🔪rebooted @damagedsmile💊

So. I don’t even know where to begin. First, I’d like to say a big thank you to my friends on here who sent me messages of support when all this shit first went down, the ones who kept sending them here just to say they missed me (seriously, I teared up seeing them), & the people I talked to on/off in the first few weeks of leaving here. To those peeps, I’d also like to say a big, soppy sorry for suddenly going ghost & leaving you potentially worried about me. That was never my intention, I just got so overwhelmed by everything happening in my life. A lot of sad shit began to happen to me so I ghosted most of the world tbh.

In case you don’t remember, the whole reason things went south for me was my mother’s terminal cancer. It began in her bowel, only noticed by doctors during an operation unrelated to anything nasty, and it was already at Stage 5. Chemotherapy did nothing but slow down the rate it was spreading through her body & also make her sicker, to the point she just told chemo to fuck off. That was about two years ago.

She died last month in her sleep. She was mostly bedridden, in a lot of pain, & as the cancer began eating at her brain, her memories were all in a jumble. We had a lovely, small ceremony in which she was cremated while ‘Yellow’ by Coldplay blared.

Last year my older dog, Whookie, died unexpectedly after a surgery. Several of my rats died from old age in quick succession. My Nan died too after a long battle. A cousin in the UK was sent to prison for manslaughter. I fell out for a long time with a cousin here in Ireland.

Lotta shit.  I did warn you. Of course, my grieving for my mum is only kinda hitting me hard now but, without making this post too long, some good things have happened since as well. One of those things was being surprised with a new puppy I called Ptolemy but we call her MiMi for short. & more rats... more crazy, cuddly rats.

But I’m going to try come back here. It’ll be tough going, particularly since it’s changed a lot on here (help an old man out, I’m struggling with changing shit on my dash). But I want to distract & be creative again. I want to begin grieving so I can begin healing. So you might see me here & there in between tearing my hair out at editing stuff. I love you all & hope time has been kind to each of you. Thank you for not giving up on me.

rp sentence starters taken from rupi kaur’s work , the sun and her flowers.

Quick as a lightning strike, J’s face whipped around to glare, fixed with a venomous expression. His eyes sparkled deceivingly while his lips curled into a snarl; a stiff finger was then shoved in Loki’s direction so to punctuate the bitter anger that just spiked in J’s chest.

“Shut the FUCK up!” he ordered in a loud, throaty shout. “SHUT.UP. WhattaYOU know? - FUCK ALL, that’s what!”

He held that pose and expression for some moments before he sighed, a noise tinged with a growl, and turned away, hands running over his hair.

Did he need this right now? NO. He needed no reminder that Harley was gone - again - but that THIS time… it really didn’t look good. In fact, as J was a betting man, the likelihood of Harley coming back to him was 1,000,000 to 1. If Harley was a horse and he the sucker betting on her, he’d probably have filled his pockets with stones before even placing the bet.

“Y’know NOTHIN’ ‘bout our relationship, a’ight. How it works, all its… lil’ NUANCES. It’s a delicate an’ COMPLICATED affair… TOO complicated for anybody else t’understand.”

rp sentence starters taken from rupi kaur’s work , the sun and her flowers.

He didn’t… not entirely. Perhaps KiKi could relate to that? It was a strange cocktail of guilt and pride that could never truly mix together and flow; but that was a common foundation in J’s psychology, wasn’t it, that no matter what he did, how old he became, or how hard he tried, he would never be able to wholly be at peace with himself or the reasons why he was this person. There would forever be a lingering piece - a speck, a dust mote, a crumb - that was not satisfied nor could forgive.

While this was all a fantastic driving force behind his whims and ambitions, J found it was also a blocker. It could drive him the way the whip drives the horse, but so too could it hamper his creativity and passions, blocking that pipe so nothing dripped freely.

“S’like… I don’t bu’… sometimes - yanno, when ya REFLECT? - ya gotta wonder if y’did it the right way. If… when ya reflect on it, the mirror o’ yer life is bearable t’look at.”

He paused, shaking his head with a giggle. “Who the fuck am I t’go on ‘bout what’s RIGHT, right? Bu’ yanno what I mean?

“If I hadn’t started again - t’put it MILDLY - an’ instead carried on, jus’ CHANGED my life… would shit get done? Think ‘bout it with me: I do what I do now an’ all that happens is I’m the BAD guy, the NASTY, NASTY man we should all LOCK AWAY. Bu’ if I’d gone int’POLITICS… well, I’m sure somethin’ would be fuckin’ done by now. Somethin’ would click ‘cuz people would listen t’me an’ jus’ DO what I fuckin’ say! I could be takin’ backhanders from Iraq for arms-dealin’ bu’ I’d be the GOOD guy.”

“They kept ya workin’ late t’night, sweetheart,” he sweetly states. “Almost got me all WORRIED ‘boutcha.” The programmed - and misplaced - words of a partner or spouse whom waits all night to embrace their lover after a hard day at the office: was there a dinner awaiting her in the fridge? A glass of wine on standby?

 Slumping on the nearest wall for support, J gives a soft snigger from his throat in between the large gulps of air to - unsuccessfully - ward off the pain now gnawing and burrowing itself directly in to every inch of his nervous system.

“I ain’t gunna die! Takes more’n this t’bring me fuckin’ down,” he guffaws. He looks at her properly now, studying her, when he notices her bare feet, glowing so white against the wet concrete. A small frown crosses his features - what the fuck? - but the sight is shrugged off. It’s not his business & he really can’t be bothered to summon up any real concern.

Yet the offer of being patched up - though an affront to his ego - sounds good. After all, it wouldn’t be smart to wonder on homewards, bleeding all the while, on a near-empty stomach. He accepts he feels shaky, that that isn’t a result of the cold rain, and that he does need... assistance. That word is nearly bearable, but enough so that he can stomach it.

But first, shuffling along the wall so he stands semi-sheltered beneath a tattered cloth awning over a door, he lights up a cigarette and, exhaling dragon-like through flaring nostrils, he asks, “What’s yer name, Snow White?”

So, with all the bollocks going on in life with my mum’s health, I’ve had to deploy major coping mechanisms just to keep going with life & work etc etc. One of these has been listening almost non-stop to my Tankboy playlist, which is mostly filled with songs whose main theme is to keep fighting regardless of one’s current predicament (which obviously were selected in light of his own experiences/attitude, which differ from canon in places). Hence helping me cope.

& on a side note, without getting all preachey here, I think that’s maybe the most important thing to bear in mind when it comes to being placed in a depressing situation: self-care. Yes, the main concern ought to be supporting the person whom the shittiness is happening to (i.e. my mum, in this case), but it’s so easy to forget to look after yourself & develop ways to help yourself too. Personally, therapy does not benefit me at all, nor does medicating pain/problems (I have my own reasons for this based on actual experiences so don’t rag on me for something that’s basically subjective); so I literally depend on myself in these situations as my ‘primary care’ & secondly, on my loved ones whom I trust.

So anyway, the playlist has been a help to me this past while & on top of that, I’ve really been emotionally connecting with TB on the level of being someone who's experienced a loss in the family & as a soldier, in the sense that we’re all sort of soldiers fighting this war called life so to survive & find peace. For me anyway, I’ve always thought of myself in that way because of a) my rotten luck in life & b) my mental disorder, which - as I’m sure so many others can relate to - really makes like challenging on a nearly daily basis, nevermind when it comes to dealing with the news relating to my mum.

Hence, I present to you my newest tatt which is currently stinging like a bitch but so worth it & may it forever remind me to keep fighting this war, make jokes at the enemy’s expense, of the battles I have won & those I shall win in future

In other news, my second tatt was cancelled & rebooked again, for tomorrow... if he cancels on me again (3 time's the charm) I'm just gunna take me & my arm elsewhere. BUT my Joker tatt is booked for August with another guy who's apparently reliable & hugely talented ☺

Also, remember that Ramsey Bolton quote when Myranda was killed? "She always smelled of dog" - pretty much me after work til showering 😅

Extra titbit: my mum scolded me for getting injured ("Why weren't you careful? Do you need stitches? How the fuck did the dog manage that?") out of pure worry... then she scolded me for not stealing the cute smaller dogs for her 😅