#relearning trust and love is scary and sad | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

missramu · 3 years ago

Text

A kiss to wake up

Hello everyone! I'm bringing what I believe is my longest piece so far. As a disclaimer, this was a little bit self-indulgent, so I didn't want to spare a single detail. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

As a top note, this is kinda the prequel to this one! One day I'll make some sort of timeline, I promise. I just keep writing as the ideas come to me

Kiss number 32: to wake up

The last weeks had been an actual chaos for the fashion deisgner. Indeed, they had been chaotic, but in a sort of good way. After so many years waiting, Ramuda was about to undergo top surgery. He was finally getting his mastectomy done and, although these days he had to sign, read and send plenty of papers, he was happy. He was excited, but he was a bit scared too. After all, it was an operating room and he was still afraid of needles.

The designer sighed as he put the pen down, looking up with a faint smile. Jakurai walked by, taking his chance to kiss Ramuda’s forehead before leaving him a cup of warm tea, keeping the other one to himself.

“I can sense you are nervous”. He said tenderly, grabbing a chair and sitting by his partner’s side.

Ramuda glanced over the papers that were scattered in front of him, sipping from the cup. “Well, yeah… I’ve been waiting for this for so long, and now that’s here I just… Can’t imagine it”. His tone was calm, revealing his true self. It had taken a lot for him to learn to trust Jakurai again –they both had to relearn how to trust each other–, but he knew he didn’t need to fake anything. Not anymore.

Jakurai mumbled. “I see…”. He gently put his cup on the table, making space for the pink-haired man in his arms. As if the doctor had predicted his movements, Ramuda leaned forward and placed his head on his partner’s chest, closing his eyes.

“It’s perfectly normal to be nervous. It is a surgery, after all”. He did a brief pause, lifting Ramuda’s chin tenderly. “But everything will go smoothly. I cannot be on the operation room that day, but you will be in good hands. You will be okay, my dear”.

The designer smiled, nodded, and went in for a kiss. Jakurai eagerly corresponded, wiping Ramuda’s tears as they kissed.

“Plus, you deserve this”. Jakurai added after they broke the kiss. “You have fought bravely, and you had a lot of patience… Although I may recognize I didn’t think you were capable of having it”. The doctor added jokingly, which earned him a pout from his partner as well as a bump on his arm.

“Rude!”

Jakurai laughed softly, which made Ramuda’s pout go away quickly.

“My point is, you needn’t’ be nervous. You earned it, Ramuda. You deserve good things too”.

The designer took a deep breath, repeating those words in his head to himself. He still had a hard time believing that; but his Posse and Jakurai had been making a hard effort to help him realize his self-worth.

“Thanks, babe. I… kinda needed to hear that”.

“Then I am happy I could be of assistance, my dear”.

The days went by, and before the couple could realize it, it was time for Ramuda to check in in the hospital. Since they had agreed to live in Shinjuku, the surgery would be done in Jakurai’s hospital; and one of his co-workers was in charge of it.

Sadly for the doctor, he had to work to do. Ramuda understood that he couldn’t be in the operation room –although he wished he could–, but Jakurai felt bad about it. Old habits die hard, and he was distressed about not being able to directly help during the procedure.

However, he used his lunch break to make his partner some company. He knew his teammates would be coming soon, as they had promised to keep him entertained until the moment came. His surgery was scheduled at 16:00, and they would also wait for him to come out of the operation room.

Jakurai knocked softly on the white door, and entered the room after hearing Ramuda’s voice confirming he could come in. He knew that the designer mustn’t eat now, so he tried to somehow hide his lunchbox. As soon as the younger man realized, he laughed and encouraged him to eat.

“It’s your lunch break, silly! If you don’t eat now you won’t be able to do so later, and your patients need you on tip-top condition!”

“But it would be rude to eat in front of you, since you cannot eat before surgery…” Jakurai’s voice sounded sincerely concerned, as he was forgetting his own needs.

“Here you go again” he mumbled, rising to his feet and walking to the doctor’s side. “I’m ok, dummy. I will eat later, and y’know, my Posse will bring me a whoooole feast!” he laughed it off, grabbing the sleeve of his white coat. “Seriously, don’t worry about me. I will be fine! I mean, I’m kinda hungry, but you are working and need to eat”. Jakurai was going to counterattack, but Ramuda shushed him down. “If you don’t eat now Imma get angry! If you won’t do it for yourself and your own health and well-being, then… Do it for your patients?”

The doctor sighed softly, having been hit on his weak spot –his need to help–.

“Very well, then”. Ramuda wasn’t the right one to talk about self-care and preserving his own health, but he left the argument for another day. It was something they both have to keep working on, and they decided to help each other out.

“Bone apple teeth!” Said Ramuda jokingly as he saw him eat the first spoonful, making the older man to raise an eyebrow.

“Fascinating… I think that’s not the proper way to say it; however, it does sound similar”.

Ramuda bursted out laughing, and the doctor smiled tenderly. He would do anything to keep that smile on his face, and was willing to protect it forever.

Between laughs and fascination, Jakurai’s break was over sooner than they would have wanted it to be. The doctor neatly put everything back on his lunchbox before leaving, letting it down for a moment by the bedside table.

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours, then” said the designer, leaning in for a kiss. Jakurai was already on his way to kiss his forehead, so the gesture was well received. After that he nodded, cupping his beloved’s pale cheek.

“I will be by your side by the time you wake up. I will be waiting for you as long as I need to wait”.

Luckily for Ramuda, he wasn’t alone with his thoughts for long; for his dear friends arrived barely 25 minutes after his dear doctor left.

“Hey there man! How ya feelin’, huh?” Dice announced himself in that way, taking the seat by the left side of the bed.

“I’m tootes good! Not nervous at all, nope!”

“Heavens, and yet you dare call me the liar…” Gentaro added, closing the door behind him.

“But I’m not lying...” The writer rose an eyebrow, keeping direct eye contact with his leader. “Geez! Well, okay, maybe I am!”

The writer chuckled, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. “As if we didn’t know you enough, dear Ramuda”. The chuckle turned into a reassuring smile, and the leader of the Shibuya division thanked the gesture.

“I know this shit is scary and tough, but you got this! In no time at all you’ll be jumpin’ around again, you’ll see!” Dice smile was broader than Gentaro’s, but it was as reassuring as the writer’s was.

“I’m soooo lucky to have you two!” Ramuda yanked them both into a hug, and although it took them by surprise, they joined as soon as they felt his leader’s arms around their shoulders.

“Yeah, and we’re also lucky to have you!” the blue-haired announced with pride, ruffling the designer’s pink hair.

“As our beloved Dice once said,” Gentaro started saying, clearing his voice in order to make it similar to his partner’s, “we are the best, amazing, bounded-tight Posse!”

“Hey, quit messin’ around!” the impersonated man grumbled, much to the impersonator’s and his only public delight.

Their dialogue was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door, and soon after a nurse entered the room.

The three members of Fling Posse quickly went to check the time, realising she came to bring Ramuda to the operation room. He took a deep breath, hugged his teammates tightly, and bis them farewell.

“See you later, Ramuda! I’ll make sure to bring you plenty of snacks!” Dice hugged him as tightly as he was being embraced, sad to leave the hug.

“And I will finance that, for our beloved Dice is as penniless as always”.

Ramuda laughed at their bickering, happy to see them as cheerful as always. Maybe it was selfish of him, but he thought they were doing that for him. Gentaro and Dice didn’t want to see his leader gloomy, so they did their very best to cheer him up. The designer thought that perhaps it was selfish to think so; but that was the truth. They loved him dearly, so it wasn’t selfish of him. It was a reassurance that he was loved and cherished.

The hours went by, the clock ticking its way to noon and, after that, to dawn. Three hours passed, and around seven o’ clock in the evening, Ramuda’s top surgery was successfully completed. All that was left was for him to wake up.

The usual procedure would have been to leave him in the awakening room for up to two hours, until he had fully recovered from the anaesthesia. However, Jakurai’s turn finished a couple of hours ago and, after pulling a couple of strings, he managed to let them take him to his room, where he would personally supervise Ramuda until he woke up. The doctor felt he owed him that, but it wasn’t his only reason- he wanted to be by his side when the designer woke up and, if something happened, be the one to tend him.

When the clock hit quarter to nine, Ramuda started to come back to his senses. Jakurai was by the window, watching the neon lights of Shinjuku flicker; but as soon as he felt movement, he rushed by his partner’s side.

It took the designer fifteen more minutes to fully wake up, still a bit disorientated. When he fully opened his eyes, he encountered Jakurai’s vast oceans looking directly at him, as well as his calm smile.

“Wake up, my dear”. He approached his side, taking a seat by the verge of the bed. He tenderly moved his bangs with his hands, kissing Ramuda’s forehead as full of love as possible.

Ramuda smiled sluggishly, still having a hard time focusing. “I’m awake, silly…”

Jakurai chuckled, caressing his hair softly. “I can see that, dear. You did a great job”.

The designer smiled again, reaching to grab his lover’s hand. “Did I?” Jakurai nodded in response, leaving him do whatever he wanted with his hand –which was to cuddle it against his cheek–.

They spent almost an hour cuddling in silence, enough for Ramuda to completely awake. As his energy came back, he felt more and more excited to feel his chest. Thankfully enough, since he was small and slim, the scars wouldn’t be that big. They would be visible under his nipples, but it didn’t matter. He would wear them with pride, as a badge that showed his victory over Chuuoku again. The doctor felt he was fully recovered from the anaesthesia now, and was glad to see him cheerful again.

Ramuda turned to him with puppy eyes, as if asking permission. As much as it pained Jakurai, he left him out of the embrace, helping him to sit on the bed. He understood his look: he wanted to check it for himself.

“I wouldn’t advise taking the bandages off, but you can feel your chest. It should not hurt much”. Ramuda’s smile broadened, and as he muttered his thanks, he put his own hands on his chest. The anaesthesia was wearing off and it was a bit uncomfortable, but the sheer joy of feeling himself completely flat made him forget about that. After years of using a binder, of feeling those tiny bumps under it no matter what, they were finally gone. No more binding, no more swimming shirts and no more hiding. There was nothing to hide now.

Tears of joy started to roll down his cheeks, and Jakurai quickly wiped them for him.

“Congratulations, my love”. His voice sounded full of joy, hope and love. All of that, things that Ramuda and he deserved, and now they were getting. Seeing the designer unable to move much due to the bandages and his own feelings, he made the first move and hugged him, letting Ramuda’s head on his shoulder. The embrace was mutual, the younger man hugging his waist as tightly as his chest let him.

With teary eyes and the brightest of smiles, he looked up to Jakurai, who cupped his cheek and kissed him fondly. They remained like that for a couple of minutes, which quickly turned into half an hour.

“Ramuda?” He asked with a gentle voice, as if he was afraid it would scare him. He then realized he had fallen asleep, and let out an affectionate sigh. He carefully moved him back to the bed, letting him rest after tucking him in. As soon as he was sure he was soundly asleep, he walked to the window, watching the restless streets of his Shinjuku as alive as every night.

Jakurai was happy. He knew this was important for Ramuda, so he tried his best to look calm. Inside, his brain had been worrying about the designer all day, making it difficult for him to focus on his job. He spent all his free time sighing and looking at the clock, which was unusual of him: he never worried about how much of his shift was left; but today he was driven by his own worries and guilt. Jakurai fought bravely against said guilt and managed to control the situation and himself. Still, he couldn’t wait to see Ramuda. He needed to see him alright, and being unable to control the situation was driving him insane.

And now, after a long intervention and an even longer day, it was done. The doctor watched Ramuda sleeping in the reflection of the window, and smiled again. He could see his chest rising softly as he breathed, and that was what ultimately made him keep smiling. All his worries left with that sight, his mind regaining peace.

Fatigue was taking its toll over him, so the doctor decided to sit down by the bed. His plan was to rest his eyes and legs for a bit, wanting to keep himself awake all night to watch over Ramuda. Before he could realize, though, he fell asleep holding his partner’s hand. It had been a long day, and his body talked louder than his plans.

As if the designer knew whose hand was holding his, he grabbed it back in his sleep.

Outside, the hustle of bustle of Shinjuku was never-ending. It didn’t matter to the couple, as they were soundly asleep side by side. At the end of the day, that was what kept them moving forward. They had been through a lot as a couple, but it was their similarities and wills what brought them back together. They still had a lot to work on, but one step at a time. For now, they had earned their peace and happiness, and they were going to spend it doing what their hearts desired the most –although it took them long to realize it– : being by each other’s side.

#hypnosis mic #hypmic #ヒプノシスマイク #jakurai jinguji #hypnosis mic jakurai #ramuda amemura #hypnosis mic ramuda #jakuramu #jakurai x ramuda #trans character #ramuda trans

26 notes · View notes

hello-robin-goodfellow · 4 years ago

Text

TOP 20 DAVID WARNER ROLES (PART II)

10º Ivan Petrovich ‘Vanya’ Voynitsky (Performance: Uncle Vanya, 1991)

Warner leads in this 1991 televised production of one of the most famous Anton Chekhov plays. Ivan Petrovich (Uncle Vanya for his niece Sonya) is a more then sad and angry man, who sacrificed dreams of love and intelectual success to administrate a cottage of wich provide money to his brother in law, an old professor called Serebryakov (Ian Bannen) that does nothing but look down upon him, all the while being favoured by Vanya’s own mother. Making matters worst, Vanya is one of the two man who is in love with the professors wife, Yelena (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). Two days of a family reunion mostly consisting of verbal fightings eventually makes all the tension that acumulates in Vanya’s mind eventually explode.

09º Konstantin Treplev (The Seagull, 1968)

The younger spiritual predecessour of Ivan Petrovich. Konstantin Treplev is an aspiring writer, who wishes to find a new style to talk about dreams, receiving praises from his mother (veteran actress Arkadina, played by Simone Signoret) and the love of the beautifull aspiring actress (Vanessa Redgrave). But the popularity of the best-selling writer Boris Trigorin (James Mason) and Konstantin’s problems to directly comunicate his feelings eventually make him fall down a tragic spiral of loneliness.

08º Bob Cratchit (A Christmas Carol, 1984)

Interestingly, when this 1984 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Warner was first invited to play Jacob Marley. But he asked to play Bob Cratchit instead. And we all must be glad that he did, because he gives a very wholesome performance, that makes anyone wish to have him as a father figure.

07º Keith Jennings (The Omen, 1976)

In this aclaimed 1976 horror film, Warner’s character is a photographer, whose only job was to registrate the birthday party of the rich child of the american embassador (Gregory Peck) until a series of strange accidents start to kill people who knew that child or his relatives. Intrigued, Keith Jennings starts to investigate, and decides to form a duo with the american embassador, filling the role of the more proactive lancer to the mostly passive protagonist. One of David Warner’s most iconic good guy roles ever putt on the big screen.

06º Merlin (The Wizard, 2013 and The Once and Future King, 2014)

The two years in a row when David Warner played one of the most iconic wizrd mentor figures in mithology and pop culture. In 2013′s comedic short film The Wizard, Warner plays a Merlin that wakes up in modern times and is starting to adapt in a office work, while his colleagues try to adapt to his magic quirks. And in the BBC Radio 4 six episode drama The Once and Future King (adapted by Brian Sibley, the same guy who adapted the 1981 Lord of the Rings radio drama, from the novel series by T. H. White), where Merlin’s spirit sits alongside Arthur in the final battle for a conversation, we see how his Merlin could have acted in the past alongside King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, providing wise counsels with a bit of a snarky sense of humour and melancholy. Those works are two “must check out” for David Warner fans and for fantasy and arthurian mithology fans.

05º The Evil One (Time Bandits, 1981) and Ed Dilinger/Comander Sark/Master Control Program (Tron, 1982)

Yes, number five is a tye. Those two movies camed in a row, and in both David Warner played technology themed villains. In the first, Time Bandits, he is implied to be the Devil himself, and as such is portrayed as very powerfull and in control during most of the movie. In the second, Tron, Warner gives a triple performance: as the human Ed Dilinger and the program Comander Sark, he believes he is in control, but in reality is not. The real power is hold by Warner’s third character, the Master Control Program of the videogame. This transiction from a more simple one-and-all-powerfull antagonist to a more complex dinamic of a trio of antagonists was, for a lot of people, the introduction to Warner’s acting range, and for this reason it appears as a tye in this ranking.

04º The Doctor (Sympathy for The Devil, 2003 and Masters of War, 2008)

In the late 1970s, the BBC camed to search David Warner with an offer for him to play the Doctor in the main Doctor Who BBC Television series. He was interested, but unfortunally his filming schedule conflicted in working more them one season into a long-running TV Show, so he had to put the offer down. It was only in the 2000s, after the founding of the audio-drama company, that we would get a grasp of his portrayal of the Doctor, in the what-if scenarios provided by two episodes of Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for The Devil and Masters of War. In those audiodramas, he plays a alternate encarnation of the Third Doctor that is sent to Earth in 1997 instead of 1969, and thus could not help U.N.I.T with the Alien Invasions that happen in the 1970s. Thus, he finds a retired and pub-owning version of Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, and has to relearn to gain his thrust, until the two become companions of adventures that investigate new alie threads indepedently of U.N.I.T

Warner’s Doctor is a bit less quirky encarnation of the character, having instead a more pratical temperment. He sees the danger, and he goes straight to investigate how to stop it, all the while trying to keep the people around him calm. And later he will make a comment about neading more conforting and fitting shoes.

This is a Doctor that you would surely trust to keep your life safe.

03º Lisander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1968)

A production that made a lot of millenials become Shakespeare fanboys, and they own this in part to David Warner’s performance as Lisander, one of the most romantic (if a bit bumbling) Shakespeare protagonists. Seeing the moments when he conforts and encourages his beloved Hérmia (Helen Mirren) and makes a mess of himself when he is enchanted to fall for Helena (Diana Rigg) is one of the most fun rides that an audience will ever get. Seriously, his Lisander was adorkable before the word ‘adorkable’ even existed.

02º Henry VI (The Wars of The Roses, 1965)

From a fun and very popular Shakespeare protagonist, to a heart-breaking and very underrated protagonist. For years i was one of several people who did not care for the Henry VI plays as it cared for its famous sequel, Richard III.

This all changed when i watched this 1965 televised production of the Wars of the Roses, that condenses the four plays in a way that makes it more accessible for audiences. Once again, this was helped in a big part by the performances of the cast.

David Warner was only 24 years old during this production, and had to cary the role of the vulnerable Henry VI from his youth to his old age and eventual murder by Richard III.

And in my opinion, he carried it brilliantly. This was the sign that a very versatile actor would have a very long career.

And my number one David Warner role is...

01º Morgan Delt (Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, 1966)

Henry VI stablished David Warner as a lead in theater and television. Now it was time to stablish him as the lead in film. And they did exactly that when casting him in the role of Morgan Delt, a painter who grew up mixing a familiar comunist education with an obsession with animals (particularly gorilaz) and is frustratred with his divorce of his socialite wife Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave), who is about to marry Jack Napier (Robert Stephens), art merchant and Morgan’s previous best friend. While trying every crazy squeam to take his wife back, Morgan must take on a journey to mature, so he can his wife go and be happy and he can recouver his career. But until this happens, transitioning from the sweet and romantic to the angry and scary, for Morgan, taking bombs home and wearing ridiculous gorila suits it is.

For showing the range between scary villain and simpathetic hero that would be his trademark on years to come, and providing loud laughs mixed with an interesting commentary on masculine insecurity and entitlement, is that Morgan Delt is my favorite David Warner role.

@amalthea9 @superkingofpriderock

#david warner #actor david warner #rankings

23 notes · View notes

donteattheappleshook · 5 years ago

Text

Of Cars and Bars Chapter 9/14

As always, thank you Krystal @kmomof4 for all of your amazing beta work and for just being a lovely person. Twice now you’ve talked me out of giving up on this one! This story exists because of and is dedicated to you!

This chapter is a little smutty ;). A ‘lime’ as we called it back in my day.

Summary:

Rated E

When Emma Swan is offered the chance to go on tour as an opener for one of the most popular up and coming bands of the decade, the last thing she expects is to find that the lead guitarist is the stranger she had a one night stand with five years ago.

This started out as a smutty two shot about Emma Ruby and Mary Margaret going on a road trip and has evolved into a slow-burn mutual pining angst-fest.

Read it from the beginning on Ao3 and Ffn because tumblr eats all my italics.

Chapter 9 - The Wrong Direction

When I was a kid the things I did were hidden under the grid / Young and naive I never believed that love could be so well hid / With regret I'm willing to bet and say the older you get / It gets harder to forgive and harder to forget

“I know how to write a song, Killian,” Emma practically snapped, sighing in exasperation.

“You asked for my help,” he reminded her, sounding equally annoyed. “I don’t know what you were expecting.”

“Well, you’re not showing me anything I don’t already know.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

Emma was frustrated. They had been bickering for twenty minutes now, since they’d sat down on the bed in her hotel room, guitars in hand, finally trying to write together again. It had been two weeks since Killian had helped her with her song, had helped her finish it, making her realise how much she missed writing real music. And this was the first quiet moment they had been able to find to finally try again. It was not going well.

Between shows every night and press in the mornings and afternoons, their days were full. When they weren’t performing on stage or in front of a camera they were on the bus with everyone else. Eight of them, jammed into a tour bus that, while spacious, was very claustrophobic and offered them no privacy.

Emma didn’t want people around for this. She trusted Ruby and Mary Margaret and she’d come to really like Belle and the boys, but having them there, listening - or pretending not to listen - while she tried to relearn how to pour her soul onto a page terrified her. It was enough that Killian was there to see it. That was terrifying on its own. Emma wasn’t good at being vulnerable. But Killian had seen her at her most exposed and hadn’t judged or pitied her. That terrified her even more. Writing with him before had been so easy and so natural, and she feared that she wouldn’t be able to do it on her own. Not yet, anyway.

But there had been no time. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There had been some time. Usually, at night after their shows they were free to return to their hotel rooms and relax. They’d tried once or twice to write then but they always ended up getting… distracted. It wasn’t her fault. It was Killian’s. He was just so damn good at distracting her. He was just so damn good at kissing her. He was good at everything honestly - but she couldn’t tell him that, it would go straight to his head.

He would find her by the vending machine in the hotel, or backstage after the show, or even that one time in the restaurant bathroom. Any moment they found themselves alone for a second she’d find herself pressed against a wall or a door with his hands roaming everywhere and his tongue doing unspeakable things to hers. And then he’d leave her with her knees weak, and her heart racing, and so damn frustrated. And she’d be left waiting until the others had gone to bed to seek him out. So yeah, most nights had ended in one of them doing their best to sneak out of the other’s room before anyone woke up.

But now, now they had two blissful days off. No shows, no driving, no interviews or appearances. They were in Austin for an entire weekend all to themselves. And, that evening, Emma had finally managed to find a moment to sit down with him and try and create something. Instead, they’d been arguing. She knew he was trying to help but all he was doing was giving her advice on things she already knew, structure, chords, melody, fucking rhyme schemes. She knew how to write a song. She needed him to help her find the truths that were hiding scared inside of her, to lure them out like he’d done last time.

She sighed, dejected. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

Killian didn’t answer for a minute. A frown pulled down his brow and his lips tightened into a thin line as he thought. “A few weeks ago, when I told you that writing music was like finding a way to have someone else help you carry your burdens… you said it used to be the same for you.”

“It was,” she admitted but her voice sounded distant and sad even to her own ears.

“So then try that.” He looked at her in that way again, that way that made her feel like he was looking inside of her, into a part of her that she was sure she had kept well hidden from the world. But he could see it. And sometimes, when she looked at him, really looked at him, she thought she saw the same bit inside of him. “Let me help you carry your burdens,” he said, not as an order or an assumption that she should, but as a request.

Emma had to steel herself. She could do this. She needed to do this. She’d asked him to help and that meant that she’d agreed to letting him see this part, this private part of her. But that didn’t make it any less scary. She nodded and he placed his fingers on the frets of his guitar. He played a couple of chords, improvising a melody. She told him when she liked something and when she didn’t, playing her own instrument and adding bits until they had a little verse they liked. He asked her what she wanted to write about and she said her childhood.

It shocked her, surprising her even as the words came out of her mouth. She’d avoided talking about her life before Granny and her sisters, avoided thinking about it. He only nodded and waited for her to start. But nothing came. She sat, frustrated and trying to put into words the pain and the naivety and the stolen innocence but she couldn’t. It had been buried too deep for too long. She let out a frustrated groan, her head falling into her hands. The music stopped.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” she whined. “I just - I can’t remember how to do it. I used to just sit down, you know, with my guitar and my thoughts and then it would just kind of, spill out. I didn’t used to have to think about it. Thinking about it is making it just feel - wrong.”

“Then stop thinking about it,” he encouraged. “Just say whatever pops into your head.” God, he was annoyingly persistent.

She glared at him, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t think you want to hear what’s in my head at the moment.”

He laughed. “Perhaps not. I could give you prompts, like word associations?”

Emma sighed. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t going to work. She just didn’t have that spark or whatever it was she’d had last time. Last time she’d felt like the words just wanted to come out and so they had. This time they were shy, hiding timidly somewhere she couldn’t find them. She set down her guitar.

“Let’s just try another time,” she said, closing up her case.

Killian considered her for a long time, long enough that she started to feel a little uncomfortable. He really needed to stop staring at her like he was trying to read her thoughts - she was already half convinced he could.

“We’re trying too hard,” he said finally, moving to put his own guitar away. “That’s the problem. You know, watched pot and all that.” Emma was going to answer but she didn’t get the chance as he picked up his case and grabbed her hand. “Come with me,” he instructed.

“What? Where are we going?” she demanded, barely managing to grab her instrument as she was dragged out of the room. Killian didn’t answer. Instead, he made his way down the hall, stopping at David's room and pounding twice. “Liam and Belle’s room. Five minutes! Bring your kit!” he called through the door. Then he moved on and repeated the same action at Graham’s door, then Ruby’s and then Mary Margaret’s. Finally they reached Liam and Belle’s room and Killian pounded on their door too.

“Killian,” she said and he looked at her for the first time since they’d left his hotel room. “What are we doing?” she demanded.

He shot her a smile. “Just trust me, Swan.”

“Bloody hell, Killian,” Liam complained when he opened the door. “We’re going to get complaints.” Killian ignored him, pushing his way into the suite and dragging an unwitting Emma behind him.

“Get your stuff,” he told his brother. “We’re having a riff-off.”

Emma watched as Liam’s face changed from scorn to amusement, and finally to excitement. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Liam excited. It was weird.

“What is a riff-off?” Emma asked, knowing she probably wouldn’t get an answer. Killian seemed to be in a cryptic mood today. She was proven right when all the answer he gave her was a mysterious ‘you’ll see’.

As their friends started to trickle into the room, carrying their instruments and looking equal amounts annoyed and confused - and a little rumpled in the case of Graham and Ruby - Liam returned with his guitar, Belle following behind him looking extremely pleased. Emma was surprised to see that she was carrying a ukulele. She had no idea Belle played.

Killian evaded all their questions, corralling them all into the middle of the room. David and Mary Margaret didn’t have their entire drum sets obviously but Mary Margaret had brought her sticks and a smaller drum from the set. David had brought goddamn bongos.

“You mind telling us what we’re doing here?” Graham insisted, sounding very put-out. Probably at being interrupted, Emma mused trying to hide her smile.

“Seriously,” Emma demanded now. “What the hell is a riff-off?”

Her question set off a world of excitement and confusion as the boys suddenly perked up ‘we’re having a riff-off?’ and the girls tried to get a straight answer as to what the hell it was.

“Who’s got writer’s block?” David teased. Before Emma could answer, her cheeks flushing pink, Killian spoke.

“I do. Now are you going to help me out or are you going to be an ass about it?”

David put his hands up in surrender.

“Will someone please explain what the hell is going on?” Ruby demanded.

“It’s a game we play,” David started. “When one of us is having trouble writing. Or just for fun sometimes,” he smiled. Emma hesitated. She realised then what Killian was doing. He was still trying to get her to write. She didn’t think she liked this. This was songwriting with an audience. She shot him a look and he returned it with another one of those unspoken ‘trust me’s’.

“How does it work?” Mary Margaret asked. Killian answered this time.

“Well, for starters we all have to sit in a circle, so let’s go.” As everyone started shuffling around, moving some furniture to make room and finding a spot on the floor, Emma noticed that there seemed to be some strategy at play that she didn’t understand. David for example, made a point to sit on Graham’s right, something the latter seemed displeased with. Liam did the same to Killian. Emma spotted some room between Mary Margaret and Belle and was going to squeeze in when Killian caught her wrist.

“Come on, Swan. You’re next to me for this round,” he told her. She hesitated for a second but he only gave her a bright smile and an encouraging nod. She sighed and sat next to him. When they were all settled, Killian explained the rules. “Right. This game is part challenge, part make it up as you go.” He received blank looks from all three newbies.

“The rules are pretty straight forward,” Belle piped up. “One person starts by playing something on their instrument. It has to be original. They give the person on their left a topic. That person has to make up lyrics based on that topic and sing along to the melody that is given to them. If you falter, hesitate, or plagiarize, you lose and you’re out of the circle. We play to the last man - or woman - standing.”

“A whole song?” Mary Margaret asked, sounding nervous.

“No, only a little verse or something,” David assured her, putting a comforting hand on her knee. She flushed.

“But it has to end intentionally, not because you’ve run out of ideas,” Liam explained.

“Graham managed a haiku once,” Killian pointed out. Graham gave a showy little bow - as best he could sitting cross-legged on the carpet.

“Right,” Killian said, reaching back and picking up Emma’s guitar. He handed it to her. “Why don’t you start us off, Swan?” She gave him a little glare. At least he wasn’t making her sing. David was to her left. “Give him a topic, play a little tune for him once and then he has to start.”

Emma took a deep breath. She could do this. There were no words involved in this - yet. Melodies were easier. She looked at David who waited, seeming wary of what topic she might give him. She liked David though, she figured she’d cut him some slack. She looked around at the rest of his bandmates and smiled, remembering all the times they’d mocked the only ‘yank’ in their group.

“Brits,” she said. David beamed. She’d hardly finished improvising her riff when he started sharing his opinions on some very specific British habits. Killian, Liam, Belle, and Graham all shot him glares at different points. Emma wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have just learned that Killian had a very unhealthy obsession with The Great British Bake Off. The girls were practically in tears by the time he was done and they burst into applause for him. Alright, Emma thought, this game was pretty fun.

David was next and had Graham to his left. Graham shot daggers at him before he even named his topic. “Cats,” was all he said. That was how Emma learned that Graham had a paralysing fear of all felines, apparently since he’d been taken to see the musical as a small boy. Emma realised now why some of them had chosen their positions strategically. If you had to sing on the spot, you were forced to sing about the first thing that popped into your head, embarrassing as it may be. You didn’t have time to dismiss an idea and come up with a new one. It must have been impossible for Graham to think of anything besides his fear and so he was forced to confess. David had clearly taken advantage of that.

“I’ll get you back you bastard,” Graham warned. Ruby was red in the face from trying to contain her laughter. He picked up his bass. Belle was beside him. He smirked. “Your first kiss.” Belle groaned and was forced to sing about the fact that her first kiss had, in fact, been Graham himself. The game went on like that. All of them taking turns to poke fun at each other. Ruby, thanks to Mary Margaret, begrudgingly admitted to believing she was a werewolf for an entire month when she was twelve. Liam made Killian tell them all about how he got the scar on his face - by trying to shave, just like his big brother. That one made Emma smile.

When it came to her turn, Emma expected Killian to make her sing about something real. But he didn’t. He didn’t the second time around either, or the third. Instead he gave her light topics, things that were fun and easy to sing about. She was honestly impressed with herself when she managed to rise to the challenge of ‘pirates’ which he threw at her out of left field. Slowly, one after the other, their friends were eliminated. Graham, as he stumbled near the end of what was turning out to be a fairly endearing love song prompted by the word ‘red’, Belle, as she blanked on anything having to do with Star Wars, Liam when he flipped Ruby off for saying ‘love letters’.

They all booed but then cheered as David was the next eliminated, trying and failing to manage a rap to the topic of ‘prom night’. Emma played for Mary Margaret who stumbled on ‘talking birds’, turning bright red and refusing to admit to the year she was convinced she had super powers. But Ruby succeeded through Emma’s challenge to sing about Leonardo DiCaprio, her first love.

It was Ruby’s turn to play for Killian now. She looked at Killian with a challenge in her eye. “Secrets,” she said and he stumbled for a second but managed to recover by the time it was his turn to sing. It was the weakest of his verses yet but he didn’t falter. Nobody else seemed to have noticed the exchange and Emma felt her heart flutter in her chest, wondering if Ruby knew - about them.

Ruby gave him a congratulatory nod. It was her turn now, she could feel the adrenaline in her veins, the excited kind of anxiousness as she awaited her topic, a smile already on her face.

“Kids,” Killian said and she didn’t even have a chance to be surprised before he started playing a tune she recognized, the one they’d composed earlier. He hadn’t asked her specifically about her childhood, hadn’t insisted she sing about being a kid herself, but that was all that came to mind, the way she had felt free then, like nothing she did had consequences, but only for a little while. She’d learned young that the world could bite and that if you didn’t bite back, protect yourself, it would eat you alive. And so that’s what she sang about. The words came out of her, poured out of her as quickly as she could think of them, there was no time for questioning or self-doubt, only to sing.

The song went on longer than any of the others had. But nobody complained. Killian didn’t stop playing. He didn’t falter, only looking at her encouragingly, a small smile creeping over his face as she went on, laying everything out, speaking her truth, no matter how gritty. She stared at him as she finished. He’d done it again. Somehow he’d managed to find a way to find what was inside of her, what was hiding in the darkness, and bring it to the light. He’d found a way to make her feel comfortable enough to do it. She was a little bit in awe.

“Holy shit,” Liam whispered and that broke the silence that had engulfed the room.

“Emma, that was fucking awesome!” Ruby cheered. “Please tell me someone got that down!”

Belle held up her phone. “I always record these. It’s where all the best stuff comes out.”

“No kidding!” David agreed.

Emma and Killian were still staring at one another. Emma couldn’t help herself. The way he was looking at her, the soft smile on his face, he looked proud of her and it was unsettling how much she liked it. She was proud of herself. He’d helped her get there. He’d known what she needed and he’d given it to her. Not for the first time, it scared her how well he seemed to know her. What scared her more was that she was starting to want him to know her. And, she realised, she wanted to know him too.

She cleared her throat, unable to hold his gaze any longer. “Game’s not over,” she reminded them. She turned to Ruby, only the three of them were left.

Emma was eliminated next, faltering over ‘wine Wednesdays’ and turning red remembering the time Ruby had to get a bouncer she knew to throw Emma over his shoulder so they could get her in the cab. It was down to Ruby and Killian now. Ruby just barely managed to make it through a verse about ‘Irishmen’, pointedly not looking at Graham the whole time. But there was an amused sort of fire in her eyes that warned that Killian did not want to go toe to toe with her. She looked him in the eye and smirked.

“Blondes.”

Ruby won. Killain stuttered, eyes casting far too conspicuously to Emma and then even more conspicuously at anywhere else. It would seem in his desperation to keep their secret, he blanked on anything else to sing about. He admitted defeat gracefully and Ruby less-gracefully threw her hands in the air, letting out a ‘whoop’. She was surrounded by congradulations.

“What’s my prize?” she asked.

Killian considered it. “How about you get to choose what we do tonight with our first night off?”

They agreed this was fair and Ruby immediately looked to Mary Margaret who brightened up. Emma knew where they were going before she said it.

“Get your stuff!” she ordered before heading straight for the door. “Meet us downstairs in five!”

Everyone seemed to be okay with just following along with whatever Ruby wanted, even Liam let Belle drag him out of the living area and into the bedroom without question. Killian hung back, waiting for her, looking confused.

“Where are we going?”

Emma smirked a little. “We’re going to the fair.”

“The fair?” he looked even more confused and a little nervous.

“Mhm. I saw the signs advertising it when we first got here. I knew she’d make us go - her or Mary Margaret. They love fairs - amusement parks too. Anything with rides really. Every summer we try find a new one to go to.” She paused, taking in his expression. “Why do you look so freaked out?”

He looked like he’d really put up a good fight against the blush on his face. She couldn’t tell if he looked more red with embarrassment or white with nerves. He rubbed at the back of his neck before letting his head fall back and confessing. “I hate rides.”

She felt the smile tugging at the corner of her lips, remembering his reaction to flying. She stepped forward, grabbing the front of his shirt and giving him a little tug until he looked at her. “Come on, you big baby. There are games too, you know. Let’s go and I’ll win you a teddy bear.”

Killian tried to hide his amusement, determined to only appear annoyed at her teasing but the little upward twitch of his lips gave him away. Finally he lost the battle, offering her a mirthful smile, brows raised. “Promise?”

She nodded. “I’m amazing at carnival games,” she bragged.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said, suddenly seeming to realise how close she was standing and taking advantage. He slipped his arm around her waist, drew her a little further into him. “Will you win me a big one?”

She raised a brow. “A big one?”

“Aye. I want one of those giant bears that are bigger than me.” His free hand came up to toy with the ends of her hair and Emma let her arms slide up around his shoulders. “I want all the other boys at the fair to be jealous.”

She laughed. She noticed she’d been doing that a lot more lately. “Alright then, a giant bear it is.”

He grinned, his arm tightening around her middle as his head bowed, his next words spoken somewhere near her jaw. “How on earth will I possibly thank you?” he asked. She could feel the roughness of his cheek against her own and his breath on her neck and her stomach gave a little flip. She smiled, practically giggling as his lips pressed against her throat.

They heard the bedroom door open and jumped apart, doing their absolute best to look casual. They were standing way too close. She knew they were because as Liam and Belle stepped out, they hesitated, giving them slightly questioning looks.

“What are you still doing here?” Liam asked. Emma floundered for a second as Killian stood there completely useless.

“Ruby's making us go to the fair. I'm trying to convince your brother to go on the pendulum ride with me,” she lied.

Liam barked out a laugh. “Fat chance,” he told her. “I couldn’t even get him to try bumper cars until he was sixteen.”

“Oy, let’s not make up lies now,” Killian protested, looking annoyed and just embarrassed enough that Emma was pretty sure it wasn’t a lie at all. She smirked.

As the brothers bickered, Emma turned to Belle, hoping to share in the amusement of watching two grown men acting like children. But Belle was already looking at her, her expression far too knowing and definitely far too pleased. Her gaze flickered to Killian. Emma shifted uncomfortably then cleared her throat, announcing that she would meet them downstairs. That had been way too close.

They decided to walk there since the weather was nice. It wasn’t far, only a few miles and David, apparently annoyingly healthy, active David, had insisted they needed the exercise after so many days sitting on a bus. Emma had thought about protesting but Mary Margaret and Ruby had looped their arms through hers and practically carried her down the street with them.

“I’m so glad we’re still gonna get to do this this summer,” Mary Margaret exclaimed happily.

“Me too,” Ruby agreed. “I thought the tour would mess with our tradition.”

“What tradition is that?” Emma smirked. “You whooping my ass at the balloon pop and Snow eating so much cotton candy that she pukes?”

“Don’t call me that! And I didn’t puke.” She stuck out her tongue at Emma.

“Yes, exactly that tradition,” Ruby smiled a little nostalgically.

She got it. Ruby wasn’t the sentimental type but the summer that Granny found Emma and Mary Margaret had been a rocky one to say the least. Both of them were teenage girls who didn’t trust easy. They’d moped most of the season until finally, Granny had forced them out of their rooms and out to the small town county fair. Despite their best efforts, the girls hadn’t been able to have a bad time - largely due to Ruby. She was hard not to like. Granny had introduced them to everyone as her kids with no further explanation. It was the first time the three of them had felt like a family and so, sentimental or not, Ruby liked tradition.

“Do you think they’ll have a tea cup ride?” Mary Margaret asked excitedly.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to call themselves a fair if they don’t,” Ruby answered.

“As long as there’s a ferris wheel, I’m happy,” Emma said.

“You are the most boring person ever,” Ruby teased.

“What? I like ferris wheels!” Emma insisted. Ruby rolled her eyes. She looked over at Killian and Belle who were walking a few paces ahead. She smirked.

“Maybe you’ll find someone to go on it with you,” she hinted suggestively.

“What do you mean?” Emma asked, heart racing. Shit. Did she know? She couldn’t know. They’d been careful. Maybe not careful enough.

“Nothing. Just, you know, ferris wheels can be awfully romantic.” She winked before looking pointedly at the pair ahead of them again. Emma’s mouth dropped open as she searched for something to say. “Might be nice to have something pretty to look at while you’re on it.”

“Ruby,” she said seriously, a hint of a smile on her lips. “Belle is married.”

Ruby threw her head back laughing. She dropped it after that.

They reached the fair and her friends practically raced off to the ticket booth, coming back with armfulls of tickets.

Liam looked at them skeptically. “How long are we planning to stay here?”

“Please,” Mary Margaret said. “These will last us an hour if we’re lucky.”

Liam looked helplessly at Emma. She shrugged. “They take their fair visits very seriously. Blame your brother.”

“Oy!” Killian called from somewhere behind her. She smirked.

“What first?” David asked, looking nearly as excited as Mary Margaret to be here. Or maybe he was just excited to be here with her. It was kind of cute actually.

“Games?” Emma suggested. She definitely didn’t suggest it so that Killian wouldn’t feel left out. She wasn’t that considerate. She caught him smiling softly and she looked away.

“Yes!” Ruby agreed. She grabbed Graham’s hand. “Come on!”

The others followed. But Emma caught hold of Killian’s arm. He held back.

“What is it?”

“We need to be more careful. I think Ruby suspects something and your brother almost caught us back at the hotel.”

He cocked his head. “Is that so bad,” he asked. Of course it was bad, she wanted to say, but he continued. “It’s just sex right? What does it matter if they know. We’re both adults.”

Emma tried to ignore the way his words affected her. It’s just sex. They were her words, he was merely saying them back to her. Then why did it feel like he’d dumped a bucket of cold water on her? She could feel something prickling under her skin and she didn’t like it. She shook out her hands a little, trying to clear it.

“Swan?” he asked, looking concerned now.

“No, you’re right. It’s just… I know my friends. They’ll make a big deal out of it and I don’t want to deal with that right now.” It was the truth, but it felt heavy and wrong on her tongue. It’s just sex, she repeated to herself. What the hell is wrong with you?

“Understood,” he nodded. “I’ll be more careful.”

“Thank you.”

They headed off after their group, realising that hanging back alone was a little too conspicuous. They had nearly caught up when Killian grabbed her, pulling her behind a booth.

“What are you -”

He took hold of her face with both hands and pressed his lips to hers. She was shocked for a moment - how the hell was this in keeping with their ‘be more discreet’ agreement? - but then his mouth opened over hers and she reacted instinctively, grabbing hold of his hips and finding his tongue with her own. He only kissed her for a second, pulling back and leaving her standing there with her mouth open, gaping like an idiot. He was grinning from ear to ear, looking way too smug for her liking.

“Killian!” Her voice was higher and a little rougher than she’d intended. “What the hell was -”

“Shh,” he hushed, bringing a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret. We don’t want the others to hear.” He winked and then backed away, heading back after the group. “Don’t follow right away. We wouldn’t want them to get suspicious.” She stared at him in disbelief - at how boyish and giddy he looked.

“Oh fucking hell,” she groaned. “I just gave you a challenge didn’t I?” He walked away, shooting her a goofy smile, eyebrows waggling. She definitely didn’t feel as annoyed as she wanted to.

They played a few games, the ring toss and balloon pop (Ruby did, in fact, whoop Emma’s ass again), and skeeball. The entire time Killian made a point to continue this secrecy challenge. Twice she felt his hand on her ass while they were playing a game or chatting with the others, only to look up and find him looking very invested in what someone was saying, the picture of innocence. She’d created a monster.

Killian was surprisingly good at all of the games and it was really starting to get on Emma’s nerves. Particularly because she was playing so poorly - which was entirely due to her opponent's wandering hands. She missed the balloon completely when she felt his fingers brush at the skin of her hip bone. She hadn’t beat him at a single one yet. The dirty cheater. He was getting really cocky about it too.

Belle and Liam had gone off to see what kind of show was going on at the stage and David had taken Mary Margaret away to feed her when Emma spotted it: a shooting game. It was one of those dinky little things where you were given a pellet gun and had to knock down as many moving targets as possible. Emma smirked. Time to knock the cocky grin right off of Killian’s face.

“Okay show-off, think you can hold your own at this one?” She was trying to provoke him.

He eyed it. “Absolutely,” he answered confidently. “Prepare to have your ass handed to you, Swan.”

She caught Ruby’s eye and the two exchanged grins. “Really?” Emma asked. “Care to put a little wager on that?”

He smirked. “What did you have in mind?”

Emma gave the man in the booth her tickets. “If you win, I will admit, on stage at the next show, that you’re far superior at all games than I am.” He looked happy with that offer. “If I win, you have to go on whatever ride I pick.”

He didn’t even think about it. “Deal. You do remember I was in the navy, don’t you?” he said, the arrogance heavy in his voice. He was handed his pellet gun and took his turn. He hit seven out of the ten targets. He looked very pleased with himself. “I very much look forward to our next show.”

Emma only smiled as she was handed her own pellet gun. “You’ve been out of the navy for what, ten years?” She could feel Ruby smiling behind her, could hear Graham asking her what was up, wanting to be let in on the joke. Killian nodded. She shot him a cunning grin. “I never told you what I do for a living, did I?” And with that, Emma whirled on the targets and shot down all ten of them in as many rapid shots.

She didn’t bother to hide her smugness as she turned back to her friends, resting the fake rifle on her hip. Killian was staring at the targets with wide eyes, his mouth slack-jawed. He looked at her with wonder and amazement and maybe a tiny bit of fear. Graham was laughing so hard he was doubled over, clutching at his stomach.

“What the bloody hell do you do for a living?” Emma only smiled as she was handed the giant teddy bear, the one that was bigger than Killian.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She handed him the bear. He was still standing there dumbfounded. Graham was still laughing.

Graham was more than happy to recall the entire story to the rest of their friends when they met up for hotdogs and fries a little later, making a point to include Killian’s paralyzing fear of carnival rides. Liam teased the hell out of his brother, accusing him of forgetting everything he’d taught him but backing down when Killian challenged him to the game. Emma didn’t participate much in the conversation. She was too distracted by the feeling of Killian’s fingers on her inner thigh under the table, which had been boldy creeping higher and higher since they sat down. They were nearly at the seam of her jeans when someone called her name. It sounded like it wasn’t the first time they’d said it.

“Sorry, what?” His hand squeezed her thigh.

“I was just asking what ride you were going to take Killian on,” Belle said eagerly.

“I don’t know,” Emma mused. “Maybe something easy like the teacups,” she said, but then his hand creeped up higher, making it difficult for her to keep her breath steady. She glared at him. “Or maybe he wants to try the Gravitron.” His hand dropped back to her knee.

“Yes! You should definitely take him on the Gravitron!” Mary Margaret exclaimed. “That’s the best ride in the park!”

“I love that one!” David agreed, already hyped up. There was a consensus around the table.

“I think it’s time we went on some rides,” Ruby decreed. “Come on, let’s pop Killian’s zero-gravity cherry.” Killian’s hand tightened on her knee then, and she was pretty sure this time it was out of fear rather than an attempt to drive her insane. She looked at him, he looked nervous. He’d been an ass but she took pity on him.

“Nah, you guys go ahead. I think I’ll start him off on something a little tamer. I don’t want him puking on me,” she said. This time the squeeze was a thank you. The others headed off towards the braver rides and Emma and Killian set off to find something easier, Killian towing his giant pink bear along with them.

“You know, you’re not making this whole secret thing easy,” she pointed out.

He turned wide, innocent eyes on her. “What do you mean? I’ve been the picture of discreet. Nobody suspects a thing.” He leaned down then, his breath hot on her ear as they walked. “Besides, it’s been quite fun watching you get flustered all night.”

The asshole, she thought. She knew he’d been doing it on purpose but to hear him admit it made her feel annoyed and angry and… wanting. She wanted him. A lot. Right now. But mostly, it made her want revenge. They’d wandered near the edge of the booths which backed up into a small wooded area and Emma saw her chance. She put her hands on his chest and pushed him back, away from the lights of the carnival and into the cluster of trees where the neon glow was barely a suggestion. He stumbled back, questioning sounds leaving his lips until his back collided with a tree trunk and she pressed herself against him.

“Swan, what -”

She cut him off, slanting her lips over his and grabbing hold of the loops in the back of his jeans, pulling his hips into her own. His startled groan turned into a dirty growl as his arms came up around her back, trapping her within them and tilting her head back so he could explore her mouth deeper. Emma nearly allowed herself to get lost in it. He was such a goddamn good kisser and the way his hips were grinding into her own, his hand sliding down to her ass, grabbing hold of it to pull her almost harshly against him sent heat shooting through every fiber of her body. Ugh - she wanted him. But she wanted to make him to pay more.

The feel of his growing erection pressed against her stomach reminded her of her goal and she moved her lips to his neck, nipping and licking at his jaw as she wormed her hand down between them. She heard the gasp that caught in his throat as she palmed him through his jeans. His head fell back against the bark and his hands dropped to her sides, giving her room to continue. He let out desperate noises as she stroked him a few times, waiting until she could feel how painfully hard he must be before stepping back.

The look of pure shock and dismay on his face as he watched her back away, back towards the carnival made the ache in her stomach and between her legs worth it. Gotcha. She smirked.

“Swan, what…” He couldn’t even string a sentence together and it made her feel way, way too smug. It was nice to know, she thought, that she apparently had the same effect on him as he had on her.

“Don't play with fire unless you’re willing to get your fingers burnt,” she taunted, practically giddy with female pride and at getting him back for all his teasing.

She turned around and headed for the bright lights as though nothing had happened. She didn’t get far, hadn’t left the cover of the trees before his arm snaked around her belly, pulling her back against him. She could still feel his hardness pressed against her back. His hand slid up to her breast, fingers finding her nipple through the fabric of her shirt and she forgot she was annoyed with him for a second, her head falling back against his shoulder. An embarrassing sound left her.

“That’s bad form, Emma,” he told her, his voice raspy against her ear. “Leaving a man like that.” His hips pushed up against her back and she forced herself to remember exactly how intentionally riled up he’d gotten her for his own amusement.

“Worse form than spending the whole night getting a girl - what did you call it, flustered? - with no follow through?”

He hummed in her ear. “You’re right, Swan, that was very wrong of me.” His teeth scraped at her ear, pulling the lobe into his mouth. His thumb didn’t stop its assault on her breast. “Allow me to make it up to you.” His other hand started inching its way towards the waistband of her jeans and Emma was pretty sure she was about to let him fuck her right here in the woods when the were interrupted by a giggle and some branches snapping. Someone spoke. They froze, desire turning to adrenaline as she prayed that nobody would see them. It was a second before Emma recognized the voice.

“Shh, someone will hear us,” Mary Margaret said. It sounded like she was dragging an equally giddy David into the woods with her to do… well, exactly what she and Killian had been trying to do. Killian released her then. Apparently, knowing that their friends were getting it on a few yards away had the same effect on him as it had on her. She turned to him and he had a funny grin on his face when she met his eyes. It was a little awkward between them for a moment but then they heard what sounded a lot like a moan and they burst out laughing, both doing their best to muffle their laughter and not give themselves away. Killian tilted his head towards the fair and Emma nodded, the two heading back towards the crowds as silently as possible. Killian didn’t forget his bear.

“So, what have you chosen as my punishment?” he asked as they reached the rides. He looked a little nervous but also resigned to his fate. She decided to be kind. He had, after all, helped her find her way back to writing today.

“Think you can handle the ferris wheel?” she asked, with a raised brow.

He looked relieved. “Aye. That I can do.”

They reached the attraction and handed over their tickets. Killian nearly got into an argument with the teenager operating the ride about whether or not he could take his bear with them.

“It sits three!” he insisted. He won eventually, settling in the seat with Emma to his left and the giant pink monstrosity to his right.

“Are you really going to carry that thing with you all night?”

“Of course I am. I told you, Swan, I want to be the envy of every man here.”

Emma rolled her eyes and the bench gave a little lurch as the ride started. Emma loved the ferris wheel. She loved being so high up, getting to see so much of the town around her all at once. For someone who had never gone much further west, north, or south than New York, it felt like she had the whole world at her fingertips. The ride stopped, leaving them stuck near the very top. She loved it when it did that. It was her favorite part. She looked out at the horizon, a happy smile on her face.

“What are you thinking?” Killian asked, his voice soft beside her. She didn’t want to tell him. He’d seen so much of the world and she felt small and boring for having been so confined to one place - so stuck. She knew he wouldn’t judge her, but she still wanted him to… she didn’t know. Find her interesting? She didn’t know how to handle that feeling. She’d never wanted anything from any man. Never cared what they thought of her. But she cared what Killian thought.

She gave him a wry smile, deciding on a white lie. “I was thinking that I can’t believe David and Mary Margaret are banging in the woods right now.”

He laughed. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Those two have been all over each other.”

“I am!” she countered. “You don’t know Mary Margaret like I do. Sex in the woods is not her style. Casual sex in general isn’t really her style.” She smiled a little thinking of her glacial moving friend who insisted on love before sex. “That’s more the kind of thing I’d have expected from Ruby and Graham.”

Killian’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Ruby and Graham,” she repeated. “They’re like ‘together’ I think. You must have noticed.”

He seemed genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know it was serious! I thought that was just her personality.” She quirked an eyebrow. “The flirting I mean. She flirted with me!” Emma bit back her smile. Every man in the world thought Ruby flirted with them.

“Sure she did,” she teased.

“She did!” he insisted. “Poor Graham,” he said then, shaking his head. “She’s gonna eat him alive.” Emma nearly laughed, remembering having that exact thought.

“I dunno,” she said honestly. “I think she really likes him. I haven’t seen her like this since…” she paused, a frown crossing her brow as she tried to remember Ruby being this infatuated, this happy. “Actually I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this.”

“She might be good for him,” he said thoughtfully. “The last woman he was with nearly ripped out his heart. Ruby seems kind, protective.”

Killian smiled and Emma took a minute to just think about her friends, time to enjoy the contentedness and the peace it brought her to see them so happy. It was then that Emma realised something. She was happy. It came as a surprise. She hadn’t been particularly unhappy before. She’d been comfortable with her life, satisfied for the most part and resigned to the fact that this was all she was going to get. But there had been something missing. Music had been missing, adventure had been missing, fun had been missing.

She realised then that the person who had brought all of those things back into her life was sitting next to her now, holding a stupid, monsterous bear. It hit her like a blow to the chest, but rather than knock her back, rather than scare her, she felt it spread through her limbs, into her fingers and warm her from the inside as she turned to look at him. He was staring out at the city below them with a slight sort of amazement in his eyes and she wondered for a moment, not for the first time, if maybe he understood her more than she thought. She put her hand over his where it rested on the safety bar. He looked up at her.

“I never said thank you. For helping me today.”

He gave her a half smile. “Think nothing of it,” he said. He leaned in a bit, his next words coming out with plain honesty. “I like helping you, Emma. I like writing with you, spending time with you.” He paused then and something crossed his face, something soft and a little vulnerable. “I like y-” she cut him off, pressing her lips to his. Please don’t say it. She couldn’t hear it. If he said it… if he said it then this would be over. Their rules were clear and if he - she didn’t want it to be over.

For a moment she thought he would protest but then he brought his hand to her cheek and kissed her back, letting her silence him. Thank you, she wanted to say again. The ride started once more, giving a slight jerk and Killian pulled back quickly. She was a little disappointed until he smiled deviously at her.

“Well now every man here is definitely jealous of me.” He pulled the bear from where it was sitting beside him and propped it in his lap, it’s stupidly massive size effectively hiding their faces from any onlookers. “Can’t be too careful,” he reminded her before pressing his lips to hers again.

She smiled. Idiot.

#of cars and bars #cs fanfiction #captain swan fanfiction #cs smut #cs fanfic #cs angst #captain swan au #cs au

12 notes · View notes

qtmitchymitch · 5 years ago

Text

I have reached some scary low points in my life, but I’ve never felt like I wanted to dissipate into thin air quite like this before. Each day has been a battle of fear, sadness, and anxiety. I’ve been thinking about what kind of growth will come from this experience, and today I think I started to figure it out.

Trust your instincts, Mitch. It’s okay to relearn how to love yourself over and over again. This is temporary. Manifest and envision what you want your life to look like in one month. Keep pushing. Light will come.

#personal #depression #anxiety #hesemotional

2 notes · View notes

heartsofstrangers · 6 years ago

Photo

What has been one of the most challenging things that you’ve experienced or are currently experiencing?

“I think the dismantling of my life. A couple of years ago, I was going through a lot. I watched my dad die of cancer, I was raped, and my husband left me within a three-month period of time. It was a major dismantling; it kind of knocked me off my feet and, since that happened, three years ago, that dark spot was the darkest. You feel like you’re in one place, and when you lose everything, it takes you to a whole different place in life. All your dreams are gone. The lessons learned through all that were super hard, having to take a really good look at myself, to accept things about myself, and to accept my heart in some things were really hard. I would say that that was the time that, if I were to ever believe in a mental health diagnosis, it would be PTSD. I suffered. I suffered so hard with that, days of not being able to get out of bed, having children that you needed to take care, having two other children in whose lives you didn’t even have the energy to participate, because you couldn’t participate in your own life. Those are some of the things I went through during that dark period.

“Picking up and moving across the country, thinking that the door is wide open from that point on and really even going into darker despair and being isolated because I didn’t know anyone here. Having to fight through that fog of just getting up every day. If I got up, the day was really good. I felt that it was me fighting myself, more than anything. It wasn’t me fighting the outside world. It was hard to exist for me. It was all inner stuff, it was these battles on the inside and seeing patterns in my life and recognizing that (I don’t have multiple personalities) there were multiple ages that were just going on in my body, and I had no control over that. Knowing that you cognitively know how to handle a situation, yet you don’t know how to implement that anymore. For example, parenting kids, even going to pay a simple bill, or going to check your mail—those are normal stuff, but I couldn’t put pieces together to even do that. It was really hard. I never gave up. That was one thing, I didn’t give up. When all that happened with my dad, I felt like my heart and soul had been patched together, through all the extreme traumas that I had experienced in life, which is a whole long story in itself.

“I’ve been through hell and back. Things that happened to me are things I did to myself unconsciously because my body lived on that. Going back to that time, looking at it—it’s like my soul completely shattered and I couldn’t get the shards back. It’s almost like sifting through those pieces, really literally. A couple of months ago, I went to a shaman and she had to go to this certain wall and get a piece of me back that I couldn’t get back. I learned so much from that experience. I needed help. I don’t look at what I went through as a mental health issue. I always thought it was a soul issue. I’m an empath anyway, so I feel everything around me, and that makes me ultrasensitive to everything. Then, when that happened, it was like tortures ripped in my body and I was sucking all these energies around me. It may not have been just a rip, but maybe more like a slowly starting rip and then those last couple minutes, just wide open, and all that energy got stuck in me, which just kept circulating and keeping my body in active crisis mode, and my body hurt so bad. All the shit I had been through, I never felt it; I had to suppress it, and then I felt it all at one time, this lifetime of stuff. The issues settle there and it took all that stuff to happen for it to surface.

“There is a silver lining. As painful as that shit was, I should have never gone through that stuff or even what I did experience with my father going through that process, the things I learned and actually healed for the first time, looking at the pieces. So, that rip was just constantly open, this wound that was just oozing. The ‘little people’ would take over. It was like when I moved here, it was almost like I went to infancy. Literally, I had to be taken care of, my kids had to fend for themselves; they went through this process with me. I could hardly take care of myself. I continued to do therapy. Being so disconnected, I enrolled myself in a parenting class because I needed to stay connected and try to relearn some things with them. My nine-year-old came out, and I had to tend to her and look at her and see where she was hurting, and then my fourteen-year old came . . . So, between nine and fourteen was the piece the shaman had to go get. Then, this 22-year-old came out and I had to look at him and know about these little people that are inside of me. I can never explain it because I feel like the trauma that I experienced, that during those times, I had to create another world to go to. Since this is kind of a retreat, it’s hard work to retrieve it. So, my transition from this ego-based world where I lived before into really recognizing that I wasn’t a bad person. All the shame—who knew I carried all that in my body? Oh my goodness, the shame I carried in these last three years, where I couldn’t even talk to my neighbors, I couldn’t look people in the face. I didn’t think I deserved to live. I didn’t think, even at a point, my children deserved to be in this world. It was a scary place to be. I had to check myself so much. Just not thinking that we were worthy to do simple things like shopping or go to a birthday party. It’s so sad, but that’s literally what I had to feel and go through.

“Fear, paralyzing fear, of success, of even just living or even going to pay a bill; that means I had to be responsible. Oh, the paralyzing fear. I think I was describing to someone not too long ago that, in the suffering, I felt almost like Moses with the parting sea in a way. On this side, I had the real-life responsibilities, the mom stuff, I really thrived in well before all this stuff happened (things I really needed to tend to, but I couldn’t), and then I had the spirit world over here, saying ‘you need to come visit me,’ but I was stuck right here. I couldn’t move because I was afraid to go either way. I didn’t feel safe to go to the spirit world for a while and learn the things I needed to learn to come back here and take care of them, because there was no safe container for that. When shit like that happens, they take your shit, you end up in the hospital, they put you on medication, and it had taken me a while to trust that that wasn’t going to happen to me.

“Coming over here, just connecting, because I was afraid that I was going to hurt people. I felt like I always just hurt everyone around me, and I was; I was hurting. Hurt people hurt people. I was oozing. So fighting this thing. I thought about giving my kids to another family, because I thought they were better off. These are the things I went through for so long. Thank goodness it gave me incentive. If I had not moved, I’d be dead today or maybe, I don’t know; that’s horrible. I’m a very loving, kind, nice person, and to lose my senses was like raw human behavior, the basics. It was almost like having that loser brain, nothing was charging. I survived, that’s the thing. I survived this and then moving here, having the faith. I don’t even know how I could hear my intuition through all that chaos that was going on, but I knew the moment that I visited here and saw this community, that I had to be here. I knew this is where I had to be from the moment I visited here to the moment I left. I visited here at Thanksgiving in 2015 and I arrived here January 10, 2016. So, that quick a decision and how pleased I was to do it. Getting here and having faith that week. I really believe in the peer work, finding my own support, my own community, trying to make my own path, and I don’t even know what that looks like. At the same time, trying to let go of the ego stuff, the stuff that I’m supposed to do. I have two kids back home in Arkansas, and I’m not able to be a mom right now, and I had to let that go and say there’s a purpose for all that and not fight that anymore, and not live under the umbrella. What a beautiful thing that I even created that I’m allowed to bring into this world. I had to find those little pieces to have the purpose in everything, and look at the losses that I’ve been through, and give it to that heart, but I didn’t let it go easily; I have a closet with all of it. I always feel like I’m in my head when I think about some of that stuff. I feel like I’m standing tall, but there’s a layer of shadow that’s pulling it behind, there’s this light that’s pulling me to the light. That’s how I felt with this transition. I did some major spiritual stuff. All the things I’ve learned along the way to have my own understanding of my creator and how that works in my life, learning how to not judge myself or other people, getting back to the core basics of authenticity and of love. Oh the love that’s in there that I didn’t think I had anymore. It’s little things, it’s people who just dropped in my life. At one time, I only had one friend here, and I had a boyfriend who was super busy all the time. I initially had one friend I could depend on, and then it slowly grew from friendships to people I would call family today. Today, I know that if I have to go to that other world, I’m safe, with so many different communities of people that would support me.

“These children, how different their future is going to be. My daughter is going to have the opportunity to walk in a spiritual path early on of what she chooses. I was raised, of course, in the south, so there’s a church on every corner. The religion we were engrained in was of Christian faith, which I totally believe is a beautiful thing, but I had to find something different for me. So, when I found the rooms, I had a sponsor who came along and talked about a different spiritual practice, which ended up being a sweat lodge. Who knew in little rinky-dink Russellville, Arkansas that people were practicing in a sweat lodge every Friday? I had the honor of sweating with these people; I can remember yelling in this lodge, the tears, just being there, holding me through that, and the community meeting afterwards every Friday, my people, we did it. That was the beginning of really seeking healing outside of just surviving. There have been moments in my life where I had had an easier time. There was a year I can recall that was really wonderful.

“I think my spiritual journey started a long time ago through everything that I had ever been through. My awakening started in 2010 when I went through a psychosis and went to an altered world and, somewhere in that, I came out a completely different person. I had some time there, went to college, excelled at everything I did, and everywhere I went, the grass was green behind me; it was such a beautiful time. I felt I was coming alive, seeing life in a different way. Then there’s the death, the death phase of feeling all those old layers that no longer served me, and now growing, being in touch in a different way than I ever have before, knowing my intuitive skills that I have, like being able to read a person. I see peoples’ auras; I’ve been seeing them my whole life and didn’t even recognize it. It’s taken linking into not just the trauma part of me, which very much exists, but to that spiritual part. I feel like that’s why the healing came, not in that medical wise that our society has, that pushed me.

“I was in the mental health system at nine years old and had my first hospitalization at age fourteen. Viewing from that lens and being trapped in that cycle to seeing something completely different—people don’t live this way. People don’t talk about this as a spiritual journey. It’s amazing how we live in society; we don’t connect with people anymore. I feel like we’re starting to wake up. People are starting to connect more than we ever have in years. I think our whole everything is awakening, seeing things through perspectives. It’s an amazing time to be in, and how people are recognizing how to support one another through our dark nights of the soul through these communities that have popped up just for that, and we didn’t have that before. When you went through something, you were an outcast from society, you had this label to where everything that I’ve ever been through, there’s meaning behind it and I’m able to teach other people and live in my own truth and not to keep secrets anymore. I can live openly, consciously, honestly, and compassionately. Honesty is the biggest; we’re so not honest with people, like ‘ouch, that hurts’—we don’t tell people that; we just let shit keep happening. You should be able to stand up and say that this hurt me, this is what I went through, this was real for me, I really wanted to jump off a bridge, this was real for me; sorry that you never experienced that, but can you please hold a container while I tell you about it. People don’t want to hear it because it has to touch that inner side of you.

“I was telling someone the other day that part of how I live in this world and how I am is that I touch that stuff that’s on the inside, and it’s so hard in ways because there’s a fine line, and I lose people because of that love. It’s just me bringing out the wounds that need to be healed. I can’t help it. It’s not that I point out people’s stuff and say ‘this is in you and this is what you need to fix.’ I, innately, through conversation or relationship, bring that stuff out, but some people are brave and they want to see it, are grateful, and you can have dialogue about it. How healing is that? Even just to be able to talk about stuff, how healing is that? So, that’s been my journey lately. I’m finally putting all the pieces together, participating in things I never thought I would, different ceremonies and healing modalities. I’ve tried a lot of stuff before I found what works for me. Out of the medical model, which I honor because I still have a therapist I talk to, but it’s almost like she’s a part of my tribe as well, in a way. She was crying in the office the other day because of something that we had to work through together. To see the growth and the healing in that, to see my therapist cry because I touched her sadly. Connection, right? We are changing all kinds of systems. I can remember seeing a therapist when I was younger, and it was nothing like that. Going in, and just be-bopping in, not really understanding why I was there. Things worth talking about, things I didn’t want to talk about, or not being able to tell the whole truth about stuff, that was a big one. I got a lot of horror stories from the hospitals as a teenager. You can only imagine the things that we went through there, seeing so much beautiful creativity be squashed.”

Tell me a little bit more about that time in your life you mentioned a lot of trauma, your father being hospitalized, and getting into the mental health system at an early age.

“Basically, I was born a secret in a way, and was raised for a while by a single mom. That was a little outside the box for the family. She was one of the only ones to have children out of wedlock, and that was a big thing back then. Then, she met my stepdad. Being a single mom, she put me in situations that were very harmful. Her not knowing was out of ignorance, just being desperate to have help and support with us. From age four to twelve, I was raped and molested by five different people, family members, which is a whole other story. There are reasons behind that. I don’t condone what happened or anything like that, but I’ve really made peace with it.

“My stepfather was very verbally abusive. He had his own trauma history. So, this is like generational trauma that I inherited. I basically was handed other people’s shit in my lap, was the product of their pain; at least I can see that. Of course, there are a lot of years of resentment towards a lot of that. He was a narcissist. I don’t like labels, but that’s an easy way to say what I experienced. The gaslighting—I was told I would never amount to anything—extreme punishments we had to go through, extreme poverty had a lot to do with it, and we didn’t have to be like that, it was just lack of care, I guess. I don’t know. These really shaped me for a long time. I remember when I was in high school, I was afraid to put my make-up on before I got on the school bus because I knew instantly in the morning, I woke up in fear because I was going to be in trouble for something that happened the night before. My mom had to go to work early, so my stepdad would wait in the morning, after she was gone. Ron, Tosha, Keista, now, snap his fingers, and we had to be, within a minute or two, even if we were still in bed, right in front of him, and we would get drilled and pounded with questions. I would know what I was trying to say, I would defend myself; so, at some point, something great came out of that. I knew how to defend myself. I know how to read people because I had to read ahead for so long. He had my mind so twisted by the time I got on the school bus, my behaviors would come out at school. I was extremely smart; even at 35 years old, I have a 3.76 GPA. So, that tells you that I can apply myself to something; I am extremely smart; I’m not dumb. I am something. I am something today.

“I went through that and, on the sidelines, I was molested by a couple members of the family. One side of the family, we just buried it, we didn’t talk about it, my mom didn’t even believe me, and I tell you this because I want to show you where the change in behavior was. I thought what I went through in life was normal. I had no idea that other kids didn’t go through what I went through at home. My first suicide attempt was in second grade. For a long time, I didn’t realize what that was, but now I realize that was what it was. The behaviors came out in school. I could hardly make a friend, I was so emotionally up and down. Our behaviors tell. I look around me and can’t figure out why any of the adults didn’t do anything about it. My mom didn’t believe me. I was about thirteen when she came out with that and, at thirteen, I was sexually active on my own, so I had those behaviors. I was going to friends’ houses and drinking. At fourteen, I had all these altered worlds I had to deal with. I ended up in therapy at age nine because of the sexual abuse. I had another molestation at twelve, and we went to the police station and because I used big words, instead of saying he put his fingers in me, I said he inserted his fingers in me, they didn’t believe me because they thought I had been coached. We came to find out, that same uncle had been raping my cousin, who was five or six years old. So, nobody did anything about this shit. Behaviors came out, and I ended up in a hospital at age fourteen, the first time being in an institution, and really it was like a vacation away from my family. I was there for however long my mom’s insurance covered it, until they didn’t cover it anymore, that whole cycle, right? They put me on my first medications and forced me to get a birth control shot.

“When I got out of the hospital, I went to school and met this school resource officer (my hero), who is still one of my best friends to this day. Now, he looks at me a little differently because I’m older, but that’s a whole other story. I was there and apparently the medications that they had put me on, my first time ever experiencing this—impurities, doping my body up, not to mention that I’ve been living on hormone-induced Tyson chicken my whole life, so you can only imagine everything that’s going on there. I’m in his office and apparently I start self-harming, but I started fading out and blacked out by this point. The next thing I know, I wake up in the drunk tank in the detention center, shackled. This was just a couple of days before my fifteenth birthday, maybe even the day before, I can’t remember, it’s been literally twenty-one years ago; it’s insane. I’m not that old. I can remember my parents screaming at me the whole way down ‘why the fuck did you do this? How could you do this to us? blah, blah, blah’; I’m just being blamed for everything.

“I end up in this other hospital. Insanity happened in that hospital. First of all, the first night I’m there, I go in and they didn’t have a bed for me, they don’t have a room for me, ICU where they can have the camera or a glass room where they can look at me. I’m literally in a hallway, my bed is against the wall, under these fluorescent lights. I’m sitting there, crying, because my birthday’s coming up, all these feelings, my parents yelling at me, I feel like a total fuck-up. I’m crying, it’s not loud, I’m not disrupting anything, but the nurses’ solution to that was no comfort, no ‘Tosha, it’s okay, you’re safe’; it’s put a shot in the ass and knock me out, that’s what happened to me that very first night there. I’ll never forget it. It’s amazing how I can remember every detail of those trauma memories, I just never felt it bodily. My fantasy world was romance novels. I loved to read, not as much now because I’m older and all of the responsibilities, but that was my world, and they took my books away, all my comforts away. I had this male nurse come in and give them back to me, getting all this extra attention, and then he took me to a room and tells me (I was fifteen years old), ‘I can’t stand to be here without putting my hands on you, blah, blah, blah.’ I have a sexual trauma history and here I have a male nurse; I could have easily been put in the hands of another predator. That’s when I changed; I knew the power of sexuality, which I learned to use later, that’s where I learned that. I had sex with another teenager in the hospital—these are the things that happened there, and they’re pumping you full of the meds. There were other teenagers in there, there was a voice in there with me, and seeing the fear that she had of the nursing staff; it was just horrendous.

“I got out of the hospital and went from this little, petite, teenage girl to blown up with the weight (stretchmarks galore from that). I’m not very vain, but these are things I remember from this. I had disappeared for a couple of weeks, went back to school, was ostracized in my social circle, and started fist-fighting people. It was a couple of years of good fist fights at school, either beating ass or getting my ass beat, that’s where I learned all that. Simultaneously, I’m trying to have a normal teenage life, playing softball or gymnastics. My poor parents, even though they were part of the abuse, they were hurting too, trying to deal with this teenager. I have my resentment towards them for that, so I can see a little bit different.

“I was out of the hospital for three or four months and I got in trouble. I had this one teacher that I used to butt heads with, plus, he was my bus driver. I did some property damage to the bus so he kicked me off the bus; it was a big huge ordeal. I was so afraid of the trouble I was going to get into. I remember calling my stepdad and he said, ‘You’re dead, Tosha. When you get home, you’re dead.’

“My parents had gone somewhere and had left us home. The same antidepressant (I think it was Paxil) that was prescribed in the previous hospital, I took as many as I could with sweet tea, and I love sweet tea. For years, I couldn’t drink sweet tea. I blacked out, bits and pieces that come and I feel like I remember trying to talk and my tongue feeling big. Does that make sense? I have a flash of memory and think it correlates with that time, and I think there was a moment that I can remember hearing my mom going in my ear ‘ssh, baby, ssh.’ I woke up in the hospital with a catheter, oh my God, I remember that experience. My stepdad was there, saying, ‘What did you do? Oh my gosh, they found PCP in your bloodstream.’ Apparently, I had done drugs at school that day.

“My mom, to this day, won’t tell me much about it. The only thing she’s ever told me about that experience was there were several doctors and nurses that had to hold me down, I had this inhuman strength. I think what made me come to was when they were putting the tube down my throat. So, those were memories I had of that.

“I ended up back in the same hospital that I was in before and, that time, I was proactive for myself. I said I didn’t want to go back home, I don’t care if the insurance runs out, I need long-term care. So, I advocated again for myself. When I think about it now, I realize that I was advocating for myself back then. I ended up on the long-term unit and was there for four and a half months, crazy stuff there with other people. They go through similar stuff that you do, pumped full of medications, had to earn rights to get off the unit, all these things; it was tough, but it was a break away from my family—that was the source of it. I wasn’t a crazy person; I was a traumatized person; I was going through trauma daily.

“When I came out of the hospital, my parents were strict for a little while (a couple of months), but then I turned sixteen, was able to get a job and had financial responsibility. One good thing, even through all of the trauma, at least my parents did teach me to be responsible. I was a mechanic, wonderful memories of mechanic shop—taught me how to drive standard, how to work on my own car, and how to change a tire. So, there were good things in there. I started getting freedom. I fought so hard with my stepdad, and then he basically started leaving me alone. So, I got to kind of be a normal teenager at sixteen. Normal teenager to me was sneaking around with boys and partying, going to the backwoods parties, drinking and smoking weed, all these things, whatev, that was teenage stuff back in the redneck country days.

“At age sixteen, I moved out, for four or five months, with a girlfriend, and then moved back home. By seventeen, I met my high school sweetheart and ended up marrying at age nineteen. That’s what I thought I was supposed to do. I met him in a little pool hall. His name was Rocky, country, drove a 1975 Firebird. I was so in love. His idea of a woman was she’s in the kitchen, she takes care of the kids, I go to work, I take care of everything, we’re going to have a garden, we’re going to burn shit all the time, clear that land, that’s what we do, right? It was good times when I look back now. Of course, I didn’t know who I was, and he had his own trauma history from his childhood. Who knew how bad that would affect him? We had all these dreams, and then I had several things happen in a row, plus, still being so engrained in my family, that sick stuff that happens underneath.

“I had a baby, Elijah Tiller, four generations, middle name. I had a C-section and he had jaundice, things I had never experienced before. It was stressful, and my husband was on the road. Just newness, a lot of new things. I was basically a single mom. We had been going to this Pentecostal Church for two years, I had cut my hair, wore skirts to my ankles, the whole womanly epitome thing. My favorite aunt in the whole wide world, Aunt Susie, was always there for me. If I ever could pick a mom, she would be my mom. She died in a car accident, very traumatic. I’ve learned since, if I hear details about something, those are the little things that send me over the edge. If someone dies, I can maybe handle it, but when I hear details about it, for some reason, I feel that and take it internally. I have this vision of that, and I don’t do well with it.

“I just started slowly unravelling, trauma history and hormonal stuff going on. If you wanted to put a label on it, it could have been what is considered postpartum depression. I had this baby stuck to my tits—six months of breastfeeding; it was just so new, all these things. Then I started getting off into the drug world, had an affair, coping mechanisms that I learned very early on, which has probably ruined most of my relationships. Along the way, I learned early on, never could explain why that could be, it could be more than trauma history. I started to explore whether I’m really a monogamous person or a polyamorous person. That could be some of what was going on, too. I never would have thought to look at that. I thought I was this horrible person because I function that way. It could be because I wanted to please my little people, right? I don’t know. That happened and we divorced. I remember looking at my husband, thinking that I was the problem. Of course, not knowing how the trauma affected me at that moment in my life, and I learned so much that I knew that I wasn’t right. His father made more money than I did, so it was not a hard fight to go ahead and let dad take those reins, I didn’t know how that ever would affect me. You just have tunnel vision when you’re going through shit.

“I had a whole mess with the divorce and going through that. Then, a couple of months later, he ended up on methamphetamine. Meth is very widespread in the South. Heroin up here is the scary drug; meth, down there, is the scary drug. Was anyone going to take care of my son? He had just gotten involved in a whole other system, horrible system, oh my goodness. Our systems don’t serve people in the way they need to. I did everything they asked me to do, parenting classes, outpatient drug treatment (honestly, the biggest drug I was addicted to was marijuana). In the South, come on now, there’s so much more major stuff out there, and that’s always gotten me. I had this love affair with Mary Jane, but, of course, I was trying to maintain some balance of normal, that was my crutch to help cope with this world, and I have my own theories about all that.

“During the outpatient rehab thing, I got pregnant with my second son. I think if I ever had more shame than anything is when I met David Quionones through shadow prison. He had been in there for thirteen years; he killed someone when he was eighteen. He was definitely institutionalized. He looked into people’s souls, maybe it was because I didn’t want to look at my own shit still or was afraid of the responsibility (I was close to getting my older son back), was pregnant with the second one, and the agency involvement. Of course, I can’t be with a man who’s from shadow prison and killed someone, but at the time, I felt like the rest of the world was against me and at least someone liked me. I went through that process and have my own big story I could tell.

“I ended up not with my oldest or youngest child. I ended up with this man two months after I lost custody of my oldest and my second child, and married this man. He was abusive, beat the shit out of me, bit my face. Shortly after that, I got pregnant with Jamian. He beat me so bad when I was six months pregnant that I told him that I would call the police; I can’t do this. My family didn’t understand and turned their back on me. They were willing to take my kids and help them, but they weren’t willing to help me, and they were the fucking source where all this started. Come on, I’m expected to make all the right decisions and know better.

“Living in this house with about twelve people, with crack dealers all hours of the night, knocking on the windows. There was no gas. His mom and I were the only two people working. I could barely feed myself. I worked at a nursing home, twelve-hour shifts, three days on and three off. I would eat there, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so that I wouldn’t starve to death. So much shame. I had to file and register for the baby’s food and imagine, after he was born, during his first check-up, I put the carrier down and the registrar calls on us; so embarrassing, so embarrassing. Since we didn’t have any gas (because no one paid the bill), I literally had to take Jamian’s bottles and heat up water in a crock pot and give him his bath and clean his bottle in that. Take a pan back to the house and go to a friend’s house to take a shower, but I survived that, and ended up in a different town for a little while and just kind of floated. Shortly after, I got pregnant again.

“Ten months later, we were visiting people and, again, he went off and beat my ass (I think I was four weeks pregnant with her), beat me up and down a street, literally. I was trying to run and he would grab and snatch me. He had this habit of taking my stuff (cellphone, keys, money, food stamp card), anything he could so I wouldn’t go anywhere. His family wouldn’t take me in, so I ended up having to walk ten blocks to a gas station and called my mom to have her get me; she had the kids (Jamian and Darian) the night before. She came to get me early in the morning and we went back. He wouldn’t give me my stuff, so I decided that I was done. He wouldn’t do it, so I called the police. The police took one look at me, started taking pictures, and said that they were pressing charges, I didn’t have to, and he went back to prison.

“I was pregnant with Keana through that whole time and I divorced him while he was in prison. I think this is where my compassionate heart comes in: I didn’t write him off and say he was this horrible fucking person, because I know about his trauma history. Our wounds talk to each other, and that’s what we get; we hook up with where our wound is. I wrote to him, sent him pictures, encouraged him, and said, ‘You can be a good dad.’ I went to his parole hearing. I guarantee the reason he got out was because I looked at the judge and said, ‘You know, he lived a lot, but he deserves those kids and those kids deserve to know their dad.’ So I was a big, strong advocate even for him. Through this process, I met the man who would become my third husband. We were young, the man loved me and the kids so hard. It was the first time I ever felt loved, but I couldn’t stop the patterned behaviors, the cheating and the drugs. He was six years younger than me, so he was in that phase of partying, so I don’t even know how I managed to raise children.

“I had a brush with the DHS Foster Care System for four months, but I had a wonderful case worker who was able to see through a lot of the stuff. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know . . . she was the first person to tell me that I was super smart, that I got this, I could do it, I was a wonderful mom who made a small mistake. I never heard of a person who got their kids taken away for failing a drug test and got them back in four months. I did it. Parenting classes, I had already been through it, and I knew. I love them, but as soon as that case was over, back to partying. It was different because I had a community. How I met Chris: through the process of my ex-husband beating my ass, not having a place to go, having a baby and pregnant with another one (a beautiful little girl), I ended up moving to this itty, bitty town called Ozark, Arkansas, where the Beverly Hillbillies are from; I lived in that town. It was such a small community and through my job as a CNA, I started building community there, and it just grew. I met Chris and we were happy, even though we were doing what we were doing. All the people we knew were doing the same. We were moms who smoked weed, got together and did fun stuff like taking the kids to the zoo.

“Once their dad got out of prison, I allowed him to be part of their lives until he screwed up again, but I allowed him to be a part of their lives. During that time, I was getting in with my family. I was seeing my two boys every weekend, and had my little circle. I would drop those two off with their dads, go see my other boys, or I would have all four of them for a weekend at my parents or they would come up. It was a really beautiful time, starting something really good, but we got far out with the Xanax. It got me. I had gotten one prescription from a doctor, and I learned how to buy it off the streets. That was a whole cycle. One of my girlfriends and her mom would go to different doctors and different pharmacies (they have a system set for that now, but this was several years ago), until they finally got caught. Xanax, hand over fist, they were buying them, taking four bars a day. I had all this baby weight and it literally just melted off of me in four months. When I finally asked for help, they didn’t know if I was on meth, but knew something was going on.

“When I look back, I think that was the first time life was good for me, and I didn’t know how to handle it. It clearly showed the underlying current my body is still on that system, me trying to juggle everything—it doesn’t ever teach me what I was going through. Four bars a day and my partner, Chris, looked at me and said, ‘Latosha, you have a problem and you have to do something about it.’ My way of doing something is push those people out. Instead of going back to my hometown, at the same time, going down and getting big quantities of weed, bringing it back to this little community, and getting rid of it within days, that’s just how it works. I was doing too much, working full time with two infants. It was chaos. What amazes me with Jamie and Keana and having them—first of all, they were babies, they didn’t recognize all that stuff. In the end, I had a community that kept me kind of grounded to do the things I needed to do for my parenting. Honestly, the impact had been going on. I had been working in these nursing homes for ten years, and I was taking on all of these people’s energies. No wonder I was just going like I was. I remember giving all of my effort to all of these elderly folks, and by the end of the day, I didn’t have enough for my kids, so I felt the Xanax was doing it for me. My idea was sift those people out of my life and start therapy back up. I heard the word titrate, and tritrate meant cut in half, for me at the time, I know what it meant.

“When I made that conscious decision not to do Xanax anymore, I had two bars to last me for two weeks. I did it, and somewhere in that process, I started losing perception of time. Things that happened yesterday, I thought happened three days ago or two weeks ago. I finally cracked the first day without any Xanax in my system whatsoever. I went back to my hometown and got all this weed. Everybody was waiting for me to get off of work so they could come to my house, and I could do my second shift basically. If that day was split in two, a couple days before, which I thought had been two weeks before, my friend’s husband killed himself. Being the community that we were, working at that nursing home, she called my phone that day and said, ‘Tosha, I just want to see my baby,’ and she was talking about Jamian, because she was always attached to him. Jamian is kind of mean and didn’t really like people. But, for some reason, he liked this crazy woman, and I don’t know if she’s aware, she was fun. Somehow that day, I remember working my ass off at work, a bunch of us from work, with our kids, ended up over at her house, the same house where this man had just shot himself, although it had been cleaned up. I can remember, I will never forget this, that rift was there because I could feel everything. I remember walking through that threshold and I could feel there were spirits there. If you go by the Christian faith, and the way I was raised in the Pentecostal faith, when someone has those type of things, there’s demons and stuff like that, and I kind of believe that to a certain extent. They have no vessel to go to when that vessel that they’ve entered dies (at that time, I firmly believed this), so they attached themselves to whoever was in that vicinity afterwards. This was going through my head, and she was telling this crazy story about how his hat was over here and it was moved over here when she woke up. I don’t think she was in her right mind either. I can remember getting up, having to be busy, and making people drinks because I could feel it. Mind you, the lack of the substance (Xanax) in my system was trying to push me into that other world.

“I go home, somehow she ends up at my house, smoking a joint, and all these people were coming into my house to get their weed. I literally thought whoever was in that house carried a spirit away with them that day, because all of our lives fell apart that day in one way or another. I convinced myself of this. Chris was away at some training, I was home alone with two kids (infants and then toddler phase), and when I laid down at night, everyone was gone, I started hearing shit and my muscles started to spasm; I thought I was about to have a stroke or a heart attack, and my two babies were here. It was two o’clock in the morning, I’m not getting any sleep because I’m spinning and hearing stuff. I called into work and talked to a night shift nurse for almost an hour, because I was afraid of all these things. I made it through the night. I remember I was like a skeleton, pulled my pants on and my hair was a mess. I used all the strength I had to get my kids to daycare and get myself to my job, even though I called in. I walked into work and said, ‘I need help. —I have a problem and I need help.’

“They found me a bed in a hospital, and I got to pick where I went. I wanted to be someplace close. So, I get in this hospital and start the process (I was seeing stuff) of really titrating me off the Xanax. I remember taking a shower the night before, and my hair was standing on end (natural curly hair). So, I come out, it was a Friday, nurses don’t look like nurses, they’re in their street clothes. It’s casual Friday at work. I said, ‘Excuse me, I would like to have my make-up and my hair straightener, please,’ and she said, ‘Ma’am, you can’t have that here.’ I said, ‘Why not?’, and she said, ‘Because it’s a safety issue.’ I told her I didn’t come here because I was suicidal, I came here because I want to safely titrate off of medication, and I would like my hair straightener and my make-up. The nurse said, ‘Ma’am, we can’t give that to you,’ and I said, ‘Well, fuck you to,’ and I went back to my room. The counselor came into my room and tried to get me to go to group therapy, and I said just because I feel like I’m crazy, I don’t have to look like I’m crazy. I want to look decent; it makes me feel good. I had to fight for that and fought for it all day. Would you have your nurses come in here looking like some hoodrats, straight off the street, but I can’t look like a decent human being? Are you kidding me?

“Then, the charge nurse comes in and we have a conversation. She says that it looks like you have natural curly hair, if I got you a can of mousse, would that be a compromise, because we can’t have the hair straightener, it’s not you we’re really worried about. She really explained stuff to me, it’s the other people, whatever, try to compromise, you can let me have my hair straightener and watch me, I don’t care; I want a razor to shave my armpits. You all can watch me, I don’t care about that, and she said, ‘No, it’s a safety issue.’ I compromised with the can of mousse; no one else gave me that that day. I got my make-up and got to feel decent. Through that process, going to the other world and coming back, I was a completely different person. I saw things differently, kind of what I’m going through now. I didn’t lose friends, and my boyfriend stayed through this process for the first time. Every other time I went into the hospital before, I lost everything. They loved me regardless, my community loved me through it.

“When I got out, I took about three weeks off of work. I was back to work for about three days and came home bawling, crying, because it was so stressful. I didn’t realize I was that stressed out. I have a very low tolerance to toxic stress. I can handle emotional stress; I can’t handle toxic stress, and I was definitely under toxic stress. I came home and told Chris about it at lunch, and he told me to quit and he would support me. At the time, I loved my independence and having my own money. I gave my two-weeks’ notice and ended up staying three extra weeks. During this time, I wasn’t going to just sit there, I enrolled in college, 28 years old—never thought I could do that, with having kids, but I did it.

“During that space of not working and going to college, I was new to Facebook and had this girlfriend, who has since died of suicide. She posted on Facebook about this guy, Dr. Dan Fisher, who was coming to speak at my hometown college (45 minutes away) about Empowerment and Recovery from a Mental Illness. I had already felt empowered, but I had never heard of recovery from a mental illness. When you have something and you get tagged, you have it forever. For some reason, my spirit was telling me I had to go. I traveled down there, and when he came into the room, I had never seen a person engage the audience like that. People usually speak at you, but he was engaging us, and the things he was talking about, kind of like what I was speaking about earlier, that fracture, how in trauma it separates our mind and our heart. I had never heard anyone put it that way, and how they need to be reconnected and realigned. I remember feeling like I was in a really weird place because I didn’t belong there because he’s famous, well not famous, but he’s an author and has been on Oprah. I raised my hand in the middle of it and said, ‘Where have you been? I can’t remember everything I said. The words, this is what saved me, at that time, was ‘it’s not what’s wrong with you, it’s what happened to you.’ That phrase, I had to say something. At the end of it, Dr. Fisher asked if anyone wanted to help with a nonprofit (I had no idea what any of this was), if you want to volunteer, sign up right here. I signed up, a whole slew of us did. We did a meet and greet, the whole nine yards, and then I left.

“I was over at my sister-in-law and brother’s house, hanging out, and I got this phone call from Dr. Dan Fisher. He said I sounded like someone he could use in our state to help advocate and talk about this nonprofit, it’s peer-run. I didn’t even know what the hell this meant. He explained that it was people who survived the mental health system, and I said, ‘I’m in; I’m in.’ He invited me to come down, check it out, and see if this was something I wanted to do, like I was important. You know what I mean? So, I went outside of my box and told Chris I was going down to Conway for three days to sit in these meetings. I really had no idea what it was all about. God bless his heart, he was probably a young, dumb redneck who loved me so much, he was going to let me do anything. Those three days changed my life. I hoped this was the beginning of helping to build their peer-run nonprofit. So, I started that process, meetings of these great minds, people from the state, these people are like forever family, just watching this thing that you have building and growing, all this knowledge I’ve gained.

“I got to travel through that experience. Six months later, I took my very first plane ride to Anaheim, California to attend the Alternatives Conference, with 1,000 or more people who have lived experiences through the mental health system, with a higher purpose, being one of two representatives for the state of Arkansas. How exciting is that? This little country girl, never thought about anything beyond that. You should have seen me, I was carrying 50 pounds of books, because I couldn’t put them in my bag, since they would charge me more. Me and my partner, running across the Chicago airport with all of these books; it was horrible. It was an amazing experience and I’ve opened up. Not only am I going to college, I’m thriving in college, doing things I would never had done in high school. I was the secretary for the Student Government Association and I was the PVL President. Like I said, where I was walking, the grass was growing green. I started feeling better and my life was great. I say great, but the underlying current still actively participating in that wild lifestyle. Me and two girlfriends called ourselves the ‘bad girls club’ because we weren’t good to our men at all. In the long run, I got found out. That man loved me so much, he gave me another chance. It hurt, and those wounds started hurting people. It was almost like I was doing stuff that my fourteen-year-old would do—come out to play for a moment, do a little dirt and come back, so that she could be normal. That’s what those fragments or infractions are.

“Chris and I moved back to our hometown, and I was no longer a part of that little community that helped me grow and thrive. Friendships were finding their way out the door and the ‘bad girls club’ started doing dirty shit to each other. That’s what happens when you keep dirty secrets, right? But, I loved those women, I learned so much, they taught me so much too, sisterhood, and how to be yourself. For the first time in my life, I had these women who loved me no matter what. And then the unraveling started to happen. I started the custody battle for my oldest son, my brother was in active addiction, PTSD, had his kids taken away, and I was trying to support him and my parents in that process. My parents ended up with his kids. I was feeling like I wasn’t living up to my full potential. At least I had gotten my associate’s degree and had started online classes for my bachelor’s, my husband was on the road, tee-ball coach, soccer—just so much, spinning plates, that’s what I do because I don’t know how to sit still and be still, just doing what I thought I was supposed to do, the know it all American, and then I started cracking and the fractures started coming in.

“The way I look at it is I have this history of trauma in my life that I don’t want to feel. I think the creator allowed something very unfortunate to happen. I was raped again (I went to go buy some weed) by someone I knew for fifteen years; he was way off on something else. I firmly believe had he not been so fucked up and far off that would have never happened. I had just lost my dad, oh my God, I didn’t realize how long I had made this man my fucking God, and you don’t have that no more and you don’t have that expectation. That’s a whole unraveling, right? After I had been sexually violated again like I was, I started shutting down. I started going to NA, that’s when I entered into the rooms. My husband didn’t understand as I kept it a secret from him, because I was so ashamed of being in that position in the first place. All those feelings from childhood came bubbling back up with it, but then I started talking about it and took on the responsibility for what happened. I started talking to my girlfriend about it, and told her what happened and how disgusting it was, and she told me that I was raped, and that was the idea of that.

“I couldn’t face the reality of going to a meeting with my nonprofit. All I could do was literally just lay on the couch, hardly move, and sleep. Thank God it was a peer community. Then it all came out, and then we left. Of course, all the history of the rest of the stuff before, I was accused of sleeping with him because that couldn’t happen because he knew me, you all had history, we were friends, yeah, we were at one point, but he was so fucked up on those drugs. I told my whole family I just slept with this man, so guess what my family said, the repeated pattern, it didn’t happen, and they supported him in a new relationship not long after ours. They did a total betrayal. I can remember my mom saying that I didn’t want to be part of this and didn’t want to rock the boat. In the meantime, she was over here hooking him up with someone else, keeping it a secret and still having a relationship with my ex-husband. I was totally ostracized and shut in the dark and, the day he left, all of these goals and dreams—being a mother and homemaker, trying to get custody of my child back, and going to fight for my next one next—all these dreams gone, just swiped, and I couldn’t function. Imagine football season with three boys, and I did it. Then with my daughter, gymnastics and dance. These things were so important to me, and it was gone and I couldn’t get it back.

“I had sense enough to enroll myself in college. That human being was still there, even though I was living in that fractured side. I had a choice. I lost everything and had to go on housing, food stamps, and the whole nine yards. The outer appearance looked totally perfect, but was total crap on the inside. I could have totally done the factory thing, work at Tyson and raise my kids on Tyson chicken, but I couldn’t do that. I had taken a semester off, maybe a year, when my dad was dying. I enrolled myself back in college, and I remember my mom telling me how dumb I was and I said, ‘No, I’m not doing that. They deserve to see something different.’ When I was on housing, I had sense enough to utilize it. I can remember sitting in class and hearing ‘wonk, wonk, wonk.’ The only thing that saved me were PowerPoint and having to physically concentrate on writing papers. I was totally disassociated with so much weight loss. It was hell. I was fighting with my ex-husband for a year because we didn’t know how to let go. He was so hurt, and he had every right to be. I was so hurt, and had every right to be. Two kids were in the middle of it, and I was becoming a person I didn’t want to be. I had a conversation with my ex-husband not too long ago because after all that, when I moved and taught for six months, we had to have that much space. He got remarried and had babies on the way by that time. I told him that he was such a coward because you can’t hit on my unraveling and you have two kids. When I say, ‘We’re raising each other,’ we’re literally raising each other. The traumas that you don’t want your kids to experience (the losses, the hurt, the pain), they’ve experience it. So, that’s my story to where I’m at today.

“I probably have to look at my shadow self. Through all of that, if you look at what I went through as a child and all the things that happened, I believe of having that feeling of being other than my whole, not because I’m being narcissistic. I’ve always seen things in a spiritual way, no one in my life looked that way, just going through all that, the generational trauma—the forces I’ve been dealing with aren’t just my shit, it’s all of that—my grandmother, my great grandmother. A little bit more of my historical story is my family is full of pedophiles. My great-grandfather literally molested all of his granddaughters. He was way older, his wife was thirteen years old, and had her first child at fifteen, and went on to have eight kids. He isolated her way up in the country, while he would go to the city, make his kids work and, what I heard, was he would spend his money on the horses. There’s that side.

“On my father’s side, my father had a stepfather who molested all of the girls. One of the uncles ultimately moved on to molest me. My biological dad is an alcoholic. Me and my brother are the only two of our generation who had been sexually traumatized. My brother took it hard because whatever I went through, he was right there beside me. He was out there homeless. I know the feeling; I went through it. The Creator definitely gave me people and communities that loved and support me. It’s only because, no matter through the dark circles and fog of it all, the ultimate end of it was love, and my brother just can’t find that. He doesn’t understand that part of it. I tried saving him, but that’s his monkey barrel.

“I feel like with this generational sickness that’s happened, the buck stops here with me. That little girl and that little boy in there, never ever have they been touched, and they will never be in their life, because I know that my birth, through all the hell I’ve ever been through, was to heal that tear. They’re going to carry their own traumas, and they’re going to carry their own healing. When you have traumas like that, it takes seven generations to get it out, and when you heal yourself, you heal seven generations past and seven generations forward. So, they’re going to carry the burdens of their own traumas that they’re going to have to focus on their lives to heal, so they can be the healers that they’re meant to be, because we were born to be healers. I think everybody has it in them, but people aren’t awake to it. The Creator has woke me up to it and gave me the keys and the healing modalities to do that. I had to go through the ups and downs, the tunnels, the dark nights, and be at that desperation point in order to do the work I feel I’m meant to do and the next generation is meant to do.

“I think it’s sad that my older two kids cannot. If you went by society terms, my kids still go through shit, not normal stuff. How rich are they going to be? My daughter can pick and choose what she wants to do. She’s not bound by this anymore and I’m healing that and I’m breaking that for her, she gets to go out and be her creative self. They’re not expected to go work at some factory or become a mechanic. They are all valid trades, but the evolutionizing, they’re meant for something different. My two older kids, our journey will start when they can come to me and we can talk about our paths. That’s okay, too.

“So, making meaning of all that, when I say society says with mental health, you’re broken, you can clearly feel that way, but for me, the journey is spiritual. It’s not that physical. It’s our spirit, right? So, that’s where I’m at.”

It sounds like a beautiful place to be at, putting those pieces together, and that you’re finding value and meaning in all of these painful, traumatic experiences, but that there’s light, love, and purpose; you’re human.

“True healing, not sweeping it under the rug or covering it up with other pretty things. I’m doing the nitty, gritty, messy, all-over-the-place healing, and the Creator is providing every step of the way, even through all of my fears. This is never how I envisioned my life to be, still holding on to that fourteen-year-old romance novel reader. No wonder why I had this magical boy meets girl false hope, because that’s what helped me survive. If I’ve learned anything in the last three years, it’s to just let it go; we have no control. We can make decisions and have goals, but, ultimately, in the end, it’s our Creator that has that control and He or She molds us in a way that we’re created to go. We don’t know what our life is going to bring us. We’re all one accident away from some kind of crisis, mental health issue, spiritual crisis, or even death, just one moment away, and how the human spirit survives that, not just survives, but thrives, and gets to the other side.

“I’m a single mom. It’s tough a lot of days. I do two shifts in a day basically. My car’s got issues. At one time in my life, I had a four-bedroom, two-bath house with a backyard, and I loved that. Now, I’m in an apartment, far away from my family and anybody I know, but I’m right where I’m supposed to be. This is how it unfolded for me, and I’m happy right where I’m at. My job—I get to wake up every day and do what I love, which is to hold space for others. I have compassion, share love every day, and there’s no reason in this whole world that I should be able to love the way I do. Every obstacle I had hit me in my face, but there’s that innate feeling. There was a flame there, and it told me there’s something better and that we’re beautiful. The simple little things, like my single mom neighbor I can go to and talk dirty shit, you know what I mean? That’s so beautiful because that’s so human, right? Or, my grandmother who will call me randomly, or I’ll call her—it reminds me where my roots come from. That’s so beautiful. Or, my neighbor, Louis, who just died two weeks ago. He was an addict, and was the best neighbor I ever had, because he taught me how to dig my car from underneath the snow, something that I would never know. We looked out for him and he looked out for us; how beautiful that is. Or, my relationship with my ex-partner. We went through some stuff, we’d run out those title sides on one another, but how beautiful, on the other side of that, I had one of the best relationships ever. My very best friend, Ron, who is wheelchair-assisted and has immobility in a lot of ways, and how he inspires me every day and has held my hand. There’s so much beauty in everything. Seeing my kids struggle through things because they’re learning and growing.”

For anyone who is reading this and can relate to a multitude of things that you’ve shared, what message would you want them to receive?

“I think my theme lately is standing your own truth. Speak your truth to power. We can survive and then thrive. I guess that’s really it. It’s so worth following your dreams, so worth it, because I’m living my dream today.”

So it sounds like what you’re saying is talk about it, move forward, and don’t give up on your dreams.

“Don’t, and do whatever it takes for you to move forward. If that means you have to have that pause moment and bury yourself under the covers, that’s part of moving forward, because you’re doing the real work, you’re grieving and feeling things. So there’s value in that. Even in your darkest moment, there’s so much value.”

What are some of the things that work for you today? You talked about this being a very spiritual journey for you.

“For me, connection is a huge one, whether it be from my wings or from a different place, it’s what helps me. Yoga, although I don’t have a steady yoga practice now, has been one of the steps along the way for me. Not being part of the mental health system as far as medication and all that; I am totally not doing that route. I’ve seen a spiritualist, and that has definitely helped. I’ve participated in some very intense ceremonies, let’s put it that way. Those are some of the things, and I’m also still learning too. I’ve had these really unhealthy patterns for so long, I’m learning to pay attention. My diet is not healthy by any means, but that’s something I couldn’t see before, but realize this does affect my body, so I’m slowly integrating things like that.

“Learning how to nurture and love myself—that’s my biggest thing right now. Not too long ago, I participated in a ceremony about self-love. Through that ceremony, I found that love. I had never felt such intense love in my entire life, and it was like reconnecting with my self. I feel like if you have that, you have a base. You find that and then you have something to work with. Since I’ve recently found that, I’m starting to do the real work, even though before it was work, it was more like sifting through it. Now, I’m able to give love because I’m self-loving and self-caring. I’m able to give love to my children again and connect with them and give love to other people. I’m able to allow people to support me on this journey and support other people, that’s a big thing. It’s the little things. For example, six months ago, I could hardly get out of bed and work to living my dream job—there you go. It’s so part of me and who I am. I held on to living my passion, and I do it every day. Those are the things that help me and I’m going to learn more.”

You said previously you’re still learning, and I think that is important. Is there a quote, a mantra, or piece of advice that someone has ever shared with you, or you’ve come upon, that resonates with you?

“I think as a life mantra: when people are seen, valued, and heard, they grow and they thrive. I think whenever I was seen, valued, and heard, I grew; that’s it! I was sitting here thinking of quotes. One day maybe I’ll read the invitation to you, that’s really important to me, and I’ll put that; it’s beautiful. I guess that’s it.”

It seems that to be seen, to be heard, and to be valued are human basic needs besides Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs (shelter, food, and all that stuff). I think that’s where the healing starts, when you feel safe, you feel heard, and you feel valued. I think that’s huge in integrating people back into community, and you touched upon this a lot—the system. The system is not rooted in seeing, caring, and valuing people; it’s about medicating, labeling, and disconnecting people.

“Making money and being a cattle call. Our systems don’t work, they just don’t. Finding that sense of community has always been a big thing for me. I’m 35 years old and I’ve lived probably five lifetimes in that 35 years. I’ve always been trying to not reinvent myself, but there’s always been these collapses along the way and so many lessons to learn. However, for the first time in my life, here and now, I feel like I’m doing the real work. Hopefully, I have another lifetime or two before I go to that other world permanently.”

How has it felt to talk about these experiences and feelings with me today?

“It feels good. I feel valued, seen, and heard. I feel great about it. I’m grateful to be able to tell my story. It’s such an honor. I think our stories are the most powerful thing a person has. Nobody can take that away from us. It’s ours, it’s mine, it’s yours, our collective stories together. No one can take them away from us. I’m so honored that you would allow me to tell my story. I hope that someday it resonates with someone, like when I heard Karen’s story.”

You mentioned, before we started this interview, that you were feeling anxious and a little nervous. Did you notice when that dissipated? Did it at some point?

“Oh, yeah, it definitely dissipated. I think a little nervousness is good, right? Once we started, I just bit the bullet and didn’t think about the nervousness, and it’s not there now at all. It’s cool, and to do this process with you was very helpful. Like I said, we’ve known each, but to really sit down and get to see your compassion, the tears—connecting—it’s helped.

Thank you. It helps me too.

#healing #resilience #mentalhealth #recovery #hope

9 notes · View notes

wardencathiel · 7 years ago

Photo

EXILE

Name/gender/appearance/favorite hobby?

opele (pr. “opal”) endac! she goes by just Oh or Elle, if not just her first name. shes a cis girl, and tbh she mostly just looks like lucy liu cuz i got a big fat crush on her and i picked the east asian icon for her. she has a short bob haircut tho, and lean but muscular build, and is in her late 30s. her hobbies are like.. being active and running and stuff like that lol she also likes doing mindless work with her hands so lots of like tinkering with anything, like electronics or mechanical stuff.

Where are they from? Where are they going?

probably nowhere important, and she was too young to remember any part of it, parents included. a no name planet somewhere with a steady but boring colony. where shes going is a lot more interesting since she knows where revan might be.. i think she would really want to go find her and help her with whatever the war is but she would be lying to herself if she didn’t realize she formed a huge attachment to atton. she loves him dearly and it would be really hard to leave him.. if anything, i think the most realistic thing is that she and him went and settled somewhere, keep their heads low, and just live life. shes a tired bitch ok. mb one day she’ll go and find rev but rn she wants to chill.

What did they do to occupy themselves between the Mandalorian Wars and waking up on Peragus?

absolutely nothing. she spent a lot of time during her time cut off from the force just going thru the motions. if anyone noticed she was different or recognized her for whatever reason, she would pack up and leave. a large chunk of her time was spent trying not to form any social bonds, and any time she would start getting to know someone she would bolt. just overall a rly lonely and sad existence. she would work odd jobs and just generally be a shell of her former self.

What was their relationship with Revan like?

well i already sort of answered this in revs but. there was the intimidation cause revan is well............scary lol they are probably close in age so they grew up together in the temple. it was never anything more than a passing interest until the wars and then they sort of? hit it off? in that weird way where u both went thru that conflict together. obviously there was a bond since opeles force issues, but it was more on revans side than opeles. she was mostly just trying to win the war. tldr they liked each other but not as much as revan likes opele.

What was their relationship with Atris like?

well she had no clue atris had feelings for her so their relationship never went past a cold formality... opele thought atris hated her, so she stayed away from her when she could. she wasn’t the type to confront her about it so she just didn’t.

With Kreia?

lot to unpack here lol i think my exile wanted to trust her so badly but like... she knew she wasnt good. i think there was a lot of using, from both sides. kreia wanted to use the exile for obvs. reasons, and my exile wanted to use kreia to relearn all that she had lost during her exile. i do think, though, that kreia probably felt more towards opele than the other way around. like there was definitely like an attachment but... she always knew not to get too close, no matter how much she wished she could. overall i think it was an uneasy relationship, lots of tension but much more learning from one another.

Did they travel with both Mical and Brianna, or only one?

just mical cause i forgot to install the mod, unless there was a way u could w/o the mod?? either way yeah lmao just mical.

Do they regret what they did in the Wars?

part of her always will but she wouldn’t change what she did because she believes that it was necessary. shes... guilty but not very regretful.

How traumatized were they by the visions on Korriban? (Personally, I cried and screamed, but I’m not exactly as tough as a Jedi. I’m probably not even as tough as C-3P0.)

LIKE... personally i was fucked up about it but my exile did pretty well despite the circumstances. she also knew that there was a part of it all that was just visions, wasn’t real, but there is also that very real dark energy gained from not dealing with the visions correctly. she failed some, and won in others, which i think the specifics of really defined her well as a character. she failed the first one- where she was being recruited for the war. she also failed the one where her entire crew was going against kreia, and outright refused to participate and got the whole apathy spiel. she “survived” the rest though, and defeated revan which i think rly ties in well with her almost like? using the dark side? but not falling to it.

Is there romance in their lives?

i’d like to think during their time in the game, there isn’t anything more than an inkling. i luv atton to bits and so does she lol but i think a lot of their romantic stuff is left for after the game- especially with that ending where he’s there waiting for her after kreia and is like so where to next ;w; but before that it is mostly just skirting around the issue. a very slow burn fic lol. i do think she thought about the disciple but he was so much younger than her and it was such a puppy love, it was just like well that dudes in love with me i guess. obvs. nothing before that since she was jedi/exiled

Light side or dark side?

light side, but she was very close to being a grey jedi by the end of it. definitely lighter than my revan post-game tho

How do they feel about the Jedi Order?

there is always going to be that element of betrayal because of what they withheld from her and what they did to her irt her loss of the force for some time. but honestly... she was done with them the moment they didn’t do anything to stop the war. she respected their judgement and teachings but she never considered herself a jedi after they kicked her out, and she never will again. she also thinks they got a lot of it wrong- and that a lot of what kreia said made sense, up until a point.

What happens to them after the game? Do they ever find Revan? Do they ever reconnect to the Force?

i sorta answered this one up there too but basically she stays with atton and just . rly wants to stay put and have a normal life but in the end.. i think she would go to find revan. i also think she would take atton with her, against her better judgement. as for reconnecting tbh? i think it stays how it is with her, where she can use it but there is something there thats fucked up, not right. maybe she tries to figure that out and travels around with atton to get some answers before going to help rev.

BONUS: What do you think happens to all the party members post game?

HMN GOD well i think bao dur got the short end of the stick since hes super unfinished but i think he would definitely go with them until opele is like dude i love u so much but u gotta find ur own way that doesnt involve me. she would have to put distance between them, despite the pain it would cause both of them since they were like... best fucken friends. for everyone else i think, they go their separate ways much quicker than him. they stay in touch cause opele loves them all but she knows its better to keep them away from her because of her force shit. i think miras and the disciples “endings” are pretty good even with the openishness. canderous goes back to do mandalore stuff but stays in touch as well. honestly i dont have a clue about goto and neither does the exile lmao t3, of course, stays with her and atton. hk runs off and does bounty hunter stuff. idk i mostly think about bao dur in this cuz i love him and he deserved better

#kotor character meme #kotor 2 #the exile #star wars #knights of the old republic 2 #chelsea speaks #OK HERES MY OTHER BABY #opele

6 notes · View notes

atomicsurvivor-isleofskye · 7 years ago

Text

Ep. 1 - “Karma is a Nasty Old Woman” - JG

This season began the night of December 8th with a cast reveal, but the game was already afoot before that. Players had the opportunity to earn an extra trip to hunt for the idol by reading the rules. Heather, August, Aundra, JG, Rebecka, Tara, and Vi all took advantage of this opportunity!

The pre-merge buffs were also revealed, with the tribes called Iolaire and Saorsa.

And then the game began.

The first immunity challenge was posted, which you can check out here:

https://atomicsurvivor-isleofskye.tumblr.com/post/168340626526/tribal-immunity-1-isle-relay

Introductions have been made, and everyone seems nice so far!

Consider me the f*%# overwhelmed. I’m trying to make personal connections but clearly that isn’t going too well. The challenge seems scary. I’m dying. Someone help!

I am SCARED. I have to establish all new relationships and I’m pretty shook about it.

Everyone seems so nice. I can deal with the challenges but I'm a bit scared. I don't want to mess up so early in the game.

Man, I forgot how the start of orgs are so busy. Everyone seems pretty nice so far but I swear I won't learn their names until at least merge. If we have merge that is. After that I'll have to relearn. Hopefully we all make it to merge so I don't have to relearn anything. This challenge is pretty bad though. Slow internet will make this a pain

Ok so I love my Tribe so far! The first immunity challenge came so fast but I'm glad that our team came together to figure out who's doing what. Also JG is coming in clutch with that advantage.

So I’m not sure how to feel about being on a tribe with Rebecka, she might be bitter, or she might be happy to have someone she knows. As for me if I can’t find anyone else ill try that connection, for now I just need to keep communicating.

This game is so different from azores (shout to everyone from that game) the vibes are completely different. probably because im completely different but yah im really enjoying this tribe rn we have team work down and dont seem like a bad group of people. only thing is i signed up to do the logic puzzle thing and im not that smart

omg this seems like a nice little tribe, its interesting be surrounded by new players to this like myself :') im not outta place, also it seems like being the oldest i hope everyone will be able to rely on me and my knowledge :D on the flip side with everyone being new it's sure to lead to some confusion in challenges hopefully i'll be able to give them some guidance and lead us to some wins :) also i fully expect to have bad luck doing the moors crap but yolo and may as well try right?

So the LoIaire tribe decided to do a call but it turned into me, Stephen and JD talking about videogames fjksskskd. I hope people don't think we're an alliance already! Fingers crossed.

my tribe is full of nerds

but i'm a fan of it

So the em peeps - me, Tara and august - made an alliance right off the back. I'm already lying to them like I did my previous org. Who said I was gonna do random voting this time again? O well, time to play a wolf in sheep's clothing and hope not to get picked to shear. That would be terrible. It's really cold and this wool is really warm. We're basically ignoring the other chat since they're in a group call and geeking out about stuff. I don't know. I zoned out bc I didn't understand what they were saying. Hopefully I'll be able to start my plan of seducing them with pictures of my pets soon.

I'm not sure if it will be an advantage or disadvantage but while searching the Moors, I found a twist that will be revealed at merge! Now I just have to do is survive until then... tune in nextime kids

Cool tribe. Trying to prove my crappy helpfulness in this collecting challenge since i'm godawful at puzzles. Also, tara went ahead an made a stupid fast f3 with me and infinity, and i told them my searches which sealed the deal. Also like JG and Ain, seem like pretty cool dudes, hoping to work with em'. This moor twist is really neat, but i also feel like everything already found already, but whatever.

Tara is pretty cool. She's nice and I think we can work together

An alliance of Heather, Lukas, Madison, and Olivia called “Future Final 4″ was created on Saorsa.

We love early alliances YES WE DO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cch6Q-ItmQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Vto9iHwVY&t=2s hope this works haha

kay so the tea is that I’m aligning with Madison and Olivia. Olivia is super sweet and super trustworthy, so I am aiming to keep her close for awhile. Madison vibes with me but she seems very intelligent and very much so willing to stab me in the back. I’ll keep an eye on her. I am hoping these two allies will be able to at least get me through the first few votes. Who knows? {note: I’ll be submitting video confessionals soon after more happens}

haven't talked to rebecka at all yet but love her video calling me late at night to show n complain about her broken tooth! an icon! can't wait to see more of her this season. hope her medical bills aren't too expensive

So Luke and I have been skyping for 3 1/2 hours and I am so glad we have chosen each other! We have plans of who we each are going to talk to and who we want in our alliance. He is going to try and get close to Madison and AnnMarie and I am going to try and get close to Skip, and Dr. Mike Jake. Sarah at this point is a big question mark and Heather is in between and we'll keep her close enough but we both think that she will either be a good meat shield or a threat that we should take out pre merge. The other Jake we are both going to try to get close to as well. Hopefully we can have the majority no matter how it goes. Maddy told us that she is close with Rebecca on the other tribe which was probably a big mistake so we have to keep an eye out for that. She also told Luke about a secret map that she found at the moors! She lied when I asked if she found anything about it. Luke said there was a phrase that you could send to the hosts about this secret map so we both sent it in. Sarah, Heather, Luke, and I formed an alliance that they think will go all the way but I think Luke and I may have other plans. I trust Luke implicitly and I know he trusts me! Hopefully our plan works out.

3 and a half hours later, Olivia and I are going strong on Skype planning and scheming for the whole game. I exposed Madison after learning she is also close with Jake (* ^w^*). We are definitely targeting Heather at some point, for she is the least trustworthy of them all. I’m planning on trying to win over AnnaMarie and Madison’s votes and Olivia is going to win over Jake (* ^w^*) and Trip. Hopefully by controlling two people each, we will have the majority in any potential vote. Needless to say- I will trust and advocate for Olivia until the end. I believe in our ability to take out the rest of our tribe and come merge time lay low. She’s writing a confessional right now as well, I hope it’s not about how she’s going to eliminate me lmao.

Also- Heather said in her intro video that she isn't afraid to backstab people and she kept going on about how much she loves acting! She also wouldn't really say anything when we talking about future plans so HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TRUST HER! I know I've already made two so this is the last one lol.

Things seem to be going well, I have talked to everyone, excluding Rebecka, and get along well, so far there are few people talking strategy, but that suits me fine for now.

I am so happy that the game finally started. The Saorsa tribe gives off really great vibes to me and I hope that is a good thing. I feel like I've made connections with almost everyone, but it is really nerve wracking because you never know who felt a connection with you. I feel I got pretty close to Madison, Lukas, Olivia and a few others. I just hope we can win Immunity so I dont have to send anybody home

I am very nervous for the competition. None of us really know Sarah and if she doesn't show up, it's going to suck for the tribe. I don't want to be known as the weakest link for the tribe because my partner for the challenge didn't work.

So I reveled I have a 10% advantage, hopefully that doesn't kill me off but oh well. So far so good. Tara and I have been bonding over BTS and I think I'm gonna try getting us to f2 since I like her the best out of everyone so far. Maybe she'll back stab me but that's okay too as long as she gets into f3 ^-^. I hope not though, that would be completely and utterly sad. (I do think she knows what I'm playing at since she watched my first org and I'm basically redoing that. She's trying to help me right now at least)

So I went to the moors for the first time and I’m really excited to be playing. This game going to be good and I know it going to have plenty of twist in it. Also I’m really liking Tara form like day one we vibes and we started talking and she’s pretty cool. Another also I feel like one of those older wise people because a lot of the peopel on my tribe are newbies and that makes me feel somewhat more safe in this game.

So I misread my hidden advantage/disadvantage. What it actually says is that it will be revealed at a tribe swap and not merge. Also, Ive been mapping out all the locations and places explored in The Moors and concluded that Ain has the idol that was in the pit she fell in. For now I'm going to try and befriend her more so that we can be allies or have her reveal and flush an idol. My crossword chellenge is upcoming and I've been studying Survivor terminology so I don't flop!

I really like Jake and Maddie. I really want to start having a good strong alliance with them later on in the game. I love everyone's dogs as well.

Trip is sure he blew the logic puzzle. I feel bad for the kid and I definitely don't want to target him or anything over it and I want to make sure other people don't do that as well. I've been reading up battleship strategies online and about how to read people and poker tells and whatnot and that either makes me the biggest dumbass in the world to think that any of the advice might help or it makes me more prepared than my opponent. Can't tell at this point. He says he can't do the challenge today so we have to wait all the way until tomorrow. That'll either give me more time to be prepared or it'll give me just enough time to overthink and freak myself out. Either is likely at this point. I tried talking to AnnMarie some like Luke and I planned and she seemed pretty receptive until I suggested videochatting and she didn't respond but I'm not sure if she is doing her puzzle right now or if I just scared her off.

oh also Trip and I talked this morning which was great. Hopefully people don't talk to one another and say "oh hey has Olivia been talking to you" because if they do then they may think I'm playing too hard which at this point I'm probably over-doing it but I am just so excited

So Tim has told me that he has an advantage from the moors that will be reveal at the tribe swap. I believe him because even if hes lying it means he wants me to trust him so we work together. Looking ahead I think Tim, Tara, and I would make a good team, of course we’d need more numbers but it all depends on the connections we make, people’s performance in the challenge, and how people act if we go to tribal.

Found a special path in the moors, but even though I’m not getting anything from it, I’m getting a bunch of friends by telling other people. I told the alliance of me/infinity/ and Tara about it and I’m pretty sure that was the mortar that’s holding the house together. Also gave the info to Tim, hoping to work close with him, seems to be a pretty straightforward guy. He asked who else I gave the info to which I replied a solid “sorry can’t say” but I think it’ll go fine as long as that stuff doesn’t come up any longer.

Madison found a special path in the Moors, where she could receive a vote revealing advantage if she created an alliance with the two players she trusted the least, who she ranked as Jake S. and Sarah.

To do this, she opted to tell the tribe that she had to make an alliance with “random” players for a potential trial advantage. She succeeded, and was given a necklace which would reveal all votes cast at a tribal council, to be played until the final 7.

Hopefully honesty is the best policy.

Ok so its Day 2 and i completed my immunity challenge pretty fast in my opinion... but this is whats happening... August told me about the third path in Moors but he said that i wasn't the only one that knew about it. Later Tara got caught searching in The Neist and August said that he told Tara about it but Tara said that's not true... Im on to you August.. lets just wait for the immunity results...👀

So Tim has told me even more information about the Moors, and a secret location called the Neist that August found. This makes me trust him more and feel more comfortable working with him, but it also means I have to work on my connection with August if the three of us are going to work together TimHoly shit things are going downnn. So August and Tara are actually allies and Im the third. And originally, we were the only 3 that knew about the Neist. But I rushed and thought I was getting played so I told Stephen... EVERYTHING about the Neist including the locations already searched... I messed up big time! ( Or maybe not? 👀)

omg so i hate august!!! first thing he messages me in the game is that we shouldn't tell ppl that we know eachother and we should try to seem distant because we know eachother from epicmafia n then he goes blabbing his mouth n telling ppl that he told me all this info! like where and when is that a smart thing to do august?? before i even knew he did that tim confronts me n is like hey do u know august, did august tell u this, and me trying to b a good friend to august is like yaa no sorry! but like ugh! august needs better communication bcos if the first thing he messages me is "HAHAHA SHHH SHHH WE DON'T KNOW EACHOTHER" i'm gonna expect that hes gonna try keep distant! then he goes blabbing some more n tells tim about drama that happened in our last org like hmm interesting... um but ya august is gonna b first boot! bye girl!

So today in the Moor I came across a skeleton that “had a ring of bones unmarked from where a necklace once was”. This to me is a mess. Who on earth has already gone down this exact path and #snatched the necklace from me? Anyway, I messaged my main sis Olivia and devised a plan, then ran it by Madison as well. In the tribe chat, I openly said I have a “gem that could boost the power of a necklace that once rested there” which is complete BS. I am hoping someone takes the bait and messages me about having a necklace of such, and then I can expose them.

Also- Madison entrusted me with the knowledge that she has a power that can reveal everyone’s votes at a certain tribal. I may just keep this to myself, because up until now all info I’ve received in the game I’ve shared.

THE MOORS ARE CRAZY AND I KIKE THE RIDDLES AND THE HINTS AND IVE ONLY BEEN ONCE BUT I CANT WAIT TO GO TOMORROW. THE PUZZLE IS VERY HARD AND I STRUGGOED AT FIRST AND I HOPE the tribe isn't going to tribal council.

Tara came to me freaking out. I had told both her and Tim about the special path and Tim was like “ I bet they’re aligned” so Tara made up a lie saying I didn’t tell her. I tried to solve the problem by just being outright honest, but I’m still annoyed. Tim is far too paranoid to work with.

ok so it seems as though as suspected some areas of our challenges were a bit rushed in decision and now i think it could be a big fat L but sometimes you win sometimes u lose, that said i hope the effort i put into my part shows im here to win, outside of that i've made more social connections with olivia and some others :) that open alliance announcement was a shock to me kinda made me laugh, looks like the 3 may be working together to get the moors solved so i'll have to keep on it

I'm a comp flop and i hope that doesnt make me a target. I havent talked to a few people and I'm going to get on that.

Ok so everyone sucked today at the challenges (I still love them) and it is kinda looking like I am our last hope. wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Also it turns out the whole tribe is gonna watch?! what???!!! Feeling better every second out the firm alliance between Luke and I though. At the Moors I took a harness and hid it in a place where another harness already was so I am gonna try and be first when it comes to going to the Moors tomorrow. Luke found a skeleton without a necklace there meaning someone has the necklace. He told the tribe and AnnMarie just told him privately she had to tell him something about the moors AND NEVER RESPONDED. The second (not Canadian) Jake seemed like he might pull through and be an active participant but its not looking too likely. Sarah is still inactive so unless the other tribe sucked more than us she will probably go home Monday. Also I am supposed to talk to the Canadian Jake but idk how to talk to that guy! and trip too! Like I never know what to say but I am going to keep trying because Luke is making good progress with Maddi and with AnnMarie. We both gotta be careful and include Heather because if not that could be dangerous.

JUST GOT SOME MAJOR TEA FROM CANADIAN JAKE WOOOHOOO!!! I was asking him about Canada and he told me that if I take the harness back to camp it leads to more paths. I told him this made me trust him a lot. Not exactly true but not false either. He could be playing me but hopefully this is securing a bond.

Hi I’m Aundra and I’m stupid af. I picked to do the logic challenge knowing I’m stupid af. then announced to the tribe that I’m thinking about quiting being stipid af. now I’m stuck looking stupid af

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KvsH2lWN3Y

4 hours and 20 min later I finally finish my part of the challenge I’d like to thank Ali for helping me through when I was about to quit and Kermit I’d also like to say if we lose it won’t be my fault fully because people have gotten 10% disadvantages on the team so our odds are low but the grave I’ve dug for my self is bigger than the possible 20% I think we have agonist us

LukasJust a lil update for the girls. Madison told me about her magnifying glass, but apparently she hasn’t told anyone else. I’m going to keep this to myself from Olivia otherwise I will have nothing to keep secret for myself, and that just seems wrong. I staged a text conversation with my boyfriend and sent it to Heather about her dog and how it’s totally the next big meme. Heather ate it up as expected, and now I feel like I have an in with her. Aside from my core 4 alliance, I really don’t know where anyone else’s head is at and they all are lackluster communicators.

Ok so Maddi, Heather, and myself had about an hour long chat (mostly) about the game tonight. We agreed that the four of us (us 3 + Luke) should definitely stick together and although it’s definitely possible, it’s probably unlikely that the other four players have their own alliance. My fears about heather were mostly assuaged because when Maddi left she voiced her concerns about Maddi and her connections to the other side and she revealed to me that she trusts me the most (which is obviously great). Now I have two people that trust me the most out of anyone. (Only one I feel the same about) As long as I’m in this game I won’t forget heather’s intro video and her statement about how she is more than willing to backstab. The relationship between trip and I seems to be going well (albeit a little slow) while my relationship with AnnMarie is kind of nonexistent but it’s only been two days. I don’t trust Jake S. At all. He said he hadn’t been to the moors yet?? Fishy to me. The battleship showdown is tomorrow. Survivor gods be kind, let it go well.

The idol is already out there on day THREE. Im assuming either Vi or August has it but I'm leaning towards August.. If we lose immunity then I may have to spark up the game and vote out the idol holder either that or have thr idol work in my favor. I'm on to you August and Vi and your friend Ain too! You may have had us do your dirty work of finding the idol but I'll get the last laugh. Know That. StephenSo Tim thinks someone has found the idol based on what he found in the moors and I’m inclined to agree, but it worries me how fast things are moving, im hoping we win immunity so theres time for things to settle down and for people to relax. At the same time chaos is a good way to find out who you can trust.

https://youtu.be/RSSBtWKMfiU

I'd be very very surprised if we win immunity, especially since our tribe has members with a 5% and 10% disadvantage, and some members of our tribe who have yet to complete their challenge or never will? InfiniVi has a 10% advantage so maybe that will help balance it all out. Regardless, I think I'm in a safe spot on my tribe and I am confident in my challenge time and Im hope Stephen and JG does well so cheers to that??

I didn't notice a small wording difference which changes my time in logic puzzle from very low to over 3 hours and 40 minutes. I am worried if we lose this challenge I could be sent home, but hopefully if so Sarah is thrown under the bus. I mean they haven't even been here! Everybody else is so nice and cool, I love my tribe!

Well I had a very nice conversation with Vi and Tara (seperately) and August your game is donezo. We know about your idol/advantage and you lost your potential allies' trust in the process. If only you'd kept Neist point a secret. Fear not, we can still use you as a number and you can be one of the many strings I pull as I become Sole Survivor. Ciao!

Hour and a half before battleship. The tribe seems excited to cheer me on. They all seem to think it rests solely on me. But if they all lost then we’re already fated to go to tribal, no? Irregardless, it would be a good moral victory. I’m trying to decide how to come across when I go head to head with the other tribe. Strategic? If so he may figure out that my ship placement strategy wasn’t just random. Wholesome and nonthreatening? It may help out now but they may think I’m not quite smart should I make it to the merge. Maybe that’s a good thing idk. I’m only certain of one thing however and that is that I’m definitely overthinking this. I watched my opponent’s intro video. He is into Star Wars and humanitarianism. Maybe I can pander to that so he doesn’t feel threatened. Battleship is mostly a game of luck but anything I can do that might be an advantage is worth it.

So so so, so much has happened I don't know where to start. The alliance between Tara, August and I basically is down to Tara and I and August as the third wheeler. He has betrayed our trust and so we're going to pretend to be nice to him. Also there is a 85% chance of him having the idol. Tim accused me of having it but jokes on him, I would have screamed it in the main chat since it's rare for me to get lucky with anything. Anyways I think I'm gonna go place some tension between a couple people and see how that blows up in my face. I know it will bc that's my luck also

I got more updates on the drama. Tim is a bas-cough- sneaky little no legged lizard. Can't believe he told Tara to go to the cauldron even tho Ain told him that it held a disadvantage right before that. Hehehe the boys - August, Tim and Stephen - are gonna regret it the moment the girls line up too.

Olivia is a QUEEN AND WON A SECTION FOR US IN THE RELAY. SLAY ME

Im not sur if im allowed to curse but where in the world are these ships!!! Hello????

My fav player won their challenge I am so proud of her. She will win first for sure calling it now.

JG seems like a fun guy, but we havent talked much. In his challenge he kept changing his pattern, which I’m not sure was a good idea, but that might just be hindsight.

https://youtu.be/nk5jBYqnYwI

We are going to lose because I suck at puzzles

HOLY SHITBALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just won the battleship challenge and I feel OH so relieved. So much has happened today I hope I don't forget to write it here. Ok so I was included into the one viewing lounge which was cool as shit but I didn't know anyone but hopefully I can be included in this community going forward because everyone seems so cool. Trip and Canada jake both told me their moor experience which hopefully shows trust. And after I won the challenge Trip said I should be captain. It was sweet, but hopefully no one takes that to mean I am the leader because I sure as shit do not want that. Even though I feel like I am in a bit of a power position with Luke right now, I do not want anyone else to know and I certainly don't want people to think I am the captain because those people always get targeted (see: ben this current tv season). Apparently I mentioned that Luke was the only one that knew the coordinates for battleship and when Luke told me I did that I about shit myself because we don't want people finding out how close we are. Hopefully none of the players caught on. Luke told me that Heather told him that she got a 10% advantage in the first individual immunity challenge, and she didn't tell me that until she told the fab four collectively which concerns me because yesterday she told me she trusts me the most. I started individually messaging her so hopefully I can keep that trust. We get the tribal results tonight and hopefully we won so we can keep the Sarah buffer going forward. People were calling me an icon today and I don't really agree but it made me like so happy I could do something for the tribe and everyone was so nice after I won like I was so emotional reading the messages. I know this is a game but I like everyone so much and I'm so grateful I got this tribe. oh also Jake S. hasn't been responding (like usual) and I am just overall concerned about him and whether or not he has an idol. Besides that, I am just so happy with how today played out. Sorry for the long ass confessional lol.

Oh and also I love Heather but with the individual messaging I wasn't sure how to start it so I mentioned the walking dead, her favorite show, which I have literally never seen except for when people reblog stuff about it on my tumblr. I literally only had my tumblr knowledge to go on to carry that convo but it seemed to work and she seemed to buy it. I feel bad lying but like I need to talk to her more and I needed an ice breaker lol.

I’m currently trying to secure my alliance with Madison. Whilst I don’t 100% trust her and would like to see her gone before the merge, I want her to think she is my #1. To do this, I’m asking her if I should branch out to Annamarie. She agreed, so I made a group chat with them. This is not so much to control Annamarie but more to let Madison think I’m hopeless without having her in my convos. Hopefully I’m not coming on too strong.

holy shit that was the worst puzzle i've ever had the misfortune of trying to piece together im so happy its over

Iolaire won the first immunity challenge, sending Saorsa to tribal council

https://atomicsurvivor-isleofskye.tumblr.com/post/168413432616/tribal-immunity-1-results

Im literally shakingggg. We won the first immunity so no first boots from our tribe! I think we were lucky that someone from the other tribe got a strike, otherwise, im uncertain how things would have ended up. There was a plan to blindside August and the idol but we'll have to put it on hold!

So glad we won, there has been a little drama and while I was confident I wouldn't be going home I'm glad we get time to settle down and talk more. I want to make sure I can get Tara, JG, and Rebecka on side, if we can flush or blindside August's idol I'll feel mch better.

omg, close ass challenge it seems like this was alot closer than i anticapated, i expected a loss in the logic but holy we almost wonf if not for sarah thats crazy, but i mean its hard to win with an afk, at least its an easy vote, another loss may not result in so, so we gotta get that motivation and grab the bull by the horns and win !!!

I'm so proud of Trip and Olivia for winning but I am also soooo pissed. If Sarah would have tried I truly think we would have had a chance.

Honestly I'm kinda pissed that Sarah never submitted cause we had it in the bag. I failed pretty hard with the puzzle, but I'm hoping to do better next time. I found a freaking path in the moors, no advantage, no hint. I'm trying to get around, trying to talk to everyone, especially madison, lucas, and olivia. I'm very comfortable with them and I feel that we'd be a good alliance once the game gets SERIOUS. I got drafted twice and I'm gonna cry I'm so happy

DAMNNN we have to go to tribal. Whilst I am sad about this, it won't be too sad seeing Sarah go (hopefully). After seeing the draft results as well, I think I am going to make Madison my #1 considering how liked she is by the VL. She must be a good person. Also, since she has history of the game- it would make sense to align with her over Olivia.

So Rebecka has finally communicated, was worried she had a grudge from Athena, but I know she's going through some things, hopefully she is better now. I do want to work with her, but I would be worried that she is more inclined to work against me than with me, hopefully I can work with her, she's a loyal person and I can use that.

Aye it’s my first confessional!! I’ve kinda been laying low from the start cuz I’ve been very busy in real life but I think everyone on my tribe is cool! I think this rounds tribal should be easy considering we have a 100% inactive but in survivor who knows what’ll happen.. I’m also not aligned with anyone at this point. I’m just chillin. But it’s a bummer we lost so hopefully someone reaches out to me soon!

Jake just told me we are meant to be allies. I asked for his advise and he said he is there to help me, which is good for any future plans. I'm not sure if Heather trusts me the most anymore, but I know she thinks I'm right. I still have Luke 100% and hopefully tomorrow I can secure Trip more. Tomorrow is an easy vote day and Luke and I are going to use this opportunity to lay low and just trust build. Hopefully all goes to plan. Should we lose another immunity, we have a tentative plan in place. But hopefully, we won't get there.

I cant believe I somehow won my challenge even though I made a horribly dumb mistake! If my original assumption was right since we both won me and Olivia should have nothing to worry about. We all know who is going this tribal though. It would surprise me if it was not unanimous.

I’m glad I’m not going to be the first boot! A personal achievement. MadisonI’m super concerned about the advantage possibilities NOT GONNA LIE. And Jake S is sketchy. And Trip is playing hard wtf? Also I’m concerned that i was DRAFTED SO MUCH WTF. Like I’m happy but also I’m v concerned that people think I’m way more of a threat than I am.

Honestly from yesterday to rn I read every single message over 3 times and I still don't understand anything that people messaged me. I had to write this over 3 times since I'm so dizzy and brain dead from not sleeping and finals. I feel absolutely nothing atm and so I can't tell if people are trying to screw me over or not. O well. I'm not that sad that we won, I don't know the other tribe so whatever.

Wow. So tribal's tonight and I'm mega excited. I can't wait to see how it goes and what question the judges ask and see who people voted for. I feel that this is an easy vote, but it's impossible to know what everyone is thinking. I'm excited for the next round and see what challenges the judges come up with. Overall, this first round has been incredible, especially since this is my first time playing, and I'm ecstatic to see what's next.

Well tribal is not too far away. I voted for Sarah, I'm hoping and guessing everyone else did too. Canada Jake's nickname for me is Moose, how freaking adorable is that. I love that guy. Today was supposed to be just a simple trust building day and then Trip blew that up lmao. I wonder if I tell Canada Jake that Trip excluded him if he would maybe get on board with what we need him to. I'm finding myself thinking way too far in advance when I just need to focus on what is happening now. With every move I imagine 1,000,000 different repercussions and how it could lead to me getting voted out. I want to go far so badly but I worry I won't make it past episode two. Just gotta take it one step at a time I guess.

This is probably my 100th confessional of the season (It's day 4), but Im totally enjoying my day off! We don't have to worry about going to tribal and losing a member of our team! What worries me though is that once the other tribe eliminates their inactive player, we'll be doomed at the next immunity.

Dang k9trip is salty at the moment. Rushing tribal to the extreme.

An alliance of Heather, Lukas, Madison, and Olivia called “Future Final 4″ was created on Saorsa.

An alliance of Vi, Tara, and August was created on Iolaire.

An alliance called “Secret Tribe F5″ between Heather, Trip, Lukas, and Olivia was created on Saorsa.

An all-girls alliance between Heather, AnnMarie, and Olivia was created on Saorsa.

At tribal council, Sarah was eliminated in a unanimous vote:

https://atomicsurvivor-isleofskye.tumblr.com/post/168443384851/tribal-council-1-saorsa

#alostpuppydog #episodes

2 notes · View notes