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merakiaes · 4 years

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I’ll Keep You Safe - Derek Morgan

Pairing: Derek Morgan x reader

Requested: Yes.

Prompts: #36 and #51 from the fluff/humor-list.

Warnings/notes: WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF RAPE. The timeline is a bit off but that’s what fanfiction is all about, I guess😂 My first time writing for Derek so go easy on me, please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Requests for Criminal Minds are open! (Not proofread)

Wordcount: 3042

Summary: Growing up with similar childhood traumas, you and Derek were as close as two people could be. You thought you’d never have to live without him but when he left Chicago, he cut contact completely. You don’t hear directly from each other for many years but when you find yourself in danger, you’re not so pleasantly surprised when he shows up at your doorstep.

Life wasn’t always easy, that much everyone knew. There would always be obstacles thrown your way, stopping you from finding your happiness or in the very least making the road harder.

Said obstacles could be people, sicknesses, trauma, any kind of unfortunate event, really. Some people were easier off than others, being able to get back on their feet and move on with their lives with little to no permanent damage, but others weren’t so lucky.

You’d laid awake so many nights of your adult life wishing you could have belonged to that group, but sadly, that wasn’t the case. Derek Morgan and yourself had, unfortunately, belonged to the other of the two groups growing up, and it wasn’t the easiest to forget.

Not only had he been a witness to his father’s death, but he had also been forced to go through years’ worth of molestation from the other closest person he had to a father figure, mentor and role model after he’d gained his trust and pulled him in like a fish on a hook.

He didn’t tell you about it, nor did he tell anyone else. You just recognized the signs, the way he would unknowingly flinch away from touches and have outbursts of anger at the slightest little trigger just like you did, and that’s what originally brought you together.

You knew what he was going through because you were going through the same thing, your stepfather, who had been given full custody of you after your mother’s passing, sneaking into your bedroom every night and not leaving for hours at a time.

You were the first one to approach him one day after school, when you were no more than fourteen years of age, and you didn’t have to say anything because already back then, Derek was highly talented in reading other people’s body language.

You kind of had to in the neighborhood you lived in, in order to stay safe, and he knew that you knew the second your eyes met.

You never strayed far away from each other after that. You were both social outcasts in high school, both scrawny little things, not worth much in the eyes of your peers. You were each other’s lifelines, protected each other when you could and held each other when there was nothing else you could do but cry.

But as you grew up, your ambitions differed and eventually, Derek managed to pull himself out of the gutter, heading off to college with a football scholarship to his name and leaving you behind.

The molestation from your stepfather kept going for another three years, even after you’d graduated high school, until finally, your prayers were answered and he was shot dead on the street.

You started picking yourself back up, getting a job as a part-time nurse and checking up on the boys who frequently attended the youth center on the down low, by doing so finding out that Buford was still collecting victims to his already long list.

But you couldn’t do anything about it. The boys wouldn’t talk, you knew they wouldn’t because Derek hadn’t. If you went to the police, you would do nothing to help them but rather on the contrary make it worse and put a target on your own back. And who would look after them then?

You had to watch from afar as Buford was branded a local hero. You wanted to yell out what he had done every time you saw his face but you couldn’t, having promised Derek all those years ago that you would take his secret with you to the grave.

It wasn’t until his team from the FBI showed up at your doorstep saying that Derek was being framed for a murder that you gave up the secrets you had been holding for so many years.

You asked if you could visit him, but they immediately turned you down, saying that he had specifically told them not to bring you to him.

Instead you were left to watch him talk in press conferences on TV, both regarding Carl Buford and other cases, and because of this knew that he visited Chicago on more than one occasion. But not once did he try to reach out to you, despite the fact that your phone number never changed.

You had kept in touch with his mom, aunt and sisters all of those years, the lot of you running errands for each other and doing each other favors from time to time whenever one part was in need of an extra pair of hands on deck.

You were overjoyed that the man who had molested your childhood best friend finally got what he deserved and that Derek had been the one who gave it to him but despite your lingering love for him, his name tasted bitter on your tongue, even more so when you couldn’t bring yourself to switch the channels whenever his face came up on the screen.

As time passed after the entire ordeal with Buford, you almost forgot him again, even getting into a relationship for the first time in your life.

But just your luck, the guy turned out to be a whole other person than the persona he put on during the first months of your relationship and as you were still mentally broken down from your stepdad’s abuse, you couldn’t bring yourself to call the police on him.

In the end, it was your colleague who did after spotting the bruises littering your body and he was sent to prison. You changed your last name from your father’s to your mother’s maiden name, moved to the other side of town, switched jobs and went on with your life.

You were once again picking yourself back up and getting back on your feet and you felt like you were succeeding, like it was going well, until one day when you came home and opened your apartment door to hundreds of roses.

You dropped your bag to the floor at the sight, your head getting dizzy and your lungs feeling thick. You didn’t need to think to know what was going on; you knew they were from him, that he had been released and that he had found you.

You packed your bags to go into hiding, not wanting to get the police involved as they hadn’t helped you any of the times before, but of course, Desiree couldn’t keep her mouth shut so when you a few hours later went to leave, you opened your front door to come face to face with none other than Derek Morgan.

You’d expect, that after not having reached out even once for years, the first words to fall from his lips would be an apology, but no, it was nothing of the sorts.

Instead, you got a scolding and a million questions.

How long were you with him?

What did he do to you?

Why didn’t you call the cops?

Why did you let it go so far?

And your personal favourite…

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Why the hell would I call you?!” You yelled back at him, throwing your arms out in exasperation. “I was the one to keep in touch the first weeks after you left and then you stopped replying. So why the fuck would I reach out to you when you never reached out to me?”

Derek walked after you with rushed steps in an attempt to keep up as you marched through the corridor of the apartment complex where you, for the record, had no idea where you were going.

“You were in danger! I could’ve-“

“You could’ve what, Derek?” You interrupted him, only whipping your head around to face him when his hand grabbed on to your upper arm. “Don’t touch me.” You glared at him, snatching your arm back.

But he wasn’t fazed, only sighing, his facial expression as calm as it could be. “You’re going the wrong way. My apartment is to the left.” He said simply, and you narrowed your eyes.

“Then use your words.”

You turned around and kept walking without another word, only coming to a stop when Derek did, staring into the dark wood of the door while he unlocked it.

“You may think I do but I don’t need your protection.” You continued speaking as you pushed past him and headed into the apartment. “I’ve done alright without you this far and I would have been fine.”

“Well, that’s tough, because I’m not going anywhere until your crazy, abusive stalker of an ex-boyfriend is back behind bars.” He said, flicking on the lights as you sat down at his couch with a sigh.

The brown leather bag you’d brought with you fell to the floor with a thump and you slouched back into the black leather cough, letting out an exhausted sigh through your nose and bringing your hand up to rub your head.

You had never flown before so you’d had no idea what you were getting yourself into when you, after a lot of arguing, agreed to get on the yet that Derek had come in, but it sure wasn’t a pounding migraine.

You could feel his eyes burning into the side of your face and you could hear the jingle of his keys as he fiddled with them.

“I know you’re mad at me because I left, but-“

“I’m not mad at you because you left, Derek!” You instantly interrupted once again.

Removing your hand from your face you got back on your feet, meeting his eyes from the other side of the coffee table.

He watched you closely and a moment of silence occurred, before you shook your head with a dry laugh. “I was so relieved when you finally found your way out and away from him. If you would’ve even thought about passing that chance up, I would’ve packed your bags myself and forced you to go because I’d rather one of us get out than neither. So no, I’m not mad at you because you left.”

You shook your head once more and swallowed as your eyes began to water. “I’m mad at you because you just cut me off, without any hesitation. You were all I had back then and when you didn’t even bother to keep in touch, I was all alone. You left me behind like I was nothing, after all that we’d been through together. I saw you on TV so many times, you were in Chicago on cases and visiting your family so many times, Derek. I was never more than ten minutes away, and yet you never made any attempts to come see me. When you were here or anywhere else, I was only a text or a phone call away, but I never got any of those either. Not once. And I might as well be alone in my apartment right now because you’re just standing there and you don’t even seem to have thought of the possibility that I would like an apology a-”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

You cut yourself short when the sound of his words reached your ears, your tear-glistening eyes growing wide and your lips falling apart as a shaky breath left them.

“What? What did you say?” You whispered, and he let out a breathless laugh like you had done only moments before.

“I’m in love with you, (Y/N).” He repeated, a thin-lipped smile stretching across his face, and he finally stopped fiddling with his keys, stuffing them into his pocket along with both of his hands.

A thick blanket of silence fell over the room and your ears rang in a high pitch, a spell of dizziness hitting you once more and you almost felt as if the world around you became… unreal.

“What is wrong with you?” Was all you could get out after a moment of stumbling over your own words, and judging by the calm look on his face, he hadn’t expected you to react any other way.

“I think I always have been. I think that’s the reason why I’ve never settled down, and why I didn’t keep in touch.” He spoke calmly and you scoffed, turning your head to the side and slowly sinking back into the couch.

“I couldn’t bear hearing about everything you were forced to go through with your stepdad anymore, without being able to help you. I hated the feeling of being so helpless, of not being there by your side, so much that I just cut you off completely because back then, that was the easy way out. I didn’t realize until it was too late that it was the wrong thing to do and by the time I realized that, I figured you were better off without me, that you’d moved on in life and didn’t need me coming back in and stirring old memories back up with some mediocre excuse about why I did what I did. Because that’s all it would’ve been, an excuse. There is nothing that I am more ashamed of than leaving you the way I did and no amount of excuses or apologies will ever be able to make up for it. But I truly am sorry. If I could take it back, if I could go back in time and redo all of it, I would in a heartbeat. Because I loved you more than I did anything else and I still do.”

By the time he finished speaking, your built-up tears had fallen over the edge and down your cheeks, years’ worth of pent-up, suppressed emotions catching up and spilling out all at once.

You were tired, frustrated, and most of all afraid, no, you were terrified that your ex would find you and hurt you, something you hadn’t allowed yourself to admit before now.

“But you can’t change the past, though, can you?” You asked shakily, swallowing thickly and hugging yourself as a sudden chill went down your spine.

Derek noticed it instantly, slowly approaching you and sinking down next to you. “No, but there is one thing, that we can always do.” He told you, to which you swallowed again.

“And what’s that?” You whispered and watched as he smiled.

“Starting over.”

You closed your wet eyes when he reached a hand up to wipe your teary cheek.

“For what?” You asked. “For you to leave me again when I need you the most? I don’t think I can handle that kind of emptiness twice so please, don’t fill me up with false hope and worthless expectations.”

You made a lame attempt at turning away from his touch but ended up doing the exact opposite of that, Derek bringing his hand to your chin to hold your head in place in the process.

“I told you. You can be however mad at me that you want, for however long that you need, but I’m not going anywhere. Not this time, not again.”

You heard the seriousness, the promise, in his voice and opened your eyes, blinking the blurriness away to meet his gaze.

“What if-“ You let out a shaky breath. “What if he finds me? What if he comes after me?”

Derek’s already soft eyes turned even softer, and before a fresh tear could roll down your cheek, he swiped his thumb over the skin of your cheek to catch it.

“We’ve connected a series of murders to him and he’s sloppy, reckless. It’s only a matter of time before we have him in cuffs.”

Murders. The word burned itself into the inside of your eyelids as you closed your eyes again.

“God…” You breathed out, still not being able to grasp the fact that this was reality; your reality.

You guessed you shouldn’t be surprised, having lived under the forceful hand of this man for nearly a year and knowing more than well enough what he was capable of. But being able to comprehend the fact that you’d been with a murderer wasn’t the easiest of tasks.

“Hey, look at me.” Derek turned your head back forward after it had fallen down and you opened your eyes once again to meet his eyes.

“We will catch him. And when we do, he will never see the light of sun again.” He continued, raising his eyebrows.

You stared into his eyes, taking a moment to collect your thoughts in silence, before finally allowing yourself to breath and forcing yourself to relax.

“I’m still mad at you.” You said and swallowed, but he only met your anger with a soft, lopsided smile.

“I know.” He whispered.

“Like, I could hit you, if I wasn’t so tired.”

The smile on his lips widened, reaching all the way up to his twinkling eyes. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, mama.” He joked with a mischievous expression and for the first time, you laughed, the best you could with tears still actively streaming down your face.

“There’s that smile.” He said, wiping your cheeks once more before dropping his hand from your face and scooting back on the sofa. “Come here.”

You instantly caught on and rid yourself of your jacket, moving into his open arms and allowing him to cover you with the blanket that had been folded on the armrest.

Once you were properly situated, he wrapped his arms around you and rested his chin on the top of your head. “You can sleep, I’ll keep you safe.” He promised, and you let out a sigh of exhaustion and contentment when he began stroking your hair.

“I loved you, too, you know.” You mumbled into the fabric of his shirt.

“What about now?” He asked, and this time it was your turn to smile.

“You already know the answer to that, Mr. Profiler.” You said, and indeed he did, smiling to himself as you fell asleep in his arms, keeping his promise and keeping you safe.

Tagged: @must-be-a-weasley-92 @zizzlekwum @cozytruecrimeaddict @lovelynervouskingdom @shadow-of-wonder @cocoaxrain-deactivated20200917 @witchcraftandwit @fanficscuziranout @rousethemouse @thesassmisstress @sgold

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#derek morgan #derek morgan imagine #derek morgan x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine

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all-souls-matinee · 4 years

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Paranormal Activity

I went through ‘a very strange time in my life’ a few years ago where I watched every single Paranormal Activity movie, some multiple times, thinking that would have no impact on my psyche. So here I am, someone who thinks the the franchise is bad and yet can remember every plot thread and every scare, and I might as well do something with that. These will be graded on a curve (scale of 1-5 stars) and not by their overall worth as movies.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

★★★★☆

Today the first movie in the franchise is lampooned for being boring and amateurish, with unlikable lead characters and a plot that doesn’t really go anywhere, but how are those not points in its favor? Isn’t that what found footage is all about? Critics and scholars contend it’s singlehandedly responsible for the genre craze that swept the United States in the 2010s after a relative lull in the early aughts, and it’s easy to see why. I’m not going to go so far as to say Paranormal Activity is a good movie (it’s not), but it is a very easy and engaging watch.

With a cast of only two people and hardly any outside characters the story plays out as a domestic drama; yes, there are long stretches of nothing happening but it ratchets up suspense in a way that was unusual and refreshing at the time. Using a camera to feel in control of an out-of-control situation was a theme broached by the much better Blair Witch Project, and Paranormal Activity leans into it as a central thesis, making sure it’s a white hetero rich guy that’s doing the recording and only subverting that expectation in later films. The movie was even supposed to end [mild spoilers] with Possessed Katie beating her obnoxious husband Micah over the head with his beloved camera and the film cutting to black, and I think it leaves the story weaker and more scattered for having left that out.

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

★★☆☆☆

Before I get into why this one sucks, I’ll give it the benefit of being the most solid entry in the franchise by far. As a prequel to the first movie it does its job by introducing additional family members in a bigger house with more cameras. They have to contend with the same demon, so it’s the same thing we’ve seen before but with much higher stakes, and that’s a perfectly good idea for building a franchise. I admire it for that.

Anything beyond structure and pacing is so much worse it’s laughable. Where PA1 had some originality going for it PA2 throws in every horror stereotype it can think of, including an insanely awful running bit about how the family’s Mexican housekeeper is the only one who can sense ghosts. The most novel addition to the franchise is extensive lore about the demon wanting to own a baby because of a pact made with a coven of witches, which made audiences across America lean forward in their seats and say ‘... what?’ Decisions like that cost the movie any kind of levity, scares, or interest in the characters, which were kind of essential things for the movie to have.

I’d honestly give it 1 star if it weren’t for the extensive drama over the automated pool cleaner. We spend so much time watching this thing I think I developed an emotional bond with it.

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

★★★★★

Paranormal Activity 3 is another prequel that takes us back to when the leads of the first two movies- Katie and Christie- were little girls experiencing demonic activity in the 80s (their stepdad is a videographer, which gets us past the question of how anyone in the 80s would have tens of video cameras skillfully set up around their home.) Objectively it sounds like even more of a pathetic cashgrab than PA2, but, and this might be the hottest take I will ever have when it comes to horror movies, it does its job it in a way that’s such a prefect mixture of original/bizarre content and safe bankable boringness that it’s the best movie in the franchise. It certainly cemented it for what it is today.

Movie no. 3 drops the ‘this really happened’ show the first two movies put on in trying to be like other found footage horror (read: The Blair Witch Project.) No more actors and characters sharing names, no more title cards thanking the police for footage, we’re all in on the game at this point and you don’t realize how much of a relief that is until it’s happened. Instead of trying to make the characters realistic and falling flat, they let them be a little more like characters to great success. Everyone plays their role in the story and makes the shaky plot work. It’s not good writing, but it has people react to things in interesting ways and builds up the lore of the franchise more effectively than either of the first two movies (helped along by a batshit insane finale that makes no sense but is so much fun it doesn’t actually matter.)

This is also by far the ‘scariest’ movie in the franchise, and I think it’s a combination of practice and not taking everything so deadly seriously. Comedy helps balance things out (my favorite is a sex scene that folds into an earthquake scene that folds into a shot of earthquake dust landing on a ghost), and they’ve gotten tension-building nothingness down to a science. Using a camera attached to a slowly oscillating fan and a camera trained on a mirror in a dark room? Perfect ideas for freaking your audience out.

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

★☆☆☆☆

Paranormal Activity 4 was the long-awaited actual-sequel to the events of the first movie, using the hours of information and lore given to us by the prequels as a backdrop, and it... really flounders under that responsibility. We’re introduced to an all-new cast of characters, with a teenage girl taking the lead for a change of pace that doesn’t really go anywhere, and spend the first half of the movie wondering why the family we’ve spent so much time with was pushed to the side (it must be important.) The reason we’re given is that this new family has an adopted son who is (twist!) the witch-stolen-demon-proxy baby from movie two.

PA4 has the opposite problem of PA2; it’s not awful, but is so shaky and has so much lost potential it seems to drop all of the pieces at once. It does some cool things with suspense an xbox kinect, and the acting is fine, but while no one is watching a Paranormal Activity sequel for the screenplay this one needed good, grounded writing and didn’t get that. The loose plotting of the third movie was saved by its characters and by being a little more tongue-in-cheek, but 4 doesn’t have that to fall back on and has way more moving pieces than 3 ever did. The ending is especially egregious, bizarre even by nth-sequel-in-a-horror-franchise standards, and is never brought up again. Points for a convoluted weird plot that makes no sense, points redacted for a convoluted weird plot that makes no sense.

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)

★★★☆☆

Paranormal Activity 5 is so off-the-rails insane that it gets the coveted 3 stars, deserving or no. After back-to-back prequels and a disappointing long-awaited sequel, no one was sure exactly what this was going to be, and the movie seems to feel the same way.

Gone is the lore-heavy and tension-heavy stuff from the preceding years of footage. For the first half of the movie we follow a first-gen high school graduate named Jesse, who breaks into a mysterious neighbor’s house with his best friend. He gets bitten by a ghost and infected with ghost superpowers, then he and his friend group + love interest have a grand old time doing skateboard and levitation tricks using the ghost superpowers. I’m not exaggerating for comedic effect; it’s so dumb I love it ardently. Why aren’t all sequels like this???

Obviously the ghost superpowers turn out to be A Bad Thing tenuously connected to all the witch/demon stuff, and we have to get back to jump scares (now with added body horror), but the ways in which it does eventually tie back to the franchise are so ridiculous it’s delightful, and the twist ending, for once in this entire nightmare, is fantastic.

Paranormal Activity 6: The Ghost Dimension 3D (2015)

This one came out after my original paranormal activity run, and I considered watching it for the sake of being able to finish the article in good faith but I just can’t you guys. I couldn’t do it. Look at this.

That said, the thing about these movies is that none of them are a complete waste of time; even the worst entries in the lineup are entertaining and fun in a reality-tv-trainwreck sort of way, and that’s all very calculated. No matter what your opinion they earned the right to make this a franchise with too many movies and extensive lore. Happy halloween.

#paranormal activity #halloween #long post #not included is the japanese spinoff paranormal activity 2: tokyo nights #because that's not recognized as part of the american pa 'canon'#god i hate these movies why couldn't i use this space in my brain for like. electron configurations

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neko-shinigxmi · 3 years

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I plan to return to my favored coping method when I need “I’m not me” time- roleplaying- but before I did that.... I wanted to talk about what happened. Why I’ve been so depressed. Why I’ve been quiet. Because for the first and last time....... I don’t have to worry about what my stepdad thinks of me.

TW: transphobia, misgendering, mentions of a lot of -isms (sexism, racism; stepdad is an ASSHOLE), mentions of suicide and depression

TL;DR: I finally told Marshal- my stepdad- about being nonbinary. Not only did he react the way I knew he would, but my mom largely defended him before all of this and even said my pronouns were “confusing” to her. I had been hoping to have support from her, so this broke my heart. I officially don’t live with them anymore, but I struggle to find a single place to be in, due to my boyfriend’s dad being uncomfortable with me being home without Cam (my bf).

....Alright, let’s get into a bit of a doozy of a story...

It started with another fucking day of Marshal being on his bullshit. The day previous (13th), he made a comment about how “and that’s why women shouldn’t be cops,” because, while he and mom were watching a true crime show, a woman police officer brought up an acronym. Mom guessed it, was wrong, and Marshal brought that out there.

Yikes.

The day of, he was watching a kid’s movie with his daughters (the younger three; the movie was Hotel Transylvania) and he wanted to know if there was a derogatory term for Irish people. He was going with “potato eaters”, but wasn’t sure if that was right, or if there was anything worse he could be saying. (And he wanted to know so he could say it.) He tried to ask mom, citing a Jewish slur, but she said she didn’t know so he could shrug and go back to “potato eaters.”

After they left to go to a birthday party, I overheard a video on his phone mention “...the hypocrisy of the left...” and decided maybe it was time I had enough.

....Except she defended him when I brought it up. “Oh, he’s half-Irish, so....” “We can’t change what he believes in. He was raised like that and the construction site reinforces his views. Even Google shows him more and more of that kind of thing.”

I got understandably upset that my mom was defending him and didn’t understand why I’d be feeling unsafe around someone like that. I left to go back on the computer and talk to friends. Buuuut because I was in tears at that point, mom felt like it was time to pursue the issue.....by standing right next to me. The monitor was HUGE on the family computer. (My laptop wasn’t at the house due to it crashing the internet a lot.) So I felt even MORE cornered.

In came a talk about MY GENDER turning into politics. How Republicans and Democrats don’t talk anymore, how the parties think of each other like family, and it just sucks, to her. I bring it back to the ACTUAL talking point..... Only to get the reaction I mentioned in the TL;DR: she thinks that singular “they” is weird and not viable for pronoun usage. No matter what I say or try to.

My sobbing draws out Marshal from upstairs, who asks what’s going on. I decide to power through and talk about what’s been delayed for months, if not almost a full year... I’m nonbinary and want he/they pronouns.

See, though... His mom had called him when I attempted “social suicide” on Facebook, coming out originally. Despite having explained myself and my gender/sexualities, miss grandma decided to tell this to Marshal as, “I think there’s something wrong with Rachel.”

.....Which was then followed up with what I knew was coming: “I think there’s something wrong with you. I think you hate your body. You’re always going to be a beautiful girl to me.”

Now, maybe it wasn’t a wise thing to scream. (Did feel good, though. Emotional turmoil calls for a good scream, even if I still wonder if I frightened our neighbors.) It was a less wise thing to hit myself... Though I also thought Marshal had left the room. He had not; instead hovering at the bottom of the stairs or on the stairs themselves, hovering over us.

.....It’s an emotional situation, I do lash out in screams, and I’m not proud of it. But I do want to note that it’s hard to be autistic and talk about things like this when NOBODY ELSE is the mediator. (I talk about my dad a lot when it comes to this part. He took me being polyam very well, as though he didn’t understand it, he made sure to deescalate my panic and explain it more in-depth, so he could get a better idea of what it is I’m doing. Why it’s healthy, why it makes me happy... Stuff like that. Ending it with, “If it makes you happy, awesome.”)

Mom? She....wasn’t doing much, at that point. Sitting in a chair and sobbing. Misgendering me- literally- behind my back. “She thinks you’re not accepting her.” (Because he isn’t? Duh?)

Long story short of Marshal also trying to needle mom into saying something against him, as the only religious person in the room has decided he feels VERY attacked and wants to hear his wife say some shit, too..... Cam shows up to pick me up. I stumble out of the house in slip on shoes and a pair of ancient PE shorts.

....Went back later to pick up some stuff w/ him and a friend of ours in silence. Mom was still crying. She’d try to eventually use that against me to paint herself the victim and gaslight me into making ME feel awful for....... [checks notes] Wanting my gender to be respected.

I made another semi-bad decision of making a FB post talking about my anger and mentioning LBGT+ suicides, because being perceived as only female was really putting a damper on my mood, on coming back every day (after hanging out with Cam) and dealing with depression. I was NOT happy in that house and it definitely was a rising factor in why I often felt hopeless and, well, depressed.

I let my friends respond to family since I was gonna be out anyways and I also trust these people with my life. I very commonly mince my words or try to give some ground out of politeness, thus never really getting far when it comes to arguments. (Everyone always seems smarter than me and I end up feeling so stupid after....) Of course, that then resulted in my mom and Elo’s mom feeling targeted and attacked by my friends and boyfriend (who had EVEN MORE RIGHT to say shit), apparently the latter even going on to say this was a “family matter” and my friends (and boyfriend!!) had no place in it.

....Except I let them and the only negatives that came from that was my mom having to face facts that she WAS gaslighting me. Oh, and didn’t use my pronouns until AFTER a friend of mine called her out for it. But okay.

.:.

At this point in time, I....definitely am bitter on how my mom has chosen to go about certain things- the gaslighting and a convo on Insta (that I have screenshotted) where she said “if you cut out all the people who have different opinions from you, you’re going to lose a lot of people”- but I’m not as mad at her as I used to be? (Or maybe it’s the gaslighting. I can’t tell anymore.) It just hurts a shitton to realize that the only reason I couldn’t talk this out with her.....was because of Marshal.

She wanted to play both sides and that isn’t POSSIBLE when “both sides” are “choose between your LGBT+ child or the racist, sexist, transphobic breadwinner and father to 3 kids.” You know who she’d choose. And she did.

(Also, consider that “different opinions” should REALLY mean “we agree on some things, disagree on others, but that open-mindedness keeps us close” and NOT “befriend a person who makes suicide jokes, thinks your gender is a fad/fake, and makes racist remarks, “but it’s just a joke, bro”.” Like?? Just me????)

Definitely pissed at Marshal, though. That’s been a constant from day one of me realizing how garbage he is. Even a friend who defended my mom said fuck him, which really goes to show how awful the man is, without needing to know all of the other things he’s said before. (And he’s said a LOT.) And he’s also the reason that I’m not going back to the house. Why I’m going to try to be moving out.

If it was just my mom, I’d consider it. I’d give it a month to think about things and what I want to do, where I want to go...but Marshal involved? No thanks. Never again. She thinks I’m going to “get a dose of reality” and come crawling back home? Nope. And if she keeps talking like that, none of my future kids are going to meet grandma. >:/

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calpalirwin · 4 years

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Choices

Summary: Ashton Irwin thought he had everything he needed in life in the form of his daughter. Funny the difference a choice can make.

A/N: Y’all ready to for the tea on Taylor? Also, re-reading this, I was very clearly in a heavy “All Too Well” inspiration spiral. Although, that’s NOT the reason Cassidy’s mom’s name is Taylor. She was originally Lauren, which I’ve changed for obvious reasons (and Ash was originally Finn cuz my Gleek phase was out of control, but I digress).

Content: Big sad.

Word Count: 3.5K

And away, and away we go!

Chapter 4

I used one hand to knock on Nic’s door, holding onto Cassidy’s small hand with my other one. Nic and I had decided to spend the night apart so she could sleep without Cassidy waking her up and I could spend a lazy morning with Cassidy just me and her. The night apart had done little to ease my nerves of introducing Nic to my family, even with the distraction of having a fun dance party night with Cassidy- her choice of course.

She answered the door, wearing jeans, a fitted t-shirt, and a light scarf- an effortlessly sexy look. “Nic!” Cassidy said happily, hugging Nic tight. “It’s Daddy’s birthday!”

“It is!” she agreed patting the top of Cassidy’s head and kissing me. “Happy birthday, handsome.”

“It’s actually in a few days, we’re just celebrating early,” I clarified, my cheeks flushed. “But thanks. Ready to go?” I asked, going up to run my hands through my hair for the millionth time that morning.

“Ash, relax. Today’s gonna be fine.”

“I know,” I nodded, kissing her. “I know. I just… well it’s been awhile since I’ve brought a girl home.”

We made the half hour drive up to my parents, the three of us singing along to the radio to drown out my thoughts. I hadn’t told my family I was bringing Nic. Lauren was the only one who even knew about Nic. And the prospect of introducing them to a girl for the first time since I brought Taylor home all those years ago was a little nerve wracking.

When we pulled off the freeway, Nic turned down the radio. “So, who am I meeting?” she asked.

“My mom, Anne, and my stepdad, Jack. Well, he’s my stepdad. He’s biologically my siblings dad. But he’s Dad. Lauren will be there too, but you already know her. She might bring her boyfriend, Adam, but I’m not sure. And then there’s my brother Harry.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Uh…” I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel. I looked over at her, her hair blowing in the wind, a smile on her face, and her eyes waiting for an answer. I looked back at the road and slammed on the brakes, my arm shooting out to catch Nic as she fell forward. “You okay, Cass?” I asked, checking in the rearview mirror at Cassidy in her seat.

Cassidy nodded, oblivious to everything around her, lost in her childlike wonder.

“Almost ran that light cuz of you,” I told Nic, half-angry.

“You’re the one who can’t keep his eyes on the road,” she scolded.

“Well, stop being so beautiful.”

“You’re distracting yourself, Ash. Tell me about your family.”

I sighed. “They’re traditional. My mom moved me and her here from Australia after my biological dad left. She worked in a rehab facility for war veterans where she met Jack. He was in the Gulf War. He’s a cop now. They got married. He adopted me. They had Lauren. Then they had Harry.”

“Wow… Is that why you became a cop? Because of your dad?”

I shrugged, “I always thought it was because I liked to read Sherlock Holmes. But, yeah that probably played a part in it, too.”

“Sherlock Holmes was a detective,” Nic pointed out.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I’m a cop. Working my way up to being a detective.”

“Oh, a man with ambitions.” I caught her smile out of the corner of my eye. “So, what else should I know about your parents? Who are they personality wise?”

“My dad is stubborn and rather traditionalist. He’s very much a man’s man. Not very into showing his emotions, but there’s never any doubt what he’s feeling. And he has the biggest soft spot for Cass. My mom is very headstrong, especially when it comes to her family.” I made my way through my old town as I spoke, navigating my way through the streets leading to my parents with a practiced ease.

“So, normal family dynamics.”

“Normal family dynamics,” I agreed, pulling up behind my dad’s car. “Well, this is home,” I told her.

She looked out her window at the house- a simplistic two-story home in the middle of a street filled with other simplistic two-story homes. “This is where you grew up?”

“Yep,” I said, pointing out a window to her, “that’s my bedroom window. Snuck out a lot through there.”

She laughed, “So you were a trouble-maker, huh?”

“I was a good trouble-maker,” I defended, laughing. “I only snuck out the nights they wouldn’t let me take the car. Which was a lot, because I kept sneaking out.” I smiled for a moment at the memories my old house brought to mind. “It was a good place to grow up,” I told her finally. “Ready?”

She nodded and we got out of the truck. I held onto both Cassidy’s and Nic’s hands with either of mine. “Get the door, Cass,” I said.

Cassidy reached up and flung the front door open, calling out, “Nana! Grandad! We’re here!”

“Jack! Cassidy’s here!” I heard my mom say and the creak of the couch as she got up and made her way to us. “Oh, my sweet little Cass!” my mom crooned, bending down to hug Cassidy.

“Hey, Ma,” I said, trying to get her attention.

“What, Ash? Let me say hi to my-” her eyes looked up and fell on Nic. “Ashton Fletcher Irwin! You brought a girl without even mentioning you were seeing one?!” she straightened up and smacked my arm, then, “Jack! Ashton brought home a girl!”

“He always brings a girl home, sweetheart,” Jack said, finally getting up to see what all the fuss was about. “There’s my Cass,” he smiled, picking up his granddaughter. “Oh… Daddy brought a friend, that’s what Nana’s screeching about,” he told her, raising his eyebrows at my hand that was still holding Nic’s. “So, who’s this, Ashton?”

“This is Nic, my girlfriend. Nic, this is my dad, Jack, and my mom, Anne.”

“Pleased to meet you both. Ash’s told me so much about you.”

“Oh, so you can get a girlfriend, but you can’t call home long enough to tell us about her? Ashton,” my mother scolded, smacking me again.

“Ow, geez, Ma. I thought you’d rather meet her. Sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t erase what you did, Ashton,” she told me, repeating the familiar phase she had told both my siblings and myself anytime we got in trouble. Then, she turned her attention to Nic. “Nic, was it? It’s so good to meet you! Is Ash treating you right? How was the drive? Would you like something to drink? Come, sit, both of you.”

As she ushered us into the living room, Nic answered my mom’s incessant questions, her Southern charm coming out heavily. “It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am. You have a lovely home. Ash’s been nothing but great to me, you raised a good son. The drive was fine, not too much traffic, and Ash’s a very safe driver. I’d love a water. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I should hope I raised him right, even if he doesn’t call as often as he should. Oh, no sweetie, I can do it. You just sit here with Ash and rest. Harry, your brother’s here!” She reached out and patted my arm, “I like her, Ashton,” she told me.

“I like her too, Ma,” I said, sitting down on the couch, like I always did. “I’ll take a water too, if you’re up.”

“You have legs,” she told me.

“Nana, can I have juice, please?” Cassidy asked, climbing into my dad’s lap.

“Of course you can!” my mom answered, disappearing into the kitchen.

Nic snickered into her hand.

“What?” I asked her. “You wanted to come.”

“Ashton,” she snickered again.

I rolled my eyes and tilted my head back. “You’re one to talk, Nicole I teased.

“How come you never told me ‘Ash’ was short for something?”

I shrugged, “It never came up. Hey, Harry,” I said as Harry stumbled downstairs.

“A girl?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at Nic.

“Yeah, nice to see you too, kid.”

“Yeah, happy birthday, old man. I’m Harry,” he said, offering a hand to Nic.

“Nic,” Nic smiled at him.

“So, Ash, how’s work?” my mom asked, reappearing with water for both Nic and me and a juice box for Cassidy.

I shrugged again, taking the water. “Same old, same old.”

“And how’s daycare, Cass?” she asked.

“It’s fun,” Cassidy said before launching into a long story about her daycare adventures she told anyone who would listen, my mom hanging on to every word.

“You good?” I asked Nic in a whisper, my hand resting on her leg.

She smiled softly at me, “Yeah, your family’s wonderful. Feels like home.”

We sat there for awhile on the couch, Cassidy holding my mom captive with her stories while my brother, dad, Nic, and I paid attention to the game on TV. When Cassidy finally stopped talking to catch her breath, my mom finally cleared her throat. “Nic, would you like to see pictures of Ash?” she asked, getting up and moving for where we kept the photo albums.

“Ma!” I groaned, burying my face in my hands while Harry snickered.

“Oh, I’d love to!” Nic squealed in delight.

My mom sat next to Nic on the couch and opened up one of the albums. She started telling Nic all my old stories, while Cassidy moved from my dad’s lap to mine to look at the pictures. “This one is when he was born… aw, his first birthday!... that was when Lauren was born, he was protective of her even then,” my mom paused to relive the memory.

“You were so cute, Ash!” Nic told me, squeezing my arm. “Wow, you really care for your sister,” she said pointing at the photo my mom was showing her of me holding Lauren after she had come home from the hospital.

I smiled, looking at the photo. “I did the same with Harry. I take my big brother duties very seriously.”

“Too seriously sometimes. You’re like Dad 2.0,” Harry put in with an eye roll.

“Harry,” both my dad and I said with the same tone of exasperation and warning.

“Point proven,” he sighed with another roll of his eyes.

“You played t-ball?” Nic asked, looking at another photo.

“I told you I played baseball in high school. Gotta start somewhere.”

She continued to scan the pictures of my childhood, which varied from birthday parties, holidays, sport events, school events, and various other snapshots my mom and dad thought worth preserving like me playing guitar or caring for Lauren and Harry. “You wore glasses?!” Nic laughed, fixating on a picture of me in bed, wearing pajamas and glasses, reading a book to Lauren and Harry.

“I wear glasses,” I corrected, “for reading.” I looked at the picture, “I hated that book, but they loved it,” I told her.

“You read me that book sometimes, Daddy,” Cassidy said, looking at the picture.

“I do,” I agreed, hugging her to me. “Auntie Lauren and Uncle Harry were the ones to give you that book.”

“Wow,” Nic smiled, closing the album. “I feel like I’m seeing a whole different side to you.”

I shrugged, “I was a happy kid. No, Mom, not that one,” I said suddenly, seeing the next album my mom had opened- the one I knew contained a lot of pictures of me and Taylor.

Nic got excited, thinking it was more embarrassing photos of me. “Is it high school Ash? Oh, I wanna see! Please, Ash?”

“Please, Daddy?” Cassidy also begged.

They both looked at me so excited and I didn’t have the heart to say no. I sighed, “Alright…”

My mom, Cassidy, and Nic all grinned and then opened the album. The first few pages were similar to the first album, only instead of my face being round with baby fat, I had acne and my face and body started to define themselves more and more with each picture. As they flipped through the school pictures, family get-togethers, and general teenage shenanigans, my acne cleared and my beard started to show. Then, came the senior yearbook photo and I knew Taylor was on the next page. Sure enough, Nic smiled at me and turned the page, revealing a picture of me in a tux, grinning like a damned fool next to Taylor in that stunning green dress at Homecoming, crowns perched on both of our heads. “Is that…?” Nic asked, quietly.

I tried to smile and nodded. “Yep, that’s Taylor. Told ya I was Homecoming King,” I laughed, swallowing the lump in my throat. The last thing I wanted was Nic seeing pictures of me happy with an ex-girlfriend I thought I’d be with forever. And I certainly didn’t need the reminder that I had once proposed to the girl kissing my cheek while I grinned at the camera.

“Who’s that?” Cassidy asked me softly.

I smiled weakly, “That’s Momma.”

Her little face furrowed as her fingers grazed the picture. “How come she’s not here? Doesn’t she want to be a momma?” She turned her head to peer up at me, her big eyes a mix of childhood innocence and a deep questioning that no five year old should ever have.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a breath to steady myself. “Cass, we told you about your momma. She’s just really busy,” my mom hurriedly explained.

“Oh…” Cassidy said, seeming to accept the answer.

The mood kinda shifted as we continued to peruse the album with my mom. Nic stopped at one of the few pictures that Taylor wasn’t in and smiled at me, checking if I was okay. “Oh, I like this one,” I told her, looking at it- me on the pitcher’s mound, just seconds after I struck out their batter, ending the game, my face mid-transition from grin to screaming with joy. “We won our state championship game after... What, Dad, 15 innings?”

“18,” my dad corrected. “I remember because we kept joking in the stands that they should’ve charged us all for 2 tickets if we were gonna watch 2 games worth of innings.”

I laughed, “Yeah, that was a hell of a game.”

“It was. But you held your own.”

“I pitched 6 shutout innings,” I explained to Nic. “The 7th through 9th innings and then innings 16, 17, and 18.”

“He was a damn good closing pitcher,” my dad explained proudly.

“Yeah, okay, Dad,” I laughed while Harry scoffed that he was better. “When’s Lauren getting here?” I asked, suddenly realizing that I’d been home for at least an hour and she hadn’t shown up yet.

My dad cocked his head to the side before shrugging. “Soon, I guess.”

Right on cue the front door flew open and I heard Lauren scream, “I’m here!” then a blur of my sister as she ran in the living room, swinging Cassidy up in her arms before placing her back in my lap. “Hey, Nic,” Cassidy said, hugging Nic. “Good to see you again.” Then she went around saying hi to our mom and dad, kissing them on the cheeks, “Hi, Mom. Hi, Daddy. We winning?” she asked, leaning on his armchair. “Sup, Harry.”

“We’re doing our best, baby,” our dad told her while Harry nodded in greeting. “Where’s that boy of yours?”

“Oh, he couldn’t make it, Daddy,” she told him and then stuck her tongue out at me for no reason other than that she could.

I shook my head, laughing softly. “She’s his favorite,” I explained to Nic. “but it’s okay, cuz I’m Mom’s favorite.”

“Where does that leave me?” Harry asked, crossing his arms and pouting.

“I have no favorite children, Ashton. Just a favorite grandchild,” my mother reminded me, smiling softly at Cassidy.

“Yeah, Ashton,” Lauren tormented.

“Don’t you start, Lauren Rose Dawkins. You knew Ashton had a girlfriend and couldn’t be bothered to clue us in?” my mom asked my sister.

“Ha-ha!” I snickered, sticking my own tongue out at her.

“Oh, like she didn’t full name you when you introduced them to Nic?” Lauren shot back.

“Oh, she did,” Nic ratted me out.

“Then she pulled out the photos…” I added, shuddering.

Lauren sucked her air in through her teeth, “Yikes… did you get to the high school ones?”

“Oh, yeah..."

“I like your pictures, Ash,” Nic told me. “You were very handsome.”

“You hear that, Ashy? Were,” Harry and Lauren laughed.

Nic laughed shyly, “You’re still handsome,” she defended.

I smiled at her, “They’re just being jerks. I knew what you meant.”

“Oh!” Lauren said, clapping her hands together. “Has Ash showed you his room, yet, Nic?”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“Come with me, I’ll show ya,” she grinned, taking Nic’s hand and leading her towards the staircase.

Cassidy quickly got off my lap and went after them. “Wait for me!” she yelled.

I hurried after them, praying that my old room didn’t look like how I’d left it when I moved to Seattle nearly 5 years ago. I found the three of them on my old bed, looking around the room. “Wow, I haven’t been here in ages…” Lauren said aloud.

“Good, let’s keep it that way,” I told her, feeling sixteen for a minute.

“So, this is your room?” Nic wondered, standing up to get a better look at the posters on my walls of my favorite bands and sports teams. The corkboard that hung above my desk was still crooked from when I’d torn all the pictures off it in a fit of rage. The small trash can still held them, unharmed, because I had broken down crying when I tried to light them on fire. On my nightstand, a photo was still lying face down. Nic reached out to fix it.

“Leave it!” I said, my voice coming out harsh and sharp. Then, with a much softer tone, “Just leave it, please.”

“Oh… that’s the… shit, sorry, Ash,” Lauren said, getting up. “C’mon, Nic, have you seen the back yard yet?”

“What’s that picture, Daddy?” Cassidy asked, grabbing the frame in her hands.

I sighed and picked her up, sitting on the bed and holding her in my lap. “It’s a picture of me and Momma,” I told her.

“You don’t talk about her.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes me sad.”

“Why?”

I sighed again and patted the space next to me for Nic to sit down with us. “Okay, I’m gonna tell you both a story. Are you ready?”

Cassidy and Nic both nodded. I took a breath and flipped the frame over. In it, I was bent on one knee with a ring in my hand, while Taylor looked at me with her hands over her mouth in shock. “It was Taylor’s sophomore year of college and I had just finished up at the academy. I took Taylor- your momma- on a small vacation between Christmas and New Years. I had a ring, I had a speech, I had her dad’s blessing, all of it. And I proposed to her. I told her that I’d been in love with her since we were five and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life being everything she needed. She said no. Actually, she told me she was pregnant and wasn’t sure she wanted to be a momma.”

“She didn’t want to be a momma?” Cassidy asked, her eyes wide.

“Ash… I had no idea… I thought she…” Nic said, struggling to find words.

“Was dead? Yeah, she’s alive. Just didn’t want to be a mom. But, I really wanted to be a dad,” I said, smiling at Cassidy. “So, I convinced her to go through with it and we had you. Then she signed over her parental rights to me, broke my heart, and left me with a newborn that looked just like her.”

“Wow… Ash… I don’t know what to say…”

“There’s nothing to say. We were young and we had a tough choice to make. We each made the one we thought we could live with best. I don’t regret any of it. I’ve raised Cass with the help of my family. I lived here while I found a job and a place for us. Then I moved to Seattle almost 5 years ago with Cass. Then I met you. So, that’s what happened. And that’s why it’s a touchy subject, and why I don’t talk about it.”

“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me,” Nic smiled.

I shrugged. “You’re my girlfriend, so you have a right to know about my past, even the ugly bits. And now you know about your momma, Cass,” I said, kissing her head.

“Why didn’t she want me?” she asked, her eyes full of tears as she looked up at me.

I took my thumb and ran it under her eyes, catching the tears. “I don’t know, love. But I know that I wanted you. And that I love you very much.”

“That’s true,” Lauren told Cassidy. “Your daddy loves you lots. Wanna know how I know that?”

“How?!”

“Because your daddy’s a terrible liar,” Lauren said, smiling.

Nic laughed, “Good to know you’re a bad liar.”

“The worst,” I assured, kissing her.

~~~

Tag List (Honestly? You still won’t ask to join? Your loss, mate. I’m a mf-ing DELIGHT!)

@goeatsomelife @flameraine @cashtonasff5sos @here-for-the-uproars @cxddlyash @1-irwin-94 @baldcalum @sparkling-chaos @tea4sykes @youngblood199456 @5-seconds-of-obsession

#choices #chapter 4 #ashton irwin #ashton irwin fic #dad!ash #cop!ash #nashton #galcal irwin #so that's the story of ash and taylor #but does it end there?#ooo galcal more secrets?!#maybe? i mean i still have written the whole story yet #so i guess it's a secret to us all #happy reading!#5sos

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katandabbieslife · 4 years

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The Long Awaited Update, maybe, if anyone still reads our stuff...

So, it’s me, Abbie, who dropped the ball this time and not Kat. I promised you guys an update about why we were gone all summer and that did not happen. To explain it, completely, I might need to go back Winter break 2 years ago. It was right around the time we started this blog. Kat and I were both full time students and working to pay for food and bills. We both let our jobs know in September that we’d need winter break off to go home for the holidays as a lot of employers in college towns expect. We were both told that would not be a problem and we made plans, book flights because they’re much cheaper when booked in advance. We were set! Wrong, we were both screwed. Schedules came out for the weeks of winter break and Kat was scheduled for 2 days that first week and then scheduled for Christmas Eve, and the day after Christmas. Kat went to ask if it was a mistake and her boss told her no, that it wasn’t a mistake and they couldn’t spare her for two weeks. She explained we booked our flights in early October because we were told she’d be off. Kat explained she needed the time off to visit family and they told her they couldn’t do it. Kat told them she was already told she’d have to time off and was going home to visit family at which point they told her if she was a no call no show, that they’d have to terminate her. She broke down in tears and went back to work. Over the next couple days, she kept begging them to give her the time off. She talked to co-workers to try to get those days covered and several said they would do it. They just had to convince their asshole manager.

Just as Kat was seemingly ready to get her situation finished, mine popped up. My schedule had me scheduled for a full 40 hours for both weeks. I was beyond shocked because I never worked over 32 hours and usually only 28 hours. I went to ask why I was scheduled for a full 40 hours and the bitch told me “Oh, you only work a short schedule because you’re a student, and since school is out for these two weeks, we had some of you kids want to go home to family for the holidays and we need you to cover some of those shifts since classes are out.” I threw my schedule down on the desk and said “Yeah, some kids wanted to go home for the holidays, I was one of them, I put in for this in September and you said it was approved, what the fuck happened?” and she just blankly stared at me. I asked when some of the other put in for the break and she was like last month, and proceeded to tell me I should ask for time off 3 weeks in advance, I pointed out I asked 3 months in advance. She gave me a shitty grin and a chuckle and told me to get back to work. I refused and told her we had flights booked for over two months and they were non-refundable (not sure if they were or not, just said that to hopefully change her mind) and she told me, I hope you didn’t pay a lot, it would suck to lose all that money for something you can’t use. I told her “I’m not going to lose money, I’ll go to the labor board or small claims court since these were booked AFTER you approved my time off.” She told me to stop being dramatic. I explained I would be going home for the holidays one way or another. After arguing with both our respective bosses, we were finally told we’d get the time off. We thought it was all settled. We left, we had a great holiday, we came back to school. We stopped by both of our places of employment to get our schedules and Kat was told she’d been replaced. She came out in tears and I comforted her and explained we’d get her another job. She calmed down and we drive to my shithole job and I get my schedule and I’m scheduled for 3 hours one day, 5 hours another and only have 5 total days scheduled in two weeks. 16 hours for 2 weeks. I raised hell and it did me no good.

Kat started her job search and I worked my few hours while filing out applications Kat brought home for me since I was looking for a new job too. Our parents knew what went on just before break and they weren’t surprised when we had to call them for extra money for bills and rent. As some of you know, My mother is an attorney and my Stepdad(Now Dad, he officially adopted me Aug. 2018) owns a small chain of like 30 or so sporting goods stores in my home state. Kat Parents own a huge Horse farm/Ranch made up of three original farms combined to make one large one. Our families are doing nicely. By this time, almost a year into our relationship, our parents were already friends and talking on a regular basis through texts, Email, and phone calls, I figure initiated by my slightly over protective mother because she feels responsible for my abuse at the hands of my biological father. Anyway, they are all friends and talk often. Mom told me to get a list of our rent and average monthly bills together and call her tomorrow. And in the meantime, Kat’s Parents put money in her account and mine did the same. I called mom with the rent and average bills and I expected her to be putting a budget or something together because “moms love that shit” right? We talked for a bit and then she said she had some phone calls to make.

She called back a couple hours later and she told me to put it on speaker phone and I heard her asking “Katherine, are you guys there?” and we heard Kat’s parents chime in and say “yes, we’re here.” We all said hi and Kat and I were looking at each other like “W.T.F.?” Mom started by telling me I needed to go quit my job immediately after the phone call, Kat’s mom told Kat to tear up any applications she had filled out and to never mind finding a new job. Again, Kat and I looked at each other like “W.T.F.?” Mom and Katherine(Kat’s mom) both started telling us how they couldn’t believe how much trouble we had just trying to come home for the holidays and how upset they were when, at first, they didn’t think they’d get to see their girls for the holidays. They were glad when we finally got to come home but they expected we’d face some kind of retaliation for taking the time off. They were a little shocked at what actually happened, they thought it would be the opposite and we’d get the hours dogpiled on us instead, causing our schoolwork to take a backseat. They both wondered that if we got new jobs, would we get too many hours to handle both work and schoolwork? Or would we go through the same trouble next holiday season? Would we get to enjoy summer break? At which point they collectively decided to pay our bills, our rent, our food, and we’d get a small bump in our monthly allowances. My allowance was guilt money from Mom anyway. Most of it goes into a saving account anyway, I also get money from stud fee’s from my German Shepherd Franklin. Usually around $500 a month sometime more (if he gets lucky, if you know what I mean? : ) Our parents were paying for school anyway, our bills did not add that much more in comparison. We just had stipulations. Every break, we have to go home to visit at least for a week unless we’re granted a reprieve. This only applies to Thanksgiving, Winter, and Summer breaks. All other breaks are short and we’re free to do with as we please. Because of comments I made to my mother about how much cam girls make online and how I bet Kat and I would make bank doing the cam girl thing, we were told “Absolutely no porn!” If they ever found a single picture of either of us online, a nipple, a lip, a butthole, our agreement would be null and void and we’d have to get jobs and all money would be pulled except for tuition, of course. (Way to go Mom, take all the fun stuff away and leave us with Work and School only! LOL) Anyway, we agreed, we wouldn’t do Porn. We also have to keep our grades up, which wouldn’t be hard since we wouldn’t have to worry about reading chapters on breaks at work, or getting papers written before our shifts. Everything seemed great. We agreed. Without having to work a part time job after class, I used the free time in the evening to pick up a few more classes each semester and have since taken classes from (8am to 7:30pm) 3 days a week and (8am to 7pm) 2 days a week, assuming the classes are offered, and luckily they have been. Those extra classes allowed me to double major and earn two bachelor degree’s this past spring, when I was only on track for one degree and only a few classes short of my second which I had planned on earning the end of this current semester, but my schedule worked out and the classes were offered during my new found free time.

Skip ahead to December of 2018 and you have stories of my Birthday Party, our Holiday party, and that’s where we left off. Through spring semester, things got hectic again. I loaded my schedule to get as many classes done as I can and with any luck, I can graduate early.

Our lives were also changed last year when we went home for winter break and I can’t wait for that chapter to start. Some of you know we’re both engaged with full blessings from both my family and hers, and we’re planning on getting married in June. One year of dating, and then 2 years and 3 months of engagement until the wedding. We’re still as happy now as we were on day one, if not happier. Kat’s mom corners us every chance she gets with wedding planning. We’ve already decided on getting married by our favorite lake on their farm, but the details are what Momma Katherine loves to obsess over and I love her for it. Ok, on to the life changer. I wrote about Kat handling the purchase of the farm northern property line of her parents property. The days leading up to arriving back home for winter break were filled with Exams and Kat making contract changes with my mother, the attorneys advice. She and Kat talked as much the week before we went home than she and I since summer break all combined. Mom helped Kat make changes and Kat emailed it to her parents attorney to make the changes official. Kats parents had been telling us they were going to take us out to celebrate when we got home and were just told we were celebrating the new addition to the company and the plans for that part of the property. Ok, well, the life changer will not be in this quick little update since the original draft of this was 28 pages long and over 22,000 words. It kind of bled into everything above then into Winter break 2018/2019. I found my Word document that I journaled in during break, just as I do with stuff I think I will write about later. So, we have this update that will hopefully explain a few things about us, and I will follow that up with the posts about last year’s winter break. I have my word files from the spring and summer too so those will be written up when I get time. For now, here is a chance to learn a little more about us. If you’re still around reading our ramblings, thank you for your patience, if you’re new, enjoy what’s been posted already and please, do not hold us to a schedule. We don’t mean to be liars by saying we’ll be posting soon and not posting for months, it’s just that life and schoolwork take precedence over Tumblr posting. I hope you understand. -Abbie

#lifechanger #bisexualgirls #collegelife #farmlife

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ottorocket808 · 4 years

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Chapter Six: The Spy

I feel for Joyce her child is suffering screaming in agony and she can’t help him. If he feels like he’s burning without physically burning that means the shadow monster is attached to his Central Nervous System right?

Poor Mews

I didn’t think Steve would be so suspicious but I guess I can see where he’s coming from. More ewww Dart molted again and look he tunneled his way out in like 3-4 hours.

Darts on the run and straight to the theme music which I really dig btw the pulses are kinda soothing.

Collecting evidence. Absolutely nothing and they aren’t new you knew something was wrong and let the keep going this is just the culmination of everything he told you exactly in the same boat with you withholding information from her they don’t know Joyce they aren’t even treating him right now.

Her dad is a full on patriot the man voted for Nixon and Bush and has undying faith in his government do you really think he’d be proud Nancy? And Jonathan do you really think Joyce’d be proud of you risking everybody’s lives for nothing she didn’t even tell Bob he figured out stupid selfish children and Murray encouraging 16-17 year olds to have sex in your house is fucking creepy not to mention disgusting, and you’re supplying them with alcohol he’s the least responsible adult so far. They don’t have a condom. And again Nancy is having sex while somebody she claims to care about is going through some incredibly traumatic shit.

I hate the little siblings constantly in someone else’s stuff.

Yes Steve nobody literally nobody was responding to his Code Red he took what he could get. It would’ve been you if you weren’t breaking Rule of Law.

What is he puking up? It’s jacked up that the Dr is being transparent well more like opaque with Hop but a brick wall with Joyce who’s kid has been a target of The Upside Down on two separate occasions. Are the tunnels the shadow monsters response to the burning happening at the original gate?

Joyce sayin we all had to sign includes the kids which really makes the Jancy side quest irritating y’all signed documents freeing them of culpability again it’s not like the Dr doesn’t know who he’s been talking to he would easily connect the dots

Bob Newby superhero 🦸‍♂️ go Boyce!!

At this point you gotta assume Will isn’t in control anymore Bob’s been around for a while so if Will remembers recent events he should’ve recognized him

First of all we learned last season that Nancy can’t keep quiet in the moment so he heard them no condom lovin’ for a rookie he metaphorically shot the club up why are you asking Murray just embrace this awkwardness you created

That’s not where they are at all they lie about their location just like you two duh!

Why would you invite her to potentially die? El died* and she has superpowers you invite a regular girl who isn’t taking this seriously because she doesn’t believe you and won’t until she damn near dies it’s a needless risk.

Will doesn’t have a middle name? Where in Will’s memories is he? Hurt you or hurt the shadow monster? Well with the hive mind thing it’s probably a little bit of both. Is the shadow monster a virus or a parasite it seems more parasitic or maybe it’s a symbiote like Venom. Will remembers just fine he’s just not in the drivers seat right now.

It was awesome to you right up until it ate your cat and when held it I believe her words were it’s disgusting. Your hair is beautiful Dustin you just gotta relax calm down your intensity. THIS is a big brother moment and what makes her special to you? Faberge Organics I wonder what their commercial used to look like.

She ain’t home Traitor she hasn’t even been looking for you you’re talking to any empty room you should’ve had this conversation before you left and she’s gotta get hurt it’s a part of life she isn’t the bubble girl she’s stronger than you give her credit for

Stop suggesting killing kids what’s wrong with you people?!

That’s not Will.

Got damn it Steve please stop touching your glasses with your raw meat hand. That is the girl that doesn’t believe and consistently asks if it could’ve been anything other than what it was it’s face opened like a starfish and tried to eat them all respectively. How much help can she be in a fight? She didn’t bring a weapon She’s pulling her weight with fortifying the bus but the doubts are irritating.

What is this you ask this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the shit you two missed while you two were fucking around instead of being useful. Stop screaming she ain’t here and neither is Will or Mike or Bob. Yeah that’s the shadow monster that’s possessing your brother you would already know this if you would’ve told Nancy to drop it instead of tagging along across state lines to do dumb shit

Tactically the hub is suicide why nobody brought that up I have no idea

Are the fumes or the liquid flammable? The ground soaks it up so fast how was it supposed to burn properly?

Sure it was a 9ft tall hairless bear with a humanoid body whose face opened up like a starfish if that will make you feel better but seriously why is she here if she isn’t going to be open minded? I really wish they would’ve gave her a better back story ‘I don’t wanna be like my stepbrother.’ Says that she doesn’t know what kind of man her Stepdad is.

Mama Steve steppin it up in a major way. No Max they aren’t rabid they’re Demogorgons. I told y’all she would have to damn near die to get it. Hell no he didn’t scare them off he can only take one at a time y’all are easy pickings.

He’s rolling in fog to blind them sneak attack on the way.

Connect the dots Mike!! Too bad nobody listens to kids. Bob let him go you aren’t helping he’s not hysterical he’s panicky because he knows the soldiers are about to die it’s too late anyway. Will it’s too late to leave Squirt. I always hate the oh ‘they can’t get through’ sir did you tell them that?

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ireniics-blog · 5 years

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why, hello all !! i’m a bit late, aren’t i....but that’s okay, i come bearing a gift !! he’s a muse i’ve brought on impulse, but i couldn’t be happier to be apart of the first wave of wonderful muns here !! anyways, my name is pandora (she/her, est, 19) and this is my kid, kwon iseul !! he’s 20, a nosy journalist, and trying to get all the info about the shady happenings at project cafe !! i’m so excited and intend on developing him further as the rp progresses, but for now you can check out his plots here, profile here, and tidbits under the cut !! hey, it’s only 14 of us here - might as well get acquainted, right ?? well then, if iseul rings you or your muse’s bell feel free to like this for plotting (i’ll im you!) or hit me up on d!scord at binu, binu !!#2500 !! until then, happy roleplaying & i hope to see you soon !!

from icheon, south korea!! i-c-h-e-o-n, not incheon, don’t get it confused !! much smaller city, but he loves his hometown a lot & you’ll always find him repping it !

born kang iseul, but had his name legally changed to kwon iseul for reasons i’ll explain a little further down! (pls forgive me and i slip up & call him kang now they’re so similar!!)

his dad was a gang lord around icheon which was kind of rare, but they worked more underground ? so most citizens knew he was involved in shady business but not exactly what, but those in the gang scene definitely know him !

his dad met his mom through a business deal, he was supposed to collect money the gang had loaned her family but found her v pretty !

child abuse & abuse tw - begin!

his dad settled down & married his mom for a while, until his bad habits started resurfacing. they had 1 kid, jihun, but things didn’t really get bad until iseul was born ! his dad was angry they had another kid because though she was a family person, to him 1 kid was enough and he started becoming abusive to the kids & her ! things only got worse when they had yet another kid,

which is why the oldest jihun, chid/iseul’s brother was always so protective & tough - he’d been through it the longest & didn’t want his younger siblings to get hurt.

but not all things in his childhood were bad ! his mother was super loving to them all, and she was who supported his dream to be a writer after finding his journal with all his poems & stories in it ! which is why he really wants to be one now~

death tw - begin!

flashforward though, to right when his mother was pregnant with the youngest child and only daughter, jieun ! she didn’t want to tell him, but eventually he found out and got very angry. he flew into a rage at home & things got so bad that 14-year-old jihun had to step in, but when he did his dad was mid-punch & the impact was much harder than anticipated. jihun had to get sent to the hospital, but he died because of internal bleeding.

this shook the entire family. his dad fled & iseul hasn’t seen him since, but no one wantd to call the police because he’s well respected in the gang & the family would risk getting hurt. so his mom was forced to handle things on her own & when her daughter was born she named her jieun, similar to jihun, honoring the fact that he sacrificed his life to save his mom & baby sister’s.

this is when iseul developed ptsd, after witnessing his brother’s death & constant abuse of himself & his family by his dad.

death, abuse, & child abuse tw - end!

but this is also when he got so invested in ridding seoul of their gangs & bad people. he hated how easily his father got away w/the crime & wanted to end it ! but he’s never wanted to turn out like his father, so instead of resorting to violence he used the power of his writing by exposing all their activities !

also, he’s changed his name legally to kwon for 2 reasons - his mother’s given name is kwon, and when she legally changed it back they all did bc they didn’t want to be related to such a bad figure. the 2nd is his stepdad’s last name is kwon & though he’s not legally adopted by him yet, he sees him as far more of a father figure !

anyways - time skip ! isuel’s now a sophomore at snu, majoring in communications, minoring in journalism, and working as a journalist ! he makes near no money, sigh.... but that’s alright ! he’s doing what he wants, and hopes things will look up !

sidenote he has VERY bad vision due to the hours spent staring at screens...so he wears glasses nearly 24/7 ! he hates the feeling of contacts & he’s so used to glasses !

but here’s the real drama !! he has an exposé blog, written in the stars, where he writes under the pen name pluto ! he’s very disliked by gangs & such because he tries to get info on them & take them down, & has gotten very close to getting caught as the one behind the blog many times !

originally he went to project coffee because it was the closest place & had a nice atmosphere, but after staying a while he thinks things are....fishy. he hopes to find out what’s going on behind the scenes, so gang muses beware !

he’s not telling anyone (unless by accident or he reeeally trusts you) that he writes written in the stars so !! for now you can find him at the cafe a lot of the time, peeking at everyone and trying to see what’s going on !

i think that’s all i’ll say for now, i want to leave some things to be discovered at all ! but yeeeah....that’s it ! heart heart.

#( & ooc. )#pchqintro #wooh so excited!!#abuse tw #child abuse tw #death tw #<-- but there's a tw within the post so u can skip!

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so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed · 5 years

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TNFIF Timestamps

I’ve decided to write some timestamps for There’s No Fair In Farewell. Once I’ve written a few more I might post them on AO3, but for now, have a timestamp of what happens after the fic ends. Obviously, spoilers for the entire fic!

Just like they have lived their lives together, so do they pass on. It’s been a long life, a happy life, filled with love and, eventually, a new family. Their daughter is named Johanna Anne, in honor of both their mums. Their adopted son, of course, is named after Niall (and Nick, and Louis really only grumbled about it for old time’s sake), and Louis often calls him their lucky charm when he’s young. Their kids grow up to have kids, and by the time they’re both in their eighties they’ve left a lasting imprint on earth. Their lives, having been cut short decades ago, have finally been allowed to play out the way they were always meant to.

Now, eighty two (like he would have been when he’d gone back to earth in 2017, had he not originally died), Louis is old and content, ready for the next adventure. He knows the end is coming soon, and he’s made his peace with it, has had ample time to say goodbye to his children, promising his grandchildren that he’ll always watch over them. They’ve grown up with the fairytales he’s told them, of Fates and Cupids and while Louis isn’t sure it’ll comfort them in their time of grief he knows that they’ll never truly be alone.

As sad as he is at the prospect of leaving his family, he knows what he has to look forward to. And, as he’d told Harry once (or a million times), there’s nowhere he can go that Louis won’t follow. He knows the same goes for Harry. Even if there might be a bit of time between when the two of them pass, he knows they’ll have eternity together to look forward to.

Eternity. In Heaven. With the rest of their family.

It’s been so long since Louis has seen them, and even the memories have faded somewhat with old age. There’s siblings he’s only remembered as little children, and then siblings he hasn’t even met, but that he knows he’ll see once he passes over. There’s his mum, his stepdad, and the man she married after, the one that she grew old with. Their extended family, because although Louis had never contacted his siblings he did find out that most of them had gotten married and had children of their own.

Just as importantly, there’s Niall.

When he finally passes, it’s not much of a shock to find Harry right next to him, the moment he appears at the entrance to Heaven. Old, gnarled hands tangle the way that they used to so often, wrinkled thumbs brushing over rough knuckles.

“Alright?” Louis asks softly. Harry, lovely eighty-year-old green-eyed Harry, whose hair is now thin as whisps and grey, but who still looks like the most beautiful man Louis has ever laid eyes on, nods. Smiles, with thin cracked lips, that Louis still can’t resist pressing a kiss to.

He had thought of Heaven often, had wondered what it would look like, and oddly enough, it’s both exactly how he expected it and nothing like it. There are no pearly gates, no clouds and, most importantly, there is no Saint Peter or God to judge whether or not they’ll be allowed entrance. There’s just a door, translucent and shimmery, one that opens just as soon as they’ve turned towards it.

Louis’ throat closes up the moment he spots them. Names come easily, the recognition there even though his family looks nothing like the one in his memories. They’re all old, his age or similar, but he only has to look at them to know who they are. There’s Lottie, silver haired and short, and Phoebe and Daisy, a little taller and unmistakably twins. There’s what must be Ernie and Doris, standing a few steps behind two women who look so similar that it takes Louis a moment to realize who is who. Having both passed at old age, Fizzy and his mum could pass as twins, but that’s before she takes a step forward, her eyes shimmery with tears.

“Lou.”

She barely has time to open her arms before Louis has caught up to her, wrapping his own arms around her. And although technically he is older than her now, in her arms he feels just as much a little boy as he did when he was alive. He feels safe, sheltered, in a way he’s only ever felt with Harry.

“Mum.” It’s soft, pained, but the arms around him are holding him together. He can faintly hear Harry, notices his trembling voice as he greets his own family. But this moment, this is just for him.

There’s a soft kiss dropped to his head, worn hands that cup his cheeks as she pulls away just enough to look at him. “My boy. I’ve thought about you so often. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”

His mother shakes her head, brings him in closer, soothingly rocking him from side to side. “Nevermind that now, love. You’re here. You’re home.”

They stand there for what feels like eternity, hugging each other, until Louis can no longer tell whose arms he is in. He’s hugged Lottie and Fizzy, the first of which has punched him in the arm, telling him about time, before dissolving into tears and shaking apart in his arms. There’s been hugs from both sets of twins, and kind eyes that Louis remembers belonging to his stepfather before he is wrapped up in a hug by him too.

Time no longer has any meaning, much like it did when he was a Cupid, but all that comes to a halt at a soft cough, followed by a voice Louis hasn’t heard in sixty odd years.

“Welcome back, Lou.”

There’s tears in his eyes before he’s even turned around. And there he is. Not a day older than when Louis last saw him. Looking young, and ageless at the same time. Same cheeky grin, though there’s tears in his eyes too, Louis can tell.

“Niall.”

Arms go around each other, one pair old and weathered, the other pair young and strong, so much so that Louis nearly wheezes with the force of the hug. But he sinks into it, into the arms of his best friend, of one of the best huggers in the world. “Niall.” He repeats it, having no other word to express his emotion other than just that. Just Niall.

He’d be embarrassed about crying but Niall’s right there with him, shaking quietly in his arms. Louis can faintly hear his family shuffle back, giving them some space, and he is grateful for it. The only person that he wouldn’t mind seeing this moment is Harry, because Harry’s the only one that would understand. The only person that has gone through the things that Louis has.

“You named your kid after me.” Niall hiccups into his hair, and Louis feels fresh tears welling up in his eyes. “Can’t believe it. Never knew you were such a sap.”

Louis snorts. “Lies. You knew. You fucking knew.”

(The fact that he can hear his mum somewhere behind him, faintly murmuring language absolutely does not make him cry)

“Of course I did. Watched you every chance I could, didn’t I? Promised I’d always keep an eye on you.” He had promised that, once upon a time, but it’s still hard to believe that it’s been sixty years and Niall has never broken that promise. Time moves differently, up here, and a few decades is nothing, but at the same time, it says so much about their friendship, about the loss Niall must have felt.

“I’m sorry,” Louis whispers softly. “I’m sorry for leaving you.”

“I’m not. And you’re not. I’ve seen you. You were happy.”

Louis smiles at that. “I was. I am. Life’s been - well, you’ve seen it.”

Niall nods. “It’s been everything I wished for, for you. Me and Nick both. He made me promise not to tell you, but he bawled like a baby the day you brought your son home from the hospital.”

Little Niall Nicholas. His baby boy, who was now well in his fifties. With children of his own, Louis’ grandkids who he had doted on, watched Harry be enamoured with, the way he’d so often seen him in Heaven. He finally had gotten to count all their fingers and toes in person. Louis smiles. “I’m taking you did the same thing.”

Niall just shrugs, completely unembarrassed. “I mean. It’s your kid. Of course I cried. And that was even before I heard the name. Good name though. Good lad.” He’s quiet for a moment. “I was honored to find him on my board, once he grew up. They’re soulmates, did you know? Him and his wife? They fought over who got to set them up. Perrie and Cara eventually compromised, worked together. We’ve all been looking out for you. Rooting for you.”

Louis swallows. He’d wondered, as his children grew up, if anything had changed in Heaven. If anyone else had gone down, if they’d even known what had happened to him and Harry or if it had been made out to be a cautionary tale. Hearing that they still remembered them, still took an interest in their lives - it felt nice, to have been watched over. To know that even if he hadn’t seen them for so long, he was still never alone.

“I missed you guys.” He says softly. “I missed - I was happy, you know I was. But I still missed you. Just, hanging out, having a beer. Playing games.”

“Playing football.” Niall chuckles. “You know, you still owe me a rematch.”

Louis arches a white eyebrow, looking at him. Looking at himself, then up at Niall’s face, that is unreadable for a moment, before it cracks, a cheeky grin rapidly appearing. “Can’t blame me for trying,” Niall tells him, giving Louis’ shoulder a light squeeze. “I figured, maybe this way, I can finally win for a change.”

#tnfif #tnfif timestamps #there's no fair in farewell

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nacsygen · 5 years

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i was going to go on a further rant about how i wish i didn’t know as much as i do about ww2 but y’all don’t need that, writing it out and deleting it was enough. i’ll just say there was a big difference between growing up with the narrative “nazis were evil, we were the good guys, and it’s very sad that your grandfather died on the beaches of normandy without ever meeting your not-yet-born father but he died a Hero so it’s okay,” and then growing up and reading appallingly realistic and detailed descriptions of the firebombing of dresden and other german civilian cities by the allies, and - and - you know what yeah maybe writing it out and deleting it wasn’t enough bc now i’m dwelling on atrocities again, and the void’s giving me a speculative eye. i’ll stop.

i think maybe it is the difference between my grandfather dying a hero (posthumous medal of honor and everything) and my father living as a murderer for having the same damn job. my father lied about his age very early on in the vietnam war so that he could enlist with his older friends, because he was an impressionable 16-year old idiot (who’d started drinking at 15) who wanted to go off on an adventure with his friends to the other side of the world, and maybe end up like a war hero like his sainted forever-22 father. maybe hoping he could be something more than the ever-worse sequence of deadbeat/abusive stepdads his increasingly depressed and alcoholic mother brought in to futilely try and replace the lost love of her life. to be better for and also get away from a whole bunch of half-brothers and sisters that he was never really suited to be the oldest brother they needed him to be, who he still did his best to shield from the various violent men in their life, with the backdrop of a mother too drawn into herself to intervene. and my father was always a stocky and strongly-built man, but he never grew to more than 5′4″.

so at 16 years old, in 1962, they shipped him off to vietnam to become a jarhead and, when they saw his skills on the range (skills my brother and i share, so maybe it is kinda innate), they put him into training to become a full scout sniper. yeah, like in Jarhead, except in a real on-the-ground combat war. he was in the war for a lot longer than a draftee - maybe five, six, even seven years. it was good for him, the regimentation, the control. he liked it. he needed it. he’d never had it before. it was good for him. i remember asking my dad once, and i remember it very clearly. it had to have been either before my parents got divorced, so i would have been maybe six or seven, or one of the few occasions after i saw him before he moved to jamaica for a few years, so maybe nine or ten. i think it was more like seven, though. by this time my father was on 100% disability from the VA due to PTSD and in maybe the worst of his alcoholism. but i asked him once while watching him work on a job in the sweet florida sun, with me having just enough of a grasp of knowing what the vietnam war was, what war was, and that he’d been in it, “daddy, did you ever kill anybody in vietnam?” and he laughed and said “yeah, quite a few people. it was my childhood that really fucked me up, though.”

and understand that apart from that last part, which is one of my earliest very clear memories (and how fucked up is that?) this whole narrative, i’ve put together from bits and pieces of information over the years from both parents, and knowing how similar to our core my father and i are. it’s a big part of why we haven’t talked in going on five years, bc as sad as this all paints him to have as an origin story, he’s still ultimately an asshole who doesn’t know how to deal with feelings and turns everything into a fight (bc, again, became an alcoholic at 15, got worse and worse, and didn’t get dry until his late 40s and was pushed into a swift divorce with two young children involved). i understand him at his core because we have always, my whole life, been too similar in all our worst ways, and some of the good ones too. but i still feel great empathy for the 16 year old boy with one drunk neglectful, distant, incredible at times mother and a series of abusive alcoholic not-dads and a stream of half-siblings, with the legend of his heroic, wonderful, brave orphan hard worker forever-22 father hanging over his head literally since he was born. and then he went to war, like his father did. he killed enemies, like his father did. he earned medals, like his father did - my father has a purple heart from both physical and psychological wounds, he has a gold star and a silver star from saving his brothers in arms from dying at the hands of the enemy. and he came back from the war to be treated not as a hero, but to be branded as a murderer in an unjust conflict, a living symbol of national shame. that shit sticks with you. i know it has for him for fifty long years.

upon getting home, he immediately grew his hair and beard out (not unlike how my brother does when on leave, but granted, for both it happens within a couple days of not shaving) and went straight back into commercial art, pinstriping, sign-painting and cartoonery back in the ‘70s, which is when he met my mother (who was 11 years younger than him but still technically his boss, and told him she was a lesbian when he first flirted with her, but then they ended up together 20 years) and the rest is history. i’ve inherited from him an addictive personality - my grandmother (who herself died of a heart attack just before i was born, only in her 60s), my father, my brother and i have alcoholism. and sometimes, really, i feel like i’ve inherited his trauma too, his trauma from the always-there presence of his father’s death, his abusive childhood trauma, his war trauma. i feel like maybe my brother, who’s way more chill than me but also joined the military at a young age and now classes himself as a binge alcoholic, inherited at least some of the trauma too. and yeah, my brother’s never killed anybody, but he fixes the planes that drop the strikes and has for a decade, and it weighs on him. he and i don’t talk often for a pair of siblings that were once as close as twins, but we’ve occasionally had long, very late night inter-continental skype talks where we talk about this stuff. talk about how our mom found healing in our stepdad, who was also in the military but never killed anybody, and was maybe gruff and rough with us growing up but never abusive like our dad had the potential to be when he was drinking, or like his own father, who served under patton, was to him. talk about how we respect that he refused as much as he could to continue the pattern of abuse. talk about how my dad and i are too similar in our core nature to ever really get along, even though our traumas are different, but there all the same.

the part of me that’s from my mom’s upbringing (and she’s alluded to having quite a few alcoholics in her family too) wants to spit at this man, get the fuck over it! it’s in the past! but that part of me lead to me not getting proper treatment for my mental health until i was 25. so maybe, for once, my mom’s not right about everything. for once.

if this was a proper thought-out treatise, this would be a great final pragraph to sum up everything above in a beautiful way. but it’s not. it’s me working things out as much to myself as for anyone else. quite a few things in this i hadn’t even realized were so obvious until my brain typed them out as i thought about them. it almost makes me want to talk to my dad again. yeah, my dad’s alive, he’s in his mid-70s bc he was in his late 40s when i was born, and he’s been an old man since his 40s but he’s also probably gonna live well into his 90s. but he’s also like. such an asshole, you guys. (again, mental maturity of a 15 year old). i’m also an asshole. we’re too similar in the exact same way we’re assholes. since i was 16 years old, talking to him on the phone bc i really did want to talk to my dad, pacing around my old room and getting increasingly agitated, he always goads me into a fight. it’s not enough for him to be happy, it’s not enough for him to be friendly, he can’t be sweet unless it’s for a passive aggressive bit. and i won’t put up with his shit the way my very sweet (and god knows where he got it) brother does. generational trauma! lachaim!

#sorry to everybody who's followed me not knowing i occasionally go into for-real diary entries/treatises #long post #t #what is a proper blog only 33 people follow if not to be a journal

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mamomomotora · 6 years

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Help me escape an abusive home.

So I already made a post like this but maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I only mentioned details of my physical state and not my mental or personal relationship with my mom.

So here, let me try again. I’m so sorry it’s going to be long winded.

Growing up I was never given any privacy of my own. And I know that’s kind of an iffy start because automatically you’d think “well you were probably a problem child.” Or “that’s just parenting.” But the direction my mother took it to was an extreme.

About the time I was 10 to even now this present year my mom has never stopped. When I was younger she would snoop through all of my things including journals cell phone records text messages and instead of just talking to me, she always found something to punish me about.

I became a super secretive person, but the more secretive I got, the better she got with snooping.

It brought me down and eventually I did develop mental problems. I became paranoid, never feeling safe and always feeling like someone is watching me. Even when I was diagnosed with depression and insomnia my mom chose to ignore it. All she ever said was “you’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Even when I had clear prescribed medication I had to take she never gave it to me.

She only chalked it up to “it should be your responsibility.” And I was 12.

I’ll give it to her that yes it should have been, but at 12 when you have clinical depression and you’re going through so many changes, medication does tend to slip your mind. I also had so many missing days, I would black out and dissociate so much when I was younger. But it’s not like my mom ever knew. She was never home and when she would come home at like 3-4am she would just walk to wherever I was sleeping and wake me up screaming at me. Telling me how I was disgusting and how she read all of my texts to every one of my friends.

Holding out cell phone records and text logs. And who was I calling all the time when it was literally only her number and a couple of friends I liked to talk to.

Unfortunately I did develop a drinking habit at 12 years old. This was fairly easy considering my mom was a big alcoholic herself and kept an open bar in the kitchen. I had easy access and she never knew.

Instead of taking care of me, instead of talking to me, all my mom ever did was yell at me and threaten to take things away. She never explained to me what I was doing that was so wrong. And I grew up not having a lot of friends for that.

My friendships strictly remained internet friendships. If I had so much as an actual close friend they had to meet certain requirements.

They couldn’t be a boy. They had to be a girl. If a boy so much as talked to me and they were my friend, I had to briskly walk away or push them away if I saw my mom.

The many times she accused me of having a boyfriend is too many to count hat eventually I thought, “fuck it.” And I started dating. Way before I even was ready just because “well if mom thinks I’m such a deviant I might as well be.”

And this wasn’t just as a kid. All the way up to now, my adult years, my mom refuses to let me go out with anyone. I’ve developed horrible anxiety due to the way I was mistreated as a child. I push everyone away and I never talk to anyone because I’m still afraid my mom will snoop through my phone or the phone records and accuse me of shit.

She still threatens to take my own personal property away. Things I’ve paid for things I’ve bought and things I was paying for. She refuses to let me go out but when she does she asks me 200 questions on where I’m going who I’m going with and if there’s one thing she doesn’t like she says no.

I’ve given up on talking to her because she cuts me off and never lets me speak. I get crippling anxiety and I’m reduced to tears if she so much as questions me.

When I didn’t have a car I remember I wanted to go out with a friend. She was going to pick me up and my mom wasn’t home. She actively called my brother and told him to watch me leave and see who it was picking me up. Just to make sure I wasn’t lying. It’s so u fair because she never treats my brother like this. Neither of them. One is 12 and the other 22. They’re both allowed to have friends over they’re allowed to have fun. But not me. She has her eyes strictly only on me at all times.

And when I do rarely ever get the courage to talk to her, she accuses me of manipulating her and attacking her. And she knows that I really don’t want to hurt her, because despite everything I really love my mom. I do, but enough has become enough and even after I’ve done all I could for her she never thanked me. She never tried to take care of me even when something was visibly wrong. Even though my depression and anxiety have been worse throughout the years. She’s never seen what I’ve done to try to make her happy. When she broke her back I almost didn’t graduate because I was so broken about it. When I try to care for her or ask her if she’s okay it doesn’t feel natural.

I’m extremely torn between mylove for her and my disdain. All her and my stepdad do are complain about what I can’t do. They’ll borrow money from me and take ages to pay me back.

They still owe me money but I’ll never get it back looks like.

But this is why I need help. I have a job but it can only do so much by November/December. That’s when I’m planning on leaving because it’s so hard I can’t take it anymore. It’s detrimental to my health. Both physical and mental. I haven’t been cared for all these years and I’ve been suicidal for many. I don’t want to live like this anymore that’s why I’m begging.

I know where I’m going, and I won’t be alone. What scares me is the 2,000 mile road trip I’ll be needing to take. And with expenses and potential rent I’m going to need a small amount to keep me up when I arrive. I won’t have a job it’ll all be a new start.

Here’s my original post explaining the remainder of the situation

Venmo: @Marissa-Arambula-1

I don’t have anything else other than that. I’m so sorry to plague your dash with this again. But thank you if you have read it, it means a lot to me. I’m sorry.

#donation post #venmo #please help #at this moment im almost desperate #things just seem to get worse and worse and my mental state is slowly starting to decline

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trudifleishman-blog · 5 years

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Car for Sale!

Upon receiving my red 2005 TL Acura in February of 2017, my car has been one of my most prized possessions. The car was a hand-me-down from my stepdad’s mom, who originally owned the car but was looking for something newer and bigger. There was a low mileage and she was willing to sell it for a reasonable price, so we bought the car from her! With my car and my driver’s license, I was granted the ability to drive nearly anywhere I want and have an immense amount of freedom. Because my car is from 2005, it does not contain some of the modern features such as a back up camera, alerts for cars in blind spots, or a touch screen. Rather, I have the more standard features with a generic radio, a car key to start my car, and the option for heated front seats. Although my car is not considered “luxury,” I love my car for what it is and the independence it has brought me over the past year and a half. I have been able to drive to important meetings, back and forth to school during high school, and meet my friends for dinner at our favorite restaurants. My friends and I have the tradition of naming our cars upon getting one, so my car is named Felicia. We all call our cars by their given names to make our driving experience more exciting. It has even gotten to the point where my parents call my car by Felicia, and they even put a name tag on my car keys before I came home for fall break! Overall, this car’s bright red color and traditional features bring a lot to the table and can hopefully bring as much joy and freedom to your life as it has brought to mine. The current price for this TL Acura is $4000, however negotiations can be made!

#allmylifeforsale

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ghoulstars · 6 years

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im only posting this bc i desperately need to exorcise this thought somewhere bc it wont fucking leave me alone

those of you who know me personally or follow my instagram know about this but for those of you who dont: in a horrible turn of events, our plan to put down our geriatric yellow labrador retriever dixie was unfortunately and unexpectedly doubled today to having to put down our 3 year old engam bulldog, bean, as well

when we got him in mid december, 2015 he was barely out of puppyhood, we found him wandering around near the highway at our local gas station with a collar and no tag, trying to jump into two out-of-towner girls’ car. my stepdad intervened bc they couldnt take bean with them obviously, and brought him home instead.

we put up lost dog flyers everywhere all over our very small city, in an attempt to maybe see if someone would indeed come forward for their dog. we knew he wasnt just a stray because of his collar.

almost right off the bat, we were told by a woman who worked at the gas station that there was a man who lived in the trailer park just across the road, located behind the pancake diner. you can see it from the gas station parking lot. she told us that he had a lot of dogs that he typically kept chained up outside in poor conditions, and beat them regularly. to us? it seemed totally reasonable that that must’ve been where bean came from, given the fact he was a dog and we found him literally less than 50 feet away from where this fucking man lived.

no one came forward to claim bean. we kept those flyers up for months, we only put them up to begin with knowing he may have been thrown out by (or escaped from) this disgusting man just because there was the possibility that it wasn’t his dog, but someone else’s. as well as the potential for legal intervention if this fabled abuser found out we had technically stolen his dog (and full disclosure, fuck him for what he does, i hope all his dogs get stolen like they need to be, i myself was not fond of the idea of just giving the dog back to this creep if he was indeed the owner but i was only 16 at the time so there wasnt much i could do)

with no one claiming bean, after those months passed, we decided that he was ours now. flyers were taken down, we gave him his collar and nametag, to be real he’d already been named by us in the first few days we had him. he was going to be ours no matter what; my mother always told me its a rule that if you name a stray, and do it quick before anyone can object to keeping it, it’s yours now. that’s your pet, with it’s new name.

so we carried on with our lives, now having not just one dog, but two. it was a bit iffy with my stepfather keeping bean since we didnt technically need to manage two dogs at the time, but we still did it anyways because we loved him, the little bean man.

but here’s where my problem lies and this is why im writing this now: as time went on and we continued to have bean as our pet, some stuff about the original suggestion that he belonged to an abusive older man who lived in close proximity to where we found bean wasnt adding up

due to dixie’s failing body, she would sometimes lose control of her bowels inside the house, which was becoming unacceptable when she stayed in overnight. so, she stayed outside. she and bean bonded, so they stayed outside together too. (and for clarity here, i know what some of you might want to say, but we knew very early on that bulldogs do not do well with heat or isolation. we also know that dixie probably shouldve been put down years ago, but here’s the trouble: my stepfather would not let us euthanize her. she is his dog technically, and the thought hurt him so much that he would not agree to it for YEARS. dixie and bean were too attached to separate them for long periods of time like they would be if we kept bean inside mostly and her outside mostly; that would’ve been cruel in its own special way. we put pools out for bean and visited with both dogs for as much as we could outside, bathed them, put fans out for them in the summer. our only option to give bean the main love and care he needed was, and of course we had other reasons to do this, to put dixie down, which was where we thought we were finally going to be by tomorrow, but thats not what happened, as you can tell)

as to be expected, bean sometimes found his way inside, mostly by applying his american bulldog traits to memorizing when unfamiliar guests would come over and bolt in the house. he did this enough times and very recently we were letting him stay inside instead of taking him back out, and all of these experiences combined, we noticed something: bean was housebroken. he was out of practice with it, and did not know very well how to communicate that he needed to go outside to use the bathroom, but he did know what to do. he would run to the door if he had to go, not always making it, but still, he was housebroken. he only marked furniture once while inside, in his entire lifespan thus far. that was a red flag to us, but especially my mother, who realized this skill of beans directly contradicted the statement that he was probably kept outside, chained up, starved, and beaten by the trailer park guy. not to mention, bean came to us in nearly perfect condition to begin with, just skinny. no patches of fur gone, he was the opposite of skittish and aggressive, no bruises, nothing. just a loving, bouncy, stupid bulldog mix

this, im not sure if im correct about this, but it stands out enough to me that i feel its worth mentioning: bean is not a mutt of any kind, and his breed contradicts those types of breeds most people who abuse animals come to own; usually large breeds, breeds inaccurately known for aggression, and breeds used by abusers to make aggressive bc they know the fighting power of these dogs (pitbulls, american bulldogs, etc). bean is an engam bulldog (english/american mix), which is a very obscure mixed breed dog to begin with and especially obscure where i live, and as we all know english bulldogs are short, stout, fat little things that can basically do no harm whatsoever. they also have a history of inbreeding to look how they do. i know this man may have just seen ‘bulldog’ and snagged him thinking he’d be aggressive, but that does not sit right with me for two other reasons: bean’s conformation (body structure) and coloration. there is nothing about bean that suggests he was bred to be used for fighting, or that he’s a true mutt, or anything of the sort. his body type literally resembles that of show dogs, and his fur coloration is highly unusual because he’s blue. obviously not literally blue but the type of blue-grey you can find in animals, typically seen in cats. bean’s coloration is almost NEVER found in ANY breed of bulldog, it is INCREDIBLY rare that he looks like this. his condition in which we found him, his housebrokenness, his color and his body formation lead, in me and my family’s opinion, to an alternative opinion: he belonged to someone that got him because they wanted a dog as a pet, not to beat, and they either bred him themselves or bought him (probably from a pet store or breeder) for his color and conformation.

but why would they dump a dog this valuable? my mom said this to me earlier, sobbing after she returned from the vet today, and this is my whole reason for writing this insane fucking novel of a post: whoever dumped bean threw out a sick puppy, and on purpose.

bean hasnt been injured or contracted an unvaccinated illness or anything like that. he had been experiencing extreme stomach distension for the past month, whereas he was losing weight everywhere else on his body. he had also been vomiting. but he wasnt depressed, or lethargic. maybe his personality was a little off but not so much it was horribly noticeable, and at that, he was still eating regularly everyday. we came to the conclusion he had parasites, though ive always been terrified something more serious was going on (i dont get listened to though).

as it turns out, i was right. mom took him in today, the day before dixie was set to be put down, for his deworming pills. what she got instead was a diagnosis of possible lung cancer. his blood work was normal, which is unusual in animals with cancer, but he still had nodules on his lungs that highly resembled cancer. his heart was also severely enlarged due to heartworms, and his stomach was so distended because it was full of fluid and blood. they did send his blood off for labs, but even if his lungs were fine, he was going to die anyway (they got a second opinion from another practice and they also agree it was probably cancerous). he has a 15% survival rate for only the very first heartworm treatment, which will cost $500. nothing lives very long with an enlarged heart to begin with. we don’t have that money, and for a treatment that will definitely kill him? i dont even know why he has so much blood and fluid in his digestive tract. bean, a dog who is only 3 or 4 years old, has an enlarged heart, lung tumors and fluid/blood all in his abdomen. the vet was apparently stunned that a dog this young could have this many potentially (and one definitely) fatal health problem(s).

i now fully believe that whoever owned him before knew he had all these issues, or that he was going to develop them. i think it makes sense. i also think they’re cheap, cruel fucks who didnt want to shell out that much money to take care of him, or pay to take him to a shelter/sanctuary, and so what did they do? they did what many people these days very regularly do when their new pet has become undesirable: they fucking dumped him on the side of the road and booked it. took his nametag off and everything, to make him look like a stray. they left him for some well meaning, animal loving family like mine to find him, not know anything about these preexisting health issues, and assume he’s healthy enough; maybe just needs a few more vaccinations and a worm and flea treatment. he showed no signs of lung cancer or heart problems in all his life up until this past month, and he’s still so young. i will even go as far as to say that he himself may be severely inbred, which could be the cause of these health issues. given his specific posture and color, and that he’s a bulldog, it’d make sense. it seems like he came from some kind of breeder to begin with anyway.

so now that ive said that and got it all out of the way, i want to leave an open letter to the hypothetical cunt that did this to us and bean:

i hope god fucking strikes you down where you stand. i hope every single day of your miserable fucking life, you think about where he ended up, if he’s still alive, if anyone found him, if he ever got hit by a car or died alone of cancer and heart failure in a field somewhere. i hope you feel guilt for leaving him knowing he’d develop cancer and that he had heart worms, and knowing you did it BECAUSE of that. i hope you never fucking forget about the fact that you threw an INNOCENT LITTLE PUPPY out on the highway because you just didnt want to have anything to do with his illnesses, and i hope one day you find out what you did to us and this innocent little boy. he’s such a good fucking dog, he is so patient, kind, loving and gentle, and when he has bursts of energy to play he fucking goes, and now he has to die barely halfway through his lifespan because of your fucking negligence. he is laying outside on the porch right now, uncomfortable with fluids and blood backing up his intestines, coughing and huffing just to try and breathe. at the very least, if he were taken to the right shelter, he couldve been fucking cared for and given treatments to extend his life as much as possible, or at least given hospice care for however long he could live, which has now been shortened to 3 or 4 years. if you yourself knew this dog was inbred or you inbred him yourself, fuck you. i hope you get run over by a fucking truck. this breed can live from 12-16 years, that’s a LONG time for a dog like him, and you had to fucking ruin it all because of your own fucking preferences; you wanted the perfect dog. and you could’ve had him if you’d grown a fucking heart and actually gave a shit about animals beyond how they look aesthetically; as well, if you fucking actually gave a shit about your animals HEALTH and wanted to maintain it instead of apparently assuming he’d just be fine and healthy with all his vaccinations and that’d be the end of it. you do not deserve to own an animal if you dont even want to acknowledge it will sometimes need medical care, how fucking heartless are you? we never had enough money to take care of dixie’s failing health, and we always knew it’d be better to put her down, but my stepdad kept refusing. you had enough money to fucking breed or buy a blue show-quality engam bulldog and you still wouldnt fucking care for him after you found out what problems he had. fuck you. eat shit and die. i hope you never find peace from the guilt of knowing you fucking killed what became our dog because you’re selfish. my mother is physically sick with grief. i am physically sick with grief. i feel so bad that it’s as if i have the fucking flu. i was trying to talk with my mother about this situation earlier and i had to rush to leave because i felt like i was about to throw up if i didnt. everyone in this house has cried so much today it’s disgusting.

the only thing good about this is that bean came along for dixie when she needed him most, and became her helper and provider, giving her company and being a literal post to lean on for when she couldnt see where she was going. they’re going over the rainbow bridge tomorrow morning together, and in a way, this is probably the best outcome. at least bean wont have to grieve. dixie can see her old companion again (who died from a ruptured tumor in 2014) and bean can meet him, and they can all play and be together in that field in the sky.

my family will never have another dog again because of this pain this has caused us.

#personal #probably dont delete this #dont open this if youre sensitive to animal cruelty and death please #and vulgar descriptions of internal illness in dogs #and emetophobia #dont rb

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 6 years

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Bad Samaritan

If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times - the key to enjoying this quest to see 118 movies in 2018 is LOW EXPECTATIONS. I had never heard of this movie until yesterday but I got goals, so here we are.

Bad Samaritan is the story of Sean, a wide-eyed and charming Irish expat petty thief with a heart of gold (Robert Sheehan). Sean runs a valet scam in which, instead of parking cars, he uses the GPS to nav to the person's home and robs them while they're at dinner. That is until he goes to rob the ridiculously named Cale Erendreich (David Tennant). While he’s in Cale’s (ugh) house, he finds a girl chained up, gagged, and tortured Buffalo Bill style, so he tries to help her, but has to return the car to the restaurant lest Cale suspect anything and leaves her there. He calls the police anonymously so they can rescue the girl but OHP! She’s not there and they find nothing. Cale figures out who tattled and then makes it his mission to destroy Sean’s life while also still being a psychopathic creep who tortures girls for fun. Solid premise for a thriller, right? So the real question is, did Dean Devlin - aka one-half the team that brought us Independence Day and most recently Geostorm - nail the execution? Well...

Listen, I wasn’t kidding - the expectations were low and as a result, I really enjoyed this. Look, it’s not without its problems, but I 1) genuinely cared about the protagonists, 2) believe that, given the information we have at hand, the protagonists would have acted exactly in this way in real life and 3) appreciated the charismatic performances that really elevate some bargain-basement material into something pretty compelling. But uh...I still have a lot of thoughts.

Was this filmed through a blue dryer sheet? I get that he's trying to create a #mood and it is set in Portland, so the mistiness makes sense but like...shit's excessive.

It's no surprise after seeing what he could do in Jessica Jones, but David Tennant is truly fantastic in this. I think he must really love working out his stress by playing seriously disturbed, wildly rich psychopaths. Some people play racquetball. David Tennant pretends to tie girls up in basements.

This feels like a weird thing to praise a movie for but in a shocking and refreshing turn of events, the horrific treatment of Cale’s victim does NOT include the threat of sexual violence at any point. In fact, he explicitly is grossed out at the idea of touching his victim sexually. Like, please make no mistake, his treatment of her is horrifying, but I was appreciative that for once a woman’s trauma in a movie of this genre was not based in sexual assault.

Possibly my biggest question in the whole movie - at one point, I’m 98% sure Cale gives himself a home perm? With no explanation? It’s never addressed AT ALL? Like, you see his face in the mirror after a shower - normal hair. He bends down to rinse his face or something, pops back up, CURLY HAIR. Was this some kind of disguise? Why not dye your hair? It takes less time. Did he have to put in all those tiny rollers? That would take hours! You’re being hunted by the police, man! A box of L’Oreal Feria takes 25 minutes to develop. Almost immediately after this, he is bragging about how clever he is, and says “No, no, crazy people get caught” but dude, all of your credibility has been shot because while the FBI is getting their warrant, you’re waiting for the neutralizer to set.

A related issue - what even is time in this movie? How long does this all take? The original break in happens, let’s say Tuesday night. Cops are called, nobody’s there, oh no! So Sean goes to the police and we’re told he’s there all night, he hasn’t slept. Goes to meet his girlfriend at her school in the afternoon. Takes his stepdad’s truck, then something happens and he detours to his friend’s house - it’s nighttime again, so Wednesday night. He goes back to Cale’s house, steals his car, and drives at least a couple hours to nearby Sandy, Oregon. Then it’s morning again, and the big showdown happens. So this all takes place in less than 48 hours and NOBODY SLEEPS. With the amount of shit that Cale does to mess with Sean, his family, his girlfriend, his best friend - I don’t know how anyone could do that in 36 hours. This dude is busier than Beyonce.

A big part of why a kind of ridiculous plot like this works is because Robert Sheehan is so charming. It's hard to stand up to David Tennant's screen presence, and I’m not sure he does when they’re in scenes together (albeit briefly). But when he’s on his own, he’s incredibly sweet, likable, and for once, showcases a great deal of integrity. I’ve complained on this blog before about all these movies where random characters tell the main male protagonist, “You’re a good man, ______” when really they’re kind of the worst, most mediocre dudes. But Sean really IS a good man, and it was nice to root for a clear Gryffindor, through and through, who was doing everything he possibly could to do the right thing and save someone’s life.

Speaking of, Kerry Condon, who plays Cale’s victim (fun fact: she’s the voice of Friday in the MCU) does a lot with very little, and her few scenes really resonate with pain and empathy and even some humor. Loved her.

Don't shoot people without looking at them, that's like the first rule of movie murder school.

This is Redbox or Netflix material all over, and you could honestly do a lot worse. I was very entertained and greatly enjoyed the first part of my Bad Samaritan/Chappaquiddick double feature entitled “Rich White Men Getting Away With Murder.”

#118in2018 #bad samaritan #bad samaritan review #david tennant #robert sheehan #kerry condon #movie reviews #film reviews

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goddamnitaisha · 6 years

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Hey dear @asreoninfusion,

remember a time before you were a popular blog Sefikura BDSM Kink Queen?

When you were too afraid to make a blog? And were too afraid to message me because you worried you would annoy me? Before we met in real life.

Hahaha you sent me anon messages in a time I received multiple anons a day. I had to give you a nickname because I wanted you to sign your posts. I gave you name options, you chose the name anon-sundown. I wanted you to continue talking to me, because you were cute enough to be adopted. You suggested writing about your funny life experiences.

Now, I kept all these messages for years. READ THEM BOTTOM TO TOP. You might want to copy them and put them on your own blog.

Love,

your friend Aisha

anon-sundown asked you: 10 hours ago You couldn't actually see the driver; all that was visible were two hands sticking out through this massive bunch of bananas, clutching the handlebars with a white-knuckled grip, and a little face peering round the edge.

anon-sundown asked you: 10 hours ago But the favourite two-wheeler incident was the banana man. People would often cart around huge amounts of food or stock for the local shops they owned; this man was transporting bananas. A /lot/ of bananas. To this day I have no idea how he managed to balance them all on there, but it is safe to say there was significantly more banana than man.

anon-sundown asked you: 10 hours ago We used to see all sorts of insane things on two-wheelers. Across the road from the Croc Bank there lived a man who would regularly drive a fully grown goat around on his bike, with the animal casually draped over the back. One time we saw two men driving along with an eight foot length of PVC pipe... lengthways. They were holding it /across/ the bike, taking up almost the entire road and forcing everyone to swerve all over the place to avoid them! (Fairly standard driving for India, then.)

anon-sundown asked you: 10 hours ago Let's have a non-animal related story for a change. In India they were big on their motorbikes - or two-wheelers, as they call them. They tend to be a lot cheaper and more accessible for most people, so they made up about 40% of the traffic. And the amount of stuff people would cram onto those things! It wasn't at all uncommon to see a family of four or five squashed onto the one bike.

anon-sundown asked you: 12 hours ago One other thing the macaques used to do - and I have no idea where they learnt to do this, if it was instictive or they had learnt it from someone - was floss their teeth. The zookeeper would pull out a strand of their hair and hand it to the monkeys, and they'd start flossing! That soon became an integral part of the feeding show, getting them to clean their teeth afterwards for the visitors to see. We were often the ones doing that, so it's a good thing both my mum and I have very thick hair!

anon-sundown asked you: 12 hours ago Even if they weren't playing with the hose, most of the monkeys would still stop and stare while you cleaned, then try to imitate what you were doing. My mum once brought in a little toy broom to give to them while she was sweeping, see if she could get them to copy her and do some of the work! (They weren't buying it.)

anon-sundown asked you: 12 hours ago In the complete opposite of the spider monkeys, the macaques loved water. The cleaning always took twice as long as it should have, as the monkeys would come and play in the spray when you were trying to hose down the floor and rocks. On more than one occasion a zookeeper (usually my mum) was caught playing skipping rope with the monkeys and a stream of water.

anon-sundown asked you: 12 hours ago Cleaning their enclosure was always a two person job; one to do the cleaning, and the other would stand there with a hose, keeping the monkeys at bay. Fortunately, the macaques monkeys were much friendlier. You had to make sure not to get too near to any of the babies - the mothers were very protective of their young - but other than that they were quite happy to have company in their enclosure.

anon-sundown asked you: 12 hours ago Most of the time the spider monkeys would grudgingly accept an intrusion at feeding time. They weren't pleased that someone was in their space, but they knew that they got food out of it. Even so, they could be vicious buggers, so the zookeeper would always carry a water pistol in with them. If the spider monkeys got too close or too aggressive, you just squirted them with the water pistol and they would back off!

anon-sundown asked you: 12 hours ago At the Hunter Valley Zoo in Australia there were also monkeys, although these were part of the zoo rather than the local wildlife! We had two species; macaques and spider monkeys. The macaques were a big friendly group, playful and generally very nice. The spider monkeys, on the other hand, were not. Their enclosure was /their/ territory, and hoo boy, they did not like their territory invaded. Oddly enough, the only thing they liked less than having someone in their territory was... water.

anon-sundown asked you: a day ago Fortunately, he missed the food. But he did knock over a bottle of milk belonging my little sister (who was very little then). Somehow he managed to set it spinning right around, squirting milk out in every direction at everyone while we dove for cover. Having very successfully got our attention, the goat then hopped back down and made for his balcony, only to run straight into the closed glass door. We let him out there just to get some peace!

anon-sundown asked you: a day ago He's obviously gone for my apple cores, sticking his head into the bin to get at them... but then his horns had got caught, and he couldn't get himself back out past the swing lid. So he just pulled the whole thing off. and then, flailing around like a mad thing trying to dislodge the lid, charged upstairs and jumped right up onto the dinner table.

anon-sundown asked you: a day ago One final piece of background information; I like eating apples. I used to sit at the computer in the front room downstairs, happily munching away, and throw the cores into a little bin with a swing lid just by the desk. This is relevant. So, the goat sneaks into the house. The family is all sat down for dinner, minding our own business, and the first we know of it is hearing a huge ka-clop, ka-clop, ka-clop as the goat comes absolutely flying up the stairs with a bin lid stuck around his neck.

anon-sundown asked you: a day ago As it turned out, we needn't have worried. The goat's reaction to the big scary dogs was to headbutt them, full in the face. The German Shepherd was the one scared of the goat! After the goat had grown a bit and become too big for the balcony, he was relocated to a nice little shed outside. But he still believed the balcony was /his/ balcony and his home, and thus would regularly sneak into the house and charge upstairs to try to get back there.

anon-sundown asked you: a day ago When the goat was just a little thing, it used to live out on the balcony on the second floor of our house. This was because we also had two dogs, an Australian Cattle dog and a fully grown German Shepherd. The former was about twice the size of the goat, and the latter three or four times bigger. We introduced them regularly, but didn't want them to share the same living space until the goat was a bit more grown up and less likely to be intimidated by the big scary dogs.

anon-sundown answered you: a day ago rp-sephiroth asked:

Hahahahaha, I loved the story of the goat. It made me really happy on a less than happy day! xD You're so full of good things, I can't imagine why you still hide. Over the past few weeks you've come across as a pretty rad friend. xD <3 Yes, you make me happy!

Ahhh, thank you! I’m so happy I can make you happy. ^_^ I have another tale of the goat for today’s silly story.

anon-sundown asked rp-writer-aisha: 2 days ago Oh! And just out of curiosity, how are you making the keyblade? I cosplayed Aqua one time and made Stormfall for her. It came out... okay, I guess, but a bit fragile. Someone leant on it and snapped it. orz So anyway, I'm interested to see what method/materials you're going to use. :)

anon-sundown asked rp-writer-aisha: 2 days ago I know what you mean about the self-acceptance thing. v_v And for me it never seemed reasonable or fair to expect anyone else to like you when you don't even like yourself. (This thinking is a significant part of why I'm always so terrified to talk to anyone new; it just seems so rude to impose my shitty self on them. orz) But I like you, and I'm sure the other people you mentioned who send you messages like and accept you too! It's probably not worth much, but there's that at least. ^^'

anon-sundown asked you: 3 days ago Then the goat came trotting along, looking pleased as punch with himself, with three or four cigarettes hanging out of his mouth. Ah, of course. The builder took off after the goat to try and get them back, but alas, it was too late for the cigarettes. They were chewed to pieces and covered in goat slobber. And the poor builder never did get to have a smoke that day.

anon-sundown asked you: 3 days ago The goat was also around. And goats, as you may know, will eat just about anything. On this particular day, 'anything' was the builder's entire packet of cigarettes that he had left out. He came asking us if we knew where his cigarettes had gone, and for a good while we were all searching around the area he'd misplaced them, scratching our heads.

anon-sundown asked you: 3 days ago Originally, Avoca Drive was bought as a plot of land, and my mum and stepdad had a house built on it. We moved in as soon as we could, with just a few finishing touches like carpets to go down and a concrete path to lay outside the front door (the latter of which meant we had to climb out a ground floor window to get out the house for a day or two while the concrete set, that was fun). So there were a few builders around, just finishing up whatever they needed to do.

anon-sundown asked you: 3 days ago While we were in the same house as the wombat incident (henceforth to be known as Avoca Drive, if I need to reference it again) we also owned a goat. And this goat-- oh Goddess, this goat. It was a donation from another family; they had won the goat in a charity auction, raising money for African villages and 'Give a Goat' sort of projects (hence why they were auctioning a goat, I suppose). But they discovered after the fact they didn't have the time/space to look after a goat, so it came to us.

I perched on the back of the sofa (up out of reach of marauding wombats; I wasn't taking on that thing either) and laughed at everyone. Eventually my brother joined me up on the sofa, and the wombat was led away to its overnight bunk in the cupboard under the house, where it the proceeded to keep everyone up all night trying to dig through the foundations.

anon-sundown asked you: 2 minutes ago He tried to shake the wombat off, changing direction and speeding up. The wombat only sped up after him. They ended up running round the room in panicked circles with my brother shouting for mummy. Mum swept in for a rescue attempt, but was not very successful. They /both/ ended up running round the room being chased by the wombat.

anon-sundown asked you: 3 minutes ago Now, this wombat had been trained at Taronga Zoo to follow people around, so the zoo keepers could easily get it to go where they wanted. So when we let it out to have a wander in the front room it began to follow around my brother. He was only ten at the time, and not terribly pleased by the large hairy creature tailing him at a distance far to close for comfort.

anon-sundown asked you: 5 minutes ago Okay, so back when we lived in Australia (as my stepdad is Australian; everything is always his fault), he and my mum owned a zoo in the Hunter Valley, several hours drive north of Sydney. We had acquired a wombat, a transfer from Taronga Zoo. Since our house was directly along and right in the middle of the route between Taronga in Sydney and the Hunter Valley, it was decided the wombat would stay a night at home to break up the journey.

anon-sundown asked you: a day ago We eventually got the noodles back after my mum went and yelled at the monkeys, though it wasn't terribly effective until the monkeys hissed back and scared my little sister. Then my mum actually got angry with them, and she is rather scary when angry. The monkeys dropped the jar and ran off, and thus victory was ours.

anon-sundown asked you: a day ago One time the door to the house was left open and two monkeys broke in. One stood guard at the door while other darted into the kitchen, jumped up on to the counter and proceeded to raid the cupboard. They made off with a jar of pot noodles and took to a nearby tree to try and prise the thing open (without much succes).

#hahahahaha #asreoninfusion

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consummate-deviant · 6 years

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The Character of Android 17

What’s up, friendos? So, Android 17 has been the toast of the town in Dragon Ball circles lately. Don’t get me wrong, that’s awesome and definitely deserved: the dude is unquestionably the MVP of the tournament of power, and if you try to say otherwise, I’ll… shrug and carry on with my day, I guess. You do you, I ain’t your dad.

No, but seriously, go to any discussion forum or comment section these days, and you’ll see plenty of people talking about how great and cool 17 was, and how he’s definitely shone more than any other during the current arc. I agree with the sentiment whole-heartedly, so we’re not here to discuss that, rather, I want to bring up some of the negativity that has come along with this newfound bump in fan appreciation.

See, where there’s hype, there must be backlash, and 17 has been subjected to plenty of that. With every more popular member of team universe 7 to be eliminated before him, the number of people bitter at his continued presence grew. This is fine, in and of itself, for the ‘not your dad’ reason I listed above, but there are two specific complaints I occasionally hear about 17 that I just can’t co-sign for you, and I decided to write this up to address them.

The first is: “He’s not even the same character he was! This guy doesn’t act anything like 17/has nothing in common with his DBZ incarnation”

the second is: “He’s boring/blank/bland! He has no personality.”

Since I’m one of the five people worldwide who listed Android 17 as his favorite character ever since the good ole days of Z, I figure the least I can do is roll up my sleeves and share some of the reasons I disagree with the above, as well as express how I see his actions and arc. We’ll go through the timeline of events he participated in, and see if we can’t parse together the delinquent he was with the chill park ranger he would become!

PART 1: A Reminder of the Android’s Origin and the Future Timeline

So, Android 17 was originally Lapis, a teenage delinquent who would often go out and rabble-rouse with his sister and his droogs, playing their rap music too loud, wearing pants with the waistband far lower than the waistband of pants should be allowed to hang in civilized society, and other stuff like that, I assume.

Unfortunately for the duo, Dr. Gero was about, looking for a team of teenagers with attitude he could convert into an armada of godless killing machines. One might feel prompted to ask why Gero intended to create machines so powerful that he couldn’t control them uness they wanted to listen to his orders, but sought the demographic of humans statistically least likely to ever listen to what an old man has to say to them to be the vessels of those machines, but this isn’t an essay about Gero being a silly, silly man.

Rather, the salient point to take out of the backstory we’re given is that 17 and 18 started out with a chip on their shoulder and a lack of love for people or society. We don’t get any info on their home life or their parents, but based on their choice of hobby, and the ease with which they were spirited away, we can safely assume there were no happy beginnings here. From the moment they became relevant to the universe of DB they were already in a position to hate society; being kidnapped by a madman and turned into cyborgs specifically to vent THAT madman’s hatred of society only exacerbated this, resulting in a mixture that basically burned the world to the ground.

Fast forward to some time later, and humans are an endangered species, Gohan has been disarmed, and Trunks has been brought to the verge of death. We don’t really learn a lot about the personalities of the future incarnation of the androids. They behaved like a pair of psychopathic children, destroying the world less because of any deeply held hatred or bloodlust, but more because it sounded like a fun idea and what else were they gonna do with their weekend? They share some elements of their character with the versions of themselves who would be proper cast members, which I’ll get to later, but for the purposes of the story they were more of a force of nature than anything.

It’s too late for the future… but not the entire multiverse! So Trunks head back to the past, but hold up, Jack! Would his warnings prove accurate?

Part 2: Android 17 in DBZ

The first thing we learn about android 17 is that he’s a troll. Seriously, not only is he quite sardonic in his disposal of his stepdad, the first interaction he has with the Z warriors, his nominal enemies, is to beckon Krillin over to him, then abruptly stand up and frighten him. No end game, no intent to harm, he just really wanted to screw with the poor guy. He’s a gadfly who frequently says and does things for no greater reason than to see the reaction they provoke in others.

The second thing we learn is that he shares his future incarnation’s flippant, whimsical attitude, but to a less morbid extreme. He makes short work of the assembled heroes, but treats it like clearing the arcade mode of a fighting game, stopping at the knockout and expressing a hope they may be more fun if he encounters them again. When 18 steps up to fight Vegeta, 17 reacts to it like a child whose sister beat him to calling dibs on the front seat during a car trip.

The third thing we learn is that he is one cocky little punk. He refers to himself as the ultimate warrior on multiple occasions, brags constantly about himself, and treats the notion of anyone being his rival, much less stronger than he is, as a notion so ridiculous that it doesn’t even deserve his contempt.

These three traits are important because they remain central to his disposition even as a grown man, albeit to a far more muted and mature degree, even though his personality does change quite a bit during the ten years we don’t see him. It may be tempting to say that being eaten by a bug man was what served to put a sock in his constant “I’m the best in the world” talk, and that certainly did play a role in who he became, but I would say his character started to change a little bit before that: during his fight with Piccolo.

The thing about 17’s strength is that it has nothing to do with martial prowess. As a delinquent he certainly had experience in street fights, but he never did any formal training, or did anything that would require effort or discipline. When Gero made 17 an android he made him so strong that he could crush anyone he encountered, but it was just that, raw strength. It had no technique or prowess behind it.

As the fight progresses, we see 17’s attitude toward Piccolo change subtly. At the start, he’s just a toy to be played with, another level in his game to be cleared and forgotten about, but as it progresses Piccolo does something that 17 had never encountered before: he holds his own. With skill and grace, he matches every move 17 has, blow for blow. In the past 17 had had many fights as a bully and a thug, but this was the first time in his life he did battle as a warrior, and he liked the feel of it. He expresses a kind of respect for piccolo as their fight reaches its end, even though it is couched in his trademark, planet-sized, ego. It was an encounter that took the first step toward redeeming him, and setting him down the path we would see him walking in Super.

...and then a bug ate him… Yeah, it’s hard to stay arrogant after you’ve been eaten by a bug, so that helped too. My big sticking point is that it’s often assumed that if Cell hadn’t screwed up the flow of events, the modern androids would have eventually became their future selves, but I think there’s a chance for their redemption even without Cell, provided at some point in time 18 meets Krillin and 17 fights the fused Kami-Piccolo.

Part 3: 17 in DBS and the Tournament of Power

Ten years pass, Android 17 is, if not in his thirties, pushing up close to ‘em for certain. His personality is now quite placid, and he’s a family man, carrying on 16’s spirit by protecting nature, and carrying on the fire that Piccolo lit in him a decade ago by training constantly to improve his technique. Now, I maintain that his character is still consistent, but does he BEHAVE differently now? Of course he does. Look, I don’t know how old you are, reader person, but I promise you, when more than a few seasons separate you from your teenage years, you will look back at who you were as a teenager, and the things you did… and you will cringe. Hard. Heck, I’m in my thirties now, and I look back at the things I said and did in my early twenties and cringe, sometimes. Growing older is a game of constantly realizing how ridiculous you used to be and hoping you’re less ridiculous now.

So yeah, he is more mature, but the three elements that are the center of his character are intact. He is a merciless gadfly throughout his entire run in Super. He exchanges affectionate barbs with his sister when he meets her daughter, he teases Krillin’s nervousness around him, despite expressing to Goku that he was fond of the man, and considered him his brother, and in general never openly acting like he took anything he encountered as seriously as he really did.

He still tends to treat everything around him like a giant game, made most evident by all of his interactions with Universe 2, but most of all with Ribrianne and her Kamikaze Fireballs, playing the role they provided him with abandon and gusto- when Ribrianne accused him of being a villain from some kind of magical girl anime… he promptly starts hamming it up and acting like a villain in some kind of magical girl anime!

He’s no longer the loud mouthed braggart he was as a teenager, sure, but his faith in himself remains strong. It’s just that it’s no longer childish, absolute arrogance, and instead has been tempered into a realistic confidence in his own abilities. When faced with insurmountable odds, he remains calm and studies his situation carefully, never moving recklessly, but also never losing faith in his ability to eventually find a way to overcome the situation he finds himself in.

The tournament of power DOES introduce an important arc to 17’s character, though, and it’s a surprisingly subtle one. Sadly, I’ve already typed up 2,000 words on the subject, so I’m going to go ahead and stop here for now. This is how I perceive the character, and why I like him so much. If anyone wants me to, I may type up the second essay on 17 I have rattling around in my head sometime, and reveal how 17 accomplishes something impossible: makes JIREN an interesting antagonist.

#dragon ball super #dragon ball z #android 17 #db super

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