Day One Thousand Two Hundred And Five

Dear Diary,

I think I might get more contemplative when I'm depressed. Okay, when I'm depressed and not actively self-abusive. Although I guess even then I'm contemplating a lot, it just focuses on contemplating all the different ways I've fucked everything up, and how much of a fuckup I am.

Yeah, I think about stuff a lot. That's just part of who I am. But back in the day it was always with a patina of being too cool to really care about any of it. I'm not sure if that's hipster, edge lord, emo, or what, but holy shit did I spent a lot of time thinking, even talking about stuff that I claimed not to care about.

Guess I'm growing up, able to take shit seriously without having to lie to myself about it. Not to mention the whole 'not treating myself like shit all the time', which is also part of growing up. At least for me. Which might seem like a contradiction with my whole 'holding myself accountable' thing, but at least for me treating myself like shit was an excuse why I wasn't accountable. I mean, along with being a trauma response. But seriously, nobody expects a human sized sack of runny diarrhea to amount to anything. A whole assed Academy graduate Human Adjacent being, on the other hand, has some standards to live up to.

At any rate, been thinking about what's going on, and realizing that I'm not the best possible solution to every possible problem is... Not the greatest realization when I'm already kind of at a low point, but also, I think, a sign that I'm both maturing and healing.

I'm maturing, in that I'm realizing that there are things I'm good at and things I'm not good at.

I remember being surprised as all fuck that I'm good at actually doing unto others. I mean, yeah, all the repressed rage at the injustices of the world, sure, but as anybody whose learned anything about anything will tell you, rage can give you some boosts in power, not to mention making it so you don't hold back at an inopportune moment, but it doesn't do shit about knowing where or how to actually hit somebody. According to duBois, I've got a knack for both of those, one he and Larry and Dad honed until... Well... I'd say the Battle of the Walls, but that was just the opening act. When it comes to one on one combat against another Human Adjacent person, I'm pretty sure the best in Atlantis are the Norfolk Duelist's Guild. And I cut through all of them and didn't even wind up dead at the end of it. Shit, I wasn't even down for the count for more than a day or two, and that was mostly my own stupid fault for not getting my lung piercing looked at sooner.

I'm not exactly surprised by the fact that I've become a good mom. Okay, maybe a little. But mostly I'm surprised that unlike all forms of shit wrecking, nobody trained me to do mom stuff. Which, I guess, isn't all that uncommon. Okay, I know back in the day there were classes on that shit, but everybody who took them when it wasn't, like, a school requirement for young women who had crotch goblins lurking in the school day care wound up getting mocked for doing so. Which is dumb as fuck given the importance of the task in question, but while people are capable of great things, they're also capable of some serious dumbassery. Also, while I never took a class on parenting, to some degree everybody gets mentored a little bit, if only just by watching what our parents did.

Although... I guess that's not quite true. We watch, but we don't always understand. Sometimes, if our parents aren't around to ask, it takes a long time for us to realize that some of the shit they did isn't not working because we're doing it wrong, but because it never actually worked for them. We were just too little and ignorant and, just maybe, innocent to realize that it wasn't working. Or that it worked for little rugrat us, but they were killing themselves by inches making that shit happen.

Long story short, I know, far, far, too late on that score, I've realized that I'm a good mom, and I think not surprised by that means I'm maturing. I've put like three years of serious near daily effort in being a good mom. My active training in shit wrecking, even including how much I've learned by teaching others, is maybe a quarter of that at best, because I sure as shit don't do that shit on the daily. I do it three days a week now, but it was only once a week last Season, and there have been some Seasons where I haven't even done that much.

I think I'm healing because, along with realizing that while I'm good at some things, I don't have to be good at everything. I can trust my partners to do the parts I suck at when it's important, and never hold it over my head in any real kinda way.

I mean, I'm sure Saffron's gonna do some shady shit on Ledger Day, but if I had to pick a single favorite kink, it would be the juxtaposition of Saffron, sex, and shady shit, so I can't really complain about that.

But I'm okay with letting Marie handle the sewing. I'm good with Siobhan handling the finicky Healing. I am more than fine with Saffron running the Alliance, and equally good with Furtim running the Legion. Most importantly when it come to things I realized today, I am absolutely fine with Tallulah handling diplomacy with the Fae.

So yesterday after Davey's Troll girl broke it free and started the process of washing it away, I realized that I may have caused this whole depressive episode by using Domnu's remains to hold myself back from being a total rage beast. I mean, I literally felt that shit falling apart, then washing away as she snuggled up next to me and called me Papa. Did not slow in the slightest when the other four slowly accreted around me, each of them murmuring 'Papa' as they did.

Furtim brought the Troll girls back to the Homestead for the night. Also snagged me in the Bath for pillow purposes. Before she fell asleep, I took the opportunity to talk with her about a couple things.

"You asleep yet?"

"Not yet."

I wasn't sure how to broach the subject, so I just tore the band aid off. "So, you want Troll Home to be a full City member of the Alliance?"

She chewed that over, jaws gently clacking. Eventually she said, "no?"

I tried to hide my disappointment. "Oh."

She snorted a tiny bit, like she expected that, wasn't surprised by it, and wasn't bothered by it either. "Girls do."

"So... Uh..."

She chuckled. "So what needs to happen?"

"You haven't researched it?"

She shrugged. "Doing so."

I laughed quietly at that. "Okay, I'm sure there's lots of fancy bits I'm running roughshod over, but the short, short version is that you need a constitution for your City, a written body of laws, and I think it needs to be approved by the Alliance Grand Council."

"Ugh."

I kept quietly chuckling. "Oh, stop it. You know you've got the Imperator's support, which doesn't make that approval any quicker, really, but it does make it kinda inevitable. After that... I guess every City so far has a Temple to the Alliance's Patron Deity, so you're covered there, whether it's a requirement or not. Every City has a Tentacle, although I think that's more a benefit than a requirement, but you're covered there too. Last two things are a Grand Councilor and an Academy."

She chewed on that for a bit. "Who?"

I realized she was kinda falling asleep. "Up to you, really." Then I had the Worst Idea Ever and it escaped containment because I wasn't far behind her. "I don't think you'd enjoy it, but our daughter would. The one who hangs with Davey. Maybe with a bodyguard slash advisor or something."

Yeah, I sometimes forget how much influence I have over my partners and High Clergy. Blow me, I was tired and it was objectively funny thinking about Ophelia having to treat a one year old Troll as a peer.

Dreamt of my ladies back in their hazmat suits, pushing the black sand fully out of my Maw.

She took the Troll girls back to Troll Home after breakfast, and she didn't balk in the slightest at giving them time to say their goodbyes.

Along with all my daily bodyguard and family stuff, I spent the day today further honing the skills of my Phileo Cadets. They're coming along really nicely in terms of individual combat, but I've realized they're lagging a bit when it comes to formation fighting, or even small unit tactics. The Cadets from the Yards are catching up with them in the latter, and the Newark Cadets are doing so in the former, which is just sad given how much ground they had to cover.

At the end of the day, Tallulah contacted me.

I've news on the situation in the Sidhe Courts.

Talk about it tonight after dinner?

As you wish, G... Tabitha.

Baby Steps.