Tumgik
#this still feels like it has pacing issues but i'm hoping that's just bad brain creeping in
cato616 · 9 months
Text
NEGOTIATING OVER US (part nine)
Tumblr media
roman roy x fem reader
I haven't been writing for this series for some days I'm sorry and I feel this part it's a bit short, I'm kind of busy these days:(
summary: roman will try his best to work with you and help saving your coffee shop that you value very much, let's hope there's no bumps on this road and that roman will give you a happy ending.
content/warning: fluff and angst (as always lol), trauma, daddy issues?
Waking up with roman beside you, both on your bed, it has been something circulating your mind from time to time, however nothing but a thought deep inside your brain. Although, it came true, and for instance, you excepted that roman would've already left, but there he was, right next to you, sleeping peacefully, he was safe with you; a man like roman is always on alert and defensive, as for now, wasn't much on alert.
There was a weird feeling to it tho, didn't know if you should go to the kitchen and prepare something for the both of you, as if this is something normal, or just try to wake him up. Perhaps breakfast it's too much? today it's not normal, some things must be fixed.
You put your arm on his shoulder very slowly, doing your best to not startle him, waking him up peacefully. You see how he opens his eyes at a slow pace, he realizes he's not in his bed, widens his eyes and quickly sitting up to straight himself up. "woah okay, good morning?" Thinking he was already in a bad shape. "oh, yeah, im here..." you can perceive that he's clearing his head. "yes... good morning." affirming it was actually for him, a good morning, being with you.
There's silence filling up the room, then suddenly both of you starts speaking on top of the other. "wait sorry, you go ahead." As you let him speak first. "...I know what you're thinking, and yes, I will try to make the best out of it... but, I don't wanna start my day like that..." Roman looks at you, waiting for you to share some ideas. "well... I do have a coffee shop that I gotta open." You caught him rolling his eyes on purpose, as he tries to be the same old roman, although he accidentally slipped a tiny smile, secretly feeling excited accompanying you, doing something else that is not all business and corporate; and mostly to be there by your side.
Both you and roman decided to walk to the café. Your clothing were complete opposites; while you were wearing a total casual look, however still tried to make look good, roman was in his corporate outfit like always, blue navy pants and a stripped tight shirt; it was probably a little too much for your taste, the style you mean, although you thought the shirt was doing its best work; he's a short man but surprisingly pretty buff, you liked that.
"Here we are." You said when arriving to your shop. "nice walk but it's my time to get to wo-" You stopped talking the moment you both hear roman's phone ringing. He takes his phone out and looks at it, then looks at you, he tries to mouth a response, but doesn't do it, and takes the call, while looking the other way, as he was ashamed to even take the call. "yes... nope, not there... I'm uuh- somewhere else." Roman was giving his back to you and whispering to his cellphone, and weirdly talking in code, as if to not let, you nor the person on the call, know what he's talking about. "yeah yeah see you there da-.... dying to see you..." He immediately hung up. The person on the other side was in effect, his dad, that not only was a little weirded out by his last sentence, and honestly not too shocked he would say that, but also, he was on this too.
"I guess duty calls, I'll see you later..." He waives and walks run, down to wherever he was going, without saying another word; you see from a far that he was making another call, probably to call one of his guys to give him a ride. His ways and manners was making you suspicious, after all, he was roman roy, and you haven't forgotten.
Roman was dropped off at Waystar's, making his way up to his father's office. "hey son, how was your morning, wherever you were?" Logan teamed up with roman, but his dad wasn't all that informed of roman's plan. "I was, on my mission dad-" Logan seemed already annoyed, as if his voice is what was making him upset like that. "first of all, your mission, was to convince that girl to let go of her little shop, to avoid any lawsuits, that we can always win, but are still pretty bad for our reputation... so, son, I don't think you've achieved your quest... I think you failed... you're lying to me, not only I can see it, I can hear it, and even smell it." Logan was made of stone, an angry stone, staring roman, waiting for an answer; by now, roman was already pretty nervous to even speak, hiding his anxiety with a cocky smile, but scratching his head, clearly feeling on edge. He doesn't say anything back, Logan closes his eyes and sighs out of frustration. "you fucking moron..." Roman stops walking around the room; he's fucked. "you fell for the woman, haven't you?" Roman tries to answer but doesn't know if he should keep lying or say the truth, but was too afraid to make either of those options. "I always knew you were soft, and weak... repeatedly trying to put your dick where you're not supposed to." Logan was one each away from roman, staring at his soul, while rome was eating his nails off, afraid of his dad, like a little kid all over again. Logan stands down and sits back to his chair. "well, you tried your best son, and it's already done, so you may go."
Roman knows what he's talking about, and once again, doesn't speak, and leaves the room. He walked away towards his office, but with his head somewhere else; while making his way over there, he looked sideways and noticed someone was in his office, caught him out of trance. He walked in, and realized, it was you.
You were looking at the view he has inside, he haven't seen your face yet. "y/n? you're here..." You turn your body to him, he gets to see you, and you were miserable, tears were filling up. "what the fuck roman? huh? you fucking sociopath." Roman was perplexed, as you were justifyingly defensive about it, you took out from behind, a letter, the letter. "it was inside the shop when I got in, looks like there weren't any other ways..." Roman carefully takes the letter you left on top of the desk, and reads it, and of course it was the warrant, his father sent this morning, to demolish the café; roman was just the puppet in this play, to console and convince you to tear down the shop, so that it would look like you agreed to the negotiation, although they were going to do it anyway.
He felt busted when knowing what was going on, and doesn't know how to react, except you do. "you tell me nice things, I tell you nice things back, we have some moments, and this morning, you start acting all suspicious... and then oh my god, I realized you were playing me all along for fuck's sake." you weren't yelling, but notoriously upset, having your hands holding your head, as if you were about to explode. "I trusted you because I had no else to trust, but I'm really that stupid, I chose daddy's boy and thought he wouldn't be the betraying type, ever again." Roman doesn't seem to respond, avoiding eye contact. "and you can't even say sorry... put up a fight, anything..." Your eyes were shinning with hope as you frowned to him, expecting an answer, that was nowhere to be found, he doesn't speak; he sat down on his chair, and tries to compose himself and looks through you as you weren't even there, like a ghost. Your heart shatters. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised you wouldn't want to disappoint your daddy, and lose everything you have." He wasn't fazed at all with your teasing, and made you even more helpless. "honestly, roman... I don't know why, but I could think of so many ways to forgive you... if I wanted to hate you, I would, but I can't... and you won't even apologize." You tilt your head to see if he would say something. "and that makes me want to hate myself, and not you! you understand what I'm saying? how crazy that sounds?... but I don't care, i would do anything to hold you again... I guess you don't feel the same, you never did."
You walked away, thinking you could've burst out crying, but you didn't feeling like it, instead accepted the situation and everything else, the only thing you could do to make this the best out of it, accept the money, and move on, nothing you could do.
Roman kept his pose very still until you left. When you were gone, his tears started to build up and his body to shake, he was almost about to blow up. He couldn't hold his emotions any longer and uncontrollably starts crying, but gets embarrassed right that second, feeling he was maybe a bit too loud; he turns his chair to the window, slides down a little bit, and covers his mouth with his arm, to not feel too exposed; and so he starts sobbing without no one watching.
You were in acceptance, or at least taking the path to it, meanwhile roman was very much in pain. He never thought he would be in such agony for someone like you. However it wasn't a hard call for him to decide which side to be on, betraying his family it's never part of his plan, but betraying you, crushed him even far more than he could imagine.
He stopped crying, he felt he could catch his breath. His eyes were swollen and lost of aspiration, tears coming down his cheeks, while viewing the city from his desk. The day was getting darker, and the lights of his office was getting brighter, allowing him to see his reflection on the window. He looked at himself, analysing his whole self, started to overthink. Although, it made him change perspective; he didn't like what he was seeing, and tho some arrangements can't be done, some changes can be made, like himself.
Roman abruptly decides to storm out of his office and runs away. He's ready to do things differently, to do things your way.
27 notes · View notes
kuromitos · 2 years
Note
hey sup? How do you think Gintoki and Hijikata would deal with having a crush who purposely walks everywhere and does not run. And tends to use their brains instead of brawn for most situations, like if there is bad guy, they outsmart the bad guy and the bad guy usually ends up defeating themselves as a result (or if Gintoki is telling them to hurry up, they don’t hurry up lol), at some point the men find out s/o has this issue from birth where they will collapse from too much moving around and when they awake they’re actually shaking and need time to be able to function properly again. It’s not curable and just something they have lived with all their life. They always seem like a really strong person, so this would be surprising information? How would they deal before knowing this? After knowing this? and If crush collapsed on them one day, how would they deal?
I like this one alot. Kinda wish this actually happens in the main show. But where do you come up with this stuff? I'm impressed
Tumblr media
Tumblr media
Why run everywhere when you can use cars?
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Tumblr media
Gintoki sakata
Confusion is the first emotion he go thru when he see it
Why would someone choose to walk? It's tiring and exhausting, especially in this heat? Must be crazy
And slow walking too! Can't understand
The amount of time this man told you to pick up the pace but you refuse to..
He just thought you were some health nut
He would offer to give you rides from time to time, considering he didn't like you walking so far alone
Concern is a another emotion he go through
You walking everywhere you bound to bump into some shady guys
See it first hand and was going to step in but you just talk yourself out of it. How you do that?
Concerns turn into impress
But concern was still there. You might not be able to do that for everyone.
When he finally ask why and you tell him, you have earned a guard dog, three actual
He aware you can do fine on your own but he can't help but to be considered.
Whenever you go out, he would take you on his scooter,regardless of what he doing,or sadaharu is giving you rides. (Personally the better opinion
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Hijikata Toshiro
I feel with Toshi here, he would know before even being with you
Mainly because he's an very observant person and due to his past with Mitsu 😔, he'll be cautious of getting closer to anyone with medical condition
But when you explain that it's not life threatening, he's more comfortable around you but he turns into a very protective
Always run into you on patrol to give you rides, checking up to make sure you're not over exhausting yourself, being jumpy whenever you look like you about the pass out, the works
He just an over cautious person but you appreciate it
He still needs to cool down
Tumblr media
Sorry this took longer to make. I've been busy with life stuff and school stuff so I'm really sorry if it's not good. I hope you still enjoy it. Have a good day/evening 👍
Tumblr media
38 notes · View notes
ghostmacandcheese · 2 years
Text
Heaven help the fools chapter 3
(Hello! I hope you like this fanfic. It’s going to be five chapters, that way I can put a good amount of detail into the story. It isn’t a Y/N reader, as the main character does have a name, and if it seems strange or annoying the way the conversations flow or the way things are described, sorry, that's just how i think and react to things. While most of the stuff in this is false, obviously, there will be a note at the end of each chapter letting you guys know what was actually real from personal experiences! Hope you all enjoy, i know i had a lot of fun writing this!)
Summery: you meet Steven in the museum gift shop and become fast friends, and maybe something even more!
Pairing: just Steven x female reader
Warnings: some swearing, being the family disappointment, sleep disorders,
Genre: fluff, meet-cute, friends to lovers
Tumblr media
Chapter 3: wasteland, baby
It had been about two weeks now since that first time going to the coffee shop with steven, and about every day after, the both of you found some excuse to hang out. He gave you regular tours of the museum, and even though they were all basically the same, you always said yes when he asked, purely to just listen to him talk so excitedly and passionately about his obsession. You've learned a lot about him since the first time you met him, and he now knew a lot about you, but that was just because he was so easy to talk to that you couldn't help but open up to him. He listened to everything really intently, and wouldn't interrupt unless he got excited. He was kind and seemed to genuinely care, and that made you feel important.
You learned that he had a sleeping disorder, lives alone, never had a girlfriend, and loves jazz. He likes to bake, but never has any time, and is an avid collector of tiny seashells. I don't think I've ever been happier to know someone can collect tiny seashells because they love the swirl pattern in their shells.
I roll over and check my phone, confirming my suspicions. It was 3 am, and I was still awake. Even worse, I was thinking about steven, instead of sleeping. “God, I need a hobby. D you think he's up now? Should I text him? Ugh, no, that would seem too obvious.” I get up out of bed and pace around the open floor in my living room, trying to figure out what I could do, and whether I should call him or not. I decide to pull out my earbuds and play my sleeping playlist, shuffling it until I found the perfect song. I lay on my bed while Wasteland, Baby by Hozier filled my ears. I close my eyes and let the song wash over me, letting it lull me into almost sleep when my music stops. I check my phone to see what's wrong and see steven is calling me! Shit shit shit what do I do? Do I answer? I mean, he'd probably be upset if I didn't answer, yeah, I'll answer.
“Hello?”
“H-hey, I wasn't sure if you'd be awake! Glad to see I'm not the only one with sleep issues.”
“Hmm, yeah, I haven't been able to fall asleep all night.” and it's all your fault, you absolute moron, do you know what this is doing to me right now?
“Was there something you needed?” I ask, trying not to sound rude so he wouldn't think I was angry.
“O-oh, uh, not really, I, uh, just wanted to um, I just wanted to talk to you, i-guess. If this is a bad time, I can go.” he sounded so sad, that I couldn't say no to him.
“No, it's fine, I don't have work tomorrow, so I don't care if I can't fall asleep right now. Anyway, what are you up to? Anything interesting to pass the time?”
“Eh, you know, just puzzles, books, anything to keep my brain active, I guess. What about you?”
“I mean, I was thinking of starting a painting, but I'm not really sure of what. Maybe something psychedelic so I can mess around with neons and glow in the dark? A huge canvas of glowing neon eyes would be pretty cool.”
“I-are you being serious?”
“I'll be honest, at first I was joking, but that actually sounds like a really cool idea. Like, it's one face in the light, and another when you turn off the lights? I don't know. I've got a big canvas and glow-in-the-dark paint, though, so I guess we’re gonna find out, huh.” I started heading to the back corner crawl space where I keep my painting supplies, and steven starts talking about the eye and its symbolism in Egypt. Eventually, he stops, and I realize I've been quiet the whole time I've been painting.
“Steven, why’d you stop talking?” I ask, thinking something happened or he fell asleep.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you found me boring and I was afraid I had put you to sleep or something.”
“Oh.” I chuckle, shaking my head. “I'm sorry, I just got so focused listening to you while painting I completely forgot to talk. If I'm being honest, I probably would fall asleep to you talking.” I hear a disappointed “oh” from the other end of the phone before I could finish my sentence. “No, not because your boring, because your voice is so nice and relaxing it makes me wanna fall asleep. I like sleeping to constant noise, and your voice has such a nice cadence that I could listen to you talk all night long and comfortably fall asleep to it. I didn't mean it rudely, don't worry.”
“O-oh, ok. So… you like my voice?” he sounded so timid, it was like a small child asking if their playground crush liked the drawing they made them.
“yes, steven, I like our voice,” I said with a smile. “I like a lot of things about you, actually. I like the fact that you love Egypt so much you could talk about it all day, that your hair looks really soft and is always slightly messy, and that you always listen with 100% interest to what I'm saying, even if you don't really want to, and that you respect my boundaries and personal space. I like the fact that you smell like an old library and the incense used in the Egyptian wing, and that you drink coffee every hour of the day and still look exhausted. I love how excited you get when listening to me talk, and how much you love your goldfish. I love a lot of things about you, steven grant.” I let it all out in one breath, feeling like I just shared a part of me I had never shared with anyone before. Steven was quiet for a while after that. Unbearably quiet.
“S-steven, are, are you ok?” I ask, nervous I had just ruined my only friend with my feelings.
‘I-you like all those things about me?”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling really shy.
“You changed your wording, halfway through.”
“I-i did?”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding thoughtful. ‘You started by saying you like a lot about me, and ended by saying you loved a lot about me.”
“I-i guess I did, huh.”
“So, um, w-which is it?”
“What?”
“Do you like me, or love me?” he sounded about as nervous as I felt, which is to say, incredibly nervous.
“Um, I mean, I guess, kina both, if that's ok?”
“Yeah, that's ok. I guess I feel both too. A-about you, I mean, not me.” I laughed at that.
“Ophelia,”
“Yes?”
“Would you, um, many wanna, wanna go out somewhere with me? Like, on a date? Not to any restaurants or anything, I know you get bad claustrophobia and anxiety when it comes to restaurants, but maybe somewhere else, outside maybe? Like in the park? We can make a day of it! Um, if that's ok?” he sounded so sweet, so genuine. This was truly what it felt like to be loved. To be important. To be cared about.
“Steven, I would love to”
“Oh, great, that's just great! Yeah, um, ill let you know the time and place, ya? I'll get it all figured out, don't worry.”
“Oh, I trust you.”
“Ok, well bye I guess,”
“Bye steven, I cant wait.”
“Bye Ophelia. Love you, laters, gators.”
He-he just said “I love you” to me! This is the day I die from happiness! You're going on a date! With STEVEN GRANT!! oh, and now that you are excited about it, not only will you not sleep for the next 3 hours, but you also get to cash in that free anxiety ticket you'd been holding on to for a rainy day, how fun! Sleep well!
‘Well,” I mutter to myself, I guess I better at least try to sleep somewhat once I finish this painting.” I take a deep breath, letting the full events of what just happened 15 minutes ago fully hit me.
“OH, MY GOD I'M GOING ON A DATE! FINALLY! AND HE'S SOOOOO HOOOOOOT!!!” I start jumping up and down, super excited until one of my neighbors knocks on my door and kindly reminds me with his middle finger it's now 4 in the morning, and he'd like to sleep.
“Sorry,” I whisper, “I just got a little excited, ill be going to bed now.” I close the door and walk over to my bed, falling in it, giggling like a teenage girl. This is the best day ever!
*end chapter authors note*
Hello! Glad you guys seem to be liking this series so far! So, quick update, i know i said six chapters, but I’m making it five, so that way i dont have an entire chapter of stupid stuff that’s unnecessary! Anyways, aside from that, here’s stuff about me that i put in this chapter!
1) i love jazz, baking, and collection tiny things, including seashells, since i happen to conveniently live by a beach
2) i paint quite a lot, and the painting Ophelia makes is something i actually really want to paint soon
3) i have pretty bad anxiety and claustrophobia when it comes to certain places like restaurants, so i generally feel safer outside
Anyway, thanks for reading!
9 notes · View notes
aimsyreads · 1 year
Text
"Of course I love you. I could go back in time and have a whole life and get old and never see you again, and you would still be it. You were— you are the love of my life."
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Rating : 4.6/5🌟
Genre : Sci-Fi Romance, LGBT+
Page count : 432
Review :
This book in one word: better. You have no idea how apprehensive I was before reading this. I read rwrb (written by the same author) and I did not enjoy it. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. The writing style was just not my type. And as I was reading the book I was just praying and hoping that the next chapter would be better but I was not given such a miracle. It is even more disappointing since I was really looking forward to that book and even bought two of her books without even reading the first. So I honestly had no choice. I went into this book waiting to be slapped with everything I did not enjoy from rwrb. What I got instead was a found family trope with complex characters and an intriguing romance that was also wholesome.
This book excelled where rwrb did not. The characters were just top tier and had more personality. The side characters had the perfect (maybe a tad bit more but I ain't complaining) amount of development. I am a huge sucker for found family tropes especially for a rag tag group with questionable traits. And this was it. This was everything I ever wanted. Everything just felt so perfect. I would read an entire spin-off series about them just living together. It's just extremely entertaining.
The romance does lack when compared to the family but it is still infinitely better. The main issue I had with this romance was that I did not really feel or understand the reason behind why they were the main romance. Like I really don't enjoy the love at first sight trope (except in rare cases) but this just did not do it for me. And the other problem was that there was just not enough wholesome/homely scenes. I mean it could be because they were stuck on a train but I wanna blame it on the earlier mentioned lack of connection or the lack of reason for romance. This one factor however was the one thing I liked about rwrb. And other that those problems the romance is actually pretty good. The characters in the romance are definitely better than the romance itself though.
The sci-fi part did get my brain a bit twisted because a) I don't live in NYC and b) I don't know how trains/subways work and it has been a long ass time since I've seen one up close. So it was difficult to comprehend but I understand the general notion of what was happening. It did take away my enjoyment during the Eureka moments though. Regardless it was still fun and extremely useful because I'm pretty sure if there was no sci-fi part I wouldn't have enjoyed this book as much as I did.
To conclude it is a solid book. It introduced me to one of the most wholesome families in existence and does a great job at pacing the development. Truth be told I am restricting myself so much right now because if I let myself go I am just gonna ramble about each and every character and all the reasons I love them so, just know that reading this book will not be a waste of your time.
1 note · View note
frenchy-and-the-sea · 2 years
Text
OC Kiss Week - Payment
The fun part about OC kiss week is that it gives me both permission to work with OCs that I haven’t before, and a deadline to keep me in check. I’m still working through an Art Growth phase so I don’t have much for y’all this week, but I do have about 2k words about my good friend’s half-orc barbarian Beau meeting my favorite cast of bastards. 
Thanks again to my wife @colonelcupquake and to @urdnotgrunt for letting me steal their bard kids again. <3
~2300 words, set in a conveniently overlapping universe. 
----
When Beau had limped his way into the local inn, clutching one arm and looking for directions to a healer, he had expected to be pointed back towards the center of town.
Instead, the grim-faced dragonborn running the bar had huffed a whorl of smoke at him and then nodded towards one of the tables huddled against the southernmost wall, where three figures sat in low, heated conversation. They were clustered together around a map spread out in front of them, held down at one corner by the elbow of a sunburnt half-elf with a sour twist to his mouth. He had his chin propped on one hand, a drink dangling loosely from the fingers of the other, and he was shaking his head so sharply that his thick nest of dark curls bounced. 
“I’m not traveling with a caravan,” he was saying as Beau limped into earshot. The genasi beside him didn’t look up from where they were plucking at the lute in their lap, but they said, with the tiniest shrug of one shoulder, “Then you will stay here.”
“Silk’s right,” said the gnome between them. She was leaned forward across the table with both hands planted in the center of the map, chewing fussily on a long strand of curly red hair that had escaped from one of the buns pinned on top of her head. “If we’re going to get out of this city without losing our coin and our asses in the process, we really, really need to find someone to travel with. Preferably someone that isn’t going to make us look like bait to the literal hoards of bandits stalking the place, which, I remind you, is a huge fucking problem by itself, so if you could just be a little cool about it, that would be — gods, what happened to you?”
Beau froze as the gnome’s eyes suddenly found him through the shadows of the tavern, dithering on whether or not to interrupt. Beside her, the half-elf glanced up and scowled.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“You see? This is exactly what I'm talking about!" The gnome vaulted off of her chair with a grunt of effort and strode towards Beau, still halfway turned towards the half-elf behind her. "Every few hours, someone comes stumbling in here with some terrible injury or another, just from stepping outside. This town’s guard absolutely sucks!”
“Or maybe it’s just that you need to stop making such a name for yourself,” said the half-elf dryly, leaning back in his chair. “If you hadn’t gone around healing every idiot who got into a bar brawl, they wouldn’t think that you were doing it for some sort of charity.”
“Hey, they paid! They just sometimes didn’t know that they paid. Don’t worry,” she added to Beau as she took his uninjured arm and half-guided, half-dragged him back towards the table, “I’m not going to steal from you. Probably. Not unless you were in a bar brawl, anyway. Which, if you were, you should probably just tell me now, because I’m just gonna find out later, and if that happens, it’ll be bad for both of us —”
“No!” Beau said, a little frantically, finally fishing his tongue out from the throbbing haze of pain still radiating up his tugged-on shoulder. “I was just coming into town! There was a group of bandits running a toll scheme at the crossroads. I tried to get by, but they had another group hiding in the bushes with clubs, and it was just me, and I —”
“— got kicked around a bit in the fight,” the gnome finished, easing him gently into a chair. “Easy there, big guy. You’re not the first person to tell us that story. We believe you.”
The half-elf huffed into his drink. “Some of us believe you.”
“All of us who have eyes believe you,” the gnome said primly, offering a rude gesture over the table to the half-elf who returned it with astonishing familiarity. “Now. I can handle those bruises no problem, but I think that arm of yours might be broken. Can you move it at all?”
Beau tried gingerly to lift his arm away from where it was clutched to his chest and hissed when it sparked a sudden starburst of pain all the way from wrist to shoulder. The gnome grimaced.
“Well, it would be, wouldn’t it? Hang on.” She circled back towards her own chair, where the genasi was already lifting her pack up from the floor and holding it out towards her. She didn’t even bother taking it, just thrust a hand inside and rummaged around with both eyes narrowed in deep concentration. Eventually, she hummed a little noise of triumph and removed a very small, finger-length satchel of smooth brown leather. The half-elf on the other side of the table sucked a breath through his teeth. 
“You can’t be serious.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time someone has accused me of that,” the gnome said, shrugging as she moved back towards Beau. The half-elf opened his mouth to say something else, but the genasi beside him suddenly shifted in a way that suggested the warning tap of a boot against a shin. The half-elf scowled, but he dutifully swallowed whatever comment he was about to make and sank back into his seat, sulking.
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Beau said as the gnome appeared back at his side. He wasn’t sure what sort of trouble he was being, exactly, but the glare he was being leveled across the table told him well enough how unwelcome it was.
“It isn’t trouble,” said the gnome, carefully picking the tie on her little satchel apart with her teeth. “It’s just expensive, and Cas over there is a miser when he’s in a bad mood. Which is most of the time. Even though this isn’t his money and I’ve got two more of these in my bag.”
The half-elf — Cas — rolled his eyes.
“Still,” she went on, “he does have a point. I can’t exactly go around giving this sort of thing out for free, you know.” 
She finally wrestled the bag’s tie apart and tipped its contents unceremoniously into her hand, holding it up for Beau to see. Something coarse and glittering had spilled out into her palm, catching the faint lantern-light of the tavern around them in a thousand glinting facets. Something that, if he didn’t know better, looked very, very much like….
“Diamonds,” the genasi at Beau’s shoulder provided helpfully, grinning. 
“Or what used to be diamonds, anyway,” said the gnome as he wrenched around towards them, slack-jawed. “Like I said, it’s an expensive fix. It’ll cost you.”
“I don’t have any money,” Beau said, a little frantically. His arm was starting to hurt quite badly, now. “Not enough for that, I mean. They took most of my gold at the gate and even if they hadn’t, I only have — ” 
“Gods, I’m not here to take your gold!” said the gnome, scrunching her nose in disgust. “I’m an acolyte of the Laughing Rogue, for gods’ sake, not some petty bandit! I just need something I can work with. Pranks! Jokes! Names of shitty people who deserve to get their very public just desserts! Anything I can put down as a favor to the Trickster himself so that he’ll give me a little help with you, understand?”
Beau sank back into his seat as the gnome winked, trying to sort his thoughts out from the throbbing swath of pain that was his arm. Nothing about the last five minutes made any sense. Hells, nothing about the last day made any sense either, but at least being surrounded and robbed on a trade road was still within some realm of possibility. The idea that he was supposed to be paying for a handful of crushed diamond with a joke felt like something that ought to happen to a storybook hero traipsing through the Feywild, or in a particularly strange dream.
Some bit of his miserable confusion must have shown on his face, because he heard the genasi clear their throat, lean around him and say, soto vocce, “Oh, give him a break, Fizz. He’s clearly had a long day.”
“I am giving him a break!” the gnome hissed, equally audible around Beau’s shoulder. “I’ve only done this twice before, and the last two times, I asked for payment just like this! I don’t wanna risk fucking it all up just because I broke the rule of threes!”
“I’m sure Olidammara would appreciate you breaking the rule of threes —”
“Not if it’s by ignoring it!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, please do something,” the half-elf across the table cut in, rolling his eyes in Beau’s direction. “Anything, at this point. The sooner you indulge her, the sooner you can finally go away.”
“Cas,” said the genasi disapprovingly, but something about the dry irritation in his voice woke the last little drop of anger still left in Beau’s chest. He sat up, setting the pain in his arm aside with the sort of dismissal that always came with a rage, and turned back towards the gnome with his jaw set.
“Two elves walk into a bar,” he said tightly. “The third one ducks.”
The brewing argument behind him suddenly stuttered into silence. 
Slowly, the gnome at his side turned back to face him, eyebrows raised like she was still waiting for a punchline. He could hear the faintest creak of a chair shifting behind him, the soft click of a mug hitting the table. He thought, for a long and terrible moment, that they didn’t get it.
Then the gnome snorted.
“The third one ducks,” she said, grinning with such obvious satisfaction that the last of Beau’s bravado fled like a startled rabbit. Across the table, Cas groaned.
“That can’t be worth a diamond,” he said, leaning forward to leer down at the gnome as she shook the last scattering of diamond dust into her hand.
“Why not? It’s a classic! Probably got handed down from family, right?” She glanced up to Beau as she circled around him, putting her back to Cas to offer a conspiratorial wink. Beau recalled, very faintly, how to smile. 
“My dad taught me that one,” he admitted, and was rewarded with another dazzling grin from the gnome.
“See? What’d I tell you — a classic! Now, hold this.”
She gingerly twisted Beau’s arm until his palm was upright, and then sprinkled a small pile of the glittering dust into the center. With one hand, she carefully closed his fingers around it; with the other, she left a long trail up the inside of his arm, all the way to the elbow. Beau thought it should have scattered off of the edge of his forearm and to the floor, but it followed the path of her hand like an obedient pet, keeping to its unsteady line as if she had spread it across the flat face of a table. When she had left the last of it in a little pile at his elbow, she wiped her hand across the thigh of her pants and leaned down towards the closed curl of his fingers, muttering to herself. Beau just barely managed to make out her whisper of, “C’mon, it was a little funny,” before she chuckled to herself, and then pressed a gentle kiss to the folded knuckles of his fingers. 
He didn’t even have time to pretend to be embarrassed. Warmth suddenly coiled in the center of his palm, uncurling like fire from the pile of dust he could still feel burning beneath his fingers. Except, it wasn’t fire at all. It was sun, the dewey heat of a nap in summertime, of an afternoon spent cradled in the grass of his family’s farm. It flashed up his arm in a sudden mad dash of nostalgia that made his heart stop, following the trail of diamonds that the gnome had left behind and brightening, burning. And then, before he could brace for it to hurt, it was gone.
“There!” The gnome stepped back with a pleased hum, brushing the last little shards of dust from her hands. And they were dust, now — Beau could see them evaporating from between her fingers, turning into bright smoke that dissipated almost at once. When he opened his own hand, it opened without pain, and it was empty.
“I….wow,” was as much as he could manage. The gnome’s grin widened.
“Wow, indeed! That’s Olidammara for you. Doesn’t like to do things without a little show.” She winked, and Beau was immediately struck with the thought that maybe she didn’t like to do things without a show either. “Your arm should be good as new, now. I know you’re still a little banged up, but you seem like you’ve probably handled bruises and scrapes yourself before, and I’m a little tapped, so —”
“No!” said Beau at once, gesturing her off. It was startling, how easily his formerly-broken arm moved now. “I’m fine, I mean. This is….this is plenty. I don’t know how I can thank you, miss….?”
“Fizz,” said the gnome, offering a faintly-glittering hand with a smile. “Fizz Ippkin. Grand mistress of chaos and mischief, left hand of the Laughing Rogue, and begrudged fan of the two best bards to ever grace this shitty corner of the realm.” 
Grinning, she nodded back towards the genasi, who gave a deep sitting bow, and to Cas, who rolled his eyes again. Beau managed a smile and obediently took her offered hand.
“Beauregard Himm. Beau, for short. Really, I can’t thank you enough for —”
“Beauregard Himm, you said?” Fizz cut in suddenly, with a raise of one eyebrow. A grin slightly less conspiratorial and slightly more wicked dawned at the corner of her mouth. “Are you telling me that your name is Himm, Beau?”
Across the table, Cas snorted.
“That,” he said, with a raise of his cup, “is the joke you should’ve led with.”
10 notes · View notes
Text
alright here’s the wikihow article i’ve been threatening to write on how to brainwash yourself into not entirely hating 15x20, or: castiel’s absence is a good thing, actually.
disclaimers:
- i do not claim that this is the intended interpretation
- i am watching the show with my destiel/dean coded cas girl goggles stapled on
- i do not enjoy being bitter about things i like and therefore probably jumped through a lot of hoops to arrive at this conclusion
i know there were a LOT of things people hated about the episode and this will not address all of them. my main issues with the finale were 1) the manner of dean’s death, 2) the unresolved dean/cas arc, 3) sam’s extremely emotionally hollow happy ending, and 4) cas’ complete absence. the production quality/editing/pacing was terrible as well but that’s nothing out of the ordinary on supernatural rip
1. the bad guy (spn writers room) won
my correct opinion is that this was, in fact, one of chuck’s endings (though i don’t think they made it bad on purpose). on a meta level it makes a lot of sense for this to have been chuck’s ending since he is the meta stand-in for the writers. as long as they are the ones telling this story, EVERY ending will be a chuck ending.
some supporting evidence:
Tumblr media
from 14x20 moriah
chuck loves circular storytelling: sam and dean as cain and abel as michael and lucifer, or dean and jack as sam and john as abraham and isaac. we know that chuck’s ideal ending would have the brothers regress back to their brodependent s1 selves and then have them meet a tragic end (15x04 atomic monsters). and something that really stood out about 15x20 is the way it just... completely erased 15 years of sam and dean’s character development. someone said you could watch the pilot and then the finale and understand everything and that’s completely true and extremely frustrating to any viewer with a brain. it’s also a trademark of chuck’s writing.
if you watch it with that in mind, 15x20 is so reminiscent of season 1 that if you pulled jarpad’s hairline back across his forehead and slapped on a grunge filter it might actually be the walmart version of an alternate s1 ending:
- jenny the vampire returns
- complete absence of any characters that aren’t sam and dean
- motw, specifically working one of john’s unfinished jobs
- sam happily leaving his hunter’s life behind and living a normal picket fence life with his blurry spouse, the way he dreamed in s1 and has repeatedly stated is not what he wants for himself anymore
- dean dying as daddy’s blunt instrument
- i hate to say it but the borderline romantic framing of dean’s death scene also counts as a kripke era callback considering how many romantic tropes sam and dean played into during the earlier seasons. erotically codependet etc etc
- probably more but i watched the finale exactly once and am not planning on doing it ever again in my life
tl;dr the 15x20/s1 parallels aren’t just parallels, it’s sam and dean actually regressing to their past selves because they are once again living chuck’s story (or on a meta level: still living the writers’ story). they don’t notice it and neither does the viewer because the framing of the episode suggests that god is defeated and sam and dean are living life the way they want. and yet their endgames are anything but what they would choose for themselves.
(if you watch the back half of s15 through this lense you can also suddenly excuse dean’s character assassination in 15x17/dean failing to break the cycle and being a bad father to jack just as john was a bad father to dean. running in circles is kind of chuck's Thing. god made them do it is a god tier coping mechanism for everything i’m mad at supernatural about.)
it all comes down to what cas said: freedom is a length of rope and sam and dean hung themselves with it. imo it’s still a dissatisfying ending after fifteen years of character development but it is narratively sound. the reason the story set up all these endgames and then didn’t pull through is that the antagonist won. 15x20 is a depressing tale on the dangers of hubris.
OR IS IT.
2. castiel’s absence is a good thing, actually
alright so this is where i’m probably REALLY going against authorial intent. here’s the thing about cas: he is the only character in the show that possesses true free will, both within the story (”you never did what you were told”, god himself in 15x17 unity) and outside the story (the showrunners kept trying to kill him and he kept coming back, cas falling in love with dean despite writers, actors and network actively trying to prohibit it). so if cas as the representative of free will had been in 15x20 my whole argument would collapse because his presence would mean it either WAS the ending sam and dean chose for themselves, or that cas no longer possessed free will.
but what did cas do instead? he rebuilt heaven for them. heaven is now a paradise of his own making, a place free of chuck’s influence and it’s where sam and dean will finally get to choose their ending. off-screen. post canon. across 50 ao3 pages. dean and cas are shyly linking pinkie fingers as we speak. because the ending the characters choose for themselves is not the writer’s ending to tell.
3. on destiel
i've already talked about my feelings on deancas in dabbnatural/15x20 so i'll just link those posts:
- i think they handled dean and cas’ relationship very well given the circumstances (my post and another very good analysis)
- textual reciprocation or not, destihellers won
- supernatural = queerbait is discussed with like zero nuance on this website and it's annoying as hell
i wrote this at 2 am, i hope i've managed to make my point. again, i'm not saying that this is what the writers were going for. but i do think it's a valid interpretation for the most part and i hope it helped someone feel a little less bitter about the finale!
102 notes · View notes
icharchivist · 3 years
Note
Hi same nonny as usual haha! You asked for my thoughts on the spring troupe so now that I've finished the summer troupe debut I'm going to knock out two birds with one stone! I liked summer troupe a lot more then spring troupe. Not that I didn't like spring troupe! I just think that they didn't really communicate with each other?
The only reason why sakuyas issue with swordfighting was resolved was because masumi happened to be eavesdropping on a convo with the director, and why someone knew about itarus injury was because of citron noticing. I'm not saying there was no communication at all these two issues just. Bothered me so much the swordfighting one a lot more then the injury. The thing that bothers me about the injury is that itaru wasn't like. Told off for not telling anyone about his injury. Cause he could have seriously damaged his foot or something. I get that in the future there's probably going to be character development for itaru that lets him open up more to his troupemates. The swordfighting one just felt like a cop out to have a "moment" between sakuya and the director instead of having sakuya discuss that stuff with his troupe (which, bleh do not care for the characters flirting with the director at all. wish it wasn't there but I get why they do it.)
Despite my griping I did really enjoy spring troupe! They were fun! They just felt less trusting of each other then summer troupe at the end of day. And I get that char Dev will prob happen bout that but still haha. That's my thoughts on spring troupe! I could just be horribly misremembering the entire episode but oh well!
I know I said I'd also do summer troupe in this ask but it's already horribly long and I'm writing this on my phone. I'll get to that later. Thanks for reading my rambling that has not been proofread at all or edited. Hopefully it makes some sense hahaha. Thanks for introducing me to a3 it's tons of fun.
aaahh thanks for sharing!!!
honestly i kinda get where you’re coming from. I really love Spring, but it’s especially now in insight of their development. On first read, i think the thing especially was that the chapter was more about setting up some of the most major issues of the universe (the debts, the way  to arrange themselves in that new environment ect..) that therefore the characters issues may be not as focused as the others chapters?
(also for character flirting with MC there will be only 2 in main stories that do that a lot, one of which is Masumi, and the other isn’t much flirting as just hopelessly in love. Not much we can do about it but honestly once you move on from spring if this really holds you down, it will ease off at least, even if there’s a few thingss here and there stil)
Summer was the moment i really fell in love with the game, i really, really adore Summer’s dynamic and it was just. so good to go through.
As for the things you bring up about Spring, on one hand on first read i think i get you, but yeaaaah in insight of all we learn about the characters, it’s really not that far fetched ahah.
For Sakuya imo it’s really just that he freaked out because of his abandon issues and i don’t really see him discussing it with Spring yet at this point? Like. Sakuya is terrified of not being good enough and being abandoned as a result, like all of his relatives ever did. So he tries to compensate. When Masumi just brought up that they’ll just replace him, i don’t find it far fetched that Sakuya freaked out about it and failed to explain it to Masumi at the time. 
Those very same issues also lead Sakuya to hold on everything bad ever to himself. The reason he opens up to Izumi, more than her just coming to him there, is that she already proved before that she wasn’t willing to abandon him, if only by how she took up the theater because of his passion to start with. And, just, timingwise. 
And i think Sakuya wouldn’t have taken reassurances from his others troupesmates who have already made clear they believed in him, because i think Sakuya would be more crushed with the idea that they’re just being polite and kind with him. Because he knows he’s failing and the others’s way to reassure him would probably have made it worse. He needed reassurance 1) from the director who at this point has already started to be giving more constructive critisms, 2) Masumi, who’s the one who caused those insecurities by the fact he doesn’t hold back. But i don’t see him reach of to Masumi with how hostile Masumi has been to everyone up until that point. (i have more thoughts but that’d be me overreading it too but dKJFDLKF a3 makes my brain go brr)
As for Masumi, this kid has serious communication issues (only child with no friends and no parents around? oof) and i don’t think he would have reached out to Sakuya or even figured something was wrong otherwise.
Are those just easy way out for the writers? maybe, but that’s just how writing is isn’t it? if you want to make even some “artificial” conflict, you need to make it believable why this conflict exist even in the first place. 
Honestly the swordfighting issue doesn’t strike like that to me, and those are all about things that are shown in the Spring chapter itself, but i suppose since i also know those things are expended on, it does add a layer of “this was made with depth for their characters in mind” imo.
Also i think if Masumi hadn’t eardropped, Izumi would have talked to him about it, being the mediator and all of that, and i think Masumi would have understood then. I don’t think Masumi was unwilling to understand, but that he lacked the groundwork to understand it. and we mostly were spared from having to repeat the scene with Izumi telling him about it.
Idk if i see Sakuya managing to tell it to Masumi even after this talk? I think Sakuya is the kind to take all of his pain in silence and assume responsibilities for everything that goes wrong, and i don’t think he would have felt comfortable opening up with that, especially since, as he tells Izumi, he genuinely feels like *he’s* the failure about it (and as Izumi tells him, it’s not his fault if others people don’t try either. Sakuya was made to believe that he had to take full responsibility when a relationship doesn’t work because of his relatives, and i think he was set on doing the same with this Massu’s situation, and the reason he could share it with Izumi is because she’s not the person he’s taking responsibility for). On top of that, Sakuya remains Masumi’s elder, and Sakuya does want to be someone people rely on - he wants to be a big brother figure, and i think he wouldn’t have wanted or known how much of this responsibility he could share with Masumi knowing that. And i don’t think it’s healthy! but it’s perfectly understandable from Sakuya’s perspective and the specific way he shoulders responsibilities because i will fistfight his family his family sucked.
As for Itaru, on this one we only got the reveals about how deep this lack of trust Itaru had for people ran only recently, so imo early on you just need to take it at face value and hope when you get to know more, it’ll click. Realizing he doesn’t want to be alone anymore and wants to be more with Spring is a turning point from this set up about him, so he can only develop from here.
For why no one really told him off about it, i guess i can understand the grip ahah. imo i think everyone worried already enough that he was talking about leaving the company this was the priority to discuss and i do think talking about his ankle at that point may have not worked with the pacing of the emotional moment. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some of them being more worried about it in general though.
In the end the thing with Spring is that aside from Tsuzuru, they are all people who come from background where communication isn’t their forte. Sakuya fears he’s never good enough, Masumi never even had to face how lonely his life had made him until now (and i think he specifically lashes on the director because it’s the first time he feels like he wants a connection with anyone in his life and he doesn’t know what to do with it. I find his obsession creepy imo but i also see where it’s coming from), Itaru has severe trust issues and rather be solo in general, and Citron hides a lot about himself.
and i think, we have Tsuzuru has never been really alone ever, and he takes a lot of responsibility, (though there’s a few things about his background we learn later that shows he still has similar struggles than the rest of his troupe regarding some.. broken connection, which he vagues at in the Spring chapter (... which is something i only noticed on my reread knowing that so i wouldn’t blame you for not catching it))  but he’s also trying to do things for himself for once in his life. Ultimately he knows how to communicate more in general but he has that going on for him, and especially, i think his way to communicate or connect may be too foreign for the rest of the troupe for a smooth connection off the bat.
All of them are trying to connect in their own ways coming from those complicated feelings they have about connection imo... and i do find it fascinating. 
I see Spring a lot like, the kids who had to grow up too fast and the adults who are unhappy with where their adult lives have taken them and the expectations pushed upon them who yet are trying to cope on their own mostly because they have reasons to feel unsafe otherwise. (Tsuzuru is a bit in between imo bc he’s not “unsafe” yet and he’s already taking himself back in hands with the expectations things, but anyway, i am. trying to keep it short, believe it or not) And they’re still navigating where that leaves them as people, and where that leaves them in their connection with others, and especially with each other because in the end they’re all yearning to connect especially with one another, and just don’t know how to reconcile this desire with who they have been all this time to cope through all of this.
All of this is present in the Spring intro chapter but ^^” i could imagine that without having the full picture those aren’t things that may be easily picked up as important for their characterizations. But honestly there’s a throve of details in the writing to flesh them out when you know where to look and i find it fascinating. (but also i like. relived this chapter 5 times, 4 of which after i’ve seen most of their development, and my first read is so long ago i think i just overthink everything DLKJFDLKF and like, Spring was one of my least favorite at first read bc i struggled to connect with them, so it’s not like i don’t get you, it’s just. nowadays, spring is care spring is love and i cry over their intro chap a lot.)
Anyway i guess i get what you felt still, but, idk maybe i feel strongly about it ahah, i like the way the characters stand out from one another even in the moments that are probably just.. stupid, but in a “they wouldn’t know how to do better because of what’s holding them back” way.
i feel like “lack of communication” is a problem every troupe have to various degree and for different reasons, but the whole thing is about trying to figure out how to fix that and work it with them. Some are more forward than others (like, Summer, mostly because Tenma and Yuki are stubborn and loud and straightforward in their own way)(”than others” i have so much to say about this i’m holding back dLKFJD) but i think it depends also a lot on some thematic it wants to tackle and the spirit of the characters in each troupe. It changes as the story progresses but yeah after all, they are all strangers. And while the game mentions they have a few months to prepare for their play, it was reckoned that every play takes one month to prepare, so it doesn’t really give a lot of time on their first play to really figure out everything they need to work on.
Spring, in essence, as a season, is about blooming back after Winter, after sadness and hardship, and learning how to slowly open up again. So imo their intro chap have to reflect that slow progress for them. While Summer can afford to be more loud, straight to the point (and even there it’s not always easy), Summer is full of learning from their mistake, living in the Now, in the Moment. So their season thematic reflects a bit in their intro chap at least. (ofc they all grow from there though but that’s still interesting imo).
anyway i rambled LDFJDLKFJFDLK
I didn’t mean it in a way to say your reading is invalid though!! sorry if it feels that way, i’ve tried rewriting it a few times DLKFJDLFK i just have a lot of emotions about Spring and the points you mentioned made me think about some stuff about it. 
ANYWAY
if you want to share your thoughts about summer too and the rest you’re always welcomed o7 i’m glad you’re still enjoying your stay, and i hope you’ll keep enjoying the ride!
And Take care!
10 notes · View notes
hvilested · 3 years
Text
Yes, you can cure Maladaptive Daydreaming
Two years ago when I joined this community, I think I was more dead than alive. I've been waging quite a brutal war with maladaptive dreaming and the array of issues that underlie it ever since then and I'm on my way out of this prison. I wanted to do something for you guys so here is a little essay with insights on MD and what you can do to understand better and finally tame this beast. Hopefully, someone will find it useful.
The split and the life between two worlds
Do you think the vague feeling of being split in two and existing between two worlds but belonging to none is exclusive to maladaptive daydreamers?
“If you try to have a conversation with me, I can’t bring myself to listen to you. I pretend to listen and you really think I do but my mind is somewhere else, thinking about it. Every time I try to stop doing it, I genuinely feel as if a part of me has been torn off and a deep sense of personal loss ensues. I feel as if I’m not here but I’m not there either and I can’t shake off this feeling of being split in two.”
This is what a recovering heroin addict once told me. Heroin addict. But it’s also what a regular maladaptive daydreamer could have told you, isn’t it?
Maladaptive daydreaming is, among other things, a typical psychological addiction. Most of the negative issues associated with maladaptive daydreaming come from the fact that it is an addictive coping mechanism and not some unique disorder with specific symptoms just recently discovered. You have heard million times that addictions are encoded in the primitive part of the brain associated with survival – which means that if you don’t get your fix right now, you feel more dead than alive and you need your drug of choice to bring you back to life. Your brain is sending a false message to you – it is issuing an urge that is blown out of proportion, compelling you to constantly indulge in daydreams and making you think that if you don’t, the world will end and you will lose a part of yourself. Drugs usually invade your sense of self – they fuse with it and by giving up the drug, you feel as though you are giving up a dear part of yourself.
Addiction is addiction but different types of drugs and addictive behaviors tell you different things about their users. So what does fantasy reveal about you? MD is like a guardian angel that tries to protect you too much and eventually causes more harm than good. But it’s still your guardian angel that tried lifting a burden off your brittle shoulders. It’s destructive in its own way but it was originally born to protect you from something. To realize and accept what you are trying to run away from is your first step towards recovery. Maybe it’s depression, maybe it’s low self-esteem and loneliness or it’s anxiety or PTSD.
Fall of the self
Maladaptive daydreaming isn’t the act of random mind-wandering – it’s a highly immersive mental activity, where all attention is gathered and directed towards happenings of the fantasy. This would be parallel to a so-called flow state, which is characterized by immersing intensely in an activity to the point of losing the sense of self. Which means, whatever happens in fantasy, happens, but not to you. It is a selfless experience, never integrated into what you call yourself, into sense of identity, into what makes you you. It exists as a detached, ecstatic, fleeting moment that slips through the fingers the moment you try to make sense out of it and process it as your own experience. You witness traces of happiness but the happiness is never yours.
Fantasy is an egoless state of mind where we are not ourselves. And by temporarily cutting ties from your own ego, the conscious identity, you’re also cutting ties from all insecurities you have ever had, from all the problems that are currently bothering you and this is why daydreams feel so damn good. Everything bad is just cut off from your perception. The part of your brain that defines your sense of self, along with all the negative things and mental illnesses attached to it, is turned off.
As you venture into this egoless place that is MD, you make up imaginary people you sometimes end up loving dearly or even fall in love with or you conjure imaginary places you’re desperately drawn to, and then suddenly – you wake up from your dream and you’re violently pulled back to reality and to being yourself. And this is where the problem arises: all those things you’ve done in your dreamworld and all those made up people you’ve come to love have nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with real YOU. They are not attached to your conscious sense of self. All those dreams and false memories you made – you made them in an egoless state of mind. And it’s this that makes you feel split. It’s not the fact that you’re physically apart from the content of your fantasies. It is the fact that your subconscious feelings, fantasies and desires do not connect to your sense of self. Even if everything you’ve been daydreaming about came true, you’d still feel like garbage, empty and miserable. If your imaginary friend came to life to make you less lonely, you’d still be lonely – because MD isn’t about made up friends or lovers or getting a new life. It’s about you not wanting to be you. Everything else is irrelevant.
In other words, you’re not addicted to your fictional characters or your imaginary love or to a fantasy about being a famous singer or writer. You’re addicted to not being you. You’re addicted to this erratic state of consciousness that is MD – regardless of its content – that provides a temporal relief.
I’m not saying that you don’t genuinely care about the content of your daydreams (quite the opposite, more on that soon) – what I am saying is that it’s not your love towards whatever is the content of your fantasies that creates this ugly feeling of being split between two worlds. One thing I can assure you (and this comes from my own experience) is that the moment you feel comfortable being you, those two worlds will reconcile, they will merge into one, and you’ll finally feel at peace with yourself.
Will a part of you be taken away as you give up your daydreams?
Maybe the saddest question I have ever asked myself was ‘how much of myself will I lose when I give up the only thing that makes me happy?’ Here’s a glimmer of hope: you’re not supposed to give them up. To give up the feelings you experience in your daydreams is self-mutilation. As strange or silly as they are, they still represent a censored part of your subconscious; maybe they are an epitome of your loneliness or your sadness. They are a testament to how hard you’re struggling and how hard you’re trying not to be dead – and to give this up is a crime towards yourself. Maladaptive Daydreaming isn’t just about wishful thinking and getting your wounds licked. It is that one place where your life flame stillburns while you may be dead in all other planes of existence. That’s enough to know that this MD thing isn’t all that entirely wrong. Maybe your real life is all emptiness and void but what you do in your daydreams – you do it with passion. And that’s enough to know that you are still capable of loving and caring about something just like other people. So passion exists and don’t you dare ever doubt that. It exists in a wrong place but it exists nonetheless. What you have to do is find a way to redirect those emotions from daydreams to reality and, as stated before, this causally happens once you’re finally you. All the positive emotions from your daydreams will flow back into you and you’ll feel as though these two worlds between which you have lived for so long have at last coalesced into one.
So what you want to do is focus on healing the self. It’s a tough one but there’s no quick fix here. Now comes the irony which you’ve been waiting for: in order to heal yourself, you need to let go of your daydreams. But didn’t I just say that you aren’t supposed to give them up, you ask? Don’t give up the passion, don’t give up the love you have for the content of your daydreaming, don’t give up the feelings – because they are all, real or not, a reminder that you’re alive. What you do have to give up is the false sense of comfort your daydreams give you. Try giving up all those countless hours you spend stuck in your own head pacing back and forth because you’d rather be there than here. Try giving up the temporal fix when you feel miserable. If someone angers you, don’t impulsively lock yourself in your room and act out a revenge in your head; go kick a sofa or something, lash out at something external.
You have to wean yourself off of this strange dissociative painkiller that’s fantasy, then let yourself feel all the pain with every ounce of your being, let all the negative emotions resurface, let them swallow you alive, don’t resist, don’t run away, accept them, let them ravage you, and somewhere along this process, a part of the you will be reborn. Something will awake. Not all of you, maybe just a small part but that’s enough to gather what’s left of your strength and continue the struggle. If you feel the urge to daydream, this is okay – as long as it doesn’t censor the pain which you shouldn’t run away from anymore, it’s fine to give in and indulge for a while if you feel like you have to. Don’t ignore temptations, this sparks the fire of addiction even more. It’s a well known pattern: if you fight the urge to engage in an addictive behavior, it makes it stronger. If you acknowledge it, analyze it, this is what breaks the cycle of addiction. In other words, the imperative is not to block the pain and negative feelings. If a sudden sense of self-disgust or low self-esteem suddenly hits you, welcome it. Welcome it, analyze it, let it consume you, and you will realize it is just a false message your brain is sending to you because that’s what brains of depressed people do, after all. The more you let yourself feel and process the negative feelings without censorship, the more will the urge to daydream weaken and the less you will run away.
Who are you really?
Depression usually enters people’s lives like a tempest – yesterday you were an optimistic person enjoying simple pleasures of life and today you feel like a suicidal or apathetic piece of shit, and this is how it is for most people. Depression that underlies MD, however, takes a different route. It enters your life stealthily, slowly, so slowly you don’t even notice it, then it gradually robs you of emotions, ambitions, memories, motivation, identity, empathy, and you end up thinking: “I don’t remember a time when I wasn’tmiserable,” or “these bad feelings must be a part of my personality, they have always been here“. Because of this, most of us fail to realize where depression (or anxiety or any other kind of chronic mental illness) ends and where we begin. So if this illness isn’t you, then who are you?
Let me make a digression here. MD is usually born when you can’t express yourself properly because you’re anxious, depressed or sometimes simply shy or lonely. Mental illnesses are like lenses which distort your perception. Everything you see appears more tragic, senseless or uglier than it really is. And your both eyes are infected with these lenses. But here your subconscious decides to play a trick on your mental illness and tells you: ‘well, if your both eyes are infected and make things appear worse than they really are, then why don’t you just close them?’ You do and this is the beginning of the addiction to fantasy. You stop paying attention to the outside world and you turn it inwards and use your mind’s eye to create things inside you: your daydreams. This mind’s eye, which is fantasy, cannot get infected with depression and this is why MD is a safe haven. Depression doesn’t reach there. What your subconscious forgets to tell you before it’s too late is that if you close those two eyes used for perceiving outer world, for things outside of yourself, you’ll be completely cut off from reality. But none of this is your fault – this is a war between mental illness, the attacker, and your subconscious, which is your protector, and you are their battlefield. You don’t have a single choice, they are the ones who decide – you only observe. So if you ever blamed yourself for being too weak to make a decision to cease this addiction, stop it. It’s wasn’t your fault.
Back to my question, who are you then?
The daydream version of you isn’t the true you but it’s not a fake one either. It’s a highly filtered product of your subconscious that tried to protect you. Then we have this other real-life you imbued with low self-esteem and negative thoughts that seem to go on a loop forever. Well, that’s certainly not your true self either. Heck, if it’s any comfort for you, the daydream you is far closer to the true you than this real-life depressed version of yourself will ever be.
Can you remember the time when you didn’t have MD? Can you remember your sense of identity when you were a child free of MD? Try conjuring up all those times when you knew how to live in the present. It doesn’t matter if you were 6 years old the last time you were here. Just try to pinpoint all those moments and try to remember the feeling of being in the now. Here’s one pretty handy trick you can use. I always joke that music is a drug that takes you on a trip down a memory lane. It’s like an emotional psychedelic. It transports you emotionally back in time, to another place, another reality, to wherever you wish. It helps people with Alzheimer’s remember who they are and regain a sense of identity for a short while. Maladaptive daydreamers often use music to help them imagine an alternate setting – but what if you used music to transport yourself to the past when you had neither depression nor anxiety or MD or whatever is bothering you? If you can remember a forgotten song which you used to listen as a child who at the time hadn’t had MD yet, listen to it again, try to remember who you were, and if the song is meaningful to you, the old you and your sense of self, which you used to have back then, will come back to you for those few minutes while the song plays. You’ll feel the warmth of finally being you. You won’t quite be in the present – you’ll be in the past, but it’s your real past, it’s your true self. Try to capture this feeling and then try to reenact it. It’ll strengthen your identity in the long run.
I’ll give another example on what set me free from my own MD for a short while. You all know what fight or flight mode is. What you also probably know is that most people with PTSD or chronic anxiety are stuck in a constant state of fight or flight. Spending too much time in this state eventually leads to a burnout and is a sure ticket to depression since you go from fight and flight into freeze mode where all your functions are off and you feel like an emotionless zombie. You don’t care, you don’t live, you don’t get angry or sad or happy, you only exist on autopilot. In order to feel normal and alive again, you usually need a fix so strong which will set your body back on fire. Someone or something has to attack you so fiercely in order for you to rethink your existence and regain your instincts and the will to fight back. This is what happened to me. When one of my daydreams violently crumbled some time ago, I got so ridiculously pissed off that for the first time after several years spent in freeze mode, I felt genuinely alive. I was me. The anger acted like a stimulant and the state lasted for 15 minutes until the anger wore off. But hell, during those 15 minutes, I was me. I was so mad but I was also indescribably happy. I could feel. I could let go. I was defeated but I also won. The thirst, the cravings, the split, this strange nostalgia for my daydreams all dissolved. But instead of just disappearing, every positive feeling that was limited to the daydream world only, such as sense of purpose, motivation and normal self-esteem, flew back into me. I didn’t lose a single part of me – quite the opposite – I regained back that detached part of my soul that existed only in daydreams. What took for me to awake was extreme anger, being defeated, my world crumbing to pieces. The moment I genuinely accepted that my dream world crushed, the moment I let go of all attachments holding me back for years, I was reborn. The anger, which is a natural stimulant, made something in me click. But note: this feeling of finally being alive and the desire to fight back woke up in me once my daydreams were in danger, not me. It’s because we’re so displaced, because fantasy is where we had hidden the core of our souls.
In the long run, you’re destroying neither the daydream you nor the positive feelings that come with it, you’re not giving anything up – you’re just transferring it to reality, to where it should be. But for this change to occur, before you can be reborn and whole again, you have to self-destruct, you have to let go.
15 notes · View notes
malmuses · 3 years
Note
Hello Mal, how are you doing? I hope things have gotten better for you on the real life side of things. I'm going through some rough times too, so at least the company is good! I wanted to start by saying that your fics have single handedly gotten me through the most turbulent transition period of my life. I'm almost completely finished with your works on AO3 and your storytelling... *many many many chef kisses*. You are easily one of my favorite writers. I love your writing style, ...1/2
...2/2 your characterization, and how well thought out each story is. Each fic is like a decadent treat for my brain. I was curious, as a fellow writer, what your writing process is like. I've tried a few different methods but was wondering what works best for you! I hope the rest of your 2020 is full of peace and love. Also, I apologize in advance for the spam of comments you are about to receive on AO3. I finally have enough spoons for it!
I’m pasting these into one so I can put the answer in one place! (Tumblr is so awkward sometimes.) Sorry to hear you’ve been going through rough times too! There’s a lot of it going around this year, so I think we have plenty of company. In fact, I think the whole world just needs to lower its expectations and standards this year. Woke up? There’s the first gold star of the day. It's only up from here. I’m so glad that you’ve been enjoying my stories and so flattered that you say they’ve helped you so much...*insert feelings gif* I always tell myself when I write something: It’s okay if not everyone likes it. It’s okay if some people hate it. Nothing is for everyone. I just want one person to *love it*. Then I’m totally at peace. Now, if that person is just me? If I’m the only one that loves it? That’s also cool. Each story comes from a different place. My long-winded point, though, was that you basically just validated the existence of my entire catalog of fics so far, so thank you xD Your question about my writing process though - I’m happy to answer. But of course, first, I have to insert the usual disclaimer that as with most creative endeavors, there is no ‘right’ way to do it. I’m sure you know that, but sometimes I think people underestimate the depth of that truth. Each person has their own unique way of doing things. The struggle is sometimes finding the particular way, or combination of ways, that work for you. There’s definitely no harm in sharing what works for me though, in case anyone else can take anything from it. I’m someone who writes multiple things at once. Some people can’t do this or don’t want to, which I totally understand. For me, this is how I (mostly) avoid any kind of writers' block. If I’m stuck somewhere, I switch projects for a day or two. I do usually still have one main project I’m working on, but I usually have at least three others, often at various stages of the writing process. This keeps me in more of a flow state so I keep going with things, and allows me to write every day. It’s a habit. Now, I’m not saying breaks are bad, and everyone should write every day. I just find that for me, breaks should be deliberate. They should be true, chosen breaks, not because I just...drifted into one.
As you can probably tell from all that, I’m very much a planner and outliner. I outline...a lot. I’d be happy to talk more about my particular outlining process on Tumblr someday if anyone wanted. But, basically, I start with a general idea, then break it down into different story beats, so I can see if there’s something missing or too much of one thing. Then I fill in the gaps, then start breaking each overall ‘part’ of the plot into scenes, etc. Chapters come last. In terms of numbers (I get asked this one a lot), it does not matter how long your chapters are. What matters is that the chapter length feels right for the pacing of the fic, in my opinion, and I really think that is something that just comes with practice and knowing your own writing. Shitty advice maybe, but just the truth as I see it. A lot of it comes down to practice and finding what works for you.
Once I have an outline, I generally write linearly. Some people can jump around a lot. That’s a bit of a last resort for me if I’m stuck on something, or alternately if a scene steams into my head fully formed I will write it...with the understanding that I will probably have to change chunks of it when I reach it. It’s just the way it goes.
Now, when I say I outline in detail (there are literal spreadsheets)  that doesn’t mean that I magically only write exactly what’s in the outline and I stick to it. An outline can be a guide, not a rule. Sometimes stories take you places, and generally, I find it's better to listen to what the story wants. If my story starts going somewhere else or introduces something I don’t expect, I often revisit my outline and think, “Okay, how can I work in this new thing so that it follows the plotlines and arcs I already have? Am I adding to what I have or just distracting from it?” Most often those answers are obvious to me, but sometimes it’s good to ask someone else. A friend, a trusted beta. (I could talk a whole lot about betas and how that works for me, too, in addition to outlining).
I pretty much zero draft my fics. By that, I mean that I will start writing, and I won’t go back and do very much editing until the end. I will, each writing session, go back and read what I wrote the day before. Get into the zone. And sure, I’ll fix something if it jumps out at me - but that isn’t the purpose at that point, and most things won’t jump out, because it's too fresh. My brain knows what I meant, so it autocorrects for me. 
Leading into editing, it’s a two-step process for me. Once my zero draft is finished, I go back to the beginning and go through. This is where most of my developmental editing happens. (Another thing that probably needs more detail...different types of editing.) Once I’ve done that (usually during that pass, I’ve added words) I then put the fic aside. For as long as possible. At least a month, if I can swing that. (Bang deadlines sometimes cause issues if it's a fic for a bang, but I try). 
Once that time has passed, I can come back to it with fresh eyes. I’ll see the mistakes much more easily, then. This is where more intensive line edits happen, where SPAG happens, where I insert anything I made note of during my first pass if I needed to foreshadow anything more, that kind of thing. 
For a WIP, I do these edits chapter by chapter as it posts. For a Bang fic, obvious I have to do it all in one go. Due to the way I write, if you see me start posting a fic -- that fic is already finished, or in rarer instances (for work that was more time-sensitive) partway through the second draft or so. Oneshots are a little different (and I’ve had some oneshots that turned into chaptered fics of their own accord) in that they are just shorter and less intensive and often only have one main plot thread, so they’re a lot easier to do. I can get one drafted, edited and posted within a few days usually, depending on length.
How much do I write? Depends on the day. I have a high-stress finance job, two kids, and write a mixture of original fiction and fanfic stuff. So sometimes it's more than others. Bad day? Maybe 1,000 words. Good, average day? 3-6k. High pressure? Well, last year's DCBB I wrote in just under three days. It was 25k at that point. I have no tips for speed beyond learning to type fast, LOL!
Okay. I’ve probably bored you, and anyone else who had to scroll past all this, to tears. This is way too long. But even so, more specific questions, I’m happy to answer.
Good luck! Best advice? Just write. Write. Write. "Write a million words, then throw them away” is a changeable quote attributed to several authors but all it comes down to is...practice. Find your own vice and way of doing it. In a million words time, you will be a different writer than you are now, guaranteed.
Mal <3
27 notes · View notes
nancypullen · 3 years
Text
IT'S AUGUST!
You guys, we're just a short walk to the "ber" months! If this month zips by like the last couple, we'll be smack dab in September before we know it! I love that. I 'm not wishing my life away, but I sure am wishing this summer away. With Tennessee still at a 30-something percent vaccination rate, we haven't really gone anywhere or done anything. No baseball games, no festivals, no fun. Sure, we're vaccinated but that shot is meant to keep us from severe COVID, hospitalization, and death. I don't want it at all. I've got friends who had it, never ended up in the hospital, but months later are still battling symptoms. No thanks. Soooo, on Saturday night we got real fancy and picked up a sack of Taco Bell and went to the drive-in to see Jungle Cruise. The movie was bad, but the company was excellent and the nachos were delicious. No regrets.
Tumblr media
What can I say? I'm a cheap date. Before I forget- I've had some questions about the refrigerator pickles. Yes, they were a success. When the first jar was ready for the frig I had the mister taste one and critique the flavor. He said there wasn't enough of a vinegar bite. I added an extra tablespoon of vinegar to each jar and after that he deemed them perfect. In fact, he's enjoyed them so much that he's mowed through the whole batch (4 jars). Today I'll be picking and pickling some more. After that I may pull up the cucumber plants. They're starting to look like they've lived a good life. Besides, IT'S AUGUST. We're nearly finished with summer! Can I get an amen? The bell peppers still have plenty of production time, I've had a pretty good crop and there are still lots of baby peppers on the plants. I'll give them a stay of execution for now. I've been at my desk making cards again. No special occasions, just nonsense.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Today I plan to make one for someone special who is battling health issues and maybe a couple of back-to-school cards for teacher friends. It would be kinder just to send them haz-mat suits. That's it, you're all caught up on the fast-paced life we're living - drive-ins, pickles, and paper crafts. In about three weeks we'll mask up and FLY to Baltimore. This will be the first time I've been on a plane since February of 2020. Holy cow! Eighteen months feels like a lifetime. Anyway, we've got a meeting with a builder, we plan to visit a couple more towns that we missed the first time we went exploring, and hopefully, HOPEFULLY make a final decision of some sort - even if it's just agreeing on a spot. We've had zoom meetings with the builder and have been going over floorplans and options - I'm still not convinced it's our wisest choice. I'd love a sparkling new home with hand-picked finishes, but there are a lot of hidden costs. We built this house in 1999 and it was all pretty straight forward and we knew exactly what we were getting for our sale price. This time around everything is an "option". Oh, you want a light above the kitchen island? That's another $800. What's that, you want steps to the front porch? We can do that for $1800. Every extra window is $500 or more, and (surprise!) most rooms only have one. The optional stone fireplace is $7,000. They don't sound like much one at a time, but added together it's a bundle. Buying finishes through the builder is very convenient, but far more costly. The same granite or quartz kitchen counters the builder will install are a thousand dollars more than Lowe's or Home Depot - the very same granite! And you know darn well that the builder is buying them at a contractor's price. The catch is that you must have a countertop in order to close. So if you have them install a basic laminate and choose to replace it with granite of your choosing, then you're paying the new installers extra to remove and haul away the laminate that you didn't want in the first place. Ugh. We've also remembered that we are not HOA people. The neighborhood we are considering is really lovely - it sits on a golf course (we don't golf) and has a community pool, fitness center, etc. Of course, there's a fee for all of that. That fee also includes trash pickup and lawn maintenance. Mickey would never mow again! He likes that. BUT, and for me this is a big but, they control every shrub or tree you might want to plant. No trees with a trunk diameter over 12 inches. They also hit you for $650 every January for maintenance of water and sewer. They're on public sewer and water, so I'm not sure what that covers. Of course, we can always purchase a lot elsewhere and build on that, but odds are that would entail having a well and septic put in and I am not a fan of that at all. The allure of building is that we could control the timeline (pretty much). If we broke ground in September or October could list our house in the spring and make our move. That gives us time to book a moving company and have a schedule that doesn't create panic. Our other options are to keep scouring real estate and jump on a house that meets our needs, list our house, close on our house and the new house in a timely manner, cross our fingers we can hire a reputable moving company on short notice, and drive to Maryland with two cats...or...list our house, close, hire a moving company, drive to Maryland with two cats, put everything in storage, rent a place until we find what we love, then hire movers again to get everything from storage to the new place. I'll be honest, the worst part of both scenarios is the idea of driving with two cats. They may have to be drugged. I'm currently liking this house in Ocean Pines. It's a little wonky-looking, but the interior and the lot are appealing (that dappled shade is perfect for hydrangeas!). I'm crazy about that screened room. https://www.homesnap.com/homes/for_sale/MD/Ocean-Pines/p_(21,21266)/c_38.381705,-75.146285/z_12/m_7,107492455 I've
already decorated it in my mind. It's 5 miles from the beach, the community has 5 pools ( 1 indoor), tennis courts, pickleball courts, walking trails, playgrounds, etc. No hidden fees. Every Saturday there's a farmer's market, and everything we'd need from a good hospital to Home Goods is nearby. The biggest drawback is that it's two hours from the grandgirl. Two hours is much better than our current eleven hours but that's definitely not the easy drop-in we'd hoped for. Arrgh! They'll just have to move. Ha! Alright, I've dumped my brain out on here and I'll leave you to pick through the mess and make sense of it. I have to run out to mail a box, then I'll feed the mister, fold some laundry, and make a couple cards. That's kind of a terrific Tuesday. No complaints from me. Besides, we're now just 89 days from Halloween! The stores have had fake pumpkins out since mid-July, they know the way to my heart. One more reason not to buy a lot outside of a neighborhood- no trick-or-treaters! Can you imagine if this was to be my last official Halloween? Tragedy! Gotta' run. Stay safe. stay well, and be kind to each other. XOXO, Nancy
2 notes · View notes
your--isgayrights · 3 years
Note
Okay i actually have no clue on how tumblr works (hope I'm doing this right lmao) but I'm writing my first fic (I still can't really move on from orv so I decided to make my own content lol.), I really love your writing style, do you have any tips??
Hmmmm tips tips tips tips.... First of all I’m really flattered that you like my writing enough to ask me about it! I’ll try to give my best answer... I think that I used to read a lot of people’s “writing tips” but ultimately I ended up not really understanding them until I started writing a lot? Either way it’s fun to read how other authors think... It’s really cool that you’re writing your first fic and you thought to come to me... did I already say that? Okay long post under the cut.
I don’t think this will be all that helpful, but this is just things that I think about if that’s interesting!
For me a lot of writing is like struggling with motivation (I have ADHD so that’s probs why), I really have to pace myself while writing because I can’t just force myself to do it. If I go in every day and think “I have to write today I’m not doing anything so I should be writing” I can get burnt out really easily, even if I really like the thing I’m writing and know how it’s supposed to go. So one of my big things is that when I’m not thinking about writing I’m not thinking about writing. that gives my brain a break and refreshes me when I get back to my google document.
Something I’ve also struggled with having to remember is that there’s like. Never a perfect way to write. What I end up doing is thinking up ideas and fragments and sentences in my head and the very moment I think of something I like I have to write it down in my notes app. Most of my writing process ends up being like. Filling in the blanks and connecting the dots between scene fragments. 
For fics in particular I’d also just recommend rereading your favorite parts of the og work! I’m the kind of person who has a pretty good reading memory, so people may have noticed that I include a lot of little details referencing the text in my fic. Just reading the work kind of helps you remember the voices of the character and the style of the narration, and if you just like. internalize it. you can probably replicate it pretty well if you wanted to.
OKAY I say that but don’t worry too much about replicating things in the og work perfectly. I find that a lot of times when I’m writing I’m inserting a lot of personal touches and putting things that are a part of me in the work. Writing is always going to be like. an extension of your voice, no matter what you’re writing. I think that when I heard about stuff like that from authors in the past I was always like. What? I’m not writing about things that happened to me. I’m writing about grown adult men having emotional issues, silly. But there’s like a lot more nuance to writing about yourself, I guess. Like you don’t have to have like a self insert or be projecting onto a character to have yourself reflected in something you’ve written.
I’d say that like, whatever you write as your first fic is going to be lovely, but when you grow up as a writer and look back on it, you’re not going to remember who you were when you wrote it. I think that’s why a lot of people look back on their first works and are like “I can’t believe I wrote that, what was I thinking, cringe cringe cringe ugh.” Like I definitely do that sometimes, but I’ve found that the old work I’m happiest with nowadays is the stuff where I can recognize myself in it, even if I’m not in that fandom anymore or if there’s old jokes or typos I don’t remember making. 
With that being said, I’m the kind of person who always gives myself a mission statement when I’m writing. I sort of mentally go, okay, I’m writing this kind of thing, and this is why I’m writing it. It can be something like oh I’m writing this fluff piece because I love this character and wish they had a happier ending, or  oh I want to write this multi chapter fic exploring an issue touched on in the original work but I feel like with my own experiences I could expand on it more than the author did. Just something that tells me why it is important to me to write this thing when I’m writing it.
AAAH I feel like I made that sound more dramatic than it really is, that’s just how I think I guess. I’m the kind of guy where its like things need to have like MEANING to me when I do them. I’m dramatic and gay and that’s my personality I guess 😔.
Hmmm maybe it’s also my BIGGEST writing tip tho. Like kind of just thinking things through when you’re writing is pretty important. When I was first learning to write at all (talking about baby baby me here this is like sort of a side tangent sorry) I think that a lot of times I would copy phrases and developments that I had liked in things that I had read without really fully considering why I would include those things other than the fact that that was just what I thought writing was. It’s important to consider what importance every scene and sentence has to do with the flow of the story. Are they just things that are happening, or is there a reason that the audience needs to know these things? The weight of your words should have some sort of consequence as a result of you writing them. Are you telling the audience information they need to know? Is it about how the character feels? What does this say about the character? Etc.
I suppose that’s sort of my own writing style. You’ll probably notice that I don’t write a lot of descriptive prose if you read my fic. The thing about me is that I never want to write something that makes my audience question why they’re reading it, I guess. I’m sort of self conscious and think about the reading experience a lot. All of the things I choose to describe are usually so that the reader can understand where people are in the scene and what emotions they are having. There’s a lot of emphasis that I put in like. A reader’s ability to read into things, which works against me sometimes because I’m not always certain if people picked up on different things that I put a lot of thought into (the curse of being seen... sob).
ALSO use paragraph breaks. In my first fic (that I’m not going to tell anyone what is even though its on ao3 because im shy) the thing I always regret the MOST is that there are big chunky paragraphs that are hard to read through at the start. Like my eyes get lost. I mentioned I have ADHD before but even though I like. physically can’t read a big chunky paragraph I will always write them that way if left to my own devices. Paragraph breaks don’t have to just be broken up by dialogue they can be wherever you feel like doing them. You need a lot of them. This post should probably have more of them... oh my god it’s so long...
OKAY FOR REAL THOUGH IF YOU COULDN”T SLOG THROUGHT THE REST OF THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP IS RIGHT HERE: 
JUST LET YOURSELF WRITE
I have a lot of like. academic trauma, so maybe this is just me, but the reason I didn’t write fic until I was like 16 was because I was always really scared that whatever I wrote wouldn’t be good enough for some impossible standard I was setting for myself. I was always telling myself that I had certain bad writing habits or that I was terrible for never being able to focus on things for very long and all of my projects were doomed to failure before I even started. But then I wrote my first like 8 chapter fic in the summer of my junior year and I was like... oh. that wasn’t so bad. Like. It’s okay to know your limits, but you don’t really know them until you start writing. Like I wrote an 8 chapter fic, and then a few one shots, and then I tried to take on a very complicated project that ended up being over 40 chapters and I had to put it down because I just wasn’t really at the writing level to finish it. I would advise against writing fics that take so long to write that you start hating the way you wrote the first chapter, basically lol. Know how whatever you’re writing is supposed to begin and end before you start writing it.
Nowadays I always have like. plot outlines in my head when I start a fic. Like okay this needs to happen here this needs to happen here etc. I like making lists if it seems to overwhelming when I’m writing something long, just to organize my thoughts. 
OKAY I JUST TALKED A LOT. SORRY IF YOU DIDN’T WANT TO READ ALL OF THIS BUT I’M A LITTLE CHATTY IF YOU DIDN’T NOTICE.
Defo feel free to dm me if you have like questions or just want to chat about orv or whatever. I’m a lonely little man out here floating on my pile of words, and I’d love to hear what your fic is about!! 
9 notes · View notes
onebangtanstan · 4 years
Text
Power Style - Chapter Eleven : The revenge
A/N : Ok this is shorter than the previous chapters but DYNAMITE CAME OUT so that's what I've been doing. GO STREAM! 💜
He notices me staring him down. He scoffs before coming my way. We lock eyes and start an unspoken staring contest, just like the other day. As he's getting closer to me, I feel the muscles in my body tense up. His presence is enough to piss me off.
"You're late Namjoon." He's now standing right in front of me, forcing me to look up.
"It's M.Kim to you." His eyes are shooting bullets at mine, and so are mine, but neither of us looks away. We're both way too proud to do so.
"I don't have time for this." I turn away from him, starting to feel dizzy from keeping my head up to look at him. "Go get your make up and fitting done, we're all waiting for you Namjoon." I refuse to give into his twisted game, we're here to get a job done, whether we like it or not.
He executes himself, but I sense he's not happy with that. We can all see that he's stalling, and trying to annoy us. Thank God my team knows what they're doing and isn't giving into him either. 
We can finally start the shoot an hour and a half after the original time. He stands in front of the camera, and I don't recognize the man posing right now. He turns into this extremely professional guy. The harsh lines he usually wears on his face have completely disappeared, making him look even better than usually.
Tumblr media
Even though he annoys the shit out of me, I have to admit that he is a beautiful man. He's the stereotype of the ideal guy : tall, well-built, perfect amount of muscle, a jawline that could cut you. Even when he's the biggest asshole, his clenched jaw and frown make him look good.
To my surprise, we actually finish the shoot quite quickly. The team packs up and starts heading back to the office. I'm about to do the same when I'm turned around by a firm hand on my arm. I am facing Namjoon once again. I mean, I am being towered by him once again.
"Listen to me" He spits, talking only a few centimeters from my mouth. "It's the last time you talk to me like that, do you understand me?"
I set myself free from his grip by throwing my arm down. "No, you listen to me." I feel the fury raising in my body. "We have to work together, and I couldn't care less if you don't like me. The thing is, I am in charge of this campaign so you're on my turf now. You listen to me and do what I say. Am I making myself clear enough for your tiny brain?" 
It looks like he wasn't expecting this reaction from me. He's about to answer but I immediately turn around and start storming out of the room.
I walk back to the office, feeling the need to clear my mind. I can't have him disturbing my schedule, and I most definitely can't go into the meeting with the mindset he put me in.
By the time I get back to work, the whole team is already sitting in the conference room, working on the editing. We do that all afternoon and plan the group shooting for the next day. We're going to have to take unit pictures, group pictures and shoot the commercial. We will be there all day, so I let everyone go early to get enough rest for tomorrow.
I decide to chill at home for the evening. I still have a bit of a bad mood because of today, so I put on yet another cheesy rom-com.
Just as I sit down with a bowl of popcorn, I receive a text from Jin. For once, I don't have that tightening in my stomach. I open it :
J : Hey, how are you doing? We haven't talked lately..
G : Hi! I'm good, how about  you? I know, I'm sorry, I had a lot going on..
J : No worries, I've just been thinking a lot about you..
We end up texting the whole evening, catching each other up on our lives, and it feels really good. We eventually start talking about deeper stuff. Jin tells me that he really likes me and can't stop thinking about me, making me blush. Thank God he can't see me right now. I start typing and send a text without thinking too much about it. I have to give him something.
"Jin I need to tell you something. One of the reasons I have been distant with you is because I have issues with relationships. I'll explain it to you eventually but not by text. I hope you understand that it has nothing to do with you, and that I appreciate the time we spend together."
A few minutes -that feel like an hour- pass before he answers, making my heart pound. 
"That's okay Gina, I understand. I'll go at your pace." I smile at his text.
We say our goodnights and I end up falling asleep with a warm feeling inside of me.
I wake up in a good mood, but the group shot pops into my mind, bringing my mindset down just a bit. I feel very pressured and anxious about it. Everything has to go perfectly, because we won’t have time to redo it.
I do the usual, get ready and head to the set. I stop on my way to get a cup of coffee and also get a big bag of french pastries for everyone. We'll be needing a bit of sugar before the day starts.
The boys haven't arrived yet, but we are already going through the schedule for the day. I talk with each person to make sure they know what they're supposed to do. Of course they do, I'm just doing that to calm my nerves.
Tae and Kook are the first to arrive. They're very clingy towards each other which makes me smile at them.
"Hey guys" I say as I hug each of them. "How are you guys doing?"
"We're very good." Tae tells me, making Jungkook blush. My heart could burst, they're so cute. I haven't gotten to a point where I can talk to them about whatever is going on between them, but I feel like that will be coming up sooner than later.
"Perfect. I need you all in a good mindset today."
"Well, we'll see about that." Jungkook starts, making me raise an eyebrow. "Yoongi is riding with Hobi and Jin, he spent the night there. And to be honest, we never know what to expect from those sleepovers, especially about where their minds are set."
Tae elbows Jungkook in the arm, making him realize he spilled something he shouldn't have. He opens his eyes wide.
"Shit" He says, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.
"It's ok, I had figured something was going on there. I won't pry, don't worry." I wink at them. 
I notice relief on their faces. I offer them to get something to eat before getting their makeup done, making Jungkook run towards the bags of pastries. 
While they're picking out what to eat, I hear the door open. Jimin enters the room and boy, does he make head turns. He has that je ne sais quoi about him that makes his presence noticed. He barely looks at anyone, heading straight for Tae and Kook. I see him take a pastry, only eating a few bites, and leaving towards the toilet straight after. "JIMIN" Tae starts running after him.
I quickly look away, feeling that I shouldn’t be witnessing whatever is going on, and notice the door open. Yoongi, Jin and Hobi enter. Jin is first, and comes straight to me, giving me a warm hug. It feels good to be circled by his big arms. He breaks the hug with a peck on my forehead. There must be an army of butterflies in my stomach at this point.
Hobi comes in for a hug next, being his usual charming self, but something is off. The spark in his eye is not there. It almost looks as if he's cried? I hold on tight to him, sending some love through my arms. I feel him sigh. 
"Fancy a drink tonight?" I ask him. He needs someone, I can feel it.
"I would love that." He speaks in a low, appreciative voice. I can see his eyes twitch for a second.
"Your coat is amazing!" I quickly change the subject, sensing he's about to breakdown. He smiles back at me and goes to say hi to the boys.
Yoongi, who was already with them, came towards me as Hobi arrived. Shit, there's going to be tension today.
"Hi Gina" Yoongi is near me now, and he looks.. Well, he looks like himself. Nothing is being let through by his face, nor his eyes.
"Hey! How are you?" I ask, trying to hide the fact that I know something is wrong.
"Okay, I guess.." 
We both turn our heads as we hear Jimin's voice coming from the other side of the room.
"V, I said let it go!" 
Tae walks behind him, arms hanging on each side of his body, a powerless look on his face. All the boys turn around to him with an empathetic smile, almost as if they were telling him « it’s okay, you did your best ». They seem know the struggle he’s just gone through. The whole crew is looking at them too, which is exactly what Jimin wanted. He knew that by coming in here, the conversation would stop.
"The only one that could talk to him right now is Joon" Yoongi tells me. I scoff, having trouble seeing Namjoon comforting someone. Yoongi turns to me "He's actually lovely to the people he cares about. He helped me through a lot."
"Yeah, well he made it clear that he doesn't care about me or even about making my life easier."
Yoongi is about to answer, but a loud bang resonates. It's the front door.
Namjoon appears with his leg still in the air. Everyone has stopped what they were doing to stare him down for kicking the door open.
But I couldn't care less about that. I've noticed something else. Something that could fuck up the entire shoot. 
Seeing it sends me in a state of rage so intense that I clench my fists, feeling my nails press into my palms. He stands tall in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. He's proud of himself, and he's now looking at me with a defying smile.
HE IS FUCKING SMILING AT ME. I am dumbfounded by the nerve this man has.
It might not seem like a big deal for everyone else, but I know that he did this on purpose to delay the shoot as payback for what I said yesterday.
He dyed his hair white.
Tumblr media
A/N : White-hair Namjoon is back. Hands down his best era, no argument on that (second best, now that we have Blue Namjoon)
I mean LOOK AT HIM.
1 note · View note
fairycosmos · 4 years
Note
and it's hard because I don't know how to grow on my own when i'm dealing with my body issues and stuff. i don't talk to anyone, i don't have any friends and i'm super lonely all the time so i'm sure that doesn't help lsdakjflksdjf but i'm trying anyway, i'm sorry for venting. love u chloe, i hope you're having a nice day
hi baby, im so sorry to hear that 😔 it sounds exhausting just reading about it. im proud of you for continuously trying and for being here. i can relate a lot to what you're saying. for many people a big aspect of their eating disorder is not feeling like it's 'serious' enough, but this is simply another trick 'that' part of your mind is playing on you.... it's trying to get you to continue pushing your boundaries, trying to convince you that "well at least ive never passed out" is sound reasoning. it's not. cause then when you do pass out, it changes to "at least i havent had a heart attack." you lose your sense of accurate judgement when it comes to this sort of thing, and it's important not to believe everything your brain tells you. it's not reliable. the fact that you feel this way at all is a pretty good indicator that you need and deserve help, as we all do at times, even if you don't want to accept that fact. point is, if you suffer from disorderd eating consistently then it IS harmful, it IS traumatic and you don't need permission to feel the weight of it on your shoulders. the extent of it is just a minute detail in the grand scheme. cause the longer you use that as an excuse, the worse it gets. you don't have to be on deaths door to be at serious risk. emotional pain alone is enough of a reason to seek what you need.
that relationship with your ex sounds very stressful and i can totally understand why you're still feeling weird about it, even now. there's truly no rush even if it's frustrating to constantly think of her. i think something we have to let people go over and over again in our minds. another symptom of an ed is constantly being in competition with those around you, even those you love, which is so tiring. and it's not your fault at all. it's part of the illness. you didn't ask for any of this. just cause she was struggling doesn't mean you were struggling any less, you know? her pain didn't diminish yours. you still went through all that. you're both absolutely entitled to your own experiences. it can sometimes be v toxic for two mentally ill people to be together and the mental repercussions of that may take a lot of energy and growth to overcome. it's allowed to hurt, and you're allowed to cry. to miss her, and to not miss her. maybe it will always feel awful to look back on it, but it absolutely won't always feel like it does right now. where you're at in this moment is not where you'll always be. it's absolutely valid to want to run away and become someone else, i don't fuckin blame you at all. but even if you stay in your town, you're going to evolve. you may not even notice it at first, but the fact that you made it through the breakup speaks volumes. you got through today without her. you've had small victories since then. that relationship is a very tiny part of who you're growing to be. you're much more capable than you realize, and im not just saying that... every day you're learning to cope, even subconsciously. and that's really all you can ask of yourself.
isolation can definitely worsen your symptoms, can fuck up your perception of yourself and the world and your problems. but i think a lot of us go through phases of loneliness especially when we're struggling, and it's not an indicator of whether or not you deserve friendship. you ALWAYS will. it's just really difficult to come by. there's nothing wrong with you as a person, no matter how much your insecurities tell you otherwise. though i don't doubt that love is waiting in your future, dude. but interpersonal relationships aren't the only form of support out there. you said it's been five years since you've been stuck in these cycles, and you have the self awareness to know that it's not right. so do you think maybe it's time to look into professional help, if that's an option and if you haven't already? of course your brain doesn't think it's that big of a deal but the fact that it's lasted this long and caused so many problems for you just proves that you need to take action. whether it's your doctor, a counselor, a support group in your area, even just a hotline to begin with.... you're not doomed to a lifetime of mental compulsions. there is so so much that can be done, through therapy and building a network of healthy relationships and mechanisms, seriously. of course it's a scary prospect, and you don't even have to like the idea. but you said you want to grow, you just don't know how. acting on your self hatred has only made things worse. so how about you try the opposite to disrupt the cycle? positive change really does spur from putting yourself first, even if you have to force it. it's completely normal to be afraid, but being honest about what's happening will never be as bad as you think it'll be. these professionals will let you work at your own pace to figure out the root causes of why you developed these behaviours, and how to fight the urges when they do arise. reworking your perception of food and your body is so so possible if you let the vulnerability in.
i understand that it's incredibly daunting and overwhelming. so even if you just begin with researching self help techniques and implementing them into your daily life, or accepting that you're allowed to feel pain, or crying instead of binging. forcing yourself to eat a piece of fruit instead of starving. these efforts are practices that will absolutely get easier with time. and not every day has to be good or successful. but as long as you're just trying to do what's right by you. it always comes back to knowing that you're going to be yourself for the rest of your life. might as well try to be your own friend. it's too exhausting not to. anyway im sorry this got long, i know words don't change anything and there's only so much i can say but.....i just hope you're able to get to a place where you don't feel guilty about what is beyond your control, and where you're able to put your mental well-being above your feelings. getting there may be a process, but it's supposed to be. and i really really believe in u!! you're not as alone as you feel. i love you and i'll be here if you want to talk, feel free to drop me a message. take it one day at a time luv 💖
4 notes · View notes
toadallybpd · 4 years
Note
1/8 Wow. I'm not online much these days so I've missed most of your recent posts. However, I just saw your post about your school results and wow! That's so amazing! You're doing so good in college. Good on you. Although the thing that impressed me even more than your grades (which are awesome btw!), is the fact that you never gave up. Despite your issues & your bad days, you still kept working so hard and now you're finally starting to be rewarded for that and that's soo inspirational.
2/8 I'm in a similar situation where I'd like to go back to study but I'm not as functional as you so I kind of have some more work to do before I can do that. However, seeing your post has just given me so much more hope and inspired me a lot. You're proof that if we keep working hard and do our best to get better, that eventually the hard work will pay off and good things will start to happen for us. So thank you for being such a great inspiration and thank you for being so real as well.
3/8 I hope things keep getting better for you and I hope you get into the university you want and I hope one day you get to live the life of your dreams because you so deserve it. Also I saw your post a few weeks ago about reading other ppl's trauma stories and feeling bad cos their trauma seemed worse than yours. In case it might help, I can share what a therapist once told me about that cos I felt the same way as you and was embarrassed about my issues because they seemed so "minor".
4/8 So trying to summarize what she said, she said that it might be more helpful to look at the symptoms rather than what caused them. She said everyone is different and that a bunch of internal things (e.g. biology, genetics, etc.) and external things (e.g. social network, how much support you have, family environment, etc.) can make some people more or less predisposed to certain condition(s). So she basically said that at the end of the day, if you have all the symptoms of a certain
5/8 condition(s), then you have those condition(s) and you're just as worthy of love and just as worthy of being helped as anyone else with them. She said it's not a competition and so just that someone else with the same thing may have externally experienced worse doesn't mean that your symptoms are invalid. In fact if you look hard enough you could probably find other people with the same thing as you who have externally experienced much less suffering than you. That doesn't make their
6/8 symptoms and conditions any less valid than yours, just like it doesn't make yours any less valid than someone who has externally experienced more suffering than you. People hurt for different reasons and if you're hurting then you deserve to be helped just like anyone else who is hurting. So if it helps, I'll say the same thing to you that she said to me... it doesn't matter how "much" or how "little" trauma you think you have experienced. If it's enough to cause you to have certain
7/8 symptoms that meet the criteria for various condition(s), then you have those conditions. And that means you're just as worthy of love as anyone else with those conditions. And that also means you're just as deserving of being helped as anyone else with those conditions. Your suffering is just as legitimate as anyone else's suffering and you deserve to be helped just as much as they do. So I know it's difficult sometimes yet I hope you can try to go a bit easier on yourself, because you
8/8 deserve to feel good. So good luck & I wish you all the best. Also sorry for spamming ur asks with all this lol. I was just so inspired by your school post that I wanted to write to you & I forgot about the word limit >.< Please don't feel you have to publish this you can just delete if you want. I just wrote it for you to say thanks for inspiring me & to try paying you back by sharing something I thought hopefully might help you a bit as well. Anyways I hope you have a really good day :)
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I’m fr tearing up a little, this is SO sweet. Sorry I didn’t answer this sooner but I’m finally done with the semester and I ended with a 4.0 ((: School definitely isn’t easy at all but it’s not impossible either. I took a year off of school to kinda figure out what I wanted to do. I’m S O glad I did tbh because if I was in school a year ago, I would have dropped out. I was in a toxic relationship and my mental issues especially bpd were waaaay worse back then. Definitely give yourself time and only go when you feel ready. It’s never too late to go to school and it’s best to just go through life at your own pace.
Also, you are 100% right about trauma. I hate that logically I know you’re right but my traumatized brain is just like “um n o” lmao I always go through cycles where I believe it and then I don’t believe it and then I believe it again. And it’s like someone could have less trauma than me and I’d think they’re valid but my brain is just thinks about mine like “not you”. I’m hopefully going to get the courage to make an appointment with a psych tomorrow. There’s this personality disorder and ptsd specialist in my area who I want to see that’s covered by my insurance. I also really need to figure out if I have ARFID bc my eating patterns are disrupting my life a lot too.
Thank you again (: I’m so happy to have inspired you so much. That makes me smile and I really hope that you can get to a point in your recovery where you can go back to school. It takes a lot of time and effort but I believe you can do it 💕
2 notes · View notes
be-more-boyf-riends · 7 years
Note
Michael attempts suicide in the bathroom and jeremy finds him? I apologize. I'm a total slut for suffering.
Hi!! Thank you so much for the recommendation!! This fic is super long compared to my other one-shots I got rly into it lol. I hope you enjoy!!
I did some LIGHT research but not a ton so a large amount of this is NOT TRUE!! If you overdose on adderall, it is not possible to not get the side effect the nurse mentions. None of this is stated as scientific fact, it is all a writer twisting fact to fit their narrative - please keep this in mind!!
OBVIOUSLY A MASSSSIVE WARNING FOR SUICIDE ATTEMPTS AND DRUG OVERDOSES PLEASE STAY AWAY IF THATS BAD FOR YOU!
(Word Count : 1,933)
Michael stared in the mirror, the banging from outside becoming louder and louder in his eardrums. He watched the tears stream down his cheeks, breath getting caught in his throat as he struggled to keep himself upright. Thoughts raced through his head. Jeremy was out there - Jeremy was alone now. MICHAEL was alone now. He officially had no one ; he was officially…alone. Nothing he did had any significance. Nothing he did effected anyone, since no one was around him. His parents were constantly off on business trips, coming home once every six months if they even felt like it and sending him bills to pay for the house and food. He had no family. And with Jeremy gone, he no longer had any friends either. He didn’t have any animals - he wanted some like hell, but could never afford them, all considering. It was a shock the boy could keep up his weed habit, but it sometimes felt like smoking weed was the only thing keeping him sane. He felt his panic attack grow as his mind raced, his thoughts spitting out horrible, demeaning words. “Why don’t you just kill yourself…?” Something in the back of his head cooed, causing for his body to shiver. “We’re in a bathroom - Jake must have some pills somewhere. Open the cabinets.”Shakily, not even fully aware of his actions, Michael reached up. He ripped open the cabinet, ignoring the other side of his brain that begged him to be rational. He rooted through all of the medicine in the cabinet - ibuprofen wouldn’t do shit, and neither would the stupid childrens cough medicine. Michael knew he could somehow find a razor if he looked hard enough, but that was too much blood for some innocent person to have to clean up. His saving - or damning? who knows - grace came at the very back of the cabinet. With shaking hands, he pulled out a small bottle of Adderall, breathing immediately becoming heavier as he realized that he was actually about to do it. He scrunched his eyes tightly closed, thoughts running through him at a thousand miles per hour. Was he actually about to do this? Yes, he was. Nobody gave a shit about him - his own best friend of TWELVE FUCKING YEARS shoved him aside. Practically spat on him. Called him the same thing they had spent their entire LIVES being called. Michael quickly came to one realization - there was no place on this world for him. Nobody on this world for him. He didn’t belong here. Nobody cared, and nobody would cry. He was unwanted. He was useless.He was just some stoner loser. With that last thought, he tore open the cap, the tears streaming down his face in rapid fashion, making it harder to see. He dumped a large amount of pills - way more than the recommended dose - into his palms, downing it without thinking. He did that again, determined to make sure this worked. At first, he started shaking. Then, he collapsed to the ground, sputtering and gripping his chest. Weakly, he registered it as a seizure, and he knew it was too late at that point. He heard the door slam open. He heard screams, voices yelling for someone to call an ambulance. He felt arms reaching down and cradling him, arms he recognized. He was able to peel open his eyes for half a moment, just in time to catch Jeremy’s bright irises, before he completely shut down and everything went black. 
Jeremy was talking with Jenna when it happened. It all happened in a blur, but he remembered the main actions. Two boys ran up to him, screaming that some kid had attempted suicide in the bathroom and was having a seizure next to a spilled bottle of pills. Jeremy felt his heart drop, but he didn’t pay it any mind at first - he was sure Michael would’ve just left the party silently and sulked home. When he saw the boy in question - his best friend of twelve fucking years, laying on the ground and convulsing, he felt his heart shatter in his chest. “MICHAEL!!!” He screamed, running over to the shaking boy and weakly grabbing him. He propped his body up on his legs, completely unsure what to do while someone was having a seizure. He cradled his head, whispering soft comforts to him as he waited for the ambulance to get there. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. “Don’t worry,” he sobbed into Michaels hair, holding it tightly in his hands. “Fuck, Michael, I’m so sorry. When you wake up - fuck you, you’re GOING to wake up - I’m going to apologize, and let you know how fucking MUCH you mean to me. Fuck, fuck. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” He rocked back and forth, holding the other tightly and murmuring, more for his own sake than his friends. The ambulance arrived, took Michael away, and left. Jenna offered to drive Jeremy behind them, and he took it in a heartbeat, willing to do anything to be with Michael right now. They got to the hospital only a few minutes after Michael, but the boy had already been rushed into surgery to get his stomach pumped. That left them waiting in the waiting room for what felt like days upon days, but in reality was roughly 3 hours. Jeremy couldn’t settle down, no matter how hard he tried. He paced the room, wringing his hands and shooting his head up whenever a nurse came out to announce a name. Whenever it wasn’t Michael, he would lower it slowly, and continue to pace. At no point did Michaels parents show up, despite the fact they were contacted right away and asked to get there as quickly as possible. The knowledge that his parents felt it more important to be off wherever they were on a business trip than to come be with their hospitalized, suicidal son filled Jeremy with unbridled rage - but he would solve that later. For now, the only thing he cared about was in an operating room. Finally, a nurse came over, smiling a smile at Jeremy that made him almost feel happy. “Michael Mell?” She called, Jeremy rushing over to her as fast as he could. Jenna followed along - she promised Jeremy she would stay with him. Jake had also arrived, since it was his house and he felt particularly bad, despite the fact he did nothing to instigate it. The rest of the teens had gone home to deal with the sights they had seen, but sent their best wishes to Michael getting better. “First of all, he’s alive.” The nurse started, and Jeremy nearly collapsed with relief. He felt tears brimming up in his eyes, but he couldn’t cry just yet - not until he knew Michael was alright alright. Being alive did not equal being okay. “Second of all, you guys were EXTREMELY lucky in the fact that i don’t think he had any long lasting damage. He smashed his head a couple of times, so he has a significant concussion. Other than that, he has a few bruises, and his stomach will be extremely upset for the next few days. Most people who have seizures from overdosing on adderall - well, they don’t survive. Of those who do, they have spinal issues that haunt them for the rest of their lives, injuries from falling into things and permanent brain damage. I cannot stress how lucky he is that he did not have any of these issues.”Jeremy started crying. He couldn’t help it - the words filled him from head to toe with relief. Sobs left him, despite the squip - who had been screaming at him the entire time to stop wasting his time in here - yelling at him to stop being such a pussy. He held his hands over his eyes as he hiccuped, pure relief flooding through him. “Okay…” he muttered out weakly. “He’s gonna be okay…” “He is.” The nurse patted his arm gently, smiling softly at the boy. “He’s going to be completely fine. Now, he’s awake, but barely. You can come in to visit him, but we request there only be one person - he’s still a bit out of it and we don’t want him feeling stressed or overwhelmed.”Immediately, Jake and Jenna stood back, looking at Jeremy. That was good, Jeremy thought in the back of his head - if anyone had tried to go in instead of him, he would’ve fought them. “I’m going.” He murmured, and the nurse turned to lead him. The second she opened the door to the small hospital room, he ran forward. Michael was awake - but barely, head rolling to the side and eyes lidded as he struggled to stay awake. Jeremy fell to his knees next to the bed, grabbing and holding Michaels hand tightly. “I’m so sorry-” he started immediately, but to his surprise, Michael cut him off. “Don’t be…” he muttered, a loopy and sad giggle leaving him. “It’s okay. I’m not mad. It was…I was…stupid.” He shifted in the bed, obviously uncomfortable but trying to hide it. “No. No, it’s okay.” Jeremy rushed, tilting Michaels head up so he was looking into his eyes. “I don’t blame you at all. Please, just - my god, Michael, never do that again, I’m begging you. That was so fucking terrifying, and I didn’t mean a fucking word I said, and I was so SCARED that you were going to die actually thinking I hated you because that’s literally the opposite of the truth I love you and-”He came to an abrupt stop, realizing what he had just said and slapping a hand over his mouth. “w…What…?” Michael slowly stuttered out, eyes widened as his brain rushed to keep up with what he had just heard. “Y…You what…?”“I’m sorry.” Jeremy said immediately, waving his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that - you just woke up from a surgery and you’re out of it and that’s SO not something to put on you right now and-”Jeremy was cut off by the lips pressed against his. He let out a loud squeak, entire body going rigid before he slowly sunk into it. He subconsciously wrapped his arm around Michaels shoulders and pulled him closer, making sure not to hurt him in the process. “O…Oh…” he murmured once they pulled away, eyes wide as he stared his best friends. He found the others hand, squeezing it tightly and taking a deep breath as he tried to formulate what he was going to say. “O…Okay. Let’s..”“I love you too.” Michael murmured, moving forward to bury his head against the others neck. “And the lights in here are way too fucking bright. I want them off.” Jeremy’s cheeks burned a bright red, but he couldn’t help but giggle at the words. “I’ll see what the nurse can do.” He whispered, intertwining his fingers in the others hair. He dropped another kiss on his head, closing his eyes and just focusing on Michaels presence. His breathing, his shifting, the rise and falling of his shoulders - his everything. Things weren’t fixed, by any means. Jeremy still had the squip, and Michael still had mental issues that, added to everything, were really the things that drove him to a suicide attempt. Things weren’t pretty, and they sure as hell wouldn’t be easy.
Jeremy was still terrified, but he thought that as long as they could stay like this, nothing would be able to hurt Michael ever again.
55 notes · View notes
fairycosmos · 7 years
Note
most of the time i dont feel like a functional person. i have so many issues that all feed into my self hatred, i have issues at home, i have no one to really turn to... i fucking hate this. i feel like shit all the time. i hate what i see when i look in the mirror. i'm not good at anything. i'm a waste of space.
honestly i feel like you read my mind or smth bc this is exactly how i feel, too. and that's why i know that no matter what i say, you're still going to feel sad and it's shit and i'm sorry. i'm sorry that things are so crappy right now that you feel like you have nobody to turn to. there's a few things you can remind yourself of that sound like bullshit and maybe won't help immediately but it you let them sink in they might be able to help you calm down when it all gets too much -1. it's not going to be like this forever. i get that that doesn't change the way things are right now. but it can be kind of comforting to know that some of the best moments of your life haven't even happened yet. there's so much you haven't seen, so many amazing people you haven't met yet. so many reasons to just stick around. also if you're still in school, let me tell you that by the time you're like 24 it's all going to feel like you distant dream, none of it is going to matter. things change, and sometimes that can be a good thing. just hang on, let the future happen. you deserve to be happy. the bullshit is temporary.2. you're not alone. i know you feel alone. i get that. and maybe telling your family/friends about the way you're feeling isn't possible right now. if doing so will put you in danger or in a bad situation then obviously i can't recommend it. but those aren't your only options. if you're in school, don't hesitate to speak to the nurse/counselor. and if you're not in school, speak to your doctor and see what can be done for you. ik the idea might make you nervous but it's actually not scary at all, it's just chatting with someone. thats all it is. i can already feeling you rolling your eyes lmao and i understand that it's not ideal, but having someone to talk to can help a lot more than you might think. learning about yourself and your mind and about why you feel the way that you do is a good first step in moving past it. in addition to that, theres many independent mental health organizations that can give you the support you need, as well as hotlines you can call. i've called them before and they know exactly what they're doing. you're in complete control of the call and you can even remain anonymous if you want to. getting it all off your chest will help you breathe. don't disregard the idea until you've really tried it. mental health should be taken just as seriously as physical health. 3. all you have to do is take it day by day - you have an inherent worth simply because you exist on this planet. nobody can take that away from you, not even your own mind. and that doesn't change even if you're depressed or sad or down. take it all at your own pace, in your own time. this is your life and dealing with it day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute is all you're required to do. you don't have to have everything figured out. cut yourself some slack, you're still learning and growing and you will be for the rest of your life. you don't need to be okay all of the time.4. don't trust every thought you have - idk if you're diagnosed with any mental illnesses, but even having low self esteem can twist the way you see things (such as yourself, the world, other people) into something negative, into something it's not. your perception of everything is your window to the world, and when your mental state isn't doing so well it has a profound impact on your stream of consciousness, of how you see different situations. that's why you need to trust that not every thought you have is true, or means something, or holds any weight. learn to differentiate between yourself and your self hatred/anxiety. i know it's really fucking hard to ignore your own mind. maybe one of the hardest things in the world. but it's not impossible to know that not every thought and feeling is genuine. 5. nothing matters - this one is kind of stupid, but i do this when i'm feeling like everything is closing in on me. i remind myself that all of this is just a blip in the fuckin universe. we're on a rock in the endless vast vacuum of space and it's weird and cool and super super terrifying. there's billions of stars and galaxies and everything is so much more than just us, than humanity. my problems are tiny in the grand scheme of everything, and honestly nobody knows what they're doing or why we're even here. jupiter spins backwards and nobody knows why. the sun is going to swallow us eventually. donald trump is LITERALLY the president of america. nothing matters. anything can happen and we just randomly exist and we are all just trying to make sense of it, even tho we probably never will. obviously it's not good to think like this all of the time, but in really intense and stressful moments, it can be kind of soothing.6. the way you look doesn't mean shit - this definitely sounds like bullshit bc everywhere you turn people are going on and on about appearance and beauty and dieting and makeup. and it's taken me to long ass time to realize that it's all just a concept, that our outer appearance is a fleeting and short lived thing that doesn't hold much actual importance in the grand scheme of things. it's extremely objective and 'prettiness' means something different to everybody. look, you were raised in a society that literally profits off of people hating themselves. a society that pushes a self hating agenda just because it makes money. and it's true that when you're young people do focus on looks quite a lot, because thats the way they've been conditioned to think, and learning how to escape that mindset is a long but liberating battle. but as you get older and mature and learn , you start to look for a lot more than just a nice face or a toned body, and so does everyone else. because at the end of the day, looking good isn't the price you pay in order to exist on this earth. it's as simple as that. and when we're all 80 we're all going to be fkn gross anyway. so don't let the way you look stop you from doing shit. it really doesn't matter as much as your brain is trying to tell you it does. and sure you'll still have days where you feel insecure or uncomfortable in your own skin, but as long as you're making the concious effort to love yourself then you're doing just fine.7. you're going to be okay. good times don't last but bad times don't, either. it almost always returns to a happy medium. things turn out right a ridiculous amount of the time. you're going to be okay.sorry if this was dumb and unhelpful but i hope you're doing alright and i'm sorry it took me a few days to reply. you deserve so much more than what you've been through. please, please just keep going. just focus on getting through today. you can do that, i know you can. you're capable of so much more than you think you are. just stay alive. and PLEASE message me if you need a friend, i relate to you a lot. stay strong.
6 notes · View notes