#person was cute to a different doctor! and not my therapist either. I’d feel less weird about that

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I’ll have gone out and done something social one day and be like “I was so normal about everything today, I would get such a good grade in socializing, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve”

then when I’m in bed trying to sleep my brain will bring up every slip up of the day

[peterparkers-bad-youtube-apology]

The Sanguine Web - Part 1

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

A/N: I hope you guys enjoy this, it is the first part of my 100 follower special, the other parts are coming shortly. I’ve been really wanting to a Hanahaki fic for awhile so here it is. I also want to do some different soulmate au’s so those will be coming soon! Love you guys so much xx

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death and blood

Summary: You try to figure out how to tell your friends your sick

Prompts

Masterlist

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(y/n)’s pov

“I know this diagnosis is scary, but we’ve got a quite few options now,” Dr. Shaw smiled, though it felt a little backhanded, “Not, the only way we can guarantee your safe recovery is removal of the infection, but the good news there are plenty of doctors in the city who know how to perform the surgery so it wouldn’t take us very long at all to get you in. Alternatively, having your feelings requited will lead to the infection dying off on its own, or, you can try to resolve your own feelings. If you’d rather pursue one of those then a good first step is talking to them, as scary as that may be.”

“Okay,” I have to let everything soak in for just a minute, “Is the surgery risky?” “The actual surgery is very safe, though it will lead to the removal of your feelings for that person. The only real risk is the chance that it prevents you from falling in love in the future.”

“What are the chances that happens?”

“It’s about fifty fifty, and unfortunately there isn’t really a way for us to tell if that will be you, it’s just a risk we have to take,” she clasps her arms in front of her, “I’m not asking you to decide today, you’ve caught this very early so we’ve got a bit of time to figure things out. Until then I can recommend a therapist who specializes in Hanahaki’s, and there’s some antibiotics I can prescribe you that will help slow the infection.”

“Okay, thank you,” I swallow the lump forming in my throat, “I think maybe I’ll try and talk to him and work it out that way.”

She nodded, “Okay, most patients opt to try that first. We can still get you into surgery later if that doesn’t work out.”

“How late can I opt in?”

“Up until the infection starts spreading, once it’s outside of your lungs the surgery won’t do anything. However, if your feelings were to change at that point or your feelings are requited, there is still a chance you’d be able to pull through,” she began scribbling things onto a notepad, “That’s still far off right now, but this disease it unpredictable, so we’ll need you to come in every week for blood work and xrays. We’ll monitor everything very closely so we’ll know if we start getting close to the point of no return so to speak.”

“Alright, I guess straight to the pharmacy then?”

She nodded, “Good girl, and you call us if you need anything. If things feel like they’re accelerating or you start coughing up a lot straight to the hospital okay?”

I nod, “Okay, thank you.”

“Of course, I’ll see you next week.”

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I took the subway to the pharmacy stuck in an odd state of numbness. Part of me wanted to cry, or scream, but I just didn’t do anything. I’m in shock until the woman behind the pharmacy counter begins speaking to me.

“Alright sweetheart what can I do for you?” “Just getting this filled,” I hand her my prescription with a forced smile.

She takes the paper, squinting at it before frowning, “Oh my…” she types a few things and sighs, “I’ll be right back,” I drum my fingers nervously on the counter while I wait for her to return, finally she does carrying a little white bag, “I know this isn’t totally appropriate but I know they only prescribe this for one thing and…” she trails off for a second, starting to blush, “Well my girlfriend had Hanahaki’s too, and she was really scared, but she ended up telling me how she felt and it was great, she recovered just like that,” she offers me a sympathetic smile, “I know this is hard but you should talk to them, I’m sure whoever they are, they’ll at least want to help.”

It’s sweet of her to say, so I thank her and shove the bag in my purse on my way out. I’m sure Peter would want to help, but he’s with someone else, and they love each other. I don’t get to confess and clear things up and live happily ever after. I have to move on, it’s the only option for me. I’m not getting that surgery and risking never falling in love again. That’s not fair. Just because I fell for the wrong person this time I have to never love again? Or die? 

I’m tearing up when I get home, and unfortunately everyone is already over. 

Betty beams at me from the couch, “Hey, how’d it go?”

“Good,” my voice shakes a little, “They think it’s just, um, allergies. I’ve got some pills that should start clearing it up.”

She nods, though all of them look a little concerned, “You’re gonna be okay then right?”

I lie through my teeth, “Nothing life threatening.”

“Okay…” she seems to buy it, but I’m sure she’ll end up drilling me on it later, “You wanna join us then?” “Sure, just, uh, give me a second,” I retreat to my bedroom, dumping my purse and jacket before clutching myself tight. I just want to cry, but I have to wait, everyone’s going to know something is wrong if I try to hide out.

I return to the living room after consoluling myself for a minute, taking a seat besides Betty on the couch, “We ordered pizza,” MJ smiles, “I got that veggie one I was telling you about.”

“Hope it’s good,” I bite my cheek, I feel guilty even talking to her.

“It’s amazing, you’re gonna love it,” she insists. 

Betty’s eyes bore into me suspiciously, “Are they really sure it’s just allergies?”

I nod, “Of course Betty, I promise I don’t need a lung transplant or something.”

“Are you sure?” she presses, “There was blood.”

“Blood?” MJ raises a brow.

Betty nods, “Yeah, she was coughing up blood last night, that’s why she even went to the doctor. It seemed worse than allergies.”

“My throat was just dry,” I try to explain, “I promise I’m fine, it’s just something in the air right now.”

“Okay,” she lets up, “But if you do need a lung transplant I’ve got you.”

“And maybe if you give (y/n) one of your lungs you two will get some sort of psychic connection,” Ned interjected, “I bet they’d make a tv show about you guys.”

Everyone starts laughing, and for the first time that day I let myself glance up at Peter. He’s so pretty, and so is his laugh, but before I can appreciate either of those things I start coughing. It’s an almost instant reminder that I can’t do that. Something tickles in my throat so I quickly stand up.

“Are you okay?” Peter frowns at me. I nod quickly, “Just need some water,” I cover my mouth with my hand as I struggle to pour myself some water. 

I bend over the sink to make sure none of them can see the petal I cough up. I know it must be a begonia. Last finals week was really stressful for me, and in the middle of the week Peter had dragged me away from the cave I was studying in to relax for a while. He took me to this cute little market and bought me some flowers while we were out, begonias.

I shove the petal down the garbage disposal and wash away the blood, I’ll have to figure out what to do when I start coughing up more, full flowers too. 

“Are you sure you're good?” Betty questions when I stand back up, I swear she has xray vision or something. 

“Yeah, better now,” I take a big swig of my water, “I’ll be good as new in a few days.”

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“Make yourself comfortable,” Dr. Morrison picks a notebook up off her desk. She seems very nice, I just hope she’ll be able to help me work through some of my feelings, “I’m really glad you came here, therapy can be scary, especially in your situation, so coming here is already a step in the right direction.”

“Thanks, I’m still a little nervous, but anything to help.”

She gives one kurt nod and glances down at her notepad, “Absolutely. I’d like to know what your intention is here so I can know how to help you best. Do you intend to get surgery?” I shake my head, “No, I’m not gonna get the surgery. I want to just try and move on.”

“Alright, is this person aware of your feelings?”

I shake my head, “No, he’s with someone else so that isn’t really an option for me.”

She nods, “Okay, can I ask his name?”

“Peter.”

“Peter,” she repeats, scribbling a few things down, “Are you two close?”

“Yeah, he’s my best friend.”

“Is he aware that you're sick?”

“No, I haven’t told anyone yet.”

“Why’s that?”

“I know they’d ask who and I don’t know what to tell them yet, and it’s still new. I mean I want to tell them eventually, but I think I still need some time.”

“Of course, you need to process everything first, that’s perfectly reasonable. I do encourage you to tell them though, having a good support system is going to help you feel a lot better, and you can always let them know you just don’t feel comfortable telling them who it is.”

“I will.”

She smiled, “So, what do you like about Peter?”

I blush, “Everything I guess, he’s smart and he’s funny and I always feel really good when I’m with him. I don’t know, we just kind of click.”

“You two spend a lot of time together?”

I nod, “Yeah, we hang out all the time, I probably see him more than my actual roommate.”

“How would you feel about spending less time together?”

“He’s my best friend, why would I do that?”

“Separation is going to help you move on, I’m not saying stop being friends or avoid him, but giving yourself space from him is going to be good for you.”

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I feel like therapy went well, I feel more hopeful when we finish, although I’m definitely tired. She told me the goal is to get me really comfortable with my feelings so I can move on. I decided to set myself a goal afterwards, I want to tell Betty before my next session, a week from today. I can’t hide it from her for too long anyway, we live together after all, and she’s already convinced there’s something more than just allergies going on. I debate even telling her when I get home, but Peter and Ned are in the living room, and I’m still not sure I’m ready.

“Hey,” Peter smiles to me as I walk in, “How was work?” “Fine. I didn’t realize you guys were coming over.”

“Oh yeah, we’re going to the movies. You should come, MJ is gonna meet us there.”

Dr. Morrison said separation is good, and I don’t really want to be their fifth wheel anyway.

“I think I’ll stay home,” I clutch my purse nervously, “Thanks for offering though.”

His lips pulled to a slight frown, “You sure? MJ picked some weird art film, it’d be more fun if you came.”

“Yeah, work was actually pretty tiring and I still have a bit of homework…”

“Okay,” his cheeks just barely dust pink, “Next time then?”

I nod, “Of course, you guys have fun,” I scurried to my room as quick as I could.

I don’t know what exactly made me start crying, I mean I’ve cried every night this week so maybe it’s just the overwhelming feelings again, but I think it was Peter. I don’t want to have to pull away from my best friend, I just wish I loved him the way I was supposed to. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, it just makes me feel gross. 

I end up hiding out until they leave, then I return to the kitchen for some hot cocoa and comfort food. I calm down a bit, but I’m still a little teary eyed when I pass out on the couch. I don’t know how long I get to sleep for, but what ends up waking me up is the front door opening. I peer through groggy sleepy eyes, expecting to find Betty, ready to scold me for not going to bed.

What I didn’t expect was Peter. 

He bent down beside me and set a hand on my cheek, “Wake up sleepy head, I know this couch isn’t that comfortable.”

“Hey,” I yawn before rolling onto my back, I push my arms up in an attempt to push the sleepiness out of my body, “Where is everyone?”

“Betty is back at mine and Ned’s, I came by just to talk to you, but it can wait,” he smiles and offers me a hand, “Come on bunny, I’ll take you to bed.”

I shake my head, “I’m up, what did you want to talk about?”

He blushes, “Let me help you to bed first.”

“I’m a big girl Peter, I can put myself to bed. What’s on your mind?”

He sits besides me with a sigh, “It wanted to make sure you’re okay, you’ve just seemed a little off this week.”

“It’s just allergies P, I’ll feel better in no time.”

“I don’t think so,” he frowns, “I don’t think allergies forget how to talk to your best friend.” 

“I didn't, I just don’t feel very good.”

“Are you sure? You know you can tell me if you’re upset with me or something…”

I laugh, “Peter why would I be upset with you?”

“I don’t know, you’ve just seemed off every time I’ve seen you this week.”

“Well it’s not you Peter, I just don’t feel very good. If I were upset with you I would just tell you.”

“Okay,” he accepts my answer though he doesn’t seem totally satisfied by it. Who am I kidding? It’s Peter, he always knows when something’s up. “You know I’m always here for you right?”

I nod, “I’m here for you too Peter.”

He wraps an arm around my neck and kisses the top of my head, “We could hang out for a little while, play some games or something.”

“I’m still pretty tired, I think I’m just gonna go to bed,” I blush as I stand, “Maybe some other time.”

His smile falls but he nods, “Okay, but it has to be soon. I miss hanging out.”

“Soon,” I agree, “I miss it too.”

He stands and pulls me into a hug, placing another kiss on the top of my head, “I’m sorry about whatever’s going on, you know I love you tons.”

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to burst into tears, to not break down and just tell him the truth. I can’t though, I know I can’t. It’s not his fault he doesn’t love me the way that would fix everything, he loves someone else and I want that for him, even if it makes me jealous, even if it kills me. I just want Peter to be happy. 

“I love you too.”

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This morning Betty nearly caught me tossing a petal out the window, making it very clear that I’ll have to tell her soon. I’d much rather tell her than have her just find out, I just don’t know how. I think I should just sit her down and tell her, but I just want to sugar coat it somehow, make it seem better than it is. I’m trying to figure out some way to do that when I get called up to the pharmacy counter. I barely even realize I know the girl behind the counter this time. Adeline, MJ’s roommate.

“Oh hey,” she smiles to me, “Are you okay with me filling your prescription? I can totally grab someone else.”

I know she’ll know if I let her fill the prescription, it’s a little scary, but there’s enough separation between us that it feels okay, like a warm up.

“I don’t mind,” I smile back, “Just don’t tell everyone about the pills I’m popping.”

She laughs, “I’ll keep it to myself,” she turns to her computer, typing away before squinting at the screen, then it seems to hit her, “(y/n)...” she turns to me with a frown, “Do you?...”

I nod, “Yeah, but like I said, don’t tell anyone.”

“Of course,” she pursed her lips, “I’ll be right back.”

It was worse than I thought, Adeline and I aren’t super close, we get along, but we never hang out outside of group get togethers or parties. I didn’t expect her to look so upset or concerned, I thought she’d just tell me she was sorry, that she hoped I got better. It makes me scared of how everyone else is going to react.

“Here you go,” she frowned as she passed the little white bag to me, “You haven’t told anyone?”

I shake my head, “Not yet.”

“Really? Not even Betty, o-or Peter?”

“No one, I’m going to, just kind of figuring out how.”

She nods, “Yeah, I can’t imagine. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’m gonna get better, it’s just a little scary for now.”

“Of course,” she smiles, but it’s one of those sad smiles I have a hard time looking at, “I, um, if there’s anything I can do just let me know. I could help you tell everyone,” she blushed suddenly, “When you’re ready of course. Just, uh, maybe it’d be easier to get it out of the way all at once you know?”

“Thank you.” It’s not a bad idea actually, maybe it would be easier than telling everyone individually. Then I just have to explain it once and answer all the questions once. I don’t have to answer all the questions over and over. It might balance out the reactions too. “That might be nicer actually, and you could probably help explain the medical stuff a bit more.”

She nodded, “Yeah, definitely, I mean do it however you need to, but if I can help in any way just let me know.”

“Thanks Adeline, I’ll think about it,” I give her an awkward little wave as I walk away.

I start making a pros and cons list in mind, weighing both of my options to try and figure out the best way to go about this, of course my thoughts are then interrupted by a phone call. Peter.

He’s been trying to get together, and this time I really have been avoiding him, following the advice of my therapist. I don’t know if it’s helping, I think about him just as much, the thoughts are just sadder now, but it’s what I have to do. My therapist knows how to get me better, and I have to get better or I’ll never get to see him, or anyone. It would be so much easier if I could just tell him that, I hate lying to him. 

“Hello?”

“Hey bunny,” he sounds chipper as ever, “How are you?”

“Good, how are you?”

“Well I’m okay right now, but I would be a thousand times better if you came over and helped me study?”

“I can’t, I’m sorry,” I glance around me, trying to think of something, “I have to go grocery shopping.”

“How about I come help you then?”

“I thought you needed to study?”

“I do but,” he pauses for a minute, “I know you said you aren’t avoiding me, but you know it went from not talking as much to suddenly we haven’t even seen each other in days.”

“Well why do we need to hang out all the time anyway? Just go hang out with MJ.” 

I don’t mean to sound as angry as I do, I’m just so frustrated. It’s not easy keeping this all to myself.

He stays quiet and then sighs. “You’ve been acting weird since you went to the doctor, I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. I’m worried about you.”

“Nothing’s going on Peter,” I frown and wrap an arm around myself, “I’m just busy today alright?”

“You’re busy everyday.”

“I’m not, I’m just busy right now…” I sigh and hang up, I just don’t really know what to say to him.

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After my awkward phone call with Peter I decided it would be best for me to tell everyone at once. I just need to get it out of the way, rip the bandaid off. So I texted Adeline, and she proposed that she and MJ would have everyone at their place to hang out today. She said it was gonna just be dinner and some party games, and everyone agreed to go. I told Betty and Ned I’d meet them there so I’d have a bit of alone time to get ready. I wanted just a bit alone just to prepare what I’m going to say and everything, I want this to go well. I want to walk into therapy tomorrow and tell her all about how I told my friends and I have this amazing support system.

A coughing fit interrupts my attempt to hype myself up in the mirror, it’s much more violent than they have been. The petals tickle a bit, and there’s usually a bit of blood, but it’s never like this. As a bit of blood splatters in the sink I hear what I assume is Betty coming back to retrieve some forgotten item. I kick the bathroom door closed and hope she just ignores me. Instead the door almost instantly starts creaking open.

“I’m fine!” I lean over the sink, trying to cover it with my hair, “Just give me a second!” I choke on my words.

The hand that’s set on my back is distinctly not Betty’s, “Jesus Christ are yo-” Peter stops mid sentence, just as the full flower falls out of my mouth, followed by a streak of blood. The full ones are much harder to cough up than the petals.

“I’m fine,” I quickly try to think of someway to explain this, “That was just in my hai-”

He seizes my wrist as I attempt to turn on the sink and wash away the evidence, “Did you cough up that flower?”

I flush, “Did you break into my house?”

“Betty gave me her keys so I could pick you up and figure out why you’ve been avoiding me! Now tell me what the hell is going on!” he demanded in the most concerned, Peter-like way he possibly could. 

I take a deep breath, glancing at the mess in the sink before I finally answer, “I have Hanahaki’s disease.”

His eyes dart between me and the sink, seeming to debate his next words carefully, “How long have you known?”

“About two weeks.”

“Were you even going to tell me?”

I nodded, “I was going to tell everyone tonight.”

He dropped my wrist and pushed a hand through his hair, I couldn’t even look him in the eyes, “W-Well it’s not that bad right? I mean there’s surgery, a-and I’m sure if you just talk to him he probably feels the same way.”

“He’s with someone else Peter, he doesn’t feel the same way.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t also love you.” When I finally did meet his eyes they were glossy, and his cheeks were red.

“He doesn’t Peter, I just have to move on.”

“I’m sure he does, just tell me who and we ca-”

“I’m not telling you who he is. This isn’t his fault and I don’t want anyone to blame him or make him feel bad about it.”

“It is his fault!” he snapped before sighing, “Okay fine, you don’t want to talk to him, but there’s still surgery right? I know surgery is scary but this one’s pretty safe isn’t it?”

I nod, “It is, but there’s the risk of me not being able to love anyone again, so I’m not getting the surgery.”

“What?”

“I’m not getting the surgery, I’m just going to have to move on.”

“Okay but if that doesn’t work you’re going to get the surgery right?”

My cheeks dust pink as I shake my head, “No.”

His jaw is locked, his whole body tense, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that angry. “You have to get it.”

“I’m not getting the surgery Peter, but you don’t need to worry about me, I’m gonna move on and get better.”

“Are you kidding me?!” he snaps, “Telling me you’ll get better isn’t good enough! I understand if you want to try and move on first, but if that doesn’t work then you’re getting that surgery.”

“I’m not getting it at all Peter.”

“So you’re just going to die?!” his bottom lip started quivering, it startled me, I didn’t expect anyone to cry, “I’m not going to lose you just because some asshole doesn’t love you back! It’s not fair and I’m not letting it happen!”

“It’s not your choice Peter,” I hug myself because I have no idea what else to do, “Nothing is going to happen to me, I’ll be able to move on and I’ll be just fine. But, if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I really need you to respect my decision on this.”

A couple tears fell down his cheeks and he shook his head, “You cannot ask me to just sit back and watch you die.”

“I’m not, Peter I am going to be fine. I’m on medication that helps slow it down, and I’m seeing a therapist who specializes in Hanahaki’s, she’ll help me move on and I’ll be okay.”

“That isn’t good enough. There’s no guarantee you get better that way and that isn’t good enough for me.”

“I’m sorry Peter, but I can’t give you any other answers. I’m not getting the surgery, even if that kills me. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, and I’m so sorry, but that’s all I can give you.”

A few more tears escape and he pulls me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around his neck and went to my waist. We stay that way for a second, he rests his head atop mine while I wonder what to do. I don’t really know how to make him feel better, I don’t even know if I can.

Peter is the one to finally break the silence. “Who is he?”

“It’s not important Peter.” “Yes it is! You think he’s worth dying over!” his voice cracks and I pull away. It’s really hard to see him cry, and I can feel my own eyes starting to sting at the sight. “You won’t even reconsider it for your best friend so I wanna know what’s so fucking great about him.”

I start crying while I realize I can’t ever tell anyone it’s him. I can’t risk Peter finding out, I don’t ever want to put that on him. “It’s not about who he is Peter, I just don’t want to risk never falling in love with anyone ever again. I know some people are okay with that, but I’m not, love is important to me and I don’t think I’d ever be totally happy knowing I couldn’t have that. None of this is on him, he’s a really great guy, I love him a lot and I know you would to. I don’t want anyone to blame him or be upset with him or anything.”

“Well I hate him,” he snapped, “And it doesn’t matter what you say about him. My mind is made up and I think he’s a dick.”

“You can feel however you need Peter, but he’s a good person, the best I know,” I wiped his eyes, “Can you please keep this just between us for me? I really need to tell everyone on my own terms.”

“I won’t say anything,” he promised before pulling me to him again, “Do you think we could just ditch tonight? I really want to talk, just us, and I want to know what’s going on. I need to be able to help however I can.”

 I nodded, “Yeah, I can make something up.”

He nuzzled his nose against the top of my head before pressing a kiss to the same spot, “Thank you.”

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I ended up texting Adeline, who assured me she’d cover for us so we didn’t have to stress out about it. Peter watched my every move while I washed the blood out of the sink and threw the flower out of my bedroom window. Luck for me, he didn’t notice what kind of flower it was, or at least he didn’t comment on it. Actually he just sat on the edge of my bed, honestly I think he was just too caught up in his own thoughts to actually process what was going on. 

“So, did you have some questions?” I asked as I closed my window and took a seat besides him. He nodded, “Yeah, a few. Do you have some kind of timeline of how it’s going to progress?”

“Well the medicine I’m taking will slow everything down, right now it seems like mine is slow moving and my doctor thinks I’ll have a few months, but it’s really unpredictable. Things could get worse very quickly, but she said that’s pretty unlikely in my case. The coughing will get worse and there will be a lot more flowers and blood, but physically I’ll be pretty okay until the end. As for healing, I have until pretty much the last moments for my feelings to be reciprocated or to move on.”

“What about the surgery?”

“They’re able to perform it until the infection moves outside of my lungs. If I get to that point they’ll hospitalize me, but it won’t get to that point.”

“How long would you have if it did?”

“A few days max, I mean they’ll do everything they can to keep me going as long as possible, but there isn’t much they can do at that point.”

He clenched his hands and gave one stiff nod, “You said your therapist specializes in this?”

“Yeah, and she’s really great, she’s going to help me move on and sort out my feelings and all that. She does a lot of work with patients and their families, and she’s got a really good reputation. I really like her so far.”

“Do you think it’s helping so far?” “Well I’ve only gone once so far, but I feel like I can do this. You can look her up if you want, her name is Raina Morrison.”

“I will,” he assured before taking my hands in his, “Are you going to see her again soon?”

“Yeah, tomorrow actually. That’s why I wanted to tell everyone tonight.” He blushed, “I mean it’s still good you told someone right?”

I nodded, “I think so. It was just a little more overwhelming than I thought it would be.” 

I’m a little nervous about seeing her now, I’m worried that telling Peter wasn’t good. She told me separation was a good thing, that it will help me move on, I’m worried I won’t be able to do that now. Peter’s really protective, he cares a lot about everyone, I really love that about him, and I don’t know if I have the heart to tell him that we can’t spend time together. I don’t even know what explanation to give him now.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have freaked out on you like that. I’m sure it’s not good for you.”

“It’s okay, having you guys know will be better for me, I need to have my friends support in this, it’ll make everything easier.”

“Maybe we can just love you enough that he won’t matter anymore,” the smile he gives is weak and forced, he still looks like he might cry again.

I don’t know what to say to make him feel better. I know he loves me plenty, it’s just not the right kind of love.

“Thank you Peter,” I just ended up hugging him again.

He held me tight against his chest, “If you wanted I could help you talk to everyone, even if you end up doing it one on one. Maybe it would be easier to have me there.” 

“It’d be nice to have you there,” I pulled away to keep from crying again, “You, uh, you’ll get it now if I’m a little evasive right?”

A look of confusion overcame his face, “No. What reason could you possibly have to avoid me now?” his bottom lip started quivering again, “You might not… No, I won’t get it, we should be spending every second together that we can.”

“I need alone time to process my feelings, that’s how I’ll get better.”

“Then I won’t say anything!” his cheeks had flushed again in an instant, “I can sit there and be quiet and do nothing, but I need to be there for you. I need to spend as much time with you as I can…”

“Peter you don’t need to start savoring your time with me or make all these precious memories or anything like that. I’m gonna get better,” I squeezed his hands tight and smiled to him, “And it would help a lot if you believed that too, because right now it kind of seems like you’ve already decided I’m going to die.”

“I do believe that, I know you’ll get better,” he sighed, “B-But what if something happens? What if you’re all alone and you just need someone? I should be here, I want to be here.”

How was I ever supposed to argue with that? I can’t tell him he can’t be here for me, I don’t want to tell him he can’t.

“Maybe we should watch a movie or something before we start crying again?”

He nodded and cleared his throat, “Good idea. Maybe something funny?”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

We threw on some supposedly funny movie, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I don’t know if Peter was, but he seemed out of it too. We just sort of stared at the screen until everyone came back to my place. I had to get up from where I was laying with Peter and pretend I had food poisoning as Adeline told them. Really I just wanted to go to bed, the day had been extremely draining.

“Hey guys,” I smiled at them, doing my best to look sickly. 

Betty smiled sympathetically to me, “Hey, you feeling any better?”

I nod, “Yeah, I threw up a bit but I think I can just sleep it off. Don’t worry, Peter has babied me plenty.”

 “Well between that and the cough I think you need a little babying,” she wiggled a small container at me, “I brought you left overs for when you feel better.”

“I brought some for you too,” MJ added, flashing Peter a smile, “There in the car.”

“Thanks,” his cheeks dusted pink and I just prayed he wouldn’t give anything away, “I think I’m gonna stay with (y/n) tonight though, just in case she gets worse.”

“I’m sure she’s had enough of you hovering for one night Peter,” her smile dropped almost instantly, “I thought we were hanging out.”

I wonder if they’ve been fighting or something. A wave of guilt washes over me for avoiding Peter, for not asking if there was something he needed to talk about too. 

“We were together last night,” he frowned at her, “You know (y/n) and I haven’t hung out in awhile, and she’s sick, I should stay with her.”

“You two hung out all night and I’m sure her best friend and roommate is more than capable of making sure she doesn’t die in the middle of the night.”

Peter’s jaw clenches and I interject in the fear they may start arguing if I don’t, “Yeah, I mean thank you for taking care of me, but I’ll be fine. I’m probably just going to go to bed anyway, you should go hang out with MJ.”

His cheeks dusted pink and he nodded, “O-Okay, just as long as you're good…”

“I’m good,” I assured, “It’s been a long night, I really just want to get some sleep.”

MJ smiled, “See? You’re driving her crazy, just let the girl get some sleep.”

“I’m just taking care of her,” he snapped.

We were all quiet, Peter and MJ are always so mellow. I mean they act like they’ve been married for forty years, they don’t really fight. As long as I’ve known them they’ve just been… 

Stagnant I guess.

“Well she just said she doesn’t need to be taken care of so no need to smother her, right (y/n)?”

I just nod, “Yeah, I’m good. Peter go hang out with girlfriend, I don’t need to be babysat.”

He frowned, a small huff left his lips before he nodded, “Sure, whatever, let’s just go,” he gave me an awkward sort of side hug and called, “Text me!” before leaving with MJ, both seeming annoyed with the other.

Part 2

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #466

“she is the butcher, she wants the air  /  she hides the scars under her hair”

Who do you think cares the most about you? My mom. What do you do when you’re pissed off? Isolate and cry. Have you ever had unprotected sex? Good luck catchin' me do that. What did your mother study at university? Social work. What was the last thing you took a video of? I have zero idea. What is your least favorite kind of weather? Hot and humid weather can actually fuck off. What was the last housework you did? Does changing my cat's litter count? Have you ever had famous neighbors? Not to my knowledge. Have you ever lived in a small community where everyone knew each other? Nope. Have you ever actually drank warm milk? NO EW EW EW EW EW Do you talk to your pets? If you don't, are you REALLY a pet parent??????? Who is a famous person you could see yourself reading a biography about? He's always said he doesn't want to but I really hope Mark writes an autobiography one day alskdjklafjw;ejr Are there any numbers you dislike for any reason? No. What skill that you have do you make most use of? idk man Have you ever done something sexual that you regret? Nah. Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret? No. Have you ever ate so much you puked? No. Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance? Sometimes/some places yes, other times/places, no. Would you rather eat cookies or brownies? It would probably change with what I'm feeling, but I lean towards a nice center piece brownie. :^) If you’re out late, where are you likely to be? This literally never happens. Do you ever visit your mall’s arcade (if it has one)? Our mall is lame as fuck. It definitely doesn't have one. What’s your absolute favorite topic to discuss? Mark, lmao. What is your least favorite topic to discuss? Politics. Have you ever been confined to a wheelchair? "Confined" seems like a strong word, but a nurse did give me one at the doctor's office when I massively tore a ligament in my foot and could barely walk at all. If you have a job, who’s your closest friend at work? Don't remind me that I don't have a job. Have you told anyone you love them today? Not yet, but I'm sure I will later. Have you ever worked in an office? No, but I guess that's what I'm going to wind up going for once I'm ready to job-hunt again... It feels sad that I'm actually aiming for the cubicle life now just because my interaction with people would be much more limited than with most other jobs. Who does the grocery shopping in your house? My mom. Do you prefer margarine or butter, and why? I don't even know if I'd recognize the taste difference. Have you ever been in serious trouble at work or school? No. Do you have any strange fears or phobias that you’re embarrassed of? That I'm embarrassed of, no. Can you smell anything right now? No. Have you ever tried coconut water? No. Which Asian country would you like to visit the most? Idk. Maybe Japan? How old were your parents when they got engaged? I have no idea. Have you ever done a first aid course? No. If so, would you be prepared to perform CPR if necessary? No. Have you ever ‘done it’ in a hotel room? No. Just the idea grosses me out. Where is your next vacation? Couldn't tell ya, buddy. Which are better black or green olives? I'm not a fan of black olives, and I won't even TRY green ones. They just look so fucking disgusting to me. Does your car have a backup camera? Mom's doesn't. Have either of your parents ever been in trouble with the law? No. Do you have a preferred brand of bottled water? Essentia. Is your skin more oily, dry, or combination? It's a combination depending on the location. Where did you meet your current significant other? High school band. What kind of house do you wish you lived in? One that's in the woods. What was the last compliment you received from an old lady? I don't have a clue. Do you know how to cut hair? Properly, no. Have you ever had a classmate die? I believe maybe once? If you have a song stuck in your head, what is it? I recently discovered "Foxy, Foxy" by Rob Zombie and it's Good Stuff. Do you tend to space out a lot? Very much so. What people have changed your life for the better? My parents, my psychiatrist, a PHP therapist, Sara, debatably Jason... Have you ever had any kind of dangerous addiction? What’s this addiction? Caffeine, I guess. Are your parents still married, divorced, or split up? Like this decision? They're divorced, and while it sucks for your parents to split up, it's a decision that I definitely approve of given all they ever did was fight when I was growing up. Them staying together would've been very destructive. Have you ever heard of Hollywood Undead? Do you like them? Well yeah, and I like a large number of songs to where I'd consider myself a fan. I actually had a shirt in high school. Has anyone ever called you a coward before? Who called you that? I don't believe so. Are you a Jeffree Star fan? Or no? Do you think he’s awesome/dumb? Honestly, yes. Like he's done dumb shit, but has more than sufficiently apologized for it in my opinion and changed his behavior for the better. I also - astonishingly - like his music quite a bit. As well, his work ethic is fucking INCREDIBLE, like extremely admirable. Has your grandmother ever made you anything? Not including cookies. I don't think so. I don't even think she ever liked me. Do you disgust anyone? Did they tell you that? Why is this, anyways? Not that I know of. When was the last time you cried, and why (if you want to share)? I don't remember, actually. Probably just about life. Who was the last person who was rude to you? *shrug* Do you have a relationship with God? lol no, and even if I believed in him, I wouldn't have a remotely decent opinion of that entity. Is weed legal in your state? No. Have you ever thrown up in class? In kindergarten, yes. What is something that you used to be ashamed of, but now you’re not? As a kid, being a girl, I was so embarrassed by liking Pokemon. Now, I am literally wearing an Eeveelutions shirt and went out in public lmao. I couldn't care less about loving them cuties. Have you ever walked outside in below zero weather? No; I've never experienced those temperatures. Have you ever held a newborn baby? Yes, but I was sitting down. I would be WAY too scared of dropping a baby otherwise. Are a ton of your Facebook friends getting married and having kids now? I legitimately think most of my friends on there already have kids and/or are married/engaged. It's triggering sometimes and was a massive motivator for me taking a break from there. What’s something you believe in that most people don’t? So uh, I hope this doesn't sound insensitive given how it just passed, but I 100% believe the U.S. government was to some extent involved in 9/11. There is an incredible amount of evidence when you do the research. Is there anyone who’s dear in your heart who’s going down the wrong path? I worry about one of my good friends quite a bit. She is horribly addicted to pot (like, she admits it) in a state where it's not legal, and I'm concerned she'll face legal repercussions eventually. She also dates an absolute lowlife asshole, but they've been together for a very long time, and I just worry about how that might damage her later down the road. Do you get enough sleep? God, it never feels like it. What’s something you wish you would have known sooner? That college wouldn't work for me. Like, I dropped out of three. I do NOT want to know the debt I'm in. What’s the next big project you plan to start? Idk. Possibly something for Girt's birthday because Mom really pissed me off and doesn't want to spend *any*thing to help me get something for him. Is that bad on my end? Like she pointed out he knows I don't work, but like... come on. He's my bf, one of my greatest friends ever, and you can't spare anything? I really don't know if that's selfish or not; it's just that if I get him nothing, I will feel like ACTUAL garbage. So making something may just be my only option. I just dunno what... Do you think you were cute in your baby pictures? omg yes, idk what happened Do you remember pre-school? A lot of it, yes. My long-term memory is pretty damn amazing. Would you allow your children to date prior to 16? Yes. Does your town have a farmer’s market? I think so? Which app on your phone do you tend to get the most notifications from? Pokemon GO, lol. How old were you when you met your current best friend? Around 11. What is something you gave up on after many failed attempts? Photography is coming real fuckin close. I've been trying to go somewhere with that for YEARS. Would you rather read a book, or listen to the audiobook? Physically read. I think my attention would stray listening to an audiobook. Do you think tomorrow will be a better day than today? It's possible, idk. I had a doctor's appointment today that absolutely slaughtered my mood, so I feel fucking horrific, but Girt is also coming over today, and I'm sure he'll cheer me up. I won't see him tomorrow, so that's a bummer. With which friend are you most likely to share a secret? Sara. What is the last thing you complained about? It's hot as shit outside. Is there a show you swear that you will never watch? 13 Reasons Why. What was the last topic that you ranted about? Anti-vax bullshit. Who is the most sensitive person that you know? Bitch, me. Have you ever had a tooth (or teeth) pulled? No. What did you do last Halloween? Literally nothing on the actual holiday. :/ Fire drills: Did you ever wish they were real… just once? ... To get out of school, yes. :x What was the last thing that you felt strongly about? I am still positively livid about Texas' "heartbeat bill." Fuck that place and fuck that law. What is one insecurity you have about your body? Um, everything???? What is one part of your body that you are proud of? Nothing????

[averytswiftie]

One year ago on August 6th, 2019, I got my first car. Also one year ago, I got the call that I had cancer. BREAST CANCER. It’s pretty ironic that on what was supposed to be a joyful, memorable day, turned out to be a really memorable one for another, horrible reason. I will never forget our shock, the moment that the doctor unexpectedly called with my biopsy results. The chances of this breast lump being cancer at my age was astronomically small. The characteristics of the cancer were super rare. The likelihood of someone my age having breast cancer, and this type, was rarer than being invited to Taylor Swift’s secret session! I guess I hit both jackpots in the span of less than a year. One was the best day of my life, and one was the worst. 

I was sitting on my bed with my mom when she answered the phone. Cancer didn’t even cross either of our minds, not even the doctor’s. I was 19, and was two weeks from heading back to college for my junior year. When I say Breast Cancer never crossed my mind once, I am telling the truth. I was still riding the high of happiness and freedom, and a sense of independence from that day.  Honestly, when I first found out, I thought it would be a simple fix, kind of like how they just remove skin cancer and you’re fine. It never crossed my mind that I would be “sick”, and I never thought of the possiblility of dying (usually people’s first thought when they hear they have cancer) . For some reason, I still felt unstoppable at that point and time. As the days went on, and the doctor’s appointments piled up, it became very real to me that I wouldn’t be able to go back to school for the year, that I might need chemotherapy (which I ended up needing four months of), and that a lumpectomy would no longer be an option. I needed a double mastectomy. 

It’s true that you go through grief of losing your breasts, especially being 19 at the time, and your whole body was going to be changing in an instant. It wasn’t until after my surgery that I felt “ruined”, “unlovable”, and “scarred”, and would spend every night for months crying alone and quietly in my bed so my mom wouldn’t hear me. No one my age would get it, which felt even lonelier. I had also always been super happy with my body before then, so it was devastating to lose the body I once knew and loved. 

Being a year out, I can say proudly that I am no where near where I was back then. I still have temporary expanders in place (and filled to my size) until I get my permanent implants in December, but I feel cute again when I wear clothes. I spent seven months flat as I had a lot of surgical and healing complications which delayed reconstruction, so having a figure again right now makes me smile more than you could ever know. 

It also feels like a different lifetime ago that I had to go every other week to get chemotherapy for four, long months. I think this is partly because my hair only thinned, but was unnoticeable to others, and I didn't lose it all like most do. It was a horrible four months, though. I was so sick on the weeks I’d get chemo, I’d be in so much pain (I would describe it by being hit by a bus in my neck, face, and back), I wouldn’t eat for days, and I’d get random fevers which would warrant an ER visit. I do recognize though, the luck I have now to be able to feel and look healthy in the mirror because I don’t have a real, physical reminder that it happened. I should also note that the chemotherapy was a preventative measure, for prevent the cancer from recurring. Even though I was stage 1, thankfully, the doctors wanted to treat me aggressively because I was so young. I am really lucky to live in an area where I have amazing doctors and surgeons right in my backyard. Being the youngest in these doctor’s practices and cancer centers, I was treated more like a daughter than just a patient. That made me feel so much more comfortable in navigating the disease that no one wants to have. I actually went back for a follow up appointment with my oncologist the other day, and all is good! I’m now only on Tamoxifen (an estrogen blocker because my cancer was hormone receptor positive) for the next eight or so years, which is normal protocol for my cancer.

Cancer completely changed my life, and I’d by lying if i said it didn’t. It changed my perspective on life and the things that matter, and taught me pain. It was the worst year of my life, and I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy (well maybe haha). I went through more in these past 365 days than most do in a lifetime, and I believe I am now a more resilient and strong person because of it. You find out who your true friends are once you are faced with this diagnosis. I’m so glad I have a few of those who are near and dear to me, and oh so supportive Swiftie friends who would check up on me often. 

In a few weeks, I am headed back to college as a junior (and Lover will be released)! People are always telling me that my experiences will make me a better occupational therapist in the future. And I hope that is a positive that comes out of it. I also hope to use my unique platform to educate young women about breast cancer because never in a million years imagined that at 19, it would happen to me. Just like I never imagined I would be invited to a secret session. I’ve spent the whole year wondering if you’ve been following my story, @taylorswift . You’ve been a huge part of my journey, from wearing your shirts to every surgery and chemo, and keeping me company while I watched your interviews and music videos during treatments to take my mind off the pain and nausea. I wish you knew <3. 

[birdybirp]

[[Untitled Fic]] Chapter 1 - Tiberius

Summary - An abuse survivor in recovery accidentally finds herself befriending a bunch of Satanists.

You kids ready for a first chapter that is probably waaaaaayyy too long? Good, it’s here. 

This is gonna be a Copia/OC fic with some romance, some awkwardness, and some drama if all goes according to plan.

WARNING -- This sweet baby girl is an abuse victim. If this makes you uncomfortable, I’d sit this one out because it is an integral part of Evelyn’s life. Also, I take her triggers and reactions partially from my own experiences with emotional abuse and from other accounts of abuse that I have heard from friends or read. If you have any comments, critiques, or concerns with how I write these situations, please let me know! I only have my own knowledge to draw from and your input is appreciated.

Getting a cat was a mistake.

I had been advised by both my doctor and therapist to get some kind of animal companion so that I wouldn’t be so alone all the time when I left the hospital. Not that I minded my time at home, watching TV. It just seemed like a nice thought to have a furry friend around the house that could sit on my lap and comfort me in harder times. I had always loved animals, but had never had the chance to care for a pet of my own.

I had to set out to a local shelter, determined to get a dog. In a window close to the entrance, though, I saw a group of cats playing together. I took a small glance in and saw a white cat with black on his paws and around his eyes, which were mismatched green and pale blue.

I was immediately in love.

The shelter had named him Tiberius; apparently his entire litter had been named after Roman emperors. I thought the name was silly, but decided to keep it, putting the name on his adoption papers and taking him home. I figured I could call him Tibby, which looked like it fit him.

The next few weeks with him were great. I had no idea how to care for a cat, but Tiberius had very little needs. He mewed when he was hungry, used his litterbox 95 percent of the time, and curled up next to me and purred every second he could. He was a perfect cat

That is, until today.

I had opened the front door to take out the trash and Tibby bolted out like a bullet from a gun. I groaned loudly, dropped the trash bag on my porch, and sprinted after him. I did not have time for this. I had to be to my doctor in about 20 minutes to get my stitches out and those things itched like hell. I wanted them gone, but apparently Tiberius thought I needed to get in a morning run before hand.

He was so fast for a creature that was usually so lazy. I would get close to him and he would zip away, farther and farther down the driveway. It seemed like he was having fun, which made me even more mad. I thought I had him cornered at one point, until he ran between my legs and across the street. My heart dropped, hoping that no cars would hit him, and I just watched dumbly as he made his mad dash across the road. That did nothing to ease my worries, though, because as soon as he hit the other side of the street, he bolted his way through the open doors of the abbey across the street....Great.

The abbey, which I had just been calling The Church in my head, was something that no one in my neighborhood seemed to like. People mumbled about it being a Satanic church. That didn’t bother me, however, as the presence of the ‘devil worshiping’ building brought the cost of homes way down in the area. Having just come out of a...rough situation, I couldn’t pass up the price of my small one story home. I had just told myself I’d avoid the creepy, Gothic building like the plague.

And now my cat that I have only had for less than a month just waltzed in there.

I groaned again. I was going to kill that little furry shit.

But to do that I would have to find him first.

I ran across the street and slowly, gingerly, stepped through the doors of The Church. The ceilings were high, covered in metal chandeliers that seemed to have electric lights in them. All the walls were brown stone that made every noise echo. Luckily, it seemed that the church was much busier than it looked on the outside. Members of the clergy in different colored robed milled around, nuns in shorter skirts than usual following after them. There were also a lot of people in all black wearing silver masks, which was weird. Or was it normal for this church? Either way, hopefully no one would notice one anxious girl darting around them trying to find one white cat.

I kept my pace quick, giving a wide berth to anyone close to me so I didn’t accidentally bump into them. I just had to find my stupid-ass cat and leave, no big deal. However, my heart was thumping. I hadn’t been around crowds much in the past three years and this was certainly a crowd of very strange people. It put me on edge. I was tense as I went through every hallway and corridor, no one seeming to pay me any attention. Surprisingly, I saw a handful of cats walking around the place, all probably strays, but none of them were Tibby.

Time was ticking away and I really had to go to my doctor’s appointment. I wasn’t going to have these stitches in my side a second longer than I had to. But I couldn’t just leave my new furry friend in a place like this. What if they sacrificed cats? Do Satanists sacrifice cats? I wasn’t sure, but even if they didn’t, one of the strays lurking around could attack him. I swallowed my pride and approached the next person I saw, one of the people in all black with the masks.

“Excuse me...” I said, my voice shaky and nervous despite my best efforts. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for my cat. He’s white with black on his paws and around his eyes. Have you seen him?”

I couldn’t see the person’s eyes through their mask but I could tell they were confused by me. They stared, unmoving, for a few moments and I felt myself start to sweat. Then the person made a kind of chirp noise, kind of similar to one Tibby made when I annoyed him, and pointed down a dark corridor.

“Uhm...Thank you.” I said and jogged away from the strange figure. I turned to look back at them for a second and saw them staring at me, something long and black swishing behind them idly. A tail? No, no time to think about that.

I kept my jogging pace down the corridor until I heard the sharp crash of something metal hitting the stone floors and the sound of a high pitched yelp. Something in my bones told me it was Tiberius doing something he shouldn’t have and I followed the noise down another hallway. As I turned the corner, I saw a very tall metal candelabra on the ground, it’s candles thrown off of it and put out by the crash. Next to it, I saw a man pressed up against the wall, his arms spread out and his palms crushed into the stones, trembling. I looked down from the man’s terrified face to see a little white ball of fluff kneading at his leg as if he wanted to climb up him.

I quickly ran up and scooped the feline off of the poor man’s leg, holding the menace in one arm. Tiberius stretched out his paws towards the man as if he didn’t want to let go. I held his arms down and started apologizing. “Sir, I am so, so sorry!”

The man quickly snapped to attention, obviously embarrassed to have been seen terrified by a cat that isn’t even a year old. As he nervously fidgeted, smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothing, I finally got a good look at him. He was an older man, but I couldn’t guess how old. 40s? 50s? I was never good at guessing these types of things. I’m not versed in what people in churches wear, but he wore a black robe with buttons all the way down, a black sash at his waist. At the end of the sash was a symbol that was like an inverted cross, but not quite. He wore the same symbol around his neck. His face seemed to be wrinkled from looking constantly worried; creases lined his face around his eyes and mouth and were deep on his forehead. His upper lip and around his eyes were tinged a purplish black. Makeup? He also had a mustache reminded me of 1920s black and white films. When he finally collected himself and looked up at me, I finally saw that his eyes were two different colors: green and a bright white. What a strange person...

The nervous man cleared his throat and stood up straight as if to show that he was more calm and collected than he really was.

“It’s...uh...” he cleared his throat again. “It’s quite alright. I’m just...not very fond of cats.” He looked in my direction, but was obviously avoiding eye contact. I think he was looking over my right shoulder.

“I really am sorry...He’s ever done this before...” I apologized again, patting the cat on the head gently for emphasis. Granted, I had not had Tibby long enough for him to do something like this, but I wasn’t exactly lying.

And then I noticed: the man had a rat on his shoulder.

“Oh my God, was Tiberius chasing your rat?!” I gasped, holding the small cat a little tighter. I had never seen him around other animals so I didn’t know if he would behave like this. I looked at the rodent and instantly felt bad for the creature. His ears were pulled back and his small pink paws were wringing nervously. I wanted to hold it and tell it everything was going to be okay.

“Yes, I believe he was.” The man seemed to relax slightly now that my eyes were focused on the rat and not him.

“Did he hurt him?” I asked with genuine concern. He looked at me, puzzled, as if no one had cared to ask him about the animal before.

“I...uhm...” he fidgeted again and looked down at the ground. “I don’t think so...Asmodeus is one of my faster rats...I don’t think a cat could catch him.” The poor creature still looked so scared and I frowned slightly.

“This might...sound weird...” I started, feeling a general anxiety in my chest at talking to this stranger. But my love of cute furry animals won out. “But can I...pet him? Or hold him?”

Again, he looked confused. I feel like he doesn’t have people ask to interact with his pets often. He looked at Tibby, then back at me, and at Tibby again, before giving a small nod. He held a leather clad glove to his shoulder for the rat, Asmodeus, to crawl in to. He wrapped both hands gently around the rodent and held him up to me. The rat seemed more curious now than anything, sniffing the air and looking around. I gently reached out and pet the top of his head with two of my fingers as a sign of apology. The rat looked at me and, for some reason, I felt like he forgave me and my asshole cat. I looked back up at the rat’s handler and realized he was staring at me. I couldn’t read his expression at all and it made me nervous. Then a small, almost unnoticeable smile played on his lips. I felt myself turn a bit red, taking a small step back. Now if was my turn to fidget.

“I--I’m sorry again.” I stammered, the anxiety in my chest blooming and making my ribcage feel tight around my lungs. “He just got out. I live across the street and he just ran in here. I don’t even know if I’m even allowed in here--I am so, so, so sorry.” The words tumbled out of my mouth even as it felt tough to breathe. There was a long silence between us and I could feel a lump of fear in my throat growing bigger and bigger.

“I...should go.” I squeaked out, taking a few more steps back. “I’m sorry again...” I realized that I didn’t know what to call this person, so I just went with what I thought was polite. “...s-sir...?” I had turned my back to him and was walking away, feeling a slight tremble in my legs, when he spoke softly.

“Copia.”

“Huh...?” I turned and saw him looking down at his hands.

“I am Cardinal Copia.....You can come see Asmodeus another time if you would like.” And he turned and walked the other way down the stone corridor.

“C--Copia...yeah...alright....thanks...” I muttered. “Oh! I’m Evelyn, by the way!”  I didn’t even know if he could hear me as I blurted out my name, staring at his back as he left. I couldn’t make heads or tails of this person. I shrugged it off and went back the way I came. The farther I got away from that conversation, the less anxious I became. When I was almost entirely calm, the urgent itch in my side started again. My stitches...I had to get going. As I walked, I held Tiberius in front of my face with both hands.

“What were you thinking, little mister?” I asked judgmentally. Tibby licked my nose in response and I sighed. I looked into his mismatched eyes and realized...His patches of black fur made his eyes look like the Cardinal’s. I chuckled.

“Maybe you were supposed to find each other.” I said, cradling the cat in my arms as I continued to power walk and find the exit. “But, you have to admit, it was really shitty of you to attack his rat.”

--

[[How much is Tiberius going to be in this story? Not much, but I still love this fictional kitty with all my heart. Please leave any feedback you have for me! I hope to update this once a week.

 Also, tune in next time for Evelyn getting stupidly lost and having an interaction with a Papa that makes her insanely uncomfortable.

Thanks for reading!

--Birdy]]

[myheartrevealed]

I Will Be Here- Epilogue Part Two

You smiled, as your mother worked on a piece of art.

“Tell me more,” she requested quietly.

“Hm?” you mumbled and she looked up from her work.

“About your family.”

You hesitated for a minute. “You mean, about Jack, and Sam, and Cas, and Dean?”

She nodded. “You tell me stories about them, but you’ve never told me what they’re actually like.”

You smiled at the memory. “Well, Cas, you’ve met. He’s… I don’t know. Cas is kind of hard to read. He is an angel. But he’s a kind guy and I respect him more than anything.” She nodded, indicating she was listening. “Sam is… Sam is my best friend. He was immediately kind to me. He let me live in his home when mine was destroyed. He would joke with me and look out for me and…” you trailed off just thinking about him.

You missed him. You missed them all.

“Anyway, Dean is my big brother. He was the first to know about my illness and he took me to the doctor and kept my secret. He was very protective of me and just wanted me to enjoy the rest of my life. He was everything I’d want in an older sibling.”

A beautiful grin spread over her face. These people brought you such happiness. “I didn’t know that. I’m glad you had these boys. And Jack? What was he like?”

You looked down at your hands, unsure what to say. “Jack was… the love of my life. He was everything. He is one of the kindest, most innocent people I ever met. He held movie nights almost every week, made me hot chocolate every morning, tried to have a date night while I was in the hospital… I wish you could have met him mom. I really do.”

“And the two of you met at therapy?”

“Yep,” you confirmed. “There was this therapist… Dr. Myla. She dealt with people who had… Supernatural problems. Well, my father’s a demon and Jack’s was Satan so… we were in a similar boat. He had the appointment right before mine and so he’d come out and sit across from me and talk while he waited for-”

You were cut off when a violent change of scenery knocked you out of focus.

You were suddenly in a large room, lined with stone columns. You whipped around wildly, panicking and desperate to find out where you were and what had happened. You were met with something entirely different. Behind you stood five men.

As you finally came to your senses, you realized they were all looking at you… and you recognized four of them.

Cas stood at the front of the group, an unreadable expression on his face. To his right was Sam and Dean, both shell shocked, with dampening eyes. To his left, was Jack… Your Jack.

Jack held a hand over his mouth, making his expression hard to read, so you tried to tap into his emotions, but it came up blank. He wore and flannel, probably Sam or Dean’s, and large combat boots. That caught you by surprise, because you’d never seen him wear boots. You, however, wore them all the time when you were alive.

This caused you to look down at yourself and find you were wearing something they’d probably never expect to see you in either. You wore a cute white sundress, which was similar to something you wore when you were a kid and had bare feet. You hair was curled delicately around your face.

“Cas… what’s going on?” you stuttered.

That’s when a large grin broke out over his face. “We did it, Y/N. We beat Michael.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

The final response had come from the fifth and final person in the room. One look at him told you everything you needed to know. This… was God himself.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said, exasperatedly. “And no, I’m not going to smite you. In fact, I’m here to reunite you with your friends.”

He gestured to your living family and you followed his line of sight back to the people you loved.

“So, they’re real?” you inquired, boring your eyes into Cas for an answer. “They’re all real? And alive?”

His smile didn’t waver and you had your answer. You took a long moment to just stare at them, disbelief and the purest of joy washing over you. Sam and Dean, who hadn’t changed a bit, still gaped at you with awe and tears in their eyes. And Jack…

Your feet started to move forward on their own accord and apparently his did too, because the two of you met in the middle of the room, your arms wrapping around his neck as he held you against him.

You closed your eyes, just taking in the feeling of being with him again. You didn’t think you’d get the chance to see Jack ever again, much less alive and well. You could feel him shudder in the hug and you had no doubt that he had started to cry. You would have too, had you still been alive, but death had really put you at ease. Seeing him meant the world to you and you wouldn’t ruin the moment by sobbing through it.

You could hear Dean mumble something to Cas as you stood there in Jack’s arms.

“So I was right? You have been visiting Y/N in heaven?”

You felt his arms loosen and you pulled away, turning to Dean. “Yes. Castiel bought my soul and took me to heaven when I died. And… he’s been keeping me updated.”

“On what?” Sam interceded.

“Sam,” you breathed out and jumped into his arms as well. You had missed him so much.

“Hey Y/N,” he responded, holding you tightly.

You let go and did the same for Dean, hugging him with all the emotions you had built up after being separated for so long.

“Dean.”

“Hey kiddo.” He rubbed your back soothingly and you wished this moment would last forever. Being here with the boys once again. Your family. Your home.

Someone cleared their throat and the whole group turned their gazes onto God. He shrugged. “Sorry guys, but could you hurry it up?”

Sam shook his head. “Don’t listen to Chuck. What did Cas keep you updated about?”

You smiled. “Your progress on finding Michael. And… how you were coping with my death.”

“Badly,” Dean confirmed. “We handled it badly.”

“I heard.”

There was a moment of hesitance shared by everyone in the room.

“But that doesn’t matter now,” Jack spoke up from behind you, “because you’re back, aren’t you?”

Your eyes widened at the thought and you snapped to look at Castiel, but he only shrugged.

“Don’t look at me. I’m not the one who brought you down to Earth.”

Everybody turned to God once again and he sighed.

“Alright, guys I think it’s time to get to the reason I’ve assembled you all-” he started, but Dean cut him off.

“Is Y/N staying on Earth, or not?” he insisted.

God shrugged again. “That’s her choice.”

You were confused as to what he meant. Slowly, the group of you moved to face Chuck fully as he got to his point. Jack moved to your side, taking your hand and squeezing tight, afraid you would slip from his grasp any moment just as you had before. Dean took to stand on your other side.

“Now then, I understand you guys went through a lot, not only trying to stop Michael, but throughout your lives. And, as a token of my gratitude, for saving my creations on many occasions, I’m offering each of you a gift. I will do anything you ask for, that is within my power. Y/N, that includes bringing you back to life, should you choose it.”

You nodded, but quickly put your head down, so that no one could read your thoughts.

“Sam,” Chuck said, moving onto the beginning of your line. “You’re first. What would you like?”

Sam did not hesitate. “I would like hunters to be guaranteed a spot in heaven. There are too many who sell their souls, ruin their lives, and then go to hell or become ghosts after being gruesomely murdered and that’s not their fault. Hunters do enough for the world as it is. At least give them a happy ending. Hell, the only reason Y/N got into Heaven is because Cas bought her soul. That’s not right.”

God merely nodded. “I understand. Castiel?”

Cas looked to his father with determination blazing in his eyes, “I would like to be name the sole Guardian of Heaven, with the power to let people come and go as I please.”

God simply turned to the next. “Dean?”

Dean chuckled bitterly. “You know what I want. I want out. Sam and Cas and I… we’re getting too old for this job. I want to move on from hunting… I want to have a life.”

Chuck hesitated. “That’s all your own choice Dean. I can find you a house to live in, give you a family, a normal job, whatever, but I can’t guarantee you’ll stay out of the life. That’s all you.”

Dean nodded. “Then I don’t want your charity.”

It was your turn. You looked up, having thought about it for a while and said, “I want all the children like me, the cambion, to be free of their ancestral burden.”

You could feel everyone in the group turn to you with sad eyes, realizing you weren’t going to fight to stay on earth with them, but you continued on.

“I want their visions to stop if they’re having them. I want them protected from their demonic parent. And I want them to have a way to find one another if they need support. Because I know that me, Jesse, Kim, and David would have killed to know there were others like us when we were kids.”

Chuck agreed to the request. “I can do that. And finally, Jack Kline. The Nephilim. What would you like?”

Jack locked eyes with you, holding your gaze, then turned to God. “I would like to be aloud to join Y/N in a heaven of our own. A place where I can be with Y/N once again and we can live together-” He squeezed your hand, gently. “-like I always dreamed.”

He nodded and stepped back. “Well then, I’ll give all you time to say your goodbyes, before sending Jack and Y/N on their way,” and then he was gone.

Dean didn’t waste a second, spinning you around and pulling you to him once again.

“You’re leaving again? But we just got you back.”

You sighed against his chest and he lifted a hand to wipe away a few tears.

“I’m sorry, but I…” you trailed of helplessly.

He pulled away and looked you square in the eyes. “Y/N,” he said. “I understand.”

“And don’t worry,” Cas interrupted, coming around Dean’s side. “This isn’t the last you’ll see of them.”

You both turned to him, confused. He smiled.

“Well, as the new Guardian of Heaven, I do control who comes in and out, living or dead. I think I can manage occasional visits.”

A grin crossed Dean’s face. “I guess I’ll be seeing you later, kiddo.” He kissed your forehead. “And you,” he continued, stepping around you to talk to Jack.

You would have listened to their conversation, but you knew you were on a time crunch and so you faced Sam.

“Hiya Sammy.”

He smiled. “Hiya Y/N. It was… so refreshing to see you again.”

You laughed. “You too. You have no idea how much I missed you.”

“No more than I missed you.”

You quickly said your goodbyes and he moved on to talk to Jack.

You beamed at Cas. “It all turned out okay, didn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I think it did. You’ll be okay in Heaven? With Jack?”

“Very much so.”

Chuck appeared again a minute later. You ran over and grabbed Jack’s hand, ready to go back to heaven. You were so excited for him to meet your mother and have the perfect life you two always dreamed of.

“Okay guys,” Chuck said. “Ready to go?”

His eyes held yours, giving all the love and reassurance you needed to move forward, before confidently nodding.

He smiled and a minute later, you were in Heaven. You noticed it wasn’t your usual place, but didn’t spend time looking around, because in front of you stood your mother, she had a kind look on her face as she looked between you and Jack. Next to her was another woman, who you had never seen before. But, it didn’t take you long to figure it out.

“Mom!” Jack gasped.

This was it. Your perfect reality. Years spent running and fighting for this very moment. Years homeless and lost, then finding a family, only to lose it, then reuniting again. This is exactly why you survived through every burden that dragged your smile or tear that streaked your face. This, right here, was your purpose. What you cherished more than your own life. Love. A family. A home. You finally obtained true peace. And for eternity you would continue to rest easy, knowing that the people you loved would never leave your side again.

[dimplesnj]

I was tagged by @shutupjefferey and I know this is a day late but I’m just so lazy and antisocial I haven’t looked at my notifs for anything lol

1. What color reminds you of home?

Orange bc my dad is extra and went overboard when decorating one day

2. What’s your favorite season and why?

Winter bc it’s also Christmas season and my birthday season and the atmosphere is usually so much happier and loving

3. What’s the first feature you look at when you meet a person?

Eyes or lips but mainly the eyes :-)

4. What type of song do you like?

Honestly I like so many types of music but ballads are the best don’t @ me on this

5. What are you afraid of at the moment?

How am I going to pay for college when I’m broke and the American government hates millenials lol

6. What is one trait you have that you wish people would appreciate more?

Either my independence or humor. Because I tend to be more reserved around most people, I am constantly thought to be stuck up or snobby when in reality I just don’t need to cling onto others 24/7. My humor is also a little skewed or just plain weird which in turn makes only me laugh so :(

7. What’s your favorite AU?

Used to be highschool au but soulmate au!!

8. What’s your favorite MV concept?

Cozy coffee shop concepts

9. Name a song that you want to dedicate to your ultimate bias and why?

Namjoon deserves a song telling him that he’s wonderful and worth it. That he’s perfectly imperfect and that it’s okay to not always be the role model he expects himself to be. That it’s okay to put himself before others so I would say A Little Too Much - Shawn Mendes even if it’s directed towards a female.

10. What languages do you speak?

English and halfway fluent in Spanish

11. Favorite line from a song.

oh no I have too many too choose from

12. Favorite book.

I really like Attachments by Rainbkw Rowell bc it’s not solely a story of romance. It’s also a story of personal growth and there’s good character development. Plus, there’s a nice mix of humor in it.

13. Favorite movie.

La La Land? Idk it’s hard for me to choose bc I don’t watch many movies but I liked La La Land bc it’s isn’t a cliché musical. Not to mention the gorgeous cinematography

14. What is your philosophy?

It’s okay to be selfish since at the end of the day the only person you’re stuck with is yourself.

15. Who’s your bias and why?

Assuming this means my ultimate bias, I’m gonna say Kim Namjoon because I see a lot of myself in him. (This is going to be long. Feel free to skip lol) He is someone who was expected to graduate at the top of his class and go into some boring office job and make as much money as he could but he said no. He refused to let himself be swallowed by the oppressive, demanding society where everyone is expected to be lawyers or doctors that South Korea developed. He recognized the faults of the system and fought against it through music. Yeah, he was aggressive and a bit cringey at first but that just makes him seem all the more real to me. I was the same way: trying to prove myself and be accepted. But he pushed through it and grew up. He matured and realized that that’s not who he is or who he wants to be. He’s an amazing leader and an amazing rapper and musician. He constantly out does himself and leaves me in awe each and every time he does something. Joon is also the guy who is expected to act one way but turns around and does the complete opposite while still being true to himself. Many people expect him to be all badass and tough when in reality he’s the type to scrunch up his nose and scream when something cute is happening. This man literally has his room filled with Ryan plushies and merch. He wears matching Ryan pajamas and yelled out of happiness when he was given a Ryan cake. He’s expected to not be affected by cliché scenes in dramas but screams and kicks his feet when he sees Jimin acting like a fuckboy with an older woman in an acting scene. Joon is the guy that everyone laughs at (lovingly of course) instead of laughing with him and he accepts it, letting everyone have their fun. Namjoon isn’t confident but he’s working on it. He’s trying to love himself and is constantly giving ARMY and Bangtan everything he has. Kim Namjoon is truly the biggest inspiration to me and if I knew him in real life, there’s no doubt that I’d actually be in love with him to the point where it’d pain me.

16. Are you the kind of friend you would want to have? If so, why?

I mean kinda? I’m a great listener and would love to play therapist if you ever need it but I’m also someone who likes to shut herself out from the world days at a time.

17. When you’re in a bad mood, do you prefer being alone or being with friends?

I’m never angry but I get sad a lot which is where I’d prefer being alone even if I know I’m only going to get myself sadder.

18. If you could start over, what would do differently?

I would try to not care so much. In my younger days, I would worry about everything and anything. That developed me into the person I am today: someone I’m not very proud of.

19. Favorite thing about your favorite thing?

He’s not a thing but his smile :)

20. What’s your favorite thing about yourself? Why?

Uhhh physically I would say my eye color. I kind of preen whenever someone mentions it lol. And as an actual person? My ability to get things done right and on time even if I have to ask for help.

21. What do you think is at the edge of the universe?

death. the inevitable death we all face

22. When you don’t like yourself, how do you make yourself feel better?

I honestly don’t do anything to make myself feel better. I kind of just wallow in the darkness and self pity and hatred and turn on depressing music. Sometimes I cry to myself and feel a little bit better that way.

I’m not going to tag anyone because the less people that see this depressing post, the better lololol

[illness-to-wellness]

Real quick, before I begin…

Shoutout to folks on meds that had unexpected and undesired side effects.

Shoutout to folks who gained weight as a side effect and had to get new clothes.

Shoutout to folks who got worse fatigue and needed to slow things down a bit.

Shoutout to folks who ended up with tremors or shakiness and are embarrassed by it.

Shoutout to people struggling with any side effects, seen and unseen.

Shoutout to all of you who are affected both negatively and positively by your meds. You’re beautiful, despite the side effects. You’re enough. You’re enough. You’re enough.

Links about building body positivity

Body positivity 101

Body-positive mantras

Body positivity tag on my Tumblr and on Pinterest

Cripple punk (disability-specific body positivity)

Fat-positive body positivity bloggers who fight fat-shaming

10 steps toward positive body image

“Jessica’s Daily Affirmation,” a precious YouTube video of a young girl who loves her body and life

Measure of Body Apperception (MBA) Scale and Self-Compassion Scale to help you understand where you score on self-kindness

Eating disorder recovery tips and general chronic physical illness and mental illness recovery tips

Carol Rossetti’s body positivity artwork, like the piece below

Carol Rossetti has amazing cartoon depictions of unexpected victories in body positivity and feminism like this.

Now, onto the promised content. Trigger warnings for weight/size mentions, food and calorie mentions, and before and after-style photos.

Maybe, somewhere in these words, you’ll find something that helps you on your journey to peace with your body, whether it’s riddled with chronic health problems or entirely healthy, because body positivity is hard, no matter who or where you are. This task of learning to have good body image in a body that’s not entirely under my control is a process, and I’m nowhere close to being done. However, I want to share what I’ve been coming to in my mind and in my conversations with my therapist.

I used to joke that my body positivity as someone who lives with multiple debilitating chronic health conditions was being able to say, “I like the way my body looks, just not the way it functions.” However, as I’m learning from some hard-fought experiences recently, this was a truly privileged thing to be able to say. Research confirms that many people with chronic health conditions struggle with body image more than their healthy peers do, and recently, I’ve been fighting with mine. I’ve been thrown for a loop due to the reality of taking medications with weight gain side effects, losing my “I can eat 5 desserts a day and not gain weight” metabolism from my teenage years, and growing into a more mature body after being rail-thin from late elementary school to early college.

[image description: A mirror with a ripped piece of paper that says “WARNING: Reflections in this mirror may be distorted by socially constructed ideas of ‘beauty'”.]

I grew 9 inches in 4th grade, and from there, I spent a decade being thin enough that many people asked me in hushed, yet slightly aggressive tones if I had an eating disorder – especially if they watched me eat, without any hesitation or fear, way over 3,000 calories a day. (My guess is that it was more like 3,500-4,000 on an average day.) No, I just had the metabolism of an athlete, even though I barely exercised.

I finally started growing into my more adult-looking body when I was around 19, and from there, I started gaining weight pretty consistently. I was joyful to no longer have my ribs be visible, and I didn’t mind any of the weight gain. In fact, I barely paid attention to it, except when at doctors’ appointments vitals checks. It was making me look like a mature woman after all of the years when I wished I could look anything like the women in my family, who were… quite differently proportioned than me. Yes, I was growing out of some of my old clothes, but I was growing into some exciting new clothing options that I hadn’t had before, and it wasn’t at a pace that seemed unstopping.

Over the next 3 years, I finally got diagnoses for the chronic physical and mental health problems I was struggling with, and I began to be medicated and start to feel at least somewhat better in many ways. Somewhere along the line, taking these medications, changing my diet, beginning to exercise, and continuing to mature into my adult body, I gained more than 55 pounds from my high school weight and I grew out of all of my clothes. Practically without even noticing, I had grown from a small to a large, a size 4 to a 10 or 12, and into a body that would not be classified anywhere as underweight – even moving from a 6-pack to a bit of visible stomach fat. That’s when I became a bit uncomfortable with my body’s size for the first time in my life (in a higher weight direction, that is; I had been quite uncomfortable with how thin I was when I was younger), and realized I wanted to stop gaining weight (so I could, you know, not grow out of the new wardrobe I’d be buying myself). I came to the reluctant realization that I would need to pay a bit of attention to how much I ate for the first time in my life in order to achieve that. I started feeling weird about my body in a way that I’d never felt weird before because of my personal history with being underweight.

More importantly than the weird feelings I’m having about my body sometimes, I want to share the authentic and even beautiful realizations that this strange time has brought me to.

I’m now realizing that some of the reasons I was so thin in my teenage years likely relate to the kinds of foods that I was eating and the heart problems from dysautonomia that I was beginning to experience. Firstly, when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I was advised to try eliminating gluten and dairy and seeing if that affected my pain. I was shocked by how noticeably it improved it, especially with dairy, and even more so, how much it improved my lifelong stomach issues. It’s likely that I wasn’t getting enough nutrients during my teenage years because food would go through my body too quickly. (Sorry for the TMI. It’s true, though). Now, when I follow my dietary restrictions, I actually digest food well, and my stomach doesn’t hate me (as much). Secondly, I also was likely dehydrated pretty constantly. One of the descriptors for the kind of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) I have is “hypovolemic,” meaning that I have naturally too-low blood volume. When I went to Mayo Clinic, I was formally diagnosed with POTS and was put on medications to help with water retention and vein constriction to that my autonomic nervous system wouldn’t feel as much a need to pump my heart so hard to get enough oxygenated blood where it needed to be. These medicines have well-known weight gain side effects (as do the psychiatric medications I’m on to help me live as stably as possible with mental health conditions). Due to the POTS medications, I feel so much less light-headed and have less trouble standing, walking, and thinking clearly. When looking at it that way, why would I ever want to go backward? 

I need to keep moving in the direction of health, and that is so much more important than a vague notion of wanting to fit in clothes from earlier in life or have a 6-pack again. I am dedicated to learning to love the shape of a body that feels better than it once did, rather than engage in bad eating habits or avoid medications that help me thrive, whereas before I just lived. This same thought can (and perhaps should be) true for people who are facing similar thoughts about a body that they cannot completely understand, control, or feel like they can accept: For people with chronic pain conditions who choose to use mobility devices to help themselves move more freely and painlessly in the world; with gastrointestinal conditions that caused a need for G-tubes or J-tubes; with large visible scars from surgeries or other reasons (I have a pretty cool one on my back from when I got a pre-melanoma removed); and so on. Though my body is deeply imperfect and filled with health issues, it can do so much, still. It takes me hiking. It brings me on the elliptical. It allows me to stand in front of a crowd and sing or speak. It laughs, cries, and lives wholeheartedly. It types, holds books, and makes music by pressing piano keys. It drives me to school, where I have the privilege of being a full-time grad student of divinity. My body’s functioning is far more important than its appearance, and that is true even though my body’s functioning is far from ideal. Even if my body could do none of these things, it would still be beautiful. My worth is not performative, and even enough I deeply wish that I had a different and better functioning body, its worth is not performative either.

Source.

Y’all, I’m not going to lie: It’s not a perfect process. Every time I tried on a piece of clothing (whether one of my older pieces or a cute possibility in a store) and it didn’t flatter my newer shape, it sucked and it made me feel like I was going backward rather than forward. It’s been really weird to watch what I eat for the first time in order to assure myself that I won’t grow out of the clothes that I just spent a good chunk of change and time (countless hours peering at the clothing racks in Marshalls, TJMaxx, and thrift shops) purchasing. However, my therapist encouraged me to start small, gentle, and broad rather than focusing on calorie counting or anything more intense in the same vein (since I have a tendency to be… kind of intense). The closest thing to calorie counting I decided to do was to look up my basal metabolic rate to see the approximate calories that I can eat, based on my age, height, weight, and activity level, and expect not to gain weight. It was more than I was expecting – score. My therapist also encouraged me to look up appropriate portion sizes (I found this handy wallet-sized guide) so I don’t overeat a ton by accident, and to write a list of some obviously “bad” and easy-to-target eating habits that I have. It doesn’t have to be intense for me to try to achieve the simple goals of not growing out of another set of clothes and continuing to find my way to peace with my body’s functioning and appearance.

These aren’t tricky; these are obvious. No one should be taking a spoon to a tub of frosting, no matter how delicious it may be. (No judgments allowed.)

I hope that these thoughts have been helpful for you in some way. I’m figuring my way out, and maybe you are too.

  Living with Chronic Illnesses and Working Toward Body Positivity Real quick, before I begin... Shoutout to folks on meds that had unexpected and undesired side effects.

[dimensionhoppingrose]

In My Veins (11/?)

Title: In My Veins Rating: K+ Pairing: Ten/Rose, human AU Summary: –Telepathic bond soulmate AU– Everyone kept saying kids couldn’t develop telepathic bonds, that it was completely impossible. John Smith and Rose Tyler defied the impossible.

Notes: Well I finally managed to hash out a soulmate AU enough to be happy with writing it. All the blame for this entire story goes to @lastbluetardis​, who not only encouraged it, but also allowed me to yell at her about it until I was happy enough to start writing it. Blame her entirely.

Read it on A03

Catch up on Tumblr

Warning For: Eating disorder, body image issues

John: 18; Rose: 16

Stop thinking.

John rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. I’m trying.

You’re not doing a very good job.

She was right. He was doing his best, but he was also freaking out. He was getting ready to go to university. Who wouldn’t be anxious about that?

I’m sorry, he said quietly. I can go, if you want.

No! Rose said quickly. I… I don’t want you to go. Please.

She hadn’t tried to block John out since they had reconciled, and John was grateful for that. It had been so lonely without her. He didn’t want to go through that again.

It was clear John wasn’t sleeping, so instead he turned on his bedside lamp and grabbed his sketchbook, drawing mindlessly. It was the fastest way to calm himself when he was thinking too much.

He felt Rose in the back of his head, relaxing a bit as he began drawing. Her presence was a warm, comforting glow, and he was so happy to have it back.

Are you mad at me? Rose asked quietly after a moment. John hesitated, pencil pausing. He couldn’t lie. Rose would know. One of the downsides of having her in his head. And it was hard to deny that things had been… awkward between them since Rose had begun talking to him again. It was unavoidable.

I’m… I’m not mad. That was the truth. I… don’t really know how to explain how I feel, honestly. There were a lot of feelings. He couldn’t put them all into words.

I know I was horrible to you, Rose said. You didn’t deserve that.

I am sorry I broke our promise, John replied. But I didn’t have a choice, Rose. You were killing yourself.

I know. Which didn’t stop the slight flare of annoyance that ran through Rose. I know. I just… I hate being here so much.

I know you do. But you need to be.

Rose was quiet for a moment. We’re not talking about me, she said finally, quietly. I asked about you.

John sighed. I’m just… it hurt, Rose. A lot. When you weren’t talking to me. And I don’t just mean physically. Although the headaches had been brutal.

I know being angry isn’t an excuse, Rose said, and John felt a wave of sadness. You didn’t deserve that. And I am sorry. I honestly am.

I know you are. She couldn’t lie, after all.

And even if she could, John would have believed her anyways.

* * * * * * * *

“I see you’ve been doing much better with eating,” Rose’s therapist said, and Rose ducked her head, staring at the floor.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. It was still hard — her brain was still trying to count the calories in every single thing she ate, and ignoring it was hard. But she was trying. And she was eating.

And that was something.

“Why the sudden change?” It wasn’t exactly a secret that Rose had been… resistant to any and all treatment in the hospital. She’d ate because the alternative was ending up with an IV in her arm (and needles terrified her), but it had been the bare minimum and even then it had been unwilling.

Having John back was… helping, though. It was far from a cure, but John… made her feel better. And made her want to be better.

“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to talk about John. She had more or less avoided it up to this point — it wasn’t a door she wanted to open — and if she could get out of this place without ever mentioning John’s name, then great. John had told her about his experience at the doctor’s, and that wasn’t something she wanted to deal with until she absolutely had to.

And she knew she would have to eventually.

I’m back, Rose said quietly as she left the therapist’s office. John tried really hard not to pay attention during therapy, recognizing that it was Rose’s time. He didn’t know how to fully block her out the way Rose had done to him, and honestly Rose was glad about that. She never wanted to go through that kind of separation again.

It had been too much.

You alright? John asked at once. Rose believed he really did his best not to listen. But it was hard.

Yeah… I’ll live. I just want to get out of here.

I know you do.

Rose went back to her room, sighing as she collapsed into bed. Her parents’ were definitely getting their money’s worth this place. But it was still a hospital, and Rose was still trapped here.

And she wanted to go home.

Rose? John asked quietly. Why did you stop eating?

He had never asked. Rose had honestly assumed he knew. But then again, knowing and understanding were two very different things.

I… I was scared, she mumbled, curling up tight in bed. I mean, I’m not really that pretty, and if I’m fat too, then…

What are you talking about? John asked in disbelief. You’re beautiful!

A small, sad smile pulled at Rose’s lips. No I’m not. But thanks.

Of course you are, John insisted.

You’ve only seen the stupid pictures in magazines. Rose spent hours being made to look pretty for those.

That’s not true. You sent me pictures, remember? I love them. You’re my backgound on my phone.

… Rose didn’t know what to say to that. She had completely forgotten about the stupid selfies she and John had sent each other. Really?

Of course.

Tears filled Rose’s eyes, and she wiped them quickly. If it had been anyone else, she would have assumed they were lying just to make her feel better.

But it was John, and he couldn’t lie to her. She could feel the absolute sincerity in his words, could hear the slight awe in his voice as he insisted on how beautiful she was.

He couldn’t lie to her. She would know if he tried.

You really think so? She asked all the same. After all, he had pretty girls practically falling over him all the time. It seemed impossible to think that he really believed she was pretty.

Of course I do.

He wasn’t lying.

* * * * * * * *

It was another two months — making it seven months total — before Rose was finally released from the hospital. She still had to go back once a week for therapy, and she had to have regular doctor’s appointments to monitor her health, but for the most part she could return to her regular life.

She couldn’t wait.

John had been busy most of the morning, which disappointed Rose, but she understood, of course. He had a life.

Jackie and Pete finished up all the paperwork, Rose packed her belongings, and they headed out. Rose was bouncing, thrilled to finally be able to leave. She couldn’t wait to go home, or even to see her brother again. How could she be so happy to see Tony? That didn’t seem possible.

Hey, look to your left.

Rose paused as she walked out of the hospital with her parents, the request understandably baffling. But after a moment she complied.

And her heart jumped.

There was John. Standing in front of a bench, his hands in his pockets, watching her anxiously. Rose’s mouth fell open, and for a moment she stared at John, completely stunned.

What’re you…

Just wanted to see you.

That snapped Rose out of her stupor, and she bolted toward John, throwing her arms around him. John caught her and practically lived her off the ground in his exuberance, laughing.

He gave really good hugs.

* * * * * * * *

Rose was rightfully suspicious when Jackie and Pete offered John a ride home. Not that her parents were horrible or anything, but there was something off about the offer.

As it turned out, Rose’s suspicions were one-hundred percent correct.

“Is your aunt home?” Pete asked John as they pulled up in front of John’s house. It was cute. Rose would’ve loved living in a place like this.

“Yeah…” John said slowly, realizing he probably should’ve just taken the bus.

“Could we meet her?”

Oh boy. John sighed inwardly, and he could feel Rose’s distrust in the back of his head. She didn’t like this, either. “Sure,” John said all the same, climbing out of the car. Rose frowned as she followed suit, reaching to take John’s hand. He smiled a bit, intertwining their fingers.

“Aunt Sarah?” He called nervously as he led Rose and her parents inside.

“Upstairs,” Sarah Jane called back.

“Um, could you come here? Please?”

“That doesn’t sound good.” There was a pause, then Sarah Jane came downstairs, pausing when she saw their company. “Um…”

“Pete Tyler.” Pete introduced himself with a smile, stepping forward to shake Sarah Jane’s hand. “This is my wife, Jackie, and our daughter, Rose. I’m sorry for just dropping in like this, but we were in the neighborhood.”

Sarah Jane gave John a look, eyes flitting to his and Rose’s intertwined fingers. “Sarah Jane Smith, and not a problem at all. A meeting is probably overdue anyways, considering how long our kids have known each other.”

Rose and John both blushed, ducking their heads. “Why don’t you two go upstairs so we can talk?” Sarah Jane suggested. “We’ll talk in the kitchen.”

“Sounds good,” John said quickly, pulling Rose to the stairs. He wanted to be away from her parents for a while. They were intimidating.

“This is my room,” John said with a flourish as he led Rose into his bedroom. It was a mess, as usual. He hadn’t really been expecting company. Rose flopped down on the bed, looking around.

“It’s nice,” she said honestly, and John snorted.

“Well it’s not quite a mansion…”

“I’d rather live here,” Rose said. The mansion was huge — way too big for only four of them. There was nothing personal or home-y about it. This, on the other hand, was a proper home.

John hurried to his desk, pulling out the binder he’d kept for Rose’s birthday drawings. “Now seems like a good time to give you these,” he said, a bit shyly, as he went to sit beside Rose, handing her the binder. Rose’s eyes lit up.

“Is this for me?”

“Is your name Rose?” John teased. She giggled as she opened it, and her eyes widened.

“Oh John…”

“That one isn’t that good,” John said quickly, turning the page. “They get better.”

“They’re all amazing,” Rose insisted. “How’d you know what I looked like before you saw a picture of me?” The early ones were amazingly accurate.

“I’m not sure,” John admitted. “I just sort of… knew. Like I knew you had blonde hair, and I knew your eyes were brown. Stuff like that.”

“That’s weird,” Rose said thoughtfully. “I wonder if it has something to do with the bond.”

“I don’t know. That’s what I thought too.”

Rose went through the entire binder twice, drinking in the details of every drawing. It was amazing. John was so talented.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” John asked after a moment, looking out his door and toward the stairs.

“Who knows.” Rose shook her head. She had no idea how her parents felt about the bond. They could have been talking about anything.

“Want to find out?”

Rose looked at John, and after a moment they both grinned before creeping toward the stairs.

“…Just don’t think it’s a good idea—”

“With all due respect, Mr. Tyler,” Sarah Jane interrupted Pete evenly. “I don’t think it really matters what you think. You can’t make this bond go away.”

“I’m just not sure it’s healthy,” Pete insisted. “Rose is extremely fragile—”

“She’s a human being, she’s not made of glass, and this bond has existed for years. It’s not like it’s something new.”

“So you approve of this?” Jackie demanded.

“I don’t think my thoughts on the situation particularly matter,” Sarah Jane pointed out. “Am I happy they hid it for years? Of course not. But that’s in the past, and getting huffy about it now isn’t going to do any good. You can’t just throw money at it and make it go away. They have a telepathic bond, and you can’t break that.”

“I’m not saying I want to break the bond,” Pete replied with a hint of impatience. “But I don’t think it should necessarily determine their entire future. People can have soulmate bonds and not end up with the people they’re bonded with. I did.”

Rose blinked, biting her lip to keep herself from making a surprised noise. She hadn’t known that.

“I think that’s up to them, not you,” Sarah Jane pointed out.

“Do they know that, though? They deserve to have options. Rose has never even gone on a date. Has John?”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes, it does. If they’ve already decided they want to be together without exploring their options—”

“Then that’s their choice, not yours.”

“As long as they know it’s a choice and not an obligation.”

Rose and John exchanged looks, frowning. They had never really talking about their relationship, or what they wanted for the future. It had never come up.

But they had a feeling they wouldn’t be able to avoid it for much longer.

“They’re not children anymore,” Sarah Jane said. “They’re perfectly aware they have free will, and that’s a discussion they need to have their own. I’m not going to force them to do anything. Are you?”

“I’m not going to force Rose to do anything,” Pete said. “I just want her to be happy, and it’s clear that she hasn’t been for a long time.”

“That is not John’s fault.”

“You know,” Rose said loudly, and John jumped. “If you were going to try and figure out our future for us, you could’ve let us know. Or should we just go away until you’re done planning everything out?”

“Rose—” John started to say, but Rose pushed herself up before he could stop her, hurrying downstairs and out the front door. John sighed as he stood and went downstairs, peeking into the kitchen.

“Should’ve known you’d be listening,” Sarah Jane said dryly.

“You were talking about us,” John pointed out. “I think we deserve to know what you’re saying.”

He didn’t look at Rose’s parents as he turned to go find Rose. What they’d said had bothered him. He loved Rose, he knew he did. He would have fallen in love with her no matter how they’d met.

They just had more time together this way.

Rose hadn’t gone far, at least. She was sitting on the sidewalk outside the house, staring blankly at the ground. “They’re always doing that,” she mumbled as John sat with her. “They’re always trying to plan out my life for me and acting like I don’t know what’s best for myself.”

John wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she curled into him, letting out a long breath. “Sometimes I wish we were just regular people,” she mumbled. “If we weren’t rich they wouldn’t act this way.”

“They’re just worried,” John said despite himself. He hated playing Devil’s advocate considering how unhappy he was with the conversation they’d heard. But he didn’t want Rose to hate her parents either.

“I don’t need them to worry, I need them to support me.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Rose’s parents came out, clearly intending to search for her themselves. They paused when they saw her sitting right outside the house.

“Rose?” Jackie called. “We’re leaving.”

Rose curled tighter into John before sighing and pushing herself up. “Fine,” she mumbled. Talk later?

Absolutely.

She made her way silently to the car. John stayed outside and watched the car pull away.

* * * * * * * *

“We’re just worried about you, Rose—”

“Why? Because I have someone who cares about me?” Rose asked fiercely. “And I’m not fragile.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Pete insisted.

“Yes, you did.”

“Rose,” Jackie cut in quietly. “Do you love John?”

The question brought Rose up short. Did she love John? He made her feel good, she missed him when she wasn’t around, and she loved having this bond with him and being able to talk to him whenever she wanted. The months she hadn’t been talking to him had killed her, and she never wanted to go through that again.

But she also knew there was no right way to answer that question. Either she said yes, and her parents insisted she didn’t know what she was talking about. Or she said no, and her parents used it against her.

She wasn’t going to win.

“John’s important to me,” is what she finally settled for.

“And we’re not saying there’s anything wrong with that,” Pete replied. “But don’t you think you need more people in your life besides him?”

“Like who? No one wants to be friends with me because I’m your daughter. Or they do want to be friends with me because I’m your daughter.” She didn’t mean to sound so scathing — or maybe she did. This had been building up for a long time. “John wants me. What’s wrong with that?”

“We’re not saying it’s wrong. We just don’t want you to feel like you have to settle—”

Rose stood up abruptly, storming out of the room. She had known it was going to come to that sooner or later. John was beneath Rose. That was the problem at the end of the day. Her parents could act like it was concern for her all they wanted, but the only thing they were worried about was their status and how it would look to the public if she dated a commoner.

I don’t think that’s entirely it, John spoke up quietly. I do think they’re worried about you.

Maybe, Rose huffed as she threw herself into bed, curling up tight. It was nice, at least, to be back in her own bed. I don’t need them to worry about me.

You’re hard not to worry about sometimes, John said. Rose sighed, burying her face in her pillow.

Yeah. I guess.

[sissy-richie]

I've got to say it's nice to finaly be back at work again after my vacation time, I got to say it never feels like it's ever long enough.

  I've really come to love my job as head nurse on the north wing, since they've moved me to the night shift it came with more responsibilities as well as better pay.  The paediatrics floor is a high paced usaly, but night shift is definitely less active than the day shift.

  Since this covid virus, things have really changed as how the procedures are run at the hospital, and how the procedures have become a lot stricter on the pediatric floor with patient care.

  I have to pay extra attention that I'm doing my best to protecting my family and friends, and not exposing them to any harm.

  I am not as concerned any more about Betty having to help with the care of Chloe, the two of them have become a lot closer lately.

  It seams as soon as Betty comes home from work the first thing she does is to check on Chloe.

  At least I am still able to take Chloe to her doctor's appointments, and it is fun the time I have with Chloe, being able to take her window shopping with me after her appointments.

  It seams Chloe has started to become a lot more at ease with being out in public now. Compared  to before.

  It is still a challenge getting Chloe to use her wheelchair, but Chloe is getting alot better about using her wheelchair.

  I believe with taking Chloe places she has developed a lot of trust in me, that I won't let anything happen to her.

  We've been seeing and getting all sorts of ideas for Chloe's nursery as well as the rest of house. Instead of just shrugging and mumbling she's starting to giggle and babble on with me about my ideas.

  Before Chloe seamed to be so secretive about herself, now its like she doesn't care.

  I'll have to be very careful in what is said aloud, because people can be so hurtful with how they can perceive things.

  Chloe has been teaching me to use her embroidery designer suite software for her embroidery machine.

  Chloe has a really nice sewing room with four different machines. With what she has Chloe doesn't have many limitations with what a person can make.

  It was really hard at first but now I've been having fun making different embroidery designs.

  We've made several cute appliques for Chloe's clothes, as well as I've monogramed several of her tops.

  I just made Chloe a pink lace canopy for her crib that I am putting little butterfly's and glow in the dark stars on.

  I should have it done by Saturday or Sunday, I hope Chloe likes it.

  Between Betty and Chloe my life is contentedly fuller, not in the bad way either, as I was expecting.

  I do have to say Chloe was a unexpected extra on us, but I have learned so much expecialy from Chloe, and now from Betty's coworker Martin and his wife Wendy.

  I have had a major misconception thinking that anyone that was living in this lifestyle was doing it for sexual pleasure not for therapeutic reasions.

  I could never live like this myself, but I have found now that some people use this as a creative way to escape from the stress in their lives.

  It has taken some time for me to except or to even to see how Chloe uses this way that she lives to help her to except the things that have happened to her.

  If this is working to help Chloe to except her injuries and how they've made her change how she has to live, then who am I to judge her, or anyone.

  Looking back at this as I've seen with Chloe, I had the pretense that this was a sick choice of lifestyle, and always questioned the importance of this.

  I will always have a deepest love for Chloe not in the way Betty and I have but more in the way of her being my friend, and sister.

  This last weekend I learned so much, and it was expecialy nice to see Chloe have so much fun, and have the interaction with someone else.

  I have no idea what happened in Wendy's life, nor am I going judge her for how she chooses to live.

  If it helps her as it seams to have helped Chloe to escape, and it isn't causing self harm or hurting anyone else then I really can't judge them.

  When Betty went back to work Martin thanked her for allowing them to come over this last weekend and mentioned that they don't get a chance to get out much.

  Well from what Betty told me they want to take the three of us out to lunch Saturday afternoon at Pizza Ranch.

  Betty told me that they are comming over earlier so Chloe and Wendy could have some fun first, and if the weather is better taking the girls up to this small lake on Sunday to let them have some fun.

 

  Apairently Wendy couldn't stop talking about her time at Chloe's house and having fun with Chloe. It still stuns me that Wendy calls Chloe her baby sister.

  After Chloe's last therapy appointment, I can see why Chloe doesn't want to see her therapist anymore.

  Chloe seams to become very upset after every appointment with her therapist.

  I thought the purpose of seeing a therapist it was their responsibility to help you to see where the complications were in your life and beside helping you to identify them, it was to help you to except then and to work through them. Not bring you in and judge you.

  It usaly takes me a little time to get Chloe to calm down, Chloe seams to be more at ease with me and expecialy when we go shopping or have lunch together, after her appointments.

  But I'm still concerned that these appointments are leaving her so upset, I'm not shure exactly how this is suppose to help her, I'm not allowed to be in their sessions, but I do have my own meetings, before and after each session with her therapist.

  Chloe's therapist has mentioned or should I say asked me if I'm becoming Chloe's mother. This made me some what mad, and I let her know in no uncertain terms that Chloe has some serious medical problems and as Chloe's sister I am doing nothing more than any responsible family member should. If it means I have to do certain things then if it helps Chloe I will do it.

  I am concerned about some of the things Chloe has done that could put her health at risk, but this therapist I am having second thoughts about.

  Some of Chloe's blood work has come back in, and Chloe isn't going to be able to continue HRT therapy any more. So to have her body and mind back in balance is out of the question for now, I guess it will be more Betty and I supporting Chloe.

  Chloe's vitamin D levals are also low so Chloe will have to take supplements.  I think her levals are low because she hasn't been going outside much, and she been staying mainly in her house, not to mention Chloe's has not been eating balanced meals like she should. This is another reason that she should be getting out more.

  Chloe has to see neurology and a couple of other specialists because her primary care physician is feeling that Chloe might be dealing with Parkinson's disease.

  That would explain her severe tremors and slurred speech as well as her forgetting directions that were given to her.

  If this is the case Chloe will need both Betty's and my support, and to have others in her life more than ever as she goes through the different stages if this is what's she has.

  The suspicion of Parkinson's is a very serious matter, that as it progresses can increase depression in a person.

  I can only imagine all the different thoughts that Chloe will have if she has to deal with any more medical prolbems.

  I am already trying to find ways to keep Chloe distracted and busy to build her self confidence.

  Last night was the first time in a while I have been able to laugh and have a good time.

   Betty and I met Martin and Wendy at Pizza Ranch for dinner. Before either Betty or I could get Chloe out of the van Wendy was right there waiting for Chloe. Wanting to take charge of Chloe.

  Chloe was smiling immediately when she seen Wendy.

  I think the couple that were across from us may of thought Chloe was mentally challenged when they seen Wendy fussing over Chloe.

  They were smiling every time they glanced over and seen Wendy tending to Chloe.

  They left the same time we did and his wife picked up Wendy's purse when she dropped it and handed it to her and told Wendy she was really sweet the way she was tending to Chloe.

  Wendy told them that her sister was her best friend and thanked them.

  Wendy had a smile on her face no one could wipe off.

  Betty and Martin agreed that Sunday was going to be to cool for the lake and I made the subjection that they were welcomed over for the day and the girls could play at Chloe's house, so today we'll see how it goes again.

  Sunday went well Wendy started helping with all of Chloe's care and changes, just as I was having problems with Chloe's leg and hip braces Wendy is finding it quite challenging also.

  Chloe appeared a little reluctant with   Wendy changing her but Chloe has excepted Wendy stepping in to do this.

  Martin told me that he didnt want to pry into Chloe's personal life, but he asked Betty and I about what had happened to Chloe, so I explained everything that Chloe had been through.

  Martin didn't relise that Chloe was a male physically, till I explained about her steps going through transition, and the accident taking it all away from her.

  It seams that Martin has been awakened the same as Betty was, and can understand why Chloe has decided on her lifestyle she's chosen.

  It's nice when you can have people come over that don't judge someone for the choices in life.

   I'm just too busy that I really don't have the time to post as often as I'd like, so I'll just try to post once a week

This way if I can get Chloe to express her feelings she will see all the positive feeds I've made on her behalf, and may see how much we've all grown.

[thedrowsydoormouse]

As per tradition, @anangelamuse-castiel-spnfam answered all the asks and now I will, too.

1. Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora? 

Spotify.

2. is your room messy or clean?

Organized chaos

3. what color are your eyes?

Blue

4. do you like your name? why?

I hate the name I was born with but love the name I go by now.

5. what is your relationship status?

Happily taken.

6. describe your personality in 3 words or less

Queer glitter goth

7. what color hair do you have?

Deep purple red

8. what kind of car do you drive? color?

None.

9. where do you shop?

Pretty much anywhere I can find cute black clothes.

10. how would you describe your style?

Goth time traveler who keeps forgetting what year it is.

11. favorite social media account

Tumblr.

12. what size bed do you have?

Queen

13. any siblings?

Two sisters and a brother.

14. if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?

Ney York because it was the only place I’ve been that instantly felt like home.

15. favorite snapchat filter?

I don’t use snapchat.

16. favorite makeup brand(s)

Blackmoon, Urban Decay, Milk, Lime Crime.

17. how many times a week do you shower?

Every day

18. favorite tv show?

Doctor Who. (It was Supernatural but I broke up with it because of artistic differences. I saw Jack as alive, they saw him dead. And yes, that was a Chicago reference.)

19. shoe size?

US women’s 10.

20. how tall are you?

6′ 1/2″

21. sandals or sneakers?

Strap-y sandals with a decent sized wedge.

22. do you go to the gym?

Never.

23. describe your dream date

Disneyland during the Halloween season complete with a crap ton of special snacks and shopping for all the Haunted Mansion and Nightmare Before Christmas merch my little spooky heart can handle!

24. how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?

$35 in cash plus some gift cards that I have no idea how much is on them. And a 20% coupon for Sephora.

25. what color socks are you wearing?

None.

26. how many pillows do you sleep with?

Five or more.

27. do you have a job? what do you do?

Nope.

28. how many friends do you have?

No clue. Mostly because almost none of them ever actually talk to me.

29. whats the worst thing you have ever done?

Been indirectly responsible for the deaths of at least 3 people and the end of countless other marriages. And possibly one other person needing open heart surgery but the jury is still out on that one.

30. whats your favorite candle scent?

It’s called White Barn #1 and it smells like Halloween but more mature and a little bit musty.

31. 3 favorite boy names

Jack, Bucky, Stu

32. 3 favorite girl names

Marilyn, Olivia, Wednesday

33. favorite actor?

Doug Jones

34. favorite actress?

Marilyn Monroe

35. who is your celebrity crush?

Right now it’s Sebastian Stan, Alex Calvert, Hale Appleman, and Taron Egerton.

36. favorite movie?

Princess Bride.

37. do you read a lot? whats your favorite book?

I used to but now I don’t have enough spoons.

38. money or brains?

Why not both?

39. do you have a nickname? what is it?

I have several but I can’t mention them because they’re “private”! ;)

40. how many times have you been to the hospital?

None.

41. top 10 favorite songs

I can’t pick just 10.

42. do you take any medications daily?

CBD oil.

43. what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)

Combination.

44. what is your biggest fear?

A giant spider clown doll on Christmas. And the threat of being killed by a mass shooter during the impending nuclear apocalypse.

45. how many kids do you want?

None.

46. whats your go to hair style?

Half bun, half ponytail secured with a clip. or a side braid.

47. what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc)

Decent sized.

48. who is your role model?

Myself.

49. what was the last compliment you received?

My mom said I’m really good at cooking salmon. Which is random but true.

50. what was the last text you sent?

I had to text my address to my therapist.

51. how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real?

Third grade.

52. what is your dream car?

A motorcycle.

53. opinion on smoking?

Disgusting and an instant deal breaker.

54. do you go to college?

I dropped out the week before my 21st birthday.

55. what is your dream job?

Acting in a musical on Broadway that hopefully gets nominated for a Tony.

56. would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?

The city.

57. do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?

Always.

58. do you have freckles?

Tons of them (I’m like 66% Irish. We’re covered in the things.)

59. do you smile for pictures?

Depends on the picture but I look better when I don’t.

60. how many pictures do you have on your phone?

Fuck if I know. But I know it’s an even number. It’s always an even number.

61. have you ever peed in the woods?

Regrettably. 

62. do you still watch cartoons?

Who doesn’t?

63. do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds?

Neither.

64. Favorite dipping sauce?

Ranch.

65. what do you wear to bed?

Sweat shorts and a tank top in the warm months, sweats and an over-sized sweater in the cold months.

66. have you ever won a spelling bee?

I’m not a nerd.

67. what are your hobbies?

Drinking, cooking, baking, being super judge-y, daydreaming about Halloween, the usual queer goth stuff.

68. can you draw?

Not according to some of my college art teachers but then again they couldn’t draw either so who knows.

69. do you play an instrument?

Nope.

70. what was the last concert you saw?

Sugar Ray. I got to hang out backstage and dance in the wings because I know the lead singer.

71. tea or coffee?

Tea.

72. Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

Neither.

73. do you want to get married?

I am.

74. what is your crush’s first and last initial?

JA

75. are you going to change your last name when you get married?

I technically did but not to my husband’s name because we both picked a new name.

76. what color looks best on you?

Red, black, and green but only if they’re vibrant. Fuck pastels and muted colors.

77. do you miss anyone right now?

Everyone I would miss is in the same room as me.

78. do you sleep with your door open or closed?

Open just a crack.

79. do you believe in ghosts?

Considering I have a broken door jam and a messed up ankle after being attacked by one I’d say yes.

80. what is your biggest pet peeve?

Bigotry.

81. last person you called`

My mom to give her my food order for dinner.

82. favorite ice cream flavor?

It was called Dublin Mudslide and it was amazing but sadly it’s in the flavor graveyard now.

83. regular oreos or golden oreos?

Neither.

84. chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

Chocolate.

85. what shirt are you wearing?

Super old black tank with a faded union jack and a bunch of holes in it.

86. what is your phone background?

Jack Kline laying on his back being a total cutie!

87.are you outgoing or shy?

Shy until I feel comfortable. Then I never shut up.

88. do you like it when people play with your hair?

Only certain people.

89. do you like your neighbors?

I just met the people who are moving in next door and they’re super nice but I hate everyone else in the neighborhood.

90. do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?

At night before bed.

91. have you ever been high?

I’m high right now.

92. have you ever been drunk?

Earlier today.

93. last thing you ate?

Half an impossible burger and some onion rings.

94. favorite lyrics right now

Don’t let me mean nothing or just pass away/ Just give me tomorrow, forever, today.

95. summer or winter?

Fall

96. day or night?

Night

97. dark, milk, or white chocolate?

Milk

98. favorite month?

October

99. what is your zodiac sign

Sagittarius

100. who was the last person you cried in front of?

My friend, James.

[connorsimpson]

Media Diet: Jolie Kerr

This interview was recorded in February, 2014 for a Media Diet feature on The Atlantic Wire. It was condensed and edited for clarity. Jolie is now a podcaster, a New York Times columnist, and a Patreon contributor. She was promoting her first book. 

How do people deal with the torrent of information pouring down on us all? What sources can't they live without? We regularly reach out to prominent figures in media, entertainment, politics, the arts, and the literary world to hear their answers. This is drawn from a conversation with Jolie Kerr, the Ask a Clean Person columnist, and author of My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag . . . and Other Things You Can't Ask Martha, which comes out this week. 

So I'm going to tell you there are two that I love, love, love love. I love Family Circle. Feel free to use this, because I don't hide this at all. Maybe like eight or so years ago, I was in pretty intensive therapy for severe depression. Saved my life, blah blah blah, but the best part of therapy — other than having my life saved — was they always had copies of Family Circle in the waiting room. And my therapist was a chronically late person, so I always got there early so I'd have all this extra time to read issue after issue of Family Circle. I've always been like this. I'm not normal. So Family Circle is like, whatever you think of Family Circle is right. It's a grandma magazine. (This is not the comic strip.) Its competitors would be Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, all that. What I call Grey Hair Ladies Magazines. Or, possibly better would be like Mom Khakis Magazines. (I don't wear Mom Khakis.) Of those titles — I read all of them, I love them — Family Circle is definitely a long time favorite. Redbook, on the other hand — Kathy Griffin talks about this in one of her stand up specials, that she was asked to do an interview with Redbook and she was like, "uh, Redbook, do you know I am? I don't think you want that," but then she went and read Redbook, and she was like, "Woah! This is not my Grandmother's Redbook!" — so Redbook has pivoted a little bit, and it's still for that core audience of like, I would say, I don't know how they define it, that 35-60 or whatever, the middle-aged generation. But they're much more modern about that generation. Like, they have sex articles, you know what I mean? I know! I KNOW! Redbook! It's frickin' great. The other ones, I think, are still staid. They're trying to kind of evolve, of course they have to, but they're a little bit more staid. But yeah, Redbook. Good for Redbook.

I open email and then Twitter and then Facebook, in that order. Email because I always want to check, file and organize anything that comes in after my 9 pm curfew. So if it's Ask a Clean Person questions, I read them. I file them. I have a file for all my Clean Person questions. I read every question, I do. And then, you know, dash off emails to friends. One of my best friends lives in Australia, so a lot of time when I wake up in the morning he has sent me links and cute videos, blah blah blah. So then I open Twitter and immediately have a panic attack, and then I open Facebook because it makes me less panicky.

I hide people on Facebook all the time. I realized that if I have negative thoughts about someone, I hide them. Because that's not nice, it's not nice to have negative thoughts about people. I just kind of scan Facebook and then by the time I'm done that I'm ready to face Twitter. I'm really compulsive, like, I have to go all the way back through my timeline until I hit the very last tweet I read before my 9 pm curfew. I am constantly re-evaluating what and who I'm following. So right now I follow about 150 accounts. I keep it really low. It's a mental health thing. I get very easily overwhelmed. A lot of this cleaning stuff comes from the fact that I'm very easily overwhelmed, so keeping things clean and in order helps me to control that. You know how you can go into someone's account and turn off so you don't see when they're retweeting things? Like, contstanly doing that. That's like a daily activity for me. Just beacuse it's like, oh god, there's so much to read, what did I miss. It's the fear of missing out. Of course I rationally know. It's just feels like so much, which it never really is. 

If I didn't go through Twitter the way I do, I would have missed this New York Times story, "Do Curlers Make Good Housekeepers?" It was posted last night, at some point after 9 pm Eastern.

My commute is, I get out of bed and sit at my kitchen table so usually during my commute I'm not consuming any media. I don't have a cable connection — we have a TV with an Apple TV connection, and that's it. I don't watch any live TV or anything like that. All of my news is online. Everything is online. I think the only thing I still read in print is Vanity Fair. It's just like, an old habit of mine, to read Vanity Fair in print. I had a subscription to Texas Monthly. That was the last magazine subscription I had, which was great. I loved it in print because of all the little weird ads in the back. They were so great, and Texas, and weird, and like, blah blah blah. I still read paper books, though. I haven't switched to kindle or anything like that. That's my one weird hold out.

You know, maybe two thirds of my day is working. Either that's writing, following up on press requests, dealing with stuff with my publisher, that kind of stuff. The other part of my day is, you know, so my cleaning, cooking, going to the grocery store. On some days, generally it's Wednesdays and Fridays, are my laundry days, so those days in the afternoon I pack up the laptop, pack up the laundry. I go down to my laundromat, get the laundry started and sit at my corner bar and work from my corner bar. That's a typical day.

I have a 9 PM curfew for any interactive or social media. At 9 PM, off goes email, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr — I don't really use Tumblr any more, but I used to use Tumblr — anything that I can have any interaction with people. I'll catch up on anything that I snooped during the day that I didn't have time to read. Katie Baker's stuff on Grantland is a good example of stuff that, when I see it come up on Twitter, I say, "save that for tonight to read in bed." If I get through all that stuff really fast, or don't have any stuff to catch up on, I go to the Longform tabs page and cruise through the tags and like, "oh, tonight I'd like to read about organzied crime. Let me see what they have." They never have enough about organized crime! I'm always like, "come on!" I'm an organzied crime junkie. 

I'm obsessed with Deadspin. I love sports gossip! There's so much frickin'.... sports culture is hilarious to me. I was this way in college too. I really like men's magazines. I don't read a lot of women's titles beyond those "old lady" titles, which, a lot of that I do because of what I do for work. But in terms of general interest stuff, I read a lot of Esquire, GQ, Details, Deadspin. I'm a frat boy at heart.

I was totally sorority girl. I was the hair-bow-wearing pledge mom of Kappa Alpha Beta. I went to Barnard College, of Columbia University. Let's detour for a minute and talk about my parents sending my to New York when I was 18. Me, of all people. People are always like, "you're so clean. How do you know how to do all this stuff?" Um, pleeease, I was a party girl. I'm older now, and all that stuff. But I was a paaarty giiirl. For sure. A lot of knowing how to clean this stuff came out of like, living through making the messes. Or if I didn't make them myself I was at parties where someone had to clean the barf off the floor and guess who was doing that? Pledge mooom! Pledge mom Jolie. That's where a lot of the empathy for the column comes from. I was always the person who cleaned up someone else's barf that needs cleaning up. Like, people barf! It's OK! Barf happens. I barf! I don't like barfing. I'm a bad barfer. But, you know, yeah!

Used bike shorts comes to mind. It was an early column. Personally, as Jolie, the idea of used bike shorts is horrifying but when I sit and think about it for two seconds I feel badly that I’ve even said that because I understand that those things are expensive and I understand that someone might need to buy those second hand, you know what I mean? And then it's like, "you're being a bitch. Don't be a bitch." I wouldn't want someone to be bitchy to me! I told them how to clean them. I zipped my lip. I think I opened it with a note, like, "let's just put aside whether you should or should not buy these. They were already purchased. What are we gonna do? We're gonna clean them." [Setting aside personal hangups] is the most important part of my job.

You can get cleaning advice a ton of other places. I'm not the first person to dispense cleaning adivce. The difference is two things. One, is the Q&A format. You're reading the stories behind how the messes were made. A number of people aren't doing that! And that's the fun of it. That's why people wanna read the column, it's funny. But the other thing is that people know when they come to me that they're not gonna get judged. They're not gonna be kicked around for a choice they've made — good, bad, ugly, whatever. I'm just here to help.

The other thing is, people are always like, "oh, I'm so scared to have you in my home." And like, I don't care if you don't make your bed every day! It's not my bed. I don't live in your home. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to me if you don't do your dishes. But it you want to know how to do your dishes, I'm here to help. If you want to know why I think you should make your bed every day, I'm here to tell you. But I'm not here to jam anything down anyone’s throat, for crying out loud.

I am not a doctor. I don't want to cross the line into encouraging people to write to me thinking I can offer psychological help or anything. So I never run those type of questions but I always write back personally to those people. I offer to help, and acknowledge that they've written to me, and ask if they're seeking out professional help. I feel that there's some responsibility on my end if someone comes to me. I've had people who are cutters write to me. So what they're writing to me about, is they're asking about blood stains, and I'll say, "ok, here is a researched body of work about blood stains that I'm sending to you for help, but also you have now told me you're engaging in behaviour and I wanna make sure that you are seeking help, have help, if not, can I give you some resources? Can I encourage you to seek help?" And again, oftentimes, I'll share and say, "I don't think I should run this question." And I'll tell them that, "This is a problem I've had and you're talking to someone who understands, so please seek help if you can. Things can be better. Things can get better." Things are better for me. 

The things I read most often other than the big magazines is, like. I love a regional interest title, so like Garden and Gun, or Texas Monthly. I love Texas Monthly, it's so good. Sunset Magazine, which is like a western magazine. Yankee Magazine, which is a New England-based magazine. And Down East, which is Maine-specific, and I love Maine. Maine is such a weird state, and everyone from Maine is just a little bit off but in the best way possible. So of course there are a million stories. 

I read The Economist for the obituaries only.

I subscribe to the American Cleaning Institute newsletter. It's exactly what it sounds like.