#i'll put this in my queue a few times so y'all can see it

[soaps-mohawk]

I'm going to be honest

I'm having a genuinely hard time making this post. I've been fighting with it for a couple weeks now, but I think it's time I finally make it.

I'm not having fun on this blog anymore.

It sounds bad, but honestly, it kind of is.

I think a lot of it started from the very beginning with the precedence and expectations I put on myself. I've always tried to respond to every comment I get. Even from the beginning. It's just a polite thing to do since those who leave comments took the time to write out what they think of my fic, even if it's just a keysmash. I've always felt the need to thank those who leave comments or reblog my writing or (now that tumblr has it) replied to my fics. It worked fine before because none of my fics were particularly popular. Even my most popular fic (at that time) didn't get as much attention as CRCB has. I've never had a "big blog" before, nor a fic as popular as CRCB has gotten.

It was fine at first, responding to everyone, engaging with everyone. I was riding that high of omg so many people are reading and enjoying my fic! I've never had anything quite like this before.

Now...it just feels more like a chore. I set this precedence on this blog that I respond to everyone and I know a lot of people have said that they're surprised I responded to them and to everyone, and now I'm getting why a lot of writers don't. I'm exhausted. I feel like I've just been robotically saying the same thing over and over trying to respond to people now. I used to love seeing asks in my inbox and reblogs and replies but now? All I feel is dread because I have to respond to all of those.

Turning anon off was a big help. It lessened the sheer volume of asks I was getting a day. And while I do feel bad for all of my anons who prefer to stay anons, with everything that happened (the multiple incidents) with anon that kind of started to suck the joy out of everything. That paired with the obsessive need to constantly have my inbox cleared and make sure everyone gets a response...I can understand now too why big blogs will have 200+ asks in their inbox. It's hard and it's exhausting and I'm burning out.

First it was the fic that was burning me out. Things have gone on far longer than I planned and I just wasn't prepared for this fic to go on and for a while there it was dragging. I'll admit that. If I could go back, I'd speed up a few things, but it's done, it's posted there's no going back. I kind of hoped I would have the mental capacity to upload more than once a week too, but I just couldn't. I still can't.

I've come to dread posting chapters because I know I'm going to have to reply and respond to everyone. The only thing keeping me posting is the fact that we're in the part of the story I've been excited about since the beginning and also because I keep leaving everyone on cliffhangers and I love torturing y'all with all of them.

So that being said, this is in no way to shame anyone for interacting with me, anyone leaving comments or replies or sending asks. Don't feel bad about doing it please. I appreciate all of you that have engaged with me and it really means so much to me. Honestly, earlier this year, if I didn't have this fic and everyone on this blog, I might not have made it to now. It's been a really rough year and it's still going to be into next year. It's just getting to the point where I need a break.

I've needed a break for a long time. I thought taking days off the blog would help, and it did for a couple of weeks, but now even on the days I'm supposed to be on the blog and engaging, I just find myself queueing stuff up and just being offline most of the day still.

I'm tired. That's the best reason I can give. I'm tired and burned out on life and I'm tired and burned out on this blog.

So...I think I need a break. I need to not keep responding to every single reply and reblog every chapter. I need to not force myself to answer every ask right away, no matter how much I want to. I feel bad, but I know everyone would rather have me here and enjoying the blog than forcing myself to interact to the point where I'm dreading it and just robotically repeating myself over and over with every reply and answer and comment.

I won't be pausing the fic, I won't be not uploading. I'll still be posting chapters, I just might not be interacting as much as I have been. It's just putting such a mental strain on me still, even with anon off, even with days off. And with things getting busier for me, it's going to be too much to try and deal with irl stuff and write and try to be super active on the blog. There's going to come a point where I have to sacrifice the writing or the blog and I'd rather sacrifice the blog to keep myself sane, and also to keep trying to finally get this fic done. I love this fic, don't get me wrong, but I'm just burning out.

I'm already burned out in a lot of ways.

I was planning kinktober this year but honestly I'm considering not doing it because I know interaction is going to be insane and it's going to be a lot to keep up on. Plus trying to write that many fics is hard and I'm not sure I have the ability to do it. I have a few done but now I'm just like...is that something I want to do on top of irl stuff and CRCB.

There's just no joy in it anymore. It's not anyone's fault but mine. I put the pressure on myself, I held myself to that standard for this long despite the fact I knew it was draining me. I've tried to push through when I should have prioritized myself. I feel so guilty not responding to everyone. I feel so guilty being a day or two late responding to everyone.

I want to be here and interacting and responding to things but I just can't bring myself to anymore. It's no one's fault, and this is not a drag on anyone, or an attempt to make anyone feel bad or guilty for interacting or sending asks or anything. I'm just airing out the truth and saying what I need to say because I feel like I've been so robotic and lifeless with my responses these last couple weeks and I feel like I need to explain why. It's nothing anyone has done. It's my fault. It's 100% my fault.

Things have just gotten to be too much and it's my fault for forcing myself to be so active. The social battery has dropped into the negatives. I'm not a social person. I can only handle so much interaction and I've pushed so far beyond that, that things have gotten to this point. I want to be here and I want to have fun and I want to use this as an escape but I just don't feel that way about it anymore. It's a chore for me, a job, something I feel like I have to do and it's my fault that I feel that way. It's my own standards and expectations I set on myself, and my expectations on what I think my followers want and deserve and now I feel like I've gone on too long like this that I can't change things without hurting anyone's feelings. I don't want people to think I'm ignoring them in favor of others because I know there's writers out there that do that. They only respond to a certain group and ignore others that comment and reblog. I don't want to make anyone feel like I'm doing that to them and that's now led me to here.

I'm forcing it and I'm tired.

It's been hard these last few weeks. The life has just been draining and draining continuously. The joy and the love I have for this blog and my followers and the interactions and the fic. The last anon bullshit that happened was just kind of the last nail in the coffin so to speak. The straw that broke the camel's back. Things stopped being fun. It made me feel bad (and not in the guilty way, though that was a part of it) and I'm honestly just over it. I'm over the blog, I'm over interacting, I'm over life at this point. August is a hard month for me and every year it seems to get worse and worse. A lot of it is unrelated to anything online and I was going to make a post about it but honestly I just don't want to. Those that know, know. Those that don't...it doesn't matter.

I'm getting annoyed by the blog, I'm getting annoyed every time I look in my notifications and see an ask or a reply or a comment. I'm getting annoyed by some of my followers and that's not fair to you. Everyone always talks about how nice and kind and patient I am when I'm really not. I'm not the person I present myself to be on this blog, the way I mask myself so I can present myself as being a normal, kind human being. The mask is coming off because I'm so tired I can't keep it up anymore. It's happening here and it's happening in real life. I'm tired and I'm frustrated and I'm angry at a lot of things and the last thing I want is to start taking it out on my followers. You don't deserve that, especially when it's not your fault, it's nothing any of you have done. It's all me.

It's not you, it's me.

So for the sake of not burning this whole thing to the ground, I'm going to take a break. I'm not replying to everyone, I'm not responding to every reblog, I won't reply to every ask I get right away, if at all because sometimes I just don't have anything to say in response and I need to learn that's okay. It's nothing against you. It's not aimed at anyone specifically, I'm just trying to put myself first and stop things from escalating. I need a break and I'm going to do something selfish and I'm going to take it.

Don't apologize because it's not your fault. Don't apologize because you think you might have contributed to this because you didn't. It is no one's fault but my own.

I'm the one that needs to apologize to all of you because I've just not been myself because I've been forcing myself to be someone I'm not. I've been very unfair to a lot of people over the last seven months that this blog has been active and I've held a precedent that is not sustainable in the long run and made everyone believe that I was capable of maintaining that kind of interaction when I'm not.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been putting everyone through this. I'm sorry I've been so detached and robotic and ingenuine. I'm sorry I led everyone to believe I'm someone I'm not. I'm sorry I've dragged this on this long that it's gotten to the point that I have to make this post.

I considered just disappearing but that wouldn't be fair to you either. I don't want to put you through that, so I'm pouring all of my thoughts out and making you read through this fucking novel of a post. If you've made it this far, then congrats I guess. Gold metals to you who bothered reading this far.

Anyway, all of that aside, I'll still be posting chapters. I'll have them scheduled and I'll probably come on and add links places to keep things current. I'll respond and reply and answer asks when I feel like it. You don't have to stop sending them, but just don't expect them to be responded to right away anymore. I'll probably still be here reblogging things I want and doing things when I feel like it.

I just need a few weeks to myself. Time I don't have to care about the blog at all and keeping up with it. Anon will remain off for the sake of keeping asshole trolls away, and also so I don't open tumblr and have 200 asks in my inbox after a week. Sorry to my anons but it's just the way it needs to be right now. Maybe once this break is over and I've dealt with irl stuff, I'll consider putting it back on. I just can't after everything I dealt with recently on anon.

It'll be the same on Ao3, for those that follow here and read there. Comments will probably sit for a while. They won't be answered right away anymore unless I get the energy to burn through them. Even then I won't try to answer them all at once like I did this last weekend.

I'll try to reblog something every day so y'all know I'm alright. I don't want y'all to panic and it's not fair to put you through that, especially those that might not see this or bother reading it. Those that follow simply for the fic and nothing else. I'm here, I'm just not...here.

This week's chapter is in the queue to be posted tomorrow as usual. Chapters will still come out as planned since I'm not stopping writing, just taking a break from the blog itself.

Thank you those of you who stuck through to the end here. I appreciate all of you so much. You have no idea. I'm sorry I let things get to this point and I'm sorry to anyone that I've gotten rude or snappy with because I couldn't be selfish and put myself first. I'm sorry to anyone that got a robotic, repeated response to something they were probably excited to share. I'm sorry I've been so unfair to everyone and I hope you can forgive me.

Take care and I'll talk to everyone when I have the energy to.

[the-horsemen-ride]

9/24/24 - State of the Horsem Address

Hello! I hope you're all well. I figure it's best to say something about the radio silence.

I won't be shutting down THR for good any time soon. Things will certainly change, though. I'm considering (really, more like 95% sure of) making this a more general "daily" blog of sketches and musings. Fully-fledged artworks, comics and some small animations too. Asks will still be open ofc and I'll follow up with interaction n whatnot but for now any story is being put on the back burner as I redistribute that energy to other projects, both fandom related and personal. I'll try to keep a more stable presence rather than bursts of activity, though I can't promise this blog will be without some lulls either. I may just make a post spoiling / explaining all that was planned story wise but my lil prequel to this blog is still something I'd like to make - maybe a pic maybe an animation or comic. So that's up to whether I can keep being patient or not.

My general plan is to refurbish the blog (maybe a new theme but otherwise just editing + adding pages and changing up the background and icons) and then queue up some art and other little posts with a more official "welcome back". That and new refs for Pest, Death and Connie as well as some lil concept sheets for HH and other honorary/extracanon/mod horsems as they all kinda-sorta exist in this universe. Well, Pollution and Meltdown probably do! But I want to see Deluge and Propaganda if/when we get em to feel out the group dynamic. But ig i've retconned shit before, not too much harm in doing it again.

This is my little pet project on-and-off for uh, the next few ish months? Routine posting shall resume in October, ideally.

I'd also like to introduce the "horsem archives" tag - from here on out I'll be using this to archive some of my oldest horseman art pieces, many from when I was a bit too young to even know about this game. Anything pre-blog will go here.

Thank you all for sticking around, it really does mean a lot. This has honestly been my first big venture into a long-ish term story and project. Now it's more of a playground/training room for my current passion projects but this has really helped me think about a lot of narrative aspects, not to mention everyone I've met through this, even though I don't talk much I really appreciate y'all. I want to see THR through to its full potential, and - though i hope this will be like, way down the line - its conclusion.

Thank you again, have a great day !!

[musedriven]

ALRIGHT; tldr version first then the meat of the post under a read more. I will be on semi-hiatus until aprox mid to late september depending on how busy we get at work. once october hits; i will be on a full hiatus until mid november. I will poke in if i have a moment during that time but since i work at a party place and halloween is our version of retail christmas it is highly unlikely. I am also making a proper thread tracker! this will help me to avoid loosing things. i will post a thing so y'all can see and make sure i didn't miss anything once i'm done filling it out.

HIATUS; i work at a party store as i previously mentioned and it means we are going to be going wild. not only that but i am a manager at said party store and one of the main people setting every display and isle up as we transition into halloween. corp has also been giving us a ton of extra tasks to try and 'refresh' the rest of our store at the same time. i'm talking 60+ hour work weeks once we really start getting into the thick of things. a lot of extra work and we'll also swap to longer and later hours as we get closer and closer to halloween. we also are starting to set up already because of the rushes we have been getting so i'm not sure if we are going to go the 60+ hour weeks sooner or not. normally those start last week of sept through october till about a week after halloween but we've also had a lot of late shoppers and our work finally implemented after holiday sales this year so things might take longer. during 'peak season' i really don't want to have to worry about also keeping up with things here so a full hiatus is just going to save me a lot of stress. starting in sept is when i will be putting everything in the queue and prepping up for october.

THREAD TRACKER; i am torn between doing it by character or by blog ( as i run a few dif ones ) but i think i'll do it by character to make things a touch easier for myself when muse is strong for one chara vs another. i had been copying links to the threads into a single doc in my drafts but I feel like i've lost a few and that page is old and has a lot of stuff with partners that have since deleted. i feel like it is going to be easier if i set up the thread tracker properly instead of continuing with that method. it will also be a lot more organized. once i'm done filling it out i'll leave a lil thing so if you don't see a thread on there that you want to continue then you can im me the link to it and i can add it in. i want to try and finish this up today so I have this to help me get things into my queue properly as well.

[multi-royalty-arc]

Just a little post because I feel like I haven't actually spoken on here in a while! My activity over the past weekend has been so spotty and I'm so sorry for that (though my queue keeps me looking active today is really the only day I've been here for more than 2 minutes at a time). Family stuff has kept me away but I am back!.

Ask's have been answered and scheduled and ALL drafts are queued. I'm hoping to put out a few opens throughout the week, if anyone wants to see more of a specific character that I write then please let me know !!

Anyone who I'm mutual's with and we currently DO NOT have something going feel free to send the word START to my ask box and I will create a random starter for us or come and bother you for plotting. ( you can include any character details like who you want and who for in the ask to unless you just want a surprise).

Have a wonderful day and I'll be seeing y'all around <3

[skaldish]

I'll level with y'all on this—I've been focusing on my store a lot because I'm trying to find an additional source of income in the face of disability.

To the shock of no one, I'm a web designer by trade. My background lies in writing and art. It's not lost on me how much I can do with my skillset...but there's also not a lot I can do outside of it.

A few years ago, I started developing chronic soft tissue damage in my dominant hand due to daily computer-work for my job. This, combined with my rapidly-declining mental health due to the pandemic, forced me to move from full-time to contract with my current employer so I wouldn't completely destroy my body or my mind.

I'm blessed that I live in a state that with quality state health insurance. My living expenses are extremely low and I don't need to make a whole lot to squeak by.

However, I now live with a permanent physical limitation, which limits what I can do on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, I've started to look into setting up long-term investments. This includes literal economic investments like stocks and bonds, but also in projects that will sort of just...semi-run themselves after I put in the work needed to get them going.

Given my skillset, e-commerce is perfect for this.

Let me tell you all a little secret. Setting upon an online store and selling things is stupidly, ridiculously easy. It's even more ludicrously easy when you know how to use what I call "rich people tools"—the kind of online marketing solutions wholeass companies use to advertise and grow.

These tools run like a well-oiled machine. Everything about them is about minimizing effort while maximizing profit. Most so-called "social media," like twitter, facebook, and pinterest? They all integrate with these tools seamlessly, because the true purpose of these websites is to be marketing platforms for business owners, so they can deliver their ads directly to people's eyeballs in environments where their guards are down.

It's actually pretty fucking disgusting.

(I've always hated advertisements and the culture that surrounded them. It's why I don't try to push products too heavily here even though I know I can queue up a million reblogs for them. Knowing what I know now just makes me hate it all even more.)

But anyway, for the last month or so, I've been thrown into an ethical dilemma. I don't want to, and never wanted to, monetize Skald's Keep. Its purpose is to be a free website that competes against the monetization and commercialization of Heathenry.

But it's also supposed to be a trustworthy website. By having a store that clearly sells a plethora of direct-to-consumer products, it looks like I have ulterior motivations, and that's not what I'd call trustworthy.

And yet, I need a livelihood, and e-commerce is the strongest play I've got.

Fortunately, I think I figured out my own problem just by hashing things out here—I need to start my own business separate from Skald's Keep. An entirely different website altogether that's clearly just a store, one I can market to hell and back with the disgusting tools capitalism built for itself without sacrificing my intentions for Skald's Keep.

As for the current Skald's Keep store? I think it would be a BALLER idea to turn it into a hub for indie pagan publications—a place to feature all the devotionals, guides, and workbooks I see so many people here make but don't have one place to put 'em.

It would be stupidly easy too. The product entries can link off to whatever platform you're hosting your book on; lulu, amazon, etc. All you'll have to do is give me the link to your book, the image of the book cover, and the paragraph description, and I'll plug it all in. That way, I can showcase the work of the community without necessarily needing to "recommend" it for educational reasons. You'd basically just take advantage of my high-ranking results on google.

It will also create a library where people can easily find non-Folkish stuff, which takes money away from them and puts it in the hands of the average pagan.

Yes, I think this is the plan y'all. We will have our cake and eat it too.

Thanks for being such a great audience and for putting up with my hair-brained shenanigans as I was working through this. <3

[stygeanbluebasilsprout]

Queued

This is a fictional story, I apologize because I didn't realize how the first paragraphs sounded without context. I am perfectly fine. Please reblog this version and enjoy!

Let me preface this by clarifying a thing. If you're reading this, I'm already dead. I'll queue this for tomorrow morning, and if nothing happens I'll take this down. If you're seeing this on your dash, it means I'm gone. If I can return... Idk, maybe I'll write a more detailed post with the answers to all of this, maybe y'all could just carry on like nothing happened. Maybe this post will not exist anymore and there is no need to tell you what I would do.

That being said, if I will have to say goodbye, the least I could do is doing it with style. 

My name is Norman. All of you will already know me by my url, or maybe the pfp. "Look, it's trans Charizard again. What will he have to say this time". Mostly shitpost, alright? I didn't log in expecting to become a great artist. Sometimes, however, I liked to cut out a little scrap from my life and show it to you.

I started when my new life started. When I finally managed to get away from the horrible claws of my family and I settled in this little apartment. It was a small place, tucked away between the trees, where birds were more loud than traffic. 

All things considered, it has been nice to get it without having to pluck out my eye to pay rent. It was crammed, yes, but at the time I didn't even have a bed. It was enough.

So, as my loyal followers may already know, life here was... peculiar. 

It wasn't anything outright weird, more like little unsettling details, details on which the eye glided until they got caught, and once the eye caught them it couldn't let them go.

Typing them on here, in hindsight, makes me feel dumb, like if I was some horror movie dipshit that wouldn't move out of a clearly haunted house, trapped in his certainty that "GhOsTs ArEn'T rEaL" despite the furniture floating past him.

In my defense, my furniture didn't float. At least, I never saw it doing so. 

There have been misplaced objects, though. A glass that got knocked over, a book I was sure I had put a bookmark in, my Waddles (yes, the Gravity Falls pig. Sue me) plushie popping up from the strangest places, like when I found it in the pantry, behind the pasta. 

It was the least tbh.

Misplaced objects... they could be attributed to my ADHD. I came to terms with the fact that my things never seemed to stay where I put them when I was, like, six. After a while it sort of became a bit, in our family. So it wasn't exactly news. Even if Waddles in the pantry was a bit too much even for me. But hey, everyone lost track of their stuff sometimes, if they weren’t paying attention.

And, as I said before, it was the least. I mean, you saw my posts. At first I joked a bit about these teleportations, along the lines of "haha, look, my plushie loves pasta sooo much!". But, like, everyone who owns a cat knows that teleport is not impossible. "Yeah yeah, things that change places when they shouldn't, we've all seen it". Issues started coming after a few weeks.

At first, it was the golden leaves. I already said that my house was in the middle of the woods, right?

Well, it was around last April when they started making their appearance. I challenge everybody, everybody, to see a threat in a shiny, little golden leaf placed on the window sill.

They were really cool, by the way. Not even a little bit scary. Annoying, for sure. But not scary.

They made me curse every ancient god that watched over this Earth, though. I wouldn't get surprised if Cthulhu came knocking at my door asking why I was calling for them. For it was enough to leave the door a tiny tiny bit ajar for a freaking MOUNTAIN of leaves to make their entrance.

They defied physics. How the hell a metric fuck you of leaves could have come inside through an opening of an inch (measured) in less than half a minute is beyond me. But at least, broom and patience, and I swatted them away.

Now, I admit that maybe it was my fault, because if a normal person gets ATTACKED by leaves their first reaction is to find the tree those leaves come from.

It never crossed my mind, I swear. Not even when they started exploding.

Okay, maybe exploding is a bit of an overstatement. It's not like they went KABOOM and set things on fire.

It was just that as soon as I grazed them, even by blowing on them, puf! They turned into a little cloud of golden dust. And that mother-effing dust stuck! It didn't go away! Soon all my belongings were golden-leaf-dust-coated. I had a glittering house.

And if your first reaction is "Norman, normal leaves don't act that way" well, whoever you are, you may be an amateur botanist, but I know jack shit about trees. I wasn't gonna bother my landlord for a couple of leaves. It was my very first place of my own, I wasn't gonna act like a whiny baby. I think it would have solved a lot of problems, though.

Because then, around the middle of this January, it was the stains' turn. The streaks, the markings.

They started appearing in little spots, like little droplets of something. I didn't thought much of them, it was an old house in the middle of the woods, of course there would have been dirt here and there.

I found the first concerning one on the couch. It was a big, rough brown stain vaguely resembling a heart. Not a "❤" sort of heart, an anatomically correct heart with atriums and all. It had even the veins on it. It was a bit disturbing, I admit it. Maybe, a flying chair would have been a less noticeable warning.

However, it probably was just a Rorschach-like effect. Y'know, the test with the stains. It was just a puddle, but I thought it looked a bit like a heart and therefore was an anatomically-correct-heart-shaped puddle.

It was not the only rough brown stain I found. They didn't really bothered me, because, unlike that goddamned dust, they went away on their own. I had to clean off only the most visible ones. They just. Appeared. On the windows, the ceiling, at the bottom of the walls and on the floor, in the kitchen, on the mirrors, on my blankets, my clothes, even on the back of my binder. I felt a bit sorry when those disappeared, because they resembled two little bat wings.

If you followed me at the time, I'm sure you remember those pictures. How could you not? Some of them went viral, my notifications never recovered. I think that the rose on my bedsheets got reblogged by a heritage posts blog, like the "is this dress blue and black or white and gold?" meme.

By this point you are probably thinking "But Norman, at this point you must have noticed that something was wrong. Dirt doesn't appear and disappear, and it doesn't come in elaborate shapes." And you're right. I noticed that it was not right. I may be a skeptic, but until a certain point. But I'm not a moron. Except I was. Because it was just dirt. Dirt that came in beautiful patterns and went away on its own and it didn't bother me. So I pretended that everything was fine, it was normal, nothing was going on.

I am really, really a moron.

Because what happened next made me realize it was not dirt.

It was blood.

I... don't think I've ever posted the handprints on here. The heart, the rose, those little spots that looked like a constellation were all meant to get a laugh out of who saw them. Somebody even accused me of creating them myself, which, dear rando, thank you. It wasn't me. I can’t draw shit.

Handprints smeared on my kitchen were NOT, I repeat, NOT my doing. Why the fuck should I do such a thing? They were creepy as fuck, and I immediately got a hold of soap and sponge. The point is, they reappeared every time. I cleaned the glass panel, and the next morning I found two, if not more, different handprints.

Once there was one that had nothing better to do than flipping me off.

Very funny.

At a certain point I just gave up. The patterns always went away by themselves, I could suck it up and endure a "fuck you" by a stain on my window for a while.

Wrong. The second evening after my last attempt, at the start of September, they chose to up their game. Under my eyes, the substance they were made of slowly became dark crimson and wet and started dripping. I yelled and fell backwards, crashing over the table.

Quivering, I slowly crawled away from the window. I felt something wet on my fingertips, I must have hit my elbow in the fall. Instead of any kind of pain, it was disgust that clawed at my stomach. As I watched the trickle of blood on my forearm the memory of all the shapes came to mind and realization hit.

I've slept between those blankets, dammit!

I reached the sink and said goodbye to my breakfast. When my head stopped spinning, I grabbed soap and a rag and, in record time, cleaned off that nightmare from my glass.

Too bad that the nightmare just started.

This was the only place I had. I couldn't pack and just go. I should've done it, but I couldn't.

However, it was now time to bother my landlord. The sweet old lady that I talked to over the phone assured me she would come as soon as she could.

As soon as she could was a week later. That week was a nightmare. I tried to stay away from the house as long as I could. But I always had to sleep somewhere. And those nights... I don't want to talk about those nights. I was curled under my blankets, trembling and sobbing. Apparently, the 'dirt' stains now always came in liquid form. And I always woke up covered in golden glitter and red trickles, despite having a sheet all over me. Use your imagination.

When I finally greeted the sweet granny, I was in tatters. And glittering. As I said, the dried blood went away, the dust stuck.

For her, a single glance around was enough. She pursed her lips, and nodded solemnly. And told me that to solve this I had to leave something sweet as an offering, in the woods. Something like a cake, bread, cream, sugar, milk and honey.

Milk. And honey.

Are you FUCKING kidding me.

Apparently not, she was not kidding me. She looked extremely serious. And so I though, why not give it a shot? And after she left me I took a bowl, I filled it with milk and honey, and walked until I could find a good spot between the trees, where I left it.

The next morning I woke up unscathered. And when I went checking, the bowl was just shiny clean. Not even a drop.

So, a bowl of milk and honey in exchange for a night of peaceful sleep. And a clean house.

Poor fool that I was, I thought it could work.

This was three weeks ago. And, of those three weeks, just the first few days the milk worked. Because then, They wanted more.

Milk and honey, but with a spoonful of sugar. Slices of white, soft bread with butter and sugar. Mugs of coffee creamer and honey. Little cakes, like tarties and plumcakes. Sweets. Peppermints and toffee. And so forth.

Always more, always more.

And if the quota wasn't met, the blood returned. And the dust. And the misplaced stuff. And, between the trunks and branches, I could see lights dancing and hear soft laughter and singing, asking for more. More, more. More.

They just don't want to leave me alone. I can’t keep on living like this. I made my decision. I typed on here all of this story. So, now you all know. I have a kitchen knife shining next to me. Must sound more gutsy that it really is, but tonight I'm gonna march in the woods and make Them leave me alone.

It sounds so brave. But I'm not. I'm crying and shaking. My fingers can't stay still. There are tears on my laptop. I'm gonna die.

But anger is stronger. I-I will try to make Them stop. To make Them let me live my life. If it won't work, at the top of this story I left all you need to know. If things work out... I dunno. An update, maybe? A whole different story, maybe.

But now the story queued is this.

So, thank you, to all of my mutuals, for the time spent on this blue hell. I love all of you.

Goodbye

Norman

[teyvat-imagines]

Anemo has reached AR 25! (Update)

Haha, seriously though, it's my birthday today and my bones are 25 years old now! ^w^

Since I've got the today and tomorrow off work, I'm spending some of today getting out as many of the requests I've got in my inbox as I can! ^w^ We're currently down to 9 so heck yeah! :D

Hoping to open up my inbox again soon, don't wanna keep y'all waiting too long after all, but I am taking some time off tomorrow and over the weekend! So even if I do manage to open up the box again today, I'll not really be around for a few days sorry XD

I might queue up some posts to come out while I'm off, but otherwise I'll post another update when I'm back :3

Ooh ooh! And I wanted to show you guys the cute thing my partner did for my birthday!! ;w; I've put it under the readmore, so y'all can skip it you want! ^w^

My amazing partner handwrote me some letters from some of my favourite Genshin characters and honestly y'all it was so cute it made me bawl my eyes out!! ;w;

I blocked out my name ofc XD But ahhhh it really made me so happy ;w; There were little fake polaroids in there too and ahhhhhhhhhh!! I can't stop screaming about how cute this was!! ;w;

If you see this baby, thank you again I love you so much!!!! <3 <3 <3

[jjksblackgf]

hey, there

I'm officially back!

Remember when I said it would take me weeks to get back? lol It's been literally 7 days

First, I want to start by saying how much I appreciate the support you guys gave me, and to say thank you for the 'stay well' wishes. I loved reading it, and I'll remember every single one of them <3

If you want an explanation about what led me to take a hiatus, I'll leave one below the cut 🥰

So let me tell you what's next for this blog.

1. I'll scrap a couple of WIP's that I have (namely dámelo dos, papi and baller). They were good pieces of content, but my heart isn't in it, so they're out.

2. I'll focus on writing serialized material (like my lines series, eating you out series, etc), I like writing series much more than I like writing one shots.

3. In between the stories that I'll post, I'll give you guys some writing prompts that you can request. I'll release one prompt list later today, it's Valentine's themed 😁

4. I'll also focus a little more on visual content and social media au's *cof cof* blossoming *cof cof*

And that's all for now. Luv ya 💞

If you want to snoop below the cut, feel free to 😉 k, bye

Those of you that have been following me for a while, you know my tendency to self-sabotage, and that's exacly what happened.

I started to not like the things I was writing, and instead of scrapping that material to allow me to write things I actually wanted to, I insisted on finishing what I'd started.

That turned into a domino effect. I burnout super quick because I was spending my time in things that i didn't want to do. I have some triggers around doing things I don't want, which made me have a mental breakdown.

So I decided to take a few weeks off to cool down and sort out my thoughts. I really thought I was going to be out of here untill March, but thank God for the therapy that I've been doing for the past couple of years, because the I got my shit together in 48 hours.

The rest of the days I was itching to get back in here, but I decided I needed a break. And then, I made some goals for myself.

1. only write things that you feel like writing.

It sounds silly, I know, but really, having this in mind has taken a huge weight off my shoulders. That meant saying goodbye to projects that I didn't want to say goodbye to.

But being honest with you guys, I want people to like me so much, that what I was hanging onto was the potential validation that I would get from said projects.

So I need to put on my big girl pants and be the one validating myself, and learning how to love myself to the fullest, I can't let other people have that power over me, no matter how nice and good people they are.

2. log out of tumblr mobile and have a specific time to login into web

I'm getting so caught up in the need for validation that checking tumblr first thing in the morning has been my morning routine for months now.

And that's sad because it's not everyday that I have the amount of notes that I wish I had. That was leading me to think nobody liked me and nobody cared if i lived or di*d, and I need to understand that's not true. People do care about me, and they do want to see me be well and happy.

So I'll only be here to post and queue some stuff.

And that's all I have for today. Love y'all ���