#i didn't like seeing my friends interacting with people that wasn't our group it genuinely on a bone deep level unsettled me

[elytrafemme]

good news: therapy finally scheduled friday morning. bad news: holy shit i am really spiralling aren't i

[missmonsters2]

—ADRONITIS | One

Pairing: Wednesday Addams x OFC/Fem!Reader

Summary: Wednesday's quite aware she has no people skills, but that doesn't stop her from wondering why she can't know everything about one person immediately.

Warnings: None.

Series Masterlist || Library Blog || AO3

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Count: 1.9k

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Adronitis: noun. The frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.

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Everyone who knows Wednesday can confidently say she's not a people person, and even Wednesday herself can tell you she's not. People are strange, annoying, emotional creatures that she's fairly certain she lacks a particular trait to handle. 

Of course, some individuals have unfortunately made it past her prickly walls. Her roommate and begrudgingly best friend, Enid, can be tolerated in longer spurts. Eugene is just another Pugsley, so she has to look after him. She supposes Xavier isn't dreadful to deal with. Now. 

Would Wednesday commit first-degree murder for them? Yes, but that's not the point. 

The point—what was the point? 

Wednesday internally huffs with annoyance. She's an articulate person, but lately, she isn't. 

Reluctantly, Wednesday's eyes trail to the side, where she sees her reason for inarticulation. 

"Ah, so this is why you're sitting in the courtyard today," Enid smiles innocently, but Wednesday can see the knowing look in her eyes and purses her lips in a scowl as her eyes return to her book. She's finally gotten her hands on Goody's spellbook, and she's been trying to finish reading it for weeks. 

But alas...she's been...distracted.

"I don't blame you," Enid sighs as she looks over to where Wednesday was just gazing. "Everyone's looking at our resident Faerie. I wish she'd sit at our table today."

Wednesday silently agrees but tells herself she didn't. But she did. It's been nearly a week since you've sat with their tiny group of weirdos. Heroes, but weirdos. 

Today, you're sitting with the fangs, and Wednesday just can't fathom why. She gets your little rotation schedule, but vampires were so overrated, and from the small conversations she's heard here and there—incredibly boring.

Who cares about their diet? Wednesday thinks they lack innovation if their only choices are humans or animals (because, quite frankly, another outcast could kick their ass).

Yet, you sit there, smiling serenely and nodding with genuine interest. You ask questions and laugh at their witless jokes, and it drives Wednesday crazy.

Wednesday doesn't understand your sense of humor. Although, no one understands Wednesday's sense of humor either. That's usually the pattern. Sometimes, it feels like you and she are two sides of the same coin. 

You're both very different at Nevermore. While you're both outcasts within the outcasts, it's not the same. Whereas Wednesday didn't understand people, and they didn't gravitate toward her, people seemed to argue for your time.

Hence, why you sat at a different lunch table every day. 

Wednesday's mind drifts as she frowns. There's little known about Faeries as they're usually recluses, and there are so few of them. Especially night faeries. 

But now, it makes her wonder. Are Faeries like sirens? Do they lure everyone in their proximity without choice? That would certainly make more sense on Wednesday, and it would explain her recent behavior. 

Wednesday frowns deeper. Principal Weems has already sternly told others that while the Faeries are extremely beautiful and charming, they have no such powers. 

So, Wednesday was at a loss. She was beginning to think this school was designed to be the bane of her existence. Unwillingly, her gaze drifted again, but this time, you turned your head simultaneously and caught her eye.

You smile soft and sincere but unobtrusively at her, and Wednesday looks away, her face impassive. 

It wasn't unusual. 

This was exactly how all her interactions with you went. Very often, no words are exchanged, but you smile and wave at her as you pass by in the hallways. You greet her warmly when you sit at their table or in class. 

"Your unhappy face is showing," Enid points out, a slight upward quirk on her lips as she bites into her sandwich.

"This is always my face," Wednesday deadpans. 

"No, it's not," Enid shakes her head confidently. If there's one thing Enid can say, she stares at Wednesday a lot, so she knows her roommate very well. "You tilt your chin down and glare through your eyebrows more than look through them. It's very protruding," Enid points directly at Wednesday's eyebrow and forehead. "See? Unhappy face."

Xavier is looking at her through his apple, using it to shield how he's holding back his laughter as he grins at her. 

Wednesday relaxes her brows, her eyes becoming less narrow before she raises her brow at Enid. "Then what face is this?" The werewolf ponders her roommate's face and then sighs like she's been chastised. 

"General distaste," Enid mutters, but then she brightens as she looks up. "Oh, Fae is coming over here!" 

"Why do you insist on calling her that when she has a name?" Wednesday asks. You never seem mad about it, and it's not like Wednesday would care if people walked around calling her witch instead of Wednesday, but it's another thing she doesn't understand.

"Hm," Enid hums. "I guess it just became a nickname when she came. I mean, I guess it's kind of weird to call someone by their creature name...should we try to come up with a new one for her?"

"Whatcha guys talking about?" You smile as you approach. You've got a grape lollipop in your mouth given to you by one of the shapeshifters. Xavier and Eugene move over so you can sit down, directly facing Wednesday. "Hi, Wednesday," you say her name so casually, staring at her until Wednesday nods in acknowledgment. 

She's tense as she grips the edge of her book tightly. Her eyes are steadfastly attached to the pages even if she's not reading them. 

"We're talking about how everyone started to call you Fae," Enid grins, her smile wide and excited, but then frowns. "I hope it doesn't bother you."

You hum for a long moment, a sound that Wednesday hangs onto. She can see you through her peripherals. You seem in deep thought, and Wednesday can't understand why it's taking you so long to decide whether it bothers you. She wants to tell you to hurry it up so she—they can have the answer.

"I supposed it started when one of the psychics saw me in person, and all he could stutter out was 'Fae' over and over," you shrug.

"Feeble-minded," Wednesday mutters, and you smirk at her, and now she's wondering what exactly that could mean. 

"It doesn't bother me," you continue on. "I mean, I guess it's fine since there are no other faeries at the school, but it might be confusing when there are. I can't exactly go around calling on a person wolfy when that could be any of the werewolves here."

They all nod, except Wednesday.

"We should try to find a new nickname for you!" Eugene exclaims, emboldened by your friendliness to him. "How about nightcrawler!"

"As enchanting as that is, I'm going to have to veto that one," you give him a wry smile. He slumps in defeat while Xavier gives in a pat on the back.

"Oh," Enid squeals excitedly, and Wednesday shirk and winces at the sound. "We could all try to find a new nickname for you until we get the right one!"

"And why should we if Fae says it doesn't bother her?" Xavier asks as he turns over and gives you what Wednesday believes he thinks is a boyish smile. 

"Spoken like a true simpleton," Wednesday cut in, still not looking up. "Will that be your new nickname?"

"Ouch," Xavier laughs, the insult falling off his back. Although, he doesn't doubt that's his contact name on Wednesday's phone. "Alright, I get it. Fine, the person who gets their nickname chosen gets Fae's number. How's that?" He looks over to you, and Wednesday snaps her head up, finally to look at you too. 

You seem pensive. Another thing Wednesday knows but doesn't understand. It's getting irritating with how many things are adding up that Wednesday wants to know now and can't. 

Nobody in the school has your number though they all see you on your phone as you stroll down the hallway. Wednesday has heard you turning people down when they ask for your number, citing how there've been too many requests, and the number of texts or calls you'd get would be too overwhelming. So, now it's been an unspoken rule between the school that no one gets your number if they cannot all have it. 

You peer over at Wednesday, and she doesn't flinch away from your gaze. She refuses to lose whatever staring game you've created.

"Okay," you acquiesce, staring at Wednesday for a moment longer before standing up. "I'll see you guys in class. I'm going to see if the shapeshifters have more grape lollipops. They're my favorite."

Grape lollipops are your favorite. Is it just the lollipop, or is it grape in general?

"Well, this should be fun," Enid bounces her seat before she looks at Eugene. "I'm going to have to say it's looking unlikely for you, bud."

"I have more ideas!" Eugene protests.

"Never accept defeat," Wednesday looks back at her book, inwardly frowning when she's still on the same page she's been trying to read for the last 20 minutes. "Would be an acceptable suggestion for me. Accept defeat in this case, Eugene."

There's more bickering at the table while Enid bumps her shoulder against Wednesday. "So? Are you going to try to come up with something and get Fae's number?" 

"No, it's a trivial matter. Why would I want it? The only time I ever use my phone is when you've dragged me into your 24/7 addiction and Xavier cries for my attention."

"I do NOT cry—"

"So, I have no need for it."

Plus, would you expect her to text you if she had your number? Would she even want to text you? Wednesday supposes it'd be an equal trade of information, so you'd have her number too. Should she expect you to text her?

Wednesday glances in her peripheral and sees you with another lollipop as you sit with the shapeshifters. You've got an apple in your hand, but you look at it blandly. 

Not a fan of apples, then?

Wednesday feels annoyance gnaw at her insides. It's not irregular for Wednesday to sometimes show interest in others. Knowing others is valuable information that can be used at a later date.

But why in the hell does it take so long to get to know someone? Why can't Wednesday just know all your deep, dark secrets first and then make her way out to the trivial things?

"What a shame," Enid sighs casually, looking straight ahead, but her eyes tilt to the side to stare at her gloomy roommate. "I think having a phone and texting is great! It's way faster to get to know someone over text since you can always be in communication. You know what else is a thing? At 2AM, people lower their guard down, and they're more likely to spill secrets."

Wednesday slams her book shut, standing up and leaving briskly.

Research is needed. Her father has few skills, but one of them is coming up with nicknames. That skill should undoubtedly pass on to her. 

Wednesday glances at you as she walks out of the courtyard. You look over at her and smile with a wave before turning back to your conversation.

Defeat is not in Wednesday's vocabulary. She will beat the constraints of time and know everything there is to know in haste. There will be victory, and it will be hers.

PART TWO

[voidedaurora]

Alrighty guys, Since she decided to get her friend Gaia in the mix and write a big document stressing "LEGAL INFO LEGAL INFO LEGAL INFO " and didn't even really say much about the screenshots I provided (and when they did it was "omg look she's pressuring her to apologize for being horrible to people") which is crazy on its own, Overall her response is JUST as bad as I thought it would be and I have no choice but to prove my point by sharing alot of blatantly sexual texts/interactions :,) didn't want to do this for the privacy of everyone involved but she's currently trying to make herself into a victim and that is absolutely NOT what happened Alrighty then. sorry Mel but you've genuinely brought this upon yourself by being a lying piece of shit and trying to be the victim in every situation, you are a vile person Clover's messages will be censored/blocked out unless they absolutely need to be there for context

Context may be added to some screenshots to make sure they are not interpreted a different way TW: Sexual topics, coercion, S/A, general toxicity Firstly I'm going to go through a bit of their doc and what Mel apparently was "thinking" during this whole thing happening

Clover and I never pressured, forced, repetitively insisted on, or anything else of the sort towards Mel and us all having "group activity" , Clover and I only were comfortable/did any of this to begin with to her to help her heal from her own sexual trauma, she was our friend and she had mentioned alot how it affected her and how she couldn't do "stuff" on her own, we essentially extended a helping hand that she did NOT have to take and had every opportunity and right to say no or back out at any point, we made that very clear to her. (2nd time) Her randomly letting us know she was horny/going to jackoff [please note that alot of what I said towards her was playful banter and not any attempts to coerce or force her into doing it]

Skipped a bit of irrelevant convo (was mostly just laughing/Lmao's and doesn't add to the convo at all)

Skipped a bit more irrelevant convo (to clarify if anyone needs the in-betweens I'm more than willing to provide, there's just a limit to what I can put in a tumblr post)

As you can see with just this instance by itself, she was a willing participant and nobody pressured her into anything.

She could theoretically claim "they pressured me in vc" but just by using the context of these screenshots and her behavior AFTER we all fucked you can tell she wasn't in any distress or anything, actively making doodles about it and such. I'd like to state that even if what she is saying is true and she didn't want to do any of that with us that it doesn't change anything, it doesn't change the fact she lied about it being mutual to get into my pants, and It doesn't change the fact of it being assault. Additionally, the point I am making is not lack of consent that makes it assault, we all consented at the time BUT the important part of that is the fact that she'd lied to gain that consent and later admitted so to me personally.

What Gaia wrote in the doc is indeed the definitions for coercion and assault BUT context is just as important, in situations like this if someone lies to you to get you to have sex or anything of that nature with them it is coercion and assault I and many others consider what Mel did Assault and I think that theoretically within a court of law this same conclusion could be reached, especially with the context I've provided. You should agree shouldn't you? context is very important.

Furthermore If she continues to deny all of this and make excuses, I am more than willing to provide more context, more screenshots, and more proof backing up how willing she was. (I'll share the 1st instance which was a lot more sexually charged, along with some other personal things) I am not going to let her deny this and make herself out to be a victim, she needs to take responsibility for once and admit what she's done. Aswell, I don't believe she addressed the fact that she told me she'd only done things as a group to do things with me in that response. Here's some things to mention within your own document that support what I've claimed aswell

as stated here, what mel did would fall under trickery.

I will state once again, none of this is out of spite, I'm not out to "get" mel, this isn't a overreaction or me spreading false information specifically to make her look bad just because we aren't friends anymore, its none of that.

All of this is things I (once again) stayed quiet about for a very long time and am only now coming out about because of the events that have gone on, I have no reason to keep it private anymore and she has proven (once again) she's willing to lie and lie to cover her ass. With the situation about the apologies

There is alot of things wrong with this statement, Firstly she did NOT only apologize for the public discourse it created she apologizes for multiple things within this doc including the ones below (I say she apologized in airquotes because she didn't write any of these apologies as we all know) Here's a few relevant separate apologies within the doc that aren't just troubling the public 1. response

2. apologizing for spreading misinfo about RED/MAGENTA

3. Apologizing for the drawings she made of her and EX being all lovey as their child selves

4. death threat apology for EX

5. Honest (video) apology

She did not JUST apologize for the public, she also offered personal apologies within the doc that obviously were not written herself and were not in any way, shape, or form genuine thoughts or feelings of hers, I think the screenshots in my previous post are more than enough proof. I'd like to also make a point that I know what Khai, Mel, and her friends/fans have all been saying about this whole thing in her server. Everyone, especially Mel and Khai/s attitude towards this entire thing absolutely disgusts me and proves just how bad you all actually are. If anyone in her server that's participated in making fun of me, the claims, etc. are seeing this right now then please stay safe and I hope you all become better less vile people. Absolutely wild that when Mel made her s/a claim even though she never provided a lick of proof everyone supported her but the second I open up about Clover and I/s experiences I have to violate our privacy to try and prove my words are true. Don't get me wrong, I have had people support us, and I'm extremely greateful for that fact, but knowing people are making fun of me for speaking up about this? Calling me crazy because of my bpd? Literally disgusting Not to mention initially when they all first told everyone "hey no misinfo! not true! wait for mels side!" none of them had actually read the doc and assumed I was talking about something else (guilty conscience I guess) That is all I have to say for now, if more evidence is demanded I can provide, I am extremely uncomfortable and honestly angry that I had to share any of this to begin with but it was to be expected with her denying everything once again, so sorry for this possibly not being written and formatted the best, I'm not a professional and I just wanted to speak on what's gone on. If anyone has any questions, there's something I didn't address, you need anything clarified/want to see the missing screenshots, have something to say, or anything else you are free to send an ask or possibly dm me on discord (mostly try and ask for stuff through asks but if you need to dm its ok!) Edit: since I've also caught wind of people being like "omg this should've been handled in private" I gave her 3 months to handle this in private and she refused to come to me to clear things up, apologize, or take accountability, seeing some of these people following her blindly when she's done NOTHING to refute any of my claims, no evidence, nothing is absolutely beyond disappointing , im not going to force anyone to believe me nor can I but I have every right to speak about all of this since nobody will ever get closure and what mel has done/does is not ok and hasn't been for a very long time. Edit #2: aswell for the people saying that the screenshots aren't proof of s/a, you are correct! that is not what the screenshots were for, the screenshots were to refute the claim that she was pressured and was an unwilling participant, I cannot prove what mel said to me (aka, the her admitting that she only slept with both of us to sleep with me) because it was said in a vc but I am providing literally everything I can and have been providing extensive amounts of context, proof, and information to back up what I've been saying Hopefully you decide to tell the truth mel

[ghost-in-the-hall]

Hello! I have finally stopped crying about Friday night long enough to come tell you guys about it! Also kind of a face reveal I guess? I wasn't planning on posting pictures of myself ever on Tumblr but, um, I met some of Powerwolf, so I'm telling literally everyone who will listen about it. If you'd like to read all about the most amazing night of my life it's below the cut cause my god am I going to ramble and there's going to be a lot of pictures. Posting Update coming later now that I can finally get back to work ❤️

*cracks knuckles* now, I had to take the full day yesterday to literally sit on my floor with my friends to recount that night in as much detail as possible. Every thing I tell you has been fact checked and reviewed by 3 other people lol. I literally can't even believe the night I had, I still think I'm dreaming tbh.

So, as you may or may not know, Powerwolf is literally my favorite band ever. I missed their first US tour so I was determined to get my ass to this show and have the greatest time, also I'm not going to turn down a chance to see Falk Maria Schlegel in person, it ain't gunna happen chief. I got tickets for my friends and I, we made a whole day of it, we got our nails done and met up the morning of and had breakfast and did face masks and all got ready together, it was wonderful, I'm so glad we made the decision to do that because of my god my NERVES that morning. We ended up getting to the venue around 3, which meant we had to stand in line for 4 hours but it was definitely worth the sacrifice. We were about 10 people from the front by the time we lined up. When we got there, none other than Roel VanHelden was hanging out around their tour bus, taking pictures and just talking with a small group of people. He was so nice when we went down to meet him, my friends and I were all dressed up for the occasion and he looked at us and went "wow, you all look incredible!" I think my soul left my body. I told him he was my favorite drummer ever and I'm so excited to finally be able to see him live and he looked so genuinely flattered. I got a picture with him that's at the bottom.

A little while later I look down the sidewalk and happen to notice Charles doing the same thing. He was also super sweet and super funny. I, for some reason, was so much more nervous meeting him than I was meeting Roel so I just kind of ran up said hi took my picture said thank you and ran away, but he was very sweet when he was talking with my friends. ALSO HES SO DAMN HANDSOME WITH HIS GLASSES ON I AM SUCH A CHARLES GIRL AFTER FRIDAY NOW BUT WELL GET MORE INTO WHY LATER!!! Sorry lost my cool, picture with him is also below

We get inside, we get all the way up to the left side of the stage at the barrier, I'm directly in front of Falk and Matthew the entire concert. Unleash The Archers was incredible, I unfortunately only know their song Soulbound, but they're amazing if you're into women fronted power metal bands, I highly recommend them. The entirety of the concert itself was incredible, everyone is so talented and it was so amazing, just for the music I would go back again and again.

But, my god, do those men LOVE interacting with the crowd. I'm gunna go member by member, we made a bullet list lol. We ended up getting notices by every single member of Powerwolf multiple times, like I seriously still can't believe it, it doesn't feel real, but it happened and I have 3 other people telling me it happened so I guess I have to trust them lol.

Roel we unfortunately didn't get to see much obviously because he's at his kit, but after the show was over he came over and gave my friend a drum cover that was signed by the entire band, we have agreed that one day a month I come over we pull it out (until it gets framed), smoke a bowl, and just look at it for a little while together because that's how we're going to share joint custody of it lol. Seeing him play live was also just unreal.

Attila carries such a presence on stage it's actually fucking insane. How easily that man can command an entire room is scary. I don't know if I have the video, I might have to get it from someone else still. But there was one point we were singing along with Attila and he came over and sang directly to my friend and I and reached out for us and we both screamed. He acknowledged us a couple other times throughout the show.

We were on the opposite side of the stage from Charles but him and Matthew switch sides pretty much during every song so he was over pretty frequently. The first time he came over he immediately recognized my little group, he pointed right at me and smiled, I personally think he noticed how I loosened up a lot since almost passing out earlier lol. But he would be constantly coming over and singing along with us, there was also one point I noticed he accidentally bumped into Attila and he just looked at him and blew him a kiss and it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. CHARLES ALSO THREW ME ONE OF HIS ARM BANDS!!!! When he came over after final bows, he threw a couple pics, I missed literally all of them because I have zero depth perception and despite the fact I was wearing 5" platforms I was still stupidly short lol, he noticed proceeds to pull off one of the ones he had on, came right to the edge of the stage and tossed it to me and he got so smiley when I screamed back thank you, he has such a nice smile omfg it's not fair. But he was incredible.

We were right in front of Matthew, we definitely spent the most time with him, he was also in love with us. They played Sinners of The Seven Seas, which is a personal favorite song of mine, so I was absolutely losing my shit, screaming every word, and after they finished each song he would acknowledge the whole crowd and give thumbs up and all that, and then he looks at me, I shit you not my knees almost have out from just now direct this eye contact was the first time, he goes "wow" and gives me a thumbs up and a really impressed look, so of course I got all flustered which made him laugh. He would acknowledge me after pretty much every song, doing kind of the same thing, motioning to the whole crowd and then motioning directly to me, it became a joke, we would both laugh whenever he did it. At one point I made a heart at him and he got the brightest smile and also seemed so genuinely flattered, they all did, every one of them just seemed so touched and happy that all of us loved them so much it was super sweet. But, anyways, back to Matthew. He sang along with us a lot too and was just genuinely so fun to watch, he's such a talented guitarist, I got to see him play the most. He also threw me a guitar pick, I gave it to one of my other friends that came since she didn't catch anything.

Falk Maria Schlegel... I was so insane about this man BEFORE this concert... I am simply unwell about him now. This, to me, is by far the most unbelievable part of my night because I'm literally in love with him. He's kind of similar to Roel where it's hard to get his attention cause he's also mostly up on the back stage, so he didn't really start to come down to the stage until near the end of the show anyways. But he came down at one point and that man held eye contact with me for a good 30 seconds while Attila was making his speech, I thought my heart stopped, how are his eyes even prettier in person? He's just so fun and so cute, I love watching him interact with the crowd. He came over to my side of the stage after the first encore, Attila was giving a speech about how we're all one big heavy metal family and it was very nice. I had to go over this with my friends about 9 times, I still think they're lying to me and I hallucinated the whole thing. Falk motions to the whole crowd and says I love you, then turns looks directly at me, motions to me specifically and says I love you. I blacked out for about 30 seconds I think, my heart was restarted by the last song starting (I fucking love werewolves of Armenia) they were doing final bows and Falk came back over to my side of the stage, he looked at me so I blew him a kiss and made a heart and he went, "oh! Thank you!" Motioned to me and then held his hands over his chest and he looked so happy, they all looked so happy, I hope they come back soon I already miss them. I plan on being right back up in front next time, who knows, maybe they'll even remember me lol

We're also going to be in their city recap video, and Jen Dorn (Attila's wife) took a bunch of pictures and posted a video of us on her Instagram and we got to meet her too, she was also very sweet and very pretty!!

Okay have some pictures of the greatest night of my life, some of them aren't cropped right, that's my bad lol

I have more videos and stuff I can post if you guys would like to see them!!

[scammydoesstuff]

heya, I saw your post and I'm really sorry you had a disappointing experience with Neil; I get that BG3 and Astarion shot him to fame but there's still a lot of fans around for his older roles actively posting fics and art (karl, nikolai ginoviev, kamsi etc), so it's not a dead fandom by any means. Village isn't an 'old' game either (it's only 3 years old??) and anyone who says so is wrong imo. I hope your week gets better~

Thank you for the kind words.

I've been mostly spending the last week recovering from being sick and drawing to get out the negative feelings while also trying to rationalize a lot of that interaction.

Honestly, I didn't want to make that post super long, so I didn't go in-depth with all of it for the sake of brevity (because I tend to over explain and get to be very long winded - as you're about to see). I do want to insist that I don't necessarily blame Neil for it being negative. I'm sure it was mostly on me and I'm also sure I was overreacting. Drawing that was just my way of getting out some of those negative feelings instead of spiraling.

So, in regards to the convention: we wound up waiting basically 2 days to even meet Neil. Not...because we wanted to, mind. His line was crazy long every day and it wasn't uncommon to see people sitting down in his line, usually waiting for him to come back from a panel or a photo op. All the lines were moving slow all weekend, though. Not just his. That was one of my biggest issues with the convention as a whole and a critique genuinely unique to this one since the last Fan Expo I went to wasn't nearly that bad.

Our weekend was unfortunately pretty booked as well, so we couldn't wait all day and, after being in his line for nearly 3 hours that morning and barely moving, we had to leave for a lunch reservation with some friends who could only be there for one day after he left for a panel, cutting the line off. They did give out little numbers to anyone who'd been waiting up until that point to hop back into line later that day, however, if we had somewhere to be.

Due to short staffing at the restaurant, lunch also ran long and we didn't end up getting back until about an hour before the convention hall was set to close. We ran to Neil's line where they were cutting it off and, I'm super ashamed to admit, I let my boyfriend lie our way back into line (he told them we were leaving that night instead of staying the full 3 days we'd paid for, which coerced them to let us enter the line anyway) and spent the rest of the wait feeling guilty and really tempted to leave despite knowing on some level that this would likely be our last chance for the weekend. That's still on me. I could've said no and just left and not been a total piece of shit, but I didn't. Granted, other people got in line after us, so they weren't being that strict about it anyway, but I digress.

Regardless, we were already pushing it and I know that and I regret it. When we get to the front, I already wanted to keep things brief; get an autograph if I could, but mostly show him the Heisenberg plushie I'd made not long after the game came out.

(this is the plushie, btw. He took months to complete because he's entirely hand sewn - with the face being hand-embroidered - and was a major comfort project because of a lot of things going on in my personal life at the time that were causing me major stress. I've been hoping Neil would come to a con close enough for us to travel to at least so I could show him and this weekend was finally the opportunity I was waiting on).

So, we get to the front of the line and I see that he doesn't have any Village prints. Frankly, outside of Astarion, he doesn't have any other character prints except for one, which was a general Resident Evil group kinda thing with all the Resident Evil characters he'd done. There might've been one other, but I don't think it was for a character? It might've just been a headshot, but I could be wrong. I just know it wasn't Heisenberg-related, so I do not remember it clearly.

I was disappointed, but I decided to get the Resident Evil print anyway. I was initially going to have him sign a trench coat I'd made while working on the plushie. It was kinda practice to learn how to make the coat for that project and now it's just...my Heisenberg coat that I wear in winter. It's very warm. But I never ended up showing it to him after we finally get in front of him because the guilt was just too much.

So we start off and I was trying to be jokey and playful as I said 'I'm kinda disappointed you didn't have any Heisenberg prints' while showing him the plushie, but I can definitely see how, regardless of the tone I was trying to use, didn't come across right. So maybe *I* came off as rude instead despite trying to just...start a conversation about how I really liked Heisenberg? Totally possible. I'm not denying that.

And that's when Neil said that they don't bring prints along for Heisenberg anymore. That Village is an older game, so they don't get a lot of requests for it anyway and thus they save space when traveling. More disappointing. I started feeling worse because I could tell he was tired. It was the longest day for the exhibition hall to be open and he was still going even after everyone else was closing. He did arrive an hour after the hall opened, but it was still a long day, I know. I felt guilty and shitty, but, once he was done signing, I could properly show off the plushie - including the little cigars I'd made that he can hold cuz he has magnets in his hands. Maybe that would make him smile and lift his mood, y'know? So I was excited for his reaction and...

Nothing. Maybe a little laugh in that 'oh, that's cute' kinda way. He kinda did the voice when he saw it, but not really. I just...felt myself sink. I felt so embarrassed to have been so excited for this. My boyfriend asked if he could get a picture of Neil holding it and he did, but I was just...done. I wanted to leave because I realized that this was a mistake. It was late, he was tired, and this character doesn't mean much anymore because it's an older game that's been well overshadowed by Baldur's Gate III.

We wrapped up and left and that was it. I couldn't bring myself to say anything about how much Heisenberg meant to me as a character. I couldn't make myself show off the things about the plushie I was so proud of. I just wanted to leave because I felt like such a leech and that I shouldn't have done this.

I'm not dismissing the way I handled all of this. Looking back, I blame myself for my own bad time and I definitely blame myself for that interaction being as bad as it was. Neil was tired and, to a degree, he's right; it's not the new game that everyone's obsessed with right now. I shouldn't take it personally.

But it's easy to say that. It's so much harder to actually follow through with it. I couldn't help but feel upset because everyone else in line who'd seen the plushie would get excited to see it. Even the event manager who was hanging around at the end of the day told me I should sell them. Hell, back in April of this year, I even got to meet Maggie Robertson, who happened to be going to Fan Expo Cleveland (I live in Ohio, so less travel for that one). I thought it'd make her laugh (cuz, y'know, the size difference is accurate, right?) and, despite acting offended that I'd even bring him before her at all, she was still excited to talk about it and seemed to enjoy engaging with it. She was delightful and clearly still loves her character and that game, which made the contrast of meeting Neil so much more striking and...kinda hurtful...

So yeah...Sorry. That's a whole lotta words for 'I'm surely the reason it was so bad', but ye...Kinda got me out of an art funk, I guess. So that's something...maybe...

[lhazaar]

Hey I was in that server but I didn't see the post before it was deleted, just the aftermath, what happened? The explanation of the screenshots is so vague and the reaction by mods has been uncomfortable, then I noticed a lot of the main people I'd see active in server have left so I'm very concerned

ty for your patience while i wrote this up, anon

short explanation: there was interpersonal stuff going on behind the scenes at the same time and everything exploded at once. liza has been a shitty friend and i'm angry about it because it's hurt people i care about. she has also been going around to everyone she can trying to drum up sympathy because she doesn't know how to handle her own emotions without getting external validation and, when the people that she farms for that validation have their own lives, it's a huge personal betrayal. this spilled over into the server because she was talking a ton of shit behind everyone's backs about how she thought calling out racism was annoying and she didn't realize that people can be friends independently of her, so of course we talk to each other. people started comparing notes on what she was telling them and how she was acting and they realized it didn't match up.

so here's the post in the server that was deleted:

i wasn't involved with its writing, to be clear; i like micah but we're independent people. i also wasn't in the server at this point because liza preemptively banned both me and one of my partners, who had not spoken to her at all and was uninvolved in this.

what micah's talking about in this post is that liza has been mean about both him and jupiter behind their backs for ages because, during a hades 2 stream, they started talking about the game's whitewashing problems/racism/fatphobia. liza turned around and went to one of my loved ones in a voice call immediately afterwards to complain about how it "wasn't the time or place" and how they were being, yknow, sooo negative when she was just trying to enjoy something. in multiple other conversations, she would complain about people talking about racism in the server and then turn around and be super nice and friendly to the faces of the people she was shittalking for... honestly i don't know what reason there could be. social clout? to feel like she was everyone's friend? she was catty about everyone constantly. sometimes people she didn't like would post in that server and then she'd turn around and get in our dms—including me this time!—and just bitch about them existing. maybe their opinions about dnd were cringe or she just didn't like how they interacted in group conversations. it was constant. it felt like i couldn't push back on any of it because then it would become about her hurt feelings; i regret not challenging her more.

this was accompanied by a pattern where she would see posts on tumblr talking about, for example, how white neurodivergent people's food aversions are not formed in a cultural vacuum. this is specific because this is a real incident that happened. she went to someone i care about, to complain about how the post was making her feel bad, and then when that person pushed back (because, among other reasons, they're mixed and have direct experience with racism around food), liza first shut down and disappeared and then came back the next morning angry and expecting an apology because she was "hurt". this pattern repeated in their interactions over months. there were several fights about it. i know this because we live together and i witnessed the fallout. every single time it happened, there was no room for anyone's emotions but liza's, and no room for anything but reassuring her guilt or her anxiety while she refused to take her rescue medication or talk to her therapist. my loved one brought this up repeatedly. liza knew this was a problem. i think, genuinely, that she believes because she got the verbal confirmation of "i don't hate you + we're still friends" somehow those incidents didn't stack up over time.

like, i want to emphasize immensely that this isn't a callout post. it's not that she's done shit i want smeared all over tumblr. it's a case of "wow, you've been a really shitty friend, and been leaning on your nonwhite friends especially hard while shittalking them behind their backs, and people found out about it because we're also friends with each other and didn't think it was fair or kind". i have very intentionally not sought people out to talk about this because we were friends for so long, so i still want her to get better, and i didn't want her to spin it like a conspiracy where we're trying to drive a wedge between her and her friend group. i actively don't want her to isolate—i want her to get help. a lot of what she's doing and how she's been acting reminds me of how i have acted before when my ocd has been brutally unmedicated. i get the fear of social rejection.

that said: i'm aware of the fallout and i am also very uncomfortable with her reaction and the mod reaction. i especially don't think it was appropriate to fight with kirby over this and to wholesale shut down discussion in the name of "handling it privately". we tried to handle it privately. that's why it went on for so long and why it wound up here. we all gave her the benefit of the doubt. if you come at poc who are telling you hey, this looks and feels really bad and you go well you have to address it privately!! no callout posts!!, all that does is make people less inclined to actually talk to you. you won't meet people where you are, right. liza's a goddamn adult, she shouldn't need people to hold her hand and explain that not every post about racism is personally attacking her.

i understand that liza also feels hurt that i kicked her from our dnd servers. i also understand that she is telling people i did so "without a word" and without discussing it with her first. i'll take some responsibility here: i wasn't aware that discord doesn't show the "ban message" reason to the actual user who gets banned, only to the audit log. here's what i said:

so, yknow, mea culpa. i've never had to ban someone from a server before. i still have not blocked her anywhere, and she is welcome to reach out if she needs someone else to reiterate for the hundredth time why exactly it's not okay to make your friends of colour hold your hand whenever you feel personally targeted by criticism. maybe she'll finally listen if it comes from a white person. i chose to kick her from these games because i am defensive over the people that i care for and i don't want to expose them to someone who will turn around and be mean to them behind their back. that sucks. (she is also a very frustrating player and dm, which is unrelated to this conflict, but which made it easier.) (yknow when you have little frustrations for a while and then something Happens and you see that it's part of a bigger pattern? it's like that.)

the private conflicts i am largely eliding at the request of the people involved. i do feel it's important context that this entire fight started in private because liza got upset that a mutual friend of ours did not notify her before dating someone, despite that friend having turned her down explicitly and kindly four years ago. she proceeded to, again, get in our dms and say cruel shit about how that person wasn't "emotionally mature enough" for a relationship. i guess it would've been different if they'd been dating her? who knows. that's why i called it strahdlike behaviour—i was specifically talking about carrying that torch for someone who doesn't want to date you, getting upset at them when they dare to have their own life, and burning the friendship down over it.

(since you were also in that server, you may be able to figure out some of the people i haven't named but am talking about; i'd appreciate keeping their names out of it, because they really just want to not engage with this anymore at this point. it's been like, days of intense anxiety at the fear of reprisal. i'm also sticking to one pronoun throughout for clarity, but liza uses all pronouns to the best of my current knowledge.)

also i fully understand if it's hard to take me at my word for this because it's effectively hearsay. i'm trying to walk a line here between protecting the mental health of people involved and being clear about what happened and what i wish she would take from this. if there's anything that i can clear up please let me know. if folks from that server want to talk my dms are also open. i didn't want to burn the bridge initially! i only got this angry when she wouldn't stop and then turned around and tried to make this my loved ones' fault. it's genuinely really sad seeing her spiral out like this. i want her to get help and to sit with the uncomfortable emotions, look them in the eye, and learn from them. i want her to go to therapy for ocd. she is uniquely poised to do so with the resources she has. i've talked to her about it before and been responsible for fielding conflicts between her and other people. we cannot save her from her own privilege. that's hers to interrogate. i wish her well, we just can't be responsible for telling her that everything she does is justified and okay anymore.

[cyberdenizen]

What does being poly mean tl you

-🔥

Well... what's the best way to put it...

When I was young, it was rare I had someone I "like liked" so much as I had a few close friends and as I grew older I just knew I wanted to be closer with them.

Growing up, I understood "going steady" but it didn't really make sense to me why someone couldn't be just as close with two of their friends or their whole friend group. Some things just never quite clicked in my mind I suppose.

Then I had an experience with an early girlfriend of mine where she was hyper jealous, inserted herself a lot whenever I was interacting with our friend group... after a while she got more hostile and I eventually learned she was seeing someone else without saying anything... then I learned she did the same thing to her previous ex when she and I started dating...

As time went on I thought more about the whole thing and kind of realized I was hurt more than anything because she didn't communicate any of it with me. I never knew I wasn't meeting her needs, or that someone else had caught her eye...

Then, by the time I was in college, I had learned enough to start realizing that maybe one forever person wasn't really for me... I wound up meeting a throuple and started to understand myself better.

Sometimes I've thought "Maybe I'm broken. Why can't I just have eyes for one person forever?" And it's not like I go around trying to get as many girlfriends or subs as possible, but I sort of just... let things happen and see where they go. And in doing so, I've wound up getting very close to multiple people at the same time. I don't feel as if I need multiple partners, and I tend to see partners as very close friends...

...

So... what does being poly mean to me? I guess this long-winded answer was just my way of saying "it means being myself." It's hard for me to express anything more genuine about it than that...

[robinismywifee]

Back to the Old House - Chapter 6:

September 4th, 2034

[4 days after last chapter]

Raines age: 16 years, 6 months

Ellies age: 15 years, 3 months

CW: Struggling with eating, anxiety

Words: 3046

Masterlist

[Comment if you want to be added to taglist]

Raines POV:

As I got dressed for the first day of school, I couldn't stop thinking about Cat.

Jesse seemed like he wasn't close with her and their interactions were kind of awkward, but they probably were a lot more awkward because I was just silently standing there. And who was Cat talking about when she said 'we are all gonna watch a movie' and invited Jesse to come? Would Ellie be there? Or was it a separate friend group? Since Cat mentioned that Dina would be there, maybe it was just Dinas girl friends and Jesse would join them, which is why he was so awkward?

Yeah, theres no way Jesse would be friends with Ellie. I would have seen them talking or he would have mentioned her by now. Yeah, definitely no way, he loves to talk about his friends and I would remember if he mentioned Ellie.

Also, I really hoped that Cat didn't tell anyone about the whole, me-calling-Ellie-that-word thing. Fortunately, I don't think she did since Jesse never mentioned it and didn't treat me any different after that day.

I had eaten breakfast with Maria and Tommy earlier this morning but they had to leave early since today was a busy day. Point is, it was an empty house. So when I finished tying my shoes and heard a knock at the door, I was confused.

I quickly grabbed my bag and left my room, once I made it to the front door, I peaked through the little hole. Fuck, it's actually for me.

I took a deep breath in, and opend the door, "Hey Raine, I figured you'd not wanna walk alone, and it'd be easier if we all walked together" Jesse smiled, glancing over to his girlfriend, since him and Dina got back together at that hangout Cat had invited him to.

"Hey, I don't know if you remember, but i'm Dina" she said with a shy smile, probably nervous of how I was gonna react this time.

I nodded, "Yeah, i'm sorry for.. how I acted last time I saw you. I'm not good at meeting new people." I said, fidgeting with my hands, I had practiced for this moment along with meeting other students and teachers.

Dina smiled genuinely, "It's okay, I get it, it must be stressful for you" I smiled back, unsure of how to reply.

"Knew you'd two would get along sooner or later! Now c'mon, we're gonna be late!" Jesse interrupted, which I silently thanked because it would have gotten awkward, real fast.

As we walked, I talked more with Dina. She actually wasn't bad, and was pretty great. I can see why Jesse likes her.

Once we got to the school building, I realized how much I was talking with Dina, it surprised me that I wasn't struggling too much with talking to her. She kept it chill, while Jesse would add in crazy or random things.

I followed them to the third floor of the building, "First class! Math. Kinda boring" Dina mumbled, as we entered the room.

There was about 15 other kids seated, all around my age. Dina dragged me by my arm to one of the tables, "Wow, if I knew you were gonna steal my girlfriend I wouldn't have introduced you two." Jesss sarcastically mumbled.

All the Tables sat 2 people each. and were pushed together into 3 horizontal rows. We sat in the row furthest from the front of the room, I sat in the first table on the left side, in the right chair of the table alone, with Dina sitting next to me in the other table, then Jesse next to Dina. Nobody else was in the row with us.

The teachers desk was in the front of the room in the right corner, she sat with a smile on her face, chatting with some teenagers that were in the front row, she seemed in her mid 30s.

More and more students came in and sat down, except I didn't pay much attention to them since me, Dina, and Jesse were busy chatting about our favorite foods, and what we hadn't had but wanted to try. I did more listening then chatting. Jesse really wanted apple pie.

Someone sat down next to Jesse which made him leave the conversation to chat to instead, I didn't really look to see who it was as I was daydreaming about the meal Dina was describing that her mom used to make.

"And she would melt the cheese and add herbs to it-"

A voice cut my train of thought off. Annoying and high pitchhed. I turned to where it came from, only to see her and her stupid short black hair. But what caught my attention was the girl that sat to the right of her.

My heart sped up and my eyes widened.

How the fuck did I not even think about that chances of her being here?

She sat looking down at her lap, playing with her hands, and leg bobbing up and down. Her stupid girlfriend was faced the complete opposite of her to talk to Jesse, that she didn't even notice her poor, anxious, girlfriend.

I could feel my heart starting to pump, when the loud, chatting, class got shushed by the teachers loud voice.

"Good morning everyone!" She cheered, with a big smile. Everyone stopped their conversations to turn to her, replying back with different variations.

"I am so ready to be back, I missed you all so much"

This is already a trillion times better then dumb QZ school. She was smiling, greeting the class in a nice manner, saying she missed her students? This all felt so foreign.

"We have some new students, so welcome welcome, i'll be your teacher for the rest of the year for a few different subjects! I'm Miss Collins"

The teacher then took attendance, I felt my heart speed up when I heard Ellie mumble a quiet, 'here'.

It reminded me of back at the QZ when my heart would speed up from it too. I didn't like the feeling.

Miss Collins didn't really teach anything today, it was just kinda her going over what we were going to learn starting tomorrow, and the subjects she teached; math, science, health.

Then, right as Miss Collins finished explaining where we went after lunch, the bell went off. She had earlier explained how the bell worked just in case people didn't already know.

Everyone stood up and began to leave, it was overwhelming the amount of people there was. Even though I knew I was safe, I felt endangered.

"Hey, you okay?" Jesse asked, "Oh, yeah, i'm fine. Lets go" I quickly replied, he nodded, knowing I wasn't, but didn't push any further.

Cat and Ellie had already left and was infront of us everyone walked down the halls, Dina was holding Jesses hand and had her hand on my shoulder so we wouldn't get lost in the crowd.

Once we made it to the cafeteria, everyone sat down at random tables with their friends. The cafeteria just had random placement of tables and in the corner there was a place were you could get food.

Dina took us to a table in the corner since it was the only good spot left, I spotted Cat and Ellie only 2 tables away.

Once we all sat down, I noticed that I had the perfect view of Ellie. Fuck.

"Did you bring a lunch Raine?"

I nodded my head, Maria had packed me a lunch, "Yeah, but.. i'm not really hungry"

"Oh, big breakfast?" Dina asked, I nodded, picking at my nails. Little bit more then half a scrambled egg? Hudge breakfast.

"Well, i'm gonna go get my lunch since I didn't pack any. I'll be right back!" Dina said happily, getting up and making her way over to the food stand.

"So, whattya think?" Jesse asked, looking like an idiot as he did jazz hands.

"Huh?" I asked confused, he sighed, putting down his hands, "About school so far! Duh!"

"Oh.. I mean we don't get to learn anything till tomorrow.. so, I dunno" I replied, watching as he took out his bagged lunch, dumping it out on the table.

"True, but, what do you think about what you've experienced so far?" he questioned, unraveling his sandwich.

"Uh.."

To be honest I just spent the whole 'experience' thinking about Ellie or watching her from my peripheral vision..

"It's okay so far."

Jesse finished swallowing his food before nodding, "Yeah, okay, that isn't a negative answer, i'll take it!"

Dina then came back with her school food, which looked to be a really sad sandwich with barley any meat in it, and grapes.

"So, are you excited for your art class next period?" Dina asked, popping a grape in her mouth. Next period was all the 'extra' classes that you signed up for; gym, art, or medical. If you didn't wanna do any of those, then you go down a floor and help with the daycare.

I smiled slightly, "Yeah i'm actually excited for that"

"It should be fun, everybody I know whos taken it loved it. Plus everyone says the teachers nice"

"Whos the teacher?"

"Oh, it's the same girl that works at the library, everybody calls her Mrs R, her last name is hard to pronounce. I've met her a few times though, she's super artsy and cool!" Dina explained,

I nodded, excitement building up in me.

"Hey you sure you're not hungry?" Jesse randomly asked, "Yeah, like I said, big breakfast." I nodded.

Dina and Jesse started to tell a story of how Jesse tried to become a bird a few winters ago- or some weird shit like that, but the whole time, I was staring at the girl a few meters infront of me, zoning out on her. She was so close that I could faintly make out her and Cats conversation- well at least whenever Jesse didn't yap in my ear.

"Can't you just pretend like that never happened?"

Ellie said, a frustrated look on her face, eye brows scrunched and eyes squinted. Cats annoying voice spoke back-

"Why are you defending her! Shes an asshole!"

"You don't fucking know her!"

"I know enough!"

Ellie rolled her eyes, and went to stand up, but Cats hand grabbed tightly on her wrist, pulling her back down,

"Cat, let go."

I watched as Cat shook her head no,

"Come on Ellie just sit back down, I'm sorry I yelled, I don't wanna argue"

Cat sounded like she was gonna cry,

"Cat, just let go."

I heard Cat talk but couldn't make out words, it sounded like she was pleading to Ellie, and then, Ellie ripped her hand away from Cats grip, She took her bag and left.

The exit happened to be right behind me and the table I sat at, so Ellie had to go in my direction.

As Ellie sped walked with her head down, she glanced up and instantly made eye contact with me. I was stuck in the trance and didn't look away.

As Ellie stared back at me, I could see her watery eyes, she then quickly moved her head back down and moved her eyes to the floor. I noticed a tear run down her cheek.

As she sped walked out of the cafeteria, I glanced at Cat to see her death staring me. She gave me one last look that could kill, and then turned away.

I look behind me at the exist. I then remember what Maria packed me: a chicken sandwich.

I don't know what type of food Ellie does or doesn't like, but who doesn't like chicken? Plus Maria told me that I got lucky staying with her since she has first dibs on the good food, so Ellie probably doesn't have chicken just laying around in her fridge, and it's definitely a step up from the cafeteria food that she was not even eating.

I glanced between Jesse and Dina who were cought up in a playful argument. I grabbed my backpack off the ground, swinging it over my arms, made sure Cat or anybody wasn't looking, and left.

I didn't even realize what I was doing when I made it to the bathroom. It wasn't until I opened the door and our eyes already contected. Blue meeting green.

My heart sped up, Why the fuck am I doing this?

I started silently freaking out, the door making a loud noise shutting behind me jolted me out of my trance.

Ellie was now looking away. Anywhere but me. Her face was red and many tears were staining her cheeks.

I gulped, I guess since i'm already here i'll just do what I came for. and moved my backpack off my shoulder, so it was on one of my shoulders and infront of me. I unzipped it and opened the paper bag that was still in my backpack. I pulled out the wrapped sandwich, along with a napkin. I zipped my bag with one hand, and put it over both my shoulders again.

Ellie was watching me with scrunched brows confused. I slowly stepped over to her till she was at arms length, and reached out to her, with the sandwich in hand, motioning for her to grab it.

She hesitantly reached her hand out, "I- Is this posion?" she asked in a voice that you could hear she had been crying.

I shook my head no, and moved closer to her waiting for her to take it, "Its' chicken" I mumbled in a quiet voice. She looked into my eyes and back to the wrapped food, and slowly took it from me.

After she took, I immediately turned around and left, I heard her call my name and for me to

wait, but I just sped walked away.

୨♡୧

I walked into the Art classroom, it was already filled to the brim. It was a small room packed with supplies, I smiled slightly at all the paint and material laying around the room. There was even canvas stands with white untouched canvases in the corner.

"Welcome, welcome, you may sit anywhere!" I heard a voice say, I turned to the right to see who I assumed the teacher. After giving her a second glance, I could confirm, she was. Her dark brown curly hair was in a messy bun, strands flying everywhere, she had a pencil ontop of her ear and red reading glasses with the beads around her neck so the glasses wouldnt fall off, and her for her outfit she seemed to be wearing a long plaid dress.. definitely a librarian and an artist.

I looked around the room to choose were to sit. My small smile dropped when I saw Cat. She didn't seem to notice me yet though.

I walked over to an empty table, sitting down and began to fidgit with my hands under the desk nervously.

I saw converse shoes walk in the door, and I immediately recognized whos feet they were. My eyes widened and I looked up to make sure. Yep. There stood Ellie Williams. Of fucking course she would take this class! Any time Riley wasn't with her, her damn nose was either in her notebook or those dorky comics.

Mrs R welcomed Ellie, and they held a conversation for a few minutes, catching up. They seemed to get along well.

It felt so weird to hear Ellies voice. Especially how you could hear her smile in it, and I noticed how her voice got at least a pitch deeper then back at the QZ.

Once they finished their short conversation, I watched in my peripheral vision how Ellies eyes got wide when she noticed me in the class. Ellie stood frozen for a good 30 seconds, before looking around the room. I heard her sigh, and watched as she walked over to Cat.

"Hey Baby.." Cat said to Ellie, I visibly cringed.

"i'm really sorry if I made you upset earlier.. I didn't mean to, and we could talk more about Ra-"

"Shhh- keep your voice down Cat!"

It almost sounded like Cat was gonna say my name? But Ellie cut her off.. probably just me overthinking.

"Wha- why?"

Cat hummed quietly, but the classroom was filled with calm chatter and they sat sorta close to me, so I still could hear.

Ellie then whispered really quietly to Cat, and Cat whispered back, seeming suprised. I really wish I could hear them better.

A girl with blonde hair came in and sat down next to me, not saying a word to me, she only sat down next to me since it was the only open seat left, so I didn't think much of it.

The class then started, and I almost forgot about Ellie, when Mrs R talked about the art we were to learn. Almost.

As much as I tried not to, I kept on glancing at Ellie. Almost everytime I looked at her, she was already looking at me. I hated it.

It's not my fault we were both facing eachother!

The bell went off an hour and a half later. It was nice, Mrs R made it fun. I even talked to the blonde girl since she made us talk to whoever we sat with. Her name was Claire. She was also relatively new to Jackson.

As I got up, Ellie passed by my table, she even made eye contact when she passed, her eyes were strained. What I didn't expect was to see her place down a tiny folded paper on my table.

I looked up to her with scrunched eyebrows, but she already had her back turned and was existing the classroom.

I looked to my left to see Claire just now getting up, she was eyeing the paper, probably wondering what it was.

I took the paper in my hand and turned so Claire couldn't see it, unfolding it. The paper held one word.

why?

[ballsballsbowls]

I lied and I'm making a new thread for this because I was going to keep it brief and I am not succeeding.

I think it's actually a sign that Katie was a fundamentally good person because she was not particularly good at harassing me (either that or I was simply not a very good mark. Or both.) The fact that I, again, knew we were not friends and knew there was no benign reason she was interacting with me probably did not make her life any easier.

The first one, she caught me in a big group of people before Choir class and said, loudly, "I just wanted to know if you're okay with me dating Matt. Since you're, you know, obsessed with him."

I wish I could say that I had a snappy comeback, but I was more confused than anything. I sputtered something once I realized what she was on about, but she got people talking about it, people outside of our class, and that was what mattered.

I suspect, for all her bluster, that she knew that I wasn't wrong about Matt, because she deliberately chose to approach me in a class that we didn't share with Matt and didn't include any of his immediate friends.

She did that one a few more times, asking me loudly how I felt about it in classes with bigger groups of students, and she would go stand and be so lovey-dovey (within the bounds of acceptable PDA) while standing in front of my locker, because Matt's locker was inexplicably 5 lockers down from mine for two consecutive years in spite of our names not being anywhere near each other alphabetically (I never did figure out how that happened).

The most memorable one, though, was she came into Honors English with a folded-up note and gave it to me, and she and two of her buds wanted me to read it while they sat and watched. I opened it up and glanced at it to see...a note allegedly from a secret admirer asking me to wait around after school so we could talk. I still can't tell you what the intention was if I stayed after school.

Now like...so even if this WAS real, I cannot overstate how incredibly burned out by school I was at this point. I think my first thought was, "if this IS real somehow, I cannot believe someone would think I would be impressed by a Secret Admirer right now. I HAVE a secret admirer and it's not really all that great. I desperately want someone who isn't afraid to loudly say that they want to be seen with me and like me for who I am. A Secret Admirer doesn't mean dick to me." And genuinely was like, disgusted by the cowardice this would have required. But I knew it wasn't real.

I glanced at it, looked back up at 3 sets of expectant eyes going, "WELL? What do you think? What are you going to say?"

I looked her dead in the eye and went, "...don't you think he's got awfully girly handwriting? Pretty weird, if you ask me."

This shut all of them pretty fast, and I'm, to this day, unsure how they thought someone in Honors classes with them would fall for something like that? I was a year younger than them but honestly?

I threw the note away immediately after class, which I sort of regret. Not because I thought it would bring back any good memories, but because I wish I could see it the way it actually looked, not the way I remember it my head from 2 decades out, a poor mental copy of a poor mental copy of a poor mental copy.

This was also extremely frustrating for me because there'd very much been a detente on people bullying me since 10th grade, because everyone who'd been a dick to me had either graduated, been expelled, or had Matt say or do SOMETHING to them that it stopped.

Matt's besties did see this happen, but I am unsure if he ever found out about it or if the three of them just chalked it up to Girls Being Girls.

So, I told you all of this to tell you about prom, which I'll do the next day or so.

[ikemenomegas]

lee and sasuke wasn't something i'd considered before but you described a truly great seed if i ever felt up to exploring that!!! thanks!!! personally i'm Big Fan of sai and shino but setting aside our favourite kikaichu-boy sai though......??? sai and lee just seems like a very very interesting combination based on a tenet of honesty, and because they could also bond over bodies like lee could with sasuke and lee's innate ability to connect to a certain outsider archetype- just look at gaara lol but also-- ...yeah i go hard with sai and lee being good friends and also more lmao

It's so funny that you mention Gaara, because I was so so tempted to add him to the list, but I really like Lee and Gaara as lifelong friends/allies who have this deep respect they don't share with anyone else, and I find it unlikely that Konoha would let it's new 8-gates master leave the village to mate someone else... Of the main group, I think Gaara and Lee are only ones to have had a spar (I'm not counting the shukaku vs kyuubi because that was a different thing) that ended in a particularly bad sort of way - with Lee almost permanently injured and in the hospital - only to fight beside each other a few months later. (Can you all tell sasuke retrieval arc was probably my favorite thing, the way each individual fight was crafted as a way for the boys to work out some major personal issues was so good, I miss the pacing of the og series)

But anon, anon, you have me absolutely vibrating. Shino is not on my list at the moment because I feel he would be difficult for me to write, but I can see it! Shino and Sai have that very quiet introvert + quiet extrovert thing going on. I'm not certain if they or Lee and Sai even speak in the show, so it didn't occur to me, but I agree these are some excellent pairings.

You're very right about Lee's ability to connect with those who are a little "outside" of the usual.

Lee and Sai have different approaches to honesty and different perspectives on honor but I absolutely pick up what you're putting down where they oddly seem to come to complementary conclusions about the way they want to interact with the people around them. Lee and Sai would also likely do without the sniping that Sasuke is known for. Sai imitates Sasuke's on occasion, but it's an act and Sai is not really that confrontational with the people around him, he's more likely to say something uncomfortable and true and let the chips fall. Alpha is going to be doing a lot of... not quite damage control but something between these two lol.

The only thing I would say is that yes, Sai's difficulties regarding connection with his "self" are similar to Sasuke's disconnect with his physical body, but Sasuke is deeply in touch with his emotions, while Sai as an artist is very aware of his physical self.

Sasuke's primary drive is the emotional connections he has with his immediate family, his friends, and his clan, his people. That might be part of the separation between his body and his desires - they have not always moved him towards the same goal, and his body has "failed" him more than once. Omegaverse Sasuke particularly feels this way because heats feel like a regularly scheduled reminder of weakness and until he experiences the emotional tether of a mate, he finds them deeply frustrating and gets rid of them with some grade-a genuine article Orochimaru drugs.

Sai is an artist, but he is specifically a painter. In more than one drama, painting is directly compared to a warrior's fighting style, which makes it very interesting that for Sai they are not only a comparison, but one and the same. For Sai, his paintings are one of the only ways he's able to connect his physical self to what he's feeling. I would even say that he's the most aware of his physical self when he is painting. At all other times though, I do think that you are right, that while Sai does sort of instinctually inhabit his physicality the way any very skilled physical performer does, that he doesn't connect his emotions to his body. Maybe a bit of inverse to the way Sasuke doesn't feel he can always connect his body to his emotions...

Since we're saying things today, the idea of Sasuke/Lee came to me because of the parallels between their respective mentors. Kakashi/Guy works very well as a ship, both logically and emotionally, but I like them as friends, simply because their bond is so particular. Kakashi has so few true friends though that in my writing, I preferentially preserve that profoundly cultivated relationship between them as an unshakeable friendship rather than a romantic entanglement. Thought it would be fun to play that out in their students instead ;)

[hartlow]

the last post i reblogged reminds me of this girl i met at summer camp. her name was sabrina; she was a year or two older than me, so she was in a different cabin and i rarely saw her. she was really popular with both the kids and the counselors, but the two times we interacted, she was kinder than anyone had ever been to me before.

first time we met: i was relaxing in a hammock when she passed by me with a group of other girls (that was during a period of time where you're technically not allowed to just be in the hammocks, but i was a 12 year old hiding my chronic illness; if she knew that was the rule, she didn't say anything). she told me the dinner bell rang a while ago, so i quickly got up like "oh crap, i didn't hear it". she asked if i wanted to walk with her and the other girls. this was SUPER awkward for me as a 12 year old. she was a 14 year old with other 14 year olds, and when you're that age, you think 14 year olds are so much cooler than you. i said sure anyway, though, and as we walked up the hill, she asked me what my name was. i immediately panicked. i don't know if what i had was exactly a lisp, but s's and l's were hard for me when i was nervous, and my deadname had one of those letters, so i introduced myself in the WORST way possible. stuttering, very quiet, basically lisping my name. i cringed at myself and was dreading the possibility of her mishearing me saying a different name, and me having to correct her, as i often had to do with people. but she just smiled as if i didn't completely fuck up, and was like "(deadname)? i like that, that's pretty!". we might've talked more before we reached the dining hall and split up to sit with our cabins, but that at least stuck out to me most. getting a compliment like that from a complete stranger, not to mention one of the Cool Kids in my eyes was very shocking.

second time: it was a different day, and a collection of kids were on the dining hall porch, which had some games set up on the picnic tables. i was aimlessly walking from game to game to observe other people, and started standing on the sidelines as sabrina was playing apples to apples with some campers. they were definitely deep into the game, but sabrina saw that i was watching her, and said to me "here, you look like you want to play. you can have my seat!". not only did she say it, but she genuinely, very quickly got up out of her seat and made a motion for me to sit there. THIS FREAKED MY ANXIOUS ASS OUT LOL. i felt so appreciated, but i genuinely did NOT want to play with these people i didn't know, so it was very awkward as i stuttered, again, and convinced her she could continue playing. i probably straight up ran away to some other area of the camp after that. i don't remember.

i do know that, at least at one point, i ran away to the bathrooms to stare at myself in the mirror, because i was scared i was gay.

i was gay. i interacted with a lot of kind girls there, a lot of them much more frequently than sabrina, and none of them made me freak out the way she would. we had two interactions, and i was kept very occupied at that camp, yet i would still find myself thinking about her. she had long, curly blonde hair and blue eyes. i had never noticed anyone's eye color that wasn't a family member before. i remember pretentiously comparing them in my mind to sapphires.

that year was her last year before you aged out of the camp. i had really wanted her contact information (because i "just wanted to be her friend"), but i chickened out in the end since we hardly talked, and a middle schooler trying to become friends with a high schooler felt unbelievably humiliating. her opinion mattered to me too much, so if she ghosted me, or god forbid rejected me right in front of me, it would've broken me. i couldn't take that risk. i had to go home, knowing i wouldn't see her again and it was honestly heart-wrenching.

it still gets me a little sad. do i think i would've ended up dating this girl at 12 years old? of course not. my mindset was nowhere near that concept. with how unstable i was, it was probably wise that i protected my mental health and didn't risk the rejection. yet she was so nice... even if she turned me down, which she probably would have, she probably would've done it in a very kind way, and then i could say i had given it a shot. or maybe we could've ended up friends, which would've been fantastic. i needed that kind of positivity in my life.

you really have to risk giving things a try. i learned that the hard way. but i'm at least glad i met her in the first place. remembering her always reminds me people aren't so bad.

[nightmare-foundation]

I keep seeing and impulsively checking the blog of an old fairly toxic friend of mine n I just.

Man. Why do YOU have to be doing well. Why am I the only one who looks back and ends up feeling awful.

Not that I want him to suffer. It's better he doesn't. But like,, I'm always the one on the chopping block between the two of us. It's been 4 YEARS and one month since we've completely ceased contact. Yet my dumb ass STILL can't not think abt him at random

Like,, I'm sure I wasn't completely innocent. I was a really weird 13 year old who never had a genuine friend before, not to mention my mental illness and trauma I had yet to uncover. Yet the only person who never communicated nor seemed to care about our friendship was him. I could be pushy at times, yeah, but I always backed down if told no and whatnot.

Not only that, but I'm still annoyed that he straight up LIED about me and what I was like. One of his (ADULT) friends had contacted me in late 2018, claiming I was, and I quote, "manipulative, misgendered him, and used him as an emotional dump truck". I was 13 years old, and my only friend besides one other person had blocked me for no reason.

Literally for that WHOLE month, I was terrified. I had panic attacks and was anxious as hell. And I'll admit I was a little dependent on him, but I was still fucked from that experience.

Once we started talking again and boundaries set up. He SORT of apologized, but always insisted he was an awful friend, so I ended up having to comfort him instead. I always made excuses and everything for him, convinced that I was awful. And literally like,, there was no effort put in from his side after that. Aaaand then April 2019, I was suddenly messaged and blocked, and that was the last time we talked.

I was hurt obv but like. After that. I kept on being targeted by his adult friends (we were both 14, the friends were at LEAST 23+). Deadass I still don't know what the hell was said abt me but I KNOW it wasn't good. Bc before I knew it I had someone call me a pathetic bitch while I was having a panic attack over feeling guilty for shit I didn't do, then I was banned from like 3 system servers for "interacting inappropriately with a minor". Cue me literally being 14 at the time, a csa survivor, with no evidence even when I asked repeatedly for it, with literally no access to anyone younger than me bc of discords TOS.

The stress from that LITERALLY made us split several times and caused us to switch hosts. Sammy, the alter who was host at the time, is likely STILL dormant. All of that happened in practically the same year.

I'm still fucking baffled by it, angry, and hurt. It's been 4 damn years and I'm 90% sure he doesn't even remember us now.

Like,, christ I still can't interact with the undertale fandom for long bc it makes me remember him. I can't even look at art styles resembling his bc it makes me sick! I am TERRIFIED of venting bc I'm scared someone will lash out at me or accuse me of dumping all of my trauma on them. I'm scared I'm doing something wrong without knowing it and that tomorrow I'll wake up to having no friends bc they all blocked me.

Hell, I have issues trusting people who use the same name as him! I avoid a whole GROUP of people because I'm terrified they'll recognize me and start drama with false claims. Anyone who may have been so much as NEAR him I can't completely interact with besides a couple reblogs here and there.

And like,, I'm sure he's doing completely fine. That he's entirely unaware of the damage he caused. And, yeah, good for him, he's not suffering like I am. But also,, I'm painfully envious. I wish I was left pain free.

It's so stupid. It was 4 years ago. I really need to get over it.

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Thank you for the lovely advice!

We are the same as always is when we hang out. My town is quite small so I know everyone and everyone knows me.

Our friend group are a weird bunch of people who are non judgemental first of all, and that's what got us together. Maybe you know and maybe you don't but small towns can be quite harsh to people that are or look "different".

I'm quite introverted so I let her have her space and to make other friends, I'm content in just our friend group, so I have no desire to make new friends, or haven't had in a while. So we're already on that "we don't have to hear from eachother often".

She knows I'm a hermit, and although or interaction is not as frequent (we see eachother every couple of weeks), when we do see eachother it's very meaningful.

So it's just a bummer to have her dismiss this, and pretend everything is fine when it has not been quite a while. And I'm weird about it, since I say it exactly how it is and she tends to avoid conflict, so I'm unsure how to approach this.

The latest developments are:

She's been pushing our movie nights away by not answering, I let her know at the beginning of the week I will be free Friday, Saturday and Sunday, she did not respond to those.

Messaged me out of the blue yesterday and asked if I was here in town, since I was busy that last week, and asked if I can make some time to go out with her and someone else.

She sent that yesterday morning expecting me to say yes so we can probably go out that same day.

I wasn't free and frankly, her question pissed me off just a bit, since she disregarded everything I said previously, so I didn't respond to her the whole day, until that evening. And now she is 👻

Thank you again for answering my previous ask, I just feel like I've been going in circles here feeling crazy.

I really hope you're having a wonderful day so far! We have some sunshine and wind currently, my favourite! 🩷

Perhaps her lack of response to your messages is just out of being genuinely busy or not having the mental capacity to reply in that moment?

I don't think her messaging you last minute was an attempt to slight or disrespect you, she probably realised she'd forgotten to message back and felt awful, so wanted to see if you were free to hang out then. I bet if you'd have gone she'd have been stroked to see you.

Why not reach out and say something along the lines of "I'm really sorry I wasn't able to make it to hang out the other day, I would have loved to but it was really last minute, and I already had plans. What's your availability over the next couple of weeks? It would be great to plan something to do together, just the two of us, as I'm missing your company."

It's open ended enough that there's no pressure on her or you and allows you enough advanced warning to actually get a date in the diary. You could also use the time that you hang out to talk through how you're feeling.

I've just finished a super busy work day and my back is hurting, so I'm looking forward to relaxing and laying in the bath this evening!

[lifeofagirlnameddan]

This Life (Prt 4)

August came and we both enrolled for a volleyball camp in school. On the end of the first day, he and I were waiting for my ride home. He'll be visiting my house for the first time. He ate lunch with us here at home, and we built some gundams (He bought it for me but I had no clue on how to build it) Soon he had to leave, so I walked him down the stairs... We stopped at the middle of the stairway, I gave him a hug as I said goodbye, I'll see him after the next day, and right before that... he leans us against the wall, inches apart... closing the gap.... for only a split second! That was my first kiss! And I honestly loved it... It was so soft...so quick and the feeling was electrifying. I walked him out the gate unable to look him in the eyes, for every time we looked at each other our faces plastered with two huge goofy ass grins. He left and I ran back to my room squealing. Right after that the next time I saw him, kisses were now unlocked and that move is clearly a favorite. After August, school was starting once again. But there was an event, a school anniversary fair, so I invited him and we attended it on a weekend. It was fun, we ate, saw friends, and we did...kiss a lot more too, and we went out to eat ramen. He and I were having a blast, but for some reason a pang of guilt hit me as I never told my family about this... Knowing my mothers refusal to any relationship, I told S about my concerns, deciding if we were to break it off amidst the happiness. I was going to...but then I stopped, I didn't go through with it because I wanted to be happy with him and I deluded that perhaps mom will understand and let me have this? Besides it was his birthday the next week so it would be cruel to do that to him! By his birthday we went out with his friends, I only came for a moment but it was worth it while it lasted. I met his mother, I fumbled a bit since I wasn't wearing my glasses I didn't recognize her face so it may have seemed like I was ignoring her. I wanted to clear that up so badly. Eventually October and November came, and we would meet through hangouts with our other friends, go on double dates with his best friend and his gf. By a week before Christmas I invited S and another friend of mine (CC) to bake cookies together. Oh it was fun, being a little sneaky with S in my home, hiding away from my little sister and little cousins. And it was all fun and games really, we played Monopoly and had a lightsaber battle. CC left early and S stayed until 11pm. Often times, when he's free or around the area, S would come to visit my house and bring me gifts. Honestly he is so sweet. I gave him a jacket, pins, stickers, a sword, a plushie, and other hand crafted things. He'd bring me candies and snacks when I least expect it. He'd visit me in school as well, although I have to race down against his group of friends. Honestly dating him was like sharing him with the boys HAHAH. His friends are amazing, they've got genuine personality, deranged, insane, fun and drama-free. I find myself naturally accepted by them, me and all our friends combined makes just a big group of people who like and share similar interests, love of food, and harmonized interactions. I was so lucky to have met S, so lucky that I haven't felt depressed in so long, I learned to love without being so needy and I learned to put myself first and make boundaries even in a relationship. S helped me love my country, love my life and wanted to work hard for my future. And S told me that being with me brought back the light in his eyes, and his friends would say he's become a better person ever since then and I honestly have fallen in love with him...

January came, I didn't think we'd see each other at the start of 2024. But he showed up January 3, at my house to greet me. Honestly how dedicated are you???? We went on a date a few days after. I had my school sports fest at an arena far off, at first I didn't want to join but I heard S was going (Why? Even if he's no longer a student, it has perks to have a younger brother who is still in the same school as me) So when I heard he was attending, I showed up last minute to surprise him. Honestly I thought he was mad at me! He refused to look at me and talk to me after I surprised him, I became salty...Turns out he was just trying to contain his excitement...

February, my birthday, He showed up a week before to see me. Then my plans for my 18th birthday was to go on a trip with friends, an overnight at a mountain resort. It was an amazing experience, he was amazing, and it was so fun. We went on a sky bike together, crossed a bridge, went swimming, went on a sky swing together... Then we played video games, card games, ate lots of food, and his mom and dad treated me to dinner. (The only thing I wish didn't happen that time was me falling off a roof as the first time for me to meet his dad...) The day was so fun...and at night... well we'll skip that blissful night's details... By the next day we had one last activity before we leave, I rode in his van apart from my family, I fell asleep on him.. ehe...

March and April consisted of movie and mall dates, it was getting harder since our school requirements were piling up....

May 2, 2024

I went out to meet S in a cafe, it was a quick meet just wanting to catch up... We had a date set for the next day... As I left he gave me a kiss and kissed my cheek goodbye, something felt off this month...

May 3, 2024

I knew it, my mother found out about us and told me to come home. I'm not allowed to go out or commute anymore, and she'll be driving me in and out of school again... She spoke to me about it, she's not against S himself, she just said it wasn't the right time... She told me he was a good person and that I should keep him as a friend, but I should stop the relationship. Oh how I cried... I miss him... I love him, how can I break his heart like this? I followed her either way, and S understood... it took us a day of crying to talk again, he said we'll stay friends and that he doesn't resent me for this and that he's willing to wait. I love him for that, I'll wait for him as well. Up until now we have still been talking to each other daily, the only thing that every stopped was the affectionate words, physical touch and random gifts.

May 23, 2024

My my, it the present already... It's been my finals week and I have been stressing out my life, but S has still been there all this time. I'll see him tomorrow, we're going out with our friends for the first time in so long now to watch the Haikyuu: Dumpster Battle at the cinemas. This loop in life... is it different now? Is S the path going straightforward? I'm not just going in circles am I?

this is the update of the life of a girl named dan...

[cheloumita]

To the one who told me he likes me

First off, I really want to thank you for sincerely confessing your feelings to me. You made your intentions clear and provided me with a sense of clarity that's quite unfamiliar to me. My past has been filled with fleeting glances, unfulfilled assurances, and insincere apologies, so your courage in expressing yourself stands out, especially given that this is the first time you’ve experienced such emotions and made a confession. Your revelation caught me off guard, and those around us were equally surprised. None of us saw this coming. So, I'm curious, what made you like me?

It wasn't too long ago that we became aware of each other's existence. Our interactions have been rather limited, only occurring a few times.

Sure, we spent a couple of days together with a group of friends, but we didn't delve into any deep or lengthy discussions. Our interactions remained light and lacking in depth. We spent time engaging in group activities, with minimal one-on-one conversations. I didn't realize you were closely observing me. Still, given our lack of interaction, you merely caught a glimpse of a facade. The only time we had a meaningful conversation was during dinner with my other friend. Yet, honestly, I didn't think much of it as the conversation didn't flow smoothly – at least from my (and also my friend’s) perspective.

Throughout the limited time we spent together, you only witnessed my fun and carefree side. The side that everyone seems to adore, the side that easily draws people in. However, that's not the complete representation of me. Most of your knowledge about me came from what others have said.

So again, why do you like me? Why was it so easy for you to confirm your feelings after encountering me only a few times?

If I put myself in your shoes, considering the information I had gathered and couple of fun-filled days spent together, I might understand why your feelings developed. It's easy to like someone when they're at their best, and it seems like you've mostly seen me during those moments. You caught me during my positive moments.

However, that version of me is not a constant. I'm not always the life of the party. I'm an introverted, type A, goal-oriented individual who likes to do things alone, never asks for help, and often prioritizes responsibilities over my own well-being. Many nights, I wrestle with exhaustion and tears. I'm not always the joyful companion you met. 

What if you got to know the less appealing aspects of me? The flaws and vulnerabilities? Would your feelings remain unchanged? Could you still confidently say that you like me?

Let’s be honest, your affection is founded on the “beautiful” side of me that you’ve seen. I don’t want to undermine your emotions, but I can’t help but wish you had taken more time to truly get to know me before sharing your feelings.

It would have been beneficial if you had taken more time to observe me, build a friendship, and genuinely get to know me before revealing your feelings. I've had my fair share of heartbreaks, whereas this is your first experience with such emotions. I've seen this scenario play out too many times, knowing exactly how it unfolds. People have confessed their affection for me, demonstrated their sincerity, gotten to know every facet of me, and then disappeared without a word when the thrill faded.

So, if I were to ask you once more, "Why do you like me?" how would you respond? Would your answer be the typical ones like "She's enjoyable to be around" or "I can see her strong connection with God"? Anyone can put on those fronts. What truly resonates with you about me? What can you say about me that isn’t borrowed from someone else’s viewpoint? What led you to believe that confessing your feelings to me was the right move? 

It’s entirely possible that my trust issues are influencing my thoughts here. Nonetheless, these inquiries arise from past encounters; this isn’t my first time navigating such situations. While you’re grappling with these intense emotions for the first time, perhaps your heart is guiding you more than your head. Your current feelings might be overwhelming, all-consuming, and passionate. You might have formed a certain perception of me, and it's probable that as you come to know the real me – the everyday version – you might reconsider and think, "Perhaps I rushed into this" or "Maybe my feelings weren't as strong as I believed."

It is brave to say you like someone, especially when you’re only exposed to their likable side. But it’s even braver for someone to take the time and exhibit enough patience to truly understand someone beyond the surface, to embrace all the less likable parts of you, and THEN decide to stay and accept you. It’s much more admirable for someone to not only consider their own feelings and seek relief by confessing their emotions abruptly just because they can’t contain them anymore, but also to show consideration and patience in withholding those overwhelming feelings. This ensures that the receiving end of such a confession doesn’t feel scared or awkward, but instead feels at ease and safe when you decide to reveal your feelings.

To the one who told me he likes me, you still remain a stranger to me. I hope you took sufficient time to truly understand all parts of me, even the ones that are broken and healing. I hope we laid the foundation of friendship first. I hope I learned to feel at ease with you before anything else. I hope our conversations delved deep enough for you to gauge how I might react to such a sudden confession.

To the one who told me he likes me, please  understand that I'm not an easy person to love. Trust takes time, and I gradually open my heart to others.

To the one who told me he likes me, I hope you get to know the real me with your eyes wide open, not clouded by the hearts in your eyes, but well aware of all my flaws because I know I have tons of them. 

To the one who told me he likes me, I hope you try and find a way of not expressing every feeling that you have, every moment that you have them. Because feelings change abruptly. And declaring a feeling that may (and will!) fade in a few moments turn into a promise, that’s why promises are always broken. I know that very well. 

[takeustochurch]

Pentecost Methodist Church

location: Pasir Ris (Closest MRT is Tampines East we think)

service timings:

peranakan: 0730 every 2nd Sunday of the month

english traditional (0830) and english contemporary (1100) weekly

mandarin: 1130 every 4th Sunday of the month

youth: every 0900 every last Sunday of the month

children's ministry: 0830 and 1100 every 1st Sunday of the month

here's their website for more info!

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

'*•.¸♡overall impressions (rated by 🌘, 🍳, and 💀!)♡¸.•*'

1. friendliness

🌘: 9/10 - friendly but not CREEPY friendly, u get what I mean? I dunno how accurate our rating is bcs we alr had a friend there...so imma just lower it abit,,,

🍳: 7/10 - the youth leaders were cool!!! but also getting a more objective opinion because idk anyone there so it was weird but i think the overall vibe was fun

💀: dead. again. RIP

2. openness

(we didn't ask any qns again bcs we were scared HAHAHAHA but they did keep asking us if we wanted to clarify anything/had any qns so...)

3. service

🌘: 6/10 - the service itself was nothing too special, just the usual spiel, but I liked the topic. the pastor man was kinda confusing when he explained things tho. overall was a meh service. DEF better than the last one tho

🍳: 6/10 - more engaging than the previous one or mayb im biased but still was interesting to see how they taught the sermons because it definitely was slightly different from the previous church

💀: RIP

4. programs

🌘: i honestly dk much abt their programs but frm their youth i think its q engaging? and we visited bcs they were hosting an event and they had FREE FOOD which was. cool. they mentioned a church camp too, and it sounded p fun all things considered. also they have. A GAME ROOM? which if anything gives them some points in my book.

🍳: would say its q cool tbh theyre really engaging and helps to break the ice for newcomers to familiarise themselves with the church environment - also they were talking about a church camp??? where one of the youth groups MAY just sneak off and go shopping but who knows!!

💀: RIP

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'*•.¸♡REVIEWS♡¸.•*'

THATS RIGHT WE BACK BABY!!! we're like those absent aunts that only come once a year and are always drunk. VERY COOL.

on to the actual church - their sermon room wasn't as cool as the previous one but NO MATTER because i later noticed that their service hall is actually on the 1st floor and the one we went to was probably the youth one on the like, 4th, floor.

their service was p cool, normal stuff, they had icebreakers but i dunno if it was just because we went there during an event sorta thing. the youth after the session was cool, the people were nice and the discussions were actually p cool. i kinda got confused but is ALL GOOD bcs they went thru it after.

THEY HAVE A GAME ROOM/ YOUTH HANG OUT PLACE that has a SWITCH. if you like super smash - boy is this the church for you. the vibes are cool and genuinely might keep going back to it bcs my friend also goes there and you can drop by the church lounge any day of the week? which i think is p cool.

omg we're BACK after surviving life and tests and projects!!!!

okaokoaky so this time we got roped into coming by 🌘's friend who appparently DID NOT KNOW we were coming together but thats COOL!!!

started w band and icebreakers, then had prayers lead by the youth leader(?) and then the pastor mans.

THEN we split off into groups to talk in youth groups i suppose which was mildly scary because idk how to talk to people??? but yes then we started discussing what the pastor was talking about during the session - was q interesting? they tried to initiate more interactive discussion then concluded.

THEN WE GOT TO THE SWITCHES THEY HAVE A WHOLE ASS ROOMMM FOR GAMES AND STUFF like there was a switch (which the boys were addicted to btw??), a random basketball lying around, a whole LIBRARY and sooo many chairs to sit around and talk.

after thattt we got free lunch (which was bombz af btw) then spedran awayyy. overall fun experience! people were welcoming and kind and it was interesting to listen to how they taught the sermons.

we'll always remember him in our hearts 😔

'*•.¸♡ THE END♡¸.•*'