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bethestaryouareradio · 11 months

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Addressing Mental Health and Teen Suicide

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"When you feel like giving up, just remember the reason why you held on for so long.” -Hayley Williams

A Message from Founder/Executive Director, Cynthia Brian

Everyone feels down and depressed from time to time. Yet sometimes, depression is a deeper mental health concern that needs to be addressed. Reaching out for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and many resources are available. Social media has become an outlet for teens to express their despair. Viewing consistent negative content causes feelings of isolation, anger, and overwhelming. The mission of Be the Star You Are!® is to empower through positive messages, especially in media, with tools for living. Make sure to tune in to our two radio broadcasts, StarStyle-Be the Star You Are!® and Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio.

Our BTSYA volunteers are contributing to this conversation and outreach.

Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio host, Ruhani, presented an impactful broadcast about teen suicide and prevention while interviewing Elliot Kallen, founder of A Brighter Day. Listen to the interview: https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/145259/teen-suicide-and-prevention .

After interviewing Elliot, Julia Howe wrote her piece on breaking the silence, Hamza addressed how to break the stigma, and Karen encourages volunteering to help others to help yourself. Keep reading.

Ella, the teen chairperson of our shoe drive, expresses her gratitude for the kindness of others who donated shoes. She collected 21 bags of shoes totaling 536 pairs to be shipped to families in poverty in disaster areas around the globe.

June is Pride month, a time dedicated to celebrating the freedom to be themselves for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in honor of the 1969 Stonewall riots. Be inclusive and kind. Love is love.

Father’s Day is this weekend and we honor all the magnificent men who love and care for their children. I will host a special radio broadcast focusing on fathers, pride month, and A.I on Wednesday, June 14th @ 4pm PT https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/145384/fathers-pride-month-ai-and-authorsand on Sunday, June 18th, Sharanya, Kirpa, and Milan provide a Father’s Day special on Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio. Tune in for the positivity and fun. Happy, happy Daddy’s Day!

If you or someone you know is struggling, there are plenty of free resources. Early identification and intervention are crucial. Life is precious.

With gratitude,

Cynthia Brian

Founder/Executive Director

Be the Star You Are!®

PO Box 376

Moraga, California 94556

[email protected]

https://www.BetheStarYouAre.org

http://www.BTSYA.org

DONATE: https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/1504

Preventing Teen Suicide

by Ruhani Chhabra

1. Recognizing warning signs and risk factors: Identify those who may be at risk. Warning signs may include changes in behavior, withdrawal from activities, expressing feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness, or talking about death or suicide.

2. Mental health support: Access to mental health services is crucial for preventing teen suicide. Schools, communities, and healthcare systems should provide resources for mental health support, including counseling services and trained professionals who can help teenagers navigate their emotions and challenges. Reporting your friends’ situation can save their life.

3. Building resilience: Developing resilience in teenagers can help them cope with stress, setbacks, and challenges. Encouraging healthy coping mechanisms, such as exercise, mindfulness, and fostering supportive relationships, can contribute to building resilience.

4. Promoting social connections: Teens often feel isolated, so promoting positive social connections is essential. Encouraging participation in community activities, clubs, or support groups can help teens feel connected and valued.

5. Anti-bullying efforts: Bullying can have devastating effects on mental health and contribute to suicidal thoughts among teenagers. Implementing comprehensive anti-bullying programs in schools and educating students about empathy, kindness, and acceptance can help prevent bullying and its harmful consequences.

6. Responsible media portrayal: Media plays a significant role in shaping perceptions and influencing behavior. Responsible media portrayal of suicide, including avoiding sensationalism and providing resources for help, can reduce the risk of suicide and provide support to vulnerable individuals.

7. Educating parents, educators, and peers: It's crucial to educate parents, educators, and peers about the warning signs and risk factors associated with teen suicide. Training programs and workshops can equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to support and intervene when necessary.

8. Reducing stigma: It's important to challenge the stigma surrounding mental health issues. By promoting understanding and empathy, we can encourage teenagers to seek help without fear of judgment or shame. Education campaigns and initiatives can help normalize conversations about mental health.

9. Strengthening school support systems: Schools play a vital role in supporting teenagers. Implementing comprehensive mental health programs, training teachers and staff to recognize signs of distress, and establishing a supportive environment can make a significant difference in preventing teen suicide.

10. Encouraging help-seeking behavior: Adolescents may be hesitant to reach out for help due to various reasons, including fear of judgment or not knowing where to turn. Encouraging and educating them about available resources, such as helplines, counseling services, and support groups, can empower them to seek help when needed.

11. Limiting access to lethal means: Restricting access to lethal means, such as firearms or medications, can reduce the risk of impulsive suicide attempts. It's important for parents and caregivers to ensure that potentially dangerous items are safely stored and inaccessible to teenagers.

12. Developing coping skills: Teaching teenagers healthy coping mechanisms can equip them with the tools they need to navigate challenging situations. This can include strategies like problem-solving, stress management techniques, and promoting self-care practices.

13. Involving peer support networks: Peers can play a significant role in supporting one another. Creating peer support networks or mentoring programs where older teenagers can provide guidance and support to younger students can foster a sense of belonging and promote positive mental health.

14. Encouraging responsible online behavior: The digital world can both connect and isolate teenagers. Educating them about responsible online behavior, cyberbullying prevention, and promoting positive online interactions can mitigate the negative impact of online platforms on mental health.

15. Encouraging a balanced lifestyle: Balancing academic pressure with leisure activities, hobbies, and time for relaxation is crucial for overall well-being. When teenagers pursue their passions and engage in activities they enjoy, stress is reduced and mental wellness increased.

Ruhani is a BTSYA volunteer and radio host on Express Yourself!™ Teen radio and an internationally award-winning writer. She will be a freshman at CAL, Berkeley in the fall. Listen to the Teen Suicide Radio Broadcast at Voice America Network, Empowerment Channel: https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/145259/teen-suicide-and-prevention

Breaking the Stigma: Addressing Teen Mental Health for a Brighter Future

by Hamza Habib

Addressing teen mental health is crucial despite the surrounding social stigma. Nearly 50% of US adolescents, around 21 million, have experienced mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety. Treatment options like cognitive behavioral therapy and medication are available. A supportive network, including family and friends, can help alleviate stress and depression. Certain families may hold misconceptions, hindering access to necessary medical assistance. For instance, only 9.5% of Asian American teens received specialized mental health services, the lowest among racial groups. Outreach programs and social media can educate families about mental health, fostering a more open environment for adolescents to seek help. Let's not shy away from discussing mental health, but instead be compassionate and understanding, lending an ear to those in need. These small steps pave the way for a brighter future.

Hi! My name is Hamza, a Be the Star You Are!® volunteer. I am an incoming freshman at Wesleyan University, and am passionate about using my skillset to make the world a better place.

Breaking the Silence: A Brighter Day's Mission to Support Teen Mental Health

by Julia Howe

January 3, 2015. Elliot Kallen holds six pages of his son's final words—Jake Kallen's suicide note.

"Mom and Dad - I've been thinking about this for a long time. I never would have told you how I felt. I never would have asked for your help. I never would have taken your help."

On the plane back from Montana after retrieving his son's body, Elliot Kallen reread that note over and over and over again. He suddenly realized it needed to stop. He had to take action to prevent other families from experiencing the same pain and devastation. He needed to help other families find a brighter day.

Thousands of families face similar struggles like the Kallens. In 2023, 1 in 5 high schoolers have thought about suicide.

Being a teenager is tough! We deal with so much pressure to fit in, succeed in school, or just be happy. As a freshman in high school, many of my friends admit they have no idea how to handle their anxiety and depression. They don't feel comfortable talking to school counselors or teachers. And it can be really scary to seek help, call a helpline, or even talk to our parents!

That's where A Brighter Day comes in. This organization was founded by Elliot Kallen right after he lost his son. A Brighter Day is all about supporting the mental health of teens like us. Their Crisis Text Line provides help without making you worry that anyone will find out. Just text 'Brighter' to 741741, and within five minutes, trained counselors will be there to chat with you. This service is available 24/7, and it's completely free and anonymous. Plus, I don't have to make any calls—I can just text. Elliot Kallen agrees that if his son were alive today, he would have reached out to a texting line for support.

A Brighter Day does even more! Their website, https://www.abrighterday.info, shares original content every week for teens dealing with depression and anxiety. They provide stress and depression resources with relatable material for us and our parents. They also have an anonymous parent hotline once a month, allowing parents to talk to counselors or other families who've been through the same challenges.

Elliot Kallen, the founder of A Brighter Day, believes that they may not be able to eliminate depression entirely, but they can definitely make a big difference. His goal is for A Brighter Day to become a national organization that helps teens every day, all across the country.

Reflecting on their journey, Elliot considers the most significant achievement of A Brighter Day to be the positive impact they've had on countless teenagers. He keeps heartfelt thank-you notes from those they've helped. And guess what? A Brighter Day is just getting started, and they have so much potential to grow. Their current mission is to ensure that every single teen knows about the Crisis Text Line and can reach out for help when they need it.

Get involved with A Brighter Day and support teens across the US! We all understand how awful anxiety can be, so let's reach out and support other kids going through tough times. A Brighter Day needs your help; if we care for each other, we can save lives.

Volunteer at the Car Show at Broadway Plaza, Broadway Plaza, Walnut Creek. No prior experience is needed, just good communication and teamwork skills! Anyone interested email the volunteer coordinator, Shaina, at [email protected]!

Julia Howe is a teen reader and writer with Be the Star You Are!®, passionate about youth mental health and literacy. She loves exploring innovative education methods and running long distances, and may soon be an Express Yourself!™ Teen Radio Reporter.

Kindness in Kindergarten

by Karen Kitchel

Spending a couple days each week as a volunteer in kindergarten is a wonderful way to absorb the important things in life. This week, I saw a very tearful little girl who was missing her Dad. It took about 30 seconds for another student to offer her teddy bear, which she said was given to her when she was a baby. Amazing how the tears stopped, and I saw a perfect picture of kindness.

For six years, I’ve had the privilege of watching five-year-old kids learn how to read, write, and most important, to be there for a friend in need. Each year, it’s bittersweet to see them all “graduate.”

Already I’m looking forward to the fall and meeting a new group of friends who will experience the wonders of what you can learn in kindergarten.

Karen Kitchel is the Kindness Coordinator volunteer with BTSYA. She purchased the book, No Barnyard Bullies, as a gift for every kindergarten student where she is a volunteer teacher. www.scatteringkindness.com

DONATE YOUR SHOES THROUGH END OF JUNE

Be the Star You Are!® in collaboration with Mark Hoogs State Farm Insurance and 5 A Rent a Space are collecting new or gently worn shoes to ship to women and families in developing countries. With the Russian war against Ukraine and the unprecedented natural disasters around the world, millions of people are currently experiencing difficult living conditions. Although books are always an enlightening resource, shoes are a basic necessity.

Through June 30th, drop shoes at these two locations:

· Mark Hoogs

State Farm Insurance

629 Moraga Road, Moraga

925-254-3344

www.TeamHoogs.com

· 5 A Rent-A-Space

455 Moraga Rd. #F, Moraga

925-631-7000

https://5aspace.com/

With your donation of shoes, you will be sharing your love. Thank you!

For more information, visit https://www.bethestaryouare.org/shoedrive

My Experience with the Shoe Drive

by Ella Kalpakjian

When I decided to be the teen chairperson for the shoe drive, I never thought that it would have such a positive impact on me. Seeing how many shoes were donated and how many people cared, especially the school administrations, was astounding. Organizing the shoe drive reminded me that people can do much more than they think when they work together. Donating one or two pairs of shoes might not seem like a lot, but when fifty or a hundred people do that, suddenly, there are a hundred pairs of shoes. It is also a good reminder that many people go through hardship, and these simple acts of kindness can make a big difference. I was overjoyed at the positive response I received from the Moraga community, and I hope that the shoe drive helps everyone remember to be grateful for what they have and spread that gratitude through kindness.

Dedicated BTSYA teen chairperson, Ella, organized shoe drives at local schools for BTSYA and collected 536 pairs of shoes to be distributed to women and families in impoverished countries.

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SIMPLE WAYS TO HELP!

Spring is time to stock up on gifts for holidays forthcoming. We have suggestions for you to shop, save, and stay safe. Please use these web sites for all of your shopping essentials.

1. Discounted books at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/shops/be_the_star_you_are_charity

2. Giving Assistant: Shop. Earn. Give! Use Giving Assistant to earn cash at 3500+ popular online stores :https://givingassistant.org/np#be-the-star-you-are-inc

3. Shop at over 1300 stores on IGIVE: http://www.iGive.com/BTSYA

4. Buy “Read, Lead, Succeed” black tanks and books at StarStyle® Store:

http://www.starstylestore.net/

5. Are you a gamer, lover of new software, or other digital content? Buy all of your favorites at Humble Bundle. http://ow.ly/cYs130iN6n4e

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#mentalhealthteensuicideabrighterdayfathersdaypridemonthcynthiabrianexpressyourselfbethestaryouarenobarnyardbulliesgethelpteens

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brisbaneprinthub · 2 years

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The Best Printed Marketing Promotional Products for Your Company

If you unexpectedly receive a gift from someone, chances are high that when a suitable occasion presents itself, you will be far more inclined to gift something to that person too. This same psychology is behind the much higher probability of a customer ordering or re-ordering an advertiser’s product from whom they have received a free gift. With the intense competition for acquiring customers and retaining them, businesses have to look at cost-effective ways to promote their brand, and printed promotional products answer this requirement very well.

If you haven’t yet jumped on the bandwagon to leverage the power of promotional products, read on to find out what you are missing.

Why Should I Use Promotional Gifts as a Marketing Strategy?

The simple idea at work here is that we all love to receive gifts. But how does this translate into a great marketing tool for your business? Let us explore a few ways.

Brand recall — According to a study by Identity Works, 71% of tradeshow attendees remembered the name of the company that gave them a promotional gift. This rate of recall is far higher than for many other avenues of marketing. The feeling of positivity associated with receiving a gift helps make the connection in the memory. Another study shows that most people keep promotional gifts for an average of 8 months. This means that for at least this period of time the customer is seeing and using a product with your branding. This in most cases leads to the customer trying out your brand at least once.

Cost-effectiveness — The promotional gift printing itself will not cost you much, especially if you go in for large numbers. But what makes promotional gifts even better in terms of return on investment is the cost per impression or CPI. Your customer’s friends, family, and colleagues will also see the product with your brand and logo on it and your brand will get expanding visibility at no extra cost to you! In fact, 63% of the people surveyed in a study in the US said they are likely to pass on promotional gifts to other people after being done with them. This further boosts the impressions that your brand gets through these gifts.

Relationship with the customers — The tangible gift in a customer’s hand sends a subtle message to them that your business cares about them. The positive intent behind giving them a product that they can use and enjoy is conveyed and also reiterated each time they use the gift item. You can take this communication further through the nature of the gift. For example, opting for a sustainable product for marketing tells your customer that you are responsible and you care for the environment as they do. This fosters brand loyalty with your customers.

The morale of employees — Another less-talked-about but equally important use of printed promotional products is with your employees. The pride with which an employee uses a company branded product not only motivates your workforce but also makes them all walking brand ambassadors to show what your business stands for.

How to Choose the Best Printed Promotional Products to Promote my Brand?

Now that you have read about the ways promotional gifts can unlock the growth of your business, you must be ready to place the order for promotional products printing. There are several printing services in Brisbane but before you go ahead, it is important to carefully choose the product best suited to promote your brand.

Alignment with your brand — Choose a product that speaks for your brand. Consider the larger message you want to send to your target group. For example, if you are a kids’ clothing brand a printed DIY project would make for a great gift wherein you are helping parents engage their kids productively. This conveys to your customer that you care deeper than just them buying clothes from you.

Usefulness — The usefulness of a gift is a top criterion with customers for liking and keeping it. Regular-use items like mugs, USB sticks, calendars, etc. get retained and used by customers which ensures that your brand stays on their radar. Associating the gift with your products is a great way of achieving this goal. For example, if yours is a cosmetic brand then offering a free branded cosmetic bag with purchases over a certain value would be a fantastic way to establish a lasting connection with your customer.

Combination with other engagements — Other than giving away promotional gifts at events or with the sale of your products, you can look at other innovative ways to use printed products. You can have a contest in which you get your potential and existing customers to create a design or caption for your branded product. This gives them a free gift with your logo but also something with their creation on it, increasing the value of the gift for them.

Unique, creative — With many brands opting for promotional gifts printing, you need to be creative for your marketing product to stand out. It needs to be useful but also eye-catching. This will help your brand live longer in the customer’s memory and will also help drive more conversation around your brand. Whether you are looking at unique design printing or just logo printing, Brisbane has many vendors to choose from.

Quality — This should be a paramount consideration when going in for promotional products printing. If the quality of the product is poor then the marketing strategy can backfire heavily on your business. So, when you are choosing printing services in Brisbane make sure to look into their past work and track record to avoid nasty surprises.

In a nutshell

Promotional gifts are a proven, cost-effective tool for marketing your brand. It is relatively easy to execute and fetches your brand more eyeballs for longer periods than most other strategies. But before choosing one from the many printing services in Brisbane, you need to be sure that they can deliver.

Brisbane Print Hub has a track record of exemplary work in printing for over 20 years. Our talented team of technicians and creative designers will help you with promotional products printing from design to delivery. With our state-of-the-art printing equipment, you can be assured of top quality in our work. Our customer-oriented focus pushes us to understand the needs of your business and deliver quality promotional gifts printing on time. Don’t just take our word for it, Call Now for a free demo!

Print Now

Source: The Best Printed Marketing Promotional Products for Your Company

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reyofluke-ocs · 2 years

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As soon as i saw 'NCIS x SPN (Gibbs Adopts Weechesters)' I NEEd to know how does Gibbs adopt the brothers and are they still hunters?

I WAS HOPING SOMEONE WOULD ASK ABOUT THIS OR ONE OF MY OTHER CROSSOVER FICS!!!!!

This got long so a) sorry and b) it's under the cut

So what happens is that John gets injured on a hunt and is in the hospital for awhile in a coma but the hospital has no idea who he is or if he has anyone to contact so he's listed as 'John Doe' during his stay there. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam are staying in a terrible motel in D.C. where they manage to hide the fact they are two kids living there, until a good Samaritan notices it and reports it to CPS. A social worker talks to Dean and Sam and manages to get their trust enough to get Bobby's number from them but because of bad weather, it will be awhile before Bobby can come get the kids. Unable to take them home with her because of ethical reasons and unwanting to subject them to potentially weeks of living in a DSS office after they lived in a crappy motel, the social worker contacts a coworker who is on the list of potential foster parents - Shannon Gibbs. Jethro Gibbs is due home on a couple week's leave (or maybe a longer leave idk yet) and him and Shannon have talked about maybe fostering and adopting when Jethro leaves the service, so she says she'll talk to Jethro when he calls tomorrow but that she can take Dean and Sam for the night.

Random but Sam totally befriended Kelly on the playground by taking care of some kids that were bullying her and Maddie for having military dads. Also, Kelly at least doesn't die because Sam is in the backseat with her. I imagine that Gibbs meets the two kids and just.... almost immediately is like 'give me the adoption papers'. He recognizes his younger self in Dean and Sam is clearly a brilliant and kind kid. When they get picked up by Bobby, him and Shannon give Dean and Sam their contact information, and after John recovers and makes his way to Bobby's to reunite with Dean and Sam, he learns about the nice civilian family that took care of his kids and how Gibbs 'is a Marine just like you Dad!'. Bobby 'convinces' (read: forces) John to consider dropping the kids off at the Gibbs, which leads to him admitting the truth to them (especially because it's not exactly normal for a kid to have a shit ton of weapons, even if Gibbs does have Rule #9: Always Carry A Knife).

Basically: Gibbs (and later the entirety of Team Gibbs) end up being a second family to the Winchester brothers, with Kelly included because screw it I can have her live if I want it. Ari is also a demon that refuses to leave the Winchester's or Team Gibbs alone so everyone reluctantly puts up with his bullshit (though if he asks one more time about Kate, Castiel is going to smite him, he swears to Chuck - )

Also random but: Gibbs totally shoots Lucifer and Chuck at least ONCE, firmly embraces Jack as a grandson, and the entirety of Team Gibbs knows Ziva isn't dead following the missile attack but in hiding and there totally is some sort of communication between her, Tony, Tali and Team Gibbs. Also demon!Ari basically kind of starts to leave Team Gibbs and the Winchester's alone in favor of stalking looking after his younger sister and niece.

I HAVE SO MANY MORE HEADCANONS ABOUT THIS I KEEP REMEMBERING I HAVE TO STOP OR THIS POST WILL NEVER END.

#get to know me #jewel tag #non oc wip

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emospritelet · 4 years

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Heatstroke - chapter 12

Last time, Gold got teased by Swanfire, Lacey got teased by Ruby, and both of them were convinced that the other hates them.

[AO3]

Gold rummaged in the cupboard for a plastic tub, fishing one out and setting it on the kitchen counter. He could hear Emma and Neal in the lounge, changing Henry’s diaper and getting him ready for the trip home. They had spent a pleasant Sunday at the park, picnicking on a blanket in the warm sunshine, but it was time for his family to head back to Boston. Gold opened his cake tins, cutting a thick wedge of the date and walnut cake he had made and putting it in the plastic tub. He added half a dozen stem ginger cookies and put on the lid, carrying it through to the lounge.

“Here,” he said, offering it to Emma. “Something for the road.”

“Thanks.” She opened up the tub and took a deep inhale before putting the lid back on. “Smells delicious. You’re too good to us.”

“Well, I have no one else to spoil,” said Gold, with a grin. “Besides, it stops me eating it.”

Neal drained his glass of milk, setting it down on the little table next to Gold’s chair, and Gold took a seat as he watched them both pack away Henry’s changing mat and diapers. Henry pushed to his feet, toddling towards Gold and reaching up with flailing arms. He caught the empty glass, sending it flying to the ground. Emma looked up at the crash of glass, and winced.

“Dammit!” she said, as Henry began to cry. “Sorry.”

“No matter.” Gold scooped Henry up and bounced him on his knee. “No damage done. Well, except to the glass.”

“Yeah, no fixing that,” said Emma, frowning at the broken glass. “Neal, could you get a brush or something?”

“Dustpan’s under the sink,” called Gold, as Neal headed for the kitchen.

“I got it.”

Emma squatted down and began stacking curved pieces of glass on her palm.

“Just leave it for Neal,” said Gold. “You’ll cut yourself.”

“It’s fine, I got - ow!”

There was a tinkling of glass as Emma dropped the shards. She winced, sucking a cut finger, and Gold shook his head.

“I did say.”

“Yeah…” She inspected the cut. “You got a Band-Aid?”

“Kitchen drawer,” said Gold, and Emma nodded, pushing to her feet.

He looked down at Henry, who had stopped crying, but had grasped his tie and was chewing on it. Gold rolled his eyes, pulling it from Henry’s grasp and sighing as he saw the extensive patch of drool.

“I think a teething ring might be more beneficial, what do you say?” he said, bouncing him on his knee again. Henry gurgled happily, and Gold grinned, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

“Okay, let me get that mess.” Neal entered with a dustpan and brush, squatting down to sweep up the shards and tiny specks of glass.

“I’ll run the vacuum over it when you’ve gone,” said Gold, still bouncing Henry. “You will give me a call when you get home?”

“Sure.”

“I mean as soon as you get home, not ten o’clock at night when I’ve already convinced myself you’re all dead in a ditch.”

“Dad...”

“Fine.” Gold transferred Henry to his other knee. “It’s been great to see you all. I’ll try to drive down to Boston in the next few weeks, if you like.”

“You’re always welcome, you know that.” Neal finished brushing up the broken glass. “Although sleeping on our couch can’t be good for your leg.”

“Well, I can always get a hotel for the night,” said Gold. “And you’re welcome to come here whenever you want to get out of the city. I don’t exactly have much company otherwise.”

“You sure about that?”

Emma’s voice from the doorway made him look around, and he felt his mouth fall open in horror. She was smirking at him, one hand raised and a very small pair of coral-coloured panties swinging from an outstretched finger.

“Where the hell did you get those?” asked Neal.

“Kitchen drawer,” said Emma, and raised an eyebrow at Gold. “I’m guessing they’re not yours, so how did they end up in your kitchen, hmm?”

Gold could feel his mouth opening and closing, and snapped it shut.

“Small…” Emma turned the panties this way and that. “Coral pink - nice colour by the way - and very, very - lacy.”

She was grinning at him, and he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.

“I assure you there’s a perfectly innocent explanation,” he said.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear it,” chuckled Emma. “You gonna try to tell us you keep her underwear in the kitchen drawer because you secretly hate each other?”

“It was the cat,” said Gold lamely.

“Oh, come on…”

“I’m serious!” he insisted.

“That is the worst attempt at a lie I ever heard,” said Neal, grinning.

“It’s true!” Gold regretted not throwing the panties away when he had the chance. “I kept finding them in the lounge. Six pairs! And a bra!”

“And the cat put them there,” said Neal, in a flat voice. “Right...”

“I saw him do it!” insisted Gold.

“I could make the obvious joke about pussy,” said Emma, “but you’re my father-in-law and it’d be weird.”

“And yet you said it anyway.” Neal ran his hands over his face with a groan, and she chuckled.

“Sorry. Look, Pops, if she’s leaving her underwear in your kitchen she definitely likes you.”

“She hates me!” snapped Gold. “She bloody well threw a drink over me when I tried to give them back to her! Called me a pervert!”

“You two…” Emma shook her head. “Worst flirts in the entire world.”

“Calling someone a pervert is not flirting!”

“Would you just admit you like her?”

She tossed the panties to him, and Gold fumbled as he grabbed at them.

“Certainly not,” he said coolly. “And the feeling is extremely mutual.”

“Fine,” sighed Emma. “Just - why don’t you try talking to her? Nice, normal conversation. Maybe buy her a coffee.”

“It’s not as though we have anything in common,” said Gold. “Thankfully she isn’t a tenant, and I doubt she has an interest in antiques. There’s no reason for our paths to cross.”

Lacey had decided that if she were ever to have the poor judgement to agree to another breakfast interview, she certainly wouldn’t conduct it in Granny’s Diner.

Sidney had suggested it, what with Granny’s being the beating heart of Storybrooke, and Zelena West wanting to emphasise her community spirit. Lacey had thought it was definitely worth a try. Who could hold back when faced with hot coffee and fresh muffins, after all?

Unfortunately, the diner was busy during the breakfast service, and while the noise meant that their conversation wouldn’t be difficult to overhear, it also meant that she had an audience of curious townsfolk watching her every move as she greeted her interviewee. Two men on the nearest table didn’t hide their interest; one of them she knew was called Leroy, who had a bristling black beard and a permanent scowl on his face. The other she didn’t know by name, but he was perhaps a little older than Leroy, with sleepy eyes and an easy, relaxed manner. The two always ate breakfast together, and she hadn’t worked out if they were colleagues or boyfriends. They certainly bickered enough that it could have gone either way.

Leroy took a bite of his breakfast muffin, watching as she stood up to greet Zelena West. The little she knew of the woman hadn’t impressed her, and meeting her properly did nothing to change that. Zelena looked her up and down when Lacey introduced herself, lip curling a little before she bared her teeth in a smile. Reddish curls fell around her shoulders beneath a wide-brimmed black hat that Lacey privately thought made her look like a witch.

“Are you Sidney’s office girl, or something?” she asked.

“No, I’m conducting the interview,” said Lacey. “We spoke on the phone, remember?”

“Yes, but I presumed you were - qualified.” Zelena appeared to be checking the length of her skirt. “How old are you, anyway? You look as though you should still be in school.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” said Lacey, trying not to let her smile turn into a grimace. “Mostly from horny scumbags with no brains and no class. I’m sure you’re not like that, right?”

Leroy appeared to choke on his muffin before coughing loudly. Zelena shot her a narrow-eyed look, and Lacey’s smile widened.

“Why don’t you take a seat?” she suggested. “Coffee? How about a little something sweet? The banana-pecan muffins are great.”

“I never eat carbs in the morning,” said Zelena. “Just coffee will be fine. Black.”

Lacey nodded, and raised a hand to attract Ruby’s attention. She could already tell that this was going to be one of her more irritating interviewees.

Once they had their coffee, Lacey started with the questions. She made notes as Zelena talked about her difficult early life, her experience of the foster system and how that had made her determined to make life better for others. A few of the facts she dropped made Lacey’s nose twitch in interest, the sense of a story untold, a story that it would take more investigation to unearth. A topic for another day, perhaps.

“So what made you move to Storybrooke?” she asked. “Seems a weird choice. I mean as far as charity goes, I’m guessing the resources here are way more limited than they are in New York.”

“Perhaps,” said Zelena. “But there again the competition for the funds raised is far fiercer. At least in a small town, those that give so generously can see the benefits almost immediately.”

“I guess,” said Lacey, scribbling hard. “Pretty weird what happened with the nuns, though, huh? I heard there was some mix-up at Miners’ Day. Some inaccuracy in the total raised?”

“Oh, the nun put in charge of their stall was completely hopeless,” said Zelena, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “She was mistaken in her accounting, that’s all. I heard it’s not the first time.”

“Oh, so was that the same with the auction held this spring?” asked Lacey. “I spoke to a couple of people involved with that, and it’s weird. None of them seem to agree on the amount that went to the children’s ward.”

Zelena’s nostrils flared.

“I thought this interview was supposed to be about the dance I’ve organised, not past events,” she snapped. “The entire town is looking forward to it! I want this article to encourage as many people to attend as possible! Do charitable works count for nothing with you?”

“See, that’s the thing,” said Lacey, tapping her pencil against her notebook. “I heard you’ve done a number of fundraisers over the years since you got here. Bake sales, auctions, even some thing where you offered to go to dinner with the highest bidder, although it turned out you didn’t raise the sum you were hoping—”

“That was a misunderstanding,” said Zelena stiffly.

“—and out of all those events, there seems to be a common theme,” went on Lacey, “which is that the good causes you were raising money for don’t seem too clear on what share they were supposed to get of the proceeds. So what happened there?”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“No,” said Lacey, twirling the pencil between her fingers. “Just asking questions. It’s what I do.”

“Well, stick to the questions I agreed with your editor,” snapped Zelena.

Lacey gave her a sweet smile, twirling the pencil between her fingers.

“I’m afraid Sidney didn’t tell me what those were,” she said. “So I’m having to wing it. Sorry about that.”

Over Zelena’s shoulder, she saw the diner door open and Mr Gold stepped through, taking a moment to remove the sunglasses he wore. He caught Lacey’s eye for a brief moment, and she felt her heart thump a little before looking away.

“I’m not about to sit here and listen to baseless accusations!” Zelena was glaring at her, pale blue eyes flashing. “Consider this interview over!”

She pushed to her feet, stepping back, and almost collided with Gold. He took a hasty step back from her, and Zelena’s face brightened as she showed white teeth in a wide, predatory grin.

“Oh, Mr Gold,” she said, in honeyed tones. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Miss West,” he said neutrally. “Miss French. Please excuse me.”

He stepped to the side to go around her, and Zelena stepped with him, cutting off his path. Gold appeared to restrain himself from rolling his eyes with great difficulty.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” she went on, in that sickly-sweet voice.

“My business hours are eight-thirty til six,” he said. “Please come to the shop if you need to make any representations regarding your rent.”

She gave a tinkling little laugh that made Lacey grimace.

“Oh, you’re so funny!” she said. “I always pay my debts.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

He bowed his head a little, a clear indication that, in his opinion, the conversation was over. He took a step to the left, and Zelena again moved with him. This time his eyes definitely rolled, his chin lifting a little and exposing his throat. Lacey found her eyes following the line of it, and hurriedly looked at the knot of his tie instead.

“It’s about the charity dance,” said Zelena. “It’s for a very good cause, the whole town is planning to be there, and yet I don’t seem to have had your response to my invitation.”

“Well, you just mentioned the words ‘dance’ and ‘the whole town’,” he said levelly. “Neither fills me with any great level of enthusiasm, I have to say. Excuse me.”

“But if you just let me explain—”

“Would you let the man get his coffee?” said Lacey impatiently. “We’re still wrapping up this interview, remember?”

Gold took the opportunity to slip past and head for the diner counter as Zelena rounded on her with a look of fury.

“You think I’m going to sit here and be accused of impropriety by a - a glorified intern?” she snapped. “I’ll be calling the paper today and insisting you be sacked!”

“Knock yourself out,” said Lacey, unconcerned. “I’ll just write up what I’ve got. This was going to be your opportunity to call bullshit on all the rumours that were flying around, but sure, I guess you could just read the piece when it’s out and let people make up their own minds.”

Zelena made a face like she was chewing a wasp. Out of the corner of her eye, Lacey noticed Gold glance over his shoulder with a tiny smirk on his face. Zelena bared her teeth.

“Five minutes,” she hissed. “And I’m still calling your editor.”

“Cool, whatever.” Lacey sat back down and gestured to the seat across from her. “So. Back to the dinner auction. Talk me through what happened.”

Zelena seemed to be struggling with something, but slowly lowered herself into the chair opposite, and Lacey gave her a wide smile. Perhaps she’d get to write something interesting after all.

#fic: heatstroke #golden lace fic #golden lace #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #my fic #sprite does nano

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we-are-inevitable · 3 years

Text

modern art // javid (ch. 1)

A/N: hi !! so some of you may remember an old songfic i did in march of last year, titled ‘modern art’ after the song “IDK You Yet” by Alexander 23. well, i’ve always thought that that one shot would work great as a stand alone fic, and here we are! i have ch. 1 edited and SO MUCH of it as changed- like, for example, the fic is a chapter fic now !! regardless, i hope you guys like this !!

WARNINGS: depression, anxiety, self-deprecation, past addiction, mentions of addiction, just general Bad Times- pls be mindful when reading !! it’s just very Not Happy rn ADDITIONAL INFO: all characters are in their mid-twenties in the fic. oh also this is probably important but it’s a soulmate au !!

Read On AO3!

tag list: @bound-for-santa-fe @wannabecowboypunk @shippingcannons @yahfancyclamwiththepurlinside @smallsies @deliciouspeachpirate @newsies-is-my-erster

Jack doesn't know what’s going on with himself, but he knows that he could really use his soulmate right about now.

They’ve communicated before. Never verbally, and never enough to reveal who they were. Perhaps they are both just... dealing with some unspoken fears, dealing with the worry of rejection sitting heavy in their chests. Perhaps they both like this mystery- the uncertainty that came with the notes scrawled across their bodies in a handwriting that isn’t their own.

Or perhaps they just aren’t ready to take the plunge. To grow up and face the harsh fact that, as soon as they meet, wherever and whenever that may be, a new chapter of their life will unfold. Consume them. Change anything and everything they’ve ever known or held dear.

They had been braver when they were children, that much was true. Jack remembers staying up late often, writing notes on his skin and watching in awe as the replies appeared. He remembers the giddy rush of trying to quickly wash off the ink on his wrist when they ran out of space to talk, and, oh, how they talked. There were school days when Jack would go to class exhausted, feeling like he’d been walking through quicksand for miles on end, but all of it had been worth it. The exhaustion he felt had been worth being able to talk to them until two, three, four in the morning. Sometimes he regretted it, of course, but only because it was harder for him to focus in class. Never because he was upset at them.

He could never be upset with them.

Even now, Jack remembers a lot about his soulmate. They liked music. They knew how to play the piano. They were into a few video games, even some that Jack had never played, and said that they always tried carrying a book with them wherever they went. Jack remembers that, as a younger kid, they liked Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but also liked analyzing Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe and a bunch of other fancy authors that Jack had never even heard of. They were intimidatingly smart, and sometimes, would carefully correct Jack’s grammar whenever he misspelled a word or something- but they were never mean about it, they were just… there. A steady presence that he could count on.

Fifteen year old Jack dreamed of finding them one day. But now, twenty-five year old Jack is losing hope.

He can’t exactly help it. For starters, he and his soulmate haven’t communicated in… well, shit, it had to be nearly a year. Maybe nine months or so, but there’s no way to tell for sure, and even then, their conversations since reaching adulthood have been dull, for lack of a better word. A few positive comments here, a ‘have a good day’ there- it’s all so mundane, and neither of them can be blamed for it. They both have busy lives- or, well, Jack does, at least. His job as a graphic designer is hard enough on its own, but the added pressure of doing freelance work and commissions on the side has been eating away at him for weeks, coupled with debilitating self-doubt and lack of motivation for… anything.

Saying that he’s overwhelmed is the understatement of the century.

There is always another design, another client, another meeting, another deadline, another sleepless night as he stares at a blank canvas and prays for a spark of inspiration from whatever God is listening. Usually his inspiration comes from the world around him- his friends, city life, even the quiet confines of his apartment, but right now... Jack is stuck. He had holed himself up in his room days ago, trying and failing to get out of bed every morning when the time came to work- and thank God that the majority of his work could be done from home. His boss was understanding, too, to an extent.

Still, though, there’s a constant heavy weight on his chest that prevents him from moving most days, and he’s lucky if he even gets up long enough to shower or eat or do literally anything aside from lie in silence and count the cracks in his ceiling.

Nothing had happened to him recently to bring this on, from what he can tell. Jack has always been the happy-go-lucky leader, the man with a plan, the guy who always knew just what to say to motivate others into doing the best thing for themselves, but when that responsibility is reflected back onto himself, Jack feels helpless. There are words waiting to be said, sketches waiting to be drawn, designs waiting to be sent to clients… yet Jack lies there, motionless in his room for three days before he even has the energy, the willpower, to pull back his curtains and allow the sunlight to shine through. There is so much he wants to do, so much he needs to do, but he can't bring himself to do any of it.

In all twenty-five years of his life, through all of the things he’s been through, the ups and downs and foster homes and graduations and birthdays and funerals and therapists and rehab facilities and whatever the fuck else life decided to throw at him, Jack has never felt so worthless, so… lonely. His closest friends are all moving on with their lives. Many have already found their soulmate, have settled down and hidden their rowdy, rambunctious pasts behind skeletons in a closet. They’d all gotten their adventures done and over with in high school and college, and most are moving onto bigger and better things in life. They have careers. Families. Some have children, others have pets, a few have an insane amount of plants to care for.

All have seemingly left Jack behind in the dust.

No one told him when to flip the switch.

No one told him when he had aged out of adventure.

Now, they would never say it, but Jack knows. He knows. Saturday hangouts and trips to the bar had been replaced by Sunday church services and playdates for the kids. Rather than hearing yelling from his living room after his friends had all been teetering just on the edge between tipsy and fucked up, Jack hears the news, and documentaries, and podcasts, and the ghosts of a past life that he still seemed to be desperately clinging on to.

Katherine had been the one to tell him that he needed to grow up, though she didn’t put it in such a blunt manner. No, she’s just.... gently urging him to find a bigger apartment, or buy matching furniture from a place that is not a thrift store, or purchase dishes that weren’t of the plastic Walmart brand. She says it was because she wants to see him in a more professional, "adulty" lifestyle, but he knows it’s really because she can see that he’s a mess.

Deep down, Jack knows she’s right. She’s always right.

He just can’t help but feel cemented in place, dreaming of the past while dreading the new future ahead of him.

Jack never asked to feel so broken for no reason. All of the hope and optimism he had felt as a teenager was gone, lost in a sea of uncertain plans and shitty jobs and bill extensions and canvases dropped onto the floor with no rhyme or reason. And, yes, maybe Jack would look dramatic to someone who didn’t know his situation, but Jack knows what dramatic feels like. Dramatic feels like watching his best friend, Charlie, belt onstage in front of a backdrop that he helped create for the school play. Dramatic feels like laughing at the top of his lungs while walking through a random gas station at two in the morning, joined by Race and Al, all while higher than a kite. Dramatic feels like driving to the outskirts of the city with Katherine, climbing onto the roof of an old building and screaming about all of their stress, their anxiety, their insecurities, just to have some form of emotional release.

Dramatic doesn’t feel like sadness. It’s not supposed to.

Not for Jack.

He had been so… so happy, as a teenager. Proud and defiant and carefree. He was the kind of guy to skate and smoke weed in Central Park until midnight and take a math test at eight in the morning the next day. He was the kid who stood on a table in the cafeteria and came out as bisexual to everyone around him, just because of a dumbass bet that he didn’t even get paid for. He was the boy who wasn’t at all good in an academic sense, but who always knew how to talk himself out of trouble, who always came up with the most ridiculous- or most believable- lies to cover his ass when he needed it, who was always the class favorite, the teacher’s pet without meaning to be.

Jack had felt on top of the world back then, but now he’s struggling to even get off of the ground. The longer time goes on, the more lost Jack feels inside his own life. He feels like something was missing, something big. Something bigger than himself.

When his mother was alive, which now felt like lifetimes ago, she would often echo this old wives’ tale about how it’s best to find your soulmate while you’re younger, just to save them- and yourself- the pain of being alone for a long time. Jack had always kind of believed her; logically, he knew it was true, but he had always told himself that it wouldn’t happen to him. That he would be fine alone, though it wouldn’t be ideal, and that he would have plenty of time for soulmates after he got out and made a name for himself.

He’s starting to think, though, that maybe she was right. Maybe Jack had waited too long to make a move, to make contact again, because now, he just feels nauseous even thinking about it.

Don’t get him wrong, he knows the negative effects of self deprecation and not taking his own mental health seriously, he’s been to rehab before, blah, blah, blah, but, fuck, how could he put his soulmate through something like this? This fucked up state of mind he has now. Jack can’t even imagine talking to Katherine about this, and Katherine had been his best friend for over a decade. He can’t just meet his soulmate now- it’s been too long, he’s too messed up, they won’t like him, they’ll hate him for not trying hard enough, and Jack will just end up alone again, wasting away in his bedroom because no one fucking cares. No one cares. He has nobody.

That’s not true. He has Medda, his mom, his savior, his impulse control, but the thought of telling her that everything is acting up again makes him want to scream. He has Tony, but Tony has Al, and Tony and Al have a kid- a sweet little five year old girl who calls Jack ‘Uncle Jackie’ and takes no shit from anyone. He has Katherine, but Katherine has her soulmate- this dude named Darcy, who Jack doesn’t have much of an opinion on because they just met, like, a month ago, and Jack hasn’t exactly been emotionally ready for a hangout session between the three of them. He also has Charlie, and Charlie has certainly seen him in worse times- like when Jack was kind of hooked on pills for the entirety their freshman year of college- but Charlie has grad school to worry about and Charlie would hate him if he bothered him with this.

Still, there are other people who would listen, probably. He could easily talk to Elmer, or Romeo, or Specs, or Jojo or Finch or Sean or a fucking therapist but that’s just it, isn’t it? If he talks, he burdens, and Jack Francisco Kelly would rather run himself into the ground than be a burden anyone.

So, he makes a vow.

He makes eye contact with his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’s gripping onto the sink, holding on for dear life, as he stares into his own sunken eyes. He takes in his appearance. Damp, messy hair, falling down to cover his forehead. Pale skin, which isn’t normal at all. Dark circles have taken their place around his eyes, and his smile- one of his favorite things about himself- is… nonexistent.

Distantly, Jack registers himself dumping a full bottle of ibuprofen into the sink. And then, he does the same thing with the bottle of melatonin from his medicine cabinet. The valium follows. He lets the water run for a long time. It's not that he doesn't trust himself- he'd done so, so good in rehab, and he doesn't even feel urges that often anymore- but it's better safe than sorry, especially since he's like... this.

This is not the Jack Kelly he’s used to anymore. This is not the Jack Kelly he wants to be.

But this Jack Kelly is the one who vows not to reach out. The one who vows to only answer when his soulmate is ready, and maybe not even then.

He doesn’t have to wait long, though.

Not when a heart appears on the back of his hand the next morning.

It’s there when Jack wakes up, and, honestly, it almost brings Jack to tears- but not necessarily for happy reasons. Sure, Jack wants to be happy. Who wouldn’t be happy after seeing something like this? A lopsided heart drawn in red ink, right on the back of his left hand- it was the definition of a symbol, of a romantic gesture, and Jack wants so badly to write back, to strike up conversation, to draw a goddamn heart, but… he can’t.

He can’t, and that’s horrible of him, and he knows it.

Right now, though… Jack can’t even work up the courage, the energy, to call his mom.

His soulmate, whoever they are, is going to have to wait.

#if u wanna be added to my tag list just let me know !!#newsies #jack kelly #david jacobs #davey jacobs #javid #javey #newsies broadway #newsies musical #newsies fic #newsies fanfiction #newsies fanfic #livesies #toursies #jac writes #jac txt.

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elle-imagines · 4 years

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Can I have some shikamaru sfw and nsfw headcanons? Thank youu💕💕

“Another day, another opportunity to take a nap under the clouds…You coming?”

Shikamaru SFW + NSFW Headcanons

SFW

Shikamaru prefers to keep many, many people at arm’s length, or perhaps the length of a 6-foot pole. He does not warm up to people easily, and although he works with a lot of shinobi he prefers to keep his close friends a number he can count on one hand. When it comes to developing a relationship with him, it will take a long time. Shikamaru does things on his own time and without a rush. It’s not uncommon to run into him a few times in a week then he goes incognito for the rest of the moment. I wouldn’t push him - he just needs to time to be on his own and commit to his duties as a shinobi. He’s just an enigmatic man who values his autonomy, it would be best to learn to love that about him than try to change it.

When it comes to the conversations you two share, it can oscillate between talking about too-hot weather to theories on the Warring States Period. Anything regarding gossip from neighboring villages or how your tv broke down today wouldn’t be interesting to him. He prefers probing questions that could be a bit off-putting for normal conversation. His mind is something that needs to be stimulated regularly (if only his body could keep up…)

He doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, and that’s okay. His love for his Choji and Ino is strong and glaring, it just doesn’t manifest in loving words or physical affection. Although he seems to not want to be bothered, he is always there for his friends and family. Shikamaru is loyal, and one of the few who will always be close when you need him.

Will definitely call you troublesome while bringing you lunch when you forget to pack it, and will be there to walk you home after school or work. He shows up randomly, but that makes it much more exciting. Acts of service is definite go-to to show he cares, which says a lot from someone who doesn’t like to do much work. Picking up your drycleaning, helping you with your work when you’re stuck, and letting you sleep in while taking out the garbage are a few ways he tries to make your life easier.

Getting to know him as Shikamaru, not a tactician or shinobi, is important to him. Although he is a high-ranking ninja, he doesn’t care about titles in general. I’m sure he’s had people try to get close to him because of his career, which he could sniff out in a few minutes. This has turned him off from dating, so having someone get to know that he likes to read books on chess strategy and wildlife, that he volunteers to tutor children in the afternoon, or that he has 12 designated resting spots in Konoha helps him feel that he is being learned about as a person, not as a ninja.

It’s not uncommon for the two of you to nod off together while sitting in various settings (park, library, dinner table, in front of your boss, etc.)

He can forget recurring, mundane tasks such as paying bills, watering plants, and showing up to things on time. When you see him bringing you breakfast or cooking, it’s because he remembers to do it in that moment (and feels like it, which is 80% of the battle). It would be helpful to have a partner who is more regimented than him, because if not you’d both be in trouble.

“I feel like there was something we were supposed to do today…how troublesome.”

“It’s not troublesome if we don’t remember, right?”

“Hm, I guess not. Let’s go back to sleep.”

With this combination of chaotic disorganization and having high-intellect, he will adapt his lifestyle to be easier for him. Shikamaru hates folding clothes, Shikamaru will own few clothes. Shikamaru doesn’t like cooking often nor doing dishes, Shikamaru will eat out. Shikamaru does not like loud voices, Shikamaru will avoid a 10-mile circumference around Ichiraku’s at the hours of lunchtime, mornings, evenings, or essentially anytime Naruto will be there. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

Probably will try not to smoke around you, and will put it out when he sees you approach. He is aware it’s a horrible habit, and will urge you not to follow what he does if he suspects you may pick up on it.

It drives Shikamaru mad when people speak passive-aggressively about something that is bothering them, and sees it as attention-seeking. I’m sure it’s grown old because of his relationship with Ino. Having sulking, woe-is-me behavior can turn him off, because it doesn’t help the situation get better. He also likes having his privacy respected, whether physically or mentally, so being nosy about his whereabouts or coming into his personal space before the two of you are close is a no-no.

Shikamaru craves connection, more than anyone could perceive. When he lost his mentor and saw the grief Kurenai was in, he first believed that marriage and romantic love was nonsense and more of a nuisance than it’s worth. Even when meeting you and fostering a relationship, he still went back and forth between wanting to be with you and fearing that vulnerability that comes with that. He’d be direct in his intentions with you one day, then you wouldn’t see him for a few weeks as he ruminates over what he said critically. You’d have a conversation that lasts hours about each other and your futures, then he’s shut off and being cold with you. It’s frustrating, and although you know why he acts this way it doesn’t take away the exhaustion his uncertainty brings. It is only when he pursues healthy treatment to cope with his trauma that the relationship could move forward.

NSFW

Shikamaru has a very low number of people he had sex with, namely because sex is not something that interests him that much. He’s had moments of short-term relationships, but he didn’t find satisfaction from doing that. Most of his stimulation is more mental than physical, so he can satisfy himself by breaking a difficult code or playing shogi with a formidable opponent. His itches come in the form of needing to read something or practice strategy, not needing physical intimacy.

With this being said, his sex drive is low and he probably won’t initiate more than his partner. When he does initiate, he will give a look that communicates what he wants very clearly, and will ask you to come with him somewhere.

He’s the type of person that feels sex is better when you have an emotional connection with someone. He won’t be able to get enough of you. There will be times when he comes behind you to stop you from whatever it is you’re doing just to feel your body against him, to press his nose into your hair.

Shikamaru can be seductive when he needs to be. His stare is penetrating and he will know how to get you flustered every time. He studies patterns, unlocks codes, and plans strategy. Why wouldn’t he use his techniques on you? His pace is very slow, and he will stimulate and tease you before he pleasures himself. He’s really good at hold down his own arousal to make sure you are ready for him.

Although he may begin your sexual life as pretty vanilla for your comfort, he will overtime want to experiment with you doing different things. When you consent, he will give you a taste of what he likes by gripping your arms tightly, biting softly on your ear, letting a button pop from his eagerness. He will only take it as far as you want, and is always keeping an eye out for discomfort.

He is a bit apprehensive about giving up control and being tie and blindfolded - I’m sure most ninja are. If this is something you are into, it would take a lot of trust and building up before he will do it.

Prefers to give than receive. He’s open to giving and is not big on asking for oral from you. If you offer, he will accept, but he doesn’t ask much from you but to be there for him.. Anything else is a bonus. His very adept at giving you oral pleasure, and just like most things, he will adapt to what you like by listening to the tone of your moans or how your legs grip him a little tighter. He also learned from his past experiences, and is only grateful that he can help you climax since he’s knowledgeable and skillful from his few experiences. He’s a fast learner.

May be open to a bit of play in public, though nothing penetrative. Perhaps on of your walks around town in the evening, or at one of his resting spots, he wouldn’t mind the two of you to engage in some kissing and heavy fondling. He likes to work you up and have you wait until the two of you get home, walking ever-so-slowly much to your annoyance.

#nara shikamaru #shikamaru nara #shikamaru #headcanons #Headcanon #naruto headcanon #Naruto Shippuden #naruto headcanons #naruto

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icanbehardcore · 4 years

Text

Top 10 WORST Powerpuff Girls Episodes

For a long time, I have been wanting to make a project resembling a countdown list, being inspired by the likes of @umbramagna777, @phantomstrider and even the Nostalgia Critic. After some considerate years, I have finally decided to make a list based on my all time favorite show The Powerpuff Girls.

Cartoon Network's breakaway hit of the late 90s and early to mid 00s starring three adorable, precocious little kindergartners with superpowers was a cultural phenomenon. Spawning hundreds and thousands of merchandise, a theatrical film, several TV specials, an anime and a reboot, it's unbelievable that a cartoon with an all female lead would become an icon in the cartoon industry.

Created by Craig McCracken fresh off two pilots in the "What A Cartoon" shorts and evolving from the earliest incarnation "Whoopass Stew", The Powerpuff Girls became the highest rated cartoon debut at the time. Critics praised this show for being so unique, entertaining, epic, action packed and nothing like anything else at the time, but most of all, this show was very, very funny.

But that doesn't mean this show gets all the glory and praise 100% per episode, like every television show, there will always be flaws and bad episodes and, the Powerpuff Girls is no exception when it comes to rotten entries in the line-up.

Whether you like these episodes or not, remember to respect each other's opinions, including mine. If you like these episodes, that's great, you're more than welcome to have your say, but be nice.

I am only counting down episodes from the ORIGINAL series, this won't include the movie, the anime, the Dance Pansted special, The tenth anniversary special, the christmas special or especially the reboot.

Mixing either of these up would be one big mess and would derail my points of view. With that being said, let's begin.

NOTE: Spoiler alert ahead.

10. Keen on Keane This episode was a new era for the original show, it had a new art style which was first introduced in the movie. So if you hadn't seen it, you would have had to get use to this new art style before getting puzzled or confused.

Unfortunately, these episodes were somewhat mediocre and after 2002, show creator Craig McCracken left the show to Chris Savino, so he could work on Foster's Home for Imaginery Friends. Usually when this happens, that's a sign of a show losing it's...err...Mojo. No pun intended. For a first of this newly animated version of the show, this episode is just ...well...sappy.

So what's the story: It's Valentines Day...oh boy, what a way to start the new era of an already great show. I am NOT a fan of this holiday whether I'm taken or not. I prefer to keep romance and affection personal.

While receiving various little Valentines from her beloved students, Ms. Keane gets the one simple innocent question asked by the girls: "Where are you going out tonight?" and "Who's your sweetheart?" (don't you just love precocious little questions coming from kindergartners). Ms. Keane explains to the girls that she doesn't have time for going out on dates and is too busy for that sort of thing, this leaves the girls slightly worried, knowing she may be lonely and in need of a significant other half.

Later that evening, the girls are all at dinner with the Professor whose attention prompts the innocent, curious little question from an inquisitive Blossom "Why aren't you going out, tonight?".

Personally, if he WAS going out, he may need to hire a babysitter for the girls and knowing the Professor, he may end up calling someone but being delayed or on hold due to everybody with their arms round each other, making googoo eyes and lip wrestling all evening as they bask into their romance.

Anyway, the Professor tells the girls that HE doesn't have time for dates or going out, nor does he have a sweetheart...(hope he hasn't forgotten the events a long time ago when meeting Ima Goodlady who turned out to be using him and was revealed to be Sedusa).

On hearing this, the girls trade rather sly and calculating looks to each other, a plan has hit them. If their father isn't going out and doesn't have a sweetheart and Ms Keane doesn't have a sweetheart, why not get them together for date?

At Ms. Keane's place, she is busy grading homework. On hearing the doorbell ring, she goes to answer the door only to recieve a love letter from a secret admirer and a rose. Oh bittersweet cliches...

Round the same time, the Professor too recieves an identical love letter from a secret admirer (by the way, I do love how he recieves a red rose and Ms Keane recieves a pink rose). The two admirers meet at "Petes-A Pizza", an obvious parody to Chuck E Cheese, you can just feel how out of place these two are.

Not to hurt each others feelings, the two adults try to strike a conversation, but seem to show no interest in each other, all they can do is slap on a plastic smile each.

As they try to communicate and interact more and order, Ms. Keane suddenly forces a hearty little smile, stunning and questioning the Professor. As she tells him to look behind him, he sees that his own daughters are hiding in the large ball tank, this catches on as both Ms Keane and Professor Utonium have realized that they had been set up.

Unfortunately, the evening was unsuccessful and the Professor offers his date a ride home with three dejected little girls in the back. Their high hopes sunk to the bottom, gone down like a ship, but the Professor tells them if they did end up going out, then he wouldn't have enough time to spend with his own daughters. As he walks her to her door, Ms. Keane trips on a crack, the Professor immediately dashes forward to catch her. After bewilderment and indecision on what to do next, Ms Keane and the Professor's hearts become intertwine. As they stand up straight, they both share a nervous laugh while blushing (by the way, I find this scene amazingly cute, I mean...the Professor here is just...OMG, how can you not just want to reach out and dive into his arms...ahem...). Finally, they hold hands and are somehow...in love. Also note this is the only time in the episode where they see each other face to face. Feeling accomplished, the girls smile knowing that their mission is complete . The following morning, the girls notice that not everything is all hunky-dory! Now having a significant other half, the Professor neglects his family duties and lab work and Ms Keane neglecting her school duties and even forgetting to feed her cat. Why? Because the two most important role models in the girls' lives are now sickeningly sweethearts talking to each other endlessly on the phone together, complete with EVERY single sentence ending with a mushy pet name. And you know what? It's really degrading! Also that phonebill must be really expensive by now,

Because of the neglection, the girls don't know what crimes are being caused....seriously, not even watching the news? Also, doesn't Ms Bellum have a light for a signal? Why couldn't she just set that up in the sky for them?

But no! Instead, Sara Bellum gets kidnapped while the conversation continues until the Mayor sneezes, causing the couple to realize that they were holding up phoneline and neglecting their duties, including feeding the cat. This upsets the Professor and complains about the past event where a cat made him jump off a building which somehow, Ms Keane doesn't believe and causes them both to suddenly break up. Hmm...like every other couple today right? Okay that was bad.

Overall, this was a weak episode with no crime fighting at all and for a new start of upgraded animation, this was pretty bad. Especially being a Valentines themed episode.

9. City of Clipsville I ought to let you know that seasons five and six sucked. Big time and this episode is no exception. I am not much of a fan of clip shows and this one was really weak, lame and the repetitive dialogue is as entertaining as a stale book made for toddlers. "Remember when Mojo Jojo turned us into dogs?"...umm...yeah? There's like two episodes with pretty much the same chunks of animation of it and it doesn't help that they referenced BOTH episodes! Also, did we really want to be reminded of some of the more mediocre episodes?

Mind you, most of these little trips down memory lane never happened. These include The Professor marrying Ms Bellum...for some reason, the girls losing their superpowers without realizing until they fall off a building...the Professor turning the girls AND all of Townsville's citizens into helpless infants...(no, seriously...make way for cliche'd moments whenever a baby is in a cartoon, which I'll get to later), complete with Blossom spitting up over the Professor's shoulder.

BUT the most most shameful fan-service cringe-worthy moment would have to be a quote on quote flashback of when the girls sped up time and became teenagers. Oh my god! Just...yeah. Complete with their midriff showing, slender figures, skinny jeans and stereotypical valley girl accents and mannerisms such as blowing bubble gum talking on their cellphones and ...discovering boys, teenage boys...in this case, the Rowdyruff Boys.

Yeah...remember when I said that the whole counterpart thing is a drag, well they do it here too. But this time, they are somewhat getting along, yet the girls are ditzier. I do love some of the hidden innuendos snuck in this scene visually and audibly.

Besides this episode being a weak one, I do admit that I like how the girls looked as teenagers, a bit two fan-service material-esque but still cute. I love how Bubbles still kept her pigtails in, but are a little longer, Blossom's red hair still makes me jealous *seriously...) and Buttercup growing out that little bob, it suits her.

Of course, I can't mention this scene without the fact that it was a reference to Craig McCracken's fan mail he was receiving from fans about what would happen if the girls and boys were couples. He hated the idea so he decided to poke fun at this little trope.

Interestingly, there was going to be a scene that never made it, but there were storyboards lying around of the teenage girls becoming popstars...obviously a reference to the likes of Mandy Moore, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and other teen idols, maybe even the lesser known band that have since broke up, No Secrets.

The episode gets more stupid as everyone somehow ends up in the house until the episode ends which turns out to be filmed in front of a "live audience". Yeah, just...weak.

If you do like this episode, that's great, it does have a few funny moments but I still feel like it's just another cheap bland clip show.

8. Neighbor Hood Good god was this episode lame? The moral was a good one I will admit, but first, the story...Bubbles rushes home from school in time to watch her favorite show: The Wondrous World of Whimsical Willy. Mr. Willy being the host of the show (and an obvious parody of Mr, Rogers) greets his audience warmly, at first, he seems like the typical friendly, harmless, yet unsettling kind of person on a kid's show. He never snaps, he's calm and mellow. But when Daydream Lane loses all of the happiness and joy, Mr Willy asks his audience to hand over all of their cash to him so they don't lose hope.

Being naive and simple, not wanting the show to fall flat with misery, Bubbles somehow breaks into the town hall and takes off with the money in the Mayor's vault and hands it over to Mr Willy and the rest of the crew on set. By the way, the Mayor also donated...yeah, he's a man child. lol

Meanwhile, back at home, after getting a phone call from the Mayor, Buttercup and Blossom notice their sister live on TV with a huge bag of money, thanking Bubbles, Mr Willy and his gang celebrate until Bubbles' sisters barge in telling Mr Willy to literally drop his act.

Sweaty and nervous, Mr Willy finally snaps and reveals his true plan to steal all of the money of Townsville, showing his true colors at last. Bubbles demands an explanation and tells her sisters that Mr. Willy isn't a crook, he just needed the money to help save Daydream Lane. Blossom isn't buying it and tells Bubbles that none of this is real and that the whole set is just canvas painted with scenery and backgrounds and the crew are all crooks in costume.

Now shocked and realizing she had been conned along with the rest of the those who donated, Bubbles loses faith in Mr Willy and the show and even refuses to save his fall. In case you might guess, Mr Willy is arrested and thrown in prison and Bubbles apologizes for her foolish act and also that she shouldn't believe on what she sees on television. In a way, this is a great moral for kids, especially when the main cast are kindergartners, but come on, the girls are more precocious than this, they are better than this. This is basically a weaker version of Film Flam.

This episode is really unsettling for many reasons. Mr Willy asking for donations from little kids, isn't that a little creepy and somewhat makes him a pedophile? But to go as far as flying all the way to the set on your own and revealing the stolen cash is even more risky and dangerous.

I have read something interesting here from the PPG wikia, this episode was based real-life events in a 1965 New Year incident where Soupy Sales, miffed at having to work on the holiday, ended his live broadcast by encouraging his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents' bedrooms and remove those "funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents" from their pants and pocketbooks. "Put them in an envelope and mail them to me," Soupy instructed the children. "And I'll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!" He was then hit with a pie. He later admitted that he was joking and that the money would be donated to a charity, but Sales was negatively affected by the incident.

Also I learned that this episode was actually written back in 1999 as a season 2 episode, but was scrapped since the staff feared a lawsuit from PBS, so instead the story was given to DC Comics named Remote Controlled. The story was much better and less mediocre compared to this one. It's such a downfall when a great cartoon runs it's course and episodes that were originally written for the comics suddenly have elements thrown onto the screen and never live up to how they could have been.

There's something else I would like to point out here. I saw this comment on the PPG wikia by a user named Crossoverfan4ever and he pointed out that Bubbles commited a crime and got away with it, and did she get punished? Of course not, because she's, cute, innocent adorable, precious, sweet little Bubbles who can probably get away with murder if she tried.

So...in A Very Special Blossom, Blossom steals a rather valuable set of golf clubs and gets punished for it with 200 hours of community service, yet the Professor asks the cops to go easy on her and she's also sorry (seriously, you can feel her sorrow in her voice and that face just says it all).

In the fan-loathing controversial episode Moral Decay, Buttercup commits a crime by breaking into the local villains homes and steals their teeth for money from the "tooth fairy" after already beating up crooks for committing crimes. Her punishment: Ambushed by her worst enemies as her sisters sadistically watch her get beat up (note that Buttercup is a little girl, so can you imagine the pain inflicted on her?). Going back to Neighbor Hood, yeah, it's bad. One of season five's worst.

7. Crazy Mixed-Up Puffs

Season six was definitely the weakest link in the original show's run, so in a way, it's a breath of fresh air when McCracken and Savino declined a season seven from Cartoon Network (much to the disappointment to the fans).

CMUP just made way for some really weak points in writing and character development and derailment. Whichever one, even my feelings for this are mixed up...or mesed up. Whatever!

In this episode, Mojo Jojo is watching old clips of the past fights and battles he has had with the girls and soon stops for an ice cream break. Unforunately, a little girl is in front of him and he deters her. As Mojo orders his three scoops (which happen to resemble the signature colors of the Powerpuff Girls), the little girl throws her ball at him, causing him to drop the ice cream onto the floor. As it does, Mojo gets an idea.

Mojo then goes home to his lair and creates a dummy of a girl calling for help, attracting attention from the Powerpuff Girls, they fly over to save her and are immediately caught in his trap.

The machine swirls the girls together, fusing them all into one and because of this, the girls find it hard to fly, spin and even keep their own balance, not to mention worsening their arguments every single time. It's really unpleasant to watch.

From here, the girls now have to rely on each other with trust and work as a team to stop Mojo. After finally making their way to Mojo, they defeat him, destroying the fuse machine with a huge blast, but are still stuck together as one.

As they make their way back to the Mayor's office, they get Professor Utonium to try and seperate them. Feeling hopeless, the Professor breaks down into tears knowing that his daughters will never be the same, but they tell him that they don't mind being this close and reassure him that everything is going to be okay. The Mayor finds a thread from their fused dresses and pulls it which somehow...separates the girls restoring them to their glory. I do love when the Professor tells the girls that he loves them all, it's moments like this that always make the show great, it's too bad this episode suffered from mediocicy, unpleasant arguments and...this (Really? After all you've been through, you decide to add this in here?) NOTE: Never let Paul Stec or someone else write a Powerpuff Girls episode storyline which may result into tasteless immature fart jokes...speaking of which...

6. Reeking Havoc Season six...why? Why did you have to go with this crap? An entire episode about flatulence? Really? Okay, well silently but still visually. I for one don't care for this kind of humor, it's immature, lame, not funny, pointless and...just go watch South Park if you're into that stuff (by the way, I'm a huge fan of South Park, freakin' ironic I know! lol).

The Girls have just returned home from enjoying a beautiful sunny day in spring, admiring the fresh air until their noses are suddenly inflicted with the smell of something ...not so fresh, in this case, chili. Yep! Because how else are the writers going to come up with an episode which is ten minutes of fart jokes. Real mature. Not.

It turns out that the girls father Professor Utonium is cooking this...chili for the "2nd Annual Chili Cook-Off" in Townsville. The girls reluctantly try a sample, as expected by them and those watching, it doesn't go down well (we even see a shot of Buttercup losing it in the waste-bin). Worried that he may lose again, Blossom decides that they should tell the Professor, but her sisters object due to the year before, in which the Professor lost and broke down.

Later that night, the Professor still thinks his chili needs something extra...or should that be "x-tra"...with that, he adds a drop of Chemical X into the concoction. Sure, because somehow that works right? Also, maybe adding COFFEE into the chili is the reason it doesn't taste so good. Later on that night, the girls (one by one) also happen to put a drop of Chemical X in the chili.

The following morning during the annual chili contest, the judges (which happen to be Ms Keane, the Mayor and Sara Bellum) are trying out all the dishes that have been made for the event when soon, they try the Professor's chilli causing reactions that they never experienced before. With that, the Professor is declared the winner of the contest and is awarded the trophy and with that, the Mayor hands out free samples of the prize winning chilli.

What then follows is nothing but flatulent puns, visual and audible, one after the other while everyone's guts start growling and all that gas happens to escape and creates...a giant methane monster. No, seriously! A giant cloud made out of everyone's gas! What were the writers thinking, seriously? It's like they have watched Ren and Stimpy and got some ideas off there, no?

The following day, the methane monster soon causes chaos all over Townsville and his stench is so unbearable that it causes everyone to feel nauseous and complain. This then causes the Mayor to call the girls and...*sighs*...watching them trying to fight off a huge flatulent monster is just...well...yeah. Lame.

As if stinking up the city has already been done in season 2's Down and Dirty, but that as caused by Buttercup refusing to bathe, but nope, we get a full on episode with gastronomical proportions and bad jokes!

From here, we get some rather ridiculously stomach churning moments including the girls actually trying to suck the monster up...err...gross? So...after the mention of a "match", Blossom gets an idea and takes off and returns again in seconds with...a giant match...no seriously AND to make this episode even more cringy, she mentions that she got it from the same place where she got the giant jar in "episode two season one". Was that really necessary?

I don't wanna go on since its pretty cliche'd with the fact that entering a chili cook-off with an ingredient that happens to be linked to chaos, it's obvious what that equals.

This was a bad episode and I mean really really bad. GOLDEN RULE: Keep fart jokes off this show! Oh wait...the reboot pushed that further! *sighs*

5. Gettin' Twiggy With It Consider this the Pet Sitter Pat episode of The Powerpuff Girls. Nearly every character in this show is likable, funny, great, relatable and somehwhat a decent role model. All but one...that being a less major character: the girls class mate Mitch Mitchellson. A sadistic, nasty, evil, selfish, greedy, manipulative child who takes pleasure in bullying his fellow...ahem...classmates. Think of him as the Nelson Muntz of Townsville. Think of him as Ren Hoek off Ren Seeks Help in Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon, or maybe even Stewie Griffin. In this episode, it's Friday and that means one of the kids has the responsibility of taking the class hamster Twiggy home. The girls volunteer, but somehow Ms. Keane chooses Mitch to look after her.

This episode is legimately painful to watch in my opinion. As an animal lover (especially hamsters) who hates animal cruelty to a degree couldn't even watch this. It isn't funny, isn't a pleasure to watch, it's just sick, twisted and evil, I'm glad though that the episode itslef wasn't treated as comedic, that would make me up this episode straight to number one in my opinion. Mitch apparently says he never owned a pet before, yet you can clearly see that he has a snake in the background, what the hell?

I like how when Twiggy becomes a vicious monster, the girls do their part to save him, but still teach him a lesson in harming little Twiggy. It's rare for an episode to be played out seriously for the most part, yet this is just so difficult to watch. Especially all the ways Mitch tortures the hamster.

Gettin' Twiggy With It is just nasty and an unwatchable episode. It's unpleasant, demented and just uncomfortable to watch. For a better review on this episode, I suggest reading this: https://www.deviantart.com/regulas314/art/1001-Animations-Gettin-Twiggy-With-It-517452789. He does great reviews and provides decent detail.

Overall, Mitch Mitchellson is hands down my most despised character in The Powerpuff Girls, maybe even worse than Princess Morbucks. And that's saying a lot.

4. Girls Gone Mild I don't think there's one countdown of top ten worst PPG without this episode at least appearing on there. It's bad, the story, the premise, the fact that this episode was inspired by letters Craig McCracken received from parents thinking the violence was appropriate as a defence, pretty much the Three Girls and A Monster of the Chris Savino era. This episode is basically like a reminder that parents and legal guardians are the ones who should ultimately take responsibility for their children's actions instead of just blaming other people for it. But for what it is, it's not funny or entertaining and definitely one worth skipping. Need I point out that the two people of "P.A.P.P" (People Against Powerpuff Girls) were played by the same people behind the voices of Cosmo and Wanda from The Fairly Odd Parents?

But seriously, where do these two come from? Clearly not from Townsville otherwise they'd be more than happy to ask for the girls help, but no, instead they eat everything up with complaints and threaten to sue the Professor if the girls start using their superpowers again. I hate tropes like this, especially when we all know in the end, they go back to normal and do what they do best. Now if only they were kicking Stanley and Sandra Practice's butts instead.

3. Moral Decay *sighs* some of you have definitely seen this one coming but you can see why. It's one of the most unpleasant, mean spirited and degrading episodes of the Craig McCracken era. What were the writers actually thinking?

Buttercup's nothing but a straight up sadist in this episode, the moment those mouth muscles form a malicious slasher smirk, she has straight up changed in personality throughout the episode. After accidentally knocking one of Bubbles' teeth out, she learns of the "tooth fairy" bringing money in exchange for teeth under kid's pillows and what does she do? She constantly abuses Bubbles just to try and knock out her teeth.

First off, Buttercup may be tough, but she loves her sisters dearly and wouldn't think of abusing her own sisters for kicks. Sure she gets into scrapes now and then, argues and teases them, but she would never want to hurt them to this extent!

UmbraMagna's stated this before on YouTube but have they go something against Buttercup, did they hate her character? Why did she always get the rough stuff in punishment and treatment? Think about it? In Down and Dirty, she refuses to bathe and even gets kicked out the house until she gives in and is forcefully given a full scrub by her own sisters. In Cover Up, a whole opportunity is wasted on a story that could have had a heartwarming peptalk scene between Buttercup and the Professor, there, Buttercup feels vulnerable without her security blanket. You gotta remember that she is a little girl, it's normal for someone her age to have a baby blanket.

Going back to Moral Decay, it's a terrible episode that's just painful to watch and do NOT get me started on the ending. The Professor at his most non-caring right here, not to mention that close out ending scene. As punishment, the Professor pays covers Buttercup's dental bills with the money she "saved". By the way, I suggest you check out @UmbraMagna's extended review on this episode. Since mostly I'd be shadowing and echoing what she has said, along with A Very Special Blossom in her top 10 worst PPG eps countdown.

2. Sun Scream/The City Of Frownsville I put these two together because...well, they both aired together, simple as, bit cheap and not so well explained or thought but what else. These two episodes are just torture! Despite being on different topics.

First off, Sun Scream. This episode is just a chore to get though. The girls all catch the sun after refusing to put sunscreen lotion on while trying to stop a solar flare from plummeting to the earth. What do their fans and the rest of the citizens do? They laugh at them, instead of showing concern for three kids who have badly been sunburned. Just...what has happened to Townsville?

The rest of the episode is nothing but the girls struggling to get up out of bed and trying to answer the hotline, getting dressed to even struggling to attack some con artists. I won't spoil this episode but if you have made it through till the end then good luck, this one's just painful to watch.

Then we have The City of Frownsville. Although being dedicated to those who lost their lives during 9-11 (with all my respect, I pray now even). Despite this, this episode is nothing but everyone sobbing their eyes out for ten minutes. If you can't stand nails scratching on a chalkboard, then you will definitely not be able to make it through this episode.

All of Townsville's put under a spell by "Lou Gubrious" and his machine that causes everyone to cry uncontrollably, this then reverses his mood giving him the new name "Hal Larious" (please, seriously?), the rest...ugh.

Skip this one while you can guys.

Before I get to number one, I'd like to give out a few dishonorable mentions.

Cover Up - For shaming Buttercup being a softy. Also her sisters cruelly laughing at her. Twisted Sister - First off, I don't hate this episode as a whole, I don't like what they did with the new sister Bunny. She's unstable, but her slurred speech and lack of English, as well as dying in so called comedic fashion's a bit too much. Fallen Arches - Blossom's unbearable in this episode. Sure, we should respect the elderly but refusing to fight these crooks and throw'em in jail. Just...no. Sweet and Sour - Ugh, cutesey animals getting away with crime and the citizens are just as clueless because they are "TOO CUTE!". Come on! Pee Pee Gs - Unsettling and nothing but pee jokes. Umm...no, unfunny and a cringefest. Prime Mates - Mopey Popo's constant complaining and rambling in his Droopy-esque voice and the girls not having enough screen time make this a true downer. A Very Special Blossom - Ugh, one of the first of episodes where one of the girls does wrong and gets punished for it. In this case, Blossom's dark side shows when she steals a valuable set of golf clubs just to please the Professor for Father's Day. That's Not My Baby - Ah the baby cliche! Whether it's abandoned or just being looked after the whole package is there. The baby never stops crying, and when it eats, it's diaper needs to be changed yada yada yada, I'm sick of this cliche and this episode's no better. HOW did they not even notify the Professor even? I left it out of here because the ending was actually clever. Cop Out - Forgettable, bland and yeah. Unfunny, also that cop. Ugh. Custody Battle - Just doesn't feel like a PPG episode, but a Rowdyruff Boys spinoff. Also the whole two daddies thing...nah. Divide and Conquer - I know education and learning's important but an entire maths episode...nope. Save Mojo - I'm a bit of an animal activist, no lies but...a cartoon chimpanzee with constant diabolical plans to destroy the Powerpuff Girls and take over the world, that's different (plus a cartoon), and...yeah. Basically Girls Gone Mild with animal activists and protesters. Say Uncle - Absolutely forgettable and lame. Mizzen In Action - I love the Crack McCraigen pun name but over all, this swash buckling episode's one of the show's most forgettable episodes. Seed No Evil - Bland and boring and...seriously, what's this all about seeds in olden times? The City of Nutsville - Bubbles gets stung in the throat by a bee/wasp and her sisters actually laugh at her...messed up. Also, squirrel apocalypse. Insane. West in Pieces - Ugh...ancestors of the Powerpuff Girls? really? As if Seed No Evil was no better.

And the number one worst Powerpuff Girls episode is...

1. Toast Of The Town I HATE this episode! Talk about character derailment, especially when you're in the middle of season five. If you can get through this episode listening to the Mayor speak in the third person, good for you, because there's a lot of it and it's enough to make your eardrums split.

The Mayor has a huge craving for toast (say, at least SOMEONE now has a toaster unlike everybody in Too Pooped To Puff few seasons back) but his toaster is out of range, so he goes to the Professor to have it fixed. And with that, we get some of the most cringe inducing audio, lack lustered story writing and some of the most ANNOYING dialogue in any episode! The Mayor is basically nothing but...a child in a man's body here. The Professor won't fix his toaster because he's busy, but after more complaining from the Mayor, he gets on with the job and the Mayor is so impatient he asks in seconds if it's done yet...really? The Mayor is an idiot, that's for sure, but at least he means well and loves his city and job and looks out for the girls. BUT his stupidity here is both questionable, childish and dumbed down to a tee!

The Professor makes the Mayor wait somewhere in the lab which he does despite still dejected and impatient. What follows is...the Mayor curiously pressing buttons like a child and setting off an alarm and causing a huge explosion in the lab...err...is this Dexter's Lab or The Powerpuff Girls? Some weird pattern here! Anyway, the Professor then proceeds to let the Mayor stay put by putting him in a high chair...for...some reason...

Later on, the Mayor discovers a can of Chemical X and rubs some of it on his head thinking it's hair growth formula and...his entire body is now the size of King Kong, complete with a shameless parody to boot. I don't need to explain anymore of this.

Seriously? The Mayor's third person speech and childish behaviour here is some of the worst character derailment I've ever seen. As I said with Gettin' Twiggy With It, there's a more detailed review here by Regulas314: https://www.deviantart.com/regulas314/art/Animated-Atrocities-Toast-of-the-Town-475588395

There's no other way I can mention this episode without any...ahem spoilers, but I suggest avoiding it while you can. SERIOUSLY! This episode's unbearable!

Compare the Mayor in episodes like Uh Oh Dynamo, where he was against the girls having the city destroyed (even though it was the Professor making the girls use the Dynamo). Then compare him here...it's just painful. And with that, let me know what you think which episodes do you think are th eabsolute worst?

#Powerpuff Girls #Top 10 #countdown #worst episodes

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hello-robin-goodfellow · 4 years

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TOP 10 FAVORITE SUPERHEROES

THANKS FOR TAGGING ME: @superkingofpriderock

01. OGON BATTO (ALSO KNOWN AS: OGON BAT, GOLDEN BAT, FANTASMAGÓRICO, FANTOMAS AND FANTAMAN)

Originated in the medium of kamishibai (japanese street paper theater) in 1931, and later having expanded to the mediums of three live actions movies and one anime series in the 50s and 60s, Ogon Batto is a supersheroe created by Suzuki Ishiro and Takeo Nagamatsu. A being from ancient Atlantis who was sent forward in time 10,000 years to battle evil forces threatening the present day, he lives in a fortress in the Japanese Alps. His superpowers include superhuman strength, invulnerability, and the ability to fly, and his weak spot is dehidration. Ogon Batto has an evil counterpart known as Kurayami Bat (暗闇バット "Dark Bat") and his main enemy is Dr. Erich Nazō (ナゾー), the leader of a crime syndicate bent on world domination, who wears a black costume and mask with bat-like ears, a red eye and a blue eye. To some of the brazilian audiences, he is kown with the name Fantomas, trough the 1960s dubbed anime series.

02. THE WONDER TWINS

Characters created for the cartoon Super Friends by the creative team of Hannah-Barbera, the twin brothers Zan and Jayna’s dinamic worked like this: They would punch each other’s hands, fusing the rings they used, and say “Wonder Twins: Activate”! So, Zan would take the form of anything water related (vapours, ice, etc.) while Jayna would take the form of an animal. The reason they are on the list? If you say “Super Gêmeos: Ativar” (portuguese for Wonder Twins: Activate) to anyone who was a child in Brazil during the late 1990 and early 2000s, we will know what are you talking about, and sweet childhood nostalgia will manifest.

03. EL CHAPULIN COLORADO

Remember the mexican actor dressed up as a bee in The Simpsons? Yup, he is a parody of this little fella. Writen and acted by the comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños in the 1970s to be a superheroe that represented the latin american audiences, El Chapulin Colorado is a guy who, despite being very bumbling and frightfull, always appear offering the services of his shrinking pills, his vinyll little antennas, his bionical hammer, a book containing a story that he feels has a relevant moral and his friendship to anyone who is in need and says the phrase: “Oh! Quién Podrá Defenderme” (Oh! Who Can Defend Me).

04. STATIC SHOCK

Virgil Hawkins is a fourteen-year-old honors student at Dakota Union High School who gains his powers by a mutagenic gas explosion, dubbed "the Big Bang" by the media, which grants numerous residents of Dakota superpowers; those affected are likewise dubbed "Bang Babies". Virgil lives with his widowed father Robert Hawkins, a social worker and the head of the Freeman Community Center, and his sister Sharon Hawkins, a university student and hospital volunteer. His mother Jean Hawkins died a few years prior, the victim of a stray bullet while she worked as a paramedic during a riot; her death causes Virgil to develop an intense fear/hatred of guns. This guy deserves his movie, Hollywood!

05. ASTÉRIX AND OBÉLIX

Created by the team of french comic artists René Goscinny and Alberto Uderzo, Astérix and Obélix are the two greatest warriors from a undomitable village of celtic gauls, who resist the invasion of the romans led by Julius Caesar with the help of a powerfull magic potion made by the druid Getafix. Astérix is the little man, whose greatest strenght is on his inteligence, cunning and witty. Obélix is the big man, gentle and innocent, who wants nothing in life but to eat delicious wild boars, find the love of a good lady and punch some romans in the face. The dwo has been around not only in comics, but also in animated and live action movies, and show no sign of slowing down and stopping to have adventures. They even have their own theme park in Paris!

06. JUSPION (ALSO KNOWN AS JASPION)

Kyojuu Tokusou Juspion ("Megabeast Investigator Juspion") is the fourth in the Metal Heroes series of Tokusatsu shows. The series revolves around space orphan Juspion and his eccentric android assistant Anri, who are sent by old wizard/scientist Ejin to destroy Satangorth and his army of Megabeasts (kyojuu), as prophesied in The Galaxy Bible. He has a giant robot at his disposal and is followed around by Team Pet Miya. While it was a success in it’s native Japan, when it was broadcast here in Brazil in the 1980s, it got extremely popular, being a mark in the surgence of geeks for japanese pop culture in the country.

07. JIRAIYA

Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya ("World Ninja War Jiraiya"), also known as Ninja Olympiad, is the seventh Metal Heroes series. Jiraiya (real name:Tōha Yamaji) is an elite ninja warrior from the Togakure style of Ninpō. His mentor and foster father Tetsuzan Yamaji, the 34th Grandmaster of the Togakure School, has trained him for the day the ancient Yōma Clan will return. Sure enough, the clan, led by Oninin Dokusai, arise with their army of evildoers in order to seize Pako, a mysterious treasure which came from outer space over 2000 years ago which is said to have power equiparable to the Sun. With the help of his family, and an army of international ninja heroes, Jiraiya must stand tall against the evil ones. If Juspion started the phenomenon of interest in japanese Tokusatsu heroes on brazilian audiences, Jiraiya consolidated it. To the point that “Virado no Jiraiya” (Turned into Jiraiya) has become a popular brazilian, meaning that someone is mad at something. The fact that his actor Takumi Tsutsui constantly comes to visit Brazil also helps a lot in the popularity of the character.

08. THE CHANGEMAN

Dengeki Sentai Changeman (Blitzkrieg Squadron Changeman) is the ninth Super Sentai series, running from 1985 to 1986. In order to save the world from threat of invasion by the Great Star League Gozma, a special force called the Earth Defense Force is set up. One day, the Gozma launch an attack on them and have them on the ropes. That is, until the Earth itself grants five officers the power of the Earth Force, which lets them become the Changemen. Before the Power Rangers came to dominate the world’s pop culture, there four five Super Sentai that received a brazilian-portuguese dub and broadcast: Changeman, Flashman, Google-V and Maskman. Changeman was the first, and is my number one favorite.

09. THE BLACK PANTHER

Guys, is The Black Panther. Do i need to say more? Ok, i will a little something: If you didn’t watched this film, go do it. Righ now!

Wakanda Forever, king T’Challa.

10. ZORRO

Really, that mark says everything. Is freaking Zorro! He is one of the reasons the superheroe genre is what it is and is what we know. Without him, probably a lot of those guys wouldn’t have existed.

I TAG: @lioness--hart @ardenrosegarden @princesssarisa @mademoiselle-princesse @detective-jasminesa @johnnyclash87 @visibilityofcolor @diversetolkien @anghraine @lady-sci-fi @butterflyslinky @margflower @amalthea9

#superheroes #film geek #what i grew up watching #ask game #tag game #answered asks #send me questions #get to know me #being a child in latin america

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kelseyapperson · 4 years

Text

Working up the courage to post for friends/family.

To my Trump supporters:

You know me. We are friends, family. You know who I am, you know that I am happily married to a woman, you know we've been together for 8 years.

You may know because I told you myself. I got some mixed reactions there. Some of you embraced me fully, thank you. Others, conditionally. You didn't agree, but loved me anyway. You wouldn't tell anyone, they wouldn't understand. But you loved me anyway. And I felt lucky, that somehow I was a worthy enough person to still have your love, even if I didn't have your acceptance.

Some of you learned less directly. It was an unspoken secret, a passing whisper. I remember the pit in my stomach at family gatherings, the anxiety at each coming out - whether I spoke the words or your eyes lingered on my plus-one. And still, some of you accepted me. Others ignored it. Some, outright denial, to this day calling my wife my "friend."

But, well, the bar was low. No one disowned me. No one told me it was a phase, or that I was confused. Of the coming-out stories I know, it wasn't terribly contentious. And so it felt like a relief, to be the secret. To be loved despite who I was. It felt like a victory.

I suppose it's on me that I've been so accommodating for so long. How could I expect anyone to know how I feel when I tolerate lukewarm support? How could I expect you to understand the ways you actively harm me and others like me with what you say, do, how you vote?

I'm not writing this to start fights or guilt anyone. I'm writing it so that you know where I stand. And if you want to vote, support, speak in ways that harm me and my community, at least you'll be doing it intentionally, with a full understanding of how that feels, of how it affects me.

Before I get personal, here's a list of how Trump has harmed the LGBTQ community. This is pulled from the HRC, more details here: https://www.hrc.org/news/the-list-of-trumps-unprecedented-steps-for-the-lgbtq-community

-Opposition to the Equality Act

-Appointed anti-LGBTQ judges

-Joked about Pence’s desire to hang LGBTQ people

In the Workplace

-Supported employment discrimination against LGBTQ people

-Banned transgender service members from the military

-Rolled back Obama-era non-discrimination protections

-Issued rule to license discrimination

-Kicked people living with HIV out of the military because of their status

-Created a hostile work environment for LGBTQ federal employees

In Health Care

-Undermine Section 1557 Rule

-Advocated for the elimination of the entire Affordable Care Act

-Created a Religious Discrimination Division

-Proposed cutting over $1.35 billion from PEPFAR budget

In Schools

-Harmful Guidance for Schools on Transgender Students

-Rejected Complaints From Transgender Students

-Suggested it is acceptable for schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students while accepting tax-payer funds

-Made it harder for sexual assualt victims to receive justice

-Eliminated language protecting LGBTQ children participating in the 4-H program

-Used Title IX to discriminate against trans students

In Housing

-Allowed emergency shelters to deny access to transgender and gender nonconforming people

-Placed transgender incarcerated persons in the wrong prison

In Families

-Allowed foster care programs to discriminate while accepting tax-payer funds

-Refused visas to partners of diplomats

-Changed rules to deny surrogate born children citizenship

In Representation

-Erased transgender people

-Eliminated information on LGBTQ rights, mentions, and representation on government websites

-Blocked questions regarding sexual orientation from consideration for the census

Refused to recognize LGBTQ people in National AIDS day Address

In the World

-Refusing LGBTQ asylum seekers fleeing violence

-Ban Embassy Pride Flags

-Refused to condemn attacks on LGBTQ people in Chechnya

-Refused to condemn a law punishing LGBTQ people in Brunei

It's a long list. A long list of tangible policy (and lack of policy) that demonstrates the harm of this administration against my community. But we all know it's more than politics. Trump's presence in a position of power and his rhetoric have emboldened some less savory characters in our society. This has been overwhelming for the Black community, who have endured as white supremacy rears its ugly head again. But the hatred and discrimination that Trump has normalized affects all minorities.

I've been incredibly fortunate in my experience. But this is the message I need you to understand. Hatred against people like me is real. Sometimes it's simple microaggressions. Other times it's assault. It ranges from personal to systemic.

On election night in 2016, I sobbed in fear or what was ahead. We'd elected a homophobe as Vice President, and Trump wasn't much better.

Many told me it wouldn't be that bad for me. They brushed aside my concerns, I was being dramatic. And this is easy to say from a position of privilege. But for me, I thought of my experiences.

I thought of coming out, and the reactions I received. I remember how a coworker at the time told me that people I didn't even know had talked about how I was a dyke, and she put them in their place by telling them I wasn't.

I remember when my girlfriend and I were moving into an apartment and were asked if we were sisters. How many times we've confused people with our relationship.

I remember a job interview where I was asked about my boyfriend, panicking when asked in a professional setting about my personal life because saying wife could go badly.

I've come out over and over again, and it never gets easier.

I remember the time I was at the movies and I dared to hold her hand. How someone dumped a cup of chew on her head. We don't go to the movies in our hometowns anymore. If we do, we sit in the back against the wall.

You don't know the fear that I felt then, when I saw all of these flash before me, knowing that things would get worse.

Now, there are two justices who want to overturn my marriage. A third won't say what she'll do if confirmed.

I wasn't wrong. I wasn't being dramatic. This is my life. This is the lives of minorities in America. You can't ignore these experiences, as if they've never happened.

You're free to vote for Trump. Of course. Just know that you're allowing this to happen. Know that you're choosing him over me, over my wife, over every Black man, woman and child, every queer person, every trans person, every immigrant...the list goes on, and on, and on.

Know the consequences of the decision. Not just for you, but for everyone.

#Trump #trump2020 #trump 2020 #queer community

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vfenrirsv · 3 years

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When I die, let the wolves enjoy my bones; When I die, let me go…

I couldn’t even begin to tell you when I last felt like I was myself; when I last felt proud of who I am, or where I came from, or of all the obstacles that I’ve had to overcome in order to get to where I am today.

I was born “Vanessa.” A Gemini, an Air sign, a Horse under Chinese astrology. Coyote is my Totem. Wolf is my Sacred Guide. In Greek the meaning of my name is “Butterfly,” also from Phanessa, the mystic goddess of an ancient Greek brotherhood bent on finding Truth. Various accounts offer the ideas that someone named “Vanessa” bears the qualities of beautiful and strong, and most importantly ‘always tough on the inside.’ To the latter, at least, I can attest.

My Mother, in my infancy, called me “‘Nessa” in affection and “Vanessa-Anne” in ire. If my Father ever called me by any name other than “Baby-girl;” I can’t remember. I don’t remember much about my Father before my early tweens, when I was forced by the courts to spend time with him in an attempt to foster some type of relationship with the man that my Mother had divorced.

In elementary school I was simply “Vanessa.” Straight-A student in all but mathematics, budding lover of arts and crafts, and defender of both my own and my Mother’s honor on the playground when kids teased me about acting like a tomboy, or not having a father.

Throughout secondary school I was largely invisible – called a number of racial slurs, though I never considered any of them my name, even when someone took the time to recognize me; to bully me. Being white in a community predominated by African American and Hispanic families didn’t grant me the illusionary honor of being called anything other than “Cracker” or, “Piglet” since my parents worked in law enforcement.

By then, I didn’t want to be “Vanessa.” I didn’t want to have a name at all. Silence and being invisible was better than being called out for all of the things that I had no control of. It wasn’t my fault that I was born white, or born into a broken home, or the product of two law enforcement officers who sought happiness outside of their careers. In a quickly emerging socio-economic climate where all three of those variables were prescribed as being abhorrent or fundamentally wrong, I was cast adrift to navigate those faults as if I had brought them upon myself by my own hand. “Dealt a bad hand,” as they say; but it didn’t matter. “She’s a tough little thing.”

When I die, you can push me out to sea; When I die, set me free…

I was in fifth grade when I thought about suicide for the first time. Those dark thoughts were the result of climbing onto an overly-full bus to go to school; only to find that the only available seat was being used to hold the book-bags for a trio of African American girls who took one look at me and sneered. I sat on the edge of the seat, careful not to disturb their property; but when the bus turned a corner, and one of their bags fell the floor; they immediately grabbed my hair, punched me in the stomach, and began to degrade me with every slur they could think of. I hated myself and my name for no other reason that it wasn’t socially acceptable to be who I was.

When my mother later confronted the counselor of the school, a robust African American woman herself; she was told something to the effect of “to take her whining child and leave.” The "counselor" never said my name, because to them, I was a nobody. I was invisible.

In high-school I was both “Van” and “’Ness,” depending on how close I was with the person calling my name. I fell into Art and Science, and always kept my nose in a book. I avoided most people like the plague. When I joined the marching band I wore long jackets even in the summer and did my best to ignore the jokes about me being shy, but for the first time in a long time I wasn’t invisible and I wasn’t nameless.

I wasn’t “Vanessa” anymore, I wasn’t the bullied and disgusting child of a single-parent officer. I clung to being “Van.” “Van” was the introverted Artist who hand-made t-shirts for several of her fellow marching band members, and who thrived in studying Marine Biology and Criminal Sciences. I cut my hair and dyed it bright colors. I played soccer in short shorts. I free dived the local haunts in brightly colored bathing suits, and learned to connect to my peers. I got piercings up both of my ears and a tattoo on my back. I stopped wearing clothing to hide within. I grew to trust and love a very small group of people that, to this day – even though I’ve hardly spoken to any of them in years – I still consider my family. “Van” was the antithesis to “Vanessa.” Where “Vanessa” was reclusive, anti-social, and forced to grow up fast, “Van” was vivacious, carefree, and youthful.

Just before my 19th Birthday I met M. Tall, dark, handsome, though 10 years my senior; everything a budding idiot of a young woman would look for in a man – minus the obvious red-flags of him being not-so-separated from his soon-to-be-ex-significant-other and going thru a messy divorce. I saw a man, deliciously off limits, and he saw a young woman unclaimed by any other. When we eventually came together he panted into the naked dip between my shoulders, and between his ragged breaths on the precipice of a climax, the name “Vanessa” – for the first time in years – didn’t make me flinch or shy away.

When I joined the military midway through my first year in college, I was only identified by my last name, as it was barked at me for eight weeks in Boot, and then used as the only true thing that I owned without cost, once I was sent to my duty stations. It was tacked onto my MOS and Rank each time I was reassigned or given a new task. It was efficient, neutral, and impersonal. I grew to be the same. My shipmates called me by rank in the office, and “Van” on shore leave.

Years after; after M’s successful divorce, a couple more of my birthdays, and a few new duty stations, I began to better understand who I was as “Van.” I cultivated myself and thought for sure that this is who I was meant to be, and that I was with the person that I was supposed to be with. I soon learned otherwise. M was man with the world at his feet, divorced, with a young virile military girlfriend, he could do anything his heart desired. He ended up desiring all options that were the opposite of my own. So, true to my name, I tempered the steel within me; handed him back the $10,000 engagement ring he had placed on my finger; and told him “I love you, but now I know that love – sometimes – isn’t enough;” and we separated.

When I die, let the sharks come 'round to feed; When I die, set me free…

When I was honorably discharged from the military I was left adrift to deal with my PTSD and clinical depression. No one called me by my last name anymore. I was a civilian now. I did my best to stay “Van” in all the ways that mattered. I clung to my confidence, my intelligence, my MOS skillset; but I was also now blunt, with a dark sense of humor, and didn’t associate well with people my own age. I was standoffish and curt, expecting the same manner of respect and accountability from my new civilian peers as I had grown accustomed to while in the service. I started asking people to simply call me “V.”

“It’s just easier,” I’d tell people with a smile, but the truth was that I didn’t know who I was anymore.

When I met S, I was still “V.” I was mysterious and adventurous. I was a vixen, a one night stand, a pirate queen who left a trail of broken hearts behind her, a woman out to see the world and maybe watch it burn. I was fun and brutal in equal measures. The military made me sharp, and S was more than rough around the edges. We fell for each other faster that might have been wise, took to one another like melodramatic lovers always do. There was carnal passion and dangerous motorcycle rides down highways at 3AM. There were nights when we wouldn’t speak at all, and it didn’t matter that I didn’t want to have a name, or that his name was all that I would whisper or scream for hours. There were risks of getting caught, of getting pregnant, of getting too attached. There were days when all we would do was talk, and yet for all of our words we would talk about nothing at all. There were days when I knew that I had fallen in love, and nights when I had convinced myself that I didn’t deserve a single bit of it.

When you don’t have a name and don’t care who you’re becoming; it doesn’t matter what happens next. So one day, I left. I made the excuse that I had been offered a job somewhere across the country, that I was going on a vacation, that I was interning with a university out in the desert. It didn’t matter what I said. I was already gone. Lying to myself about why I was cutting the strings became easier the further away I got. Years later, S and I ran into one another; and he fervently admitted that he had been in love with me and had been too stupid to say it. I admitted that I had felt much the same, but had been too broken to allow myself to believe it.

When I die, let the flames devour me; When I die, set me free…

I rounded out many of the sharp edges that the military had left me with by moving back home. I had found employment in the civilian sector that matched closely with my MOS in the military, and I had begun to try and make friends on my off days. Mostly, I spent my free-time outside. I’d kayak or free dive the freshwater rivers in my home region, hike the beach trails or brush-land. I’d camp on the beach some nights or lay in a hammock in the dark of the pinewood on others. My time in the isolation of wilderness taught me how to sit still with my own darkness, and I believed that I would be mentally equipped to handle it.

Then, I stopped looking for myself in nature and started dating. I felt that I was ready. Tough girls move forward, right? That’s how I met J: completely by accident. A friend of my brother’s from the same high school – we had crossed paths more than a few times; with him a football star and me Second Chair in marching band. He called me “Van” and it didn’t strike me as odd, knowing that he knew me from before; when being “Van” meant more than being “V.” We connected, and did well for a time. He got a job as a Deputy and I as a Dispatcher. Things seemed like they were beginning to align. I thought my future was in sight. He said my name with pride and affection when he introduced me to his parents. He breathed life back into the part of me that was both “Van” and “’Ness” and “Vanessa” in equal measures, fixing me with slivers of adoration, challenge, pride, hope, adventure, and affection. We had many of the same interests, he never once stopped showering me in affection, and J could make me feel like the most treasured woman in the room with nothing more than a wink.

Moving in together with his brother and brother’s girlfriend is what killed all of the fragile progress that had been made. I came home from a twelve hour shift one afternoon to his brother’s girlfriend screaming obscenities. I didn’t clean enough. I didn’t follow her rules enough. I wasn’t present enough, or friendly enough. I was too young at the time to understand that she was unhappy with more than just herself, that there were things going on in her life that had nothing to do with me; but all I heard was: “Vanessa” wasn’t good enough to be part of “this family” anymore. They didn’t want anything to do with “Van.” I fell apart, and I was too broken to accurately convey to J what her statements had done to me mentally, what his brother’s silence in the face of those blatantly vindictive statement had done to me. I wasn’t able to convey all of the damage that I believed was irrevocably done.

I closed in on myself and became “V” again. If they didn’t want “Van,” or “’Ness,” or “Vanessa” in their picture-perfect ideations of the familial future, then I’d do them all a favor and leave. So I ended it. Moved into my own place. Started over. “V” didn’t care if she left another broken heart to the surf; didn’t care if starting over caused more harm than good. “Van” began to have the same connotations as “Vanessa.” I was running out of nicknames and letters to remove from my name; as if parceling out portions of my appellation would allow me the illusion that I was – somehow – keeping it all together. I gathered what I had left of myself and pushed forward. If nothing else, I was ‘always tough on the inside,’ right?

When I die, throw my ashes to the breeze; When I die, scatter me…

Later, I met my ex-husband D, an Air Force veteran, and each step in our post-military journey together unknowingly brought us closer to our unavoidable divorce. We both had scars that weren’t truly healing over, and we both had been losing ourselves to our own different demons for years before we met. We both wanted a distraction, someone to fall into on the weekends. He didn’t mind that I wasn’t looking for more than a dalliance, and I was secure in the knowledge that I could use him to chase away the solitude while maintaining my independence. By the time we realized that we were mired in one another it was almost a surprise for both of us to find that our demons played well together. Everything seemed fine, until it wasn’t.

We were always on the move. Influenced by work or family or our own personal goals; we would set out to each new place with hope in our hearts and dreams of bright futures in our minds. We’d drag each other along with us; happy to be in the orbit of the other even if it meant more change. Florida, Georgia, Tennessee. Kentucky, Michigan, Colorado…Each move was a fresh start, right? Each move was a learning opportunity, an adventure, a chance to explore instead of putting down deep roots…

I cannot speak on his behalf, but in my reality, each move brought a new job that I needed to train for, understand, and master; with new titles that I needed to be worthy of, and new responsibilities that I needed to fulfill. Each new apartment complex would be a new contract and a new name that someone would call me by; “206B,” “Mrs. Vanessa,” “Miss Van,” or some hybrid combination of both my and his last name.

By Colorado we no longer wanted the same thing. I hated being “Mrs. Vanessa,” or some last name sphinx-crossbreed. “Mrs. Vanessa” had suddenly become a weekend step-mother to two young boys who neither wanted me or needed me in their lives; and was now the wife of a man who didn’t know what he wanted out of a career or a marriage. “Mrs. Vanessa” found herself far from any semblance of a home, in a relationship that was coming undone at the very seams.

D moved back to his childhood home in Michigan, and I stayed in Colorado. Alone. We were separated for several weeks; trying to figure out how to salvage what we had attempted to build together. Demons play well together until, unsurprisingly, they don’t. The time that we spent separated outnumbered the time that we had been factually married. The distance allowed us to say all of the things that we otherwise wouldn’t have said to each other’s faces. Full disclosure and transparency came at the cost of long distance calls and aggravated re-dials. We yelled. We cried. We drew the venom out of the wounds we’d inflicted upon each other and finally relented. We didn’t attempt marriage counseling.

When the years have torn me apart; Just Let me be…

In an attempt to patch the internal damage, I made friends outside of my job. We started game nights, hosted pot-lucks, explored Colorado, and I was able to truly find kinship in one of my new friends. A fellow Gemini, Air sign, military veteran, person who had lost their path but had managed to find their way. I connected with them, trusted them, and turned to them when I knew that the floundering of my marriage was inevitability going to result in failure. I was branching out, I told myself. It was healthy to make friends and not let myself wallow in the fact that I had failed at being a wife. I buckled down and filed for divorce. “Tough on the inside,” I reminded myself. Always. Tough. On. The. Inside.

Failure makes us vulnerable, and vulnerability leads to poor decisions. On New Year’s Eve in Colorado, leaning on the trust of friendship and the influence of alcohol, I was sexually assaulted by the very friend that I had turned to for support during my divorce. He called me “Vanessa.”

God, I hate that name.

I adopted a cat to quell the gathering dejection, violation, betrayal; the over-abundance of feeling everything and nothing at all, and requested an inter-agency job transfer out of state. I landed in Kansas. The divorce was finalized less than four months from the day I married my ex-husband. I was a newly-wed in August and a Divorcee in December. I forced myself forward and turned over a new page in January of that following year. ToughOnTheInsideGodDammit.

All the world is dark, and I've looked as far as I can see…

This time, I did not seek out friends outside of my job. I kept my relationships professional. I was more willing to hang out with someone from the office in a neutral setting, but would stay home elsewise. I stopped responding to the name “Vanessa” entirely.

Loneliness also makes us vulnerable, but in a different way; and that same vulnerability leads us to do one of two things: Cloister ourselves away and never interact with people again, or Muster up enough courage to try new things. I chose Option #2: I joined some dating websites. I met men and women alike, and I began to grow more confident in my skin. I was “Van” again and I liked who I was becoming. I was independent and I wasn’t allowing myself to crumble beneath the weight of everything that I had been through. As my namesake, I was determined to be tough on the inside.

Being strong and independent and courageous led me to J. He didn’t mind that I was imperfect, didn’t balk at my scars or my demons, and didn’t shy away from my past. J had a past of his own, had made mistakes of his own, had a life of lessons learned and adventures had of his own; so it didn’t seem so scary to open myself up again. To be someone more than “V.” He promised the world; a future with deep seated roots, the dream of a home, a family. I believed him. Like an idiot, I believed him. We married. We vowed to cleave to one another alone, to put each other before ourselves, to love each other unconditionally; to battle the world together. We swore to cherish and adore one another, to build a life together and never take each other for granted.

I try. I try so fucking hard. When I feel ignored, I buckle down and swallow it. When I feel stressed I keep it in to prevent stressing him out more than he claims he already is.

He calls me “Beautiful” and “The Best Thing to Ever Happen to Him,” but follows these hollow words with casual indifference and gentle disregard. He doesn’t abuse me, but he doesn’t cherish me either. He speaks of me with pride when he talks to his family; but does not stand up for or defend me when his Step-Mother disparages me and belittles my actions. “Babe,” he calls me “This is just how she is with everyone. You’re Amazing.” I am supposed to be content with that. I am supposed to be content with sitting in silence, hailed as “amazing,” or “beautiful,” or “the best.” Hollow words echo in silence. Distort. Sound false. Do not bear weight in their worthlessness.

I realize that I don’t even know the last time he has called me by name and meant it…Maybe it was the day we got married. Maybe it was the day he proposed. Maybe it was our second date...

I try harder. When I feel neglected I go out of my way to do things for him that would please him; I cook his favorite meals, I wear alluring lingerie, I clean the entire house and make sure that he doesn’t have to lift a finger after work. When all else fails I reach out to his best friend to ask for advice on what I can do to make things easier, better, for my husband. I set aside my own embarrassment at having to ask for insight from someone else, instead of getting the answers from my own husband’s mouth, as to why he doesn’t seem to want me anymore. “It’s not you, Babe,” he says. It’s difficult to stay tough on the inside when “It’s not you,” echoes hollow and sounds more like “I don’t have a reason.”

When we disagree, he calls me by my full name, tacking on his last name at the end, as if in joking-jest; as if calling me anything other than some form of dead endearment will lend seriousness to his statements. “I promise,” he says. “I love you,” he says. I am not angry that his words hold no meaning or value anymore. I am just angry that I can no longer trust anything he says. I am angry that more often than not there are no words at all, just furious silence.

When I die, just let me be…

I am angry that I have allowed myself to become this nameless, hopeless, loveless thing. I am not even “V,” at this point. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

The wife I have become is a meaningless thing. What communication can be had between a wife who tries best to express her feelings and desires to a husband who reacts with anger and frustration when faced with the truth? What future can be had when a husband will not be intimate with his wife? What value do a husband’s words have when each promise is broken, when there is no follow-through on simple tasks of keeping a home, fostering a relationship, or growing a friendship?

“Nessa” and “Vanessa-Anne” in equal measures, had been emotionally bruised by the divorce of her parents; learning early in life that sometimes letting go is the best option. “Vanessa” was poisoned by the realization that your name means nothing to those who take one look at you and refuse to learn who you truly are on the inside. Both “Van” and “’Ness” learned the fragile existence of friendship, and the aching stab of loneliness that comes after you open your heart to a select few only to grow apart from them for no other reason than life gets in the way. “Van” was sullied by the painful growth out of adolescence and the realization that love just isn’t enough. “V” was grown in cynicism, the desperate child of PTSD and depression, and knew the devastation and loss that comes with refusing to make bonds with other human beings.

When I die, let the wolves enjoy my bones; When I die, just let me go…

So who am I now? I’m not even sure the wolves would know.

Daylight is waiting for you…

_________________________

“Who Am I?” by Vann Fenrirs Volchitsa, Author

“Wolves” by Down Like Silver, Lyrics

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socialjusticeartshare · 3 years

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'A soft place to settle': Clintonville family fosters unaccompanied minors from Honduras

At first, Andi Mocharski was intimidated by the idea of fostering older children, especially those who weren't fluent in English.

The Clintonville mother of four adopted children had only ever fostered younger kids who grew up speaking English, and the ones she was about to welcome into her home were a 10-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy from Honduras.

Refugees in Columbus: Biden policy flips dash hopes of local advocates

But it was more than that: They were unaccompanied minors who crossed the U.S-Mexico border alone. Their mom was still living in a camp there, and their father had been murdered.

Although Mocharski was nervous before the children moved in with her family in November, everything worked out fine.

Mocharski family fosters two children from Honduras

"Immediately they just kind of settled in," Mocharski said of the two children her family began to sponsor — the technical term for families who take in unaccompanied minors— right before Thanksgiving.

The kids oohed and aahed over the holiday turkey, reveled in hiking at Hocking Hills and found joy in the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and the Franklin Park Conservatory.

They jumped on the family's trampoline, went to the local skatepark and dressed up with Mocharski's children — Jack, 7; 12-year-old twins Noah and Adam; and Caroline, 16 — asking Mocharski to draw lightning bolts on their foreheads and saying spells, magic wand in hand, just like Harry Potter.

"They're just really normal kids," Mocharski said. "They love to do normal things."

'Back to being a refugee': Family displaced from Columbus apartments feels trauma again

The children, who are not being identified out of concern for their safety, crossed the US-Mexico border several months before the Mocharski family met them. They were sent across without their mother, who remained behind in a camp as part of the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" protocol for those seeking asylum in the United States.

Their father had been murdered by gang members in Honduras, causing the family to flee north in hopes of finding safety in America, Mocharski said.

'Not safe places', 'A lot of kidnappings going on': Unaccompanied children cross border

Kelly Porter, a Columbus native who began volunteering at the border in 2019 when the "Remain in Mexico" policy began, was the one who made the connection between the children and Columbus.

"I knew the mother from the camp and, like many parents, with despair they send their kids ahead to family or friends," said Porter, who is the founder ofLove Without Lines, an organization that assists migrants at the border. "Mexico, especially border towns, are not safe places and at this time there were a lot of kidnappings going on. So their mother sent them up to be with friends in Houston."

Refugee 'crisis': Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman leads bipartisan delegation to US-Mexico border

Since October 2020, more than 47,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Under President Joe Biden, children are being allowed into the country, but many adults are not due to a COVID-19-related policy begun under Donald Trump in March 2020 and continued by Biden.

Although the children's story of crossing the border alone is a common one lately, these children's path once they entered the United States is not.

Once unaccompanied minors enter the country, they are taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection and then transferred to the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), according to the federal agency. From there, a sponsor is located to take care of the children until — and if — they can be reunited with their parents.

Most children crossing the border are coming to live with someone they know in the United States, said Mocharski. They are placed by the ORR first with a parent or legal guardian, or, if that's not possible, with a close relative.

The last resort is a distant relative or an unrelated adult, such as Mocharski, according to the ORR. Some children stay in ORR custody for long periods of time.

"Their somebodies didn't work out for them," Mocharski said of the children from Honduras.

Reunited: Somali father back with family in Columbus after years of separation due to 'Muslim ban'

Their mother begged Porter to help in any way she could.

"She came to me crying one day ... so I called my friend Amy," Porter said.

Coming to Columbus

Amy Bradley, of Clintonville, and her husband, Chris, organized a way for the kids to come to Columbus and stay with the couple and their own two children.

"The kids were going to end up basically in foster care, perhaps separated," said Bradley, who has a background in social work and was able to get clearance from children's services in Texas to send the kids to live with her. "It was an emergency situation, and we knew we didn't want them going into foster care with the possibility of being separated."

Help in court:New program trains non-lawyers to assist asylum seekers who have no legal counsel

They lived for three months with the Bradleys before moving in with the Mocharskis after Bradley's mother-in-law got COVID-19 and needed more care from the family.

The Mocharskis' lives have been changed by welcoming two Honduran children into their home for about six months, Mocharski said.

"This has been something we're going to remember forever," said Mocharski, adding that the children will finish out the school year before going to Texas to be reunited with their mother, who crossed the border recently and now is in the process of seeking asylum.

Waiting game:Immigration court backlog has nearly doubled under Trump

Mocharski said she first learned about the kids in early November when she got a call from someone at the church the family attended, First Unitarian Universalist on the North Side. Jan Phillips, facilitator for the church's racial and immigration justice group, told Mocharski that there were two children who needed a new place to stay — would the Mocharskis take them in?

At first, Mocharski said she tried to find anyone else to take the children. She already had four of her own, and the family lived in a Clintonville home with one bathroom.

"I wanted to make sure wherever they landed they were going to get the best care," Mocharski said.

Then, she talked to her husband, Jim, and she said they knew deep down that their family was probably the best place for the children.

Read more:Language a barrier in getting coronavirus information to all

"We kind of knew how to get settled and knew the steps to give kids a soft place to settle," she said, adding that all four her own children were fostered and then adopted. "Once you've done it, you kind of know."

Sharing the trauma

As they became more comfortable in their new home, the kids also began to share some of their trauma and grief with the family, she said. The boy often wanted to talk at night, using Google Translate to communicate his feelings to Mocharski, though his English has improved since he arrived.

Losing their father and then being separated from their mother has been hard on the children.

"We kind of had to take it day by day, hour by hour," Mocharski said. "I felt like I needed to protect them."

COVID-19:Coronavirus has been especially dangerous to immigrants. Here's why

The whole experience has become a way for the Mocharskis to show their own children their values, she said.

"There's always room for somebody," she said. "There's enough love to go around."

When the family took the kids in, they didn't know about their history or the trauma they had faced in their home country or during their journey to the United States, she said. Right away, Mocharski found the children a therapist, her family started learning Spanish and Caroline gave up her room for a small alcove off the kitchen, so the siblings could have their own space to share.

Caroline said she has enjoyed having the other kids in her home, and it has taught her to have gratitude for what she has.

Painful distance:How Trump immigration policies have kept refugee families separated across continents

"They came here and they were like, 'Meat! You have meat!'" Caroline said. "They were just very excited."

She remembers going grocery shopping with them and the wonder they experienced at all of the options in the store.

First Unitarian Universalist members donated gift cards and meals, and Mocharski started a GoFundMe page to help purchase things the children needed, including clothing and healthcare, since they do not have insurance.

The ongoing fundraiser, called "A Healthy Home For Unaccompanied Minors,"has a goal of $30,000, and Mocharski wants to send the kids to Texas with whatever else is raised.

Safe haven:One-of-a-kind school gives refugees resettled in Columbus a sense of belonging

Two weeks ago, the children got to see their mother, who came to Columbus and spent a week in an Air BnB with them. They are finishing the school year in Columbus at Fugees Academy, a private school for refugee children on the Northeast Side, before they go to live with her and be a family once again.

In the meantime, Mocharski has been happy to welcome them into her family.

"I feel like we were in the right place at the right time for these kiddos," Mocharski said.

[email protected]

@DanaeKing

Article Source

#migrant children #adoption #foster care #helping children

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franniebridgertons · 4 years

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dimyaweek: strangers on a crazy adventure

modern au

dedicated to @intoafterglow and her love of derek’’s baseball caps

“We don’t need to bring in a tutor to help Alexei with his Russian,” Anastasia complained to her father when Dmitry Sudayev first showed up. Well, not when he first showed up, as that would mean she complained about him in front of him and that was the sort of rude that was unforgivable to her parents and Nana. But the moment she had left the foyer from opening the door to see a teen boy standing there, wearing well worn clothing and a backwards baseball cap (of all things!) looking both beautiful and stupid, and marched into her father’s study. “Any one of us can do it.”

At this, Nicholas Romanov looked up at his youngest daughter, in a mixture of amusement and annoyance. His tone was set when he spoke, however, “And yet, none of you have.”

So it was true that her father had been asking them, mostly Maria and Anastasia as they were both still in high school and Olga and Tatiana were away at college and would have never allowed Alexei’s studies to drop to the level where an outsider would need to come in. Her oldest sisters were annoyingly perfect in that way.

“I can do it,” she insisted, mentally trying to rearrange her school and social calendar schedule. “What are even his qualifications?”

“He speaks Russian, he reads Cyrillic and he’s shown up to help Alyosha,” her father responded. “That already puts him ahead of my daughters.” Her father looked back at the work she had interrupted. “Nastyona, go be young and have fun. Enjoy the free time this allows you.”

She had left, but she wasn’t happy about it. Neither was her oldest sister, Olga, who had called her that night to ask her why she couldn’t have been bothered to help her little brother with his studies.

The second time Dmitry showed up, he wore an outfit similar to the one he had worn before except even more worn out, and the same stupid hat attached to his head. He didn’t even take it off when he walked into the dining room where her brother was set up to do his studies.

“Privyet, Dmitry!” Her younger brother greeted his tutor happily.

Her brother was always starved for male attention, complaining he was cursed with nothing but sisters and sisters. He had been close with Olga’s high school boyfriend, but they had broken up during her sister’s senior year and now she was away at Yale in college and so they never saw her current boyfriend. Little Alexei had taken the break up harder than Olga had, being all of 9 at the time it had happened. Tatiana did not date boys, and therefore never brought any home. And Maria never dated a boy for long enough to bring him home to meet the entire family. (She was still required to have them meet their parents, if they had no previous acquaintance with him or his family. As a result, she tended to date mostly within their Russian-American circle so she didn’t have to introduce them to her parents.) And Anastasia...well, she was entirely too picky according to her sisters and classmates.

“Privyet, Alexei,” Dmitry returned. And she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the way he rolled his r’s when he did so. What a show off.

“Have you met my favorite sister?” Alexei asked, in English.

Dmitry’s gaze flickered over to her, dismissively and then replied to Alexei, “Not officially.”

“I call her Anya,” Alexei explained. It was true, he had not been able to pronounce Anastasia when he was younger and had always gotten stuck on the first two syllables. Ann-ya had softened to Anya eventually. “But everyone else calls her Anastasia.”

Dmitry looked back over at her, assessing her. “Anya,” he tried out instead of her actual name.

“Do you have trouble with your syllables too?” She asked, then put her hand to her mouth because it was a sort of thing to say that would get her in trouble with her parents and grandmother.

Instead of being offended, however, Dmitry merely laughed in response. She wondered if he truly was as simple as he appeared. Dimples popped out near his jawline when he laughed and she snapped her gaze away and towards her brother. Who was glaring at her. She supposed she was not currently the favorite sister anymore.

He pointed towards the next room with the staircase and with a rather good impression of their father for a twelve year old said, “Go to your room.”

She bristled at the tone coming from someone four years younger than her and snapped back, “Say it in Russian!”

Her brother gave a panicked look towards Dmitry who shrugged. Then Dmitry said the only smart thing she had ever heard him say when he told her brother, “I don’t think it counts if I say it for you, bud.”

Anastasia left, but she very purposefully did not go to her room. Later that night, however, her father came to her room and told her she absolutely must apologize to her brother and his tutor.

Apologizing to Alexei was easy enough, as he was one to forgive easily and he had most likely been over her fit of temper the moment she stormed out of the room. Apologizing to Dmitry would be more difficult and probably more necessary.

So, the next time he showed up and she opened the door for him and his stupid baseball cap, she swallowed her pride and said, “I’m sorry.”

He arched an eyebrow in response, “In Russian?”

Well, Anastasia supposed she deserved that. She let out an annoyed breath and said, “Mne ochen’ zhal’.”

Dmitry and dimples smiled back at her, “Proyekhali, Anya.”

Anastasia decided to pick her battles. As per the advice all the older members of her family gave to her.

She decided to make polite small talk, that may or may not also double as an interrogation. “Do you tutor many people?”

“Your brother is the first one,” he said. He was chewing gum. Of course he was.

“School credit?”

“Community service, actually,” he told her and she found herself back at her father’s study.

“Papa, he’s a criminal,” she told him. “He’s tutoring Alexei for community service credit.”

“I’m well aware, Malenkaya,” her father said patiently.

She narrowed her eyes at him because it was unlike anyone in her family to simply let anyone in and deal with their children. “What does Mama think?”

Her father let out an impatient sigh now, “Your mother is very disappointed that you and Maria couldn’t be bothered to help your brother with his studies but also believes in Christian forgiveness.” He frowned. “And also, Anastasia, with all this time you spend harassing your brother and his tutor I don’t know how you didn’t have time to help him.”

Properly shamed, she left her father’s study and avoided her brother and his tutor for his next few sessions.

Unfortunately, walking back from her friend Katya’s house, she found him unavoidable as he fell into step beside her.

She was surprised, as she had just assumed he had driven to their house every session but now that she thought about it she couldn’t remember seeing him coming to or from her house before.

“Do you walk here every time?”

He glanced over, startled as though he hadn’t expected her to speak to him. She supposed she deserved that. “I walk from the bus stop.” He gestured to his clothing. “I do not live in this neighborhood.”

She just nodded in response. “Was your license suspended?”

Dmitry laughed in response, and she didn’t know why she couldn’t help but be rude around him. “Do you want to know why I’m serving community service?”

“Yes,” she answered, a little too quickly.

He shrugged. “I got caught stealing food.”

“Oh,” she said. Something made her think it probably wasn’t just as a prank or whatever stupid reasons boys at her school stole from people with. “Where are your parents?”

“My father died a few years ago,” he responded looking straight ahead as they walked. “My mom died a few years after I was born.”

Well, now she felt every inch the spoiled brat she had probably shown herself to be.

“Who is raising you?” She asked softly.

“If the state asks,” he leaned over like imparting a secret to her. “My foster father is, but I’m pretty sure I’m raising us both.”

One more question, because Anastasia was nothing but curious. “Why do you always where that stupid hat?”

“You think my hat is stupid?” He teased and pulled off the cap and shook out his hair. Beautiful, thick and rather luxurious brown hair. It seemed unfair. She was hoping he had been hiding a deformity or a bald spot.

“Ah,” she said, glancing over at him. “I can see why you kept the hat on, you are obviously hideous.”

Dmitry reached over and set the cap (forwards) on her head, pulling the lid down low over her forehead and eyes.

“So I’m told,” he said in a way that told her he was definitely (truthfully) told the opposite.

She tugged that hat up slightly so she could see. “Are you trying to tell me I look hideous?”

“Yes, Anya,” he said, glancing over at her. “You are the most hideous creature I’ve ever seen.”

She had no idea why that made her blush.

The next time she opened the door to let him in for Alexei’s tutoring, he was not wearing his hat. Even though she had handed it back to him once they had reached the door last time. She wanted to have topped back on his head, like he had down to her but she didn’t know how to reach that high without physically climbing up him and she felt that would be awkward.

She did, however, greet him in Russian (he was very hideous indeed today) and he grinned and replied in kind and they kept it up as he got out the books for Alexei. Alexei came down at some point, taking his seat. He looked between the two of them, groaning when he heard Russian being spoken.

After a few moments of working on his Cyrillic worksheet as Dmitry and Anya continued to speak, Alexei put down his pen to glare at them.

Or, rather, her, “You don’t need a Russian tutor.”

“I know,” she told her brother in English. “But if you keep studying you won’t be so annoyed by this.”

Her brother gave her a sickly sweet smile, “Oh, I think I’ll always find you annoying, Anya.”

Dmitry whispered to her, also in English, “Are you sure you’re his favorite sister?”

She leaned back to respond in a whisper, “Yes, you should see the rest of them.”

Alexei threw a pen at her and she shrieked as it almost hit her. Her grandmother came into the room to tell her that she wasn’t behaving like a proper young lady and to go sit with her until she could settle down.

Dmitry winked at her as she got pulled away to the other room.

Alexei was still pouting when Anastasia joined him and Maria in the living room later on as they watched television. He merely grunted in a greeting to her.

“What’s his problem?” Maria asked her.

“I can answer myself,” Alexei said grumpily. “And my problem is that Anya has discovered Dmitry is hot and now won’t leave us alone.”

“Ah,” Maria said, unfazed by a Romanov sibling outburst. Then she looked over at Anastasia, who had forgotten to protest her brother’s claim. “I always knew you’d end up with a juvenile delinquent.”

Anastasia crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. Now Maria could deal with two grumpy siblings for the rest of the night.

“Hey,” Dmitry greeted her as their paths crossed once again outside her house. He, on his way to tutor her brother, and she, on her way to meet some friends at the movies because she had been declared too much of a distraction to her brother during his lessons. ‘I’m not the one she’s distracting,’ Alexei had muttered under his breath. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes,” Anya said. He was standing at the bottom of the porch steps, and she stayed three steps up and enjoyed the fact she was eye level with him for once. “I’ve been banished from my own home by a twelve year old boy.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and even though it wasn’t his fault, he sounded far more sincere than she had back when she originally had to apologize to him. “Can I make it up to you?”

“It’s not your fault,” but also she realized being eye level really meant it was easy for her gaze to flick down to his lips.

Lips that smiled. “What if I made it up to you outside of your dining room?”

Anastasia gasped, “You mean like the living room? Or even on this here porch?”

“I was going to get wild and suggest the backyard,” he replied.

“Oh, a bad boy,” she teased. Then she leaned forward and kissed him, because she could.

“I feel like you’re far more trouble than I could ever be,” Dmitry told her. “Meet me here after tutoring?”

She nodded, and let him pull her in for another kiss.

That was quickly interrupted by the sound of the door opening and her little brother saying, “Now that you guys have gotten that out of the way, can I please learn some Russian.”

Anastasia giggled as her and Dmitry pulled away from each other, “At least you’ve gotten him passionate about the language.”

Before he fully pulled away, he did lean in to whisper, “U tebya krasivye glaza.”

“U tyebya acheravatyel'naya ulypka,” she returned, with a smile.

Alexei groaned and stepped forward and pulled Dmitry towards the door, while shooing his sister away with the other.

See, her brother was finally understanding Russian enough to be properly annoyed by what they were saying.

#dimyaweek2020 #dimya #anastasia broadway #anastasia fanfiction #myfic #my fic #i didnt write this and yestedays back to back there was like a week or so in between #but i guess hats are the theme for the last two days!!!#happy valentines day yall

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onceuponawildflower · 4 years

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How has your sexuality affected your religiousness? I know when I first starting following you years ago you were very involved in the church. Please feel free to ignore this question if it is uncomfortable/too personal/whatever. I just know many people who are afraid to truly be themselves because of the judgement that typically comes from their church families (among others I’m sure)

no it’s okay i don’t mind answering.

a few years back, back when i was v involved in the church, i also got v involved in nonviolent protesting and political activism (circa the noDAPL movement, Bernie, the big swing into immigration rights we’ve recently seen, the Syrian genocide, and the rise of Trump, etc). the more i got involved in those things, the more i became alienated by the church. i was asked to be part of worship less and less, some people distanced themselves from me.

it eventually got to a point where i talked to the pastors multiple times, asking them what we were going to be doing to take a stance on human injustices. they told me that, i kid you not, ‘what you’re doing on the left end is as extreme as the far-right wing.’ they told me they wanted to stay centrist and not take a stand. in my last encounter with them they told me that they loved me as a sister, but they wouldn’t ever talk about the issues i was passionate about bc it would ‘go over peoples’ heads’. i left before the service that day and almost immediately after, i was excommunicated. like i lost my entire friend group and church family, i was taken off of worship, my pastor left one inflammatory comment on something i posted on fb and then blocked me. it was a whole to-do which really hurt. but also made me livid. but also i was exhausted, having tried so hard to encourage people to care for others as their religion had always encouraged and kept being met with comfortable apathy…

so while i was kicked out of that church and that was a whole lot to deal with on all facets of my mind, body, and soul, i also see it to be a blessing bc it opened up this whole new world for me, one that i never even gave myself an option to believe previously. i explored all the facets of spirituality and mysticism that i knew very little about other than the christian church saying they were sinful and demonic (purely bc they weren’t protestantism). i also began to explore sexuality beyond the purity garbage force fed to christians. and that’s where it probably started.

once i realized it was okay to dismantle the crippling system imposed upon people, mostly womxn but also men, that told them that sexual purity was of utmost importance but the same system that never provided any sort of guidance through anything sexual, ever, i started to heal my own wounds of trauma and naivety and began to love myself. like my whole self. not just as a physical being but as a spiritual vessel and goddess soul resting in flesh.

i still have a long way to go and christianity really does fuck you up with ego and self-doubt and guilt and perfectionism, but it can be healed. i started listening to jamie lee finch and reading more about spiritual mysticism. i got into tarot and witchcraft and i know a lot of christians out there are probably rolling their eyes or laughing at me rn when they read this, but there is SO MUCH knowledge and wisdom around us in the natural world, much more than a book written by a bunch of men thousands of years ago. women hold so much power and goodness and wisdom and divinity, but christianity has all but wiped them out and done all it can to invalidate and eradicate the feminine divine.

that feminine divine however, is what gives me life. it fuels me. it reminds me of my agency. it reminds me of my power.

while all of this awakening was happening spiritually, so was my sexual awakening. it came in little nudges, like i would see womxn and want to cuddle them or hold them or kiss them or have what i thought was platonic relationships (nonsexual, intellectual, emotional lifelong partnerships). it scared me at first. a lot. i actually remember actively denying it. but also kept asking my queer friends about this sensation. i didn’t want to be pan at first or anything not straight. i actively opposed it bc i couldn’t imagine having to go through that transition with my family or my own self. i have been pretty emotionally exhausted for years now, and i didn’t think i could take that on too. while i was lgbtq+ friendly and an ally, it can be a totally different experience when you realize you’ve been suppressing something deep deep down unconsciously for decades. it’s really hard to explain really, and it’s still relatively new to me so bare with me here, i’m still feeling it out.

the more i ignored it however, the stronger it came on. at one point i surrendered to it. i couldn’t help but just embrace it bc otherwise i was lying to myself. i allowed myself to be open and honest with myself and that was terrifying, but also very liberating, just getting it out there and allowing my sexuality to exist in the same space as me. i tried to figure out what exactly i was feeling and if i could categorize this to help create some clarity (virgo here). what resonated most with me was pansexuality. it wasn’t like i was attracted to men and women and that was my marker. it was more like i was drawn to someone’s energy before i even considered their sexuality/gender. someone’s emotional presence and aura drew me in and everything else came second. it didn’t matter to me if they were mxn or womxn or something more fluid and in between. i just was there for the energy.

so i’ve been ‘out’ to my friends for a few months now, but i don’t think i’ll ever tell my parents, at least, i don’t think i will. i just know them and while they love people they love them through that christian lens. i’m very jaded still and forgive me for that, i will definitely need to go to therapy once i get insurance to help move beyond this. they still have a lot of resistance with lgbtq people, and that makes me really sad. i can’t imagine even nodding to the subject bc i know that we’re not going to meet in the middle. both of their kids are really liberal and not christian despite their best efforts, and they have become slightly less conservative since i was young, but now they’re just where that church i was kicked out of was, right in the middle, unbudgingly.

i suppose it works out for us now, since i am openly pansexual/queer and my partner is a heteronormative male (though not entirely cisgendered and he’s comfortable being whomever he wants to be and i love that about him). from the outside, we look like a heteronormative couple, which is cool and convenient for my family. honestly, since i left christianity, i’ve had a different relationship with my parents, and i miss how close we were. but i know it’s not going to change bc i have 0 desire to return to that religion and they have 0 desire to explore anything outside of it. what relationship we do have now is nice, in its own scope. i just wish i could be real and honest and open and deep with them and that they would go there with me. but that’s okay… i have friends who can meet me there and a supportive and open partner and so this is really the best it can get for me realistically. i am v grateful for the people i have in my life.

i don’t stay in touch with literally anyone from that church. no one talks to me anymore. they’ve all cut me out and as they know they can’t pull me back in they’ve exited altogether. that’s the christian agenda though, no? it’s all about bringing people in (at its best). just like door to door sales, if they know they don’t have a chance of making that sale, they’ll stop wasting their time and move on. bigger fish to fry. it hurts that i was only a (black) sheep in their flock, but at the same time, i have grown so much since i realized i could think for myself and be okay and not crippled by lack of a deity. i have no desire to return, and if those people couldn’t accept me then, they sure as hell won’t accept me now. but i don’t want that sort of energy in my life. i want authenticity. i want realness. i want vulnerability and openness and unconditional love. if you’re not willing to bring that, then i don’t really want to invest in you. simple as that.

now i’m not saying the way things went down for me are how it should be for anyone else, but i do encourage you and anyone else out there to feel your feelings. don’t be afraid of them. walk into those murky waters, if even with trepidation and wariness, at least move forward. bc otherwise you’re stagnating and stagnant water is dangerous (and smelly). foster a community of those who want to join you in your journey, who love you without any agenda. it is hard and can be incredibly painful but i do believe it’s worth it to live a life true to yourself rather than lie to ourself to appease the comfort zones of others.

that’s all i got.

#personal #sexuality #church #christianity #my story #pansexual

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