#you are WAY more emotionally regulated than you thought possible

[boyczar]

[fishnapple]

Random facts about your person

(I did the reading with the intention for future spouse/partner/ lover)

This is a general reading meant for multiple people. Take only what resonates and leave out the rest.

Your feedback is much appreciated. If you find the reading resonated with you, leave a comment, I’d love to know 🎐

About me | Masterpost Book a reading with me - KO-FI(→ personal reading)

1. Amethyst

• They had changed their living place a lot since childhood. So much moving and travel that they developed some kind of weariness concerning moving, but they still have to do it. Their life is geared towards moving, getting out of confinement.

• Could have an unstable and lonely childhood due to the moving and also due to their caretakers and people around them being emotionally distant. The theme is distance, be it physical or emotional distance.

• They have a feeling that something about them is fundamentally different from their peers, which can result in the feeling of isolation.

• Don't have many friends, but their friends are loyal. Your person could have more older friends than younger friends.

• Secretive, doesn't easily show their true self and their true thoughts and feelings to others. You could be in a relationship with them for years but there will still be some dark corners in them that you can't reach.

• Could receive inheritance from their father's side.

• Once believed in something, it will be hard to dissuade them from it.

• Secretly spiritual, believe in higher beings and spirits, the governing rules of the universe, etc. Have an uncanny intuition, could be psychic. Theirs dreams usually have profound meaning and predictive quality. They could learn things just by sleeping and meditating.

• They actively fight for their beliefs. Could have some disagreements with religious systems.

• Had pondered the possibility of becoming a monk or a hermit at some point. The desire could still linger somewhere in their subconscious.

• Not too keen on being in a leadership position but still be placed in one anyway. Reluctant leader but actually good at it. People could sense a hidden intensity in them so they are intimidated but respect them.

• Look neat and polished. No frill, practical style but not sloppy, still have a certain aesthetic to it. Remind me of a cat, self-grooming.

• They feel cleansed both physically and emotionally while taking a shower. Could have several showers a day.

• Their hand writting is beautiful but hard to read.

• Give off a clean, quiet image but people can still feel some intense sexual energy underneath. Like a nuclear reactor under a calm lake.

2. Agate

• Could appear aggressive and intense at first sight but actually a softie inside. But they only show this soft side to their closest person.

• Love food. Love tasting it, talk about it, making it, and making bonds over it. The best way to make them fall for you probably is through food. Their mood is affected by the things they eat and vice versa, their mood affects their appetite greatly.

• Materialistic, money, assets and good food give them emotional security and satisfaction.

• Usually emotionally stable and calm. They can regulate their emotions well.

• Easily obsessed, with things, with people and situations. Over indulgence could be an expression of a deep sense of emptiness that they don't know how to express in a more healthy way.

• Their energy feels young, look young for their age, or could actually be young in age. There's a childlike quality to them. In their way of thinking, speaking and actions.

• A certain part in their body is considered small compared to normal standards. Likely their hands or fingers or their mouth. Delicate and smooth.

• They rarely have hidden motives behind their actions and words, pure intentions. But somehow are usually viewed as cunning, calculating and sneaky, like they always have hidden tricks under their sleeves. On a lighter note, usually seen as smart, good with words.

• Love to learn, curious about everything, they like to probe deep into the stuff, the people they're curious about.

• Good with animals, animals love them. The one that gets approached by pets of other people. Could own a large pet.

• Their job could involve lots of foreigners. Talking, publishing, writing, negotiating. They're usually favoured in their job.

• Robust constitution, recover from sickness quickly, likely due to their optimism.

• Have hobbies that are considered strange by many. Likely have a collection of strange, quirky things that are considered useless or trash by other people. Odd taste.

• A hoarder. 'Just in case they can come in handy in the future' mindset.

• Might not be too enthusiastic about the idea of commitment and having children. But if they become a parent, they will be their child's best friend and will invest themselves completely in raising the child.

• Deliver jokes with a serious face. Odd timing. Make serious thing sound like a joke while making jokes sound like something serious. You will want to scream, from laughter or from frustration.

• Could have social anxiety.

• For all their childlike and quirky attitudes, they are loyal and serious in love. They are detached when it comes to romance, could take a long time to completely fall in love with someone. They don't like falling, once fallen, it's hard for them to get up and get out.

3. Prehnite

• They feel like their life is governed by some outside, inexplicable force that they can't grasp. Like some higher beings always watch and pull them in a certain direction.

• Strong manifestor. They work hard to get what they want and life treats them well for it.

• Not very in tune with their emotions. They have experienced some losses that prevent them from fully connecting with their inner child. But can appear very calm and down to earth.

• Could have a smothering mother and an overbearing father. Their parents are controlling and demanding.

• Could work in a bank, good at managing other people's assets and money.

• Balanced feminine and masculine energy. As in, they embrace both feminine and masculine traits equally. But whether they express those traits in a healthy fashion is another story.

• Have a tendency to lean on excesses. Emotionally, physically.

• Generous with their money. Also are lucky in money matters. They could lose money fast but gain it back just as fast.

• Like to be the dominant one in bed or at least have control over their partner.

• Like to decorate their living space. It's their sanctuary. They would love a harmonious colour palette and many frivolous decorations. Good taste.

• The way they love is discreet and intimate.

• Will want to stay at home a lot. Usually invite their partner or friends over their home to hang out.

• They have an indescribable fear concerning children. Not that they don't like them or avoid them. But it's more like the feeling of not doing enough, the fear of not being able to provide safety and care for the children. Whatever loss or pain they had as a child, they don't want other children to have that same loss and pain so they can be hard on themselves in their ability to take care of children. 'If I'm not (insert attributes) enough, then I'm not qualified to have children', that kind of thinking.

• Except for the above fear, they are confident in themselves. That comes from having learnt the lesson of facing peer's pressure.

• Have many friends from many different countries and from many different professions. But the friendship doesn't stay too long or too deep. The majority is surface level friendship.

• Teaching might come naturally for them.

• Love learning about different cultures, likely speaking more than one foreign language.

• Travelling is their way to reconnect with themselves. Can be pretty spontaneous, they just pack their bag and go without much prior planning.

4. Flourite

• They talk with their facial expressions more than words. One stare and you can immediately understand what they're trying to convey. Emotionally expressive.

• But could also rationalise their feelings a lot. They 'see' their feelings in their head than 'feel' them.

• They could have lost an important masculine figure in their childhood. That event taught them to be independent. To be their own authority.

• Can have a big ego. Not yielding to other's will. Quietly stubborn.

• Could have moved away from their homeland or at least, have that desire. They want to escape something, a restriction, a rule, an old wound.

• Internally, they don't feel secure about themselves, something is always lacking for them. They seek to build a foundation, alone, but it's actually more fulfilling when they do it with someone else.

• Have a sharp primal instinct. They base a lot of their decisions on the reactions in their body. And those decisions are usually proven to be right. So they could be choosing their partner based on that instinct.

• Could have had many flings and physical connections in the past.

• They considered their ideal life partner is someone that they can have a harmonious living routine with, not just based on physical attraction or compatible personality. They understand the importance of habit compatibility in marriage.

• They take good care of their hygiene and appearance, can be a little fussy.

• Devotional in a practical sense. They will make sure that there's no discomfort in your life. Whatever work or adjustment needed to be made in order for the relationship to work, they are willing to do it, only AFTER they had carefully considered the prospect of the relationship. If they don't see a practical future for the relationship, they will likely tell their partner upfront and end the relationship early to avoid further heartaches.

• Have some creative hobbies that they practice daily.

• Get projected a lot on. People look to them like a saviour or the solution for their problem. This make them wary of codependency.

• Powerful manifestor. Their sheer faith and willpower are enough to make anything happen.

• Something about the snake. They could have a fascination with snake, have a tattoo related to snake or they have a fear of snake.

5. Obsidian

• Cool tone, dark colours suit them best.

• They love the dark, the twilight moment of the day where light and darkness bleed into each other. It gives them tranquillity. Like to walk or swim in the dark, at night.

• Their aura feels like a cool breeze in the middle of a summer night, once in a while, you can catch the sight of white butterfly wings fluttering in and out of vision.

• Can absorb emotional energy around them so they are tired and stressed easily.

• Have a pure, innocent look. Their eyes could be watery, big, full of emotions.

• People could perceive them as vulnerable and timid, someone who is having deep pains inside. Someone who needs saving and guidance.

• NGL, some people can view them as sexually innocent, which could result in some bad intentions. Could also be one of the reasons why they don't like the company of human very much.

• They are very private and prefer solitude over the company of people.

• Have a slow and sensual way of talking. Likely talking less than the other person, a good listener. People feel validated by talking to them.

• They also move slow. Their outer life seems uneventful and slow, but their inner life is very rich and constantly changing. Imagine sitting at the beach at night, everything is quiet and dark but life beneath the surface has just waking up and busy.

• Beautiful, a haunting beauty that make onlookers focus only on them and nothing else.

• Have some daily rituals that are unique. Could have a messy living space. Things unused stay in places unchanged for a long time. Likely forgotten. Not very practical in the day to day details.

• Have rich imagination that can startle people. If they ever write some songs or poems, they will have deep lyrics with ethereal tunes.

• They learn from actual experiences better than textbook information. It is likely that they weren't appreciated for their true talent during their school years. They get more recognition later in life, when they are more independent and are free to work in their own method, where they are allowed to focus on their subjects of interest only and can produce great results from their work.

6. Red jasper

• Fiery and masculine energy, at least in how they deal with the world in general. Fast walker, fast talker.

• Like to be in the position of power and likely in one. Want to be admired and looked up to.

• Could be egotistical and have a superiority complex. Secretly or not so secretly believe that they are better than other people. The frustrating thing is, most of the time, the way they act and the result from their work prove that to be right.

• Could have many enemies, not surprising with the above attitude. But they win their enemies by overpowering them, brutally, and then give out a helping hand afterwards.

• Clever and sarcastic. Like to debate and argue or express their thoughts. Need constant mental stimulation. A voice that can make others listen.

• Generous to a fault. They have a simple mindset about money and possessions. What they have, they share. An abundance mindset, what is lost will be provided later.

• Passionate and a little forceful. Their masculine side is stronger so they can appear domineering and lacking tact. They want actions and results, not poetic musing and teasing that lead to nowhere. The one that leads to somewhere, they will consider.

• All their softer sides are hidden and likely will be projected to their partner. So they likely are attracted to soft, nurturing people.

• Yearn for love but also don't want to get close to love. A fateful love at first sight might be their hidden wish.

• Protective of their privacy and home. They will want to keep their loved one safely at home while they are out there, taking on the world.

• Have a love for art. Likely, visual art, abstract art, impressionism and surrealism are their favourite. Like to be creative but are afraid of criticism.

• Don't like to show their emotional side to the world.

• Nostalgic about the past. The past stays in their heart for a long, long time, both good and bad memories.

• Hide their eccentricity well. People won't suspect them at first glance. Could only show it when their consciousness is wobbly, like when being drunk or sleepy. Could act more childish and silly in those times.

Love.

[causeitsagame]

UNTITLED ANGSTPROMPT THE FOURTH (OF FOUR)

(At some point, I will find a real title and put it up on AO3. Watch this space!)

My thought when posting the previous chapter: "I don't want to draw out a resolution too far, so I'll promise that there is only one more chapter to go." Me, finishing this chapter while upholding that intention and seeing it brush the 9k word mark: "Well,"

-----

Hajime didn't know what to do.

That wasn't supposed to be possible. He'd been warped and molded and repurposed into the world's Ultimate Goddamn Hope, and that Hope was supposed to have all the answers. But he didn't. He hadn't been able to stop the assault on Jabberwock, and the desperate sacrifice play there had been made by someone else.

Plus, he hadn't even known that particular sacrifice could happen. Talents could only be studied if they were demonstrated, and this wasn't the sort of thing that got shown off to Hope's Peak. And so now, Fuyuhiko was bruised and beaten and hollowed out, and Peko didn't know anything more about how those memories were lost, and Hajime didn't know what to do.

He leaned against the ship's railing and studied the water, unsure of what he was looking for.

Eventually, a voice spoke up. "Hajime?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Ryota. "Yeah?"

Ryota pointed to an insulated travel mug. "It's time for this, again. Do you want to…?" He was the one on the ship who wasn't taken much aback by Fuyuhiko not recognizing him, and he'd made fully half of the infirmary visits so far.

Hajime shook his head. Inside that mug was broth from a pot that Teruteru kept simmering. The calories were important; the warmth, more so. Due to injuries, malnutrition, and low weight, Mikan had diagnosed poikilothermia, or an inability to regulate body temperature. She planned to be in the infirmary constantly until it resolved, and that was a good enough excuse not to be there himself. "No. Thanks."

It probably made him a despicable coward, but he couldn't see Fuyuhiko's condition and know that he was responsible for it. He couldn't watch Fuyuhiko look at him like a total stranger and know that it was because Fuyuhiko had cared more about Hajime than about himself. If Hajime had an idea of what to do next, he'd face down all of that in service of getting it fixed… but he didn't know what to do.

Hajime shook his head again, and Ryota silently walked away.

Memories had been burnt away in torture's incinerator and he was the motivation behind it all. How was he supposed to handle that? Seriously, how in the hell was he supposed to manage his thoughts, his emotions? The gutpunch of nausea that gripped him every time his imagination wandered to the infirmary?

Memory loss aside, this wasn't like Izuru. Fuyuhiko hadn't been scoured away and turned into someone else. Logically, that was a huge relief; emotionally, it somehow made it worse. He was still totally him, voice and expressions and powerful personality. There wasn't anyone to identify and retrieve. He was Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, the same as ever… but he just had absolutely no idea who Hajime was.

There were always more tasks to handle on the ship, but no one bothered Hajime as he looked over the edge. He stayed there staring over the water as the sun's reflections moved overhead, and then toward the west.

"Hajime?"

The voice behind him sent a spike of adrenaline rushing. "Is everything okay?"

Mikan nodded, seemingly without any emergency coming along with her. "He's doing better today, I think. But I just… I'm sorry, but I've been with him for twenty-two hours, now. Could you maybe—"

"Oh, God, sorry," Hajime interrupted as he caught up. Now that he bothered to pay attention to anything besides his own misery, he could notice the dark circles under Mikan's eyes and the way her fingertips trembled from exhaustion. He hadn't set foot in the infirmary since the last time she'd taken a sleeping break, and so he hadn't realized how long that'd been.

"No, I'm sorry!" she instantly countered, and held up one of her shaking hands. "I shouldn't need to sleep, but I just nearly dropped a—"

"I've got him," Hajime promised Mikan, and clutched that hand. "Go rest."

She nodded. "I'm only doing a few hours at a time, so I'll be back soon!"

"That's…" Sighing, Hajime let her go. It was probably no use ordering her to look after herself with more than a nap here and there. Well. Time to check on Fuyuhiko.

Peko was waiting outside the infirmary door, and looked as tired as Mikan but far more composed. "You did come," she said with mild surprise.

That hadn't been judgment, but it sure felt like it. "Yeah. Sorry." Hajime ran a hand across his face. "It's just been hard."

"I can only imagine," Peko agreed, with what sounded like real sympathy.

"You look like you could use some sleep, too. I'll be here, if you want to go."

Peko hesitated, but nodded gratefully and stepped away. She turned to look over her shoulder as she left, like she was verifying that Hajime would actually manage to set foot inside the infirmary.

He did so before he could lose his nerve, and was relieved to see Fuyuhiko sleeping. Good. No conversation, no lack of recognition.

First, Hajime reached for a thermometer and aimed it at Fuyuhiko's forehead. Cooler than he should be, so it was no wonder his fists were clenched around a blanket that couldn't keep him warm enough. Hajime reached over and tapped a message window, calling for more hot broth from the galley.

Fuyuhiko was watching him when he turned back.

Hajime jolted, and took a step away before he could help himself.

"So," Fuyuhiko said wryly, and tilted his head toward where his chart hung on the wall. "The guy responsible for all of that." To Mikan's dismay, she'd run out of room when she started listing his injuries. She'd needed to add multiple pages.

Swallowing, Hajime said in a thick, heavy voice, "Yeah. Guess so."

"You never told me why I apparently gave so much of a shit about you. And neither will anyone else." What good humor was in Fuyuhiko's expression flattened into nothing. "You'd think I could get a simple question answered, after everything."

"We…" Hajime looked away. "I'm your best friend." That was the simplest answer.

"Bullshit. I don't have friends."

"Yeah. That's what you told me." It was easier to talk if he didn't meet Fuyuhiko's gaze, and so Hajime kept his attention on the wild landscape beyond the portholes. "But after everything, we were friends. And you realized Peko was actually your friend, too, outside of the clan. And there are other friends here, too. We all care about you."

"'After everything?' After what 'everything?'" Annoyed, Fuyuhiko snapped, "Mind looking at me when I'm talking to you?"

Miserable, Hajime turned back toward Fuyuhiko and the nearly countless injuries he'd taken for Hajime's sake. "After getting away from the… the bad things that you remember. We're all together after that, and we're your friends."

"And you're my 'best friend.'"

"Yeah."

"Who I did this for." Fuyuhiko lifted a forearm, showing off what remained of intricate tattoos. They were marred by a twisted burn scar and jagged, mismatched lines where some deep cuts hadn't healed together in proper alignment.

Hajime closed his eyes and inhaled a shaky breath. "I tried to stop you. You wouldn't listen to me."

"Must've been a reason for it, beyond you being my 'best friend.'" The words came out twisted, mocking. "Why'd I do it?"

"You shouldn't have," Hajime said morosely. "I'm not worth what you went through."

"Not worth it? What, I acted like an idiot when I signed up for this? You're saying that I fucked up?"

Hajime clenched his jaw and didn't respond. He didn't know what to say and every word was just making things worse. The two of them had talked so easily to each other that he didn't know how to handle this reset.

"So," Fuyuhiko said, still with the mocking tone he'd used on Hajime. He looked expectantly toward the new arrival waiting with his latest broth delivery. "Are you one of my best friends, too?"

Hajime turned to the door and winced. Of all people to have gotten that message he'd sent.

Mahiru paused, then said in measured tones, "I wouldn't use that term, no." She stepped into the infirmary and presented Fuyuhiko with his latest meal.

He didn't take the offered mug. "Huh. You're the first person who's had any sort of problem with me," Fuyuhiko noted with genuine curiosity. "Everyone's just been shoveling bullshit to keep me happy. So, what's your deal? What'd you do?"

"What did I do?" Mahiru repeated, uncertain.

"When we were all… y'know."

"Ah. Right." Mahiru set the mug down next to him when he refused to take it. "Propaganda, basically."

"Makes sense. You're…" Fuyuhiko squinted at her, then looked abruptly pleased as his scrambled mind put something into order. "Photography, right? Koizumi?"

She brightened. "Oh! You do remember things. It sounded like you'd forgotten everything, but I guess not. That's great!"

Hajime looked miserably at the floor and said nothing.

"Great?" Fuyuhiko echoed. "I thought you didn't give a shit."

Mahiru perched on the edge of a nearby counter. "We… didn't get along for a long time, but by now, we do. We'll never be each other's first choice to spend time with, but we're honestly fine."

"Fair enough." Fuyuhiko considered her, then asked with a wicked grin, "What happened? You sound like you're dancing around land mines."

Uneasy, Mahiru darted her gaze toward Hajime. "Does he know?" she asked in a strained whisper.

"No, I don't think so," Hajime whispered back. "Probably needed to forget about the whole process."

"What are you two whispering about?" Fuyuhiko demanded.

Mahiru inhaled. "Okay. You're going to find this out, so let me just tell you. To stop being those awful people, we went through a virtual reality simulation. But it went wrong and people started killing each other."

"Virtual," Fuyuhiko repeated without any gravity, clearly picturing some sort of small-scale experience. "So, what, you killed me?"

Mahiru blinked at him hard, then scowled.

Unconcerned, Fuyuhiko corrected to, "Or I killed you?"

"You were going to," Mahiru admitted. "But Peko stepped in."

"Well. Makes sense." Fuyuhiko grinned more broadly and honestly than a face that injured should be able to. "Guess that explains why we're not each other's favorite people, huh?"

Mahiru couldn't help but laugh a bit. "Well, obviously. Anyway, drink your broth. You're supposed to have it while it's hot."

Still smirking at her, Fuyuhiko reached for the insulated mug and lifted it like he was making a toast, then took a drink. She apparently took that as both thanks and farewell, and left the infirmary with light steps.

Hajime stared after her. Fuyuhiko was getting along better with Mahiru than him? Mahiru?! What the hell was going on?

"I'll get some more sleep," Fuyuhiko announced when he'd finished. "So you can stop looking ready to shit yourself."

Hajime could argue with that assessment, but he wouldn't make a very good job of it. With fresh sighs, he stared out the porthole until Fuyuhiko had fallen asleep, then waited aimlessly for Mikan's return.

Days passed like that.

Fuyuhiko's purple bruises faded to green and yellow. Thinner cuts disappeared into barely-there scars, while deeper gouges healed under Mikan's stitches. The hollows under his eyes and cheekbones didn't look quite as cavernous, and he finally managed to sleep through the night without waking up shivering. But he never recognized Hajime.

Hajime Hinata did have a talent that Hope's Peak had never cared about, and that was caring about people. But he wasn't allowed to use it, now. Izuru Kamukura had every talent on the planet. But none of them were any good, here.

He couldn't take this any more, Hajime told himself as he stared at nothing. Fuyuhiko had graduated to actual food, but with the scope of his lingering injuries, he still stayed in the infirmary. That meant that he yet needed to be brought his meals, and once Mahiru had held a successful conversation with him, everyone else was willing to try.

"You lied to me!" Kazuichi insisted. He was next to Fuyuhiko while Hajime stood just outside the door, but voices carried.

Fuyuhiko shrugged and slid a spoon into the thick, hearty stew he'd been handed. "Probably, yeah."

Kazuichi gasped, betrayed.

"You're easy to fool and you panic in a crisis," Fuyuhiko continued. "I remember that much. And you want to believe in people."

Though Kazuichi's offense deepened with the first two additions, the last one softened his outrage. "Well, yeah. I didn't know how you were going to get out of it, but when you said you had a plan to save everyone, I believed you. One hundred percent."

Fuyuhiko smirked. "As expected."

"Jerk," Kazuichi snorted, but the easy back-and-forth had him happier than he'd been ever since they saw the invading forces on the radar. "Hey, so, what else do you remember about me?"

Fuyuhiko made Kazuichi wait until he'd chewed and swallowed a mouthful. "That's a pretty damn big ask. Narrow the scope a little."

"Okay." Kazuichi screwed up his face in thought. "What's the first thing you remember about me after we woke up?"

"Woke up?" Fuyuhiko echoed.

"On the island."

He shrugged. "I got rid of all of that. People have told me there was a program, but I must've thought it was too risky to know about."

"Oh." Dismayed, Kazuichi considered, then tried again. "Uh, okay… what about when I showed up to class in a suit?"

Staring at him for a long, considering moment, Fuyuhiko abruptly laughed. "Fuck, you looked ridiculous. To 'impress Miss Sonia,' right?"

Kazuichi grinned, delighted. "I saw you go off to handle some family business, and you looked a lot cooler than in your uniform. I thought maybe it'd work for me, too."

"It didn't," Fuyuhiko said, then rolled his gaze thoughtfully upward. "Heh. Guess there's more in there than I thought. Even if it's nothing that really matters."

"No, this matters. It matters like you wouldn't believe!" Cheerfully, Kazuichi clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll let you eat, all right?"

"Finally," Fuyuhiko agreed, but with no real rancor.

Still in bright spirits, Kazuichi moved for the door, only to process that Hajime had been listening in with an increasingly gutted expression. "Uh. Sorry, man," he whispered, and hurried down the corridor.

Well. The good news was that Fuyuhiko was feeling better. His pain tolerance was beyond description, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it. Now that he was on the mend, and his pain steadily ebbed and his body again functioned like it should, his overall mood had followed suit. That'd opened him up to bits of nostalgic connection with the people brave enough to try it.

The bad news, Hajime thought as stepped away to let Fuyuhiko eat in privacy, was exactly the same as ever. To Fuyuhiko, Hajime was still as much of a blank void as what he'd been turned into during the Kamukura Project.

Had Mahiru really been the one to set this off? She'd practically skipped into the mess hall and announced that Fuyuhiko had remembered specifics about her, and that sent a jolt of optimism across the entire group. Which made sense. It was logical. But it still just seemed so odd that she—of all people—had been the first ray of real hope for Fuyuhiko.

Of course, Fuyuhiko had clearly appreciated that Mahiru had been the first 'stranger' to be honest with him about any darker topics. Maybe there was a lesson in that. Hajime waited, and considered, and eventually decided. He steeled his nerves and walked into the infirmary. Without preamble, he asked, "So. You really want to know why you did this for me?"

Fuyuhiko blinked. "Obviously," he said and set aside his empty bowl. Finally, he looked interested in something that Hajime had to say.

How to approach this? "When we were at Hope's Peak," Hajime slowly began, and took a chair near Fuyuhiko, "I got experimented on."

"Experimented?" Fuyuhiko repeated. His brow furrowed. "How?"

"They wanted me to be able to do more things," Hajime summarized, neither wanting to get bogged down in the details nor to relive his own horrors by doing so. "It involved a lot of surgery and some… other stuff."

Fuyuhiko's gaze grew increasingly curious as he studied the scars running across Hajime's forehead. "'Do more things?' What can you do, then?"

"Anything." Fuyuhiko's curiosity and good mood vanished at the seemingly flippant reply, and Hajime insisted, "Seriously, anything. That was the point of the project. Medicine, combat, languages… anything. And they did some physical development work to support all of those talents, too."

Fuyuhiko waited with obvious incredulity, but did look impressed when Hajime reached for a small dentist's mirror and bent its metal handle as easily as if it'd been a plastic straw. "Well, shit. Looks handy."

"Yeah. In theory, I could even try to fix your memories." Fuyuhiko also looked interested in that, but Hajime shook his head. He'd seen an answer to that question very quickly, but it had come with the simultaneous, gutting realization that there was no possible way to get access to what he'd need. And so, it hadn't really been an answer at all. "I can't actually do that," he clarified. "Ten different navies would be on us before we docked the ship."

Disappointed, but not surprised, Fuyuhiko shrugged. I knew what I was in for, the gesture seemed to say.

Hajime hesitated before continuing, trying to straighten out the mirror's handle as he did. His voice was quiet when he did speak. "There were side effects, too. Some… some really bad ones. But the school didn't care what happened. I was just their lab rat."

Silence answered him, hanging painfully heavy. A good ten seconds ticked by on the infirmary's clock. After that pause, Fuyuhiko concluded, "And they probably want their lab rat back."

Hajime looked at the floor and nodded.

"So… this isn't a one-time thing, then," Fuyuhiko slowly continued. "They'll always want to get ahold of you."

Hajime hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."

"Then I'm going to have to do this again."

The words stabbed terror through his heart. "Never," Hajime instantly spat. After a deep breath, he strove for humor, but only sounded agonized as he forced words through his tight throat. "I mean, you don't care about me, right? No need to do anything for me again."

Fuyuhiko's gaze darkened. "If I think something's worth doing, I stick to it. Even if I don't remember why now, I must have had my reasons then."

Fuck it all, why was he so kneejerk stubborn? "They are never, ever getting their hands on you again. I won't let it happen."

"You won't let? I don't take orders from you." Dark memory filled Fuyuhiko's gaze, and he muttered, "I remember being in charge. I was giving the orders. If this is what I decided I need to do…"

The thought of Fuyuhiko getting captured again filled Hajime with panic; the thought of him willingly walking back into hell had him practically delirious with it. "Well, you're not getting past every single person on this ship. We're not letting you throw yourself away again!" By the end, Hajime stood and was nearly shouting.

Instantly obstinate, Fuyuhiko leaned forward, uncaring of the fragile figure he still struck in the hospital bed. "I'd like to see them try and stop me."

A disbelieving laugh broke free. "Oh yeah? Look at you!" Hajime cried before he could help it, and gestured to the mess two months of torture had made of Fuyuhiko. "Say you could actually get past us. You think you could really head back for more?" Even as he said the words, he knew they were a critically wrong move.

Fury sparked behind Fuyuhiko's eye. "What, you think I can't take it?"

"Will you just—"

"Fuck off! From what I've heard from everyone, I'm who saved their asses last time, not you! Me, not some superpowered lab rat!"

Electricity seemed to run down his spine, and words poured out of Hajime before he could stop them. "You know what, Fuyuhiko? No. No, you can't take another round of this. You barely survived this one."

"Don't tell me what I can't do."

"Lose even another couple of kilos again, and you will fall back into poikilothermia and die in a torture chamber. It's not a question." Hajime leaned forward and propped his weight on the side of Fuyuhiko's bed. "You are not taking the bullet for me again. Because—listen carefully—you. Can't. Do. This."

As expected, nothing filled Fuyuhiko with fury like the implication of weakness. This was far from weakness, but was the simple limit of how much any human could take. Even so, it landed as terribly as he knew it would, but Hajime just hadn't been able to stop the words from pouring out. Spending this long mired in misery and guilt had worn away his defenses; hearing that Fuyuhiko was already planning for more torture and certain death lit a fuse.

"Get out," Fuyuhiko spat, looking ready to lunge out of his hospital bed with his hands aimed for Hajime's throat. "And don't let me see your face again."

"Heard that one before," Hajime said tiredly, and walked for the door. Once there, he turned. "You're not going to throw your life away for someone you clearly don't give one single shit about."

"This has nothing to do with you. This is about me and what I decided to do. Now: get out."

Hajime managed to round two corners before the first ragged sob ripped free. He leaned against a wall and wiped away hot, angry tears with a rough swipe of his wrist. Shit. Goddammit.

Trying to be honest with Fuyuhiko had been one bad fucking move.

Soon, he found himself doing engine repairs three months ahead of schedule, just so he'd have something to focus on. His hands stayed busy, his mind stayed quiet, and his heart hid in a corner and didn't dare to speak up. It worked for hours of distraction, but eventually, the dinner chime sounded. He didn't want people to come looking for him, and so Hajime tiredly headed to the mess hall. He'd sit by himself.

Everyone was there, save Fuyuhiko. Nearly all of the people who made up Hajime's world were right here in this one room. It was a dozen different shades of 'loud,' from laughter to arguments to excitement. Looking at them, no one would think the group had been chased from their home mere months earlier.

They probably want their lab rat back.

But they had been chased off Jabberwock, and they'd barely made it out alive. Because Hajime hadn't kept any of these people safe, despite being the military's biggest target.

They probably want their lab rat back.

He'd let that happen to Fuyuhiko.

They probably want their lab rat back.

The soldiers were going to keep coming.

Through dull eyes, Hajime looked around the room and imagined bullets ripping through skulls. The men targeting them planned to kill everyone besides himself, Sonia, and Fuyuhiko, right? And the other two would face torture until their knowledge was wrung dry. (…More torture.)

And what did they have to face those entire military fleets when they did inevitably come? Not a full island chain with its own defensive capabilities, like they'd used last time. No: now they had a ship, singular, and one helicopter. They'd failed before, and now their situation was even worse.

Hajime was pretty sure that he could single-handedly take over another vessel, if it came to that. But he'd need the opportunity to do so. If a battleship or submarine sent a torpedo at them from a kilometer away, he'd never get that chance.

If soldiers came for him again, all of these people would die or end up in torture chambers. Hajime wouldn't be able to stop it. And so, once again, he didn't know what to do.

At the end of his fatalistic survey across the room, Hajime's attention lingered on someone. Memories whispered, almost too softly to hear at first, until he really listened to what they said. His expression shifted slowly, from misery to uncertainty to realization.

Oh. Oh. Of course. He should have seen this sooner.

Nagito only looked up after the lightbulb had gone off. He blinked in confusion over Hajime blatantly staring at him, and gestured to himself like he expected a question to be asked. Hajime shook his head once. No need to ask a question; Nagito had already given him an answer.

Yes. Right.

That had been the answer, all along.

He just hadn't wanted to admit what was being asked of him.

At the end of his brief dinner, Hajime stood and walked over to another table. "I'm taking the chopper," he whispered to the Imposter. "I'll be back later."

That earned a confused blink. "What's happening? Do you need a co-pilot?"

"No. It'll be quick, I'll be back by morning. I just didn't want you to wonder where it was."

"All right." The answer was uncertain, but Hajime didn't bother offering reassurance or clarification as he walked off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nagito hurry over to talk to the Imposter. "The helicopter?" Nagito repeated with surprise, and Hajime sped his pace. He didn't want to deal with any sort of explanation.

Soon, the helicopter lifted smoothly off its landing pad under his controls. He tilted it toward the southeast, and as he circled around, noticed that he was being observed by a white head of hair dyed the colors of sunset. Hajime returned his attention to the sky and flew onward.

Two hours later, he descended toward a pitch-black expanse carved out of another forest. There were many such abandoned military bases around the world, and with a global power shortage, they weren't bothering to keep the lights on. Many of the supplies here had been carried off, but not all; they'd gotten the helicopter he was flying from this same base, along with enough replacement parts to last them a decade.

Using only moonlight and starlight, Hajime located a runway and used it as a landing pad. As he hopped out of the craft and to the ground, he hoped that the Canadian forces hadn't carried off what he needed as they pulled back to defend Vancouver.

Cracks ran across the tarmac, and weeds pushed through. Once, this had been a world-class facility for world-class soldiers, but so much had been abandoned when half the world fell. Those soldiers were now after him, Hajime reminded himself. They were after his friends. And they had hurt one friend in ways that he couldn't even describe.

Steeling his resolve, Hajime hurried through the crisp, chill darkness in search of a way to stop all of those soldiers from ever getting a second chance. His light, precise footsteps echoed across the sprawling pavement and between the concrete buildings. Only the soft cries of nearby owls interrupted him. This once-bustling base was silent, now, and the natural world was beginning to reclaim what humanity had abandoned.

Aha, Hajime saw as he trailed heavy cables across the ground and found the control box that collected them. It was attached to a concrete block of a building, unlabeled and unremarkable. Here it was. Not bothering with niceties, he kicked at the door like he was trying to drive in someone's chest, and proceeded inside when it wrenched off its hinges.

Relief soon swept him. Yes. They'd left behind exactly what he needed.

With the assistance of a few spare duffel bags, Hajime began scooping up every piece of abandoned telecommunications equipment left in this control room. Their group had been using that slow, secretive frequency, but it was time to take a different approach. Trying to duck down and hide in the shadows, as they'd been doing, could only protect them for so long. Hajime refused to be the prey again, left to be tracked and discovered.

As he exited the building, a gust of wind whipped past and caught a tattered flag left on its pole. Red and white. For a moment, Hajime was back walking through the ruins of military bases with a red sun flying over them, rather than a maple leaf. Those were the soldiers most desperate to find him. Although they had allies around the world who also sought the Remnants, it was Japanese forces who'd led the assault on Jabberwock and captured Fuyuhiko.

They'd regret that.

Confident that he'd found all that he needed, Hajime loaded the duffel bags into the helicopter, refueled, and set back off for their hiding place near the Alaskan Panhandle. There were still hours of darkness left when he landed. He should sleep, first, to make sure he had a clear head. He was trying to change the world, after all.

Well into morning, his efforts were going well. Hajime had taken over the control cabin of the ship, as he needed access to some of its systems. His in-progress work with the military electronics he'd raided already covered half the room.

"Hajime?" Nagito asked as he stepped into the control room.

He didn't look up from his work. "Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

Still studying the electronics in front of him, Hajime smiled. It might be a dark, unbalanced expression. Nagito's behavior inside the simulation had served as his inspiration, after all. "You'd probably say something about 'creating hope.'"

Silence. Then, "Whose hope?"

That earned another smile. "Good question." Nagito didn't say anything else, but neither did he leave. Eventually, Hajime continued, "Nagito. I want to ask you something. About the Funhouse. When you learned the truth about us, what ran through your head?"

Those soldiers on Jabberwock had come hunting for Hajime, and they didn't care who they'd hurt in the process. No, that wasn't right: they'd come hunting for Hajime, and they would gleefully slaughter most of his friends if they got the chance. Those who they didn't slaughter, they'd torture.

And not just torture, Hajime knew as he thought about what was left of Fuyuhiko, but destroy. Utterly. The so-called good guys would rip out everything that made up the people he cared about. Those men who'd come for Hajime and the men who'd done this to Fuyuhiko could make zero claim at being on the side of good, despite all claims to the contrary.

Nagito's concern deepened at the seeming non sequitur, but he still didn't try to pull Hajime away from whatever he was working on. After that long pause, he answered, "I had to stop everyone. Before you hurt anyone else."

"Right. Exactly." Hajime reached for a wire and stripped its coating. "You asked whose hope I'm creating, so: our hope. I apparently have to pick, and so I pick our hope." He'd might have been created as the world's hope, but his world had been reduced to the people on this ship.

There was another long pause from the man at the door. Hajime wondered if Nagito would demand to know exactly what he was planning, or would spout off more speeches about how the entire world's hope rested in his hands. But no. After that aching pause, Nagito simply murmured, "I understand" and turned, closing the door behind him.

Hajime nodded and leaned back in to his work.

It took him eight days, and he barely left the room until he was done. Fuyuhiko was probably relieved about that.

At the end of those eight days, when Hajime was sure that his plan would work, he walked to the infirmary and was surprised to find it empty. A quick check of the roster told him that Fuyuhiko had moved to a normal room, right next to Peko's, and Hajime headed there with purpose. Even if Fuyuhiko connected with every other person on this ship better than with Hajime, it was doubtful he'd willingly spend much time socializing.

As expected, the door opened, and the face behind it wasn't happy. "Well," Fuyuhiko said shortly, and studied him. He looked much healthier than before; once he'd made it through the worst stretch, he'd apparently improved rapidly. A thick sweater appeared to be enough to keep him warm. "You listened to me for a week, at least."

Right. Fuyuhiko didn't want to see his face again. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm doing something for you on deck as soon as it gets dark," Hajime levelly said. "You don't have to come. But if you look through the porthole and wonder what you're seeing, you'll know what's up."

Fuyuhiko blinked. "Huh? The hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't worry about it."

"If you're doing something for me," Fuyuhiko snapped, "without my permission, then I'm gonna fuckin' worry!"

"So, we're talking about asking the other person's permission, now?" Hajime said, and didn't try to soften how pointed the words were. "Anyway. You can come if you want, or not." He turned and left without further explanation, leaving Fuyuhiko blinking behind him.

Even if Fuyuhiko hated him, and even if he never wanted to see Hajime again, Hajime was his best friend. He was going to take care of Fuyuhiko and stop what had happened from ever, ever repeating.

Whether Fuyuhiko wanted him to or not.

And he was going to protect everyone else, too, Hajime calmly told himself as they joined him on the deck. Those soldiers never should have been able to sneak up on them, and the local radar never should had been the first warning sign they had. If he'd protected his friends to begin with, none of this would have happened.

Confusion ran wild. All everyone knew was that Hajime was working on something supposedly important, with components taken from a military base, but there were no weapons to be seen. He didn't look aggressive, either; if anything, he looked eerily calm as he stared up at the sky.

"Mind clueing us in?" Akane demanded, hugging herself tightly. She treated the cold as an opponent, and she always hated to admit defeat. At least she'd relented into putting on a pair of sweatpants, but she still refused to wear a coat.

Hajime smiled slightly at the sight, and of everything he knew of her. He'd protect her, too, like he'd failed to do on Jabberwock.

"Seriously," Hiyoko complained. She too had resisted dressing for the increasingly cold weather, but she'd finally given in at the first dusting of snow. As Mahiru leaned over to pull her in to a warmth-sharing hug, Hiyoko wondered, "What have you even been doing, anyway? Did your big fight with Fuyuhiko make you turn tail and hide for that long?"

It probably wasn't a surprise that secrets spread quickly within tight quarters. "Simple," Hajime said, and looked back up at the night sky. "I'm doing what I should have done before all of this happened in the first place: protecting everyone."

"How?" Kazuichi asked, audibly nervous. "Didn't you go to, uh…"

"A military base?" Nagito concluded. He wasn't outright nervous like Kazuichi, of course, but even he sounded at least apprehensive about Hajime's uncharacteristic behavior and whatever he'd left him to do in that room. Nagito sounding even mildly concerned about something managed to unnerve Ryota and Teruteru, too.

"Yes."

Hajime's blunt answer did nothing to soothe their nerves, and the group looked between themselves.

Sonia gathered her courage and stepped forward. "Hajime, when the five of us chose to shut down the program, we did so for the safety of the world. You musn't—" Her voice faltered when his attention turned toward her.

Hajime could only imagine what his expression looked like, right now. Those soldiers had come in search of Izuru Kamukura. After what they'd done to the people he cared about, they'd found him.

She collected her courage and tried again. "You mustn't hurt anyone, Hajime."

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," he said like it was self-evident. That lack of trust should have hurt, but he distantly realized that his voice had indeed gone flat, all its emotional affectation falling away. It had been a very, very long stretch of months. Feelings had failed him over and over again as they went on, and now, he just needed to fix these problems before they could happen again.

"Then what the hell are you doing?"

The voice sliced through Hajime's disaffected thoughts, and he blinked with surprise. Fuyuhiko stood near the stairs, ready to return below deck in an instant, but he was there.

"Sorry, Fuyuhiko," Hajime said as all of those squelched emotions rushed back into him like surging floodwaters, and he flexed his hand around the small controller it held. "I know you said you didn't want me making this decision for you. Well. I'm gonna."

"Huh?" Fuyuhiko asked, too confused to be angry.

Turning back to the sky, Hajime inhaled.

He was about to end the world.

Again.

Before he could talk himself out of this, his thumb clicked the button to confirm the algorithm he'd spent a week building. Humanity's greatest genius had used a modified satellite phone taken from the Canadian base to hack into every government and military system left in this broken world, and slithered into their cracks and shadows. After that, he'd started calculating angles and vectors and control mechanisms. And now, he'd just put all of those controls into effect.

There was a full minute of wary silence as they waited for anything to happen, finally broken by Nagito wondering, "Hajime… what did you do?"

"I'm not hurting anyone," he calmly repeated. "I'm just going to stop them before they hurt anyone else."

Nagito still looked unsettled, especially at the echo of his own words, but said nothing more.

As Hajime looked up at the sky and waited, his breath suddenly caught as he realized Fuyuhiko had walked up next to him. Though his tight expression demanded answers, Hajime could only say, "I owe you this."

"Owe me what, exact… ly…" Fuyuhiko's question trailed off into nothing as a spectacular streak of light burned across the sky.

A few people gasped. Realizing what they must be thinking, Hajime said, "It's not a missile. Don't worry. But keep watching."

Another streak of light blazed overhead, then a third. And then, suddenly, it became a waterfall of shining, gleaming color tearing apart the night sky. A meteor shower like the Perseids might see a hundred so-called falling stars in an hour. This was thousands of points of light, in minutes.

It was beautiful. Even though he'd known what was about to happen, Hajime couldn't help but stare up in awe at the choir of light singing an intricate melody overhead. Runs, chords, arpeggios; the glimmering lines wrote out a song that had never been seen in the history of the world, and would never be seen again.

"What did you do?" Fuyuhiko asked in an amazed whisper as he stared up at the glorious show above.

"I owe you this," Hajime repeated, also in a whisper, then stayed silent until calm, dark night finally returned.

A few final streaks of light followed their brethren down to earth. Only when they were sure that no more would follow did everyone turn to Hajime. Every last face demanded answers.

For it, he held up his hand to show off the small controller held in his palm.

"They had… that at the military base?" Kazuichi asked weakly.

"No." Hajime smiled as genuine relief swept him, like he hadn't felt for a very long time. "It just set off my algorithm."

"Which did what?" Peko prompted.

"Directed ninety-three percent of all functioning satellites out of orbit. And I now control the other seven percent."

That took a moment to sink in, then earned a collective gasp. "Those were satellites?" Mahiru demanded. "Like, television and internet and phone satellites?"

Hajime looked back up at a now-empty sky. "Like spy satellites. Like military targeting and attack satellites. They're never going to find any of you again. And with the ones I kept, I'll know if they even make an attempt. It'll be impossible to take us by surprise, ever again."

Overwhelmed, Sonia clutched her forehead. "Every telecommunications network around the world just collapsed." Gundham stared at Hajime like he'd wielded some dark magical powers to put on that spectacular display.

"Not every one," Hajime calmly countered. "Land-based towers will still work fine, and there are plenty of those. And I spent the last four days making sure that no satellites would angle toward populated areas, just in case they didn't burn up. No one was hurt. Which is a lot more than those soldiers can say.

"I didn't hurt anyone," he repeated in the silence. "But… I realized that I had to decide who I'm protecting, actively. And I picked you."

Aware of the stunned figure still standing at his side, Hajime quietly repeated, "I picked you. You won't have to do it again. And I'll stop talking to you, now."

Fuyuhiko's eye opened as wide as Hajime had ever seen it, and he looked up to stare again at the heavens that had been ripped down to keep him safe.

"All right. That's it." Hajime smiled. "Show's over. If we want, we could set sail tomorrow. They're never going to find us again."

He didn't know whether to expect it or not, but a knock came on his cabin door an hour later. When Hajime opened it, Fuyuhiko met his gaze for only a couple of seconds before studying the floor between them. "What in the hell was… I didn't ask for that."

"I know. But I owed you that much, Fuyuhiko. If I had done what I was capable of early enough, then you wouldn't have been forced into doing what you were capable of. I screwed up, so now I fixed it."

"When they figure out what happened, you're just going to be even more of a target," Fuyuhiko muttered. "Biggest bad guy on the planet."

He shrugged, smiling lopsidedly. "Already am, right?"

Fuyuhiko snorted slightly, but admitted, "Who… made his project take twice as long, so that he wouldn't hurt people. I would've just figured that everything would burn up."

"None of us want to hurt people," Hajime agreed, and instinctively raised his hand toward the fresh, deeper scar that had been carved across Fuyuhiko's bad eye. He caught himself halfway there and lowered his hand. "But the 'good guys' apparently can't say the same. So I picked us. And I don't regret it. They won't be able to see or hear us well enough to find us, any more, and so you'll never have to do that again."

For once, the silence between them seemed comfortable, like it had been before, when they could sit in each other's presence and not feel the immediate need to fill the quiet. In that quiet, Hajime was finally able to think of the right thing to say. "Don't think of this as coming from a friend. We apparently can't be that, any more. But I owed you a debt, and I needed to repay it."

Fuyuhiko studied him, clearly aware that Hajime had deliberately chosen language from Fuyuhiko's world, and seemed to consider him anew. Maybe, just maybe, they did understand each other, despite all this time seeming to say otherwise. "Hey. Lab rat."

"Don't call me that," Hajime instantly countered.

Not bothering to apologize, Fuyuhiko continued, "So, you just took out every way for militaries to track us, right? Plan offensive maneuvers? Organize their fleets?" After getting a nod at each question, he slowly finished, "Then… didn't you say you'd thought of something that might fix my memories, if only you could get past the military?"

Everything went still, and Hajime's eyes opened wide as he realized what he'd accidentally done as part of his plan.

"I just…" Troubled, Fuyuhiko tried a few times to finish his thoughts. "What you did up there tonight, I…" He shifted his weight. "I guess you finally made me curious about caring that damn much."

Hajime gripped his hand before he could help it. "Okay. Before we sail back there, I need to know if they would have gone back to look inside a specific building. I don't think you do, but do you know anything about something called the Neo World Program? Anything at all?"

Fuyuhiko blinked back at him with a total lack of recognition. "That's a dumbass name."

With a crow of delighted laughter over the confirmation that Fuyuhiko had never told them a thing, Hajime unthinkingly drew him into a hug.

"Get off me!" Fuyuhiko spat, his good mood gone.

"Sorry," Hajime chuckled, and stepped away. "Sorry. Force of habit."

"If you try to act like a friend who hugs me," Fuyuhiko muttered, "I'm gonna change my mind about this."

Hajime held up his hands. "Right. No hugs. Sorry."

"Okay. Glad we've gotten that straightened out." Fuyuhiko cleared his throat. "We're not friends. You've just got me curious. That's it."

"Absolutely," Hajime agreed. "That's it."

"Well. Okay. Right." Fuyuhiko hesitated a moment longer, then turned and walked off without a good-bye.

Hajime watched him leave, then turned and flat-out ran the other direction, toward the stairs. It was time to weigh anchor, and he'd figure out the safest path back toward Jabberwock once they were in motion. That would be easy enough; they still had access to all remaining navigational and spy satellites, after all, while every single one of their enemies had just been thrown back into navigating by compass and map.

Eighteen days later, they were back.

Everyone looked wistfully at the familiar beaches and palm trees. Even if they'd blinded the world's militaries, it was too dangerous to stay permanently in this known location. They could make return trips to strip the islands of what supplies they had to offer, but this wasn't home, any more.

"Come on," Hajime said, and gestured to the dock. "In there."

Fuyuhiko looked warily toward the central administration building; familiar to Hajime, but an unknown location to him. "What are we doing, exactly? You said this is where that virtual game thing happened, but I'm not doing that again, am I?"

He shook his head as they set into motion. "No. In a worst-case scenario, I can look for the same memory files that were generated when the simulation ran before. That wouldn't be… ideal, since it'd have some holes and nothing past when we woke up, but it'd be better than now." And Fuyuhiko would be balanced on the edge of Ultimate Despair, again, but they could all pull him off the ledge in the right direction.

"Okay," Fuyuhiko said, clearly troubled, but making the active decision to trust Hajime. "What's the best-case scenario, then? How would you get the memories back, otherwise?"

"I don't think they're actually gone," Hajime theorized.

That earned a dark look. "I'm pretty damn sure I knew what I was doing, there."

"You absolutely cannot reach those memories," Hajime quickly agreed. "Which kept those guys from being able to, either. But, it's like… imagine two buildings with a road between them. When you told me about what you did, I realized that I don't think you blew up the buildings. They're still there. I think you just blew up the road, so there's no way to access them."

"Okay," Fuyuhiko said uncertainly. "What's the difference, then, in fixing them?"

"Cognitive psychology studies retrieval methods for information that has been stored in long-term memory." The formal explanation quickly earned annoyance, and Hajime changed to, "You changed your associations with them, so you can't pull your memories out. You blew up the road, in other words. But there are pods—" Please, let the pods still be there. "That are specifically designed to deal with memories. I'm positive I can tweak them to zero in on fixing your retrieval processes. I won't need to actually rebuild any memories. I'll just need to fix the roads."

"Makes sense," Fuyuhiko said, but sounded even more uncertain as the details poured in. "So, I'm going to get into a weird memory pod that was used to lock me into a killing game, and you're gonna fuck with my brain. Like the pod already did, once."

"That's." Hajime paused, then held back a grimace. "Yeah. I wouldn't use those words, but… that's technically accurate, yeah."

Fuyuhiko looked to the side, and Hajime realized someone had followed them to the building. "What do you think?"

"It's as I've been telling you, all this time." Peko nodded. "You can trust Hajime."

Fuyuhiko stared at the building looming overhead, then sighed. "Fuck it." He pushed his way inside, not waiting for them to follow.

When Hajime moved to do so, a hand caught his wrist. "Thank you," Peko whispered, with a rare smile.

He smiled, too. "You got him out."

"And you'll get him back." She stepped back, releasing his wrist. "I won't keep you. But truly: thank you."

Nodding, Hajime reached over and squeezed her wrist before he followed Fuyuhiko inside. He found Fuyuhiko in the lobby, looking critically at the looming statue representing the five islands; he hadn't known which hallway to use after entering. Hajime led him down a path that they'd walked countless times while working on their sleeping friends, and kept glancing at him to see if any recognition flickered.

None did, but that might also have been because of how focused he was on assessing the space around them. "No signs of forced entry anywhere," Fuyuhiko mused. "And there's dust."

"It doesn't look like anyone's been down here," Hajime agreed, but his pulse sped as they approached the final corridor. He took and held a deep breath as he pushed open the door in question.

The pods were still there.

His lungs emptied, and Hajime's heart lurched back into regular motion. "Okay," he said, and tried to not let on how worried he'd been that they might come all this way only to find that the military had carried off the island's heart. "Pick a pod."

Fuyuhiko eyed him oddly—Hajime's nerves had clearly come through—but he shrugged and walked over to the pod nearest to the main control panel. "So, I just…?"

"You just get in," Hajime confirmed, and tapped the pod's panel to open it.

Needing another few contemplative moments, Fuyuhiko let out a whooshing breath, nodded, and climbed into the empty pod. "Don't fuck up, lab rat."

"Don't call me that," Hajime reminded him, hopefully for the last time, and tapped the controls to close the pod. Inside, Fuyuhiko watched him through its fogged glass, then abruptly dropped into unconsciousness as its effects took hold.

Okay. Time to be someone's Ultimate Hope, again.

Hajime's fingers flew across the controls as he worked on repurposing the intricate code of the Neo World Program. Software code and neurological structures both reshaped under his expert hands, but it wasn't a quick process. He'd reprogrammed the world's satellites, but reprogramming Fuyuhiko's brain felt infinitely more consequential.

Eventually, he had to activate the program and turn it over to the machine. It was out of his hands, now, and he could only wait, watch, and hope. Eighty-seven anxious minutes later, a light turned from green to white. The program had ended.

Fear and anticipation filled him in equal measure. He was almost sure this would work, but if it didn't, Hajime didn't have another plan. It would work, right? It would work. It would work. It had to work, he told himself as he reached for the pod's controls and tapped OPEN. It had to work.

The pod door slowly opened, and Fuyuhiko's eyelid followed.

Hajime leaned over him, realizing his own hands were shaking. "H-hey." He swallowed, feeling suddenly weighed down by the gravity of this moment. Either he was about to get Fuyuhiko back, or it would prove impossible. "How'd it go?"

Fuyuhiko blinked at him once. Twice.

Hajime looked down, and again swallowed hard.

Abruptly, Fuyuhiko lunged halfway out of the pod and grabbed Hajime by his shirt collar. "You asshole! I told you not to bother!"

"You told me?" Hajime repeated with a tremulous, hopeful voice.

"All of those fucking satellites? They're gonna know it was you!"

He swallowed. "And who am I?"

Fuyuhiko's lower lip quivered. "Hajime Hinata. The world's biggest idiot."

Delirious joy overtook Hajime, and he leaned in for a hug that lifted Fuyuhiko the rest of the way out of his pod. One arm wrapped around the other man's back, holding him close, while his other hand rested along the curve of Fuyuhiko's head. "You're the idiot," Hajime laughed, and rested his face against Fuyuhiko's.

"Fuck you," Fuyuhiko snorted, and wrapped his arms around Hajime in return, allowing himself to be held like he seldom did. "My plan worked great."

"Well, so did mine." Hajime's grip tightened, though he remembered in time that Fuyuhiko still had deep injuries lurking inside. "I picked you. Just like you picked me."

Fuyuhiko tried to say something, but failed.

"Thank you," Hajime whispered. Now that sun had returned to his world, he could admit to what fate Fuyuhiko had saved him from. "God, thank you. Never do that again. Never."

"That's the plan," Fuyuhiko whispered, and laughed once. It faded into a soft, twisted noise. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"And you do. You see me. Right?"

"Yeah." Fuyuhiko nodded against him. "I do."

Ultimate Hope felt like a worthwhile title, suddenly. "Come on," Hajime eventually said. He didn't let go of Fuyuhiko, though, and Fuyuhiko didn't step away. "Let's figure out what home's going to be, now."

[rambleonwaywardson]

I didn’t expect the delicious morsel of your space boys today 😭 Bucky you sweet dork making Gale roll his eyes and blush omg I adore them so much! It really is 10/10 💖

I do have a question, that might be addressed in the epilogue maybe? But I gotta ask it now because I can’t stop thinking about your boys. I feel that they are already suffering from PTSD but I was thinking about going into space, would John actually be able to go through it again? Would Gale be able to do it? And I know Bucky laughed it off with that reporter but would he really be able to watch Gale go to the moon without panicking?

Hi hello. I’ve been thinking about this ask for days thank you (legitimately). Long response incoming.

I don’t expect this will be addressed much in the epilogue based on the timeline I’m planning. However, if I get my shit together and do what I want to do to extend this universe, it’ll come up eventually!

You’re right, this experience was very traumatic. I would not say they’re already suffering from PTSD in a clinical sense, but they are currently struggling to work through what happened and what is still very much happening, and there is of course a lot of room for PTSD to more fully develop. So how does that affect their future careers?

In terms of Artemis 4, I don’t think Gale will have too much mental/emotional difficulty. As they say, they know the risks. Yes, this was extremely traumatic, and it’s hard to work through in many ways, but as Bucky says in chapter 19, the thing that went wrong was small, a freak accident, wrong place wrong time. There are about a million risks like that on every space mission that they train for and anticipate but try not to fear. This is what John and Gale were metaphorically bred for, and even though it may be more difficult mentally than before, this is who they are. They’re not giving it up, and I’ll be damned if I don’t give Gale a good mission 🥺

(Also, they WILL be undergoing extensive counseling leading up to A4 trust me!!!)

I think Bucky, ultimately, will have more difficulty during Artemis 4 than Gale will. As you kind of implied, he’s now in the place of worrying about his husband from the ground, unable to intervene should something go wrong. That will likely be very difficult for him no matter how much faith he puts in his husband… (more on that, potentially, eventually…)

As for another mission for Bucky. Ugh. That’s harder to think about. It is highly unlikely that, even at peak physical and mental health, he would be selected for an additional moon mission any time in the near future (though never say never I suppose?). He fully believes that he wants to go back, that he could handle going back, but psychologically, that may be in part because he doesn’t think he ever will actually get to. He lived his dream. Before it went to hell, it was everything he wanted it to be. Let him romanticize that.

That being said, he’s still a professional astronaut. It’s what he loves to do.

I think there is at least a chance he could go back to the station after a lot of healing and therapy. The ISS is very different from Artemis in so many ways, beginning with the fact that it’s far more predictable and ending with the fact that it only takes a few hours to get back to Earth from there. Bucky’s spent quite a lot of time up there before. It’s something he knows, is familiar with, is good at. I think, mentally, that would be a very different experience from being on the moon, and it would remain a possibility for his future.

Okay. I’ve put a lot of thought into this. I’ll continue to put a lot of thought into this. And you can probably tell that I’m working through what I believe would be realistic not only for Buck and Bucky, but for modern, more emotionally regulated versions of them. And what I think is reasonable for addressing their emotional struggle while also maintaining the careers they love.

It’s not an easy problem to solve, and there’s a lot of ways it could go. Thank you so much for giving me this space to think about it ❤️

[eelfuneral]

Some of the discussion that happens within the Star Wars fandom, particularly discussion of the Jedi, can be really upsetting to observe if you have certain disabilities. In fact, I’m having a hard time even liking the Jedi right now because I can’t help but associate them with some really ableist takes that I’ve seen in their defense.

Let me explain: a lot of people with certain disabilities (such as autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and C-PTSD) deal with something called emotion dysregulation, which means that you feel emotions more intensely than the average person and that this strong emotional state sticks around for far longer than it should. When you have emotional regulation issues, an event that might make somebody else a bit sad or mildly frustrated has the ability to put you out of commission for hours or even an entire day. Emotion dysregulation is very stigmatized, even in people who go out of their way to avoid harming people or lashing out while dealing with an episode. People with this specific issue are often told that they are “dramatic”, “attention seeking”, or “future abusers” for what amounts to an automatic emotional response that a person cannot control. This constant pushback forms a metaphorical blister that can easily be popped back open when you see anything that reminds you of what caused it in the first place.

Now, let’s move on to the Jedi. While it can be argued that their teachings were intended to instruct people to reign in their BEHAVIOR as a result of their emotions, several lines in the fist six movies sound an awful lot like they are condemning having negative emotions at all. Yoda literally tells both Luke and Anakin that emotions like fear and anger BY THEMSELVES are of the Dark Side, and these lines were very difficult for a lot of people who have dealt with trauma, neurodivergence, or other issues that cause “big emotions”. These lines, intentionally or not, mirror a lot of the things that real people have said to those of us dealing with emotion dysregulation, and people have every right to talk about this in their own spaces unmolested.

Some of the defenses of the Jedi in the context of how they are instructed to deal with their emotions come off as dismissive at best and ableist at worst. Yes, if you dig through Star Wars canon enough, you can find portrayals of the Jedi and emotions that point to a more nuanced view where choices and actions are the source of evil rather than the emotions, but this does not change the fact that the Yoda lines and other emotionally repressive applications of the Jedi Code very much exist in parts of canon. A person who found the emotionally repressive variant of Jedi teachings to be upsetting due to a disability will likely feel as though you are trying to dismiss their feelings and belittle them if you “correct” them for “misinterpretation of the Jedi”. I get that it sucks to see people bash your blorbos, but if someone is doing it because they are dealing with something IRL like trauma or ableism, then it’s best not to engage and just let that person work through it.

I have also seen people who are defending the Jedi make statements that outright attack people for having intense emotions. I remember a take that basically said that you were a baby or a psychopath if you found the Jedi code regarding emotions to be “too hard”. I’ve seen people dismiss the trauma that Anakin went through and its possible effect on how he reacted to some aspects of the Jedi order in a way that mirrors the invalidation that those of us with emotional regulation issues have experienced for being “too much” for all of our lives. Yes, it is important to avoid harming others when you are in a bad place, and no Anakin was not a great person, but so many of these takes are devoid enough of nuance that they read as if they are just trashing people who have “too many”emotions.

Feel free to defend your favorite characters all that you would like, but please spare a thought for those of us who might not dig everything about them for reasons connected to disability and trauma. The Jedi aren’t real, but we very much are.

[thelostgirl21]

Okay, someone wrote that they thought Jaskier had ADHD in some of my tags, and I've just GOT to address this, because asfjasfljadsflasjd;dlasja;slfjd;as...

@aro-tarot , OMFG YES!!!

As someone with ADHD, I've got such strong ADHD vibes from Jaskier like you wouldn't believe!

(That, plus I tend to headcanon that Jaskier suffers from Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), a condition strongly associated with ADHD, but more on that further down...)

I mean he's usually got no freaking impulse control whatsoever, and no filter on his mouth!

And even when he HAS that filter on, and some vague awareness that opening his mouth further and speaking his mind might get him into yet more trouble…

Well, the frustration he feels in the now is apparently so strong that the possibility of having to pay a price later is but a too distant and abstract concept to be enough to put a stop to that mouth!

I mean, that moment right here?

Someone without ADHD would have stopped themselves at "Am I going to say it?" because of the "Yeah, if I antagonize him, he might decide to keep me away from getting on that boat and I'll jeopardize my safety as well as the safety of the people that are currently counting on me," that should normally logically follow...

Someone with a very strong case of ADHD however... Well, they might just have to say it!

Same thing in Season 1 with the elves. Jaskier's bound and tied ,and he just keeps antagonizing them because he's angry, and the need to express his anger somehow screams louder than the punch or the kick he'll be receiving 2 freaking seconds later if he keeps verbally lashing out at them!

Self-soothing and impulse managing are two skills that Jaskier doesn't quite have a good mastery of.

Like, don't let him get his hands on a djinn while heartbroken, drunk, and deeply wounded (because his best and very possibly queerplatonic friend just insulted his singing, while implying that it was likely why his other friend/lover had just left him, no less)... He might just start wishing Valdo Marx dead!

Generally, I'd strongly advise keeping him away from anything that could potentially become a weapon if he's highly emotional.

That's never a good combination.

Jaskier might do something he'll regret, and realize it was awfully dumb and stupid only once he's deeply in trouble, or has finally calmed down.

ADHD isn't a mood disorder, but it's been described as a "failure to self-regulate moods disorder".

Meaning that people with ADHD feel the same emotions as anyone else most of the time (RSD is a bit of an exception; again, more on that later), but they'll just have a harder time avoiding openly expressing them, and stopping themselves from acting upon them.

They can succeed most of the time (thankfully); and I highly suspect that Jaskier might be at his most focused and emotionally measured around Ciri, because he feels responsible for her.

Adults often have this instinct to sacrifice their own needs and wants to give priority to those of children (including sometimes teenagers, and/or grown children they've adopted as part of their family system and are still mentoring through life).

People with ADHD also tend to have a blast playing aunt/uncle, because we can super easily connect with the sense of wonder, excitement, and defiance of authority of children and younger people - be very impulsive and silly with them and act like children and teens ourselves, at times - while still remaining responsible and protective of them when we need to be.

It's like suddenly flipping our "adult switch" on, because we're aware they need us to be the adult.

But fellow adults don't need us to "adult" for their sake.

They typically have their own shit together way better than we do! So, we're just that almost full time impulsive dumb kid that they need to constantly watch out for while around our adult friends.

UNLESS they make it extremely clear to us that they need our help and/or for us to focus. We can "adult" if the stakes are high, and/or they need our support, too.

But that's not our default mode!

We'd rather be chasing butterflies and playing videogames / writing songs (or meta... Meta's good... My brain loves meta because it's always over-analyzing things!), doing whatever keeps us interested and stimulated in the now, than carefully planning things and being responsible.

And there's also that scene where Jaskier is in the Witcher lab with Yennefer, while Ciri's possessed by Voleth Meir (you know... going around killing people, lives are at stake and all that...).

But, since all of this is happening in another room, Jaskier can't quite emotionally connect with the gravity of the situation, so he's eating whatever he finds his hands on while randomly talking about nipples because Yennefer said "oriole", and his brain thought it sounded like "areola" (yeah, our brains are always making a bunch of connections that aren't relevant to the situation)!

Yet, as soon as Yennefer makes it clear that she needs him to focus, he's 100% in the moment with her, and has flipped that "adult switch" on.

We can go there, but it typically requires a strong enough emotional incentive for us to ground ourselves, and it's a state that gets draining when sustained for a too long period of time.

And given how we're at our best when highly stressed, Jaskier's probably the person you want there with you when things start really going to shit!

He's at his best when he's got no idea what he's going to do, and he has to think fast and improvise to respond to whatever is happening in real time.

Oh, and I'm about 99.9% sure that he suffers from rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD), too (yeah, we're finally going there).

I discovered what RSD was about 5 years ago, how it tied into my ADHD, and that it had been something that I'd been struggling with (and often doing everything I could to hide) my whole life without really understanding it.

One thing that people with RSD tend to do, sadly, is constantly downplay our own hurt and pretend everything is fine - do our best to keep others constantly entertained and happy with us, even at our own expanse at times - so that they won't perceive us as a burden, and will continue to want to have us around.

Since a part of us is deeply aware that our emotional response to real (and/or even perceived) rejection, and the pain it causes, feels way more intense than it normally should be, we tend to be ashamed of it, and unable to fully discuss those feelings with those we love.

So, even when we do speak up for ourselves, we are afraid that we might be exaggerating, and/or making the issue much bigger than it is.

Thus, we almost regret it right away, and/or feel guilty for it afterwards, and we'll be almost desperate to let our friend "off the hook" as quickly as possible so they'll love us again.

Therefore watching Jaskier's behavior in Season 2, and the way certain characters (except Yennefer, that genuinely surprised me) responded to him, was actually physically painful for me to watch at times.

Some of the most triggering moments for someone with RSD include:

Jaskier brushing off Geralt's sincere apology - attempting to hide the depth of the emotional devastation he'd caused him - to avoid being perceived as being too much trouble and risking abandonment again.

Jaskier humorously pretending that Ciri going past him, as if he didn't exist, didn't hurt, while joking "Like father, like daughter".

Him going "Right, yeah," when Yarpen Zigrin dismisses him - having chosen to turn that constant rejection into some kind of game between them - because it's much easier to be under the illusion that they're just good-naturally teasing each other, than facing the possibly that Yarpen might genuinely consider him an unwanted nuisance he'd gladly do without, and that having excluded him from the word "friend" was 100% done on purpose!

That same little heartbreaking "Right. Yeah" after he tells Lambert "Look at us. Just one big happy family, eh?" and Lambert goes "No." While pushing him out of the way.

Jaskier is a sweet, loving, empathetic, highly sensitive bard that's on the freaking aromantic spectrum!

And aromantics can most definitely love their best friend in the whole wide world with an intensity, a depth, a sincerity, and a level of devotion that can easily match - and perhaps even surpass - any romantic couple.

Heck, I don't consider myself to be quite on the aromantic spectrum (given that I do experience primary romantic attraction towards people), but I also have a tendency to form friendships that are more emotionally (and sometimes physically, and even sexually) intimate than many of the romantic relationships I've had (except, perhaps, my current one, that is definitely on par).

I think the only reason why I've managed to remain with the same romantic partner (that I do consider the romantic love of my life) for 17 years now - and would gladly spend the rest of my life with him - is because of how deeply supportive and respectful he's been of those friendships I have.

I've built my own found family over the years that I wouldn't want to live without. And I've broken up with prior romantic partners that couldn't agree to "share me" with those other people I love (in a non-romantic way, but that doesn't make it any less tangible or real!) without regretting a single thing.

So, I wholeheartedly believe that Jaskier does love Geralt and always has loved him.

And I know that, if I'm right about this, and if Jaskier is indeed prone to RSD, then the level of emotional and physical pain that Geralt's rejection put him through would have been absolutely soul wrenching.

"I've also survived, no thanks to you," sounds just about right.

Jaskier is human, while witches and witchers are frozen in time. He's been loving Geralt and travelling alongside him and singing songs about him for about 20 years.

20 years, in a human life, is a lot of one's life to devote to someone...

Then, the moment that Geralt's romantic love interest (Yennefer) leaves him, he turns on Jaskier and basically tells him that he's brought him nothing but bad luck and misery for two decades, and that what would please him ,above everything else, would be for life to rid him of him!

Why don't you just take a sword and run Jaskier through, Geralt? I think that would have been less painful to watch!

So, I think this is one of the reasons why Season 3 has been so freaking cathartic to watch for me!

I've been literally crying my eyes out each time people made Jaskier feel loved, wanted, said thank you (even Yarpen!!! Freaking Yarpen stopped to thank him, and called him by his preferred name, Jaskier)...

And of course, there's Radovid...

I could go on and on about how good it felt to have a character that finally treats Jaskier with the same care, attention, and empathy that Jaskier offers others...

But, I think one of the things I loved the most, with Radovid, is how Jaskier himself responded to him.

He's not trying to please him, quite the contrary.

When Radovid asks "Have you come to sing us pretty songs?", Jaskier answers "No. I don't do pretty".

And then, when Radovid says that, while he appreciates the information that Jaskier has brought him, all he really wants is a song, Jaskier responds by saying that "he's not really in a singing mood."

Because yes, he's a bard. Yes, he sings about people he's encountered on his travels, and yes, he sings about people he loves...

But he doesn't want to sing "pretty songs" about Witchers, fairytales, heroics and heartbreak for the entertainment of a Prince and his court!

He's not there so that "Prince Radovid" can sing the praises of "Jaskier the Bard" 's triumphant private performance at the palace!

That's not what pleases Jaskier anymore.

I don't think Jaskier feels like he's got anything to prove performance-wise anymore and, sadly, I believe that, instead of giving him a sense of finally being seen and loved - of belonging...

At times, all this singing and performing - often for the benefit of others - has made him feel even more invisible and isolated.

And that's the beauty of him singing "Extraordinary Things", because that song is all about Jaskier.

It's vocally raw, vulnerable, filled with a fragile hope for love and for someone that makes him feel like he is seen for who he is... For someone that can help Jaskier finally believe that who he is is enough.

For someone that makes him feel like he doesn't have to try so hard to pretend to be happy, and fine, and give others what he thinks they want, so that maybe they'll love him (or keep on loving him) back.

Because it's not just Geralt...

Geralt is the one whose rejection hurt Jaskier the most, because he's the one Jaskier has loved and trusted the most...

Geralt is the one that broke something in Jaskier - his ability to feel safe in the belief that his closest friends would never abandon him.

Thanks to Geralt outburst, Jaskier is likely now being cursed with a little voice, in the back of his mind, that will continue to pop up from time to time whenever he feels safe and happy in his relationships, to make him wonder if his friends and family don't secretly wish that they could get rid of him.

Rationally, I'm sure that Jaskier understands that what happened with Geralt was caused by Geralt's own issues, and that his own behavior wasn't the cause of the rejection.

Rationally, I'm sure that he can trust in their relationship, and feel confident in the love they share.

But emotionally? Although trauma can be managed and kept at bay the vast majority of the time, there are always moments where you're bound to be more tired, stressed out, and where you don't always have the energy to push back against all of those nasty voices that wait for you to let your guards down to be heard and make you doubt.

However, besides what specifically happened with Geralt, Jaskier sadly has a very long history of having had to deal with rejections of all kinds, and been made to feel like he was never enough.

Even Valdo's obstinated refusal to learn Jaskier's name is like he's constantly trying to symbolically murder Jaskier by denying him the very right to exist, for fuck's sake!

After watching those scenes, I thought "Yup! It's really no wonder this happened:

So, while having gotten Geralt back - and obviously having built strong emotional ties with Yennefer and Ciri since the end of Season 2 - has likely tremendously helped easing some of the pain rejection has caused Jaskier throughout his life, he still has those moments where it deeply hurts him.

And I think that Geralt knows...

Jaskier might have been trying to hide it - and Geralt might not fully understand why Jaskier was hurt as deeply as he was (I doubt RSD is something that people often talk about in their world) - but he knows that a part of Jaskier still fears being rejected or abandoned again.

He's just being so soft and patient with Jaskier this season; making it immediately clear that he's not angry with Jaskier, and that their relationship is not threatened the moment that he senses his discomfort.

Or, you know, just reassuring him that the separation between them is only temporary, and that he's going to be the first person he comes looking back for as soon as he's done dealing with Rience.

If Jaskier truly is someone that tends to see people as they really are - not as they pretend to be - then it's easy to see why Jaskier did fall in love with Geralt.

That level of perceptiveness is both a gift and a curse for Jaskier, though.

Because when the person you love is set on self-destructing and unable to embrace who they really are, you might find yourself caught in the blast.

Still, when Geralt is allowing himself to be loved, and to openly love people back, he's an absolutely wonderful (platonic, alterous, romantic...) partner to have.

He's shown as someone who is able to not only apologize, but also recognize the impact that his mistakes have had on others, and take full responsibility for them.

Jaskier may have been quick to brush his apology off and pretend that all was good, but Geralt apparently knows better and, more importantly, is showing that the apology was sincere.

He's making efforts to better communicate with Jaskier and he's doing everything he can to not only alleviate some of the pain he's caused him, but to avoid triggering his insecurities.

Sadly, RSD is not something that Geralt alone can fix, especially not when Jaskier has been exposed to a number of different patterns of interpersonal rejections throughout his life.

And, while Jaskier has a tendency to pretend being fine even when he's not, his eyes almost always tell the truth.

Makes you wonder just how emotionally smart and insightful Radovid is...

Because when someone sings to you those lines...

The greatest songs are made up of unspoken words of love Of them I have had enough With you, I have enough With you, I am enough I am, I am enough

Then looks at you with those eyes...

Well, it's rather easy to understand that Jaskier has been made to feel like he wasn't good enough for those he loved, and/or still loves in the past.

And, given the success of "Burn Butcher Burn", I wouldn't put it past Radovid to have guessed that - athough they were back to being close friends - Geralt might have had something to do with the enduring vulnerability and the hurt he saw reflected there...

Thus, leading him to taking an educated guess as to what might have happened, and ask Jaskier "Does the Witcher know how lucky he is to have you?"

Somehow, with that simple question, Radovid has achieved two very important things...

He's just told Jaskier that not only does he, indeed, believe him to be enough, but he would consider himself lucky to have him...

He's just told Jaskier that whatever Geralt might have said or done to make him feel unwanted in the past, it had been wrong.

And, judging by Jaskier's answering smile, our beloved bard just got himself a fresh new (and quite princely) voice in his head to help him drown out the sound of all the other voices that are occasionally trying to convince him that he's a barely tolerable burden to those he loves.

Radovid has thrown just enough shade Geralt's way to avoid insulting their relationship; while at the same time sort of giving Jaskier the permission to mentally go "Ha! See?! There are people that want and love me, and would consider themselves lucky to have me in their lives! God, you used to be such an asshole, Geralt!" should he still need to go there to help himself manage his pain.

As a victim of Geralt's harsh and cruel words, Jaskier is entirely entitled to have moments where he needs to be a bit petty about the way Geralt used to treat him, and to call him the "family goat".

It's a very healthy way of coping with the residual hurt and anger because it puts the blame in the right place (Jaskier didn't do anything to deserve the way he was treated by Geralt nor to provoke that rejection) with just enough humor to keep that pain and resentment from growing into something that could actually be damaging to their relationship.

Radovid is an impressively good and attentive listener - at least as far as Jaskier himself is concerned.

And maybe that's one of the (many) reasons why Radovid asking to borrow Jaskier's lute, and singing the song back to him, touched me as much as it did.

It stood in sharp contrast to people singing Jaskier's songs back to him while thinking it makes THEM special for knowing a few lines! That Jaskier should be grateful to THEM for being fans, supporting his art, etc.

The entitled patrons that believe Jaskier's singing should be about what they love to hear without being really interested in what Jaskier wishes to say.

Like that obnoxious guy at the docks who started singing "The Golden One" with Jaskier, basically going "See! I'm a big fan! That totally makes us buddies now! And, as such, here are my artistic input, so that maybe you can do better next time! You know, it's good, but it's not good enough for me. Here's how you can improve!"

Basically sending Jaskier the message: "You, the artist, the message and the feelings you are trying to convey through your art don't matter. You are but invisible. Sure, you have a name, and now I'm excited at the opportunity of making my friends jealous by saying I've met you! But you're just a tool that I can now use to make myself more important and interesting to others! Your job is to stay in the shadow of your songs! Your job is to make me happy, to entertain me, to please me, to sing what I want to hear the way I wish I could hear it and to make your art all about me."

Instead, Radovid simply borrows Jaskier's lute, and humbly starts playing the song with a sense of reverence, gratitude, respect, and desire to offer Jaskier something in return for the gift he's offered him by sharing a part of himself with him through his song.

Radovid said that he had long wanted to meet Jaskier in person and presented himself as someone that is a fan of his songs, but that's because they fascinate him.

He genuinely cares about what Jaskier has to say and communicate to others (and/or about others) through them, not about what he wants to hear.

In a world where Jaskier has had to constantly fight to fit in, where he's often made to feel like he's "barely tolerated" (and it usually takes a long time for people to get to genuinely appreciate him, and openly love him back the way he loves them)...

Radovid is someone that comes along showing him that love is not supposed to be earned.

Love is a gift. You love people for who they are, not for what they can do for you.

And what Radovid heard, through those songs, was something so special, intriguing, and irresistible to him that his own response was a genuine desire to get to know the man behind the art.

He tells Jaskier that the unique way he sees the world, and his need to express it, does not make him hypersensitive or annoying - it makes him special.

I don't think the hurt in Jaskier's eyes will ever 100% go away, and that his RSD can ever be completely resolved, either...

But it doesn't need to, because it can be managed and shouldn't get in the way of one's ability to experience joy and happiness, too.

Pain is a natural and healthy part of one's life, as long as it doesn't stand in the way of everything else - as long as there's balance, and room for healing whenever it comes along.

As as long as Jaskier's found family continues to love and accept him the way he is - to let him know that he's an important part of their lives - I believe Jaskier's going to be fine. REALLY fine...

Even the moments when he's hurting are going to be fine, because that's not all there is, and he's got people loving him and offering comfort.

And maybe I'm too hopeful about this, but I think there's most definitely hope for Radovid and Jaskier to make a relationship work between them, too.

Even if it turns out to be a somewhat unconventional one, and completely different from what people might have in mind when they think of a classic "romantic couple", they can find a way to make it work for them.

My advice to them would be to leave all expectations and social conventions at the door, allow themselves to be creative in "loving outside the box", and to build something together that addresses most of their respective needs, while acknowledging and respecting the other responsibilities and emotional attachments each other have.

Oddly enough, Jaskier is one of the few people that I could imagine clearly understanding that Radovid's existence is a bit of a tragedy where he'll never be free to fully belong to himself.

In the event of his brother's untimely death (for example), should Radovid decide to give up his claim to the throne to live a less complicated life, any Redanian ruler could still try to have him assassinated "just in case" he was to change his mind, and later come challenge them.

The palace is a golden cage, and I think Jaskier would not hold it against Radovid, or grow resentful towards him, that he would only be able to offer Jaskier what he is actually free to give without risking both their lives in the process.

He might grow frustrated with all the circumstances that are creating some significant challenges to their relationship, but I could imagine Jaskier wishing to face those as partners, and avoiding to be angry at Radovid for what he can't magically change.

This is where Jaskier's ADHD brain might become an asset by helping him make unique connections, and find creative solutions to allow Jaskier to - as Batey suggested - still find the light in the darkest of places for them two.

So yeah, I definitely tend to headcanon Jaskier as having ADHD (with some significant amount of RSD), too.

[wretchedanddivinee]

a witcher drabble from jask's POV, i wish he had held more anger for geralt tbh so this is that, i might expand on it (probably, at some point) [future geraskier, not canon compliant + non-human jask]

contempt

ire

wrath

fury

lividity

rancor

indignation

r a g e

You would think being Master of the Seven Liberal Arts, Jaskier would be able to find more than mere words to describe the deep-seated ache in his chest, the fire that ran through his vein. After all it was the only thing that was keeping him going in this god forsaken war.

What kind of fucking idiot leaves their supposedly human best friend on the top of a possibly monster ridden mountain after 22 years on and off by his side.

The answer was simple, apparently, Geralt of fucking Rivia.

And Jaskier knows okay, he knows that Geralt didn't really mean anything he said on that thrice damned mountain, and with Nilfgard sniffing around the continent, he has a pretty good guess as to where he is.

Knowing, doesn't excuse each word that hit like a physical blow because Geralt wasn't emotionally regulated enough to ask for space when he needed it.

Knowing, doesn't excuse the lack of apology and contact for four years, not until Geralt deigned to grace him with his presence because he needed something.

Not anything for Jaskier himself, but for Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, the Lion Cub of Cintra. (Melitele rest Queen Calanthe's weary soul.)

Jaskier could never hold the anger and hurt he feels when he looks at Geralt against the princess.

Yet when he watches Geralt open up and become something almost approaching verbose and gentle, he wants to. He aches with the weight of the last twenty six years.

Because Geralt could do that so easily within four years for a child that the destiny he spat vitriol at and claims to hate, gave him.

And all Jaskier gets is brush offs, he got "I'm not your friend.", "I need no one. And the last thing I want is someone needing me.", "like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling."

So the truth isn't that Geralt doesn't know how to be better, the truth is that Geralt was unwilling to be better for Jaskier.

The truth is for Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier simply wasn't worth the effort, whether that be because he thought Jaskier interpreting the little he is willing to say accurately as enough of a basis for a good relationship or because he simply didn't want to try was up in the air.

Either way, where does that leave Jaskier but once again abandoned (emotionally this time), and alone.

__________________

Apparently that leaves him on a journey to take Geralt's child surprise, who mind you knows nothing about him, up another forsaken mountain to Kaer Morhen.

The Witchers Keep.

Where he is one hundred percent certain he will find that no Witcher, friend or family will know anything about him in relation to Geralt, outside of possibly the songs he sings of the White Wolf.

What a load of bollocks.

[nahalism]

Hey 💌💌

I come to you with a question, in a bit of a desperate state. I have big problems with being jealous, paranoid. Especially in romantic relationships but it doesn’t always stop there. What do you think causes a person to be like this? Did you ever struggle with being like this? How can one even begin to unravel it, i wonder if it’s possible to be a human and just…not feel jealousy or is it part of the experience we can’t fully avoid?

(For some background:I have always been a jealous person but my life experience probably blew it to a larger proportion. The thing is i know most things rely on communication but the problem is ive spent a few years in a relationship that i thought had good communication, it turned out i was living in pretty much a constant lie for a few years. It made me realize pretty brutally that no matter how much you are made to feel and think one thing, if the other person is smart enough they can really hide anything from you for an extended period of time all the while giving you the illusion of being heard, seen, loved, cared for. How can i know the communication isnt falling on a rotten bed of lies over and over? How can i trust blindly, when i hear we have to come with an open heart and give each person the benefit of the doubt and full plate of trust from the get go for a relationship to work it feels like a death sentence, its just a matter of when and how. Sometimes i wonder if there is even a way out of it at all.)

hello angelll <3. sooo i actually dont think it has to do with communication in this instance. you can only communicate with clarity when you have clarity on a situation. someone triggered is communicating, but often communicates irrationally or in a way that inflames the issue. lets say a person is avoidant and their partner is co-dependant. the more the co-dependant person communicates, the more they push the avoidant person into silence and exacerbate the issue. im not saying its right, but that intentional communication requires skill, being emotionally regulated, and is deeper than being honest and speaking with good intentions. to communicate well, you have to know who your speaking to, and how to deliver what you wish to communicate. of course this is important, but i think its secondary in comparison to the main issue –> i really do believe whenever anything external has power over a person and their emotions it is rooted in the individuals feelings of self esteem and self worth. ultimately we tend to be attracted toward the familiar or what is comfortable. its why people who are perpetually in toxic relationships find 'good' guys or women to be unattractive or describe 'not having a spark' with them. its also why also why people tend to gravitate toward or find that spark with people who trigger or enhance their pre existing disposition toward things they don't no longer want to experience. for example, someone who doesn't want to be cheated on isn't looking for a cheat, but something in them is drawn toward the type of character who will do this and reinforce their habits or beliefs about relationship. so the answer to how to end that cycle is two fold.

1) you have a habit of acting out jealousy and paranoia in relationships. look at your relationship with your primary care givers and your first experience that blew those feelings of jealousy and paranoia out of proportion, then study them. understand the root of those emotions (usually insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, and comparison of yourself to others, particularly people who are important or close to the person whose affection you want).

2) once you understand the root of the emotion, look at what you can do to solve it. how can you meet your own needs? how can you build a sense of self that leads you to feel comfortable and confident in what you have to offer and bring to the table? once you find the answer to this, begin to practice it. meet that need on your own. by doing this you evolve, and begin to expect more and better from both yourself and others. this changes who and what you find attractive, thus reducing the chance that your next partner is someone with the traits of a person who will trigger your jealousy and paranoia. – if you do the work properly, and develop (or work toward developing) a secure attachment style, it will help ensure that the person you are next drawn and attracted to also practices a secure attachment style. them being securely attached is invaluable, because it's inevitable that you will still experience moments of insecurity, jealousy, comparison, and distrust. someone with a secure attachment style will allow you to have those moments without inflating the issue, or giving you reason to be disproportionately triggered. however, they won't accept maltreatment which is good because their healthy boundaries will also hold you accountable. the more you engage in healthy relationships the more you rewire your pre-existing blueprint and feel safe enough to release those harmful traits.

its really important to get the root issue handled before trying to solve things with communication or whatever other solution. because those are the things that will ensure you find yourself in situations with trustworthy people that allow you to feel safe enough to be yourself. there is always the possibility that our own vices can begin to break people down and devolve into a form of self fulfilling prophecy. for example, someone suspects their partner of infidelity. the partner is faithful, however after years of defending themselves from their person 1's suspicions may begin to resent their partners accusations, and find themselves looking else where or experiencing attraction to other people. even though they never act on these feelings (never cheat), the lack of trust and persistent insecurity is what creates the room for the partner to grow distant. when the partner now tells them 'hey i dont want to do this any more' and two weeks later is in a new relationship, the person with those insecurities now projects this onto them and says 'see, i always knew you would cheat/move on/i wasn't enough', when that was never the case, just a consequence of the way they treated the person who has now moved on.

there will always be someone more beautiful, more attractive, more *insert desirable quality*. you have to love you, see you, and know why you are worth sticking around for. if you dont have this inner stability, you will always find external chaos, and be looking around you for who else can take your spot. the truth is any and everyone can take your spot, but no one can fill it the way you do. so focus on filling it, and loving yours. whoever is for you is for you. you won't have to fight for them, and it may not always be easy, but will it will always feel safe and feel peaceful. – sending you much love, courage, and discernment to work through this <3

[drones-of-innocence]

With the Mario movie still on my brain and that reunion scene melting my heart that I now have fallen down the rabbit hole. Do you think you could you do some headcanons with Mario and Luigi with each? Their relationship is just so pure 😭😭

Sure!! I adored the bros' relationship in the movie, and I love writing about them too 🥺 Here are a few of my headcanons about them, some are well established in my writing and others I've never really mentioned. Some will be in my upcoming WIP 👀

I like to have Mario and Luigi lean into the Italian part of their Italian-American identity, so in my head they speak with more of an Italian accent than a Brooklyn accent like they do in the movie.

That being said, Mario speaks slower than Luigi and has a little more trouble with correct grammar in English, which he's a bit insecure about. Contractions in particular are hard. But in Italian, he's a much more rapid and animated speaker. Luigi is pretty clear in both languages and is very comfortable with both.

I adore Mario calling Luigi "Lu" in the film! His nickname for Luigi in my stories is "Coniglio," which means rabbit. Italians use "rabbit" the same way that English speakers use "chicken," so it's affectionately teasing Luigi for his skittish demeanor. It's a childhood nickname that just stuck.

In the same vein, Luigi's nickname for Mario is "Capo," which means boss. It reflects how Mario is the one "in charge" between them, but also it's sort of teasing because often when Mario makes decisions on their behalf, he almost always heavily considers and goes with Luigi's preference/advice, so it's like Luigi is making the decisions anyway.

They both have high anxiety, but for different reasons. Luigi is a people pleaser by nature and will do anything to mediate and keep the peace, even if it means sacrificing his agency or energy. Mario is a giver and provider by nature, and often frets about not doing enough, so he overworks himself in trying to protect/feed/care for others and doesn't really know how to stop and let himself be taken care of.

Coming to the Mushroom Kingdom had the effect of easing Luigi's anxiety; it's a less chaotic world and a (mostly) peaceful place to call home. There are rarely emotional conflicts that he feels responsible for regulating, and it's overall better for his health. His stress went down significantly despite the occasional heightened dangers. Coming to the MK unfortunately only escalates Mario's anxiety, though; now he is thrust into this protector role with an entire Kingdom relying on him for its security.

Luigi (being the more emotionally intelligent one between the two of them) clocked the exact moment that Mario fell in love with Princess Peach. He knew it before Mario did. And though he was hesitant to fully trust her at first (being that she's a gorgeous woman in a position of great power and he doesn't want his brother to get hurt), he eventually learns her nature is truly kind and gentle, which he comes to admire her dearly for. And he figures out that Peach reciprocates Mario's feelings pretty quickly, too. He leaves it unspoken, but he teases each of them with nudges and meaningful looks when the other isn't paying attention.

Mario had no idea that Luigi was in love with Princess Daisy for a while until Luigi started showing more obvious signs of a crush, but the thought occurred to him after meeting her for the first time that she would be a wonderful partner to his brother. He came to this epiphany when Daisy was able to beat him in a competition, and he was so amazed and impressed that his immediate thought was that a tough lady like her is exactly what Luigi needs. He considered her to be like a little sister even before it was ever a possibility that she might actually become his sister-in-law. It was a conversation with him that sparked Daisy's romantic affection for Luigi, listening to Mario speak so tenderly about him.

The brothers have a very playful relationship. There's banter, teasing, and sometimes even a little roughhousing. They have inside jokes within inside jokes that no one else could possibly understand. Even times when they were very deeply hurt in the past, the other brother finds a way to reframe it so they're both able to look back and laugh at the things that hurt them. It's easier now that they're in the MK; Mario was beginning to lose some of his spark in Brooklyn.

The movie never specifies that the brothers are twins I don't think, though that's usually a pretty common understanding. I personally HC them as two years apart just so I can bring out that older/younger sibling dynamic a little bit more.

They are inseparable 🥺 Both of them will do anything to make sure the other is content. But both of them also can never shake the feeling that they can't possibly give the other everything he wants and deserves. Nothing Luigi does will ever be good enough for Mario in his own view, and Mario can never do enough to assure Luigi's peace and security in his view. They might never admit it, but on some level they know and try to compensate anyway.

Their tempers are scary. Both of them are extraordinarily patient and understanding even to the most frustrating people and situations, but there are limits. Mario's end point is more easily reached. Where his anger is often fiery and passionate like in the heat of a fight, his unhindered rage is sharp and cold. He speaks quietly, never raising his voice except to be heard. It's scariest when he's moved beyond words into dead silence. It is Luigi's pure rage that is loud and aggressive, but it is much harder and rarer for him to reach his boiling point.

Firebrand and Thunderhand!! Their powers manifest in many ways that they've adapted to their practical lives. It wasn't easy learning how to control them, but once mastered, they almost couldn't imagine their lives without them. Mario's Firebrand makes him a very comforting presence (exuding warmth 😌) and able to traverse many different climates without problem due to his ability to control his body's preservation or release of heat. Luigi's Thunderhand regularly halves the time spent on his various engineering projects, as well as being potentially medically useful.

Luigi doesn't quite have Mario's strength or control, but he is much more meticulous and observant. He's more likely to come across the secret passages or hidden objects that can be helpful on the journey. Mario's more likely to fixate on the objective (e.g. Rescue the Princess! Save the world!) and do whatever it takes to accomplish it as efficiently as possible due to his imperative to serve, even if it sometimes means missing some details.

The movie characterizes Mario as a kind of misunderstood visionary, and he's a bit like that in my stories as well. He has some big ideas, but his motivations are purely based in the comfort and safety of others. He just wants to help people. Luigi is the one who can really assist and realize Mario's ideas, and he often has several projects going on because of how fast Mario can jump from plan to plan.

[scaly-freaks]

If you had to write a sequel after TGOWARL with amaras son as the main character, how would you go on abt it? Who would be his love interest, how would his relationship with his parents look like, would you even keep amara and aegon alive or would you do something tragic abt them, and most importantly: WOULD HE BE A HOT VAMPIRE?!

Took me an embarrassing few seconds to figure out what TGOWARL was *-*

Tbh I wouldn't write a sequel as it would basically be an OC novel so I just don't feel the point of writing that in the ASOIAF verse. Not against discussing it though.

But also hmmmm...so in Burning Jasmine, Valerion was one of the most batshit Targaryens possible. The only way he could be more batshit in this version is if he was preying on his own sister, which Jaehaerys already will grow up to do. There are plot points I can't betray currently, so the relationship with his parents can't be fully unfurled, however, he isn't Aegon's favourite by any means, I will say that. He reminds Aegon of Aemond, but he also comes off more "Uller" than Targaryen because of the black hair (which does have a white mallen streak).

Amara's parental situation..........is not as perfect as it seems, which will be explored in the next chapter, and it's kind of the reason why she herself isn't the best parent in this fic as compared to Burning Jasmine. She gets overwhelmed easily, or becomes "friends" with her kids which isn't the correct way to discipline them. Aegon on the other hand is always the disciplinarian and not a friend, but only because he wants to exert control over his children the way he knows Viserys didn't over him (he probably fears children like himself to rebel against him).

Aegon's parenting throws everything more into imbalance than Amara's though, because she at least tries to give them all love equally even when depression hits and she just wants to pretend she doesn't have kids and retreats into herself (parenting is a 24/7 job and not everyone is ready for it).

But Aegon favours Jaehaera heavily. The topic of spousification of a child is a difficult one, but it happens all the time. And I think if Amara died or just withdrew emotionally from Aegon, he would spousify Jaehaera (who will grow up to have mental health/behavioural issues of her own which can get very violent, but with her dad, she's always sweet). Theres quite a fair bit of Electra complex with Jaehaera when she's in her teenage years, so it's something that travels both ways and gets unhealthy, especially when their attachment as father-daughter starts to alienate his sons (especially Jaehaerys, who only ever had Aegon once his mother died).

Jaehaerys's obsession with Jaehaera stems from the basic element of she has everything I want, she is everything I want. She has Amara who is his pseudo-mother figure, she has Aegon who is his father, she has the love of everyone who sees her because she's the Targaryen princess who was legitimised and hatched her egg before she was even born. Half of it is Jaehaerys wanting to cut off her skin and wear it, and the other half is obviously sexual/emotional/mental (I need you to need me so I can convince myself I'm worth something - but if you don't do it the way I want, I hurt you).

Compared to his two older siblings, Valerion is relatively ignored. Which obviously mean he develops a personality all by himself, explores the world himself, learns how to regulate his emotions on his own. In that sense he's sort of like Aegon aka visiting brothels young because a friend suggested it. Hanging out with a group outside his family all the time and learning how to be a man from them (with disastrous results). He would also go for the biggest dragon over keeping the egg he was given as a babe (which would never hatch). He probably wouldn't want Vermithor for this personal belief that because the dragon hasn't seen heavy war, he's "useless." He'd want a dragon like Cannibal, simply because he enjoys the thought of the beast hunting out his siblings' mounts for sport. He's sadistic to a fault, and if he ever became king, he'd make Maegor look like a fun time in the park.

p.s. I don't understand the vampire question 😭

[oliviaedam]

The Mind Can Heal The Body

We often think of the mind and body as separate, but science and ancient wisdom tell us otherwise. 🌱 Our minds are more powerful than we realize, with the ability to not just influence how we feel emotionally, but also how we heal physically.

The Mind-Body Connection Have you ever noticed how stress can make you physically sick? Or how meditation and relaxation can calm not just your thoughts but also your heart rate? These are examples of the mind-body connection at work.

Research has shown that positive thinking, mindfulness, and even visualization techniques can improve the body's healing process. 🧠✨ For example:

Meditation has been proven to lower blood pressure and reduce inflammation in the body.

Visualization is often used by athletes to imagine recovery and has been shown to accelerate physical healing.

Placebo Effect: When people believe they’re receiving treatment (even if it’s just a sugar pill), their body sometimes responds by getting better, simply because they believe it will. Crazy, right?

How to Tap Into Your Healing Potential The mind has the potential to assist in the body’s natural healing processes. Here are a few ways you can start using the power of your mind to support your health:

Meditation & Breathwork: Just a few minutes of deep breathing or mindful meditation can help regulate your body’s systems.

Visualization: Close your eyes and imagine your body healing. Visualize the cells in your body working in harmony.

Positive Affirmations: Speak kind, encouraging words to yourself. Your thoughts shape your reality more than you think. ✨

Healing Isn't Instant, But It’s Possible It’s important to remember that healing is a journey, and while the mind can influence the body, it’s not a magic cure. However, incorporating these practices into your life can reduce stress, improve mood, and support physical recovery over time. 🌻

What’s Your Experience? Have you ever tried using your mind to support healing in your body? Drop a comment or reblog with your thoughts! Let’s explore this powerful connection together. 💬🌿

[stargazer-sims]

Journal Entry #53

previously - Journal Entry #52

Victor

"Do you even know what I need?"

I can't believe I said that to my poor husband, especially given how our conversation had been going and the state of mind he was obviously in. Even before the entire sentence was out of my mouth, I regretted it, but unfortunately there was no way to pull it back in.

Several minutes before that, I'd found Yuri in the upstairs bathroom, crying his heart out. I think he was trying to hide from me, but I figured he would've realized by now that he never can. I don't know how I always know when something's wrong with him. I just do, and usually I'm able to help him in some way.

On this night, though? Tonight, not only did I not help, but I possibly made things worse.

Not that anyone else’s opinion has any real impact here, but I want you guys to understand, asking Yuri that question wasn't meant as a rebuke. Although it probably came out sounding that way, I wasn't trying to criticize him.

The truth is, up until recently, he's been giving me exactly what I need, whether he's able to articulate what that is or not. And if he can't put it into words, that's not his fault. It's not as if he's never asked me what I need. He has, but it's my inability to express stuff clearly that's the problem, not his ability to understand, and for me to demand him to explain something that I can barely even explain myself was beyond unfair.

What Yuri does for me, and what I've always needed someone to do, is to help provide stability for me. Sometimes, when I'm scared or stressed or upset, I have a hard time processing my thoughts and regulating my energy. I don't really know how to describe it, but it's like static in my brain, like white noise that makes it nearly impossible for me to hear the part of my mind that controls my impulses and forms logical thoughts. But, Yuri knows how to calm me down when I'm like that. He knows better than anyone what a mess I am, and he always seems to have the ability to sort me out.

Yuri was the one who realized the importance of schedules for me, too. As silly as it sounds, he gave me a regular bedtime and wake-up time, and helped me build other routines into my life that are the same every day. I can't even begin to tell you what a huge difference that's made in terms of how well I'm able to process my emotions and regulate my energy. I guess it's because those are things I don't have to focus on now, so I'm able to devote more brainpower to being a functional human.

Another thing he does is to talk sense into me when I need it. I like to say he's my voice of reason, 'cause I'm not particularly reasonable sometimes.

Being with him has helped me grow as a person. I think I'm more mature because of him, and more responsible. He teaches me by example how to be brave and resilient and emotionally strong. In situations where I'd be likely to give up, Yuri keeps going. As frail and sick as he is, if he can persevere, I have no excuse.

Since he's been really sick this time, though, something's changed. This is the most seriously ill I've ever seen him, and usually when he's not well, he's clingy and needy and just wants to be held and fussed over as much as possible which, contrary to what people may think, I don't mind at all. I haven't been able to take care of him like I normally would, and I'm sure that's affecting him, but it's more than that. I feel like he's been distancing himself from me, and I don't understand why. I've never known him to be as emotionally fragile as he's been over the past several weeks, and I suppose I expected that to lead to him wanting more affection, not less.

Not gonna lie, the lack of physical touch is hard on me, 'cause that's another thing I need. I'm a very tactile person, and Yuri touching me in any way makes me feel grounded and safe, particularly because I know how much of an act of trust it is for him to touch or be touched by anyone. I love it when he gets onto my lap and wants me to hold him, but I'm equally happy when he gives me a hug or plays with my fingers or pets my hair. And I like it when he lets me touch him in any way at all, but especially intimately. It's good to feel trusted. I'm missing that now, and it's starting to hurt me quite a lot.

Yuri didn't answer my question, but I didn't expect him to, since it was kind of rhetorical anyway. The problem was, he cried harder, and the sound of his sobs went straight to my heart. It felt like an invisible knife was stabbing me in the chest, and it took a sheer force of will for me not to start crying as well.

I felt so bad for snapping at him and upsetting him more than he already had been. Yes, I was frustrated and confused, but that didn't justify it.

I know there are people out there who believe he uses emotional manipulation on me. Like, people have said that to my face, so I'm not just being weird or paranoid about it. And yeah, maybe he does do it occasionally, but I've never met another human being who doesn't do it once in a while. But, to anyone who thinks Yuri regularly exploits my sensitivity with fake tears or some other made-up crap, I just wanna remind you that you aren't here with us all the time. You see what we show you, and that doesn't always include the moments of raw, genuine emotional reaction.

I promise you, Yuri's tears tonight were real, not made up to trick me into doing anything. In fact, I got the feeling he would’ve preferred that I wasn’t anywhere near him. Something was hurting him, and I was pretty sure it wasn't his illness. I was afraid it was me.

When he didn't respond after several seconds, I said softly, "I'm sorry."

I could barely hear him as he said weakly, "Go away."

"No," I said. "We need to figure this out.

Finally, he looked up at me. His face was all puffy and swollen, and the edges of his eyes were red. He looked awful, and I just wanted to hold him and soothe away any pain that I could.

"There's nothing to figure out," he said. "You'd be better off without me."

"Yuri." His name was all I could get out at first as I battled my desire to break down in tears. I drew in the deepest breath I was capable of. "Yuri, I need you. Please don't ever say I'd be better off without you, 'cause I wouldn't be. Without you, I... I might not even be here."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"How could you forget?" I said. "Remember the day I came home from the hospital? That night?"

"Yes."

I folded my arms close to my body, but the self-protecting gesture did little to prevent the shiver of dread that went through me at the memory of that night. I'm not sure I really wanted to talk about it, but something in my conscience told me I needed to reveal one particular thing to my husband. It was a secret too big to keep, and I needed him to know, and there might never be a more appropriate time.

"That night... I literally wanted to die, Yuri. Not figuratively. Literally. I would've been perfectly fine with closing my eyes and never waking up."

He stared at me, and the expression that crossed his face was nothing short of haunted. "You...? Literally?"

"Yeah," I said. "I was angry and scared and... I don't know. Desperate, I guess. I felt like my whole life was ruined, just because of one dumb mistake."

"It wasn't," he said. "Didn't I tell you that?"

"I know. You did, and I trusted you. It's the reason I'm here," I said. "But, I think I was out of my mind that night. Like, I wasn't thinking straight at all. I'd never been in that much pain in my entire life, and I was worried that I'd never be able to see again, and everything was just... too much. I know it's nothing compared to the pain you're in sometimes, but I still couldn't handle it. Not like you can."

"I didn't realize," he said. "I wanted to help you settle down because I knew you were upset, but I... I didn't realize..."

"I'm still around because of you," I reiterated, and in a flash of clarity it occurred to me that statement was one hundred percent true.

I don't know if there's a word for how horrible and useless and stupid I felt after my accident. Combine that with an excruciating headache, deep bone pain in both my arms, unrelenting nausea from the medication I was taking, and the absolutely terrifying prospect of permanently losing my vision, and I had a recipe for the end of life as I knew it. In hindsight, it's easy to say I was overreacting, but all I wanted on that first night back at home was for all my pain, both physical and psychological, to disappear.

You know how I explained that my struggles with impulse control and rational thinking are worse when I'm stressed? Left alone that night, it's likely that I would've made a very bad choice, and as a consequence, I wouldn't be here right now to share my thoughts about it. Thankfully, I had Yuri by my side. He couldn't make the pain go away, but he convinced me I could endure it and that it'd eventually pass. He was right, and I'm beyond grateful he was there with me.

I continued with, "You told me that you didn't know what you'd do without me. You said you'd stay by me no matter what, and you promised to take care of me, remember? You promised. What happened to that? Didn't you mean it?"

"Of course I meant it."

"If you meant it, then why are you saying I'd be better off without you now?" I said. "If you thought I needed you a few weeks ago, why wouldn't you still think that?"

"Because I was wrong."

"About what?"

"I wanted to be useful," he said. "I wanted to feel like an equal partner, and I wanted you to be able to trust me to look after you."

"I did trust you," I said. "I do."

More tears began to leak from the edges of his eyes and spill down his face. "I really tried. I tried my best to be strong for you and take care of you, but... I couldn't do it. I can't be equal to you. I can't even do a fraction of what you do.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re not able to do everything all the time. I get it, and it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine, Look what happened to me after only a few days. Other people ended up having to take care of me, and where did that leave my promise to you?"

"You had no control over that," I said. "You did try your hardest, and you were awesome, but we both know you were already starting to get sick before my accident."

"This always happens. It's as if I'm always too ill when you need me the most."

"I need you all the time," I said.

"You don't need me being a burden to you."

"You're not a burden to me. How often am I going to have to tell you that? Taking care of you is a lot, but it's not a burden. I want to do it."

"But, what if I don't want to make your life difficult any more?" he said.

"You're not making my life difficult. If I ever made you feel that way, I'm sorry, 'cause I never meant to. You make my life better, and I'll never not want you in it."

"It... it wasn't you who made me think that," he said.

I held out my good hand to him. "Will you let me touch you?"

He chewed on his lip, clearly wrangling with the decision. I could practically see the debate going on in his head, reflected in his eyes. I could also see the precise moment when he made up his mind.

He crept slowly across the floor toward me, and crawled onto my lap. Wrapping his arms around my body, he leaned into me and rested his head against my shoulder. I held him with my good arm.

He cried for a while, and I stayed quiet, just letting him get it all out. It was plain to see that our situation had been bothering him and that he'd been spending a lot of time thinking about it. I suspected it'd been on his mind for some time, even before his conversation with Seiji, but whatever had happened between them certainly hadn't done anything to improve matters at all.

It infuriated me to think that Seiji had gone to see him in the hospital with the sole intention of telling him off. Of course I knew how Seiji felt — he'd made it perfectly clear that day in the park — but when he said he was going to give Yuri a piece of his mind, I never dreamed it'd be something like that. I thought maybe he'd give him a bit of a hard time for having to work instead of being there to see me compete. I didn't expect he'd go there and air out all his pent-up negativity.

And like... how dare he say Yuri is a terrible person? And how dare he try to interfere in our relationship and tell Yuri that I'm unhappy and that I'd be better off without him? I wanted to give him a huge piece of my mind for that.

Generally, I give people the benefit of the doubt, and I get that Seiji's going through a lot of difficult stuff, but that gives him no right to make everyone else as miserable as he is. Some of us are working hard to be the best versions of ourselves, and nobody needs another person tearing them down.

I decided I'd let it go for the time being. The last thing I wanted was to get into a pointless fight. I have more important things to focus on than Seiji Hinamori's poor behaviour. Besides, I reasoned that I'd get my opportunity to speak to him about it at some point anyway, and maybe it'd be a more productive conversation if we had the benefit of time to calm down and gain some perspective

"I love you," I said, once Yuri's weeping had subsided to sniffling and a few tiny whimpers. "I need you and I want you, and nothing anyone says is ever going to change that. Do you understand?"

He nodded against my shoulder, and said, "Yes, but..."

"No 'buts'," I said. "Maybe it's hard for you to accept hearing this from me right now, but you know what? That's totally okay. Take your time and figure out whatever you need to figure out, but just keep in mind that I'm not going anywhere while you're sorting through it.

He sighed. "Okay." Then, after a second or two, "Victor?"

'Yeah?"

"I really don't deserve you."

"It's not about deserving," I said. "Most of us wouldn't be happy if we got what the powers of the universe or whatever decided that we deserved. Wouldn't you rather have what you need than what you deserve?"

"Are you angry with me?"

"No, I'm not angry," I told him. "I'm worried about you. I'm sorry if you thought I was mad. I'm tired and frustrated, and I guess I could be handling it better, but that's got nothing to do with you. That's just me wishing things would get back to normal faster."

"Me too," he said. "I'm so tired."

"I know, love," I reached up to run my fingers through his hair. "It's okay. You've been through a lot lately."

"So have you.”

“Yeah, but I’m mostly better. Now we’ve got to work on getting you back on your feet.”

“I know I shouldn’t complain,” he said. “But I don’t know if that’s going to happen. Me getting back on my feet. Everything hurts, and I don’t know how to cope with it any more.”

"Saying you're tired or in pain isn't complaining. You’re allowed to say how you feel,” I told him. “It might actually be easier to deal with if you talk about it.”

"I'm too tired to talk. I can’t even think any more."

“Do you want to go to bed now?" I asked. Sleep wasn't the long-term solution, I realized, but if he was mentally tired, at least some sleep would give him a break from whatever turmoil was in his head.

"Yeah," he said.

"Would you like me to sleep in your bed with you, or do you still want to be alone?"

"I never want to be alone," It came out so softly that I wouldn't have caught it if his head hadn't been so close to mine. "Never again. I'm so afraid of that. But I'm scared that if I can't become a worthwhile person, I... I'll be alone... again... forever."

I thought he had run out of tears, but they renewed themselves in the middle of a sentence and left him hiccuping for breath by the end of it. He slumped down onto my legs, as if he didn't have a scrap of strength left to hold himself upright any more.

"Shh... shh..." I rubbed his back the way I know he likes, trying to comfort him. "Listen to me. You are a worthwhile person. You're an amazing person. Don’t I tell you that all the time?”

“Y-yes.”

“We all have stuff to work on,” I said. “If you want to fix some things, I'll help you however I can. Or you can ask for help from a professional if you think that's what you need, or we could talk to somebody together. When you're ready, you just tell me what you want, okay?"

"I want to feel like I’m enough," he whispered.

I pushed away the urge to tell him that he already is enough, that in my eyes, he’s everything. I’m sure he knows how much I love him and I’m equally sure that, deep down, he understands there are a lot of people in his life who do accept him just as he is.

The real problem is that he’s struggling to accept himself.

I don't think his poor self-worth is a new problem. My guess is that it goes back so far that he's forgotten how to think of himself as inherently valuable and is convinced he has to earn approval and validation from others. Except he never can, because when someone praises him or tells him he matters, he doesn't trust that they're telling the truth, because by his own standards it's literally impossible for him to measure up.

I could’ve given him every affirmation I could think of, and he wouldn’t have believed any of them. I wanted to tell him how strong and courageous and resilient he is, how intelligent and practical, and so delicately beautiful that it should be me who calls him 'treasure' and not the other way around. I wanted to say that he doesn't have to be objectively perfect to be perfect for me. But, all those words would’ve been lost if I spoke them aloud just then, and that realization broke my heart.

What I said instead was, "I'm never going to let you go. You're the most important person in the world to me."

With the proper help, I hope that one day when he looks at himself, he'll be able to see what I see when I look at him. Not a single one of us is flawless — not Yuri or me or anyone else — but everyone has something to offer the world. Everyone has value. Each of us means something to someone, whether we recognize that or not, and we each have our own special place in the grand design of the universe.

Sitting there in the middle of our bathroom floor, it occurred to me that I want the same thing for Yuri that he wants for himself. I want him to be happy, and I want him to understand that regardless of his disability, of any personal shortcomings or any mistakes he's made, of any bad thing anyone's said to him or about him — regardless of anything — he is enough.

[act-more-like-a-dog-sirius]

Thoughts on vain and dramatic Sirius?

ugh. hate them. listen. sirius is my emotional support project-mental-illness-onto-him character. but even then i stick to actual canonical basis. which means. no he's not vain. in any way. my dude lived in a cave for months eating rats so he could better take care of his godson. that is not vain. he was always ready to sacrifice himself for the people he loved. if that meant roughing it and living off fucking rats and staying locked up in an abusive home he hated, then he did it, and he sure as fuck didn't complain about it.

he spent 12 motherfucking years in azkaban, being tortured not only by dementors 'posted outside his cell 24/7' but also by solitary confinement, which is well-cited to be a form of torture. he clearly was not bathing regularly ('filthy matted hair') nor was he getting enough to eat ('gaunt, starving' 'sunken eyes' 'hollow cheeks' 'i was thin, thin enough to slip through the bars'). this is not someone who is vain. this is someone who has had all dignity stripped from him.

listen, i could go on a tangent and rant about how insanely fucked up and torturous and depressing sirius' entire fucking life is (and how fucked up wizarding society is as a whole) but i'd go down such a rabbit hole lmao. and i'm already getting off track here. what i will say is that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for him being vain. the only potential line anyone could possibly take as in any way whatsoever him being vain is him saying to peter 'there's enough filth on my robes without you touching them' which is entirely just him insulting peter for being scum rather than him making any kind of statement of self-importance or feeling above others.

i know i'm taking a narrow interpretation of vain here, but i'm trying to limit myself to make this rant manageable lmao.

as for dramatic? definitely not the way canon writes him. sirius has a flair for dramatic, as did all marauders, but nothing more than that. i don't know about you but i don't really count his actions in prisoner of azkaban as being him thinking entirely sanely. like. my dude is on a fucking mission. he is single minded. he is trying to protect his godson. but he has also just gotten out of 12 years of solitary confinement and 24/7 torture. and he thinks peter is gonna kill harry. there is no way he has the ability to be calm or rational about that. and the whole breaking in on halloween thing? sure it could be dramatic, but honestly, i read it more in the sense of him doing some kind of poetic justice of trying to kill peter on the same day james and lily were murdered 12 years later.

ugh i'm not being super articulate here. but whatever. basically, there is no actual canon evidence for sirius being any more dramatic than any of the other marauders. not in the flashbacks, not in goblet of fire, and certainly not in order of the phoenix. he's calm, level-headed, rational, keenly insightful, and down to earth in all of those books (again poa doesn't really count).

now as for fanon/fandom/headcanon? yeah, i think sirius feels things super intensely and can overreact to things emotionally. but that is 100% just my personal headcanon. we know for a fact he is from an abusive family (at the very least emotionally abusive, but honestly, it's headcanon, but i do think there was at least some element of magical/physical abuse thrown in there to really push him to run away, but i fully acknowledge that is 100% my own headcanon). i personally headcanon sirius as suffering from some serious developmental trauma and feeling rejection-sensitive dysphoria and not being able to regulate his emotions. i headcanon him as bpd and adhd. but like i said, sirius is my own emotional-support-project mental illness character. i fully 100% acknowledge my headcanon is not factually canon it's just my own interpretation of it

[purplesaline]

Trigger warning for medically assisted death

I learned something today. As a Canadian I'm incredibly lucky that we have access to MAID (medical assistance in dying). Not to say it doesn't have it's issues, which it does and I have no problem being very loud about those issues, but when you have a family member suffering from terminal cancer and they've exhausted all possible treatments that have a chance if prolonging their life those issues don't really come into play. That's not what I learned by the way, just a little bit of background.

What I learned is that gathering to be with your loved one while they die is very similar to a funeral. In fact, for me at least, it's more effective than a funeral.

Funerals are supposed to be a way to allow people to say goodbye to someone who has died, to get closure. More often than not there wasn't a chance to do that before the person died. It allows you to get together and remember the person and grieve, and for a lot of people that works really well. It's never really helped me much though. Between my ADHD "Now" and "Not Now" time blindness and object stasis (it's not really onject impermanence bit that's a discussion for another time), and my belief that there is no after life, we just.. end, a funeral doesn't provide me any of that closure it seems to for most people. The only thing a funeral does is cause me pain because I'm overwhelmed by seeing so many people emotionally hurting.

But gathering as a family today with my mom, getting to say goodbye to her and have her say goodbye to us, having the support of other people who loved her as much as I did while we watched her fall asleep and then stop breathing, and then going back to the house with everyone to eat and help each other co-regulate? That was as much closure as I think my weirdly wired brain is ever going to be able to get.

I don't have much experience with death. The only two people in my life who have died were very old (80+), so I didn't know how I would handle being there today. I thought it might be too hard, seeing everyone be so sad. I wasn't worried about my own grief, I long ago accepted this outcome and I'm very happy she had the option to die with dignity and go out on her own terms, but I was worried about how I'd cope with other people's grief.

It wasn't hard though, it was quite the opposite. It was one of the easiest things I've ever done. I think a large part of that was that no one was uncomfortable seeing other people upset (like they usually are), and we were all really happy for her and grateful so there was no resentment or denial, just sadness and relief.

Actually I take that back. Lance was very distressed to see so many people upset and not be able to fix it. I had him in his vest for the first time in years (mom was in the hospital and I didn't want to leave Lance in the car case while I could have managed without him it was so much easier with him there. I took a couple of decompression breaks and we went and visited some of the other patients which always makes me happy).

But other than Lance no one else was uncomfortable and it was really just an incredibly cathartic experience and I'm really glad I chose to go (mom gave us the option. She said she'd like us there but it was okay if we didn't want to be). I knew I'd regret it down the line if I didn't go, and that instinct was spot on.

I'm sure that not everyone will find the experience as positive and healing as I did, but if you ever find yourself in the position to choose whether or not to be there with someone as they die and you're one the fence about it I hope this helps you make a more informed choice, whichever option ends up being the best one for you.

For me, this experience granted me a peace above and beyond my acceptance of her death that I wasn't expecting, and I'm really grateful for that. If I was a spiritual person I'd even say I was blessed.

I love you so much mom. You fought so hard and I'm so glad that your last moments got to be peaceful ones.

[cr1mson5returns]

"Either your trauma makes you sickeningly mentally ill or it makes you really fun at open mic karaoke night!" Well, mine did both. So.

It's no secret that I'm having really intense emotional shifts right now. A huge part of it is related to medication, which sounds terrible but is actually good news all things considered. I was approved for a patient assistance program to get the medication that works best for me to regulate my moods, which hasn't gone generic because of patents and is really expensive without insurance. $1500 for a 30-day supply at the pharmacy, actually. So I hadn't been on that medication since January, but the one I was prescribed in the hospital in March (2023) wasn't working for me. So I was able to get approved for this assistance program, and I'll be going back on this antipsychotic that's always done wonders for me. I just also have to get off this anticonvulsant that, while ineffective for mood regulation, was still in my system at 50 mg daily. You should never quit taking your meds without your doctor's advice and especially not all at once. My NP gave me the go-ahead to titrate down on my anticonvulsant so I can go up on the antipsychotic when it arrives. I'm just very emotionally sensitive and volatile in the meantime, more so than usual.

Sometimes I get these emotional crashes during the day for relatively minor and inconsequential reasons. Today, the thought of my landlord/housemate possibly thinking that I'm just sitting on my ass all day and not actually trying to get a job so that I can pay my rent hit me so hard that I had to leave the house to go clear my head and have an existential crisis in public for once.

These emotional crashes usually swell and inflame and crescendo until they swell all the way up to a climax point which reveals some previously-subconscious thought or urge or feeling that I can no longer ignore. And now that it's been brought to the forefront, I can relax a little and stew about it. Today, that climactic point was realizing that I don't actually know if I'm a good person.

I'm the type who believes that humanity is generally good. I assume good intentions; I think most people are good at their core and want to do good things. Very, very few people are truly evil or even mostly bad. I love humans so much and it's part of why I wanted to be a counselor to begin with. I just adore humanity. If I was given a choice to do one thing and ensure the survival of humanity, but knowing that I would not solve most of humanity's problems, I would still do that thing because I think our messiness is part of the beauty of us. I believe in the overarching goodness of humanity.

But down to a very specific point in the data - me, just little old me existing out here in my corner of reality - I don't actually know if I'm a good person. And I think it's equal parts identity disturbance from BPD, which is distressing in its own right, as well as the thorough conditioning of Catholicism saying that "apart from God we can do no good." And I don't consider myself Christian anymore, don't even know how I feel about the Christian God because I'm not in a place where I've been able to sit and explore that. So what does that make me?

Growing up Catholic robbed me of a lot. This is just one thing but it's a deep loss.

[daisys-reality]

hey!! so, I've been trying to shift for a LONG time and I've tried different mindsets, manifesting, different approaches, but none of them have worked for me. Advice? 😭

hey anon, I will do a reading for you to get some advice but remember to just take from the reading what resonates! Don't limit yourself to this. No matter what I get in this reading, at the end of the day you will always be the one who decides what will happen, okay? So, let's see what kind of advice and messages we have for you...

Balance, moderation and detachment -  This may sound a bit weird but try to let the things around you regulate themselves. I feel like there is an issue with you letting yourself get too influenced by your CR life. Like.. when in your CR life something happens that is not so pleasant then you right away assume that your shifting journey is also not progressing and everything is turning worse or something like that. But your CR life has nothing to do with your shifting journey!! Even when your CR life is not great right now, you might still make great progress on your shifting journey! Don't compare them and don’t put them in the same box! Keep your CR life separated from your shifting journey. Find the right balance in your life with your shifting journey -  develop a mindset/belief and perhaps a shifting routine that carries you forward, gives you stability,  protects you (emotionally/mentally/physically) and also gives you space to grow and change!  

I also have some questions for you that you might want to think about:

Are you truly aware of your power and do you truly acknowledge it? 

Ask yourself when do you feel healthy/balanced - physically, mentally and emotionally? 

Are you patient enough to find your own balanced way of doing things?

Do you orient yourself too much to other people’s advice or are you listening to your own inner voice?

Are you scared of loss? 

How do you cope with the situation once everything has changed?

Are you able to cope with the loss and are you able to leave it in the past?

Solitude, meditation and a harmonious relationship with yourself  - It seems like you reviewed multiple options and you’re still unable to choose. You may rather want other people to make this decision for you. It’s possible you’re thinking about this situation too much or you sometimes pretend it doesn’t exist at all or that you don’t care. If you believe in angels/spirits/higher self, maybe try to ask for signs as to what direction to take or just listen to your own inner voice. Deep down you know what to do. It’s just a matter of gathering up your willpower and taking action. This is not merely an intellectual decision, but also a choice that requires input from the heart so to say. Get in touch with your feelings and don't suppress them. You may feel the need for a little time alone. If so, follow your instinct. Peaceful solitude can bring many personal hidden treasures to light! Try to meditate more - not just for a shifting attempt but also for your general beliefs and your situation. The confusion about your current situation may lift itself and the truth may be revealed - like suddenly everything becomes completely clear to you and makes sense. It might be time to reevaluate your priorities, to make choices carefully and to embrace the ‘truth’ - your own inner ‘truth’. Trust your instincts and do what feels best for you.

Another advice may be that, when you feel extremely anxious or depressed about your situation, try not to dwell on it too much then and just go to sleep. On the next day, things may already seem different than before and with the little detachment or rather emotional distance gained you may be able to make decisions more easily (especially decisions related to your beliefs). Perhaps you should also increase the amount of sleep in your life, maybe go to bed a bit earlier, at night time we often get intrusive thoughts or start overthinking. So, keep this in mind. 

The angel number 73 or 37 may hold another message for you, feel free to look them up as well.