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devourer--of--books · 4 years

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I’m mad about Hunter being written off and here’s why you should be too

You: wasted potential.

Me, an intellectual: ah, Hunter and Nicola’s friendship

I have strong opinions about Hunter.

Yeah, you heard me right.

Look, I have strong opinions about many, many, things. Today, we are taking a dive on Hunter and Nicola. First I’d like to blame this post on Kate, as I decided to make it after I tried to articulate why Hunter being written off TCY makes me so angry in a huge comment under her latest OTK post but it ended up being too big and messy so I deleted it. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone elaborate on it, so if you were also mad about this, bro, not to be intense, but like, are we soulmates or...??

Before anything else, as I usually do with my text posts (which I haven’t done in a while, opsies), I shall provide you with arguably unnecessary context. Sit down, grab yourself some snacks, make yourself at home, I’m about to rant you into oblivion.

Since I know many accounts weren’t around back then, I’ll also give you the socio-political vibes of the time period, as any self-respecting half-baked essay written last minute should.

POV, you’re 14/15 year-old me. You flat iron your hair, you don’t use sunscreen, you think you’re straight and your school makes you wear those horrid low rise uniform pants, but at least you can somewhat do your make-up decently now that you grew out of your emo phase.

The year was 2016. The Ever Never Handbook has just come out. You re-watch the handbook trailer on youtube for the fifteenth time. Everyone is losing their minds over OcTObeR 14tH and “a student named Agatha ~ now Agatha of Camelot~”, as well as the portraits and the teasing for a new SGE book. Quests For Glory is announced just a few days later. 2016 tagatha ship week happens a few months down the line.

This is the SGE Tumblr Fandom Peak.

Now, let’s start right there, two-ish weeks after the release of the Handbook, right as the QFG announcement comes out.

We all knew Soman wasn’t done with SGE after TLEA. He definitely had been teasing something in his weekly blogs (lol, remember when I used to check the blog, what a time to be alive) and once we got the ENH, we got quite lot of info to theorize. Here’s some that I can think off the top of my head:

- The coven was going on a mission to find a new School Master.

- Tedros and Agatha were struggling financially in Camelot but were going to get married soon (even if Sophie doubted Tedros would have asked Agatha yet, as of the time of the Ever Never RoundTable, but we’re taking that with a grain of salt, because she was written to sound jealous here, and I won’t acknowledge that kinda of bs, she is happy for her friends okay, we’ve been though this-)

- Sophie had completely remodeled the School For Evil and was getting on Dovey and the rest of the faculty’s nerves (except for newly hired history teacher, Hort).

- The rest of the supporting cast had just graduated third year and was to be off in quests soon.

- The School was now accepting applications, and two of those applicants are Nicola and Bogden.

Now, I’m not even gonna bring up how it was mentioned in a video in EverNeverTv that Bogden would be an important character in TCY, and yet, I can’t think of anything relevant about him other than the fact that he knew tarot apparently, or how his application had more personality than him in the entire series, or how he was basically there so we could look at him and Willam and be like “oh, representation”, or how he’d be a good insight on how Galvadon perceives Sophie and Agatha post-TLEA, or- I’m just not gonna.

Oh, no. Instead, we are here to discuss Nicola’s application.

If your memory is foggy, let me remind you:

Nicola’s application is submitted, according to the Handbook, by her friend, Hunter. For convenience sake, we’ll assume Hunter is a guy (I’ll tell you why Hunter being a guy works better for me in a bit), but his gender is not mentioned anywhere in the ENH. I don’t think he has been gendered in any version (correct me if I’m wrong) or if there are any pronouns for him during TCY, but I’m fairly confident he isn’t mentioned at all.

Hunter tells us he is applying on Nic’s behalf, as she’d never apply for herself. He mentions that she is more or less the Galvadon equivalent of an activist for women’s rights, founding a rugby unisex team and campaigning for pants instead of skirts for the local school uniform, as well as having a feminist sounding book as her favorite book. It’s heavily implied that she is a jock, as he lists that, if marooned on a desert island, Nicola would want to have a soccer ball, a hockey stick and a set of dumbbells (“and none of this 5-lb nonsense”) with her.

Upon asked why Nicola should go to the school, his answer is: “because there’s a greater place for her in the world, where she can learn a girl’s true worth, and I don’t think it’s here.”

Then you have a note from (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) the very late, long, long gone, absolutely dead, August Sader, telling the Deans to accept her application, despite having no reason to do so, as Nicola was to “play a crucial role in it’s [the school’s] survival.” Dovey and Sophie agree to flip a coin to decide which school will take her, which Sophie must have lost, as Nicola is accepted into the School For Evil.

By now, I think we all agree that Nicola was done dirty. If you check my QFG re-read you’ll notice that I complained about her there. As I had to go though her introduction chapter again to make this post, let me tell you why: Nicola wasn’t written to be likeable.

She simply wasn’t. That’s the one conclusion I can draw. Whether that’s intentional or not, I can’t tell, but the backlash she received was fairly useful, as it meant Soman could write her off the main story without much backlash from his target audience (aka, not us, pesky pretentious older readers).

The Nicola I was introduced to, not only in the Handbook but on her trailer for QFG was not the girl on QFG.

Nic is there to be the smart girl™, and while I do appreciate having a character who is a bit cocky about their brains, it just doesn’t work well there. Because her bond to other characters and the way she earns their respect feels so weak, she just comes across as pretentious. Characters like Hester and Agatha, who are supposed to be smart, feel dumbed down to show us how clever Nicola is. Agatha is supposed to be the resourceful thinker and Hester wanted to be class captain, you bet she studied like crazy, she probs knows every fairytale in existence.

Then you add that to the (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) Nicola and Hort fiasco and Nic feels like a weirdly written OC insert.

Handbook!Nicola sounded like a smart jock kind of character (read, more Gryffindor than Ravenclaw). Handbook!Nic was a Reader who read the tales as a hobby, but her favorite book is not a tale, it’s a non-fiction book (as far as I can tell). She might not be the fairytale expert, but she sounds like a practical thinker, as sport requires strategy, which is not Hester’s strong suit, given she is rather impulsive, or Agatha’s, given she is often unwilling to make hard decisions due to her Good nature and her own insecurities. C’mon, Handbook!Nic would have taken one look at Hort and sent him running to hills, because she would be able to smell his bs three miles away. She’s no one’s replacement, least of all Sophie’s (whom she probably would not have gotten along with (at least they got this part right) given Sophie’s “my prince will sweep me away from an ordinary life” phylosophy). To be honest she doesn’t sound like she’d be interested in dating at all.

But this post is about Hunter right? Let me remind you, Hunter is not mentioned in Nicola’s introduction, when she talks about her life in Galvadon. Canon!Nicola tells us that she has two brothers who want to inherit her father’s pub in order to sell the place, but Nicola is close with her father and likes working there to some extent, even if she has bigger ambitions. She believes her brothers sent her application as a way to get rid of her.

Back when I still had some faith that Soman had an arc for Nicola that included resolution, I had my theories as to why she wouldn’t mention Hunter: maybe he was to appear in later books and they’d have a huge backstory explaining their friendship, as well as a dramatic confession that Hunter sent her application because he felt Nicola deserved to live an adventure, and Nicola would either realize that she was meant for something more or that she wanted to live a quiet life, honestly either would be nice. I would have taken anything. Truly, if Nicola’s k-pop boyfriend in the OTK epilogue had been replaced with Hunter, I might be able to hate it less.

Especially if they came to the (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) school wedding as friends. Because you know what?

We are starved for male-female friendships in the SGE universe.

Tedros’s only female friends (all his friends in general) are Agatha’s friends (who all tried to get rid of him at some point, save for maybe Dot) and his actual friends are all dead (Bettina/Chaddick). Hort could be counted as Agatha’s friend, if only he didn’t bash her every five seconds like a moron (he literally pitched the idea that Agatha should be executed by Tedros in OTK, just because he was envious or her relationship with Sophie (not jealous, envious, because Sophie wasn’t his to begin with)) over his delusional sense entitlement of Sophie’s affections (which I hate, but as this is not a Hort-bashing post, I won’t get too much into), but the coven, Beatrix, Renna and co. would not touch him with a stick. Merlin’s friendship with Lady Of The Lake is gone, and Dovey is dead. Rhian and Kei both had that frenemies thing with Sophie in ACOT/beggining of OTK, but I think it was supposed to be romantic? It wasn’t ew (I hate Rhian but he’s also wasted potential, and so was Kei, whom I liked, rest in peace). Japeth hates women for??? Whatever. Willam and Bodgen are such background characters I could not care less about them. The new students weren’t memorable enough for me to remember their names. I think this about covers the main male cast.

There’s a lack of male friendships too, but we kinda have (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) Tort and whatever was that rushed Tedros/Chaddick friendship. Rhian and Kei were gay friends (yeah, right, sure, very platonic). Tedros and Rhian could have been friends if Rhian redeemed himself, but otherwise no. Tedros and Filip�� gay. Japeth literally killed Rhian, so also not very good friendship between brothers. Hort has no friends, because Ravan would so not be here for his bs. Willam and Bogden are a couple and (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) so were Aric and Japeth, I guess.

Still don’t believe Hunter was wasted potential? Okay, let me tell you what my ideal Nicola arc would be, mixing Handbook!Nicola with some canon!Nicola and including Hunter.

- Nicola is the one inheriting the pub (once she gets married), despite Galvadon’s pre-TLEA sexism and conservative views, because she is her father’s only child and her brothers are actually her older half-siblings from her mother’s previous marriage.

- Her mom died at some point early in her childhood. Not a childbirth tho, because Callis, local witch gynecologist (have you checked my post on this yet? no? you should) was there for her, even if it was a high risk pregnancy because the mom was already older.

- Because of that, Nicola’s father actually sells bread to Callis for cheaper prizes, but don’t tell the elders, shhh

- Anyway, because her mom was gone so early, Nicola was raised by her dad, brothers and by the employees (mostly men, as I don’t think it was all that common for women to work jobs in Galvadon) of her father’s pub. Due to being a girl, most guys weren’t willing to befriend her (sexism, am I right), but because she was a tomboy she had difficulty bonding with the other girls at school, even when they weren’t outright hostile (cof cof Sophie).

- Example: she and Belle had a tentative bond over their love of cooking, but often ran out of things to talk about and the conversation fell flat.

- Which is how she ends up befriending Hunter.

- Hunter is the only boy in a family of many girls and his father works all day. He has a good heart and is rather emotional, but he always feels like he has something to prove, which leads him to being rather impulsive. Both Nicola and Hunter love sports and are very competitive people. Once Nicola gains his respect, he feels very protective of her and often feels the need to stand up for her, even if she doesn’t need it.

- Nicola knows Hunter feels overlooked in his family, so she is always inviting him over and taking care of him, keeping him out of trouble. Her father begins to see him as his own son, and soon he spends more time at Nicola’s house than at his own.

- Everyone thinks they’ll get married some day. His sisters tease him mercilessly about it, and so does Nic’s father, but frankly, Nic and Hunter see each other as family.

- You can bet Hunter is the one teaching Nic about periods after asking his sisters, so she wouldn’t have to suffer with Galvadon’s horrid Sex Ed. (go check the Callis headcanon’s okay, give me clout, that it my favorite post I’ve ever made)

- They tried to kiss once. Nicola vomited and Hunter gaged.

- Hunter is Nicola’s number one supporter and fan, 100% had those gender-equality pins she made for her campaigns all over his bags and jackets.

- Since most wedding matches are arranged by the elders before girls even graduate, it was settled that Nic and Hunter would get married to each other and then inherit the pub. It would of course, be a secretly platonic match and they would suspiciously have no children (Nicola even had a plan to visit Callis to get a potion for infertility, just in case the elders wanted to check on her... okay, I’ll stop).

- Hunter doesn’t tell her, but Nicola knows he wants to marry for love and have a family of his own. She tries to talk him out of marrying her, but he insists that he would be doing it out of love for her, even if not romantic, because Nic didn’t deserve to be matched up with some stranger she barely knows who would no doubt be less tolerant of her more radical views.

- She tells him it’d be fine for him to have a affairs then, but he insists he would never do that to her, because people would talk about Nic if that was the case and her reputation would be ruined.

- The night of Sophie and Agatha kidnapping Nicola tells him she would rather be taken to the School than to stay there and make him live an unhappy life.

- Hunter is horrified (remember, everyone thought going to the school was a fate worse than death) and makes her promise to never treat her life so fickly.

- Sophie and Agatha get taken, come back, but during Tedros’ reign of terror in Galvadon, right before they return to the Woods, Nicola’s father grows very very sick.

- Nic thinks he’s going to die, and she frets, not only because they’re close but also because she can’t inherit the place if she doesn’t marry Hunter. But, well, she sort of always knew, but now that feels very real, she thought she had some more time before that.

- They set a date for the wedding, but thankfully, Tedros and Agatha’s escape ends up causing the ceremony to be delayed.

- By the time the new date is set, there’s no more elders and Stefan is now mayor.

- But just because he is the mayor doesn’t mean the law and the sexism is gone overnight.

- Nic’s father is getting somewhat better, but she is still very worried about him, because of his old age.

- Once SGE starts having applications and has been proved to be, well, somewhat safe, Hunter suggests that Nicola applies, but after the scare that she might lose her father sooner rather than later, she tells him she can’t bring herself to leave him.

- Hunter doesn’t want her to throw her life away, specially now knowing that in the Endless Woods there were people like her and that progress would get there before it ever got to Galvadon

- (He also wants to not marry someone he views as a sister, pls).

- So he files her application in secret.

- Nicola gets accepted, upon Sader’s request and Sophie’s bad luck, into the School For Evil. She and Sophie still don’t get along, the Evil castle rejects her and she gets pushed to Good, becoming an Ever, but she’s only staying until Christmas, because she is worried sick about her father.

- She thinks the application was a plot from her brothers because she doesnt think Hunter would ever betray her trust like that, after she specifically told him she wouldn't go.

- There’s no Hicola, instead, she and Hort become friends and she talks him out of his delusions with Sophie, because as much as Nicola dislikes her, Sophie was a girl too, and deserved to have her feelings respected.

- She also punches Hort into giving up his envy of Tedros and Agatha while at it, because she is just that efficient.

- Everything else up to OTK can be pretty much the same because I can’t remember what happens, other than everytime Nicola is smart girl™, it’s not “because she reads”, but because she is practical.

- Example: on the boat scene where she very pretentiously sasses Agatha for not saying hello to her (canon!Nicola, girl, she just suffered six months of loneliness at Camelot because Tedros shut her out and is now on a quest to save her happy ending, probs didn’t get much sleep, maybe cut her some slack) and then tells her how to sail a boat (despite the fact that there are no boats in Galvadon and I’m sure you can’t just read Peter Pan and learn to sail a boat, unless I did it wrong or something, maybe the storian version comes with a crash course). Here, instead, Nicola presses Hort (who is a pirate’s son) to remember literally anything to help them (therefore making him not completely useless on this quest), and he does and they tell Agatha and she’s like sure and does it.

- Now, in OTK, I literally can’t remember where Nicola was for most of it and I read that book not too long ago, so I’m worried.

- Okay, so, have the Knights Of Eleven actually serve some purpose, include a scene where Tedros and Nicola stress-play rugby and get her some internal conflict.

- Nic now loves this world. She just spent the last few weeks fighting to protect it. She is now a Knight, and she loves the adventures and the new friends she made. Can she really go back to Gavaldon to take care of a pub? Well, she needs to, doesn’t she? That’s what a good daughter would do.

- After Japeth’s execution, Nic goes straight home.

- Her father’s condition is stable, as he is being treated by Hunter and his new wife.

- Oh boy, Hunter has some explaining to do.

- Nicola is furious that he broke her trust, but at the same time, she’s happy he’s happy and well, Hunter what do you have to say for yourself?

- “Damn, Nic, nice armour- ouch, my arm!”

- Apparently, since Nicola was taken, Stefan approved a law for people to be able to leave their inheritance to whomever they wanted. And since Nic was gonna be at the Woods, her father was more than happy to leave it to Hunter. Of course, unless Nicola wanted to stay at Gavaldon.

- Does she? She’s not sure.

- Hunter and Nicola attend the tagatha wedding at Camelot (what, like I wasn’t gonna fix this part?), Hunter is Nic’s plus one.

- There, Hester, Anadil and Dot show her Sader’s note, and ask her, not to become School Master, but to become Dean Of Good, because she would be perfect for the new brand of Good to match Sophie’s Evil. You know, since she is all for gender-equality, good manners, practicality and was particularly good at dealing with Sophie’s bs.

- Since Tedros has the Storian Ring, the pen doesn’t need actual protection, well, not more than it can get from Nic and Sophie.

- Sophie herself insists that Nicola accept the position, not because she doesn’t want to be alone at the school now that Hort and Dovey are dead, no, of course not, since when did Sophie ever need anyone, she was just asking cause… cause Nicola looked lonely. The pretty boy who came with her was not her boyfriend, was he? Sophie was prettier than him anyway. Who needs a boy when they can have her?

- Whether they become a couple or not, I’ll let you decide.

- Bonus: years later, Hunter’s eldest daughter is accepted at the School for Good. Nicola is her godmother, and her favoritism shows.

There, if nothing else, the reason you should be mad about Hunter and the Handbook in general is because this didn’t happen.

#school for good and evil #The School for Good and Evil #nicola of woods beyond #Sophie of Woods Beyond #Hunter of Woods Beyond

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saintambrose · 4 years

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haha it’s US politics hours

listen, this tumblr has always been a fandom place since its inception and I’ve not really designated it as a space for political discussion because 1) I have several other avenues for that arena of discussion and 2) escapism was the theme here; but I’ve finally watched The Comey Rule and I have some THOUGHTS

and I’m not really sure how active anyone is here anymore anyway, because I’ve not really been around as regularly as I was before the nsfw-ban shitstorm, so. Diving right in.

Probably my favorite thing was how it painted the American right wing as this faux-centrist bastion of impartiality at first, the whole circus with HiLLaRy’S EmAiLs being about how they legitimately believed they could play the angle that the emails were a threat to national security all while they knew damn well it was a huge big nothingburger (with a side of hatred of women) while doing that thing that right wingers have done since the Reagan administration where they malign anything left of fascism as communism (including basic human rights) and then, predictably, you have all these very furrowed-browed old white men sitting around a conference table being VERY CONCERNED that precisely the thing they wanted to happen came true and they are completely unprepared to do damage control on the mess they engineered because WHITE MEN ARE INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR OWN ACTIONS. 🤣😂🤣😂

In all seriousness. I wasn’t crazy about Hillary either. I don’t like dynasties of any kind, royal or political. I don’t like establishment dems who are really just center-right in the real world while masquerading as left in backwards-ass bizarro-world USA. But I’m an old motherfucker now, I’m well into my 30s, I’m boring and watch CSPAN for leisure and shit. I read the reports coming out of the DOJ. One of my degrees is in political science, though admittedly, that’s the least thing that matters, in the scope of everything else these days. But it’s safe to say Hillary was unfairly maligned while republicans committing atrocities exponentially worse have been treated with kid gloves for decades. A very distinct double standard has been applied here for....longer than I’ve been alive, that even the most educated people on the left have refused to acknowledge for far too long. I watched that entire BeNgHaZi hearing (which is easily accessible on youtube, so there’s literally no excuse not to know the facts on this), and everyone knew -- everyone knew it was a bullshit smear campaign.

So, this post isn’t so much a review of the miniseries more than it’s an indictment of the corruption of American politics. The most damning aspect being that, on principle, US politics has always had a problem with embracing progressive policy, and basic civil rights in general. That’s not news; people have known this for some time. But the thing that this miniseries really illustrated in a very cartoonish, yet succinct, way is that there are experienced professionals who hold the highest, most powerful seats of authority in this country who won’t bat an eye at dedicating their entire careers to denigrating common decency, basic human rights, and even constitutional law, while being absolutely incapable of conceiving the long-term consequences of these actions, who will then turn around and concern troll over the ashes of the empire they enthusiastically helped to burn down. It’s nauseating. It’s infuriating. It shows a pathological disregard for personal responsibility.

Everyone was so preoccupied with their massive turgid erection for hating the Clintons (and women) that no one saw they were enthusiastically living in a henhouse built by fucking foxes. No one saw the genuine threat.

And, by extension, no one had the balls to acknowledge that age-old instinct of white men willing to engage in a scorched earth campaign simply to satisfy their worst impulses and entitlement complexes.

Can you fit “Who cares if we’re screwing over several generations with corrupt court-packing and a flagrant disregard for checks-and-balances predicated entirely on the honor system; we just don’t feel like doing domestic labor or respecting women and minorities so we’ll continue expediting reprehensible policies that exploit the most vulnerable people in this country because we can’t compete in an authentic meritocracy" onto a campaign slogan banner?

I sounded the alarms on this trend 20 years ago, meanwhile. My parents and I had just gotten US citizenship, luckily months before 9/11 and the patriot act; and as an outsider looking in, as someone who had risked their life escaping a dangerous regime at an incredibly young age, I saw the warning signs in the republican party even back then. Naturally, I was denigrated as an alarmist and a butthurt liberal.

You know, I’ll acknowledge that as a white person, I’m not the average American’s image of what an “immigrant” looks like. My experiences here over the past couple of decades have thrown into sharp relief how “immigrant” is just a dogwhistle for racist bullshit, because people who concern troll about us don’t seem to have many problems with us white ones. But I came out of a communist country. I’m straight outta the eastern bloc. And I don’t think there are any words in any spoken language that can do justice to how insulting it is when americans try to americasplain communism to me. Bitch. Y’all don’t fucking know. You just don’t.

The point is, even back then, I could see the slippery slope republicans were tumbling down, and I can't say I derive any pleasure from being vindicated in such an extreme fashion. Like. I told y’all motherfuckers. TWO DECADES AGO.

People who aren’t familiar with US politics, and even long-term US citizens who for some reason feel like it’s a waste to pay attention to your own shit, seem to spend a lot of time trying to unpack what precisely went wrong. My observations came up with 1) the manipulative aspect of US history in public schools glossing over, and even omitting, the most gruesome aspects of the revolutionary war, the holocaust, and the cold war (and oftentimes, the cold war is NEVER EVEN COVERED, which is especially insulting to me, for obvious reasons); 2) the manipulative aspect of US history in public schools teaching kids that the Declaration of independence and the Constitution are unassailable doctrines of freedom and liberty, and, as such, after independence was won, no further activism to maintain democracy was needed so we can all just smoke a bowl and be complacent because all those authoritarian third world regimes we constantly ridicule and criticize can NeVeR HaPPeN hErE 😒; and 3) how limpdick both-sidesism replaced civil, comprehensive political discussion because the right spent so long abusing, denigrating, and bullying the left that it was just easier to play it safe and take the milquetoast ~centrist~ stance, which always, always, always capitulates to the lowest common denominator, which is always the oppressor.

And generally just this age-old trend of holding the victims of systematic oppression to a higher moral and behavioral standard than the perpetrators of systematic oppression.

Guys, I’m tired. I’m so tired.

I’ve gotten a few questions over the years about why my writing is so angsty, why it always seems to follow the same themes; war crimes, PTSD, gore, torture.

I already escaped one authoritarian regime. The USA promised us one thing, and then once we got here, it started emulating the very tyrants we worked so hard to get away from. A lot of people have no idea what that feels like. How much of a betrayal that is. Especially considering all the financial and legal landmines one has to navigate just to do it, and then we’re punished for that, too.

I write about PTSD because I fucking have it. I write about war crimes because I’ve experienced them firsthand - just as a victim and not the perpetrator. I so often write about soldiers committing them because I want to roleplay what it’s like to not be a victim for once.

tbh writing a fucking Hamilton fanfiction is one of the most cathartic things I’ve ever done, but the extensive research I’ve had to do to be able to write this thing has been low-key traumatic. There’s a lot of historical material I’ve consumed that should have been covered at the most basic level of compulsory education, but conspicuously isn’t. And I know that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s by design.

Democracy - and independence, freedom, liberty, justice, civil rights in general - isn’t just some final xbox achievement that you unlock and then just shelve the game and forget about it for the rest of your life. You have to keep grinding to maintain it, because there will always be selfish, malicious people out there who will dedicate their entire lives playing a long con to ensure you don’t get the same opportunities as them. For the love of god, stop playing the both-sidesism game. From someone coming out of the eastern bloc, I can tell you with great confidence that that was part of the propaganda campaign you were fed to keep you from engaging so they could install a dictatorship under your nose. Do some self-guided historical research, guys. It can be very illuminating.

Anyway. I’ve gone on long enough here, but damn, don’t screw this up again, guys. Today is the first day of early voting in Texas, and I’m going to do my duty. When I first came to this country, after experiencing the rigorous vetting process and labyrinthine legal requirements of US citizenship, I was led to believe that in exchange for that privilege, I was personally responsible for my own civic self-education. It’s so much more important than you've been led to believe.

#uspol #long post #also uhhhh brendan gleeson really needs to win an award #i hope he's ok mentally after playing that role yikes yikes yikes #also 'why do your characters so often have alcohol abuse problems' uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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demaury · 5 years

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Some kind of mistake (chapter 1)

Ever since Eliott first came across the new resident of the apartment 320, he made peace with the fact that Lucas 'Big Blue Eyes' Lallemant would, one way or another, turn his life upside down. Thing is, he hadn't expected that Lucas' wife and Lucas' daughter would play a part in it. Because, you know, he didn't know they existed until it was too late. (ao3 link)

SAMEDI, 08:49

It was a Saturday. For some reason, that particular fact in itself stuck in Eliott’s mind.

What was odd was that it didn’t particularly strike him as any different from the other Saturdays. It started off with Sofiane kicking him awake on his couch with a cup of coffee that wasn’t nearly enough to calm the pounding of a hundred hammers against his skull — courtesy of one (or ten) too many drinks from the night before. While he was twisting around in a sitting position and discarding the blanket usually covering the couch, Sofiane sat on the armrest, looking down at him.

“Eliott, c’mon. You know I like having you here but man- you stink.” He pulled a disgusted face as he said so. If Eliott’s eyes weren’t already giving him hell for the sunlight flooding the tiny living-room, he would have rolled them. It couldn’t be that late, considering Sofiane was still here. “Why can’t you just come over when you’re sober for once? That’d make for a nice change.”

A snort escaped past his lips as he was trying to swallow down his first sip of the morning. Sofiane was an actual mother hen, always down to give advises, especially when no one had asked for it — but Eliott wouldn’t have it any other way, and that’s why he always ended up crashing on his couch whenever he was too tired and/or drunk to go home by himself. It was just convenient that Sofiane’s place happened to be located in a particularly lively neighborhood, which meant that more often than not, his place was the closest from where Eliott was finding himself. A waste, considering that Sofiane was rarely (if ever) pulling an all-nighter these days.

“Not my fault you’re always ditching me,” Eliott protested, nose in his coffee. “Idriss too. You guys are the worst friends.”

What kind of friend let you ring at the intercom and didn’t even open the door? Idriss fucking Bakhellal. He was exactly that kind of friend. ‘Dude, I can’t keep up with your shit. I gotta wake up in the morning, just go make some other friends to party with,’ he had told him bluntly.

Was it his fault if all of a sudden his friends had boring jobs and boring lives?

Sofiane gave him a pointed look, before shaking his head as if he had been able to follow his train of thoughts. “I’ve got a job, Eli. Not everyone can afford to get shitfaced every Friday nights and a couple other nights in-between and still keep up with their lives.”

“I’ve got a job too, I’ll let you know,” Eliott retorted, mildly wounded in his pride.

Being overly judgmental was going against everything Sofiane was, although technically Eliott knew there was some truth in it, but after nearly five years of justifying the fact that yes, staying home on his computer was part of his job (and a huge part of it at that, not to say all of it), it was getting a little bit more on his nerves each time someone mentioned it. If anything, he was making more money that Sofiane, and probably more than Idriss as well — EP teacher wasn’t really the starter plan for a millionaire career.

He shifted on the couch, becoming increasingly aware of his wrinkled and slightly damp tee-shirt with every move he made. Maybe Sofiane was right about the smell, after all.

“Yes, but you don’t have work hours like Idriss and I do.”

Eliott shot him an unimpressed look. “You’re a driving instructor, Sof, you don’t treat cancer.” Joke was on him, because after ten years of friendship, he surely knew Sofiane well-enough to be aware that he was as proud to help kids get their driving license as any doctor was to save a life. Twenty years down the road and he’d start lining up on a wall the driving licenses he had contributed to.

Sofiane rolled his eyes. “And you’re still an asshole whenever you’re wasted, nice to see some things never change.” He leaned forward to grab his phone from the coffee table and immediately bolted up. “Shit I’m late. Look, do whatever you want but lock the door behind you and leave the spare key in the mailbox.”

“What’s the point of a spare key if you have both of them in here?” Eliott observed as Sofiane shrugged on a hoodie and fumbled around to grab the things he needed to go — shoes, keys, phone, and wallet— before literally jumping to the front door.

“That’s just a proof you’re spending too much time in here!”, he yelled as he slammed the door behind him, making Eliott wince at the sound.

SAMEDI, 09:51

He stayed put for a couple of minutes, before setting the cup of coffee on the table before him and gathering his things to head out. Usually he didn’t feel so much like things weren’t okay whenever he found himself here, with Sofiane fretting around him — if anything, it made him laugh. But for some reason this morning just wasn’t it.

An awful part of his teenage years had been spent hating himself for not being more like the other kids of his age, with an easy life, healthy hobbies, healthy relationships, healthy self-perception. Yeah, an awful lot of the time, between fifteen and nineteen, he had wished he was more like Sofiane, more like Idriss. More like anybody else. It had started working out for him only after he hit twenty. His meds were on point. He was slowly making peace with the fact that things would never be a 100% easy, and stopped purposefully ignoring the signs when shit was about to hit the fan.

As a free-lance graphic designer, he mostly worked from home, which spared him the prospect of dealing with an asshole boss on a daily basis — and getting fired because of one of his low lows. His sex-life was always a bit of a mess, but not dating anybody was making it a lot easier to juggle between the moment he craved loneliness and those he craved physical contact beyond logic. He was seeing his parents, who lived across town, twice a month, talking with his sister at least once a week, going to his therapist whenever it was needed, and every once in a while, Idriss got invested into a new sport and bugged him enough to join him, or simply to go for a morning run.

It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was healthier than it had been since what felt like forever. For the last five years or so, he had felt reasonably like the rest of his friends and acquaintances. So why was everyone starting to act like 26 was the age limit for all of this? It was as though they had no idea about all the efforts he had put into this in the first place, and sometimes he just wanted to scream his frustrations out.

The bus-ride back to his place wasn’t long, but it felt a lot like it. His phone had died the night before, so he was only hoping that whatever his drunken self had posted on his stories wasn’t shameful enough to make prospective clients run off to the next graphic designer on their list. He had started making a name for himself when he had scored a campaign promoting a new club in the Marais, two years ago, and although his building couldn’t be considered ‘fancy’ by any means, he was making enough money to afford living on his own in a bigger space than Sofiane’s literal shoebox.

Talking about boxes, Eliott thought.

A bunch of cardboard boxes were piled up in the entrance of his building. The main door was hanging wide open, a couple of leaves swirling around under the cool breeze and loud voices echoing inside — far too loud for Eliott’s still inebriated, sleep-deprived brain. He had known that the family of four living in the apartment on the fourth floor, the level below his own flat, would lose no time in being replaced — the moment the two parents had stopped fighting for good was when the dad had left and the countdown had started for a single mom in an overpriced city.

As Eliott walked in, careful not to trip, his eyes fell on three guys apparently waiting for the elevator to reach the ground floor, while holding upward the slatted base of a bed. Young, probably in their twenties. And fucking loud.

“I didn’t sign up for this!” one of them was protesting vehemently, his voice bouncing up against every wall and right through Eliott’s brain as he padded further in. When the guy straightened, the two others almost toppled over under the weight of the bed base. “I signed up for a bunch of books and clothes, I’m not a moving company!”

“Bro, can you just stop whining already?” another one said, adjusting his position with an elbow resting on the wooden frame.

“My point is, why are we doing all of this, and Lucas gets to just… I don’t know, slide them out of the elevator and inside his flat?” the first one complained.

Eliott almost snorted, and if he had been in the mood for conversation, he would have probably told them that they were fucking spoiled. Back when he moved in, the elevator was out of order, which had been a real pain in the ass to move everything up to the fifth floor — Sofiane and Idriss kept insisting that as long as the amount of years he had spent in his flat didn’t equal the number of floors they had to go through, they would never be even.

Oh fuck no, he thought.

That meant he had five goddamn flights of stairs to go through before crashing onto his bed.

Just what he needed.

“So following your logic,” the third one, a blond guy with glasses, chimed in, “Lucas should be here, dealing with the heavy shit, while you’re randomly shoving everything in his living-room until we can’t even open the door.”

“Exactly!” the first one exclaimed, then he met the look of his two friends. “Wait no- Not exactly but-”

“I can’t believe he’s allowed to vote,” the guy with the glasses muttered with a loud sigh, “congrats Baz, you made me lose faith in the democratic system.”

The fact that he threw his hands up in the air as he talked, and that the bed base once again threatened to fall to the ground under his other friend’s protests, offered enough of a distraction for Eliott to reach the stairs without having to go through a conversation he had no emotional interest in.

The pressure of being one among a million other people was nothing compared to the pressure of being known from everyone in a small town. Eliott was fine with being lost in the crowd, especially in a town where people considered it a flaw to be over-sympathetic; that was definitely something he could get behind. It was easy to just coexist with other people without seeking any further contact with them than a polite nod whenever they let you use the elevator with them, or when they held you the door out of habit rather than politeness — that made for less people asking annoying stuff from you when you couldn’t deal with it. He scrambled his way up through the floors, occasionally reminding himself that he could go through the last two flights of stairs without puking. It wasn’t exactly easy, considering that going through the mess that was the fourth floor gave him the impression of being the character of an online platform game. When he made it there, the technological wonder that was an elevator had managed to get the bed base up the fourth floor before him.

Eliott heard a grunt before he actually saw anything, then he saw the bed base move before he saw the person behind it. A boy was pestering to himself, sliding between the bed base and the wall of the elevator to try pulling it out from the outside, rather than pushing it out from the inside. The frame made an agonizing screeching sound that reverberated through the whole building and had Eliott wincing, but the guy had apparently made peace with every single living soul hating him because he didn’t stop — only slowing down as the meters added to the actual weight of the object. Eliott liked to think of himself as someone at least more observant than most, but it didn’t take a genius to know that the number of smaller boxes waiting by the front door was multiplying the number of chances for something bad to happen.

And as Murphy’s law stated so well, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

The guy walking backward didn’t get to see the box near his foot until he tripped over it, letting out a ‘fuck’ as he lost his balance and the bed base toppled over him with a loud, metallic sound. It took Eliott an extra-second to get in motion — really, it wasn’t like shit like this happened every day. The guy was struggling to get out of what looked ridiculously like a wooden cage all of a sudden.

“You okay?”, Eliott enquired, startling him.

“Never been better,” he gritted out.

Eliott smirked to himself and leaned forward to grab the slats and lift the bed base off, before sliding it up against the wall while the guy was laboriously rising up on his feet.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, rubbing his forearm. “I guess some people don’t get the point of teaming up to get shit done faster.”

Eliott cocked an eyebrow. “Let me guess, the other three downstairs are yours?”

“There might be no more than me at the end of the day if they keep up like that.”

Sassy, Eliott noted. He liked it. For the first time he was actually indulging in a little bit of staring. Not much. The barest minimum, really. First of all, despite having been told him countless times that he looked younger than his 26 years old, he had troubles believing that this guy was an actual grown-up, but maybe it had to do with the fact that he was rather short, or the way his hair seemed disheveled beyond repair — and, again, Eliott knew a stuff or two about messy hair. What caught his attention was the two, big blue eyes suddenly staring back at him.

Wide.

And blue.

Very, very blue.

A very dark shade, one of those that even Photoshop had no trouble making pop — which didn’t happen often. Call it a professional quirk, but it was a nice thing to see. There was a bit of an awkward silence, only broken when the elevator dinged behind them, offering Eliott enough of a distraction for his brain to fall back into place, and preferably out of the gutter before he started overanalyzing the wonders that his skinny jeans made to his lower body.

“See? I told you he would be just fine,” the voice of one of the three guys from the hall echoed behind them. “Our Lulu is the best.”

Suddenly the big blue eyes were not focused on him anymore, and Eliott didn’t know how to feel about it. He was just awkwardly standing now, caught between people he didn’t even know fifteen minutes before. That wasn’t the definition of how he wanted to spend his Saturday morning riding out his hangover.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I almost died!”, Blue Eyes protested.

“I told you this would happen,” another one muttered.

Eliott shook his head to himself, and started to retreat towards the staircase while they were busy throwing insults at each other.

Maybe Sofiane was right.

Maybe he was too old for this shit — whatever that was.

#skam france #eliott demaury #lucas lallemant #elu #elu fic #mine #*#*skm #my fics

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wilwywaylan · 5 years

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Drink me, and the bromos!

Okay that wasn’t really what you asked for, but I had an idea, so…. enjoy :D

Also on AO3 !

Feuilly turned another page of his book, and winced. He’d been studying for so long that his neck was stiff, his fingers were frozen, and according to the low rumbling in his stomach, he had once again forgotten to eat. With a sigh, he stretched, groaning when his shoulders gave a series of painful snaps. His eyes landed on the clock at his left. Quarter past… He blinked. And again. Rubbed his eyes to get rid of the sleep clouding his sight. But no. It really was quarter past two. He had been sitting there at his desk reading for four hours, barely moving, except to turn his pages. No wonder he was stiff as a board and his elbows were hurting.

He got up, trying to ignore the low burning feeling in his thighs. Maybe there would be something to eat in the fridge that he could quickly gobble before going to bed. Or at least lie down and tackle a few more pages. He opened the door, careful not to be heard. Bahorel must have gone to bed now. Except that, he suddenly realized, he hadn’t heard him come home. Usually, it was quite hard to miss. Bahorel signaled his presence by a series of loud noises : bag hitting the ground, shoes against the wall, grunts, opening and closing the fridge, loud singing, doors banging… A whole concerto.

That had been suspiciously absent that night. It wasn’t worrying, of course, it wouldn’t have been the first time that Bahorel had come home at the small hours of the morning, or even not at all. He was an adult, and didn’t need permission from anyone to party as much as he wanted to. And Feuilly didn’t frown at this, even when he learnt later that it included drinking his own weight in beer, getting into dangerous shenanigans with Courfeyrac (often fire-based), Jehan (in very strange places around Paris) or Grantaire (both). Or all three of them, usually ending in chaos, street fights and various acts of mischief. Three times this year already, Feuilly had had to go and bail them out. He’d been welcomed by four idiots way too cheerful for the situation or that time of the night, and he’d taken greatest delight in bringing those smiles down a notch by threatening to rat them out to Combeferre. All in all, there was no worry to have about Bahorel’s whereabouts. He’d be home in the morning for breakfast as if nothing had happened, with only a bruise or two more.

Feuilly walked down the hallway, trying to remember what was left in the fridge that he wouldn’t need for his lunch the next day, when he suddenly noticed that the light was on in the living room. Did he forget to turn it off when he left earlier ? He mentally slapped himself. Ecology and sparing ressources were huge talking points during the ABC meetings, and here he was, wasting electricity because he was too absorbed in whatever was currently piquing his interest.

He walked to the couch, and it was then that he realized that someone was lying on it. Someone whose huge feet were clad in Bahorel’s favourite neon socks. Feuilly was absolutly convinced that no one else owned such an abomination and his friend was the proud possessor of the only pair ever made. So the body lying on the couch was probably his. Now, why he had crashed there instead of his bed, Feuilly didn’t know. From the soft snores that he could hear, it was probably due to an alcohol-related balance impairment.

Since he was now assured that Bahorel was alive, Feuilly focused on his prime objective. A look in the fridge gave him some lunch meat and a bit of cheese that he stuck between two slices of bread. Now provided with a snack, he wandered back to the living-room, wondering if he should wake Bahorel up and kick him out of the couch to preserve his back, or he would be in for a world of pain the next day, and complain Feuilly’s ear off. But he looked so comfy, laying like that, a furry pillow held tightly against his chest, that he didn’t feel like…

Wait. A furry pillow ? Since when did they have furry pillows ? Feuilly hated those things, the touch was always off, like something that tried to pass as something alive but wasn’t, an abomination in the shape of a square. So what was one now doing in their flat ? All good will Feuilly could have mustered disappeared in light of this treason, and he poked Bahorel in the leg sharply. This was enough to wake him up. The eyes that landed on Feuilly after a few owlish blinks were softer than usual, probably due to the certainly incredible alcohol quantities drunk during the evening.

- Hello, squirrel, Bahorel managed to say with a huge grin.

Judging by the way his words were just a little slurred, he wasn’t drunk off his ass. Good. As much as he loved him, Feuilly couldn’t have lifted him even an inch off the couch.

- Did you have fun ? he asked instead.

- Yeah ! We went to that pub, y'know the one, the one with the weird key hanging on the wall, they have that awesome beer you like. (Feuilly nodded.) They have trivia night so Jehan wanted to play. A bunch of asses made fun of them, y'know, “girly stuff”, sissy, blah blah blah (he made a mouth gesture with his hand.) Jehan handed the whole of them their asses off at trivia. One of them even accused him to cheat. So they handed them their asses off again, but with fists. Of course, R had to intervene. And I did too.

- That may explain the bruises.

Bahorel lifted his hand to his eye, where the skin was an interesting shade of purple.

- Yeah. But we did good. Could have been better if the owner didn’t throw everyone out.

- So ? You decided to call it a night ?

Bahorel barked a laugh.

- Certainly not ! We found another bar, and since we still had some energy to spend, we got into an arm-wrestling contest. Kicked everyone’s butts. Or arms. Dunno.

Feuilly tried to picture built-as-a-stick Jehan in an arm-wrestling contest, pinning arms right and left. Not hard to believe, in fact. Never trust their frame, they were a powerhouse.

- And so, I won that one, Bahorel annouced, gesturing to the pillow on his stomach.

- You won a furry pillow.

Bahorel frowned, seemingly confused by the distaste in his voice.

- No furry pillow here, squirrel. You hate them.

Feuilly was kind of charmed that Bahorel remembered, even in his inebriated state. But that wouldn’t save him, certainly not ! He crossed his arms, and looked pointedly at the furry not-pillow-but-still-weird-thing on Bahorel’s chest. The man followed his glance. A large grin spread on his face.

- This ? This is not a pillow ! he claimed, poking the thing.

Said thing gave a low groan and… stretched, emitting a strange “mrep” sound. It now had a head, two triangular ears, and large paws that kneaded Bahorel’s shirt. Or rather ripped it to shreds.

- What the…? Feuilly blurted. Is that…?

- It is ! Bahorel announced proudly, like he was giving him the secret of the universe. It is a cat !

Feuilly thought really hard about facepalming. Then he realized that the situation really deserved a facepalm. Count on Bahorel to always manage to spin his expectations on their heads and exceed them in every possible way. He glared at the other man, who was rambling on happily as if someone wasn’t trying to melt him by the sheer force of his look.

- I won him. Dude seemed very happy to get rid of him. Couldn’t free him in the street. Jehan couldn’t take him in because of the Montparnasses, Courf is not a cat person, and R thinks he can’t take one in because he’s not able take care of one.

The cat and Bahorel both looked at Feuilly with huge, pleading eyes, and he could feel his resolve melt. Count on his friend to always know how to sway him ! Of course he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving a defenseless cat outside, alone, in the cold. And Bahorel was very aware of that fact. And of course, he was using it against him.

- Defenseless, really ? he tried, arms crossed and brow furrowed, the perfect imaage of reprobation. That cat could rip you in two.

He wasn’t just grasping at straws. The paws kneading Bahorel’s shirt - and stomach under - were huge, with impressive claws, and the cat was of way more than average built. In fact, it looked more like a small lynx that a cat.

- He’s a Norwegian Forest Cat, Bahorel announced proudly. Well, not a pure breed, or the guy would probably have asked for my liver as payement. But he’s more than half. Did you know that those cats fight bears in their natural habitat ?

- You’re really made for each other. Do you even know how to keep a cat ?

- Of course I do ! And if I don’t, I can always ask Jehan, or Enjolras, or Bossuet, or Joly. They wil be more than happy to help me dote on that sweet guy here.

Said sweet guy was now sprawled on Bahorel’s stomach, paws in the air, and was purring up a storm. Feuilly came to sit on the couch, or rather on Bahorel’s legs that were on the couch, and offered a hand to the cat, who caught it between his paws, bit lightly on his fingers, then rubbed his head against it. Feuilly could feel his heart melt.

- I’ve always wanted a cat, he mused. Or a dog. A pet. But you know…

Bahorel nodded. Feuilly had filled him and the others on all the details of his life in the orphanage when he spoke on budget cuts for all foster care services, and they had discussed at length later, during the small hours of the morning where alcohol and lack of sleep tend to lower one’s defenses.

- Does this guy has a name, at least ? he asked.

Bahorel caught the cat in his arms, sat up straight and deposited the ball of fur on Feuilly’s lap.

- Squirrel, let me introduce you to Fluffy the Terrible. Third.

Feuilly was torn between laughing and facepalming a second time.

- Don’t you think it lacks something ? he said, playing with the fuzzy tail. I mean, that cat is regal enough, we could add something at the end, like, I don’t know… Doctor ? PhD ?

- Esquire ! Fluffy the Terrible III, Esquire. What do you think ?

Feuilly looked at the cat sprawled on his lap, took one of the large paws in his hand, and shook it.

- Pleased to meet you, Fluffy the Terrible III, Esquire.

The cat batted at his hand playfully, then curled up on himself and promptly went to sleep. Which was honestly very tempting. Feuilly was very aware that he should be sleeping by now, or at least on his way. Instead, he was sitting on the couch, a big beast pinning him in place. A big, plushy, friendly beast. He thought about spending the night there, scratching the cat, letting him keep him warm. Very tempting too. But it pained him to admit, his ass was starting to hurt. And his boss would probably not be very happy to see him crawl to work the next morning.

- Hey dork, he called.

Bahorel, who was patting the ground to find the remote, looked up at him.

- Get your monster back, I need to go to bed.

Bahorel grabbed the cat again. The beast seemed to be quite annoyed at being manhandled like that, and stuck his claws in Feuilly’s leg to keep himself at the right place. When it wasn’t enough, he opted for scratching Bahorel’s arms. His owner didn’t seem to mind, and soon, they were comfortably settled as they were before, despite the red lines now on Bahorel’s arms. Well, they didn’t stand out with the bruises already there.

Feuilly got up, shaking his legs slightly to get his feeling back. He patted Bahorel on the thigh, scratched the cat behind the ears, starting the purring storm again, and retreated to his room for his much needed sleep. Tomorrow, they would have to get everything they needed for Fluffy. Feuilly wasn’t sure they could afford it (well he couldn’t, Bahorel probably could), but it didn’t really matter. He had dreamed of having a cat for so long, he couldn’t blame him. Already, he could see himself sit in the couch and read with Fluffy on his lap. That would certainly better his reading sessions. Maybe he could Bahorel something to thank him ? Maybe something cat-related. He would certainly love that.

(He almost went back on every positive advice he had when Fluffy came to wake him up at five in the morning to be fed. Feuilly was very glad to free him in Bahorel’s room and close the door.)

#les miserables #feuilly #bahorel #the bromos #and fluffy the cat #feuillyrel #kujaku-myoo

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gilmoristic · 6 years

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Kira Rates the Seasons of Gilmore Girls

Below is my rating for the Gilmore Girls seasons, including the revival, based on my own opinions. Feel free to rate your own & tag me so I can read!

8. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

I don’t think anyone is surprised that the revival is at the bottom of the list. It was a disappointment, in my opinion, with its forced dialogue, characterization and plots, its lack of knowledge for key characters like Rory ( it felt like they lost her essence ) and its wasted screen time with scenes that took up too much time and/or were unnecessary ( i.e. the musical and all a lot of the Kirk scenes ). Even so, the shining beacons of the revival were Emily’s storyline, the Java Junkie closure, the Lorelai/Emily scene surrounding the Richard memory and just seeing everyone and the town after nine years.

7. Season 3

The season where I wish Rory put on a pair of reality-check glasses and realized how she was dragging Dean’s heart across Stars Hollow while eyeing Jess like a piece of candy. The season where Rory and Jess were together & it felt like the chase hadn’t been worth the time to begin with. This season is on the low side for me because I can’t stand how Rory treats Dean & I don’t like how Jess treats Rory while they’re together. The Lorelai/Christopher situation was also shitty, but I trudge through this season to get to the loveliness that is Rory's graduation from Chilton. I also enjoy watching Dean and Jess duke it out finally at the party.

6. Season 2

Poor Max this season! I also felt the Harvard episode was so cringy & I tend to skip it during rewatches. I do LOVE the Bracebridge Dinner episode ( as I love any episode that involves the whole town ), but then there’s the brief disaster of Lorelai and Christopher attempting a relationship for 24 hours only for it to fail, of course. There’s also the pre-Rory-obviously-has-feelings-for-Jess moments & I wanna shake her, especially when she chooses her mother’s graduation day - the day of all days - to go to New York to see Jess.

5. Season 7

Vomits a little in my mouth at the fact that this season is the Lorelai and Chris relationship/marriage/inevitable fallout. As much as I hate it, though, I still feel it was necessary in order for their romance to be over for good with no questions asked from Lorelai, Chris or her parents. I wish Rory wouldn’t have told Lorelai she was happy they were married when she knew how happy Luke made her mom. It also makes me bitter to see Chris living in the house that Luke worked so hard to remodel for his family. I do enjoy the longing, almost-visible vibes that were between Lorelai and Luke during this season which helped me know they would find their way back to each other -- & they did perfectly in the finale. I also tear up during the Bulldogs song Richard & Em sing Rory as well as the zoom-in on Luke as he claps. I feel this season gets too much shit just because ASP wasn’t part of it, but it wasn’t terrible. This season did 10x better at wrapping up the show than the revival did, though, & I’m still disapopinted in the four final words ASP had held onto.

4. Season 6

This season bums me out because our girls aren’t talking & Java Junkie is struggling. Even so, for some reason ( maybe it’s my love for HGTV ), I love watching seasons/episodes that show remodels & I love watching my OTP remodel Lorelai’s home to make it theirs. I also love the scene where Lorelai finds the hole in her bedroom & brings Luke home to show him. Lorelai also gets a dog! The baptism episode bugs me because I can’t stand the level of Lorelai’s selfishness in that episode. For once, I get excited to see Jess because he brings Rory back to her senses even though I wanna smack him for saying he knows her best ( uh, sorry, but no ).

3. Season 1

It’s high on my list simply because it’s the first season. I love how much chemistry Luke & Lorelai show off the bat in this season even though they’re fleshing them out as individual characters. I also enjoy watching the writers figure out the set, the characters & the foundation of the series. The pilot is so fun to watch because of how different it looks! This is also the golden season for the Rory/Dean relationship before I feel the writers started changing him because of Jess’s introduction. It’s just a fun season to watch because it’s so new-feeling & it still has that feeling even though I’ve watched it so many times.

2. Season 4

I love this season because, again, I love watching the remodel of the Dragonfly. I also know it’s the season where we finally see Luke & Lorelai get together at the end ( even though the Jason relationship feels like a waste, but I can stand it because it’s right before my OTP ). I also love seeing Rory single at Yale! Watching Rory & Paris get a new kind of friendship as suitemates is also exciting to watch & even though I find Paris’s relationship with the professor odd, I feel it’s a good adventure for her characterization.

1. Season 5

Is it any surprise that my favorite season is the season where Java Junkie is newly together & adorably in love? Nope, not at all. I also enjoy the budding romance of Lane & Zack, Rory & Logan and Paris & Doyle. Love is in the air this season & it’s fun! I also enjoy watching Liz & TJ fully settle into SH this season & become recurring characters. The most exhausting part of the season, though, is Rory’s third strike with Dean after their affair. Why ruin an otherwise lovely season with that disaster? Crying a little.

Be sure to tag me in your list if you post one! Every season has their ups and downs & I know I didn’t cover all of my feelings for each season. I tried summarizing it as best I could without turning this into the longest post ever.

#gilmore girls #; kira talks gg

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kalesandfails · 5 years

Text

shit collection

Early on in Trump’s campaign, lo these many interminable months ago, I stopped listening to the man talk. Among the good, hard changes I am white-knuckling it through is the bumpy transition from actively seeking out those beliefs that are most offensive and hurtful — to prove I’m tough? to “see both sides”? — and hoarding them, close to my chest, in a tight clammy fist, in my pocket: my own little shit collection.

Everything from the decades-old shade thrown at my J.C. Penny’s outfits to the low-key belief of the most important men in my life that while it’s not exactly my fault, these unpleasant sexual encounters I didn’t want, I kind of consented, didn’t I, insofar as I didn’t fight hard enough to stop them: all of it was thoughtfully curated in my growing collection of shit, until about age twenty -five, when I put up a big sign like that at my local library: We are no longer accepting donations. Thank you.

Up til then, however, I heard these things and didn’t like how it felt to hear them, so naturally I defended myself by meditating on them, like a samurai meditating on his own death. This is what being strong meant to me as a child and a young adult: training yourself to live with intolerable feelings. If something feels bad, that’s a sign you’re weak, so why try to make them stop when you could just tough it out and become stronger?

This is not (just) material for my therapist’s to-do list: this belief system is also critical to maintaining the current political status quo. No one wants to be the pussy who says, this is a hurtful belief, this belief that children should go hungry or drug addicts be humiliated or disabled people see their lives eroded as programs like Medicare and Medicaid are cut. The salient point that both the words Trump says, such as belittling someone’s recently dead father, and the things he does, such as cutting health care and food and education in order to build a unasked-for wall, are cruel, is recast as a bunch of millennial whining that that’s not nice, because we can shame his critics then. And in doing so, we can reinforce a belief that the expectation that human beings care about one another, rather than hurt others and then justify it - which is to say, that human beings resist abuse rather than enact it — is a sign of weakness, that this “outrage culture” is the problem, and that the systemic and violent oppression of vulnerable populations that generates outrage is not.

So, historically, I’ve just paid attention to other things. I attend to my mind the way a more effectively socialized woman might attend to her skin, but with fewer “must-have” products, and a key step in the process is the one where I flat-out refuse to invite in any additional shit. We are no longer accepting shit donations. Thank you.

While this is happening, though, the person peddling shit is an increasingly vocal and powerful determinant of public policy and national discourse. What he says “doesn’t matter” insofar as it is most often either untrue, irrelevant, or incoherent; but it does matter in the sense that people’s lives are being hurt in concrete ways by his petty bullshit. And so my efforts to sidestep the “hard truth” he proposes with every shitspray he opens his mouth or his Twitter feed to spew — the belief that human beings, the things we believe in, and the people we love, are all meaningless shit and so it doesn’t matter what we do — may be an understandable effort to preserve my mind castle from a nonstop bullshit invasion, but it is also an act of fear.

I have been protecting myself at the expense of people whose material existence depends on the rejection of this “truth”: that we are all shit and nothing matters, or its fundamentalist iteration, which was more successfully instilled in me than anything else I believe: we are all shit and nothing matters (except Jesus).

That belief, I think, explains Trump’s deep appeal to Christians. Fundamentalism Christianity, in my experience, is almost entirely about the worthlessness of humanity and the inherently suspect nature of the things humans love, and really not at all about the Jesus corollary. A faith that insistently bludgeons children with stories upholding a dad willing to kill his son as an exemplar of its values is entirely in keeping with a leader who hears about fifty one people, including a three-year-old child, gunned down in their place of worship, and turns his attention to sketch comedians who made fun of him.

It’s not enough to ignore Trump. You have to be willing to say — lovingly, because asserting the value of human beings is a loving act: the president may be saying x, but I believe y.

As in, he may believe that human beings establish their value through their proximity to wealth, or power, but I believe the intrinsic value of every human being.

As in, he may think that violence and hate are effective strategies to get what you want, but I think that there’s nothing worth attaining that requires them.

As in, he may think that he’s won, that the things that I’ve built my life around — service, working hard, trying my best to love others and to be fair — are all jokes, but I believe that these things matter, even when we seem bent on institutionalizing their opposites.

I think millennials react so strongly to Trump because Trump highlights how the values that we were taught mattered actually were not so important to the people who taught them to us. We were taught that racism is evil, but then our parents and pastors elected a racist who incites violence against brown people, takes our money for a White Guy Wall, took out a full page ad aimed at putting innocent teenagers in jail because their skin color spoke louder to him than the fact that they were exonerated. Because we we told that girls and boys were equal, but our parents listened to him gleefully recall sexually humiliating a woman attempting to do her job, celebrating that fact that his money lets him hurt women, and then refusing to apologize for it. Because we were told being honest and working hard matters, but then our third grade teacher voted for someone who lies so often that his critics are chastised for being petty and “beating a dead horse”, since “that’s just Trump” and why are we still talking about this?

But here’s the thing. Your mom and dad and paster and aunt, they can think whatever they want. Maybe they told you that you shouldn’t hurt people, and they didn’t really care about it; maybe they kind of think lying is okay and here you wasted all this time and stayed in so many recesses internalizing that it wasn’t. Maybe you looked up to them for teaching you it wasn’t. And here we are.

But you’re not obligated to resolve that cognitive dissonance.

Racism is wrong, and white people don’t get to decide whether or not something is racism.

Rape is wrong, and there is no justification for it.

Cruelty is wrong, no matter who embodies it, what nice thing they said about you, or how much money you owe them.

We don’t always have to watch Trump; he’s doing us all the favor of spewing hateful and gratuitous bullshit about dead senators right now, and I imagine whatever your agenda today, you ain’t got time for that. I don’t think we’re obligated to “know our enemy”. And Trump’s not the enemy anyway. What we’re fighting against is the belief in the inherent worthlessness of humanity and the use of that belief to maintain economic and political power, and you don’t have to listen to the president to become intimately acquainted with that belief. Innumerable school principals, churchgoers, and bullies stand eager to acquaint you with it.

But when it’s your dad, your boss, your patient, listen to these horrible things, even if they are unpleasant to hear. Then you can say: this person thinks x, but I think y. They will try to engage you in discussion, because if they are good people, they probably know that being a child being “illegal” doesn’t mean it’s okay to hurt them, that Islam is no more a violent religion than is Christianity, that kids should get lunch and sick people should get to see doctors.

You don’t owe it to them to entertain this. They think x, you think y. They have their own mind castle, questionable as its foundation may be. You get yours.And you don’t owe it to other people to come in and track their shit all over it; but you may owe it to the people outside, and to yourself, to venture outside and offer an alternative.

#fucktrump #resistance #selfcare

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jeremichal-archive · 7 years

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oooh gosh combine 40 and 28 for Jeremwood? you're a blessing thanks love

carve your marks into my door; feel free to ruin the wood

40. exes meeting again after not speaking for years au28. knocking on the wrong door au

honestly, this is the first jeremwood fic i’ve ever written and i can’t believe it’s taken me this long to write something for them. Also, an alternative title for this could be “Work Through Your Issues Like Adults Please Boys” because honestly.

Pairing: JeremwoodWarnings: Swearing

On the inside of his elbow, written in small black cursive lettering, is the key to how Ryan’s going to survive this next month.

Every so often, he’ll scratch at it; framing the black letters in red lines, doing his best not to wear away the words. Thinking about it now, it probably wasn't the best place to put it, but at four in the morning, while the cold air bit at his fingertips, it seemed like his only option. Plus, it didn't help that his careful planning had been thrown into the wind the second he’d heard the sound of his landlord’s- fuck, ex-landlord's- feet against the cold concrete landing. So, while this might not be the best plan, it’s the only one he’s got.

An address, or, more accurately, Geoff’s address; scribbled down in haste, copied from an old party invite from Geoff’s last birthday. An address, that based on his sources, Geoff hasn’t stayed at in months.

Fourth floor, just right of the stairs, room 408.

Ryan sighs. How Geoff can afford to rent out two damn apartments is beyond him, but then again, he should just be fucking thankful that he can. Doesn't matter that the last time he saw Geoff, the other man was fifty grand in debt and seriously considering selling an organ on the black market.

A lot of things can change in ten months, Ryan guesses, picking up his pace as he climbs the stairs, especially since he’s enough proof of that himself.

It’s on the third floor that Ryan’s mind drifts off. His boots thud with each step he takes and it’s almost scary how close the sound is to that of gunshots. He wonders if this neighbourhood is as bad as his last one, wonders if flashing police lights and ambulance sirens will become another constant in his life. Or maybe, he’ll be able to sleep through a full night here.

Either way, though, he can’t help but wonder what it says about him that he no longer jumps at the sound of gunshots, whether they're real or not.

He’s glad to be rid of the stairs when he finally makes it to the fourth floor, so of course, it's just his luck that trips on the last damn step. His hands blindly grab for something to steady him, but there’s nothing but empty air and an old bannister around to keep him from breaking his neck, so he ends up stumbling. He catches himself before he goes down, but something twists in his ankle and a sharp current of pain shoots up his leg. He lets out a hiss, gingerly testing his ability to put his weight on it as he steadies himself. There’s an embarrassed blush warming his cheeks, but he thanks God for small miracles though, because at least there’s no one out in the hallway when he hobbles out of the stairwell.

He stops by the door for a moment and rests his palm against the drywall, giving his traitorous foot a moment to rest. A small part of him considers leaning his forehead against the wall as well, but he's smart enough to think better of it. It's an apartment building, and a cheap one at that, they're not really known for their cleanliness. Who knows how many germs this place is hiding.

He pulls his hand back, wiping it against his thigh like it’ll make a difference.

There’s something strange about being back here, almost like he doesn’t belong. But then again, he doesn’t. The sudden urge to just yell overtakes him, and he barely manages to hold it in. He wants to test the echo of the hall, wants to see if he can get another tenant to come outside. He just wants to do something. It feels like he hasn't done fucking anything since he left college, and it burns him from the inside out.

But instead, he settles; mumbling out a low, “I really hope they haven't cut the power yet,” as he straightens himself out, tentatively adding a bit of pressure to his ankle.

Habit makes him swipe at his nose, looking for blood where it’s not. He huffs, staring down at his clean fingers with something akin to disappointment. Honestly, he’s not all too sure if that’s actually the right emotion, but either way, he should really stop doing that.

There's no blood there anymore.

Ignoring the throbbing in his ankle, he pushes forward, moving down the hallway with careful steps. His eyes scan the rooms, and when he catches sight of it- a small unassuming wooden door with what looks like a crack running through it from the base up- Ryan’s heart skips a beat.

Deep down, he knows Geoff won't mind. Hell, he’s probably not even going to notice that Ryan’s been there at all, even if he does care. But still, Ryan can't help but worry. It's not as if they’ve really kept in contact in the recent months, so it’s not like Ryan would really blame him. All he can really do is promise himself that he’ll be gone by the end of the month, all the while silently hoping that he’s not just lying to himself.

He hesitates in front of the door when he gets to it, wondering if he should knock first just to make sure. It should be empty, he know’s it’s empty, but it would be awfully awkward if he happened to pick the lock just to find Geoff in his underwear on the other side waiting for him. So he knocks- three quick raps against the wood- and starts counting to ten, just to be safe.

When he reaches seven, the door swings open.

It’s cliché. God, it’s so fucking cliché, but then again, Ryan’s only ever been like that around him and it’s hard to be original when his heart is clawing its way out of his throat- so when he meets Jeremy’s gaze, time just seems to stop. Two and a half years. Two and a half years since they last saw each other- not that Ryan’s been keeping track- and he can’t help but latch onto the fact that Jeremy looks so fucking different now.

Lighter, happier, stronger, he’s fucking bald for Christ’s sake; Ryan can’t take his eyes off of him.

The thought as to why Jeremy’s in Geoff’s apartment doesn't even cross his mind, rather, he just stares, because that’s all he can really do. Which leaves it up to Jeremy to break the awkward silence that’s settled over them.

“I- You- What are you doing here, Ryan?” he asks and Ryan realises he’d forgotten how his voice had sounded. He wants Jeremy to talk again.

“Geoff’s… I was…” he frowns when Jeremy raises a confused eyebrow at him, “what are you doing in Geoff’s apartment?”

“What? What are you talking about, this is my apartment, Ryan.” He runs a hand over his shaved head and Ryan knows that if he still had hair, he’d be tugging at the strands. “Geoff’s is down the hall, I think, or at least, it used to be. I haven’t… talked to him in a while,” he admits, rather sheepishly.

“Neither have I, really,” Ryan mumbles back, shuffling on the spot. Changing the pressure on his ankle sends a spark of pain shooting up his leg, and he hisses through clenched teeth. He’s got no real reason to keep standing there, to be honest. He should just say goodbye and leave things there, but he really doesn't want to.

While they didn't part as enemies, they weren’t really friends either, and Ryan wants to fix that.

“How have you been?” he asks and Jeremy shrugs, slipping his finger inside the belt loop of his jeans. He rests his hip against the door frame and Ryan’s glad to have his full attention.

“I’ve been fine, Ryan.”

“You still running?”

A shadow passes across Jeremy's face. “Uh, no. Not anymore.” He doesn't elaborate, and Ryan doesn't push.

“Ah, okay…” he mumbles, hating how awkward things are between them. He wants to go back in time to when Jeremy would tell him everything, back to when they’d spend whole days tangled up in bed, lazily kissing every inch of the other that they could reach. Seeing Jeremy again, he realises that he hasn't quite moved on as much as he thought he had.

“Go anything published yet?” Jeremy asks, and Ryan can't help but flinch. No, he wants to hiss, of course fucking not. You were all right, so I gave up trying, but he holds his tongue though because his bitterness is his own to keep. “I won't lie and say I haven't been keeping an eye out,” Jeremy continues and Ryan’s heart skips a beat, “you were writing that, uh, that sci-fi book, right? when we… uh-” he shakes his head- “what I mean is, have you finished it?”

“Nah, I think attempted two drafts of it before I realised it was a lost cause.” That's a lie, he tossed it in the trash five days after Jeremy moved out. “It was a waste of time, anyway,” he mutters.

“But, you loved that damn book,” Jeremy replies and Ryan just shrugs.

“You loved running, but I guess love isn’t really enough, is it?” He replies, and Jeremy blanches. He doesn't mean his words to be that poetic, especially when they hit so close to home when it comes to what they were, but then again, Ryan’s always had a way with words. Just not enough to make a living from them, apparently.

Jeremy’s gaze drops to the floor at his words, and Ryan realises he’s put his foot in his mouth. He waits for the lad to tell him goodbye, to close the battered door in his face and leave him standing alone in the hallway, but he doesn't. He looks back up at Ryan, chewing on his bottom lip. “Why were you looking for Geoff, Rye?” he asks and the nickname is unexpected.

He doesn't know what makes him tell the truth. Maybe it’s because he’s trying to trade a secret for a secret; maybe he’s just sick of pretending everything is alright.

Or maybe, it’s because he wants to interact with Jeremy like they used to. Wants to be close again; wants Jeremy to trust him again.

“I know he doesn't live there anymore, I planned to- I wanted to crash there for a month. Just until everything… gets… better?” he mumbles, but it comes out as more of a question than he hoped. Jeremy watches him for a moment, brown eyes seeing right through him, and then he sighs.

“I guess we’re both a bit fucked up, aren’t we?” he whispers, but before Ryan can reply, he steps back and retreats inside. He leaves the door open though, and Ryan takes it as an invitation to come inside. He follows after Jeremy, eyes skimming Jeremy’s apartment as he walks just so he doesn’t have to look at the lad himself. He feels like he’s trespassing, pushing his way into Jeremy’s home even though he’s already had his chance, and even worse, lost it.

“Do you want a drink?” Jeremy asks and Ryan snaps his gaze up to look at him. “I have diet coke, if you’re, uh, still into that…” he mumbles, fidgeting with the can in his hands. Ryan nods, shuffling over towards the kitchen bench before hovering there awkwardly. Jeremy passes him the can, but it’s obvious in the way he deliberately avoids accidentally touching Ryan.

“So…” he begins, staring down at the counter and Ryan wonders why he even bothered to invite him in if his presence makes him so uncomfortable. He’s seconds away from muttering his goodbyes- heart squeezing in his chest- when Jeremy continues. “Is it bad if I… if I say that I’ve missed you, Ryan?” he mumbles, glancing up at him, “I know you’ve probably m-” he cuts himself off, “I mean, it’s been what? Two years?”

“Two and a half,” Ryan corrects and Jeremy snorts.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. It’s just… whatever, doesn't matter.” He shakes his head, thrumming his fingers against the bench. There’s another moment of awkward silence between them, one that Ryan doesn't really know how to break, but for some reason, he still tries anyway.

“I’ve missed you too, Jeremy,” he replies, and Jeremy watches him for a moment through the corner of his eye.

“Why’d you wanna stay at Geoff’s place, Rye?” he asks, and Ryan sighs.

“I got kicked out of my apartment,” he replies, shrugging and Jeremy frowns. “It’s either Geoff’s or I… yeah. I’m screwed either way, I guess.”

“Oh, that fucking sucks,” Jeremy replies and Ryan huffs out a bitter laugh. Now that’s an understatement, he thinks, taking a sip of his coke. Jeremy’s eyes track his movement, following the can up to his lips and then back down again when he sets it on the bench. Habit strikes at him again, and when he swipes at his nose, Jeremy rears back like he’s been hit. Ryan only just catches the frantic look in his eyes before Jeremy's turning away and he moves without thinking, leaning over the counter to grab his hand to stop him from grabbing for the tissue box behind him.

“Stop, Jeremy stop. I’m fine. See?” he holds out his hand for Jeremy to inspect, “no blood.”

It takes a moment, but Ryan watches him relax.

Jeremy lets out a humourless laugh; neither of them let their hands drop. “Sorry. Do you… do you still get them?” he asks and Ryan shakes his head.

“Nah, not anymore. They changed my medication,” he whispers. Slowly, carefully, he starts stroking his thumb against the skin of Jeremy’s palm, tracing small shapes into his skin. Jeremy's gaze falls to their hands, and Ryan hesitates for a moment, movement stopping, but when Jeremy doesn't say anything he starts again.

“I got into a car accident, Ryan” he mumbles, and the suddenness of his words make Ryan flinch. “I got, uh, T-boned, about a year ago? This asshole ran a red light, hit me at 50 miles per hour. Nearly fucking killed me,” he whispers and Ryan’s stomach drops.

He doesn't like that, he really doesn't like that. Just the idea alone of Jeremy dying makes his skin crawl, but what makes it worse, is that he probably never would have found out. Dodging Geoff’s calls, ignoring Jack’s ‘surprise’ visits; Gavin pretending he doesn’t exist and Michael to busy to care about how badly Ryan’s fucking up his life.

They’d forget to tell him. They’d forget to fucking tell him that his ex was dead, and Ryan would just continue on, as if the best thing he’d ever had wasn’t gone.

He wants to say something, wants to tell Jeremy just how much it hurts to ever imagine something like that happening to him, but Jeremy just keeps talking. “But, uh, it didn’t,” he huffs, a bitter sound, “it just fucked up my right leg, pinned it and I can’t tell you the medical terms they used to explain it- cause at the time I wasn’t- I wasn’t in a good place, Rye- but I can say, it was really bad,” he whines and Ryan’s up and moving around the kitchen counter within an instant.

He grabs for Jeremy and tugs him towards his chest and Jeremy goes easily, melting against him. He presses his face against Ryan’s chest, squeezing his eyes shut and Ryan rubs long strokes up and down his back, holding onto him for dear life.

“Can’t run anymore. Fucking- took me months of physical therapy just to walk again, but when it comes to running, I just… I can’t manage it for more than a few minutes.” He sucks in a ragged breath. “I hate it, Ryan. I hate it so fucking much. I feel so useless, so fucking angry all the time. Sometimes I run just so it hurts, just so I feel like I’m doing something.”

Ryan knows that feeling. He understands exactly what Jeremy’s trying to say. The thing is though, Ryan understands because he’s a homeless, failed author and not because he sustained life threatening injuries. So he can’t help but feel guilty for comparing himself to Jeremy, because really, Ryan’s fine.

Yeah. He’s… fine.

He squeezes Jeremy tighter and holds his tongue, because he knows him well enough to know that Jeremy doesn’t want his pity. He doesn't want his platitudes or his apologies.

He just wants Ryan.

Which, when he thinks about it, is the complete opposite of what he wanted when they broke up two and a half years ago. Mutual, he reminds himself, it was a mutual break-up.

Heh, he doesn’t think either of them really believe that anymore.

“You’ll be able to run again,” he whispers, “I know it’s daunting and terrifying, and it makes you feel like you’re being pulled under, but fucking hell, you were made to run Jeremy. It’s in your blood, and while it might take some time, you’ll be able to run again.”

Jeremy’s fingers grab for his arm, nails biting into his skin as he clutches at Ryan desperately. “You say it like it’s so easy, Ryan.”

“I’m not saying that tomorrow you’ll be able to miraculously get up and run a marathon again, but one day-”

“One day, huh?” Jeremy huffs, pulling back from Ryan. Something like deja vu sparks in Ryan’s mind and his stomach drops. “Fuck off. I don’t need this shit from you of all people. Where’s your book, Ryan? You said, and I remember, of course I fucking remember, that you were going to, and I quote, ‘make it’” he spits, finger quoting his words.

Ryan takes a step back, and then another, putting distance between them. He keeps his mouth shut, because the last time he didn’t and he ended up fucking everything up.

“Did you make it Ryan? Did you do everything you wanted to do? All the stuff that of-fucking-course you couldn't do with me. Was it worth it?” he hisses, closing the distance that Ryan tried to put between them. He glares up at him, but Ryan can see the hurt that’s hiding behind his gaze.

That somehow makes things worse.

“No. No, I didn’t make it, Jeremy,” he breaks, voice cracking. He sucks in a deep breath and tries to give himself a moment to settle, but Jeremy doesn’t let him.

“Was it worth it?” he repeats, not breaking eye contact.

“I threw that book out about a week after you left,” Ryan spits, clenching his hands into fists by his side. He’s so damn tired of holding it all in, he’s so damn tired of pretending that their mutual breakup wasn’t entirely his fault. “I never finished it. Everything I write nowadays doesn’t make it past the first five pages and I can’t write romance scenes without thinking of you.”

Jeremy lets out an exasperated breath. “God, you’re an idiot. I really don’t understand you, Ryan,” he replies, shaking his head.

His hands move quickly, gravitating towards his head; he lets out a strangled sound, spinning sharply to lean his elbows against the counter, turning away from Ryan. He ducks his head, fingers interlocking as he sucks in a ragged breath.

“You fought me for that book, Ryan. I mean, it was your novel, I wasn’t going to stop you from writing it,” he replies, shrugging helplessly, “but you just didn’t stop. How many times- how many fucking times did you chose that damn thing over me, just to throw it out!” he hisses, slamming his hands down on the counter.

“You were so much more than I was, Jeremy. You were running marathons, and you were training for the Olympics, and I was working in the tech department and barely scraping out a couple hundred words each week on a book that was everything I had. I was scared,” he spits, “I was so scared, and jealous, and envious because you were going to achieve your dream and I wasn’t-”

“And that’s my fault, then is it?!” he yells, body pulling taut like a live wire. Ryan doesn’t need to touch him to know he’s buzzing with electricity.

“No, God no, Jeremy-” he tries, but Jeremy’s not having it.

“It is, of course it is. I was the horrible needy boyfriend desperate for your attention. I was immature, always kept pushing for something. ‘Let’s go on a run together, Ryan!’” he mocks, and Ryan feels sick, “‘Sign up for the marathon with me!’ ‘Let me read a chapter of your book’ ‘Pretend you still love me for a moment and let's do something together, I’ll let you decide what.’” He heaves out a breath, meeting Ryan’s gaze directly, “Fuck me, right? For wanting to include you in my life.”

“It’s not like that, Jeremy,” he pleads, and this time it’s his turn to close the distance between them.

“Yeah, it is. And now I’m nothing, no career, no future, just me and my fucked up legs,” he says and the anger drains out of him slowly. Ryan watches him curl in on himself, unshed tears in his eyes as he rubs at his face. “You must love it, knowing that I’m never going to be better than you.”

“I’m not, I’m not better than you. I’m a shit person, Jeremy. I got so overwhelmed-”

“Please don’t,” he mutters, resting a palm against the counter, “I don’t want to hear how sorry you are, Ryan. It’s done. I don’t care. I think you should go.”

“Just listen, please. Just give me one chance to talk, and then I’ll go if you still want me too, I swear,” he begs, and Jeremy squeezes his eyes shut. After a few seconds, he opens them again and sighs; Ryan doesn’t risk wasting the opportunity.

“I got so overwhelmed with the idea of failing,” he begins, “that I took it all out on you. I’m not going to make excuses, Jeremy. I was an idiot, I handled everything wrong and at the time, I blamed it all on you. I was so hung up on the idea that I was thirty-four and going nowhere fast, that when I saw you succeeding, it felt like you were rubbing it in my face.”

He glances over towards the front door, staring at the ruined wood as if it’ll help him somehow. “I’m thirty-six now, Jeremy. I haven’t written anything in six months. I lost my job, my apartment and you. So at this point in time, it’s safe to say I’m a failed author. I’m not getting published; I’m not going to ‘make it’. It hurts, and as much as I try to pretend it doesn’t, lying just makes it worse,” he whispers, “the thing is, I don’t know how to make things better, I don’t what to fucking do anymore. You said that you’re angry all the time and so am I, Jeremy. I just- I can’t do anything fucking right anymore and it’s eating me alive.”

“You want me to forgive you?” Jeremy asks and Ryan looks back at him.

He can see them, if he tries hard enough.

Not them now, what with their bitterness, and their hurt and their issues, but what they used to be. Back when they’d first started dating. When things were easy and new, and sweet. Back when Jeremy would blush whenever Ryan asked him to stay the night, and when they’d burn their dinner because they were too busy kissing.

He can see them, but that doesn’t mean he can be them again.

“No. No, I’m not asking for that,” he sighs, pushing himself away from the counter. Jeremy watches him closely, but stays quiet, “I just don’t want you to give up hope just yet. You’ve still got plenty of time, and like I said, you were born to run. You’ll be fine, Jeremy, just don’t rush yourself.”

It’s cowardly, but he doesn’t wait for a reply. Instead, he just turns on his heel and takes a few steps towards the front door. It’s better this way, he tells himself, even though with every step he takes away from Jeremy feels like his heart is being crushed. He’s better off without you.

So he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t hesitate, and he doesn’t turn around. At least, not until Jeremy calls out to him.

“Ryan,” he says, and Ryan freezes just a few steps away from the door. “I- I wasn’t lying earlier… when I said I missed you. I-” he pinches the bridge of his nose- “I’m not going to lie, I really tried to hate you afterwards. You made me feel like shit, made me feel everything was my fault, but I couldn’t.”

He shakes his head, a faraway look in his eyes. “But the thing is, we were both horrible at being in a relationship, Ryan. You were the first person I’d ever really loved, and I just, I gave you too much of myself to fast, just trying to keep you with me. And you had your own issues, your own problems and I just-” he sucks in a breath, and Ryan stares at him- “I think it was too soon, wasn’t the right time. You know the saying Ryan, right person wrong time? Yeah... I think that was us.”

“What are you trying to say,” he replies, and Jeremy shrugs.

“I’m not suggesting we try again, at least, not yet. I just think, if you honestly believe that I still have a chance, that one day I’ll be able to run again and that it’ll just take some time, then why can’t it be the same for you?” he responds, and Ryan’s caught off guard by his words. He opens his mouth, looking for the words to disagree with Jeremy, but the lad just watches him with a soft gaze.

“You’re not dead yet, Ryan, and neither am I. That’s gotta count for something, right?” he adds, and Ryan feels his heart skirt a beat in his chest. He stands there for a moment, utterly unsure about where they go from there.

He’s caught between leaving and staying, and in the end, Jeremy makes the decision for him.

“Go crash in Geoff’s apartment. Call him and make a date to catch up again. Start writing again. There’s still plenty of time, Ryan, don’t waste it by feeling sorry for yourself. And if you want to, come back around in a couple of days and we’ll go get lunch together, as friends this time, and we’ll see how we go from there.”

Ryan nods and the pressure in his chest lifts just enough for him to breathe. He takes a moment, letting himself memorise the little parts that make Jeremy, Jeremy. The way he stands, the way he looks, the way he sounds and moves, just so he won’t forget about them again, and then he turns around.

He’s halfway out the door when he hesitates, tossing a look back over his shoulder at Jeremy. “I’m really hoping that this is the right time then, Jeremy,” he whispers, and Jeremy blinks back at him.

“Yeah, me too, Rye.”

#jeremwood #ragehappy #mine #thatspottedowl

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queenofthewaste · 5 years

Text

Hi it's 3am (by the time I finished this it was in fact closer to 5am) and I'm so tired and I don't care anymore and this is literally my blog so if I can't be emo here then where? (A diary, I suppose, but shutup)

To preface this, mutuals, whatevs you've seen me go through fandom after fandom and then become a pseudo aesthetic blog so you can handle me angsting a bit. IRLs on the other hand, if you read this I would appreciate you not ever acknowledging this in anyway shape of form bc like. Emotional vulnerability bad (ง'̀-'́)ง

Up until a few months ago I was in a relationship with someone who I cared about very deeply. The relationship itself was not perfect but I was pretty happy, and best I can tell, so was she. Ultimately we broke up because of the fact that she felt she couldn't come out to her family. This wasn't fun for me or anything but its something I was aware of as a possible end so y'know. Whatever.

Unfortunately this break up wasn't even remotely clean. She continued to talk to me, not seeming to get my requests for space and eventually we went back to cuddling and other forms of emotional intimacy that are far oustide of my platonic wheelhouse. At this situation's worst she made some pretty specifically romantic moves towards me, which I would call almost actively callous. Eventually after a few months of going back and forth on whether or not we were talking we (I) actually were firm about it. This was on Halloween, and the following week or so was basically "great" insofar as I didn't have to think about her.

Unfortunately the next week it was my birthday and she turned up on my doorstep after my party upset I had invited some mutual friends, and I helped her with her emotional distress and then walked her home. Then I had no contact. For about a month.

A month later she messaged me on Twitter. Then a week later she turned up somewhere she knew I was going to be (this is somewhat debatable but ultimately I still felt stalked and in a weird way kind of betrayed).

Then nothing until Christmas day when I received an anonymous "I miss you" on this tumblr. Not provable as her like who else misses me lol? (All the creepy men who I keep rejecting but I don't they have my tumblr). Then on NYE she messaged my housemate about me. Then a few days later she does the same.

Ultimately my feeling about all of this are;

I’m sad about the circumstance of the break up. It feels like a waste of something good, but I could probably deal with it better if either of us seemed even remotely happy since it.

I think it’s fucking heartbreaking that someone I cared so deeply for would so quickly become someone I desperately wanted to avoid, the extent to which I want to avoid her is actively depressing in and of itself

She’s clearly not been doing okay since we broke up (or for a while before we broke up but she’s been more noticeably dysfunctional since we broke up) and it’s so frustrating to watch her feel alienated from her friends (and to an extent have actually alienated her friends) and to engage in self destructive behaviours etc, and have no room, or even right to do anything.

As an addition to the previous point, I am usually cold to a fault, so I hate how I have been unable to switch off here. I hate that I still care about her the way I do when everything she has done in the past four months has had an active detrimental affect on me.

This is probably the least “valid” feeling to have about the dissolution of the relationship, and I actively consider this to be deeply petty but here we are - I think it’s unfair that she is telling my housemate that she misses me. I think its unfair that she was the one to do romantic things during the messy period post break up. I think it’s unfair that she made a choice and now seems to want to have the sympathy of the person who was “left” or “dumped” or whatever. Fuck you that’s not fair. I haven’t made my feelings about this known. I didn’t message her fucking housemate to tell him I miss her. Of course I fucking miss her but I’m also not a fucking douchebag.

I also feel betrayed by how willing she was to hurt me and mess me around post-break up. She told her friends things she had promised she wouldn’t and generally handled things shittily. Honestly I just want to know why? I didn’t do anything fucking wrong. We didn’t break up even due to shitty behaviour what the fuck did I do to deserve all of this

I still want to talk to her. I sort of feel like there’s nothing left to say anymore, but I do

Running concurrently to this is the fact that last year I was voted in to be the president of the Comic Book Society (club) at my university. At the time I was pleased and looked forward to it. One of the people who would be running it with me was a guy I was good friends with. Then he (probably) sexually assaulted me, and (definitely) became super creepy about his feelings for me. I low key told him to fuck off and didn't speak to him for the summer. During which time he got therapy and seemed to improve, and because I didn't want to have to do paperwork I figured I would let him stick around. Of course then he continued to be creepy so I had to tell him to fuck off properly.

The break up I had just gone through, and the fact I had to fire 1/3 of my exec did not make running the society easy, but ultimately neither of those things were the actual problem.

The problem instead was that my members just. Wouldn't talk. No matter what. I did everything I could. I know I'm often somewhat intimidating but I also know I'm reasonably funny and decent at conversation in general. But over three months these people remained mute and it was infuriating. They wanted a weekly lecture about comics and I'm just not doing that. So I've allowed the society to fold.

Ultimately about this I guess I feel

Sort of betrayed by the guy who was into me, obviously I suppose I shouldn’t have forgiven him after the (possible) sexual abuse, but I was tired and thought maybe it would be fine. But ultimately he was a guy who claimed to care about me/ know me well, and everything he did belied the opposite which is such a fundamental kind of gross that it’s sort of upsetting.

About my society failing? I take on the responsibility personally, even though every piece of evidence suggests there wasn’t much I could really have done to increase turnout, bar become more general interest (Like talk about the movies more) which ultimately defeats the point of the fucking society so. No. Basically, lol, I feel like a total failure for failing to run a society that was clearly doomed to failure from the beginning

ALSO I’m twenty one. Due to issues with my mental and physical health during my A levels I had to spend an additional year in college. I then failed to get the grades I wanted to go the uni I really wanted to go to. As a result of this I came to uni and was a bit “behind” where I wanted to be in life. Then, naturally, of course, I managed to fail a module of my course, meaning I had to resit the whole year. Making me a Twenty One year old First Year. I haven’t told any of my friends about this, meaning I’m consistently lying a bit about what I’m doing. (I did tell my now ex, and am sort of paranoid she may have told someone but whatever) Oh also one of my housemates is resitting his first year, which arguably makes my extended deception worse, because it’s not helped with his self perception. Oh also multiples of my friends are getting engaged now

I guess the way I feel about this mess of shit is

Failurex1000

I feel extremely “behind” some idea of where I feel I should be in my life, which is ridiculous because I’ve never had a clear picture of where I want to be and when, so there’s no plan to be behind on

Failure Failure Failure

I feel somewhat guilty about not informing said housemate bc he’s insecure about resitting, and also insecure about me being arbitrarily “better” than him, but also I have a crippling fear of being seen as weak or stupid and he’s not my fucking responsibility.

Again, the friends all getting engaged thing makes me feel weirdly lagging so. yay

ALSO I live with three boys currently. I say “boys” because despite their status as legal adults, the juvenile term is really more appropriate. One of whom has had a crush on me for a relatively extended period of time now. He claims to be over me, but his behaviours consistently belie that he is not. Another is just generally a bit immature, and screeches down his headset playing shit video games in the middle of the night (this is in fact why I am currently up and writing this) The third is technically fine but he contributes to the general mess and skid marks on the toilet with the seat always fucking up and the hair all over the fucking bathroom dear fucking god

Summing up this one too;

I have already decided to live alone next year, and have made the arrangements to do so, Though this means I will basically be broke re: disposable money

If I ever see another fucking toilet seat up I’m going to scream

I nearly stabbed my housemate today for waking me up. And now five hours later nearly I have been unable to get any sleep.

Alot of my complaints about my housemates highlight two specific things for me

My upbringing required me to be more independent from a younger age. I’m grateful for the relative competence this has provided me earlier on, but also I think I’m becoming resentful, or jealous, of these people who got to be children until even now? I cannot imagine being 19 and behaving the way these boys do (or twenty one and behaving the way my ex does) and I can’t help but wonder about the kind of coddling they must have had relative to my life.

I need my own space. I have had little control of my life and living arrangements for quite some time now (even having spent three months or so technically homeless last summer) and this is potentially my only opportunity to get that so

Finally, Alot of how I’ve reacted to stuff the past few months has made me feel concerned about my mental health? Several years ago I went to a psychologist for an extended period of time (I was forced to lol) and toward the end of the time I was seeing her she mentioned cluster B personality disorders to me. Obviously being a sixteen year old who thought she was fine this made me balk, I started lying to seem neurotypical or whatever the word is now, and then eventually managed to get out of having to go, but now I think there was probably some stock in what she was talking about and am now going to try and pursue this, so I get to dally with the NHS’ adult mental health services.

Summing up

I don’t actually want a diagnosis and on some level think I’m fine but also line up with the DSM of two of the cluster B’s relatively well and am clearly not doing well so my belief that I’m fine is unhelpful

In the end, it is clearly my pride that’s gong to lead to my death.

Thanks for reading, anonymous internet person or person I know irl stalking my blog/ignoring my request for this to be ignored if you know me irl :I

#delete later #personal #don't rb #like i don't know if that had to be said but y'know #tbh i'm almost more confortable talking in the tags but that seems unhelpful #i just think ive been hurt so much and i cant take much more anymore im sorry #like ive been snappier and less patient but im so alone jesus christ i dont let anyone in #everytime i let people in it like #doesn't go well #at all

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renaroo · 7 years

Text

Recovery None (59/61)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typically violence, Psychological torture & manipulation, Mentions of gore, Character death, Minor Sexual content Pairings: Yorkalina, Chex Rating: T Synopsis: [Canon Divergence AU] When the Mother of Invention crashed, Project Freelancer was in shambles, its surviving agents scattered, its equipment stolen, and an impending investigation into the crash from the UNSC was on the horizon. To regain control of the deeply corrupted program, the Director established a new unit from his remaining supplies – the Recovery Unit.

Three former Freelancers were chosen for particular tasks: Zero is to hunt down and destroy the Meta, One is to investigate and recover stolen or missing equipment, and Two is to take down AWOL former agents.

Of course, no one’s motivations are what they seem…

A/N: I have been in a very tough place in my life between updating these chapters, and for that I cannot apologize to all of you and thank you for your patience enough. This story means so very, very much to me, as you all can imagine, and having your support and love through all of this has made both writing this fic and getting out this chapter in a rough time possible. So just... thank you all so much. We’re almost there.

Special thanks to @analiarvb, @notatroll7, @secretlystephaniebrown, @xhauntedangel, @icefrozenover, @every-survival, LinniLotus, Yin, and @a-taller-tale for the feedback!

Recovery One XVIII: Lying in Pieces

So out of curiosity, are you carrying me over your shoulder out of some low key aggression that’s satisfied to treat me like a sack, or are you trying to save my fragile masculinity by not going full bridal position here?

“You’re an artificial intelligence, Church, you don’t have any masculinity. Just numbers. And annoyance,” Tex informed him as they raced down the halls of the MOI -- racing past memories and horrors and everything in between.

Perhaps it was an act of rare mercy for them that they didn’t have time to stew and reflect on everything around them and what horrific truths they must have meant for them both.

Maybe. Almost.

I guess I’m just more surprised you’re bothering to carry it around at all, Church clarified. I’m not really, y’know, using it or anything.

Tex felt herself scowl as she ignored him and continued forward toward the fight that was sure to come. “Church, we’re not one entity. We’re not one person. Even if at one time we were -- if that’s truly what we were before either of us can even remember that as a possibility -- there’s no way we can be that again now. We’re different. We’ve grown. We’ve had experience outside of ourselves.”

So? Church asked. Didn’t stop the program from shoving tiny pieces of me into completely different people.

Shaking her head, Tex couldn’t even believe he’d bring that up. “That’s not been working out so great.”

I’ll need citations on that claim, Church said with a scientifically pompous air about him.

“We’re about to go face your ugly side that’s trying to kill everyone you’ve made friends with over the past year, asshole. What more evidence do you need exactly?” she asked critically.

Tex, I’m just trying to say, we’re a part of each other now and it’s stupid to pretend that I’m going to be jumping back into my own skin -- so to speak -- again any time soon. He paused, a little awkwardly. Like I hate to bring this up, but I’m not entirely sure I know... how to untangle us at this point either. Look, I’m new to this whole numbers-and-code thing.

Annoyed, Tex kicked down an obstructing door. “You’re actually not. You’re not new to it at all. That’s part of the problem. And for the record, I never said I was carrying around this husk of a body for you.”

The door she kicked down clattered on the ground and left them staring forward at Caboose who was innocently staring right back before happily waving.

“Hey, Tex! Glad you found Church! Did you see the little Church man? I’m going to feed him crackers.”

If you let him see me like this I swear to god I’ll delete both of us.

Tex smirked. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”

“Okay!” Caboose replied readily.

Fucksake Church groaned in what attempted to pass as annoyance but radiated through Tex like affection.

“Caboose, our friends need help,” she explained to him.

“Oh no! We need to go!” Caboose announced before hesitating. His head tilted. “Tucker isn’t one of those friends is he? I don’t know about saving Tucker...”

“I don’t... was Tucker even on the camera feed?” Tex asked.

No. Which is its own problem to sort out for later, Church answered nonchalantly.

“It’s Wash and some of the Reds,” Tex translated.

“Agent Washington!?” Caboose gasped. “Let’s go help--”

Before the words were finished escaping Caboose’s mouth, there was a rush of air past them. Caboose even wavered on his feet unsteadily.

“What was that?” Caboose asked, looking after the direction of the gust of wind.

“The doors opened. Our friends are outside,” Tex answered.

“Right! Go help--” Caboose began to rush forward but Tex grabbed his shoulder to keep him back for a moment.

“Caboose, I want to give you a special job,” she explained.

“Oh?” Caboose asked back.

“I want you to help the white guy,” Tex explained. “Being on the receiving end of your help before has taught me that this is the best course of action we have.”

I double that assessment, Church muttered.

“I’m going to help, Tex!” Caboose assured her. “And then we’re all going to help little Church eat crackers. It’s gonna be great!”

Tex glanced to her shoulder where Church’s body was still hanging over it while Caboose ran for the exit.

A small, white projection of Church appeared where she was looking. “What? I can feel you smirking.”

“Well, you asked what I was carrying you around for, right?” she asked mischievously. “Now I’m going to show you how you’re going to help us out.”

“Fuck, this is going to make me pissed, isn’t it?” Church groaned.

As he lived and breathed, it was Maine.

Washington stared at his former teammate, utterly struck by the fact that yet another Freelancer had come falling into his already crowded and confusing life, shocked by how his old life and new seemed to be consistently at odds.

And by the fact that apparently Maine had just saved them by ripping Wyoming’s implants violently from his head.

Which left a lot of questions, but mainly what side was Maine on.

Slowly raising to his feet, Washington maintained a certain wariness. There was something just inconceivably wrong with the bulky way that Maine moved, with the snarling and huffing that was coming from him that was utterly different from what Wash had known before.

He knew Maine had been a high priority target of the Recovery team -- so high that Wash had not been granted permission to go after him even by the time that whole dynamic fell apart. But he had not received in depth briefings.

All he knew was that Maine supposedly killed Carolina in the final raid on the Mother of Invention.

But now he knew that Carolina was far from dead.

“My god, none of us know how to communicate,” he surmised in horror before looking over to York. “Have you got some answers for this!? Good ones?”

“No,” York yelled back. “Just the kind that super suck now that he has another AI and Wyoming’s enhancement.”

Eye twitching in irritation, Wash all but threw up his arms. “Right there! You just screamed out like three things that are need-to-know information that I have absolutely no context for!”

York shook his head and then looked at Wash. “Would you stop screaming at me every three minutes!? Holy fuck, how does your voice reach that high anyway?”

“I believe it’s inferior Blue genetics at play,” Sarge stage whispered.

“I hate all of you!” Wash hissed.

“We KNOW!” York and the two Reds yelled harmoniously.

“Jesus this is a shit show and we’re all going to die and I don’t even know what for,” Simmons bemoaned as Maine turned toward them all.

“Okay, fine, everyone, I’ll give you the short and sweet version!” York ground out. “That guy is Maine. He used to be a Freelancer. He got an AI. Now he gets his jollies by going around, killing the rest of us, stealing our AI and equipment, and adding them to his collection. He’s the one who fucked me over real good and took Delta.”

Washington scowled at York. “How is any of that remotely true? That doesn’t sound like Maine at all!”

“Keep up, Wash, that’s not Maine anymore, it’s the Meta, and that’s exactly what he does because I’ve been on the receiving end of it already! Not to mention what he did to Carolina,” York ground out.

“Or what he did just now in front of us,” Simmons piped up. “Not saying I know who this guy is, but we did just see him rip something out of a guy’s spine who was regularly kicking our asses beforehand.”

“Yeah, that, too,” York nodded.

Angrily, Wash clutched his rifle. “Keep up!? How the fuck am I supposed to keep up!? I feel like I have, at most, a third of the information right now and you’re asking me to keep up? Seriously? How about you stop wasting time and tell me how the hell we’re supposed to beat this thing?”

“I don’t know!” York answered. “I just fight it and lose all the time. Why do you think I look like I went through ten rounds with a can opener!?”

“You’re useless!” Wash screeched.

“We’re all each other’s got!!!” York yelled back.

“NO!” Wash said with exaggerated waving toward Sarge and Simmons. “We’re not!”

York paused for a moment before looking to Sarge. “Sir?”

“You have permission to speak, Red Team Freelancer,” Sarge replied cheerfully.

“Right, that’s getting a touch old. Anyway,” York said before turning his own shotgun around so that the butt was facing Sarge. “Would you do me the honor of testing out your new invention? Seeing as how we’re both men of tastes when it comes to our weapons.”

Even through armor, Wash could tell Sarge had never appeared more delighted in his life.

“What are you doing?” Wash demanded as Maine’s hulking form turned its attention toward the Mother of Invention.

“Our mutual friends in there are next on the menu for obvious reasons,” York pointed out. He then looked seriously toward Wash. “And I’m tired of friends feeling we didn’t do everything in our power to save them.”

There was something tight and painful in Wash’s chest. But, being an expert at ignoring such things thanks to Blue Team at that point, he elected to point at York warningly. “Actions speak louder than words.”

“Then I think it’s time for some action,” York chuckled.

“You get fucking one liners, too!?” Simmons bemoaned.

Washington wanted nothing more than to join Simmons in the disbelief of the moment, but loathe as he was to admit it, York was right, and Maine -- or whatever he had become -- was going straight for the Mother of Invention.

And if there was anything Wash had learned recently it was that anything with that sort of focus on death and destruction had to be heading straight toward Blue Team.

“What are we doing here?” Wash asked York snappishly.

"We’re putting a wall between the ship and the Meta,” York announced. “I think I can get in close as long as I have cover fire, but basically I just need to round all of us toward those cliffs as much as we can and let me in -- hopefully the Sergeant wasn’t exaggerating about the modifications he put into this gun.”

“Stop calling him the sergeant, he’s just Sarge!” Wash corrected.

York gave an incredulous look in Wash’s direction and shook his gun. “Wash, for fucking real here, are you going to play ball? Alright, I’ve fucked up in the past, but this thing’s going to kill Carolina if it gets a hold of her -- and Tex, too, if you’re right and she’s in there. They already killed Dee. I’d like to get some payback.”

Wash huffed heavily in through his helmet. He absolutely did not appreciate York making any sort of sense.

But he definitely was.

“Simmons,” Wash called out, looking to the maroon soldier. “Do you think you can get a line of communication between us and Blood Gulch by using the teleporter?”

Surprised, Simmons stood up straight and shifted in the snow. “I mean, hypothetically it should definitely be possible. It might take me an hour or two to fully reconfigure--”

“I’m going to give you ten minutes,” Wash replied plainly.

“I can’t do that!” Simmons cried out in protest.

“No? Would you prefer to fight a renegade Freelancer with the rest of us?” Washington asked knowingly. “No? That’s what I thought. Get in contact with Blood Gulch and ask them to send in some able-bodied soldiers immediately. We need help.”

“We shouldn’t limit it to able-bodied if we need help from Blood Gulch,” Simmons pointed out. “That puts us down to... I guess the bodyguard--”

“Do not ask South to come!” York ordered.

“Absolutely tell South to come,” Wash contradicted.

“She will shoot us in the back first chance she gets! Did you even bother asking her what happened to North!?” York cried out.

“Wouldn’t be the first time a Freelancer shot me in the back,” Wash said plainly. “Besides, she’s going to fight this... Meta over us.”

“How’d you know it was responsible for North?” York asked, amazed.

“I didn’t,” Wash replied, marching toward Sarge. “I just know know South prefers challenges.”

"You play a dangerous game, Agent Washington,” York mused.

“And you play dumb like the rest of the world can’t figure out you’re compensating for something,” Wash fired back. “Now are you going to move forward so I can give you that cover fire or not?”

“Youch,” York mocked before taking a deep breath and racing forward. “Yo! Meta!” Maine’s hulking form stopped momentarily, turning back, his domed helmet gleaning as a low snarl came out from him. “You and I have some unfinished business!”

Washington took aim and waited for the so-called Meta to make its move first, but as he lined up the shot he heard a distinctive sniffing and sobbing from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and found Sarge wiping at his visor nonsensically.

“Are you crying?” Wash asked critically.

“I just never thought that the Red Army would produce another soldier as ready to die for its glory as me,” Sarge said between gurgles. “I’m just glad to see the day that Red Team pride his vindicated. It’s like the son I wish I never had.”

“Stop talking, it makes my eye twitch and I need to aim,” Wash ordered.

For an infiltration expert, York had an amazing grasp of hand-to-hand. To the point that even through his anger, Wash was forced to give the man the respect he deserved.

As the Meta lunged, York ducked below the wide swing and used its exposure to throw an elbow beneath the Meta’s ribs. His momentum carried and he swung around to behind the Meta where he kicked the Meta forward.

When he watched the balance waver, Wash hesitated. It reminded him of the training room floor. Of a time when he called each of these men and women his teammates. When he didn’t think they could stab each other in the back for more than points on a scoreboard.

When a scoreboard seemed like it was worth stabbing in the back for.

He stared down his scope and wondered if the Meta was any more a monster than Maine and Wash himself were then. More than any of them were willing to be then.

And it was about then that Wash realized that he wasn’t saying any of those thoughts out loud but it might as well have been. He hadn’t progressed that much since Doc called him out on it--

“Watch your six, Freelancer!” Sarge yowled out before firing his shotgun right beside Wash, effectively pulling him out of his own existentialism.

“Shit!” York cried before ducking down into the snow, allowing the Meta to be hit by the spray of buckshot. “That was my three!” he corrected.

"Son, I tend to like you, so I will give you an unprecedented warning about my feelings toward insubordination!” Sage howled out.

Watching as the Meta spun around to face the source of his attack, Washington took a deep breath and aimed for the helmet before firing. The shot bounced off the protective alloy, but the force was still enough to knock it back. And it was also enough to make the Meta step back toward York once more in order to regain balance.

Quick on his feet as always, York ducked down and pressed forward, shoulder first, for the back of the Meta’s knees, sending it barreling over himself and then rolling out of the path.

“Take another shot, Wash!” York yelled.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Wash yelled back before taking the shot with his rifle just as the Meta began to reach around with the brute shot.

The Meta snarled again but once more was exposed for York, this time though it wasn’t a cheap shot the former Freelancer was throwing. Instead he took aim with Sarge’s modified shotgun and fired at the Meta’s abdomen -- right where the mesh and metal met.

“That’ll look great for the Red Army recruitment montage!” Sarge declared.

Wash was almost impressed himself when he saw the Meta drop to one knee, brute shot out of hand. But before York was even on his feet, something drastically changed.

A multitude of flickering sprites surrounded the Meta’s helmet and, without warning, the Meta became encapsulated in a dome shield.

“He has more modifications!?” Wash yelled out.

York looked back and gave a bodily shrug. “I knew he was collecting them but I wasn’t sure he had--”

“Well we didn’t know and you didn’t share!” Wash cried out. “How the hell were we supposed to know that?”

“Sorry, I’ve been busy being shot at and almost murdered lately, not standing around canyon bases drinking beer and having small talk!” York snapped back.

“There’s room for both!” Wash roared in frustration. “What the hell else can happen!?”

As if summoned, Simmons appeared. “Um, guys--”

“It better be good news,” Wash said flatly without even turning. “Which would be that you were able to contact the others even faster than I told you to.”

“Yeah, no, that’s still going nowhere,” Simmons informed him. “But the bodyguard chick did come through the portal for a minute.”

Wash’s eye began to twitch again. “For a minute?”

“Yeah, I told her what was happening and she said to hold up, then went back,” Simmons explained. “Um... Agent Washington... you seem... pretty unhappy.”

“I’m an emotional shell, Simmons. I don’t get unhappy anymore,” Wash warned. “I just anticipate the worst possible scenarios and find myself disappointed when things are worse than predicted.”

“Oh, hey, you trapped the white guy in a dome,” Simmons pointed out. “That’s pretty good. And now Tex is here.”

“What?” Wash asked before turning and seeing Tex’s familiar figure with a cobalt armor over her shoulder. His heart sunk in his chest as the Meta lowered the dome shield. “Oh, no.”

Tex took in the sight, more than a little shocked at just what a crowd had been gathered around the Meta. Washington, Sarge, Simmons, and--

Hey, that’s your friend, Church pointed out unhelpfully. Jersey or whatever.

It was an easy enough comment to ignore as she stepped out into the snow. “Holy shit. As I live and breathe, Agent York has joined my favorite gaggle of idiots.”

“Was that meant for me? Because I protest,” Wash said simply. “I am absolutely not with York. Or... an idiot. But that went without saying, which is why I didn’t bother -- you know what, just shut up and help us.”

“Shut up and help us, wow you really have become a Blue,” Tex snarked. “And now worry, help’s already here.”

While the Meta snarled, turning on its heels to take in the fact that it was surrounded, Caboose finally caught up with them at the entrance of the ship. He was holding the spike grenade that Tex had found for him.

“I’m here to help!” Caboose cried out excitedly, flicking the grenade on.

This idea is stupid as fuck, for the record, Church commented.

Just as Caboose was lining up for the Meta, however, he saw Wash and let out a gasp. “Agent Washington! No one let me know that you were here! I would always help Agent Washington over any white guy.”

“Seriously, does no one else hear how that sounds?” York asked.

“We do, we just don’t care,” Simmons retorted.

“Caboose...” Wash said cautiously, eyeing the grenade.

“Caboose, help the right person,” Tex tried to warn.

“Sure thing, Tex! And the right person to help is my friends!” Caboose yelled out before tossing the grenade straight into the wall beside Tex and Church.

Everyone, including the Meta, stared for a moment.

“That was the worst throw. Ever. Of all time,” Wash hissed.

“Not my fault,” Caboose swore. “Someone put a wall in my way.”

Goddammit, Church bemoaned.

“Everyone down!” Carolina screamed from behind them before tackling both Tex and Caboose, taking them out of the way just before the grenade exploded -- sending shrapnel and snow flying out everywhere in an unseeable storm.

“You came to help? What about the Director?” Tex asked Carolina.

“What, like he has anywhere to go in that wreck?” Carolina asked. “I checked the sensors, looks like UNSC ships are on their way here. I made a tactical decision.”

"Was that tactical decision to see us all get arrested?” Tex questioned, gripping onto Church’s body’s wrist.

“That would be an added bonus,” she mocked before looking up. “But it’s more than that. This is about unfinished business. It’s about people I’ve used for my own means, and trying to make up for it. People like Maine.” She looked forward, watching as the Meta found itself upright again and began growling and snarling. “I had opportunity to stop him before. I had chances to reach out to him while I was a Recovery agent. And I didn’t. I let this happen. And it’s done nothing but hurt the people around me ever since.” She looked back meaningfully toward Tex. “And that’s just a little too much like him for my comfort.”

“Or mine,” Epsilon spoke up, appearing on her shoulder. “I... I think I’ve really hurt people in the past. I think it’s time we try to help them.”

Tex looked at them both critically. “Sounds noble enough,” she said stiffly.

Sounds stupid enough, too. Like yeesh, Church answered.

“But I don’t think there’s anything left of Maine in there for you to apologize too. It’d be best if you let me punch him instead,” Tex pointed out.

“Only after I’ve tried the... not punching route,” Carolina ordered before moving in toward the Meta. “Agent Maine! This is your commanding officer!” Carolina shouted, getting the creature’s attention. “That’s right, it’s me.”

It snarled and flexed out with the brute shot in its arms.

Caboose, sitting up with his head tilted, looked toward Tex. “Um. Are we just going to sit here and watch the new Blue Lady do stuff?” Caboose asked. “Or am I still supposed to help?”

“You are definitely not helping!” Tex and Church said at once.

“We’ve got our own plan, Caboose, sit tight,” Tex assured him before getting to her feet and racing toward where Carolina and the Meta were.

Despite what they might have anticipated in response to Carolina’s diplomacy, the Meta actually had lowered his dome shield, looking warily toward Carolina as two AI swirled around its helmet -- bright yellow and turquoise.

“I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to help,” Carolina continued to coax.

The Meta hesitated for a moment before letting out a horrific roar, multiple AI appearing around its helmet at that time.

“Carolina!” York called out from where the Reds and Wash had ended up, distracting the former Freelancer leader.

“York!?” she cried out just before the Meta took a swing at her. Fortunately, her speed boost got her out of harm’s way but not without tripping her up and causing an awkward landing to her side.

"Why do I ever open my mouth?” York bemoaned.

“Isn’t that the million dollar question we all keep asking ourselves,” Simmons griped.

Hey, Tex, not that I’m the one to be telling you how to hit things... but I can’t help but notice how Mister Tall-and-Growly-and-Hauntingly-Familiar seems a bit distracted at the moment to me. What’cha think? Church fired off.

“I’m thinking you read my mind, cheater,” Tex said, launching herself forward and toward the Meta, redirecting her grip of both of her hands to Church’s body’s left ankle. “Hey, AI conglomerate!” she cried out, turning the Meta around toward her. “Looking for someone?”

On cue, Church showed up over her shoulder. “Miss me?” he asked.

Immediately the plethora of AI around the Meta’s helmet began swarming around, encircling over and over again as if all attempting to steal a glance as they released a disorganized muttering of “Alpha! Alpha! Alpha!”

“Holy fuck this is creepy,” Church remarked shortly before Tex skidded to a halt right before the Meta and then took Church’s body into the full swing of her momentum. “Oh shit not the face!”

Church let out a frighteningly high pitched scream as his body collided with the Meta’s helmet, shattering both of their visors. But Tex was far from done, taking the flailing, empty robotic body and continuing to beat the dazed and distracted Meta with it.

Though it stumbled, the Meta seemed too stunned -- not wanting to attack either Tex or Church but also not wanting to create the dome shield again either. Which was fine with Tex because she could keep smacking him around for ages.

Well, until the Meta had enough and grabbed Church’s arm, ripping it from the rest of the robot.

She then glared toward the others. “You all can get off your asses and help any time you want, y’know!?”

“Yeah, fuckers! We’re pulling our weight!” Church yelled. “Some of us literally!”

Washington was almost too stunned to move. He stared at the scene in complete shock.

“What’s going on?” Sarge asked as York stumbled through the snow to meet Carolina half way. “What just happened? I want a full report!”

“From who? Me? I have no fucking idea!” Simmons’ voice crackled.

“Maine... the Freelancer... he has all the missing AI fragments,” Wash answered, still working with the pieces himself. “They’re in a late state of Rampancy -- all of them -- the dying stages of an Artificial Intelligence. And they’ve unified somehow... looking for something... or someone,” he then looked to Tex’s shoulder where Church’s sprite shined brightly. “The Alpha... The AI that stated it all.”

“Great, hope they have fun finding him,” Sarge huffed. “We need to grab our Red Freelancer and skiddadle out of here. Doesn’t look like much of a fight for us.” He paused and then put a hand to his chin. “Though, technically, we still have that agreement with Texas.”

“Finding him?” Wash asked, turning on them. “You honestly still don’t get it. There’s no finding the Alpha, the Alpha is already here. He’s Church! Can’t you see that?”

“What? So you’re saying that those AI with the white guy are all pieces of this Alpha. And the Alpha is Church. And Church is being used by Tex to slap the white dude around?” Simmons tried to keep up.

“Yes,” Wash said simply.

“Heh. The Blue’s hitting himself,” Sarge chuckled.

“That doesn’t seem physically possible,” Simmons said, scratching at his helmet.

“Yes, well, none of us seem to fall toward convention, do we?” Wash asked. He then glared at Simmons. “You said South was coming with reinforcements...”

“Oh, yeah, they are,” Simmons nodded. “They just have to figure out how to fit them through the portal first.”

Wash squinted. “What do you mean by fit?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than there was a loud, crackling, booming sound in the distance, drawing all of their attention around the mountainside to where green electricity was dancing though the air.

“Wonderful,” Wash muttered.

#writing #rvb fic #RvB: Recovery None #Agent Washington #Agent Texas #Alpha Church #Michael J Caboose #Chex #Agent York #Dick Simmons #Colonel Sarge #Agent Maine #Agent Carolina #Epsilon Church

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lady-nevermore · 7 years

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Session 2

Before I begin talking about what happened in Therapy, can I just say how relieved, and am low-key/sorta glad, that I actually managed to get a good night’s sleep last night? I actually fucking managed to go to bed early, get 8 hours of sleep, and woke up around 6 AM without feeling like I was gonna pass out from sleep-deprivation (Yess! Take that insomnia)! >:D

Yesterday, as well as last Saturday (and even the earlier part of Today), were actually some pretty good days for me; These last couple of weekends Me and mom have been going to church for the last couple of Sundays around 6AM (most would be surprised with me being semi-religious/agnostic, but it was nice actually, calming even....) and closely afterwards we’ve been trying to make a habit of walking to our local library that’s close by (where there also happens to be a local duck pond in conjunction with said library). And Yesterday, on our way back from church, we even managed to help save this poor kitty (that had it’s head stuck in a jar).

So yeah, woke up around 6 AM in the morn today, and took a walk with my mom to our local library. It was nice (soothing even) just walking around in the crisp cold fresh morning breeze, and looking at the reflection of the pond whilst taking in the local wildlife: ducks obviously, a couple of squirrels, robins, crows, hell we even saw a fish (Salmon I think) jump and flop back into the water like twice, as well as saw a falcon on the rooftop of the library at one point too. It was nice, seeing these animals just go about their business, frolicking and whatnot. It made me smile. :)

We’re trying to make this a habit of sorts, (this the third time/third weekend now that we’ve done this, so far so good right) in order to help me get used to getting out of the house more often and make a ritual of getting some low-key exercise along the way.....Umm, does walking for half an hour or even an entire hour count as exercise?. lol ^^;

Anyways, I’ve also managed to accompany my parents to the grocery store during these last past couple of weekends aswell; and yesterday, I even plucked up the courage to go with them to Lowes and helped my folks pick out and buy a new washing-machine (the last one we had, has been on it’s last/final legs for like effing years now, so this was def. a long time coming).

Hell, today, I even managed to get some spring-cleaning done and dusted the crap outta my room and living room (haven’t dusted my damn room in ages, so it’s been a long time coming) and I’m not gonna lie, but it feels so much nicer/cleaner/fresh now that it’s not soo goddamn dusty, it’s nice. ^^;

And tbh all things considered, doing all of this as of late (even if it may seem miniscule to everyone else) has all really made me feel somewhat productive, and I think that it’s helping me a lot.

But anyways, back to the actual therapy session itself...

May 22, 2017

So, Second day of Therapy today...

And well, shit.... I mean knew it was gonna happen eventually (and here’s me thinking it was gonna take like ages for this to happen cause, if there’s one thing I really hate and can’t stand: it’s me crying in front of people, especially people I know or am emotionally attached to; it makes me feel soo fucking vulnerable, uncomfortable, exposed, and worst of all weak) but yeah, I didn’t actually think I was gonna cry this early on in our sessions (I mean we just barely got started). >_>;

...At first, My therapist just asked me how I was feeling and I told her that I was feeling nervous, nervous that during this session, we were actually gonna start digging into deeper, more emotional stuff, than the simple mere evaluation she did during our first initial session. and that’s when we started to talk and go through basically a timeline of my entire life up to this point so to speak.

- Age 5-6: Emotionally (and sometimes physically abused) by my Aunt whom was living/sharing a household with me, my parents, her husband and son at the time, let’s call her “Aunt C”; I felt like I was living in a broken home, a household full of domestic fighting (screaming matches) between my poor victimised mom and my poor excuse of an aunt who was basically a control freak and snapped / flew off the handle at every little thing. My parents were always working hard trying to make ends meet, they weren’t intentionally neglecting me or anything like that, they are good decent people (we grew up poor), but they just never really had the luxury or time to be spending time with me let alone take care of me (and so left me in my Aunt’s care cause they had no choice and it was convenient). The fighting was so bad that at one point I remember being horrified and in a state of utter shock as my “Aunt C” held my mom up against the wall with her hand around her throat (the memory of My Aunt almost attempting to strangle my mother will forever be burned in my mind). My younger self took refuge at school, My therapist says that due to the fact that I didn’t feel safe (nor was I getting enough consistent: love, attention, etc), that I started to block out everything that was happening at home via focusing on my school life, and thereby using my teachers and friends as substitute parental figures and family respectfully, in order to fill the void of what lacked in my home-life (I’ve done this all the way up till high school, I always consider my teachers as parental figures, adults I could legit trust, and each group of friends as my second/replacement family of sorts)....My therapist ain’t wrong: That’s why I always loved going to school, why my friends were the bright lights in my life from elementary school all the way up till high-school, and why I felt so damn attached to my teachers growing up, even all the way up till I graduated from High-School, to me they were my heroes (and it’s the main reason I wanted to become a teacher myself growing up.......and why I personally took one of my Teacher’s/Mentor’s/Old Friend’s death/passing soo damn hard during the year 2011, well that, and because I was actually a close friend to them, as well).

But none of that made me cry what struck a nerve, what really effing struck a nerve was the fact that when I was a Junior during High School, my dad had heart surgery (I was around 16 at the time), and my dad needed my mom to stay close to him (cause he was really scared and felt helpless without her), and I ended up staying at my “Aunt C” and her family’s house for a while.... And see here’s the thing, Aunt C has a son (my cousin) and I remember him telling me that he felt like i bullied him when we were kids, and in my mind we were just rough-housing, messing around as kids do when they’re 5-6.....He was serious when he told me he felt like I bullied him, and I felt absolutely fucking disgusted with myself, like sick to my stomach disgusted with myself, because in my mind I resent being put in the same category as my Aunt C or even being compared to her; because I always and will forever visualize/connect bullying with abuse (that and I personally hate the idea of people hurting other people; this all thank’s to my Aunt C).....funny how things came back full circle huh?......But anyways, when my cousin told me this, I apologized, and sincerely too....it was a serious moment between the two of us (because my voice started to crack with emotion, from tearing up in front of him), he accepted my apology and we never spoke of the incident again.

When I was explaining all of this to my Therapist, I didn’t even realizing i started to cry (like the silent, suffer in silence type of crying too); what really made me cry harder and struck a nerve was that she told me (after me telling her that I wished I would have known better as kid) was that it wasn’t my fault, that I shouldn’t be blaming 5-6 year old me for something that I wasn’t even mature enough to truly comprehend in regards to my actions and their respective consequences/repercussions.....I thought that I already made my peace with all of this in the past.....but to be honest, I think that really I needed to hear that from my Therapist.

We talked a lot about other moments in my life as well, like when I was 7 years old, my parents had left me with my godparents for like a week, and this was during Summer Vacation mind you (cause they didn't want me near my Aunt C anymore, and they were scrambling, looking for another place to live); I felt abandoned, like my parents abandoned me; my silly 7 year old self couldn’t emotionally comprehend what was happening, and didn't realize that it was only a mere short week( but in my mind at the time, it felt like months)....That was the first time I ever had a panic attack, the night my parents left me with my godparents (my godparents are and were good people mind you, I just wasn’t close or didn;t really know them all too well at the time).

We also talked about My High school Graduation, and how I noted that i felt depressed, sad, alone, and how I felt somewhat distant/abandoned by my friends (which I obviously blamed myself for); and how afterwards Grad-Night (they still do these nowadays right?) first kicked off my insomnia. -___-;

And the fact that one of the reasons why I feel so anxious is the fact that I’m afraid of encountering or spontaneously meeting up with some of my old teachers or high school friends, She asked me why I felt like this; and I said it was mostly because, I was mostly known as the straight A student, a teacher’s pets; and that these people had high hopes for me, hell I had high hopes for me; and that I’m afraid of feeling their disappointment, anger, rejection, of the the fact that I wasted my life after high-school, that and well.......that I’m also ashamed that I cut them all out of my life after I fell into a deep deep depression and had a mental/nervous breakdown (after my Mentor/Teacher/Friend passed away, and me shortly after failing all of my college classes, and dropping out of community college). Because if there is one thing I value above all else: it’s Loyalty and Friendship (I also told her that i’ve always had trouble keeping friendships in the past due to my trust issues, that stem mostly from my abusement from my Aunt C...cause if you can’t even trust family, how can i trust anyone else; but trust me, I fight against that anxiety-filled reflex as hard as i can, in order to still continue to strive and open-up/connect with people, especially those i consider and am honored to call: friend).

But the second thing that made me cry was the fact that My Therapist told me that she thinks that I’m a really strong person for willing to try to come to therapy in order to get better, and that I still had my whole life ahead of me (I’m 25 mind you, am a college dropout, doesn’t know how to drive, still live with my folks who deserve a better daughter than me, never even had a job before and am housebound, and all of this makes me feel like a goddamn failure), and that it wasn’t too late......hearing someone else besides my parents tell me this, solidified the possibility of there being some actual truth to what she was saying, that there was actually hope, and that was what made me cry, because of nigh possibility that there was still fucking hope for me.....well, that and that it might not be too late for me to reconnect with some of my old high-school friends from the past, even if it’s been 8 years too late (this one still scares the crap out of me mostly for fear of confronting them, their rejection and disappointment, facing their anger, etc).

....After a while, she told me that I placed waaay too many high expectations of myself (am too damn hard on myself) and she told me, that, that is my anxiety talking not, me.

And that she was glad to hear that I started putting in the effort of me trying to voluntarily going with my parents to the grocery store during the weekends (these past three weekends), as well as that fact that me and my mom have been trying to go to church, and take walks near our local library (you know the one with the duck pond).

Feeling sorta drained right now, gonna try to head to bed at 10:30 or 11 PM, in order to wake up early again (really need and want to kick my insomnia’s ass)....I’m sure there are loads of stuff I forgot to mention, or that I accidently skipped...If remember, I’ll probably do another one of these blog posts, and call it: “Therapy Session 2 Part 2″ or something like that. heh xP

- Lady Nevermore

#personal #therapy #therapy blog #session 2 #second day of therapy #i can't believe i actually cried #didnt think I was gonna cry this early on....#social anxiety #anxiety #depression

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boredom-kills-braincells · 7 years

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Present Tension

It's wild to me to constantly be reminded of how often we as human beings can just operate through life daily on a sort of autopilot, not really considering why it is we sometimes say what we say, do what we do, agree with what we agree with or rather pretend to in order to maybe keep things as even keeled and "safe" as possible. I dunno, man. I see it all. I really do observe everything and, while I am sincerely and fucking genuinely my worst enemy and harshest critic, I've done soul searching that could border on obsessive, simply from feeling so out of place around most everyone in the world, save for a few beautiful kindred spirits I meet along this journey. I've analyzed more and more as I've gotten older, and grown, and evolved, and lost, and failed, and learned, and made the same mistakes a million times, etcetera...point being the journey has shown me, and continues to show me, so much about myself and other people. Psychology and sociology are subjects I've studied deeply, philosophy just as much so, and all of it helps me to better understand human beings, which subsequently helps me in adhering to that old adage: "don't. sweat. the. small. stuff" Yet, simultaneously, the small things are everything. I've learned that there's just so much importance on where to put your energies, your focus. Some people seem to love to talk about what they hate more than what they love. Some motherfuckers for real just cannot get away from the bottomless pit that becomes judging everything and everyone, choosing to give power to the negative rather than indulging themselves and immersing their surrounding loved ones in light, in the things that are the very reason for struggling through and enduring the everyday mundane - the tragedies, the inescapable consequences of simply fucking existing here under the influences of all that we're subjected to. And there are so many reasons as to why - there's so much we just can't escape. We aren't given options as to what we're born into, yet there is so much power to be found in ones self, and with such there's the potential to either create or destroy, to build or to deconstruct. Both play equally important roles. I myself just can't get with anyone who chooses to carry themselves solely as a vessel for hate or just shit vibes in general, and I am admittedly someone who is a whirlwind of fucking emotions and moods, unstably so in some cases. Let me just be all the way real about the shit. I am extremes of so many things. What I am is not easily defined. What I am is simplistic yet infinitely complicated, and these words I'm choosing in an attempt to describe myself are not my own. A close friend literally told me once that she took a legit ten minutes pondering on whether or not I was an alien. A recent girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend) once said that my energy is that of both a king and a queen. I feel like all of those things, interestingly enough, and always have. I am a heterosexual mixed race male residing on the west coast of a country run by systems designed to keep me and my people (of all colors, mind you, but specifically speaking my oppressed and underrepresented kinfolk - all my women too, particularly women of color) blind, dumb, silent and ignorant, and yet still I'm in love and lust with living. I've been spit on and walked over, I've been kept down and discouraged by strangers/friends/relatives/classmates/teachers/co-workers and employers alike, often times when they weren't even aware of what they were doing (subliminal brainwashing is real, get woke). It took me years to have enough love for myself to acknowledge and thus stand and educate against it, but it took love for humanity despite its flaws to truly understand where it comes from. Even people I know and associate with now, people I love and cherish...even they can be jaded by what's forced upon us due to the ills of Western society. I feel even they count me out and think me unintelligent or unperceptive. Really tho, I let people do their shit. I'm not someone who always needs to throw their dick around just to prove I have one. I'm not the one who always feels their opinion is forever necessary and relevant and shoves it up everyone's cunt, believing their own bullshit is fact, discrediting other people's feelings, beliefs and passions in the process. I see the shit everyday, everywhere. I feel everything, all the time. I feel from you what you're feeling when you can't determine whether it's real or it isn't yet. I don't know everything and I barely survive myself most days but goddammit if I don't have human beings nailed to a T most times, most especially and always when they're on the fakery tip. I've grown to give less of a fuck, even with my compassion in tact, about who feels it to be smug when I say these things. We all know what we know, and I'm not one to speak aloud about all the shit I have inside or how I think I'm this that and the third, whatever the fuck. In fact it's one of my least favorite traits in people: the need to ALWAYS HAVE A FUCKING SAY. I have opinions on hella topics, shit some people never even hear me talk about though I am interested in them. It isn't always necessary to spit your two cents, especially if it's negative shit talk just to be "that guy", like it's cute. I'm the type you could spend two years around almost everyday and unless you actually care enough to listen and give a shit about the people you surround yourself with, you'll still be finding things that are engrained in me, things I could show you, teach you that would surprise the piss out of you most likely. I play most shit close to the chest,so I'm aware I also play a vital role in their obliviousness to the depths of my intelligence and character in some cases, but more so I'm at an ends with those who are just too busy incessantly talking about themselves most the time to hear much else, or even take half a second to acknowledge you when you walk into a room and speak to them. How self important do you have to be to feel you just acknowledge the people you say you love whenever you feel like it, sometimes not even at all, until you decide you want their attention solely to serve your own interests? I see it for what it is, trust and believe. However it is a perfect example of opportunities to exercise patience and understanding. I just can't connect to that mentality. Really, I'm just more clear in recent years. I'm aware of who I am and very honest about what I need to achieve in order to grow and evolve. I'm open to being wrong, but it's always interesting to me how often people assume. What if we could all just search ourselves more and stop wasting time on platitudes and bullshit? What if we could say what we really mean and what we really feel, without being shitty or disrespectful to each other and free of predetermined judgements? What if heads could just get over themselves and get what they really need to be content as to keep from feeling the need to dictate how other people live? Some people really out here thinking I'm just another one dimensional nigga not taking in everything and every move, noticing every step and all the while honestly just cooling because I want everyone to grow and do their thing if it means peace and love. People love to think they got you pegged. The underdog always surprises niggas and comes up though. Every. Damn. Time. I ride and die for every single person in my circle and big up their strengths as often as possible, because I choose to use my powers for good. If I had less restraint and fuckin let the devil out, swear to fuck man people wouldn't know what to do. I'm about knowledge, respect and love vibes universally, period. Please miss me with any of the immature, self-righteous, prideful, arrogant, selfish, jealous, petty ass fuckery. L.A. kids just wanna live. Take care of your people, do you and shut the fuck up. I'm just out here doing the same trying to not to let my own shadows overtake me and have me waking around toxic as fuck. I've been studying and learning daily since I took my first breath on this earth, and I've come to peace with the fact that that one time my best friend in 9th grade described me as a "closed book" to his girlfriend, though it low key broke my heart - it became the catalyst for a wealth self discovery. And the beginning of a battle I feel may last forever. For as much love as I have and give out, there's so much to sift through. Sometimes, so much never even gets a chance to escape the fucked up confines of my own self doubt and insecurities. It's been that way for as long as I can remember. Through it all though, I feel I've finally begun to believe I'm worth shit, and trusting in the ones who've been hella good to me (many times when I was a complete shithead even and absolutely didn't deserve such grace) and have shown me such patience, kindness, acceptance, love and compassion. The ones who've taught me how to be the best version of me through being such incredible fucking creatures themselves. I owe all the goodness I have to the unconditional goodness of others, and that fact alone reminds me of why it's so important to be that person. To put the good ones first, educate the jaded, know when to let go and when to push forward and how to just fucking be open, present and aware, doing all with some semblance of goddamn meaning and passion and love in your heart. Forever shouting out the realest who've selflessly shown me the way as to never succumb to how fucking bitter so many people become as they carry on through this life. There's too much dope shit to experience. There are always more people to help, more to learn, so much more to create.

#here #now #present tense

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 3 years

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13 Keys to the White House

I hate politics with a burning passion. The whole subject just makes me depressed and stressed, but like a moth to the flame I find myself unable to escape it. My politics posts were topical and relatively popular during the lead up to the 2020 election, but things have quieted down considerably a we adjust to the new normal under a sane but useless president. For this reason, I've decided that the best way to spend my time is to try and make prediction about 2024, because it makes me feel like I have some semblance of control over my life when in reality these things are well out of my hands.

Allan Lichtman is a political analyst who has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984, and working backwards his method correctly accounts for every election since 1860; with the only hiccup being 2000 when he predicted Al Gore would win (by all rights he did; he won the popular vote and he would have won the Florida recount if George W. Bush's brother hadn't illegally stopped it and delayed it until it was too late to restart).

Lichtman gives 13 yes or no statements to assess the performance of the incumbent party over the last four years, and has determined that if eight or more are true then the incumbent party wins another term. If six or more are false, the challenging party wins instead. From Wikipedia they are:

Midterm gains: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.

No primary contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.

Incumbent seeking re-election: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

No third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

Strong short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

Strong long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

Major policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

No social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

No scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

No foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Major foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Charismatic incumbent: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Uncharismatic challenger: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

In 2020 the chips fell thusly:

False: the Democrats won more seat in 2018 than the Republicans in 2014

True: Trump was the only Republican candidate, and in fact many states canceled their primaries to give it to him

True: Trump was running for another term

True: the libertarians and the greens didn't get nearly as much air time as they did in 2016

False: Covid recession

False: Trump dug a hole so deep it'll take us years to crawl our way back out of it

True: McConnell's court packing scheme, 3 justices, America First foreign policy, sucking up to dictators, alienating our allies

False: George Floyd protests

False: too many to name

True: not failing doesn't necessarily mean succeeding

False: case in point, he didn't accomplish any of his goals like ending the war in Afghanistan or disarming North Korea

False: although his base worships him as the second coming of Christ, they only make up 40% of the country, and the other 60% HATES him

True: Biden is a boring old man that both right-wingers hate and progressive leftists hate. Only moderates and centrists really like him

That's 6 true and 7 false. Trump needed 8 true to win, so Lichtman called it for Biden in summer. While we can make some assumptions about the future, we can't predict everything, so there will be a lot of unknowns that prevent us from drawing solid conclusions. I'll update this post as time goes on; we should have a fairly solid picture by early 2023 after the midterms.

Almost certainly false: the Democrats are hanging on by a thread as is, and 2022 will see dozens of competitive House seats redrawn by Republican to give themselves an advantage going forward. I'm pretty sure the Republicans will take back the House, but even if they don't there's no way the Democrats will manage to hang onto as many seats in 2022 as they won in 2018 (235)

Probably true: to hear Biden tell it, he's a spring chicken at the top of his game and wholeheartedly intends to run for re-election in 2024. I give it 50/50 odds that he bows out due to declining health and gives it to Kamala Harris, but either way they have the nomination in the bag. Nobody is going to challenge Biden, and nobody serious will challenge Harris.

Unknown: see above

Unknown: this one is leaning towards true, but it's too soon to tell. We think of third-party candidates as being fringe, but they played major roles in 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2016. I don't expect the networks to give as much airtime to the libertarians and the greens as they did in 2016, but then again all the media outlets made off like bandits during the Trump years. Love him or hate him, he made them a shit load of money, and helping a third-party campaign will ensure another candidate like Trump gets elected

Probably true: it'll be hard for Biden to fuck things up more than they are now. I don't think we'll see ANOTHER recession in less than 4 years, but then again we thought the Great Recession of 2008 would be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Absolutely true: Obama's second term was prosperous, Trump's term put us deep in the red, so they average out to neutral; as long as Biden can do better than literally nothing, he has this one in the bag.

I don't think so: 2021 was the Democrats' best chance at changing things, but they fumbled like we all expected them to. They have majroties in both houses of Congress and could conceivably railroad through any legislation they want, as Trump did in his first 2 years, but no, they want to play fair, they want to be bipartisan. They extend an olive branch when the other side wouldn't piss on them to put them out if they were on fire. None of Biden's campaign promises will get done.

Probably true: I don't think things can get worse than 2020. Biden is, if nothing else, inoffensive. Republicans are trying to make him out as this socialist boogeyman, but nothing really sticks because he is nearly economically identical to Trump (both party establishments are economically neoliberal). If we were going to go to war, it would have been last year. I don't think there's anything Biden can do to screw things up that badly.

Probably: like I said, Biden is boring, which means he's not take any risks. I think even he has sense enough to realize that the entire country is watching him with a magnifying glass, waiting for him to make any mistake. He's playing it as safe as possible with relative transparency, so I don't see him doing anything shadier than any other president. If the Republicans take back the House they might impeach him as revenge for Trump, but he'll be acquitted and public opinion will probably be on his side.

Unknown: Democrats love to fumble, so this one's up in the air

Unknown: pulling out of Afghanistan might be a success, but the Taliban will just retake control once we're gone and it'll be back to square one. It'll be this generation's Vietnam; a 20 year long waste of time that we ended up losing. I'm still not convicned the withdrawal will even go through.

False: Lichtman didn't call Biden charismatic in 2020, I know for a fact he won't suddenly become MORE popular by 2024. Hes boring. If he didn't run and gave it to Kamala Harris I still don't see this flipping true. She has more energy, sure, but she's disingenuous at best and a two-faced enemy of the revolution at worst. She's a cop.

True: calling it now, nobody the Republicans choose will have national appeal. Lichtman noted that these last two keys are incredibly subjective, but you know it when you see it. For his definition of charisma he cites presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama (2008 Obama, not 2012 Obama; the novelty wore off real quick and we realized he was the Republicans' doormat and a war criminal). If Trump tries for a second term, he'll be even less popular then than he is now, and none of his underlings inspire as much confidence in the party. Ron DeSantis, my state's governor, appears to be the front runner of non-Trumps, but he's so dumb he makes that whole family look like a Rhodes Scholars. America is so divided that I don't think there will ever be another super charismatic candidate with bipartisan appeal.

That's 3 false, 4 unknown, and 6 true. Biden needs 8 true to win a second term, but he has plenty of unknown keys which would turn in his favor. Even Trump avoided a major foreign policy failure, so I'm sure Biden can cinch that key, bringing him up to 7. That and the third-party key seem the most likely to flip true, meaning Biden will probably win, though I could very well see this becoming a repeat of 2000 and 2016 where he wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college. In that case, I expect civil unrest going into whatever Republican's term, verging on total civil war.

One-term wonders are exceedingly rare. Trump was a historically weak candidate who only won because of low voter turnout in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. He saw an Alabama senate seat flip blue, as well as all four seats in Arizona and Georgia, he lost the house and the senate in quick succession, and was impeached twice. He was a loser through and through, and I don't think he'll be coming back.

At least I certainly hope so.

#politics #2024 #prediction #election

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theinternethasyounow · 5 years

Text

DOING THE RIGHT THING

Preface: This is the first entry in a series that I’ve decided to cultivate, while working on a larger scale writing project. Each article and/or chapter will tackle a new topic regarding aspects involving or relative to how we as humans decide to live our lives and how we can do that better.

In Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing we get to explore NYC during the rough and still racially charged reality of the late 80’s. What essentially begins as a triggered and troubled relationship between African American and Italian American New Yorkers, ends up shedding light on the racial tensions, lack of communication and awareness, as well as the reality that reality’s truths will only acknowledged, once violence has plagued a community. Spike Lee is able to show us humanity’s flaws and racial tensions through our main character Mookie (Spike Lee), his relationships with his girlfriend, sister, friends around town, all within the very local setting of a Bed-Stuy pizzeria owned by Sal (Danny Aiello), who happens to be Mookie’s boss. The crux of controversy comes from a disagreement in regards to Sal’s celebrity Wall of Fame, which predominantly and solely showcases famous actors of Italian American heritage. Giancarlo Esposito’s character Buggin’ Out wants to know why Sal’s wall doesn’t showcase any famous actors of African American heritage, only for Sal to respond that it’s his business and he can do what he pleases with the Wall of Fame. A takeover of the pizzeria and Wall of Fame occur, a mini riot breaks out, there’s a clash between the various race groups, which ends up including the mob, a member of society, Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), is killed by a police officer by way of chokehold, and in the end the two leads end up reconciling in the aftermath of a community breakdown. Lee’s points seem to highlight where society was and in some ways still are even in 2019, but ultimately how all of this could’ve been avoided by doing the right thing in the first place. The right thing of course being that our characters should’ve been treating each other differently from the get go. Differently in a such a way where there was understanding and respect, regardless of differences that certain characters may have hid behind due to lack of awareness. Doing the right thing would’ve been simply being decent to one another and just getting on with each person’s daily journey, instead of laying into fears, differences, and thinking that specific races of people are the reasons for ever changing societies. To be clear race doesn’t control a society’s reason for positive or negative changes, but in fact those who are at the top of the socio-economic power struggle are the ones in ultimate control over the situation, but let’s save that for a future discussion shall we.

When it comes to living a decent life, there are several bastions that are best to uphold. Think of the foundations in which your moral compass is built upon as a castle, a thick wall, or any other sturdy metaphor. Now, during a battle is it realistic or even possible to maintain every one of the castle’s walls at once, probably not, but people still tried. Is it realistic to think that plugging up holes in a damn one after another, like something out of a cartoon, will ultimately prevent water from leaking through, most definitely not. Can you be the best at everything, hell the fuck no, but you sure can try and end up giving it your damn all whilst doing so. The effort becomes genuine, sincere, even meaningful, and that’s what people notice and remember in the long run of it all. You are in for the long run, aren’t you? Within this worded journey I’m going to touch upon a few staples of life, hard hitting points, and hopefully easily memorable every day actions that can bring you towards living your best life and even being the best possible person, but no freaking pressure. The key point right now that will get us started off, which I will most likely harp back on in following chapters of this new and fun series, is that it’s important to do the right thing. Be the individual to go out of their way when others are taking the easy way out, because in the end doing what’s right really and truly matters. So what’s a better way to start talking about doing the right thing than treating those around you with the utmost kindness, even if they don’t deserve it, and if they don’t then really fucking slay them with it till they’re sick.

Treating Others Well, Well Duh!

Acting with kindness to those around you, whether you know them or not, whether you like them or not, should be everyone’s modus operandi. It’s ultimately following the saying, “treat people the way you’d want to be treated”, regardless of differences or initial impressions, because remember when it comes down to it we’re all made up of the same things, space stuff, and space stuff is pretty out of this world am I right or what? I hope you enjoy puns, so buckle that seatbelt up, and remember safety third, because this journey will be chock full of them. There will be so many dad jokes and puns that you’ll be choking on them after a while, but please just don’t choke and die whatever you do. I don’t need an obscure lawsuit coming out of a piece of writing that’s meant to be geared towards helping people. Speaking of killing, kindness kills, it really does, and we all know the power that being kind carries over attacking with blind fit of negativity as easy as that may be for most. There are tons of expressions about it, such as catching more flies with honey than with vinegar, take the high road even if they go low, or last but not least, which is the most on the nose one, kill them with kindness. Your emotions and reactions will want you to stoop down to their level when they go low and get dirty, but don’t let yourself get to that point. Arm yourself with that kindness grenade launcher, take aim down the sights, and blow them up with a rainbow and glitter filled kindness blast, so they’ll end up hating you more, but more so you’ll end up leaving the situation feeling just fine and dandy. Too many people let their emotions end up driving them in a majority of the situations in which they find themselves and of course there’s a time and place where that can and should be allowed, but it’s not ideal or healthy to have every situation be driven by how you feel. Emotions are a drug of sorts, where you may or may not let your true self or actual thoughts come out, but it could all very well end up being what your true thoughts are in the then and there, not after having thought out and discussed with yourself what you’re really feeling. Reacting with kindness is not only the best way to handle a situation, which will prevent you from stooping to a lower level of living as previously mentioned, but also to really punch back with the point that you’re not only not going to let anyone get to you, but that you are in fact a genuinely decent human being. There have been tons of times in my life where I’ve should’ve crushed someone under the defeat of being kind, but I didn’t. Why you must be wondering, well because I was young, dumb, and blinded by a flurry of emotions. Reacting without thinking seemed like the only way to handle the situation at the time when you’re square in it and it’s staring you straight in the punim. It wasn’t until I started becoming a bit more of a goddamn adult, that I realize that 1) wasting emotions can be avoided, and 2) you can always handle a situation better, always. Think of those closest to you, or even all of your favorite celebrities/musicians/athletes who might not have handled themselves in the best of light during an incident in the spotlight. Regardless of how good acting a certain way might feel when you’re in the heat of the moment and shit’s going doing, first, why don’t you take a step back and think how does that end up looking from an outsider’s perspective? Within the past year or two I can name a few very memorable instances of notable figures not necessarily handling themselves at their best. Antonio Brown just recently had some drama involving “finding out” he was getting released from the Oakland Raiders. You’re probably wondering about the bunny ears, well there was a video, because nowadays there’s always a video. What happened was that basically the video showed Brown finding out he was just released and he started running around cheering and saying that he was free. Was it genuine? Perhaps. Staged? Most likely, but either way he ended up making a very public expression of how he felt about his time with the Raiders. That’s like telling your boss to go fuck themselves on the way out the door of a job that you’ve been dying to leave behind. Sure as shit that probably felt great, and seemed like a cool idea at the time, but was it the smartest move? Fuck no. In Brown’s case he was already in the process of getting picked up by the New England Patriots, so there’s that job security, but who’s to say that if something a little more unfriendly went down, such as the boss situation example I had given, that he wouldn’t have been shut down by a number of teams for showing off his unsportsmanlike conduct. Look the point isn’t to point a finger at Antonio Brown, he’s just an example, because when I was writing this, the news about him had just broke. I could rattle off about Brett Kavanaugh, Kayne, Sean Spicer, Serena Williams, or even the goddamn POS President of the United, Donald Trump for fuck sake. It doesn’t matter who the subject matter is, but what matters is how they could’ve handled themselves and just as importantly what steps they’d take after the fact to either rectify or hinder the situation. Years ago when I was in the process of leaving the HVAC industry I had taken a 12.1% pay cut, because I managed not to achieve two certifications by a certain deadline. That deadline was only two months out from when I was supposed to leave the company anyway, but very few people had that knowledge at the time. I really didn’t want to be in the field anymore and had even already applied for a coding bootcamp through the now defunct Dev Bootcamp, which I was already participating in through the online portion of the bootcamp, while the in person portion was only a couple of months away. The pay cut was the blow to my emotional gut and solidified any and all musings in regards to how I felt about being at that company and industry. I was pissed the fuck off, but I knew it really didn’t matter how I wanted to react, what mattered how I should react. There were times where I wanted something to go down so I could unleash all of the pent of frustration, but no matter the trials in those short months, nothing ever came of it. On my last day I said goodbye to some of my friends who I still maintain relationships with and left the building on good terms with the CEO after an hour long conversation. I was relieved to be done with that part of my life, but I will always be slightly hung up on that pay cut. Did I let it make me leave a black stain on my professionalism in the industry, absolutely not, because who’s to say that my former boss couldn’t end up wanting to blacklist me within the industry. Sure that’s a dick move, but I guess sometimes you can play dick move for dick move. It’s definitely something to keep in mind that your actions have impactful, lasting, and potential serious implications. I’ll touch way more upon that in coming paragraphs, but for now let’s get back to being the best person by treating others well.

Besides being a kind person, not letting yourself judge others like judging a books by their covers is just as essential. When you judge someone while only having an initial glimpse into their life you might be cutting yourself off from the possibility of a new and fruitful connection. That could end up creating a negative association in regards to how people may view you, which in turn could just cause a back and forth of a bunch of people judging each other, thinking they know what someone else is all about when in reality everyone just ends up knowing nothing. Just think about it, how many times have you let yourself judge somebody you didn’t know at all simply based on either how they looked, acted, spoke, etc. We all try to adjust, adapt, and handle ourselves differently when something we don’t yet understand comes into our lives, that’s exactly what happens when and why you’re judging somebody. If there’s a language barrier, you might speak louder thinking that’ll solve the problem. If someone is dressed oddly or is not the best with people, then you might cast them out while making fun of them, just so you can feel better about yourself. Sure there are plenty of times where someone is just giving off that wrong vibe and judge them, because your instincts are probably on point, but most of the time that’s not the case. You have to give people a chance to prove themselves, before you throw them into a box for your own benefit. It’s something that children are amazing at, since kids couldn’t give a flying fuck what makes you not fit in, since all they care about is if you’re nice to them. That’s why there’s that unconditional love, understanding without knowing what’s out there in the world, and it’s absolutely incredible how untainted something like that can end up being. It’s definitely harder these days for people to not judge one another, since the influx and popularity of social media, which I’ll dive into later, but in the meantime there’s always the small steps and breakthroughs that can be achieved and that starts with you.

To keep the YOU train rolling, make sure to spread decency and courtesy like it’s the common cold. Being courteous leaves a lasting impact in regards to how people view you, plus when it becomes your norm you’ll actually take great pleasure from just acting like a decent human being. You may have noticed it already, but it’s important how people view you, because that lasting impression spreads, it sticks with you, and can take you either in the best or the worst of directions, but let’s stick with how contagious courtesy can be. Being courteous is easier than you think, but just taking the first steps in regards to how to go about that may be the most difficult thing for most people. The idea of learning to be courteous may sound odd, but for those who weren’t fortunate enough of being raised in such an environment, then it becomes something you do need to learn. As I may have previously mentioned, it’s easier to react to someone with negativity, because it’s a defense mechanism, but killing with kindness or engaging in communication to create a chance for understanding is the more rewarding and righteous path. Engaging people with the utmost respect goes hand in hand with being courteous, but you can obviously have one without the other. You can be courteous without having respect for someone, it’s called keeping your poker face on high or on fleek like the young kids are saying these days (total fucking joke), but you can also have respect for someone without being courteous, and that’s just a result of not being raised a certain way as previously mentioned. It ultimately harps back to treating others how you’d want to be treated, because when you think about your everyday micro interactions don’t the small things end up peeving you out the most. Really think about it though, since there can be plenty of examples of these annoyances, such as someone not using manners, not holding the door, cutting in line at an event, etc. I can rattle off the long list and you know it’s annoying, because you’ll probably start to feel irked while reading it, especially if there are a bunch of things such as that starting to pile up on you like that, so begin to imagine what that’d be like in your day to day. Obviously being both respectful and courteous will get your further along than not, but both have to be learned, understood, and really utilized to be appreciated. So what do you do to learn these skills, well we live in a sort of new day technological age of enlightenment, in the sense where anything you might want to learn is easily accessible whether it’s online or in person. However, you can read all the books in the world, scramble through articles online about etiquette, but ultimately the best way to learn is through human interaction. Find yourself some friends who are also trying to be better people, learning and striving to be their best selves and latch onto them. If you have people to grow with it’ll make your adventure all the more fun. If you’re like me then you adapt to the company you decide to keep. I find that I might act a certain way around one group compared to another, which can be a double-sided blade. While it makes you fit it instantly, it can sometimes bring on a somewhat negative look, especially if your new desired cohorts aren’t the best of folk. No one’s perfect, I’m sure as shit ain’t, but the coming to the realization when something is hindering you rather than helping is definitely the first step towards reaching towards perfection. Perfection is a lie, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep striving for it. I surround myself with friends who’ve may or may not attended better schools that me, or have higher paying jobs, or more success in life, but the common theme seems to be that they know how to treat each other in a respectful, courteous, and down right beyond decent way. The fun fact is that not a single one of them is perfect either, but they all learn from the next in order to improve the ways in which they are flawed eventually becoming the best of us all, becoming a super hero of sorts.

Become the superhero you’ve always wanted to be by taking in all of the positive advice from those around you have instilled in you over time. Don Cheadle said the following about being a super hero during an Avengers: Endgame red carpet interview that speaks pretty highly to my point:

“Wow, I think, you know, teamwork, I think, you know, sacrifice, putting others before yourself. All those things that we were told to do and that our parents tell us to do when we’re young, you know”. — Don Cheadle

It’s a solid quote, and it’s definitely a major part of what makes any person a hero, super powers or not. Even Dr. Erskine from Captain America: The First Avenger says the following to Steve Rogers,

“Whatever happens tomorrow you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.” — Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine

This is an important ideal to remember, because while you can always dress the part, it really comes down to what you can do and in the end what you are standing for. I know me telling you to be a superhero might come off as a silly idea, but I’m not telling you to dress up like Batman and jump from rooftop to rooftop crushing bad guys and I think you know that, because if you’re smarter to pick up this book or click this article, then well you’re more than capable. Your super heroic actions don’t have to be grandiose either, they just have to matter and make a positive impact. Think of small moments where you might’ve changed someone’s life for the better, because you were being a more than decent person. Have you ever let someone go ahead of you on line at the supermarket, because they only had one item and were in an obvious rush. Perhaps you helped someone cross the street where there was only a stop sign, because you could tell that if someone didn’t help out, then they might’ve never made it across due to the vehicle traffic. Maybe you let a friend or family member vent about something going on in their life without providing a solution, because you realized that person didn’t need you to fix their problem, but simply just needed you. Those are all heroic moments that stick with people and can leave a lasting mark that perhaps they’ll pay forward to someone else one day. Every way you interact with someone has a resulting response and it brings us to cause and effect.

Cause and Effect

“For every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction” — Isaac Newton

Every cause has a resulting effect and understanding how your actions affect others will impact how you decide to act in the first place, that’s if you’re willing to think before you act It’s important to first state that even if you think the world revolves around you, that in fact it’ll never be the YOU-SHOW no matter how much you’d like to think that. In turn, realizing that something you might do, say, or what have you, will always affect someone else, whether it’s positive or negative experience already sets you apart from a great number of people out there in the world. One of the greatest things I’ve noticed now having lived in two major cities, NYC and Los Angeles, is how stark of a contrast there can be. While NYC gets a bad reputation of everyone thinking they’re the best, and that New Yorkers are rude, and so on, it’s simply not true. Well, actually we are some of the best people in the world, but we’re not rude for the most part and that’s because we all share a common respect and understanding that whatever we may do might end up affecting someone else. Some people obviously either decide to use that power of knowledge in a great and helpful way or a completely destructive one. Everyone in NYC has something going on, so when New Yorkers seem rude or that they are in a rush it’s usually just the latter. I’ve been stopped for directions or have seen others stopped and even the busiest of people will snap out of whatever they have going on to help out someone else. We come together as a community when someone needs something, especially if something crazy is going down on one of the many Subways, I’m looking at you E train shenanigans. Los Angeles on the other hand, which is where I’m currently living, seems to be a bit different, or in fact quite the contrary in some ways. I do believe that Los Angeles shares some of the best qualities with NYC in regards to a sense of community passion, but I can’t help but feel that a majority of the people here are living in their own larger than life bubble. Drivers seem to be in their own blinker-less world, there seems to be a powerful sense of speaking about doing the right thing rather than actually doing it, and it sometimes seems to be the home of the most narcissistic people ever. Perhaps that last part has to do with being the TV/Film capital of the country, but it just always feels like people pick and choose their friends based on necessity and face value. I hate to hate or be the one to throw shade, but I just needed to point this out. No one city is perfect, similarly to how people aren’t perfect, and in the end nothing is perfect, which you’ve probably gotten sick of me saying already. What I’m getting at with the city comparison, to bring it all back is that, yup you’ve guessed it, actions tell a story, so the consideration of one city to handle itself in away which acknowledges the effect compared to another is quite poignant. Of course the positive experiences will end up bringing you praise and positive reinforcement, while the negative ones might come back to bite you in the end. Karma can be either real power or a construct created by and for people to believe that their actions have a weight associated with them. NBC’s The Good Place is the best and easiest way to process some of the most complicated and convoluted of life’s philosophies. It manages to get it right by educating you with all the philosophical source material, while telling you that it’s really up to you in the end to do what you please with your knowledge, but that there’s no right answer on how to live a perfect life. It’s a great fucking show in that sense, plus the odd and obscure food references are out the wazoo and it has freaking Kristen Bell and Ted Danson in it. If you get a chance or need something new definitely be sure to check out the incredible shows by Michael Schur, who’s also worked on great comedic masterpieces such as The Office (US) and Parks and Recreation. In any event, my point in regards to bringing up The Good Place is that it takes something completely complicated and nearly impossible to process in one sitting and breaks it down into smaller more manageable and digestible chunks.

The best way to go about any situation, especially one that might feel foreign at first is to break it down into steps, just like how I started writing all of this. I had an idea, it was complicated, and I didn’t know how to start. So I created an outline and over time that outline grew, sections and one liners were turned into paragraphs. New ideas and sections would be added, while others fleshed out. As I got to a certain point where it seemed like I had a lot of content I had to switch tactics again, because I had come to another scary and new juncture. How could I possibly keep track of all this shit. I had never written this much in my life, let alone attempted or even thought about writing a book. So, I took an idea from Mark Mason, who’s the well known author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck and the newly released Everything is Fucked. The idea suggested was also brought up by a new friend I had made on my most recent trip to Las Vegas. She had suggested that I should start blogging, which even my good friend Jaclyn Aubel had done for her own benefitting of keep tracking of ideas. The idea if you haven’t guessed it was to start a blog in order to break down the larger ideas in to smaller more processable ones, which could benefit me in a number of ways. I would then be able to tackle my grander picture idea by idea, but also this would begin to create a log of each of my ideas, essentially sectioning out my chapters. The process was my new way to process information and processing information before reacting is one of the most important things you can do, but I’ll let you keep reading so we can dive deeper into all of hat.

Processing information and questioning everything can be two of your best allies. The more you know, the more you end up breaking down into smaller bits of info, all ends up allowing you to be able to process and even for you to gain a solid understanding of what you might be dealing with. Having the facts lets you be in control, with the possibility of informing others, and can give you that power might be the best of choices in varying situations. Asking all the right questions, the Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How’s not only puts you at an advantage, but gets you thinking, before jumping into a situation that you might regret. Think of all the times you might’ve jumped into a situation too quickly, by just wanting to react thinking that was the best course of action. Sometimes it is, when you’re trying to save a life and your instincts kick in, well shit sure that’s great, but it’s still risky, because you obviously don’t know the bigger picture. A good Samaritan going to save a life could end up getting sued for injury the person they were trying to save, because the samaritan wasn’t certified to perform any sort of aide. So while the “right” thing was done, it ended up being the wrong course of action. In that situation would’ve been to alert the police and emergency services and then if necessary try to get consent from someone if that’s a viable option. Sometimes the best action is no action, until all the pieces of the puzzle are flipped over, organized, and then put together. Once you’ve asked the right questions, you’ve set course on the first leg of your information processing journey, but of course there will be obstacles that might get in your way, that might end up causing you to want to react emotionally.

Avoiding unnecessary emotional reactions not only can save a situation, but can save yourself from stress and possible contextual fallout. There have been times where I was stressed at work or with friends and I’d hit a boiling point either due to frustration and/or confusion and I’d end up snapping at someone. That ends up sucking, because whoever is on the other side definitely, usually, doesn’t deserve it. Just imagine being in their shoes and getting ripped on, because you’re in the blast radius of someone’s mental explosion. There are plenty of articles and examples of this, where emotional reactions in situations where emotions can be avoided end up only causing, but more stress and emotions. There have been times at work, and all of you can probably relate to this, where a coworker of yours might’ve gotten on your nerves. Sometimes it’s because they’re annoying or perhaps incompetent, but if you really think about it, it’s most likely more on you than you think. I’ve had times where I found someone I work with to be a real pain in the ass; asking the same questions over again, making me have to repeat myself, speaking without listening, and I’d just get frustrated, but there were also times where I’d be a bit on edge and bite their heads off as well. Not necessarily because they deserve it, but because I may have already been dealing with something else and the aforementioned agitators could’ve been my reason to react to them, also because they’d be the closest in proximity to my blast radius. This reaction became tiring, stressful, and made me not only feel like an asshole, but seem like an asshole. I decided to take a step back and think about what that was like to deal with on the receiving end, while also thinking about why maybe they were asking so many questions, or trying to reach out for help, and it was exactly that, they needed help and as their coworker they looked to me as someone they should be able to trust and rely on. It made me feel even more like a dick, since I was getting mad at someone for no real justifiable reason. I changed the way I reacted, I striped all emotion from the situation even if tensions were high, because whatever might’ve been bad for me was probably worse for my coworker. I put myself in their shoes, realized that cohesion and understanding makes for a better, faster, and stronger work environment, while also allowing it to be a lot more friendly. The other day my coworker and I helped out our boss with some small project for upper management and acted as their sounding board. It was a struggle we all worked through together and it ended up paying off. I may have not had all the answers, but sometimes you don’t have to, because what matters is that you’re at the very least there for the other person. That’s like being the good friend that just listens as your bestie vents it out. They don’t need your solutions, sure those might help sometimes, but for the most part they just want your ear. These experiences and epiphanies also made me come to terms that I’m not the perfect employee nor the perfect person, that I’m not omniscient or omnipotent, and that the only way I could be anywhere close to perfect is if I built up those around me to better as well. I took the number one rule from my Upright Citizens Brigade 101 class, which is “Yes, And!”, and applied it to a part of my life. I’ll be sure to go into more detail about “Yes, And!” later on, but my favorite thing from one of my classes was that there was some hot shot actor who definitely wanted to shine, while owning the spotlight. What’s funny is that in improv doing just that is not funny at all. You’re team is only as good as its weakest player, so if you have one person running the ME show, throwing around a bunch of “No, Ands!”, then they’ll firstly look like a dick, and everything else in the bits won’t work at all. In short, if you want to be the funniest at improv, “Yes, And!” the fuck out of everyone to make them all funnier. You’ll be praised as the person who sets up, not sacrifices, but builds up everyone else instead of stealing the show. When I started doing this at work I felt just as good as the greatest improv player, because I wanted to make my teammates better, have them shine, because I’m nothing without them and they’re nothing without me. If you’re set on being alone to get to the top it’ll not only be a lonely climb, but also a rigorous and most likely disastrous one. Finally, holding onto emotions, unleashing them on people who don’t deserve them, and trying to run solo is essentially the kickstarter of an endless cycle for a mental, emotional, and physical energy suck and we all know that it sucks to get caught in that kind of timeless suck.

Continuing with the theme of processing information and avoiding unnecessary emotional reactions is the simple idea of thinking before you speak. No one likes the person that speaks for the sake of filling the silence or to just hear themselves talk. So, the next time you find yourself in a situation where someone or even perhaps you’re the one gabbing along about nothing, maybe stop to take a beat, think to yourself, and reshift your place in the conversation. Sometimes breaking the narrative and conversation for the greater good (The Greater Good), ends up working in your favor in the long run, because while it can be all good and necessary when someone else calls out someone’s bullshit for talking too much, it’s even better when that person calls themselves out and can even become a bit fun and usually laughable. There’s a favorite quote of mine that has powerful implications for the rewards of listening and thinking, while others waste time and effort speaking, and it goes a little something like this,

“Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watches. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest… he strikes. — Anonymous”

Within the bounds of communication, listening is far more important than speaking. How do you even come back with something meaningful to say if you’re not listening to what else is being spoken. True listening and not just hearing people speak allows you both access and understanding of information, which you can then, that’s right you guessed it, process. It’s important to note that when I’m talking about listening and speaking I’m talking about much more than the physicality of the two acts. People can communicate without their voices and without their ears and we all hopefully know that. Physical cues, sign language, symbols (emojis), and yes even silence, are all perfect examples of how you can get your point across to another person without having to open your mouth or clear the wax out of your ears. Personally, I prefer staying quiet for most group conversations or even sometimes 1-on-1 interactions, not because I might not have anything to say, but for the sake of gaining insight into other’s perspectives thus arming myself with knowledge to further the communication. I’d only chime in if I felt that whatever I needed to contribute was worth the contribution otherwise it’s a waste of words. This lyric from the Talking Heads song Psycho Killer perfectly sums up my feelings about people in conversations and communication really works.

“You start a conversation you can’t even finish it. You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything. When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed. Say something once, why say it again?” — Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)

It’s a great freaking lyric right? This line just sticks in your head, because there’s so much truth to it to the point where everyone can probably relate to being on both sides of the situation. I’ve talked too much or wanted to be the center of attention, but then sometimes people need that. It gives you your fill, you can end up seeming like a dick, but then maybe you’ll realize that and call yourself out. Some people are like that 100% of the time and that can only work when they’re around other people like themselves, otherwise it gets to be annoying as fuck really quickly. Personally, I really try to be mindful of how I’m affecting the conversation and what I’m bringing to the table, whether it’s solely listening to someone else, or only speaking when I have something valuable to say. I practiced this most recently when I was out to dinner at Pancho’s in Manhattan Beach with a good friend who had recently ended a relationship. The whole meeting was really for her to get to talk about it and it didn’t matter if she was talking at me or with me in regards to the subject matter of her breakup. I wanted to listen to her, understand what went down, but more importantly find out how she was now. At one point she stopped herself and said that she felt like she was talking too much, but it didn’t matter to me, because I had enjoyed listening. Of course I shared a bit about how my life has been going and then we bullshitted, so at least we’d continue to be in good spirits, which is one of the best parts about friendship. Sometimes you talk about things of substance, sometimes you fuck of and make jokes about nothing. I was at a festival with one of my best friends a few years ago, we had gotten high on mushrooms, and didn’t feel like mingling with anyone else, so we sat in our friends wagon with blanket and just cracked jokes, made obscure John Mulaney references, put on funny voices, and it was the fucking greatest. I love moments like that, because they stick with you. Of course not every conversation is a serious talk about life, so the aforementioned in regards to checking yourself before you speak, really ends up depending on the situation. You could be in a group of friends where everyone is drunk and bullshitting about life and then conversation just flows effortlessly without anyone having to check themselves or you could be in a serious situation where every word could become a choose your own adventure. Everything ends up becoming time and place, so just analyze your situation, check yourself before you wreck yourself, and act accordingly, so you’re not acting a fool, which brings me to my final point.

We’ve already touched upon thinking before you speak, so what would logically come next, speaking before you act. One hundred percent of your interactions should attempted to be handled by speaking, but ultimately actions end up becoming the loudest and most memorable form of communication. What you are always capable of doing is thinking or talking through your eventual actions before getting yourself into a complicated situation. Working through your thoughts step by step is the best course of action, because it shows that you care about how each action could end up not only affecting you, but potentially someone or something else. But what if I look crazy talking to myself? Well you don’t have to physically speak out loud, but if that works for you, then do it and don’t give a fuck about it. Why should you care what anyone else thinks while you’re trying to work through something, because you really shouldn’t. In reality people work out their thoughts out loud on the daily, whether it’s at work, in public, with their friends, and there’s never any problem. I’ve caught my mom talking out loud to herself and I’d always think she’s talking to me, which ends up becoming pretty comical. I’ve done it at work when I was trying to work through some weird code or a project plan. Sometimes I’ll get a bit loopy from riding some sort of good vibe and just start rambling and spitballing about absolutely nothing, but that’s just my way of getting my thoughts and energy out. People have their own ways of working through things, so you’re most definitely not alone with all your weird shit. In the end everyone gets the gist that you’re working through your ideas out loud and that you’re not some looney talking to yourself. In all reality, who knows maybe you are a bit crazy, sometimes I think that I might have a few screws loose. I mean you’d have to have a morsel of crazy if you’re taking on the task of writing a book. So when you are thinking that you’re alone in your craziness of talking to yourself, well you aren’t, because aren’t we all a smidge crazy, it is after all a Mad, Mad World (Gary Jules).

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Thanks for reading! Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this first entry and my perspective into all of this life stuff. I know it might’ve seemed like a lot, but it’s been really exciting to work on this so far. I look forward to any and all feedback and getting the next topic out sometime soon. Thanks again everyone!

#Life Lessons #Do The Right Thing #Advice #Perspective #Writing #Retrospective #Introspective #Journaling #Advice Writing

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