#ive thought sometimes about how devastating it would be if i lost my sight and couldnt draw anymore

[iidsch]

can you imagine if someone said that they are severely depressed and the only way to feel better is to hunt endangered animals for sport? like we would all agree that this person shouldn't do that just because it's the only thing that makes them happy and that maybe they should a. go to therapy and b. find something less harmful, right? well i just saw someone said they use ai art bcs they are disabled and cant draw anymore so-

[kellyvela]

Sansa, Catelyn, and Cersei are described as beautiful women in the books by several POVs. Their cheekbones, eyes, and hair are described in detail.

I was wondering, what about Daenerys? Is there any actual physical description of her in the books?

The first character that comes to my mind talking about Daenerys's look is Viserys :

“You still slouch. Straighten yourself.” He pushed back her shoulders with his hands. “Let them see that you have a woman’s shape now.”

(...) “She’s too skinny,” Viserys said.”

(...) “Smile,” Viserys whispered nervously, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword. “And stand up straight. Let him see that you have breasts. Gods know, you have little enough as is.”

—AGOT - Daenerys I

The second character is Illyrio:

“Look at her. That silver-gold hair, those purple eyes…she is the blood of old Valyria, no doubt, no doubt…and highborn, daughter of the old king, sister to the new, she cannot fail to entrance our Drogo.”

—AGOT - Daenerys I

So far: silver gold hair, purple eyes, slouch, too skinny, small breasts.

Now, according to the ASOIAF WIKI, "Daenerys has been described as fair and beautiful." Let's see:

Xaro described Dany as 'the fairest woman in the world':

"Let us speak instead of love, of dreams and desire and Daenerys, the fairest woman in this world. I am drunk with the sight of you."

She was no stranger to the overblown courtesies of Qarth. "If you are drunk, blame the wine."

"No wine is half so intoxicating as your beauty. My manse has seemed as empty as a tomb since Daenerys departed, and all the pleasures of the Queen of Cities have been as ashes in my mouth. Why did you abandon me?"

—ADWD - Daenerys III

Despite not knowing her in person yet, Tyrion called her our fair Daenerys:

"Aye." Tyrion moved his elephants. "And when the pisswater prince was safely dead, the eunuch smuggled you across the narrow sea to his fat friend the cheesemonger, who hid you on a poleboat and found an exile lord willing to call himself your father. It does make for a splendid story, and the singers will make much of your escape once you take the Iron Throne … assuming that our fair Daenerys takes you for her consort."

—ADWD - Tyrion VI

Galazza Galare called her fair Daenerys:

"I know these were not the words you wished to hear," said Galazza Galare. "Yet for myself, I understand. These dragons are fell beasts. Yunkai fears them … and with good cause, you cannot deny. Our histories speak of the dragonlords of dread Valyria and the devastation that they wrought upon the peoples of Old Ghis. Even your own young queen, fair Daenerys who called herself the Mother of Dragons … we saw her burning, that day in the pit … even she was not safe from the dragon's wroth."

—ADWD - The Queen's Hand

Jorah the creep called Daenerys 'the most beautiful that I have ever seen' that time he forced a kiss on her:

His eyes were on her breasts.

Dany covered them with her hands, before her nipples could betray her. "I . . . that was not fitting. I am your queen."

"My queen," he said, "and the bravest, sweetest, and most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Daenerys—"

—ASOS - Daenerys I

Even before knowing her in person, Quentyn called Daenerys 'the most beautiful in the world':

Tell me, my Westerosi friend, what is there in Meereen that you should want to go there?"

The most beautiful woman in the world, thought Quentyn. My bride-to-be, if the gods are good. Sometimes at night he lay awake imagining her face and form, and wondering why such a woman would ever want to marry him, of all the princes in the world. I am Dorne, he told himself. She will want Dorne.

(...) And now the most beautiful woman in the world was waiting in Meereen, and he meant to do his duty and claim her for his bride. She will not refuse me. She will honor the agreement. Daenerys Targaryen would need Dorne to win the Seven Kingdoms, and that meant that she would need him. It does not mean that she will love me, though. She may not even like me.

—ADWD - The Merchant's Man

"All dead," Quentyn agreed. "For what? To bring me here, so I might wed the dragon queen. A grand adventure, Cletus called it. Demon roads and stormy seas, and at the end of it the most beautiful woman in the world. A tale to tell our grandchildren. But Cletus will never father a child, unless he left a bastard in the belly of that tavern wench he liked. Will will never have his wedding. Their deaths should have some meaning."

—ADWD - The Spurned Suitor

Despite not knowing her in person yet, Euron and Victarion called Daenerys 'the fairest woman in the world' and 'the most beautiful woman in the world':

"The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver's Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me."

(...) "I could sail the Iron Fleet to hell if need be." When Victarion opened his hand, his palm was red with blood. "I'll go to Slaver's Bay, aye. I'll find this dragon woman, and I'll bring her back." But not for you. You stole my wife and despoiled her, so I'll have yours. The fairest woman in the world, for me.

—AFFC - The Reaver

"Aye, Captain," said Wulfe One-Ear. He was not half the man that Nute the Barber was, but the Crow's Eye had stolen Nute. By raising him to Lord of Oakenshield, his brother made Victarion's best man his own. "Is it still to be Meereen?"

"Where else? The dragon queen awaits me in Meereen." The fairest woman in the world if my brother could be believed. Her hair is silver-gold, her eyes are amethysts.

Was it too much to hope that for once Euron had told it true? Perhaps. Like as not, the girl would prove to be some pock-faced slattern with teats slapping against her knees, her "dragons" no more than tattooed lizards from the swamps of Sothoryos. If she is all that Euron claims, though … They had heard talk of the beauty of Daenerys Targaryen from the lips of pirates in the Stepstones and fat merchants in Old Volantis. It might be true. And Euron had not made Victarion a gift of her; the Crow's Eye meant to take her for himself. He sends me like a serving man to fetch her. How he will howl when I claim her for myself. Let the men mutter. They had sailed too far and lost too much for Victarion to turn west without his prize.

—ADWD - The Iron Suitor

The iron captain had no time to wait for laggards. Not with his bride encircled by her enemies. The most beautiful woman in the world has urgent need of my axe.

—ADWD - Victarion I

Daario also called Daenerys beautiful:

Daario Naharis entered swaggering. He swaggers even when he is standing still. (...) "Bright queen," he said, "you have grown more beautiful in my absence. How is this thing possible?"

The queen was accustomed to such praise, yet somehow the compliment meant more coming from Daario than from the likes of Reznak, Xaro, or Hizdahr. "Captain. They tell us you did us good service in Lhazar." I have missed you so much.

—ADWD - Daenerys IV

As you can see from the last quote, in addition to those already mentioned, there are other characters around Daenerys that constantly praise her beauty. And I'm sure I failed to quote others characters talking about Daenerys's beauty as well.

There is also the fact that Daenerys's eyes are compared to Ashara Dayne, a known beauty:

And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur's sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea. The Lady Ashara Dayne, tall and fair, with haunting violet eyes.

—AGOT - Catelyn II

Even after all these years, Ser Barristan could still recall Ashara's smile, the sound of her laughter. He had only to close his eyes to see her, with her long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders and those haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter …

—ADWD - The Kingbreaker

As you can see, the praise to her beauty comes from mostly dubious people, more interested in her dragons than in herself, people that wanted to use her for their own agenda than truly and unconditionally help her.

I personally think that the Targs are exactly in the line/border of beauty and ugliness. But also take note that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For Westeros, Targaryen/Valyrian look is exotic, the gold-silver hair (that can look almost white/grey) and the purple/lilac/indigo eyes. And exotic can be attractive for some people. But most than exotic, when Targaryen conquered Westeros, they established the superiority of their blood, so of course their look, incest tradition and dragon riding was stated as superior and exceptional, they even wrote a doctrine about that and called it "exceptionalism." And it's too easy to associated superiority with beauty......

Anyway, about the Targaryen look, I think we must trust in Princess Arianne Martell:

Young John Mudd has been sending out birds as well, it seemed. Near dusk on the fourth day, not long after Chain and his wagons had taken their leave of them, Arianne’s company was met by a column of sellswords down from Griffin’s Roost, led by the most exotic creature that the princess had ever laid her eyes on, with painted fingernails and gemstones sparkling in his ears.

Lysono Maar spoke the Common Tongue very well. “I have the honor to be the eyes and ears of the Golden Company, princess.”

“You look… ” She hesitated.

“…like a woman?” He laughed. “That I am not.”

“ …like a Targaryen,” Arianne insisted. His eyes were a pale lilac, his hair a waterfall of white and gold. All the same, something about him made her skin crawl. Was this what Viserys looked like? she found herself wondering. If so perhaps it is a good thing he is dead.

“I am flattered. The women of House Targaryen are said to be without peer in all the world.”

“And the men of House Targaryen?”

“Oh, even prettier. Though if truth be told, I have only seen the one.” Maar took her hand in his own, and kissed her lightly on the wrist. “Mistwood sent word of your coming, sweet princess. We will be honored to escort you to the Roost, but I fear you have missed Lord Connington and our young prince.”

—TWOW - Arianne II

Thanks for your message.

[nagitolovebug]

How did hajime and nagito deal with Bebi losing their sight? How old was Bebi?

it’s....definitely hard for them. bebi was a little over 2 years old, they’ve all recently gone onto the island and nagito...he’s finally happy, he's got his baby back, hajime is helping him raise them, hajime is..being so kind and sweet to him and they're close friends (who just fuck and cuddle and kiss sometimes no biggie..) and he thinks this is it maybe he can finally have happiness but then bebi gets ill and they've never rly been the most well nourished (they're not mal nourished just yknow. circumstances left their immune system a little weaker) so they get sicker than they should and this is when the vision starts to go from their right eye.. their vision in their right eye was probably poor before getting ill but I think. the illness exacerbates and accelerates this process and by the time they recover they've more or less lost their vision in that eye for good. 

honestly other than his luck, I think nagito passing on his health problems would be his worst fear and it had (seemingly) just come true.

bebi murmurs, "papa...papa..can't see..?" and I think that'd just break him. but he doesn't leave their side for a second- he doesn't eat, he barely drinks anything unless hajime is shoving it down his throat bc he won't he won't leave his baby alone on a hospital bed like he was all those years.

while bebi is in the hospital, nagito finds out he's pregnant (again)...and his baby being so ill in combination with this news just...totally wrecks him. and he resigns himself to leaving hajime and bebi. he wants to be happy with them, but he's devastated by the thought of him ruining another life on top of hajime and bebi's. he knows his luck will leave no survivors, so he's leaving before any more damage is done.

when mikan inserts an IV into bebi and they yelp from the sting, nagito lurches forward and grabs a scalpel ready to do something, but izuru reacts faster than hajime and drags him out of the room.

"HAJIME LET ME GO, SHE’S HURTING THEM, SHE’S HURTING OUR BABY, MY BABY, I-" and then they're outside the room and izuru puts him down.

"oh. izuru. I should've known. you seem to always choose inaction when our child is in pain in the hands of another."

even izuru flinches at that

"she didn't hurt bebi. she's the nurse. the iv drip is a needle. it stings."

"then she should have been gentler. this scalpel will merely sting her as well."

"you are not mutilating our nurse because you cannot control your temper, nagito."

"well, one of us has to show emotion. has to be angry. has to feel anything at all because our baby is dying-"

"bebi is fine. you're being irrational. you need to calm down."

"don't tell me to calm down! they- they have cancer, my lymphoma, or..or some other incurable, wretched disease that'll destroy their body and make it filthy and broken like mine all because I destroy everything I touch..I was so stupid, so selfish, i should've left the moment hajime agreed to take care of them-"

"nagito. don't say that. come back inside with me. we will talk this out."

"is that an order?"

"do you need it to be?"

"after all this time you still-?"

"I will do whatever I need to keep you safe."

"fine."

"give me the scalpel first."

"...."

bebi recovers within a week and they're confused why nagito is holding them so much and so tight and why the night they got back to their cabin nagito said "goodbye." instead of "goodnight."

well. if they had a nickel every time nagito had a breakdown and tried to leave....they'd have 2 nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice :)

as for their eyepatch, they initially didn’t wear one, until they heard nagito breaking down about "not wanting the twins to end up like [bebi]" and felt like there was smn wrong w them, so they started covering it up, interpreting it as "there's smn wrong with me" and not "I don't want more of my children to suffer in the manner that bebi has" :))

[larryfanfiction]

Amnesia Fics

💭 take my hand (and my heart and soul) by bananasandboots

Harry feels nauseous when he opens his mouth. “Hey. Um, hi. It’s me,” he mumbles before realizing with a jolt that Louis might not have his number anymore. “It’s Harry… Styles,” he tacks on, screwing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. This was a terrible idea.

There’s silence on the other end for a long time. Harry understands. He shouldn’t have called. He tries not to let the static swallow him whole.“I – yeah. Hi,” Louis finally answers, slowly, awkwardly. “I um. Sorry. I heard about your accident. You’re alright?”

Or, the one where Harry hasn’t spoken to his best friend in sixteen months and can’t remember why.

💭 Indestructible by whoknows

“Hi,” Harry murmurs, and Louis hiccups out a sob.

“Hi,” he manages, still clutching onto Harry’s shoulders. Harry’s fingers drift across Louis’ cheeks, and there’s something off about Harry’s expression, but Louis can’t figure out what it is.

“I’m okay,” Harry says, and Louis is going to say something to that, even if he doesn’t know what, except Harry’s kissing him.

💭 Home for Christmas by haloeverlasting

The Shameless Hallmark Movie AU you probably didn’t ask for.

Or, the one where Harry didn’t think he wanted a family, but with a little Christmas magic (and maybe one Louis Tomlinson) he realizes that he is very, very wrong.

💭 (don’t forget) where you belong by rippedgloves

It takes less than two seconds before Harry all but throws himself at Louis, who still has an IV hooked to his arm and looks more fragile than a newborn. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Louis’ left arm circles around him to pat him in the back.

“Fuck, love, you scared me so much,” he murmurs against Louis’ neck, “I missed you.”

“Um, hi—Harry, was it?”

Harry can’t help but laugh, tears wetting his cheeks as he pulls back a little to look at Louis’ face, expecting a teasing smile. Instead, he is met with Louis’ confused gaze. His heart drops in his chest as he realizes that Louis isn’t messing with him.

“It seems,” Niall says, “that Lou is having a bit of trouble remembering certain things about his life.”

“Certain things,” Harry repeats, his tone flat, as he removes himself from Louis’ side. Louis is eyeing him curiously, his eyes wide and confused, and he looks a little worried, like he wasn’t expecting Harry to react like this—like he wasn’t expecting Harry at all.*

or, the one where Louis wakes up from a coma and doesn’t remember Harry.

💭 For As Long As I Can Remember (It’s Been December) by green_feelings

After recovering from a severe accident that causes Harry to lose his memory of three years, he moves to London to start his life over as a star chef. Little does he know that when he falls in love with Louis at first sight, it’s not the first time they meet.

Featuring an unintentional game of hot and cold, Harry chasing memories that won’t come back, Louis burying himself in work to try and forget what he can’t forget, Liam being torn between two of his best friends, Zayn as a moral compass and Niall saving the day with good music and brutal honesty.

💭 Always by JamieJam93

Thousands, if not millions, of fans had been right. Harry and Louis had been in love and together for four whole years. They were ‘the dream team’; the couple that made others sick while simultaneously envious.

But thousands of fans had been right about something else too. The pressure had been too much. The fame had been too much. The closet had been too much, and, four years after the pair swore to each other that nothing could break them on the night of their first kiss in 2010, they broke up.

Fast forward to 2018, on the night of One Direction’s last ever concert, and Harry has yet to move on. It’s not as sad as it seems-he still lives his life and, for the most part, he’s happy-but he knows that Louis was his one true love and is trying to prepare himself for a life completely without the other when an accident erases Louis’s mind of all of his memories. In reliving the moments with him, trying to make him remember, Harry comes to find that maybe he never really forgot them at all and maybe, like him, he hadn’t moved on either.

💭 just a memory (and all that we could’ve been) by trustingno1

“I think - there’s something wrong. With Harry’s memory,” Louis says, and someone mutes the TV.

(or: Harry wakes up in a reality in which he and Louis are very much together. Which is pretty awesome. Or - it would be. If Harry could remember any of it).

💭 The Dead of July by whimsicule

Being an Avenger means continuing to be Captain America and smiling and being honorable for the public and Harry does his best. But it doesn’t give him time to figure out who he is supposed to be once he takes off his uniform and puts the shield to the side. Just being Harry had always involved Louis, and Harry fears he doesn’t know how to exist without him.

or: Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

💭 The Things I’d Do To Wake Up Next To You by dirtymattress

AU. Harry wakes up to a pregnant Louis Tomlinson and a wedding band on his finger.

💭 Consequences by allwaswell16 (78k)

Two years ago Harry let his powerful family come between him and the love of his life, something he deeply regrets. Louis has tried to move on from their devastating break up. Sometimes, he even thinks he has. It only takes one moment to freeze them back in time.

An amnesia au

💭 Meet Me in Montauk by make_this_feel_like_home (84k)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU.

What do you do when the love of your life forgets who you are?

What if there was a place you could go to have a person--and all the pain they caused--erased from your memories forever?

Louis Tomlinson isn't quite sure why he woke up one day and felt like a different person. He also isn't quite sure who the green eyed stranger who knows his best mate Zayn is, but when he finds himself in the same lift as one Harry Styles, he knows he wants to find out.

Harry's entire life is defined by one moment: the accident that made him forget years of his life. There had been a guy... but he can't for the life of him remember who he was. And now, a chance encounter with a charming bookshop keeper makes Harry feel like maybe the past doesn't matter as much as he'd always thought it did. Suddenly things that never made sense were starting to make sense again.

Or

The one where Harry has amnesia, Louis can't handle the pain and Lacuna Inc provides a unique service: the ability to erase a person from your memories.

💭 i can’t breathe (without you as mine) by togetherwecouldbealright

It’s slightly strange that Harry doesn’t recognize him but Louis doesn’t really mind because for some reason that’s a mystery to him, Harry still somehow seems to be smitten with him.

or, the one where Harry just had surgery and is at the mercy of anesthetics and Louis is having far too much fun video taping Harry’s initial reaction to seeing him.

💭 Our love was made for movie screens. by sweetkisses

“I don’t know-.” Harry stops and looks over at the omega, wondering what his face looks like. “I don’t know who I am.” He whispers with a shaky breath.

or Harry wakes up and doesn’t know anything about anything and Louis is his omega.

💭 who we used to be by itsnotbleak

“The doctor said he might remember,” Gemma said. “If he was around familiar things. Mum thinks that means he needs to stay with her forever, spend all day looking at old baby pictures and school photos. But he remembers all that perfectly. It’s living with you and your weird gang of lost boys that he doesn’t remember.”

“And you think the best way to jog his memory is some weird kind of full-emersion re-enactment?”

“It might be,” said Gemma. “It can’t hurt to try.”

An au where Harry and Louis used to be together, and then they broke up, and now Harry can’t remember any of it.

💭 Lucky by ineffablelouis

Harry has surgery and wakes up with temporary amnesia. Louis is there to witness it all.

💭 Crying lightning by frenchkiss

Louis doesn’t remember the accident, and when he wakes up he finds that he doesn’t remember any of the last ten years of his life either. All he knows is there’s some curly-haired bloke by his bed claiming to be the husband he shares a house, a dog, and a life with, two siblings he’s never met before waiting for him in the waiting room, and more niggling questions at the back of his head than anyone can physically answer.

This really isn’t how he planned to spend his Wednesday.

💭 Fugue by iwillpaintasongforlou (16k)

Harry falls asleep a 17 year-old who lives in Cheshire and is probably rockstar Louis Tomlinson's biggest fan. He wakes up 24 with a wedding ring on his finger, two kids, and Louis Tomlinson attempting to wake him up with a blow job. The doctor calls it organic retrograde amnesia, says he might never get back the last seven years of his life. The only thing that feels the same is how he feels when Louis touches him, and maybe that's enough to make him fall in love all over again.

💭 the summertime and butterflies by B3autifully_br0ken (13k)

A car crash causes Harry to get amnesia and to loose all memory of ever knowing his now ex-husband Louis.After lots of sleepless nights, crying and heartache, they decide splitting up is the best option for both of them.A year later, Harry starts to remember.

💭 Silent Memories by trulymadlylouist (82k)

It’s funny how quickly one’s life can change, really. for harry, it’s a bag of sweet popcorn, soft kisses and a bit too much rain that flip his life around.

before he knows it, he finds himself waiting for the love of his life to wake up in his hospital bed, and when he does, louis doesn’t remember any of the memories they shared and the people they used to be; and harry’s world shatters.

(or, harry and louis have been in love for years. on a rainy night, harry begs louis to go out to buy him some popcorn, and louis crashes the car. when he wakes up, he doesn’t remember anything.)

💭 fondre ton absence by scrunchyharry (41k)

Harry had never really given much thought to the future. He preferred to let life steer him forward and to follow in the footsteps of Louis, his best friend from as far as his memory went, his lover, his everything. Louis knew better than he did what was good for him.

It changed drastically when Louis was ripped away from him, drafted and sent to the front to fight in a war that Harry had always been sure would never reach him. Too young and too sickly to follow, Harry was left on his own for the first time in his life.

When he thought things could not possibly get worse, Louis went missing at the Somme and was declared dead. While everyone buried and mourned him, Harry never moved on. If Louis were dead, he was sure that he would know it. Their lives were too entwined, he would know if half of his heart had died.

Determined to find Louis, Harry did everything he could in his quest to be reunited with him, except prepare for the state Louis might be in.

He did not prepare for the harsh truth he would have to face: was love possible without memories?

More Masterposts

[studentlulu]

Disclaimer: Everything that I have written about is completely true and happened to me within the 2017-2018 year.  I wrote all of this as not only a way of coping with what has happened to me, but to come to terms with and helping me understand the difficulties and challenges I went through in the past two years.  I did not do this because I sought attention or for any other self-serving narcissistic purposes.  If you have read through this completely and have any questions for me or want to learn more, please feel free to personally message me and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.  In addition, after you have read this through, if you feel like commenting, please leave only positive comments.  Please refrain from leaving any negative comments.

           My journey to college graduation has been a long and difficult one, full of twists, turns, and bumps along the way.  I entered into the University of California Irvine (UCI) as a Freshman in Sept. 2014 and fully intended to finish in Jun. 2018.  That would have been the plan if things had worked out perfectly well.  However, as we all know, things never go perfectly well, especially not with life.

           Sure enough, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer in spring during my junior year in 2017.  It was devastating news beyond comprehension.  I was so scared.  I was only 20! There were so much things I wanted to do!  I want to explore the world and I even planned to study abroad in Singapore that year!  I want to eat different cuisines from around the world! I want to do so much more! Now with this news, all of this has abruptly stopped!  Everything became dire uncertainty.  What do I do?  Do I have tomorrow?  How long? How do I tell everyone?  Who do I tell?  Most of all, how do I cope?  My mind went ballistic!  My family was by my side when I found out, and we promised that we would get through this together.

           We discussed treatment options with my doctors and decided that I should go through one round of chemo, surgery, recovery, and then one final round of chemo.  Each chemo round was four appointments and would require me to come to UCSF Medical Center.  Due to the rigorous treatment plan, it was decided that I would have to postpone school till I finished treatment and recovery.  It was a very difficult decision, but it was the only way to deal with the condition.  So, I contacted the Bio Sci School of Affairs Office and told them about my predicament, and requested to postpone my education and enrollment until further notice. Thankfully, they were quite understanding and informed me that they would readmit me back to school whenever I was ready.

           Chemotherapy left me tired, nauseous, moody, and grumpy. It also left me very cold-sensitive and UV-sensitive.  Starting with my second infusion of chemotherapy, my hair fell out.  I slowly became bald and I hated my look.  I loathed the fact of losing my stomach even more!  I love food! Without my stomach, how can I eat? What can I eat?  How can I go to school or go on with life without my stomach?  Of course, not to mention the unimaginable constant need of going to toilet!  After the pre-surgery chemo was done, I then had the surgery to remove my stomach in early October 2017.  I was hospitalized for more than two weeks for that procedure.  Recovery from surgery was extremely difficult.  I was not allowed to eat what I wanted nor as much.  I had to mentally force myself to ignore my hunger feelings as my brain needed time to adjust to the fact that there is no stomach to store food.  I had to eat ¼ the portion of a normal adult meal.  This proved to be arduous because I love food and love to eat.  In fact, when I was healthy, I could eat as many portions as I wanted and sometimes, I would finish others’ leftovers.  Wasting food is a crime, I believed that.  In addition, in Chinese culture, it was considered respectful and a sign of appreciation to be able to eat as many portions as you could.  I couldn’t do that anymore with a smaller stomach size. What if others who did not know about my condition became misinformed and thought I was eating less and being disrespectful?  With this new body, I totally resented the fact that I could no longer eat as much because I equated it as I would no longer able to enjoy food!  Recovery was very painful; and I hated the “heathy” but very bland food that I had to eat.  What is there to look forward to when I could not even enjoy the most basic thing in life: eating?  Life seemed bleaker at every moment passed.  Only the constant encouragements from parents and others kept me going, but barely without passion.

           Another chemotherapy soon went underway after surgery. This time around, my physical reactions were worse, and my mental stage sunk even lower.  I developed dry heaving.  I could not stop scratching my skin, I was extremely tired and fatigued, sometimes unwilling to leave the bed, and there were times I did not want to take in or even eat food because the mere sight of it made me ill.  Then, on Dec. 19, 2017, during what was supposed to be my second fusion of chemotherapy during my final round of chemo regiment, something went terribly wrong.  I went into anaphylactic shock due to negative reactions to chemotherapy.  I could hear my younger brother (chemo treatment center only allowed one relative staying with patient) franticly calling me, and I could barely hear my nurse called out “Code Blue” before I lost consciousness on the treatment chair!  When I faintly regained my consciousness, I felt heavy stuff on my chest.  I believed that it must had been my unconscious will to live that kept me alive.  Or perhaps the prayers from parents and my families had kept me alive.  Or perhaps it was not my time to die yet.

           I was extremely fortunate that I was under the care of the world-class doctors, nurses, and other medical professions at UCSF Medical Center, because they revived and saved me.  I woke up in the emergency unit after 4:30 pm with my parents on my bedside.  I had been out for at least six hours.  I wound up staying in the hospital for observations and treatments for two days. IV chemo treatment was discontinued after that; and the doctors prescribe another form of chemo treatment for me.

           I went back to school after completing treatment during spring break in April 2018.  I wanted to go back to school so badly for a change of venue and for a more “hopeful” environment.  A familiar place where I thought I had better control of life.  After all, I had been in a school environment all my life.  Ironically, as I started back to school, it was ending for many others.  As everyone else was enjoying their spring breaks, I was slowly readjusting back to school.  It felt weird to be returning to school towards the end of the quarter.  School was so quite.  I got new roommates who were very friendly though.  For that, I was grateful for their kindness.  

           I found it very hard to stay off social media and see everyone else’s progress.  I was supposed to be part of the graduating class of 2018 that quarter, but I couldn’t.  Facebook was the worst place because many of my classmates and friends were posting their graduation pictures.  I would read their posts or look them over and I would feel terribly inadequate afterwards because I was not to part of that graduating class which I had set my heart and my mind to be a part of.  I felt like a big failure.  I failed! That was the only two words that occupied my mind.  I fell into darkness.

           To prevent myself from feeling worse I tried my best to stay as far away social media as I could.  I would call and text my parents, often in tears, asking whether I could have done better or been better to graduate on time like everyone else. They would often reassure me that I had (a) done my very best, (b) that everyone finishes college at their own pace, (c) there’s no rule saying that I had to finish college in four years, (d) that I went through something extraordinary that most people could not comprehend, and (e) that I could reach out to medical professions or my trusted relatives or friends to seek their opinions.  To my parents, I stood up to cancer and I won!  Such accomplishment and my life are worth every bit of celebration!  I should be very proud of what I went through and had achieved.  Sometimes their comforts worked and made me feel better; but more often they did not because I felt that my parents were not me and could never understand what I had gone through.  Talking to my therapist and sometimes my cousin D (who was also a licensed therapist) temporarily helped me to sort through my feelings, as it seemed to be a safe place to open up and freely express myself emotionally.  

           However, no matter what, I still had to live with my new physical form.  I hated this new me: missing organ, patched up body, and no amount of time would ever restore it!    

           Summer rolled in.  It was much worse for me than spring.  During the summer I was trying to find employment while living on my own. The long periods of unemployment dragged me down to spiral back into the same emotional depression I faced in spring. I started to question my self-worth and believed that because I did not finish school on time, I was stuck here as a failure, forced to finish school late, or attempted to finish school now, while my classmates graduated and moved on with their lives.  I was stuck in a negative emotional spiral; and the worst part of it was that it was self-inflicted.  At that time, I didn’t see it, and couldn’t get myself out of it. It was a negative self-hatred cycle, one that I found comforting and validating in its own twisted sort of way because it was the one thing that was being truthful to me in my life.  I felt that everyone else, including my mom, stepdad, cousins, and friends, knew nothing about what I had gone through personally.  I felt like they did not truly mean what they said about being proud of me and loving me. Even worse, I had forgotten what a champion and fighter I had felt like completing chemo and cancer treatments. What I had gone through no longer felt like an accomplishment worth celebrating, but a laborious task that anyone could have done or gone through.  It was no longer impressive.  Instead of saying to myself, You went through something terrible and came out of it a stronger person, I found myself saying instead, So what you went through chemotherapy and finished your cancer treatment? Thousands of people do that every day. You’re nothing special.  YOU’RE not special but a failure!

           The negative self-hate caused me to cut off contact with loved ones, even my immediate family.  My mother tried very hard to keep contacting me and was concerned for my well-being.  Once, when she called me to ask me why I hadn’t spoken to her in a long time, I finally managed to choke out, “I don’t want to talk to you because I’m angry and I hate myself, mommy.  I hate myself and want to end it!  I don’t want to talk to you about it or let you know.  You would never understand!”  My mother would respond, “Your feelings are always yours and no one can truly feel exactly.  However, please note that you are loved and not alone.  We are here for you, always!  Just let anyone know that you are around or reach out to anyone you trust. That’s okay.  You had been so brave to go through so much in your young life. Every bit of your life is worth in solid gold!”  Of course, I could not listen to her. I cut her off and took her out of my contacts. That’s how deep I was in my own dark world!  Without me knowing it, Mom never gave up on me and had clever ways to send encouraging words to me.  Today, in my clear conscience, I cannot imagine the amount of anguish my mother must had in hearing her own daughter said she hated herself.  

           I ceased having social interactions with others because I did not want to be around others who, I saw and viewed, as not supporting me and my thoughts.  The few times I did speak with others I sometimes got into emotional outbursts. I wound up treating my mom and others as emotional punching bags, venting out my angers or more negative emotions on them.  At times, I would even text them to tell them that I found life unbearable and not worth living, and that I wanted to end my life.  My behaviors were so reckless but I was not in the right mindset to realize them. I was in such a deep depression stage and only focusing on all the terrible things.  I learned later that my suicidal threats made my mother go into emotional breakdowns and become physically ill.  God, what hell I had put my mom through!  I regret such awful behaviors!  If only I knew what I know now.  I am sorry.

           What finally pulled me out of that negative spiral for good was my witness in person to my mom’s unconditional love.  In September 2018, I came home for my follow-up doctors’ appointments.  My parents sat me down and had a heart-to-heart talk with me.  We talked about things and addressed my negative spiraling emotions.  My mother looked me in the eye and told me that she could not believe what I had said or even considered giving up on living.  “Life is precious,” she said, “please take good care of it, and always carry a grateful heart!”   Especially since my dad went through the same thing and so much worse, yet he never gave up and fought to the end.  He was a true fighter.  In addition, my mother’s boss has a daughter, in my age, who went through the same thing, but she never gave up.  In fact, she was now in Africa doing volunteer work. As we talked, I learned of the efforts my mom and stepdad made behind the scenes to keep me well.  I could see and feel mom’s passions for life and for me as she held back her tears.  I saw for the first time in person how my actions and words had deeply hurt her.  I could see how much my life meant to her, and I will always be precious to her and a part of her.  I could see how I had misunderstood my parents.  My struggles were their struggles, plus much more.  I’m a survivor and indeed I should be proud of it!  

           I decided that it was time to change.  I changed how I saw things and decided that I would only focusing on positive thoughts instead.  I changed my perceptions of my new body.  I shifted my focus on the bad things happened to me to how I can use my story to inspire others.  I changed my mindset about future outlook of my life.  God has given me many chances to live, that’s got to mean something.  I am intended to find my purpose in life. I will keep trying my best and never give up.  

It’s been two years since the initial diagnosis and over a year since I finished treatment.  I haven’t shared my story publicly until now because of many reasons, but mostly fear of criticism from others.  However, it is my life, and it is my story.  As time passes, I have gained more confidence and strength in myself. More importantly, I am here today because I have so many giants standing behind and supporting me.  I owe it to them, all of those unsung heroes, to share my story as an upcoming UCI Class of 2019 graduate.  And no, I did not graduate late, I graduated just right on time.

Acknowledgement and Thanks: I would like to thank my mom, stepdad, brother, and both sides of my family for their love and support during the difficult times in my life.  I would also like to thank Dr. Korn, Dr. Nakakura, Ms. Renee Wang, Nurse Lana Taran, Dr. Jaime Cohen, and the rest of the medical teams and staff at UCSF Mission Bay Hospital.  You are literally my life-savers!  At UCI, I would like to thank the Bio Sci Student Affairs Office for being very understanding of my situation, allowing me to take time off to recover, and allowing me to re-enroll again after I regained my health.  Thanks to Mr. Cheng Ko at the DSC Office for registering me with important resources on campus, as well as helping me get reacquainted and readjusted with school after I returned.  Thanks to Ms. Sheena Danesh for helping me find important resources to use when I first got diagnosed, such as the DSC, and when I returned to school. Also, thank you for helping me with the multiple doctors’ appointments that I had to attend.  I would also like to thank Ms. Adelí Duron and Jane Killer at the VSC for their support and understanding, as well as answering any questions I had about financial aid.  I would also like to thank Dr. Eldridge and the UCI Counseling Center for seeing me for the past two years since my diagnosis and upon return from treatments.  Thank you for providing me with a safe and secure place for opening up emotionally and tools to deal with my stress.  Finally, to the countless unnamed friends, people, and others along the way who helped me or motivated me along the way.  I could not have gone through this alone.  

Thank you so much.

Love,

LuLu

[kalendraashtar]

Fanfiction - A Lifetime of Her (Part IV)

Part IV – “It’s only the air you took and the breath you left”

Twenty-six

I rose from bed, avoiding to look at Laoghaire’s naked form next to me, as I covered her with the sheet, blindingly white in the shadows of my room. She was curled on her side, her face so serene and peaceful that vomit came up my gullet, sour and acrid against my tongue.

I hustled to the bathroom, were I quietly and thoroughly vomited shame and regret mixed with the few contents of my stomach. Afterwards I sat next to the toilet on the cold floor, soothing and reviving like welcome water, my body aching from retching – and the struggle to exorcise the deep feeling of being tainted. With the back of my hand I wiped my mouth and dragged myself to the sink, where I wished I could plunge to drown everything into oblivion.

Laoghaire was a good company, a caring and bonny lass – clearly in love with me from the very start, when we had met at a pub in the Royal Mile. We had been going out intermittently for the last few months - more from a feeling of defeat than true interest on my part.

My body had responded to hers, as she kissed me and whispered words of adoration – for some time, I had allowed myself to believe in the fantasy that, in time, I would be able to love her. But each day she demanded more with her body and her doe eyes – and I increasingly withdrew from her. Even sex – a bridge that we had used in the start to serve as common ground – was becoming mechanical and, from my part, heartless. I felt irrationally angry when I kissed her and guilty when her body rose to mine – my hands were rough on her hips, as I punished her with blind kisses. I couldn’t love her, as much as I tried to force myself – but I couldn’t let go, a drunkard addicted on company, fearing a relapse of loneliness.

And now I was acutely aware that it was not her fair hair I sought when waking up. The eyes I searched for when I was spiralling towards release, had been gone from my sight for two years. When I cradled her against my chest, I longed for another crystalline laugh, always on the verge of shattering, of breaking me. The curve of her waist didn’t fit my hand – didn’t invite me to dance against it.

Sometimes when I was inside Laoghaire, too lost in the explosions of millions of synapses, I had to swallow a moan that formed with another name. I called out to her silently, thrusting against a woman that left me homeless. Afterwards, I felt a traitor, a dirty man with no honour, promising redemption but failing to really pursue it.

I got out of the bathroom and padded to the big window, where cascades of water streamed down the glass, nameless rivers destined to die before reaching the sea. Outside, the world seemed to dwell only in darkness and water – and I belonged there, with the wicked things that bore no light.

I had seen Claire three times – that I could feel so strongly about her, so irrevocably certain, sounded like the ravings of a mad man. Still, her eyes had a spell that talked of my name and her lips harboured the secret of my fate. I desired her body alright – but truly burned for her soul, for the mind-blowing connection we had formed when innocence still allowed us to be unrestrained.

I knew she had likely married – a golden band on her finger, that didn’t speak of her nature, where the absurd diamond had been – and moved away to America, where I’d never find her. Most likely, she would never belong to me – and yet, I was hers. That she may never claim me, made no difference whatsoever – I’d belong to Claire Beauchamp as long as I drew breath.

Laoghaire sighed and rolled over, her body searching mine in the quiet hours of night, yearning for closeness. I wouldn’t return to bed – to her - instead I’d lay awake on the couch until sunrise. I had no solace to offer her, when I was tormented with the absence of the one I truly wanted.

I darkly contemplated the words I’d use to tell her in the morning – how her eyes would open in shock, discovering that our last kiss had arrived unannounced. Perhaps she’d hit me – I honestly couldn’t disagree with her entitlement to do so. She would try to bargain, to ask for a little less – incredulous at the thought of us parting. But I couldn’t rob her anymore of what was not mine to take – I couldn’t offer her more meaningless promises, mere scraps of the love I’d give to Claire so willingly.

“Where are ye?” I whispered against the misted glass, towards the woman I loved so senselessly, hidden outside my view, somewhere in the haze.

***

I saw Claire two weeks after ending my relationship with Laoghaire, as I walked home after teaching the last class of the day. For a moment, as I glared at her - hurriedly walking on the sidewalk across the street - I believed I was having a hallucination. A welcoming trick constructed by my mind, playing on the edge of madness.    

I called her, but my voice was strangled, barely a whisper escaping my lips. I was paralyzed, struck by how lovely she looked with her hair escaping from a half dismantled ponytail, her casual clothes enough to highlight the delicate forms of her body.

Before I could think any further I was following her down the street, set on an unavoidable course by my life’s singular linchpin. I’d get glimpses of her amongst the crowd, avoiding a hazardous cyclist or glancing at a window display – mainly of book stores. But she carried on, following her invisible path, clearly decided to quickly achieve her destination.

I pursued her, numb to occasional shoves and elbow collisions, deaf to imprecations by other bystanders – my whole being fixed on her. Claire.

Eventually she entered a residential building and I followed her – thanking God for the door left open, the latch slightly rusty - arriving in time to watch the elevator stopping on the fourth floor.

I chose to slowly climb up the stairs, allowing myself some time to think of what I’d say – everything that came to mind sounded creepy or ridiculous, even without actual words. I still hadn’t formed a coherent idea when I reached the landing.

There were two doors there – both old but reassuringly solid, with no visible identifications. I was breathing fast – not so much from the physical effort, but from the insane rhythm of my heart.

I stood there, undecided, until I heard a soft mew inside the apartment on the right. Not knowing why, I approached and knocked on the door.

She opened the door almost immediately, as if she had been waiting someone. Her alluring face seemed tired – with deep dark circles around her inquisitive eyes – and there was a sadness there that hadn’t been present before, a cloud covering the moon of her wit, her flame smothered to a quiet spark. The wedding ring of my nightmares was there – real as punch in my wame, an extravagant fetter someone had placed to imprison a white raven.

“Claire.” I breathed out – almost sobbed.  

“Jamie.” She whispered, her eyes wide open. I noticed her nails were short, as if she had bitten them until blood ran, while she nervously pulled at the sleeves of her blue sweater. A slender cat sat near her feet, looking curiously – amiably? - at me.

“I’m sorry, I -” I tried to explain, but slowly – tentatively – she walked to me and her body went almost slack, relaxed, her forehead leaning against the curve of my neck. I instinctively held her, shielding her with my arms - her body was trembling against mine, her barely supressed devastation propagating through me like an earthquake. I noticed she was scrawny as a starved bird.

“You found me.” Claire said in a husky voice, opening a secret window to whisper into my heart. “I think…I had been calling out for you.”

[angry-mango]

103 questions

Alisons: Sexuality? ollie

Amaranth: Pronouns/Gender?��she/her, female

Amaryllis: Birthday? december 28

Anemone: Favorite flower? snapdragons

Angelonia: Favorite t.v. show? i have a lot right now but it’ll probably always be supernatural

Arum-Lily: What’s the farthest you’d go for a stranger? like 2 hours

Aster: What’s one of your favorite quotes? i love quotes but i don’t really have a favorite

Aubrieta: Favorite drink? arizona green tea

Baby’s Breath: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? n/a i’ve never kissed anyone

Balsam Fir: Have you ever been in love? currently 😌

Baneberries: Favorite song? my blood (tøp)

Basket of Gold: Describe your family. complicated

Beebalm: Do you have a best friend? Who is it? i have two: ollie and jonathan

Begonia: Favorite color? black or red

Bellflower: Favorite animal? sloth

Bergenia: Are you a morning or night person? both

Black-Eyed Susan: If you could be any animal for a day, what would it be? a sloth

Bloodroots: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? a vet

Bluemink: What are your thoughts on children? love them but like? also hate them but i feel like it’s way different when it’s yours and you know how to raise them does that make sense

Blazing Stars: What are you afraid of? Is there a reason why? losing people, bad storms, the uncontrollable

Borage: Give a random fact about your childhood. i ate cat food once

Bugleherb: How would you spend your last day on Earth? i’d fly to ohio and kiss ollie

Buttercup: Relationship Status? basically taken

Camelia: If you could visit anywhere, where would you want to go? that cat cafe in japan

Candytufts: When do you feel most loved? talking to ollie

Canna: Do you have any tattoos? not yet (devastating, i know)

Canterbury Bells: Do you have any piercings? two on each ear

California Poppy: Height? five one

Cardinal Flower: Do you believe in ghosts? yes

Carnation: What are you currently wearing? black tshirt, jean shorts (what a rare sighting)

Catnip: Have you ever slept with a nightlight? yes

Chives: Who was the last person you hugged? jonathan

Chrysanthemum: Who’s the last person you kissed? my cat

Cock’s Comb: Favorite font? haven’t used fonts in a while but i’m pretty sure it’s georgia

Columbine: Are you tired? permanently

Common Boneset: What are you looking forward to? right now, getting my income tax

Coneflower: Dream job? vet tech but who knows i might change my mind in a couple days (although i’m pretty sure this time)

Crane’s-Bill: Introvert or extrovert? introvert

Crocus: Have you ever been in love? you already asked this, dumbass

Crown Imperial: What’s the farthest you would go for someone you care about? hours

Cyclamen: Did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a child? What was it? this bunny from build a bear, i named her swirly cuz she has almost like a rosette pattern on her fur, i still have her

Daffodil: What’s your zodiac sign? capricorn

Dahlia: Have you done anything worth remembering? no

Daisy: What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment? surviving up til now

Daylily: What would you do if your parents didn’t like your partner(s)? uh sorry bout that

Dendrobium: Who is the last person that you said “I love you” to? ollie

False Goat’s Beard: What is something you are good at? gaming i guess

Foxgloves: What’s something you’re bad at? literally everything

Freesia: What are three good things that have happened in the past month? 1- ive lost 5 pounds this month 2- ollie makes me really soft and i’m just super in love with her 3- i bought some new clothes and they’re two sizes down so it makes me really happy to wear them

Garden Cosmos: How was your day today? it’s actually been great

Gardenia: Are you happy with where you’re at in your life? not really but i’m working on it

Gladiolus: What is something you hope to do in the next year or two? hopefully get my ged, start working on college or some kind of second education like that, and maybe meet ollie cuz i don’t wanna wait any longer >:(

Glory-of-the-Snow: What are ten things that make you happy/you’re grateful to have in your life? ollie, my mom, my gamecube, my cats, my bee necklace, my tahitian bracelet, fall out boy, twenty one pilots, my ipad, and my pillow

Heliotropium: What helps you calm down when you feel stressed? ollie (i know she’s been in like 30 of these answers but it’s the truth), sometimes just breathing and sitting on the floor, doing my hair

Hellebore: How do you show affection? idk i’m really bad at it but i try? i usually remind them like a hundred times a day that i love them, check up on them, buy them stuff (only if i REALLY love them though)

Hoary Stock: What are you proudest of? i defeated the shadow queen at age 6 >:)

Hollyhock: Describe your ideal day. sounds lazy but literally watching tv with a cozy blanket

Hyacinth: What do you like to do in your free time? video games

Hydrangea: How long have you known your best friend? How did you meet them? ollie: through instagram, five months. jonathan: middle school, six years

Irises: Who can you talk to about (almost) everything? y’all already know.

Laceleaf: How many friends do you have? i wanna say four friends but there’s other acquaintances that i’m close to

Lantanas: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received? ollie called me pretty once or like twelve times

Larkspur: What do you think of yourself? disgusting. don’t talk to me about that thing.

Lavender: What’s your favorite thing about yourself? uh i can bake a mad chocolate chip cookie 

Leather Flower: What’s your least favorite thing about yourself? myself

Lilac: What’s something you liked to do as a child? i liked littlest pet shop and eating breakfast idk

Lily: Who was your best friend when you were a kid? the r*xana 😔

Lily of the Incas: What is something you still feel guilty for? dropping out of school

Lily of the Nile: What is something you feel guilty for that you shouldn’t feel guilty about? mental illnesses

Lupine: What does your name mean? Why is that your name? annie means grace. while my mom was pregnant, she had a dream where a curly haired little girl with a round face was running and she kept calling “annie” so she decided to name me that. weirdly enough, as i grew up, i had the same curly brown hair and round face that she saw in her dream.

Marigold: Where did you grow up? Tell us about it. i grew up in a small house with my mom and dad until i was six. i don’t want to talk about it here because it’s kinda private and personal and i don’t wanna share it with the world.

Morning Glory: What was your bedroom like growing up? my bedroom used to be really messy but as i grew up and developed my ocd everything’s pretty neat most of the time

Mugworts: What was it like for you as a teenager? Did you enjoy your teenage years?  i’m still a teenager calm down. it’s horrible there’s too much pressure i wanna be twelve again

Norwegian Angelica: Tell us about your mom. she’s amazing but she also makes me feel like shit a lot

Onions: Tell about your dad. where do i begin. used to be a complete asshole until a couple years ago he got a girlfriend that completely turned him around bless her soul. she broke up with him though. distant but i still love him with all my heart. i worry about him alot.

Orchid: Tell about your grandparents. moms mom (granny)- lives with me, i have to love her cuz she provides for us but god damn she gets on my nerves and i’m pretty sure she hates me. moms dad- used to be really cool, disappeared for six years, came back two years ago, now he’s an alcoholic, has dementia, and is a complete asshole. he’s dead to me. dads mom- the kind of grandparent that appears during holidays and birthdays and stuff and then disappears for most of the year. dads dad- wasn’t too close to him, but he died six months ago from cancer and i got pretty sad about it. he looked a lot (a lot) like my dad but just much older, so to see him in the hospital bed with all the tubes attached to him.. it was pretty emotional.

Pansy: What was your most memorable birthday? What made it be so memorable? most memorable birthday was probably age six i think?? i had a really cool birthday party at a park with some first grade friends, and i took an iconic picture thats super cute and i still look at occasionally but it’s hard bc it’s got the r*xana in it

Peony: What was your first job? i’ve never had one

Petunia: If you’re in a relationship, how did you meet your partner(s)? If you’re not in a relationship, how did you meet your crush/how do you hope to meet your future partner(s), if you want any? met her through instagram

Pincushion: How do you deal with pain? grit my teeth, walk around, distract myself

Pink: Where is home? technically, miami. but home is a feeling.

Plantain Lilies: If you could go back in time, what is one thing you would stop/change? i don’t know, really. i know it’s impossible and it’s totally metaphorical but if i could, not only could i not choose just one, but i do believe in destiny and i worry that if i change something then everything down the road would change and maybe i wouldn’t have met you her.

Prairie Gentian: Who is someone you look up to? Describe them. i don’t really look up to anyone i just wanna be a good person and i also wanna be thin.

Primrose: Describe your ideal life. well number one, this would take forever, number two, youre the only person that’s probably gonna read this and and you already know

Rhodendron: What is something you used to believe in as a child? the basics: santa, easter bunny, tooth fairy

Ricinus: Who’s the most important in your life? hmm i wonder who 😌

Rose: What’s your favorite sound? everything’s quiet except for the rain falling on the window, maybe some light music in the background

Rosemallows: What’s your favorite memory? i don’t want to think about this right now

Sage: What’s your least favorite memory? also don’t want to think about this right now

Snapdragon: At this moment, what do you want? you

St. John’s Wort: Is it easy or difficult for you to express how you feel about things? it’s usually really difficult but you make it so easy somehow

Sunflower: What is something you don’t want to imagine life without? once again, you. but also gamecube or flowers or bagels or hoodies or nail polish

Sweet Pea: How much sleep did you get last night? a lot actually? i think like eight hours woah that’s a weeks worth

Tickseed: What’s your main reason to get up every morning? i’m about to copy and paste these answers they’re getting repetitive

Touch-Me-Not: How do you feel about your current job? pretty good, being that i don’t have one

Transvaal Daisy: What’s your favorite item of clothing? generally? hoodies. my personal one? it’s either my new black pants or my trench hoodie

Tropical White Morning Glory: Describe your aesthetic. damn i don’t even know 🥵 it’s probably white or light furniture and windows with natural light shining in on houseplants and nice comfortable sofas

Tulip: What would be the best present to get you? i love clothes or flowers or money

Vervain: What’s stressing you out most right now? i’m not stressed about anything at this minute so i don’t wanna think about something that’s stressing me out because then i’ll start stressing about it

Wisteria: How many books have you read in the past few months? What were they called? i read the fallen queen on wattpad does that count

Wolf’s Bane: Where do you want to be in life this time next year? hopefully getting somewhere with my education. i’d love to get my ged instantly but i’m not gonna pressure myself or be upset at myself if i don’t pass the test the first time. i might have to take classes for it, and that’s okay. i hope.

Yarrow: Do you know what vore is? whasthat

Zinnia: Give a random fact about yourself. i hate food but love cooking/baking

[always-another-story-blog]

Short Story: As We Know It

AS WE KNOW IT September 11th 2026 The sky is pink. I’ve never seen a pink sky before. We once spent two weeks out of the summer on a farm and the rooster would wake me up at dawn, and even then the sky was never pink. Orange. And yellow, and red at the edges and all the way up above me and over to west it got darker, almost black. It seemed like the sky was on fire, but it wasn’t scary, it was pretty. This sky isn’t pretty, and it’s not just scary, it’s horrifying. The clouds roiling above us are a sickening shade of grey, swirling and melting into black and sometimes even brown. The sky all the way to the east is a deep purple, like blackberries, and as it stretches over our heads it becomes pink, and streaked with slashes of orange and yellow. I can’t tell if those scars on the sky are the trails from planes going down in a death spiral or distant wisps of cloud. Or maybe the sky itself is finally rending in two. The wind is hot. The windiest recorded autumn when I was in high school was freezing; it bit into my fingers as I gripped my school bag, trying to keep it from being blown away. I always forgot my gloves and eventually, Micah always loaned me his. But now the wind is scalding my forehead as it pushes back my hair. I think I tied it back before but the elastic band must have snapped. The searing wind roars so loudly in my ears I can’t hear the crash of the waves below. Even as they beat relentlessly at the foot of the cliff they’re not loud enough for me to pay them any real attention up here. My focus is further out, where the sea looks purple one moment and then in a shift of light turns navy blue. Someone behind me is calling my name. We have to leave, board the trucks, make our way somewhere safe. A storm is coming.

July 2nd 2014 “I thought I was the one on bed rest,” the hoarse yet teasing voice of my beloved brother gives me the final tug I need to break free of sleep. Sitting up with a slight wince I feel my collarbones pop and roll my neck, relishing the loose easy feel that follows the movement. I fell asleep on the couch in Micah’s hospital room again. He’s smiling at me from the bed. If you were none the wiser you’d say he didn’t need to be here. The only indication he’s even a patient is the IV drip. And the breathing tube in his nose. And the dark circles under his eyes. He’s even been here so long he gets to wear his own pyjamas instead of the hospital gowns. A glance at the window tells me I’ve slept through to mid-morning, which explains Micah’s good natured jibe about my sleeping too late. I don’t tell him I was up past four am watching him sleep, refreshing the wet flannel on his forehead every half hour, soaking it in cool water and ringing it out, checking his monitor, his IV, his temperature. He hates my worry. But then if he knew I knew just how many days he has left maybe he’d stop telling me to be calm. He might also stop giving me grief about all the missed days of school. I told him the class representative would bring me my assignments, but since she drops them off at home and I haven’t been home in a while I’ve lost track of the work I was doing. Algebra. Carbon Dating. The invasion of Poland, Sept.1st 1939. To Kill a Mockingbird. I’m not sure any of it really matters at the moment. I would tell Micah as much but he won’t accept it. He’s the one dying from unspecified lung deterioration, so I should be making every effort to continue my life without him as best I can. I should be strong and brush aside the fact that our father died from some similar disease and our mother disappeared shortly after I was born, live life to the fullest, live extra for my father and brother, push forward on my own. But as far as I’m concerned, the moment Micah’s heart monitor stops beeping will be the moment the world will crumble, and the end of life as we know it. “Stop making faces at the linoleum and go get something to eat baby doll,” He’s called me that every day of my life since our father dressed me in a blue pinafore and tied my hair in bunches in an attempt to prevent me looking too much like a baby boy. The poor man was utterly clueless about girls until his last breath. “Dad, she looks like a dolly, why’d you dress her like a baby doll?” Apparently those were Micah’s exact words. Doing my best to ignore his voice in my head when he’s still sitting right in front of me I stand, wincing as my spine cracks, and stretch my arms. “Did you eat yet?” “Nurses brought me food a couple of hours ago, go ahead and get some breakfast; I’m not going anywhere,” he gives me a pointed look when he speaks. It’s supposed to mean he’s leaving me no room for argument. Usually I would argue back just to assert a little independence or something. But today, for some reason, I want to do whatever he wants me to, just to be able to see him relax a little. Lie back against his pillows with a satisfied smile and let himself rest, secure in the knowledge that his baby sister is doing just fine. “I’ll be back soon,” I mean it; I don’t like the hospital cafeteria. Down here on the first floor it feels darker somehow, maybe because the hospital is surrounded by trees on three sides and the cafeteria is at the back of the building where the trees are thickest. It always seems like it’s going to rain too. The trees cast their shadows, the sky seems perpetually grey and the world goes cold. With my hand wrapped around a Styrofoam mug of coffee, a plate of toast cooling rapidly in front of me, I can’t take my eyes off the sky. Even as I raise the almost scalding beverage to my mouth my gaze remains steady on the clouds and the sight makes me shiver. Ignoring the little squeak the Styrofoam makes under my fingers, warning me it’s going to break if I’m not careful, I hold the cup tighter, willing it’s warmth into my skin.

September 13th 2026 Walking through old cities like these you have to keep your head, remain alert. When I woke up in the remains of a hospital room I should have woken everyone else, or at least stayed close by, but being there brought back memories. Memories of Micah, of spending every living moment in that place, of being engulfed in the smell of disinfectant, Elastoplasts and bated breath. Maybe that’s why I was dreaming of those last days, sleeping in his hospital room. Those days when I didn’t know that it was all about to end, in every way I could think of. I know the city, so I know where I’m going, all these buildings with no signs, stores with shattered windows, all the roads run through with weeds that tower over my head, I remember what they all used to be. I worried a little that as I grew older I would start to regret things I didn’t do in my youth before the world crumbled. School, parties, vacations, boys, friends, the blueprint of the typical teenage girl. I never did though, there were more important things to remember. All I feel I missed is the auditorium at my high school. A weird thing to miss. It was a huge wooden space at one end of the school, accessible only by the huge double doors at the back of the room. When you walked in the polished wood floor stretched ahead to the stage, the whole room panelled and polished with tall windows and heavy red curtains, and black ones around the stage. When I walk in now the dusty scorched and pockmarked floor stretches ahead to the stage with cracked and splintering panels, most of the steps shattered or missing entirely, the whole left hand wall in splintered, there’s an arc of damage where something struck the wall near the bottom. Atop the cliff only a couple of days ago, something out to see exploded, the arc of devastation looked similar to the splinters in the panelling. Except the arc was formed only of waves on the surface on the sea; the shockwave that hit us was invisible. As I had turned to return to the trucks I saw a flash of white and yellow over the horizon and turned back to the purple sea as I heard the almighty bang, and moments later the hot wind sped up further, lashing at us all and my hair flurried furiously around my head. I shut my eyes against it but the flash of the explosion burned through my eyelids. Probably a navy vessel, or an aircraft carrier, or maybe an old oil rig. Something big. Here the arc of splintered wood is so small, but so visible. And yet there is no hot wind, no flash, it’s quiet. Something came crashing through the ceiling. Whatever it was is gone, disintegrated or shattered, but the gaping wound above me remains. The edges are ragged, every so often the breeze outside dislodges more dust which flutters down through the air. In the blurry circle of watery white light on the wooden floor I lie on my back and stare up at the frayed hole above me, watching the light. It never seems to waver, the only movement is the falling dust, and the pieces and particles of it that swim in the air. I close my eyes and try to ignore the sensation of the dust below me creeping into my hair, the splinters and fragments littering the floor digging into my spine and shoulder blades. I’m tired.

July 5th 2014 The woollen blanket on Micah’s bed isn’t as soft as I thought, but rather than sit up I fold my arms under my head so I can rest my chin there instead. No matter how many times Micah tells me not to pick at the fabric my fingers always end up finding loose threads in his covers. They’ve always done that, my sheets at home are full of pulled threads, the material pinched, almost concertinaed where the thread catches. “Are you sulking again?” Micah’s voice catches me slightly by surprise since I thought he was asleep. “Do I look like a five year old to you?” I counter, giving him a half-hearted glare from beneath my hair. He only smiles back at me and shakes his head. “If you’re not sulking you’re brooding, worrying needlessly, agonising; you need a new hobby,” I sigh and turn my attention back to the loose thread I’ve been tugging at for over an hour. I avoid answering him while I debate with myself over what I should be talking about. Recently it’s hard to know what to say to Micah, since he’s been in here I find myself getting anxious whenever I look at him. But if I were honest with him about that he’d just tell me to spend less time here and go to school like a normal 16 year old. Because he of course, at the great age of 19, is some kind of authority on such things. Finally I abandon the tortured thread and play instead with the hems of my sleeves. “I had this weird dream,” “Yeah?” “Mmm, I had it a couple of times actually,” “Recurring dreams. Uh-oh, are you having a psychotic break?” without looking at him I pick up the empty plastic cup from the bedside cabinet and toss it at him and he laughs when it bounces off his shoulder. “I don’t think it counts as a recurring dream if it’s different every time,” “If it’s different it’s not the same dream obviously, the clue’s in the semantics,” “Wow, smartass o’clock already, idiot,” I pretend to be annoyed with him but really I’m thrilled he seems okay for now, he’s awake, responsive, lucid, almost like there’s nothing wrong. Maybe it won’t last but for now he’s my brother and nothing more or less. “Anyway, it’s like a post-Apocalyptic future or something,” “How do you know it’s the future?” “I just do, twelve years from now, and it’s like the world is crumbling, everywhere looks a lot like New York in that Will Smith movie,” “You know it’s just a dream, right baby doll?” I find myself shaking my head and casting a glance at the window, almost as though I suspect the world from my dream to have materialised beyond it. But it’s still just another sunny day in July. “It’s not; it’s the future, after the world starts to crumble,” “It’s just a dream,” against my own will I feel my eyes stinging and I shake my head, unable to keep these haunting thoughts to myself. “After you’re gone the world will crumble,”

September 14th 2026 It’s a mistake to keep coming back to the same place in too short a period of time. There’s no knowing what hangs around, waiting out of sight, disguised by shadows and dust. Once, driving through the countryside, we stopped to pick up supplies. A pack of wolves had made the petrol station convenience store their home. That was when there were sixteen of us. By the next evening there were twelve. Animals thrived off the decline of the human race. The world wasn’t crumbling for them, it was expanding, their kingdom opening up and flourishing. One evening in Micah’s hospital room, watching the Discovery Channel, since it was his choice and he’s always been a science geek, there was this program that showed us what the earth would look like with no humans, after ten years, fifty, one hundred. Nature was Queen again. I didn’t take it seriously, but what I see around me is verbatim to what that program showed me. Like an oracle in a box. Even with that knowledge, here I am back in this auditorium. Little wooden shields are nailed above the stage with the names of students who held council offices in each year starting in 1986, all the way up to 2013. That last shield is blank, with space for at least twenty more shields beside it. There was never a chance to fill the last shield with the names from the year the world began to crumble. It wasn’t exactly at the forefront of anyone’s mind. A few more shields backwards down the line, for 2010, Micah’s name is up there beside the name of someone named Erica Lords. Head Boy and Head Girl. 2014 would not have held my name; I lost any chance of the Head Girl position when I stopped attending school in favour of camping out in Micah’s hospital room. In the end it turned out to be just the right place to be. It was one of the last buildings to succumb to the crumble. And the first two floors are still intact. That means that god-awful cafeteria is still in there somewhere, like the lingering memory of the punch-line of a terrible joke. We won’t be here tomorrow; the safest bet these days seems to be to head north. Oh the irony, we’ve been heading south for years after heading in aimless directions. But the animals tend to gravitate south and we’re trying to avoid them, so north it is. Once we’re stocked up on warm clothes and long-life supplies we’ll be gone. I keep thinking about the explosion out to sea and wondering if anyone was even alive on whatever vessel it was. How long it must have been floating helplessly before that. It’s been over a decade since any planes flew, and ships soon followed them to the graveyard. And it’s only a matter of time before we can’t find any more fuel for the trucks; we’ll lose them one after the other, either from lack of fuel or some kind of engine failure. Actually the batteries will probably go first. We’ve been replacing them with any we can find lying around, not all of them even fit properly. I should get back to the trucks, help load up new supplies, but I can’t stop staring at that empty wooden shield.

July 9th 2014 They say he’s struggling; there are tubes down his throat now because he really can’t breathe on his own, and as a result some of his organs are starting to give up. He’s on life support, but no-one thinks he’ll wake up again. I shouldn’t have told him about my dream. It just made him worry about me and when he gets agitated or anxious his lungs seize up. I’m not neurotic or arrogant enough to think my telling him about what will happen after he dies is the reason he’s like this now, but I know making him worry about me doesn’t help. Then again, the doctor confessed he had been amazed at Micah’s resilience. He said he had expected my brother to have gotten to this stage some time ago, but his strength was so unexpected even the doctor had started to have hope that he would recover. I knew better and always had, but since he was only trying to be supportive and cheer me up I didn’t tell him that. Micah used to make jokes about what I was and was not allowed to do if he should ever slip into a coma. When he first said it I had only been eleven years old and I was scared of what he might say and had been on the verge of tears when Micah suddenly said. “Rule number one: you are not to put make-up on me,” the surprise at this statement shocked a laugh from me and my tears were banished in favour of giggles as I listened to all of Micah’s silly coma rules. No make-up, this included nail varnish and hair styling. No stupid clothes or hats. No using him as a table or a chair, or any other kind of furniture, including doorstops and draught excluders. No using him as a Halloween decoration. No auditions for zombie movies, or music videos or advertisements. I was however allowed to put a party hat on his head if he was comatose during a birthday, and a Santa hat if it was Christmas. The nurses will probably worry or even tell me to stop if I paint his nails but since I have a bottle of purple nail varnish with me I decide to break rule number one. The nail varnish was a free gift on the front of a magazine someone left in the cafeteria. It’s like a metallic, shimmery version of the colour of Dairy Milk wrappers. It’s so out of place on my brother’s fingernails that it stands out like a neon shirt at a black tie event. I’m smiling as I paint, finding some quiet comfort in breaking Micah’s number one coma rule, in holding his hand while I turn his nails purple, imagining what his face would be like if he saw them. But as I start on the index finger of his right hand, having completed the left, my vision blurs and by the time I get to his little finger the fingers of his right hand have purple smears all over them where I made mistakes, unable to see clearly through all the salt water. There’s salt water on his hands too. I should wipe it off; it will itch when it dries.

September 17th 2026 A few towns over from the one where I grew up almost everything is the same, for all intents and purposes. Empty, ruined, dusty, grey. Though, even after twelve years sometimes you find people. They’re never alive. Not anymore. The last time we found someone alive was almost six years ago, and she didn’t last very long. This place was always famous for the forest at its back door and the trails that ran through it, marked with green plastic arrows glued to wooden bollards every mile or so to insure that no hikers would get lost. It’s a big forest, and its reach extends into the town now. Because of the popularity of those trails there were many successful outlets that sold hiking gear, so we’re fanning out, some of us going to each one. The ones closest to the forest are the ones that always had the best prices because they were the ones most likely to be happened upon by tourists. Then there were the ones that were part of bigger chains with shops all over the country, but the one that had the most unreasonable prices was the one near the courthouse. It was the only one out of all the shops that didn’t look like what it was. Full of gold light fixtures, glass display cases with spotlighting, chrome racks and black velvet hangers holding indulgently priced fleeces and rain jackets. Cream coloured marble floors, the walls painted a kind of champagne colour, sandstone shelves stocked with the most expensive tents and flasks. I drew the proverbial short straw. That’s where I’m going. Or it’s where I was going, until I saw the courthouse as I passed by it. Saw the upstairs windows shot through with branches, roots unfurling from the doors and the basement windows. The front steps are littered with rubble and broken glass, and halfway up, a thick book with torn pages and a mouldy canvas hardcover. I’m willing to bet not even Micah could have understood that thing. Climbing over the roots stretching through the doorway I find myself in a lofty, cavernous lobby with a mock marble floor with a crest in the middle and the splintered remains of a very large front desk. The velvet covered chairs and settees are half collapsed, torn, stuffing scattered on the floor. Tiny pools of light lie at the end of slender watery beams that slant through holes in the ceiling and the high set windows. Some of the holes are jagged and sit nestled in the midst of spider web cracks, others are smaller, more uniform, others are simply the result of an entire pane of missing glass, usually where a branch has forced its way though. There’s more light on the ceiling, the kind of wavering many layered light pattern normally seen on the bottom of swimming pools. I’d never understood how that pattern of light worked, and had never wanted to, content to let it remain a slightly magical secret of natural science. Knowing such a phenomenon usually occurs with large pools of water my curiosity is piqued and I go in search of it. It is plausible that in heavy enough rainfall, considering the many gaps in the walls and ceiling of the courthouse and it’s sturdy foundation, a large amount of water could be collected in here and fail to drain away for a very long time, if ever. The main stairwell is to the right, but there are no stairs down, so I venture back across the lobby to a door behind the once-magnificent desk and find a corridor lined with heavy wooden doors and a single glass sign with elegantly painted lettering informing me that the stairs are to my right down the hall. Sure enough, at the end is another door behind which is a stairwell with a damp and slightly odorous blue carpet extending upward. The stairs that run down to the basement where I assume archives are kept is not carpeted, it’s wooden. I make my way down one half flight, then another, and find a door marked ‘Archives: Authorised Personnel Only’. Ignoring the sign, as it holds no meaning whatsoever in this world anymore, I push the door open with some difficulty as the hinges are rusted and find one last flight of stairs, the type mounted on girder with open spaces in between. Less than halfway down the stairs disappear into cloudy blue water that stretches out in front of me, further than my sight can reach. There is another hole in the ceiling here, I realise, further out across the water is a glowing blue circle at the foot of a broad shaft of light coming through a hole I can’t quite see. What I assume are bookshelves still stand down here, their topmost shelves rising out of the water, so I step gingerly across from the last dry step onto the top of a shelf and lower to a crouch. I’m just an inch or two too tall to stand upright so I crawl along to the end and pull myself across to the next, and the next until I’m a few feet from the blue circle of light where I rise to almost a stand and peer upward through the hole at a room on the level above, and the room above that, and then open sky. There should be more room, more levels than that but I can only surmise that the rest of the building did not fare so well as the lobby that is now home to a tree. It is when I lean forward a little more in a attempt to see more of the room above me and see what it is, or once was, that my feet slip just a little on the damp surface of the shelving unit and the whole thing wobbled, jittering ripples expanding outward from it, and in that split second of movement I am caught unawares, unable to regain balance and I tip headfirst into the water, into the circle of blue water, lit by the light flooding through the compromised ceiling. It’s warm. I thought it would be cold but it isn’t. In this highlighted circle, more of a cylinder actually, there is a warmth you can’t feel in open air. The light is a solid shaft, brilliant blue and sharp, and filled with thinner and less substantial threads of gold like the strings of a harp. Those beam of light capture bubbles, rising in glinting streams to the surface. Streams of them come off my clothes and hair, and from my nose and mouth. The longer I stay down here the more my vision hazes and more colours besides blue streak my vision, purple and green. I’ll drown if I don’t turn upright and swim back to the surface. Yet I actually pause before doing so, unable to decide which option is bleaker.

July 11th 2014 “Was there demolition planned for today?” “There must be,” “Don’t they usually warn us if it’s going to be so close?” The conversation in the hallway takes a moment to sink in and I finally turn from the bed and out of the window, between the blinds I see a building less than a mile away shrink as though it were being sucked into the earth and a cloud billows up around it until all that is left is the dust cloud. A thought of earthquakes flits through my mind, but only for a split second until the truth of the situation settles in my mind and on my shoulders. Even though I was so certain it was true and not simply the fevered nightmares of a girl plagued with anxiety over her brother’s impending death, having the reality in front of my eyes sets my heart racing and my palms itch. I turn back to Micah’s bed. He’s been flat-lining for more than a minute now. I haven’t called for help because I know there is no help to be had for him. The shuddering of the ground as more buildings fold in on themselves behind me is proof. His nails are still purple.

September 18th 2026 They were reluctant to let me stay here alone, but I consoled them with the lie that I will eventually catch them up. Their energy tires me out, their constant insistence on pushing on, moving forward, moving away, always moving. I’ve never been certain of why we were always moving, why we never simply searched for a safe place to stop. I was always sure there must be more than just us who survived the collapse of the world. They are running, not just moving but running. Running from what the world has become, running from the reality of our situation, the reality that they cannot return to the world we once knew. They want to keep running until they run in a full circle, back to the world as we knew it. They are unable to accept that the world as we knew it is no more. This is the world as we know it, there is no other world to know anymore.