I'm still healing, and when I said I'm still healing I didn't mean healing from painful break ups. I am healing from mistakes I did in the past, from my family issues,friendship issues, from failing myself, from disappointments I received, from expectations I couldn't reach, from traumas I know I don't deserve. When I told you that I'm still healing, this is what I mean. It's not all about love. My soul is still learning to clap för the pieces of myself that nobody wants to clap for. I'm still on the process of figuring things out on my own. I'm still healing silently.

i find it so ironic that after a year, you contacted me first. it was something so insignificant, just a video from our past. and yet here i was antagonising having to be the first one to reach out between us. and no, we’re not fighting, we never were—but in my head, when i decided to ghost you last year, i knew i was better off than to keep hoping for something i wasn’t even sure i want. i did it for me and i never regretted it even though sometimes i’d wonder if you wish you did more than this, try more than me.

— anyways it doesn’t matter now that a year has gone by. without you, i let myself grow into someone better. i’ve found many people who are better, and i’m more sure now than ever that i deserve someone better. thank you for reaching out to me first, even if it was over something so insignificant, i guess it won’t hurt to send you a message in reply after all.

marina grace

Stuck in the past

The Only Living Girl in America, Cassandra de Alba//Henry Dumas, from Knees of a Natural Man: The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas; “Ghosts”//ljeoma umebinyuo//The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Mike Flanagan//Sylvia Plath//Ocean Vuong//Little talks, Of Monsters and Men//In the Mood for Love (2000), Wong Kar-Wai

Platonic Shipboard for espeon and female!Gardevoir (Pokemon) hand holding/paper hearts/beauty/stuck in the past/pink/beige themes For @raitnrong :) Hope you like it!

Send an ask, we're open!!

FFXIVWrite Prompt 21: Grave

Rating: M

Word Count: 697

Warnings: Suicidal ideation, Suicide attempt, Blood

Summary: Akira stopped the Final Days, but is stranded in the past, with no way back to her future or her friends. For saving the star and averting disaster, the Convocation has done their best to make her feel welcome, but Akira can't help but feel empty inside. [Time travel AU? Not really sure what to call this AU. Same universe as Prompt 1 but it's not necessary to read that one to understand this one.]

Master Post

Akira sat in the dark room, not bothering to turn on the lights. The walls were bare, the windows just as decorative as every other room in the capitol building. There were a few small furnishings, nothing beyond the necessary. A small bed in one corner, a table and chair, and…that was it. Akira waved off the concerns of grateful Words that insisted they would be happy to make anything she needed or desired to make her comfortable. She needed to think about what she would need, she claimed. Maybe sleep on it. Not a soul on the convocation protested Elidibus’ decision to allow her to stay until they found her more permanent lodgings. Akira should be grateful for such generosity.

It was a shame it was going to go to waste.

Akira stared at her greatsword in the dark, the purple crystals a memorial to a future that now would never be. A blow that would never need be struck, least of all by her. It would be only fitting for her final breaths to be taken by these crystals, when their creator had been felled by her in his attempt to strike her down.

“Maybe your future still exists in a parallel dimension,” Azem had said encouragingly when she’d faced a room entirely devoid of the portal that had brought her to the past. “We’ll research it. Surely we can find you a way back to help your friends!”

Azem — Persephone, she reminded herself — was so optimistic, but the grave faces of other convocation members at her back told Akira what she needed to know. None of them would risk experimenting with time when they only just barely escaped disaster. Elidibus — or Themis, as she’d learned his name was — had insisted that they would do everything possible to make her feel welcome, and so far he was delivering, but…

Akira could not stop thinking about her dearest friends. The ones she’d completely erased from existence. And their loved ones. Their friends. People she never met and now never would. Places she would never see. An emptiness yawned wide inside her soul like a grave, ready to devour her whole.

She flipped the sword, nearly as long as she was tall, and braced the handle against the floor. Akira remembered Hythlodaeus telling her about how the ancients chose when to die, returning to the star when their purpose was complete. Was hers not complete? She stopped the Final Days and erased the world she loved in the process. What was her soul but a reminder of the disaster so barely averted? Everyone would be better rid of it. Would her soul even be able to join the Lifestream in this time, torn and damaged as it was?

She gripped the blade of the sword and angled it towards her chest, hands bloody as she clenched them around the sharpened edge. The amethyst glow seemed to brighten in the dark. All she would have to do was lean forward.

A knock at the door. Akira ignored it, glaring at the blade as she gathered her courage. Another knock, and she bit her lip, breathing heavy as she tried, tried to throw herself upon the sword, but continued to just stand there, hands tight on the crystal and blood dripping down.

“Akira? Sorry to barge in but I wanted to see how you were— Akira!” Hythlodaeus hesitantly pushed open the door that she’d foolishly forgotten to lock, only to push it out of the way as he hurried to her side, knocking the blade from her hand where it clunked heavily to the floor. He pulled her close as the emotions that she’d so stalwartly hidden just beneath the surface since realizing she had no way home cascaded down her face and into his robe.

“Why?” he asked, voice shocked. Akira struggled for breath.

“You said that… that once your purpose is done, you return to the star… That it was beautiful…” she choked out between sobs. He clutched her tighter, and they sank to the floor as he gently rocked her back and forth.

“Not like this,” he murmured quietly into her hair. “Never like this.”

Dead and imaginary people played a larger part in my quotidian reality than the living did. I lurched backward to recover shreds of memory and forward to fashion an imaginary future.

Siri Hustvedt, from The Blazing World

I’m trying to sit with the feeling of being unprotected as a child. I started remembering the anguish of living in constant expectation of punishment, getting tasks I couldn’t possibly do and then just, waiting to be punished for doing them wrong, or even just not doing them perfectly enough, the right way. I remember how it felt, knowing that no matter how hard I try, I will be hurt in the end. Feeling like I have to do anything to try to prevent it, because I couldn’t accept that I was helpless, that I couldn’t have done a thing. I couldn’t even accept that it wasn’t my fault. The setup was so powerful, I believed I deserved pain for not doing things good enough, things I was never shown how to do, never taught how to do. I believed I was to blame for being stupid, for not knowing. I was trapped in that darkness for so long, I didn’t believe life would ever be anything else, and I just wanted a way out.

I can see today that it wasn’t my fault, that I was put in a double-bind, I couldn’t have done anything to avoid pain, violence and abuse, because that was the point of it. I wasn’t supposed to do the tasks right. I wasn’t supposed to have a way to avoid punishment. But what I also see now, is that I was a child subjected to torture. Not only being hurt with violence and emotional abuse, but the psychological anguish of trying so hard to avoid it, believing it was possible, that it was my fault I couldn’t do it right. Constant anxiety over when I’d get hurt again. Living in fear because it could be anytime, for any reason, and reasons could change anytime. Even as an adult, this would destroy me. I was put in that torture as a child.

No matter how much I try to sit with this and accept it, I can’t make peace with it. How is it possible that a child can be tortured like this, for decades, until they get irreversibly traumatized, so sick that doing any tasks feels like walking into a torture chamber, and nobody does anything to help, ever? The child is coerced to hide their ordeal but there are symptoms, there are always symptoms. But nobody looks. They look away.

And I’m supposed to what, trust people now? Believe that the society isn’t evil? That my ordeal is an exception, something that just happened and only I am to bear the consequences of it, while the rest of society condescendingly tells me I have ‘trust issues’ and ‘need to get out more’? When I speak out about other children who are being tortured like this, right now, I get silenced by everyone, except for the children themselves. It wasn’t an exception. People really don’t care, to the point where a young child can be tortured and if it’s slightly covered up, they allow it to happen. This is not a safe world for the children to be born in. Born only to be subjected to torture, who would want that, or choose that? I wouldn’t.

When God is moving you toward a new consciousness, you need to recognize the winds of change at once, move with them instead of clinging to what is already gone.

Me Deciding To Have Nothing To Do With The Present Times And Live My Life Everyday Like It’s The 1980sForever 🥰🤩

look at the old ones your smile used to shine back then when did it fade out?

Three days wasted.

On the 4th I woke up at 1 pm so the day felt gone and predictable, I didn't know how or what to do so I got on my phone and scrolled through tik tok and we all know how that goes,15 minutes turned to 30 and 30 turns 5 hours and so on. 6 am rolled around and I was still aimlessly and shamefully scrolling. I knew that if I went to bed I would have a repeat of the day before but if I didn't I could at least get a walk and dose myself with lots of caffeine to survive until nighttime. Clearly, both ideas had their flaws but I went with the second option. It was good- I went on a 3-mile trek or at least a trek is what it felt like after being immobile and having a torn ACL not to mention the excruciating sun which ate at my skin with its heat. Anyway, I had 3 cups of coffee and took vitamins cause why not? Then I ran my mother’s errands with her came home fell asleep for 2 hours woke up to have dinner came back showered and laid in my bed contemplating life then scrolled TikTok with the guilt of life still in the back of my head. See that’s the catch I know what I want and how I want to live but because I am not living that I don't live. I’d rather disconnect and watch other people live out my dreams this creates stagnation in my life and it’s an endless cycle. Anyway, after scrolling for a bit, I put my phone down and masturb8ed because I felt like it, I can't help but feel like a criminal when I pleasure myself, but maybe that's due to the unfortunate sexual trauma of the past or that my mom caught me masturb8ing at 15 and interrogated me on my sexual relations when the truth was I had never had sex but I had been molested in the recent, at the time, past. I don't know why I did it maybe I wanted to see if I was capable of pleasure? I don't know that's not really something I feel like getting into right this second, perhaps for a future post, we can dive into that whole experience because there is so much more I want to expand on but I digress. The point is I went back to scrolling (after I washed up again I'm not an animal) (even where I’m anonymous I still feel like I need to explain myself) and stayed up until 4 am even though I knew how tired I was. I woke at 2 pm and repeated the 4th, I hate that I live this way, I’m trying to break out of it. Things are looking up though, currently, I’m onboarding for a new job I’m actually excited about. Thank the higher powers or co-creators that it is out of the restaurant/fast food industry because that was a truly troubling time. This job truly feels like a ticket to the life I want to live. I can get my place and make enough money to travel and I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do next, I’m seeing the angel numbers, ifykyk. I’m thinking of starting content creation on TikTok because I know the doors it can open for me with the proper dedication and creativity. I also love how work can be as creative as I am and I can be my boss, The only thing is I care too much about what people think, but I need to get over myself.  I got this! And I’m so sorry if you can relate to the sadder parts of this post, I know it's hard but have grace with yourself this is your first time living (unless you believe in reincarnation, which I do but I think I am a young and old soul in different ways, so a middle-aged soul). I know I’m in no position to be giving advice but truly do what makes you happy and get screen limitation like I did, if we want to change our lives we ourselves have to change. And remember you miss 100000% of the shots you don't take. Just say Fuck it and do it, DREAM BIG. 

“Never give up on something you can't go a day without thinking about” -Winston Churchill

do you ever feel that melancholic remorse deep in your chest, or the emptiness that has sometimes carved it’s way into your heart, or a deep longing ache when you look back? at what used to be? what could have been?

Ugh, I need to be real for a moment. I often bounce between enjoying every second of my hyper-fixations to feeling lost in the rabbit hole they send me down when I acknowledge that I’ll never really know them.

Do you ever get so lost in this world that the “real” world just kind of slips away?

I’m the first to admit that I have an addictive personality and that I’m just grateful that it isn’t for substances.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this!

I guess people will always remember me as the one I used to be before I started DBT. I’ll always be the bad guy.

Congratulations Meghan! Took you long enough. 27 August 2023.

(Stuck in the Past Pep Talk Cause Ye)

Walking on top of the roof, that's where he usually went to calm himself down or to mourn in private, he was.. complicated.. apparently to himself. He saw a younger version of one who would supposedly be his enemy by species, planted shock and confusion into his mind, he asked the name:

"Betrayus?" The young albino Pac-Worlder averted his gaze to see the freckled teenager, already meeting him, a jolt of surprise entered his gaze. "What are you doing up here?"

"Oh! Skeebo! I wasn't expecting you.." The white Pac grinned a cheesy smile.

"M'kay... You didn't really answer my question though." Skeebo raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, causing the young soon-to-be-villain to receive a wave of embarrassment.

"Sorry.. I.. I didn't want to bother anyone so I'm just.. Up here! Heh..." He lightly chuckled, a small frown appearing after his grin faded. Skeebo shifted his stare at the ground for a split second before taking his seat near the white Pac-Worlder.

"Umm.. 'Zac' told me that something happened earlier.. With that orange asshole?"

The albino looked at him before laughing nervously, "Yeah.. Um.. That was nothing, it's just him being a jerk that's all.." There was an awkward silence between the both of them before the freckled one broke it.

"You know, your brother was really worried about you.."

Young Betrayus scoffed, "Right. That's why you're up here instead of him, he couldn't be bothered with putting up with my school and now he can't be bothered to come and get me himself... He'd rather spend his time just fighting with the staff.." He took a shaky breath, a few tears misting his eyes, "..Why does he hate my teachers and classmates more than he loves me?" Skeebo once again averted his gaze, lest just staring would make his peer uncomfortable in this current situation. He inhaled deeply and let out an audible sigh, clicking his tongue.

"Sometimes.. Well sometimes it's just not as simple as that.. This kind of crap gets messy..." He paused and gazed up at the two moons in the sky. "And everybody's got some issues, including older brothers.." He looked at Betrayus, noticing him hugging his legs together and the visible tears pouring down his face. "And sometimes they f*ck things up, like..all the time.. That doesn't mean they don't care."

Betrayus stared at him, "If he cares, then where is he? When I need him?"

"He's always somewhere, like right now, he's somewhere in the school." The young villain's eyes widened and stared at the freckled one once again.

"He's here?"

"Defending and looking for you."

Skeebo turned his body to face his peer directly, crossing them after doing so. "I mean.. Try to cut your brother some slack.. He might not always get things right but.." He pulled back his sleeve to reveal an old scar that was slowly healing due to proper care. "He's trying.." The freckled boy smiled softly, a smile he doesn't usually show to people, looking back at Betrayus. "That's more important than you think."

Betrayus averted his gaze again to look down at the ground before them, a visible smile on his face, he got startled when Skeebo forced himself up and walked towards the door to the roof.

"Just let him keep trying okay? He's the only brother you have, just let him use his chance. Let him try to be a good brother for you.. okay?" Skeebo faced him, his eyes shining like amethysts under the moon's glow, reminding the albino Pac-Worlder of someone currently important in his life.

The white one smiled warmly and nodded, "Thank you..", he watched as Skeebo left the rooftop, staring back at the two moons, his words were planted into his mind, and they echoed for the entirety of time young Betrayus had sat there staring at the moons. He caressed a ring on his finger, its icy blue gem shining in all of its glory.

During the present time, the ghost lord floated on top of the campsite where he was positioned, staring at the same moons, the same words that Skeebo said to his past self still echoing throughout his head. He smiled, chuckling a bit.

"You amaze me sometimes kid... you better be trying too, for your own sake..." He caressed a familiar ring that was inside of his prosthetic palm, the gem's blue aura reflecting on his claws.

(I can't take this seriously- ☠)