#it’s hard enough waiting to get stp as it is

[susielesbianism]

hey y’all I just bought In Stars and Time today. On a scale from 1-10 how deeply do you think will this financial investment ruin me

[writingdevil]

Clinging to the Nest (STP) (PT.1)

(I'd like to dedicate this fic to @flowersandmiel and this post for nudging me to make this little Oppy hurt comfort piece. It's people like you that keep me insane about that little rat and make me love him even more. So I hope you all enjoy!)

(Warning-Injuries (broken bones), violence)

(Part One of Two)

Opportunist loved to be busy, to be working hard at something that would make the flock happy. There were a lot of things Opportunist could do- he could help Smitten gather ingredients for dinner, he could help spot Stubborn while he was working out, and he's even offered to join Hunted while he was doing his patrols around the house.

It made Opportunist feel good to do these things for the others, to give them his service whenever they struggled, so that they could all work in harmony, because they were all valued for their skills and considered useful. Especially Opportunist.

It's definitely not because Opportunist worries about his place in the flock. What would Opportunist have to fear, when there was clearly no need for someone who's skills specialised in backstabbing and lying? He could still be useful!

Like today-Opportunist was being extremely helpful to the flock.

They had decided that they needed more space, because their current garden for farming was becoming too small, so they needed to build a bigger one.

They didn't want to build the garden too far away, but with the woods surrounding almost every corner of their home and their current garden taking up the one patch of empty land , there weren't many options.

So they decided to make room.

There was a cluster of boulders next to their house, and Stubborn had the bright idea to simply just move the boulders aside- by throwing them.

One group, consisting of Hero, Skeptic, Cold and Stubborn, were in charge of the boulders and making sure that Stubborn didn't hurt himself in the throwing process. Well, Hero and Skeptic were in charge of that. Cold just wanted to see what happened.

Unfortunately, Opportunist knew that he would be of no use to that group, but he could do other chores around the house now that others were more preoccupied.

He and a few others decided to get everything ready for when the new patch of land was ready to be used for gardening-particularly Smitten.

"Oh, I cannot wait!" Smitten exclaimed happily, gazing ahead at how Stubborn picked up a boulder with a grunt, and then tossed it far into the distance.

"What do you think we should plant when the garden is ready?" Smitten asked them, but before someone could even open their mouths, he was already off babbling again.

"Should we make a pumpkin patch?" Smitten asked excitedly, giving Cheated an intense look while holding a bag of seeds to his chest.

Cheated just smiled nervously at Smitten's expression and nodded without saying a word, and that was enough for Smitten, who started to pace around outside their house, going on and on about the new garden.

"I've always wanted to try and grow watermelons, and now we'll finally have the space!"

Contrarian, who had been resting on the grass, chuckled at Smitten's enthusiasm. "You're really that excited about mud and leaves?"

Smitten gasped dramatically as he spun around to face Contrarian. "Of course I am! Now we can grow and nurture even more beautiful creations! Does the thought of bringing something to life with your bare hands not spur you with love and excitement?"

Contrarian shrugged, and Opportunist winced at how Smitten deflated at that response.

Contrarian then shot to his feet, stretching his arms out with a loud and satisfied whine. His eyes were immediately drawn to the bag in Smitten's hands, and he asked, "What ones are in there?"

"These?" Smitten said, looking down at the bag, and then handing it to Contrarian which Opportunist knew was a terrible idea.

"These are just carrot seeds, my dear," Smitten answered as Contrarian took the bag.

But the second Contrarian heard that, he made a loud gagging sound, sticking his tongue out and all. "Ugh! I hate carrots!"

"Are you a fledgling?" Cheated snapped at him with a scowl. "Are you that childish that you won't even eat vegetables?"

Contrarian started to toss the bag between his hands, and Opportunist saw the way Smitten looked at it in worry.

"Not all vegetables. I like tomatoes-they're good for throwing."

"Tomatoes are actually fruit, you know" Smitten piped up, but deflated once he realised that neither one of them were listening to him.

"About that- stop throwing shit at people! You'll hurt someone!" Cheated snapped, and Contrarian rolled his eyes, his tossing getting longer in length.

"It's not like I'm throwing rocks at anyone," Contrarian argued, "and besides, it's funny to see people's reactions- like this!"

Then Contrarian grinned cheekily as he pulled his arm back, and then threw the bag of carrots straight up into the air, coincidentally lining up exactly for when Stubborn grunted as he threw another boulder.

Contrarian giggled, until he realised that the bag was actually going way farther than he thought, and then his laughter died completely.

Cheated immediately launched into a rage, lashing at Contrarian and defending Smitten at the same time, but neither moved to actually retrieve the bag.

Opportunist, on the other hand, took one look at Smitten's downcast eyes, and sighed.

"Don't worry! I'll get the bag back," Opportunist reassured them all with a confident grin, spreading his wings wide and hitting Cheated in the face.

Smitten's face perked up instantly as Opportunist's feet began to leave the ground. "You would do that for me, friend?"

"Of course," Opportunist said, shooting Smitten his most caring smile that he could muster. "Don't you worry a pretty little feather on your pretty little head. I'll get your precious seeds back in no time."

With that, Opportunist swiftly launched himself into the air.

Opportunist took a moment to just enjoy the feeling of the wind against his feathers, before he quickly got to work, flying in the direction that Contrarian threw the bag.

It was relatively easy to find the bag-it being a spot of dark brown amongst all the rich green. He swooped low, snatching the bag up and then gliding back up and around to the others.

He held the bag up victoriously, soaking in the cheers that Smitten let out for him. He took a moment to just stay like that, letting the feeling of pride and warmth flow through him.

Opportunist was needed here, which meant that he was wanted here.

He decided to show off, doing a few impressive spins in the air which both Smitten and Contrarian cheered at- and that Cheated was rolling his eyes at, most likely.

Opportunist chuckled to himself, thinking of what other flying tricks he knew- when Smitten's cheers suddenly turned into terrified screaming, waving at him in a panic, and even Cheated and Contrarian started to yell for him.

Opportunist wasn't sure what was going on, but he wasn't left in confusion for long, as he turned around just in time when he heard something approach him.

He twisted around, and was immediately met with a boulder slamming into him, pain exploding all over his body as he rapidly approached the ground.

The last thing Opportunist heard was a blood-curdling, "OPPY!" before everything soon went dark.

-

Opportunist groaned, waking up to aching pain and a spinning head. He was laying on something soft, but it was hard to feel comfortable with how stiff his body felt, like his limbs had been tangled into an uncomfortable knot and they hadn't moved in hours.

It took a few minutes- or it felt like a few minutes- but Opportunist eventually managed to open his heavy eyelids, blinking furiously as the room blurred around him, and all he could make out was a dark figure in the room with him.

He groaned again, letting his head fall back into something soft- pillows, he assumed. He then felt a hand grip his, and Opportunist was filled with relief at the fact that he wasn't alone right now, that someone was here by his side.

Slowly but surely, Opportunist came back to reality, taking deep, steady breaths in, squeezing the hand to ground himself to this moment.

Finally, Opportunist felt awake enough to attempt opening his eyes again, and when he lifted his head, the room didn't immediately spin wildly for him.

He was in his bedroom, but it looked like a tornado had gone through it, drawers flung open and blankets either half hanging out or scattered at the bottom of his bed.

Opportunist would normally be horrified at the fact that someone had gone through his room, if it weren't for Hero sitting on the edge of the bed in front of him.

As soon as their eyes met, Hero released a shaky breath of relief, giving him such a soft look that Opportunist wasn't used to.

He gripped Opportunist's hand tight, as if he'd disappear if he let go, and even put his other hand on top for good measure.

"Thank goodness you're awake, Oppy," Hero said, small remnants of fear in his voice. He scooted closer to Opportunist, smiling down at him in a way that made Opportunist's chest feel warm. "I was so afraid we'd lost you. You've been out for days."

"Days?" Opportunist whispered, voice hoarse and leaving his throat with a sting. Hero saw this, and had a glass of water in front of him in the blink of an eye.

Opportunist tried to lift his right arm to accept the glass- but he couldn't.

Opportunist made a noise of confusion, trying to sit up and move his body, but that was when his body reminded him of the pain he was in, and he tried his best not to let the pain show on his face, but he obviously wasn't in the best shape right now to achieve that.

Hero quickly set the glass down, cooing at him softly as he helped Opportunist sit up. "Hey, hey, take it easy, mate. You're okay, you're gonna be okay."

Opportunist shouldn't have relaxed at those words. He should've tried to show Hero that he was completely fine and not freaking out, but his brain was still too muddled to do anything but let Hero sit him up on his bed.

His body ached with the movement, but he tried to keep in any noises of discomfort from Hero, but he was probably failing in that regard, judging by the way Hero whispered reassurances to him and handled him so delicately.

Once he was sitting him up properly, Opportunist sighed, already feeling exhausted just from that, and he finally took that moment to look down at himself.

He blinked, but the wrappings around his left foot didn't go away.

It was at that moment that Opportunist realised that he couldn't really feel much from his left foot, other than a faint ache and a tingling sensation. He tried wiggling his toes, but the wrappings were so tight that it didn't leave much room for movement.

He then looked down at himself, noticing some bandages wrapped around his sides, but the main thing that Opportunist was concerned about was the handmade sling around his right arm, and that same soreness as in his foot.

He felt his breathing begin to pick up, but before he could spiral and panic, Hero leaned forward and rubbed his back, and Opportunist hated how much that worked.

"I know it looks bad, but you're gonna be just fine. I promise you."

"What happened?" Opportunist whispered, not able to take his eyes off his broken body.

Hero sighed in irritation, but his hold on Opportunist remained soft and firm. "You got hit with one of the boulders."

"What?" Opportunist blurted out, his body trying to lean forward in shock, but Hero's hands kept him in place.

Hero shook his head in annoyance as he said, "It was this dumb bet that Stubborn made with Cold. Cold wanted to see how far Stubborn could throw the boulders, but when that wasn't entertaining him anymore, Stubborn thought it meant Cold wasn't impressed with his strength or something. So he decided to do a little trick for us. He bet that he could throw one of the boulders straight over our house."

Hero sighed. "He didn't even notice you were in the air when he threw it."

Opportunist got hit with a boulder? Well, it definitely felt like it, but still- it was hard to process.

He tried to smile, to let Hero know that everything was okay and that he was absolutely not freaking out- but then he felt a small sting on his cheek, and Hero gave him a small smile, cupping said cheek with his hand, making Opportunist freeze.

He didn't know why he froze. It was just Hero being concerned for him. Hero was like that with everybody, it shouldn't have made Opportunist crave his warmth and touch, especially when he hasn't done anything to deserve it right now.

"Both your arm and foot are broken, and you've got a few cuts here and there as well, but Paranoid and Hunted say that you'll be better in a few weeks, maybe a month or two."

"A month or two?" Opportunist blurted out in shock, and Hero winced in sympathy and nodded.

Okay-okay-this was fine. This was completely manageable. Opportunist's gone through worse. He can handle some broken bones- that won't stop Opportunist from doing his part and proving his worth to to the flock. If anything, living with these injuries will make him seem even more useful to the others.

He chuckled, if only to get rid of the nerves in his chest, and he tried to distract himself by reaching for the glass of water, but his body immediately screamed in protest at the tiny movement.

Hero was instantly up and moving as Opportunist accidentally let a whimper out, reaching over to grab the glass himself, but instead of just handing it to Opportunist, Hero lifted the glass up to his lips with a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, Oppy- we'll take care of you. You won't have to do anything while you're recovering, so just relax, yeah?"

Hero was smiling as he helped him take a drink of water-but the only thing that Opportunist was feeling in that moment was horror.

Opportunist couldn't do anything for himself now. He couldn't work or help out or do anything to show that he was useful to the flock now.

If Opportunist couldn't prove that he was worth keeping, then what was the point of him being here?

-

An hour or two later, Opportunist was greeted with Paranoid and Hunted coming into his room, worry evident in both of their eyes.

He tried to flash them a confident smile, ignoring how that only made the cut on his cheek hurt more. "Hello, gentlemen!" he greeted cheerfully, but they both clearly had a mission on their minds, giving Opportunist nothing more than a nod and a mumble of a hello in return.

Opportunist had a fairly good idea of what they were here to do. He knew it would be better to just play along.

"How has your day been?" he asked them, watching as Hunted lingered near the end of the bed, while Paranoid walked up to him.

He met Paranoid's gaze, who just gave him the most scathing look he's ever seen. His eyes scanned up and down Opportunist's body with a clinical edge, and Opportunist fought the urge to squirm on the spot.

Paranoid then sat near him on the bed, his attention on the various cuts around his body. "My day," Paranoid slowly said, an underlying tone of anxious frustration to be heard, "started with watching one of my flockmates almost get crushed by a rock."

Paranoid shot him a glare, before taking out a roll of bandages, and Opportunist struggled to keep the smile on his face.

"I need to change the bandages for your cuts," Paranoid explained, and Opportunist just gave him a nod as if he had any say in the matter.

He distracted himself by looking over at Hunted, who's attention was on Opportunist's foot, while holding a pillow to his chest.

Opportunist quickly connected the dots and flashed Hunted a smile that he hoped reassured the other, trying to lift his injured foot up. "Let me help you there-"

But he suddenly hissed in pain as his foot throbbed in protest, and Paranoid sat up with a scowl, putting his hands firmly on his shoulders to stop him from moving too much.

"Stop moving, you idiot!" Paranoid hissed at him, and he felt a gentle hand around his ankle, softly rubbing it up and down, and Opportunist hated that it worked.

While Opportunist waited for the pain to die down, Hunted was quick to carefully rest his foot on the pillow, while Paranoid kept one hand on his shoulder and the other to start unwrapping the bandages.

He felt Hunted's alert eyes on him, and he tried to laugh all of their worries off, trying to ignore any lingering pain.

"I'll be fine, you guys! You don't have to worry so much." He felt Paranoid's hand squeeze his shoulder in annoyance at his wording, but he just continued, "You saw what happened. I got hit by a boulder and I'm still basically in one piece, only some minor injuries to be had. If you ask me, I'd say that just means I'm that sturdy. I could probably endure anything that the flock faces-"

"You were lucky."

Opportunist froze, eyes staring at Hunted in confusion. "W-What?"

"You were lucky, not sturdy," Hunted corrected, keeping a protective hand atop his foot. "If you hadn't turned around when you did, you might not be here right now. Your spine would have snapped in half most likely-not to mention that it would've destroyed your wings beyond repair."

Opportunist suddenly looked down at his wings, trying and failing to imagine a world where he didn't have his wings to flaunt, or to make him look good in front of others. Could that have actually happened to him?

He felt a reassuring pat on his foot, and when he looked up again, Hunted gave him another pat with a nod. "But don't worry," he said. "We won't take that luck for granted."

Paranoid spoke up then, almost finished changing his wrappings, "We're gonna make sure that you heal all in one piece," he promised, and Opportunist believed that that was the nicest thing Paranoid has ever said to him.

But then he continued with, "For once, you don't have to do anything to get us to help you. You just get to sit back and let us do all the work."

That- didn't sit right with Opportunist. The longer he did nothing, the sooner everyone would realise that they didn't need him at all.

Surely they'd understand that, in time? Opportunist couldn't afford to let himself relax, not when his position in the flock was on the line. What if the others started thinking that Opportunist isn't actually that important, or that they don't want a repeat of this incident, or that Opportunist was weak for letting this happen to him?

So many possibilities for how this could go, and Opportunist couldn't even attempt to play the game in his favour. He had to just let his worries fester in his head while Hunted and Paranoid tended to him like a helpless fledgling.

-

One of the things that Opportunist hadn't been prepared for while being bedridden, was how incredibly bored he would be.

Over the past few days, Opportunist has done nothing but sit and stare at the door, waiting for someone to walk in and talk to.

Hero checked in on him every morning, but Opportunist tried to keep their chats short because Hero kept giving him soft and sympathetic looks, offering to help him into more comfortable positions with a gentle touch that made Opportunist tense up.

He didn't like how nice Hero was being, especially when all Opportunist was doing was taking up Hero's day.

Hunted and Paranoid saw him everyday as well, and Opportunist always tried to convince them that his pain wasn't that bad today and he can walk around, or that his healing was going great and that he'd probably be recovered by the end of the week.

They never bought it.

Opportunist couldn't exactly hide a broken bone, and every time that his pain got bad enough that he needed to call for Hunted to bring him a salve, he felt it was just another betrayal of his body.

He hasn't seen Stubborn yet.

Right now, he was flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling and trying to come up with excuses to leave his bedroom. It wasn't going well.

"You've certainly looked better."

Opportunist lifted his head, seeing Cold and Contrarian standing at the foot of his bed, both giving him a curious look.

This was officially his lowest point.

"How's it going there, patient?" Contrarian cheerfully asked, strolling up to him and giving his bandaged foot a interested glance.

"I never thought I'd see the day that you had even a feather out of place," Cold commented, trailing a finger from Opportunist's foot all the way up to his knee. "You've always liked to keep a perfect appearance."

Opportunist shivered at the touch, hoping it didn't show.

"Is there anything I can help you boys with?" Opportunist asked, hearing the sleepiness in his voice, but praying the other two didn't.

Contrarian shook his head, deflating any hope that Opportunist had left. "Nah, we just wanted to see how you were holding up."

"I'm fine," he lied, switching his attention from Contrarian to Cold, who was just staring at his injuries in intrigue.

Opportunist tried to lift his head up enough and put on a steady enough smile as he asked, "Are you here to thank me?"

Cold stopped, blinked, and then looked up at him.

Opportunist smiled wider. "I was told you wanted Stubborn to entertain you. Surely this was the most amusing outcome for you." Maybe if Opportunist just made himself favourable, or at the very least, amusing to these two, then maybe they'll help him get out of the room.

Was it obvious that Opportunist was running out of options?

Cold held his stare for a few seconds, before Contrarian broke the tension by bursting out laughing.

"Oppy!" Contrarian exclaimed in joyous shock. "I didn't know you made jokes like that!"

"I'm a bird of many talents," Opportunist replied, and Contrarian snorted with a shake of his head.

His attention was brought back to Cold when he hummed in thought, and Opportunist watched as Cold studied him, getting closer and closer to his side.

Cold walked until his shadow was practically covering Opportunist completely, and then all he said was, "I would hate to be stuck in this stuffy room all day."

That- sounded like Cold was sympathising with Opportunist. But why? Why weren't they laughing at his pathetic state? Why weren't they giving him something that he could use?

"Yeah," Contrarian agreed with a grimace, glancing around the room. "I can hardly stay still for even two minutes. I dunno how you can deal with this, Oppy."

Quickly, Opportunist shook off the confusion and frustration, giving Contrarian a wink and saying, "Well, you know me- I have impeccable patience, and I have a million ideas for the flock in my head. I'm constantly thinking about how to improve our lives."

Yeah, sure, he was laying it on thick, but how else was he going to convince them that he was trying to be useful even in this state?

Contrarian shrugged as a response, and Cold just stared at him, so maybe his efforts were wasted on these two.

Cold looked him up and down, gaze lingering on the many cuts on his body, making Opportunist squirm and want to just turn invisible at this moment, and said, "The last thing I would be thinking about in your state, would be other people's lives."

Opportunist gulped, trying not to let his nerves and fear show in that moment, at the fact that not only did Cold and Contrarian not care about his problem, but that they were also seeing through his words.

Maybe Opportunist was too emotionally and physically tired to notice how bad his persuasion had gotten, but it was clear that these two would be of no use to him.

He waited for them to grow bored and leave, but instead, Contrarian smiled down at him and said, "Well, it's your lucky day, dear patient, because we've decided to keep you company!"

"What?" Opportunist blurted out, unable to hide his surprise. Cold and Contrarian wanted to hang out with him?

"Yeah," Contrarian said with a grin, and then casually sat on Opportunist's left, making himself comfortable as he leaned back against the bedrest. While Opportunist was struggling to sit up properly, Cold silently came up to sit on his right, effectively trapping him between them, with no way to sit up and face them normally. Great.

Contrarian continued, "We figured that you'd be going crazy in here all on your own-"

"I am perfectly fine-"

"-and we decided to hang out here with you."

Opportunist waved his good hand in the air. "Oh, you boys really don't have to do that. I'm managing quite well on my-ow!"

Opportunist glared up at Cold, who had started to poke at his broken arm, and he attempted to lean his body away from Cold's curious fingers, but then that only pushed him further into Contrarian's side, and that instantly had him flushing in mortification.

"Could you please stop doing that?" Opportunist asked sternly, and Cold obliged, but his finger still hovered in the air menacingly.

Opportunist sighed deeply. "Look, I appreciate the concern, boys, but-"

"What was it like when your bones snapped in half?" Cold suddenly asked, and Opportunist was left dumbfounded for a second, before he collected his thoughts and shrugged. "I don't remember much of the moment. It was like I blinked and then there was darkness."

Cold slumped back against the bed. "That's disappointing."

"Yeah," Contrarian agreed, folding his arms behind his head. "I bet it was like, the second you touched the rock, because Hero said birds have hollow bones, so it must've been easy to break."

"Do you think you would've lost consciousness?" Cold asked, and Opportunist just stared at the ceiling, wishing he could contribute something meaningful to the conversation, but coming up with nothing.

"I don't think I would've," Contrarian replied, "I would've wanted to see all the action, from start to finish!" Then Contrarian lightly nudged Opportunist as he added, "I would bet an arm and a leg on it!"

Then Opportunist laughed.

No, what's worse-he snorted.

He froze as soon as the sound left his mouth, and then there was silence in the room, and Opportunist could feel their shocked eyes on him.

He blamed his boredom. He blamed the exhaustion and pain his body was in. He blamed anything and everything because how could he have slipped up like that?

Opportunist waited for the moment that they started to mock him-but to his surprise, Contrarian just chuckled, ruffled the top of his head, and kept talking.

Opportunist didn't trust himself to speak from that moment on, so he just kept quiet, letting Cold and Contrarian talk amongst themselves, appalled at himself for doing something so stupid and unheard of from him?

But as the minutes passed, Opportunist's mind was struggling to continue berating him, as he was slowly being lulled to sleep, the warmth of the other two pressed against him, and the gentle sound of their voices, all helped to make Opportunist fall asleep.

He knew it was dangerous to fall asleep so vulnerable around others, but the other two just made everything feel so light and carefree, and Opportunist's mind was starting to feel calm for once.

He fell asleep between Cold and Contrarian, and it was a much more peaceful sleep than he's had in a long time.

(To be continued)

[marmorenshud]

thinking about phalloplasty again....

[virdem]

STP Voice Transcripts: Voice of The Cold

These are all of the lines used in the demo. This won't be updated for the full game.

Path Dialogue

“That’s fine. It wasn’t very hard to kill her last time. We’ll just do it again.”

“Oh, we listened to you plenty. We slew the princess, just like you asked us too. And then you locked us away in an empty void for eternity. So we slew ourselves, too.”

“It doesn’t matter, because we didn’t fail to slay her, and if she’s really back, which I doubt, it’ll be just as easy to do it again. But after that nasty trick you pulled on us, maybe she’s not the only one around here in need of slaying.”

“Yes, maybe this whole thing was a trick to get us to end the world. And now we get to go through the charade again wholly aware of what’s waiting for us at the end.”

“But that’s assuming she’s alive in that cabin. We did kill her, after all.”

“Of course we’re special.”

“This is boring. He’s clearly not interested in talking, so let’s just do as He says and maybe He’ll stop bothering us.”

“Oh? Do you think there’s something else out there? All right, let’s see what we can find. It’s bound to be more interesting than doing the same thing over again.”

“Oh? How quaint. He really wants us to go in there, doesn’t he?”

“She won’t be a problem.”

Cabin Dialogue

“Like I’ve been saying. She’s dead. We killed her already.”

Mirror Dialogue

“Who cares if there’s a mirror? Let’s just go into the basement and find her body so we can be done with this.”

“And now it’s gone. Let’s not spend much longer worrying over it. It’s not even important enough to be acknowledged.”

In the Basement

“Nobody’s here. Naturally.”

“It’s just like I told you—”

“Oh. Wow. How absolutely terrifying. What’s a ghost supposed to do to us?”

[thesecretomoblog]

Omo Questionnaire- Avery

Avery

.

general / casual (regular everyday peeing behavior lol)

What’s their preferred place to pee? (bathroom, outside, container…etc.)

Avery sorta likes finding new places to pee. After he got his STP, he had a lot of fun going in different spots because he was finally able to do it. First time he peed into a bottle was sort of a big Moment for him, haha. He DOES pee in an actual bathroom most of the time though. 

2. Do they prefer to pee standing up or sitting / squatting? At home or in public?

Standing up. He felt uncomfortable NEEDING to sit for most of his life, so from now on he ONLY wants to stand. 

3. Can they aim well (or at all)? Which hand do they use? Both? None? 

He has good aim, which is something he’s incredibly proud of. He thinks it’s funny that his uncle sometimes leaves dribbles on the rim of the bowl after being able to stand his entire life, while Avery DOESN’T have that problem even though this is something he’s just now able to do. 

Two hands are better than one with an STP, so he uses both. 

4. Are they vocal or quiet? Do they get chatty if there are people around?

He’ll be quiet for the most part, up until the moment where he finally admits he’s gotta go, after which it becomes ALL he can talk about. 

When he pees after having been desperate, he sometimes murmurs things to himself about how good it feels, without noticing that he’s talking. 

5. Do they have any unusual bathroom habits? (whistling, leaning against the wall, pants all the way down when standing, looking at memes on their phone, etc.)

Just the mumbling thing I mentioned. He sighs out little comments like, “Ohhh, God, that’s the stuff…” Or “Fuck, that’s better…” When he does this, he’s so lost in his relief that he doesn’t realize he’s saying those things out loud. 

6. Do they take their time or do they try to get done as quickly as possible?

He gets very nervous about overflowing his STP, so if he’s able to control his stream, he pees slowly. Sometimes if he REALLY had to go, it’s not as easy to control the speed of his flow, however. Luckily, he’s only peed hard and fast enough to overflow his prosthetic a couple times, and it has only happened at home where he could change his boxers quickly. 

7. Are they pee-shy? Do they get embarrassed? If yes, in what situation and by what? (the sight? the noise? people knowing they have bodily functions?) In front of whom?

He can get a little shy around certain people, he really doesn’t like telling Lydia that he has to pee because he has a bit of a crush on her and it embarrasses him. The shyness isn’t so bad that he CAN’T pee in front of her though, and he’s had a few humiliating incidents where he had to do that to avoid going in his pants. She doesn’t mind it, at least. She’s a bit protective of him, so of course she just wants him to be comfortable. 

He has difficulty going around people who bully him, the stress makes him tense up so much that he can’t pee. 

8. Do they prefer to go in groups or do they want to be alone / need privacy.

Avery feels safest if his uncle goes to the restroom with him, he gets scared using public toilets alone, especially in unfamiliar places. Avery unfortunately has an awfully hard time ASKING his uncle to escort him, because he feels so ashamed of himself for needing a ‘bodyguard’ just so he can go pee, and thinks he’s making his uncle waste his time. 

9. If they use the men’s room, stall or urinal? Do they stick to the unwritten bathroom etiquette? (no talking, no looking over, leaving a urinal gap, etc.)

He likes to use urinals, they feel weirdly validating to him… On a few rare occasions, the urinal will be too high for him to use, though (they’re placed according to the average height of a cis guy, and even compared to average cis women, Avery is short.) So, he’ll have to use a stall if he can’t reach. 

He does mainly follow the rules. He’ll only pee next to someone else if that’s the only place available and he can’t wait. He definitely never looks at anyone else, keeps his head down. And, apart from the muttering he does when he’s feeling extra relieved— which, again, is completely involuntary and he doesn’t realize when he’s doing it— he stays quiet. 

10. Do they refuse to use certain bathrooms? (too dirty, too crowded, wrong type of toilets?)

Avery gets anxious using crowded bathrooms, and will only do it if he REALLY can’t wait until he finds somewhere else to go. 

He did once go to a place that only had those squat toilets that you’d see in some parts of Asia or Europe, no urinals or regular sit-down toilets. He’d never seen anything like it before and didn’t know HOW he was supposed to use it, or even what direction he was supposed to face. He seriously had to pee, so he unzipped and tried his best, but he was pissing directly between his shoes and didn’t have anything to really aim his stream AT like he would if he was using a tree or bush. Ended up with a lot of splattering and some unpleasant splashback. He won’t use a toilet like that ever again, unless it’s a choice between that and wetting himself. 

11. Have they ever peed in the pool (except as a baby)? On purpose or not?

Nope. Avery is really passionate about swimming, the ocean, fish and all things to do with water. He would think peeing into the water is disrespectful and very wrong. He even went out on a boat with his uncle once and got desperate. His uncle told him to just go over the side into the ocean, but Avery said the fish would be upset if he peed in their home, haha. 

Yes, he IS aware that the fish are peeing in the ocean themselves, but he thinks humans should follow different rules. 

12. Do they pee in the shower / bath and would they admit it if someone asked?

Only when he was practicing with his STP, once he got good with it, he stopped. Again, he has a bit of a hang-up about peeing in water. 

If another trans guy (or AFAB nonbinary person) asked him for tips for using an STP, he would mention how the shower is a good place to practice and that he did it himself. But, otherwise, he’d deny ever having done that. 

13. Have they ever locked someone out of a bathroom / kept them from going?

No, he’s very frightened of doing something— even accidentally— that will makes someone angry at him. He’s hypersensitive to things like that. He’s even anxious about peeing in single-stall restrooms because he’ll be worried someone will get there after him who needs it even worse and will then be mad that he made them wait longer. 

14. Have they ever peed in the opposite gender bathroom? (if applicable) 

Yeah. Before he was out he HAD to, after all. A really strange thing that happened to Avery when he was growing up was that he ALWAYS felt out of place and like he was breaking a rule by going into girls’ bathrooms, like something inside him was telling him ‘This isn’t where you’re supposed to be!’ Little Avery would often look in the mirror inside women’s rooms, trying to remind himself that this was the correct room for him… It was a very surreal feeling, a bit of dissociation almost, I guess. The disconnect between his brain and body was always super strong. 

15. Are they okay with or used to peeing outside? Do they do it often?

He thinks it’s fun to pee outside now that it’s so easier for him. He doesn’t do it THAT often, but if he’s in a place where it’s acceptable to pee outdoors then that’s sort of a highlight for him. 

.

desperation / wetting (yk, the actual omo stuff)

16. How do they say “I have to pee”? Are they blunt? Do they use weird euphemisms? Do they get offended if someone uses certain terms around them?

He mostly doesn’t say ANYTHING about it when he needs to go. He doesn’t want to interrupt someone else, or make them worry about him and his needs. He generally won’t say a word until somebody else ASKS him if he needs to pee, at which point that’s suddenly the only thing he can talk about and he’ll begin saying some pretty graphic things to describe how desperate he is. 

17. What are some “tells” that they have to go? Who can tell first if they don’t speak up?

He wears a hat all the time and will tug on it when he’s first starting to feel the urge. He bounces his knees a lot, too. 

His uncle is the one that can tell earliest when Avery has to pee. He had to learn to watch for the signs, since Avery doesn’t like to speak up about it. 

18. If someone asks if they have to go and they do, do they admit or deny it? Do they play it down as much as they can or do they exaggerate on purpose?

He doesn’t deny it ever. He will sometimes try to downplay it and convince the other person that they don’t need to drop everything to help him out. He feels like a burden when his needs become important to someone else. 

If he’s REALLY bursting though, then he won’t try to play it off anymore. He’ll be open about how bad it is. 

19. How do they act when they’re desperate? Do they get angry? Do they squirm a lot or do they freeze up? Do they get quieter or do they talk more than usual?

To begin with, Avery is actually selectively mute. Stressful or scary situations make it very, very difficult— sometimes even impossible— for him to speak. Desperation makes him go quiet, but he’s not very noisy to start out with so people can’t always tell that the reason he’s clamming up is just because he needs to pee. 

He is very, VERY squirmy as well. 

20. How do they act when someone else is desperate in their vicinity? Do they try to help them? Are they successful or do they accidentally make it worse?

Avery is a kind person, he would WANT to try to help if he saw someone else desperate. But, he’s also terrified of other people, so unless he KNEW the person in question, he would have a hard time making himself help out. 

21. How do they like to be treated when they have to go? Do they want comfort / encouragement / coddling? Are they okay with light-hearted teasing or jokes?

He doesn’t like being teased when he’s desperate. It upsets him a lot. Too much encouragement can make him uncomfortable as well because it causes him to feel like a burden. He mostly just wants the other person to either offer a very fast solution to him, or just forget about how much he needs to go so that he knows they aren’t worrying about him anymore. 

22. The same as the three questions above but with accidents (bedwetting too). 

Accidents upset him a lot. He’s had several that were extremely traumatic for him, and even if he wet himself in a way that wasn’t super dramatic, it would still bring back all those horrible memories. 

Again, he’d WANT to cheer up anyone that he saw peeing themselves, but unless they already had a relationship beforehand, he’d be too anxious to approach them and say anything. 

Being made fun of after an accident would be one of the worst things a person could do to him. Speeches about how it’s no big deal would be a step up, but still not that great for him. Mostly, he’ll just want to be left alone. 

23. Do they get upset or embarrassed over an accident or do they shrug it off? 

Accidents devastate him. They prompt him to hide wherever he can so that he can be alone to cry. Sometimes they can even trigger violent flashbacks of his trauma. 

24. What’s the last time they had a genuine full-on accident? How old were they?

He was eighteen. He was made to hold it all day at a school carnival, then when he got to the restroom his bully was in there and refused to let him pee. Punched him super hard in the stomach and caused his bladder to release right there. It was an awful day for him. 

25. Have they ever wet themself deliberately? Would they consider doing it?

Yes, he actually HAS done it on purpose before, he was about to be subjected to an abusive practice at conversion therapy and was struggling not to wet himself from fear. Then, he thought if he allowed it to happen, maybe they’d show mercy and decide not to put him through it after all. He peed himself, but instead of letting him go, the ‘doctors’ just called him disgusting and continued on with what they were doing. 

26. Do they tend to wait too long or do they go when they feel the urge for the first time?

He ALWAYS makes himself wait for too long. Avery is convinced that he shouldn’t ever ask another person for help with ANYTHING— including a need for the toilet— because it will make them angry or disappointed in him. So, he forces himself to hold it until it’s ‘convenient’, and usually by that point he needs it so bad he can barely stand. 

He also occasionally makes himself hold his bladder as a form of self-harm. He tells himself he deserves the pain of needing to pee really badly, and that he DOESN’T deserve to be allowed to relieve himself. Nobody else has realized that he does this to himself yet. 

27. Do they have a weak / small or strong / big bladder?

He has a large, strong bladder. At conversion therapy, some of the things there ended up ‘training’ him to hold it well beyond the point of pain.

28. What helps them cope when they have to go but can’t? What makes it worse?

One thing that helps is clutching onto the tip of his STP. He KNOWS that this doesn’t make much sense, as it’s not an actual, physical part of his body. But, emotionally it FEELS so much like it’s really part of him that holding onto it like a desperate cis guy would really DOES lessen his desperation. 

Hearing, seeing, or thinking about water makes his urge worse… And since Avery wants to be a marine biologist and those subjects are often on his mind, that’s not a good thing, haha. 

29. Is there any type of drink (or food) that goes right through them?

Yep. Sodas do. For some reason, sodas purchased at a movie theater seem to move through him fastest of all. 

30. Do they wake up to pee at night or do they sleep through? Do they ever wake up desperate or in the middle of an accident? Do they have pee dreams?

He does have pee dreams, often ones that involve him reliving a traumatic accident from his past. When he has these dreams, and gets to the part where he peed himself, he pees for real and wets his sheets. 

On nights where he DOESN’T have a nightmare like that, he will wake up in time to go in the toilet, though. 

31. Do they ever pee in odd places / in public? What’s the weirdest place they’ve ever peed in? Were they drunk / on meds, sleepwalking, super desperate, etc.?

Yeah, he has fun peeing in new places. Feels weirdly validating to him. Oddest place he ever relieved himself was into a toddler training potty though— And that one he didn’t enjoy at all! Lydia had been right there, and the potty played a really embarrassing song… But, Avery just hadn’t been able to hold it! 

32. What’s the most desperate they’ve ever gotten past childhood and did they make it?

One day at school, he had trouble getting to the restroom. He kept putting it off, or being interrupted on his way there. And he’d missed his morning pee, too, so he had to hold it for a WHILE. Much to his embarrassment, eventually Lydia had to ask a teacher to give him a toilet pass because he wasn’t able to speak up about it. He rushed to the closest bathroom, but it was out of order. Luckily, someone helped him find another one just in time and he made it. 

.

medical / childhood stuff (feel free to skip this ofc)

33. At what age were they potty trained? Were they ever potty-trained? (lol, I hope)

He was eighteen months old. His parents are really old-fashioned, and they used all these older techniques for potty training that got him out of diapers faster.

34. Same question as above but with bedwetting. When did they stop? Do they have one-off accidents in specific situations? (alcohol, nightmares, deep sleep?)

He never wet the bed as a little kid, but he does it fairly often now. Every instance of wet sheets is caused by nightmares. 

35. Were they accident-prone as a kid? Are they still like that or did it get better with age?

He sort of was… Remember how I mentioned that strange feeling Avery had inside girls’ bathrooms? How something in his brain would keep telling him ‘You shouldn’t be in here! You are breaking a rule!’ Sometimes, that feeling would cause little Avery to hold it in. 

In Kindergarten, he felt VERY uncomfortable lining up with the girls to go pee during bathroom breaks, and then once he was in there he’d feel squirmy inside, like he was intruding on them. He, of course, couldn’t put a name to any of these feelings back then. He just knew he didn’t like them and would prefer to avoid them. So, even when he really DID need to pee, he’d say that he didn’t. Some days, he’d make it until he was at home, other days… He wouldn’t. His teacher got frustrated with him, and his parents were very angry each time they were told to come bring Avery a change of clothes. 

It got to the point that his teacher told his parents that being potty-trained was a requirement for Kindergarten, which made them even madder because Avery had BEEN potty-trained since he was eighteen months old and they thought all these accidents were ridiculous.

(Warning: Abuse talk)

His parents were not at all sympathetic, neither asked if there was any reason why Avery was having trouble using the toilet at school, or if something was causing him to feel unhappy. They’d just bring him new clothes, shout at him for the embarrassment, order him to grow up and stop begging for attention, and then spank him when he got home.

Avery’s parents NEVER comforted him after an accident growing up, they only ever punished him for it. Even if there was no reasonable way that they could frame it as being his fault. When he was seven, he and his family got stuck in traffic for six hours. Avery had been telling his parents over and over that he needed to pee really bad. He started begging to be allowed to do it on the side of the road because he couldn’t wait. After three hours of pleading, of repeating over and over that he needed to go NOW, he wet his pants. Once at home, he was spanked for soiling the carseat, called a pathetic baby, and sent to his room. This is one memory that always makes him feel ashamed, even if now he’s aware that expecting a seven year old to hold it for six hours— three of which he spent sobbing in pain from how much it hurt— was completely unreasonable. 

Another time, when he was still seven, the door to his room got stuck and he was trapped inside it. He kept banging on it and asking for help, and since this was right after he’d woken up, he really had to go. His parents were woken up by the shouting, and were already irritated with him for that. His Dad started working on getting the door open, though. Avery kept telling him to hurry because he needed the toilet and couldn’t hold it much more, eventually causing his Dad to snap at him and stop helping. “If you wanna complain, fix it yourself.” 

Of course, Avery COULDN’T fix it. He didn’t have any tools, much less the knowledge of how to USE them. He cried and begged more, but was ignored. Eventually, he peed his pants and started to sob more. Finally, now that it was too late, Avery’s Dad got the door open and spanked him for soaking the carpet. 

When Avery was eight, he had another accident, this one in public. He’d been out shopping with his Mom— Something he HATED doing to start with because she always forced him to try on lots of dresses and put bows in his hair— and he had been BEGGING her to let him go use the bathroom for four hours straight. She kept insisting he was only saying it to get out of the shopping trip, and that he could hold it. Something finally made her give in and take him to a bathroom, but the line was extremely long and Avery couldn’t make it. He cried super hard, he was so embarrassed and frustrated. He’d told his Mom over and over that he’d NEEDED to go, and she’d ignored him until it was too late. Even as angry as he was at her, he wanted her to hug him and make him feel better about his humiliation. But, she didn’t. She called him disgraceful, said she couldn’t believe he’d “deliberately peed” himself “just to get out of shopping.” He was physically punished at home once more. 

He lived out in the middle of nowhere, and would often play alone in the fields surrounding his house. He would end up needing to pee eventually, with at least a half hour walk back inside to the toilet. So, he would opt to go outdoors instead. It took him a few tries to learn how to squat without it getting on his clothes, and doing it made him super uncomfortable because he kinda had to look at parts he didn’t want to see. The first few tries, he got pee on himself and would have to wash off in the stream so his parents wouldn’t notice and punish him. 

The Summer after fifth grade, Avery and his parents visited his Uncle Brad in New York City. This trip went well— unlike the one that would happen a few years later during which Brad and Avery’s parents had an enormous fight. The biggest problem that occurred during the FIRST trip though, was Avery having an accident when he once again couldn’t hold it in line for the toilet while he was at a big store with his uncle. He’d started to cry super hard, and was so sure he was going to be screamed at and punished again. 

But, when Brad saw Avery crouching there, soaking wet and crying, he’d just picked him up in his arms and hugged him, apologizing over and over that he hadn’t found him a toilet soon enough. “You mentioned you needed to go at the last three stores, I should have dropped everything and tried harder to find you somewhere with a bathroom. I’m sorry.” And Avery had cried harder then, because he’d never had someone be so kind to him before. 

During seventh grade, Avery learned what being trans was, and finally understood what all his bad feelings were about. That Summer was when the next trip to Uncle Brad’s would take place, the one where he and Avery’s parents had the big fight. Avery had almost come out DURING that trip, but the fight had stopped him. So, he waited until partway through eighth grade to tell his parents. 

They were furious. They refused to respect his name or pronouns, they became more strict about what he could and couldn’t wear and refused to let him out of the house unless he was in a skirt or dress. They wouldn’t let him cut his hair at all, and when he did it himself because it had actually gotten so long that it blocked his eyesight, they beat him worse than they ever had before. When they learned he was stashing pants in his locker at school and changing there, when they learned he’d asked a teacher to call him ‘Avery’ instead of his old name, they were enraged further. 

And they sent Avery away to conversion therapy. While at the ‘therapy’ center, a lot of the things there would cause accidents. (Warning: This gets intense) 

He was sent to one outside the US where electroconvulsive aversion therapy was being practiced. This was extremely painful, it was basically a form of torture, and Avery would often wet himself during the process. Another common punishment was being locked inside an isolation room for long stretches of time, sometimes Avery wouldn’t be able to hold it in there and would pee himself, then he’d be forced to lay in it for days. He’d be beaten with blunt objects, which would occasionally make him lose control of his bodily functions. He started to wet the bed there as well, something he never did even as a little kid. Strange things happened to his mind and body the longer it went on, Avery would eventually cease to notice when he was sleepy, hungry, thirsty, or in need of the bathroom. This would cause him to pass out from exhaustion/hunger/thirst and it would cause accidents. 

(Some regular, non-Omo related backstory for Avery, just so you guys know what happened to him next because I don’t want to end this section on all that.) 

Through a series of events, Uncle Brad knew that something bad had happened to Avery, and managed to force his parents to tell him what that thing was. Brad flew all the way to this other country and scared the operators of the center so much that they released Avery. (Brad is a very prominent lawyer, so he used those skills to accomplish this.) There was a hearing, during which Avery’s parents gave up their rights and Brad gained custody of him. The center was unfortunately not shut down, as everything they were doing was still legal in the country in which it operated. 

36. Do they wear protection or did they wear it in the past? (past baby/toddler-age)

Nope. He never wet the bed as a kid, only started doing it later on when he began to have nightmares. The nightmares are infrequent enough that having him wear something absorbent to bed feels like overkill, and would definitely damage his self-esteem way more than occasional damp sheets do. 

37. Do they have any medical issues that make them have to pee more / have frequent accidents? If yes, how do they deal with them? Do they take meds?

Yes, his PTSD causes nightmares that result in bed-wetting. Very, very rarely he will sometimes have flashbacks during the day, and these can also cause him to wet himself. 

38. Does anyone know about said issues? Do they talk about them openly or not? (out of embarrassment? fear of bad reactions? because no one ever asks?)

Yeah. His uncle knows, and so does his school counselor, who has suggested to him multiple times that he needs to see an actual therapist to address his PTSD. 

Unfortunately, Avery doesn’t want to accept that he has PTSD in spite of having nearly every symptom, because he thinks saying he has PTSD would mean he is ‘overreacting’. He thinks PTSD only happens to people like soldiers and firefighters, people he considers ‘heroes’. Since Avery’s low self-esteem tells him that he’s the furthest thing from a hero, he thinks that means he can’t possibly have PTSD, and that it would be ‘wrong’ for him to seek help when other people have ‘real problems’ and ‘deserve to be helped’. 

39. Do they have some trauma related to omo (being mocked / scolded / yelled at for an accident, bullying, weird / scary encounters in public bathrooms, etc.)

Yeah, pretty much everything above was extremely traumatizing. For a lot of it the peeing-part wasn’t what hurt him the most, though. 

40. Did they ever have an accident or extremely close call while sick?

Yes. He got a UTI once shortly after moving in with his uncle, because he was scared to go into public bathrooms and didn’t want to bother Brad by mentioning that to him. So, he just held it all day, every day, and made himself sick. Since he’d never had a UTI before he didn’t know what to expect, he just knew that peeing burned him really bad so he tried to hold it. But, it’s also really difficult to hold it with a UTI, so he ended up wetting his pants once while recovering. 

[an-aura-about-you]

the fallout from Martin's dead end cafe job, 2009

The (Brief) Disappearance of Martin Blackwood

From the Files of the STP

Coffee shop romance? Nah. Office romance? Yeah! With a little bit of bailing your supervisor out of jail:

Jon’s flat is small and mostly tidy, just on the right side of lived in before things get messy. There are music charts scattered on the coffee table, a type of foldable futon with some cushions lined up against the wall next to it to form a type of couch on the floor. There’s a little alcove of a kitchenette, which barely looks big enough to hold the kettle in it. The one bedroom has a comfortably unmade bed and a Designated Clothes Chair. The reasoning behind being here is Jon’s flat is closer than Martin’s and he thinks it will be more comfortable to wait here than at the cafe.

Martin wholeheartedly agrees.

“Make yourself at home,” Jon says, dropping off his laptop bag by the coffee table. “I don’t know how long it’ll be before Claire calls, but we could probably get pizza?”

“Sounds good,” Martin agrees, working out how to get to the floor couch. “Alright if I move your table a bit?”

“Sure,” Jon calls from the bedroom, taking off his jacket for now. “And you can stack up the music, too, if you don’t wanna wait for me.”

“Thanks,” Martin calls back.

So they clear off the table, they order a pizza, and they wait.

For what Martin isn’t entirely sure. Jon hasn’t gone into detail, specifically said he couldn’t go into detail yet, that the whole of it will come out after Claire calls. But first she’s got to call. And Martin doesn’t know what happens after that. So, for now, he’s just spending time with Jon.

“So,” Martin begins, tucked in the corner of the room on the floor sofa. “When did you know you were psychic?”

Jon shrugs a little bit from his comfortable slouch next to him, one knee propped up. “Sometime after Claire found me. Apparently, it’s a thing that can just develop. Like allergies.”

“'Like allergies?'”

“Yeah, people can just develop allergies they’ve never had before as they get older. So like allergies if allergies were a brain thing.”

Martin snorts at that. “Not as bad as allergies, I hope.”

“Not exactly great, either. Most of the time, it just is what it is.” Jon folds his arms over his propped up knee. “Claire said sometimes it’s triggered by events tied to the Ethereal Realm. Makes you more susceptible to things like visions of the past, premonitions of the future, thoughts, memories, feelings, pretty much anything that gets broadcast over the ethereal waves.”

“Huh. You don’t think that means I’ll become psychic, too, do you?”

“Dunno. We haven’t figured out any rhyme or reason why this person and not that one. And some people can just be born with it but don’t always know what they have. Which kinda makes sense if you think about it.”

Martin eyes him. “Does it?”

Jon shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t think anything was weird about being ace because, until I learned about asexuality, I thought everybody was like me. Why wouldn’t someone who’s been psychic their whole life think the same thing until they learn about it?”

“Fair enough,” Martin concedes with a laugh. “Though I guess I didn’t have the same luxury? Thinking everybody was like me at one point, that is. I dunno, I picked up pretty quickly that I wasn’t straight, but that’s being the boy dreaming of a prince instead of a princess.”

Jon grins at him, turning to kneel on the floor sofa. “Speaking of.”

“Oh?”

“You said you wanted to go to a show, but we’ve got our album done. I’m afraid it’s princesses this time around, and it’s a pretty tragic ending, but…” Jon shrugs. “Wanna listen?”

Martin nods just as there’s a knock on the door signaling their pizza is here. It’s not long after that the two are set up with their food and their music.

“I really like your narration,” Martin says near the end.

“Yeah?” Jon replies. “It’s hard for me to hear sometimes.”

“Why?” he asks while getting another slice of pizza. “I know you said that before, but you didn’t really explain it.”

“It’s weird listening to recordings of my voice so much. I have to do it for the music to make sure it’s right, but it’s a relief when it’s done and I can go back to hearing my voice the way I hear it.”

“That makes sense,” Martin agrees. “If I think about it like that, I probably couldn’t be in a band. Not as a singer, anyway.”

Jon opens his mouth to say something else when his phone rings. “This is probably it,” he says, picking it up to answer. “This is Sims.”

Martin can’t hear the other side of the call, but Jon grins wide and gets to his feet.

“Excellent,” he says. “I’ll be there shortly.” With that, he hangs up. “Martin, could you please watch my flat while I bail Claire out of jail?”

“I’m sorry, you’re doing what?!” Martin asks, standing up to join him.

Jon clasps his hands in front of his face. “Right. Explanation. Ah, the short version: remember how I warned you not to take a job at the Magnus Institute?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s very possible that it’s about to collapse. Business-wise, not physically. Claire has taken… certain actions to free a Mr. Elias Bouchard from someone controlling him, actions that were done with Bouchard’s consent but look very much like an attack on him. So now Claire’s in jail, and I have to go bail her out.” Jon puts his hands on the back of his head. “Is that enough for now?”

“Wait, you’re saying Mr. Bouchard is under someone else’s control?” Martin asks.

Jon puts his hands in front of his face again, as if praying. “I’ll go into more detail later if I can. That’s probably as much as I can get away with saying unless you actually join the Ministry. But I’ve really gotta go.”

Martin thinks back to his flat and the CV he’s been reworking to give to Siobhan for review before turning it in at her office. It’s a little hope, but it’s still there, and from everything he’s been gathering from his own experience, there’s precious little that’s supposed to be said, anyway. So he nods. “Okay. A-and thanks for the warning about the Magnus Institute.”

Jon nods before grabbing his jacket. “Of course, Martin.” And with that, he heads out the door.

-

Martin can’t remember the last time he’s been this nervous or this stunned at a job interview.

Of all the people he planned to talk to about his CV and qualifications, Actual Goddamn Cat Burglar Trilby wasn’t even on the long shot list. (Queen Elizabeth II was probably the last name on the long shot list. This is better, though. Trilby by comparison is respectable.)

Trilby, for his part, carries an air of expertise befitting his years. Granted, Martin didn’t know how many of them were spent under the title Occult Researcher until now, that he’s actually spent about as much time doing this as he had being a gentleman thief at this point. But he wears it well.

“So, good under pressure, experience in a day job that could easily serve as cover, familiar with objects that have ties to the Ethereal Realm, minor ability to bluff psychics that could be developed into a real skill, and-” He picks up a letter on his desk. “-a streak of compassion our office apparently needs. Why Mr. Sims thought to include that last one in his recommendation for you is beyond me.”

“Jon wrote a recommendation for me?”

“As did Ms. O’Malley and Ms. Wyndham,” Trilby adds as Martin attempts to process that. “Which is more than most applicants get, even with relevant schooling. Let’s be honest, an actual encounter is rare among those with relevant schooling but often more valuable.” He smiles. “From my own particular experience, I got more money for a real silver necklace than the concept of a gold necklace.” He collects the papers on his desk into a neat stack. “The Ministry technically has to approve you for you to officially be employed by them, but if they don’t, you’re more than welcome to work for us in the STP. Either way, there’s a job here for you if you want it.”

-

Martin looks up when he hears someone approaching the new library section he’s been building in Artefact Storage, fully expecting it to be Siobhan. (Who would’ve guessed? New job, same supervisor.) He gives a bright smile, however, when he sees it’s Jon joining him. “Hey, Jon! Was wondering when I might run into you.”

“Hey!” Jon calls in return as he approaches. “How’s your first day of work going?”

“As well as can be expected?” Martin answers with a shrug. “Still a little nervous.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Jon assures him before setting down a newspaper on a nearby desk. “Here. The rest of the explanation. And Claire thanks you for your discovery of A Disappearance, however accidental your use of it may or may not have been. It was instrumental in her mission to liberate Elias Bouchard from the control of Jonah Magnus.”

Martin looks over the newspaper article, a curious case of an attack on the head of the Magnus Institute in which Claire Wyndham was found gouging Elias Bouchard’s eyes out with a serrated knife.

“Frehorn’s Blade,” Jon explains, pointing out that part. “She could’ve used anything, really, but Frehorn’s Blade allows the user to take control of the mind and soul of the one they kill with it. Makes banishing someone like Magnus easier. God, I wonder what kind of earful he tried giving Claire before she did.”

“And A Disappearance?”

“Helped shield her from Magnus, who had made his deal with the King’s Eye and has powers similar to that of a psychic. Hence…” He points at his own eyes with two fingers to finish the sentence. “Oh! I didn’t even tell you the part where we’re fairly certain the Peter you encountered before finding that pamphlet is from the Lukas family. They have financial ties to the Magnus Institute, but we’re not sure right now if that means they’ll do anything with it. We’re-”

Martin looks up when Jon stops. “Ah, you were saying?”

Jon shakes his head. “Well, I started the joke. I might as well finish it: we’re keeping an eye on the situation.”

Martin makes a snort of a laugh through his nose before he continues reading the article. It states that, in spite of how brutal the attack appeared, the now blind Bouchard has chosen not to press charges against Wyndham. He actually thanked her. The fate of the Magnus Institute is still in question according to the newspaper, but it’s very likely Martin’s not going to be the only new recruit to the Ministry of Occultism soon, and there’s going to be a lot of new things to sort in Artefact Storage if it’s not kept in the Institute’s building. He might end up with a proper Librarian title before long.

“So that day when Claire and Siobhan were having that meeting in the office?” Martin asks.

“A séance to contact Bouchard,” Jon answers. “28th July is the best day to attempt such things, the day when the barrier between the Physical Realm and the Ethereal Realm is at its thinnest.”

Martin nods at this. “I think that explains everything, then.” He hands the paper back to Jon. “Thank you. I’m glad you told me.”

“Glad I got the chance to,” Jon replies, taking the paper.

But after that, Jon still doesn’t leave.

Martin smiles at him again. “Ah, was there something else?”

“Yes, actually,” Jon says, fidgeting with the paper for a little bit before folding it and tucking it under his arm. “I was thinking, it being your first day- ah, I know you said you’re nervous, so I understand if the answer’s no, but- I mean, if you’re hungry, would you-? That is, I’d like to take you out for a celebratory lunch date?”

Martin swallows, taking in everything about the moment. “So, when-” He licks his lips without thinking, and Jon seems to be watching him just as intently as he’s watching Jon. “-when you say a lunch date…?”

“I mean a date,” Jon quickly clarifies. “Unless- unless you’d rather- if you don’t like food?” He puts his hand to his forehead. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be a date if you just want the food, but if you’re not hungry right now but still want to get out for your lunch break- o-or if you don’t want the food and want to get out on your lunch break and consider it a- a d-date, then-”

Martin doesn’t even think, just reaches out to lower Jon’s hand from his forehead much in the same way he did when prompting him to put his wallet away.

Jon abruptly shuts up at the touch, pulled out of the circles he was talking himself in. “Martin?” he quietly asks, looking at the point of contact before meeting Martin’s eyes.

“I’d love to go on a date with you,” Martin answers just as softly. “Heh, have for a while now. Not sure how that got past you.”

“I mean, I do try to give you your privacy,” Jon says, but his mouth gently blooms into a smile as he does. He turns his hand so he’s properly holding Martin’s instead of just touching it. “But I think, now that you’ve said it, I could feel it coming off of you.” He slowly knits their fingers together. “Feeling it isn’t the same as naming it, after all.”

“Some psychic you are,” Martin playfully chides, leaning a bit closer and squeezing Jon’s hand. “No wonder you’re just Assistant Psychic Investigator.”

“Hey, Claire says I have great potential,” Jon protests with a little shove. “When she’s not cooing about how I look like a junior version of Trilby.”

“You do dress like him,” Martin points out.

“It’s just a suit; I don’t even wear a hat.”

“And you’re both the sort to wear a suit working a shift at a cafe, aren’t you?” Martin asks, gesturing to his own outfit of a jumper over a shirt and jeans, still very much the sort of thing he might wear working at the cafe.

Jon tugs at their joined hands a little bit, ready to lead him out. “Hey, that was one shift. But that reminds me not to take you to the cafe for our lunch date. Not today, anyway. Maybe once we’re not sure to be the hot office gossip. That’s the one terrible thing about my supervisor being a Psychic Investigator.”

But Martin stands still even as Jon tries to pull him along.

Jon stops and looks back. “Hmm? You haven’t changed your mind or anything, have you?”

“No, it’s not that,” Martin assures him, tugging him back. “I was just wondering-”

“Yes,” Jon immediately answers, moving in a bit closer.

Martin’s mouth drops open a little. “Yes to what?” he asks.

“Yes, you can kiss me,” Jon clarifies, reaching up to brush his fingers along Martin’s cheek.

“Maybe you’re a better psychic than I tho-”

But the rest of Martin’s sentence gets lost against Jon’s mouth, a tender, tentative brush of their lips together repeated twice, thrice to make sure it actually happened, staying close afterwards, reluctant to part.

“Oh,” Jon sighs, the breath of it on Martin’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Martin agrees. And then, “Thought that would come at the end of the date.”

“Why wait for that if we want the kiss now?” Jon asks, actually drawing away this time and resuming pulling him along to go to lunch.

“Will I have to worry about you reading my mind?” Martin asks in return, following along this time.

Jon looks at him over his shoulder with a little roll of his eyes. “I mean, just because I know what name to put to it now doesn’t mean I’m just scrolling through your brain like I’m on my phone.” He presses his lips together in thought, and Martin has to give him the benefit of the doubt since he’d very much like to kiss him again. “I’ll keep that in mind, though. So I’m not just talking over your thoughts.”

“Hey, you said yourself that you do what you can to control it,” Martin says, giving his hand another squeeze. “But thank you.”

Jon squeezes his hand back, smiling up at him.

Martin smiles back and asks, “So, where are we going for lunch?”

And Jon resumes pulling Martin along, talking about this perfect little Italian place near their building, occasionally squeezing their joined hands as they go.

[blackicephantom]

Xiao/Aether - A name in the wind

This is not how it was supposed to be. Not at all. The blonde gripped his sword desperately, trying to stay upright, while still keeping an eye on the three Ruin Guards that slowly surrounded him. 

For the first time in his long, long life he should have listened. Just this once. He’s been warned to stay away from enemies of all sorts because something strange caused them to act more aggressive and violent. Verr Goldet told him. Ganyu and Zhongli told him…. Hell, even Childe told him to be careful! But most of all: Xiao told him to stay away from these grounds. Did he listen? Nope. Is he regretting it? Definitely. 

Just in that moment another damned missile came his way , followed closely by the swinging arm of the second Guard. Dodging the first, means running into the second. Taking the missile would make him unable to dodge the arm. His geo element could stop the arm, if just temporarily, and if he is fast enough he could even evade the explosion. So he went for it. But sadly he forgot the third Ruin Guard, who was apparently just waiting for something like this to happen.  The heavy footsteps made the earth tremble slightly and Aether knew he messed up big time, because the stps came from behind him…. It took him a split second to realize his mistake, but that was the one second it took his opponent to grab him and squeeze down around him. The blonde struggled against the cold hold and yet there was no give. Then he sensed that they were moving and he tried to see where the big machine was taking him. But the world slowly started to blur because of the missing oxygen in his lungs. Breathing was getting harder and harder with every passing moment and yet he still tried to get his arms free. 

When he saw the edge of the nearby cliff come into view, dread filled him. A fall from this high…..and not even his glider will help him. At least not if he can’t get out. He could feel the bones of his arms start to grind against each other and swore he could hear a slight cracking. In a last ditch effort he focused, focused the earth into his hand and hoped to pry these fingers that are holding him apart. But as if sensing his poor attempts at escape the mentioned fingers squeezed down even harder, until a loud crack could be heard and blinding pain rushed through his right arm, which was also his sword arm.

Suppressing a scream Aether tried to think but nothing would come to mind.

`I’m going to die here.´ was his only thought. He thought of his sister and wanted to cry. Definitely not how he wanted to go. Then he felt a slight breeze as his enemy held him over the edge. The soft wind reminded him of something. Of someone.

If you awake to a knife at your throat, if monsters dig their claws into you, if death comes knocking at your door, call out my name.

The hold over him loosened and he felt himself slip. Freefall would be the only thing that follows. And because of his broken arm he couldn’t open the glider. 

Adeptus Xiao.

He fell the first meter before he could get his lungs and voice to cooperate. He had no time to take a deep breath but he hoped to all the archons that it would be enough.

I will be here when you call.

He prayed that it wasn’t just some dump joke. But Xiao wasn’t the joking type, no matter the situation. So he gathered his courage and screamed as loud as could into the now rushing wind. “Adeptus Xiao!” 

After the last letter left his lips he was falling, continuously rushing towards the unforgiving ground below. But just as he was about to give up on all hope the wind picked up and his fall was cushioned. A warm body was right beside his, strong arms keeping him afloat in the air.

Blinking slowly he looked up into the hard and disapproving eyes of his savior. The Vigilant Yaksha actually followed his call. Xiao really came! Aether tried really hard not to cry but the relief was just way too overwhelming. Golden eyes softened just slightly as they ascended to where the Ruin Guards were still waiting, watching them with unnatural stillness and slowly powering up their missiles.

“Idiot. I’ve warned you to stay away. That’s what you get for ignoring an Adeptus warning.” The words were harsh but the hold on him careful, as to not hurt him further. Swift as the wind the teal haired male dodged the  projectiles and placed Aether somewhere safe and further away, aware of the attack range of these cursed things.

With the other out of the way, Xiao donned his mask and his spear and got to work. Aether could just watch in absolute awe as the Yaksha rushed and plunged through his opponents, a controlled rage just underneath the pale skin, like a beautiful but wild animal. It took  no more than a few moments for the Anemo user to finish and return to the blonde's side. Said male just looked away, embarrassed at his own performance and failure to either win or at least to get away. But Xiao just picked him up again and started to walk away while the wind was slowly gathering around them. Before he could ask though, the Adaptus spoke. “I’m taking you back to the Wangshu Inn. Your injuries need to be tended to and you are in no condition to travel on your own.”

So that’s that.

But something still bothered him. And he just had to ask. “How did you find me so fast?” 

Because of the following silence and the small sigh right afterwards he thought he wouldn’t get an answer. At least until he did. “The wind carried your call in my direction and pushed me most of the way.”

Huh……

Slowly falling asleep even in the middle of being transported, Aether thought to himself.

`So all it took was a name in the wind….. Or rather, HIS name in the wind´

Smothering his giggles against the white fabric Aether just let go. He knew he would arrive safely and in one piece.

_Fin_

[funkymbtifiction]

Oh!! I just saw the ask where you mentioned you're re-watching BBC's Robin Hood. Does that mean you have plans to add enneagrams to your typings of them? How exciting that would be! If so, may I request your thoughts on Djaq's MBTI and/or enneagram? She and the other merry men are my favorite characters on that show, but I realize as side characters they aren't quite as well developed as Robin/Marian/Guy. Even so, I figure it couldn't hurt to ask/put in a good word for them. :)

Yes. I intend to update the existing types and add a few more.

I have a broad sense of the Merry Men’s MBTI types but am not quite sure of their Enneagram types yet -- of if they even face enough development to receive types. But I’ll talk through some possibilities here while you wait.

Djaq is an ISTJ. She is level-headed, sensible, and an expert on medicine thanks to studying her father and watching him work. She is far more inclined than the rest to notice details in their environment and attach meaning to them. She handles bad situations competently and quickly with Te pragmatism (such as when the sheriff kidnaps her and tries to convince her to create the black gunpowder due to her Islamic origins). I’m not sure about her Enneagram type, but it might be 9w8. She is far more likely to forgive and accept other people’s differences than the other characters -- she’s even willing to forgive Alan’s treachery and understand where he is coming from. 9s are non-judgmental and a social 8 wing would bring out her fierce determination to protect the innocent.

Will Scarlett appears to be an ISFP. He is driven by his emotions, which are often touched by the plight of the poor around him, and quick to act. He takes a lot of risks and even considers betraying Robin and looking after his own interests at one point -- only to turn around and do the right thing, because his Fi-dom morals cannot do otherwise. He bucks the desires and wishes of the rest of his band when he decides to poison the sheriff and only backs down from this when he believes Robin also will die. The loss of loved ones make him want to kick into instant action (Se). No idea about his Enneagram type tho.

Little John is an ESTJ. He’s a natural leader who makes rational decisions and who effectively held an outlaw band together before Robin joined them. But he also carries an enormous amount of guilt for having left his wife and son, betraying his family life to keep them safe (a rational decision) in the process. He shows a lot of traditionalism in his thinking and, from time to time, some lower Ne apprehension about the future and uncertainty about how things will play out; he can be fearful at times (such as distrusting the creepy mask and thinking it a sign of witchcraft). The series shows fear in him from time to time, but overall I think he’s an 8w9. He’s got anger issues, he can take an enormous amount of pain under torture without buckling, he has a gruff desire to protect others (social 8), and can be temperamental, but he’s also unwilling to engage in emotional conflict and tends to bow out of things that don’t concern him -- a numbing 9 wing.

Alan is an STP. He’s logical, somewhat amoral in his decisions, but able to adapt to any new situation that arises -- he has a low Ni desire to look after himself which makes him betray Robin, then he experiences inferior Fe guilt having done so and tries to worm his way back in among them; when that fails, he goes and joins Sir Guy’s men and proceeds to use what he knows of their tactics against the Merry Men. I think he’s more ISTP than ESTP, because his Fe doesn’t work as well as his Ni does. He’s good at reading between the lines and less impulsive than Robin -- his impulses are more reactions to external threats. I think he’s an sp/so 7. He wants to keep things, he wants to enjoy things, he wants to have a good time, but there’s also a desire to be part of the group and find safety among them. Probably a 6 wing, since he gravitates toward the protection of others and shies away from direct conflict.

Much is a hard man to type, but he may be ESFJ. Despite the fact that he is rather selfish, he seems apprehensive about the unknown, he out of all of them is the fussiest about his environment, he has an eternal monologue going on about his feelings about everything and the injustices he feels, and he is devotedly loyal to Robin, to an almost absurd degree. He is easily hurt, but also willing to serve the others by making the food and general care-giving. Tho he dreams of being an important person and having his own life, Much is also so used to serving Robin and calling him Master that he cannot break out of that mindset. I could see 2 or 6 for him. It might be phobic 6, as he’s fearful a lot of the time and rather co-dependent on Robin. He’s so loyal that even after Robin is totally cruel to him in the episode where his 8 gets out of hand, instead of kicking him to the wayside, Much goes to convince Marion to wait for him.

- ENFP Mod

[rational-mastermind]

@angelic-writer, Happy Birthday! Thought I’d surprise you with a Quinnby ficlet for your special day. nwn Hope you have a good one! tw for sensitive readers: it gets kinda suicidal and depressing. 0x0;;

--

  When you begin a line of work, you begin to understand very quickly what it is you have willingly signed on for. When you work retail, you understand there’s going to be one customer who demands to see the manager. When you work as a manager you know there’s always one customer who demands to see you.

   When you work as an STP field operative you know there’s likely going to be something supernatural in the works and you’ll likely be scarred for life if you’re not emotionally stable nor compromised enough to just simply accept that yes, that is a cultist hanging from the ceiling and yes, we’re likely dealing with another pagan god of old, if not the common house demon.

   I, Trilby, am of the former. The kind of agent who is emotionally stable enough to simply accept what I am given if there is no other logical explanation. My partner, Chris Quinn, is more of the latter, mentally compromised enough to where he does not look for logical explanations, but simply takes it at face value and deals with such, usually in an appropriate manner, that meaning appropriate for him. Not entirely appropriate for the supernatural, nor myself.

   This is all to say, Chris and I were currently investigating another cult’s attempt at creating a bridge, however flimsy, between our World of Technology and the World of Magic. They managed one entity to escape into our world, before being swiftly shut down by us and the exact nature of said entity is unknown. Hence, our current circumstance as we continue to travel through the ramshackle hideout of an abandoned warehouse, hoping to at least gain some insight on what we’re up against.

   “Hey Trilbs?” Chris broke the deafening silence with a whisper as we tread carefully through the warehouse.

   “Yes?” I replied, sparing him a glance, careful to keep my voice as low as his.

   “Can you possibly chill out?”

   “What do you mean?”

   “You’ve been tense all night and frankly it’s starting to kinda get to me too. Loosen up. It’s just another demon.”

   Chris is, of course, blind to the situation. While I would admit to my more cautious nature, the reasoning for such was complicated and I would say, well justified. The simple answer would be to say I was tense because the exact timing of this ritual and the similar nature of it all was too eerily familiar to previous experiences.

   The more complicated answer would be to say it was currently a warm night in mid July and it reminded me too much of my personal dealings with an insane cultist attempting to please his self-proclaimed god. The encounter left me scarred in both a physical and mental way and the last thing I would wish for was a repeat of that.

   Normally I would try to avoid working too many cases this time of year, but alas, we were unfortunately, yet again, short-staffed and turning away a job offer by the government wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do. So here we were, wandering through a warehouse with a supposedly malicious entity on the loose. It didn’t help that this abandoned warehouse just so happened to work with mannequins in particular and the faceless dolls and disassembled limbs only added to my ever-growing anxiety.

   A part of me knew that it would only be a matter of time before I rounded the corner and would once again gaze upon the clean-slated pale white face of the horrendously stretched out monster that was The Pri-

   “HAH!”

   “AAAHH!”

   -

   To explain, after I told Trilby to loosen up, he had rolled his eyes and lapsed into another internal monologue. It’s a narcissistic thing I think. So I did the natural thing, started poking around, finding a prop to help lighten up the mood around here. If things were to remain as uptight as Trilby’s ass, it’d be hard to fight whatever hell-spawn escaped the ritual. And wouldn’t you know it? There were just so many expressionless styrofoam heads in these crates! It’s like they were just WAITING for a punchline!

   Emphasis on punch as Trilby literally punched the head off my shoulders, after giving a terrified shriek in response to my surprise.

   I thought it was funny, but I was actually surprised when Trilby went on to scream at me.

   “THAT’S NOT FUNNY CHRIS! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

   “What? They look just like that Prince you told me about from last year! I thought it’d be hilarious!”

   Trilby only scowled for a moment before I felt a sharp and jolting pain searing through my body and everything went black. Only previous experience would tell me when I woke up that he obviously tased me with his grolly.

   When I did wake up, he was dragging my body back to the car. He was roughed up. Must’ve fought the demon. As soon as I was able to register that much he dropped the rest of me back on the ground.

   “Good. You’re awake. You can get to the car yourself.”

    I groaned and rubbed the back of my head.

   “Did you use your taser on me?”

   “Yes.”

   “Why?”

   “Because you’re an asshole.”

   I pulled myself up and Trilby was already at the door to the warehouse. I sighed and followed after him.

   “Did you defeat the-?”

   “Yes. It was just an elemental.”

   “Oh… Should I write the uh..?”

   “No. Best you leave it in more capable hands. I’ll write it when we get back.”

   “..Okay.”

   We headed out to the car and while I moved to get to the driver’s side, Trilby cut in front of me and got in. I sighed, confused, and climbed into the passenger’s side instead.

   “I wouldn’t have minded driving.”

   “I merely assumed someone more sensible should be behind the wheel.” Trilby replied coldly.

   I continued to puzzle over his behavior as we pulled away and got back on the main road. As far as I understood it, I played a prank, he got mad. But.. I didn’t understand why. It was innocent enough. Just a harmless jump-scare, isn’t it?

   The mood was dower and I was stewing over things for too long. Fortunately I remembered the radio was left on a great channel when last we were in the car. I turned it on.

   “Here we are now, entertain us! I feel stupid and contagious!”

    I started to lighten up almost immediately but just as soon as the music started, Trilby turned it off. I frowned and started to turn it on again but he swiftly smacked my hand away.

   “Don’t.” was the only warning he gave, through gritted teeth. “I’m not in the mood.”

   I sighed and simply shrugged. I guess he really was just in a bad mood. I hoped it would clear up by tomorrow.

   Obviously it didn’t.

   I came into the STP, same as normal. When I got to Trilby’s office I found Claire, talking with him. Trilby was smiling well enough but as soon as our eyes locked, he scowled.

  Claire glanced back and her grin also disappeared. A worried frown instead.

  “Oh.. Um.. Anyway I should get going.” Claire quickly grabbed a few papers off his desk and headed out the door. “Morning Chris.”

  “Morning. See ya later, Claire.”

  “See ya.” she rounded the doorway and hurried back into her own office, across from his.

  I looked back at Trilby who was busying himself with the computer.

  “Hey. So uh.. How’s it-”

  “Chris I’m horribly busy. If you’re not here to discuss work then get out.”

  “I just wanted to ask how you’re do-”

  “Get. Out.” He bit out, scowling up at me. “I’m still upset about yesterday. I’ll come fetch you when we have a new assignment.”

  “So what, Claire gets to talk to you but I-?”

  Trilby smacked his desk as he stood up and rounded its corner.

  “Don’t you have your own work to do? Or anyone else to bother?” Without wasting any time he shoved me out into the hallway.

  And just like that, I was standing out, staring at Claire’s office. She peeked around the doorway back at me, worried.

  “...What got into him?” I asked her.

  She sighed and came fully into view. She leaned on the doorway and gave me a skeptical look.

  “Well, from what I gathered, you played a pretty harsh prank on Trilby the other day.”

  “I wouldn’t say it was harsh.”

  “No? What happened?”

  “I grabbed a fake head and held it over mine to give him a scare. You know, to lighten the mood.”

  “Chris..” Claire sighed and pushed her glasses up. “Nevermind. Maybe it’d be better if I just let you and Trilby settle it.”

  “No, what?”

  “Chris, I don’t wanna play translator for you two. You guys figure it out. I’ve…” she paused long enough to glance back at Trilby behind me. She sighed and shook her head. “I’ve got my own work to do.”

  Claire went back into her office. For the rest of the day, Trilby avoided me. When we did have to go on a mission, a ghost-hunting one, he made an obvious effort to work separately from me. And I wished it was only for the day, but he continued to act like this the next day. And the next day.

   And then one day I bumped into Jim from the morgue division in the elevator.

  “Oh! Hey Chris! I didn’t expect to see you still hanging around.” Jim smiled back at me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you already left. With Mr. Trilby.” he shrugged.

  I frowned.

  “What?”

  Jim’s smile faltered.

  “Didn’t he…? He.. Got a mission just earlier. I thought for sure he’d take you.”

  “The fuck? No. He didn’t get me. What mission?”

  “Oh. Uh…” Jim quickly became uneasy. He fidgeted with his clipboard. “Umm.. Nothing! Nothing too bad! Just a small mission!”

  I normally try to get along with most anyone here in the STP, save for David Smith, and I know it’s not easy to pull off, being over 6 feet tall and usually smeared in someone’s blood with heavy bags under my eyes. People say I look deranged and unstable and while normally that’s a compliment in my eyes, I try not to let it be the only thing I’m known for among my co-workers.

  But in this case I wasn’t above stepping a little too close for Jim’s comfort and drawing myself up to my full height. My hand slipped onto the hilt of my trusty machete, not that I intended to use it.

 “Jim.” he was visibly cowering underneath me. “Tell me the truth.”

 “H-He uh.. W-w-well he um.. Mr. Trilby went to track down a rift.”

 My stern expression suddenly dropped and I felt my blood drain. Rift? A RIFT?!

  “HE’S GONNA GET HIMSELF KILLED!”

  “That’s why I thought he took you along!” Jim cowered.

  “What the hell is he thinking?! Where’d he go??”

  The doors to the elevator opened up and Jim slowly inched his way to it but I was too blinded by concern to really notice.

  “I.. I would say but.. I-I..”

  “Jim…?”

  “I don’t think Mr. Trilby would want me telling you.” He finally confessed before ducking out of the elevator. “I’m sorry!”

  I normally would’ve screamed. Or chased him. Demanded an answer. But I was just stuck on the simple fact that…Trilby didn’t want me to come with him. Trilby didn’t want me with him.

  I felt a pain I couldn’t laugh at as my heart sank down low into my gut. I was worried and angry and confused but the most bizarre thing was that I was just simply hurt. I haven’t been genuinely hurt in years and I honestly didn’t understand why… Why was he doing this?

  I couldn’t stop thinking about it until Trilby finally came back into the office two days later. As soon as I heard he was back I immediately tracked him down only to find him slumped over a table in the breakroom, a cup of coffee in hand and barely awake.

  “TRILBY!” I couldn’t help but shriek, making him jump up in his seat with a yelp of his own. “HOLY CRAP where have you been?! Are you okay?! Oh crap oh fuck you’re bleeding!”

  Trilby was clutching his heart and shaking, recovering from the shock, and when I got to him he immediately shoved me away.

  “Get the fuck away from me.” he growled half-heartedly and fixed me with a scowl. “I can take care of myself.”

  I rolled my eyes. He was still going on about this.

  “Trilby, where the hell have you been??”

  “None of your concern, Chris.” Trilby sipped his coffee.

  “Well what the hell were you thinking, trying to close a rift alone!? You know how dangerous that shit is! You need a partner!”

  “No, I actually don’t.” Trilby argued. “I don’t need a partner, I never did need one. I’m not required to have one. Despite however dangerous any mission would be, we’re not required to team up unless specifically instructed because frankly with as understaffed as this infernal organization really is, they could use as many operatives on the field as they can doing separate jobs to cover more ground without any concern for their well-being seeing as it’s more than easy enough for them to drag in another convict or psychopath to replace the previous agent. To further illustrate the matter, Christopher Quinn, LOOK AT WHO WE REPLACED AND HOW EASY IT WAS TO DO SO. Bottom line is I. DO NOT. NEED. YOU.”

  With that he stood up and left with his coffee in a huff. I chased after him.

  “Trilby, look if this is about that stupid prank I pulled on you back in the factory, I’m sorry! Alright?? Is it really worth getting yourself hurt like this? Are you that fucking pissed at me? Trilby! Come on! At least let me apologize!”

  I grabbed his hand to turn him around but he snatched it back and scowled at me.

  “I don’t want your apology, Chris.” he replied. “I don’t wanna hear it. Yes I’m still angry. No, you can’t just get off the hook with an apology. I don’t want you to try to make it up to me. I don’t want you to-”

  I leaned in and kissed him but that was immediately reciprocated with a punch to the face.

  “I ESPECIALLY DON’T WANT YOU TO DO THAT.” Trilby all but shouted at me. “I HATE IT when you try to pull that shit off, thinking it’ll just magically make me forget to hate you! Especially at work! Why don’t you just take a hint and FUCK OFF?!”

  Trilby walked away again, leaving me behind. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I had never seen him get so angry. I was surprised to find tears pricking my eyes, but I guess that’s a normal response.

  Trilby kept it up for a couple of weeks after that. Avoiding me. Refusing to speak to me. Keeping his distance. Going on missions alone and coming back looking like dog shit. All I could do was stand there and keep hurting. Wishing I could make it up to him. Wishing I knew what exactly I did wrong. Wishing I could fix it, somehow.

  Then one day, while I was having lunch with Claire and Jim, Trilby came into the room, looking around. His eyes locked on our table and he came over.

  “Good, you’re here. I’ve thought about it and decided I needed another pair of hands for this mission.”

  I stood up so fast I almost lost my lunch.

  “You mean you’re not-??”

  “Mind coming along, Jim?” Trilby utterly ignored me and looked down at the kid.

  Jim was immediately put on the spot and looked up with big, confused eyes.

  “HIM?!” Claire and I both asked as Jim also responded at the same time.

  “ME?!”

  “Yes, Jim, I need you. There’s talk of a tv celebrity who was murdered in her apartment under mysterious circumstances and I need your help.” Trilby replied smoothly.

  “O-Oh… Um.. Y-Yes Sir.”

  Trilby smiled. “Thank you. It’d be nice working with someone competent.”

  I would’ve loved how well he cut into me with words alone, if it was under any other circumstance. Claire and Jim seemed to think the same, as they frowned at him.

  “Trilby… Come on, isn’t that a bit harsh?” Claire asked.

  “How is that harsh? I simply paid Jim a compliment by saying he was going to be good to work with.” Trilby glanced back at her.

  “Well…  Yeah…  But…” Claire looked up at me but all I could focus on was the split-second glance Trilby gave me. The kind of pointed glance that easily conveyed that he wasn’t as innocent as he sounded.

  He turned to leave, with Jim following close behind him. All I could do was watch in frustration.

  “....He really knows how to hold a grudge, huh?” Claire asked as I slowly sat back down.

  “Yeah… Who would’ve guessed?” I huffed and jabbed my cold leftovers.

  I stewed over the comment for the rest of the day, only getting angrier and angrier about it. The way he said it, the stupid look he gave me, that kind of smug air of a kid who thinks he’s so fucking smart by “not touching” you.

  I finally went on a search for him near the end of the work day. It wasn’t hard. Trilby was pretty much a creature of habit and I knew if he wasn’t in any closet or dark corner befitting an ex-thief, he would only, naturally, be on the roof.

  Trilby seemed surprised though, as I kicked open the locked door and made my way out onto the roof.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, won’t you leave me ALONE?” Trilby sighed.

  “No, dammit!” I stormed over to him. “Cause this shit has gone on long enough!”

  “Chris, I don’t want to hear your apology.”

  “WHY NOT?!”

  “Cause I can’t take you seriously!” Trilby snapped at me. “How am I supposed to? You’re nonstop with being utterly ridiculous!”

  “I’M ridiculous!? I think you’ve been! It was just a joke!”

  “Oh yes, I forgot to laugh! HA! HA HA HA HA! Yes let’s all laugh at my pain!” Trilby stepped up onto the railing and scooped up his grolly. “Everybody come witness the fool who went and got himself tormented on his first case! Let’s all laugh at the idiot who experienced death first-hand, MULTIPLE TIMES! I’m SO sorry Chris! I FORGOT HOW HILARIOUS PAIN IS.”

  He knelt down and leaned in close to scowl down at me. I couldn’t help but shrink back, feeling the same twisted pain in my gut from before in the breakroom.

  “Trilby I didn’t mean it like-”

  “Oh yes you did, Christopher.” he seethed. “You only think it would be funny to point and laugh at pain, but you never consider who’s pain, do you? I know you have mental issues, but you see the real problem was that I do too. I just don’t go announcing it to the world like you do.”

  “Well I’m so-”

  “Let’s see how well your apologies matter when I finally give in and just let go, Chris.” Trilby stood back up and it was now that it really hit me how dangerously close to the edge he was.

  Fear had an icy grip on every nerve in my body as Trilby took one giant, swinging step.

 “DON’T!!” I shrieked.

  He turned around almost effortlessly in one full swing and sat his foot on the railing again. I looked up only to find him grinning back down at me.

  “Hm, things are a little different on this side of the railing, aren’t they?” He turned and began walking very quickly along the edge, making me follow helplessly behind him.

  “Trilby, okay I get it! This isn’t funny!” I continued shouting.

  “No? Oh, I thought this was hilarious to you! Especially if I were to-” he suddenly stopped, faster than I could register and started walking backwards, as if it was only natural.

  “TRILBY!” I skidded, trying to stop, slipped, skinned my hands on the floor as I twisted around and tried to catch up to him.

  “See, isn’t it so funny? Let’s all laugh at the man who suffers from PTSD!” Trilby continued.

  When I got close I reached out to pull him back down.

  My heart froze in mortal terror as he suddenly jumped.

  It didn’t start again until he landed, feet away from me. He turned back around and sneered.

  “Let’s see how well you laugh, when the man who suffers from horrific flashbacks, visions, and suicidal thoughts plaguing his mind both day and night, finally gives in…”, he shrugged. “...finally sick of all the nonsense and teasing. Too tired to keep on fighting and caring anymore like he struggles to, every single day. Let’s see how well you laugh when I finally… take the plunge.”

  “MALCOLM!!”

--

  There really wasn’t an excuse for allowing it to escalate to such heights, just as there shouldn’t have been any excuse for me to lose balance.

  But I think, if nothing else, it got the message across.

  Of course I hadn’t fallen too far before I made use of the grolly. I caught myself and looked back up as Chris was leaning over the edge, a look of pure fear on his face. He was actually tearing up.

  When I finally pulled myself back over the railing Chris scooped me up and clung tighter than ever before, crying into my shoulder and apologizing over and over.

  I took a breath, my anger finally quelled though my heart still raced, and held him, apologizing back for the way I treated him.

  When we calmed down, we ended up sitting, with our backs to the railing, his arm wrapped securely around me, and mine around him.

  “To be fair, I do spend the better half of my efforts into hiding my own problems.” I said, breaking the silence. “And that’s not entirely fair to you.”

  “Well.. I could stand to pull my head out of my ass more often.” Chris shrugged. “...But it would be nice for you to tell me.. I had no idea you were…”

  “Well…” I shrugged. “No one does. I doubt even Claire really knows how hard some days are… Surprisingly enough your antics do sometimes help.”

  “They do??”

  “Well… It… Keeps me distracted I guess.” I scratched the back of my head, for once unsure of how to properly phrase my thoughts. “… It’s easier to get out of bed some days when I think about you. When I worry about… how bad it would be to leave you. Especially after we’ve… Well..”

  Chris grinned and I couldn’t resist leaning in and kissing him for it. Until half a minute later when the consequences of my word-choice came to mind.

  “That’s not an excuse to just be an asshole though.” I warned him, pulling away quickly.

  “Aw but Trilby-!”

  “NO.”

  “But Trilby…!”

  “For the love of- DON’T.”

  “I thought you liked my-”

  I shoved him away and shook my head as he rolled with laughter. Stupidly enough I couldn’t stop grinning myself. Before I could say anything else, he suddenly pulled me close and kissed me passionately.

 And it’s in moments like this, that I couldn’t have possibly expected for when taking on this job. And it’s moments like this that I find a reason to push on with every day.

[liebredeaconito]

Fairytale – Scribles

Widojest Weekend Day#4

At first, she thought of herself as a princess. Her mom loved her and she knew, but she still felt like a princess trapped in her tower, she dreamed of a prince coming to save her from the caging, and her imagination was encouraged as she played with The Traveler (they were the fairy godmother). 

Eventually and as she grew old, she left plays of fairy tales behind. But that did not stop her from imagining them,now she was not a princess waiting to be rescued but rather (maybe or hopefully) a kind of knight. A knight in not so much of a shining armor but rather a bright pink one, with the help of the godmother. 

She later understood she was neither of those. Or maybe she was both.

She found herself not drawing rather writing. She started daydreaming more often as she pictured Caleb and herself in impossible situations. She scribbled what she thought about, doodled on the sides. Sometimes she was trapped in a tower and he came fighting ice breathing dragons. Sometimes she was a knight of a prince compromised to a princess he did not like.  Sometimes a kiss woke him up. 

The blue tiefling was scribbling up at night near the tiny bonfire in the inn when Caleb came from upstairs. She didn’t hear him, so when she tried to hide her notebook, it was to late, the wizard had seen it. 

–What you got there blueberry? – he inquired peeking over her shoulder. She held her notebook close to her chest as she felt his breath tickling next to her ear. 

–Nothing! Nothing at all– she blushed –Good all drawing that’s all!–.

He looks at her like he doesn’t believes her, but doesn’t push. –What are you doing here anyways?– she asked. –Nott’s snoring particularly hard tonight, thought I could read something down here. You?–. 

–Just couldn’t sleep– she said. It was true, she needed to get her dreams out of her head to sleep. 

–Well then, we might as well keep each other company.– She nodded and opened her notebook in a blanc page and started doodling her usual cute hybrids. As the small fire dies, Jester closes her eyes.

She wakes up abruptly as there are heavy stps into the inn. She looks around.Caleb is gone and so is her notebook. Oh no no no, this is bad she thinks to herself. And who has arrived?

Jester turns around the light of early morning coming through the open door and windows and walking in Caleb is holding her notebook oh no and flowers?. 

–Ah you are awake– the redheaded starts to stutter – I’m sorry –he said, looking at the notebook– I ran out of thing to read...I shouldn’t have… I bought these to say sorry...well not only to say sorry– he started blushing so bad his ears got pink. 

Jester her her hands up to her face –You read all of it? I’m sorry– she really didn’t know what to say nor she had an excuse. 

–I… don’t be– He was getting closer to where she was– It was quite… entertaining–

–Entertaining?– she was no confused. 

–No, no. I just didn’t think you’d see me that way. Me of all the people – he sighed – I would not expect anyone to like me least of all see me in a romantic light– She took her hands it of her face. 

–You don’t give yourself enough credit, Caleb– she was less fearing now. He did not seems bothered, quite the contrary. Caleb was in disbelief. She liked him? Like-like him?

–Here– he handed her the flowers.–Breakfast?–

–Would love to– she smiled. Maybe fairy tales had a bit of true, even if you wrote them yourself. 

[beingevan84-blog]

Yesterday was a good day....

I just started transitioning and I’m almost 7mo in T. I have a wife of 12 years who is INCREDIBLY supportive. So for those of you struggling right now, know that it is possible to find someone who supports and loves you for who you are. They are out there. You will find them and anyone else is not worth your time. You don’t have to change who you are or feel like shit about yourself. Though I know that is easier said than done. I also have a 10 year old daughter who has been equally amazing during this whole process. I don’t pass 100% of the time yet, but it is slowly getting better.

It’s hard sometimes to share celebrations and disappointments with people who don’t truly understand what you’re going through so I offer this up to the Tumbler community.... since I don’t pass 100% of the time bathrooms have been an issue for me. I don’t feel like I pass well enough to use the men’s room, but I definitely don’t belong in the women’s room. Last night we were out to dinner and I usually wait until I get home, but 3 glasses of water later and a longer than anticipated dinner, that wasn’t possible. So I walked to the back of the restaurant where the bathrooms were and as I walked I had no idea which door I was going to go in. When I reached the bathroom I took a deep breath and went into the men’s room. There wasn’t anyone in there so I went into a stall. I do use a STP, but I’ve never used it in public before. I decided, fuck it, I’m going for it. (The idea of sitting to pee in the men’s room just really triggers my dysphoria. I know not everyone feels that way, but that’s just me) I gotta tell you, standing in the men’s room, even just in the stall, was so euphoric. I never thought something so small would be such a huge amazing experience. Another guy walked in and was using the urinal as I left the stall and washed my hands. I internally panicked for a second, but it was no big deal. I just washed up and left. Basically it was not a huge deal and was really awesome. So there you go. That’s my story. I never thought a year ago I would be here. So keep up the hope. It will happen for you too one day. Don’t give up. Stay strong.

[doberbutts]

I forgot to mention;

If you've never used a STP before I highly highly highly recommend practicing AT HOME in pants you can easily wash before using in public. A friend of mine (who actually doesn't pack, because he said it INCREASED his bottom dysphoria) gave me this advice and I thought psssh how hard can it be. And then I practiced at home and peed all over myself the first time 🤦‍♂️

It's not about the aim, it's that you're probably used to peeing quickly and with some force, and since STPs *aren't* urethras, there's no muscle to make the urine move so fast. Which means the device fills up and backflows all over you if you don't temper your flow. It can take some getting used to. But you want to have that embarassing accident at HOME, not while you're out and about.

The other thing is, don't be afraid to go small. I got the medium size one, at 4.5in, when I first started packing. Honestly that's bigger than most cis men when flacid but I wanted to use it for both pee and play. A mishap with a dog has ruined mine so until I save up enough to get another I'm kinda just waiting on it, but my next purchase will be the smaller 3.5in. More reasonable to have in my pants and also less of a pain to whip out when I need a tinkle. Peecock has a 5.5in too and I think that's TOO BIG for just pee, most guys I know with that size use it exclusively for play.

hello fellow trans dudes/trans mascs please give me STP recommendations if you have any! I’ve been doing YouTube research and reading reviews but if you have any experience with a particular brand or model I would love to get your opinion. I’ve never used one but want to start looking into them now that bathroom bill shit is happening in my state.

[rational-mastermind]

It Doesn’t Hurt

Ch 2/5

--

 I woke up, but very slowly. The world, still dark as I tried to gather my senses. I knew I could hear voices, but they seemed far away and urgent. Yet the urgency didn’t even really seem to matter to me.

 I tried to breathe, but it came out as a forced cough. I realized with some shock that there was a sharp pain in my chest. There was also a dull ache in my head as I tried to think. I tried to recall what had happened, but that didn’t help. So instead I tried to focus on opening my eyes, at least, and that’s when I realized the sharper pain on my face.

 Something ice cold was pressed against one side, against my eye. The other side, there was something wet and soft. A disgusting combination and I tried to move away from it. My arms felt like lead pipes but I managed to force myself up, only for the urgent voices to become more frantic. I started to hazily realize what they were saying.

 “Trilby! Trilby, take it easy!”

 “Are you okay? Where does it hurt?”

 “What happened?” I tried to asked, instead ending up with only managing a terrible slur.

 Finally I managed to lift my eyelids enough to look. The world was blurry at first, but it swam into focus soon. I saw Siobhan and Claire staring back at me worriedly. It was then that I realized the ice cold thing was gone, but my eye refused to open. On the other side of my face, the wetness remained. There was a foul smell around me and it took me a moment of only half-hearing their worried questions before realizing, with some shock, that I was smelling blood. But… from where?

 “Trilby!” Siobhan took hold of my shoulder and I was forced to focus on her. Hazel green eyes stared back into mine. “Trilby, come on, stay with me.”

 Finally, I managed to gain enough sense to properly speak.

 “S...Siobhan..” I felt like I had to work hard to force any air in or out of me. “Wha… Wha’ happened...?”

 “You were attacked by the ghost.” Siobhan explained. “It knocked you unconscious and kept pummeling you. I managed to get you out and into the hallway behind the counter.”

 “You, you did?” I asked, and finally looked around.

 I was sitting on a couch in a very small living room. Claire was standing behind Siobhan, who was sitting on a stepping stool in front of me. I could only assume I was in a small apartment, based on how compact and cluttered everything was.

 “Yeah. After that, I think it stopped?” Siobhan shrugged.

 My head was still spinning, trying to take everything in at once. I tried to rub the dull ache out, only for my hand to be met with something wet and sticky, matting my hair. I flinch and pull back, finding dark red blood, coagulating, on my palm.

 “Careful!” Claire flinched. “You uh.. You’re kind of... Well I mean, he got you real good a few times.”

 “I see…” I grimaced at the sight.

 “Are you okay?”

 “Sore.” I replied flatly, not really finding the strength to mask it with any semblance of composure. “My head’s throbbing… You said the ghost stopped?”

 “Yeah. I managed to pull you away. After that, everything settled and I ran to get Claire. We hauled you upstairs, into my apartment.”

 “How long was I out?”

 “A few hours, at least.” Claire replied.

 I finally got a good look at Claire and I couldn’t tell which of us was worse. She had dark bags under her eyes. Her face was flushed and pale, there was a sheen of sweat, and she seemed exhausted. She tried to smile at me, reassuringly, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Looking closely, I could vaguely tell she was shaking, and her eyes were a touch bloodshot.

 “You look awful.” I dumbly stated.

 “There’s… a lot.” she said, sounding as tired as she looked. “A lot of… emotions.. Anguish. Distress. Rage. It was all so muddled together and strong I couldn’t like… tell what was really a ghost or not.”

 “Yikes…” I grimaced.

 “Are you going to be okay?” Siobhan asked. “Yes.. I think so.” I nodded. “That just.. I was really blindsided by that ghost.”

 “I think we should call it a day, pick back up tomorrow.” Claire suggested.

 “I agree. We’ll do more research and find a way to narrow down exactly what we’re dealing with.”

 “Alright. Then I guess we better get going. See you tomorrow, Siobhan..” Claire started to make her way to the door.

 “Wait just a minute.” I snapped, causing her to flinch. “Aren’t we forgetting something?”

 “What?” Siobhan asked.

 I looked back at her, honestly wondering if I would have to be the one to spell it out.

 “...Well you’re not staying here by yourself again.” I explained.

 “What? Trilby, it hasn’t attacked me.” Siobhan started to argue.

 “I think it’s only confined to the shop and basement.” Claire shrugged a little.

 “No, no no. If this is what it does?” I gesture to the work done on myself. “Then who knows what it could do to HER? And worse yet, we don’t need the police blaming her for any future incident.”

 “Mmm..” Siobhan bit her lip and looked away, defeated.

 Claire sighed a little. She already knew this was going to be a problem.

 “Well.. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Siobhan. I like you. But I’m on the other side of town and I have family coming over.” Claire shrugged. “Or did you just want me to know you’re taking her home?”

 “What?! No! I just thought we’d make sure she was safe in a hotel.” I argued.

 “Actually um… I don’t wanna be a bother? But..” Siobhan rubbed her arms and began to blush slightly. “I’d...rather not stay at a hotel? Not since…”

 I sighed. I couldn’t blame her.

 “Since what? OH! Oh the Clanbronwyn- oh yeah, okay never mind..” Claire quickly agreed.

 “Any family you can call?” I offered.

 “They’re all over in Ireland. It’d take me too long to get back and forth and I’d rather stay close to know what’s going on with my shop.” Siobhan explained. “Besides, it wouldn’t really look good to them, me coming here to open shop, only to go back to Mummy and Daddy with no real explanation other than ghosts, right?”

 “Granted.” I nodded and then sighed again, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Friends? Boyfriend?” “Ah… N.. no.. No boyfriend.” Siobhan shrugged a little. “There’s not really anybody here for me to stay with. Certainly no boy.”

 For some reason, a part of me felt relieved to hear that, but I ignored it for now.

 “...Alright.” I finally agreed.

 “I’m sorry Tril-”

 “Siobhan, it’s okay.” I waved it aside. “I’m closest to here, anyway. I’m sorry for the hesitance. I just… Wasn’t expecting company.”

 Siobhan shrugged. Claire was smiling to herself.

 “Well, now that we’ve got sleeping arrangements made...”

 “I’ll go pack something for the night.” Siobhan quickly hurried off, up a small flight of stairs, which I could only assume would lead her to her bedroom.

 “We’ll be outside.” I told her.

 Claire and I headed back towards the shop. Once out of earshot I glared at her.

 “I’m calling your bluff. You don’t have family coming over.”

 “You don’t know that.” Claire smirked a little.

 “You’re not that great a liar.”

 “Trilby, after today, I really need some alone time.” Claire finally explained, her grin becoming more soured. “You’ve no idea what it’s like to be empathetic to so many different voices, all at the same time. I can not have another human being with me tonight.”

 It must be a psychic ability, but suddenly a wave of anger and heat seemed to surround her. I shivered under her influence and stepped back a little. When we got to the door, Claire glanced back at me.

 “And for the record, I do have family visiting.” she explained.

 I genuinely felt bad for her. Siobhan caught up and we headed to the car. Claire was dropped off by the nearest pay phone. It was strictly against code to bring outside civilians near the STP, let alone the parking lot where Claire’s car was. Fortunately, she had a few options for carpooling. After that, I made my way home.

 I live in a modest apartment near the city. There isn’t much I can say about it. Third floor. Middle of the complex. A good deterrent for most thieves. It’s nothing classy. Nothing poor, either. But regardless, Siobhan seemed somewhat excited to be seeing it.

 “Alright, can I ask the stupid questions?”, she started, on the way up the stairs.

 “I’ll permit one.” I smiled a little, amused by her enthusiasm.

 “Alright, so um..” she thought for a moment, choosing carefully. “...Do you stay in one place for..very long? Like.. Is this some kind of..”

 “If you say hideout, you can sleep on the couch.” I teased. “And no, it’s not. Remember, I gave up that life.”

 “Have you ever...?”

 “No. That would be ridiculous.” I rolled my eyes. “But even now, I do prefer to move from time to time. I’m not one for staying still for too long.”

 “So how long have you stayed here?”

 “I said only one question.” I reached my door and fumbled with my keys. “The only rules are, no ice cream after 8, no rifling through my belongings, and no questioning of my tastes.”

 I opened the door and we stepped in.

 I hung my hat on the rack beside the door, along with my tie, and slipped out of my waistcoat, while Siobhan looked around. Unlike most apartments, the kitchen and dining room was more segregated from the living room, and the two rooms and bathroom where behind another door near the back. It was tastefully decorated. A few trophies from past adventures. Mostly a monochromatic scheme. Of course, I had my own collection of books and such though, it was somewhat of a mess. Books and papers were sloppily piled in a few places. Drawers pulled out and rummaged through.

 “Pardon the mess.” I quickly said. “I was in a bit of a rush this morning. But other than that, make yourself at home.”

 “This is...actually a lot nicer than mine.” Siobhan chuckled.

 “One small benefit from paranormal investigations.” I smiled a little.

 “Well I mean, I suppose it would have to come with some.” Siobhan smiled back.

 I shrugged. In all truth, I meant what I said earlier. I shall always be a gentleman thief at heart. Working alongside the government was not my ideal career, regardless of benefits.

 “I’m going to go wash up.” I made my way to the bathroom in the hallway. “Bedroom’s at the far end.”

 “Bedroom?” Siobhan questioned, following after me.

 “Yes, you’ll take the bed, naturally.” I explained. “I’ll be fine taking the couch.”

 “Trilby…” Siobhan started to argue.

 “No.” I insisted, opening the door to the restroom and turning on the sink. “I won’t have you sleeping on the couch. You’re my guest. Ergo, you take the bed.”

 I hazarded a glance in the mirror and internally cringed. My eye had noticeably bruised. Fortunately it hadn’t swelled so badly, and I was reminded of the ice pack I felt when I first woke up. My nose was bleeding, and there was a notable amount blood dripping from under my hair, which I started to scrub off. Shower was definitely in order for the next morning.

 “Thank you Trilby.” Siobhan smiled, standing in the doorway. “Always a gentleman.”

 I smiled back and she went to the bedroom. After washing up, I walked back to the living room and began to clean up. The rest of the evening was calm. We ate and settled into a quiet evening of reading. I was hoping going back over some books on folklore would help me better understand what we're facing. Apparently, I was so engrossed with reading that I didn't notice what Siobhan was doing until she handed me a cup of tea.

 "Oh." I blinked and took the cup. "Thank you."

 She smiled and sat with her own.

 "You said you wanted some."

 "Did I? I didn't even hear the kettle."

 Siobhan chuckled.

 "Are you always so deep into studying?"

 "Sometimes." I smiled a little. "Are you?"

 "Heh. No. I hate studying." She grinned. "I love history, but I'm really more of a hands-on type. I feel I could tell more from physically seeing an object rather than simply reading about it."

 “Sounds like college was really hard, then.”

 “Well.. Abed helped a lot with that.” Siobhan shrugged, staring into her cup.

 “Mm. I see.” I took a sip of my drink. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

 “Heh. It’s bound to happen.” Siobhan smiled back at me, albeit somewhat sadly. “Really, it’s okay.”

 I nodded and Siobhan looked back at her own book. Only now did I realize that she had brought a book of her own to read. I glanced at the cover.

 “‘69 Days in the Slammer‘?” I ask, curious. “I’ve uh.. Never heard of that one.”

 “Oh! Um..” Siobhan became visibly uncomfortable. “Isn’t it just the silliest title? I saw it in the library and picked it up.”

 I was suspicious of her nervous grin.

 “....What.. Well what’s it about? It’s fictional, I presume.”

 “Uh, Well.. Y-yes. It is.” Siobhan thought for a moment, as if trying to choose her next words carefully. “..Well it’s um.. W-well it’s about a man who uh. W-well, he had a falling out with the missus.. And now another woman tries to win him over. It’s a romance.”

 “Ah. Yes. I.. Don’t often indulge in that..” I commented, more concerned with trying to solve what it was she was hiding, rather than offer a more genuine reply.

 Siobhan’s face flushed a dark red. She refused to meet my gaze. She bit her lip, opening and closing her mouth a few times, before finally laughing and shaking her head. I was utterly confused.

 “Siobhan? What? What is it??”

 “Oh gosh, nothing, Trilby..” She buried her head in her hand and chuckled a little. “It’s just...really silly. I’m reading something that’s really silly and dumb and no, I wouldn’t ever, ever, expect you to read something as horrible as this.”

 “Well I doubt it could be all that horrible.” I shrugged and held out my hand. “Here. Let me see.”

 “No!”

 She quickly stood up and headed to the bedroom with a hurried “Good night!” and left me sitting there, dumbfounded. I decided to let it drop supposing if it was really anything worthwhile, she’d let me know. After she let me back into my bedroom to fetch appropriate sleepwear, we went to sleep, and none too surprisingly, I fell asleep rather quickly.

 Until I heard Siobhan screaming.

 I jerked awake and immediately got to my feet. Faster than ever, I reached my bedroom only to find Siobhan scrambling in the bedsheets in the fits of a nightmare. I quickly turned on the lights and came over to the bed, pulling away the sheets.

 “Siobhan! Siobhan, wake up!”

 Siobhan’s eyes flew open and when she first saw me, she immediately tried to scramble away.

 “AH! NO!” she shrieked, until she realized she was awake.

 She looked at me for a moment, trying to ground herself in reality.

 “Tr.. Trilby?”

 “Siobhan, it’s me.” I reassured her. “You were just-”

 She flung herself into my arms and held tightly. I could feel the tears stream down on her face. I held her close.

 “It’s okay.. It was just a nightmare.” I tried to reassure her. “It was just a nightmare.”

 “I know.. I know..” she shook her head. “But it… I…. I...”

 She gave a muted sob and shuddered..

 “It’s okay. Don’t have to talk about it. You’re safe.”

 After a few minutes, she started to calm down. She pulled back and wiped away her tears.

 “I'm ... sorry..” She said between hiccups. She offered a shaky smile. “That’s silly of me, isn’t it? Crying over a nightmare like a child.”

 “It’s not silly.” I brushed aside some of her hair from her flushed face. “Everyone does. Not just children…”

 She tried to smile, but it quivered and eventually fell again. Her eyes, becoming distant, likely thinking about the dream again. I was surprised to find myself entranced by their color. They stood out against the bloodshot red and sparkled like emeralds. Deep and rich. With just a tinge of brown, and a few streaks of the same color. Like an endless forest, one could find themselves wandering into and being lost in, for eternity.

 “Oh… Trilby.”

 “Hm?” I pulled myself out of my thoughts, mentally berating myself for behaving like a love-sick school boy.

 Siobhan was looking worriedly at my scar, only barely visible through the undershirt I was wearing. She gently brushed the hem aside and touched the raised red tissue around where the knife had dug in. Dead skin continued to flake and peel around the wound, a good sign of healing actually. There were still marks from the stitches I had to have there as well. I flushed slightly and gently took her hand and pulled it away.

 “Don’t worry about that.” I reassured her. “It’s okay. Almost completely healed up now.”

 “..Then why do I feel so bad about it?”

 “Probably just sympathy.”

 She sat in silence, still fretful and chewing away at whatever thoughts she had.

 “Do you want to try to go back to sleep?” I offered. “Oh. Um…!” She immediately became worried at the thought and jumped out of bed. “Actually! Y’know what? I think I need a walk!”

 “Wh-?”

 Siobhan hurried through the apartment, faster than I could react.

 “Yeah, actually. I um.. Kinda don’t wanna go back to sleep just yet.”

 “Siobhan, it’s freezing out!” I called after her.

 “Perfect!” she called back and by the time I got to the living room she had already closed the door.

 I hurried to find my overcoat and get dressed. Just as I threw on my shirt, the door opened again and Siobhan quickly stepped back inside, rubbing at her bare arms and closing the door behind her.

 “Actually.. It..is pretty cold out there.” she gave a sheepish grin.

 “....Yes. Yes it is.” I chuckled and began to button up. “Wish to explain why you ran out?”

 “S...sorry.. I.. I just.. Can’t go back to sleep… Not yet...” she moved back to the bedroom and came back with a sweater over the original tank top she wore and shoes.

 “Well, may I accompany you this time?” I offered. “After we properly get dressed, of course.”

 Siobhan smiled again, warm and genuine this time.

 “I… would actually really like that.”

 We got dressed and I was waiting by the door. I offered my overcoat.

 “Trilby, really, that’s sweet of you but-”

 “Siobhan, I’m just trying to look out for you.” I insisted. “It’s freezing and you hadn’t packed a proper coat. Now please. Take it.”

 She caved, easily, and slipped it on with a small smile. It was obviously too big, but for a small walkabout, it would do. We headed out. Fortunately for me, my blazer was enough to keep the worst of the chill off as we stepped outside. Our breaths ghosted against the lights that adorned the apartments, swirling and mingling together in the dark air. Siobhan smiled up at the moon.

 “It’s always so...quiet and peaceful at night.”

 “I couldn’t agree more.” I looked up as well and we began walking down the sidewalk. “Under a full moon, even the most abhorrent of things seem more beautiful.”

 “That’s awfully poetic.” Siobhan chuckled.

 “Just my personal opinion.” I shrugged. “I prefer the night. The darkness. It’s calmer and easier to think.”

 “Really? Who would’ve thought.” Siobhan teased.

 I grinned back and shook my head. We walked in silence for the most part. It was nice, for once, hearing a second set of footsteps and not having to worry about it. I also found it amusing, how I never actually paid attention to what kind of neighborhood I was living in. It wasn’t the slums, that much I knew for sure. But it was quaint. The kind of neighborhood with trees lining the streets, outside of the nicer looking apartment complexes. The kind of trees that actually do turn colors in September.

 “That tree looks like it’s blushing.” Sioban pointed out, one across the street.

 The top was yellowing while only the leaves on the sides were turning red. I chuckled.

 “So it is.”

 I looked down the street and pointed out another that was mostly yellow already..

 “And that one is jaundiced.”

 Siobhan giggled.

 “Do you like Autumn, Trilby?” She asked.

 “I never really gave it much thought. It is eye-catching to be certain.” I replied. “I think that of the seasons, I prefer Winter.”

 “Really?”

 “In December, everyone’s moved to their holiday homes. Glorious opportunity for burglars. And February is personally special.” I smiled fondly. “Also, I can’t stand Summer.”

 “Cause of the heat?”

 “Among other things.” I frowned slightly as some distant thought echoed in the back of my head, ever so faintly.

 ‘And he knew the name of the king..’

 “I’m sorry for dragging you out here.” Siobhan glanced back at me.

 “I don’t mind.” I smiled back. “Do you always do this for nightmares?”

 “Yeah, ever since I was young.” Siobhan chuckled. “That ‘warm glass of milk’ stuff never really worked on me. So me dad took me out for a drive. It was a long one and I ended up falling asleep before we got home. After that, he always took me out when I had a nightmare. When I got older, I just started taking walks around the neighborhood instead.”

 “I might have to start doing it myself.” I chuckled. “If it helps you so much.”

 “Do you have a lot of nightmares?” “Well.. I didn’t use to.” I frowned a little. “They’ve kind of become more and more frequent as of late.”

 “...Same.”, a depressed look swept over her.

 “Would it be rude of me to ask what happened?” I asked. “...Sometimes it helps me. Keeps me um… grounded in reality a bit more.”

 Siobhan sighed and looked back up at the pitch black sky. We had stopped underneath a street light. Trying to be comforting, I placed an arm around her shoulders.

 “...I was back at the hotel..” She started. “Except it was the wrong one. The...the darker one. I saw that tall man and he was chasing after me...”, she held herself in fear. “And I knew he was going to kill me. I saw that other man stab you, like before, except suddenly it wasn’t you, it was me. I kept seeing so much blood gushing out and it was so vivid, I could actually feel it..”

 “Oh Siobhan…”

 “And then I saw a woman.. She kind of looked like Simone Taylor. But She was sprawled out on the floor, dead. And it was my fault. But I wasn’t scared. I was just... angry.” I frowned slightly. Simone Taylor? Where did this come from? Siobhan shook her head a little. “These kinds of nightmares started not long after Abed and I started collecting pieces from Defoe Manor. Angry, vicious nightmares of killing random people.”

 My brows furrowed further with confusion.

 "Siobhan with the way you're phrasing it, it almost makes it sound like you…"

 "I didn't! I was over in Ireland!" Siobhan sighed, equally confused and somewhat scared. "And she was already dead by the time we had the artifacts. But I.. I dunno.. I kept having these horrible dreams.. I'd hope they'd just go away by now but… I think it's stress…"

 "It’s very likely the culprit." I confessed. "I've had similar nightmares. A part may have been influenced by the artifacts and trauma but.. after some well induced stress, fear, resurgence of certain memories, similar situations, why wouldn't we have nightmares about such things?"

 A part of me felt guilty, actually. For while I was quoting actual psychological facts, I didn't sincerely believe it myself. A part of me would always be paranoid that there was… More. Much more to these nightmares, and the Defoes, and the Blessed Agonies. I just… couldn't put it into words.

 But more importantly, I felt horrible because I didn't want Siobhan to experience the same trauma. The same guilt and fear that gnawed at the back of my mind almost every single day.

 "I'm sorry you have to endure all this, Siobhan.." I apologized. "I wish more than anything that I could help in some way. That I could just take back everything that’s happened to you.”

 Siobhan looked up and gently smiled at me.

 “That’s sweet of you Trilby.” she said. “But you can’t. And it’s not like it was your fault anyway.”

 "But isn't it? Isn't it why you've been having nightmares? Because I'm here, bringing up those memories?"

 "Well… maybe. But… I don't know. I actually kinda feel safer with you around." She smiled more. "It's.. Nice."

 I smiled back and we continued walking. I started to feel better. In all honesty, being with Siobhan, I was a little nervous. I was worried about reliving those memories again. But being here now, really taking in this quiet, peaceful, cold night. Seeing the way the street lights catch our breaths and make her long soft red hair shine with so many hues. Taking solace in knowing that, for once, I don't have to be alone. Knowing that we can talk about what happened and relate to each other. I start to feel… Lighter. Happier. Happier than when I was alone. Left to face whatever darkness by myself. It helps to know there's someone with me. To know I wouldn't have to suffer alone.

 “Hey, Trilby?” Siobhan glanced at me, a little curious. A little nervous.

 “Yes?”

 “Um… Do I… bring back bad memories? Am.. Am I making things hard on you?”

 “What? No. Of course not.” Siobhan sighed and rolled her eyes.

 “For a thief, you’re not very good at lying.” was the disapproving answer. “That, or I can actually read you better than most.”

 I frowned a little but decided to answer honestly.

 “...Yes. You do bring up memories. Of course you do. I’m surprised I haven’t had panic attacks yet.” Siobhan winced and as she opened her mouth to apologize I, for once, was very rude and spoke over her. “However… I have these problems every day. With or without you around. And yet, I still very much appreciate your company.. Because even though those were bad times, at least there’s someone else who understands. Someone who… can help me feel a little less insane.”

 Siobhan smiles and relaxes. I suddenly felt her pull on my arm and she hugged it.

 “I’m glad I could be that for you.”

 I smiled back and wrap my arm around hers in return.

 “I’m glad I could do the same for you.”

 Oddly enough, right then, I didn’t notice how cold it was. All I could focus on was Siobhan, this small act of affection, and this warmth inside me. A warmth that radiated from my core outward, making me smile. And it carried on until we rounded the neighborhood and made our way back to my apartment.

 We got in and only then realized exactly how cold we were. The heat of the apartment stinging with the cold on my face as we took off our coats.

 “Thanks for coming with me, Trilby.” Siobhan looked back and she did look more tired out. “It’s just what I needed.”

 “Well I’m glad I could help.” I chuckled, feeling worn myself. “But we are going to have to get up soon. It’s after 4.”

 “Sorry.”

 “It’s alright.” I chuckled, coming over and making my bed again on the couch.

 Siobhan stood in the door to the way. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

 “..Good night.” she said.

 “Good night, Siobhan.”

 Then suddenly, without warning, she leaned up and kissed me.

 It was done and over with in the span of a second, before she retreated back into the bedroom, but it felt like time had slowed only long enough for me to register her soft lips brushing against mine. And that was enough to shut everything down within.

 I tried to think, tried to make some sense of what happened. Some sense of what I was feeling. But I couldn’t seem to find words. I couldn’t form thoughts. Just stuck in a delighted but horribly bewildered place.

 Before I could fully comprehend a thought, I ended up falling asleep, confused, and in serious need of self reflection.

[theplaguezine]

PRIMAL FEAR

Interview with Mat Sinner by Daniel Hinds

(conducted March 1999)

Primal Fear tore onto the scene last year with their debut album, an unrepentent testament to classic, driving Heavy Metal of immense power.  Something of a super group, the band is comprised of Ralf Scheepers (ex-Gamma Ray), Mat Sinner (Sinner), Tom Naumann (Sinner) and Klaus Sperling (Prolopower, Comedy Club).  While many gatherings of such great talent have resulted in less than inspired results in the past, Primal Fear actually exceeded expectactions and delivered a thoroughly rocking and satisfying album that bristles with energy throughout.

After a highly successful tour with fellow metal-meisters HammerFall, the band has returned to the studio and is finishing up the follow-up to the self-titled debut.  Entitled Jaws of Death, the record has an awful lot to live up to and should be available in June the world over.

Bassist and producer Mat Sinner was kind enough to take a few minutes to update us on the band and their plans for '99...

What made you decide to join Primal Fear in the beginning? I've known Ralf now for 15 years. We live in the same town. Ralf had a show scheduled with his Judas Priest coverband "Just Priest" and he nedded a guitarist and a bassist.  He asked me and Tom to help out and in the end it was a fantastic show. After Ralf didn't get the job with Priest, we decided to write some songs together. It worked out great and we eneded up sending the tape to Japan. They offered us a big deal and Primal Fear was born.

How do you split your time between Primal Fear and Sinner? I try, but in the end I had to make compromises, I hate [to say]. Sinner's new album The Nature of Evil was very successful, too, in Europe and we had a lot of timing problems.  In the end, we could only play a tour with Deep Purple, which was fantastic, but not enough for a chart-album.

How would you describe the differences between the two bands? Primal Fear is real Heavy Metal, straight and powerful. Sinner's songs have no boundaries. Even if they're ten minutes long - it is o.k.  We use a lot of keyboards and orchesteral parts with Sinner. The main differences are the singers.

As someone who has lived through all the ups and downs of the music  business in the 80s and 90s, how do you feel about the current climate for heavy metal? In Eruope, Metal came back two years ago from the underground and now we have a lot of young people in the audiences back. It's great, I hope it will last for some more years and on the other side is that Japan is going down, 'cause of their economic problems.

It seems like a lot of good metal bands are coming from Europe these  days and few bands have the resources to tour the States.  Will we see  Primal Fear on tour here someday? If the conditions are o.k., we will be there and show the metal fans how strong Primal Fear are on stage.

The production on the Primal Fear album is absolutely killer.  What techniques do you employ in the studio? You need good songs, experienced and motivated musicans and then you can come up with a sound like this. There are no special secrets.

I noticed that the song-writing was credited to the entire band.  What  is the process for putting together a Primal Fear song? One of us writes the basis song at home. Every one of us has his own home- studio. Then he brings the tape to our practice room and we just play the song. When everybody in the band can play the song, we start to modify.

Do you have a personal fave track from the album? "Tears of Rage." On stage, I like "Chainbreaker," "Silver & Gold" and "Running in the Dust."

Seems like the album got a lot of rave reviews.  Were you at all  surprised by the reaction to the record? Absolutely. We just play a tour and wait [to see] what will happen. In the end we played three tours and most of the huge european outdoor festivals in the summer. It was like a dream came true.

How have the sales been for Primal Fear? We sold a little more than 100.000 copies worldwide now.

Moving on to the new album, how did you decide on the title Jaws of  Death?  Is there a special meaning behind the title? It fits perfect to the new cover artwork and is a storyline in one of the new tracks.

Can you describe some of the themes covered on the new album, lyrically? It's just like a red line between the first and the second album. Metal themes all around.

According to your web page, you are in the middle of recording the new  album right now (February).  Can you give us an idea of how things are  progressing? We are very satisfied with the songwriting. The people who like our fist one will love the new one. It's pure heavy metal energy!

It also states that you will relocate to Morrisound Studios in Florida  next month to finish the record - why? 'cause in Germany we're still freezing. We want to see something new, new influences, etc. The band worked so hard for the last 12 months, that we can give something back and Morrisound is definitetly a metal studio.

Will there be any special guests on the new record? At the moment there are no plans.  We added Stefan Leibing as the second guitarist to our line up and all the guys in the band are very enthusiastic about the outcome so far.  I think, we don't need any namedropping here.

How did the European tour go? Fantastic, every night was sold-out and the fans were going crazy. The south-european states are the heaviest.

Did you play any new or non-album tracks during your set? We played Sinner's "Used to the Truth" and "Born to Rock," GammRay's "One With the World," Judas Priest's "Grinder," Black Sabbath's "Neon Knights" and Rainbow's "Kill the King."

Do you find that you and Ralf get a lot of the attention, due to your  past work, or is Primal Fear pretty well recognized now as its own entity? It was helpful for the start in Europe and Japan to come up with two well known names in the Metal Scene, but now Primal Fear is a force of its own.

"Speed King" was a cool choice for a cover.  What made you decide to go  with a Deep Purple track?  Were there any others in the running? No - I had this idea, that Ralf's voice fits well to the track and we can speed up the song. I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome.

Speaking of covers, how did you guys decide which songs to do for the  Accept and Dio tributes? We've chosen "Breaker" and "Kill the king" -  they really fit well to PF !

Who are some contemporary bands that you find particularly impressive or inspiring? From the old bands I like, STP and Alice in Chains, the newer band I like are for example Athenaeum, Filter, Rob Zombie, Hootie & the Blowfish - but only songs ... and some more!

Outside of music, do you have any particular hobbies or interests? Soccer, Wrestling, Spanish seafood, Internet and some more.

What is your long-term vision for Primal Fear? We dedicate the new album to the metal fans of the world - as long as they want to hear Primal Fear - we will be rocking!

www.primalfear.de

[thelairdecyfarwydd-blog]

Aha! Idk that was weird. ANYWAY, 1, 4, and multiples of 5 for the trans ask meme?

:) idk what happened!

1: How did you choose your name?

Nicolas was what my parents were going to name me, were I assigned male at birth. So I half did that so that they’d be better able to conceive using NOT my deadname? But if I didn’t already like the name I wouldn’t have used it anyway so.

4: What do you do to perform self-care when you’re feeling dysphoric?

Idek how to answer this because I’m? Always dysphoric??

Self care in general, is making food for me. Like, to the point of cooking rice or potato or pasta and making sauce or stir fry. Things like that. And when I’m up and moving, I clean the kitchen and by the time I’m finished I do feel good. 

But if the dysphoria gets really bad I can’t bring myself to do that and honestly? I just lose myself in a video game until the self loathing pushes through the dysphoria strong enough to push me to do anything.

5: What was the first time you suspected you were transgender?

Another tough question ><

Sexuality and gender was so weird or me since forever. Growing up I insisted I didn’t want to be a woman when I grew up, but then when I got older my sexuality kind of took priority? I called myself a girl and used girl pronouns but it never felt right but it didn’t feel wrong enough to actually look into.

Then at some point in university I decided that I certainly wasn’t a girl, but that I wasn’t experiencing dysphoria so pronouns and name wasn’t important?? The thing was I dealt with my dysphoria all this time I just didn’t have that word for it because it was vague x.x. So yea I suspect I knew when I was a kid? But the answer for this question would be the university time.

(The time I KNEW was when I bought a binder for cosplay purposes and was like ‘holy shit, is THIS what liking my body feel like?’ It was a HUGE eye-opener)

10: What have your experiences with packing or wearing breast forms been?

I’ve done the sock thing a couple times and it’s kinda like meh? It didn’t do much to help me tbh because it was a fucking sock.

I’m looking into getting an STP-packer but they’re expensive and I’m broke so...

I can’t justify getting a packer tho because it won’t actually ever fucking show up. At least an STP-packer has some functionality. That’s the difference.

15: What labels have you used before you’ve settled on your current set?

Labels? Pronouns? ehh...I’ll go with both.

Started out with girl and she.

University point: My label was Not-A-Girl and Whatever-Pronouns-Work. Which usually meant I was called she and girl.

Then I went to...Gender-Is-Weird, I think. And I started with they pronouns then.

Next was my agender period, followed by just trans/queer. And now I kinda go back and forth between Gender-Is-Weird and queer/trans. Pronouns are still they.

20: What do you wish you could have shared with your younger self about being trans?

If I could, I probably would have liked to see myself when I was 13 and tell myself “Hey...you aren’t happy with your body right now and I get that and here’s why” to be quite honest. The lack of confidence in my body came from years of this shit and it still fucks me up today.

25. What do you wish cis people understood?

THAT SOMETIMES THEY’RE EXHAUSTING AND I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH THEM.

30: Who is the transgender person who has influenced you the most?

I mean you were the first one I met Jay?

Though the first one to tell me about it was Jem...

so one of you guys lol.

35: How do you feel your gender interacts with your race, disability, class, weight, etc. from the perspective of intersectionality?

I’m going to focus on disability for this one.

Surprising no one, I’m type one diabetic! Diabetes is SO. FUCKING. EXHAUSTING. You don’t think about it and I can’t get you to 100% understand unless you fucking have it. But I test 4 times a day, I take insulin multiple times a day. And my diabetes are always on my mind.

If someone offers me something to eat, my first reaction is “Are-my-blood-sugars-okay-enough-to-have-this?When’s-the-last-time-I-tested?Do-I-have-enough-insulin-on-hand?-Did-I-eat-something-high-fat-recently?”

Then I smile and say thank you or no thank you depending.

So when I was looking at starting testosterone, my first question was whether testosterone would affect my diabetes.

And my first google search on this was ‘testosterone effects on diabetes’

And every single search result to this date has been “Will testosterone give me diabetes?”

I went to my endocrinologist and she didn’t know anything about it. There’s no research for this? The reasoning I’m working on at this point is that I’d need to treat my diabetes nowadays the same way a cis man would treat their diabetes.

I really hope that’s the only thing.

40: How did/do you manage waiting to transition?

I didn’t?

Once I had a word for how I felt it was fucking difficult to deal. However I got REALLY good at contouring with makeup and so I frequently went out with a “masculinized” face. It was fucking hard tho.

I went looking for some old pics of my makeup but I can’t find em now. Oh well.

[deadbeatboi]

February 25, 2017

Today marks 1 Year on T

I can’t thank those enough who have and continue to support me through my transition. This past year so much has changed for me personally. But the physical changes have ben pretty similar to anyone else so I don’t want to talk about that. People often talk about how “people only talk about the good of being trans and never the bad”. I don’t really want to talk about the good or the bad I just want to talk about the truth in my experience.

Freshman Year of high school I had already come out to my mom and sister and cut my hair short for the first time. I started to mention the idea of socially transitioning to only a few friends and I was extremely depressed. Sophomore and junior year I socially transitioned amongst my friend group and a little more than that. I spent a lot of time keeping to myself still and had a lot of suicidal thoughts and even struggled with dysphoria so much I would starve myself or really limit what I would eat. I tried anything I could to exist a little less. Junior year I started to come out of my shell a little bit and was more social but still struggled with depression and eating habits. Senior year I didn’t hold back and came out to all teachers and was very open about my identity and even had my preferred name put in the yearbook and called at graduation. I was doing better than I had been for a while and only dealt with mild depression except during summer.

The summer before my first year of college was the worst for me in terms of mental health. I hardly ate and hardly showered and a lot of it was due to personal events but my dysphoria was through the roof and I didn’t want to leave my house unless I had to. I was too caught up in the idea that I had a timeline for myself as far as my transition and I hadn’t met my goals yet. I was 17 and still not on hormones. I set myself back so much waiting to start T. I told myself I didn’t want a job until I was on T or that I wouldn’t date or start doing this that and the other once on T. This really added to my depression and thinking I wasn’t good enough or that I wouldn’t amount to anything.

I was even hesitant to start T because I thought people would see me different or it would limit the dating pool or something. I had to constantly tell myself that those who matter will be supportive and understanding and the rest of my friends or strangers are not worth the worry. It was a struggle but looking at the difference between then and now is just crazy to me. I never ever thought I would feel this good about myself. I never thought that hormones would be such a good decision for me despite all my fears even up to the day I started them.

I still have major dysphoria with my body and top dysphoria and I’ve had more bottom dysphoria than ever. I will not leave my house without my STP now. Recently I’ve been getting really down mentally but less so trans related than personal but knowing that m dysphoria will never go away or at leas manifest itself in different ways throughout my life is something I have come to accept and I deal with it as it comes. Sometimes I still want to disappear and wish I didn’t exist but I refuse to self-harm and don’t have suicidal thoughts. I will not always be at my best but I am confident that I will never reach my worst again.

I wish I was cis gender sometimes just because of the financial, mental, and physical struggle that goes into being trans but I am more proud than anything. I am grateful that I get to educate people on what it means to be trans from my perspective. I am grateful that people have told me I have changed their views on the trans community. I am grateful that I have come to love myself more than I ever imagined I could. I am grateful for my family and friends who have supported me through all of this, I could not be who I am today without you all. I would have given up a long time ago if it was not for you. I tried so hard to make my female identity work but I was not going to force myself to be happy for the sake of others. 

I have top surgery next month, I am still taking donations which the link can be found on this post. Thank you to all who have already donated or shared my story. Thank you for sticking with me and watching me grow and encouraging me to do and be my best. I am grateful for the struggles that I have faced for I have overcome them all.