning electronic journals, consider it by doing this; the number of computer system files can you find from 3 years ago? Very few. The amount of photos do you have from your childhood years? Perhaps numerous. Physical factors are lasting, digital information are conveniently lost, neglected or harmed. So go with the physical factor.

I make use of a refillable natural leather journal cover I purchased Barnes and also Noble. Right below's why. Natural natural leather is exceptional! It offers your suggestions significance as well as heft. Leather is irreversible as well as additionally assuring. When you write in this journal it attracts you to advance. It's additionally refillable and also it comes from maintain a couple pens. Each of this is necessary for me since I need my journal to be all set to go and also stand up to my lifestyle. I undertake worrying 1 refill every 9 months approximately and also I unquestionably maintain the old journals for reference. I haul my journal with me almost all the time, and I make notes in it often.

So, what do you make up in your journal?

Take down whatever comes to mind. I utilize my journal for individual notes as well as objectives along with texas hold'em objectives - to me they are one in the exact very same; because, texas hold 'em makes great deals of aspects of my life feasible along with my life influences my casino online poker. I begin every journal with my life objectives and likewise principles that assist me succeed at whatever I'm doing. That way I identify specifically where to head to obtain my mind right if I begin to rise and fall.

Afterwards I just write whatever I think is important as it comes to mind. These include things like:

- Beginning Hand Graphes

- Online Texas Hold'em Session, SnG, as well as also MTT notes

- Online poker ideas I review in publications, magazines and online

- Summaries of what I believe assists me achieve my on-line casino poker and life objectives

- Personal Enhancement principles as well as additionally notes

- Repeated Sentences - This is extremely important.

On-line poker has a wonderful ability to connect us up in knots when we have negative sessions or make errors. The best way to work out the negative power that gets developed in times such as this is to make up a sentence 50-100 times. That help me work out the adverse feelings as well as redouble my campaigns. Randomly opening my journal I see a pair websites of "I will certainly follow my rules 100% when I play." That's from a few sessions of harmful my really own excellent suggestions and additionally playing like a fool.

So those are some suggestions of what you might keep. I have notes concerning what on the internet texas hold'em short articles I require to produce, time management tasks, as well as likewise problems I use to approach life in a desirable ways. It's all outstanding!! Since the act of composing concentrates the mind, it makes long-term numerous points that you would absolutely shed if you attempted to remember them in your head; it clears up; as well as it supplies you something to look back on as well as additionally see your achievements.

If you want seeing inside my journal, below's an example. A lot of these things don't appear texas hold 'em associated, yet they establish the structures for my gambling establishment poker success.

LIFE PURPOSES:

1. Time, Adaptability, Liberty - I am an independent human being that has 100% control of my time and likewise actions without economic constraints or stress.

2. Method, Demand, Control - I have the strategy and also need to control my really own time along with activities in a way that brings all-around volume for me as well as for my family members.

3. A Transforming Force - I am a beneficial pressure to change those around me for a much better and additionally happier life.

4. Kaizen - I will certainly enhance and increase in massive or tiny purposeful in addition to beneficial methods some aspect of my life daily till the day I pass away.

" We are what we presume. All that we are develops with our ideas. With our ideas we make our globe" The Buddha

" Things do not change. We alter." Henry David Thoreau

Difficulty Solving Questions: (from Anthony Robbins).

1. What is amazing about this trouble?

2. What is not perfect yet?

3. What am I satisfied to accomplish to make it the means I prefer it?

4. What am I going to no longer do to make it the method I want it?

5. Just how can I enjoy the procedure WHILE I do what is needed to make it the means I want it?

Those are simply some fragments from my texas hold 'em journal. Those don't state "casino site poker", nonetheless, for me they are crucial to continuous gambling establishment texas hold'em success. A lot of my journal entries are the basis for stages in this magazine, because they have actually ended up being full brief articles on the subject in question.

[designcompanys-blog]

One Of The Most Vital Winning Poker Publication - Your Journal

Why Have a Texas hold'em Journal?

Online poker is a long-term game. It's actually not that various from spending, except you can not have someone else do it for you. You have to make the money on your own 해외토토사이트. Yet you wouldn't spend without having a plan, maintaining records, tracking results, analyzing new chances, and also exploring brand-new choices. Right? The very same holds true of online poker. Poor gamers (fish) never ever record anything. They never ever track anything. They don't choose today based on historical realities. They don't know the distinction between playing the site they get on (or the table) and the other websites in the online poker world. They simply sit down, blind in, and also begin playing. Fish do not play texas hold'em for the lasting. They bet the Now! This hand! This minute! This session! If they win they are thrilled. If they shed they are depressed. They are ... in a word ... SUFFERERS!

You aim to be even more than that, certainly. However, lots of players who aim to be more miss out on the Most Powerful Tool poker has to provide - HISTORICAL FACT. Historic reality is what HAPPENED. Exactly how it occurred. Why it happened. Because, presume what ... It'll take place once more!

If you do not keep documents then you can't find out as rapidly as you need to from your errors. Maybe you will not pick up from them in all. Maybe you'll learn for a while and after that forget about it once more. Your casino poker journal is how you touch the most powerful texas hold'em tool that exists.

If you do not keep documents after that you lose out on the Most Powerful Device online poker needs to offer - YOUR MENTAL CAPACITY. Your mental capacity is what is mosting likely to take you into the future. It's what's going to set the course for your future success or failing. Since ... As a male thinketh ... so is he! The Holy bible: Proverbs

You invest hrs looking at a computer screen, playing hands, making checks out, learning lessons (good as well as poor). You review write-ups as well as publications, speak with various other poker gamers, as well as observe others who are a lot more skilled than you. Where does all this details go? It can't just enter your head. Your head is a horrible record keeper. It's adjusted by feelings, it has lots of non-poker work to do, and it often tends to fail you at the most awful times in casino poker. So, instead of counting on your head, rely upon your casino poker journal. A poker journal always remembers. You ought to examine it frequently. As well as the fact that you have recorded things, will certainly prompt you to broaden them as well as think about them more.

The just how's and also why's of maintaining a poker journal.

Hopefully I have actually encouraged you that a texas hold'em journal will truly add worth as well as results to your online poker video game. Essentially the HOW is basic. Just begin doing it! But, right here are some things I have actually done for years with my texas hold'em journal. Hopefully you can make use of some of them.

While you can keep a poker journal electronically on your computer, I don't recommend it. And also while any old spiral notebook will certainly do, I would encourage you to get something more considerable. Your following time out, take a shopping journey for a journal. Regarding digital journals, consider it by doing this; the number of computer files can you find from 3 years ago? Very few. The amount of pictures do you have from your childhood? Possibly numerous. Physical points are long-term, electronic data are conveniently shed, forgotten or damaged. So go for the physical point.

I utilize a refillable natural leather journal cover I purchased Barnes and Noble. Right here's why. Natural leather is excellent! It gives your ideas significance and heft. Leather is irreversible and also reassuring. When you write in this journal it attracts you to progress. It's additionally refillable and it belongs to maintain a couple pens. Every one of this is important for me since I require my journal to be ready to go and stand up to my lifestyle. I undergo concerning 1 refill every 9 months or so and I undoubtedly keep the old journals for referral. I lug my journal with me nearly all the time, and I make notes in it frequently.

So, what do you compose in your journal?

Jot down whatever comes to mind. I utilize my journal for personal notes and goals as well as poker goals - to me they are one in the exact same; because, texas hold'em makes lots of aspects of my life feasible as well as my life influences my casino poker. I start every journal with my life objectives and also concepts that assist me prosper at whatever I'm doing. That way I recognize exactly where to head to get my mind right if I start to fluctuate.

Afterwards I just write whatever I assume is important as it comes to mind. These consist of things like:

- Starting Hand Graphes

- Online Poker Session, SnG, and also MTT notes

- Poker concepts I read in publications, magazines and online

- Summaries of what I believe assists me achieve my online poker and life goals

- Personal Improvement principles and also notes

- Repeated Sentences - This one is very important.

Online poker has a great ability to tie us up in knots when we have negative sessions or make errors. The very best way to exercise the adverse power that gets developed in times such as this is to compose a sentence 50-100 times. That aids me exercise the negative feelings and refocus my initiatives. Randomly opening my journal I see a pair web pages of "I will certainly follow my rules 100% when I play." That's from a few sessions of damaging my very own great recommendations and also playing like a fool.

So those are some suggestions of what you might keep. I have notes about what online poker articles I require to create, time administration activities, and also concerns I use to approach life in a favorable means. It's all excellent!! Because the act of writing concentrates the mind, it makes permanent numerous points that you would certainly lose if you tried to keep in mind them in your head; it clears up; as well as it offers you something to look back on and also see your accomplishments.

If you want seeing inside my journal, below's a sample. Most of these things don't appear texas hold'em related, but they establish the foundations for my casino poker success.

LIFE OBJECTIVES:

1. Time, Flexibility, Freedom - I am an independent human being that has 100% control of my time and also actions without economic restrictions or stress.

2. Technique, Need, Control - I have the technique and desire to control my very own time as well as activities in a way that brings well-rounded volume for me and for my family members.

3. A Changing Force - I am a favorable pressure to transform those around me for a much better and also happier life.

4. Kaizen - I will improve and expand in huge or tiny purposeful as well as favorable ways in some element of my life each day until the day I pass away.

" We are what we assume. All that we are develops with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world" The Buddha

" Things do not alter. We alter." Henry David Thoreau

Trouble Solving Questions: (from Anthony Robbins).

1. What is fantastic about this problem?

2. What is not ideal yet?

3. What am I happy to DO to make it the means I desire it?

4. What am I going to no longer do to make it the way I want it?

5. How can I take pleasure in the procedure WHILE I do what is needed to make it the way I want it?

Those are simply some fragments from my texas hold'em journal. Those don't state "casino poker", however, for me they are crucial to ongoing casino poker success. A lot of my journal entries are the basis for phases in this publication, because they have actually become full short articles on the subject in question.