#but whatever if i kill myself at least it'd be with one less illness. or something. i dont know

[mainfaggot]

in conclusion, I have no choice but to try to recover again. or else another two years will pass me by and I'll be so fucking tired

[princess-pill-enjoyer]

Im not dead hi

💀💀💀

I kinda thought to myself a little and I was just like... oh yeh with the note I left on and the degree I've let this get to me dipping for that long probably would look suspect..

Figured I'd get back to it. I am tryna slow down again. Me constantly being like.. high high starts to get in the way I'm seeing. I can get away with it within the first like hour halfish buuut past that I get really out of it and I process shit super slow. I've actually always had this problem now that I'm looking back tbh. But usuallyyyy I'd just dose again during that period and I'd be fine. But with how much i take off rip I have hydration issues by the first and I'm sure taking dose after dose prolly would exasperate that a bit

I'm actually halfway through the bottle now. It was kinda weird to see. It's felt like it's unlimited ever since I bought the giant bottle but 4 months later andd I've emptied the rest of it into the container I hide em in. I don't know how I feel about it.

Oh right uh I dunno if I had done it by the time I posted the other one but I went ghost for like.. 4-5ish days and that was.. eventful. Wasn't planned. I was sad one day and I just continued ignoring everything until a less closeish friend of mine reached out. He considers me his best friend but even with that we don't talk that that much. So once HEEE start going through hoops to try and reach out I was like o uh maybe I took it too far.

All in the past now it's been about a week being back. I try and let myself ignore messages more so that I feel more comfortable giving myself space without needing as long as a break. Well. That's the nice way of looking at it. Whatever uh. R and me have been fine. Had some technical issues with insta and I wasn't on as much cause of it which wasn't a great look after all that. I felt so bad. She cried a few times while I was gone. Unlike me and the other dude we do talk everyday and while the shit aint as like.. ig attentive as it used to be, we do usually get back to each other a bunch throughout the day so she damn near instantly thought something was off..

Sorry I'm babbling at this point. Long story short. Habit has gotten pretty bad. When I dipped I was doing it 3x a day and I've been doing 2ish lately. Still a long way from the once every other day I was doing when I originally started this. It makes me really sad honestly. Sometimes I don't even feel like taking my pills for the day but then boom I'm finna cry. Or irritable and have my whole day ruined off a minor annoyance. It don't even feel worth it to fight it anymore. But the hydration thing is kinda bad so I try sometimes ig

I had 2 funerals to go to while I was gone too. One was an old family friend. I never was close with her as like I'm just now really starting to connect with people in my family tbh. But it was still like.. wild. I just visited her around this time last year and one year later she's in the ground. The second one was for a longtime friend of my mom's. I won't lie, I really didn't know her at all. But it happening back to back just rattled me. I had seen them both semi recently and they weren't deathly ill at the time or anything. I just. I dunno. I can't explain why it makes me sad

I had to get high for the funerals. I felt so embarrassed but I just know it'd be easier that way. Though uh I kept circulating on whether they suffered or not and I couldn't stop crying cause of it. I hate that there's a real possibility that they sat there feeling terrified and in agony before they left. That still kills me. I hope they were able to be semi comfortable at least. It's the least they deserve

I'm not high rn but that's finna change. I had to play this game with a friend of mine yesterday while coming down and that shit was.. miserable. I wanted to sleep and lie around but dude bought the game for me specifically for us to play. I wouldn't dare. I was tryna stay sober today just incase he was tryna play earlier today and i didn't wanna risk being gone gone. But atp I think I'll just hop on tomorrow. I'm sick of being like this. I'll just say I got busy.

I'm gonna probably change the way I write these cause the multiple times a day thing is kinda awkward to document. Or not. I dunno. Maybeee I will stop being such a fucking JUNKIEEE and take the shit at least semi safely I wouldn't need to but. We will see.

I'll get back to it tho. I think it's important to keep up with it and if I only update when I'm semi stable it defeats the purpose of the page tbh. My bad for dying off the face of the earth. I'm fine

[damienthepious]

also. also because. i am a gremlin. and i shall die of Emotions and take you with me apparently. ["From yourself?" Amaryllis says, her brow furrowed with worry. "Look, I- I know this is uncomfortable, Arum, but- but I know that you've tried to get Damien to- to-"] to ["If you had managed to convince Damien to do it, it'd be cruel, first of all. He doesn't deserve that kind of guilt weighing on him. And second, again, you would be dead, Arum.] please thank i am lov u

[Pick a short passage from any fanfic I’ve written and send it to me, and I’ll give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet]

you’re not a gremlin you are valid and i love you. that is a LONG PASSAGE THO, so BUCKLE UP. Also cw for discussion of depression, suicide, and suicidal thoughts below the cut. fun times with soft fic! or somethingggg

fun fact before we begin! Originally, this conversation was supposed to happen... before the i-love-you confessions. This was supposed to be broken down before they admitted that they cared for each other romantically, but i was having a shitton of trouble working out the trajectory and the ending of the scene, like, what the actual resolution was, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work in time when all the other stuff in the chapter was good to go. And THEN it was supposed to happen right after the i-love-yous, but that felt SO busy and SO sloppy, so it kept getting shifted backward-

which wound up being kind of a blessing, i think? because here’s the thing- this scene is TENSE, here, and Rilla pushes pretty hard- but the older version was... kind of a FIGHT. Arum was much more aggressive about it, and there was a line in there for a long time- something like You will be gone this time tomorrow ANYWAY, Amaryllis. What does it matter? And then Rilla had this fucking heartbreaking- Missing you and MOURNING you are not the SAME THING, are you even LISTENING to yourself? and there was just... a lot more harshness to the whole thing. I’m glad it got to settle out, and I’m glad they were in a place to be softer with each other for this. It was too important to me that they addressed this, and i didn’t want it to get waysided.

obviously depression and suicidality aren’t things that have easy fixes, and love is not a Cure for mental illness, but i wanted it to be clear that a) rilla and damien are aware of arum’s non-physical hurts and care about them, too, and b) they are an expansion of Arum’s support network, which is SUPER important when coping with mental illness!

The Keep did the best it could, I think, but when it was just the two of them it was harder for the Keep to know what to do when Arum was deep in a depressive episode, and... well, they have a mental link, right? so I kind of assumed... they might share at least shades of this as well. Arum’s depression gets bad, the Keep is probably not having a good time just then either. Harder to take care of each other while you don’t even know how to take care of yourself. But! the initial point! expanding their collective support system is SO important to learning how to better cope with Arum’s mental illness, which has been running him pretty ragged while his physical injuries had him in traction.

Anyway. ANYWAY. the actual section you requested.

["From yourself?" Amaryllis says, her brow furrowed with worry. "Look, I- I know this is uncomfortable, Arum, but- but I know that you've tried to get Damien to- to-"] The reason why Rilla is leading this conversation is partially because Damien hasn’t fully discussed this with her, mostly out of a concern for... like... not betraying Arum’s trust? What happened between Damien and Arum was between them, and Damien wasn’t comfortable outright blurting that to Rilla. This was one of the ones that doesn’t get told. Not directly at least. Another reason why Damien takes a verbal backseat here is that... well.. he’s already said his piece to Arum on this front. The waters brought you here to live is a pretty definitive statement, yeah?

["What? Wh-what did you tell her?" Arum says, turning towards Damien, and he means to snap but his tone sounds more hurt than furious. Damien only sits, his hands clasped in his lap, his lips pressed tight together. "What did you say, knight?"] And, clearly, Damien’s instincts on that front were right. Arum is mortified by the idea that Damien would have aired his (as Arum thinks of it) weakness, and hopelessness. He’s hurt, that Damien might tell on him when it doesn’t matter because it didn’t happen, and he doesn’t feel that way now so clearly it doesn’t matter-

["He didn't tell me anything, Arum." She shakes her head, angling her body a bit more between them, leaning closer.] Rilla knows him too well by now. Tries to head off that hurt/anger and get them on track.

["Nothing specific, at least, but I'm not stupid. I heard you goading him plenty of times, and he said you told him about your- your work before we left, and he said that if he killed you then, it wouldn't have been a slaying and really there's only one way to interpret that evidence-" she pauses, cringes, bites her lip. "You tried to get Damien to kill you."] “it wouldn’t have been a slaying” was always a particular... phrasing that hurt me, i guess you could say.

[Arum freezes, his mouth going dry.] Arum does not like being confronted with his own weaknesses, as he sees them. He especially doesn’t want Amaryllis of all people to know about this- bad enough that Damien had to know.

["I don't know if it was because of guilt or- or depression or panic about the trip or what, but- but I already told you, Arum. I didn't put in all this hard work just for you to die. Just for you to throw all of it away-"] It was, in all honestly, a combination of these factors. Which is part of why Arum continues to panic. he’s still not really used to being seen, especially not in such a vulnerable way.

["I am home, Amaryllis," he manages in a whisper. "You brought me home. There will certainly be no reason for me to- to endanger myself now."] When you’re suicidal, it’s kind of hard to imagine what it’s like to not be suicidal. When you’re out of one of those valleys, it’s kind of hard to remember how deep they can feel. he doesn’t want to think about it. he’s happy right now. he has more than he could have ever dreamed possible, so it’s really hard for him to conceptualize that moment, right now. It’s hard, and it hurts.

["No?" she says weakly. "There wasn't any reason for you to try to goad Damien into killing you back in the hut, either, Arum, but you did it anyway."] no reasons that make sense outside of Depression Brain, at least.

["I-" Arum glances away again, his hand flexing, but she reaches out and takes one of his hands, squeezing tight. His eyes flick to Sir Damien, sitting quiet though his worried eyes are fixed on the pair of them. "I- that was- different-"] He has SUCH a hard time articulating this. Combine that with the fact that he really HATES talking about it. Lizard is having a panic.

["Different how, Arum?"] Rilla is pushing really hard, here, for good reason. She’s terrified that he might pull something after they leave. she hasn’t been away from him barely at ALL in MONTHS, and now she knows he’s suicidal, which is compounding the terror she already has about leaving him. She wants to protect him, from other monsters, from knights, from himself if she needs to. She loves him and she wants him to be safe and happy and if she needs to gently bully him through an uncomfortable conversation then by the fucking saints-

["I did not want you to endanger yourself for me, Amaryllis," he hisses, turning towards her with his tail thrashing. "You- you make the world less cruel, by your actions, your choices, your existence. The both of you. You try, if nothing else, and for you to leap to action and danger for my sake is- was-"] And he breaks. That was the real kicker of it, y’know? She found out that he needed to go home for his Keep and she buckled down, for him, after he had just been confronted with evidence of his former work and the ways it had directly harmed a human he loves. How could he possibly feel like he deserved that sort of care, that sort of consideration? How could he allow her to risk her own safety to get him home? He failed the Keep, he failed her, he failed himself-

in that moment, he was utterly certain that it was better for him to simply set them ALL back in their places. Amaryllis might be unhappy that he was gone, but it would be precisely the same hurt that she would have when she left him at home anyway, wouldn’t it? (pro-tip: No It Wouldn’t) Damien would simply return to being the knight he was always meant to be, and the Keep could grow a new familiar, unburdened by his distant, useless weight (pro-tip: No They Wouldn’t). And there would be no more risk to any of them for his sake. 

[She stares up into his eyes, her hand clasped tight around his wrist, and he clenches his teeth and pretends that his throat is not aching.] It is so hard to explain this to her. Especially while he is... currently fairly distant from the feeling. He’s keyed up, emotionally, because of his renewed proximity to the keep, and because of the giddiness of newly-admitted love. Literally everything feels like A Lot, right now. but this? next level distress.

["If helping me destroyed you, it would be the worst of cruelties I have inflicted upon this world. And I, Amaryllis, have inflicted more than my share of cruelties already."] ouch. I feel like i’ve already unpacked this so just. ouch.

["So you try to take yourself out of the picture instead? Arum-"] She’s horrified. She understands the particularities of Damien’s anxiety by now, how bad that can get, but Arum’s been pretty internal with his own mental health stuff and whatever hints she’s been catching have been somewhat obscured as possibly just... responses to the physical trauma? Him being actively suicidal when he was basically out of the woods physically is... hard for her to cope with.

["The little knight did not bite when provoked regardless, so I hardly see how it matters," Arum growls, and in his periphery he sees Damien flinch, his head ducking.] oh poor Damien. Thinking about how close he actually did come, to ‘biting’

[Amaryllis' grip on his wrist tightens. "You do know that's not comforting, right?] It’s really not. Putting the onus on Damien like that- god, fuck. [It matters because I- because we love you, and because if you die, Arum, you'll be dead. Even if you were trying to protect us in some roundabout way-"] back when this scene was placed before the i-love-yous, that line was “It matters because I- because I care about you,” for... obvious reasons. Rilla, unsurprisingly, is about as bad as Damien is, at hiding her feelings once she admits to them the first time.

[Arum flinches, and she pauses, pressing her lips together for a moment as she visibly chooses a different phrasing.] She knows him well enough by now to understand that he’s flinching because saying that it was altruistic to want to protect him... she knows she shouldn’t push against that.

["If you had managed to convince Damien to do it, it'd be cruel, first of all. He doesn't deserve that kind of guilt weighing on him. And second, again, you would be dead, Arum.] It would be cruel. I think about Rilla’s assessment of Damien from Treacherous Heart sometimes, about the potential deadliness of real guilt for Damien... if he really broke in that moment and loosed that arrow- it would have destroyed him. Especially at that point, when he cared about Arum, even if he didn’t have any proper context to fit that care into, and when he knows how much this creature means to Rilla- RILLA’S heartbreak if she had to come back to that- to that? when she thinks she’s coming back to pack him up for home? when she knows that she loves Arum but is forcing herself to ignore it and push it down and away? Arum killing himself by Damien’s hand in that moment would have destroyed all of them, in a way. but! hey, that’s not the kind of fic i write, yeah? oof. I just think about what-if’s a lot and make myself sad.

Rilla’s emphasis on the kind of hyper-obvious here is... deliberate, also. if you died you’d be dead is something of a redundant statement, duh, but also like... the permanent consequences of a temporary state of mind are fucking important, and Rilla needs to make sure that he understands what he nearly did, and why it matters, and why she’s SCARED for him.

anyway this was a whole fuck of a lot. i hope any of this is interesting or enjoyable and not just. heavy. whoops.