#I showed one of my college roommates the first episode of Veronica Mars and she was like 'I liked it but this was not what I was expecting

[goodnightmemes]

CARMILLA SEASON ONE SENTENCE STARTERS (PART ONE)

Lines taken from episodes s01e01 - s01e19 of the web series Carmilla. Feel free to change as needed. Part two is here.

❛ Nothing, not even the homecoming goat sacrifice, disturbs the pursuit of knowledge. ❜

❛ I passed the test! 62%. Which is pretty cool. It’s like a gentlewoman’s C. ❜

❛ This is our college adventure, come on! ❜

❛ And how is the Jäger-bombinatrix doing this morning? ❜

❛ And really, why does anybody do anything? ❜

❛ I found it next to a pile of ick that started growing mushrooms the next day. ❜

❛ Don’t judge. My dad thought I’d use an iPhone to send high-resolution selfies to potential stalkers. ❜

❛ If an incident is in progress, please dial 4815 or activate the nearest blue tentacle phone. ❜

❛ To report an escaped entity or poltergeist activity, please press - ❜

❛ Fine. I’ve got three weeks of a journalism class and I’ve seen all of Veronica Mars. I’ll find her myself. ❜

❛ I don’t know, things just got so foggy after the alchemy guys released, you know, the fog. ❜

❛ I’m your new roommate, sweetheart. ❜

❛ Oh, this is not happening. You are not my new roommate! ❜

❛ Boom! Revenge is mine. ❜

❛ See? Blood.In the milk container. ❜

❛ This is like, a death threat, or a health code violation. ❜

❛ Well, there’s no denying it’s a little…odd. ❜

❛ How many people you know take Type O with their Chocoa Crunch? ❜

❛ Are you really gonna try and pretend this isn’t a total freak show? ❜

❛ Oh, see, surviving. Yes, I like that plan. ❜

❛ A lot of problems can be solved through good communication. ❜

❛ A lot of problems can also be solved by taking hair and blood samples to figure out exactly what kind of freaky it is you’re dealing with. ❜

❛ You filled a milk container with blood as a prank? ❜

❛ It was food coloring, and…and corn syrup. ❜

❛ That bunched-up little face you make when you’re angry is hilarious, buttercup. ❜

❛ I kept on having the same dream before. ❜

❛ And the darkness is in my eyes and in my throat and I can’t breathe, and … ❜

❛ I-I’m sorry, I can’t be here anymore. ❜

❛ I really hope that it passes over you and I hope it doesn’t touch your face. ❜

❛ Are you really so damaged that you’re incapable of caring about anything? ❜

❛ You’re a child. And you understand nothing. Not about life. Not about this place. ❜

❛ You know what? The sooner you stop playing Lois Lane, the better off you’ll be. ❜

❛ No, I’m not just gonna give up. ❜

❛ So, maybe that’s just how it is, but that does not mean that I have to accept it. I deserve better. [ name ] deserves better. Hell, even you deserve better. ❜

❛ It’s a town hall meeting! Remember your training, we’ve got five minutes! Run, run! ❜

❛ Sometimes a girl’s gotta manufacture her own excitement, you know? ❜

❛ We should be reinstating our night marches. ❜

❛ And then the Zetas piped in with this chant that pretty much sounded like “pizza or death”. ❜

❛ I think we’d make a pretty great team. ❜

❛ Yeah, a team. You and me, absolutely. ❜

❛ Hey, is that fish in your hair? ❜

❛ It is very, very nice of you large, large gentlemen to offer to keep me safe, but as you can see, I’m in my room. Snug as a bug in a rug. So, you’re good to go. ❜

❛ If I decide to go wandering down some dark alleyways late at night, you guys’ll be my first call. ❜

❛ Get the hell out of here before I feed you each other’s spleens. ❜

❛ Dude, she bit me! That is so not cool. ❜

❛ Guess that’s it for the truce, then. ❜

❛ We have been working nonstop and, not that we’re geniuses or anything, but I think we’re really close to a breakthrough. ❜

❛ I think my brain has melted. ❜

❛ Chocolate is comforting in the face of epic failure. ❜

❛ And what kind of thrilling adventure do we find ourselves on now? ❜

❛ This is so childish. You’d think we were still six. ❜

❛ Schadenfreude isn’t very attractive. ❜

❛ But I so had it coming, didn’t I? ❜

❛ God, this age doesn’t understand obligation. It’s like an undersea anchor; impossible to escape. ❜

❛ They’re the ones using dander collected at parties to seed an immense interconnected fungus throughout campus. ❜

❛ Apparently, it’s a communications experiment. Or, maybe a really complicated risotto recipe? I don’t know. ❜

❛ Sorry, I just forgot that I have to be anywhere but here. ❜

❛ Oh, no. You are entirely too sweet ❜

❛ But you’ve got to admit it looks pretty hinky. ❜

❛ Confronting her has historically been about as effective as using bug spray on Voldemort. ❜

❛ Oh, wow. That’s…why are you wearing warpaint? ❜

❛ Come on! Why are the hotties in this room always trying to hurt me?! ❜

❛ That is unfair, okay, cause I’m here out of the, like, bro-ness of my heart, alright? ❜

❛ So, has it even occurred to you that while you’re duking it out, nobody is actually out there protecting anybody at all?! ❜

❛ Ah, it’s mostly just paintballs and anchovies. I’ll talk them down. ❜

❛ It just seemed so real…like…that weird moment of clarity during magic hour or the moment right before a car crash. ❜

❛ I was in my room and there was something in my bed. Something under my bed. This dark, prowling thing without a face. ❜

❛ I tried to pull the blankets over my face to hide, but the darkness started seeping through them like blood, more and more, until I was drowning in it. ❜

❛ Well, dreams are supposed to be strange. Last night I dreamt I was trapped under a bed. ❜

❛ But, just a dream. No reason for all of this…twitchiness. ❜

❛ There is no twitching. There is an absence of twitching. ❜

❛ You know, if it’s really making you so miserable, I could get you something to help you sleep. ❜

❛ That’s uncharacteristically considerate of you. ❜

❛ Yeah, well, I just don’t want you losing it and torching all my stuff. ❜

❛ The results are starting to look profoundly WTF. ❜

❛ I know Silas has some quirks, but I’m pretty sure spontaneous combustion, super strength, and an all-protein diet weren’t options on my roommate form. ❜

❛ Your Snape/Ron fic’s still on the screen, spaz. ❜

❛ It’s a charm or whatever. To help with the bad dreams. ❜

❛ So, in the spirit of all this newfound closeness, maybe you could tell me where you go all night? ❜

❛ Mmm, well, I have to keep some of my secrets. Otherwise, I’ll lose my air of mystery, won’t I? ❜

❛ Oh, you know, I miss my dad, I have papers due. I’m about to be my roommate’s next victim. ❜

❛ Come on. Let’s get you changed into something with a little less whiff. ❜

❛ Everything in your fridge is made of glucose and palm oil. I’m surprised you don’t have scurvy. ❜

❛ As soon as we got there, everyone was leaving the building, and yes, as the sun went down, we started to hear something…skittering. ❜

❛ Before you realized the staircase wasn’t in the same place anymore? ❜

❛ Before we realized we might have gotten a little turned around. And that most of the computer monitors we could see were warning us to “Run. Run now”. And the skittering was getting closer. ❜

❛ We created a flamethrower using a lighter and some mace. ❜

❛ I get a text that says “Come quick. Stuck in Library. Bring fire extinguisher” ❜

❛ Okay, yes! It was stupid, and we’re lucky that you didn’t have to save our souls. ❜

❛ Well, yeah, but we know she’s a vampire. I mean, we’ve known that since the blood in the milk container, right? ❜

❛ You all knew I was living with a vampire and nobody said anything? ❜

❛ She’s not a vampire. There’s no such thing as vampires. She’s a…light-averse octogenarian with extreme hemoglobin deficiency and really good skin. ❜

❛ My roommate is an honest-to-Lestat vampire. How do we stop a vampire? ❜

❛ No! No! We can’t immolate everyone that [ name ] thinks is a supernatural creature. ❜

❛ Well, I have an idea but you are not gonna like it. ❜

❛ Okay, explain to me again how offering yourself as bait to your blood-sucking roommate is not the worst plan ever devised by womankind. ❜

❛ Well, the fact that a terrible plan is our only plan is not really a selling point. ❜

❛ You guys know that I can hear you, right? Maybe instead of peanut gallery-ing you can help me figure out how we trap a vampire? ❜

❛ How do we feel about bear spray? ❜

❛ What would Mina Harker do? …Get bitten. Mina Harker would totally try and act all alluring to the bloodsucking fiend and totally get bitten. Let’s not do that. ❜

❛ Looking at the stars. It’s comforting, to think how small we are in comparison. All the lives we’ve led, the people we’ve been, nothing to that light. ❜

❛ “Black as the pit and terrible as the night was Bagheera”? I always loved that. It’s beautiful. ❜

❛ Behold: Vampire bait! ❜

❛ Don’t you look like a virgin sacrifice? ❜

❛ Parties should be a shimmering moment of possibility, not a collection of brutes around a piece of flaming driftwood. ❜

❛ Feels like more than that. Like something seen underwater from a great distance. ❜

❛ God, I’m a nostalgic idiot tonight. ❜

❛ Maybe I don’t feel like sharing you right now. ❜

❛ God, what am I doing? Naive, provincial girl. Entirely too tightly wound. Such a cliché. I oughta know better. ❜

❛ I oughta know better. And yet…there’s something about you. ❜

❛ Also, I got my head smashed into a table, if anyone cares. ❜

❛ There is not allowed to be some new horrible thing! ❜

❛ You know, at times like these a dude needs to be with his bros. ❜

❛ Well, don’t look at me. I didn’t want to kidnap anyone to begin with! ❜

❛ Definitely not untying angry vampire. ❜

❛ You can’t just keep a hostage in your dorm room! ❜

❛ I”m sure there’s all sorts of things we could figure out through some minimally-invasive probing. ❜

❛ It’ll seem dire once they start your tribunal. ❜

❛ So the sooner you ‘fess us and tell us what’s going on, the better this is gonna go for you because we have got…a spatula, and a stapler, and we are not afraid to use them. ❜

❛ You cannot seriously think we’re dumb enough to believe you’re innocent just because you say so. ❜

❛ Look, if I were really a vampire, would I just stay here, tied up, proclaiming my innocence as some sort of trick? ❜

❛ Yeah. That’s completely exactly what a vampire would do. ❜

❛ Do I strike you as the type of person who plays well with others? ❜

❛ Uh, we’re rehearsing a skit. Uh, yeah, the torture scene from Arsenic and Old Lace. Mmm-hmm, yeah, there’s a torture scene. ❜

❛ I hear they have a great collection of straight-jackets and tranquilizers. ❜

❛ I swear, if one more of your broken-hearted study buddies comes knocking at the door, I’m gonna start spritzing them like cats. ❜

❛ No, no, no! Please don’t die, please don’t die, you stupid vampire! Here, look, I’ve got blood. ❜

❛ The experience of being held captive by a clutch of imbeciles for something I didn’t even have the pleasure of doing is humiliating enough without having you wipe me up like a dribbling child. ❜

❛ Wait, you thought that was me trying to eat you? ❜

❛ Oh…Oh! So, when you were hitting on me, you were really hitting on me? ❜

❛ Could you just stake me now? Cause I think that would be less mortifying than this conversation. ❜

❛ If you want us to trust you, you have gotta tell us your side of the story. ❜

[iwantthemtostay]

Sadly, i do not have the skill to write because while my ADHD makes me excellent at plot making, actually writing makes me want to claw my eyes out.

LET ME CARRY ON. I had to Google Aaron's name bc i didn't just want to make him Nate's brother 😭 so I don't blame you. However, in this AU, he's not a douche like Nate, and he's more like a Lilly like figure, loveable but messy. Also, listen Veronica Mars is, like, formative media for me, so I really do have a plot for my current hyperfixation regarding it lmao.

So, another plot point I'd like to introduce is that the reason why Lexi's dad became a drug addict was bc of an accident caused by Cal, because Gus had dirt of them. Also, I'm making Fez not a part of the PCH, because while I adore weevil (He's my cute little babe who deserved way better than he got (he changed his life for his daughter and you're telling me he went back to his old ways? Oh, I'm never forgiving you. Rob Thomas if i see u on the streets, it's on sight bitch)), I feel like Fez wouldn't be into the organized crime shit. He'd be ~adjacent~ to them. I would like a scene where Lexi has to get him out of prison because Marsha Jacobs blamed him for something, and Lexi goes a little bit feral.

Bi!Cassie and Maddy are very important to me as a fellow Bi, and I feel like it would work so well with this AU lmao they'd be too proud to admit it and totally be too concerned about their status to actually think it'd be good for them, and also Nate would totally be a little shit about it, which is why he dies at the end.

(Spoiler alert: Ash kills him by pushing him off a building, and they all protect him and choose not to rat him out. They rule it "an unfortunate accident". The end.)

You definitely do have excellent plot making skills.

Or it could be the mystery third brother? He could be Rue and Lexi's age and they could be a trio? (Same on formative media, Veronica Mars along with Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, The OC...)

OOH intriguing about Gus. Agree on Fez not being in organised crime but having contacts there. And loving Weevil! (Rob Thomas is so dead to me, I can't overemphasise the extent to which I have blocked out the reboot). Lexi losing it at police officers getting Fez out of jail is very much needed (as a somewhat related aside, the whole Leo storyline does not stand up well)

Bi!Cassie and Maddy are what we the bisexuals need and want. I was listening to Girls Like Girls recently, and I do think that starry eyes Cassie and Maddy cover that and it breaks the internet after they admit their feelings following singing love songs at Lexi and Fez's wedding together.

(He ran into my knife the pavement from a height)

[teen-content-queen]

OTP Tag

Thanks for tagging me @geetalkstv 💕

Pick 10 of your otps from different fandoms without reading the questions and then answer them. Then tag 10 other people to do the same.

Stiles and Lydia (Teen Wolf)

Martino and Niccolo (Skam Italia)

Seth and Summer (The OC)

Neil and Andrew (All For The Game)

Veronica and Logan (Veronica Mars)

Nathan and Haley (One Tree Hill)

Chuck and Blair (Gossip Girl)

Amy and Jake (Brooklyn Nine Nine)

Alex and Henry (Red, White and Royal Blue)

Ander and Omar (Elite)

Do you remember the episode/scene/chapter that you first started shipping 6?

1x03 when Nathan gives Haley the bracelet from his Cracker Jacks. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

Have you ever read a fic about 2?

Many. I’ve also written them.

Has a picture of 4 ever been your screensaver/profile pic/tumblr?

No but 2 is currently my screensaver.

If 7 were to suddenly break up today, what would your reaction be?

 Not surprised, but just disappointed. 

Why is 1 so important?

Watching Teen Wolf (and waiting for them to be canon) bonded my college roommate and I and has been a thing that we can always go back to. We’ll be bonded for life over Dylan O’Brien and she send me the gif of him arriving at Lydia’s with the giant present every year on my birthday.

Which one has the strongest bond?

Nathan and Haley. They got married young, had kids and have lived through so much trauma together. Always and forever.

How many times have you read/watched 10′s fandom?

I’ve never rewatched the show, but have probably rewatched their scenes a dozen times. 

Which ship has lasted the longest?

Nathan and Haley, but Seth and Summer are right up there with them.

How many times, if ever, has 6 broken up?

Maybe twice I think? Possibly a third I’m forgetting.

If the world was suddenly thrust into a zombie apocalypse, which ship would make it out alive: 2 or 8?

Marti and Nico have been preparing for the zombie apocalypse since Day 1. Jake and Amy would make it for a while but ultimately would die fighting for the greater good.

Did 7 ever have to hide their relationship for any reason?

Yeah at the beginning especially. Lot of that going around the upper east side.

Is 4 still together?

Duh. Neil’s a junkie and Andrew wants nothing (but Neil).

Is 10 canon?

Yes thank god.

If all 10 ships were put into a couple’s Hunger Games, which couple would win?

Neil and Andrew, although there are a lot of fighters in the mix so it would be tough. Neil and Andrew just have the strongest “survive at all cost” mentality. 

Has anyone ever tried to sabotage 5?

Yes, the writers. The last ten minutes of Veronica Mars S4 don’t exist, sorry.

Do you spend hours a day going through 3′s tumblr tag?

Yeah. I follow their tag and it’s a nice treat when they pop up.

If an evil witch descended from the sky and told you that you had to pick one of the ten ships to break forever or else she’d break them all up, which ship would you SINK?

I hate this question so much. Ugh. Wow. It’s probably cheating to say Veronica and Logan because of the aforementioned sabotaging and ultimate finale of S4 but it’s my game and I’ll do what I want. 

Tagging: @granmuffin @veggiesrock18 @carolineskam @lovely-things3 @solo-silenzio 

[ireneinisolation-blog]

3/20 - COVID Dreams

I’m getting to this rather late in the day, and while I had planned for a larger topic, I’ve decided to go light instead, especially as it is so close before bed and I don’t want to wind myself up. Here it goes.

Since coronavirus first started circulating in Wuhan in January and the first stories of it started to make it here (not sure exactly when it was, but early-ish) I’ve had dreams and nightmares about it. Interestingly, I don’t think I actually had the virus in any of these dreams, but a lot of anxiety surrounding exposure and quarantines. I don’t think have yet begun to have anxiety dreams about economic collapse, but I’m sure those will come eventually in one form or another.

I think my earliest dream was just a vague idea of being in quarantine. But it was not super negative or all that emotional overall. It was just that I was in quarantine for suspected exposure, and that was it, nothing happened.

Another one a few days later involved my college roommate inviting me to go on a day trip with her to Shanghai. I politely declined as I did not want to be exposed to the virus. After that, some Veronica Mars characters appeared out of nowhere and that was a nice distraction.

I later had another covid dream with Veronica Mars characters, interestingly. Though not that interestingly I suppose as I was rewatching old episodes around January/February. In the second dream, it was a very anxious dream. I was quarantined at a military base after possible exposure to the virus. We slept in an open room (the same as in the images that came out of Wuhan where people with mild versions of the virus were kept), and our eating was regulated by when the military allowed us to have food. It was completely out of control, and within the dream I felt quite anxious. But I guess my mind decided to turn it around. One of my close friends from childhood showed up, and then it was like instead of being in quarantine, we were just having a sleepover at a military base with a bunch of other people. And then Logan from Veronica Mars showed up - hot Logan from the movie and newest season. So my friend from childhood and I just spent our time flirting with him. My brain really improved that situation. By the end, not such a bad dream.

I think there have been other dreams about quarantine. Honestly, too many dreams of this variety to count at this point.

One of the weirdest dreams I’ve had so far on this topic, and honestly one of the weirdest dreams I’ve had in a while relates to the movie Melancholia, which I did not see recently, but have been thinking about a lot recently. I saw it for a class when I was younger and I hated it. I still hate it. But for whatever reason it really stuck with me. So basically, first half the movie, main character played by Kirsten Dunst is super depressed during and after marrying a rather bland looking Alexander Skarsgaard. The second half the movie, there is an impeding apocalypse because there is another planet that is about to smash into the earth and kill everyone, and Dunst’s character suddenly finds a way to be ecstatic and really come into herself in the end of the world. When she is doing this, she can be seen doing all kinds of weird things in which she is reveling in the end of everything. One of those weird things she is doing is that she lounges, naked under the night sky, glowing in the bright light of the approaching planet. It is some weird symbolism (I think the movie is something about her not being able to handle living, while everyone else can’t handle dying? I don’t know. Lars Von Trier is fucking weird). Well I’ve been thinking about this movie a lot lately, because I’ve been thinking about how people are responding to this current “apocalypse” (not really an apocalypse, but still damn shitty hellhole). Some people hoard TP, some people retreat from the world, and some people, interestingly, seem to thrive on the chaos. Not necessarily in the sociopath way, not necessarily not in that way either (some of them are sociopaths). A week ago, I feel like I was feeling a little like this. Feeling invincible in the face of uncertainty. If only I could get the virus early, know I had it (but also just really hope that I wouldn’t have a severe reaction), and then everything would be fine, right? This week? Not so much. Now I’m just super anxious and not feeling very Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia-esque. But I still know a few people are like this. Anyway, that’s all background. Here’s the dream:

I was on the side of a hill near a house, and under a tent? like those weird outdoor ones that are white and used at festivals. Well outside of the tent was someone who I - in real life - knew when I was younger but have totally lost contact with. She was lying on the side of the hill, naked, and basking in the end of the world! Freud with surely have a fucking hay day with this one. Within my dream, I tried to avert my eyes as it would be indecent to see her that way. But she was reveling, and complained of my prudishness. Then the dream changed, apparently my brain was bothered. Instead we were in her house - both clothed - and she had a tiny yappy dog that was jumping all around. I was super annoyed with it, and tried to go upstairs and lock the annoying dog outside of the room. Somehow it got in, and then I spent the rest of the dream trying to figure out how to kick the dog out of the room. (I’m not normally so weird with dogs. I mean, small yappy ones can be quite annoying, but overall I’m quite the animal enthusiast.) So yeah... that dream was quite weird, especially as far as Freudian related things go. But I swear it wasn’t sexual. It was just WTF Melancholia.

Another dream that I had very recently first involved a bunch of teenagers getting drunk at my high school - I wasn’t in high school, but there and observing - they were being very rowdy, and very gathered together. I found out from the administration that they were partying to protest social distancing. Like dicks. This was no doubt based on the face that I keep hearing about people, especially college kids, doing shit like this that is going to fuck over everyone else in the end. The fact that they were teenagers probably relates to me recently watching Sex Education on Netflix to distract from the unpleasantness.

The second half of that dream, I was at a music festival with a bunch of women in their 70s and older. I was standing near the registration desk, and a few women were asking if they really have to wash their hands all the time, as it is inconvenient because their aren’t enough facilities for it and they want to just relax. Then they asked if they could just keep their hands in their pockets instead of washing their hands. We all agreed this would probably be fine. I think this dream probably relates to my anxiety and the world’s anxiety about older people getting the virus. But also the issue that some older people are not taking the situation seriously enough and keep going out anyway.

That’s all for my recent covid dreams. I am sure that there are many more to come, unfortunately. I will update later if any more interesting ones come up.

Let’s see, daily updates... daily updates... Thank god for my fidget spinner. It’s been doing a lot of work to absorb my nervous energy. It’s now over a week into my shelter in place and my apartment is still a fucking mess. I really should rally to clean it at some point. Wouldn’t it be nice to come out of all of this (at some point in the unknown future) and actually be a person with a clean apartment? Yes, I think that would be nice. I did some baking today, and that made me feel temporarily better because baking is such a nice distraction. Also, I was feeling very crappy the first half of the day. Certainly anxiety related. I just had this pit in my stomach and felt ill. Well I decided to make one of my favorite meals for lunch, and it got me back on track to feeling better. It is fare to say, few other people would find it comforting, but I love it: A bowl of chickpeas and chopped red cabbage with apple cider vinegar, EV olive oil, salt, onion powder, and garlic powder. It feels healthful and tastes delicious. In news related to the first half of the last item, I’ve been anxiety fasting. It’s motivated by the same thing as stress eating, but with the opposite reaction. Unfortunately, once I start this, it is hard to re-regulate my food, and then by extension my sleep, habits. I’m trying to do better. The chickpeas and cabbage helped.

Goodnight! I hope my dreams are free of anything covid related!

[shipwrexked]

Once upon a college day

I was reminded today about this incident with a roommate in college. She was preacher’s kid, a little wild but not like crazy wild, just the normal amount and she was in a committed, monogamous relationship with this older guy. Everyone of her friends were all judgy about it except for me ‘cause I was like “whatever it’s your life. so screw those guys”. It was like the late 90′s and I was chillaxin’ on the couch in our front room watching an episode of Veronica Mars on the CW when I turned my head and saw my roommate in our room hunched over her stuffed animals trying to stifle her sobs.

To this day I don’t know why I got up and checked on her. I mean we weren’t best friends or anything and I was notorious for being oblivious to other people’s feelings but on this one day I went to her and asked what was wrong.

At first she didn’t want to tell me and I told her “It’s cool, I get that, you don’t have to tell me I’ll just hold you till fall asleep”. That’s when her whole story came crashing out into the beauty of a sunny day. For the rest of my life I will never forget the words she used to describe what happened to or the rage that I felt about it being done to her.

“I’m disgusting” she said

“What?! No you’re not!” I said

“I’m gross and disgusting and God is punishing me for rebelling against my faith” she said.

“That’s not true. None of that is true” I said.

“It’s true! It’s all true and I want to kill myself” she whispered that last part barely loud enough for me to hear and it shook me to down to my soul.

“NO! that’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem! You do not want to die!” I said

“I do, I deserve it” she said

“No one deserves that. My goodness woman tell me what happened because I’m starting to think you set an orphanage on fire or drowned a bag of baby kitties!”. I said

“No, Tim’s been cheating on me and he gave me herpes! I’m disgusting now. No one is going to want to be with me, I’ll never get married, never have kids, my life is over.” She sobbed those words and I realized she really believed this. 

I admit that I am the last person anyone should turn to for sympathy. The joke in my family is that we don’t understand sympathy because we were raised without it so we don’t understand it. That day though..I felt sympathy for my roommate. I felt rage too. Rage at the irresponsibility of this older dude that should have known better than to have unprotected sex. Rage at the complete and total lack of respect he showed my roommate and this other girl he’d been using as well. Rage at the fact that my roommate actually believed that she was only as good as the man that married her. Rage at the fact that she was raised in a household that taught her women were less than men. Among all of that rage I also felt sympathy. Sympathy for the young woman who was sobbing in my arms. Sympathy for a young woman whose only crime was in loving someone who was not worthy  of her. Sympathy for a young woman who was bound in the chains of her parents religious constructs. Sympathy for a young woman that didn’t know the love and forgiveness of God but only the judgement and ridicule of her religion. So I did what was probably the worst thing I could have suggested and in my defense I was only 20 and I was raised by hippies!

“If you want to hurt yourself, you should at least do it creatively, let’s go get pierced.” I suggested to her

And that’s the story of how I saved my roommates life and ended up with a tongue piercing.