#just so his father and all the other complicit older adults in their life can keep being comfortable

[myplasticadversary]

Still contemplating Roman again and what would be the most effective narrative payoff to everything that's been set up and accumulating with him so far, hmmm

#my most solid hunch is that s4 is going to be a journey for him that culminates with him facing the question of sex trauma head-on #having exhausted all other options of putting it off #and how that plays out of course will be determined by everything else that happens to be going on that season #but the core thing would be him coming to terms with it not being his own fault he's psychologically messed up #which necessitates him acknowledging what logan did or exposed him to #and that he is not just the sole sicko perv in his family making things up in his head #he was hurt and his siblings were hurt and he can't keep laughing it off and telling himself he doesn't care #just so his father and all the other complicit older adults in their life can keep being comfortable #also that reminds me! maybe the trajectory of him and gerri will in some way drive him to that place of confrontation #roman roy #succession #the roy family sickness

[welcome-to-oslov]

Alright, sorry to be your ask box penpal this week, but I'm just such an Oslov superfan & binge reading so I have too many thoughts to share 😂.

Last ones: I'm Brazilian but have lived in America half my life (15 years). Just got home to visit São Paulo and it's helping me understand Gersha and the other not-evil-but-complicit characters better. As you may know, we have extreme inequality in Brazilian society. São Paulo's an amazing city with tons of upper social class & rich powerful people. However our lifestyle as upper class people is dependent on there being a huge class of poor people locked out of opportunity with no choice but to learn deference and work as low-paid servants. For example, a live-in nanny who cares for children of well-off families like a second mother, while her own children go without mothering far away. Young people from the impoverished northeast brought to the big cities for "opportunity" that are really just exploitative domestic labor.

Many of us know this feels wrong... yet so many of my class hate politicians whose policies haved lifted many out of poverty - and suddenly the price of maids double and poor kids can get into the excellent universities only WE'd been able to attend. This felt like a threat to our very existence. Many of us performatively talk about social justice & how it's wrong that only WE have power & opportunity, but the few of our peers who actually do something about it do feel threatening.

Of course thankfully we don't have this institionalized crazy kettle boy system, and mistreated maids drivers etc can easily quit & find another shitty job no problem. But, those who are really trapped are a mistreated son or daughter children of an upper class family. Every well-off family has someone who holds all the money & power: a father, uncle, or grandfather. As upper class kids we are supported by our families till ~25 because even it's not possible to launch your young adult life without family money; due to social divisions, you can't go out & get a teen/college kid job like in America, your friends all live at home too you can't really go move with them, the best university is going to be in your home city, and even good entry-level grad jobs at corporations don't really start paying enough till you're older since they figure you're paying your dues while your family patriarch supports you. If that patriarch is or was abusing you, you wouldn't have many clear ways out.

So how does a guy or girl in a bad situation get out? You get married young (20, 21, 22, etc.). Once you're married you're considered an adult: your wealthy family buys you two a starter condo, jobs might give you a raise, etc. You can divorce later, but getting that spouse gives you protection & distance & resources. Ofc easier for a girl to take this route, but a guy too could get a rich daddy's girl he knows at their nice school to marry him & insist her father set them up with young married life if his family drags their feet (though generally even an abusive patriarch would play ball here & realize he's been beat, otherwise he looks bad socially). I've seen this scenario play out with a couple of friends.

Which... basically is Tilrey's escape. He realizes he has an opportunity in Gersha & he goes for it, out of desperation to escape, genuine relief at finding someone nice he can live with & be his ally as he breaks free, etc 😢🙏

(Speaking of Tilrey & Brazil, what do you think of my casting suggestion post?! Hahahaha :) I have such a crush, but c'mon, he's gorgeous!)

I'm here for your thoughts any time! And I know very little about Brazil, so that's a fascinating comparison! Especially the parts about family structure and how young upper-class people might need to marry to establish their independence. That reminds me of 18th- and 19th-century Europe, which was a big influence on Oslov because I've read a ton of novels from that period. Extreme inequality was a factor there, too, and patronage was the main way of advancing in society, which increases both corruption and the power of family elders. There are a lot of stories about people (always women) being trafficked and forced into sex work, but then turning that into a source of power because of their sheer beauty. Of course we have widening inequality in the U.S. too, and connections seem more and more important, and many people are resistant to any form of redistribution. So I wonder if we're headed in the same direction, which scares me. Especially since there are tech billionaires who would definitely justify that as "meritocracy."

He is totally gorgeous! :)

[florbelles]

3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30 + lyra 💕

thank you airika!! sorry this is so late xx | xi answered here

iii. did they have a good childhood? what are fond memories they have of it? what’s a bad memory?

she doesn’t feel especially entitled to consider it a bad childhood, since she was enormously privileged in terms of wealth and position ( or, rather, her parents were, which meant she got the best education that could be afforded and materially wanted for nothing, including extensive opportunities for travel ), but she was miserable. she loathed her status, she loathed her father for the way he exploited both it and her, she loathed the company he kept, she loathed being complicit in it; she wanted to loathe her mother for her complete apathy towards her, but she pitied her; she was constantly running away or getting expelled. she was consumed with feelings of powerlessness, and that turned to bitterness, and that turned to fury.

she does have some fond memories; despite her resentment at being shipped off and unwanted, she enjoyed her time abroad, particularly in france; she enjoyed summers on the island, when she would befriend the summer people and spend her time with them, on the periphery of some semblance of normalcy, friends, or family, no matter how temporary her glimpse into domesticity was; her numerous runaway attempts were exhilarating, and she developed a fondness for being on the road that would carry into her adult life, which she spent almost entirely on the road ( or on the run from herself or lingering ties that could connect her to her work ) prior to hope county. she liked the days she spent on the beach by the ocean; she liked the evenings she spent in the forest or stables. she liked the time lawrence took her out for ice cream without ulterior motives or one of his mistresses about ( she’d cancelled, but lyra didn’t care about that at the time ). it wasn’t all bad. never all bad.

ix. do animals like them? do they get on well with animals?

lyra adores animals, and they love her back. they were often her primary companions as a girl, and that fondness and familiarity never left her. they’re innocent. they’re simple. she understands them. if she ever weeps for the old world, it’s for them.

xii.  what is their favourite food?

she loves fresh baked bread, pastries, raspberries, and pomegranetes. her favorite is sushi, though; it’s the one thing she misses about her past life. yes, she has contemplated hope county gas station sushi in desperation. no, she did not ultimately resort to that. that’s how you know she hasn’t hit rock bottom just yet.

xv. are they good at cooking? do they enjoy it? what do others think of their cooking?

she’s a passable chef, but she doesn’t have much need or opportunity to cook for herself with the exception of the occasional evening she spent on her own in her home of the moment ( her loft in san francisco was her longest place of semi-permanent residence, so most of the cooking she did for herself were nights at her loft ). she doesn’t have any interest in letting on that she can cook once she joins the project; given shaggy’s questionable track record, she doesn’t want to get stuck with that responsibility. she wouldn’t have the time, even if the desire was there.

xviii. what’s their favourite genre of books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else?

she primarily reads classical or literary novels; she enjoys romantic elements, secretly being a romantic herself, but she’s mostly interested in expressions of emotion and the human condition, the more visceral the better ( her favorite story as a child was hans christian andersen’s the little mermaid, her favorite as an adult was leo tolstoy’s anna karenina ). musically she favors the 60s or older; her favorite album is fleetwood mac’s rumors, preferably the vinyl, and her second most listened to artist is billie holliday. she loves jazz, classical compositions and opera, but she prefers all of those live; she insists that recordings simply aren’t the same, they’re not raw enough, it doesn’t gut you the same way. yes, she knows it sounds pretentious, yes, she knows she deserves it, no, it does not change her opinion. she has little time for television or films later in life, but her favorites as a girl were always film noir or old hollywood; that’s something she picked up from isabela, though she doesn’t remember that part. she similarly doesn’t have time or much interest in video games, but she’s absolutely abysmal at arcade games. it’s one of the few petty things that enrages her. she doesn’t understand it.

xxi. do they have a temper? are they patient? what are they like when they do lose their temper?

yes. yes, she does. lyra carries almost all of her pain as rage, both emotional and physical; she’s constantly trying to outrun it before it consumes her, finding ways to redirect her energy, to use it. the project helps with that, it gives her an outlet for catharsis. it gives her passion a purpose, a direction. she was spiraling, before. she can usually manage to suppress temper flare-ups, but she dislikes doing it; it will come out another way later on, and it will come out worse. she’s an extremely impatient person, but she’s also fairly specific with what will set her off; she’s unconcerned about most irritants, so while her temper is fast and explosive and dangerous, it’s also not likely to be provoked over petty grievances or upsets.

in other words, it’s always there, but it takes something extreme and severe for her to actually take it out someone. she’s not going to throw a tantrum because someone cut her off or her drink order was wrong.

xxiv. what is their sleeping pattern like? do they snore? what do they like to sleep on? a soft or hard mattress?

pattern-wise, nonexistent; she sleeps when she can, which after the reaping sometimes means in the middle of the day face down on a spare mattress in black horse silo for fifteen minutes. she doesn’t snore unless she’s sick, in which case no one else in the house is sleeping, either; fortunately this is a rare occurrence. she’s actually not particular at all, she can sleep anywhere on anything, even if she does initially tell john she’s moving in because he has the only decent goddamn thread count in the county.

he’s her only sleeping condition, tragically; joseph’s prophecies have her paranoid and she can’t sleep without him. very inconvenient as the holy war approaches. catch her passed out in his lap while he’s trying to do some goddamn paperwork.

xxvii. what makes them sad? do they cry regularly? do they cry openly or hide it? what are they like they are sad?

sadness cripples her; she experiences all emotions in an extremely heightened state, she feels very deeply, and with the exception of anger, which she can externalize and use to fuel her, the affects of negative emotions can literally physically incapacitate her. fortunately — perhaps in part because of this — sadness isn’t something she feels often; when she does, it’s profound and soul-crushing, but she can generally either fix and remove herself from the situation ( running away when she was fifteen when she was crippled by her misery ) or repurpose it and experience it as bitter rage ( which is why she mentally snaps and burns the world down in a fury when she’s grieving ). if there’s no way to redirect it, and it’s something she’s left with, she’s gone. she’s done. she couldn’t function or move for months after the collapse. ( after that she doesn’t cry anymore; the worst has happened, she has no tears left ).

she doesn’t only cry when she’s sad, it also can be when she’s overwhelmed, including by positive emotions; her reaction to being told she was loved was to go cry in the shower for an hour. she generally won’t cry in front of others if she can help it, not because she considers it a sign of weakness so much as she doesn’t want to make it their problem or make them feel obligated towards her.

xxx. do they exercise? regularly? or only when forced? what do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

not exactly for the sake of it prior to to joining the project, when she began training with jacob; she’s always been in good athletic form, she’s had to be with who and what she is — even before the project there was always the chance of needing to make a getaway, needing to defend herself, needing to attack, so she always kept up her physical strength and endurance, but she never had a gym membership or hit a treadmill three times a week. she’s always had an active lifestyle that’s kept her on her toes. she over-exerts, always, and because of the fact that she doesn’t have that disciplined routine, she easily burns herself out; she’s great in the moment, she’s a force of nature for short bursts of time, but she’s going to crash hard.

#answered #chuckhansen #oc: lyra fairbanks #asks: lyra #lore bible: lyra

[pjstafford]

Follow up to Truly Like Lightning and response to the Mean Girls of Tumblr

SPOILER FOR THE BOOK.

In a comment I made on the book club I mentioned that the daughter, Pearl, should not be blamed for her desire to have sex with her step-father but also, repeatedly have stated that Bronson is fully to blame for the sexual contact, that the chapter is shocking and that I find one of his wife’s attempt to justify his action disgusting. That seems to be the consensus of the book club even though people have different opinions. Different opinions are encouraged in a book club. In a later chapter SPOILER we will see how sharply her feelings towards her step father has changed due to being in a more “normal” environment and exposed to non familial boys her own age. In the ten chapters between the reveal and the Bronson guilt chapter, we see examples of harm done, really, to all the women. I believe the planning of the guilt chapter is intentional, we are supposed to sit with disgust for ten chapters, we are suppose to experience the harm, we are supposed to be disgusted at attempts by one of his wife to rationalize. We have all of that we carry into the beautifully written chapter of guilt and prayer for his sins. My heart soften. Yet, as I stated in the book club his guilt is self absorbed. He is concerned he has sin. Where exactly is the remorse for the harm caused his step daughter? So my heart is soften and I can see the path that took him there. That does not absolve him, in my mind, of any blame.

Somehow, the mean girls of tumblr who hide behind their lack of names or personal information about them, read my comments on the book club and say something attuned to: do you believe she thinks it’s ok he slept with daughter?” In particular, they took offense that the fact that Pearl was raised isolated and knew only adult women who were married to Bronson meant that she saw her adult path forward to be with him. It is not her fault she was raised in a maladaptive environment. They say, so she is saying women raised in a certain environment want to be raped by their father.

I don’t hide behind anonymity. You see my name, my face. I have discussed the work I do. I have discussed my life situation.

Yes, mean girls of Tumblr, I believe that home environments can affect us as adults. It’s a fairly well known fact. I have known young women, for instance, sexually abused as children equate abuse with love and sometimes initiate contact with older family males as a way to experience what they know of as love. It is so tragically sad. It is not their fault. It happens. Pearl’s case in unique. Even in the tweet you quoted you ignored the fact that I said she is not to blame.

How can my heart soften towards Bronson yet I can still hold him accountable? Well, there is the time I watched my dad beat my mom so badly she was taken to the hospital. That is all on him. My mom has no blame. Now, do I know that my brother had just died and that because my mother and my brother had been estranged for a few years my dad blamed her for loss of time? Yes. That helps me understand the path that got him there. It does not, excuse, condone or pardon his offense. Are there, nonetheless, things I love about my dad. Yes, oh my gosh, so many. I know you have a hard time understanding this, mean girls of Tumblr, because for you it’s all about the hate. Your purpose when you sit down at your computer screens is to let the hate flow from your body to impact and touch as many people as you can. That’s your choice. But it is possible for me to place full blame on someone and find compassion as well.

Now, book club....we can move forward if you want to, but you should know that the mean girls of tumblr are mocking everything we say. Taking selected quotes out of context and implying that all of us in reading this book is complicit in misogynistic patterns on incest, child abuse, polygamy. The mere fact of reading about it means you embrace it wholeheartedly. Imagine if you wrote it! Gee. I’ve read Moby Dick but have never wanted to kill a whale. Oh well, disproved that theory. ( although whenever I read the Hobbit and Lord of the Trilogy I find myself wanting a second breakfast. 🤔 ).

If everyone knows and are still willing to be part of the book club, then let’s go.

On the other issue, those fans who are David Duchovny fans but don’t want spoilers. I just think then no body is really having a conversation about the book who actually read the book. Then, you just let the haters have all the space. So, I respect their position. We can keep our rules but....I want to talk about this book.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

we’re partners in this.

so titans 2.12 was mostly about (awkwardly) moving pieces around to get them in place for a grand finale. it was great! but also awkward. but great! let’s talk about it, if you don’t mind:

SPOILERS ahead.

1. i apologise for going off on a tangent right off the bat, but i just had this weird bit of insight about this show’s universe and it’s kind of hilarious. so you know those clickbaity articles about titans fucking up its worldbuilding by having its characters be so blase about protecting their superhero identities? (screenrant and cbr have inundated my newsfeed. oh good lord the pain. the agony.) maybe that’s just how It’s Meant To Be. batman and robin have been around for at least a decade and a half; the big bat’s likely been around for longer. the justice league is a sophisticated organisation with connections, representation and influence on worldly affairs. no doubt there has been countless battles and alien invasions--to the point where superheroes have become so ingrained in public life that their identities are semi-public knowledge but Nobody Gives A Shit. it’s like asking folks about their local legislators--people are aware that they exist and perform a Function in society and that a minimal amount of research would reveal who they are, but most aren’t keen on/interested in doing that. as a result, keeping up a secret identity isn’t the priority it used to be. and That’s Fine! the titans universe is its own beast with its own internal mechanics and as long as it’s internally consistent, let it deviate from its comic origins as much as it wants to.

oh typical emmram, i can hear you say. scrambling for explanations to excuse careless writing and plot holes. well, dear Strawman I Just Made Up, you may be partially right--there was a time when i would’ve waved my ‘the author is dead’ flag, but (i like to think) i’ve matured since then. but also: have you considered that plot holes aren’t really plot holes if you can successfully use what’s been established about a story’s universe to explain them away and that it’s significantly more fun? 

with this background in mind, i can appreciate more than ever that titans plays out more like an intense, soapy family drama (with perhaps higher stakes than your average soap). this was never a show about a bunch of disparate heroes coming together and finding purpose in order to defeat a common enemy. this was always about a bunch of kids who grew up in a world where vigilantism and superheroing and magic and alien invasions are just an accepted part of life, and the deeply dysfunctional ways they keep coming together and pinballing away, over and over again. there’s no point where each of the characters have definitely Gotten Over Their Issues so they can all gather together to defeat the big bad; it’s why this late in the game we can have rachel looking for people to connect to and relate with that aren’t a series of adults who claim to protect her but only keep her in the dark; hank at the bottom of a self-destructive spiral; dick barely picking himself up from rock bottom, and kory falling apart at the seams. 

so anyway, that’s it on this edition of Emmram Tries To Give A Grand Unifying Theory of Titans; let’s move on to the actual episode.

2. rose’s story could’ve been so good, you guys. actually you know what, scratch that (she types, on a computer while having 20+ years’ experience in knowing how to use the backspace key), it’s a great story that got muddled in the process of the show trying to tell a number of great stories all at once. this season has been inexorably building up to dick grayson becoming nightwing, using his unreliable narration to build up suspense as we see him battle personal hangups and the fallout from literal decades of trauma to gain a sense of equilibrium and a renewal of purpose (it can be argued that even now, on the cusp of actually putting on that dang costume, he hasn’t really learned anything--but i’ll get to that later). if this is the main story that this season is trying to tell, then taking two gigantic detours for episode-long flashbacks and building up to jericho’s death as much as they did makes perfect sense. it also makes sense to set slade up as a foil to dick, in that they are both caught up in their heads and make self-absorbed decisions to protect their ‘children’ but dick comes through with the realisation that that’s a crock of bullshit. 

but that’s not the case, is it? there are so many things going on at once but they’re all orbiting around this throughline of ‘dick becoming nightwing’ and so we only get the barest glimpses of some relatively complex character motivations and development going on with the others. 

2.25. in this episode’s flashback (we’re still getting flashbacks! in literally the penultimate episode of the season! god i have never wanted to take a red pen to anything more) we come to a number of weighty realisations: the extent of rose’s powers, her feelings of otherness, her desire to connect with her father so that she doesn’t feel alone in her otherness, how desperate she is to connect with him--so much so that she’s willing to throw away her entire life and undergo physical mutilation in service of his revenge plan--and how...learning exactly how her brother died and... being with jason??? made her change her mind??? ok that last one’s a bit muddled, but i’ll try and make sense of it.

as far as i can see, there are four big turning points in rose’s story so far:

a) that moment in the car when slade invites rose to join him and reveals that he’s basically been funding her ‘normal’ middle class life till that point. i can imagine how destabilising that realisation might be to rose, and why she might think going along with slade, no matter how weird and how abrupt, is how she’s going to live a life true to who she is

b) but imagine actually being taken in by the titans, being given shelter and support and succour by a group that her father had described as ruthless and manipulative. i can imagine her still being on board with slade’s plan, but maybe the reason she didn’t do all that she could’ve possibly done while at the tower to sabotage the titans might be because she’s actually interacting with these people, and while they might be a Hot Mess, they aren’t actively cruel or vindictive. i wish the show had woven in more scenes of rose interacting with the others, of her learning intimate things about their pasts, of her bonding with the younger titans’ struggle with their own ‘freakish’ natures. rose hardly seems to have any presence at all after her intro episode, and that’s a pity.

c) dick’s confession about what actually happened with slade and jericho. it’s more complicated than she was lead to believe--her father was actually complicit in her brother’s death. it’s a very confusing moment for rose, who’s already (probably) feeling the first stirrings of guilt, unsure, really, about her devotion to the father and brother that she’s known only for a little longer than the titans themselves, and slowly coming to the sick realisation that slade used her as a pawn in his game against the titans. 

d) jason latching onto rose is understandable--he saw her as the only person making the effort to connect with him when he was feeling vulnerable and rejected by almost everybody else. jason practically bleeds a need for connection and acceptance. i don’t think rose anticipated that jason would come with her, or be as attached to her as he is--but she sees in him a sensitive and struggling soul baring his heart to her, and in herself the kind of deception and secrecy that she’d originally wanted to rebel against. so she finally comes clean with him, and thinks they should help the titans against her father.

i mean. i might be making some assumptions (actually i’m making a lot of assumptions, to be fair), but i’m just trying to work with what the show’s given us, which is... not insubstantial, but haphazard enough that it’s easy to forget that rose exists sometimes. 

3. i fell asleep right after watching this episode for the first time, and apparently at some point before actually sleeping i appear to have had some kind of Great Insight about it because in the notes app on my phone i typed in “dick bruce concept of justice” with no further explanation.

i’ve spent the better part of this evening trying to retrace my train of thought, and i think it went like this: essentially, i was curious that dick was so broken up about jericho dying that he banished himself to a five year long lonely journey to seek penance that ended with him voluntarily getting himself arrested, but didn’t seem all that cut up about zucco dying or basically ordering the deaths of the scientists at the asylum in 1.07. betraying jericho and the older titans’ trust in him is a far greater burden on him than being responsible for the death of people who have wronged him or hurt the people he loves. but this is also a man who has internalised batman’s mission and ethos for the better part of his life, so he can’t actually come out and admit that. instead the two things come together to form one conclusion: he killed jericho, and he must be punished for it. 

(i also imagine locking himself away in prison was a result of growing up under the influence of batman--who responded to trauma by embarking on rigorous, brutal, solitary journey of penance and extreme self-discipline. batman doesn’t ask for help. batman goes to the batcave and rides it out.)

so when dick finally breaks himself out of jail, it isn’t because he’s come to a great realisation about his self-destructive behaviour (although he’s aware of it on some subconscious level); it’s because he realised the thing he was punishing himself for didn’t actually happen. he hasn’t really learnt a lesson. to be fair, he would need some pretty intensive therapy to untangle the things running through his head, so it seems quite believable that this is the way he gets back on his feet in time to be nightwing.

4. i know people think that the conversation between rachel and kory was awkward, and uh, it kinda was a little bit, but it makes sense that they can talk like that to each other. rachel wants to protect dick but feels confident enough with kory to lash out at her; kory is unafraid to be vulnerable or sad around rachel which just feeds into the trust that rachel has in kory. i don’t know, i thought that conversation was a nice way to both re-establish this dynamic and give some insight into what kory’s feeling.

5. god, mercy graves--a family woman!--tenderly wiping the blood off gar’s chin after having turned him into her own personal killing machine is just... so unsettling on so many levels.

5.5. it continues to KILL me that gar had so much faith in the titans right up to the very moment he had his fucking skull opened up and his brains messed with against his will: an undeserving loyalty to a family who took his easygoing acceptance of their shitty treatment of him at face value and essentially threw him to the wolves. how do you even start recovering from this? i feel like we’ve gone past the point where a few heart-to-hearts could help.

6. man, hank spiralling the way he did was too brutal to be anything but deeply uncomfortable. i’m sure the teenager who bought hank’s suit from him was supposed to inspire hank and remind him of his place and purpose as a titan, but it came off as kind of a cruel joke. hank has been putting his body out on the firing line over and over and over again, and his lesson is to be told that he isn’t putting himself out there enough? yikes.

7. stu and lily and their collective disdain for dick grayson’s drama are my new favourite characters on the show and deserve their own damn spin-off. MAKE IT HAPPEN DC

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #rose wilson #dick grayson #koriand'r #jason todd #rachel roth #hank hall #garfield logan

[shieldslinger-a]

so you know i think there’s a lot of comparison between robin and bucky and batman and captain america and i think that’s... honestly i can see why they get compared, but they actually have very little in common when it comes to the sidekick thing?

tl;dr: steve would kick batman’s ass for allowing a child to be put in harm’s way, no matter how bullheaded the child, because despite bucky dying at an older age (20), he was essentially steve’s younger brother, and he never recovered from that loss, and made damn sure that bucky’s death meant something--that no other child was going to meet the same end that he did. not if steve had anything to do about it.

so like, first thing and most obvious thing i want to point out: steve and bucky are partners in world war ii. they are partners during a war, where it was likely that if bucky wasn’t steve’s partner, he was going to enlist in the army anyway. like, not that that justifies anything, but bucky was bound and determined to throw himself into that war one way or another. he was not going to be dissuaded, and frankly, the culture surrounding him wasn’t going to discourage him either. everyone was doing all they could to support the war effort. and a lot of people were volunteering for the war. did you know that kids as young as 16 could enlist with parental permission? and there’s no telling how many soldiers were enlisting and lying about their age. so there was a definite culture of younger men enlisting and serving when steve and bucky became partners. and like--sure, maybe steve’s complicit in noticing that bucky’s too young to be enlisting--but keep in mind, bucky’s an orphan at this point, and in the custody of the army. the army can approve whether or not (or int his case, when) bucky can enlist. he wants to join up at 16? yeah, they’ll take him. bucky was going to join the army one way or another, and frankly, at least by being captain america’s sidekick, bucky wasn’t going to be shoved into a trench where his chances of dying were super fucking high.

batman and robin? 2/3 robins were 12 year old boys. the difference between a 12 year old and a 16 year old is drastic. 12 year olds have barely touched puberty. a 16 year old can drive a car. like there’s a huge difference in age there, and the difference between 16 and 18 isn’t nearly as drastic. and there’s no war going on in gotham, there’s no culture of enlistment or all-encompassing... effort? like there’s no organization, no real reason for someone to be trying to play hero before they’re an adult. kids could be kids in this area--tho crimes committed often interrupted that. but there’s still like... no real, pressing reason for a 12 year old to put on a fabric costume and face down people with guns, aside from someone who is supposed to be a parental figure thinking that’s a good way for a kid to deal with his misplaced grief and rage instead of like, yknow, therapy.

which kinda goes into my next point: there’s only 4 years difference between steve and bucky when the cap + sidekick stuff starts. they’re close in age. their relationship is that of siblings, of brothers, not father & son. and lets also realize that the first year as cap and bucky, they were stateside--bucky only hit the frontlines at 17, and a year after that, was 18. for a majority of his time on the frontlines of the war, he was of age.

and if you look at when he died? he was 20. he was a young man, a young soldier, but legally an adult. jason, the second robin? dies at 15. still very much a child.

like. taking a step out of in-world stuff for a moment, their roles are also very different. both were to bring in younger audiences, sure, but bucky’s overall statement is that young men were lost in a terrible, terrible war. bucky was an example of why it was so important that adults protect society, and children specifically. bucky’s death devastates steve. he never gets over it. and he never  allows another child to take that role--when rick jones tries and tries and tries to be his sidekick and be an avenger, steve says no, over, and over, and over again. he will not let anyone die like bucky again. period. end of story. if you are a child, your job is to be a child and enjoy life, worry free--not get hurt, not train for combat, not die, like so, so many people steve saw die. because again, remember, he worked with bucky and lost bucky, for sure, but he also saw so many young men die in wwii. that tragic loss stays with steve, even when the young avengers begin trying to form, where he almost completely tries to shut them down. 

but fuckin batman man. jason todd, aka the second robin, dies at 15, and not too long afterward he takes a 13 year old sidekick under his wing again. like.... don’t get me wrong, tim drake is my fave robin and he legit gave batman very little choice... but also: bruce is a grown fucking adult and he just had a child die on him. he should know better than to let another child volunteer for the dangerous job of his sidekick. all of steve’s sidekicks after bucky? adults. people who could decide for themselves and realize what they were signing up for. because they frequently did die, or get terribly close to it over and over again.

like there are some similarities between batman and captain america, especially when it comes to plucky sidekicks, but the context is really important to differentiating between them. bucky is a lot older than most robins when he becomes a sidekick, he’s underwent military training, it’s a period of war and he reaches adulthood by the time he dies. robin 1 & 2 are 12 when they’re made robin and really don’t have any business being robin, as there’s no external pressure or cultural push for it, and robin 2 dies at 15, only for batman to... not have learned a thing, apparently, and just picked up another child sidekick not too much later. 

#mun :: reads comics. #steve rogers :: headcanon. #steve rogers :: captain america. #bucky barnes :: winter soldier. #[ like. comparing them is an insult ] #[ you wanna blame someone for bucky being so young ] #[ blame the army ] #[ blame the culture ] #[ but don't point the finger just at steve ] #[ yeah he probably should've pushed harder to not allow bucky ] #[ but consider that bucky was going to join the army one way or another ] #[ he could've died in a trench at 16 ] #[ or in a plane blast at 20 ] #[ but it was so highly likely both of them would die ] #[ because it was a war ] #[ batman and robin? completely and fully irresponsible ] #[ and only really comparable on the surface ] #[ any deep read and comparison just... shows how fucked up batman is ] #[ and how much bucky's death really fucked up steve ] #[ anyway no one asked for this but here it is ] #[ there's no snacks i'll get off my soap box now ]

[in-tua-deep]

First time anon wanted to say I love all of your tua au’s. They are absolutely fantastic and I am soft for all of them. However I did amuse myself with the barking mad au, noticed you never write about Pogo in your au’s (do you not like him btw? No pressure on it just curious), but I just like the thought of him meeting/talking to partially feral!Five and he can’t quite figure out which language (animal or english) is more appropriate to say ‘master five what the ever living F****?!’ in.

!! hello first time anon! thank u for messaging

asdfHJGFSDG you caught me,, i don’t like Pogo and don’t think he should have a place in the children’s lives so I never write him into any of my aus because I lowkey want him to disappear

mainly because Pogo was complicit in their abuse to the point where even after Reginald was dead he was still keeping secrets - like he was complicit in drugging a child almost her entire life and emotionally abusing her by backing up the “You’re ordinary” narrative Reginald built up

and even after his death, Pogo stood up and said their dad left behind a complicated memory but then proceeded to compliment the man because presumably Pogo owed so much to him etc. etc. 

Grace I can excuse, because she’s a robot. She functionally had no free will since Reginald was fully capable of tinkering with her programming and forcing her to obey and keep quiet, but Pogo was an adult sentient being capable of free will and he still looked the other way. 

Yeah okay you could say maybe he did it because he was afraid that if he turned against Reginald, he wouldn’t have anywhere to go. You could say he didn’t know how to help beyond attempting to be there for the kids and turning a blind eye to some of their shenanigans (like going out to Griddy’s). BUT. After Reginald’s death he continued to keep the kids in the dark about their dad’s plan, withheld information, and made no move to correct anything. Like i’m pretty sure if he told Klaus “the box contained your father’s journal recording your sister’s power, no not allison, actually your dad drugged her all her life and I’d like to set the record straight on her being ‘ordinary’” klaus would have tried a hell of a lot harder to get it back

Grace, after Reginald’s death, was glitched out of her mind tbh but once fixed she made it clear that she did not support Reginald. After all, telling ur son that you’d like to go out when you were never permitted and then telling him that his dad isn’t around anymore to give orders is a pretty cool moment if I do say so myself

and in the day that wasn’t, Grace was going to tell all the secrets she’d been forced to keep over the years in the park as well. She tried to put it right pretty much as soon as she was capable

Pogo didn’t. He purposefully made efforts to continue Reginald’s plan, up to and including attempting to frame Grace for Reginald’s suicide, not telling Vanya about her powers, not telling anyone about that whole skeezy business, fixing Grace but then reminding her to keep secrets (which she rejects), and just generally. continued supporting a man we know to be an abusive piece of shit idk

so yEAH I don’t like Pogo and consider him to be an accomplice to Reginald’s abuse where I don’t hold Grace accountable because there’s free will involved and while he might have advocated for the children, I doubt he ever pressed if Reginald put his foot down which is why i never include him in anything lmao

as far as i’m concerned in all my aus he’s off chilling at one of Reggie’s other properties or something because Vanya doesn’t want him around (and for good reason) so he can live his days in retirement,,, anywhere else

as for the barking mad au, getting back to ur original ask, I think Pogo is?? Too human-ized? I doubt he’s been a proper chimpanzee for many years, a minimum of like. actually when was he introduced to the household? Was it before the kids were there? Average lifespan of a chimp is what, forty years? And he looked older with his cane and stuff so. Probably? 

But regardless I doubt he can understand anything Five is ‘saying’ with body language beyond what humans can read, mainly because dogs/cats and chimps are different (though Five also knows some sick birdcalls and can mimic alarm calls and ‘hello!’ and other cool thing) and feral!Five lived with only cats and dogs during the apocalypse. It’s a little like dumping a dog in with a colony of chimps - confusion on all sides rip so while Pogo probably would be like “Master Five what the Fuck” it’s more because Five is behaving like,, well,, an animal. Which all of the siblings are also thinking tbh

dog people or cat people would probably be able to pick up things here and there though. like that specific meow cats do when they Hunger, or the wiggling that says ‘happy and probably overstimulated’, and growls/hisses/showing teeth should be self explanatory tbh but like, there’s other things. Like quietly mirroring to hang out, slow blinks as affection, the way dogs will playfully run up and then run away in an almost crab scuttle to see if you’ll follow to play (with bonus jumping powers!), the either cowering down with metaphorical tail between legs or PUFFING UP to be the BIGGEST when threatened, whines that mean ‘hurry up!! come on!’ when someone is going too slow, the running ahead and running back to check and running ahead again

like look i have a pretty quiet dog all things considered, and i had an even quieter dog before they. She only really barks when people come up to the door tbh, but I Know People who own dogs like huskies who are the most vocal little shits in existence and who WILL scream when inconvenienced or nervous

(my sister, a vet student interning at a vets, has regaled me with tales of huskies brought to the clinic who just screamed like they were being murdered the entire time despite them not even being examined or anything. they were literally just chilling in the kennel.)

Feral!Five is actually more vocal than ur regularly scheduled Five but everyone wishes he Wasn’t (he’s also way less standoffish and very likely to just full body rub himself against his siblings or drape himself across them tbh bc like. if they wanted him to quit all they’d have to do is give a warning snap or growl or grumble and they don’t sO)

BUT HEY if u want to write something for the au then feel free to include Pogo and your idea because it is very cute!! I just don’t like Pogo and refuse to include him in things lmao

#ask me #anonymous #barking mad au #tua au #tua #the umbrella academy #five hargreeves #number five #pogo hargreeves #pogo #tua pogo #half of this is just pogo hate and the other half is actually me talking about the au tbh #i just don't liKE HIM #he rubs me the wrong way #maybe it's bc i've never much appreciated primates #and chimpanzees are lowkey scary #them fangs man #i would rather fight a clown than a chimp tbh #legit the first time pogo came on screen i was like 'hmm. don't like that. don't trust him.' #and then when the secret keeping came up i was like VINDICATIOOOOOONNN

[rivkalashnik]

dishonorabletask01: a deep deep dive 

Describe your character in a few words.

Sociable, impulsive Ukrainian tries her best 2 survive. 

What do you know about your character that they don’t know yet?

Rivkele thinks she can kill someone else to save her life with no problem-- a Flores, in this case, according to the deal. If the terms are upheld. However, while she puts her own self-interest above others every day just by nature of her passive participation in the mob’s workings, she’s never willingly taken a life with her own hands in order to better hers. The distinction is a thin line but a real one, and she’s going to find herself a lot more morally conflicted than she anticipates, I think. 

What are your character’s major flaws?

Her lack of self-control and her fear. 

What would your character give their life for?

Almost nothing-- she’s a fighter, tooth-and-nail, to the point where self-sacrifice isn’t a viable option. The only situation I could think that would even come close would be if someone was holding a random innocent child at gunpoint and made her choose between her or the kid. And even then, in the back of her mind she’d be certain that the kid was in on it and it was all a setup. 

What is your character’s greatest asset?

Her mind-- she’s sharp as a tack. And an associated asset would be her open-mindedness. Everybody’s got flaws, and she knows that, so she’s willing to get to know people from varied walks of life. 

What would completely break your character?

Good question, good question. I think-- if she finally does manage to kill a Flores and it turns out that the whole thing was pointless and she can’t get out of the mob even then. 

How does the image your character tries to project differ from the image they actually project?

Usually, what you see is what you get with Riv-- although in situations with new people, she tends to try to appear more apathetic than she actually is. 

What is your character afraid of?

The main two would be being tortured & being trafficked. 

Where would your character fall on a politeness/rudeness scale?

She doesn’t purposefully try to be rude but it sometimes does happen if she can’t control her brain-to-mouth filter, so I’d put her at a 6/10 leaning towards rude, but usually non-intentionally. 

If your character could choose a different identity, who would they pick?

I don’t think she would-- though maybe herself, but with a few adjustments. 

In what or whom is your character’s greatest faith in?

I think her greatest faith is in her own resilience. 

What was the best thing in your character’s life?

When she was still on top of her game, she owned her own apartment-- owned, not rented-- that actually had a bedroom instead of just being a studio. It had a giant window, and wasn’t on the first floor, and hardwood floors. And for a span of about eight months she also had a dog, a huge black Newfoundland named Andrei. She loved that dog. She had to sell the him, and the apartment, but they were the best things in her life at one point. 

What was the worst thing in your character’s life?

Essentially, everything that has happened since she had to sell her dog. 

What is your character’s biggest nightmare?

Anybody finding out what she’s been tempted to do re: the Flores family. 

What seemingly insignificant memories stuck with your character?

She remembers exactly which floorboards creaked in her house when she was growing up; she remembers the first song that was playing in the background when she won her first big pot (Fergalicious, from the tinny overhead speakers); she remembers the exact feeling of air on her face when biking down the big hill outside her house when she was a kid. 

What is your character’s secret wish?

Her secret wish would be to go back and re-do the last half of her life again so she wouldn’t be one foot in the grave before she finally has some measure of freedom again. 

What is your character’s greatest achievement?

Winning when the odds are against her. In general. 

What is your character’s deepest regret?

That she never kept in contact with her older sister. 

What is your character’s deepest disappointment?

That she’s 38 years old and her life still continues to suck, on the whole. 

What is your character reluctant to tell people?

She doesn’t ever want to admit why she works for the mob, especially to other people in the mob, because she’s worried they’ll think she’ll turn out to be a traitor (especially because they’re not technically wrong??). Her allegiance is out of necessity and not loyalty, which she always avoids mentioning.

What is your character hiding from themselves?

I think deep down she wants to find people she can genuinely trust, but because that seems impossible, she buries it deep enough to pretend like she doesn’t care. On a separate note, she also struggles with guilt because she’s complicit in such shady dealings on a daily basis-- but also, she doesn’t want to take responsibility for her actions, even though technically it’s her choice to continue participating in the mob’s nonsense. So I’d say she’s hiding from dealing with all of those paradoxical feelings just by... ignoring & burying them, again. 

What makes this character angry? What calms them?

Direct personal insults. If you try to belittle her, or try to pull one over on her like she’s an idiot, she will get pissed. Yelling usually calms her down, in that situation. She’ll eventually wear herself out. On a daily basis, though “calm” doesn’t really cross her mind except for maybe popping in some earbuds. 

List situations in which your character would not have control over themselves.

Too many to list.

How strong is your character’s emotions? Controllable? Uncontrollable?

They’re pretty strong; 8/10.

What wakes your character up in the middle of the night?

The guy in the apartment on top of hers doing jumping jacks at all hours of the night, or maybe sirens of police cars rushing down the street. Otherwise, she sleeps like a rock. 

Describe a recurring dream and/or nightmare.

She’s drowning and there’s absolutely nothing and no one nearby-- just dark black water as she sinks. 

Describe your character’s family.

She hasn’t talked to her mother or her sister in years, so it’d be difficult to describe them now. In her memories, her mother is perpetually frowning, which nicely balances out her sister Rina’s laugh. 

Name your character’s favourite person and why.

Father Patrick. He’s not at all what she would expect from a priest, which she finds terribly amusing. 

How many friends does your character have?

I don’t know that she would consider herself to have any friends. “Friends” is a loaded word that implies some loyalty and level of mutual truthfulness, and I don’t think she ever feels like she’s in a place where she can reach that level of real connection. But she’s friendly with many, many people. 

How many friends does your character want?

Again-- the general concept is asking a little too much of her, honestly. 

How would a friend or close relative describe your character?

Loud. Scrappy. Clever, yet also incredibly stupid. 

Who depends on your character? Why?

No one really depends on her? She’s pretty replaceable, in most regards. Which makes it even more annoying that they won’t just let her leave. 

Who does your character most want to please? Why? 

As obnoxious as it is to be worried about his opinion, she wants to make sure she doesn’t disappoint the Englishman. Among others. Just for her own safety’s sake. 

How does your character feel about sex? 

Sex is fun, but only with people she doesn’t know. 

How does your character feel about romantic relationships?

Ew. Then they have to deal with your problems, and you have to deal with their problems when you already have your own... she’ll pass on that. She’s not the romantic type anyway. 

If your character had to live in utter seclusion, what six items would they bring?

A warm blanket, a pack of playing cards, a pack of cigarettes, a fully-charged ipod mini, earbuds, and a bottle of vodka. 

What is your character’s most noticeable trait and most noticeable physical feature?

Her incredibly tight red curls. Just a massive amount of hair. 

How does your character feel about work?

Inescapable. Shrug emoji

Write one headcanon.

She was raised in a Jewish household, but as an adult, she isn’t super engaged in religion & she doesn’t keep kosher. 

Write one additional thing about your character.

Riv’s first languages were Ukrainian and Yiddish-- and Ukrainian is pretty close to German, enough that she can get by in a German conversation. She learned Russian in school so she’s pretty fluent in that. Her English skills are so-so; she won’t be able have a deep, philosophical conversation in it, though. 

#dishonorabletask #muse #about riv #[ this was fun ]

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

We’ll Carry On - Chapter Twenty Four

We’ll Carry On Tag

General Content Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Substance Abuse, Abandonment, Minor Character Death, Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociation, Bullying, Homophobia

July 8th, 2008

Jessica may have only been five years old, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t terrified. Her breathing felt like it was one of those cartoon pumps the characters on the TV would use too fast until it burst, or like it wasn’t happening at all. Her heart was hammering in her chest, as her father glared down at her. “Have you nothing to say for yourself, Jess?” he growled.

Flinching, Jessica tried to explain. “I just...I just wanted to see if I could read like the big kids. And...and the book was too heavy, and I dropped it.”

Her father scoffed. “You can’t read yet, you haven’t even been to kindergarten!”

Jessica wisely didn’t mention she could understand some of the title on the spine. She couldn’t read fluently, but she could read a bit. And she wanted to know what all the books said. But now she had caused a mess, and her dad was mad. So she was going to go back to her room and see if there were any picture books up there with actual words. Maybe she could see if she could read those.

May 5th, 2019

Logan felt incredibly guilty. He couldn’t look Roman in the eye. He hadn’t felt this chastised and this terrified since he had been really little, convinced he was a girl and just wanting to see if he could act like a big kid, only to find out that being a big kid would get him in trouble with his father.

To make matters worse, when Dad came into the room to get food for Roman, he didn’t glare at Logan, or make him feel like he was the scum of the earth in any way. Even Ami, who was the designated Logan-watcher this morning, wasn’t giving him anything more than the occasional neutral glance. He deserved worse. He forced Roman to admit his mom had died. He had forced him to say that in front of the entire family. And now Roman was on the edge of dissociating, listing sideways over the edge of reality into the unknown flashbacks Logan couldn’t even pretend to understand.

Logan thought he might get sick. He finished the last bites of cereal he had been working on, and then promptly stood up, heading to his bedroom. He didn’t look back, forcing himself to not check on Roman and make the situation worse. He just walked up to his room, closed the door behind him and locking it.

He sat down on his bed, grabbing his phone, which had been charging overnight. He thought he might get sick when he saw the lockscreen of him and Roman posing around Jack, who was laughing in the background. That had been taken the first time Logan had introduced each of them to the other.

Some older brother he had turned out to be. He was expected to be responsible, a role model. Now he’d be lucky if other people said, “Don’t do what your oldest brother does, he only screws things up when he wants to know something.”

Tears stung at his eyes and he focused on evening his breathing. He had problems managing his emotions on a good day. In the heat of the moment? Either his emotions shut off entirely or they overwhelmed him to the point of drowning.

A patient knock started up outside the door. Logan closed his eyes and took off his glasses, forcing his breathing to stay regular as he called out, “Not now, Dad.”

“Logan, we have to talk,” Dad said, his voice muffled but holding no room for argument.

“When we’re both calm,” Logan said, throwing Dad’s words back in his face. “I’m not, right now.”

“At least unlock the door?” Dad asked.

Logan swiped at his cheeks and took a deep breath. “Do you promise to not come in without my permission?”

“Of course,” Dad said.

Logan walked over to the door and unlocked it, and cracked it open a couple inches. He knew he looked absolutely miserable. “Give me fifteen?” he asked. “I just need...just need fifteen.”

“Logan...” Dad stopped. Nodded. “Yeah, okay. We’ll talk in fifteen minutes.”

Logan closed the door and collapsed back on his bed, unsure as to what he should do to try and calm down. Tumblr probably wasn’t a good option. And he didn’t want to read today. And he had finished all his homework already. He curled in on himself on the bed, and closed his eyes.

He only realized he fell asleep when he woke up to the doorknob turning. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, seeing Roman standing in the doorway. “Hey,” Roman said softly. “Didn’t mean to wake you. Dad said you fell asleep.”

“Just as well,” Logan said. “I can’t sleep all day every day.” He checked his phone. “And it’s been half an hour.”

Roman shifted on his feet. “Can I come in?” he asked.

Logan nodded, and Roman came in, closed the door, and climbed onto Logan’s bed with him. “Dad and Ami told me what happened last night once they were sure I wasn’t going to dissociate again. Dad thinks I might have PTSD.”

“You saw your mom die, I would be surprised if you didn’t,” Logan said softly. “I’m sorry, Roman.”

Roman sighed, leaning his head on Logan’s shoulder. “I know you are. And I wanted to be mad with you. That was something I wanted to keep to myself. But I’m not.”

Logan looked down at him. “You’re not?”

“Well, I’m a little annoyed,” Roman allowed. “But you wanted to know what was going on. You wanted to make sure I was okay. Because I know once you knew you would be researching techniques to help me cope. That’s just who you are. You operate mostly on logic, rather than emotions. So while emotions might have told you to bide your time, and wait until I was willing to share, your logic was telling you that earlier treatment meant earlier recovery.”

Logan sighed. “You’re too nice, too forgiving. I traumatized you.”

“You made me dissociate a little bit, and let the adults know that I wasn’t okay. I’m not gonna hate you for that, Logan.”

“Why not?” Logan asked. “Roman, I actively pushed you, knowing that the subject wasn’t something you might want to talk about.”

“Logan, you need to shut up sometimes and just think about what other people are saying to you,” Roman said. “I don’t hate you. I’m not mad at you. You made a mistake. It’s not the end of the world.”

The words refused to sink in. “But why?” Logan asked. “Why isn’t it the end of the world?”

Roman pulled back and looked at him, nose scrunched up. “Because everyone in this house is a decent person?” he said, voice rising like a question at the end. “Do you honestly think Dad and Ami would punish you by...say...denying you access to Hormone Replacement Therapy just because you made a stupid mistake?”

Logan paled. Roman rolled his eyes. “Lo, they’re not gonna do that! They know that getting testosterone is a big deal for you, and they’re gonna help you get it at the start of summer! My point is that they won’t kick you out, or deny you something you need, just because you screw up! You can’t hold basic needs or assistance for health issues hostage just because your kid did something you didn’t like. That’s not how any of this works.”

“That’s how it used to be,” Logan said softly. “Finish my homework in order to get dinner, only getting positive attention if I got all A’s in school. I’m fortunate that I always enjoyed learning and it came naturally to me. Otherwise I might have lost my mind.”

Roman stared at him a long time, before he quietly said, “That’s messed up, Logan.”

Logan shrugged off Roman’s concern. “You saw your mom die and you were abused in your foster home. Patton and Virgil’s step-father was an alcoholic. No one knows how bad Dee’s home situation might have been except Dad and Ami, and they refuse to share. My home life wasn’t the greatest, but I’m in no position to complain.”

“That’s not how that...you know what? No. I’m not gonna try and logic you through this,” Roman said. He grabbed Logan’s cheeks, and brought their foreheads together. “If your parents were bad people, you can absolutely complain about them. No matter anyone else’s hardships. Your parents kicked you out because you wanted to go by Logan. They sucked. You’re allowed to complain, you’re allowed to be traumatized. Your parents held basic human needs for ransom. They were not good parents. Full stop.”

Logan blinked once. Twice. Opened his mouth and said, “My mother wasn’t that bad. It was mostly my father’s idea to do that stuff.”

“Your mother is complicit in the whole thing!” Roman exclaimed, leaning back and throwing his hands up in the air. “Logan, no one likes to admit their parents hurt them. But your parents hurt you. Considering the way you freaked out after you screwed up, there’s no question.”

“Wow, thanks,” Logan said, before turning and sighing, pinching his nose. “I’m really sorry, Roman.”

“I know you are, Logan,” Roman said. “No need to get hung up on it, all right? I forgive you. We can still work together with the gremlins to save for a dog. And I’m not going to stop talking to you. And Dad and Ami won’t deny you anything that you can’t live without, even if they decide to ground you. Which I doubt they will. Hearing them talk earlier, they know you’re beating yourself up enough.”

“I did traumatize you,” Logan pointed out.

Roman rolled his eyes. “You didn’t traumatize me. At best, you re-traumatized me. And that’s a stretch. You found one of my triggers. I didn’t even know I had it, so in a way you helped me.”

Logan frowned. “How could I help you?”

“Well, there are lots of topics they go over in Health class, one of those being family, and from what I hear, there’s an abuse unit. Knowing that I can’t handle talk of abandonment might help, because instead of dissociating in the middle of class, I can be excused,” Roman explained. “Not to mention, you know, now everybody knows not to talk about my mom around me unless I’m properly prepared beforehand.”

“But the downsides—”

“—Do not outweigh the upsides,” Roman said firmly. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, all right? You made a mistake. You learn from it. You move on. It’s not always simple, but it’s always possible.”

Logan nodded but felt his cheeks heat up anyway. He knew he wasn’t going to forgive himself for this for a while.

Roman seemed to sense that too, because he asked, “Do you really want to make me happy, Logan?” he asked.

“Of course,” Logan said.

“Just...promise me that if you go to a party, you don’t drive home drunk, all right? You can be drunk, I’ll just avoid you for the most part until you’re sober or I’m comfortable around you again. But...but don’t drive drunk, okay? Have a designated driver, or be the designated driver. I know you can’t trust everyone to not drive home drunk, but make the effort to avoid doing it yourself? The guy who hit my mom’s car and...and hurt her? He was maybe twenty years old. I don’t want you risking throwing away your life because of manslaughter charges, and DUI charges. And I don’t want anyone to get hurt on the road like that again if I can help make a difference.” Roman worked his hands. “I know you and Jack have talked about going to parties next year, when you’re both juniors, and I just...don’t want you to take that risk. Promise me you won’t drive drunk.”

“Yeah, I promise, Roman,” Logan said softly. “I would never drive drunk.”

“Then we’re good,” Roman said. “You don’t need to beat yourself up over it, you can just work on feeling better the same as I am. We both have our own issues to work through. Maybe we can help each other with some of them. Maybe not. But no matter what, I’m never going to hate you, or resent you, or want you gone so long as you try, all right? All I’m asking is that you try.”

“I can try,” Logan confirmed. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get better, even if I can never be at one-hundred percent. The last thing I want to do is let you or myself down.”

“And probably avoid letting down Ami and Dad as well,” Roman pointed out.

Logan laughed. “Yeah, good point.”

Dad knocked at the door and both boys looked up. “Are you two better?” Dad asked.

“Not one hundred percent, maybe, but we’re getting there,” Roman said.

Logan murmured his agreement. “I might need a little while to forgive myself, but I’m not going to actively destroy myself over this, not anymore.”

“Good,” Dad said with a slight smile. “The younger ones were thinking about playing some games in the backyard, if you want to join them?”

“Yeah!” Roman exclaimed, jumping up and dashing out of the room.

Logan and Dad followed at a slower pace. “Am I still in trouble?” he asked.

“It sounds like you and Roman are working things out between the two of you, and you were punishing yourself enough, so no, you’re not in trouble, unless you consider extra care and a little bit of a closer watch in trouble.”

Logan shrugged. “The watch might make me uneasy, but nothing I can’t handle.”

“Good,” Dad said. “And Logan...if you ever want to talk about your mother and your ex-father...we’re here for you.”

Logan smiled softly. “Thank you.”

#we'll carry on #sanders sides fanfiction #logan sanders #roman sanders #our creations #danger gays

[fortunatelylori]

Do you think that Benjen knew the truth about Jon? In s6 i was annoyed that he left just b4 bran found out so we'll never know

Hey, nonnie!

This is a very interesting question and while I do not have a definitive answer, I am inclined to say that Benjen did in fact know the truth about Jon. There are two theories about how he found out. One is frankly quite boring and not all that interesting, while the other is much more emotional and meaningful. So I’ll kind of lay out both and you can make up your mind on it yourself. 

The first scenario is that he found out once the children of the forest found him and healed him from the wounds inflicted by the White Walker in season 1. What we know about this incident is that the way Benjen was healed by the COF was similar to the creation of the Night King. Since all of this is just show canon at this point, things might be different in the books so keep that in mind. 

The story Benjen tells Bran and Meera is that the COF inserted a shard of dragonglass into his heart to stop the process of him dying and turning into a wight. Why the COF would have done that for him and not the rest of the party he was with, remains a mystery but we do know that the NK is imbued with greenseer abilities because he was able to spot Bran while he was warging and actually interact with him by touching him (which lead to the magic of BR’s cave to be destroyed and them being attacked). It’s not outside the realm of possibility that Benjen, in his new hybrid state, has now gained access to the weirwood net and is able to have visions of the past, present and future just like Bran. In addition, Benjen is a Stark and we know that most of the Starks are magical in one way or another (although not as powerful as Bran, of course). These 2 things would go a long way in explaining how Benjen was able to pop up at the exact time when Bran and Jon needed rescuing when they were beyond the wall. So it Benjen does in fact have greenseer abilities, he would probably be able to see just how Ned came to find Jon and what lead him to bring him home from the Tower of Joy. 

The other theory, and the one I’m most partial too, is that Benjen knew all along that Jon was Lyanna’s son. Some people speculate that Ned told him after bringing Jon home as, unlike Cat, Benjen had a vested interest in protecting his sister’s son. But I don’t think Ned needed to tell Benjen for him to figure it out all on his own. 

One of the most interesting aspects about Benjen, and one the books highlight far more than the show, is his extremely close relationship with Lyanna. They were closer in age and Benjen was Lyanna’s wingman, so to speak, all through their childhood and adolescence. 

I always found it fascinating that one of the visions Bran has the first time he accesses the weirwood net is of Lyanna and Benjen playing in the godswood. While there might be other narrative reasons for this vision that are, as of yet, unrevealed it does highlight just how close these two were. 

Also Benjen was present at the tournament where Rhaegar crowned Lyanna as the Queen of Love and Beauty and since he also helped Howland Reed after he was attacked, it’s very possible that he was the only person to know that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree and he helped her in this endeavor. Which would also make it possible that he was there the first time Rhaegar and Lyanna interacted when he tracked them down and revealed their shenanigans. 

All of this is speculation at this point, of course, but if everything above happened, it’s also likely that Benjen knew Rhaegar kept in touch with Lyanna and chose to keep his sister’s secret. Unlike his brothers, he might very well have known that Lyanna was not actually kidnapped and that she went with Rhaegar willingly. I doubt either Benjen or Lyanna realized just what a terrible mistake they made in engaging with Rahegar to that level or the consequences of what they might have seen as a innocent, romantic tryst would have. 

During the rebellion, Benjen was stuck being the Stark in Winterfell and was cut off from communicating with Ned which is why he probably never managed to tell Ned that Lyanna had ran off with Rhaegar of her own accord. Not that this would have stopped the rebellion per se but I imagine Benjen would have been riddled with guilt over his part in all of it, not to mention carry a trauma for aiding Lyanna in what would essentially be a huge tragedy for their family and also lead to her death. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a few months after Ned returned home, Benjen went to the Wall. I think him joining the NW was his way of atoning for what he saw as his failure to protect his sister and their family. So, knowing all that he knew about Lyanna and Rhaegar, knowing Ned as he did and also seeing how stubborn he was in refusing to ever talk about the mother of his bastard son and seeing just how much Jon looked like Lyanna, I think Benjen figured out fairly quickly just who Jon was. Perhaps he confronted Ned with this and Ned confirmed it. Perhaps he kept it to himself and it was an unspoken thing between the two brothers but I think there’s a very good chance that Benjen knew. 

I have to stop here and remark on the double standard that the fandom applies to characters in this series. Sansa is often dragged through the mud as a bully and an idiot for having a difficult relationship with Arya and because of her naivete when it comes to Cersei and Jofferey. Lyanna, however, is always spared such criticism. Although we know that by virtue of being the older sister, she did in fact dominate Benjen and made fun of him: in the vision that Bran has, Lyanna roughs him up and then scolds him for screaming because she’s afraid someone will find out and at the tourney she pours a glass of wine over his head when he makes fun of her crying over Rhaegar playing the harp. And that’s just the canon aspect of their relationship. If the theory above turns out to be true, Lyanna effectively made her little brother complicit in the event that shattered their family. Also, just for the record, while the brunt of the Rhaegar/Lyanna relationship must rest on Rhaegar’s adult shoulders, it’s also worth noting that Lyanna chose to run away with a married man and entertain his advances for months prior. She was most likely groomed and coerced into this but, at the same time, she had ample time to inform her father or older siblings of what Rhaegar was doing and she chose not to, probably because she saw it as a way of getting out of her betrothal to Robert. All of this doesn’t make her an evil person or a monster but the responsibility of what happened is greater in her case then whatever role Sansa is supposed to have played in Ned’s downfall (which is minimal if not, downright inexistent) or the tragedy that she falls victim to after her father’s death. But because Lyanna is known to have swung a sword at some point, she’s Jon’s mother and also reminds fans of Arya, she get’s a free pass. Sansa, on the other hand, must suffer for the rest of her life because she was an innocent little girl who was taught to trust the adults around her and did just that. 

Coming back to the topic at hand … It’s also interesting that Benjen is at once willing to let Jon join the NW but at the same time tries to talk him out of it. He’s conflicted about Jon’s decision. He tells Jon this: 

Benjen: You don’t understand what you might be giving up. None of us will ever father sons. 

Jon: I don’t care about that. 

Benjen: You might. If you knew what it meant. 

Now, on the surface this feels like Benjen finding Jon’s inexperience in matters of sex endearing. But … I always got the feeling that Benjen was referring to more than that. After all, why say none of them will have children and not point out that Jon might at least try to have sex before joining a celibate order for life? I think he was in fact unsure whether to take Jon to the Wall because by joining the NW Jon would be making a life altering decision without being in possession of all the facts concerning who he was and what his actual place in the world could be. 

This theory is supported, in my mind, by Ned and Jon’s last conversation: 

Jon: Is my mother alive? Does she know about me? Where I am, where I’m going? Does she care? 

Ned: The next time we see each other, we’ll talk about your mother. I promise. 

Firstly, please allow me to retreat in a dark corner and cry. Poor Jon! I get very defensive of him when people label him entitled or a bully because of his inability to understand the plight of Pyp and Grenn when he gets to the wall, because even though Pyp and Grenn go through hardships, Jon’s life has not been a walk in the park. Living in a castle and having access to a sword master shouldn’t blind people from the very real and painful traumas that have plagued Jon since the moment he was born. 

Now, going back to the quote …  Ned is a man of his word. I truly believe that he had every intention of telling Jon about Lyanna and his true parentage once they “saw each other” again. The question is why now? Why keep a secret for so long and promise to tell Jon the truth? What changes? 

The only answer I can come up with is that by the time Ned and Jon would see each other again, Jon would have taken his NW oath which would not only mean that Jon was out of the reach of Robert but also that he would be now stuck there, unable to do anything with this new information. So Ned is biding his time until that happens so that Jon would have no choice but continue to be the Bastard of Winterfell. And Benjen is aiding him in this. 

This feels like the kind of thing GRRM would come up with since it adds to the bittersweet aspect of the Jon/Ned/Benjen relationship. Both these men protect and love Jon but they also fail him by keeping him in the dark about who he is and standing by while Jon condemns himself to a life of celibacy, in a place that will most likely kill him because he sees no other road open to him in life. 

Thanks for the ask!

#house stark #benjen stark #jon snow #lyanna stark

[bulltruearchive]

why  chris  is  better  off  dead  than  becoming  an  adult  (  or  :  how  castle  rock’s  influence  poisons  the  lives  of  its  residents  long  after  they’ve  left  )

does  the  title  make  me  think  of  derry  ?  .  .  .  yes,  yes  it  does.  anyway,  moving  on.  thanks  to  gordie’s  insistence  &  cajoling,  we  know  chris  enrolls  into  the  college  courses,  &  due  to  sheer  will  power  doesn’t  drop  out  (  even  though  he  wants  to,  &  i  honestly  think  he  &  gordie  probably  come  close  to  blows  over  it  a  few  times  in  that  first  year,  mostly  because  gordie  won’t  really  acknowledge  his  privilege  in  this  regard,  &  it’s  a  bunch  of  ‘  how  hard  can  it  be,  really  ?  ’  &  ‘  i’m  sure  they’re  not  that  bad,  chris  ;  it’s  probably  all  in  your  head  ’  ----  statements  he  realises  as  an  adult  were  incorrect,  which  is  why  he’s  so  sympathetic  about  it  in  how  he  writes  about  chris’  life  in  the  college  classes  in  the  body  ).  &  because  of  chris’  sheer  determination  to  get  the  hell  out  of  dodge,  chris  manages  to  get  good  scores  &  land  himself  a  university  offer,  which  he  takes.  pre-law  as  we  know,  &  as  we  know  -----  he  dies  like,  two  years  later.  

THIS  IS  A  GOOD  THING,  in  the  long  run.

in  1960  -  the  year  of  ray  brower,  &   jfk’s  presidential  win,  miss  harper  lee  releases  the  only  novel  she’d  release  whilst  alive  -  to  kill  a  mockingbird.  needless  to  say,  this  novel  doesn’t  get  much  traction  in  castle  rock,  &  chris  isn’t  even  aware  of  its  existence.  in  1963  however,  when  he’s  gone  down  to  portland  to  get  himself  another  copy  of  warriner’s,  he  comes  across  it,  &  on  a  whim  buys  it.  he’s  introduced  to  mr.  atticus  finch,  &  it’s  the  first  thing  that  makes  him  view  law  as  a  viable  career  option.  much  like  warriner’s  became  a  “  queer  sort  of  bible  to  him  ”,  atticus  finch  becomes  a  queer  sort  of  role  model.  chris  can  see  a  version  of  himself  in  atticus,  which  isn’t  helped  when  he  sees  his  father  in  robert  ewell  ----  when  he  sees  his  entire  family  in  the  ewells.  atticus’  attempt  to  fairly  represent  tom  robinson  despite  knowing  it’s  all  in  vain  strikes  a  chord  with  chris.  here  is  an  adult  who  is  doing  something  good  even  though  the  system  is  against  him  ;  an  adult  who  isn’t  judging,  but  instead  wants  to  help  someone  who  cannot  help  himself.  it’s  chris  through  &  through,  though  he  never  gets  around  to  telling  gordie  just  why  he  decided  on  law  as  a  career  option.

spring  of  1968  finds  chris  in  a  fast  food  chicken  restaurant,  breaking  up  a  fight  between  two  strangers  one  minute,  &  dead  on  the  floor  in  a  pool  of  his  own  blood  the  next.  at  least  it  was  quick.  is  this  a  backwards,  cursed  sort  of  blessing  ?  yes.

if  chris  hadn’t  died  aged  twenty,  he  would  have  completed  pre-law,  gone  on  to  grad  school,  &  become  a  lawyer.  working  his  way  up  to  being  a  respected  lawyer  in  his  own  regard  (  specialising  in  family  &  child  law  ).  but  his  moral  code  isn’t  actually  attuned  correctly  for  law  as  a  long-term  career.  he’s  too  reckless,  too  ready  to  break  the  law  in  order  to  get  a  good  result  for  someone  in  need.  he’s  chaotic  good  through  &  through  (  whereas  his  role  model  atticus  is  lawful  good  ).  chris  isn’t  built  to  adhere  strictly  to  a  rule  system,  &  it’s  an  ironic  sort  of  joke  that  he  --  at  one  point  in  his  life  --  believes  sincerely  that  he  can.  THAT’S  JUST  NOT  WHO  HE  IS.  losing  cases  he  knows  he  should  have  won  ;  seeing  kids  stay  in  their  messed  up  situations  because  sorry  bucko,  but  that’s  the  law  !  really  gets  at  him  on  a  deeply  personal  level.  where  he  can,  he  ends  up  doing  pro-bono  work  for  those  who  really  need  the  defence  but  can’t  afford  it  (  because  chris  has  been  in  their  situation,  &  he’s  also  lived  the  majority  of  his  life  in  poverty  --  a  little  money  loss  isn’t  a  big  deal  ),  but  the  more  he  practices  law  the  more  he  realises  how  corrupt  the  system  is.  THE  SYSTEM  ONE  IS  SUPPOSED  TO  LIVE  THEIR  ENTIRE  LIFE  AROUND  IS  CORRUPT.  judges  can  be  bought,  rules  &  laws  can  be  broken  without  consequence,  &  more  often  than  not  the  guilty  party  gets  off  scott-free.  particularly  if  they’re  rich.  it’s  injust  &  wrong,  &  chris’  moral  code  isn’t  built  for  that  kind  of  bullshit.  he  gets  disillusioned  with  the  system  really  quickly  &  soon  realises  he  can’t  do  this  for  the  rest  of  his  life.

so  he  quits.  maybe  he  joins  a  non-profit  that  specialises  in  helping  kids  from  bad  families  extricate  themselves  from  that  tangled  web,  or  maybe  he  tries  to  help  people  who  have  been  abused  find  people  they  can  trust  &  confide  in,  or  maybe  he  becomes  some  kind  of  tutor  to  underprivileged  kids.  whatever  it  is,  it’s  something  that  helps  those  who  are  struggling  to  help  themselves.  but  even  that’s  not  easy.  a  lot  of  kids  come  from  bad  homes,  &  chris  sees  how  useless  cps  can  be,  &  he  sees  how  the  system  fails  those  who  need  it  the  most  ----  &  he  thinks  back  to  teddy  &  vern,  who  are  never  gonna  get  out  of  castle  rock,  &  he  thinks  about  the  family  he’s  left  behind  (  his  baby  sister,  who’s  probably  going  to  grow  up  like  most  of  the  other  chamberses,  &  be  the  very  thing  the  town  expects  her  to  be  ),  &  he  realises  how  it’s  nigh  impossible  to  get  yourself  out  of  the  social  class  into  which  you  are  born,  &  how  society  constantly  steps  on  those  unfortunate  enough  to  be  born  into  a  lower  social  class  (  it  wasn’t  just  castle  rock  ;  it’s  the  whole  fucking  world  ).  for  every  person  chris  helps,  he  knows  there’s  fifty  that  he  couldn’t  help,  will  never  be  able  to  help,  &  that  for  plenty  of  the  kids  he  does  help,  it  isn’t  going  to  last.

he  sees  his  father  in  every  abusive  parent  in  an  underprivileged  household.  he  sees  frank  in  every  college-party  r*pe  case  (  would  frank  have  gone  free  if  he’d  come  from  a  rich  family,  like  br*ck  turn*r  ?  ).  he  sees  his  mother  in  every  woman  who  turns  a  blind  eye  to  their  child’s  abuse,  or  who  is  complicit  in  their  child’s  abuse  -  regardless  of  whether  as  an  active  or  passive  participant.  he  sees  richie  &  sheldon  &  emery  in  every  child  who  turns  out  exactly  the  way  people  expected  them  to,  because  the  system  is  against  them  from  the  beginning,  &  pushed  them  &  pushed  them  until  they  had  no  choice  but  to  go  down  that  path  because  they  had  no  one  telling  them  they  had  other  choices  in  life.  they  grew  up  abused,  &  they  in  turn  become  abusers  themselves.  the  inherent  cycle.  chris  knows  how  lucky  he  was  to  have  gordie  to  convince  him  there  were  other  options.

he  used  to  think  castle  rock  was  an  echo  chamber,  a  small  town  with  small  views  who  wanted  to  pigeonhole  its  residents,  &  a  town  that  didn’t  like  dissenters.  &  whilst  that’s  true,  &  not  incorrect,  the  older  chris  gets  the  more  he  realises  the  rest  of  the  world  is  the  same,  &  that  you’re  expected  to  follow  the  rules  laid  out  ------  unless  you’re  rich,  then  you  can  break  them  all  you  want.  it’s  a  system  that  inherently  favours  the  rich  &  the  privileged,  &  the  more  chris  spends  being  alive,  the  angrier  he  gets  at  how  unfair  the  world  is,  &  how  people  that  do  the  right  thing  get  punished  more  often  than  not.

it’s  just  not  fair,  &  the  more  i  think  about  it,  i  realise  that  at  least  chris  died  still  idealistic  about  the  world  &  what  he  would  be  able  to  achieve  as  law  practitioner.  at  least  he  didn’t  live  long  enough  to  realise  the  world  -  for  the  most  part  -  is  just  a  larger  version  of  what  he  grew  up  in.

#( i didn't even like. talk about him trying to date anyone not from castle rock? because that's probably a post in and of itself. ) #rape ment / #abuse ment / #( why does tkam have ...... such a bearing on hs chris and hs joyce im. ) #( WHY. ) #meta. #( idk ?? i don't think this REALLY makes sense but whatever. )

[patriciahaefeli]

Accountability: The Gift That We’re Not Giving

     I got an email the other day from a college student who had missed five classes and who, as a result, had not handed in her mid-term or her research paper. In it, she explained that the reason for her absences and failure to submit assignments was that her cat had been sick and ultimately died. She assured me that she was obtaining a note from her Vet to confirm this. 

     I don’t have time for a lot of carefully worded observations right now, so forgive me if this is overly blunt. I’ve got a full-time teaching job, and two part-time jobs. I’m back in graduate school. I’m a mom, a wife, a sister, daughter and friend (and these relationships are my priority, as without them, none of the other things would be possible.) I like to work, and I work hard. I care about the job I do, and I care about my students. 

     Dealing with teenagers and young adults as I do each day, I thought I was beyond being shocked. I thought I’d seen pretty much everything, and that includes a lot: Kids being removed from school in handcuffs, kids in gangs, kids whose parents are in gangs, kids who receive “home-instruction” for literally months because they cannot pass a drug test, kids who are homeless or abused at home, and kids who abuse others. Kids who who cut themselves, starve themselves, and threaten to, or try to kill themselves.I’ve been to teenaged baby showers, and teenaged funerals. 

     I’ve seen kids whose families survive on next to nothing, or who have serious learning disabilities work really hard and thrive, and those on the “Free-and-Reduced” lunch plans who have the latest iPhone, sneakers, and gel manicures. I’ve seen those who deal with serious learning disabilities, who’ve lost everything in a house fire, who’ve lost a parent, or who are in foster care dig deep and despite everything, study for that test, hand in that paper, show up for that game/meet. 

     What is conspicuously missing from my experience? Kids who are capable, whose needs are getting met, who are consistently showing up for their lives. Kids who have everything they need (and a lot they don’t)– except a sense of responsibility; for their actions and decisions, for the work they do (and don't do) and the for the consequences of all of those things. 

     In the interest of fairness and full-disclosure and all that, let me just say that I wasn’t always a good student or a good teacher. During my first teaching experience, right out of college and into a highly rated high school, my performance was marginal. Although I now believe with every fiber of my being that I was meant to be a teacher, at that time, I wasn’t so sure. It was a combination of things. I was young, inexperienced, and often too afraid to ask for help. I was tough on my students, unyielding and again, afraid. Afraid that if I wasn’t those things, I’d lose control of my classes, and that scared me more than anything. It was for the best that I left just shy of three years to enter the corporate world. 

     For the purposes of this rant today, my history as a student is a tad more interesting. In October of my freshman year in high school, progress reports were mailed home. Mine indicated that I was currently earning three D’s and one F. My father, report in hand, decided to have a chat with me that night. In a very calm, quiet voice, he asked me to explain. Encouraged by his apparent reasonableness, I did, telling him honestly that at that particular time, my social life was simply way more important to me than my grades. He nodded, understanding completely. I almost relaxed too, even though I didn’t completely understand what he meant when he responded (again, quietly, calmly), “Well, then I think what we need to do here, is to re-arrange your priorities.” 

      And re-arrange he did. Every day, instead of cheerleading, hanging out with friends, or talking incessantly on the (wall) phone at home, I went after school to one of the teachers whose classes I was doing poorly in. I was expected to make up missing work (whether or not the teacher would accept it), and if necessary, get extra help. I did this every day until the end of the marking period, and ‘Lo and behold! My grades improved! Drastically! It worked, by God – and not just for that marking period, but for all subsequent marking periods! The message had been received loud and clear: Schoolwork first, social life second. 

     The point is, lest you think that these are the tirades of a dyed-in-the-wool doctoral candidate, that I have been that kid. The second part of that truth is that I had it (figuratively, of course) beaten out of me. I didn’t turn it around because I was upset at having disappointed my parents (although I was), or because I was thinking about college, or because I just had some kind of epiphany about what, exactly, my job was at the time. I turned it around because I didn’t like the consequences of not turning it around. It’s that simple. 

     Which brings me back to the idea of being afraid, because oh, man, the degree to which fear is driving the bus here! Parents are afraid to take things away or impose punishments, public school teachers are afraid of being blamed for their failing students, colleges are afraid of losing enrollment stats, and kids are afraid of…nuthin’. 

     Know what I’m afraid of most of all? The day these kids hear this complete sentence: “NO.” I’m part of the problem here, I’m well aware. That tough-as-nails 23-year-old teacher I once was has left the building permanently. A combination of having my own kids and getting older has made me complicit, mellowed me to the point of being “soft.” I say “okay,” way too often. I’ve justified it by saying that it’s better that they do it late, or halfway, than not at all. I’ve pretended to believe outrageous lies and I've accepted ridiculous excuses. I’ve worried that their lives are hard, that hearing “no,” might be the thing to put them over the edge. I’ve told myself that everyone deserves to be cut a break just once (or twice, or three times…) 

     The fact is, 95% of the time, when I say “okay,” what I’m really doing is: 1) Telling them that I don’t believe they can do it; and 2) Failing to give them the priceless, often life-changing opportunity to be accountable; to face the consequences of their actions. 

     Oh, and by the way? The girl with the dead cat got her extension. Not from me, but from my co-conspirator, the Dean of Students. 

     Something needs to change, folks. And fast.

[fabulizemag]

Navigating my complicated relationships with Beyonce and Michelle Obama

New Post has been published on https://fabulizemag.com/navigating-my-complicated-relationships-with-beyonce-and-michelle-obama/

Navigating my complicated relationships with Beyonce and Michelle Obama

Even my Superheroes have weaknesses…

I remember the first time I saw Destiny’s Child on TV. I’m an 80s baby so girl groups weren’t new to me but there was something different about Destiny’s Child. They embodied the soulful voices of girl groups of yesteryear while appealing to mainstream media as En Vogue had done—plus they were young. They weren’t a niche girl group that was attached to a specific music trend, they were setting the trends.

Destiny’s Child unapologetically became part of American’s English lexicon with words like bugaboo and bootylicious. Even with the changing of the group members and their internal drama, Beyoncé handled herself like a true professional and that’s nothing short than admirable.

But isn’t that typical of Black women? When we are put under pressure we make diamonds? You can rightfully argue it’s a hurtful cliché used negatively against us that sets us up for seemingly unattainable goals that nobody else has to abide by. But that ruthless, passionate work ethic is what I and many others love about Beyoncé. She consistently beats the odds as a Black woman and she’s that chick.

That’s why my relationship with her is so complicated and it’s not just with her, it’s the former First Lady Michelle Obama, too. Two international renowned Black women who undoubtedly will go down in history for their achievements and both who have been criticized unfairly by whiteness and racist pundits are not without their flaws.

But I don’t like talking about my heroes’ flaws under a white gaze because their flaws aren’t up for them to analyze because their criticism can’t be racially unbiased. For me, my criticisms( at least, I think) seem to be layered. It’s hard for me not to want to mention them when I discuss their husbands’ actions because, in my heart, I don’t feel they are unaware of their husbands’ plans. I refuse to believe these smart and successful businesswomen aren’t protecting their families’ interests when their men make these questionable and in some instances, regressive declarations.

But Patriarchy?

Yeah, patriarchy. Patriarchy is trash. I’ve toyed with the concept that for Beyoncé, patriarchy is a major hindrance to her personally and professionally. For the sake of argument, let’s say Jay-Z did initially engage with Beyoncé when she was 18-years-old, he was already about 30 and no matter how successful she was at the time it’s never a good combination for older men to date younger women. Their intentions are usually rooted in grooming young women; molding them and having the ability to manipulate them emotionally and mentally (which to some extent he did when he admitted he cheated on her) paired with the fact she’s witnessed her own mother sacrifice and tolerates similar behaviors from her father. I’ve taken all this into consideration when it comes to analyzing Beyonce from a Black womanist lens but none of that can really explain her branding aesthetic of social justice.

If she didn’t use social justice in her work, yall would call her a coon!

Not necessarily. During the Civil Rights Era, a lot of artists used news and politics as a motivator and backdrop for their art. You can listen to many Black artists between the 60s and 70s and find numerous records that became the soundtrack for what we know identify as the soulful sound of liberation. Not every artist was an activist and that’s ok and my point. You can make music for the people if you wish but it’s a different ballgame when you believe you are the voice of said people.

I don’t hate Beyonce because she’s a multi-millionaire. I believe she’s worked extremely hard to be where she is in her life and I hope she’s happy. However, as a millionaire, it’s impossible for her as a brand to fundamentally be “for the people”. Wealthy people are never for the (poor or working-class) people and have no real interest in liberation because liberation, especially Black liberation involves eating the rich. As the poor, marginalized and working-class culture shifts, so does the identity of what is socially responsible and what is not. The wealthy need the poor to exist for them to remain wealthy. Without the poor and working-class, who would attend Beyonce’s concerts? Who would buy her merchandise? When was the last time you seen wealthy influencers rocking Ivy Park? That’s no shade at all but it is the truth.

I wish for Beyonce to use her position and power and flip shit upside-down. Now that’s she’s secured her seat at the table I want her to flip that muthafucka over and open the doors for everyone else and not just a select few. When powerful women marry and are involved with powerful men who have questionable actions as they relate to marginalized people, you have to ask yourself, are these women complicit or are they putting the batteries in their men’s back?

I love what Beyoncé represents for Black girls in media. I love how she embraces hood aesthetics, social media conversations and creates art in a visual and musical form we can amp ourselves up with. My biggest (and honestly, probably my only complaint) is Beyonce’s tendency to use social media activism as a branding tool. Yes, I’m aware the Carters have donated money ( as they should) to Black Lives Matter and other families who’ve been victims to state sanction violence. I’m aware they’ve donated more money than I’ve ever made in a year ( and again, they should) but the idea that Beyoncé is a spokesperson for the poor or working-class Black woman or can relate to everyday struggles is, in my opinion, far-fetched and disingenuous. As long as the Black wealthy push the pull-up-your-own-bootstraps and coddle whiteness, they can never truly represent me.

However, the difference between Beyoncé and the former First Lady and even Oprah is that Beyonce is more likely to evolve— maybe. I always say that Black people are fundamentally conservative. White supremacy is ingrained into our DNA generations deep. Like many of you, I was proud to vote for Obama, twice! In his eight years in office, I saw the Obamas get treated with disrespect, endure racism domestically and nationally and be judged by standards they wouldn’t give the current joker in the office now if their lives depended on it. Michelle Obama was easily my favorite of the couple; she’s smarter than her husband, tall, beautiful and confident. I watched politicians, pundits and white feminists try to break her spirit and all she did was flip her perfect-coiffed hair at them. Who could have asked for a better first lady?

But as racial tensions steadily rose and the opportunity to stand for the working class and marginalized presented itself, Obama didn’t always take it. In all fairness, he had constant pushback from republicans in congress and they threatened him with impeachment every day. For a while, I reasoned with their lack of actions on certain issues. Let’s face it, you can’t be a left-leaning president and you definitely can’t be a left-leaning Black president, so he picked and chose his battles. But I started to feel the excuses I was making for the Obamas were biting me in the ass when Obama would get on TV and say certain things using certain lingo and speech patterns to essentially talk-down to poor Black people. When Obama told Black folks to call their cousin Pookie to go out and vote, he basically reiterated what white liberals do to Black voters; put the results of voting on the marginalized population in the country.

Ok, but what does this have to do with Michelle? When Michelle released her now New York Times Bestselling memoir, everybody and their mama went to buy the book and if they were lucky enough, they were able to see her in-person on her book tour. Some of the passages from her memoir come straight from Black respectability playbook of middle-class Blacks who feel they work harder than poor Blacks without acknowledging their access to resources. Michelle stated that racism and racial inequality are psychological and we have to help others overcome. That’s bullshit.

It’s bullshit because Black people didn’t invent racism; just like women didn’t invent sexism. It’s not up to the marginalized party to help the oppressor overcome their bigotry. In the United States, Black people have been writing about racial equality since they could write and the path to ending racism lies within white people. However, when Black people achieve certain access to privileges, they assume all Black people can do the same. For all transparency reasons, I grew up in a middle class household. Both are my parents are college-educated and my father had access to generational wealth. My experiences growing up looks different from others who did not have the resources I had. It took me being financially vulnerable as an adult to understand how the system treats poor people even when you are trying to help yourself. When you grow up in middle-class Black America you are reminded daily that you aren’t like other Blacks and anti-Black rhetoric is a foundation of distinguishing yourself from others.

If you are still here reading, thank you because I went in on a rant, but if you are still here reading I want to make it clear that I can appreciate these women for what they mean to Black people as far as representation goes. But we can’t be satisfied with the surface-level representation. We have to do more than root for everyone who is Black. We have to encourage and bring wealthy Black people to task beyond the aesthetic of Black liberation. Wearing berets and quoting our historical leaders in a bop isn’t enough. We are facing dark and dangerous times and if our Black wealthy won’t condemn all forms of white supremacy, they might as well take a picture with them. You know, like Mrs. Obama does with former President Bush.

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7

#black celebrities #politics

[newstfionline]

Thousands of Vietnamese could be deported under tough Trump policy

By Simon Denyer, Washington Post, August 31, 2018

Robert Huynh is the son of an American serviceman, although he never knew his father. His mother is Vietnamese, and he was conceived during the Vietnam War. In 1984, nine years after the last American troops left the country, 14-year-old Huynh moved to Louisville with his mother, half brother and half sisters under a U.S. government program to bring Amerasians and others to the United States.

Today, at 48, with a son and two young grandsons in Kentucky, he faces the prospect of being sent back to Vietnam, a country he has not visited since he left and where he has no relatives or friends.

Huynh is one of about 8,000 Vietnamese potentially caught up in a tough new immigration policy adopted by the Trump administration, significantly escalating deportation proceedings against immigrants who have green cards but never became U.S. citizens, and who have violated U.S. law.

Huynh, who helps out these days in his family’s nail salons, has had some run-ins with the law. In his 20s, he served nearly three years behind bars for dealing in the recreational drug ecstasy; more recently, he served a year’s probation for driving under the influence and was given another period of probation for running illegal slot-machine “game rooms” with his girlfriend in Texas, where he now lives.

He acknowledges that he made mistakes but says he accepted his punishments and tried to build a life here. Now he risks losing it all.

“My mother is 83 years old right now, and I want to be here when she passes away,” he said by telephone from Houston. “I don’t have anybody in Vietnam. My life is here in the United States.”

Nearly 1.3 million Vietnamese citizens have immigrated to the United States since the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975. Many came in the wave of “boat people” who made headlines in the late 1970s as they fled Vietnam in overcrowded and unsafe vessels.

The new arrivals were given green cards when they reached the United States, but many--Huynh among them--lacked the education, language skills or legal help needed to negotiate the complex bureaucratic process of acquiring citizenship.

Many came as children, attended schools and colleges in the United States, worked, paid taxes and raised families. Decades on, their lives and families could be ripped apart again.

The Trump administration, in a policy shaped by senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, has reinterpreted a 2008 agreement reached with Vietnam by the George W. Bush administration--that Vietnamese citizens who arrived before the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1995 would not be “subject to return.” Now, the White House says, there is no such immunity to deportation for any noncitizen found guilty of a crime.

Critics of the shift accuse the administration of reneging on the 2008 agreement. The State Department disputes that, citing a line in the agreement noting that both sides “maintain their respective legal positions” regarding the pre-1995 arrivals.

“The U.S. position is that every country has an international legal obligation to accept its nationals that another country seeks to remove, expel, or deport,” the State Department said in a statement, declining to respond on the record specifically on the issue of Vietnam.

The Trump administration’s view is that the 2008 agreement was not aimed at protecting a certain population of immigrants from political persecution if they were returned to Vietnam.

Rather, the administration asserts that the deal was reached after a “stalemate” between the United States and Vietnam over the pre-1995 immigrants that has not been resolved, said one senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“We were in a situation in which for a long time they were accepting zero people back,” the official said. “The theory [in 2008] was, ‘Let’s try to create a functioning system and try to get them to take back at least some portion of the convicted criminal population.’ “

Immigration and Customs Enforcement public affairs officer Brendan Raedy said enforcement resources are focused “on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

Opponents of the new policy say the Vietnamese in question were refugees from a communist regime and deserving of a haven in the United States.

At least 57 people who arrived before 1995 were in ICE detention in mid-June, according to figures supplied by ICE to attorneys. An additional 11 have been sent back to Vietnam, where they are certain to face suspicion from the security services for their perceived loyalty to the defunct South Vietnamese state. Several are struggling to obtain the identity cards they need to work, or even drive, attorneys say.

Vietnam does not want them back, said former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

“The majority targeted for deportation--sometimes for minor infractions--were war refugees who had sided with the United States,” he wrote in an essay for the American Foreign Service Association’s Foreign Service Journal after leaving office. “And they were to be ‘returned’ decades later to a nation ruled by a communist regime with which they had never reconciled.”

Some committed violent crimes but have served their prison terms. Others were convicted of various nonviolent crimes, including possession of marijuana, passing counterfeit money or driving under the influence, attorneys say.

“Some of the crimes took place in the nineties when people were initially being resettled here, growing up in poor neighborhoods and often being bullied,” said Phi Nguyen, litigation director at the Atlanta chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, who has filed a class-action lawsuit in California requesting a stay on the detentions.

Huynh was served a deportation order after being released from prison in 2006 and was kept for four more months in immigration detention before the authorities acknowledged that Vietnam would not take him back.

In 2017, after his conviction for running unlicensed gambling, he was ordered to report to a probation officer every month.

“The first month I went to report, it was Obama as president and it was okay,” he said. “The second month it was still Obama, and it was still okay. But the third time when I went to report, Donald Trump had taken over. It was February 2017, Donald Trump had only taken over 17 days before. ICE picked me up outside the probation office.”

He was to spend another year in immigration detention.

Tung Nguyen came to the United States in 1991 as a 13-year-old: His parents had adopted an Amerasian daughter, and the whole family was allowed to immigrate under the Amerasian Homecoming Act. But with his parents working long hours in low-paid jobs just to put food on the table, he was often left alone and struggled to adapt.

“I was young, I didn’t speak English, and I was bullied at school, so I took refuge in people who had a similar identity, to give me a sense of belonging,” he said by telephone from Santa Ana, Calif. That meant a group of Vietnamese boys who were living a “gangster-like” existence, he said.

In 1994, when he was 16, he was involved in a fatal stabbing stemming from an argument over “respect.” Tung held a knife but didn’t carry out the stabbing; nevertheless, he was tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But after Tung served 18 years, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) reviewed his case and released him on parole on the basis of “exceptional rehabilitation.”

Tung has since dedicated himself to helping crime victims and offenders in the Vietnamese American community and working for juvenile justice reform. In 2014, he got married. In 2018, the Open Society Foundations awarded him a Soros Justice Fellowship, recognizing him as an “outstanding individual” working to improve the U.S. criminal justice system.

“I don’t have a child of my own, because I can’t live with the fact that any day they can come and take me,” he said. “This is my life; this is my home.”

Former ambassador Osius calls the new policy “repulsive” and racist.

“To me it is very tragic, and very un-American,” he said in an interview. “That we would treat people in this way, people who sided with us in the war and the children of our soldiers.”

Huynh finally reunited with the American side of his family in 2016, after a DNA test led him to a cousin who was trying to find his own father--the younger brother of Huynh’s father.

There was bad news and good news. Huynh found out that the man he had wondered about all his life had died when Huynh was just 4, in a car accident in the United States in 1974. But he also found an older half brother and a half sister, and his father’s two younger sisters, who live near him in Houston. “Both my aunties really love me,” he said. He can’t imagine leaving his entire family behind now.

“For years America was a country that used to help people escape communist repression in Vietnam,” said Tom Malinowski, who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the Obama administration. “Now here we are forcing people to go back to it, and asking the government of Vietnam to be complicit in that.”

#Vietnamese immigrants #Vietnamese refugees

[succorcreek]

When Girl Bullies grow up to be Psychopaths Spouses Thug Minions Full Psychopaths or Complicit Co-Criminals? Some women are pulled into the abuse by the psychopath abuse cycle. (see complicit in Topic word cloud archive below). They do not commit dangerous criminal acts but their compliance and ignorance of those harmed is "complicit co-criminality". Melania is such a case. See the series tab above for the series of articles on Melania and Co-criminals who are complicit psychopathy scale of 1-40 pts: 5 While this is a low score people complicit as co-criminals have often been tried some executed as WWll trials Some women have undefined character or personalities and just melt in with their spouse. They take on the spouses character and ideals. While they weren't sociopaths or psychopaths they become merged into their lover or spouses life and brain disorder: psychopath or sociopath. This feature in women may be a personality they are born with influenced by their problem family or taught to women through disempowerment (such as that modelled by the above type where Melania models submission and complicitness for women). Kellyanne Conway may fit this type: eager to say anything to be included in the Trump Boy's Club psychopathy scale: 10-15 points where one sees the cycle of abuse psychopathy scale is a participant in crime cannibalism SM torture pedophile rings: 40: wife is sometimes given criminal sentences equal to or almost equal to that of the husband instigator Some women have a life history of anti-social behavior. This is one of the predictors for possible teen or adult emerging psychopathy or sociopathy. Predictors in childhood may be different or the same predictors of boys who become dangerous psychopaths as adults. In boys harm of animals or others is often the main predictor (see predictor in topic cloud below). Girls who tend to more social behavior though may demonstrate more cruelty bullying and mind games early on. These may be girls that get into odd 2nd grade fights control parents torture a brother or intentionally expose the so called friends to being abandoned in the dark then lie about the situation. If this last case is so the same with boys / teens / men: there are clues of the disorder in childhood to be found if you look. Childhood antisocial behavior is called oppositional defiant disorder (though this author advocates for the use of just "antisocial disorder" for children and adults) The leader girl in Slender man murder: Bully Groomed and trained conned other girl into her "cult" deranged social games lack of compassion sympathy of the Psychopath Mythomania (see that in books catalog tab above and topic archive cloud below) Planning obsessed revengeful angry ideals for her age that are regressed and don't equal emotional development of 12 year old average girls: obsessed with her "cult" and not social boys appearance inclusion fads ideals of typical girls early oppositional history likely family of abuse or neglect exacerbating disorder Slender Man stabbing From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Victims One 12-year-old female The Slender Man stabbing occurred on Saturday May 31 2014 in the city of Waukesha in Waukesha County Wisconsin when two 12-year-old girls allegedly lured another girl of the same age into the woods and stabbed her 19 times purportedly to impress the fictional character Slender Man.[2][3] After being stabbed the victim crawled to a road and lay on a sidewalk where a cyclist found her and called 9-1-1. She was rushed to a hospital at which point she was "one millimeter away from certain death" according to a criminal complaint.[2] The victim was hospitalized for six days but has since recovered and returned to school.[4] Background Main article: Slender Man Slender Man is a fictional entity created for a 2009 Photoshop contest on Something Awful an online forum the goal of which was to create paranormal images. The Slender Man mythos was later expanded by a number of other people who created fan fiction and additional forged images depicting the entity.[2] Slender Man is depicted as a tall faceless man in a black suit with tentacles growing out of his back. According to the Slender Man mythos the entity can cause amnesia bouts of coughing and paranoid behavior in individuals. He is often depicted hiding in forests or stalking children.[2] Lead-up to stabbing Both of the accused were 12 years old at the time of the stabbing as was the victim. All three were classmates enrolled in the same middle school and had been at a sleepover at one suspect's home the night before.[6] The alleged perpetrators had discovered the Slender Man on the Creepypasta Wiki a website that hosts creepypasta. The two girls at the time said they believed Slender Man was real and that they wanted to become his "proxies" or followers to prove their loyalty to him prove his existence and prevent him from harming their families. The two accused believed that the only way they could become the Slender Man's proxies was to murder someone.[2] After they carried out the killing they believed they would become servants of the Slender Man and be allowed to live in his mansion which they believed was in Nicolet National Forest.[7] The two girls allegedly targeted a mutual friend. Reports indicate they initially planned to carry out the attack on May 31 2014 at 2:00 AM when the victim would be sleeping over to celebrate the birthday of one of the other girls. They allegedly planned to duct tape the victim's mouth stab her in the neck with a kitchen knife and flee. They did not carry out the attack at that time however since one of the girls is believed to have delayed the attack until the next day; she claimed that she desired to give the victim one more day to live.[2] Attack The two accused allegedly planned to carry out the attack Saturday morning in a bathroom at a local park. Instead they were accused of carrying out the attack in a nearby forest while playing a game of hide-and-seek. During the game one of the perpetrators allegedly pinned the victim down but there was reportedly a dispute about who would carry out the stabbing. According to allegations published in Newsweek the supposed perpetrator who had pinned the victim down ordered the other supposed perpetrator to carry out the attack.[2] She is reported to have complied and stabbed the victim 19 times in the arms legs and torso with a five-inch-long kitchen knife. Two of the stab wounds were to major arteries.[8] One of the two stab wounds missed her heart by less than a millimeter and the other went through her diaphragm cutting into her liver and stomach.[3] Immediately following the attack the two accused allegedly told the still-conscious victim to be quiet and that they would get help for her. However they are accused of fleeing shortly after.[2] Aftermath After the stabbing the victim dragged her way out of the forest to a ditch at the side of a nearby road. She was discovered by a bicyclist who called 9-1-1 to get medical assistance for the victim.[9] The victim reportedly said "Please help me. I've been stabbed" to gain the attention of the bicyclist. The criminal complaint stated that the victim was in extreme pain and could only answer yes or no questions.[10] The Waukesha Fire Department and Police Department responded to the call and located the victim who gave law enforcement the name of one of her attackers.[2][11] The victim was transported to a hospital where she underwent surgery.[2][3] Of the 19 stab wounds two were to major organs with one wound missing a major artery by "less than a millimeter". The victim was injured in what is commonly known as the "cardiac box" an area that includes the aorta and lungs; patients wounded in the "cardiac box" typically have a 25 to 50 percent mortality rate.[3] Law enforcement conducted a mass search for the two suspects. Agencies that participated in the search included the police departments of the city of Waukesha Waukesha County New Berlin and Brookfield as well as the Waukesha Fire Department and Flight for Life emergency helicopter services.[11][12] The two girls were apprehended near Interstate 94 by a Waukesha County sheriff's deputy.[13] The officer discovered the knife used in the stabbing in a bag carried by one of the suspects. After being arrested the girls reportedly expressed ambivalent views about the attack. They were described as feeling guilty for stabbing their friend but felt that the attack was needed to appease Slender Man.[2] The victim was discharged from the hospital six days after the attack[14] although she continued to have physical difficulties for several weeks after that. She received thousands of letters of support from well-wishers around the world. The victim ultimately healed from her injuries and was able to resume school in fall of 2014.[3] Investigation and court procedures 20142015 Winnebago Mental Health Institute In August 2014 one girl was ruled incompetent to stand trial.[15] She had been diagnosed by state psychiatrists with childhood onset schizophrenia and oppositional defiant disorder. Her father is also schizophrenic. She was remanded to Winnebago Mental Health Institute.[16][17][18] In December 2014 both girls were ruled competent to stand trial; the ruling says that one of the two girls refused to take her prescribed schizophrenia medication.[14][19] The girls have been charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. They have been set to be tried as adults because Wisconsin law states "all murder and attempted-murder charges for children older than 10 start in adult court."[2] A conviction on first-degree charges in adult court could result in a sentence of up to 45 years in state prison whereas a conviction in juvenile court could lead to three years incarceration then supervision until the age of 18.[20] Bail was set at $500000 each.[21] Series When Wives and Lovers are "Turned" into junior vampires or co-criminals: Psychopaths (or Vampires) Select victims (Vampires "glamour" hypnotize prey and select persons are "turned" into a vampire with drops of the vampire's blood) Groom them Punish and Reward cycles bring submission See in the Books by Dr. Bunch this whole process plus there are different types of "minions" a. some just insanely jump on board like Kellyanne Conway b. some are selected groomed and trained in the Abuse Cycle like Donald Trump and most Psychopaths with their wives and lovers. But the result from minions a or b is the same despite a different origin and process of conversion: real death of others or death of the soul and the psychopath's famous scheme: death of all by marginalization Pick any key word above and search Books and Topic Cloud Below for more on that. Post 1: Melania and Forced Lies at the UNhttp://bit.ly/2xn8B7O Post 2 Melania Lies at UN Luncheon toohttp://bit.ly/2jOJiXD Post 3 Melania models both lies and disempowerment for womenhttp://bit.ly/2xYbOMO Post 4 Twitter Blows up: Twilight Zone of Melania http://bit.ly/2jQr3B3 Post 5 Complicit and Co-criminals: Breaking our hearts but must be stoppedhttp://bit.ly/2xXLWAy Post 6 Lessons from film Van Helsing though a story of a werewolf relative brother mythology helps us understand human mental disorderhttp://bit.ly/2jPF7Lg Post 7 Complicit Women: Bonnie and Clyde and other criminalshttp://bit.ly/2xXFXLV Post 8 When girls grow up to be bullies and psychopathshttp://bit.ly/2xxZ4cJ Post 9 Woman Cannibalhttp://bit.ly/2yr9Xwb Psychopaths Pirates Vampires and more: Run flee tell others! 300 topics on this listed below in the Cloud Archive: Click Here: Catalog of 100 Books Kindle Hypnosis Binaural Subliminal CDs bullies co-criminals cult girl bullies girls oppositional defiant is antisocial disorder slender man women #trumpbully #stopbully #trumpmentalhealth http://bit.ly/2rZ1vSp

When Girl Bullies gr

#narcissist abuse #psychopath abuse #trump bully #abuse recovery #ptsd #ptsd recovery #ptsd hypnosis

[theruyak]

To Survive

I’ve stopped and started this thing probably a dozen times at this point.  For someone like me, notoriously opinionated and always spewing words this way and that, you can imagine how troubling that is.  Words, for me, have always come easily…and when they don’t it feels like I've lost y grip and been carried out to sea.  For this, at least, I guess I will just let myself get carried away.

When I was a kid I was molested by a priest.  I couldn’t have known at that time how much my life would change, the nuanced ways in which my identity would be, to some extent, shaped around such a dark time in my life.  Now, I’m 31 years old and I've been grappling with this for over half of my existence.  To be a survivor of a sex crime…you have no idea until it happens to you what that even means.

I’m not writing about this out of the blue.  Last week, a guy that I knew in one of my college support groups for abused people, committed suicide.  He is the 6th person in our group of 11, tipping the scale to a place where the majority of people in my original cadre of misfit toys have taken their own lives.  Sadly, this is a known reality for those who are survivors.  I remember in college one of my psychology professors so cavalierly pointing out “molested kids tend to take their own lives” - as though it was just another statistic and as if no one in the room would one day fall into that collection of data.

I’ve been pretty quiet about all of this for a myriad of reason.  Shame is the most obvious, although as I will describe in the following collection of words I am relatively inoculated from that experience these days.  Concern that sharing this story would reopen the old wounds of people who suffered greatly during my tenure as the most reviled person in my little high school community - teachers, students, innocent families, even the people who made my life a living nightmare.  You learn pretty quickly that the collateral damage when you come forward about sexual abuse tends to be quite extensive - and that is before you even start to look at the remnants of your tattered old life.  Mostly…I have built a life that is devoid of the effects of the affirmation or condemnation of others - and when you share hard things like this people always have an opinion that they feel the need to share with you, and I am not here for that.  I am not here to be called a hero, or a villain, for sympathy or for rage.  Therefore, sharing this stuff always just seemed needlessly exhausting.

So…while there is a lot that I am going to be unpacking here, I do have several intentions around why I a writing this.

1) If my words, and the way in which I have been able to save myself from falling to suicide, can help just one person, I believe it is obligatory for me to share it.  I have tried to distance myself from the experience of suicide and from the suffering of my fellow survivors but things have changed for me recently - we do not know if we are here for another century or just another day, and I do think some of these “truths” need to be shared.

2)  To give people who haven’t had this experience a comprehensive understanding of MY journey through this nightmare in the hopes that it will inspire empathy when considering the survivors or sex crimes.  The reality is, until it happens to you there is no way for you to understand the many tortures of a life being a formerly abused human being in our society.  To be stripped of dignity, made a monster simply because of something that happened TO you…it is a special kind of hell.  And the stain.  You are forever stained.  You cannot pretend these things didn’t happen to you, our world won’t allow it.  Forever we walk through life seen as broken or defective at best, complicit or degenerate at worst.

3) To honor those who are struggling with this.  Abuse is something where even when you meet other people with similar experiences, we don’t talk about it.  It reminds me of women who suffer miscarriages.  I hope that by sharing a few painful details of my life, I can bring a sense of relief and solidarity to you if you have been bearing this burden alone.

Ok…well let’s dive in.

—

When I was in high school at Georgetown Preparatory School, I was sexually abused by a Jesuit priest.  He ran the theatre program at Prep, was as close to a mentor as I had had at that time, and was deeply loved by the community.

Leading up to this moment, I do not recall being happier.  I was a precocious, affectionate, loving kid who had found his niche in the theatre.  I had more friends in that program than I had ever had in my life, and for the first time was coming to understand what it meant to really love other people.  I think I loved them, my friends from that time…I don’t really remember anymore.  I had been cast as the lead in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which I was tremendously excited about…and then everything changed during a one on one rehearsal with (then Father) Gary Orr.

I didn’t tell my family right away.  I didn’t tell anyone, actually.  I was confused, enraged, and terrified of losing all of my friends and of losing this community — a community which revolved around a man who had sexually assaulted me.  It seems silly now when I look back…thinking that I had a choice as to whether or not I would lose all of that.  I lost them all the second I walked into that rehearsal.  Our society spends so much time treating sexual predators like animals, when they are actually people.  Sometimes intelligent, almost always wholly self-absorbed.  However, the rabbit hole of “what makes a monster” if a whole other 50 page journal entry that I don’t think I have the strength to dive into today…the only relevant point is that events had been put into motion over which I had no control, and they were beautifully orchestrated by this priest.

I did come forward about the abuse eventually.  I went to a young priest who was a close friend of my family…and also a close friend of the priest who had attacked me.  He told me he would go to the administration and would go to the provincial, who is the head of the jesuits in that particular “province”.  He said the police had to be notified, and that he was on my side.  I was called in by the interim headmaster the next day and questioned for about 5 minutes.  He told me the school would be contacting the police (which at the time was compulsory by law within 24 hours of any child making an accusation of abuse.)

Learning number 1 - never trust the institution responsible for the offending party.  I loved Prep, but they time and time again committed illegal actions in an attempt to discredit the accuser and protect this priest, who a decade later we would find molested over a dozen kids over his time at this high school.  They NEVER went to the police, and I later discovered had multiple conversations, over the phone as well as through email, where they expressed that they knew full well their obligation to go to the police and actively chose not to.  Prep as an institution is wonderful…but every institution is only as “good” as the people running it, and my high school decided to do everything they could to protect this priest, regardless of the accusation or the veracity of it.  As a matter of fact, I later was told by a Jesuit priest who had been tasked with investigating Gary Orr that the provincial often floated the question 
“how do we get the troublesome faggot expelled?” - If you decide to come forward, which is your decisions alone, you must always go first to the police.  Orr finally was brought to justice because a man who he had raped weekly for months while he was a 14 year old freshman boarder at Prep in the early 90s came to the Montgomery County police at the age of 36, and my complaint and accusation were on the books.  Only then did the avalanche of accusations that would crush the molester came rushing in.

After I came forward, I thought naively that things would get better.  I thought the school that I loved would protect me, my friends in Theatre would believe me, and that the world would come together to vanquish this great evil in our midst.  After all, why would Eric Ruyak…top of his class, well adjusted, well-liked, never in trouble Eric Ruyak…why would he make something like this up?

I didn’t understand people then as I do now.  “The truth” and “my truth” are two very, very different things.  It wasn’t long before Orr unleashed his trap, accusing me of being mentally disturbed, claiming that I had told him I had some sort of psychological problems.  He claimed I had come to him and confessed not just to being gay but that I was sleeping my way through every other gay man in the western hemisphere.  His two best friends on the faculty, one a US History teacher and the other a woman who taught “human dignity in the modern world” of all things, began a campaign to discredit my accusation.  The history teacher fed some story to an alumnus that I was a sexual deviant who was struggling with AIDS, had been raped by family members and was projecting my trauma onto an innocent priest who had done nothing but befriend me, a very troubled child…oh, and also this pathologically lying sociopath had recanted but the school refused to announce any of this because they were scared of my family.  I found out about this email because this alumnus sent it to every alumni in his graduating class from several years back, among whom was one of my friend’s older brothers.  My buddy came to me and told me about the email and showed it to me…and I knew I was in over my head.  I wasn’t equipped to deal with adults making up brutally vile fantasies in an attempt to attack a child.  They later created a fake blog that they claimed was mine, in which I was supposedly planning to kill the academic dean.  My father was called and told I was not going to be welcome back to the school pending an investigation into my “death threats” to the administration.  

Those were just two of dozens and dozens of attempts to discredit me and get me expelled from Prep, and many people I have met in the subsequent years who came forward had similar stories.  To make matters worse, the provincial had concocted a lie to protect Gary Orr…he had a letter sent to the entire Prep community that said Orr was being treated for Parkinson’s disease and that all of the rumors about him are ludicrous lies that are completely unfounded and untrue.  Mind you, in open court a decade later, I learned Orr was not being treated for Parkinson’s in St. Louis (which I already knew) - but he was in fact in a rehabilitation program for Jesuits who had raped children.

On and on and on and on and on and on it went.  So…how?  How do you survive this?  I had an entire community actively, and successfully, making me out to be a psychopath hell bent on destroying their community, and even the leader of the jesuits at my school was creating false narratives in an attempt to save face for the society and the school.  I was somewhat well protected…but I still was going to school every day, suffering insults and attacks, knowing that the faculty at my high school was split between people who hated me with a burning passion and those who silently believed me but thought standing by the sidelines while a 16 year old was called a sexual deviant and a pathological liar was the correct course of action.

I had no escape.

“Please, don’t make me wake up.” That was what my prayers had become.  I didn’t understand how something horrible could happen TO me and that I would then lose everyone I had come to love and everything I had come to know.  My parents were tireless in their efforts to defend me…but they loved that school.  We were all trying so hard to do as little damage to the school while making sure I survived this experience, but what ultimately happened is that I was thrown too the wolves by everyone in an attempt to keep the situation as quiet as possible.  Every morning that I woke up I was disappointed.  I have nothing and no one, that was all I felt.  I was no fool, I understood why this had happened and knew my part in it.  I could have said nothing, I could have let him go forth and molest more kids and continue to have the life I had, just diminished by a couple dark secrets.  That, however, has never been my way.  And so, I knew what I had lost and why I had lost it and it was unbearable.  The guilt and the shame and the deep grief was crushing me, a child whose charmed life had been devoid of any of those things until then.

It was not long after I had been accused of conspiracy to murder the academic dean (which had been quickly thrown out with a little IP address search leading us back to Orr and his friends), that I had my first compulsions to kill myself.  It was a funny feeling, really.  I didn’t feel despair when I thought of it.  I felt relief.  I was withering, every bit of me dying as I went day after day after day back to the lions den.  I was getting several death threats a week, I had become the most reviled person in our community.  In a nutshell, I am intimately familiar with the desire to die.

So now we get to my point in all of this.  We often talk about asking for help in these moments.  Call a suicide hotline, talk to loved ones, reach out to your family.  Well, I wasn’t interested in being told not to die, and I felt like I couldn’t go to my family as I had hurt them enough already.  I had convinced myself that this was a final kindness toward an innocent group of people that didn’t deserve to have me destroy their lives.  “Life-ruiner.” - that is what my old friends called me.  They called me other things as well…but that is the one that to this day I won’t forget.  I remember in my mind standing at the proverbial cliff’s edge, letting myself come closer to it, getting ready to let my mind fall into that dark chasm where I could go and forget and be forgotten.  I remember so vividly this moment, the moment when a hand, strong and confident, firm and kind, unyielding and unrelenting, took hold of me.  The hand that grabbed me and said “I’ve got you” and brought me back from the edge was not a friend’s, it wasn’t a parent’s…it was my own.

Learning 2 - you are your own hero.  Listen to me - I am speaking to those of you approaching that cliff.  People are going to disappoint you.  We are all messy, horrible creatures that are not capable of being as perfect as you will need us to be as you go forth to fight this battle.  YOU are the only person who will not you down.  YOU are the person who will love you unconditionally and will never leave your side.  I love my family, I love my friends, but I don’t need them.  In this battle, this war, I am all I need.  When you go to sleep at night and pray you don’t wake up, when you walk into the courtroom to testify against your rapist, YOU are there.  We cannot wait for anyone to save us because no one can save us…we can only save ourselves.  Ask for help - always.  But the help we need is not to be saved, it is to help give us the strength to save ourselves.

In that moment, the moment where I chose to live, something in my changed.  The little boy, so cheerful and goofy, was gone.  He had been gone for a while now, but I couldn’t seem to say goodbye.  In his stead stood a storm.  I knew in that moment that there was no longer anything anyone could do to me.  I had accepted the reality of who I was to the world, and I had embraced the reality of who I am to me.  Everyone I knew could scream their hatred for me to the heavens and back and I would be unmoved, for those things no longer mattered.  Regardless of what happened from that moment forward, I had my back.  Armed with that, I was ready to go to battle and take down a pedophile.  I had finally found God, and I found him not by looking up but by looking inward.

So what ultimately happened?  Well, when it came time for Orr’s trial, the Jesuit released all of the information they had on him to the police.  Volumes of false identities, hidden bank accounts, secret lovers, and most importantly other possible victims.  The moment the authorities had that, he pled guilty on all counts (yes, I know what you are thinking…if they had all this information why didn’t they give it to the police in the first place??  Please refer to learning 1).  I flew out to Maryland because I wanted to present my Victim impact statement to the judge herself in person, with Orr in the room.  I wanted to look him in the eyes one final time, prove to myself that I had forgiven the monster that hides in the closet, and make a point of saying in open court that more than anything it was the system, and Georgetown Prep, that I felt were culpable in my abuse and deserved the real blame.  Now that I know many of the other victims and their stories, let me tell you even the “best” of institutions still like to reduce anyone who threatens their reputations to ash, no matter the cost, no matter the circumstances.

So what happened afterward?  Well…not much changed.  The people who had hated me for “falsely” accusing Orr now hated me for “mishandling” the situation, the man who was at the time the President of the school had bene advised not to talk to me or any of the other victims, and so we were barred from communication with the administration…meanwhile, the school sent out a letter saying that they were shocked that this happened and did “everything required of them” in handling the situation.  What you come to understand when you are in our situation is that the lying never ends, for with all institutions the end justifies the means because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Where do we go from here?  HA, that is the beauty.  Life.  In all of it’s exquisite tortures, and beautiful joys, you get to go and live life.  And you will live it with a deep understanding of humanity (a true gift) and an even greater appreciation for the joyful times in life, as only those who have suffered can truly understand.

To those of you who haven’t experienced this sort of disaster: I hope I have given you some things to chew on.  I can’t speak from a place of absolutes, no one can…but let me share with you something to think about.  If you are faced with this happening in your community, there are only two options: 1) the accuser is telling the truth, or 2) the accuser is lying, and in that case has some sort of severe issues.  Both are worthy of compassion.  The later sucks a lot because it makes things horribly hard for the rest of us who have actually been abused, but still…we must try to make the world a kinder place even in the face of adversity.  Please don’t attack accusers, even if you don’t believe them.  Those who ARE telling the truth are going through enough, and you never know when your unkind words may be the thing that ties the noose.

To my abused brothers and sisters: You have to get through these few moments and then you will see that “it gets better” is not just a slogan, it is reality.  I am not saying that you won't be marked by this experience…I am saying you will be and it will be ok.  Look, I have my issues, do not think for a second that I am trying to tell you I am walking through life some empowered perfect human being.  I am, and always have been, complicated.  I have a fierce love of others, and I have a great relationship with myself…and yet I can’t bring myself to read my birthday cards.  Seriously, not one.  As a matter of fact, if you try and make me read one in front of you, I will pretend to and then say “awww that is so sweet thank you.”  And it isn’t even conscious.  That, my friends, is weird as fuck…but tells you a lot.  I know I would sacrifice everything I have to protect the people I love, but will slap away their hands when they extend them to help ME.  That isn’t their job in my eyes, it is their job to go forth and live and my job to take the hits because I KNOW that I can.  I mean I could go on and on but I don’t want to discredit myself by dumping out ALL of my crazy, but you see what I mean.  At the same time, I am incredibly happy.  I have a beautiful life, very hard at times, but nevertheless I persist.  You can too.  Do it for yourself and everyone you love, and everyone who loves you.  Oh, and by the way, I see you, and I love you.  We got this.

Allllllllll right, I know that was all so terribly dark, but for those of you in the midst of this struggle, understand: I cam through horrific times and I am so deeply happy with life.  All the dark bits, all of the light bits…You will be ok.  It’s funny, now that I've finished driving down the shittiest of memory lanes, things have kind of coalesced for me in this way - after all of the crazy shit I went through, the insane, INSANE attacks, the loss of so many things that at the time seemed to mean so much…I took my hands off my eyes, looked around at the devestation, picked myself up and realized that these people could do nothing to me.  The Jesuits, the school, these people who hated my guts…they were completely and totally impotent.  The only thing that mattered was that small divine part of me that I had discovered, and nothing could touch it, and through it I was able to walk away with eyes and heart wide open.  They could only hurt me if I let them, and the second I understood that truth, I was invincible.  Let them hate and say horrible crap, they still do all the time.  I am free.

FURTHERmore…I have a life now filled with so many people that I love so deeply, in a way I never would have been capable of had I not survived that darkness of that terrible time.  Let me tell you, boys and girls, there is so so much to look forward to once you come out the other side of your harrowing.

LEARNING 3 I’ll end it on this note…forgiveness.  A lot of people define it a lot of different ways, but let me explain it to you from where I am standing, because it is the most powerful tool in my arsenal.  Forgiveness is NOT condoning, or reconciling, or forgetting, or placating, or denying the facts or even pretending you haven’t been brutally wronged.  Those things have nothing to do with it.  Forgiveness is the simple act of saying “You have no power over me, and I am letting go.”  You don’t need to say anything to anyone, you don’t need to confront someone, they could be dead for all the difference it makes.  Forgiveness is about YOU, and it is a choice.  Make it.  Make it every time.  If they have no power over you, they cannot push you off the cliff.

Jesus take the wheel that was the never ending shit storm of words.  I’ll end things here, since even I am getting sick of my poetic waxing around abuse haha.  So much love to you all.  

And if you are struggling and need someone to talk to, I am here.  I am always here.

Love, Eric

#love