#this is the daily journal entry you didn't ask for
Note
i think i found my fav arcana blog, i rlly love ur hcs and writings!!! (and i don't even usually read that much,,)
i wanna know how the m6 would react to mc, who does journaling but never had anyone read their journal, offering the m6 if they want to read their private journal
The Arcana HCs: M6 reading MC's journal
~ I kept a journal for several years until my siblings were old enough to decipher my handwriting and use it as blackmail lol. Thanks for the prompt anon, enjoy! - brainrot ~
Julian
Noticed you writing in it every day and has been dying of curiosity to know what you're writing about but respects your privacy too much to even bring it up
There have been one or two times when you left it on a table (not open) and he spent a good five minutes fixated on it from across the room, mind going crazy
You finally walk in on him one afternoon, draped across one side of the couch and twisting his gloves while staring holes into the notebook on the opposite armrest
So you sit down next to him and let him read it with you
Double checking multiple times that it's okay for him to be reading this - "are you sure that you're sure?"
Reading about himself from your perspective and how he makes your life better makes him so happy
He also notices how you've kept his love notes and flowers pressed between the pages and the sheer romance of it will make his brain melt
Blushing, stuttering mess
Now whenever he writes you something or picks a flower for you he's thinking about the best way to make it relevant years later, since he knows you'll save them
Asra
Journaling started for you as a daily exercise when you were relearning to write
It was Asra's way of giving you a piece of your life that you had total control of, and of encouraging you to chronicle your days to cope with your memory loss
Over time it also became a place to write down all the things you wanted to say to them while they were gone
So late one night, when you're stargazing together and you find you're on the second to last page of the notebook he gave you so long ago, you reread it with him
It's one of the most precious moments you'll ever share with them. No magic or adventure involved, just the sweetness of revisiting your history together
It also gives you the chance to let him read all the things you felt you couldn't tell him, which brings so much resolution
By the time you're finished reading and talking and snuggling the birds are starting to chirp and the sky is getting lighter
For them, reading about all the ways you noticed and thought about and loved them when there was so much distance between you two makes their heart so full it aches
Nadia
At first she assumed it was something like a planner, where you would write down leads and information and connections
But then she saw the different notebooks you kept for studying, and the system you had to keep track of your scheduled events
She was a little embarrassed at how long it took for her to realize that it was a journal
Once she knew, she was intrigued. She wasn't going to pressure you to show her at all, but she's certainly curious
One day you're flipping back through your entries and you begin to giggle. It's the last thing before she caves and asks
"MC, my darling, what's making you laugh?"
You're immediately scooting over to make space for her next to you and pointing to the right spot on the page
It's a small anecdote you had recorded of Natiqa pranking Nahara and Nazali when Nadia wasn't around
Once you two start reading together she doesn't stop. With your permission, you spend the next two hours reminiscing
You write about her like she's the most important, wise, and confident person in the world, and it fills her with humble gratitude
Muriel
Noticed on the trip south. Wasn't curious. Didn't ask.
Now its been months, you two live like an old married couple in the woods, and he has no idea how to bring it up this late in the getting-to-know-you game
Practices the possible words to ask you in the early mornings while he's feeding the chickens and you're still asleep
The chickens don't have much feedback
You, on the other hand, have mistaken his stoicism for disinterest, so you haven't taken any initiative to let him know that you're open to talking about it
Inanna gets fed up one day and grabs your journal in her mouth, leading you on a chase through the woods, right to where Muriel is fishing
Casually drops it as soon as he tells her to, right into his lap, and heads away for a nap
You sit down next to him and check for torn pages. As soon as you feel his interested gaze, you're offering to read it to him while he waits for the fish to bite
He's not ready for how often he features in your stories, but hearing the way you describe him as safe and gentle and precious makes him feel so fuzzy inside
Portia
The first time she sees you writing she's already asking what it's for
As soon as you tell her it's a journal, she's asking you to let her read it. If it's written by someone as mysterious and exciting as you, it has to be good!
At this point you've known her for all of two days, so you say no
Disappointed but understanding. She doesn't pester you about it, but she makes sure to let you know that she's very interested if you ever feel like sharing
You take your time, but one evening after dinner while you're snuggled up by the fire you'll pull it out and start reading to her
The best audience you've ever had. She is honed in, hanging onto every word while she covers a very happy Pepi in scritches
As someone who fell in love with novels because they whisked her away into adventures she didn't feel important enough for otherwise, hearing you recount your shared story like this tugs on all of her heartstrings
She'll laugh and cry and gasp at all the right moments. From now on, she treats your journal like a sacred thing. After all, it's the most important story in the world
Lucio
He was already sneaking peeks over your shoulder when he was stuck to you as a not-ghost. Man has 0 concept of privacy
You knew he was looking because he was commenting on your handwriting and gossiping about any tidbits he thought were juicy
Considering how you barely knew him at that point, you didn't write in front of him again for a very, very long time
It actually created a lovely habit - at some point during the day, you'll take half an hour to yourself and journal
It's been months now and you've forgotten why you had the habit in the first place, so when it's raining one evening you just stay in the inn and write next to the fire
The difference in Lucio's approach speaks volumes. He asks what you're doing, and when you tell him, he asks if he can hear some of it
He makes no move to get up from where he's polishing his sword (it got wet)
He listens while you read, interjecting with a comment or two, perfectly content
He's a bit sheepish about what you had to write about him in the beginning, but hearing how much he's changed fills him with healthy pride. Oh, he adores you
#ask arcana brainrot#the arcana#the arcana headcanons#the arcana hc#asra the arcana#julian the arcana#nadia the arcana#muriel the arcana#portia the arcana#lucio the arcana#the arcana game#the arcana fluff#asra alnazar#julian devorak#nadia satrinava#muriel of the kokhuri#portia devorak#lucio morgasson
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Spark (4/8)
Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader - Enemies to Lovers
Chapter 4 summary: You and Arthur slowly become closer while managing the trifles that come with running in the van der Linde gang. Arthur might even be ready to forgive you for your last offense...
link to my masterlist
first chapter, second chapter, third chapter
Hey. Sorry it took me so long. Aside from a full schedule, this was a hard chapter for me to write because its purpose is to display a transition and it might not be the smoothest thing I have written, but it's necessary to progress the plot.
4000 words, 20 minutes reading time
It was early in the morning, but Arthur had given up trying to sleep. Despite the sun not having risen yet, the light grey colour of the sky suggested that it wouldn't be long until the sun's warmth would touch the damp grass and shy away the small clouds that hung in the sky. Only a few people had already left their bedrolls and slowly started the daily business of running a camp. As Arthur opened his tent flaps some more, he lazily greeted Javier who had just finished his guard duty. Then Arthur sat down on his table, his journal in front of him.
You had been on his thoughts all night, he hated to admit it. So much had happened. And though yesterday Arthur was sure that he was anything but disgusted by your presence, he was concerned. Concerned that you had actually left camp, as he had threatened you yesterday. There was something in your features when he told you to leave, that stuck with him. An expression that haunted his dreams.
No. He had been seeing things. Better to stick to the things that he knew for sure; you annoyed him and had taken his journal.
Again and again, Arthur had reassured that you hadn't ripped out something, and he was almost disappointed to find out that you hadn't. It didn't fit the picture he had of you. For the tenth time since yesterday, Arthur skimmed through the pages, absentmindedly reading his entries when he overheard a conversation taking place.
He turned his head a bit to see you in the distance, talking to Abigail. He couldn't make out what the two of you were saying, but you looked calm - quite in contrast to the conversation you had with Abigail yesterday. Arthur curiously watched as you handed something to her. Then she closed in, it almost looked like Abigail wanted to hug you. But you stumbled back a couple of steps, extending your hand to shake hers.
Arthur furrowed his eyebrows, not knowing what to think of that, when you suddenly turned and walked towards his tent. Flustered, he sat up straight, directing his gaze to the table in front of him. Why did he react like that? He hadn't done anything forbidden. And still, Arthur grabbed a pen and scribbled away on an empty page in his journal. He didn't even know what to draw, he just started with some simple lines, hoping he wouldn't have to think of something.
Then he heard you clearing your throat.
"You awake, Mr. Morgan?", you asked, standing at the entrance of his tent.
"Depends", Arthur replied briefly. He clearly was awake, you could see him very well sitting and scribbling in his journal, but his voice was gravely.
"Look - I'm...I'm sorry", you almost choked on your voice and had to supress a cough.
Arthur snickered, not even looking at you: "Sure. For what exactly? For all of it?"
"Taking your journal", you added and since Arthur didn't say anything, you took a big breath to repeat: "I'm sorry for taking your journal. I shouldn't have done that."
"Alright."
If you expected to be forgiven, Arthur was far than ready to do so. Simply that you had mentioned that you had taken his journal made his heart beat faster in anger. Nevertheless, hearing you mumble an apology was some sort of satisfaction.
"For what it's worth I really like the drawings. They are well done and...you don’t have to worry about me reading your secrets cause I read none if it”, you explained.
"Course you didn't", Arthur replied sarcastically.
"I can't read", you admitted silently.
"Ya got a damn big mouth for someone who can't read", Arthur mocked. Then he looked up and wished he hadn’t delivered this line like that.
You looked...-well. You certainly didn't sleep much last night. Your hair was messy, your hands and pants dirty with soil as if you had been digging something. Underneath the dark circles around your eyes there was a blooming bruise on your cheek bone where John had hit you. It looked painful. Your eyes were glassy and additionally to your feeble appearance came a blush on your cheeks. Arthur looked you up and down and noticed that one holster was empty. So, despite searching for hours last night, and evidently not getting any sleep at all, you hadn't found the gun he had thrown over the ridge. Briefly, he thought about mentioning it, but decided against it. You broke the silence again.
"I knew you told me to leave but...I won't", you were almost scared of the last two words. Scared he would yell at you and throw you out nevertheless.
"Real shame", Arthur sighed instantly, before he looked at you again and decided the harsh treatment was maybe not the right way, "It's none of my business anyway. But if ya can't stop annoying people around here I can't guarantee for yer safety."
You sighed in relief: "Understood."
You looked around at camp and caught sight of the Indian who was about to heave up a ridiculously huge sack of flour. Despite his physique, he seemed to struggle.
"What’s the Indian's name again?", you asked Arthur without letting your eyes off the man.
Slightly confused, Arthur answered with: "Charles Smith." Then he barely caught your mumbled 'bye' and saw you disappear from his tent. You headed towards Charles, determined to offer help. You sighed when you got closer. Maybe two apologies and one offering of kindness was too much for 7 am in the morning, but Charles had already caught sight of you, so there was no turning back without making things even more awkward.
"Need a hand, Mr. Smith?” you asked, approaching him. He looked up surprisedly but replied with a "Sure" before even thinking about it. His eyes lingered on your bruise, and you watched his slightly sceptical look. It was clear that you had a sudden change of heart, but there was no way Charles could tell how this had come to be. Unless it was connected to the ugly bruise right on your face. But he hadn't been present when John had punched you in the face, neither had he noticed that Arthur had thrown your favourite gun over the cliff and that you had been searching for it all night. All that was clear to Charles was, that you were in a peculiar mood. Your cheeks blushed, obviously embarrassed but at the same time somewhere else with your thoughts.
You tripped over your own feet as you helped Charles to carry the sack to Pearson's waggon. They were fucking heavy, and you feared that you might be less actual help for the man that was about five times your size when it came to muscles, but you tried nevertheless. Tried, while thinking about stuff you had been mulling over the whole night.
Something about Arthur kicking you out yesterday had made you realize that you didn't want to leave. You never were someone who lived with many people. If you had been with a gang, it either ended with being stabbed in the back, a disastrous job with many casualties or just your misjudgement making you shake hands with people who didn't have any good intentions for you at heart. But last night, as you crawled through the bushes you had realized something: This was not your average outlaw gang. You swallowed at the term, but this wild mix of people was a family. There were people who needed to be taken care of, and there were others who stepped in and provided. Of course, a Jack or a Reverend is useless in a fight, but they made this random mix of people a family.
"Y/N?", you looked up to Charles who had called your names a couple of times now before you listened.
"We can drop the sack here", he said, waiting for you to let go of your end so the weight wouldn't overwhelm you if he let go first.
"Sure", you sighed at the realization that you hadn’t been listening. After the sack had been dropped off, you wiped your dusty hands on your jeans.
"That's a nasty bruise you got there", Charles remarked, "I could mix you something with some herbs that grow around here. It'll make it fade faster."
You looked at his like he had just suggested the most ridiculous thing ever, and without even thinking about it you blurted out a: "No thanks, I'll manage." You turned on your heels to get out of there, when you halted, slowly turning around to Charles again, who hadn't moved at all: "Though...if it isn't too much trouble...?"
Charles stated a short: "Not at all." You nodded, cleared your throat and mumbled a "Thank you."
A few uneventful days passed. While you still rode out every day, at least to bring in some fresh game or a couple of dollars that you robbed from the first fella that had the misfortune of crossing your path, you stayed around more often and helped out with the daily chores. On a rather warm afternoon, you were on guard duty, lazily walking up and down, when Dutch and John rode up to you. Strauss was on John’s horse and his face was unusually pale. The pace at which they had approached you and Dutch’s tense face told you that something wasn’t right.
“Dutch?”, you asked when his horse was next to you.
“Cornwall’s men found us. We had to shoot our way out of town”, Dutch sighed in brief explanation.
“Anybody got hurt?”, you eyed the men and your gaze found a deep red stain on Strauss’s leg.
“Not seriously”, Dutch answered. You heard Leopold mockingly repeating the answer under his breath. The sweat on his forehead suggested that his definition of seriously hurt might differ from Dutch’s.
“We’ll have to move soon”, Dutch thought out loud and kicked his horse into a slow trot again. You walked next to him: “Want me to go scout ahead?”
“That’s…very kind of you, Miss y/n. I’ll need to discuss it with Hosea first, but you might as well start packing.”
And only two hours later, you were called to Dutch who was surrounded by Hosea and Arthur. You walked up to them with crossed arms: “So we’re moving?”
“We are. South, for now. I want you to go with Charles and Arthur here”, Dutch said. Looking at Arthur’s face, he had already found out that you would be joining the scouting mission and surprisingly, didn’t seem too disgusted by the idea. There was just a hint of annoyance in his features.
“Sure”, you nodded complyingly, “Not a problem. I’ll get my horse saddled –“
“Actually”, Dutch interrupted you, “We might need yours to pull a waggon. Bill let his be injured so we are one strong horse short.” You were still processing those words and what they were supposed to mean, when Dutch shortened the pause: “I’m sure you’ll find some space on either of those fine gentlemen’s horses.” Then Dutch gave you a slimy grin and turned around, implying that this conversation was over and there was no room for discussion.
You silently followed Charles and Arthur to their horses. And when Arthur sat tight, he offered you a hand to climb on his horse, but you were already headed to Charles, asking with a questioning look if you were allowed to ride with him. He nodded, understanding your implication without any words being said and watched you mount Taima behind him, not even bothering to offer you a hand. Because he knew you were capable, and he knew you didn’t like to be offered help, even though you had started to accept his offers more willingly with every new day.
Arthur watched those happenings as if he wasn’t sitting on his horse, one hand reached out to where you had stood ten seconds ago. He felt like an idiot, but since you ignored him completely, he could live with the embarrassment. “Didn’t want ya on my horse anyway”, he mumbled under his breath, for nobody but himself to hear.
“So we are heading south…”, Charles assessed five minutes into the ride.
“Yeah, area called Dewberry Creek. We’ll make sure if it’s clear and a good place to lie low for a while”, Arthur explained.
“Man, I’ve been with you for like two weeks and in those two weeks you’ve done anything but lying low”, you teased.
Charles agreed with you and even Arthur kind of did when he said: “There ain’t no lying low. Dutch is not gonna hide away in a cave somewhere. Goes against everything he stands for.” Both Arthur and Charles must have heard you snicker but ignored it.
When you finally arrived at the destination, a dried-out rover creek, you couldn’t help but grin bitterly: “That’s a shit camp spot, even for your kind of lying low standards.”
The place was exposed, with barely any trees around to cover tents or two dozen of heavily armed people walking around. This was no nice camp spot, and you couldn’t even start to understand why Micah, of all people, would recommend it. Not that you had any trust in your stepbrother’s suggestions to begin with, but he usually was sharp when it came to things like that.
“Let’s look around”, Arthur ordered, and you rolled your eyes. “Waste of time”, you hollered sarcastically, but there was no way of riding off with you sitting behind Charles on his horse.
After a while though, you heard Arthur exclaim: “There’s a camp over there. Let’s have a look.”
With that, the horses were dismounted and you walked up to a couple of rather big tents, barrels and clothing lines. “Looks empty…”, Arthur assessed.
“Let’s make sure”, Charles chimed in.
“Looks like they left in a hurry”, you commented while you kicked a couple of still glowing sticks into the fireplace, “or hid in a hurry.” You saw Arthur pulling away some crates from a waggon with Charles help. When you had approached, they were about to uncover three figures hiding, one of them holding a double-barrel right in your face.
Instinctively, your hand went to your holster, only to grip thin air. You hadn’t got used to missing your main firearm, when you tried to go for your second one, Arthur gripped your wrist so firmly, you hissed in reply.
“It’s okay. You can come out of there”, Charles spoke to them in a soft voice while he raised his hands defensively. Arthur shot you a warning glare, before he let go of your hand to give you the opportunity to raise your hands too, which you unwillingly did.
“We don’t mean you no harm”, Charles affirmed and the three of you stood still, patiently waiting for the oldest of the three people, a woman probably around 20, to move the last crate to crawl out from under the waggon. As the three people moved, still very much holding you hostage with the raised weapon, Arthur shoved you behind him, moving away from the armed girl. You hated him for handling you like that. It might have looked like he wanted to protect you, shoving you behind his back, but you knew it was to prevent you from saying or doing something stupid.
“G-german?”, the oldest stuttered.
“No…”, Arthur replied confusedly, “no go on, get out of here. Go, we need the land. Go!”
When they didn’t budge, Athur got louder: “Get the hell out of here.”
A blonde girl, probably not older than fifteen finally said something in broken English: “They took our father.”
“Who did?”, Charles asked without hesitation.
“Men. Last night”, the girl explained.
“Where did they take him?” Charles asked.
“Ain’t no business of ours”, Arthur said, turning to Charles offense as if he had just added useless stuff to do in todays list, “I don’t even speak their language.”
“You ain’t as tough and dense as all that”, Charles said, holding an erect index finger under Arthur’s nose. You worked hard to hold back a snort. Charles walked off to his horse, leaving you and Arthur standing there. A small giggle escaped your lips and you hit Arthur in the side with your elbow, secretly happy you kept your mouth shut the whole time, “Whose the insensitive bastard now, huh?”, you chuckled.
Arthur clicked with his tongue before shoving you forward nonchalantly: “Come on.”
While hunting down the men who kidnapped the father, you found the perfect camping spot. Plus, you had the opportunity to gun down some men, which you gladly did after not having had the opportunity to practice with your other gun. The business was taken care of faster than you had anticipated, and before you knew it Charles was riding to get the rest of the gang, Arthur brought the man back to his family and you guarded the newly-acquired camping spot.
Arthur was back before Charles and while you rampaged the place for valuables, Arthur sat down underneath the big tree. No words were spoken, and distance was kept.
---
"What are you staring at?", you snapped at Arthur. His eyes followed you while you walked through camp and did chores. They had been for a couple of days now, but he never approached you or said anything about it. He just watched. And at some point, it had started to annoy you. It angered you even more that you cared about it, but you couldn't ignore it any longer.
"Just checkin' if yer behaving", Arthur commented.
"Don't give me that bullshit. I told you I don't need babysitting", you said.
"Well then maybe, you should stop doing all those dubious activities", Arthur almost whispered.
Your eyebrows knit together, and you gave him a quizzical look: "What the hell are you talkin' about?"
"You know what I'm talking about", Arthur simply replied.
"I don't. But fine, keep your secrets. But stop stalking me."
"What was that thing that you gave Jack earlier?"
"What?", you hoped Arthur hadn't caught your look of surprise or the way you held your breath for a moment, "Nothing."
"Sure", Arthur chuckled darkly.
"Stop watching me", and then you walked off.
But as much as you would have liked to keep it a secret, it wasn't long until Arthur unveiled this mystery. To be fair, you had never done anything truly suspicious, he had just found it weird how well behaved you had become. It wasn't like you were going around throwing compliments at the others, but now you would stumble over a sleeping uncle and just curse him under your breath, in comparison to kicking and yelling at him to get his shit together. In fact, Arthur hadn't heard you fight with anyone recently.
Abigail had asked Arthur, who had caught up with her over a cup of coffee, to fetch Jack who should be playing nearby to help her get some chores done. It didn’t take long for Arthur to find him. He was just playing hidden behind Abigail’s tent, moving little wooden figures and thinking up a role play. And next to Jack? You, just as immersed in the little game that was going on.
Jack was quick to notice Arthur, jumping up and greeting him: “Uncle Arthur! Look! Auntie y/n made this for me because I lost mine!”
Jack was stretching his arms up to Arthur to present a wooden carved figure of…he wasn’t sure exactly. It could be anything from a deer to an elephant, so Arthur smiled and nodded, taking the carved monstrosity in his own hands: “That’s real nice, Jack.”
The boy nodded excitedly, but when Arthur looked down to you, you simply stared at the dirty ground with red cheeks. You didn’t mind if Abigail knew you spent time with Jack, Hosea had also seen you just a couple of days ago, when you were collecting flowers with Jack…but Arthur. His teasing could already be heard and he hadn’t yet said anything.
“Jack, yer momma is asking for you. Why don’t ya go and check if she needs something”, Arthur said to the boy, patting him on the back and watching him run off.
For a while, neither of you said anything. Finally, Arthur made a couple of steps to stand next to you and held the carved thing under yer nose.
“What the hell’s this thing? It’s damn ugly”, he said mockingly.
“Oh, that’s why it reminded me of you”, you shot back, a cheeky, half-assed grin on your lips. You looked up to Arthur who looked taken aback for a second before his lips curled into a soft smile. He squatted to place the - he had decided that it was most likely to be meant as a horse - on the grass next to the more professionally carved wooden soldiers.
“Yer not so wrong about that”, he mumbled. You barely made out the words, but when you did you knit your eyebrows together in a surprise. Arthur? Giving in? To one of YOUR snarky remarks? You swallowed thickly under the enlightenment that this conventionally handsome man just compared himself to your feeble attempt of a wooden horse, but didn’t say anything. There was nothing to be said.
“I got s’mthing for ya”, Arthur said, standing up again. Some smart replies came to your mind but you remained silent, following him to his tent. You watched as he opened his chest and pulled out a peacemaker.
“Here ya go”, he presented it to you.
“What’m I supposed to do with that?”, you asked, eying the gun all over. It was a beautiful gun. Clearly rather old, but well cared for with carvings all over.
“Take it”, Arthur assured.
You looked up at him to see him staring and you, almost pleadingly.
“You’re clearly a fan of double-wielding and if ya don’t, yer shooting’s off. I don’t want myself killed ‘cause you miss half the targets with one gun”, Arthur explained, pushing the gun into your hand.
You snickered, knowing damn well that this wasn’t the reason. The bastard was feeling bad because he threw away your gun. This revolver he gave you weighted heavily in your hand. It was a bit too big, clearly made for huge manly hands instead of your smaller, though trained, ones. You’ll make it work, you thought. The last thing you wanted to do is refuse it, it looked special. Arthur observed you inspecting the carving. When you discovered his initials carved in as well.
“It’s one of the first gun’s Dutch and Hosea ever gave me. It’s old, but still good”, he briefly explained.
“Sure”, you answered. You could tell. “Thanks.” With that you put the gun into your holster that had been empty for a while now. After you had made sure the gun sat properly, you looked up to find Arthur offering you a cigarette.
“What’s up with you today?”, you asked, taking it and putting it in between your lips.
“Good mood, I’spose”, Arthur replied. He struck a match, and you watched attentively how small sparks flew around and were gone as soon as you blinked. Arthur lit your cigarette first before he moved on to one he had placed between his own lips. You watched as he took a first drag, closing his eyes in the process. It didn’t struck you as a way of enjoying the nicotine, but more as a way of calming down. The old peacemaker put a nice weight on your hips, you felt more balanced again and you couldn’t help but imagine that Arthur had put off lending you his gun for a few days now. So having finally managed that, he must be relieved.
You smiled over this realization. You’d have never thought that…well…he’d forgive you for the whole journal ordeal. But this was probably his way of saying ‘We’re good’.
That’s that then, you thought.
--------x
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will our stan-y pooh ever get to see kyleys notes?
so, i got an ask like this a while back and was going to answer some variant of it earlier, but held off so i could develop the lore a bit more.
because i always knew that stan would eventually be made aware of kyle's letters to him, probably unbeknownst to jerseykyle, but i wasn't sure when i should have that happen or under what circumstances the reveal fall, bc really i didn't want it to feel randomly shoehorned in or feel like a cheap after thought, y'know?
i wanted, nay, needed stan coming across kyle's special stan diary entries & reading his letters, to have a strong significance to the story because the letters are such a large part of r.m. and letters in general/the act of writing a letter is such a personal intimate thing, not just for kyle, but even when other chars write things in the story.
but more on that later...
back to jers & his love letters to his *dead* sbf.
a/n: this is a very long post that you, like all my silly, silly posts, have no obligation to read, but please clap! uncle nina finally wrote an ask meme that she feels very proud of! and if you like long posts, like a very sweet anon told me once upon a time, you might like this!
so without further ado, i hope you heal, rem(ember) to smile, pendejos and of course, my darlings, as always...
please enjoy...
the very worst part of your day. ;)
so with the letters, i feel like it's imperative to note ( haha, see what i did there? ) that they're not all love letters or letters of love to stan. honestly, kyle writes in it nearly every day and actually uses it as more of a daily writing exercise to keep him grounded: a tool he can utilize throughout the day to keep track of thing —especially given that the extent of his ptsd/clozapine stole kyle's eidetic memory.
so actually, a lot of the pages are nonsense, notes he started and never finished…
…grocery lists of things that need to be replaced.
sadly, several of said grocery lists are usually followed by a dream list of grocery itineraries of the ingredients he would buy if he was rich or finally healthy, followed by things like tea and top ramen, things he'd actually eat or, sigh, regurgitate and stare at until they disgust him.
worse over, a lot of these catalogs as finished sad, scribbled journal entries that silently speak to his experiences in grocery stores and how their both like heading to his execution and going to the amusement park. because he's surrounded by all this lovely food so when he's fasting and slowly starving himself, he eats with his eyes.
other times, when the medicine makes him lethargic and light-headed, he lets himself get carried away in a little fantasy, a shameful secret, a silly guilty pleasure where he pretends like he's getting ready to cook a beautiful, delicious dinner for a boy that he loves, someone like stan, and gathers ingredients via a recipe he found online, planning to use some fancy techniques he saw on masterchef to impress his dream boy, feeling the smooth, scalet flesh of the roma tomatoes until he finds just the right ones to put in his shopping cart,
breathing in the soothing, earthy scent of fresh basil, imagining tickling the tip of stan's nose with it playfully when he goes to sniff, the cacophonous, melodious sound of stan's squeaky laugh and the dizzying scent of cinnamon that fills his mouth as stan leans up to kiss him in the produce section, gathering the pine nuts he might need to craft the perfect pesto sauce, imagining feeding the small, spiced, succulent spirals to his stan, who is alive and well, and sighs in elation, smiling that 1000 watt stan marsh smile, his beautiful face flushed from candlelight, a little box wine and a lifetime of love.
...then the sprinklers go off and douse him, splashing him in the face like some kind of rude, watery wake up call, the screech of the grocery cart sounds nothing like stan's laugh and neither does the ugly voice that cracks over the PA system in the store announcing that there is only thirty minutes left before it all goes dark and the check out lanes close. so kyle frantically rushes to buy the things he needs in the real world, where his sweet stanley marsh is dead, with his ashes scattered to the wind, grabbing paper towel rolls and coffee pods and green apples for the pie marjorine wants to bake that kyle will never eat. and after he checks out with a bag full of groceries and an empty stomach that growls at him, reminding him of the monster he's become...
he walks over to the gas station, and purchases a packet of american spirits, the blue box that reminds him of the lovely color of his stan's eyes before they turned a cruel, glassy grey as the weight of his death and the rigamortis set in, then pitch black from hell fire, admiring the pretty sheen of the package, almost silver in the moonlight, that he thinks, in his disillusionment, look almost like the tiny silver specks that swam in stan's eyes like silverfish.
along with a bag of skittles, where he picks the best ones out, feeding the rest to the birds, who might not eat them either — there's a small comfort in knowing that, that as lonely as he feels tonight, they share his sick sentiment — his legs swinging off some bench with graffiti and the names in hearts of people who can love scratching at his arms, taunting him, as he, with a cool, surgical precision, separates the red out of the rainbow and sucks the red 40 and delicious cherry coating off each one like a popsicle until they look as grey and lifeless as he feels inside, his precious fantasy shattering all around him as he remembers he wasn't meant to be sweet or soft or swirl pasta pleasantly in a pot...
for hideous creatures born of hatred...
...were not meant to love anything.
but i fear, friends, that that is not the worst of it. that there are even bleaker entries, where kyle's hand writing is not perfectly printed, but rather, is very chaotic and disorderly, rushed, with words scratched out, written in a hurry...in fear he might not have much time left. :(
tw for mention of suicide
there is one entry in the stan journal that is particularly unpleasant, unsettling and haunting, where kyle writes stan his last will and testament. it features a kyle who stands so tall and fearsome, scared absolutely shitless as he tells stan ‘he did a bad thing’ and that he is frightened and doesn't know what to do. he says it was a moment of weakness, which disgusts him like himself for being such a worm, and that he felt the world a cruel dark place and that looking into the light would be like looking into stan's eyes and that...he misses him.
and wanted to be with him.
but that stan wouldn't want that. no, stan would be horrified. just like he is as he scrambles to form sentences in between shallow breaths. he took a lot of pills, it was a stupid thing, but it seemed smart at the time, he remembers one time that stan oft wondered how someone so smart could be so stupid at the same time — he told kyle that when stan told him that he had a crush on him in sixth grade and kyle had no idea even though he was extremely obvious about it — but that it would ruin his mother and ike's life, his a-hole father would call him a disappointment, a blight or burr on the broflovski family tree, and that tweek would be home in an hour and find him there and that he would probably never recovered from seeing him in that state. and that more than that, selfishly...
…he's absolutely terrified of death.
however, the entry ends a couple lines later with kyle assuring stan that he is alive and well, he knows this because his knuckles are torn to bits and bright red, sore and stinging, ( and also because stan is still a book and not the body of his favorite boy/super best friend ) and that really...it's a good thing, he supposes, he has years of experience...
...throwing things up. :(
i hate everything about this; fuck my life.
but all this to say, in way too many words like verbose jerseykyle, that the stan journal entries are extremely varied in notation and speaking of notes, or notable notes, that the letter that kyle wrote on stan's 21st birthday is among those letters...but the whole thing was so hideously embarrassing to him, that he'd ripped the pages out and had planned to throw them away...but forgot...fuck you, clozapine... and fell out of his notebook sometime during the south park trip.
jimmy, having no idea what the letter might be attached to, only saw that the letter was addressed to stan...gave it to him without thought.
stan read the letter, which devastated him, but also was the most beautiful and precious thing he'd ever read and stashed it away, like the secret that he had it in his possession, of course, telling kyle would only drive the wedge further between him...as he yearned. :(
but the contents of the letter return...at the end of our thrilling tale.
which, i want to remind you all again, especially our new readers, which...oh my god? i'm. like, seriously Shook, but mostly excited that this blog has more traction and interaction than it even did when i was actually writing my fanfictions! hello, new friends! welcome to hell! but back to what i was trying to relay, which is that my fanfiction can often be...very, very dark. they explore a lot of mature and macabre themes, things that the show set up very nicely but bc it's a comedy, were not really explored and, in my humble opinion, were kind of bastardized and written immature and in very poor taste by matt and trey, and...ofc, this is my spin on all that, and my spin is that these serious topics should be handed with care with authenticity and that often means that they will be...gruesome.
in the vein of gruesomeness, we readers, find out much later on during the south park portion of the story, while the fanfiction is set up to seem like the biggest secret/apex of the fic is kyle finding out who stan is...that was actually a curtain that hides the real meat and potatoes of the fanfic aka what swirls beneath the surface of a sleepy mountain down and the scandal that rocks it out there in the rockies.
specifically ( which is where the mackey's lackeys aka kyle's crimina laur classmates on his special case team/group, come in ) the dissappearance of a south park resident from well before stan's...
which we come to find via sonrisa/sharon marsh's personal diary which was stashed in a secret hatch in sharon's guitar case, one of the few things stan took with him from the house before setting the whole thing blaze...makes mention of one south park res in partic...
dr. tom, of tom's rhinoplasty.
publicly, the owner of beloved town business
...sharon's secret secret lover.
in these letters, stan comes to find that sharon and tom had plans of running away together, that she would never forgive herself for leaving her children behind with that monster, but that tom would fake his death, leave michelle and stanley his generous savings and his business in his will and that would start over...some place kinder.
they had planned to meet at mabel...
...but tom never came.
the town just assumed that the man had disappeared, skipped town for some reason or another...but stan and co...are not so sure.
so using sharon's letters, their sleuthing abilities and the crows, which, a sort of symbolic point of the fanfic is sharon calling stan cuervo for his shiny, oily black hair, his lovely singing voice and because stan fed the crows/ravens ever single day while randy shooed them cruelly off the properly and ravens...
rem(ember) faces. ;)
...and despite his new name, his now blue hair, all his piercings and being all grown up, the crows remember stan's kindness...and lead him to things. they show him clues and are a useful tool in getting to the bottom of tom's cold case...or rather...*cough*...
his murder.
which all comes to a head one very fucked up, winter night when a gun is pulled on ravenstan and right as he's about to get shot...
jersey jumps right in front of him…
…catches the bullet in his chest.
( this mirrors when stan took the hockey puck in the face for kyle )
it's a very gruesome traumatic to-be crime scene as jersey lays there bleeding out in stan's arms, who speaks to him softly thru his grief
( i don't have all the dialogue or everything blocked out, but i did start some snippets of dialogue in this cruddy post over here, lol )
and at the very last part of that excruciating exchange, stan is cradling kyles head in his hands and tells him to stay with him, because they have a shitty apartment to share together, lots of kyle nagging stan to pick his dirty towel up off the floor when he forgets for the umpteenth time, and delicious dinners that kyle will cook, slow dances in front of the refrigerator ala taylor swift like the one they shared at the sadie hawkins dance, that their second child, because the first one was the egg that they took care of together in third/forth grade, will know how to speak spanish and yiddish and that together, they'll make up for lost time...and have a long, lovely life together as stan's sabelotodo...and kyle's zeeskiet </3
and finally...while kyle is waning in and out of consciousness, stan sings to him a special little song, just like heaven by the cure, which is kyle's favorite ( in lady on the way to the diner where part three of the ravesey hate takes place, kyle sang along to it on the radio...with the pronouns changed...perhaps with a certain person in mind...and please note it was a lovely, lovely song...jersey actually has a beautiful singing voice, but the only audience he ever entertain is his shampoo and conditioner in the shower )
and stan just sits there, holding the love of his life, like if he held him tightly enough his pieces would come back together and sang to him, only getting halfway thorugh the second 'i'll run away with you' before kyle's eyes closed completely and his body went limp.
...they pulled ravenstan away from kyle kicking and screaming, swearing and sobbing hysterically...it took three emts to do so.
later on, in the hospital, while kyle is fighting for his life :(, bebe entrusts stan with kyle's special journal and tells him to read it. stan does, in spite of it being extremely difficult for him, both emotionally and for the simple fact that despite kyle's handwriting being lovely, immaculate, beautiful and neat just like him, it is also teeny-tiny and written entirely in cursive which, when you have as severe a case of dyslexia as ravenstan does, makes reading cursive a near impossible task. but then, stan believes in the impossible, which means he believes that his kyle will come back to him the same way he had just a month ago, though that feels so faraway now. like kyle, who though he's a mere pace away from the chair stan sits in across from his hospital bed, stan still feels is not close enough as he turns to on the next available page in kyle's therapy diary, and in stark contrast to kyle's cursive calligraphy, slants stan's chicken scratch which practically terrorizes the strict, dashed guidelines, stan starts to write kyle a heartfelt letter of his own, only taking breaks between lines to kiss the top of kyle's head and stroke his cold cheek.
the beginning of said letter, goes something like this:
oooOOooufff, that makes me want to cry so bad!
but anyways!
shortly after that, stan gives him a rundown of what he missed while he's been asleep. stan tells him that his hair is short now, a lot of his hair was matted and got covered in blood from his gun shot wound, :( or got caught in the myriad of dumb, gaudy emo boy pins that stan affixed to his jacket, which made it difficult to take off when the doctors needed to operate on him; so to make things easier, they just cut kyle's hair. he jokes that kyle is probably going to hate it and say that he looks like justin freakin' bieba' or lil orphan annie or shirley goddamn temple, but that stan thinks he looks very cute c': ( aw ) and that it frames his gorgeous face nicely with all the thick, ginger ringlets curling around his cheeks and the tips just barely kissing the sides of his jaw, where stan has left several of his own as a little gift for kyle when he wakes up...ones that, stan hopes,
kyle will eventually return. </3
he boasts playfully that while kyle was the one playing hero, stan was Actually the one who saved the day after all, or, his abuelito's gay ass ww2 jacket which kyle was wearing at the time of the accident and that because of it's thick, leather material, the speed of the bullet slowed down and saved his life ( in your face, dummy ) right before it reached his heart and obliterated that important artery. and that that heart, that stan loves with all his because it's attached to his favorite boy in the entire world, beats on, faintly...but still there.
stan calls him a stubborn bastard, on account of his refusing to die.
he tells kyle that everyone comes in to visit him in shifts through out the day, notably his mother and ike, who both weep and wish for his speedy recovery. stan lets kyle know that sheila keeps telling him to 'go home and get some sleep, orev. he'll be here when you wake up.' but that he wants to be here when kyle wakes up and won't budge.
he guesses he's a selfish bastard too and kyle's rubbing off on him.
stan writes that he brings sharon’s guitar to the hospital room and sings to him every day, sometimes its the cure or acoustic abba or taylor swift, even though kyle, a stubborn bastard as we mentioned, claims not to like her. he also sings kyle a lot of secret stuff just for him, written about him in private and that when kyle wakes up, during the summer, he's gonna take kyle on tour with him and kiss him in every country and continent, and that crimson dawn's next album is going to be filled with sappy love songs all about him that are going to make him so embarrassed and sick to death of him that he'll wish both he and stan actually died. and that sometimes hoards of excited children in the hospital come in to sing to him to leave him lots of flowers, letters, trinkets, odds and ends...and tell him stuff that maybe...he can hear? it's stan's wishful thinking, of course, but then, he's the dreamer...even though this is his worst fkn nightmare.
as an homage to peppermint, stan also tells kyle that he reads to him often, tries to do funny voices but kyle is better at it, y'know, since he has a funny voice that stan would like very much to hear again, the most beautiful sound in the world that makes his synesthesia light up. he tried to read the books in kyle's messenger bag, lots of dense, archaic, academic boy stuff written by old, dead russian authors, but that they're kinda..depressing? and he's not a very good reader, so he started reading him children's books and ya novels, specifically percy jackson which they read as kids together in stan's tree house. stan says that kyle reminds him so much of annabeth who is super smart and cool, even though he looks more like rachel dare, and that he knows that kyle would say he's a dead ( haha ) ringer for percy, but that he's no hero... and if he was, he would've saved ky. :(
he does not tell kyle that he's hooked up to an iv drip that feeds him nutrients through a system of tubes that are actually helping him retain a more healthy weight because that would trigger him. but stan is secretly so grateful and even though he's pale as a sheet...
but stan thinks that he's absolutely radiant
and glowing. :')
there's lots of other stuff written in this letter that stan writes that i hopefully will write and share with you all eventually...if i ever have time between working and being a depressed idiot...ravenstan calls jersey mi sabelotodo a lot ( awww x2 ), tells him about all the stuff he wants to do with him...detailing some scenarios that pc principal would *naught* approve of...that everyone misses him, but no one more than stan, who fell asleep writing the last part of his letter...
with his head on kyle's shoulder,
…snoring loudly and obnoxiously — the way kyle loved.
regrettably, some of the words stan wrote are illegible, which, the whole Goddamn Thing is fucking illegible because stan is illiterate and his handwriting is hell ( kyle can read it though, bless him ) but mostly because stan cried a lot writing in and his tears smudged a lot of the words on the pages...which do smell lightly of spiced apple cider, fireball ( stan drank a lot from stress :/ ) and...as for metal, that once kyle wakes up, he will gladly spend the rest of his life cutting kyle's lip open...on that god awful can-opener he calls a lip ring. <3
anyways, my dearest darlingest! i hope that answered your question. i realize it probably wasn't the short, sweet, heart-warming answer that you were hoping for, but i am a hurt/comfort angst queen so i think we all know by now that that's not how i rock and roll. ;)
but everyone say i hope you heal jersey.
we love you, baby. :(
-uncle nina, who is short-circuiting my computer w/ my leaking face
it's that goddamn branch in my eye again.
#ooooof this post was a doozy#but full of important information i think#even tho it’s fucking devastating#i really care a lot about my world building and story telling#i worked a lot on all of this#and try to be very thoughtful & thorough with everything i do#i hope you can feel that love thru these ask memes#even if you hate me being evil again hahaaaa#but yeah! i hope this answers ur question in too many words#we know how i am#again the lore is in progress#I develop it more every day so please give me grace#if there’s things i don’t have answers for or if they change#this all feels very right to me#i hope the crow thing is as sick as fuck to you as it is to me#a little proud of that one lmao#anyways uhhh#i am insecure and flattery will get you everywhere#please let me know if this pleases and sparkles#it would mean a lot to me bc u all also mean a lot to me#hides from the angry mob that may assemble in my inbox#nina stop being evil challenge#failed catastrophically
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tldr; i'm probably not going to write on this blog anymore.
i don't want to say that i won't completely because hey, maybe one day i'll feel like it, but this is what i wanted to say because i don't want to leave you all waiting...well, it's likely you've stopped after some due to my inactivity and that's okay and valid!
i became inactive here because i wasn't enjoying writing anymore, nor was i into k-pop that much, especially since i was into it a lot to help me cope with how terrible and lonely my life was and felt, and sometimes it still is. writing became somewhat of a hollow thing for me, and i tried so many times to write my drafts, to get the words out, but i couldn't. i would be taking things out of my control that had to do with my blog and writing to heart, i would get so frustrated and depressed at myself to the point that i put an incredible amount of pressure on myself to write something, anything, and when i didn't, my thoughts would spiral on top of what i already had to deal with irl.
so i left this tumblr behind for the sake of myself, hoping that maybe my passion and love for writing would reignite after a break, but it hasn't, not for this blog, only for the journal entries i wrote to cope with my daily life and mental health. i've never been much of a social media person anyway.
i feel like a completely different person than when i was last here. i'm not into k-pop anymore and i barely know what's going on in terms of news and drama but i'll tune into some songs and the older ones that give me nostalgia from simpler times. i've made friends who genuinely appreciate me and i've gotten better at setting my boundaries when it matters and taking care of myself. i have someone that genuinely likes me and always is there for me and tells me i'm beautiful everyday without fail. my skin has gotten better and less painful these days too.
there's a lot that's happened since my last post a few months ago, but what i can say is my life has improved, although there are things i'm still working on, including my ultimate goal i'm still reaching for of a happiness that isn't so fragile.
i want to focus on that goal now.
that's not to say that this blog doesn't mean that much to me, because it does. it helped me so much back then to cope with what horrible things i was dealing with, to write about a world that's not this one, to help others who maybe felt like me, to free my heart of the ideas i kept suppressed for a long time. it really built that foundation for me to grow as i am now.
so thank you so much for all the likes, all the reblogs, the comments, the moots, the readers, the followers, the anons, everyone who's ever set sights on this little blog of mine.
thank you for sticking with me along the way and helping me to make this blog a place that i'm proud to look back upon, to reread my works again and remember how much fun i had writing them. thank you for liking them and telling me your thoughts, thank you for giving them love because that made me happier amidst what i was going through at the time. i hope i was able to give you all comfort and entertainment through the works i enjoyed to write.
i'll pop in sometimes (no promises on the frequency of that), read some stuff, answer asks, make major update posts, but i don't think i'll be around too much. oh, and don’t worry, my blog will stay up, i’ll never personally take it down unless smthg else interferes. if you've read this far, congratulations! have a heart ♥
but seriously, thank you for everything. — yumi
—
p.s. credits to @argodeon for the banner/image! it's so beautiful!
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A few years ago I thought life was perfect. There were so many events, so many opportunities and so much love swirling around me and my friends that I thought it would always be like this. But it soon ended. Gradually, I, my friends, my family, my country and in general the whole world plunged first into apathy, then into fear, and then into hysteria. “Is this really so?”, my acquaintance sometimes asks me, “Aren’t you transferring your own problems to the rest of the world? We’re completely fine here, hey”. No, it's not okay, buddy. People go crazy, people do terrible things, people ruin their lives. There are diseases and wars all over the world. People are losing their homes and their families. A huge amount of just and groundless hatred is growing. Nothing will ever be the same again. And that's a fact. Very sad, sad, but indelible. It is a fact.
And also, the fact is that my wonderful past life turned into dust, along with how the smiles on the faces of family and friends disappeared.
The fact is that I no longer feel alive, I can't afford to dream big, imagining a happy future life.
The fact is that I am lonely. The people who made up my happiness and my peace, the people who were my friends, my family and my meaning in life, are gone. Gone, left, emigrated, died or abandoned me. It doesn't matter. I'm lonely, depressed, broken, I'm scattered in pieces all over the world.
I feel like I'm getting back to normal. Daily journal entries help me, I feel the importance of each day, I feel the importance of daily posts on social networks and small rituals at home. Gradually, what I consistently do: read, even if there is no strength or desire, draw, through laziness and boredom, go to meetings with friends, interrupting the cycle of apathy and hysteria, cook food and clean the apartment, despite the fact that I have only one desire - to lie on the bed and scroll through the news feed, starting new hobbies such as knitting, sewing and candle making, when I don’t even have the strength to just stand and talk, gradually this all returns me to a more or less normal state . Yes, I can handle it. It didn't take me a month or a year, but I'm still trying not to give up. I'm still trying to live. I struggle with laziness and hatred. I struggle with apathy and irritability. I fight the urge to give up and let myself disappear, dissolving into dust in space.
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For the ask game - 29 and 19?💜
19. favorite mythical creature, why?
It's either werewolves or devils. I'm thinking about my childhood, and my two favorite movies that focused on monsters were Hellboy and Van Helsing. That's a revelation I didn't make until now, and that's fucking funny.
29. have you ever kept a journal, do you now?
I was writing in one today! I've been on and off keeping a journal since I started high school. I have several filled with daily entries, story ideas, over heard conversations that stuck with me, anything that I felt the need to jot down.
Sometimes, I'll even tape my receipt for the weed I bought that day on that day's page.
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Daily commenting on Dracula's shenanigans, I'll make this another two-parter because this story is getting dense, yo. 1/2:
Sometime during the evening, Jack is called to talk to Renfield who's very agitated. He takes the entire dude squad including van Hellstoker with him to the cell, and Renfield makes some surprisingly smooth conversation (including bootlicking Lord Godalming and the author's avatar, plus Stoker's eyebrow-raising speculations on the future of the United States) and asks to be released from the asylum immediately. Can only assume that his Master-Slave thingy with Dracula didn't go so well. Hey, not every dom is compatible with very sub. Jack, knowing Renfield's mood swings, doesn't want to rush, and when Renfield won't say why he needs to get the heck outta dodge right now, Jack is all: "Okay, bye!" Causing Renfield to beg frantically, and to warn Ominously(TM) that there's a lot of trouble coming their way. Jack nopes out of there with the dude squad.
Oh, great, Jonathan opens his journal entry by mentioning how strong and healthy Mina looks! *sigh* We all know what that means; Mina is a snack. And just to top it off, he literally says he's glad that she "hold[s] back and let[s] us men do the work". Twat. Pretty sure this particular sexism aspect will hold on for a while. When the dude squad notes some doubts if keeping Renfield in the asylum is the right thing to do, Jack points out that Renfield's connection to Dracula is a risky thing, especially when it comes to mind control. He calls Renfield "a respectable lunatic". I love Jack. Then the dude squad marches over to Dracula's estate where van Hellstoker gives another brief pep talk and hands out guns, knives, lamps (electric lamps, too; how fancy!), Communion wafers, crucifixes and garlic for everyone. As they enter, the fucking doors creak dramatically. Eh, I forget that this probably wasn't a cliché yet when the book was written. Van Hellstoker spits an incomplete Latin phrase into the dark, but their sneaking produces nothing but a lot of dust for now, although Jonathan feels like they are being watched.
Off to the chapel they go, which has some gross stench on it of earth and blood (Jonathan talks of "miasma"; when has everyone gotten thesausrus syndrome?). And only twenty-nine of fifty earth boxes. Also, the Count is watching them from the shadows, but these morons wave it all off as hallucinations because whoops, can't find anyone once we go there with lamplight! But so things won't get boring, Dracula sics the rats of the place on them. Arthur, bless his heretofore unknown brains, opens the next door and blows a dog whistle he brought along, calling a bunch of terriers to them. Pretty neat. Where did he get the doggos? And what does he mean by "lugubrious"? Can I hit Bram Stoker over the head with a dictionary? Arthur sends those good boys after the rats while the dude squad smokes a cigarrette or something similarly productive, and just ere break of day they calmly swagger home because this old spooky house is fascinatingly unfascinating after all. Van Hellstoker for some reason says this was perhaps their most dangerous step...? Counting boxes? Oh, it's Subtle Foreshadowing(TM); he's glad no harm or trouble has come to Mina in the meantime. Right.
Back at the asylum, they are greeted by a madhouse's sweet morning music - Renfield moaning, some other poor soul screaming; who cares. Jonathan finds Mina pale and with faint breath, and concludes it's good to keep her uninformed, since "it is too great a strain for a woman to hear". Brainless sexist asshole. Mina awakes not fully aware, with terror in her eyes, and complaining of still being tired; our Victorian himbo fails to catch on. Two things: Can Dracula use his boxes as teleportation localizations once they are placed elsewhere? Because that would be hella cool. And: Mina and Jonathan are newlyweds. Shouldn't he notice the bite marks sometime when he, you know, wants to take a more harmless nibble himself? Let's see how this goes.
#Dracula Daily#why does van Helsing the Foreigner(TM) know a bunch of fancy words no English person would use in everyday?#but can't get the basics of grammar and proverbs right?
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warning: ask with mentions of suicide
TW: so my best friend is suicidal and she does not want her parents to know bcz she does not want help. She attempted it already and called me and we cried for hours. That was a few months ago. Now she is feeling the same again. Idk wtf to do.
I honestly don't know what to do bcz she hides her feelings so well from everyone. I met her yesterday and I couldn't even tell. And she texted me after and told me. I love her so much and I don't want anything to happen. She was so close the last time and idk what will happen if she tries again.
I made the text small so it's easy to skip if you don't want to read.
This is an extremely difficult situation. On one hand, I want to tell you to seek some sort of professional help, because it's unlikely that you are educated particularly in this field to handle this kind of situation in a objective, analytical way. And it's just hard because you have a deep relationship with them. Still, I know that might be out of the question. Your best friend might view it as a betrayal even if you're just trying to help or get assistance so you can help her. Plus, it might be an expense you can't afford.
If you are willing (and I understand if you are not, because this will not be fair to you and will be a lot of commitment), please spend as much time as you can with them. Talk to them. You don't have to feel exactly what she feels. Just help her understand that you want to know, and remind her that it is valid to feel the way she does even if no one else feels that way.
When I was feeling these feelings, I had a lot of people feeling sorry for me and I hated that, so stopped telling people. I wrote down my feelings, but with the mask of fanfiction / original work. I couldn't address my issues head on, but I could through fictional characters. A fictional character you make always has the right words to say, because you're writing them. Some format of writing might help. For example, you and your friend could share a journal that you exchange every day - you write a daily entry in it, the next day they write in it, the day after that you write in it, and so on. Write about your day, how you're feeling, things that happened, short or long, doesn't matter. What matters is that it gives them a sense of accountability and something to look forward to. It also helps to give voice to what's on your mind.
Music played a big part for me too. It gave poetry to the madness, which is why I gravitated to rock and metal back then. I even fell asleep with headphones in because I didn't want to listen to the inner demons.
Occupy them with distractions. Get them fixated on something. Sometimes it's not great to always talk about it. It can feel like an endless cycle if it's always on the forefront of your mind. Music, books, shows, movies, etc. Help her find something to really connect to, to stick with. And, yeah, it might be a little unhealthy but, for better or for worse, we're trying to find a reason to live, a purpose, and if it takes some sleepless nights, isn't that a small price to pay?
I'll be honest, I never had a friend that stuck with me like you are willing to do. I would feel really guilty about burdening someone with that weight, and I'm glad she told you. I hope you allow her to call you whenever she is feeling that way. I hope she talks to you and realizes how special that is, because people usually don't stick around for stuff like this. You may not be able to understand all she's feeling 100%, but you can listen. Ask her what she needs. Some people want comfort. Some want solutions. Some want to vent. And it might be different each time, so ask if needed.
For you, just remember that you don't and won't know all the answers and that's okay. Don't beat yourself up over not having "the solution" or "the answer". You're not professionally trained for this. Don't feel guilty for not knowing "the signs". You don't have to be a therapist. You just have to be there and understand her feelings are real, even if they seem crazy or irrational.
Establish open and honest communication. Don't antagonize how she's feeling. It might help her to separate the feelings from her identity, basically, how you feel =/= who you are. Being capable of feeling is just one thing, after all. We can feel so many things, good things, bad things, and I know she feels the worst, the most awful things right now, but it means one day she will feel the other side too. She knows how bad it can get and she is capable of cherishing the good moments much more than anyone else. I know it sounds crazy now, but it's true. It's something only us who have been in the darkest place can understand. Tell her to take it one day at a time. One more day, one more hour, one more minute. There is so much more life she hasn't seen or experienced.
if possible, help her gain a support system that isn't you, even if they are just there to supply her with mindless distraction. She doesn't have to tell them the vulnerable stuff but she should have people to go to if she wants to be occupied on a surface level. I hope you have a support system for yourself too. You don't have to tell them anything specific, but you need a shoulder to lean on.
This will be hard to accept, but you can't save them. Only they can save them. Only they can find a reason to keep going. But you can show them all the reasons other people have, show them how much life there is to live - real, in books, or on TV - even if just in stylized, glamorized fantasy, because there is truth in every fiction and there is always a chance that one line, one interaction, one moment will make them think, today is not so bad. And you can be in her corner - that's the most important thing. It can feel so lonely when you think no one feels the way you do, and even lonelier when people get fed up and leave. Remember, she doesn't feel this way because of you. Don't internalize it. You might not be able to make every day better. Every day might not be a grand success. Any change will be gradual and you might not notice it right away.
But, being there, distracting when needed, listening when needed, being silent when needed will help. It might not feel like it in the moment, but it will.
The world might not be wishing her the best, but hopefully your intention gets through to her.
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Hi?
I don’t consider myself very good at writing but I’ve found that I enjoy journaling lately so I suppose I’ll just write something here instead for once.
I'm sitting here slouched in my chair listening to "A State of Trance 2014" through my Audeze LCD-2C's while sipping on Trader Joe's 2021 Vintage Spiced Ale. I don't even remember the last time I logged onto this site, and I don't know when I'll log on again after tonight. I only logged on today to reset my password as I was auditing all my current passwords and resetting them for more secure items. I used to spend hours on this site, but it hasn't even crossed my mind in years now.
I'm 28 now, still listening to electronic music (rave to the grave baybeeeee), got married, bought a house, got a dog, bought a new car, work full-time in IT, got super into coffee, and have gone off the deep end of headphones and in-ear monitors (IEMS if mentioned again after this). I proposed to my now-wife at Disneyland under the fireworks on New Year's 2020. Little did we know what was to come in regard to COVID. But before COVID could shut the world down here, we found a cute little condo and made an offer on it. Amazingly (especially if you know anything about the housing market in the state I live in), our offer was accepted. We closed on our condo the day before the lockdown order went into effect. We almost didn't get to close due to my wife being laid off the day before but the employment verification came through somehow. I vividly remember our realtor saying "they won't shut us down" too.
We didn't have a wedding, instead we eloped and got married on the beach in California. We did have a photographer and we got some amazing pictures from the time we were there. We also had my best friend play dual role and be the best man/maid of honor. Shoutout to him for being great for that. My wife wrote her vows on the order forms from the restaurant where we met 10 years ago now. She looked so incredibly beautiful; I'll never forget it.
The next thing that came was a tiny dog, and I mean tiny. Pumpkin was a whole two pounds (0.9kg) when we got her. She had no personality and was like a blank slate. Looking back, we probably should've waited the extra month to pick her up, but we were too excited to wait. That bit us in the butt as she proceeded to scream-cry all through the night. She got not one, but two ear infections in that first few months too. Now, she is a great dog, if a bit ornery. She likes to *grunt* at you when she wants something and will do so louder and louder until she either gets her way or we have to get up and tell her to "place" in her bed.
I won't go to in-depth on how I got into coffee, but in addition to a Ninja coffee maker, I now have a burr grinder, a Fellow Stagg Pourover X kit and an AeroPress. I did have a hand grinder, but returned it as it was just a bit too pricey to justify in the end. It's amazing how much better coffee tastes out of the Stagg or the AeroPress versus the standard coffee maker. There's so much more flavor nuance to them and there's huge differences between them in their own! I don't yet have a favorite bean that I consistently return to (probably because I love getting new flavors everytime), but I have noticed I tend to gravitate towards darker roasts. I love lighter roasts due to their fruity notes, but I also love the smooth notes of a dark roast.
This next section is a long one.
Headphones. Or head-poe-hon-ees as good ole DankPods would say. I've always loved music. The daily prompt for my journal app, DayOne, last night was even "What would your life be like without music?", so my entry was basically a tale of "I would rather die". Previous to 2020, I had a set of over-ear Sony CH-700N (so catchy) that had noise cancelling, Apple AirPods Pros, Beats Powerbeats Pro, and a pair of crappy Skullcandy buds in my desk. Some might ask "why have two pairs of wireless?" Well I used the Powerbeats for working out due to the over-the-ear hooks, and the AirPods Pro at the office with the transparency mode so I could hear my surroundings while still jamming. In late 2020, I bought a pair of Apple Airpods Max to replace my Sony's. While they were very pricey, I loved the noise cancelling as they were way better than the Sony's, and the transparency, as well as the sound of them. In fact, I still love them and use them whenever I travel. Dat sub-bass tho mmmmmm.
But in late 2021, I was getting more and more into wired audio again. I had purchased a pair of KZ ZSN Pro X IEMs for $20 (on the recommendation of everyone's favorite Aussie audio YouTuber), and a pair of Moondrop Aria's for $80. The Moondrop Aria's are highly praised in the IEM/audio community and with good reason. They sound incredibly good, especially for $80. Now, you might think "oh wow $80 is a bit pricey for wired headphones. I used to get Skullcandy's at the store for $20 and they sound good!" and if so, that's great! I'm happy you think so! But for me, I needed more. So I went down the rabbit hole of "over-ear headphones". Both open-backed and closed back. For those who don't know, most consumer headphones (think Bose, Beats, Sony, etc.) are closed-back. This means the "cups" are closed on the outside. Sound doesn't pass through them and they provide a layer of passive noise cancellation. Open-back are what they say on the tin. Noise passes right through the cups. This goes both ways though; people can hear what you're listening to and you can hear the outside world. Now the benefits of open-back are the "Soundstage". or how wide the music feels and the ability to "place" instruments in the audio stage that you can hear. It's a bit hard to explain. I ended up getting six pairs of headphones from Amazon to test out and choose from. The pairs I got were the Hifiman Sundara, Hifiman Ananda, Audeze LCD-2C, Audeze LCD-X, Audeze LCD-2C Closed, and Audeze LCD-XC (X closed). If you look these up on Amazon, you'll see they range in price from $300 (Sundara) up to $1299 (LCD-XC). After a long time listening, I slowly eliminated the Sundara, 2C, and Ananda. I honestly had a hard time choosing between the X, XC, and 2C Closed. In the end, I chose the LCD-2C Closed as I prefer the closed-back nature of these cans. I loved the XC as a 2nd choice, but the price jump between the 2C and XC was just too great to justify the difference in quality. I also ended up with a Qudelix 5k amp/dac/bt receiver after much testing there.
But the headphone journey doesn't end there...I mentioned IEMs earlier and now we're coming back to that. After getting the Aria's and LCD-2C Closed headphones, I noticed that the left bud of the Aria never seemed to feel secure unless I was sitting still at my desk. So I looked into eartips and other options, but ended up ordering a pair of FiiO FH3's. These come with what's called an MMCX (micro miniature coaxial) connector to the IEMs, which can swivel. These felt much more secure in my ear, though I did not 100% enjoy the sound signature and clarity of these buds. So I returned them and picked up a pair of the then hype-train-riding 7hz Timeless. God they are amazing. I love them for the sub-bass, tonality, resolution and clarity they bring to the music. But they still feel a bit insecure! So my most recent purchase was a pair of Moondrop Blessing 2's. These have been on my list for a "long" while now, but the price always held me back. After getting the pair in, I'm almost mad I didn't get them sooner. I quickly then ordered a pair of Moondrop Blessing 2: Dusk's. "Buy Dusk" as the popular IEM reviewer Crinacle says. The Dusk just adds a bit to the bass and that's really all the Blessing 2 needs. I'm hoping to have those in soon, but in the meantime, I'm greatly enjoying the B2.
I did mention I got super into headphones above, right?
Anyways, I've finished my beer and I've been writing this for over an hour. If you read this all the way to this point, you're awesome. If you skipped here to the end for a TLDR: hi :)
Til next time.
Daniel (Fresh-Static-Snow)
P.S. I covered my PR tattoo lol
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"There are tears filling my eyes right now because for a brief moment, I was able to see myself the way he sees me...through his eyes..."
I wrote this passage this morning. After a horrible night, I woke up to a very loving passage that Bruce chose to send to me. He does this often but every once in awhile something he chooses really hits the mark. This was one of those passages.
It all started about 36 hours ago on Thursday evening. Bruce, party. That meant that we would be smoking T and doing several rounds of G. High and horny all night long. Jim had to leave around 3 am Friday morning. Randy left with him so that he could be dropped off at home. That left Bruce and me. We smoked a bit more which guaranteed that we wouldn't sleep at all.
We made it through the Friday morning. In the afternoon, I started the crash and burn. I had stayed up all night long many times, but this time was different.
In the afternoon, some strange things began happening. I had be putting up with visual hallucinations before, in fact, they were are daily occurance now. The were clear Keith Haring drawings. When they first began, they were faint like watermarks.Now, they were heavier, more distinct, and were with me almost all day every day. Frankly, the are beginning to scare me.
That afternoon, things got worse. The visual hallucinations took on a frightening change. I was looking at a grid of head shots on Grindr. I'd looked at them hundreds of times before only now they were moving, as if animated. I didn't say anything to Bruce. I went into the bedroom to watch TV. Bruce was on the bed so I lay down with him.
As we watched a movie, the colors appeared all wrong and the actors looked like claymation. My skin crawled. I asked Bruce if he saw something strange and as he told me that he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, he realized what I was asking. He saw you face go white and he knew that I was hallucinating.
I was exhausted and I fell asleep. As if the hallucinations weren't enough, the usual mouth irritations, the burns on the inside of my cheeks, the burns and sores on my tongue, and severely chapping lips took over. I was miserable. I couldn't eat because almost all foods burned when they touched my injured mouth. At some point, I had some mashed potatoes, a croissant with cream cheese, and some Body Armor for hydration. All I remember from that point on is restlessness which lasted all night long until 6 am this morning. That's when I awakened to the passage that Bruce had left for me.
I read it and I cried. Actually, I sobbled. The passage said simply that he loved me, no matter what. No matter how dire the circumstances, he would stand by me because he loved me. It's a humbling feeling when someone gives you grace...a gift that is freely given you you deserve no such gift. I couldn't earn it, and yet Bruce gave it to me. That gift was unconditional love.
In my response, I told how I thought that if he loved me with the depth that he did, he was either crazy or he really loved me. He loved me inspite of the shit that I put him through everytime, I cycled down. Then, in the depths of desparir, a glimmer of hope shone through...maybe Bruce wasn't crazy or a liar. Maybe he really did love me...I wondered how long that hope would last before it was swallowed up by my darkening mind once again. Tonight, I had my answer.
I could feel myself changing. Like Mr. Hyde turning back into Dr. Jekyll, my attitude of self-importance slowly began creeping back. I began to britle at stupid little things. I asked Bruce to help me clean up the dirty dishes. I had finished making the dinner that I was going to serve to Jim and Brian that evening. He cheerfulling agreed to do the dishes so that I could work on a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and crushed peppermints as decoration. Everything irked me but I think I hid it pretty well.
Right now, I'm typing this journal entry in the dark. Beside me, Bruce is softly snoring in the dark that is lit only by the laptop screen. Surrounded by darkness, mirroring my every-darkening mood. I guess I have my answer. The glimmer of light that gave me a little hope that maybe love had rescued me was gone.
That didn't take long, did it?
It never does.
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Follow my blog!
Hello friend, I've decided to start a journal. I don't know if I'm going to keep it here but it will do for now. It seems like time moves faster and faster as I get older. I remember reading that our perception of time is based on markers, like weekends, or holidays. If there's nothing in your daily life that sticks in your memory that time disappears. So the idea is if I take the time to remember my day, to think about it enough to put it in to words, it add significance enough that it sticks in my head, so I have more markers, so time slows down again to the crawl I remember from when I was a kid. Or maybe it inspires me to live a life worth writing about. The point is I'm trying to grab life with both hands here. Time is precious. To precious to do a second draft of this thing. This is first draft only. What I'm telling you is coming stream-of-consciousness plucked right from the brain.
So today I went out and played some disc golf, I did that alone. Maybe don't have enough friends, I just like being on my own time. What I think it is really, I find it hard to be comfortable around other people. I know that human connection is most important factor in living a fulfilling life. I need to work on that.
I enjoyed the game though. I went my favorite park. It wasn't as muddy as I was expecting. The place was flooded last spring when the snow started melting. It was warm enough I could take off my gloves without my fingers freezing off. I played pretty badly, I didn't throw much last year. I played through one other individual, passed by a couple of guys warming up. I should said hi, asked to shoot the round with them, socialized. I thought of it. Chickened out. Crap.
The evening was mainly spent trying to stay motivated enough to keep studying. I'm trying to cram enough knowledge into my brain to pass the CCNA and get non-entry level IT job. Something that pays a real livable wage while letting me play with cables and computer shit. My brain is pretty spongy and good at soaking up information so I think I'm on the right path. I just need to keep at it. It makes me feel like a badass hacker when I clickety clacking on a cisco command line configuring enterprise routers. Good times.
I played a few games of chess. Blundered a rook early in the last one, but I felt like I still had a decent chance and didn't give up. I found a move where I attacked their king with a pawn while revealing an attack on their rook at the same time, that won me back the advantage. I checkmated them a little later. I do love chess. The game of kings.
Then there's this. I think it will be a good habit is I can stick to it. And it let's me pretend that someone is actually listening. I appreciate that friend. Now have yourself a great day and I'll let you in on some more tomorrow.
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January 4, 2023
Hello tumblr! This is the start of my (hopefully) daily journals as a record of my happenings and emotional processing. This was suggested to me by one of my friends, and instead of putting it off to do in a physical journal when I felt "good enough" to, I am making this tumblr blog/project about it. Continue reading if you would like to follow me on this healing journey :)
Jan 4, 2023 - First entry // CW: breakup
To catch everyone up, here are some background details: my partner of a year and a half broke up with me right after Christmas and before New Year on the 29th of December. They and I have been doing our best to learn how to affectively be friends with each other because a friendship wasn't something we'd had with each other until this point. We became romantically involved too soon after meeting each other that there was no time to develop that friendship prior to a romance, and once we started dating, the romantic relationship we had already formed took our focus away from building a friendship until the near end of our relationship.
Moving forward this last week has been very difficult for me. It was a week ago tonight that our relationship really started to feel like it was coming to an ending with them telling me that they weren't sure if they wanted to break up or not. The morning and few days after this, even following the breakup (a week ago tomorrow), I felt hopeful of finding them again at some point, like this was not an ending or new beginning but instead a pause or breath between the two of us, like I could look forward to the potential of us getting back together sometime in the far future when the time was right. After all, they did tell me that we were the right people at the wrong time, so surely, the universe would show me when the right time is.
This was until yesterday and the night before last. I had asked for and done what felt like dozens of readings on this situation in various contexts and perspectives. Through oracle, tarot, and runes, I was continuously told that I needed to move on and let go; this was nothing I was surprised about and already knew, though it hadn't fully set in emotionally. Yesterday, a mutual friend of my ex and I told me that I should give up hope, and that giving up hope entirely would be the best and only way for me to continue healing. From there, my hope felt lost.
My ex and I had talked occasionally the last few days of the potential of us getting back together romantically in the future. They told me that it would be a favorable outcome for them, while reminding me that nothing is ever guaranteed. They've always been extremely real and honest with me, even when the honesty may be painful. I'll always admire them for that.
Today I expressed to them that I had a difficult time believing that they did love and miss me as a partner, and that they actually would like to get back together with me. They explained that they couldn't say that they wanted to get back together with me platonically, which is why they couldn't be vulnerable about that with me yet. In the moment I didn't understand. I thought, "How could you want to be back together with me romantically if you get to the point where you are able to say this platonically?" They explained to me when I expressed my confusion and lack of understanding, and I now have mental clarity of what they meant.
Today they also are going out with someone they met on a dating app. They told me that they were looking for company right now, and not intentionally looking for anything more. I believe them, even though my pain in the moment made it hard to be confident in that belief. Having had the chance to sit and process has made this all make more sense to me as they had explained it. It would be hard for them to find something else romantic so soon after their first real romance, and it would be even harder for them to actively look for that. They will not stop loving me anytime soon, despite how difficult I can be to love. They loved me for a year and a half, so truly and deeply, and that isn't something that will go away in a short week or even month.
I told a friend about this. They didn't understand how this could be helpful to me and that was frustrating. I tried to get them to understand that this transparency and brutal honesty is something that is genuinely helping me process and work through my own emotions, in addition to helping me gain confidence in my new friendship with my ex-partner. They ended the conversation with me and went to bed and I contacted another friend to express my frustrations.
I am currently on the phone with them, sitting without talking as I write this post. Their company is providing me comfort and mental clarity as I write this. I love this friend very dearly and would not be dealing with everything as well as I have been without their support.
There is still time left in the night. I hope that my ex has the energy to call me later and talk about their night, because I do genuinely want to hear about it, though I realize the potential for some details may cause me momentary discomfort or pain. I've enjoyed my phone calls with them as our relationship has transitioned from something romantic to a new friendship where the two of us are figuring things out again but also for the first time together. Genuine, lengthy phone conversations are something I never got much of when the two of us were the most romantically involved.
I may update later in the night if anything else of substance follows. If not, I will post another entry tomorrow about whatever progresses. I'm expecting tomorrow to be a lonely day for me, with no work and a great potential to be stuck inside due to current unfortunate whether happenings.
Thank you to whoever has read along with me this far. Thank you to myself for being gentle and creating a space for release. I deserve care and gentleness and god dammit, I will create that for myself.
Goodnight, take care; I am sending you love.
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