#anyways thanks everyone who responded at that earlier post!! ; v; ur v nice

[killingxrangers]

It Started with a Like

Instagram wasn't something Trini really messed around with before meeting Zack Taylor, more importantly known as the most annoying human in the world. He made one for her one night when the two of them were hanging out for the single purpose of sending her "quality" memes, and now she found herself on it frequently. Rarely did she post pictures of any kind, and her follower and following count was less than ten each, but the explore page did offer some nice videos to scar Zack with.

Today though she was feeling somewhat good about herself and the recent picture Zack had taken of them up in the mines. It was trespassing to go there, but it had a little bit of sentimentally to it for the both of them seeing as they'd met there. It was a simple photo, just the two of them sitting on the old train Zack favored, Zack holding the phone and Trini in the foreground, but the lighting was nice and she actually looked happy, so she decided to post it. It was the seventh photo she had posted, with the others being either her brothers or Zack. It was actually the first picture she had up of herself that wasn't her profile. Unsurprisingly, only two people liked it, one being Zack and the other being a boy in her science class. Not that it mattered to her who liked her photos, and she forgot all about posting the picture until she got a notification nearly an hour later.

k.harteyes liked your photo.

She'd never seen the username before, so she clicked it, admittedly surprised to find it belonged to the one and only Kimberly Hart. Trini knew Kimberly in the way everyone at school who weren't friends with the girl knew her; co captain of the cheer squad, dating a football player, and a complete bitch. Well, Trini wasn't sure if that last one was true, since she's never actually had a conversation with Kim, but she can only assume. They did share biology together, a class that Trini loathed more than anything, though Kim answered enough questions when called on to seem as if she reasonably understood it.

k.harteyes commented on your photo: You look really good!

It only took a second to click 'reply' and respond with 'Thank you.', and not even a minute later Kim was commenting again, a smiley face with the heart eyes that had Trini setting her phone down with a frown. That wasn't flirting, was it? As far as she knew, Kim Hart was that ideal small town girl; hot and straight and completely out of anyone's league. Trini thought she was cute, gorgeous even, but she hadn't given her much consideration outside of those few thoughts. And as far as she knew, Kim wasn't even aware of her existence. She was about to force any other thoughts from her mind when her phone dinged again, and she was honestly afraid it was Kim again, but thankfully it was just Zack.

Zack: yo dude Kim hart liked ur photo

Zack: she flirting

Zack: what if she wants to fuck

Zack: she fucks girls u know?

Trini: Shes dating Ty Flemmings dude

Zack: I'm telling u she sets off my gaydar

Trini: I didn't even set off your gaydar

Zack: we aren't talking about you

Zack: we're talking bout Kim hart wanting to fuck u

Zack: I say go for it

Trini: You give horrible advice. Kim is straight with a boyfriend. I'm not into her. We don't know each other

Zack: so talk to her

Zack: talk, flirt, fuck

Zack: then u have a gf

Trini: I'm going to bed

Zack: try not to have any wet dreams of Kim!

Kim didn't say anything as Amanda rolled off of her and laid on the other side of the bed, the blankets long since having been kicked to the floor. They were both sweaty and naked, marks on both of their bodies as Kim’s chest heaved up and down from the orgasm Amanda just gave her. The silence continued as Amanda stood up and jerked her underwear and t-shirt over her head, forgoing the bra and pants altogether as she looked to Kim and and finally said, “You should head home before my dad is back.” 

It always went this way with them, though Kim wasn’t one to complain or take offense. Especially on nights like tonight when Ty was expecting her over once his parents were asleep. He had clue about the truth to Kim and Amanda’s relationship and that’s exactly how Kim wanted to keep it. Her relationship with Amanda was purely physical anyway; she didn’t love Amanda in the way she loved Ty. And she did love Ty. Amanda just satisfied more of her physical needs than Ty could. 

“You’re probably right.” Kim followed Amanda’s lead and sat on the side of the bed, pulling her own clothes on as well. Nights like these happened frequently enough, especially given that Amanda’s father worked late most nights. If it wasn’t Amanda texting Kim to come over it was Kim texting Amanda asking if she could. The change in their relationship happened almost a year ago, right around the time Kim started dating Ty. The three of them were drunk at a party and Kim found herself alone with her best friend in a bedroom. As it happens, they started kissing and fell into bed together. Instead of their friendship ending or becoming awkward the following morning, they continued their affair behind  whoever Amanda was seeing and Ty’s backs. Its worked well ever since, and Kim would continue to let it happen for as long as she enjoyed it or Ty found out. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Amanda.” 

Amanda didn’t offer to walk Kim out and Kim didn’t ask as she grabbed her phone and keys and started the short walk back home. The two girls lived in the same neighborhood, less than a five minute walk between houses, and it was a nice night out, so Kim moved slowly as she walked down the sidewalk. She scrolled through Instragram as she went, liking most of the photos of either fellow cheerleaders or football players.

When her main page got too boring she switched over to the explore page just for something new. It was mostly beauty videos, a few memes, some suggestions to follow this person or that, and Kim ignored most of them. It wasn’t until a page  appeared for a girl called Trini did Kim stop walking. The first thing that popped into Kim's head was 'who was this girl?', and the second was (upon clicking on the page and finding only seven photos) 'this girl is really pretty'. The user name was Trini_Gomez, and Kim thought the name was somewhat familiar, but not really, and so Kim looked at all seven, four of which were what she guessed to be Trini's younger brothers, and two of a boy who looked somewhat familiar to Kim but she couldn't place his face. In both photos the guy seemed to be goofing around, one in which he was hanging upside down from an old and rusted train shirtless, a dark beanie on the dirt next to his phone and wallet, and in the other he was in the back of a pick-up, a game-boy in one hand and a Popsicle in the other.

Kim barely looked for longer than a few seconds at the guy or Trini's brothers, focused completely on the one of Trini herself. The same guy was back in it, in a pair of tan jeans and white v-neck, a discarded jacket thrown behind him as he stood on the top of the train from the previous pictures, and Trini stood a few paces behind him, a pair of guy's sunglasses over her face and her jacket also thrown to the ground. She had her tongue sticking out, showing her teeth as it seemed the guy took the picture mid laugh, and was doing the peace sign. Overall it was an adorable and quirky photo that Kim liked right away, and also found herself commenting that Trini looked really nice.

Trini responded only a few seconds later, nothing more than an appreciation of the compliment, and Kim added another comment, this one being an emoji. She's not sure why she did it, but something about this girl caught Kim’s attention, and she couldn’t stop staring at the photos. Trini didn’t acknowledge the most recent comment, and Kim slid her phone into her back pocket as she walked into the front door of her house. It was quiet in her house, not unexpected given the time of night, and she had hoped she’d be able to just go to her room quickly to change before leaving for Ty’s, but was stopped by her parents. 

Both Kim’s father and mother were sitting in the living room when she climbed the steps, and they stopped their hush conversation to stare at Kim. She knew she was in for it, especially when her dad crossed one leg over his knee and scowled at her. “And where have you been all night, Kimberly Ann?” 

“At Amanda’s. I texted Mom earlier that I was heading over there to study.” Kim stood with crossed arms before her parents, silently begging her mother to back her up, but to no avail. Ali Hart had a glass of wine in hand, and seeing as it was close to ten at night, Kim would bet money it wasn’t her mother’s first glass. She’d be of no help against Kim’s father, and said nothing as Kim kept talking. “I wasn't aware I couldn’t leave the house. I’m at Amanda’s all the time.” 

Kim’s father nodded, looking thoroughly displeased as he said, “That’s exactly the problem, Kimberly. You seem to never be home. Is there an issue you would like to discuss, seeing as you’d rather be at Amanda’s home than your own.” 

“Seriously? We were doing homework, dad!” Kim rolled her eyes as she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, guessing that most likely it was Ty urging her to come over now for a booty-call. She definitely was not in the mood for that now. 

“Raise your voice under my roof one more time and it will be the last time you find yourself in this house.” Roger Hart was standing up, his face red with anger as he too started to yell. Kim’s mother continued to sip and look between father and daughter as she sipped her wine, still maintaining her silence. Not surprising. Kim and Roger came to blows frequently and Ali has never once stepped in to intervene. “Go to your room now. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the night.” 

Kim said nothing as she turned and stomped to her room, slamming her door harder than needed as she knew it drove her father crazy. She hated him, hated her mother too. Hated everything about her family and was counting the days until college so she could leave Angel Grove behind her. Once she was out of this town she was never looking back. There was nothing that could possibly keep her here. 

She could hear her parents downstairs: her father’s loud ranting about how much of an annoyance Kim was, and her mother moving from the living room to the kitchen, probably in search of another bottle. Ali’s voice was too low to make out, but Roger stayed loud enough, continually screaming how Kim took too much for advantage and was ungrateful. From his point of view, he could did nothing wrong, and his actions towards his daughter were justified. 

Kim hated her father more than anything. 

The urge to leave her house was nearly overwhelming, suddenly feeling too confined in the tiny bedroom. She couldn’t keep listening to her father rant about how much of a disappointment she was, but knew leaving would make things worse if they came to check on her. So she stayed, curled up in a ball on her bed. There was nothing else to do but check Instagram once again, though she went straight to one specific profile. Seven posts, four followers, and following twenty-nine people, and right under that information was ‘Message’. Kim hesitated for only a moment before she clicked it and her screen immediately switched to the DM page. 

She started to type ‘hey’ then erased that, before typing ‘hey its Kim hart. just wanted to say you looked really nice in that pic’, and then replacing that with ‘Hey!’. That last one was too energetic for having never talked to the girl before and was promptly removed as well. Finally, Kim settled for a simple hello and introduction of herself. Her heart beat too quick in her chest when she sent the message, though she couldn’t grasp why, and a large part of her wanted to click unsend when given the option. Just as her thumb held down the message and she went to click ‘unsend’, the worst possible thing appeared under the message. 

Seen. 

“Fuck me.” Kim shouldn't have sent that fucking message because now she was coming off as a creep. She’s already liked and commented twice on a photo, she shouldn’t have gone and messaged the girl. Besides, what if Trini wasn’t interested in girls like that? Was Kim even interested in Trini like that at all? Sure, she was hot, gorgeous even, but Kim had Ty and Amanda, did she really need to add another person to that mix? Kim had no fucking clue what she was doing and really was just regretting her entire existence when she saw that Trini had begun typing, and then her message popped up. 

Hello. 

thank you for taking the time to read this! its my first time writing fan fiction at all really but ive been reading for years now. id really appreciate it if you could let me know how you felt about it? any suggestions? thank you so much for reading this! theres definitely more to come of this story! 

[vivaciousyellow]

v: merry christmas LOL, personal ramblings, nanette, barakamon

honestly this is just beyond embarrassing at this point but here we go

dear ying,

what do you say to someone whose brother is dying? what do you say when that person is your mother?

in my case, the short answer is… you say nothing.

that sounds so shitty right? and really i’m not sure if i’m trying to justify it to myself by writing it out in this here post but i guess we’ll see where it takes us -- and at some point i’ll write about nanette, which will be the biggest cop-out book club blog post because the only thing i read for that was the subtitles. might also do a bonus cop-out and write about barakamon vol 15 because apparently the only thing i can bring myself to read is manga and even then that was a struggle. i will add a mark when i change topics LOL this will be long :/

so i wrote the first few lines of this post well over two months ago and i’ve been coming back to try and add to it multiple times since then, but each time i just don’t know what to say. i had updates i could use as milestones - my uncle had surgery but they said they couldn’t guarantee they got rid of all the cancer; the cancer metastasizing, leading also to an interesting intergenerational debate in the family about trying chinese medicine (my parents’ generation was all for it, esp since the american doctors basically said there’s nothing else that can be done, but my uncle’s sons - who are in their mid/late 30s and have been in america since high school - sided with the american doctors and were against trying the herbal pills). early last month my two aunts flew in from the east coast and that really shifted something in my understanding of the situation - things felt more real all of a sudden, like they came to say goodbye. things looked real bad on thanksgiving - we spent half the day outside of the ICU after an urgent call from the doctors.

now it’s christmas eve and we visited him yesterday - the cancer is everywhere, the doctors have given up on treatment, and now it’s kinda just maintaining comfort until the end. given all of that, he’s doing okay. but what i’ve been wanting to process and write about is my mom’s role in all of this and also the capacities of grief and empathy.

i think my mom is an amazing person - she took the news hard and i wasn’t there for it. since then she’s become one of the pillars of support for my uncle’s family and taking on the communication “””burden””” of relaying information to the rest of the family. she’s done so much and appears so strong yet sometimes i just want her to cry, dammit. keeping it together and putting on a brave face is fucking difficult difficult lemony difficult and i’d love for her to not have to bottle it up.

the night of burlesque my sister told me how much our mom cried, and when i asked if i should come home she said no - that mom would feel guilty that i’m away from school and not able to focus on my work. and this goes back to what i said earlier - the way i said nothing. and i’ve shown love and support in other ways: massages, more hugs and affection and asking how uncle’s doing, helping her cook the meals she brings to him, being her brain when things are hectic (making sure we bring things like water and snacks and chargers as we hurriedly pack for the hospital on thanksgiving), but i haven’t been brave enough to simply ask ‘are you okay? how are you feeling today? what else can i do for you?’

and as a psychology major and someone who wants to go into minority mental health, isn’t this what i should be doing? how can i think of being a clinician if i can’t practice what i preach?

but another thing that has been on my mind since thanksgiving is grief and empathy. who is allowed to grieve, at what times, and at what point do others stop empathizing with that sadness and instead become annoyed?

when we were driving to the hospital on thanksgiving, my mom was on the phone with my aunt (the uncle’s wife) who was in tears. she continued to cry as we arrived and would continue to sob heavily for the next hour, then on and off for another couple hours. and that’s understandable, right? your husband seems to be on his deathbed. however, her sobs were quite loud and she hovered and it quickly got crowded in the hospital room with all of the hospital staff, her son and his wife, and more and more relatives coming. the nurses let some of us go to an office and my aunt was led there to be comforted by the nurses, my mom, her daughter in law, and my sister and i.

as the cries continued, some of the things my mom and other aunts said were - don’t cry don’t cry, it makes it harder on him if he hears you crying, it’ll disturb him, etc. though one of my other aunts made the remark (outside of my crying aunt’s earshot) that her sobbing was disruptive and perhaps over the top. and i won’t lie, it really was loud and echoed throughout the hospital halls, so i will shittily admit that i was also kind of self-conscious of the volume. as the hour went on, i felt the agitation of the other family members rise, and it was fueled when my aunt started saying other things (how my uncle has always been so strong and a good person, why did he deserve this, how she’s a worse person why can’t she die instead, how she wishes she would die right now). and that, as you may know, is a huge superstitious no-no.

it’s not the first time she’s expressed suicidal ideations (another huge huge concern) either, and she has apparently also mentioned this in the presence of my uncle. something along the lines of her burden and also how he has been verbally abusive towards her for years. and that’s certainly a beast of an issue already, but for my mom and the relatives, these instances were about not letting my uncle hear because then he will feel like he’s being a burden, etc.

and it’s tough i guess, trying to navigate a space of empathy for someone in rightful distress, of trying to soothe the ill and keep them as at ease as possible, of prioritizing the very limited emotional bandwidth of everyone present. it’s definitely complex and layered and probably no easy or right answer, but it’s been weighing pretty heavily on my mind since then.

ANYWAY i wrote this out not expecting you to have read it all (but thank you regardless of if you did or didn’t) and certainly not expecting you to respond. it was nice to flesh out some of the stuff that’s been happening and to start shaping words out of whatever has been clustering in my mind these past several months. i think i’ve only really told a couple people about my uncle so writing has been helpful. thanks ying for this platform, even if i’m not exactly using it as intended

actually this reminds me - my uncle’s son is named ying. i mean i knew this as soon as i met you, but writing it out in this context feels strange and almost eerie

OKAY MOVING ON TO AN ATTEMPT AT A REVIEW

alright so you suggested i write a review of nanette because i am apparently not capable of reading a book - but really really hoping i can get to it soon. i loved nanette - at the beginning i was kind of like ah okay she’s funny, though i wouldn’t have said she stood out that much, aside from her jokes being more about being gay. but as she went on and got into depth about the process of writing jokes - how to control the room, what is required, what needs to be left out - as well as her own thoughts on staying in the business, i started to see why you and rachel thought it was so good.

hannah talked about how she has been concerned about whether her audience has been laughing with her jokes (and by extension experiences of the lgbt+ community) or at them. and that was a concern i remember dave chapelle saying he struggled with and that was why he left the business for so long. i’m hopeful though because the crowd seemed really supportive of her branching outside of solely comedy within the show - and i think it was beautifully illustrated at the end when (spoiler!!) the overprotective boyfriend of the girl she flirted with realized that hannah was indeed a woman and really did beat her up. her explanation of why the rules of standup require she leave that part out, why she is tired of telling incomplete stories, and why she wants things to change was really amazing and thought provoking. def looking forward to more from her soon!

as for barakamon vol 15 LOL i actually haven’t finished that yet but i did read something so! lmao yo the man is 23 and UMM the anime came out in 2014 aka i was like 19 years old it was freshman year at nu. and now here i am, ALSO 23. back then that felt like ages away like haha handa yeah get ur shit together you’re kinda young sure but ur 23 that’s an adult adult. and now here we are lmao i feel u handa take all the time u need go ahead and raise ur lil island children

and that concludes my three-month overdue post. i really did nothing i was supposed to and i’m so sorry i haven’t been respectful of your time and what we had set to be a fun joint goal. i love you so much thank you for your infinite kindness and patience. merry christmas and i can’t wait to see you this week!! <3 love u babehh

love,

victoria