#i cannot/will not cut them off cold turkey

[moki-dokie]

Twice, my best friend has crossed a boundary with me. The first time it was unintentional. I made it very clear afterwards. The second time she ignored it.

Both times she was drunk.

And we aren't talking about I had a few drinks drunk. Hers is the I had a few drinks after an entire bottle of whiskey and a few shots for good measure drunk.

I gave her a good telling off. She apologized. She owned up to it. I forgave and life moved on. Water under the bridge.

Today, a couple of months later, she's finally taken the step to go to AA. I couldn't be more proud of her for it. She said that telling off had been eating at her so badly that it managed to break through the bullshit that drives her to drink out of control. And not because I had to get firm with her, but because I did it with the same unconditional love I come at her with everything else, because I treated her as a person, because I was willing to forgive and keep loving her - despite how badly she was triggering my PTSD.

I know a lot of people would have written her off, thrown her out, deemed her as abusive and predatory and whatever other therapy language people love to blithely throw around. Maybe drunk her is those things. But drunk her is a diseased her.

Something people forget about alcoholism is that it is indeed a disease. It can fuck a person up as badly as depression can and can go just as dismissed because it isn't always seen.

Of course, none of us are obligated to forgive transgressions even from a person not of sound mind - but I think a lot of people could do with just a little more patience and a little more kindness. Especially when you know something is wrong with them. sometimes that's all it takes to give someone the push they need in the right direction.

I'm especially jaded about drunks. I'm especially fucked up with PTSD from drunks. There are legitimately few things in this world that actually, authentically, very seriously send me into a terrible horrible bad bad bad place like drunks, because my sole parent was a highly abusive one. Like I'm lucky to be alive today kind of abusive. I tried and I tried and I tried with her, thinking if I just keep trying maybe she'll finally get help. But eventually, I finally realized she never would. Just like she'd never apologize. Or like she'd never even own up to having ever done wrong. So five years ago I cut her out of my life, cold turkey. Which eats at me, because she is mostly disabled and lives alone on a farm in the middle of nowhere with no stable income except some very meager oil royalties that dwindle more each year. I know one day I'm going to get the call I dread the most. And she'll have been alone. And I will feel guilty, probably forever, because that is how she has hardwired me to feel. But it was high time I started protecting myself, so I'm willing to take on feeling guilt forever if it means I can start healing in other ways, which I have.

She is also diseased. She was diseased before I came into this world, though. I don't blame her, nor do I love her less for the things she cannot control. But I do blame her for the things she can, and for all the sober opportunities she's had to simply admit fault and say sorry. I blame her for trying to use my brother to drag me back into her mess. I blame her for all the times I have cried and pleaded with her to get help when she had a clear enough mind to hear me and she's refused.

My best friend needed only a stern talking to and it crushed her to know she had hurt me even a little. My mother refuses to acknowledge the fact she has put my life in jeopardy on multiple occasions and inflicted emotion wounds that will never fully heal.

Alcoholism does not discriminate. It doesn't give a single shit. My best friend is lucky she's only been in the clutches of it for a few years, and that i have a lifetime of experience navigating how to handle drunks like her to have eventually and finally broken through. Both of them, however, I treated with love and kindness until the point I couldn't anymore. For one, that was enough. For the other, she's likely to die alone, having pushed away every friend and family.

You can't change them all, but, idk, I think it's worth trying sometimes. It's worth enduring a little more pain sometimes. It's worth assessing the risk rather than flat out avoiding it sometimes.

I couldn't save my mother, but no one can except herself anymore - and that isn't my fault. I tried for far longer than I ever should have. But I did save my best friend. And if I hadn't tried, I would have felt some of the blame. Because not only is she my friend and I love her, but she is just human like the rest of us and it isn't her fault she's succumbed to the vicious cycle that she was already genetically and societally predisposed to.

There's really no point I'm trying to make to the masses here. Just that this sickness can manifest in wildly different ways. And it's too easily dismissed and too easily enabled and too easily accepted. And that my friend is getting help and she's not going to drink or pill herself into an early grave. And that I'm thankful beyond words for that.

[cosmic-ghost-hermit]

Heyo! All the art on these readings is drawn by me. Take what you can from the reading and leave all that does not resonate behind but always be open to new perspectives.

The archetype reading was inspired by the deck I used today. The guide book uses examples from anime to fit the descriptions of the tarot cards. I thought that was really clever so I decided to build off that idea and tell you what archetype you are most drawn to wants to tell you. In short, this is really a message from a specific cards energy. I hope this helps anyone who might be struggling!

PILE 1

Crystal: Tigers Eye

Character: Badtz-Maru

Archetype: The Empress

Astrology: Taurus ♉️, Libra ♎️, Pisces ♓️, Virgo ♍️

Dear pile 1, you are represented by the empress of this deck. The archetype you embody is someone who is luxurious, modest, kind and attentive. You care deeply for those you love and would do anything to assist them and make their life easier. You are a fantastic friend, partner and companion. You don’t necessarily have to be a woman to embody that energy. The message this part of you wants to tell you is that your kindness is being taken for granted. Your attentiveness is being discarded as if the love you gave isn’t worth anything. Your intuition is telling you to withdraw from the connection that is causing this. You maybe started this friendship or connection a while ago but you have started to notice this pattern from the other party in this relationship. They don’t return your love. They don’t say thank you when you go out of your way to be good to them. This doesn’t mean you should necessarily cut them off. Just don’t go out of your way anymore. They are undeserving if they cannot be grateful to you for all you do. I see if you did stop it would barely be noticed at first. However, the person will slowly realize how much you did to assist them. How much work you did was important and helped them get through the day easily. If they apologize and communicate they did wrong that won't necessarily be your queue to go back to scratching their back. You need to wait for them to lend their assistance to you. That will be your invitation to return to being kind. Until then use the extra time you have working on your passion projects and aiming for your dreams.

🖤✒️🔎💻🕋🛞♟️🎤🎼🎱🏴🪨🐕‍🦺🕶️🎩🐦‍⬛💣🎵🎶♣️♠️🏴‍☠️👁️‍🗨️

PILE 2

Crystal: Flower Agate

Character: Keroppi

Archetype: The Devil

Astrology: Leo ♌️, Aquarius ♒️, Capricorn ♑️, Gemini ♊️

Hey pile 2! Your archetype is the devil. Don’t worry though, for this doesn’t make you evil or bad. All this communicates to me is you are an enjoyer of the darker parts of life. You enjoy what other people usually fear. This is definitely not something horrible you should shame yourself about. I see you probably enjoy altered states of reality or perhaps you are very free with your sexual expression. I see you like the taste of control, power and vengeance. Again not a bad thing in my mind. Humans have many states of being and no part of existence is incorrect. Your message from the devil archetype is not asking you to cold turkey your behavior. However, I think it is saying balance is super important when you dabble in darkness. You might be prone to addiction to literally anything you can get dopamine from. I am an addict as well. I know how hard restraint can be. Even doing this reading is giving me cravings to be honest so I know you deal with cravings constantly. Your cards are saying it doesn’t matter if you feed the addiction. You will always be starving for more. You will always be chasing something you can never achieve. Please take care of your body before the cravings lead to worse. When I was dealing with my addiction I ended up in the hospital multiple times. It would have killed me if I hadn’t stopped. It is okay to dabble in darkness but seriously I beg you, from the bottom of my heart please moderate. Moderation is key to keeping yourself safe. If you are meant to have the darkness, it will be in your grasp. If you are in need of a break. Trust the universe when it takes it away. You are not evil for needing. I want to reiterate that because I know how it feels to need something that hurts you.

💚🦈🪀🧃🍵🪦🥗🥒🥑🌪️🫒🍸🍏🥝☘️🌱🥈⚓️🪴🎍🐍🦎🚬👒🤢

PILE 3

Crystal: Carnelian

Character: Tuxedo Sam

Archetype: Emperor

Astrology: Cancer ♋️, Aries ♈️, Sagittarius ♐️, Scorpio ♏️

Hey, pile 3! Your archetype is the emperor. You are a force to be reckoned with. A master of your craft and skilled beyond other people's wildest imaginations. You have a plan and have been putting so much energy into it. You know exactly what you want and exactly how to get it. Your cards are pretty straight forward just like you are. They are telling me that working hard is good! That your progress is fantastic and you have made it so far! However, the pace you are keeping at is almost unsustainable. You can’t juggle all of the tasks you are trying to keep under control. You cannot do it all by yourself. That isn’t logical! Humans are not solitary creatures. We need community and connection to continue on. Humans who have been left alone for too long go hecking crazy! You absolutely can handle all of it mentally. I am not saying you are incapable because you are SO CAPABLE. Rome was not built in a day. Masterpieces are not made out of minutes, they are made out of days or months or years. You are creating a masterpiece so allow yourself time to think about it. Allow yourself the space to brainstorm and be patient with your body and your creativity. Be gentle with yourself. You are only one person and the secret you are missing is that you are not alone. The silly little secret is that you don’t need to set a deadline for the greatness you are going to grow into. One of my favorite artists didn’t make it when he was 20. He grew into his greatness when he was 35. Does that make him any less of a great artist? Absolutely not!!! You are cool, awesome and wonderful! Why do you need to prove that when you already know it is true?

💙💤🌀🪬🌨️🧿💎🚿🧊🫐🌊🌧️🌬️💨🌏🦋🪼🐬🧢🫂🥶💠

-ghost 🖤🩵

[sobx9]

I still cannot bring myself to watch or read anything Jiara. When I get an edit on my scrolls I’m just unwell. The way I just cut them off cold turkey after part 2 came out. Like well that happened, everything’s changed and it’s over. I can’t even enjoy what it was before they massacred his character and the ship, or what it could have been if they didn’t because both are just too painful and enraging for me

I am skipping all the edits (happy or sad), I unsubscribed from Netflix since OBX was my main reason for still keeping up with my subscription and I am not watching that again. Like I can’t even watch happy Jiara moments back and that makes me really sad. Tumblr Jiara tag is dead and fanfics in the Jiara tag are mostly Jarah or Riara now.

How did we get here? And why?

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Do you have any advice for someone going through the "people turnover" you described? I'm really questioning some current friendships but I'm scared of the consequences. Like I know if I lose these friends, there will be a massive hole in my life that cannot be patched easily or quickly

i'm going about it in a "demote, promote, or terminate" kind of way atm, while also being aware of my emotional capacity. there's this really close friend i have, but now i'm realizing she's not the best for me. cutting her off cold turkey would be too much for me, so for now i've resorted to demoting her--in my mind, she's no longer that close friend i thought she was. she's more of an enjoyment friend i'd call up to go out places w, pass the time w, etc... i wouldn't trust her w personal details the way i did. i'm heeding my limits while also doing something about this situation.

other friends i'm straight up just "terminating." something is fundamentally not working in our friendship, and i'd rather deal w the temporary grief over the long-term misery of keeping them in my life. that's how i'm going about it--i'm weighing the temporary grief against the long-term consequences of continuing to invest. & there are also a friend or two i'm promoting :) realizing they're actually really dope and they're the ones i should be investing in the most instead. so we'll see how that goes !

6 months ago this would have hurt like hell, but rn i'm honestly in a state of calm bc my life is so full without these people already that i can just double down on other areas of my life. studying, working out, reading, writing, other hobbies i wanna take up, a future i'm really excited about, being more in touch w my boundaries... just been a super therapeutic time for me. i know my world extends beyond these people. i guess what i'm trying to say is on the chance i lose literally everybody, i would not let there be a gaping hole for me to be in pain about. i'd just mend it w other facets of my life that are super vibrant already. i've learned a long time ago that friends, however much u adore them, should be an augmentation instead of the foundation of ur life itself. and i'm also the kind of person who'd rather be alone than surrounded by people i don't connect with tbh

[polyhexian]

Would Worst possible timeline jasper and Darius have the opposite dynamic as eventually jasper and Darius. Like Darius is mad at Jasper for mistreating hunter?

What is the state of THAT relationship in general in the worst possible timeline

Also would both hunter and jasper be golden guards or would it be the golden guard (jasper) and some special underling immediately under the golden guard (hunter)?

Also would hunter know what Jasper looks like? Like would he be aware he looks like a smaller scrawnier version of the scariest man in the isles ?

OUGHHHH how fun for bad ending timeline...

I'm imagining like. Once jasper makes his commitment he's full gg mode. He completely retreats into himself. And now it's sooo clear how fucking dangerous being around him is. And how high the stakes are now. There's no way anything he tells Darius will satisfy him and theres no way he can hide this from him without Darius figuring out something is wrong. And for jasper, being around Darius is- he is jasper around him. He feels stuff. He cares about things. And if this is his life now? That's over. He cannot be jasper anymore, full stop

So yeah I think he fully 100% stops talking to Darius cold turkey. Darius gets more and more frustrated because he knows something bad has happened. And finally if he gets jasper cornered and demands to know what's going on, jasper is going to be harsh. If he isn't, if he doesn't get Darius to back off, he's going to get killed. If he snoops in the wrong places he's a dead man. So I think jasper, like with hunter, is going to have to utilize violence in the name of their greater safety. He's going to hurt him. Maybe not even physically- maybe just emotionally. Maybe he tells him what he did to tyrian. Maybe he tells him he owes him now. Whatever he does is the step too far that makes Darius finally back off. Even if he DOES think something bad happened and maybe he even thinks jasper IS trying to protect him- but fine. Don't take my help. I guess we really aren't friends anymore.

Only YEAH in this one he's not grieving. He's paying attention. And jasper is now training this little kid. And HARSHLY. What happened to the jasper that cared so much about kids? I guess he doesn't care much about ANYONE anymore huh?

Absolutely peak dynamic is bad ending timeline Darius takes an early interest in hunter and is super protective of him. When hunter is little Darius teaches him how to sew, but it starts with him teaching Hunter to do his own stitches because jasper hit him so hard he got a cut that needed them and hunter isn't allowed to get magical healing. And Darius is just furious at jasper... How could he do that? How could he hurt a little kid this badly? He really has changed, huh?

Meanwhile jasper sees this. He can't show an ounce of kindness to hunter or he risks his life because he CANNOT have Belos start to doubt his conviction or loyalty.

But... By being so harsh to hunter... He drives him further toward Darius, who is more and more driven to show him kindness and take care of him. In a weird way the harder jasper pushes hunter, the more hunter actually gets to feel loved because Darius makes more and more of an effort.

Just. What a horrific situation again to be in. What a fucking endless nightmare.

I think in this hunter is not the golden guard yet. He doesn't need to be because jasper is here. When hunter is Ready he's going to replace jasper. Maybe at eighteen? I've always written him as being sworn in at thirteen, but there WAS no GG at the time. If there WAS one, he can spend more time training and get his position at like. Older. Maybe he would have a new title of some kind for his apprentice type position. Lilith had a cool white raven mask! Maybe he's like... The Silver Scout. Not gold yet. Something along those lines you know.

GOD okay imagine... In this worst ending timeline when Hunter runs away after hollow mind, jasper is desperately trying to capture him and bring him back so he can beg Belos for his life... Meanwhile Darius goes full rebel and HE grabs hunter first because hunter! Goes to him! For help!

And now Darius and jasper are fucking ENEMIES fighting over hunter. And jasper is THE BAD GUY...

[ilikeyoshi]

all right. since i can't see my general care doctor until mid february (or a gastro doctor for 6+ months), i'm asking here. what crops up suddenly during/after a stomach flu/antibiotics, only reacts badly to milk-heavy products, but doesn't behave very much like lactose intolerance. and more specifically what can i do about it. (tmi under cut)

i've been having on-off episodes of vomiting and diarrhea for a month now. milk and ice cream are confirmed triggers. i had NO lactose issues 30 days ago, until i caught a stomach bug (theorizing) and then had complications from an antibiotic (also theorizing). furthermore, the symptoms, specifically they're timing and what relieves them, are not very consistent with textbook lactose intolerance (secondary OR primary).

notes on symptoms:

stomach cramps begin ANYWHERE from 4 hours to 2 DAYS after eating milk heavy products, followed a couple hours later by diarrhea and, a couple more hours after that, sudden, nausealess vomiting. symptoms subside after vomiting. the entire ordeal takes 4-8 hours from when cramps start to all symptoms subsiding. (for reference, lactose intolerance usually sees symptoms starting 30 minutes to 2 hours after eating milk products, and usually DOESN'T include vomiting at all, let alone as the thing that finally relieves symptoms.)

anti-nausea medication DELAYS vomiting, but DOES NOT stop it from happening. furthermore, all other symptoms (most significantly, pain) persist through the delay. i have been forgoing any anti-nausea meds because it only prolongs the pain and i still ultimately vomit.

i'm going to start lactase enzyme supplements in the form of drops and tablets on sunday. i'm trying to cold turkey remove milk and ice cream since they're confirmed triggers, but it's very difficult, especially because water has a texture my autistic brain HATES no matter how i flavor it, so drinking it enough to stay hydrated is basically impossible. i've tried EVERYTHING to make water work, i CANNOT drink it consistently enough to stay hydrated, i really don't want advice for THAT right now. just this stomach problem.

if you have any ideas, whether things i can try now or things to talk to my general care doctor about, please leave a reply! reblogs are also appreciated in case you have followers that might be able to help. thanks! 💖

[silvershayde]

Sharing cus tbh I feel lonely rn and I'm very confused? Feeling s bit uninspired

So today (last day of classes before mid term break) I had an eye appointment and they said my eyes produce less tears, Haven't read up on it but they also mentioned technology and how it causes headaches

I'm almost done with school so I actually have soooooooo much free time sans the studying I gotta do, but I also wanne reduce my technology usage cus I have a crippling dependency ever since I had to revise my other hobbies to not get out of track with classes, but just thinking of picking up those hobbies again feels daunting and like, I won't be able to feel the love I had for them which makes me sad :(

I already crochet and have books to draw in, but writing for fic has always been online cus it's just easier to save and preserve my writing that way (plus more secure in my case) than to write ideas in a book and run the risk of them getting lost. But I really wanna cut down tech usage so instead of just writing out the plot in full I'll use paper and pen to write out the outline of my story plots and then make notes of the misadventures or side quests the characters go through and the characteristics of the characters

Honestly, I'm talking about this to someone else cus I kinda want an alternative perspective? I realised that school has made me so dependent on someone telling me what to do and I hate it, so I wanna try and practice independence more, especially planning how I wanna do my hobbies

okay, so as someone who has written stories both online and physically in a book, i was more productive writing it down on paper. sadly i did lose the book, but that was more because i did move around quite a bit when i was younger and it was hectic and not because of negligence on my part (then again i am also known for losing things but usually i eventually find them. and i actually don't know if i would read it back or not i was like 12 when i wrote it lolol)

I don't know too much about less tears can do to your eyes other than your more prone to have irritation and straight up scratches on the eyeball (i know this because my optician told me i had this but then didn't tell me what to do about it - still haven't done anything about it but i know eyedrops help)

honestly do what you truly think is best for you. if you're struggling with what to choose i suggest doing a pros and cons list and put em side by side. that's what i do when i'm truly indecisive and other's opinions don't really help. but! i will say that even if indecisive and asking others opinions, usually you lowkey know deep down what you wanna do and all it takes is someone else's thought process to know if you would fully go for it.

if you wanna cut down tech usage, instead of going cold turkey and making it harder for yourself, use night shift/night light (or whatever is your device/phone's equivalent) so you can reduce blue light at night. I know that androids have this black and white thing that gets enabled at a time for you. ALSO!! i cannot stress this, disable notifications. You'd be surprised about how much less you'd go on apps and stuff when notifs be off. But this is all the stuff that's worked for me personally, you can try these out to see if they work.

eye strain is a very real thing. technology/screens/whatever are usually what causes this and even looking away from a screen and doing something else can make it worse if it gets that bad. when you start to get that annoying thing at the back of your eyes or you feel a light ache around your eyes, know your slowly starting to experience eye strain and you need to relax them. having dry eyes i think make it worse because of the scratching/irritation it can cause and because if your eyes are dry enough, your ability to BLINK would start to get affected. and that's just a long day

about your other hobbies, i get it feeling daunting if you havent dabbled in a while, i feel it whenever i get back to drawing after a long while. all i can say to that is slowly ease yourself back into doing it. start small, because if you go in acting as if there has been no time between the last time you've participated in your hobbies, you could start being overly harsh on yourself if it isn't going as smooth as you wanted. but trying it out, is better than not at all. and it'd help reduce screen time

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 23: Turkey and Hooch

Summary: Gene’s hands shake more than before as he passes the picture back to her. He doesn’t look at her. “She just . . . looked familiar, somehow.” A/N: Sorry for missing last week's update! I was on vacation and so busy hiking in the middle of nowhere that I didn't have much of a chance to work on this. There are so many details in this chapter that I want to point out, but at the risk of spoiling things, I'll add them to the author's note for the next chapter instead. (But if you're impatient like me, you can find them in the endnotes for this chapter on AO3) 😊 Warnings: language, death, grief, mentions of war, injury Taglist: @lady-cheeky @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @lieutenant-speirs @ithinkabouttzu @mrs-murder-daddy @hxad-ovxr-hxart

Belgium, 1944

Like wildfire, the news spreads through the company – they’ve found a woman disguising herself as a paratrooper!

Zenie drops her spoon in the middle of the chow line. It’s just hit the snow when Bill ducks down to pick it up, pressing it into her hands like nothing happened. No one seems to notice.

“No shit?!” Skip cocks an eyebrow, a look that makes him appear half surprised and half skeptical.

“It’s what I heard,” Lieutenant Compton is saying. “The American soldiers who captured her said they never would have known if they hadn’t made her take off her helmet. That’s when they saw her braids.”

“God-damn! Did the Krauts know she was a girl?”

Compton shrugs. “I don’t know. And I don’t think they kept any of them around long enough to find out.”

“Well shit. I mean, that’s really something.”

Bill’s posture loosens. They’re not talking about her – just someone like her. Someone who has been caught just as easily as she could be. Any thoughts of wandering to the OP to find Shifty vanish from her mind. What if she takes a wrong turn like Babe did and ends up in a German foxhole? Hinkle wouldn’t be so kind to her.

Luckily, even in the snow-covered forest, Shifty’s powers of navigation cannot be thrown off. No one has ever doubted his abilities as an outdoorsman, but it’s still a nice surprise when he drops down into Zenie’s foxhole that evening.

He smiles, the warm air from his mouth creating a puff off steam against the cold that perpetually hangs around them. “Siyo.”

“Siyo,” Zenie echoes.

The joy she feels at seeing him is not reflected on Shifty’s face. All the worry in the world settles into the crease on his forehead as his brows scrunch together. He taps her sling.

“You really were hit.”

“Just some shrapnel.”

“Just?” The corners of his mouth twitch despite himself. “You act like you didn’t feel a thing.”

Try as she might, Zenie will never be able to forget the pain and the heat zipping through her arm as the shrapnel cut into her, or the discomfort as Gene and Renée dug it out of her flesh. Her friends’ sentiments keep echoing in her mind, though: it could have been worse. So, yes – just.

With no one around, Shifty leans closer to her, his shoulder pressing up against her uninjured one. “Sorry I didn’t make it here sooner. Shames kept sendin’ me out to scout. I couldn’t say no, bad as I wanted to.”

“You can’t ignore orders,” Zenie agrees. Shifty hums, frowning as he stares at her sling. She nudges his ribs with her elbow. “You’re a good soldier, Shifty.”

“I should have just come. Especially when I heard they found a woman . . .”

“Not me, though.” Somehow, the situation pulls a breathy laugh from her throat. God, what are the odds? She gets hit and keeps her secret intact, but a German girl gets found out just because she got captured when she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Could have been worse. What was it Renée said? That someone was watching out for her. Well, that just might be true. She’s made it this far. Some would classify that as some sort of miracle.

Keeping their shoulders pressed together – keeping their connection established – Shifty leans back a little so that he can study her. “Are you okay though?”

She’s alive. Even in this icy forest with its daily explosions and its lack of food, she’s still here. Sitting in a hole in the ground, sure, but at least not laying in one in the horizontal sense.

“I am now.” She doesn’t bother hiding her smile. “I think I’d be more okay if you stayed here.”

“Am I stealing Bill’s spot?”

“He won’t be mad. Especially now that he knows.”

Shifty’s eyes go wide. “Bill knows?” Other questions remain unspoken: does that mean that everyone in the company will know within the next few hours?

“I trust him,” Zenie assures him. The Italian’s words from their earlier conversation echo in her mind. She repeats them, for Shifty’s sake. “We’re going to be fine.”

Bastogne is changing them.

Babe is not the same when he comes back from his patrol. Julian’s death weighs heavy on him in a way that feels similar to the way Bill’s grief clung to him after his brother’s death. He’s quieter. Silence does not suit him. Often the only sound he makes is the harsh, rattling cough that settled into his chest soon after they arrived here. A shame – he has a face that was meant to be happy and a voice that was meant to tell jokes and to laugh.

Zenie recognizes the hollow expression on his face all too well. It’s the same one that stared back at her in the mirror for so long after Granny died. She slides Babe her extra cigarettes and hopes that he understands what she’s trying to say by giving them to him. I’m sorry, I know it hurts, I’m here with you.

Gene is constantly on the move, running from foxhole to foxhole trying to fix everything. Several people have started whispering that he’s going crazy. There’s never a day when he doesn’t drop into her foxhole to ask how Zenie is doing or to check her arm. Besides the snow and the miserable temperatures, it’s the one constant thing that she can count on each day. Although he seems . . . distant, now. They were never close before, but he doesn’t stick as closely to her as he did before Bill knew her secret.

Zenie, too, feels different. The old sense of urgency returns. The same one that haunted her back in her room as a teenager, then the one that caused she and all her friends to live fast and reckless before and after D-Day.

Whenever Shifty isn’t all the way out at the OP, he’s sharing a foxhole with Zenie. And whenever they’re sharing a foxhole, she presses up against him, relishing the short time that they spend together. As cold as it is, no one can say anything about her leaning into his side or his arm around her. Anything to stay warm in this place – if anyone notices, no one gives them a second glance, because they’re all doing the same.

Pressed against each other in their foxhole, they peep over the rim, exchanging worried looks with men doing the same from their foxholes nearby. Today it’s not the cold that’s set them all on edge, but an unexpected foe – thirst.

“Jesus Christ, he’s actually gonna do it,” someone says as Babe lifts himself from his foxhole. He crouches low, glances up at the sky above them, looks around at all the faces peering out at him from the frozen earth, then takes off like a shot.

Zenie holds her breath, listening, just like Shifty taught her to all that time ago back in the woods of Clinchco. The second she hears the humming of a plane engine, she’ll shout a warning to Babe. After all, that’s what had taken the kid from I Company the day before. He had attempted the same mad dash to the little frozen creek nearby, only to get hit by strafing from an American plane flying overhead. All for some water.

His body is still there. Stiff, motionless, and frozen to the ground. Babe lifts the corpse’s hand and pries the handle of a jerry can from its fingers. He glances up at the sky again before slamming the bottom of the can into the film of ice that covers the creek. Zenie counts the seconds as he plunges the can into the water, holding it down as it fills up with water.

Finally, the deed is done. Still crouched low to the ground, Babe begins the two-hundred-yard dash back. A few feet away he pushes himself sideways, sliding over the icy ground and landing beside Bill in a foxhole, like a baseball player sliding onto home plate – safe!

A collective exhale is released from those watching. After a moment’s pause to make sure they’re still in the clear, Bill and Babe climb out of their foxhole, motioning for everyone to follow their lead.

Men scramble from their foxholes and form a line. One at a time, Bill opens people’s canteens and holds them steady while Babe fills them with water. He hardly finishes filling them before men lift them to their lips, greedily gulping at the cold water.

At the back of the line, Zenie’s tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth as she waits. If they run out of water before she gets there, she’ll make the dash to the creek herself, she decides, injured arm be damned.

Babe squints down into the jerry can to gauge the water level as Zenie and Shifty approach.

“Goddamn it,” he hisses. Water sloshes inside the can as he shoves it under Bill’s nose. Take a look! the gesture screams in defeat.

“Je-sus Christ!” Bill turns the jerry can so that Zenie and Shifty can see for themselves.

In the darkness of the can and with the lack of light from the cloud covered sky, Zenie squints, trying to make out what her friends are looking at. Bill gives the can a slight shake, and that’s when she sees it.

Despite the dryness in her throat, Zenie swallows thickly. “Is that - ?”

Shifty curses under his breath when he realizes what he’s seeing. There, in the bottom of the can, are floating chunks of something spongy looking. Zenie has never seen anything like it before, but it doesn’t exactly take a genius to deduce that it’s pieces of human brain. Specifically, those of the dead man from I Company.

Babe grimaces. “What do we do?”

For a moment, Bill hesitates – something that he seldom does. He sighs through his nose. “We gotta drink somethin’ if we don’t wanna die.”

“Hey!” Babe calls to the men who have already received their water. “Use your water purification pills. Now!”

Without letting the Philadelphians fill her canteen, Zenie screws the lid back on and walks back to her foxhole. She would rather take her chances with dehydration than drink water with brains in it, thank you very much. Bill and Gene will just have to try to understand this time.

Lots of things feel very big at sixteen. Any misfortune or slight can feel earthshattering enough to end it all. Now at twenty-one, with the distance of time and an ocean between that stupid Christmas party, Zenie realizes that 1939 was not the worst Christmas of her life. Sixteen-year-old Zenie had been wrong; she had no idea how much worse it could get. Especially because, if the rumors are to be believed, the generals are out there somewhere enjoying a dinner of, in Colonel Sink’s words, “turkey and hooch” in the lovely company of such bright shining stars as Marlene Dietrich . . . and Rebecca Sadowski.

But – at least this time she’s not quite so alone. In the cold of the foxholes, Shifty is pressed up against her right side and Gene is on her left. Somewhere across the snow, German voices ring out in familiar melody. They might sound beautiful under different circumstances.

With shaking hands, Shifty tucks his pictures and letters back into his jacket. Zenie shuffles through her own one last time, wanting to look at Granny’s kind face before trying to sleep for the night.

“Who is that?” Gene asks suddenly as Zenie is about to tuck one of her photographs back into the pile.

She stops, staring down at it before tilting it so that Gene can better see it. Through the darkness settling around them, Matthew and Marilyn smile up at them from their graduation picture.

“My older brother and sister,” Zenie explains. Shivering, she hands the picture to Gene.

He holds it very close to his face, squinting. For all that he does know about Zenie, there’s also a lot that he doesn’t. Besides the fact that she’s not a man, she realizes, he really doesn’t know much about her. In fact, from what she keeps hearing Babe complain about with the nicknames, he doesn’t seem to have that level of closeness with anyone.

With a finger stiff from cold and stained from his work as a medic, he points to Marilyn. His lips part slightly but he doesn’t speak.

“Marilyn. She married the boy next-door – her teenage crush. Didn’t want to be left at home without him, so she joined the Red Cross after he joined up.”

Gene’s hands shake more than before as he passes the picture back to her. He doesn’t look at her. “She just . . . looked familiar, somehow.”

Back in Bastogne’s church, for a split second, Zenie had thought that she caught sight of her. Maybe Gene has seen her, in all his trips back and forth between here and there. She’s about to ask when she realizes that Gene has closed his eyes. His breathing is starting to even out. With his job keeping him in constant motion, she couldn’t wake him up just to ask him. Tomorrow morning. She’ll have to try to remember to ask him then.

She tucks her photographs and letters back into her jacket and leans into Shifty’s side. He slips his hand into hers, tilts his head so that it rests on top of hers. The German voices are still singing somewhere across the snow.

“Ulihelisdi danisdayohihv,” she says, adding her own language to the mix. Then, with the foolish optimism and determination of her sixteen-year-old self she thinks, When I get out of here, I’m going somewhere warm. If she can’t stop Christmases from getting worse, at least she can stop them from being cold.

[ariannasenvolant]

today i felt like coming on my blog and pouring out my feelings. so this is me doing just that: 

Changing Relationships

When I was younger, I would rearrange my room once a month or so, because I was tired of the layout and wanted something new and fresh. Because of this, I thought I was pretty good at adapting to change, since I was always changing my room. 

However, the same can not be said about my relationships with people. Relationships can grow and thrive, die, and also grow apart. All of these changes except the growing and thriving together part pains me a lot. It has brung tears to my eyes one toooo many times. 

When relationships with people in my life start changing seemingly “for the worst,” my mental health suffers immensely. I sit and think about for days. I talk to people about it. It never leaves me. I wake up and think “oh...x,y, and z, things aren’t the same anymore.” I think I struggle with accepting/embracing the changes in relationships. I am attached to what we once were. 

With my first love, I remember being really really sad to break up with him, because I knew any relationship we have afterwards would never be as good as the one we just had. This is because, when you’re with someone romantically, you just know so many intricacies about them and are able to talk with them in ways that may not always be so appropriate/easy with just friends. My ex and I remained friends for two years, until last month he told me that he didn’t feel right to be in this relationship (this friendship) with me anymore. This caught by surprise, because it’s been two years, and I don’t know the exact reason why it didn’t feel right for him. My first guess is unresolved feelings. But even though our relationship before he cut me off wasn’t as intimate as when we were together, I still valued him so much as a friend, as someone who was my first love. I feel like he realized it was time to let me go, something I struggle with doing. I cannot just cut people off. 

One of my best friends, I guess she’s former best friend now, is being distant in our friend group, i.e also us as friends individually. My friend group from middle school was strong throughout high school as well, however, once college started, things changed. We started to nourish relationships in pairs, rather than altogether. It was hard for us all to meet up at one time, which is why it’s easier to hang out with one person all the time rather than scheduling for 3. However, in the midst of the other pair (the one I wasn’t in), I felt excluded in their conversations and the bubble they had around themselves. Nonetheless, once I got over that they were just closer to each other than me, I still enjoyed being with them. Now however, this one friend I’m talking about, she’s not even as present as before with her pair. And so it’s cold turkey on my end. Every relationship requires reciprocation, and I just was not getting that with her. And it sucks, because it was never this bad. She clearly showed me that our friendship was not a priority to her anymore, and I struggle to accept it, because how could I throw away years of friendship like that? How could she? People continue to tell me that your childhood friends are your real friends cause they know the real you, and to continue to try and be her friend, to show that I’m always there for her. I would love to be a pillar of stable love for her, but I am very insecure in our relationship. She’s not showing any signs that she even want’s to be friends with me. This hurts a lot. This is an example of growing apart. My dad always would tell me “your friends will stab you in the back. your friends today are not your friends tomorrow” and she’s showing me that he’s right, when I wanted him to be wrong. to Taliea. today is your birthday, happy birthday, hope you enjoyed. to the next birthdays i won’t be celebrating with you, im sorry and i hope you continue to enjoy. I just never wanted it to be this way. But i have to accept it. 

Now, to my other best friend. a person who my soul is truly at peace with. we were toxic lovers, always on and off because the comfort we provide for each other is truly like no other. it can be the end of the world and I’d feel comfortable enough to rest in her arms, as long as it’s her arms I’m in. Our relationship is changing and I feel like we’re growing apart too. It’s a distance I think we’re both making on purpose, because we’re scared to fall back again. the signs of change hurt in transitions. delayed replies back. turning off tik tok likes so I can’t see her activity any more. the i love you thats pending in the air and the hug that can’t last for too long. we both agreed to move on, but i remember how deep we went, and i’m forced to look the other way. no matter how hard we try, i suppose we wont work out. just like my first love, lovers to friends hurts. with time of course, the heart heals and embraces, which is the period I am in now, but looking back, at what we could’ve been, hurts. i suppose there’s no use in doing that anymore. which is how im coping.

in all these changing relationships, I could only worry about myself. be grateful for the rain and sunshine and continue growing, despite who is alongside or far away from me. I can only wish we all grow tall to see each other when we reach the clouds. i have no hate in my heart and i hope every one of you bears an abundance of sweet fruit and beautiful flowers. hopefully one day i’ll be blessed to taste and smell your achievements but if not, thank you for the memories we shared. i feel like life runs in circles and cycles, and it’s never the end with these people. this is all a transitioning period in which a year or two, when we’re all in a better place, i’ll hit you back up and see how you’re growing. i suppose i don’t believe in dead relationships, we simply grow apart, as people, we are still here, living. 

[gyrovagi]

so truthfully i'm pretty sure The Scenario as i have been referring to it originated in my brain as 'okay how contrived would a situation have to be for caden trevelyan and solas to have gay sex about it.' and then it got derailed as i thought about it and the scenario does not involve anything approaching gay sex. it's literally just a weird situation that nobody enjoys that changes nothing. (shrek they dont even have dental voice) caden doesn't even convince solas to cut off his leg

i've mulled it over too much though and i'm fully writing a fic (Which has made my recent google searches look fucking crazy) so now it's a canon incident for caden and is i think... if not exactly a turning point for his relationship with solas, it's Defining. if that makes sense.

anyway what happens is at some ambiguous mid-late-game stage, maybe even right after exiling the wardens, caden makes it his next priority while corypheus is firmly on the backfoot to clear out the red templars in emprise du lion. (i know judging by levels the game wants you to go here lies the abyss -> wicked eyes and wicked hearts but caden would prioritize the politics.)

this is going great! up until right after capturing suledin keep, he fucking collapses in the middle of the stairs. turns out he's been walking around on a pretty nasty leg wound that's been infected by red lyrium. there's inquisition troops in the area and a healer among them but solas is undeniably the best healer on hand (and the only mage). so now he's in the position of - for the second time - keeping this guy alive when he can really only guess about the thing killing him. the new developments are 1) cassandra isn't threatening him with execution if caden dies, though the power vacuum if the inquisitor perished now would definitely not be pretty 2) solas and caden have barely restored what can charitably be called a 'semi-functioning working relationship' after caden punched him in the face.

(varric and cole are here also. cassandra's back at skyhold dealing with the Rammys of seeker secrets and potential divine candidacy.)

after some tense aggressively polite conversations about power and vulnerability, several cryptic comments from cole, and one episode of house md, solas finally figures out that caden quit lyrium cold turkey and hadn't told anyone except his advisors, cassandra, and the apothecary who was trying to work out something to help with his + cullen's withdrawal. it follows that lyrium withdrawal has weakened him and caused the red lyrium infection to progress as dramatically as it has. solas concludes that there are essentially two options: try to cut the infection out, which being kind of out in the middle of nowhere with limited supplies means a very real risk of losing the whole leg if not dying anyway, or (temporarily) go back on lyrium, in the hopes that with untainted lyrium back in caden's system, it will be able to counteract the effects of the red lyrium. solas has conducted a few experiments that seem to indicate this would work.

caden, being the stubborn asshole he is, goes. cut my leg off then. i'm not going back on lyrium. and solas is like in any other situation i would respect your decision, if not your reckless methodology, but this has gone past obstinance into sheer stupidity. this is no mundane ailment. red lyrium is dangerous and you are extremely vulnerable at the moment. what i am suggesting is temporary and you can wean off safely this time. if you do not do it you will die. caden replies not if you cut my leg off :) i'll do it if you don't have the stomach for it. and solas storms out of the room and angrily requests varric talk some sense into trevelyan as a friend since apparently the boy (Caden is 25.) has lost his fucking mind

varric of course is not very happy about the idea of amputation either but caden cannot be budged and there's not a lot of time to wait around for him to change his mind. solas briefly seriously debates the ethics of putting lyrium in the wine. and the pasta. ultimately he decides that this isn't justifiable, even if he doesn't care that caden would never forgive him for it, he wouldn't be able to live with it himself. what he can live with is calling caden's bluff.

so solas brings in Ye Olde Thedosian Amputation Instruments and tells caden, if you insist this is your decision, very well. but i refuse to do it. you said you'd do it yourself, so you can, and i'll make sure you don't bleed to death. caden of course meant it when he said it but that's still a whole different beast from actually Cutting Off Your Own Leg. of course he can't do it.

caden fumes silently for several minutes. solas ends up watching him limp out to retrieve his lyrium kit (which caden's kept in his things, of course, because it doesn't count if it's not an active choice he makes every day). his hands shake preparing the dose but he snaps at solas when offered help. when he finally downs it he asks simply to be left alone. there's not much we have to say to each other, i think.

within a week or so, his condition's much improved. owain shows up because he received word that a) his brother was in bad shape b) there's dragons need hunting. bull came with for dragon hunting and maybe also so he could give a direct report to the qun on whatever the hell the red lyrium situation is out here. (sidenote because i've been thinking it and i need to shoehorn it in somewhere i'm not saying owain and bull fuck but i'm not saying they wouldn't fuck.) caden decides it's probably best to minimize mage exposure to red lyrium so he suggests solas head back to skyhold and help figure out the next move against corypheus. he goes on a kind of awkward brotherly dragon hunting expedition with owain.

the whole incident is never discussed again ❤️ caden is pretty pissed remembering the whole thing when solas DOES give him an impromptu amputation. oh so if you're arguably at fault for my limb requiring amputation then you have no qualms cutting it off.

(i'm undecided between caden having successfully quit lyrium by trespasser, or if it's too evil to be like. actually once the red lyrium infection set in to that point it could never be fully cured just held back by going back on lyrium, so actually caden's options are still either take lyrium or cut your leg off or die. need to ponder the shrimplications for his character and their relationship and the themes and narratives of it all.)

well i guess the inaugural post (apart from my personal friend bluebeard's wife) gets to be this whiteboy sketch that i drew and then stared at like. this is too much. i dont know how exactly but in some way its too much

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Into The Unknown, Part 1

... I have no self-control do not perceive me

Marinette stared at the pile of bright red, yellow, and green clothes on the ground. It was all she’d done in the five-ish minutes since she’d portaled onto the scene. Just… stared.

It wasn’t like there was much else to do, anyways. Red Robin was currently beating the absolute fuck out of the person that had the audacity to disintegrate his brother right in front of him. It wasn’t like she could even fix it because the witch had been out cold before she had been able to pull Red Robin off to get a hit in so she could use her lucky charm.

So, she stared.

It was weird. She could almost feel a person inside the clothes but… maybe that was the residue or the ashes or whatever gets left behind when you zap a person out of existence? She didn’t really want to check, to be honest. Gross.

Eventually, though, she hesitantly leaned down and brushed her hand over it, trying to find the energy and get rid of it because it was really uncomfortable --.

… oh hell no that pile of clothes did not just fucking giggle at her.

She narrowed her eyes and carefully lifted up the bottom of the shirt, only to yelp and fall back. She scrabbled on the gross Gotham alley ground until her back hit Red Robin’s arm and he was forced to pause or risk hitting a meta (which would not have been good for his health).

“What?” He hissed.

She swallowed thickly. “That’s a child.”

“... what?” Red asked, all the anger bleeding from his tone in his confusion.

“We let Batman’s kid turn into a baby,” she whispered… then, it sunk in more. “We let Batman’s kid turn into a baby.”

He straightened on top of the thing that was really more bloody pulp than person at this point. “What do you mean ‘we let Batman’s kid turn into a baby’?”

But she didn’t really get a chance to answer because the baby chose that exact moment to be sick of being suffocated under all the armor and pushed it off.

Red Robin gulped. Because, yep, that was Robin as a baby. Batman was going to kill them.

Except he wasn’t going to kill them. Because Batman doesn't kill. No, Batman would find something even worse and that would suck.

The baby -- Robin? Should she still call him that mentally? -- giggled at their pain. Like an asshole.

They were so fucked.

~

He’d let B’s favorite kid get turned into a baby. Was there a way to get unadopted? Because if there was it was totally going to happen. Or maybe his dad would just cut him off because he was 19 now and could just get kicked out.

No. Nope! Not going to happen. No. He could fix this.

“Okay. Okay okay okay. We need a plan,” he heard himself saying.

Ladybug scoffed. “We? I was barely even here, this is on you.”

“Leave me alone to deal with this and I swear to god I will tell B that you did it.”

She paled. “You wouldn’t. No way.”

“Yes way. So, help me think of something.”

The baby giggled and started crawling over and both of them averted their eyes because, unfortunately, the child did not get baby clothes to go with his random transformation. Baby Damian didn't seem to care as he reached them and started climbing on Ladybug since she was closest. At least it wasn’t him. He did not want to see his adoptive brother’s… ew.

Ladybug made a gagging sound and then quickly summoned a lucky charm. She kept her face turned away as much as her neck would physically allow as she fumbled her way through swaddling the child in a polka-dotted blanket.

And then her shoulders slumped a little. “Great. Great. This is… great,” she muttered, picking up the bundle o’ baby.

He let himself look down now that it was safe.

“Alright, we need to go to another dimension where time moves faster,” Ladybug said after a few seconds. “And then we wait for him to age… fifteen-ish years. Best way to not make Batman notice.”

“... what about us? We also age.”

“Huh…? Oh. Right. You’re human.” She pulled off the glasses she was wearing and blinked a few times before handing it over. “Congrats on your upgrade. The tiny horse god is named Kaalki. She likes cake.”

“The tiny --?” He let out the world’s manliest screech as his eyes landed on the floating bug horse hybrid thing holy shit no no no no no the sci fi movies didn’t prepare him for this shit.

Kaalki looked a little offended but then her eyes landed on the baby and she gasped. “Aw, baby humans are always so cute.”

“Great, Kaalki, you take it,” said Ladybug.

Kaalki did try, to her credit. It just so happened that the approximately one-year-old baby was a lot bigger than the… whatever she was. Tim was refusing to believe that this was a god. Too many implications. He already had something to have a breakdown over, he didn’t need another thing right now, thank you very much.

Tim rested his head in his hands but he had more things to worry about than the blood that he was accidentally streaking through his hair.

“Okay. Okay. We can go to another dimension and try and raise him. Maybe we can make it have a ratio of one month here for every year there so any differences could be blamed on that.”

“Ya!” Said baby Damian. He probably didn’t actually know what was going on but he sure seemed excited so that was cool.

Ladybug sighed and nodded. “Great. You get food and money and clothes and I’ll take this lady to the cops… and I guess I’ll watch the kid until you get back because your dad cannot know.”

They shook on it.

~

This may be the dumbest idea that she’d ever had, and that was saying something. She didn’t know if she could trust Red Robin on this one, they hardly ever worked together. What if he just left her alone with this kid and let her try and figure this out on her own?

No. He wouldn’t do that. He was the last person known to be with Robin. Robin going missing would be bad for him, too. And, besides, she was pretty sure that he was a duty-driven person based on what she’d heard, she just had to hope that he saw this as his duty, too.

She turned the baby in her arms to get more comfortable as she waited for him to (hopefully) come back.

Part of her wanted to try and find someone from this world to reverse this but she didn’t know any outside of her, Adrien, Alix, and (now) Red Robin. Not on a personal level. Not enough that she knew for sure that they wouldn’t blab to Batman about it.

So, no, this is what she was doing.

But she had things to do. So, she pulled out her yoyo-phone-hybrid-thingy and wedged it against her ear.

“Chaton,” she said the moment he picked up. “You’re alone, right?”

“Uh… yeah?”

“Great. I, Ladybug, relinquish the Miracle Box and name Chat Noir the new guardian.”

“WHAT --?!” He didn’t get to finish as a box dropped on his lap and knocked the wind out of him.

“Just for, like, a year and a half. Sorry. Bye!”

“DON’T JUST ‘BYE’ ME WHAT THE --?!”

She hung up and closed the yoyo, hooking it back to her belt and ignoring it when it started buzzing again.

She looked down at Robin, who was squinting up at her. She returned the squint. Why was this baby so quiet? She didn’t get it. Surely, he should have been crying at this point.

“Do you still… remember things?” She asked, hoping against all hope that maybe he had retained his memories at the very least.

Robin smiled at her, but it was the blank-eyed baby smile that meant he wasn’t really understanding her. She bit down a curse.

Great. So, she’d not only gotten a baby but she’d gotten a fucking weird one. Great.

~

Tim left a note for his family saying that he, Damian, and Ladybug were bored and were going dimension hopping. His family would probably be suspicious but, hey, at least it wouldn’t be his problem for a good fifteen years on his end.

And, yeah, he knew this was probably one of his dumber plans but… it wasn’t the dumbest. And he was always one to commit when it came down to it. One time he had faked being shot and dealt with crutches for an entire year just to convince Vicki Vale that he wasn’t Red Robin. He had no fears that he couldn’t see this through.

Ladybug, though? A total mystery. She did nearly everything on a whim as far as he knew. She hopped from city to city fighting crime for absolutely no reason outside of boredom and made up all of her plans on the fly. No, he was a bit concerned about her ability to keep doing it.

So, he went as quickly as he possibly could. There was no rhyme or reason to what he was grabbing. He was just… putting stuff in there. There was money and three watches to help them move between dimensions, yes, but there was also a fanta orange and a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and exactly seven pairs of socks.

… yeah, he had the necessities. Probably.

He nearly got out the door before he realized he was still in his crime-fighting gear and he quickly shucked it all off and tossed it into the tub so the blood wouldn’t track any more than it already had. He did not need to avoid Batman’s wrath only to end up on the receiving end of Alfred’s.

He pulled on the first hoodie and jeans he could grab and looked around to make sure he hadn’t left anything of importance.

Okay. Now he was ready to go.

~

Marinette was awkwardly bouncing the baby when Red Robin finally showed up.

… not that she would have recognized him if she hadn’t felt Kaalki hovering in his pocket. In her eyes, he was just a random white guy wearing shades in the middle of the night.

She glanced up at him and gave him an awkward smile.

“Ready?”

He smiled back and held out two watches. Neither fit baby Robin so she prepared herself to choke out a literal baby holy fuck what even was her life.

“Which dimension should we go to?”

“Preferably one without miraculi,” Marinette said. “I don’t want to know what happens if there’s two of the same god in a dimension.”

He nodded slowly. “Probably best if Batman doesn’t exist, either, he’d probably notice my existence.”

“... so… no heroes at all?”

“Looks like we’re going cold turkey,” Red Robin said in a tone that was probably supposed to be joking but just came out flat.

She pushed herself to her feet and waited as he scrolled through the millions of dimensions.

Finally, he came upon one and she added the coordinates to her and Robin’s watches.

She readied Robin’s watch against his neck and tried to ignore the kid’s sudden squirminess.

“3… 2… 1…”

They were gone in a whirl of blue light.

~~~~~

Next

@nathleigh @peachmuses

[screamingay]

time to make some changes

watched bo burnham vs jeff bezos again and obviously i'm even more tempted to delete everything but ultimately what i really want to do right now is set some serious limits on my relationship with the internet and my phone like cj suggested at the end of that video. limit my notifications, seek out longform discussions over memes and humor, maybe even turn my phone off one day a week like ben shapiro idk.

for me, an attempt to completely remove my soul from social media would feel like trying to remove a chain link fence from the middle of a tree that grew straight through it, in the sense that it's nearly impossible but so worth the effort.

i know how young i am and i know that there's so much potential joy and fulfillment around me if only i could meaningfully engage in it. there are local communities who see value in me that i would likely see for myself if i could allow my mind to. but i feel poisoned by irony! and performance! the audience lives inside me and i know the only way to silence them is to start living my life with intent and with physical presence, which i cannot achieve online, as much as corporations would like me to believe.

so, what? what comes next? hopefully, life. with hope, i can cut myself free of the chain link fence and grow beyond it. even though i will carry a piece of it deep inside me as long as i live.

this is, by the way, an attempt at true unironic thought and feeling that i have been avoiding, ironically, for the seven years i've had this blog. feels a bit strange to do actual blogging on it.

point is, i'm not saying any of this for an audience, despite the fact that i know it will reach one (no further than my own followers, though, if it can be helped). i have a real paper journal that i write in regularly, but this subject simply begs to be posted. after all, it's not like i'm going to throw my phone in a lake and go cold turkey on social media. i have friends online, i have communities online, and they're just as important to me as the ones i see regularly in my hometown.

all i'm saying, essentially, is that i want to regulate my relationship with online spaces by posting more in this format, long and unironic and personal. and by writing it in posts rather than on paper i hope to think about and interact with the internet in a more nuanced way in an attempt to be more present in my own life, while possibly inspiring others to do the same in their own ways.

if it isn't clear by now, i'd prefer this to not be reblogged, although i can't ensure that since i don't have the update that would allow me to disable it. unless, of course, you want to talk about this more! i'll also tag any other longform blog posts like this for easy finding later.

[starfull-m]

I Don’t Think There’s Ever Been A More Beautiful Love Letter Than “The Beatrice Letters”

Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope.

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock. I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it. I will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear daggerproof tunics, and as a daggerproof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt form the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love you until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

[sweeethinny]

Skin

Harry wanted to be able to show Ginny, through his eyes, how beautiful she is, and how all this insecurity with her body after giving birth to James is not necessary.

Since he cannot do this, he tries in other ways.

this fic is part of The Harry and Ginuary Extravanganza :) I'm sorry for any mistake

* all of this was written while I was listening to Mac Miller album The Divine Feminine, if anyone wants to get in the mood :)

read bellow the cut or in AO3 :)

Harry had been away from home for almost a month, which seemed more like a painful and torturous eternity than anything else. He missed Ginny and little James, it was much worse than the whole situation that he, Ron, and Theo got into, camping close to a pack of werewolves, and chasing a killer who seemed almost as good at hiding which even made them doubt their abilities as Aurors.

Harry was tired, with some bruises, hungry, missing his son who had not even turned a year yet and probably had grown a lot, and his wife. Harry wanted more than ever to hug Ginny and feel her against him.

He also really wanted to take a decent shower and lie on a bed that wasn’t a camp mattress, because Harry was no longer so young to be able to sleep in a bed like that.

It was worth it, he told himself when he could finally apparate to his home, in peace that he could be with his family again, Robards is looking to retire, he will end up choosing me . Harry didn't quite believe it, but Ginny repeated it a lot every time he complained about the boss; 'One day you will be the boss and you will not need to work like that.'

It was what he expected.

Since he had been a father, Harry was always trying to escape these suicide missions, but he was not always able, and he just hoped that when he was promoted, he would be able to spend more time at home. He never wanted so much to work with the Auror bureaucracy and leave the field.

He still enjoyed the excitement, the chase, the adrenaline, but he was no longer willing to risk his life so much.

In addition to Ginny, there was now someone else who encouraged him, even more, to return home alive.

When Harry opened the door, the smell of home entered his nostrils, a smell he never really stopped to notice, but after a month away, he managed to recognize it.

The hallway light on the second floor was on, probably for James to wake up. Harry took off his boots, cloak, and most of his clothes, and walked around the house, smiling for the first time in a month, seeing James's toys on the living room floor, and some scattered around the dining room, and a divine smell from the room that looked like a turkey, came from the kitchen. Hoping that Ginny was already asleep, as well as James since it was past one in the morning, Harry stopped for a snack.

He didn't even bother to heat the food, eating as if he hadn't seen food for more than days, devouring the deliciously seasoned turkey leg, and alternating with the remaining farofa and baked potatoes. It was a little rude and disgusting, he knew, but Harry felt his stomach echo with hunger, forcing him to forget the etiquette.

After less than ten minutes, he was fed, tiptoeing up to the second floor, James's bedroom door was open, as usual, and Harry couldn't help wanting to see his son and entered the room, taking be careful not to wake him up, seeing him resting deeply in bed, wearing adorable dinosaur pajamas, which put him on completely and prevented him from being cold at night. He looked bigger, Harry noticed, and with more hair, he wanted to hold his son in his arms, hug him but was content to just kiss his slightly sweaty forehead. Harry checked that the window was locked, closed the curtains tightly, covered his son, and left the room.

A part of him was satisfied, James was safe, well, and tomorrow would probably jump on Harry as soon as he realized his father was back. James always went to their bed in the morning, just asked to sleep with them and slept for a few more hours, but whenever Harry spent a few days outside, the next morning when the little one realized that his father was back, it was as if sleep disappeared.

After a month away from James' warm hugs during the mornings when they slept together, Harry was not complaining.

But he was not yet complete, not when he had not yet seen Ginny.

She was probably asleep, he thought, it was late and the days must have been tiring now that she was back to training, and without him at home to help with James, things should have been going smoothly. But the light in their room was on, which Harry found strange.

Still trying not to make any noise, because maybe she just fell asleep without even realizing it, Harry approached, opening the door a little more and sticking his head into their room, looking around.

Harry had already seen Ginny in many ways, they had a son together, however, he was not prepared for that.

She was standing in front of her dressing table, evaluating herself in front of the mirror on the wall, taking small turns to try to see her back, and then turning and facing the mirror. Ginny did not seem to feel the cold that Harry was feeling, since she wore one of the smallest lingerie he had ever seen, still seeming to assess whether the piece was beautiful or not.

The light blue lace made her look even more beautiful, contrasting with the freckles that spread over her skin and the light tan she was getting now that she was back in training. The bra barely hid her nipples, temptingly drawing her breasts, and not having the same common cut as the others she wore, and instead, this one had a few more buttons and went down to the beginning of her ribs, already in translucent fabric. The lace itself was only on the straps and the front of the breasts, descending in a V to the middle of the other fabric, something that made it look even more beautiful.

Ginny kept her hands in front of her belly, the same way she did a month ago when they were going to have sex, or she ended up undressing next to him, and automatically hid her belly. Harry would always comment that she didn't need to hide from him, but Ginny insisted that she still didn't feel safe with her body.

‘Pregnancy changed me,’ She always said. 'You don't know what it's like to see your body change dramatically in a matter of months... Now I have stretch marks where I never thought I would.'

Harry thought it was silly, Ginny was beautiful anyway, and he was still a fool in love, with or without stretch marks.

The panties also had that translucent fabric with a light blue background, it was one of those that had a high waistband and that he knew Ginny preferred to wear recently, but this one he could still see her belly, and the lace only appeared again from the front, covering only what was necessary, while at the back, it was just a small piece of the other fabric, not making much of a point of hiding anything from it, which made Harry salivate.

His imagination would never live up to the perfection that she was, how beautiful her ass made him a little too obsessed, or how her breasts had also changed after pregnancy, and all of James's breastfeeding.

'Hmmm… maybe?' He heard her murmur to the reflection, again turning around in a way that she could still look at her back, running her hands behind her thighs as if she wanted to lift her ass a little further. What Harry thought was unnecessary.

'I thought it was more than perfect.' He finally manifested himself, leaning on the doorframe and feeling his erection grow and cause that pressure against his pants.

Ginny jumped up and pulled her robe in front of her, startled and looking at him with wide eyes, pink cheeks and looking like she had managed to hold back the scream in time. ‘Harry!’

'Yea, it's me.’ He smiled.

'Harry .' Ginny finally seemed to realize it was him there, after a month, and dropped the robe back, running towards him and throwing herself at him in much the same way as the sunny days of 1996, but this time, he picked her up and kissed her with much more hunger and passion than he did at the age of 16, carefully closing the door behind them and taking her to bed, numb with longing and lust.

It was so good to kiss her again, to get lost in the warmth and softness of her lips, her small, slightly callused hands touching him as if to make sure it was him there, going from hair to shoulders, to cheeks, chest. It was as if she also checked that he was okay, whole, without any damage.

'I missed you so much,' he murmured between her kiss, falling on the bed with Ginny on top of him, his hands roaming everywhere he reached, feeling entirely at peace.

'I thought it would take you longer.' She cried, holding his face in her hands and parting their lips so they could look at each other. The brown eyes that Harry thought about daily were staring at him as if they hadn't seen him in years, shining on the sides as if Ginny tried to hold on to her emotions, struggling to hold herself in front of him.

Harry recognized the effort, but he didn't think it was necessary. It was just the two of them there, Ginny didn't have to hide.

He ran his thumb over her cheek, wiping away the one tear that ran. 'I was so scared,' she whispered, like a secret she had been keeping for days.

'Me too,' Harry admitted, failing to divert his attention from her caramel eyes. 'I just wanted to go back to home and be with you.'

'James missed you, he wasn't so happy and today was the first day he agreed to sleep in his bed.' Ginny smiled and lifted her shoulders, her cheeks turning slightly pink. 'Maybe he knew that Daddy would be back.'

'I'm glad he predicted that I would come back,' Harry let his eyes roam over her body, and now more closely he was able to see how the bra fabric barely made an effort to cover her skin. It was too much of a temptation to bear, and Harry barely contained himself before touching them, feeling heaviness in his hands and the heat radiating through the lace, making his stomach drop and his mouth water. Harry had missed it so much.

'You liked it? I went out with the girls after a workout, and Genevieve made me buy it, but I still don't know if it looked good.' Ginny said, her voice a little shaky as if she were that 11-year-old girl who couldn't look at him without blushing, which made him look up from those breasts he was in love with, and look at her. Ginny was really blushing, the red that covered her cheeks was also running down her neck and bust. ‘The bra doesn’t have much support and I don’t know if it looked so beautiful, I mean, it’s a beautiful piece, but I don’t think it looked beautiful on me .’

'Ginny,' Harry interrupted, holding her chin, forcing her to look at him, the other hand coming down her side and holding her in place, already sensing that she was trying to extricate herself from him. ‘You look hot,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling like a teenager, about to come in my pants.’

She laughed, that laugh he loved to hear. 'I would be really upset if even after all this time it was still happening.'

'I have learned to hold on,' He smiled, still caressing her cheek, smiling lovingly at Ginny. 'You and beautiful. In all moments.'

'Even when I was all sweaty, giving birth to James?' Ginny asked, laughing sheepishly as she laced her fingers through his, her auburn hair falling like lava on either side of her face.

'Of course.' Harry didn't take his eyes off hers, wanting her to understand that he was being more than real there. He wanted her to be seen through his eyes, and then she would understand how beautiful she is. 'I think I came to love you even more, if that is possible, that day.'

'Awn Harry, don't be so dramatic, you spend only a month away and when you come back you are declaring yourself as a passionate poet.' She laughed, but he did not fail to notice how Ginny's cheeks got even more flushed and she turned her attention to the wall behind the headboard, as if she tried not to let him realize that it affected her.

'I really missed you, that's why.' Harry shrugged, caressing her cheek and bringing her amber eyes back down to his, laying her head against his hand. 'I hate to be away from you for a long time... my romantic mind comes up and I have a lot of time to think about how to declare myself to you.'

'I hate it too when you stay away,' Ginny smiled, allowing him to see her without all those walls she put up for protection.

'Did something happen while I was gone?' He stared at her, noticing how her shoulders tensed and then relaxed when Ginny sighed and lay on his chest, hugging him as she could, as she usually liked to do during the cold nights.

'Nothing too urgent...'

'Ginny…' Harry whispered, running his hands down her back, feeling the skin prickle.

'Rita made a very pertinent comment about me.' Harry felt her tense under his arms again, and kept silent waiting for Ginny to continue talking. Somehow they got a picture of me training only in a crop top, and apparently I should wear t-shirts like the other girls... something to do with my belly and stretch marks.. ' She sighed.

Harry wanted to go to the Prophet and shout some truths that had been stuck for years, in Rita's face. But he just preferred to tighten his grip around Ginny, and kiss the top of her head.

'You look beautiful in any outfit.' He said, trying to be as clear as possible. 'Rita and everyone else are just assholes who are too self-centered to look at their navel for a minute... You are the hottest woman, Ginny, and I don't say that just because we are married.'

'My body has changed a lot in the last year.' She lifted her face, resting her chin on his chest and looking at him, her brown eyes flashed. 'I don't think I'll ever have that body again and-'

'-And you are still beautiful.' The two faced each other. 'You gave birth to a child, Gin, this is incredible. Your body being able to do that is incredible. I will never get tired of saying that. ’Harry smiled. 'I wanted you to see yourself through my eyes, and see how beautiful you are, even with all those things that you insist on saying are defects and that you hate them.'

'Don't make me cry,' She sat on his lap again, fanning her eyes and looking up at the ceiling, her cheeks flushed and a lovely smile on her face, Harry couldn't help but laugh too, feeling incredibly lighter than hours ago, as if now all that tension had been reduced to dust and there was only peace left in his chest.

'About this lingerie... do you have any plans, or are you just experimenting...?' He went back to browsing Ginny's sculptural body, almost drooling over how her breasts looked in that piece, and the transparency of her panties, which ended up exactly where it started getting more interesting. Harry groaned when she moved and stood on top of his cock, closing his eyes with the sensation of the gods it caused.

'I would surprise you when you came back, I thought it would take another week, then I would buy some candles, and cut my hair... But you ruined my plans.' Ginny smiled, biting her bottom lip as if she knew it was driving him crazy. ‘I believe you want to take a shower?’

'I might want some company,' Harry said, holding Ginny firmly in his lap, getting up from the bed and listening to her scream in fright as he walked to the bathroom in their suite, no longer feeling the fatigue from before. 'You know how needy I am after returning from missions.’

'It's a valid request.' Ginny hugged his neck, hands clinging to his hair, as if he were the life jacket that prevented her from sinking. He felt that way about her too. 'I missed having someone in the bath with me… Someone who doesn't want to mess up the bathroom with water and foam.' Harry laughed, placing her sitting on the white marble countertop, watching her body shiver as she made contact with the cold stone, waving with the wand for the hot water to start filling the bathtub.

'I might want to make a bit of a mess,' he said, approaching and feeling her warm breath against his face, before Harry narrowed the distance and kissed her, hungry but still keeping control, leaving his hands on her thighs, keeping them far enough away for him to stay in the middle.

'I like this mess,' Ginny whispered, her eyes closed and her forehead against his, breathing hard, the sound of water being the only one to fill the room. 'I am happy that you came back. I missed you a lot.’

Harry nodded, closing his eyes to make sure it wasn't just a dream, opening them again then just to see Ginny there. 'I felt it too. I am miserable without you.’

[...]

Harry woke up much later with small hands pulling the blanket off them, and the unfortunate murmurs of a child who tried his best to climb up on the bed. He sighed, feeling happy to get back to that routine, but he didn't move, wanting James to find out for himself that Harry had come back. It was a good time.

One more sigh from a boy who seemed very irritated by his young age, and then he finally succeeded, almost removing all the cover from Ginny, crawling up a little sleepily, still holding that light yellow cloth he always carried, and scratching his eyes.

The sun hadn't even risen, leaving the room in that gloom of the few hours before finally dawn, but Harry could see when James opened his brown eyes and threw himself on top of him.

‘Daddy!’ James shouted, hugging his father as he managed, cold hands making the man shiver.

'Hi my love,' Harry murmured, happy, tired, and a little too sentimental, feeling his eyes prickle. 'Speak low, it is still very early and mummy is sleeping.' He put James under the covers, stroking his son's slightly sweaty head, kissing the boy's forehead. 'We are going to sleep some more, okay? The sun hasn't even appeared yet.’

'Daddy…' James murmured, and Harry waited to see what meaningless phrase his son would try to murmur now, but the boy just kept his icy hands touching his father's face, as if to make sure he was really there.

He could not wait to be able to do fewer and fewer missions that required him to stay away from home for a long time.

'Sleep honey, daddy is here,' Harry assured him, snuggling the boy into his embrace, feeling finally complete, watching Ginny turn towards them, sleeping soundly, and then James, who was preparing for it, little hands clutched the shirt that Harry was wearing, as if it were his cloth.

Harry felt like the happiest man in the world.

[inqilabi]

Hey I’m wondering if you have any advice on how to detach from a man who’s been sexually abusing me for awhile.. won’t get into detail about the sex. But I’m obsessed with him, and on days that I don’t see him I feel worthless and sad. When I’m with him, we have sex and watch movies and tv.. sometimes he feeds me. I do chores for him, but recently I brought up my feelings to him again after almost 2 years of seeing each other and he says that maybe when I drop the weight he can see us together. But for now he cannot reciprocate my feelings. It hurts so bad, and I haven’t been able to lose weight no matter how hard I try. Ive had less energy to exercise or cook for myself. I’m just depressed. When I don’t see him, I’m not social.. I’m alone and binge eating seems to be my friend. Of course he still calls me every couple of days to come spend the night for sex. It hurts that I let myself get used this way. I just don’t know what to do. When I try not to contact him, I always give in as soon as he reaches out to me. Therapist doesn’t understand… I just would love some of your advice. I’m hurting so badly and crying as I write this

I'm so sorry love, idk if I have good advice so anyone else can feel free to reblog or add in comments.

Your therapist seems useless btw I think you should change to a therapist who specializes in abuse victims and tell them that your goal is to sever from this relationship & ask them to help you achieve this. They should have habit forming things they make you do.

I would normally say cut contact with the man cold turkey, but only you know if you can do that or not. I feel like you are very self-aware so you have a good chance at making this work. You'd have to tell the guy you're done. Then it would require follow through on your end of two types:

1) you don't initiate contact no matter what. Doesn't matter how terrible you feel. You would need tactics or habits in place to make sure you don't initiate contact even when you feel the desire to do so. You have to first notice the trigger, the trigger that makes you desire to initiate contact. And substite the desire with another action. You tell yourself I'll take a walk first. You tell yourself you will take a bath with candles first. You reach out to a friend & ask them to talk to you for 30 mins to distract you. But here, you need a friend you can trust. And it’s going to take conscious effort on your part. It’s going to be hard!

2) if he reaches out, you'd need to ignore. Again employ tactics to avoid responding back. And consistently. You substitute the desire to respond with something else. Trust me, men will reach out to you YEAARSSS later. They're always lurking & ready to drag you down. That's why it's so important to have to that kind of self-control & self-esteem

You'd need to do for 6-8 months may be longer idk it depends person to person. You would need to busy yourself with other things to take your mind off. Whether that's picking up a new hobby that interests you. Anything else you can sink your time into.

Eventually, that connection that you have will break & will allow you to have a clear mind to reflect on your current situation in a completely different way in hindsight. But the goal is to get there, by cutting off contact by any means necessary.

[ibroughtyoumybullets]

not to come into your asks with a sales pitch but genuine question, have you considered vaping? a study from the royal college of physicians proved its 95% safer than cigarettes, and you can gradually lower your nicotine level without having to cut yourself off cold turkey. theres also a lot of different disposable pod systems (kind of like the juul but. i hate juul) that can be pretty cheap if the upfront cost is a concern. please feel no pressure tho, i just work at a vape store so every time someone's like "i need to quit smoking" i have to share my knowledge lol. i hope quitting treats you well no matter what route you take!!!!!

HAVENFOAHVW RJQ DIAGQVJFJQ W T BE RIGSVQJENQ DHAHVWURH GAVUDGJQBDBQJBXJABWBBFKAJCUQBJEIAJZBWJEIUCYQHWIVIAH

ok im sorry there is no way for you to know this but when i say smoking i mean vaping i use them interchangeably for some reason. this was a very sweet suggestion and i really appreciate you being helpful.

but i cannot possibly convey the comedy that is me going into my inbox and reading a message that’s like “have you considered vaping?” and the way I FELT every single nicotine receptor stand up in my brain and go YEAH HAVE WE CONSIDERED VAPING??? literally who gave my discarded juul access to my inbox that was SO FUCKING FUNNY