Short Meaningful Sister Quotes That Will Make You Want to Call Her Right Now

You fight. You play together. You “borrow” every other’s clothes. You tease every other. You get into your mom’s makeup. Growing up with a sister can be awesome, however it can additionally be annoying—like residing with a BFF and the type imply female all at once. Having a short meaningful sister quotes is probable the largest love/hate relationship you’ll ever experience.

When our parents got married, we're the ones who got a wedding gift: each other.

Step-sister, you are the sister of my soul.

Some kinds of sister-love are stronger than blood.

Sister, we've made our own family, and I'm so lucky to have you in it.

Sister, you may not share my DNA, but you share my heart.

Home - Peter Parker

Peter Parker x Reader

Summary : You’re left to do an English assignment that catches you off guard, but Peter may or may not have been your inspiration.

Warnings: Cussing (let me know if you find any, though!)

Words: 3.2 k

What is home? The message was sprawled across the board as your English teacher, Mr. Gilloway stared at the class, eyebrows scrunched up and his hooked nose crinkled. The soft light bounced off of his bald head. 

“Since you all like to complain about wanting to go home, you might as well write down what is home. You can either write it as a descriptive piece, because I’d live to know why you want to go so badly,” he said sarcastically, “Or whatever comes to mind. It’s due in a month, so Flash, you better not complain about not having completed your work. You will also have to present in front of the class just so I can hear your wonderful voices grace my god-awful days. Class dismissed.” 

You had no idea as to what is home to you, as you’ve never felt at home wherever you go. It seemed as though you never stuck to one place. A million thoughts ran through your mind thinking of a solution as to how you were going to come up with an answer, when you meet up with your best friends, Ned Leeds and Peter Parker near the school’s overcrowded parking lot.

“Hey, Y/N! Are you ok? You look a bit.. distracted.” Ned stated, his voice laced with concern. Ned always looked out for you, right after Peter. The duo had welcomed you into their “super secret that no other soul should ever be told cult” with open arms, when you had first moved to Queens. Overtime, the three of you were inseparable, the school knowing you as the three who would be sitting in the quiet, snug corner of the cafeteria fighting over who was the actual hero in Star Wars. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just thrown ‘off the rails’, if that’s even a saying,” You created air quotes to try to emphasize it, “it’s just Mr. Gilloway being a pain in the ass with his ‘deep and meaningful projects’ that are supposed to bring us to a realization of some unknown idea to our ‘uneducated minds’, whatever he means.” The Polynesian boy smiled, his pudgy cheeks showing off the rosiness of his almond skin tone.

“Peter and I both told you not to take AP English and look at where it got you, huh,” he taunted, as you looked to see both of them give their signature ‘I told you so’ faces, with their eyebrows raised and an amused smile, “just goes to show that we’re always right.” 

With a roll of your eyes, you moved on to go home, 

“Yeah, yeah, thanks mom. I’m gonna head out now. See you in chem tomorrow.” Before you left to catch the subway, Peter grabbed your wrist and said, 

“Wanna come over? May misses you and we’d love to have you for the evening.”

You quickly nodded in affirmation and sent your mom a text to let her know about your whereabouts. The ride to his place was the same as always, sharing the headphones to listen to AC/DC, you complaining about Flash being your lab partner, and Peter sharing the previous night’s events during his patrol. Everything felt right at the moment, as if he was your safety blanket. Peter had the ability to radiate this sense of comfort even if you were across the room from him. 

The subway finally stopped at your final destination, and you soon found yourself in the small, cozy apartment. It was the same as always, the soft grey throw blanket draped over the back of the worn out brown couch, and the smell of charred bread in the air. It was simple, just like the family. You sent a simple wave to Peter’s Aunt May and followed Peter to his room to start on your Chemistry homework. 

Hours later, there were papers filled with math calculations and Chemistry formulas scattering the small room, as Peter was munching on some cheese-flavored potato chips. 

“Did you get seventeen moles of copper nitrate for number 8?” Peter inquired, causing you to let out a groan.

“It’s seventeen? I got twenty-nine. Pete, I’m a hopeless teenager who doesn’t understand a single thing about this right now,” You heard a chuckle across from you and looked up, only to find Peter staring at you, something was different about his expression, but you still threw you eraser at him. Peter simply replied, 

“Instead of complaining, you could have just asked. Lemme see what’s wrong… Ah,” he went on to explain the confusing lesson, however everything he said became sets of useless words as you were focusing on what was happening to you. Your entire body filled with warmth, while your heart was beating feverishly, like you’d just ran a marathon. The constant feeling of elevation in your stomach was overbearing, it felt like the spark on a tungsten before it reached the gunpowder for fireworks. It was different to what authors wrote in their stories, it was so much more than what you’d imagine, but it didn’t feel like love. The constant overcame your mind until you heard Peter call your name,  

“Y/N, Y/N, are you still alive? May’s calling us for dinner, it’s Thai Food Thursday.” For the rest of the night, you could feel yourself being distant and distracted from the conversation, all thanks to Peter. 

A week later, you still hadn’t made any progress on your English paper, which made you dread English class even more than you had before. Your past made it harder to even get an understanding of what home even was when all you could think of was your father. 

Your father was always distant from you and your mother, acting like a guest at a bed and breakfast where he was only there for the night. Some weeks, he’d have to leave for a business trip, not coming back for a few weeks, or at least you thought that until you found him at a city nearby while being on a class field trip the fifth grade. He was with a familiar woman who you’d known growing up, Aunt Lydia, your mother’s younger sister. It turned out that your father had become infatuated with her in the duration of his first marriage, eventually starting a new family with Aunt Lydia and being much happier with her. The news spread like wildfire in a forest, eventually getting to your mother last. It broke you to know that your father would rather spend his days with some other kids than with you, another woman instead of your mother. After a short 2 weeks, the two of you had packed your bags and moved to Queens to forget the past, making it seem as if everything you knew from before was now supposed to be thrown out of a window. The project was no use when now all you could think of was a cold space where tension was intermingled in the air, and pain stained into the deepest threads of the couch pillows when you thought of home. 

The library was almost completely empty, which was usual considering that the people of New York had better things to do than spend their time at the library, except for you, Peter, and now Ned. It was your annual reader’s binge night, where you’d all spend the afternoon reading a book from start to end, and then go out for a sub at the small, family-owned deli from around the corner. It was a tradition, and allowed you to bask in each other’s presence without the hassle of having to talk. The sounds of iced coffee being sipped and the constant whoosh of pages could be heard throughout the day. After the author had infuriated you enough with their cliche-filled sci-fi novel, you looked up to break the silence, until the sight of the room stopped you. More specifically, Peter. The sunlight shining in through the gigantic windows had illuminated the small features of his fair, pale face, like the freckles that were sprinkled all over his nose and cheeks just as the course sugar on sugar cookies. His chestnut brown hair became an array of colors as the copper undertones shining through, as he was concentrating on the book before him. Peter’s state of peace made you feel safe, as if nothing bad was going to happen to you. The time flew by as if it were like seconds as you continued to take in his image, until you felt a twinge on the side of your head, looking to your side to find a plastic straw on the ground.

“Y/N, you can stare at Peter after finishing the book. Now hurry up or else Mr. Delmar’s is gonna close up shop before we even finish!” Ned exclaimed as he smirked at your actions. Peter softly chuckled as you flipped off Ned, before all three of you went back to the book. While you mindlessly flipped pages, all that you could ponder was the same weird feeling that you felt at Peter’s house. It was almost as if you belonged there, as if you weren’t an outcast who had came out of nowhere. There was something about the feelings you had that you couldn’t comprehend completely, but it was becoming more and more prominent to you each day. Whatever the universe is trying to tell me, it sure is fucking me over, you thought, just as you saw your best friends close their books. Peter saw your expression, it was evident that you were deep in thought, and asked, 

“You okay, Y/N?” To which you simply replied in the most New York way possible, 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wanna go grabba sub now?”

You picked up the group’s sandwiches and headed over when you heard Ned and Peter talking about you, 

“I don’t know, Ned, Y/N is hard to be around when she can’t even take a hint,” You stopped dead in your tracks, like gravity was pulling you down and you weren’t able to move your feet. It felt like the day at the school field trip, everything you once knew was fabricated and far from what you thought your friendship was. 

“Peter, you’re going to have to tell her someday. It’s hurting you and it's probably gonna hurt her too in the future,” you took your chance and walked in before any more damage could be done to your friendship. 

“Whatcha talkin’ about?” You said as you sat down. The two shook their heads, muttering words that you couldn’t make out, and started a new conversation. Throughout the rest of the day, you couldn’t help but wonder about what you’d done wrong, guilt and fear flowing through your veins as if your blood had been replaced with it. 

You  invited Peter over the next day for dinner to repay him for when you ate at his house last time, and in hopes to try to mend whatever tension Peter was feeling. The dingy apartment that you’d been living in for the past 5 years was usually dull and quiet, your mom still hadn’t comprehended how her sister could betray her and you were left trying to feel the same way as she did when you were younger, when your family wasn’t broken. While eating the burnt ends of your chicken parm, the English project was still running on your mind. Of course Peter knew you were thinking about it, so naturally, he had to ask how the English assignment was coming along. 

“I can’t connect with anyone or anything that relates to my home. I am genuinely convinced that literally everyone hates me, and soon I’ll be living alone with my three cats in a studio apartment!” You complained as your arms flew up in exaggeration. Peter, on the other hand, seemed frustrated, with his eyes in annoyance and his knuckles turning white from clenching them so hard. Peter cried,

“Well, maybe if you would just open up and try to let more people into your life, then you wouldn’t be here right now!” At this point, the tension you tried to get rid of was now a thick fog that couldn’t be seen through. 

“That’s impossible, Peter! You, out of all people, know it’s hard for me to get close with someone, when practically no one finds me bearable,” you looked at him with anger, “not even you.” Peter was taken aback, 

“How did you hear that?” 

“So it was true,” you scoffed as you felt the wet trail of plump tears run down your cheeks, “gee, thanks a lot, Pete.” He stood up, intimidating you, as he boomed,

“Well, yeah, it is. All you ever do is push away anyone whoever tries to get close to you. You’ve built this thick barrier around everyone and it stupid. Grow up and stop acting like a four year-old, it's annoying,” and immediately walked out the tiny apartment’s door. 

You sunk down in your chair, the tears flowing faster and add onto the pain-ridden apartment. There goes someone else I love, you pondered, I love you, Peter, more than I’ve loved anyone else. 

Your English assignment was now due in a week and a half's worth of time and you’d barely had an outline or a single idea as to what you wanted to write about. For multiple nights, you would just sit in front of your grey, busted laptop and stare at the blank document until you’d figured it was now time to sleep. Multiple sentences that were once on the document soon disappeared by the click of a button immediately after.

As sleep-deprived teenagers rushed to leave the room, you went up to Mr. Gilloway, intimidated by the hunch on his back that formed every time he was scrolling down the New York Times about another political outburst from the Senator. It wasn’t that Mr. Gilloway was bad in person, it was just that he tended to be very unfiltered. All it took was one glance from him and you knew that you were going to take in the bitter and harshful words about not working on the assignment. But you took the leap anyway, and took all the courage you had in you to ask,

“Mr. Gilloway, I don’t know what to write for the assignment. I keep thinking about it, but nothing is coming to mind and I really have no clue as to what home is.” Squeezing you eyes, you braced for the string of words that were meaningless to him.  

“Well, what was it like for you to be at home? Anyone particular who comes to mind? Or perhaps a memory that just replays over and over in your head? Remember, Y/N that home is not a definitive object, you can make it anything you want. It could be the simplest idea, or something over the top, but that is what it means to you. I have full trust in you to go with your guts and write wha’ is home to you,” Mr. Gilloway gently replied. His response was out of character compared to who he really was. It was unrecognizable, sympathy and gentleness was the last thing that would come across anyone’s mind when they thought of Mr. Gilloway. Unable to form words, you nodded your head, only to hear, “Now go, I need to catch up on what our jackass of a Senator we have right now.” 

It wasn’t until you got onto your laptop once again when you knew what to write about. You finally had an idea. 

It was finally the day of the presentation and your nerves got the best of you. The past week was more muted, with evenings spent writing the English assignment, and the daytime spent studying in the library in hopes to avoid Peter. It was also the most emotionally draining week, knowing you couldn’t just go up and tell him how you really felt about him. 

Y/N, it’s your turn. And Flash, puh-LEASE keep the flirting for someplace else, my classroom is not a ‘Singles Mingle’,” Mr. Gilloway said. The voice at the back of your head kept telling you don’t mess up, don’t mess up, don’t mess up. The anxiety of sharing something so intimate with a group of bored teenagers was nerve wracking, so much so that your hands were quivering. 

“Home is an abstract idea, and to most people, it is their place to go to sleep, eat, and repeat. In my entire life, I'd never felt like I was at home until just recently when I came to know how I know I am at home. Home is a blend of emotions, where there are multiple feelings every time you’re there, A sense of belonging, where no matter how different, broken, or mismanaged  a person is, they still know that the very spot will always let them be themselves. Home is where a person feels comfort and safety, where they know that they will be supported and consoled through all the times you’ve been through. A sense of adoration that lingers in the air, making a person feel loved for who they are. The idea that a person knows who they are when they’re at this place, or with this person, makes us realize that this very place is our home. My home is with someone who I’ve known for a while, and even a glance into their brown eyes makes me feel complete. As they always say, home is where the heart lies.” 

You looked around the room to see blank stares and an unusual smile from Mr. Gilloway, but it was relieving to feel the overbearing weight of not knowing yourself being lifted off your shoulders. 

Once class had ended, you heard your name being called by none other than Peter. 

“Was your speech about me?” Peter had a look of desperation and hope, “I feel like home to you?” How’d he listen? You thought, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.  

“I asked Mr. Gilloway,” Peter had read your mind, “Y/N, I only said I couldn’t bear you because I’m so deeply in love with you, but you never see that. It’s kind of hard to be friendzoned all the time, y’know?” 

The moment you had awaited all along finally came in the least expected way, nor was it how everyone else described it to be. There were no fireworks in the background but instead, it was just as if the world had stopped around you. 

“I love you too, Peter,” you whispered. 

“So is it true?” With a simple nod and a small smile, you said, 

“Yeah, it is about you, Peter.” A soft smile creeps up his face as he pulls you into his arms. It felt right, as if your body was perfectly molded to fit into his embrace. You decided to take the risk and pulled away, placing your hands over his pillowy cheeks, and pulled him towards you. You placed your lips on his, they were soft and smooth, with a hint of vanilla from the chapstick you made him use after seeing how rough they were a few months back. Peter kissed back, trying to empty all the love and adoration he had kept inside of him. 

You couldn’t tell what the future held for you two, but you made a vow, right then and there that you would protect him with your entire heart, help him after his patrol’s and night, and most importantly, keep him in your heart for the rest of your life. 

This was your home, right here with Peter. 

A/N: Hi! I hope you liked this piece, I’ve had a a writer’s block for almost 2 years now, so to write this was a bit of a struggle, but it’s all good! Feel free to send over any requests or criticism. I also have to give an honorary mention to @wazzupmrstark​! Her INCREDIBLE works gave me a bit of a push and inspo to get back to writing, so thank you so so much Kaili! (i’ll stop annoying you guys, byee :) )

91 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2020

Below are my favorite quotes from 2020. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “You don’t have to be new to make new.” - Rick Rubin

2) “He put the beat on and go to sleep then wake up with a verse.” - The Lox

3) “Every opinion is bad.” - Blink-155

4)

(via Twitter)

5) “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored.”

6) “Be brave enough to suck at something new.”

7) “Comedy is the only job you can have where you can use everything you know” - Robin Williams via Dave Chappelle

8) “What’s the worst swear word where you live?” - Josiah Hughes

9) “Cookies are a really great way to get everybody to like you for a short period of time” - YSAC

10) “The worst dancer at a wedding is the one who’s not dancing.” - John Mulaney

11) “I never saw the end of the tunnel. I only saw myself running out of one." - Kobe Bryant

12) "A good movie begins as you're walking out of the theater" - Ethan Hawke

13) “When I was young and starting in cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is, 'The most personal is the most creative.’ That quote was from our great Martin Scorsese.” - Bong Joon-ho

14) “Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow” - River Phoenix via Joaquin Phoenix

15) “Thank you -- I will drink until next morning.” - Bong Joon-ho

16) “Men will bury their emotions for decades and then take it all out on children tubing while they drive the boat.” - @krauter_

17) “They help you with the dumb face stuff, but they don’t tell you how to fix it” - Adam (Nate’s friend), on having older sisters

18) “We all had our connections, but it’s not the details themselves that matter, it’s the feeling behind them. There are a million coming-of-age tales. Lady Bird’s secret sauce is how deeply its creator gave a shit. The older I get, the less I care about anything but the sense of a filmmaker’s personal connection to the material. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, what genre it is, or whether it’s genre at all. I only really care that it feels like something the filmmaker had to tell me, and that it was that filmmaker in particular who had to tell it. It has to answer the ‘why are you telling me this’ question, and not just why are you telling me, but why are you telling me.

Lady Bird is a movie that feels like only Greta Gerwig could’ve made. And it’s only because it’s so specific to her that it can be so meaningful to so many people.” - Vince Mancini

19) "I have cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns. But I do not feel lonely now.” - Bernie Sanders

20) “Ever hear a Beatles song you haven’t heard before?”

21) “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.” - Charles Bukowski

22) “You shouldn’t have to hear a band to know if they’re good or not” - Josiah Hughes

23) “I was raised by OGs.  Some of you were raised by IG.  I understand.” - Ice-T

* * *

[Here is where I note the line of demarcation that was the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the US, pushed forward by Tom Hanks’ announcement, the NBA and NCAA shutting down, and, then, the nation itself.]

* * *

24) “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” - Vladimir Lenin

25) "Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious." - Peter Wehner

26) "Epidemics have a way of revealing underlying truths about the societies they impact." - Anne Applebaum

27) “A funny thing about quarantining is hearing your partner in full work mode for the first time. Like, I’m married to a ‘let’s circle back’ guy — who knew?” - Laura Norkin

28) 

(Jojo Rabbit)

29) “The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. - Deadwood: The Movie

30) “All bleeding stops eventually.” - Deadwood: The Movie

31) “Our Father, which art in heaven… / Let him fucking stay there” - Deadwood: The Movie

32) “It’s like a power outage, but we still have power” - Ryen Russillo, on the pandemic

33) “Whenever Sox baseball returns, it’ll be weird to not have Farmer on the call any more. The relationship between a fan and longtime announcer is always built in the little moments. One afternoon, he’s the soundtrack as you clean the garage. On another night, he’s your bookmark for the game as you stand in line for churros or walk down the ramps at Sox Park to try for better seats in the 100 level. A voice like Farmer’s becomes so familiar that you only really notice when it’s no longer there.” - Kevin Kaduk, on the passing of Ed Farmer

34) 

(via Twitter)

35) “In my songs, I try to look through someone else’s eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message” - John Prine

36) “Observe everything. Admire nothing.” - Generation Kill

37) “Trump, by that definition, has always been a wartime president -- always willing to sacrifice people he doesn’t know to things he only sort of cares about” - David Roth

38) "Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen." - Michael Jordan

39) "Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach." - Hunter S. Thompson

40) “Airlines sending me “we’re in this together” emails. When my suitcase was 52 pounds I was on my own.” - Mike Dentale

41) “Sometimes you can be the worst source of your own story” - Ryen Russillo

42) “Family is not necessarily blood, but instead who you would bleed for.”

43)

(via Twitter)

44) "This is the deal that Jordan made, knowingly or unknowingly — that he would trade everything he had for everything he wanted. And then, when he won all those things, he found that he had nothing but that.” - David Roth

45) “I’m brand loyal, but the brand doesn’t matter” - Caitie Miller, on why she doesn’t like generic peanut butter

46) “NOBODY shitposts Gene Hackman!!” - Mark Dehlinger

47) “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with—that is when he picks up a boomerang.” - G.K. Chesterton

48) “You can be appalled forever, but shocked only once.” - Jeff Weiss, on early Eminem

49) “Whether I’m pessimistic or optimistic, the fight’s the same” - David Simon

50) “Freedom can never be completely won, but it can be lost.” - Bernard Simon

51) “Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.” -Kareem Abdul Jabbar

52) “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist -- we must be anti-racist.” - Angela Davis

53) “Start as close to the end as possible” - Kurt Vonnegut, on creative writing

54) “You can’t stay woke all the time — that’s insomnia.” - Dr. Cornel West

55) “No, I get it. I’ve dated a lot of Geminis.”

56) “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” - John Krakauer, Into The Wild (via Tyler Keller)

57) "I couldn't show them my For You because it's pretty much just lesbian stuff and depression memes" - Maggie Loesch, on showing TikTok to her coworkers

58) "It's 1 a.m. in Slovakia and I've already had one bottle of wine and I don't know how long this press conference will go, so good luck to me." - Marian Hossa, following his NHL Hall of Fame announcement

59) “All I want in life is to go on an Anguilla group trip” - Mandy Gilkes

60) “You miss old friends when you don’t see them, but you miss them more when you do.” - Chuck Klosterman

61) “The only way to appreciate the present is to pretend it’s already the past.” - Chuck Klosterman

62) Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth Until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

(”Everybody's Free [To Wear Sunscreen]”)

Second time that essay’s been quoted on this list.

64) "I mean, it's just human nature to suck up to the people above you, crap on those beneath you, and undercut your equals” - Brian, Family Guy

65) “You never quit a job. You quit a manager.” - Brian Bedford

66) “All the pictures in my house are of people I’m not friends with” - Tracy Cunningham

67) “In order to leave something behind, you have to leave.” - Dr. Herman, Grey’s Anatomy

68) 

(via Twitter)

69) “You can obsess about death if you don’t have to obsess about dying.” - Brendan Kelly via “White Noise”

70) “If it’s right to do, it’s wrong to wait.” - Andy, doorman 

71)

72) “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

73) "America is mostly people who’ve never left their state saying we have the best country in the world." - Billy Wayne Davis

74) “A writer is someone who knows at least 80% of their writing sucks.” - Gabe Hudson

75) 

(via Twitter)

76) “You’re dead twice” - Brendan Kelly

77) “Perfect is the enemy of good” - Voltaire (via Zach Lowe)

78) “I don’t want to be a savior, I want to be a mirror.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

79) “I get bad Twitter FOMO but not real life FOMO. That just goes to show I need to get off the Internet.” - Josh Thomas

80) “Is there anything you love in life that you engage with seriously that you don't also engage with humor?" - Sam Sutherland, on his relationship with Blink-182

81) “My favorite genre of music is my friends' bands" - Josiah Hughes

82) “Let’s fall in love like both our parents aren’t divorced.”

83) “Seabiscuit may be the only earthling that was on both sides of the stamp.” - Brendan Kelly

84) “There’s no shame in coming in second, except in, like, wars.” - Family Guy

85) “I feel like I experience writer’s block 100% of the time, and when I do write, I have impostor syndrome.” - Phoebe Bridgers

86) “We teach based on what we most need to learn.” - psychologist on Grey’s Anatomy

87) “Having too many choices is the leading cause of stress” - Grey’s Anatomy

88) “I think we've all gravely underestimated the extent to which this year has changed all of us, permanently” - Kelli Maria Korducki

89) 

(via Twitter)

90) “I wonder if people understand why they don’t have polio” - Sandra E. Garcia

91) “Ending songs is terrible, so let’s keep singing” - Dave Hernandez

December 11: “Christmas in Paris” (Tubi)

Summary: A movie about Paris set in Montana?

FYI: This movie is absolutely terrible, so buckle up. I would say that it has Montana going for it, but it isn’t shot in Montana and post-production isn’t successful at convincing us we aren’t looking at mid-summer Ontario. Leading lady Rebecca Dalton delivers her lines like she’s in a yogurt commercial, and the French leading man’s accent doesn’t hide the fact that he can’t act. The biggest travesty is the atrocious storytelling, complete with a jarring change in geographic location for no reason and a handful of distracting, unnecessary plot devices that add nothing to the romance and intrigue.

The premise of this movie is that Lucas, a successful French playboy/entrepreneur, goes into business with a fragrance company based in… Montana? Where he goes to meet the company’s art director, Robin, who is designing the ad campaign for Lucas’s new fragrance. They get together in Montana, and halfway through the movie, he invites her back to Paris to spend Christmas with him and his mom. There’s also a whole plotline about how the ex-CEO of the fragrance company is Lucas’s estranged father who had an affair with Lucas’s mom.

The premise isn’t terrible, except that every step of the way the writers executed it terribly. First of all, why is the fragrance company based in Montana? I love Montana, but it’s not exactly the most accessible place. Flights cost a fortune and shipping perfume out of there has to as well. I get they want Robin to be an all-American country girl, but she can be that and meet Lucas in Paris. Instead, the writers have to contrive a reason for Lucas to fly to Montana, meet with the CEO of the company who is his estranged father’s sister, chill with Robin for long enough to “fall in love” with her (a grand total of three days, by my estimation) and then convince her she has to fly back to Paris with him. If the conflict in the story is supposed to be about Lucas and his father, why not set the story in Paris?

But fine, so we start in Montana for no reason. Lucas meets the fragrance CEO, the sister of the old CEO, who’s his dad. So this new CEO is Lucas’s aunt. But there’s no reason for this, she’s not in the story again. So Robin and Lucas meet and Lucas starts to flirt, but Robin is a consummate professional - only meeting him during working hours for professional meals to talk about her art directing of the new fragrance line. Lucas pulls a classic “Men Are Talking” by constantly crossing professional boundaries. He complains that Robin doesn’t know him well enough to design an ad campaign for him, so Robin finally caves and invites him out to ride in a sleigh with her. 

They meet Robin’s dad and have dinner with him, which ends with an awkward conversation about Robin’s dead mom (again, this doesn’t matter and isn’t an integral part of the story or character development - just, “Hey, my mom’s dead.”) and a lot of conversation about how much Robin loves Paris. (WHY ISN’T THIS STORY SET IN PARIS). They kiss and then Robin wants to “call it a night,” which is understandable because this is day 2 of knowing Lucas and he’s saying things like “I’ve never met anyone like you before” in a French accent whilst languidly stroking her hair. 

Here’s the thing about well-written fiction: every object, scene, and line of dialogue should be 100% meaningful and directly related to the story development. It’s like that quote about the rifle in Act 1 killing someone by Act 3 or whatever. So far in this movie, we have an unnecessary setting; an unnecessary CEO; several unnecessary scenes with the two of them; and an entire montage of them getting pictures with Santa WHILE OUT AT BREAKFAST THE DAY AFTER THEY MET.

Anyway, Day 3 rolls around and, in the fastest romance timeline I’ve ever seen in a movie, Lucas convinces Robin to come to Paris with him for Christmas. He doesn’t want to leave her but he promised his mom he’d be home for Christmas dinner. She agrees for some reason and they take off.

Once they’re in Paris, Robin becomes useless as a character, because almost immediately the story becomes about Lucas being contacted by his estranged father who, it’s revealed, actually never knew he existed because Lucas’s mom never told him she was pregnant. So now Lucas is reeling from learning this about his father and feels bad because he yelled at Robin about it earlier. He goes to meet his estranged father, but not before he has some sort of asthma attack that his mother treats by using her rescue inhaler on him (again, why? Why is that necessary?)

Long story short, Lucas and his father have a very tense conversation about their non-relationship before making amends. His dad is very proud of him and says he’s been proud of him and he’s sorry (but I thought his dad didn’t know he existed? I’m so confused). His dad gives him some advice about how to treat women right so Lucas can go after Robin, and gives him an heirloom engagement ring to use to propose to Robin after maybe a week of them knowing each other.

Robin unleashes her vision for the ad campaign for the fragrance company, everyone loves it, her dad convinces her to forgive Lucas. Lucas proposes, declares his love to her. Robin refuses at first because she doesn’t feel like he knows her well enough, but he keeps talking in a French accent until she gives in and accepts his proposal. 

SPOILERS: They kiss in front of a Christmas tree and are presumably engaged. This is the most lukewarm couple ever and the most compressed romantic timeline of all time. Horrible story. One star.

hey there , i’m libby ( or any of the other many nicknames that come w being named elizabeth ... we’re all pals here . call me what you want to ) and i just spent way too much time trying to write this intro . but this is way to long and way too all over the place ... .. so hit that little like button and i’ll slip n slide into your dms ( i’ll probably slip n slide into ur dms even if you don’t , what can i say ? i’m shameless  ) to give you the low low on gigi so you don’t have to read this mess of an intro rip :/

𝐨𝐨𝟏. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒  .

𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞: gentry thylane ballouhey . 𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬: gigi ,gen . 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡: june 26 . 𝐳𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐜 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧: cancer . 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: los angeles , california . 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧: los angeles , california . 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: bisexual ╱ biromantic . 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬: fluent in english and french . literate in spanish , but is unable to properly articulate the language despite several years of studies . 𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐬: a sloppily drawn heart on the side of her right middle finger, a winking and now faded smiley face on the tip of her left index finger, but out of all the unfortunate markings, the most unfortunate of them all was her own signature in girlish print across the inside of her foot. or perhaps the license plate of her first car ( that she had driven through their fence four months after it had been gifted to her )  beneath her left breast. all of which had been inked into her skin by friends, all of which seemed like a much better idea when drunk . 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: three in tight succession on each earlobe . 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜: notes penned in red ink , each individual i dotted with its own tiny heart , scuffed and sullied balenciaga sneakers and ruffled ankle high socks , the cacophonous clink of bulky anklets against one another with each passing step , applying a full face of makeup only to remove it all minutes later , a far too large collection of scrunchies varying in pattern and texture lining the top drawer of her bedside table , a plethora of practiced accents , mascara and tears leaking down the swell of freckled cheeks as the credits to a romantic comedy she could quote word for word begin to roll , long bubble baths in a claw foot tub with a streetcar named desire playing on repeat in another room , sundays spent tangled up in an array of silken bed linens , a collection of shoes that could rival even carrie bradshaw’s , a signature practiced to perfection , hearts varying in size doodled on the palm of her hand , along the underside of her arm , romanticized idealizations , wearing her finest lingerie beneath sweatpants and the hacked hem of t-shirts she cropped herself , strands of hair sticking to overly glossed lips , unsmoked and pink ringed cigarette stubs dropped into an emptied flute of champagne , the wrong number scrawled on a napkin in pink ink to match the stain of puckered lips , unsubtle flirations , a personality akin to bubbling champagne , kisses planted anywhere but on the mouth , meaningful conversations with a stranger , and long nights spent searching for love in all the wrong places .

𝐨𝐨𝟐. 𝐈𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐇

perhaps the one thing worse than a charmed childhood spoiling with years passed, was a childhood that had been spoiled from the very start. and poor gentry ballouhey had been brought into this world swaddled in cotton and blushing bright pink, held loose within the arms of a mother who didn’t quite want her, as her father stared with disdain at the second little girl he hadn’t quite planned on having. the family of three had already been perfect, she was nothing more than a blemish, a mistake, a pretty, little bandaid doused in alcohol and placed atop a gaping wound ( utterly useless and entirely too painful ). yes, she had been born into the quintessential white-picket fence family, all bright and toothy grins ( perfectly straight, perfectly white ), in their matching white tennis outfits as their matching white poodles gallivanted across the perfectly manicured lawn, but no childhood could be charmed when one spent the entirety of it unloved.

the ballouhey’s outcast, conceived amongst a dreamlike haze of judgement clouded by a bottle of dom perignon shared beneath starlit parisian skies, had been burdened with the expectations to conform when her entire existence stood in stark contrast to their careful ideals. even her conception had been rash and unexpected, much unlike her sister who had been dreamt of from the very moment their parents had married, carefully crafted in a lab after several failed attempts. meryl was wanted, a charming girl who lived a charmed life, and gentry? well, she simply was not. the blonde and bubbling stain on an otherwise perfect family portrait, the odd duckling among long-necked and elegant swans, gentry had felt forced to force her own self into an almost unsettling obedience. another failed attempt to please, to garner but a mere fraction of the attention marlon and madeleine ballouhey smothered their first-born in.

she was a true oddity, in more ways than one. softness epitomized, all freckles and full cheeks, doe-eyes and blurred edges nestled several steps to the left of her sharp-eyed and sharp-lined family members. an airy spring breeze in comparison to her elder sister’s chilled winter evening. the littlest ballouhey that left all spectators befuddled for she was all her father with a little something else. yet despite marlon and madeleine’s best efforts to keep their youngest tucked away from the public eye by sending her to the most exclusive and private catholic schools, and leaving her at home with the nannies while the rest of the family attended awards shows ( claiming it was simply because she was too young to attend ), gentry was sought out by one of her father’s friends to star in a film at the age of fourteen. the first time she had ever been chosen before meryl, her short lived claim to fame. perhaps an acting career wasn’t truly her calling, but the adoration she had received was.

the attention she received in the years following her debut in the film industry, turned the girl desperate for love into a girl even more hungry for adoration. she began to spent her days striving for perfection to draw her parents coveted attention ( the only thing they had ever left her wanting for ) back to herself. each straight a report card had been put up on the fridge only to go unnoticed, the nanny chauffeured her to all her extracurricular activities and sat in her parents place for all her dance recitals. and when she told her father about her time spent volunteering at the animal shelter she’d been met with a dismissive nod and a clap on the shoulder that was meant to be congratulatory as he left in a hurry to tend to something on set.  her parents immersed themselves in their work, in meryl, and gentry was pushed off to the side for the nannies to deal with even after she was well into her teens.

yet while she began to achieve the feigned perfection her family had always seemed to possess, their decline sputtered to life. at least within their home. she can still remember mornings spent splayed out on her plush queen-sized bed with her romantic comedies to drown out the noise , hair a mess and a pressed private school uniform on - all pink on pink on pink ( her pink cigarettes tucked beneath a pillow, mother’s faux lashes accentuating eyes made vacant by her pink and white pills, and the collar of daddy’s scotch soaked dress shirt stained by pillow lips painted an unfamiliar shade of pink ) as she used the edge of a polished finger to swipe the errant tear that had leaked from a trained tear duct, glossed lips once, twice, thrice before slipping out of their house ( it felt both all too large and far too small for the four of them ) unnoticed by her quarreling parents, glared at by her sister. others could see right through the act, witnessed the slammed doors rattling painting right off the walls, heard the boozy and biting insults, the tumblers hurled, scotch sloshing, ice clattering, glass shattering, and she knew that they knew. but when looks of pity, or rather discomfort, passed across their faces she’d simply smile that deep-dimpled barbie doll beam, and turn the television playing rom coms on repeat up several notches. love gone terribly awry stifled by the picturesque, perhaps that’s where it had come from … her love for love, or more specifically yearning and romance as depicted on the silver screen, when she had been raised in an environment so frosty it should have left her with a block of ice in place of her childish and sputtering heart .

𝐨𝐨𝟑. 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

not unlike her parents she loved obsessed in a way that exhausted ( far too much , far too fast ) . ashton had inherited her mother’s insecurities ,  strung her jealousy in a choke around her throat like an emerald necklace , and her father’s flighty heart that sputtered to life for all the wrong souls . it was no suprise that the two who had given new meaning to the term hopeless romantic would spawn a lovely daughter just as unlucky , if not more so , in love . but their hard , cold genes had been muddled together , creating something much worse . she loves love , or rather suffocating adoration , and will latch on to just about anyone who makes her feel a little less hollow . while gentry  is what one would deem a movie buff, it would be difficult for someone to name a movie that she hasn’t seen at least once, she loves to read just as much. tucked away in the valley as her father traveled the world to attend award shows and charity galas, there was very little to do. so she often found herself flipping through novels as she tanned alongside the pool, always the odd one out as her friends gossiped about the boys from their brother school and flipped through gossip rags. 

gentry  has an extensive vocabulary, contrary to what most might think. its a product of her extensive reading and film viewing, but she always seems to get a weird glance when she drops a big word into her sentence littered with valley girl lingo.

while she certainly isn’t a ditz, she doesn’t necessarily dispute the assumption most people make when they glimpse the spacey look that her features take to a bit too often.  perhaps she likes being underestimated, but she doesn’t typically do much to prove those who do underestimate her wrong. 

gentry  loves nothing more than spending all day in her pink silk pajamas, buried beneath sheets and duvet with her persian cat, holly golightly ( dubbed holly ) as she watches a rom-com she’s already seen at least ten times. she isn’t lazy per se, she just much prefers a night in with a bottle of champagne and her box of tissues ( if she’s planning on watching 13 going on 30 she has to be prepared for a few leaked tears ) to a night out. 

gentry is almost a bastardized version of cher horowitz, plucked right from the screen and loosely translated to fit reality. she’s a bit selfish and undeniably herself, yet yearns for, needs if one were to be dramatic, admiration. any semblance of attention that strokes her large ego and keeps her confidence from wavering a much appreciated gesture. but despite being far too self absorbed for her own good, she gives off some guise of selflessness - though her ample acts of kindness always tend to benefit her in return. and while she’s often concerned with how people perceive her, desperately wanting for everyone to find her desirable, she’s a bit too idealistic, a bit too stubborn to simply settle for people. with a collection of romance novels and romantic comedies still lining the shelves of her room that hadn’t change much since girlhood, it’s no secret that she has an insatiable love for love.

The Spiral of Narcissistic Abuse: Onision Edition

I originally wrote this post in April 2017, but in the year and a half since it’s been published, there have been literally dozens of new victims targeted by Greg (Onision) and his wife Lainey (Laineybot) that I felt were severe enough to warrant inclusion; and so here I am to re-write this post to include this new information. 

1. “Love Bombing”: Display of excessive attention and professions of deep love. “Soul mate.”

Love bombing is the practice of overwhelming a person in a new relationship with signs of adoration and attraction in the form of gifts, compliments, meaningful gestures, discussions revolving around long-term future plans (marriage, children, vacations, etc), and professions of true love. The difference between love bombing and genuine love is that real love is earned over time through intimacy, trust, and consistency, whereas love bombing creates artificial feelings of intimacy that have not yet been earned. 

Greg routinely engages in love-bombing when it comes to either a) trying to lure in new victims, or b) making attempts to reel in previous victims (such as exes), or current victims who are becoming disillusioned with him and beginning to pull away. In 2015, after Greg had convinced his wife Lainey to “explore her bisexuality” by getting a girlfriend, she had settled on an 18-year-old YouTube personality and makeup guru named Billie, and flew her down to their house for a visit. What Greg neglected to tell Lainey was that he had ulterior motives for pushing her to get a girlfriend, and this was because he wanted to convince Lainey and whoever her girlfriend was to enter a three-way, polyamorous triad with him. While Billie was there, in an attempt to draw her in, Greg showered her with gifts, compliments, and an excessive amount of attention and admiration; according to him, he paid her $1800 a month to manage his social media accounts, spent thousands of dollars buying her gifts of makeup and clothing, and his videos were full of glowing compliments towards Billie. 

He tweeted this at Billie after she managed to “fix” a broken camera lens by throwing it on the ground. He screams at his own children just for losing at Mario Kart, could you imagine Onision having this reaction to anybody else treating his expensive equipment that way?

Every time he and Lainey broke up with Billie (usually because she refused to go along with their bizarrely strict and controlling expectations for her behavioral conduct, such as having to ask their permission before smoking weed - and yes, you read that correctly; the problem was not that she was smoking weed because it was illegal (as Greg and Lainey had originally claimed), the problem was that she didn’t ask their permission before doing it), Greg would begin to reel Lainey back in by trying to love bomb her again. This comment was made just two days after he’d cheated on Lainey with Billie, while she was pregnant with their second child:

…and every time they get back together, he begins love bombing Billie again, and ignoring Lainey. He is careful not to do this overtly on Twitter or Instagram like he does with Lainey, but during this time, he expends much more effort into communicating with Billie over Twitter and in videos than he does with Lainey. He is also very clearly more physically affectionate towards Billie in videos where the three of them appear together than he is with his own wife.

(And maybe this is just my unprofessional opinion, but the manner in which he compliments Lainey rings much more hollow and inauthentic to me than the compliments he used to give to Billie. It comes off as very rote and robotic, not genuine or sincere.) 

2.  Over-protection and isolation in the name of love. “We only need each other.”

One of the most common tactics that abusers use to control their victims is by isolating them from friends and family. They do this so that it’s harder for them to escape or see the truth of what’s happening to them. This behavior is manifested in ways such as convincing the victim to stay at home and not have a job, by controlling all of the money that flows through the household (including the victim’s money, if they DO have a job), and by slowly convincing the victim to stop talking to their friends and family members, because the narcissist “doesn’t think they’re good for [them]”. Without a sense of perspective or anybody from whom to gain a third-party point of view, it’s extremely difficult for the victim to objectively analyze the severity of the situation. 

Throughout the history of his relationships, Greg follows this pattern with all of his partners to the tee. He makes repeated attempts to convince Billie to stop flying home to spend time with her friends and family members, who she is extremely close with.

Unbelievably, he attempts to manipulate her by bragging about how he’d already managed to successfully convince Lainey to not visit her own family more than once a year. In a livestream, Lainey once admitted that earlier this month (October 2018) was the first time she’s attended a family funeral in over five years, because Greg wouldn’t give her permission to go to any of the other ones. He also frequently attacks Lainey’s family on social media, as well as diminishing them in Lainey’s eyes by making his disapproval of them quite clear:

This is what he said about Lainey’s sister:

He especially does this to Lainey’s father, who saw through Greg from the very beginning, and desperately tried to stop his 17-year-old daughter from marrying him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sAjnkASwOo

He also did this with Skye while they were still married, restricting her from seeing anybody but members of his own family, and members of her family that he approved of (which was basically just her younger sister, a 15-year-old girl who Greg admitted to fantasizing about having sex with, including (more than once) accidentally moaning her name while being intimate with Skye). A quote from his website at the time:

January 24th, 2007

Alright, so it has been a few days since Skye and I hung out with another couple… judging from the fact that these people were the only ones we knew that had a lifestyle that wasn’t drugged out, beered out (also known as drugged out), smoked out, ethically lacking, rude etc. and we can’t even enjoy ourselves around them as much as we do each other… I just really don’t see myself and Skye spending time with anyone in the future other than family…

It seems that everyone who isn’t blood related has something extremely wrong with them… it may not be apparent at first, like a used car, but when you get on the road with them, and get to know them, the clanks and pings begin to show, maybe not after the first few miles, but definitely after the second or third ride.

(Source)

This isolation of Skye got so bad that eventually, two of their friends actually tried to convince her to leave Greg:

January 27th, 2007

I was going to post something extremely long about how upset I am with two people I know, within my personal life - who are continuously trying to break my wife and I apart psychically and vocally… but I’m not going to as I believe it can only cause a greater level of drama, which is exactly what they feed on.

In fact, they probably know I’m talking about them right now, and are dialing my number just to tell me/others how wrong I am for my wife, and somehow by saying I love her every hour of the day, feeding her full of yummy food, trying to make her happy emotionally/other ways, putting a roof over her head, that in result of that I’m a bad husband.

(Source)

A former classmate of Greg, who had gone to high school with both he and Skye, also gave an interview with someguy827, in which he detailed his observations of Greg slowly but surely isolating Skye from all of her friends and family members:

You can read the interview here. (Source)

And read the comment that he made on lolcow here. (Source)

3. Power gained by social isolation and artificially inflated self-esteem. “I feel like a better person with I am with them.”

Greg has claimed this about every single one of his exes. I can’t track down photographic examples of him claiming this about all of them never mind, I managed to find examples of him saying this to at least three different women. Here’s an example of when he said it to ex-girlfriend Adrienne:

Keep in mind that they had been dating for a grand total of two weeks when he made the claim to her that she had helped him grow into a better person in the short amount of time they’d been together. 

He made the same claim about a high school girlfriend, Tanya, whom - again - he had known for only a couple of weeks; and they were not even officially dating when he said this to her:

Here is another example of him saying this about his first wife, Skye - again, only weeks into their relationship. The journal entry this screenshot was lifted from is much longer and I was having trouble pasting it into the body of this text in a way that was readable, so here’s a very short, cropped version of what he said. You can find the source for this quote here. (Source)

At the end of his relationship with Adrienne - while they were in the process of breaking up - he called her repeatedly while she was at work, leaving her over a dozen voicemails in less than a day. During this time, Adrienne managed to get in touch with Shiloh, another of Greg’s exes, to compare notes about the similarities in their relationship. When Shiloh listened to the voicemails that Greg had sent to Adrienne, she posted this comment on Facebook:

He had been telling the two women, only hours apart from each other, about how special and meaningful they were to him. The saddest thing about this is that at the same time, he was also calling Skye; and this exchange between himself, Shiloh, and Adrienne occurred only days before he started talking to Lainey. 

4. Creation of a feeling of dependency; induction of fear of the loss of relationship.

One of the ways that Greg likes to induce feelings of psychological dependence on him is through a tactic called “manipulation break-ups”. The phenomenon is explained here by dwayners13:

One of the most common tactics used by manipulative & emotionally abusive individuals is the ‘manipulation breakup’. This is simply when a person repeatedly breaks up with their partner, not because they truly want to end their relationship, but rather to gain power & control over their partner & the relationship in general. There are a variety of issues & events that can cause a manipulation breakup (far too many to list here), but it can range from their partner doing something they don’t like/approve of to the emotionally abusive person being confronted on their abusive/manipulative behavior (by their partner &/or their partner’s family/friends). [...]  Instead of taking the time to discuss or even arguing about the issue in an attempt to resolve it, the person will just break up with them, knowing that their partner doesn’t want to break up. They will then refuse to speak with them about the issue (& the relationship in general), essentially shunning or ignoring their attempts. This can include ignoring phone calls, text messages, VMs etc.., If the couple live together, they will simply refuse to speak with their partner (aka the silent treatment). Their intention is to make it seem like the relationship is over, so that the person will practically beg & plead with their partner & be willing to agree to anything in order to get back together.

(Source)

Greg and Lainey both admitted to him doing this multiple times throughout their relationship; and still, to this day, they admit that he attempts to break up with her every single time they argue, even though they’re married and have been for over seven years. It is extremely abnormal for a 34-year-old father of two who has been married for seven years to threaten to “break up” with his wife every time they get into an argument. These attempts at manipulation on Greg’s part terrify Lainey so much that she readily complies with whatever he wants in order to convince him not to leave her. This pattern could not be more apparent than how this manipulation tactic played out in their relationship with Billie. 

During the time when Greg and Lainey were in a polyamorous relationship with Billie, Lainey expressed repeated discomfort about Greg and Billie spending so much time together while she was excluded by having to spend so much time cooking, cleaning, looking after their their son (she was pregnant with their daughter at the time), and managing their household (which we now know, thanks to Maya, that Greg does not help out with at all, meaning that Lainey spent the vast majority of her day doing these things while Greg and Billie were in another room playing games, making videos, and hanging out). She felt that Billie was only there for Greg, and was not comfortable with them being sexually intimate together, even when it was all three of them together. After a while of this - despite Lainey’s continued discomfort, disapproval, and lack of consent (which is vital for any healthy, functioning polyamorous triad) - Greg told Lainey that there would be more more boundaries, no more jealousy, and that he and Billie were going to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted; and that if Lainey didn’t like it, then he was going to divorce her. 

Naturally, terrified of losing her husband, her family, her home, her source of income, and the only lifestyle that she’d ever known - with a three-year-old in tow, and pregnant with their second child - Lainey felt forced to remain in the three-way relationship that she didn’t even want to begin with. 

A quote from his video, “Onision’s Break Up Story”:

“I told my wife that there would be no more rules in the relationship. That there would be no more boundaries, no more jealousy, and that I would do what I want.”

(Source)

After this quote, Greg goes on to explain that he reassured his wife that he had no intention of leaving her; however, how could Lainey believe this, when just a few months before he had attempted to leave her for Billie, which only didn’t end up happening because Billie told him that she didn’t feel right about it? When he had threatened to leave her so many times before over much smaller and less significant things? He goes on to say this:

“Regardless, it is important to note that Billie did tell me that she thought Lainey might be upset if she and I slept together, but every time she indicated she was worried, I would remind her of the conversation I had with Lainey where I repeatedly told her there would be no more boundaries, we would all have balanced relationships, and that there would be no jealousy.” 

This is an ultimatum. The reason why Lainey went to Billie to ask her not to sleep with Greg is because she already knew that he would shut her down if she tried. Ask yourself this question: for what reason would a woman feel more comfortable asking other women not to sleep with her husband, instead of just going straight to the source and simply asking her husband not to sleep with other women instead? The answer is that it’s because she already knew that he would say no and try to divorce her if she kept bringing it up. It is not unreasonable for Lainey to believe Greg capable of doing this, considering that he has admitted in the past to leaving one woman for another (when he left Skye for Shiloh in 2011):

Greg doesn’t just do this to Lainey, however; he has done this, to my knowledge, with every other woman he’s ever dated. The following is a screenshot of a portion of the letter written by Adrienne - the 26-year-old that Greg dated for three weeks just before he met Lainey - describing how Greg attempted to manipulate her through making her fear the loss of the relationship:

Later on in the same letter:

The entirety of the letter written by Adrienne can be read here. If you’re interested in understanding how Greg’s mind works, I highly recommend reading it - it is extremely insightful, analytical, and well-written. 

5. Restrictive control of resources and activities enforced by induction of guilt, or fear of anger.

It’s no secret that Greg attempts to restrict the activities that his girlfriends are allowed to participate in. This ranges from the aforementioned control over how often they’re allowed to visit their families, to whether or not they’re allowed to have a job (a tactic reported by several of his exes and by Greg himself), to how often they’re allowed to go out with their friends, and even to what they are and are not allowed to eat.

In the following screenshot, a blog post by Shiloh months after they’d broken up, she details how he not only manipulated her into cutting off contact with her friends and family back home, but also convinced her to put her music career on hold so that they could be together all the time:

(You can read the full post here.)

He also talked Skye into quitting her job once he began making enough money off YouTube, with the reasoning that couples should be spending at least 50% of their time together. (I’m having trouble finding the screenshot for this, but it’s out there somewhere - I’ve seen it before.) Here is a similar screenshot, however:

He would also become extremely angry with Adrienne when she wanted to go out with her friends…

...and tried to manipulate her into quitting her job, moving in with him, and depending entirely on him as her source of income, all within three weeks of meeting her. 

6. Gaslighting causes victim to doubt what they see or hear. Inability to trust own thoughts and reasoning.

When Lainey first broke up with Greg and was considering divorce after he cheated on her with Billie, she admitted that she had never even wanted a girlfriend to begin with, and that it had been Greg who was pressuring her into it…

…but later, when Lainey recounted her side of the story in a response video to the one that Billie released, she adamantly maintained that it was she who had wanted to experiment with her bisexuality - evidence that Greg had been gaslighting her into believing that he was not at fault, yet again, and that it was Lainey who had desired to keep bringing back Billie over and over again. The tweet posted in first part of this screenshot was taken only six months after the tweet in the second part:

In addition - despite having told Lainey that it was his decision to sleep with Billie, and despite having literally admitted in a video that he published on YouTube to Billie having repeatedly brought up her discomfort with going behind Lainey’s back in order to be intimate with Greg - he still managed to convince Lainey to doubt her own perceptions enough to the point where she now, to this day - over two years later - still considers Billie to be the homewrecker, and that it was Billie who cheated on her with Greg, not Greg who cheated on her with Billie. That is how manipulative he is. 

During one of the periods in time when Greg and Lainey had broken up with Billie yet again, Lainey began talking to a new girl named Hailey (known online as Luxymoo). At first, Hailey believed that her relationship with Lainey would be exclusive; but after Greg informed her that the relationship would actually be an open polyamorous one, she realized that she was uncomfortable with the arrangement and decided to pull out. Despite the fact that she had every right to choose not to go through with it, Greg then attempted to gaslight her and invalidate her feelings:

After that I started doing research on what it meant to be in a three way relationship, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t for me. Which killed me, because all I wanted to do was be with Lainey. I wanted to try for them, but at the end of the day, I had to consider my personal feelings on the matter. I knew I couldn’t be what they wanted, because I wanted Lainey.

I told Lainey as soon as I came to that conclusion. I wanted to be honest. I didn’t want to drag it out. Lainey didn’t respond to me.. but Greg did. He said that if he were in my position, he would do whatever it takes to be with Lainey. He said that I didn’t really care about Lainey, that all I was looking for was friendship. He said that he thought my mind was broken. He said he thought I may be sexually dormant. He then would say that he thinks i’m a good person and that i’m the safer alternative. He called me a good distraction.

He wanted me to still come up. But that was a fleeting thought. He said friendship would be hard, and that I was doing everything I could to avoid a relationship with Lainey. Then he pitched the idea of me being with Lainey exclusively, while he’s with Lainey exclusively. Like we wouldn’t be doing sexual things together. I still declined because 1. he had spent so much time invalidating MY feelings on the matter, attacking my personality, pressuring me, etc. and 2. I also knew that that wasn’t what they wanted, and I told him that we would still hit that road block of me wanting exclusiveness. He had said in a previous conversation that it was like him and Lainey were on an island and I had a boat, but I wouldn’t throw them a life line because I wasn’t the right boat.

(The full conversation and screenshot can be seen here.)

He also tried to use this tactic on Maya - a girl who dated Lainey very briefly in late 2017 - in an attempt to preemptively gaslight her and discredit her, should she choose to come forward with her story about what he did to her:

Which he did, in fact, try to do later on, by attempting to accuse Maya of being a “homewrecker” for “wiggling while she was sitting on his lap” (despite not mentioning that he was the one who had placed her there, which she did not consent to, and only went along with because she felt so uncomfortable). The posts detailing her full account can be found here and here. 

7. Increased emotional and psychological dependence of victim on abuser.

Greg has already succeeded in doing this with Lainey and many other girlfriends in the past, and has attempted to do this to several more. When married to Skye, Greg insisted that she not have a job outside of the home because he believes that a couple should spend most of their time together (despite later claiming that spouses who do not have a job outside the home, or at least have children, are useless). After meeting Shiloh, despite the fact that she was a celebrity in Canada at the time they met, he forced her to quit her singing career and move in with him to work for and with him full-time; to this day, over seven years later, her singing career still has not recovered. Upon breaking up with Shiloh, he dated a woman named Adrienne, who he attempted to manipulate into moving in with him within three weeks of the start of their relationship - and she almost did. And likewise, when he began dating Lainey, within a month of meeting her, he had proposed to her, rented a house in the state where she lived so that she could finish high school, and then married and impregnated her within the year, so that he could groom her and keep tabs on her until she was old enough to marry. 

Lainey does not have a job, and is completely financially and psychologically dependent upon Greg for not just survival, but her very sense of identity and self-worth as a person. In fact, she is so dependent on Greg as a source of ego regulation that I wrote an entire post breaking down and analyzing my impression of Lainey’s personality matrix because I was so baffled by the extent of her psychological dependency on him. You can read it here, if you’re curious (and have a lot of spare time). 

8. Punishment through anger, verbal abuse, forced isolation, character assassination, etc.

When angry with ex-girlfriend Shiloh, he pushed her into a door frame, causing her to miscarry (although some people do not believe that she was pregnant, since she and Greg had once faked a pregnancy and stillbirth):

He also forced her to shave her head bald, calling her a “whore”, “his property”, and “a good bitch”:

When Billie lied to him about smoking weed, he attempted to punish her by forcing her to dye her eyebrows green, shave off her hair (the third time he has attempted to, or succeeded in, manipulating a girlfriend to shave her hair off), get an ugly tan, be chained to his basement wall for a week wearing a sign saying “I’m sorry for lying Lainey” around her neck, and tattoo “I’m a liar” in the small of her back:

When he breaks up with exes, he also slanders and demeans their character on social media. He even does this with friends, other YouTubers, and sometimes just with people - usually women - that he doesn’t like. Including myself, by the way:

Proud moment. :’)

He made a video criticizing his ex (Adrienne) for the number of sexual partners she’s had, as well as implying that her vaginal hygiene was poor, and even made a series of videos in which he went and got himself tested for various STDs in order to imply that she was so promiscuous that she could have given him one (a video which later got deleted off YouTube when he realized how many downvotes it was getting); however, you can see her reference the video in her letter here:

When he and Skye divorced, he slandered her by calling her a thief and a liar, and continued to milk sympathy from his fans by implying that he was unfairly being forced to pay alimony, even though he agreed to the amount in the settlement, and she was rightly owed that money for her part in producing his early Onision videos.

When he broke up with Billie, he said and did several things to demean her character, including calling her a drug addict, imply that she’s “less than” for being a high school dropout who lives with her parents still, and also revealed to his entire fan base that she has an eating disorder, accused her family of being drugs addicts, and that she had been sexually assaulted and had an abortion, a secret which she had previously revealed to only a handful of close friends and family:

After Blaire White called him out for his actions, he made a video calling her so many different vile names, with such vitriolic hatred in his voice, that I actually have trouble watching it all the way through. You can really see his narcissistic rage coming out in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEVHT6No5Xc

He has exhibited this cycle over and over again with YouTuber Cyr, who he has been friends with off and on for years:

Most recently - meaning since I first wrote this post (about a year and a half ago) - he has continued in this pattern of slandering ex-girlfriends and ex-friends a further three or four times at least; and so this is the part of this sub-heading that will provide new information that was not included in my old post.

After Jaclyn Glenn began dating Richie of SocialRepose, Greg flew off the handle, making a series of insulting comments about Jaclyn’s physical appearance on Twitter and YouTube, including remarking that tall women are gross, and that had she been dating him, he never would have allowed her to get breast implants, because they’re disgusting (and she’s disgusting for having them):

Since she has broken up with Richie, Greg has now reverted to his attempts at love-bombing Jaclyn (and her friend Jessie Paege) on Twitter, hoping to reignite their friendship (and the possibility of bringing her into a new trinity with Lainey, or at least hoping that she’ll be able to give a boost to his YouTube career). 

A few months ago, a close friend of both Greg and Lainey - model, actress, and member of the BDSM community Madison DeCambra - made a video with Greg about the DDlg (Daddy Dom/little girl) kink, which was received very poorly by the DDlg community. Feeling responsible for having hurt and contributed to the misrepresentation of the community that she loves so much, Madison posted a video on YouTube apologizing for any pain that her involvement in Greg’s video may have caused. Greg reacted to this by terminating their six-year-long friendship, as well as - predictably - going on a tirade of character assassinations against her on Twitter, including bringing her two-year-old daughter into it despite having previously accused anyone willing to bring a person’s children up during an argument of being trash. 

These were the texts he sent to Madison, which he then posted publicly on Twitter in order to discard and defame her:

(Source)

Here is a screenshot of Madison arguing with TomatoBisquette (another former friend of Greg’s whom he has discarded, in his case for being friendly towards MrRepzion, a YouTuber who Greg hates for having called him out in the past), who had tried to make light of how upset she was when Greg posted on Twitter telling her that he was disgusted by her and never considered her a friend:

He also used the opportunity to take another pot-shot at Beck - a former fan of Greg and Lainey before she, too, was ousted from their lives - for defending Madi:

However, the worst part of this interaction is that he chose to bring Madison’s two-year-old daughter into the argument, just because he was angry with her mother. Here was Madison’s (understandably angry and hurt) response:

A recent addition to the roster of the Avaroe’s stable of ex-friends, Maya - a 19-year-old bartender who briefly dated Lainey, and who visited them for about a week over the Christmas holidays in 2017 - described Greg’s behavior towards her as being bizarrely, uncomfortably interested in probing her about her past. She felt that he was pressing her for information to use against her in the future, and described the odd, inappropriate expression of pleasure that would come across his face while he was listening to a person describe some misfortune that had befallen them:

It would take me ages to compile a list of all of the exes, friends, YouTubers, and other randoms that he’s demeaned on social media or in his videos, so instead I’m just going to provide a (probably incomplete, and still-growing) list of people whose characters he has assassinated on Twitter or YouTube:

Exes: Skye, Shiloh, Adrienne, Billie 

Friends: Cyr, Andy Biersack (and his father), TomatoBisquette, Maya, Madison DeCambra, Beck, Jaclyn Glenn

YouTubers: Social Repose, Blaire White, Eugenia Cooney, Dan Howell, Keemstar, LeafyIsHere

Other: Ayallah (best friend of Billie, ex-girlfriend of Social Repose), Lainey’s family (father and sister), his own father, Luxymoo (Hailey)

9. Scouting new supply.

Before he had even divorced Skye, he moved on to Shiloh. When Shiloh left him and went back to Canada, he met Adrienne. When he broke up with Adrienne and she refused to take him back, he was texting Shiloh and Skye within 24 hours. When Skye, Shiloh, and Adrienne all refused to take him back, he then moved on to Lainey, who he had met and proposed marriage to within just a few short weeks of meeting. When he got bored of the ultimate power that he exerted over Lainey, he used her as queerbait to pull in Billie. When he and Lainey broke up with Billie - still bored with Lainey - he began auditioning new girls for a spot in his harem (Hailey/Luxymoo, Eryn, Maya, Sam, Beck). Here is a timeline of Greg’s known romantic relationships over the past fifteen years:

If Greg’s high school classmate is to be believed, however, then there are many, many women that Greg has been with that did not make this list.

And finally, here’s a funny, tongue-in-cheek chart chronicling the pattern of what happens when Greg and Lainey bring a new girl into the house: 

Lainey doesn’t know it yet, but this entire cycle is going to begin repeating itself sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lowkey auditioning girls as I write this.

10. Acting as though nothing happened.

Need I say more?

Survival Literacy

I'm not sure what I think students "need" at a minimum level of competency to be considered to be "done" with school -- and my use of scare quotes here should give you a sense of the turmoil that I've been feeling around some very foundational beliefs I've long held about school itself, its fundamental purpose and role in students' lives. I've been teaching in an alternative high school for four years, a daily teacher with a full course load, but in an environment that is about as "loose" within the traditional strucutral confines of a public school as you can get. Sometimes this looseness is good -- the students like it here; we don't have any fights; we love our kids and help them on their first postsecondary steps. Sometimes it's not so good -- things are very messy, and there are lots of little fires to put out, many of our own making, trying to do things a little differently and creating new problems as a result. But I've come to realize how insufficient the professional norms of reading instruction (these norms are different from research-based best practices; by professional norms I only mean "what do districts and administrators and classroom teachers expect to happen in the classroom") are for the majority of our students, all of whom have become disconnected with their previous high school. Some students come to us with high standardized scores in literacy and numeracy and seem to gain little from the direct instruction we might provide in reading and math, say. Some students come to us with borderline learning disabilities that have gone undiagnosed. Most come to us with severe gaps in their knowledge and skills according to the general scope and sequence of what they should have learned between fourth and ninth grade. You can see these gaps in their diagnostic scores, and in math these gaps even tell a story of educational turbulence and, sometimes, trauma -- students who have poor grasp of numbers and operations but can do passably well at certain types of algebraic thinking, say, usually because they had a terrible elementary experience but a few good math teachers in middle or early high school. Part of my job has been to take in all of this information in consultation with students and teachers and work with them on an individualized plan for making progress in their classes -- an ad hoc academic support position that is not technically special education but tries to implement some just-in-time learning needed to be successful in a class. So I've become more and more interested in how you actually teach people how to read, and how you might translate what seems to work for young learners to adult literacy. (I've been reading a lot of Tim Shanahan lately.) There is much less liteature on teaching adult literacy than I expected; much of it essentially takes strategies for younger learners and applies them to adults more or less unmodified, or expands the concept of literacy to areas that may or may not improve reading ability. Research on adult literacy seems to have a good sense of how many adults can't read, who they are, and some of the reasons why, but from what I've found so far there is a lot less convincing information on what the best practices are for intervention. I've started thinking about rudimentary literacy a little differently from how I imagined it when I took a media literacy approach -- i.e., a holistic sense of what literacy is, including multiple symbolic forms. Although I still love media literacy, I think there is something categorically different about print literacy, both in how it works -- at a basic cognitive level -- and in how we are expected to actually use it in the world. (Maybe I'll write my post about reading as photosynthesis later.) The metaphor I'm circling right now is survival skills. I had a conversation the other day with my wife about swimming. Our oldest son not only can't swim but has a water phobia. In other cultures, swimming is part of the environment, a survival skill that children can learn at very young ages. I've read that babies naturally know how to hold their breath if put into the water in a particular way. Even my own sister, who insisted her sons learn to swim early, had them in the pool at age 2, fairly regularly. (I've also read that actually swimming is probably more like reading developmentally, and that you should probably start formal swimming instruction closer to six years old. Hang with me; it's just a metaphor.) The extent to which reading is a skill for survival depends on more complex social context than swimming does. "If you're near water a lot you should know how to swim" doesn't quite translate. Instead what I'm thinking about is the purpose for teaching survival skills versus the purpose for teaching for enrichment and enlightenment. We focus so much on a love of reading in school, and also subsequently conflate love with motivation (a topic for another post that I won't go into now), that I think we miss defining which aspects of reading are actually necessary for one's life as a "survival skill," and which develop more naturally after those basic skills have been mastered. The problem with reading is twofold: (1) many but certainly not most children become expert readers before they've had a lot of instruction in reading, let alone targeted literacy intervention, so it seems like their love and their ability are linked and (2) the students who don't "take" to reading are then often engaged at the level of motivation and ease -- trying to make reading a pleasurable experience, by "leveling down" reading to where they're comfortable -- while also getting certain reading interventions that are uncomfortable and involve a lot of practice. A lot of literacy instruction focuses on instilling motivation and appreciation in students, for understandable reasons -- it seems like master readers should want to read, and we also know that master readers are motivated to read independently. We had a long and unproductive program at our school trying to implement sustained silent reading at our school, which failed for both site-specific reasons (we didn't do it with much fidelity, too many distractions, etc.) but also, I think, failed to take into account the fact that our students struggled to do more basic reading than we really liked to admit, even when in guided instruction they showed that they could read. They didn't like reading, and we didn't really have the school culture to instill that basic affection and motivation. But they also didn't have some of the precursory skills you would need to enjoy reading. But I'm not sure that the primary job of literacy instruction should actually be to instill an affection for reading any more than I think that the primary job of swimming instruction should be to instill affection in swimming. Without basic skills -- in swimming or reading -- it is literally impossible to develop affection in any meaningful way. You can't be motivated to read independently if you can't read any more than you can be motivated to "swim for pleasure" if you can't swim. Add to this what I see in my students -- they have specific blocks to reading that resemble my son's water phobia. So on top of whatever technical instruction they need to get to the basic level of literacy motivation, they also need a different sort of motivation, a motivation to overcome what I would call something like a fear of reading -- more accurately, a combination of distrust, deflation, and past negative experience. They are discouraged about reading. The logic that we tend to use in school is that if you get kids encouraged about reading, they will read more. But we also underestimate the level of reading mastery it requires to actually feel a basic level of encouragement, and then, crucially, for this encouragement to translate into actually reading well. My son feels encouraged when he puts his face in the water. But he can't swim. He needs to be able to put his face in the water for his comfort, but it may not be a skill that he needs to practice and focus on intently to learn how to swim. It may be a way of filibustering, a way of avoiding the thing he actually needs to be able to do. In fact, it is possible that part of him learning to swim will be to be put in an environment where that kind of incremental thinking based on his own comfort vanishes altogether. Survival literacy cuts both ways. We also don't need to expect our students to love to read, maybe ever. This is a profound and destabilizing idea in English education in two ways. First, it shifts a lot of the kind of content we teach in English classes. Fewer books and novels; more short and non-fiction pieces. This was a controversial component of the Common Core standards that I happen to think is on the mark when you are considering students who already are far behind in their literacy ability. That is, for my students, exploration of a novel might have some value, but lots of practice with short, relevant pieces -- journalism articles, reports, etc. -- will be more likely to help them with specific goals they have for reading. But the most destabilizing thing about a survival literacy mindset is that I'm not sure that the classroom is the best place for it to happen at all, and I'm also not sure that "classroom" is the right space to imagine successful literacy acquisition. I'm starting to think of literacy, as a functional process of decoding and low-level comprehension, as something that one has to acquire by hook or by crook, often alone and with deliberative practice. That it can happen in a classroom doesn't mean that it should. All of this goes away when you reach a baseline competency, but I think that we have the bar too low for what that baseline is and how much rigorous literacy instruction you need to be able to read independently and contribute within a culture of print literacy (i.e., read independently and then talk about it). Again, these are baseline competencies. I'm not suggesting that I believe that there is no role for reading in a classroom! But that for interventions and the basic development of that baseline competency, the classroom environment that fosters a love of literacy isn't the right way to think about what learners really need. This has been hard for me to digest, and I'm not anywhere near done in my thinking -- in fact I'm returning to grad school soon, I think, to devote myself more fully to literacy -- print literacy -- as a component of understanding the world.

My Depression and Anxiety Story

I’ve been drafting this for so long and I don’t know if this will ever be finished. (Spoiler alert: It wont be finished) A post from my friend who’s struggling with her own depression is what pushed me to finally publish this. 

I’m going to start with my own story.

I was (oh wait I still am) a fat kid. No one bullied me at school but I was always quiet and reserved. I wasn’t the studious type. When I get home from school I just open the TV or call my friends on our landline phone. I’d copy homework from my classmates in the morning. I also changed best friends every year until I met my forever best friends when I was in Grade 7. High School was the same, I still didn’t study. Thinking about it now, maybe even if I wasn’t bullied, I was quiet, shy and didn’t have the motivation to study because I was (oh shoot I still am) fat. I was my own bully. 

After High School, I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I told my Mom that I wanted to rest for a year before I go to College. She was okay with it. I spent my 18th birthday in the States. When we got back to the Philippines, I learned that my Mom and Dad were fighting. I didn’t go to my best friend’s 18th birthday because of that. One of the reasons too was because I wasn’t in school. I was ashamed, I self-pitied, because everyone I know are talking about school and I don’t have anything to share. I was depressed but I didn’t know what to call what I was feeling yet.

When I got to College, I made a lot of friends. I pushed myself to talk to people and not be scared. I was a Dean’s lister. I fell in love and got my heart broken. My Mom and Dad got separated. I started smoking. 2008 was my first documented depression. 

While writing, it looks like I didn’t have a good time. I didn’t, I had a great time! I met new people, learned from them because they’re very different from the people I knew from High School. They’re still my friends until now. 

I graduated. I was supposed to be a Cum Laude, but my grades were a 0.01 short. I didn’t want to blame my parents separation, but sometimes I do. I always feel that they were the reason why I didn’t push harder, but in reality it was still myself. It’s still my own fault. 

After graduation, I told my Mom that I wanted to rest for a year again. She didn’t agree to me this time. She said that I should start working at our family business. So I did. At first I didn’t care about anything in the office. My mom gives me work, I do it. But then I only go to work 1-2 times a week. Maybe after a year or two (I’m not really sure) my Mom decided to put me in the Accounting Department. That’s the time where I really struggled, I didn’t want that job. I still worked there and went to work every day just because I felt guilty about not doing anything on my first few years. I was still struggling because I didn’t like what I was doing. I would always be stressed out because of that.

A few more months, I was asked to help my sister-in-law with her job. So I was doing my job, and a quarter of hers. This made me more exhausted.

2017. I had no idea what happened. We went on a cruise for 7 days. I was supposed to be happy. It’s a free vacation! In the moment, I can tell that I was. But the times when we were back on the ship at night, all these thoughts of jumping off the ship intruding my mind. What would happen if I jump? I asked myself. I was irritated the whole time. I felt that my boyfriend and my Mom weren’t listening to whatever I say. 

And then we came back home. I was so different than before. I was feeling down without any reason. Before that, I was a people pleaser, I loved helping other people and making them happy. I chat with my two friends every day, one I met online and one is my High School best friend. I told them on different days that I can’t chat with them anymore. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was feeling overwhelmed with my own sadness, and I can’t deal with theirs anymore. They understood.

I kept myself isolated. I don’t go out anymore. I don’t talk to my High School best friends even online. I reply to other people, only when I need to. 

One time, my sister-in-law went to Europe for a month and that month I had to do all her work. So then I’m working two jobs for a month (probably more). The reason why I didn’t go full crazy was because my boyfriend was there to help me out. I’d joke about wanting to die. But in reality, I didn’t want to live anymore, I was just all work, then go home, then work then go home. We’d stay at the office until 1-2am. I didn’t even have the time to shave my legs or cut my nails. I was so exhausted. At that time, I thought that that’s going to be my life forever.

All through out the years I’ve documented my depression phase (on my other blogs). I’m can’t call myself clinically depressed, because I haven’t had the guts to go to therapy, and I’m also stubborn minded. I have this belief that the only one who can fix myself, is myself (more on this later). My depression was on and off. I’d get up then go back down again. I even developed social anxiety. I was anxious to meet new people. One time my Mom hired an intern and she let him inside my office. My boyfriend wasn’t there, and my Mom closed the door. I literally couldn’t breathe. I gathered all my courage to stand up and go outside so I can smoke. 

There’s a social media site that starts with the letter P. I’d always rant there about my life and my depression and one person asked me if I have privacy at home. And that’s when I thought about it. I’m an introvert. I’m with my family and boyfriend every day from Mondays to Fridays and on the weekends I’m with my friends. My job bugs me. My room was a mess. I didn’t have time to myself. I’ve been trying to please other people but when did I ever please myself? I continued my isolation for over a year, I tried to focus on me. Only me. 

It sounds so boring, but through that, I met myself. 

On the first few months. I felt numb. I didn’t feel anything. Why can’t I feel? I didn’t give a fuck about anyone, I didn’t even give a fuck about myself. I didn’t clean, I was too lazy to get up, I was stress-eating.

But then I felt like I was at the end, I was so down that there was no where to go but up. 

I love this quote from my favorite movie, Fight Club. “Marla’s Philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn’t.” It may sound a bit negative for some people. I’d always refer to that quote when I feel like I want to die. But this time, I reacted to it differently. I told myself, that I’m not scared to die anymore so I shouldn’t be afraid to live my life. To explore new things... or old things that I loved. 

Music. I started listening to music. My love for music came back. I listened to Hip-hop again. I love all genres but listening to Hip-hop makes me have this attitude that makes me feel strong. When I listen to Hip-hop, in my brain I’m like “whatever, fuck you all”. Also, I’m exploring OPM. There’s a ton of good bands right now.

TV Series and movies. Netflix is life. By watching tv shows and movies, I learned a lot. I’ll make a blog series about what I learn in every show or movie I watch. 

Buddhism. I’ve also gone through this path. I want to know how to have peace of mind. I’ve been studying Buddhism but it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God anymore. I just love their main goal. Basically, their main teaching is to be kind. And wow, just wow. That’s all you need, right? 

Astrology. The day of my birthday last year, my niece was here and she read my birth chart, it was scary accurate so I researched more about it and I’m slowly studying it at the moment. I also love it because I discovered more things about myself, that I know already but was just in the back of my head.

Hobbies. I asked myself a question, “What do I love doing?” I love arts and crafts and creating things, so I started buying materials for cross-stitching. I actually finished a piece last year. I haven’t framed it yet. 

Do what you love, everything is an investment, you may not earn money but you’ll earn skills, discipline, etc.

Organizing. Tidying Up With Marie Kondo and Minimalism. This was just recent. I might make a separate post for this but this really helped me. Organizing made my life better but the lesson I learned from them will be with me forever. Tidying Up with Marie Kondo focuses on what sparks joy. You do it with things, but you can also apply it in your life. On the otherhand, Minimalism teaches us gratitude and contentment.

Self-discovery. I discovered (and still discovering) who I really am, who I want to be and what makes me happy. All of us are different, what makes me happy might not make you happy. Learn from yourself. Love yourself. Ask yourself what makes you happy. Ask yourself what makes you sad. Ask yourself what can you do to survive this. The only person who knows how to make you happy, is yourself. I still believe that we��re not meant to be 100% happy all the time, because if we’re happy all the time, what is the point of living? See, that’s what we think about when we’re sad too, because we think that we’re going to be sad forever. Because you can’t feel joy if you don’t experience sadness (lol Inside Out reference, watch it!) Just believe that there will always be better days. This post isn’t to give advice, I didn’t post this because I want you to do this or that. It will always be a personal journey. No one knows if this will be my last depressive phase, so this post is also for myself. A reminder, that I was once okay. 

“Happiness in a meaningful life is really about the full array of emotions, and finding them in the right place” Embrace the sadness, embrace the happiness. Keep learning. Keep loving yourself.

Don’t be scared to share your story or reactions on my ask box. Let’s learn from each other. Let’s inspire each other. 

PS. If you know who I am, please respect my privacy, I don’t want people to know who wrote this. :) I’d love to express my real self more, in the future.

About words and language in 13x18 (plus Sam and duty)

- High and low registers: Lucifer, Gabriel and the farcical

I want to start this post about words in 13x18 not from the obvious theme (speak! and use the correct words!) but from a different perspective. In particular I want to compare two moments: the exorcism scene and the mentions of the porn stars.

Let’s start with the exorcism scene - it was farcical in a jarring and disgusting way because it was supposed to be; all the Lucifer scenes in the episode (in every episode?) are creepy and obnoxious because that’s what he is. The priest invokes the “Most glorious Prince of the Heavenly armies, Saint Michael the Archangel” and gets Lucifer... which introduces us to an aspect I found very interesting about the scene.

The thing is, there is a deliberate gap in registers in the scene: the priests use the high register of religious formulas, but the demon and Lucifer talk at a much lower level, and the clash in registers gives the scene the character of a farce. Think Don Quixote speaking like (his idea of) a noble medieval knight versus... well, the unrefined register of vulgar people: there is an effect of pathetic that is born from the fact that a high register is completely out of place in the rest of the situation.

In general, all of Lucifer’s scene have a farcical nature: he pretends to be the grand ruler of heaven on the throne of heaven, but the throne is just a chair in a repurposed office, and he does nothing to actually rule... he’s basically an evil Don Quixote that thinks of himself as a noble knight but is actually a useless, violent dude.

I’d say that the clash in registers in the exorcism scene parallels the clash in registers in the scene about the porn stars: a high register (the whole “Enochian writings on the wall” that give a solemn angelic vibe, Sam’s speech about making the world a better place and Gabriel being needed) is juxtaposed to the low registers of the mentions of the porn stars in Monte Carlo.

This parallel juxtaposes Lucifer and Gabriel to show their difference - Gabriel has always used farcical humor as his modus operandi, it’s part of how he normally acts, and it does not chip away to his dignity at all. He used porn to help stop the apocalypse! He weaponizes the farcical and the low, he draws power out of it. On the other hand, dignity is exactly what Lucifer pretends to have but doesn’t. He’s no better or more dignified than the lowly demon that he calls a “total nobody”, he just likes to think he is.

In short, the feeling I get is that Gabriel - even in a traumatized state, barely holding it together, because that’s what he’s doing, even when he appears to be better - controls the registers (of course his farewell to Asmodeus is a mocking one-liner about his suit*), with Lucifer the thing just happens around him, until he pretty much loses control and destroys the priests out of annoyance.

*There’s also a parallel between the two mentions of suits in the episode: Lucifer is annoyed because the priests threw holy water at his suit (“It’s a new suit, thank you very much”), Gabriel says the line about Asmodeus’ dumbass suit. Again, it highlights the difference between the two - Gabriel is in control even if he’s barely holding it together, Lucifer isn’t in control even when he technically holds all the power.

- Use words, use the correct ones

I am not going to spend too many words on the theme that has been discussed to Mars and back over the season so far - we know what’s going on, the show is setting a narrative about the fact that you need to say things and you need to say them correctly. The Gabriel arc so far has been a blatant mirror for the whole narrative: first his mouth is sewn, then he chooses not to talk due to his trauma (hello, 1x03) but writes everything down (I also found interesting that Sam is like, why isn’t he talking to us, when Gabriel just filled the entire room walls with communication - he’s being nonverbal but he’s communicating, Sam dumbass, no offense) and eventually starts talking again... by immediately correcting Sam’s language. Sam uses the wrong word to refer to Gabriel’s sexual companions in Monte Carlo: Gabriel wrote about porn stars, Sam referred to them as hookers, and, well, the difference is substantial. Again, words are not interchangeable (especially, I might add, when we’re talking about sexual or romantic partners, or potential partners, right?).

Now, going back to the previous part of this post - many people have talked about the usage of the “we need you, I need you” line in the scene ever since the sneak peek was released, but the sneak peek didn’t show a fundamental part of the scene: the fact that the “noble” speech is sandwiched between mentions of the porn stars in Monte Carlo. That gives a sort of farcical aspect to Sam’s speech, purposely ‘lowering’ it from the ‘high’ register of the 8x17 quote. There is a dramatic irony in play there - Sam is moving in a high register (both on an intradiegetic level, i.e. what Sam is doing, and on an extradiegetic level, i.e. the 8x17 parallel the audience sees), but other elements in the situation make that register appear inappropriate and ridiculous. So it’s not a “copy” of the Destiel scene - it’s a sort of semi-dark parody of it.

Now, I am not going to dwell much on Gabriel as a parallel for Dean’s and Sam’s issues with talking about sensitive things, because we get it (interesting that Dean had no issues communicating about sensitive things with Ketch and Charlie, right? I wonder what that could mean), so let me digress a bit from the actual topic of the post to add a thing that fits in the picture.

- And while we’re talking about distinctions...

The episode does not only tackle the usual topic of using the right words. It also subtly reminds us of an old little theme, the distinction between familial love (in particular between siblings) and romantic love. (Do you think there’s a bit of making fun of the fandom panic that occurs when a female character is cast and people assume it’s a love interest for Dean, like it happened before Charlie’s first episode aired? Probably not, but I like to think there’s a little dig at the fandom panic thing here, lol.)

As Dean expresses strong feelings about Charlie, Ketch hypothesizes that she was a girlfriend of Dean’s. Later, Charlie basically has a moment of alarm when Dean tells her that they were “very” friends and she suspects that might mean a relationship. In both cases, Dean specifies that it wasn’t the case - he explains to Ketch that Charlie was like a sister to him, and reassures Charlie her alternate version wasn’t straight. But we know that Charlie’s sexuality matters relatively to the nature of her and Dean’s relationship, because even if she had been bisexual or straight, Dean saw her a sister, not someone he couldn’t have sexually or romantically because of her sexuality. So we’re reminded again of the distinct line between sibling love and romantic/sexual love. I wonder what that could mean...

- Sam and Gabriel and duty

Let’s return to Gabriel’s initial inability to speak (first physical, then psychological). Of course, it’s not just a parallel to Dean, but to Sam too. Ho ho, Sam. As usual, Sam explicits the “parallels” he sees between himself and the person he’s interacting with (there are some interesting posts out there about Sam’s way of sympathizing with others by drawing a comparison between his own experiences and the other person’s, or, at least, what he understands of the other person’s experiences though the lenses of his own), and he projects on Gabriel what he needs to believe about his own situation. Eventually... he doesn’t work. Sure, we know that Gabriel will change his mind about the situation and join the team, but we can reasonably expect that he’ll need more motivation (a different kind of motivation?) than Sam’s speech about himself and their supposed parallels. Sam also only mentions the “safe” old story of his retirement from hunting, and doesn’t touch his own inability to speak about his trauma (yes he did it with Rowena but he explicitly said he can’t do it with the people who really matter, i.e. Dean).

While we’re talking about this scene - the speech about making the world a better place, what he was “put here” to do, doesn’t work, and is in fact a little terrifying by looking at Sam through the lens of it. “What I was put here to do” empties his entire life of choice, and it’s an extremely meaningful piece of insight into Sam’s mind - he does not really conceive his life if not in terms of accepting or refusing a course of action. There doesn’t seem to be a concept of building his own course, but to accept the one that he’s supposed to follow or to reject it. He tells Gabriel that he chose it out of duty, basically - “rubbish”, Ketch calls duty shortly later. This season also has a theme about duty, about the fact that making life choices based on duty (duty alone) is bad. And this scene with Sam talking to Gabriel seems to tell us that Sam’s entire life course is only based on a sense of duty, because he conceives things as embracing the role written for him or reject it altogether, and duty obviously calls for the first.

We’re going to keep a close eye on Sam and Gabriel and how the progressions of their stories parallel each other. At the end of the day, it’s the same old issue: Sam doesn’t like his life, but he considers it a burden he has to shoulder...

#72. "You fainted, straight into my arms. You know if you wanted my attention you didn't have to go to such extremes" with Gladio (I love how you write sweet, tender Gladio)

Fic Title: The PremierRating: G Couple: Gladio x ReaderNotes: I was trying to make something cute and meaningful, not sure if it worked well, but I hope you like it.If you guys want to support my writing:  Ko-Fi

Tagging: @birdsandivory @jojopitcher @lazarustrashpit @yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy @amicitonia @ladychocoberry @kairakara101 @theyearofdiamonddogs @themissimmortal @akiza-hades-rose @a-manville-meow

It was your first time at an event like that and honestlyyou were feeling more than anxious. It was a big day, probably the biggest inyour life so far. Your new book being published, and not just being publishedbut receiving such massive attention. There were at least two hundred people atthis party and you were told that the interest was way bigger, just thebookstore couldn’t fit more than two hundred. It was exciting. One of theyoungest best-selling authors in Insomnia, your own formal book presentation…

…and somehow none of that was reaching you. Of course, youwere excited and of course you were happy, but you still couldn’t believe it.You were here, and still it felt like a dream. People were talking to you,congratulating you about your success, asking you about your next book, ifthere is a next book coming. You were too anxious to engage in a conversationwith any of them. You just nodded, answered as politely as you could with asfewer words as you could.

“Can I ask you to sign my copy?” somebody asked behind youand you had to turn around. It was the first request for the evening, strangelyenough. The bookstore was selling signed copies tonight and you figured thatmost people already bought one. All these thoughts were interrupted once yousaw the stranger who made the request. He was…gorgeous. Tall, handsome and youcould see the muscles showing under his black shirt.

“S-sure…” You grabbed the book he was holding and placed iton a table nearby. “What’s your name?”

“You can just write Gladio. Sounds more personal than myfull name.” he gave you a charming smile and you had to do your best to keep itcool. The people who usually read your books were women. Not that you thoughtmen didn’t read them, it was just men seemed to be a bit shy about admitting toread romance novels. Something about romance novels being for girls and othermade up excuses about manliness. Your editor had made a survey and turned outthat almost equal amount of men and women had read your books, but while womenalmost always said they bought the books, men usually said they borrowed itfrom their girlfriends or sisters or similar.

“You bought that here today?” you asked since you realizedyou were taking too long to steady your hand to write on the book. You were anauthor, you couldn’t sign that book like a kid in first grade.

“Actually, no. I have had it for about a week and alreadyread it.” He moved next to you, pressing the back of his legs against the tablewhere you were signing at the moment. You turned your head away from the bookto look at him and your eyes were at his abs level. When did he find time toread books and build body like that? Because even under the shirt you could seehe was in perfect shape. Maybe he read it while doing sit ups?

“How did you get it a week early?” even you had hard timefinding copy for your own collection since they were all being distributed tovarious bookstores for the big day. You had to call your editor ten timeswithin three days to ask for your copy.

“I have my ways.” He gave you another charming smile and youfelt completely week I the knees. You weren’t used to this sort of attention.It was movie stars and signers that had fans like that, not you. “How about wego to the bar and have a drink and I might tell you about that. After you signmy book of course. If you still want to sign it.”

“Right your book. I mean your book. The book.” You turnedthe title page and scrabbled your name as neatly as you could. Then you wrote ‘ToGladio with love’ and realized how boring that was and that probably you shouldhave first written the text, then sign it. Too late now, you already made afool of yourself. “I’m sorry I’m afraid I’m terrible at signing…never learnedhow to do it without embarrassing myself. How about I buy you a drink?”

“I think it’s perfect. Makes it more personal.” He waslooking at your scrabbles over your shoulder. “Come on time to enjoy thisparty, you seem like the only person who is not enjoying it.”

He grabbed your hand and his book and pulled you towards thebar. Although you had said you’d buy the drinks he didn’t want to hear aboutit. He asked you what you want and then ordered for both of you ignoring yourrequest that you owe him a drink.

“You are one of my favourite writers!” he argued. “I’m notletting you buy me a drink and sign my book. I need to show that I’m grateful.”

“You were going to tell me how you got a copy earlier. EvenI couldn’t and I wrote the thing.” You decided not to protest any longer. Notevery day a handsome man like him would buy you a drink.

“My father works with the king. Let’s say people find ituseful to do small favours to people around the king.” He didn’t seem proud ofthe fact he used his father’s position to get the book, but you could sense hisexcitement over the fact that he did in fact get the book.

“Wait…what’s your full name?” were you supposed to know whohe was and you somehow missed that?

“Gladiolus Amicitia.” He admitted a bit sheepishly whilescratching the back of his head.

“Your father is the king’s shield! And you are the youngprince’s shield!” you couldn’t believe that. The prince’s shield was readingyour books. “I can’t believe it…someone like you reading my books.”

“What you thought the prince’s shield is mass of muscle andno brains?” he sounded a bit wounded by your words but that was not how youmeant it.

“No, not that. I mean, I never expect someone famous to bereading my books. To be completely honest, I’m surprised anyone at all reads mybooks, I’m not even sure how my editor found two hundred people to come to thatparty. I see the numbers and I see the sales, but I don’t know they seemunreal. As if someone is making them up to make me feel better. Having someonelike you, someone that everybody knows actually read my books and ask for anautograph is…so strange.” You felt like you were blabbing and not making lotsof sense so you just finished your drink quickly hoping that will help yourelax and not say anything stupid.

“You must be joking!” he saw that your glass was empty andordered again. “You are amazing. I got in trouble because of your book. I wasreading one morning in bed and got so sucked into the plot that I didn’trealize I was late for practice. Cor, my mentor, he wasn’t pleased with me. Ican’t believe you think so little of your skill and ability to tell stories.”

You had no idea what to say to that. It was a very honestcompliment on his end, you were just not used to these. You were rescued byyour editor who gave you a sign to come to her, it was time for a speech. Youhated that part of the presentations, but it was necessary something aboutselling more books and pleasing the audience if you were to quote your editor.

After a short applause you were invited to the improvised stageand given a microphone. Your anxiety hit you even harder, talking to peoplewasn’t your thing, public speaking was real nightmare. You took a deep breath,that was not your first time doing it, but it felt like it. Every time feltlike a first time.

“Good evening everyone.” You stared, trying your best not tohave your voice shake. “It’s real pleasure having you all here. Thank you forjoining me and my publishers in celebrating the publishing of my newest book.” Wordswere coming hard out of your mouth and you felt dizzy. You were stressed, youhaven’t eaten all day and you had two drinks way faster than you should have.You told yourself that whatever happened you shouldn’t faint on the stage. “Asyou might have noticed there are still some signed copies for sale here, besure to purchase yours. There will be more events like this planned later inthe month, I hope to see you there as well.” You smiled as charmingly as youcould and walked off the stage, very mindful of your steps.

As you walked down the stairs constantly remind yourselfwhich leg to move you felt very dizzy and lost your balance. That was it, nowyou were going to fall in front of everyone and break a leg. The newspaperwould talk how you were drunk not about your new book.

Couple of minutes later you came to your senses. You weren’tat the party, you were in what seemed like a storage room, surrounded by boxes…

“What happened?” the question was mostly directed toyourself since you thought you were alone but for your surprise there was ananswer.

“You fainted, straight into my arms. You know if youwanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes” Gladio smiledat you and gave you a glass of water.

“Thank you…” you took the glass and could feel yourselfblushing. “Did everyone laugh?”

“No, most of them didn’t notice. Only your editor. Everyoneelse was too busy drinking and talking. Brought here because it was quiet andnobody else is around.” He touched your forehead with the back of his hand. “Areyou feeling okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just…anxiety. I’m really terrible with eventslike that and I haven’t eaten all day.” You explained and felt a bit sillyabout the whole thing. What kind of person just doesn’t eat all day?

“Though that might be the case.” He reached somewhere behindyou and presented you with a tray filled with sandwiches. “Wasn’t sure whichone you like so I grabbed two of each.”

You stared at him your mouth half open. That was probablythe sweetest thing a stranger has ever done for you.

“Thank you…” you said as you grabbed a sandwich at randomand bit into it. The sandwich itself probably was terrible but right now wasthe best thing you had ever eaten.

“I might be crossing a line here, but would you go out withme some time? I realize I approached you as fan and probably seems a bit creepyfrom your point of view, but…I think you are a very sweet and beautiful, somaybe we can have a breakfast tomorrow morning?”

You stopped chewing and just looked at him. Did the prince’sshield just asked you out? Probably one of the most handsome men in Insomniaasked you out? Just after you fainted and made absolute idiot out of yourself?

“I just fainted, made a fool out of myself, signed your booklike illiterate first grader and you are asking me out?” you were blinking inabsolute surprise.

“You need someone to make sure you had good breakfast andlunch before your next premier so you don’t faint again, thought it might beme.” He gave you a charming smile that you just couldn’t refuse.

Blog Post: On Fan Fiction and Other Storytelling Traditions

When I was twelve or thirteen years old, and even our family finally had DSL internet, I discovered the joys of fan fiction. In case you haven’t been living under the same rock as I have, allow me to explain. “Fan fiction” refers to stories written by enthusiasts of a particular book, TV show, or other creative work. While most “fics” – as my friends and I would call them – take place within the particular universe of the original story, others take known characters and put them in an entirely new setting. (That’s how 50 Shades of Grey was born.) There’s also fan fiction that doesn’t deliberately draw on any work but revolves around real, famous people in imagined situations. (See Graham Norton and Daniel Radcliffe discuss this type on the former’s show.)

The stories that interested me ranged from shorter “one shots” to multi-chapter epics, but most were placed in the Harry Potter universe and nearly all were tales of romance – if you could call it that.

The pairings I read about (and often ‘shipped’ – a verb that comes from the ‘ship’ in ‘relationship’ and means “hoped would bang”) – whether true to canon (i.e. the original books), such as Lily and James Potter, or wildly inventive, such as Hermione and a Tom Riddle to whom she has traveled back in time – usually engaged in the kind of love/hate banter that sends real couples to therapy. The pair would glare at and insult each other (often employing strangely American turns of phrase for a pair of ostensible Brits), their apparent mutual disgust hiding a deeper attraction. For my friends and I, it was riveting stuff.

While I was mainly a Lily/James shipper myself, you can’t talk about Harry Potter fan fiction and not mention Dramione. The fan-invented romance between Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger was a tale of forbidden passion, a defiance of Hogwarts housing norms and the mandates of Potter canon itself. Draco did need to be less of a whiny loser to be a deserving match for Hermione, but this could be arranged without too much trouble. In the fan fiction world, Draco was dark and brooding, and he didn’t bring his dad up in conversation quite as often as in the books. Hermione was clever and empathetic, and although she was rarely depicted with less than Yule Ball-level beauty, her looks were not her main characteristic.

Sometimes fan fiction Draco and Hermione fell for each other while at Hogwarts. In other fics, they met again under changed circumstances years after the fall of Voldemort. Then there were the AU fics in which a brilliant young paralegal named Hermione Granger begins work at the firm where successful lawyer Draco Malfoy practices. You get the idea.

Photoshop creations starring Tom Felton and Emma Watson (no credit belongs to me). The purple one in particular has stayed in my memory for years, and brings on a familiar feeling of excitement at all the great content to peruse in the world. It was the banner for a website that allowed fans to nominate and vote for their favorite Dramione fics.

A particularly sexy iteration of the Draco/Hermione story was called Water by kissherdraco. In it, Draco and Hermione are Head Boy and Girl at Hogwarts. Of course, this means that they must live sequestered in their own dormitory, with its own entrance, common room and adjoining bathroom that ensure they see each other in a state of partial undress when the story demands it.

Water was held by many to be the pinnacle of the genre. It had lust and angst in equal measure, executed with a liberal dose of swear words and aggression. Moreover, Water took the common flaws of the Dramione world’s characters and actually explored them, allowing character to drive plot. In the story, Draco is brooding and cruel as ever, but these traits are linked to vicious abuse at the hands of Lucius. This backstory is not seen as an excuse for Draco’s behavior and he is forced to grow and change as the story progresses (although not quite enough, tbh).

I never finished the story, perhaps because my young brain was alarmed by all the hate-sex, but I revisited it with curiosity for this piece. Here is a relatively benign excerpt from the text, although please skip if you’d rather avoid themes of physical dominance:

“You’re crying,” growled Draco, leaning in and flicking his tongue onto her cheek. He tasted salt.

She struggled then, and he brought his hands to her shoulders to hold her still. “Don’t, Granger,” he warned. “I fucking need this. I can’t fucking…” He trailed off.

He never would have noticed before. Not like he did now, at least. Her lips were wet. They were red and moist and magnificently ripened for him. So full of blood. Hot, heated, sullied blood. He couldn’t take his eyes off them.

Other fics situated romance within a larger plot about the politics of the wizarding world. Prelude to Destiny by AnotherDreamer took place in the Marauder era (i.e. the time of Harry’s parents) and focused on the coming-of-age of Lily Evans and her role in the battle against evil. It begins, “Two cultures and a thousand miles from you, there is a castle on a hill…”

Another fave began life under the title Ancient and Most Noble and is now called Druella Black’s Guide to Womanhood. It is about the diverging lives of the three Black sisters — Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa — in the early years of Voldemort’s power. The sisters confront the crumbling of the their easy closeness as they make different choices in a changing world.

”It’ll be a laugh, you’ll see,” Bellatrix whispered into her ear, her breath sweet and thick from wine. They were curled in the cool grass, tangled in the layers upon layers of lace and satin that were their dress robes; it had taken them an hour to get them on right and just ten minutes to unsettle them. Andromeda’s head was spinning: from the liquor, from the heat, from far too much dancing. “It’ll all be just like this,” Bella was murmuring, her lips brushing against her ear. Stars whirled by overhead, maybe close enough to touch. Close enough to try.

“Always just like this.”

—

Andromeda swore as she stepped off the train. From inside the nicely cool travel car, summer had looked so charming, green and bright and gloriously school-free…

I was most interested in these fics, the ones that revolved around the generations before Harry’s. There was something compelling about the knowledge of forthcoming tragedy for many of the characters…Plucked away from the happy ending of the books, these fics became an exploration of why life is meaningful even in its flawed and finite scope.

I look back on my fan fiction experiences as belonging to a beautiful time when the internet was less like Janet from The Good Place* (if Janet were selling everything she knew about us to profit-hungry corporations and belligerent, militarized governments), and more like a library you went to when you felt like checking out a book. Nobody knew what I ate and where I went every minute of the day, because I didn’t put that stuff online, nor did I (to my knowledge) carry a tracking device with me when I went downstairs to play with my friends. At 5 pm, our moms would have to call each friend’s landline to reach us and remind us to stop home for our daily glass of milk or what-have-you.

*Janet is a humanoid presence in the afterlife who holds all knowledge in the universe and can create objects out of the void.

Fan fiction was a commerce-free creative space – devoid of ad revenue and the quick accumulation of likes. Since there was neither money nor social capital to be gained, everyone who participated did so out of pure interest. One did have the hope of raking in reviews from other community members, but these were about more than validation; reviews allowed people to have conversations about a shared passion and often included constructive criticism along with praise. There was little need for bitterness – if a fic was well-written, everybody won, since it meant they got to read it.

Below are some examples from the reviews section of Prelude to Destiny. It’s certainly no Twitter.

Written by rach on chapter #13. (March 28th 2009, 5am) Hey,

So I’ve read your whole story before, and now I’m reading it again, because I saw it spotlighted on the site. And this chapter is amazing. I love the end…I’ve never (well, before I read this the first time) compared Lily to Mrs Crouch. But it’s so true. They both gave their lives for their sons and…this chapter is phenomenal. Just thought I’d let you know

Rach

Written by Smith on chapter #26. (April 29th 2008, 11am)

…If I am to find any fault in the story, then I should say that Remus was rather dull. Not that it was completely out of character, but I imagine him being funnier and also good Lily’s friend. Their friendship is mentioned by Lupin in the third film and, I should think, in the book as well, though I don’t have a copy right now and thus can’t provide a quote. Pity, that. [Given my extensive knowledge of canon, I can tell you that the reviewer is mistaken on this last point.]

Thank you very much for writing this story. Reading it was an enjoyable experience that I might repeat in the future. You’re brilliant, to put it short.

Author Response: Thanks for the review!Yeah, Remus was a bit dull. Actually, I didn’t intend for Lily to be friends with any of the marauders besides James. I just wanted them out of the way. But I know what you mean. After Sirius entered the story, Remus was even duller in comparison. Plus, I wanted to make Peter seem like he fit in, and Remus just fell by the wayside, you know?I’m enjoying writing Gertrude again after taking over a story from my friend who used my characters. Anyway, thanks again!Miranda

For me, too, fandom was a more than a casual hobby. Since I was only allowed an hour of internet use a day, I would spend the time copying and pasting chapter after chapter of fan fiction onto Microsoft Word, allowing me to read all I wanted later. (As you might imagine, Water was not stored on the family computer.) I remember scouring for new fics on fanfiction.net and clicking through page after page of fan art on deviantart.com (both of which retain their early-2000s layouts, unlike Mugglenet or JK Rowling’s official site), very differently from how I scroll through Instagram today. I admired works of fandom the way one appreciates springtime’s first flower, or the décor of a friend’s bedroom – I admired the stamp of individuality they bore and that inspired me to create something myself, to express my joys and sorrows, to be a part of the world.

RIP old websites

When I did put Harry Potter-inspired art out there, somewhere around age fourteen, it was of course in the form of fan fiction, writing being my weapon of choice. I wrote two one-shot pieces, one funny and the other sad — or such were my intentions, though perhaps the results were inverted. While some friends wrote longer stories, I never felt talented or inspired enough to commit, which is a typical self-doubting move of the kind I am trying to leave behind. (I now plan to write no matter how untalented and uninspired I may be.)

One piece was about a character of my own invention, a Slytherin guy with the requisite pure-blood, Dark magic-loving family, and a perky, ponytailed Huffelpuff girl on whom he develops an obsessive crush. It was intended to be a BBC-inspired mockery of the character, taking all the gloomy sexiness of the Dramione universe and making it ridiculous. It was also a thorough exploration of really wanting to make out with somebody sitting in the same classroom as you, not that I’d know anything about that myself.

The other short story was a sincere ode to the books and an exploration of some of their core questions on death and loss. It followed Harry in an imagined scene that takes place (SPOILER ALERT lol) after Dumbledore’s death in the Half-Blood Prince. Harry is climbing the steps to the Owlery with a package in his hand, thinking over his relationship with Dumbledore. As I wrote, I found that I absolutely had to include excerpts from a fairly unexpected source, a chapter in the first and most overlooked of the Harry Potter books. The chapter is “The Mirror of Erised,” whose titular object reveals to the onlooker their deepest desire.

“Professor Dumbledore. Can I ask you something?”

“Obviously, you’ve just done so,” Dumbledore smiled. “You may ask me one more thing, however.”

“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.” Harry stared. “One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”

It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful.

In my story, Harry gazes out at the Forbidden Forest for a little while, wondering who Dumbledore had been behind the mask of calm wisdom and pondering the burden of those left alive and grieving. Harry then ties the package he’s been holding to Hedwig’s arm and sends her off, chuckling a little through tears. In the last line it is revealed that – OMG – he has just sent off a pair of thick, woolen SOCKS. To DUMBLEDORE. Even though Dumbledore is DEAD. Isn’t that profound?

Two years later, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, and to my complete surprise, it delved deep into some of the questions about Dumbledore that had tumbled out of me, stream-of-consciousness-like, in the story I wrote. The text even includes part of the above excerpt from “The Mirror of Erised”. At the outset of Deathly Hallows, Harry learns that Dumbledore’s childhood was a difficult one, the true details of which remain murky and contested by his admirers and critics. Harry regrets never having asked Dumbledore about his past, but recalls that, after all, the one personal question he had asked Dumbledore was not answered honestly…

While writing my story, I had imagined Harry’s pain and longing to know Dumbledore better. Because fan fiction allowed me to externalize my interpretation of the text, the questions in my mind took on concrete form. Their answers, when the next book presented them, became all the more striking and emotionally impactful. It was as though I had written a letter to the series of books that had shaped me and received, in a way, a gentle but meaningful response.

In 2004, JK Rowling released a statement about the phenomenon of fan fiction. She was flattered by fans’ desire to write about her characters, and her only caveats were that fan fiction should remain suitable for children (unfortunately that ship had already sailed, and Water was truly the least of it), as well as a non-commercial activity so that fans’ creative pursuits would remain unexploited. Other authors have not been as accepting, and have asked for fan fiction based on their work to be removed from popular websites. After all, in our current world, a story is classified as property. A sentence, a verse, a character’s name, can belong to someone the same way as the furniture in their house and the dollar figure in their bank account.

In the long history of storytelling, however, ownership is a relatively recent idea. Bear with me while I make an analogy – in pre-industrial Britain, every town had a commons, an area of land where anyone could gather firewood, take their cattle to graze, or hunt and fish to supplement a year of poor harvest. Storytelling has historically functioned as a kind of commons of ideas, one that anyone could pull from when the time came to tell a tale. Want to warn your kid against going near a well? Tell them about the hungry demon that lives in it. Were you hired to entertain a crowd at a wedding? Maybe you dust off an old poem about a prince and princess who meet one evening in the forest but spend years apart, not knowing each others’ true identity until it turns out they were betrothed all along.

Nobody invented well-dwelling monsters or estranged lovers for the first time – they simply existed in a shared cultural space, available when needed (or when it was particularly enjoyable to use them), ready to be shaped into something new and old at the same time. Even today, no one questions the use of familiar tropes in books and movies; we know that all storytelling involves a certain amount of borrowing and repetition, and we deem this acceptable as long as the storyteller has put an adequately original spin on the themes they utilize. The legal line is drawn once you get to the particulars – character names, or sentences and dialogue. These must be brand spanking new if you want to avoid a lawsuit and getting dropped by your publishers. (Does anyone else remember How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life?)

But for thousands of years, people told and re-told stories of beloved and familiar characters, not just unnamed archetypes – characters like Odysseus and Arjuna, Gilgamesh and King Arthur. The Sanskrit Mahabharata (Maha-BHA-rata) an epicly long, genre-defying story from South Asia, especially challenges the idea of a single, canonical text (much like other ancient story traditions from the subcontinent). It was told so many times by so many people that modern-day folks are not always able to agree on what the Mahabharata even is. The story is like a vast ocean — recognizable to all, but appears different depending on where you happen to be standing.

In the 20th century, some scholars collected Mahabharata manuscripts from all over the subcontinent, extracted the most commonly occurring parts to form a text, and detailed the many variations of each verse in footnotes that turned out longer than the text itself. No one can quite agree whether to treat this resulting (multi-volume) “Critical Edition” as the essential Sanskrit Mahabharata tradition, or as some kind of strange, post-colonial Mahabharata scrapbook. All this so that whenever somebody wrote an essay about the story, there was a single text, pieced together as it was, to use as a point of reference. (My Bachelor’s thesis was one of the lesser works of this scholarly genre.)

The plot of the Mahabharata goes like this: The five Pandava brothers, namely the prone-to-gambling leader Yudhishthira, morally-conflicted archer Arjuna, lovable beefcake Bhima, and something-to-do-with-horses twins Nakula and Sachdeva, along with their badass wife Draupadi, are exiled from their kingdom and forced into a year of disguise after a rigged dice game that Yudhishthira loses, and in which Draupadi is stripped and humiliated before a hall full of men. Eventually the Pandavas regain what they lost through a bloody war that leaves both sides devastated and questioning the point of all this conflict. The End.

Does my summary reflect my biases a little bit? For somebody else, the Pandavas might be perfect heroes, Draupadi a whiny ungrateful shrew who won’t stop yelling at them. To me, she is the moral backbone of the Pandavas, unafraid to call for what she feels is right even as everyone around her takes the coward’s way out of trouble.

Interpretations of Draupadi from various traditions

But it’s not just me who has a take on the story: the Mahabharata itself reflects a range of interacting and conflicting views, which might indicate that people from various backgrounds heard it and were able, in some way, to influence it. For example, although the text generally upholds hierarchies of caste and gender, it also pulls at the listener’s heartstrings with stories of characters who must confront these oppressive norms.

There’s Amba, who is stolen from her future-husband at her wedding and rejected by him when she manages to return; she later chooses to be re-born as a man in order to kill her kidnapper in battle. There’s Ekalavya, the talented archer from a forest tribe who trains with the Pandavas in youth and asks to prove his devotion to his archery guru any way he can; the guru, who favors the upper-caste prince Arjuna, asks Ekalavya to cut off his right thumb. There’s Kunti, who finds herself pregnant after an illicit affair with a god and places her baby, Karna, in a river; Karna is adopted by a lower-caste charioteer couple and goes on to fight against Kunti’s legitimate sons in the great battle that destroys the universe. And there’s Satyavati, whose husband/baby daddy pretends not to recognize her in front of his kingly court but gets completely schooled on how not to be an asshole.

“You know very well [who I am], your majesty; why do you say that you don’t, lying like a common man? Your heart knows the truth, and knows your lie. A man who does something wrong thinks, ‘No one knows me,’ but the gods know. If you do not do what I ask, your head will burst into a hundred pieces.” She discoursed at length on the reasons why a man should honor his wife, quoting the dharma texts.

(from The Ring of Truth: And Other Myths of Sex and Jewelry by Wendy Doniger)

Perhaps, among the traveling bards and indulgent grandmas who told the Mahabharata over centuries, there were some who identified or empathized with the pain of oppression and through whom otherwise-marginalized voices could ring out into the millennia.

The many Mahabharatas, along with the many conversations inside the Mahabharata, illustrate how the human imagination is prolific and messy, not content with merely absorbing information but impelled to remake, to take inspiration, to create, create, create. Isn’t that what happens when we read? We see the world we are reading about in our own way. We make up something in our own head as we go along, and that’s where the entertainment lies. The book itself is but a wonderful tool.

Perhaps if I had a right-wing patron who paid me to tell stories, I would tell the Mahabharata a little differently from how I do here, focusing on how the Pandavas were self-made men or how the ethnic minorities they killed were thieving encroachers. Or if I were telling the story to children, I might leave out anything particularly frightening. In the telling of a story, the will and whims of the teller have influence, as do those of the listener (or reader) and the financial benefactor (or publishing house).

What remains inevitable, however, is that rarely is a story told the same way twice. Even in our post-printing press, post-internet world, where stories are replicated identically again and again, we continue to dissect, analyze, and change them, whether it be through everyday conversations, online forums, or the prestige lens of a critic’s review. (A perfect example is the adaptation of works from one medium into another, be it from literature to film or from film to theater.) Sometimes the authors themselves continue to tweak and interpret their work – Virginia Wolf was known to make changes to her books prior to reprinting, and we all know that JK Rowling can’t leave the Potter universe well enough alone (love you Jo!).

For me, fan fiction is a grand storytelling and textual tradition not entirely unlike the Mahabharata. Fan fiction not only illustrates the malleable, generative nature of stories, it also provides a rare space, in our capitalist global economy, for storytelling to be that malleable, generative thing it has always been. It allows for democratic engagement in the storytelling traditions of our time, free from the boxes of profit and ownership. It lets us expand the possibilities of our collective imagination. Importantly, it allows voices from the margins into the story, where our canonical texts routinely fail us.

I’m also thankful to fan fiction for being a rare space, outside overpriced college English classes, where literary discussion can thrive. When I say discussion, I don’t mean mere binary criticism – like book reviews, or the Goodreads star rating-aggregates that help determine book sales. I mean questions about how a text makes you feel, what it reflects or critiques about our world, the things that literary characters, beloved and abhorred, may teach us about our shared humanity and flawed choices. And yes, some of these conversations involve Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy as co-Heads of Hogwarts, using the same bathroom.

Are you a reader or writer of fan fiction? Have you you dabbled in fan art? Or do you engage in a non-online form of fandom, like a book club? Please share!

Thanks for reading.

The Fosters: Our Thoughts on Episode 5x02 “Exterminate Her”

We’re back for more of our thoughts on this week’s Fosters.  As usual, check out @tarajean621‘s thoughts on Jesus and brain injury representation in italics below:

You Know What Could Have Happened, Callie?/Honey, She Was Terrified:  I can totally understand Callie wanting to focus on the good side of things.  I’m sure she is keenly aware of just how badly things could have gone.  And Stef being short with her and Lena taking the time to explain how scared Stef was rings so true to Real Stuff Parents Do.

This Is Nothing to Celebrate!/Surprise!  And, naturally, all the charges are dropped.  But how awkward is this surprise party led by Robert?  Especially Mariana leading her brothers in a rousing chant of “hip hip hooray” because “our sister’s a hero!”  So cute, though.

How Long Are You Gonna Stop Speaking to Your Brother?/How Long Are You Gonna Stop Speaking to Mariana?  I missed this part somehow when it first aired.  

How’s The Treehouse Going?  Has She Taken Over Yet?/No, She Just Found Us a Tree:  Wow, everyone’s crabby today, aren’t they?  Settle down, Emma.  Only a few more days and you can be really far away from Mariana.  (And Jesus.  I wonder how that will go?)

Hey, Can I Talk to You for a Second?/Uh, Yeah, Sure:  I hate that everyone is now actively fearing Jesus.  It’s especially disheartening seeing Mariana react out of fear here.  And the camera stays with Brandon as he jumps and then leaves the table. I’d love for the assumption that Jesus now resides at Intimidation Station to not be a thing.

I have been looking for statistics on how likely it is that people with TBIs assault their caregivers, since this seems to be the slant the writers are taking with 5A.  I could not come up with one link.  

I did, however, find pages of links (over 3 million results) about disabled abuse and victimization.  

One source says that disabled people are 4-10 times more likely to be victims of violence, abuse or neglect than nondisabled people.  It goes on to share why people living with TBIs are likely to encounter victimization - the list includes the use of undue force (which I covered last week when Gabe restrained Jesus), caregivers misperceptions about TBI leading to abuse or not believing us when we report abuse, or having to endure abuse “in return for” help with tasks of daily living.

Definitely.  In just existing as a disabled person and talking to others who are, I can say that everybody I know who is disabled, has, at some point, been abused.  (Usually, this is by a caregiver.)  Another source I found on the maltreatment of children with disabilities states that:

“Children with disabilities may have increased vulnerability to abuse because...[they] may be perceived as less valuable than other children. Their reports may not be considered trustworthy. Discipline may be more punitive and accompanied by a lack of respect.”

So, I’ve Been Thinking and I Wanna Do My Senior Project By Myself/Well, You Can’t:  Um.  Wow, Mariana.  Maybe you should have been honest with Jesus from the start about this.

Yes, this might have been a more timely conversation weeks ago.  Although, it was really up to Moms and Drew to deliver this news to Jesus, so Mariana is not the only one to blame here.

I’m Gonna Talk to Drew Myself and See What He Says:  You pretty much have to, Jesus.  It’s the only way you’re guaranteed the truth.  

But wait, if Jesus speaks to Drew all on his own, who will Drew look to if there is not a suitable nondisabled person present? <-- Sarcasm

Was This Emma’s Idea?/No.  I Just Need to Prove That I Can Do Something on My Own:  Of course, Jesus would feel strongly about this.  His family doesn’t respect him as he is.  It makes sense for him to feel like he has to prove his capability to get them to take him seriously.  Nothing else is working.

Our society views productivity as the be-all and end-all.  You go to school to produce meaningful work so that you can graduate and get a job, thus becoming a contributing member of society.  You are useful and worthy then.  Jesus feels like he needs to produce a meaningful senior project without help to be seen as useful and worthy again.  And it doesn’t hurt that it might earn him points with Emma to distance himself from Mariana.

I Just Wanna Help/I Don’t Need Your Help/Well, We Do/So You Want Me To Go Live with Robert?  Honestly, though, what else is Callie supposed to think?  Moms are pretty much saying she is too much for them and they need backup to handle her.  

Callie, We Love You But There is Only So Much That We Can Do For You:   I guarantee you the only part of Lena’s sentence that Callie heard was “We love you, but...” which feels exactly like, “We don’t love you,” or “We used to love you, but don’t anymore.”  (Please think about what you’re saying Moms, these words will stick.)  

You Need to Decide Who You Want to Be Going Forward, Because This Girl is Not Acceptable:  OMG talk about a back-to-back gut-punch!  Jeez...  What is Callie supposed to do with a statement like this?  She is who she is.  She can’t change who she is.  She has had a ton of stuff happen to her before she ever came to Stef and Lena.  That all impacts who she is and her decision making process.   

This morning I read an article called 3 Reasons Traditional Parenting Doesn’t Work With Kids From Trauma.  Callie has lived months as an adopted child, as opposed to 7 years in foster care.  She is in survival mode all the time, and completely shut down during Moms’ and Robert’s lecture.

I’ve heard similar remarks as an adoptee myself and that is exactly how they resonate.  Moms’ words must feel like such a rejection.

After This Last Thing With Callie, I Just Don’t Know What To Do/I Know That Was So Awful For You.  I’m So Sorry.  How Can I Help?  What Can I Do?  This is probably a bit of a raw wound for me personally, because Stef absolutely needs and deserves comfort.  But it feels so jarring to see this scene after the previous two with Moms and Callie.

Lena excused Stef’s anger at Callie in the car when Stef talked about how Callie could have been beaten or raped (she has experienced both in foster care, Stef.)  Then the lecture.  But we just don’t see that level of love and support for Callie herself.  Nobody is asking Callie “How can I help?”  or “What can I do?”

I Need You to Say You Can’t Help Unless It’s Both Our Projects, Because You Can’t Choose Sides: Mariana, I get that you are always at least 25 billion steps ahead, seeing every possible bad eventuality but you need to try to reign in this impulse to manipulate the adults in your world.  Maybe talk about that in therapy?  (But speaking of Kids Who Came From Trauma...pretty textbook behavior.)

(On the positive side, give Brandon Quinn all the points for the physical comedy of trying to put those jeans on!  So funny!)

He’s Lucky I Didn’t Suspend Him/And You’re Lucky I Don’t Sue You.  And The School:  Yes, Lena!  (Also how gross is that pro-privatization piece in the ABCC school paper?)

Portfolio?/Your Body of Work:  I find it hard to believe that Callie would have zero idea of what a portfolio is, but maybe she doesn’t hang around a lot of art students?

Mariana Just Told Me That This Treehouse Project is Approved for Her and Not Jesus Because He Might Not Be a Senior Next Year?  It was news to me, too, Gabe!  I’ve literally been thinking (for months) that Mariana went in to support Jesus for his senior project.  That it was his meeting.  And that when it was not approved for him that was the end of it, but Mariana couldn’t let it go, so she lied and said it had to be both of their projects.

But Jesus Has No Idea, Right?/We Don’t Want to Frighten Him with All the What-Ifs/Keeping Things From Him Blew Up in a Pretty Big Way:  I mean, Gabe’s not wrong...

Dean Bayfield:  Well, hello, new neighbor.  Looks like Stef’s a little tongue-tied around you...

When Do They Send the Paper to the Printer?/They Already Did/What If It Caught an Error and Sent a New File?  Mariana Adams Foster...put that big, beautiful brain of yours to good use and be careful.  (I’m so proud!  But I’m so conflicted about being proud!)

Pick Up Your Senior Project/Toss It:  This Girl Is Not Acceptable.

The Art Professor...is Gonna Let Me Audit Her Class and Help Me Put Together My Portfolio/That’s Amazing:  This Mama Sandwich for Callie is so bittersweet because she looks so relieved that they still love her.  

Do Think I’d Be Better at Scooping Ice Cream or Flipping Burgers?/That Depends.  You’d Be So Bad at Both:  OMG Callie!  Hahahaha!

Maybe This Could Be My Still Life.  I’m Salty, Right?  Why would she want to find an object that defines her if the girl she is is not acceptable?  No wonder she is struggling so hard with this.

I Used to Blow Dry My Hair Straight, Too, Mariana.  It’s Called Time-Management:  These are the moments that I love.  Because Mariana’s hair is not a lost issue, and Lena remains supportive about it, giving Mariana advice from her own experience.

We Have 5 Teenagers/Oh God Bless You!  We Just Have the One:  Hahaha!  I love Theresa!

A Good Basic Case With All the Essentials:  Can’t go to art school without supplies!  

The Article Doesn’t Appear to Quote You or Anyone on the Administration.  It’s Just One Kid’s Opinion, Right?  OMG Lena, I love you!  Also, check out the screencap Tara got of the article in the Sea Breeze!  Love that it cites IDEA and points out what this article says, in part, which is “ If the private...school does not accept any federal funding, then the school is not required to provide accommodations” to students with disabilities.

What Did You Bring to Sketch?/I Think I’m Just Gonna Sketch My New Art Set:  Because nothing says Callie like an art set you got 10 minutes ago... :(

Grace!  Are You Okay?  Are You Hurt?  Why Are You Handcuffed to the Bed?!  Brandon, your reaction to Grace here was, hands down, my favorite part of the episode.  You give me hope for humanity in this moment.

Otherwise, Why Would You Be Here?  I also love Ximena!  There is such a shortage of positive female friendships depicted on TV that I would love to see Callie and Ximena develop one.  But it looks like Ximena’s complimentary question to Callie isn’t sitting quite right...

It’s For This Foster Family That Has, Like 12 Kids.  Some of Them Are Special Needs:  First of all, it seems illegal that one family would have 12 foster kids at once?  And secondly?  Pretty much no one in the disability community likes the term ‘special needs.’  

Since I Got This TBI, People Treat Me Like I’M Special Needs:  So revealing there, Jesus.  I always say, the hardest part about being disabled isn’t the disability, it’s the way we’re treated as inferior.  I imagine that dealing with a sudden disability as Jesus is, that feeling is even stronger.  (And I can’t shake the feeling that the ‘people’ Jesus is referring to is his family.  And honestly, nobody should be treated like they’re less when they’re disabled, especially by family.  It’s bad enough to experience it in general society.)

Having a brain injury is not a bad thing, but it does take some adjustment.  The way Jesus says, “People treat me like I am special needs” is revealing, as Tonia pointed out.  People treat him like a pile of unreasonable demands - like a list of symptoms - instead of as a human being who has a brain injury.

Talk to Your Moms/All They Do is Lie to Me and Keep Secrets.  They Aren’t Going to Tell Me.  So, What Is It? I can’t say I wouldn’t be making the same call Gabe ends up making here...and so far, Gabe is one person whose ableism is at a minimum, and Jesus feels that.  He feels respected by Gabe.  His experience with Moms post-TBI has been that they treat him as less now.  They have lied to him and he doesn’t need anymore of that.  He’s out of the woods, healthwise, he doesn’t need to be ‘protected’ in this manner.

No Longer Funding Any Junior Student’s Senior Projects: Of course you aren’t, Drew...

Did You Talk to My Father?  Robert Quinn?  Oh Lordy, this isn’t gonna end well, is it?  How humiliating for Callie.  Like she needs Robert calling in favors for her to get to audit art school class...

I’m Not Gonna Be a Senior Next Year?/We Don’t Know That, Jesus:  Now Jesus knows, and Stef still won’t give him a straight answer?  Really?  At least tell him what you DO know...

Also, inquiring minds would like to know what IS happening with regard to Jesus and school?  Stef and Lena are both back at work and Jesus is home all day, talking to Gabe as he builds the treehouse.  Lena’s an educator.  School is always on this family’s radar.  Even if Jesus isn’t ready for full days, I’d think a teacher coming to the house for a bit wouldn’t be out of the question.  But school hasn’t even been mentioned by Moms except to say that Jesus is missing a lot, and taking Drew of all people as the expert on post-brain-injury reentry to school.

Jesus, I Need You To Calm Down/No, I Am Not Going To Calm Down/Then You Can Go To Your Room Until You Are Willing To Listen To Me. Now:  

In my opinion, Jesus is not out of bounds or out of control here.  He has a right to be upset, but Stef sends him away.  (Instead of sending Gabe and/or Mariana away so she can have a private conversation with Jesus.)  She tells him to leave until he is willing to listen to her - but Stef is in no way willing to be around his feelings in this moment.

Too often, disabled people are expected to “be nice” in the face of ableism.  And let’s be clear, not telling Jesus about what is going on with his schooling is ableism.  Dismissing Jesus’s current upset?  Also ableism.  

If any of the other kids found out Moms withheld information for weeks about them possibly not being promoted a grade, upset would be an expected reaction.  In Jesus’s case, it is not justified in Mom’s eyes.

I’m Not Going Up There With Him!  Did You See What He Did to Brandon’s Room?  What If He Takes a Baseball Bat to My Head?  Kids learn ableism from their parents...and Stef doesn’t refute Mariana here...  So harmful.  (And also - if Mariana isn’t comfortable going upstairs, the least Stef could do is tell her to go to the living room or something.  Anything so she is not right there when Stef tells Gabe that if he can’t respect Stef and Lena’s authority as the twins’ parents, he’ll have to leave.  Awkward.  And not a conversation for one of the kids to overhear.)

Is This a Bad Time?/Jesus is Up in His Room and I’m Sure He Would Love to See You Right About Now:  Um...  If Jesus is supposed to be being punished or taking a break or whatever, why would you send Emma up there?  (But I have a pretty good idea why.  Disability as a Plot Device, anyone?  Because up until now, Emma was the only person who wasn’t fearful of Jesus.  The choice to send her up there just to witness Jesus throwing things is a conscious choice to continue his ostracization and isolation.  To make sure he has no one to turn to or lean on.  

Notice how this “outburst” comes immediately after being dismissed.  

Also, here is another example of how traditional parenting does not work on kids with traumatic backgrounds.  And a Traumatic Brain Injury is yet another trauma for Jesus to juggle, in addition to his unstable infancy and childhood (until age 8).  Sending Jesus to his room just drives home the fact that he, like Callie, is seen as unacceptable now.   

I Wish I Had Somewhere to Unleash My Beast/You Do.  Your Art:  Jesus, do you hear this?  You and Callie could totally channel all your feelings into art.  That’s what it’s there for, and you’re both good at it.  (I’d actually really like to see this!)

How Did Your Job Interview Go?/I Was Late So I Probably Didn’t Make a Great First Impression:  Yeah, like when your girlfriend calls you with fake emergencies when she KNOWS you have a job interview soon...

Pretty Sure She Was Trying to Have Sex With You/Oh, My God:  I loved this!  Rang so true to me that the adopted kid would totally get what Grace was trying to do with Brandon while Brandon remained innocently oblivious...

I Wanna Try to Be a Senior Next Year, Even If That Means I Have to Go to Summer School/Honey, That’s Really Great to Hear, But Your Senior Project Will Have to Wait Until Then:  Okay but Jesus literally did not say anything about his senior project.  He’s talking about his education right now.  Why does no one take him seriously?  (Oh wait, I know...)

“That’s really great to hear.” What does that even mean?  “That’s really great to hear that you still desire and value an education even though you have a brain injury?” 

It sounds as if that was Lena’s way of possibly skirting the education conversation.   

Because I Got Mad?  Are You Punishing Me?  Of course, it feels like a punishment.

Drew’s Not Funding Any Senior Projects by Juniors/You’re Lying:  Moms, remember Stef’s brilliant take on ‘trust has to be earned?’  I feel like it’s time to work on starting to earn Jesus’s.  Because right now, he can’t trust anything you say, and why should he? 

Also, I’m pretty sure Monte said last episode that Drew isn’t the principal because she hasn’t yet resigned.  So...why is the vote invalid but his word about Jesus’s senior project like signed, sealed and notarized by a judge?)

I Could Probably Get Jesus’s Uncle to Donate/Birth Uncle: This is interesting, because we watched this episode with a friend who adopted her daughter.  And she specifically commented on this scene.  Said she never corrects her daughter when she wonders about her birth mother.  And she felt it was out of place for Moms to correct Gabe here.

I Do Wanna Keep My Senior Project/We Took It to the Dumpster Already:  Ouch, Callie :(

I Didn’t Give Her Any Money, I Just Asked Her to Give You a Chance, But Only If She Believes in You, Which, Obviously, She Does/You Don’t:  Bam.  It’s truth time, by Callie.  And that really is what Robert’s actions communicated.  Instead of helping with her or giving her advice on what to do next, he went behind her back and appealed to the teacher’s pity, and that never feels good.

I Know You All Think That I’m Unacceptable/That’s Not What We Meant/It’s What You Said:  Right, Callie?  And no matter how many other times she is affirmed, those words will be inside her, challenging the love she’s shown.  It’s this thing: anger resonates as the “truest” feeling, while love feels forced.  It’s hard to explain...

When You First Met Me You Told Me I Wasn’t Disposable and I’m Really Trying to Believe That:  We keep track of every single word.

We Don’t Want You to Throw Away Your Past, We Just Want You to Stop Repeating It:  But that might not be entirely in Callie’s control.  How often do we rehash or recreate an aspect of our past in an effort to work through it, or because it feels familiar and that feels safe?  Moms want Callie to feel safe, but safe is new.  And it’s going to take some getting used to.  (Also I’m really glad Lena rescued Callie’s senior project from gettting thrown away.)

So, I’m Not Going to See You Before You Go?/I’m Sorry/I Love--:  Emma’s pulling away so hard and fast.  This sucks.

I really hope that this whole Aggression Is A Symptom storyline does not end up Teaching Jesus A Lesson.

Did Mamas Talk to You About The Treehouse?/I’m Gonna Ask Emma to Do It With Me...If That’s Okay:  Ugh, and the twins aren’t getting along still.  And at this point it seems like working with Emma on the treehouse this year or next is gonna be a bust...

Not being able to connect after an injury is a thing, and I appreciate that it is being depicted.  To add to Tonia’s comment about Emma, we don’t know what is going to happen with them.  He is trying to make things work with his girlfriend while putting Mariana in her place.  We will have to see what happens...

I Guess I Shouldn’t Have Read Fifty Shades of Grey:  Oh, Grace, what a terrible book!

I Don’t Know Where The Keys Are.  I Think They’re Over Here/Okay, I’m Coming:  Hahaha!  Don’t play with handcuffs, Brandon and Grace...or Stef will have to come unlock you...and wouldn’t that be embarrassing?

Fearless:  I love Callie showing Ximena her necklace from her mom as her object for her Still Life and I love Ximena’s reaction to it!

Tess/Oh, My God!  Stef!  So, I was in the shower, the morning after this aired, and it occurred to me.  The thing that everybody already knows about who Tess is.  But in case someone hasn’t made the connection.  I realized Tess was Stef’s high school friend who she was cuddling and got caught by Stef’s dad.  Also the reason Stef was sent by her dad to see a priest, who told her being gay was a sin (episode 1x06, I believe.)

For more: Fosters Recaps

When you’ve gone to all the trouble of trawling through Christmas card templates to find the right Christmas cards to make your family and friends feel special, you want to make sure that what you write in them is perfect for the occasion. This can feel like a lot of pressure! For stress free Christmas cards from your first Christmas card ideas right through to writing your message and popping them in the mail, Paperlust has you covered. Read on for our guide to writing Christmas greeting cards that your friends will want to keep for years to come. We’ve included tonnes of advice and sample Christmas card text to make things simple.

  Two Parts to Christmas Card Greetings

Christmas greetings for cards often come in two parts: what is printed on the card and what you write in it. The printed part might be on the front of the card, or the front might just feature a picture while the message is printed inside the card. A traditional merry Christmas card (like what you’ll find in Christmas card packs from the shops) will often have an illustrated front with something like ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’ printed inside.

If you create your own card using a custom template like our Paperlust designs, or opt for DIY Christmas cards or free printable Christmas cards, you can get more in depth, printing text that’s intended for all your guests. This might cover everything from

If the card is blank inside, your xmas card messages will be entirely handwritten.

  Things to Write in Christmas Cards

While we are most commonly asked about how to make Christmas cards personal, it’s inevitable that you’ll have to rely on some generic sentiments in your Christmas cards as well. This gives you a starting point to build from.

Some of the most common Christmas messages for cards include:

Merry Christmas

Happy Christmas

Season’s greetings

Holiday greetings

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas and a happy new year

Peace and joy

Christmas wishes

We wish you a merry Christmas

Yuletide greetings

Feliz Navidad

Christmas greetings

Greetings of the season

Joyeux Noel

  These are the perfect starting point when writing Christmas wishes for cards, and because they are short they frequently feature on the front or in large text inside. Whatever Christmas cards ideas you’ve got, and whether you’re opting for homemade Christmas cards, Christmas e cards or professionally designed Christmas cards, these are the little snippets of text that are key to making Christmas cards feel…well, Christmassy!

  General Christmas Messages

Whether printed or handwritten, most people will have general xmas messages for their cards – things they want to communicate to everybody they write a card to. It can be challenging to know how to make a Christmas card read appropriately for your whole audience, so it can be best to have a template merry Christmas greeting card written out that you can simply tweak or add to as you go, depending who you are writing to.

For example: Merry Christmas to my family and friends! May this holiday season be full of joy and peace, and may your celebrations be blessed.

  If you use your Christmas cards as an opportunity to share what happened during the year, you might add a message about your family too.

For example: 2018 has been a big year for the Jameson family! Dave started a new job with Eastern Health in March, and has been really enjoying the work. He continued playing footy and was proud to be awarded best and fairest. Jess has been kept busy enjoying the new challenges of being a mum to two. She has been getting involved in the school community and still enjoys playing netball each week. Lucy started grade prep in February and has been thriving. She is turning into a great reader and loves our regular trips to the library. Lucy loves being a big sister and never leaves Max’s side when she’s at home. Max is now a happy 7 month old. He recently started on solid food and mashed banana is his favourite.

We hope 2018 has been as kind to you as it has been to us, and we wish all our friends and family a wonderful 2019.

  If you’re confident that your generic message is going to suit all your guests, consider printing it on your holiday cards and adding small handwritten Christmas card notes for your closest family and friends. This is a great way to add a personal touch without having to make your own homemade Christmas cards from scratch. Easy Christmas cards (that still have the charm of handmade xmas cards) are the dream at such a busy time of year! And thanks to Paperlust, simple Christmas cards don’t have to mean printing them on computer paper or emailing e xmas card at the last minute: you can create Christmas cards that are perfectly suited to you without all the fuss that normally accompanies anything personalised.

  Christmas Card Words

When writing your merry xmas cards, there are a number of words you can use throughout to give that warm Christmas feel. Consider dotting your greetings for Christmas with words like:

Cheer

Merry

Warm

Blessed

Festive

Happy

Joy

Peace

Goodwill

Wishes

Greetings

Holidays

Yuletide

  If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, consider throwing in words like:

Frosty

Winter / wintry

Snow / snowmen

Icy

  There are also endless Christmassy things you can refer to, including:

Gifts

Santa

Stockings

Angels

Christmas tree

Holly

Elves

Reindeer and sleigh

Candy canes

Fruitcake or mince pies

Nativity

Carols / carolers

Mistletoe

Eggnog

Tradition

  Personal Christmas Messages

A personal Christmas message is the easiest way to make a Christmas card truly meaningful, especially if it is handwritten. This is important for all Christmas cards, but especially Christmas cards for your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, kids, parents, or best friend. Your Christmas or happy holidays cards should be as emotional (or not) as is normal for you and in your relationship.

  For example, a personal message could say something like:

Merry Christmas Dad! I’m so excited for the chance to celebrate with you again after all these years. Wishing you a joyful holiday season and a wonderful new year full of all the things you love. Can’t wait to see you soon. Love, Jemma.

  But personal Christmas wishes for cards could also mean something like:

Dear Amy – Wishing you a very merry Christmas, filled with family and friends, joy and peace. You are the love of my life and I am so grateful for each and every day I get to spend with you. All I want for Christmas is you, truly. Love forever, Mick.

  Flipped around the other way, these two messages might seem strange and out of place. The trick is to know your audience and write from the heart!

  Religious Christmas card verses

For many, Christmas is about far more than just presents and food: it’s an important time of year on the religious calendar as well. This is often celebrated with a traditional Christmas card. Christian Christmas cards often feature Bible verses.

Popular Christmas verses for greeting cards include (all xmas card verses written here from the NIV):

Isaiah 9:6 – “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”

Isaiah 7:14 – “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

Luke 2:10-11 – “But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

  The lyrics to some of the more religious Christmas carols also make great Christmas verses for cards.

“Silent night! Holy night! Son of God, love’s pure light”

“Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let Earth receive her King!”

“This, this is Christ the King, Whom shepherds guard and angels sing”

“Hail, hail the Word made flesh, the Babe, the Son of Mary.”

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn”

“Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels, O come let us adore Him”

“Peace on Earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled”

“Noel, noel, noel, noel, born is the King of Israel”

“So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.”

“O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born to us today.”

  Whether you choose biblical xmas verses for cards, carol lyrics or other Christmas cards verses, or a simple Christian Christmas greeting, Paperlust is the ideal place to order religious Christmas cards Australia wide and beyond – you have full control over the text and can make it say whatever you want. Our job is to make sure it all looks perfect and get it to you fast.

  Christmas quotes for cards

Christians aren’t the only ones that like to include quotes on their Christmas greetings cards, and there are tonnes of non-religious quotes from songs, poems and stories that you can choose from. These quotes are perfect if you’re looking for Christmas card greeting ideas and don’t have anything you particularly want to say. They make a great starting point for the rest of your xmas card greetings, and can either be printed on your cards if you’re going to create your own cards and have them printed or are opting for Christmas cards homemade, or can be written on blank Christmas cards.

  Popular quotes for your Christmas and New Year cards include:

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” – Clement Clarke Moore

“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” – Andy Rooney

“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” – ‘Elf’

“We are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day, their old, familiar carols play, and wild and sweet, the words repeat, of peace on Earth, goodwill to men!” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” – Dr. Seuss

  And from songs and carols, consider:

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”

“We wish you a merry Christmas”

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”

“Jingle Bells, jingle Bells, jingle all the way”

“Santa Claus is coming to town”

“Rocking around the Christmas tree, have a happy holiday, everyone dancing merrily in a new old fashioned way.”

“Walking in a Winter Wonderland”

“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches”

“Come on it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you”

    Funny xmas cards

One of the most common things we are asked about is xmas cards ideas for those who like their Christmas cards funny. Making xmas cards funny can be tricky: you want it to seem natural, not forced. If you’re just going for cheap Christmas cards, you might feel more inclined to experiment, but if you’re going to spend money on premium or luxury Christmas cards it can feel like a big risk! But it doesn’t have to. The key is to know your audience and make sure you create a Christmas card that everyone on your Christmas card list will be able to appreciate, from your best friend to your grandma.

Quotes from songs, books or movies are perfect for funny xmas card messages, or you can put a funny spin on a Christmas theme. Some fun choices include:

“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth”

“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear” – ‘Elf’

“It’s all fun and games until Santa checks the naughty list”

“Don’t get your tinsel in a tangle”

“Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.” – Victor Borge

“Prosec-ho-ho-ho!“

“Merry Christmas ya filthy animal” – ‘Home Alone 2’

  Another great way to create funny or quirky Christmas cards is to include an in-joke that only your friends will get. Just make sure everyone receiving a card will understand the joke! If you want to include your own in-joke on a card, Paperlust is ideal for funny Christmas cards in Australia or overseas, because our Christmas card creator tool gives you full control over the text. When you create Christmas cards online you can make sure the wording is perfect, then our design team will make sure it looks great and our customer service team will get it shipped express to you, so can be confident that you’ll have your cards for Christmas.

  Aussie Christmas Greetings

If you’re in Australia and post Christmas cards to friends and family overseas, you might want to add some Aussie greetings for something a little unique. For the full effect, choose Australian themed Christmas cards as well! Both Aussie Christmas cards and Aussie Christmas wishes typically hinge on reminding people you’re celebrating in the summertime on the beach or in the bush.

You don’t need to write ‘G’day from Down Under’ just because you want to send Christmas wishes from Australia (although you can if you like!). Consider writing something like:

Merry Christmas from sunny Australia! I’ll be celebrating the silly season this year with a beer at the beach, a long way from our usual traditions! Hope you all have a great holiday – can’t wait to catch up when I’m home. Love, Lucy.

  Kids Christmas Cards

Coming up with cool Christmas cards ideas for kids can be daunting, especially if your kids have strong ideas about what constitutes ‘awesome Christmas cards’ and you’re not sure you agree!

At Paperlust we have a range of Christmas cards templates for kids, and they’re fully customisable. That means whether you’re looking for Christmas cards for kids, family or baby’s first Christmas Australia wide or beyond, you’ll be able to get something that’s perfect for the occasion. We make it easy to make Christmas cards online that come out looking professional and luxurious. One of our most popular options for kids are our photo Christmas cards. Instead of working out how to make Christmas cards at home with kids without making a mess (somehow!), why not use a photo of your kids or a photo of a piece of art your child created during the year?

But once you’ve got the perfect childrens Christmas cards, what then? How do you write cute Christmas greetings or personal Christmas messages for children’s cards? There are two approaches to getting amazing Christmas cards from your kids: either let them do their thing and hope it comes out cute, or take a more hands-on approach.

If you’re letting them do their thing, either have them dictate what to put in a Christmas card and write it out for them, or let them write their own, depending on their age and capability. If you want to offer more guidance, you might want to write out some greetings for Christmas cards that they can copy out (or write out a xmas card template in pencil and let them trace over it).

  Simple Christmas card ideas for greetings might include something like:

Dear Uncle Jim and Aunty Bec, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Love from Isla.

  This is simple and easy to copy, but coming from your child will be super meaningful for the recipients.

  Business Christmas Greetings

Writing a happy Christmas card isn’t always a personal thing – sometimes you’re writing Christmas card greetings for business purposes instead. Writing Christmas greetings for clients, colleagues or other professional contacts can often be even more difficult than writing a personal note, since you don’t have the same sort of emotions or shared experiences to draw on for inspiration.

Corporate cards often come in the form of Christmas thank you cards in addition to simple well-wishing, thanking clients for their business or staff members for their service through the year. A corporate Christmas card is also a form of advertising, reminding people of your company and attempting to inspire good will for the coming year.

Christmas greeting messages for businesses should be kept simple and to-the-point. It’s also a good idea to avoid religious messaging on Christmas greetings to clients (although whether you extend this to avoiding ‘Christmas’ altogether and simply wishing ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Season’s Greetings’ is up to you).

If you’re looking for corporate Christmas card ideas, browse our collection today, and take a look at our complete guide to Christmas greetings for business while you’re there.

  Sample Christmas card messages for business may read:

Dear Mr Jones, Wishing you and your family a very happy holidays and a joyful New Year. We thank you for your support in 2018, and we look forward to another great year to come. Kind regards, (business name).

  Dear Frank and Jessica, Merry Christmas! We hope you enjoy this time of celebration and rest. We have truly appreciated your business in 2018, and wish you every success and joy in the New Year. Best, (business name)

  Keep it simple and match the language to your business persona, and you can’t go wrong.

Paperlust is your home for Christmas stationery, from Christmas party invitations and Christmas cards right through to Xmas tags. Whatever Christmas card size, shape or design, and whether you’re looking to buy bulk Christmas cards or just a few for your nearest and dearest, we can help. Browse our curated collection of Christmas card design templates today.

The post Christmas Greetings: What to write in a Christmas card appeared first on Paperlust.

Sober Parenting

“I am a survivor.”

This phrase is used in many songs, positive quotes, term for illnesses. It often describes strength after struggles.

I was recently given a gold bracelet  from my youngest child with this inscription on the outside: “I AM A SURVIVOR”.

It is so dainty and simple and I was so shocked she got it for me. Well, not really shocked. She loves giving gifts. She recently brought her sister home a shirt with a dog on it that resembled Miller, my “grand-dog” that belongs to my oldest. She has a big heart and enjoys getting things for people. She also likes receiving. What young girl doesn’t?

I am grateful.

I am grateful because I believe this bracelet has huge significance in our relationship, as it is a turning point in our communication with one another. We shared a night a few weeks ago of just talking, crying and purging a lot of emotions such as anger, resentment, and frustration. It led to peace, love, joy and relief.

I will honestly tell you communication has been something I have really had to work on since I became sober.

I was “zero to 100” in a few seconds and aggressive with my conversations most of the time. I was always defensive, pissed off, miserable and all the other synonyms that go along with anger. Sometimes I would clam up and wouldn’t express what was bothering me, good or bad. During those times, I would have no expression and I would not even speak about what was going on. That led to isolation or extremely erratic behavior. I acted in all polar opposites when it came to communication and I had no clue what being assertive meant. I had two speeds: aggressive or passive.

In the beginning, I would go home newly sober and scared. I am also a parent to two daughters who were pretty angry with me. I used to remember praying about it and asking God to give me the strength not to throw in the towel, to listen actually hear what they had to say, and then NOT react, but respond to what I was hearing.

Parenting sober has been one of my biggest challenges. Why?

Well, honestly, I didn’t know how to really be a mom. I resented my mother for most of my life because I had this picture of what she was supposed to be. I guess I watched too many movies. I felt like I didn’t get the attention “I deserved” and the heck with the other siblings. Looking back, I see my character defect of selfishness began at a very young age.

My communication with my mom consisted of yelling and screaming most of my teen years before I moved out at the age of 18. I was mad because she was too strict– yet I didn’t give her a reason to trust me, so that vicious cycle continued for a while. I ran errands or went on needed shopping trips with my grandmother because she and I had that bond. I don’t remember a healthy bond with my mom, with the exception of helping her care for my younger brother and sister, or Saturday house cleaning, or yard work. I know we both liked to get sun and we laid out sometimes.

So as a mother myself, I only knew what I didn’t want to be like. So I thought, “This should be easy, right? Do everything the opposite, right?” Well, not exactly.

I have made my own mistakes. Over the past seven years, I have tried to make up for the times I screwed up the previous ten-plus years. This all stems from shame and guilt and me beating myself up regularly about having been a crappy mom.

As I am writing this now, I remember a time with my oldest (gosh, several times with my oldest) when I just didn’t fit the “June Cleaver” mold. It’s taken a while to earn the trust of both my daughters. It has taken a lot longer than I expected– but then again, I was not on the receiving end of my bull crap, they were. I was giving it, actually slinging it. If I could only go back…if I could turn back the clock. (If I continue on with this, I’ll be back wallowing in self-pity, so enough of this.)

So, where were we? Yes, communication.

The conversations I have shared recently with my youngest have been about some very intimate events in my life. My surviving childhood drama/trauma; my marriages and divorces (yes, plural); my education; my own goals; my fears; my desires and dreams for her and her beautiful sister.

I can’t stress enough how blessed and grateful I am for the gift of sobriety.

When I fall short of what is important, I can look down at this bracelet and know just for today, I am a survivor. I can also grab my two-heart necklace that I wear daily around my neck from my girls, and know I can do this.

I can and will survive. Sooner than later, I will thrive in this mission I am on to help others.

Life is a gift to open every day. It’s called “the present”. Sobriety is teaching me how to communicate, live life on life’s terms, have meaningful relationships, and so much more. All I have to do is keep coming back one day a time! Thank you for allowing me to share my life with y’all…

The post Sober Parenting appeared first on Heroes in Recovery.

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Sober Parenting

“I am a survivor.”

This phrase is used in many songs, positive quotes, term for illnesses. It often describes strength after struggles.

I was recently given a gold bracelet  from my youngest child with this inscription on the outside: “I AM A SURVIVOR”.

It is so dainty and simple and I was so shocked she got it for me. Well, not really shocked. She loves giving gifts. She recently brought her sister home a shirt with a dog on it that resembled Miller, my “grand-dog” that belongs to my oldest. She has a big heart and enjoys getting things for people. She also likes receiving. What young girl doesn’t?

I am grateful.

I am grateful because I believe this bracelet has huge significance in our relationship, as it is a turning point in our communication with one another. We shared a night a few weeks ago of just talking, crying and purging a lot of emotions such as anger, resentment, and frustration. It led to peace, love, joy and relief.

I will honestly tell you communication has been something I have really had to work on since I became sober.

I was “zero to 100” in a few seconds and aggressive with my conversations most of the time. I was always defensive, pissed off, miserable and all the other synonyms that go along with anger. Sometimes I would clam up and wouldn’t express what was bothering me, good or bad. During those times, I would have no expression and I would not even speak about what was going on. That led to isolation or extremely erratic behavior. I acted in all polar opposites when it came to communication and I had no clue what being assertive meant. I had two speeds: aggressive or passive.

In the beginning, I would go home newly sober and scared. I am also a parent to two daughters who were pretty angry with me. I used to remember praying about it and asking God to give me the strength not to throw in the towel, to listen actually hear what they had to say, and then NOT react, but respond to what I was hearing.

Parenting sober has been one of my biggest challenges. Why?

Well, honestly, I didn’t know how to really be a mom. I resented my mother for most of my life because I had this picture of what she was supposed to be. I guess I watched too many movies. I felt like I didn’t get the attention “I deserved” and the heck with the other siblings. Looking back, I see my character defect of selfishness began at a very young age.

My communication with my mom consisted of yelling and screaming most of my teen years before I moved out at the age of 18. I was mad because she was too strict– yet I didn’t give her a reason to trust me, so that vicious cycle continued for a while. I ran errands or went on needed shopping trips with my grandmother because she and I had that bond. I don’t remember a healthy bond with my mom, with the exception of helping her care for my younger brother and sister, or Saturday house cleaning, or yard work. I know we both liked to get sun and we laid out sometimes.

So as a mother myself, I only knew what I didn’t want to be like. So I thought, “This should be easy, right? Do everything the opposite, right?” Well, not exactly.

I have made my own mistakes. Over the past seven years, I have tried to make up for the times I screwed up the previous ten-plus years. This all stems from shame and guilt and me beating myself up regularly about having been a crappy mom.

As I am writing this now, I remember a time with my oldest (gosh, several times with my oldest) when I just didn’t fit the “June Cleaver” mold. It’s taken a while to earn the trust of both my daughters. It has taken a lot longer than I expected– but then again, I was not on the receiving end of my bull crap, they were. I was giving it, actually slinging it. If I could only go back…if I could turn back the clock. (If I continue on with this, I’ll be back wallowing in self-pity, so enough of this.)

So, where were we? Yes, communication.

The conversations I have shared recently with my youngest have been about some very intimate events in my life. My surviving childhood drama/trauma; my marriages and divorces (yes, plural); my education; my own goals; my fears; my desires and dreams for her and her beautiful sister.

I can’t stress enough how blessed and grateful I am for the gift of sobriety.

When I fall short of what is important, I can look down at this bracelet and know just for today, I am a survivor. I can also grab my two-heart necklace that I wear daily around my neck from my girls, and know I can do this.

I can and will survive. Sooner than later, I will thrive in this mission I am on to help others.

Life is a gift to open every day. It’s called “the present”. Sobriety is teaching me how to communicate, live life on life’s terms, have meaningful relationships, and so much more. All I have to do is keep coming back one day a time! Thank you for allowing me to share my life with y’all…

The post Sober Parenting appeared first on Heroes in Recovery.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241846 http://ift.tt/2hC5i3v

Sober Parenting

“I am a survivor.”

This phrase is used in many songs, positive quotes, term for illnesses. It often describes strength after struggles.

I was recently given a gold bracelet  from my youngest child with this inscription on the outside: “I AM A SURVIVOR”.

It is so dainty and simple and I was so shocked she got it for me. Well, not really shocked. She loves giving gifts. She recently brought her sister home a shirt with a dog on it that resembled Miller, my “grand-dog” that belongs to my oldest. She has a big heart and enjoys getting things for people. She also likes receiving. What young girl doesn’t?

I am grateful.

I am grateful because I believe this bracelet has huge significance in our relationship, as it is a turning point in our communication with one another. We shared a night a few weeks ago of just talking, crying and purging a lot of emotions such as anger, resentment, and frustration. It led to peace, love, joy and relief.

I will honestly tell you communication has been something I have really had to work on since I became sober.

I was “zero to 100” in a few seconds and aggressive with my conversations most of the time. I was always defensive, pissed off, miserable and all the other synonyms that go along with anger. Sometimes I would clam up and wouldn’t express what was bothering me, good or bad. During those times, I would have no expression and I would not even speak about what was going on. That led to isolation or extremely erratic behavior. I acted in all polar opposites when it came to communication and I had no clue what being assertive meant. I had two speeds: aggressive or passive.

In the beginning, I would go home newly sober and scared. I am also a parent to two daughters who were pretty angry with me. I used to remember praying about it and asking God to give me the strength not to throw in the towel, to listen actually hear what they had to say, and then NOT react, but respond to what I was hearing.

Parenting sober has been one of my biggest challenges. Why?

Well, honestly, I didn’t know how to really be a mom. I resented my mother for most of my life because I had this picture of what she was supposed to be. I guess I watched too many movies. I felt like I didn’t get the attention “I deserved” and the heck with the other siblings. Looking back, I see my character defect of selfishness began at a very young age.

My communication with my mom consisted of yelling and screaming most of my teen years before I moved out at the age of 18. I was mad because she was too strict– yet I didn’t give her a reason to trust me, so that vicious cycle continued for a while. I ran errands or went on needed shopping trips with my grandmother because she and I had that bond. I don’t remember a healthy bond with my mom, with the exception of helping her care for my younger brother and sister, or Saturday house cleaning, or yard work. I know we both liked to get sun and we laid out sometimes.

So as a mother myself, I only knew what I didn’t want to be like. So I thought, “This should be easy, right? Do everything the opposite, right?” Well, not exactly.

I have made my own mistakes. Over the past seven years, I have tried to make up for the times I screwed up the previous ten-plus years. This all stems from shame and guilt and me beating myself up regularly about having been a crappy mom.

As I am writing this now, I remember a time with my oldest (gosh, several times with my oldest) when I just didn’t fit the “June Cleaver” mold. It’s taken a while to earn the trust of both my daughters. It has taken a lot longer than I expected– but then again, I was not on the receiving end of my bull crap, they were. I was giving it, actually slinging it. If I could only go back…if I could turn back the clock. (If I continue on with this, I’ll be back wallowing in self-pity, so enough of this.)

So, where were we? Yes, communication.

The conversations I have shared recently with my youngest have been about some very intimate events in my life. My surviving childhood drama/trauma; my marriages and divorces (yes, plural); my education; my own goals; my fears; my desires and dreams for her and her beautiful sister.

I can’t stress enough how blessed and grateful I am for the gift of sobriety.

When I fall short of what is important, I can look down at this bracelet and know just for today, I am a survivor. I can also grab my two-heart necklace that I wear daily around my neck from my girls, and know I can do this.

I can and will survive. Sooner than later, I will thrive in this mission I am on to help others.

Life is a gift to open every day. It’s called “the present”. Sobriety is teaching me how to communicate, live life on life’s terms, have meaningful relationships, and so much more. All I have to do is keep coming back one day a time! Thank you for allowing me to share my life with y’all…

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