#i genuinely don’t know how I am remotely functioning anymore I am so tired all the time

[pixlmonkeys]

its been like 4 months since I’ve been able to get a full nights sleep im sooooo fine

[ladyofpurple]

GIRL ITS BEEN MONTHS SINCE YOU UPDATED TPOY!! please tell me you haven’t given up on it )-:

I KNOW IM REALLY SORRY OMG

This took a bit longer to answer than it should have because I was trying to figure out how to reply, I guess?? The short answer is basically that writing bits of fic during my exams when I didn’t actually have the time to was super productive, mainly because I Didn’t Want To Do The Thing but my entire future hinged on Doing The Thing and anxiety-driven avoidance is excellent creative fuel, apparently. The problem is, of course, that once I finished and started getting my results back and actually had time to breathe again my brain kinda fizzled out and I never wanted to look at a Word document ever again in my life. Writing is really hard right now, for some reason. And not just TPoy — everything I try to write either gives me a headache, makes every idea I’ve ever had go flying out the window like magic, or looks like absolute garbage to me. (I’ve been trying, though, I promise!!!) There is more TPoY, though!! I swear to God!! It’s just coming along a little slower than anticipated.

The long answer is... a little more complicated and probably more than you’re interested in, and the main reason is the short one anyway. But I’ll put a long answer under a cut just in case (aka the entire history of TPoY lol), since I’ve lowkey wanted to post about it for a while now but didn’t quite know how to? May get a little very personal, I suppose.

Basically, TPoY is and always has been a garbage fic. I don’t say that to disparage my own writing or attempt to elicit praise from anyone: I have always considered it a glorious dumpster fire of experimentation, a ridiculous Frankenstein’s monster of all my favorite ML tropes as a practice run, since it had been so long since attempting to write anything at all. I’m thrilled that people like it, of course! Whenever people send me asks about it my answers always involve a lot of exclamation points and variations on “I AM CURRENTLY SOBBING ON THE FLOOR IN GRATITUDE” because I honestly have no idea how to express how genuinely teary-eyed I get when someone tells me how much they like it, or post a comment. That being said, it was always intended for my own amusement and/or therapy, and that it’s gotten so many bookmarks and kudos and comments is incredibly surreal, even after a whole year.

When I started writing it, I was working through a lot of stuff. My first boyfriend had broken up with me, and as we lived together in his hometown I was stuck there on my own for another year before I could move back home. 2016 was filled with a lot of horrifying shit that kept happening one after the other and I eventually almost had to drop out of school because I couldn’t handle it all. The relationship was pretty toxic but all I knew at the time was that I was scared and alone and heartbroken. 

When I started writing, it was after 8 months of the worst bout of depression I’ve ever experienced, and I still wasn’t well, but I functioned passably enough to start hyperfocusing on things. I had an idea about a fic I suddenly wanted to write, and it would have a happy ending and all, but I could work through my feelings in a way I hadn’t tried to since before my ex and I got together. I pulled a lot of the start of the fic (the rejection, the miscommunication, the avoidance) from my recent breakup, yes, but also from my first rejection, aka the only other boy I’d liked enough to confess my feelings to. We were 17, and he admitted that he knew, and then suddenly we weren’t friends anymore. A year and a half later, I got together with my ex, and suddenly after three years of dedicating my life to “us” on his whims he was ghosting me without explanation.

I see a lot of myself in Marinette at that age. The awkwardness, the enthusiasm, the incredibly obvious lovesick obsession with a cute boy who’s nice to you. I wondered if maybe she would react the same, if put into similar circumstances as I had been. Focus on the self-doubt that would follow, based on insecurities she’s already shown in the show — coupled with your standard teenage hormone-fest —and you’d have a fabulous starter for angstfic and a free therapy session all in one.

The problem with that is nobody knows this backstory but me. People focusing on Marinette’s insecurities is nothing new. Other people are annoyed it’s such a popular trope. And the fact that I’ve chosen to focus on certain aspects of the main characters’ identities for the purposes of a story I started on a whim has been making me insecure for a long time because people in the fandom are tired of those characterizations. I’ve never gotten hate comments —I don’t even remember ever getting constructive criticism on TPoY. But I’m well aware that the plot is far from original and definitely lacking in certain places, and as the comments roll in and the hits go up my anxiety mounts because oh my God I’m that guy in the fandom.

I always intended on focusing on different aspects of their characterizations in different fics to suit the plot, y’know? Not ignoring parts of their personalities, but just... emphasizing other parts. But TPoY is the one most people have read. I have a couple one-shots where I tried to do something like that, with different aspects of their characters, but short one-shots can’t really compare to a 100,000+ word WIP, even if they even slightly compared in popularity (they don’t). So my only notable contribution to the fandom is TPoY. And that makes me anxious.

Then there’s the Frankenstein-like obsession with adding every trope I’ve ever wanted to write in a fic like this. I’ve mentioned before that the original plan for this was, like, 10-15 chapters at most. But every chapter I write I’m like, “But what if I did this???” Like I said, I never intended it to be even remotely popular. The only other fandoms I’ve written for are microscopic in comparison. I had no frame of reference for a pairing this big — all my previous experience was from Fanfiction.net, for Christ’s sake. I assumed I wouldn’t finish it, and even getting to chapter 6 was a surprise. But that hyperfocus somehow held on for dear life and I was banging out chapters like nobody’s business. And people were responding to it. And I think that kind of went to my head a little? Not like in an “I deserve all this attention” kind of way, but more like a “People like?? This thing I’m doing??? I cannot squander this opportunity, I must give them m o r e” kind of way. It was the best I’d felt since the breakup and I didn’t really think I deserved it, so I kind of wanted to... prove I did, I guess, by writing everything I’d ever wanted in a lovesquare fic in hopes that people would keep liking it and me and I’d keep feeling nice. (I mean, I’d planned to add in a ridiculous amount of tropes anyway, I just ended up adding a lot more than I’d planned.)

On the one hand, people go nuts for that shit. On the other, it’s getting harder and harder to justify cramming all this shit into the same fic. This compulsion keeps fucking me over by giving me spur-of-the-moment ideas for sub-plots I never wanted and certainly didn’t properly think through before posting the foreshadowing or setup for — yet at the same time they’re usually thought of and integrated several chapters in advance so I can’t just... leave them out? And part of me kind of doesn’t want to?? And I’m trying with every fiber in my being not to rewrite just the first 3 chapters, let alone the entire fic. A side-effect of my FF.net history at 13 was Never Edit Anything. Yeah, I’ll do some spell-check. Maybe some rewording here and there. Sometimes I’ll post a chapter and come back sporadically over the next few days to change out some punctuation or whatever. But if I don’t like a section after writing for a while? Throw the Whole Ass Chapter out. After it’s posted? This Is Your Life Now.

let’s not talk about how everything after chapter 27 was supposed to go very differently

Never mind that, after writing a hundred thousand goddamn words in a year, one’s writing skill tends to evolve and increase over time. Not just in regards to vocabulary, but with consistency and pacing and structure. This means, of course, that I can’t ever reread my own writing without the Evil Writing Goblin in my brain telling me to start the whole thing over from scratch. It’s fine.

I suppose I could get a beta, but I’m very bad at taking critique and as I’m even worse at talking to people than I am at posting on time I don’t think that would work out very well.

The point of this goddamn novel is that TPoY means a lot to me, probably a lot more than people realize. It’s kinda dumb and very cheesy and absurdly long, but it was the first real thing I did for myself after my whole life fell apart. I will finish it!!

But it’s hard to write it right now. I’m trying— I’m writing four chapters at the same time right now (a bit less than 10,000 words combined at current count). I don’t want to try to rewrite the whole fic or keep “mischaracterizing” the characters or lose the suspense I’ve tried to build (or, God forbid, try to keep interest so hard it hurts the rest of the fic) and risk alienating readers. I can’t stress enough how much these supportive comments mean to me, even on something as silly as a fanfic. But I also don’t want to force myself to write it or write something just because other people might or might not like it and risk alienating me. So I’m stuck at a kind of anxiety-induced impasse with myself that’s just made worse by the fact that I’m having trouble writing anything at all at the moment.

Jesus Christ this was longer than I meant it to be. Please don’t take this as a pity-party or anything. I don’t want sympathy or, I don’t know, reassurance or anything, I just wanted everything to be Out There because it really is the most in-depth response I could give and y’all deserve an honest answer. Some of you guys have been reading since the beginning and I can’t express how much that means to me. I feel really bad when I haven’t updated in a long time, because I know my fic makes some people really happy!

And PLEASE don’t take this as a “STOP ASKING ME ABOUT TPOY GODDAMMIT” because this is the opposite of that. I FUCKING LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME ABOUT TPOY. I L I V E FOR IT. But it sucks when the only answer I have is “I don’t know when it’ll be up, sorry :( ”

I mean, that’ll probably still be the answer I give, unless I by some miraculous (heh) stroke of luck) start hyperfocusing on writing again.

But at least y’all kinda know why now.

[imagineteamfreewill]

Hopefully

Title: Hopefully

Pairing: Mermaid!Reader x Mermaid!Dean

Word Count: 2,896

Warnings: Angst, mentions of character death, subtle pining

Summary: A late-night talk with Y/N dredges up something that Dean had been trying to forget.

A/N: This is part two of the Back to the Start series! Feedback is greatly appreciated. Enjoy, and reblog!

X

Back to the Start Masterlist

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_______________

Weeks passed as Dean and Y/N settled into a routine together. She was adjusting quickly to life on land, but he still sensed that she was hesitant whenever she encountered something new. So, Dean stuck by her side and helped her to learn as much as possible. He answered all of her questions, usually without complaint, and he found that he enjoyed having her around now just as much as he had that very first day. In fact, he was learning that he was even more infatuated with her than he’d originally thought. He missed her whenever he had to go into town to get something or to go to work, and at night he often fought the urge to get out of bed and check on her.

When he’d told his co-worker Benny about how weird he’d been feeling around her, the man had simply smiled and muttered something about him “falling for her”. Dean wasn’t quite sure if that was a good thing or not, but hopefully, he would find out before she had to return home.

The sun had already sunk below the horizon by the time Dean arrived back at the house after work. It had been a long, frustrating shift and he was ready to be in bed, but when he opened the front door to find Y/N absolutely fascinated by the hour-long infomercials that were beginning to play on TV, he knew that he’d be up for a while longer. She always had questions, and he couldn’t deny the fact that he loved how curious she was about everything. It was… endearing.

After slipping off his shoes and jacket, Dean headed into the living room.

Y/N reluctantly tore her eyes away from the commercial when he walked in, giving him a bright smile in the process. “You’re home!” she cried.

Dean couldn’t help but smile in return. “I sure am, sweetheart. Whatcha watching?”

Y/N glanced back at the TV and frowned. “It’s for some kind of… storage device. You put food in it so it doesn’t become inedible. You should get one of these. Your food is always disgusting by the next day,” she noted, her voice serious as she looked up at him once more. “I could call them for you. I’m sure they’d like to talk to you.”

Sighing, Dean settled down on the couch beside her and grabbed the remote, then changed the channel to a late-night sitcom. It was a rerun, he noticed, and he leaned back against the cushions.

“I don’t need any food storage containers, Y/N. The things they sell on TV usually break pretty soon anyway. It’s easier to just eat all the food right away.” Looking over at her, Dean realized that she hadn’t heard a word he had said. Y/N was completely focused on the sitcom, a small smile playing on her lips as she caught onto one of the jokes.

Neither he nor Y/N spoke until the show had finished. Finally, she yawned and settled against his shoulder, then said, “I missed you today.”

That took Dean by surprise. He hadn’t expected Y/N to even think of him while he was at work; he’d shown her how to work the TV before he’d left, and by the time he was climbing into his car, Y/N was completely enraptured by the cartoons he’d put on for her.

“Really?” he mused, not quite sure how to respond. No one had ever told him that they’d missed him before. That and the fact that she was comfortable around him to rest against him was enough to put him at a loss for words.

Y/N nodded. “Yeah. I had lots of questions about the shows and no one was here to answer them.”

So she didn’t really miss me, Dean thought as his heart sank. She just missed having someone here to help her understand the human world.

“Well, if you were sticking around longer I’d get you a phone so you could text me, but I don’t think you’ll need one of those. Your leg is almost healed,” Dean replied. He was right. The pale skin of her leg was no longer marred by the angry red gash. Instead, it had healed into a long, pink scar. It was still sensitive to the touch, and Y/N sometimes complained that it pained her, but Dean was beginning to wonder if that was really true. He’d had his own fair share of cuts, and he’d never had any kind of pain afterward.

“I want to pick a show now,” Y/N said, pulling Dean out of his thoughts. She reached for the remote and he handed it to her without a word.

As she flipped from channel to channel, Dean tried to ignore how she’d cuddled up against him, and how he didn’t mind the weight of her against him even after his long and tiring shift. Hesitantly, he moved his arm so that it was around her shoulders, and almost immediately Y/N snuggled closer to accommodate his embrace.

“Dean?” she asked as she began to go through the channels for the second time. Dean hummed in reply. “How come you never ask me about being a mermaid?”

Dean tried to keep himself from growing tense as he glanced down at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” she began, chewing on her lip as she finally stopped on another channel playing sitcoms, “I would think that if a human saw a mermaid, he’d have a lot of questions. I mean, you haven’t asked about my tail or my gills or what I eat or even if there are other mermaids… Aren’t you curious?”

It took Dean a minute to formulate a reply. He had to be careful about what he said; if he was too blasé, it would look like he was trying to avoid the subject, but if he started asking her tons of questions, it would seem like he was trying to cover something up.

Carefully, he pulled his arm away from her, and the awkwardness of the situation almost made him cringe. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you. You’re trying to adjust to my world and I don’t want you to feel homesick on top of that,” he answered.

Y/N lifted her head and looked up at him, a soft smile on her face. “That’s very kind of you, Dean, but you can ask me anything about my life. I have nothing to hide. It would be nice to get to tell someone about my life,” she said. “Besides, everyone else I live with already knows everything because they all live the same way I do.” She didn’t look away as she spoke, and Dean felt his heart lurch a little at the earnestness in her eyes. She was being so truthful with him, yet he had done nothing but lie.

Well, almost nothing. Telling her that she could stay as long as she wanted wasn’t a lie. And I wasn’t lying when I said that I would buy her the things she needed to live on land, like clothes and towels and a phone.

“Go ahead, Dean,” Y/N urged. “I promise it’s okay.”

After a moment, Dean asked, “Why is your tail the same color as your eyes? Are all mermaids’ tails like that?” Of course, he already knew the reply, but he tried to sound as genuine as possible.

Smiling, Y/N nodded and replied, “Yes. If you were a mermaid, your tail would be just as beautiful as your eyes are.”

She didn’t seem to recognize how flirtatious her words were, and Dean raised an eyebrow. “You think my eyes are beautiful?”

Suddenly realizing her implications, Y/N flushed and ducked her head shyly. “Yes, but I don’t mean to… to…” She searched for the words, and after a few seconds it was clear that she didn’t know what she was trying to say.

“It’s okay,” Dean told her. He smiled to try and relieve some of her discomfort, and when she finally smiled back, he continued, “And what about my name?”

“Your name?”

Dean nodded. “You said that my name is legendary or something?”

“Not quite,” Y/N asked. She rested her head against Dean’s shoulder once more and went back to watching the TV as she continued, “As a kid, my mom always told me about a legendary mermaid named Dean. He, his brother Sam, and their parents were all royalty. They took care of all the mermaids in the Pacific, and everyone adored them.”

Y/N grew quiet. Her eyes stayed focused on the characters onscreen, and when she didn’t speak anymore, Dean carefully laced his fingers with hers. Both of their hands rested on his thigh, but Y/N didn’t try to move them, nor did she object.

“What happened?” Dean murmured. He was already dreading the answer, but he had to know.

Her voice was barely above a whisper when she spoke again. “They died. They were attacked by a sea demon while on their way to visit a pod. None of them made it.”

Dean closed his eyes. He had been foolishly hoping that the other mermaids had made up some fanciful tale of him and his family making it out alive, then living in hiding while they tracked down the demon once more, but Y/N’s story told him otherwise.

Silently, Dean let go of her hand and got to his feet. He was already halfway up the stairs when Y/N spoke up, saying, “I’m sorry if I upset you, Dean. It’s just a story, you know—something that moms tell their kids to scare them into not swimming into deep, unknown waters. Dean and his family never existed, at least not in real life.”

“I know,” he replied, pausing on the steps. His hand rested on the railing for a moment longer before he dropped it to his side and turned to face her. Y/N was watching him from the couch, her eyes wide with worry and curiosity. Dean knew he was acting strangely by leaving suddenly, but the memories that had resurfaced were too painful for him to ignore.

“I’m fine,” he added. “It’s just been a long day and I need to get some sleep.”

Y/N nodded in response, but he could tell she looked unconvinced.

“Dean, please come tell me what’s wrong,” she pleaded.

Shaking his head, Dean went to finish climbing the stairs when he heard the TV volume being turned down.

“Dean, I only want to help. You don’t look fine and I want to help you,” Y/N said. Her voice was kind, but Dean sensed an edge of pity in her words, and that was enough to make his temper flare. He didn’t want to talk about it, couldn’t she see that?

“I said, I’m fine!” he snapped. “You don’t need to constantly ask if I’m okay, Y/N! I’m fine!”

He hadn’t meant to yell; Dean would never intentionally yell at Y/N, at least not without a good reason to, but his anger had reared its ugly head, and the words had slipped out before he could stop them.

Thinking of the terrified look on his younger brother’s face and the fear in his mother’s eyes is what had made him angry. He wasn’t angry at Y/N, of course, but at himself and the monster they’d been trying to draw away from the pod. His family hadn’t deserved to die, just like Dean didn’t deserve to live. Learning that mermaids talked about him and his family like they were nothing but an old wive’s tale had stung, and the memories of the only people he’d ever loved dying in front of him was too much to handle.

Y/N’s expression had turned wary at his shout, and Dean tried to ignore the way she’d flinched. She was sitting motionless on the couch as she waited for his next move. Fear filled her eyes.

Without another word, Dean continued on his way to a room. He shut the door and began to undress, then headed to the bathroom and started the shower.

“Clean, fresh water,” he murmured to himself. “No more saltwater, no more memories, no more mermaids, nothing. This is my life now. I’m human. I’m not a prince, I’m not a mermaid, I’m not a warrior—I’m human through and through.”

The water ran hot and clear as he finished peeling off his clothes from work, and as he stepped into the spray, Dean tried to ignore the phantom feeling of the demon’s long, curved claws digging into the meaty flesh of his leg. He knew that the pain wasn’t real, but the muscles twinged in remembrance and he had to brace himself against the slick shower wall so that he wouldn’t fall to his knees.

Still holding himself up, Dean closed his eyes and tried to picture Y/N’s smile. She always had a way of warding off the nightmares and bad memories—at least, she had in the past few weeks they’d spent together. She was probably afraid of him now that he’d shown her what he was really like, but he could deal with an apology in the morning. Right now all Dean wanted was to think of a future with her, rather than her fear of him and the past he’d been trying so hard to forget.

_______________

You didn’t move as you watched Dean disappear up the stairs. He’d yelled at you, which was something you’d never thought that he would do. To be honest, you didn’t even think that he was capable of yelling. Sure, he’d seemed gruff at first, but from the moment you’d come into his home, Dean had been nothing but gentle with you.

When he’d finally gone out of sight, you let out the breath you’d been holding and relaxed back against the cushions. The TV was still quietly playing and the canned laughter did nothing to fill the dreadful silence that now filled the living room. Unsure of what to do, you picked up the remote and turned it off, leaving you sitting in the dark and quiet. Upstairs, the shower turned on, and you found yourself wondering if Dean ever cried in the shower like you had during your first two nights on land. Of course, Dean had heard you, and he’d been quick to comfort you. ‘Life on earth is hard,’ he’d said, ‘but you’ll get used to it.’

Sighing, you got up from your seat and followed Dean’s steps, instead going into your own bedroom. You shut the door behind you and slowly pulled on your pajamas, then crawled into bed.

The room was chillier than the rest of the house because Dean had insisted that you left the window open so that you would never be without the sound of the waves, even at night. As you got comfortable under the covers, a breeze came in from through the open window and you breathed in deeply. The smell of the salt eased your anxiety about Dean’s swift anger. Turning to face the window, you watched as the sheer white curtains billowed out as the ocean breeze blew in, and you smiled softly at the sight. Dean had bought them specifically for the room the week before. They were gentle, like the breeze itself or sparkling waves on a sunny summer day, and they were absolutely beautiful, like the cream-colored seashells that lined your room in your childhood home. I should tell Dean about the seashells, you thought as your mind began to wander. He’d love them if he could see them.

Outside, you realized, stars would be shining in the deep blue sky. The young mermaids that lived down below would be snuggling down in their beds so that their mothers would tell them a story much like the one you’d told Dean. The thought made you think of your own mother, who was surely worrying about you, and a pang of sadness went through you. Soon you’d be going back to her, but you’d also be leaving Dean behind. You’d miss Dean almost as much as you missed your family now—maybe more. Your sadness deepened when you realized that you might be spending your last few days on land with him angry at you.

Hopefully, Dean won’t be so angry in the morning. I’ll get up and make him eggs like he showed me to, and maybe then he’ll forgive me for whatever I did. Hopefully.

As dreams started to slip into your head and the unhappy thoughts began to fade, you closed your eyes and tried to picture your mother’s smiling face. Instead, however, Dean’s smile filled your mind. The crinkles that appeared at the corners of his vibrant green eyes never failed to cheer you up, and you smiled a little to yourself as you remembered the feeling of his arm around your shoulders and his hand in yours.

Surely Dean wouldn’t stay mad at you, not after tonight. The two of you had gotten so close since you’d washed up on the beach outside his home, and one step back wasn’t that far. Hopefully you could recover from this and everything would be exactly like it was before.

_______________

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[oiseaux-de-proie]

Very often outside of my home if I am alone somewhere I am more capable of feeling things. Once I get home, or I’m in the vicinity of other people, a cloud covers my mind. It’s hard to touch or be touched by anything.

All I know is lately an increasing disgust has been coming over me for people...as a group. It’s not much really new for me but it’s just been increasing more, and more, and today the feeling’s gotten suffocating. I’m not even sure if it’s disgust, just moreso a sense of sickness and despair. I do not feel at home with people as a group, with society as an institution and so many of its aspects. There are probably a lot of people who agree with me but I can’t help but feel that my perspective is cast with a certain sort of shadow. I feel the energy and vibe of places seep into me and invade me until I can’t see anything else anymore and it spiritually makes me want to throw up. I am tired of living in these places and being near these people. I’m tired of doing the sort of things I need to. I am tied to it somehow and I think I don’t want to be. It’s a source of conflict though because here I am delving directly into academia. Maybe that will help me find a place where going about my life isn’t so soul sickness inducing? I don’t know.

I don’t feel like I’m communicating this right. What I’m trying to say is, I really really really just want to disappear into the woods. Genuinely. I just want things to be simple and I want space to think and be away from others. I want to exist in a place that doesn’t keep me feeling sick and lost and make me feel like I’m being held captive. I don’t really want material things beyond what I need to live- aside from books and means to make art and mentally engage myself and create. I do like internet to some extent for resources and knowledge. I like having access to art and some peoples’ thoughts. I want to be able to publish things that people see and read as well but that is about it. I would like to venture somewhere to be around people sometimes but not have it be an obligation or something that is unavoidable. I always wonder maybe it is just me, or maybe there is a problem with how I have viewed things, but no matter how I have tried to re-frame my mind it has not abolished the extreme cognitive dissonance and exhaustion of existing in this “world” that I am constantly aware of. I love this world but I do not think I like the aspects of it that are constructed by our current society. I am a very young person but I already feel so old and done with it. I just want to rest and have peace. Things continue to feel unreal save in very few circumstances. I do not feel present where I am at populated/inhabited places or like I am even in my body at those times. I feel like my soul is just recoiling and hiding somewhere. I have to keep reminding myself, “Oh yes, I am here, and this is my life.” The only places where I do not have to constantly hold that in my mind to function are out in the woods or somewhere vacant of people and signs and advertisements and agendas money and politics and people expecting and doing and being things. The closest solution I can come up with to all of this is to continue to try and make as much peace with where I am at right now as I can- and keep bending my mind and being towards the things that I know matter to me and where I feel the most at home within my means- going into the woods and reading and writing and thinking and creating. I need to write. I think if I really did consistently delve back into my writing it would assuage some of my soul sickness. I do not do well without it and now it’s been so so so long since I reconnected with it. I hope maybe one day I could find a plot of land in the forest and work remotely or something...publish something...just sit and observe the world.

[haikyuulovercompany]

Hiii, could you do a Hogwarts au of y/n being a Hufflepuff and Iwaizumi being a Slytherin and they're a couple and everyone questions why they're together but they don't care since they just compliment each other so well and their love is so pure, fluffffyyyy

Heyyy, I hope this is fluffly enough!!! And I must say I was just getting anxious to write this one. I, myself, am a legit Hufflepuff and I deeply feel for it. So yeah. I hope I got this one right!

——

Iwaizumi sighed exasperated as he walked across theSlytherin common room. He could hear a couple of girls whispering to each otherwithout noticing how actually loud their whispers were. 

“He’s totally outto see her. What a waste of potential.” He had heard oneof the girls said.

He wanted to turn around and acknowledge it, walk upto that girl and ask if his personal relationship affected her in any sort ofform. But he didn’t because he knew all the answers. And doing so would notonly be rude, but would do absolutely nothing for his situation. He had beenwell advised that that kind of behavior could only make things worse. So hekept his pace straight, and his head high. 

As soon as he stepped out of the Slytherin territory,he started to trot. He was usually on time, but she was always quicker thanhim. She always arrived before him. He headed past the clock tower and into thebridge that would take him to the owlery. The more he got away from his commonroom, the bigger his smile grew. He climbed every flight of stairs feelinglighter and lighter since he knew what awaited him at the top. 

And as he arrived, he was welcomed by the sound ofwings flapping and by the sight of she standing by the window as her footplayed with a small stone on the floor. She immediately heard his steps comingtowards her. She first seemed surprised, almost taken aback, but as soon as hermind recognized it was him, her expression softened, and even her eyes weresmiling in return.

He wrapped her in his arms and squeezed her tightagainst him. She chuckled against his ear as she hugged him back just as hard.He breathed in her scent.

“We don’t have to hide. I don’t want to hide you,” Iwaizumisaid to her. Meeting in the owlry had been her own idea. He felt her shiftingin his arms, so he let her go. She looked at him in the eyes. Her expressionwas still as soft as before.

“I know, but people talk so much. It is nice to beclose to you without anyone around commenting about it.”

“It is,” Iwaizumi agreed as he pulled her into hisarms again, resting his head on top of hers as he looked out the window. Herbreath tickled his neck but he ignored it. The warmness she transmitted to him wastoo pleasant. “How was your day?”

“Mmmh, fine. Same as always. Yours?”

“Mine just got better.” 

She softly chuckled. “You’re such a sweet talker.” 

“That’s your fault.” 

“Stop it.” She hid her face on his chest. He wasn’tlooking down at her, but he knew how easy was to make her fluster. Hetilted his head down so he could deposit a kiss on the crown of her head. Hethen saw her scarf swaying against her coat, the Hufflepuff colors all over it.He looked away. He had no interest in which house she was in. He didn’t care whoshe was supposed to be, or for the matter, how he should treat her just becauseof that. For Iwaizumi, houses were just that, houses. It didn’t defineanything. He refused that belief.

…

He always insisted they had no valid reason to hidetheir relationship. It wasn’t declared in the school rules that you couldn’t bewith someone from another house. It was wrong only by the social norms imposed byold generations, and followed by people he had no time for.

“You surely like some trouble,” Oikawa said toIwaizumi as both of them stood on the stairs. Rivers of classmates passed themby up and down.

“It wouldn’t be if people would actually mind theirown business.”

“So defensive,” Oikawa said again as his eyes drifteddown the stairs. He saw a familiar face, and instantly smiled poking Iwaizumiwith his elbow. “Good evening, ______,” he said with a cordial tone.

“Good evening, Oikawa,” she answered in return.Iwaizumi’s eyes met her, and he immediately noticed her nervous ones.Without a care he slipped his hand intertwining his fingers with hers.

“Ready?” he asked her. She was about to answer him when a voice pierced theirears.

“Look at that, Iwaizumi doing his charity work,” saida guy behind them followed by some laughs. “Don’t worry, man, there are otheroptions than dating someone from the lame Hufflepuff.” 

“Yeah, have some respect for yourself. You know youcan do better,” added the other one. 

Iwaizumi stayed unfazed by the insults, but then hefelt his hand being gripped with might. He turned to see her. She was lookingaway with glossy eyes. An itching, hot feeling came from his stomach and intohis throat. He felt fury overtaking his senses. He let go her hand and gave onestep towards the pair of assholes thinking they were the quirkiest guys on thewhole school. Oikawa quickly stretched his arm stopping him from going anyfurther.

“Don’t bother,” Oikawa told him calmly. “It’s betterif you take her somewhere else.” Iwaizumi stared at his friend. Indeed, hisvoice was serene but the expression of his eyes didn’t match. Oikawa’s eyeswere disturbingly untroubled, which Iwaizumi knew meant nothing good. He noddedand took her hand again obligating her to walk up the stairs, to the completeopposite direction the two guys were.

“Yeah, take her back to the trash, Iwaizumi!” and thenthe guys laughed. As Iwaizumi forced his girlfriend up the stairs a big loud ‘thump’ was heard. They looked at eachother and peeked down curiously.

The two guys were lying on the floor and trying tostand up with hurting faces. All of their things were sprawled everywherearound, and some loose papers were slowly falling down. People around them werewatching amused. Their eyes opened wide. Oikawa look up to them with a contentsmile. They could see his wand sticking out in his right hand. He had thrownthem down the stairs. 

“I told you to go,” Oikawa insisted putting his wandback into his coat. “They just tripped. A clumsy pair, really.” 

Iwaizumi shook his head and went on his way listeningto Oikawa. Without stopping, in a try to avoid other undesirable encounters,they made it into the library and went all the way to the most remote anddistant corner of the whole place. Classes had ended, which left the placealmost empty, only a few souls could be found. Their selected spot was shield bythe enormous bookshelves in a way that left the corner completely unnoticed. Itwas the most recondite corner in the whole library. Even the shelves there werecovered with a thin layer of white dust indicting how forgotten that aisle was.

They dropped to the floor defeated. She cuddled rightnext to him hugging his arm and resting her head on his shoulder. Iwaizumi thenrested his head on hers and took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. Lately,silence had become one of his favorite things. 

“Do you think Oikawa will get in trouble?” she asked.Her voice was low, and it sounded just as tired as they felt.  

“Only if someone accuses him.” 

“Which is unlikely,” she proceeded.

“Exactly. So don’t worry about him,” he raised his head and tried to look at _____. Her eyes weren’t glossy anymore, but there wasa slight pinkness in them. If she was hurting, the he was too. It was unfair onso many leves. “Are you okay?” 

She freed his arm sitting straight and shrugged.“It’s… whatever, really. How they make me feel won’t change how I feel about you,so it’s pointless.”

______ had a genuine kind countenance and Iwaizumifelt overwhelmed by it. A couple of guys had insulted her right in her face,insulted her house and the virtues being a Hufflepuff carried just a couple of minutesago, and she was shrugging it off stating there was something far more importantthan that. She held love above public shame. Iwaizumi found himself in awhirlpool of emotions. He was indignant by how spiteful and how easilymalicious people could behave to a girl who had done nothing but to fall inlove. Yet again, he felt adoration, and even admiration for her. He was aboutto beat the meanness out of those guys’ beings, and she was standing on high ground when she was literally brought to tears by them.

With infinite delicacy, Iwaizumi cupped her face onhis hands and softly fondled her cheeks with his thumbs. He gazed at her withwhat could only describe as the purest form of love. He pulled her head to him,and kissed her once, and twice. The kisses were light as a feather, and didn’ttransmit an ounce of eroticism. The kisses had a different task. They weremeant to spread that unflagging love they felt for each other. Still, the touchwas enough to send bristle down both their bodies.

They pulled back, but didn’t get to far apart. Theirforeheads could touch at any given moment.

“You’re so important to me, _______. I can’t even tellyou how much. I only wish that…” 

“It doesn’t matter,” she stopped him knowing where he was going. “As long as we’resure of us, of this, then nothing of that is important.”

He paused for a second repeating her words in his head. 

“You’re really a thing,” Iwaizumi said before kissingher again. They stayed in that corner for the rest of the evening and untildinner.

When they came out, they walked hand in hand. Ifsomeone was watching them, or talking about them, they ignored it. Those smallinstances when they were alone and apart from the whole world alwaysfunction as a reminder of why they were keeping up. They feel bad for the people who couldn’t accept it. That only meant they hadn’t known love the waythey did. They loved each other deeply, and it wasn’t hard at all. 

People werejust background noise once they stared at the other.

——

Thanks for the request! I hope you liked it!

[digigal-transbian]

Serious Venting

You know you’ve had a fun life when you can’t think about the past without wanting to cry for the first time in over an actual decade because you were never loved, always regarded as the sum of your grades, always led to believe that you have no value, always made to feel like you mean n o t h i n g to people and that no one would ever miss you if you were to die. When at 8 years old you wanted nothing but the sweet release of death. When you can clearly remember every single moment in which the man who is supposed to protect you, hit and threatened you. When that happened so often that you can do a little math and get a rough number for how many times he hit you. 3078 strikes. 1026 instances. 1498 threats, beratings, belittlings. From one man who supposedly loves you.

“I’m doing this because I love you...” He said

“I only want what’s best for you...” He said

“I just want better for you than what I had...” He said

“...But this right here is all your fault.” Always came next.

Do you know how it feels when nothing matters? When nothing has any feeling to you anymore? When all you want is love, but all you get is pain?

I know you don’t. This is something that happened to me. This is my life. Meaningless wandering in desperate hopes of finding what purpose I have in this world at all. It’s tiring. I’ve been through so much. My mom used to be in and out of the hospital constantly. She was always so close to dying. Every. Single. Time. It took between a week and two months for her to be well enough to come home. A quarter of my life she was hanging on to life by a thread. I never knew security. Stability terrified me. It was always a constant question of if. I never knew what would come next, but I constantly feared that there would be a day in which my mom never woke up. The day she left for good. It never happened, but the thought weighed on my mind like a sack of bricks.

I could never approach either of them. I felt as if I would be a nuisance as if I would be bothering them. Especially my father. I am genuinely terrified of that man. I always have been. There is no reasoning with him. Nothing I do can get him to listen. I want it to all be over. He cares only about one thing, my grades. I mean nothing to him. I am just a system for getting grades. I am just a bunch of numbers on paper to him.

I wanted everything to be over. I wanted out. If this is what life was, I wanted none of it. I never had a plan, I just wanted to die. I made a mistake in saying anything remotely of the sort back then. It just led to more hollow words, empty expressions that just taped over the leak in the pipe. I was a fool for believing them. I learned that day to just repress. Take every emotion and concern and bottle it up. All of my sadness. All of my anger. All of my fear. Keep it buried and show no one. That was the plan. I would just continue this pointless existence without giving anyone the pleasure of my emotions. I haven’t cried because of emotion in eleven years.

My father would reprimand me for lying when I only did it to protect myself. I am scared of him. He’s volatile. He’s dangerous. He’s a criminal. He’s lied to me for all of my life. It wasn’t until I was 16 that I was told that I have an older sister. All I know is that she’s ten years older than me. And then he just went about his day as if it was nothing. I didn’t know how to respond. How do you respond to being lied to for all of your life?

The answer, repression. Just bottle it up and get rid of it. Emotions don’t matter. Nothing does. Everything is just pointless. He didn’t even want me. He admitted that he just wanted something to fuck, it was my mom that wanted a child. One parent got what they wanted. The other just gained a thing that he was legally required to keep alive. He never wanted me. It’s not like he’s ever cared. I’ve just been an inconvenience to him for all of my life.

Nothing ever got better. It only got worse. My depression became so bad, my grades started to suffer because of it. That led to much more yelling, threatening, and belittling. He screamed that I was useless and hopeless at me when I was sick and stuck in bed not long ago. The beginning of February 2016. I had caught some weird stomach bug and was out of commission for a couple days. Nothing major, three days and I’m back up and running. It led to a big fight between my parents. I was afraid of what might happen.

The day I graduated high-school, I felt nothing. It was just one thing that needed to happen for the next step to be possible. He reminded me of that within twenty minutes of being home after the ceremony. I almost felt achievement for it. The next day was my graduation party. For the large majority of the time, most of it, I was ignored. It was my party, yet I was just a background piece. It’s not like I know what feeling accomplished is, what feeling pride in oneself is. I’ve never felt it for more than a moment.

It’s always been grades. I’ve never felt special. I’ve always meant nothing to the people around me. I’ve just been that thing that was incredibly easy to bully because I always gave an explosive reaction. The people I once thought were friends have all left me, and the people I called my friends my senior year was just because I knew them forever. I still meant nothing.

Until I started making some online friends, that is. It wasn’t until I started to build genuine relations with people who honestly cared that I started to feel something. It was faint, but there was something. Now I meant something that wasn’t my grades.

But I doubt that this is permanent.

If he finds out my grades for first semester, he will actually kill me. I am going to actually die. All because he doesn’t care. Police isn’t an option, that won’t solve anything and I know for a fact that if I tried to take care of this issue that way, I’d forget all of the awful things he’s done. And it would also get rid of the financial provider for the family. I would be putting my mom and little sister in a tough place, just because of him. And it would be such a vague case, I’d lose. He’d be a free man and then kill me. I need a solution that will make everything as it should be. I need to confront him first. Not about grades, about his actions. I need to get him in a position to listen, easier said than done, and make him care. I need to reveal the damage that he’s turned a blind eye to in such a way that it breaks him. I need him to see that his actions have consequence. I need to force him to realize that the reason I have a hard time doing things is because of my lack of Executive Function caused by my serious depression. I need him to see the root of the issue and fix that. I need to stop letting myself be Player 4, who doesn’t even have a controller mind you, and take total control of my life. I need to get him in a position where he can’t talk his way out of. I need a captive audience. And I know the perfect time. We’re going out of town Tuesday. I’m going to bring it up then, where he can’t leave, where he can’t escape the damage he’s done, where I can let him know exactly what he’s caused.

If he finds out my grades, the absolute least he will do is destroy everything I own. The worst is murder. The police can’t help. This has to be handled by me. I’m in one hell of a spot.

He says now that I’m an adult I should be treated as such. Well, I guess it’s time to have an adult conversation with the easily angered pissbaby.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I know that I've stopped talking about this publicly for a while but I figured I would update folks.

Continuing to eat regularly is hard. I don't quite feel like I'm constantly eating anymore, but it's not far off from that.

If I try to eat healthy foods, I tend to way undercut my calorie goals. Like by 500 calories or more. There just.....isn't that many calories in vegetables. Which sucks because if I could subsist off of tomatoes and berries and yogurt and chicken strips, I'd be way happier than trying to eat bagels and muffins and sandwiches.

I poop so fucking much. Like 2-3 times per day. It's so weird. I honestly think that the most distressing sign of how little I was eating is that I used to only poop every other day or so unless I was having severe gastro-intestinal problems.

Because I can now enjoy the act of pooping multiple times on a daily basis, I basically never crave Taco Bell anymore. This leads me to believe that the comedy bit about "you did if you don't shit and you die if you don't say you're not a Nazi" may have been into a strange truth about our digestive system.

Now that I'm filling my belly with food, staying hydrated has become a genuine problem. No amount of setting multiple bottles full of drinkables near me at work has improved this and at this point I'm not sure what I can do besides wait it out.

Eating enough is expensive and food goes bad so quickly.

I am still stuck at about 1800 calories and I have never felt so sane. I don't know how to describe what the difference feels like, but I no longer feel feral all the time. There was a solid two hours today where I was able to work on my projects and not feel distracted or unfocused or frantic or dissociated. I sleep regularly and well and wake up significantly more functional now. Once, I had enough energy to do some dishes, cook, walk the dog, and still go to the store, even though I'd already been at work for nine hours that day.

I shower and brush my teeth almost daily and I'm paying a little better attention to getting the house tidy.

The concept of fasting for Yom Kippur terrifies me. I don't think I can do it. I don't know how to explain this to anybody around me and I am scared to be asked why I chose not to. I still have not gone to the doctor even though I know I need to.

My weight is fluctuating so drastically. I'm seeing bloat-deflate cycles with a difference of four inches in my waist band, and that's not even touching on how voluminous my pants legs feel around my thighs these days.

I genuinely get less acne now. This is unexpected and a true blessing.

It has been 37 days since I had anything even remotely resembling a period. Around day 25 I took a pregnancy test that came back soundly negative. Since then, I have had unprotected sex a few times. I am afraid to know whether or not a new pregnancy test would return another negative result.

I am still so tired and psychologically damaged. My anxiety continues to be through the roof. The major difference appears to be in how present I am psychologically while it happens. I am both overjoyed and so fucking frustrated by this. Anxiety is ten times worse when you're actually there for it.

I am no where near at a sufficient, regular caloric intake rate. I am still 500 calories per day shy of a minimum healthy rate, and that's on a good day. There are days when I can still barely force myself through 800 calories. On those days, I inhale junk food and choke down muscle milk in a desperate attempt not to send my body on a metabolic roller coaster. It is disgusting and uncomfortable and I hate it.

I want to be better. Like....genuinely of my own volition give a shit about my own well being. This has literally never been true for me in my conscious memory. I wouldn't give this new feeling up for anything.

[yelloskello]

small adderall thoughts/things i’ve learned over the last almost four months, thanks for coming to my rambly TEDtalk

1: do u have any fuckening idea how amazing it is to have? a rational? thought? like, not just to have a rational thought, but the thought literally just occurs to you instantly, like duh, this concept was always there, your brain was just fucked enough that it couldn’t occur to you? You don’t have to train yourself to believe this rational thought, it just, the clouds part and the fog clears and now this totally common sense thing occurs to you, and you believe it? what the fuck?

2: i’m still flabbergasted that my anxiety has reduced so immensely. fucking shocked. I hadn’t expected this to happen at all. It suddenly puts the last uhhh entire lifetime of mine in a new perspective: did I have an anxiety disorder, or did I have garbage emotional regulation because of a lack of executive function + INTENSE fucking RSD, which ended up looking like an anxiety disorder? This all suddenly puts my medication attempts into a new light - explains why most of them didn’t do shit or actively made things worse, and the only thing that even remotely worked in making me less anxious wasn’t an anti-anxiety med or an antidepressant, it was a mood stabilizer. It puts my big, overblown reactions over shit into a new light, too.

2b: do you know how wild it is to compare how I used to react to shit not a handful of months ago, versus how I react to shit now? The same damn problems are so much more... Handle-able, now. Fucking wild.

3: it won’t always feel as good as it does the first month, but it will, consistently, long-term feel better than it ever did off-meds. If I was operating at a 3 before, I was operating at an 8 for the first week, a 7 for the first month, and about a 6 since. Maybe down to a 4 or 5 on real bad days. Still fucking better than a 3. (an 8, to put it in perspective, was having the energy to make my SO a bowl of soup one night after being at work all day.)

4: Speaking of bad days, holy shit, you really don’t realize just how bad shit was until you have an off-day and go back to how you felt before. Like, even when you recognize that it’s bad (or, I guess, recognize that it was bad), when you go back, it’s way worse feeling, even when you actively realize this is all the same shit you were dealing with before. Before, I was miserable because I felt nigh-nonfunctional. I was exhausted all the time. I couldn’t concentrate on jack shit. I would be too understimulated to do anything, which would lead to further boredom, which would lead to feeling worse. It was awful. Now, I go off-med, and that same shit straight up feels like i’m actually dying, and I don’t know how the hell I ever functioned like that.

5: Speaking of real bad days part deux, what a persnickety fuckin med. Doesn’t work as effectively if you’re failing to take great care of yourself in other ways - staying hydrated, staying fed, getting enough sleep - which has been confusing and a pain in the butt when uhhh i’m still dealing with bad habits from a lifetime of not knowing how to self-motivate without intense fear. Can’t consume anything super acidic for ‘at least an hour before or after’ taking your pill, probably better to wait longer honestly, because that shit’ll wipe adderall out of your system. Soft drinks count among acidic stuff. Antacids can fuck up efficacy. No orange juice, grapefruit, etc. Has a lot of interactions with a lot of other medications. How dare you force me to practice better lifestyle habits in order to feel good, lil’ pill. How dare you.

6: they ain’t fuckin around when they talk about your appetite being suppressed! (the good news is, this means i’m not  binge eating anymore, which I am genuinely grateful for. Hooray, some semblance of impulse control!)

7: they ain’t fuckin around when they talk about being dehydrated/dry mouth! Drink some fuckin water, punks!

8: back to ‘what a persnickety med’, wow, god help you in finding the right doseage. Thus far i’ve been on A) 20mg instant release, two 10mg pills a day; B) 30mg extended release, and C) what i’m on now, 20mg extended release. A came with HUGE crashes inbetween doses. B was too overstimulating and came with INTENSE hyperfixation on FUCKING EVERYTHING as well as increased skin-picking, to the point where I was dealing with a hefty infection from it. C fixed the issues from B, but i’m seeing some symptoms showing up again - i’m a bit more consistently tired, can feel a bit foggier, I can definitely feel when i’m coming down from my dose at the end of the day, etc. I can probably continue to manage with C, it blows being off meds WAY out of the water still, but I think I want to try like... 25mg, maybe. And I know there’s an even wider array of potential adverse reactions people can have to the wrong doseage too.

9: every medication to treat ADHD symptoms can feel different, so if one doesn’t work, another might, and i’m not even talking ‘adderall didn’t work? k, try ritalin’. A person can have a great reaction to adderall XR but find adderall IR awful. Meds that closely related can feel that different.

there’s probably more but i’m just gettin down what I can while i’m still remembering it. this post has been brought to you by ‘I basically set up a perfect storm of shit to fuck up my meds yesterday and had such a terrible day that now that i’m feeling better, the difference is so jarring I feel I want to talk about this stuff’.

[milk-shy]

incoming: dump of emotionally overwrought writing in reverse chronological order

--

mission update: shanghai

oh my god this is grim.  i take back everything i said about heathrow being a hole.  like ok i could maybe cop it if i’d had a proper night’s sleep but as it is…….nope.  4:16am GMT oh dear lord help.  like i’m actually suffering— and what the fuck is this lack of wifi like legit utter shit what am i doing here

also like contrary to popular (read: tristan’s) belief that i am 100% a certified self-hating racist i really do try not to be but when you’ve just spent 11 hours on a plane full of the most revoltingly stereotypical mainland Chinese people it is really fucking difficult like oh lord manspreading and spitting and obnoxiously loud conversations to the nth degree

and this kiwi group ew i fucking hate people can i just go back to oxford and bury myself in its satisfyingly insular intellectual ivory tower forever i am a child of gentrification and over-education and indie pretentiousness thank you very much

actually miss oxford sm already it’s fucking ridiculous like???  ugh it is admittedly only one weird little pocket of the country that i’ve actually gotten to know but i have nevertheless gotten to know it, and while it’s a crazy tourist-town Saussurian simulation of a place, and not remotely representative of england or of student life or of (normal) academia or of anything at all, it is inevitably my conception of all those things, and while i’ve only really spent about seven months there at most it can’t help but be formative, and i have lived so much more of an actual life there than anywhere else.  and yet at the same time it’s only ever a rushed overworked 8/9-week pitstop every time, drop in and tire yourself out and then leave, and sometimes it’s like no time has passed at all.  

i miss all the fuckin chain stores, that’s the first thing everywhere i go, i have a chain café/grocery store based understanding of national geography.  sure there’s raoul’s and the missing bean and vaults & garden but like nah hit me up with the depressingly understocked familiarity of the walton st co-op pls.  

wow this is— genuinely, really fucking weird, i’ve never felt quite like this before— i always had some sense that i was going home before but it doesn’t feel like that at all now— of course i will get used to it again no doubt but i don’t… want to right now.  i’ve just gotten so immersed in my little enclave of tristan and the various concentric circles of the #squad and that whole familiar rhythm of being in college (i mean, seismic shock of the Teresa Walsh Terror notwithstanding)—  i don’t want to go home, what the fuck have i ever really had at home except strained familial relations and new zealand’s climate fucking up my skin (eternal intercontinental tradeoff between clear skin and drinkable tap water tbh)?  

it’s just a thing i’m saying right now and i know it’s going to pass but i don’t like auckland anymore, maybe it’s just the way i lived there, i don’t know, but i’ve never had more than a distant impersonal relationship with it— that’s the problem with seeing it out of a car window 99% of the time, you don’t get the grudging familiarity of the walks to libraries, and late-night supermarket runs, and the v specific touristy cornmarket st miasma of lush and shitty coffee and buskers of varying skill

i mean, you’ve got to make memories in a place, and then you start to love it, right?  i have no memories of any sort from auckland.  just things that have become familiar from sheer weight of repetition.  but i never loved it really--?

look, it’s just that you spend hours and hours on a flight with no human contact and you start to believe everyone is like dead or something.  just be rational about this-- you will arrive and you will check your phone and amy will be making ‘lets get shitfaced’ plans and tristan will be all primed to message you requesting nudes and various group chats will be arguing about something or other and your mother will be irate about the delay-- nobody has fucking died.  and also he probably still likes you.  i mean seeing as you spent half the flight crying to leonard cohen that is probably a bit of a relief.  

and auckland isn’t really a shithole, come on.  like alright it’s conveniently a bit grim in july-september but genuinely i’m convinced that your one day of a glasgow ‘summer’ was much worse than auckland winters can ever get.  just keep yourself busy.  go shopping for some clothes.  run a bit.  familiarity isn’t always bad.  the place gets trendier by the day and you love that shit.  

i just feel like i’m only now, over the last year-ish, starting to learn how to (at least pretend to) be a functional adult, and i don’t know how to exist as anything other than a vague overgrown teenage malingerer in auckland.  like how can i really explain the feeling that i’ve never really lived there?  like there are places i know, sure, but— it just feels to me like a bit of a relic i’ve outgrown.  i mean i want to move, in any case, i certainly don’t want to live there after i graduate.  sorry mum but you can fuck right off with that whole idea.  i just could not do it i’m sorry.  flee to wellington at the very least.

--

Ok this is dumb and melodramatic but I'm 35000 feet above the Ural Mountains and sort of not in my rational mind right now and I think genuinely I'm a bit drunk lmao fuck me

FUCK this is so shit I can't fucking be alone like this I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this-- people aren't supposed to fucking be alone!! I'm going to have to go on a goddamn fuckton of late night drives listening to Billy Joel and wandering down remote beaches chain-smoking and crying out of weight of sheer loneliness--

On that note I am truly alarmed by how much I'm craving a menthol oh dear me

lets just be clear I do not want to actually become a smoker that would be Very Bad and also almost certainly result in your mother disembowelling you to the tune of her ear-splitting harpy shrieks

--

pre-departure taylors is becoming a depressing sort of ritual isn’t it— except it’s sort of just me this time.  i have no energy for reflections.  just want to say in my defence it wasn’t all bad.  in bits and pieces it has been lovely.  i think i have learned to some extent to be okay with this.  that i have things i struggle with (another term, another failed effort to get a diagnosis) and that doesn’t mean necessarily that i am sad.  that i am a sad person.  there is just a force that acts on me.  it’s not me.  i don’t deserve to have all this self-hatred directed at myself.  like climate and weather, right?  it is not me, it’s not my fault, that it is sometimes inclement.  and i have had a lot of sunny days.

what are you going to do then?  back on the weight-loss train.  churn out that novel, i believe in you.  get good at smiling and being aggressively polite and making tea.  plough through that reading list.  write the best troilus & criseyde essay annie will ever have seen.  volunteer somewhere.  play some jazz piano.  get back into drawing.  possibly be an intoxicated hoodlum loitering downtown every now and again.  don’t worry.  it’s chill.

[genesischi]

Why Does The World Hate Autism - a response to three news stories from 17th Feb 2017

Soo... when this news first came out a week ago I was too angry and distressed to write much about it.

I wrote a short explanatory rant on over this study on Facebook (partly to reeducate my family since a while ago my cousin Went Blue For Autism and I had to explain why not to do that)

*Okay, I am horrified "a debilitating disorder" is a fearmongering phrase that isn't, or at least, doesn't have to be remotely true. AND THIS STUDY IS SUPPORTED BY AUTISM SPEAKS - DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS SH*T!!!!

(For those who don't know, Autism Speaks is the hate organisation that parades as a charity, it seeks to "cure" autism through such methods as forcible drinking of bleach, please never give money to the blue puzzle piece who would rather kill autistic people because we're oh-so-hard to understand, a truly unsolvable puzzle! {hence their logo} which isn't remotely true, yet again)

Rant over.

…

So, now I've had the chance to calm down a little and not cry when I look at the things that I learned about all on the same day.

Okay, as an autistic person I get it, I've seen the way anti-vaccers and various other haters fear their kids being autistic. I've seen those videos of children being forced to drink bleach cos it will “cure” them.

I've reached the point of numbness about it.

So if a study calls my way of thinking “debilitating”, and says that it can now be identified before birth, fine, I know what this means. Call up the pro-choice brigade cos abortion rates are gonna skyrocket.

Now, I'm an avid pro-choicer, I think the right to decide what happens to you based on your own emotions/principles/circumstance/etc rather than preset laws is one of the most important human rights there is. But it's going to be a load of uneducated and fearful people deliberately killing off autism.

Part of me is okay with this, autism can suck, and the way society views it is horrible, so in a way I'm happy with the fact that less people will have to suffer. But the part that screams “they're targeting us” is naturally horrified, because the other way of thinking about it is that people are so afraid of something they don't understand that they're ready to kill it before it even exists.

Trump claims autism is on the rise and blames various things that makes no sense as usual. I'm too tired to care anymore. I left a protest early on Monday because I was bored of the walking around and rallies, the weather was awful and I just really didn't want to be there. But if he's gonna start targeting autistic people, this is gonna get bad fast. Because other groups he's targeting can fight back.

Autism is a spectrum as we all hopefully know, and not everyone on it will be able to defend themselves from whatever the future may hold. I am extremely privileged to be what is still sometimes diagnosed as “high-functioning” though the functioning labels have been decided outdated and ableist as fuck, I know that I am capable of many things that others aren't in terms of what I can do for myself day-to-day. Hell, even the well known issues of social communication are something I'm much better at then most, as much as I complain about it.

But yeah, back to my point. If autism gets the blame for something from the esteemed POTUS, it's gonna get nasty. Not that it already isn't, what with the other thing I saw on the same day that distressed me so much – a sixteen year old was beaten to the ground and her attacker only let up at the comment “I think she's dead.” We all know the cliché of a mother's love that our mum would know us regardless what happened. Her own mother didn't recognise her, and I get why.

I wouldn't want to recognise that it could be anyone I love that that had happened too either.

If I had written this a week ago it would have been angry and deeply emotional. As it is now I can read it myself as being tired and defeated. I don't want to be pessimistic, fatalist or even realist about this, I know that I catastrophise and it's something I'm working on. But in this situation I genuinely don't know what to do. I don't see any way of this getting better

Probably a better vent for my emotion at the time was a parody poem I wrote of Brave New Voices poet Ash's “An Open Letter To Cis People” 

It's still a work in progress but it's an important part of this tired response to hate I suppose:

An Open Letter To Allistics

Neurotypicals and Divergents!

Someone once mentioned a door

A door opening out, extroversion

A door opening in, introversion

A door that open both ways, indecision

Anxiety? It's a revolving door

Door locked and no-one has the key, depression

Suicidal? That door is really a bottomless pit

Autism: Noun, a mental condition from early childhood, renowned for its affect on social interaction

Social interaction: Noun, communication between two or more people, identified by written, spoken, or body language used to convey a message

Social interaction is the task of deciphering all the muscles of the human body's possible symbolism all whilst having to translate someone speaking in your third language

Language: A body of words and systems aiding humans in understanding one another

Understanding: Simply, something you don't try to do.

To you our struggle is a nuisance you don't try to aid, you have no consideration for how hard it is to paint a picture when the subject keeps moving

And you wonder why I cry when you ask questions too quickly that I just say “I don't know” - because maybe I would if you gave me time to figure out what the fuck it is you wanted!

Well I have some news for you allistics,

You aren't the only people who exist!

I know, you just had a heart palpitation, you're fluttering around like you always tell me not to do

But now that you're perfectly still and orderly again you must be wondering how this is possible

Fear not allistics

I'll be your Allying Aspie,

Your Doting Divergent

Your Advocate with Anxiety

Your Depressed Declaimer

Your Stimming Spokesperson

And your Wriggling Representative!

So hear me allistics all

I, your messenger of ACD shall guide you through our troublesome talks

The world isn't black and white and it never was

It was always a rainbow of hues

Give yourself a spectrum like Dulux

A colour chart to include everyone

Regardless of: Gender, race, ability, physicality, weight, beauty, ethnicity, background, nationality, class, mental health, physical health, education, verbal skills, stimming propensity, special interests, hobbies, “productivity in society”, and how many friends you have!

But on that colour chart one shade should be missing

A dark shade of Navy called Puzzle Piece Blue,

Autism Speaks is a network of hate aiming to destroy us

They seek to find us at birth and neutralise

And when they find us grown up it's cures and bleach and drugs

Vaccine's don't cause autism!

And they won't cure it either.

You can't cure a mindset as if by magic

You can only teach and train it

Let us learn away our ignorance

Like anyone else with a prejudice it can be remedied with education

Though for us our ignorance stems not from our own hate but yours

You don't teach us to speak or act like you, just yell until we do

But how can I get back on the horse if you've not taught me how to hold the reins?

Allistics, think of our brains as computers, we're electricity and coding and we're amazing at what we do

You are PC but we are all Macs

We have a specific and finite purpose,

Not for the faint heart or for general use

But those who want us adore us

Treat us with the care we deserve

Adapt to our programming

Instead of changing our core to fit theirs

We all know that without fences and walls we wouldn't need Gates and Windows

But where would we Macs be if it weren't always raining?