#but also not fat so they dont see some deeper struggles

[catgoesboom]

I need more fanfics/novels with a fat/plus size protagonist to actually tackle how fatphobia affects our lives daily and it's also institutionalized, not just in a "oh I have self-confidence issues and can't see how beautiful I actually am" way, Cause I'm having to deal with an at-the-very-best-debatable-novel where the protagonist's fatness IS an integral part of the story and while there's some good moments that actually show some struggles a fat person has, the romantic counterpart is literally constantly just shy to calling her a slur (if we don't consider his "teasing nickname" a slur in itself), doing the whole "oh hes mean cause he likes you" bit (that I thought we all agreed was bad and a justification for abuse) and the protagonist is a freaking door with the clearly freezing levels of anxiety cause of how lacking of self-confidence she is and it makes me so mad that if I ever met someone so pityful irl I'd punch them. I'm dreading having to read throught this story at all and that I know in the end they'll be together, just for the small kernels of finally being able to see myself and my struggles in a protagonist and Idk, sometimes I do want a story with a fat protagonist that is aware of self-confidence issues but that is not really her problem and that it doesnt end in her either losing weight or getting with someone who has been deeply bigoted to her.

[blood-grove]

unnatural bleeding

merfolk au!

previous <- part 3 -> next

parings: gaz x reader

chars: gaz, price , soap , ghost

tws: blood, injuries, violence, past abuse, language, slow burn, rude reader.

tags; @chickennn-soupp @cassiecasluciluce @sans-chara @lethargicluv 

a/n; hehehehemuahauahahahahaa (also realized the abuse tw doesnt rlly apply much its more like past abuse then current so ill fix that.) also i dont believe in proofreading (im lazy) also im not good at dialogue or sticking to povs....:(

The mer was in horrible condition by the time they had located them, Sightings from swimmers, surfers, and divers anyone that could have briefly seen them.

They had finally got a lead and the team was off, It didn't take but a couple of hours to find the injured Mer it didn't seem to disturbed at our presence yet till of course it seemed to notice us finally starting to swim away.

Susan one of our head researchers loading the tranquilizer gun as we prepared things around the boat, From what he could see the mer seemed to be in worse condition on the skinnier side and scarred beyond thought possible glimpse of sunburn scars also confused him.

"Where'd ya even find da' poor ol' sap like that Gaz?"

"Around the dock was on a break..nearly thought it was a corpse till it swam away."

"Creepy.."

He nodded sighing as they started up the boat again steering themself to be on line with the mer that must of noticed they were being followed they had started at a quicker pace of swimming which no doubt was hurting there injuries even worse pulling up beside them with the both allowing Susan to take proper aim.

A first hit there tail fin when they tried to quickly surface for air which sent them into a panic he felt anxious they would get away as they got another dart ready

They seemed to feeling the dart in full effect as they tried to shake the dart off there struggles gradually weakening when Susan had already reloaded getting a good shot on there back as the mer tried to dive deeper.

Recovering there now unconscious form had been relatively easy they were on the small size of Orca mer as they were laid on the boat heading course back to the facility as the medics on board got to work with patching up some of there injuries some would need surgery to be properly stitched up and fully sanitized.

He sighed as he looked over the mer sighing as he gave a gently pat to it's tail it hurt him to see them in such a state.

"As far as our examination goes we can't get a definite age but they are a full adult, There underweight so slipping in supplements and more high fat content in there food is a must.." A medic would explain as they both watched the Orcas surgery from behind glass.

"A lot of there wounds were infected but in the early stages so recovery from them might be a easy enough process.."

"You think there wounds are the cause of them being underweight?"

"We don't think so the wounds would be much more infected than they were now if it had been from a while back.."

Gaz sighed as he shifted.

"I'll go talk with Price-"

He turned heading out as he started down the hall.

He always thought this place needed some decorations besides the main lobby and a few other rooms the hallways were bare made the place feel more sterile and void always made him shiver or maybe it was the cool A/C that the old man was so stubborn about.

It didn't take him long to reach Price around the pool area.

"Garrick, How'd it go?"

"Better than expecting there gonna be leavin' to the rehab pools soon enough..You think they'll be big enough?"

"Pretty sure we've handle Mer's bigger than em' right?"

Gaz nodded, "There pretty small mer poor thing's underweight and got a infection'"

Price hummed as he picked up what he was working on before Gaz came in.

"You heard about Shadow's Shore getting a bunch of there 'attractions' stolen?"

Shadow's Shore, God those bastards they were notorious for kidnapping or even killing merfolk for sport.

The merfolk they kidnapped were usually children easiest to grab and place into there tanks treated no more than a mindless creature they usually didn't live there entire lifespans which was still unknown for most merfolk due to people like Shadow's Shore taking them while there young just for them to die barely even adults.

Video's from the place made his blood boil forced to do tricks, Getting treats as if they were a dogs, And god that annoying baby talk.

Merfolk were basically on the same intelligence level as human even rumored to have there own general language and species specific language yet laws in a lot of places refused to see them as such allowing Shadow Shore to stay open for the money it brought in.

The merfolk that were hunted were treated like trophy kills let out into small pools where they where shot and held up to pose with the person who paid to kill them.

Gaz shivered he still remember that video that was quickly covered up by the press, That poor mer crawling desperately out of the pool trying to get away so many arrows sticking out it.

Gaz quickly shook himself out of that thought focusing back in front of him.

"Really? fuckers would of deserved it..What'd made you bring this up?"

"They lost a few of there Orca Mer's"

a/n; cutting this short here cuz its literally 1 am as i finish this part off LMAO if this isnt as good as the other ones blame 1 am kron 🫠 also loreee ! loreee! some background info into this world :))))

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

Insomnia and allergies are killing me (they aren’t anymore cause i wrote this part a week ago) so prepare for a bunch of Angel Dust facts that no one needs to know about and Vivziepop will probably end up ignoring!

Some of these are headcanons and some of these are canon facts so they will be colourcoded as such! Headcanons will be blue and canon facts will be red. Anything that relates to real spiders will be listed with a 🕷️! Some of these will also get a little doodle from me

Much like an average spider, Angel can feel and sense when storms are coming. These freak him out and will make him curl up on the ground.🕷️

Angel is sensitive to vibrations and especially sensitive to stronger ones like lightning and earthquakes. (Hell does not have earthquakes.) Stronger ones make him paranoid and nauseous from his organs moving around.🕷️

He definitely needs glasses to see far away but doesn’t bother since it hardly becomes an issue in daily life.🕷️

Jumping spiders change how they see btw! Less light = more detail, More detail = less light.

Vision Examples:

He can also see behind him but I don’t have that angle so this is the best you get

Sleeps curled up.🕷️

Also follows lasers! Not in the same way a cat would, but any interesting movement in his peripheral vision will cause him to turn toward it to see it better.🕷️

Can see ultraviolet light.🕷️

Has a tree nut allergy (Hazelnuts and walnuts. He is unfortunately a very big hazelnut fan.)

Dresses up Fat Nuggets on Halloween. And basically every other day. Seems to have a preference for the witch hat

Owns a skateboard??

Why do his eyes glow pink why can he do that on command

Can dialate his pupils at will I guess

Molts. Basically like shedding but if you also had to scrub a chunk of your skin off. Lasts 1-2 days.🕷️

Very often used to say slurs without knowing they were slurs and probably still does sometimes

Currently still under the impression his sister is alive. She also probably found him after he overdosed.

Struggles to keep track of time

No idea what half the letters in LGBTQIA+ mean

Recently learned what a pride flag is

Angel has small retractable hooks/claws inside his palm that he can use to hold onto surfaces.🕷️

Angel hates people crying around or on him and will push them away or distance himself.

Examples:

Angel is very skittish around fire even though it cannot hurt him.

Hates the smell of citrus fruits.🕷️

Angel has two fangs (primary for injecting and liquifying food) on the roof of his mouth, much sharper papillae in the back of his throat and a second set of venomous fangs near the deeper in his throat that are to inject larger food and paralyze it but there is the rare occasion where the fangs stab his own throat and he collapses for a few hours after getting the fangs unstuck and he just lays there until it wears off and it kind of looks like he's dead cause there’s probably blood in his mouth but hes fine /hj🕷️

This is more of a food safety precaution. If he ate something live he would inject it with venom if it wasn’t dead yet, but he does not do this so these fangs are basically pointless and he might as well just get them removed at this point

Angel DOES have lungs! I know this seems like a very basic fact but some spiders have book lungs! Different from ours they don’t breathe the same way we do, just like how spiders don’t have blood like humans. This is me being a nerd, but we have seen that Angel has mentioned his lung capacity and he has the ability to cough as seen in Episode 5 (I think its 5 dont quote me on that) This means he cannot have book lungs since if he did he would not be able to cough, nor would he be able to sneeze or hiccup.🕷️

Angel is likely right handed in his top pair of hands, left handed or ambidextrous in his middle pair, and as for the bottom it seems like either ambidextrous or he just doesn’t like to use them for actions at all.

This is like half headcanon but also I pay way more attention to this shit than Viv does so Im basically right all the time

It doesn’t get super cold in hell Id assume, but on the rare occasion it gets colder or the AC in the hotel is on really high that is one of the few times Angel will use webbing and will wrap himself in it and crawl under a blanket and stay there. If it’s really cold or he plans on being in a cold area for maybe a week or month or so he might go into diapause to conserve energy, warmth, and food. (This can also happen when he has sudden sharp changes in diet and during daylight savings)🕷️

This will be updated again I can feel it in my bones. Hopefully this can satiate you all while I move house 🫶

[luckylq25-blog]

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[honeyfreckled]

The way u write for us big gurls has inspired me to start writing my own plu ssize!reader series!😊 it’s refreshing to see myself written in such honest ways💜I’m tired of only reading y/nwho is shy plus hates her body. Reading genuine fics for my size from u has been phenomenal for my confidence. Lol I haven’t even dated yet but even I can tell you are writing it realer than what I’ve seen. Keep it up babes and know you ARE making a difference. 💓

ahhh I’m soft tysm i try rlly hard to be truthful to my own experiences as a fat woman. I cant believe yr sayin i inspired you it makes my heart swell tbh i never thought I’d be someone who could inspire anyone. wow e wow wow. tbh i rlly appreciate u noticing my attempt at a diff approach. I got sick of stories w fat readers focused on self hatred. or where it was all ok bc “this girl is the right kinda thicc/curvy” tbh, I had to stop lookin at that stuff. i internalized it, it started affecting my sex life/relationships/triggered ptsd/promoted unhealthy thinking. 

lil advice to fat readers below pls excuse the rant eeep. 

tw: sex talk/porn talk

If I could give fat viewers advice (esp those who are new to dating, struggle w self love/fear of dating/sexual confidence) it'd be- stay particularly mindful what smut/p*rn/content u view. When I was a SW/SB so therefore NEEDED to have an incredibly strong sense of self worth/autonomy- I made it a point to join fat positivity and educated myself on “fat politics.” Surround myself irl/online w supportive, intelligent, talented fat artists who many times are also disabled POC lgbtq folks so we connect on multiple lvls. 

I made sure not to consume nsfw stuff that fetishized my body. In general-nothing that'd demean/degrade/dehumanize ppl like me, or marginalized ppl in general. Some things im gonna see, it’s unavoidable, like fat jokes that crop up in a show im into that usually never makes comments like that. seeing my body excluded when it comes to the kinda fat models plus size stores use. The pain in seeing no one like u in mainstream media or even in the fandom. But as u continue to avoid consuming any content (nsfw AND sfw) that partakes in fat shaming/stereotypes/stigmas/body hate- u begin to notice the impact it has on u. u have an increase in yr confidence bc u got away from that other shit. u know how to spot warning signs. ESPECIALLY IN THE BEDROOM. U know how to/aren’t afraid to ask for what u want, u aren’t as easily pushed around or made into a dirty little secret w basic dudes who’re too chicken abt their pals knowin they like a fat girl. not sayin it’ll be all perfect, but u know how to take less shit from bad partners. and good sex, that u know u were bomb at, gives u a glow and radiates into other parts of yr life. u can use it to reduce stress, alleviate pain, get a boost in confidence/mood, use it to connect w someone on a deeper lvl, good sex can change all kindsa shit for u lol. not to say it’s necessary bc ik for some folks it just aint for em. but still removing that kinda content i mentioned can help regardless if yr sexually active.

if u still wanna watch porn, switch over to indie stuff (not the same as what they call amateur and not on well known porn sites) if u wanna see more relatable bodies and sex acts u could more possibly recreate. Indie scene is filled w awesome actors, the work is more artistic/aesthetics, way more realistic than shitty p*rnhub/xtube/tumblr. Still not totally close to real life. but it has its moments. what most p*rn never shows- like seeing em not cut out when a fat trans actor had to stop to readjust and get more comfortable, that kinda realness helps inform those who’re fat but haven’t been intimate that it's totally normal if they cant do all the insane stunts that go on in smut/p*rn. 

srry to rant ig the point I’m making is, even if u have no experience but yr aware the fat nsfw content u view isn’t something u can relate to- still tread lightly in those waters. Our subconscious is more powerful than we know, we become inundated to unhealthy thinking patterns or beliefs. something even like the fact that it just plain isn’t sexually satisfying for most all fat bodies to approach sex the same way as shown time and time again. or when we do have sexual encounters we come away w shame or trauma bc our bodies didnt react how we were trained to believe they would/should.

anyway ik i talk a whole damn bunch, but If u ever have a question abt the logistics feel free to hmu too. i dont mind discussing it from my experience.

[boy-porridge-vent]

Day 1

***Trigger Warning for most of this post!*** :(

 New vent account, I just have a lot to get off my chest, not right now per-say but in general, a lot has happened and I’m not coping well.

To start off, I’ve relapsed into self harm again

Not only cutting, but nearly everything I was able to get myself to stop doing.

 * I’ve begun to cut again, it’s now to the point where it gets deeper & messier each time I have a panic attack/breakdown (whatever the difference is).

* Im scratching & biting a lot more

* Punching myself until I bruise

* Weighing myself constantly, about 3-10 times a day, it’s in secret though since the scale is kinda hidden in my basement ever since my parents took it away

* Ive begun to check calories & count them. Before this past month, Ive never done this before & now it’s almost like a nervous habit! :(

* I’ve relasped into my an*rexia urges again. I’ve been having trouble with my body image & eating since about 5th grade; not to get too personal, but my mom was & still is hard on me, always called me ugly or fat because of an early puberty that made my body change quickly in a pretty gross way. Had a lot of acne since 4th grade;;; anyways, because of all that, and finding Onision, I was obsessed with his UhOhBro channel around 5th grade & took some of his more serious videos related to starvation & self harm to mind and tried it on myself because, despite him having a stone-cold hatred for it, I was a dumb kid and didn’t listen. So yeah, 5th grade I would starve myself or eat very little; 6th grade I kinda stopped but struggled with my clothing choice/identity more; 7th grade I struggled with gender; 8th grade was when an*rexia came back, more severely than ever, but it happened in short bursts over a few months, I also started cutting but very rarely; 9th I was much more happy & settled down just a bit, really figured out who I was; 10th things weren’t exactly the best, cutting came back & began to be more frquent but not deep; 11th was the worst, I’ve now been eating very little ever since school started, first day back wasnt exactly the best & I ended up cutting again for the first time in months moments after I got home.

 A lot more has happened since then and it’s only gotten worse. I don’t know what to do anymore

I don’t mean for any of this to make anybody upset or possibly relapse/get urges themselves when reading all this, I get so sad when I see others struggling too, I always try to help any of my friends or even random people online if they post a vent. I love bein there to support & help, even help get people to come out of serious relapses! But when it comes to myself, I tend to feel no pity, like I deserve this. There’s something wrong with me in my head, this has been gong on for years, every year feels worse than before, and yet everytime Ive gone to my dad, principles, teachers, or school counselors, they never help! They tell me off, saying Im fine, I dont need a therapist because therapists are scammers, or that I just need to be more positive & get over it.

Ive been told this for years, so maybe… it’s just me who’s to blame. Im the only one who sees what’s happening because it’s not really a big deal. I just make it seem wore than it is in my head. I have friends who care & ask if Im okay, ask if they can help, but honestly they cant help. They can support & I’ll vent to them but it doesn’t fix anything, I vent but it doesn’t fix my mind or my empty stomach or my hand reaching for my same used razor. Nothing has helped and I’m worried that after a while Im going to end up killing myself, whether it’s on purpose or it happens on accident when I go too deep. I have a lot I wish to do in my life, but at the same time, with all this shit that’s happened and how my life feels as if it keeps getting worse everyday, I will admit that at this point if I DID die, I guess I wouldn’t be too upset. I am scared of what will happen after death, nobody knows what happens, but I know that I am legally an organ donor, and I do have part of my will typed up in the case that I do die suddenly one day, so I guess it isn’t too bad.

I will be honest, Ive never been exactly suicidal before, but these past 4 months I think I’ve been legitamately suicidal and ready to go whenever I have a breakdown. Everytime I relapse I think of just ending it all right then and there, but then pussy out because I think about my few friends, my followers on other social media, my pets, my plants, and other people I wish to change the lives of in the future. I want to adopt a kid someday and give them what I didn’t get, treat them as I wished to be treated, help them grow up into the person I wish I had by my side growing up. They’d be my child, I’d be their parent, but we’d also be best friends. I wanted to start my own show, my own comic, my own booth at cons, meet so many people, get married, do music, so many things

but honestly, I don’t think I’ll live much longer after my senior year of highschool. I’m planning on finishing this year out, trying to finish my senior year, graduate, then I’ll leave this Earth with a bang. Maybe literally, or maybe through some other way of suicide, I don’t know. I might even do it sometime before I graduate. Not to make people sad, not for attention and pity, but because I can’t continue on like this, and I want the people who’ve wronged me to see what they did. I want those who refused to help, even when I was in front of them screaming & begging them to get me some kind of therapy or help, to see what they caused. I want them to see that I wasn’t just some sensitive crybaby that needed to get over himself, I want them to see that mental illness can run rampant in anybody & they need to be open to helping those who really need it.

 Ive been through so much. Ive been bullied, made fun of by my own mother, neglected by her, pysically/emotionally/mentally/VERBALLY/and even sexually abused by an ex partner of mine, Ive been literally harrassed, Ive been used solely for sex by nearly every single ex of mine, Ive been manipulated/guilt tripped/gas-lighted/made to feel as if my abuse was my fault, Ive been punished by my school for being abused by my ex! Yet everyone who has ever hurt me in these ways always got away with it scott-free. Why? I have no idea. I like to say that they’re let off the hook because I don’t come to school with black eyes, broken bones, bruises, and mascara running down my face. Abuse is abuse, it doesn’t have to have visible signs. Yet, mine does. I have self harm wounds, not because I blame them for making me self harm (as one of my exes once did), but because of trauma I still deal with that stemmed from their treatment of me. I have nightmares about my ex and her treatment toward me. I get SCARED when my mom comes home. I get nervous walking into school. I hate being touhed physically because it reminds me of so many people from the past getting physical and leaving me in the dirt afterward, even when I trusted them with everything. I hate saying I love you to anybody because of how little it means when others say it to me. Many partners would send hearts & “I love you"s, then throw me out like I was garbage.

I’m so tired of it all.

But maybe it’s all my fault. Maybe Im the problem. Im too quiet. Im too much of a pacifist. I hate confrontation. I hate violence. I hate hating people. If Im hurt by someone, even being abused, I always forgive and let them back in, and I get hurt again over and over. But on the rare chance that I dont forgive, when I do hate them with every cell in me, then for some reason, I can’t get them away, I can’t get them out of my life. They’re always around as a constantly reminder of what happened and how I was used and how I will never change, I’ll never be able to stick up for myself.

 if all that is going to happen in my life involves me being used for sex, money, or compliments to make others feel higher about themselves, then I don’t want to be around anymore. But I can’t just kill myself on a whim and call it a day.

I wouldn’t exactly say this is why I self harm, my self harm isn’t a choice, it just… kind of happens. It’s an addiction; scientifically, it has been proven to have addictive tendencies, which is why it’s so hard to stop once you’ve started/relapsed. I self harm because it’s an addiction that I can’t help, and becaue of bottled up, unresolved trauma that gets worse with every new day that I keep it bottled up for.

 This isn’t going to get better. Sorry for typing out so much too. I have an issue with piling all my thoughts and how I feel into multiple huge paragraphs, so there’s much more of that to come.

Also to come, weight updates & keeping track of what I eat/how long I can go with no food whatsoever. So far I’ve gone about 1/ maybe 2??? days straight, though I stayed home today so I did have to eat dinner, which caused me to gain 1 pound. But I lost 4.5 pounds in that day of not eating, so I can lose that 1 pound pretty quickly. Plus my metabolism is very very fast, so even if I did eat a lot I’d lose all that weight in a few hours/a day or two, depending on how much I ate.

This is day 1 of my further decline.

September 01, 2019

[nightmaretyrantvantas]

I am not my insecurities reflection- a truthful based oneshot

IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE PLEASE READ

Ok, this will be a long author’s note but please bare with me as this is very important for you to understand this oneshot. For some context here because I havent posted alot about her yet, this is a oneshot about my Dc oc Gracie Lucio, set kinda in the same universe(i guess) of the teen titans judas contract movie( with Damian as robin) and its a oneshot written partly out of a vent of my own body image issues and partly out of an expression of how I’ve learned to look past said issues slowly.

But this gets very angsty until the end

Now to give a bit more context for the piece itself. The oc herself, Gracie Lucio( because I havent posted any art of her yet) for the reader’s understanding, she is not human, she is a werewolf(it feeds into her story so dont get me started on it alot of research went into this aspect of her character and it plays into her body issues)and body wise looks similar to Dick in the first season of Young Justice. Shes a naturally thin figured , broader shouldered girl who could( if she really wanted to) pass as a feminine boy with short jaw/ barely chin length hair( think of a thick messy longish pixie cut of dark hair). So shes naturally lean and lanky and a little underdeveloped for a 13 year old girl and as a heroine she has toned muscles from years of hero work. Most wouldnt see her having too many insecurities about her body image and appearance, but in truth shes riddled with them. She ages a bit differently than humans, it takes her body longer to develop and even then in some areas it develops differently all together. She struggles to gain any extra weight or build up natural feminine curves, something she wants. She WANTS to look like other girls her age, with more developed and heavier bodies, with curves and more weight and an actual figure. But with a supernaturally high metabolism added on top of a already genetic based thin figure and a intense and sometimes rigorous training and workout routine plus her work as a heroine gives no leeway to gain really any extra weight, its always worked off one way or another. And this causes...comments to be made about why she looks that way by civilians. and though she never shows it publicly  she takes many of these, usually not flattering and sometimes cruel and rude, comments to heart(much like I used to unfortunately) and it worsens her negative feelings. This is a small story of her seeing those problems and issues and trying to face and overcome them. This is more centered around Gracie and Dick and Jason and their platonic and sibling like relationship as they help her through her darker times( again, this is partly me expressing my own personal struggles with body image (which arent the exact same as the character but the language and the comments are very similar)and partly how those two helped inspire me to have more confidence in my body no matter what I look like) and also a deeper peek into her complex relationship with Damian(but thats not the biggest focus) Sorry this was so long I mightve info-dumped a little but its important to understand the story. I hope you guys enjoy?

This is also told in Gracie’s point of view

This will cover some pretty deep kinda issues like body image problems and over eating and weight loss/gain and mentions of eating disorders without really discussing them and bullying so if that upsets you in any way now is the best time to scroll past for your own sake, I dont want you to upset yourself over my crappy emotional writing

I do not look that bad.

That’s what I have to force my mind to accept as I look into the mirror, meeting my own aqua green eyes hesitantly.

I always hated looking in the mirror lately, especially after training or after bathing, like now as I stood in the middle of my room in a slightly loose training type sports bra and spandex shorts. I don’t even want to glance down at my body, out of fear for seeing the same thing I always do.

‘She so skinny...is she eating right’

‘She needs to eat more and gain some weight’

‘what a twig for a superhero’

‘how have bad guys not snapped her in half? Jesus Christ I could probably break her with a sneeze!’

‘What a bad influence shes setting for young girls with such an thin figure!’

‘I think He needs to eat more Christ that poor boy must be starving! Why isn’t Nightwing feeding him more’

The flashes of comments flooded my mind the moment my eyes flickered down to the rest of me. To my thin, unfeminine figure. My underdeveloped and flat birdcage of a chest. To my lanky, toned, too flat stomach. The pinched waist figure. The flat empty expanse I called hips that blended too well into my too dainty looking bony legs. I looked too fucking skinny. And maybe they were right...as a hero I was a role model to those younger than me, and I promoted a Bad Body Image for girls to idolize with my lanky boy figure.

And it was a horrible body type I had no goddamn control over.

My species was not an easy one to live as, especially not intermingled with humans. The team knew, the team understood, but the rest of the world didn’t. As a lupinotuum pectinem, or lycanthrope which in easy translation is simply “Werewolf”, my whole body inner workings were different. Most of my kind were naturally lean and thin, like tall healthily thin model athlete body types and in general the females, even alpha females, were practically born twig like almost. And on top of that our bodies developed....differently. I was not raised by a pack or by my own kind after age 8, so even I didn’t know the full extent but females bodies took longer to grow and it made it very hard for them to gain weight because of the unnaturally high metabolism. Add being a superhero who once trained under a certain league member to the mix and you go from being the “healthy and admirable” type of skinny to the “unhealthy and concerning”type of skinny.

I hated it, and I hated my body. I hated pictures of me from the neck down, because they all looked the same no matter who they were with. And I saw the comments everyone made. Whether its a surprise photo Garfield took dragging me into the picture to commemorate something or another or me taking pictures around Gotham or Blüdhaven with Dick on the social media Gar helped me set up, or even the rare photos I’d get to take with Jason or Damian or Tim and get to post. Every time the flood of comments were the same. The same things I now repeated over and over as I looked over my body angrily.

OMG look at that poor girl is she ok??? She looks like she needs to be hospitalized!

Christ almighty BB isn’t it too early to be posing with skeletons?? LOL

Dude not funny that girl must be anorexic or something.

Such a cute sibling couple but sweetie you need a fast food break to add some fat to those bones!

Fuck kid go eat something instead of taking pictures

Awwww you two look real happy! I hope you’re on the way to lunch or something!

Holy shit your guy’s size difference is so vast its almost worrying

how are you even alive with that little weight

Go eat some junk food or something before you pass out

OMG look at her shes so small and stick like! Her clothes look like they’re hanging off a scarecrow!

That girl cannot be healthy tell me someone is making her eat more

Every time its always the same damn thing....

I couldn’t do it anymore. I turned away from the mirror nearly in disgust and went back to changing into more casual clothes, bitterly noting how my clothes did in fact seem to hang awkwardly on my body as if I was too thin for them to fit correctly. Like they always did lately.

Ew look at her she looks so gross all stick-like like that!

What a fucking twig of a girl! Are those her ribs poking through her shirt??

Bitch go eat a fucking hamburger you need some damn food in you.

God that weight cant be healthy you need a doctor!!

     “Kid? Yo kid you in there?” My head jerked up from the comments flooded screen of my phone to meet Jason’s eyes, catching the quirk of his eyebrow as he sat across the diner table from me. We were at a diner he favored whenever he came into town to visit, a little family owned treasure with delicious and greasy food and the sweetest staff on earth. We frequented the spot during his visits, our own personal little thing since we’d gotten closer. I plastered on a smile and ignored the slight narrow of those blue eyes, the small furrow of his brow got as I snapped off my phone and set it aside.

      “Sorry Jay, BB tagged me in something dorky and I got distracted. So what were you saying?”

He didn’t believe me, and I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t the most convincing at that moment but I kept that damn plastic smile on my face and snagged some of his curly fries right in his face, making him crack a smile and smack my hand away from his tray.

      “ Hands off my food, eat your own wolfie.” I rolled my eyes at the stupid nickname I’d been branded and let the plastic smile slowly be replaced by a more genuine one as we began chatting again, grabbing my over sized cheeseburger and finishing every last bite and moving onto the large fries and two milkshakes, hopelessly praying that maybe this time the calories would stick and trying to push away the comments to the back of my mind. I was with Jason and we were having a damn good time, and I wasn’t going to let those comments ruin his visit...not again.

You should be ashamed. All you’re doing is promoting bad eating habits looking like that.

You’re such a bad influence for young girls who idolize you with such a horribly unreachable appearance.

Shes too bony to ever be considered pretty

Does she have a eating disorder or something?

I stiffened instantly startled by a hand on my shoulder, turning off my phone  instinctively and making the endless comments disappear into darkness before whoever could see them over my shoulder. The hand was big, calloused, and gentle and I felt myself relax as I looked up behind me with a smile.

         “ Hey Dick, did you need something?” He smiled down at me with that big bright smile that made all the dark thoughts and feelings melt away and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, blue eyes meeting aqua green.

          “ Well I was wondering if you’re doin’ anything right now or if you’d want to go catch dinner with Kori, Dami, and I. I noticed that you’d skipped your usual early dinner....” I wasn’t surprised he noticed, he normally did...

Once again that smile plastered itself on my face as I told him I’d love to, and to just let me go get changed into something better. I saw his hesitation at the fake smile, practically smelled it on him and prayed he wouldn’t bring it up right now, god please don’t ask now or I might just break...

Maybe god is listening because he didn’t mention it and just told me to meet them by the front doors of the tower in ten.

How are you not dead yet?

Jesus Christ stop promoting your eating disorder like its a good thing!

She looks so sickly is she ok? :(

Yeah shes sick, sick in the damn head for posting such disgusting pro-Ana pictures

How can you post pictures with a clear conscience looking like that?

Some “superhero”

I was wrong, no god was listening to me.

Dinner was rough to get through, even if it didn’t start that way.

For once I didn’t have to worry or dread possibly checking my phone for anything, I turned it off by the time we got to the restaurant. I even got a small compliment from Damian on our way in, though it was more a snark at me not tripping up the stairs. But it was Damian so I snapped right back with a smile, knowing he didn’t really mean it. Sitting beside Dick and across from Damian, I nudged his foot with mine in a silent gesture to cheer up even a little. He huffed through his nose but I saw his body relax and it made me relax. Those moments before the food came, our chatter and soft laughter as we looked over the menu, and the soothing knowledge knowing that Dick pulled me and Damian along to this dinner so we would go out on a date ourselves, ever the best brother and wingman. The mood was light and pleasant and I could see even the ever sharp and moody Dami lighten up a little by the time we ordered. Maybe the mood shifted into something different as we waited for our food and I was sipping on my tall glass of iced cola, when Damian’s fingers casually brushed over the top of my unused hand that laid peacefully on the table. The gesture was subtle and light, quick enough to miss if your senses weren’t sharp. I didn’t acknowledge it and neither did he, a silent understanding that words would just ruin whatever this was. I accepted that happily, as he was much more engaged in the conversations and even smiling a little more during them as he debated with Kori on leading strategies. Things were pleasant, comforting at that table in those few seconds before the decline, Dick smiling and chuckling at his lover and little brother, Said lover and brother having a more upbeat discussion about different leadership styles and their effects, and lightly debating which work better for what. And Damian’s hand next to mine, ever so lightly brushing against it in his wordless way to say I was still there and at even the smallest twitch I’d have his attention again. Dick ruffled my hair and asked how my online courses were coming along, since I didn’t attend schools publicly and I was more than happy to babble about my classes, and my current work in them. It was nice and I was happy, all the horrible feelings from before draining away as I tuned everything else but these three out of my enhanced hearing. Why had I even felt so shitty when I had great people like them in my life?

Then I heard it as that damned supernatural hearing tuned back in to the rest of the world.

The words and whispers and mutters and the blatant gossip and bad mouthing.

“Look at that younger girl sitting at that table dear...shes so thin I think she should be in a hospital not a restaurant.”

“Ewww mom look that girl looks like a skeleton!”

“ Honey shush….”

“Is….is that girl ok?”

“Dude of course she isn’t just look at her shes unhealthy as fuck. Probably has some kind of eating disorder too or something.”

It all flooded over me and all of my happy mood washed away under the wave. I couldn’t tell if the others could hear them so I grit my teeth tried to tune it all back out, trying so hard to focus more on Kori’s explanation of her points. My hands began to curl up subconsciously, making Damian’s attention snap to me. Fuckin I….no, I cant tell him...I shouldn’t. I forced my hand to uncurl and that stupid smile sprawled across my lips as if someone had put tape over them. I saw his eyes narrow and near begged mentally for him to not say anything or for Dick to distract him...anything.

“Ahem….your meal.”

I have never more thankful to a waitress before in my life...until I saw the look she gave me as she placed my admittedly large order of food in front of me, something that was normally a platter for two people’s worth of beef and sides. I caught the judgmental and suspicious look she had glancing between me and my food and I felt shame burn all over, starting to hang my head to avoid that damn look.

“ If this is all our food then your job is done. Don’t you have OTHER tables to be serving?” Damian’s curt and sharp tone cut through the air and briefly through my shame. This waitress knew nothing about me and i certainly owned no one any explanations about my eating habits, so why was she hanging around giving me looks about my food…?

“ Damian don’t be so rude!” Dick cleared his throat and I felt his strong arm wrap protectively around my shoulder as he leaned close to the edge of the table while Kori’andr apologized for Damian’s attitude vaguely. But I could hear it, there wasn’t much life to her apology. It sounded like a politely required apology, almost...defensive?

“ I am so sorry about my little brother Miss. He’s also sorry. But do you need anything else since we seem to be all set here but you’re still hanging around when you must be very busy…?” Dick’s words were sweet and cheerful, but there was an edge to his tone that gave a clear warning. His arm around me tightened a little protectively as he gave one of his signature charming smiles that could light up half the damn city as he then inquired if there was some sort of problem. The waitress stammered that there wasn’t any problem and that it was fine and for us to enjoy our meal before scampering away to continue her work. I felt other patrons eyes most DEFINITELY on us now and I couldn’t help shrinking into the taller man’s side to hide.

“ I’m sorry this keeps happening…” I murmured to him as our respective dates started eating and slowly reviving their conversation, moving on to mission recounts and training while Damian shot a dark look at the other patrons that made them look away. Dick gave my shoulder a squeeze and i moved closer for that familiar warmth and comfort...my chest felt heavy and my appetite had died and I wanted to curl up in my room and die of the shame. But I couldn’t, he wouldn’t have let me. So instead I instinctively sought out the safety Dick’s presence brought me, like a protective older sibling whose arms I could be enveloped in and forget about the harsh world outside them.

He knew without words, catching my body language before anyone else at the table. He knew me best.

“ Do you want to leave? We can get to go boxes and enjoy this meal all the same back at the tower, or even mine and Kori’s apartment. Is that what you’d rather do?” It was tempting, oh god it was so tempting to just say yes and let him lead me away while I re-gathered myself, same way he did when we were both 13 and living under the same roof...before…

I shook my head and forced those thoughts to the very back of my mind. I was in a dark enough place of mind already without that.

“ N-no...you guys set this up...i...i don’t want one nosy waitress to ruin our whole meal. Lets just eat ok D?” He smiled at the nickname and ruffled my hair with a nod, both him and Kori making sure I knew if things got too uncomfortable we could leave and the heaviness eased a little at their consideration. I started picking at my food and slowly regaining my appetite, once again nudging Damian with my foot to start up conversations. I ignored the words for the majority of the dinner, we even began to enjoy ourselves again. The last straw was probably as we were paying and putting leftovers in to go bins. I was admittedly nibbling on food out of my bin, despite starting to feel full.

“ I swear you are a bottomless pit sometimes Gracia.” I rolled my eyes at Damian’s remark and gave him a small smirk as I licked my fingers clean.

“ This bottomless pit can still kick your ass in training wonder boy~” He grunted and I saw the challenge glow in his eyes as he smirked back, an excitement for tomorrow’s combat training flaring up between us.

“ You really shouldn’t mix up your delusional dreams with reality alpha PUP.” I said something snarky back and we began to bicker halfheartedly over who was winning. I finally snapped shut my leftover box and stood with Damian as we stared each other down confidently, Dick chuckling at our competitiveness.

“ Tomorrow morning’s combat training will certainly be interesting with these two all riled up already.” The words didn’t fully process as I cracked my knuckles and squared up to the admittedly….taller boy.

“ Last I checked Damian I was ahead 11-10. And tomorrow, I just cant wait to make it 12.” He gave a hard laugh to my face and faced up to me with a smirk as our other two companions stood and shooed us more in front of the table so they could leave their seats. He opened his mouth to say something likely scalding and snarky back at me when the worst comment pierced between us both like a goddamn bullet.

“ Damn, I never knew such a sickly, too skinny bitch like her could eat like such a fat fucking pig.”

I think I stopped breathing as my body flinched at the following laughter. The man was clearly on the tipsy side and sitting at a larger table with a group of laughing friends, though the one who said it was standing next to the table with a drink that reeked of the cheapest alcohol this restaurant probably sold, and he didn’t stop there. Oh god of course he didn’t stop there. He kept laughing and loudly making obvious comments at me and openly mocking me and how much I ate to his table, either fully aware of what he was doing and that we could clearly see and hear him or too drunk to really care as more insults and name calling that I had heard and seen and read plenty of times before fell from his mouth. My heart was pounding in my ears as the next few moments happened slowly.

I thought I had seen anger plenty of times before, the worse being the one and only time someone made a malicious joke about my appearance to my face when I was walking beside Jason and it took all my supernatural strength to drag him off and away the guy before he murdered him in broad daylight and to keep him walking to wherever we had been heading.

I had seen pissed, but I had never seen downright hellish fury until that moment when I looked at Damian and Dick.

I had seen Damian mad, and angry, and pissed, a few times in our first meetings at me personally. I had seen Dick mad, angry, and pissed off a a fair chunk of times, even if they had never been directly at me. I had never seen this expression on either of them in those times. And in those few moments that passed almost in slow motion and Damian began to lurch forward with murderous intent the thought finally hit me. ‘ Was this...the first time these two had really heard the comments about me? Oh god…’ I felt like I was moving in honey as Damian stalked past me and I tried to reach out to him slowly, a gleam to his eyes that made my blood go cold.

If someone was to ask me in the future what I believed Death looked like, I would say with completely conviction that death would have the exact eyes Damian had in that moment: lethal, merciless, and furious. And he would have Dick’s cold expression, a look I never wanted to see on the normal cheerful man’s face ever again.

Time snapped back to a normal speed like a whip and my hand grasped nothing but air as Damian stormed over to the man.

“D...da--”

“What did you just say you disgusting drunk.” I might’ve shivered at his tone and I felt Kori’s hands on my shoulders tugging me back protectively as she looked down at me worried.

“ Gracie...don’t listen to him, there’s no reason to cry.” Cry? What was she talking ab--

That’s when I felt it, something warm and wet sliding down my cheeks and dripping off my chin. I...I was crying. My walls and my limit of bottling things in for one day was crumbling away as I watched Damian go to confront the man, my voice disappearing under the surge of hurt and anxiety. I couldn’t even say his damn name. I felt frozen and helpless as Dick stalked after Damian, fists clenched.

I had to do something say something anything to stop them before things went badly I had to I had--

“Eh?What the fuck did you say to me brat?”

“ You heard me you worthless piece of filth. Apologize to her, now.”

I needed to do something anything as I felt myself crumbling. Why wasn’t Dick stopping him why

“ And what if I don’t pipsqueak? You gonna hit me? Now scram. Maybe take your little bitch to a hospital for treatment instead of parading her around a restaurant with normal people!”

“ He might not do anything, But I will. Now take it back before things get messy.”I think my body began trembling as I watched panic swelling. I just wanted to leave and go home. I didn’t want to see this unfold, I just wanted to be home at the tower curled under my covers to simulate the warmth of another person holding me. I wanted to be anywhere, anywhere else then stuck in this nightmare.

So I moved without thinking and lunged, aiming for the back of Dick’s jacket to grab and ready to swallow any shards of pride and beg to leave. Instead I collided with Damian’s back and rolled with it, hugging him tightly from behind and tugging back with a whimper.

“ P-please you two...l...lets just leave...please lets just go home please…” Kori grabbed Dick’s arm firmly and tugged him back.

“ Dick...shes in the midst of an anxiety attack, let it go and lets leave. We need to get her out of here.” He took a difficult deep breath but nodded glaring down the man harshly enough that he flinched and scurried to the bar with his tail between his legs mumbling insults. One of his friends started to stand and began nervously apologizing, though one vicious look from the boy I was holding shut him up fast. It took me and Kori working together to drag the two out of the restaurant and the ride home was tense and silent. I couldn’t look at any of them, instead opting to stare at my feet wiping my eyes.

“ Does that happen often. People talking about you like that.” His cold tone made me flinch a little. At this point I was so upset and anxious and emotionally drained on the inside that I thought Damian was mad at me of all people for what happened. Those dark thoughts began to slowly bubble up to the surface and my insecurities screamed that he blamed me for what happened in the restaurant. I remained silent, too upset to answer. I heard his growl of annoyance and I began to hunch up, ready for a verbal fight.

“ Damian drop it for now. Shes in no right place of mind to talk about it.” Dick warned from the driver seat with a low voice that reminded me he was also upset and angry. When we got back   to the tower I didn’t wait for anyone to say anything, I just bolted for my room as fast as I could, at a inhuman, unnatural speed that they couldn’t keep pace with.

I stayed locked in my room for three days, not willing to face any of them the next morning during training. Everything was heavy and hurt and it was hard trying to rebuild those shattered walls of protection, that image of unbothered confidence. I stayed in bed locked away from the world and curled up under the weak protection of my sheets mostly unresponsive to those outside it.

The first to come knocking and checking on me was Kori, asking if I was ok and if I needed to talk. She left after a little while of trying for a response unsuccessfully though, saying she’d come back to check on me later. It was maybe an hour later that Garfield came knocking, asking why I’d missed breakfast AND training. His voice was concerned as he asked if everything was ok and if I was even in there. The concern poked painfully into my silence, tempting me to speak and make myself vulnerable.

Vulnerability killed. I knew that first hand. So I forced myself to stay quiet until his knocks and footsteps faded away.

The rest of the day passed in a bit of a self deprecating blur, only marked by Kori’s two other attempts at my door. The last one I barely noticed as exhaustion kicked back in and I drifted off into an unsteady sleep

The next day after I woke up things still went by in a near timeless blur. I could hear my phone buzzing and vibrating and rattling for my attention but I left it there on the nightstand unnoticed and curled further under the sheets, lost in a slate tinted world of dark thoughts and darker temptations. But that day was harder to drift away through.

The first to stop by was Jamie, knocking a few times and calling out to me with concern and worry clear in his voice as he asked if I was ok. He asked if I’d eaten at all since yesterday, since he hadn’t seen me leave my room. The thought of eating made my stomach stir and my body curl around it ashamed. He knocked a few more times after that, his voice growing a bit more worried at the lack of answer. After awhile I heard him walk away and I barely lifted my head as I hugged my too skinny too unhealthy body close, feeling those blaring imperfections and flinching at myself.

It was no wonder everyone said those things...if so many people said them so often then they must be true.

The next to come by was Raven. She only knocked twice and gave a small sigh.

“ Gracie...I know you’re in there. If you need someone to talk to...my room is in the next hall over, and I will be here to listen. I wont force you to come out...just please remember you aren’t alone here. You have the team behind you.” I bit my lip hard enough to make it bleed to keep my ensuing whimper silent. The words, soothing and reassuring in context, stabbed into my heart and my resolve. I WANTED to depend on them, to throw open the door and break down under the assurance I could and would not be treated differently after, and be assured and comforted and remind of the positives. I wanted it so badly I was scared of it. Or maybe...I was scared of it NOT happening as those damn fears and insecurities and dark thoughts sowed heavy doubt through me. She lingered a little longer than Jaime, eventually her footsteps disappearing. I remember meekly poking my head from the sheets to stare absently out the half covered windows lost in thought, time slipping by me once more to the point I almost didn’t register Garfield and Kori both stopping by my door again at least twice more worried.

When Dick stopped by as the sun was setting was when the harder pain set in.

I heard the knocks and ignored it in favor of the changing color sky the sunset offered, my room washed in a dim orange and amber gleam. Then I heard his voice, soft and sick with worry from the outside and my heart thudded so hard it hurt. Hard.

“ Gracie...C’mon Gracie-girl please open the door. We’re all worried about you...I’m really worried about you. You haven’t eaten for a day and a half...Please let me in...” I almost broke completely at the pain in that familiar voice, the voice I never wanted to be the cause of being in pain or anguish again.

Well looks like I did a GREAT job of preventing that didn’t I?

He knocked again, asking and pleading and trying to reason, anything to get that door to open. My eyes burned with hot fresh tears and I curled up into a tight ball whimpering softly and breaking my vow of silence.

“....D-dick...p-please...j-just leave me a-alone…I-i just need some t-time alone…”

My voice came out pathetically weak and shaking with tears, which I know he heard. There was a silence for a few moments, perhaps shock that I actually answered this time. I felt warmth sliding down my cheeks as he sighed and reluctantly muttered that he’d come check back on me tomorrow and that there was leftover dinner ready for me to heat up on the kitchen counter before he slowly walked away. His fading footsteps echoing in my ears. Was my heart breaking on every step away? I couldn’t tell. That feeling slipped into the dark thoughts that followed the setting sun. Dark thoughts that also reminded me of the one person who HADN’T come to check on me, and the resulting pain of his absence.

The third day had been mostly quiet. It was almost a painful relief, quiet meant no additional pain of--

“ Gracia.”

That one word coming from Damian’s mouth sent so many things through me and sent any resolve I had spiraling away. His tone was a forced kind of neutral, he sounded as if he was trying to stay calm but it wasn’t exactly working. There was something to his voice I had no energy to figure out. He didn’t knock and there was silence for a few moments but I felt his presence remain.

“ You haven’t eaten since the restaurant.” No questions with him, he didn’t need to ask, always calm and analyzing.

“ ...You cant just stay in there forever Gracia.” A stern lilt to his voice, weakly enforced by the faint sound of his hand on the door. I could only whimper and curl up more. There was another stretch of silence before he sighed and his footsteps continued down the hall.

He was the only one to come check on me, a blessing and a damnation.

The day and night went by so listlessly I didn’t remember falling asleep, only waking up to banging knocks on my door. The volume grated on my sensitive hearing and made me flinch. Who would even be knocking like that…?

“ Oi. Kid. I know you’re still in there. Open the door.” Jason’s hard and no shit taking voice shot through me. Why...Why was Jason in the tower? Why was he in the city?

The knocking continued relentlessly, unlike the others. It even got louder and angrier.

“ Kid I said open this goddamn door.” There was no request or plea in his voice. It was a command, a harsh, cold command. I tried covering my ears with my hands and curling into a tight ball as the knocking continued. He wasn’t about to give up to a little girl.

I knew this too well.

“ Graciea Rosica Lucio I swear to god if you don’t open this goddamn door in the next couple second I will break it down. Now get off your fucking ass and answer me.” I don’t know what it was, but hearing his threat sent my body into mechanical motion, trudging over to the door and reluctantly unlocking it and letting it slide open with a low hiss, the banging finally ceasing. I couldn’t look him in the face, empty and ashamed it took threats to get me to open the door. So I stared dully at his boots and took in his scent as he grabbed the front of my shirt and dragged me back inside. I stumbled clumsily along with as he sat me on my bed and stood in front of me. I kept my gaze down towards his knees, the smell of nicotine wisping off his body in a way that told me he very recently had been smoking, no less than an hour ago most likely. Smoke and city is what filled my room. There was only a beat of silence before he spoke.

“ Look at me.” I lifted my head and stared at his chest and his crossed arms, unwilling to look him in the eyes. I couldn’t bare to see what kind of disappointed look he likely had on his face. Perhaps I didn’t want to see my reflection in his eyes, see the sickly, disgusting and bony figured girl with greasy hair and dark circles under dulled eyes and sallow cheeks. I heard the slight growl that rumbled from the back of his throat in warning and I briefly wondered if I would be forced to look him in the eyes. His arms uncrossed and I prepared myself for anything.

Anything except for two big plastic grocery bags filled with fast food bags and orders was dropped onto my lap, the contents still hot. I blinked slowly once, twice, and finally got enough courage in my confusion to look up at his face. When I did I was a little startled.

“ Eat. And you aren’t moving until those bags are polished off understand me?”

He looked visibly angry, eyes narrowed and mouth locked in a fearsome scowl with eyebrows furrowed. But his eyes were soft and worried and it took me a minute to realize worry was what was making his scowl so harsh. He crossed his arms across that broad chest again and I realized he was in his work gear, all the way down to the guns strapped to his thighs. All he lacked at the moment was his helmet and domino mask, his dark hair messier than usual and the white streak falling between his eyes. We had a staring contest and in those pupils I saw myself, I saw the shell I had become and it made me sick, breaking me briefly from the depressive haze.

How the hell had I let myself fall this far, this deep?

We didn’t speak until he grunted, eyes narrowing more in a way even those concerned blues didn’t weaken the glare as he spoke gruffly.

“ You better start eating before I start just shoving it down your damn throat.” I knew he would too. He wasn’t fucking around, I didn’t doubt he’d follow through with any threats made. Slowly I looked down at the pile of food and reached for the first bag, pulling it open and blinking fast as fresh tears stung my eyes.

It was from our favorite diner, and it was my usuals two cheeseburgers and large lightly salted fries with a second order of fat steak fries and fried pork strips. He’d even gotten all the little sides I enjoyed with it and I looked back up at him with a pained look. Maybe that look made him relax because his expression softened slightly, his voice quieting to something gentler.

“ C’mon now...I brought you all your favorites, now start eating...it’s been three days and your body cant handle that. We can talk after.” My shoulders slumped as all the tension stored in my body dissipated a little as he continued to speak, like a tightly pulled strong finally cut loose.

“ Kid I’m not mad at you. No one is. So just eat the food and then we’ll figure shit out, just like we do on any other visit.” I think the tears started falling because his face got blurry and there was warmth in my face. If I did start crying he didn’t say anything, just nodded at the bag. I gulped and slowly but surely pulled out one of the burgers and slowly took a bite, struggling a little to swallow it with a throat that was closing up from emotions. Once I did though my hunger kicked me hard and I began devouring the food, one bag after another.

It took me about a half hour to finish both plastic bags but I did, followed by slamming through at least two water bottles and one thick milkshake that almost made a mess. Jason simply watched over me as I ate from his spot in front of me. The silence was almost soothing, not painful as it had been before. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I looked back up at him and we made eye contact.

“ So are you going to tell me what happened? Really happened?” I broke his gaze to stare towards the floor as the acidic shame began to creep back over me. He sighed.

“ C’mon kid just let it out already. Who am I to judge? So why don’t you trust me like you USED to and tell me?” Those words shot through my heart and head.

I...I wasn’t trusting him...trusting anyone...I…i...

It was like Jason opened a flood gate.

It all came spilling out with a new surge of tears and mid sentence cracking sobs, my body physically heaving from the intensity as it all came out. All the months of insecurities and pain and doubts and fears and comments and negativity and hate and bullying came rushing out like a tidal wave and Jason took to all, listening to everything without a single word as I let everything out and let myself break down completely, wails and sobs replacing words eventually. I felt him shift and kneel in front of me, felt big strong sturdy hands grip my shoulders to steady me and keep me anchored as I buried my face into my hands and gasped out cries and pained wailing yowls that filled the room and spilled out of it. I vaguely remember the sounds of multiple hurried footsteps coming towards the door but I didn’t care. All I felt was Jason’s hands on my shoulders and his steady, continuous heartbeat in my ears as well as he strong breathing. One set of footsteps dared to enter the room and hurry over, only stopped by Jason’s calm voice.

“ Let her get it out, its the only thing that’ll help.” The footsteps stopped and eventually the wails faded into blubbering whimpers and whines and hiccups, constantly sniffling. I lifted my head to look at him through blurred eyes and got one brief sight of Dick standing behind Jason that sent me into a whole new wave of sobs.

God I’ve been nothing but selfish and now I’d fucking hurt Dick again even when I swore I’d never do that again and i--

I let out a high pitched whine that turned into pathetic blubbered and wailed apologies. Over and over like a broken record I couldn’t stop apologizing to them for everything even parts that weren’t my fault  in any way I still apologized for it I just couldn’t stop. Jason’s grip on me tightened only slightly before slipping away and for a single moment I was terrified I’d annoyed him with all the apologies and was about to add that to my list of them when two strong arms wrapped around me and and Dick’s scent surrounded me.

“ Shh shh shh shhh….shhh Gracie its ok now shh shh its ok I got you its not your fault…” I sniffled and wailed out more sobs and begs for forgiveness as I clung to him like he was a life preserver. And at that moment he was. He hugged me tighter and practically cradled me into his chest stroking my hair as he murmured reassurances, assuring me I was well forgiven and it wasn’t my fault. Everyone got insecurities especially when facing so much negativity. How I was so strong for fighting it for so long regardless. But it was ok to not always be strong and be able to handle it. That he was there and it was ok now. It took awhile but eventually all my noise quieted down to sniffles and hiccups and the occasional whimper as my trembling and heaving finally eased away into a limp tiredness. I felt exhausted but in a way different than the past couple days. I felt lighter and the more Dick spoke gently the lighter and more relaxed I felt,all the pain easing as he banished every dark thought one by one.

“ You ARE a hero Gracie.”

“ you aren’t a skeleton or a scarecrow or a twig.”

“ You are not too bony.”

“ You’re beautiful.”

“ You aren’t sick and you don’t need any doctors.”

“ You’re ok. The way your body works and retains weight naturally is not your fault.”

“ You’re only thirteen you’re still growing kiddo.”

“ I was scrawny and thin until I was at least sixteen Gracie its not that uncommon.”

“ You do NOT have to hold yourself to stupid human beauty standards.”

“ You’re beautiful to us, that’s all that matters.”

“ You’re ok, you have us.”

Each and every statement cleared my mind and I slumped against him with tears still falling down my cheeks. His hand carefully cupped the back of my neck in a soothing gesture to ease the wolf side of me, adding a very small amount of pressure to ensure the sense of security and safety the movement brought. I whispered out a hoarse thank you, my throat sore and raw but already beginning to heal. He smiled into my hair and I let my eyes slip shut in contentment. I felt...stabilized, as if the whole world had been constantly tilted dangerously under my feet for months and now it had finally been returned to normal, balancing me once again.

I felt a second, no technically third, hand tangle itself into my thick and greasy hair and ruffle it affectionately, fingers tangling themselves in the dark chestnut locks.

“ We’re always here for you kid. Whether you like it or not. You can be honest and confide in your inner circle Gracie. We aren’t going to look at you any differently...so next time don’t keep your mouth shut.” My nerves settled and I leaned into his hand with a loud hiccup, making him snort. I looked up and saw both older men smiling down at me, both with their own kind of soft expressions. I rubbed my eyes and wiped my nose and smiled back shakily, feeling like everything was going to be ok for the first time in a long while.

I learned a few things a few hours later, after I’d fallen asleep in Dicks arms and woke up on the couch out in the Tower’s game room with Garfield and Jaime looking after me. My head was resting on Garfield’s leg and he had his elbow rested on my upper arm comfortably as he and Jaime played some kind of two player video game, keeping their voices lower than usual to be considerate of me sleeping. Opening my eyes was difficult as they felt dry and crusted and stung from crying so much. But my throat was no longer sore. When they saw I was awake they paused the game and and told me they were happy I was up, as I had been out cold for at least a solid couple hours. That was when I learned the first thing : Dick and Kori had informed the team of the incident at the restaurant after the first day I stayed locked up in my room, and Garfield had let it slip in his rage that he thought I had finally stopped getting those comments, and confessed that I’d been getting bullied and harassed about my appearance online for months. What I found out was all those months what I failed to notice was Garfield fighting back on my behalf every chance he got. He defended me, constantly called people out for harassment and even worked on getting some of the worst and most aggressive ones banned. For months he’d been do it as relentlessly as he could, filling his own social medias with both our pictures and his constant defense and positivity towards me to fight it back. It got lost in my own comment section so I stupidly didn’t realize. It warmed my heart knowing he’d kept my back even when I never noticed or mentioned it, though he waved it off and just gave me his big old smile telling me it wasn’t that big a deal,

“ After all, you’d do the same for me in a heartbeat!” And he wasn’t wrong. But I still hugged him tight in thanks anyway, an embrace he happily returned as he warned me next time I lied about being harassed there’d be hell to pay.

I assured him there wasn’t going to be a next time anymore and for the first time in months finally wholeheartedly meant it.

The second thing I learned was Jaime told me during those first two days I was locking myself away Damian had gone back to the restaurant and used Bruce’s name to hunt that guy that had been harassing me down and gotten a few hefty harassment charges and minor endangerment charges slapped onto the guy, throwing in a sob story of how I was now in emergency care in the hospital because of him. I knew he didn’t throw his last name around often, didn’t exactly like having to do so to be taken seriously. The fact he did for me…

I had a lot more feelings for Damian after that knowledge.

The third thing I learned was that the only reason Dick and Kori hadn’t come by to check on me yesterday was was because they spent the entire time hunting for Jason to get his help with getting me out, and when they DID find him he stormed for the tower and made it there before they did somehow, he was that angry.

As they were telling me this and retelling a very tense video call between Nightwing and Batman during the second day Damian came in in his full Robin attire, regarding us stoically. When I saw him I stood and the room quieted as I approached him, the both of us observing each other. When we stood a foot apart I stared into his masked eyes quietly and he looked into my tired eyes. I saw his mouth start to open to speak and my body lurched forward without me, hugging onto him tightly.

“Thank you...you didn’t have to do that for me thank you thank you thank you…” He was quiet and I was about to let go and move away when I felt his arm come around me and grip the back of my shirt, returning the embrace. Neither of us was at a point that we were really physically affectionate by any means but my heart swelled when he hugged me back, leaning his head against my own and allowing me to bask in the warmth of his arms and his scent. When I felt him roll his shoulders I took that as my cue and slowly pulled away, gently pressing a kiss to his cheek as I did before retreating back to give him his space.

I think I saw his cheek flare pink but I’ll never say for sure because that would mean admitting just how red my own cheeks were.

I’d love to say that after that everything ended happily and perfectly and things went great forever and ever. But I cant, life doesn’t work like that.

But things did get better.

I was under heavy supervision several weeks, with almost stricter watches on my food intake to make sure I didn’t try to over eat or try to force weight gain. Bruce had me stay with him and Damian for a few weeks as well to make sure I didn’t slip back into that dark place. It was a bit smothering at times...but in all honesty I welcomed the smothering because I knew it meant how much they all cared. And staying with Bruce again...it brought up my mood believe it or not. Being in the manor brought back happier memories of my childhood and seeing the man I considered a fatherly figure more often perked me up. Plus I got to see Tim a lot more than usual in those few weeks, a perk and joy all in itself as he kept me company when he wasn’t too busy with his work. Tim was also the one who disabled all comments on my social medias one calm rainy evening in the lounge. I was grateful and he patted my head after as he read his case files. I think I might’ve fallen asleep against him, I cant say I fully remember. With each passing week I felt better and better. It took a long time for my self esteem and confidence to rebuild itself, but it got some jump starts. Perhaps the best part was two months later after a sparring session with Kori. She was giving me tips on striking with a staff when Dick and the big bad bat Brucie himself walked in.

“ Batman? Has something happened?” He shook his head and put his hand on my shoulder.

“ I’m going to borrow Gracie for a few minutes.” Dick gently took her hand and smiled as he whispered something to her as he led me out of the training room and placed a long bottle of what looked like red chewy vitamins into my hand. When I looked up at him confused he gave me some of the best news of my life.

“ These are specially created vitamins designed to accommodate your body’s inhuman metabolism. Tim helped me create them. They're designed to help regulate fats and carb distribution in your body and allow your body to hold onto and gain more weight without immediately burning it off. Take one every week and in a few months you should be up at least one weight class if not more as long as you keep to your regular healthy eating habits, just like you wanted. By Tim’s calculations within the year you should gain enough weight to have a thicker figure, though you may always retain this thinner “ballet-ques” figure...you will more closely resemble the figure of girls your age.” I stared up at him then at the vitamins and sniffled, fighting off tears of joy. All those weeks with Tim and his seemingly just curious questions about my species and their anatomy...the “ case files”...I owed Tim a lot for this.

“ It was Dick’s idea, after all that happened two months ago.” The softer tone brought a smile to my face and I nodded, barely restraining the urge to hug Bruce while he was in the cowl.

“ T-thank you...thank you this means more to me than you know…” He nodded and turned to leave but I caught the ghost of a smile on his face as he walked away.

And once he had I ran back into the training room and tackled Dick to the ground with a ecstatic howl, shifting mid leap into wolf form and licking his face in gratitude, making him laugh as he lazily tried to push away my affection.

I started taking them that day, and it took a few months for a noticeable difference to take place, but it did. My clothes and uniform stopped hanging off me like a walking scarecrow and I started developing the beginning of a feminine figure. I stopped trying to stuff my face too much at every meal and with every week after my self esteem raised back up a little higher. Maybe people saw it in the big, wide crooked smiles in pictures of me now, no matter who they were with. Or maybe the team saw it in the fact I stopped trying to hide my body in layers of clothes, walking around in my favorite tank top after missions instead of over sized sweatshirts and shirts, or the fact I didn't mind sudden pictures taken of me. Regardless it showed and in time I was more than happy to show off that confidence. Throughout it all Jason made near constant visits between jobs to make sure I didn’t have too major of setbacks and Dick stayed by my side as often as he could, supporting me and being a physical reminder almost that I was never alone.

And I didn't feel alone.

And one day as I was getting ready for an outing I paused in front of the mirror and looked at myself, looked at my slightly more filled out tank top and the small curve of slightly more defined hips and an actually fairly filled out stomach, a fuller figure to match my broader than normal shoulders. I slowly looked into my own eyes and after a moment I began to smile.

Somehow….I didn't hate looking into the mirror as much as I used to.

“ I do not look that bad. I look fine.”

“ Gracie c’mon you coming? C’mon the others are gonna leave without us!”

I smiled at my reflection wider before running off out of the room after Jaime’s voice.

“ Im coming!!”

I dont look that bad.

And now I could finally start to see that.

The end.

OOOOOOOH ITS FINALLY DONE ITS FINALLY DONE! 

Ive been working on this for three months now and it was really difficult to finish. Originally it wasnt supposed to be so angsty but...it turned out really angsty at the end.

@phantommoonpeople

@kid-crashed

@call-me-n0ni-chan

Tagging those I know will want to read this

I hope you all like it!!

[squidcalamarium]

An open letter to three people

I would write this (and post it) on some other social media platform, or even write it out in a google doc, but that all feels either more vulnerable or impersonal than I want this to be. I understand that posting about my Feelings on tumblr isnt really all that private, but here all I am is what I say I am, and that matters more than anything really.

Anyway

This is going to be really long.

Five years ago, when I was 15, I identified as agender and pansexual. I was struggling a lot with feelings of "greyness" accompanied by intense bursts of anxiety, and both would make me cry. I cried a lot. I cried a lot for years. I still cry fairly easily but thats beside the point because I dont cry As Much, now. I dont cry as much as I used to, and it's not as painful as it used to be, because I have you three.

I was 14 and scared of myself when I met my first real best friend, at a mutual friends birthday party. I used to struggle with accepting a lot of things about myself, before I met her. Before I met you, I was disgusted by the way I looked. Not because I thought I was fat, though I struggled with that some, no, the main reason was my skin. I was raised believing the darkness in my skin was something to be ashamed of. Not ever directly, my grandmother would never ever tell me, her perfect granddaughter, that her skin tone was shameful. But it was in everything around me, from the age of 8 to 12, that taught me that being Half of something that's supposed to be Opposite of another, is wrong. The distinction between Right White and Black as Sin.

You helped me see past that. You helped me be able to look back at pictures of myself from when I was in elementary, middleschool, yesterday, and not have to look away. I was a really cute kid, looking back. I dont have to fight myself when my mom posts pictures of me from years ago on Facebook anymore. I know I'm not ugly. I know I never was. Now.

It struck me when I was 14, a year after getting to know you, that I didnt think my skin was ugly anymore. That I could like features about myself again. I cried when I realized that. I started to explore myself in other ways, after that, because I could finally look past how I Looked into what I Am.

I tried out genderfluid for a while, scared to admit I wasn't a Girl. At 15 I tried out agender, and like I said above, that was probably a product of my hormonally increased depression. It was also because I was scared to admit I Was A Boy. It's easier to say I'm nothing than it is to say I'm something.

It's hard, learning to accept one aspect of yourself only to struggle immediately after with another.

I dont remember much about this stretch of time in my life, and my timeline is incredibly blurry. I remember when I first met my two best friends, but I dont remember when I first met my girlfriend. Probably because we just weren't very close at the time. It was middleschool, after all. We met through a mutual friend and never really got to spend any time together until highschool. Anyway, back on topic. I think I was about to talk about how I learned to Love again.

For a Very long time, I was scared to even say the words "I love you" out loud and in a coherent manner to another human being. Saying "I love you" felt like a weakness, something vulnerable that once said, would be used against me. It had been, before, but not by you. Which you? All three of you.

Love, too me, used to be something sacred and delicate that could be ruined if I said it to freely. To say it would be to give someone the opportunity to hurt me, and no matter how many times someone said they loved me, I couldnt say it back. I was like this for so long, and it hurt so much.

Love, too me now, is still something incredibly special, but also something that should be said freely. Love is a feeling best felt shared. Love isnt just Romantic, and it never has been. I love flowers in fall, I love the feeling of summer rain, I love the color pink, I love the Concept of goblins, I love my hair, I love my girlfriend, I love my best friends. I love being able to say "I love you" without feeling like I'm pulling rocks out of my lungs. I love being able to say "I love you" without feeling the blood grow heavy in my skin and fear suplex my heart.

I love knowing I'm loved just as much as I love them.

I love knowing no one is going to fight over who I love more. Knowing I love you all differently and just as passionately. Knowing I dont have to be scared of being abandoned.

When I learned how to love without being scared, and how to trust in others, I was able to accept more about myself. I was around 17 when I accepted the fact that I'm a man. I'm not a girl, I'm not nothing, I am genuine to myself. I struggled a lot with accepting that. I was scared of myself.

Before I came to that conclusion, and went a little bit wild, I met my other best friend. He helped me find peace in myself.

I was not in the best place, when I was 16. I almost did a lot of things when I was 16. I dont think I tried to kill myself, but I also dont remember a lot of my teen years. He would know better, the kind of place I was in at the time. He helped me get through it.

Sometimes, when you catch yourself in a rut and cant seem to find a way out and just end up digging yourself down deeper, you need someone to call you an idiot. You need someone to go "maybe instead of resigning yourself to pacing back and forth forever, you could try and climb. You could try and dig into the walls and climb. Just stop trying to pretend it's okay, and ask for help."

I decided from then on out that I was going to treat myself better. That I wouldnt seek out self deprecation, and I wouldnt dwell on things that made me feel bad. It was hard, and it Still Is, but I'm better now. I'm better than I was. I still have the screenshots of the texts he sent me. They're on a blog I used to Write my Woes onto, but now its just an archive.

I am no longer my Own Worst Enemy.

When I first got with my girlfriend, I was kind of in the middle of losing my mind, and I ended up breaking up with her. Awful decision, really, but it needed to happen. I needed to grow as a person, into someone who deserved her even a Little Bit.

I still dont think I'm good enough for her, not by a long shot, shes a better person than I'll ever be. But she loves me anyway. Shes seen me when I looked my worst, when my brain was at its worst, and she still loves me. I dont think ill ever measure up to be what I think she deserves, but I try.

She motivates me, more than anything, to keep trying. To keep going. I almost didnt make it past 19, despite everything I still almost gave in, I almost gave up. I refuse to hurt her like that though. I can't hurt any of you like that.

I cant give up now, not when I have a future to look forward to, and that above all else is what she gives me. Its what you give me. A future to look forward too, to want to earn, to achieve.

I have never really had any solid idea of what I wanted out of life as I gotolder. Usually I'd go for more vague things, like "I want to be an artist and make money from my crafts" and "I want to be a therapist for tweens and young teens, to help them understand themselves." But besides that, I had nothing. What kind of life would I lead, outside of these Career Paths?

Now, I know I just want to be yours. For as long as you'll have me.

I'm 20 now. I am a man, and I don't really want to bother much with a label for my sexuality besides saying I'm queer. I have two best friends, one like a sister another like a muse, and my girlfriend. I have a cat named chelly and a dog named princess.

My life isnt where I want it to be, but I'm a better person now than I was before.

I'm better at Being a person than I ever have been.

Because everything I am now I had the potential to become, and everything I will be I have to potential to become.

There are a finite amount of resources in me, and the more I learn the better I am at using them.

I still get upset just as easily now as I did before, I can still spiral just as badly. I can still cry just as quickly. It's just that now, I know what to do to calm down a little quicker. Now, I'm nicer to myself. Now, I know how to redirect my emotions and my thoughts.

I'm still everything that I was before, just with more experience. The same parts, just rearranged more effectively than before. I'm as quick to comfort myself as I am to comfort others.

And it's all thanks to them. It's all thanks to you.

Thanks you.

I love you

[travellers-survivor-old-west]

Episode 4: “Just gotta try to wiggle myself in some where”- Austin

I kinda wish our tribe would lose just so I could see where the lines are tbh. Also I have a bad feeling that at a swap/merge our tribe is gonna be picked off because we’re going in with the most numbers and on a base level that’s dangerous; however, I do think it could be deeper than that because of the preconceived relationships and I’m looking forward to seeing who goes home tonight and where we go from here.

This round was a little wild for me. Austin has been my fave since the beginning and we finally created an alliance. We both liked eve so that was easy but we wanted one more person. This is where things got a little complicated. Him and eve both liked isaac but honestly i wasnt feeling isaac and love pat. But i didnt want to push too hard so we just went ahead with isaac. 

BUT we also talked to pat and will have ANOTHER alliance with him (so austin, pat and me). SO basically im working with everyone right now except keaton. Im glad our tribe has been killing it because that means no TC wooo 

We tribe swapped so that is fun. It's always interesting to have a switch up. I have still yet to be screwed by a tribe swap in my entire history of playing ORGs which is something I am happy with. This is one of the best iterations of a tribe I can think of actually. I can forge a closer bond with Xander and Dylan, because now if we lose I won't need to vote one of them out, they become my core 3. So, right after the swap I made an OG Malakoff chat with myself, Xander, and Dylan. I just wanted the immediacy to show that I was serious in wanting to stick to that, which I am. I have communicated several times that I want to work with Isaac, so ideally Austin will go in the event that we lose. I feel bad because he is a sweetheart, but he doesn't fit into my strategy, and if anyone understands game being game, he does.

I love my new tribe??? Not only is nick still here so that gives me a safety net, the sammy I like is here. Pat is here. No idea who eve is but that’s okay too. I’m loving this. Inb4 I get voted out next Bc they actually really fucking hate me :^). Byebye payton it was nice kinda knowing you? Hello ~hopefully~ friends <3

I forgot Austin has a date with Mary Jane daily so Im gonna have to cut him some slack.

Tribe swap....just what I didn't want to happen . I dont ha e my #1 ashley with me but at least I got issac here. Jared is on my tribe now too so that could go either way for me because he knows how I play the game. Gonna have to pull something out if my ass here .

This is for Alyssa you dumb ugly fat white bitch why you keep asking me for a confessional with trifling dirty white racist ass big fat bitch x Anyways. Made an alliance with Pat and Sammy! V excited to work with them but we’re snapping in immunity so, I don’t see why we would need to vote off Vi.... I mean someone at tribal! Hehe

Well....we got our last handed to us. I'm not happy going to tribal bc I feel I'll be the one going. I talk with jared and issac the most but I feel jared will stick with xander and dylan. Just gotta try to wiggle myself in some where.

I have been busy the past couple of days so this challenge being a endurance/speed comp was a struggle. And it looks like my team didn't do much. To help... It's fine we can get out one of these other two dead weights. Speaking of them. Im glad the swap merged me with two allies but the other two just suck to talk to... And that's coming from me .. Jess knows what I'm talking about. Anyways I don't want them here and want them gone. As for my allies. I like Jared a lot we are getting along and enjoying ourselves. He's definitely the one I trust most in this game and hopefully it gets me to merge where I can start phase 2 and hopefully get far. Dylan is fine .. he's offline a lot but he's from old tribe so like it helps. 

Just finished the challenge, OH MY GOD i suck at trivia but thankfully sammy snapped and we won, thank u sammy love u so much!!! Still dont believe he is straight tho x IM JOKING PLS DONT KILL MEDFHNSJFDH

I hate confessions. That’s my confession for the round... jkjk. Eh there isn’t much to talk about now that it’s tribal time. I hope whoever from our og tribe stays safe but I forgot who is there so oops. Sammy killed it. I still call bs on the centipede question but oh well. It wouldn’t have changed the result. It would have just made the gap close by 1. 

LOVE MY NEW TRIBE. So happy we swapped. I’m with actual love of my life ASHLEY!!! And Chloe is amazing too. Aidan popped off in the challenge. Keaton is Keaton. This is a good group and I’m glad they did rlly well in the challenge. I love this kind of thing but I wasn’t able to constantly be on my phone all weekend bc that’s rude :( so I’m glad it worked out. Hoping the tribe swap works out in our favor and Xander jared and Dylan stay together for the vote. Idk if Isaac and jared are friends??? I hope Isaac leaves because he knows I’m a ‘threat’ in games and because I think Ashley yelled at him once. Idk who Austin is but Ashley likes him. But idk how likely that is if Isaac and jared have a connection. As long as jared stays safe ifgaf who leaves.

Yowza. We got absolutely wrecked in the challlenge. I don't WANT to lose any challenges, but I believe in the long run I should be happy to take this L. As another way to show my loyalty, I decided to give my idol progress in the chat with Xander and Dylan. I noticed Dylan never reciprocated so that gives me 1 reason to be wary. Then, Dylan posted a very inappropriate joke in the tribe chat in reference to Survivor Thailand, and the word "rape" was used, so that was the 2nd thing to make me uneasy. At first, Dylan and Xander had no opinion on who to vote, so I voiced that I would like to vote Austin- then Dylan remembered who Isaac is and said "he can go." I eventually got things back on track to target Austin, but Dylan better be careful- it's 3 strikes and you're out with me. I have a good relationship with Isaac so I wouldn't be surprised to see Dylan go if we lose again.

Day 9 on the survivor tribe. My thoughts are about toes and only toes. They are consuming my entire day. I exist merely to think of toes. 

Also Chloe...

Okay so I’m just gonna throw down some of my thoughts right now since I’ve been very quiet in confessionals. I fucking hate these small ass fucking tribes. It makes the thought of going to tribal terrifying because your odds of going home are increased. Since the swap ive actually really been enjoying my time, I really like my new tribe and I feel I can actually connect with these people better than on my first tribe. I am glad to actually have Aidan with me because he’s like THE person I want to work with from my og tribe, along with Vi. I still have my reservations on Nick even though I think he’s nice I can’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I really feel that the trivia challenge brought us closer together as a tribe since what’s a better bonding experience than yelling at Jess that she’s wrong 50 times in one day. I think we’re all collectively quite strong and I really hope that means we can slide past for a while without going to tribal. 

Honestly i always forget what i confess from last time but i still think I’m in a good position in the game. However I really do not want to go to tribal because I don’t want to show my cards. Eve and Pat both want me to work with them so we have an alliance and then Vi and Nick approached me and want to work with me as well. This was completely surprising to me bc I felt as if I would just be an easy vote out if we were to go to tribal since I’m a lone wolf. However I’m in the middle and I feel somewhat powerful knowing that people want to keep me and want to work with me. Me and nick have had a rocky relationship in past games but i think he’s a great person. He’s just a wildcard. I love vi and i think she’s the sweetest person to have ever existed but my gut is telling me to work with pat and Eve atleast for the first vote. Hopefully I don’t have to make the decision but who knows. That’s all I have for now other than I think the idol system isn’t anything I keep getting zapped. I feel like a fly in a southern home...ZAP.

I couldn’t remember the day so I put 69. I hate this tribe with my whole heart and my whole bussy. Jared is the only one giving me any sort of shot at making it passed this round. Austin is a slime ball who will do anything to save his own skin, Xander is dead apparently, and Dylan has been tracking down places where famous people died. I feel like this is my own personal hell and while I’ve been assured that Austin is going home (which I wouldn’t be surprised was a lie) I still have to make a swap or a merge and with the clowns on this tribe being inactive and never talking about anything but Star Wars or not talking at all I don’t know how possible it is to win a goddamn challenge. 

*insert Da'vonne pretends to be shoocked gif at a swap* Since it didn't happen at 16 I wasn't surprised too see it at 15 but I'm glad because three tribes provides for much more buffer. My initial reaction to my tribe was positive as I saw that I had Chloe and three new people in the mix. I'm not gonna lie that I was getting bored on my old tribe but I do hope that Nick is doing alright. He's one ally that I'd love to connect with again... Vi is alright too but I don't know how strong of a connection we fostered. First impressions of my new tribemates: Keaton - I heard he was fucking with my friend in another game so my guard was up but I tried and he seems aloof and random with his contributions but it makes sense since he's playing 4 games at once. Will probably work off of the others who contribute in challenges? We'll see. Ashley - Sweet and seems like a hard worker. Not too much of a read on her yet Owen - He seems nice and genuine but not much of a read from a game perspective yet. It seems the split is 2-2-1 on my tribe from previous tribes but I don't know how strict to tribal lines people are going to play but I can feel some aloofness with Keaton and Ashley is traveling so... that's that on that. If we were going to tribal I have no idea what the fuck would happen but I want to strengthen connections. Honestly I think we can make it to the merge without hitting an elimination but who knows. THANKFULLLLLLLY my ass had a lucky night on the railroads and jumped to spot number fifty and apparently found a STEAL A VOTE. This is what I DESERVE. Thank you Old West Gods for blessing me, the star, with this iconic power. I'm glad I have it in my back pocket and I'm not telling a fucking soul. If it needs to be used, it will be flaunted and I will pop shit. Hopefully I can save it for after merge but if I need to control a pre-merge vote just to get my way, I'm going to do it. 

https://soundcloud.com/user-327042896/dylan-ep-2

[spicemethefuckup]

I am wild, full of rage and cannot be tamed. And

I am having horribly vivid nightmares over and over again to the point of exhaustion. I wake up in a daze, disassociating before I can even start my day and it’s a STRUGGLE to focus and reconnect with reality. Which is super hard given I work two jobs full time atm. I’m desperately trying to get it under control and I cried in front of a judge at jury duty during the worst part of it because I said “I’m sorry but I can’t serve due to mental illness, I can’t promise that I will be aware enough during those days or not slip out of reality mid trial” and then this wonderful lady judge just asked “are you being treated?”and I was so distraught that I had admitted to being mentally ill to a room of 60 people that I burst out into tears because I was desperately trying to calmly say not at this moment. The mental illness episodes/ recent rigger that is re-occurring for me just started two or three weeks ago and I’ve been trying to navigate my new insurance. I haven’t had to go to therapy since I was 13, so this is a new and difficult process for me as an adult on my own in the middle of a mental crisis that leaves me so fatigued and restless that I can barley make it to work. So she saw me struggling to try to compose myself and ask if I would like to discuss it in private and this angel dismissed me with the others and said I served my justly duty for the next 2 years. No extra questions, no probing. She could see how bad it was for me. And that was a couple weeks ago. And it got better, this past week was no nightmares, no fits of rage on my drive home at my old family life. And then last night it happened again. I was in my room: my adult apartment room, masturbating and suddenly my step dad opened the door and said hey Jess. And luckily everything was under a blanket and I was just suddenly back in my mindset of living at home and being vulnerable with no privacy. He said, “I’m going to need you to go get something/ head out for an errand in a little while” and I said I can’t, I have two jobs and I’m just about to start getting ready to head to my first shift( which I actually had today. You see the times lined up with the actual real time of the day) and then I had to leave work and directly go to my next job so I won’t have any availability for anything else. And he angrily looked at me with one hand on the door and said ,”in a little while you are going to head out to do an errand, I don’t care about all *gestures at my explanation*” -No I’m not going to do that. I’m an adult and I have responsibilities do it yourself /I’ll come get you in an hour -I will already be at work by then. /Get your ass up and get ready He slams the door and walks into my second room I pull my clothes on and run out after him shouting “I’m not doing it, you ass!!” As I turn into my second room, he’s sitting there in a room rearranged with furniture I’m unfamiliar with. His face morphs with my biological fathers and I run up to him while he sits and scream that I’m so sick of his bullshit and he cannot demand anything of me, especially not in my own home and he grabs me and pulls me violently towards him. I lash out and bite him so he lets me go and I slash my left hand’s nails across his face and I see it. A wound, and I get a taste for blood and I do it over and over again, attacking him and he is unfazed and won’t respond or admit that he has no claim to me or my life. That he can not control me. I am untamed and wild and I will not be restrained by some chauvinist man who spent my childhood acting like I had to obey him (my step dad) because he was the man of the house or he would make my life miserable over the smallest disagreement. And that’s how all the dreams go, that I’m overpowered and vulnerable. Always relating to me being sexual and being taken advantage of or ordered around. And I’m terrified and panicked and angry and full of rage. hyper aware of my body and what I’m wearing all while trying to argue over my right to privacy and dignity. And that’s just it, we know my real father sexually assaulted and tried to kill me. We know my step father tortured me emotionally and mentally for decades and I’m fucking broken and have this deep deep reverberation of those incidents and I’m just as angry now as I was sad and desperate to escape then. And now as an adult I know why I’m having these problems, I know what I need to do about it (go to therapy and get on medication) and I do not have the time or resources to act on it and I won’t for another 4-6months. So for now I’m desperately trying to hold it together with fits of uncontrollable rage like a sneeze. I can feel my skin prickling when something goes wrong or there is too much constant noise or I’m being touched and I can’t handle it. I try to breathe and calm down and remind myself that it will pass and I’m not actually angry at what’s happening, that I’m -.. my body starts twitching, ..- I’m not actually ..-the dog just fucking dug her nails into my thigh-.. she doesn’t know she’s hurting me. “Please get off” she digs them in deeper, the cats start meowing, my baby boy pupper can sense I’m getting upset and started to wine at the other animals and licks my face to get me to laugh and a single one of that female dog’s hairs gets up my nose . I jump up and scream GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME, YOURE FUCKING HURTING ME I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD IF YOU DONT GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME- Bear is backing away and laying down. He knows I’m not talking to him but he cringes and the pure rage and desperately looks at the female dog we are watching to for once in her stupid life listen and not jump back on me or chase the cat sending her crashing into something that will add to the ever growing expense list of things this moron has destroyed of mine. What is it now $600 of damage and expenses for a dog whose owner dumped her on us for up to a year after recklessly buying her and still making payments on her all the while letting this dog be untrained, under weight and unspayed because a $3,000 pure bred dog for someone barley making rent seemed like the right choice while also moving out of state right after high school. And now she’s our problem (my partner and I), and we are training her and giving her all the attention she never got and getting her up to weight and getting her spayed. And she is so anxious because of her past living situation that she always has to be touching me and has latched on to me as her source of love and my sensory problems don’t handle this well when touch is pins in my legs and eyes. And it burns, oh god is burns and I twitch uncontrollably from the pain and I lash out. I don’t hit or hurt anyone or any animal physically but I yell. In the same way I twitch and I yell and I can’t stop it and I freak out and need to lay still to regain my composure and I can’t beside the dog that was digging it’s nails into my thighs is running around and jumping off of me, cutting my back and now Bear is barking to try to get her to come to him and the cats are hissing at her or meowing for food and I scream. I have to leave, I can feel my body shutting down and turning off my hearing, turning off my ability to feel. I can feel my feelings fade away and reality fall in shards to the side. Everything is blurry and just out of reach so I grab my coat and leave for work. I’m trying to keep this under control and I’m having breakdowns over my clothes and I’m fat and my eating disorder is bad and my partner sounds disappointed in me and repeats “have you been eating on the new couch? No (the one I paid for in full by the way) /when we get upstairs can you look at the couch it looks like someone was eating on it. -Well I wasn’t, it’s probably Mr.Simons snot. I can wipe it down. He says this again as if I had told him no. I can feel my skin prickling. -Yeah I can do that. We walk in the front door, all the pets are making noise and he says it again. I can’t absorb this right now, I’m already heading to look at it. I brush my hand over the spot and it is dried snot from the cat like I said. I wipe it down and lay a blanket down and put the sofa cover on so the female dog can’t ruin it while she’s here. I realize it doesn’t look quite right, I’m just trying to look at it and take it in so I can conceptualize how to fix it when my partner walks in and proclaims thats not how it goes on. I said I know I can see the arm piece here but I’m trying to figure out how I’m supposed to turn it. He immediately starts pulling at it frustrated, he puts it on the way I did. I realized halfway through how it’s supposed to fit and I stop him. He gets upset and I try to explain it’s almost there we just have to do xyz. I go to sleep and have the dream above. He tells me today I “have to have to have to put the laundry away” the laundry is a million miles away from my assaulted and broken body. I repeat “have to have to have to” be rants about not being able to find his shirt and get ready. I ask if he wants me to get up and look for him. He said he had already found it(he was in the closet rustling for no more than 2 minutes prior). I’m frustrated that he unload his frustration on me while I’m trying to desperately focus on calming my body down enough to pee and focus on the aching in my stomach. He’s making me anxious, I’m about to snap. All he can say about my old home life was how dirty and bad smelling it was living in that house. And how all my stuff still smells of it years later. It doesn’t, it’s all in his head because all he’s ever seen me as is ungrateful for what he does for me and how I should perform chores in a timely manner because he’s the man of the house. And I lie back down before my alarm goes off in an hour for me to actually get up and his face melds with my step dads and biological fathers and I fall back into the nightmare. I am wild, I am full of rage and I cannot be tamed.

[kirinhealthprogressjournal]

I’m learning I used to have endometriosis before I got pregnant. Painful intercourse, excruciating unmanageable period cramps, and when I did get pregnant, in the first trimester, my body literally shed all the overgrowth and tissue and blood and bad stuff in my uterus and I thought for sure I had a miscarriage, but my doctor said everything was fine, and she seemed perplexed by what had happened to me, and said something about a change-over from where the baby receives nutrients, and the excess from before all comes out.  But she only offered that as a suggestion.  She wasn’t sure.  She just reassured me, it /can/ be normal, and she had seen it before.

Apparently, I also have PCOS.  Which I didn’t even know was a different thing from endometriosis.  I had the weight gain, the terrible acne, thinning hair, and a chronic normal-looking discharge, basically all day, every day. I was able to cure the acne only in my mid 20s with a supplement called Herpanacine, but I always struggled with my weight.

I’m not sure, but I’m going to guess these things are linked to what I now know is already a problem for me, which is that my immune system is attacking my body.  It explains the psoriasis I’ve had since I was eight.  It explains the hypothyroidism.  It explains the weird rash I broke out in all over my torso a few years ago when the doctor said my immune system was attacking my lungs, and they didn’t know what causes it.

It explains the IBS, that I was managing by taking enzymes to help digest food, and the IBS explains the anemia.

Part of me is so angry.

I look at pictures of myself when I was a teenager.  My face is visibly swollen.  My eyes are puffy and swollen.  I was always tired and complaining of feeling sick, especially in the mornings.  My ankles were swollen, my hands and feet would hurt in the mornings when I would walk or open things.  My eyebrows were all but gone.  

I DONT LOOK RIGHT.

There was OBVIOUSLY something MEDICALLY wrong with me!

But my mother was incapable of empathizing with other human beings, and always made me feel that my LIFE was an inconvenience, because her marriage was strained, (because she’s a sociopath). They didn’t /want/ to get married to each other.  They didn’t actually /want/ me.  They got married and pregnant because that was what was expected of them.

Neither of them were happy together, and even less happy trying to raise a child and provide for a family.

When my mom thought she lost me when she was pregnant, she shrugged it off and went and rode roller coasters and did stuff you’re not supposed to do when you’re pregnant, without even going to the doctor.  She was shocked when he asked if she wanted to hear the heartbeat.

Nobody cared enough to notice there was something wrong, and that I needed medical attention.

Not even when my period cramps were so excruciating they left me writhing on the floor until I threw up from the pain, and then passed out from exhaustion, sweating and pale and clammy.

Nobody cared.  They told me it was normal.  They told me everybody has them, and to just deal with it.

They didn’t believe me when I said I felt sick and told me I just didn’t want to go to school.

And I couldn’t argue that, because I hated school.  I couldn’t concentrate.  I was picked on chronically for being overweight and having bad acne ad not being allowed to wear makeup to cover it up.  For not wearing expensive clothes and having my nails and hair professionally done.  I went to a very wealthy public school.  My dad made good money.  But my mother acted as if we were living in the great depression and bemoaned buying me normal things like a bar of soap, claiming she “JUST bought me some” even if it was months ago.

My mother was not right in the head. My father liked to stay out of her way.

I never felt close to him until I was fourteen, and they were worried I would kill myself and I begged them, in tears, to take me to a psychiatrist, just so I could /talk/ to someone. And the therapist told me she didn’t see any reason for me to visit with her.  So I lied.  I started talking about knives and said I hid one in my room and that I liked cutting things with it. And then she told my parents she had a few concerns and she thought I would benefit from coming to see her.

I had no idea I had a slew of medical and psychological conditions.  And whenever I read about one I identified with, people made fun of me. “Oh, yeah, I bet you diagnose yourself with everything.“  And  “Yeah, you and everybody else.“

Fuck you.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

Yeah, life is hard.  Yeah, people struggle with different things.  Yeah, nobody likes to get up in the morning and go to work, or to school, or whatever, but they do it.

Nobody wants to admit somebody might have it worse.  Especially, when they look ‘normal’.  - (Because I wasn’t crippled, or permanently disfigured, or throwing up every day.)  

My symptoms were all things people could easily shove aside because they didn’t want to deal with it.  They told me it wasn’t happening, because they didn’t want it to be their problem.

So I fucking struggles with my immune system trying to kill me, my entire life, and on top of that, a family who didn’t give a shit about it, trying to force me to function ‘normally’, because if I didn’t, it might indicate that they were less than perfect, and my mom is secretly a fucking sociopath, who believes peoples’ feelings are nothing but factors in the environment that she can either be nice about, or twist and manipulate to her own whims.  She’s incapable of empathy, or of being able to perceive a viewpoint that’s not her own.

When she argues with you, she’s not trying to understand where you’re coming from.  She’s not capable of it.  She’ll seem confused, and just keep arguing her own point until she fucking wears you out or down, or whatever it takes until you just shut up and do what she wants.

There is no ‘you’.  There’s only the way she /wants/ things to be.  And that’s being kind.  I still won’t talk about some of the things she put me through. -some of which I only recently recovered in my memory.

I always thought ‘repressed memories’ were things you couldn’t recall happening at all.  I didn’t realize they were events that your brain ‘remembers’.  I always knew this thing, on a very basic level, did happen to me.  I even convinced myself it was normal, and never opened it up any deeper than ‘this vaguely happened to me a long time ago, and I don’t think about it in detail.’

And then I watched a youtube video of a woman talking about an unrelated experience, that reminded me of the depth of what happened.  and 

HOLY HELL.

Fucking hell.

It all came back.  It all made sense.

No fucking wonder I have issues.  No fucking wonder I have triggers.  No fucking wonder I don’t trust people.

And that bitch.  That woman that calls herself my mother.  She blew off my concerns, and fucking stood there and let it happen to me.

And then she spent the rest of my life, dismissing my medical problems so she wouldn’t have to deal with them.  Dismissing my emotional scarring, and trying to manipulate me into being ‘normal’.  Into being like my sister, who had more energy than she knew what to do with.  Who always got good grades.  Who had no problem making friends.

And when I was 12, and just starting to dawn on the fact that my mother was maybe not everything she should be, my younger, naive sister, who had life at her fingertips and never ran into anything she couldn’t have or do, she told me my problems with my mom might be /my/ fault.

And I don’t blame her for giving me that pain, because she was very young, and she had no way of knowing what I was going through.

But it still hurt like hell, and I was so lonely I often asked God if he could just take me away.  Because I believed that killing myself would only land me in Hell, because it would be committing a murder, of myself.

And people tell me, Grow up.  Be your own woman.  You don’t need a ‘man’ to save you.

And they’re right. They’re right.

I didn’t need a man.  I just needed someone who could love me, and believe in me, and be patient with me, while I sort through all the bullshit of my past and try to take care of myself and become a healthier, stronger person, and overcome everything that happened to me, and maybe one day, I’ll be healthy enough to function like ‘normal people’.

I needed someone, anyone, who could help me even /get/ to a place, where I could start to save /myself/.  Where all my efforts could actually start to make a difference.

His gender had nothing to do with that. Everyone needs some support.  Everyone needs love.  Everyone needs friends who believe in them, and help them when they can’t function like everyone else does

BECAUSE THEY HAVE A FUCKING MEDICAL CONDITION.

I read an article recently that said people with chronic fatigue from autoimmune disease is like being awake for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT, and then being expected to function like a normal person.

and I’ve lived my WHOLE FUCKING LIFE like this!!  While the people who were supposed to love me and care about me, told me I was being lazy and fat and ugly and why can’t I just get over it and do what’s expected of me. I’M SO ANGRY.

....

Why did this happen to me?

[tellmeyourstory-art-blog]

Amicus

What is the point of friends and relationships?

The questionable studies of Harlow was undoubetdly cruel but elighted an important insight to human affection. Can we live without it? The reason harlow preformed hi experiments on moneky’s was because taking a human in the most natural sociolofical form would be  ‘an infant’ because they are without external influence - TV, parents, toys. 

Harlow took a group of baby monkey from birth and put them in an elaborate set up with 2 mothers, One was a wired mother, who fed and provided milk, the other was cloth who’s only ability was to provide comfort. Thehypothesis was that hough the wire mother was scary and uncomforting the monkey would show love to it because it nourished them and gave them a means to survive. Proving that human love was based off of need. but surprising Harlow was wrong. The monkeys utilised both mothers equally, further proving comfort and affectio was something needed in the psche for love and survival. 

to want to belong somewhere, to find comfort. Today we do so by first finding it in family, and then as adults in categories, it’s how we met like minded people.

Groups, set aorund drinking culture, fitness or art. Still fear change just as the Neanderthals did, maybe theire categories  it was the hunters and gathers any anything new was scary, rejected and destroyed as it posed a threat to a specific way of life. For example how your fat friends relish and secretly don’t want you get fit or how the friends who drink a lot don’t want you to stop drinking. 

  but today, it’s divided by mroe and more categories.  When we wee young we dealt with a small kind of exclusion boy against girls, when we are older it’s the Introverts and Extroverts, who liek this magazine, or this celebrity and we form gorups and within those groups cultures, when really why do the categories matter at all. We are all humn and at the heart of it little animals trying to feel out places to fit in somewhere. 

I didn’t really feel like i belonged on anywhere, in my family or in friend groups. I was outcasted though I didnt realise until I was 13. In high school a rumor would go around about me that I was a lesbian on the first day of high school casting me as ‘dont play with’ Sometimes I wonder if it was my sister who intially spread the rumor since she was always at a competition with me for attention, I never felt it. She once turned to me and said ‘you know how were always pitted against eachother’ and I never knew what she meant.

She once bribed me in the bathroom as young kids with a $2 coin to stop pulling a face that would grab my moms attention and make her laugh for a secod, for my sister attention is what gave her validation, and to stop me from getting it away from her.

And above that I was weird. And people didn’tlike me. My didn’t so why would i believe or act in away that anyone else did. A very self pittying view but at the time it was true none the less. Having friends was extremelydifficult for me because of my mom too. When I  had finally made a friend group one of them asked ‘my parents saifd your mom was a mistress’ i had no idea what that meant so i asked my mom who lost it at me

WHO SAID THAT she blarred, eventully getting the number out of me and absuing my friends parents.

Eventually even my sister friends werent allowed at our house because theyw ould leave crying. 

gossip started, but still no one stepped in or did anything. 

Friendships can seem mysteious, we talk about clicking, but there there is something at the heart of friendships that seems important to identify, vulnerability. it’s easy to assume what makes us likeable is who we are on the outside, good looks, nice car or public acclaim, strengths accoplisment and things we are porud of.. this impresses but it isnt what draws others to us.. the more we get to know someon we are able to depart from the official story  and start to reveal awkward truths.

unfortunately this can work in 2 ways, with overwhelming support and positivity for our positive traits and negative. Friends, can be a great healthy support and fulfill our very sociological need to belong somewhere. Friends can also be a great support for validating unhealthy values too.

My mother was still able to find a group of friends who validated their own alcohol addiction ad sadness together and becam a stronger support for denial rather than lifting eachother up. 

I’d always dread coming home from school and smelling the cigarette smoke and drunken laighter from the varrander. Mid day drunken senssions of sad people pissing their years away. My mom blamed my sister and I had no problme telling us that or her friend who believed her.

One weekend away I had come home from a sleepover and found one of these friends cleaning out my moms house. I had been gone the entire weekend and she had supposedly trashed eevrything. Her friend was shaking her head and calling me a digusting pig as my mom had told them I had done it. I tried to explain id been away how could I have done it, but being a child in the eyes of ‘adults’ they didnt believe and continued on the lies to keep inhibiting their digusting problems.

Soon my mom would have sex uncaring if anyone was around. On top of my christmas presents, as i cried from the top of the stairs, her fleeting relationship with a man who was just a pathetic and lonely theyd smoke weed and scream loudly un caring there was children in the house, that it was the middle of the day and how truly disturbing a child leanring about sex is by listening to unhibited parent not caring about boundaries.. only their own desires.

Soon there was naked people everywhere, cigarette smoke vodka stained carpets and a deeper denial floating around everyone who gravitated that disgusting house. Her besy friend soon became her lesbian lover would drink with her ll night laughing about how shit life was. She’d call me after my mom died and continue, she’d tell me how she removed my moms tampon and other disgusting detils of their love life i had no need to know. But she needed someoone to vent to, and someone to understand. Anyone. And that desperatess left to an unhinged release of lines being crossed, when anyone would think a responible adult should be incontrol of where they are drawn. 

None of them truly understanding how daming that is for a young girl in her formative years. Had it been openly talked about maybe it would have been differnt, but it was always loud voices behind a locked door. 

I’d learn how to pick locks becauseof this.. or be louder. I’d bury myself into my guitar and sing sond of her being sober outside her bedroom door all in a failed attempt to get throgh. to someone. 

It was agonsiing screaming for help on the floor with no one to hear me. I still feel so much pain playing guitar out of fear the songs I did play were unimportsant, unlistened to and didnt help anyone. 

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The terminally ill person maybe pittied and empthaised with and by family and friends but only he who is truly sick can know what it is like to suffer that fate.

The lovers deserprately try to fuse with eachother in hopes of creating a destiny in a sing self transdence but do so in vain as they inevitbly die alone. Only you can experience what you are experiencing, and it is th efate of every soul to suffer in solitude.

I retracted inwards, more and had the self realisation it was Ok to be alone and feel lonely,t hat really. All I had was me in this wrold to rely on, and that was ok, which shaped my beliefs today on being lonely.

 I like the feeling. I believe being lonely can be a choice & isn’t sad at all. Many people have mixed judgements about this, some will think I am shy, others insecure.. but I am a deeply confident person these days,  I've struggled with myself, and, at the same time I often wondered -- s there something wrong with me for not forming {meaningful || intermittent} attachments?"

 For me it's come down to the fact that I'm about growth and progress and moving forward. Since I've been young, I've never really felt any particular attachment to any one thing in particular. Such as, the typical hometown-hoedown; or taking-up supporting a local team with fervor or passion. Same goes with my relationships friends or more than friends. 

It's taken a while, but I'm comfortable with this for the most part. I don't want to be stuck in any one mindset or frame of mind, nor do I want to placate or pacify myself into being stagnant. "Oh this is just okay since it's what everyone else does." It seems in 2017 It's still looked down upon to be 'alone', as if there is something wrong with you. And although I believe having social skills to carry yourself in a large groups is important, it's not the same thing. Reminds me of a Cranberries song: "Everybody else is doing it, so why don't we."is simple: "What's popular is not always right, and what's right is not always popular." -- Do I want to be a follower, or have my own mind? Am I myself, or am I someone else? To make friends - good ones, you truly do have to enjoy your own company in order to provide the vulnerabilty of true friendship, our hidden truths and obscrities.

 I (personally) abhor parrots -- hearing the same thing over and over again from people who don't like answering pertinent questions which would impinge parrot logic (ignore that which is inconvenient is used too often by too many people, IMO). Make sense? (I see nothing wrong with this -- though it might feel wrong compared to the typical or average social perspective)-- there's really nothing wrong with it tp  fill the sociological need to belong grow with self value & respect first, you can accept the right people and let them come and go throughout all phases of it.  I fall inlove with people who aren’t afraid to say no to me, I fall in love with my friends who help me learn.