one of the things about having an unstable parent is that it can so easily ruin your future. you want to get out, but getting out takes having agency. it takes the resume and the grades and the stellar community service history.

but you have to choose your battles. you know if you sign up for an after-school activity, it'll be okay for a while, so long as the activity is parent-approved and god-fearing. over time, like all things, it will become an argument (i can't keep carting your ass to these things) or a weapon (talk to me like that again, see if you get to go to practice). sometimes, if you love the thing, it's worth it. but you also know better than to love something: that's how they get you. if you ever actually want something, it will always be the center of their attention. they will never stop threatening you with it. telling you of course i'm a good parent, i came to all of those stupid events.

you learn to balance yourself perfectly. you can either have a social life or you can have hobbies. both of these things will be under constant scrutiny. you spend too much time with her, you should be at home with family is equally paired with you're acting like this because you're addicted to what's on that goddamn screen. you cannot ever actually win, so everything falls within a barter system that you calculate before entering: do you want to learn how to drive? if so, you'll need to give up asking for a new laptop, even though yours died. maybe you can work on a computer at the library. of course, that would mean you'd be allowed to go to the library, which would mean something else has to bleed. nothing ever actually comes free.

and that bitter, horrible irony: you could be literally following their orders and it still isn't pretty. they tell you to get a job; they hate that your job keeps you late and gives you access to actual money. they tell you to do better in school; they say no child of mine needs a tutor. they want you to stop being so morose, don't you know there are people who are really suffering - but they revile the idea you might actually need therapy.

you didn't survive that fall the way other people would. you've seen other people scramble and get their way out, however they could. maybe you were made too-soft: the answer didn't come to you easily. it wasn't quick. it was brutal and nasty. some people even asked you why didn't you just work hard and escape during school? and you felt your head spinning. why didn't you? (they control your financial aid. they control your loan status. they love having that kind of thing). maybe in another life you got diagnosed sooner and got the meds you needed to actually focus and got attention from the right teachers who helped you clear hurdles to get up out of here - but for now? here?

the effort of trying. the effort of not-dying. that kind of effort was absolutely agonizing.

Have you seen Lilia's vignette yet? Our insight into his initial parenting skills sure was, something.

HA HA YEP, Lilia's. questionable parenting has come up a few times and it's always, like, he read Baby Instructions 101 and went "ooh, I like red, I'll do those ones :)". he has Dad Instincts, but unfortunately they are Stereotypical '90s Sitcom Dad Instincts.

it was, however, worth it to see Sebek (watching Lilia gleefully dunking a bat into a coffee cup) just slowly turn to Silver and go "how the fuck are you alive".

Keith walking into the holding cell greeting all the regulars by name while Lance is sobbing lamenting that his life is over and his future is ruined (they were like. Trespassing or some shit he’s going to be fine)

lance: (actively dry heaving in the corner, on the verge of a panic attack as he imagines having a permanent record)(actually what does a permanent record even look like?)(omg is he going to have to go to COURT? like in JUDGE JUDY?)

keith: remy, this is lance. lance, this is remy, she’s my favorite alcoholic :)

Not to keep beating dead horses like I so much love to do but I am still completely Flabbergasted and Astonished at how you (Merle Ambrose) could discover the most terrifying fact that a child that is essentially under your care has been indoctrinated into a cult (which, by the way, a process that has taken over the course of years) ((by an agent that has been stationed in a direct position to make it easier to access and manipulate children, that has easily escaped your notice for such a long time)) that worships a nihilistic entity whose ultimate goal is the absolute and total destruction of Everything and Everyone around you, and your one, single, simple-sentenced response to that is to say "Oh, that's a shame. He (Duncan) always was pretty terrible. Hope he gets better someday." And then to move on from those extremely worrying and dangerous bundle of issues permanently without taking any sort of action to protect the vulnerable and make sure nothing like this ever happens again

absolutely fully respect the pokemon masters canon of cyrus literally held at the ear for his redemption in the sense that he feasibly can just enact his world reset plan but because hes on Friendship Therapy The Island he is pouting in a sunchair with a drinkable coconut in hand and all his former enemies are happy to see him and he Can't get mad about it because that would obviously mean giving into his human spirit and thats bad and he'll be damned if he lets those kids see him like this. all while hes goth married to cynthia (begrudgingly (mutual)) and the only friends he as a 28 year old has are either literal ten year olds that he is smug about looking cool to, his cult army of idiot followers that he acts like a nanny to, or the italian mafia boss (and the italian mafia boss' gang of other bosses) he maybe had a fling with once?

all that said. i still utterly adore platinum/generations cyrus where he was so mad about being able to be mad that hes still malding in the distortion realm and he hasn't left since. literally everything is pushing him to a redemption arc right at the very end but LIKE HELL will he ever admit that maaaaaybe the wider concept of human emotions weren't the problem and he just needs some normal ass therapy. giratina likes its new roommate though! way nicer than the other blond arceus guy who screamed at him and called him a coward :(. his skeleton is in the corner though cyrus so dont worry about tripping on it. if platinum ever gets a proper remake cyrus will be one of the villa npcs and he will literally just mope around in akaris house. someone give this man a job he has 15 phds and gifted kid burnout syndrome.

Tomorrow Patrick will wave Pete off the stage, bitch about him leaving, tell the story about how he designed the stage and then told him he should have A Moment, turn to the crowd and pull a paper while yelling "I HAVE A LIST. You can NOT look at this list because there's gonna be songs we play for 8 ball, but here's a list of all the songs we have yet to debut live. Let's get to 100% this is a speedrun!" and proceed to medley almost everything they have left, except when he interrupts himself with "Hm, actually I feel like playing this now instead" and interrupts his speedrun to play bits of like Love Selfish Love or Have I Got A Gift For You or some cover about cheating or because it's Prince's hometown or because he Just. Felt. Like. It.

flutter slimes are his favorite

Keyblade Camp

I have this AU I've been too busy to write where all of the Guardians of Light are found/saved/recovered BEFORE the final battle and Yen Sid declares that they are all to train together in preparation for the battle.

Yen Sid puts Aqua and Riku in charge of training everyone.

It's 2 boys per dorm room, and the girls get a master suite dorm for themselves

From there, it is essentially a sleepaway camp AU except it ends in a keyblade war..... but hey! There's a prom!

This depends so much on who she is as a person, and the context around how she's saying it, and what I know of X, and all that. But yes, she is going to have the hardest time lying to me, because I am easily the one in the family who had the most experience lying as a teenager. It's hard to fuck around with the original Bad Kid.

i think my parents not treating me as though i am a fully grown adult that is TWENTY FOUR years old has actually caused me to regress back into a child

Curfew (1989)

'you have insomnia so you can stay up later to let me in right?' girl. i have insomnia. which means it'll take me 2+ hours from the moment of ATTEMPTING sleep to actually achieve it. that means if i start trying to sleep at 11pm, earliest it'll happen is 1am. if i start at 1am, it'll be 3am. can you see the problem here. if you do not get your ARSE through that DOOR

wait are you saying you used to think he was scary?

I…

…

I may have been a bit intimidated the first time I saw him. That was before we met properly, though, and… I suspect that he had not slept in several days.

i’ve been trying to phrase this in a way that doesn’t come off as super inflammatory for a while but like. the next person to try to stop me or give me shit for going out after dark alone is getting bit

no last of the real ones???? ☹️

ill fucking kill you