#tired of dealing with this bullshit family LMAO

[ghoulangerlee]

Your dnd characters 👀

i will always be down to talk about my d&d boys!!!

I don't....actually have actual photos of them because I cannot draw, and so they live vividly in my mind. I Will Eventually commission someone to draw them though I think. ANYWAY.

Jamir - he's a half-dead (as in, that is his race, homebrewed myself) ranger who isn't wise enough to multiclass (his death took away some of his wisdom). He was human before his death--not the best sort of human, joined the army at a young age because that's all he could do, really. His parents well. He made a deal with someone not so nice and in exchange for their souls, he gained the ability to perform magic; simple things though, nothing too crazy. A few cantrips here and there.

Along the way, the faction of soldiers he's with are sent out to aid a dragonborn clan that's having issues of their own with infighting.

This is where he meets Elias, eventually, and they hit it off pretty much immediately. Jamir is of course, jaded all the hell, he's been fighting for half his life in an army of soldiers who just seem to be making things worse.

Elias gives him a way out, a chance at freedom, because Elias was also looking to somehow distance himself from all the fighting. They make a pact to leave together.

Until Elias's brother Arjhan catches wind of this and kills Jamir.

I can't go too much into Elias's backstory because I haven't delved much into it during the campaign and ofc both my players follow me here haha! But, Elias takes Jamir's body and finds a necromancer, makes a deal with her to bring Jamir back.

She readily agrees and makes sure he understands the consequences of this, of what could happen. The possibilities of Jamir coming back wrong.

Elias accepts these consequences readily.

And he does, of course, come back wrong. He's no longer human, smells of rot and decay and has to constantly drink potions to keep his skin from looking too pale. He has aches and pains despite being practically unkillable now. But, along with his new chance at life, he's also gained more access to magic.

Elias [Redacted] is a dragonborn paladin (he has a family name ofc but it's unknown for now, for a good reason)

is the son of a monarch, a clan leader, and he hates it. His clan is constantly at war with each other, with other dragonborn. with humans. you name it, they have a distrust of most other races, for good reason of course.

Long ago, a curse was placed on this clan, meaning that any children born to them would die. There is no known way to reverse this, until, one day, Elias's brother Arjhan was born.

Arjhan, he had not succumbed to the curse, and no one knows why, but this makes Arjhan a very popular target.

Elias had, for years, felt like he had to protect his brother from anyone. From the weird scientists and magic folk that their father had hired to test Arjhan to see if there was something about his blood that made him different, to the older kids that the two of them grew up around.

Arjhan was, in a way, viewed as the savior of the clan, much to the distaste of Elias.

The campaign actually begins with Elias and Jamir recruiting people to help them find Arjhan haha. At this point in time, there is still no cure to the curse and Arjhan is practically hated by the party (minus Elias and begrudgingly, Jamir--but also like wouldn't u also hate the person who killed you???)

ANYWAY. Elias and Jamir are in love, they are my mid-thirties baby boys who are just tired soldiers who want to rest their head somewhere but can't because they keep getting pulled into bullshit!

(also if you vaguely guessed that Elias's family story sounds eerily like the Krogan Genophage from Mass Effect then u would be correct. Elias is based on Wrex and Jamir is based on male Shepard but with a lil gay twist LMAO)

[vaxyl]

i really hate trying to google things related to my intrusive thoughts but i want to try and understand why i think the things i think, but a lot of the time the results i get are unrelated or i get helplines suggested or i end up being triggered by something

it fucking sucks man

i dont want these thoughts, i dont want to deal with this - im very good at stopping myself from following through and at talking myself down when they get bad, i can recognise when they're getting too much for me and have ways to calm down without help

i just want answers as to why its happening so i can better prepare myself for when it happens and adjust my methods for safely resolving my intrusive thoughts in a more productive manner

i just want to know if my occasional sudden urge to drink is just my intrusive thoughts or if its something more, you know???

i have a family history of alcoholism and almost fell deep into a steady pattern of alcohol abuse myself when i was in college before i realised what i was doing and immediately stopped myself before it became a proper problem

are these urges to drink a symptom of a more serious underlying problem or is it just my brain being a piece of shit to me for no fucking reason

i know intrusive thoughts and alcoholism can go hand in hand, my main concern is am I handling these thoughgs correctly or am i setting myself up for hell down the road?

i haven't drank in months, last i drank was cider at Christmas and i had maybe 2 small cans and that was after having nothing for a whole year

and when i did drink in college it wasn't like i was binge drinking, i had a small sip of whisky maybe twice a day whenever i had to go into college and only on those days

that was more than enough as it was, honestly - it can start with just one sip to manage a headache, then its 2 then its 5 then you lose count

the moment i realised i was starting to try and justify drinking when it really couldn't be justified, and that i was falling into a pattern of harmful behaviour that would only worsen if i continued to ignore it, i immediately got rid of the last of my whisky and have never touched a drop since

i know not everyone can do that, I was incredibly lucky that i realised what i was doing before i couldn't stop myself

but now im worried that i had already done irreparable damage by that point

had i? or is it just my intrusive thoughts making me feel like i need alcohol so everything will be okay?? this bothers me a lot

i wont drink, i can't really rn anyway with the current state of my diabetes, but the urges are getting more and more frequent it feels like

and i am so fucking tired

anything that helps me shut up the urges would help a lot, even if it's just knowledge of what is causing them to start with

if i know what the problem is i can work on a solution

problem is, i dont know what the fucking problem is

the stress this causes does not help suppress the intrusive thoughts, as you can probably imagine, and only makes drinking sound all the more appealing.... the fucking joys

for the record, i am safe and sound tonight im just angry

angry and tired and angry at being tired and tired of being angry and maybe im also feeling a little bit robbed

but I'll be okay, just needed to voice this Bullshit somewhere

the ravens know i cant say any of this to my family lmao

fr tho, any info or advice is appreciated guys 💕

[that-starry-freak]

Starry please

i’m turning notifs on for you

ramble to me more about MoonChips /nf /silly

i’m so normal i swear

-💥 (i swear everyone knows who i am when i sign off as this but idc, you know who i am, others don’t lmao)

I know who you are what when??? I was under the assumption I was the only one who didnt-

ANYWAY I WILL HAPPILY RANT ABOUT MOONCHIPS

Oh my goodddd. I didn't like the ship very much before because of Moon being aroace, but what he said in the episode today completley changed my mind. Not only am I more interest in expiremntally shopping him with more characters, but eccpecially Eclipse!!! With how Moon said he'd want to try dating someone sarcastic and sadistic, a lot like him. And the way he described it fit Eclipse perfectlt!!!

And oh my god did that idea just open up so many possibilities to me. Eclipse si a lot more dry in his sarcasm, and Moon is a lot more sassy in it, and I feel liek thatd clash and compliment in such a cool way.

The way theyd make small comments to each other. Theyd be such asses but it wouldn't be in bad faith (at least not too much, but there would always be a bit of underlying emotion there)

There's the opportunity for comedy and interest and emotion with how it'd be new for both of them. Neither of them have ever dated before, and I doubt either (eccpecialy moon) would know if they would like it. I can see them figuring out what tkijd of dates they like, and both realizing they prefer secluded and at home dates because they can't stand people. They probably wouldn't want to kiss or anything, and the one time they did they probably promised never to do it again (though maybe as time goes on and they heal and become closer they become more welcome to it?? Maybe??). It would just be shocking to the family and im sure Solar would have plenty of comments about it (and im sure someone would make a joke about if Solar was going to date Nexus now and they'd have 2 Moon x Eclipse pairs lmao).

Eclipse would be such a tsundere and Moon would just find it funny and be having none of his bullshit. Like if Eclipse wanted to hold his hand and kept glancing at it and looking away and grumbling Moon would just take it and call him a dumbass. Like they'd insult each other so much but it'd be almost affectionate most of the time.

It would also be SO toxic tho. Like oh my god?? Moon is literally who caused 85% of his trauma (bm and a few others get the rest of that credit, tho bm exists because Moon put his code into Sun-). Moon still is rude to him even if he literally has done nothing wrong. (I almost started ranting about how unfair that was but I have to stop myself and backspace cause I was getting off track lmao) they HATE each other and yet I feel like they could heal. Moon could prove that he'd changed and Eclipse could prove that he's not the same person. They could learn to move past their biases of the other and heal!! And it wouldn't be perfect, maybe not even healthy ever. There would always be underlying hatred and regret and apprehension and distrust. But it would at least be kind of functional, it'd work well enough.

There's just so many opportunities for comedy and fluff and angst

And ohbmy God don't even get me started on what happened if it happened from the beginning! If Eclipse started resenting them and then Moon made a deal with him. And he got a new body and there was a lot less angst and stuff. But possible still unhealthy caus eomg what if Eclipse looked up to Moon?? And moon was kind of using him??? Idk im tired

And also V2 Eclipse x Old Moon cause they already had a deal. Imagine if Moon had made him a body and they'd gotten closer during the deal and started experimenting together- snsusnshnaa

There's probably more that I missed that I'll think of later, but yeah!!!

[rayclubs]

Am I correct in saying that you don't like nb pyro, trans scout, and gender-fluid spy mainly because they're not creative? Like you wanna see people almost "not state the obvious"?

Slightly unrelated lmao when you said you thought that trans scout was transphobic I was totally like, "Oh yeah I think he'd totally have some internalized transphobia." So, what do you think about the mercs and that? If they do/don't & how they deal with internalized transphobia/homophobia or gender dysphoria in general?

Sorry if any of that came off as rude, I didn't mean for it to.

No, creativity isn't the issue here at all.

To be clear, I don't think that any character interpretation having any gender or sexuality is inherently creative, just how in real life being LGBTQ+ is not a trend but a state of being. The creativity in character creation or analysis comes from exploring how their gender and/or sexuality relates to and is a part of their life experiences, relationships, values, personality, culture, self-expression, and other defining aspects of their existence.

My issue with nonbinary Pyro, transgender Scout, and genderfluid Spy is that of redundancy, or worse - insidious bigoted rhetoric. Hateful, malicious people have spent years reimagining the diversity of queer experience into a collection of easily-strawmanned "tropes" and delusions, and the media took them and ran with them for almost as long as it existed en masse. Scout by design is what a prejudiced mind imagines a trans man to be, Spy's genderfluidity is assumed because he doesn't fit a centuries-old patriarchal understanding of masculinity, and - the worst offense for me, personally - in my close, regional, almost familial culture nonbinary people are still seen as obscure non-human creatures, such as Pyro is occasionally implied to be.

It's... understandable, really. Plenty of trans guys relate to Scout, I know genderfluid people who see themselves in Spy, and enough nonbinary people have told me how much Pyro means to them for me to learn to keep my voice down when I talk about this. I'm not asking people to stop making these interpretations, I'm only asking you to please consider where they come from, and to broaden your horizons with other, more varying, more meaningful ideas besides.

Now, as for your other, more loaded question - I will not be making TF2 transphobia headcanons, because I do not want to and would not be comfortable doing it. I know you meant neither offense nor harm by asking, and none is taken, but that's a firm "no", and now I have to clarify why because I want anyone misinterpreting my stance here.

I live in a place where same-sex marriage is still illegal. Transgender people have no legal rights in this country, and I have found myself wondering "Is this the part where I get hate-crimed?" much more often than I would wish even upon my worst enemies. So, no, I'm not one of those who think you can never ever put bigotry in your stories and headcanons because something-something gay people can have stories that aren't tragedies. Because fuck me, some of us are still living those tragedies, and many people have it way worse than me in the year of bloody 2023, so - I'm getting off track. The point is, you can put anything in your stories. You can have your characters deal with internalized or systematized bigotry, and I think that's perfectly fine, whichever way you may want to do it.

The reason I'm not doing it is ONLY because I myself, personally, don't want to. Not because it is rude, or immoral, or wrong, or "problematic" (I hate this word), or children might read it, or it's bad representation, or any such bullshit argument. It's just me, and I'm very tired, and I hope nobody sends me any negativity over this, but I've kinda braced myself already so go ahead anyway. Cheers!

[ventruevitae]

Katerina's baby sister is a Lasombra? :0

indeed!

of course, she had no idea of this until Many years after the event had already taken place, but yeah, elissavet is still out there & survived despite the odds. she was embraced a short handful of years after kat was by a lasombra looking to gain a foothold within the camarilla. not exactly a mirror of apollonnio, but definitely not a person with her best interest at heart either. elissavet's sire is... 'friends' isn't the correct term, but they know apollonnio & had business dealings with him prior to either party embracing a childe. elissavet's embrace was actually suggested by him, knowing how much tragedy her family had experienced in recent years tragedy which totally completely had Nothing to do with his meddling, none at all & knowing how the lasombra typically went about scouting candidates, it made sense.

he also saw it as an opportunity for future potential plans, knowing there was a solid chance he would be able to use this to his advantage some way in the future. it didn't take a lot of manipulation on his end to convince elissavet that her older sister had intentionally fucked over their family and that definitely shouldn't waste her time reaching out to kat in any capacity. elissavet may or may not have been privy to at least some of the abhorrent treatment kat was receiving at the time, which makes for a very 'interesting' discussion in the years following the events of bloodlines.

basically just a lot of betrayal and hurt feelings between the two lmao :')

elissavet was the youngest of the five sisters, & being the oldest, kat basically raised her after they lost their mother young. i think at some point, elissavet realizes how much she was used and manipulated, but won't broach the topic herself because she's quite frankly Terrified of her sister's reaction. she also feels that kat would be completely justified in feeling any type of rage towards her, because she took everything apollonnio said at face value & ergo was complicit in kat's abuse. realistically, was that a fight she could have won, had she tried to rescue her sister? probably not, but at least kat would have seen that she still had people who cared about her.

& as for how kat feels about her sister presently, it's really complicated, tangled up in so much pain she doesn't even know where to start unravelling it. on one hand, she knows what her sire was like, so she's not surprised and even a bit forgiving about the whole thing. in her head, elissavet was a victim too, just in a different form. on the other hand, kat finds herself sitting with real genuine grief about it. she can't help but wonder just what it is about her that makes her so easy to leave behind, if it's somehow her fault, if she didn't take good enough care of her sisters, if she somehow deserved all of this. somehow it evolves into a nasty spiral of self loathing.

but she also knows that would still be a way of letting her sire win. whether that's true or not is debatable, but that's how it feels. he took her away from her family, made her old life disappear and made her stand by and watch as her father & sisters scrambled to pick up the pieces. she still hasn't visited her father's grave and doesn't know if she ever can. if she stays mad at elissavet, she's losing that one final fragment of who she used to be. apollonnio and his bullshit will have completely severed those ties, and that would be just one more thing he took away from her.

so she's kind of a pushover when it comes to her sister. elissavet struggles to put aside decades of being told that kat intentionally abandoned them all, selfishly fleeing once she got tired of playing caretaker at home. keep in mind, elissavet never really had another mother figure, but her siblings did, so they never felt as gutted when kat disappeared. she spent a long time convinced that taking care of her was what drove kat away. incidentally, their current relationship's status varies wildly from one week to the next. elissavet ends up accidentally hurting kat often, not really able to properly process the reality that kat never wanted to leave them & she was used as a pawn in someone else's fucked up mind game. kat keeps allowing it, not wanting to be abandoned or give the impression that she's leaving elissavet again, not wanting to let her sire take something else away from her.

elissavet is... conditionally allowed to be around the rest of kat's coterie, shall we say lmao. they tolerate her presence because kat wants to be close to her again so badly, it's kind of sad to watch her keep putting her neck out there time and time again, only to have it all crumble after a misplaced word or two. skelter is by far the most cordial, content to just let her sit there and mind her own business. elissavet is keenly aware of her status here, so she does what she can to not rock the boat. damsel's grudgingly tolerant, especially after she ends up friends with kat, because it's a favour for someone she's come to care about. still, she finds it frustratingly paradoxical that kat is the only person who seems to be able to openly express distaste with elissavet, even if she kind of gets it at the same time. (kat appreciates the great amount of effort it takes for her to bite her tongue, don't kid yourself.)

nines is also very much letting this happen for kat's sake. he does Not like elissavet, doesn't like the cowardice she's exhibited before, and definitely doesn't like her habit of stirring the pot & then leaving when things start to get too heated. he absolutely understands why kat will put herself through the ringer for her sister, and thinks that if the roles were reversed–if he suddenly found out that one of his siblings had suffered the same fate as him–he'd also be bending over backwards to keep them around. of course, he has the added benefit of knowing none of them would ever end up working with someone so openly fucking Vile like apollonnio, so it'd be easier in that respect. he genuinely can't wrap his head around how elissavet could just be a bystander for all of that. kat hasn't told him everything that she's been through, but the bits and pieces he's heard are enough. to him, it doesn't matter what lines she was being fed, elissavet shouldn't have fucking done that. if kat ever decided she was 100% done with her sister and never wanted her near the vicinity again, he'd make it happen without a second thought. for now, though, her just kind of hovers whenever she's around. elissavet isn't going to try anything, it's just more of a silent reminder for her to try not to say anything stupid.

mitchell is ambivalent about her, honestly. they've met a handful of times, with elissavet avoiding the malkavian more than anything. it's pretty clear that she doesn't like how insightful mitchell can be, or how easily she reads her. elissavet has always preferred keeping her cards close to her chest, so someone who has an uncanny ability to see right through that is unnerving at best. mitchell also seems to be the one person who can get away with telling kat that her sister is a horrible person (is this because kat expects it from her, or because mitchell is a more objective opinion? we may never know the truth).

none of kat's other immediate family found themselves as kindred, and elissavet lost track of their other three sisters as time went on. she knows for certain that none of them stayed in new york after losing two siblings and their remaining parent, but beyond that, not much else. it's very possible that kat has some neices and nephews out there, but she tries not to give that too much thought because the idea of being removed from that hurts. they each use falsified surnames and swap them out every few decades for the sake of upholding secrecy, though kat is a little more lax with the timing these days. kat is far more sentimental than her sister, and far less adverse to physical contact. elissavet likes to pretend that she's unaffected, but one of the things she missed the most after kat disappeared was the easy way she would offer hugs & brush her hair well past childhood. reflexively, she finds herself opening her mouth to get on kat for smoking so much, since she's never liked the habit, but stops herself when she remembers that the cigarettes won't hurt anything at this point. despite it all, she misses the sound of kat's laugh. they aren't at the point where she's had many opportunities to do it (tears are more common), but she remembers it enough to know it was a sound of comfort.

[misssugarpinkshome]

Author Update!

Hey y'all! Here's the author update. Just posted Chapter 58, I'm so excited since the next chapter will be incredibly challenging for me to write. I hope you guys are excited as I am.

I'm... actually gonna put the update this time under a cut, cause it's A Wee Bit More Serious than normal, lmao.

The TL;DR: this boy can fit a whole lot of trauma in him, and he's kinda tired of it. It's been an incredibly hard month, but I'm also looking at the amount of growth I've done and I'm proud.

Thanks for reading, folks!!

(Big ol' trauma dump below the cut!)

OOOOKAY so like. Yikes!

I got called out by someone I look up to basically telling me I needed to shape up, and while they weren't WRONG, it really fucking hurt. As in, I got so incredibly triggered that I cried for about 48 hours straight.

This also led to me and a friend of mine having a really big falling out, and while it got resolved, oof it was exhausting.

At the end of those 48 hours, I had to deal with a situation in a server I moderate for where someone made some incredibly serious allegations about another server member.

The allegations turned out to be false, so we did not ban the server member who was accused -- which led to a callout post being written about me and the server, with false allegations about me that were incredibly triggering.

:) This was all right before a very nauseating 14 hour car ride :) Definitely did not fuck up my brain :) Definitely did not cause me to maybe split again :) Oops

My vacation to see my partner's extended family went really well at least? They're really awesome and good family. But I spent all of my free time working on a (currently around 50 page) document detailing all of the bullshit that happened with the allegations. Yes. It was that many pages. That's about a fourth of the bullshit.

Remember how I was on vacation? Well. I lied to my parents about my location. And they found out. And one thing led to another, I called them, they screamed at me, and... I broke my phone. I've made the decision to cut them off, because I just... can't handle this anymore.

Anyways. Cut to the present. I still haven't told them, but they figured as much since they can't reach me through my old number. My mom keeps emailing my workplace trying to contact me. I haven't been able to read them yet. My therapist is helping me compose a letter to my parents and my sister to let them know. My partner and my friends and family-by-association has been really supportive and caring, and it's a lot. Not to mention, school has started again, so now I'm back to being overworked and underpaid (and... actively dealing with some severe harassment from a homophobic student each day at the moment... ugh)

It's been an incredibly fucking hard month. The way I have to look at it, though, is that I am incredibly strong and I have grown so damn much. I have a lot going on, and normally, this would be enough to make me completely self destruct.

But (with the help of friends and my chosen family alike), I managed to help clean the living room. Today I did some dishes. I am ROCKING teaching. And... I'm desperately, hopelessly in love with my fiance, and feel safer than I ever have before.

I've always hated the phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" because of what I've been through. But right now, I'm feeling very strongly a variation of the phrase: "what you survive influences who you are; processing that makes you stronger." I feel like I've grown a lot in the past year alone, and it's only going to get better.

So... yeah! There's a huge big long trauma dump. I'm so so sorry lol I just... I want you guys to know about the person behind the T_T profile picture. It feels good to be seen. <3

[spiderluvbot]

🖇 BAD IDEA ! jacaerys velaryon.

summary — you've never been good at giving advice, an ill attempt to help your friend helaena ends up in disaster when you receive a call at midnight. notes — first chapter!!! i desperately need to talk to someone about my ideas while writing this so if you want spoilers let me know lmao. warnings — cursing, mention of drugs, i think the pov is kinda weird in some parts but i don't wanna deal with it.

masterlist.

ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.

tap. tap. tap.

helaena's pen taps repeatedly against her textbook, green glitter ink shining in the sunlight as it comes and goes, filling the silence between her sighs. a cluster of noises that is soon replaced by the sound of her head slamming against the table.

"i'm tired."

looking up from your own book, and seeing your friend still with her head down as she draws random patterns against the wood, you decide that math can wait —preferably until aemond comes back and gives you the answers— and lean back against your chair.

"that's usually what happens when you stay up late."

"i didn't stay up late this time."

"bullshit." in lieu of her eyes, your own roll before landing on the small rubber frog on top of her abandoned pen. "daeron sent me a photo of you watching planet insect at five a.m with dreamfyre sleeping in your head."

shyly, helaena's head lifts until her frown is visible, and she speaks softly.

"what was he doing up at five a.m.?"

"all-nighter." you shrug and teasingly smile. "care to explain why your shitty sleeping habits are back?"

"it wasn't my fault!" your indifferent look makes her sit straight, and she fidgets with her fingers as she begins to rant.

"i couldn't sleep! you know jace's room is next to mine and he kept leaving voicemails to sara!"

your eyes close tight, face scrunching and dark spots appearing once you realize your mistake. you love your friend, you really do, but if you hear her complain about her nephew one more time you might kill her.

your eyes open to spot the frog pen once again, a gift from aegon after missing movie night and upsetting helaena, and you could swear his spirit mocks you through it as you decide to indulge your friend.

"how is he?"

"he's been moping around for weeks now. between hockey and sara i have never seen him this stressed before. it's annoying, he's always being loud. and he almost stepped on the spider i found last week."

you snort at her words and reach for the gummy bears in your shared pile of candy, handing the bag over for her to open and stretching before lifting your legs to the chair.

"you wouldn't have to deal with all that if your family wasn't so weird. was the spider fine?"

"yes." she answers while shoving the opened bag, and then begrudgingly adds. "my family isn't weird."

"helaena, love, i'm sorry to break it to you but most people don't share a mansion with half of their relatives. you're fucking weird."

"that's not true!" she sounded as if the words had a hard time leaving her mouth, as if they knew they were nothing but a ridiculous excuse and refused to come out. "cerelle lannister lives with her grandma."

the thing about your friend was that her family was definitely some level of weird. you didn't get to met her father before he died, but you knew the man was significantly older than helaena's mother, and that he had made them live with his daughter rhaenyra and her children, in an attempt to bring them all closer. therefore, they were one of those rich families that split a giant house in half and tried to pretend they didn't actually live together.

choosing to sacrifice a gummy bear, you tossed it at her face before answering.

"cerelle lannister's grandma is staying with her family while she recovers from a broken hip, it's not the same." you received a crumbled paper to the face after that, and your laughter resonated around the house as you started throwing whatever you could find at each other.

the door banged open, startling you both and making helaena cover her ears. her nephew jacaerys stormed in, muttering curses and banging a heavy bag against every furniture in his way.

you both welcomed him in, and both got ignored as he went directly to the stairs, solely focused on his phone.

"see!" helaena pointed after him. "i feel bad, i don't know how to help him."

your eyes were focused on the stairs, and you hummed something that almost sounded like 'i don't know' before turning to look at her.

"get someone hot to hit on him, or give him a compliment, something like that."

"that doesn't make any sense, how would that help?"

"i don't know," you shrugged. "it helped me after breaking up with ben. cregan told me he thought i was nice and funny and i thought about it for weeks."

"i don't get it."

"look. you just need to find someone that's, like, extremely out of his league to compliment him, or flirt with him. it's gonna build up his confidence." you grabbed a sour gummy from the pile before speaking again, words coming out mumbled as it moved around. "i'm not sure it's good advice but it worked for me, i guess, i started feeling better after that."

"okay" she said, unsure, and then once again with excitement. "okay! so you can do it!"

"what?" you screeched. "no, i can't. why would i do that?"

if you looked as bewildered as you felt, she had decided to completely ignore it.

"why not? you're pretty, jace thinks you're pretty. and he always says you're really nice too."

"i'm not flirting with your nephew, helaena."

"but you said it could work! you know, he used to have a crush on you when we first met." she spoke as if that should convince you, and you felt yourself cringe a bit at her lack of secrecy.

"i don't think you should tell me that, hel."

"but you said—"

"no, i'm not doing it. find someone else."

the door opens again, interrupting helaena before she can speak, and rhaenyra slowly walks in, dropping her bags on the couch as her tired eyes take in the room.

"hi girls, is he upstairs?"

"yes," helaena mumbles with her head half hidden in her arms." he looked angry."

"of course he did." she sighs. "i haven't seen him like this since—"

she stops herself abruptly, looking lost for a second before giving you a tight smile.

"anyway." rhaenyra clears her throat before turning to you. "are you coming to watch the game with us tonight, dear?"

"oh, yeah. helaena invited me." your eyes awkwardly move between your friend and her older sister, avoiding looking towards the stairs at all costs. "i hope that's okay."

"of course, sweetheart. it's always good to have you with us."

"thank you, rhaenyra." she gives you a smile, a real one this time, and squeezes your shoulder before walking off.

not long after, you were following helaena to her room, trying repeatedly to stop her from stumbling as she ran up the stairs.

"mom bought me a sweater, it looks like moss." she smiled and turned to you, almost falling again, but you were too distracted to fully pay attention to her.

from this part of the stairs, almost at the top, you could see a silver of her room's door, and consecutively, jace's. his voice resonated in the hallway, and although most words got lost in the distance, sara's name could be heard once in a while.

you hadn't known jace for more than two years, talked to him far less than that. still, jace had always been kind, welcoming, the kind of person that would come talk to you if he saw you by yourself, but now he spent most of his time alone, and whenever he spoke a small tremor accompanied his voice, whether from sadness or anger, or both.

"look," you turned to her. "i know i shouldn't ask, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to but, what did she mean?"

helaena sighed and grabbed your hand, slowly guiding you to her room and closing the door before quietly speaking.

"he got like this before, when we were kids." she walked towards her bed and slowly sat down, pulling you with her. "with harwin."

"oh." you didn't know much about the man, but had vague memories of old classmates whispering about how alike jace and the old family friend looked, and later on about how laenor, his father, had divorced rhaenyra and gotten married to another man. and then, when harwin died, you had vague memories of young kids being cruel.

"yes, oh." she frowned, placing her head against your shoulder as lightly as she could, in the way she always did when she needed comfort but didn't want to be touched. "but rhaenyra will figure it out eventually. she always does."

she got up then, as if the last 10 minutes hadn't been filled with somber conversations, and headed towards her closet while rambling about what to wear and who would drive who to the game.

"just wait here a second." she entered the closet and closed the doors. playing with your hands as you waited for whatever it was helaena wanted to show you, you looked around the room and let out a bored sigh, soon distracted by your phone vibrating.

halfway in the air, your hand froze as helaena's muffled movements were replaced with the sound of something hitting the ground, followed by a small 'ow'.

"hel?" you stared at the door as you half-stood, hovering over the bed and noticing the lack of light underneath. "you okay?"

"yeah, i'm good."

"did you turn on the lights in there?"

at first you were met with silence, followed by the sound of her getting up, and then her voice. "no."

"right..." you whispered to yourself, reaching for your phone again once you made sure she turned on the lights.

"ta-da!" you looked up as helaena came out and did a little twirl, showing off the sweater and an old pair of jeans that she had embroidered with suns.

"you look great, it's really pretty." you smiled, reaching to feel the fabric. "what happened though?"

"oh, i tripped over my boots." she lifted her leg, grabbing her foot as if to show you before nodding towards the phone. "who is it?"

"aegon." you turned the phone for her to read the chat.

"ew. saliva, gross." she murmured to herself before placing her hands under her face and smiling. "send him a photo."

despite aegon's answer being immediate, it took you about a full 20 seconds to figure out what his text said. "he says that you look like 'that thing that was growing in grandpa's backyard tree last year'." frowning at the misspelled words in your phone, you added. "i think."

"great!" helaena smiled.

"right. and what's that supposed to mean, exactly?"

"oh, he has this big three that's all covered in moss and lichen, it's beautiful."

"i can't believe you didn't show me that, take a picture next time."

"sorry, will do." she smiled before turning to her vanity and grabbing two pairs of earrings. "fireflies or bees?"

"fireflies."

helaena sat next to you while putting them on, the two of you laughing at yet another text from aegon asking for money, before she softly hit your arm.

"oh, call him!" she whispered, keeping her eyes glued to the wall she shared with her nephew as if he could hear through the concrete. "ask him about jace!"

"what? no, i'm not doing that!" you whispered back. "what could aegon know anyway?"

"i don't know." she shrugged. "they were together all day, he might know something."

you looked at helaena annoyedly, fully ready to deny her. of course, around five seconds later your curiosity got the best of you and had you pressing the call button.

the phone rang five times before aegon picked up, shouting something that sounded almost like a 'hello' and forcing you and helaena to push it away.

"you know, i'm busy, and unless you're calling to tell me you've changed your mind about the money i'm hanging up."

"you're already high, why do you need my money?" you hissed, pulling helaena's hand away as she tried to take the phone.

"a man has to always be prepared." he slurred slightly as he spoke.

"don't you have a game to worry about, you—" helaena took the phone, interrupting whatever insult you had planned to throw at her brother as she leaned against her pillows.

"how was he? did something happen?" she whispered, signaling with her head for you to get closer. "he came home angry. and i think he was talking to sara a few minutes ago."

"nah, it was probably cregan. she was at practice today but she's been ignoring him."

the sound of a door opening startled you, hurrying to hide the phone under the covers while helaena repeatedly told aegon to shut up, both of you sitting still until the footsteps faded.

she turned to you with a relieved sigh, grabbing the phone and your hand before walking back into her closet. the two of you sat on the floor and huddled over the phone, struggling to sit comfortably in the dark.

"i have no idea what that was, but you do know you could've just muted the call, right?" aegon's distorted voice teased.

"shut up." the two of you said before you continued. "what do you mean she's been ignoring him?"

he exhaled tiredly, you could imagine him inflating his cheeks and looking away with wide eyes as he usually does whenever he has bad news to deliver. helaena and you shared a worried look.

"he tried to talk to her three times today, but she kept making excuses to leave. after a while she just started walking away whenever he came near."

"shit."

"helaena!" you screeched, turning to your friend with wide eyes. this had probably been the first time you had ever heard her curse.

"no, she's right. it is shit." aegon interrupted. "i mean, he deserves to know why."

"why what?" you asked.

"why they broke up."

"he doesn't know?" you asked bewildered. no one responded to your question, and when you looked at helaena for answers, she simply shook her head with a pitiful look.

that was bad. that was really, really bad. it also answered many of the questions everybody had, mainly why jace had been so upset compared to past breakups.

"well, shit." you agreed quietly.

you turned to the sound of the door opening. jace stood against the doorframe, looking around the room before giving you a weird look as he found you sitting in the dark inside of helaena's closet.

"uh, we're leaving now." he fixed the bag on his shoulder, giving you a small,sad smile similar to the one his mother had given you earlier, before leaving.

"we'll be down in a minute!" helaena yelled, getting up and offering you a hand, before bringing the phone between the two of you. "any advice?"

"try to keep him distracted, she's in the locker room with cregan."

if time travel existed this would be it, you would return to this very moment and kill helaena, friendship be damned. you could have gone with aemond, daeron, and their grandfather, or even alicent and her mushy boyfriend, but no, after dragging you downstairs, she just had to trap you in the most awkward car ride ever.

despite rhaenyra offering to let jace choose the music and luke not fighting him for the passenger seat for once, the car you had been forced to go into was the most quiet and uncomfortable place you had probably been in your entire life.

the torture lasted for a total of seventeen minutes, filled with rhaenyra asking any question she could think of to try and get more than one-word responses from jace, and helaena attempting to fill the silence with various insect facts. thankfully, around the twelve-minute mark, luke took pity on you and shared one of his earbuds until your salvation came in the form of the school parking lot.

"i've never enjoyed getting out of a car as much as i do right now." luke whispered while opening the door.

"i doubt you'll feel like that much longer." you whispered back with your eyes set on the rink's entrance, where sara snow stood smoking.

jace dropped his bag the second he saw her, the sound particularly loud in the almost empty parking lot. she looked startled, like a deer caught in the headlights, and she quickly walked away like one would when he took a step forward, leaving nothing but a half-finished cigarette and the kind of tension that could be cut in half with a knife behind.

he frowned, teeth grinding as his jaw clenched, before angrily picking up his bag and walking inside. everyone followed quietly while you stood in place, stuck as your eyes followed sara through the parking lot.

"hey, let's go." helaena nodded towards the entrance, reaching out her hand.

"i'll go inside in a minute" you distractedly murmured before going after sara.

you found her a few feet away, standing behind her car and taking deep breaths.

"hiding?"

"something like that." she huffed, running her trembling hands through her hair. she tried to avoid eye contact, still, you could tell her eyes were teary.

"do you wanna talk about it?" you asked quietly. "i'm not asking because of jace, i just— i thought you could use a friend."

"jace is great i just..." she swallowed hard. "i can't date him."

"why not?"

she hesitated, looking at you wearily before speaking.

"i don't think i can date any guy."

you stayed silent for a second, open-mouthed as you stared at sara in recognition. she looked away, muttering to herself about how she 'shouldn't have told you that' before she got pulled into your arms.

"there's nothing wrong with that, sara. you know that, right?" you could feel her tears against your shoulder as she nodded.

"i know." she sighed. "i don't wanna hurt him."

"i get that, but it's hurting him more to not know what happened and think he did something wrong." you said as you hugged her tighter. "look, it's up to you to tell anyone. but i think he would understand."

"i know he would," you could feel her crying against your shoulder. "but i'm still scared. you're the first person i've told."

you pulled away from her, raising your hands to wipe away her tears.

"i understand, it's normal to be scared. but look, at some point he's gonna find out what happened, and i think it would be better coming from you. and you don't even have to tell him everything if you're not ready yet, just know that he would understand." you looked into her worried eyes and added. "and so would cregan, if that's what you're worried about."

"you think so?"

"i know so. they adore you." you held her hands and smiled. "and if for some reason they didn't, i would personally kick some sense into them."

sara laughed for what felt like the first time in months, drying the rest of her tears and taking a deep breath.

"thanks for coming to talk to me."

"thanks for trusting me." you smiled and started to pull her to the entrance. "now come on, or we're gonna miss the game."

you look around for helaena and her family, ready to take sara with you, when she stops you and nods towards the locker room.

"i have something i need to do."

you follow her gaze to find jace talking to his mother by the door and smile, pulling her into a hug once more.

"good luck."

the last thing you see before leaving to find your seat is jace, surprised and confused to see her coming, taking a hesitant step forward before she places a hand on his arm and rhaenyra quietly walks away.

you find your seat next to helaena and smile at her, getting comfortable as you wait for the players and hoping things work out.

once the game starts, it seems that whatever they talked about worked out, because she comes to sit beside you with rhaenyra, both smiling and chatting, and luke excitedly mentions that jace plays better than he has in weeks.

the rest of the game is thankfully uneventful, and you spend most of it laughing at cregan, who sara keeps mocking for being too into the game, and aemond, who helaena mocks for looking like he would rather be anywhere else.

"i can't believe you almost punched the goalie!" luke laughs, throwing his remaining popcorn at aegon.

"yes, i can't believe it either." alicent scolds her eldest son.

you and helaena walk behind them, laughing at her frown, and then laughing harder as alicent's boyfriend criston quietly teases aegon about how to throw a proper punch.

rhaenyra, who walked in front of everyone, stopped in front of her car helping jace place his bag inside before turning to you.

"so, we were thinking pizza for the celebration, what do you think?"

"oh, i need to be home before eight, my parents are going on a date tonight and i promised i would take care of my sister." you shook your head. "but thank you."

"are you sure, sweetheart? we can eat quick and i'll drive you right after, i need to pick up joffrey from his playdate anyway."

"it's okay, i wanna get home early so they can get ready in peace."

"next time then." she placed her hand on your shoulder and smiled in a motherly way. "but at least let me drive you home, it's late."

you were about to decline her offer, tell her that you could just get an uber, but jace spoke before you could.

"i can drive her."

"don't worry, love. you should go celebrate. i'll meet you at the restaurant."

"it's okay, i don't wanna bother—" the words died in your mouth once you realized neither of them was listening to you. instead, jace stopped his mother, looking back to you before leaning closer to her.

"mom, i can drive her." he whispered pleadingly. you have no idea what he said after that, but she stared at him for a second, looking surprised, and finally handed him the keys.

"drive safe."

rhaenyra gave him a knowing look as she ushered everyone away, leaving helaena to yell her goodbyes as she entered her mother's car.

jace turned to you after closing the trunk. he placed his hand on your back, the cold skin sending shivers down your spine through the thin material of your shirt as he guided you to the passenger seat.

he wondered if you could feel his hand trembling against your skin.

he didn't even really know why he had gotten nervous all of a sudden, maybe it was because he didn't really know how to start the conversation he needed to have with you. or maybe it was because after sara had told him what she told him, he had felt surprised, and then he had felt something else that he couldn't entirely name.

all he knew was that he felt somehow different about you now. he always knew you were kind, but he had never expected you to be kind enough, or care about him enough, to go out of your way to make sure he felt better. the thought brought a fluttering feeling to his stomach and forced him to stare at you deeply, wondering what you thought about him, as he opened the door for you.

the streets were mostly empty, and quiet, and he kept messing with the radio's volume to fill the silence. he really, really hoped that whatever slow song was playing entertained you enough to not notice how loud his heart seemed to beat.

his nervousness wasn't going away, no matter how many minutes passed or how many glances he stole your way. so, once he saw the small park he knew was only a couple blocks away from your house, he decided that it was better to say whatever came to mind first and figure things out from there.

"i told her i loved her."

you turned to jace, a strange, astounded sound coming out of your mouth.

"oh." your gaze moved between him and the road, wondering how to answer without making things awkward. you had definitely been hanging out far too much with helaena, because your reaction had been as accidentally tactless and casual as hers usually were. "so, what? she didn't say it back?"

you turned away from him, pretending to look through the window. at this point, you seriously considered opening the door and jumping from the car. why would you say it like that? you knew she hadn't, you obviously knew she hadn't.

if he saw you mouthing a quiet 'oh my god' to yourself through the window reflection, he had been kind enough not to mention it.

"uh, she did." he answered with a grimace, although you weren't sure if it was because of his words or yours.

"but?"

"she loves me, but she's not in love with me." he sighed and stopped at a red light, turning to you and speaking quietly, his voice mixing with the calm melody in the background. "thank you."

"me? why are you thanking me?" you were confused. had his eyes always been this big and sad? his voice this soft?

"i know you told her to talk to me."

"i'm sorry, helana and aegon told me what was going on. and i know it wasn't my place but—"

"i appreciate it. i really do."

"yeah, well, i'm glad you worked it out." the music changed to something slower, older, and the light illuminating his face turned green. "how do you feel?"

"weirdly better, i think." he hesitated, swallowing hard as he looked at the car roof. "it's good to know it wasn't my fault."

"but?"

"i don't know. i guess i just—" he hesitated again, looking down at his hands as they played with the strings of his hoodie. "i just have a hard time... when people leave."

you turned in your seat to face him, watching how the light reflected in his eyes.

"it'll get easier with time. i mean, she didn't completely leave, even if you're not together anymore, she still cares about you."

he kept biting his lip, and you felt the need to say more, to make him feel better. little did you know that need would be a big mistake, and it would come back to bite you in the ass sooner rather than later.

"you know, everyone was really excited when you played tonight, you looked happy, and you did a great job."

"you think i did a great job?" maybe you were being optimistic, but you were almost sure he sounded like he usually did whenever he teased someone, and you could finally see a real smile on his face.

"i do. i mean, i think you're my favorite now. might have to start wearing your number." you teased back before reaching for his hand and holding it tight. "seriously though, things are gonna be fine, i know that."

it was different, but he smiled again. with downturned lip corners, and prominent dimples, and softer eyes. there was a strange feeling in your stomach, and your breath caught in your throat. you had been in this car countless times, but it had never felt as small and intimate as it did right now, when jace smiled at you like that.

there was another sound in the background, buzzing distantly in your ears at first. then it grew insistent, demanding, getting louder and louder and pulling you away from a moment that you didn't completely understand. you didn't know when the car behind you appeared, but it's continuous honks cut through the silence, sharp and angry as they intruded in the quiet moment.

jace coughed, nervously looking away and pulling his hand out the window to apologize. you turned to the window again and took a deep breath, wondering what the hell that had been.

the rest of the drive had been somehow worse than the earlier one. the two of you sat quietly, stealing glances at each other as the radio host's voice filled the car.

once the car finally parked in front of your house you sent him a quick smile that probably looked more like a grimace and whispered a 'thank you' before rushing to the front door, still thinking about what had happened. and then you kept thinking about it. while saying goodbye to your parents, while cooking dinner, and while your little sister made you watch tangled for what was probably the fifth time that week.

you also thought about it in bed, turning over and over. you couldn't sleep, it wouldn't leave your mind. what was that? talking to jace had never felt like that before, and you weren't sure you liked that.

you finally fell asleep, after checking the time for what felt like the millionth time, and the thought occupied your dreams as well. the location changed, and the time, but it was always him, staring at you like that.

a loud ringing interrupted what was maybe the fourth dream you had (the one in which luke was playing videogames while things happened, and kept acting like nothing was going on while you were losing your mind), and you picked up your phone with a groan, not even bothering to look at the name on the screen. only one person would call you at midnight on a wednesday.

"hello?"

"i thought you said you wouldn't do it!" that was the first thing you heard when you picked up the phone, helaena yelling exitedly.

"do what?" you asked in the middle of a yawn, reaching blindly to turn the light on. "do you have any idea what time it is?"

"time isn't important, you lied to me! is it because you thought i would accidentally tell him?"

"tell what to who? what are you talking about?"

"the flirting with jace thing!"

that did the trick in waking you up.

"what? what are you talking about?" sitting up, you pulled the phone even closer, you needed an explanation, desperately. "helaena, what are you talking about?

"okay, so i was getting ready to go to bed and he told me he needed to talk to me, right? and then he started asking me a bunch of things about you and when i asked him why he was asking he told me what you told him in the car!"

she sounded far too excited, somehow loud and quiet at the same time, and her words kept repeating in your head.

"what kind of things?"

"like if i had told you to talk to sara or if you ever talked about him."

"so?"

"so, he hasn't smiled in weeks, but now he won't stop! you were right!" she sounded so excited you could practically hear her bouncing.

"hel, i'm sure he's just happy he worked things out with sara. driving me home had nothing to do with that."

"you don't get it, he had the smile, the smile. that means it worked!"

now you knew, you were absolutely, incredibly, fucked. because you knew exactly what helaena was talking about, because jace had his smile, and then he had the smile. it was different from the usual ones, it was the one rhaenyra gushed about fondly from his first crush, the one luke teased him with when he wanted to embarrass him. and, most importantly, the one you had never gotten to see in person, not until tonight.

"i'll see you tomorrow and we can figure out what to do next!"

"next? i wasn't flirting—" she hung up before you could answer, leaving you confusedly staring at the wall.

and then, as if things couldn't get worse.

saranotsarah started following you!

saranotsarah tagged you in a photo!

saranotsarah made a new friend at tonight's game 💗 @yourusername

(plus here's my brother falling on his ass)

10 minutes ago.

liked by creganstark, alysannesbookclub and 210 others.

creganstark rude

creganstark is that helaena's friend?

saranotsarah yeah!! she's awesome 💗💗

trying to ignore the guilt twisting in your gut, you dropped your phone and collided against the mattress, thinking about the disaster you might have accidentally gotten yourself into, and trying to figure out how to fix it now that helaena was decided to see this through. "fuck."

[viksalos]

ok so he *did* and he found two evals actually!! the first one was as useless as i thought but apparently there's a second one that has some comments about social skills and mannerisms. he didn't say what the comments *were* but he says he mailed it to me

i didn't use the word "autism" when asking my dad about this bc i didn't want him to yell at me about how i'm wrong and there's nothing wrong with me etc.. in a way he's right, there's nothing wrong with me, but i'm realizing a lot of the obstacles he put in the way of me getting sufficient medical or psychiatric care my whole childhood were bc NOT doing so would mean admitting that whatever was weird about me was also weird about him. doesn't excuse his behavior of course but i understand why he did it now

anyways i'm putting together a case for an ASD assessment so i can keep my work accommodations and my stimulant script at whatever job i end up landing at after grad school (grad school is going MUCH better btw; it turns out my joke post a while back that was like "pretty sure my phd has just been 2 undiagnosed autistic women locked in a death spiral for 5 yrs" was probably right; my advisor has been VERY accommodating now that we know what my actual deal is and i can work again lmfao)

basically what happened was i had an ADHD assessment where the guy said i didn't have it bc i was "gifted," which i think is an outdated understanding/bullshit, but also i was told that the center that did the assessment also does ASD testing which i took to mean both tests would be done at the same time bc the current understanding is that ASD & ADHD can be comorbid. nope, turns out this place does them separately. i asked the evaluator about ASD at my followup and he was like "oh yeah that's entirely possible" bc he noted eye contact difficulties and history of social alienation on my report. not sure why he didn't bring it up at the initial appointment but w/e lol

so after the first appointment i'm super upset, go to my therapist and am like "please just medicate me ;-;" and she refers me to their in-house psychiatrist, i tell him i think i'm auDHD and he believes me *instantly* and treats me accordingly--i got SNRIs for the sensory/nerve pain i mentioned earlier, and stimulants for the executive dysfunction. dude is a miracle worker fr. (also he looks and talks like Colin Robinson from WWDITS, but like, if he was actually helpful. which is not relevant but it *is* super funny.) my therapist was skeptical about the auDHD at first but with backup from the in-house psychiatrist and some family stories i got from talking to my parents, she believes me now and therapy is productive again yay

and the family stories were like--oh yeah you toe-walked, spun around a lot, and also your current stims (which btw i had suppressed conscious knowledge of so much that i can't do them around people anymore and had no idea i was even doing them alone until my arms and legs got tired, and would freak out about it bc i had no idea what was happening) are *really* restrained compared to when you were little, which was the classic autistic hand flapping thing, but we just thought it was cute bc you were obviously excited. lmao.

oh and by the way apparently i could read at one year old, which is INSANE if my dad isn't bullshitting me. (autism quizzes will be like "do you have an unusual interest in letters and numbers?" and you'll be like "fuckin uhhh. idunno. what's unusual?" and then your parents will casually drop that you could read at ONE, which would not have been physically possible without an unusual interest in letters!!) and ALSO also i'm pretty sure i was only able to figure out that engineering would be a good major for me and was able to navigate the social aspects of college & my master's degree bc i had constant advice from my stepdad (who knew he had asperger's) while i lived near him & my mom, and his advice made more sense to me than anybody else's. lmao lmao

so MORAL OF THE LONG-ASS STORY, despite my psychiatrist, therapist, and ADHD evaluator guy all more or less agreeing with me, none of them can diagnose me formally, so now i'm gathering evidence and am on a waiting list for a center that actually knows its shit and does the ASD & ADHD assessments at the same time... in 8 months. :p (so yes rn i'm still only self dx autistic in THEE most technical sense, but if you read all this and still give me shit about it, idk what to tell you lol.)

that said, allowing myself to act & be psychiatrically treated as if i am for sure autistic has so far been the best thing i've ever done for myself. part of me kinda wishes i knew sooner so i might not have had to develop so many maladaptive coping mechanisms, but the other part of me knows that people didn't know nearly as much about this stuff when i was a kid, and i probably only got as far as i did bc my parents *didn't* pathologize my weirdness, lol. still, i feel mentally and physically better than i ever have; it legit feels like almost 30 years of pervasive shame has been lifted and i've been able to improve my relationships with everyone around me irl, including my shitty ass dad lmao. anyways sorry for all the lurking & sadness for the past several years; i appreciate u all my dear followers and thank u greatly for sticking around 🖤🖤🖤

actually for the Ten Days of Teshuvah i think it would be dope if my abuser gave me back the folder of results from the neuropsych eval i did as a child. probably doesn't say anything useful other than ""gifted"" because it was done in the late 90s or early 2000s but i'd like to have them anyway

[crayonverse]

Roman: who ate my mnms . i swear To God.

Reese: i did, fucker. what’re going to do about it? huh?

Roman: what if i stole your kidneys. what would you do then

Reese: id eat them straight out of your hands, now you have no leverage. loser.

Riker: for the love of god can you two have a normal conversation PLEASE

[jocelynships]

I was feeling better but lmao it’s nice to see people will get onto me for just going to the fucking bathroom (:

[havockingboo]

Oh man this au already got me in a death grip noooooo I know y’all are looking at me like “king……bro 💀 what are you doing with these poor skeletons” I’m literally so sorry I made another au to cope with DJDFKDVM IT WASNT MY INTENTION

so yeah if you haven’t guessed, this au will heavily focus on papyrus being the older brother in the family, high expectations that were pushed onto him since he was a kid. Was proud of himself at first for being the oldest and being the most mature one and being the responsible then!! Doesn’t realize that will have long lasting effects on him as he grows up being a perfectionist, horribly controlled emotions and some pent up anger and temper. Oh yeah, it’s one hell of an au.

Has a dad that practically feels like he’s absent, emotional neglect, family issues that are buried or completely ignored and thrown out but then bite you in the ass at the worst times!! Oh what an au this will be..

Sans doesn’t smile very much in this au, he’s uh. hella tired himself with all the bullshit his family has to deal with in itself. As the youngest, you’d figure you’d be given more attention and care but no, with a dad like his and a brother that can barely take care of himself mentally and emotionally, he wasn’t getting any of that. He even has a bit of a temper himself but he actually controls it better than his older brother does. That doesn’t stop him from being sarcastic(which a lot of people still mistake him being serious, it’s the never changing expression on his face and tone) He goes through a lot in this au too, on the surface he appears done with everything, anti social, forever resting bitch face but bro!! He still is a very fun guy to chat with, he still got a lot of jokes to tell he just uh…wishes people would notice when he talked or well..even paid attention to him anyway. again being the youngest ain’t easy.

And Gaster…………………………………we don’t talk about him SDJSDKDFLMF ah yes the typical “father who thinks his love for his children will be enough, giving the basic necessities and every now and then ‘praise’ before he disappears for 3 days or a whole week to do work.” He figured, I raised these boys myself!! they know how to take care of themselves without me! which is true but little did he know he should’ve given them more hugs when they were younger lmao. Now they’re messed up!! He loves Sans and Papyrus. He really does he just, failed to show the proper love and attention he was meant to give but woo. Gaster himself also has a temper EVERYONE IN THIS FAMILY HAS A TEMPER but his?? Oh it’s bad. Those long shifts then coming home late at night can be like walking on eggshells. That’s why Papyrus is always on his best behavior when he’s around!! Before he runs to his room and never comes out until he’s asked for something. Sans is always cooped up in his room, wanting to avoid any interaction with his dad. Gaster wishes his sons talked to him more, but he messed that up a long time ago…

Whew okay uhhhh…… that was a lot!! But yeah this family has a loooot of issues that will never get fixed cause they can’t handle emotional problems for shit. Besides Papyrus but well I that’s another thing ha

[reshirfuse]

god these tags are so based

THIS!!!

[huphilpuffs]

..

[longtimenospooning-luci]

Azalea's, Camelia's and Rhododendron's Chapter Four

Summary: Life always seemed to throw bullshit your way. A bullshit childhood, a bullshit family with the exception of your older brother, a bullshit bodyguard team because of aforementioned older brother… To say you were tired of it would be an understatement. You just wanted to bask in your self-made richness as a bestselling author, all by yourself being the key point, and pretend you're not doing it to avoid your trauma. But now you have to deal with seven incredibly hot, stubborn and frustrating men forcibly barging into your life against both of your wishes and ruining your peaceful silence. So, if they were going to be hardheads, you'll be one right back.

Pairing: Bts x reader, featuring older brother Bang Chan and a dickhead ex to be revealed later on.

Warnings: Familial and partner abuse, toxic households.

Taglist Form

Word Count: 2k

Hello everyone! I know it's been a while so I'm sorry about that. I wanted the chapter to be longer, but I know if I put what I have in mind for this chapter I'll have nothing for next chapter lmao. Thank you for your support and patience and I hope you enjoy this little peek into our MC's trauma.

There's a crashing sound, shards of porcelain kick up from the floor to cut your skin and blood trickles down to the floor.

You had never seen father so angry before, the second-place prize certificate with your name on it lies shredded on the floor at your feet. He's disappointed in you but you don't understand why, you had done well in the Elementary Poetry Contest, second place is no easy feat in a national contest.

You can feel his hot breath on your face as he stoops low to look you in the eyes, you're worthless, or so he says. He's not screaming anymore as he tells you to get out of his office and not to mention a peep of what's happened; Mira had taken Chan to get outfitted for his high school uniform, you lie when he asks that night how you got the cuts on your skin.

He had giggled and ruffled your hair at your excuse of being clumsy. Not a single tear escaped your eyes during the berating you had received, but they flow mercilessly when Chan shuts your bedroom door behind him after putting Band-Aids on for you.

The sharp sting of the leather belt reverberates across your back, you had given the speech at your high school entrance ceremony earlier today.

You had embarrassed your family he says, tripping when you had walked off the stage, he was teaching you your worth he says, as the blood starts to flow down your back. When you look up, you can see your mother smirking through the crack in the door.

You had called her 'mother' instead of 'madam' in private this morning and she was now relishing in your pain for it. The Bang children were only allowed to refer to her as 'mother' in public, your family had to keep up appearances after all. But at home you had no real mother, just Mira to fill the hole in your heart at the absence of a mother's love.

Chan was away at college, but he still called you that night to wish you luck for your first day of school in the morning, you never let him hear the pain and envy in your voice.

There's a vice like grip around your throat, lungs clawing at the inside of your chest for a breath of air. The university president had accidentally ratted you out at your family's company gala.

You were supposed to be putting all of your time into studying business, and up until then everyone thought you had been. So, father wasn't happy when he discovered you were double majoring in Business and Creative Writing, humiliating him in the process for not knowing what his daughter was majoring in.

That night he beat and choked you until your vision went black, your gala dress had been torn to shreds and dirtied by the soles of his shoes, only seeing the damage after you woke up in your bed hours later.

He covered up your absence at school by saying he needed you at the company for a project, you did your assignments online for two weeks. Chan texted you often during that time encouraging your hard work and ability to finally get the recognition of your father, he had been stationed at the Australian branch earlier that year.

You wanted to hate him for his naivety, but you also wanted to protect him from the real horrors of your family, he never found out about it until the trial.

The man sitting across from you makes you uncomfortable, his jargon sexist and predatory. Possessive in all of the wrong ways, all of the ways that turn a person off and not on.

Father had sent you on a blind date with nothing but a warning to not screw it up, you hoped the man, Do-Yun was his name, wouldn't say anything bad about you to him. Two weeks later and not a peep from your date, you had thought he decided not to pursue you, that notion was shattered at dinner when your Father announced you were to be engaged to Shin Do-Yun.

It was then announced to the public a week later, a big fat rock sitting pretty on your finger, the sight of it made you sick. Chan called the next day scolding you for keeping such important news from him, he told you how happy he was for you, not knowing on the inside you were screaming for him to help you.

The sharp smack resounds in the Penthouse foyer, having moved in with Do-Yun in preparation for the wedding. Quickly discovering the evil that lied under the surface, he wasn't smart like Father though, he hit you in places people could see.

It took hours of painstaking artistry with makeup in order to cover the purple-blue marks he painted across your body, he had threatened to kill you if Chan ever found out the truth, so you took extra care to hide behind your carefully crafted mask.

Who would have known Chan would be the one to expose you when he heard his Mother on the phone with their Father before meeting you for dinner.

His heart stopped when he realized she was arguing over how much money she would get from the deal between their Father and your Fiancé. His own mother cared about nothing but how much money she would get from the sale of her only daughter.

When he came out from his hiding spot to confront her, he vowed right then and there his only family would be his little sister from now on.

Opening the door to let Chan in the house for your planned dinner that evening, you never expected to see two detectives behind him. The look of devastation on his face told you all you needed to know.

Everything went by in a blur as your dear brother held your hand and wiped the tears that betrayed you as they rolled down your face. His grip tightened on your hand periodically as a female detective wiped the makeup on your body away to reveal the horrors that lied on your skin, while another documented the bruises and age old scars with a camera.

A flash woke you out of your reverie and you began to panic, 'they can't see' you thought to yourself while scrambling to get away, "they'll kill me if anyone see's!" you finally yell out when Chan and the officers try to subdue you.

Hiding in a corner hyperventilating with a throw from the couch wrapped around you, you see Chan's heart shatter to pieces as he looks upon your already shattered soul.

Jolting awake to someone's hands on you, screaming and thrashing to get away, your brother's loving eyes are looking back at you instead of the twisted eyes of your dreams. The nightmare fades away as your heartrate slows to a steady thump, squeezing his hand like you did years ago, like you did in your dreams.

"Hey there Bug, you're okay. Just breathe." he knows this is the first nightmare you've had in a long time. It makes his heart clench in his chest knowing he wasn't there when you needed him the most.

When you've got a handle on your breathing, you sit up and throw the tangled bed sheets off of you. Getting up and walking to the French doors leading to the balcony, ignoring Chan's presence in the room. He must have moved you from the library to your bed sometime during the night, the sky slowly turning from the dark purples and blues of the night into streaks of orange with the rising sun.

You hate the weakness you feel in your heart, and you hate the pity you see in your brothers eyes through the reflection on the doors. Most of all you hate the people that made you this way, and you hate that you let them do it.

Jimin walks into the kitchen early that morning, never being one to give up on extra sleep, but the nightmare that was your life haunted him all night and he couldn't bear to lay and stare at the ceiling a second longer. Mira is speaking to Chan as he gets ready to leave for work, Namjoon sitting at the island with a cup of coffee and dark circles that tell Jimin he wasn't the only one tossing and turning last night.

"Good Morning, Jimin." The sweet lady greets him, turning to fix him a cup as well as he greets her back. Chan sets off with a hug and kiss goodbye to the woman, and Jimin barely catches the quiet 'Eomma' he addresses her with. It makes him wonder where your actual Mother is, thinking back to Shin's words yesterday about your parents.

He didn't feel like sitting in the quiet awkwardness that would develop when the rest of his brothers arrived for breakfast. So, he turned on his heel with his cup of coffee and set out the back door. Following the stone pathway that leads out from the back porch and outdoor entertainment area, he can see a glass structure ahead of him. The door is wide open and a multitude of potted bonsais are sitting out in the sun, obviously having been just watered. Upon reaching the door, he leans against the frame and watches you care for your plants attentively, speaking to them in a quiet and calm tone as you water them with a clear spray bottle.

When he realizes you've noticed his presence, he steps into the room and leisurely walks to the shelves along the walls, inspecting the multitude of plants.

"Do you like gardening?" You surprise him with that question, not expecting you to acknowledge his presence after the shit show last night. "No, not really. But Namjoon hyung likes to grow Bonsais, so I know a thing or two." Nodding in understanding, you go back to taking care of the plants, a pair of small clippers in your hands to prune and shape them. "I'm assuming he told you all about his little discovery last night, did you enjoy the knowledge that someone rich and pompous like me has a shitty past?"

Your words shot a stake of guilt through his heart, you well and truly believed they thought of you as a spoiled rich bitch and they had no one to blame but themselves.

"He did tell us, but I certainly don't feel that way about it. I wish that hadn't happened to you, I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Your eyes are sharp and fierce as they land on his form, "I don't need pity or sympathy or even empty words of encouragement from you or anyone else. I've heard enough of that in my life and I certainly don't need it from someone who judged me by my wealth instead of my character."

You were right in that they all had judged you before they even met you, but he didn't think you could tell their biases so easily. It embarrasses him that you could see through them so easily when it's their jobs to protect their clients and handle situations without personal bias or emotions.

"What? Did you seriously think I didn't notice the prejudices you all had about me? Yoongi and Jungkook may have been the only ones to verbally express their feelings towards me but I could see it on all of your faces."

He shuffles his feet, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. "I didn't think we were that bad at hiding it."

Your lips curl into a slight smirk, huffing a laugh at his embarrassment. "When you grow up around people who treat you with disdain in private and faux care in public you learn the fake expressions to every emotion."

Those words cut deeper in his heart than a knife, what kind of life have you lived outside of what was revealed in the trial. What kind of family did you grow up in to put you in that kind of cruelty? He wants to know these things more than anything. He wants to know so many things about you, and he can't help but blurt out the first question he can think of.

"What made you want to become an author?"

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[magnoliamyrrh]

wait im so sorry. last rant of today im going to throw my phone in a ditch before i write another one

i find it rly funny how so much of the internet has taken up openly being like, yea wait actually older women actually -. glad were on the same page

but. i uhHh feel like so much of it is just. such a pornophied or overly sexualized or objectifying, fetishistic, not as in having a fetish as in reducing a person to a fetish, version of this. quite similar to something else ive brought up before which is the way people treat dominant women. "sTeP oN Me" sorta things and, again, just reducing them to their role as femdom while having no care for the fact that they're a full ass human being with complexities and needs and limits

same with this. like,, you know, despite the apparently collective mommy issues of the internet, older women are just people. they're just, human beings, they're just women. and its weird and off to almost always reduce them to this role of "milf" which is porn terminology, to prepetually refer to them by sexualized porn terminology even when not speaking of sexual things, to reduce them to just, essentially, sex and your issues and a series of stereotypes essentially and what you can get out of them??

like lmao for all this idk how many of yall Actually outside of. like. sex or theoreticals or whatever, would even want to be with older women? like - as real human beings? to live w all the things that entail - the list of issues and problems that older women actually have, that theyre in a different place in life than you financially and job wise and w the issues they have w their family and experience wise and mentally and physically, and unless youre disabled and you already get it, theyre probably a whole lot more tired and fed up with things than u are. like yea age gap relationship can work, you can make a ten or more year age gap work its been done, power dynamics and imbalances can be negotiated and equalized but that only works with maturity, not theirs but mandatorly Your maturity as well lmao and its far from the list of things that is easy to make actually work out well. like ?? sorry you want a older woman to take care of you - which isnt exactly little to ask weather its financially or emotioanlly or etc etc - yup i get it. bad case of trauma brainrot etc etc all that. have you considered what You're going to do to balance that out? how much effort it actually takes? that actually if youre asking someone to take care of you, you better be stepping up and doing the same in return? what you can bring to the table ¿?

like dude idk. older women already have so much bullshit to deal with, and so many already are distressed bc of fuckin beauty culture and societies obsession with youth and how if you haven't found someone by like 28 and achieved idk what you're doomed and worthless apparently and your life is over and thats it, and so many end up having a midlife crisis at like 30. and if all this was leading to idk a shift away from societies obsession w youth and all that or lmao get this an actual care and discourse for the sorts of issues ageing actually brings women which were all gonna end up dealing w too, itd be one thing. except, in actuality its not, its just that they're being sexualized and objectified now and this whole thing doesn't involve any more respect or care than it did before

[transmasc-wizard]

Would you like to talk about mack?? :D

i WOULD

unfortunately, this will not be :D . this will be D:

tw : familial abandonment, drug use & dealing (doesnt go into huge detail but its mentioned), manipulation/shitty friends, depression, self-worth issues, self-destructive behaviour

so mack (it/any btw) is a character who is very convinced he has already gone through his Character Arc(TM) and doesn't need any more help with his issues. and like, he absolutely got over a lot of issues he used to have, but a lot of other ones were just... pushed down to a place where it can pretend those problems don't exist anymore.

mack was shunned by its whole family when they were turned into a vampire at 15 by their manipulative and shitty vampire "friends", and ran away shortly after. they almost immediately fell into a group of shady people, since that was what it was used to. mostly, these people broke a lot of laws to have a lot of quite-dangerous-in-retrospect parties. illegal fireworks, irresponsible drug use, dares like "play chicken but with cars instead of swings", that sorta thing. mack knew at least 2 people who died at these things and it was not uncommon for them to wake up six blocks away with a memory gap of several hours

this went on for 2-3 years, im not quite sure, until one day mack watched One More person die at a party and was like . hey . maybe this isn't a good use of my life. and he just... ran away again? not in the same way, but he just ghosted everyone she knew and had to start over. it had a lot of shady/sneaky skills from times it used to help w drug dealing, so it put those skills into working on not-super-legal issues but in a significantly safer context (essentially scamming billionaires).

at this time, around age 18 or so, Mack was also loitering a lot at a cafe frequented by university students. at this spot was where Mack met the then-20 and extremely optimistic (lmao) James, a first-year theoretical physics major. when James (Sufferinf w/ rent) realized mack was homeless, he offered to let it stay with him, and mack then officially had a living space ! hurrah. this was the point where mack went "okay so clearly i am now okay. i have a house, food, a less-illegal-than-before job, and am not actively and dangerously using drugs or doing horrifically reckless things. im normal!" and shoved all their issues under the rug

those issues included the fact that by this point mack was just. incapable of showing negative emotions, bc they thought no one would love them if they did bc they'd be too much of a burden. (this is heightened by the fact their chronic pain started at 17.) then there's also the insistence that their constant exhaustion, apathetic feelings, and deep fear of getting close to people is Normal And Fine, their fear of any person who presents themself as a parental or otherwise familial figure, their feelings that it's not worth anything if it can't make others constantly happy, and her inability to cope with anything that she doesn't know how to bullshit through.

by the time the story starts, Mack and James have collected 2 more roommates (Leah and Spacey) (and they will get Val next ofc). James is... significantly more tired and significantly less optimistic, which also makes Mack feel more like she's in control (like, see, even JAMES is doing bad! so surely it's just the average stress of life. i'm ok. never once does he consider James is just also crumbling till like halfway through the book, and that is actually a tense side of their friendship). mack is very very convinced that since it's not actively putting itself in danger twice a week, it's FINE, and no one has to WORRY, and--

then val comes along and kinda. forcibly makes him realize he is not ok. and funky story things ensue :3