#bc this whole week and last week have been taken up by health bullshit and all i want ot do is sleep

[mamawasatesttube]

experiencing the horrors . save me lil guy from comic book. lil guy from comic book PLEASE

[phantomcat94]

Oooookay it’s trauma dump tumblr therapy time because I truly don’t know who to talk to that won’t either be a MASSIVE inconvenience to them or Gaslighting: The Musical for me SO: let’s talk about my health!

TW: s**cidal ideation, failing health stuff, gaslighting, medical gaslighting, me being a dramatic wreck in general, LONG POST

I am so sick and fucking tired of “specialists” just patting me on the head and saying “you’re fine uwu” and “maybe you’re not really sick and you’re just stressed!” Lets break this bullshit down

1. I’ve taken to having fainting spells caused by both postural hypotension and (our working theory) inappropriate sinus tachycardia. Sometimes I stand up and I’m fine, sometimes I have to sit bc I’m lightheaded, but either way I’m gonna get tunnel vision or a full blackout of my sight that slowly returns to tv static. Sometimes I can be active and sometimes it makes me faint. Sometimes I stand too long and my whole body says “sit or be sat bitch.” Sometimes that happens when I’m already sitting. Sometimes my heart races while I’m laying down; it’s just like “what if I went 120” and I’m like “maybe don’t?” And it goes “:3c” last week I fainted while eating soup. SOUP. I’d been sitting for nearly ten minutes!!! There was no cause!!

2. It’s a natural but sudden progression of my lifelong health issues. Chest tightness, shortness of breath while highly active, dizziness, vision fading when I sit up in the morning, heat intolerance, prone to dehydration no matter how much water I drink. Been dealing with this shit for 28 years, just about.

3. Had to stop working out from the fainting. My cardiologist’s genius reply was “you should start working out!” Iconic, next time just tell me to drink lye or fling myself off a cliff. It’s polite to be direct when telling me to kill myself.

4. If it was a matter of poor lifestyle choices then it wouldn’t have started at all. I was working out daily, very active at work, eating well, drinking enough water, taking my meds. My iron was low and I added iron pills. My b12 was low so I added b12 pills. You know what got worse? My health. Iron is now too high? Still fainting. Wearing compression socks and eating as best I can while being dirt broke? Still fainting.

5. “It’s the stress” cool I’ve been cutting stressors left and right. I’m moving in with my mom in January— no rent, constant access to someone when I feel poorly, around the clock free symptom monitoring, and someone with an intimate knowledge of my medical history. No more side hustles, just my job. Easy job where I have tons of downtime that I’m LEGALLY REQUIRED to take. Access to every accommodation I could dream of. Steady and relatively high income. I am fed rested houses and employed. You know what’s getting worse? The fainting.

I am perfectly capable of gaslighting myself thanks. I’ve tried everything under the sun— trying to convince myself I was delusional and not to give into my symptoms. Bending over backwards to keep iron, b12c electrolytes, salt, water, and food in my body. Sleeping so much I might as well be part sloth. Letting others care for me, isolating and trying to deal with it myself. I’ve tried everything. You know what’s still fucked? My health. I’m on the verge of just shutting tf up and letting my body shut down, since it IS, despite everything I’m doing to keep that from happening. I’m dangerously close to dying just to prove a point.

Alternately— I’m ready to become the most UNHINGED psychological terrorist to all of my health professionals. Everything my therapist has said is normal is stuff that alarms my friends and frightens my primary doctor (so far the ONLY person who wants to help me, the person who told me something was wrong in the first place and that I wasn’t supposed to be experiencing this shit at all). My cardiologist turned down the ONLY test my primary ordered and I had to be a bitch to convince her to order it for me and didn’t bother to listen to me tell her what the problem was. I’m ready to channel 28 years of nuclear rage into telling these idiots things that would make me the most loathed client they’ve ever encountered. I’m ready to look my therapist dead in the eye and ask her if she ever wished she was a real doctor instead of a rent a shrink, or if the gaslighting tactic is something she learned in school or if it stems from her fear of relating to someone who’s cripplingly ill and losing her abled privilege. I’m ready to ask my cardiologist if she can access that part of her brain that had 8-10 years of training and schooling and maybe use one of her brain cells to do something besides telling me to do the one thing I told her was causing the problem. I’m ready to ask her if she ever wishes she could actually help people, or if her salary and generic scripted prescriptions and suggestions are enough to let her sleep well at night.

I am EXHAUSTED from doing everyone else’s job. I put the symptoms together and figured out a decent enough answer to springboard off of. I’m doing all the mental work with no help or support from the person I pay to help and support me. Somebody else has to do things now. My job is to stay alive, and it’s MORE than enough work.

[isolctions]

...........so let’s finally talk abt what the actual fucking fuck is wrong with ai’rina rue castillo, huh gang? :-)

(everyone go thank @armsdealing & @durcgs beating the anxiety out of me in order to post this info-dump.)

...before we get into things, now’s the part where i establish a warning for triggers to be discussed in this lengthy headcanon post. there’s gonna be some talks of mental illness, slight alcohol abuse, & breaking down topics of familial abuse, mental abuse, religious abuse, emotional manipulation, and elements of non-con. be warned.

a’ight, so look. i’ve hinted in between threads & development that rue had a not-so-fantastic upbringing that impacted how she perceives herself, how she interacts with others, (in terms of her career, at least) and how she views personal relationships, but i didn’t realize how........severely her upbringing messed with her mental health until i started working through how i wanted to plot out rue’s behavior for her next album release. at first, i had the idea that she decided to take more time for herself & sort of distance herself from the public / media circus plaguing her life so that she can create much more authentic music. then i actually listened to the EP that i’m basing her album off of and thought “...oh.” THEN, i looked over old meme responses & old threads / mentions of her family and how she grew up and thought, not for the last time since piecing everything together: “....oh. oh fucking boy.”

so, that horrible realization dawning on me, let’s talk about rue’s childhood.

i wrote a thing like, two years ago almost (that upon looking for last night, i realized i didn’t actually share it w/ anyone but alex in our discord server & only mentioned a portion of it in rue’s moodboard that i made) that talked vaguely about how rue felt growing up. and it’s worth noting that...she’s the middle of ten fucking siblings. and that’s just the brothers & sisters she knew of that stayed with their mother. and on top of that, not all of those siblings are the product of rue’s father, or even rue’s mother for that matter. and it’s also worth noting that rue not only grew up in poverty, but she grew up never having any actual space that had solely been her own, or even an article of clothing that had belonged entirely to her. so naturally, as a young child, rue sort of became torn between starved for attention & wanting someone to pay attention to her (whether that be her older siblings including her in something, whatever teacher they had for the next six months to call on her for something, for her mother to miraculously show up with her unknown father in tow one day, & for literally anyone to be her friend, pls god Notice her!!!) and for people to simply leave her the hell alone. obviously, this carried into adulthood.

and branching off from the whole “lack of space” point i made, rue wound up growing up to become increasingly more private as time went on because she literally cannot remember a single moment where she wasn’t squished between a bunch of people. driving around in their minivan? rue’s packed in the middle of the second row. nowhere to sleep while on the road? rue’s smacked between gigantic older brothers & clingy little siblings. need to use to bathroom? lmao, she better off going outside!!! gotta change clothes? yeah, good luck with that. it was to the point where, when rue got her first period, she was humiliated by it — not because ‘omg, am i a woman now?? wtf is this???’, but because she ruined the one good sheet that she slept on with her sisters & they were super pissed at her and her mother withheld pay from her for weeks. >:/

already, rue grew up never having shit to herself until the record deal. but she also dealt with literally...so much abuse from her mother. rue thought this was the norm growing up, because all of her siblings faced their mother’s wrath at some point & all of them eventually learned to just deal with the shit and do what she says if they wanted to avoid it. they all compartmentalized and repressed to varying degrees. there’s a lot in which rue has repressed so deeply, she doesn’t even remember if it seriously happened or if she was just making it up bc it was so fucking bizarre for a parent to act that way towards their child, lol?? (and this behavior of “i’m just going to do what you say bc i don’t want to deal with whatever bullshit you’re up to if i say no” also carried into business / personal relationships, which is...very Yikes it’s amazing she didn’t get scammed or worse!) 

so sure, people have complimented her for her exceptional manners & her cleanliness & how quiet / polite she is & how amazing her posture is, bc seriously, this girl will never experience back problems in her life bc her posture is so on par. but where rue typically smiles / responds bashfully, she can’t exactly just up and say: “oh, yeah, my mom used to slap the shit out of me ‘til i bruised if i spoke out of turn or talked back, and if i reached for anything in the store or put my elbows on the table she’d slap a ruler against my palms ‘til i got welts, and she’d make me read verses all night without sleep if i did anything wrong and make me straighten up and kneel on rice if i slouched or took a nap in church and humiliated me in public if i so much as looked at someone of the opposite sex on the street n oh, did i mention i also cleaned houses for rich millionaire snobs from ages twelve to sixteen and if they said or did literally anything to me i wasn’t allowed to defend myself?? ya i’m real proper :)”

(and normal ppl will go: “...................what the FUCK is WRONG with you????”)

but oh man, babe, we’re not done yet!!! rue, being the product of both a highly religious and a highly exploitative household...had difficulty when she started reaching puberty & noticing her classmates. plural, because it wasn’t just boys that she began to secretly have crushes on / fantasize abt, sexually or domestically. she also realized, oh shit, that she started looking at girls differently too. and that literally put the fear of god into her heart, bc if her mother ever found out that she was having non-platonic feelings for the girls in her classrooms, she wasn’t going to be pissed. her mom might have actually tried to kill her. or have her exorcised or something. she knew the shit would be severe, and she wanted no fucking parts of her mother or her siblings inserting the church into her personal life, thank u very much! so rue started suppressing her romantic feelings for people to the point where if adult rue receives intimacy, she’s like “...is this allowed? is this not illegal??????” while simultaneously being like “i will be a slut. just this once. as a Treat to teenage me. :>” regardless, rue learned to molotov cocktail literally any emotion or thought she had, bc she was paranoid that it would give her mother a vision.

now, onto the perils of exploitation...she should’ve been used to it really, what with her mother forcing herself & siblings to lure customers into their shop with promises of visions and palm readings and the wonders of the cards and overexerting their abilities. same with housekeeping, like being of service to people was normal! but when seventeen year old rue decided to sign a record deal and break from home, she wasn’t thinking critically about what the fuck all of this would entail. and as described in this headcanon post abt her discography, her early music was the product of allowing people much older & powerful than you to influence your work & manipulate your values. so rue was very much parading around as someone she wasn’t, someone much more confident and badass and self-assured than she really was, and she was so impressionable back then that it literally makes her sick to think back on it now. she calls it her puppy phase and phrases the eagerness to please execs as ‘tongue wagging’. homegirl hardly even knew her name anymore, bc all she was and all she would ever be was rue, the star, the vocal temptress. not ai’rina, the help or ai’rina, the seer, ai’rina, the weak little nobody. but later on, the subtle manipulation was less about decision making & how they wanted her to sound, and more about how they wanted to present the latest trophy star — because after all, she was pretty. people liked her. she sung really well. suitors weren’t too far off into the distant future. so why not kill two birds with one stone by having a high ranking label artist keep tabloids talking by being seen in public with a few heart throbs? surely, there’s no harm in manipulating an eighteen/nineteen year old’s love life! under the guise of improving her social skills & relations with fellow artists and the media and the like, rue gave into the pressures and let herself be taken out on dates & seen at awards shows with a few guys. no big deal. it was only for a night or so, she could handle the attention. then, one night appearances turned into week long appearances. pretending to date for only a month! completely innocent, positive exposure. :)

(adult rue, looking back @ younger rue: you stupid fucking BITCH-)

yeah, so once her label/management realized that she was turning into a hot commodity, they lost no sleep at allowing their nineteen year old artist to be seen ‘dating’ 20-24+ year old men occasionally. and whatever happened after their public appearances were none of their business. plus, she was good at pretending and being arm candy — so rue experienced her first kiss, her first dates, and her first times with people who she’s almost certain hardly remember their time with her, and really only got involved with her for a mutual career boost. very few of them does she actually remember in a positive light, and the ones that were positive, still depress her bc lmao all of it was fake, even if they were really nice & made it less like a chore and more like they actually wanted to be with her!! even fewer of them were actual relationships. meaning, said person asked her out of their own volition, not bc their managers thought it’d be a decent match on camera. it was evil, really, what her old label made of her. (like, she makes funny jokes that her first time having sex was awkward bc she had a vision halfway through that bummed her out but in reality it was just...really more of a transaction that made her feel icky n progressively worse abt herself until it happened more often and now she just doesn’t care anymore. sex is just sex, u know?? everything’s fake. why you gotta make it personal.) this whole fiasco took over the larger part of rue’s career from like, age nineteen to age twenty-two or so, and she suffered dramatically from this because what is even a genuine, authentic relationship at this point? what do u mean you want to get to know me? did ur manager tell you to ask so many damn questions & try to get to know me? obviously you want something from me bc that’s why everyone gets into a relationship or has sex with me, stop confessing feelings for me u fucking loser. >:/

like...rue doesn’t even have friends. outside of her relationship with marcelo / @armsdealing​ (which, AGAIN, i think was initially arranged to promote her song be honest, how fucking IRONIC), rue does not have any personal relationships with anyone. i mean, she likes her latest management team since switching labels...her hair stylist is rly cool & her make up artist is fun to vacation with...she met a few other celebrities at events that she occasionally texts & has dinner with...yeah, she’s basically a pretty hermit. her family is more or less out of the question — the few brothers & sisters she does still have a positive relationship with (like, four of them lol), they don’t see each other in person often / mainly communicate via groupchat and facetime calls when all of them have time. she tried visiting with her mother over the years, but the verbal & emotional abuse/curses placed on her/accusations of being an imp of satan for singing to the public/memories of being forced to perform psychic shows & clean for chump change keeps her from trying to mend that relationship. like, being gaslit by ur mother isn’t really the vibe, u know? and bottom line, rue simply is a very shy and socially stunted individual who does not know how to communicate like a normal human being anymore. hell, her life revolves around pretending for strangers at this point!

now, onto how...all of That ties into her behavior / state of mind during this next album. so, after riding the wave of success from her third album & the circus that came with that. rue sort of had a fucking existential crisis. came out of absolutely nowhere. (not nowhere — one of her brothers called her out of the blue and called her ai’rina and she literally went “who the fuck is that?”) told her label that she was taking some time in between albums bc she was creatively zapped or whatever bullshit excuse she came up with that somehow worked bc this new label was a little more understanding than the last. vacationed for a little, did some hot girl shit, bought a house, tried to see her mother again for whatever reason then got the shit slapped out of her and finally screamed at her to never touch her again unless she wanted to Throw Hands. cried and got drunk abt it. that took six months. bullshat to her label again, dropped like two songs to smooth things over, decided to focus on magic for a little to ground her, started partying with label mates then going home shitfaced & hungover every other morning. that took eight months. dropped one last song, promptly deleted her twitter, tried to write songs again, got a call from her mother and panicked and got drunk. that took a year. vacationed some more, got even drunker, was bed ridden for like three months because holy shit i’m having so many visions and if i see One More Thing my brain is going to explode, couldn’t separate the present from the future for weeks after that, told absolutely no one about that, cried every day & had an identity crisis, dyed her hair to appease the identity crisis goblins. that took a year and a half.

now, she just chilling. dyed her hair again. scaring her siblings halfway to death bc she keeps going on benders & sending cryptic texts abt the visions she’s getting but they’re so incomprehensible that they’re seriously considering moving in to get her fucking shit together. had a vision that she was married with kids and had a two week identity crisis appeased only by moving houses. (she was in a neighborhood with families...too much Drama and visions. turned into a really cool song tho.) started calling herself by her birth name of ai’rina in private. reactivated twitter to send cryptic tweets that her album is coming. working on said album. trying to drink less but kinda failing bc how is one simply supposed to make a highly personal dual album without alcohol??? prbly somewhere crying in marcelo’s lap or smthn. just vibes.

like...i feel like, in my head, the Theme of her project is wrapped up in identity. her relationship with fame and whatnot. trying to coax her childhood self out of its’ shell so that she can function like a normal goddamn person for once and re-establish her values. like, if someone went to any of rue’s residences right now, it’s just songbooks everywhere and wine glasses and her crystals and shit, bc she still has people’s futures to read for money. (yes, she never really got out of that portion of her childhood, but hey it pays.) it was all very confusing to experience at once while in bed at four in the morning & even though i tried organizing and debated on this, it’s still a Lot. which is why i am once again asking for plots that would allow her to dissect all these Things

so yeah. album four otw, with a side of confronting our childhood & facing our traumas!

[hoochy-coo]

what do you think of kanye's tw meltdowns? I really don't know if i should believe that he isn't getting help because he has all the resources, and his outbursts always are near something him or they (Kardashians) need to promote. Also, since a few years ago this whole ego thing became something more than just believing his the shit. The Kardash worship him and even tried to be part of the rap social scene at some point

- I'm not going to say they're exploiting him bc I don't think he's completely faultless but also don't want to undermine his struggle. The last pictures with Kim at a drive through seemed staged tho. They're always so private and then come this. Also, how do you think the gp view of the family has changed in the past years? I don't know if it's favorable or something, I just know teenage girl still love Kim for some reason

Ok to really understand Kanye’s mental breakdown, you’ve got to have some base understanding of Kanye’s personality/behaviour prior to his mother’s death. He’s always been erratic even pre-Donda’s death but afterwards, he spiralled into a full range of mental issues. There’s a massive difference between Kanye saying/tweeting controversial things right before he releases a project and Kanye crying at a rally because Kim almost aborted North. He is going through some serious issues and it is upsetting to see because he’s so far gone that it’s going to be hard to get him the help he needs.

Kanye was on meds then went off meds because he said it hindered his creative process and Kim allowed that to occur because Kim as well as that whole family are convinced that he is a musical/creative genius that he repeatedly tell us he is. I 100% believe that Kim is doing her utmost to make sure he gets help but she doesn’t want to use her power as his guardian/wife to force him into getting treatment. Idk why but a lot of it probably has to do with how she admires what Kanye used to be at the beginning of their relationship and she doesn’t want to go against his wishes. It’s nothing new though, Kim has always had zero control of Kanye. Up until this point, she has blindly backed everything he does. While I do believe that Kim does genuinely have love for Kanye, imo she married him because one, he worships her and they’re both narcissists, two, he helped her and her family rebrand, three, he had connections with the higher echelons which the Kardashians/Jenners struggled to make despite Kris having been married to Bruce Jenner (Ye introducing Kim to Balmain, getting her a seat at fashion week, the vogue spread etc.) and four, she thought they were going to be something like Bey and Jay (or at least they were all going to be friends). The Kardashians kiss his ass because they thought Ye was their ticket into cementing their place in pop culture and black culture. Ye also made sure that they got taken seriously by the fashion industry because before he took Kim under his wings, Anna thought the Kardashian name was a joke.

What Kim and Kris didn’t expect was that Kanye’s mental health would decline so rapidly that he’d be on the outs with the Carters and other powerful figures he was previously rubbing shoulders with. She also didn’t anticipate that he’d be on his MAGA bullshit because prior to this he was probably one of the most pro-black artist ever. Basically Kim thought she was marrying into a lifestyle that he hasn’t been able to provide. Are the Kardashians exploiting him for press? Not this time around, no. Him tweeting all sort of shit about their family hasn’t been good for their image and Kris obviously tried to do damage control by going to TMZ with all sort of statements. Did they exploit him in the past? Yes but then that would be saying their whole marriage has been one big exploit lol. In addition to that, I disagree that Kim and Ye have been private about his mental health and family life. They obviously didn’t put it out that they were on the rocks because the Kardashians like to frame their marriage as loving and Kim as a ride or die and his saviour. KUWK has always made a point to show Kim taking care of Kanye and made plenty of mentions of all the ridiculous demands he’s made and how difficult he is to deal with but Kim does it anyway because she’s a great wife and mother to his kids. That stage picture of them at the drive through is just Kris and Kim trying to control the narrative and show people that “See! Kim is such a wonderful wife. She forgives Ye even after he slanders her and her family all over the internet.” If they divorce, she’s going to come out of it as the patient woman who did everything he could for her troubled husband and Ye is going to look like he’s ungrateful and a raging lunatic.

There’s like pre-Ye and post-Ye Kardashian. Before Ye, Kris and Kim had to bust their ass off just to stay relevant. They were never taken seriously by anyone in the any industry and other celebs looked down on them as fame-hungry reality stars. Then they rebranded through Kanye and tried to integrate themselves fully into the hip-hop/black culture. Obviously tons of people view them as culture vultures but it must have worked to some extent because they were put “on” after that. I feel like a lot of the gp still think they’re white trash and fame thirsty but there’s a certain group (younger demographic) that think they’re cool and hip and in touch with the culture. Kanye really did put them on though. Fashion publications used to drag Kim for her style, now we’re getting at least a couple of posts on the daily about one of the Kardashian’s style and it’s on major publications like Vogue too. Kendall went from modelling L.A. prom dresses to opening Marc Jacobs. Kylie went from “the ugly duckling Jenner” to the coolest baby mama in the rap game. Half of the family are now regular attendees at Met Gala. Before Kanye, Kim couldn’t even dream of getting an invite. Also, I just want to say that I don’t like Kim (props to her for all the prison reform work though, idc if it’s for PR because at least she’s doing something to help) but I feel for Kim. She’s been the bread winner of that family her whole life, hustled her ass off and did all sort of gigs that were degrading just to get them all to this point. I can’t imagine how bitter she is because I truly believe she thought she was set for life after marrying Kanye. She thought he was going to elevate her and they were going to be this power couple but it ended up with her running around Calabasas trying to keep him from destroying their family name.

[sicklylittlesnowflake]

Hi! Do you think you can do a Jughead sickfic where he's sick at school and refuses to acknowledge that he is sick when it's obvious to everyone else? Sorry that the request is so general, but if you can do something that would be great and if you can't I totally understand. You're an amazing writer, keep it up!!!!

(First of all anon you are honestly the sweetest???

When life constantly throws obstacles and hardships at someone, that someone tends to grow a thick skin. However, a certain degree of care afterwards must be performed because at the end of the day, people are still human. Humans get hurt and weary.

Jughead tended to ignore the scratches and wounds that life gave to him, because processing everything that’s happened to him would surely drive him insane. If he for one second truly take in the harsh reality of his life, he wasn’t sure if he could put himself back together again. He developed an unhealthy coping mechanism of brushing things off and pretending wounds weren’t there, if he didn’t just laugh it off.

The same method applied to his physical health. If he had just elected to pretend it wasn’t there, everything would be fine.

The last thing Jughead needed was to get sick.

The past week had been far far too much for him. Jughead rarely ever cried, and this week he had cried 8 times that week already.  Nothing good seemed to come from that week. Of course, Fred Andrews was kind enough as to let Jughead stay with them long term, until at least FP could get out of jail. The way things were looking, that wouldn’t be for a very long time.

It really had been a hectic week, and Jughead’s crappy body of course could not handle it. It wore him down, until he woke up sick with a fever and a stuffy nose.

Jughead hadn’t even been in school for quite a while. After Homecoming, he had turned up once and literally forced out of school. He had missed days due to police interrogations and the like, and when he was granted back access to the school, Fred forced him to stay home for a mental health day. Needless to stay, he was really behind in all his classes.

Jughead could not afford to miss another day of class. He wasn’t exactly straight A student Betty Cooper. Which was the reason Jughead began to drag his sick, weary body out of bed and to school.

“Is Jughead still not awake?” Fred commented as he watched Archie nearly finish his bowl of cereal.

“I’ll go–oh,” Archie stopped himself as Jughead shuffled into the kitchen. He was fully dressed in his usual S T-shirt, dark jeans, loose suspenders, worn out converse, messy dark curls peeking out of a grey knotted beanie and denim jacket combo, but he looked awful.

“Woah, you okay sport?” Fred blinked, taking in Jughead’s pale face and dark circles. The kid looked behind exhausted. However sickness was not even on Fred’s radar, he just thought Jughead had yet another fretful sleep.

Archie frowned as his friend sat down next to him and poured the milk into his waiting bowl of cereal, “You not get enough sleep?”

Jughead smiled at him weakly, “Yeah, that’s it. I’ll be fine though.”

Fred frowned, “You sure you should go to school today? I can ring..”

“No, Mr Andrews, thank you though. I’m fine, honestly. I need to catch up,” Jughead insisted, his voice giving out by his last sentence, sounding strained and obviously painful. He cleared his throat and coughed lightly into his elbow.

“Hm, okay,” Fred said reluctantly, glancing at Archie briefly as if to tell him to keep an eye on Jughead.

Archie eyed his friend worriedly, but sighed and gave in. He finished up his bowl of cereal and waited for his friend to finish so they could head to school.

Jughead and Archie were pretty silent the walk to school. Both of them had their headphones plugged in, listening to different music.

Archie could faintly hear light sniffling mixing in with Daughter’s “Youth” he was listening to. He yanked out the headphones off of his ears, the melody abruptly stopping as he looked over at Jughead.

Jughead rubbed at his nose lightly, putting his hand down when suddenly he was involuntary inhaling sharply. He raised his elbow to his face, turning away from Archie and sneezing two, tired sounding sneezes. Once he recovered he lowered his arm, giving one sniffle then continued on listening to his music, like nothing had happened.

“You’re sick!” Archie accused, stopping.

“No I’m not,” Jughead said casually, a little boredly even.

Archie was a little taken aback, tongue-tied. He was at loss for words. Normally Jughead was a lot more defensive about his sickness denial, and this lack lustre, “just another day” attitude was working. Archie felt a little intimidated, realising Jughead was improving at his denial tactics and he would have to start forming a new strategy against him. He pouted to himself for a few seconds, because he had just gotten a hang of calling Jughead out of his bullshit.

Once Archie got over himself he stopped again, “We are turning around and going home.”

Jughead smirked at him, “What? Tell your dad I sneezed and I have to stay home? C'mon Arch, it’s a natural bodily function–some particles in my nose that needed to be expelled, probably.”

Archie glared, “Jughead Jones, I know what you are doing! Don’t think I don’t know your evil, scheming plan..”

Jughead looked playful, “It just appears you want to miss school because of that math test you have.”

Archie groaned, sulking, finally giving in and continuing their walk to school.

Jughead had finally managed to get Archie off his back when he went off to do some music stuff with the Pussycats, and he felt relieved. He made his way through the crowd of people, trying to reach his locker. Once he arrived, he started to unlock it when suddenly someone was pulling his beanie off.

Jughead groaned quietly, turning his head around to face Reggie Mantle with an annoyed look on his face.

The victorious, playful grin on Reggie’s face instantaneously faded once took in Jughead’s sickly appearance. He frowned and carefully replaced the beanie clumsily onto Jughead’s messy dark hair.

“Uh..sorry dude, you got a cold?”

Jughead rubbed at his pink nose and shook his head, “No? Didn’t know where you got that idea?”

To further debunk that statement, an irresistible itch began to gnaw at his throat. Irritated tears pricked at his eyes, as a brief but harsh coughing fit tore its way out of his throat and into his now surely germ infested jacket sleeve.

Reggie pressed his lips together and pulled out a packet of cough drops from his jeans and pressed them onto Jughead’s palm, “Sure thing, beanie baby. Uh..welcome back and..don’t die I guess.”

Reggie stalked off into the crowd quickly, not even giving Jughead the chance to protest. He quickly unwrapped one and popped the drop into his mouth, pocketing the rest of the pack and silently praising all the deities for Reggie Mantle. Jughead breathed in shakily, discreetly pressing the back of his hand against his forehead to check his own temperature.

He frowned at the intensifying heat, hoping today would go by as soon as possible. He breathed in heavily, bracing himself for the day.

The reason Jughead had decided to brave through the day and get his sick ass out of bed was so he could catch up with school, and now he couldn’t even hear what the teacher was saying because of his fever. Jughead was seriously regretting his decision because now his little sacrifice was worth nothing. He still couldn’t just admit that he was sick, so he continued on with his little charade.

Jughead squinted, hoping his vision would focus and stop fading in and out so he could stop feeling so nauseous and generally unwell. He was focusing so hard on trying to concentrate he didn’t even notice a sneeze building up and creeping up on him, until it was too late.

He had barely managed to cover his face with his arm, causing Veronica to look over sympathetically. “You’ve got yourself a really bad cold, haven’t you?” She sighed.

Jughead sniffled and shook his head, voice contaminated with congestion, “Huh? No, I haven’t.”

Veronica blinked incredulously, “..uh, babe, you are very sick.”

Jughead shook his head calmly, “I think you’re misunderstanding. I’m not sick.”

Veronica raised an eyebrow, “Um, Jughead..the whole world can see you’re–”

“Lodge!” The teacher yelled.

“Sorry,” She apologised quickly, sparing an exasperated glance over at Jughead quickly, before he shrugged at her and gave her a small, reassuring smile.

She sighed in frustration and turned frontwards again and got back to the lesson.

Betty released a sigh of relief as the bell rang, commencing the beginning of lunch time and thus dismissing her from her absolutely boring History class. She was already so done with today, and just wanted to eat and hang out with her friends.

She got up from her seat and left the classroom, taking a quick detour to the bathroom. Once she had finished, she made her way towards the Blue and Gold office as she had left her lunch there earlier that morning.

As she neared the door of the office, she could faintly hear a chorus of congested sounding coughing from within. She raised her eyebrow in suspicion, and slowly opened the door to reveal Jughead resting against one of the chairs, shaking violently.

Jughead’s eyes widened as Betty’s figure formed in his vision, jolting straight so he was no longer slumped weakly against the chair, trying to stop his shivering, “Betty! Hey! How are you?”

Betty raised her eyebrow at the rough edge of Jughead’s lowered voice, taking in his sickly features and frowned when she came to her conclusion, “Awh, Jug..you’re not looking so good. How’re you feeling?”

Jughead shook his head defensively, “I feel fine. I was just going to get a head start on the article..”

Betty shook her had furiously, “No way! For one you’re sick, and for two you need to rest! It’s been a tough week.”

Jughead stood up, hoping to prove his point but swallowed as a wave of nausea hit him from standing up, his entire frame racked with shivers, “Im okay, Betty. Really! I don’t even know why you’re so concerned when I feel great.”

Betty sighed deeply, “Jughead..”

“I’m fi–” Jughead cut himself off as he inhaled involuntarily, quickly turning away to harshly stifle three sneezes into his arm,  naively hoping Betty wouldn’t have noticed.

“Bless you,” Betty said softly.

“I didn’t sneeze!” Jughead insisted.

Betty looked incredulous.

“C'mon, Betty, lets go to the cafeteria or something,” Jughead pressed, making a move to exit the office when Betty wedged herself in between. She crossed her arms, face stern, as firm and resilient as she could be.

“Jughead Jones, you are not leaving this room. You are going to sit your sick ass down on that chair and relax.”

Kevin sat down at their usual table already inhabited by Archie and Veronica at the cafeteria, his face scrunched up in worry and concern. He looked a little spooked even, like he had just seen a ghost.

“What’s wrong Kev?” Veronica asked.

Kevin shook his head, “Its just..have you guys seen Jughead today? He looks awful.”

Archie rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, “I keep trying to call him out on it, he’s so obviously sick it’s painful. I’ve tried to coax the truth out of him secretly by blessing him whenever he sneezes but he just acts like he didn’t sneeze at all?? It’s so frustrating.”

Kevin nodded in agreement, “Like he was just staring at nothing the whole time during Geography, like his cheeks are so red with a fever but he’s shaking so much?? The teacher asks him if he’s alright and he starts explaining the key features of an OS map.”

Veronica couldn’t help the laugh forcing its way out of her, trying to stifle the sound earning a glare from Archie.

“What?! That’s hilarious!” Veronica protested.

She sighed, “Yeah okay, it’s hilarious but it is concerning. Was he sick this morning? How’d he get sick?”

Kevin spoke up, “He got sick through a culmination of the infamous shitty Jones immune system and all the shit he’s been going through lately. I mean, that’s gotta be rough for his body, right? Speaking of which..”

Kevin’s voice lowered into a more soft and sympathetic tone, “How’s he holding up?”

Archie sighed sadly, “Not good. He isn’t sleeping, he’s having really bad panic attacks, he doesn’t even eat as much as he normally would.”

Veronica widened her eyes, “Jesus.”

Archie nodded, “Exactly! We didn’t even realise he was sick this morning because he’s been this dull the whole week. If only we could just tackle him down and get him to admit he’s sick.”

Veronica nodded in agreement, “This is frustrating. Where is he, anyways?”

Kevin pulled out his phone as it beeped, quickly scanning through his new text, “Uh, I got the answer to that.”

He raised his phone up so that the two could see what the text said.

Betty Cooper: Kev Jughead is super sick and he’s not admitting it so I’m trying to trap him in the blue and gold office hurry please I can’t hold him in here by myself

“C'mon, lets go get them,” Veronica announced, standing up and heading for the office.

The three friends managed to arrive at the Blue and Gold within two minutes of Betty sending the text; and when the Kevin opened the door to reveal the sight, Jughead looked even worse than he already was.

He was convulsing violently, arms wrapped around himself to try and provide himself with some warmth. His nose was rubbed raw, an angry shade of red and his cheeks were the same shade of red, flushed from a fever. His eyes were watery and bleary, face ghostly pale, highlighting his dark circles.

Betty was hovering over him, trying to feel for his temperature but Jughead was ducking away defensively, clearly not wanting her to feel his forehead. Betty sighed in frustration, trying to get a grip on his forehead but Jughead would only inch away from her, lightly swatting at her hand.

“Oh my god, Forsythe! If you’re really ‘not sick’ Just let me feel your forehead!” Betty exclaimed impatiently.

Jughead opened his mouth to protest but widened his eyes as he caught sight of his other friends. He instinctively straightened and cleared his throat, brushing messy curls out of his face.

“Wh..” Betty turned around to face her friends, and let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god you’re here! Help me hold him down!”

“What?!” Jughead exclaimed, voice cracking and hoarse. Quickly, he turned away from her to stifle a sneeze into his shoulder.

While his guard was down Veronica rushed over and pinned him down in place so he wouldn’t duck away. Jughead squirmed, leaving Kevin and Archie at awe from Veronica’s display of great strength.

Betty pressed the back of her hand against Jughead’s forehead and frowned deeply at the result, “Jughead! You are burning up!”

Jughead shook violently, teeth chattering but shook his head all the same, “No I’m not!”

Veronica rolled her eyes, “C'mon Jughead, you’ve lost this battle. C'mon and admit it.”

Jughead shook his head childishly, crossing his arms and pouting. He sulked in the chair for a little while, still shaking and shivering.

“Awh, you actually look kinda cute when you’re sulking,” Betty giggled.

Archie sighed deeply and took off his Varsity jacket, grabbing at Jughead’s arms and putting the way too big jacket on him.

“Archie! It’s huge!” Jughead whined, stretching his arms out which were engulfed by the jacket sleeve to prove his point. However, despite his complaining he couldn’t complain about the warmth and comfort the jacket brought him.

Archie smirked, “Well I’ll take it back then.”

Jughead pouted, “No!”

The rest of the group erupted into laughter.

“You can keep the jacket if you admit you’re sick,” Kevin suggested.

Jughead huffed, “I–I..”

He sighed deeply and pouted, looking away in embarrassment, “Yes. Yes I am sick.” He sneezed into the soft fabric twice to prove his point.

Jughead curled up into the chair, snuggling up into the oversized but comforting fabric of Archie’s jacket. He closed his eyes exhaustedly, only then letting his guard down and showing how weak he actually felt.

“Yeah, I don’t..feel great,” Jughead mumbled.

“We know sweetie,” Veronica said softly, sitting down on the chair next to him and gently caressing his dark hair.

Archie smiled softly, “I’m glad you told us. I’ll go to the nurses and call my dad, you’ll be home soon.”

Jughead managed a soft smile, “Y-yeah..h-home.”

[cantskank]

so i just talked to my mom!  and it was a FUCKING mess!

like.  i never want to talk about what’s going on with work stuff cause tbh right now i’m fucking miserable and i actually hate what i’m doing but idk if it’s just covid-related stuff blocking me or if i should actually just give up.

anyway i told her i didn’t wanna talk about it today (we talk at least once a week and i always give a brief answer on what’s going on with stuff) and it turned into like a whole thing where to her i’m like withholding and trying to not have a close relationship with her.

which maybe it’s a little correct?  but at least part of the reason i keep myself emotionally a bit distant from her is that i don’t trust her to react well to me.  like if i were to tell her the truth (like, ‘oh x is not going well for me’) she would pick me apart?  which she already started doing once i told her i didn’t want to talk about work

anyway it devolved a bit into talking about how she doesn’t want to talk about the things i care about either which she like totally didn’t understand (lots of ‘oh but that’s just how i am’ I KNOW THAT’S HOW YOU ARE BUT I AM MY OWN PERSON AND REACT IN DIFFERENT WAYS TO THINGS TOO)

then it became ‘oh well i guess you don’t want to have the sort of closeness with me that i have with my mother’ which like.  fine.  if you want to be that reductionist sure.  i was trying to explain how i’ve never felt understood in the family and i’ve learned to accept that sometimes (all the time) i don’t get to talk about what i care about with anyone and it’s not somehow different when it’s you talking about feelings but okay be very accusatory and turn me into the awful person for things

like maybe the reason i don’t share feelings with you is because you do this to me

and it’s like, from my perspective i always play by your rules at least a little bit.  like i kinda knew it might not end well but i set a boundary and that was Not Acceptable.  (i pointed this out to her but it was totally disregarded and ‘no i’m right because you never talk to me anyways’, i guess having a boundary means less if i’ve previously been reluctant to talk about something before.) 

AND the whole thing was also brought about kinda because she asked if i was considering dropping my phd and i basically answered ‘maybe but i’m not looking to make any changes right now���.  and despite her past reassurances of ‘oh if it’s not working out it’s fine, we’ll always support you, blah blah blah’ of course that did not go over well, it became ‘well why has it taken so long for you to write, why aren’t you updating me, etc etc’.  and when i expressed my discomfort/frustration at that attitude that was when it really blew up

like um.  maybe me sharing that is proving the point that you’re not someone i can trust??? 

like i know that i tend to set very particular expectations for how people treat me in friendships (and i can think of some moments in my childhood that come from her that might have caused that mindset in me) but like. that’s my safety mechanism!!  i’m sorry that i’m someone who would rather be alone than have a friend that didn’t treat me the way i wanted and really deeply care about them while being treated like shit

anyway then my dad came to see what was going on and like. i get on naturally with my dad much better than with my mom probably.  like we have similar personalities (except he like. works very hard and i am lazy as fuck) and we have similar music tastes (and have gone to shows together) and are both much more chill.  and a big difference between him and my mom is that he actually listens and pays attention to what i say (although having him around/getting his attention is much more difficult). 

so he comes in and takes the phone and tries to talk to me.  he has no clue what’s going on and i don’t want to explain the situation with my mom right there in case i say something she doesn’t like and it re-sparks the argument.  also i’m crying (and i never cry in front of anyone if i can help it) so i don’t even really want to try speaking.  so he guesses that i’m upset because i’m stressed, and it’s not untrue (though absolutely not the main reason at the moment), since stress is why i didn’t want to talk about stuff at the beginning.  so he starts trying to give advice like get out of my apartment more (which i’ve actually been like doing the last few days so i haven’t been doing so badly on that front) which i appreciated!  it was just challenging to have my mom right there and not even feel like i could get comforted by my dad?  or get comforted about the right thing?

like she’s super sensitive about not being favorite i think- which like i know i’m not either of my parents’ favorite, so it feels kinda hypocritical; i’ve gotten used to it and never complained, so like why does she get to make it a big deal?- and if i’m honest i do prefer talking to my dad.  which like she’s winning anyways, bc dad’s around less and so i talk to her more anyways. 

anyway, what i’m saying is i can’t get comforted by my dad because i can’t explain the full situation without her saying ‘oh so you’ll talk to dad?  you clearly don’t care about me‘ and it’s just like!!  i should get to receive comfort without you making it about yourself!  literally all i’m doing wrong is disagreeing with you and i’m still trying to care about your feelings

idk that’s basically it.  she’s pissed since i don’t care enough to tell her how i feel about work and i just want to like be my own person (

oh yeah and also there was stuff in there about ‘i’m just concerned with how you’re struggling in quarantine, you should maybe See Someone’ meaning therapy and i undoubtedly need therapy but 1 i’ve been waiting until i’m off my parent’s health insurance so she won’t know (like idk how it works anyway but i’m never telling her if i go to therapy so i’m just waiting until then) and 2 everyone’s struggling right now and 3 IT’S A SHITTY FUCKING MOVE TO TELL SOMEONE THEY SHOULD GET THERAPY IN RESPONSE TO THEM TELLING YOU THEY THINK THEY MIGHT BE CONSIDERING QUITTING THEIR JOB.  like if you were ~~sooooOOOOoo concerned~~ why haven’t you floated this by months ago?  only now you bring it up?  when i’m not behaving the way you want/expect?  therapy for me to get me back to feeling the ‘right’ emotions??  she’s told me i should maybe go to therapy before although in that case it was sending me to therapy and i was 14 or 15 and struggling with having moved.  like she’s only brought it up twice and those were when i wasn’t ‘behaving’ myself as expected.  therapy is not something you like threaten/bring in to ‘correct’ when someone is feeling a way you don’t think they should be.  like if you’re really thinking i should go to therapy then you should be suggesting it out of support?  when you feel like you really understand how i’m feeling/what i’m going through?  and not as something to bring me back into line.

anyway then she texted and basically said ‘sorry and i guess i’ll stop trying to be (part of) your support network, i’ll assume you’ve got other people looking out for you’ which like...? what?  okay?  like even as a teen i was having to be the more mature one and this is another passive-aggressive thing i have to deal with.  and in the past i might have apologized?  but nowadays my tolerance for that bullshit is extremely low.  so i just said ‘not what i was going for but you do you’ essentially and she texted back ‘what were you going for’ and i haven’t responded yet.  i will presumably but probably not tonight, i cannot deal.  i don’t even know where to start with that, she just really does not get it.  and i thought i could almost make her get it today by explaining my perspective but all she wants to think about is herself and her perspective and how she’s right. 

so basically i’m very done with things tonight.  and i’ve cried a couple times since because i’m just feeling very shitty about everything.  here’s hoping tomorrow is better.