In the recording studio, Jay and I both sat at one of the desks, recording a cover of “Blackout” by Breathe Carolina. I always sucked at singing but Jay had always helped me get better, which is what he wanted for me. Despite everything, he wanted me to be a better version of myself. Jay pulled me closer to him, snuggling into me. His body was warm compared to mine.
“Mhh… Babe… Do you have my vape…? I want it badly… P-please…” After I had spoken, Jay handed me my vape as I used it for a moment, blowing the smoke away from him. “Mhh… Anxiety’s been an ass lately but I at least have you and the others plus my vape and drugs…”
“You… can’t solely rely on drugs and your vape… But you’re trying and that’s what I care about. Whatever you do, no matter how bad it is, no matter what other people say… I will always, always be here for you and love you no matter what. I don’t care what others think. I don’t care how they feel. What matters is if I have you right here with me. You will always be my precious shadow. My precious puppy-shark. My precious everything.” Jay’s voice made me start to tear up. He is everything to me, his voice only fueled me further.
Chugging a second can of Monster, Jay held me close as he and I both played splitscreen Minecraft on our shared XBOX 360. The two of us were simply just unwinding after we went hiking together as a polycule. Phong and Andy were in the kitchen, working on dinner, both talking about Gordon Ramsay. The others were watching the two of us play on peaceful mode because Jay liked taking it easy on me, especially when I was having tics. He understood, given he has tourettes. That’s all Jay wanted to do - take it easy on me.
As we played, his hands rubbed over mine as I sat in his lap on the sofa. As much as our world was chaotic, we loved domestic and calm moments like these. It made things much more tolerable. Earth was a world we didn’t want to go back to. We had our world here - chaotic but something we all wanted. It was much more peaceful, more calm, more enjoyable. And after one year of writing everything for our universe… We still plan on continuing.
Both Jay and myself laid on the sofa, snuggling up together with hot cocoa. Despite it being the start of fall, the two of us just wanted time alone from the kids, who were causing their usual chaos earlier. It had gotten a tad loud, and since we had 12 kids and 10 other partners to help, Jay agreed with the others to spend quality time with me back at the suite.
“Mmm… Look at you… All cozy in my arms, just laying here… You’re so adorable like this…” Jay spoke in a hushed voice, often shushing me. He knew how easily overwhelmed I got, especially with the chaos of having 12 children. I was also very sensitive to sudden loud sounds, probably why I loved dark ambient music so much. “Shhh… Baby… You’re safe here, look…”
Flipping on my favorite dark ambient playlist, I slowly calmed in his arms, head on his chest as we both just cuddled on the sofa under the fluffy blankets. I felt nothing but love, want and need for him. He was my everything, he means everything to me and without him, I am nothing.
Just before I became an alien, I was a human in the human realm. Earth, as they call it. My parents were from Berlin, Germany. They moved to Pennsylvania, USA for better job opportunities, but failed. Because of this, they and my brother grew depressed, resorting to drugs and alcoholism. And then I was born on March 6th of 2003. I wasn’t aware of the problems my parents were facing, given my brother was the one to spend most of the time with me. At the age of two, my parents began abusing me and my brother because of how bad things got. The hoarding, the drugs, the alcoholism, the mental struggle of it all. The only reason I knew this was, well, you’ll find later.
My brother committed suicide when I was 4 and my parents blamed me. I started using the internet at such a young age to distract myself. I played games like Pokemon stuff and listened to nightcore songs about how to cause heartbreak onto someone. I’d browse old websites, secretly play games like Webkinz (because for some reason my parents forbade games that they deemed not educational). If I went on any website they forbade, I’d be beat until I’d have blood pouring from 15 different wounds. I’d sneak on YouTube and play games like Pico’s School on Newgrounds in secret. The only thing they really allowed me to watch was Eddsworld, oddly.
When I entered school, I was bullied a ton. (Null was one of the bullies, but he moved away and changed himself since.) I’d bring it up to teachers only to be told I was lying. I’d have scars and bruises made fun of, have food stolen from me, be shoved into closets and locked there overnight. My parents gave the teachers permission to slap or hurt me physically if I stepped out of line. I was shocked that they didn’t get reported at all. Hell, one of my teachers constantly raped me and I wasn’t even allowed to speak up.
Back at home I was being forced to go to church every Sunday and read the bible front to back every day, then recite 10 verses. If I messed any up I’d be beaten until dawn. If I refused to go to church, my parents would abuse me until I swore to go that day. If I wasn’t wearing what they wanted me to wear, I’d have a fork or knife shoved into my arms and thighs until I poured blood. They’d starve me, only giving me three cups of water a day. I was lucky if I could find crumbs or bugs with how hoarded the house was. They’d have sex in front of me as I snuck down for small bites of food. Sometimes I would throw it up because it’s moldy but I grew used to the mold after a while. My parents rarely bought groceries and always ordered for themselves, usually takeout.
They would also deny me the ability to shower, and I would often go months without a bath or shower. Sometimes I would even not have clean clothes, being forced to wear the same clothes for upwards of a week or having to layer other clothes over top of what I was wearing just to make it look like I changed. This made me feel disgusting, I always smelled like rotten eggs, dust, stink bugs and mold. Everyone called me “The Hobo” because of how I looked, it felt humiliating.
When COVID hit, everyone was stuck inside, and because of this I explored my identity in secret on a burner phone. I found out I preferred masculine terms and compliments, but identified as a nonbinary femboy. When my parents found this out, they flipped their lids. My dad raped me right then and there, trying to convert me. My mom came onto me once to also do the same but I forced her off of me, kicking her right in the crotch. My dad constantly would rape me, doing it so much that I bled every time. My body was way too weak for him to keep doing this, I was a walking corpse at that point almost.
When I finally found a way to Cyber Space, I saw Jay for the first time. He had no clue the abuse I had gone through. All he knew at the time was that I was suffering, needed food and water, a shelter, and a space to call my own, even if that was his arms. Within the first few weeks I had gained 50 pounds from the 85-90 pounds I was before. Sooner or later he did find out what happened to me, toxic dating life included, and felt horrid for me, promising to never ever leave my side no matter what. He wanted to love me like no one had ever.
“Shhh… baby… I’m here… you’re safe…” His voice echoed in my ear as he continued to hold me on the sofa, kissing all over my face and nuzzling my nose with his nose. I felt his arm tic, then his leg as a loud vocal tic slipped. The two of us just giggled a bunch, loving the silence.
“I will kill you… Seriously this time…” Dex screeched at Darrius, the two snuggling while playing Mario Kart. Darrius nuzzled Dex’s face, who flushed immediately and screeched, making little gay noises and falling off the map. “Okay fuck you, seriously…”
“Mmm… Bet, bet… Kidding. Not now. But seriously though, stop falling off the map.” Darrius groaned a bit but lovingly, kissing Dex’s neck and holding his hips softly. The two were close, very close. Dex mentioned to Darrius how bad things got with his parents and Darrius was overly sympathetic, given he saw how bad it was for me. Darrius wanted to protect Dex from more, given that Dex had self-harmed a bit as a result of things. Dex was also slowly drifting away from cutecore and striving more towards metalheart, a subgenre of frutiger aero. The others were branching out as well, Venom going a bit towards dark aero and Oliver going for frutiger zen. Kai was going for frutiger aqua, which fits since he’s a fish. Darrius was going for Y2k, which is fitting since it centers around fashion. “Dumbass! You did it again ya goof!”
“S-shut up… dumb fuck…” Dex snarled a bit, his voice filled with a bit of anger fused with playfulness. “At least I didn’t pick Pauline…”
“She’s highly fashionable and would know her way around clothing. Unlike you who looks like a trash bag on a Monday night at the curbside but you at least look stunning still. Someone’s trash can be someone else’s treasure, and you are exactly that, mi amor.” Darrius spoke, then kissed Dex’s cheeks and neck as Dex squealed.
“Baaaabe… I don’t feel like me again…” Cradling against Jay, my head in his chest, I nuzzled into him. I hadn’t felt fully like me for a good few days now but didn’t wanna force anything. Neither did Jay or anyone else so we took it easy.
“Cariño, baby, come here…” As he pulled me closer in his lap, he started hushing me and whispering quietly. His voice was calm, kind, gentle as always when he sensed I wasn’t myself or that I was stressed. “It’s okay… I’m right here… Nothing is changing… You’re still you… Just take it easy okay? I’m right here… I’ve got you puppy…”
Whimpering, I nuzzled more into him as a storm outside approached closer to us. Jay wrapped the blanket around me and kissed my forehead then carried me onto the porch, humming “poster boy” by 2hollis. He knew that this is my favorite song, and he usually hummed it to calm me down during episodes, when I had anxiety and when I wasn’t feeling like me. Sitting down with me in his arms in a chair, we both watched as the storm rolled in. He began rocking me a bit in his arms, kissing my forehead again.
“You’re doing good… You don’t always need to feel like yourself… Sometimes this happens and it’s okay…” He smiled down at me, kissing all over my face as my shark tail swayed and wagged. “...Awww, look at my good little puppy shark. Who’s a good boy? Who’s my good boy?”
“M-me… Me! Me! I’m your good boy!” Giggling as he nuzzled me, I whined happily as my tail wagged even more. I loved my Jay, he’s absolutely everything to me.
“Ughhh… I can’t… Literally, why is this so difficult…” Darrius, staring at a document filled with ideas and paper spread out across his desk filled to the brim with new ideas, good ones actually. Dex stepped into the office, looking down at his desk.
“Sweetheart, are you really stressing over clothing again…? You can’t keep doing this to yourself, you know… You’ve gotta ta-” Dex was cut off by Darrius silencing him as he shook his head while sighing.
“Work won’t finish itself, I need to finish all of these ideas. If I don’t draw them and get them out now, someone else could come up with a better idea or steal my designs when I had the idea first.” As Darrius started drawing another one, he looked up slightly at Dex. In the background, some Y2K music played faintly in the background. Dex sighed softly, then moved to sit in Darrius’ lap in his chair.
“You need a break. Let me spoil you, please. Tonight is on me.” After Dex spoke, he cupped Darrius’ face and kissed his lips, nuzzling his nose with his own.
“Look! I built a huge mansion!” Snuggling up with Jay, he brushed his hands through my hair as he looked at my screen. I was playing Minecraft all day, and of course I wanted to show him the mansion I made. Whenever I wasn’t helping the kids, cooking or doing chores, I was playing Minecraft or watching anything Minecraft related. Minecraft had taken over my life at this point, and I seemed to have been losing interest in the things I had a special interest in before, that thing being Pokemon. As I showed Jay the mansion, I looked up at him for a moment. “You… wouldn’t hate me if I told you I think I’m losing interest in Pokemon, right? I felt like… I’ve forced myself to like it for so long now… I want something that makes me happy and I don’t think Pokemon is that thing anymore…”
“Error… Sweetheart… No, of course I won’t be mad. I know you’ve loved Pokemon for almost 20 years… You know I could and would never be mad at you. No matter how severe, no matter how bad it is… I will always be here by your side.” After Jay spoke, I blushed a bit and started tearing up, cuddling into him a bunch. He just held me close, knowing that I had something else I wanted to set my mind to. He knew that Minecraft meant more to me than Pokemon, despite me having more Pokemon merch than Minecraft. “We can go get you more Minecraft stuff for your collection. If you want, we can set some of the Pokemon things you don’t want out anymore.”
“Mm… Keep my Gengar and Alakazam figurines and my Cacturne and banette plushies out… Everything else I want set away… I wanna move on to something that makes me feel good about myself.” Smiling as I paused the singleplayer game, I realized why I got into Pokemon versus Minecraft. Pokemon was something that I used to distract myself from my trauma and problems as a kid growing up. I imagined myself becoming a trainer, a professor, a gym leader. What things would have been like if I wasn’t being abused. Even when I told my biological parents what Pokemon I liked - Greninja, Cacturne, Banette - they forced me to like the girly ones - Clefable, Audino, Sylveon. If I didn’t like the pink ones or the fairy ones, they would yell at me and tell me that I’m a “girl”, when I never was.
Meanwhile… Minecraft was something that was there during my healing and after. It was the thing that saw me change. The thing that was there to help spark my creativity and help build me up and to continue growing as a person. The thing is like two different friends. One, I used to know, and the other is a newer friend. The old friend you cut contact with because of a falling out. This friend, we will call Alex, and the new friend we will call V. Alex only sees you as the person you were at the time of the falling out. Despite your changes and you moving on, they still hold you to what you were before. They only saw you for what you were in the past. However, V sees the new you and knows what happened and how much the past you was hurting, whether that be to others or yourself internally. Alex holds you to standards you know are unreasonable, while V knows this pain and wants you to change for the better and actively sees that. Pokemon in this situation is Alex, the thing I used to know during my pain. I struggled while around it and never cut contact with it because I felt like it brought me happiness.
Jay held me close and then kissed my forehead after setting my Pokemon things into bins and boxes, sliding them into the storage room. His voice spoke up, soft and gentle like feathers. “How about we go get you some Minecraft stuff now? Hm?”
“Y-yeah… Lets…”
Laying into Jay, I snuggle softly into him. Being sick from a cold wasn’t any fun. I was in and out of the bathroom and forced myself to write, edit, and stress myself out beyond belief. My body was also catching up to me - from me being the primary caregiver of the kiddos to editing multiple videos to writing to doing commissions to making music, all while dealing with gender dysphoria, people sending me death threats and a lack of sleep. I was getting around 2-3 hours of sleep each night, and gaming with the others wasn’t helping.
“Mmm… Aaaaarf…” My body shook a bit as I felt chills going up and down my spine and body. Clinging into Jay, he silently started to shush me as he held me close while rocking me and humming like I was a child. Softly kissing my forehead, he brushed a hand through my fluffy hair as I whined. I wanted to puke, I wanted to curl up into a ball. I could hear my phone vibrating from the people messaging me - either sending death or rape threats or asking if I was okay. One part of me wanted to shoot my brains out, the other part of me wanted to just stay here on Jay and never move.
“Sweetheart… Cariño… I know that tense feeling… You’re safe here… Who cares what they’re saying…? All that matters is you. I don’t care what others think… All I care about is you.” Blushing after he spoke, I hid my face in his chest and whined as he held me close, handing me some food that would for sure make me feel a lot better, that being a spoonful of soup. My tail wagged a bunch as I happily barked a bit.
“Baby, hey…” Jay held me close, his hand running through my short hair as I just softly shook. “Listen to me… No one is going to hurt you… Just block and ignore. Not everything needs a response. If they do try to harass you or say something to you in a negative way? Ignore. It doesn’t need a response. You’re not obligated to respond… Some people just want a reaction from you or to try and bring you down… So, no response video… Just turn off DMs… No friend requests… Just us… Okay…? And if people try dragging you into anything? Just block them. They’re not worth your time.”
Jay’s voice somehow kept me calm, even in times like this. What was happening was a former friend told me that a certain someone would likely come after me over drama that was laid to rest months ago after blocking them. He said that this person may try and attack me out of nowhere, which isn’t uncommon for me. Even still, I had this person blocked on every single platform I could think of where they had an active account.
“Your BPD is something that you can’t control nor did you ask for, and clearly some people can’t understand that. I know we’re getting help for it, but these people need to understand you weren’t getting proper help at the time. If they can’t even realize that, then they’re blatant morons.” As Jay spoke, I cuddled into him, my head in his chest. He’s mine and I’m his, forever together. If people wish to dangle things over my head forever, then so be it. While BPD won’t go away from me and I’ll still have symptoms and episodes, I can learn to control how I respond to things. Just then… the front door opened as Oliver stepped in.
“I got the ethernet cable, and some other kinds of te- Oh. Is he having another episode?” Oliver set the bags down as he spoke and stepped over to the two of us, snuggling into me. Jay nodded as Oliver kissed my forehead, then my cheeks. “Aww… hun… My baby… You okay lovely?”
Nodding, I clung to the two while my shark tail wagged fast. I wanted them both so bad, I needed them. They’re all mine forever and ever… And no matter how much they try, they will never ever ever get rid of me.
Snuggling into the whole polycule, I whine a bunch, not wanting to let go yet almost passing out from pure exhaustion. I had just gotten a new job that required me to be up at 4:30 in the morning to do opening shifts, which was not what I was used to since I was so used to going to bed between 2am and 4am normally. That and, because I was the primary caretaker for the kids - packing lunches, making sure homework was done, cleaning their rooms, doing laundry for them - I was already packed full. Normally I didn’t get home till either noon or 2 in the afternoon. I was stressed if anything and I had barely even started the job and I was exhausted. A lot of the people there would often trigger my dysphoria by wearing pink and the uniforms didn’t really help, or even the logo of the company since it has pink in it. However, I needed the money since a lot of our money went to owning the two suites, our own personal server for our computers, our bills, and other things. It felt like I was changing in a bad way.
“Cariño… Hun… Hey… This won’t change you as a person. I know you’re stressed and overworked, but you’re doing fine, and that’s what matters.” As Jay spoke, I started to cry into his chest. I literally didn’t feel like myself at all because new people scared me. “You’ll get used to it soon… Okay love?”
“Mhh… Okay…” Still crying a bit, I keep snuggling into the whole polycule, not wanting to let go, not ever. I loved them way too much to lose them.