#I think it's a psych thing. Like she mentally gives herself permission to say the shit she usually keeps under lock and key

[starfoam]

"When am I going to have my chin gently tilted up by a guy much, much bigger than me as he gazes into my eyes with an intensity that renders me unable to look anywhere else?"

Ah, she's broken out the cheap wine.

[propshophannah]

Am I the only one who thought the book had a lot of sexist undertones? Like preemptively modifying your body to MAYBE one day give birth to your man's (male's) babies? I feel like the IC never tried to let Nesta heal in her own way, they just forced her to do things they thought would be good for her, while demeaning her along the way. And the shield thing around Feyre is very reminiscent of how Tamlin treated her in ACOTAR... I don't know, a lot of the book just made me uncomfortable :/

Hi Nonnie!

First, I want to say that I’m sorry parts of this book made you uncomfortable. That’s never fun. Second…

I think we can reasonably say that no matter what we’re looking at, we can find sexism if we want to. Now that doesn’t mean that some things are not just blatantly sexist. I think with this book there is a conversation to be had about what some of us read as sexist and what some of us read as not sexist or even pro different-forms-of-feminism.

It’s sort of in the eye of the beholder.

It’s also a fantasy world that has developed under a patriarchy. So some things are just as sexist as they “should be” because that’s the world building, right? 

So, like, territorial Fae males is fully explained in the world building and is therefore fully acceptable for the books, and is also, frankly, a kink. SJM caters to that kink. So we know we’re going to get that in these books. Most if their shit is NOT okay for planet Earth. (That’s why some of us actively seek it and enjoy reading it in books.)

So let’s get in it!

Nesta modifying her body

Now as far as Nesta modifying her own body to have children one day, I don’t see that as sexist at all. Because the alternative to her altering her own anatomy is her pausing for a moment and asking Cassian if she can strip him of his faerie race and make him something else that doesn’t have wings. If that happened, we’d be getting into race and identity and all kinds of other shit that is hella problematic. 

So, no. Nesta wanting to one day birth her own children is not sexist. Nesta deciding to alter her own anatomy so that she can safely birth her own children with Cassian, is not sexist. (Now if Cassian did it without permission, then we’d have a problem!)

The IC making Nesta heal their way

Now THIS is a conversation on choice. Not sexism. Rhys has long touted that his court is a court of choices and all that. So forcing Nesta to either go to the human lands (where she’ll very likely die) or go to the House of Wind (where she can’t readily leave) and train and work everyday, is a problem. If you want to make an argument that this is the equivalent of Tamlin locking Feyre in the house, I won’t stop you. I would only ask that you consider the nuance. 

And the nuance here takes us back to world building. They don’t have psychiatric wards or mental health services or rehab centers like we do on planet Earth. Nesta needed help. AND LET ME BE REAL CLEAR: I’m not here to debate what kind of help she needed. (We could run in circles all day long debating that.) What I am saying is that they recognized that: 

Nesta’s behavior was not good, 

that THEY WERE ENABLING HER, 

that they actually had the power to do something about her situation

They do not live in a democracy. They live in a monarchy. They have and hold absolute power and rule. And while that whole intervention—or whatever the fuck that was—was absolutely TERRRRIBLE, they had every right to do what they did. Why? Because it fit the world building.

They acted like rich parents fed up with a wild teenager so they cut her off and gave her a choice between getting kicked out of the house or going to work on grandpa’s farm in the middle of BFE. Essentially that’s what they did.

Do I agree with it? Eh... they didn’t have a lot of options and SOMETHING needed to happen (I’d have been VERY ANGRY had they left her to die like that). Do I like it? FUCK NO. They went about it all wrong and it was shitty.

Abandoning her in the human lands would have been fucking murder. But do you HONESTLY, HONESTLY think Feyre would have done that??? ALSO, LET’S BE REAL: Nesta would not have stayed there long because EVERY HIGH LORD knows about her power and would want her in their court. That whole shit about the human lands likely was NOT real and was a scare tactic. It was a shitty scare tactic. But again, it fit the world building. AND Nesta’s character (cuz it worked, she didn’t ask to go to the human lands). 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

This isn’t directed at you Nonnie, but what did people think would happen? There would suddenly be psych wards and rehab centers and Feyre and Rhys would start acting with compassion and kindness and like they themselves had gone to therapy for decades and suddenly be able to convince Nesta to sign herself into one of those facilities? 

I get it’s annoying. And it’s infuriating. And some of their bullshit talking out their ass moments made me want to throw the book across the damn room. Because that’s not how you act to people in the middle of a downward spiral/crisis like Nesta was. 

But here’s the thing: they have no basis for knowing better. They don’t have mental health services. Gwyn mentioned a priestess who counsels them, but that’s NOT the same thing as a therapist or psychologist or psychiatric NP or psychiatrist.

So what did people expect?

Also. Do you think for one second, Nesta would have responded well to compassionate attempts to get her help? She hadn’t hit rock bottom yet (where compassion would have worked wonderfully *depending* on the type of rock bottom she hit). She would have seen any attempt like that as pity and she would have rebelled.

Here’s how I get over being annoyed with Feysand and Amren for that dumb af “intervention” moment: I remind myself that

They recognized she couldn’t keep going down the path she was going.

They recognized that they loved her too much to let that happen (Feyre at least). 

They recognized that they held ABSOLUTE POWER over her in their realm

They recognized that they needed to put her in a place where she had a purpose, a routine, where she couldn’t fall back on old habits, and where she had the option to talk to other trauma survivors (if she chose to) 

That’s what they knew. Putting her in the House was their only choice. So they did. And guess what? It worked. 

Now, the forcing her to train thing was BULLSHIT. You can’t force other people to change, they have to want that for themselves. But guess what? Turns out Nesta wanted to change. Because she wasn’t against training. She was only against doing it in a place where she could be judged. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Also, exercising is FUCKING FANTASTIC for mental health. (Maas knows that.)

Now did they demean her along the way? Yes. 

Was it shitty? HELL, YES! 

Did Rhys finally learn his lesson that night with the nightmare? He sure af did! 

Did some people in the fandom expect too much from Amren? Yep. Lady was never going to show affection or be nice to Nesta. Amren shows respect. When you respect Amren, she respects you. That’s her ENTIRE character. We’re three books in with Amren. Idk why people are still butthurt about her personality. Like. You can’t get mad at Amren for not being a table when she’s always been a chair. (Doesn’t mean we have to like her behavior or anyone else’s. But it does mean that we only have ourselves to blame when she acts the way she always has.) This same logic applied to Mor and Feyre and Elain etc.

Also. Did them acting like assholes drive the plot forward? IT SURE AF DID! If they had acted differently the book wouldn’t be as good as it is.

The shield around Feyre

If you want to make the argument about how this is a Tamlin thing to do, I won’t stop you. But again, I’ll ask you to consider the nuance and the world building. 

In a world where anyone can scent a pregnancy, would you not try to hide your ruler’s pregnant scent and body from enemies and potential attacks? I would! 

Is it a little territorial? Yes. 

Does that make sense for the world building and what we know about Fae males? Yep! 

Could Feyre have told Rhys to cut the shit? Yes. 

Is it possible Feyre *maybe* use the lie of Rhys and Helion(?) having fun with shield as an excuse to have it around herself? Yeah. I’d probably do it. 

Look, if Feyre hadn’t wanted the shield, it would have been gone. They said it was a compromise, but you can’t tell me Rhys would force a shield around her against her own will (or that she, The Cursebreaker, wouldn’t bust through it in a heartbeat).

Sorry if this comes off as salty, Nonnie! I don’t mean to be. I just don’t really understand why people get mad at stuff in books *that’s perfectly reasonable* for the world building when the alternative that they would prefer would be out of character, out the world building, or create plot holes etc. 

Hope this helps!

[bellatrixobsessed1]

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 2)

The plains are a lot vaster than she remembers, it might be because she had first traversed them via a sturdy tank. With nothing but a mongoose-lizard for company and transport, it is a little different. More daunting. And this time she doesn’t have a sense of direction. She has stolen herself enough coin from the palace to get her by for at least a year, should nothing happen. So long as she buys clothes only when she needs them and plans her meals as precisely as she plans her conquests she should be fine. Should be. She is never fine these days. She can’t use her coins to buy back the luck she has run out of.

If there is one thing that is a mercy, it is that Earth Kingdom afternoods aren’t so swelteringly brutal as Fire Nation ones. She is accustomed to the intense heat and can largely ignore the unabated sunlight that spills over her. It is the night that she fears for. It is always cold and this, she is not used to.

She has already spent several nights woefully unprepared and shivering. Laying under her mongoose-lizard with a terribly thin blanket only goes so far. The sun is on its way down and she still only sees an endlessly sweeping plain. She doesn’t want to spend the night out in the cold. She isn’t sure that she will be able to endure another.

But she will have to. She knows it when the sky turns from a blazing--yet dull by comparison to a Fire Nation sky--orange-red to a thick indigo and the first pinprick of stars burst into view. She knows it well when a sliver of a moon climbs into the sky.

She makes herself a fire and longs for something to cook over it. She has run out of berries and nuts, and that which she hadn’t run out of had gone slushy and moldy. She hasn’t come by anything to hunt either, not even small game. Three days so far, without food. She is thankful that she had the forethought to travel by the stream. And she berates herself for not thinking of trying to catch fish. It will be difficult by hand and dagger alone--she makes a mental note to craft herself some tools when she comes by time, energy, and supply--and she doesn’t like seafood but the ache in her belly tells her that she can’t afford to be choosey.

She takes a sip from her waterskin and stares off into the sky. She likes the sky, it is her one comfort. For a while it takes her away from the biting cold and it makes her feel somehow less lonely. Truth be told, she isn’t sure exactly why that is. She stares at the shimmering expanse until it becomes a shifting mirage.

This is when the coyote-fox begin to yip and yap. They will do so unceasingly into the night. She quickly lets her fire die. The night chill fills its vacancy with an overzealous readiness. Even with the fire out, she wonders if the coyote-fox will sniff her out. Some suppressed and dismal part of her hopes that they will; nobody would miss her. Nobody would find her.

She closes her eyes.

And she awakes before the morning breaks. The sky is that same inky indigo as it was before but to the east there is a streak of gold on the horizon. It is a breezy day, she knows it not only buy the way her hair whips at her face, but at the sound of the grass swaying. She gets up on shaky legs and drags herself onto her mount. Fatigue has her nodding off several times. She is fully awake when she slumps and falls to the grass. Newly bruised she carries on.

An hour or so passes and then another and the wind is growing incessant, the way that it whips her hair. She climbs down from her mount and takes a deep breath. She isn’t sure if her hands are shaking with hunger or anticipation. Either which way, she takes the blade to her locks and watches strand after strand drift away in the breeze like the bison fur she had followed through this meadow some years ago.

It is pathetic really, but she falls to her knees and cries. She can’t deny that the ravaging of her hair was well overdue.

It is midafternoon when she makes it up the hill. And for a moment hunger subsides and the oppressive sorrow that has been following her for hours, perhaps days, dulls. The land is gorgeous. Calf high, the ankles and wild flowers swish around her. She can see for miles, a steady sea of grass, undulating like waving hands. In rays of the sun she sees plumes of teeny insects flitting about. For a moment she thinks that she will be okay.

The moment passes when she fails to catch a fish. Four days without food.

On the fifth day she begins to unravel. She feels weak and tired. For the first time she considers that she has made a mistake in trying to take on such a great grassland. It devastated her psyche too. More than she had anticipated.

The whispers begin, she hears them in the rustle of the grasses. They tell her that she isn’t alone, that they are here. That she can talk to them. Some are familiar, most are just unrecognizable whispers born of a need much more pressing than food...

On this day she learns that she can’t be and doesn’t like to be alone.

.oOo.

Azula rolls over and pushes herself deeply into the mattress. It is so cozy. She isn’t particularly ready to leave its comforts yet. A pang of nervousness has her bolting up right, she has to get a start and find food or…

She looks around and inhales deeply as she rubs her hands over her face. She lays herself back down. It will be there when she is ready to come and get it, she reminds herself. This is disorienting. Even more so is when her food comes to her instead of she to it. The serving girl sets it on her nightstand with a soft smile and an, “enjoy, princess.”

Azula sits up once more. She is only a few bites in when Sokka enters. “How are you feeling?”

Azula thinks for a moment before ultimately shrugging.

“It’s good to be home isn’t it? Or is it just weird?”

“It’s weird to be consistently bombarded with questions.”

Sokka flushes. “Just trying to be friendly!” He stumbles.

Azula feels faintly jittery, recalling that he isn’t accustomed to her yet. Not like they were. He can’t interpret her like they had been able to. “That’s fine.”

Sokka furrows his brows, “uh...I’m glad that I have your permission to be friendly?”

The fluttering in her tummy grows. She probably should say something else but she doesn’t. She isn’t sure how. Like many conversations these days, there is no tactical approach and if she tries to approach it with stern mannerisms and carefully planned dialogue it is just uncanny.

“You’re not easy to have conversations with, you know?” Even his statements are questions, she almost laughs. “It’s hard to talk to someone who doesn’t talk.”

“Why do you want to talk to me?”

“I...I don’t know. I guess it’s because…” he trails off. She catches him staring at her neck. So it’s a pity thing. She pulls her collar up. “You’ve probably been alone for a while right?”

“I have, yes.” She replies. “But why does that matter to you?”

“It just does. Does there have to be a reason?”

“Yes.” Azula gives a firm nod. “There is a reason and a motive behind everything. I would like to know yours.”

“Because I think that you could use a friend.”

“But why do you want to be that friend. The last time we spoke we were throwing fire and boomerangs.”

He chuckled. “There was a point where the last time Zuko and I spoke, it was the same thing…” he trails off.

“That doesn’t answer why you care. Where’s the logic…”

“Ah ha!” He exclaims as though he has backed her into a corner. “This isn’t about logic, Azula. It’s about emotion. Ya know, feelings.”

Azula scowls. “I don’t like those.”

He laughs. And then his laughter fades. “Sometimes I just like helping other people. It makes me feel good. Ya know?”

She presses her lips into a thin line. Even if only vaguely, she thinks that she does. She looks at her stachel and thinks of the small straw-stuffed badger-mole within. And she thinks that she does know, at least to some degree. “I do not.” She says anyhow.

Again his eyes wander to her neck. “I think that you do. Come on, finish up,” he gestures to her food, “and I can show you some new stuff that has been added to the palace while you were gone.”

[lumiolivier]

The Good Old Days Chapter Twenty: Heart to Heart

A/N: Hi, friends! So, we kind of had a little bit of a holy shit moment last week, didn't we? And I'm kind of in love with that holy shit moment from last week. And now, we're going to see what the Old Man has to say about it. Alright? Let's go!

“You what?” The Old Man stared me down like I was on something. But for the first time in what feels like a long time, I had the utmost mental clarity. I hadn’t had a drink all day. I got fantastic sleep the night before. Everything just…seemed to be falling into place for me. With the exception of the accusations of kidnapping my girlfriend. That’s not exactly a win in my book, but if it meant having her, I can call it one. Oh, well. Life’s not perfect, but she is. And I’ll die on that hill.

“Yeah…” Now that I said it out loud, that was in the universe for someone, no one, or anyone to hear. And hopefully, it gets to the right ears. All I knew was that I could say it with absolute certainty, “I want to marry Vanessa, Old Man. Plain and simple.”

“Easy, kid,” he slowed me down, “Let’s think this one through for a second.”

“Why?” I asked, “I already know I don’t like being without her, so why not make it official, you know?”

“That’s all well and good,” the Old Man shut me up, “But we’re going to think this one through before you rush into things. Alright? Are you listening?”

“Yeah,” I sat down across from his desk, “I’m listening.”

“Good,” he rubbed his eyes in exasperation. I always knew I had my moments where I was a handful, but I thought the Old Man could handle me by now, “You’ve known this girl for…what…three, maybe four months? In order to meet her, you had to have her make the first move because you were too damn twitchy to do it yourself.”

“Wounding my pride here, Old Man…” I bit the inside of my cheek, “Not exactly appreciated.”

“And I’m not done,” he continued, “On your first date, I thought you were going to throw up. You’re trying to chase after a blue blood while working for one of the biggest kingpins in the city.”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “What about it?”

“Oh, Frankie, Frankie, Frankie,” the Old Man shook his head, “I really do love you, but someone needs to knock you upside the head with a goddamn frying pan.”

“What did I do?” I squealed, “All I said was that I wanted to make the best decision I could possibly ever make in my life. Is that so terrible?”

He sat back in his chair in absolute awe, “You really do love this girl, don’t you? Despite all odds. Despite her mother wanting you arrested for kidnapping her.”

“Allegedly kidnapping her,” I clarified, “Vanessa told me that if this goes to trial and she gets on the stand, she will be sure to say that everything was completely and one hundred percent consensual. And that there’s a slight chance her mother would say something along the lines of Vanessa not being in the right mind to be a credible witness. But if it comes to that, Vanessa’s demanding a psych evaluation to prove she’s of sound mind and can be a credible witness.”

“It’s not just that you love her,” he thought, “But you two have already hashed this shit out?”

“It was mostly Vanessa,” I gushed, “She’s kind of good with this whole lawyering thing. It is what she’s going to school for. I’d expect nothing less.”

“And you’re sure this is the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?” the Old Man asked, his face still unreadable. I’m not sure if he’s going to congratulate me or take me into the warehouse and beat some sense into me.

“Without a doubt,” I nodded, “She takes care of me. I take care of her. That’s all this ever needs to be. I want to keep this one around so bad, Old Man. Vanessa’s the best thing to ever happen to me and I don’t want to let her get away.”

“I’m happy for you, kid,” he smiled a bit, “Really, I am. But good luck getting permission for her hand.”

“Her dad’s going to be easy,” I assured him, remembering everything Vanessa told me, “If I can corner him, she’s mine. Her dad’s got a spine like a wet noodle.”

“Then, I don’t think her dad’s going to be the one you need to worry about,” the Old Man warned me, “I’ve told you this before, Frankie. Victoria Scarlotti is not a bitch you want to get tangled up with. Trust me. It will not end pretty for anyone involved. And God forbid it comes back to bite Vanessa. She’s a sweet girl and she doesn’t deserve that.”

“You know what, though?” I thought back to last night. How pissed off Victoria made Vanessa, “I’m pretty sure those two are one big blow up away from never speaking to each other again.”

“Oh, fuck, really?” he perked up, “But if that does happen, what are you going to do? You know she’s going to either lean on you for support or she’s going to resent you for being the reason she cut her mother out of her life.”

“If she’s leaning on me,” I told him, “I’ll gladly support her. I’ve dealt with her mother. She is not a pleasant human being. But I know somewhere else she’d lean, too. It’s not like she’d be totally without a mother in her life. Have you ever met mine?”

“Yeah. Several times. Your mama’s a peach.”

“Right there,” I went on, “Right there would be my safety net, if need be. Because Mama and Vanessa get on like a fucking house on fire. She’d be alright. But if she resents me for it, then…I don’t know. I guess I could kiss marrying her goodbye. I’d give Vanessa the space she needed to recover and if she came back to me, then she’d come back to me and everything would be…Probably on shaky ground for a while, but we’d be ok. Eventually. How am I going to find out which one I get if I didn’t stick around?”

“So,” the Old Man pressed a little more, “You’re not worried about her mother?”

“Not at all,” I assured him, “Because at the end of the day, I’m not marrying Victoria. At the end of the day, that’s Vanessa’s decision, whether Victoria likes it or not. You know what Vanessa told me last night?”

“What?”

“She told me she spent her trust fund on her education,” I felt a phantom ache in my chest. Seeing Vanessa so pissed and so hurt killed me. Never again, baby. Don’t you worry about that, “because it was the one thing Victoria couldn’t take from her. It was the one thing she could call entirely her own. And when I heard that, she fucking broke me. It made me wonder what else she’s taken from her. She almost took her love life away from her.”

“What do you mean?” the Old Man looked at me strange.

“Victoria was trying to set up Vanessa last night…That’s the reason why I took her away from the party last night. It was fucking smothering her and she could hardly contain herself. I got her out of there, so she could breathe again. And even after she told Victoria she had a boyfriend, she told Vanessa to find her when she stops going through her rebellious phase.”

“Ouch…” the Old Man winced, “I’m sorry to hear that, kid.”

“I can’t totally hate Victoria, though,” I admitted, “As much as I’m not her number one fan, I can’t totally hate her. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think we would’ve met. Or at least, we wouldn’t be like we are now.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” I giggled to myself, “Remember the night we met? When I seemed like I just got my ass kicked a million times over and I hated everything?”

“You were rough,” he agreed, “Yeah. What does that have to do with Victoria?”

“She was the reason why I looked so tired and defeated,” I remembered that night all too well, “The customer isn’t always right, Old Man. Sometimes, the customer has a false sense of overentitlement and needs to get knocked down a couple pegs. In the form of me falling in love with her daughter a couple nights later…I think that’s when it was. Then, you put me on my first collections job and that was the night I met Vanessa. Sort of. Like you so kindly pointed out, she had to make the first move, but dammit, I’m glad she did.”

“Yikes, kid…” the Old Man cringed, “I’m so sorry you had to deal with that. But hindsight, I guess.”

“You know,” I leaned back in my chair, finding patterns in the ceiling tiles. And I had a feeling that under at least a couple of these tiles were drugs, but what the Old Man does in his free time is his business. Not particularly one for them myself, but I don’t judge, “I’m not a big believer in destiny or fate or whatever you want to call it. But I do think the right people are put in the right path. It’s just whether or not you got the stones to take the path in the first place.”

“And now, you’re some kind of philosopher?” he teased, “Hard to believe you haven’t asked Vanessa to marry you already.”

“I’m serious, though,” I admitted, “It’s like…This all fell into place the way it should. One person out of place and my life could’ve gone completely different. No Victoria to wear me down would’ve meant me still working at the restaurant and not coming to work for you. If Vanessa wouldn’t have been in the club that night as a wake up call from her sister Violet, we never would’ve met. Or even if Veronica wouldn’t have been by Abuela’s food truck the morning after, I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten my second chance with her. Sure, I could’ve still called her, but there’s no guarantee she would’ve agreed. But having Veronica to vouch for me might have been what saved my ass. It’s just…There’s a lot of what ifs that could’ve never been and it would’ve sent me in a different direction, but it didn’t. I’m here. And hopefully, if I’m very, very lucky, I’ll be with her. For as long as we live. And I don’t know about you, Old Man, but that’s the kind of future I want. I’ve never been able to see much of it before, but…I don’t know. Something about her makes it so…Bright…So clear…”

“You don’t have to sell me on it anymore, kid,” the Old Man settled me, “If you can get her away from Victoria, you have more than my blessing. Now, before you make me an emotional wreck, how about we get you on something to get your mind off of possibly going to jail for the woman you love, ok?”

“Alright,” I wasn’t going to say no. I could use the distraction, “What do you got for me? After I’ve worked all day at the bar.”

“Don’t think I’m going easy on you,” the Old Man jabbed, “Just because you put in honest work doesn’t mean you’ve worked for me today. I’m not the one that owns the bar. It’s just under my umbrella.”

“Dammit,” I grumbled, “Alright, Old Man. What do you want me to do?”

“It’s just a collection job, Frankie,” he laughed, “Relax. It’s not the end of the world. Although, I don’t want you going on your own. Go get your brothers first.”

“What?” I wondered, “Why? Where the fuck are you sending me? I can probably handle it on my own.”

“No,” the Old Man put his foot down, “I know you’re a scrappy little shit, but trust me. I want someone watching your back. In this particular instance, I want two someones watching your back. Go get your brothers. You’re going to the outskirts of our territory and not on a good side.”

“Again,” I started to sweat a little, “Where the fuck are you sending me, Old Man?”

“The outskirts of our territory,” he reiterated, “But on the other side of the line is the Bronx. You know about the Bronx.”

“Yeah,” I knew better than to play over on that side of the fence. The Old Man made sure to keep me out of there. Which made me wonder why the fuck he’d be sending me there now. Especially after everything I just told him. But I knew I could do it. Even if it means babysitting Tony and César while they’re supposed to be babysitting me, “I know not to be too conspicuous. I know not to piss anyone off around there. Keep my head low, get in, and get out. Right?”

“That’s right,” he applauded, “You do listen when I tell you shit. Good to know.”

“Of course, I do,” I rolled my eyes, “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’d be amazed at how many apprentices I’ve taken on in my life,” the Old Man explained, “And not too many of them listened. You know what happened to them?”

“What?”

“They’re dead, Frankie,” he put a hand to my shoulders, “Don’t be like the others.”

“Are you serious?” I gasped, “All of them?”

“Na,” the Old Man settled my nerves, “Not all of them. Some of them are, but not all of them. The ones that are dead got that way from being stupid. I got a couple that just got demoted and keep an eye on shit for me in different places. They’re information guys. You don’t want to be information. Believe me. My informants do double duty as patsies. You don’t want to go down that road.”

“No, I do not,” I promised, “I like where I am.”

“Stay at my hip, kid,” he gave me a little pop to the shoulder, “You’ll learn a thing or two. But for now, go get your brothers. Go get my money. Come back and we’ll talk about your cut.”

“Got it, boss,” I started getting up only to be pushed back down again, “What the hell, Old Man?”

“This is a big score for you, Frankie,” he kept his voice down, “You know how normally when you do collections for me, it’s maybe five grand, ten grand max?”

“Yeah.”

“This one’s around the hundred thousand mark,” the Old Man filled me in, “The envelope’s going to feel a little thicker than normal. This is a big score. Don’t blow it. Don’t get yourself killed. Don’t make friends, but don’t make enemies either. And what’s the number one rule when you got that money in your hand?”

“Don’t count it in front of anyone else?”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s just rude?”

“And…?’

“Because it’s a sign of mistrust,” I knew the rules. I wasn’t an idiot.

“That’s my boy,” he gave me a pat on the back, “Go on. Go get your brothers and my money.”

“Ok.” I did my best to keep my cool in front of him, but holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. I’ve never held a hundred grand before. Even when the Old Man needed his money laundered, I wasn’t the one to take it. That was one of those things he did on his own. Why? I don’t know. But I figured it wasn’t my place to ask.

Still…I had to go to the borderlands. I was about to be within spitting distance of the Bronx territories and we’ve had that conversation. That’s not a place for me to be. If they find out who I work for, I’m fucked. But I suppose that’s why the Old Man wants me protected. That and the fact that he doesn’t exactly hide who the favorite is around here. I’m surprised no one’s tried to pick a fight with me yet. Probably because of what I’ve already done in the warehouse. That guy walked out of there limping with a trail of blood following him.

When I got home, I did a quick check of the calendar. Mama was working late tonight, but that didn’t mean Tony and César were. At least not yet. I checked the apartment for my favorite pair of brothers and couldn’t find them anywhere. They weren’t in the living room. They weren’t in the bedroom. Although, when I poked my head out our bedroom window, I found them both on the fire escape. Why was I not surprised? It was a beautiful night. I couldn’t blame them.

“Hola, hermanito,” César stomped out the end of his cigarette, “Que pasa?”

“You boys care to make some money tonight?” I asked, a smirk on my face. I knew they weren’t going to say no. Not to me.

“What for?” Tony wondered. Always the skeptical one.

“The Old Man’s got me on a job,” I told them, “And he wants me protected, so he told me to take you two with me. Sound like a night?”

“What if we had plans?” César whined, “What if I had shit to do tonight, Frankie? We can’t just drop everything for you to use us as bodyguards.”

“Do you have anything else to do tonight?” Tony asked, “Because I don’t remember you making plans, César…”

“Dammit, Tony,” César put his head between his knees, “I swear, you were malnourished in the womb.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Tony gave him a shove.

“So,” I figured, “You don’t have shit going on tonight, do you, César?”

“Nope.”

“But,” I put things into perspective, “You know how well the jobs the Old Man puts us on always pay out. And I think tonight might be a damn good one.”

“What do you mean?” César perked up, “How much is this one paying, Frankie?”

“The Old Man didn’t tell me,” I explained, “But he did say it’s the most I’ve ever scored from one collections job.”

“Which is…how much?”

I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if I wanted to, “A hundred grand.”

“No fucking way,” César gasped, “Frankie, that kind of money could take care of the trip home this year.”

Or my cut could go toward an engagement ring and a damn nice wedding, but priorities, I guess. They weren’t ready to hear that one yet, “So, I’m thinking it’s safe to say you two are in?”

“I am,” César nodded, “And I don’t trust Tony home by himself, so we’re in.”

“Alright then,” I gave them both a nod, “Vamanos.”

[spaceskam]

can’t put my faith in what i can’t describe

Summary: isobel realizes michael’s weakness

ao3

”Where the fuck are they?!”

Isobel worriedly watched as Michael tore his tiny airstream apart.  They’d had plans to meet up for brunch like they do almost every Saturday, her idea, and he hadn’t shown up.  The last time he hadn’t shown up was a year ago when he got so drunk he slept for nearly 30 hours straight.  She was pretty certain that’s what she was going to see when she pulled up.  Instead, it was far from it.

“I need them.  I’m not going to be able to sleep if I don’t find them.  I need them, I need them, where are they?!” Michael was freaking out in a way she hadn’t seen him before.  Usually, in times of crisis, he was good at keeping a cool head.  Apparently, he just needed to lose something and he’d go batshit.

“Michael, what are you looking for?” Isobel said softly.  He ignored her, going through the blankets on his bed for a fourth time in hopes he’d find whatever it was tangled up in them this time rather than the other three.

No matter how many times she’d said his name, Michael would barely give her more than a glance.  The logical solution would be to get in his head and just find out what he was looking for so she could help, but she detested going in his head.  Not just because it felt like a breach of privacy to enter his brother’s mind without his permission, Michael’s brain was also just too much.  She didn’t even like thinking about how he survived in there.  It had to be torture.

Still, she had to do something.  There was no end in sight of this breakdown and he looked about three seconds away from crying.

“Michael, if you tell me what it is, I can help you find it,” Isobel said softly, hesitantly reaching a hand out to touch his arm.  He flinched, his head snapping to face with her nothing but confusion and shock as if he was just noticing she was even there. “What are you looking for?  Let me help.” Isobel made sure her voice was even sweeter now.  His big eyes were heavy with tears and, when he finally blinked, one droplet escaped and traced across his cheek.

“I had ‘em before I took a shower, Izzy, I know I did.  I-I took ‘em off and put them on the counter so I knew where they’d be.” Michael’s voice cracked as he spoke, his bottom lip quivering.  “I need ‘em.”  Isobel quickly grabbed the back of his head, pulling him into a hug and cradling him close.  

“What is it?  Let me look, maybe I can find them.  Different eyes,” she offered.  Michael took a deep breath before pulling out of her embrace.  He didn’t even bother saying anything more as he went right back to tearing everything apart.

She hated seeing him like this.  She would kill anyone or anything that made him like this.  Yet, no matter how much she wracked her brain, she couldn’t think of anything that could possibly do it.

She only had one option.

Isobel took a slow breath as she focused in on him, luring him to let her in his mind.  There was no question once she found herself there, the scenery around them changing rapidly and swirling too much to even say what it might’ve been.  Voices that hadn’t been there before sounded at different levels all around them, each more unintelligible than the others.  Colored lights darted around the space, mainly around Michael, almost as if begging her to give them her attention.  Michael himself stood before her and, instead of in that trance-like state that everyone else was, looked terrified and was shaking.  That’s how he always looked whenever she tried to get inside his head.  She’d been in there for less than a second and already felt sick.

“Michael,” she said slowly as she tried to keep herself grounded.  He was too easy to get lost inside.  The background seemed to expand more and more as the voices got louder, everything making her dizzier and dizzier.  Michael’s eyes were squeezed shut.  “What are you searching for?”

Silence.  Well, not silence.  Silence from Michael.

The lights that were shooting around him seemed to get brighter and move faster.  She didn’t even know what the hell they were.  No one else had them, not even Max.  It wasn’t an alien thing, it was simply a Michael thing.  She wondered if anyone else in existence had them or if he was really that alone.

“Michael,” she coaxed again, “Tell me what you’re looking for.”

His eyes opened, that fear on his face quickly being replaced with rage as he shouted, “Alex Manes’ dog tags!”

At the same time, the lights around them popped and flared and the space shrunk painfully until it physically threw her out without much of a notice.

Isobel gasped, stumbling backward as if she’d been pushed by something other than his unhinged psyche and had to stable herself on the tiny countertop.  Michael was already looking at her as she caught her breath and tried not to puke.

“Stay out of my fucking head,” he snapped, immediately heading towards the definitely-not-a-bathroom that he called a bathroom.  She couldn’t follow.

“I want to help,” Isobel said, still trying to steady her own mind, “Why do you have Alex Manes’ dog tags?”  She had more than just that question, but that was a starting place.  Every other question was simply a follow-up.  The main ones being, “Since when were you friends?” and “Why would losing them prevent you from sleep?”.  Of course, she could assume what all these answers were, but she’d learned to assume things with Michael wouldn’t always get you to the correct place.

He stared at her in annoying, but the pain in his face still broke through.  He was hurting so badly, it couldn’t have just been from this one little thing.  How did she not notice that?  She did notice, however, that he seemed to be debating what he should even tell her.  She prayed it was the truth.  He needed to talk.  She wished she’d only realized that sooner.

“I stole them last time he was in town,” Michael said eventually.  Well, that wasn’t exactly the answer she was expecting.

“Why would you steal them?” Isobel asked, her palm pressing against the wall as she led herself to sit on his bed.  Seriously, how did he stay in that head of his all the time?

Michael didn’t budge from his spot in the bathroom doorway, “I steal something from him every time he comes home.”

“Michael, you do realize that’s not telling me anything other than you’re a kleptomaniac,” Isobel said.  She expected him to at least roll his eyes, but he didn’t.  He just closed them, resting his head against the definitely-not-a-door-frame.

“C’mon, Izzy,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest, “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth, preferably,” Isobel said before patting the bed beside her, “Come talk.  Clearly, you need to vent and clear your mind a little.  Then we’ll find the dog tags.”

Reluctantly, Michael came and sat beside her.  He was twenty-six and had stubble and chest hair on display, but, right now, he looked no more than 12.  He was a baby for a moment, her baby.  They took turns on who took care of who.  She was long overdue for some Michael babying.  

Isobel grabbed his head once again and pulled him to her.  He was calmer this time, letting himself relax against her as she held him.  She made a mental note to do this more often.  He needed it.

“Alex does this stupid thing where he kinda just finds me when he comes back to town.  I don’t know if he does it on purpose or if the universe just puts us in the same place, but it happens.  Literally, even if he’s only in town for a couple days, I’ll see him and we’ll hook up.” Michael paused as if waiting for her to have some big reaction to his admission.  She wasn’t exactly shocked, though, and nor could she say she had a big reaction.  Sure, she wasn’t a fan that the person her brother was plowing every chance he got was so closely tied to the Ortechos, but Michael wasn’t stupid.  Their secret was safe. “I can’t say no to him, Izzy, even when it hurts.  And it hurts.  He’ll come and we’ll stay in here and he’ll stay a couple hours or the night.  One time I begged enough and he stayed a couple days.  But then he’ll just slip out without saying goodbye and I won’t see him or hear from him for at least months.”

Isobel ran her hand through his hair, “He sounds like an asshole.”

“No.  No, he’s not.  He’s scared of his dad and doesn’t want to get attached or anything.  If anyone’s in the wrong, it’s me. If it hurts so bad, I should just tell him no,” Michael murmured before sniffling loudly, “But I can’t.  I’ll literally take whatever he gives me.”

“Michael…” she trailed off, trying to find the words to give him to comfort him.  She couldn’t find them.  She couldn’t imagine being at someone’s will like that, letting someone walk all over you just because you couldn’t say no. “Why?  Why do you keep doing that after all this time?”

“I… I don’t know.  It hurts more to think that I won’t get stolen moments with him.  And, and when he’s here?  It’s so good, Iz, it‒”

“I don’t want to hear about sex with Alex Manes.”

“I’m not talking about the sex, I’m… I’m talking about us.  When he’s with me, it’s like my brain doesn’t need to be moving at a million miles a minute.  He touches me and stuff slows down.  It-it doesn’t even make sense, I don’t know why it’s him.  It…” Isobel couldn’t tell if Michael had stopped talking or if he just slowly got quieter and quieter until she couldn’t hear him anymore.

“Maybe you’re in love with him,” Isobel suggested offhandedly.  She was in love with Noah and it didn’t really compute with what Micahel was saying, but she couldn’t find another word for what he was saying.  All she knew was that if someone, anyone could help his mind, she was thankful for them and loved them just as much.

“He doesn’t care that I take his stuff.  If he does, he never said anything,” Michael mumbled, ignoring what she’d just said, “It just helps me.  I feel closer to him when I have his stuff like he’s still here or like I can feel him.  I can’t sleep without them anymore.”

It was only then she noticed the Air Force t-shirt that was being used in lieu of an actual pillowcase.

“Sometimes I think we share dreams,” Michael admitted, his voice even softer than before.  Isobel couldn’t help but furrowed her eyebrows as she looked down at him.  Dream sharing absolutely wasn’t impossible, she’d done it a couple times on accident with Max when they were kids, but Michael wasn’t psychic.  And, even if he was, Alex was a human and there was no way that could be a thing.        

“Michael, I don’t think that’s happening,” Isobel said as carefully as possible.  Michael was fragile right now.  She didn’t want to break him more, even if it was honest.

“You don’t understand,” Michael insisted, trying to pull out of her grasp.  She held him close.  “They’re too real, he’s too there.  He’s always there…  I think he got hurt. It feels like he’s hurt.  ‘Swhy I need his tags.  I gotta hold him close so he’s there, so he knows I’m there.”

Isobel hated thinking it, but he sounded pathetic.  He was pining after a guy who clearly didn’t even give enough of shit about him to say goodbye.  He was using her brother because he knew he wouldn’t deny him.  He was just a reliable fuck to some entitled military brat.

“He loves me,” Michael whispered with a level of determination that felt like a blow to the stomach.  What was the nicest way to tell him that Alex Manes absolutely did not feel that way?

“You… you need to let go of him, Michael.  There’s no reason you should be holding onto someone who treats you like that.  That isn’t love,” Isobel tried.  In an instant, he pulled away.  Babying time was over.  She spoke too soon.

“If you’re not gonna help me find them, you can leave,” he sniffled simply, going back to searching the floor.

Isobel watched him helplessly for a minute.  He wasn’t going to listen.  He was just going to let this guy fuck with him over and over.  Next time Alex Manes came to town, she would personally see to it that he left her brother the fuck alone.

But, until then, she would have to sit with this.  She would have to watch him act fine every other day of the year, pretending like he didn’t have a personal shrine of stolen things from Alex Manes that he couldn’t sleep without.  That he cried without.

“Ah!” Michael shouted suddenly, holding up the chain and staring at them like they were the most precious things in the world.  She watched with a heavy heart as he cradled them to his chest, his eyes closing and the last of his tears pushing past his eyes in thanks.  There he sat on the floor, acting like the pointless metal was the only thing helping him breathe.

Isobel was terrified.  This was too much, Michael was feeling too much.  It wouldn’t take but a small push to get him to tell all their secrets to some guy who was literally apart of the government.  Michael was in too deep and she didn’t trust him to keep his mouth shut, no matter how much he promised.

She was going to kill Alex Manes.

[ichigopanhpff]

BNHA Fic: Blink! Ch. 19

Read Ch. 18 | Masterlist

No spoilers and just a filler chapter while the canon part of the storyline focused on the League of Villains. Also, please note some of the things I’ve written in this chapter are not 100% accurate when it comes to animal behaviour. It’s just bits and pieces I’ve put together from reading some books and watching TV shows.

After the excitement of the Culture Festival died down, U.A. was back to their regularly scheduled classes and quirk training. Just like the first years, the second years were also enduring intensive training in mastering their quirks. Having had her bangles damaged from the raid fight, Ren focused on strengthening her quirk and physical strength more while the Support Department was fixing them.

She had two goals: One, double the distance of her teleport radius and two, arrive at her destination faster. She’s noticed she has a 1-second delay when she uses Flicker due to her reaction time. But thanks to her late night training sessions with Bakugou, Kirishima and Todoroki, her reflexes have exponentially improved, thus shaving off her teleport time to half a second.

“Is it just me or have you gotten faster lately?” Ito panted out and wiped some sweat off of his chin.

“Maybe. You’ve gotten stronger too,” she complimented and noted the cut on the sleeve of her gym uniform.

Ito Kaede’s quirk was Sharpen, where he can transform his limbs into really sharp knives.

“I recently got a better whetstone,” he joked and readied himself to attack again.

Once class finished, they slowly filed back to the main campus for class. As Ren walked on with Tomoe and Seri, she noticed a lot of people looking in their direction.

“What’s with the eyes?” she casually remarked.

“Your reputation must be getting around school from the show,” Tomoe assumed.

“Everyone else’s performance was amazing too.”

“That is true. I have had a few from the support and general studies department confess to me already,” Seri casually added. “But of course, I’ve rejected them all.”

“As expected of the Heartbreaker,” Ren off-handedly remarked with a smirk and shoved her hands into her blazer pockets.

“What ‘bout you, Ren-Ren? Have anyone come up to you yet?” Tomoe asked out of curiosity.

“Of course not,” she abruptly answered as if it was obvious. “I’d ask them to examine their heads if they ever found me attractive.”

“But you are quite adorable, Ren-Ren,” Seri replied. “I’d date you.”

“Aw that’s sweet.”

The pink-haired girl draped her arm around Seri’s shoulder and pecked her on the cheek.

“Hey what about me?” Tomoe pointed to herself. “You’re hurtin’ me here, sweets.”

“You’re a close second,” their owl friend deadpanned.

“Ouch, sloppy seconds,” Ren playfully commented. “Unfortunate, friend.”

“Oh piss off. I’m a fuckin’ catch.”

The three laughed aloud as they headed back into class for lessons. The chill in the air brought Ren’s mind drifting like a leaf in the wind. So much has happened these past few months even though it felt like years.

She never expected to get along so well with 1-A, thinking their relationship would be your typical senpai-kouhai one, but it was the exact opposite. Ren saw them as her equals in ability and mental strength.

They really will be the shining generation of heroes after U.A.

“So the thing with Togata-senpai the other night,” Seri casually brought up. “What was with that hug?”

“Just Mirio-senpai doin’ his thing as usual, I guess.” She huffed a surprised chuckle and lightly shrugged. “You’d think after knowing him for this long, he’d run out of surprises.”

“You don’t think there’s a chance he may–”

“Nope.” She confidently confirmed. “He’s got a lot going on right now. Last thing he needs is to be in a relationship with someone.”

“Are you saying that to convince yourself or…?” Tomoe questioned, making Ren slowly turn back with a hint of annoyance.

“I got my closure. It’s all sorted out.”

All Tomoe and Seri could do was exchange dubious glances at one another.

As classes ended for the day, Ren bundled herself into her self-made red infinity scarf to keep the chill away while walking back to Heights Alliance. Looking down at her accessory, she saw a stray piece of yarn unraveling. Glaring down at it with a sense of compulsion, she rubbed the fabric between her index and thumb.

“I should fix this.”

Dinner tonight was beef stew in the 1-A dorms. Ren asked Bakugou and Iida to help with the prep work, much to the former’s complaints. Soon after, the whole floor was engulfed with a sense of warmth and aroma from the stew. The stomachs of everyone growled loudly, as if begging the chef to hurry up and finish cooking. With their appetites satiated, Ren sat down in the common area with some of the students. Jiro casually glanced over at her phone’s lock screen.

“Ren, who’s the dog?” the earphone jack girl asked. “It’s adorable.”

“Oh, that’s Skye*.”

She turned her screen to give her a better look, with a few other students piling over Jiro’s shoulder to see.

“Aw, she’s so cute!” Hagakure squealed. “So floofy!”

“She was the best dog...” Ren trailed off with a sad smile. “I still miss her.”

“Oh that’s right… you mentioned she passed away,” Yaoyorozu said with regret. “Have you and your mother thought about getting another one?”

She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be fair to the dog. My mom already works crazy hours and I’m here,” she reasoned. “They’d be too lonely.”

“You really love dogs, don’t you senpai?” Uraraka gushed with a matching smile.

“All animals are pure and good in this world. We don’t deserve them,” she firmly stated.

Sunday quietly crept up and for once, Ren was free to leisurely do what she wanted. Looking at her hung up scarf on the wall hook, she was going to go off campus for some shopping. Having already gone through the proper steps in getting permission to leave, she put on a long, thick white and gray stripped sweater dress with skinny jeans and grabbed her leather jacket from the closet and the rest of her accessories to stay as warm as she can. 

Closing the door to her room, she went to the elevator and pressed the call button for it. Moments later, the door opened to reveal a familiar bi-colour haired boy already inside and greeted one another. He was wearing a tweed jacket with a black turtleneck. His bottoms were casual slacks.

“Heading out today, senpai?” he asked.

“I gotta get something in town. You?”

“I’m going to visit my mom at the hospital.”

“Hospital?” Her concern grew with a matching expression. “Is she okay?”

“Ah, yeah. It’s just...” He awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. “It’s complicated.”

“Gotcha.”

A mild, tense silence filled the elevator ride. It was Todoroki who broke it.

“Would you… like to come with?” 

Ren glanced up at the tall boy with surprise.

“To the hospital?”

“Y-yeah… Unless you don’t want to,” he stuttered out.

“Where is it?”

“It’s the private hospital in Musutafu.”

“If you don’t mind me tagging along, sure. It’s along the way for me.”

Heading out of the dorms together, they put their shoes on and exited. Ren readjusted her scarf and hat as the condensation from her breath escaped the wintry airs. One of the pro-heroes assigned as a chaperone to the train station rendezvous at the school’s entrance. Dropping them off at the nearest block due to traffic, the two U.A. students hopped on the train in silence. About thirty minutes later, they arrived at their station and got off.

“It’s getting cold fast,” she shivered and bundled her hands into her jacket pockets. Her shoulders shrugged up the moment they left the station. “You must be okay in weather like this with your quirk, right?”

“I guess…” Todoroki shrugged. “I haven’t really thought about it much.”

After a short ten minute walk, they arrived to the hospital. A gush of warm air welcomed the two newcomers. They entered the elevator and he pressed the button for the designated floor. Other nurses and doctors filed in, pressing their respective destinations. The pink-haired girl removed her hat as she quietly followed a few steps behind the dual-hair colored boy after they got to their floor.

They passed a sign on the wall reading “Psych Ward.”

Ren couldn’t help but feel a mixture of loneliness, yearning and comfort coming from him during the commute. Just what happened in his childhood that made him into who he is? She wanted to ask, but felt it wasn’t her place to. Sure, they were friends and got along well with one another, but the blurred lines of where she stood with him made her hesitate in taking that step forward.

He stopped at the entrance to his mom’s room and looked at Ren, whose eyes were currently downcast at the floor.

“Senpai, are you okay?” he asked with worry, jolting her head up and out of her thoughts.

“Hm? Yeah. I’m good,” she responded and flashed a quick smile. “I’ll… wait out here for you.”

“I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind meeting you,” he softly replied with a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes and opened the door. He entered and greeted the person inside. Taking quick deep breaths, she slowly followed him into a brightly lit room. A woman with snow white hair like Todoroki’s right half sat by the window, looking up at her son and smiling. Her gaze then went to Ren’s.

“Oh hello,” she warmly greeted. “And who may you be?”

“A-ah, I’m Takahiro Ren,” she introduced and stiffly bowed like Iida. “I’m currently class 1-A’s resident advisor and a second year at U.A. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Oh, you’re Shouto’s senpai? And here I thought you were his girlfriend,” she replied in a motherly manner and chuckled. Ren immediately sucked in a quick breath as a tint of pink dyed the apples of her cheeks.

“We both happen to be headed the same way and he asked me to join him,” Ren politely explained, feeling the nervous sweat exude from her palms. Todoroki’s mom’s pale and thin hand gestured her to sit down on to the empty seat next to her son, to which she did rigidly out of nervousness.

“I got your letters, Shouto,” his mom told her son. “How have your provisional classes been going?”

“They’re tough, but I’m learning a lot.”

“The final test is coming up soon, yes?”

He nodded.

“It’ll be around December,” he confirmed.

“Well, Takahiro-san,” Mrs. Todoroki addressed the R.A. and placed a gentle hand on top of her son’s head. “Please take good care of my son. He’s very bright and talented, but sometimes he has trouble asking for help.”

“He’s been making good progress, so I don’t think you have much to worry about,” Ren endorsed with confidence, making the boy look down bashfully. A small sense of warmth bloomed in his chest. “Todoroki-kun will definitely get his license and he’ll be a hero you can be proud of.”

Mrs. Todoroki gave her a beaming smile and replied, “I’m already proud of my son.”

The three talk for a bit longer before heading out. Ren bowed once more before leaving the room with the younger Todoroki following.

“You’re the first person other than my siblings to see my mom,” he revealed. “Thank you… for coming with me.”

“You’re the one who invited me,” she quietly replied, still surprised by what he jus said. “I should be thanking you.”

The two teenagers walked on with their quiet footsteps echoing in the corridor.

“Your mom... She’s really kind,” she finally spoke up. “And she looks well.”

“The doctors said she’s been making good progress due to her hard work.”

“I’m sure your visits are helping with her recovery too.”

Todoroki stopped in his steps and turned to give Ren a grateful smile.

“I hope so.”

The two exited the hospital and back into the cold. The strong wind blew at their faces, making Ren squeeze her eyes close with an extremely displeased expression.

“I wanna drink hot chocolate and eat all the warm things,” she groaned out.

“I know a place,” Todoroki suggested. “It’s a bit of a walk though.”

“Anywhere is fine but outside,” she shivered and placed her hands in her underarms.

“You really can’t deal with the cold, can you?” he teased with a smirk.

“I’m rather sensitive to it,” she revealed and adjusted her scarf to minimize skin exposure. “Flicker’s lag gets worse in extreme weather conditions.”

“Lag?”

“The time between I can react to get from point A to B.”

She froze and blinked dumbly, realizing she let slip of one of her weaknesses.

“Interesting,” Todoroki remarked and placed the knuckle of his index finger to his chin.

“You’re gonna use it against me in sparring, aren’t you?” Ren flatly asked, already knowing the answer.

“Maybe.”

“’Maybe’, he says,” she mocked and huffed a breath.

Realizing the walk was a lot longer than anticipated, Todoroki looked down to his left at Ren’s bundled form. The lower half of her face was buried into her red scarf, shoulders shrugged up with her hands in her pockets. Her white breath could be seen floating up into the air. She looked miserable.

While waiting at a walk light, he casually placed his left hand under her scarf and let a small amount of controlled heat from his palm at the back of her neck. He could feel the tense muscles from her shoulders loosen up as she gradually brought them down.

Noticing the sudden warmth around her neck, Ren glanced up at the duo-quirk user staring straight on nonchalantly and noticed the wrist of his left arm draped on her shoulder. She leaned into his hand a bit and smiled to herself underneath her scarf. The light turned green for the pedestrians. The two followed foot traffic all the while Todoroki kept his hand stationary and walked beside her to keep her warm. After a few twists and turns into streets and the two reached their destination.

It was a dog cafe.

Before she could say anything, the boy took her by the wrist and guided her inside. She looked around in amazement to see the brightly lit space with white paneled walls decorated with dog themed items, from mugs to t-shirts to treats. One of the store staff greeted the two and seated them before handing them two menus: one of which was a standard food menu, the other was a dog menu where they can choose which four-legged companion to keep you company.

The two removed their jackets and accessories to settle in. The warmth from Todoroki’s hand slowly seeped away from her neck upon removing her scarf. But before Ren could even ask anything, her friend immediately answered.

“I overheard your conversation about your dog the other day,” he began. “And I looked up nearby dog cafes to take you to. As I was about to ask if you were free this weekend, it just worked out that you were headed out to town today since I had to visit my mom.”

“Wow.” She blinked a few times in amazement. “And everything went according to your plan.”

“I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“But why would you go out of your way to do this?” she asked out of genuine curiosity.

He paused for a short moment, trying to gather his thoughts.

“You sounded so sad… when you were talking about your dog,” he shyly mumbled out, not knowing what was coming out of his mouth right now. “I guess, this is my way of thanking you… for helping me through my stuff and lending me your shoulder.”

His eyes quickly shifted down to the menu, which was very appealing for a distraction right now. He brought his right hand up and rested his fingers on his nose bridge, trying to hide his oncoming blush. Not knowing what to say, Ren picked up the dog menu and stared intently at a random spot on it, biting her lower lip.

Moments later, the server returned to their table, asking if they were ready to order. She took this chance to ask about the dogs as a way to distract herself from the awkwardness.

“Is it possible for me to go in and let the dog pick me instead? Of course, with one of your staff members supervising.”

“Unfortunately, only staff are allowed back there,” he regretfully replied. “While I do understand your logic, it’s for safety reasons.”

“No, no. I get it,” she replied with a tone of understanding.

“But I could let you see the dogs through the window instead,” the server suggested as a halfway happy option.

Ren’s eyes lit up with joy and practically leaped out of her seat with Todoroki in tow by his wrist. The server brought them to the window and several dogs could be seen in the room; some were playing while others were chilling out and napping. She couldn’t help but gush at the adorable fluff balls of joy. Then she spotted a gray and white colored poodle-maltese mix in the far corner sitting on its own, watching three dogs tugging at a toy with each other.

“That one in the corner, please,” she requested.

“Ah, Hiroki is… a bit problematic,” the server nervously said. “We’ve been having trouble socializing him and doesn’t seem interested in anything.”

“I can help with that,” she confidently stated. “Can you put me in a room with him? With a staff member for supervision, of course.”

“Senpai, what do you intend to do?” Todoroki asked.

“Skye was the same way when we adopted her,” Ren softly answered. “She came from a home where the owners neglected her and didn’t trust humans because of it. It took a while to coax her out of her shell.”

“I’ll talk to my supervisor and see what they can do,” the staff obliged.

Moments later, the supervisor came up to talk to Ren about procedure, to which she fully understood. If the dog was to show any sort of aggression at her, they would step in. Ren and Todoroki slowly entered and closed the door behind them. Some of the other dogs came up to give them a smell and jumped up on their leg, wanting to play. Hiroki, however, looked at them passively.

Taking a few steps in, she sat down by the wall with him following suit.

“So… what do we do now?” he asked.

“We wait. Hiroki needs to approach first so we don’t scare him.”

She took out a bag of treats given by the staff. All of the dog’s ears, including Hiroki’s, perked up upon hearing the crinkle of plastic.

“Oh, you want one don’t you?” she coaxed and broke off a few small pieces of biscuit to chuck in various directions. When one piece landed nearby the anti-social pooch, the dog sniffed and accepted it. She threw another piece at him and turned her attention to Todoroki.

“Thanks for warming me up on the way here.” She gave him a soft smile, ignoring the dog for a moment. Some of the friendlier ones circled them and sat nearby the two for attention. The two teenagers gave them casual pets on their heads.

“We can’t have you catching a cold with final exams coming up,” he passively answered.

“Your flames… They’re different from your dad’s,” she suddenly let out.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s kind and radiates life. It’s… gentle and comforting.”

She turned her attention back to the dog, who was now staring intently in their direction with his tail wagging with curiosity. Breaking off another piece of biscuit, she threw it in a different direction, with the dogs pattering after it.

What Ren didn’t notice was the look of surprise on Todoroki’s face. The left side he’s hated for so long because of its constant reminder of his dad was… gentle?

“Why do you say these things?” He looked down at his strained left hand. “This fire isn’t kind. It’s...”

“It’s kind because you are,” she interrupted his train of thought.

He looked up with glistening hetero-chromatic eyes into Ren’s tender hazel-green ones. As her hand started reaching up to touch his scar, the attention suddenly shifted when she felt something crawl up her leg; it was Hiroki grabbing the remaining piece of biscuit in her hand. Succeeding in his mission, he splayed out on her lap and gnawed on the treat, getting crumbs all over in the process.

“I knew you’d come around,” she looked down at the dog and drew her attention back.

He remained on her lap even after finishing the treat. She slowly brought her left hand up in the form of a loose fist up to his nose. Hiroki gave it a lazy sniff and licked her knuckles a few times. She stayed this way until the pup got impatient and started pawing at her hand to pet him.

“Needy little thing, aren’t you,” she cooed out in between chuckles and gently scratched under his chin. “Just needed some patience and love, didn’tcha?”

Todoroki could only look on stunned and in amazement. She was able to entice this dog who everyone was afraid to approach to its current state. Ren looked back up at him with a smile.

“Give me your hand.”

He absentmindedly reached his right out into her palm, to which she gently cupped it into a loose fist. She then brought it down slowly near Hiroki’s nose, to which he got curious about and crawled over to inspect the new limb. The dog’s cold and wet nose on Todoroki’s knuckle made his muscles jolt a little from the touch, but soon got used to it.

He eventually lost interest and went back to Ren for more pets and cuddles.

“I don’t think he likes me,” the boy dejectedly assumed.

“Not necessarily. He’s got your scent and doesn’t think you’re a threat, is all,” she reassured.

“But he’s all over you.”

“Because I have treats.”

Watching her play with the dog some more, it was then he realized how at peace she looked. He discreetly took his phone out and snapped a candid photo of her smiling with Hiroki on her chest licking her chin. Upon hearing the sound of the shutter, she immediately turned to him like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Delete that. Right now,” she flatly demanded.

“Nope. It’ll be my keepsake.”

“Then I’ll just have to snap pictures of you,” she suggested. “I think that’s a fair trade.”

“If you can even manage to,” Todoroki challenged.

She cocked one eyebrow at him with a smirk.

“Oh you’re on, peppermint,” she teased and stood up holding Hiroki in her arms. The supervisor was amazed at how she handled the dog and the two got into conversation about how to train him moving forward. Moments later, they found themselves back at the table they were seated with their new friend in tow.

They finally managed to order lunch and played with Hiroki until it came. At one point, Ren dropped the animal into Todoroki’s lap and neither one knew what to do with each other. After watching how she picked him up, his successful attempt to hold the furry beast made her snicker as she snapped a picture. He merely stuttered when he heard the shutter go off, only to have her snap a few more for good measure. The look on his blushing face being caught off guard was priceless.

“This is so gonna be your caller ID on my phone,” she laughed as she was setting it.

“Senpai,” he quivered out, still holding Hiroki stiffly. “Please delete it.”

“Only if you delete mine.”

“I refuse.”

“Then I refuse too.” She flashed an arrogant smirk at him. “You challenged the wrong girl, Todoroki.”

One of the staff members assisted him with Hiroki as they served them food while another brought a high chair for the dog to sit with them. Wiping their hands with the wet naps given, they dug into their lunch as their puppy friend munched on some kibble. Ren took her mug of hot chocolate and brought it to her nose, enjoying the aroma.

Then came the shutter sound from across the table, followed with a glower from her.

“It’s like that huh?”

“It’s like that,” Todoroki taunted.

What was supposed to be a relaxing time turned into a competition of who can snap the most candids of one another. They called a truce the moment they got one of each other with whipped cream on the tips of their respective noses from the hot chocolate and laughed. The moment the check came, it was an all out war settled with janken, to which Ren lost yet again. Todoroki ended up paying in full, something he intended to from the start.

But beating her made the victory that much better.

“One day, I’ll win,” she declared. “I can’t be bad at janken forever.”

“I wish you would so I can keep winning against you,” the boy teased as they exited the cafe.

The wind greeted them with a cool whip of biting chill, making Ren groan into her scarf. The two made their way back to the main street and walked a bit further to find themselves entering small a yarn store.

“Senpai, you knit?”

“It’s one of the many things I picked up when I was younger to relax from my ‘other hobby’,” she explained while looking over the yarn selections. “Plus, it saves me money in having to buy overpriced sweaters in department stores.”

She found a roll of yarn that was the perfect shade of peach pink and placed two into her basket before moving on.

“What are you thinking of making?” Todoroki asked and looked around the store casually.

“Something for Eri-chan.”

“Eri-chan?”

“The little girl who was with Mirio-senpai during the festival,” she reminded. “I want to make her something warm this winter.”

A peaceful smile graced her lips as she looked at the other selections of yarn. After wandering for another moment, she got all she needed and paid. Exiting the store, they looked up at the sky painted a fiery orange with clouds floating on as the sun decided to call it an early day and retire. As they were a few blocks near the train station, a sudden explosion rocked the peace away. Pedestrians started screaming and running from the commotion. Ren and Todoroki looked at each other and ran to it.

It was a small apartment building that was smashed in with a big and burly low rank looking villain standing not too far away laughing manically. He then turned around and that’s when she saw it: the black tongue and blood-shot eyes.

He was on a quirk-booster.

They were on a narrow street, which wasn’t optimal for Todoroki’s quirks since it may damage surrounding buildings. And with her bangles still being repaired, she had to fight with her abilities and quirk alone.

“Todo-kun, assist with the rescue of the victims in the building. I’ll fight,” she instructed as she placed her shopping bag down. “Let’s make this quick.”

“But–”

“Did you forget I have my license? As long as you’re with me, you’re fine.”

She ran on ahead and teleported up to the roof of the closest building while Todoroki used his ice to travel on and to put out the fire.

“It’s the villain’s time to shine!” the man cackled out as a heavy heel drop landed right on his skull by Ren. She zipped away to a safer distance. The man was barely stunned and looked at her with menacing eyes.

“Oh, let’s play, little girl.”

“Shove it, bowling ball.”

Going on the offensive, she went for a frontal attack and landed a hard punch to his stomach, throwing him back only a few steps.

He laughed again and taunted, “That’s all you got?! Even mosquitoes hit harder than that.”

The rotund man charged and swung a fist at her. Due to her current lag from the cold, she barely managed to dodge on time and got away with a few scrapes on the sleeves of her jacket and face. From her peripheral, a stream of ice traveled down the street and encased the villain’s left leg before landing on the balls of her feet.

“I’ve double checked the building and made sure there it was empty,” he caught her up with the situation. “What about him?”

“He’s on boosters,” Ren updated her partner. The villain growled as he struggled to free his leg against the ice. “Keep holding him down. I’m going up.”

“Got it.”

Not letting her guard down, she remained on the attack and zipped up into the sky while the bi-hair coloured boy released more of his ice, now trapping both his legs to distract the criminal. Free falling to build up momentum, she somersaulted and finished the villain off with a heavy stomp to his abdomen and wedged him into the pavement.

He heaved out his stomach contents onto his person and was knocked unconscious from the force. Ren quickly turned and used Todoroki as her phase point to return. Not realizing she moved too fast into teleporting, she accidentally knocked into the boy with a little more force than she liked upon reappearing. He let out a soft grunt and caught her between his arms in a loose embrace.

“S-Sorry! I overshot my momentum.”

She looked up and hurriedly stuttered before stiffly pushing herself off his torso. Her cheeks were dusted red from a combination of the cold, the fight and sheer embarrassment.

“It’s fine.”

By the time the cops came, a safety perimeter had been created and the villain was now in cuffs. With the drugs out of his system, he reverted to a malnourished version of what Ren fought. She explained to the officers what happened and showed her license to them for good measure so Todoroki wouldn’t get in trouble. After the debrief finished, the two walked past the victims, one of which was a crying young boy by himself wearing nothing but a thin long sleeve shirt and pants. Stopping in her steps, she walked up to him and knelt down.

“Hey, what’s your name?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“T-Tairo,” he hiccuped.

“Tairo-kun, where are your parents?”

“M-Mom n’ dad are workin’ and w-won’t be back un-until late-e,” he sniffled out and shivered.

Ren took her scarf off and draped it over the cold boy. Suddenly feeling the warm enveloping him, he slowly stopped. She patted him on the head and gently smiled.

“I’m going to get a police officer over here so you can get to your parents, okay?”

Tairo furiously nodded and thanked her. She grabbed an officer when she stood back up and told her about the details of the child, to which they immediately acted on, before walking back to Todoroki.

“Is everything okay?”

She glanced over at the young boy again with softened eyes, who was now hugging the accessory she gave him with a hopeful smile, his tears fully dried. His eyes slowly followed after.

“Yeah… we’re good.”

As they walked past the caution taped crowd, applause and whistles erupted from the pedestrians, thanking them for their help. The two couldn’t help but smirk and bowed before heading back to grab their belongings and head back to U.A. The train ride back was crowded and cramped.

“God, I don’t miss this,” she groaned out and found herself uncomfortably pinned between a railing and the corner of the door.

With the train pulling into another stop, a shift of commuters made no leeway in freeing up space. Todoroki found himself being shoved up onto Ren. Her face planted into his chest while her arms wrapped around his torso for balance. His arms were perched above her head by the elbows on the glass part of the door, trying to shield her from anyone hitting her. Both felt part of their breath knocked from their bodies from the friction.

“You okay?” she looked up and asked with a look of concern.

“I’m fine,” he groaned out and looked down. “You?”

“I’m shoved up against my human shield and can barely breathe,” she quipped. “But I’ll live. You have it harder than I do right now.”

“Glad of you to notice.”

Several uncomfortable train stops later, the crowd of riders gradually dissipated. Both Ren and Todoroki let out a sigh of relief. Realizing she was still hugging him, her hands immediately released, only to be thrown back into him from the jerk of the train cart from switching tracks. She yelped as her face hit his chest hard. Ren let out a muffled groan into him and lifted her head up with a displeased expression. Her nose bridge and chin were throbbing with a numb pain. Todoroki couldn’t help but let out a snicker.

“Y’know, for someone so muscular, I had to hit the one bony spot on your chest,” she griped and rubbed her chin.

“I’ll be sure to specifically work out that one bony spot then.”

Finally reaching their station, they got off the train and exited. The sky was now pitch black with stars slowly coming out to play. The two’s white breath swirled up and mixed while walking back to campus. Ren’s teeth audibly chattered en route, rolling herself into her leather jacket further and pulled her hat down. Todoroki walked closer to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

“What are you–”

A sudden surge of comfortable warmth radiated from his left side as he turned away from her, his cheeks red from the wind.

“As long as I’m keeping you warm like this, you won’t get sick,” he spoke in a low voice. “That’s fine, right?”

She rolled her lips in and hesitantly nodded, looking down at her moving feet. The two walked in silence until they got past the gates.

“I-I think I’ll be okay from here.”

He turned to look down at her and never realized how short she was next to him. Ren looked like a fragile creature that needed protecting from the elements.

“Are… you sure?”

“Yeah. I mean...” She scratched the back of her head, avoiding eye contact. “You draping your arm ‘round me like that? People might think we’re a couple and stuff.”

“Oh… I didn’t even think of that,” he realized. “I’m sorry.”

“I-It’s fine. You were just being considerate. So… thank you.”

She gave him a warm smile that could thaw the coldest of ice he could generate with his right. He felt his heartbeat suddenly increase as smoke trailed up his left shoulder.

“U-Uh, Todo-kun?” She pointed to his shoulder. “You’re catching fire.”

He quickly turned and immediately patted himself out with his ice quirk and clicked his tongue.

“Let me guess, favorite jacket?”

“And this is why I can’t have nice things,” he sighed as she chuckled.

Ren walked up to him and tip-toed up to his shoulder to analyze the burn.

“Eh it could’ve been worse. Gives it character,” she joked.

Immediately looking up, she didn’t realize how close their faces were to each other. Todoroki carelessly reached up and tucked a loose hair strand behind her ear, their eyes not leaving one another. The cold surrounding them suddenly felt like a balmy spring day. His hand hovered by the side of her neck as his thumb brushed against her cheek and felt something sticky.

“You’re hurt,” he whispered and saw his thumb had a crimson smudge.

“O-Oh.” She pulled away and took off her glove to feel her cheek with her palm. Looking down, there was a bloody imprint of a cut. “Must’ve happened during the fight. I’ll get it cleaned up.”

The two made their way back to the dorms in haste, with Ren entering first and hurried upstairs to clean the superficial cut. Todoroki came in not too long after and slowly removed his shoes.

“Todoroki-kun, you okay?” Midoriya asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Your face is really red.”

“It was really windy out today,” he half-lied.

A series of suspicious ‘hmms’ came from the couches of the common room. Deciding to ignore them, he took the stairs to his room to change out of his outside clothes before showering. After a long day, the dual-hair colored boy decided to relax in the silence of his room. Taking his phone from his desk, he unlocked it and scrolled through his photos to find all the ones he took of Ren today.

Smiling to himself, he clicked on one of the candids where he got her mid-conversation at the dog cafe with a smirk on her face. He swiped right and it was the one where she got whipped cream on the tip of her nose. Her face was scrunched up in the frame, making him audibly chuckle.

He’s been finding himself gravitating toward her more and more lately, but didn’t understand why.

Was it because she’s so effortless to be around?

Or was it because she always seemed to know how he was feeling?

Curiosity and confusion peaking, he pulled up the search app on his phone and typed in specific keywords. The top results pulled up blog posts and dating articles from various magazine websites with titles like, “Knowing Your Crush,” “Top 15 Dead Giveaways You Like Someone,” and “Make Your Crush Notice You! The Tried and True 5-Step Plan.”

Although some of the results were super obvious on it being click bait, Todoroki carefully scanned the results and clicked on the ones that looked the most reliable. After reading through the fifth article, he heaved out a long sigh while pinching his nose bridge and squeezed his eyes shut. They all said the same thing: if you find them to constantly be on your mind and notice yourself acting out of character, you have feelings for them.

He had a crush? On Ren-senpai?

Sure, they were friends and he respects her, but were his feelings really on a more romantic scale?

Unable to sort out any more of these new discoveries about himself in his head, he closed his phone and plugged it back into the charger before going to bed. The screen woke up to his lock screen being the sleeping photo of him and her Jiro took.

--

*Reference to the one-shot I wrote titled “Cloud.”

[jessicanaaa-blog]

Movie Analysis Paper: Short Term 12

Movie Analysis Paper: Short Term 12 Jessica Cervantes

Psych 160T/Online California State University, Fresno

Running Head: Short Term 12 1

Running Head: Short Term 12 2

The film Short Term 12 was written to provide delicate and truthful understatement to those that may not understand what these children went through. This film demonstrates a lot of sympathy for anyone that has gone through something traumatic in their lives. This film displayed troubled children who have mental illness and are trying to cope with it. This film was inspired by an individual that actually worked in a foster-care system. It demonstrates both the struggles of the children and the staff that worked there.

This film mainly focuses on an older girl by the name of Grace. She is the person who watches over at least 15 kids. There is a particular child that she gets some sort of attachment to, which is Jade. Jade is sent to this place because her dad was in jail and is now a recovery alcoholic. In the film Jade later tells Grace in a story she wrote that pretty much her dad sexually abused her.

In the article Pathways to PTSD, Part 2: sexually Abused Children it is stated that it is very common for child abuse to lead to PTSD. The event can cause psychological damage to the victim and the time of the abuse and also years later (Kaplow, 2009). It also states that due to being sexually abused as a child, the child deals with denial and poor psychological adjustment in adulthood (Kaplow, 2009).

I believe because Jade was sexually abused by her father she now suffered from all these different things. Attempting to commit suicide is definitely correlated to the sexual abuse (Royal College of Psychiatrists 2018). Something traumatic happened to her, and not just by a stranger but, by her own father. Jade may have suffered from PTSD due to the same traumatic event. At the end of the day it all comes together for the same reason.

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Although, in the film they never gave a diagnosis for Jade, I would say she may have suffered from PTSD due to the sexual abuse trauma. For those that may not know what PTSD is, it is a psychological condition that may affect a person who has experienced a life threatening, violent and/or terrifying event in their lives (Kaplow, 2009). There are 10 signs of PTSD. Which are agitation, irritability, hostility, hypervigilance, flashbacks, fear, anxiety, guilt, insomnia, and mistrust (Kaplow, 2009). A lot of these are signs/symptoms that Jade had. In the film Jade was easily agitated, and easily irritated. She was very closed off and did not want to interact with anyone. She did not trust anyone and when she finally opened up to Grace it took a lot from her.

Jade was dealing with self-harm issues as well. In the film it showed the scars that Jade had from when she attempted to cause self-harm to herself. Jade did not see it as an issue, she thought it was normal for someone to want to cut their selves. According to the article Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Non-Suicidal Self Injury Adolescents, self-injury amongst children has increased drastically within the last decade (NCBI, 2012). Self-harm typically happens with young people such as teens. Once they attempt it one type it is very likely for them to want to attempt it again. In the film I think it helped when Grace tried to talk about it with Jade. Grace was even able to relate to Jade in that sense.

A good practice for children with PTSD is interventions with other adolescents that have gone through similar situations. Group treatments are good for PTSD as well. Peer support is always a positive aspect, and school involvement. Although, it may be hard for children/teens to talk about what happen to them it will be very beneficial (Child Welfare Information Getaway 1994). It is stated that group therapy could go both ways for individuals. Meaning they can release a whole lot of information or shut down and not say anything at all. In the movie it

Running Head: Short Term 12 4

demonstrates exactly that, some of the individuals did not want to share anything and there were about 2 who had no problem speaking about the issue.

It has been noted that the best type of practice for PTSD is cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on thoughts, behaviors and feelings throughout a certain amount of time (PTSD Clinical Practice Guideline). There are theories that suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy help those suffering from PTSD. Social cognitive theory suggest that people who try to incorporate trauma with misbeliefs or beliefs of themselves have more control over the situation (PTSD Clinical Practice Guideline). Therapists that use cognitive behavioral therapy insist the patients to rethink their choices and thinking patterns. This allows the patients to have more of a balanced thinking pattern (PTSD Clinical Practice Guideline).

In the film Jade suffers from a panic attack. This occurred on her birthday when her dad never showed up to pick her up. At this point in the movie is when Jade shows her true colors. In the movie they do a really great job at demonstrating what needs to be done in a situation like this. Grace and her coworkers were able to control Jade and the situation. In the article How to Manage A Panic Attack, gives 3 strategies you may attempt to use to calm your mind or anxiety before you have a panic attack (SELENI, 2018). Those 3 strategies are roll with the waves, meaning panic attacks usually come in waves and racing thoughts therefore instead of trying to shout them out you can try to visualize them to calm you down (SELENI, 2018). The other strategy is anchor yourself (SELENI, 2018). Meaning, when you feel like you are losing control of your body then you should practice full body breathing every day. Lastly, the other strategy is to engage your whole brain (SELENI, 2018). When you feel a panic attack coming you can talk yourself through it until all those sensations have gone away. They are all god practices when dealing with a panic attack.

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Grace and Jade shared a very close relationship by the end of the movie. At first Jade was really closed off and did not want to open up to Grace. Since Grace was Jade’s mental health professional there were boundaries that should have been followed. For example Grace let it get personal when she overstepped the therapists personal opinion about letting Jade go home with her father. Something she should have definitely have done is show up to Jade’s fathers house and walked in without permission. Trespassing is a very serious matter. Grace made herself look very unprofessional and unethical in the public’s eyes. According to the article making a home visit is considered a boundary crossing (Zur Institute). Not all boundary crossings are unethical, but in this case it was. There are many boundaries that need to be followed between a mental health professional/therapist and a client. Some boundary crossings can be seen positively, for instance when the therapist/mental health professional discloses personal information about themselves to feel more connected with the client (Zur Institute). This really helped the relationship between Grace and Jade.

Conclusion

The movie Short Term 12 portrayed a sense of reality. This movie displayed how a girl like Grace can care for children/teens when they had no one other to care for them. It showed how a young girl like Jade can suffer from things like PTSD, self-harm and panic attacks all because of being sexually abused. The symptoms were all there but, the movie did lack current practices that would have benefited Jade.

I think this film’s MMI rating is BCDA. Let me explain why, the movie had a good portrayal of Jades symptoms. I was able to read them clearly. A part of me would want to rate this section a C as well because the diagnosis were not clear at all. Nowhere in the movie did

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they state exactly what Jade suffered from. The portrayal of the movie was not consistent with current approaches or best practices. The movie could have done a better job at inserting more detail for this section. This movie did not show much of a therapeutic side, other than when Jade opened up to Grace and Grace decided to take things into her own hands. Although Grace was not a therapist she seemed to get more out of Jade then anyone before. In this sense, I do not believe people would want to seek help after watching the movie. After watching this movie I have great compassion for anyone that has gone through or is currently going through something similar. This movie definitely gets people to feel sympathy or empathy.

Running Head: Short Term 12 7 References

Child Welfare Information Getaway (1994) “Treatment for Abused and Neglected Children” Retrieved from: https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/treatmen/

Kaplow, Julie B. Ph.D., Kenneth A. Dodge, Ph.D., Lisa Amaya-Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., and Glenn N. Saxe, M.D., F.R.C.P. NCBI (2009, September, 29) “Pathways to PTSD, Part 2: Sexually Abused Children” Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754170/

NCBI (2012, March, 30) “Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Non-Suicidal Self Injury in Adolescents” Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782878/

PTSD Clinical Practice Guideline (29, November, 2018)”Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” Retrieved from

https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/treatments/cognitive-behavioral-therapy.aspx

Royal College of Psychiatrists (2018, November, 8) “Coping After a Traumatic Event” Retrieved from:

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsanddisorders/copingafteratraumaticeve nt.aspx

SELENI (2018, November, 18) “How to Manage a Panic Attack” Retrieved from

https://www.seleni.org/advice-support/2018/3/19/how-to-manage-a-panic-attack

Zur Institute (2018, November, 29) “Dual Relationships, Multiple Relationships, Boundaries, Boundary Crossings and Boundary Violations in Psychotherapy” Retrieved from:

https://www.zurinstitute.com/dualrelationships.html

[mizzsmack]

The Great Downfall... and Oprah

Let’s talk about why the BRF has endured so successfully, to this point. Come sit, sweetie. Alphozo will refresh your mimosa. This is a bit of a read. ALPHONZO!

The Brits are a strange little group. Oh, I know full well I’m lumping them all in together, here. Stay with me. The UK has more in common with its individual parts than differences, so I am happily going to tar the Welsh, Scots and English all with the same sticky brush… not so much the Northern Irish though, because that is another conversation for another day, darlings.

Anyhoo, on we go. British people are funny, because although they loathe being seen as classist, snobs or complainers… at their core, they *are* all classists, snobs and complainers. They complain like it’s a national sport! It’s a culture that very much likes to champion the underdog in its psyche and celebrate the visionary rebel, yet they will suspend and send home a thirteen year old for not having the correct shoelaces in their school uniform shoes, and if a neighbor dare build an enclosure for garbage cans without council planning permission, the pack mentality will ensue; “What? Do they think they’re better than me?” It’s a bizarre combination of overconfidence  and “Tallest Poppy Syndrome”. Nobody does neurosis better than the Brits, darling.

Which brings us back to why the BRF has endured for so long. The key word is “mystery”. Because for all the moaning the Brits love to do about how it’s the taxpayer footing the bill for the royal scroungers, the gnashed teeth about how someone born into one particular meatsuit over another is magically ordained as their social better, and the unfairness of a genealogical jackpot granting a family jewels and servants and multiple stately homes and land ownings half the size of Ohio… the Brits *need* to be “kept in their place”. It’s a deeply seeded desire just as real and visceral as damp tweed and dry scones. It’s that delicious tension between refusing to take orders and having a stiff upper lip, with the resigned if not excitable acceptance of being put over Misses’ knee for a bare-bottomed spanking when caught being naughty.

The Brits love their royals. They love the pomp and finery, they love wondering if Camilla plays with the Crown Jewels and rides Charles around naked like a pony around Highgrove with a tiara on her head. They love the thought of uppity courtiers infighting over who is beneath licking envelopes versus fixing gin and tonics versus cleaning up Lupo’s magnificent garden turds. They love not knowing what exactly goes on beyond palace doors, not knowing what the Queen privately thinks about any given subject, and her omnipotent, ever-presence in day to day life; the all seeing eye on every postage stamp, pound note, and biscuit tin. Saying nothing but ever watching.

And now it’s all going to shit with Markle. And this is why this woman is just so damaging. She’s not just giving up the mystery, she’s giving it up wholesale to the lowest bidder: The Media. She’s merching religious iconography to the best upper-suburban mall jeweller, Birks, which is essentially Canada’s red-haired stepson to Tiffany & Co. She’s forcing her California nonsense of chia seed smoothies and gratitude journals on Britain’s penultimate aspirational “Lad’s Lad” and she’s doing it with her muddy little stiletto pointed on the top of his back like he’s a Botswanian safari trophy. She’s making the private very, very public, and this will be equally the most lauded thing that will also become her downfall. She’s gone to spill the beans to Oprah, with Momma, and the British public is going to eat her alive with a ferocity unlike anything we have witnessed before.

I keep hearing people say, “Oh, the BRF has survived Diana. They have survived Fergie. This will be more of the same.” I vehemently disagree.

We are in another timeline. News cycles are swifter and sharper. Memories longer. Grudges deeper. Our idols are on much shorter pedestals. The public is far less forgiving. In the 80’s and 90’s, there was a certain level of respect that was felt towards the BRF, even with all the escapades and shenanigans in which the press and public respected certain distinct boundaries. It was the Nation’s Family, not just the Royal Family. And even when somebody royally fucked up, the nation might chuckle or cringe, but god help anyone who would legitimately seek to undo or brow beat centuries of tradition and history in attempt to humiliate the Crown through becoming “too familiar”. This goes double for the foreign press.

And now we have Media Meg who is clearly out of her depth, who has miscalculated all of this so, so badly, saying it’s a trainwreck is the understatement of the year. This is a bozo millennial cable actress, thinking the rules of Hollywood equally apply to all of life and to every culture. American arrogance at its finest. And now she’s running off to Oprah, patron saint and guardian of leftwing American media popculture, ready to air the pre-wedding dirty laundry, all smiles, suitcases and grilled burgers. I cannot even tell you how much I’d give my left tit to be a fly on the wall in BP right now, counting the aneurysms. THIS is why she secretly flew into Chicago for her “visa”. And I guarantee you Buckingham Palace knew NOTHING about it.

Now that they have caught wind of it, watch what happens next. Again, the gloves will be off. The test and betrayal this time is too deep. She was given enough rope and she freely and stupidly chose to hang herself, as well as all of them by proxy. All the protectionism we have seen up until now is going to stop. Pictures will leak. Stories will be said. And mark my words, none of this may stop a wedding, but it will stop the further humiliation and denigration of a family in an existential crisis of survival.

[pumpkins-s]

Interpersonal Mathematics

Read On AO3 Here

“Really?” She looks to him in askance, the odd edges of nerves leaving her expecting more. “That’s it?” He shrugs, looking bemused, and she snorts. “…Did you seriously have no idea that entire time?”

Lance throws up his hands, waving them about in a dramatic fashion. “I mean I knew something was up with you, but I didn’t necessarily think it was a gender thing! A person can have like...multiple things going on at once. And I was right! There was something—I just didn’t expect it to be as big as your family being kidnapped by aliens and you faking your entire identity, y’know?”

Pidge rolls her eyes, ignoring the panging clangs that never quite go away of your family, your family, where is your family, Katie? “Yeah, alright. Fair enough.”

(Or, in which Pidge is trans, damn well knows she's trans, Lance has no idea what he is, and they both learn to handle the complexities of gender identity, friendship, and each other, in that order.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: platonic Pidge & Lance

Characters: Pidge, Lance

Written for the @voltrans-zine, with permission given to post the full piece now that preorders have closed. 

Pidge would like to consider herself a fairly decisive person.

She would argue it’s part of her nature as a scientist. Outside of the realm of actual possibility (which, admittedly, has greatly expanded since entering Voltron), she’s not prone to daydream or fantasy. Why waste time considering things that could never feasibly happen when you could work towards a goal that was relatively graspable, after all? It’s just far more sensible.

Regardless, she’s never been much of one for dilly-dallying or the like when it comes down to it.

She is a scientist. A programmer. A paladin now, too, she supposes. And yes, a woman.

She was one of the quote-on-quote “early bloomers” in that particular discovery, as it might be called (or perhaps it might be better referred to a soul-searching type of decision? She supposes it depends on whom you ask, and their experience with the matter).

Either way, she’s always known what and who she was fairly quickly— from the time she was seven or eight, in the crawling, creeping sensations of yes, this is what I’m meant to be, and the rather memorable occasion not long after where that young, dauntless, and stubbornly optimistic version of herself (before she grew up, before she saw the world) had marched out to Matt in the shoe store during their annual back to school shopping trip with bright purple, sparkly Velcro tie sneakers strapped firmly to her feet, and Matt had looked down and giggled in amused confusion. “I think those are meant for girls, buddy.”

“But I am a girl,” she’d said firmly, and Matt had blinked, just once, considering.

“Alright.” he’d said, and that’d been the end of it.

(Well…no, obviously, that wasn’t the end of it, more like the beginning of an extremely long, arduous, and complicated process, but it makes an interesting marker point in her personal mental autobiography, if she does say so herself.)

Intellectually, of course, Pidge is vey much aware of the fact that some people are not so well decided and utterly sure in themselves. Such people waffle on their even most confident knowledge at times, their faith in their skill sets, on their own identity. They may be unwilling to decide such things permanently, or may lack faith in their own judgment, or simply not come into themselves in that capacity until much later.

It is not, however, a problem she has ever had much at all, excusing a few circumstances.

She simple does not have the time, she thinks, to be so unconfident in her own abilities, her own instincts. Not then, as a child, when the world was young and new and fresh and she’d needed all the time she had just to explore it. And not now, when the very concept of the metaphorical world, or perhaps more accurately universe, is vast and wide again in a whole new way, and there are so many people relying on her to keep her head on straight.

...Especially given some of those people are her own family, and they don’t even know it yet.

Similarly, Pidge would consider herself a fairly quick judge of character. She can be surprised at the capacity of a person even yet, naturally, but she often finds her initial assessments are not incorrect. A decent example of this might be Allura: the princess has certainly grown on Pidge over time, and she’s come to appreciate what Allura offers in bravery and reckless strength in the face of her cause, but none of her acquired fondness of the princess has negated her initial assessment of an ice- cold warrior queen in training running away from her own past.

(She may not be royalty herself, or as in control of her emotions as Allura can be, but Pidge can with the utmost certainty recognize someone else fleeing from their own memories of what they have done, what they have let happen in their unplanned negligence. Allura let Altea burn while she slept, no matter how unwillingly, and Pidge had let her family be lost while she was thousands of miles away and could do nothing to prevent it. She can respect that they, at least, have that much in common in the unwanted guilt that rests on their shoulders.)

Point being, she can learn more about people like any other fallible being, but it’s additional data points, not a revision of her original hypothesis. No matter how much her teammates may grow as people and she may, in turn, grow to understand them, they are still at their cores at least in part what she started out with— Shiro is still a boy-scout-hearted inspiration to everyone who looks at him, Keith is still a hotheaded maniac with an obsession for speed, and Hunk is still a well-meaning teddy bear with the come-and-go intellect of a genius when he’s interested in a subject.

…With…one exception: Lance. The outlier to the average of this little equation.

No matter what she does, Pidge cannot seem to figure out the enigmatic puzzle that is Lance, in all his odd-edged, hyperactive glory.

Really, it’d almost be insulting, if it wasn’t weirdly interesting in a kind of bored fascination way.

…If Pidge is being honest, her first impression of Lance is that of somewhere between an idiot and, as the so delicately crafted term goes, a fuckboy.

Admittedly, her focus at the time isn’t exactly on breaking into the deep and meaningful parts of her teammates psyches. Or…much on her teammates at all, actually, but she thinks either way Lance’s attempt at something like a smooth and cool introduction wouldn’t have gone over well.

She simply isn’t a person for that kind of posturing—pretending such things is all in good fun, but putting on a false suave attitude in seriousness just makes something look stupid, in her personal opinion.

(She is sure Lance would disagree vehemently with that statement, but her point still stands.)

Over time, in being stuck with him in the close quarters that come with being a part of the same team at the Garrison, she reluctantly stretches her opinion of him to include a sentiment of something along the lines of not overall a bad person, former points not withstanding, but it isn’t until Voltron that her feelings on the matter change much beyond that.

Finding Lance after the explosion that destroys the castle’s crystal is…a shock. A data point incongruent with her previous knowledge of him, which had never displayed such an aptitude for... Well. She’s not sure whether to call it self-sacrifice or a suicidal streak. Another one of those cases where it depends on who you ask, she supposes.

That said, pretty much everything up until that point is a shock. The entirety of rescuing Shiro, subsequently finding the Blue lion, arriving at the castle, and most everything that comes after it is one big no-sleep, adrenaline-run rush of this can’t be real it isn’t feasibly possible but that hardly matters, survive this, move past this, they’ve got Matt and Dad you’ve got to survive this.

And of course, in the aftermath, in turning the castle into her battleground and losing Rover and watching Haxus fall to his death and realizing that yes, she has just killed someone to save her own skin and she’d do it again, it is easy to forget, to shuffle aside the anomaly of Lance in favor of so much new information to categorize, to reflect on.

(It is…odd, to look at her own picture of herself, in between the pieces that make up hacker and fighter and sister and all the other little snippets, and add killer to that image. She’s always rather easily conceptualized humans as just giant strings of something like computer code, what else is DNA, after all, and to filter through her own and find the pieces of programming necessary for that kind of thing is an experience, to say the least.)

She doesn’t really give Lance a second thought until well after all that, after they’ve seen him out of the cryopod and plied him with food, and she realizes yes, now, this is the moment. She bares the hidden parts of her metaphorical code and corrects an assumption she’d let lie, even encouraged, to protect her identity as Pidge Gunderson over Katie Holt.

Me. Pidge. Katie. Paladin. Woman.

On the one hand, their reactions are a relief. To have that assurance that, yes, they assumed she is a girl regardless, because body and voice and all the things not yet in her control do not define her. That her heart, her being, is woman, and that is enough.

One the other, it’s frustrating. To know for all her work, all her sacrifice, all the times her skin itched and crawled and she wanted to shout this was wrong, wrong name wrong pronouns wrong life, was for naught. They saw through her ploy anyways.

In a way, Lance’s overdramatic reaction is gratifying. At least someone had bought her disguise. Her efforts had not entirely been in vain. It isn’t until after that Pidge feels the numb worry in her tingling nerves and clammy hands as Lance side-eyes her on their walk back to their rooms, and that she wonders if his loud reaction had been for that reason.

(It is, admittedly, incongruent with what she knows of Lance, even admitting to the crueler aspects of her assessments of him, but fear is a curious thing, born from trial and error and superstition, and it is not always logical.)

“So you’re like—a girl?” he says, brash and unassuming and all the things that give Pidge a headache at the best of times. “A legit girl or…?”

She twitches, almost wanting to snap at him to define a legit girl, but restrains herself. “Yes Lance, I can assure you I’m one hundred percent girl.”

“...Huh.” Lance blinks. “Alright. Cool.”

“Really?” She looks to him in askance, the odd edges of nerves leaving her expecting more. “That’s it?” He shrugs, looking bemused, and she snorts. “…Did you seriously have no idea that entire time?”

Lance throws up his hands, waving them about in a dramatic fashion. “I mean I knew something was up with you, but I didn’t necessarily think it was a gender thing! A person can have like...multiple things going on at once. And I was right! There was something—I just didn’t expect it to be as big as your family being kidnapped by aliens and you faking your entire identity, y’know?”

Pidge rolls her eyes, ignoring the panging clangs that never quite go away of your family, your family, where is your family, Katie? “Yeah, alright. Fair enough.”

“...I thought you might be trans, honestly,” Lance says after a pause, squinting at the ground. “Like you were clearly uncomfortable getting changed around other people and you were so tiny for a dude so—“

“I am trans,” Pidge says before she can think about it, and only afterwards doubles back and properly registers that Lance had meant he thought she was a trans man, followed by the rather jarring realization that perhaps she hasn’t exactly made clear to the team that she isn’t…well. Cis. “I mean...”

(It isn’t technically their business, either way, she supposes, but she had wanted to tell them. Had wanted to be honest in this very crucial piece of what made her herself.)

“Oh.” Lance stops in the hall. “…Oh! Okay, yeah, that…that makes sense, in retrospect.”

“...Yeah.”

“So is everyone in your family just short then?”

She punches him in the side, ignoring his squeals of delighted laughter, and chases him down the hall yelling empty threats. And somewhere, in the mental files and folders of Pidge’s brain, the section on Lance reorders itself ever so slightly without her permission, straying somewhere into not bad, not bad at all, maybe even good.

...Somehow, Lance becomes a regular part of daily life after that.

(Arguably, the same thing might be said of the other occupants of the castle, given there are only seven of them on board and they see each other day in and day out, but she digresses. There is a fine line between housemate/teammate, and friend whom you relinquish semi-consistent time and attention to, and somehow Lance burrows his way into being both the former and the latter.)

He attaches himself to her with vicious, hard-won, blind enthusiasm, much as she has seen him do with Hunk, and despite her hesitations, she lets it happen. There is no Garrison to hide from anymore, no secrets to keep, and having friends here will not risk compromising her cover or intervene with her ability to search for her family.

Lance is odd in a very distinct and individual way. He is sharp edges and loud words and all the things that Pidge is not. If her mind is a computer, she thinks, then his is something of a cluttered chess game with loud music blaring in the background.

But he is smarter and kinder than she originally gave him credit for, and he accepts all the odd-shaped remnants of her without question, and so he grows on her.

He does dumb things (and learns from them, amazingly) and picks fights he can’t win to make himself look cool and robs a space mall fountain with her just to help her buy a video game instead of doing something he fancied instead, and he is…no longer an annoyance or hindrance, but an expectation of fun and excitement.

Lance makes no sense in the general order of things, really, because Pidge is decisive, truly and practically. She formulates opinions of people and they do not waver and they do not change, ever, and yet Lance does. He somehow rapidly spirals from problem to acceptable to friend, and Pidge is left floundering in the wake of exactly how this occurred without actually regretting any part of it.

And yet even then she cannot close the file. She sits with all the disjointed pieces of Lance and tries to arrange them into a complete human equation and is left with gaps. There is always a persistent feeling of something missing, of knowing it’s there and still not being sure of what, and it leaves her wondering if this is what Lance felt like all the way back in the Garrison, when he looked at her and knew there was more to find but didn’t know what.

(Gender and identity and Kerberos and all the little pieces—in retrospect, the fact that Lance even guessed there might have been multiple things she was hiding was pretty impressive, given how much of herself Pidge had tucked away.)

“Do you miss not having girl’s stuff? Like…dresses and cheap lip gloss and the ugly hairbands and all that?” he asks her once, long after the video game is bought and the wiring issue is solved, controller tucked in his hands as he squints at the screen, and she blinks and wonders if this is a case of a question being a whim or a long time coming. Maybe both.

“Yes and no,” she says, pondering the answer slowly. “I liked some of those things, yeah, but I don’t need them. They were nice when I was younger and first transitioning, because they made me feel more sure of myself, I suppose, but it just…feels different now. I don’t need to look feminine or dress as such to know I’m a woman. I just am.”

“Weirdly eloquent response there, Pigeon,” he answers after a long moment, and she blows up his character on the TV screen in retaliation, grinning widely at his loud exclamation following.

“Why did you even ask, anyways? It’s a bit of an out-of-nowhere question.”

Lance shrugs, nose scrunched up and the first inklings of uncomfortable crawling across his face. “Just thinking.”

“...Alright.”

“I think I would miss them,” he says loudly. “If I were you. But—y’know—I’m not you so…”

Pidge pauses her game and wonders if this is one of those times the ever-expanding folder of Lance needs to be edited upon. “You can tell me anything, you know.” And what a trip that is, to repeat the same words she’d heard her parents say, after Matt had brought her home from that shoe store with those purple Velcro sneakers and had spoken to them unsurely in a low voice as she played with her toy cars spread out over the living room floor, and a million little things had come together for her family to finally make sense of Pidge properly for the first time in her life.

She’s probably not the most emotionally competent person for this sort of thing, and definitely isn’t an expert outside of her own experience, but she’s all Lance has got out here, if this is what she thinks it is, so she’ll have to do.

“Yeah, I know,” Lance says, not meeting her eyes. “I’m fine, Pidge. It’s nothing.”

And she lets it go, because some people are decisive and fast moving and know who they are almost immediately, and others aren’t. Pidge is an early bloomer and a scientist and pragmatic. She knows what she wants out of life and she takes it with as much certainty as she can guarantee.

Lance is wide and open and fluid and changeable. He’s the kind of person to demand an audience when he wants to and then duck into the corner to avoid stepping on people’s toes if he deems it necessary.

He is not her, and that is fine.

It’s a rapid escalation of little things then, once it has her attention. Tiny data points picked up from observation and plugged into the half-finished equation of Lance in the interest of completing the puzzle. A silent pondering of not like me, very much not like me, but maybe like me yet still. She knows these signs, can point to them in her own history, but Lance is the anomaly to all her patterns, and it leaves her wondering on the potential surety of her findings.

Because Lance is everything—he is loud and brash and boyish, and quiet and thoughtful and mature. He makes terrible, flirty jokes, and then on occasion wrinkles his nose and walks away from the boy’s talk. He hangs off Allura like she’s a goddess and then sits and compliments her outfits and offers to do her hair with innocent enthusiasm. He is blurred lines and complexities in so many ways she too was and is, and Pidge isn’t sure he even knows it yet.

(Then again, the same things might be said for her. She is a woman in sure identity and mind still living in her little boy disguise that is a stolen mockery of her brother. An example of mind over matter in its finest, the physical losing value in the face of circumstance and confidence in what makes her herself.)

Lance gets the start of his own purple shoes moment, so to speak, in the inevitableness of the tiny things coming to a head all at once in an unexpected occurrence that seems plain on the surface, much like her own. These aren’t enormous revelations, sweeping statements clawed in panic and triumph (no, those come after). These are the little ticking-over happenings, the quiet, mental, oh, here we go, seeping slowly to the surface.

Self-discovery is not fast and dramatic, it is a crawling, sleeping, wondering thing, filled with questions and contemplations long before decisions or revisions, even Pidge knows this much.

They end up on a planet, on one of those semi-impromptu departures from the usual Galra-fighting schedule to assist a planet in need with its own problems, with a sacred temple that men are not allowed to enter.

(They come across a lot of amazing alien cultures, Pidge will admit, but the matriarchies, even the hyper-religious ones, are pretty damn cool.)

It’s a breathless relief, following an unwanted fear that they will somehow burrow their eyes beneath her skin and claim she is not woman enough, when they let her in after Allura without question. She is a woman. She is welcome here, in these alien eyes that hold no concept of human demands that state she is not quite right.

And then they usher in Lance after them, pulling the temple doors shut on the boys’ confused faces as they lead Lance inside and push him into place with her and Allura, and Pidge is left watching Lance’s wide eyes and wondering if aliens see more than she gives them credit for, after all.

Afterwards, when Keith and Hunk knock Lance’s shoulders gently and tease him in good fun about all his beauty regimens making aliens mistake him for a girl, Pidge watches Lance’s unsure grin, his shaking fingers, and keeps her mouth shut.

(It is quite possible they saw in Lance what he does not yet see in himself, and this is not her place, to tell Lance’s story for him.)

Because the thing about Lance, Pidge thinks, is that he is one of those people who do not know themselves quite yet—who trip over their own insecurities and easily succumb to questionings of their feelings. He is as she is, she suspects, she knows, in the itching feelings of not quite right, not quite yet, in this thing they call us, but otherwise he is nothing like her. Pidge knows her mind, her body, her (albeit likely metaphorical) soul, because in this world where everything is unsure and dangerous, the only thing she can truly rely on once her teammates are gone is herself. Lance is a rapidly spiraling game of impromptu and anomalies, the only file she ever had to completely rewrite, and he is still learning himself as much as she is, if not more.

Later, much later, he comes to her room, arms crossed and feet shuffling, and she turns on the video game console without a word, handing him a controller and fighting back a pleased grin as he patiently waits for her to get set up so that she can be player one, as always. He is so much more giving than she ever credited him for, in the beginning, and it is only fair she returns the favor.

So she considers it, and she gives him her waiting silence, because a person like Lance just wants a friend, someone willing to hold the pause until they are ready.

“...I don’t think I’m a boy,” he says eventually into the steeping silence of the simulated nighttime of the castle, and Pidge pauses the game. “I don’t think I’m like…a girl, either, but—I guess it was always there, y’know? Since I was a kid. It all felt…off. But after you, I started thinking about it, and then I couldn’t stop, and…and…”

“Alright,” she says, repeating his pointedly simplistic answer from a long time ago, and shrugs, smiling unsurely when he looks to her, which he mirrors.

“Yeah?”

There are still things to consider after this, so many things. Questions of pronoun experiments and preferences, of terms of address and potential appearance changes desired, of the long discussions she has already been having with Coran about programming the med bay to manufacture the hormone doses she was on before leaving Earth that Lance may now want to be a part of.

(...But there is time for all that later.)

For now, this is Lance’s beginning moment. His own foray into the first speaking of it as the way he and the world perceive him reorder themselves slowly. He will not suddenly wake up tomorrow and find everything makes sense all at once, but there will be the first prickling of knowing, of awaited change, and that is good.

They have time for the logistics, for the science and the decisions and the rewriting. For once in her life, Pidge bids herself patience, to let the both of them figure out the complexities of being in peace.

They have all the time in the world. In the universe, even.

(Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, in between the bits of Katie and Pidge and Paladin and Team, the file on Lance, idiot and annoyance and friend, rewrites itself slowly once more, filling in the gaps with completed lines of ah, there it is.)

“...Yeah.”

[justc4llm3murphy]

"Children can't be evil"

Someone once told me that after I finished saying that it was in middle school that I saw how evil children can be. I looked at them and mentally rolled my eyes. Here is my story:

I was in middle school, 6th grade to be exact. Given my undiagnosed ADHD, I often had problems making friends and mostly kept to myself. Then I developed a friendship with this girl in my class who also didn't have many friends. Almost immediately, the drama started. Apparently, I had befriended the only open lesbian kid and she was a pariah. She had a crush on one of the popular assholes though for the life of me, I can't figure out why. This person took such umbrage at the crush that she became the main tormentor. She was bullied so intensely that she started cutting. One time she cut her crush's name into her arm. Any time there was an issue with others bullying her, the school made it her fault. She got suspended a ton. Since I was her friend, I was the second most hated person and rumors started going around that I was a lesbian myself.

As a sixth grader, this was difficult. I got called to the principal's office for merely being her friend. I went to the guidance counselor's office for support. The bullying for me was relentless, for her it was all consuming. My parents told me I had to stop being her friend because she was a bad kid and had me get called to the principal's office (which had never ever happened before) but I refused. A quiet defiance in an awful situation.

My friend attempted to kill herself that year. More than once. She was admitted to a psych facility more than once for her suicide attempts. Eventually, the school told her they wouldn't allow her back to school. Keep in mind, this girl was hurting and bullied at all times, and the school's reaction was that she was the problem.

I was tired of going home crying. I was tired of being hated for no reason. And when my friend was gone, I realized that the bullying eased up and almost stopped completely. This would start up again when my friend returned.

When my friend, did leave school, I did something I consider one of the worst things I have done to anyone. I cut off contact. She tried contacting me multiple times and I finally told her I didn't want to be friends anymore. She was understanding. She was a kind person and thought it was all her fault. It wasn't. It was the bullies' fault. It was mine for only wanting to fit in. Granted I had emotional abuse at home and bullying at school so I saw no break in the emotional stress but I still consider what I did awful.

7th grade was good. My friend was gone and so I made new friends. Bullies didn't bother me any more but I never forgave them. In 8th grade, my friend returned and I had no idea how to handle that.

It wasn't until I watched a documentary on MTV that I felt like God was speaking to me. This particular documentary was about hate crimes. In it, they addressed the horrific murder of Matthew Shepherd, who was murdered for being homosexual. That was horrible enough. Then, it addressed the aftermath. On the third anniversary of Matthew Shepherd's death, there was protest of some sort. And someone was holding a sign up that said "Matthew Shepherd in hell for 3 years, thank God Almighty." I was disgusted and sobbing at tragedy and senselessness of it all. And at that moment, I swear I heard God say "why are you upset about this when this is happening in your own school and you aren't helping?"

The next day, I feel turmoil within me as I debated going to the guidance counselor to set up a meeting with my old friend. I was scared. I was scared to relive everything again but I was also scared my friend would hate me and not accept the apologies I so desperately wanted to give. Eventually, I made my way up to the front of the classroom to get permission and trudged to the counselor's office.

This year, the bullying for my friend was worse. She had transitioned to a male, and lived as a male. She answered to her female name and never referred to herself with a male pronoun and I was too naive at this point to think of changing the pronoun...so I will call her "she" in this narrative as I have always done but I recognize that she may now go by male pronouns at this point in her journey. Well, the kids freaked out and the bullying intensified.

I sat down with the counselor and asked her to set up a meeting. My counselor immediately started to praise me for my thoughtfulness and being a good friend, which only increased my guilt and sadness over how I had behaved. She stated that my friend ate in in-school suspension to avoid her bullies and I could eat with her anytime I wanted. So I did.

I walked into in-school suspension and sat down and started to talk and apologize to my friend. She immediately took the blame onto herself. She had done nothing wrong but she was so beaten down that she couldn't see it. I felt the worst yet when she did that. But I couldn't get her to admit that I had simply been a bad friend.

When lunch wrapped up, we had to leave before the bell rang because she had such a huge fear of crowds now. When she did walk down the halls with other students, they would circle around her as she walked and taunt her and insult her. It was almost how I think Hester Prynne walked around her village in The Scarlet Letter. The hate was palpable. She could not even go into the cafeteria, even nearer to the end of the school year and things had died down some, she couldn't do it. The bullies took my friend and had broken her.

This fear invaded her life and cost her at least one job because even a tiny amount of people could be far too much for her anxiety. And they didn't care. But this time, when the bullies came calling me lesbian and spreading rumors that I was in a relationship with her, I had a backbone. These people were not good people in my mind. And I had lost all the fucks I had to give. If me telling them off didn't succeed in getting them to leave me alone, my very intimidating and scary ex boyfriend at the time would handle it. He never hurt them but I am sure he would have if they persisted...and the bullies were sure of that too.😉

The last time I saw my friend was several years ago, still living as a male, walking through the mall and appearing at ease. That was really nice and gave me hope that he was now much more mentally stable.

But yes, kids can be evil. Standing up for others needs to start young so that people understand that hate will not be accepted, even at a young age.

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/she-wanted-to-be-the-perfect-mom-then-landed-in-a-psychiatric-unit/

She Wanted To Be The Perfect Mom, Then Landed In A Psychiatric Unit

Lisa Abramson says that even after all she has been through — the helicopters circling her house, the snipers on the roof, and the car ride to jail — she still wants to have a second child.

That’s because right after her daughter was born in 2014 — before all that trouble began — everything felt amazing. Lisa was smitten, just like she had imagined she would be. She would look into her baby’s round, alert eyes and feel the adrenaline rush through her. She had so much energy. She was so excited.

“I actually was thinking like, ‘I don’t get why other moms say they’re so tired, or this is so hard. I got this,’ ” she says.

Lisa wanted to be the perfect mom. She was ready to be the perfect mom. She and her husband lived in San Francisco, and Lisa had worked as a successful entrepreneur and as a marketing executive for a Silicon Valley tech company. When it came to starting her family, she was organized and ready to go. And that first week after her baby was born, everything was going according to plan. The world was nothing but love.

David Abramson found “postpartum psychosis” on the Internet after his wife, Lisa, developed signs of anxiety and delusions in 2014 after their daughter Lucy was born. Studies suggest the condition affects about one or two women out of every thousand who give birth. (Courtesy of Claire Mulkey)

Then the baby started losing weight, and the pediatrician told Lisa to feed her every two hours.

Lisa started to feel like she couldn’t keep up.

“It weighed on me as, ‘I’ve failed as a mom. I can’t feed my child,’ ” she says. “I needed to feed her — that was the most important thing. And my well-being didn’t matter.”

She was barely sleeping. Even when she could get a release from what felt like breastfeeding purgatory, she couldn’t relax. As she got more and more exhausted, she started to get confused.

Lisa thought going to a spin class would help. This was something she usually loved. But after 10 minutes, she fled the room.

“The noises and intense volume of the spin class was really alarming to me,” Lisa says, “It felt like the walls were talking to me.”

Then, back at home, she noticed police helicopters circling over their apartment. “There were snipers on the roof,” she remembers thinking, “and there were spy cams in our bedroom and everyone was watching me. And my cellphone was giving me weird messages.”

Lisa waited for the police to burst in and take her away. But the next morning, she woke up in her own bed.

The cops must have arrested the nanny instead, she decided. That was wrong, Lisa thought to herself. The nanny shouldn’t be punished for my crime.

Lisa told her husband it wasn’t fair. She was going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.

And that was when her husband told her he was going to drive her to the police station himself.

“It was like, ‘Oh, OK, he’s taking me in, and I guess I’m getting arrested,’ ” Lisa says.

Her husband, David Abramson, remembers it as one of the worst days of his life.

“I’m bringing my wife to the hospital and then checking her into an inpatient unit,” says David, explaining what really happened that day. “It was really, really challenging.”

Not jail, but a psych ward

There had been no crime after all — and no snipers and no spy cams. The nanny hadn’t been arrested, and Lisa’s destination that day wasn’t a jail cell, but rather the general psychiatric ward at Sutter Health’s California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

The other patients were there for drug overdoses or alcohol withdrawal. People were screaming. One patient thought he was a dog and was crawling around on all fours, barking. To David, it didn’t seem like the right place for a new mom.

“That was probably the most heart-wrenching thing, was having to leave her that night with the hospital staff,” he says. “You could see in her eyes and her body language that she was panicked.”

For the first five days, Lisa says, she didn’t speak to anyone.

“I don’t know if I couldn’t speak, or I wasn’t speaking,” she says, “but I was terrified enough of the environment that I decided I wasn’t going to answer anyone’s questions.”

Lisa doesn’t remember any doctors or nurses telling her why she was there or what was going on. But she does remember, about a week into her hospitalization, her husband bringing a printout from online about postpartum psychosis.

The article said elevated hormones from childbirth — plus sleep deprivation — can trigger confusion and paranoia. Lisa didn’t believe it — she thought her husband was tricking her and had spent hours using Photoshop to piece together a fake article.

“I really was just like, ‘No. I’ve heard of postpartum depression,’ ” she says. “No! I have never heard that there’s postpartum crazy.”

New data on moms who die by suicide

But postpartum psychosis is real. Studies suggest it affects about one or two women out of every thousand who give birth; some doctors now think even more women than that are affected, but go undiagnosed. Without proper treatment, some of those women end up dying — by suicide.

California researchers just finished their first big study on maternal suicides. The state’s public health department hasn’t published the findings yet, KQED was able to review some of the data: 99 new moms in the state died by suicide over a 10-year period.

The investigators determined that of those 99 suicides, 98 were preventable. The women might be alive today if the health care system in California had done a better job screening women, diagnosing their illness and treating them.

“The work that we do here is less than 10 percent of what needs to be done,” says Dr. Nirmaljit Dhami, a psychiatrist at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Calif. She helped review the suicides but did not share data from the report with journalists.

Dhami is an expert on postpartum mental illness and often treats cases of postpartum psychosis that OB-GYNs mishandled. Based on her clinical experience and observations, she says, a lot of doctors don’t know the early signs of postpartum psychosis and don’t know that the symptoms wax and wane.

“A lot of times the patient will present very clearly, then at other times, will present with acute confusion and disorganization,” Dhami says.

It’s what happened to Lisa Abramson — feeling like she was of sound mind one moment and then believing the walls were talking to her in the next.

“This is a symptom that clinicians who are not trained in this field can easily miss,” Dhami says, “because when they see the patient in their office with the family, they can think that the patient is normal and is probably suffering from sleep deprivation — and discharge them home.”

That’s how women can end up dead. In the U.S., mental health problems are one of main contributors to maternal mortality, according to a 2018 report from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiative called Building U.S. Capacity to Review and Prevent Maternal Deaths. On the report’s list of causes of death among new moms, mental health problems (which include drug overdoses) rank seventh — nearly tied with the complications of high blood pressure. For white women, mental health problems are the fourth leading cause of death.

Even when new moms do get referred for psychiatric care in the days and weeks after their child’s birth, Dhami says, the care is often inadequate or inappropriate. Doctors prescribe the wrong medications. Insurance companies push patients out of psychiatric units before they are ready. And the staff of psych units, generally, are not trained in these illnesses, Dhami says, and may not be equipped to care for even the most basic physical needs of new moms.

For example, when Lisa Abramson first arrived at the psych ward, her husband told the medical resident who admitted her that he thought Lisa had postpartum psychosis. The resident said to him, “Postpartum what?”

Then, several days into Lisa’s stay, she complained of pain in her breasts. She had stopped breastfeeding when she left home, and it didn’t seem to occur to anyone that her breasts would become engorged.

Her husband had to negotiate with the staff to bring in Lisa’s breast pump from home.

She remembers that when she wanted to pump, she had to use a room with padded walls that looked like a solitary confinement chamber — “what you’d imagine from a terror movie,” Lisa says.

But the worst thing of all was not being allowed to see her baby daughter. The inpatient unit has a strict policy: No infants or children on the ward. The hospital says this is intended as a safety measure for everybody.

Her family lobbied on her behalf.

“They said, ‘She’s a new mom and she needs to see her baby. That’s keeping this bond going, it’s important,’ ” Lisa recalls, tearing up. “That was the hard part, was not getting to see her.”

About five days into her time there, Lisa’s family was able to negotiate permission for one-hour visits with her daughter, but they were supervised by a person who kept looking at his watch.

Lisa’s family was so unhappy with her care at the hospital, that her husband decided he needed to get her out of there. They found Dhami and asked her to take over Lisa’s treatment.

Dhami enrolled Lisa in a comprehensive outpatient program she runs at El Camino Hospital, called the Maternal Outreach Mood Services (MOMS) program, where the new mother can bring her baby along during appointments.

California Pacific Medical Center declined to comment on Lisa’s case specifically, even though Lisa authorized the hospital to discuss her medical records. The hospital’s inpatient psychiatric medical director, Dr. Stephanie Wilson, says that breast pumps are now available to women who need them and that health care providers review new moms’ wishes to see their babies on a case-by-case basis.

“We take into full consideration all of the circumstances and the details of that patient, of the infant — and really seeing what, if any, benefit or even potential harm, it could have to the mother,” Wilson says. “Once the symptoms of depression and psychosis start to get better, that’s when I would start to allow more visitations.”

A different kind of care for moms

There’s plenty of research, dating back to the 1940s, on the ideal protocols for inpatient treatment of postpartum mental illnesses. The gold standard is to admit the mother and the baby into the hospital together, on a specialized mother-baby unit, where they’re treated as a pair.

Part of the mom’s therapy in these units is getting guidance on how to read the baby’s cues and how to meet the baby’s needs — as well as her own. At night, the baby sleeps in a supervised nursery, so the mom can get uninterrupted sleep.

In the United Kingdom, there are 21 of these mother-baby psychiatric units. In France, there are 15. They exist in Belgium and New Zealand and one in India.

But in the U.S., there are zero.

The closest approximation can be found in North Carolina, 3,000 miles from where Lisa lives, in the hospital at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

The perinatal psychiatric unit here is reserved exclusively for pregnant women and new moms.

“There is a need for them to see other moms going through what they’re going through,” says Dr. Mary Kimmel, the psychiatrist who runs the unit. She wears a denim jacket and black suede ankle boots, and whenever a patient wants to know whether she’s a mom too, she says yes, she has two kids.

Every room has a hospital-grade breast pump, Kimmel says, and there’s a lactation consultant who helps women with breastfeeding. The unit has a designated refrigerator for moms to store pumped milk.

Psychiatrist Mary Kimmel runs the mom’s psychiatry unit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (KQED)

The most distinctive feature about the program is the visitor policy.

“Babies can come to the unit, and we really encourage that,” Kimmel says. “We encourage older kids to also come to the unit.”

Most afternoons, toddlers scurry around the day room or color, play with toys and play with each other. Women cradle their visiting newborns, rocking them, feeding them.

The babies are not allowed to stay overnight though. Unlike the units in Europe, there’s no nursery here. The main reasons for that policy are the restrictions of U.S. insurance plans.

Kimmel says no insurer in the U.S. would ever pay for a healthy baby to be admitted to a hospital.

“That baby doesn’t have a distinct need to be admitted and so it’s not possible to bill for that baby being at the hospital,” she says. And without that, the hospital can’t afford to run a nursery.

The days on the UNC unit are very structured, with a range of treatments. There’s one-on-one therapy and lots of group classes: parenting and time management lessons, for example, where women practice asking their partner for help; relaxation classes; and spiritual counseling.

Alice Sarti says the moms unit at UNC was the first place that gave her hope as a new mother. After she gave birth to her son, she became engulfed by mania. She had dealt with depression many times before, she says, but never this.

“Every minute I had to fill with a task: researching day cares, doing and re-doing my budget,” she remembers. “I’m not going to line up three bottles — I’m going to line up 17 bottles.”

She loved how productive she was. She’s a business analyst and loves getting things done. But then, everything started to spiral.

“There was a definite snap,” she says. “I started yelling about things that didn’t make sense. They made sense to me.”

To her family, it was just an incoherent rage. They called the police and they took Alice to the nearest hospital that had an available bed — not the mom’s unit at UNC, but rather a general psych ward, several towns away.

“You saw people that couldn’t speak, that could barely walk,” she says. “People were discharged in that condition.”

Alice refused to take any meds, making her unpopular with the staff.

“I did have a social worker tell me I was going to lose my child if I didn’t ‘pull it together,’ ” she says.

During her three-week stay, she saw her son once, for 20 minutes.

“I was not able to touch him on any level. He was in his car seat and I reached for him and I was yelled at,” she says.

It’s hard for her to admit what it was like coming back to him, after she was discharged.

“It felt like a burden, “Alice says. “It felt like, ‘How am I ever going to do this?’ I held him, I bathed him, and I did all the things — but the connection was not there. I lost time with my son and I’m never going to get it back.”

Alice was treated at two hospitals, never feeling any better, before she ended up at the moms psych unit at UNC Chapel Hill.

Finally, everyone seemed to understand what she was going through, she says — the pressure she was feeling and the guilt. She saw her son regularly, and staff helped her start to re-establish her bond with him.

“It was this incredibly nurturing environment,” she says. “It changed the trajectory of my life, and my son’s life.”

Yet, even in this seemingly perfect place, things can go wrong. By the time Alice was discharged, her mania had cleared. But then she slipped into the deepest, darkest depression she had ever known. She checked herself back into UNC, afraid she was going to kill herself.

With Alice, and with other patients, doctors are under so much pressure to get moms home quickly that sometimes they overshoot on the medications, Kimmel explains. Some of that pressure comes from the moms themselves, who want to be with their kids, but it also comes from the insurance companies.

UNC’s moms unit pays the bills like other hospitals — they take commercial insurance and Medicaid to cover the costs of care.

But the longer a patient stays, the more an insurer has to pay, and that’s not good for its bottom line. Kimmel and other doctors say as soon as a patient comes off suicide watch, insurers start calling, asking when she can go home.

“Our average length of stay runs from about one week to two weeks,” Kimmel says.

And in Europe? “About 40 to 50 days is the average length of stay there,” she says.

That means that some U.S. doctors may start their patients on new drugs but not have time to see if they work well. Or they have to start women on the most intense medications right away — medications that force her to stop breastfeeding — instead of slower-acting therapies that could allow a mother more time to feed her infant breast milk.

It also means that patients like Alice can end up hospitalized four times before they get the right treatment they need to truly recover.

Insurers insist the decision to discharge is not just about cost, but about what’s best for patients.

Hospitals are not necessarily the ideal environment for making sure medications are stabilized, says Kate Berry, senior vice president of Clinical Innovation for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for insurers.

“There are other settings where the care can continue,” she says, “such as a partial hospital or an intensive outpatient care setting that may be more supportive of having the mom and the baby together.”

Alice Sarti says mental hospitals in the U.S. are just warehousing people. Only the mom’s unit felt like a place of healing.

“It’s a different kind of place,” she says. “It’s the type of mental health care that everyone should have access to — not just mothers. That’s what mental health care in this country should look like. And it doesn’t come close.”

Right now, UNC is the only hospital in the country that has a designated psych unit just for pregnant women and new moms. A hospital in New York has a women-only unit. And El Camino Hospital, where Dhami practices in California, will soon start construction on a women-only psych unit, with a special focus on the needs of new moms. It is slated to open in 2019.

Ready to try again

Lisa Abramson is playing catch with her daughter Lucy.

“Ready? Set? Go!” Lucy shouts, and Lisa rolls her a small rubber soccer ball.

Lisa feels like she’s back to her normal self. But she has been thinking a lot about her experience with postpartum psychosis.

Despite everything, she decided to have another baby.

“That was the most courageous moment of my life,” she says. “Without knowing anything [about] how this is really going to work out, let’s try it again.”

She was terrified, though, that the psychosis would come back.

“They say there’s about a 50 percent chance,” she says. “I can try to set up a more optimal situation, but you also just don’t know — and it’s out of your control, which is hard.”

The No. 1 thing she wanted to avoid was going back to the hospital.

“The hospitalization was probably the most traumatic [aspect] of the whole experience,” Lisa says.

These days, she loves being a mom, she says. Lucy is 5 now. Her second daughter, Vivian, is 18 months old.

The psychosis did not come back after Vivian’s birth, in part because of all the precautions Lisa took. She made sure she got enough sleep. She gave herself permission to give up breastfeeding if it became too much.

“We’ve got so many messages of just self-sacrifice,” Lisa says. ” ‘Do anything for your kids.’ ‘Drop everything. That’s what it means to be a good mom.’ And for me, that’s not what made me a good mom. That’s what made me fall apart.

“I’m trying to put myself first — guilt-free — and know that that makes me a better mom.”

This story is part of NPR’s reporting partnership with KQED, the California Report and Kaiser Health News.

Copyright NPR 2019.

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[worthywriting]

Not So Swift Taylor

I sit here, attempting to write this article, a bit perplexed. Allow me to explain.. As of this day in 2013, I am currently 23 years old, soon to turn 24 before the year ends, and will be eligible to have my right to a quarter-life-crisis next year once I turn 25. My life journey is a busy one, and seems to always form a lump in my throat that drops down to my stomach as I realize that I have to purchase a larger cake to fit my growing amount f birthday candles. Already I've attended baby showers, weddings, and graduate school graduations all of people who are of, or just a few years around my age. When I go on dates now, I can't help but actually take them seriously, in hopes that it might work out, date for about 2 years, get engaged for 1 year, wait to have children for 2-3 years after marriage, and give birth to all the children I want before 35. These things have to be planned now. I'm not a young girl any longer. – No one looks at me and thinks “sweet, young, innocent girl” and I am thankful that they don't. With this age comes responsibility and a grander level of associating with the world. However, one female in particular is thought of getting by as 'forever young'.

Taylor Swift, the American singer who banks on songs she writes about her ex-boyfriends and being a 'nerdy girl' delights in being thought of as the Madonna of the Madonna/Whore complex. She writes her music that speaks to the tween generation and will pout and call those “mean” who make even the tiniest bit fun of her. She loves being the thought of as that “sweet, young, innocent girl”. Theres only one problem that I have with that. Taylor and I are both the same age. Born in the same year. She is 23, and so am I.

I would love to present on academic journals of well thought out semiotic analysis of Swift's character, whether for the childish way she portrays herself, or against, but as I've searched the internet and book shelves high and low, I could not find one article on 'Swifty'. I'm unsure why her character has yet to be analyzed to a scholarly degree, perhaps she is still seen as too pure, and unfair game.

There was an article, however, that caught my fancy, granting me with a good amount of inspiration. Barbara Read's article, Britney, Beyonce and Me – Primary School Girls' Role Models and Constructions of the 'Popular Girl',is one that takes a truthful look at what it means to be a 'popular girl', any perks that come along with the status and its effect on young females. The article thoroughly explains why young females, as opposed to young males, may feel they need a role model to look up to, and takes a poll among the girls for data of who they admire at their certain age.  

Read argues with support of a poll from school children, that most young girls would like to be the 'popular' girl, such as Beyonce or Britney Spears because it seems as if they have power and status which is what females tend to desire even if only subconsciously. This comparatively is what Swift, by way of her “young, innocent girl” demeanor is using to her advantage to tap into the psyche of that girl who idolizes Britney or Beyonce. What Swift is attempting to do is take the stigma of being labeled a “young, innocent girl”, or more frequently as she refers to herself, a 'nerd', and use it as a badge of honor. This is not a horrible idea, and in fact, I say “kudos” to the resistance of accepting the weight that comes with a called name and changing its definition to fit one's self. Where I feel she goes horribly wrong is that after claiming her name, she then goes after the 'popular' girls and makes fun of them for being who they are. She clearly states that there is an obvious paradox between her and the 'popular girl' in her 2009 hit, You Belong with Me.

“But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts/ She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers/ Dreaming bout the day when you wake up and find/ That what you're lookin for has been here the whole time/ If you could see that I'm the one who understands you/ Been here all along so why can't you see?/ You belong with me/ You belong with me” (You Belong with Me, Swift 2009).

There's never any mention of how the said 'popular girl' has a bad personality, or may be a gold digger, or has a record of battery and brutality or anything. Swift leaves it up to the listener (and viewer by her music video) to come to the conclusion that because the 'popular girl' does cheerleading, wears skirts and is a favorite among school peers, that she for some reason is the enemy. The character that Swift portrays as the better option is the girl who is in the bleachers because the plays in the school marching band, wears t-shirts, and is lesser known around the school. There is a clear statement that one is better than the other, and that certain traits label the female that choses to take those traits on must abide to and hate her opposite, with no just reasoning, for. Is it that Swift is taking an eye for an eye in hopes of making herself look better than the one who called her the name in the first place? Possibly, yet it seems more that Swift put the 'nerd' label on herself rather than being her own woman. This is a song of hate, attempting to pit female against fellow female in strategy of winning a taken love interest by fighting dirty and hitting below the belt for no good reason.

One might have the argument that at the time You Belong with Me was written, Swift was 19 years old, and thus still being a teenager in her last teenage year, is granted the permission to still write songs as such to get her angst out. Yet, in 2013, as Swift is 23, her single, I Knew You Were Trouble, was released on the public with the same tone of whiney lyrics, giving the impression that she mentally remains a child and feels that the blame game is becoming.

“Once upon a time a few mistakes ago/ I was in your sights, you got me alone/ You found me, you found me, you found me/ I guess you didn't care, and I guess I liked that/ And when I fell hard you took a step back/ Without me, without me, without me” (I Knew You Were Trouble, Swift. 2013)

This is only one of the many songs that Swift has written where she plays the victim. Each time she writes a new song, it is unclear which of the 14 (yes, 14!!) men she has been romantically linked to since 2008 that she is singing about and whenever prompted to reveal who in an interview, she shys away from the question. Many of these love interests lasted for only a month or so, but still get a whole song dedicated to how shes so hurt, or they're mean, or she didn't know.. but what kind of sweet girl dates around so much and then, to add injury to insult, writes bashing songs about them. Not a very wise decision for someone of Swift's fame to do, especially when in the balancing act of wanting to get back at an ex and remain “America's sweetheart”, her balance may be becoming increasingly uneven to her once loyal fans as they begin to notice the many boyfriends and lack of mental growth in romance and the art of handling personal situations.

The image of a sweet, innocent, young, bubbly (and most often times) blonde singer singing songs of sweet love and dreams written down in her diary is one that is meticulously crafted by the big wigs of the entertainment industry, and once the perfect girl is found, the label will be attached to her until by her own demise, she messes it up by being human. This is, I feel, the case for Taylor Swift. Even though Swift is pop, has always been pop and has always had a very pop sound, when she first broke into the world of music back in 2007 with her first single, Teardrops on My Guitar, this girl from the city of Reading, Pennsylvania, was marketed as a 'good ole country girl from Nashville' who was brokenhearted because a boy broke her heart and now the only thing she could do was cry as she strums her guitar out in the country.

That single became a big hit with females who could empathize with Swift and felt that as a good American girl from the country, that the boy who broke her heart must've been a real jerk. But the single when released was in fact released as two singles. One with more of a country twang, and the other with light pop overtones, and since her debut back then, the music she has produced has been overwhelmingly induced with a pop vibe rather than her original market of country, yet she still is thought of as a country artist and is often nominated every year for the Country Music Awards. From time to time she might wear a pair of sparkly country boots on stage at one of her concerts and pretend to play guitar, but as far as being country goes, thats about it for her.

The more dominant pop stars of the 10's new millennium are wildly unafraid. Stars like Rihanna and Lady Gaga frequently forget their pants in favor of wearing a bedazzled pair of underwear on stage instead. Marijuana is the drug of choice that they without shame will publicly toke up. The world of pop music is dominated by females in their early 20s who are not afraid to show skin, sing songs filled with innuendo and move in a sexual nature. These females aren't thought of as young, innocent girls; they're fantasized as musical sex objects. So, with the perspective of how pop stars generally behave/dress/present themselves, it does make sense that to introduce a new pop star, but with a lighter, sweeter image, the music industry will attempt to sneak one in, faintly disguised as country music. Swift doesn't prance around in the latest fashion bikini, or flip off the paparazzi as they snap her photo, for she aims the keep her role of childlike innocence. But the problem is that Swift is a child no longer, and is only looking more pathetic with age. And attempting to keep up with the image, though growing older each day, might end up blowing up in her face by way of her fans not buying the role any more, as was the case that Melanie Lowe explains in her article, Colliding Feminism: Britney Spears, “Tweens and the Politics of Reception”.

Lowe's article is a study she conducted where in 1999, at the peak of American pop's wave, she surveyed the thoughts, comments and reactions to the most popular pop stars, with the most famous being Britney Spears, the happy blonde from Kentwood, Louisiana. She explains that as soon as she sat down with these “tween” (ages 10-12) girls and merely asked of their opinion on the pop princess that they had a wide variety of opinions ranging from waning admiration to most notably the calling Spears a “slore” (slut and whore). These reasons seemed to stem from Spears's progressively changing wardrobe from t-shirts and fashion-friendly cargo pants to belly baring crop tops and ripped jeans. Not only was it the fashion, but the way in which her songs were becoming more blatant of its innuendo. The tweens said of how they liked that she had and exercised her right to wear what she wanted, yet at the same time they found her promiscuous for doing so. The classic case of being dammed if you do, or dammed if you don't.

While I do feel that Britney Spears's path, one where she was initially and continuously marketed as an innocent, young but sexy pop princess, may have been a tad different from the road Taylor Swift is going down, I still feel that the reaction by the tweens and general public will be the same. As of lately, more and more fans of Swifts are beginning to take off their rose colored glasses they'd been disillusioned with and are starting to recognize Swift's stagnant ways in which shes not growing with her fans, but more trying to recruit whichever age is currently in their tween years.

Swift is not a nice, country girl. She never has been, but for a while she put up an almost believable front. There are only so many girls she can point the finger at before the ladies ban together and realize who the true mean girl is. There are only so many guys she can date before the public sees her as the common link and figures out that she is the problem. There are only so many times she can sing her hit single '22' until she realizes she's 44. It's past time to grow up, Taylor.. either join the real world, or save up enough money to purchase the Neverland Ranch.