#i had wanted to do ed but ill probably do them at a different time bc im still figyring out my ed hcs

[vhvrs]

outfit timeline for ghost towns bc i thought itd be fun to put down what i was visualizing while writing + get out general hcs for these two (+ if i wanna draw ghost towns stuff i can have a handy guide lol)

sliding scale of being caught off-guard by your Not Crush vs trying desperately to impress them looking good for a time out with ur friends :3

final note i can also play w them like lil dolls :3c (under cut) ⏬️

[kassifieddocuments2]

alright ill bite. a little thing for @subeddieweek with sprinkles of some of the prompts. SFW, bathing, hint of possessive Steve, non-sexual intimacy, pre-relationship, Kas!Eddie, kind of accidental subspace?, Eddie calls Steve 'sir' once (tumblr exclusive for now because titles are hard)

“Eddie?” Steve called out, shutting the door behind him.

Things have been hard since the beginning of the end, as some liked to call it. Steve was trying to be optimistic, though. He found Eddie in the woods a few days ago and nursed him back to health.

Eddie had begged him to keep his return secret. He wasn't ready for everyone to know. 

In the end, he'd valued Eddie's trust enough. He wasn't going to risk the maybe-undead man running off just to stop Dustin from being mad at him once Eddie was ready.

Though he would never admit it, there was a part of him that couldn't bear the thought of telling anyone else. Eddie was his now, in a way.

Like a siren's call, Eddie's voice pulled him further inside. Guided him to the bathroom with an echo of “Steve!”

He'd clearly been out again. Blood and dirt sat under his nails and in his hair, evidence of yet another hunt.

“You need help, Eds?” Steve asked, glancing at the water running pink under Eddie's hands. “I don't mind cleaning you up again.”

I don't mind. Of course he didn't mind. He wanted to, if anything. Steve liked taking care of people. Liked taking care of Eddie.

It was nice, hearing the gentle purrs that came from Eddie when he was scratched behind his ears. Washing his hair got easier after the first time, with the caked-on grime gone.

Steve pulled him to the shower, carefully peeling off both their clothes before the water was even on. “There we go, good boy.” He praised, pressing a kiss to Eddie's forehead.

Eddie bumped his head against Steve's hand with a chirp. It's something he had gotten used to, now. The undead didn't like speaking, preferring those soft noises when he could get away with it.

Both of them were dancing around whatever was going on between them. Steve would go to great lengths to take care of any of his friends, he knew that. Would he let anyone else sit in his lap in the shower? Probably not. Maybe Eddie really was different to him. Maybe it was all some vampire hypnosis.

He didn't care. 

Not when Eddie was purring into his chest, genuinely looking ready to fall asleep in the shower. “Hey.” Steve whispered. “Wanna go to bed, hon?”

Eddie nodded, though he whined a little when he had to stand up. Steve took extra care guiding him to his bedroom, tossing him some old clothes. There was an odd intimacy in dressing together, so unlike anything he'd felt in a locker room. Maybe it was knowing that they'd fall asleep in the same bed.

Maybe it was the fact that he liked Eddie.

They'd talk about it eventually. Hopefully before their true final stand against the Upside Down.

Steve was sure that the next real battle, win or lose, would be it. They'd win or they'd die.

For now?

He could fall asleep with Eddie's whisper of “night, sir” and pretend it didn't do anything to him.

[yukichouji]

Some personal thoughts under the cut. It's fine to skip, I just wanted to put my thoughts somewhere. Always feels less dramatic when I write it down or say it out loud to someone and being stuck alone at home while sick for the second week in a row has to dem thoughts a circling.

Second week of sick leave and I am slowly driving myself insane. Take care of your mental health, kids, or it will take care of you (and not in the nice way)....

All joking aside, last year was just a *lot*, with little to no time/energy to properly digest. And of course, being home sick with not actually enough energy/brainpower to deal with all the feels in a good way but also not enough brain power/energy to keep the mind occupied and from wandering is a great time for things to catch up with you.

I'm making it sound more dramatic than it really is, again, but being an overly dramatic bitch is one of my few joys in life so here we are...

I guess it's just easy for the anxieties to build up when there is so much still hanging in the air that I can't really do anything practical about, yet. Plus the stress of missing work again combined with working in a field where getting a contract that covers a full year and not just chunks of it at a time is actually almost a luxury doesn't help either.

And this is, like, the forth or fith time this winter that I've been sick and off work for multiple weeks at a time. Gotta talk to my doctor about that, too, for sure. I guess I just need to live with the fact that health (in the physical sense) is an issue now, that trying to power through will make it worse, that my health is what dictates what I can and cannot do, not what I want, etc. etc.

I've had my mental health setting my cans and can'ts for me for the first health of my life and now it's the physical on top of that from here on out. I'm not a medical professional, but I've done a lot of reading to try to understand better what is happening to me and I think this may just be part of what living in a constant state of life or death stress response (what cPTSD does to you) catching up with the physical form of it all. You know?

Avoiding stress as best I can is now mandatory, not because it will actually make the stuff I'm dealing with better, but because that's the only option in not making it worse.

I don't have the energy to go over the whole story right now, but in an attempt to not sound so obtuse: I got diagnosed with three different food intolerances last year (dealt with EDs for over a decade, plus stress and the gut is a thing. I know some of that stuff is heredetary, but not always. Gotta have fucked something up there) which meant having to completely restructure my eating habits. Still trying to figure shit out honestly, it's *complicated*TM. And severe sleep apnea (apparently I just stop breathing over 50 times an hour at night for no good reason. My brain not giving the signal to breathe is the problem, not the usual, physical thing where your air way collapses and blocks itself) so now I sleep with a breathing machine (and will for the rest of my life, probably). And PLMDs, kind of like restless leg, where your brain keeps sending signals to your arms and legs to move and that keeps waking you up at night. Am trying to find the right meds for that but have not yet been successfull. Both are accasserbated by stress. I am constantly tired to the point of barely being able to function. Plus pretty intense Endomitriosis, which seems to also have affected my gut. Meds for that are mostly working, as of a couple of months ago, thank god. Still needs a bit of fine tuning, but I've finally found a pill that dials down most of the symptoms to way tolerable and doesn't make me feel so depressed I just want to die. So that's cool.

We have a system here in germany where you can get "disability percentages" based on how badly your quality of life is impaired by the illnesses your dealing with and it is getting harder and harder to get them, but I at least want to try. It would help with some stuff. But I gotta have the energy for the process and you can also only include things that you've had at least half a year of treatment for, so I still need to wait a little bit.

Trying to come to terms with all of this has been a bit, well, you know... Not easy. A lot of the time I'm still just kind of, too tired to feel much of anything, which helps. But is unpleasant when you've just got enough energy again to do feel things, but not enough to really do anything about it.

Gotta give yourself room to feel and breathe and just proccess, I guess.

With all of this doom an gloom, I kind of feel that it's important to state that I very much know that in the grand sceme of things my own suffering is miniscule compared to the suffering that others are going through right now. None of this will kill me outright. I still have much more quality of life than others with chronic illnesses (it gets so much worse than me here). And I'm still very glad to be here, alive, and all that. None of that sort of doom and gloom here. Just kinda wanted to get all that off my chest I guess. I write to get things out of my head and process them. Even though usually it's a little more refined than whatever this ended up being.

If you actually read to the end of this, I apologize. Here is some tea.

Go wrap yourself in a comfy blanket. Get yourself a treat, maybe. Do something nice for yourself.

[aachria]

omg new chapter jst dropped im still reading i jst finishdd read coins letter and man i already love him sm

Like (spoiler alert ig if anyone's on tumblr before reaching the chapter???))

Hes so so so so funny and and :(( hes so dad figure coded

"Not even the great pirate era smh 😕" so real for that boo

ALSO ALSO ED AND COIN SPENDING THE TIMESKIP TOGETHER IS ALSO SOMETHING I PREDICTED Ed is gonna be such a badass. Also the line that goes "wherever you are, ill find you" makes me feel like you might legit make ed have both the coin training arc and be on the execution stand and i have never been more excited for something because i feel like if you do that we might get a luffy pov 🤭🤭🤭

Him going around calling ed his kid made me so happy. Guess ed wont have to worry abt getting too close to whitebeard now that they have their own found family dad "You’re probably something to brag about so I wanted a head start." Ed deserves to be bragged about 🗣‼️‼️‼️

him immediately saying that if rayleigh says his name is a dick joke hes lying is so sibling coded (and rlly zoro and ed coded i feel)

"And no matter what — what you’re fighting for right now, what your morals are, how shit you think your personality is, any of that bullshit — you couldn’t possibly disappoint me. " i cried, i sobbed, i shoved my head in my pillow and screamed.

And and "Just remember you’re everything, everything is going to be fine, and I’m gonna help you anyway I’m capable." :((( hes so cool i love him fr

"PLEASE do not prove me wrong on that one oml. I mean make your own choices slay queen pussy boss" hes the best. Friendship ended with Ed, Coin is my favorite self insert oc now.

"Pick you up later kiddo" FATHER??? bro is not only ed's dad hes my dad too now. Jst. *takes him and runs away*

I read the letter so many times i should probably get to the rest of the chapter this is gonna get long im srry in advance for yapping sm 😔

Glad we might have a reasonable explanation for teach knowing ed because that shit was worrying

The more i learn abt coin the more i want him as my father :/

The crew thinking ed might leave them makes me even more worried abt the timeskip. Eds so relatable hitting a lil too close to home w the attachment issues codependency line

ik i probs said this before but goddamn do i love the way you portray the strawhats and their dynamics

They're finally talking abt the convo ed and luffy had and the new world and im honestly hopeful abt this, without ace at the execution stand and, again im jst assuming atp, ed taking his place marineford might go way differently. Honestly them still being able to somewhat joke around makes me feel better. At least when they get separated it'll play into what they wanted to happen and what they were planning to do

OMG OMG OMG SABO SABOOOOO MY BABY OMG WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED WHEN I READ THAT HOLY SHIT

Thank you once again for blessing us with this amazing chapter, i will be off to reread it a dozen times now.

Coin is my specialist of guys and so sweet and lovely I just ADORE that parental figure-shaped man.

The way writing a Luffy POV would kill me. My man has no internal dialogue what the hell would I write for his silly goofy ass???? (I say this but I absolutely will write Luffy POV at some point, oneshot or not.)

I wonder if Coin works like an anti-Whitebeard shield. Like does his cool dad/uncle energy cancel out the daddy issues aura????

Tfw your kid is SO MUCH to brag about you gotta start before they even exist just to even hope of reaching an adequate amount of bragging. My man has that unconditional love in him where the dog should be.

The fear of abandonment came free with your SSSBMTY subscription.

[cookinguptales]

frank discussion of gynecological issues and frustrations with OBGYNs (especially re: chronic illness) under the cut, but I guess also potentially useful information for people who want to hear about it

so... some of you might remember when I was going to OGBYNs a little while ago. I have endometriosis and PMDD diagnoses, so going to OBGYNs isn't exactly unusual for me, but I ended up going to see more than I usually do.

this was largely because the hormonal therapy that I was taking for those disorders was starting to fail and I was bleeding a lot. like... for weeks at a time over a period of months. I had to deal with some... frustrating OBGYN advice in this time (such as the rage-inducing "well, women have to bleed") but I also discovered that like... I mean, I think I always knew that I had more vaginal pain than other people I know, but a lot of things hurt me so I just kind of... ignored it?

but they tried to put me on the nuva ring for a little while during this period and my body just... straight-up rejected it. it hurt like a bitch to put in, it kept coming out, I could feel it in there and it hurt, etc.

I ended up comparing notes with some other people I know and realized that my problems with insertion were probably more severe than I'd thought. like, it is not unusual for me to cry during pap smears and have cramping for days afterward. I cannot use tampons without massive pain. your body is not really supposed to physically expel something like a nuva ring several times a day. tmi I guess but I have not found penetration of any kind pleasant.

so I talked to... I want to say four or five different OBGYNs in this period, and none of them gave me a real reason for this. the prevailing attitude was mostly "oh yeah, that happens sometimes. lmao."

the best I could get was a diagnosis of "vaginismus" on my chart, and when I pressed for more information, they basically told me it was a psychological thing where your body is afraid of penetration so it clenches up and won't unclench. they literally grilled me on my history of sexual abuse to see if they could find the source of my dick phobia.

now... not to get too into it, but I do have a history of CSA -- but my pain problems predate it. I got my period relatively early and I've never been able to use tampons or anything like them. every time I've tried has ended in literal tears. again, cramping pain for days, even after the period itself has stopped.

so I get the dick phobia diagnosis from two different doctors, but one of them says she can do a transvaginal ultrasound if I'm really worried. we do this and it is uh. excruciating, honestly. thank god it was in California and they let me get high as a kite.

in the end, they can't find anything "physically" wrong with why I'm in pain and they send me on my way, dick phobia dx in hand.

today. today. YEARS later. I am googling tips on how to try a menstrual cup if you have vaginismus (prep for the trip abroad; I don't like Japanese pads) and I see someone saying "oh, I'm glad that treatment worked for you, my problems are because of ehlers-danlos syndrome."

you know, one of the chronic illnesses I have and one that I divulged to every OBGYN I saw.

what.

paging Dr. Google!!!

I come to find out that folks that have EDS, because of their connective tissue issues and extremely brittle skin, sometimes deal with extreme gynecological pain. it's partially pelvic floor issues, partially the fact that the skin in your vagina is breaking.

so all those times that I said "it feels like it's cutting me" or "it feels like knives" were probably because it was fucking cutting me. all those times I said I felt scraped raw for days was probably because abrasions take a long time to heal when you have EDS.

I cannot believe. I cannot believe. that I went into so many different OBGYNs who told me that my pain issues were because I had a psychological fear of dicks and when I told them I was a lesbian were like "oh well then problem solved" when actually my body was physically tearing. I had even seen blood sometimes and it had always been dismissed as spotting.

the anger I feel rn is indescribable, tbh. I never bought that my problems were all in my head (probably because doctors used that line on me so often when I was a kid and getting other chronic illnesses diagnosed) but the fact that gynecological health science is still so fucking awful that we shrug off pain that is the symptom of dangerous chronic illnesses as "well that happens sometimes" or "have you considered that maybe you're afraid of sex?"

I JUST

this reminds me of when I had to find out from a fucking tumblr post that vaginal secretions are made from blood rather than glands, so if you have bad blood pressure/flow it'll often cause itchiness/dryness/pain. bad blood flow like... idk... maybe POTS.

so again, it was actually one of my known chronic illnesses causing gynecological issues, not any of the other bullshit reasons doctors were giving me, like age or stress.

I hate that I'm fucking 33 years old and I still have to learn stuff like this from google searches. I still don't know how my shitty body works, and it's largely because of stuff like this. what the fuck. I'm so mad. why do doctors still treat vaginas like a fucking scary mystery?

I'm well aware that Dr. Google doesn't always know what the fuck it's talking about, but apparently neither do my doctors! which is why, yet again, I'm up all night reading medical journals in the vain attempt to figure out how to actually live my life!

ugh!!!

[abby-the-druid]

Sex ed 3

ao3

fanfiction

When Sasuke stomped back into their small camp, dragging along a felled tree -that he probably shouldn’t have been physically able to move- to add to the ever-growing pile of sticks, kindling, and logs Kakashi looked up at him and smiled behind his mask. 

“Sasuke,” Kakashi said softly as the boy’s dark eyes snapped onto him with clear rage burning in his irises. “I think that’s enough wood for the fire.” He waved his hand at the pile Sasuke had been stocking angrily sinceNaruto went after an obviously injured Sakura. He paused his glowering at his sensei long enough to note that the pile of wood nearly reached to his chest, and had he been in a different headspace, he might even have smirked at it.

But he wasn't in a different headspace, and being a boy who needed to do something while he waited impatiently for the teammate he maybe kind of didn’t but probably did have a crush on he simply drug the tree a few steps closer to his ridiculously large pile. At that moment, when he was formulating a snide remark to make to Kakashi, Sakura and Naruto walked back into camp. 

“About damn time,” he grumbled at them, dropping the tree and crossing his arms. His dark eyes glared at his teammates, and then at his teacher, and then down at the fire Kakashi had made with the first bits of kindling Sasuke had brought back.

“Welcome you two,” Kakashi said supportively. “You’re just in time, the meal is ready.” His eye crinkled in a smile as he passed a crispy fish stick to each of his students.

Sakura was no longer crying, which Kakashi was immensely grateful for, and Sasuke was utterly confused about. When the blond boy grinned at the fish offered to him and plopped unceremoniously onto the ground to start stuffing his face, Sakura tentatively took hers and gingerly sat down on the ground closest to Naruto. It was probably the closest anyone had ever seen Sakura sit to Naruto, which Kakashi instantly noted wasn’t in the same manner that she normally reserved for Sasuke, but Sasuke didn’t seem to realize that if the murderous glares he kept flashing Naruto’s way were anything to go by.

Sasuke noticed, between irritated bites of fish and glaring at the blond, that Sakura had changed into one of her other qipao dresses, which made his eyes narrow with uncertainty of her illness. Her eyes were downcast and puffy, nose sniffly as she weakly nibbled the food. Naruto happily munched away and chattered kindly to Kakashi about his father wanting him to visit sometime. He was either unabashedly ignoring the homicidal energy rolling off of Sasuke or he was totally clueless of its existence. If Kakashi had to guess, it would have been the later. The team leader watched his students coexist, and had to remind himself a few times not to crack a smile or chuckle at the social dynamics at play. 

When it was time to finally settle down to rest, and the group were laying out their sleeping bags, Kakashi’s brow rose when Sasuke shifted the position of his sleeping bag so that his head, rather than his feet, would be positioned towards Sakura’s head. The boy glared around the clearing and Kakashi had managed to not give away that he obviously saw the adjustment. Sakura was finally interacting with them again, though in a subdued and exhausted manner. Kakashi took the first watch, with Sasuke, Naruto, then Sakura following through until morning.

Kakashi, who was really not worried about any interruption in their mission -it was a D-rank mission that just happened to take them barely outside of the borders of Konoha- read his book as his hours passed mostly uneventfully. The only potential issue was the soft cries that came out of Sakura’s sleeping bag, but before he had a chance to investigate, he heard Sasuke quietly wake her.

“Sakura,” he said gently, groggy with only two hours of sleep. He laid on his belly to look at her and poked at her head. “Hey,” he yawned and prodded her carefully again.

“Sasuke-kun?” glassy green eyes looked up to him, before readjusting her position to face him.

“You were whimpering.” He whispered, rubbing at his eyes.

This was Sakura’s favorite part of missions. Seeing her teammates in their in between states, the moments teetering between complete vulnerability and complete control. The way that Sasuke yawned again made her heart flutter.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was doing that,” she turned as pink as her hair. “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll stop.” She moved to nestle back into her bag, but he carefully tugged on a piece of her hair.

“I wasn’t saying so to make you feel bad.” He said it evenly, black eyes growing more focused as he woke up. “I wanted to ask if you are alright.”

Her heart lunged into the back of her throat, and briefly she wondered if she was still sleeping. “I-I…” he looked at her intensely, like nothing else mattered except that she was in fact, alright. “I’m in pain.” She decided to be honest with him.

“Oh.”

“But I’m alright, Naruto’s mother packed an emergency kit for me in case this happened.”

Sasuke’s brows pinched together, in irritation at the way she said Naruto’s name, like he was some dependable someone to her now, before he folded into confusion. “Why would she expect this to happen?”

Sakura’s mouth fell into an oh shape. “Um,” she tried to think back to that extremely awkward day at the Academy and couldn’t remember if Sasuke had been there that day. “It’s a, uh, girl thing?” she offered weakly. And when his black brows stayed poised in confusion, clearly waiting for her to further clarify what was a girl’s thing, she simply said:  “Maybe you’ll just want to ask your mom about it when you get home.”

Sasuke scowled. “I’m not sure why I would talk to my mother about you being ill.” 

The girl had to stop herself from laughing at the petulant way he was looking at her. “I think she’ll maybe clear things up for you more than I can.” She offered.

“But-”

“Oh, good Sasuke, you’re already awake.” Kakashi stepped closer to his genin, effectively ending the conversation on Sakura’s behalf. “It’s your turn to take watch.”

The boy sighed, seemingly resigning himself to not get an answer from anyone on his team about Sakura’s condition. And muttering about it as such, he stalked away to take his turn on watch.

“You okay Sakura-chan?” Kakashi asked gently, patting her head with a warm hand. She nodded, strangely comforted by the enigma that was her teacher, before his eye crinkled at her and she felt herself drifting off to sleep.

[hallowed-nebulae]

2025 Writing Goals

I admittedly feel a bit silly posting this, since it's been. . . a hot minute since I actually did things on this blog, but, I may as well make the effort! (this is entirely inspired by @corishadowfang doing the same -- if you like my writing, go look at theirs, especially if you're a fan of kingdom hearts).

i'll be putting this under a cut for sake of post length on dashboard, as i am Well Aware that i ramble, and i imagine i'll be rambling a lot. with that said!

i had a lot of goals and ideas for 2024 - i wanted to write a lot. it's something i'd started to notice, but this year i sat down and had to acknowledge that the times of 2019, 2021, 2022 even when i could sit down and churn out 3k words in one sitting, when i could update chapters semi-consistently every few weeks or so, is entirely gone. both because of my lower levels of energy, being chronically ill, and because of college work picking up, and things of that nature.

things have definitely changed a lot over 2024 -- i'd gotten diagnosed with POTS in late 2023, and this year by talking with my doctor, other friends, i've learned that i probably have EDS, which doesn't help with the energy levels. i'm trying to get better at managing my ambition with writing - that's a major goal, is to not start huge AUs or projects without pacing myself or being realistic about how long those things are going to finish.

another goal, most definitely, is to try to rotate my WIPs, and not just focus on only one WIP at a time. i tried that with crystal verse, last year, and it definitely led to some burnout, between all the exhaustion of everything else. being able to poke at different projects and not feel guilt about that is going to be incredibly helpful, i think.

also, i want to get better at actually working on my WIPs -- take some space every day, or at least every week, to at least add something. i used to have a goal to write 10 words, minimum, ever day, and i think i'll try to adopt that again as a 2025 resolution.

as far as WIPs that i've actually got:

Tempests Verse, my beloved, is over three years old, now. i started this thing in September 2021 and it's still ongoing, can you believe it? Storm Whispers, the current WIP, is going to be on hiatus for the forseeable future, until such time as @beastenraged has the energy or time to work on it again; it's written by both of us, after all, and i don't want to pressure them by writing a whole bunch on my end that they'd have to catch up to.

i do still want to work on this 'verse, though - since Dark Road has finished, i can now properly write out what happened with those sets of events, in this AU, and how they diverged from canon. more elaboration on the ghost xehanort, what happened with bragi, what happened with baldr, how Darkness even possessed xehanort's corpse, all of that. it's exciting, even if i don't know how long writing that fic will take or entirely where to begin. i do really love working with the mobile games, so i'm excited to work on this one, whenever i have the time or energy to do so. i reread all of Tempests Verse and took notes, last year, so hopefully i can be most consistent when writing this one, despite my poor memory.

Crushing Stones Verse! will still be poked on, as always. since it's become my warm-up exercises, writing a chapter of this AU's current WIP before moving to other WIPs once i'm warmed up, it's gotten a lot easier to work on this one. i finished outlining it, also, so while it'll take a good hot minute to finish, there is an actual end in sight! i look forward to working on this project and seeing how anyone reading reacts to some of the twists that happen.

Crystal Verse, my ffxiv AU (which has rambles related to it hidden over on @crystal-verse, my ffxiv blog), will get worked on as well. i'm trying to get better and not have there be an entire 7 months between updates like what happened last year; it's very ambitious, given it's a sort of novelization of, well, all of FFXIV, but i do also have an endpoint for this one -- currently, the plan is to write up to the end of Endwalker, and then stop. (that is, 6.0 -- no patch quests, no Dawntrail, nothing, just the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga.) given how large FFXIV is, this one will take a long while to finish as well, but i do really love it, so it's worth the work.

Miracles Verse will get its rewrite! to those of you who remember the original version -- please don't mention it, and i ask of you to simply read the rewritten versions with open minds. to those of you who've never heard of this au before -- good, the original was my first "got too ambitious and scrapped the project when i failed to execute it the way i wanted", so i'm hoping to do this story justice with the rewrite. this one will also take a long while, most likely, as i'm planning on using multiple digimon canons here, but i'm confident that as long as i rotate my WIPs and outline decently, i'll be in good hands.

Red Scales Verse, a new au of mine, is my first major RWBY au! you have @cheeseandcake-from-ao3 to thank for this AU, as they provided the initial idea, and have rambled with me long enough for me to decide to write this as an entire proper AU. no idea how large this project will be, we'll likely go to post-V9 for this one (and if V10 ever gets greenlit then who knows, we could adapt that one into this AU as well). i've only recently gotten into RWBY, so i'm not sure how well this will be received, but hey, who am i if not someone who writes niche fics that are for me and me only, right? (this AU begins with the premise of: what if ruby rose, and summer rose, were wyrms akin to the story of the king lindwyrm? and then things diverge and stick to canon in different ways from there)

i want to make room for more oneshots, also! i've got a couple that i'm poking at, one for RWBY and one that's for digimon frontier, but i miss just -- writing oneshots. writing a thing and being Done with it, and not having to plan for another chapter or work in the series or whatnot. i miss oneshots and want to do that more. so, that's what i'll try to do this year!

with all of that said -- please look forward to seeing more of the various WIPs, and if you have any questions feel free to ask! it's a bit ambitious this year, but i'm trying to be ambitious in a different way than i was last year, and hopefully will be kinder to myself as far as writing.

good luck to everyone else, in 2025, and may your writing be whatever it is that you desire to get done

[yappinggggg]

Wanted to share my thoughts on who everything did stuff wrong and why :>

(I havent finished the novel just yet so there might be some errors)

Also: Spoiler warning

The count and countness:

Their intentions were right but what they did wasn't really right. I mean- i understand completely that they didnt want harm Deon and all... but come on- Deon didnt even know about any of that. They could have sat him down- or written him a letter- and explain why they treated him differently than Cruel. Or maybe shown that they cared in a bit more obvious way? Of course no parent is perfect but i think they really messed it up while they could have still saved Deon somewhat

Duke Illuster:

This man is unfixable. What he did was so- idk how to put it into words. His greed alone was the reason Deon even got involved with the demon king, emperor and the war. Dude could have done something else but he seems to desperately want some powers fast. He should be tortured the same way Deon was - he should feel what its like to be in Deons position. (He wouldnt feel it exactly like Deon but somehow grasp it)

Next on to Nemeseus:

I really dislike him and ill explain why.

First of all: he simply blamed poor Deon for giving himself a split personality- like dude? He was a CHILD- what did u expect? He wanted to live and that was the only way he managed to survive!

Second: he only tried stepping in to check up on Deon when it was too late- u saw him the whole time. U witnessed what he saw and did on the battlefield- and u feel that u have the right to judge Deon?

Third: he called a broken child a monster(i mean Deon here)- what did this man expect Deon to do? He wanted to live- can u blame him for choosing this?

Emperor:

I think what showed the most how f***ed up this man is is that he killed all his siblings because of something he didnt even verify if that was true. He had the ability to do that- even if he was mad and blinded by emotions at the time- there was a better way.

Theres also the part where he actively manipulates Deon and gaslights him but i dont think i need to say much to this- we all saw what he did :>

The princess and prince:(yes,they get included)

The fact that they decided to just accept what their uncle did and forgive him is pretty messed up, if u ask me. Sure- family is family, but come on guys. He killed ur parents even when he didnt know if he was right fully killing them.

And they decided to just- help him with his plans? Support the things he did to Deon?

Not only support: they actively tried hard themselves to manipulate Deon

Of course: they are still young and so on but i think they could certainly have made a better decsion.

But i cant really blame them for choosing to stay and support their uncle- afterall they only had him and themselves. They also probably wouldnt have lasted long either if they hadnt accepted their uncles offer. Their chances of living a good life would literally drop down so much

Demon king (cant leave our toxic king out of this):

This man is a demon so he obviously is known to be cruel and so on.

Also since he had lived for for a thousand years so he is obviously bored to death- and he doesnt care about life anyway so why would he start caring for Deon? And why would he care about the fact that he ruined Deons life?(at least took part in it)

Edit: adding to the dk

So i found out that he actually cared for Deon....

Like what :D THATS NOT HOW U TREAT THE PERSON U LIKE but he was nice to Deon most of the time so he may get forgiven (lmao)

[Sorry,i dont know much about the demon king right now so i cant say much about him ):>]

[scordoesart]

Season 2 is right around the corner but here’s an au

Picking up from the end of season 1, Stede and the part of his crew that was marooned are sailing around trying to catch up with the revenge, but are ill-supplied to be doing so both due to the small size of the boat on the open ocean and that Stede didn’t seem to have much in ways of supplied with him when he left Barbados. I don’t think the marooned crew would consider Stede as their captain at this time (given that he abandoned them to the kraken!Ed). Stede would probably be avoidant in talking about where he’s been (in the “rules for thee but not for me” way he operates) other than he’s back to stay, has no money, and only what little experience he’s had in his brief time sailing as skills. They wouldn’t abandon Stede though, seeing him as maybe the only person who could fix this mess. Stede and his bunch get picked up by another ship who, turns out, is also looking for the Revenge. This ship is either operated or in the command of Bellamy (though he’s using a different name these days because he’s supposed to be dead). When Stede introduces himself, he’s somewhat met with “a pirate captain without a ship and that wasn’t mutinied upon?” questioning (some amusement there on Bellamy’s behalf), and Olu or all of the marooned people explains to their understanding what happened on the Revenge while Stede was gone to the best of their ability. The tale of the Revenge’s crew’s current state was left in just drives them both to want to find it even more. (A good chunk of this story is tracking down information to find the Revenge, which fortunately, Bellamy still has information sources in spades. Sometimes things just happen on the sea. Maybe they run into Jack again?). Bellamy may or may not be a less than open about who he’s chasing after on the Revenge (haven’t decided, or maybe it’s something that eventually comes out but isn’t said directly at first? Bellamy would have little reason to give up his many-year alias/charade to Stede and also strikes me as the kind of man to hold his cards close until he wants to play them). Stede gets to know more about Ed as a person from someone who knew him years ago without Ed there to curate ( Much like Jack and Ed, they act like no time has passed next they meet. I think they would have had a kind of rivalry but also an underlying respect for one another. or at least some base kind of comeradery) and also about pirating when money isn’t your background. Just to complicate things, because Stede and Ed have escaped the royal navy, pirate hunters have been sent after the Revenge (Hornigold maybe?). This is discovered at one of the ports they stop at for information. Time is ticking for them to find the Revenge. Stede no longer has the family inheritance money to lean on, and from the change in lifestyle he’s had to take to compensate, he develops a kind of understanding if not respect for Izzy’s steadfastness in duty of running the ship. ------------- Meanwhile back on the Revenge.... Things keep getting worse somehow. Izzy knows he Fucked Up (see walking on thin ice with Ed), but keeps telling himself Blackbeard is back and this is what he (Izzy) wanted. It’s what’s best for Ed. Izzy tells himself this, but even he knows it’s all gone wrong. He can’t face that reality because Izzy only finds the value of himself in serving Blackbeard. This wasn’t always true. It’s not something he’s ready to confront yet. Izzy is also managing (not well) the missing pinky toe whose stump is healing about as well as Lucius’ finger did. His swordsmanship has also suffered due to the lack of balance from its loss. He must hide all this to the best of his ability to keep up appearances, but of course things will go horribly wrong. Ed notices none of this of course; too wrapped up in his own grief and trying to be the Kraken for the one last reliable person (Izzy) he’s scared will leave him if he isn’t being exactly what Izzy expects him to be. After all, Stede disappeared on him without a word, Jack helped Izzy sell Stede (though ed probably interpreted it as selling both ed and stede) out to the British. Ed and Izzy haven’t been talking outside of strictly first mate-captain business talk. And even then, sometimes it’s Izzy (nervously but with a front to show the crew otherwise) managing without Ed. Lucius is living in the walls at this point and sees and hears much from people when they think they are alone. Ed’s fragile state and crying. Izzy’s struggles with his foot and brief forlorn expressions when he’s alone. Maybe there’s times when he’d grip the ring, saying nothing but mind going mile a minute to something Lucius wouldn’t know at this point. He could probably pick up that it’s a thought of someone missed. Lucius can’t keep a secret for long so he’d start conversing secretly with some of the crew. Jim perhaps? The two of them have a precident of secrets kept a  la season 1. Those that were part of the Revenge both don’t see a way out of this and start trying to plan for a means of a way out of this. Would there have been more crew transferred from the Queen Anne’s Revenge to the Revenge to fill out the crew with competent pirates? Maybe. Eventually though Izzy can’t ignore that this isn’t anything like the usual moodswings of  Blackbeard he’s accustomed to managing. Things aren’t changing and he’s already been dragged too deep underwater by the kraken to surface from the situation. Might as well continue to try and keep the rest of the crew afloat and working as they should be. ---------- (A maybe possibility of an event but not sure how it fits in characterization wise?) Lucius eventually reveals himself to Izzy (under funny accidental circumstances probably). Perhaps when things have gotten Really Bad for Izzy’s foot and he’s bed bound with fever and infection? Would Izzy admit to Lucius he didn’t think an infection would be the thing to do him in? Probably not, but maybe in such a situation he would? (I didn’t think through this scene too much, but maybe some more direct hints that there was someone else (Sam) for Izzy a lifetime ago? But since Izzy never really dealt with the loss other than just shove it down, he doesn’t really want to talk about it? This would provide an opportunity for those that were left from the Revenge crew to gain a kind of respect and the briefest of peaks beneath the demanding middle manager demeanor Izzy has. HOWEVER, this seemingly conflicts with two of the truths Izzy upholds for himself: Loyalty to his captain above all else, and, pirates all just in the process of screwing eachother over) ------------ Back with not the Revenge... Bellamy, Stede, and the rest of the marooned crew eventually catch up to the  Revenge with barely enough time before the pirate hunters arrive. If Stede hadn’t but it together by now just who Bellamy was looking for, it would be outright said who specifically is being sought after. (Stede probably wouldn’t put it together that the man he calls Iggy has the name Israel or may be referred to by the nickname Baz) Stede could say it’s him and he’s returned, but Ed wouldn’t believe him. By now, Stede looks quite different a man. No matter what Stede says, It takes a proper pirate boarding and takeover to get Ed to listen. Maybe Stede getting stabbed by Ed (just like he was taught) to get Ed to listen. The revenge crew on both sides wouldn’t want to fight their friends/companions. The jig is seemingly up on romcom logic where everyone is going to be okay. Maybe Ed boils over and Stede sees the Blackbeard the books he has tell of? Does Ed kill someone in his kraken rage or just think he killed someone in order for him to snap out of it enough to allow that emotional vulnerability to show again? (It would have to be him directly doing it, not throwing someone into the sea, or fire, or anything like that. As with when Jack was talking about Ed burning people alive in ep 8, Ed considered it the fire doing the killing, not himself.) There is of course a dramatic and emotional reunion of all the couples. Them all dealing with what happened in their own ways. Izzy of course is beyond words. Not knowing how to emotionally deal with 1) Sam being alive. Sam being here. 2) Stede Bonnet is back. 3)Pirate hunters (Hornigold?) on the horizon coming right for them. That third point would cut everyone’s emotional reunions short, but also be the only one of the three that Izzy has any inkling of how to deal with after years of shoving his own emotions down and never dealing with them. The fight to even get on the Revenge having caused enough fatigue that a fuckery has to be used to get away. Stede gets to showcase what he’s learned as a practical, broke, pirate (and that probably not enough if he creates the fuckery without assistance from others). There’s a grand kind of confrontation between Hornigold and the two captains who were once under his command. Stede gains a deeper understanding of the man that in many ways shaped Ed (and Izzy and Sam and Jack and maybe other figures that could have been encountered while looking for the Revenge such as Anne Bonny and Mary Reed). And then finally, the crew can start to unpack and sort out the situation. It’s a long process. The world, under normal logic, wouldn’t wait for them to sort such things out. Maybe romcom time makes a comeback and they can sort through at least a good chunk of it. Ed, for his part, does a lot of growth or at least tries to. In the end, Izzy ends up leaving with Sam for retirement. Ed tells him to go, be happy. Releases him from service (much to Izzy’s conflicted feelings on it). Izzy insists that no that’s a big mistake. Ed insists that’s what would make Ed happy (even if that too is a lie in some capacity?): to see Izzy finally have that same happiness with Sam that Ed’s now found with Stede. -------------- As for what happened between Izzy and Sam all those years ago... Years ago, Sam was sweet on Izzy when they were both serving under Hornigold. It was a whirlwind romance. Sam promised Izzy fine things and retirement together- something so rare for those in their line of work. It seemed like the stuff of fairytales, but something made Izzy give Sam a chance to make it a reality. I haven’t decided what the reason they weren’t sailing together. Izzy and Sam would have been on different ships under Hornigold’s command. Sam with his own ship and Izzy under Ed’s command. Maybe Izzy’s sense of loyalty to his captain was there (as instilled by Hornigold in all his men), but at the time, he wasn’t giving both of his hands to his job. One for the ship and one for his own interests. Maybe Ed was jealous and didn’t want to “share” Izzy with a someone else and he pressed the loyalty to the captain aspect? Maybe there was some other fuckery a la Ed afoot? Maybe Izzy, being torn between duty and love, said he’d go with Sam once Sam got the money needed for that retirement? That seems to conflict with the intensity of which Izzy holds loyalty though. Hmm.... In any case, after splitting off from Hornigold and some time passing, Sam ended up reported dead along with almost all of his crew in the sinking of the Whydah. (The timeline with Hornigold’s involvement and if he’s still alive even seems to be pretty loose at this point as far as OFMD canon goes in comparison to history. Therefore the timeline between Bellamy being elected captain of what once was Hornigold’s fleet, his independent ventures, and the sinking of the Whydah can be played with fast and loose.) Ever since then, Sam’s been working under another name to regain those funds, find Izzy, and give his love the retirement he promised. News of what happened to the Whydah and Sam eventually made its way to Ed and Izzy. Izzy never really processed the grief. Just bottled it up and dedicated his whole self to his captain. Both hands to the ship. (“The only retirement we get is... death”)

[daisyachain]

Rictor and Shatterstar’s status quo has come out of such a long game of telephone that it’s interesting to try and consider what different readings could make of them.

Focusing on Rictor: the word-of-god on his sexuality has been PAD, who cares so little about characters outside of the og X-Factor and forces his own pet plots so unilaterally into continuity that you can basically ignore anything he says. As everyone and their dog ignored his Shatterstar and Rahne characterizations.

That leaves him in an interesting area where he’s been word-of-god-ed as ‘idk probably homosexual’ by a man who notably is a piece of shit and doesn’t care about previous writers’ work. There is space for later comic writers to try and rationalize his work on Rictor the way that, I regret to say, Howard and Williams did successfully rehabilitate Shatterstar. Now IMO the XFI Rictor is a good, interesting characterization and that’s mostly by accident of PAD’s snarky male archetype (‘snarketype’) mapping on to some parts of Rictor that had already been established. That doesn’t mean we should take that book as law, though.

From the start: Rictor is defined by anxiety/negativity/self-hatred/clear trauma/undefined mental illness and an instinct for leadership. Simonson writes him as a big brother type, acting as a leader for the new half of the New Mutants while Sam and Dani lead the ogs. He’s not without his deadpan humour, but he’s not particularly snarky the way that Boom-Boom is. His biggest role in New Mutants is in the Rahne-Rictor-Tabs love triangle, where Tabitha comes to like him as a sensible, sensitive non-threatening guy and Rahne looks to him as a comforting protector-type. Rictor ends up with Rahne in an off-panel twist.

That is to say: Rictor’s most important relationships are with girls throughout his first phase. In fact, he doesn’t have any unique dynamic with a guy…at all…until Liefeld decides that Stryfe killed his father. Then nothing after that. He’s an emotional character who reads as a big-brother type and meshes well with the two female characters from rough families who want some stability in their lives. The actual romance between him and Rahne is hampered by the time crunch, but it seems like he’s drawn to her as someone he can protect. For the same reason, he doesn’t pick up on Tabs’ affections because he thinks of her as independent—even his protector. In other words, we have Rictor dating a naive redhead with an extremist worldview who imprints on him, for whom he chooses to leave the team at some point.

Liefield and/then Nicieza’s Rictor takes a bit of a turn from Simonson’s into more macho territory. His emotionality and tendency to bail manifests as anger rather than fear, getting prickly about small-scale things while staying a sensible team-oriented type. In a few critical panels, he’s a tertiary leader when Sam/Terry/the adults aren’t around and he’s usually one to jeep the team together. This Rictor is still fond of Rahne, though they’ve broken up, and he’s pursuing Tabitha now that she no longer has feelings for him. This comes out of nowhere and is as literally forced as it is awkward—one rejection from Boomer and they never speak of it again. Why does Rictor turn to her now, other than that Rahne’s gone? Unclear. Nicieza also writes Rictor as a bit of a ladies’ man, flirting with one of the New Warriors (Namora…?) and dancing with the club girls. That’s a trait that jars with Simonson’s nervous teen, but it’s not inconceivable. Rictor’s only relationships are ambiguously romantic friendships with two girls, why wouldn’t he be comfortable chatting them up with no strings attached?

The game of Telephone starts here. Niecieza realizes that he’s not doing anything ongoing with Rictor or Shatterstar, so he quickly pairs them up for an issue or two to finish Rictor’s arc about Stryfe/Cable and then start an arc for Shatterstar. Sticking to Simonson’s characterization, he has Rictor act as an older brother figure while adding Nicieza-style snark Nicieza happens to play with the idea of Shatterstar’s alien appearance on a city street right before his book gets handed over to Loeb. So History is made.

At this point, Rictor and Rahne have a fond relationship that drifted apart, Rictor and Tabs have an awkward intense friendship that got wrecked by Rictor’s inexplicable advances in an apparent desperate play to thwart Sam, Rictor has started to mentor Shatterstar just like he did with Rahne. Rictor’s as volatile as always, but he flips to anger over anxiety.

Then Loeb picks up the book. He reads Nicieza’s last issue and thinks it’s kinda gay, and he’s also got a new agenda that doesn’t mesh with Nicieza’s slice-of-life book. He quickly writes Rictor out with some heavy closet-coding and writes a gay arc for Shatterstar, bringing Rictor back in the position of a love interest. I truly don’t think Loeb thought about Rictor for more than five minutes. Rictor’s sexuality is viewed entirely through the lens of Shatterstar’s crush; it’s not really relevant whether he returns Shatterstar’s feelings, it’s only relevant that Shatterstar loses him and gets him back as the bookends to his arc. Rictor inhabits the same reliable-but-independent space in Loeb’s writing as Nicieza’s, less emotionally torn than in Simonson’s.

Aside: Age of Apocalypse happens somewhere here and Rictor is an evil Grand Vizier with no apparent personality traits. Oh well!

Moore then comes onboard at another critical transitional time and writes the two least-developed characters out of the book. Oops, that’s Rictor and Shatterstar! They’re written out together and so the characters canonically leave together—thus tying their fates to one another. Rictor now is at the point where he’s left the team, all his friends and connections, on his own hero’s quest and he brings along one devoted companion. I’m sure that Moore and Loeb don’t remember Rahne and barely remember he was involved with Tabitha. Rictor and Shatterstar are bound together by fate as the two minor characters. When they go on their big Mexican vacation, it’s easy to read Rictor as a young straight guy with a good heart and sympathy for the outcast. It’s also not hard to read him as a kid who dated one naive teammate who looked up to him and is now close to another, a bisexual teenager who had an inkling at the start of Loeb’s run and has finally accepted it.

Then, the two guys remain off-panel except for that one Shatterstar VS Domino fight (Moore) in which Rictor plays damsel to Shatterstar—again, Shatterstar’s feelings are in focus while Rictor’s are ambiguous.

The nail in the coffin comes with the one the only 1999 Annual, where Nicieza comes back and…doubles down on Loeb(+Moore)’s subtext. Rather than sticking to his own macho flirt take on the character, Niecieza implies that the two are sleeping together and has Rictor exchange the more domestic lines in their banter. Where Rictor was a plausibly deniable straight crush for poor Shatterstar in the past, Nicieza writes them as steady partners in the space of a few panels. Rictor is gay or bisexual when we enter the great drought of the aughts (only seven years but well. That’s too many).

XFI then comes along and resets the status quo. Liefeld’s godawful miniseries had broken up the happy couple without giving a mention to Ric, so David creates his own version that continues Simonson’s emotionally harrowed (is that a correct usage?) Rictor with some of Nicieza’s sense of humour. This version is tied to the team by his friendships with Terry and Rahne, continuing the trend of Rictor being closest to women. His early XFI arc is being the accidental hero, and of course that’s represented by saving the girl. He’s got ambiguously romantic scenes with Terry, Monet, and one or two anonymous women, though there’s never any hint at an actual Theresa/Rictor plot.

Instead, XFI keeps its options open and leans into the idea of bisexuality. Madrox comments on Rictor’s looks and his relationship with Shatterstar, Quicksilver’s manipulation of Rictor is coded as seduction, while Rahne remains Rictor’s most important connection on the team. Rahne and Rictor’s relationship is in-focus from the start with their…moment?…at Rictor’s suicide attempt. Their feelings for one another keep them grounded. At the same time, PAD’s misogynist fucking pea brain means he’s decided to write Rahne as a destructive or cursed entity. Because of that, her involvement with Rictor is literally harmful to him. When they sleep together, her claws rip up Rictor’s back. His romance with Rahne is as much a part of his self-harm as jumping off a building or refusing to eat. Rahne was Rictor’s most definitive romantic relationship for a while, and XFI rewrites it as a stagnant union between two people desperate for affection and reassurance.

Taking the whole history of Rictor as the cohesive canon it definitively isn’t, this explains Rictor’s random jump on Tabitha. When he’s unsettled, threatened, or bummed, Rictor will do whatever drastic thing comes to mind to try and salvage the situation. Afraid? Die. Girlfriend and close friend missing? Leave. Afraid of your boss? Leave. Afraid your boss will know you’re gay? Leave. Gf on a different team and close friend now dating someone and drifting away from you? Hit on her. Suicidal again? Sleep with a friend even though it’s literally painful. Rictor acts like a big brother to Rahne more than a boyfriend, their relationship starts from nowhere and ends anticlimactically. By turning Rictor’s main f/m relationship toxic and presenting no alternatives, XFI is the first comic to make ‘gay’ the definitive read on this character. Subsequent stories don’t do anything to complicate this. Is it because writers agree with this interpretation or because they’re cowards? Up for debate.

In any case, I wonder what would happen if someone tried to revisit Rictor’s relationships with women. But imagine that. I don’t think anyone at editorial even remembers he and Tabitha are friends

[hearts4farryn]

July 19, 2023

TW! ed, sa, addiction, basically dead dove don’t eat

After years of an ed, I finally find myself on Tumblr; the HOLY GRAIL of disordered people. You’d think after 3 years of therapy, several hospital trips, and multiple attempts i’d learn my lesson. At this point I think I just like wallowing in my mental illnesses. Once quarantine started, I just went spiraling down a path in the wrong direction. But this year has been the most wild point of my life. It’s funny, a couple weeks ago my step-dad asked me if I had hit rock bottom. His question didn’t sprout from just a few of my life’s mishaps though. My biological dad who lives across the United States sent my and in-depth suicide note through his Gmail; causing me to stress over him for weeks. A few months earlier I had been raped by a man in his 20’s, but he got shot 2 weeks after. Karma’s a bitch when it needs to be. And finally, the cherry on top, my parents and relatives found out my therapist was grooming me. I knew that his sexual advances towards me weren’t necessarily normal, but he has told me countless times I was “one of a kind” and he “thought about me often.” The worst part of him grooming me was people finding out. I could handle that my middle aged therapist (who was actually very cute!) found me attractive and had other plans than me just being a client to him. I didn’t mind it. Being victimized and the stress of taking legal action was a completely different topic. Thank God, my parents decided to stray away from the police. I’ve already had enough encounters with them anyway. Back to my step-dad saying I hit rock bottom, I already knew I hadn’t. Not even a week after he asked, I overdosed on my bedroom floor with Euphoria playing in the background. No fucking joke. This was also not on purpose (surprisingly) and I had been using for a long time before this. My blue leds were on too. My mom found me in my bed; grey-faced, convulsing, while my friend held back tears as she watched death almost swallow me whole. My mom dragged me to the floor, called 911, and started CPR. Mind you I was in a thong and bra during all of this. EMTS eventually arrived at my house and I woke up to lights flashing in my eyes and realizing everyone there has seen me half naked. I cried in the ambulance and apologized to the officer beside me countless times. To be honest, he was probably getting pissed and how much i was whining and the amount of “I’m so sorrys” i was throwing out there. If anyone out there has experienced addiction and thought, “oh! there’s no way that’ll happen to me! i know what i’m doing.” There is always a way. ALWAYS. Especially with hard shit. I’ve been sober since then and hope to continue, but i still haven’t processed it fully. Instead of realizing it was a very serious situation, I just giggle at the thought of it and move on. Anyways, all this crazy shit has sprouted into my life after my first heartbreak. I had been cheated on after I poured everything into a relationship. At the same time, what did I expect out of a teenage boy? I won’t go too in depth about that, it’s always the same story for everyone. Now Im about 2000 miles from home, with my childhood best friends. It’s a nice and quiet break from everything. I just kind of relive the same day and don’t have to worry about being around my triggers. These 3 weeks have been the easiest weeks to get clean. I just hope i stay clean, i honestly never know. Without a therapist, I’m just going to have to figure shit out on my own and hope I’m doing life right. This year I’ll be going into my sophomore year of high school, and I kind of can’t wait for summer to be over. But first I need to be skinny!! I want to be sickly. That’s just kind of what I’m relying on to cope right now. If anyone needs to rant in my dms they are always welcome, I am here for this community! I get it. This is my first update here, I’m not sure if anyone will read it but hi if u do! Thank you for listening!

xoxo

farryn

[cricketwrangler]

Hahaha so the "physical medicine and rehabilitation" guy that we'd been hoping would finally give logan a real evaluation, went through all his notes history, and decided he just has a somatic disorder :). Which is code for "thinks everything is more than it is and is actually an expression of mental illness". Literally looking it up it's the "we haven't found what's wrong with you so we're assuming it's not really a problem" disease. And put on the note he's advising ALL of the people treating him in any way--therapist, physical therapist, pcp, different specialists--of this, and not to approve any treatment or testing pretty much. This when he's been constantly deteriorating because he's hardly recieved any useful treatment, has had to wait months and months for each appointment that doesn't go anywhere, and currently is having new horrible symptoms with muscle contractures and spasms, as well as constant migraine and worsening stomach issues, and none of it is controlled. The CTs for head and stomach that were ordered a month ago and were urgent then, have kept getting fucked up between insurance and the doctors office and outside testing labs that his insurance makes him go through. And now this will probably make that harder.

And his reasonings were disgusting. And he obviously decided this from the beginning bc he cherry picked anything that was dismissive of him from any notes, notes every mention of mental illness, starting with trauma as a kid, to just any mention of having had anxiety ever. Discredits or conveniently leaves out any notes that would disprove or not support this conclusion. The things that made looking for help exhausting and difficult and un fruitful this whole time are being used against him--tests that reported something objectively wrong, doctors who just wrote the wrong thing in the notes, the fact that no one ever did any investigative work, he HAD to look stuff up and ask them to evaluate for it!

And 90 percent of this I think came down to he was weirdly pissy at logan using the term "spasticity" which he says "has a very specific definition". Logan actually does research on this stuff (which I've heard is something often used against you in this exact situation) but even things I've looked up describe symptomatically what he's having. If we're wrong, that's bc we ARENT doctors and colloquial use is all we have to describe the symptoms! It's your job to evaluate further, not to get mad at him for using what you assume is the wrong term! And only started realizing that might be what's happening because a DIFFERENT rehab doctor said he needed to see a spasticity clinic bc that's what was happening!

Also misgendered him several times. And implied that treatments not working were also evidence, without asking why (i.e. "noncompliance" with CPAP, bc he's been ordered but has had trouble getting a bipap--even for me, the pressure they had it set to ramp up to makes it feel impossible to breathe). Or for having a reaction to different medications.

Basically the first evaluation he had for eds he was sent to a rheumatologist for, bc they do joints, and she didn't fully evaluate him and did not know what eds was previously. And he quoted back to her saying he didn't qualify every time another physician noted EDS.

I was vaguely worried about this ever since his pcp mentioned that the guy "wants to spend time evaluating you himself and looking through testing as opposed to taking other doctors word for it". But he didn't evaluate him past a couple of hypermobility checks and basic neuro exam. He spent most of the time with logan trying to get his testing from another hospital uploaded, bc despite using the exact same interface, it's really difficult to access everything from the other hospital. We turned in the cds to records but I guess that hasn't done anything yet.

Anyway between being terrified what this will do to his current treatment that's barely managing symptoms, we finally got with people who are helping us get a medicaid waver--which we thought before we didn't qualify for, but she thinks we will--for me to be paid as a caregiver, get other home health and a case manager, help getting a ramp finally. And the people i spoke to were helpful and awesome and seemed to be wanting to get the most help possible and shit. But one of the questions she asked for the paperwork was if he sought a lot of appointments for appointments sake, which this guy seems to imply. And which makes me think this diagnosis/coding/recommendation is going to mess that up too. I don't even know what to do. I know this happens to people but from what I've seen it's horrible trying to get past it, if you ever can, and seeking new doctors once yours are poisoned against you makes it look worse!

[mental-health-advice]

Is any human relationship truly anything more than a trade? Because I feel like people can't tolerate me once I become too much and can't give them something they need or want. I feel like the only way to go is to just pretend I am a different person than I am in reality, because if I decide to "lean on my friends for support" it will end up "draining them and making them feel like I am too ill so they can't tell me anything about themselves" which makes them resent me. I had this happen with my best friend when I had an eating disorder and she was the only person who'd pay me any attention when I was struggling. I first told her that I'm concerned about my eating behaviour. And it happened so that in the end I found out she resents me because basically I am too sick and she can't vent to me as well, also when we see each other I look like I don't care about her. Truth is that I was extremely depressed and was thinking about food all the time. I'm sorry if this is not making sense, but I guess I just honestly don't believe I am of any use to people when something is wrong with me. Even my family sort of closes their eyes and whenever I've tried to talk to them about how I truly feel, they've plainly said they don't understand me. So this time when I relapsed with the ed I didn't tell anyone, I just went to a treatment center by myself, because I don't want to make anyone feel like I am some sort of ill patient who needs 24/7 care from them as if we were in a hospital. I also stopped telling my friend about how I feel, I just lie, because it's either this or being resented in the end.

I know this probably made little sense, I am sorry. What I most wanted to ask is - do people really care for anyone? Because I feel like in social relationships I am an object of trade. Either I am in good condition and have something valuable I can give the person so they keep talking to me, or I am in a bad condition and the worse it gets the less I can give and the less valuable I become. I just feel like the phrase "a relationship is built on equality - both people give and both take" is a fancy way to say "when you stop being able to give, you are useless and people will move on to someone who can give more".

-🖤

Hey there,

Unfortunately, sometimes friends aren’t the greatest of supports when we are struggling and are needing to vent and talk to someone when we are really struggling. I am sorry that you have personally experienced this. Maybe your friends that you spoke to though had their own things that they were struggling with and so felt overwhelmed when you spoke to them or maybe they simply just didn’t know how to respond to you and so it was easier for them to just ‘resent’ you in a way and make it so that you could not talk to them in the future about your personal struggles. From what you have mentioned it sounds as though it may have been the latter, and so maybe in future when you feel like you need to talk to one of your friends you could let them know that you simply just need to talk and that you appreciate that you know that they may not know how to best help you but that you just need to talk to someone, if that makes sense. Like I mentioned though, not all friends are less supportive than others and so you may just need to be clear of what you are needing or expecting of them! Also, you could perhaps mention to them that that they are more than welcome to vent to you as well (if it’s not too much for you to hear) and that it can be quite normal to talk to one another about what each friend is going through/ experiencing. Sometimes you just have to be clearer about that more than with other people in your life.

I think that it’s admirable that you were able to get yourself the professional help and support that you were needing for yourself at the time. Maybe this is something else that you could mention to your friends when talking to them – that you are able to get yourself professional help and support when you really need it and consequently this may also take some of the pressure off of them when you speak/ vent to them.

I really hope that this has helped a bit and please do let us know if we can help to support you in any other way!

I’m thinking of you and hope that you are going well!

Take care,

Lauren

[viktors-still-beating-heart]

Uh content warning ig for me talking about really gross mould n probably tmi ED kinda stuff idk but it's nasty,,

DUDE. From my room I removed some mouldy dishes + some rubbish bc I'm moving out and I needed to remove them finally before my family tidy it while I'm gone.

It's rlly bad and the disgusting result of me struggling to tidy + bingeing + purging. Most of the time I find it hard to keep on top of clearing the dishes from my room since I eat and drink up there fairly often.

Occasionally I've left dishes for too long and they start to grow mould, if it's not too bad I'll do an intensive bleach-y clean on them while my family is out (idk if this is safe uh) or if it's real bad I'll just chuck them out. Also sometimes when I leave dishes it's because I've binged and I feel too ashamed to bring down the mass of post-binge dishes in front of my family, I don't want them to be concerned and I feel so gross for bingeing.

Also some of the time when I have binged I'll purge, and there's been a few times where I've just regurgitated the food back into the dish I'd eaten it out of (I'm so sorry, I need to vent this, good lord). Idek why I do this bc the toilet is so close and it just makes the tidying/leaving dishes issue so much worse bc I can't exactly bring down a fucking bowl of saliva and bile and food mush down to wash in front of my family.

It's always so bad and stupid, I can deal with it but still the mould really (I think understandably) freaks me out and it's just drenched in shame and asjfgkhdgfhj it's not fun and it's my fault entirely. It is interesting to see the different types of food mould tho lol, especially when it's purged stuff it reallyy makes mould thrive, delightful.

Anyway fucking I was throwing everything into a bin bag and I moved a box that was under my bed bc it had some broken mugs inside it that I hid but wanna try to repair. No big deal, but I see another (whole) mug that was hidden behind the box. Huh that's not good, idk why I hid that but it's almost definitely got mould in it. I put the box down and took a proper look at the mug.

What the fuck. Let me tell you that that thing was housing some godforsaken, unholy, horrifying entity. This absolute creature was like a fucking demon slowly creeping out and growing under my bed over an untold period of time, I'm so glad that it wasn't touching anything except its ceramic home. It had these long, glossy, black hairs all fountaining out and hanging over the edge of the mug. A deeply unsettling fungal wig spilling out, slithering out. Some of the hairs had small beads on them, and they were all growing out of this mysterious greyish mound at the bottom of the mug. Awful. This fungus has come from the deepest depths of hell and risen as a spectre to haunt me for my disordered wrongdoings.

Truly, what the fuck. At 5.30am I sealed its demonic body and soul into that bin bag and snuck through the house, out the back door, and across the gravel and wet grass to banish it into the bin. Thankfully I managed to get back inside into my room without my family waking up. I am relieved but shaken, holy shit lmao.

It's all good now ig and honestly pretty funny overall, quite an experience - typical ED shenanigans. I doubt any of y'all will be bothered to read this wall of text but goddamn, I just needed to write it all out somewhere. Hopefully the writing is alright bc I'm quite sleep deprived. Mental illness is cool. What even are eating disorders lmao, this is horrible. Hello if you read this, I hope it was worth it and not upsettingly nasty.

[talkethtothehandeth]

hi, i hope it's okay for me to bring up something in your carrd to warn you about. it's a really bad idea to put the usa suicide hotline up as a resource because i and other mentally ill people have been hurt by it. anyone who reaches out for help will be very unpleasantly surprised by the operator actually sending the cops to your house despite not seemingly intending to in order to "make sure" you go to the hospital just for contemplating thoughts of self-harm alone. we have been traumatized by being kept at wards involuntarily, especially wrt the painfully unsafe and uncomfortable furniture, as well as abusive staff who punish(ed) us for being scared and wanting help... or, y'know, actual treatment. maybe this is just me and my bias as an anti-psych activist but i'm speaking from my own, as well as others', experiences (and i can only imagine how physically disabled people are treated with disrespect). also, i apologize but i don't have any good alternatives to replace the link with instead, so i hope you don't discard my criticism. i simply don't want this to happen to anyone else who might wish to reach out through your well-intentioned advice. please take this message in good faith and have a good night.

TW suicide/suicidal ideation

Howdy!

You’re absolutely not overstepping by sharing this and the negative experiences/feelings you have regarding the subject of using a hotline. Though my blog focuses more on physical disabilities, I am diagnosed with multiple mental disorders that aren’t my autism and adhd, including bipolar type two, anxiety— which might be OCD, and a different personality disorder which I don’t talk about much due to demonization and stigmatization of it, it also isn’t something I’ve fully accepted myself, but that’s another post. I hear you and recognize the harm that psychiatrists/institutions have inflicted on people. I also am aware that these resources, regardless of the negative aspects (which, let’s be honest, there are a lot) are some of the only options that people have.

My psychiatrist/therapist’s [I’m forgetting the exact word for the building] has a crisis line, and the second thing I was told when the number was given to me, the number that can be reached whenever, was that if they think I’m in immediate danger, they would send the police to my house. I’ve come very close to getting into a ward, but I’ve never been forced into one. I am incredibly thankful for that as I know I probably wouldn’t receive adequate pain care there, but just because I haven’t been forced into one doesn’t mean that others haven’t, as you said.

I’ve kept it there because it should be an option still, I’ve had to call multiple times before and I’ve had some good interactions and some not good interactions, I am scared that they will do the same, which is allowing cops into a situation they are not adequately trained for. However, through this, I know that this hotline has still helped people, and has the crisis text line. I don’t want to take it away, but I think I should try to figure out a way to like, explain the potential risks. Everyone is allowed to make the choice for themselves about whether they want to seek outside help in order to aid in their times of distress. I text the crisis line, but many a times, especially during the late nights, they do not answer. Some of them are not helpful, but others are and it’s at times enough to just talk about things. I tell people I have suicidal thoughts, but not a plan, because no matter how much my brain tries to convince me I want to be dead, I understand that this is part of my disorder. There have been times when I’ve tried to take my life, too.

I hear you, and do not devalue your criticism based on your personal experiences, or the experiences of others. It seems to be a “hit or miss” kind of thing when it comes to psychiatric care, and I feel it is similar to us who are also physically disabled. Even though I’ve had some very bad experiences and have been mistreated (to say the absolute least) I’ve still found physicians and nurses who do treat their patients with dignity and respect. And just because I’ve had a few good experiences, it doesn’t mean that suddenly my medical trauma is wiped away.

It is saddening to know how rare it is to have these good encounters, especially with someone whose job it is to help care for something as significant as mental illness. And I feel the same for doctors being horrible about physical disabilities. Additionally, and rewording what I mentioned just in the other paragraph, these options should still exist for people to have the choice of pursuing a hotline, a doctor, or any sort of health care treatment. They can decide if they want to try, just as others can decide that it isn’t for them, whether it be from personal or outside experiences.

My page is welcome to criticism, I keep my anon and messaging open that way those who want to say something can. The one and only time I dismiss “critics” is when people send in nasty messages (like suicide bait). You are not wrong or bad for defending/supporting your position, and I never will take away the validity of other’s experiences just because mine have been different.

TL;DR: I absolutely agree that the mental health field is not as it should be, I agree it can be just as rotten and misguided (those are understatements) or even worse than how doctors who treat physically disabled patients. However, I do believe that keeping these resources can also be beneficial to a person, who is ultimately making a decision whether or not to utilize what is available. I do not support the incorporation of police in mental health situations, and I firmly believe that improper psychiatric care, just as physical care, can be detrimental to people. I understand the negative impacts, and as you mentioned, you (generalized) don’t have a good alternative. Until I am able to find one, I keep this in my carrd.

[dear--charlie]

Dear Charlie,

It is I again ... :)

Well, I actually forgot about the existence of this blog, it has been ... 5 years? Is that possible? That sounds like a lot, it's scary how much of my life has already passed.

I am yet again depressed and disassociated. This time I also packed an eating disorder with me, so it's not all the same boring routine... Splendor at it's finest.

A year and a half ago or so I started university and honestly, I hate university. I have very few friends there and one of them forgot about me the second she got better so I decided to cut her off, to not feel the shame of being used. The other one is also quite mentally ill to be honest and she also suffers from an ed, which makes it hard for me to interact with her as someone trying her best to recover. I recently had a lapse (or relapse? I can never understand what's more appropriate and calling it relapse just feels like I am bragging for attetion) and when I decided I'd stop it and try to recover again, I had to bring the time I spend interacting with her to a minimum. Maybe some people will call me selfish, but do I care? If you were in my shoes, you'd talk differently. People's hate is just the cost of making your own decisions about life it seems.

On another note, I am going to therapy, yay. I also went to this ed treatment center when things got bad with eating and I am still going there in secret from my family.

Now that I mentioned therapy, there is one thing I really want to write here. It happened almost a year ago already, but it honestly still haunts me. Maybe I am too dramatic idk, people have it way worse...but this is MY note so I can write whatever I want right... xd

Well, when I became anorexic about 2 years ago, I sought out a therapist. She was recommended to me by my friend I mentioned above with whom I no longer interact. It was an old woman, 60+, very short, but this person had something so unsettling about her, Charlie, that you entered the room she'd sit in with a feeling of being somehow tried by a figure of immense evil. I felt something was strange about her quite early on, but this lady charged very little for her services and I am a poor student, so I didn't want to give it up... Until one time. She'd often make weird remarks about how pretty I am, asked me who had green eyes, if my mom or dad, I believe it was already on the first or second session... I felt weird, but decided to overlook it. She then later on kept mentioning another client of hers, telling me that I could meet him and talk to him as we both have a history of living with a very manipulative grandfather. I assumed she meant calling him to one of our sessions and having this weird group therapy. Well, I was wrong. One day she asked me if I've ever had a boyfriend - I haven't yet, so I told her no. She acted as if this was a problem - what a total c*nt tbh :^) - but anyway, she then later in the session mentioned him again and kept saying that he is old, way older than me. I felt weird, so I asked how old? And she replied: "Quite old." ??? red flags, I know, but well, I made her tell me he was 34 or so. I don't exactly remember. Well, she said again that we have to meet up, me and him. I was like mhm she probably means some different time. No. At the end of our sessions someome rang her bell and she replied: "*his name*, come in" I was scared, even though still trying to convince myself that nothing is wrong. Well, I wanted to leave, but the witch literally stood in front of the door and wouldn't let me. The man appeared at the doorstep. She told him he should take me for a ride somewhere in his car at the weekend and asked him if he had time - he said well yes. Then she asked me if I wanted to go and I felt so scared by that time - but I managed to say I'll think about it. Well, after this happened, I was mortified and I ended up ending everything with her.

This scared me so much, Charlie. I don't tell people about it anymore, but sometimes I see an old woman outside who faintly resembles her and get a shiver of dread up my spine. Sometimes the memories of her just come to me as flashbacks and I feel dirty. I felt dirty after this happened to be honest, even though nothing really happened to me. I guess I felt strangely exploited and objectified. I came to her for help but she did this thing...for what? God knows.

On another note, lately I am obsessing over a certain anime character and its weirdly healing me even though I am still feeling very bad. He is not a good person, but I relate to him a lot for some reason.

I also write a lot, Charlie, my stories are probably the only thing that genuinely makes me happy to be myself. I also try to draw when I can.

Well, this is all the brain vomit I can think of for today.

Thank you for listening.

-mv