#so i feel like going one day without a life sign is bearable

[the-travelling-witch]

OH MY SNOWFLAKE HOW I LOVE U!!

I LOVE TO BE UR STARY NIGHT UR BIGGEST FAN

-✨

SCARA BLURBS MY BELOVED <3 waking up in the morning to cuddle him, so he’s late for work, or just making him coffee <3 simple things like that make him (and me) happy

Siren aether. I need not to say anymore he is perfect ur honor

IT HAS BEEN ALMOST ONCE DAY SINCE U LAST POSTED I WAS GETTING WORRIED HOLLY (hope everything is a ok over there and no stress, stress free!)

there’s still so many asks requesting more scara content… but normally when i scrap together time to write it’s to progress the isekai au, so i never get around to working on my ask backlog

i really need to write some siren/mermaid stuff, there are definitely thoughts here *vaguely gestures to twst draft and convos i had with general*

yeah i didn’t get around to answering asks the day before; since i’m at work pretty much all day i can only answer them in the evening and there i have to split my time between chores, routines, early sleeping, writing, playing, answering asks… somethings always have to take the fall ㅠㅠ

[scarletwinterxx]

hearts don't break around here - jeon wonwoo imagine

hiiiii ~ this is a long one.... and kinda one of my favorite from all my works this year😅🤭😊 hope you have fun reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it🥺 i said before the exes to lovers trope isn't my fave but i loved it here hahah

for my other svt fics, check them here

if you want, u can buy me coffee(totally optional but any donation is very much appreciated!) thank you🥺💛

genre: fluff, kinda angst (?), exes to lovers, they get steamy but that's the most i can write HAHA consume responsibly.

All works are copyrighted ©scarletwinterxx 2024 . Do not repost, re-write without the permission of author.

(pics not mine, credits to rightful owner)

If you count how many times people have told you it was a mistake to sign those papers, you would probably need more than 10 fingers. That’s more than the reasons why the two of you divorced in the first place. 

After only 3 years of marriage, you and your ex-husband finally pulled the plug on your relationship and filed for divorce. Was it the ending you expected when you accepted his ring? No. But life happens and sometimes it just doesn’t go the way you want it to. It was a quick separation, both parties arrived at an agreement. You get the apartment, even though he was the one who bought it for the two of you, he knew you loved that place and even though he can’t share it with you anymore at least he knows you’ll be safe there. He gets exactly what he had before he married you. 

You believe a part of you, the tiniest part, was still hoping the two of you would make it work. But that wasn’t enough for you to stay. You were unhappy and so was he. It felt empty coming to a place you thought you could call home only to be welcomed with coldness. 

It’s been a year since then. At first it was weird for you, not having him around when you’ve been with him for almost a decade. Well you’ve known him for decade. The two of you dated for 5 years before he popped the question, 3 years of marriage, a decade of friendship. 

That’s a title you can never take away from Wonwoo. He was your friend, a close confidante. One of your reasons why you fell in love with him, he knew how to make you feel like you’re heard. The same way you knew just how to listen to him even without the words. 

When things were too much, you made it bearable for him. You silenced the chaos in his mind, you were his solace. 

To this day he still thinks of you as one of his closest friends, it might seem weird to some that he’s still friends with his ex-wife but that’s who you’ve always been to him. The two of you didn’t work out as a couple but you’re great friends. 

Sometimes he thinks that friendship blurs the lines of your failed marriage. The two of you are aware it’s not normal that you still have a key to each other’s place or how Wonwoo would always ask you out to grab dinner with him or how you would drop off some of his stuff at work when he forgets it. It’s like the two of you are still together minus the commitment and legalities, or at least that’s how your friends describe it. 

You’re never afraid to speak your mind when you’re with him. 

Now you’re on your way to his apartment, you could’ve called him but you think it’s not a conversation you can start over the phone. It’s easier to talk to him when he’s right in front of you, at least you’ll get to see his reaction real time instead of hearing silence over the phone. 

Instead of barging in or using your key that he gave you, you ring the doorbell instead. From the other side of the door, Wonwoo wonders who the unexpected visitor is. Usually the concierge would call if it’s a stranger, so it could only mean either one of his friends or you. And sure enough when he checks the screen there you are waiting outside his door, rocking back and forth on your heels. Something you do when you’re nervous or have something to say to him. 

He strides towards the door, unlocking it to let you in. The moment his eyes met yours he knew he was right, you had something to say to him and he’s not sure whether it’s good or bad news. 

“You’re home, why are you home? I was kinda hoping you weren’t here” you mumbled

“Then why come here?”

“I was taking my chances, gonna let fate decide what to do. Since you’re here I guess I just have to say it” now you’re just rambling. Another habit you have when you’re nervous. He follows behind you as you walk inside his apartment. You don’t come here that often but you’ve been here a couple of times before. 

Wonwoo takes a seat on the sofa while his eyes stay on you, watching you prance around his living room while clearly having an internal debate. 

You take deep breath before facing him, readying yourself to say what you came here for

“Now, before you say anything I need you to hear me out. I know this will sound crazy, I might sound crazy but believe me I’ve thought this through. I already lost so many nights thinking about this okay but I need you to know I am sure about this. I need you to remember that” you tell him

“Okay” he simply answers

“I want a baby, and I was thinking if you would agree to be the father”

Wonwoo’s not sure if he heard the right words or if he’s dreaming right now. The day the two of you sat down and agreed about the divorce is easier to comprehend than this.

This… this was definitely not what he was expecting to hear. 

“Hear me out, okay. I know what I’m talking about, don’t look at me like I’ve gone insane. I want to have a kid, believe me I’ve looked at many options. Adoption, surrogacy, donors. There’s nothing wrong with those but it just doesn’t feel right for me. My doctor told me to do what feels right and something I’m sure of and this is it”

He still hasn't said anything which is worrying you, maybe it was too much to ask him. Maybe this was a bad idea. 

“You want to have my baby?” 

This makes you look away from his stare for second, feeling that nervousness erupt in your chest

“To make it simple, yes” you answer him, “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“I didn’t say anything” Wonwoo tells you, leaning back on his seat while taking it all in. 

The two of you have talked about having kids before. That was a possibility the two of you never said no to. You’re lucky enough to be in a place in your lives to comfortably start a family and be able to provide for your children but your marriage never reached that stage. He didn’t expect to experience this stage of your lives together, especially now that you’re no longer married. 

You take the seat on the other side of the room, shoulders slumping downwards. “You probably didn’t expect that, sorry for ambushing you like that. I’m not pressuring you, you can say no”

“And then what?”

“What do you mean?” you ask back

“If I say no, then what will you do? You seem like you’re set on this plan and you’re never the one to only have a plan A. Some people settle with only having a plan B but not you, you’re not stopping until you run out of letters to use” and he only speaks the truth. 

What he doesn’t know is that fact doesn’t apply to him. He’s not wrong, but not right either. You always have a backup plan, you don’t like going into things unprepared.But not when it comes to him.

It wasn’t in your plan to fall in love with him but you did. 

It wasn’t in your plan to marry him but you did.

It wasn’t in your plan that you had to end it with him either. 

When you’re with Wonwoo you never need a second choice, he is always first. Everything else is an afterthought. 

“I dunno, back to the drawing board I guess”

He chuckles at your answer, ever the witty one. “Are you sure you’re not just having baby fever right now?”

“No, why would I even come here and ask you if I wasn’t serious?”

“Ovulating then?”

“Asshole” you grab a throw pillow to throw at him which he quickly dodges, letting out a laugh

“I’m being serious here, Wonwoo” “So am I, a baby is a serious topic. It’s a life we’re talking about”

“I know, I’m aware”

“Let’s say I say agree, how will that work?”

“What do you mean? Are you asking me how babies are made?”

“I know how babies are made, I can make you one like you’re asking right now. I’m talking about what happens after the baby is born, what happens then?”

You blink back at him, to be honest you didn’t think that far. You were half sure he was going to say no. 

“If you’re asking about child support, you don’t-” “I’m not going to abandon my child like that”

“Hypothetical child, they’re not even here” you interrupt him

“I’m not going to abandon my hypothetical child, I’ll be there if you want me to be. He or she can have my name if you want, or not totally up to you. If you’re asking me to do this then I want you to know I’ll be all in. I’m not going to knock you up and leave you”

“Geez, that sounds…”

“Now, does that answer your question?” he ask you, leaning forward resting his arms on his knees

You nod like a child that’s been told off, looking at the carpet instead of him. You can hear him chuckle from the other side of the room before he stands up, “A few minutes ago you were asking me for a child, now you’re all shy”

“To be fair I thought you were going to say no and say I’m crazy” you shrug your shoulder

“Oh you’re not wrong, you are crazy” he walks towards the kitchen to grab a drink for you and him, he can hear your footsteps behind him

“Hey!”

He smiles upon hearing your protest, even with his back turned to you he can still picture your annoyed pout. 

Wonwoo takes two bottles of water from the fridge, opening one before passing it over to you and opening the second one for him. 

“So, how do we do this? Do we go to your doctor?”

“For what?”

“The part where we make our hypothetical child into a real child”

“I’m already seeing my doctor, she said everything’s okay. I’m healthy, all’s good” you say 

“Okay, that’s good but I’m talking about the actual baby making part” 

“I don’t get it”

The two of you look at each other, waiting for the other one to speak. You’re the one who break the short silence “Are you sure you know how babies are made? Do I have to give you the sex talk?” 

This makes him laugh, like a big loud laugh making you more confused before Wonwoo speaks again “Oh sorry, I get it now. I just thought we were going to the hospital to do it”

“Why? I’m good, like I said. Aren’t you?” genuinely confused by his statement

“I’m clean if that’s what you’re asking” he tells you

“I wasn’t but good to know” you answer, you can feel him still looking at you like he’s waiting for your answer “What?” you ask him

“Should I be the one giving you the sex talk or you already know how babies are made?” he smirks at you.

It takes everything in you to not throw the drink at his head, clearly he’s teasing you. He’s very knowledgeable at how and which buttons to push when it comes to you. You try to pretend you’re not blushing at his words so you just take another gulp of water from your bottle before screwing the cap back on.

“Haven’t thought that part out but we can do it, we’re two consenting adults” you clear your throat as you explain while your ex-husband’s smile grow bigger by the second as he watch you try to put it into words.

“So just so we’re clear, you’re saying yes?” you ask him

He nods “Yes”

This is the part you didn’t think through at all. Now that he agreed you’re not sure how to take the next step. 

He notices you’re getting lost in thought, taking this moment to look at you. He doesn’t see you as often as before but it’s good to see you doing okay. You look healthy and happy, that’s all that matters to him anyways. 

“Hey, you okay?” he walks over to the other side of the kitchen island to stand beside you. 

Knocking his shoulder with yours, making you look up at him. You’ve been in this exact place before, many times. In many different eras of your life. Wonwoo has always been right beside you, even now as you take the next big step he’s still here with you and for that you’re thankful. 

“Are you sure you’re okay with this? I feel like I just pressured into doing it” you mumbled

“I’m an adult who can think for himself, believe me you didn’t pressure me into anything” he assures you “Are you backing out now?” he asks

“No” 

“Then what? Talk to me” his voice now more gentle

“I was just thinking how this is getting very real, that maybe a few months from now I… we’ll have a child. I’ve always wanted that” you say with a small smile

“Sorry” that’s all he could say to you but you just shake your head at him

“We’re not doing that, we agreed to never apologize for that. It was a decision we both made, and we’re okay now. We’re better now”

He looks at you, reading your eyes as you read his. “What?” you ask, almost whispering the word out

He just smiles again at you before leaning down, you let your eyes close as you feel his lips on your forehead. An act of affection he loves doing to you. 

After that you don’t say much, he walks you out to your car. He knows it’s been a long night for you, you must’ve been overthinking for a while before asking him so he lets you rest. He doesn’t say it outloud but he’s already planning to take care of the rest. 

“I have a question” he says when the two of you are outside, standing beside your car

“Mhm?”

“Since we’re doing this, you have to tell me you’re okay with…” “It’s okay, Wonwoo. If it’s permission you’re asking, here you go” you giggle

He reaches behind you to open the driver’s side for you, “Was I being too awkward?”

“Kinda, and it’s not like we’ve never done it before” you joke, he just rolls his eyes at you

“Goodnight, drive safe. Text me when you get home”

You thought after getting all of that out of your chest you would finally fall asleep with no trouble, but oh boy you’re wrong. It just kept you up all night, making you overthink things that haven't even happened yet. 

Not to mention Wonwoo is also taking over your thoughts. It’s silly, you’re a grown adult thinking about your ex-husband like you’re a schoolgirl having her first crush. You would be lying to yourself if you say he doesn’t affect you anymore, even if you try your hardest Wonwoo will always always have a way to your heart. How could he not when he drew the map out himself. 

The next few days went by like normal, the two of you busy with your own lives that the whole topic of baby making became overshadowed by other stuff. 

It’s not rare for Wonwoo to go over at your place, it used to be his’ too. When you said you’re the one moving out after the divorce he was very adamant that you stay, it hurt to see him packing his stuff but it’s part of the process. There are days though that he comes to visit, either to cook and eat dinner with you or grab stuff he has yet to pick up or some lame excuse he made up so he can spend some free time with you. 

He would never admit that, not after separating with you. He doesn’t want you to overthink things like he is, it’s enough he gets to miss you even though you don’t feel the same. 

Oftentimes when he does feel that way, he finds himself knocking on your door and you always open the door for him. 

Like tonight, it’s a Friday night. Instead of going out with his colleagues for dinner, he came here to cook and have dinner with you. He prefers your cooking anyways and you always make cookies just the way he likes it. Not too sweet, enough to satisfy his cravings when he has them. 

“Try this, it’s a new recipe I found online” you call for him, holding a piece of bread you baked. Instead of taking it from your hand, he takes a bite straight from your grasp. Gripping your wrist gently to hold it steady as he chews the freshly baked pastry

“Mhm, that’s good. Not too sweet, I like it”

“Right? I didn’t use as much sugar as the recipe said since I know you hate it when it’s too sweet. Good thing it came out okay” you smile to yourself, slicing a few more pieces to share between the two of you. He watches you fondly, listening to the words that flow freely like you didn’t even think twice about thinking about him. 

The two of you eat dinner and desert before settling on the living room couch to watch a movie. He’s sitting on one end while you’re sitting on the other, your feet resting across the space between the two of you. At first there was no contact between the two of you, then his hand rest on your ankles but it never moved. 

You were too focused on the movie to notice Wonwoo looking at his phone when suddenly you hear him let out a chuckle making you look over at him

“What?” you ask

“The guys went out tonight, as expected Dino’s drunk. Look at this, he won’t go in the taxi again” you scoot closer, folding your legs to sit next to him to look at his screen. When you see the picture you also laugh at the scene

“Looks fun, why didn't you go with them? Could’ve told me you were busy tonight”

“Not really in the mood to drink tonight, Mingyu asked me to go golfing with him tomorrow so I’ll see them tomorrow anyways” he shrugs, turning his phone off before throwing it back on the coffee table. Throwing his arm behind the couch, he looks over at you

“Aren’t you tired yet? You had a busy week”

“How did you know?”

“You didn’t message me as much” he answers

“It’s weird enough we’re still hanging out, now you’re saying I don’t text you enough. Why did we spend that much on the divorce then?” you joke, he laughs too. The two of you share those jokes back and forth, sometimes some of your friends hear it and say you two are indeed weird. 

“You’re calling me weird when you’re the one who asked me to have a baby with you”

“And you said yes! Which makes you just as weird as me” you argue back

He just stares at you, it’s like time slowed down all around him and all he can focus on is you. It’s been so long since he’s been this close to you, and the thought that he can be closer to you is sending chills down his spine. 

“Earth to Wonwoo” you wave a hand in front of his face, he takes that hand and holds it in his. Intertwining your fingers with his. He misses seeing the ring on yours and his fingers, he can’t tell you now but he still has them hidden in a drawer back at his place. It will only ever be yours anyways. 

“You know for an ex, we really don’t really know the concept of personal space” you mumble, voice suddenly getting more quiet as you look back right into his eyes

“It’s overrated, and like you said I have permission to invade this personal space. You can tell me to stop if you want” he breathes out.

You don’t know when or how but now he’s much closer to you. Your noses touching each other, you can feel his breath on your lips. 

“Why? You haven’t even done anything” you answer back, he smirks at you leaning even closer until his lips is one breath away from yours

“I’m about to do everything, you sure about that”

“Shut up and give me a baby”

And that he did. He kissed you, after a long long long time you finally felt his lips again. 

You feel it against your own, you feel it all over your skin, you feel him everywhere. Wherever his skin touched yours is like fire burning you but in the most pleasurable way. 

You’re not sure what it feels like to ascend to heaven but tonight Wonwoo gave you a glimpse of it. It’s not the first time for the two of you but tonight feels different, maybe because it’s been so long or maybe because there’s a reason behind this but everything feels so much more. 

Everytime he dove right in you, it’s like he’s making it his sole purpose to make you remember this. That you’ll never forget how he feels against you, in you. 

The rest of the night was a blur to you, too lost in a blissful haze. You remember being on the couch then the next you’re on your bed. Then you remember taking a not so quick shower before ending back on your bed where you fell asleep finally. 

And it’s the best sleep you had in months. When you wake up you can feel your muscles screaming in pain, feeling sore all over. 

Mentally sending a curse to Wonwoo, who you notice is nowhere to be seen. 

“Oh you’re awake, here I ordered breakfast for us” speaking of the devil, he walks into the bedroom already dressed in jeans and a plain shirt he found in the closet. 

You sit upright, wincing when you move your legs under the duvet which Wonwoo notices. Biting his lips to suppress a smile

“Wipe that smirk off before I strangle you”

“Thought you’re into that”

“Shut up” You say, hugging the sheets against your chest as you look at the food he laid in front of you. Taking a sip of the coffee first, iced vanilla latte. He still knows your favorites. 

“Forgot to ask before we got carried away, are you off of any birth control?” 

“Mhm, have been since the beginning of this year. Wasn’t really with anyone so I asked my doctor if it was okay. I wanted to rest my body from all of that”

“You haven’t been with anyone?” he asks, not meaning to pry on your personal life but he already asked before he can think twice about it

You look at him, shaking your head slowly “No, I was very busy with work and it’s not really in my mind at the moment. Have you? Not that you that bothers me or anything” you mumble

He watches you pick on the piece of strawberry on the plate, he takes the fork from you before eating the fruit knowing you don’t like it then he slices the french toast for you before passing the fork to you. 

“Don’t want to piss you off this early in the morning”

“So you have” you stare at him, the annoyed expression on your face evident. This makes Wonwoo smile and let out a laugh “You’re right, we’re bad at the whole personal space thing” he teases you

“Whatever, you can go if you have somewhere you need to be” you grumbled

How can he walk out now when you’re acting all cute. When will be the next time he’ll get to see you like this, the morning sun glowing against your bare skin. His marks still evident on your skin, unbeknownst to you. Hair all messy from last night, and your lips oh god those lips. He can get lost in them again if you let him. 

“I’m going out with Mingyu, you can call your cousin to ask” he says, taking his phone from the bedside table and passing it to you but you brush him off earning another laugh from the man

“I’m gonna go shower, want to join me?” he asks so casually

The coffee you were drinking goes down the wrong pipe making you cough, Wonwoo scoots over to gently tap you on the back “You good?”

“It’s too early for this” you scowl at him when you see the teasing smile he had on. Smiley Wonwoo has always been your favorite and you’re always weak when you see him this happy. You’re not really annoyed at him, just a bit annoyed at how he knows how much power he still has over you

“We’ll be quick. I need to go or else Gyu will talk my ear off for being late”

“Heard that before” you chuckle “You know what, nevermind. I’ll just tell him I was busy, I can be late for today. You like long showers right?”

Suddenly the sheets are pulled away from your body and his arms are under you, carrying you towards the bathroom “Wonwoo, wait I didn’t mean it like that. Wonwoo” you screech as he takes you inside. 

More mornings and nights like that happen often, the two of you forgetting the piece of paper you both signed a year ago signaling the end of your marriage. Most times he finds himself waking up on your bed and you safely tucked by his side. 

There’s this lingering fear in his mind that if he gets used to this again then what will he do when it’s gone. What if one day he has to wake up again, alone. The thought alone makes him restless, he pulls you closer to him and you make yourself comfortable on his chest. Seeking his warmth like it’s a need. And that there is enough to shush his worries. 

The initial goal got lost in your head until your phone notified you that it’s supposed to be that time of the month again. You double check the date and indeed the reminder was right but no sign of your red friend. 

It’s probably too soon to tell but you hurry home and lock yourself in the bathroom where a few hours later Wonwoo found you. 

“Where are you? Are you- hey, there you are. You had me worried” Wonwoo kneels in front of you, brushing the hair away from your face to look at you “Talk to me”

You don’t say anything, you just look at the counter making Wonwoo follow your gaze. There he sees a few boxes of pregnancy tests opened. 

“Did you check it?” he asks but you shake your head

“Do you want me to?” you nod your head. 

He gives your knee a squeeze before standing up, with careful steps he walks over the counter to see the results. There’s a few on the counter all lined up with, he flips them over. 

You watch him instead of peeking at what the tests say, the expression on his face was enough for you to decipher what they say

“Oh, baby” he breathes out, smiling at you before engulfing you in a hug and there you break down. The tears flowing down your face. 

“Shhh it’s okay, we wanted this right? It’s a good thing” he whispers against your hair

Wiping the tears away, you step out of his embrace then walk out of the bathroom

Wonwoo follows behind you, “Hey, talk to me”

“Is this really what you want? What if you’re just saying that because of me, what if you feel trapped once the baby is here? What if this isn’t even what you wanted? We already separated right, what the hell are we even doing”

He rushes in front of you, holding your face in his hands, “Hey hey don’t say that. You’re not trapping me, and I wanted this too. I’ve wanted this for a long time but we just… it didn’t work out for us the first time. I’m sorry we had to go through that but I’m not leaving you again. Whatever you want me to be, wherever you want me to be that’s where you’ll find me” he assures you, wiping the tears as they cascade down your cheeks

“What if the love you’re feeling for me is only because of this? I want us to be together again in the right time, for the right reasons and not just because we will have a child together”

He smiles at you, never stopping from wiping the tears aways and he never will. From now on he vows to never let a tear slip down from your eyes ever again, there wouldn’t be a single thing he wouldn’t know how to fix if it meant he’ll never see you cry again. 

For you he’d try and fix this. 

He pulls the sleeve of his sweater inside out, showing the end of the sleeve to you. There you see the familiar simple stitch in the shape of a heart. The purple thread bright against the black fabric of his sweatshirt. 

“Remember when you sew this on all my clothes? You know I still have all of them. Remember what you told me? You stitched them there so I’ll never forget how I have your heart on my sleeve. We didn’t say it alot but I know how much you loved me. And me well…I love you, I have always loved you and I never stopped. I don’t think I can, not ever. If you think right now isn’t the right time for us then I’ll wait. We can walk together side by side until we get there, I’m not leaving you. Never again. And when this child comes, it’ll be the three of us. Like I told you, if we’re doing this I’m all in”

You’re not looking at him, still looking at the tiny purple heart on his sleeve.

“You think.. I should do that to the baby’s clothes too?” you ask, finally looking at him with teary eyes and pouty lips. Wonwoo smiles at you, giving you the gentlest kiss on the forehead over and over again

“Ofcourse, you can. We’ll do whatever you want”

“So we’re really doing this?” you breath out, finally it’s starting to sink in

“We’re doing this” he nods his head

And that marks the start of your story once again. Your new beginning with him. And there’s no better happy ending than that. 

[joshleyson]

Life Update + Postcards from Mount Pulag

If there's one thing I'm particularly proud of that I did this year in the name of self-care, it is using my Apple Watch for what it was designed to do and being mindful of closing my rings on the Fitness App, which includes meeting my Move, Stand, and Exercise requirements for the day.

Last weekend, I went on my first major walk this year, to Mount Pulag in Benguet, the majestic and highest mountain in Luzon. For the first time ever, I was able to set a *drum roll please* record-breaking 42K steps, perhaps more because my watch died in the middle of the climb. It never occurred to me to go on this ALMOST 10-hour hike until J, who by the way was a famous OG Tumblr influencer during the peak Tumblr era circa 2012 (if you know him, mag-asawa ka na hahaha), introduced me to the idea of going to Baguio (I haven’t been to Baguio since forever) and eventually having to explore Mount Pulag after. J and I have known each other for over 12+ years, but it was only this year that we began to see each other more frequently; he is also the person who introduced and challenged me to finish my rings on the Fitness app. I began this "ring" journey at the end of March, but I wasn't fully committed until I started seeing some, hmm, what's the word, "changes" when I started monitoring my InBody results, which show my weight, BMI, muscle mass, and even body fat percentage decreasing. Long story short, I'm making some small progress with trying to make my BMI normal again. Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to paint the typical fitness buff image with raging, strong-looking muscles, because that's not who I am, but I wanted to give myself credit also for losing 10kgs in just 4 months, and I'm not even pulling my hair out about it, just that awareness of "Did I close my rings today?" moment. Like I told J, I never expected accountability to feel this good. So I'm quite delighted with that.

Enough of the fitness thingee and going back to Mount Pulag, I'm so happy that we were able to pull it off this year. We started by staying in Baguio for 2 days which by the way the weather was THE. BEST. Having to walk around the city in layered clothes without breaking a sweat as a pawisin was HEAVEN. It was something that I missed when I went back to Manila. After 2 days, we headed straight to Kabayan, Benguet, where our homestay was located, and by midnight started our trek to Pulag summit. The trek was surprisingly easy. The quiet and quaint landscapes while on our way to the summit were something that I enjoyed so much. It was tiring and yes, the weather was extremely cold. Miss Hypothermia is REAL especially on the summit but with the right amount of clothing, it's no biggie. Just do a little bit of research before signing up for the hike and you'll be just fine. On that trip, we met and bonded with new faces which I hope soon will become friends because they're nice to be with which made the hike bearable. Being the beach person that I am which is very OBVIOUS on this blogosphere, exploring the mountains and the countryside was very refreshing to see and I kinda wanted to make that commitment to at least do this at least once a year. Let's see!

(No Light Pollution? Here's the Milky Way captured in the default iPhone camera app.)

Overall, the Mountain Province trip including late-night walks in Baguio, wandering to places and cafés and bar hopping walking side to side because we’re drunk AF, and then Mount Pulag was something I'm so grateful for that I get to check them out this year. There were "unplanned" and "down" moments on that trip, sure, but I guess that's just normal, especially since I'm with the person I wanted to get to know more, and J, if you're reading this, thank you. I feel like all the things that happened on that trip have a reason and I just wanna say thank you for being…you. I will not be surprised if one day that rough idea of a psycho-thriller slasher movie we kind of created while sitting on a bus will soon come to life. Write that fucking screenplay. PLEASE.

So that's my not-so-quick life update that no one asked about. I think I mentioned before in this space that the more I have something "major" going on with my life whether professional or personal, I am less inclined to talk about it versus in my heyday, loud, teenage years and I think that's what really living is all about. Touch some grass they say, and literally, I did that in the mountains of Mount Pulag, and those memories which I hope I could bottle, and that seeing something so beautiful is enough to remind me that everything's gonna be alright.

Siri, play Gravity by Sara Bareilles, JOSHY

(Mountain Province, July 2024)

[ms-fade]

The favorite.

Street!Rat!Izuku Midoriya x Chubby!Prince!Reader. 18+ Drabble.

Ask: For my request, can you write a oneshot featuring Izuku and a chubby male reader in an Aladdin AU with chastity and servitude please? In the fic, Izuku is a street rat who becomes a harem boy to the reader who's a prince.The prince takes a liking to Izuku and offers him food and wealth on the condition that Izuku serve him and be kept in a cock cage.

Warnings: MxM, C*ckcage, Harem, Slight SlavexMaster, Collars, short. Izuku is 19 and reader is 21.

Izuku was a lonely boy who roamed the streets for work and food, stealing on occasion. His mother was sick and needed the most attention so the rest of their life saves went to her medical care and left them scrounging around. He loved his mother so he did everything for her. He worked hard jobs that meant he wouldn’t come home for days without sleep. Until one day his luck ran out and started.

“What did I tell you boy.” The merchant yelled at Izuku as he laid on the stone street. He had been caught stealing a loaf of bread, and not the first time he had done it either. “I should cut off your hand for this. I know it has been you stealing from my store,” the man raised his hand to give him another hit to match the blood lip he already had. A strong hand grabbed ahold of the merchant and caused a groan in pain at the force.

“That is no way to treat someone,” izuku looked at the person that came to his rescue. A large man that hide behind a cloak. His face chubby but handsome as could be, soft skin with no dirt. “May I pay for the man?” Izuku eyes followed his hands that reached behind the cloak and pull out a large coin purse. His eyes widened at the sight, this man was wealthy and not just the money gave it away. His hands showed nothing rough or any cuts on them, showing no sign of a days work.

The man slammed it into his hands with a hard slap but a smile on his face. “You should go back into your shop now, no need to cause less trouble.” His tone didn’t match the look on his face. The merchant rolled his eyes and rubbed his now sore hands and went back into his stop leaving the two of them. Izuku watch him step closer and offer him a hand to pull him up.

That’s when it all started.

He was offered everything his heart desired. Money for his family or the things he wanted. Gifts everyday. The most fashionable clothes to wear and the best food one could have, all for a small price. The man who saved him was the prince of the kingdom who wanted the boy for his harem of men and woman. To belong to the prince. With the offer he was promised his mother to be looked after by the best doctors he could find from all over the world. So he took it.

But his role was just beginning and he fully was owned by the Prince Y/n. A golden collar stayed around his neck at all times with red and silver jewels. It was heavy but bearable. He wore silk and lace blue outfits that showed off his chest and skin. He was bathed every day and dinned on the finest food. And at the end of the night we was called to the princes chambers. But the collar wasn’t the only cage he wear.

“My pretty boy,” thick fingers ran over the boys lips. Izuku whined under the touch from the man above him. “Look at you, your cock is so red and aching to be released.” The prince coo’d at his lover. The bigger man towered off him with a chubby but broad build, so much larger then izuku.

The thick cock inside of him was making him limp and weak, begging for a release from the cock cage on his own. “Please.” The sweet whimper leaving his lips made the prince smirk down at him. A jolly chuckle came from his throat as he pushed izukus knees into his chest, making his cock slid farther in.

“Oh, fuck.” Izuku closed his teary eyes as the tears rolled from the sides. His head lifted up and his back arched at the feeling. “You know,” the prince started and leaned down and began to trust again into his hole.

“You are my favorite.” Y/n licked his ear and kept his pace fast and rough making izu scream and hum in pleasure. “I treat you so well, get better things then the rest. Makes you feel special doesn’t it?” His big hand played with the metal on the cage around izukus cock making him twitch.

No answer was heard from izuku as he tried not to break underneath his prince and keep his composure. If he knew how good the prince could make him feel he would have offered himself a long time ago.

“Awe, come on.” Izukus cheeks were grabbed and pushed together by a strong hold. “All you have to do is take my cock and you get the things people would die for. Tell me how thankful you are.” The princes eyes glared slightly and the roughness on his voice stood out.

Izuku opened his eyes and looks at him, a weak look on his faces from pleasure. “S’good. Treat me so good, I’m forever thankful.” He cried. “Fuck me well too, all I could ever want.” The prince buffed out his chest making his chubby stomach stand out. Izuku loved the prince’s stomach and in these moments he couldn’t get enough, the sight of it pressed against him made him so close.

The prince was happy with that answer and began to lift his hips up and tried to get himself as far as he could. Izuku was his and filling him to the brim was all the prince could think about. When he was with the others it was izuku’s name that feel from his lips.

The street rat had won his way up in the world all from taking a cock.

[bernardmarie]

It wasn't uncommon for nuns to be whisked away by a chance suitor after war, often times celebrated and encouraged by their community. A sign that a deity was looking out for them, leading them to happiness. Bringing together people who would have only had a chance meeting outside the church gates.

But there were others who had never been considered, no matter their kindness, happy to serve as long as they were needed. Happy to listen even though they would never be seen or heard. Kind to those who wept, even the undeserving, the cruel, and the dead. Some who were always the bridesmaid and never the bride. One that no matter how hard she tried was seen as a shadow to her responsibilities, a fixture that will be replaced when the time comes.

Someone Death had noticed peering up towards the plain of the living. The Nun had given so much to those in the realm he presided over that for a moment he felt as though she should at least be able to SEE and HEAR the gratitude from the departed. Be given the recognition she deserved if only while she slept. Had mistakenly given her a blessing that would have her branded for death.

Another deity had also taken a chance on a mortal, one that had only had one possible chance at love and gambled on his soul. One that was well within the realm of their own power without realizing Death had already interfered. That they were now playing a game and with it garnered the attention of others who watched on in abject curiosity.

The Nun had kept her gift a secret close to her chest at first, not wanting to give anyone another reason to dismiss her, but the Mortal man who had never seen death in such a refreshing way when it slipped, had smiled at her suggestions. Speaking as though she knew each 'resident' in the cemetery so intimately to know what decorations they would like at their graves. Spending their free time leaving trails of flowers and creating merriment that did not go unnoticed.

The Mortal man had never experienced such a feeling and the Nun so used to being dismissed had held onto the simple happiness not wanting to push any further at risk of losing what little she had on this side. She was happy to have this ambiguous relationship if it meant they would be with each other till the end. It was more than she would have wished for before meeting him.

The Nun had been discovered by the patrons, knowing things only the deceased would and it was taken as an omen. That Death had chosen her as a bride and that they should not keep them waiting. That her purpose after all this time had been discovered and that they should celebrate.

If she had not known that brief moment of happiness, she would not have known how brittle she would become once it would be snatched from her. How she could slip into the plain of the dead if she had given up, but then she decided to bargain. To make wishes for anyone who would hear them.

The game had become dangerous. Too much attention had been brought to the harmless gift and now others who had been watching and hoping for tragedy are now gambling on the life of someone who hadn't deserved this. Who wasn't meant to die like this.

When Death tried to intervene, they were stopped by the Deity across the table, that they still had a bet on their Mortal and that there would be greater repercussions for any new interventions that transpired.

Without having to wait, the Mortal man appeared from the window. Reaching for the Nun to meet him halfway and even though she was happy, she knew she wasn't meant to leave. Then he smiled at her.

"If Death is really as kind and forgiving as you make it out to be, Surely if I married you first, they would let you go."

A Mortal man eloped with a Nun who was to be married to Death the next day, but before death could take the blessing he had cursed her with, one he had given only to make her life more bearable, they were marked as heretics and slaughtered at the alter.

Death's interference had changed the fate of 2 who would have eventually came to be and the blessing was taken as both a wedding and parting gift.

Death was robbed of his SIGHT for that transgression until the bride willingly gave it back to him each time she is forced back into the cycle. And she was robbed of her MEMORY of the events, only occasionally witnessing things that had not happened during her current lifetime. The Deity that bet on the groom watches their mortal with idle curiosity and wonders when he will break.

[cleverwordsandotherstuffilike]

"The day my father died, I was at the grocery store buying bananas. I remember thinking to myself, “This is insane. Your dad just died. Why the h*** are you buying bananas?” But we needed bananas. We’d be waking up for breakfast tomorrow morning, and there wouldn’t be any bananas—so there I was. And lots of other stuff still needed doing too, so over the coming days I would navigate parking lots, wait in restaurant lines, and sit on park benches; pushing back tears, fighting to stay upright, and in general always being seconds from a total, blubbering, room-clearing freak out. I wanted to wear a sign that said: I JUST LOST MY DAD. PLEASE GO EASY. Unless anyone passing by looked deeply into my bloodshot eyes or noticed the occasional break in my voice and thought enough to ask, it’s not like they’d have known what’s happening inside me or around me. They wouldn’t have had any idea of the gaping sinkhole that had just opened up and swallowed the normal life of the guy next to them in the produce section. And while I didn’t want to physically wear my actual circumstances on my chest, it probably would have caused people around me to give me space or speak softer or move more carefully,—and it might have made the impossible, almost bearable.  Everyone around you; the people you share the grocery store line with, pass in traffic, sit next to at work, encounter on social media, and see across the kitchen table—are all experiencing the collateral damage of living. They are all grieving someone, missing someone, worried about someone. Their marriages are crumbling or their mortgage payment is late or they’re waiting on their child’s test results, or they’re getting bananas five years after a death and still pushing back tears because the loss feels as real as it did that first day. Every single human being you pass by today is fighting to find peace and to push back fear; to get through their daily tasks without breaking down in front of the bananas or in the carpool line or at the post office. Maybe they aren’t mourning the sudden, tragic passing of a parent, but wounded, exhausted, pain-ravaged people are everywhere, everyday stumbling all around us—and yet most of the time we’re fairly oblivious to them: - Parents whose children are terminally ill. - Couples in the middle of divorce. - People grieving loss of loved ones and relationships. - Kids being bullied at school. - Teenagers who want to end their lives. - People marking the anniversary of a death. - Parents worried about their depressed teenager. - Spouses whose partners are deployed in combat. - Families with no idea how to keep the lights on. - Single parents with little help and little sleep. Everyone is grieving and worried and fearful, and yet none of them wear the signs, none of them have labels, and none of them come with written warnings reading, I’M STRUGGLING. GO EASY. And since they don’t, it’s up to you and me to look more closely and more deeply at everyone around us: at work or at the gas station or in the produce section, and to never assume they aren’t all just hanging by a thread. Because most people are hanging by a thread—and our simple kindness can be that thread. We need to remind ourselves  just how hard the hidden stories around us might be, and to approach each person as a delicate, breakable, invaluable treasure—and to handle them with care.  As you make your way through the world today, people won’t be wearing signs to announce their mourning or to alert you to the attrition or to broadcast how terrified they are—but if you look with the right eyes, you’ll see the signs. There are grieving people all around you. Go easy."

John Pavlovitz

[lilyhoshikawa]

🎶 MUSICAL NOTES, 💤 SLEEPING SIGN, 🎄 CHRISTMAS TREE, 🐷 PIG FACE, 🌴 PALM TREE, ❤️ RED HEART, 🤍 WHITE HEART, 💔 BROKEN HEART, 🍝 SPAGHETTI, 🍰 SHORTCAKE, 🤔 THINKING FACE for ghost maria please

🎶 MUSICAL NOTES — what type of music does your oc like? do they listen to music very often?

I feel like during her life, given how often she found herself without much to do, Maria would definitely find herself experimenting with a lot of styles of music. As a ghost, once she visits Earth with Shadow, she gets obsessed with synth-heavy techno music as soon as she first hears it, stuff that is evocative of feelings and thoughts without directly expressing them. It would broaden her horizons, which she always enjoys. I also think she has a secondhand affinity for Shadow’s edgy rock music. Much like with Shadow, it speaks to her anger and angst in a very direct way.

💤 SLEEPING SIGN — is your oc a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper? how are their sleeping habits?

Due to her condition and the frequency of her getting really horribly sick, I think her sleep is tumultuous to say the least. She probably can’t keep a consistent schedule due to a combination of fevers and the whole being in space thing, so her hours are odd. She definitely spends a lot of time either sleeping or in bed due to pain and sickness, and when it gets especially bad she tends to pass out. She can be a pretty heavy sleeper when the weight of it really strikes her, but other times she can be woken up easily by the sickness. As a ghost, I was initially going to have her not need to sleep at all, and maybe she still doesn’t need to, but I for one really like sleep and think it’s important to be able to do it and get cozy comfy. So she definitely can nestle into her own spot in the bed, sort of stabilize her form where the mattress is, and rest. It feels good, because sleep is where you’re the most human and raw, the least conscious (duh) and so it’s harder to care about the obvious differences in nature between being a ghost and a human. It’s one of the easiest ways for her to feel at peace when the weight of everything catches up to her. And I think she definitely takes naps sometimes while Shadow is doing stuff on his own, rather than deal with being a ghost with nobody around to talk to.

🎄 CHRISTMAS TREE — what is your oc's favorite holiday?

I imagine most of the minor holidays weren’t celebrated aboard the Ark, stuff like Valentine’s Day are basically largely commercial holidays anyway so it would be hard to make it work. But I don’t think they could get away without giving the girl a proper Christmas at least once a year. I do think a version of celebrating Hanukkah could work here too depending on the version of the characters we go with, but for me it’s easier to write this based on all my known experiences, and I think Gerald would want Maria to have at least one big “getting presents and attention and being celebrated and doted on and having bright lights all around” type of holiday to make her feel special once a year and make the normally mundane lifestyle aboard the Ark bearable, to keep spirits high if nothing else. I think this is one of the few things she comes to enjoy more about being a ghost on Earth, though, since she gets to see so much more of it. The snow, the decorations in the city and in towns, the lights, the storefronts, every little detail as the world shifts into full holiday mode. She loves the buildup to the day itself and she wants to try a hot chocolate so bad but she’s a ghost so she can’t and it’s very tragic.

🐷 PIG FACE — what is your oc's favorite animal?

“Hedgehog” feels like the obvious answer but I wanna inject my headcanon that the species decision for both Shadow and his prototype, the Biolizard, were suggested by Maria. She was like “make it a big lizard” and then that experiment failed so Gerald was like “ok can we pick something smaller this time.” I also think Maria would find reptiles fascinating in terms of their biology. She spends a lot of time around blood so hearing abt reptiles and their cold-blood nature would be very cool to her. So I’m gonna say favorite animal is lizards initially, but after Shadow comes around it’s obviously hedgehogs.

🌴 PALM TREE — does your oc have a green thumb? do they enjoy gardening?

I feel like she absolutely loves plants, is curious about them, and sees them as one of the most tangible connections between her and Earth, the home she never got to see. Aboard the Ark there’s almost definitely a garden or farm of some sort or some research on botany going on, and she probably feels very connected to it. The soil comes from Earth, after all. She would want to work with the botanists all the time, and they’d be reluctant to let her, worried it would make her sicker, worried she’d damage the plants, worried about whatever other boring considerations responsible adults have to take. But as I’ll discuss later I think she has a habit of getting her way, and eventually they’d let her, and she’d love it, and she’d work very hard to keep her own personal flowers alive. She’d for sure do that thing of talking to plants bc it helps them grow, and no matter how many times the botanists explain it’s just because of increased exposure to CO2 she believes it’s because the plants like her. She likes them too. Unfortunately, as a ghost, Maria is surrounded by plant life and utterly unable to touch it. She probably bugs Shadow into getting some flowers for wherever he ends up living and tells him how to take care of it. She still talks to the plants, too. Even though it doesn’t help anymore. It can’t hear her.

❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc's positive traits?

One of Maria’s only canon traits is that she is kind and hopeful despite her condition, and that’s 100% true. She’s still young, full of wonder and curiosity about the world, full of hope and eagerness. At her best she’s a fountain of energy, positivity, and fun. She’s funny, she’s uplifting, she’s smart and picks up on things quickly. Full of all this potential that everyone around she knows she may never get to use. Even as a ghost, I think those traits stick out. She’s angrier, dealing with more trauma and righteous fury, but she’s still in love with the world she now gets to see up close. The trees, the flowers, the wind, the sounds. Birds and stray cats and people’s cozy little homes with all their personal touches. She’s observant and curious, and she sees it all, makes note of it. Her observational abilities probably help Shadow out, too, and her ability to learn things quickly helps her bring him up to speed. She’s really a perfect ally for a lot of the deadlier stuff Shadow gets up to that she’d prefer not to do.

🤍 WHITE HEART — what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits?

Again, Maria is sharp. Notices things, picks things up quickly. She’s able to put pieces together in ways that make life a bit harder for people around her sometimes. She’s never been surprised by a surprise birthday party, or received a Christmas present she doesn’t already know the identity of. She’s also more than willing to view intelligence as a truly amoral thing, she sees as much value in her cousin Ivo’s intelligence as in Tails’ for example, even when one person is trying to destroy the world and the other to save it. I also think she’s able to be pretty apathetic to her own circumstances, which in her life makes it easy to navigate the emotional baggage of her condition, but also means she doesn’t see her worst days as especially scary, and can tend to overexert herself for the hell of it. She’s pretty emotionally mature and understands that she is probably going to die, and that’s as helpful as it is terrifying. When ghost time comes around, the apathy carries over. Sure, she’s outraged at the situation, but she doesn’t spend too much time getting mad about it, just lets herself stew in the unfairness of it all, knowing that being openly frustrated won’t do her or Shadow any good. It can cause her to be closed off, but also more capable of focusing on an important task if she’s needed.

💔 BROKEN HEART — what are three of your oc's negative traits?

Maria exists in this really unenviable position of being a child who lived onboard a space station surrounded by exclusively adults and your sibling who is also the ultimate life form and also a fluffy little guy. So I imagine during her life she frequently gets frustrated and acts out due to people refusing to listen to her or take her seriously, who don’t bother explaining stuff to her despite her curiosity, even when it’s her own body they’re doing stuff to. Bc of the Robotnik reputation I think Gerald probably didn’t bother checking if his elite team of scientists and doctors was any good with kids, and their behavior annoys her to no end. She’s prone to intentionally making her condition worse to get their attention or being difficult on purpose to annoy them, typically to the detriment of her own health. She would not be above using Gerald’s guilt about taking her from her parents and trapping her aboard a space station and, most of all, the fact that they both know he isn’t going to cure her, against him to get her way. Maria is at her core hopeful and full of curiosity and love but she’s also so angry about how unfair it all is. And when she’s a ghost, it’s even worse. She’s bitter, she’s sad, she’s in constant mourning. She’s jealous of everyone around her getting to live full lives, even Shadow, who means more to her than anything. Watching her killers get off scott-free. It’s easy for that rage and bitterness to overtake her and make her vindictive and petty. And to be honest, can you blame her?

🍝 SPAGHETTI — what is/are your oc's favorite food(s)?

So Maria is born on and spends her whole life aboard a space station, and bc of how I envision her ghost form working, she isn’t actually able to eat food in that state. So I imagine her understanding of flavors to be really messed up by that, and she’d have to be limited to stuff they could store in space. I do think due to her pain she’s a fan of stuff that is easy to eat and relatively soft, it’s the most stress-free eating experience and relatively stable. I also think if given the chance she’d be a veggie fantastic. She would get so mad at anybody who doesn’t like any vegetable for any reason.

🍰 SHORTCAKE — what is/are your oc's favorite sweet(s)/dessert(s)?

I think she 100% has a sweet tooth. She is a kid so immune system disorder be damned she was insistent that Gerald keep the Ark kitchen stocked with chocolate and space ice cream or whatever equivalents they could get, and she regularly snuck around swiping some when she wasn’t supposed to, to the exhaustion of her doctors. Shadow was also skeptical about it until she shared some chocolate with him and he immediately understood. Some things are worth the risk.

🤔 THINKING FACE — what are some of your oc's quirks/mannerisms?

As many other folks have rightly pointed out, it is an often-overlooked fact that Maria is a Robotnik. This family is known for many things, but mostly, being cartoonish evil scientists who try to take over the world. While Maria’s brand of revenge and evil is different than Gerald or Ivo’s, she definitely retains their propensity for stuff like evil laughter, as well as the idle curiosity and intelligence (Maria is raised amongst genius-level researchers and scientists after all). So from that, I think she likes to keep her hands moving, touching things, building things, at least when she has the strength for it. Once she’s a ghost, she no longer has the pain, but she also doesn’t have the corporeality, so she can’t fidget with her hands. It’s basically torture, and she hates it. Sometimes she runs her hands through Shadow’s quills and watches them fade into him and back out. It’s the closest she’s got.

[waifu-13]

I’m not sure if take request or not but I had request idea but if u aren’t taking request it’s ok aslo are famailar with charcter Uta from one piece just wondering?

an- this lovely follower here is a creative genius so my part here is just putting everything together. I give credit where credit is due.

tw bullying.

your Face to face with the red-winged man in the void of self-destruction you made to get back him and the hero commission.. but no good fight starts at the main point let's go back a few lyrics shall we?

You stare at the white walls every day in this god-forsaken place. The lie of it being a "wonderful" training place for future heroes is bullshit. 24/7 vocal rest unless you're in training so you can't "run out of sound" whatever that means. white walls white clothes and constantly being compared to others. Ever since you got your quirk, you can't even sing or feel anything with someone slapping a muzzle-like contraption on you. at this point, you've mostly given up the only thing... well, the person that had made this bearable is the bird guy named Hawks. the adult at the hero commission swoons over him. As kids, it never got to his head but as you've gotten older it got to his head.. cocky man.. getting all this praise and you sit here looking like a lost puppy most of the time.

As time went on your hatred towards your past friend and this shity place that claimed to make the "best heroes" only grew. Your dreams of being number one have died out only to be left with the goal of bringing this place down as soon as possible. Wishing to of never learned how corrupt your own dream can be. Papers on top of paperwork on you from every single experiment you've been through are stacked in the corner of your "room" which can be better described as a jail cell.

"We can't do anything with them without risking damage"

"dump them. we have the bird to use from this round of test subjects anyways" a harsh tone you hear from outside the door. We're they talking about you? Are you finally gonna get revenge-

Which brings us to now your quirk in question? Euphonious Voice. it allows you to make a virtual space for yourself or others making you the main puppetry with your own voice. downside? once your energy is out the world collapses. You still don't remember what happened on the day you were let free. Can't remember how you got a new life all you knew from the moment you woke up you had to work, so you did. training every day. practicing vocal scales. Growing strong to become a force that can't be stopped running on pure revenge. Using his stupid face and red wings as motivation for this very moment.

Face to face, limb to limb with your old friend turned enemy. You can't understand how someone who claims to stand up for peace can sit back and not speak out about the tortures of your childhoods. As darkness floods around you incasing all signs of light to form your own personal revenge world.

"yn, CUT IT OUT YOU'LL HURT EVERYONE" hawks calls out distressed trying to break your rhythm of rage

"over my dead body birdboy" your words like Venum spitting out nothing will stop you now.

You and him the only signs of any form of hero or human life in the world you've made, as tension builds in the fight he gets closer then just as hawks is about to lay what he thinks is a finally blow the end to this madness...

BOOM,LIGHTS OUT

A large flash grows across The black relm as it grows to a different shade of black almost void like. All life seems...gone as the sounds of your songs flatten almost lost in the void of what can only be described as self-destruction but did it really end that way?

Wait..no..my..my story can't end like this..can it? Everything I worked for..just over?! All the pain? That fight? Just gone? C'mon give more to the story! give more to MY story!

The end... Or is it

[lindentreeisle]

Raz died a week ago today

I'd inadvertently turned my ringer off, but I picked up the phone and the text I'd received said "There is an emergency and I can't get in touch with you or your emergency contact. Please call me back." I've never received a text like that. I knew the news was more likely to be about my bird than my cat, and I knew it was going to be devastating.

On Christmas Day, they told me, she was chirping and seemed normal. On the 26th, she was motionless on her side on the bottom of the cage. I had them send me photos. I had them promise to freeze her for me since I wasn't due home til the 31st. Then I broke down and sobbed before cleaning myself up so I could go out in the living room and break down again as I told my parents and brother and a pair of family friends what had happened.

There's no sign on her body or in the cage of what could have killed her. Even if I got a vet to agree to a necropsy I'd probably never know for sure. It could have been a virus, or bacteria, or nothing at all. She was 9 and a half, which is late middle age if not old for a budgie. It might have been something that if I'd been there, I would have seen the symptoms and acted- birds hide illness even better than cats, and close observation is often the only way to realize something is wrong. But I might not have. It's quite possible that if I'd been home, I would have been the one walking into the house after work or a night's sleep or a trip to visit a friend and finding her dead.

I don't feel guilty for not being there; I'm honestly glad that it wasn't me that found her. Stupidly, the thing I felt guilty about was that the week before I left on my trip, she'd barely gotten any out of cage time because I'd been so preoccupied by work stress, emotional stress, and some pain issues I was struggling with. I felt bad leaving her to spend all day every day in the cage while I was out of town, and I promised that when I got home I would spend some quality time with her.

I'm glad I was with my family when I found out: I had distractions, people to talk to and hug, reassurance that even when we were just hanging out in the same room with our separate pursuits, I wasn't alone. By the time I flew out on Sunday, I thought I was as ready to go home as I was going to be. The thought of cleaning out her cage no longer broke me into pieces. I had researched crematories. I was still looking often at pictures and videos of Raz, but I no longer cried continuously while I did it; I was able to look at them with fondness instead of just fixating on the fact that I would never hear that call, see that behavior, ever again. I was starting to think about getting more birds and looking at breeders; the idea of cleaning out Raz's things felt more bearable when I thought of it as preparing for future tenancy rather than clearing away the remains of a life.

Sitting in the airport and then on the plane, I was full of anxiety and dread, which seemed out of proportion to what I was facing.

The first thing I did after turning on the lights and putting down my luggage was to go to the freezer and examine her, because I had to know if there were any obvious signs of what killed her. When I've euthanized cats, I was holding them when they still died. Maybe it's that slow transition of the body from something alive to something clearly dead that makes holding it at that moment so painful. Raz was the first pet I'd seen dead without experiencing the death. It wasn't hard or even really sad: it wasn't her, she wasn't there. It was when I walked upstairs and into the back bedroom (her room, my office) that I burst into tears, looking into her empty cage.

I didn't sleep until 4 am, when I was too exhausted to feel sad any more. A friend chatted with me on the phone for most of it, keeping me company. Yesterday I kept the grief at bay by keeping busy: breaking down some old furniture I'm throwing out, cleaning out the cage, throwing away the toys too worn to reuse or impossible to sterilize, washing and boiling the ones I decided to keep. Trying to think ahead, not back. I even managed to collect all my photos and videos of her from their various sources and make sure all were backed up in two locations.

Grief can be delayed, but not denied. Not when the house itself, which Raz has lived in as long as I have, is a reminder of loss. I come home through the backyard after dark and the light in the back bedroom is off- because Raz doesn't live there any more. I start up the stairs and want to call out "hey birben!" and hear her call back, but I can see the back bedroom door is ajar and the room is dark- because Raz doesn't live there any more. I get up in the morning and want to go to the bedroom and pull the cover off her cage, saying "good morning, smallest friend!"- but Raz doesn't live there any more. At 10 pm it's bird bedtime and I want to cover the cage, turn off the lights, and hear the chorpling that only happens when she settles down to sleep- but Raz doesn't live here any more.

I don't know how to live in this house without her in it. I don't know how to sit at this desk in my back bedroom without her sitting next to me. I don't know how to exist in total silence without her friendly chatter- yells and shrieks of outrage or excitement, sharp chirps to greet or check on me, soft "nheck"s of affection and acknowledgement, gentle squeaking when I was nearby and she was thoroughly happy.

I have people who will talk to me, keep me company, try to comfort me, when I need them. I'm grateful. But it doesn't ease this unshakeable sense of absence, the sadness that comes from the near-constant reminders that despite Marduk's company, despite the support of friends and family, I've lost something that I valued immensely but have only now realized was a much larger part of my life than I had fully appreciated.

I just miss my friend.

[zuckarr]

1 year as a vegan 🌱 an honest overview

I'm a 30 year old woman, and I decided to go vegan in April 2022. I was never a vegetarian. I switched from an omnivorous diet to a plant-based diet overnight, and I have strictly adhered to the latter, with the only few exceptions being accidents.

I would like to write down how my journey as a vegan has been so far, what pros and cons I encountered and how my overall health was impacted. I intend to talk with my heart on my sleeve about everything and I am totally open to questions or clarifications. This post is nothing more than my own subjective, unique experience as a relatively new vegan person. However I won't be talking about the morality of veganism, nor the reasons why I decided to go vegan. I want to give voice to the bodily and mental changes I am going through instead, plus a few personal final thoughts.

I'd like to begin by stating that:

I have been taking several blood tests during the last year in order to keep track of the changes.

I have been taking vitamin B12 supplements as strongly recommended by every single doctor and veganism related website/source.

I have no prior sickness of any kind.

HEADACHES.

Headaches used to permeate my days before going vegan - so much that I had stopped noticing them (when bearable). During my first week as a vegan, the sudden disappearance of my headaches felt like a miracle. I would've never anticipated how life-changing that was. I was so used to my head pounding that the absence of the pain couldn't have gone unnoticed. I figured out I am intolerant to dairy, as countless others are, and yet I used to munch on cheese as my go-to comfort food... as countless others do.

BLOATING.

Bloating was probably also caused by my daily ingestion of dairy products, and was one of my body's cries for help. I did not feel bloated anymore once I started eating plant-based. The skin on my belly was softer at the touch and not as tense as before. People around me began asking if I had lost weight. I hadn't. It was just me deflating, lol.

SLEEP.

This is one of the most unexpected changes: I noticed I've been sleeping less, but better. I started waking up an hour or two earlier than usual, feeling well rested. Thanks to that, my days got longer, my mind got clearer, and my mood improved almost instantly.

ENERGY.

During the first weeks, I felt very energised. Must've been all of the vitamins suddenly filling my body! Who needs to get high when you can get the iron rush from a bunch of spinach, like good old Popeye taught us? Nevertheless, the energy sort of dissipated over time and I've been feeling pretty normal ever since.

POOP.

Oh no, it's poop talk! Fend yourselves, because I am not scared of being descriptive here. Long story short, I used to have frequent diarrhea before going vegan. Once again, my dairy intolerance most likely contributed to creating funny looking brown stuff. If I asked you how's your poop looking, what would you answer (assuming you wouldn't slap me)? And would you know what a healthy poop is supposed to look like? Welp, let's just say I've been proud of my toilet appointments since going vegan, because all I see are Pacha meme worthy sausages. Going to the loo is a happy time now, in comparison to the long minutes of agony spent with stomachache and funky smells.

FLATULENCE.

Can't have booty talk without mentioning the #1 cause of laughter among kids since the beginning of time! Farting is funny, but it is first and foremost the sign of a healthy gut. It takes a quick Google search to find out what farts truly are and why our bodies need to produce them. I confirm one of the most innocent prejudices against vegans - yes, we fart more than usual! But if you read into it, you'll only wish to do the same. Still, it is a largely acceptable change, and has not caused me any discomfort or unfortunate situations whatsoever.

CHOLESTEROL, IRON, PROTEIN, ETC.

Before going vegan, I had high cholesterol, high fibrinogen, low hemoglobin, low albumin, and a few other things that weren't importantly unbalanced. As aforementioned, I've taken several blood tests during the last year which showed ALL of the highs & lows quickly going back to normal. When I saw my cholesterol lower for the first time, I cried. I haven't had normal cholesterol for years, so, seeing that was nothing less than a miracle for me. As for my iron and protein, they increased! My fibrinogen was REALLY high, which could've resulted in a heart attack due to a vascular occlusion, but I don't risk that anymore. I cannot express how ecstatic I am to be considered medically healthy now. I wish somebody had told me earlier about the health benefits of a plant-based diet.

COOKING AND GROCERY SHOPPING.

I was never a big fan of cooking, because I was mostly just hungry all the time and I couldn't be bothered to prep meals or to even chop up vegetables. As a vegan though, I was kind of forced to look at recipes in the beginning - I was pretty lost and didn't know what to cook! Well, vegan cooking turned out to be much easier than I thought. I remember my first vegan grocery shopping experience: a whole new world opened up in the mall. I had never looked at the veggies and fruits and legumes and seeds and cereals section properly before! It was ENORMOUS! Boxes and bags and baskets of wonderfully colored food, most of it really cheap (especially legumes); with half of the money that I used to spend on cheese and meat, I had double the amount of food in my shopping cart and I was so ready to start cooking. The more I cooked, the quicker my cooking skills drastically improved and I have so much fucking fun in the kitchen now! I made countless vegan meals and cakes, loved by everybody (non-vegans asked for recipes more than once!), even by my mother! She used to slaughter chickens and had never baked a cake without eggs before, and yet, she admitted that this way of eating is fantastic and convenient. After a few months, she praised my hair and skin because it looks brighter and healthier. As a matter of fact, I feel nourished and full most of the time. Most importantly, I began to feel grateful and to think of food as a way of loving myself and nurturing my body, rather than a mere matter of taste.

SOCIETY.

The problem with being a vegan in a human society is... other people. It is always, undoubtedly other people who will come @ me with their weird, uncalled for, and rude anti-vegan claims as soon as somebody ELSE reveals that I am a vegan. I swear to god. I have no idea where we picked up the scenario of the 'annoying vegan' because the truth is actually the opposite... it is others who annoy ME... whenever they asked questions, I was happy to answer and explain stuff, because I genuinely thought that they were interested and would have liked learning something new, just like I would've felt if they had talked to me about something that they are passionate about. But nope, the real reason why most people asked me questions was to 'debunk' what I would say and feel like they won the argument. Even though it wasn't an argument at all. It wasn't long before I started noticing the patterns, the same old questions asked, the same rebuttals, over and over, in an endless cycle of going nowhere. So I simply learned how to differentiate the 'gotchas' from the rare, decent people who truly want to know more about veganism. As for going out and eating out, it wasn't as hard nor as expensive as I anticipated. We now live in a very vegan friendly time, there are vegan alternatives to basically everything. I feel extremely lucky to be a vegan now, because I can't even begin to imagine how hard it would've been years before.

PEACE OF MIND.

There is a duck pond nearby and I often take walks through it. Sometimes I sit on a bench, look at the beautiful birds and their dreamy plumage, and I... appreciate them. Not for their meat, like I used to. I can't even fathom seeing those creatures as food now. I appreciate them as individuals, who dream, love, dance, think, sleep, bond with their kin... I feel at peace with animals and nature on a whole other level. I realized how wrong it felt to eat a steak and then pet my dog. I learned so much about animal agriculture, nutrition, human rights, environmentalism… and I have so much more to learn yet. It takes one heartfelt glance into an animal's eyes, to be reminded that we are all the same. I am honored to get to choose not to be cruel to them.

[horce-divorce]

I have hard boundaries for myself about how I use social media that I've followed for the last few years. Ever since I briefly left tumblr and tried twitter, I took so much psychic damage from that experience that I had to make new rules about how I use the internet. Setting app timers did nothing for me, so I compromised: im allowed to use social media daily to my heart's content (which I found isnt actually all that much)- as long as isn't the FIRST thing I open when I wake up.

For YEARS it was my habit to crack open my eyes and click into FB or Twitter or Insta before I even got out of bed. It was like this compulsive Need to Know What's Going On Out There. what did I miss while I was asleep? Never much, but always some new drama, some new political blunder, some new Person of the Day everyone was dunking on. I hated it, but I COULDN'T stop. I physically couldn't resist.

So lately I've tried to replace that habit with, just, something else. Anytime I feel the urge to click into social media, I try using another app instead. Usually it's a game (dvc has been great for me bc of the social feature, but just as often I'll open up my coloring book, wordscapes, or any other game that keeps me busy for 2 seconds and fulfills the "click button get dopamine" urge). Especially first thing in the morning. My brain needs a solid 2-3 hours of consciousness before I can handle social media.

A cool life hack I learned recently is that it's easier to get up in the morning if you do something you actually LIKE to do first thing in the day. it's done wonders for my mental health. I went from "ugh, morning again? It was literally morning yesterday," to feeling like Spongebob hopping out of bed going "IM READY!" every day. Clicking into social media was NOT something I was doing because I liked it. Gaming is something I do because I love it. I love checking on my dragons, it makes me feel HAPPY to have looked at them, i make new friends playing games bc we already have something in common (ive rarely made new friends on social media. I used to make friends ALL THE TIME playing games like neopets, roleplaying and posting on forums, and building little websites and things- ive even made a bunch of friends on tumblr. Never on FB, though). It's a world of difference getting up and checking on my animal crossing villagers, who fill me with glee and delight, vs looking at FB first thing in the morning and feeling bitter about all the people I know who aren't paying attention to me.

So anyway, this has worked SHOCKINGLY well for me? Usually just clicking another app and looking at it for a minute fulfills the urge to have clicked the FB button, or whatever, which then goes away- and I have sated my craving without pissing myself off, and without creating additional urges by going on social media. I have been using social media SO MUCH LESS since I started doing this and I've been feeling amazing for it. And it's not always games. I also use more practical apps like Bearable and Habitica. Sometimes I'll even click thru my photos or notes instead of clicking the social app.

This morning, I broke my habit. For the first time in weeks or maybe even months, I woke up and clicked FB and Insta first thing. I shared a post or two lately and I was hoping my friends had seen it, but I knew they hadn't even before I looked. 2 likes, no comments. I clicked into Instagram and saw a Reel from Kevin James Thornton, a comedian and whole media personality who has over 600k follows on Instagram alone, pleading with his existing fans to choose to check up on him and to sign up for his email list instead, because the algorithm only wants to hook new followers. The 600k existing ones aren't good enough. Gotta have that exponential growth or else our shareholders will be very cross with us!

I realized this morning what it is about FB that makes me so irate, the thing that creates additional urges to post my whole ass and pick fights and be as annoying as possible: because I hate feeling like I'm being ignored. And this is a feeling social media manufactures for you CONSTANTLY. You log on and ONLY see posts that are already popular, posts that are already "getting engagement." Everyone else is clearly online commenting and interacting with all this other stuff except for yours. Why aren't you good enough? Don't they like YOUR posts? Why are they ignoring you? What did you do wrong?

You can KNOW wholeheartedly that Facebook gives incentives to certain posts/posters and that it does the opposite with certain topics, especially socio-political ones. You can know that it's the algorithm refusing to show your posts, and not your friends ignoring you. But still, you have a page, people know how to find you- can't they come to your page to check? Did they forget you exist? Do they just not care? You can SEE they're online, and they can see YOU'RE online, so what's not clicking???

In me, at least, this WILDLY increases the urge to post something dramatic, incendiary, or outrageous just to get a response. OH, you guys don't like me when im being polite and quiet? You'll really hate me when I decide to be annoying on purpose!

Which then increases engagement, providing you with positive reinforcement for posting "controvertial" things, starting fights, posts that provoke people into responding... If you wont choose to interact with my posts? Fine. I'll make the urge fucking irresistible. A positive reinforcement for fighting and doing other unpleasant things we don't like, and supposedly don't want to use social media for, and yet.

It's not merely that posting misinformation and getting in fights is profitable to these platforms. Why is it profitable? Because the more you engage with (read: fight) random strangers, the more other, new people are also exposed to your inflammatory conversations, which in turn sparks a response in them, and so and so forth.

If we all just gained 600k followers and then stopped, and we all saw every update they made, and we all just hung out in our own corners and minded our own business? Sure, that would be lucrative for the creators with all those followers, but Instagram wouldn't be experiencing exponential growth- they need MORE new users, MORE old users spending MORE time on the app, following MORE people, leaving MORE comments, SEEING MORE ADS, because they need more and more and more for their shareholders. Influences are the product just as much as regular users.

I'm thinking about that post that talks about how, as income inequality gets worse and the middle class shrinks, advertising gets more and more aggressive, despite people's ability to spend shrinking with each new day. This feels similar somehow? Like, people are starting to get wise to the fact that social media makes us feel like crap, and that the excuse of "I have to use it to stay connected to everyone else" falls flat when you're not actually connecting with those people. Even as the internet continues to shrink, more and more people are getting fed up with social media and using it less, or leaving outright, because it's becoming less and less usable, more ad-ridden than ever. And yet it reinforces the need for those platforms to get more aggressive, to bring in more users to replace the ones they're losing. It's a never ending cycle of "we have to cause you psychic damage! in the interest of roping in more people to damage psychically :)" and we all know we're doing it, and we all hate them for it, and yet we can't stop.

Once again I have to mention that absolutely fucking BIZARRE interaction my bf had the other day. Someone he knew "liked" a comment that was spreading misinformation and a very anti-treatment sentiment about DBT. He messaged this friend privately to ask if they really thought that. They told him, "I dont know what DBT is. I just click 'like' on any comment someone I think is cool makes." When my bf pressed them further, along the lines of, "why would you do that?" They said "for engagement." This was not an influencer, this is not a brand or a page or a business account they were using. It was a personal account w a few hundred friends. I just CANNOT get over this. Clicking buttons just because they're there, "for engagement" lmao. Engagement for whom, my good bitch? They might be interacting with your posts, but this is not "your" platform. The engagement isn't for you, sweaty. But ok.

I dont have a conclusion or any suggestions here. Just an observation. What a fucking mess. Social media demanded that we all make ourselves available 24/7, trained us to React instead of to care, convinced us all that we are each some kind of personal brand that requires social marketing to maintain, got us to pick fights with each other constantly as a result, made the internet a miserable place to be, and we have thanked them for the privilege.

Anyway. No more letting the algorithm tell you what to care about today. Contact me thru a series of intricate rituals or not at all. If it's really that important you can send me a Neomail 👍

[psychelis-new]

Hi lys, hope you are good

I am too as excited as the others for the dream interpretation, as I constantly search for it for all of my dreams. I sometimes get the messages without searching on the internet but sometimes they are bit messed up and I think to myself if they have any meaning at all xD

In my dream, I was walking in some sort of a field with some stranger. And it was so hot, the sun was always there and we had been walking for a long time. I could actually feel the sun. But it was kinda bearable because I had the company of that stranger. The field had grass/plants/ so long that it was around our waist. As we were walking, we finally saw a huge house, which was located under some long trees and their shadows. The house was painted white and looked somehow abandoned. There were no trees in the field. But the house was still in the distance. As we approached the house, some children came out of it and towards us. Then we all started talking but I don't know what. The dream ends.

The next day I saw a drawing of that stranger on my pinterest homepage. Like similar lines and so just different coloring. So this is the reason why I'm asking about this dream. Because this hasn't happened with any of my other dreams and I find it quite strange. And because it was one of those dreams were I could actually feel everything and I was not just dreaming of something.

⭐️⛰️

Hello

Yes ofc some dreams are easier to grasp, others are tougher, maybe also cause we fear not being right about the message they carry or somehow we unconsciously block ourself (despite the message comes from the unconscious too... yeah, there's a lot of fun stuff inside of us!). Sometimes when messages are too messed up, we may get more similar dreams or clearer dreams too, so overthinking them (if it ever happens) is not useful imo. But yes, some dreams just feel different... :)

I believe this dream wanted to help you ground and realize that you can find some help to confront the struggles in your life. Probably you are (or have, actually) closing off to protect yourself from the difficulties and pain (maybe you feel also neglected or alone), but honestly it won't last for long. This could be a premonitory/"preparation" dream or just a sign (connected with the fact you also saw a drawing of that stranger the next day) that someone new is approaching you and going to enter your life soon. Try to find balance or check what may be blocking you in the meantime. Be positive, be happy, be open and let others in... even if it may have been a while since the last time. The person that may enter your life can actually look like that stranger or not, but you'll somehow recognize them.

All the best!!

[truelove-kiss]

031123.1303.

So. I don't know what to do to deal with my emotions right now, but write. I think maybe putting all my feelings on text will make me less sad, less anxious, less on the verge of falling on depression once again. It's been almost a year since the last time I have had a depressive episode and I'm not looking forward to relapsing, I do not want to go back to that, to feeling numb and wanting to die. But I feel like I would like to die, or at least not be alive. I'm tired, I'm so so tired of feeling, of crying, of being like this.

Maybe I didn't think it through when I decided to start talking with T, maybe I should have actually thought about what a long distance relationship is like and if I would have the strength to face it. I guess at the beginning I just thought I was just being friendly - and having a LDR friend is nothing new to me. Then I was just being flirty - no harm done. And then it was like I had been hit by a car, the being in love car, one day I was normal - just texting my friend who I played with and shared reels with - and then I saw him on a video call and I knew I was in love. I don't even know how...

As the months passed it got harder but it was bearable, at first it was just video calls at night, then longer and longer calls, then we started falling asleep without hanging up...and finally we were on call all day almost everyday. And as the weeks passed I began to feel sadder and sadder about not being able to touch him or kiss him, that if any of us felt bad or was having a hard time we couldn't console each other with physical touch, not being able to have sex...

But now that I have seen him in person, met him, realized how great we are together in real life, how in sync we are, have our little inside jokes and secret handshake...now that I know how he kisses, how I feel when I am in his arms, how is it like when I say something and he looks at me joyful and full of love and pulls me close to say I love you...now that I know all that it feels unbearable to be without it. I feel like I'm just going through the motions but my heart is not in it cause I left it with him. I don't know how am I supposed to bear this for years. I'm angry at God for doing this to me. Why? Why make us be so close but so far away? Why make us meet when there's still many years left of life and growth we have to face before we are able to live together?

I am so anxious about it all. I don't know if everything is going to be fine. I hope so but I have this terrible feeling that we won't make it till the finish line, even if I do everything I can and give everything that I am for it to happen. I start getting this thoughts that he's not going to come visit me in the future, that I will go away to do my master's without having met him again. I get scared that I will be kept waiting wherever I end up...and he's going to tell me that we won't come. That all the waiting and feeling like this - like my heart is not even here - will be for nothing.

I don't know how to go back to normal - the normal before having met him in person. I don't know how am I supposed to settle for seeing him on my screen and nothing more.

I wish I could skip forward in time. I wish I could be sure everything will turn out fine. I wish God would help me bear this, that he would give me a sign about all of this. Please.

[muerteporfavor]

I am someone who who partakes in therapy (although I also do a lot to improve myself outside of therapy because unfortunately I can sometimes go over a month without a session which sucks but that's life. This blog is something I started after my last therapy session and I actually haven't told my therapist about it yet because I haven't had a session since. That was almost a month ago and I won't see her again until October. I'm going to pretend this doesn't upset me. It helps no one.)

Anyway, I've been thinking about something she said in one of my sessions recently. I had said something along the lines of that "sometimes you just have to let yourself sit with your depression and not do anything but lay in bed until its over. Because sometimes when you push yourself you are just miserable outside of the house rather than in. And sometimes the things that are meant to bring joy don't even remotely lighten your mood."

My therapist asked me who told me that. And I told her "nobody it's just the way it works." as that is my experience. Sometimes I just need to reset where I go nowhere, see nobody, work on nothing, and watch a lot of tv or read a lot of fanfiction with sad music until I feel strong enough to drag my body out of the rut. However, she told me that you're supposed to leave the house, supposed to do something, even when you feel miserable. And I know, the things you are supposed to do aren't meant to suddenly remove the foul mood but it is supposed to make it bearable.

I haven't had a lay in bed depression in a while. Currently, I am sick or have been and wasn't allowed to leave my house a few times without risking infecting someone else (I am fine now, and I wasn't contagious when I was on vacation) and usually that puts me into a really bad depression spell where I do nothing. This time? My bed is a mess, I'm struggling to care for myself, but my desk is also a mess. Which is always a good sign for me because it means that I'm still working even if some days are lighter work than others. I'm still pushing even though a lot of days I just want to curl up in bed and never move again.

So maybe she had a point. I guess. I haven't been leaving the house but I have been holding myself up right. And that really is what matters doesn't it? I didn't do those things to remove the mood. I did them to accomplish something. Even menial.

Previously, I would try to force the mood away at any means necessary. Especially when I used to work at my job that didn't allow for slow days, days where I just needed to intermittently lay down to recharge. Sure, I found time to lay down but it wasn't ever enough to recharge before I had to jump into the action and get up off the cold hard floor. I just had to do eight hours with no breaks where I chugged caffeine and sugar and snacked like crazy until the clock struck punch out time and I could go home and not move for a solid hour.

Those were bad days. I remember once, I can't remember if I was in charge or not, but my coworker was trying to hand me a clipboard and was saying something to me but something in my system had shifted without warning. I've never felt underwater like that before. His voice was near impossible to hear, even harder to comprehend, and I just stopped moving. Like I was in the bottom of a whirlpool. And then I crashed to the surface everything came back into sharp focus, and I started moving again. My coworker had said they weren't even sure I was hearing them for a second. That is my life.

The amount of times my coworkers had to accommodate me (management is entirely clueless about) when my tic disorder would have an episode and I had to be away from customers until they calmed down because I couldn't do my job effectively. Or when I used to have really bad panic attacks all the time. The last one I thankfully fixed. And it became a very rare problem that I could work through feeling my hands or not.

But I grew so tired of that. After a while you have to you know? And I guess I couldn't separate the difference between pushing through to the brink of overexertion with the pushing through just enough to allow air into my lungs. Because to me they would result in the same near death experience.

And that's the problem with toxic environments isn't it? They reshape your brain, make you believe that all environments are toxic until you learn to separate the difference. Until you step away from the environments trying to kill you. There is something so addicting about toxicity.

[tangiblejournal56]

10/09/11

Who the fuck was I kidding?  Someone liking me.  Yeah, like that’s reasonable.  As if that’s in the realm of fucking possibility.  Another set up, another giant let down.  Why do I ever let myself feed the delusion that someone may just find my particular odd self attractive, for more than just the thrill of, say, fucking a coworker, in this specific incident.  When will I learn to never trust anything good that heads my way, how it will only be followed by disappointment & defeat.  How can I possibly be this thick-headed, never to learn from my mistakes?  I can’t do this anymore, I really can’t.  Not when this is the inevitable outcome, a guy wanting to spend time with me, only wanting to screw me, then he’s satisfied his curiosity, then he peaces out.  I can’t even hate him, he’s not a bad guy, he’s straightforward & blunt & honest, even in this.  I don’t know if it was that the sex was so good, or that for awhile it was easy to believe he actually enjoyed my company, all of those goddamn kisses & touches & fucking smiles.  Kissing someone when I hadn’t kissed anyone in so fucking long, what an irresponsible, dangerous move.  Worse even than letting him come inside me, as at least I can deal with any physical problems of my body; not so with mental blows.

I liked him.  I can’t believe I let myself fucking like him so much.  After everything I should’ve learned by now.  Ryan should’ve been my infinite caution sign against any such foolishness.  Never deal with southern boys, especially the ones that seem so intriguing, so handsome, so interested in me.  I couldn’t even have this.  This nice feeling.  It couldn’t have even been allowed for a whole week.  New fucking record, well done.  This pit of self-loathing has never been quite so deep, so sharp.  Over a boy I hardly know.  But he is just an abstract, a catalyst.  A reminder.  Don’t trust anything good to come your way.  He hasn’t even straight-out rejected me yet, but I can read the terrain, I see what’s coming.  I’ve experienced this so often, if I can read the signs then why can I not just remember to avoid the whole business of falling for anyone?  Have I made it my life’s goal to set out after the ever-unattainable, just so I can suffer defeat after defeat, so that I can be miserable?  I’d thought I’d surpassed that phase, grown out of wanting to be miserable, depressed.  I don’t want to be unhappy anymore.  I just want a good fucking day, a day without trap doors & red herrings.  A day I can trust.  A chance to breathe.  Not every fucking day sending me spinning in a fit of pain, reeling from the force of the strike.  I’m tired of creating beauty out of my pain.  I just wanted this one small thing.  This small joy, to keep me from going off on everyone around me.  Something to make the suffering bearable, at least until I can leave this awful place.  Too much to ask.

The universe forces me to be alone.  And so I will live as it dictates.  I know I said that even if the one day of sex & enjoyment was all that would come out of this, I would be satisfied.  I lied.  I guess I was at least allotted more than I honestly expected, we spend our lunch break two days later at his apartment in his bed, fucking, then sleeping, then fucking once more before returning to work.

Why did the sex have to be so good?  Like another cruelty, giving me something so damn enjoyable for such a short period of time, before pulling the rug swiftly out from beneath me.  I feel cold, incapacitated.  Why is that still such a shock?  Why do I get this nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach even just anticipating his next text message?  I can’t even figure him out, he always seems so ungraspable, I think he will say or do one thing & he quickly does the opposite.  This was something I wanted time to figure out, to untangle.  It bothered me that he felt I was so predictable, like he’d already read the book of me.  I wanted to show him the extent to which he doesn’t know me at all.  I allowed him to see a side of me even Max isn’t necessarily privy to, myself as being without inhibition.  The Ryan effect.  It would seem I only allow this for these deceptive southern disappointments.  Why is this the effect they have upon me?  Why can I not grow an immunity for this particular disease?  I need to leave, avoid this city like the plague.  Ignore it as it so ignores me.  Watch it fade away in a rear-view mirror.  All of its bad & bittersweet memories, experiences I never want again.

I can’t bear to be alone.  Yet no one will have me.  Where does this leave me?  I am not noble, able to suffer my pain with such grace as Max, unable to lean on numbing agents like alcohol or drugs.  Even through those hazy states the pain is still so sharp, the universe’s total & unbending rejection of me.  How I must suffer through this war with no army at my back.  No winds to catch my sails.  Why can I not reconcile myself to loneliness?  I’ve had enough practice with it.  I am not brave.  I can neither do myself in, nor can I accept this solitude.  Where does that leave me?  Eternally miserable, sobbing nightly to exhaust myself enough to pass out, only to dream of what it might feel like to be loved.  Again, waking to disappointment, to pain so acute I feel it in my chest, in my legs, every limb & organ & capillary.  If this is bottom, where is the relief that things cannot get much worse?  There is always worse.  It seems like it never ends.  I can’t do it.  I can’t do it.  I cannot keep the strings of sanity in my hand anymore, they are struggling to escape.  I can feel it coming, the day I just let go, when I no longer have that small voice inside of my head reminding me of why I need to hang on.  For what is the point?  My existence means very little to anyone besides my mother.  She would suffer, yes, & I would hate to be the cause of that.  But I can feel that one day she will not be enough to keep me from saying fuck all & diving headfirst into my head entirely, barring anyone from entering.  Eve Max will not be able to bring me back.  It would be for the best in his case, he will be allowed to live his life fully without worrying about me & my problems anymore.  I am everyone’s burden.  I am no one’s joy.  There is nowhere I fit among this world.

Why no relief?  Has what I’ve done in my life been so completely unforgivable?  I see others committing acts of far greater evil & still they aren’t punished, aren’t alone.  I try not to let this get to me, & yet I end up in this exact position, again & again, wondering why I cannot catch a break.  I try to go out & create my own breaks, opportunities, as I have done with the Italian, & yet this is still the outcome.  No matter what I do, which way I turn, everything seems to explode in my face.  Even Luke I cannot interest, I have no friends to make here, no one I can talk to or trust.  I have Racha but she cannot cure me of this loneliness.

When will this end?

When I end myself, I suppose.

[writtenbyariavargas]

Day 11

Fever - Carlisle

medical situation cw, medical situation tw, death mention cw, death mention tw, pandemic cw, pandemic tw

I could feel him slipping away, just a boy with no family left. Both of his parents were lost to the Spanish Influenza and he was dying of it as well. His fever was high, wasn’t breaking and even with my experience there wasn’t much else I could do for him. This boy’s life would end if I didn’t act. I remembered his mom’s dying wish. She begged for me to save her son. At first I didn’t know how I’d save him with how quickly the flu had spread and enveloped him. I watched his labored breathing, watched for signs that he would make it on his own and saw none.

There was only one option, something I hadn’t really considered before now. I was alone and having a companion would make this long life more bearable, but what about his soul? What about his life? Would he curse me just as I had cursed the vampire who turned me? Would he hate me for taking his human life away? The moments were slipping away too fast for me to consider this decision too much longer. He wasn’t going to make it through the night. He was at the point of death rattles, something I’d grown accustomed to hearing in all my time as a medical practitioner. I didn’t particularly like the rattles, didn’t like hearing people take their last breaths, but it came with the territory.

I placed my hand, the one that had started my change to this cold life on his cheek. His eyes opened and he looked up at me. I could see that even with how far the illness went, how high the fever was he didn’t want to die. At that moment I made my decision. I knew that how I had been created was something that worked. My creation was so different than other vampires I knew and the fact that I still had humanity I wondered if it was the catalyst as to why I was different. I decided to take him to my home, a secluded place to allow for the boy’s transformation to start without others being able to hear his screams.

When we were safe and hidden I bit him exactly where I had been and I waited. I watched over him for hours, for days until my venom completely took over, for his heart to stop beating. I saw as the illness was burned from his body and that he no longer looked and sounded like the flu would kill him.