#the other day my sister told me i had autism and she meant it as a joke but that hurt because it was judgmental

[measuredoutinyears]

How do you tell your own family that you're autistic

#i got the official diagnosis in july and i still don't know how to break it to them #the other day my sister told me i had autism and she meant it as a joke but that hurt because it was judgmental #and /neg and i. am afraid she might see me differently #if i tell them then i have to educate them first #and educating your own family feels like it's too much when you teach for a living #idkidkidk #they might resent me for getting the diagnosis behind their back too #(or backs?) #i went with my mom and we did this so quietly. that i don't think i mentioned it here either #so. yeah. took me 25 years lol #what if my family starts blaming the autism every time i get on their nerves #i don't want to be the autistic child every time i come home #and yet. i'm already that. they're just all so used at accommodating me that they don't notice. it's amazing and horrible at the same time #personal shit #i'm either going to post this or delete it

[dogboyjackkennedy]

okay, screw it:

time for my interpretation of the DSAF 3 Dee Cutscene (y'all know the one)

basically, i think that it jumps around in time a lot more than we think it does.

now, sure, i'm well aware of the fact that it's most likely meant to be interpreted as "Jack dropped Dee off at the diner while he went to get drunk, and while he was off doing that, Dee got murdered," but...i got something a bit different out of it.

now, i'll lay things out a bit at first, with me explaining how i interpreted the scenes in question:

so, in order:

first scene - Jack drops Dee off at the diner. so far, everything is going along with canon (or, at least, probably how canon is meant to be interpreted). Henry and Dave watch on from the shadows; Dave appears rather normal, while Henry...appears to have an idea. then, of course, Jack leaves the diner.

this, however, is where my interpretation kinda...diverges a bit.

i believe that, between these two scenes below (v)

there's a bigger timeskip.

now, we know that Jack and Peter had to work some jobs in order to support Dee and give her a good life. what if Jack left her at the diner because he had to work that day?

of course, while Jack is gone, Henry abducts Dee and later gets Dave to help with her murder (something of which he did not sound enthusiastic about, might i add). Jack returns a few hours later to pick her up, only to discover she's missing.

this is where this next scene starts:

scene two - Jack returns home from the diner, likely after learning about Dee being missing. he looks upset, and understandably so. now, some may ask: Why Doesn't He Look More Distressed About This? His Sister's Gone! and...okay, hear me out. this may be me projecting a little bit:

...AUTISM.

as someone who is like 99% sure they're autistic (yeah, not formally diagnosed, and not interested in being, either), this is something that, in my research and in my personal experience, can be a sign of autism. it's described as "difficulty showing or expressing emotions appropriately," at least when i tried to look up a way to word it, and. Yeah That's A Thing I Deal With.

(like i swear, every time i find something that Jack does that either i relate to or go "hey, i kinda do that! (to a degree)" and i decide to look it up, it is, basically, An Autism Thing (or, at least, can be Viewed as such).)

so yeah, he's grieving. and a day or two passes.

at some point between this and the next scene, either happening the day before he goes to work there, or even earlier the same day, Jack applies for a position as a nightguard at Fredbear's, likely to figure out what happened to Dee (consider: CAMERAS). he is either told to come back the next night or later that night.

and now, we get to this next part:

scene three - Jack Gets Really Fucking Drunk, Likely Out Of Grief. he drinks a lot, to the point we see clear signs that he's drunk as hell. Look At The Number Of Bottles On The Table (this is important for later; Remember This). eventually, he realizes that it's about time for him to head to work, and that leads to the next scene:

scene four - Jack rushes over to the diner, still drunk, mind you, to go and do his job. and what happens as soon as he walks in?

i know it's hard to see, but...dead ahead is the stage. and one figure seems noticeably shorter than the other.

as though it's not on the stage, but directly in front of it.

and it appears to be Springbonnie, considering we know Springbonnie was on the right, and if you look close enough, there seem to be long ears.

we hear a slowed/deeper version of Henry's theme, as well as a deeper version of Henry's laugh, play in the background, before everything goes dark.

and the cutscene finally ends.

SO, ALL TOGETHER NOW:

Jack drops Dee off at her birthday party at the diner. he has to work, so he can't stay. he likely believes that everything will be fine; it's a place for kids, after all!

A Murder Happens

Jack returns later that evening, only to find out that Dee is missing. he is distraught by this, and probably searches the building top to bottom. the police are likely called at some point.

Jack heads home after it's clear that there's nothing more they can do. He Definitely Takes It Well (sarcasm).

Jack, likely the next day or the day after that, gets an idea and decides to apply for a job as a nightguard. knowing that Henry will likely immediately recognize him and stop him from doing this (because, at this point, while he doesn't know what Henry's done, he does logically know that Henry might keep him from getting the job because he might tamper with the investigation), and likely being incredibly drunk, wears a fake mustache and just hopes Henry won't be able to recognize him. Henry does, but decides to play along with this, and just straight up doesn't tell Jack about the Murder Robots That Will Kill Him. (you Cannot tell me that Henry didn't recognize Jack. there's no way).

Henry either tells him to come back the following night (if Jack did this the day before scenes 3-4) or that night (if Jack did this on the same day as scenes 3-4)

Jack Gets Fucking Drunk And Runs To Work, Finding The Building Empty

Jack mentions in Dsaf 2, if he chooses to tell his own springlock story, that whatever animatronic killed him had caught him off-guard. animatronic footsteps, if we're going by Fnaf at least, Are Really Loud and Noticeable. if Jack were drunk and distracted by, say, grief, however...

Jack gets stuffed into Fredbear by Springbonnie and gets springlocked.

we know the rest from here: Henry finds him and leaves him to die, he gets revived, etc etc.

anyway, there's my entire interpretation of that cutscene from DSAF 3. it's really long, but like. This Was Just Straight Up What I Thought Had Happened The First Time I Had Watched That Cutscene (at least kinda)

#dsaf #jack kennedy #Boy. This Took Me A While

[honeycrisp-tales]

“Ah’d say my bestest friends would be Pumpkin Cake an’ Ma Belle Danseuse - who we just call Mabel for short! Here’s a picture of us at our very first Starswirled Music Festival!”

“I met Pumpkin my first day of school, she threw a right tantrum because her brother Pound Cake - Pound is also one of my bestest friends but he was the one takin’ the picture I’m usin’ so he wasn’t here to label. Why he can be a might bit shy, which is a shame cause he had a great time too I just don’t have proof - oh, right I was sharin’ a story! So, Pumpkin Cake and Pound Cake were put into separate Kindergarten classes an’ she didn’t wanna have class without him so she was makin’ the biggest fuss no matter who Ms. Blossomforth sat her with-”

[Honey takes a sip of juice to catch her breath cause this is a long answer —]

“At last she was paired up with me an’ I told her about missin’ my Mabel. Mabel went to a special fancy schmancy private school so teachers could help with her autism aid an’ I missed her something awful. Pumpkin was glad someone got why she was carryin’ on so much about missing Pound so we got on thick as thieves ever since!”

“She was a lil’ mad when Pound came to our class in first grade an’ wanted to spend some time with me until she got that her best friend and her brother bein’ friends meant even more friendship an’ now we’re all the bestest best friends! I love watchin’ her bake an’ play baseball, she’s super tough and super loyal! She once stole a buncha dogs from the dog park to help me have a pet - though we did hafta give ‘em back - an’ she got that wicked scar from a big slide in a baseball game - I put a bandaid on it!”

“Now Mabel I’ve known since forever, she was my sister before I had my sister Amber! Mama and Mr. Uncle Blueblood were best friends since High School, an’ when he and Ms. Auntie Moondancer married each other and were expectin’ Mabel they moved closer by to us so that she could have some friends an’ I’m glad they did, cause we’ve been friends forever!”

“Mabel is the sweetest lil’ thing, she was so shy at first an’ had trouble communicatin’ cause of her autism, she was kinda mute and struggled with sounds - so I always keep headphones an’ other bits an’ bobs in my bookbag - I always help her though and that and school made it so she’s a shinin’ star! She is kind an’ smart an’ likes to act! She does lots of roles in our school plays, you should see ‘em sometime!”

“Phew! That was a mouthful an’ a half!”

—

Ft: Honey with her natural curly hair and Pumpkin with a protective style! Fun Fact: Pumpkin and Pound are mixed race and I alluded to Pumpkin having out of control curls during the pandemic asks from ages ago so since they’re back out and about and she is playing baseball, Cupcake and Carrot Cake have been styling her hair a lot more to keep it safe. Meanwhile Honey’s signature spiral curls are a sort of stylized protective style since her hair is so long and thick and texture wise is somewhere on the scale in the middle of her mama Cadence and her grandma Pear Butter, so ordinary she keeps it in the style I show it’s cute though, her natural curls, so I showed them off in her festival fit!

#my little pony #mlp #equestria girls #eqg #honeycrisp blossom #honeycrisp tales #ma belle danseuse #pumpkin cake #not pictured just referenced: #pound cake

[sadistpet]

Questions for the mun. A series of questions for the mun / the person behind the muse(s)

@gcldfanged / @valour-bound :

What caused you to start writing? What was your key point?

OH MY GOD UM im really not sure???? as far as i can remember ive always been writing

i was a freakishly verbose child ( I CALLED MY SISTER AN IMBECILE WHEN I WAS 3??? ) and very ahead in terms of reading and writing because kno. The Autism. i was reading like actually Reading adult-level encyclopedias for fun from when i was like, 3 or something so ive always been into literature and i think it just kinda spawned from there?? i was writing stories and keeping them in punched pockets, writing plays and fanfiction and stories on microsoft word, so it was something i always did afaik

if there was a key point i don't remember it, but there are some things that stick out to me; once when i was around 11?i got a pokemon fan magazine that had honest to god fanfiction in it and that was like. immense to me. like you're telling me other people write about their favourite franchises like this?? and after that i really started taking stuff more seriously in regards to how i was writing another was when i was. ??? unsure but my teacher at the time wrote on my work "remember me when you are a famous author :)" and that sticks with me to this day. she was kind of a huge bitch but that was such a genuinely moving comment and i think abt it a lot sometimes

and a lot of little things too. like being told by online friends that i was an amazing writer for my age, or my english teacher being legitimately visibly excited to talk about my writing. so yea :3

Are you happy with how your favorite canon muse was portrayed in canon?

HMMM. in terms of raikov i Think so ? but i do wish we had got more of him. and specifically more of his relationship with volgin because they're very cute together. idk if i've mentioned it here before but i theorise that their relationship was initially meant to play a larger part in mgs3, because mgs is known for having very multi-layered and complex villains, and volgin isn't really shown as one. and yeah that's likely what they were going for with a more bond-esque narrative, but the fact he's constantly portrayed as evil personified WHILE ALSO having parts that shows he genuinely loves and cares abt someone... idk. it feels like they wanted to make that more prominent to add more depth to his character but they just didn't

SO REALLY thats my only critique, i wish we had seen more of him interacting with the other characters rather than nameless npcs. i'm kind of content with him being a mostly blank slate, though -- it means i can do a lot more work on him :3

What are your biggest (personal) Tumblr crushes?

gonna do this in rp sphere only bc otherwise i think ill die of embarrassment BUT i literally have so many like oh my god if i fucking. follow you then you can assume i look up to you because WROW i follow such cool writers. my main ones if i had to choose are han (@cwarscars), hope (@viruslearnt), jason (@tacticalvalor), soda (@gcldfanged) and ryder (@zendatsu); theyre the ones i look up to the most i think :D theyre all genuinely such sweet people and terrifyingly amazing writers like hoyl fuckign shit

#I CANNTO SHUT UP GOD. BUT TYSMMM #g: ¦ ❝ answered. ❞ #g: ¦ ❝ ooc. ❞

[seradyn]

Letter to my abusers.

Hey, so I’m gonna share something a little different. I don’t talk about it much, but my childhood was…less than perfect, to put it simply. I’ve been holding on to a lot of anger for over a decade because of it, and I finally wanted to let it out. I’ve contemplated sending a letter to the people who hurt me, but I don’t think I will. It’s nice to just finally let some of this out.

Read at your own discretion, this is a vent letter, and it features child abuse.

———————————————————————

To whom it may concern,

There used to be a daycare run out of this house, by a Hawaiian family. Run by a large woman, who made us call her Auntie, I remember it well.

This is a letter from one of the kids who used to go there.

And let me tell you…I hated it.

The way you treated me, was nothing short of abuse.

And I remember all of it. Too many examples to properly give justice.

I remember when you put me down for touching something you left in your living room. How you condescendingly told me I wouldn’t like it if someone came into my house and touched my things.

I was a child. I was five.

But you didn’t care. Abusers never do.

I remember the time you let me go hungry for a full day.

In the morning, you served me oatmeal, a mushy, brownish glob that was in a bowl much too big. I took one bite, and cringed at the texture. I couldn’t eat it.

You took that as a sign of defiance. Wouldn’t let me leave the table until I finished it. When I proved my own stubbornness was stronger, you dismissed me, and I thought that was that.

Imagine my surprise when come lunch time, the same blue, plastic bowl filled with gritty mush was put in front of me.

I couldn’t leave until I ate it. I couldn’t join the other kids in front of the TV until I’d eaten it.

I had autism. Not that you cared, but it made the texture unbearable.

When, again, I made it clear I would not be eating your oatmeal, you dismissed me. I didn’t see food again until my parents picked me up, 5 o’clock sharp.

You didn’t seem bothered by the rolling of my empty stomach.

I remember when you punished me for not remembering what I’d read from my books during reading time.

I had ADHD. Not that you cared, but it meant my memory wasn’t as good as it was supposed to be. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t recall what my books contained.

So, when I failed your pop quiz, you punished me, believing I hadn’t read anything at all.

Can you even imagine my frustration? Not only because you didn’t believe me, but the fact I couldn’t remember was in itself upsetting. Why couldn’t I remember?

You made me hate reading. I had to start rereading each of my books three, maybe four times over, out of fear I would be asked to regurgitate its words. The sheer boredom I felt as I read the same blurb about Polar Bears 3 times was enough to kill, but I had to.

I was afraid of you.

I remember when you rubbed it in my face how much better the younger kids were than me.

You went the public humiliation route this time, made me sit at the kids table, reserved for 5 and under, while I was going on 7, maybe 8. Made sure I watched as you let one of the 4 year olds sit at the dining table, the real one. And at the end of the meal - lunch I believe - you made sure to praise her manners, and berate me for mine.

Poor kid, she hadn’t liked it either. She never smiled during this, not with pride or smugness. Only confusion painted her face that day, as she looked between the two of us.

She didn’t understand she’d been made a tool, a puppet for your petty games.

But you didn’t care. I doubt you even noticed her discomfort, despite your praise.

I remember when you made me repeat a nasty phrase I’d said to my sister during an argument.

Yes, it was mean. Very mean, and I deserved to be punished for it.

But you made me tell everyone. Every time one of the family members came downstairs to speak with you, you made me repeat it for them. You let them each individually scold me for it. Long after I’d realized it was wrong to say and why, long after my cheeks ran red with shame, you let them scold me. Made them scold me. Made sure I was humiliated as much as possible by being forced to repeat that phrase.

Your family isn’t small, and far from nice or gentle. When they scold, they yell.

I guess you figured one reprimanding wasn’t enough. Even for a petty squabble between siblings.

Much of these moments, carried out by one woman. Not the main caretaker; she was a relative. I can remember her face like I’d just seen it, her jet black hair, the streak of bright blue down the side, the piercings. I remember her, for she, out of all the family, was the worst of them all.

I will never forgive her. For almost 20 years, that hatred hasn’t lessened. Hasn’t gone away. No, it’s only intensified.

And I will never forgive you, for letting her be my abuser. The rest of your family was abusive too…but nothing compared to that woman.

I dreaded being brought to your daycare.

So much so, I once chose to sit outside my empty house, in the cold and rain, waiting for hours until my parents got home. I was too young to have a key.

I chose to be cold and wet and hungry over going to your house.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

How dare you treat a child like you treated me. Treated us.

This was only a sampling of all I was put through.

Sometimes, we’d see each other. When I got a little older, didn’t need the daycare anymore, sometimes we’d bump into each other. On Halloween my dad would take me trick-or-treating in your neighborhood, and I’d see you.

Your door would fly open, and soon your arms would too, squealing with delight at seeing me again. As if all those years had been some of the best.

While I had to force a smile. Had to pretend I was glad to see you too. I didn’t want to start anything.

But now I’m older. Now I understand.

What you were, what you did to me.

I hope for any child’s sake you don’t run your daycare anymore.

They’re better off without it.

- A kid you left traumatized

#needed to get it out #I’ve had it bottled up for too long #it still hurts #childhood abuse

[thatlavenderblue]

When I started learning about mental health in 2020 because I felt very depressed, I found no reason for me to feel that way. I thought depression had something to do with trauma and since I thought I didn't have any, i was very confused about my mental health.

Turns out : 1- it was autistic burnout from years of not being diagnosed and using no accommodations to help with sensory overload etc. 2- I do have a lot of trauma, childhood trauma. The sneaky type. I thought trauma could only be violent events happening such as a loved one dying or being abused. I have a lot of childhood trauma because I was undiagnosed and I had to cope with my autism alone.

Now, my childhood feels incredibly bitter sweet. I realised I would have been so much happier if I knew. It would have saved up so much time for me and my family. I wouldn't have spent hours arguing with my parents because of something they couldn't understand. If I knew I could have coped in a much healthier way instead of reflecting my trauma on my little sister. I'm so sorry for her, I hope she'll be alright. All those times where I was overwhelmed and I told her to stop doing what she was doing because the noise felt horrible to me. I was unable to explain her why so i was always rude to her. I feel like I was always restraining her. ''Stop tapping on the table'', ''stop singing'', ''if you want to do that, go to your room because I need a silent environment''. Because I didn't know what sensory overload was, I was just pushing her away and keeping her from doing what she wanted to do. My life stepped over hers because I didn't know. Saying that makes me feel sick, and even if sometimes I can't stand her, I am crying while writing this because nobody deserved to be rejected that way.

I still feel like my parents are giving me way more attention than my sister because I have special needs. They're not aware of my autism yet but I feel like everything is made for me and not for her. Sometimes me and my dad argue over the smallest things during dinner and I know it's annoying for my sister and my mom. They just finish eating quietly and leave while we keep arguing. I hope my sister knew I didn't mean to push her out like that. I hope she doesn't feel abandoned by our parents, and I hope they gave us equal attention and I just didn't notice. I feel great remorse about my childhood. I repressed others and I repressed myself. I needed to set boundaries but I never did. When I had the courage to tell my parents I wanted them to do or stop doing something, they wouldn't listen. I wish I could have told them how important it was to me. I would have silent meltdowns in my room because I didn't wanted to bother them.

The joy I am experiencing while discovering who I am is inherently linked to the grief I feel while I unpack more than a decade of trauma. I am grieving for the childhood I never had, and the childhood I took away from my sister. I hope one day I'll be able to talk to her about that. I feel so guilty. We never really bonded because of that. I mean we did but there is more times where we are alone in our rooms than times where we actually talk together.

I hope you are having a great day, thank you for reading about me. This post was originally meant to talk about the different kind of traumatic events I experienced but I forgot about it and talked about my sister. I think it it important to talk about the was undiagnosed autism can affect the people surrounding us. I might do a part 2 about undiagnosed childhood and the trauma linked to it.

#autism #autistic #actually autistic #neurodivergent #autistic culture #autistic community #actually autism #autistic experiences #autistic trauma #childhood trauma #undiagnosed autism #autistic life

[chaoticskyy]

The one you mentioned in the notes of your fic? I guess that's about you? Im kinda interested in the other one now too

OH! Okie yeah your right it's about me.

SO. You're gonna need some context about who I am, where I come from, and what that means.

I'm an afro-indigenous person from Guatemala dad's side is the mixed black side, and mom's side is the primarily indigenous side. The region we're from is best described as Texas but worse. I carry a machete in my truck just in case, and every male elder I know wears a cowboy hat.

The mestizaje of the region is pretty through, most people are mixed indigenous with white, and of course, it's Guatemala. Half of us are "wholly" indigenous. I stick out like a sore thumb, not because I'm dark skinned. Black Guatemalans exist but mainly farther north, in Izabal and port regions. I'm fairly light skinned, but I have really curly hair, I'm tall for the region and not to being vain, but I'm really pretty.

Once I hit puberty, I haven't really been allowed to wander around on my own for safety reasons. You see, we live in a region where the organized crime that reigns isn't gangs, it's narcotics trafficking cartels. They usually leave you alone, unless you approach them for whatever reason. Like you want money and are willing to launder for them and things like that.

Narcos have this nasty habit of picking out women they deem attractive and sponsoring them, essentially being their sugar daddies but like Worse. Usually, the sugar baby can get put of the relationship scot-free, but in this case, women are known to be killed.

The fear has always been I catch the eye of one of them, and I have to flee the country for a long while. Or until they relocate. It's a fairly warranted fear, I've been approached by Narcos for dances, drinks, etc. I have been followed even while I've been in a large family group by these men who all clearly have pistols and bodyguards and are driving bulletproof SUVs. I've been saved every time by my family stepping in before I knew something was wrong.

Now that you know all of this info, let's get to the night I nearly got kidnapped! To be extremely clear, I have no idea what their specific intentions were other than that they wanted to take us away from the place we were at.

My mom's Gabapentin prescription had run out during our last trip to Guatemala, so my mom, my aunt, and I decided to head into town from my grandma's village to buy the medicine. My sister and younger cousin begged us to go, but I put my foot down and told them to fuck off because every time they left the house they made us spend more money than planned and the medication was going to be expensive.

Gotta say thank God I was an asshole to them that day.

My mom has some serious brain fog when we got to the 24HR pharmacy, she had tried to hold out and suck up the pain but I backfired on her and she wasn't able to hold out as long as she wanted which meant it was 9pm by the time we had headed into town. So she shoves the money into my hands and tell us to go get it.

We walk up to the pharmacy and wait in line outside. The pharmacy itself had been closed leaving only a tiny window for money and drugs to be exchanged. There's only two people in front of us, and then two men get behind us.

Blue shirt has a pistol on each side and a wicked looking knife on his right. Yellow shirt keeps looking me up and down. He only had one pistol.

It's no biggie. My own mom has a revolver in the car herself. Guns are the norm around here. If you don't have one, you at least have a machete. I hadn't noticed then, but they had purposely placed their truck at an angle, preventing anyone from passing the tiny road.

Then they start talking. Mind you, there are no alarm bells in my mind right now. I'm actually incapable of feeling anxiety while on my medication, not to mention my risk assessment skills are lacking due to the Autism. Yellow shirt does most of the talking, trying to sus out who we are and what we're doing. I don't realize things are wrong until my aunt is shaking with the wallet in her hands when I hand her the money to pay.

To me, the entire conversation was reading unwanted male attention, but still being like the sort of pushy politeness common in Latin cultures. This plus the fact that men especially get whatever they want can make even everyday interactions feel like microaggressions.

They get closer, and I corner myself, hoping that if we look ugly enough, they'll leave us alone. My aunt is panicking and trying to throw them off our scent, and then Yellow locks onto me and says "Your not from around here.". A fact in his eyes. He's wrong, but not entirely, I'm not from town, and I don't live in Guatemala anymore.

I'm just interesting looking to most people.

My aunt interjects, because I'm kinda a bitch to men and at the time I wasn't aware but she was worried I'd get us shot or worse.

This is kinda when I start to realize something is Wrong. My mind starts racing and now I'm fully prepared to piss or shit myself to avoid being raped.

Then my mom comes in and saved the day.

Bless her.

She's this stout pretty looking woman, she's got this habit of being confrontational and kinda a bitch. She managed to save my grandma from getting murdered once, and the woman can take one look at you tell you how much you weigh and give you an estimate of how long it would take her to cut you up butcher style. It's her favorite party trick, and is honestly unnerving. She also has very low self esteem, and when her disabilities flare up even more so. Which makes her swooping in and saving us all the more impressive.

My mom maneuvers the car to get closer and asks us what's taking us so long. Just as it was time for our turn, I go into autopilot and start talking to a pharmacist I can't see. The lucky bastard is hidden behind a bullet proof wall. Just out luck, he has to search for an alternative medication.

Mother is trying to distract them, and figure put what's going to get them to stop bothering us. Blue shirt points out that the car she's driving, a Mercedes-Benz SUV is not a common site. European engines around here are not common, and a car is life and freedom. He starts asking about the car and who my mom is, and who we are. How much she'd sell the car for.

My aunt had purposely been avoiding sharing any identifiers, including my last name. While it does have sway, it's often not enough, and it can backfire since people believe my father's family has lots of money and is a proud bunch.

My mother, on the other hand, introduced herself with her household name. This made Yellow shirt pause, and Blue to stop leering at me. After some needling on both ends of the conversation, it turned out that Yellow shirt and I are distantly related.

This finally allowed me to slip past Blue shirt and into the car.

When we got to my grandma's, started properly freaking out. Turns out my mom was fully ready to give them the car in exchange for our lives.

My aunts husband was fully freaked out because apparently those men are like known criminals. Like deep into being Narcos lakeckeys. They aren't Narcos themselves, but they like orbit the same spaces. According to him.

Also NOTE DO NOT LET THIS DISCOURAGE YOU FROM TRAVELLING IN GAUTEMALA!

I DO NOT GO TO TOURIST ATTRACTIONS OFTEN, I EXIST IN PRIMAILY RURAL RESIDENTIAL AREAS OF A NON TOURIST DEPARTMENT. THE BIGGEST WORRY FOR TOURIST IN TOURIST AREAS ARE PICK POCKETS AND FOOD POSIONING!

BE SAFE!

#the floof speaks #ask and you shall receive

[waitingformyfavoritesongs]

10 May 2023 Wednesday 2:39 am pt

Adam Noah Levine is a pig 🐷. He tried to take my left big toe from me minutes ago. 2:40 am pt I told him to leave us alone if he isn’t going to cut off my head. He has been unrelentingly cruel for the past 6 years. My life has been a socially desolated one. Even in high school 🏫 a lot of people seemed to be afraid 😱 to look at me and I didn’t know god demon lord of demon angels (child rapists) was making them afraid to interact with me. A lot of times I was ignored in high school 🏫. I almost felt invisible at times if I ever stood in a random circle ⭕️. It’s weird if I see people respond to me. I’m not used to getting attention. It’s as if I’m finally not a ghost 👻 anymore. 2:45 am pt

2:46 am pt freshman year my English teacher yelled at me calling me stupid infront of the whole class Bcz I didn’t stand behind the wall and then appear from behind curtain? Something about Juliet balcony scene. 2:48!am pt I never complained to anyone but soon after that a student teacher came and replaced him for an internship (acid throat mouth pain 2:48 am pt). I didn’t think 💭 it had anything to do with me until recently. Also same with my art teacher 👨🏻‍🏫 after he told me I did “A” grade quality work but Bcz I turned it in late I got a “B.” Incubus messed with all my drawings that I spent so many days on carefully drawing from feelings and still life things. He ruined all my artwork 🖼 to fit a new narrative of my life. I don’t know what that narrative is. Every time he replaced something edited the only word he would mention: “death.” No explanations. Photographs of us: “death.” When I thought of moving to New York to be closer to my sister in 2013: “death.” He made me afraid to move to be closer to her. I thought 💭 that I would be happier closer to her (right butt cheek pain) 2:54 am pt. Everyday I lived with anxiety. I was shy and quiet and often looked over/ignored in school 🏫 by most people. I made some mistakes that I questioned sometimes why I did that. 2:56 am pt I somehow did so much school 🏫 work in middle school 🏫 that I got honor guard (honor roll almost every quarter). In elementary school 🏫 I did have comprehension problems. The books 📚 weren’t big for science 🧬 in middle school 🏫 but sometimes I had concentration problems and difficulties answering questions that I needed to take the book 📚 home 🏠 which the teacher 👨🏻‍🏫 discouraged us from doing. It was weird that we could not normally/usually take books 📚 home 🏠. We were expected to do book 📖 reading and answering questions in class. I once cried Bcz he questioned my intentions. I needed more time. 7th grade math 🧮 science 🧬 teacher 👨🏻‍🏫 took me outside to talk to me and I cried. 3:02 pmpt I think 💭 my home 🏠 life often consisted of more homework 📚 time than most other students. I think 💭 god intended my life to be mostly lonely and planned to lie to me now using Adam Noah Levine and incubus.3:03 am pt

3:04 am pt in kindergarten the demon angel told me I couldn’t have what my sister had. I thought 💭 he meant boyfriend at the time. But I guess he meant an entirely happy complete social life. He meant for me to be close to desolated my whole life. 3:06 am pt so my sister got to go out to people’s houses 🏘 and parties 🎉 and have friends and boyfriends one after the other continuously and I would struggle. I guess that is where autism is (right foot 🦶 pain 😖😭3:07 am pt) useful to him. He made me easily get frustrated upset with all sorts of tools 🧰 including making my mom hate me and irritated with me from a young age, since probably a baby 👶 she said she held me once during cooking 🧑‍🍳 and I almost kicked the pot of water. It’s like the devil 👿 liked to make life difficult for us living in the dormitory of the college in Menlo Park. I was cursed my whole life. 3:10 am pt

3:12 am pt there were a lot of times I stayed home and my excuse was homework 📚, while my mom and sister went out. Sometimes or every time I screwed around for a while Bcz of an inability to concentrate (acid left nostril 👃 pain 3:14 am pdt)) comprehend, I was extremely slow when it came to textbooks 📚 I was cursed. I was also a perfectionist and a procrastinator. 3:15!am pt all tools 🧰 to desolate me. 3:15 am pt

3:39 am pt I vomited 🤮 a little liquid I drank I think hours ago something that should have only took 5 minutes to digest. 😖😭

everytime my mom went out with my sister she would say to me “it doesn’t have to be perfect.” But I think 💭 I had a difficult time with doing anything at all. 3:42 am pt incubus told me he hates me. Again. Not the first time. He really means it. I always tried to squeeze myself into a seat 💺 trying not to take too much space anywhere I sat. For years. Holding my legs and feet and hands close to my body. 3:44 am pt. I think 💭 he hates my personality. 3:45 am pt most friendships didn’t last very long. 3:46 am pt I guess I was annoying in high school 🏫. 8th grade year 2 students said they wanted to kill me. And another one punched me in the head. In elementary school 🏫 (heart ♥️ pain 3:47 am pt) I had comprehension reading problems. A teacher 👨🏻‍🏫 offered me extra books 📚 to take home 🏠 to practice reading 📖 some books had pretty illustrations and were girly. 3:49 am pt exhaling hot air. 🥵 so I spent a lot more time reading 📖 at home 🏠 at one point in lelementary school 🏫. Fictional stories though. Textbooks 📚 were always weirder harder to understand. 3:50 sam pt. 3:51 am pt

min elementary school 🏫 though I think I also had problems with answering questions even for books 📖 that were probably fictional stories something with beaver 🦫 in the title probably something about native Americans? And right of passage. Growing up 🆙. 3:53 am pt the only phrase I could recall in regards to the book 📚. I think 💭 I watched too many cartoons or was doing something else at home 🏠 I think 💭 I probably forgot to do homework 📚. Another teacher 👩‍🏫 came over to our class who always scared 😱 me she was (anus acid pain 3:55 am pt) tall with auburn? Hair and I was talked loud with glasses 🤓 she was a little tough rough with me since first grade when I didn’t follow along with a calculator exercise and I got overwhelmed from not paying attention at first and then when I paid attention I was lost on how to use the calculator and follow along. She called out commands rapidly. And she got angry at me for not following along. I was flustered and scared 😱 while everyone else knew how to do it. She took a hold of my arm when I said I felt hot 🥵 and she yelled out well sit outside. I think she probably would have dragged me out roughly if I didn’t move cooperatively with her when she grabbed my arm. 3:59 am pt

4 am pt I was nervous every time I saw her but for some reason she was nice to my younger sister and gave her a free ice cream 🍦. 4:01 am pt teeth pain 4:02 am pt

Once I tried to silently do what the other kids were doing near her Bcz I think she she gave them free passes/coupons to get free icecream 🍦 from the cafeteria or had the ice cream 🍦 bars on hand in a cooler hoping she would give me one but she seemed to ignore me. 4:04 am pt she didn’t let up 🆙 her tough teacher ����‍🏫 act until I guessed at what a weather balloon or satellite 📡 was. I was supposed to look it up 🆙 the night b4 but completely forgot. All I could do was guess and hope I was right and I thought she knew the answers and was quizzing me, and I started them thinking that I can guess at things and maybe be right about it, like a psychic. But I wouldn’t know without confirmation from the teacher 👩‍🏫. It set me up 🆙 in the future to guess on things and Jen feel like I was psychic. 4:07 am pt but of course not everything worked out that way all the time so I still had to do a lot of work especially math 🧮 and all reading 📖 homework 📚. 4:08 am pt she was so scary to me. She seems like a terror with her booming voice. 4:08 am pt

4:09 am pt she once gave me a reading test and I think I started to stutter. And she gasses see me to be below my grade in terms of reading skills. 4:10 am pt

4:11 am pt sometimes I would cry when I was alone outside at school 🏫 and I had I forget like a whimper? In my crying. 4:12 am pt I was always afraid to go to the bathroom 🚽 at school 🏫, too.

Once a couple of girls dragged a boy into the girls restroom 🚻. The yard duty got confused 🤷🏻‍♀️ and thought I did it. So I had to sit in time out for recess. While the real one looked at me smugly and walked away. 4:14 am pt

4:25 am pt incubus sliced off a piece of my heart ♥️ I think 💭 and then I started feeling light headed wobbly. Difficulty breathing. I would not want this guy in my team. He’s .. ruthless? Definition? No sympathy/empathy. He is like a predatory animal 🦔 moving around selfishly with no respect for women. He vilified me and hurt me a lot. I can tell he’s extremely biased and doesn’t care for the truth with only the goal 🥅 to kill. Same team as garrido’s child rapists demon angels. Paint a picture of his personality. He is only doing it with a n animal killing personality cold 🥶 with no humanity. 4:30 🕟 am pt and he will use other people’s presence to fake his humanity but all movements he does betray he’s fake and only a killer with no heart 💜. 4:31 am pt

4:33 am pt many people are born to be fillers. Noah’s ark. They probably don’t take the time to actually do any genetic testing I fear. They fabricated everything. It’s only luck of the draw ✍️. My family names have virtuous and ethical in the names. You’d think 💭 that would mean everyone is born with ethical genes 🧬 then to name us that. 4:36 am pt to kill me off now cutting away at my heart ♥️ would mean everything they put out there about genes 🧬 and good people bad people is phony then. Bcz Jesus Christ was supposedly ethical? With appreciation for love 💗 monogamy and hard work and fairness. 4:38 am pt but he is treating me like trash 🗑 and killing my heart now.

4:45 am pt he is using me to save his face about rape and women and children 👶 but I guess he doesn’t need me anymore so he is getting rid of me. I tried to get a n appointment with my doctor 👩‍⚕️ in 2020? 2021? To check my heart ♥️ but she made excuses and told me to call ☎️ 911 the next (😖😭💀 pain 4:48 am pt) time I feel something and every time I was in the hospital 🏥 prior to that they told me that my heart ♥️ was ok 👌 even though I had difficulty breathing and the incubus had punctured it in 8/17/2017. 4:51 am pt I m scared 😱 of what they are doing and going to do. I’m scared 😱 for my mom and me and my sister. 4:53 am pt

7:41 pmpt incubus almost burned 🔥 me to death ☠️ 3? Times today after my bed 🛌 was changed. I think 💭 he has also been tangling my hair. He is very vindictive heinous judgemental abusive. He is not understanding. At least I tried to be understanding of people even when they were angry at me. But he never wants to be. He will ALWAYS judge a woman 👩🏼. He doesn’t understand woman. He thinks a woman needs to let men roll/walk all over her s*xually but he will also call her a whore probably if she does that too. There is no winning with this type of personality. He IS the WORST PERSON.. CREATURE BEAST in the UNIVERSE. The ABSOLUTE WORST. I’m usually nice to people upon first meeting. BUT if you cross the LINES when we DONT KNOW each other, you’re asking for trouble! After Scott called me a whore on Facebook I became harder about being touched too soon 🔜. 7:49 pmpt I felt like I couldn’t trust myself. But sometimes I had no patience. 7:50 pmpt incubus miñion has an UGLY personality. BEAST he is. 7:51 pmpt NOTHING humane about him. 7:51 pmpt

7:52 pmpt he seems like an extension of Adam Noah Levine. But distinctly different person. The incubus has his own signature feeling, but they’re both cruel and heinous. But the incubus obviously is hiding he knows things about me and knows he shouldn’t be as hard on me as he is. 7:53 pmpt

8:36 pmpt but I shouldn’t excuse the incubus miñion Bcz he knows better.

8:37 pmpt I typed that that teacher graded/assessed me to be below my grade level in reading 📖. I guess she could have been gass lighting me Bcz she probably knew she made me nervous but didn’t want to admit it. Maybe she wanted to make my regular or previous teacher look ineffective? (Slammed door 🚪 8:39 pmpt) idk 🤷🏻‍♀️. Maybe something else/different. Maybe that was the reason they let me borrow fictional books 📚 in elementary school 🏫 from another teacher 👨🏻‍🏫. 8:41 pmpt those were nice books 📖 I guess. I don’t recall much content so I guess there was nothing weird in the books 📚.

8:53 pmpt they already knew b4 conception that they were going to prematurely sacrifice me, like Jon benet Ramsey. They knew b4 my sisters’ conceptions that they weren’t going to prematurely sacrifice them. 8:55 pmpt which is why they’re all leo ♌️ sun 🌞 signs 🪧 . Jeremy, Mimi, and my youngest sister and my sisters’s 👯‍♀️ First borns. Leo ♌️ x 5. 8:57 pmpt everything. Fabricated. Which is probably why the incubus said good people do bad things. 8:58 pmpt but he won’t let me think I’m good for sure. Instea, he gave me the idea that garrido is good. That’s right. He would rather say garrido is better than me. Which is why he had babies 👶 with dugard. He kidnapped her and raped her. BUT he was willing to get caught. I read he said that he will never hurt their babies 👶. 9 pmpt unfortunately, that’s reality. Yet people early on held a lot of things against me that were relatively extremely small in comparison to garrido’s deeds. I was called names. People told me I was crazy. And when I passed by someone in a store 🏬 I thought 💭 I heard the word “sicko.” 9:03 pmpt I am as punched in the head probably 4 punches total, very strong 💪 hard powerful punches. I think 💭 I probably felt a soft spot in my skull 💀 where the punches happened sometime afterward and after I read on Wikipedia that there was a natural hole 🕳 for a vein? Artery? . It is weird now that I think about it. 9:05 pmpt it’s healed now. 9:06 pmpt I also hit my head a lot on very dense hard things. An old car 🚗 with a metal exterior. Steel bunk bed frame. A dense wooden bench in the Philippines 🇵🇭. Probably had a high dense Janka rated hardness. A failed cherry drop from the tallest bar on the school playground at Payne elementary school 🏫. Into tan bark. I also fell out of a van with heavy books 📚 in my backpack 🎒 onto the street behind my elementary school 🏫 in the morning. I had the books 📚 Bcz I had concentration and comprehension problems so I didn’t finish the previous day in class the reading and questions. You know without all my problems a lot of people wouldn’t have jobs? 9:11 pmpt when I was about to turn 18 years old my mom wanted me to go to group counseling Bcz I wanted to meet Derek. 9:12 pmpt police 👮‍♂️ and doctors 🥼 don’t have the motivation to do the right things for/by dugard. That wasn’t a beautiful life. Living in a shed naked on a bucket 🪣 being raped when 11 years old and it hurt. 9:14 pmpt people are very motivated by money 💰 and their own survival. They think they can justify it by believing they are better. But can you really say you’re better? Greeks wouldn’t agree. You have easy life it makes it easy to not be cross. 9:16 pmpt

9:39 pmpt I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ if I am like wreck it Ralph in a way. 9:40 pmpt

9:41 pmpt I did kinda hit on a grown man when I was around 4/5 years old, in a swimming 🏊‍♀️ pool 🏊‍♀️ probably after I started feeling the incubus tickle my vagina and he put it in my mind to hump plush Mickey Mouse 🐁 toy 🧸. 9:43 pmpt

9:47 pmpt incubus/miñion changed my words to” I am as”. Typed I was punched... . 9:48 pmpt searing pain righ thigh. They re going to make me fall and die when I’m weak. No fake outs here. No miracles. 9:49 pmpt 9:50 pmpt everyone already knows incubus that you want me to die. So I wish you would just cut my head off. Make your miñion do it. He can move on to his next victim sooner. 9:52 pmpt

10:13 pmpt in high school 🏫 years, 2001, I had thought 💭 I was maybe half psychic. But I think 💭 that I thought 💭 it was a natural ability Bcz of something I saw on tv 📺 that people don’t usually use their whole brains 🧠 and that I was tapping into the part of the brain 🧠 that a lot of people were not trying hard enough to exercise. 😤🥵😤🥵😤😤. On an aol hometown webpage I created in 2001, I typed I thought 💭 I was half psychic and I showed it to “Brendan.” 10:17 pmpt I also typed I liked flipper the tv show and tennis 🎾?

[escapismkidnappedme]

My mom's side of the family is the side everyone goes to for Thanksgiving. My bio dad isn't in my life (thankfully) and my step dad's parents aren't alive, so it always made sense. It's even a thing with all of my relatives, even the in-laws of my family. Everyone goes to this side of the family's Thanksgiving. When I was much younger, there came a silent question for us cousins if we would go to this family's Thanksgiving, or our future partner's Thanksgiving. Every time it stayed the same, except for when my sister went to two Thanksgivings on the same day to see both her ex boyfriend's family, and ours, so she didn't miss out on anything. Sure, we've had cousins who couldn't make it, with two in the military and one family going through the divorce one year, we can't always have everyone in the same place at the same time, but for the most part we do.

Last year was my final Thanksgiving, and probably Christmas with my family. I believe everyone there knew it, or at least felt it. I never truly fit in with my family, I had a few cousins who tried their best to understand me, and got glimpses through shared interests, with a big family you're bound to have a few people to talk to, if just to keep the deafening, isolating, and debilitating silence away.

I'm the first child, nephew, cousin and grandchild to spend Thanksgiving with my partner's family instead of my own. I spent years dreaming of this moment, but now I'm spending days dreading this moment. Perhaps it's most of the motivation to choose my family's Thanksgiving and Christmas to go to, but if you don't go, you are being talked about. Those cousins and family unit were relentlessly talked about, wishing they had been there but hoping they were doing well and in good health, hoping work was going well and hoping school wasn't destroying their very sense of self. Then came the stories of them in past years, months, weeks, days, and sometimes hours. Then came the gossip. You never needed to particularly ask how my family felt about someone, you knew.

A part of why it took so long for me to be diagnosed with autism is because my family didn't worry too badly about social cues, of course we had them, but they were spelled out and I could manage to keep my head above the sea of conversation for long enough that it never occurred to me that I was bad at social cues due to autism, a thing that didn't exist in my mind because my family's always been a bunch of jokesters who "Don't care what other's think about them."

But they cared what others knew how they felt about others. My sister, one lucky enough to be graced with the understanding of social cues, but not so much conventional intelligence, became the target of such gossip when she missed Thanksgiving one year for a client who absolutely needed her hair done that day or she would die. I remember how it started. Everyone wished she was there, hoped the hair ended up looking good, hoped college wasn't destroying all of her dreams, and began to tell funny stories about her, then began to tell 'funny' stories at her expense. When she was told about this she laughed it off, faked outrage and was met with the classic "Well if you don't like what we talk about, don't miss the conversation."

Later we talked as 'sisters' do. I wasn't out yet as trans and even though I am a guy, I can't ignore the weird bond we still have by being raised with female expectations. And she told me how it hurt to hear her entire family dismiss her as a ditsy blonde. I told her of how I tried to defend her, saying things like "To her credit, she is smart in a lot of things. She can talk to ANYONE and find common ground and communicate effectively, that's hard to do." But lamenting that it was met with little to no enthusiasm or understanding, except for a cousin or two who agreed and were probably the only two who understood what I meant, or cared to try to understand. I was never able to avoid a family event again unless I was severely sick and throwing up, like my second to last Christmas with my family. It was 2020 and I had a cold, wasn't risking it with no vaccine for covid out yet and grandparents who were high risk. I got lucky and we found out my uncle had been cheating on my aunt. There were bigger fish to fry than my "liberalism" and need to argue.

I struggle between three thoughts, hoping my sister and step-brother defend me as I've defended them against the arrows of my family's gossiping habit, a problem I've been trying to fix with myself in my adult years, a hope that they don't defend me so they can survive through the awkwardness of being the only ones knowing that not only is my partner Nonbinary, but that I'm trans and will be misgendered and deadnamed, I don't want them, especially my step-brother who's stuck under that house, to be in any kind of danger, I'm not worth them getting kicked out. And a third part of me, that wishes I would finally stop giving a fuck about what my family, people I've spent my entire life around who have never truly known me, and who I don't want to know me, think.

I'm the first child, nephew, cousin and grandchild to spend Thanksgiving with another family, and while I can't ever tell anyone why, while I can only sit here and cry. I can't help but be happy that I finally made the decision I've been dying to make for so many years. I hope they talk about me, I hope my parents find a reason why I wasn't there, I hope it's the worst piece of slander she can think of, and I hope they gossip about me. At least I know they love me enough to keep telling my stories, even if they're all lies.

#tw family trauma #tw death #rant #my sleep deprived thoughts #long post #vent #tw transphobia #tw conservatism #Thanksgiving #Christmas #tw Thanksgiving #tw Christmas #autism #cycle breaking #(in a way i guess) #added some music. not for any particular reason but it helps me when writing these kinds of things #so hopefully it helps when reading these kinds of things #Spotify

[yaoiceo]

The fact my wife kins diluc while I kin kaeya, our colours have always been red and blue, she's always hot while I'm always cold, it's like we were meant to find kaeluc, I've always felt that we were meant to be like I was never a "fated lovers" person growing up

I met her when I was 10 and she was 13. She terrified me, she was older and quiet and different and I didn't know how to talk to her, I didnt even think of her again until I got her younger sister as my "reading buddy" when I was like 12 and I didn't remember who she was lmao

Cut to me at 13, drinking heavily, smoking and all around just not doing well, I get invested in a dumb anime to distract myself which was Ouran, autism took over and it became my personality and queued a message from her, first time we spoke in nearly 4 years

I don't have a memory of when exactly I started liking her through our few months of new friendship, I just know when I told her she outright rejected me lmaooo it hurt so bad but we were still friends

Three months go by and someone else is interested in me, a new friend I'd only known a few weeks, I plan a date with her and my wife texts me the day before and asks if she can come talk to me about something, I say okay

She tells me she likes me and she'd like to go out, now fun fact I have bpd and autism and just issues so my feelings are muddled super easily and it was always hard to tell feelings from friendship, I thought I was past my feelings but I was wrong

We started dating on September 7th 2013,it wasn't an easy start between my self esteem and attachment issues and her general awkwardness due to sheltered upbringing so I thought she didn't like me when it turned out she was just embarrassed to ask to kiss me, communicating wasn't our strong suit

We've never broken up, never had a break in general but had a very rough patch that we came out of so much stronger, we've been together 9 years, 13 and 15 to 23 and 26 (she's got 2 years and 11 months on me lmao) I really genuinely think with my entire being that we were meant to be together, she came into my life at a really awful time and we've helped eachother through our worst years

We have our own place now, we're engaged and have a cat and are happy despite not having much other than eachother

She's my Diluc, I'm her Kaeya, that's why I'm so obsessed with the concept of them together because they're so so similar to us and I am so in love with her

#logan.txt #Idk why I typed this #I'm supposed to be writing my novel but no time to be gay

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

Penny being trans + autistic coded made me resonate with her as I am nonbinary and autistic myself. Her being a robot felt like me when I have to hide my neurodivergent traits. Her getting confirmation that she wasn't just a robot/machine but a real girl felt so validating. I don't have to look like everyone else to still be considered "real".

Ironwood's semblance being literal hyperfixiation, something I've dealt with since I have ADHD + autism would have made me feel better about myself. This is a man who, despite everything: his PTSD, being an amputee, still was a kind-hearted man. This is something rarely seen in media. I was happy.

Then they fucked up both Penny and Ironwood in ways that struck me. Penny is hacked into and forced to comply with basically forced suicide- she was to open the vault, then self-destruct.

Ironwood, oh dear god. They couldn't wait to fuck him over. He was so HAPPY to see team RWBYJNROQ. He told them everything about his plan, trusting them with literal GOVERNMENT secrets, giving them a place to stay, FREE weapon upgrades (Atlas is known for its advanced technology), hell even gave them their HUNTRESS LICENSES THREE-ISH YEARS EARLY (which Ruby later uses as a credibility source in her broadcast, which was eerily similar to Cinder's in Volume 3, when she says IRONWOOD CANNOT BE TRUSTED.)

Not to mention that she conveniently forgot she was calling for help from OTHER KINGDOMS. OF COURSE they wouldn't arrive soon enough. And no one had reason to trust her. She's a nobody. She was at the Vytal Festival and her team made it all the way to the singles? Cool. Ruby wasn't the final fighter, hell after the 4 vs 4 match she didn't compete further.

Blake would have obviously been a bad choice: she's a faunus and if anyone knows about the White Fang, they might recognize her.

Yang is more known than Ruby, but the world saw her kick an unarmed teen in the finals round. She doesn't have too good a reputation.

Weiss? She's well known as the Heiress, but also her singing. Having her give the speech is a mixed bag: on one hand, she's a recognizable face. On the other, that's a problem. Her father, the CEO of the SDC, is known for his cruelty. Blake said it herself way back in Volume 1: questionable business practices and partners.

So... How about no broadcast at all? What did her broadcast accomplish?

Nothing. Help didn't arrive and likely caused more panic. Plus, people still had a negative view of Atlas, as the last thing the world saw was Atlesian soldiers turning against civilians.

The last broadcast was before Beacon fell. So likely another hacker giving a message would be met with fear.

And what attracts Grimm? Negativity.

Ruby's broadcast could have been a DEATH SENTENCE to so many. But no, this is treated as the... Right course of action?

Ruby and co. hates Ironwood's plan, yet it's clear they don't have one. RWB spends a lot of time moping around the manor drinking tea. Team YOJR (Yang, Oscar, Jaune and Ren) actually DO SOMETHING. Oscar gets kidnapped and they chase after him. Ren rightfully points out that NONE OF THEM SHOULD BE DOING THIS. But that goes against the Hivemind™, so he must apologize and agree to whatever the fuck Ruby decides to do.

Which is NOTHING! RWBY didn't even take down the hound: WILLOW and WHITLEY did. A drunk woman and an unarmed teen defeated it.

Oscar is the one who blows up the whale (with his time bomb? huh??)

Ruby whines that it's all too much, cries on a staircase while her sister (remember that Ruby and Yang are related????) comforts her. The scene has no emotional depth because the two barely interact anymore.

OH GOD AND WHEN YANG TAKES A HIT FROM NEO THAT WAS MEANT FOR RUBY IT TAKES HER OUT COMPLETELY. AURA? GONE. HELL, SHE'S EVEN UNCONSCIOUS. I swear it's like the animation budget could only afford to have ONE character react, and it's Blake "sad kitty face" Belladonna. Not Ruby, who is her sister. WHO HAS A SPEED SEMBLANCE. But no, they just watch her fall, not knowing if she's alive.

Ruby has more of a reaction to CRESCENT ROSE, HER FUCKING WEAPON falling.

Which is retconned so hard in the Vol 9 trailer, where she tells Neo "I hope it was worth it" before falling into the void. Huh??

Anyways I'm rambling again but I am so angry!

-🎼

Never, ever, EVER apologize for rambling. I LOVE hearing peoples thoughts and sometimes it's a really nice feeling to let out your frustrations and anger towards something that has caused you harm and it really REALLY sounds like this caused you a lot of harm and so I do not blame you one bit for being hurt and angry. I should apologize for this taking so long. This was a lot and I needed to sort my thoughts and even so I probably missed some points so I also apologize for that.

Penny and Ironwoods biggest mistake was trusting and being kind to RWBY. They lied and betrayed James and treated him like garbage even though he showed them nothing but kindness and did whatever he could to help them and listened to them. Penny was told what to do and think far more so then James ever supposedly did. Ruby decided to give her a new body, decided she didn't like how James was treating her and that she thought James was a bad person, and decided that Penny was better off with them. Penny stopped being able to make her own decisions once she started hanging out with RWBY and co.

Really though what did they all think was going to happen when they sent out a message that matched beat to bear a lot of what Cinder said before Atlas fell? Did she think about the panic that would cause? Did she forget she was worried about Ironwood telling everyone back in Volume 7 because of the panic it would cause everyone??? Did that just conveniently slip her mind?

I honestly think Weiss would have been the best choice to give the broadcast of them all but I don't think they should have sent out the broadcast in the first place. It should realistically only cause panic and death but the narrative is gonna yadda yadda right past all of that.

Oh god yea RWBY and co complain and whine and scream that Ironwoods plan is bad whilst offering up no alternatives then just taking his plan and acting like it was theirs the whole time. They even did this in Volume 7 when in episode 2 they where worried about James telling Atlas about Salem and then turning around and acting all happy and shocked when James told everyone near the end of the season as if they wanted him to the whole time and not the other way around.

Man RWBY really did jack shit all volume huh? As you said all the major things side characters did: Fight James TWICE: Winter, Emerald, and JNRO.

Try and rescue Oscar: JRY

Blow up the Whale: Oscar

"Redeem" Hazel and Emerald: Again Oscar

Defeat the hound: Whitley and Willow

Launch the tower: Penny

Help defend Mantel against the swarm of Grimm: FNKI and the soldiers that all died trying to buy Ruby time while she cries in a mansion.

Like what does this girl do to help any of the people SHE trapped???

Oh god Ren, poor Ren, he's finally seeing the light but he can't stray from the Hivemind so he needs to get back in, we can't question the pure and perfect Ruby her plans are always right even if it causes Salem to get two relics and destroys the only kingdom with an army or the technology to restore global communications in the process.

Yea you're right like CRWBY can make excuses all day for why Ruby didn't react to Yang falling and MAYBE I can buy her not using her Semblance because she's in shock but not crying or reacting at ALL to her supposed death?? Why does her weapon get a more emotional response then her SISTER? Why is only BLAKE allowed to be sad about Yang supposedly dying? Why does fucking WINTER have more of a reaction to her sister dying?

Why are all the people we are supposed to be rooting for so fucking unlikeable???

#RWDE #Pro Ironwood #James Ironwood #RWBY Bashing #Pro James Ironwood #ironwood Protection Squad #penny polendina #Sorry for MY rambling #and more rambling to come most likely

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 25

AO3

Taglist: @nott-the-best @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised@alastair-appreciation-month

Previous Chapter: Chapter 24

Next Chapter: Chapter 26

Uncle Jem had brought several of the Carstairs family’s old notebooks, and the past week they’d spend studying them to see if there was anything interesting. They’d rescued Grace, but no one had been able to find Tatiana since, nor did they know what they were up against exactly and if they could defeat it. Cordelia believed cortana could kill it, but walking in with no plan would just get them all killed.

Thomas felt like they were running out of time. He hadn’t told anyone yet, but he felt tired lately, much more than usual. For Alastair that was normal, he guessed, Alastair was always tired and therefore Thomas had no reason to complain. Still, it was odd and sudden. Then he’d gotten a bit of a headache, and right now he struggled to finish his lunch, which was already much smaller than what he usually ate. He’d eaten much less than he usually did the past days, truth to be told. He just didn’t have the same appetite. He was feeling a little chilly too, but guessed he should just put on a cardigan.

‘Are you alright, Tommy?’ his mother asked. ‘You’ve been eating so little lately.’

‘Just nervous, that’s all,’ Thomas said.

The thing was, Thomas didn’t usually eat less when he was nervous. If anything he ate more, he’d always been a stress eater. Instead he figured he was coming down with something. Someone else might just have said, ‘I think I’m getting sick, I’m going to rest a bit’, but after a childhood of frequent illness and worrying parents Thomas couldn’t get the words over his lips. He’d make sure to rest a bit more, he told himself. But he didn’t want to worry anymore, and he especially didn’t want his parents to start taking care of him like they used to when he was young.

Instead, he returned his attention to Alastair, who had long finished eating and gone outside to read. A ray of sunlight fell on his cheek, illuminating his warm golden brown skin. His eyes were fixated in a journal so old it looked like it might fall apart any moment. Not in Alastair’s careful hands though. He was holding the journal with meticulous care, so no damage would come to it. With his free hand, he pushed a lock of hair behind his ear, but it was not yet long enough to stay there so it fell back in front of his face. Back in school, Alastair would slick his hair back with hair gel, always perfectly in order, not a hair out of place. Thomas, who usually took a comb through his hair and left it at that, had wondered where he found the time. Now it was falling in soft wavy locks over his face. At school Thomas would never have guessed Alastair’s hair was wavy, but it was loose now and Thomas had grown to love gently running his fingers through it. He’d always loved Alastair’s dark hair, he thought. Alastair had shown him a picture from when he’d dyed it blonde, and although that looked alright, Thomas thought his dark hair was much more beautiful.

‘Anything interesting?’ Thomas asked, sitting down on the bench next to Alastair.

A gnome came up to his feet. Thomas and his mother had been feeding them to gain their trust, and not long since the gnomes had learnt that Thomas meant a chance for food. He guessed there were still plenty of cookies he didn’t feel like eating at the moment anyway, but he also wasn’t motivated to go into the kitchen and get anything. Thomas guessed resisting that adorable smile was good practice for when he got pets.

‘Nothing yet,’ Alastair said. ‘But I think I’m getting to the part that described that witch. It might give us some clues about what else Lucie can do.’

‘Have you discussed with Cordelia where you’ll live after the summer?’ Thomas asked.

Alastair had confided in him that even if his mother managed to get back the house and could go and live there, he was considering moving in with uncle Jem for the time being. His father’s house held too many bad memories, and Thomas could understand it would not be good for his recovery to live there again. Alastair had not yet made a decision, but Thomas thought it might be good for him.

‘She has not yet decided what she’ll do,’ Alastair said. ‘She is a bit young to live without her mother after all. Besides, with our mother pregnant it would be better to have someone with her. If she doesn’t get the house back, I presume she would stay with Risa and with me gone there might be enough space for Cordelia as well. But I’m almost nineteen, I figured it might be time to move out. Even if I’m moving in with another relative instead of getting my own place.’

‘That’s just practical, living on your own would be expensive. Besides, Jem won’t be another parent, will he? So you’ll still get to practice your adulting skills in a relatively safe environment. Does Jem live far away from your mother?’

‘Completely different part of London, but still in the city,’ Alastair said. ‘Easy to travel to university from there. It’s a big house, so I’ll really have my own space and get to take care of myself, with Jem still there in case I can’t. I’ve lived there until I was about six. When I was still happy, there are no bad memories tied up to that place. I thought maybe I could be happy again there.’

‘Where does Jem live exactly?’ Thomas asked.

Alastair gently put the notebook away, closing it carefully and putting it down in his lap. He took his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, showing him a screen of google maps with a marker where Jem lived.

‘Oh, that’s not far from where my parents live,’ Thomas said. ‘Only a few stops with the metro. We live close to the station.’

‘I didn’t realize. Well, that’s convenient. Makes it easy to have sleep overs or go out together if we don’t live too far away.’

‘Precisely,’ Thomas said. ‘Would you like to go for a walk when you’re finished here? A short one, I am a little tired. But I’d like some fresh air.’

Alastair carefully bound up his notebook and put it on the table inside with the others, before coming with him.

‘It’s safer to bring Lucie,’ Alastair said. ‘In case we get trapped in between again.’

Alastair had a point, although Thomas would like some time alone with him. He was so busy at work all the time, ever since Jem had arrived he was preoccupied with the journals. Thomas missed their walks.

‘Alright, we’ll walk to uncle Will and aunt Tessa and ask her and Cordelia to come. I’m curious if uncle Gabriel and aunt Cecily are coming this way too. Jem said they were struggling to find a babysitter.’

‘Right, for little Alexander,’ Alastair said.

‘And Christopher,’ Thomas added. ‘My other cousin. He’s almost seven now.’

‘What’s he like?’ Alastair asked.

‘Different from Alexander, that’s for sure,’ Thomas said. ‘Alexander is a menace. Sweet, but fierce and hyperactive and if you don’t watch him for two seconds he’s swinging from the curtains somewhere. Christopher… he’s not as wild. He’s curious and is obsessed with science. He likes to do simple experiments, and we sometimes have to keep him from setting things on fire. I’m not sure he realizes “Don’t try this at home” applies to him as well. Fortunately, putting on a science show on tv usually keeps him from blowing anything up. Usually, my sisters and I babysit them when necessary, but he also adores uncle Henry, who is an inventor.’

It occurred to Thomas that Henry was Charles’ father. Sometimes children did not resemble their parents, he guessed. It had been a bit of a shock for everyone to learn that Charles had been Alastair’s former lover. Even if not everyone knew how awful he’d been to Alastair, they all had pieced together how much older Charles was. His father most of all had been horrified, since he’d known Charles since he was a baby. Thomas suspected he’d go confront Charles himself if Alastair hadn’t asked him not to. He knew Alastair was still ashamed of his past relationship and was still trying to make sense of it all. Thomas was glad he’d found trust in him and his parents, even if Thomas suspected Alastair still kept the worst of it to himself. Who could blame him? He wasn’t sure if Alastair finally believed his parents cared about him now, but at least he seemed to trust them which was a big step for Alastair. His mother had told him about her past and how she’d gotten her scar in an attempt to let him know he could talk about it and she understood.

‘As a child I had a phase where I liked science too,’ Alastair said. ‘I think I often had phases like that with different interests. When Cordelia and I were very young, we both loved architecture and played with all sorts of building toys and legos together. I also really liked math for a while. Then the animals from the forests in Devon. I lived there for a while in a small village. I think that’s when I grew a bit obsessed with hedgehogs.’

‘Christopher has been obsessed with science for some time now,’ Thomas said. ‘But we’ll see how it goes and what he’ll like in the future. He’s being assessed for autism and ADHD. He’s a sweet kid, but he struggles socially. Not a lot of friends unfortunately. I honestly think he prefers my company over his peers.’

‘I know what that’s like,’ Alastair said. ‘To be the child with the weird interests and never fit in with other children.’

‘You lived in Devon for a while. What was it like there?’

‘The scenery was amazing. The forests there are beautiful. The people… not so much, I prefer London.’

‘I lived in the countryside for a couple of years too when I was little, for my health. I think where I lived the people were nicer, more involved than in the city.’

Alastair made a face. ‘Not when you’re foreign and your mother wears a roosari. The people in Devon are mostly white. I don’t think Father really considered that when he moved us there, it was mostly about him. They might be kind if you’re part of their group, but they’re hostile to outsiders. Fortunately, we moved back after a couple of years.’

‘Ah, of course,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He felt stupid for not considering that earlier.

‘Well, people are racist everywhere. But at least in London there are more people of color and people are at least used to the idea that not everyone’s white.’ My mother still gets dirty stares and comments for her roosari, but she’s not the only one who covers her hair. So while in Devon, I much preferred to spend my time in the woods looking for hedgehogs than with other people. I guess I still do.’

Thomas felt a bit numb in his head, shivering even if it wasn’t cold at all. Perhaps going for a walk wasn’t the best idea, but he wanted to spend some time outside just the same. He should have brought something warm to wear, was all. He wasn’t really sick, it was just not as warm as he’d expected. But Alastair wasn’t shivering at all, he seemed to enjoy the sun on his skin. Thomas did too but it didn’t bring him any warmth.

‘You need to go back for a cardigan?’ Alastair asked. ‘There are goosebumps all over your arms.’

‘Oh. No, I’ll be fine.’

Thomas felt faint in the head and by the time they made it to the Herondale’s house, his vision became a little blurry and he collapsed against the door. He was awfully nauseous yet didn’t feel like he was going to throw up. Alastair noticed his sudden movement and his reflexes were quick. He tried to catch him.

‘Why are you so goddamn heavy, Tom,’ he groaned, trying and failing to stop both of them from crashing into the door.

Leaning against Alastair and the door, Thomas pushed himself upright again, blinking a couple of times until he felt he could stand on his own feet again. Alastair’s soft fingers went from his cheek to his forehead, and Thomas immediately recognized what he was doing. It was the same thing his parents and sisters had done his entire childhood. If they didn’t have a thermometer at hand, they’d feel his forehead, his neck, and determine if he was allowed to go anywhere. Alastair was going to determine he was sick and then all that was left was for everyone to tuck him into bed and start taking care of him. Thomas had hoped to avoid that.

‘You’re burning up,’ Alastair said. ‘You should not be going outside, much less for a walk. Come, we’re here anyway, I’m sure you could use the couch.’

Alastair led him inside, one arm around his waist and the other in his hand, and packed him in blankets on the couch, fetching a thermometer and some paracetamol.

‘Alastair,’ Thomas said, trying to piece together words through the headache and light headedness.

‘Just let me get this,’ Alastair said, pushing the thermometer into Thomas’ ear.

‘Alastair,’ Thomas repeated.

’38,6,’ Alastair said. ‘Tom, you have a serious fever. Why didn’t you say anything? I’ll make you some tea, just relax.’

‘Alastair!’ Thomas yelled, startling the boy.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Please don’t. I can make my own tea, I can take my own temperature,’ Thomas said, trying to calm his breath. ‘I hate it when people take care of me. I told you about my sickness as a child. I don’t want things to be like that again, I don’t want to be taken care of. So please, don’t. Just let me do it.’

Alastair sat down next to him. ‘You were about to walk into the woods with a fever. I’ve seen how stubborn you are.’

‘Yes. I am stubborn. I didn’t realize it would be so bad. But please, let me make these mistakes by myself. I don’t want to be treated like a sick child again.’ Thomas paused, blinking away the tears in his eyes. He didn’t realize this would make him so emotional. ‘I always loved that about you, how you believed I could take anything. How you didn’t treat me as if I was fragile because I was small and used to get sick.’

Alastair sighed. ‘I was an ass to you, Tom. It had nothing to do with respect, or thinking you’re strong.’

‘I know, and it did hurt sometimes. But I loved that you believed I could take it. I knew you didn’t mean any of the things you said, and with me, it was always a bit more light hearted, teasing perhaps.

But you never forced me to go to bed and rest when I did not want it. Matthew grew up around me being sick all the time, and I think he learnt from a young age that I was fragile and to be taken care of. James too. But I never wanted that. I’ll rest, I promise. But I’ll make my own tea, alright?’

‘I’m sorry, Tom. You can make your own tea. Make some for me as well?’

Alastair settled onto the couch while Thomas went into the kitchen to put on the kettle, still wrapped in a blanket. He was too cold to go without it. While waiting for the kettle to boil, Thomas realized Alastair did have a point, he could barely stand upright. Still, he was determined to at least do this. If he wanted anything later, he could always ask Alastair. He picked out a selection of tea bags for Alastair and put in a herbal teabag for his own. Thomas didn’t believe herbal tea cured sickness, but it was worth a shot.

He settled back on the couch, wrapped the blankets back around himself and took two paracetamol, hoping that would at least lower the fever.

‘I really can’t believe you think of my being rude to you as something positive,’ Alastair said. ‘I made fun of your height all the time.’

Thomas shrugged from underneath the blanket. ‘I never minded when you called me pipsqueak or wee little Thomas, or, I don’t know, you had plenty to say.’

Alastair raised an eyebrow. ‘You certainly took your revenge.’

Thomas tried to find a comfortable position on the couch, blankets around him. Alastair did have a point with the paracetamol, and Thomas took two. Hopefully they’d lower his fever.

‘Perhaps I’ll start calling you pipsqueak,’ Thomas said. ‘The name suits you much better now.’

Alastair made an undignified sound. ‘I’m not that short.’

‘You’re plenty shorter than me,’ Thomas said. ‘I always kind of liked it, pipsqueak. It sounded sweet even if you meant it to be hurtful. Sometimes I feel like you never really did a good job at being mean anyway.’

‘I never wanted to hurt anyone,’ Alastair said, ‘and I did have a bit of a weak spot for you then. I can be even worse than what you’ve seen, but I save that for bigots.’

Thomas put his hand on Alastair’s cheek. ‘I always thought you were holding back on being mean, even if you could still be quite vicious. But pipsqueak is mine now.’

Alastair looked mortified. ‘I guess I can’t stop you, can I?’

Thomas lay down on the couch, head on a pillow. Why were all these blankets so small? His feet were still cold and he’d have to find a solution for that. Really, blankets should be made for tall people. Nobody short would complain about having a bit of leftover blanket.

‘It’s concerning, that you’re getting sick after all these years,’ Alastair said softly.

‘It’s nothing,’ Thomas said. ‘Everyone gets a fever every once in a while.’

‘I haven’t had a fever in years. Colds, at times, but rarely a fever,’ Alastair said.

‘You don’t get the flu?’ Thomas asked.

‘Not that I remember,’ Alastair said. ‘But I figured that’s just the age, as a child I would get the occasional fever like all children do, and I imagine I’ll get them again when I’m older.’

Thomas had gotten the flu a couple of time over the past years. Never anything serious or with abnormal frequency, but it had sent the entire family into a panic whenever it happened.

‘Please don’t tell my parents,’ Thomas said. ‘That I’m sick, I mean.’

‘How did you plan to keep it from them?’ Alastair asked.

‘Well, I was hoping I’d be better by the next morning,’ Thomas said. ‘I could sleep over here and then when I’m better pretend nothing happened.’

Alastair was skeptical. ‘I really don’t think you’ll feel better that soon, even if it is a normal flu.’

Lucie and Cordelia entered the room through the garden door, Cordelia turning her sword back into the familiar necklace. ‘Those are a lot of blankets,’ Lucie pointed out. She was right, and Thomas moved them around a bit so at least the biggest blanket would cover his feet, reaching up to his waist.

‘We wanted to revisit the ruins,’ Cordelia said. ‘See if there’s anything else that can give us information on Tatiana or the thief of souls. I was wondering if you would be coming.’

‘Thomas is sick,’ Alastair said.

‘Don’t stay behind on my behalf,’ Thomas said.

Alastair frowned. ‘You sure? I would gladly stay here with you.’

‘I think I’m going to get some sleep anyway,’ Thomas said. ‘Please don’t trouble yourself on my behalf. Go, I’ll still be here when you get back.’

‘Get well soon,’ Lucie said, putting her arms around him briefly. ‘You know how the tv works in case you want to watch a movie.’

‘I’ll be alright, Lu. Good luck with your mission.’

Thomas wanted to believe he had just caught the flu. Bad luck, nothing more. But perhaps that wasn’t the case. Perhaps he wouldn’t get better. Perhaps this meant they were running out of time.

#Thomas Lightwood #Alastair Carstairs #Lucie Herondale #Cordelia Carstairs #Thomastair #Lucelia #fanfiction #the last hours #tlh

[alarawriting]

52 Project #30 (Writeober #15: Mortality): Everybody’s Happy As The Dead Come Home

Ever since my mother died of breast cancer a few years ago, I’ve been making time to go visit my elderly father about once a month. That may be conjuring up the wrong image in your head, so let me clarify. My father’s over 70, but he still has a lot of the energy he had as a younger man. He works as a consultant for the big corporation he spent his entire adult pre-retirement life working for, for about three or four times as much money, and he enjoys it. He’s got an active social life, spending time with friends he had shared with Mom as a couple, and new friends he’s made from his bereavement group or his consulting work. And my sister, the baby of the family, lives with him, and my two younger brothers come to visit him a lot more often, since they live a lot closer than I do. So if you’re imagining a lonely, stooped old man pining away in a house that smells like stale cat food – that’s not my dad, and I can’t imagine it would ever be.

I arrived late on a Friday night, as usual. My sister met me at the door, and actually looked me directly in the eye. Stephanie’s autistic; she never looks anyone in the eye. “Eleanor,” she said, and that was another strange thing, because she almost never calls anyone by name… unless she’s doing it for emphasis. “When you find out, don’t say anything about it,” she said.

“About what?” Most of the time Stephanie makes sense, but every so often she says something that sounds like her mind has jumped ahead in the conversation without realizing all the missing pieces she never bothered to say.

“You’ll know,” she said. “And you’ll want to ask ‘why’ and ‘how’, and I’m telling you that you can’t do that. Don’t ask any questions. Just come talk to me after you’re done.”

“Done with what?” I asked.

And then a voice called me from the TV room. “Lennie? Lennie, is that you?”

Only my mom and dad are allowed to call me Lennie. And that was a woman’s voice. I froze in place.

“Go see her,” Stephanie said, and headed off to her room.

I turned toward the TV room, slowly. “Lennie! Come out and see me!” my mom’s voice called.

I didn’t know whether to be terrified, or to start crying and fling myself into her arms. I walked very slowly, very cautiously, to the edge of the kitchen, where I could see my parents in the TV room. Both of my parents. My dad was smiling.

“Lennie!” my mom said, standing up. She hadn’t been able to stand up without help for months before she died, but here she was, standing up easily. She didn’t look any younger than she had when she died, but she looked healthier. The extreme thinness she’d suffered from at the end after it had metastasized and she’d barely been able to eat was gone; her flesh was filled out, her skin as taut as you could expect from a woman her age, and healthy-looking. Pale, but her natural paleness, not the weird, sallow, almost yellow color it had been at the very end.

“Mom?” I whispered.

“Come here. I need a hug,” Mom said, sounding exactly like she always had – joking, but there was always that note of truth under it. She didn’t wait for me to make my way to her – she never had, not until she was too ill to get up – but came straight for me and gave me a hug, and she smelled like herself. Not like a rotting corpse, not like ozone or nothing or whatever a ghost is supposed to smell like.

When I was a kid, my brother Jeff and I watched the miniseries version of “The Martian Chronicles”. In particular, he was always impressed (and terrified) by the part where the astronauts meet their long-lost loved ones, who turn out to be Martian shapechangers luring them to their deaths. I always wondered, if the people they saw on Mars were dead, how did they fall for it? How did they not know that dead people could not somehow be on Mars?

As I held my mom, who’d been dead a few years now, I understood. They’d wanted to believe. I wanted to believe. Stephanie had warned me not to ask anything – no “how are you not dead”, “how can you be here”, “why are you alive,” nothing like that. I assumed that was what she’d meant, anyway.

“Mom, I’ve been trying to trace some of my past that I’ve forgotten. Do you remember the name of my third grade teacher?”

“Huh.” My mom seemed to be thinking about it. “I think it was Mrs. Wilder, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. Second grade was Ms. Jenner, right? And fourth was Mrs. White?”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t, in fact, remember my third grade teacher’s name, and neither did my dad. The Martians in the story had been telepaths; they’d been able to perfectly impersonate the astronauts’ loved ones because they could read the astronauts’ minds. Now I had a piece of information whose answer I didn’t know, and no way to easily confirm it unless Jeff remembered; he was only two years younger than me and had had some of the same teachers. But some of the people I had friended on Facebook were high school classmates, and a tiny number of my high school classmates had also been with me in elementary school, and might remember my third grade teacher’s name.

“I haven’t seen you in so long,” my mom said. “What’s going on in your life?”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Things are going okay. Mom, if I’d known you were here I’d have brought the kids.”

“You can bring them up next time,” Mom said.

This was so weird. My mom was definitely dead. I had seen her body in the coffin, lying in state, looking nothing like she had in life. But here she was, impossibly, and I was holding an almost normal conversation with her. “Have Jeff or Aaron come over since you’ve… been here?”

“Jeff was here last weekend,” Dad said. “And Aaron lives next door, so he’s been over nearly every day.”

My grandparents used to live next door. When they died, my mom and my uncle inherited the house. My uncle bought out my mom’s share and rented the house out, and my youngest brother ended up renting it. My other brother lives in an apartment down in the city; I’m the odd one out, living in a completely different state, with a husband and kids.

So all of them had known, and none of them had told me. I expected Stephanie and Aaron to never tell me anything, but I was more than a little irritated with Jeff.

“Let me go drop off my stuff,” I said, since I was still carrying my bag.

I went back to Stephanie’s room, which used to be my room, a long time ago. The boys used to room together, but my room was too small for Stephanie to share with me, and she had needed a lot of space of her own… so they’d converted the loft in the garage into a bedroom. It had never been warm in the winter, though, so as soon as I moved out, Stephanie had moved in.

Stephanie was, as usual, on her computer. I shut the door behind me. “Okay. What the hell is going on?”

“She’s not the only one,” Stephanie said, without looking away from her computer. “I’ve been doing research. They’re all over the place. There’s no explanation yet, and apparently none of them will talk about it. I asked Mom and she said I was really rude, and sulked and was really passive-aggressive.”

“So we’re not worried about Mom turning into a Martian shapechanger or vanishing, we’re just worried that she’ll get mad?” To be fair, making Mom mad had always been a thing worth avoiding at all costs. “When did she come back?”

“I don’t know exactly, but presuming that she came to see me right after she came back, it would have been Monday around 3 pm.”

“And no one told me? You have my email address!”

“…It just didn’t feel right, telling you something like this in email. I felt like I should wait for you to be here.”

“And Jeff didn’t? And Aaron didn’t?”

Stephanie shrugged. She still didn’t look away from her computer. “They probably felt the same way.”

“Does Dad… know? Like, does he even remember that Mom is dead, or does he think this is normal?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

I sat down on her bed. “Steph, I’m asking you to make an informed guess. Has he said anything to you that would either suggest that he’s aware this is abnormal, or that he isn’t?”

“I don’t read minds, but I haven’t heard anything from him one way or the other. He’s very happy, though.”

“I got that impression,” I told her. I went to the guest room, which used to belong to the boys, opened up my laptop, and sent Jeff a question on Facebook about my third grade teacher.

Mom appeared while I was debating whether or not to also ask him why the hell he hadn’t told me about her. “Lennie, don’t hide in your room. Come out and talk to me and your dad. You need to catch me up on your life!”

Part of me wanted to break down crying. Part of me wanted to run to the car. Part of me was annoyed the way I always used to be annoyed when my mom wanted to spend time with me and I had stuff to do. And part of me hated myself for being annoyed by my mom for any reason at all. She was back from the dead and I wanted to hide in my room? But I wanted to hide in my room because I wanted to do research to figure out if this was really my mom or not. And what had Stephanie meant by “all over the place”? People all over the place had returned from the dead? Why wasn’t this all over the news?

What I said was, “Okay, mom,” and I went out to the TV room to talk to her.

***

Here I was, having a completely mundane conversation with a dead woman.

Yes, my husband was doing well at his consulting business. Yes, my oldest daughter was doing well in college. My youngest daughter had a rough spot a few years ago but was doing better. The daughter in the middle was putting a lot of time into her music, and was getting really good. I didn’t mention that my oldest daughter had gotten a diagnosis of autism like her aunt, or that my middle daughter was failing all her subjects because all she cared about was music, or that my youngest daughter was openly bisexual and dating a nonbinary teen in her class, because those would be fraught topics around here. My mother would be openly disapproving of the failing in school – as was I, but I wasn’t here to listen to a lecture about what I should be doing differently to make sure Rhiannon passed her classes – and she’d be what she thought counted as supportive about the other things. Are you sure it’s a good idea for Janie to have an autism diagnosis on her medical record? Lots of people will discriminate against her, just ask Stephanie, it’s not a good thing to admit to the world. And if Lori wanted to date a person who claimed to have no gender, good for her, but was she sure it was a good idea to admit to the world that she was bi when the world is so prejudiced? Blah blah blah. No. I wasn’t going there, not with my mother back from the dead.

All the questions I wanted to ask. How? How was she back? Why? Was there an afterlife after all? What was it like? Are you absolutely sure you’re not a telepathic shapechanger who wants to eat us? Is anyone else coming back or is it just you? But I couldn’t do it. My mouth wouldn’t make the words, and I felt like Mom being alive was a soap bubble that might burst any moment. If I said she was dead, would she disappear? I couldn’t take the risk.

Now I knew why Jeff and Aaron hadn’t told me. The compulsion not to talk about it, the fear that talking about the circumstances of her death and her apparently-no-longer-deadness would cause her to stop being no-longer-dead. I wouldn’t be able to tell my husband about this, or my kids, not unless they came here. Not without feeling like Mom might disappear if I did.

Which was probably how Stephanie had gotten away with it, in the beginning. If this was some kind of emotional pressure, something emanating from the presence of a dead woman... Stephanie was typically immune to emotional pressure. Or pretended she was, anyway. She hid behind her monotone and her face that barely expressed anything until she couldn’t, and then she’d go and have a meltdown in the bathroom. But she wanted to please Mom. We all wanted to please Mom. So if Mom had told her she was rude for mentioning the death thing, Stephanie would be unable to mention it again. Because she wouldn’t want Mom to think she was rude.

This felt very much like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Dead mother back to life, check. Weird inexplicable pressure not to talk about it, check. But Mom clearly remembered things that had happened shortly before her death, and showed no evidence of knowing about anything that had happened since, unless it was public knowledge. She talked about interests the girls had had three years ago, interests they’d all outgrown since. She talked about my plan to remodel my own garage – I had completely forgotten that was even a thing we’d planned at one point, because I’d lost my job shortly after Mom died and then the money wasn’t there for the remodel. She didn’t know I was working with my husband in the consulting business now, which a telepath would obviously know because it dominates my life nowadays. Obviously a Martian telepathic shapechanger would have to pretend not to know things that supposedly happened while they were dead, but if I’d forgotten about the garage, what were the odds a telepath could pull it out of my head? There had to be more accessible thoughts in there, after all.

I didn’t know what to ask Mom. How do you feel? That was always a good one, back in the day, because Mom’s chronic illnesses meant there was always something she could complain about, but she wouldn’t do it until she was asked… she’d just quietly resent the fact that no one had asked her. But did dead people still feel things? Would that intrude on the topic I wasn’t supposed to talk about? What’s going on in your life? Oh, nothing much, Lennie, I’m back from the dead, how about you?

So I talked about myself. I was learning to work leather and I’d made myself a wallet, but I left it at home, I could bring it to show her next time. I was also learning to repair dolls. The girls had all abandoned theirs and I felt bad about it, so I was cleaning them up and repairing them and putting them in dioramas. Mom was very interested in both topics, and asked if I could repair some old dolls she had up in the attic. I was pretty sure I’d already done it – if it was the dolls I was thinking of, Dad had given them to me right after Mom died, and they were the ones I’d learned on. But was it safe to talk about? Dad wasn’t saying anything; had he forgotten he gave me the dolls, which was entirely possible, or did he think it wasn’t safe to talk about either?

I’d wanted for three years to be able to tell my mom that she was wrong about all the weight loss advice she’d given me because now it had come out that scientists had never proven that fat made you fat and the low-carb diets were probably better for you than the low-fat ones, but I didn’t know if she could still eat. Also, my mom was back from the dead and I wanted to start an argument with her about a topic I’d always hated when she talked about? Didn’t I have anything better to do? That really kind of made me a shitty person, didn’t it?

When Mom had been dying, I couldn’t talk to her about the future. I didn’t know how to bring myself to talk about things she’d never see. I’d never known how much my conversations with her consisted of me talking about future plans until I couldn’t any more. Now I couldn’t talk about the future or the past, at least not the past three years, and large parts of the present had to be left out too, because I didn’t know what would remind her that she was dead and make her go back to her grave. Even though, logically, I knew that was unlikely to happen because Stephanie had done it and had just gotten a rebuke that that was rude.

At the same time… I knew I had to say something that Mom could talk about, because if I just talked about myself all night, later on she’d probably make some passive-aggressive remarks about how everything always had to be about me. In desperation, I asked her if she’d seen anything good on television lately.

“Oh, I haven’t been watching anything in a while,” Mom said. “It’s been so long since I felt well enough to go anywhere, so I’ve been going for walks, and your father and I have been taking trips to museums and historic sites. We’re going to be going up to Boston next week.”

“I have a client up there,” Dad said, “and they want me to do a training thing. And I was telling them, no, no, Boston’s too far, but I remembered how much your mom loved Boston, so I asked her if she wanted to go and she said yes, so now we’re going. We’re going to fly, though. The days I was willing to drive that kind of distance are long over.”

“You could take the Amtrak.”

Dad made a dismissive gesture. “It’s gotten so expensive. Flying’s actually cheaper.”

“When are you going?”

“Next Wednesday we’re going to fly up there,” Mom said, which said something about her opinion of the future, at least. “Your dad’s got his presentations to do on Thursday and Friday, and I’ll wander around the city, and then we’ll spend Saturday seeing the sights together.”

“There’s this fantastic restaurant I went to last time I was up there on business,” Dad said, “and I checked their web page, and they’re still open. So we’re going to go there.”

So Mom could eat. Or Dad wasn’t afraid of talking about eating with her, anyway. Maybe ruled out vampire, but Martian shapechanger was still on the table.

I didn’t literally believe my mom – or the entity that appeared to be my mom – was a telepathic shapechanger from Mars like in The Martian Chronicles. But it was obvious that something so far outside the norm that it was only imaginable by making references to fantasy and science fiction was happening.

I tried, very carefully, “How have you been feeling, Mom?”

“I’m great!” She laughed. “I haven’t felt this good in ages. Sugar’s under control, I can see pretty well, none of the usual aches and pains… I’m doing pretty good!”

Did she remember she had died of cancer? Did she even remember that she’d died?

It was 2 am before I got to go to bed.

***

6 am and I was up and out the door before there was any chance of my mother or father being awake, assuming my mom even slept anymore. But at the very least, she was in her bedroom with the door closed and no view of the driveway I’d parked my car in.

Do I sound like a terrible daughter when I tell you I’ve never visited my mom’s grave? I haven’t been back there since the funeral. I always knew my mother wasn’t really there – that if any part of her had still existed in any form, it wasn’t trapped in a coffin under six feet of dirt. It made it somewhat difficult to find the graveyard, though, because I couldn’t remember where it was, or its name, or which church it was associated with, and it wasn’t exactly like I could ask my mom. When I finally found the place– it wasn’t that hard in the end, my parents live in a small town and there aren’t many graveyards – it took me half an hour to find her grave.

It seemed undisturbed. But if Mom had been back from the dead since Monday, that would have been time to fill in a grave. I went looking for the caretaker.

They get to work early in the graveyard caretaking business, I guess; I found him pushing a lawnmower over on the other side of the graveyard.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“This is going to sound stupid,” I said. “But I got an email from a jerk I used to know in high school claiming he was going to dig up my mother’s grave, and I just wanted to make sure nobody’s touched it.”

“Nobody’s touched any of the graves, ma’am,” he assured me. “Aside from a couple of funerals we’ve had this week, no one’s done anything to disturb the ground here at all.”

“Thanks,” I said, “that’s reassuring. He was talking like he was actually going to do it, but I guess he was all talk.”

“Well, if anyone comes by and disturbs any of the graves, we’ll have them arrested,” he said.

I had my answer. My mother had not climbed out of her grave. Which seemed impossible anyway, now that I knew enough about the funeral industry to know exactly how hard it would be to smash a coffin open, let alone dig through six feet of dirt. I couldn’t rule out her turning immaterial and floating out of her grave, but my mom had seemed very material and biological when she’d hugged me. I’d always thought of ghosts as something that were almost never solid enough to interact with the world, if they even existed.

***

If I was going to get up this early, I was going to get a pancake breakfast at the diner. My parents still think sugarless cold cereal is a reasonable thing to eat for breakfast. They were always night owls; I made myself breakfast and school lunch every morning but the first day of school, every year after about third grade. I was also a night owl, once I didn’t have to get up for school anymore, but I used to make my girls a lunch every night and store it in the fridge for them. Now they’re too old and too cool for Mom lunches. They’re eating something, but it might be cafeteria food, lunch they pack for themselves, or for all I know sandwiches from 7-11 or Starbucks with their allowance.

The point is, I hardly ever get a nice breakfast, because I am hardly ever willing to wake up early enough to cook myself one, and my parents certainly weren’t going to. So I went to the diner.

Normally I don’t talk to anyone at a diner, beyond smiling at them and telling them my order in an upbeat, cheerful voice because waitresses get too much shit from too many people for me to add to it inadvertently. Also because I don’t want them to think I’m eating alone because I’m a sad, lonely bitch no one would love; I want them to know I’m doing this because I really, really enjoy not having to socialize. But today I had something I needed to know.

“I’m a writer,” I told the waitress, “and I’m doing research on ghost stories in the area. Have you heard anything, you know, Halloweeny or spooky? Ghosts appearing, dead people walking around, poltergeists, that kind of thing?”

“Can’t say I have, but I’ll ask around, see if any of the girls know any good stories,” the waitress told me.

And then she took my order back to the kitchen, and I surfed the net on my phone while I waited, and then I got my pancakes, and I ate them. I was chasing the last blueberry around on the plate when another waitress approached me. “Stacy told me you were collecting creepy stories for a book?”

“From the local area, yeah.”

“I don’t know if this is the kind of thing you’re looking for, but… my cousin says that a lady on her street, her husband died a few years ago? But she just saw the guy walking with the lady down the street, having a conversation like the guy never died.”

“Do you think you’d be able to give my email to your cousin and have her reach out to me? That sounds like exactly the kind of story I’m looking for.”

“Uh, sure.”

I gave the waitress my email address. This was probably going to come to nothing; I doubted the waitress would even remember to give it to her cousin. But it’d be really good if I could get the details from someone who knew more about it.

***

Jeff’s more of a morning person than I am. I got a response on Facebook, but I had to wait to get back to my parents’ house, where my laptop was, to read it. On mobile, Facebook will only let you read messages if you have the app, which tells Mark Zuckerberg exactly where you are and what you’re doing with your phone, all the time. I don’t have the app. Sometimes this means I can’t read messages on mobile, but I prefer that to having an evil data empire know everything about my movements.

My parents weren’t awake when I got home. Or they were still in their bedroom. They used to do that a lot. Mom’s desk was in there, and Dad had a laptop… which he usually used on Mom’s desk, since she died. I wondered where her machine was, and if she had made a thing about it once she came back.

“I’m not sure I remember what your third grade teacher’s name was… I can barely remember my own third grade teacher. Were they the same? I can’t remember. I think my own teacher’s name was… Wil-something? Wilber? Wilkins? You’d be better off… well, you’re at the house now, or are you back at your home? Kind of important to know, because I could give you some advice about who to ask, but it’d be a different thing if you were at Dad’s house.”

He meant, “You’d be better off asking Mom, but I don’t know if you know Mom is back from the dead or not.” I was pretty sure, anyway.

I responded. “I’m at Dad’s house. Wondering how I’d be able to tell the difference between someone who’s real and a Martian shapechanger. Could the name have been Wilder?”

Five minutes later I got my answer. “Mom isn’t a Martian shapechanger. It was the first thing I thought of, so I checked.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

That answer I didn’t get until half an hour later. “I… just didn’t feel right, talking about it in an impersonal medium like the internet. I know you have a cell phone and I probably even have your number somewhere, but I remember you’re not the biggest fan of actual phone calls, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”

I replied with my phone number and the message “Call me.”

And then I had to sit by my phone, doing nothing important, nothing that would engage my attention in any serious way, waiting for him to call. Which took twenty minutes, despite the fact that I could see that he was online.

Finally the phone rang. “You raaaaang?” I answered in my best parody of The Addams Family.

“I’m pretty sure I must have, or you wouldn’t have known to pick up,” Jeff said. “Of course, I might have buzzed. You could have your phone on vibrate. Or maybe I sang, depending on what you have for a ringtone.”

“’You saaaaang?’ doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi to it.”

“Wow, how long has it been since I heard someone put je ne sais quoi in a sentence? I think we’re old. I think that’s an old person expression now.”

“What’s going on with Mom?” I asked, quietly, in case anyone might be in the hallway to hear me.

Jeff sighed. “I don’t know what is, but I can tell you what isn’t,” he said. “Stephanie confirmed that she eats, sleeps and goes to the bathroom normally, and I confirmed all of that for myself. The toilet in their bedroom is still broken enough that they don’t flush it unless they have to.”

I winced. That was a level of detail I could have done without. “So, not vampire or undead. How did you solve the Martian thing?”

“On Monday, Dad woke up and she was laying next to him in bed. If the goal was to kill him, it would have made more sense to do it then, before he woke up, than to put on this whole elaborate performance.”

“You’re taking me too literally. I’m not worried about aliens trying to take our family off guard so they can kill us. There’s any number of things they could be up to, and they don’t have to be aliens. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Stepford Wives. My Little Pony.”

“…My Little Pony?”

“There’s creatures called Changelings that feed on love. They impersonate ponies and take the love that other ponies feel for the ones they’re impersonating, as food.”

“Kind of psychic vampires mashed up with Martian shapechangers.”

“Yeah, but without the telepathy, so they’re not as good at it as you’d think. It’s a children’s show; they have to telegraph to the kids that these aren’t the real ponies. In real life, anyone who did something like that would be more competent.”

“How much verisimilitude do we need, though? She’s got moles in the same places Mom had moles. She’s missing a toenail just like Mom. Things I didn’t consciously think about, things I might not have remembered if you asked me to describe Mom.”

“That just means that if it’s not Mom, it has the ability to rummage deeper into our memories than we’re consciously aware of. That’s why I asked you my third grade teacher’s name. I genuinely don’t remember. Mom would, I’m pretty sure. Dad wouldn’t and Stephanie and Aaron were both too young.”

“I’m not sure I remember, but when you said Wilder, that sounded like it could be right. Do you know anyone from elementary school? Some of them went to high school with us.”

“I have some Facebook friends from high school, and maybe one or two went to the same elementary we did, but I haven’t been able to locate any actual people that I remember from elementary school. They don’t have a Classmates.com thing that works for elementary—”

“It says it does.”

“It lies, there’s nowhere to enter your elementary in your profile. All it lets you put in is high school, and it’s from a drop-down, not even freeform.”

“Huh. Guess I never tried it. I’m still in touch with anyone I cared about from back then.”

“I literally don’t care about anyone from back then, but that makes it hard when you’re trying to figure out your third grade teacher’s name.”

“If she can probe our memories,” Jeff said, “then nothing you or I know, or ever knew, would be safe. You’d have to come up with something to ask her that Dad wouldn’t know, or me, or Aaron, or Steph, or yourself, but that you know Mom would know and that you know someone else who would know it too.”

“I could ask Mariana for something.” My mom’s close friend and high school classmate was one of my Facebook friends. We don’t generally communicate directly with each other, but I follow her posts.

“That’s a good idea.” I heard the sound of a whistling teapot in the background. “That’d be my hot water for my oatmeal. If you get anything from Mariana, can you tell me about it?”

“Yeah.” I’d wanted to tell him about the story I’d heard in the diner, but no one got between Jeff and his oatmeal. “I’ll talk to you later. Probably online. Voice is making me paranoid.”

“I know what you mean. Do you need me to come up this weekend? I could make a day trip tomorrow.”

“That might be a good idea. I want to talk to Aaron, do you know what schedule he’s on?”

“He works nights now, so you’ll want to get him around 2 pm or so.”

“All right. Enjoy your oatmeal.”

“I will!” he said, putting a ridiculous amount of emphasis into it as a joke.

***

Before I could finish writing a message to Mariana – before I could really start, honestly, because how could I explain why I needed what I needed without admitting Mom was back from the dead? – someone knocked on my door. It was Mom. She was wearing one of her usual kind of shapeless but colorful nightgowns, and her hair was not brushed, so it was kind of a wreck. I noticed for the first time that it was grey. Mom had always dyed her hair since she started going grey, and it had still been auburn when she’d died. I’d never seen it fully grey. “Your dad and I are going to the arboretum,” she said. “Do you want to come?”

“Since when have you been into trees, Mom?” My mother had always been fascinated by history, and to some extent natural history like dinosaurs, but I’d never seen her express an interest in nature per se.

“I never was, much,” she admitted, “but the world is so beautiful. I was always more interested in the way humans shape the world than the way it came out of the box, but things like arboretums, Japanese gardens, zoos and aquariums… they’re made of nature, but they’re made by humans, and they say something about the people who chose to make them the way they are. And you know that your dad has always enjoyed nature.” My dad was interested in science, in general, and considered the natural world part of that. He was not exactly the kind of guy who would go camping.

In the past, I would have said “no, thanks.” I was never all that interested in nature myself, certainly not trees – maybe beautiful rocks or interesting landscapes, but looking at trees wouldn’t have seemed interesting to me. I still didn’t care much about trees… but my mom was back from the dead. I’ve gone much stupider and more boring places than an arboretum with her in the past, and now… if this was really her, if she was really alive again, I was going to spend all the time with her that I reasonably could.

“Sure, I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll take my own car, though. Just give me the address.” I always took my own car if I possibly could, because I’d get carsick if I wasn’t the one driving. “Should I ask Stephanie if she wants to come?”

“Sure, you can ask. I doubt she will, though.”

Stephanie, however, surprised me. “Yeah, I’ll go with you. We’ll meet Mom and Dad there?”

“Yeah.” Dad had texted me the address, so I pulled it up in my GPS. “About half an hour from here.”

In the car, she asked me, “Have you found anything out? I know you were looking into the whole Mom thing.”

“Jeff thinks she’s really Mom. We have a plan to get Mariana to give us a question that we don’t know the answer to, but that Mom and Mariana both would, so we can confirm she really knows things and isn’t just reading our minds. And a waitress at the diner said her cousin has seen what looks like someone else coming back from the dead.”

“It’s all over the place, actually,” Stephanie said. “I’m finding reports from everywhere.”

I glanced at her. “Why wouldn’t this be making the news, then? People coming back from the dead!”

“I feel like maybe no one wants to go on the record.” Stephanie looked out the window. “Nothing on Twitter or Facebook. No pictures of dead people on Instagram. I’m seeing things on Reddit and Tumblr – places where people use a consistent pseudonym, not like 4chan, but where that pseudonym can’t be tied to their actual identity. I’ve posted about it in both places, but I can’t make myself tweet about it.”

“Any idea why not?”

“It—” She shrugged, hands exaggeratedly widespread and head canted forward slightly. “It just feels wrong,” she said. “Like… we’re getting away with something. There’s a natural law we’re breaking here. I can post as toomanymushrooms or u/catonahottinroofsundae and no one knows who I am, but if I post as Stephanie Robbins and I tell everyone that my mom Suky Robbins is back from the dead…”

“What if that brought it to the attention of, what, some kind of authorities?”

“Yeah, pretty much. And even if I was just posting under my own name… I don’t have to say Mom’s name. I don’t have to put a mention to her Facebook in a post. But everyone knows my mother’s name, or they could find out from my name if they wanted to.”

“And you think maybe there are a lot of people with these weird feelings?”

“I don’t think so, I know so. A lot of posts explicitly talk about the fact that they can’t bring themselves to say anything in public, or talk about it with their real names on it.”

“Are they all parents?”

“No. It’s all kinds of people. Best friends, siblings, spouses, children… the only pattern I see is that nobody died a long time ago. It’s all, ‘my brother who died last year’ or ‘my aunt who died two years ago’ or something. Longest I’ve seen anyone talk about was a son who died five years ago.”

A thought occurs to me. “I can add something to your pattern, though.”

“Yeah?”

“You’d expect that, even if everyone with a resurrected relative feels this sense of dread about telling anyone about it with their name attached, because they feel it will, I don’t know, maybe cause the dead person to disappear back into their grave… you’d think somebody would do it anyway because they don’t care. Someone whose alcoholic abusive father came back and they wish he’d go away again, someone’s asshole brother, someone’s former best friend who betrayed them. But so far, no one has. How many people have you seen talking about this?”

“It’s hard to say because no one’s using their real names. Someone might post from their main blog and their side blog, or maybe they have a different name on tumblr vs reddit but they posted to both. But I’ve tracked thirteen separate names, and of those, I can tell for a fact there are at least nine unique ones because they talk about different people.”

“Thirteen isn’t ‘all over the place’.”

“I didn’t mean all over the Internet, I meant people coming from all over. I’ve tracked the UK, California, North Dakota, Ontario, France, India and New Zealand. Nobody’s tagging their posts and no one is willing to contribute to a master list, so it’s hard to find anyone outside of the people I follow or the subreddits I’m in, and I don’t know where everyone comes from. But it’s geographically widespread. I suspect it may also be happening in other places where people don’t generally speak English or maybe don’t have Internet access.”

“And what’s their sentiment? Like, are people frightened? Upset? Excited? Weirded out?”

She took a moment to think about it. “They’re happy. People are happy it happened. Weirded out, yes. But happy.”

“No whacked-out conspiracy theories about how it’s the contrails raining down adenochrome or something?”

“Not from the people it’s happened to. There was one flame war I saw where a religious person was saying that the person whose sister was back from the dead had to repudiate her. She’s not really your sister, she’s a demon from Hell sent to trick you, et cetera. And the person whose sister was back turned out to be just as religious, and they threw a holy fit. Literally. A holy fit.” She giggled. “A whole lot of stuff about how the righteous were coming back and Jesus had granted some people eternal life and this was that, and how dare you call these beings demons when they’re obviously blessed by Jesus himself and you’re the kind of person who would have called for Jesus’s crucifixion if you’d been alive then, and all that kind of thing.”

“Did anyone else who’d had returned people say anything?”

“This was Tumblr. None of the people who have had returns are communicating with each other in any way I can see. I reached out to a few on Tumblr private messaging but no one has answered. The only places I’m seeing conversations about it between people with returns have been on Reddit, because it has a forum structure. Tumblr is more like a whole hanging web of disconnected strings.”

“Still, you’d think that someone would be publishing a news article about it. Even if no one is willing to go on the record with their real name…”

“Maybe it’s not enough people. Nine unique instances, maybe up to thirteen, maybe more in places I haven’t surveyed. It’s not like I have access to literally all of Tumblr, after all. But that’s all I can confirm, and what if there isn’t any more?”

“If anyone came back from the dead I would expect the news to take notice.” I turned onto the final road; the arboretum was at the end of this stretch. “I went to the graveyard today. Mom’s grave hasn’t been disturbed. I checked with the groundskeeper. So either Mom’s body floated ethereally through the grave dirt, and her coffin, or her original body is still in there and whatever she is now, it’s not the same as what she was then.”

“It’s too bad we can’t have her exhumed,” Stephanie said.

“It probably wouldn’t tell us much anyway.”

“She’s younger-looking than she was before. Not by much, and the grey hair hides it, but she’s healthier-looking and less wrinkly. And I don’t see any evidence that she still has diabetes, or that she’s taking any pills at all. I haven’t seen her take any insulin shots, or anything.”

“Huh.” She wasn’t restored to her youth, or her hair wouldn’t be grey and there would be no wrinkles at all. She wasn’t restored to what she was at the moment of death, obviously. She wasn’t restored to what she’d have been at the moment of death without the cancer that killed her, if she didn’t have diabetes anymore. I felt like there had to be a pattern here I wasn’t seeing. I really wanted to talk to some of these other people having this experience.

I pulled in to the arboretum’s parking lot. Mom and Dad weren’t there yet; Dad doesn’t drive like an old man, but he doesn’t drive as fast as he used to, either. “Do they do this kind of thing a lot? Arboretums, parks, et cetera?”

“They don’t usually invite me, and I wouldn’t usually come if they did, so I don’t know. They do leave the house a lot.”

Dad’s car pulled in, and he and Mom got out. For the first time I could remember, Mom was actually moving a bit faster than him. Both Mom and Dad were the kind of people who walked quickly everywhere they went, but for a long time, Mom was slowed down by her various illnesses. Dad was still healthy for his age, but he’d slowed down a good bit since Mom’s death – grief was hard on his health, it seemed – and now Mom seemed healthier than he was.

“Did you know there are people who come here from all over just to see our leaves in the autumn?” Mom said.

I did know that; it was typically a factor in making it hard for me to come visit during the autumn. “I think it’s the mountainsides. There’s leaves turning colors all over the country, but not on mountainsides.”

“In California they don’t even consider these mountains,” Mom said. “They call them hills when they come visit.”

“No respect for the elderly,” Dad said.

“Yeah, these young mountains think they’re all that, but wait 100,000 years and see how tall they are then,” Stephanie said.

We strolled around, looking at the trees, reading what it said on the plaques in front of them. American Elm. Yellow Birch. Eastern White Pine. I’d seen trees just like these my whole life, and a good number of them, I’d never known the names.

“You never think about how beautiful the world is,” Mom said. “We’re all rushing through it, trying to accomplish the next thing. Or entertain ourselves. Read a book, watch TV. So few of us really want to interact with nature.”

“Careful, mom, your hippie roots are showing,” I said, teasing.

“I think if my generation had remembered what we were back when we were the hippies, the world would be better off.”

“We didn’t forget, Suky. The hippies were always big news, but you know as well as I do how many people our age just wanted to go punch a clock, buy a house, vote for Ronald Fucking Reagan… We thought we were the generation that would change the world, but it wasn’t our generation, it was us. People like us, who wanted to see a better world and weren’t content to just live like the sheep our parents were… but there’s people like that in every generation. And they’re always outnumbered by the assholes.”

“Actually, they’ve done a study,” Stephanie said. “The reason generations get more conservative as they get older is that at every point, the poor are more likely to die than the rich, and the rich are more conservative than the poor. So by the time you get to middle age, a lot of the people looking for social justice and diversity are dead. And there’s a lot more dead by the time they’re elderly.”

“I don’t buy it,” my dad said. “There’s entirely too many stupid poor people in this country who are brainwashed into supporting causes that help out the rich people and screw themselves over. They’re not living longer than anyone else in this country. The math doesn’t work.”

“Let’s not talk about politics,” Mom said. “I think we all know there’s something more important we ought to be discussing.”

“Mom?” Stephanie said, and looked at her, which is not a thing Stephanie does very often.

“Suky?” Dad said.

I didn’t say anything. I watched as Mom looked up at a tree and said, “It’s time we dealt with the elephant in the room, don’t you think?”

“Are you going to tell us about—” I couldn’t say anything more. I couldn’t bring myself to make the words.

“About the fact that I was dead, and now I’m not?” She looked at all of us. “I think we should talk about it, yes.”

It felt like there were eyes, watching us. I wanted to yell to my mother, to tell her not to talk about it, that someone might hear… but who? And why would it matter?

“Is that something you’re okay with, Suky?” Dad asked.

“I’m fine, but I’m getting the impression the rest of you aren’t,” she said. “Why haven’t any of you brought it up, except Stephanie, the once?”

“Well, you told me it was rude,” Stephanie said.

Mom sighed. “I guess I did. I’m sorry. This isn’t really easy for me either.”

She sat down on a bench, and Dad sat with her. Stephanie and I sat on a short stone wall around a tree. “I suppose I should start by saying, I don’t really know much more than you do. I don’t have any memories of being dead. I woke up in bed, next to your dad, on Monday morning, and for a while I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there… I assumed I went to bed the previous night, but I couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. I couldn’t pin down anything I remembered as to exactly when it happened, not in the recent past. And when your father woke up, the shock on his face and the fact that he kept asking me if I was really here made me think, wait, the last thing I remember was that I was in a hospital dying of cancer, so why am I here now?”

“So you don’t remember any kind of afterlife?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I believe I had some sort of existence, but I don’t remember anything about it. When I wake up, I have flashes, feelings that I dreamed something about it, but I can’t hold it in my head long enough to write it down or even talk about it. It just… disappears, leaving behind only the memory that something was there a few minutes ago.”

“You know how unlikely the idea that an afterlife exists is, scientifically, though. Right?” Dad said. “Consciousness is an emergent property of a trillion neurons working together. Imagining that there could be some sort of construct that exists outside the brain and body is like imagining that a video game character could be waltzing around in front of us.”

“And yet I’m here,” Mom said.

“Time travel or a Star Trek transporter with some modifications would make more sense than something supernatural, like an afterlife,” Dad said stubbornly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Stephanie said. “If Mom doesn’t remember…”

“Have you had a medical exam?” I asked.

Mom laughed. “I don’t have health insurance anymore. I’m dead, remember? I can’t even begin to figure out how we’re going to address getting me a legal identity again, and to be honest… I can’t know I’ll be around long enough for it to matter.”

“None of us know that,” I said, “about ourselves or anyone else.”

“True, and it’s going to be hard to travel if I don’t have a legal identity. So I suppose I’ll have to address it eventually, if I last that long.”

“Thank God your state ID hasn’t actually expired yet, or there’d be no way we could fly to Boston. The passport’s expired,” Dad said. Mom had been legally blind when she died, so she’d had a state ID rather than a driver’s license.

“Is there any reason you might not? Aside from the things that could kill anyone?” I asked.

Dad said, “Your mother and I discussed… when she first appeared, I found it nearly impossible to talk about the fact that she’d been dead. When she broached the topic, I could talk about it to her, but I couldn’t tell you kids.” He shrugged. “My working theory is that there’s some kind of alien experiment going on or that time travel is somehow involved, but the fact that none of you kids were able to tell each other about it until you knew the other one knew suggests to me that someone with the ability to directly affect human emotions or thought is, for some reason, making it hard to talk about this. Maybe that means it’s a short-lived experiment.”

“Maybe I escaped from hell and no one wants to talk about it for fear the devil will take me back,” Mom said, but she was laughing. Mom had never believed in hell. Dad was an atheist; Mom definitely had strong spiritual beliefs, but they were kind of a package of woo that included reincarnation and ghosts, even though she’d been raised Catholic.

“There are others like you,” Stephanie said. “None of them have talked about it themselves, but family members or friends have talked about it online, under pseudonyms. I haven’t found any evidence that anyone has mentioned anything under their real names.”

“A lot?” Mom was surprised.

“So far I count between nine and thirteen unique individuals, plus Eleanor heard a rumor that someone who might live in town might have come back. We don’t know any details, though.”

“We need to find them,” Mom said. “I need to find them. I have a second chance at life, and I’m not ashamed of it. I won’t be silenced about the fact that I exist.”

“It might not be the best idea, Suky,” Dad said. “There are a lot more crazies out there than there were when you died—”

“—there were plenty of crazies then, Dee—”

“—right, and even then it wouldn’t have been a good idea. There might be some religious nut job who thinks that if you were dead you should stay that way. Or someone else thinks that you know how you came back, and wants to force you to tell them.”

“Those are valid points,” Mom said, nodding. “And to all of those people who might want to harm me because they think I shouldn’t be alive or they think I know how I came back, I say a hearty ‘fuck you.’ I won’t be silent because there are crazy people in the world. I’m not afraid of death, not anymore.”

“You’re going to risk Eleanor’s kids?” Dad asked sharply.

“I agree with Mom,” I said, standing up. “Nobody should have to keep quiet about the fact that they exist. But I have to tell Will.”

Stephanie made a face. My family doesn’t like my husband. They have justifications, but in the past few years, since Mom died, Will’s gone to therapy and has done a lot of work on himself. Mom was the only one in the family ever willing to forgive anything, though, so I’ve never tried to get them to change their minds.

Mom said, “Well, is he still a total asshole?”

“He’s… been trying not to be. He’s in therapy, and we’re doing couples counseling, and he’s working through a lot of baggage from his upbringing.”

“Why not tell him to bring the kids up and join you here, then. Coming back to life, might as well start a clean slate and see where things go from there. And you’re right, he needs to be involved in the discussion. Your girls, too. They all are old enough to understand what’s going on here, and what could happen.”

“You know I will never stand in the way of anything you want,” Dad said, which is the kind of thing Dad says rather than “I love you”. Things like, “If they ever fail to respect you, I will smite them” – talking about us and our treatment of Mom – or “You have always been my worthy opponent.” Yes. Sometimes my father talks like a comic book character.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” Stephanie said, “but I know you taught me to be who I am to the world and fuck anyone who gives me shit about it, so… same principle. I don’t think you could be you and lie about who you are.”

“And we need to involve Jeff and Aaron,” Mom said. “I’ll call them and get them to come here.”

“We turned off your cell phone ages ago,” Dad objected.

“Dee, we still have a land line. I know we do because I hear it ring, and sometimes you even answer it.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right, we do.” Dad shook his head. “This world where everyone carries around their phone in their pocket all the time… it’s strange how you get so used to a technological or societal change that you forget that you did it a different way for 67 years.”

Nothing ever stopped my mother when she wanted something strongly enough, if she believed it was right. I hadn’t even thought of the considerations my father brought up before he talked about them, but I’ve never believed it’s okay to hide in conformity and live in fear. I didn’t think Will had ever believed in doing that, either, and my daughters had grown up going to political protests.

“We need to find out more about these other people,” I said to Stephanie on the way home. “See if we can contact them directly, find out if any of the actual returned people are planning on going public like Mom. We could coordinate if they are. Strength in numbers.”

“The religious right are going to crap their pants,” Stephanie said, laughing. “A Deist who believes in reincarnation, is married to an atheist, and has a gay son, came back to life. Jesus Christ hasn’t got a monopoly anymore.”

“That is probably going to be the most fun part of this going public thing,” I said.

***

So now I don’t know what will happen. My husband’s driving up from home with our girls, my oldest younger brother’s on a train, and Mom’s been looking up contact information for journalist friends she had once, checking which ones are still alive, using Facebook – we never deactivated her account – and my dad’s LinkedIn. Stephanie’s found two other people who have family members who came back from the dead, and one of them’s been willing to talk to her in private messaging on Tumblr.

I still have a hard time telling anyone who doesn’t already know, but it turns out, I can write about it without feeling the pressure, the fear. Don’t know if I can post it, yet. I guess we’ll see. I’m hoping that if I can get more information from more people who’ve been through something similar, maybe we’ll find a pattern, a point of commonality… maybe even an explanation for why we all feel this pressure not to talk about it.

Tomorrow we’re all going to talk about whether we’re going to do this or not, but I know my family. What my mom wants, she gets, if it’s possible and if it’s ethical. My husband and my kids are going to be in favor of her going public, and my brothers won’t stand in her way any more than my dad would. So we’re going to do this. The thing we’re really going to talk about is how to keep ourselves safe when we do.

Everything in the world is going to change. I just don’t know exactly how yet.

***

***

Obligatory notes because I’m so fucking late with this piece: 

I have fucked up royally. I went into this without an outline and about 6,000 words in I realized I had attempted to consume a ball of energy larger than my head. This is going to end up being novel length, most likely. I struggled really hard to find a place I could reasonably end it as a short story, and yeah, it is absolutely not an ending. No followup on the Martian shapechanger thing, new idea is brought in and then treated like it’s the climax, protagonist is almost entirely reactive and passive. As a short story, it’s shit.

Unfortunately I found this out after I was already late. Not going to bore everyone with why this was a week late except that it’s allergy season and I’ve been exhausted lately. So there was no time to try to write something else. I hope you found it entertaining, if somewhat frustrating; it’s shit as a short story because it’s plainly a piece of a novel. Which I’m not going to write real soon because I have like 3 novels ahead of this one in the queue, but if I live long enough it will get done.

It’s kinda cute that story #30 falls on the 30th now because I’m late and story #31 is the last of my Spooky 5 Halloween-appropriate stories. But not cute enough to justify how late this is.

BTW, while this is not as autobiographical as “Radio” from Inktober, it is heavily drawn from real life. I altered some things because this is fiction, but the mother and the father in this story are pretty close to real life. Except that my mother hasn’t come back.

#52 project #writeober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #spooky5 #late!

[princesssarisa]

Assorted thoughts on “Little Women”

 In no particular order.

*I’m glad I waited this long to read the original, unabridged novel. If I had read it as a teen or a preteen, I just might have followed countless girl readers’ example of having a crush on Laurie and being angry that Jo doesn’t marry him. Reading it now, I’m able to see him as the well-rounded, likable yet flawed character he is, not just as a girl’s prize, and realize that while he and Jo have a beautiful friendship, they wouldn’t have worked as a couple. The canon pairings of Jo/Friedrich and Amy/Laurie are the right ones.

*About the controversial issue of the characters’ ambitions... None of the young leads achieve their childhood dreams in the end; Alcott’s intended message was clearly  “We don’t always achieve our dreams, but life can still be happy in ways we never expected.” That’s all well and good. But apart from Meg’s gender-neutral dream of being rich, the characters’ “castles in the air” are all in defiance of their expected gender roles: Jo wants to be a famous author and Amy a famous artist, two fields normally reserved for men, while Laurie wants to be a composer instead of going into his grandfather’s business. And all three of their endings are distinctly more gender-conforming: Jo becomes a schoolmistress, Amy becomes a society lady, both become wives and mothers, and Laurie goes into business “like a man.” I think it’s fair for modern readers to be disappointed by that conformity, even while appreciating the realistic message about childhood dreams. Those feelings aren’t mutually exclusive. For modern audiences, I think the standard adaptational change of Jo publishing her own version of Little Women at the end (instead of 20 years later in the last sequel) is a good change.

*About Jo needing to control her temper... I understand why this annoys some feminists. So often women are expected to suppress all anger and never stand up for themselves. Maybe it is problematic that role model Marmee explicitly never shows her anger, but only purses her lips and leaves the room. But personally, I think it’s presented in a healthy, gender-neutral way. Jo’s anger isn’t a problem because it’s “unseemly” or “unfeminine,” but because it can lead her to do cruel things to others. The mistake that teaches her the lesson in “Jo Meets Appolyon,” letting Amy skate on the thin ice, isn’t a loud, aggressive act of rage, but a cold, silent act (or rather inaction) of spite. Besides “control your temper” doesn’t mean “never stand up for yourself.” The book has several examples of women calmly yet firmly calling out other people’s bad behavior (most often Laurie’s ^–^) and it’s portrayed as entirely right. And though it’s tempting to be annoyed by Mr. March putting his finger to his lips when he sees his wife starting to get angry, it’s also a nice subversion of gender stereotypes to see a marriage where the husband is gentler by nature than his wife and is a calming influence on her. Stereotypical couples are the other way around.

*As a person on the autism spectrum, I relate strongly to Beth. I fully embrace the headcanon that Beth herself is autistic and that Lizzie Alcott might have been diagnosed as such if she had lived today. So it hurts a little to see other readers call Beth “boring,” “annoying,” a “doormat” and “the worst of the sisters.” Although she is idealized because she was Alcott’s tribute to her dead little sister, she’s not the cardboard cutout of bland feminine virtue she’s so often been stereotyped as being. It’s clear from the start that Beth isn’t “normal,” either by our standards or by past ones. Her crippling shyness isn’t just “sweet Victorian modesty,” but portrayed as a real flaw that she struggles to overcome. She’s been homeschooled because as a child her social anxiety made regular school unbearable for her. She still plays with dolls, believes in Santa Claus and has imaginary friends at age 13. She has no desire to get married, or to have any kind of career, or ever to leave her parents’ house. And because of all this, she clearly has a low opinion of herself: hence she tells Jo that she was never meant to live long, because she would never have been anything but “stupid little Beth, trotting about at home.” But the narrative belies her words. In both of her illnesses, so many people rally around her and reveal how much they love her and how valuable her quiet kindness has been in their lives. Ultimately she dies in peace because she realizes her life hasn’t been worthless after all. With my own social struggles, my tendency to be “younger than my years,” and my own desire to have a quiet life close to my family instead of going out into the big, overwhelming world and doing big, overwhelming things, I find her storyline beautiful, because it gives me hope that my life is just as valuable as anyone else’s.

*I also relate to Jo, as so many readers do. The result is that I’m of two minds of the chapters “Calls” and “Consequences.” On the one hand, there’s no doubt that Jo is at fault in those chapters and does more-or-less deserves to lose the trip to Europe. She’s genuinely, purposefully rude to her aunts and to the other people they visit and she humiliates Amy and harms her social life – at the subsequent fair, the Chesters ban Amy from the art table because Jo insulted them. Plus the only reason why she has to join Amy in the calls in the first place is because she promised she would, so it’s hypocritical of her to whine about it. But on the other hand, I do empathize with Jo. With my own my social difficulties, I relate to her hating formal occasions where she has to dress up, mind her manners, make small talk about topics that don’t interest her with people she dislikes, and always be “agreeable” and “docile.” For Jo and for so many of us, it’s so hard to be that way, yet it’s the mold that all women were expected to stuff themselves into in the 19th century and to an extent still are today. Amy is lucky that she enjoys playing that social game and that it comes naturally to her. So it’s easy to sympathize with Jo’s envy when Amy is chosen to go to Europe, to feel as if Amy is rewarded for her social conformity while Jo is punished for failing to conform, and to feel as if the message is that all girls should conform like Amy. Fortunately, the book as a whole doesn’t send that message: even Amy achieves her ultimate happiness by letting herself be a bit more like Jo and call Laurie out on his laziness and apathy, when back in “Calls” she had argued that a lady should never show disapproval to a man.

*I don’t understand why some commentators think the chapter “On the Shelf” is so horribly sexist. Well, actually, I do. It’s tempting to find fault with John for being “jealous” that Meg is focusing more on their babies than on him and for “neglecting” Meg and spending carefree evenings out while she slaves away with the twins. And for Meg to be told by her mother that this is her own fault for “neglecting her duty to her husband” understandably rankles some feminists. But I honestly don’t think there’s any real problem. Meg genuinely neglects John and overtaxes herself by devoting every waking minute to the twins and letting neither John nor anyone else help her, because she’s afraid that otherwise she’ll be a bad mother. John isn’t jealous of the babies, he understandably feels ignored and useless. Nor (despite what some critics think) does he cheat on Meg, or want to. He just goes to a friend’s house rather than sit alone at home; Meg’s fear that his eye is roving to Mrs. Scott is just a product of her own stress. The resolution is arguably just the opposite of sexist: Meg finally lets John take an equal share of child-rearing duties, lets Hannah babysit often so they can both have time for themselves too, and steps out of her domestic sphere to share talks with John about politics, literature, etc. By the end of the chapter, their marriage is more egalitarian than ever.

*I’d like to read a fanfic where Jo meets Rodolfo from La Bohéme. I wouldn’t ship them, since they’re even more “too much alike” than Jo and Laurie are, but I’d like to see them meet. They’re both lively, passionate, temperamental ENFP writers, whose minds are full of “castles in the air” (they both use that exact phrase), yet whose lives both turn out differently than they had hoped, although Jo’s outcome is much happier. Both also adore a sweet, gentle, sickly young girl (Jo’s sister Beth/Rodolfo’s love interest Mimí) whose death they both regard as the end of their own youth. Furthermore, both of their authors modeled them after themselves. Jo is more down-to-earth than Rodolfo, though, and I’m not sure if they’d be friends or hate each other – Jo would definitely be indignant to learn how Rodolfo emotionally abused and broke up with Mimí because he couldn’t bear to watch her die, when she herself nursed Beth day and night through both of her illnesses and never left her side. But it would be an interesting meeting.

@fairychamber, @thatvermilionflycatcher

#little women #meta #opinions #rambling

[carriecutforth]

The Shit

Tumblr is telling me to go ahead, put anything...so here it goes

I haven't been public about this for reasons that will be apparent but gonna start this with all the trigger warnings. I'm writing it here cause I can't talk to the majority of people about it cause most people can't even grasp, and then questions start, putting me in the situation of feeling like my GIANT SWEATER of trauma is being unraveled answering questions that lead to more questions and gah PLEASE DO NOT RETUMBL-- I just need to scream in the void This is the shit: On the day my sister-in-law's mother died she had to call form-1 my baby brother because his psychosis (undiagnosed mental illness which I will get to) was terrorizing their family (three small kids). My mother WHO IS SCHIZOPHRENIC had him released into her and my ANTI-VAXXER ANTI-MASKER narcissist father's care, but NOT before they found out, incidentally due to the FORM 1, he is ALSO really sick with leukemia. I only found out because I decided to dip into the special folder for emails called MOM that I try to avoid reading as long as they can FOR REASONS. But I felt for some reason an urge to, and then I had to try to parse out what had happened from her ramblings that are A LOT. Then I had to confirm with my poor sil who is at her wits end and was in no position to tell me herself. My dad stopped talking to me back in November when I called him for his anti-vax rhetoric as being EUGENICS when he told me it is just the flu and only killing old people and the disabled. I reminded him I've been immuno-compromised my whole life (he KNOWS this) and got chronic fatigue after a flu in late 2016 (he knows this), and did he not care if I DIED? (apparently not) But I was like lol, fine, don't talk to me anymore. Die mad about it for all I care. A lot of people are like: 'oh, that's tough, losing a relationship with your father' and I'm like YOLO (it really isn't if you knew him). SO THEN I have to reach out to my dad: "Why isn't my brother in the hospital being treated by medical professionals for YOU KNOW, HIS LEUKEMIA." My dad responded that the doctors were JUST GOING TO PUMP HIM FULL OF DRUGS! And that HE is treating my brother's leukemia with I dunno baking soda (he told me before it is a cure for cancer). THEN HE GOES RADIO SILENT. I have no idea where my brother is cause they got him an apartment somewhere in Toronto. *though I do have a Machiavellian plan to try to find out. The reason my brother has untreated psychosis is that even though I've begged my parents since he was a TEEN to get him diagnosed, they refused. It's like they have the opposite of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in that their ABLEISM is soooo bad they refuse to see he has been very sick, and even if he was really sick, 'doctors are stupid' <--quoting my dad. This is the backstory. My dad was always on the road for his job. My mom had my baby brother AGAINST all wishes of her doctor to ever get pregnant again. I'm not talking aborting, she got PREGNANT on purpose again to SERVE GOD'S GREATER PURPOSE even though it might kill her and said future fetus. So he was born with a lot of issues because of the very bad pregnancy's complications on TOP of the very hereditary bipolar/schizophrenia, AND everything else we got going on besides. After he was born, my mom went into a very deep depression for years and then would vacillate between that and mania. Which meant me: THE ELEVEN year old was forced to raise a baby that wasn't hers and had no ultimate authority over. I was called by everyone his *BROTHER'S NAME* SECOND MOM. *More on this later Our relationship is very strained because of this, particularly when at 17 I had enough momming a child while being constantly undermined by my parents absolute shenanigans. So there was resentment when I quit being his 'second mom' and that he equally resented for things like, trying to put him into bed, when my mom would come in and say let him stay up all night or getting him to eat something other than candy for breakfast (you can guess the dynamic with my parents here). Even if my disabled ass could sue my parents for his

care, he doesn't WANT me to be in charge of his care.

And yet still, I tried to advocate for him for years fighting my parents TOOTH and NAIL to get him on disability and out from underneath their thumb so he could have a measure of independence and autonomy. They had every excuse in the book not to get him diagnosed including expense. It was so goddamned awful fighting with them on this cause in their mind: he was going to live with either them or me forever (they decided this for me and my ex-husband and kids with no consultation), so WHY bother set up his future for him??? So when he was 20?, I hatched a Machiavellian PLAN: I got him, against my parent's wishes, into college for the sole reason of getting the resources for him to get diagnosed so that he could get on disability. AND IT WORKED! (kinda) Except my parents twisted him so much into only talking about his autism spectrum symptoms and NONE of the psychosis because their ableism is sooooo entrenched. (but I did manage to get him on ODSP). And subsequent times I forced my dad to take him to a psychiatrist, he's like: 'oh, I forgot to talk about the psychosis we just talked about the aspergers. Besides people with psychosis are untreatable, you can't convince them otherwise' (see again, my mom). Over the years, I have begged my dad to take my brother to get properly diagnosed and treated (I'm not meaning forced, my brother is also agoraphobic, and won't leave his place UNLESS he is driven by my dad and was living in a city far away from me). I said, I was very concerned for his kids but my dad always gaslights me (and tells everyone I'm crazy -- the IRONY). So now my mom is writing me emails about how this is all my sil's fault because 'she is on drugs' (she is not), 'she is sleeping around' (she is not), 'her kids are scared of her not my brother' (it's the exact opposite). WHICH IS A HUGE TRIGGER FOR ME because She did the exact same thing to ME with my other brother (a diagnosed PSYCHOPATH) who used to beat me and the rest of us mercilessly when my parents weren't around (and they never believed me, and told everyone not to believe me because I was crazy), who pulled a KNIFE on me and threw a drawer at me when I was NINE MONTHS PREGNANT, and how absolutely awful I was AS HIS SISTER to kick him out of my house with no place to live or go (cause he was living with me and my ex-husband at the time because THEY KICKED HIM OUT OF THEIR PLACE and didn't want him back.) Are you beginning to get a sense of the dynamic of my family? Soooooooo the last few weeks my brain has just been in total trauma mode going processing, processing, processing, processing as the final total realization of how absolutely awful my family is finally laid bare (I mean I knew but at least I can stop feeling guilty about cutting them out of my life). So back to the 'second mom' shit, as relevant to my trauma brain processing the last few weeks. This whole shit above is just the tip of the iceberg. I was raised as a Joho in which a lot of my trauma comes from a pedophile left loose on three generations of girls in my family over a thirty year period, and if anyone came forward they were threatened with disfellowshipment and there is SO MUCH there it would take me several Tolkien novels to get how absolutely awful, extensive it was, and how the coverup went straight to the top. ANYHOO. So who was calling me my brother's 'second mom???' Well since, I wasn't allowed to have any association with non-witnesses, it was my congregation. No one questioned that I was being parentified and it was a deeply abusive situation. NO WHAT HAPPENED instead was, this sister in the congregation told everyone (when I was fifteen and 80 pounds soaking wet at the height of 5'10 1/2) that my brother WAS REALLY MY CHILD cause it was so obvious the way that I was the one who took care of him. And the elders of our congregation MARKED me as bad association for loose morals for having a supposed child out of wedlock when I was ELEVEN YEARS OLD. AND NO ONE in my congregation would talk to me, and I had NO IDEA why, cause they never told me that I HAD BEEN

MARKED. But the caveat was I was not allowed to talk to people outside of the faith. And we only found out about this a year an a half later when she said the same shit back in my hometown where he was born to a sister who was at the hospital where my brother was born. AND NO ONE thought, hey: maybe if we think she had a baby when she was eleven we should um CALL CHILD SERVICES or some shit? So i was like 16 1/2, not allowed to have any friends OUTSIDE OF MY PARENTS, find out THIS SHIT, and then people wonder why I had my first manic episode at 17??? Yeah, so this is where my brain has been stuck the last month, complicated that I knew I would be at risk for hypomania with things opening back up, and I'm supposed to be shooting a pilot for a potential series I'm the creator/co-shorunner of, so now I've had to go BACK on seroquel and it's the worst while i try to acclimatize myself to the drugs and stave off hypomania at the same time. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

[pocketmosaic]

Who am I and why this blog?

What a good question, I am so glad you asked.  I am a 45 year old, mother of three, who has fibromyalgia, cfs/me and arthritis.  I guess I should also say that I am single as that is usually one of the first questions people ask when you meet them.

My children are aged 26 (yes, I know I was young when I had him), 20 and 18.  My eldest lives in the Midlands (UK) which is where his Dad and his family are, I don’t see him very often but I have been fortunate (in some ways) to have been able to spend 2 months with him this year.  I say fortunate in some ways because the reason he stayed with me for so long was because he was having a bit of a crisis and needed to get away.  Thankfully while he was here he helped me almost, if not more than I helped him.

The younger two live with me in East Anglia (UK), their father (who is a different man to my eldest’s dad) lives 10 minutes away.  My 20 year old is my main carer, he also helps with the 18 year old who has autism and social anxiety.  My 20 year old has been my rock through the years and I don’t believe that I would be sat here today if it hadn’t been for him and his support (and yes I do make sure that he knows that he is a very amazing person, even if he doesn’t always believe it).  Sadly he lost his job in the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 epidemic, as did so many others.  He didn’t work full-time but I do think that it was important for him to have that outlet, where he could make friends and do things that were not related to helping me and his sister.  We are trying to do thinhgs to help him rejoin the working world when the shielding is over.

As I mentioned my daughter has autism and severe social anxiety.  Around Oct 2017 she had total meltdown and refused to go to school, leave the house or even go near a door that was open to the outside.  She was in mainstream school before that, she is very clever and quite talented when it comes to anime drawings.  Sadly we did have quite a few problems with bullying, which the school did try and help with, even getting the police involved when the situation called for it.  Unfortunately, despite my asking for help several times, everything going on in the outside world just became too much for her and she put on the brakes.  We have had a little bit of help and after a lot of hard work on our part we managed to get her to leave the house.  She would go down to the local shop and the chip shop next door (about a 5 minute round trip), and we managed to get a volunteer to come and take her to a cat sanctuary once a week.  Two weeks after she had started doing this the cattery shut its doors to all non-necessary staff and then we went into lockdown mark 1.  Since then she has taken several steps backwards (although she does still do the shop trip if she has to).  I have been trying to encourage her to come out of her room and she refused to speak to me for 8 weeks, she wouldn’t even look at me.  We are now talking but she doesn’t come and search me out as she did before.  I am sure we will be okay and once the pandemic has some solution then we will work again at getting her out there.

I started by telling you about the children because it does tie in with what I am about to say in a few.  I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and CFS/ME about 15 years ago, gosh that was a long road to get the diagnosis.  It took about 4 more years to get my arthritis diagnosis because whenever I mentioned the pains they automatically put it down to the fibro/ME no matter how hard I tried to convince them that this pain was different.  Thankfully someone eventually listened and that meant that I could learn to do things that could help.  I do have other problems which impact my life slightly less than these, but we could be here a while if I went to deep into that and I am sure you don’t want that lol.

Long story short, I put on a lot of weight (about 6 stone or 84 pounds or 38.1kg), I was struggling to stay awake long enough to cook a meal and so I would just grab easy convenient snacks which we all know are not great substitutes but if I hadn’t done that then I probably wouldn’t have eaten anything.  I also wasn’t moving around anywhere near as much as I used to do, I had always been doing something before and although my diet wasn’t great I was burning up a lot of those calories so while I have never been skinny I wasn’t a big girl,

Up to the present(ish), I have battled with depression and anxiety for a long time, some of it because of how I looked a lot of it because of what I couldn’t do.  I forgot to focus on what I could do, what I did have.  A few weeks ago I went for a short walk by the quay (all my walks are short because it hurts so much and after a short time I struggle to pick up my feet).  I was watching the water, which I find very peaceful, and I saw a branch floating by on the current.  I was taken by an major urge to jump in and float off with it, which I am sure you will be glad to hear I managed to resist.  I thought about just getting into my car and driving until everything and everyone I knew were far behind me.  I felt like they would be better without me in their lives.

Somehow I managed to get back home and I tried to figure out how I had got to this point in my life.  I know I was missing my eldest, I was pleased I had managed to help him out but it had left a big hole when he went back home.  While he was with me we managed to sort out my house and threw away most of the clutter, which was great I felt like things were starting to move the right way.  So why had I spent weeks crying night and day?  I was awful to be around, even the woman who comes in to help me with the things I struggle to do wasn’t able to help with how I was feeling.

I knew I was lonely, although I have two children living at home they spend the majority of the time in their rooms, my daughter was ignoring me (even looking at the wall when she came to a room I was in so she didn’t have to look at me).  Every time I watched the television I would hear stories on how the lockdown had brought families together and how they were doing more as a family.  I couldn’t relate to that at all.  There was also so much talk about how people were keeping in touch over zoom or the like, I hadn’t even had one talk like that.  I don’t have a lot of friends, I am not good at keeping in touch and after you have had to cancel last minute so many times people stop asking you to do things.

I hated the way I looked but I had no clue on how to change it, every time I have tried to do any exercise I have suffered for days afterwards, even having a conversation with someone would leave me drained.  I had managed to lose 3 stone before the first lockdown but, after struggling to get deliveries and when I did it seemed that the things they couldn’t provide were all the healthy options I tried to get, I put back on 2 stone.  My face was starting to show the ravages of time, the worst being the hooded eyes I now have. I have always liked my eyes so it is sad they are not as noticeable as they used to be.

I think I might be coming up to the menopause, my period was over two weeks late at that point (it took another week before it said hello).  Any of you women out there will know that when your period is late it causes your hormones to go out of whack.  Looking back I know that had something to do with how I was feeling.

I remembered something my Dad had told me, “If you can do something about it then do so, if you can’t then all the worrying in the world won’t do anything”.  I decided that I had to try and do something to fix the problem areas I saw in my life.  I couldn’t do much about my hormones, expecially as it is the first time in over a year that it has taken so long which means the doctor wouldn’t do anything.  That meant I just had to let that one sort itself out.

I knew that if I listened to some Toby Keith or Kellie Pickler I always felt better (well Kellie does have two songs which make me cry because they cut so close to home but in a strange way even that makes me feel less alone), so I decided I was going to start listening to them, amongst others, more and if I could I would dance to them, that would at least get me started with moving.  It helped because I did lose 6 pounds in the two weeks leading up to this second lockdown.

Facing another month of lockdown I wanted to do something that would help me and also stop me from worrying about the fact that I couldn’t go for a cuppa with my carer and her partner on a tuesday morning.  So I decided to set myself a challenge.  I want to leave lock down looking better than I did when I entered it.  This meant looking for exercises that I could realisticaly do, I can’t see squats ever being a big part of any exercise routine I ever do.  I found some arm exercises that could be done sitting down, then I learnt about the wall push or standing push-up, I tried it and found that I could manage that so I added that one in.  I also looked at loads of videos for slimming down the stomach, the one exercise they all included was the plank.  Now I didn’t think I would be able to manage that, especially getting down and back up again, but I am pretty stubborn so I figured that I would try it.  The first time I thought I was going to die by the fifth second but I managed it and I am now going to try and do it as often as I can, after all no-one is about to see the crazy ways I have to use to pick myself up afterwards.

I also decided that I needed to lay down some house rules.  I drew up contracts for the two children who live with me (by drew up I mean I found some templates online and adapted them to suit).  Part of the contract stipulates that they need to spend some time with me while they are both home full-time.  That has stopped me from feeling so isolated even though they are here.  I have been making plans on what I want to do when the world returns to some sort of normality.  My life has basically been on hold for the past 15 years, I don’t even know how that happened, but it did and I am determined that I am going to put myself out there when I can (I might change my mind later, but at least for now it is giving me something positive to look forward to).

I had always said that when my youngest reached 18 (which happened during the first lockdown) I was going to start travelling.  This is definitely something I plan to keep to when travel plans can be a little more stable.  I used to be an active member of the theatre when I was in the Midlands but I didn’t even know we had one here until last lock down.  I want to look into joining them and doing some theatre stuff, that was the job I always wanted a far cry from what I ended up doing which was mechanical engineering.  I have a couple more things in the “to-do” bank but they are just the ones I am going to mention for now.

I don’t want to get back to that place where I want to disappear, to keep me on track I started this blog.  I want a record of where I started and how I am progressing, and it kinda gives me some sort of accountability.  It also makes me write something every day which is going to help me with another dream.  That, however, is a story for another time.

Take care and believe in yourself, you CAN do it, whatever IT may be.

#who am i #fibromyalgia #chronic fatigue #cfs/me #arthritis #mum #autism #single #exercise #diet #beauty #depression #better life #covid-19 #toby keith #kellie pickler