#every single time as an adult i start to feel solid and stable some shit happens to yank that away

[izzy-b-hands]

salad prep done

dishes washed

and i have a bit of time leftover to scroll on here and just. not think abt anything until I have to figure what I'm forcing myself to eat for dinner lmao

[master-sass-blast]

Release.

Hmmmmm... this thing is solid projection. Whoops.

Summary: You're exhausted. No matter what you do, you can't get enough rest to save your soul. You try to keep up with everything, try to not let the fatigue hinder you

--And then it all comes crashing down.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader.

Rating: T for depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and general angst-hurt/comfort vibes.

Set after “It’s Truly Magical,” but this one is special in that it doesn't directly impact the canon. It's sort of a special one-off.

Author’s Note: So, as some of you may have gathered from the tags and preamble, this fic is basically me venting my own frustration.

I've been dealing with some pretty wicked chronic fatigue for the better part of... coming up on a year now, actually. Wow. I didn't realize it'd been that long.

It's made life really hard for me, from everything to eating to doing chores to hanging out with friends to writing. We don't know what's causing it, and we're trying to take care of it through lifestyle changes and making sure I don't exert myself too much (we meaning me, my family, my fiance, and my doctor). There's been a few things that have helped, but by in large it's still been kicking my ass.

I know I was gone for a long time. Part of that was the fatigue making it impossible to write or post. To those of you who are still around, thank you -and I'm sorry. I'm trying my best, I promise.

If you're dealing with chronic fatigue or think you're dealing with chronic fatigue, just know that it's okay that you're tired. You're not lazy. You're not a failure. You're not going crazy. You're not a burden. Your body needs rest, you need rest, and you *deserve* to rest.

Here's a resource on chronic fatigue syndrome and what it looks like.

I hope you're all doing well. Stay safe and wear your mask.

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @super-darkcloudstudent, @dandyqueen, @leo-writer

It creeps over you. It starts as a wispy, soft cloud, hanging over the horizon of your existence.

And then it grows. Larger, more oppressive. Until you’re fully immersed in it, with no sense of direction or how to get out.

 ***

 You’re not really sure you remember when it started. You’ve always been tired to some extent –anxiety, nightmares, and running on the X-Men schedule will do that to a person.

Exhaustion hits like a brick one day after training. You slump against the tiled wall in one of the shower stalls in the locker room. Water streams down your sweaty face and body while you struggle to make your eyes focused. Shit. I must have pushed too hard.

You manage to get yourself cleaned up and trudge back to yours and Piotr’s home at the back of Xavier’s property. You collapse onto the couch in the living room. Your limbs are stone, too heavy to drag another step. Your body throbs in time with your heartbeat. I need a nap. Just for a couple hours.

You only want to sleep for a couple hours.

You only mean to sleep for a couple hours.

You wake up at nine in the evening, to Piotr gently nudging you.

He tuts, fussing over you like a worried mother hen. “Are you feeling well, myshka?” He presses the back of his hand against your forehead. “You have slept for long time.”

“I’m fine,” you mumble, mind still cloudy with exhaustion. You force yourself to sit up. You jaw cracks when you yawn. “Just overdid it in training today.”

Your husband gently chides you, ushering you into the kitchen so you can eat. “It is important to replenish energy.”

You go straight to bed after eating and sleep for another ten hours.

 ***

 Part of you wonders ‘how did I let this happen? How did I let it get this bad?’

The other part of you wonders if you had any say in it at all.

 ***

 The fatigue starts seeping into other areas of your life as well. Training, grading, hanging out with friends, eating…

You’re so tired. You chalk it up to mission stress, to going too hard during training, to running on weird hours all the time.

You start sleeping through the day to cope. No matter how well you sleep at night or how much sleep you get, you’re always so fucking tired.

Piotr notices the change in your sleeping habits. Because of course he does. It’s ingrained into his very DNA to be an observant, loving nurturer.

He brings it up during dinner one night. “Are you doing alright, myshka?”

“What? Yeah. Of course.” You’d woken up from a nap a couple hours before, and you feel good for once. (You’ll crash a couple hours later.) “Why? What’s wrong?”

“You have been sleeping at odd hours,” Piotr says, stirring his soup with his spoon. “I just want to make sure you are not having mental troubles.”

“I’m fine, baby.” And, on that front, you are. You’ve got your meds, your support system, a home, creative outlets, and a fulfilling –if occasionally dangerous—job. “I’ve just been tired lately, is all. I think it’s the weird mission hours just putting my body clock out of whack.”

“You should try to stay on normal schedule, then,” Piotr points out. He frowns, concerned. “Is not good for mental health to keep odd hours.”

You bristle. You are trying, dammit. You push through training and grading and your obligations every single damn day, even if all you can do is collapse in bed afterwards. Who the hell is he to say that you’re not trying?! “I am, Piotr. You don’t have to micromanage me. I’m not one of your teens.”

Piotr recoils, blue eyes widening. He holds up his hands. “Easy, dorogoy. I am not trying to micromanage. I just want you to be healthy.”

You drop your gaze down to your bowl of soup. Your heart races in your throat. “Sorry.”

***

 It’s like being one of those houses infested with termites. You’re being consumed from the inside out. On the outside, you look fine. On the inside, you’re crumbling away like a sad, dry cookie left in the bottom of the cookie jar for five long, lonely months.

You’ve always been weird. You oscillate between outgoing and reclusive like nobody’s business. You’re a lot like Wade –somewhere between amusing and a nuisance to most of the adults, though most of the teens and kids like you.

(Piotr insists that it’s not true, that everyone likes you well enough, but you’ve never quite had the full faith to believe him.)

No one notices that you’re hurting. No one notices that something’s wrong. No one notices, no one notices, no one fucking notices—

But, to be fair, you hardly notice it yourself.

 ***

 You kind of start to lose your mind, if you’re being honest.

It’s hard enough to keep up with your workload with the mission scheduling –but being tired all the time slams the nail in the coffin. You manage to drag yourself to training on time because it’s mandatory, because it’s important, because it’s for the good of your team, and—

And everything else falls apart.

You spend countless late night hours on the couch cramming through your grading, because you needed to sleep earlier, and the deadline’s only looming closer, and you have to be productive, dammit—

More than once, you drag yourself up to bed when Piotr’s just getting up for the day.

He frowns, forehead creasing. “Myshka—”

“I had grading to do,” you mutter as you crawl back into bed.

He finishes buttoning up his shirt, then sits down next to you. The bedframe groans under his bulk. “This is not healthy, moya lyubov’.”

“I’m fucking working on it, Piotr!” you snap, glaring at your husband. “Just –leave me alone!”

He swallows hard, blue eyes shining with hurt. He looks like a kicked puppy.

You huff and slam your face into your pillow, mostly to hide the fact that you’re crying.

Piotr smooths your hair down, then kisses the back of your head. “Ya tebya lyublyu, myshka.”

You bite down on your pillow and cry harder.

 ***

 It’s more than just being tired.

It’s guilt. It’s enough guilt to fill an ocean. No amount of effort you make is good enough; no matter how hard you try you wind up failing. Or snapping at someone you love. Or being unable to do even the simplest shit.

There’s so much anger, too. At the world, at anyone who points out that you’re not doing well, at yourself. There’s a scream constantly behind your lips, trying to crack its way out of your chest.

You’re failing. You’re trying to scoop up handfuls of sand to keep an entire dune from consuming you, and the grains keep running through your fingers; it practically looks like you haven’t done anything at all, and you’re so fucking tired…

 ***

 The ‘house’ collapses over a load of dishes.

One load of fucking dishes.

It’s ridiculous.

You manage to drag yourself out of bed one morning, trying to get the haze that seems to be a permanent fixture in your mind to clear. You trudge downstairs, energy sapping out of you with every step you take.

You see last night’s dishes in the sink, waiting to be rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher.

It’s an easy task. The dishes aren’t all that dirty, and there aren’t that many of them.

And you can’t do it. You don’t have the energy. You’re just too fucking tired.

You failed.

You crumple to the floor, weeping against the wooden floorboards as the dam you’d been trying so hard to keep stable gives way. You scream, anger and guilt and frustration and self-loathing washing over you, crushing you beneath their weight. You clutch at your hair, seething as the past few months finally come to a head—

And then Piotr’s arms are around you. (Later, you’ll learn that he stopped back at the house to pick up a gradebook, which is why he was even around during the day in the first place.) He scoops you up, cradling you against his chest. “Myshka, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

You sob into his shirt, beyond words.

“Okay, okay.” He checks you over to make sure you’re not visibly injured, then carries you upstairs to bed.

You whimper when he tries to tuck you in. “No –I’ve got stuff to do—”

“It can wait,” he says, loving but firm. He gently tugs the comforter over you, then toes his shoes off before laying down next to you.

“It can’t,” you cry, even as he tugs you into his arms and tucks you against his chest. “It’s already waited for so long.”

“And it can wait longer.” He kisses your forehead. “It is okay, myshka. Rest.”

You snuffle and sob and gasp—

And, eventually, you fall asleep.

 ***

 You wake up to Piotr stroking your hair. You inhale sharply, blinking to cast the bleariness out of your vision. “What time is it?”

“About noon,” he says.

Your heart sinks. “Shit. I’ve got grading—”

He places his arm over your waist, holding you in place. “It can wait.”

“But—”

“You had breakdown this morning, myshka. Health comes first.” He gazes into your eyes, brow furrowing. “Talk to me, moya lyubov. Please. What is wrong?”

Your heart rips into infinitesimal pieces at seeing him so worried –and then you start crying again. “I can’t…” You squeeze your eyes shut and buy your face against his chest. “I can’t. I can’t do it. No matter how much sleep I get, or I don’t get, or how much I exercise or don’t exercise, or what I eat or –any of it. I’m so tired, Piotr.” You let out a choked sob. “I’m just so tired, and I keep failing—”

Piotr rubs your back and kisses the top of your head. “It’s okay, myshka. It’s okay.”

***

 Eventually, you settle again. You’re snuggled against Piotr’s chest, sniffling and sighing while he strokes your hair.

It’s not a bad place to bed.

“How long?” he asks, voice quiet and gentle. “How long have you felt tired?”

“I don’t know,” you mutter, lulled to a state of near drowsiness by his ministrations. “A few months? Maybe a little longer? I’ve always been kind of tired, what with anxiety and nightmares and all that shit.”

He ‘hmms,’ kissing the top of your head. “Have you eaten yet?”

“…does leftover pizza at three in the morning count?”

He sighs, exasperated and amused. “Okay, time for food.”

“I can’t,” you whimper, tears coming back as frustration swells in your chest. “I’m too tired to eat.”

Piotr shushes you, gently drying your cheeks with a tissue. “What if I bring you something?”

You stomach churns with guilt and self-loathing. “I’m not a baby. I don’t… I shouldn’t need people to make food for me.”

“No, not baby,” Piotr agrees, kissing your cheek. “But you are unwell.”

“I’m not sick!”

“Unwell is unwell,” Piotr states, voice brokering no room for debate (though it never loses that gentle intonation of his). “If I bring you food, will you eat?”

You hesitate, then manage a small nod. “Something small, please. I don’t want, like, a whole meal.”

Piotr nods. He heads downstairs, then returns a few minutes later with some toast, fruit, a glass of milk –and some Cheetos.

You giggle when you see the fluorescent orange cheese-snacks on your plate. “You do love me.”

“Navsegda.” He hands the plate to you, sets the glass on your nightstand, then waits for you to start in on your toast before speaking again. “I think you should see Dr. Mccoy about fatigue.”

“But I’m not sick,” you argue after swallowing a bite of toast.

“That you know of,” he corrects. “Lots of things can cause fatigue. Is best to check, to make sure more serious problem is not happening.”

“But…” A lump rises in your throat. “What if this is just me now? What if… what if I’m just broken?”

Piotr takes your hand in his. He presses his lips against your knuckles. “Then we know, and we make life suited to your brokenness.”

“I can’t slow everyone down, Piotr,” you insist. Your eyes burn with unshed tears. “I can’t –I can’t be a burden. It’s not fair to everyone else if I’m getting some sort of special treatment because I’m tired.”

“You are not burden,” Piotr declares, gaze boring into yours. “You are never burden. Understand?”

“Piotr—”

“Things happen, myshka. Sometimes, our bodies just… do not work right anymore. You still deserve comfortable, happy life. Nothing is unfair about that. Nothing.” He kisses the back of your hand again when you sigh, then pats your leg. “Finish eating. We go to doctor afterwards.”

 ***

 The only way out is through.

Who would’ve guessed.

 ***

 Dr. McCoy runs a series of comprehensive tests. Thyroid, allergy, iron deficiencies, vitamin deficiencies, glucose levels—

It comes back negative. All of it.

On one hand, it’s a good thing, given that you don’t have some sort of life-threatening condition that needs treating.

On the other hand, you just feel worse. It’s like proof that you have no excuse, that you’re tired for no reason, and that you just need to try harder.

“You are trying,” Piotr says when you admit as much. He draws you into a hug and kisses the top of your head. “We just need to find tools so that trying isn’t so hard.”

“What if there’s nothing?” you ask in a horrified whisper. “What if we try everything and nothing works?”

He kisses the top of your head again. “Then that is okay, too. However you are is okay, myshka.”

 ***

 “How’s the tai chi going?”

You shrug. “It’s fine.” Nathan had switched you over to low impact exercise the second he got wind of your fatigue issues. “Wade likes to do it with me; we like to try and incorporate lame dance moves into our sets to see if Nathan’ll catch us doing it.”

Alyssa chuckles and shakes her head. “And does he?”

“He definitely did when Wade started doing the worm.”

The two of you laugh together.

“And how’s your task setting going?” Alyssa asks when you both settle back down. She grins when you scowl. “Ooh, I knew that’d be your reaction. I knew you were not going to like it one bit. You keep trying to eat the whole whale, sweetheart. You’re gonna choke!”

“I know, I know.” You sigh, frustrated and dejected in equal measure. “It’s just… hard. I used to be able to do so much more. And now –it’s like my body was stolen away from me.”

“I know, sweetheart. And I’m so sorry. But it’s important that you learn to readjust your scope for what’s reasonable and what’s not. Otherwise, you’re gonna keep spinning yourself in anxious circles –and you’re gonna keep making the fatigue worse by overworking yourself.”

You groan and rub at your face with your hands. “It just… it feels wrong! Like I’m being lazy! I don’t have a reason to be so tired.”

“Sure you do,” Alyssa says, as if it’s that simple. “Your body is healing. You spent a lifetime being traumatized and abused. Your body put itself on hold to help keep you alive. You’ve dealt with your anxiety, depression, and trauma to the point where you’re stable, so now all those years of stress and pain are finally catching up. This is your body’s way of saying ‘hey, it’s my turn!’ So, now you need to listen to it.”

“But what if I don’t get better?” you ask, voice fraying. “What if I’m like this forever?”

She shrugs, tucking her braids over her shoulder. “That could happen; the amount of trauma you went through would be more than enough to result in a permanent presentation of chronic fatigue syndrome. But it could also get better, too. There’s no point in trying to predict the outcome.”

“But if I don’t get better, I’ll have to step down from being an X-Man.”

“There is more to this life than being an X-Man, honey,” Alyssa says, smiling warmly at you. “You have an entire world to discover. You just might have to do it at a different pace than everyone else. Your goal isn’t to get back to being an X-Man. Your goal is to take care of yourself.”

You tuck your knees under your chin and wrap your arms around your legs. “That doesn’t feel like enough.”

“How come?”

“Because it’s me. I have to do more to make up for the fact that it’s me.”

Alyssa points her pen at you. “That’s the anxiety and depression talking. You are more than enough, just as you are. Your worth is not based on your productivity or what you can offer to society. It’s based on your existence as a human being, that’s all.”

You drop her gaze, opting to look down at the ornate, ocean blue rug she keeps in her office instead.

“I want you to keep working on adjusting your goal setting,” Alyssa says as she jots down a few notes in your file. “Three things a day, whether it’s chore, work, or self-care related. Nothing else goes on that list unless you need to remember to do it, like taking your meds. Okay?”

You mutter your assent.

“Attagirl. I also want you to do your positive affirmations. Three times a day, plus whenever you get caught in negative thought patterns.”

You groan and slump down on the couch. “No! Positive affirmations suck!”

“They’re wonderful,” Alyssa fires back, chuckling. “They’re so good for you, so good for your brain…” She laughs when you retch, then closes your file and stands. “Alright, sweetheart. Keep at it. I’ll see you next week.”

Piotr looks up when you walk out of Alyssa’s office. “All done?”

“She’s making me do more positive affirmations,” you grumble (you can hear Alyssa laugh at your admission).

“Ah, is good for you,” Piotr says as he ushers you down the hall. “Good to say truth out loud.”

You retch again. “Not you, too. I need to go find Wade. He’ll understand.”

Your husband chuckles and shakes his head. “Come on, myshka. Back home with you.”

“Why does it have to be so far?” you groan. “It’s so much walking.”

“Are you feeling tired?”

You sigh. “Honestly, yeah. I’m really wiped out.”

Piotr puts an arm around your shoulder in a one-armed hug. “I am sorry, moya lyubov’. Would you like me to carry you?”

“I shouldn’t need carrying.”

Piotr stops. He cups your face in his massive hands, making you look up at him. “Is not about ‘should’ or ‘should not.’ If your body needs help, then you need help.”

You hesitate, but ultimately nod. “Yeah. I’d be nice if you carried me.”

He nods. He waits until you two are outside, then kneels so you can clamber on his back. “Hop on, myshka.”

You loop your arms around his neck. You wait until he has his arms looped around your legs, then point in the direction of your house. “Home, Jeeves.”

Piotr chuckles. “I am transport service, now?”

“Damn right.” You gently slap his burly chest. “Mush. I want Poptarts.”

Piotr laughs again, then sets off across the lawn.

 ***

 You’re not alright. Not technically. Alyssa’s right that you’ve been hurt. Healing takes time, and you’re just beginning your journey.

But you’ve got Piotr. Your family. Your friends. You’ve got Dr. McCoy and Alyssa as professional support. You have a home to rest in when you’re weary.

You’re okay –and on the days that you’re not, you will be.

And that’s more than enough.

[clonerightsagenda]

The epilogues look terrible and I don’t want to spend my time reading them... but I love + trust your judgement and your takes on things. Could you summarize them? (No pressure if you don’t want to)

OK, it’s been a few weeks since i read it, but I will do my best.NOTE: This is probably not comprehensive and definitely not objective. As a supplement, I did some poking around, and the MSPA wiki has some bullet points. I also eventually found another  summary on tumblr, albeit by someone who also didn’t like it, so it is probably biased as well. 

ANOTHER NOTE: Those content warnings weren’t a joke. Below are references to sexual content, assault, suicide, sexism, transphobia, character death, and probably some other stuff.

WHAT HAPPENED:

In the prologue, Rose summons John to inform him that he needs to defeat Lord English right now, or they will all experience terrible consequences. These are mostly meta consequences you can interpret as ‘if we don’t produce new Homestuck content on its 10th anniversary, everyone will give up on this franchise for real, and also canon doesn’t seem stable when the big bad never got beaten’. John goes to visit Roxy and Calliope before he leaves and is given the option to eat either meet or candy. This represents a choice he is supposed to make, and that choice creates two timelines.

In MEAT, John travels back in time and gathers three 16 year old versions of his friends. They confront Caliborn in the battle he represented in his Masterpiece and are sucked into the house juju. Vriska activates it, but not before being pulled into the black hole. Rose and Jade die immediately, with Rose’s body being destroyed and Jade’s falling into the black hole, because why should women get to fight the story’s biggest misogynist. Dave lands a solid hit on English before having his head bitten off Mami from PMMM style. John gets chomped on as well and a gold tooth ends up embedded in his chest. Davepeta appears and drags the wounded LE into the black hole. John finds his father’s wallet, retrieves his car, and slumps inside. Terezi appears, in bad shape after a long time wandering the ring. She seems confused at his state (explained because in CANDY she has been texting that version of him for years). She removes the tooth from his chest and they have sex.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Dave and Karkat have avoided talking about being a relationship for seven years, while Jade harasses them about becoming a threesome. This is explicitly tied to her abandonment issues but also she is referred to as a slut so like. Don’t love that. Jane is running for president, and Dave thinks this is terrible because she’s a woman fascist and doesn’t understand the economy and Karkat should run instead. Other shit is happening but I lost track. Rose is ill because she’s becoming her ‘Ultimate Self’ and seeing all timelines. Dirk claims he’s overcome the same problem and offers to help her but ends up controlling her and revealing he is the one actually writing this narrative.  There is a bit where the narration starts addressing the reader directly and then turns orange which I admit is genuinely cool and might have been interesting if done with characters I didn’t actually care about.

Dirk amps up controlling the narrative, directly forcing people to do and think certain things. (For example, he sequesters Rose away in his workshop and tells Kanaya via narration she believes Rose is better off with him, and she uncomfortably agrees without understanding why she thinks that.) He supports Jane’s bid for the presidency, even though she wants to crack down on trolls because they are naturally violent and reproduce too fast. Everyone tries to get Jake’s endorsement because he’s popular, which includes Jane attempting to seduce him in a very uncomfortable scene.Then Jade slips into a nice coma, because it’s not Homestuck without Jade losing her agency, and alt!Calliope starts using her as an avatar to take control of the narrative away from Dirk. They have some back and forth arguments before he is pushed out which, again, is genuinely clever but would be more enjoyable without all the edgy bullshit. Dirk eventually tricks alt!Callie and sedates Jade, taking back control of the story. Jane wins the presidency. Also at some point Meat!Roxy and Callie ID as nonbinary and start using they/them, and narrator!Dirk freaks out about it and misgenders them a lot, which is character assassination bc everyone knows Dirk is a trans icon. Anyway. Dave and Karkat have an awkward talk about their relationship where they keep dancing around things and Dirk tries to force Dave to kiss him. Dave gets frustrated because he’s aware someone is trying to make him do something (like with the Aimless Renegade), and eventually yells at Dirk to get out of his head before kissing Karkat. Terezi brings John back to Earth, and he begins to fade, since apparently LE’s tooth was poisoned with something more powerful than god tier that makes you irrelevant. Possibly a meta commentary on the hero or story not being needed once the big bad is gone. Terezi is sad about this and listens to him bleed while she smells him die. Then Dirk contacts her via narration and implies he can help her. She gets a text (later revealed to be Vriska). Dirk gets a spaceship from Jake after forcing him via narration to grovel about how much he loves him and then rejecting him and flying away with Rose and Terezi in tow. Jade wakes up long enough to tell everyone Dirk’s gone bad before she gets repossessed and starts pointing in his direction, prompting everyone to give chase. 

There is a final scene that will make more sense later, so I’ll add it later.

CANDY

John decides not to go fight LE. Roxy is delighted, and they began dating. Calliope tells John it is time to let Gamzee out of the fridge. Gamzee pops out and claims he is redeemed in a long speech making fun of sloppy redemption arcs. He then proceeds to be terrible for the rest of the story.Candy essentially satirizes Harry Potter epilogue style fics. Jane marries Jake (it’s implied she essentially roofies him with the trickster lollipop) and has Gamzee on the side. They have a son named Tavros. John and Roxy have a son named Harry. Rose and Kanaya adopt a troll clone of Vriska and name her Vriska. Jade, Karkat, and Dave are all dating, but Dave and Karkat are miserable. Dirk kills himself when he realizes the timeline went off kilter. Jade’s corpse from the Meat timeline crashes to earth, and in the middle of the funeral (which was genuinely a good scene) she sits up, possessed by alt!Calliope. Alt!Callie sequesters herself on the old meteor, now landed, and explains to Aradia and Sollux that this timeline is a dead end and she is protecting it from the influence of the prince. She also, in a parallel to Dirk’s reveal in Meat, talks about how every narrator has an agenda even if the text is formatted to make you not realize that.Jane becomes a fascist dictator and begins oppressing trolls. Karkat eventually get sick of being in a trio and runs off to be a resistance leader, including getting a sick eye patch (reference to Summer Teen Romance). Meenah stole the Ring of Life from Meat John and lands in the session; she and Karkat begin dating. Other ghosts begin falling from the sky as well, and Gamzee converts them to his redemption religion.John feels like something is really off.  His only solace is texting Terezi a lot, and he seems closer to her than he is to his wife. He and Roxy break up for a while and then (non-romantically) reconcile. Jake eventually leaves Jane and takes Tavros with him. Jade and Dave become rebels as well, then Dave meets a hologram of Obama, who helps him attain his ultimate self, putting his soul in a new robot body. 

Oh, also Vriska falls out of the sky, has hatesex with Gamzee, kills him, and then talks with Rose and Kanaya’s Vriska about how she loves Terezi. Then she texts her, as seen in the Meat timeline. Isn’t Vriska 13 and Gamzee an adult at this point? Probably. There’s a lot of questionable age stuff in this.

I’m sure I missed some details. Can you tell I’m losing steam.

Anyway, the two last chapters of each section reference the other storyline. At the end of Meat, Lord English’s body falls out of the sky, and alt!Callie (still in Jade’s body) devours it, becoming powerful enough to battle Dirk. Candy!Davebot arrives and he and Aradia jump into the black hole in pursuit.At the end of Candy, Dirk’s ship nears a new planet where he intends a new game of SBURB to be played. Rose is in a robot body serving as his handmaid essentially, and Terezi’s also on board.  

TAKEAWAYS:

There are a lot of different interpretations of the epilogue. A mockery of the two extremes of fanfic. Andrew Hussie continuing the theme of ‘all authors are tyrants by nature’ and using his self-insert to display how he hates his own story but also can’t stop telling it. Dirk trying to create conflict by making himself a villain because otherwise they’ll lose relevance and disappear. Musing on how being arbitrarily labeled 'grown up’ when you’re not ready (aka handed godhood by a game that doesn’t understand people) can fuck you up, and there is no single winning screen in life. Just a big old meta experiment on unreliable narrators. I can see where some of this is coming from, but frankly, I found it disturbingly sexist (even if it is intended to be so for effect). A lot of the sex and violence felt over the top and graphic just to be #ow the edge rather than serving any narrative purpose. Also, authors can do what they want with their texts, and they’re allowed to write tragedies, but after Hussie’s self-insert informs Caliborn that the most important stories are about friendship and teamwork and the fandom (that I’ve seen anyway) really responding to the bonds between characters, it felt cruel. That’s my feeling. Not everyone shares it. But hey, I’ve got my solution.

[surveyyyys]

It’s 2020.

1. What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before? I got really into fitness! I started lifting weights multiple times a week, and really taking care of my body. I put on a lot more muscle over the past year, and I finally actually like my body a lot! On a related note, I also went to a professional east coast bodybuilding competition. I didn't go for myself obviously, but I went to support my boyfriend.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Actually I did! I was one of those cheesy people who wanted to get in shape and start working out in the new year. I actually stuck to it, and working out became a really big part of my life.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Nope I don't think so!

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit? I stayed in the US the whole year... but I think that's gonna change in 2020!

6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019? Complete personal and financial independence, and a fresh start. And it's going to happen! I'm starting my first real job in June, and I'm moving into NYC. I'm graduating college too. It's gonna be a big year for me.

7. What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? September 24, the day I got into a relationship with my current boyfriend.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Getting a solid full-time Equity Research analyst position in NYC for after graduation.

9. What was your biggest failure? I tried to stay single. I really did. I wasn't necessarily happier when I was single, but my head was clearer and I was always on top of my shit. But I couldn't stay truly single in 2019 for more than a month or more without being dragged into some stupid situationship with a guy that ended up expiring after 2 months. At the end of 2019, I ended up getting into a real relationship. I feel like I've spent a lot more of my young adult life in relationships or situationships rather than by myself.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I didn't actually!

11. What was the best thing you bought? This personal barbell pad. It makes hip thrusts and squats so much easier. I also got a couple hip circles for glute activation exercises. They changed my glute training because I finally started feeling exercises in my glutes... they're the reason I have a butt now!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? This is gonna sound conceited but... mine? My world-famous Career Anxiety got me a full-time job in the first month of my senior year. Plus I absolutely killed it at my last internship and I learned a ton.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? My sister's on-again-off-again boyfriend... he's awful. The administration of the student organization I had to quit. The boy I dated during the entirety of Summer 2019 -- he sucked.

14. Where did most of your money go? Starbucks and Amazon hehe

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? A couple things: Finally making progress at the gym and seeing my body change Doing a good job on my final presentation during my internship That one time I went out with my intern friends and got shitfaced and had probably the most fun I had in all of 2019 Getting into a relationship with my current boyfriend; I didn't think it would end up being a real relationship. Getting my full-time job offer in NYC (by far the most exciting)

16. What song will always remind you of 2019? Evelyn by Kim Tillman! It's my theme song and I discovered it in 2019.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: i. happier or sadder? Happier. ii. thinner or fatter? I would say bulkier. I look bigger, but I turned a lot of the "skinny fat" I had on me into muscle. iii. richer or poorer? Much richer for sure!

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? LOL towards the end of 2019, I kinda let my grades fall by the wayside because I thought I had it all figured out. I wish I studied more at the end because I could've preserved my GPA and saved myself a lot of needless studying. This is out of my control but -- I wish I had a chance to drink and party more. 2019 was an almost entirely sober year... I only got really drunk once in the entire year. I think that actually contributed to how dry and sad I was for most of the year!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Listening to Ariana Grande LOL. This one is also out of my control -- I wish I spent less time alone. I spent the majority of last year sitting in my apartments at school and talking to my voice diary and trying to make sense of my personality and the reasons why I was alone. I did eventually become content with my alone time, but I wasn't really happy. I wish I had a more active social life. I also wish I spent less time with that boy over the summer. He was a waste of time.

20. How did you spend Christmas? I was at home for winter break on Christmas. I don't think I really did anything!

21. Did you fall in love in 2019? Yes! I fell in love with my current boyfriend. I also thought I loved the summer guy, but I really didn't.

22. What was the best holiday this year? Halloween! I think I had the most fun that day out of all the other holidays.

23. How many one-night stands? I don't think I had any one night stands this year! That was all 2018 me.

24. What was your favorite TV program? I don't know actually. I don't think I watched that much TV in 2019. I just binged the Good Place though, but idt that was my favorite.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? My apartment-mate (not my roommate, she's great). I also hate her ex boyfriend. I also hate this toxic horrible friend I used to have. I cut her out in 2019.

26. What was the best book you read? LOL the only book I read was Tina Fey's autobiography. It was pretty good!

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Again, Evelyn by Kim Tillman.

28. What did you want and get? A job. And Gymshark clothes from my parents!

29. What did you want and not get? Honestly, fun memories and a social life. Also this one first-year teaching position at my university.

30. What was your favorite film of this year? Joker! (Unpopular opinion, but it's the truth!)

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? At midnight on my birthday, I was having really good sex. Then I went into work and had a pretty productive day! Then at night, I had sushi with my sister.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying? If my boyfriend had gotten into nursing school. It would've been perfect. But now he has a new career and new aspirations to work towards. Maybe it's for the best and maybe he'll be happier! We'll see.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019? I mean, I spent most of the year in sweatpants. I moved away from the bold makeup and the fashion choices I made in the past. But I did start buying a lot of athletic gym leggings and sports bras! My favorite Look TM of this year is my staple matching sports bra and leggings set that I wear to the gym.

34. What kept you sane? The gym, definitely. And my mom.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Ariana Grande apparently LOL. Also Hanna Oberg!

36. What political issue stirred you the most? Trump's impeachment. But I think that stirred everyone. (I mean it in a good way, I'm glad Trump was impeached.)

37. Who did you miss? My ex boyfriend for a brief time. I still wasn't over him in the beginning of last year. I also missed all the friends I lost. I hated them and they sucked, but at least they kept me company.

38. Who was the best new person you met? My boyfriend!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019: I'll tell you a couple: - Anyone can be anything. Barriers to entry are minimal, and you can end up doing something you never thought you would. - You can tell yourself you're going to go out and chase your dreams, and you can tell yourself you're running away from a stable and boring life. But you have to truly want it and believe in it for it to happen. If you don't dedicate yourself 100% to that crazy dream inside and out, you will end up opting for the backup plan. - You are your best when you're making first impressions. - Just because you're not strong enough to follow your dreams doesn't mean you should discourage other people from doing what they want to do with their life (as long as it's within reason). If someone you love is willing to put in the effort to chase a dream they believe is worth it, you should support them, even if it seems risky. Try to minimize the risk, but don't knock down the plan altogether.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Every blue moon I get convinced that I can't ever make it happen by myself. I've been awake to see the day devour the night. I've seen decay give way to growth and make the most of nearly nothing, Till human voices break us and we drown, we drown, Seductive and impeccable abuse. You do it to yourself, I bet you know you do. I love you 'cause I do it to you too.

[victoriousinpink]

>Get caught, dipshit.

>You’re way too trusting. You just took some random bronzeblood who looked almost vaguely similar to your mate at his word and gave him money to take you somewhere safe and didn’t think twice? Didn’t ask any questions? How old are you, Clorad, that you assumed this was a solid plan? You should be ashamed.

You’re laying in a pile of hay, staring down the barrels of four different revolvers, which are just as concerning as, say, any other weapon, when you’re laying down and got surprised by them. The trolls holding them are teal and lower, with the pinius stitched into their clothes like the ‘sheriff’ from before. Hell, maybe he reported you.

“By order of the lord Pinius, we place you under arrest for malicious treason.” Says one, hauling you up by the collar of your shirt. Rude. “We will now take you to his royal chambers for him to do with as he pleases.”

Better let them get it on with. They handcuff your hands behind your back, a little tighter than you’d like, and shove you out of the stable. There’s the “sheriff” and the bronze. They were working together. Fuck them both, terrible hicks with their poorly made leather and abuse of the Alternian Common Language.

Now, handcuffs. You used to get out of these all the time, before you decided magic shows were a low form of stage entertainment and focused on acting. Can you still do it?

This wagon is even more cramped than the last one, filled as it is with other apparent prisoners; mostly lowbloods, but there’s a few indigos shackled to the walls too. It’s dank and sweaty, and you swear they find new bumps along the way, because it feels like your teeth rattle out. The other prisoners glare at you, like you’re to blame for being pink too, and you nearly let yourself get annoyed enough to start a “not all Tyrians” discussion, but remind yourself that they probably know that and don’t have to like or trust you just because they logically are aware that you, at least, are not capable of being the Tyrian ruining their lives now, but that the one who did has soured their opinion on it.

It’s a long, hot ride, with the sun peering over the horizon by the time you choke in fresh air and stumble into a long wooden hallway. Must be new money. You wonder how long this Tyrian’s been causing trouble, to have trolls scared of him but not have any proper palace. Or maybe he’s bucking tradition. Either way, it’s clean, which you appreciate. You never really realized how much... Excrement, generally, is/was just everywhere in this time period. It’s disgusting, and worse that you’re not even wearing proper shoes for it.

The hallway is long, and leads you to a dining room, with a table laden with more food than the imposing troll should or likely could eat on his own. Pinius, the pink, sits alone at the head, taking bites of an undercooked mothergrub steak that leave blood dribbling down his chin and neck into a napkin-bib tucked into his shirt. The light catching it makes it shine purple, from where you stand.

Pinius is tall, taller than you (though you’re beginning to accept that you might just be short for your caste), and muscular, with horns like two serrated blades curling down over his face and casting odd shadows and tan lines. His hair is cut short and oiled into a small, ugly ponytail and he’s wearing what you assume passes for finery in cowpoke times, some kind of long-sleeved shirt in alternating shades of rust that fits too tight about the shoulders, like he took it off someone else, and black slacks. He has your true sign stitched into his shirt, too, and you have to assume you’re too early in the line for it to have branched into different stylized variations, like your own.

His face is square, and his eyes are just barely coming in pink--

Wait, a wriggler? They let a wriggler do all this? You’re definitely holding that against this town. That’s just sad.

You and the other prisoners stand in a line until, gulping and making entirely too much noise for an adult of his physical capacity to make while eating, he finishes his steak and stands to glare down the line at you, in the middle between the indigos, one of whom is shaking from the exertion of trying to spark their voodoos.

“You gotta be kidding. This is the other pink?” He asks, walking over and wiping his face with his shirtsleeve. “Bet you didn’t even put up a fight, huh? Real soft, aren’t you? With that get up--” He waves a hand at your pajamas, which have pink polka dots on them and say ‘cutie’ on the ass, because everything is the worst. “Looks like you been sleepin’ with Blache.”

A wave of exhaustion washes over you. Not physical, but mental. You’ve already dealt with one power-mad asshole this week, can’t you just have a single day to chill? “No, just horses. I’m not from around here.” You don’t say ‘and I wanna go home’ because you’re trying to seem cool, even if your slippers have axolotl faces felt-glued onto them.

“Well, no one’ll miss you, then.” He chuckles, unholstering a gun that looks very different from the ones the trolls collecting you had; and you realize that must be why they dropped them into a lockbox before leading you all in, to make him secure. “Makes it easy on me.”

Handcuffs, handcuffs. You never used the trick ones, because by the time you learned there were trick handcuffs, you had figured out how to get out of real ones. Your grown up hands are too big, though, and it doesn’t help that your knuckles don’t fold in the way they did before you broke your hand your first perigee in the mine. Maybe they’re weak, though. If he’s just stealing clothes, they probably aren’t the best quality, right?

You twitch your wrist sharply, clenching your jaw as the cuff bites into your wrist, and it snaps, almost silently. The indigo beside you collapses, half-unconscious and half-sobbing.

“Aw, come on now. If you don’t beg where’s the fun in it?” Pinius asks, tapping the bandage on your forehead where Giggle’s gun broke the skin with his own. “You ain’t even tryin’ to live?”

This place blows. “I bet you get off on this shit, huh?” You ask, and he blinks a few times, apparently not expecting that. 

You grab his wrist and duck, barely managing not to get a wound in your shoulder, and kick his knee inwards. It snaps decisively, and Pinius crumples, shrieking. You take the gun from his pain-weakened hand and kick his other hand, knocking a short knife he must have stored in his boot away and breaking his wrist.

He starts to speak and you shoot him, between the eyes. He lands with a wet thud, and you feel distant. The guards, after a moment of silence, split into two groups; those who want to loot and leave, and those deciding to defend their late lord’s honor. The second group is easy enough to take down, since they all have only blunt weapons and the room is narrow. Somewhere in the back of your pan you notice the shades of green and blue painting the walls and consider it pretty.

Once enough of the zealous idiots pile into the hall that the others have to climb, they start to scatter, and you just take the keys from one of their waists. Your handcuffs fall with a too-loud clatter over the different sounds of trolls trying not to be scared by you. One of the younger ones is looking at you like you’re a hero, so you uncuff them first, and ask the others to not kill you, because they’d lose and you don’t want to hurt them.

Now, search the house. The gun seemed to reload on it’s own and, when you look it over, you think it’s a hard-light tool somehow augmented onto a regular six shooter. You have to assume this is at least part of why he was in power so quickly, but if they have hard light tools and rudimentary weaponry with them, they have to have transportalizers; light bending techniques are all derived from teleportation tech, anyway.

It’s not here, in the bloody dining room, or in a bedroom where you send a cowering maid on her way. In the kitchen, at the smell of the food on the servants’ table, you come back to yourself and gag, vomiting onto the floor and scaring them into a corner; you can feel blood drying on your hands and face as you send them hive. The cellar has vegetables and nothing much else, besides another spot of mess from seeing a turnip and bothering your morally-upset stomach some more.

The last room in this, really, small hive is an office. There has to be a transportalizer, or at least, there has to be some information about a big town with transportalizers. There has to be. You’ll fucking cry if not. You almost send a text to Muralist to ask for thoughts and/or prayers, but you don’t want to get his hopes up just yet, so you take a deep breath and hope really fucking hard.

In the office, beside a large desk with nothing on it, is a transportalizer, covered with a sheet. Thank the clown gods. Thank every power that be. You can leave this shitty, shitty timeline.

It’s an old model, meant for transporting large packages more than trolls, but you’ll be able to use it; they had the same models on the mining planets. You’ll feel sick and dizzy, but you’ll get there whole. You can leave. Thank you, ridiculously overused plot devices are legitimate. Thank you.

If you can help it, you’re not even going hive for at least a day. You’re going to relax, away from work, away from assassins, away from the crushing loneliness of your palace--

Just. Send someone a message, idiot.

[dirtyjazminrice]

1. Are looks important in a relationship? - Maybe on a super minor scale 2. Are relationships ever worth it? - If you have a good healthy one, yeah 3. Are you a virgin? - No 4. Are you in a relationship? - Yeah 5. Are you in love? - Yep 6. Are you single this year? - Nope 7. Can you commit to one person? - yeah 8. Describe your crush - 6′1″, blue eyes, glasses, light brown hair, funny laugh 9. Describe your perfect mate - See above, though if he were perfect maybe he’d have some pretty brown eyes 10. Do you believe in love at first sight? - No 11. Do you ever want to get married? - Yeah, shit’s expensive though 12. Do you forgive betrayal? - Not really 13. Do you get jealous easily? - Not really 14. Do you have a crush on anyone? - Sure 15. Do you have any piercings? - Yeah 16. Do you have any tattoos? - Yeah 17. Do you like kissing in public? - No 20. Do you shower every day? - No. Sometimes I take a bath most nights (like in the winter when i’m frozen solid) but not a shower. And i definitely don’t wash my hair every day. It’s not good for it, google it 21. Do you think someone has feelings for you? - He better 22. Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? - Nah 23. Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months and not cheat? - All my relationships have been longer than that and it has never ever been an issue 24. Do you think you’ll be married in 5 years? - Yeah 25. Do you want to be in a relationship this year? - ye 26. Has anyone told you they don’t want to ever lose you? - Yeah 27. Has someone ever written a song or poem for you? - My dad has, does that count? 28. Have you ever been cheated on? - Yeah lol. Stupid high school shit 29. Have you ever cheated on someone? - Never 30. Have you ever considered plastic surgery? If so, what would you change about your body? - I did when I was younger, but i matured and learned to love myself as I am 31. Have you ever cried over a guy/girl? - Oh yeah 32. Have you ever experienced unrequited love? - Well i never would tell my crushes that i liked them so i guess i didn’t have to deal with rejection. So i definitely would have but i kept my crushes under lock and key. Not even my best friends got to know who i liked 33. Have you ever had sex with a man? - Yeah 34. Have you ever had sex with a woman? - No 35. Have you ever kissed someone older than you? - Yeah 36. Have you ever liked one of your best friends? - No 37. Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated? - No 38. Have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to? - Yeah. If you gave me an ounce of affection or kindness or attention i started crushing on you. It was bad 39. Have you ever wanted someone you couldn’t have? - I’m sure, but it was middle school or high school so it wasn’t that deep fam 40. Have you ever written a song or poem for someone? - No, not really into poetry or lyrics 41. Have you had sex so far this year? - yeah 42. How long can you just kiss until your hands start to wander? - Not long. Kissing by itself doesn’t do much for me 43. How long was your longest relationship? - 4 years and 3ish months as of right now 44. How many boyfriends/girlfriends have you had? - 3 45. How many people did you kiss in 2012/2013? - 2 46. How many times did you have sex last year? - I’ve been in a relationship for over 4 years, you think i’m counting? 47. How old are you? - 22 48. If the person you like says they like someone else, what would you say? - Probably just be happy for them and hide my feelings 49. If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, what is your favorite thing about him/her? - His sense of humor and his patience 50. If your first true love knocked on your door with apology and presents, would you accept? - Lmao hell no. Not because i’m like bitter, because it was like 8 years ago, but because he’s definitely not my type. We mostly dated just because i wanted a boyfriend in general

51. Is there a boy/girl who you would do absolutely everything for? - Yeah 52. Is there anyone you’ve given up on? Why? - Idk i’ve let friendships die i guess 53. Is there someone mad because you’re dating/talking to the person you are? - No 54. Is there someone you will never forget? - Lots of people 55. Share a relationship story. - Once i was making out with a highschool boyfriend in his bed and he was kind of on top, and he bloody nosed all over my face 56. State 8 facts about your body - I have a birthmark on my inner thigh and lower ass, i didn’t know i had a superb ass until i graduated high school, my left boob is slightly smaller than my right, i have always had pretty hairy arms, my hair is naturally blonde, my hands and feet are almost always freezing, my skin is a train wreck, i’ve always had a nice torso/tummy 57. Things you want to say to an ex - Idk i guess i’d ask the second one how eurpoe was? I don’t have much to talk to either of them about 58. What are five ways to win your heart? - humor, cats, shared interests, wit, affection 59. What do you look like? (Post a picture!) - dirtyjazminrice.tumblr.com/tagged/my-face 60. What is the biggest age difference between you and any of your partners? - One year 61. What is the first thing you notice in someone? - I feel like when you see someone for the first time you see a conglomeration of all their parts. It’s not like at first sight they’re just a floating pile of hair 62. What is the sexiest thing someone could ever do for/to you? - Make me feel comfortable and cared for 63. What is your definition of “having sex”? - My non-cis/heteronormative definition is getting naked (usually) and having mutual orgasms. It makes me sad that many married women would still be virgins by that definition. Never fake it 64. What is your definition of cheating? - I haven’t dealt with this enough to have this already pegged down in my mind. Emotional or sexual betrayal? Like if they start falling in love with one another or if they have any sexual contact (even kissing) 65. What is your favourite foreplay routine? - Wouldn’t you just like to know 66. What is your favourite roleplay? - Being a financially stable adult with excess cash each month and plenty of loving pets 67. What is your idea of the perfect date? - One full of new adventures and experiences 68. What is your sexual orientation? :~) 69. What turns you off? Super crooked/uncared for teeth, aggressiveness, rudeness, selfishiness 70. What turns you on? - comfort, humor, biceps, near nudity, strength, bondage, affection, acting like you’ve never seen a naked woman before 71. What was your kinkiest wet dream? - I don’t remember most any of my dreams 72. What words do you like to hear during sex? -  If you get long term payments but you need cash now Call J. G. Wentworth 877 cash now 73. What’s something sweet you’d like someone to do for you? - Surprise me with trips or presents 74. What’s the most superficial characteristic you look for? - Biceps 75. What’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for you? - Everything Ryan has ever done ever in the last 4 years 76. What’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for someone? - I’m very thoughtful and caring. My gift giving skills are legendary 77. What’s your opinion on age differences in relationships? - I think you need to be in the same stage in your life. So i don’t think a recent high school graduate should be dating someone in their late 20s, because there’s a couple of life stages in between, but like if a 45 year old started dating a 53 year old it would make almost no difference because that’s still pretty much the same stage 78. What’s your dirtiest secret? - After I do laundry, i just let all the clean clothes sit in the basket and get all wrinkled and i throw my dirty clothes on the ground around it until it’s finally time to do laundry again and i actually put away all of my gross wrinkly ass clothes 79. When was the last time you felt jealous? Why? - I usually feel jealous due to looking at pictures of other people on the internet or seeing cool shit they’re doing in their lives that i wish i was doing in mine at that moment 80. When was the last time you told someone you loved them? - Like a couple of hours ago 81. Who are five people you find attractive? - 1. Ryan. 2. My mom says i look nice? 82. Who is the last person you hugged? - ryan 83. Who was your first kiss with? - my first boyfriend 84. Why did your last relationship fail? - because he was an android sent to infiltrate the human race but couldn’t figure out how to emit emotions 85. Would you ever date someone off of the Internet? - Like long distance, only on the internet? Probably not. Someone who also spends a lot of time on the internet? Hell yeah

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering how do you handle an adult life? I'm 17 and the fact that I'm going to be an adult is starting to panic me more and more. Like I CANT talk to adults. I stutter&I'm a mess. I'm even bad with my peers. Some advice on how you do it would be nice. I try to ask my parents, but they aren't very helpful and seem ready to drop me into the deep end to "teach me" a lesson about being an adult. (Sorry again about non blog related question. No obligations to answer)

Oh boy, I’m gonna do my best to answer this, but full disclosure? I’m pretty bad at being social. I have some issues, and talking to people is really hard for me. That might be helpful in this context if you’re coming from a similar situation, but I don’t know if that’s the case, so it’s possible that my stuff won’t work for you. I’ll give it a whirl anyway.

I actually was thrown into the deep end when I was about your age, because I ended up going to college in a state where I pretty literally didn’t know a single person. I don’t know if that was a positive thing or not, but I can definitely say that I’ve gotten significantly better about talking/adulting since then. I’m still terrified of everyone older than me, but I can fake my way through the majority of it now. 

For me, the biggest step was increasing my self-esteem. When I started living on my own in ‘14, my goal was basically to be invisible (a skill that I mastered a looooong time ago). I have this thing about people looking at me, so I didn’t like any kind of attention. It definitely affected the way I talked to people (I didn’t) and the way I acted.

That shifted after I discovered a couple of things

1) some attention is positive, and positive attention feels good

2) I’m imagining a lot of the judgement I feel from other people

The truth is, people don’t pay as much attention to you as you think that they do. We’re all trapped inside our own heads, right? My frame of reference puts the majority of emphasis on me, because that’s the only person I can hear and the only emotions I can feel. The same is true about you– you hear your thoughts and feel your feelings, so it seems like everybody else should be focussed on you.

That’s your mind playing tricks. Don’t believe it. Everybody else is focussed on themselves, not you, and that’s a good thing! They’re not actually looking at you. They’re just looking around. As soon as y’all walk away from each other, odds are you’ll disappear from their mind. It means that you don’t have to worry about doing everything perfectly. They don’t actually care. 

Repeat that to yourself whenever you feel like you’re doing badly. It doesn’t matter. They don’t care. They’re not that concerned about the things that you do.

Two tactics for increasing your self esteem:

Find something you’re good at and do it. A lot. I started writing fanfiction when I was 18, and it straight-up changed my life. I’d never had that level of positive reinforcement before– for the first time in my life, I felt better than mediocre, and it made me proud of my own skills. Once I knew I was good at something it became a lot easier to talk to people.

(This is where you need to bear in mind that I’m not what the kids call “mentally stable” so like…. this might not be healthy) For a solid two years, I played this mind game where whenever I felt like somebody was judging me or being unkind to me, I picked one of my more angry favorite fictional characters and imagined them yelling back at that person. It worked really well for me because it let me fight back without actually doing it myself. I don’t really get angry, so I imagined someone getting angry on my behalf. Thing is, after awhile I really could think things like “I don’t deserve this” and “hey asshole back the hell off” in my own voice. I don’t know if I can explain that any better

Practical tips for maintaining a conversation:

Ask questions. It’s a lot easier to have a conversation if they’re doing most of the talking, and they won’t think it’s weird if you seem interested. Just keep them talking by asking for more information about whatever they just said.

They’ll get more comfortable (and more talkative) the more emotion you express. Listen actively. Nod along. Say stuff like “Really??” Your eyebrows are your friends. React to the stuff they say.

If you don’t know what emotion you’re expected to express, draw your eyebrows slightly in, rest a hand on your mouth/chin, and say “interesting.” They’ll interpret that as whatever response they were expecting.

 I feel more comfortable if I’m prepared, so I straight-up have memorized anecdotes that I practice until they go smoothly. I mostly use stories about my siblings, but I also have this speech about communism that I use every time someone asks me what I’m thinking about.

I don’t know what kind of English you speak, but I realized a long time ago that if I amp up my accent, other southerners trust me more and everyone else sees me as less threatening. If that applies, use it.

Don’t be ashamed of your interests. It might seem embarrassing, but other people don’t see it that way. Niche comic book knowledge actually goes over pretty well at parties. Related tip: find The Interest of the person you’re talking to, and your life will get a lot easier. Let them teach you about it and they literally will not shut up. It’s great. Also you get good recs that way.

Tips to get people to like you:

Be helpful. Good in two ways: if you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing and that makes you feel anxious, ask whomever is in charge if there’s something you can do to help. They’ll be charmed, and you won’t feel awkward anymore. Also good because people really like the folks that do them favors. They also like the people they did favors for, so let people do things for you if they offer.

Everybody likes the kid that brought food. Bake cookies. Bring cookies. New friends. Even if you don’t talk to them afterwards, they’ll have a positive opinion of you. I never spoke to the majority of my dorm neighbors, but they all liked me because I set candy and juice boxes in the hallway every holiday. In a classroom setting, offer to share your gum, buy extra scantrons, and lend people your pens. 

I befriend people solely by throwing gifts at them until they feel my love. Ask any of my mutuals. They’ll tell you.

Kindness honestly goes a long way? A lot of people, especially young people, really need someone to be kind to them, and they’re not used to getting that. If you can be that person, it’ll help them and it will make the two of you a lot closer. That’s how real friendships start. 

Always be respectful of other people’s trust. If they tell you important things about themselves, treat it seriously. Try to understand how they feel, and then let them know that you understand. Don’t tell other people’s secrets.

Tips for forcing yourself to Do The Thing:

I keep my to do list on post-it notes stuck to my dresser, one item per note, so I can pull them off one at a time as I do them. It’s more satisfying that way.

Personally I’m a lot more willing to do the things I hate if I feel like I’m doing them for someone else. Easiest way is to get one of my friends to ask me to do it (Hey in an hour text me and tell me to go to the grocery store). The best way is to bargain with one of my friends (if you call your doctor, I’ll make a real dinner tonight)

Again… I don’t know if you’re coming from the same place as me, but it really helps me to be open about my problems. I just tell my friends about my mental health issues, and then they help me to work around them.

Treat!!! Yo!!!! Self!!!! Seriously reward yourself for getting things done. Give yourself an episode of The Office for every page you write. Buy yourself ice cream for getting your errands done. If you’re going to do something stressful, have a plan for something relaxing afterward (I’ll go to the induction ceremony, and then I’ll go to the puppy store and pet a beagle)

[Eliza voice] 🎶 T a k e  a  b r e a k 🎶 If socializing is hard for you, realize that you don’t have to do it all the time. It’s okay to opt out, especially when you won’t lose anything by doing it. Personally, I go out of my way to make sure that no one speaks to me on the bus, walking across campus, or during lunch. Those are me-times. You can make sure people get the memo by wearing big headphones, bringing a book (even if you’re only pretending to read it), and avoiding eye contact. 

I find music really helpful for prep/recovery too. It works best if you find one song and play it on repeat until you get to the stressful thing, and  then do the same thing on the way back. Focus on one element of the song at a time. If you do it right, you can hit this meditative sweet spot where you stop thinking about what you have to do.

Stress relief (take it with a grain of salt because I am 95% stress at any given time):

Make your bedroom into a happy place. Pick a strong scent and make that part of the atmosphere– your brain will start to associate that scent with calm. My room smells like Irish Spring soap. When you finish something stressful, go to your room, take a few minutes to lie down and relax, breathe in and out, smell the happy smell. You did it.

Do stupid shit that makes you happy. Blow bubbles on your porch, put colored glassware on your windowsills so the sunlight turns red and blue, sing in your bathroom so it echoes all over the place. 

I hate admitting this with every fiber of my being, but exercise does actually reduce stress. So does eating healthy and sleeping normally, but I’ve never tried those last two.

If something makes you happy, keep it around. Save birthday cards, display presents from your friends, keep a happy tag online so you have a list of stuff to come back to. Your brain will remember the positive reaction, so it’ll undo some of the damage when you’re upset. 

Making other people happy will make you happy. Easiest method? Hit that anon button on the asks, pick the top five people on your dashboard, send them a nice message. Wait for excited response

It’s okay to google “cute babies” and scroll through pics until you feel alive again

I find it helpful to make things. I don’t know, there’s something about spending a long time on a project that makes me feel more productive, especially if there’s a visible product.

Things to remember: 

They aren’t watching you. They don’t care if you mess up. Your brain is lying to you.

Your worth is inherent and cannot be diminished by any of your actions or failures

Odds are the people you meet now won’t be the same people in your life in a few years. That means you don’t have to impress them. If you embarrass yourself in front of the lady at the brochure stand, it doesn’t matter. You probably won’t ever see her again.

It’s okay if this is hard for you. You don’t have to love meeting people.

You don’t have to like everyone. You don’t have to be friends with everyone.

It’s okay to say no. I repeat: it is okay to say no.

You’re going to be okay. You have a destiny, and you will fulfill it. It’s going to turn out exactly as it should. You don’t have to worry about your future.

These things get easier with time.

There’s no shame in seeing a therapist or talking about your problems

You have talents. You are interesting. You deserve attention and praise.

You know where to find me if you need anything

[memoraoblitus]

(Me ranting about life. Enjoy.)

I don’t know what to do with myself right now.

I’m a solid week behind on school work and I’m either too anxious to do it or don’t give a shit. Sometimes a combination of both.

I don’t really feel like a degree is going to do anything for me. I don’t care enough about any specific subject to endure another 2 or 4 years of schooling. I’m not in the right mental state for it, either; I don’t want to plan out my future when I’m simultaneously thinking about killing myself and how much I’m tired of being alive, and constantly being in pain and stressed.

The pills help, but they only do so much, even when the dosage is increased. It feels like their effects dull after taking them for 2+ weeks. I feel fantastic at first, and then I slowly start to regress into feeling shitty and wanting to end things.

I feel like I’m the type that will wind up working in fast food or at a desk job my entire life. No dream job or career, no goals, no expectations, beyond the basic “make enough money to buy shit and do the thing”. Not necessarily a bad thing- my manager has worked at Jack in the Box on and off for 16 years and makes 60-80 K a year. I don’t aspire to that much greatness, but I figure devoting my time to working would be more productive than procrastinating, fretting about, and ultimately barely scraping by in college.

Maybe in a few years, I’ll be up for it. Maybe in ten. Maybe never. I don’t know. I do know that, right now, I can’t be bothered to pursue higher education. I don’t think that makes me a bad person; perhaps lazy, which was a given from the start, but somebody’s gotta work those odd jobs. College is supposed to help ensure a stable working life, but it doesn’t do diddly in Idaho. Few jobs require degrees, a lot of them can’t pay what you’re worth, and experience trumps a degree every time.

I tried taking classes that I thought I’d enjoy, over required ones, but it just isn’t doing it for me. Math 095 feels like a joke, English 101 would be great if I wasn’t an apathetic/anxious mess, and Creative Writing feels like it’s just pointing out things I’ve known for years but never quite noticed. The Math teachers don’t care, the English 101 teacher is enthusiastic and great, and the Creative Writing teacher is knowledgeable and steady. But a teacher is worth little if the student isn’t equally dedicated.

I’m terrified, somewhat, of a life without school. Education has been the focus for most of my life, and it feels like I’m going to disappoint everyone I know and love if I stop going to college. But when I feel like I’m wasting everyone’s time by going…

I know my dad always wanted me to go. For his generation, college was the golden ticket. But college is beginning to feel like one of those arbitrary prerequisites that are forced on us. If you haven’t graduated from high school, you can’t enroll in college. Doesn’t matter if you’re intelligent, or if you already know what little high school has to teach. No college degree? You’re a deadbeat. Lazy. Tumor on society. And every degree has prerequisites, too. For example, you have to take a foreign language course for an English degree. Why is it that taking classes just to learn is so frowned upon? Why do I have to take 60 classes just to have the justification for taking the single class that I find interesting and thought provoking?

Well, fuck you too. I shouldn’t have to fork over time and money to get a piece of paper, purely so I can be ahead of 100 other people who want the same job. I’m tired of school. I’ve already spent 13 years of my life in school, learning things that oftentimes don’t matter. Who the fuck uses the area of a circle in everyday life? Architects, maybe, or construction workers. And if you don’t know? Guess what: there’s this handy thing called the internet, or the library, that literally has all the equations and explanations you’ll ever need for anything. So kindly let me dedicate my time to something less arbitrary.

I get it- you’re building on what you’ve already learned, you’re being trained to think critically, whatever. Some people need the homework, and the tests, and all the repetitive, boring assignments. But when you don’t, and you really don’t care about writing an entire essay on the motives of a character in Hamlet when you can easily tell someone their motives in a sentence or two? Feels like I’m wasting my time. Everyone keeps saying to make the most of your one, short life, but most of the time I feel like everyone’s pushing me towards living it in a certain way.

I don’t want to keep going to college. Not for a degree, and not like… this. I appreciate the passionate, animated teachers that love and love to teach, but I don’t want their breath wasted on someone that can’t reciprocate. I don’t want to be in that class knowing that I’m not doing anything to contribute to the pursuit of knowledge, or, as it often feels, my own life.

So please, why can’t I work my shitty $8 an hour job full time and enjoy the rest of the time that I have playing video games and reading, without worrying about the expectations of my father and my high school teachers and… everyone?

It shouldn’t be so much to ask. I shouldn’t have to ask.

The question now is, do I drop the courses I’m taking and dedicate my life to working, or stick with it until the end of the semester? The adults say I’ll regret the former for the rest of my life. But I already regret having a life in the first place, so. Yeah.

Fuck depression, fuck anxiety, fuck this.

I’m tired.

[rileysroleplayingephemera]

Five Men Reuven Harel Didn’t Fall in Love With

(in which I write fic for my own RP character)

1. Toby

It’s been six months, and that’s not forever, but it’s a long time in high school. Probably long enough, at least, that you should know how you feel.

“I love you,” Toby says, and there’s an unpleasant jolt in Reuven’s stomach, because he doesn’t not love Toby. You can’t leave that hanging without it Meaning Something, and he doesn’t mean that, he’s just not sure. How is he supposed to be sure?

“I love you too,” he says, because it might be true, and it’s probably better to accidentally lie about loving someone than accidentally lie about not loving them, right?

Toby’s eyes have been wide and anxious, too, and he hates that, and the moment where his boyfriend relaxes, his shoulders dropping, and breaks out in one of the best smiles Reuven’s ever seen – he thinks that might make it worth it.

They break up five months later, in the aftermath of the broken arm debacle, resentfully and awkwardly and angrily, and it hurts – God, it hurts, because if nothing else he’s really alone now – but as jagged and rough as it is, it’s easily survivable in the end. Too easily to be what he thought it was.

He keeps that to himself. I never loved you only reflects badly on one of them.

 2. Paul

Out of all Skye’s friends, Paul is the friendliest – the second-friendliest, after Marc, but Marc is… oblivious and pushy about it, and Paul is just nice.

He’s good-looking, too, but Reuven’s pretty sure he’s mentioned a girlfriend once or twice, which makes him probably unattainable and definitely off-limits. They’re not close yet, though, so there’s no harm in looking.

It’s nice to get out of the room – it’s actually warm again, for Canada, which translates to brisk, and the semi-privacy is nice. Everyone’s been pretty nice to him so far, but he can’t shake the feeling that Skye didn’t want Marc to invite him. If the guy had let him bow out casually, he would have.

“You buy a lot of alcohol for underage kids?” he asks casually, mostly so they’re not walking in silence. To his surprise, Paul doesn’t laugh; he frowns.

“You’re not underage.”

“I’m eighteen.”

“That’s not – oh. Well, okay, technically, but you’re adult. And it’s only a year.”

Reuven blinks and shakes his head, mentally recalibrating. He keeps forgetting you don’t have to be twenty-one here. “Uh, yeah, sorry. American.”

“Are you?” Paul sounds surprised.

“I mean, I have dual citizenship.” After eighteen years bitching about the US government, he never expected to feel so defensive about people’s reactions. “But I never lived here.”

“That’s nuts,” Paul says, but he doesn’t seem too disturbed. “So was your childhood, like… completely devoid of Robert Munsch?”

By the time they reach the liquor store, Reuven’s been given an extremely in-depth and confusing layout of what he should know about the provinces – mostly what they are – and how to remember that all the Maritimes start with N except one, and also all the N provinces are Maritimes except one. It might make more sense if he could stop laughing.

“You should wait out here, I guess,” Paul says. “Man, the drinking age here is dumb.”

Reuven can’t remember what provinces that leaves, where you can be younger than nineteen, but he shrugs his assent and watches Paul walk through the door. It doesn’t really hit him until then.

“I’m in trouble,” he says, out loud.

But the guy has a girlfriend, and he’s probably straight, and more importantly he’s nice and Reuven really likes him. He could use a friend like this, and he wants to be Paul’s friend in particular. He’s not fucking that up.

“It’s not a big deal,” he amends, and it won’t be.

 3. Leon

This isn’t working.

It’s too much too fast, and he’s known that for some time, but he keeps thinking that it’s just that he’s so far away, and surely as soon as Leon takes a breath and gets a longer phone call, he’ll get some perspective.

But that’s not happening, and honestly he should have known it. He just didn’t want to break up with someone by phone, from Saskatchewan.

He still doesn’t. It’s a shitty thing to do, and he already feels bad for Leon, and guilty for being the one so far away, but also, he doesn’t want to be a horrible ex story for the rest of his life. It’s one thing if Heath from his 300-level Canadian Wild West class is out there telling people about the time his almost-boyfriend loudly dumped him in the middle of the quad because of the asexuals, but the idea of “so he went to RCMP training and then he called and dumped me halfway through, because it ‘wasn’t working’” being his legacy makes him feel both angry and vaguely ill.

But he’s up at five every day, on his feet for twelve hours, and then half the time he has extra projects or activities, and he has to fit sleep into the time that’s left and try to find time to work out and calculate a two-hour time difference, and Leon’s upset because he can’t talk for hours at a time. Reuven’s not the most romantic person in the world, he knows that, but he tries, and it can’t all be about how much they miss each other. God forbid he try to enjoy parts of this, or learn things.

And this is why it has to happen, because even when he’s trying to figure out how to break up with the guy, he ends up feeling annoyed and resentful, and throwing around words like ‘clingy’ and ‘needy’ – and they might be true, but no one using them ever scored points with anybody.

That, and Leon is actually talking about flying to Regina. The only thing worse than contemplating how uncalled for that would be is the idea of what it would be like if it actually happened. He can only imagine how unhappy Leon would be (after he made the huge – unasked-for – gesture of coming all this way) when Reuven still has classes, and training, and responsibilities, and can’t take a day off, or spend the night off-campus, or God forbid has to call it an early night because he’s up a five-o-freaking-clock every single morning!

And this is definitely going to make him the Worst Ex Ever, but he can’t wait until Leon spends the money on a plane ticket, so he says flatly, “Don’t do that.”

Leon breaks off in the middle of saying something about silos. “What?”

“Don’t come here,” Reuven says bluntly, and after weeks of careful gentleness and subtle hints, it’s a relief to finally cut the crap. If Leon listens to him, there might be something to salvage – but he won’t.

“You don’t want me to come?”

“I am busy, and exhausted, and I wouldn’t be able to see you more than twice anyway. I’m already stressed out – ”

“So it would be stressful for me to be there?” He’s offended. Of fucking course.

“Yes,” Reuven says emphatically. “I cannot drop everything and coddle you all the time. I care about you, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t keep doing this, and if you can’t hack six months without me then I don’t think this is going anywhere.”

Leon straight-up hangs up on him, and although he knows he’s going to pay for it later, he can’t help but be glad.

 4. Paul

There’s a brief moment, when he first gets to Halifax – no, more like several brief moments. The simple fact that Paul’s already there to meet him when he pulls in at his new apartment building. The hug, which goes on far too long, and not because of him. The moment when they’ve got all the boxes up, where they just stand there and look at each other over a kitchen of cardboard, and then laugh.

One day in, when he finally sees the new house, watching Paul be equal parts grateful for his parents’ contribution and eager to be showing it to someone – and to Reuven, specifically.

Two days in, when Paul puts an arm around his shoulders and squeezes him roughly, and says, “I’m so freaking glad you’re here.”

When he’s been in Halifax for four days, he sits in Paul’s kitchen (in Paul’s actual house, that he owns. They’re so fricking old) finishing his beer while Paul tries to put Nat to bed, and reflects on how easy it would be to fall in love with this guy, if he let himself.

Very, very easy – but only if he let himself, and he’s not going to, for a lot of reasons, but mainly because their friendship means more than anything else he has, and he’s not going to throw that away on romance or self-flagellation. The fact that Paul is straight is second to that, but equally a deal-breaker.

When Paul comes back, Reuven takes one last pull of his beer and asks a stupid question about boats, because their friendship is sixty-five percent built on Reuven asking stupid questions about weird Canadian things.

A few years later, Paul comes out, and Reuven thinks, Maybe – for a single second before he focuses on the main thing, which is stomping out as much biphobic bullshit as possible. He doesn’t really register the thought itself; by that time, he is very much in love with Tony.

 5. Mohammed

It starts as a joke – there’s an incredibly attractive man whose only job is to get me anything I want – but every part of it is, technically, true. Mohammed is attractive, and incredible, and the last part had been taken verbatim.

He’s also charming. And dangerous, and equipped with throwing knives, and then he’s unjustly accused. A few days after that he’s the sensitive badass who is also their only real lifeline, so, yes. He’s thought about it.

If things were different, it would be very, very easy to fall for Mohammed.

A month crammed into a berth together doesn’t do anything to make that less true, although with some men it would be more than enough. Neither does the revelation of just how emotionally screwed-up he is, because while Reuven loves the fact that his husband is solid and stable and has his shit together, apparently no one in the world is 100% immune to a sexy basket case.

It starts with a joke – and it ends with a joke, as well, with so how thrilled are you that I ditched you to go on a jet-setting adventure with an incredibly attractive billionaire doctor?  – because as easy as it would be to make that happen, he doesn’t want it to be anything else.

He could fall in love with Mohammed, but he won’t, because there’s Paul, and that’s everything and anything that matters.