#fun fact about my dad: i'm going to be 22 next week and i don't know how to do make up because he doesn't allow me to wear it

[raininyourblackeyes]

I'm going to dye my hair on friday. For the first time in my life. I'm terrified.

[itsybitsybluesy]

OPEN WATER

ELUCIEN / EXPLICIT / WIP, 3 OF 6 CHAPTERS / CH1 CH2 CH3 Stuck in the Florida Keys and tired of letting her sisters make decisions for her, Elain ditches their group vacay plans and signs herself up for a scuba diving course on an impulse. The instructor Lucien tells her he’s never had to fail anyone after the four days she’ll spend with him. What’s the worst that could happen?

wow! this is, i kid you not, my first fanfic in over 10 years. i want you to dive right in (HAHAHA), but let me first say: i was having a really bad time earlier this year, and turned to the work of some fantastic, generous creators as a distraction from stuff going on.

you don't know me, but: @separatist-apologist and @the-lonelybarricade, thank you for the hours / nights / months i spent curling up to read your work and giggle, and really, converting me into a big big elucien stan. the elain and lucien living happily ever after in my head (or let's be real, living the 10,000 stupid idiots in love plots in my head) were born thanks to you.

p.s. i started posting this before @elucienweekofficial so let this be a fun little AU warmup while i get something else kicking around. i think i might??? actually finish this before the weekend so i'm going to ride the high of writing spicy fanfic for the first time ever(!) while it lasts and whip up something else next week if i can. i'm so happy to be here!

xoxo, and please, do NOT bother your dive instructors!!

[read a snippet under the cut]

It was a quick drive to Elain’s hotel, which looked out over the small, locals-only marina he’d been meaning to show her. Elain followed him trustingly down the dock as he led her towards the slip. “You know, I eat my breakfast out here,” she said, pointing to a swimming pier by the hotel restaurant. “Have you been following me?” 

“A coincidence,” Lucien promised, though his heart beat a little faster. “In fact, the question is, are you trying to steal my secret spot?” 

Elain gave him a confused look and Lucien grinned, turning from her to climb onto a small but newly-painted red sailboat. He extended a hand to help her get on. “Don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m not much of a boat captain.” 

Elain stepped over to him, one hand on the rolled-up sail. “And yet, this boat,” she said. Her face said, why are we here? 

Lucien stretched his arms out. “This happens to be the most exclusive place to watch a sunset around here, I’ll have you know,” he said. Then he opened the cabin door, climbed down, and reached up a hand to her. “There’s more.” 

She followed him in, expression unreadable as she made her way down the ladder, then straightened and looked around. They were in a tiny, fully furnished apartment cabin. 

“Whoa,” Elain said as Lucien ducked to switch on the small A/C unit. “You are like, full of mysteries today.” Her voice was soft, leaving him room to fill in the blanks if he wanted to. Lucien reached into the minifridge he still kept plugged in, pulled out two Cokes, passing one to her as he fussed around the cabin to keep from looking at her. 

“When I graduated college, Jurian had this boat,” he started, and stopped for a moment. No one except Jurian and Vassa knew this about him. But she was so open and so lovely to him that he wanted to make up for rebuffing her attempts to get to know him, give her something real about himself even if she hated what she saw. 

“He had the shop, but I still had to get my instructor training, and pay for it too. My dad had died that senior year,” he said, “And my mom was figuring stuff out.” And he’d had no place to go, and not enough money in the bank to sign a lease, and nobody wanted him around. “It was temporary. I showered at the dive shop and ate a lot of microwave meals.” He shrugged. “When you’re 22 it’s like camping.”

He thought he’d die if he saw pity in her eyes, but when he turned, Elain was standing leaned against the lofted bed, fingertips resting on the sheets, eyes closed. She opened them and looked at him. “I can feel the boat rocking,” she said, almost in a whisper, with a small smile. Lucien was so grateful for her kindness he could burst with it. 

“I used to turn off all the lights and A/C when it was cool enough and just lie here and listen to the water,” he said, taking a step towards her. Elain watched him but did not move. There were no windows except a tinted skylight. The sheets on the bed were the same ones he’d made neatly and desperately every morning that long year, as if willing the place into a home beneath his hands. 

“I can hear it,” Elain said, eyes fluttering closed once again. Lucien watched her for a beat as she stood there, trusting him, and then crossed the distance between them and kissed her.

[xoxo-bunnydumpling]

It was my cancer anniversary today. I feel like I want to talk about it but I don't want to bother anyone so I'll leave it here.

It was 13 years ago today that after 2 days of almost dying in ICU and two and a half months of slowly bleeding to death (turns out it's not extremely normal to still be bleeding heavily for that long after having a baby) they finally pinned down what was wrong with me after an unmedicated bone marrow biopsy during which I was held down by 4 nurses while they drilled into my bones...and they did not stop even when I begged them. They technically saved my life and I try so hard to be grateful. Every year I try so fucking hard to not be angry.

I told Eli this today. I should have told him on the day I went to the ER and had a full blown panic attack over blood draws but I didn't. He knew about the cancer, in fact, it was the first serious conversation we ever had. But sitting down and telling him everything today, telling him WHY I needed to be alone to feed some ducks and buy pants...I don't think he'd put two and two together before. I don't think he knew how close I was to dying, or how I was, or how I'd just had Red not long before.

Red was a baby. Two months and two weeks old when his dad carried me to the car with blood running down my legs...terrible deep dark clotted blood, and zero strength of my own left. When I looked at myself in the side mirror on the way to the hospital, I thought I was already dead. I was so pale, the dark circles under my eyes were so profound...I looked like the only dead body I'd ever seen in my life at that point, my great grandmother, and I wondered if I was about to join her. When I looked over at Jeremy, he was just as pale.

I didn't have enough blood for them to draw. They were in the midst of trying to milk my finger for a few drops when something in my head told me this was it. Say goodbye. You're done for. The world dipped, started to go black. When I woke up, a day later, they told me I said "I'm not done yet". When they told me I had cancer, I know for certain I said no. When they repeated themselves, I said "FUCK THAT". Cowboy up, bitch...you're not gonna fucking die, dying is stupid. I was not sad, I was pissed. I didn't see Red for another month and when he came to see me he looked like a completely different kid...and I was so tapped I spent 10 minutes with him and fell asleep.

I had chemo on and off for two years. Lost my hair twice. Had a stroke, learned to walk again, to swallow, to talk, to write and type, to not shit my pants. All good things to learn and learn again. But I also learned I'd die one day, and how to be scared out of my mind. Up until that point, I really hadn't been scared of much and at 22 with a new baby I surely wasn't aware of my mortality yet. Now some days it's all I can think about. I call Red every day to make sure he's alive. Every time Eli coughs I'm afraid he's having a heart attack. It's not normal...I know. But I also know now, forever doesn't exist. We are here for but a blink of an eye and yet I waste so much of that blink consumed by fear. Death has touched me once and it will take me some day and I think about this more than I care to admit.

But for right now...my husband has my feet in his lap and is asking me how the fuck I fit all this ass in my new jeans. If I know him like I think I do, gentleman that he is...because I've had a doozy of a day, when he stretches himself over me in a few minutes he'll kiss me lazily, slowly, with his hands cradling my face instead of roaming inside my shirt. I don't know what we're doing tomorrow, but the next day, Red will be here to make fun of my clothes, eat all my food, and then ditch me for Fortnite...but at least he'll be here. We'll all be here, together and alive.

Every year I just have to get through today. Two more hours and it's done until next time.

[reverse-moon]

So uh

I woke up crying this morning

And drew what I would assume falls under the category of "vent comic/vent art"

This is 100% going to be upsetting.

And normally I'd post this to my vent blog, but if for some reason this blows up big, I'd rather it not be on the blog of my darkest moments written for the world to see.

Under the Read More will be the comic and explanation.

CW for under cut: Trauma talk, sexual assault talk, death, mental abuse, religious trauma, and suicidal thoughts.

Please DON'T read if you aren't going to be able to handle. Don't just click to see the art.

I'm gonna preface this with I am a mental abuse victim (I have no viable option of escape currently but I'm still looking) who also suffers normal anxiety. Early in Summer of 2022, I lost my emotional support animal, who was one of the only things keeping me alive (depressing, I know).

For the first 20 years of my life (I'm 21 during the year of 2022, turning 22 in Jan 2023), my narcissistic father ruined my life, along side bullies. I cannot remember my elementary school years really. I have vague good moments, but I can't remember anything else. I vaguely remember middle school, but only because it was an arts middle school, so I had a lot of fun in the non-academic classes and I met my #1 favourite teacher there. High school, I hardly remember my freshman year and I wish I could forget the others because of the trauma I had. I graduated on my 20th birthday, in a house that wasn't my family's that we got kicked out of because my dad.

He lost his job because of a foot injury that required 2 surgeries. He broke his foot and ultimately lost workman's comp for it since they deemed it to be purely the fact that he had a high arch. He, for around 5 years now, claimed (and is still claiming) that he looked for a job. He was not. He was to high and mighty to go get a job a Burger King or Kwik Trip. These past 2 years, he's been taking care of his mom (88 or something, one lung, on oxygen and almost literally just skin and bones). For a while, he was alone with her, so it was a little more understandable why he wasn't looking.

My mom and I went to Arizona because my other Nana was there. We helped out. My own step-grandpa (my mom's stepdad) sexually assaulted me. My nana, upon hearing this, confronted him and came back saying "well he wasn't drunk, so..." I was told to go with her and my mom out everywhere.

I would have been fine with this if it didn't include church. My dad, when I was like 7, made my cry in front of LDS missionaries because I didn't have a 'good enough reason" to be baptized into the church. Despite saying that's where I felt safe and where I felt the spirit (whatever spirit I felt left me alone after that). I refused to go to any church events if I could help it. (One Christmas, I felt sick, so I said I wasn't going to church and my dad threatened to give my Christmas presents away if I didn't go. Because I felt like I was going to throw up.)

I went once, stayed in flight/freeze mode the whole time, even getting to the point of asking my brother to look up things on a phone call to try and figure out the fucking wifi password so I could connect to my rocks. Needless to say, I didn't calm from my panic until about an hour after getting home. The next week, I said I wouldn't go, and I'd stay hidden in the bedroom. My nana told me (after a while of explaining why I wouldn't go) "if something happens, it's your fault then."

My mental state deteriorated harshly. I was using dating apps to get out of the house, hoping I'd find a rescue. Turns out one I thought was a rescue was just a different cage. He love bombed me (using presents, affection and other forms of romantic language to make you stay and gain control), and when I need space to think, bombarded my mom and I with calls. It wasn't pretty.

My mom told me after I blocked him on my things that he was also trying to tell her how to talk to me (big red flag, bitch). I won't say much else.

My cat passed away after that. He fought 1 full day for staying alive in pain, unable to breath and move. We took him to a vet to put him down. With the first sedative, he was gone. He didn't even have any bodily fluids to get out. I was broken.

Through this time, I had a few friends helping me. Waba, Bennie, Ami, Cat... But it still felt like I shouldn't be alive. Because all I did was bother and drop bombs of emotions on people.

I wrote a fic, sometime around this time, about wanting to jump and drown in a lake, but being talked out of it. I used the Sanders Sides characters Patton and Janus to represent me and Ami - my saving grace that night.

Then, in August 2022, I moved to Boston. Well, close to Boston, anyway. I'm living with my deadbeat narcissist father, my mom, and my dad's mom.

It's torture. I'm practically trapped inside because my nana worries so much, I have no friends locally that I haven't met online through Bumble (and that is still a meager 1 person who has to come from Salem to my place), I can't seem to get a job for many reasons. The biggest and worst thing is I can't own a pet because we can't afford it. And I really need a service dog, if I'm honest.

I feel lost, broken, numb, alone, among other even more depressing thoughts. I can't count how many times I've wanted the "courage" to grab a knife and end it all.

Over all? I just don't see the point. Unless you have a claim to fame, money, or a chance higher than the international average at either - you basically don't matter to society other than to be a stepping stone for those who do. And your chances decrease about 50% if you aren't what society wants. A queer autistic agender person who has a rather long list of mental disorders and an even longer list of possible physical issues? If I can get to a point where I can even remember to stream on my schedule for a week, I'd be lucky. And that's when I have a place to stream.

I woke up in tears because the one thing in my life that really helped me find a light died and I can't even go visit his grave because he's buried somewhere in the Arizonan desert.

I can't take it.

I just. Can't. Do things. Anymore.

I'm not okay and I can't find the strength to change that.