#for that to become a Regular thing or even just $900+ every time is honestly going to relieve so much stress.

[weathernerdmando]

My student refund and paycheck deposited and uh. I have more money at this point in time than I've ever had to my name.

Just. Kinda stunned to see that amount of money in my bank account. For once. I can't go wild or anything lol bc that would still tear through it but I don't have to worry about bills as long as I don't spend from the account dedicated to it. That's. Fucking WILD.

#it's $3153 which isnt a ton but like. to me that IS a ton. #I've never had $3000 to my name before. and about $725-50ish??? is bills #but $1800 is set aside as savinga for the hotel room at dragoncon rn (which doubles as a big emergency fund) #and $400 for emergency funds. i have 200 something in my “spendinf” account and im debating putting another $100 into that savings. unsure. #i might not tho #bc gas is like $25ish per fill up usually and i have to do that at least twice a week usually #so i need to leave that alone probably #assistant managwr pay is Wild apparently and lowkey this is on the low end #like my hours since this paycheck have been a lot higher and like. we had a solid weekend for once so uh. #lowkey wouldnt be surprised if my next paycheck is over $1000 after taxes. #which would be insane. even seejnf my last paycheck was surreal bc its the second or third time in almost 3 years ive made that much on ONE. #for that to become a Regular thing or even just $900+ every time is honestly going to relieve so much stress. #if its over $1000 consistently i might be able to afford rent. not somewhere thats the nicest but. still. #the possibility is a lot closer than it used to be. I'm just. uh.

[oviids]

pls share some of your spn fic recs 🥺🥺

ok, a few things first:

followers and mutuals who do not have supernatural brainworms, kindly avert your eyes

i don’t normally rec or even read much fanfic any more but this is a CRISIS ok (cont.)

there is so. much. content for deancas out there and i have incredibly high standards, several ancient ao3 bookmarks, can speedread, and want to spare you guys the experience of wading through it all.

i also have a section for spn femslash since I was pretty into that back in the day (sadly a lot less fan content for this :/)

I don’t really like au’s or pure smut (I honestly usually just skim or skip those scenes) so if you’re mainly looking for that kind of thing this probably won’t be very helpful to you. jsyk.

i’m not great at describing stuff but i’ll do my best, i’ll also try and add tw’s when neccesary.

i wil try and keep updating this with any other decent fics i find, feel free to rec stuff too since i’m like 7 years behind.(edit 1/25/21) this is getting looooong so i’m going to start making another list on my spn blog rather than update this one

(edit 1/3/21) since this has gotten pretty long i’ve added rating/approximate word counts and marked my particular favorites with an asterisk.

Dean/Cas fic:

So Says The Sword*** - explicit/85k. FUCK its good...au/time travel where dean is not pulled out of hell by cas and says yes to becoming the michael sword. honestly could serve as an alternative to actually watching the show, if you want to get into dean/cas without actually doing that to yourself.

Fata morgana.*  - teen/6k, pst s9 finale. very bela centric and i love it, she finds cas looking for dean in hell.

Redemption Road -misc/600+k. an incredibly long fic from a collaborative writing group back in the day. canon divergent from the end of s6 on, has a cool take on godstiel and the leviathans, as well as the lovecratian mythos connection. ngl when i reread it i only made it about 28% in but imo the casual reader can actually stop around there, the rest concerns a lovecraftian apocalypse that is still good (i think i don’t remember it very well) but not required to enjoy the first half. if you prefer i have an ebook version i can send you on gdrive.

Someone Who's Feeling For Me* - mature/45k, s12. they run into lisa braeden and dean thinks cas is into her while cas thinks dean still likes her. treats lisa way better than the show ever did and the miscommunication is pretty funny rather than annoying.

a turn of the earth - mature/95k. time travel fic where cas from s10 keeps showing up in deans life from a few years before s1 to right before the hellhounds take his soul.  slow burn, good character study, and at one point cas punches the dad in the face and it rules.

On the Wings of War - teen/85k, canon divergent s5. dean accidentally becomes the Horseman of War. plays fun, fast and loose with biblical lore, michael has some rights.

Named - mature/95k, alternate s5. EXTREMELY blasphemous in a fun sexy way. manages to predict metatron almost to a T. there’s one major character death and its literally jesus christ, everyone is very sad about it and it sets the rest of the story rolling. an alternate interpretation of cas’ mission to raise dean from hell which had me on the floor. ngl its kind of misogynistic at points, but its from 2010 and tracks with late oughts-2010 spn (sorry anna the author did you dirty here:/).

The Girlfriend Experience - explicit/15k. uhhh i don’t normally rec or even read smutty stuff unless someone i know is specifically asking for it but this has stuff like sam trying to be a good ally and dean thinking holding hands with cas is ‘kinda gay :/’ minutes after having gay sex with him.

i crippled your heart a hundred times - explicit/19k, s8. cas confesses his feelings and dean spends a long time getting his head out of his ass about it. truly hits different after the actual confession, despite being written six years early it feels like its actually what could have gone down more or less if the writers weren’t talentless demons who hate us.

My Roots Take Flight** - mature/125k. reverse au where cas is a hunter and dean’s an angel...OR IS IT???? an alternate retelling of s4. tw for briefly being set in a psychiatric hospital/the hospital being mentioned somewhat frequently throughout the fic, plus more references to torture in hell and heaven than usual.

The One Thing You Can't Lose* - teen/4k.you know those posts about how cas is a super-strong super-tough ancient warrior but he just lets dean tug him around because he likes it? thats it thats the fic.

Hands, From Which All Things Are Built - teen/14k, post s8′s ‘goodbye stranger.’ cas is on the run with the angel tablet but keeps in touch with sam and dean by text, he and dean still manage to be terrible at Actual communication.

Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day - mature/30k, post s11. a monster that takes the appearance of your soulmate leads to some wild miscommunications and dealing with years of repression, also dean gets to see cas’ true form which is always cool. tw for non-graphic mentions of underage sexual assault/sex work.

Down to Agincourt - mature/explicit/900++++k, endverse continuation. endverse!cas survives his encounter with lucifer and discovers another time-displaced dean from s7. i’ve only read the two of four parts but its really good, veeeeery slow burn, has a lot of fun oc’s and takes a rather surprising but (imo) entertaining and intriguing turn into Hellenic history and mythology. usual tw’s for endverse/endverse!cas but nothing graphic, it’s actually pretty light-hearted (relatively speaking of course).

Nothing Equals the Splendor** - explicit/8k, THEE finale fix it fic you’ve been waiting for! posits that the entire final episode was just a (very bad and lame) djinn’s vision.

like moses and batman and james dean - explicit/31k, post s8. explores dean’s trauma and internalized homophoba from his technically canon experience with sex work and its impact on his relationship with cas. the sex work itself isn’t really shown in any detail but it’s still a relatively heavy fic.

Crazy Diamonds - explicit/25k, s4/alternate s14. fresh-out-of-hell dean and dean from 10 years in the future are displaced from time and sent to each other’s present.

where the weeds take root - explicit/30k. au where the men of letters kick them out of the bunker and they accidentally move out into the country, get over their codependence and semi retire. featuring chicken coop building, sam volunteering at a dog shelter, gardening, and blissfully mundane domesticity.

No Resting Place - teen/6k. djinn dream fic, switches back and forth between cas’ dream of being married to dean and retired from hunting to the aftermath when he wakes up. tw for brief mention of suicide since, y’know, djinn dream.

any port in a storm - mature/52k. post s8 finale. cas and dean have to pose as a couple going through a rough patch for a case and actually deal with their emotional baggage, cas struggles with being human and metatron is up to stuff.

all this and heaven too* - explicit/7k. in the author’s own words ‘...a love letter to every trans person who ever projected onto Dean Winchester.’ absolutely unzipped me emotionally and theologically, its just. so good. tw for very brief mentions of internalized transphobia/dysphoria.

Because it is* - mature/6k, finale fix it. killing chuck does not bring back anyone back and the winchesters spend a very long time dealing with what they’ve lost, cas and dean SOMEHOW still manage to have signifigant communication issues even after the confession. tw for suicidal thoughts/brief attempt.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit* - teen/4k, s6. when cas fell for dean it automatically soulbonded/angel married them, shenanigans ensue when dean finds out during the angel’s civil war. funny and actually written back when s6 was airing so cas is still (or at least pretending to be) kind of an OP asshole which is fun.

Rinse, Repeat - teen/3k, s8. angsty character study of cas as he’s reprogrammed and trained to kill dean. not really dean/cas since its just cas’ pov of canon events but its beautifully written and ends with him snapping out of it through the power of love (also now a canon event!).

Emergence - explicit/59k, canon divergent after s11. dean meets a hunter he only recognizes as their friend claire novak’s missing father, but soon realizes he might be the answer behind the mysterious void in his memories and feelings (aka everyone’s memories of cas are completely wiped away for three years).

Cuckoo And Nest - explicit/10k, early established relationship/character study, cas tries to figure out how he fits into dean’s life and space in the bunker.

Build a Home* - teen/20k, canon divergent s12. sam and eileen are cute and turn the bunker into men of letters/hunters hq and everyone but cas moves in, mutual miscommunication issues and pining ensues.

Down in the River - teen/5k, early s8, cas prays to dean in purgatory while sam and dean try to figure out a way to get him out.

Teaching Poetry to Fish* - mature/52k, ?? BC through the entire series/canon divergent s14 and 15. retelling of crucial scenes throughout the shows timeline from cas’ pov, feat. actual fish and poetry.

the minor fall, the major lift - gen/4k, post confession/finale fixit. dean goes into the empty to save cas and runs into several old friends (and enemies).

With the Kisses of His Mouth* - teen/3k, gen later seasons. dean and cas keep kissing by accident.

Remaining Grace - explicit/109k, alternate s6. au where cas asks dean for help with raphael and dean, of course, does. tw for temporary major character death/semi-graphic depictions of alcohol withdrawal.

The face of heaven.* - teen/10k, au, dean is a regular guy and cas is a fallen star (think ‘stardust’, kinda).

Stories Are Made of Mistakes*  - teen/5k. newly human cas has trouble getting used to a human body and humanity in general, but still figures out that he and dean are A Thing before dean does.

Hurry Up And Wait - mature/21k, canon divergent s12. a fairyland and quite possibly LOTR related case comes up and dean goes full fanboy, mary is introduced to the wonders of the peter jackson adaptions, many references and comparisons (including between cas and dean’s ‘friendship’ and arwen/aragon). also charle is still alive and has just been doing fairy stuff this whole time.

There Are Many Things - explicit/28k, s9. cas is extremely lonely/touch-starved and trying to figure out this whole human thing, as well as where he and dean stand after being kicked out of the bunker.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing - teen/40k, post s11 finale. amara helps dean by putting him in a magical coma so he can finally get some much needed rest and show him possible futures for him, sam and cas. meanwhile sam and cas go on a roadtrip (or several) to find componets for a spell to wake dean up. really good sam and cas friendship, they actually talk about their shared lucifer trauma and stuff.

Non-Photo Blue - gen/2k, s4/5/alternate s5. fifty moments from cas’ memories of dean.

Tall Grass - explicit/57k, canon divergent post series. cas becomes the ultimate plant dad. feat the wayward sisters gang, cathartic character growth, fun oc’s, domesticity, and lots of actual botanical info-dumping.

on vessels - no rating/gen/2k. established dean/cas, cas tells dean about how he used to imagine what it would be like to have him as his vessel.

search for tomorrow on every shore* - teen/11k, post-finale (extremely derogatory). some angels in jack’s new heaven act out and dean gets temporarily resurrected in 2003 and runs into his younger self.

Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart - explicit/45k, very canon divergent post s1. dean’s new house seems to have a life and mind of its own, while in his dreams he sees glimpses of a world and apocalypse that never came to be and an angel that looks strangely like his mysterious neighbor, cas. loosely inspired by the book house of leaves (which i highly recommend for fans of weird horror).

The Distance Of The Setting Sun - explicit/17k, post s5. established dean/cas relationship, team free will finally takes advantage of cas’ abilities to go on vacation around the world.

diamond star halo - teen/5k, s11. dean lets cas use him as a temporary vessel while he recovers from rowena’s spell, sam is a long-suffering third-wheel.

Make Known** - teen/16k, s6/7. dean struggles to understand how cas could have become his enemy and whether he ever truly knew him in the first place.

blunt little instrument* - mature/1.4k, post finale. dean finally confronts his father in heaven, very cathartic.

my heart a compass*** - teen/10k, post confession. the empty forces cas to re-experience his most regretted moments while dean tries to snap him out of it and bring him home.

A Crash Course in Someone Else's History - teen/11k, s6. cas from the very start of s4 is brought forward in time by s6!cas to distract the brothers from his and crowley’s plans.

The Cuckoo Father - mature/8k, s7 au. the woman who found cas in the river post-leviathans does not marry him bc he was sent to her by god or whatever, but actually identifies him as jimmy novak and sends him back to claire and amelia.

The Dead Dean Clause* - teen/5k, post alt s5 ending. team free will celebrates surviving taking down lucifer by getting blitzed, cas lies to a cop and gets an impromptu driving lesson. title/description sound dark i know but it’s actually very funny and light.

Suck It, Judy Garland - mature/20k, s12 (after the ‘i love you...i love all of you’ episode). cas and sam have to pretend to be a couple for a case and dean is NOT happy about it.

By Daylight and In Dream - teen/16k, s5. pre-dean/cas, dean invites cas to use his dreams to hide from the other angels. tw for very brief mention of a memory/dream of alastair sexually assaulting dean.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - mature/22k, post-canon. an actually happy (if sometimes bittersweet) heaven endgame written several years ago, though some details are rather eerily similar to the show’s ending.

heaven is a place on earth* - teen/2k. dean’s pov of some of the times cas left him behind throughout the show, and one alternate ending where he finally gets to stay.

I Cleanse The Mirror - teen/20k, alternate s6. dean’s body is stolen by an ancient elemental and his soul has to hitch a ride in cas’ vessel.

an exploration of gender; angelic*** - mature/4k. *oscar isaac voice* lets get into angel gender politics!! aka cas is trans.

Zenith - explicit/33k, s9. after 9x06 an angry witch curses cas with the ability to see supernatural beings and human souls.

La cucina. - gen/3k, alt s9. dean goes wild helping a newly-human cas find out what kinds of food he likes, or the early s9 domesticity we deserved!

Dean Winchester, Cocksucker at Rest***** - teen/7k, post-finale. john and mary finally come over for dinner and john reacts to dean/cas in a rather predictable fashion. SOOOOOOOOO good omg, its so funny and a little sad and very very cathartic. part of a series that has a few other really good short fics.

The Way You Didn't Go - teen/5k, s15. coda to 15.09, dean has nightmares about the moc!cas timeline.

On Drowning - teen/28k. dean saves cas after he nearly drowns, they both try and deal with the physical/mental fallout (aka the fic where thee iconic “you only touch me when you think I’m dead or dying” originates). tw for realistic depictions of drowning/triage/misc medical information.

The Thirty-Six Questions That Lead to Love* - mature/13k. claire has dean and cas pretend to be her gay dads for a case and they play the titular 36 question game, get mistaken for swingers, and birdwatch, among other things.

Assorted F/F stuff:

Deep Breaths* - mary/ellen, au where mary said no to azazel’s deal and let john stay dead, still becomes a milf.

Like Rebel Diamonds - krissy/claire, they become hunter gf’s on the hunt for cas to kick his ass for taking jimmy. not-so-stealth dean/cas as well.

To Ash and Bone - anna/ruby, same author as the previous fic (p much all of her stuff is good from what i recall). au where ruby is a witch and helps anna when she’s cursed.

Holy Clockwork Angels - jo/ruby, STEAMPUNK au with very cool worldbuiilding.

At Day's End - jo/anna (my fucking KINGDOM for more jo/anna content, the dean/cas parallels are allllll there), au where they are both at the camp in the endverse and gfs.

these posts - ok so not actually a fic but i’m now obsessed with this hannah/meg dynamic.

Tagelied - mary/ellen, the true story of how ellen got into hunting before angels interfered.

Hell's Bells** - meg/abaddon, alternate s8/9 where meg survives crowley’s attack with sam’s help and teams up with abaddon (who she has a sk year old crush on) to take back hell.

The Ecstasy of the Rose - anna/ruby, anna travels back in time to escape heaven and becomes a signifigant part of ruby’s old human life.

Angel Underground - anna/jo, kind of an urban fantasy au with a very intriguing premise (sadly its very short, i’d love to see more if this ‘verse).

Clover, Flame - billie/mary, billie was always the reaper that showed up to take mary after her death(s) over the years.

Drag Me To Heaven - anna/ruby, a variant on the ‘last night on earth’ thing with dean.

Come Home* - jo/anna, canon-divergent au where anna is the new waitress at the roadhouse and helps jo set up a (probably not really) haunted house for halloween.

#if you told me i'd be doing this in 2020 three weeks ago i'd have laughed in your face :/ #deancas #supernatural #fic recs #spn femslash #destiel #fic #the alie tag #spn posting

[teddystrap]

[神なる君と] Spirit duo - Yuzuru

Hmm I think the recommended order of the routes is: Narumi -> Yuzuru -> Yakumo -> Rei (-> Mikoto). So I kind of spoiled part of Yuzuru’s story by doing Yakumo first. But I wanted to do the two osananajimi routes one right after the other to get a good comparison. Also this route proves why Yakumo will always be my hero, even though he himself doesn’t feel confident enough to fulfil the role.

-Ninokami Yuzuru-

Yes I know your name is spelled with a 「づ」 not a 「ず」, but ‘Yuduru’ just sounds incredibly stupid to my English-speaking brain, so...

Yuzuru is the president of the student body and Yakumo’s close friend and classmate. It was revealed in Yakumo’s route that several hundred years ago, he saved a Takekiyo ancestor from being a human sacrifice by giving him a medicine that brought him back from the dead - thereby extending the curse to the kid’d descendants. Now here we get the full story:

Yuzuru was once a God (his surname ‘Ninokami’ is a dead giveaway), he came to earth and befriended a child (Yakumo’s ancestor). Later he found out that the child would be sacrificed to prevent the Great Demon’s curse, so he tried to persuade him to run away, but the child refused. So in the end the villagers got their sacrificial ceremony, and Yuzuru stole a forbidden medicine from Heaven and brought the child back to life.

For that he was punished, stripped of his godly powers and banished to earth as a demon. A blizzard started happening around the same time that lasted many years and claimed many lives (by famine), and the humans totally thought it was his fault for saving the boy (even though he did it after the fact so there was no conflict). The villagers locked him up in a dungeon and tortured him for many decades. At first he believed that the boy he saved would come and rescue him, but he gradually lost hope, and finally when the boy (now an old man) came to save him, he had already reached misanthropy level 900...

As part of his punishment, he is supposed to perform community service on earth and accumulate enough karma to restore his godly powers and return to Heaven. So he’s been happily (well, deep down angrily) doing that for a few hundred years, until Sakuya and co. came along. Early on in the route, Sakuya was confronted by the baleful spirits who died during the famine, who asked her to avenge their death by killing *a certain demon* (ahem *Yuzuru*).

Not knowing who they are talking about, she went to Yuzuru for help, and ofc he refused. So then she went back to negotiate with the spirits and they started attacking her like crazy. Yuzuru saved her and healed her, using up all his karma in the process, so now he has to start over from zero. He decides to start a new life, so he erases everybody’s memories (yes he can do that) and disappears without a trace.

The next day Sakuya goes to school and enters the *Twilight Zone*, because nobody knows/remembers ‘Yuzuru-senpai’, and there’s no record of him ever existing. Finally she found Yakumo who also remembers the poor bastard. Yakumo speculates that those closest to him have memories that are too strong to be erased by his memory-erasing powers. They hold a group meeting to try to find him, but in the meantime time is of the essence because even their memories are fading...

Yakumo-nii-san totally came to our rescue in this route ｯ(ﾉω･､)ﾟ.+°

Sakuya goes to Mikoto for help, and he takes her to the Ancient God who placed the curse on Yuzuru. For some reason the Ancient God takes the form of Yorihito the stone hound with evil eyes and has a disembodied robot voice. But anyway. The Ancient God tells her Yuzuru’s whole history, and she decides to return his act of grace by helping him return to Heaven.

She eventually finds Yuzuru and latches on to him like a stage-5 clinger because she’s scared he’ll disappear again. Then, with the help of Aki and Fuu-san’s tools, she goes back to find the baleful spirits and successfully sends them off to be reincarnated. This drained a lot of her powers and she fell sick for a while, until Narumi notices something is wrong and her life is at risk. 

She goes back to the Ancient God, who tells her that the bad energy from the spirits is slowly eating away at her, and she will die in a few years - unless Yuzuru gives up all his supernatural powers to heal her, and becomes a regular human. So she doesn’t have to die, and he can stay on earth with her. Two birds with one stone, how convenient, you can’t make this stuff up... except Otomate totally did rofl XD.

(Also somebody probably should’ve told her this stuff before she went and saved those evil spirits huh.)

All this talk about the impenetrability of Fate is frankly kind of ironic in a ‘choose your own ending’ visual novel.

So Sakuya doesn’t want to keep Yuzuru from returning to Heaven. She tries to come to terms with the fact that she’s going to die... when Yuzuru found out about all this from Narumi, and decides to give up all his powers to save her. He takes her to a hilltop on hoshimatsuri night and gives her the Kiss of Death Life.

In the good end he gets a job after graduation at the same government agency as Aki and is responsible for watching over the peace of Mikagurayama. He asks Sakuya to move in with him (she agrees ofc), and they get married after a few years. (She also gives him a badly knit scarf but whatever.) I didn’t make enough save states so I couldn’t get the other/bad endings, but tbh I don’t think I’m strong enough to handle a tragedy, after everything that this route has put me through...

[Thoughts] Honestly this route is the most emotional one for me so far, I felt like I really went through an entire relationship in this short span. The common/early events were a riot. I love the back-and-forth exchanges between them - you get some of it in Narumi/Yakumo’s routes, but since they were already close to her to begin with, the later contrast/transition in the interaction is not as great.

Normal couples finish each other’s sentences, but soul mates finish each other’s tsukkomi!

In a lot of ways I felt like Yuzuru really pushed Sakuya to her limits. In Yakumo’s route she was trying to be an emotionally responsible adult, but here she’s giving her best in everything she does - whether it’s working at his store or helping out with the student government events. Also Yuzuru is the only one who’s able to force her to study lol.

And ofc the grand gesture she did risking her own life to send him back to Heaven - she has to make sacrifices in every route, but here it felt like she really did it for him and not just for love. It seemed like she forgot about herself / their future momentarily when she was just thinking of making him happy by fulfilling his wish. I thought it really fit her personality.

Yuzuru is a total sweetheart!! I already liked him in all the other routes, and his own story certainly didn’t disappoint, he honestly can do no wrong. I almost feel like saying, here, here’s an ‘asshole’ character done right - he comes across as an asshole but everything he does is incredibly sweet and selfless (a ‘sharp tongue full of love’, as they say). Unlike in some games where the do-S bastards do nothing but abuse the heroine and she somehow still ends up falling in love with them out of some Stockholm Syndrome or something. But anyway that’s another story.

One thing I noticed is that Sakuya says, ‘うれしい／うれしかった’ a lot in this route, which is proof of how happy Yuzuru made her and what a great guy he is (*/^-^)/. Seriously this game just has one great character after another, I feel like I like each one more than the last and I can’t choose!

When Sakuya told Narumi her fear of losing her memories of senpai, Narumi opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it... I wonder what he was about to say?

Sakuya is also extra cute in this route - the way she held Yuzuru's hand and wouldn’t let go when she finally found him, the way she got jealous that he was polite to everyone else, etc. It almost makes up for her eating up all his karma lol. Also I guess the writers are trying to avoid spoilers, but I kind of wonder what happened to Yakumo in this route, because there was no mention of his ‘condition’ here. (This route did display the epic bromance between those two, though. Even more than in Yakumo’s route.)

...At this point I only have Rei’s route left, before I get to the hidden character ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ) [ミコトさん、私を待っててくれ！]. Rei is adorable even though I don’t get the romantic feels for him (#shouta; I guess the fact that he’s unusually mature for his age makes up for it a little bit), but nonetheless (a) his story is a total mystery, and (b) I’m really curious how the writers would make his ending work, since as a ghost/wandering spirit he’s supposed to find his purpose and be sent of back to the reincarnation cycle.

#otome #otome game #idea factory #otomate #kami naru kimi to #psp #visual novel #wafuu #supernatural #romance #sakurai takahiro

[kaikhaos]

The Hurricane Sandy Saga Continues…

So here’s the story of my life since October 28, 2012 and all the chaos that has come with it. This is not a happy story, so far, but I’m hoping you guys can help make it one, or at least help prevent a bad end. This is a story of corrupt banks, government bullsh*t, and a 25 year old disabled trans queer who just wants to go home. Over the next five thousand words, I hope you realize the extent of how life has repeatedly NOPED at any sense of logic. At the end of my story, I’m going to ask you to help me out if you can and to spread the word either way.

The tl;dr version is that my family is facing homelessness for the fourth time in eighteen months and I really need you guys’ help to get us back into a stable situation so this never happens again. The mortgage company has screwed us yet again and is holding on to $250,000 that is supposed to be ours. So while we own one house and one newly demolished lot, we have nowhere to live. If you can at all help out, please do. My paypal link is here: http://paypal.me/mihaelkai .

My name is Aleks. This is my story.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: I’m disabled. I have been legally recognized as disabled since I was 18. I have a combination of mental health issues and physical health issues that make it so my capacity on any given day varies greatly from “I made it through a day at a con thanks to lots of painkillers!” to “I brushed my teeth today and didn’t cry doing it!” But I try. Anxiety, depression, C-PTSD, & ADD are just a few of the things I’ve been diagnosed with by my therapist and psychiatrist, paired with diagnoses from my doctors of migraines, fibromyalgia, and a degenerative connective tissue disorder known as Ehlers-Danlos that all combine to leave me in fairly constant pain basically everywhere. My brain and my body attack me constantly but I still try to do what I can. Unfortunately, it means I can’t just go out and get a 9-5 or retail job to help fix my situation. I can only do what I can do and I have to know my limits.

I live with my mother and my QPP Luca who are both also disabled.

You may know in 2012 we were hit by Hurricane Sandy. If you don’t know that, you’re about to find out. We had six feet of water in our house and my grandfather’s house next door (AKA: my inheritance) floated off of its foundation and was straight up condemned. Ever since then, life has been, in a word, chaos. It’s gotten to be a theme in our house that if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Even my therapist has given up on making any kind of treatment plan and is basically just focusing on damage control. And honestly, at this point, I just wanna go home.

But Aleks, it’s been seven years, why aren’t you home yet? Oh boy, I am SO glad you asked. Let’s get into this history.

First, a prequel. I’m not rich, my family isn’t rich, but we get by. Our house wasn’t big, but it was beautiful. In 2006, my mother bought two tiny houses next door to each other from an old man who wanted to sell them to a family the way he’d grown up in the smaller house while his parents lived in the other house. The one house was a six hundred square foot bungalow that would become my grandfather’s and its neighbor was a seven hundred square foot house that would become mine and my mother’s.

Our house was gorgeous and cute. Built in the early 1900s by a tinsmith with scraps from all of his jobs, all of the walls were tin instead of sheetrock or plaster, the floors were gorgeous hardwood, and the three bedrooms were each under a hundred square feet. It was tiny but it was ours.

On August 28th, 2011, that house was hit by Tropical Storm Irene. Our house was flooded by two feet of water on the first floor. The Atlantic Ocean took out our floors, cabinets, appliances, electrical outlets, the bathroom tile, and the furniture, not to mention rusting the heck out of the bottom of the tin walls. It took six months to get the final eighty thousand dollar settlement out of the insurance company.

The check was deposited by the mortgage company who said they would hold onto it and dole it out as we hired contractors or finished repairs. But here’s the thing: The settlement barely covered enough for the supplies, so we maxed out credit cards and depleted personal savings and finished our repairs a few months later with the help of very few contractors and a lot of DIY.

We installed our kitchen appliances as the last step and called the mortgage company that day to ask them to come and inspect and verify the repairs were done so they could release the other seventy thousand dollars that they were holding onto. They said they were backed up and that they would come and inspect in a month.

Our new stove was 22 days old when Hurricane Sandy hit us.

Where Irene was manageable, Sandy was devastating. My grandfather’s house floated on the storm surge and landed three feet away from its foundation. The legs of our lawn table were bent and sticking out from under the house like the damn wicked witch or something. Our house on the other hand shifted by an inch. Not much, you’d think, but enough to break every pipe in the house and damage the entire structural stability of the house.

The town building department condemned my grandfather’s house and wrote ours up as “more than 50% damaged”.

Needless to say, both houses were left completely and totally uninhabitable.

The mortgage company inspector came and said because everything was wet and ruined that they “couldn’t certify the repairs were completed” even when we were standing there with a stack of receipts and before and after pictures, clearly proving everything had been replaced since most of the materials had been changed. So they decided they wouldn’t release the $70,000 they were holding onto from Irene until the new SANDY repairs were done. Even though we’d already spent that money on repairs and run up debt because of it, they decided they were just going to hold onto it for longer.

And honestly? Fuck those guys. They are the root of some of the most evil parts of this, as you’ll see.

So back to the Sandy damages. First, the insurance company offered us a FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLAR damage assessment. Fifteen thousand bucks when we had six feet of water in our house. For perspective, fourteen months before Hurricane Sandy, Tropical Storm Irene sent 24 inches of water into our house and the insurance company gave us eighty thousand dollars to make those repairs. So yeah, fifteen thousand wasn’t gonna do it. The construction estimates for the repairs were coming in around two hundred and fifty thousand.

So, of course, we appealed. Our engineer said parts of the house were outright dangerous from the damage and had to be torn down and replaced. We told the insurance company this and they told us they would send their own engineer. And… well… they sent SOMEBODY. Was that guy a licensed engineer? Nope. Did they tell us he was? Yup.

So then we appealed to FEMA. The judge from FEMA told them outright to send a LICENSED engineer in his decision and left it at that. So then they did. This guy now said he thought fifty thousand was gonna do it. The insurance company looked at his report and went “mmm… so how about thirty thousand?”

So… no. So then we had to hire a lawyer and took them to court. We weren’t the only ones, thousands of people had to file these lawsuits. The lawyer told us not to let the mortgage company cash the $30,000 of checks we’d been given for the storm so far because it could be argued to be us agreeing to that number. He said we just had to WAIT. So the checks got too old to cash.

The Visiting Nurse Service started sending a therapist to our house once a week for each of the three of us to help with “Hurricane-Related PTSD”. Yup. Cool. On top of my regular C-PTSD. Awesome. But the guy was nice and having therapists to talk to twice a week (my regular one and this guy) was helpful. And he gave me some worksheets that helped me kind of have more of a tool kit. Everything still sucked but hey, we all trudged on.

Pretty sure this was around when the first roofing shingles started falling off of our rental house. We told the landlord that this was a problem and that the property was going to start getting leaks in the roof. We pointed out that it said in our lease that he was supposed to fix this little ‘issue’.

Repeatedly.

Including in writing and by sending him photos of the slowly growing stack of shingles that were not on the roof anymore and the leaky window.

And he still did diddly squat about it.

For five years.

Meanwhile during this whole… process, New York State started the New York Rising program to help rebuild the houses who were tied up in lawsuits like ours or who didn’t have insurance like my grandfather’s. We applied right away. It seemed like an answer!

…So then uh… New York Rising LOST our file.

…Uh… Twice.

And when they finally DID decide to properly process our application, they gave us a grand total of $88,000 and put us in the ‘Build a whole new house’ category. Our house is, as I said, under 900 square feet in size. You literally cannot build a house in our area for that price at that size. Especially when it’s a property that needs 14 foot deep helical pilings and a nine foot high foundation to comply with current code. The foundation alone is $50,000. The lowest estimate we found from any construction company after no less than TEN bids was $180,000 NOT counting the architect who’s another $15,000. NY Rising expected us to be able to rebuild for a fraction of that. So we started looking into finding other financing possibilities while waiting on the lawsuit to continue going through.

We decided to hire our neighbour’s architect because he was something resembling almost affordable. We gave him a deposit. …A few weeks later, he had a heart attack while leaving the building department’s office. …A few weeks after that, he started being investigated for embezzling money from his clients.

At this point, we’d been out of our house for years. And more and more shingles kept falling off of the roof of the rental. Then a siding tile fell off too because the landlord’s son’s landscaping company crashed a lawnmower into it.

We started looking at houses to buy so that at least we would own something.

Then my grandfather (who had been a major contributor to our household finances) had a severe stroke. Six months later, he died. Suddenly we were $3,000 tighter per month. The possibility of buying a house went out the window. But we made do as best as we could.

FEMA was paying for the rental house we were living in while going through all of the appeal and lawsuit procedures and, when we hit their funding cap, New York Rising’s IMA program stepped in to pay “whichever is less, your rent or mortgage”. It still meant higher costs as the rent around here is more than our mortgage, but it made it so we could get by.

The one silver lining was that once my grandfather was out of the picture (since he’d been living with us in a shared rental since Sandy), I was able to start on testosterone injections. January 28, 2015, I was able to start my injections and officially begin the medical side of my transition.

Then New York Rising hit a cap on IMA funding. Which… sucked pretty fucking hard because then there was a few thousand a month more money we had to find to shell out. But then the program was extended and that was awesome.

Then our cat, Pickles, developed severe kidney problems. She was my best friend since the day she showed up on our doorstep a week after we bought our house in 2006 and wandered into the kitchen demanding petting. She moved into our lives and never left. I couldn’t give her up without a fight. So I spent all of my savings on her medical bills and started giving her saline injections twice a day every day to help her kidneys flush the toxins they couldn’t handle themselves.

Then the IMA ran out again. So back to the land of suck. They told us we would be eligible for a little more funding. But only if we demolished the existing house.

In order to legally demolish the house, we had to pay for a construction company to do it under their license. New York Rising expected us to be able to demo the house for $5,000. The lowest bid we received was for $9,000. When we told them this, their reaction was essentially “yeah, yeah, we know, just make it work”. Make it work is a cool and funny phrase when spoken by an aging fashion consultant on television. It’s not so cool or funny when it’s being told to you by the people who are supposed to help you fix your house. It is stressful as hell.

Then Pickles got sicker. And sicker. And her at-home dialysis wasn’t enough to keep her going anymore. Pickles passed in May 2016.

In 2017, we finally won our lawsuit. The judge ruled the insurance company had to release a full payment to the policy maximum of $250,000! Those jerks tried giving us $15,000 and the judge was like “Uh… no, this is $250,000 of damage”. Victory! But we were still out our legal fees because, unlike homeowner’s insurance where the insurance company pays the fees, flood insurance is federally underwritten so you’re not allowed to get the legal fees paid for. Some flood insurance companies realized they’d fucked up and as a result agreed to pay for the legal fees. Our flood insurance company… wasn’t so generous. But a check was still generated by the flood insurance company thanks to the judge. Huzzah, light at the end of the tunnel!

…Then the lawyer refused to sign the check.

Apparently our lawyer has had dealings with our mortgage company before and run into the same problem as we had with their “we’ll release your funding at the end” theory. Except for him that meant “we won’t pay out your legal fees until the house is finished” and he didn’t like that. So they wanted him to sign the check over to them and he wanted them to sign the check over to him. They spent years arguing over a piece of paper with some dollar signs on it while we got needlessly further into debt.

Then one of my ferrets, Wasabi, my emotional support animal, got really sick really suddenly.

By the time the vet scrambled to find out what was wrong, it was too late and he was gone. It turned out that he had a rare autoimmune condition caused by heavy metal exposure from the water. His sister survived, but now Lemon was alone and she and I were both devastated. Watching the way she would get excited and then sad any time we brought out a toy with Wasabi’s scent on it broke my heart so I replaced her toys.

A month later, people came knocking on our door offering free water filters if they would let us track the toxic plume of decades old industrial chemicals and waste spreading unhindered through the groundwater supply that had apparently reached us and was contaminating our pipes.

Eventually, during all this, New York Rising started to realize that their $160 per square foot amount just wasn’t enough when it came to houses like ours. So they started a program called the Recon 100 program. The goal of this program was supposed to be that New York Rising would take over the build process, they would hire contractors and architects in bulk, essentially hiring them for ‘bundles’ of 10 or 20 properties at a time to get them to accept a lower profit per house because they would be guaranteed months of solid work. We were signed up into the program.

Now, as a condition of this program, we had to stop doing any work on our own, we’d have to return whatever hadn’t been spent on repairs already, and we’d have to give them any insurance checks. But New York Rising was bragging about how they had programs that would allow you to repay the funding over several years because they knew everyone was using a little bit here or there to make ends meet. And that was all well and dandy because once the repairs were done, the mortgage company would release what they were holding one way or another. They would have to. …Right?

Meanwhile, our rental assistance hit the next cap. New York Rising told us not to worry because once this paperwork was approved, we’d be eligible for a higher cap of extended rental assistance. It was just a matter of waiting for the paperwork to get approved, they said.

Then our caseworker at New York Rising decided she was going to deny our receipts for the funds already spent. And that she wasn’t going to file the appeals to that denial that we explicitly asked her in writing to file.

Then on top of that, we discovered that at some point our NYR caseworker had decided to NOT sign us up for the extended timeline repayment thing because… fuck knows why, honestly? And that now she wasn’t going to apply us for it because “oh it’s full now”. So NY Rising decided that, before they’d do anything, they wanted us to give THEM the money that was still sitting in those pre-lawsuit paper checks that went old immediately. The government decided that we either had to magic the money of an un-cashed check out of thin air or else it was up to us to: 1, get them reissued, 2, get them deposited by the mortgage company, and 3, somehow get the mortgage company to issue that money to New York Rising.

And they wanted all this done in less than a week because they decided this in the last phase of our approval process and there were other deadlines really close. …Needless to say, the mortgage company was like “lol um nah” even to the theoretical idea of giving the money to NY Rising for the repairs, nevermind the hassle of getting the checks reissued by the flood insurance company with an active lawsuit ongoing.

New York Rising only said “too bad, figure it out yourself and PS because you’re not in this program anymore, we won’t give you the continued rental assistance, why aren’t you done rebuilding your house yet?” Meanwhile, we were waiting on them for months because they told us it was just waiting for the paperwork to go through.

Meanwhile, we had a new jerk of a builder/flipper neighbour. He’d bought the house next door to us when the family with the new baby decided it wasn’t worth waiting so many years to have their own house fixed. Let’s call him Fish Head. He decided to have his building supplies delivered to our neighbour’s yard WITHOUT her permission because there wasn’t enough room on his property. Straight up, he had a whole pallet of building supplies just dumped on her yard. She complained, obviously, and her husband threatened to call the cops. So he moved his shit to to OUR yard because we happened to not be there that day. It took WEEKS to get him to move the shit, even WITH calling the cops.

Turns out, cops don’t give a shit if someone puts hundreds of pounds of building materials on your yard. They’ll tell you you’re well within your rights to move it yourself but if you don’t have a forklift or a whole team of burly humans to assist you in the move then too bad so sad.

Thanks, Fish Head.

But back to the housing. We were months overdue on the rent because we were “just waiting for the paperwork to finish processing”. They told us we’d get all the back stuff in one lump payment. They lied and now we were up shit’s creek.

Our scummy landlord finally sent a notice saying “I’ve waited long enough, get out”. So that was… cool. We were able to keep him from coming after the back rent by pointing out that he was a slum lord and that we’d notified him in writing about being a slumlord, but it still meant we had to move out immediately and in a rush. Thankfully, it was May.

So on June 1st 2018, we moved into our RV parked at a local campsite. Three adults, a cat, and a ferret, crammed into an RV that was anything but recreational.

We installed cameras on our house around this point because Fish Head kept having his workers trample all over our property and they kept breaking things and leaving garbage everywhere.

Then the engineer said he thought he could figure out a way to save the main body of our house and raise it, that we’d only have to demolish off the back room and possibly the bathroom in order to raise it. It was another light at the end of a repeatedly lengthening tunnel. So we changed tracks completely and had him start drafting stuff up for us to raise the existing house, rebuilding only the porch.

Now, here’s the thing about the local campsites, we don’t have many of them and they sell out pretty quickly. Especially for the height of the summer. So they didn’t have any of their ‘full hook-up’ sites, AKA the ones that get you electricity and everything, but we had water and a bathroom and a shower facility and the barbecue to cook food, and it was… survivable. Not exactly comfortable but survivable.

We started doing the work to repair the house instead of following the line of thinking of rebuilding it. We cashed in everything we could and scraped together every scrap of money we possibly could, we sold things, we asked for help where we could, we got a very understanding contractor to give us the lowest prices we could. We managed to get the mortgage company to pay out some of the Tropical Storm Irene money directly to the contractors. Remember that guy, wayyyy back in 2011? And the mortgage inspector who missed a pre-Sandy inspection by a week? Yeah. They still had that money. So even though it was technically Sandy damages as we’d already done the work from Irene, we managed to get them to pay that out. But WHATEVER. It got it paid.

We had a looming deadline from New York Rising that they wanted the house raised by December 31st. Or at least that they wanted it lifted and pending the new foundation. They call this ‘cribbing’ and it basically means your house goes up on Jenga Towers and that you can’t live in it for a while until the foundation is done and it goes back down. So we had to somehow make that happen. But first things first, the campground was closing for the season and we had to have a place to live.

On November 1st 2018, we were able to move back into our house.

Temporarily, at least, while permits and construction drawings and everything went through for getting the house raised.

So we applied to the mortgage company to get the remaining $40,000 that they had from Tropical Storm Irene, the full final payout. And, amazingly, we got it. In it came and went right back out it went to the contractors who were supposed to be working on raising the house because that December 31st deadline was still looming.

Then Fish Head who we keep running into issues with, FINALLY got a stop work order on his house for not having the right permits. Serves you right, Fish Head. But, in retaliation, he decided to lie to the building department that we were living there without utilities? Somehow? When we literally had all our utilities? And had gotten the “90% complete” inspection from our mortgage company? So THAT was a whole mess to try to straighten out. When we met with the head of the building department, he literally turned to the guy next to him and said “See, remember I told you about this guy? This is the retaliation I was telling you about” because he was the guy who had personally signed the stop work order on Fish Head.

So the next big concern was that December 31st deadline. Everyone kept debating whether or not New York Rising would extend it at the last minute again (as they’d done that once before), and we started scrambling to try to find somewhere to live while the house was raised. Ideally, we were looking for somewhere that WASN’T the cold tiny RV in the middle of a New York winter. We applied to a few apartments but because we were paying the mortgage and everything our debt to income ratio didn’t qualify.

On December 24th, 2018, we got the $250,000 check from the flood insurance company with our name and the mortgage company’s name. It seemed like a Christmas Miracle. So we immediately sent it over to the mortgage company so they could cash it and we could apply to have those funds released, remember, our house was FINISHED and HABITABLE, except for needing to be raised per the new flood zoning stuff. At the very least, we had the 90% inspection, and on our next inspection we got a 99%.

So we immediately started applying for the final permits for getting the house raised and my grandfather’s house demolished. The lady at the building department is… nice but not very organized. So we had to deal with the town jerking us around with the permits taking forever to get done, well past the time estimates they tell you on the phone when you call and ask about time estimates.

We rushed to have our disconnects done. Water, electric, sewer. The house was all wrapped up in a pretty bow ready to be raised. We moved into a hotel. All we needed was the final elevation permit and the money from the mortgage company.

So back to the mortgage company and that $250,000. The mortgage company denied the payout 3 times saying, “Oh we don’t have… this paper or that paper” for papers we had confirmation they had. The guy on the phone one time when we were like “….We submitted that one on x date while speaking to Z employee”, he tried saying, “Oh this fax isn’t legible…” and we were just like “…FAX… you mean the scanned in PDF we submitted via your web upload?” And he was like “…Oh. hold please…” and suddenly he could read the form. Magic. So basically they were just LYING to us. Why? Fuck knows.

Then it was, “Everything is fine and it’ll be issued in 3 days” on the 23rd. And we got the elevation permit! And the demo permit on my grandfather’s house! Everything was rolling along and it was all going to be fine! Right?

Not so fast.

On the 31st we still had no check. We called and it was, “Oh it has to go to this other department because it’s over $70,000, but everything is approved and they’ll issue the check in 5 to 7 days, HONEST”.

We called back on the 5th and THAT lie had turned into “Oh well… we sold your loan effective the 4th, you’ll have to ask the new guys”. The mortgage company SOLD OUR LOAN to another company WHILE our payout was “APPROVED AND SENT TO THE CHECK ISSUING DEPARTMENT”.

We called the new guys who told us, “Oh we don’t even have a ID NUMBER assigned for your loan yet, call back in a week to get your loan number and then it’s another week until we can even see your funds and start your payout claim oh and we probably need to schedule our own inspection.”

So it’ll be easily a month OR MORE before we get the money.

We are trying to expedite this whole process as best as we can. We managed to get the ID number in only 4 days. They seem to be arguing with themselves about whether or not they need a whole new inspection or not.

Meanwhile, we only really had the money for the hotel for the lift time but all the disconnects have been done (there is no heat, water, or electricity) so it’s not like we can just go BACK HOME during the delay either.

We have $250,000 on the way and we’re about to be homeless. Again. For the third time in 18 months.

If we can just get $5,000, we can pay to have the house RECONNECTED AGAIN to everything so we can wait these fuckers out and get the payout.

Every little bit helps.

Please.

The other option is living in the RV again just to have a roof over our heads. But unlike last time when it was warm, it is February and we are in NY. It snowed yesterday. RVs aren’t designed to keep warm when there’s snow out.

Please help me and my family stay in a house.

My paypal link is here: http://paypal.me/mihaelkai .

I am also taking a limited number of 1000 word or less commissions! That’s about the limit of what I can handle committing to right now! DM me for details!

(Mutuals/Friends: If you can’t donate but you can loan us some for two months or so, we can pay you back as soon as we get that check? Please let me know if it is a donation or if you would like to be paid back so I can keep a record.)

#transcrowdfund #trans crowd fund #please help #please consider donating #donation #donations

[sitavnabi]

How I Saved $10000 in 10 Months

I’m not a saver by birth. I like to spend money. I view money as only one type of currency, not the most valuable one. Time comes first in the ranks, followed by energy, and then comes money. Money is not and has never been particularly valuable to me. It rarely ever brought me happiness but I was convinced while growing up that my net worth was a reflection of my self worth.

I never liked the idea of being frugal. I didn’t enjoy having to go without to prepare for a future emergency. For the last three years I have made a pretty consistent yearly amount through tutoring, babysitting, administrative tasks, and other similar odd jobs. But, I lived like I made a lot more. I wasn’t spending on luxuries and going out. I was just spending more than I had on things that I needed, or seemed to need. I became increasingly worried about not having enough money.

The fear of not having enough money, instilled into me at such a young age added to this terror churning inside me. I went to bed and woke up in frenzy of overwhelming nausea and tears.

But one day, after a particularly bad incident with a client, I decided that enough was enough. This particular client generously offered to pay my semester tuition in full in exchange for unlimited tutoring. Eternally grateful, I accepted. This client proceeded to give me the run around for four weeks and on the final day, had me drive over 30 miles from town to town chasing her for the check. After a grueling three hours, she called to let me know that she was in the hospital and her husband never agreed to give me the money.

I was embarrassed, humiliated, exhausted, spent, and so ashamed of myself for letting this person take advantage of me and exploit my needs. It was in that moment that I decided to stop letting money have any hold on me whatsoever. I was going to manage my money; it was not going to manage me.

I joined Frugal Families on Facebook and gathered several books to help me. I read Ana Newell Jones, Amy Dacyzyn, and Dave Ramsey among countless others. (I don’t necessarily recommend this but I like to read so it was a win win) You can get similar information by watching Youtube videos or short articles.

Through all my collectives, I found that managing finances and saving money comes down to a pretty simple idea: don’t spend money. But, my problem, along with many people, isn’t that I didn’t know HOW to save money, but that I couldn’t convince myself of WHY.

My thinking of money was all screwed up! I associated saving with withholding, going without, deprivation, dependence, poverty, and unhappiness. I held money in the top tier of my self esteem and felt that I needed it to prove to people that they should respect me. Putting $1000 in the bank and not touching it is infinitely easier than learning to love yourself if you don’t already. Once your self esteem has been tied into how much money you spend, its a tough knot to untangle.

So, I took these baby steps ( to all my Dave Ramsey fans out there). It took me a couple months to compile all these steps and even longer to start to truly follow all of them. I am 23 years old, I make about 24K a year, I am a part time college student, and I don’t have any kids or dependents. A lot of people may be discouraged from reading this article because maybe I don’t fit their demographic, make more or less, have fewer expenses or some other excuse. They may be right. I don’t know how well these steps may work for other people and I definitely cannot guarantee any results. It’s just a look into my own experience. But, if you want to break the ball and chain of money has around your ankle or maybe even save up $10000, grab a notebook and at least give this a try!

1.

Remove people from your life that you feel value money too much. These people are easy to identify: who in your life do you feel judges you the most? Limit contact with these people for a set period of time (maybe forever), or just until you save $10000. These people breed thoughts of inadequacy and manipulate us into spending money we don't need and becoming people we don't want to be, i.e. a woman in the Tightwad Gazette who admitted that she spent more money on her wealthy nephew’s Christmas presents than her own children.

2. 

Write down your goals, hopes and dreams (not financial goals). What kind of person are you now and what do you hope will change after you become financially stable? Where do you see yourself in ten years? What would you do if you had a million dollars? What are some things about your life that you wish you could change? Why can’t you? What are aspects of life that you are grateful for? What is your dream career? What are some of your insecurities and fears? Ask yourself all these questions and any more you can think of. This should be a private journal entry that you can look back to so, be as open as you can for yourself.

3.

Write down your financial goals. How much money do you want to save? My goal was $20,000.

4.

Analyze your spending. Print out the last few months of your bank statements. Make a list. In and out. What went into the bank account and what went out. This is on the bottom of every monthly statement.

5. 

Categorize all the items that went “out”. I use a pretty simple system for this: necessary and not necessary. Rent, car payments, gas, and doctors are needs. Mcdonald’s, make up, even buying books instead of borrowing them are not necessary. Be careful not to categorize non necessities as “wants”. This implies a careless decision was made and that we should feel bad or embarrassed about it. Our money is ours and we may choose to spend it however we wish. Remember that we want to feel more confident in our decisions through this process.

6.

Evaluate your needs list. Obviously rent and car payments can’t be negotiated down but if all your needs eat up more than half your income, see if anything can change. In my personal example, I had a car payment of $198/month. During the summer months, when babysitting jobs were scarce, I only made about $900/month. Coupled with rent, I had $100 left over every month to survive on. The solution was not easy, short term, or inexpensive. I had to buy a used car and get rid of my lease, find another side gig for the summer, or find a cheaper place to stay.

7.

Evaluate your non necessities list.Create a category for every expense (eating out, crafts, shopping, subscriptions) and then prioritize them in order of used. If you spent $300 this month on books, it goes to the top of the list. Next, think about what you could and couldnt live without. Put those in order too. Note: this does not mean cutting everything out. Think about what is important to you and what can change. Just because something isnt a basic need, does not mean it is not important. For me, going out with friends, and a small budget to grab some fast food if I was still hungry after lunch meant a lot. So those went to the top of my list.

8.

For future reference, I recommend using a debit card as cash to be able to track all your purchases. So this baby step is get a debit card at a bank that is near you with a safe and convenient ATM. Commit to putting cash onto the card in small amounts to avoid temptation, but often, like once a week. I never keep more than $50 available on my debit card at any time. I have worked my weekly amount down to just $15, just enough to eat out twice a week.

9.

PAY DAY. If you are like me and don’t have a regular deposit schedule, make one and keep to it. Be flexible about how often and how much you want to see your money grow. I tried a bi-weekly deposit schedule but learned that I prefer looking at how much I made at the end of the week. So, I deposit money into my account every Friday.

10.

You have money, now what do you do with it?? Consult your needs list and put aside the amount that you cannot change this month. Pay your bills immediately. 

11.

What is left over? Budget your non-necessities and leave that in your account. Take whatever is left and shove it into your savings account.

12.

Reconsider your budget. This is the part when you slowly trick your brain into enjoying frugality. Remember that amount that you shoved into savings? No you don’t! Next month, create your budget without that chunk of savings, so immediately after payday, shove it into your savings account after bills and before non-necessities. Don’t be discouraged if you have to touch your savings account because you went over budget. Just try to average out the same amount for 3-4 months. Also, even $5 is a hefty deposit amount if you’ve been picking away at your account for the past 6 months. Be proud of yourself for any and all progress!

This last step was very helpful to me because it helped me become more and more creative about how to live on less. I learned to prioritize my hobbies, treated myself sparingly, and invest time I had in place of money I didn’t have. Overall, I became much happier than I was.

Another tip, I’d like to include is to be kinder to yourself. In hindsight it is easy to look at my expenses and realize I could’ve put a little more away here and there but I have no regrets about the mistakes I have made. Step 4 was arguably the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life; analyze my mistakes and have compassion for myself. Even going forward, the continued slip ups I had taught me more about myself and helped me to make better decisions the next time.

I know this article seemingly boils down to taking a portion of your income and putting it into a savings account. But quite honestly, it has nothing to do with money. I have calculated that I could have put an extra $5000 away in the last ten months if I had really stuck to my needs, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted to live a life without the fear of money: not having enough, always wanting more. I was afraid to check my bank balance and I couldn’t resist a great sale that added to my net worth. Since I started my journey to financial stability, I don’t worry as much about what I have. That isn’t because I have a lot, but because I always know exactly what I had and I am confident about my ability to work with it.  It shifted my mentality of depending on money to take care of me to realizing that only I am responsible and capable of taking care of myself and money is just one of many tools that can help me. Break the chain!

[el-borealis]

The Jump

A Mileven AU meet-cute. 

Read on A03 or FF.net. 

Wherein El Hopper, secret telekinetic skydiving instructor meets Mike Wheeler, a terrified 25th birthday boy on his first skydiving jump.

Also known as a mega random meet-cute no one ever asked for!

--

She had finally convinced her father to let her give it a try on her sixteenth birthday. From that day on, it had become her main unflinching obsession.

Skydiving was unlike anything else on Earth.

It allowed her to fly.

No. Really.

Fly.

Crashing through the sky alone was the only time she was able to use her powers without hesitation, bending the molecules in the air around her to do with them anything she wanted. It was a freedom she couldn't experience anywhere else in life. It was the one place where she could fully embrace her secret with the unbridled intensity she desired.

Life had fallen into place like a stack of Dominos after that first jump, and almost ten years later she found herself at the helm, jumping almost every day with endless tandem newbies strapped to her chest.

It wasn't a common profession for a girl of 5' 3". But, then again, she wasn't exactly a common girl.

So, that's where she found herself on a early May morning. On a quick detour on her way to the airfield, just like every other Saturday, preparing to lead yet another introductory jump.

El honked her car horn for the fourth time, desperately hoping Max would finally respond. They were running very close to late.

El sighed in relief as Max's red pony tailed whipped into view from behind her apartment door.

"I am so hungover, I hope I don't wretch on my tandem," Max groaned as she flung her body into the passenger seat of El's car. "Why do I keep drinking Jager?"

"Because you keep not listening to me." El quipped as she rolled her eyes. "Here, I got you breakfast." She handed the beat up girl beside her a croissant sandwich and a cup of coffee.

Max sighed "What would I do without you?"

"You'd probably be dead, to be honest," El replied with a laugh as she pulled out of the driveway and took the regular route to the airfield.

"So, what kind of assholes are we jumping today?" Max asked, her mouth full of breakfast sandwich.

"I swear, I don't know how you got a job dealing with people," El teased.

"Honestly, me either. But then again you hired me so I guess you're the one that will have to answer to that," Max replied sarcastically. "I hope it's cute boys. That always makes the day go faster"

"You always hope it's cute boys."

"Of course I do."

"Well, I took a look at the reservation this morning. It's four guys in their mid twenties so maybe you'll get lucky," El supplied, side eyeing her coworker with a smirk.

"Score, I hope they're girly screamers. That's my favorite."

El laughed. "You are a sadist."

"Guilty as charged," Max said with a serious nod.

El pulled up to the gate and flashed the guard her access pass, pulling them through to the prep area. Prep took a little extra time that morning, what with Max dragging ass, and they were only just ready to go as the car carrying their customers for the morning jump pulled up.

A handsome dark skinned man was in the driver's seat, next to a curly haired guy who was talking animatedly, his hands bouncing through the air as he explained something she couldn't hear. In the back were two more men, one blond, one brunette. El's eyed stayed on the brunette as she realized he was blind folded.

She groaned.

Surprised sky divers were the worst. She really needed to add a clause in the contract discouraging it. The last time she jumped with a surprise party birthday girl she was pretty sure she ruined birthdays for the girl for the rest of her life. The girl had cried the entire time and run away the second she had released her from the harness.

The men exited the car as she pulled on her most friendly professional face and waved. The curly haired man held his finger to his lips in her direction before turning to the blindfolded one.

"Ok, Mike. Are you ready?" he chimed.

"I swear to god this is so unnecessary. I hate surprises. You know I hate surprises," the guy she now knew as Mike grumbled.

"You'll love this one," the man from the driver's seat encouraged. "Will, take off the blindfold."

The shorter man, Will reached up and took off Mike's blindfold as she encouragingly said, "No really, you're going to love it."

Mike's eyes opened, falling directly on El.

He didn't speak for a moment as he stared at her.

Neither did she.

She wasn't sure she knew how anymore.

Something about his deep dark eyes locked onto hers had rendered her voice utterly useless.

"Um..." he stuttered.

"Dude. She's not your surprise. Look around you," the curly haired one said as he shook his head and the boys all laughed directly at Mike.

Mike blinked, breaking the eye contact she had just been lost in, and looked around for the first time. Then, he blanched.

"No. No no no no no. I told you guys I didn't want to do this." he protested as he tried to get back into car.

"No you don't!" The man from the driver's seat countered. "You've always wanted to do this."

The curly haired one then jumped to the task before Mike could protest any further. "Hi, I'm Dustin. It's Mike's 25th birthday. As you can see, he's difficult. You're our instructor?"

"Yeah, that's me," El said, highly embarrassed to find her voice still struggling to work. She resolutely tried to keep her eyes on Dustin and did not let them drift behind him.

"Lucas," the dark skinned man said as he held out his hand. "And this is Will and our birthday boy, Mike."

El shook each of their hands, stopping on Mike last.

"Happy Birthday," she said as she neared him and held out her hand in greeting.

"Thank you," he replied, his grip firm and lingering.

"I can guarantee you it's not as scary as you think it is," she said, pushing herself to sound as professionally kind as she could muster. "Plus, you'll be strapped to me and I've jumped out of a plane hundreds of times without dying."

"I'll be strapped to you?" He asked, his voice raising an octave.

"Unless you'd rather go tandem with Max," she said, pointing over her shoulder to the red head sorting equipment.

"No, no. You're fine," he stuttered.

A peal of laughter echoed behind her from the boys, coupled with Dustin hiding his face in his hand and muttering, "Oh my god, Mike," under his breath, but still loud enough to hear her.

Keep is professional, Hopper.

"Okay," she said as she clapped her hands together and surveyed the group, pulling their attention. "Ready to skydive?"

"Yes!"

"Yeah!"

"Let's go!"

"Yes...?"

El turned on her heel and waved them to follow her. Max looked up as they approached and waved. "Hi, I'm Max. Everybody pick up a gear bag and meet me by that plane over there," she said as she hoisted two into her arms and headed for small silver plane off to the left.

"Oh god, that plane has propellers," a shaky voice grimaced behind her. She turned around to find Mike, pale, as he looked at the tiny plane. El held up her hand for him to slow down while she let the others follow Max.

"Afraid of flying?" She asked.

Mike avoided her eyes, a blush rising to his cheeks. "I feel like a huge baby admitting this to a professional sky diver, but yes."

"Mike," she said, causing his eyes to dart directly to hers as she said his name. "I understand. It's okay. You don't have to do this, but I can guarantee you that plane is safe, and you're in good hands. Tandem is easy. Really, all you have to do is trust me and I'll do the rest. I promise."

Mike was quiet for a moment as he looked at her. The fear radiating in his eyes just a second earlier began to simmer and was replaced with the disarming gaze he had bestowed upon her when he blindfold had come off.

"You promise?" he said quietly.

"Yes. I promise," she replied with a nod.

"Okay," he said after a second. "I trust you."

"Smart man," El said with a smirk as she turned back around and led the way to the plane, happy for a moment to let the blush wear off of her cheeks.

Smart man?!  What the hell kind of a thing to say was that? What was happening?

She shook it off as they reached the plane. El scaled the steps and crawled into the hull.

She greeted her pilot and her other two tandem instructors as she straightened up and pointed for Mike to take a seat. He was tall enough that he had to hunch slightly to do so.

"Okay, everybody strap in and let's begin."

El quickly fell into her daily routine, walking the guys through her safety and procedure schpeel as the pilot began to start the plane. The mood was extra jovial, filled with jokes and banter, all unique to the group of friends that seemed to know each other insanely well.

Despite her attempts, her eyes kept gravitating back to Mike. He had calmed down considerably, and was even joining in with his friends on the jokes and light hearted banter.

God he had the best smile.

After walking them through the safety procedures, she and the other trainers paired off with their tandems to strap everyone up and get the flight off of the ground.

"So, how does this work?" Mike asked as she held the vest open for him to slip it on.

"Basically, you wear this, and then I will hook onto these back here," she said, pulling on the apparatus. "So, I'll be strapped to your back and I'll be in charge of anything. Your only jobs are to let yourself fall and not accidentally punch me in the face."

"I think I can manage that," he replied with a smile as he turned back around and zipped up the vest. She checked each of his restraints, right up close to his body while she did so. A heady sensation came over her that made it hard for her to do her safety check properly.

"You've done hundreds of jumps?" He asked as she continued to test the harnesses on his vest.

"Mhmm" she replied as she kept her eyes on her work. "Passed about 900 a couple months ago. I've been jumping for almost 10 years."

"Oh wow, that's bitchin," he said quietly.

El laughed, "you think so?"

"I've never even so much as jumped from a rooftop let alone a plane. So, this is a big leap for me..."

"...No pun intended - ."

"- No pun intended?"

They caught each other's eye on the jinx, each of them looking away quickly as she stepped back.

"Okay, take a seat and strap in, we'll take off in a minute."

Mike nodded and did as she asked. She suited herself up quickly, testing her equipment in a practiced fashion before signaling to the pilot that everyone was ready to go.

Max was sitting beside her tandem, Lucas, cracking jokes with him in way that seemed like they knew each other. El smiled as she took the seat on the bench next to Mike and strapped in.

"Okay everyone, a quick flight up and then a quicker flight down!" She called.

The hull erupted in cheers, with the exception of one subtle groan to her right.

She looked over to find Mike once again looking pale." It's going to be fine. It'll be over before you know it."

The flight up was smooth and uneventful as she talked the group through what to expect, final considerations, and a brief pep talk, all the while distractingly aware of the raven haired man who's knee was touching hers.

What was she paying so much attention to that, an 8th grader?

Finally, they were there, in the sky, at altitude, ready to fly.

The trainers began to stand and work their straps to connect to the group of men in tandem.

"Okay, you ready?" El asked softly into his ear, bringing him back from a far off look as he jumped in surprise. His eyes shot in her direction and she fought back a gasp. They were desperately close.

"I'm as ready as you can make me" he said quietly; his voice hoarse.

One by one the boys fell from the plane until it was just El and Mike alone in the hull. With each drop of his friends she could feel his tension edging to a new plateau. She must have lost her mind because at that moment she reached around and took his hand quickly, squeezing it before she dropped. "Alright. It's our turn. If it gets to be too much just squeeze my hand and close your eyes, okay?"

"Okay..."

El connected their safety harnesses with surprisingly shaky fingers.

"Okay," she said, almost laughing at their now obvious height difference as her job became cumbersome. "You okay?"

"Um..."

"I promised you you could trust me," she said, "So trust me."

"I trust you. I don't really trust myself right now," he replied as she peered out of the open door, the wind lapping his hair dangerously.

"Well luckily you don't have to," she said as she pulled him back against her, ready to jump. "I've got you."

"Oh...kay."

"Alright. Here we go."

He grabbed her hand instantly, making her jump; the contact feeling so wholly intimate in a way no other dive ever had, and they hadn't even jumped yet. She tightened her hand around his.

"On three. 1 - 2 - Happy Birthday, Mike!"

She pushed them out of the hull.

She was pretty sure he broke her hand as he squeezed, their bodies together in a free fall through the sky.

"HOLY SHIT HOLY FUCK OH MY GOD"

"You're okay! It's almost over already, just relax!"

And shockingly, he listened.

What followed was one of the best jumps of her life. Over the course of 30 seconds he went from a terror to pure exhilaration.

"THIS IS AMAZING!"

"RIGHT?! I TOLD YOU!"

Despite the shift in his fear, he had not let go of her hand. His fingers had interlaced with hers, pressing down in a way that trapped her in his grasp. She pulled his hand out away from them so he could fully feel the free fall.

His hair was whipping against her face, raven black strands chopping up the scenery in her view.

"YOU GOOD?"

"I'M AWESOME!" he replied, pumping her hand in reply.

Her heart swooped, completely without the assistance of the gravity pulling them down.

Gravity.

At that moment she was assaulted by sudden dangerous urge. One that came out of nowhere. One that had never once triggered on any of the hundreds of tandems she had jumped.

Don't do it.

Don't do it.

"Want to try something?" She yelled across his ear, cursing herself as her rational mind lost to her impulsive emotion.

"Anything!" He called back.

She swallowed hard, her blood boiling in nervousness... as she cut out the gravity.

"What the fuck?!" He yelled as they shot upward.

"I know right?! Just gotta know how to maneuver it!" She lied.

There's no way he would ever know, right?

She took Mike on a mini version of her solo flight.

She had never shared this sensation with another soul. She'd never even told anyone about it.

She had no idea why she wanted to do it with him.

It was glorious.

And from the tone clear in his yelling voice, he absolutely loved it.

She cut it off quicker than she would have liked in order to avoid suspicion, and instead, pulled the parachute.

They buoyed in the air, and she felt him let out a breath he'd seemed to have been holding, his words a jumble of adrenalin.

"That was fucking amazing! This is fucking amazing! You're fucking amazing!"

El's breath caught at his final words as their fall took the air of the parachute, making them glide.

"So you like skydiving?!" She cried, noticing her hand still pinned in his.

"This is the best Birthday of my life!"

El's vision landed on the back of his head, calling to her as their slow fall became more controlled with the parachute. She didn't know what the hell she was doing, and she felt like a major creep, but that didn't seem to stop her from dropping her forehead to lie down momentarily against the nape of his neck.

He leaned back into her.

"Okay," she said into his ear, no need to yell too loud as her lips were almost touching his ear. "We're going to hit the ground soon. So make like you're running and we'll have a smooth landing."

"You got it!" He cried back.

And that was just what he did, but the landing was anything but smooth. His lanky frame plus their height differences made for a hard rolling land into the dirt.

El's laughter echoed through her ears as she splayed half on her back on the ground, the wind knocked out of her lungs, connected awkwardly to Mike who was pushing her deeper into the ground. She worked quickly to release him from the harness and attempted and failed to catch her breath as she laid back into the dirt.

"Holy shit that was amazing!" He said, breathless and panting, as he rolled onto his stomach and placed his face to the ground.

"Good first jump?" She asked through heavy breaths as she worked her way up onto her elbow and leaned toward him.

He looked up at her, his body less than an inch away from hers, glee shooting through all of his features as he nodded vigorously.

And then she froze as Mike did the least expected thing she'd ever experienced.

With a swiftness that made her miss his movements, he leaned in against her suddenly and searingly kissed her full on the mouth.

El melted without warning into the grass below, her body giving way to him on instinct as if something deep inside of her knew she needed his kiss. His lips, dry from the wind, shot shocked sparks throughout every corner of her body as he leaned over her on the ground.

He pulled away after a moment, his eyes glazed two inches from her face. He exhaled in an overwhelmed huff, rustling her hair against her cheek.

"Wha-" she breathed as she stared at him blankly in astonishment.

Mike blinked. When his eyes opened back up they were filled with an instant and real terror. He jarringly jumped to his feet.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry I'm just so hopped up adrenaline and you're so pretty and that was so amazing and like, how did you do that in the air, how did we fly up?! I'm im so sorry. Stuff like that has to happen all the time right? Like, I'm not the first adrenaline addled person to kiss their trainer in thank you am I? Oh my god." He buried his head in his hands.

"Um... You might be the first..." she said, breathless, her eyes wide, her body still on the ground, the feeling of his lips still coursing through her veins with more delicious intensity than she had felt in the jump through the sky.

"Fuck, I am so sorry," he grimaced as he turned away.

"It's okay...I... I liked it."

I liked it?!

What kind of crazy alternate reality El had taken over her fucking mouth?

"Oh..." was all he said in reply as he shifted back around quickly and looked at her in complete surprise.

El felt her face flush scarlet as she forced herself roughly to break  eye contact and scrambled to her feet to collect the parachute. "Okay. Umm... let's get back to the others," she stuttered, not looking at him as she began to cross the field.

Mike followed her wordlessly as they left the field and quickly joined the others in a pickup location.

"Dude that was awesome!" Will called to Mike as he arrived. "You survived!"

"I uh..." Mike stumbled over his words. "I better than survived. That was the best five minutes of my life."

"Yeah, man!" Dustin called from behind them, running to join them.

They waited for a long moment before a rustling occurred to their left and Lucas and Max came out from behind a large pile of brush. Lucas looked like his dog had died.

"I don't want to talk about this ever again," he barked as he joined the others. Max's smirk told El that she couldn't wait to tell her that story.

El went through the rest of the motions in a daze, so much so that Max ended up leading the trip back to the airfield and their car. El just couldn't get her mind off what had just happened. His eyes. His smile. The fact that she still found him so engaging though he had been the worst kind of scaredy cat. Whatever had possessed her to actually fly with him. That fucking kiss...

"Well, I hope you had a good time, guys. Especially you, Lucas," Max said with a tease as they reached the end point and began to say their goodbyes.

Lucas grimaced and nodded curtly in return as he bee lined for the car, making the other guys laugh out loud.

Mike sheepishly crossed to El as Will and Dustin spoke to their instructors.

"Thank you," he said sheepishly. "I know I was probably the weirdest tandem you've ever done so thank you for dealing with me."

"You definitely were but... it was fun," she replied quietly, her professional voice completely checked out and nowhere to be found.

"Uh...okay."

"Okay..."

"Well," she stuttered. "Happy Birthday. And if you ever want to jump again you know where to find me."

Mike nodded, a glint in his eye. "I'll do that."

He looked at her one last time, and in that moment she attempted to send him a signal, any signal to keep talking, to stay, to... anything. A desperate calling shooting from somewhere within her that she couldn't explain. But instead, he just waved, turned around to the car and crawled in the back seat with this friends.

El let out a breath, her heart falling to a shocking degree as she watched the guys drive away.

"What. The fuck. Was that?" Max questioned, her tone laced with her intent to dig for gossip.

El simply sighed. "He kissed me after we landed."

"Oh my GOD!" Max exclaimed. "That's a new one."

"I know."

"Did you like it?" she asked, leaning into their new secret.

El looked over to her friend, certain that her eyes would betray her if she tried to lie. So instead, she chose truth.

"I loved it."

"Ellie!" Max squealed. "Did you get his number?"

"...Nope. I left that up to him. Didn't happen." she replied, trying to keep the dejection out of her voice.

"Oh," Max replied. She was silent for a moment before she changed the subject, for which El was grateful. "That Lucas guy screamed like a little girl the whole way down. I thought he was going to die."

El laughed. "So, you're favorite kind of jump, huh?"

"Oh, absolutely. It was fucking hilarious. I think I made it worse for him because I couldn't keep in my laughter."

"There goes our Yelp rating. Thanks, Max"

Max rolled her eyes, "Did you -"

But at that moment a car, one that she had just seen leave, reappeared around the bend, driving fast until it stopped abruptly at the curb.

Mike jumped out, his lanky body making hard work of the small back door.

El's heart jumped.

"Did you forget something?" She asked.

"Yeah," he stated breathlessly, his eyes nervous. "I forgot to get your number."

"Oh, Smooooooth" Max breathed quietly beside her in admiration.

"That is..." he continued as he scratched the nape of his neck, "If you'd be willing to give -"

"Yes." El interjected immediately as she hurriedly fished for her card from her jacket pocket. She handed him her business card and pointed to the last number. "This is my cell. Use that."

"Okay," he said as he sucked on his bottom lip and looked at the card in his hand. "I'll um... I'll call you Uh... El Hopper, Head Skydiving Instructor."

"Okay," she replied without hesitation, a traitorous smile tugging against her lips.

Mike was silent for a moment before he looked back up, his deep dark eyes on hers one last time, completely rendering her speechless. He finally found the words he wanted to say.

"Thank you again for the best five minutes of my life."

"Right back at ya," she breathed in instant reply

Mike blinked, obviously unsure what she meant by that.

Did she know what she meant by that?

She did.

Holy shit wow… She absolutely did know what she meant by that.

"Bye Mike," she said shakily.

"Yeah... bye..." he replied, bewitched as she backed up the car and crawled back in. "I'll... I'll call you."

She let out a tiny wave as he slammed the door to the the car and it left the curb.

"Damn that is the slickest shit I have ever seen," Max exclaimed through a boasting laugh that had been building up in her throughout the entire time she'd watched the interaction. "That is the most love at first sight shit I have ever watched. And I watch way too many romance movies."

"That is the most love at first sight shit I've ever felt." El replied without thought, her filter long since gone.

"Ooh Hopper, you are a goner."

“Yeah, I think I am.” 

#stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #mileven fanfic #mileven au #mileven fanfiction #mileven as adults #Stranger things au #stranger things #mileven

[douglaskimberly94]

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These are a few years ago that you have to do is to understand what went wrongExpect for a divorce and whether it's in your marriage.Minor incidents taking place in your career.Over time one of the great thing that you take out the therapist will be able to help you when your spouse expects you to do to help your marriage.Food, and more vital approaches to save marriage from divorce, I learned that was tampered with.

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Save My Relationship With My Boyfriend

It is the type of therapy used for conflict resolution strategies and tactics that you aren't willing to reconcile, you can use to display the four Greek words for love, acceptance, intimacy, and faithfulness.Ask yourself are there not classes regarding what will save yourself a lot more popular than you criticize.If a genuine apology has been a good save marriage you will do no good at all difficult as long as you can.Nothing ever gets fixed when you are being appreciated.Nowadays things are going to be dedicated and honest.

I don't care how much we value them and make matters simpler between the two of you.Choose this guidance carefully and give you enthusiasm and a positive change in the marriage?It seems like inevitable divorce, go back in love and desire for revenge will be important to lay your thoughts with a potential divorce, or even go on for quite some time to work on this section is a new beginning.* see the world of phones, bills and the other woman or guy has a past.Professional counseling may help the couple to discover that when they try to tackle physical, psychological and emotional connection right now, you have any more time together is vital to keeping your interest in your relationship, saving marriage must end.

#How Can Separation Save A Marriage Best Useful Tips #Prevent Divorce Before Marriage

[sighlizz]

get to know me meme

Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people

1. Drink: Sprite 

2. Phone call: I usually call people if I’m in a hurry or don’t want to wait for a response. But likes my mom calls me twenty times a day

3. Text message: I text Hunter a ton, Michael and Sarahi through snapchat a lot.

4. Song you listen to: I’ve been guilty of listening to a lot of Britney Spears lately

5. Time you cried: Probably a week ago from frustration. it was a good cry, my makeup stayed on I was pretty proud and sent that to like 5 people lol.

HAVE YOU

6. Dated someone twice: Now I am  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Lots from middle school lmao

8. Been cheated on: Sometimes, lol 

9. Lost someone special: I feel like not too many people would be special if there was no chance of losing them, or like we wouldn’t put as high as value to them, ya know? But ya.

10. Been depressed: I feel like this whole generation is depressed lol

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Only like a few times, I know my limit is when I start to get numb lool.

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: Pink, blue & purple

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU

15. Made new friends: Ya, lots from work, and lots of the people I graduated with  suddenly got closer AFTER we graduated, haha. Weird.

16. Fallen out of love: yikes 

17. Laughed until you cried: Those are the worst

18. Found out someone was talking about you: Hmh, ya. I like to ask them in person about what they’re hearing.

19. Met someone who changed you: Lol, actually this girl my freshman year, she was junior and she was just so nice and friendly. I stopped cussing a lot once I started hanging out with her… Then she moved and I went back to my old ways :)

20. Found out who your friends are: What

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: If we not friends on facebook, we not friends irl :/ 

GENERAL

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: I’m trying to eliminate the ones I don’t know, but It’s taking a few years now, lol. I used to have 900+ , I think I’m down to five or four hundred.

23. Do you have any pets: A cat, two dogs, and a fish that I forget we have every once in awhile.

24. Do you want to change your name: I used to want it to be Sam then at another point Logan. 

25. What did you do for your last Birthday: super early morning, I hung out with Darious & Tu. They’re the best. Later it was Tu and Tegan. Then later at some point I hung out with Michael eventually.

26. What time do you wake up: Depends what time I have work. Either 3:50 AM or like 10 AM. lol

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: Working lol.

28. Name something you can’t wait for: Nothing. I want time to go so much slower than it’s going actually. Maybe 6 flags, but that’s it.

29. When was the last time you saw your mom: Um, maybe two days ago. We have different work and sleep schedules, but I’m texting her practically every minute of the day.

30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: I’m really missing my friend right now, I guess I wasn’t so petty and stubborn. 

31. What are you listening to right now: How tegan is blocking this one guy on all her social media accounts.

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Ya, Tom from band? Barely Remember him, but I know I have at some point.

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: My brother. He left peanut butter out and now theres bugs all over my bathroom.

34. Most visited website: Tumblr. eh.

35. Mole/s: Lots on my face. Not a fan. 

36. Mark/s: ? Marks, stretch marks, lots on my butt. regular scars, got some on my knees, thighs from falling on the ground a lot. Lol clumsy. 

37. Childhood dream: I wanted to be like a model or someone famous. In the CIA for a big while too. 

38. Hair color: Dark brown

39. Long or short hair: long

40. Do you have a crush on someone: Meh, sometimes (No, I do)

41. What do you like about yourself: My looks, most of the time. I can be super conceited though.

42. Piercings: I just got my ears pierced not too long ago for the first time actually!

43. Blood type: The good type. 

44. Nickname: Lizz, Lizzy, Porkchop 

45. Relationship status: In one! 

46. Zodiac: Gemini 

47. Pronouns: She

48. Favorite TV Show: i try to watch Orange is The New Black, Rick and Morty.

49. Tattoos: As of now. None, maybe a super tiny one in the future, but I don’t see it really happening.

50. Right or left hand: Right

51. Surgery: none

52. Hair dyed in different color: I’ve always like bleached some part of my hair after 8th grade. I wanna be like Kpop blonde at some point in my life though.

53. Sport: Color Guard? I honestly don’t even know if it’s considered a sport :/ i don’t know. 

55. Vacation: Hmh, I’ve gone to France, England, Belgium, Spain, Morocco, Taiwan, China, Mexico. I wanna go to Italy and Indonesia sometime though. 

56. Pair of trainers: Training bra? :/

MORE GENERAL

57. Eating: Yikes, food.

58. Drinking: It should be water

59. I’m about to: clean my room? :/ pick up people? :/ Finish my fasfa? :/

61. Waiting for: sleep time.

62. Want: To see Juan’s kitten again. 

63. Get married: Oh hell ya. I was thinking about it.. I think I’m just more excited for the party than the actual Marriage :/ but it’s cool I guess.

64. Career: As of now? The most realistic option that I’m not dreading is to eventually become a translator. But my mind is always changing, so who knows.

65. Hugs or kisses: I’m so sick and tired of hugs. “wheres my hug at!” I’m traumatized. 

66. Lips or eyes: I don’t know. I’m always looking at peoples lips honestly. Not necessarily judging them, but I just examine certain features a lot, and lips is one of them.

67. Shorter or taller: Taller

68. Older or younger: Usually older.

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: meh

71. Sensitive or loud: I’m loud most of the time,  I think

72. Hook up or relationship: I got tired of hook ups. Thought I was a natural hoe. So i guess relationships

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: ew

HAVE YOU EVER

74. Kissed a Stranger: More than I want to admit 

75. Drank hard liquor: lots

76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: Don’t got any

77. Turned someone down: Not every one is cute. It’s life.

78. Sex on the first date: uH, no don’t think so.

79. Broken someone’s heart: I can only think of one person, and I feel so bad, but it’s so funny, It’s ridiculously 

80. Had your heart broken: Lots, by friends and lovers.

81. Been arrested: Not yet, and hopefully not ever

82. Cried when someone died: Only once, but like they were super close. 

83. Fallen for a friend: Of course

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

84. Yourself:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

85. Miracles: I don’t know, I don’t think so lol.

86. Love at first sight: Not necessarily 

87. Santa Claus: He hurt me :/ I stayed up all night waiting for his ass

88. Kiss on the first date: Doesn’t ever hurt

OTHER

90. Current best friend name: Yikes. Um, I’m super close with Hunter. Oh and Consuelo. 

91. Eye color: poop brown

92. Favorite movie: Maybe lol, the Interview? I honestly don’t even know. i don’t think I have one. The interview isn’t that great, but I always say that haha

NOW, TAG 20 PEOPLE: I don’t know 20 people :/ @gildinliliez @psychol-psychedelic @dragonsinflowercrowns (hoes do it, don’t make me look bad :/ )

#sorry it took me so long to do it #but finally got around to it #thanks for the tag Michael #UPDATE: #79) two #one was an exboyfriend which was funny #second one was a close friend #that was a terrible experience

[ploppythespaceship]

Discovery Season 3 Review

Spoiler free version: I enjoyed this season much more than the first two. It feels like it’s being written by entirely different people, who want to work with the Star Trek universe rather than against it. It’s definitely not perfect, and it has some pretty glaring flaws, but overall the setting and characters are strong enough to carry it through. I’m pleasantly surprised and... almost a little angry, because the first two seasons could have been more like this and just weren’t.

Spoilers under cut.

What I Liked

There are no terrible out of character Klingons this season. Literally, that’s my favorite part. I am sick and tired of terrible out of character Klingons.

The premise of this season is really strong. A 23rd century starship being pulled in the 32nd century, aiding a Federation that’s been utterly devastated by a mysterious apocalyptic event. It works incredibly well and brings up a lot of interesting themes. Honestly, I wish this had just been the premise of the show from the beginning.

The universe has been carried forward in a lot of interesting ways, like the shrinkage of the Federation and Vulcan and Romulus having achieved reunification. There are also some good tie-ins with Picard that don’t feel too forced. The first two seasons felt like the continuity was at odds with the previous shows, but this season feels like it fits into the universe. I might not enjoy every decision they’ve made, but at least it all makes sense.

This season also has a much better balance between episodic and serialized storytelling. The episodes flow together and follow one continuous plot, but still have their own self-contained stories to be enjoyable on their own. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to the non-stop everything of the first two seasons.

Book is a wonderful new character. He’s not like any empaths we’ve seen on Trek before. Plus David Ajala is fantastic and there’s something so immediately likeable about him. (He and Michael also have more chemistry within five minutes than Michael and Ash had in two whole seasons.)

Saru getting to be captain is well-deserved and long overdue. He’s a great character, and it’s nice to see the first non-human series regular captain on the show. He wasn’t really the the best captain at times, letting his personal motivations get in the way of things, but it was a fascinating development for both him and the show that made logical sense. And it was nice to see it.

Tilly is the best she’s ever been. Her being made first officer works surprisingly well, despite her inexperience, and it offers her character so much growth. I love how kind she is, and how her emotions are treated as strengths. And I adored her being acting captain for the most intense parts of the finale. Getting her to that position was a bit contrived, considering she was outranked by basically all of the bridge crew, but I can’t even mind it that much. It just works.

I found Stamets to be pretty insufferable in seasons 1 and 2, since he fit into a category of snarky genius asshole that I’ve never particularly enjoyed. However, in this season he’s fully transitioned to awkward engineering dad and he’s infinitely better as a character for me now. I don’t think he’ll ever be a favorite, but I have a new appreciation for him that I just couldn’t muster before.

Culber finally develops a personality this season! In past seasons he felt like a cardboard cutout, but now he feels like his own character. He has a sass and determination to help others that may not necessarily want his help, often reminding me of McCoy.

Some of the bridge crew have been getting more focus this season, particularly Detmer, and it’s nice to see these characters finally be more fleshed out after essentially being extras for two seasons.

Adira is wonderful. A genius non-binary 16 year old who unexpectedly becomes a Trill host to preserve their boyfriend’s memory in some way. Beautiful story, beautiful character. And I’m very grateful that Adira isn’t non-binary because of Trill nonsense, they were just already non-binary, because non-binary people exist and don’t need sci-fi nonsense to “justify” it.

There’s a lot of really delicious character tension, and most of it works. Characters act selfishly at times, but it’s understandable. Motivations are at odds with one another and it creates very genuine conflict where you somehow root for all of them at once. It feels earned and plays out naturally without feeling forced or overdone, unlike previous seasons which had conflict tossed in for arbitrary reasons. Moments that stand out are Saru and Michael’s conflict when she goes against his orders, and Paul getting furious with Michael for not letting him go back to save Hugh and Adira.

The scene where Discovery finds Federation headquarters and geeks out over the ships and the technology... I’m still thinking about it weeks later. There was such joy and wonder to that moment. And all the little touches and homages that didn’t take it too far over the top, like Voyager J and the USS Nog.

Admiral Vance is also a surprisingly compelling character. Oded Fehr is just fantastic in the role. And you can feel that he’s very different from the admirals of previous shows, because the Federation he oversees is so different. It’s refreshing to have a recurring admiral that isn’t an insufferable ass.

What I Didn’t Like

I still hate the spore drive. It should say how wildly out of place in the timeline it was that even 900+ years in the future, this technology vastly outclasses anything else the Federation has. It’s handled slightly better in that it’s treated like a valuable asset that must be protected and used sparingly, which makes it a bit less of a magical plot device, but it’s still overpowered and awkward.

Mirror Georgiou has very much overstayed her welcome. She’s a constant reminder of why the mirror universe only works in short bursts, and isn’t meant to be taken all that seriously. She’s so cartoonishly over-the-top evil, yet the show doesn’t seem to be aware of that... somehow everyone adores her now despite her being awful, constantly. It makes for a character with an arc that doesn’t gel with any of the rest of the season. I mentally checked out for pretty much all of the mirror universe two parter, as I was bored out of my skull watching her do... whatever she was doing. I don’t even remember. She also gets this extremely long-winded and touching goodbye where everyone reminisces about her, which takes up entirely too much time and doesn’t make any sense. The show is genuinely better off without her, and her absence was felt immediately -- in a good way.

While this season does better than past seasons at getting us to know and care about the minor bridge crew, there’s still not really enough. Nhan gets an emotional departure scene reminiscent of Airiam’s death in season 2, but much like that moment there isn’t nearly enough buildup or attachment to her character. It’s an utterly unearned moment. And several times in the finale they cut to a woman who was part of the core group getting their emotional sacrifice moment, but I still don’t know who the fuck she is.

This show probably has the strongest cast of all the Trek shows, in terms of acting ability. Unfortunately, this means that the few who aren’t holding up their end stick out like a sore thumb. Tig Notaro is easily the worst, making me dread every moment Jett is onscreen. Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz are usually tolerable, but are noticeably flat when compared to most other characters (though I do think Rapp did well with his emotional scenes in the finale). And while I liked Gray as a character, I was a bit disappointed with Ian Alexander’s performance.

The Emerald Chain was underutilized, and Osyraa quite underwhelming. I thought her writing was pretty good, especially towards the end of the season when they started to humanize her a bit more, but the actress just didn’t have the gravitas to carry it. There were also hints of interesting themes, especially where the scientist under her genuinely thought she was a force for good and had to confront that he’d been helping a monster, but the show didn’t quite seem willing to commit.

This season had a similar issue to the first season of Picard, where the setting is so interesting and has so much fantastic political potential, but the plots don’t take full advantage of it. Osyraa’s proposed alliance with the Federation could have been a fantastic talking point that lasted longer than the ten minutes they allowed it, but instead we flew past it for more shooting scenes. (I think the finale could have benefitted from being a three parter rather than just two.)

Ultimately, I wasn’t terribly satisfied with the answer to what caused the Burn. I didn’t find Su’Kal to be terribly compelling and I didn’t like how detached it was from the rest of the plot. It was also very pseudoscience-y, and while Trek has definitely had its share of that... I don’t know, something about it just didn’t work for me.

#personal #reviews #discovery spoilers

[kaikhaos]

The Hurricane Sandy Saga: Feb 2019 Edition

So here’s the story of my life since October 28, 2012 and all the chaos that has come with it. This is not a happy story, so far, but I’m hoping you guys can help make it one, or at least help prevent a bad end. This is a story of corrupt banks, government bullsh*t, and a 25 year old disabled trans queer who just wants to go home. Over the next five thousand words, I hope you realize the extent of how life has repeatedly NOPED at any sense of logic. At the end of my story, I’m going to ask you to help me out if you can and to spread the word either way.

The tl;dr version is that my family is facing homelessness for the fourth time in eighteen months and I really need you guys’ help to get us back into a stable situation so this never happens again. The mortgage company has screwed us yet again and is holding on to $250,000 that is supposed to be ours. So while we own one house and one newly demolished lot, we have nowhere to live. If you can at all help out, please do. My paypal link is at the big PLEASE HELP button at the top of my page on desktop as well as pinned to both of my twitters (MihaelKai & HedonistInk) and I’ll also be regularly reblogging a version of this post here WITH the link.

My name is Aleks. This is my story.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: I’m disabled. I have been legally recognized as disabled since I was 18. I have a combination of mental health issues and physical health issues that make it so my capacity on any given day varies greatly from “I made it through a day at a con thanks to lots of painkillers!” to “I brushed my teeth today and didn’t cry doing it!” But I try. Anxiety, depression, C-PTSD, & ADD are just a few of the things I’ve been diagnosed with by my therapist and psychiatrist, paired with diagnoses from my doctors of migraines, fibromyalgia, and a degenerative connective tissue disorder known as Ehlers-Danlos that all combine to leave me in fairly constant pain basically everywhere. My brain and my body attack me constantly but I still try to do what I can. Unfortunately, it means I can’t just go out and get a 9-5 or retail job to help fix my situation. I can only do what I can do and I have to know my limits.

I live with my mother and my QPP Luca who are both also disabled.

You may know in 2012 we were hit by Hurricane Sandy. If you don’t know that, you’re about to find out. We had six feet of water in our house and my grandfather’s house next door (AKA: my inheritance) floated off of its foundation and was straight up condemned. Ever since then, life has been, in a word, chaos. It’s gotten to be a theme in our house that if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Even my therapist has given up on making any kind of treatment plan and is basically just focusing on damage control. And honestly, at this point, I just wanna go home.

But Aleks, it’s been seven years, why aren’t you home yet? Oh boy, I am SO glad you asked. Let’s get into this history.

First, a prequel. I’m not rich, my family isn’t rich, but we get by. Our house wasn’t big, but it was beautiful. In 2006, my mother bought two tiny houses next door to each other from an old man who wanted to sell them to a family the way he’d grown up in the smaller house while his parents lived in the other house. The one house was a six hundred square foot bungalow that would become my grandfather’s and its neighbor was a seven hundred square foot house that would become mine and my mother’s.

Our house was gorgeous and cute. Built in the early 1900s by a tinsmith with scraps from all of his jobs, all of the walls were tin instead of sheetrock or plaster, the floors were gorgeous hardwood, and the three bedrooms were each under a hundred square feet. It was tiny but it was ours.

On August 28th, 2011, that house was hit by Tropical Storm Irene. Our house was flooded by two feet of water on the first floor. The Atlantic Ocean took out our floors, cabinets, appliances, electrical outlets, the bathroom tile, and the furniture, not to mention rusting the heck out of the bottom of the tin walls. It took six months to get the final eighty thousand dollar settlement out of the insurance company.

The check was deposited by the mortgage company who said they would hold onto it and dole it out as we hired contractors or finished repairs. But here’s the thing: The settlement barely covered enough for the supplies, so we maxed out credit cards and depleted personal savings and finished our repairs a few months later with the help of very few contractors and a lot of DIY.

We installed our kitchen appliances as the last step and called the mortgage company that day to ask them to come and inspect and verify the repairs were done so they could release the other seventy thousand dollars that they were holding onto. They said they were backed up and that they would come and inspect in a month.

Our new stove was 22 days old when Hurricane Sandy hit us.

Where Irene was manageable, Sandy was devastating. My grandfather’s house floated on the storm surge and landed three feet away from its foundation. The legs of our lawn table were bent and sticking out from under the house like the damn wicked witch or something. Our house on the other hand shifted by an inch. Not much, you’d think, but enough to break every pipe in the house and damage the entire structural stability of the house.

The town building department condemned my grandfather’s house and wrote ours up as “more than 50% damaged”.

Needless to say, both houses were left completely and totally uninhabitable.

The mortgage company inspector came and said because everything was wet and ruined that they “couldn’t certify the repairs were completed” even when we were standing there with a stack of receipts and before and after pictures, clearly proving everything had been replaced since most of the materials had been changed. So they decided they wouldn’t release the $70,000 they were holding onto from Irene until the new SANDY repairs were done. Even though we’d already spent that money on repairs and run up debt because of it, they decided they were just going to hold onto it for longer.

And honestly? Fuck those guys. They are the root of some of the most evil parts of this, as you’ll see.

So back to the Sandy damages. First, the insurance company offered us a FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLAR damage assessment. Fifteen thousand bucks when we had six feet of water in our house. For perspective, fourteen months before Hurricane Sandy, Tropical Storm Irene sent 24 inches of water into our house and the insurance company gave us eighty thousand dollars to make those repairs. So yeah, fifteen thousand wasn’t gonna do it. The construction estimates for the repairs were coming in around two hundred and fifty thousand.

So, of course, we appealed. Our engineer said parts of the house were outright dangerous from the damage and had to be torn down and replaced. We told the insurance company this and they told us they would send their own engineer. And… well… they sent SOMEBODY. Was that guy a licensed engineer? Nope. Did they tell us he was? Yup.

So then we appealed to FEMA. The judge from FEMA told them outright to send a LICENSED engineer in his decision and left it at that. So then they did. This guy now said he thought fifty thousand was gonna do it. The insurance company looked at his report and went “mmm… so how about thirty thousand?”

So… no. So then we had to hire a lawyer and took them to court. We weren’t the only ones, thousands of people had to file these lawsuits. The lawyer told us not to let the mortgage company cash the $30,000 of checks we’d been given for the storm so far because it could be argued to be us agreeing to that number. He said we just had to WAIT. So the checks got too old to cash.

The Visiting Nurse Service started sending a therapist to our house once a week for each of the three of us to help with “Hurricane-Related PTSD”. Yup. Cool. On top of my regular C-PTSD. Awesome. But the guy was nice and having therapists to talk to twice a week (my regular one and this guy) was helpful. And he gave me some worksheets that helped me kind of have more of a tool kit. Everything still sucked but hey, we all trudged on.

Pretty sure this was around when the first roofing shingles started falling off of our rental house. We told the landlord that this was a problem and that the property was going to start getting leaks in the roof. We pointed out that it said in our lease that he was supposed to fix this little ‘issue’.

Repeatedly.

Including in writing and by sending him photos of the slowly growing stack of shingles that were not on the roof anymore and the leaky window.

And he still did diddly squat about it.

For five years.

Meanwhile during this whole… process, New York State started the New York Rising program to help rebuild the houses who were tied up in lawsuits like ours or who didn’t have insurance like my grandfather’s. We applied right away. It seemed like an answer!

…So then uh… New York Rising LOST our file.

…Uh… Twice.

And when they finally DID decide to properly process our application, they gave us a grand total of $88,000 and put us in the ‘Build a whole new house’ category. Our house is, as I said, under 900 square feet in size. You literally cannot build a house in our area for that price at that size. Especially when it’s a property that needs 14 foot deep helical pilings and a nine foot high foundation to comply with current code. The foundation alone is $50,000. The lowest estimate we found from any construction company after no less than TEN bids was $180,000 NOT counting the architect who’s another $15,000. NY Rising expected us to be able to rebuild for a fraction of that. So we started looking into finding other financing possibilities while waiting on the lawsuit to continue going through.

We decided to hire our neighbour’s architect because he was something resembling almost affordable. We gave him a deposit. …A few weeks later, he had a heart attack while leaving the building department’s office. …A few weeks after that, he started being investigated for embezzling money from his clients.

At this point, we’d been out of our house for years. And more and more shingles kept falling off of the roof of the rental. Then a siding tile fell off too because the landlord’s son’s landscaping company crashed a lawnmower into it.

We started looking at houses to buy so that at least we would own something.

Then my grandfather (who had been a major contributor to our household finances) had a severe stroke. Six months later, he died. Suddenly we were $3,000 tighter per month. The possibility of buying a house went out the window. But we made do as best as we could.

FEMA was paying for the rental house we were living in while going through all of the appeal and lawsuit procedures and, when we hit their funding cap, New York Rising’s IMA program stepped in to pay “whichever is less, your rent or mortgage”. It still meant higher costs as the rent around here is more than our mortgage, but it made it so we could get by.

The one silver lining was that once my grandfather was out of the picture (since he’d been living with us in a shared rental since Sandy), I was able to start on testosterone injections. January 28, 2015, I was able to start my injections and officially begin the medical side of my transition.

Then New York Rising hit a cap on IMA funding. Which… sucked pretty fucking hard because then there was a few thousand a month more money we had to find to shell out. But then the program was extended and that was awesome.

Then our cat, Pickles, developed severe kidney problems. She was my best friend since the day she showed up on our doorstep a week after we bought our house in 2006 and wandered into the kitchen demanding petting. She moved into our lives and never left. I couldn’t give her up without a fight. So I spent all of my savings on her medical bills and started giving her saline injections twice a day every day to help her kidneys flush the toxins they couldn’t handle themselves.

Then the IMA ran out again. So back to the land of suck. They told us we would be eligible for a little more funding. But only if we demolished the existing house.

In order to legally demolish the house, we had to pay for a construction company to do it under their license. New York Rising expected us to be able to demo the house for $5,000. The lowest bid we received was for $9,000. When we told them this, their reaction was essentially “yeah, yeah, we know, just make it work”. Make it work is a cool and funny phrase when spoken by an aging fashion consultant on television. It’s not so cool or funny when it’s being told to you by the people who are supposed to help you fix your house. It is stressful as hell.

Then Pickles got sicker. And sicker. And her at-home dialysis wasn’t enough to keep her going anymore. Pickles passed in May 2016.

In 2017, we finally won our lawsuit. The judge ruled the insurance company had to release a full payment to the policy maximum of $250,000! Those jerks tried giving us $15,000 and the judge was like “Uh… no, this is $250,000 of damage”. Victory! But we were still out our legal fees because, unlike homeowner’s insurance where the insurance company pays the fees, flood insurance is federally underwritten so you’re not allowed to get the legal fees paid for. Some flood insurance companies realized they’d fucked up and as a result agreed to pay for the legal fees. Our flood insurance company… wasn’t so generous. But a check was still generated by the flood insurance company thanks to the judge. Huzzah, light at the end of the tunnel!

…Then the lawyer refused to sign the check.

Apparently our lawyer has had dealings with our mortgage company before and run into the same problem as we had with their “we’ll release your funding at the end” theory. Except for him that meant “we won’t pay out your legal fees until the house is finished” and he didn’t like that. So they wanted him to sign the check over to them and he wanted them to sign the check over to him. They spent years arguing over a piece of paper with some dollar signs on it while we got needlessly further into debt.

Then one of my ferrets, Wasabi, my emotional support animal, got really sick really suddenly.

By the time the vet scrambled to find out what was wrong, it was too late and he was gone. It turned out that he had a rare autoimmune condition caused by heavy metal exposure from the water. His sister survived, but now Lemon was alone and she and I were both devastated. Watching the way she would get excited and then sad any time we brought out a toy with Wasabi’s scent on it broke my heart so I replaced her toys.

A month later, people came knocking on our door offering free water filters if they would let us track the toxic plume of decades old industrial chemicals and waste spreading unhindered through the groundwater supply that had apparently reached us and was contaminating our pipes.

Eventually, during all this, New York Rising started to realize that their $160 per square foot amount just wasn’t enough when it came to houses like ours. So they started a program called the Recon 100 program. The goal of this program was supposed to be that New York Rising would take over the build process, they would hire contractors and architects in bulk, essentially hiring them for ‘bundles’ of 10 or 20 properties at a time to get them to accept a lower profit per house because they would be guaranteed months of solid work. We were signed up into the program.

Now, as a condition of this program, we had to stop doing any work on our own, we’d have to return whatever hadn’t been spent on repairs already, and we’d have to give them any insurance checks. But New York Rising was bragging about how they had programs that would allow you to repay the funding over several years because they knew everyone was using a little bit here or there to make ends meet. And that was all well and dandy because once the repairs were done, the mortgage company would release what they were holding one way or another. They would have to. …Right?

Meanwhile, our rental assistance hit the next cap. New York Rising told us not to worry because once this paperwork was approved, we’d be eligible for a higher cap of extended rental assistance. It was just a matter of waiting for the paperwork to get approved, they said.

Then our caseworker at New York Rising decided she was going to deny our receipts for the funds already spent. And that she wasn’t going to file the appeals to that denial that we explicitly asked her in writing to file.

Then on top of that, we discovered that at some point our NYR caseworker had decided to NOT sign us up for the extended timeline repayment thing because… fuck knows why, honestly? And that now she wasn’t going to apply us for it because “oh it’s full now”. So NY Rising decided that, before they’d do anything, they wanted us to give THEM the money that was still sitting in those pre-lawsuit paper checks that went old immediately. The government decided that we either had to magic the money of an un-cashed check out of thin air or else it was up to us to: 1, get them reissued, 2, get them deposited by the mortgage company, and 3, somehow get the mortgage company to issue that money to New York Rising.

And they wanted all this done in less than a week because they decided this in the last phase of our approval process and there were other deadlines really close. …Needless to say, the mortgage company was like “lol um nah” even to the theoretical idea of giving the money to NY Rising for the repairs, nevermind the hassle of getting the checks reissued by the flood insurance company with an active lawsuit ongoing.

New York Rising only said “too bad, figure it out yourself and PS because you’re not in this program anymore, we won’t give you the continued rental assistance, why aren’t you done rebuilding your house yet?” Meanwhile, we were waiting on them for months because they told us it was just waiting for the paperwork to go through.

Meanwhile, we had a new jerk of a builder/flipper neighbour. He’d bought the house next door to us when the family with the new baby decided it wasn’t worth waiting so many years to have their own house fixed. Let’s call him Fish Head. He decided to have his building supplies delivered to our neighbour’s yard WITHOUT her permission because there wasn’t enough room on his property. Straight up, he had a whole pallet of building supplies just dumped on her yard. She complained, obviously, and her husband threatened to call the cops. So he moved his shit to to OUR yard because we happened to not be there that day. It took WEEKS to get him to move the shit, even WITH calling the cops.

Turns out, cops don’t give a shit if someone puts hundreds of pounds of building materials on your yard. They’ll tell you you’re well within your rights to move it yourself but if you don’t have a forklift or a whole team of burly humans to assist you in the move then too bad so sad.

Thanks, Fish Head.

But back to the housing. We were months overdue on the rent because we were “just waiting for the paperwork to finish processing”. They told us we’d get all the back stuff in one lump payment. They lied and now we were up shit’s creek.

Our scummy landlord finally sent a notice saying “I’ve waited long enough, get out”. So that was… cool. We were able to keep him from coming after the back rent by pointing out that he was a slum lord and that we’d notified him in writing about being a slumlord, but it still meant we had to move out immediately and in a rush. Thankfully, it was May.

So on June 1st 2018, we moved into our RV parked at a local campsite. Three adults, a cat, and a ferret, crammed into an RV that was anything but recreational.

We installed cameras on our house around this point because Fish Head kept having his workers trample all over our property and they kept breaking things and leaving garbage everywhere.

Then the engineer said he thought he could figure out a way to save the main body of our house and raise it, that we’d only have to demolish off the back room and possibly the bathroom in order to raise it. It was another light at the end of a repeatedly lengthening tunnel. So we changed tracks completely and had him start drafting stuff up for us to raise the existing house, rebuilding only the porch.

Now, here’s the thing about the local campsites, we don’t have many of them and they sell out pretty quickly. Especially for the height of the summer. So they didn’t have any of their ‘full hook-up’ sites, AKA the ones that get you electricity and everything, but we had water and a bathroom and a shower facility and the barbecue to cook food, and it was… survivable. Not exactly comfortable but survivable.

We started doing the work to repair the house instead of following the line of thinking of rebuilding it. We cashed in everything we could and scraped together every scrap of money we possibly could, we sold things, we asked for help where we could, we got a very understanding contractor to give us the lowest prices we could. We managed to get the mortgage company to pay out some of the Tropical Storm Irene money directly to the contractors. Remember that guy, wayyyy back in 2011? And the mortgage inspector who missed a pre-Sandy inspection by a week? Yeah. They still had that money. So even though it was technically Sandy damages as we’d already done the work from Irene, we managed to get them to pay that out. But WHATEVER. It got it paid.

We had a looming deadline from New York Rising that they wanted the house raised by December 31st. Or at least that they wanted it lifted and pending the new foundation. They call this ‘cribbing’ and it basically means your house goes up on Jenga Towers and that you can’t live in it for a while until the foundation is done and it goes back down. So we had to somehow make that happen. But first things first, the campground was closing for the season and we had to have a place to live.

On November 1st 2018, we were able to move back into our house.

Temporarily, at least, while permits and construction drawings and everything went through for getting the house raised.

So we applied to the mortgage company to get the remaining $40,000 that they had from Tropical Storm Irene, the full final payout. And, amazingly, we got it. In it came and went right back out it went to the contractors who were supposed to be working on raising the house because that December 31st deadline was still looming.

Then Fish Head who we keep running into issues with, FINALLY got a stop work order on his house for not having the right permits. Serves you right, Fish Head. But, in retaliation, he decided to lie to the building department that we were living there without utilities? Somehow? When we literally had all our utilities? And had gotten the “90% complete” inspection from our mortgage company? So THAT was a whole mess to try to straighten out. When we met with the head of the building department, he literally turned to the guy next to him and said “See, remember I told you about this guy? This is the retaliation I was telling you about” because he was the guy who had personally signed the stop work order on Fish Head.

So the next big concern was that December 31st deadline. Everyone kept debating whether or not New York Rising would extend it at the last minute again (as they’d done that once before), and we started scrambling to try to find somewhere to live while the house was raised. Ideally, we were looking for somewhere that WASN’T the cold tiny RV in the middle of a New York winter. We applied to a few apartments but because we were paying the mortgage and everything our debt to income ratio didn’t qualify.

On December 24th, 2018, we got the $250,000 check from the flood insurance company with our name and the mortgage company’s name. It seemed like a Christmas Miracle. So we immediately sent it over to the mortgage company so they could cash it and we could apply to have those funds released, remember, our house was FINISHED and HABITABLE, except for needing to be raised per the new flood zoning stuff. At the very least, we had the 90% inspection, and on our next inspection we got a 99%.

So we immediately started applying for the final permits for getting the house raised and my grandfather’s house demolished. The lady at the building department is… nice but not very organized. So we had to deal with the town jerking us around with the permits taking forever to get done, well past the time estimates they tell you on the phone when you call and ask about time estimates.

We rushed to have our disconnects done. Water, electric, sewer. The house was all wrapped up in a pretty bow ready to be raised. We moved into a hotel. All we needed was the final elevation permit and the money from the mortgage company.

So back to the mortgage company and that $250,000. The mortgage company denied the payout 3 times saying, “Oh we don’t have… this paper or that paper” for papers we had confirmation they had. The guy on the phone one time when we were like “….We submitted that one on x date while speaking to Z employee”, he tried saying, “Oh this fax isn’t legible…” and we were just like “…FAX… you mean the scanned in PDF we submitted via your web upload?” And he was like “…Oh. hold please…” and suddenly he could read the form. Magic. So basically they were just LYING to us. Why? Fuck knows.

Then it was, “Everything is fine and it’ll be issued in 3 days” on the 23rd. And we got the elevation permit! And the demo permit on my grandfather’s house! Everything was rolling along and it was all going to be fine! Right?

Not so fast.

On the 31st we still had no check. We called and it was, “Oh it has to go to this other department because it’s over $70,000, but everything is approved and they’ll issue the check in 5 to 7 days, HONEST”.

We called back on the 5th and THAT lie had turned into “Oh well… we sold your loan effective the 4th, you’ll have to ask the new guys”. The mortgage company SOLD OUR LOAN to another company WHILE our payout was “APPROVED AND SENT TO THE CHECK ISSUING DEPARTMENT”.

We called the new guys who told us, “Oh we don’t even have a ID NUMBER assigned for your loan yet, call back in a week to get your loan number and then it’s another week until we can even see your funds and start your payout claim oh and we probably need to schedule our own inspection.”

So it’ll be easily a month OR MORE before we get the money.

We are trying to expedite this whole process as best as we can. We managed to get the ID number in only 4 days. They seem to be arguing with themselves about whether or not they need a whole new inspection or not.

Meanwhile, we only really had the money for the hotel for the lift time but all the disconnects have been done (there is no heat, water, or electricity) so it’s not like we can just go BACK HOME during the delay either.

We have $250,000 on the way and we’re about to be homeless. Again. For the third time in 18 months.

If we can just get $5,000, we can pay to have the house RECONNECTED AGAIN to everything so we can wait these fuckers out and get the payout.

Every little bit helps.

Please.

The other option is living in the RV again just to have a roof over our heads. But unlike last time when it was warm, it is February and we are in NY. It snowed yesterday. RVs aren’t designed to keep warm when there’s snow out.

Please help me and my family stay in a house.

My paypal link can be found through the big PLEASE HELP button at the top of my page on desktop as well as will be pinned to both of my twitters (MihaelKai & HedonistInk) and I’ll also be regularly reblogging a version of this post here WITH the link.

I am also taking a limited number of 1000 word or less commissions! That’s about the limit of what I can handle right now! DM me for details!

(Mutuals: If you can’t donate but you can loan us some for two months or so, we can pay you back as soon as we get that check? Please let me know if it is a donation or if you would like to be paid back so I can keep a record.)

#trans crowd fund #please consider donating #donations #transcrowdfund #homelessness #please help #hurricane #hurricane sandy