#thinking about the church's and my dad and the rest of my family's expectations. I have to. I almost lied to him but i didnt and thats | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pearlofthesirens · 2 months

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domestic simon riley headcanons perhaps?

ooh i'm gonna love writing thissssss!!

Domestic Simon Headcanons:

wakes up at either 4 or 5 am, even after retiring. doesn't let go of the military morning routine.

if you're sleeping, he'll give you the softest kiss before fixing the blanket so you're not cold.

brushes his teeth and immediately hits the gym. loves the food you make, will tear that shit up but he thinks he should be keeping his body fit too. doesn't want Johnny to tease him for becoming soft(you personally love him even when he's a huge teddy bear).

when he comes back and sees you making breakfast, he won't hesitate to give you back hugs despite your complains of him being sweaty and smelly. "Si, no! Take a shower first, you're stinky!" "Shower can wait, lovie. I need to give my girl a kiss first."

calls you all sorts of nicknames like lovie, darling, sweetie, doll, my girl, etc.

if he's hungry and you're not at home, the only thing he can make is tea and toast. might burn the bread a little, might add a can of beans or potato mash(bri'ish tings), do not trust him with the kitchen.

if you're doing chores together, he would definitely want to help a lot even if he doesn't know much. for example, he'd definitely help with keeping the counter clean and taking dishes out from the dishwasher if you're cooking.

why waste water? take a shower together! "Water's too hot, doll. You're gonna burn." "Water's just fine." "You make me wonder what kinda demon I fell in love with."

genuinely gets scared if you call him Simon Riley, or worse if it's Ghost. will start contemplating about every single thing he did and where he might've gone wrong. "Simon Rile-" "I'm right here, sugar. Anything wrong? Need a shoulder massage?" "I-...please get the box of pasta from the top shelf." "Anything for you, doll."

he generally refuses to let you see him in full gear, prefers to keep Ghost out of his lovely Manchester apartment. but once after he was done with a long mission, he was so tired that he entirely forgot he had a significant other and walked inside the house with his balaclava and everything. you almost let out a scream when you saw a tall figure with a skull face hovering over you as you were sat on the couch, reading your favorite book. "AAAHH-" "Darling?"

he would legit go "?????" before he realizes that he has his mask on and everything. removes it immediately and sees your eyes soften, arms wide open for him. he takes you in a bone crushing hug, not forgetting to kiss your forehead.

always the big spoon when sleeping, but loves your arm around him too. will keep one arm out for you to rest your head on, doesn't care if it's numb, and the other around your waist. when you're facing him, he will hold your head and hips protectively, letting you bury your face in his chest and neck.

doesn't believe that a man should be controlling what his partner wears, he will encourage your to wear whatever makes you feel comfortable and confident. keeps a protective arm around your waist in public to show that you're his. "Wear whatever you want, sweetie. I can fight, ain't got all this body for nothing."

arguments with him are always short. he would not let anything get to a point that you two are shouting on each other's faces, he does not want to be like his father. goes to a different room to cool himself down before he opens the door to find you.

has a hard time apologizing with words at first, will try to get you something like flowers or give you a silent hug. but he soon learns to say "sorry" and to be gentler with you.

will get down on one knee and present you the ring when you least expect it. wants to have a small wedding at a church with only a few people, preferably TF141, Laswell, your immediate family and a few close friends you have.

wants kids, but won't force you if you don't want to. will consider resigning from the military if he does end up being a dad, he doesn't want to risk his life out there when he has two beautiful human beings to come home to. "Such a poppet, isn't she? Just like her mama." "Don't give me all the credit, honey. She's got your looks too, pretty little thing."

will take you out for dates, dinners too. believes that a relationship shouldn't be stagnant. you get to pick the restaurant and he will willingly pay for whatever you want to eat. you just have to look pretty <3

although he likes to put the most effort, he expects you to put effort too. he takes offense if you disregard how he feels, is devoted to you and expects you to love him the same.

little things matter to him. he pays attention to how you make tea for him, how you do not push him when he doesn't want to talk about something, how you adjust the blanket over both of you every time he comes home late and plops himself down on the couch with you.

overall, the sweetest but realistically speaking, it might be a bit tough to live with him considering he's in the military and has a bitter past. but as long as you're ready to compromise and understand him, he will return the love tenfold and more.

proofread ✓ pearly venus, 22:00 240229

#pearly venus asks #mw2 ghost #cod #cod mw2 #call of duty modern warfare #simon riley #simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #simon ghost x reader #ghost #simon riley x fem!reader #pearly venus

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appalamutte · 3 months

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Music for The Kiss at the end of Year Two, one of the most climactic moments in the series.

I ended up having to split this up into two different tracks: one that's a lot quieter and softer, which would ideally play between Jack leaving Bitty at the end of the graduation ceremony (end of 2.17), to right when Jack runs off to find Bitty after talking to his Dad.

The second is the big moment, where Jack finds Bitty in his old bedroom at the Haus. It's much more loud and grandiose. It's swooping and encompassing. It's the kiss.

As always, it's best listened to with headphones!! And be careful with the second track, it goes from real quiet to real loud pretty quickly!

The reason for splitting it into two is simply because, to me, it felt like two different tracks. I was trying to aim for something realistic that you'd hear in the tv show, and tv shows are chock full of dialogue and quiet moments; it quickly became apparent to me that there was a natural separation between the first half of this track and the second half, right after Jack runs off to find Bitty and right before he finds him (basically, when Bitty is crying to Halo by Beyonce).

Anyway, I got this out way faster than I was expecting. We can thank 1) back-to-back snow storms alongside back-to-back arctic freezes that kept me in the house all weekend and 2) sudden inspiration in the shower for how to actually start the first song.

I really hope I did it all justice. When I listen to it I can see it all in my head, so I hope y'all can too, and that y'all enjoy it!!

Here's the track I did for the 2.17 - Graduation update, which in my mind plays right before this if it were in the tv show.

More of my thoughts under the cut:

Starting off right at the end of 2.17 (Graduation), where Bitty hugs Jack thinking that's that and they walk away from each other, I really wanted to keep it light and soft. Airy almost. It's such a delicate moment that it feels wrong to imagine it being noisy with music.

When the piano comes in, that's about when Jack finds his family and talks to his Dad about not having said goodbye to everyone. This is still soft because this conversation Jack has with his Dad is a big one. Then, in the comic, when Jack has his oh panel, there are faint music notes in the background, which I've always believed to be church bells from a campus cathedral or something (don't ask me why. If I'm wrong about that don't tell me either, let me be ignorant in peace). That's what you hear at the end of part one, and the music growing louder is Jack realizing what he has to do and running off to do it.

Between the two tracks is when Bitty is alone in Jack's old Haus bedroom at the beginning of 2.18 (Goodbye for the Summer, pt. 1). I figured all you'd hear in this moment is him singing Halo by Beyonce and sniffling.

Then Jack finds him, and the second track starts. Cue the strings, building, then the swell.

Then the climax.

I pulled the same theme from the Graduation track for this moment, bringing it full circle, only it's much more grandiose and epic in a romantic way, because this is what we've been waiting for, what Bitty's been pining for, of course it's big and loud and encompassing. It's like being swept off your feet and flying up, up, up off the ground. I even bring the church bells back in - maybe the window is open and they're still going off, or maybe it's wedding bells going off in Bitty's head, or something.

(Honestly, I just liked the way it sounded haha.)

The rest of the song is when they start to come back down to Earth, when they break apart and Jack's phone starts ringing, and Bitty's in a daze going "Okay, okay" while Jack's promising to text him.

Then Bitty's alone again. But not really.

#also changed the album art to the omgcp banner ngozi made for a convention!!#it's from may 27 2014 #also yes i edited it with the netflix logo. one can dream #omgcp #omgcheckplease #check please #zimbits #composing #musescore #music

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 7 months

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AITA for calling my dad homophobic?

I (18f) identify as an asexual queer girl, and i live with my parents. My dad (52m) as well as the rest of my family are all devout mormons. surprisingly, my mom (47f) took my coming out fairly well. there was a phase of her telling me we could fix it and a phase of her avoiding the situation altogether, but ultimately she’s grown a lot and has become a huge ally over the past two years since i came out to her.

my dad was a bit more of an issue. he took the coming out with a grain of salt, and has since admitted that he thought i was just trying to be rebellious, and he completely brushed me off when i told him i was leaving the church, telling me and i quote “i don’t care if you leave because i know you’ll come back”, which always irritated me but i brushed it off. he’s also gotten a lot better at being respectful and while he still makes tasteless jokes sometimes, he usually seems to respect my identity and love me for who i am.

flash forward to a few days ago. i get home from work and i end up chatting with my parents as i usually do. the conversation turns to sexuality and my dad mentions how accepting he and my mom are, and i raise my eyebrows and remind him how uncomfortable they were when i first came out. i wasn’t upset at this point, rather just poking holes in his story. i mentioned how awkward he was when i came out as asexual, and my mom (who has found herself to be a bit on the asexual spectrum as well) and i chuckle about it for a second, before my dad defends that he wasn’t weird about it.

i reminded him how he COMPLETELY brushed it off when i first told him, and he told me that it means im not gay. i asked what he meant at the time, and his response was that “i consider the definition of gay to be having sex with someone of the same gender”. my sister was in a serious committed relationship with a man at this point in time, but (being mormon) they hadn’t had sex, so i asked my dad if i had that same level of relationship with a woman, if he would consider it gay, and his response was no. i proceeded to ask him if i married a woman and spent the rest of my life with her, kissing and sharing a bed and everything, would he consider it gay? he kind of scoffed at me and said “well, if you’re sleeping in the same bed, then EVENTUALLY you’re going to have sex”. that really upset me at the time, but he had only just learned about asexuality, so i cut him a break.

flash forward to a few days ago, i bring this up and rather than shrug it off and cringe the way he and my mom had been at other behaviors of theirs, he scowled and began to defend himself. he said that it didn’t make any sense to him, and why should it matter if he thinks that? i pointed out that learning to respect other people even if you don’t understand them is important, and he got a bit huffy. i mentioned the not considering me gay thing, and asked if he still felt that way. i expected a no or some sort of explanation, but instead he said “well if you’re not having sex with another woman then you’re not doing anything wrong.”

that immediately made me upset, and i responded with “are you saying that being gay is wrong?” and my mom jumped in and accused me of twisting his words. i left the room and eventually he came in and gave an awkward apology without really saying anything just before he went to bed (one of those “im sorry you got upset because of what i said” apologies rather than an actual apology), and i reluctantly told him it was fine, but i still don’t feel fine about it. i feel like he’s invalidating my identity and pretending like he did nothing wrong, but i don’t want to confront him about it if i’m actually just making a big deal out of nothing. aita?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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zilabee · 9 months

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Colin Hanton, re Mimi:

"In those early days we certainly only practised at Mendips on a very few occasions as a full six-piece group. Although she was more relaxed about things than you might expect, Mimi was concerned about the noise we made and possible complaints from either the neighbours or of distracting the student lodgers who were studying next door in the dining room. […] having said that, when we did Mimi was very hospitable, she always served us tea and biscuits in the tiny morning room next to the kitchen.

She had the ability to terrify everybody, a cross between a headmistress and a chief librarian. Yet she was also the first adult I recall who would hold a conversation with you as an equal. She didn't talk down to you or treat you like a silly teenager like a lot of parents would. She would talk to us about the group and the music and other subjects, about life in general. She paid us respect, for which, in turn, I respected her."

Colin Hanton, re Julia:

"He said he was going to see his mum and asked did I want to go with him? I was a bit surprised by this because up to this point no one in the Quarry Men had mentioned John's mum and I'd never thought to ask if he even had one. I just accepted he was living with his aunt for whatever reason. It wasn't unusual at the time - post-war - for a parent to be missing. Think about it: Eric's dad was missing, and Ivan's, both casualties of the war. In those days many families were missing people: not just dads but mums too, because of the Blitz. It was something you almost took for granted, so you didn't talk about it. It was private. Anyway I went along with John to visit his mother.

I was immediately taken with Julia: she was vivacious, full of fun and friendly, not like most mums I knew who could be a bit guarded when you first met them. […] We hadn't been there very long before she produced a banjo and began singing a song. I was fascinated: a mum playing a banjo and singing. In my experience this was a bit different. And she was really good."

"Apart from the church fete the only time I remember seeing Julia in the audience was when we played a club on Penny Lane. […] We could all see that John was really pleased when his mum showed up that night. the rest of us were too: for one thing her presence almost doubled the size of the audience. As I looked out from my drums she was sitting almost at the front, on the right-hand side of the stage quite close to where we were, while other members of the audience were dancing. John acknowledged her from the stage and played up to her quite a lot, as if he was performing just for her. Every time we finished a song, Julia clapped very loudly and enthusiastically which was great because not many others were. She was clearly pleased and proud to see and hear John performing with his group.

After we had finished, Julia came over and told us how much she had enjoyed our set. As ever she was great to be around: one of the few parents who appreciated what we were doing. Jim McCartney was another. However, there was something special and engaging about Julia. All these years later I still feel privileged to have known her and to have witnessed the musical bond between her and John. It was very loving and very strong."

from pre:fab! by Colin Hanton and Colin Hall

#mimi smith #julia lennon #john lennon #the quarry men #colin hanton #pre:fab

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themultifandomgal · 1 month

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From 2010- Funeral

2012

Part 24

Trigger warning- religious talk and talk about death.

“Hey” I see Liam and Harry walking into my bedroom wearing all black and a sad smile “the errm… the cars outside” Liam says as I look at myself in my black dress in the mirror

“I don’t think I can do this” I tell them looking down at my feet “I don’t want to do this”

“I know, but you’ll regret it if you don’t. We will all be by your side”

“How have I lost another person I love?” Tears start to spill from my eyes as I turn to face Harry and Liam

“ m’so sorry YN” Harry says opening his arms out and I run into them. Harry strokes my hair while holding me

“Guys we have to go” I hear Zayn say

“We’re coming. Come on” Liam takes my hand and leads me downstairs and out of the house where my dad is waiting with the other boys and Emma. Reluctantly I get into the car that’s following the hearse with Alex’s mum, dad and sister who are all crying. The boys, my dad and Emma will be following us in another car.

The drive to the church is quiet, expect for all of our sobs. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off the hearse in front where I can see his coffin. My hand never leaves his mothers. Yes I’ve lost my love, but she’s lost her son all because of a drunk driver who still hasn’t been caught.

Once the car has stopped we slowly get out. I immediately go to my dad, holding on to his arm. I notice many of our old school friends, even James is here with I’m guessing his boyfriend. Not wanting to interact with anyone I follow Alex’s parents into the church and we take our seats

“The grace and peace of God our Father, who raised Jesus from the dead, be always with you” the priest says sprinkling water on the casket

“And you” we all reply

“We gather here today to celebrate the life of Alexander Williams, who has now returned to his home with Our God, The Father. I’d like to read a passage from the Old Testament. Wisdom 3:1-9 The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction.

But they are in peace. For if to others, indeed, they seem punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself.

As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself. In the time of their judgment they shall shine and dart about as sparks through stubble they shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the LORD shall be their King forever.

Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love: because grace and mercy are with his holy ones, and his care is with the elect. The Word of the Lord” tears spill throughout the whole reading. I wipe the tears from my face with the back of my hand “I’d like to invite Alex’s partner YN up here to read his eulogy” shakingly I stand up and walk to the front of the church where the priest was

“I wrote and rewrote this so many times. I didn’t know where to start. So I decided to just start with saying that Alex was the kindest human I think I ever knew. I don’t think he ever had a bad bone in his body. We met at high school, I sat next to him in maths which we all know was not my strong suite. Alex helped me when I was struggling. He loved his family and….” I choke up a little while reading. I wipe my tears and take a deep breath “sorry. He loved his family and friends and would have done anything for them. He also cared about others, strangers that he saw on the streets. More often than not he would be giving money to some sort of charity. I will forever be grateful for the time we spent together and hope I could only be half the person he was” I now turn to the coffin “I will always love you Alex, I hope you rest in peace” I kiss my hand and place it on the coffin before going back to my seat.

The priest talks some more, we do a few prayers before finishing up the service with the Lords Prayer.

“Why don’t we go for lunch?”

“Not hungry” I reply to Emma wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa staring at the TV that’s not even on

“Then why don’t we take cookie for a walk?”

“Dad took her earlier” I reply

“Come on YN. It’s been a week since the funeral”

“My boyfriend died, was killed by a possible drunk driver who hasn’t been caught yet so I’m sorry that I’m sad and grieving” Emma sighs at my response

“I know your trying to push me away, your hurting, but I’m staying here. You can yell at me all you like but I’m not going anywhere” I turn away from Emma and stare at the TV again

“I’m sorry” I whisper hating that I shouted at Emma. She’s grieving as well “I just keep thinking that this is a dream, a nightmare that I’ll wake up from”

“I know, I’m so sorry your having to go through this again” Emma pulls me into her side letting my cry “Alex will always be here with you. Why don’t we do something to honour him”

“I’ve wanted to get a tattoo for my mum. Maybe I could get one in honour of Alex as well”

“Love that idea, but before you book a tattoo and get it done maybe we should have a shower and brush our teeth Hmm?” I give Emma a little nudge

“Thank you for being here and not leaving me to deal with this”

“Always”

#6th one direction member #one direction x reader #sixth one direction member #one direction #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x oc #harry styles fanfic rec #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles #harry styles imagine

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cdyssey · 6 months

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The Fall of the House of Usher (1.01 Reactions)

Starting this show because everything I’ve seen about Tamerlane Usher specifically convinced me that there was a new overworked cringefail girlflop out there for me to adopt like a feral, little kitten.

“If pain and suffering were like the kiss of Jesus, then he kissed the loving fuck out of my mother.” AKWJEJEJW

OH, the actor who plays teen Madeline was young Shirley in HOHH.

These poor kids are burying their mother in a wooden box. 😭 Also, Bruce Greenwood’s voice is so stately and complicated, churching and churning like gravel. His voiceover as he recites “For Annie” is perfect.

Lol, it’s not a Poe story if someone wasn’t buried alive.

The shadow of Eliza moving in the background behind Dupin aughdnehshs. The way the dialogue makes you pay attention to what’s behind him so you can’t miss that ghost.

“That day was the last day we were all in the same place.”

And then the text flashing two weeks later is effective too. Six people dead within two weeks.

I’m sorry. I can’t take madeline’s bangs seriously. QKQKWMDNWN what. why

obsessed with how hot all of the usher children are. I’m sure they’re all human cesspools and everything, but they’re sure serving cunt in the courtroom

really appreciate the gravitas carl lumbly is bringing to auggie—whether it’s his righteous rage in the trial or his various reactions to Roderick in the living room. In the latter especially, he gets to embody so many complicated emotions: his disgust at roderick, his horror at what happened to the usher family, his reluctant curiosity as roderick goes on and on…

“I don’t think it can be true. If it is true, it’s Perry.” AQokqqkoqsk. Henry Thomas is wonderful.

Oh, god yeah. Tamerlane Usher is gonna do it for me. Love when women are ambitious and horrible and definitely have intergenerational trauma that they repress under a paper thin veneer of being put together: “I don’t give a shit about the world. I care about what my dad thinks.”

“Fuck Blippi.”

T’Nia Miller. Audhehwngnrnwjjwjejw.

“We just have to keep it away from Perry or it’ll end up in some co-ed’s drink.” ALL of the siblings have bagged on Perry so far. This line is so eurgh, though. Says a lot about who Perry is before we meet him in earnest.

Usher being so casually queer is wonderful.

the sibling introductions are doing a nice job of shading their definitely fatal flaws, lol.

PLUTO!! love a good black cat

“Hannity knows which side his dick is buttered on. He’ll be friendly.” GOD WKWNENSNSKN

“I want you to start with Perry obviously, but I don’t think he’s clever enough to keep it off TikTok.” AAfjwkwoama

Kate Siegel can murder me. Love the white hair.

The difference between present day Madeline and Roderick and their teenage counterparts is stark. They were jaded, yes, but they weren’t cold and callous, neglectful and disdaining.

“Freddie, marrying this woman might be the one thing you didn’t fuck up.” MAN WOQMWNWNDJJSNSSKA

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Freddie.”

Love the whole toxic family being together. <3

“Neutralized. Like dead.” WLQLQLQLQKDJNDNS. GOD

“I’ll have to sue the bloody puddle of gore in the designer shoes.” slay

“To the rest of you, happy hunting.” Fascinating and horrifying. The way the Ushers are so insular—they’re expected to defend the family, the company, with their lives, but Roderick also sees no problem with turning them against each other. Before they’re ever killed, they’re already cannibalizing themselves.

Roderick claims responsibility for all of the children’s deaths.

Carla Gugino is so hot aufhwikqlwkwkakwkw.

good on usher for playing with the incestuous vibes of the original story with Maddie and Rod. Fun and fucked up.

Madeline wearing sunglasses to the funeral is soooo Alqkqkwsmakma.

OH THE GHOSTS OF ALL SIX. SO FUCKED UP. AUOUGHDNDJS. AND THE LINE BEINg, “… the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height.” YEAH

Lenore reaching out to place a hand on Roderick. 😭 also, bruce is so good in this. His agony as he looks upon all those condemning bodies and wounds is chilling

THAT FUCKING JESTER JUMPSCARE WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK. GOD

yeah okay. I’m into this show QKQMQKQKKSN

#the fall of the house of usher #the fall of the house of usher spoilers #maggie blogs #s: tfothou

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pimo-and-sad-about-it · 1 year

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Alright folks, today we're talking about AMATONORMATIVITY. And also allonormativity but mostly the first one.

Now, I do not claim for a second to be an expert on the topic, but I have seen the harm that this concept, particularly in relation to the church, can cause.

Amatonormativity, simply put, is the assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, longterm relationship, and that everyone is naturally looking for one. Allonormativity is the assumption that everyone experiences sexual attraction. (Feel free to correct if needed)

Now, needless to say, these are HUGE in TSCC. "Salvation is an individual matter, exaltation is a family matter." Thanks, Russell. It is literally a part of Mormon doctrine that you can only get into heaven if you are married (heterosexually, ofc). But dw, if you die single, there'll be someone waiting for you on the other side.

Now, for very obvious reasons, this is very damaging for LGBT individuals who can't maintain their celestial status if they marry someone of the same sex. That's a huge deal, and one of the main reasons why I stopped believing in God in the first place.

But today I want to talk more specifically about the part where "being married" is essential to living a godly life (which is bs, btw). (***Also this creates HUGE stigma around divorce in TSCC but that's another issue entirely).

A few years ago my sister came out as aroace. First to a family friend, then to me, then to the rest of our immediate family. I considered myself cishet at the time but was fully supportive. The rest of my family, however, had a bit more trouble with the idea.

My other sister did alright, but definitely had some concerns that she expressed to me later. My dad, however, didn't get it at all. He told my sister something to the effect of, "I want you to be happy, but I don't think this is how you can do it."

So basically. TSCC enforces the belief that you must be in a committed, heterosexual relationship if you want to live a happy and fulfilling life, let alone have a happy eternity. Guess my sister doesn't get to be happy then, huh?

Now I didn't really think about this TOO much until after I stopped believing. Because something really weird happened the moment I stopped believing in God, which honestly surprised me quite a bit.

See, I always wanted to get married, have kids, all that. I expected it. That was "normal." That IS normal in TSCC. But then I stopped believing, and all of the sudden that didn't feel like a necessity anymore. In fact, I wasn't sure I even WANTED it. Looking for marriage before the age of 25 just doesn't feel like a priority anymore.

That probably doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. But to me, it completely changed my worldview. I no longer live with the pressure of valuing a relationship over my individual goals/life. Simply put, I feel more free.

Now I'm in this weird situation where I'm not looking for romance and am not planning to anytime soon, but at the same time I'm telling to figure out if I'm bi? Which is a weird spot to be in, but knowing I can figure it all out at my own pace is honestly amazing.

So basically, this was really long and probably not particularly interesting, but what I'm trying to say is, YOU DON'T NEED A RELATIONSHIP TO BE HAPPY. TSCC claims that you do, but you actually just don't. If you want one, that's cool too, that's great, even! Just know that there's nothing wrong with you if that's not a priority right now, or ever.

DOWN WITH AMATONORMATIVITY!!!

#amatonormativity #asexual #aromantic #allonormativity #exmo #ex christian #exmormon #pimo #exlds #ex mormon #apostate #ex religious #bisexual

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fundielicious-simblr · 5 months

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(Valentina's pov)

We've definitely been enjoying our summer here in Brindleton Bay! We try and spend most of our day outside, now that the girls are toddlers we have a lot more freedom as to what we can do. Aria and Ansel have been going with their dad to fish in a nearby lake almost every day since summer started, and whilst they don't come back with a fish everyday, they come back with stories about their fishing adventures that I'm sure they'll look back on with fondness. Whilst we aren't actively doing schoolwork in the summer, we're still learning when we're outside. The kids research the kinds of fish that are local to our area, so they know how to identify anything they might catch. Ever since we got our chickens, we've been learning all the things about them like the differences between the eggs that are laid for us to eat versus the fertilised eggs that hatch into chicks. We've also been learning about the fruits and vegetables that we've been growing, as well as the local plants and animals in the area. We've been debating whether to move to a property that has more land to have more animals, but that's a big undertaking so we're definitely praying on it.

These four are proving to be thick as thieves, there's a year between them and they're determined to put me through my paces. I don't mind it though, I'm taking my time and cherishing all these memories while they're still young. Before I know it they'll be in school, then maybe even college, then getting married and moving out. I'm so thankful for the Lord choosing me to be the mama of these rambunctious kids.

(AN: The kid should really be a toddler cause he's 2 weeks younger then valentina's youngest 2, but lets pretend these are old pictures. Also, I hate that the infant blanket has to appear when they're being posed)

My sister Sabrina and her husband Tucker live further out in the country from us, but we still see them at church and manage to plan to see each other when our schedules align. Though Tucker's family still does their touring music ministry for parts of the year, Tucker and Sabrina have chosen to focus on maintaining the farm and being at home. They've even bought their own home close to the farm, as they wanted their own place for their growing family. Sabrina announced that they're expecting another baby by early next year!

My little brother Zachary is courting! He met Kelsey Parnell (19) last year when he was in Brindleton Bay to visit us, Kelsey lives in a town an hour away from Brindleton Bay but has the same social circles as our aunt Danielle. I guess my aunt is determined to have her nieces and nephews have ties to Brindleton Bay so that there will always be a way to see her, because this is now the 3rd couple she's used her match making skills on (the first being Me and Eric, the second being Sabrina and Tucker). Kelsey spends her time helping her mother at home, or working with the same ministry my aunt sometimes works with. They first met at a christmas bake sale to support an pro-life ministry, and would see each other everytime Zach would visit Brindleton Bay either for work or to see us. My parents were able to meet her parents as well and our families got along great, they agreed that it was okay for the two to get to know each other better in order for a courtship to happen, and recently Zach got the greenlight to ask her to start a courtship. Kelsey is a great girl, we've known her and her family for a few years and I think they'll make a great couple.

Celeste is also courting! She's in a courtship with a delightful young man named Reid Robbins (25) from Northbury, a town a few hours outside Britechester. They met through mutual friends when she was at a young women's retreat that was a ministry run by his church. She met one of his sisters and they became fast friends, and she later introduced the girls to her family and the rest of the church congregation. These two met and there was a group chat formed where they all got to know each other and challenged each other daily to keep up in their walk with the Lord. Between a few visits to Newcrest, a few visits to Northbury, and some group trips added into the mix, Reid had started to pray to the Lord about Celeste (what he didn't know is that she'd also started praying about him!). After discussing the fact with his parents, they contacted our parents and after both sides approved, he made his way to my parents house in Newcrest and officially asked her! Though she was excited, Celeste was slightly apprehensive at the beginning because she is slightly older than him (her being 27 and him being 25), but my sisters and I reassured her that if she felt the Lord leading her in that direction - then to follow where she's being led. Now she's happier than ever before, she's already started dreaming about what their wedding will look like!

#fundie sims #fundiesims #quiverfull sims #collins family #quiver full sims #modest sims #sims 4 legacy #collins legacy #homeschool sims #sims 4 courtship #sims 4 pregnancy #gen 3 #Eric and Valentina #tucker and sabrina #Zachary and Kelsey #Reid and Celeste #gen 4 #post #eric and valentinas kids are actually always outside #they wander everywhere #theres always one in the pen with the chickens #sabrina and tucker are shooting out children #both their families are very much the 'have all the babies' type #theyre also the 'marry young' crowd considering the courtships #celeste is giving allison bontrager energy but shes not got the outgoing personality #its mostly the younger man tbh #but at this point shes just happy to be in a relationship #three siblings on either side of her are all married with the last two still in highschool so she was def feeling the pressure

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luulapants · 11 months

Text

On Hardship

Let’s start with a thought exercise: how would you describe the difference between discomfort and pain? Where is the line?

I took a call with a family fleeing Florida because anti-trans laws and increasing local hostility meant they were no longer safe. We were struggling to find a short-term living arrangement they could afford.

“What if someone in our church fostered your cat for a couple months?” I suggested. “Just until you find somewhere permanent.”

“No,” they said immediately. “No, we can’t do that.”

I knew a yoga instructor who used the mantra, “Be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” while advising students to stop if they felt pain. “The body knows if something is wrong,” she said. “An injury, that’s pain. But you can’t make progress if you’re 100% comfortable.” Her issue was that many people aren’t attuned enough with their bodies to tell the difference.

We got an SOS from a reverend in Florida, getting multiple calls a day from trans folks trying to get out. “I can’t keep up,” she said, “It’s a full time job.”

My friend worked for several years with refugee populations in South Asia, Eastern Europe, East Africa, and the Middle East. Many refugees came from comfortable, even affluent lives. They held advanced degrees, worked good jobs, lived in nice homes. There are struggles to adjust, but once someone enters a refugee program, my friend describes a sort of resignation to hardship: not that it will be forever, but accepting they’ll be uncomfortable for a while.

“We have housing for trans people struggling with homelessness,” a local resource center told me. “We don’t have anything that the folks you’re working with would be satisfied with.”

I grew up in my dad’s wilderness survival school. You could drop me in any forest in North America with nothing but a knife and seasonal clothes, and I’d probably be able to survive indefinitely. That’s how I was trained. During shelter building classes, students would ask, “Won’t there be insects in it?”

“Yes,” the instructor would agree. “Almost certainly.”

“I’m over-stressed,” I told my therapist last week. “I finish my real full-time job, then I’m on the phone trying to find money to break a trans person’s lease.”

My stress-induced parasomnia is back. My house is a mess. I’ve had some infected wound or another for three weeks straight. I expected my therapist to tell me I need to step back, as she usually would when I’ve taken on too much, to tell me I need to prioritize my mental health and prevent burnout.

“If I don’t do this,” I told her, “I don’t think anyone else is going to. I have to.”

To my great surprise, she said, “You’re right. You do.”

Consider a boomer litany against snowflake millennials: “This generation could never storm the beaches of Normandy!” Ignoring that both of our generations were conned into horrendous wars. Everyone my age knows at least one guy from their hometown that went bugnuts in Afghanistan. Americans know how to go to war. It’s within our national image, something people choose to do.

But, I contend, we don’t know how to be refugees, a status of circumstance. It isn’t participation-trophy-induced entitlement. We were trained not to think of ourselves that way. “The Refugee” is an othered, foreign entity: dirty-faced, usually nonwhite, speaking a foreign tongue. Refugee-ism is something that America does to others, not something we can be. There is comfort guaranteed in American identity. Our military recruits must be indoctrinated out of the expectation of comfort because the rest of us are indoctrinated into it.

I don’t know how to feel about the family that won’t let their cat be fostered. I don’t blame them. I certainly wouldn’t tell them off for not being willing to have their comfort taken by bigots. But they scare the shit out of me. The resignation my friend described in refugees, I haven’t seen it yet. These folks know they’re fleeing, but I don’t think they know they’re refugees. The few volunteers on my team, I don’t think they get it yet either, that this warrants hardship.

Eventually, I think, the realization will come. When? When arrests begin? Deaths? We’ll know when we have refugees saying, “Give me a room, a basement, anything,” when we have volunteers saying, “I can do a midnight pickup then go to work the next day - it’ll suck, but it has to happen.” I don’t want these things to happen. We don’t deserve the hardship, but being willing to endure it is not the same as saying it’s okay. We have to learn the line between discomfort and pain, hardship and death.

#trans activism #cw transphobia #social activism #trans genocide

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sebsrainbowbicycle · 2 months

Text

“At least you have a mother” is something that has been said to me more times than I would care to count, and is something I’ve been thinking on a lot recently.

I think an absent mother would have been better than what I had. To the outside world we were a perfectly imperfect family. We went to church, we hosted dinners, were polite got good grades and everything seemed normal. But it wasn’t. I didn’t really have a mother, or maybe I did once but not that I remember. I had a person who gave birth to me and hated me, except for once a year when we would take a trip just us and it would be great for two days.

I witnessed what a mother was, with how she was with my brother. I saw what love and care and affection without expectation was when I saw their relationship, but I didn’t get that. I got the other side of her. The abusive alcoholic. And I don’t think I’ll ever really recover from that fully. I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to get rid of the tiny voice inside my head that asks what I did wrong to make her do those things. Nothing, I was a child. I know that but the voice in my head doesn’t.

Mother’s Day has ben something that weighed heavy on me always, the pretending so that everything looked normal to everyone else. So that no one saw what she was really like. I’d get her cards and gifts because it wasn’t worth it if I didn’t. Playing nice and playing pretend and dying inside. Watching everyone else showcase their love, talk about wonderful memories and how amazing their mums are, and I remember the year that my Dad was sick and in hospital so couldn’t buy me a gift for her like he did every year, because I was too young and didn’t have money. And I made her a card, used her favourite colours and flowers. I made her toast and coffee and my brother attempted orange juice and we took it to her in bed and she seemed happy. It seemed good. Until my brother went to play and she screamed at me because we hadn’t gotten her gifts, or bought cards. Told me I was irresponsible and ungrateful and a terrible daughter. I’lll leave the rest of that story to the imagination.

So Mother’s Day isn’t a good day for me. Never has been. This year will be my first Mother’s Day since I went no contact, and it’s weird and freeing too, not to have the obligations. But it’s another change, and another thing I have to deal with. Another thing that hurts. All the time. The pretending hasn’t stopped with the obligations, I’ll still smile at my friends lovely plans and stories and not flinch when they talk about their mums, pretend every word isn’t a dagger into an open festering wound. Smile, pretend to everyone else that everything is normal. Just like I’ve always done.

#Dee talks #Mother’s Day looms and I’m having a weird day #and I needed to put this somewhere #because my mind is swimming and I think I need to properly cry but I can’t #I don’t know how #so yeah #cw: child abuse #I guess idk

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timaeusterrored · 11 months

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(The Golden Cross)

Kerry lit his cigarette and looked over at Venus, who was stretched out like the Goddess Venus herself. The morning sun hit him just right, the blankets around his hips, Vax’s arm over his waist. It was unfair to have two beautiful people in his bed like this.

But the thing that really caught Kerry’s eye was the golden cross around Venus’s neck. They never talked about religion, Venus certainly did not go to church. But it still had him curious, a cross symbolic of Christianity, but a name of a Roman Goddess-or the planet, or the plant. God why were there so many things named Venus?

The one thing about Venus that was more on the creepy side though was the fact that both his eyes were all black, two endless voids. He used to have brown eyes apparently, in the baby pictures he saw.

“Like what ya see?” Venus’s accent was thick in the morning, a mix of his Louisiana draw and whatever abomination was Night City’s accent. It made for some very fun conversations with him.

“I do.” They spoke quietly, as to not wake the exhausted fixed behind Venus. Vax deserved his rest, especially after yesterday. “Curious ‘bout something though.”

Venus rubbed his eyes, shifting a bit so Vax could snuggle into his chest. How was the most dangerous man in Night City the cutest fucking thing Kerry had ever seen?

“Your cross. What’s that about? Fashion or you secretly religious and I’ve been disrespecting someone for a bit.” What? Kerry likes holding it between his teeth when he fucked Venus.

“Mmmmm… both.” He had not been expecting that. “I’m by no means religious… haven’t been for years. But my mama was. Religion is a sticky subject in our family… this is Jett’s cross though, his grandmother was religious.” Something else Kerry noticed is when speaking of Jett, Venus always talked about him in the present tense. But he understood, he did the same with Johnny for years.

“Was it hard?”

“Yeah… but my mama died before I came out so I think I dodged a bullet. Not that nomads have a church or anything, but that woman prayed before every meal, before bed, every trip we took… always had her Bible too.”

Kerry nodded and blew the smoke out away from his partners, looking out over the city.

“What about you? You ever have religious family?” Venus asked, making Kerry look over again, then nod. He never talked about his own history.

“Mom was a devout Christian… dad was too greedy and drunk to really give a fuck. He fucked off to I don’t know where, maybe back to the Philippines. Never saw him after I left. She was never the type to force it on us though, as long as we were happy, she didn’t care… she knew I was bi before I did, apparently when I was a kid, I talked about boys and girls the same. She was a great woman in some ways…” He missed his mother. She was long dead now, died when he was 16, after he had already moved in with Johnny. That was the year he went off to work on the cruise to get away.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to ramble-“ When he looked over, Vax’s eyes were open and watching him. Both had the same look on their faces.

“I would have loved to meet her.” Vax whispered.

“You’re a few decades too late, sweetheart. Most of my family is dead anyway, my youngest sister is probably alive? Dunno.” Kerry shrugged.

He and Venus shared a look, a look of familiarity. In some ways, Venus reminded him a lot of himself, he didn’t know if he loved or hated it.

“I’m gonna go make some coffee. Good chat.” He kissed his lovers before pondering why the fuck he just said ‘good chat’ to his input of two years now. He hadn’t meant for the conversation to go the way it did. He didn’t want to talk about his family, he had wanted to talk about Venus.

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whyyoualwayssoradical · 4 months

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realized i was gay in middle school but at the time with all the protestant pentecostal holiness churching i had, it made my perspective see it as just giving in to "sin". i remember completely breaking down one night at like the precipice of the realization of what and who i really was but i was so committed to being christian or whatever i went the complete opposite direction mentally and thought i had to stop "sinning". i don't know maybe i'm just stupid and none of this makes sense to anyone but it's like i was so determined to live up to my mom's expectations and her wanting me to be a good christian and me being cut off from the rest of the world i just took it and buried it as deep as i could and tried everything to blend in as straight but likely not as well as i thought i might have been. the only thing that really mattered perception wise was that i knew if any kind of rumor made it back to my family about my sexual orientation i was going to experience some kind of hell on earth. so it didn't really matter what i got called at school as long as nothing that was said could amount to me actually potentially being gay, so i mentally just ruled it out so to speak and just tried to be Not Gay if you can even believe that's possible to do as like a middle schooler, i just know i was terrified of anyone perceiving me or anything i did as incorrect in regards to my family. basically small enough town everyone knew who i was or their parents knew who i was and knew my parents or someone that knew my parents and basically anything i did was under a microscope because i was the Baby of the <family name> and that's who i always was. i was my dad's son or my mom's son or the younger brother of my brothers.

looking back everything makes sense to me now i think. i thought i had to be straight and there were nothing else, i thought it was inevitable that i was going to have to be intimate with the opposite sex and i hated the idea of that, i didnt even understand why people dated each other, let alone get married and do the required things to have children. i was always friends with more girls than boys but once i got to middle school boys and girls just hanging out wasn't like a thing anymore for some reason socially. i hated boys so much, mean assholes all of them so i always tried to hang out with girls but eventually i stopped being allowed to. i had all these weird and warped perceptions of everything social related and i just never understood any of it and i was just trying to recognize patterns and try to blend in to not stick out but i was still obviously very different to some kids and i eventually figured out how to blend in well enough that most kids just left me alone by late middle school.

i don't know i feel like my mind is so completely messed up and unraveling it has been a monumental task

#i dont know this is what i remember and what i can best make out #its all really confusing #protestantism really fucks you up #still afraid of my dad potentially just wanting to kill me for being gay #sorry #always afraid to talk about these experiences because of how it will get interpreted and people often misinterpret me #i dont know how else to describe it all #it probably sounds stupid #maybe delete maybe not

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shewastheheart · 1 year

Note

ooh so we're doing prompts now? in that case: Esme and Carlisle high school AU?

A/N: Well, this is exciting! I love prompts so thank you very much :)

Set in Esme's era of the early 1900s.

“Is there any chance we could eventually decide on a new meeting spot?” Carlisle grunts, following her up the thinning branches of the trees.

Esme laughs down at him, the sound like the soft song of a bell. “Come on, Cullen. Use those muscles.”

He huffs up at her in annoyance, but they both know it’s feigned. They both know he would follow her anywhere.

The tree house preceded them in existence, built unknown and what he presumed had to be ages ago. They had no idea if it was actually safe or sturdy enough to spend as much time as they do inside the makeshift home of wooden planks. But it was Esme’s favorite place to be, so naturally, it had become his too.

When they made it to the tree house’s ledge, Esme hoists herself up using the rope they’d tied to one of the branches protruding through the walls inside. Per usual, he looks away, avoiding the precarious flutter of her skirt at her knees. He follows her in by clutching the hand she offers for leverage.

The boards of wall were covered in Esme’s sketches and paintings, her sketchbook and art supplies tucked safely in a box they’d brought up in the summer upon finding the place. Her passion nestled next to his, the study materials for medical school and the poetry books buried inside so his father would never find them.

It was here they could both be their true selves, with no judgment from parents or peers. Here, they could dream and laugh. She avoided the scrutiny of her parents, the criticism that stole her girlhood, and he could dodge his father’s harsh words and even harsher hands.

His father had never liked him, not after his mother died in delivery. The local pastor had an affinity for secret drinking to forget it all, the alcohol coaxing his usual quiet rage to the surface; Carlisle was the perfect target. Esme never saw the bruises, but he knew she suspected things. She was too observant for her own good.

“How’d you make it past him today?” she inquires now, lighting an oil lamp in the corner, careful to drag it away from the wall.

“He wasn’t home yet,” Carlisle answers evenly, dropping to his haunches in front of the keepsake box. “I’ll think of something before we get back. What are you going to tell yours?”

“That I’m out with one of my many suitors, learning the intricate delicacy of becoming a housewife,” she muses. She joked about it a lot, but he knew her parents’ expectations infuriated her on the inside, the constant push for marriage, the lack of interest in her even completing her education. Esme wanted to go to college, to make something of her life; her parents wanted her to let Charles Evenson court her.

“Do they think you’re out with Charles?” he asks next.

She shoots him a look. “Perhaps. They never seem to respond well to me spending hours with my best friend who is a male, three years older than me, and protestant.”

“Isn't Evenson older than you? And is he even Jewish?”

“I think it has more to do with his family name and the money behind it,” she mutters. “Isn’t that why your dad hates me? Family name and lack of money?”

“My father hates no one but me,” Carlisle chuckles, plopping to the floor and resting his back to the wall. “But ultimately, I think he wants me in chapel, training for my future.”

“Hard to train to become a world famous doctor in a church,” she murmurs, settling beside him and bumping her shoulder to his.

He offers her a soft smile, he can’t help it. No one’s ever had faith in him before, but she does. He has no idea why, but Esme believes in him more than he thinks he may believe in God.

“I'm going to graduate soon, Carlisle,” she says conspiratorially, curling her knees up and letting them brush his side, “Then we’re going to get out of here, you and me.”

He turns his head to stare over at her, finds her already waiting with liquid green eyes and a tender smile. His gaze unthinkingly falls to her lips.

He’s wanted to kiss her for years now, ever since he met her.

He swallows hard and drops his forehead against hers instead. “Promise?”

He can see her lashes fluttering, blinking furiously as if to clear a haze before she finds herself again.

“Of course,” she chuckles, reaching for his arm and squeezing. “I’ll go wherever you wanna go, Carlisle. Anywhere but here.”

Esme usually meets him every day after school in the forest behind her house. Neither of them rarely go home beforehand unless necessary, but Carlisle has to pass his on his way here from the school and sometimes gets delayed.

She’s been waiting for over half an hour.

She frowns and glances to the darkening forest, wondering if there’s a chance he went in without her, if he’s already waiting in the tree house.

She debates for a long moment before trekking into the maze of trees and brush she’s carved a path through many times before. If he isn’t there, then that means he was caught on his way and she’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see him.

She’s halfway through the ten minute walk when it starts to drizzle, the darkening clouds bleeding into the darkening sky and releasing downpour. Esme hastens her walk to a run, her book bag slapping against her back at she races to the tree.

The lamp in the tree above is lit.

She begins to climb, nearly slipping a couple of times, huffing as she finally reaches the top. Peering over the edge of the landing just to ensure it is him in there, she sees Carlisle sitting on the floor, back to the wall and head tilted back exposing his profile. His eyes are closed and a frown is carved deep into his mouth. She wants to draw him, trace the outline of his throat with her pencil, follow it with the tips of her fingers.

Esme shakes the thoughts away and climbs the rest of the way inside, shaking the dampened curls of her hair. It’s then that she sees the floor, covered in ripped pages.

Her heart sinks as she silently plucks the first scrap of paper her fingers touch from the ground, one of his anatomy book pages torn. He doesn’t stir until she’s nearly across the tiny room, blinking as if emerging from a daze.

“Esme?”

That is also when she sees the entirety of his face. His left cheek is slashed with a cut, his eye blackened and swelling.

He stands as she gasps, closing the distance to better inspect, but he catches her wrists when her hands rise to his face.

“It’s fine,” he whispers, and outrage pools like fire in her veins.

“This is not fine,” she hisses, tears stinging her eyes unexpectedly. “I know he did this, I know it was him-”

“It doesn’t matter!” he growls, dropping her wrists and turning away from her. “None of it matters anymore. He - he’s sending me away for leadership training in the city. I finally told him it’s not what I want, that I wanted to heal people in a different way. I told him I was twenty-one and he couldn’t force me to do this and - well, he disagreed.”

Esme bit down on her lip and followed his retreat from her, tentatively touching his chin with trembling fingertips. He let her, staring down at her with sorrow that bled from the ocean blue of his eyes.

“Let’s just go now,” she breathes, watching the storm raging in those eyes threaten to settle, confusion like a lightning bolt of calm. “We can leave, we can-”

“Esme, we can’t,” he whispers sullen. “You haven’t graduated, neither of us has any real money, we can't-”

“I can still go to school, so can you, we can just live somewhere else and-”

“No,” he quiets her, placing gentle hands on her shoulders. “We can’t just... we have to think this through better, longer.”

“You’re not going back there,” she gets out, shaking her head furiously before reaching forward to wrap her arms around his neck.

He stands there, stock still for a long moment. Carlisle is not used to affection, the soft nudge of her shoulder or the gentle press of her forehead to his always a breath-stealing instance that passes far too quickly between them. But right now? She needs him as much as she'd like to believe he needs her.

She's not letting go.

She's not letting go, so he wraps his arms around her slim waist.

They stay like that for a long time, her quiet breathing settling his pounding heart, and he lets his body relax into hers.

The rain pounds on the wooden walls of their tree house, his secret sanctuary found with her. Esme is soaking wet against him, the drench of her clothing bleeding into his, but he doesn't care. He wants to stay like this forever.

But then Esme is pulling back, one of her arms retracting to lift between them. He closes his eyes as he thin fingers rise to his cheek, scaling the length of his swollen flesh, her fingertips like ice to the searing pain surrounding his eye.

"Oh, Carlisle," she whispers mournfully, those tender fingers traipsing downwards to linger at his chin.

He hesitates, not wanting to see the ache of pity for him, but slowly opens his eyes again.

Her gaze is trailing down his cheek, examining the cut from his father's ring, but then they are falling to his lips.

"You need ice," she mumbles, but her thumb is touching his bottom lip now, tracing the outline of his mouth.

Carlisle leans forward tentatively, just to rest his forehead to hers as they so often do, but Esme is lifting on her toes, their noses brushing.

"Esme." He doesn't know what else to say, just her name - a question, a request, a plea all in one.

Her lashes are fluttering at her cheeks, her pale skin glistening with raindrops, and then she is pressing her lips to his, uncertain and shy and the most beautiful thing he's ever experienced.

Carlisle stiffens completely under the touch of her mouth, but only for a moment. Neither one of them know what they're doing, but all she's ever known with certainty is that she loves this boy and she's wanted to kiss him since they found this treehouse.

His hands slip up the curve of her spine to cup her cheeks, his lips moving to fit against hers more properly, like a puzzle piece they've been looking for for months.

Esme sighs and holds his inflamed cheek in her palm while her other tangles through the fine, blonde locks of his hair.

Her heart is beating like a nervous bird in her chest, fluttering hard and frantic against her ribs, taking flight when Carlisle kisses her again and again and again.

"I want to go," he breathes against the part of her lips. "Wherever you go."

Her mouth breaks into a smile against his and she kisses him once more.

"Good."

Carlisle wraps her in the blanket they keep in the corner, curling her close against him as they settle in against the wall. They talk for hours, like always, this time about his father, everything he's never told her. She holds his hand, fingers twined securely through his, head tucked under his chin with her cheek flat against his collarbone.

"You'll just stay here tonight. I'll pack a bag and meet you in the morning when I leave for school. I have enough money saved for train tickets."

"Where do you want to go?" Carlisle asks.

"Columbus," she shrugs against him. "Or we can leave Ohio entirely. Where do you want to go to med school?"

"Esme," he chuckles, running fingers through the wild curls of her hair, still damp and drying from the rain. "It's not all about med school."

"I know," she huffs, shifting against him to sit up, her green eyes brimming with possibilities when they meet his. "But I'm happy to teach anywhere, Carlisle. I know you've studied more medical institutions and colleges than I've cared to look at for my degree. I know you have a preference."

To be honest, it's been forever since he even thought about where to go. His dream for the longest time now has simply been to leave their small town in Ohio, with her.

He sighs. "Okay, how about... Chicago?" he throws out, expecting her to scoff at him, but instead, her eyes light up.

"Okay," she agrees, smiling broadly at him. "There will be more opportunity there, more progression, it'll likely be easier for me to get into a new high school, fast track to my graduation, and then we can go to university together and-"

He's grinning when he leans forward to kiss her.

Esme leaves him that night with reluctance, hating the idea of him being alone, especially after all he's gone through. But if she doesn't arrive home soon, her parents will notice her absence and their plans will surely be dashed.

She promises to return within the next few hours, sealing the words with a firm kiss his mouth that has his fingers fisting in the collar of her shirt.

She packs and hardly sleeps, rising with the sun and leaving with her school bag slung over her shoulder, absent of books, filled instead with clothing, some food, and money stolen from her parents.

Esme moves through the woods with bated breath, her heart accelerating as the tree house comes into view. She climbs the branches as fast as she can, leaving her book bag on the forest floor, but when she reaches the entry to the room... no one is there.

"Carlisle?" she calls softly, feeling like a fool for it, but - but why isn't he here? She knows him, knows he would never just leave without telling her, without leaving her some kind of clue. Climbing inside, she notices a few drops of blood that were not there last night, the paper rippings now cleared from the floor.

But upon further inspection, there is nothing else. No sign of Carlisle at all.

Something in her heart plummets to her stomach, hope roiling in acid, but she forces it away and folds her legs beneath her to sit against the wall.

He'll come back for her, he will. She'll just wait.

And she does, all day long. She waits so long that her father eventually treks out into the woods searching for her, probably noticing she never came home from school that day.

She remains hidden in the tree house until the distant shouts of her name disappear, knowing she needs to formulate some kind of reason for why she was out so late, but her mind feels numb.

Carlisle is gone and he left without her.

#twilight fanfiction #esme cullen #carlisle cullen #twilight au #twilight #esme x carlisle #carlesme #tw: domestic violence #anon #prompt!#my writing #this went from exciting to horrible real quick #i'm sorry!

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catkin-morgs-kookaburralover · 2 years

Text

For @hollers-and-holmes , a repost of something I posted on 6/8/22 about my birth. It was in response to a post asking for "something God has done for you."

Here goes.

******

I'm the youngest of eight. When my mum was pregnant with me, all seemed good and rejoicing and happy.

Until the twelve week mark.

It hit twelve weeks - more than ten weeks before a baby is even theoretically viable, so still a lot to go - and it hit Mum like a truck.

I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say there were at least five times she believed she had suffered a miscarriage. She was weak. She was missing church (and my Mum is the sort of person to turn up at church five days after having a baby (one of my sisters was born on a Tuesday), so this was a big deal). My grandparents and my big sister (she's seventeen years older than me) had to step in to help a lot. Big sister ended up doing a lot of the shopping and running of the house. She was in the middle of year eleven (the year before final year of high school) at the time.

Mum smocks dresses. Little baby dresses that look beautiful on children. And she could do hardly anything, she was practically on bed rest for weeks, so she was smocking a tiny dress for me, a little blue dress. We still have it.

Mum was convinced that the child was a girl, because girls are statistically more likely to survive in the womb under difficulties. And she was smocking this dress, and the whole time she smocked she wondered: would this child survive? Who was she smocking the dress for?

Every time they went to appointments Mum and Dad halfway expected to be told that their child was gone.

Then, one day, at 26 weeks, Mum was in severe pain. She's described it as labour pains, only never stopping. It went on for the entire day.

At some point, they went to hospital.

The hospital practically took one look at Mum and said they were not equipped for that. So they sent Mum across to the one hospital that had capacity which was equipped for it. They told Dad to follow in his car, but not try and follow. They were going to break red lights all over the place.

They went at top speed; nobody still knew whether the child my mother was carrying would survive to be born.

26 weeks, you remember. Three months early.

They got her there, and her condition seemed to stabilise, so the doctors left it. A doctor checked her, she seemed all right enough. Obviously they don't want to take out the baby if they can avoid doing so.

(At home, the children were settled by our grandparents. I think my oldest sister knew what was going on, but the others didn't really.)

The doctor walked back into the room I think a quarter of an hour after checking on her and finding her all right.

Suffice it to say that my mother was rushed for an emergency C-section moments later.

Dad rang up the family, and the older ones, at least, were roused, to know that they had a baby sister, earlier than anyone would have expected, but - so far - alive. Maybe they thought fleetingly of a backwards April Fool's - that was my due date - or maybe they didn't. I don't know.

On the wall of our house, our grandparents' houses, and some of my siblings and other extended family's houses, there's a framed piece. It has a picture of me, taken at sometime over a year old - still thin, with that bonier premature-baby face, but with bright eyes and sitting up alone, cheeks flushed from nighttime oxygen. And next to the picture is a carefully collated table of information.

Born three months early.

Held by mother first, at 15 days old.

Held by father first, at 42 days old.

There's more information on that table, more milestones I reached slower than you would expect. And the church near the hospital - God blessed us with a Christadelphian church perhaps five minutes away from the hospital at which I was born and, for several months, lived in the NICU - grew to know and love our family, so that whenever they returned, they knew that I was in hospital again, and the family was visiting.

When I was around four, our doctor was talking to my mother about me - a happy, healthy, ordinary child.

"You know, Ruth," he said to her. "You know she's a miracle, don't you? Medically, she's a miracle."

#catkin premature #catkin rambles #catkin: an autobiography. coming to stores near you #[not really lol but that is apparently my tag for anything such now ]#personal

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invisibleraven · 2 years

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"maybe we should make this a permanent thing." Sweet tarts 💕

As a kid, Reggie was always fidgety. Constantly looking for something to do with his hands, so often his dad would shove a tool into them, tell him to put his restless hands to work by raking leaves or sweeping the floor. Unfortunately, such idle tasks often left Reggie bored, so he would abandon them early on, going back to picking at something to keep him occupied.

It was his MeeMaw who finally decided that maybe he needed a creative outlet, buying him a nice sketchpad and a set of coloured pencils, telling him to draw her a picture. Hoping that it would keep him quiet and occupied enough that she could catch up with the latest church gossip from her friend Muriel.

One juicy dish later, she had looked around for Reggie and found him, little tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth, still drawing. Some pages were scribbled over or crumpled up, but he had spent the better part of an hour depicting the family dog. And it wasn't a shapeless brown lump like she had been expecting, but a fairly accurate likeness.

From then on, Reggie was enrolled in whatever art class he liked, allowed to use any medium or toll to create. And he did. Everyone thought he had the talent to be a pro artist, or at least teach it, if he wanted.

But then he met Willie.

Willie, whose skin was littered with ink, and Reggie became fascinated with tattoos. Loved to study each one, to know the story behind them, the artistry of them, and immediately decided that this was what he wanted to do in life. No one was overly pleased by that, nor were they when Reggie's own skin became a living canvas as he proceeded with his career.

Reggie was happy enough, and then he met Carrie who loved his ink, though she had no wish to have any of her own. They met when her flower shop moved in across the plaza from his parlour, Reggie helping her with an errant box of gloriosas, and the rest was history.

One day, they were lounging in bed, and Reggie had the itch to sketch down an idea for a new tattoo he was thinking up. But his supplies were in the other room, and the bed was so comfy.

"Here," Carrie said, offering him her pen, and her arm. "I'm done the crossword now anyways."

"You know you're a heathen for doing it in pen right?" Reggie asks, but still taking it and quickly beginning his idea on the pale skin of her forearm.

"Eh, die mad about it," Carrie said, then let out a little giggle. "Tickles."

"Sorry babe. Used to using a delicate touch what with the gun," Reggie said, pressing a little harder, mind going a mile a minute as he kept drawing, ink smudging his fingers, but that was a regular habit of his job, no matter how many gloves her wore.

Finally he was done, capping them pen and snagged his phone to record the image, figuring he could adapt it when he went into the shop.

"Wow," Carrie breathed. Her arm was a multitude of clockwork gears that slowly transformed into wagon wheels, a steampunk carriage being pulled by a horse, hale robot, half flesh and bone. Reggie grinned at her, blushing at her praise. Her heart swelled, gosh she loved him, his talent, his humble nature, how kind and silly he was, despite his more punk looking appearance.

"Maybe we could make this a more permanent thing?" she suggested.

"You want this as a tattoo?" Reggie asked, confused. Carrie had always told him that ink wasn't her style, and he was fine with that. Plus while he loved what he drew on her, he didn't think it went with her whole vibe.

"Well, this is gorgeous, but maybe not for me. I was thinking though... maybe a flower? On my shoulder blade?"

"You let me know what you want and I'll tatt you up. Free of charge," Reggie replied with a wink.

Carrie scoffed. "Like you were gonna charge me in any universe."

"Brat," Reggie replied, sticking his tongue out at her before tackling her to the bed for a tickle fight. Carrie might have made it out victorious, but he also might have let her win. He usually did, as it made her glow with happiness, and Reggie didn't think there was a more beautiful sight than that.

But he was rather proud of the small tattoo he gave her, a small gladiosa adorning her shoulder blade, soft yellows giving way to vibrant pinks, fresh green leaves, all looking like they were straining towards the sun. Carrie loved it even more, and if that started the trend of letting Reggie use her as a canvas from then on out, neither complained.

But her first tattoo would always be her favourite. Especially when Reggie got a matching one, right over his heart.

#filled prompts #ficlet #jatp sweet tarts #julie and the phantoms

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