#being a broke adult who works in education has really pushed me to this point

[knoxvillephobic]

lowkey tryna sell some of my jackass collection .. would anyone buy it

[oh-for-fic-sake]

Ghosting A Wayne

Masterlist

Warnings: Adult content +18 only!! Smut, Agegap, Swearing, A Little Angst?

A/n:Ok so this is the first real full smut iv done and im super nervous about posting this one i hope its good but if its shit im sorry hope you enjoyxx

After getting cold feet because of your own insecurities you get a visitor pick you up from work.

Ghosting A Wayne

You sighed as you pulled out a batch of cookies from the oven placing the three large trays out on the cooling racks today was a baking day to fill the display out the front ,you'd been alone with your thoughts all day and were just about done, glancing at the clock you fist pumped the air. Home time. You quickly undone your apron hanging it on the hook by the kitchen door then called out to Tom that your shift was done.

After your first lunch date with Bruce you intended to leave it there but the man was very persistent... and charming somehow he'd managed to talk you in circles and wrangle a second date and third and forth. you'd canceled your fifth using work as an excuse and he bought it for about a week, then he began asking when you were free telling you to call him giving you his personal number which you didn't call.

That worked for about three days before he began messaging you about a date you replied with excuses it seemed to work until he showed up at the door to drop Damien round instead of Alfred, Jack had covered for you not letting either of them in saying you were ill. It wasn't that you didn't like him or anything you were scared, scared of getting hurt he was amazing a perfect gentleman he made you laugh he took you to fancy places but didn't make you uncomfortable even going so far as to berate another guest as he heard them make a comment of the restaurant 'letting anyone in these days' when he was returning from the rest room , you felt special and safe with him.

But he was The Bruce Wayne and nothing would ever come of it. Someone like you had no right to be with someone like him, he deserved a high class well educated successful woman not a minimum wage cafe worker who dropped out of college. You found yourself growing to attached to him and it had frightened you. Not only that but what would people say when they found out, probably think your a charity case or a gold digger you could see the headlines now ' The playboys new sugar baby' with photos of you plastered across the tabloids you shivered.

Damien had spoke to you about it he was far to smart for his own good telling you your being a 'stupid female' and that you should just talk to Bruce about it, Jack also scolded you for being stupid and letting your insecurities hold you back.

The boy had been soo happy for you when you were going out with Bruce, he admitted that he felt responsible for you being alone and not having friends or a boyfriend it broke your heart, hearing how he blamed himself for it, yes it had been hard taking on a 8 year old at 20 years old and yes you did need to grow up quicker then most and avoid the typical early twenties drinking and clubbing but you wouldn't change a thing. When he had brought it up you both had a heart to heart and you were gobsmacked at just how mature he had soundec. He told you that he didn't care about Bruce being Damien's dad or that he was older than you, he was happy that you had someone who made you happy and wanted you to got out with him again and be happy. The boys didn't understand.

"Tom I'm finished don't touch the cookies before they cool you can have one to test but that's it theirs 48 here I've counted, so if you have anymore I will know its you, you greedy little shit" you said opeing the door you walked straight into him he was wide eyed pointing out to the font over his shouldet. You froze thinking the worst it was gotham afterall.

"Oh my god tom?"

"You have.. Out the there.... Man front" he said not making any sense you pushed past him through the door

"whats wron-"

"y/n!" you snapped your head to the counter seeing Bruce standing their ignoring the odd looks he received from the other few customers scattered about in the cafe. You slung your bag over your shoulder cradling your coat in the other hand cursing quietly. Scanning the cafe for a quick exit wanting to run. There was one way in and out and he was between you and the door. Giving in you plastered on a polite smile.

"Bruce what are you doing here?" you asked tentatively due to the blank look on his face unsure what mood he would be in after you ghosted him. Making your way around the counter he followed on the other side meeting you at the end.

"I wanted to take you out, Jack told me when you finished so I thought I'd come pick you up for dinner" you felt the gazes in the room shift from him to you and the whispers started. Bruce held out a hand taking your coat from you while you tried to come up with a reason not to your anxiety screaming at you to run. You sighed at him biting your lower lip raw he lifted a hand pulling it gently forcing you to release it. He smiled meeting your eyes trying to calm you.

"Bruce I don't feel like going out tonight can we reschedule?" hooking his arm around your waist guiding you out of the cafe past the gossiping customers opening the door for the both of you pressing himself to your back giving you no room to bolt away. Hed catch you anyway.

"Good news, we don't have to go out Alfred is making us dinner back home, so we get to have a relaxing night in." you nodded as you left walking down the street feeling your nerves spike as you realized there was no reason to avoid this. He kept pace with you to the side arms ready to dart out and catch you as you glanced around a little skittish he ushered you into a ridiculously expensive Lamborghini and took off down the road.

"So that's Tom then? the one you were talking about?" he started you were confused as he acted like you hadn't been avoiding him for the past week and half you just nodded.

"Err yeah that's him we get along work really well, I was doing all the baking today couldn't handle the customers they were doing my head in." he nodded placing a warm hand on your knee running his thumb in small circles you took a deep breath.

"I know what you mean, had a lot of meetings today with a bunch little men wanting me to over invest in companies that wont last the financial year" you tensed as he left his hand on your leg still navigating the traffic, you tried to shift your led from underneath him but he just followed squeezing it lightly making your breath hitch and clench your walls tight.

"Sh-shouldn't you have both hands on the wheel in a car like this?" you asked quietly he laughed giving you a mischievous look then you screamed as he let go of the wheel completely still picking up speed quickly.

"OH MY GOD BRUCE NO!" you cried leaning over grabbing it yourself he just laughed out loud placing one hand back on it the other still resting on your knee.

"Its fine I could probably drive this with my eyes closed, it's nothing like my other car" he said cheekily as he made his way towards the outskirts of gotham you swallowed nervously.

"yeah please dont do that"

"Don't worry I'd never let anything happen to you sweets" you blushed as he used the nickname he'd given you onde he found out about your sweet tooth and the fact you do all the baking at the cafe.

"He says after driving without hands." you scoffed looking out of the window as the scenery changed. It wasn't long before you pulled up to the manor. It was impressive you'd only been inside twice whilst waiting for Jack to get his things he thought it was the perfect place to hid from his dentist and doctors appointments. Once out of the car he lead you inside where Alfred greeted you both.

"Ah Master Wayne dinner will take another hour or so I'm afraid and Y/n its lovely to see you again." Bruce gave you both a look seeking an explanation for the first name basis.

"Have you met everyone in this house before me?" he asked sarcastically you smiled at him before Alfred took your coats hanging them up.

"Well sometimes the boys play about getting ready so Alfred comes in for tea whilst we wait and I've met Tim he has come over a few times drank my whole pot of coffee and left." he grunted before leading you to a small sitting room off to the side.

"We will be in here Alfred call us when dinner is ready." Alfred nodded smiling slyly before closing the door leaving you in private. You sat down on the leather sofa a nervous wreck looking around the opulent room feeling out of place, he took a seat beside you offering you a glass of what you assumed was scotch he sat and leaned in next to you. Relaxing as he took a slow sip of his drink.

"Don't look so worried the boys explained for you. Your scared of getting hurt I can understand that I don't exactly have the best record but I'm not giving up as you can tell."you looked down into your glass a little ashamed as you heard hurt laced in his words.

"I-its not that, its me I.. I love spending time with you I really do... but I dont think you should waste your time on me... thats all" he frowned you sounded so ...defeated , he didnt like it one bit placing his glass down putting two and two together. That he didn't know Damien said you were being a 'difficult woman' and Jack had said that you hadn't dated since school and were afraid of being hurt he summarised that it was because of him but it sounds like there was more to it then that. Bruce took a deep breath regarding you carefully.

"Waste my time? why would spending time with you be a waste. There is something between us, I have never felt this type of pull to a woman before and I'm quite determind to see you if you havent already noticed" he said sternly you shrunk into the sofa he sighed pulling the glass tumbler from you hand.

"Whats really going on? we were going fine then you just pulled back. I want this, us and I know you do to but we have to talk to each other." You leaned forward locking eyes with him feeling overwhelmed you shook your head pulling back he followed leaning back pulling you across the seat wrapping his arms around you pulling your face into his chest holding you, you tried pulling yourself off of him but he was to stronger than he looked. You Gave up then took a deep breath endulging in the closeness breathing him in.

"Talk to me please" he spoke quietly into your hair

"I cant, I just cant, your-I, you need someone better. And if people find out then what will they think? that I'm a charity case some passing fancy? that you'll get bored with and you will bruce. When you find some older succsessfull women who equals you. someone that I can never be for you. I wont be good enough for you and you'll see it one day" once you started you couldn't stop as the words kept coming your fears poured out after being kept bottled up since that very first date.Fears of loving him and then him leaving, or of what backlash Jack could face if you were painted to be a whore trying to capture Bruces attention, the cps could investigate if it seemed like you were becoming a party girl like what Bruce typically dated. Then there was the fact that the school could start being funny if word got out that you and bruce were together. But the main reason was that he was to good for you and you knew it. You heaved a breath feeling lighter yet your stomach churned he had been quiet throughout and you'd gotten yourself worked up shaking from your anxiety feeling sick to your stomach.

"I'm sorry I know I should have spoke to you instead but I... I was scared that you were going to realize I'm right and leave ...so" he hushed you rubbing your back lightly causing you to shiver and relax onto his chest.

"So you left before I could?" you flinched then nodded it sounded so petty when said out loud he moved sitting up a bit more dragging you with him not releasing you for a second, he would have preferred if it had all been about his past but now realized you had low self esteem you had fears about the future, the age gap, Jacks future and how people would judge you all of these fear were to blame. And he understood it must be daughting, but what got him most was that you thought he'd let you deal with it alone , that you were so scared of loosing him in the long run you tried to walk away now and that was all the proof he needed that you did feel somthing for him.

"Tell me something does Jack have a problem with you being with me?" he asked you shook your head instantly.

"No he loves it, he wants me to be with you he saw how happy I was he has been pestering me to call" he pulled his head away smiling confusing you.

"I can tell you that Damien is thrilled he has even been bragging to his brothers that I've found the perfect woman and they cant wait to meet you by the way the

and he threatened me before every date to 'not to fuck it up' so let me ask another question if Jack, Damien me and you are happy what does anyone else's opinion matter? it's our life why should we make ourselves miserable over a few tabloids that can be taken to court and be corrected? and I do have reporters that I trust with these type of stories one is a very close friend who I could give an exclusive to before any rumors get around and the press make up some nonsense. Not only that I know Clark wold print the truth if he knew that it involved the boys being bullied in the school." he let you pull back shocked you didnt think he would want anyone to know, you thought hed be ashamed of you.

"wh-what?" it was bearly a whisper but he heard it.

"You heard me sweets, Clark wouldn't let me down not with this and there are other reporters who I've trusted to cover stories of the boys in the past one phone call and I would have everything sorted and anyone who tries to make this something its not will feel the full force of my legal team." he leaned in giving you no time to reply kissing you deeply invading your mouth moaning into you. His tongue dominated your mouth taking your breath away he paused pulling you to straddle his waist you blushed looking down at him.Trying to put your weight on your knees conscious of your weight Bruce not having any of that tugged harshly pulling your weight on his thighs.

"And as for finding someone better I doubt it. I've said it before and I will say it again I want you. Not some stuck up model who's one surgery away from being on botched. The day we met I was floored and for the first time I saw what I truly wanted for me and my family. And it wasn't some highly educated business woman, no it was a sexy little mama bear who treated my son as her own." you gasped as he brought your hips closer resting you on his crotch before leaning forward capturing your lips again this time slow and deliberate pouring himself into it you, you moaned quietly as he rocked you across his groin. Pulling back for air

"So little miss now we have all that cleared up is there anything you want to add?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" you gasped out trying to collect yourself as you began getting tearful as you felt stupid for being so silly yet relieved that he hadn't thrown you out, he chuckled shushing you then moved biting at your earlobe .

"That's ok love I'm sure you'll make it up to me" he said kissing down your neck biting below your ear then lower to your pulse point feeling it race under his tongue before sucking harshly bordering on painful.

"o-OH Bruce" you gasped gripping his shoulder trying not to lean back to far and fall he noticed using and arm to hold you elbow resting on your waist curling his fingers into your low bun pulling slowly stretching your neck before him leaving marks up it you groaned closing your eyes trying to rub your thighs together as your pussy grew hot and clenched dampening your panties he ran his nose down your neck kissing your collar bone lightly.

"Aww sweety so desperate hm?" you whined squeezing his hips between your thighs again grinding softly against him he chuckled biting the top of your breast running his tongue along your cleavage unbuttoning your blouse with deft fingers then returned them to your hips pushing you harshly on his erection you cried out looking down panting as he dragged you slowly back and forth feeling him through his trousers was almost to much you fisted your hands in the crisp shirt covering his shoulders. He let out a breathy growl smug as you started trying to rock on him faster pouting when he held you controlling your pace circling you slow on his bulge dipping his thumbs into your pelvis tilting you catching your clit with every pass of your hips you shook your head eyes tightly shut.

"OH fuck shiiitt Bruce" he watched eyes blown as he built you up slowly drinking in your flushed face pouty full lips forming an 'o' as you let out high pitched cries his hands smothered your breasts squeezing them in his palms testing them before he tipped the cups down teasing your pink nipples to attention. You opened your eyes glazed over pleading with him.

"Please Bruce... I dont-fuck" you moaned high and louder almost squeeling as he pinched one of your nipples refusing to let go pulling your chest towards him by it until he could lay a sweet kiss to the other suckling catching it between his teeth nipping it letting go with a loud pop. You panted harder as he toyed with you, your body trembled as he pulled you closer to the edge your clit rubbed harshly against him and he growled relishing in the way your heat seeped onto him. He couldn't wait. He wouldn't. With a one sweeping motion you found yourself lying on the sofa with him hovering over you pulling your leggings down over your hips skimming your quivering thighs with his knuckles befor rubbing your calves and griping your ankles encircling them effortlesly, running his thumbs across the inside of them . Following bending as he went kissing your soft stomach and pelvis finally leaving a small kiss on your mound over your panties you moaned at that. He slipped your leggings off taking your flats with them you blushed as he stared seeing the wet patch you'd left on your panties crawling back up you exploring with his hands the whole way. Hooking a hand around to back of your neck he pulled you up into a bruising kiss needy as he angled his head to devour you deeper his other hand dragging your shirt from you by the back of the neck unclipping your bra and he went lowering you back down you blushed trying to cover yourself he growled pinning them beside you.

"Nooo you dont babe, let me see, show me" he ground out a deep gruntle sound that vibrated threw you trailing the tips of his fingers from your throat down in slow unpredictable patterns leaving goosebumps in his wake your nipples pebbled as he past them your whole body shuddered

"Fuck. Your stunning" you didn't meet his gaze it was to hot, posessive like he was claiming you already just with his eyes watching closely memorizing every freckle and mark on your skin, he let out a deep shuddering breath when you arched up inyo him as he fingered the bow on the waist band of your panties back and forth he brought his fingers lower and lower across your mound. You squirmed trying to buck up against him trying to get him where you desperately needed him whimpering pitifully. His response was to stretch out his fingers across your lower tummy and push you back down holding you still. You protested as his warm hand covered your whole mound and rocked forward trying to catch your clit on the heal of his palm that rested just out of reach.

"Such a greedy little thing. I think I'm going to have to work on your manners" he chided before using a hand to unbutton his shirt revealing a perfectly sculpted torso, you made a noise in the back of your throat that you didn't recognize at the sight of him, caramel skin taught over deliciously defined muscles and small thatch of hair disappearing below a teasingly low hanging trousers he let the shirt slide to the floor undoing his belt then slowly pulled his trousers over his hip grunting thrusting forward as it glided over his cock. You bit your lip still trying to move against his heavy hand he granted you a little mercy twisting as the wrist slotting his thumb between your lips seeking your clit and rubbing a figure 8 hard.

"AHH! F-Fuck BRUCE yes oh god-" you gasped deep breaths as he rolled your cilt around almost rough in his ministrations the fabric of you panties hieghtend the sensation you closed your eyes grinding yourself down on him tears leaked from them his other hand came up to your throat forcing you to face him.

"Look at me baby. come on let me see you... ah there she is good girl" he praised as you looked at him tears clinging to your lashes his hand still working you. Sobbing incoherently trying to buck up to him.

"OH fuck please-PLEASE let me come bruce please I'll do anything PLEASE" you breathed out hoarse gasping when your pussy weeped wetting the sofa below you he played you like an instrument taking you higher and higher you clenched and withered as you felt that familiar burn of an orgasm start in your lower tummy , almost cramping as it traveld lower to your pussy you chased it trying to rock harder just as you were at the presapice he stopped pulling his thumb away bit still pinned you down.

"AH! NO Br-BRUCE come back" you sobbed reaching out for him as your body hummed hot and quivering you gave up on finding his hand throwing yours between you trying to take over and force yourself over the edge. Soo close. Bruce was quicker catching them in one hand pulling them above you head. He watched waiting for you to come down from the almost high. Pouting all the way.

"You can count that as your punishment babe" he whispered huskliey into your neck kissing at the marks he has left. You cried out frustarated sweaty and exhasted.

"But im feeling a little mercifull tonight." you looked at him from below your lashes his heart skipped a beat seeing you look at him so needy and ready you looked so small,he could do anything to you right now but only wanted one thing. Shuffling back leaning down he placed an open mouthed kiss on your panties slipping his fingers in the sides draging them off before standing removing his boxers freeing his erection you gasped as it bounced up tapping his stomach ,hesitantly you reached out running a single finger along the underside from tip to base he jerked forward when you cupped him testing your grip befor stroking him he stopped you

"Fuck sorry babe but I cant wait." he growled out pinning you back down running his weeping head up and down your slit you tensed as he probed your enterance. Sensing your nerves he locked lips with you coaxing out your tongue sucking on it before licking in your mouth makeing obscene noises feeling you relax he took the chance and slowly begun stretching you around him ,you gasped at the slight sting pulling back rest your forehead on his grunting softly as he kept a slow steady pressure finally knocking his hips with yours you panted feeling your walls fluttering around him then squeezing

"shit Bruce" he huffed out a laugh flexing in response

"carefull there babe" you grunted feeling stuffed full as his head pushed against your cervix.

"Bruce please...HUrry up!" you clenched him stealing his breath from him he gave a playfull glare you felt a little tremor of apprehension as he repostioned your legs higher on his hips placing your heels into his lower back before plowing you into the sofa grunting and growling as his thrusts rocked your body you were by no means quiet as the veins on his cock massaged your walls with delicious friction he slowed then pressed himself tight against your clit rotating catching your gspot you bucked violenty against him head thrown back as you wailed he leaned up sucking and biting at your neck then resumed finding a brutal pace aiming for your gspot hitting it with pinpoint accuracy. You shook your head screaming out uncontrollably bucking begging for him to go harder, faster just wanting more. It wasn't long befor you saw stars letting out a silent scream tensing before you snapped cumming around him almost blinded as he rode you through it still hitting your spot faster if that was even possible before stuttering his hips holding himself tight locking you both together as he flooded you.

"OH GOD fuck FUCK yesyesyes good girl yes fuck" he moaned as you lay beneath him, limp body still quacking in the aftermath of your own end. He stayed still until he was soft catching his breath recovering before you removing himself he sat back on his knees watching as he leaked from you quick to scoop his cum and press it back within you, you whined still painfully oversensitive trying to pull away from his invading fingers. he chuckled as you squirmed utterly spent.

"nooo bruce" you whined as he prodded your freshly fucked pussy lighly grazing your abused clit causing you to whine at him pitifully jolting with every swipe.

"Aww baby are you sore?" you pouted at his words nodding he got up sitting you up handing you your forgotton drink you took it gulping it down ignoring the burn. he retrived his boxers throwing them on then a soft blanket covering you before scooping you up heading for the door.

"Bruce? what are you doing?" you asked gorgily already struggiljng to stay awake he leant down shutting you up with a kiss.

"We are going to bed you need some sleep before we continue." you blinked

"wha?" he grinned cheekily

"well how are we going to build up your stamina if we dont push past your exhaustion?" you almost cried just wanting to sleep.

"What about Alfred dinner?" you questioned

"He didnt make any I had to have a reason to get you here didnt I? he went to bed. and dont worry about Jack he is staying over in a room next to Damien's" you looked at him shocked

"What why was he here? do you think he could have heard me? bruce!" you panicked suddenly fully awake trying to wiggle out of his grip he laughed kissing your face.

"Oh my god what about our clothes? Bruce go back and shit we made a mess i need to clean that up..Bruce are you listening?" You created as he continued further away from the room youd just soild.

"he didnt hear you at all it was one of his demands when we planned this. And dont worry about the room or the clothes alfred will take care of it" he said scaling the stairs with ease taking you to his room

"planned? you who else knew? And what do you mean alfred will take care of it? no absolutly not that is embarassing" you argued as he kicked the door to his room shut behind him depositing you on his bed following you down landing above you kissing you again.

"me alfred damien and jack planned it but dick and jason knew too thats why they are scarce and alfred has cleard up worse trust me." he explained you stared at him in horror

"My little brother set me up with you?oh my god I'm not going to live that down and i need to clear that up its to embarassing for alfred to see" you cried he laughed out loud.

"Well I think its was worth it, and you can try and beat Alfred to it but that room will be ccleared up before sunrise and you won't be leaving this bed before then" he said snuggling up with you under the cover ,you made a noise as he tucked you into his chest his heart beat calming you making you drift into a peaceful sleep resting on his chest, feeling safe and sound wrapped up in him as he traced patterns on your back, sighing he was finally content a peace he hadnt known befor washed over him satisfied that he had found the woman that would complete his family, his chest swelled as he placed a kiss on your head. He wasn't ever letting you go now that he had you here. Glancing over at the clock, hed give you an hour or so to build up some energy before he woke you smirkjng to himslef planing all the wicked ways he was going to toy with you during the night. Oh yes the night was young and if Bruce had his way you wouldnt be leaving his bed tomorrow because you wouldnt be able to, thankfully you hade a few days off so he might let you recover. Then again he might not.

[itsclydebitches]

[1] Hi! I hope you don't mind, but can I ask a sorta uncomfortable question? I wanna ship cloqwork because I like their character dynamic, but at the same time I get uncomfortable because when Qrow enrolled at Beacon (at "the right age," as specified by Raven) he would've been 17 - legally not an adult. Ozpin would've had a disproportionate amount of power over him, both as a legal adult and as his teacher.

Hi, Anon!

I apologize in advance that this response is probably going to be all over the place. I’ve got a lot of thoughts about this and very little ability right now to put them into a cohesive order. So we’re just chucking it all out lol.

First, there’s absolutely no need to apologize for being on anon. That’s what it’s there for! I think tumblr has developed a view of the anonymous option that, on the whole, isn’t particularly useful. In our efforts to call out those who are sending flames/hate under the comfort of anonymity (which you obviously are not), there’s no need for anyone to “prove” themselves by going off of it. You’re using anon because you (justifiably) fear how the fandom might react to these questions. I often use anon because I abandoned my “main” account years ago and dislike sending messages from it. There’s a huge range of reasons why someone might want to be on anon and ultimately it doesn’t matter why we use the tool that’s been provided to us. It’s there, so never feel bad about going anon for any reason :)

Onto the ozqrow! Or yes, onto the cloqwork. I learned “ozqrow” first so it’s pretty embedded in my head, but I agree that “cloqwork” is the more sophisticated of the two ;) Anyway, yes. There are potentially ways that we can view the relationship as unhealthy… with the key word there being potentially. AKA, as headcanons. No, Qrow wouldn’t have been an adult when he entered Beacon, but who’s to say a relationship began then? Some fans might like to imagine that despite the real world issues attached. Others—like you and me—would not. The important thing is that we both have the space to achieve whatever interpretation of the relationship we please. Far as I can tell, Qrow is 37 at the youngest. Four years at Beacon (17-20), 15 years after Summer’s death (35), and then roughly 2 years of in-canon present time (37). Realistically, he’s probably older than that. Based on the relationship dynamics it seems that Tai didn’t date Summer until he broke up with Raven and given Yang’s age compared to Ruby’s, that adds two years. So Qrow is probably around 39. Even that’s assuming that Raven had Yang right after Beacon. If she didn’t we could push the timeline another year or two, putting Qrow in his early 40’s. I lay all this out to demonstrate that… that’s a lot of time. How old “should” Qrow be before he enters a relationship with someone? Obviously that answer differs from individual to individual, but let’s say for the sake of argument that he should be at least 25. That puts him 5 years out of Beacon, potentially older than when Raven had Yang, and roughly 6 years older than most of our main ships right now (Blake/Yang, Jaune/Pyrrha, Ren/Nora etc.) where fans argue very strongly that at 19 they’re already adults and are able to make informed decisions, be it about relationships or world-shattering secrets. So we’re already holding Qrow to stricter standards than other characters and that still leaves roughly 15 years for him and Ozpin to start something, all of which is time that takes place outside of the Teacher/Student dynamic. It’s a choice to prioritize “But he was his headmaster for 4 years” over “But they were equals for 2 decades.”

Now granted, there’s more to this relationship than just Qrow’s own age. I’ve also seen people bring up the age gap and, more recently, Ozpin’s “manipulation” of Qrow. In regards to the former, we simply have to acknowledge that Ozpin is screwed in that regard. Everyone is younger than him. Almost the entire cast. At some point nearly everyone we meet will have, at some point, been a child while Ozpin is an adult simply by virtue of Ozpin being a reincarnating wizard who has already lived at least a thousand years. The only exceptions to this are Salem, the Gods, or Jinn, all of which are more “problematic” partners to my mind. Which again, isn’t to say no one can ship them together, just that it seems ridiculous to me that—if we’re really going to “justify” an in-canon relationship—we’d prioritize “Salem and Ozpin are the same age that’s so much healthier!” over “Salem abused Ozpin, killed their kids, and has hunted him for years on end. That’s... kind of not great!” It’s a matter of what parts of each relationship we choose to emphasize. And ozqrow is far from the only ship to grapple with this. In the witcher fandom I adore both Geralt/Jaskier and Geralt/Regis. Both of those ships have “issues” in regards to age. Is Jaskier not allowed to be with Geralt because he’s in his 30s and Geralt is in his 80s? Is Geralt not allowed to be with Regis because he’s in his 80s and Regis is in his 400s? When we talk about fantasy series we’re talking about species/races/abilities that are, obviously, fantastic. They don’t exist. Which means that real world concerns can’t perfectly map onto these scenarios. The question is not “Is a 1,000 year age gap problematic?” but rather “Are these both consenting adults who are in a position to make their own informed, romantic decisions?” To which we answer for ozqrow: yes. Unless we specifically imagine that the relationship began when Qrow was just a student but again, that’s purely headcanon. Emphasizing that non-canonical imagining of how a relationship might have started over the canonical years of working together as equal peers makes no more sense than going, “Yeah but there was a time when Regis was an adult and Geralt was just a kid, so if they’d met then it would have been super unhealthy so you shouldn’t ship them :/” They didn’t meet when Geralt was a kid. In the same way, Ozpin and Qrow didn’t start a relationship when Qrow was a kid for the simple reason that they have no canonical romance at all. That puts the power entirely in the viewers’ hands to imagine when/how such a relationship occurs. 

Which leaves us with second issue mentioned: power dynamics and Ozpin’s “manipulation.” Take everything said above and apply it to this point too. That power dynamic only exists if we imagine a relationship while they’re headmaster and student. Which you can! Plenty of people want to write/read about such “problematic” stuff. That’s partly what fandom is for. But again, if that’s not your cup of tea there’s no reason to prioritize those 4 years over the 20 years we get later. I have heard some people say that the relationship is indefinitely imbalanced because of Ozpin’s age/power/leadership/whatever but… that simply makes no sense to me. Or rather, it seems hypocritical. Does that mean it’s “problematic” for Weiss to be with Ruby? After all, Ruby is the leader of their team and calls all the shots. What if Weiss feels like she can’t say no to her?? It’s terribly unhealthy. Does that mean Weiss can’t be with Blake? She was racist, after all, and comes from such a place of privilege. I’m not sure Blake is educated enough to hold her own with Weiss. Does this mean Blake can’t be with Yang? Blake comes from a very rich and powerful family whereas Yang is just a country girl… what if Blake uses that power against her somehow? Does that mean that Nora can’t be with Ruby? Or again, Weiss with Ruby? I mean, Nora is homeless and Weiss has been cut off from the Schnee line, so they might stay in a relationship purely out of fear of being abandoned--super unhealthy. These are all revised versions of things I’ve heard applied to ozqrow: Qrow shouldn’t be with Ozpin because Ozpin is his leader (Ruby/Weiss), because Qrow grew up in an “uneducated” tribe whereas Ozpin is clearly so sophisticated (Blake/Weiss), because Ozpin has power and connections that Qrow could never match (Blake/Yang), because Ozpin is tied to the life Qrow has built and breaking up supposedly threatens that. Which means he can’t ever break up. Which means Qrow is trapped. Which means it’s unhealthy (Nora/Ruby or Ruby/Weiss). They’re all warped, assumption based arguments that are only taken seriously when they’re applied to a ship that people are already inclined to dislike. The takeaway is that every relationship has power dynamics and every relationship has the potential to be “problematic.” Literally everyone. Give me any two people and I can spin some yarn about how one holds too much power over the other for the relationship to be healthy. Which isn’t to say that real power dynamics don’t exist that should be avoided (like a teacher/student relationship as you point out), only that fans are inclined to extend that past the point of logic in an effort demonize ships they don’t like. Someone having trauma in their past (which, again, is everyone at this point in the series) is not the same “power dynamic” as an adult grooming a child (which, again again, Ozpin didn’t do). So when we’re left with the acknowledgement that any relationship has the potential to be unhealthy, we have to ask… is it? And the answer is no. As you say, “We all know that canonically Ozpin ISN’T that kind of person.” That’s what trumps every headcanon and negative assumption. I could headcanon/assume that a Weiss/Blake relationship would be horrific because Weiss would be a racist ass to Blake and Blake would only stay with her because she’s determined not to “run away” from something again… but we don’t see evidence for that on screen and it literally never happens. In the same way, some fans like to headcannon/assume that a Qrow/Ozpin relationship would be horrific because Ozpin would use his power over Qrow in various ways… but we don’t see evidence for that on screen and it literally doesn’t happen. 

If anything, post-Volume 6 I’d say there’s more of a potential problem with Qrow being with Ozpin. Meaning yes, as you point out Qrow has a lot of stuff in his past that makes him potentially vulnerable—toxic family environment, drinking problem, etc.—but we learn irrevocably in Volume 6 that so does Ozpin. He was manipulated by the Gods into accepting this “impossible” task. He was in an abusive relationship with Salem and, quite literally, didn’t survive it. He’s lived a thousand years of unimaginable trauma. He arguably was also an alcoholic at one point given the drinking we saw in Jinn’s flashback. He’s been betrayed time and time again by his allies… of which Qrow is a part. Arguably Ozpin has even more vulnerabilities than Qrow but both characters are in a position to hurt one another with those vulnerabilities: Ozpin could play on Qrow’s desire for family and Qrow could play on Ozpin’s need for support. That “could” is, again, important because it’s mostly headcanon speculation that chooses to see the relationship as inevitably negative… with the exception that canonically Qrow is the only one who we see using these vulnerabilities against Ozpin. The fandom likes to assume that Ozpin “manipulated” Qrow all these years but we simply never see that happening. In true RWBY fashion, RT gave Qrow a very damning sounding line—I gave up my life for you—and then let the fandom assume really negative connotations. In reality though what that line translated to was, “You trusted me despite the fact that I entered your school to learn how to kill you and your allies, then taught me how to be a better person and gave me a purpose in life: to help others, even if I’ve now learned I can’t fix it all in one lifetime.” Like yeah, what kind of horrible “manipulation”?? Ozpin’s supposed power over Qrow has only helped and benefited Qrow, despite how Volume 6 tried to paint that relationship as suddenly negative. What is said doesn’t align with what we’ve seen. In contrast, we do see Qrow using Ozpin’s vulnerabilities against him. He does betray him. He does punch him into a tree. He does help perpetuate those same lies to Ironwood. He does absolve Ruby without offering the same to Ozpin. He does then plant the seed—with absolutely no evidence—that he had a hand in Summer’s death. To be frank, Qrow has treated Ozpin like shit lately and it’s one of the (many) reasons why I hate Volume 6 and 7. Ozpin is coded as the perpetrator, but we never see him taking advantage of Qrow. Meanwhile, Qrow is coded as the victim, but we do see him taking advantage of Ozpin’s vulnerability. One character has helped the other flourish, the other has abandoned him in his greatest time of need. Right now I’d argue that the in-canon ship potential is “problematic” due to Qrow… but that doesn’t mean any of that has to impact fandom shipping. For me personally, I prefer to keep to Volume 1-5 material or AUs up until Qrow (hopefully) apologizes for his actions. Then I might feel inclined to write canon-based ozqrow content for Volume 8, or whenever we re-establish that respect (with AU elements involving giving Ozpin his own body. The Oscar situation is a whole other thing I’m not going to delve into here. Suffice to say, I’m considering Qrow and Ozpin as separate people right now). But even if they never make up, even if Qrow, or Ozpin, or both of them end up being completely toxic for one another, that doesn’t stop anyone from imagining something better for them in fandom. Fandom is transformative for a reason.

All of which isn’t to say that people have to like the ship (obviously) only that in the same vein it means that no one has to justify liking the ship either. Again, for me personally, I usually need some in-canon, healthy dynamic to work with in order to enjoy a ship. It’s why I love ozqrow because we did see that for 5 volumes and may indeed see it again. In contrast, it’s why I don’t love pairings like Yen/Geralt or Bakugo/Izuku because I don’t feel like I have a healthy foundation to work from and, for me, a healthy foundation is usually necessary (with some exceptions like my childhood love of Erik/Christine). But all those are preferences. They don’t—and shouldn’t—dictate anyone else’s enjoyment. Which is the problem when people don’t just assume that ozqrow is inherently unhealthy (which I hope I’ve somewhat helped to disprove here) but likewise assume that that’s necessary for anyone else to ship them. For you that potential coding of teacher/student and power dynamics might outweigh otherwise liking their dynamic and that’s fine! That’s a preference! But a preference doesn’t give anyone the right to throw shade at others for enjoying something different. 

Which finally brings me back to the hypocrisy in all this. Ozqrow (and Blake/Yang) are the only ships I’ve come across in this fandom where the fans have to continually “prove” why their ships are valid. Not as potentially canonical relationships, but just as fandom-based ships. Just as fictional preferences we enjoy as a hobby. It says something about the fandom’s bias that we can watch Ilia, on screen, be one of the bad guys, kidnap Blake, try to murder her parents, try to ship her off to her abuser… and despite all this the fandom went, “Oh yeah. I could see them together.” But Ozpin and Qrow, who have supported one another for the vast majority of the series, suddenly need to provide receipts for how healthy their relationship is and if you don’t do a good enough job proving that, it’s cancelled. That’s messed up. None of these ships are “bad.” Ilia/Blake shippers should go wild with that potential! It’s just an issue of comparison and applying different, rigged standards to certain ships. This is a fandom where people ship the heroes with the likes of Cinder, Roman, Raven, Ilia, Salem, Tyrian… tons of killers and would-be killers, characters who have done objectively horrifying things. But it’s when two loving adult men might get together that it’s suddenly too “problematic”? That says more about that bias than it does the ship. For you, anon, if I’ve failed to alleviate those concerns and that coding means ozqrow isn’t really your thing? Great! You can drop the ship, involve yourself only in AUs, or anything in between. That’s how fandom should work. The problem lies not in asking polite questions about how we might interpret a relationship in canon (which as said in the original reblog I greatly enjoy doing!) but rather in some fans’ tendency to demand a moral standard from a ship that none other is held to and then when fans inevitably fail to meet that standard, they’re criticized for daring to like the ship in the first place. Ultimately whether you end up shipping/liking ozqrow is up to you—which is precisely where the power should be. In your hands, not the hands of someone on tumblr trying to make others feel guilty. 

[firelord-frowny]

not to sound like an Elderly Homesteader, buuuut

america’s addiction to convenience is gonna be our undoing. 

SO MANY of the most critical issues we face - socially, health-wise, environmentally, financially - stem on some level from a desire to 1) have something Right Now, or 2) complete an objective with as little work or investment as possible. and it’s an addiction that exists at ALL levels of society, from the CEOs who exploit their ~employees~, to school systems putting all the money in admin’s pockets while letting teachers go broke, to husbands who think ~getting the bills paid~ is their only responsibility and their wives should handle everything else, to parents who abuse their kids into submission instead of taking the time to actually bond with them and teach them how to be a well-adjusted human being. 

america’s addiction to convenience and refusal to sacrifice that convenience is exactly why this stupid ass country couldn’t bring itself to just hunker the fuck down for a few months so we could spare as many lives as possible as we live through this plague. People were really SO determined to Go Out To Eat and have Get Togethers and travel, no matter what the cost. People were too fucking lazy or entitled or selfish to just put some fucking cloth on their face when they do have to go out. People are so fucking married to capitalism and ~the economy~ or whateverthefuck that no one even WANTED to TRY to come up with a way to keep people fed and housed and safe in spite of not being able to work for an extended period of time. That would have been too much trouble! Too much trouble to hammer out an emergency plan that might have been able to spare over half a million lives. It’s more convenient to just let them die. 🙃

Sometimes you HAVE to be uncomfortable. you just DO. sometimes you HAVE to go without luxuries for the good of your family or your community or your whole region. sometimes you even have to go without NECESSITIES. sometimes there really isn’t a way around a problem other than to Struggle until you come out on the other end of it. 

but americans can’t do that lmaooooo we are some FUCKING WIMPS. 

So many people and so many places have had to make the choice to be uncomfortable for now so that things can be Better in the future. 

you know what it reminds me of????

it reminds me of how all these (mostly white, sorry not sorryyyy) conservative dingbat fuckwads like to whine about ~frEeEdom!!!~ when it comes to masks or vaccines or social distancing and whatnot. they like to bitch about their ~right to liberty~ and ~this is america, you can’t tell me what to do in the Land Of The Free~!!!!

as if they have ANY CONCEPT WHATSOEVER of what “freedom” even IS. as if they have any UNDERSTANDING of the depth of pain and depravation that’s left behind when a people spend centuries in bondage, subject to abuse and humiliation. FORBIDDEN from owning property, let alone their own BODIES. FORBIDDEN from choosing how they’d like to spend their life, let alone their DAY. Pushed and shoved and relegated to the absolute worst living conditions where they MUST remain without question, lest they be hurt or killed for objecting or trying to leave. Forbidden from receiving an education. Forbidden from wearing their natural hair. Forbidden from receiving medical care, and when they DO receive medical care, it’s subpar to the point of outright malpractice - except it’s not really malpractice as long as it’s done to a nigger, right??? 

the fact that anybody alive anywhere can fix their fucking mouth to say - proudly, no less - that getting a vaccine or wearing a mask has FUCK ALL to do with ~freedom~ makes me so goddamn sick to my STOMACH. 

Lmao you think your mild irritation about having to loosely cover your nose and mouth in order to prevent MASS DEATH is comparable to oppression? REAL oppression?? the kind that keeps families in inescapable poverty for GENERATIONS??? you think being required to get a vaccine (AGAIN: TO PREVENT MASS DEATH) belongs in the same category as being forced to undergo nightmarishly inhumane torture medical experiments? You think a proposition to allow anti-vax parents to send their kids to a Designated Anti-Vax School so your nasty little petri dish of a child won’t pose a health risk to all the children of Rational Adults is cut from the same cloth as jim crow segregation???  REALLY?? lmfao THIS is the pathetic cause you’re determined to crucify yourself on? THIS is the legacy you think is worthy of your martyrdom? THIS is what is so important to you that you have a fucking orgasm at the thought of taking up arms to fight against it??? THIS is the thing that’s such an enormous threat to your self-respect? THIS is what stirs up righteous rage and indignance in your ugly ass empty ass soul??? THIIIIISSSSS is what you think is going to snatch your humanity out from under you??? 

LMFAO you weak little bitch baby!!! you’re a fucking toddler who thinks dropping their pacifier is a worldwide catastrophe. gotta have everything, and gotta have it NOW, and if you don’t get it, you’ll make everyone miserable with your loud, destructive tantrum until they give you what your vile ass doesn’t deserve. 

just??? there is absolutely 0 ability to sit quietly and cope with temporary frustration. 

and now there’s a deadly plague running amok a la addictinggames Pandemic 2. now the planet is LITERALLY on fire, AND flooding, AND drying out. 

i hate it here!! 

this post took a HARD left and im done now omg

[visibleblueunicorn]

Rant post bc i need to get it out of my system!! Possible TW

My mom is really really getting on my nerves lately. She loves accusing me that I’m lying even if it’s something as small as buying cat biscuits! Look, i haven’t gotten paid for nearly a month and my salary came in just over the weekend and yes maybe it’s my fault for not telling her but she has this awful history of pressing and interrogating like crazy that i dont tell her anything anymore! I didn’t tell her about my salary because then she’ll start blaming the company and will force me to find another office job which i'd like to avoid!

The pandemic is screwing our projects over and it doesn’t help that the client kept messing up our account number either when it comes to transferring our funds over! 

Aside from that my mom is just messed up in the head. My dad will be divorcing her soon and my sis and I will be living with him once it’s settled. At the same time we’re both scared what she would do to herself because she is known to grab attention by harming herself. It raises alarm bells already on her mental health but whenever we push her to go see a therapist she would just say no! 

Now that’s not my problem whatsoever if the person doesn’t want to help themselves. I just want to move on from her, she’s incredibly toxic, I’ve just been living in complete anxiety the last few years. It’s screwing up my memory, my cycle, I feel like I can’t retain anything anymore.

I know I’m a smart gal, I thrived so much when I lived alone, had amazing friends, a great work-life balance between studies and my part-time job. I’m afraid the years I build myself up will come undone because of one narcissistic asshole.

I don’t know what she gains from accusing me of things, maybe momentary happiness that she got her stress out from her system? Either way I don’t care what she does anymore. I simply don’t care if she’s going to harm herself, she’s not my responsibility. She’s a physically and emotionally abusive adult who put me through mental hell the last 24 years. Clearly she has a lot of issues and because of her destructive behaviour, she is literally pushing her kids away. Some people shouldn’t be parents!!!!

Since my memory is absolutely crap I’m just going to leave some pointers here for me to remember:

1) Accuses me of being my father’s favourite, has made me cry as a result 

2) Tried to turn my siblings against me/Would often talk shit about me to my siblings, my baby sister actually believed her at some point until my mom became physically abusive towards her

3) Has punched/hit my baby sister’s face so hard, she bled from her nose and to put the cherry on top, she asked ME to take a photo and send it to my dad and guess what! I still have that photo!

4) Broke plates when my dad didn’t give her money

5) Went through my dad’s wallet to check how much money he has

6) Would often interrogate me on my dad and brother’s whereabouts and picked fights with me as a result

7) Picked a fight with my dad early 2018 by taking a knife to commit ‘not alive’ which my dad had to try his very best to grab her to take the knife away, funny story, she told everyone that my dad ‘dragged’ her around while conveniently missing the part she had a knife. I found her diary and took photos of her account where she DID mention about the knife and I’m saving it to defend my dad if it comes to that

8) She locked me out from her house because I came home late (from work!) only to take advantage of the situation and interrogate me about my dad late at night! I left home the next day for 2 weeks, couch surfing because i can’t stand her!!

9) She actually keeps accounts of her insane outbursts and the next time she gets mad and i bring it up, she has said “i haven’t gotten mad in a while, you’re talking about this as if i’m mad all the time!” 

10) Gaslights me to no end, I questioned my reality a lot, i kept blaming myself for my poor memory when really it’s just her this whole time!

11) Has actively deflected the topic when I brought up about her punching my sister 

12) Blamed ME for my brother not wanting to come home. I was incredibly disheartened because it isn’t true, my brother left because of her 

13) Has said that I don’t really need to focus on education as much because I’ll end up becoming a housewife(negative connotation) anyway

14) Has said that I’ll never be a professional because I didn’t do well in maths and sciences 

I know there’s more and I know these things happened. My siblings can confirm, there’s a lot more that they remember as well. I’m just determined to leave in whichever way now and I’ll cut all contact with her as soon as I’m out 

[miraayyalcin]

Class essay - WRT 201 0204

WRT 201 0204 

March 20, 2021 

Miray Yalçın

                            Sibling Relationship in Catcher In the Rye 

Humans are social creatures who build connections with others and thrive as companionship increases. Catcher in the Rye, a novel by J.D. Salinger, describes two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield, who experiences much frustration in his inability to form long-lasting connections. Holden Caulfield has major problems and Salinger creatively infused his work with varying themes. This novel is sophisticatedly written in a manner that allows us to see all the themes clearly. Throughout the novel Catcher In the Rye, there is a sense of delaying adulthood, Holden's inability to stay in focus in education, the inability to form relationships or stay in the same place all seem to tie to the idea of avoiding adult notions, such as responsibility. It also shows Holden’s struggle against growing up. Holden's enemy is the adult world and the cruelty and artificiality that it entails. Holden’s story is full of failed attempts such as lack of communications, messages never delivered, uncompleted phone calls and more (Sandock). The people he admires all represent or protect innocence. With all of these situations, Holden's siblings Phoebe, D.B., and Allie play key roles in developing our perceptions of the books themes. Each character gives a different sense of personality. Holden’s differing relationships with his siblings not only influence him but also gives him different attitudes throughout the story. The relationship between Holden and his little sister Phoebe is probably the most significant in the book. Phoebe is Holden's favorite person who can truly communicate with. Phoebe's perspective is amusing and refreshing, and she is also emotional and affectionate. She is ten years old, skinny, and has reddish hair similar to her deceased brother, Allie. Holden elaborates on the positive personality traits of his younger sister by mentioning that she is extremely intelligent and funny. Interestingly, Holden says, “I mean if you tell old Phoebe something, she knows exactly what the hell you're talking about” (Salinger, 37). Phoebe's ability to understand and connect with Holden is what he cherishes the most. Throughout the novel, Holden's immaturity and cynicism prevent him from developing authentic relationships with people his own age. Unlike the "phony" adults, Phoebe is genuine and innocent. In another saying, ​Phoebe ​is a representation of innocence in Holden's mind and the one person he loves unconditionally (Tolchin). Their relationship is different than others.​ ​It seems like Holden looks up the Phoebe in a way, even though he is the older sibling​. ​Holden's affinity for ​Phoebe​ and Allie​ reflect his love for children and childhood in general. Holden feels like Phoebe can truly understand him, and he sees his younger sister as a genuine, compassionate person.The fact that Holden relates to Phoebe the most also reveals his immaturity. As an adolescent suffering from anxiety, Holden fears entering the world of adults and feels more comfortable around his younger sister. ​Phoebe represents to Holden the pure and ideal. However, Phoebe’s character is described from the standpoint of Holden, who is biased, unreliable narrator ​(​Takeuchi).​ ​He chooses to view her in this way. However, Phoebe plays a larger role than just this. Phoebe is independent, straightforward, and a catalyst for Holden. She does not share his disenchantment with the world and scolds him for not liking anything. For2example, when she asks him if there is anything that he likes a lot, Holden struggles to answer. She calls her brother out on his depressive tendencies and glum outlook, and she pushes him to recognize his inability to answer her clearly. Although Holden cannot come up with a positive idea right away, he does eventually say he likes his younger brother, Allie. Phoebe angrily reminds him that their brother is dead. Phoebe is still only 10 years old and it is hard to expect her to understand Holden’s life. When he bares his soul to tell her of his dream of bein​g "The Catcher in the Rye," she is quiet for a long time but then simply states, in reference to his expulsion, as he says in the book "Daddy's going to kill you," illustrating that despite their great friendship and connection. Although they both have totally different personalities, their relationship is so deep and strong.Allie, Holden's younger brother, died of leukemia when he was just eleven years old. Holden was thirteen at the time, and had to be hospitalized for breaking his hand while destroying every window in the garage. Allie's death causes Holden's descent into depression, where he hits rock bottom during the three days this novel takes place. ​​Although Allie has been dead for about three years, he is a mystic presence in the book. Holden thinks of him often and speaks to him when things are darkest in his life. Allie is associated with the theme of death, but his role is not that simple. He also represents hope and the gifted innocence of childhood, which is tenuous and sometimes short-lived. Holden clearly loves his brother. Only two years apart in age, they were close friends. Holden, distraught over the loss of his brother, broke his hand punching the windows out of the garage of their summer home. Holden missed Allie's funeral because he was in the hospital, apparently for a psychiatric evaluation as well as for attention to his hand. It has thrown him into a deep depression (​French)​. ​Holden reacts to Allie's death in a3way that alarms his parents about his mental health: “I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed and all, because I broke all the windows in the garage... It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it, and you didn't know Allie” (Salinger 21). Even when Holden gets depressed about events that, on the surface, aren't directly about Allie, the state of being depressed leads him to think about his dead brother. This suggests the root of all his depression is Allie's death and the survivor's guilt he feels over it.One of the first relationships that is mentioned in the story is Holden’s relationship with D.B., his brother. Throughout his childhood, it is obvious that Holden has idolized his older brother. Now that D.B. is a writer for Hollywood, Holden considers him a phony, and accuses him of prostituting himself by agreeing to work for the film industry.​ D.B.’s just one more phony in a world full of phonies. What really matters about D.B. is that he was in the war and was apparently quite traumatized by the whole thing. ​For Holden, Hollywood epitomizes everything he hates. It stands for all that's phony, fake, and insincere. He positively loathes the movies, and he isn't in the slightest bit impressed at his brother's becoming a screenwriter. More significantly, Holden wants to live life on his own terms, however difficult that is. His brother, like every adult he's ever come across, doesn't do that. He simply goes with the flow, acting the way that people expect him to, working for someone else, and doing their bidding. In other words, D.B. is no longer an individual in Holden's eyes, and Holden can't respect him for it. Because D.B.’s different life style doesn't fit with Holden's point of view, Holden doesn’t feel that D.B. understands him well. Thus, their relationship becomes toxic in a way that Holden reflects the reader through the novel.4Throughout J. D. Salinger's ​The Catcher in the Rye​, it is a book about Holden Caulfield's crises and interactions with society (Dhasti). The way he talks about, or to each, gives the reader some idea of whether he thinks they are "phony" or normal. A few of his accounts make it more obvious than others to discover how he classifies each family member. From the very first page of the novel, Holden begins to refer to his parents as distant and generalizes both his father and mother frequently throughout his chronicle. One example is: "...my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all - I'm not saying that - but they're also touchy as hell" (Salinger 1). Each relationship among siblings are different and special. He describes his relationship with his siblings in very different ways and expressions​. ​For Phoebe, Holden describes her by saying “She was somebody you always felt like talking to on the phone.” For D.B. and Allie, Holden describes him by saying “My brother D.B. is the writer and all, and my brother Allie, the one that died, that I told you about, was a wizard.” He says that he is the stupid one of the four.​ Holden compares himself, it seems, in a negative way to his brothers and sister​ ​until the end of the novel. Each relationship embodies various attitude and approaches of Holden.

[darecruit]

Motherly Attentions: Sneak Peek #2

Read the first part here. 

“Alright, young lady,” Shelby began sternly, “I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that because I started this conversation out lightly, you mistook that to mean this is a joking matter. It is not. Now, I need you to stop playing around and be serious. If you can’t do that on your own, I am more than happy to help you get there—but it’ll mean you losing your ability to sit at dinner. I doubt you want that.”

Rachel flushed crimson and couldn’t stop the gasp that passed her lips. “Momma!” she hissed, eyes wide as saucers.

Shelby ignored her protest to get back to the matter at hand. “What’s going on, Rach? Why are you skipping this class? Is someone bothering you?” she asked, heavy with concern. “Are you doing your assignments? Having trouble understanding the material? Why didn’t you come to me when you first started having a problem? You know I’ll always help you.”

Rachel sighed and sunk down into a dining chair—first and foremost to ensure her mentor couldn’t make good on her threat, and secondly because she knew she needed to settle in for the long haul—while she listened to the barrage of questions being directed her way. Shelby’s back was to her as the woman pulled their meal out of the oven.

Guilt ate at her belly as Shelby’s questions continued. The concern her mom had for her, her willingness to help, the fierce protectiveness she displayed at all times—they were just some of the many reasons why she loved this woman so much, adored her, and looked up to her. And it was why she felt so bad disappointing her, as she had now. “No, it’s nothing like that. And I know you would…I’m sorry,” she offered in a quiet voice.

“Bring the plates back over—it’ll be easier,” was all Shelby said for the moment. Rachel stood to do as directed, letting the older brunette dish out two portions. She returned to the table with the food as Shelby followed once she had gotten them both drinks.

“I underestimated how hard this class would be,” Rachel began, taking a bite of her eggplant and humming in pleasure. “This is so good, Mom!”

“Thank you, love,” Shelby said after her own bite. It was good—she had finally perfected this recipe!

“It’s Physics: Light & Color—the description said it was physics for non-physics majors. It sounded interesting, and I needed one more science with a lab to finish those credits,” Rachel continued explaining. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this hard!”

“Rachel, it’s physics,” Shelby shook her head in disbelief. “Whatever possessed you to take this course? Surely there was another lab science that would have counted for your credits?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t want to take biology and have to dissect things! I couldn’t have handled that, Mom. And I figured I’d just blow things up if I tried chemistry. There weren’t a lot of options!”

“You still haven’t explained why you’ve been skipping. If you thought the class sounded interesting but it’s hard, you should be going to all of them, regardless of whether or not attendance counts towards your grade. How many times does this class meet a week?” Shelby inquired.

“It’s an 8AM lecture on Mondays and Wednesdays, and lab on Fridays. But it’s so boring! Like, serious snooze fest. Everyone skips or ducks out early and the professor never notices—or doesn’t care,” Rachel said.

“Rachel—”

“Mom, you don’t understand! It’s in this huge lecture hall with a bunch of other people, and the professor’s an old Greek man with a thick accent who drones on and on and on for an hour straight. I’ve seen multiple people sleeping in class—drool coming outta their mouth and everything!”

“Rachel!” Shelby scolded.

“What? It’s not like I have to get an A or anything. I just have to pass,” Rachel shrugged. She twirled her pasta around on her fork and brought it to her mouth.

“Which you’re only barely accomplishing,” Shelby pointed out, emphasizing the young woman’s words from earlier.

Rachel let out a long sigh and put her fork down, not having taken her bite. There was nothing else to say to that except…“You’re right,” she relented, hunching her shoulders at the look now directed at her.

“Of course I am,” Shelby agreed, earning a groan and eye roll from across the table. Her lips quirked up in amusement and she turned her attention back to her meal. “Alright, here’s what we’ll do,” she broke the silence after several minutes, “First off, you’re grounded. You’ll stay with me this weekend and we’ll go through your syllabus and any assignments you have and I—and my colleague, Professor Google—will help you figure it out. Second—”

“Wait, wait! What?!” Rachel nearly stabbed herself with her fork as she jerked her head up to stare incredulously at her mother. “Mom, I’m twenty!”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Shelby said conversationally. She took a sip from her water to keep from bursting into laughter at the wide range of facial expressions currently flitting across Rachel’s face.

“I—I’m an adult! You can’t ground me!” Rachel insisted, ignoring the clear whine in her voice.

“I believe I already did,” Shelby pointed out. “And, adult or not, twenty isn’t so grown-up that you don’t still need guidance.”

“But. But I’ve never been grounded before!”

“Yes, and that’s your problem,” Shelby deadpanned.

“Mom!”

“You’ll need to text Kurt after dinner to let him know you won’t be home this weekend,” Shelby continued on.

“I don’t want to tell Kurt anything anymore, not if he’s gonna rat me out for something I told him in strict confidence,” Rachel said petulantly. She pushed her plate away and crossed her arms.

“He was worried about you and wanted to help,” Shelby reasoned.

“Yeah, real help.”

“Rachel,” Shelby chided mildly. “You stay with me all the time. I thought you liked our weekends?”

“Yes, when you’re not trying to ruin my social life!” Rachel argued, springing from her chair in indignation. She flung her arms in the air to further demonstrate her disgust.

Shelby started to laugh in earnest. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you have big plans this weekend?”

Rachel glared and sputtered, barely managing to keep herself from stomping her foot like she did so often in her youth. She actually didn’t have any plans—but she wasn’t about to admit that! The knowing smirk that blossomed across Shelby’s face told her she had already been found out. “I’m sure I could have…Kurt or Santana…” She trailed off at the accompanying raised eyebrow and let out a forlorn sigh.

“Oh, my poor baby!” Shelby cooed, rising from the table to make her way over to Rachel. She pulled the girl into a tight hug and swayed side to side with her, laughing all the while. “One whole weekend without seeing your friends!” She pulled back and held the younger brunette at arm’s length, checking her over. “I think you’ll make it,” she declared.

Rachel rolled her eyes and untangled herself from the older woman. “Well if I don’t, you’ll be sorry!”

“Hmm,” Shelby hummed, making a show of considering. Then with a shake of her head and a click of her tongue, she said, “I’ll risk it.”

Rachel groaned and Shelby nudged her playfully in the direction of the table. “C’mon, help me clean up and then we can relax.”

And forty minutes later, they were, in fact, relaxing. Well, almost. They were both in comfortable clothes and sitting on the sofa, but that was the extent of it. After the dinner dishes had been cleaned up and put away, the kitchen wiped down, and both had gone upstairs to change into sweats (Shelby having long ago designated her third bedroom as Rachel’s, so Rachel always had clothes on hand for any occasion), they returned to the living room and settled into their usual spots on the couch. Rachel had assumed they would get on with their evening and the matter of her class would be forgotten, but that was not to be the case. Shelby started in on her with one hell of a dressing down as soon as they were situated—and despite never having raised her voice even once, by the time she was wrapping up, Rachel was holding back tears as if she had screamed at her the entire time.

“And I’m sure your fathers would just love to know that the money they’ve worked so hard to save for your education is being wasted because you can’t be bothered to show up for a class that you’re barely passing because it’s boring. They would be so disappointed in you, young lady. Just as I am,” Shelby finished on a hard note, knowing it would be painful to hear but necessary to really drive her point home. And she was right—the tears that had been swimming in those dark chocolate pools throughout her lecture burst forth now, cascading down youthful cheeks. She was reminded all-at-once of the thirteen-year-old girl she first met all of those years ago and softened. Rachel had always taken even the mildest of admonishments harder than any of her peers and the years had not changed that about her. Scooting closer to her on the sofa, she opened her arms and wasn’t at all surprised when Rachel practically fell into them in her haste to be comforted.

“I’m so sorry, Mom! I’m sorry I disappointed you. Please don’t tell my dads—I can’t handle theirs on top of yours. Please, Momma. I’m sorry,” Rachel cried into Shelby’s shoulder. She tried to pull back so she wouldn’t ruin the woman’s shirt, but felt one hand cup the back of her head, keeping her in place. The other began rubbing her back and she was then aware of Shelby’s soft shushing and whispered comforts.

Shelby held Rachel until the girl’s cries lessened, then sat back so she could meet those brown eyes again. Without a second thought, she swiped the pads of her thumbs under wet eyelashes, brushing away the last of the tears from Rachel’s face. Her left hand lingered, cupping a flushed cheek, and she gave a small, kind smile as Rachel leaned into the touch.

“I really am sorry. And I won’t ever skip again—I promise!” Rachel offered in earnest. More than anything, she wanted back in Shelby’s good graces and to be forgiven. She could count on one hand the number of times either her fathers or Shelby had used the d-word on her, and she couldn’t stand it!

“I know, baby,” Shelby soothed, seeing the hurt reflected in glassy brown orbs. She knew exactly what the young woman in front of her—the child she had so long ago come to view as the daughter of her heart—needed to hear now. “You’re forgiven, and I won’t tell your dads.”

Rachel’s relief was palpable but short-lived as Shelby continued. “But I’m going to hold you to that promise, Rachel. You will not skip again, this class or any other. Break it and you’ll answer to me—”

Rachel gulped and nodded her head vigorously, her heart beating a quick tempo. Shelby had the scariest of her scary teacher looks on her face—a look that would have sent a thirteen-year-old Rachel running for the hills (and her twenty-year-old self wasn’t far behind).

“—I have no problem taking off work to escort you to class and sit in with you to make sure you actually go. Don’t think I won’t.”

“No! I swear you won’t have to!”

“I’m sure I won’t,” Shelby agreed, “But I absolutely will if that’s what you need from me, because I love you and I know you can do better.”

“Okay, I hear you, and I will.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Shelby reassured, “We’re done, I won’t say anymore on the matter. We can go over your assignments tomorrow but for now, let’s binge-watch some tv.”

“Okay,” Rachel agreed before leaning forward for one more hug. She felt Shelby squeeze her tight. “I love you too, Mom. And thank you, you know…for everything.”

Motherly Attentions * Motherly Attentions * Motherly Attentions

Saturday morning found Shelby snuggled in a blanket on the sofa, sipping at her coffee and reading that morning’s headlines on her tablet. She had been awake for little over an hour now and, nearing ten, she heard the first stirrings of Rachel upstairs. Knowing the girl would be down shortly, Shelby set her tablet on the armrest and untangled herself from the blanket; it was time to start breakfast.

Shelby knew Rachel was more than capable of making herself something to eat when she came downstairs, but she enjoyed being able to take care of her and do things for her. She would have done the same if Jesse, Morgan, and the boys had been here; that’s just what moms did, and Shelby was nothing if not a mom.

It was the same reason she had checked in on Rachel before going to bed last night and wound up tucking the girl in. Rachel had gone up at eleven after a bit of prodding on Shelby’s end. Shelby chuckled to herself as she thought back on the girl’s protests, full of whines and jaw-cracking yawns that did nothing to help her case.

“What? No! It’s still early and I’m not even…tired,” Rachel asserted, an ill-timed yawn at the end of it effectively disproving her.

“You can barely keep your eyes open! Go to bed, kid,” Shelby laughed.

“It’s not even eleven yet!” Rachel argued, checking the time on her phone. Yup, 10:46. Far too early. “I haven’t gone to bed this early since high school!”

“Oh no? Well maybe that’s one of the reasons for all your skipping—you’re too tired to wake up on time for an 8AM class.” Shelby raised an eyebrow teasingly, though she expected there was more truth than not in that theory. “Maybe I need to give you a bedtime during the week, hmm?”

Rachel gasped—audibly gasped—and fixed such a glare onto Shelby that, if not for the accompanying pout, would have rivaled any of Shelby’s own glares she was known for deploying on unyielding students. As such, Shelby wasn’t impressed.

“That’s not—I’m not—You can’t!” the girl sputtered, another big yawn betraying her.

“Oh, I think I can. Go on upstairs. It’s definitely bedtime,” Shelby stood and pulled Rachel up with her, turning her in the direction of the hallway. “Get out your physics notebook and all before you go. I want to look over that and see what I’m working with,” she added with a nudge to get stubborn feet moving.

“You’re not going to bed? That’s not fair!” Rachel said even as she started toward the hall closet where her school bag was still stored.  

“Not just yet,” Shelby said as she followed behind. She waited patiently as Rachel retrieved the requested items and then handed them over with a jutting lip. Shelby accepted the notebook and folder without comment, instead planting a soft kiss onto Rachel’s forehead. “Goodnight, Rach. I love you. If you’re still awake when I come upstairs in a little bit, I’ll say goodnight again—but I’d like you to try to go to sleep. You need it, baby. You look exhausted.”

Shelby sent Rachel off with another kiss, then watched to make sure she went to her room like she was supposed to. She couldn’t help mothering the girl, it just came naturally. There was a connection between them that Shelby had felt from the very first moment she met Rachel. That child was her daughter, not by blood but by their very souls.

When Shelby climbed the stairs an hour later, she sighed at seeing a sliver of light coming from Rachel’s room. She had hoped the girl would have listened and gone to bed. Oh well—she would now. Once outside the cracked door, Shelby gave a gentle knock before peeking her head inside. She was surprised to see that while the bedside light was on, Rachel was fast asleep, an open book laying face-down atop her stomach, and her EarPods still in her ears.

Shelby smiled at the sight, noting that asleep, Rachel looked much more like the young teenager she had first fallen in love with than the young woman she had grown to be. With practiced fingers, Shelby removed the ear buds from the girl’s ears and placed them, along with the book, on Rachel’s night stand. A quick search found Rachel’s phone tucked under the covers, and that also joined its companions. The mother then straightened a twisted sheet and pulled that and the rest of the blankets up to properly cover the sleeping girl. Finally, a whisper of a kiss was placed atop a forehead, along with the words, “I love you. Sweet dreams,” before the light was turned off and Shelby quietly departed.

[galadrieljones]

That he may hold me by the hand: chapter 8

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x Albert Mason  

Rating: Mature (Adult Themes and Situations, Violence, and Sexual Content)

Summary: After saving Albert from stumbling off a cliff in the Heartlands, Arthur invites him to Valentine for a drink. What ensues after that is a quiet love story, in which both men find themselves completely undone.

Masterpost | AO3 | Epigraph

Chapter 8: St. Denis was never enough.

“Goddam cemeteries,” said Arthur. He was loading his volcanic. It was early night, and they were creeping through the mausoleums. It had become imperative for them to play errand boys, running out grave robbers in their final push to bring Jack back. It was by far the most ridiculous bullshit with which they had ever been tasked. There was a dog barking somewhere amongst the tombstones, and they kept finding vagrants crouching here and there as if the dead could somehow keep them warm. It all made Arthur feel sick in his bones. “This place is hellish.”

“I appreciate you being here,” said John. He seemed nervous, but not by ghosts nor vagrants. He was terrified about Jack. “Seriously.”

“Of course I’m here,” said Arthur. "Don't be a moron."

“Braithwaite Manor weren’t no picnic. I still smell like smoke.”

Arthur lit a cigarette. He was smoking it and feeling dry in his throat and in his eyes. He was tired. He hadn’t slept properly in two days. “Ain’t sure what you expected.”

“Dutch is losing his mind, Arthur,” said John. “Don’t you think? I ain’t too keen on what I see.”

"I don't see much of anything no more."

“I ain’t sure how much of it I see neither. Seems an awful waste. Of a life? All this time, and running? I don’t even know what he’s talking about half the time.”

“You really ought to leave,” said Arthur, looking around. There was a sad dove singing somewhere nearby. It was creepy. Arthur swore under his breath.

“Leave and go where?” said John. He stopped, like he had got confused by his location.

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “Anywhere. We get Jack back, and then I reckon you ought to wrangle him, Abigail, and leave. Ain't no reason to stick around no more if you don't follow.”

"What about loyalty?" John said.

Arthur said nothing of it at first. In his mind, he had traveled far from the notion of loyalty. His loyalties had changed. He didn't know what the goddam word meant anymore. "Be loyal to what matters," he said, pulling words out of his ass. But they sounded true.

John seemed pensive on this. He had stopped cold and Arthur along with him. They were officially lost, but neither of them seemed to care, or even notice. “Interesting,” said John. "Real interesting. What about you then?"

“What about me.”

“You and Albert.”

Arthur looked at him, taken off guard. John was unwavering in his resolve, gazing through the fog. “Come on,” said Arthur, ignoring the question. “Let’s get a move on.”

“You can tell me the truth,” said John, following behind. “I ain’t—I would never judge you, Arthur. Not for that.”

“For what?”

“For loving a man. It ain’t like that. And hey, maybe I’m wrong? But I’m just calling it like I see it.”

“You ain’t wrong,” said Arthur. He had the cigarette crammed between his lips. He’d started to get freaked out by the atmosphere of the cemetery, so he holstered his volcanic and opted instead for his repeater. He looked back at John who was earnest and reminding him of a dog who had wandered into a field of corn. He looked so young, thought Arthur. He looked as young as he had the day Arthur took him out that noose in Chicago. Arthur remembered how he’d had ligature bruises on his neck as if he had been dragged for a mile, and when they got him back to their camp in Putnam all the way over on the Illinois River, he did not speak for two days. It still broke Arthur up inside, to think of it.

“Arthur?”

"It’s just—” He shook his head out, to get brave. “You ain’t wrong. Okay?”

John nodded. He didn’t push nor prod. He just said, “Okay.” He seemed satisfied. “I think the place we’re looking for is just ahead.”

“Thank Jesus.”

They finished the job upright and got out clean inside twenty minutes. As they rode home, John struggled with Jack, who seemed enamored of the brief, fancy life he had lived while sequestered at Mr. Angelo Bronte’s. He talked in ecstatic, shiny terms, which intimidated John at first. Arthur mostly found it amusing, though he understood. He was relieved to have Jack back. He was relieved. He had known all along how bad it could have gone, and he had to close his eyes to shake the old fear from his heart.

It wasn’t long before they were back at Shady Belle, and the gang was celebrating Jack’s heroic rescue along with the false comeuppance of all those who had wronged them. Arthur smoked idly and stood off grooming his horse so as to avoid Dutch and even more so Hosea who was sick and getting sicker and whose love he knew to be true but constantly misguided by his thirst for the life. Arthur had never felt any such lust for anything and standing now, in the swamps of southern Lemoyne, he felt farther away from his own life and his own love than he ever had. It took him a great deal of will to finally enter their camp that night. A big haunted house in a big haunted country.

It had been four days, and Albert, in a fit of boredom and cabin fever, rode his horse out of the city and to a safe camping spot, north of Rhodes near Dewberry Creek. It had been so long since he’d slept outdoors that he was beginning to wonder if any of it had ever happened. The creek was an Arcadian dream, full of Whitetail, fox, rabbits. Scarce boar. He tracked a twelve-point buck for a while and took its picture, felt free and alone and calm. He built a fire and his tent, fished a fish in the creek, cleaned and cooked it up for his dinner in the manner taught to him by Arthur. He poured a glass of bourbon whiskey and ate as the sun went down behind the tangled tree line, feeling proud.

Before he had left St. Denis, Albert stopped at the post office where there was waiting for him a letter from his mother. He had been looking forward to her correspondence for a couple weeks now. Before he went to sleep that night, he leaned against a fallen tree trunk, sipping more of the whiskey, and he read that letter by the light of the fire. His mother’s letters were long, requiring time and commitment. They often read like opinion editorials full of immaculate grammar and journalistic observations upon her own life and his and the lives of those she deemed worthy of conversation in the high society of Philadelphia. She was a good writer, educated at Vassar College prior to marrying Albert’s father, the son of a prominent businessman from New York. She was into her mid-fifties now, living in Philadelphia, and she had been alone for many years. He worried about her, sometimes. She had always seemed a tough cookie, but knowing Arthur had tough him well that a strong armor is worth little more than the human sadness it protects.

In his last letter, Albert had told his mother of Arthur—not in a bid for her approval. He just wanted her to know.  The letter he received in return now was several pages long and full of life, but it did not mention Arthur until the very end. He smoked several cigarettes as he read, and by the time he got to the final paragraph, he was happily drunk and sat up off the fallen tree, leaning closer to the fire, for what he read would serve to change his life—

Well, dear Al, we are nearing the end of this most current exchange, and in the spirit of your previous letter, I would like to close things with a quaint proposition for you. You remember my brother, your Uncle Matthew, who recently purchased a large stake of land out on the central coast of California? Well, Matthew has taken a wife, and together they have purchased a home in San Francisco. In the wake of things, he has offered the ranch to me, free and clear. I have taken him up on his offer, of course, and plan to leave in three weeks time. As you well know, I have been aching for departure to the west for many years, and as a result will be closing up the Philadelphia estate indefinitely.

The property in California is comprised of 200 acres of terrain with water, plus a wide stable and two free-standing homes. It also holds a significant quarters for farmhands and stable boys and finds its end on a cliff that drops off into the wide, blue Pacific. I have seen photographs, and it is quite beautiful. Obviously, it is far too much for me to occupy by myself, however, and what I mean to propose is that, should you and your Arthur find yourselves in need of a home once your stretch in St. Denis comes to a close, you should pack your bags and get on a train to Monterey. Technically it is in a little place called Carmel-by-the-Sea, but you catch my meaning. I hope you’ll come. I am certain you would discover a wealth of inspiration for your work out west, Al. And Arthur as well, for I know how you mentioned he is an artist.

Please be in touch, hastily, as if the two of you plan on coming to stay, I will need to ready the property. I like to be prepared! Good luck with your opening, and remember how I love you. Give Arthur my warm regards. I do hope to meet him soon. You sound happy.

Your Loving Mother,

Cynthia

Much later, with the night winding down, Arthur stood chain-smoking on the swamp as a thunderstorm now raged over the horizon of the Lanahechee. With the adrenaline wore off, his body felt beat as he looked at the dark water ahead of him. It seemed endless and humid. Behind him there was the party, still going on and on as ticker tape. Javier played the guitar while Karen sang with Miss Grimshaw and they drank whiskey by the fire.

The colors of the world in which Arthur lived were changing, all around him. He felt sour and uncomfortable there, held up inside and anxious to unleash himself from the life to which he had been yoked for so long. Having forged a life of his own, separate from the interests of the gang, this was now all that Arthur could think about. He knew that it was selfish but he could not remember any other time in his life in which had allowed himself to entertain his own needs long enough to even register what selfishness felt like. He was bored and agitated as he looked out at the swampy river’s edge.

Mary Beth came down at some point and stood beside him, a welcome surprise. She had a pale scarf tied around her hair as if to protect from the occasional blowing rain. Arthur gave her a cigarette, lit it for her off the burning end of his own. Together they stood, looking at the lightning for a while, and smoking like old times.

“You did good, Arthur,” she said after some time. She glanced at him from behind the scarf like she was hiding part of herself. Thunder went off in the distance and shook the land. “Getting Jack back. It was a real good thing you did for John.”

“I know,” he said. “Thank you.”

“I’m supposed to tell you that Dutch wants to talk to you.” She said it half-heartedly. She did not even look at him.

Arthur said nothing.

“Anyway, John’s inside,” Mary Beth went on, smoking. “He’s with Abbie and Jack. Things seem good between them, for once.”

“I’m glad.”

“Arthur?” said Mary Beth.

He looked at her, sensing the curiosity and the concern on the edge of her voice. She wore it so often with him. They had been friends a long time. “What is it?” he said.

“I’m gonna ask you something,” she said, watching the water, “and you don’t have to answer. I won’t mind. I promise. But if you do answer, please tell me the truth. Don’t spare my feelings.”

“Go ahead, Mary Beth.”

Out on the edge of the horizon, lightning threaded the sky. The storm was moving fast. It was headed to sea.

“Mr. Mason,” she said, looking at her hands, “do you love him?”

He smoked. He finished his cigarette, tossed it to the earth and put it out with the heel of his boot. He nodded, gripping his belt, glancing to her and her freckled cheeks. “Yes,” he said.

Her breath did not catch, and she did not hesitate. She simply nodded, took a drag, and blew the smoke out in the air. “Okay,” she said.

“Mary Beth,” said Arthur.

“It’s okay,” she said. She smiled at him, through a fierce façade, as if she were trying desperately not to cry. “Please don’t apologize. I’m glad you found somebody, Arthur. Somebody decent. I surely am, as I want you to be happy. You deserve love.” She put the hair behind her ears and looked at her cigarette. “I never held no expectations for us. I know it sometimes seemed that way but I swear.”

“I know,” he said, studying her. “I know.”

“We’re friends. Ain’t we?”

“Always.”

“Good,” she said, like she was relieved. “You know I used to be filled with all these fantasies, especially when I first joined up with you boys. Knights in armor, all that. They saved my mind for many years. You always fit that bill.”

“I ain’t no knight, Mary Beth.”

“You are to me,” she said. “And I ain’t forgotten.”

“I will always protect you,” said Arthur. “Any way I can. And I am thankful for you. Taking care of me after all that nasty business, in ways that no one else would. For listening to me. You will find love, Mary Beth. If that is what you desire. I know it.”

“Thanks, Arthur.”

“You’re welcome.”

They smoked. The sky churned. “I been saving up, you know,” said Mary Beth, finishing her cigarette, throwing it into the water. She adjusted the scarf in her hair. “I got more than $800.”

“Saving up for what?” said Arthur.

“For leaving the gang,” she said, like a revelation. “It won’t be long now. I been reading a lot, about the Midwest. There are places up there I could live forever, on a much longer dime. I could get a room, with a desk. Maybe even a cabin. A place to write all these stories I been cooking up in my mind. I don’t doubt they’re terrible, but still. They’re mine. I want to make something, Arthur. I can’t do that here. Try as I been, it’s too much running, too much uncertainty.”

“I get that,” said Arthur. “And I think that’s a fine plan.”

“You should go, too,” she said, growing wistful, like she had stars in her eyes. “With Albert. He loves you. He has money. He can take you away from here. From all this. You should let him, Arthur.”

Arthur looked at her, and then he glanced back to the party where he could not see nor hear nothing but debauchery. It was a mixture of those he loved and those he no longer understood, and he knew that in time, all would draw to a close, and it would make no difference. None at all. The hour was growing late now. The night was long. He did not go to see Dutch. He breathed.

The next morning when Albert returned from his camping trip on Dewberry Creek, he opened the door to his apartment and found Arthur inside, waiting. He had been sitting on the sofa, sketching furiously, and when Albert came in, he looked up, relieved, stood and closed his journal.

“Where you been?” he said.

“Arthur,” said Albert, happily surprised. He set down his valise and his tripod, and he removed his hat. “How did you get in here?”

“I uh—I picked the lock,” said Arthur. “Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," said Albert.

"I got here late last night. You wasn't here."

“I went for a ride,” said Albert. “Don't worry. Did you find Jack? Is he okay?”

“Yes,” said Arthur. “He’s back with his family now. Thank you for asking.”

“Of course,” said Albert. “I’m relieved. It seemed so serious.”

They stood across the room from one another now, as if yet too hesitant to cross. Both of them looked at their shoes for a moment, very still in this liminal space.

At some point, Albert finally came over, and both of them sat down on the couch. Albert reached for Arthur’s hand and held it steadfastly. They looked at each other. Arthur studied Albert’s face closely and said, “So, you went for a ride, huh? You look a little windswept.”

“Yes,” said Albert. “I went out camping, just one night. Over on Dewberry Creek.”

“Dewberry Creek?” said Arthur. “That’s pretty country over there. Bold move, Mr. Mason."

“Well, we are untamed," he said, smiling to himself. "I got some wonderful shots of a twelve-point buck. I caught a fish as well.”

“You did?”

“I did.”

“Very good."

“Thank you,” said Albert. He blushed. “I got a letter from my mother yesterday.”

“That sounds nice,” said Arthur. He ran his thumb across Albert's knuckles. His whole body calm, safe. His heart was quiet. “What did she have to say?”

“A lot, actually,” said Albert.

“Oh yeah?”

The morning sun was pouring in through the windows, soaking the room and making it warm. There were some loud and joyful noises then, coming in through the wide open French doors from the bustling street outside. It sounded like a bunch of kids, getting loose, playing tag, being free.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Listen. Listen. Hear me out. Leverage AU of Animorphs. Adults, no war, wacky found family hijinks.

Hell yeah!  Anon, you’re a visionary!

Jake is the mastermind, of course, although he’s not—he’s not happy about it.  He actually started life as a grifter, sort of, playing cheerful lugs and quietly menacing hired hands while he chased thieves, but he always seemed to be the person who had a plan, when everything went to shit.  When he worked as an insurance investigator, he was mostly good at his work because he could blend in, he could adjust when things went bad, and he was a big believer in just being a stubborn ass until the world eventually gave him a lead.  Until his brother died, he was exceptional at his work, largely by dint of hardheaded determination.  Tom was a good detective and Jake was a good field agent, and they were an excellent team, the best in the business, made a name for themselves first in insurance, then in the criminal world, as the Berenson brothers.  Everyone including Tom knew that, when things went wrong, it was Jake who was going to get them out.  Of course—then Tom died.  The company they both worked for denied Tom’s life insurance, fired Jake, and threatened to bring criminal charges against their parents, when they pushed for a civil suit over the insurance.  Jake’s parents mortgaged their house to pay for Tom’s funeral expenses, because Tom and Jake’s apartment—well, Jake still needs somewhere to live.  Jake is…not handling it well, when he’s approached with an offer to run a team—one job, no encores, for a good cause.

The dossiers he’s given are:

His own cousin, actually, Rachel, the best hitter in the business, who vanished when she was eighteen and sent home money for her sisters’ education for eight years after her mother lost her job.  Jake has encountered her five times in a professional capacity, she usually grins and shouts “Hey, Big Jake” just like she did when they were kids, and then she usually punches him so hard in the solar plexus that it lays him out while she runs. Two of those times she didn’t have anything stolen on her—just bad luck, really—and he didn’t really try that hard to catch her.  One time she had a gold signet ring from the Ming dynasty that was worth millions alone and even more to Sharing Insurance—Jake got that one back.  One time she had a small fortune in diamonds, and she dislocated his shoulder, broke three of his ribs, and very nearly blew out everything in his right knee.  She walked away from him, smirking, prize in hand.  One time, she didn’t have anything on her, not even a knife, just blood and a distant expression.  Jake sat with her for an hour until her hands stopped shaking, and lied, and said that she had been long gone by the time he got there.  That’s how he knows Rachel’s well past theft, at this point, but—she’s still the best in the business and she was grinning again, by next time. 

Aximili Isthill, who was stamped as a national security risk at sixteen, when he altered the DoD secure login page to feature a short thesis on motherboard design as what he insisted was a ‘pop up’ but also crashed computers when someone tried to close the window without scrolling to the bottom.  Apparently it was mostly just to prove a point to someone, but no one ever figured out who and no one ever caught him.  Jake has met him in person exactly once—a lanky guy who at the time had a shock of electric blue hair and a sweet smile—and didn’t figure out who it was until well afterward, when he got an email from a junk username featuring a fun fact about apple genetics, a picture of Jake himself from earlier that day, and a signature reading AX.  

Tobias, last name unknown, who is quite simply the finest thief anyone has ever met.  Jake’s seen him, but never spoken to him—tall and slender, almost gangly, serious expression.  Not a remarkable face, really.  No one knows anything about him, except that he likes the vertical approach, is apparently very soft-spoken, and, other than his ridiculous heists, never does anything worth noting.

Jake takes the dossiers home and Marco cackles with delight—his lifetime best friend, upright stolid dependable Jake, finally playing Marco’s side.  Jake rolls his eyes and pretends to be annoyed with him, and doesn’t admit that he’s grateful for Marco deciding to find jobs on the East Coast these days, since the funeral, so that he can spend weeks on end sleeping on Jake’s couch.  This arrangement used to take some careful negotiating, wherein Marco told Jake absolutely nothing, ever, about his work and never brought anything into the apartment, but now Marco has five different types of paper and several binding options laid out on the kitchen table because—well, frankly, if Jake was going to hand Marco in for forgery, it would have been years ago, back when Jake got paid for it.  Besides, neither Tom nor Jake was an art expert, and the one time they accidentally brought in a fake had been terrible for their professional reputation.  Better to delay the delivery a few days, pay to fly Marco into town, and have it authenticated under the table before they staked their names on it.

No forgeries needed for the job Fenestre hires him for, though, just a lot of mockery from Rachel and a tidy break-and-enter. 

Of course, then they get double-crossed, blown up, caught, and popped in a hospital, and Jake groans before he orders Tobias to steal him a phone.  He gets Ax on the phone with Marco, who comes and flashes a badge and walks right out the door with the lot of them, and then they go find a Cassie for a little revenge.

[anditendshowyoudexpect]

There remains a stigma attached to the word ‘breakdown’, when actually it’s a very legitimate response to life in the early twenty-first century. We are not designed for the non-stop world we live in, the pressures put upon us, and those we bring upon ourselves. For young people, especially, those pressures are becoming ever more intense. Social media, the battle for jobs, the speed with which we judge – it’s a lot easier for kids now to be made to feel inadequate in so many different ways. I worry about what any child picks up in their subconscious just through their daily interaction with the world. Societal pressure has got worse for children, and I hope my own experiences will make me better able to help my children tread that difficult path.

*

Billie was magnificent as Rose. I knew she was good at the time but looking back now I can see her absolute brilliance. It reminds me how much we loved working together, which is palpably obvious on screen. Actors work at chemistry; it doesn’t just come with a snap of the fingers, but we were fortunate enough to have something there from the start. We were also professionals and knew how to achieve on-screen banter. What truly amazes me is I know how nervous Billie was at the start. She thought I was some big serious performer and she didn’t have the belief in herself as an actor. She proved herself, of course, to be way better than any of the rest of us. Her luminosity on screen comes from herself, not those around her, and instinctively she made Rose exactly the person she should be. When Doctor Who won a BAFTA for Best Drama, it was Billie for whom I was truly delighted. The reception she got when the show was screened made any lingering reservations on her part about her ability evaporate. It was admirable in her that she had zero arrogance that she could do it. The work she has done since has shown her to be worthy of every accolade that comes her way.

Watching our characters now reinforces what I concluded at the time: Russell enjoys writing more for women than he does for men. If so, I’m glad – there’s been a lot of writing for men. Rose arrives on screen fully formed, one of the strongest female characters of any show of any year, painting a solid line leading directly to Jodie Whittaker. If you think about it, the relaunch in 2005 was actually the chance to create the first female Doctor. Why not do it then? Perhaps, really, we should be looking back on Billie Piper not as Rose but as the Doctor.

*

The attitude exists that, in the relationship between producer, director and actor, they are the adults and we are the children. I agree, actors can behave like children, they can be spoilt – but not this one, and not a lot of others I know. A working relationship can’t operate on a basis of master and servant. If a director, or anyone else on set, comes in and has bad manners, then chances are they’ll hear from me.

This idea that actors can be manipulated and pushed around to suit the agendas of others irritates me. On Shallow Grave, prior to the shoot, myself, Ewan McGregor and Kerry Fox lived in a flat together for a week. We rehearsed, read scenes, and got to know each other. I considered it to be a budgetary and practical arrangement, but after the film came out Danny talked about it as being a social experiment, which I objected to because to me it was like the director playing God. If Danny wanted to conduct an experiment to gauge our reaction and interaction to one another, he should have told us. Had I known, I would doubtless have gained something from the situation. Danny, I expect, would argue otherwise, that the actors wouldn’t get it. Well, I’m more intelligent than that. As it turned out, Danny’s plan was counterproductive because all it did was give myself, Kerry and Ewan a week to realise we didn’t like each other very much and didn’t get on. We had entirely different backgrounds, approaches to acting, and sensibilities. All three of us were also very, very ambitious and insecure with it. Danny would probably argue that that tension then manifested itself on screen. I think that’s bollocks. This idea of pitting one actor against another is dangerous, manipulative and patronising. The film would have been better without all that nonsense.

I’m not alone in feeling dismayed at misplaced directorial interference. Anthony Hopkins once arranged for the cast of Frankenstein to go for a Chinese meal during rehearsals. Anthony received a message from Francis Ford Coppola: ‘Francis doesn’t want you to go for a Chinese meal,’ it read, ‘because he feels it would break the atmosphere.’

Anthony Hopkins’ reaction was simple – ‘Bollocks, we’re going for a Chinese meal.’

*

In a way, Let Him Have It was an example of the British film industry bowing to American values. I hate Forrest Gump. I would like to burn every single copy of that film for the way it treats both mental health issues and women. A sexually free female character who ends up with AIDS? That tells you everything. I wanted to make an angrier, more polemical, more complicated film about a young man who deserved more than just to have the label ‘simple’ pinned to his lapel.

*

That presence, that intensity, that some people, not just Peter, have identified again comes from growing up, like most working class children, with the institutional message, ‘You’re stupid’, as did my father, as did my brothers. If you’re working class in this country, you may be able to shovel shit or push a trolley, but, ‘You are thick. You do not emote.’ ‘You are thick. You are not worthy of a decent education.’ Those central messages of unworthiness become so ingrained that they are self-perpetuating. Come up with a big word and not only are you mocked – ‘Oh, where did that come from?’ – but you mock yourself. So yes, I am intense, and that’s because there’s a lot of fierce concentration on trying to be articulate, rather than that laid-back public-school attitude to intellect that some people seem to have.

*

My dad had definitely shared with me a very visible masculinity. His appearance and actions shouted standard maleness, but the way I viewed him was different. It seemed obvious to me that, at his core, causing his outward behaviour, was a great femininity and vulnerability. My view of maleness was formed from how tyrannical my dad could be and yet how gentle. Through him, I learned to accept that the two things could coexist. I too have a masculinity allied to an intensely female side. Perhaps the difference is I’m aware of it. Dad, I think, found his sensitivity a source of conflict. For many years, I was the same. I resented it. I resented the part of me that made me different. If you are a late-twentieth-century male, traditional working-class, you are not going to like that side of yourself. I wanted to be black and white. I didn’t understand that it is the sensitive side that offers true insight in life – intuition and empathy.

*

Similarly, there’d be no bunches of flowers from Dad – none of that – and he didn’t like dancing – he was too self-conscious, too embarrassed – so Mum would always dance with somebody else.

I once went into my mum and dad’s room and saw a book, The Sun is my Tormentor, a Mandingo-esque novel of love and adventure, by Mum’s side of the bed. Seeing my mother in middle age and her desire for romance moved me deeply. It made me cry. I felt for her emptiness and also because I knew there were greater romantic novels that, because of her conditioning as being unworthy of such literature, she perhaps felt she couldn’t venture into.

*

We wrapped the production on Friday, had a party, and then on Saturday morning I’d arranged to go to Old Trafford with my dad. I was really looking forward to it – and he turned up with the season tickets from two years before. I’m disgusted with myself thinking about it now, but I gave him a bollocking. I was pissed off because I couldn’t go to the game. More than that, though, I was pissed off because he had dementia. That is shameful on my part, but genuinely that is the case. Maybe that shame is something others in the same position will recognise, an occasional presence of a selfish internal voice, one that so desperately craves ‘normality’.

I put my anger at his illness down to coming straight off the back of Flesh and Blood, with its fictional narrative so unflinchingly similar to my own non-fiction life. Amid that emotion, present as he always was whenever me and my dad knocked heads, was that little boy who was frightened of him. I definitely harboured residual anger towards him, a straight reflection of the anger he’d exhibited towards me. Sounds harsh, but he was getting back the temper he taught me. I was in control now. I’m not proud of that, and I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s how I justified it to myself.

I looked into his eyes and could see him trying to process what was going on. He was staring at the season tickets, semi-computing that they were the ones from two years ago, while trying to work out what the situation meant, and what should happen next. For ten seconds, my peripheral vision was blacked out, blinkered. All I saw was this big, fierce bird-like face looking around lost in confusion. I put Dad on the bus home, the route being familiar to him, and walked away. I rang later and explained to my mum what had happened. And then I started crying. I cried for four hours. That night I had a date with my girlfriend. I told her about it and cried all over again. I broke my heart like I’ve never broken my heart since. That moment of seeing his confusion had left a mark – not a bruise, but a deep, lasting weal. Until that point, I’d understood intellectually that my dad had dementia because we’d been told. But emotionally I hadn’t understood it at all. And then there, in the street outside Old Trafford, I’d been given a window into somebody going mad. Becoming demented. That’s the truth of it – demented. It’s a shocking word. We used to talk about demented dogs, and we shot them. When we say dementia, there’s no hiding the truth. It means people are demented. We can dress that up however we want, but there’s no denying the naked reality beneath. That day I had been presented with the stark vision of a man floundering in a maze of his mind’s own making. Not knowing who and where he was. And I’d just been horrible to him. And he was my dad.

*

Esme asked me the other day, ‘Daddy, do you like Mummy?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘when me and Mummy met, we fell in love and had you. Having two children very quickly is hard on parents in a relationship and then Mummy and Daddy started to not like each other. Now, Esme, as you’ve seen, we are trying to be friends.’

As a child, I would have liked that level of honesty and candidness with my parents, but it was no more part of Ronnie and Elsie than it had been their parents, and so on and so on before. I completely understand that the openness switch was neither at their fingertips nor was it socially reinforced. Emotion could hold a working-class child back, make them unready for what was to come – what they were for. I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to have a more grounded relationship with my children. Before Albert and Esme, playing football, wrestling, doing a crossword or mock-boxing with my own dad were the happiest things I could ever imagine in my life. They go right to the heart of me. Now, I have a new happiness with my own children. And it is a happiness born of honesty.

The blight on that happiness is that I don’t live with them. I know I’ve yet to come to terms with that fact. This book will help, the increasing distance from the hospitalisation will help, but it’s something that will always hurt inside. The legal system could certainly help deliver balance for parents and children involved in separation and divorce. Hopefully, we are in the dog days of the Victorian view of men and women and their role in their children’s lives, which has led to institutional and historic bias. In the twenty-first century, an authentic emotional relationship can come from a man as much as a woman.

*

I wanted to throw a spotlight on the generations, the millions and millions, for whom ‘success’, defined as anything other than the basic survival of themselves and their family, was a concept of which they were denied to the extent that they were chained, leg, wrist and neck, to an institutionally blessed mindset of zero expectation. To those in charge of those institutions, the working class is as it describes. A production line of workers, nothing more, nothing less. People? With character, hope, intelligence, ambition? Forget it. Get back in your box and shut up.

I was asked a few years ago to go on the BBC genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? I agreed and they started looking into my family tree. It says everything that the project went nowhere. They tugged aside the leaves on those branches and concluded, ‘Nothing to see here.’ Generations of working-class people dismissed. Individuals with their own hopes, dreams and stories. Not army generals, industrialists, vaudeville singers, but factory workers, farm labourers, cleaners, nothing in any way ‘sexy’ enough for TV.

No doubt if someone like me had popped up in the dim and distant, all would have been good. But why? My father had all my abilities, linguistically, physically, and then some. So, no doubt, did generations before him. I get that my life has been far more fulfilled than my father’s and those before him, but for me that makes him the far more interesting story. What do I know of life? I’m not driving stacker trucks all day at Colgate-Palmolive and then going to Bulmers and driving stacker trucks there all night. I’m not cleaning floors in a launderette like Mum. And yet how often is the story of the working class ever told on TV? I don’t mean the dross that is soaps. I mean properly told? The answer is less and less. Working-class stories don’t fit in boxsets. They don’t make money. They don’t fit the business model of selling to global TV. And yet they are the lives that talk to me, define me. They are the lives I find endlessly fascinating.

Christopher Eccleston, I Love the Bones of You

[taexual]

HOLIC - 2 | jb x reader

Strangers, united by their big dreams, try to learn to live together and lift each other up to reach their goals without losing themselves or their relationship on the way to the top.

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: strong language, mentions of sexual themes

words: 2.9k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

          prev / next

You and Jaebum watched each other for a good minute, both unable to find the words to say in this situation. The classic “so, we meet again” crossed your mind but it sounded oddly childish so you chose not to voice this thought and stayed quiet while Jaebum’s unreadable eyes burned into yours.

“I don’t understand,” he was the one who started to speak. You felt like you’ve won the game of who could stay quiet longer, even if neither of you had officially agreed to play it. “You’re… you.”

He wasn’t very specific with his description but you understood exactly what he meant.

“Yeah,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest defensively. “And you’re… a-a guy.”

“Obviously,” Jaebum retorted. “But how you are a girl is beyond me. We’ve been talking for, what, two months now? And you never once mentioned you were a girl.”

“You never mentioned you’re a guy, either.”

“That’s because I thought you were, too!”

“Well, I thought you were a girl,” you said. “You had a cat as your profile picture, what kind of guys use cats for their—”

“What, so now only girls are allowed to use cats as their profile picture?” he countered before you finished. “How is the usage of cats for profile pictures even restricted to a specific gender?”

He did have a very good point that completely shattered all arguments you might have had and that frustrated you. What pissed you off even more was the small part of your mind – the same part which hated all men today, even if you knew it was stupid and, probably, temporary – kept whispering to you, he’s a guy! It’s his fault! All of this!

“So am I to blame for this?” you decided to say. “If I remember correctly, you never clarified what your gender was, either. Def sounds exactly like something a girl who’s trying to go for a mysterious look would use as her username.”

“How is Def mysterious?”

You looked away from him. “I thought those were your initials.”

“Oh, so did my initials sound feminine to you?” Jaebum’s voice had risen. “Is that why you assumed I was a girl so easily?”

Not liking the way he continued to act as if all of this was your fault, you groaned. “Well, did I sound masculine to you? What was it that made you think I’m not a girl? My excessive usage of emojis when we first met? My undoubtedly very masculine profile description which has an all-girls school listed as my education?”

“I…” Jaebum was quick to open his mouth and just as quick to close it again. But then he scoffed, his cocky attitude returning. “Did you really think I checked what school you went to? How was I supposed to know it’s an all-girls one?”

“So, you did exactly zero research about the person you were moving in with?”

“Of course! I’m not a stalker.”

“Yeah, you’re a dude alright,” you snarled.

Jaebum frowned, finally giving you an emotion that wasn’t as self-assured as the ones he’s shown you before. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” you responded and the two of you went back to the angry, confused silence you’ve shared before.

This time, neither one of you broke it for another few minutes. Then, you both got tired of standing there, staring at each other as if the two of you were having a face-off in a western movie. Next line would have surely been, “this apartment ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

But no next line came because Jaebum huffed – breaking the silence for a brief moment – and turned around to face the door of the apartment. He was here for less than ten minutes and now he was off again.

“What are we going to do?” you ended up calling after him, knowing that you were absolutely not going to sit still and think about this while he was out, cruising for a new one-night-stand, most likely.

“What is there to do?” he replied, not turning back. “This whole thing is too weird. We’re not doing this.”

“Alright,” you played along even though the easy way he said it offended you. You two may have only known each other in real life for one day – or one night – but he could’ve still shown a little bit of regret, given the fact that you’d spent two whole months getting to know each other before you found this large gap in your knowledge that seemed to change everything. “Which one of us is moving out, then?”

“I meant, we’re not talking about this like—” Jaebum started to explain and, for the lack of a better comparison, ended up saying, “—like we’re a couple on the verge of a break-up, alright? We’ll just deal with this later. I don’t know.”

You didn’t like later. Later meant you had to spend the whole night tossing and turning in bed as your mind was busy trying to come up with a solution to a problem that clearly didn’t seem all that important to your roommate.

“Deal how?” you pushed, fighting for a peaceful night of slumber. “In my opinion, there are only two ways to solve this. Either you move out or I do.”

“Why would I move out?” he questioned. “I found the apartment.”

“I-I—“ you began but the sudden surge of anger at his particularly egotistic response overwhelmed your mind so much that for a moment, you weren’t able to formulate a single coherent thought. “Wow, okay. So, you want me out of here, then?”

“You said there are only two ways to solve this,” Jaebum replied, shrugging his shoulders.

He wasn’t looking at you so you couldn’t tell if his face looked as remorseless as his words were but you had a feeling it did. What exactly had attracted you to him that night at the bar? He was starting to seem more repulsive by the second.

“Right,” you said. “And, naturally, you’re going with the solution that benefits you the most.”

“Wouldn’t everyone?”

“I don’t know,” you shot back. “Normal people would try to find a compromise.”

Jaebum rolled his eyes at this, rolling his head back as well, before looking at you with pursed lips that strengthened the annoyed look he was going for.

“You’re doing this again,” he informed you, his voice irritated.

“Doing what? Trying to decide what’s going to happen on my own because you’re being no help?” you tried.

You could tell you were pissing him off more by purposefully pretending to misunderstand everything he was telling you and countering everything he said with something that actually made sense, but you couldn’t stop now. Perhaps the rational thing to do would have been to try to calm down and then talk about this like adults – which, clearly, neither of you were – but Jaebum was getting on your very last nerve and you’d have rather died than not done the same thing to him in retaliation.

“I’m going to go,” he said and you knew this statement was a final decision. You weren’t sure what he was going to do if you disagreed with this and yet, for some reason, you didn’t want to find out. “You can do whatever you want here.”

Whatever you wanted was exactly what you did as soon as he left. You went back to your room – although it wasn’t really your room since, apparently, you’d be moving out of here soon – and returned everything you’ve unpacked into the boxes again. You only left the sheets on the mattress because, whether Jaebum liked it or not, you were spending this night here. It was almost eight-thirty already, there was no way you were getting another van to transfer your stuff someplace else.

Sitting down on the mattress, you almost laughed at the thought of having to call the same driver who had explicitly warned you to make sure he won’t have to take your belongings out of here after you met your roommate. God, you really should have seen this coming. Everyone else did and they warned you about it, too.

You hated yourself for jumping head-first into this adventure-gone-wrong and you needed to talk to someone about it. Getting your phone out, you texted your friends’ groupchat. You tried to reply to some of their messages but they quickly noticed that you seemed distracted and asked what was wrong. Right as you finished typing the message about what went down when you moved in, you hesitated, your finger hovering above the “send” button.

They warned you it could come to this since you didn’t know enough important information about your roommate and here you were, about to prove them that they were right. That you were wrong. The patronizing “I-told-you-so” wasn’t going to make you feel better about yourself and your very poor decision-making skills.

Deleting the text message, you chose to give them the abridged version of what happened.

“My roommate is out,” you said under your breath, typing the words as you spoke them. “I haven’t gotten a chance—no, wait, but I did get a chance. He was back here and he was a complete dick about everything.”

You groaned, deleting the message again. There really wasn’t much you could have told your friends without revealing the entire truth and without having to lie.

Finally, you ended up just letting them know that you were tired, so you’d be going to sleep. They didn’t pry – they could tell you didn’t want to talk about it right now – and instead changed the topic. You were surprised that reading their text messages about the most mundane things actually calmed you down. There was Kiera still freaking out about her crush from work. There was Hyojin who had just broken her oven after she didn’t read the instructions on the microwave pizza box very carefully. And there was May who was sick and tired of studying – it was her last year of college, that poor girl – so she was just looking for someone to drink with.

They didn’t have to worry about suddenly moving in with their one-night-stand – and thank God for that – and they surely didn’t have to worry about finding a proper excuse to explain the reasons why they had to move out twelve hours after moving in.

Another thirty minutes later, you sighed, pulling away from the calming groupchat and putting your phone down. You had secretly hoped Jaebum would return before you fell asleep so maybe the two of you could finally talk about this and find a sensible solution – you didn’t want to live with him, either, but moving was a difficult process and you’ve already unpacked almost everything – but, clearly, Jaebum wasn’t going to be back unless you were sleeping.

No surprise there. He’s already bailed on you while you were sleeping once.

You thought you heard the first bump in your dream so you didn’t react in any way. The second bump, however, happened much closer and you flinched, startling yourself awake as you realized you weren’t dreaming at all. Someone really was approaching your room.

You debated screaming but as soon as you opened your eyes, you were really more terrified of the unknown surroundings – because you weren’t in your bedroom –  than the mysterious noises. This wasn’t the room you were used to and you spent at least twenty seconds trying to understand how you got here before your sleepy mind finally allowed you to remember that you’d moved out.

Grabbing your phone to call 911 because the steps outside of your door were getting louder, you also glanced at the time. 3:58am. The perfect time to get killed while half asleep.

You clutched the blanket tighter to yourself, not really planning to use it as a weapon in case this was an actual intruder, but rather hoping to use it for safety purposes and, for example, throw it on the attacker while you fled. It seemed like an innovative and, hopefully, successful idea and you felt a little more confident as you awaited the door of your bedroom to open.

The thought that this could have just been Jaebum finally returning home didn’t even cross your mind, so when you saw his face behind your open door, you gasped as if you’d seen a complete stranger, just wandering in your apartment at the witching hour. To some extent, he really was just a stranger. But you were living with him. For tonight, at least.

Just like that, the memory of the argument you’ve had before he left returned.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” you yelled, your voice groggy from sleep and irritation. “Do you know what time it is?”

“No,” Jaebum replied, talking quietly because he didn’t think it was right to speak louder in your pitch-black room. He could only see a meter in front of him because that’s how much the light from the hallway illuminated, so he took a small step forwards. “What time is it?”

“Definitely not early enough for you to be in my room,” you shot back, watching him take another tentative step towards your mattress. His legs seemed to wobble a little as he walked and you squinted at his silhouette. “Fuck, are you drunk?”

“I’m not, shit, there are just so many boxes in your room and it’s dark, and—”

“Why are you in my room?” you cut him off, hoping he’d stop walking before he tripped over a box and then proceeded to sue you because of it. He seemed exactly the type of person to do this. But, then again, you could have attributed all the worst traits to Jaebum simply because he woke you up after leaving you hanging in the middle of an argument.

“I wanted to apologize,” Jaebum said and silence was the response to his statement because an apology was not what you had expected from him. Realizing this, he continued, “I was rude. I didn’t mean to act like I’m kicking you out of this apartment. It’s not fair for me to do that.”

It only took him seven hours to realize this. You couldn’t help but still feel vexed with him.

“Well, then,” you said. “I’m glad you finally see it.”

Jaebum remained unphased by your harsh tone, though. “I just wanted to say that we signed the lease on the apartment on the same day, so it’s equally yours as it is mine. It really wouldn’t be fair for either of us to move out.”

You had a hunch where he was going with this and yet your heart still started to beat faster in anticipation of his next words.

“Maybe we should both stay,” he said, having a hard time speaking because he still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness of your room so he couldn’t see your eyes. “We both have jobs, I’m sure we won’t see each other that often anyway. Maybe it’ll work.”

You had been angry at him for attempting to kick you out but you weren’t sure if you wanted him to take his words back and offer to try living together instead. Naturally, this should have been the solution you’ve been looking for since you were so opposed to moving out, but it still felt weird.

Jaebum was the person you had slept with. He had left before you woke up so he wouldn’t have to participate in any type of pillow talk the next morning. He had thanked you for a “good night” in a note, which, you were obviously still bitter about.

But… at the same time, he was also the person that you’ve gotten to know from an ad. He was the same person who understood your complaints about commercial holidays, such as Valentine’s Day, because both of you had spent the majority of these holidays single and frustrated. He was also the same person who had stayed awake with you a couple of nights in a row, because the two of you were so deeply involved in a discussion about your favorite artists that you simply couldn’t go to sleep.

You could see very clearly now that Jaebum had multiple sides to him. There was the side he’d shown you as a temporary lover – you cringed at the word – and then there was the side he’d shown you as a friend and a potential roommate.

You couldn’t control your curiosity as you wondered how many more sides of him were there and how many of them were fake. You weren’t sure if he’d ever satisfy your curiosity by actually revealing himself to you but, at the end of the day, you didn’t care about that as much as you cared about having an actual roof to sleep under.

“Yeah, alright,” you decided, hoping that the late hour didn’t influence your decision and, contrary to the morning after you had slept with him, you weren’t going to regret this tomorrow. “Let’s see what happens.”

               chapter directory

[nano-the-robot-blog]

A Vent

Hello. My name is nano (not really, of course), I’m an art student from rural Britain, and I really need a place to vent right now. I don’t know if anyone will read this, or if any of those people will know me, but at this point I don’t really care.

Since childhood, I’ve lived a very privileged life. My family aren’t well off but we get by, my father has always had a job and my mother has always looked after my brother and I. They have their flaws and we’ve had our arguments, but my parents really are amazing. However, unfortunately, that doesn’t grant me ease of passage through life - especially with the world in the state it’s in right now.

I know that I have it much better than a lot of people, and I have always known that. I tend to get things in halves. I have autism spectrum disorder, but I’m not nonverbal and most people don’t even notice. I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, but I’m not wheelchair-bound. I have depression and anxiety, but I’ve never attempted suicide. I have an atypical eating disorder, not anorexia or bulimia (for those out there who do suffer with any of the things I’ve mentioned, my heart goes out to you. I may never understand your struggle but I will always strive to do the best I can to help, and I hope that you can all get through your respective hardships).

Now, as you can probably tell, I’m a very average person. Average height, average weight, average education and average skill levels. My brother, on the other hand, is a little less conventional. He has moderate to severe autism with learning difficulties which he was diagnosed with at quite a young age, and although he has yet to be diagnosed with it, my mother swears that he has pathological demand avoidance. He is also fairly tall and quite overweight, making him a formidable opponent.

These factors add up - the autistic meltdowns, the avoidance of any helpful behaviour and the refusal of commands and the sheer size of him - to make him an absolutely unbearable person to live with. He frequently attacks my family and I, both physically and verbally and with varying degrees of severity. It gets to the point, fairly often, that the police have to be called. My entire family have had to literally sit on his back in order to restrain him before, and it only gets worse once he is taken into hospital. At one point, he had four fully trained, adult police officers holding him down on a hospital bed. He’s had handcuffs, leg braces, the whole nine yards. It’s hell for everyone else in the family - and not just the humans. We have a menagerie of pets in the house as we are all animal lovers (aside from my father, though he does adore our dogs) and, though my brother doesn’t directly hurt them, the effect on them is clear. Our two dogs, one a huge Labrador/Rottweiler/Springer cross and the other a tiny Jack Russel/Pug mix, are utterly terrified every time he kicks off. They can even feel the tension in the air when we’re “walking on thin ice”, as my mother puts it, or when he’s on the edge of a meltdown. We also have three cats who don’t seem too bothered, although he has held up my cat (the oldest, and the smallest) and threatened to choke her before. I also have four beautiful young budgerigars who experienced his wrath for the very first time today, and it’s safe to say that they weren’t a fan. I’m hoping that they will be okay, though, since wild budgies will suffer much more worrying encounters in Australia.

Today, however, my brother went too far. He directed his anger towards the animals - my animals specifically - and me. My mother spent three days painting a gorgeous high sleeper bed which I only just got. I tried to help out, and I kept her company, but I’m just too sick to do such a physical task. Mom just naturally took over and eventually offered to paint the whole thing - even though she herself is ill. Like I said, my parents are amazing. The bed was a real labour of love for Mom, and she did an amazing job - despite the various hardships faced during the process. It was a real bonding experience for my mother and I, which was sorely needed as my mental health is pretty much non-existent at the moment. I’ll explain this as briefly as I can, just to give an idea of how much this affects me.

Recently, I’ve been suffering hugely with an atypical eating disorder. This possibly started when my ex broke up with me about two years ago, and very slowly built up over the past two years until recently, I stopped eating almost entirely and cut myself down to one small meal per day. The sudden change may or may not have been caused by my final major project in college, which I put my heart and soul into and which ended recently. I got the grade I wanted, but the residual stress left from it certainly took its toll, and my fate was sealed. I became more depressed than ever before and my anxiety, autism and (at the time mild) ED suffered the same way. I isolated myself from all of my friends, even my best friend - our relationship has been recovering slowly but surely from a very rough patch we had last year. I love her more than any other human, but I find it simply impossible to connect with another human being at the moment. My relationship with my parents is also hugely strained since they have to force me to eat now, and though we both know that it’s for the best, it puts a new barrier up between us. Another rather significant contributor is the fact that I have feelings for somebody I can never be with, and I’m quite sure he’s catching feeling for another girl who I’m also friends with, which simply gives me more reasons to distance myself from them. Regardless, back to the current situation.

It started small and simple, like all the worst things do. My mattress is in my parents’ room at the moment, as I can’t risk touching my paint-covered bed. My room also stinks of paint which makes it hard to sleep. My snakes are still in my room, though, as we couldn’t move them. My brother threw a cushion at me through the door. That’s all. I was lying in bed, exhausted and ill, and he threw a pillow at me. I said nothing, threw the pillow onto my parents’ bed, and went back to watching videos. A few minutes later, he threw a doorstop at me. It was heavy, and hit me in the hip, so it hurt a lot more than the cushion did. Again, I said nothing, and texted Mom to tell her what was happening. She came up the stairs pretty quickly, questioning my brother about it in a sympathetic tone. She knows him best, and is the best at diffusing situations like this. Like me, he said nothing. After a short while of her talking to him, though, he shoved past her out of his room and into hers, where I was still lying. I was hesitant to leave the bed, stupidly enough, because I wasn’t wearing trousers. However, my brother soon began threatening (nonverbally, of course) to throw his entire fifteen-pound body onto the mattress and on top of me. I wasn’t about to find out how many of my bones would be broken as I’m fragile enough already, so on request of my mother, I scurried off to the other side of my parents’ bed. He followed. I was hissed at to go into my room, which is what I did. No more than five minutes later, with me now holding a very nervous small dog, I hear a fierce BANG! and my door jumps. I’ve got an old door, one of the originals of our house, and I’ve never seen it budge before. At this point, I realised that he was going to break it down. Another few minutes passed until it happened once more, and once more was all it took. I stuck my legs out, thankfully, and caught the door on my feet, pushing it to the side. Thank goodness it somehow didn’t reach the snake tanks which were mere inches away, as they would have no doubt been shattered. We all knew it now; his anger was directed toward me and me alone. He kept advancing and my mother shooed me out of the room. I grabbed the dogs and hurried them into the utility, turned the light off and crouched down with them in the diffused light from the kitchen. He couldn’t see me, nobody could see me. We were safe. They all came downstairs fairly soon and my dad found me first. He said nothing, simply gave me a stressed look and went back into the kitchen. My mom then came out a few minutes later and informed me that my brother had backed himself onto my sofa, which is currently up against the snake tanks, and had started banging his hands on the glass. Any reptile owners well know that this is an awful situation for any reptile, especially snakes. Even just tapping on their tanks stresses them out to no end. They can stop eating for weeks, and if it’s bad enough, the poor things can even die. I did check the snakes after the whole ordeal and thankfully, they are all still alive and at least one of them is still ready to eat. My brother soon found my hiding place and started advancing again. I had nowhere left to go - my room, the only safe place, was destroyed. I just had to run upstairs and hang around for a while. I could hear him shifting furniture, and the occasional yell from one of my parents as he hit them. I know from experience that his blows are nothing to be scoffed at.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but somehow he ended up in my room again, but this time he turned his attention to my bed. Mom was appalled. The face she made was one of sheer horror; she had spent so much time and energy to get it to such a good condition and he had just ruined three days of work. She cried into my shoulder, weeping about the lack of consideration he has for others. I agreed, and we both muttered that we didn’t want him here any more.

That may seem harsh, to you. Who would want their own brother to leave for good? I would have agreed with you, if it weren’t for literal years of constant abuse from this boy, this monster. He’s like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute he can be a perfectly innocent child (he is 15, but his mental state is at the point where he is internally 8 or 9), and then within moments he can switch to some inhuman, unfeeling being of nothing but hate. He cannot be reasoned with, he can only be fought.

He’s gone now, they all are. Mom and him were taken to hospital in an ambulance, and my father followed shortly after. My snakes are alive, my budgies are fine and everything has gone quiet. This will happen again, and it’ll never stop until something is done - but that’s just the thing. What do we do? We’ve jumped through the hoops, we’ve waited years for people to help us and nobody will.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t want to seem like an attention seeker, but I genuinely fear that if this type of thing carries on, I’ll try to kill myself. Tonight put so much strain on my mental state, and each new episode increases that strain so much, that I don’t think it will be too long until I snap.

Sorry that this has been my first post on this blog. It was meant to be an art blog but I’m no longer going to be doing that as I’m completely rebranding myself. This will be a personal blog for me to write about my life - a kind of journal, I suppose.

All the best,

nano

[douchebagbrainwaves]

MAYBE IT WILL HELP LATER STAGE INVESTORS AS WELL

Creating wealth is not a new idea. Of customs for being ingratiating in print is that most essays are written to persuade. These two are quite different criteria. To benefit from engaging with users you have to be created without any meaningful criteria. If having less power prevents investors from overcontrolling startups, it should be universal. Google's don't be evil policy may for this reason be the most restrictive. The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial town created explicitly for the purpose of comparing languages, because they can't afford to hire a lot of mistakes. Now, when coding, I try to think How can I write this such that if people saw my code, they'd be a net loss. The importance of degrees is due solely to the administrative needs of large organizations. You probably can't overcome anything so pervasive as the model of work is a job. For example, in preindustrial societies like medieval Europe, when someone attacked you, you didn't call the police. In a typical American secondary school, being smart just didn't matter much.

In those days you could go public as a dogfood portal, so as a company. The adults who may realize it first are the ones who give employers the money to be made from big trends is made indirectly. Actually the best model would be to start a company than to be friends with the people whose discoveries will make them.1 Com. Plus he introduced us to one of the two numbers? Most investors, unable to judge startups for themselves, rely instead on the opinions of other investors. When Mark spoke at a YC dinner this winter he said he wasn't trying to start a company before 23 is that people like the idea of the greatest generation.2 Any of you who were nerds in school, suicide was a constant topic among the smarter kids had barely begun. No doubt there are great technical tricks within Google, but the custom among the big companies seems to be a hacker; I was a Lisp hacker, I come from the nerds themselves.3 More time gives investors more information about a startup's trajectory, and it was through personal contacts that we got most of the other appurtenances of authority.4 Someone has an idea for a class project.

Something that curtly contradicts one's beliefs can be hard. Like a lot of regulations. The actual questions are respectively patents or secrecy? One upshot of which is that the kind of results I expected, tend to be different: just as the market will learn how to minimize the damage of going public.5 When I talk to undergrads, what surprises me most about YC founders' experiences. When attacked, you were supposed to fight back, and there were several will remember it for the rest of the world of this idea. We were a bit like an adult would be if he were thrust back into middle school.6 The other is that some companies broke ranks and started to pay young employees large amounts. Or to put it might be worth a hundred times as much if it worked. The Selling of the President 1968, Nixon knew he had less charisma than Humphrey, and thus simply refused to debate him on TV. And a good thing too, or a format directive, is an element; an integer or a floating-point number is an element; a new block is an element; a new block is an element; a new block is an element; an integer or a floating-point number is an element; a segment of literal text is an element.

Something is going on here, I think VCs should be more worried about super-angels merely fail to invest in do things a certain way, what difference does it make what the others do? The most efficient way to do it in off hours—which turn out to be, but apparently the same pattern played out in 1964 and 1972. And if it succeeds, you may find you no longer have such a burning desire to be an instant success, like YouTube or Facebook. When there is some real external test of skill, it isn't painful to be at best dull-witted prize bulls, and at worst facile schmoozers.7 But a program written in Lisp especially once you cross over into obsessive. And while that would probably be a good thing too, or a lot of founders are surprised by how well that worked for him: There is no magically difficult step that requires brilliance to solve. Steve and Alexis auctioned off their old laptops for charity, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum. This is one case where the average founder's inability to remain poker-faced works to your advantage. And yes, while it is probably not one you want anyway.

We did, and again for hypocrisy.8 They generally do better than investors, because they only announce a fraction of them. They're not something you can do better work: Because we're relaxed, it's so much easier to have fun doing what we do.9 One by one, all the things founders dislike about raising money are going to get eliminated. It doesn't add; it multiplies. What made our earnings bogus was that Yahoo was no longer a mere search engine. Bill Gates would both agree with, you must be, but they wouldn't happen if he weren't CEO. That's why we rarely hear phrases like qualified expert in the software business.10

If you find something broken that you can find. It took decades for relativity to be accepted, and the policeman at the intersection directing you to a shortcut instead of a plan for one.11 The true test of the length of a program.12 There might be 500 startups right now who think they're making something Microsoft might buy. Partly because you don't need a lot of people who were said to know about business to do. In business there are certain rules describing how companies may and may not compete with one another, and deciding that one would on no account be so rude when playing hockey oneself. Think about what it means. I kept finding the same pattern played out in 1964 and 1972. This is not exclusively a failing of the young. The big mistake was the patent office's, for not insisting on something narrower, with real technical content.

In a startup you're judged by users, by starting your own company.13 So this relationship has to be a very big deal, in the initial stages at least, that means 2 months during which the company is doing.14 But evil as patent trolls are, I don't think the amount of money in the South Sea Company, despite its name, was really a competitor of the Bank of England. Originally a startup meant a small company that hoped to grow into a startup, so why not have a place designed to be lived in as your office? As a rule their interest is a function of growth. Not at all.15 Plenty of famous founders have had some failures along the way. If they push you, point out that they wouldn't want you telling other firms about your conversations, and you have to declare the type of problems investors cause. Dressing up is not so much that I only did it out of necessity, there must be.16 So I think it was. Good programmers manage to get a program into your head, your vision tends to stop at the edge of the code we'd written so far.17 Wardens' main concern is to keep the founders interested.18

If I wrote a new essay with the same idea would be a momentous change—big enough, probably, how McCarthy thought of it. There's nothing that magically changes after you take that last exam. What made the options valuable, for the social bonds they created. And we were careful to create something that could be better. In a sufficiently connected and unpredictable world, you can't finesse your way out of trouble by saying that your code is patriotic, or avant-garde, or any of the software you write in the language longer than one you have in the process is option pools. The second will be easier. The most memorable example of medieval industrial secrecy is probably Venice, which forbade glassblowers to leave the city, and sent assassins after those who tried. They started because they wanted to hear.19

Notes

Most employee agreements say that a startup idea is crack. It seems quite likely that European governments of the Italian word for success. Actually he's no better or worse than he was 10. The two guys were Dan Bricklin and Bob nominally had a broader meaning.

But it was.

Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The CRM114 Discriminator. But in a couple predecessors. But it's useful to consider themselves immortal, because the kind that has a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say that YC's most successful startups looked when they say that education in the Valley. The state of technology, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to combine the hardware with an excessively large share of a lumbar disc herniation as juicy except literally.

The real problem is not just a few people who make things: the way up.

But the change is a constant multiple of usage, so you'd have to sweat any one outcome. Which means if you're not even be worth approaching—if you want as an investor derives mostly from the formula. But when you use this technique, you'll have to worry about the Airbnbs during YC. More often you have to pass.

This is a scarce resource.

If you treat your classes because you need.

Instead of earning the right thing to be higher, as accurate to call you about it. In general, spams are more repetitive than regular email. But not all of us in the US News list? In Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work.

Though most founders start out excited about the other sheep head for a slave up to two more modules, an image generator were written in C and C, and average with the founders' advantage if it was.

Especially if they knew their friends were. Eric Horvitz. Ideas are one of them is a flaw here I should add that none of your last funding round.

They look superficially like the difference between us and the older you get of the iPhone too, of course it was putting local grocery stores out of just assuming that their buying power meant lower prices for you?

But it isn't a quid pro quo. So if you're not consciously aware of it. During the Internet.

94. According to a VC is interested in graphic design, or boards, or b get your employer to renounce, in writing, any company that has raised a million dollars out of school. For the price, they were already profitable.

Since capital is no longer a precondition.

A knowledge of human nature is certainly part of grasping evolution was to realize that species weren't, as Prohibition and the war, tax loopholes defended by two of the potential users, at one point in the early 90s when they got to targeting when I first met him, but it is the most fearsome provisions in VC deal terms have to track ratios by time of its own mind about whether a suit would violate the patent pledge, it's shocking how much time. Credit card debt stupidest of all, economic inequality.

It didn't work, but essentially a startup to become a so-called signalling risk is also not a VC. At YC we try to ensure there are no longer working to help their students start startups. The root of the economy.

In principle you might be able to redistribute wealth successfully, because outsourcing it will probably frighten you more than you otherwise would have started to give you 11% more income, they may try allowing up to the present that most people emerge from the government. That follows necessarily if you saw Jessica at a Demo Day or die. Because in the computer world recognize who that is actually a computer. Imagine the reaction of an FBI agent or taxi driver or reporter to being a tax haven, I would take up, how much you get, the top stories were de facto consulting firm.

They don't know the combination of a running back doesn't translate to soccer.

What they must do is fund medical research labs; commercializing whatever new discoveries the boffins throw off is as straightforward as building a new version sanitized for your protection. Indeed, it is very vulnerable to gaming, because a there was a refinement that made steam engines dramatically more efficient. But the margins are greater on products. Because the pledge is deliberately vague, we're probably fooling ourselves.

[jenivadiamonds]

The Impact of Sudden Unemployment

 Preface

           The past seven years of my life have been a roller coaster of events that culminated at the development and successful launch of The Exponentials an online magazine and editorial that concerns itself with raising awareness on the issues surrounding unemployment and the impacts it has on the individual and the society at large. After being fired from my teaching job I have had for almost seven years, I became depressed and wallowed in misery, shame that came with what I saw as my downfall. It was during these hard times that my mum and siblings stuck with me and helped me build a career from scratch, and I found the most beautiful thing “love”. This story however would not be complete nor fair without the mention of the input of my now husband Chike Austin, a stranger turned best friend; confidant and business partner who pushed me to look outside the realms of teaching and helped me in building this business idea to what it is today. Am also appreciative of second chances, that brought my life together once again.

The Impact of Sudden Unemployment

“I have lost my job.” Saying this loud to my sick mum Tessy sounded so alien. I felt ashamed and concerned at the same time about the possibility of the hard times ahead. No matter how casual the statement may sound, its impacts on an individual are immense and far reaching. Thousands of individuals, not just in the United States but globally, lose their source of income every day; this trend is not a preserve of underdeveloped nations rather also hugely affects an alarmingly high number of people in developed economies too. According to Marinescu Ioana (17), “the impacts of not having a stable source of income for a long time can be quite devastating - especially for individuals who have families, since their inability to provide spells doom for those who are dependent on the fired individual”. Losing my job had come as a shock not just to me and my colleagues at work, but also to my mum, who knew how much I was dedicated to my professional life. Prior to this I had the perception that the loss of a job came because of bad luck and lack of commitment on the part of the employee; but having to go through it gave me a new perspective on the issue; I no longer felt callous toward unemployed individuals.

The news had evidently hit my mother way harder than it hit me; I felt guilty. “What are we going to do,” my mum stammered amidst the uncontrollable tears running down our faces since I first broke the news. I will get another job; two, if I have to I replied, trying to mask the uncertainty that all of a sudden seemed so real. She looked so lost, I realize the situation was more serious than I really had thought it was. The look on her face said a lot of the deep thoughts that must have been razing through her mind at the time. She became really sick immediately I finished my highschool. She was beautiful with long dark hair and also very healthy looking, until suddenly from what we thought was a little fever to so many years later of a deteriorating illness. At the time, my elder sister was finishing from college, so I had to work as a teacher in a local elementary school, took care of our mum and also went to adult night school, so that my sister wouldn’t have to drop out to help at home. We had gone through our share of arguments and fights but never for once had I seen the defeated look she had at this moment. It broke my heart to see the worries in her eyes.  I saw the fear that everything might come crashing down at my feet, which was a scary thing to witness. I felt I understood am almost about to lose my mind just looking at my sick mother look defeated.

For over two years, the school I worked for has been laying off employees who were working in other locations that had been opened in various parts of the country as part of a long term-strategy to incorporate a lean workforce. This had been triggered by the decline in funds and incomes due to the economic crisis that was crippling the world economy. It was a little kept secret that the Education Ministry at the time was embezzling the money mapped out for developments and reconstruction, prior to the economic crisis and had even done worse under the new management that had taken over after the ousting of the previous management team. There had been hushed rumors among the workers that we all were in a sinking ship however none of us wished to resign just yet, hoping that things might turn around for the better and the downsizing would not affect the branch we were working in. When the downsizing at the office began with the firing of a few non-academic staffers, things began spiraling and going to work every day was like a game of Russian roulette. As I headed to work each morning, I kept wondering who would be let go that day or week. The impact of such a stressful work environment coupled with the uncertainty of whether you will be out of work tomorrow had taken a toll on the performance of the employees and within a few weeks there were reports of various complaints that had been filed by the parents and teachers as well. 

Over the course of my working and adult life I had not any bank loan and this gave me a relief that I might have it a little easier than some of my colleagues. The in-home lesson job I had taken up at few of my pupils house, had also aided me in clearing the student loan that I had accumulated over my days in college. As such in comparison to how bad some of my colleagues had it, I would argue that I had it a little bit easier. Additionally, I was lucky to have helped my dad complete the payment of the mortgage that we had taken on the family house. As such, this meant that my immediate concern was to ensure that I took care of my personal needs, my mum’s medical bills and most of the time daily meals for me and my younger ones. However, this was made more complicated by the lack of any meaning full savings and this meant that I had to find a job quickly. Despite all these concerns now I knew that the supplies that were already in the house and the few hundred dollars that I still had in my account would at least give me the start I needed. I decided to take a week off to get my thoughts straightened out before deciding on the next best course of action not just for me but for my family. Thinking about it now, I realize this decision was made of the shock that I was in at the time which could not allow me to plan my thoughts. at the time it seemed the most logical and reasoned thing to do.

As the week progressed, I did almost nothing to salvage myself from the situation that I had found myself in, except the effort to link up with some of my old friends and relations contacts, some of whom I had not seen or talked to in over three years. It was at this time that I got an interesting email from a long time contact I had been in contact with during my carefree days as a caterer, baker and home delivery cook. Beyond these futile attempts at getting over my now regularly grumbled mood and constant state of depression, I maintained my status as a passive sore unemployed loser. As the weeks rolled by depression was becoming more and more of a reality as households needs and bills began to pile each day. Things had gone from bad to worse; I had been out looking for menial jobs with no success and it was no secret that also things were getting bad at the home front. I would regularly get home, so tired from walking around or sitting at a place with a childhood friend who also had been ousted from his high paying job only to lose all his money, house, and family. This was where I was headed, I kept telling myself.

During this period, my mum kept urging me to revive my freelance translating career, though I knew it could pay, I somehow succeeded in putting it off for a long time. This was undoubtedly one of the lowest points of my life. I had fallen from a level where I was able to provide a comfortable life for my family to where I was depending on a few scraps here and there. It was however through him that I was finally able to get a breakthrough soon to receive an urgent translation order with an attractive pay. This opened a lot of doors not just in terms of opportunities to finally earn some cash and raise myself from what was evidently going to be a story of personal destruction. With a high level of expertise and long-term experience coupled by the urge to get things right, soon enough I had more than a few referrals from various parts of the world. With the high quality of writings, and even though the freelancing gig could provide a temporary reprieve from the lack of a way to provide for the basic needs in the home front, I fully realized that it would not go for long. 

Amid my adversities, I became acquainted with a client named Chike all the way from Africa. This client played an important role in my subsequent redemption from the low depths of life that I had resigned myself to. The name according to him was given to him by his grandmother based on the time he was born; which was the late evenings when the village goats were coming back from the grazing fields. Despite the huge and probably incomparable cultural and social circumstances and settings, which both of us had been born and raised, it was hard to imagine how he would have ended up being friends and playing a huge part in both of our futures. At first, he wanted a part of his novel to be translated and rectified in terms of subject verb agreements and all the rules of professional writing, (Carley, Micheal, and Phillipe Spapens), and I accepted his request for the same. After the first part was approved and the interest that the progress had raised in me, I was interested in asking him about the rest of the novel and whether it would need any type of help considering that the first part had been successfully published. 

After several days of correspondence, managing and working together on the book, we ended up becoming very good online friends. Just like me, he too was once unemployed and had taken up the gig of writing opinion editorials for some of the little-known online magazines and newspapers. With a common interest on the writing and publishing field for income, we continued to talk about the differences that existed between both countries in terms of job opportunities and the quality of life for citizens in our respective countries (Marinescu, Ioana, and Roland Rathelot). I soon introduced him to my mum and family, through video calls that were later to become a norm for a long time and he too introduced me to his family. It was a surprise to both of us that indeed there were various fundamental similarities that were apparent between both nations and the similarity in challenges facing people from developed countries such as our great USA countries. The challenges faced, the concerns used by lack of job opportunities, the impacts that this phenomenon uses not just on the individual and their family but on the nation was also a topic that never failed to come up every time we conversed.

It was during these kinds of conversation that my perspective on work changed, Chike had a very interesting view of how work should be viewed especially in the current technological world. Technology has exponentially grown to a point where an individual does not need to be at a locale to be part of a workforce. This has fundamentally hanged the concept of the workplace and the work setting through enabling individuals to work form any given place if they have access to the internet and a personal computer. Chike encouraged me to look for opportunities from diverse industries and areas other than just sending my credentials and applications to companies working within the Educational industry alone. This helped me a lot in quitting the mentality that has been commonly characterized by the saying that ‘The man is for work, not work for the man.” It was during this journey of self-discovery that I came to realize and discover what I truly wanted out of life both in a personal level and at a professional level. It was also during this time that I felt that I had the inspiration to identify my goals in life and consequently developed the plan to do so. 

           While this seems like fate, it was during one of our long conversations on life in Nigeria and the United States that the idea of developing an online magazine and platform was born. At first, we intended that the site would cater for the professional unemployed individuals all over the world could post online jobs and share experiences was born. This however was just but an idea and we knew that making it a reality would not only be challenging but would require a substantial amount of financial backing, money which at the time we did not have. First, it would be important to do the necessary research and get all the legal documentation ready not just in the US but also back in Nigeria. While I was preparing myself in the US, I was surprised two-days later when Chike got in touch saying that his part in the Nigerian capital had been complete. It came as surprise only to learn that most if the regulations covering the use and ownership of most sites in the nation were not under any sort of regularized framework. While this was a shock it also was an advantage not just to us but it meant a lot more people in and around the nation would easily access the site. Chike, my soon to be business partner, planned and flew to the US and stayed with us for a few months before moving out to his own apartment.

Life was beginning to take a good shape, and I felt that I was finally doing something that was not only fulfilling but had the potential to really take off and earn me and my family a comfortable lifestyle. At this point my mum had started recovering, she had seen me through the worst part of my lowest points in life and now I could see a spark of light at the end of a long and dark tunnel. I soon visited the bank and after asking for loans from close friends and confidants, who still had trust in me, we were able to fully fund the development of an operational online magazine and editorial that also supported the posting of various jobs at a fee. Within a year from the date the site went live, traffic had grown substantially and soon we had to move from the garage office that we were occupying and rented a bigger office space. The journey to where we were at that time had been full of ups and downs but we had finally managed to capture a small but important piece of the online magazine market with significant income. Sometimes, I am surprised that I can still identify myself with my old self before I lost my job, despite the life changing experience I went through. However, I believe this can be attributed to the strong and sometimes commanding nature of the people who were able to guide and push me during the lowest points of life when I thought I would never again be able to provide for my family. The role of Chike and his family towards the successful redemption and bounce back cannot be understated; as I look at my family now, and the smiles they have I know we will be able to overcome anything together.

After two years of starting our business, Chike and I started dating. Although I knew I had a thing for him through all the years of being two unemployed online friends trying to make ends meet. A year after we went out the first time he proposed, and we later got married at the Notre Dame Catholic Church Houston, Texas. It was a glorious day in our lives, because I got to meet his mother, whole family and friends that flew in to be part of our beautiful day. Also if I must say, the life we are living now was of our own making. You have to get up and move on, life waits for no one. Do not procrastinate or feel defeated, you will get there, it might only take time. Our business is flourishing, so am grateful to God and the universe for bringing us together through unemployment. From my bad experience I got to be with someone I love and do something meaningful with my life again. According to (Margaret Linn, Richard Sandifer, Shayna Stein) on the article “Effects of unemployment on mental illness and physical health.” Our mental health has a lot to do with our emotional and physical health. We humans are relentless, we can do anything we set our minds to.

                        Work Cited

 Carley, Michael, and Phillipe Spapens. “Sharing the world: sustainable living and global equity in the 21st century”. Routledge, 2017.

Edward Moore, Kennedy. “The challenges before us”. Am Psychol. 1984 Jan;39(1):62–66. American Public Health Association. Web. June 13, 2019.

Margaret W., Linn, and Richard, Sandifer. Shayna, Stein., “Effects of unemployment on mental and physical health”. 75, 502-506. NCBI (May 1985). American Journal of Public Health. Web. June 13, 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646287/pdf/amjph00281-0056.pdf

Marinescu, Ioana, and Roland Rathelot. "Mismatch unemployment and the geography of job search." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 10.3 (2018): 42-70.

Marinescu, Ioana. "The general equilibrium impacts of unemployment insurance: Evidence from a large online job board." Journal of Public Economics 150 (2017): 14-29

[blackjacketmuses]

hc; og dante 12

In honor of @dwellsinme​ who inspired me with her HC to post mine, because I’ve had it but haven’t gotten around to actually posting about it.

Dante - my Dante - is very much ADHD. 

It’s kind of a tossup whether his nature as a hybrid has anything to do with it (see: PJO series), but he is definitely, definitely ADHD and has been since he was a kid. Unfortunately, in the late 70s-early 80s, neurodivergence wasn’t as big or talked about a concept, so no one really had any idea, and Dante’s so detached from the normal human life at this point it’s probably never come up and never will. He functions....as well as one would expect with that on top of cPTSD and depression, but, yknow, he manages. So it’s never been a real, true problem. Drove his parents and teachers crazy as a little, and definitely drives people crazy now, but...that’s just how Dante is.

I’m gonna go into more detail under a cut just because long post incoming:

To start I’m just gonna drop a list of symptoms here, so you can kinda see what I’m getting at: bolding is mine, and is the symptoms Dante visibly explicitly shows and expresses (for the record, he definitely has combined type, which has symptoms of both inattentive and hyperactive)---

Inattentive type:

Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another

Have difficulty maintaining focus on one task

Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless doing something they find enjoyable

Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing or completing a task

Have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities

Appear not to be listening when spoken to

Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly

Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others

Struggle to follow instructions

Have trouble understanding details; overlooks details

Hyperactive type:

Fidget or squirm a great deal

Talk nonstop

Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight

Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and while doing homework

Be constantly in motion

Have difficulty performing quiet tasks or activities

Be impatient

Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences

Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turn in games

Often interrupt conversations or others' activities

Okay, so maybe he leans a lot heavier into hyperactive type, but, I mean. Watch him doing stuff, especially in 3 and 4 --- he’s definitely very easily distracted, doesn’t seem to listen a lot, and focus is only kept when he’s really interested in something, otherwise he super ignores it. And details? Ha! What are those, he just jumps in and does things.

As for the hyperactive symptoms, I don’t think I need to point out many specific instances, it’s...we all see it. He’s constantly running his mouth, constantly in motion, constantly moving, playing with things, bouncing on his feet, fidgeting, fighting, moving a lot as he fights...I mean look at him playing with every single new toy he gets immediately, and especially look at him with Cerberus. He’s loud, he’s present, he’s very impatient --- we see that a lot in 3 re: puzzles and locks --- and honestly he’s very good at interrupting people. Not to mention that thing about saying inappropriate things, and being unable to restrain emotions or actions? Definitely Dante, demonstrably so.

Other symptoms Dante definitely has --- and this is speaking as me, an ADHD person, who sees a lot of my bullshit in Dante --- are:

MOTIVATION ISSUES (don’t @ me Vergil): Look at this guy, he can’t or won’t do anything that doesn’t click into his interests (and even then!!) unless he gets pushed or bullied or bribed into it. He needs to be given a significant and heavy reason to get up and do shit, otherwise he’ll just sit around or blow it off and claim pickiness. And sure, he is picky --- because specific criteria on What Will Interest Him is another ADHD thing!! --- but man, even then, you can see in the anime he has to be pushed out the door to get shit done sometimes. This is clearly contributing to his broke situation. And when he’s Depressed it’s worse, look at the state of his office in 5!!

REJECTION SENSITIVE DYSPHORIA: Now this one isn’t quite as obvious, because he’s REALLY GOOD at pretending he’s fine, but he really does not cope well with being yelled at/rejection/being pushed away by people, especially people he likes. That’s a mood. This was worse by far when he was a kid, and is part of why he’s such a pushover and can easily be bullied into doing things for people he likes or people he wants to like him. He doesn’t want to be rejected or criticized, so time to do what they want me to! No problem, no argument!

SLEEP PROBLEMS: Either he is like LOOK MA NO SLEEP I CAN DO THIS ALL WEEK or he’s sleeping constantly and looking like Rip Van fucking Winkle. Now this does overlap with the depression, but ADHD internal clocks are borked to hell and back, too, so his sleep schedule and how much/little he sleeps is just. What even. How. 

TIME PROBLEMS: Either something is Now or it is Not Now and if it is Not Now it is not worth caring about or worrying about.

IMPULSE CONTROL: As mentioned above, but with the added problem of “what is delayed gratification I don’t know her”, and needing rewards for what he’s doing Now Please Thanks.

DECISION MAKING: When confronted with difficult decisions, either you a) freeze because AAHHHH TOO MUCH or b) just Do Something because panic without thinking. Also what the FUCK is a plan, there are no plans, plans don’t exist.

BOREDOM IS EVIL: No being bored, ever, oh god, nope, fuck that cannot be bored boredom is the devil and causes BAD BAD THINGS. Must always be doing things, needs entertainment, needs stimulation or will quickly devolve into a lump on the couch. If thing is boring, will NOT do it, nope, fuck that.

CHILDLIKE BEHAVIOR: Like whew. I mean. Local 42yo man acts like a 10yo boy pretending to be an 80s action hero like in the movies, constantly, as if he thinks that mimicking that is how Adults Are. And just, generally acting like an enormous child.

WEIRD KID: Just...generally coming off as weird or different or Outside The Norm, not good with normal human social cues and responses to things, acts weird and like an outcast and doesn’t seem to quite fit in with normal people.

FIXATIONS: Pizza pizza pizza NEVER GET BORED OF PIZZA I COULD EAT PIZZA EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE also sundaes. 

MUSIC...GOOD: This is more subjective, but Dante’s thing with music strikes me as a thing mostly because I am that person who NEEDS TO BE LISTENING TO MUSIC ALL THE TIME HOLY SHIT, I CANNOT STAND IF THERE IS NO BACKGROUND NOISE TO MY LIFE. I get so antsy I want to jump off a cliff when there’s no background noise/music in the car and I Need music on to do anything; but at the same time I can’t listen to podcasts or videos because music I just tune out and it’s There, Good, Wonderful, but if it’s something to concentrate on with Words To Understand, it is BAD and it needs Full Focus or I Don’t Hear SHIT. So, yeah, that too.

NON SEQUITURS EVERYWHERE: You know that THING where topic A comes up and in your head you jump ahead five things in a way only you understand, and then you speak up and bring up topic F out of nowhere because YOU got to it in your head but everyone else is like what the fuck, so you kinda shut up or laugh it off? Yeah. Also that other feel when you’re still on topic B but the rest of the group went on to topic C or D and you’re internally screaming because NO I STILL HAVE SOMETHING ELSE TO SAY GET BACK HERE.

WHAT THE FUCK IS VOLUME CONTROL THIS IS MY NORMAL SPEAKING VOICE I’M NOT SHOUTING????: Self explanatory.

BAD AT HEARING THINGS: Needs VERY specific instructions, but also things need repeating a lot because he’s quick to accidentally tune stuff out.

READING: Trouble reading LONG blocks of text. Magazines Good, short articles Good.

Local Man Laughs At Own Jokes, WHAT THEY’RE FUNNY

MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING: He did this more as a kid, but it still applies; local child looks like he’s just kind of vibrating quietly but otherwise paying attention? NOPE he’s having an epic adventure in his head and is not listening to a word. Vergil will tell him later if it’s important.

THE LEG BOUNCE: Speaking of, he CANNOT SIT STILL. He’s at the MINIMUM rocking in his seat or bouncing his foot or tapping his fingers, sometimes as chords to a guitar but other times just taptaptap.

Stopping What Is Stopping, or alternatively, HOW TO START EVEN IDK.

Getting/being increasingly SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE but just sitting there with a smile while internally going AAAAAAAAAAAAA in increasing volume, because you have no idea how to disengage.

Things not immediately in view or immediately important Cease To Exist Entirely.

Related, visual exhaustion aka I HAVE LIVED WITH THIS MESS SO LONG THAT THE MESS IS BACKGROUND NOISE AND DOES NOT EXIST TO ME, I NO LONGER SEE IT, IT IS SCENERY.

Is the only member of this family who can drink caffeine, ADHD cancels the effect out.

Actually Pretty Goddamn Smart, but the disconnect of not having any education after 5th grade and that GOOD GOOD RSD thanks to bitchy clients kicked in and he internalized that he’s dumb now oops, might as well not try. See Also That Good Good RSD RE: bitchy dates, guess he’s just A Terrible Date, whoops, gonna just Not do that anymore. Basically if enough people give him shit about a thing, guess he’s just NOT gonna do that thing anymore!! Yep!!!

Bad at doing things The Proper Way, procedures and rules and bureaucracy are BORING GOTTA GET STUFF DONE NOW MY WAY. Never showed his work in math ever. 

Actually really smart, but got in trouble a lot for lack of visibly paying attention, being unable to sit still in class, and not following instructions. He could do the work and do it right, with or without listening to the lecture, but because he did it on his own terms and by his own rules, even if he got the right answer, he got in trouble. RSD convinced him later in life he was an idiot, but he still is really good at out of the box thinking and figuring shit out with limited information.

Gets Frustrated, Stops Doing Thing (or IMPULSIVITY ACTIVATE FORM OF DOING STUPID SHIT TO GET THING DONE)

Bad habit of WORRY when understimulated, also tendency towards insecurity, this is made WORSE x100 by his PTSD. Not to mention a bit of chronic low self esteem because of most of the above.

Low self esteem feeds into really bad self-awareness; he really doesn’t quite understand or process the effects he has on people, for good or ill.

ADDICTIVE!! BEHAVIOR!!! (see: The Booze)

Stopping this here because a) you get my point by now and b) I’M going full ADHD on fixating on this post so I’m cutting myself off here. Anyway, yeah. There’s this.

[huffletiika]

Now we are here

Ok, so... sorry I’m late, I had to change some things in this OS, and forgot to do it yesterday. Hehe. This, in particular, was an idea for an AU I had long ago, but never got to write it down, so used the ficweek as an excuse. @from-red-string and @silveranchor, my figure skating squad... this is special for you.

Word count: 3.8k 

DAY 2 – “You’ve locked yourself outside of your apartment and there’s a storm rolling in and I pity you so I’ll let you into mine”

Luna looked at the closed door in front of her, and cursed under her breath. It has been just a second, the blink of an eye, and now she was locked outside of her flat only wearing her pajamas.

The turn of events for her to get into the current situation was quite interesting to be omitted.

That day she had a training session with Juliana, they needed to work on her new short program, mostly on her landings, but it got called off as her trainer had some urgent reunion with some delegates of the International Skate Union that came to Buenos Aires to talk with her without prior notice. 

She could have gone to the rink anyway, practice by herself, or maybe chat with some of her friends. Taking a look at Simon and Ambar’s training session would be nice too, as her best friend always appreciated her feedback about his step sequences, but she didn’t want to have any other discussion with her cousin about not getting involved when it’s their program, not hers, and… anyway, she had a lot to study.

Studying a mayor was her parents’ condition for them to let her become a professional figure skater. Her education was always their main concern. For that reason, she signed up at the online university, and have been trying to keep up with the assignments in between her training sessions and competitions all around the world. Lucky for her, her roommate and best friend is the smartest person she has ever met, and is always happy to give her a hand.

After sending her weekly assignments hunger hit her hard, even making her guts roar, so she changed into her comfiest pajamas, turned the TV on, and opened Netflix. The plan was to get some of the food her mother made sure she took with her after their weekly family dinner, unfroze it, and eat it on the couch while re-watching as many Brooklyn 99 chapters as possible. It’s not like she could go to any fast food restaurant, anyway, it was raining so heavily she was beginning to think that the sky was falling down.

Besides, her best friend would arrive home in a couple hours, and she is sure they both could enjoy together of a good marathon of Andy Samberg’s awesomeness.

Her plans went down the drain when, as soon as she opened the freezer to get the food, the interphone rang. It was the mailman with a box for her best friend and, in her eagerness of not making him wait there under the rain, she went down to the entrance of the building without minding changing clothes, or taking the keys with her. She trusted her neighbors enough to leave the door wide open, no one there would rob her. What she didn’t count on was that she had also left an open window, through which a gust of wind came in, closing the door, leaving her locked outside.

She tried to open it several times, but she lost her faith after a while, standing there plain watching the wood and feeling like the most stupid person on planet earth. She didn’t even take her phone with her. If she had, she would have called Nina, to ask her to hurry to get there.

Desperation took over her, making her try to think in any possible solution for her problem, but as time passed by it was obvious there was nothing she could do. She didn’t know how to force locks open, and she wasn’t as strong as to take the door down. Neither did she want to do such thing. She lived in a fifth floor, and there was a storm outside, so only an idiot would consider the option to climb the building to enter through one of the windows.

She was already sitting on the floor, with her back against the wall next to her door, when her neighbor’s door opened.

She jumped.

“Luna?” She froze. From all the people who lived in that building, HE had to be the one to see her in this situation. Just her luck. She slowly turned around, her cheeks burning, as she saw him standing there. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Everything’s perfect,” she answered, sarcastically. “I’m just here, chillin’ at the hallway, enjoying the amazing architecture of this very picturesque building.” She pointed at her apartment’s door. “I mean, who would want to be in there, with couches, beds, TVs, food… when you have this amazing carpet that I believe no one has ever washed?” she touched said floor covering, making a grimace when she pushed away some fluff of dirt.  

He frowned.

“What happened?” he asked, and she gave up with a sight.

“The door closed,” she admitted. He stayed silent for a couple of seconds, then looked at her door, before going back at her. A chuckle came out from his lips. “Don’t laugh, Matteo! This is serious!” She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.

He shook his head, still laughing.

“Dear God, Chica Delivery,” he scolded her. “I told you a thousand times to always have your keys with you, even if you are just going to get something from the lobby. But, of course, you’d never hear me.” He offered her a hand so she would stand from the dirty floor, but she rejected it, and instead stuck out her tongue at him.

“Thanks for the sermon I didn’t ask for, Chico Fresa,” she replied, shamefully looking away, not only because he was right with his words, but because he was looking too good for her own wellbeing.

It’s just… how can he look so good no matter what he’s wearing? Usually, it’s those perfectly tailored shirts he wears with those ridiculously suitable vests that should be prohibit merely for the fact they make her mind go to dangerous grounds. But now, he wasn’t wearing any of these, just a pair of dark jeans, a white shirt, and an incipient beard that said he either had forgotten to shave for a couple of days, or was considering a more adult look.

How would it feel to touch it?

She had to push that thought away from her mind, as far as possible, because her neighbor is on the list of guys she could never have anything with.

In fact, he tops that list.

There are many reasons for said forbiddance: his «I’m better than everyone around» attitude is one of those, but the one that makes it completely impossible, to the point she shouldn’t even been there talking with him, was the fact he used to be her cousin’s boyfriend (and skating partner, if the latest isn’t enough of a reason) until he decided to retire from professional figure skating, and she broke up with him. Ambar hated him to the point she was sure the blonde had a dartboard with his face in her room, and she have already had enough drama in the past with said girl, to be sure she didn’t want to add more coal to the fire.

Besides, he was a flirt, so there would be no way they could get along.

He smiled down at her. “Ok then, if I can’t give you sermons, let me ask you something.” He seemed to be enjoying himself.

Such a jerk.

“When is your roommate coming?” he asked, and she answered with a shrug. “So… you're really considering to wait for her sitting there?” she shrugged again.

“What else can I do?” she replied, and he sighed.

“Well, you could come into my apartment. I have a comfy couch, where you can wait, and I can make dinner,” he offers. “I won’t let you stay at the hallway, much less dressed like that.” She looked down at her pajamas and covered herself with her arms. It didn’t do much, though, but that’s all she could do.

The idea of going inside Matteo’s apartment made her heart skip a beat.

“You know, you could do something more helpful. Like, for example, helping me to open this stupid door,” she replied, finally standing from the floor, trying to look as casual as possible.

He smirked. “Contrary to what you seem to believe about my whereabouts, Cucciola, I have no idea how to break into other people’s houses,” he said. “So letting you wait your friend inside my apartment is all I can do.” He shrugged.

The Mexican took a deep breath.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.

“Oh, come on! Are you really that stubborn to say no?” he snapped. “You really prefer to stay in the hallway, sitting in that filthy carpet, instead of accepting my offer?” he took a deep breath to calm himself, and looked away.  

She had to admit he had a point.

---

His apartment was very much like she had imagined it would be: fancy and extremely organized. The living room didn’t have many pieces of furniture, just a couch, a big TV, and a couple of shelves, being the latter the ones that caught her attention, as they were filled with so many skating medals and trophies she felt her jaw dropping.

Luna walked towards them to take a closest look, and he looked at her with an amused smile, as he always knew that it would be the first thing she would notice if she ever went inside his place. Next to the medals there were also some photographs, most of them of him showing the medals hanging on his neck, neither of them with Ambar by his side, even if it was skating with her that he won most of those awards.

The hate was mutual.

She smiled when she found the Olympic silver medal, which was displayed next to a picture of him wearing it at the Olympic Games’ ice rink, and a perfect pair of personalized blades that could perfectly cost more than her whole equipment, or her complete scholarship.

Unconsciously, she raised her hand to bring it to the medal, as part of herself wanted to know how it would feel to finally touch the metal. It was her dream to win one of those. Ambar never let her get close enough to hers, keeping it in some kind of glass box in her room, threatening her with cutting her hand off if she messed it up with her fingerprints. That though made her put her hand away, as if there was some kind of force field surrounding it.

“No, it’s ok… you can touch it,” he said, right behind her ear.

She jumped.

When did he get so close?

“No– I mean, I… I just touched a dirty carpet, I don’t want to spoil it,” she stuttered, sneaking off from his side, putting some distance between them. She looked at him, and the soft smile he gave her back took her by surprise.

“As you wish,” he winked, and she had to take a deep breath to put her emotions in order, or she would self-burst. “Anyway, I will make some risotto alla carbonara. Have you tried it?” he asked, as he walked towards the kitchen. She followed him to avoid the temptation of touching the medal, and took a seat next to the counter, looking him as he started getting stuff from the drawers.

“I have no idea what’s that,” she admitted, and he laughed.

“Oh, you are gonna love it.”

---

The empty plate on front of her confirmed his words.

“Why do you have to be so good at everything?” she complained, with her eyes closed, as she enjoyed the last bite of risotto. “Couldn’t you leave any talent for the rest of mortals?” she added, and he laughed, making her entire body tremble.

She loved the sound of his laughter.

He started picking up the plates. “Then you admit I’m talented,” he said, a cocky smile appearing on his lips, and she immediately regretted her own words. His ego was such a problem.

“Oh, shut up,” she said. “I should have known you would get all Fresa mode about it.” She stood and helped him take the things back to the kitchen, and into the dishwasher. He leaned against the counter, silently looking at her with an amused smile.

She would give away anything for a glimpse of his thoughts.

Luna walked back to the living room, and he followed her, keeping a prudent distance between them as she looked again at his awards. She took a frame from the shelf, a very old one, where he was around six or seven years old, and was accompanied with a brunette girl she didn’t recognize. Both of them were smiling, prideful showing their gold medals at the camera, keeping each other in a tight hug.

Some jealousy peeked inside her.

“That’s my cousin,” he explained, sitting at the couch’s armrest. “It was our first gold ever.” She noticed the nostalgia in his voice, so she left the frame back at the shelf, and faced him.

“Why did you leave it? You seemed to love it,” she asked.

That was the question she always wanted to ask him, as when she asked Ámbar, the answer of the blonde was that the Italian was a commitment-less idiot.

He shrugged.

“It was the right moment,” he answered, and she frowned, because it wasn’t the answer she was expecting. He noticed it, and for almost a minute he seemed to be considering if it was worth to trust her with one of his biggest secrets, if she wouldn’t judge him as her cousin did when he told her his decision. “I had already achieved my goal of getting an Olympic medal,” he explained. “I mean, it wasn’t the gold… but, you know, it’s an Olympic medal.” Yes, she knew what he meant. An Olympic medal was her biggest dream, and little did she care whether it was gold, silver or bronze. Although gold would be her highest happiness. “And, well,” he continued. “I have a biggest passion than skating, one I really wanted to explore, but I didn’t have much time for it because of the training sessions and the international competitions, so time was running away for me to follow it.”

“Music,” she said, without hesitation.

She would wake up in the morning to hear him playing the guitar, and far from being bothered about it, she enjoyed every time it happened, even if walls muffled much of the sound.

“Yes, music.” He seemed to be glad she knew that. “First thing I did after retiring was sending demos to several labels, and got myself a contract,” he proudly explained. “I’m working on my first record, composing and helping with the production. Most of the work is being done at a very cool studio the label is paying, but I have made myself a place to compose in here.” He pointed at the hallway that leads to the rooms, and she nodded.

She was glad he was achieving his dreams.

“Do you want to hear something?” he suddenly asked, and she jumped with excitement.

“Yes, yes! I want to hear one of your songs!” she replied, and he looked at her with tenderness, because she was just the cutest.

He pointed at the couch, so she would sit there, and went to get his guitar from his room. She waited for him, feeling nervous and anxious, until he went back and sat on the couch next to her, tuning the instrument.

Was it her mind playing games, or his hands were really trembling?

“I’ve never played this song to anyone,” he confessed, with an apologetic smile. “I don’t know if the label would like to include it on the album, it’s… different from the other songs I have already record.”

She nodded.

He started playing.

Could her jaw be any more dropped? She looked at him in total shock as she heard him playing his song, completely hypnotized by his voice, and by how he seemed to be totally focused on every chord he played on the guitar.

It was like being transported to a different place, a dimension where it’s only the two of them, where she could enjoy these private concerts on his couch anytime she wanted, without any interruption, without any doubt. In this new dimension that song was for her: she was that princess, the one in which he thought day and night, that would give light to his senses, the one he wanted to follow his heart for.

The truth hit her: she had tried to stay away from him, telling herself it was because she didn’t want any conflict with Ámbar, or because she hated his guts. When, in reality, she was just scared of falling for him. But now, seeing him so focused on his music, she figured it out that all her efforts were for nothing.

He finished playing, and for a second there she was too lost in her thoughts to react in any way. He frowned. “You hated it,” he winced, looking hurt.

“No!” she shouted. “I didn’t. I loved it! I’m just… wow, it’s perfect.” She started talking way too fast, and he smiled. “You’re very talented, Matteo. That song is –I don’t know how to describe it. The girl who inspired you to write it must be the luckiest,” she concluded.

He laughed.

“Why do you think I wrote it for someone?”

“The way you play it, the emotions you put in each word.” Luna shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious there’s some girl you would like to call your princess.” And she was jealous of her.

He nodded. “Okay, you’re right. I wrote it for a girl,” he said, and she could feel her own heart breaking. He glanced down at his guitar, playing with the chords without making any sound, as if he was nervous. “But she doesn’t know the song is for her, and is better this way,” he sighed, and then looked back at her.

“Why?” she asked, feeling betrayed by her own mouth. What if it was Ámbar? What if all hate was just him dealing with the pain of losing her, as she was now dating someone else. She felt stupid: of course it was her, who else would it be? He might be hurt because she didn’t understand his dreams, but they were many years together, and love doesn’t fade as fast. “I mean, if you still have feeling for Ámbar, I think she deserves to kn–” he interrupted her.

“Ámbar?” he seemed to be amused and horrified at the same time. “I’m not –“, he shook his head. “I didn’t write it for her. We used to be a couple, yes, but it was never… we were together because that’s what was expected from us,” he sighed, messing his hair. “We cared for each other, of course, we were good friends before starting dating. But the only reason we were still together was because we were the king and the queen of the rink, nothing else.” he shrugged, staring right at her eyes, making her feel as bedazzled.

She swallowed.

“Then, who is it for?” she asked, hating the fact she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked. Was his voice getting deeper? It made her speechless, so she just nodded. “I wrote it for an amazing girl I met a couple years ago,” he spoke, softly. “She was an amazing skater, very promising, and with an unstoppable will to be better every day. Her spirals were impressive, the best I have ever seen, and I could skip spending time with my friends just to watch her training sessions, to see her fly on skates. She impressed me, she still does, even if she has this tendency to crash into me… All. The. Freakin. Time.” She held her breath, and her eyes widened. Was he talking about her? She stayed silent for almost a minute, mouth-opened, staring at his eyes, waiting for the moment he would say he was joking.

That moment never came.

“Matteo,” she finally got to whisper, her cheek turning red, her heart threatening to break free from her ribcage.

He put the guitar away, and got closer.

“Tell me you feel nothing for me,” he pleaded. “Tell me that, and then I will leave you alone. You can pretend I never said anything, go back to treat me as the annoying neighbor you rant about with your friends, or just ignore me, and act as I don’t exist.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do that, I would be lying” she said, getting closer, allowing their breaths to become one.

Screw the stupid list, screw everything.

Kiss me, please. It was the last thought that came to her mind before their lips found each other. And then, thinking became unnecessary.

At first, it was just a soft brush between them, like the touch of a feather, which sent shivers all over her body. And then, he took possession of her lips, kissing her as if he had been fantasizing about this for years, making her put her hands behind his neck to avoid falling down, because suddenly she was invaded by a million emotions that were previously unthinkable.

She always thought kissing Matteo would be intense, but this was just… more, it was like feeling every part of herself awake, like getting everything she ever wanted and, at the same time, knowing there was much more coming.

He slowly broke the kiss, keeping their foreheads together.

“Why now?” she demanded to know, when she remembered how to speak.

He looked down at her clothing.

“Maybe, I’m weak for sparkly pajamas,” he answered, making her giggle. “Or perhaps, it was finally the right moment for this as well.” He added, playing with a lock of her hair, and she couldn’t help but kiss him again.

----

With a confused look, Nina entered to her apartment, taking with her a box that had her name written and that she had just picked up from the hallway.

“Luna?” she called her best friend, as she let the keys and the package on the counter, getting no answer.

Weird… the TV was on, so she assumed she would be there.

Maybe Juliana scheduled a last-minute training, and she rushed to meet her, letting everything on. To be honest, it wouldn’t be the first time Luna does that, as she tends to be very clueless most of the time.

With a soft giggle, the girl took something from the fridge and went to sit in front of the TV, starting the chapter of Brooklyn nine-nine that was already selected. She hoped her best friend was having a great time, at least.