#yet that part of my brain that tells me to fix everything myself and never listen to what my body tells me is up and running again

[youremyonlyhope]

why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up

[saintedbythestorm]

I'm already trying to stay awake. My legs and shoulder (sometimes arms too) be giving me trouble. I've already had to take a top up of the migraine meds....

And yet... my dumb ass... be laying here like... yeah I could totally change the mattress right now.

I am working so hard on talking myself out of it. I am also losing.

[last-herondale]

Almost Pt. 6

Bucky Barnes x Femreader!

Bucky POV

Angst, heartbreak, love triangle

Warning: none?

AN: We had state testing this week. My brain is fried. Sorry if this is trash but it’s my trash.

Enjoy 🤘🏼

It seemed that yet again I was standing there, watching you walk away from me after I had undoubtedly broken your heart. Again.

I tried to rationalize with myself that it wasn’t my fault. That the last thing I expected to happen that night was to run into you. Of course, I had dreamed of it. Concocted ways in my head of how I could accidentally run into you, just to see you. Maybe even talk to you. The ache in my heart from missing you had become a constant hurt. I had missed you while you were away, but after seeing you kiss Steve in the kitchen…after seeing you so happy…

I knew I had to step away.

I had been doing so well. Only seeing you when only absolutely necessary. Filling more and more of my time with missions and other distractions like Nadia, who seemed content enough to spend her time with me. I knew I was using her, and I hated myself for it, but I didn’t know how to handle the alternative.There was a certain torment in knowing you were back. In knowing that you were under the same roof as me, having a life that was becoming more and more distant from mine.

After tonight, I would be surprised if you ever talked to me again. I realized instantly that there was no excuse for what I said to you. I had been taken off guard seeing you pinning Nadia to the wall. I wanted to laugh at the scene before me. The shocked look on Nadia’s face, the stern, determined look in your eyes that was immediately overshadowed by the look of pure shock as you locked eyes with me.

There were a million things I wanted to say to you at that moment. A million feelings that came to the surface, and yet like an idiot, the only emotion I could convey, the only emotion I seemed to ever convey, was anger. The moment I began opening my mouth, the moment I saw the light in your eyes die out…

I went back inside of my apartment and grabbed my jacket before stepping out again. I knew there was no chance of me sleeping tonight, not after that. So I might as well torture my body in the training room as some sort of recompence for what I did.

The training room was empty, luckily. I started with the punching bag, made extra durable by Tony, and put the rest of my stupid emotions into that bag. Punch after punch I laid all my frustrations into my fists. The rhythmic thuds were comforting as I felt my chest heave after each breath. Sweat dripped down my forehead.

The slamming of the door took me out of my zone and I jerked in the direction of the entrance to see Steve standing there in the doorway. His body seemed eerily calm, with his hands in his sweat pockets, but he had a furrowed brow as he looked at the floor. I wasn't surprised to see him. I had insulted you, in possibly the worst way I could have. If you had run to tell anyone, it would have been your… I think the ache I felt now was over the fact that it wasn’t me.

“Up late?” I asked, grabbing a towel off of the rack and wiping my face. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” Steve said in a flat tone, “Then of course I heard yelling down the hallway.”

I winced. Honestly I had been surprised that no one else had come out during the altercation. The amount of people in that tower that had super hearing… I turned towards Steve, trying to fix my face into some sort of nonchalant pose. I knew he would see right through it. Part of me wanted him to see right through it.

I wish he would just come out and yell. Let his anger come out so that I could match that energy. But Steve was never the guy to throw his anger out without cause. He was patient. He was understanding. He was a good man. Everything I wasn’t. So, rather than punching me in the face, he was just standing there, waiting for me to talk.

“Sorry for waking you, it's been a weird night.”

Steve kept his eyes steady on me. I clenched my jaw.

“Look, I don’t know what she told you–” I began

“She hasn’t told me anything,” Steve said calmly, “In fact, I can’t seem to get her to leave her room to talk to me. She won’t even pick up her damn phone.”

I couldn’t hide my shock. I thought surely after the altercation you would run to the man that has been providing comfort to you for the past few months. If you hadn’t then maybe what the two of you had wasn’t as deep as I first thought…

“I heard what you said to her, Buck,” Steve said in a cold tone.

My stomach dropped at his words.

“I didn’t mean it,” I said weakly, “I know I shouldn’t have said it, but I…”

My words seemed to fail me as I sat down on a bench. A couple of moments passed, but eventually, Steve sat down beside me and sighed.

“Bucky, you need to be completely honest with me. Do you love her?”

There it was. The question I couldn’t face. The answer came so easily in my head. Of course I did. What was there not to love? How was I to admit that I was lost without you? That turning you away was the worst mistake I ever made. I couldn’t look at Steve. I couldn’t talk.

Steve sighed again. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that he was rubbing his face. He was tired and exhausted. I was hurting everyone around me.

“Stop that,” Steve said softly.

“What?” I blurted out.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You don’t do yourself any favors by pushing everyone away.”

When I didn’t respond, he continued.

“I know how hard you are on yourself, especially when Nat left. I know you thought you found your person in her, and after everything you have been through you deserve to find someone who not only makes you happy, but fills your heart with so much light that it overshadows the darkness. When you were in that pit of despair, I had no idea how to get you out of it, and I felt like a failure as your best friend. But then, she showed up. She came into both of our lives like a wildfire. She brought back the light in your eyes, and reawakened your soul.”

I felt hot tears down my face, but Steve continued on.

“I won’t deny that I’ve grown feelings for her. I think seeing her love you and care for you as much as I do, makes me see her in the greatest of lights. She is worthy of so much love. I thought maybe you… I thought that maybe you would love her… I thought that was where your story was heading Buck, but you chose differently. I saw her leave my birthday party. I saw how distraught she was. I could only assume that you didn’t have feelings for her as she had for you. That’s why I… that the only way I could live with myself for… feeling these things.

“But clearly, there is something there. You avoid her now like she is the plague. You hardly talk to me anymore and we are brothers, you and I. So, Bucky, you don’t have to say it, but I know you love her. In some capacity, I know you do. You can deny it all you want, but I know you.”

Steve sighed again. “I know you think you don’t deserve to be loved. I know it’s hard for you to see the goodness in yourself, but you deserve love. You deserve to be happy. If she is what makes you happy, you need to let her know. She deserves that, doesn’t she?”

Yes, you deserve everything.

“What about you?” I asked, my voice was shaky as I spoke. I finally looked up at him and saw his expectant blue eyes waiting for me. I was surprised to see that he wasn’t angry.

Steve gave a small chuckle.

“I have never been one to deny you your happiness Bucky,” his voice turned a bit solemn, “I care about her… a lot. She is one of my best friends, and the time we have spent together has been… great. But we have been honest with each other. We both have unresolved heartaches from the past that prevent us from becoming more. She doesn’t hold it against me for still loving Peggie, and I don’t hold it against her from loving you. Maybe in time, we could become something more, but for now our hearts do not beat for each other as they should.”

“So you don’t… love her?” I asked carefully. I didn’t like that I was beginning to sound hopeful. I wanted you to be loved. I wanted you to be cared for. I thought Steve would be perfect for you… I thought there wasn’t a chance in hell that I would be able to…

“I love her, but not in the way that she clearly loves you,” Steve gave me a smirk.

“I don’t know if she does anymore. I’ve been a complete ass to her,” I mumbled, putting my head in my hands.

“Oh I know,” Steve laughed a bit but then looked at me seriously, “So what are you going to do about it?”

I raised my head out of my hands. What was I going to do about it?

“Do you really think she could love me, after everything? After tonight?” I asked pathetically.

“I think,” Steve said carefully, “That you will have to earn her trust back. It’s not about making her love you again, she loves you, has loved you through everything. You messed up, and you realize that, so you need to change. Change for her, change because of her. You already have and you haven’t realized it. Now show her. Give her back the love she gave you, and more.”

Images of you flashed through my head. Memories of you laughing with me, holding me when I was a complete mess. Memories of you consoling me, telling me that I was worthy, that I was more than I thought of myself. These memories warmed my soul, as they always did. I realized that I wanted more memories with you. I wanted to be consumed by them. Enveloped in them. I need you now more than ever. I would always need you. Always want you. Always desire you. And I needed to show you how much you meant to me.

I let out a small chuckle.

“For an old man,” I said playfully, “You are really good at giving advice.”

Steve laughed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Remind me to charge you for my services later,” he teased.

I clasped my hand on his shoulder. “Thank you Steve.”

He just gave me a hopeful look and slapped my back.

“Go get her, buddy.”

I was up and out the door before he finished the word. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know what I was going to say to you. Apologize. That's what I needed to do first. Grovel at your feet. Beg for any forgiveness you would be willing to give me. I was at your door, knocking in quick succession before I could fully think about what I wanted to say.

My chest was heaving and my palms were sweaty waiting for you. I knocked on the door again. Impatient, I put my ear against the door to listen for any sign of you. I heard the soft sound of your radio playing your favorite channel from your room, but nothing else. The sun was rising, and beams of sunlight were breaking through the windows of the tower.

It wasn’t unusual for you to be up and about early in the morning, but after the night we had, I know you didn’t get much sleep. But you wouldn’t be asleep with the radio on. You hated any sort of noise when you slept. I knocked again.

“Please open the door,” I begged.

Nothing.

A sick feeling spread through my stomach like ice. I shoved down the door in one hit. Your living room was empty, no sign of a break in or struggle, but you were nowhere in sight. I called out for you. Nothing. I scanned your apartment, looking for any sign of where you were. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except on your nightside table there was an envelope. I approached it slowly, my hand shivering as I saw the name on the outside of the card.

Steve

[onlycosmere]

The Gift of Not Feeling

by Janci Patterson

I want to tell you a story about my friend Brandon.  It’s been eighteen years since this happened, and in the intervening time I’ve told this story to fewer people than I can count on one hand. 

I have kept it to myself largely because I know Brandon isn’t the kind of person who wants the good things he does blasted to the world, and I never wanted to embarrass him.  And if that’s what I’m doing now, I’m sorry for it. 

Last week, someone wrote an essay I won’t link here (as you’ve probably read it and I don’t like giving it clicks) that treated my friend at once like a circus freak who lacks feelings and also somehow as someone who is uninteresting and undeserving of attention. The article also treated two separate communities I love with contempt. I seethed about it for a couple of days, but I didn’t really entertain the idea of saying anything online, because it’s not my place and responding to the media is not professional. 

Then yesterday I read this, and I finally had something I wanted to say.

I met Brandon Sanderson when I was twenty-two years old.  I was just finishing my undergraduate degree and he was just finishing graduate school, and we had some classes that overlapped.  From there, we were in a critique group together and were part of a social group where we all hung out quite a bit.  None of us had families yet, and Brandon’s first book would come out during those couple of years, so none of us had intense career demands yet either. 

At that time in my life, I was a mess.  I had arrived at adulthood with several chemical and behavioral disorders that I did not yet understand.  My brain would sometimes and without warning explode in a horror show of fear and shame and pain so strong it felt physical.  I didn’t know what was wrong with me—indeed, I had been suffering from the depression and anxiety for so long that, in my mind, they were me.  I had no way to separate what was happening inside my head from a reality outside of it.  To me, everything I felt was real.  Because my mind filtered everything that happened outside of me through a lens of terror and agony, the world was terrifying and torturous.  In short, I was living in hell.

Most people, when I tried to describe what was happening in my mind, reacted in unhelpful ways.  I don’t blame them—very few people are equipped to know what to say to someone suffering as intensely as I was.   They would try to minimize it in an effort to minimize their own discomfort.  They would try to fix it, when it wasn’t something anyone could fix.  Or, worst of all, they would react in horror, having deep and terrifying feelings of their own about what was happening to me.  It was empathy, but it only reinforced to me that I was scary, Iwas broken, I was wrong.

And then there was Brandon.  Brandon has the fine distinction of being the first person in my life to suggest to me that what I was reacting to, the reality I was living in, was not in fact real to anyone but me.  His first and honest reaction to what was happening inside my head was genuine and unfeigned interest.  It didn’t matter how big or terrifying the emotion was.  I could tell him I hated him (and did) and his reaction, every time, would be to say, “That’s so interesting that you feel that way.  Why do you feel that?”

Why indeed?  I didn’t know why I felt that.  Brandon taught me the words “cognitive distortion.”  He taught me that reality could warp as it entered my brain, that the reality I was reacting to might not be real at all.  It might be all in my head.

Of course, it’s not helpful to tell a depressed person that their problem is all in their head—when it’s done in a dismissive way.  But Brandon wasn’t dismissing me.  He believed I had a genuine and difficult problem—but that problem wasn’t me, and it wasn’t the world around me, either.  It was as if I had spent my entire life living in a box, and I didn’t even know it.  I thought the box was the real world.  I thought the box was me.  I thought the box was all there would ever be to life, and, I think reasonably, I didn’t really want to live it anymore.

But along came Brandon Sanderson. He opened the lid to the box, looked around with interest, and said, “it’s so interesting that you live in here.  Do you know that there’s a whole world outside of this box?  Do you know that other people don’t see you the way you think they do?  Do you know that you exist, separate and independent of this box? Do you know that the box isn’t you at all?”

My whole life I had assumed that my illness and I were synonymous.  Everything that happened inside my head was me, so if it was bad and wrong and a mess, then I was bad and wrong and a mess.  There was no escaping from it, because everywhere I went, my entire life, I would always be me, and it was me.  And then my friend looks at me and says, as if surprised, “Why would you think that’s you?  It’s not you at all.  It’s happening in your head and it isn’t normal and you exist completely separately from it and it doesn’t have to be this way.”  It was as if he assisted my will save to disbelieve the illusions, and suddenly I could see it:  The horror I was living in was just chemicals in my brain.  It was just thoughts in my head.  And yes, depression is real in the sense that chemicals are real, and thoughts are real. And I would never want to minimize the very real effect it can have on the people who suffer with it. But it wasn’t reality.  It was a powerful illusion, but it was only an illusion, and if I could learn to think outside of that box I was trapped in, I could be free.

I could tell you about the other help I needed at that time.  I could tell you about how I needed to move, and Brandon found me an apartment.  I could tell you how I needed medical treatment (obviously), and Brandon helped me navigate resources to make that happen.  I could tell you about the time he sat with me in the ER and told me that the doctors weren’t taking me seriously, and they should be, and I needed to keep talking to people until somebody did.  But none of those things are the point of the story.

The point of the story is this: Brandon gave me the most important gift anyone has ever given me in my entire life—a gift that I am absolutely certain is the only reason I am still alive today.  It’s a gift that has made every good thing in my life possible every day since.  He gave me the gift of not feeling.  Instead of getting carried away in his own emotions when he saw what was happening to me, he gave me the gift of reflecting back to me a logic and patience that a person can only have when they keep their emotions in check.  I owe everything to that gift, so you can imagine the fury I feel toward anyone who would denigrate it.  Brandon is not a freak.  He’s also not the perfect paragon of virtue people sometimes present him as.  He is a person—flaws and all—with a very powerful gift that saved my life, and I doubt very much I am the only one.

Here’s the rest of the story: it took me a couple of years to climb out of that box.  I had professional help.  I did CBT.  I learned to retrain my brain to see the world outside of the lens of depression and anxiety.  For a long time, when a depressed thought would come into my mind, I would ask myself, “What would Brandon say about that thought?  Would he accept that as reality?”  And if I knew he wouldn’t, I would make myself reframe the thought, hammering it into shape until I found a thought about myself that I believed Brandon would accept.  I wanted so badly to live in his reality, the one he saw outside of that box.  I wanted to be able to see myself the way he saw me, as a person with a problem and not a person who was a problem. 

After a few years, I got my mental health to a place where I no longer lived in a constant emotional crisis.  At almost all times in my life since then I’ve been somewhere on the healthy part of the mental health spectrum.  Notable exceptions were during the postpartum period with both of my kids, and one year during the pandemic when I got hit with several personal crises at once.  Even then, I knew I was not the illness.  I knew I existed separately from it.  I knew I could crawl out of the box again, because it was only a box, and not the true reality I knew existed beyond it.

Here’s the thing about my friend Brandon—I owe everything to him, and I’ll never be able to pay it back.  He wouldn’t want me to.  He would be horrified if he thought I felt like I had to.  I joke about Brandon asking me for a favor when he asked me to finish Bastille for him—because that “favor” did a lot more good for me than it probably did for him.  But the truth is, if I am able, I will always do a favor for Brandon Sanderson.  Not because I feel like I have to pay him back, but because it feels so good to give literally anything back to a person who gave me so much.  (And that’s not even counting all the professional opportunities, or the fact that he talked me into dating my husband.) 

But really, I will never be able to pay this back.  Never ever.  So I do my very best to pay it forward.  When I encounter people who deal with similar issues, I do my very best to give them the gift of not feeling.  To sit with them and let them say all the scary things in their heads, and to react with genuine interest, but without emotional reaction.  I have sat with people who want to die, and done my very best to reflect back to them that I’m not afraid of their feelings, that I will of course want to make sure they are physically safe, but that I don’t think it’s scary that they have those thoughts, and that I think they are a real, whole person outside of those thoughts and those thoughts will never define them.  That skill has served me well.  I may never be a person who experiences little emotion (ha!) but I have learned to be a person who can set aside emotion when it’s necessary, and I learned that from Brandon, too.

So I am grateful for that gift.  The gift of not feeling. Because not feeling most definitely does not mean not caring.

Over the years, I have listened to a lot of opinions about my friend Brandon.  I have heard people say things with authority in both the positive and negative, things that I knew to be both true and false.  I’ve never felt the need to correct these things—he’s a public figure and people are going to see the persona and think what they want about him and it’s not my place to try to turn that ship.

But if I could tell you just one thing about my friend, it’s that he’s wonderful. Not because he writes books, and certainly not because he’s perfect, but because he’s a person, and like all people, he has unique gifts that enable him to make a difference in other people’s lives.

[elialys]

Channeling positive energy for 2024

I have been very listless for at least the last couple of years (if not since 2020 and the whole pandemic mess), resulting in a pretty rough depressive episode that peaked this last November. It's hard to feel motivated to do anything concrete to improve your own life when everything around you is just...bleak. And this world does suck so much, so often, in so many ways.

But then I remember how I innately believe that most people are good, and that I am good, too, and that the one thing that always makes me feel better when I'm low is to do something helpful for someone, or to just be kind if I don't have the spoons for more.

(Putting this big ramble under read more)

I think I've mentioned it here before but I've made the decision to try and get into a new field of work, which involves at least two if not three years of studying. Let me tell you, I'm about to turn 36 in a couple of weeks. It's scary as fuck to do something like this. But this job, if I get into the school I need to get into, will be perfect for me. I'll be helping people who need guidance and compassion basically every day.

The bond I got to build with my students was my absolutely favorite part of teaching, but I got overwhelmed by everything else. I burned myself out in less than four years because I became a workaholic who worked 70 hours a week, never took a breath, tried tried tried, yet never felt like I was doing enough. The pressure was incredible, the 'I have to be around hundreds of people every single day', performing in front of entire classrooms full of kids 6h a day'...it just wore me down. Loved my kiddos to death, loved my science team so much, but then the pandemic hit and I lost a few family members within a few months, and I realized it was time for me to go home after 12 years abroad.

The meanest part of my brain likes to tell me I've spent the last four years being basically a useless human blob, but realistically, I know I wasn't. I had been working my ass off since 2011, when I was in America nannying two young kids all day long then going to school full time at night/weekends, before being hired as a teacher in England for 4 years.

I needed the break, I needed time with my loved ones. I needed to help grieving family members, especially my little sister with ASD, who had to learn to navigate life without her mom, who also developed epilepsy on top of everything else while our father pretended nothing was happening. I needed to spend time with my grandmother, who did so much for me when I was young and who's all alone, now. I'll even go as far as saying I've been working on fixing things with my mother this past year living with her, which was not an easy thing. Still isn't, but it's so much better than it used to be, and she's trying, too.

But I'm ready to get my life "back on track", or at least, to get busier , more proactive, more helpful to others who aren't in my inner circle, because I know that's what I'm good at, and why I'm here.

So, yeah, channeling positive thoughts for 2024. I'm not only going to work on getting into that school in the next few weeks, I also just received an email a couple days ago from an editor I used to work with. She's a writing director somewhere else now, and they need writers for a new webcomic project; she told me she immediately thought of me because they'd always been happy with my work, so I'm going to test for that, too, because why the hell not. Actually getting paid for the stuff I was writing a couple of years ago was the most surreal, rewarding experience of my writer life, and I wouldn't mind that happening again.

I want to give the biggest shoutout to my best friend & other butt cheek, @melusine0811, for helping me navigate those last four years, for always believing in me, and for being so fucking courageous when life is just so damn hard. Lauren, you're the bravest person I know, and forever my Donna Noble.

And because I'm sappy this weekend, awards and all, I'm also sending my thanks to my Australian unicorn, just for existing somewhere out there, for being a role model to me from afar these last thirteen years, for being another perfect example of people persevering no matter what, doing the things they love, while always trying to be kind to others in the process. I don't believe in much, but I believe in karma. You do good deeds, good things will happen to you.

Be kind to each other, my lovelies. Always be kind.

[witchersmistress]

Heads You Lose

Hello my darlings!! here is part two to Tails you win. https://www.tumblr.com/witchersmistress/716840196299276288/tails-you-win?source=share

Ive linked part 1 for those who have missed it or havent read it.

Warning: Blood, violence, death and gun shot wounds.

Word count: 9.8k

my usual warning, you do not have my permission to copy or use my work in anyway, if you do ill haunt you for the rest of your days!!

Propbably gramatical errors and typos but i type to fast for my own good lol

Name pronounciatuion for the FMC : her given name is Saorise, Sheer-sha, in Irish-Gaelic means freedom

Her nickname, gifted to her at a young age by Syverson: Louhi, Lo-hee, Finnish origin, she is the goddess of Death and Disease.

“People like you and me don’t get to love…” 

Those are the words that play on repeat inside my head as I stagger to my feet, blood seeping from the bullet wound just below my right shoulder and mixing with the drying blood already covering my body. I don’t feel the pain from it. On the contrary, I’m numb to everything bar Saoirse’s words. People like you and me…

Don’t get to love… 

Don’t. Get. To. Love…

 She’s right in a way, but not entirely. It’s true that the likes of us don’t get to love without fear. When you mix with the people we do, you gain enemies. Even the friends you think you have can turn against you on a penny if the price is right. Look at the King - he was ‘friends’ with Carter, but he took the opportunity to take him out the moment it was offered.

I took out my boss without a second thought.

 Granted it was to protect the woman I love from her very own dad, but she doesn’t know that, and I can’t tell her. 

Not yet, anyway. But one thing I do know with absolute certainty is that I do get to love. And I never thought that was possible for me. Yeah, it’s dangerous to love when it can be held against you, but it doesn’t make it any less true. If I know anything about myself, it’s this: I won’t give up on our love. I refuse to, because what the fuck kind of man would I be to turn my back on something so fundamental to my very existence? A fucking pussy, that’s what, and if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a pussy.

 I won’t give up on our love. Not now, not ever.

Lifting my head, I meet Saoirse’s hard stare with that promise burning in my veins. But right now, no matter what I say, I know it won’t make a difference. Saoirse might love me, but Louhi has to make a stand. We both know that. Shooting me was her only choice given the circumstances. Closing herself off, shutting down, was her only option. I don’t fight it, I can’t fight it, but most importantly, I won’t. “Get. Out!” she snarls, the slightest flicker of regret in her eyes the only sign that beneath the pain, betrayal and disappointment, she still cares for me. 

That Saoirse is still there inside of Louhi, who stands before me now. “I said, get the fuck out!” I ignore Rodriguez’s laugh. I ignore the King’s smirk. I ignore Dom asking Saoirse to reconsider. Instead, I lower my head in acquiesce. I raise my hand and place it over my heart, over the tattoo of her handprint embedded in my skin and vow to myself that I will find a way to protect her from afar, no matter what. With one last look at Saoirse that I hope conveys all the love and affection I feel for her, I twist on my feet and stagger towards the exit, my gaze falling to Dom as I reach the door.

“Take care of her,” I bite out through gritted teeth, fighting the darkness that’s threatening to drag me under. He nods. “You can count on me, Sy.” 

*Hours later*

“Fuck me sideways!” Connall exclaims as I blink back the heavy fog of sleep and try to get my bearings. “Where am I?” I ask, groaning as I try to sit up. Bright white light pricks my eyes like a bullet straight to my brain, and I lift my hand to my head, feeling my scalp where Derby whacked me, hissing when I feel the tender skin and the stitches there.

 “Joey’s place. He’s fixed you up. Got you on a drip as soon as we arrived and gave you a couple pints of blood. There was a moment I thought we’d lose you.” “I’m hard to lose,” I reply, giving him a weak smile. “But man, do I feel like shit.” “You look like shit too,” Joey says, stepping into his makeshift operating theater and giving me a toothy grin, antiseptic and the scent of car oil following him into the room. The amount of times I’ve been in the back of his garage getting fixed up is crazy, though to be fair, he keeps this room spotless. I mean, I haven’t died of my injuries or a nasty infection yet. That’s got to count for something, right? Thank god for old ranger buddies. “Thanks, old man,” I reply, easing myself upright on the gurney. It creaks under my weight, and I feel every single bit of pain now that the adrenaline has worn off.

 Damn, I could up chuck. Swallowing back the queasiness, I wait for the room to stop spinning. “What’s the damage?” Connall asks, frowning as he stares at me. I have a vague recollection of calling him for help, but other than that I remember nothing after stepping outside of the club. He’s a good man, one I can count on.

The fucking best. “Couple broken ribs, lots of bruising,” Joey says, drawing some clear liquid from a vial into a needle. He pulls it free, presses the plunger to get rid of any air bubbles, then stabs me in the bicep with it, dispensing the liquid. “I fucking hope that’s painkillers,” I say, trying to laugh but failing. He nods, pulling the needle free before throwing it in the medical waste bin. “I got you, pal.” “What else?” Connall urges impatiently.

 “The gash to his head was pretty fucking deep. I’ve sewn it up but you’ll need to keep an eye on him over the next few days. He was concussed pretty badly, and there’s always a danger of bleeding into the skull or swelling on the brain, but I think we’re good where that’s concerned.”

 Connall swipes a hand through his hair. “You think?” “Well, short of getting Sy into the hospital for a CT scan, I can’t say any better than that.”

 “No hospitals,” I say firmly. “Don’t need the law on my ass for offing Carter-fucking-Davidson.” 

“You what?!” Connall exclaims, looking from me to Joey. “Did you know about this?” “First I’ve heard,” Joey says, casting a look my way. He knows I had my suspicions about Carter and his relationship with the King, so I imagine he’s putting two and two together and coming up with a pretty good assumption about what went down. “Jesus fuck, Syverson! What the hell happened last night?” “Last night?” I have a question. “How long have I been out?” “Ten hours, but stop avoiding the fucking question. Spill. I need to know so that I can give the family a head’s up. If a war is coming, they’ll want to back you.” “There’ll be no war. We’re leaving.”

“You and Louhi?” Joey asks, even though I’m pretty fucking sure it’s a trick question given she ain’t here and he’s not fucking stupid. “No.” I shake my head, ignoring the pain in my chest that isn’t coming from my bullet wound, but is most definitely coming from my heart. I look at Connall. “When I said we, I was kind of hoping you’d come with me.” “Me? Go where, exactly? And what about Louhi?” “Saoirse was the one who shot me,” I explained, leaning my head back against the gurney. Joey whistles and Connall’s mouth drops open in shock. “Wait, back the fuck up a minute,” he says scraping a hand over his face. “You killed Carter Davidson and Louhi shot you for it?”

 “Pretty much,” I replied.

 “But she’s in love with you,” he counters.

 “He’s her dad, Connall.”

 “And clearly a prick given you killed him. You don’t need to tell me what he’s done for me to know you’d only ever off your boss because he’s done something unforgivable. So, I’ll ask again. Why would Louhi shoot you when we all know that girl is head over heels in love with you?”

 I heave out a sigh. “I wish I could say that was still true.” “Are you still in love with her?” Joey asks me pointedly.

“Yes.”

 “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! She shot you, Logan. Are you gone in the head?” Connall yells, shaking his head in frustration. “You know what, don’t fucking answer that.” “So you’re running?” Joey asks, moving the conversation along. “It’s complicated.” “So UN-complicate it for us because as much as I like Louhi, I don’t like the fact she nearly killed you and you’re leaving like a beat-down dog.” “Number fucking one, I’m not a beat-down dog!

 Number fucking two, if she wanted me dead, I’d be dead. We were five feet apart, there is no way she would’ve missed from that distance. No fucking way,” I say, pointing to my bandaged shoulder. “He’s right. Even if she wasn’t a trained markswoman, which I understand that she is, there’d be no missing. So do you want to tell us why you killed Carter?” Joey asks. “Because the cunt was going to use her to pay off his debts to the King.” “The fuck you say?!” Connall yells. “You heard me. Carter got into a lot of trouble fucking his way around the escorts at The Crib Club, not to mention racking up a substantial gambling debt. I found out about his plans and made the King a better offer.” 

Drawing in a deep breath to fend off the queasiness, I continue, “I would kill Carter if he backed the fuck off from Saoirse. He agreed, providing I stay quiet about his involvement, and he could remain a silent partner in the club.”

 “The conniving bastard. Why didn’t you just kill the cunt as well?” Connall asks. “Because, as you well know, he’s powerful. Much more powerful than me on my jack jones and far more powerful than one woman with a dead dad. She needs him… For now.” “And you’re okay with that?” Joey asks this time. “Of course I’m not, but equally she’s backed into a corner. The King has a forty-eight percent share in the club, he has a big army behind him and lots of fucking connections. 

She can’t go up against him. This way she keeps his protection and a share in the club whilst she establishes herself, and we find a way out of this mess.” “And you believe he won’t go back on his word the minute you're gone, and take her for himself?” “I know he won’t. Saoirse shooting me proved she’s tough enough to run the club. Besides, the King doesn’t want a woman who’ll fucking shoot him when he tries to raise a hand to her. Saoirse is too much of a handful, and one he ain’t willing to mess with, thank fuck.”

“So let me get this straight,” Connall tries to rationalize, pacing up and down as he gets all the information straight in his head. “Carter was in debt so he goes to the King for a loan, the payment of which is his own fucking daughter and a share in the club.” “Yes,” I say, the pain in my head, shoulder and ribs easing a little now the medication is doing its job. Doesn’t stop the ache in my heart though, or the constant feeling of nausea when I’m reminded of how Saoirse had looked at me as though I’d broken her heart as surely as her banishing me had broken mine. She had to do it, I don’t fucking blame her for it, but it still fucking hurts.

 “You find out and cut another deal with the King,” Connall continues, “You kill Carter and the King backs off from Louhi, acting as what, a silent partner in the club?” “Precisely, he’s also got connections with some of the best clubs in the world. He can bring in the fighters. She’s smart, she’ll grow the business, and won’t throw it down the drain alongside whisky and stripper cum like her dad did.” Connall raises his brow at that. We both know Carter wasn’t the type of man who cared about a woman’s pleasure over his own. “Turn of phrase,” I mumble.

“So the King gets to sit back and reap the benefits whilst you take the blame for killing Carter, am I close?” “I don’t know about that part. That all depends on what happens now, but I’m not sticking around to find out whether Saoirse grasses on me. Though I wouldn’t fucking blame her if she did.” “She won’t,” Joey says, sounding far more certain than I feel. “And you know how?” Connall asks. “As you well know, there are rules we all live by, unspoken ones, but ones we all obey. No fucking police. However Louhi chooses to deal with this is up to her, but that girl has grown up in this life and she won’t be pulling the police in unless they’re bent and she’s using them to cover her back.” 

 “Fair point,” Connall concedes, leaning back against the counter as he regards me. “And your big plan is to slope off with your tail between your legs, heart fucking broken, whilst there are a fuck load of snakes and sharks out there who are more than willing to take a bite out of your woman?” 

“I’m not sloping off,” I growl, “And I’m not willing to let anyone do any such thing. I trust Dom to keep an eye on her, and I believe the King will have her back whilst it suits him. Right now keeping her safe, and more importantly the business safe, is in his best interests.”

“So what’s the plan, and why do you want me tagging along for the ride?” Connall asks. “For your charm and wit, of course,” I reply, deadly fucking serious. He laughs. I don’t. “Okay spill.” “I’m gonna find her an army of the best men and women money, charm and connections can buy, and you’re going to help me.” “Well, when you put it like that, how can a man say no?” Connalls replies, grinning. “And what do you need me to do?” Joey asks. “Keep your ear to the ground and let me know the second you hear anything about the King that should concern me. Better still, ingratiate yourself with Louhi. Get in on the business. She’ll need someone to fix up her men after they’ve been in the cage. Make sure that man is you.” Joey nods.

 “You got it.” “So where to go first?” Connall asks me as my eyes begin to drift shut. “Italy. Romeo Ricci, remember that crazy bastard, he has some contacts out there I’d like to explore…” “Italy it is,” Connall replies, with a shake of his head as exhaustion and a heavy dose of painkiller pull me under.

*2 years later*

Sy’s POV

It’s been almost two years since I left. Two long motherfucking years where I’ve watched over Saoirse from afar. My Princess. My woman. My heart. She turns twenty in a week. And I’m back to tell her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me fucking God.

I owe her an explanation, my apologies and my love. But more than that, I owe her my life. Saoirse isn’t a crap shot, and no one misses major organs when they’re firing a bullet from a few feet away without purposefully intending to miss. She shot me that night in the cage, banishing me from her life and sending out a message to the criminal underworld. No one fucks with Louhi. Not even the ones she loves. It was her saving grace, because when she pulled the trigger she proved herself a Davidson more than worthy of standing in Carter’s shoes, and she’s been proving herself ever since, building a business and an army that she can be proud of. Unofficially she’s been running the club from the moment Carter was murdered by yours truly, officially just a few short weeks since his will was read and her name replaced his as the owner of the club. Either way, she’s gained respect and a reputation. 

According to Dom, who’s been my inside man this whole time, despite the King still having involvement in the club, he’s backed off and allowed her to make a name for herself whilst he reaped the benefits. It won’t be long before she buys him out, or better yet kills the cunt, but all in good time. For now, she’s running the most lucrative fight club in all of Europe. Two months after the refurbishment, the old club mysteriously burnt to the ground and she moved premises to a larger, more discrete site where the club has also become more commonly known as Louhi’s Fight Club. As it should be. She’s a badass, and I’m so fucking proud of her. Two weeks ago, Dom called me to let me know that Carter’s will had finally been read, after his funeral took place a couple weeks before that.

 A funeral that, by all accounts, was attended by every fucking lowlife criminal you could think of. None of them were there for Carter, and even less to pay their respects to Saoirse. Like vultures around a rotting carcass, they wanted to see what they could get out of the situation because up until three months ago, Carter was deemed a missing person. And a missing person is still a threat, but a dead man? Not so much. What they hadn’t counted on was the woman they met at the funeral. A woman who, according to Dom, single-handedly laid out three men and shot a fourth in the kneecap for even trying to disrespect her. They also hadn’t counted on the soldiers she’s acquired or the loyalty of mercenaries with a big enough reputation to scare even the most hardened criminal off. Like I said, she’s been building an army. It’s also common knowledge that the remains of Carter’s skull was found in a shallow grave in Hampstead Heath, and that he was identified by his teeth.

It’s not common knowledge that the police were tipped-off with where to find Carter’s remains, or the fact that the rest of his body was fed to pigs who have long since been butchered too. Both calculated decisions that were made by Saoirse herself. Of course, speculation had been rife in the criminal underworld, and according to Dom, Saoirse endured weeks of police interrogations, interviews and accusations. But she never wavered from her story, and she never once ratted me out. Carter’s cause of death was deemed suspicious, but given there was very little left of Carter’s body and no other evidence to be found given the old club is now nothing but a pile of ash, the case ran cold.

 Though I’m more than fucking positive that there was a handout to the police chief and a few people higher up the chain of command to nip any further investigations in the bud. Like I said, Saoirse has come into her own. Or should I say Louhi has come into her own, because there isn’t one person now who’ll call her Saoirse. She won’t allow it. The last person who tried was beaten by her men so badly that he can’t even remember his own name, let alone hers, or so I’m told. Saoirse has well and truly shredded her skin and stepped into the role of Louhi completely. It’s a heavy burden to know that I’m part of the reason for that.

That my actions, my half-truths and my lies to keep her safe, forced her into a persona she couldn’t escape from. Honestly, I’m not certain she would even want to now. But I’m not back to change her in any way, I’m back because I can’t stay away a moment longer. There’s so much I need to fix and I’m not self-centred enough to believe I’ll be successful, but I’ve got to fucking try. I blow out a steady breath, swiping at the mist covering the mirror from the shower I’ve just taken, and stare at my reflection. I look much the same as I did when I left.

 I’m still a bulky fucker, probably bigger than I was given I’ve spent a lot of my time training in gyms around the world, but it didn’t matter where I was, there was no sunshine without her. My happiness wasn’t a focus, her safety was, still is. I haven’t been complacent in my time away. I’ve made alliances, acquaintances and friends with powerful men and women. And I’ve done it all for Saoirse, for Louhi. I’ve been standing by her side this whole fucking time we’ve been apart. I never stopped working to build her army. Never stopped loving her. Never stopped dreaming about her every fucking night, and thinking about her every minute of every day. I’m surprised my dick hasn’t dropped off from the amount of times I’ve abused it whilst thinking of her. 

That night in her bedroom where she’d spread herself for me and finger-fucked herself so perfectly has been on repeat in my head for the last two years. Even now, after all this time, thoughts of her make me hard. That won’t ever change. Scraping a hand over my face, I mentally psych myself up, because if I was nervous about telling Saoirse about my feelings back in my tattoo shop two years ago, that’s nothing to how I’m feeling now. I ain’t shitting a brick. I’m shitting a goddamn mountain. Dom has made it perfectly clear that she’s not the same person I left behind, but then again neither am I. Truth be known, being away has changed me. I was never a spiritual man, and I won’t pretend that I am now, but a few months back I accompanied Connall on a trip to Ireland to visit his family and met a lad who has this uncanny ability to uncover a man’s secrets and capitalize on them. The little fucker got me talking about personal shit that I would never share with anyone. I can’t even blame my loose mouth on the pints of Guinness I knocked back, given I only had two. Pretty sure he pulled some voodoo shit on me. All I know is if anyone has the heart of a criminal, the soul of a thief and the mind of a genius, it’s Arden Dálaigh, and I have no doubts we’ll meet again when he’s grown a few more chest hairs. But that’s a concern for another day. 

With a shake of my head, my gaze falls to Saoirse’s handprint tattooed on my chest, the outline of which is now completely filled with black ink. From there my eyes track across to the puckered scar that sits just beneath my right collar bone where Saoirse shot me. Both are a prominent reminder of the woman I love, and I will wear them with pride until the day I fucking die. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Connall asks, the second I slide into the passenger seat beside him. I gave him a look. “Not in the fucking slightest, but it’s time.” “She might actually kill you this time.” “She might, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I reply, drumming my fingers against my knee in agitation. 

The fucker of course notices. He’s been a good friend to me and I owe him so much more than I could ever repay. Connall has been my right-hand man through all of my travels around the world. “Listen, mate, I love you, you know that right?” I laugh. “If you’re about to tell me to run away with you—”

“We’ve been there, done that already,” he cuts in with a smirk, breaking sharply and swearing at a kid that suddenly dashes out into the road in front of us. She slams her fist against the bonnet, before giving us the middle finger. Beneath her hood I can see bright blue hair and a scowl that would rival the many Saoirse has given me in the past. “Watch where you’re going, asswipe!” she yells, then pelts it across the street chucking a spray can at the car for good measure.

 “The little fucker!” Connall exclaims as we both watch her leg it down the street and disappear down an alleyway a little further up. “That one’s gonna cause someone a heap of shit in a few years.” “Looks like she’s already causing a heap of shit,” I remark, as Connall puts the car in drive and moves on. We both laugh, the tension easing a little. Ten minutes later Connall pulls up outside a gated industrial estate, manned by a security guard who looks very familiar.

 Mark.

 The last time I saw him, he was in the crowd at the club whilst I was getting the shit kicked out of me by Derby. Connall gives me a look. “Is he gonna give us trouble?” “I guess you’d better roll your window down so we can find out.”

Mark steps out of the little hut he’s sitting in and strolls over to the car, ducking down to look through the now open window. It takes him less than a second to lock eyes with me. “Well, fuck! Dom said you were back, but I didn’t believe it. Syverson, as I live and breathe. How are you, mate?” Not quite the reception I was expecting, but okay. I grin. “I’m good, you?” “Head of security here these days,” he says with a wink, tapping on the walkie-talkie attached to his chest. “That uniform looks good on you,” Connall says, jerking his chin towards Mark’s outfit. He looks like a cross between a copper and a bouncer in his deep blue shirt and trousers. 

The fact he’s got a handgun strapped to his hip and a knife slotted next to it just adds to the whole don’t fuck with me vibe he’s got going on. “Louhi likes her soldiers dressing smart. Things have changed around here since…” His voice trails off and neither of us fill in the silence. Mark was at the club the night I fought Derby, but he wasn’t there when I killed Carter. I found out later he was dragging a fuming Hudson Freed home. 

Though he couldn’t keep him away according to Dom, who’s been my inside man this whole time. Hudson came back an hour after I left and is as deep in this pile of shit as the rest of us in attendance that night. Honestly, I expected to hear that Saoirse and him had got together after I’d gone, but to my surprise they’re still just friends and have remained close. I guess I owe him a thank you for looking out for my girl too, even if it pisses me off that he got to spend time with her and I didn’t. I should be grateful, I am grateful, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to beat the shit out of him for having her time and attention though.

 Never thought I’d be a jealous man, but here we are. “Sy is here to see Louhi. Is that gonna be a problem?” Connall asks, before I’m able to even clear my head enough to do the same. For a beat Mark looks between us, his expression serious. We were friends once, and the thought of having to knock the fucker out so I can get inside the gates doesn’t sit well with me, but I’ll do it if I have to. “A few weeks back I would’ve seen you on your way,” he admits with a wry grin. “And today?” I ask, my stomach churning at the thought that just on the other side of this gate is the woman I love. “Today you’re allowed in.” Connall grins. “Excellent, want to get the gate open then?”

Mark’s smile drops. “Sorry, Connall. Sy goes in alone. Orders of the Boss.” Connall looks affronted, glancing at me. “Why is she pissed at me? I ain’t done nothing wrong. Surely, she has missed my Irish charm?” I laugh, and Mark grins. “Couldn’t tell you. All I’ve been told is if Logan  turns up he comes in alone.” “Not a problem,” I say, unclipping my seat belt. “Follow me then,” Mark replies, bumping fists with a put-out Connall, before striding back to the gate. “Seriously, Sy, are you sure you wanna do this? We both know that Louhi has quite the reputation these days.” “I’m sure. Go home. I’ll call you later.” Connall nods, blowing out a breath.

 “Well, don’t let me tell you I told you so when you end up in the coroner's office with a bullet in your brain.” “Pretty sure I’ll be incapable of listening or responding at that point,” I say with a laugh, before jumping out of the car and striding through the open gate.

Two minutes later I’m pushing open the door into the warehouse Mark pointed me towards, and stepping into a cornered off wire cage with wrap around curtains and a locked door opposite. In the corner of the space is a table and a sign that says:

 Remove all weapons or entry will be denied.

I grin. Saoirse is way smarter than her father. Security is clearly a priority, as it should be. Glancing around the space, my attention is caught by a tiny red light flashing in the top right hand corner of the cage. I stare up at the camera and wait, a smile pulling up my lips. “Weapons on the table,” a familiar female voice barks through the intercom. It’s been a long time since I heard her voice and for a moment I’m taken aback. Struck fucking dumb, actually, though my dick doesn’t seem to have the same problem. It jerks at her voice, standing to fucking attention. “Jesus fuck,” I mutter. “Weapons on the table, Syverson. You’ll get them back when you leave.” 

Syverson. Call me a fool, call me whatever the fuck you like, but the sheer fact she’s addressing me by my real name is a good fucking sign. I hear the sass buried deep beneath the coolness, and it fires my fucking blood like nothing else. Maybe there’s hope. “I have no weapons. I come in peace,” I reply, grinning, unable to help myself.

For long moments there’s just silence, then the intercom makes a clicking noise and her voice follows shortly after. “Prove it. Strip.” “Sure thing, Princess,” I reply without hesitation, more than happy to oblige. I hear the sound of the intercom clicking once more and wait, but there’s nothing but static. Maybe it’s too early to be calling her Princess again so I follow my reply up with a statement that I hope she takes as truthfully as it’s meant. “Ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” Her scoff comes through the intercom clear as fuck then. “Just get on with it.” I stare up at the camera and nod. If she wants me naked, then I’ll get naked.

 She can see how my cock is growing for her too. I don’t fucking care. She can take her fill. Removing my jacket and boots first, I throw the former onto the table and kick the latter across the concrete floor. There isn’t one moment when my gaze isn’t focussed on the camera, and I’m hoping she can feel the intensity of my stare, because I sure as fuck can feel hers. Next, my t-shirt, jeans and socks come off and I stand in my boxers with a raging hard on that would rival any of those other fuckers that she might’ve invited into her bed. I sure hope I get the chance to erase any bastard cock that has had the pleasure of her attention these past couple years. It fucking kills

I know that someone else has taken what was always supposed to be mine, but I can’t blame her for it. I won’t do that. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking gut me though, or that I won’t off the fucker who took it from me. Just saying. “Do you need me to remove my boxers too, because you know I will, Princess,” I say unabashedly. This wasn’t exactly how I pictured our reunion, but I get the psychology behind it. She wants to show me who’s boss, what she doesn’t realize is that I never wanted to be hers.

 Every action I took came from a place of love, and the need to protect her. “Is that a gun in your pants or are you just glad to see me?” a familiar male voice says, followed by a burst of laughter that has my cock deflating quicker than you can say gonorrhea. Across the other side of the space the curtain surrounding the cage is pulled back and Dom is smiling at me. “Fucking hell, Syverson, I can see that cock of yours is still a lethal weapon.” I bark out a laugh, shaking my head. “You prick!” 

“Nope, you’re definitely the prick.”

“Good to see you, Dom,” I reply, my smile fading as I give him a look that I hope he interprets as gratefulness. Without him keeping an eye on Saoirse, and letting me know how she’s been doing, I would’ve been even more of a fucking mess. “Get dressed. Louie's waiting for you in her office,” he gives me a knowing look, then punches a number into a keypad on his side of the cage and pulls the door open. He waits for me to put my clothes back on, and with one last glance at the camera, I follow Dom into the lioness’s den.

Saoirse’s POV

I stare at the screen, at the man who stole my heart and made me an orphan. He looks the same as I remember and different in a way that’s difficult to pinpoint. There are lines around his eyes, and a tightness around his mouth that I have the sudden urge to soothe. He’s more muscular, if that’s even possible. His hair is a little longer on top and he’s clean shaven. If I weren’t already sitting down, I’d need to.

There’s no doubt that he’s grown even more handsome, and despite my head telling me not to get drawn in, my foolish heart is beating wildly. Don’t even ask me about my pussy because she’s already forgiven him and is about ready to throw herself at his cock and beg for oblivion. “Fuck!” I swear, my gaze roving over every inch of his face as he stares up at the camera.

 This was a bad fucking idea. I can’t be weak for this man, I can’t. Flicking my gaze to my phone, I consider calling Mark to come get his arse and chuck him out, but  I hesitate. My stomach churns with anxiety, and I grab my packet of cigarettes from the table, lighting one and dragging in a deep lungful. The tip sizzles, and when I blow out a stream of blue-grey smoke, some of the anxiety lifts. Narrowing my eyes at him I make a decision, then lean back in my chair and press the intercom button. “Weapons on the table,” I say, keeping my voice steady, cold. He stiffens, his muscles locking tight as he blinks back up at the camera. He wasn’t expecting to hear my voice. Good, let him feel as fucked in the head as I do. I take another drag of my cigarette, enjoying the power shift as he chews on his lip. There’s no doubt that he’s nervous. Well that makes two of us.

“Weapons on the table, Syverson. You’ll get them back when you leave.” I can’t help but grin at the surprise in his eyes when I call him by his real name. Before, when I used to call him Syverson, it was to wind him up, to get a rise out of him. Now, I just want to remind him that I can call him whatever the fuck I want and he can’t do a damn thing about it. It takes him a beat to reply, but when he does he gives me a grin that almost makes me forget what he did. Almost. “I have no weapons. I come in peace,” he says. I take another pull of my cigarette. 

There’s nothing about his body language that tells me he’s being anything other than truthful, and despite everything, I believe he isn’t carrying. Not that it would matter if he was, because my soldiers would have him disarmed and on his knees with a gun cocked at his head before he could even blink. Syverson might be the best fighter in the cage, but he’s no match for the combined force of the mercenaries I’ve gathered over the two years since he’s been gone. Every single one of them walked into the club as a fighter and stayed as my soldier, and I took full advantage of the universe bringing them to me.

 We eyeball each other through the screen, and deciding that he needs to be knocked down a peg, or five thousand, I test his willingness to follow my orders because there is no way I’ll even entertain talking to him if he thinks he can just waltz back in here and pick up where we left off. I don’t care how fucking sexy he is, or how much he still makes my legs go weak and my pussy wet. “Prove it. Strip,” I demand, smirking as I lean back in my chair and wait. I don’t have to wait for long. “Sure thing, Princess,” he replies then begins to remove his clothes. I press down on the intercom about ready to tell him to fuck off for calling me Princess, but then he says something else that stills my heart and immediately puts me back in the headspace of the girl who was utterly in love with him. “Ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” I blink at the screen, at his sincerity. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Swallowing hard and pushing those feelings deep down, I scoff, then say; “Just get on with it.” 

Then I click off the intercom so that I don’t do something fucking stupid like ask him to do everything I’ve dreamed of in the privacy of my bedroom these past couple years since he’s been gone. Dragging in another hit of my cigarette, I watch him undress, my mouth dropping open as I stare at the screen, transfixed. He strips right down to his boxers and there’s no denying that his almost naked form is as stunningly attractive as it ever was, but it isn’t his defined muscles or his broad shoulders

and strong thighs that leave me breathless. It isn’t even the intimidating size of his erection. It’s my handprint that’s completely filled in and resting over his heart in a permanent tattoo that sucks all the oxygen from the room and has my own heart pounding so loud that I barely hear my phone ringing. “Shit! Fuck!” I exclaim, picking it up. “What?” I snap into the mouthpiece. “He’s about to take his fucking pants off. Are you still convinced he’s packing?” Dom asks me, undeniable laughter in his voice. He’s certainly packing, I think, my gaze trailing to his boxers and the bulge there.

 “Bring him to me,” I ordered. “Sure thing… And boss?” “Yes?” “He’s a good guy.” I snort. “Tell that to Carter.” By the time Dom knocks on my door five minutes later, I’ve shrugged off the girl who was in love with Syverson and firmly stepped into the role of Louhi. I promised myself I would listen to him, and I will, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to take him back no matter what he has to say. “Come in,” I called out, arms folded across my chest in defense mode that I quickly uncrossed because letting him know I’m feeling out of sorts by his sudden appearance today isn’t what Louhi would do. She is strong, unfazed by anyone, and it’s her grit I funnel as  Dom opens the door and Syverson steps past him into my office.

 I glance at Syverson quickly, willing my heart to stop racing and ignoring the very real need to just go to him, then give a tight smile to Dom. “Need me to stay?” he asks. “No. Get home to Nancy. I’ll see you back here tomorrow night for Ziggy’s fight.” “Sure thing.” He nods once, flicks his gaze to the back of Syverson’s head and smirks, shutting the door behind him. “I should shoot you dead now,” I state, my fingers running over the Glock resting on my desk, internally wincing at the opposing emotions fucking with my head. I just want to go to him, wrap my arms around him, but I can’t. I fucking can’t. “I wouldn’t stop you,” he replies evenly. “Do you have a death wish?” I ask, genuinely interested, and trying hard to focus on being Louhi and not the girl who’s still in love with him. He holds his hands out, palms up. “The only wish I have is for the chance to talk. That’s it. That’s all.” We stare at each other for long moments, and I’d be a liar if I didn’t want to throw caution to the wind and forgive him instantly for everything. But I can’t do that.

I won’t do that. “Drink?” I ask instead, if only because I need something to do with my hands. Without waiting for him to reply, I push back from the table and stride over to the drinks cabinet in the corner of the room, pouring us both a three-fingered shot of bourbon. I take my time, letting him get his fill of my fitted shirt, tight leather skirt, bare legs, and stiletto ankle boots. I know for a fact my knee-length skirt hugs my arse, and the slit at the back gives glimpses of my thighs. He’s not the only one who’s kept themselves fit these past couple years. I spar three times a week with Dom and Mark and train with Cleveland, one of the mercenaries, twice a week too. I keep up with pole dancing as much as I can with Nancy and Matty as well. Exercise has helped to keep my mind focused, sharp. What no one knows is that on my nights off I indulge in copious amounts of junk food to ease the pain in my chest whilst sitting in my threadbare pyjamas, feeling lonely as fuck. There has to be balance, right? With his eyes on me, I grab the drinks and return to my seat, sliding one across the table to him. “Sit.” Syverson nods, watching me carefully as he pulls out the chair and takes a seat opposite me. I will my cheeks not to flush at the intense way he stares at me,but rather than looking away I stare right back, not willing to let him see how affected I am by him. Taking a sip of the bourbon, I wait. 

“Saoirse…” Syverson begins, his Texan accent causing a sharp pang in my chest,  “Louhi,” I retort firmly. “Louhi,” he corrects, leaning forward and clasping his hands together on the table, completely ignoring the glass of bourbon. My gaze trails over his thick fingers and the veins protruding on the back of his hands before I slowly lift my eyes to meet his. I’m pretty sure he was just checking out my tits too. Can’t say I blame him, they’ve filled out some since he left. I guess I’m what you call a late bloomer. “You’ve got five minutes. Speak,” I demand, so fucking grateful my voice remains steady. “You look good,” he remarks, the sound of lust in his voice like a wet dream come true. There’s no denying the need in his eyes and for a second I allow myself to bask in it. To let his words wash over me like a sweet caress. Then I pull my shit together.

“If you’re just here to compliment me on my looks then you can get your arse up out of that chair and fuck right off. I don’t need your compliments, Syverson. I get enough of them as it is.” His eyes flash with possession, and a whole dose of jealousy, but he shuts both down and nods, clearing his throat. “I’m sure you do.” We fall silent again, and I pick up another cigarette, lighting it. He looks surprised but instead of questioning why I’ve taken up smoking, he nods towards the cigarette packet. “May I?” “You may,” I say, inwardly smiling at the way he seems to shift uncomfortably in his seat. I wonder if he still has a boner. The sheer fact he got hard because he knew I was watching him strip makes me feel all kinds of ways. 

Mostly horny, but also wanted, desired. Yeah, I’ve had plenty men want to fuck me, but the way Syverson is looking at me now, it’s different. It’s more. As he leans forward and reaches across the table, his loose fitting, v-neck shirt gapes a little, revealing the top of the handprint tattoo. Now it’s me who’s staring as I remember the day he took me to his tattoo shop and stole my breath with his actions and his promises.

“I like what you’ve done with the club,” he interrupts my reminiscing. I rip my gaze upwards and watch him place a cigarette between his lips before lighting it.

 “You’ve been busy building quite an empire since I’ve been gone.”

 “You sound surprised.” 

“No. I never doubted you.”

 Blue-grey smoke curls up out of his mouth as he speaks and I can’t help but notice the note of pride in his voice. I don’t need a man’s validation, but surprisingly getting this recognition from Syverson means more to me than it probably should. “Yeah, you’re right. I have been building an empire since I banished you,” I reply, forcing all those warm feelings I have no business entertaining deep into the pit of my stomach. Anger is by far a safer emotion right now, and I’m clinging onto it with everything I have. “I’ll rephrase that. You’ve been building quite an empire since you banished me.” There’s a hint of a smile in his eyes that warms a part of me that turned cold a long time ago, and it’s that feeling and not his flirty smile that has me reacting the way I do.

 I. Can’t. Let. Him. In.

 I Can’t.

“Get out!” I snap. Stubbing out my cigarette, I push up from my desk and stride towards the door. “Now!” He twists in his seat, frowning as he watches me yank open the door . “What?” “I said, get the fuck out!” My voice is low, dripping with fury. “Woah, Louhi,” he retorts, stubbing his own cigarette into the ashtray before getting to his feet.

 “Calm down darlin.”

 “Calm down? Calm-fucking-down! No. You don’t get to patronize me.”

 “I wasn’t! Shit! Fuck, that’s not what I was doing!”

 I bark out a laugh, feeling a lot less Louhi and way more Saoirse than I have in a very long time. Saoirse is the one who flies off the handle at the drop of a hat, who’s emotional. Louhi is nothing like that and a large part of me resents that he still has the ability to pull her out of me.

 “Did you honestly think you could waltz in here, flash me a smile, give me flirty fuck-me eyes and think I would fall at your feet like some lovesick teenager?”

 “Well, I—” he smiles again in that infuriating way that makes my heart squeeze. “Don’t you dare!”

 I hiss, slamming the door shut in anger instead of slamming my fist into his cocky face. “Don’t make this into a fucking joke.”

“I’m sorry, let me start again,” he begins, scraping a hand over his face. 

“Fuck, I knew I’d balls this up.”

 “I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not someone you can flirt with and charm, who begs for your attention. I won’t just roll over and forgive you for everything just because you’re back.”

 “I don’t expect you to do any of that,” he replies earnestly as he steps towards me. “I misjudged the situation. I guess I thought—I hoped—that because you hadn’t already shot me dead that we were on better terms than we actually are. I was wrong. I apologize.”

 “The only terms we’re on is me giving you a chance to shoot your shot before I decide whether to shoot you dead for good this time!” I bite back.

 “That’s fair,” he replies, holding his hands aloft as he approaches me guardedly. “I’m just asking you to listen to what I have to say. Will you?”

 “So now you want my obedience?” I shake my head. “Nothing’s changed there then.” 

“You were never obedient,” he retorts, moving closer still. “As I recall, you did nothing but cause me shit. I’ve missed that.” 

This time his smile isn’t flirty, it’s pitted with regret and the barely stitched together wounds in my chest rip open at that. He missed me. God, I missed him too. So fucking much. But I don’t admit it.

“And you were nothing but a tease and a heartbreaker!” I retort, hating the fact that I’m losing my cool so spectacularly, that somehow I’ve moved towards him instead of putting more space between us. “I’m sorry it felt that way.”

 “Are you?”

 “Saoirse,” he says, then slams his mouth shut when I give him a glare that ordinarily would end in someone getting kneecapped. 

“Louhi,” he repeats, still stepping towards me.

 “I never meant to hurt you.”

 “But you did. And that girl you made an orphan? She’s gone now.”

 “I understand,” he acknowledges, stopping a few inches from me.

 “You don’t understand though,” I reply. “You don’t understand anything.”

 “Then explain it to me. What’s going on in your head, Princess?”

 I look up at him unable, or perhaps unwilling, to drag my gaze away. I don’t even pull him up for calling me Princess again because, fuck, I’ve missed him so much. I ache to step into his arms. It’s physically painful to keep this distance between us, but I have a reputation to uphold and letting him back in would ruin mine. No one knows for certain that he killed Carter, but speculation has been rife since his body, or what was left of it, was found. The fact Syverson disappeared the same night my dad did but has turned up alive and well two years later is a big fucking red flag.

Not to mention that he did actually kill my dad. It’s just as well I’ve got the police chief in my pocket, otherwise Sy would’ve been pulled in for questioning the second he stepped back in town. He knows that just as much as I do. “You lost the right to ask those kinds of questions two years ago, Syverson.”

 “You’re right, I did, and it guts me to know that.” He sighs, tracing my features with his gaze. “There’s so much I need to say to you, but all I can think about right now is taking you in my arms and loving you until you understand that I’m sorry.”

 “Syverson,” I warn, but he ignores me and brushes his knuckles against my cheek, and just for a moment I’m caught in his pull, in the chemistry and the attraction we’ve always shared. It’s as strong as it ever was. It’s intoxicating. 

“Fuck, Louhi. Fuck,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing over my lips.

 “Syverson,” I say, trying and failing not to lean into his hold as his palm presses against my cheek and his fingers massage the shaven hair behind my ear. I can feel myself giving in, feel my heart calling out to his whilst my brain screams at me to stop, to think, to step the fuck away from him. “We belong together, you and me,” he murmurs as I struggle internally, wanting to let him in, knowing that I shouldn’t.

He lowers his head slowly towards mine, and in the short time it takes for him to lean closer, Louhi comes back fighting. I shove at his chest, taking a step back and putting space between us. “I don’t belong to anyone, Syverson. I don’t need to be loved by you. I do just fine without that bullshit in my life!” I lie, my chest heaving as we stare at one another. “We both know that isn’t true, because this thing we have, this connection, it ain’t going away. We’re inevitable, you and me…” And he’s right. We are. A part of me, a desperately needy, lonely part that has missed him, has yearned for him, wants him to take charge and pull me into his arms and kiss me stupid. The other part sighs in relief when he backs up. 

“But right now we can’t explore ourselves until you know the truth, and I’m here to give it to you.” “And what truth is that?” I ask, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand. The look in his eyes is enough to make me withdraw emotionally, locking my feelings down, hardening up. Whatever he’s about to say isn’t going to be good. “That I killed Carter not because he wanted me dead for loving you, although that’s reason enough in my book, but because he drew up a contract with the King selling you to that asshole in exchange for paying off his debts.”

 Stunned doesn’t even begin to cover what I’m feeling. I’m fucking stupified, a sudden ringing in my ear drowning out every other sound. It takes me a few moments to gather my thoughts and I have to blink back my shock. “What?” I eventually choke out, the floor tipping beneath my feet as I try to make sense of what he’s just said. “That’s a fucking lie!”

  “I wish it was.” Sy  blows out a sharp breath, my reaction to the truth hurting him as much as the truth hurts me. “I made a new deal with the King as soon as I found out what your dad had planned. I would kill Carter and the King would back off from you, remaining a silent partner in the club. I did it so that I could give you time to build an army so that one day, when the time was right, you could take out the motherfucker yourself.”

 “He was going to sell me to the King?” I ask, disbelief quickly dissolving into rage that fires my blood and makes me wish Carter was still alive so that I could drive the motherfucking knife into his back, just like Sy did that night. “Yeah, he was,” Sy confirms, giving me a look of such deep sorrow that I almost, almost stepped into his arms. Instead, I tip up my chin, straighten my spine and funnel some Louhi energy. Maybe my dad had a hand in bringing her to life, but it was always Logan who fuelled her strength. “Tell me why I should believe you?” I ask, not because I don’t believe him—the truth is, I do—but because I need a moment to gather my thoughts. To figure out what the fuck I should do now.

 “You don’t have to believe me, but if you want to corroborate my story you just need to check the accounts at The Crib Club,” Sy says. “And how do you propose I do that?” “You managed to shut down the case investigating Carter’s murder. I’m sure you’ll find a way,” he says, knowingly. “Yeah,” I retort, already knowing exactly who to go to for help in that department. “Carter was a bastard, and he deserved to die,” he continues, “And what’s more, I’d do it all again to keep you safe.”

 I swallow hard, trying to form the words that just won’t come, because even though I believe him, I have to know for sure he’s telling the truth. When I don’t respond, he swipes a hand through his hair then says: “The only mistake I made was not telling you everything at the time. You weren’t wrong when you said that you didn’t need a man to make decisions for you. I can see just how capable you are, have always been. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of what you’ve built and I’m truly sorry for not giving you the respect you deserved and coming to you with what I found out.” My chest swells with conflicting emotions and it takes a great deal of strength not to fucking buckle, but I stand my ground and remain calm on the surface, even though beneath it all I’m struggling to make sense of everything. I stare at him for a long long time, my throat dry, my pulse racing, my stomach churning and my heart trying its very best to punch a hole through my chest. But I have to keep my head. First I need to check out his story, and then I need to decide what I do with that information. Eventually, I swallow hard and nod. 

“I appreciate you coming here and telling me.” “It’s the least you deserve.” “I have a lot to think about,” I admit. “Yeah, I imagine you do,” he acknowledges. “What are you going to do about the King?” “I don’t know yet.” “Well, when you figure that out, I’ve got your back, no strings attached,” he says, giving me a tight smile before heading towards the door and pulling it open. “Syverson!” I call out before I can stop myself, swallowing back the fucking neediness in my voice. He stills, glancing over his shoulder at me, his eyes flickering with hope.

 “Yeah?” “Are you still fighting?” “Not since I fought against Derby, why?”  “Next weekend I’m holding a contest at the club to celebrate my birthday. Anyone can fight.” “Is that an invitation?” “The winner gets to become one of my soldiers. Are you still a beast, Syverson?” I ask, picking up the glass of bourbon I poured for him and knocking it back in one gulp, relishing the burn. We both know that this is a test, but it’s also an olive branch. The question is, will he take it? “I’ll be here,” he replies, then steps out into the hallway and leaves.

[comorbidityqueen]

Rewiring your brain is like being trapped in a wind tunnel that gets louder with more velocity the more you push your body to work. its endless frustration, angst, and pain. its trying to focus so hard on a movement to the point the movement feels too much to even take. it's trying to correct a part of you that's wrong that may never be fixed. it's the endless effort that takes endless strength that gives you endless pain as a reward. it never gets easy, but you get use to the suffering and the suffering turns somewhat triumphant after so many years. you bend, and stretch and strain every muscle and your brain takes a look at you and shrugs. it's a fight you feel like you'll never win but you keep showing up anyway. why? because you have hope. hope one day things will get easier, hope one day something will align, hoping one day one day at a time will resonate, finally. because the process will be tiring, and slow, and endless but each day you will get 1% better and each day you will have less fatigue and less pain and less hatred. you will make yourself proud because the world won't. they won't understand and you will educate, demonstrate and tell your story again and again and people will look at you and tell you how brave and strong you are, yet nobody will know how hard it takes for you to be brave. to show up and to keep on going time after time after time with your brain on fire. you'll run of out spoons, run out of patience, run out of breath but you will never run out of time, because time is so slow and your brain is even slower. you will fall in love with the process of persistence, because without it the thought of living might come as too much. living with a brain injury is like living in a world too loud, a body too wrong and a mind too strong, and it never ends. we need respite from ourselves.

Neuroplascisity is something that i thought was pretty easily achievable when i first heard the term back in 2005. I thought to myself if i worked hard enough on my recovery, my brain would make new pathways and everything would be okay. My physiotherapist at the womens and children's hospital was like a drill sergeant, and pushed me to my absolute breaking point every day, day after day for months to get me walking again. Sometimes on land, sometimes in the water. I did, learn how to walk again despite the endless fatigue, tantrums and outbursts, yet still struggle today with ankle stability, knee locking and foot drop. I never knew brain injuries changed your behaviour and when it did i lost the person i was. Because despite being a precocious, highly sensitive child, afterwards i had a fury in me like no other. That's what saddens me the most, because i had no control over my emotions yet wanted so deeply to accept and come to terms with what happened to me.

Neuroplascisity is something i work hard at everyday, and is the most debilitating, frustrating experience of being disabled for me yet something i no doubt work on everyday with that little hope bubble in my head saying "keep going, it gets better". Even though my muscles strain, my dysphasia worsens, my brain and nerves feel like they are on fire, my fatigue is next level bad, i keep going and i really don't know why. Some days i think it's because i know how bad it feels to lose your mobility if you don't, and others it's because i spent so many years of my life wishing i wasn't here that i never want to get back to a place where i don't value my life. I think that's a common shared experience among disabled people, yet one able bodied people don't really take the time to acknowledge. For now i keep going so one day i can help someone who feels this exact way have reason to keep going themselves.

[faunabel]

anyway. vulnerable hours with faun again!! have fun being my public journal. below cut cause i ramble for a while but its not a vent really i'm just thinking thoughts that have been stuck in my brains. i hope maybe people who relate may read this and gain some insight from it.

so. a thing i've been healing from lately is my relationships with others. i'd always end up getting close to people who gave very little in return. and i'm very giving if u couldn't tell so i'd start to feel so drained and unloved. but i was naive, and i thought people saying they loved you meant it was true. and i've never been properly loved, so i had nothing healthy to base it off of.

i thought love was self destruction. i thought if i wasn't content with wearing myself down to nothing, i was selfish and not capable of loving others.

i also thought love was desperation. i thought being needed meant i was loved. so i'd attract people who were desperate, not for me but for the affection i provided, and when they inevitably left once i started to let my walls down (and stopped being this endlessly giving person with no flaws), i thought it meant i was unloveable. that i was the problem and needed to fix myself. so i'd break myself into even smaller pieces, trying to find out what was making me so unloveable so i could eradicate it.

but the reality is that those people never loved me. they loved the idea of me. they loved the void i filled in their hearts. but it was never me. never once an interest in who i was and what i stood for. it's the kind of thing where you feel like a god, and god's are worshipped, not loved. gods are given offerings for what they can provide, then cursed once those offerings are proven to be in vain.

i think having developed feelings for someone as i have now has helped me see this. because i'm so so fond of them. everything about them. the words they use. the way they speak. how they respond to things. the things they like and dislike. how they view the world through the lens of their own upbringing.

i just want to know everything. understand them better. and i think that's what love is. i've always thought and hoped and prayed that's what love is, but this has confirmed it for me. love is not what you can get out of someone. love is seeing someone for who they are, not who they Could Be, and wanting to celebrate that. they don't have to do anything for me to adore them.

and that's all i want for myself, too. i want to love and be loved. i want someone to care about me and the things i care about. to comfort me. to think fondly of me. to like my name and my favorite song and favorite color just because i like them. to, for once, not be the one who's taking care of everyone else and receiving nothing in return.

it's still hard to fully accept. i feel selfish. i fear being abandoned if i have nothing to offer, so i feel guilty for wanting to be loved back. like i'm contradicting my own desire and therefore don't deserve it. i've mostly processed this area, and i handle it much better than i used to, but it's still a sore subject.

i'm also trying to learn how to stop shutting down when people give me what i want. someone shows me affection and i just panic. my worry is when, when will it stop? what are their limits? when will they let me down like everyone else? and i frankly dont feel deserving of it. it forces me to look at the years of trauma and abuse i endured. if someone loves me, that contradicts everything i've been taught up until now. with my mother in particular, she'd claim she loves me then abuse me. she'd claim it as she was abusing me. i have to go against all of my instincts to run away and just... relax.

yet part of me wants to run away to see how much they really love me. do they mean it? or is it a false claim like it's always been? a small part of me has given up on love entirely. it's convinced we'll never actually be loved and should just accept a life of giving without receiving. i think that part is a small and very tired child who never got to be a child. after all, how can a child be a child when the world around them is chaos?

i still question my ability to be loved. but i'm trying very hard. there's nothing i want more than to love and be loved. and maybe it's ok for me to want to be loved. maybe it's ok for me to assert myself and not always cater to everyone else. it's something that has occured to me recently... how i read others' needs so easily and rush to fulfill them by instinct. but i don't have to do that? i can actually figure out a way to get both our needs met, and that's not selfish of me. there can be silence in the air. i don't have to be providing 24/7 just because i Can. and if someone really loves me... they'd want to compromise. they'd want to make me happy and accomodate. they'd go out of their way to please me, too. they'd want to give and not just receive. i wouldn't have to sit like a dog at the end of the dinner table waiting for scraps to drop.

but it's still weird. i can't imagine someone thinking of me fondly. caring about how i feel. taking interest in things i like. thinking of me when i'm not around. doing things for me out of love and not because they Want something from me. remembering details about me. accomodating for my needs. caring about my opinions. wanting to understand me and my world. wanting to be around me. especially when i'm sad or mad or anything not cheerful. not providing.

but it is something i want. and also... if someone loves me, it'd be doing them a disservice to keep them from loving me. even if that sounds insane to me. self absorbed, even. but then i also think about the person i have feelings for, and how i genuinely was crying one night because i wanted to show them affection but felt like i wasn't allowed to or supposed to. and it's like oh. it hurt me to not be able to love them so maybe there's something to this after all. maybe love is real. maybe even for me.

[evelhak]

For the character ask game, could you do numbers 1, 10, 12, 16, 18, 20 and 26 for my favorite boy, Hayama? I am curious about every number possible, but most curious about these! 🌟

Sure! I'll just answer the numbers you gave me because I honestly haven't given Hayama a lot of thought and don't think I will be able to do him a lot of justice at the moment.

One reason I enjoyed reading your elaborate headcanons for him so much was basically because I have none. It's hard for me to enjoy reading about characters that I do have elaborate and fixed headcanons for... not because those headcanons are mine necessarily, it's just because my brain wants only one reality. It's the same when I find a canon-continuation fic for a story that is so satisfying I no longer want to read alternatives, in that situation I wouldn't want my own headcanons either, because then that somebody else's fic is canon to me. Sometimes I come up with the thing most satisfying to myself, and sometimes somebody else does, but in both cases my brain no longer accepts anything else. Haha... (It's not completely black and white, there are exceptions and loopholes, but I do lean this way.)

Hayama is still rather free for interpretation in my head though, and I do have plans for an Akashi-centric fic, so I am going to have to think about Hayama too, and this is certainly a good ask for that, so I will think about him now.

1. My first impression of them

Probably something like "Well, I guess we didn't have the acrobat yet."

10. Describe the character in one sentence

A surprising symbiosis of lightness and intensity.

12. Sexuality hc!

I have none, really. I would be inclined to assume he's straight because I don't want to write stories without straight people and the lack of female characters pretty much automatically causes most ships to be queer, so when I do ship characters it makes them queer most of the time, so if someone can be straight they most likely are in my stories, lol. However, this is not a real, fixed headcanon, so your opinions might still have time to affect mine. Remains to be seen.

16. A childhood headcanon

He probably drove his parents nuts by climbing and jumping absolutely everything, like, you couldn't get through a shopping trip with Kotaro without 20+ incidents of having to tell him to get down from that tree, or to stop playing Floor Is Lava on the street, or to stop treating the furniture section as an obstacle course.

18. How do you think they were as a kid?

I think he was a super curious explorer type of kid, who never actually got his fingers burned, so to speak, because of his superhuman abilities, so he never became as careful as most kids do pretty soon, because he didn't need to.

20. A weird headcanon

I don't know if this counts as weird, but I feel like he's one of those rare people who come really close to being exactly what it says on the tin, he's that open and honest, but he has exactly ONE little embarrassing secret that he thinks is way bigger than it actually is.

26. When do you think they were being "themselves" the most?

I guess the previous question kind of answers this already, but I think he's more honestly himself most of the time than most people are. Not that he doesn't have thoughts or feeling that are deeper than it would first seem, but he's simply not someone who spends a lot of time in his head, so what he doesn't show or say is mostly stuff he hasn't thought about.

I hope this wasn't too disappointing. I just don't know Hayama that well yet, and my process of getting to know characters is time-consuming, and I'm always looking for The One True headcanon for everything, the one that makes everything make sense and ties contradictory seeming parts from canon and sometimes even fanon together in a way that is just ultimately satisfying for me. I haven't gone through that process with Hayama. I hope it will happen when I write my Akashi fic!

character asks

[femmefatalevibe]

hello, love!

i hope you remember me. i am that 16-year-old you helped navigate unhealthy hyperfixation regarding my famous, influencer/actor crush at school which i’m very grateful for. i gain a lot of self-compassion and i’m doing great really — had made to be part of the honor roll this term still :) — at least in that aspect of my life, i found the balance between my attraction and triggers to battle my insecurities. i really hope you’re not annoyed at my little drama at this point. i feel like it’s not even a big deal, why fuss so much about it? but i really felt safe opening this up with you through your amazing blog.

so now... i still didn’t make a move but at the end of the month (june), i plan to confess personally because it’s going to be the end of the school year and whatever is the outcome, i had a lot of time to focus on myself and everything’s going to be okay. but speaking of which, i’m kinda worried about because we never even had actual conversation. but i’m almost sure he knew me. through my friend who liked him of course. there was no progress between them and she actually started liking someone else months ago but they barely work out so whenever we’re at campus, i can still see her making excuses just to see him (my crush) though. we also have a couple of eye contacts so i hope that counts.

i am not denying in anyway that i am attracted to him, however, i do not intend to date him IF i actually have a chance with him. i just wanted to have closure and tell him how i feel and so i can move forward (assuming that it’s going to be the outcome given how transparent he is with his priorities and that is is his career) and i suppose it has to do with the fact that i am trying to heal and fix myself as well and not ready to commit to anything yet. i hope i make any sense.

i can’t stress enough how mortified i am just thinking about having to approach him but at the back of my thought it felt like i wanted him to know how i felt so bad. i think i’m going to pass out it sucks. i’m also worried because i feel like i’m betraying my friend who liked him.

overall, i just wanted to ask if am i doing the right thing? what can you suggest? should i still confess? how can i overcome this fear if you think it’s for the best? does this make me a bad friend? i really value your input given that you are the first one to even know this history.

btw, i hope you are doing well :) i genuinely miss interacting with you! i almost cried when you told me you feel like a proud aunt. i look up to you so much. ❤️

Hi love! I do remember you. So glad to hear that you're doing well, and congratulations on making the honor roll! That's a huge accomplishment. Hope that you're taking time to celebrate that <3

Please know that big emotions are SO normal at your age. Every conflict or new challenge feels like it's pivotal in our lives. Fortunately, these feelings mellow out over time as you begin to realize that all of these deadlines, intellectual stressors, and interpersonal relationships are constants – not exceptions – in our lives. Also, brain development and hormones affect this, so please don't be embarrassed. We've all been where you are now (speaking on behalf of myself and the women I know in our mid-late 20s). It doesn't get easier, but you learn how to manage these things. 16/17 is such a pivotal age that I thought this insight might be helpful.

From what you're sharing with me, it seems like his approval of your feelings will offer you some sort of social or romantic validation. This makes a lot of sense given his social credibility, but, especially if you're certain that you like your idealized perception of him versus him as an actual person, I think that it is worth journaling your feelings versus making a blind confession to him – both for the sake of your feelings and your friendship.

However, I do completely get that you want some form of closure to live without regrets. I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to humanize this crush of yours. Have you considered going up to him to give him a thoughtful compliment – whether on a cool jacket or something you enjoy from one of his videos? A genuine compliment is a near-foolproof social icebreaker that is undervalued when women are speaking to men (yet, we, as women, use it on each other all the time, lol). I've heard from several guys over the years that they don't get many specific compliments. So, I think this approach is a kind gesture and makes you more memorable.

Giving a compliment over a confession will save you a lot of petty drama if your friend takes your moment of truth the wrong way and protects your heart from a situation that you already stated is a means to an end. It gives you a chance to talk to him without seeming as though you overidealize his "celebrity" presence and allows the conversation to continue or taper off without leaving you emotionally raw or too vulnerable. The intention of the comment is simple to leave it open to interpretation and reads as perfectly innocent if no further actions are taken.

Just remember this sentiment you wrote for the challenges that lie ahead: "Whatever the outcome is, I had a lot of time to focus on myself and everything’s going to be okay." This is a golden truth to remember over the years (I'm still reminding myself this daily with no foreseeable end to this inner dialogue).

You're so sweet and doing great from everything you've told me!

Hope this helps! xx

[cupuacu]

loooove december break!! i genuinely thought this was one of the most mentally exhausting semesters of my life. it felt like it was never ending yet at the same time like i had 100000 things to do and send it over to the professors like yesterday. and i have never been so bad at communication as i was the past 6 months. i'd forget to say things and when i could say them i chose not to. literally snowballed itself into horrible hurried projects. it all started so chill i literally didn't worry that 1) laptop wasnt working 2) only signed in for two classes 3) i needed to change my table and chair because my back is RUINED. of course that all got solved along the way but it'd be easier if i had fixed those three things back in july break, i think i'm a masochist when it comes to things like this, i see the whip coming and i just stand there motionless. like as soon as it was 12:01 02/12/2023 i felt like i needed to scream freedom lol

then these days honestly i didn't even feel anything at all (other than that temporary extreme relief that it was over). because it just all feels so pointless. i will go thru all of this again next semester because i'm already fucking up now (signed for classes i know i can't handle because everyone tells me "i need to challenge myself if i want to get better", signed for mandatory unpaid internship as if the PAID one i did last year didn't absolutely kill me). part of me just wants to finish this stupid fucking shit by next year (impossible bc i still have like 20 classes left to do). i love architecture but university really sucks your soul out. they (society and the job market) kill your inspiration then they kill your will to live. i look around this city and everything is so ugly and useless and not functional and it tries so hard to look clean and modern it ends up just being fake and empty. if i go into private stuff i'll get insane clients that'll want the ugliest dumbest shit ever built, if i go into the public one the government has no sense of self and just tries to copy whatever's trending on the southeast/south or usa/europe as if it would work or as if they had money. like jesus christ think locally. all these ugly glass boxy buildings are gonna be the end of us, these dumb empty parks are doing more harm than good, stop restoring historical buildings if you're just gonna abandon them again. if i see anything in a beige palette i go in a rabid rage like where is the life where's the originality? sure overly-regional things can be cringe and people in the north and especially in my city have a terminal case of vira-latice. ideally i'd have started uni in 2017 and finished it in 2021 and moved on to whatever the future may hold but im MENTALLY ILLLLLLLL!!!!!!!! did 2 semesters then took a gap year then came back to uni and i'm just as lost as i felt in 2017. I FEEL STUCK IN TIME!!!!!! sure if i had done it "normally" i wouldn't even be here because i would have For Real killed myself. to be quite honest i didn't even think i was gonna make it past 13 years old and here i am 10 years later pushing thru it and all i got from it is that i should've thrown myself out of the damn 15th floor of a building when i had the chance in 2013. like genuinely genuinely speaking whenever i look around whenever i go out society and the world just seems to get worse. i can still see beauty in some things but it feels like staring at a small flower in a world where everything is destroyed. i can distract myself as much as i want to but the sense of doom and the sense of me being a waste of a life NEVER goes away.

and on the topic of distractions i have been using my phone so much it's making my brain go insane so i'm trying to not use it as much (12h screentime.....) sadly i haven't been able to focus on drawing or reading or writing or doing anything that is "by me for me" because i cannot focus. i feel soulless yet so depressed. seeing dead bodies and people fighting and suffering so hard just to live daily definitely made it worse but i feel bad saying that because it's like 'oh no this horrible thing is happening and i can't do anything except watch' bc there's ppl Going thru that horrible thing. i will always have an undying respect for palestinians and i think in fact watching all this made me realise how resiliant and strong ppl can be. and also how evil some ppl can be, i have never seen someone as inhuman as z**nists like the more i learn the angrier i get. and this is silly but sites like twitter (for me at least) there were a endless stream of them. no matter how many i blocked there would always be more. here at tumblr i guess i curated my dash very well and i don't use the for you tab here so i don't see them at all (thank god). yet you'll always find out someome at staff is a z**nist or something like that (same happens in other sites) and it's wow no matter how good my dash/timeline is these are all still a morally failed site owned and/or run by losers and i wish i wasn't as chronically online so i'd delete every account on every website and never use the internet again.

the only thing that has made me sort of zone out and forget life is gaming. i've been playing stardew valley like my life depends on it and sadly i can't even put mods on switch so i'm genuinely #grinding. i'm on year two winter and i got so much stuff already (my first time playing had me on year four fall and i didn't have half of what i have now). also last month my mom bought ssd cards for our laptops and i was able to redownload genshin so i'm playing it a lot again. i really missed kazuha and xinyan i feel like i have a slight delusion thing where characters genuinely bring me joy. also i haven't played genshin in sooooo long my hands forgot how to use the keyboard (and i've been losing fine motor skills lately but i'll talk about that later) and i was so used to playing zelda that i mixed up some of the world dynamics. i'd be like where are the sky islands i need to look at the map from above, why can't i mark things far away with a camera so i can check later, how do i see hero's path i need to know if i've been here before, why is it so hard to aim, why can't i parry, why don't the enemies drop decent loot. and also i'd be annoyed by common genshin stuff like the endless amount of text and dialogue like my GOD let me skip. i don't care!!!! i stopped reading text after the raiden shogun quest now i just skip everything!!!! why are the cutscenes so boring!!!!! why is every archon quest the same!!!!! but i love open world games. i love long quests. i love exploring. i love puzzles. hate the gacha system though. i haven't played in over a year and i thought when i'd come back there'd be 27827383 notifications and primogems STACKED for me to use and yet i wasnt surprised when there wasn't anything bc mihoyo is the worst company on earth and capitalism is the end of us. kinda sad i missed the birthday event and lost a cute fontaine companion though. by the way the flying and diving system is so broken (to me at least) and it's sooooo uncomfortable. my fingers are on the WASD keys and the space key and the shift like jesus christ this sucks. i got too used to using the switch and having a controller and the gyroscope and the comfort of it all lol.

the fine motor skills worsening started this year i think. i can't pinpoint exactly why or when but i think it was a mix of a bunch of things. i've been sedentary my whole life so my bones and joints are all fucked. i've been sitting ans standing wrong my whole life and my bones/muscles just adapted to it so now when i try to fix it, it hurts like hell. i'm pretty sure one of my legs is way shorter than the other. back to my fingers, i noticed that i wasnt able to type on my phone as fast as i did in the past. couldn't move them that fast anymore. felt like there was some sort of lag or glitch on the brain-to-hand connection. didn't pay much attention to that cos who cares how fast i can type. then i wasnt able to type on a keyboard properly, then not able to hold things properly, and now my hands just feel sort of numb and/or slow compared to before. fine for me though, i feel like i need to slow down when i do projects or when i'm gaming. i always get too much into it (and often at the last minute) then my body pays the price. the last project this semester had me up for 2 days and on the verge of an psychotic episode for another 4.

oh and to top it all off my laptop hard drive decided to kill itself in the middle of the semester. it was showing signs of giving up waaaay before that and i didn't know any better and didn't look into it. i'm still very hurt over it. there were SO many photos and SO many videos and documents and audios and music. my lifetime was there. and now it's gone and i still can't believe it. so mamy personal moments and also a lot of work i made and collected just gone forever in the void that is technology. i will never be able to see the baby pictures of my dogs and i won't be able to see the videos i took when i traveled with my family and i won't be able to read things i wrote when i was 13 and i won't be able to see pictures of myself growing up over the years and i wont be able to see all the pictures i saved of my online friends and i wont be able to listen to all the music i downloaded or watch the movies i downloaded or read those pdfs and i won't be able to use the billion autocad blocks that took me years to organize and i won't be able to make a portfolio bc my work and the proof of its existence is not there and i wont be able to play the games i had in those specific save files...... its like it never existed. like i have never felt a loss like this in my entire life. literally my burning of alexandria lol they will always exist on my mind of course, but i must also be experiencing some sort of early on set dementia because i forget EVERYTHING unless it's in front of me. so there's also the loss of the loss because everything i had in that hard drive died and it will also die in my memories.

and my phone fell last month i think and now the camera app doesn't open and i havent been able to take pictures. it's funny cos after i had my iphone stolen in 2019 and had to buy the one i have now (cheap and low quality) i thought i stopped taking pictures of everything. but man these days made me realise i unconsciously photograph things. i try to open my camera almost by muscle memory then watch it close itself and glitch. now i've been trying to write things down or just memorize them, which has been hard bc of my hands and my bad brain. but it's fun. analog almost. i get to appreciate and look at things more carefully with my own two eyes now instead of "ill take a pic and look at it later". and man, is the sky beautiful!!! the leaves are beautiful, the sky is beautiful!!! even the ants on the ground are!!

and its kinda early, but i do feel my body age also. probs due to me being unhealthy and normally old = sick. my back hurts so bad for sitting and standing and existing and sitting on a bad chair on a bad table for years, im really glad for being able 2 go the doc and get physio therapy and my posture fixed. i want a tank to make me flat cartoon style, that'd fix my pain!!! my posture doc kinda is weirded out by me (im too hairy and too awkward) but the therapist doesnt care at all. theyve really be relieving my shoulder pain, i wonder if there's still a way to fix it... itd be genuinely life saving

[lynnaquinn]

My Thoughts on the current emergency

Woke up this morning to see a long list of posts about mutual aid scammers. These always make my stomach drop because I'm always scared my intentions are misread. Especially right now, with our current need. (I guess this is going to be a full thread, buckle in.) We are raising for a move, one that is a serious emergency as if we sign the new lease, we won't have any way to afford things such as food as both me and my wife are disabled. My mom offered my wife and I a place to live, we just have to figure out the how Originally the plan was to have my uncle with a U-Haul come down, but as my uncle and I are the only two without a weight limit and both of us suffer from chronic pain issues (part of why I'm disabled,) this is far from a viable option, so we started to call around to movers Here is the thing, our lease ends at the beginning of July, this is a huge time for moving and companies up there rates at this point of time...but luckily we found one that reduced cost because of my wife and my disabilities. We will be going into a situation that is actually sustainable though, a light at the end of a tunnel of stress, financial horror, and the nightmare of being disabled in a late stage capitalistic society. But unfortunately all things cost. So I've been verbal about what's been going on (as per usual) and how we saw a huge uptick in people moving from our complex. Lot's of people can't afford the new lease that is required of us. How this looks to us is that we either starve or face homelessness unless we go through with the move; this doesn't even include the fact of the safety risks on us where we are currently living (long story, I explain it all the time in my streams.)As the deadline creeps closer and closer, fear and anxiety has destroyed my sleep...I was fortunate last night and actually got 4-5 hours...the past few nights have been 3 hours non-consecutive sleep...this whole thing is flaring up my insomnia. All I can do is think of the future, when we get there, make up rewards for myself that I probably will never get just to keep me from falling into a deep pit of despair. All this accumulated from being in survival mode for a few years now...I feel it in my body...it aches, I can't concentrate on anything except the move, I'm scatter brained to a level that even I'm not used to...but this emergency HAS to be funded...I'm not going to starve or be homeless again.... So I try and push myself harder and harder...seeing the impossibility of this task while still needing to figure out basic costs...I'm not blind to the sheer size of this task, the sheer amount that is needed...it's almost an eldritch horror to me 4 hours of sleep to wake up in a panic, where my brain is just telling me to stream more, I haven't even broken enough for the U-Haul...how could I afford the option that actually takes our disabilities into consideration... Nothing boxed yet because I am frozen in fear....because I face an existential horror that is the no win situation. Only thing keeping me moving is that light at the end...the fake rewards I tell myself, the narrative that everything will be better...It keeps me moving to that goal while inside it feels like I'm slowly turning to stone; my pain and my cognitive issues becoming so bad that I am having troubles even standing upright...but I must push forward...I hear myself when I say the total...mention the $4k, mention how I need to raise the down payment early on, mention the still need for basic necessities that a fix income hasn't allowed us all the while seeing a scammer breaking people's trust while our emergency exists I'm so scared with everything...this situation is consuming me more than anyone can know just by talking to me... it's horrifying, like I've peered into the abyss and the ancient evil that is capitalism blinked...how can I keep on moving forward? But in the end, I have to, I have no option. I can get my wife and I out of this hell, out of the constant state of no real proteins only starches, out of having to choose veggies for one day or pasta/ramen for a week, out of constantly looking over our shoulders... All it took was our landlord demanding us the impossible, demanding us to gather blood from the stone. Giving us the impossible task or forcing us to face a herculean task of raising what we have to in two months time...But I look, realize that this will be the chance for my wife and I to get back onto hormones, to put out the content we want, to actually eat balanced meals instead of noodles or frozen burritos and bologna... To be able to budget because the difference between payout and SSI won't be pennies in our account. A chance to be able to focus on something other than the next meal...So I hold out hope...but I'm frozen with fear...paralyzed at the giant before me...scared of what will happen if I fail...realizing that failure means a depth I've never fallen into...I can't fail...I need to get through this.. But every morning...fear grips me as I scroll...seeing everyone who needs help...seeing a sea of voices...then seeing people who are using this to hurt others. The shadow of it all is oppressive. I can't breath due to fear. I can't even stand straight up...We need to raise this money, we need to make it to my mom's house...we need to survive. This move will save us.3 years of hell almost over...soon we can breath, all we have to do is slay a giant. How can we even succeed?6am and I'm awake and typing this...my inner thoughts waxed poetic about a fucked situation. But everything will be better once we get there, our quest errant finished. A life where we can do the things because I want to, not because we need to...where we can eat..If you want to help and can, my PayPal is 27count@gmail.com and my CashApp is $lynnaquinn We need to use my CashApp and not Naz' because of her disability...just to be safe. It's a lot of money, but I think we can persevere over this giant, we can slay this horror. (copied/pasted from my Tweet this morning.)

[jocielynn-blog]

My feelings on my current emergency.

Woke up this morning to see a long list of posts about mutual aid scammers. These always make my stomach drop because I'm always scared my intentions are misread. Especially right now, with our current need. (I guess this is going to be a full thread, buckle in.) We are raising for a move, one that is a serious emergency as if we sign the new lease, we won't have any way to afford things such as food as both me and my wife are disabled. My mom offered my wife and I a place to live, we just have to figure out the how Originally the plan was to have my uncle with a U-Haul come down, but as my uncle and I are the only two without a weight limit and both of us suffer from chronic pain issues (part of why I'm disabled,) this is far from a viable option, so we started to call around to movers Here is the thing, our lease ends at the beginning of July, this is a huge time for moving and companies up there rates at this point of time...but luckily we found one that reduced cost because of my wife and my disabilities. We will be going into a situation that is actually sustainable though, a light at the end of a tunnel of stress, financial horror, and the nightmare of being disabled in a late stage capitalistic society. But unfortunately all things cost. So I've been verbal about what's been going on (as per usual) and how we saw a huge uptick in people moving from our complex. Lot's of people can't afford the new lease that is required of us. How this looks to us is that we either starve or face homelessness unless we go through with the move; this doesn't even include the fact of the safety risks on us where we are currently living (long story, I explain it all the time in my streams.)As the deadline creeps closer and closer, fear and anxiety has destroyed my sleep...I was fortunate last night and actually got 4-5 hours...the past few nights have been 3 hours non-consecutive sleep...this whole thing is flaring up my insomnia. All I can do is think of the future, when we get there, make up rewards for myself that I probably will never get just to keep me from falling into a deep pit of despair. All this accumulated from being in survival mode for a few years now...I feel it in my body...it aches, I can't concentrate on anything except the move, I'm scatter brained to a level that even I'm not used to...but this emergency HAS to be funded...I'm not going to starve or be homeless again.... So I try and push myself harder and harder...seeing the impossibility of this task while still needing to figure out basic costs...I'm not blind to the sheer size of this task, the sheer amount that is needed...it's almost an eldritch horror to me 4 hours of sleep to wake up in a panic, where my brain is just telling me to stream more, I haven't even broken enough for the U-Haul...how could I afford the option that actually takes our disabilities into consideration... Nothing boxed yet because I am frozen in fear....because I face an existential horror that is the no win situation. Only thing keeping me moving is that light at the end...the fake rewards I tell myself, the narrative that everything will be better...It keeps me moving to that goal while inside it feels like I'm slowly turning to stone; my pain and my cognitive issues becoming so bad that I am having troubles even standing upright...but I must push forward...I hear myself when I say the total...mention the $4k, mention how I need to raise the down payment early on, mention the still need for basic necessities that a fix income hasn't allowed us all the while seeing a scammer breaking people's trust while our emergency exists I'm so scared with everything...this situation is consuming me more than anyone can know just by talking to me... it's horrifying, like I've peered into the abyss and the ancient evil that is capitalism blinked...how can I keep on moving forward? But in the end, I have to, I have no option. I can get my wife and I out of this hell, out of the constant state of no real proteins only starches, out of having to choose veggies for one day or pasta/ramen for a week, out of constantly looking over our shoulders... All it took was our landlord demanding us the impossible, demanding us to gather blood from the stone. Giving us the impossible task or forcing us to face a herculean task of raising what we have to in two months time...But I look, realize that this will be the chance for my wife and I to get back onto hormones, to put out the content we want, to actually eat balanced meals instead of noodles or frozen burritos and bologna... To be able to budget because the difference between payout and SSI won't be pennies in our account. A chance to be able to focus on something other than the next meal...So I hold out hope...but I'm frozen with fear...paralyzed at the giant before me...scared of what will happen if I fail...realizing that failure means a depth I've never fallen into...I can't fail...I need to get through this.. But every morning...fear grips me as I scroll...seeing everyone who needs help...seeing a sea of voices...then seeing people who are using this to hurt others. The shadow of it all is oppressive. I can't breath due to fear. I can't even stand straight up...We need to raise this money, we need to make it to my mom's house...we need to survive. This move will save us.3 years of hell almost over...soon we can breath, all we have to do is slay a giant. How can we even succeed?6am and I'm awake and typing this...my inner thoughts waxed poetic about a fucked situation. But everything will be better once we get there, our quest errant finished. A life where we can do the things because I want to, not because we need to...where we can eat..If you want to help and can, my PayPal is 27count@gmail.com and my CashApp is $lynnaquinn We need to use my CashApp and not Naz' because of her disability...just to be safe. It's a lot of money, but I think we can persevere over this giant, we can slay this horror. (copied/pasted from my Tweet this morning.)

[wolfnanaki]

Nanaki's Late Night Thoughts (2/11/2023)

Ramblings of a trans wolf girl late at night.

When it’s coming to an end, Then why hold back? Why save it for yourself When you have so much to tell?

What is it going to take for me to do the things I actually want to do in my life? I have this weird habit of trying to make everything “just right” before I do anything, and yet it never happens. I have so many story ideas floating around in my head, playing out in my thoughts like an endless movie, and yet I can’t bring these stories to the one format I’m good at producing. I’ll have all these ideas, go home, sit in front of my computer with Word open, and then do nothing. More cycling through YouTube, talking to friends on Discord, browsing Twitter, burning through my finite time in this world instead of following my dreams.

Mom keeps pushing me into getting a Human Resources position because she believes my experience and skills are perfect for the job. She even went as far as to enroll me in a HR certification course, which I succeeded at and got my certificate. But still, I don’t feel like it’s the right job for me, I can’t see myself doing it as a career in five, ten years. I promised myself as a kid I wouldn’t allow myself to waste away at a dull office desk job, that my life would have some fucking MEANING, that I’d reach for the stars and follow my dreams.

I’m enslaved by impulses. Even now as I type this, I had to stop myself from reaching for my phone to play a mobile game. I have to look away from Twitter and other social media platforms that hit my brain in just the right ways that ensure I’m always on them. Looking at and sharing other people’s thoughts is a hell of a lot easier than sharing your own. And there’s always a hot new topic for you to dabble in, just peeking out from the “Trending” tab on the side. Want to see how many people you thought you could trust and respect still follow J.K. Rowling? Want to watch another manmade horror happen live? Want to get swallowed up in stupid debates with loser bitches whose primary goal is to make you upset and haven’t evolved their worldview since they hit puberty? Welcome to Twitter, stay a while and suffer. I’m almost glad Elon Musk is burning it to the ground, though I wonder where all the worst people in the world will go once their stomping grounds are gone.

It’s too late now anyway, So when you feel you have something to say, Why save it for yourself? Don't let those you love get away.

A few minutes before I started writing this, when I went downstairs to make myself a sandwich, I felt my foot bump into something on the floor in the darkness. It was my dog’s chew toy. It’s always in our walking path at night for some reason, and I always move it out of the way because I worry that one day, mom isn’t going to see it and will trip over it. When I started toasting my bread, the toaster started smoking, and I turned it off to look inside. My older brother has a habit of toasting a sandwich for himself every night, and he uses the toaster to reheat leftover pizza too. Whichever the case may be, there’s now a hardened black blob of cheese at the bottom part of the toaster that’s supposed to cook the food. I hope he recognizes his mistake and fixes it, otherwise I’ll have to do it for him.

Ever since I lost my job, I’ve noticed little things like that around the house, but especially in the kitchen. No matter how much you sweep, no matter how many hours you devote to cleaning the place, there’s always something dirty to it. You always feel crumbs under your toes. It makes the whole process feel pointless. I don’t get why mom puts so much effort into cleaning it when it’s always dirty anyway. Maybe one day it can be clean for real, probably the day we move out and spruce this place up.

Mom wants to move up to Jacksonville – or at least near it – since my youngest brother and his girlfriend just moved there. I’m surprised at the trajectory of my brother’s life. He traveled the world, taught English in China, started online businesses for selling tat and books, started dating a girl, and now they’ve moved in together. His girlfriend has a daughter who happily calls my brother her dad. He's 28. I’m 32 and I haven’t even been on a date. But it’s hard to compare myself with him in that way; he’s always been comfortable with who he is and how he presents himself, whereas I’m a trans woman trying to find her body, her comfort and her happiness. I don’t think I can truly open up with a romantic partner if I don’t know for sure how they’ll take me being trans, especially considering the way I look right now. I can’t “pass” the way I am, I haven’t done much vocal training, and I live in an anti-trans state. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t keep trying to live as my most authentic self.

Authenticity – my job, my gender identity, my dreams, my personality. It’s all exhausting but it’s a journey I must face head-on. If I don’t define myself for myself, it’ll be other people who define me for me. And I’ve given years of my life to other people who didn’t have my best interests at heart, who used and discarded me. That’s not who I want to be. Maybe that’s why I’m so hesitant to settle into a Human Resources career. I don’t want to live a life as another person’s lackey. And I don’t dream of labor. I just want to write my stories and life as my true self for the world to see.

And this time there won’t be another day, And now I know This is the only way. And when we go...

Back in December, I listened to a song. It’s called “Constellations,” performed by Dabu and sung by Brigitte Naggar, composed for the soundtrack for an upcoming indie game called Goodbye Volcano High. The game’s story is about anthropomorphic dinosaur teenagers in their senior year of high school having their lives being interrupted with the revelation that a comet is on its way to strike the planet and wipe out the dinosaurs. The player character is a nonbinary pterodactyl named Fang, who must figure out what they’re going to do with their remaining time. The game is billed as “the end of an era and the beginning of a love story.”

The song “Constellations” hit hard for me; its lyrics encapsulated so many of my feelings, trans and otherwise. It’s a beautiful and heartfelt song, but when I listened to it in full for the first time in full that cold night, I couldn’t handle all those feelings at once. I was overwhelmed. I was a sobbing mess for ten minutes. It hurt, but it was also cathartic in a way. I shared those feelings that night in posts, not for attention or anything, but because I desperately needed to share them in case they reach the eyes for someone else going through what I’m going through, and maybe it’ll help them knowing they’re not alone, that someone else has felt their feelings and is healing.

It was that night, influenced by the song’s lyrics, that I came up with a personal motto, one I have now posted on as many platforms that allows for it:

“When the world is ruled by hate, rebel with love.”

So many of our online interactions are defined by hate, outrage, disgust, contempt. No platform is truly safe from that influence because when we feel those feelings, they’re incredibly strong and we NEED to vent them. We spend our time arguing with each other over the most petty things, leave feeling miserable, and then prep ourselves for when we’ll do it all over again. And frankly, I realized that night that I don’t want to fall into that trap anymore. I want to live a life celebrating good, influenced by love and compassion. Because love is so much stronger than hate. Love yourself enough and you can overcome anything. Love strong enough and you can change the world. And when so much of our daily lives are defined by hate, showing true, honest love becomes a form of rebellion.

Right now, I have many parts of myself that paint me as a target for hate. I’m Jewish when antisemitism is on the rise, I’m a transgender woman when anti-trans bills are being passed across the USA, and being a furry, I’m part of a big, openly queer space that’s now also under attack by the political right. I am surrounded by hate, and if I’m not careful, hate will be my end. But that’s even more reason to love. I don’t plan on being a martyr or anything, but I let the hate and fear of other people control my life, then just like when I’m boymoding, I’m not living as my true self.

I’m a trans woman, I’m proud, I’m full of love, and I want to make the world a better place. Whatever dreams or achievements I accomplish before I’m gone, that’s one legacy I want to leave behind. And I hope my words reach people who need them, who find comfort in them, and who come to choose to live a life of compassion and love. We only get so much time in this world, let’s make it worthwhile.

You can see it in the constellations. It spells our legacy above. There was love, there will always be love.

[natashagilstrap]

Part 1

I know writing helps. I know it calms my brain down from the spiral it loves to follow into the depths of hell, it clings to it like a lifeline and it's exhausting but I can't sleep because the thoughts are so loud as they swirl around and around until they all jumble together telling me I'm not good enough. Getting my hands to do the work, to be my mouth as I silently scream helps, it helps so much more than cutting. But cutting, it's an instantaneous relief. All my thoughts slow to a snail's pace as the razor drags across my skin, as the skin splits open and the blood bubbles up. My brain shuts up and focuses on all the danger I just put myself in, everything becomes so quiet….until everything comes rushing back with a vengeance with the added gift of remorse, guilt, self-loathing. The thoughts that scream "You're a coward!" "You deserve so much worse!" but yet also whisper "What did you do?" "How are you going to hide this?" and even deeper down in a purr "Good girl, just one more and it'll all be okay" the coaxing to do it again because the thoughts are so loud and I crave that peace again. Writing isn’t like that. It doesn’t quiet my thoughts, it justifies them, makes them tangible, something I can see and change and shape to what I need. I don’t have to give in and listen, I can change the narrative. But sometimes, sometimes it's so much energy, energy that my brain is using to dig itself into a hole so deep I can no longer see the light of day, I can no longer feel the warmth of love and understanding but only the freezing cold of hatred so deep in my bones that I know I'll never be warm again. I stay in that hole until a ladder is dropped down, until a blanket is tossed around my shoulders, until even the voices are too exhausted to keep going. Writing is like a cave dug into the side of the never ending tunnel, a place to rest and regain my strength, a place to close my eyes and just be. Nothing is expected of me, nothing is forced on me, I just merely exist. Existing with no pressure or burdens thrown on our shoulders at birth, what a life that would be. That is what writing is. It is the only time I don’t allow my own judgements to come into play, I don’t give a shit what that little critic right behind my ear has to say as she slinks through every positive word ever spoken, whispered, hummed into said ear. She curls up and enjoys as I take over all responsibility from her. But that can only last as long as she is comfortable, as long as my thoughts stay quiet and content. It's not a permanent fix to a permanent issue. There are no solutions, no cures for anxiety or depression. They exist in the realm of other non-curable mental illnesses. Sure, you can get treatment and isolate the underlying problem, but remove them? Strike them from your brain like a bad comment made by the defense counsel in a murder trial?

[thelostconsultant]

I wanna be your part-time cat

pairing: Max Verstappen x shifter!reader

summary: You agree to be Max's part-time cat, and you soon realize it's not that bad to share a home with him.

part one | part three

Your friend found it weird that suddenly you became interested in Max, but he was more than happy to tell you everything he knew about him, and he even made you watch some of the races. In your free time you watched the videos you received; interviews, PR videos, and even other drivers’ vlogs. Anything to help you make a final decision, really.

So when there was a longer break between races, you assumed he could be back in Monaco, and you decided to give him a visit to discuss what exactly he had in mind. You were an idiot for considering this, for even thinking about becoming someone's pet, but he had treated you so well in that short time, and it was so good to sleep next to him that you couldn't resist.

“I thought I'd never see you again,” he said with a bright smile when he saw you. “Come in, let's talk.”

Once he stepped aside, you walked inside and waited for his cats to start hissing at you, but they were surprisingly calm now that you were in the company of their owner. Max placed a hand on the small of your back as he guided you into the living room and motioned for you to sit down on the couch.

When he sat next to you and watched you with a curious look, you knew it was your turn to talk. “I'm still not sure about this. I just want to hear how you imagined this happening,” you told him.

Nodding, he leaned back and stretched his arms above his head. “I thought you could move here. You can go to work and move around as you wish, all I want in return is my cat for the night.”

“I'm not your cat.”

“True, not yet, but I can see that you want to say yes.”

Oh, that damn boyish grin he had plastered on his face. He knew he already won, and he was hell-bent on making you agree finally. His eyes were fixed on you, the excitement reaching even them, and you couldn't help but let out a sigh of defeat.

“I work from home,” you informed him.

“Even better,” he exclaimed happily as he put his arm on the back of the couch so he could playfully poke you with a finger. “I like your human form too. Just as beautiful as that ragdoll look.”

Shameless, you thought with a roll of your eyes. But just as it had happened the last time you were here, he slowly got under your skin, and it was becoming impossible to resist anymore. “One month. That's all you get,” you stayed sternly.

Max let out a thoughtful hum as he watched you. “The summer break’s over in three weeks. So, you stay for those three weeks, then you come with me to the next race. As a human, obviously. After that, it's up to you. How does that sound?” he asked with an expectant look.

“If I show up there on your side, people will assume there's something between us,” you pointed out.

He let out a short laugh. “Who knows, maybe they won't be wrong if they say that.” When you gave him a warning look, he shrugged. “I already want to kiss you, I'm only controlling myself because I don't want you to change your mind.”

“Do you even have a filter between your brain and your mouth? Because you could sure as hell use that.”

“I'm just being honest.”

You rubbed the bridge of your nose, already regretting your decision. Being his cat was one thing. Being his girlfriend as he clearly wanted was entirely different. You didn't want the spotlight that would come with that, and considering how much he was traveling, aligning your schedules would be a nightmare. But the most important reason for not being with him that way was the fact that at the end of the day he was still a stranger to you.

“This is your room if you need privacy,” Max explained when you moved in two days later as he gave you a proper tour around his home.

There was more he wanted to say, you could easily tell. “But?”

He flashed a cheeky smile at you. “I'd rather you stay in my room,” he replied casually, seemingly enjoying the way you froze from hearing this. “Come on, I need my beautiful cat with me to sleep well. You knew that's why I wanted you here.”

You slowly nodded with a sigh. “True. Won't the other two cats be jealous?” you asked when you noticed one of them around his leg.

Max picked them up and took a good look at them. “I'm sure they'll be fine. Maybe they'll be happy I'm not bothering them all the time,” he added with a wide smile before putting down the cat.

“So you're planning on bothering me instead.”

“I won't bother you, I'll spoil you rotten,” he corrected you. Before going on, he took a step closer and reached out to tuck a stand of hair behind your ear. “If you want something, all you have to do is ask, okay? Whatever you want.”

“I'm gonna be fine, thanks. If I need something, I'll go out and buy it myself,” you said, doing your best to sound like a proper independent woman despite the fuzzy feeling you got when he made this offer.

All right, it did sound nice to be taken care of, to have a few weeks when you didn't have to worry about anything. You couldn't recall the last time you didn't have to do everything yourself, when you had a boyfriend who would be there whenever you needed his help.

Despite your response, Max seemed determined to change your mind. “You’re stubborn, you know that? We'll have to work on this in the next few weeks,” he said as he leaned closer as if he was about to kiss you. But he knew you were against it, so for now he just used this to help you get used to the idea, to finally start to yearn for it just as much as he was.

It was tempting. You already stepped out of your comfort zone by being here, maybe you should take another step away from it by letting him closer. Suddenly you saw the corners of his lips curl into a smug smirk, and you raised an eyebrow in question to hear his explanation.

“Well, it seems like you'll yield in no time,” he said confidently before building some distance between you. “All right, pack out your stuff then we can eat.”

To make sure you didn't fall into his trap and also to make him behave, you turned into a cat and tried to navigate to the kitchen without meeting the others. But you had no luck, the fellow roommates whose names you'll have to ask from him showed up and watched you from a safe distance, seeming alarmed and ready to strike.

You quickened your steps and eventually ran up to Max who looked surprised to see you. But then he crouched to pat your head with a smile. “I wanted to have lunch with a human being, you ruined my plans,” he said with fake disappointment in his voice as he scratched you under the chin.

Purring is so goddamn automatic that you couldn't stop yourself from giving in. The scratches were good, and you didn't even object when he picked you up to place a soft kiss on your head. He handled you with care, as if you were a fragile thing he had to protect.

“You're too cute for your own good.” He held you in one hand, and picked up his plate with the other to move over to the couch where he decided to eat now that you weren't joining him at the table. Once he put you down next to him, he took a piece of meat and offered it to you. “Come on, sweetheart, you have to eat.”

After carefully sniffing it, you decided to take it from him. A hunger strike would solve nothing, and since you were trying to get comfortable here, you could just as well play along. He shared his food with you, giving you just enough to be full without overeating, then decided it was time for cuddles.

He put you on his chest so you would be close, and he watched you with that same stupid smile as he gave you a massage. Once again you purred loudly, satisfied with the way he treated you. Maybe coming here wasn't such a bad idea. Sure, the other two were still watching you steal their owner from them, but you were so happy that it couldn't bother you for longer than a minute.

You fell asleep along the way, and you were woken up by a kiss pressed on your nose. “Sorry, sweetheart, I need to get up for a minute,” he mumbled sleepily. Did he also fall asleep?

And with that he put you on the couch next to him and left you there on your own. You were annoyed, and as an act of rebellion you curled up between two pillows and went back to sleep. When he returned was a mystery, but when you woke up, he was lying next to you, a hand protectively around you as he slept.

You stood up and stretched your front legs with a yawn, then you stretched your remaining limbs just to be safe, but then he spooked you by speaking up. “Your tail is in my face,” he muttered without opening his eyes. Without thinking, you booped his cheek with your paw and jumped off the couch. That was enough for the afternoon, you wanted to visit the gym before coming back for the night.

So you went to your room and changed back into your human form to get dressed. By the time you were done and stepped out of your room, he was wide awake and waited for you in the hallway, arms folded over his chest as if he was planning to stop you.

“What? Am I a prisoner?” you asked him with a frown.

Max shook his head as he took a better look at you in your yoga pants and tank top, his eyes shamelessly following every curve of your body. “On your way to the gym?” When you nodded, he flashed a smile at you. “Give me five minutes, I'll join you.”

“I’d rather you not.”

“I insist,” he stated, making it clear he wasn't taking no for an answer.

You raised your hands in defeat and went to the living room to wait for him. A part of you was annoyed and regretted moving in, but something kept telling you it was a good thing, that maybe he would have a good influence on you.

What you thought would be a one-time thing kept occurring in the following weeks. Max would pick you up and start talking to you in this hushed, soothing voice, telling you how much better things would be if he could talk to you when you could respond with words instead of meowing.

And you would yield and be around him in your human form, somehow always finding yourself snuggled up to him on the couch while he talked to you about something you weren't even following. Listening to him helped you relax, and more often than not you eventually fell asleep with his arm around you.

One of these nights he carried you into his bedroom, your body pulled against his as you were lying in the bed, and he placed a soft kiss on the back of your head when you woke up and tried to move a little. “It's okay,” he told you, his arm around you holding you even tighter now.

This kept happening, and you felt better and better lying there next to him, feeling perfectly safe when you were in his arms. Maybe you should have left, maybe you should have told him it was time to return to the original agreement, but you didn't have the heart to do it. Because you could have sworn he looked happier now that you were around, and who were you to make him sad?

So you kept playing his game, enjoying how close you were, but as your time together was coming closer to its end, you couldn't help but notice the change in his mood. He told you when you would leave for his next race, which also happened to be his home race, and while you thought he would be happy to go there, in reality he looked sad.

You asked him once, but he just shook his head and shut you out, spending even more time in his sim rig just to avoid you. So you gave up and went to your room, suddenly feeling lonely in this place. You considered turning into your cat form to curl up in a corner of the room he was in, but something told you he wouldn't appreciate it.

For the first time in weeks, you wished you could just go home to your safe place. But you made a promise to stay for a month, to go to the first race after the break with him, you couldn't back out of it now. The best you could do was wait for him to open up about what was bothering him.