#idk man post lockdown life is difficult

[captain-aralias]

Life stuff

this feels kind of weird, because i’ve never used my tumblr like this, but i would have written something on my livejournal, and i want people to know - i just dont want to have to tell people about it, or really talk about it at all. 

but i also wanted to write this, idk. 

(TW: impending death of a parent)

my mum has cancer. 

it’s a rare form of cancer, called peritoneal cancer, which is similar to but different from ovarian cancer - i think it mostly gets diagnosed (like my mum’s) when it’s too late to do anything about it. all the treatment has been palliative only i.e. letting her live as long and as comfortably as possible.

she was diagnosed in september last year - about a year ago, a few months after running the ‘virtual’ london marathon on the isle of wight, where she lives, and obviously deep in lockdown. 

as someone undergoing chemo, she was deemed extremely vulnerable to covid, and so she spent most of the early pandemic isolating. she also said she didn’t see any point in my brother and i visitng her, particularly given the risks, because we could talk via facetime - which is fair enough - all of which meant my brother and i didn’t go to visit her until May this year, after she’d done the first lot of chemo and was already doing much better again. 

a few months after that, we found out that while she’d responded really well to the chemo, her cancer wasn’t responding at all to the maintenance drugs that were suposed to stop it coming back, so she came off the drugs completely. medical advice was basically chemo is as effective whenever you do it, so you might as well enjoy your life for a while, we’ll monitor it every month, and when things start to get too bad, we’ll put you back in chemo. 

it’s friday tomorrow - so two fridays ago, i saw my mum in london after she’d just seen hamilton with her partner, graham. both of them loved hamilton. her hair had grown back, she seemed pretty normal. about a week later, she was in A&E - and she’s been in the hospital all week. she’s got a total bowel obstruction, which means she can’t eat and hasn’t eaten since last week.

now in a weird situation where there are a few tricky, difficult options (including being moved off the island back onto the mainland to a bigger hospital) that will mean that she stays alive long enough to get the chemo, which will probably get her back to hamilton-watching strength, or ... she could die really soon. like, in a few days. 

we can’t visit. her partner can’t visit because covid - there’s this really sad-making photo of him looking happy on the phone through a window to my mum, also on the phone, inside the hospital. 

i feel...

???? :( :( :( ....

i guess this is the main point of the post. i’m not writing this crying, i’m writing it pretty neutrally - because my brain isn’t really processing it right now, and mostly doesn’t process it. 

i did cry earlier today while on the phone to various people, and then i went back to work. i hate crying, i hate being sad, and i dont like people comforting me, because it makes me realise that i have something to be sad about. 

i’ve known she had cancer for a year. i haven’t been able to hang out with her most of that time. i would say, we are fairly close, although not nearly as close as some families. we don’t talk every week, but we talk regularly, and have seen each other regularly. 

i’m so incredibly privileged that nothing that bad has ever happened to me, even though i’m 35. i’ve never been to a funeral, which seemed like a major life win and now i think was a mistake, i should have gone to funerals for people i card about less to help get used to it. 

the literal only comparison i have to how i feel is when my cat Anton died suddenly  about 3 years ago - i handled it with a mix of not thinking about it, being intensely sad for as brief a period as i could, and probably by thinking about how sad my girlfriend was about it, and sort of sidestepping my own feelings in comparison. 

i remember when my last remaining grandparent died - and i was about 14 or something - i wasn’t sad for myself, i was only sad for her my dad being sad. for ages, i worried that i was not going to be sad enough about this - and i still sort of am. 

but i also passionately hate the idea of being sad and i know i’ll look to avoid it as much as possible, and try and get on with my life. 

i know my mum dying isn’t about me - when people write after death it’s about the person who died, obviously. that makes sense. but this post isn’t about my mum, who is a very cool person, much cooler than me - it’s about me. because i am self-obsessed and this is going to wreck my life for a while.

it’s weird, because i can see it on the horizon but it’s not happening yet. and i dont know whether that’s good or bad - i feel like it’s good, in a way. someone ages ago told me that the grieving period starts when you get the news. that seems very true to me - but also, i know that it’s going to ramp up, and so i’m like in the expectation of true grief right now. 

it’s sort of like she died, but also is still going to die, but also i can magically still talk to her. which is really nice, in a way, it’s like a second chance, because i know i didn’t reach out enough before she had cancer. and i’m aware enough of my own actions that i know this is what’s been going on in my head the past year - i should reach out more, because she has cancer, but i dont want to make it seem like i’m reaching out because she has cancer, even though she knows i know she has cancer....... and also, i’m busy writing this fic. /o\

the fact that she seemed to recover (even though my mum insisted on saying ‘i am not recovered, i’m going to die soon’ like several time as a day as a disclaimer) also totally messed with my head, because i knew logically - ok, it’s happening. but also, things seemed so normal when we speak. even when i called her today, and she hasn’t eaten for a week, it seemed normal. 

btw - i realised this week i had no idea how cancer killed people. my mum is a scientist and has looked up all kinds of things about what’s killing her; i’m clearly a simon snow and didn’t want to think about things i can’t help. if you’d asked me, i’d have said like... it poisons you or something, or blocks bloodflow to your brain. not what i think will actually do it which is.... starvation. or being too weak to survive being pumped full of the poison that is intended to kill the cancer. (that one i guess i could have predicted.) man - cancer sucks. i mean, we all knew it. 

(i failed to get into cambridge university at interview stage, many years ago. the man who interviewed me gave me some extremely memorable feedback, which is that i needed to dial back the ‘defensive irony’ - which i thnk in that context meant i put myself down and tried to make a joke of everything. i remember when i got the phonecall to say Anton, my cat, was dead, i literally did not know what to do with my voice - because my instinct was to try and make the vet feel better, and also to present myself as bright and capable, and yet this unexpected and devasting news had just come through. rainbow wrote something sort of similar because she’s a good writer, for shepard as he tells penny about his curse. i feel like that.) 

what else did i want to say? 

i thought i had more time. ‘hamilton’ will probably always be tied to this moment in my mind, because of how much i’ve spoken to my mum about it in the past few weeks (i sent her the remix - she liked it, she listened to it in hospital while trying to drink more than 100ml of fluids) but yeah - this is basically a line from hamilton here. whatever. don’t make me feel my own feelings, let me just quote things. i dont like my own feelings. (no, i dont want to go to therapy - they’d make me talk about my feelings all the time, i’m british for god’s sake.) 

i’m 35 - my mum is 68. i didn’t think she’d die this early or that i’d have to deal with this yet. but then i also don’t think bad things are ever going to happen to me - because mostly they haven’t, see above. i wear a mask and am double vaccinated because i’m not an asshole, but i dont really believe i’ll get covid because bad things don’t happen to me. i didn’t think my mum would die - maybe ever, but definitely not yet. she’s been retired a decade after teaching (science) and has enjoyed it. 

i thought i had time to not have kids yet - which is the other thing (like hamilton) that this moment is really tied up with for me. i feel like 35 is getting quite old, but also not that old to still not have kids, but intend to maybe have them. my feelings about kids were basically like - up until like 25, i thought, yes, definitely. i mean, before i had a realtiosnhip (22-ish), i just assumed i would probably have a het marriage and have kids etc, like people do, but after that we were still talking, yes, children at some point. 

didn’t prioritise it for a few reasons - none of my close friends had children until quite recently, so it just didn’t seem like an urgent thing in the way that it probably does for people with different friendship groups. waiting to be settled enough in a job to be able to take maternity leave without it feeling like a rip off for my employer. waiting for a good time in erin’s PhD writing cycle. and then pandemic. and then a few years ago, maybe as i turned 30, i thought - maybe we won’ have kids, because we still haven’t - and i vocalised that to erin. 

also, i know a lot of people are gay and have children, so it’s not like it’s a thing that is impossible at all, but it’s much much harder if you have to leave your home and your relationship in order to get a child. it has to be a very very conscious decisions. i have friend who are men who have good genes, but we’re not so close i want to ask them for their sperm/to be involved however remotely in making a child - and (i was surprised to discover) (what a lot of things i dont know anything about) you an’t really just buy sperm, it’s not truly legal except through a clinic. and it’s extremely expensive to get inseminated in a clinic, and the NHS don’t really do that, so you do have to pay it. i thought kids would be expensive after they were born, but not before. and i REALLY wanted a house, much much more than - i think even today - i’ve ever wanted a child. i REALLY wanted a house - and now we have a house, and it’s pretty good. but - that’s where the money went, until the pandemic - thanks pandemic - so now we do have some disposable cash at last, because i didn’t commute. 

but now erin is worried about climate change - and wheher it’s right to bring more children into the world, and other things. and.... i think i do want to be pregnant, it’s what i’m planning for - don’t leave this job (which admittedly i also really like, and pays me well - i dont thin i need to leave) because next stop maternity leave, but..... 

i don’t know whether i am thinking, time ot have kids because my best friend just had a baby (the baby’s name is horatio - for real, i actually love this name) (i also haven’t seen her or the baby except over skype, because anna - my friend - is, like my mother, also scared of pandemic) and my brain is like - ok, well, if anna is doing it, i guess the time is here 

AND - i know there’s a large part of me that was like, gotta be pregnant and ideally have the baby before my mum dies so she gets to see that she had a grandchild. my brother and i are both queer, btw, in case you were wondering - he’s considering whether he wants to transition right now (but is still happy with he/him pronouns) and - you may find this astonishing, but i genuinely don’t know whether he’d consider himself ace, or has been in relationships. he’s very private, he has OCD and is in therapy - but anyway, he’s probably not having kids anytime soon (i think!) and graham - my mum’s boyfriend/partner of 10+ years. -has grandchildren, but my extremely middleclass white (but definitely not conservative voters, always 100% not-tory) parents ended up with me and my brother.... and i don’t know, as i say, i don’t know whether my brain is saying ‘have kids before it’s too late’ - although i know by now that it will be too late. even if my mum recovers from this, this time, i don’t think i can produce a child before she dies - and she isn’t asking me too, she’s not like that, but i would have liked her to be there. i thought she would be. 

so - i’m thinking about that. also, about getting a dog. i really want a dog - although i don’t want to upset the three cats (one we’ve had for eight years or so, the other two we got after Anton died). it’s ALSO really hard and expensive to get a dog. you’d think with all these ‘a dog isn’t just for the pandemic, a dog is for life’ type adverts around, that it would be easy to adcidentally get a dog - i’ve looked! you ccan’t get a dog unless you have no cats and you’re super experienced and can take a dog with lots of trauma or medical problems, or you’re willing to pay thousands of pounds. like - even for a regular not even pedigree dog - at least a thousand. pedigree dog - several thousand. i dont want a puppy either - i want a dog. 

and - this is embarrassing to admit, but i’ve alrady told erin - i genuinely had a phase of being super annoyed when i’d read fics where someone just ‘got a dog’. it’s not that simple!!! it’s fiction, it doesn’t matter - chill out. the baby thing too - although weirdly not fics where magic meant it was possible to get a baby, weirdly it was smut. i had a brief week or so of crazy (and i don’t think i am that crazy) where i’d read about fictional semen and just be like - wtf, it’s so hard to get hold of that shit. (it’s not real, this isn’t real semen being wasted, calm down - and i dont even really know if i want kids, i might just think i do.) 

the other thing about the bad thing being soon but not yet (but also being all the time, but not if you dnt think about it) is that i’m thinking - should i prioritise writing my remix now, in case my mum dies and i’m too sad to do it, and then i didn’t do my remix? i was definitely thinking this while writing classroom politics (i hope my mum doesn’t die becaue i dont want to be too sad to miss the deadline) and in the run up to AWTWB .....

today i wrote a list of things for work that would need to be picked up if i have to unexpectedly stop working, either because i’m too sad, or because i have to do funeral stuff, or .... i guess legal stuff about settling the estate. (i guess this happens to a lot of people, too, but it’s also a bit of a mindfuck that my brother and i will inherit her house and a bunch of cash when she dies - i’m pretty well off, my brotehr does virtual reality theatre stuff so really isn’t - we’ve talked about how much easier both of our lives will be with a huge injection of cash, and how we dont know what to feel about that) (great news, dogs and kids are really expensive! time to find out whether i really wanted to spend my money on those.) told people i like at work that it’s coming, and that i dont want to talk about it. and mostly just... carrying on with life, really. until it happens. 

it’s so weird how easy it is to carry on most of the time.i know my mum’s partner is not doing nearly so well - he has to cope with an empty house and he’s retired. i’ve had periods - including right now - where i wake up every morning and check my phone to see whehter someone called me or texted me to tell me it’s over. but most of the day i’m actually really fine. i even had an ok day today. and i don’t know whether i want that to be the case, or whether i shouldn’t let myself do that. i dont know what i should prepare for in terms of where i’ll be - will i want lots of stuff to distract me (this is my guess) and work is very good for that, or i will want to clear time and space because i can’t operate and dont want people to offer me comfort. (FYI - this post isn’t written to make people say anything to me, i definitely dont want to talk about it, so please don’t feel you either have to comment or check in on me - i don’t really want you to. it’s enough to have written it, in my own time, in my own space.)

i think i wanted to write this post in a way because i thought i probably wouldnt want to write it after my mum died - because i probably wouldn’t want to say anything about it at all, for a few years. 

my mum keeps telling me about the show ‘jane the virgin’ - which she’s half way through. shhe asked me to give it a try, so i did (she often tells me about shows on radio 4, which i rarely listen to. i thouht i had more time.) i’ve watched an episode (because she has cancer, i should listen to her recommendations)(but i dont want her to know that’s why i did it) and i do quite like - it’s light and frothy and well cut together (although about kids and artificial insemination, of course). i guess in a worse case scenario where i’m too sad to work or write, i will probably watch a lot of this show - which is incredibly not sad - and feel sad about how my mum never finished it. 

BUT ALSO SHE MIGHT BE OK. for a while. 

i dont know how i feel, blargh. anyway. this was a long post. i think i wrote it mostly for me. feelings are weird. covid really sucks and so does cancer. 

going to order some chicken and watch inuyasha.

[firewoodfigs]

a smorgasbord of unbidden thoughts / highlights (long post ahead!): 

we’re slowly creeping out of the lockdown, and we’re allowed to go out for meals now! I got to meet a friend for dinner on Monday and he treated me to some amazing Italian fare as a belated birthday gift :’) I was really craving Italian after watching Luca and I haven’t had good pasta in a long while, so that was really nice. I also met a friend for dinner today after work, and we’re just glad to have made it to Friday tbh lmao. it was nice catching up again after so long and talking about everything under the sun (in this case, under the moon). I love spending time alone and having time myself, but I can’t deny that I’ve also missed interacting with other sentient life forms lmao. 

I managed to re-schedule my vaccine slots, and I'm getting my first shot tomorrow! fingers crossed it won’t be too bad (I still wanna be able to type through the soreness 😩). I'm a little nervous tbh because I absolutely detest needles, but I feel like at this point I just don’t care anymore LMAO. it also helps that my bf and I got the same vaccination slot, so I guess I'll just make a ruckus and be a nuisance if things go south. jk 

next week’s my last full week of work before my two-month break begins! I'm really excited to finally get a breather from work (although to be fair I've only been working for like... 6 months lmao rip) before things get real hectic in September haha. I'm definitely not looking forward to the added responsibilities, and i’m honestly not sure how to feel about getting called to the bar because everyday is just a flurry of shit, am I really cut out for this and help, work is dulling my * sparkle * and yo, you think I can just move somewhere west and be a country singer? but oh well. too late I guess. I'm too deep in debt to get out now LMAO. jk 

on the bright side, though, I received news today that I’ve been designated to my preferred area of practice for my next seat :) and i'm pretty excited about that! I've honestly been feeling pretty desiccated about the law ever since starting practice because it’s so different from whatever I've studied and something that college couldn’t have possibly prepared me for lmao (many thoughts but I don’t want to turn this into an essay so I will simply project my feelings onto my favourite war criminals)

it’s been a struggle to create lately, for various reasons. these days it feels like anything I make is woefully inadequate and subpar and mediocre, and i’m just. constantly torn between striking everything out altogether and desperately wanting to be better, to feel better. I felt a little burnt out after royai week because  I was rushing to complete so many projects and ideas on time (I do tend to get a little overambitious and overzealous that way, haha), and so I tried to take a break, but I couldn’t properly rest, either, because these days I only feel alive when I'm... creating. LOL. it's like an unresolvable paradox where I slog to feel alive and then feel like death, and then feel like I'm wasting away and wasting time when I'm being unproductive and fruitless. idk, man. it’s probably the productivity guilt acting up or something. it doesn’t help that my mind is an unholy mix of anxiety and imposter syndrome and perfectionism, either, or that inspiration only strikes me at the ungodliest of hours. I find that it’s easier to write when I've cleared everything else on my plate, but sometimes it’ll be midnight by the time I've done that because there’s just so much to do. I end up writing at two in the morning and/or recording snippets of a putative song while half-asleep (the result is usually pretty dang awful, because I have no idea what I was saying when I listen to it the next day lmao).

I also find it to difficult to alternate between so many forms of writing. my job mostly consists of reading and writing (mostly boring and terribly dreary stuff, because lawyers have apparently never heard of punctuation or one-liners, and I am 100% proving this right now with my streams of consciousness), and my hobbies primarily include that, too. I've also been struggling to switch between writing prose/fic and poems and songs because i tend to focus on different things. (I also have the attention span of a goldfish. or a confused rat.) like, I focus a lot more on how things flow for the first, how things look for the second, and how things sound for the third, if that makes sense? but I also literally cannot focus on one thing at a time so everything is just a half-written mess and a smattering of my illegible scrawls tbh 😞 I'm hoping that I'll have more time to sit down and properly sort these out one at a time during my break hahaha. 

that being said, I read something this week about the four stages of learning a new skill LOL iirc it goes (1) unconscious incompetence (2) conscious incompetence (3) conscious competence (4) unconscious incompetence? I find that I'm stuck at (2) atm for a lot of things, which is probably why it’s so hard to go forth and do the damn thing without descending into a spiral of self-doubt haha. the truth is I rely on external reassurances and validation a great deal to tide me through, because my mind is just so used to criticising myself for everything and being my own harshest critic that it’s become a challenge to objectively assess my own work. it’s probably a defence mechanism to feeling like failure is not an option and/or my upbringing or something, and it’s how I’ve coped with a lot of things, but I'm also coming to realise that it’s not always the healthiest way to live haha. 

BUT, you know. at the end of the day it’s a hobby and it’s supposed to be fun and joy-inducing and. it’s so easy to ruin all of that in the process of pursuing perfection so. I think i’ll just work on attempting the damn thing and worrying about it afterwards 🤠 (and also being less exacting on myself haha) 

ending things on a lighter and brighter note - I received a lovely surprise from a friend this week!! I ordered some earrings from her (the stuff she makes is the stuff of DREAMS) and she tossed in a necklace for me and it’s just. it’s beautiful. it’s handmade. it’s astounding. I'm weeping. 

[iamafxsh]

week 4 - w/c feb 15th

february 19th 2021

*This isn’t really media related, it’s just me complaining about stuff - trans related stuff, me generally being pissy with my parents rn - so feel free to skip until the regular broadcast returns*

I’m been out as trans non-binary, to my friends, since I was 16. I’d had a coming out or two beforehand, related to sexuality, and over the last few years, I’ve slowly come out to more people in my life - new friends, college professors, you get the idea.

On July 2020, I took that big step and told my mother - my dad already knew but wouldn’t call me my chosen name or pronouns because my mum didn’t know. It didn’t go well. She cried? Like I upset her?? So I left and hid for like four days, and then it just wasn’t mentioned until I brought it up a month later - a fucking month!! She did the whole gaslighting thing where suddenly I was guilted into feeling bad that I upset her and ambushed her - like honey I’ve always been trans you were just too blind to see all the signs.

Anyway, now it’s 2021. She doesn’t use any name at all. Like no chosen name or deadname. I think she thinks she’s being some ally - I’ve heard blatant homophobic, transphobic and even racist shit come out your mouth in the past so idk who the fuck you’re an ally to - and I guess I appreciate not being deadnamed, but it’s just not coming out of a place of love I can tell. It feels so fucking dehumanising and I just feel like I can’t express that because the fucking communication in this household is shit - arguably I’m part of that problem but one thing for me to worry about at a time.

My dad uses my name, or a shortened version of it, but he still doesn’t use my pronouns, which of course my mum doesn’t either (they/them is all they know and I’m the most comfortable with). My dad’s even known about my pronouns for longer than my names, since early 2017. He complains it’s difficult and he’s not used to singular they/them which honestly is bullshit but whatever. Just like, adapt old man.

He gets it right sometimes though, but I feel like he expects some sort of praise for it, or for me to actively acknowledge he’s done it right. Like, you are doing the bare minimum getting it right, I shouldn’t have to reward you with something like this, you’re not a child.

My dad means well, at least means better than my mother, but sometimes he’s just unreceptive to things he’s unfamiliar with, which I get, but you should care about things like trans rights because you have a trans kid. You should care about queer rights because you have a queer kid. Even though we’re white, you should care about black lives matter because we’re all fucking human. He can just be so fucking dense when it comes to these sorts of things. I get that he’s older, but like, I don’t understand how he doesn’t care.

Generally I do have a good relationship with my parents, this isn’t the whole pictures, but I get so sick of this sort of stuff, and it’s this sort of stuff that sticks with me, all the shitty things I dealt with as a kid, not knowing I was trans and having to have really gendered experiences growing up - honestly a post for another time because damn did my mother try to raise someone I ain’t.

I don’t know, it’s just something that’s been weighing a lot on my recently, though I don’t know why. Nothing drastically different has happened even since I came home in December for Christmas break - still home, lockdown and all.

I don’t think it’s elevated dysphoria but like, I’m so sick of being trans. I’ve always had dysphoria, and I generally view being trans as a positive thing for me - the way I view gender is different and it gives me unique insights that cis people don’t have - but god is it exhausting too sometimes.

Honestly, I just feel kind of shitty and I don’t know why but this is why I’m having issues with most right now. Enjoy that rant.

[wizisbored]

What are some of your favorite lines you've written for your fics? (Also I'm sorry things aren't going well right now. Sending love 💜)

right its time to go diggin im using this as an excuse to reread everything because i cant think of any lines off the top of my head even though i know theres a shitton

premptively putting a cut here because this will probably end up long as shit and you know what fuck yea to that because fuck yea to being proud of what youve made

SO

hallelujah, first thing i posted:

If those bastards want to make her part of their shitty musical, then she’s going to make it difficult. Or at least inconvenient.

The hive is not inconvenienced in the slightest.’

- idk if this is as funny as i think it is but i find it funny

"Nobody dies with dignity, Emma. There's no honour in the thing, however you dress it up."

- wrote that to sound creepy and now i cant decide whether i actually think its true

But he’s holding her like she’s his salvation, as if it’s his life hanging in the balance.

- salvation is just a good word tbh

It’s hopeless, but she refuses to be killed by a game of fucking ‘got your nose’.

purgatory, intended to be a shitpost but now i unironically think of it as the best thing ive ever written

After a few years (or maybe seconds, it’s not clear) / it takes a moment (or maybe it doesn’t, who knows?) / An undocumentable amount of time passes. /  They might have slipped into an uneasy silence lasting millenia - or milliseconds - if it wasn’t for the jolly tune that suddenly fills the air. / for minutes or years or millenia or maybe even eons / After a brief, indescribably long nap / But the incomprehensible amount of time seems somehow shorter this time.

- 2 in one of fucking with the concept of time and hinting at an unreliable narrator, hell yea. its about the weird atmosphere, baybeeeee

“Does one day of trying the hardest we could outweigh years of not trying at all?” Emma wonders aloud. Paul squeezes her hand.

“I damn hope so.”

He doesn’t ask if she believes in Hell.

- even without context i like this line but in context it really helped set the sombre tone so i could do a full 180 at the end of the chapter

Emma wonders whether they’ve been sent to musical hell for failing to stop the musical apocalypse

- love the implication that there is a hell dedicated to annoying people via musical theatre

“You said- you told her you’d never be in a musical?”

“Yes.”

“And then you died performing a musical number?”

“I- yeah, I did.”

“Brilliant! Now, that is stupid!”

- probably my best characterisation of death, sounds like something that would be said in a stupid deaths bit, i can hear it in his voice

teachers pet

“It’s only blatant if people know about it. So in actual fact this is secret favouritism.”

- hidgens gives absolutely 0 shits about the ethics of the situation good for him

“And if that is kidnapping, well, consider yourself kidnapped.”

- once again ethics simply do not matter

“Oh, where is your sense of adventure? Are you not curious about the results of washing baked beans?”

- this line hants me when im trying to make stew or just have some fucking beans on toast because I am curious about the results of washing baked beans

“Well, if it isn’t, and we both die, then I’ll be quite disappointed. We did spend all evening on this, after all.”

- priorities

finishing what we started, actually originally a scrapped ending idea for igtlt that i liked too much to abandon entirely

“How many bullets?” He eventually asks.

“Enough.”

- they just know what theyve got to do

Only thing left to say is a big ol’ fuck you to… God, everyone else in the fucking world. Oh, and God. Fuck you God, you prick.

- gotta love them tto refs

wildfire, almost 20,000 words of angst that im going to read through because fuck it why not

She doesn't understand the order, at least not yet; a dog doesn't understand the first time she's called to heel. But that can change. Though, from the bared teeth of this dog, the trader guesses it may take a while.

- this is actually something i really like doing in narration, calling a character something in dialogue or comparison and then directly calling them it in the narration

He understands; she doesn't want to show weakness to someone who could exploit her, doesn't want to show gratitude to someone she hates. But the tribeswoman is tired and scared and hurt, and it's obvious. She's broken, at least for today.

The loneliness, however, refuses to wane. It settles in her chest like a physical need, a craving for closeness.

- got inspiration for this description by thinking about hugging my partner while i was stuck in lockdown

"You can say that again," the older woman mutters, shaking her head. "God-fuckin'-damnit, Lauren, why d'you never think about the implications?"

Jemilla turns to her with a questioning look. "Who's Lauren?"

"She-" Molag begins to explain, then pauses. She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "I don't even know."

- crossover jokes hell yea

He’s tolerable, she’s decided, at least relatively so, but not trustworthy. If she could truly trust him then he wouldn’t be involved in all this. If she could trust him, she wouldn’t know him.

The thinly-veiled threat in his grin

She stares up at the man, shaking, whimpering, pleading. Wordlessly begging for him to stop.

- gotta love reaching the breaking point

She probably looks insane, bruised and bloody and laughing quietly to herself in a cage. She doesn’t care. They can think she’s insane, just as long as they don’t think they broke her.

laughing as they rediscover half-forgotten days spent as children let loose in a world that seemed so huge and yet so small at the same time

“You know, kids like Zazzalil - scrawny little things born as Autumn died - they’re not supposed to see Spring.”

- i will see any character without a detailed fleshed-out backstory and say ‘is anyone going to make headcannons about that’ and then not wait for an answer

Maybe the pain will shock her out of her head.

im going to live twice

It feels more like a bag of broken crockery than a human.

- this was the only time ive ever had to describe something really gory and decided to make it as uncomfy as possible

she notices with a concerning level of non-concern

Paul Matthews is gone, boy. And if I catch you using a dead man’s name again, well.

- its about the ✨forced disconnect✨

It stares at him, and for a moment he sees the young man that Benny used to be, silently pleading for the agent to tell him he'll be okay.

"In my defence, that was the Colonel's idea.” The man raises his hands in surrender. “I wanted to call you Lauren. I was outvoted.”

- i will take literally any chance to make a 4th wall joke and that is a threat

“I’ll see what can be done,” he assures it, knowing full well that nothing will be.

- xander doesnt flat out abuse emma in the way mcnamara and shaffer do but hes still cruel in subtler ways

“No chance of being hurt?”

Xander nods. “No chance of you being hurt.”

-  ✨foreshadowing ✨

If only he was free, free to just get up and go find Blue and tell her - actually tell her, out loud, with words - that she’s going to be okay. If only he could say that and have it be the truth.

She holds onto that piano. Right now, as she kneels crying into the tabletop, it's all she has.

- ‘sir thats my emotional support near-complete stranger’

smoke and feathers

Irony can be a cruel, twisted bitch.

- probably the best opener ive written

There’s a sort of pathetic irony in the fact that she slipped on a stone while wading across a shallow stream and broke her neck.

The stars move across the sky, and she still doesn’t know why.

- sounds poetic and all while also being a fuck you to the chorn twist because i hate it

It seems like every time she looks away the moon goes from waxing to waning and back again, time marching onwards in one unending night, swallowing one unending forest.

Even with her limited view of the person’s face, Zazzalil can see the softness in their expression. She’s hit with a pang of longing for Jemilla.

They share those tender looks that make Zazzalil long for home.

The kind of silence only shared between people who can appreciate the simplicity of each other’s presence

aaand thats pretty much all of em. i know when you said ‘some’ you probably meant less than this but i will give a consice answer to a question when pigs fly. i was going to do the double e au too but its past 1 am now and im going to bed. thanks for this ask because whether intentionally or not you just made me read 48,860 words of fic and thats a damn good distraction when things are getting a bit shitty :)

[lithought]

2021

HAHAHAHA! I just looked at my 2020 post and man was stupid to think that we would be out of lockdown. I mean that was written 9 months ago? & I personally think we are in a worst state than we were previously. So to summarise:

- China, Australia and New Zealand are pretty much out of the lockdown. They are all living normal lives whereas UK is in a national lockdown. Everything that this country has implemented has been done in a late manner. We’ve only just established travel restrictions. I mean really!? The death toll is bleak and the daily cases have gone up. This backwards government will put us in a lockdown time and time again and ruin the entire economy. 

- I FINALLY PASSED MY DRIVING TEST! I mean i passed it first time with 7 minors but who cares. It took me the first try too but the problem now is anxiety and fear. I’ve not really been able to drive consistently since I’ve passed due to the lockdown so like I feel like I’ve never passed? *sigh*

- I got promoted into a Band 6 towards the end of June. So i’ve been a sister for 7 months and idk, i’m still struggling with some aspects of the job because i feel like I’ve not really learned much. I’m so curious to know how i’m doing and i can’t seem to switch off most days. It’s been a hard few months with a lot of junior staff members. I’d like to become a good role model/ leader so that I can motivate the staff to be better. 

- Joash has moved to Manchester which is pretty cool because now we are all living close to each other. Me and Jimmy have been living in this house for more than a year and it has already increased in a lot of value . Right now it is estimated at £224,000 which is unbelievable. Hopefully, I’ll be able to save enough deposit so that we can move again into our forever home. 

- Raphie has also moved to Manchester. She is pregnant and is the second one in the group to be. I can’t wait to meet her little bundle of joy as well as Jenny’s baby. Can you believe that I haven’t seen them since her surprise baby shower? I miss her so much.  Madison and Elmer are still living in Wales and Dale is living with her boyfriend Alfie. Not much has changed between us 3 to be honest. This lockdown though has taken toll to all of our mental health and it’s driving me insane. Everyday feels so repetitive and I just want to feel the excitement of life once again. I forgot what it’s like to travel and now of course that Brexit is in force, it makes everything that much more difficult

The tories are a bunch of selfish twats. I’ve never seen so much incompetence in my life. Anyways I don’t want to end my first blog post of 2021 into a bitter one. So only onwards and upwards from here. 

See you all again in about 10/11 months lol. 

[a1town2called3hypocrisy]

OH CRAP!

So I was supposed to keep this as a diary but I 100% forgot although reading my Christmas post from last year was lovely although amusing thinking 2020 was going to be anything other than the shit show it has been 🤣.

I've been keeping a hand written journal/diary fairly regularly not all the time but a fair bit and there is something in the tangibleness to it.

So not sure if I will post on here or continue with the hand written journal maybe a bit of both?

Anyway I've been having mad vivid dreams lately and it's weird beacuse they are all possible things I guess like they could happen, some of them are more likely than others but none are impossible. But are your dreams the things you want, like people always say follow your dreams or "I always dreamt I'd be or be doing or see the or a something one day" but aren't they just random? Idk clearly it's a thought in your brain somewhere or maybe it's just random, either way it's been weird actually dreaming kinda nice to.

Anyway lifes good jobs ok stressful but ok granddads corvid19 test came back negative which is awesome and his bloods are good so no progression which is also good. Mums alright hayley is good saving up to move out, also had an interesting convo with her the other day about some of her past dating life she hadn't told anyone about before well hadn't told me about before at least which is nice she feels fine talking about that with me, I like that we are close. David god know man just would rather spend time on the lake waiting for a fish to bite or on a golf course by himself than spend anytime with his family each to their own I guess. Dad pft idk weird old man I find it hard to connect with him properly I hold a grudge pretty well it seems and he might of been heart broken and really annoyed but not wanting to see your kids is a dick fucking mood in my book meh I'm trying to be better at but he just doesn't really know me all that well and that makes it difficult, I mean don't get me wrong I don't know him very well either tbh so also my fault kinda I guess.

I kinda have a plan Corona has kinda destroyed/set it back a little though which is annoying but I should be able to pop it back on tack fairly easy as llng as there is not another english lockdown fingers crossed.

So sleeping pattern it's currently 5:45am and I've not slept yet I'm a moron and still slightly drunk so downing some water and finally going to bed night future self.

[lostninthlegion]

Not really a vent post but more thoughts ramble cuz I just gotta get it out/down somewhere

It's about covid, it's probably gonna be very incoherent, and I'm on mobile so idk how to put things under a cut, sorry in advance

It's just been really bizarre so far. My work has been deemed essential since we're part of construction and infrastructure, which means that even with quarantines and stay at home orders, I'm still working. So nothing has really changed for me. My routine is pretty much the same: get up, go to the job site, spend 8+hrs making sure dudes don't do dumb shit, go home, make dinner, sleep, repeat. And it hasn't really changed for many of the people I know, though a few of my friends are now out of work or were sent home from school.

But then again, all I hear on the radio or in conversations or online is stuff about people on lockdown, getting sick, out of work. Their whole lives disrupted. People dying and losing loved ones. And it's all just so concerning and sad and confusing at the same time and it makes it even more difficult to process. I don't know if I'm overreacting sometimes or under reacting? Am I not taking it seriously enough or too seriously?

And then there's the constant shame about not staying home or social distancing. I get that it's essential, important, that people's lives literally depend on everyone isolating. My mom is immunocompromised, as are my grandparents and older sister. I tell them constantly to stay home. But my mom can't. Her business was also deemed essential, but she's on contract with no way to work from home and no paid leave. And she *has* to work, she can't afford not to. I'm in the same boat. I have maybe two days of paid leave saved and that's it. My company doesn't guarantee paid leave and the gov hasn't passed anything that would allow me to actually live in isolation. I'm already living paycheck to paycheck, as is my mom, so it's frustrating to hear and see people calling us assholes or monsters for leaving the house. I would stay home if I could, I've told my mom she needs to. But she, because she has no other choice, has to risk her life just to live. The irony, huh. So I guess all of this to say: fuck capitalism and the way the gov is handling this, but also if you don't understand or know someone and their circumstances, please stop screaming at us and calling us terrible people.

Sorry again, idk man I just had to talk