#i tried gaslighting her 3 times all my attempts have failed please i just want garlic knots

[deth-of-a-junkie]

i am so hungry i mean so hungry but we do not have the safe foods i want i have just been watching metalocalypse to ignore it but it is not working anymore can some1 PLEASE urber eats me something PLEASE

[myonepiece]

Natural Yanderes in One Piece

description: characters who are yandere without an au!

warnings: yandere, mentions of mental/emotional & physical abuse, mentions of sexual assault

a/n: I wanted to write down my thoughts on the natural yanderes in One Piece. this is probably a pt. 1 because I have a lot of thoughts about other characters too :3

I did some research to find out the “actual” names for the different types of yandere, but most of the characters are similar to multiple types so I just put down the definition/example of the type(s)

disclaimer: I didn’t sugar coat anything so just stay with me- and you might not agree but I’m just trying to explain my thoughts

- when I say darling I am referring to crush or S/O 

Doflamingo

yandere rating: 10/10

obsession, violent, removal (”you don’t need anyone else”), training (trains S/O to love him)

Doflamingo is the whole yandere package- mental & physical abuse and manipulation, stalking, obsession and infatuation, kidnapping, locking away, gaslighting, torture, possessiveness, aggression and violence, toxicity.

Doflamingo’s obsession with his darling rivals Hannibal Lecter’s obsession with eating his victims. I often like to compare Doflamingo to Hannibal Lecter, with his manners, intelligence, and sophisticated taste, and niether hold remorse for their victims- now back to the topic.

Doflamingo can be as stealthy and unnoticed as he wants to be. when he sees someone who specially catches his attention (a future S/O per say), he likes to observe them first and understand them and their thinking, especially if this person is a future lover because he’s already planning what fun he can have playing with their mind, what gets under their skin and gets a reaction.

Doflamingo knows that his actions aren’t “normal” or healthy, or safe, but he doesn’t care. he developes a fetish-like infatuation with his S/O and simply has to have them, no way of getting them is off the table. abuse is an occurrence that happens naturally, rather it be because Doflamingo is angry, at his S/O or at one of his subordinates, it doesn’t matter- because his darling disobeyed him, because he is trying to prove a point, because he wishes to see his partner in pain, or simply because he is bored and torturing his lover is much more enjoyable than torturing his enemies/subordinates.

Doflamingo enjoys a chase and he fancies playing mind games with his S/O, seeing them so distraught and unnerved and fearful is one of his greatest joys, possibly even pleasurable. he likes to make them think they have a chance at escaping, luring them into attempting (and failing) so that he can coo at them and punish them, making them think he’s mad when he’s not, making them think he’s happy when he’s not- their confused expression is remarkably adorable and endearing.

unlike some yanderes, Doflamingo doesn’t try to make his S/O think the world outside is crueler than him, that they’re safer in his arms- while he does tell them they are protected by him, he tells them that he is more dangerous than the outside world, so that they’ll be too scared to leave his side, because he is too powerful to escape.

it slightly hurts me to say this and it might be hard for some to think about, but Doflamingo is not against forcing himself on his S/O- they are merely a tool and a toy for him to use and play with and ruin until it breaks- this symbolizing their will to escape or resist, diminishing and ultimately breaking as a toy would

Sanji

yandere rating: 3/10

harmless (as long as they are happy I’m happy”), stalker, obsession (harmless obsession), wrong idea (”they gave me their eraser... they must love me!”), mild possession

we all know that Sanji has an “obsession” with beautiful women, and when he finds one he especially likes, then it becomes a little more. now Sanji would never ever hurt his S/O, never, I want that to be clear- that’s why he is a harmless type. 

Sanji often watches from afar, and it’s not unusal for him to follow his crush/darling around. he’ll usually ask if he can tag along but if they say no he’ll just linger behind and out of sight, mostly to make sure they’re safe but also so he can observe them. he can be... delusional, take things as what they aren’t (wrong idea type)- if his darling compliments him, even just “good to see you Sanji-kun” he’ll interpret it as they missed him dearly and are so happy to see him again. his head is stuck in the clouds and he’s completely lovesick with a fever of 200°.

for a comparison, his actions before getting together would very similar to those of Anthony Hope’s towards Johanna- Sweeney Todd. Anthony is seen standing by the front of the house watching Johanna while she sits in her window, the song he sings about her “Johanna” (I suggest listening to it) contains lyrics such as “I’ll steal you Johanna... even now I’m at your window... buried sweetly in your yellow hair...” Anthony wants to take Johanna because he is obsessed with her but she is also in danger because she did not choose to live there, she is being “looked after”. 

Sanji’s actions always corroborate to what’s best for his S/O, he only wishes to take care of them and spoil them. he is definitely not the most possessive, but he doesn’t like his darling showing much attention to anyone else, in moments they do, Sanji always becomes clingy and pulls them away.

he’s bordering loneliness induction (”it’s okay I’m here, you don’t need anyone else”) and removal type (you don’t need anyone else when you have me”)

I can not stress this enough, Sanji is a HARMLESS yandere, it’s only the possession and infatuation that gives him the title 

Buggy

yandere rating: 6/10

worship (”I’ll do anything for you, I’ll kill for you!”), dependence (”please don’t leave me!”), monopoly (”who were you talking to”), obsession (”where were you? what were you doing?”), wrong idea (”they gave me their eraser... they must love me!”)

Buggy is a very emotional person, shown multiple times like when he cried when reuniting with his crew and when they told him they waited for him, when he is faced with danger, when he got angry at Shanks because of something that happened many years ago, etc. he craves an actual emotional bond because he’s quite a dependent person. if someone shows him the slightest comfort and attention or sign that they’ll be there for him, he’s in love- but only with that person, the second he falls in love with them they’re the only one for him.

for comparison, Buggy’s relationship dynamic is similar to Peter Pan and Tinker Bell’s (though they aren’t really in a relationship, but you understand hopefully), that is Buggy as Tinker Bell and his S/O as Peter Pan. Tinker Bell is quite obsessed with Pan herself, often trying to get him away from Wendy and going to extreme lengths to do so, she get’s angry and jealous easily, and she is more than ready to fight to defend Peter. Tinker would follow Peter to the end of the world and Buggy would do the same with his S/O.

Buggy craves affection and stability and trust, a ride-or-die, a one and only, a true soulmate. when he finds someone like that, he becomes possessive and obsessed with them, constantly asking to accompany them somewhere or making on of his crew do it- he has trust issues and one of his greatest fears is his S/O cheating on him, loyalty is very important to him. he needs constant reassurance even though he won’t say it out loud. he wants his S/O to depend on him as much as he depends on them so they’ll only need each other (bordering removal type).

Buggy won’t hurt his S/O unless it’s in a moment of overwhelming emotions, anger most often- in those moments he can do anything. he would close his hand around hs S/O’s throat and tell them not to leave, to stay with him, but he’s crying the whole time because the mere thought of his S/O leaving is terrifying, Buggy is afraid of being alone. he’ll slap or shove harshly, insults and praises alike, pleading and threatening. he tends to forget his strength and  sometimes his grip on his S/O’s throat ends up making them pass out then he freaks out and regrets everything, he feels extremely guilty after hurting them and he tries to show he’s sorry with his actions- it’s kind of ironic because even when he causes them though most pain and that’s one thing he never wants you to go through (pain) he always asks you to stay.

because of his fear of being alone he is willing to do anything for you, if you ask him to kill someone or at least step up and battle with another crew, he will. if not being a coward, or at least pretending not to be, for one moment is what it takes for you to stay then consider his cowardness gone, *poof*. ask for anything and this man will give it to you, similar to buying your love and sometimes he realizes that practically what it is- but he doesn’t care, as long as you stay. god forbid anyone try to take you away though, he won’t hold back on someone who. tries to take away his darling, tries to tell them Buggy is dangerous and the relationship isn’t healthy- frankly Buggy doesn’t really notice if it’s healthy or not because he’s not experienced at all, he doesn’t realize his actions aren’t normal, he thinks he’s just in love with you and can’t be without you, he doesn’t even consider it’s an unhealthy infatuation with someone because they showed interest in him once.

[puppypeter]

These are all dark fics, READ THE TAGS before reading the fics. It is your responsibility to check whether what you are about to read is something that you can stomach. While most of these fics are based around trauma, recovery etc many feature triggering scenes or flashbacks as well as darker themes. Please be safe and don’t read them if they can be triggering for you! Proceed with caution! Most of them are Hydra Trash, but still not just the ugly bits as I like there to be a plot. Hiding them below the cut:

between scylla and charybdis | 21590 words

Sam Wilson has been witness to a lot of things he wishes he could unsee. Civilian families shot dead in their cars because of miscommunications at checkpoints. Riley’s body spiralling to the ground in a smoke-plumed plummet. His own face in his bathroom mirror after waking up hung-over as hell at two in the afternoon, the day after the anniversary of Riley’s death, year after year after year.

And now, in an abandoned bunker on the outskirts of Boston, a seemingly unremarkable manila folder at the bottom of a filing cabinet.

Berceuse | 10730 words

There are strange, new things Bucky needs from Steve.

Dreamers Often Lie | 11040 words

As far as Bucky remembers, sex is something that is painful and terrifying if you wake up while it's happening. As the Asset, sleeping through sex was a rare treat. When Steve lets Bucky know he's interested in a sexual relationship, what Steve doesn't know is that they have fundamentally different ideas of what that entails.

despite the threatening sky and the shuddering earth (they remained) | 71532 words

“They really didn’t want the mask to come off.” Hill thumbed through the scans, and pulled out a film that she then handed over to Sam, face mostly expressionless but for the flat line of her pursed lips.

Sam accepted the film and held it up to the light, angling so both he and Steve could see it, squinting at the outline of the Winter Soldier’s skull, and the blips of unnatural white that showed up, God, in his brain, not to mention about half his teeth, plus the mask, with its thin protrusions—

“Those are pins,” Steve realized. He looked over at Hill. “The mask—it’s nailed to his face.”

Hill’s face was as unmoved as ever. “Like I said. They really didn’t want it coming off.”

Fire And Water For Your Love | 77084 words

When the Avengers investigate an abandoned HYDRA base on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., they unexpectedly encounter a dark-haired man with a torn metal arm, who leads them to an even more shocking discovery deeper inside the base. The Avengers must reconcile what they have found with the lies S.H.I.E.L.D. has been telling for decades.

Give An Inch | 5070 words

The Captain has a warm smile and clear, open eyes. The Soldier knows these are tricks. He's fallen for them before and he won't do it again.

Humans As Gods | 4818 words

"HYDRA's scientists had been delighted to find their serum-reversal procedure had worked. Their jubilation was dampened by the discovery that Steve's smaller self might no longer be Captain America-sized but was still 100% Steve Rogers, and Steve Rogers was now mad enough to spit nails. A minor oversight in the design of the containment area meant that smaller-Steve had simply wriggled out of the now ridiculously-oversized restraints like an angry ferret escaping a paper bag, and punched the nearest technician in the nuts.

Chaos ensued."

HYDRA scientists successfully de-serum Captain America, only to discover that they are utterly unprepared for Steve Rogers. Meanwhile, the Winter Soldier follows his instructions to the letter. This works out just great.

The Only One That Needs To Know | 6571 words

Bucky can't control his body. He can only control what secrets he keeps.

I Was Wearing My Blue Coat | 11503 words

Following exposure of his past as the Winter Soldier, anonymous postings of explicit video footage, 63 charges of murder and the wrath of the Internet, James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes finally steps into the limelight and tells his story to Zenat Patel of the New York Times.

Compliance Will Be Rewarded | 4767 words

Someone told him once: "Compliance will be rewarded," and he remembers pressing his head against a man’s leg in open supplication. He remembers hands in his hair, and a gentle grip on the back of his neck. He remembers a man telling him "so good, so good for me aren't you?" And he remembers nodding his head in a desperate attempt to be exactly as good as he was supposed to be.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Bucky Barnes is physically free from Hydra, but the hold on his mind lingers still. All he wants is to go home, and he'll do anything he can to get there.

To Burn Your Kingdom Down | 12370 words

The Avengers go after a Hydra splinter cell with a nasty habit of brutalizing their prisoners. Steve has some ugly history with them, and when a rescue mission gone wrong leaves him and Sam in enemy hands, the situation gets uglier still.

Worth The Wound | 7709 words

The asset knows that maintenance is better than punishment. But with Steve, maintenance becomes more pleasant, soft and gentle and everything he could dream of. It was only natural that he decided to prolong that maintenance a little longer.

The Spaces In-Between | 6971 words | Part 1 of What We Tried So Hard To Hide Away

"Memories are like buckets of water: they weigh on the heart and the brain until the body fails. You're blessed to stay forgetful and young, Soldier."

Sometimes blessings feel like curses.

Illuminate The Scene | 7086 words | Part 2 of What We Tried So Hard To Hide Away

The doctors had wanted to keep the Soldier. Shock him and freeze him until he was fixed, or tear him to scrap if he couldn’t be repaired so that he wouldn’t be an entirely wasted investment. Steve is the only thing stopping them.

When the Soldier can't trust his own body, how can he trust anything?

All These Riots Of Broken Sound | 83790 words | Part 1 of Forever Is A Close And Honest Friend

When Steve and the team return to Avengers tower to find Bucky gone, they must venture into B.A.R.F. to figure out what triggered him to leave and hunt those who wronged him. Trapped in a simulation of Bucky's worst memories with rogue HYDRA agents waiting to strike, 100 years of secrets, lies, pain and love drive the team to their limit and push Steve towards a realisation that is a century in the making.

I Was Lost But Left A Trace | 3585 words | Part 2 of Forever Is A Close And Honest Friend

Disorientated, the Asset reached up to wipe at the moisture on its cheeks and was shocked to find it clear, instead of the crimson it has been expecting. It didn’t understand why this misidentification had caused uproarious laughter from the technicians.

“It is not blood,” the Asset told him, “but it is still a malfunction.”

This sobered the technician a little, and he nodded tightly.

“Yes. It is. But we will fix you.”

I’ll Always Be Blamed For The Sun Going Down | 9907 words | Part 3 of Forever Is A Close And Honest Friend

He knows he’s in the right place. He has heard the guys at the docks laugh and joke about the queers who come out after dark, looking to earn a little extra cash. He has seen the johns, when he’s been out late enough, skulking in the shadows like predators hunting for their next meal, looking for something in particular. Sometimes they look at him.

A small, rusty pen knife that his father had picked up in Europe during the Great War sits heavy in the breast pocket of his jacket. Just in case.

Book Of The Moon | 16019 words | Part 4 of Forever Is A Close And Honest Friend

In 1929, Bucky Barnes falls in love for the first time and resigns himself to never telling a soul, let alone Steve, the object of his affections. In 1943, half a world away from the man he can never have and fighting for his life and his sanity, something new begins to bloom.

Habeas Corpus | 18054 words

An unexpected incident in the field leaves Steve Rogers facing the infiltration of a Hydra base and retrieval of important intelligence, all while pretending to be the Winter Soldier. Unfortunately, there are important aspects of the Soldier's past that Bucky hasn't disclosed, and Steve has no idea what he's really walking into.

Bullies | 14979 words

Written for the MCU trash meme prompt:

I wanna see Steve being messed with by his secretly-HYDRA coworker buddies. I want them generally fucking with him, "accidentally" doing terrible things to him or getting Steve into awful situations, telling jokes that aren't really jokes, gaslighting, performing sexual-assault hazing under the guise that "that's what people do now," pressuring him into other sex shit, anything, just fuck Steve up.

Steve isn't failing to fully catch on because he's dumb or oblivious: it's just that he is Steve, so he wants to believe the best of everybody, and he doesn't want to believe that he could be working for/with bullies and that (as Natasha says) he essentially died for nothing.

Not Unwanted, Not Unloved | 50320 words

They'd resigned themselves to never becoming parents - until Bucky gets pregnant and drops off the grid without even a whisper to his mate about his condition. Steve will still raze the earth to find him, but that doesn't mean he likes what he finds.

The Tones That Tremble Down Your Spine | 13889 words

Tony tells him they’re planning a party for Steve’s birthday. He knows how parties are supposed to go.

Lacuna | 62875 words

The Winter Soldier doesn't remember Steve Rogers, but he needs Rogers' help.

OR: The one where Bucky doesn't remember Steve, but falls in love with him anyway.

Not A Perfect Soldier | 93354 words

In a world where HYDRA was wiped out in the '40s, Steve is found by the Army rather than SHIELD. General Thaddeus Ross wants a perfectly obedient super-soldier at his command, and to that end, he sets out to break Steve to his will. As Steve struggles to come to terms with all he has lost, his life in captivity is only made bearable by the presence of another prisoner-- another super-soldier known only as "Soldat". Then the Avengers strike a deal with Ross to "borrow" him for missions, and Steve is faced with a team who dislikes him, an organization he doesn't trust, and the question of what he's willing to do to escape Ross's clutches.

For Want Of Him | 103174 words

It's the twenty-first century, and Steve Rogers has never been more alone. Everything he knew, everyone he loved, is now gone, and a dark, bitter loneliness claws at him, raking bleeding gashes into his heart. And then there's Brock Rumlow. Rumlow is like salt in his wounds; vicious, and cruel. But his dark brown hair and teasing smirk reminds Steve of someone long dead, and his New York accent sounds like home...He's a soldier like him...he understands. And Steve makes the fatal mistake of trusting him.

The Same Measure | 4943 words

The Winter Soldier was never allowed to stop unless an injury was too grievous.

To Be Unmade | 5114 words | Part 1 of Alexander Pierce Should Have Died Slower

For the asset, things only ever get worse. The external scars fade quickly enough. The internal ones dig deeper and deeper.

But the internal scars are called love, and doesn't that make them worth the hurt?

Do Not Put In The Icebox | 7143 words | Part 2 of Alexander Pierce Should Have Died Slower

When the asset malfunctions on a mission, Rumlow and Rollins learn more than they ever wanted to know about Pierce's hobbies.

And then everyone has pancakes.

The Knowing Makes It Worse | 4130 words | Part 3 of Alexander Pierce Should Have Died Slower

No is a bad word and invites punishment.

Or, Alexander Pierce is a very bad man who delights in manipulating and degrading the asset.

Love Is For Children | 5303 words | Part 4 of Alexander Pierce Should Have Died Slower

Bucky understands how the game works. He can't understand why it makes Steve cry.

But Natasha and the other Avengers are there to help.

I Just Wanted To Be Sure Of You | 4461 words | Part 5 of Alexander Pierce Should Have Died Slower

Bucky has Bucky Bear; it's only fair for Natasha to have something of her own.

Visiting a toy store wasn't strictly necessary, but if Tony wants to throw money around, no one's going to complain.

“Till The End Of The Line | 6069 words | Part 6 of Alexander Pierce Should Have Died Slower

It's hard to take a friendship right back up when so much has changed over seventy years.

Particularly when HYDRA's conditioning resurfaces.

*if you feel that any of these fics shouldn’t be in this list please just send me a message! :) I have read them all but over the past 1+ years so some of them I might not remember all the details of :)

[sound-of-the-cosmos]

The Rain Can Hide Anything (Connor x Reader) (6)

Warnings: Abusive speech, actions and ideology. Degrading speech, mentions of anxiety, gaslighting and violence

Summary: The time for the Interrogation has come, and your mother wants nothing more than to wring your neck. Connor begins to understand the degree of severity of how you were treated by your family. 

“I don’t think humans are supposed to have these kinds of marks, Y/n.” 

Masterlist can be found here

Request board can be found here

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Your heart raced faster with every step. You could hear her voice, and the insults she hurls at the officers trying to keep her contained. She comes around the corner, locking eyes with you. Immediately, you stop in your tracks, feeling the rate of your heart at least double its original pace.

She breaks away from the officers escorting her and makes a mad dash for you, but Connor steps in front of you, his arm out to shield you from any harm.. “Mrs. L/n, I must ask for you to return to the officers escorting you to the interrogation room. If you fail to cooperate, I’m afraid we may have to resort to a more direct approach.” 

She grumbles something under her breath, before letting the man and woman bring her back into the hall leading to the room. Your anxiety grew as you followed, not wanting to be in the same vicinity as her any longer than you had to. Your shoulder throbs as a reminder of what had happened last time. 

“Y/n, you do not have to be in the other room if you don’t wish to be.” Connor speaks softly, his voice catching you off guard for a moment. You take in a short breath, before shaking your head.

“I want to make sure she tells the truth. I’m scared, but this is more important.” Your voice started strong, but weakened with the last statement. Scared was an understatement; you were terrified. But you wanted to make sure these people actually knew what had happened.

Stepping into the room attached to the small interrogation cell, you look through a panel of glass while the officers walk back in and sit down, leaving your mother handcuffed to the table. 

You take in a breath, before Hank places a hand on your back lightly. “I’m gonna try to talk to her. If I don’t get anything out of her, Connor will take a shot at it.” He scans his hand and opens the door, before heading into the sparse room with your mother. 

He sits down, and looks at her, eyes narrowed. “So; you not only broke into my house, but shot your daughter in the shoulder. When she found my partner and I, she was too scared to talk to us properly. Why is that?” He stares directly at her, and she sighs, leaning further back into her chair. 

“Yeah, I shot her. I didn’t break into your house, she left the door unlocked. She gave me the gun willingly, I just chose to do what she wanted me to.” She was smirking, and you bite the inside of your cheek. That isn’t what happened, but... you had left the door unlocked.

“Even if she left the door unlocked, it’s still considered trespassing. Why did you shoot her?” Hank glances at the window, and she scoffs. 

“The bitch ran out on her father and I! I had to do something-”

“Then you report them to us. Unfortunately, even if she did, she’s over 18. Legally, you aren’t obligated to provide or house her.” His voice was firm, and she crosses her arms, leaning back. Hank asks a few more questions, before finally giving up. 

He scans his hand, and Connor steps into the room in Hank’s place. You were biting your lip pretty hard, fears running through your thoughts like wildfire. 

He looks at her a moment, before opening the case file. “3 attempts of arson, 8 files of illegal substances, 2 accounts of kiting checks and 12 declined requests for loans.” He names off a few of the things your mother has done, and she visibly pales. 

“The first arson attempt was after your first husband left you for another woman. You retaliated by attempting to burn them both alive.” He begins to pace as he speaks. “ The second attempt was after your brother threatened to take your daughter, y/n, after witnessing and reporting abuse. Speaking of which, there’s over 17 charges of abuse against you.” Her mouth fell open, but she shut it quickly. 

“People are rude to those they don’t like. As an android, you should understand.’ She tries, but Connor cuts her off.

“The third attempt was attempting to burn Y/n after she snuck out of the house to attempt to get away from you. Should I keep going, or will you confess?” He stops, and stares at your mother, who is now squirming in her seat. She stays quiet for a moment, before sighing.

“You know what? Fine. I hope she’s listening, because I’m not going to sugarcoat anything.” Your mother takes in a breath, before beginning. “Her birth was a mistake; she is a product of a broken condom. I couldn’t afford the off time of an abortion, and maternity leave is often well paid.” Smirking, she continues.

“I thought I could force myself to love her. My husband did, after all. Then he walked out on me, on us, for some cheap whore he’d met at a bar. I knew it was y/n’s fault, so I began to take things away. Punish her for things she knew she was doing. Did you know she tried to kill me? Twice?” 

You let out a small squeak of shock at this. You never tried to kill her, let alone more than once.. 

“Once we got an android, he opened my eyes. She was nothing more than a burden, a nuisance. I didn’t have to pretend to love her, I could do as I pleased. If she didn’t listen, I would-” You stand up abruptly, and walk out, wrapping your arms around yourself tightly. You couldn’t listen to any more, not if you wanted to avoid flashbacks.

The things she did to you- you weren’t sure if you could ever fully heal from them. 

You sit in the women’s room in the handicap stall, curled up on the floor. It was hard to breathe, and you weren’t sure what to do. You just prayed it would be over soon..

After the interrogation, one of the female officers came and got you, telling you she would be facing prison time of at least 30 years. You nodded, and she escorts you out, leading you to Hank’s desk. He turns, and his eyes have a new emotion in them. Pity.

Connor, on the other hand, immediately pulls you into a hug. You let out a soft cry in shock and pain, and he lets go once he realizes you’re hurting. “My apologies, y/n,” His voice is a lot softer than before. 

You nod, wrapping your good arm around yourself. “So, you guys know everything, then, huh..?” Your voice was frail, and you wished you were stronger in that moment. You’d only just met these people a few days ago, and now they knew all of your darkest secrets. 

Connor nods lightly, then speaks thoughtfully. “I don’t see you as a different person, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Your eyes shoot to his face, shocked. How did he know? “I see you as a strong individual who has overcome some extremely difficult scenarios and come out of them stronger than before.” He smiles lightly. 

Your heart swells a little, and you carefully hug the android. Hank smiles slightly at the two of you, cheering Connor on internally. It was hard to miss (to him, at least) that Connor begun to show more deviant-like behavior once you’d shown up.

You bite your lip, before looking at the two of them. “So.. do you know where A/n (Android’s name) is..?” Hank shakes his head, and you nod a little, sitting down as exhaustion overtakes you. The nightmare was halfway over. But you’d have to come to terms with it all eventually.

// I’m not entirely happy with how this part panned out, but maybe the line above will make more sense in part 7...

[shanklin]

The Gargoyle (3/?)

Filbrick angers a witch, gets cursed and gains two sons. One is special and has twelve fingers. The other is a gargoyle.

Chapter Summary: Shermie to the rescue!

Chapter [1] [2] [4] [5]

Read it on Ao3

Chapter Warnings: Filbrick Pines, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Gaslighting (hinted at)

Wordcount: 1633

3. Doctor Thunderman’s Sacrifice

“Damn it!” Shermie’s father curses and hurries to the window trying to find the creature. “What was that?” Shermie asks, but is drowned out by his brother’s cries. The poor baby must be having an awful time in between all the screaming, the fighting and Ma collapsing on the floor. And yet, Shermie is a bit envious of the baby’s ability to make its displeasure known without getting into trouble for it. It would be nice to join Stan in crying until everything is fixed again. Babies sure have it easy. “Boy, get outside and find that thing!” His father orders and Shermie stiffens. How is he supposed to find and deal with an honest to god monster? “You told me it wasn’t real! How could you do that to me?” Ma interjects, tightening her hold on Stan. “What? You suddenly developed a problem with lying, woman?”

Ma gets back up on her feet and faces Pa. She still looks faint but her legs are standing firm as anger flashes through her eyes.

“This is different! What have you done to my baby?”

Pa’s scowling face flushes and he hits the dangling door hard with his fist. The impact makes Shermie jump and the baby’s wails grow more desperate, tears forming in its eyes. “Are you completely mad? That monster is not a baby!” Nothing they say makes sense anymore and Shermie is at a loss what to do or think. “Wha-What’s going on? What was that thing?” He finally blurts out, but it was the wrong thing to say. His father grabs him by the collar and throws him into the direction of the front door shouting “I told you to get out and find it!” into his face. Shermie quickly grabs his shoes and jacket and escapes outside not bothering to put them on until the door is already firmly shut behind him. His parents continue the fight, but Shermie holds his ears closed and sniffles. Why does it always end up like this? He pulls his jacket tightly around himself and walks cautiously into the night looking for some kind of monster it seems. How is Shermie supposed to capture an unknown creature all by himself, when even Pa failed to do so. A bitter laugh escapes him. It’s just another way to toughen him up. That’s how Pa would justify it. Shermie is so sick of it all. Just once he wants to know what it’s like to live in a normal family where everyone loves each other and no one needs to be afraid to speak up. He was so happy to finally get a sibling, a little brother, but maybe he shouldn’t have been. His parents made a bad decision in having another child and now poor Stan will be forced to grow up with Pa as his guardian as well. It’s not an easy fate to live through. A low whimpering from the corner near the trashcans breaks Shermie out of his musings. He gulps heavily and whispers “Please don’t hurt me.” under his breath as he approaches the sound. His stomach twists at what he sees. There in the flickering light of a raddled street lamp lies the broken body of a small grayish creature made out of stone. It’s helplessly twitching on the dirty floor and moves one singlel wing up and down in an attempt to fly off. The other wing is scattered into pieces around the creature and its left arm appears to have been severed during the fall as well. Shermie slides to his knees, all previous fright forgotten, and tries to act as non threatening as possible. “Hey, little guy. Don’t be scared. I’ll help you.” He whispers softly and moves closer, but his reassurances show no effect as the creature curls in on itself and covers its small body with the one functional wing. A car drives by and Shermie is reminded that his father could follow him outside any moment to go monster hunting himself. Shermie needs a plan fast. Telling his father he found the creature is not an option and neither is leaving it here for someone else to find. Who knows what they would do to it. Shermie collects all the broken stone parts he can find and hides them inside the pockets of his pants. Then, he takes off his jacket and scoops the creature up as gently as he can, but not gently enough it seems. It’s clearly frightened and lets out small shrieks as it flails around. The stony wing hits him hard on the side of his head and Shermie has to forcefully stop its movement by wrapping it up in his jacket like a little kitten. He never once stops mumbling apologies during their scuffle. The poor thing did nothing to deserve this. With all of its limbs constrained, Shermie finally gets a proper look at its face and realises with horror that almost half of it is missing. It must’ve happened during the fall. Not half an hour ago, Shermie clearly saw two glowing eyes from his brother's bedroom. Now there's only one staring at him with an ever dimming glow.

Shermie tries to look for the missing eye, hoping he can somehow fix it up if he just finds it, but there's no sign of a blue gemstone-like orb anywhere. It’s too dark. He’ll have to look for it again in the morning. “I need to sneak you inside, little guy. So you have to keep absolutely quiet, okay?” The stone creature responds by raising the volume of its cries. “No no no!” Shermie places his hand around its fragmented mouth in an attempt to drown out the noise and gets promptly bitten. He winces and screams silently under his breath, but the resulting silence from the creature is welcome addition. Shermie can work with this. He makes the creature bite down on his forearm and hides its head under the protruding hood of his jacket. With some luck he can make it look like he's simply carrying the jacket under his arm. Not the best concealment, but he’s desperate and out of ideas. In his mind he can already hear his father complaining about how long it took him to find some fallen rock on the pavement. His time is surely running out. He can’t any longer. With an exclamation of “Ew, monster slobber!”, he wipes the mud-like spit, the creature left on his hand, away and walks up the stairs of their apartment. Cold sweat runs down his neck and the only thing holding him together is the hurtful gnawing on his arm, surprisingly enough. He has to protect this little creature even if it means standing up to bullies and his father. That’s what big brothers are supposed to do, right? He opens the door and before he knows it his father is already in front of him silently questioning where the creature is. His mother is nowhere in sight.

Shermie presses the bundle more closely to his side and holds out a couple of wing fragments for his father to inspect. “I-I’m sorry. This was all I could find. It was too dark outside to-”

“Can’t you do anything right, boy?” Pa barks out, interrupting Shermie’s lie and shoves him out of the way to go and look for the monster himself.

Shermie uses the opportunity to escape to his room, locking the door behind him and sinks to the floor exhausted, his heart beating like crazy. They’re safe, for now.

***

After Shermie forces himself to calm down, he unwraps the bundle and looks at the little gnawer attached to his arm. Chewing on something seemed to have calmed the creature down and under the light of his desk lamp Shermie notices a lack of teeth in the small cracked up mouth, reminding him of his baby brother. In fact its whole stature, apart from the wings and horns, looks strikingly similar to that of a human baby.

“So does your kind always look like this or are you actually just a baby rock?” Shermie muses, not expecting an answer.

He slowly removes the creature from his arm and offers the thumb part of a barely used boxing glove up instead. It happily accepts and starts chewing again. Shermie uses the opportunity to clean his arm off the muddy slobber and come up with what to do next.

How do you even start fixing a living rock? The heros in his comic books always have a convenient superpower or genius scientist at hand to save the day. And the only things Shermie has are a bunch of half baked plans and a secret box of crafting supplies.

He considers this for a moment and gently moves to touch the place where the little guy’s arm broke off. The stumb twitches, but the creature doesn’t show any sign of pain or stark discomfort. Shermie nods. Good. At least it won't hurt the creature then.

Shermie moves to his bed and pulls out the box with the craft supplies and the half dry clay figure from underneath.

He places the figure of his made up superhero on the floor and salutes him.

“I’m sorry Doctor Thunderman, but your expertise is needed. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten!” Shermie promises solemnly and pours a bit of water over the clay hoping it’s enough to turn it into something more moldable again.

The result is not perfect, but still workable and Doctor Thunderman is no more. In its stead there is a lump of clay, a bit too wet in some parts, a little too clumpy in others, but he has worked with far worse material before.

Shermie grins and cracks his knuckles. Now for the fun part.

Next Chapter

[lumateranlibrarian]

Let’s talk about Claudia and Soren, because I’m pretty sure their conflict is going to be one of the biggest parts of The Dragon Prince’s endgame.

The Dragon Prince’s main recurring theme is breaking the cycle of revenge and hate, and how that duty falls on the newer generations when their predecessors failed to do so. This theme is so prevalent that we see the children of The Dragon Prince being placed over and over in chilling parallels to their parents.

Rayla’s parents were the last line of defense for the Dragon Prince’s egg, and yet they failed to protect it, running away or losing their lives (or so we’re led to believe); Rayla chose to be the last line of defense for Zym and Zubeia during the final battle. In her confrontation with the exact same man her parents faced, she was put in the same position, and was also willing to die to save Zym (and would have if Callum hadn’t pulled that spell out of his ass, but that’s beside the point).

Ezran sits on the throne of Katolis, and has to decide whether he’ll let a man driven by vengeance and fear tell him how to use his power. This man inevitably decides that dark magic will lead him to his goal. Like Harrow in his final days, Ezran chooses peace over conflict - and yet, for this choice, Ezran is ousted from his throne and placed in a prison he later escapes (unlike his father, unless you consider a birdcage, subsequently escaped, to be a prison too - oh, wait).

And then. Soren and Claudia.

Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon. Shit’s about to get real.

The scene where Soren snuck away from Viren’s army, leaving Claudia behind, was masterfully executed, and I’m still both delighted and heartbroken over it all. But to map out why it was so excruciating, we have to go back a few episodes. Specifically, the finale of Season 2.

In Breathe, Claudia apologizes to Ezran for her actions attempting to capture him. When Ezran admits that he knows about his father’s death, Claudia empathizes with him by explaining the circumstances of Viren and her mother’s separation.

CLAUDIA I know it’s not the same, but… when I was a kid, my mom and dad split up. I remember hearing them fight a lot at night after we went to bed. And then one day, they told us Mom was moving back to Del Bar, where her family was from. And then they said… we had to choose. And Soren chose Dad. How could I choose? How could I do that? Then my mom looked at my dad, and she told me to stay. She said that I had to stay with Soren, that this was my home, and my brother and I needed each other. And then she left.

EZRAN But how could she do that? Why would she leave you?

CLAUDIA I think she needed to leave for herself. To be happy… somehow. You might have noticed my dad is pretty intense.

EZRAN You must miss her.

CLAUDIA Losing her has been the hardest thing that’s ever happened to me.

EZRAN When you grow up, sometimes there are changes you don’t expect, and you have to face things you’re not ready for. Callum told me that.

CLAUDIA You are so lucky to have a brother like Callum.

EZRAN I know.

CLAUDIA And… I’m lucky to have my brother. Soren is a doof, but he’s my doof! I know he would do anything to protect me, and I would do anything for him.

Pretty upsetting, right? I can understand why a young Claudia would be so torn - after all, no child wants to make the choice between losing one parent or the other. And Claudia clearly recognizes that it was not abandonment, when her mother left - rather, it was her mother doing what was right for herself. Of course, Claudia didn’t come to this realization immediately, and says as much. It just took a long time for her to get there. Again, an understandable response.

Hold onto that! It’s a surprise tool that will help us later.

So, with this in mind, let’s proceed to Season 3, Episode 7, Hearts of Cinder.

Soren has seen some shit.

Where to even start? Viren told Soren all but explicitly to kill the crown prince and his brother. And when Soren and Claudia confronted Viren about this, Viren gaslighted the shit out of his son, to the point that even Claudia was convinced Soren had misunderstood their brilliant, intellectual father for the umpteenth time. This left a deeply upset Soren was wrestling with what he knew and what he was being told. Every time Soren tried to ask for more information, he was harshly rebuffed by Viren, or more gently brushed to the side by a (perhaps willfully) naive Claudia. He knows what Viren wanted him to do with Ezran, and this has been weighing on him for a while. When Ezran spared his and Claudia’s lives, and then was himself thrown in jail (a fucking ten year old boy cuffed in the same prison cell used to contain a treasonous archmage), Soren finally put his foot down and said, actually, fuck this.

And, before I get into the quotes once more, I’d like to point out: Soren isn’t actually stupid. He has his blatantly obtuse moments, yes, but he did come up with the plan (and muster the sheer audacity it took to pull it off) to get Ezran out of Katolis. That doesn’t happen by being an idiot.

Anyways, hold on to that. It’s a surprise tool that will help us later.

By the time Viren, with Aaravos’ help, manages to siphon the power of the Sun Elves’ city, Soren has seen enough. And when Viren straight-up assumes that Soren will be blindly willing to be the first transformed soldier - perhaps because he assumes Soren is too easily led to refuse - Soren says no. He says, I don’t want to do this. I’m scared.

You know how the rest of that scene goes.

Let’s get to the good stuff.

Soren flees, and Claudia goes after him.

CLAUDIA Soren. What’s going on? Where are you going?

SOREN I can’t stay here anymore, Claudia. You’ve seen what’s going on. What Dad turned Kasef into. What Dad turned into.

CLAUDIA Maybe he’s just doing what needs to be done.

SOREN Claudia, you’re changing, too. But it’s not too late. Come with me, Claudia. You can leave him!

CLAUDIA Please, Soren, don’t… don’t do this to me. Don’t make me choose. Not again!

SOREN Okay. Goodbye, Clauds.

CLAUDIA No! No! No, no no!

Do you see the parallels? Yes? No? All right, let’s go.

Both of these scenarios have arisen because of some sort of discord between Viren and his (I hope) loved one

Both loved ones (the children’s mother and Soren, respectively) decided that they could no longer stay with Viren, and had to leave.

Both loved ones gave the remaining family members a choice, to stay with Viren or come with them.

Claudia couldn’t decide, or Claudia wouldn’t decide, and this drove her to intense distress.

Hoping to spare Claudia pain, the leaving party told her to stay with Viren and Soren (or, just Viren), and Claudia had to watch someone she loved walk away.

The writers are bringing their A-game here, in case that hasn’t been made abundantly clear yet. There are a couple of reasonable assumptions we can make, going off these pretty blatant similarities:

Claudia and Soren’s mother was likely also upset about Viren’s growing reliance on dark magic. Or at least, that was a part of it.

Claudia and Soren’s mother returned to live with her family in another city, far away. This raises the possibility that Team Zym and associates are now Soren’s “family”, and like his mother, he’s not likely to go back.

Remember that first “surprise tool”? Claudia, while heartbroken now like she was then, may be able to forgive Soren for leaving her, as she came to understand her mother’s reasons for finalizing the divorce and moving away from the capital. Whether she does, and if doing so leads to reconciliation, however, remains to be seen…

This scene was beautifully executed, and kudos to the writers, animators, and voice actors for a superb character study. I am curious, though. Claudia has been closely paralleled with Viren, here. It’s possible that Soren has had several moments in the series so far where his actions and motivations mirror his mother’s, and we just don’t know about it because of how little we know of her.

But wait! We’re not done. I did say I think a final, major confrontation between Claudia and Soren is part of the endgame, right? Let’s dive into that.

Point: Claudia is either more powerful or more dangerously driven than Viren. Why do I say this, given all the crazy shit Viren’s done, especially under Aaravos’ counsel? Because Claudia brought Viren back from the dead. She has done what Viren either never could, or never dared to do. If Viren had been able or willing, he would have saved Sarai.

(If that’s not true… if he chose not to save Sarai, in favor of collecting her last breath in order to make a cursed weapon that could bring down Thunder… well, any shred of redeemability Viren had is now gone in my mind. Because how do you look your friend, a grieving husband, father, and king in the eye when you hold his wife’s last breath in your hands and say, “This is all I was able to save,” when it’s a lie?)

Point: Viren failed Aaravos. Viren failed Aaravos, but Claudia has managed to perform what is, as far as we know, the impossible. From the split second glimpse we have of her face immediately after Viren is revived, it seems like she just cast the spell - her eyes are pure black, but quickly fade to their original color, much as they did when Claudia restored Soren’s ability to walk using life force siphoned from a pair of deer. We also know that Aaravos has been spinning himself a new form over the two days before Viren was revived - it’s possible that Aaravos doesn’t yet know what Claudia has accomplished. What will Aaravos do, I wonder, when he learns about the impossible prodigy he has access to? It’s implied that Claudia still doesn’t know about Aaravos speaking through the caterpillar, but that hardly matters to a master manipulator like Aaravos. When you want to conquer Xadia, do you want a broken, old pawn, or a young and innovative replacement instead?

Point: Soren is not stupid. He’s not booksmart, obviously. But he’s got a keen eye for strategy. How do I know? Because he made Captain of the Crownsguard at the age of 18. Because it took him all of two seconds to see a dragon brought down by ballista during the battle to realize that the only way to give the dragons a fighting chance was to keep them in the air. Because he planned - no, he masterminded - Ezran’s escape from the dungeons and subsequent journey across Xadia to get to Zym before Viren. And because he timed it just right, Viren has no idea Ezran has escaped until the final battle - if he even knows at all, given that the only interaction we see is between them after Ezran’s escape is on the battlefield, with Ezran and the illusion Viren created by Claudia.

Point: The Illusion Viren.

This frame was the one that, of the entire season, truly stole my breath away.

Viren (well, illusion Viren, but that’s not the point of this frame) is the dividing factor between Claudia and Soren, and he has caused this rift between them due to his intent towards Ezran. Soren’s compassion and duty towards Ezran has allowed him to see the truth of Viren’s actions, whereas Claudia’s compassion for Ezran has blinded her to the fact that her own father could act so horribly to him.

And, if you’ll indulge me for just a minute, I have to wonder - why was this the ploy Claudia chose to use, to distract Soren and Ezran from the threat at the top of the Storm Spire? She has adamantly been opposed to the idea that Viren would ever orchestrate Ezran’s death, including several clear warning signs and Soren’s testimony. So why did she use this illusion - of Viren going after Ezran, clearly trying to kill him - against Soren, when his resolve to protect Ezran from Viren is what led him to the Storm Spire in the first place? Claudia is horrified when Soren demonstrates that he is willing to kill his own father to protect Ezran (who is, by the way, still a ten-year-old boy, king or not). But isn’t this what Soren has been saying all along? That Viren has been telling him to kill Ezran, and that Viren is wrong, and Soren believed this so much that he chose to leave rather than continue gong along with Viren’s plans? So, whose resolve is Claudia really testing here - Soren’s? Or her own?

I think it’s the latter, honestly. But back to our regularly-scheduled programming. Where was I?

Ah, yes.

Endgame.

So what do we know? Claudia is quite possibly the most powerful dark mage in the world. She’s chosen to continue aligning herself with Viren and Viren alone. Soren is a strategist driven by duty, and is surrounded by other warriors of similar mind and similar or even better skill. Unless a new threat emerges beyond the alliance of Viren and Aaravos (which isn’t impossible, of course), the two siblings are in direct opposition to one another. Claudia must live with the fact that her brother was willing to kill their father, and has left her to pick up the pieces. Soren must live with the fact that he was willing to kill their father, and that Claudia’s manipulation is what drove him to it.

The two of them have also, believe it or not, grown up with vastly different influences during their formative years. Differences in treatment from Viren aside, there’s an implication that Claudia and Soren have been on separate paths for a long time. Claudia is clearly Viren’s favorite - he has actual conversations with her, listens to her questions and attempts to answer them (whether the answers or truthful or not is another issue). Meanwhile, Viren puts very little effort into understanding Soren. Likely, he believes he already does, as Soren isn’t, shall we say, the most complicated of individuals. So, Claudia gets private tutoring under her father, and academic and intellectual training that Viren can relate to and challenge and encourage. Meanwhile, Soren, the family jock, goes into the castle guard. It’s not clear what all this would entail, but I imagine he trained with other recruits for a time in his own age group, reported to a commander or other superior officer, and probably received some sort of advanced training when it became clear he was a prodigy in his own right - after all, it’s not your average eighteen-year-old who is placed in charge of the security of a monarch. To sum up, Claudia was favored and likely spoiled to some degree by her father, whereas Soren excelled in military boot camp, which requires recruits to learn how to carry their own weight and take responsibility for protecting others in a very different sense than Viren’s supposed dedication to the realm.

Narratively speaking, despite first impressions, Claudia is the sibling with more cards stacked against her. She is falling faster and faster towards the point of no return with dark magic, whereas Soren has fought for every inch of his venture into the light. I’m anticipating larger confrontation between the two siblings than what we have seen so far. My heart breaks for both of them, but when I think of how future generations of humans and elves will tell the story of the Dragon Prince, these tragic siblings will fill one of the most resonant threads of the epic.

Ezran rode into the throne room that was his by birthright on the back of a massive, black-furred beast whom he charmed into loyalty. Rayla tackled a madman off of the highest peak in Xadia, and Callum dove selflessly after her. Claudia raised her father from the dead. Soren crossed miles of hostile territory in a single night to warn the Dragon Prince of a coming army.

There is a story being told here. Sometimes, history repeats, and sometimes, it rhymes. Cycles are meant to be broken, but only time will tell how Claudia and Soren handle the one they’re trapped in.

Can I just say, though?

Claudia is going to make one hell of an epic villain.

Bring it on.

[cherrycoveredpythia]

Extended thoughts on Brave the Tempest

2017’s Ride the Storm closed out the four-book arc that also included Hunt the Moon, Tempt the Stars, and Reap the Wind.  In these books, Cassie battled Ares and his minions while drawing closer to Pritkin and eventually hunting him through time and space. She learns more about her abilities while trying to save his life, and also becomes a reluctant power player in supernatural (and inter-dimensional) politics. Without her faithful companion by her side, she becomes more confident in her own powers and resourcefulness. Of course, she’s still Cassie, so all her discoveries and victories are slapdash and hard-won. But they are still victories. She’s a daughter of Chaos, give her a break.

Brave the Tempest focuses on Cassie’s political duties and her complicated feelings about being a leader and a “hero”. She’s now slain two gods (with help), but that doesn’t result in easy respect from the witches or the vampires. The witches see her as a tool of the Silver Circle, while the vampires see her as an extension of Mircea. They are all so wrong.

Cassie has to demonstrate her full strength to convince these factions to cooperate with her. It works, but nothing is ever simple. In the long run, who will love her and who will fear her? 

She’s becoming more like her mother every day.

Overall feelings

There are some amazing, joyful moments here. Please understand that I adore these books and characters, so I say this with love…

… but the book felt disjointed to me. We buzz back and forth from the witches to the vampires to the demons, and then go to Faerie and Victorian England. We get emotional scenes with Mircea, Pritkin, Marco, Rhea, and Rico. Augustine brings home a kidnapped fae. Tami needs to hire some staff but no one will take the job. Fred is a spy. Cassie is exhausted. I felt kind of exhausted too.

Important plotlines: Cassie’s growing pains with her powers, the political trouble with the witches and vampires, and the imminent invasion of Faerie. And then there was the timeline rupture. The rupture was terrifying and the fight with Jo in Victorian London was a full-on horror show. Cassie learned more about Pythian spells and then linked up her powers with Pritkin through the Lover’s Knot spell.  She’ll probably need these tools for the coming showdown. She and Pritkin are even more powerful together than they are apart. And they are both forces for good. But will everyone see them that way?

I think Karen is just laying out all the pieces for the next arc. It’s a little messy right now, but it will all fit together soon. I’m glad that Shatter the Earth is coming in December. If I had to wait another two years for the next book, I would be upset.

Favorite moments

Pritkin flirting and Cassie retaliating during S’mores night. Especially the marshmallow at the end. Goddamn.

The Dickening.

Everything related to Saffy and Vi, and seeing Saffy and Rhea becoming friends. I think she is a great influence on Rhea.

Pritkin and Cassie’s meeting with Adra. I high-key love Adra. He’s a really interesting foil for Caedmon, who leads their alliance with the “heavenly” planes. Caedmon is manic and charming, while Adra is pleasant and even-keeled. Except when he forgets to animate his glamourie. I reallllllly want to know what Adra looks like under there, but I figure he’s a Lovecraftian monster that would drive us insane.  

Adra shading Pritkin for never attending demon council meetings like other “heirs apparent.” 

Cassie nonchalantly offering to bring Adra to the vampire council.

Gertie nonchalantly easing Pritkin out of the room and shifting him to the depot.

Cassie borrowing Pritkin’s powers to suck the energy out of Jo.

Big events and revelations

Pritkin is not shy and neither is Cassie. I thought we would get some pussy-footing about their relationship, but we DID NOT. Pritkin came on strong and Cassie reciprocated. I wish I had a chance to read Siren’s Song first. They had some time to let the tension build and I *do* love a slow burn… torture me, baby!

Ancient Horrors! Children of Tiamat/Tethys! Pritkin is 1/16th divine! Kind of a watered-down Ancient Horror, if you will. Minus the tentacles.

Lover’s Knot

Fucking Jonathan

Invasion of Faerie needs to happen ASAP

Jo is more dangerous as a ghost because ghosts can absorb infinite power. (Can we turn Billy Joe into a super soldier???)

MIRCEA THE BOLD!

Cassie agreed to go find Elena because she’s afraid that Mircea will do it himself. And she doesn’t want to kill him.

Fred is a spy working for MARLOWE! And I guess his master power is camouflaging his aura.

Rico is from Napoli (this explains a lot, because I was confused when he said putanas instead of putane. Dialect!)

NEW PYTHIAN SPELLS: Shards and Chimera!

Young Agnes is a real bitch.  

The pros

I said this in a separate post, but I’ll say it here too. Cassie and Pritkin are back together and their relationship is so healthy and mutually supportive that it makes my heart ache. This is real #relationshipgoals. They are confidants and protectors and cheerleaders for each other. They don’t keep secrets or manipulate or gaslight. We need more of this sci-fi/fantasy and romance. There are too many dark, brooding male love interests who are borderline abusive. (Ahem, Mircea.)

MORE LGBT REPRESENTATION! 

The emergence of Mircea the Bold. I like Mircea as a character, but not as a love interest for Cassie. I’m happy to see him going through this transformation. He’s becoming more open and genuine. He’s not going to win Cassie’s affections, but I do think that he’s going to redeem himself in Dory’s eyes.

GERTIE IS BACK! And *not* as a roadblock. She’s a powerful woman who helps other women, and I am all. about. that. mood.

The cons

 TOO. MUCH. RECAP. Especially recap that broke up highly emotional moments. I don’t care if you are trying to explain things for new readers. Fuck ‘em. Anyone who buys a book, discovers it is part 1000 of an ongoing series, and tries to read it anyways… is a psychopath.

Too many plot-lines

 I miss Rosier.

We all knew that something was up with Fred, but I don’t think that his revelation as a spy got as much weight and screen-time as it deserved.

 I feel like the “wrap-up” with Jonathan felt rushed. He’s supposed to be terrifying but I’m like “meh, whatever, Jonathan, small fry compared to Apollo and Ares.” But I think she’ll get back to it in greater depth in the next book, so I can deal.

Can we PLEASE have some consistency about Agnes’s age? We see her as a teenager in late 19th-century London, for god’s sake. She must have been *at least* 130 years old when she died, and that’s being charitable. Previously, Cassie has said that Agnes was about 80. Lies. 

The questions

1.       My BIGGEST question. Cassie is changing. Not just maturing, but changing on a metaphysical level. The coldness, the hunger… I’m frightened for her. It’s not withdrawal from the Tears of Apollo and it’s not normal exhaustion. I have some theories.  

 Her divine side is becoming stronger and she’s beginning to require life energy in the same way that her human side needs food, water, and sleep. Why is this happening now? Maybe the Tears of Apollo are part of the equation, albeit indirectly. She’s been using more and more Pythian power thanks to the potion, and perhaps that has awakened her divine side more strongly. This is a little worrisome because she may have to feed on a regular basis to stay functional. Can she get all the energy she needs from incubus sex or from the Lover’s Knot? What are the moral considerations here? 

Less likely, but she might really be pregnant. I’m not a huge fan of this idea, but Rosier does mention in Reap the Wind or Ride the Storm that the incubus-child feeds on the life energy of the mother as it grows. That’s why his attempts at procreation failed until he impregnated Morgaine, who was part royal fae and part divine. If this is the case, Cassie might be having life-energy cravings instead of food cravings. Or maybe this is the divine/demon/fey version of morning sickness? Pritkin, please start using birth control.

2. What happened with Pritkin in Siren’s Song? Does Jonas know his true identity now?

3. So who is Pritkin’s divine great-great grandmother? Any speculation?

4. Cassie begins to wonder if any of the gods might be open to diplomacy. This must go somewhere. And it’s true, there are a number of gods in the pantheon who are traditionally friendlier towards humans than others. Athena is the first that comes to mind. There’s also the mythic trope of the Trickster/Fire-Bringer who helps humanity: Prometheus, Anansi, etc.  And there’s Loki, who doesn’t so much love humans as he loves to trouble the other gods.

MVPs

Ok, Cassie is the real MVP, as always. But barring her, I’m awarding this prize to the no-nonsense, sisterly duo of our hearts: Gertie and Hilde. They are officious and annoying, but that’s because they tell you what you don’t want to hear, and they are RIGHT. They are so right.

[cjfloodauthor-blog]

We Need to Talk About Alcoholism

Is it time to stop gaslighting yourself and stage your own intervention?

I’m trying to stop drinking, but alcohol won’t let me.

It recommends itself using my inner voice, the advice of my friends and family, billboards, the radio, books, TV.

One drink won’t hurt!

You can just have a couple.

YOLO! ; )

It doesn’t care how desperately I want to change my life or be able to trust myself or fill my time with other things.

Alcohol is like a charismatic bad boyfriend with a PhD in Neuro-Linguistic Programming who has taken over my mind, fooled my friends and family, and refuses to let me go.

You’ll never meet anyone who makes you feel the way I do.

I’d just turned thirty and my drinking had been out of control since I could remember, but recently I’d started to care. It used to be exciting, social, lost weekends and wild weekday nights; adventures and dancing and climbing scaffolding to look at the city stars. Now it was the same every time. Quiet nights in. Just me and a bottle of wine, sometimes a boyfriend, always the Internet.

I loved it, but I wasn’t in love. We wanted different things, but I didn’t know how to live sober.

“You don’t still stay up all night drinking, do you?” a friend asked, when I explained that I wouldn’t be able to make it out for dinner — although we hadn’t seen each other since we graduated, and she’d just travelled five hours to visit me — because I was still too hungover to be vertical.

“No!” I lied, instinctively. “It just got out of hand last night.”

She looked perplexed and I wished she’d leave. Because I loved her, but what do you do with non-drinkers? I tried my best not to know any, but this one slipped under the radar. Drinkers are wonderful because they don’t need entertaining. No plan required. You lead them to the pub and voila!

Her words echoed in my head long after she’d gone.

“You don’t still stay up all night drinking, do you?”

Was I not supposed to stay up drinking, then? Was it somehow ungainly and shameful and wrong?

The words hit a target I wasn’t aware resided within me. That sad, confused look! That was the reason I didn’t spend time with non-drinkers. Too judgey. So what if I was thirty and living the same life as when as I was twenty. I was a writer. (If only there were a key that adds a fanfare along with the italics.) So what if I lived in a shared house, with no food in the cupboards, still ‘borrowing’ money off Mum and Dad. That’s what writers did!

“But you’re a fun drunk!” a different friend told me, a year or so later, as I shared my longing for an alternate life in which I drank green juice and practiced yoga and went to the theatre; a life entirely incompatible with my current relationships, habits and behaviours.

I was thirty-two now, and there had been so many failed attempts at weeks or months of sobriety that even I couldn’t take myself seriously.

It was Friday night and this friend had agreed to accompany me to the cinema, because I was trying to avoid the pub, which meant trying to gain control of my life — though she didn’t know that, of course — and so, naturally, after the film, she suggested we go to see everyone, which meant pints in the pub, since that was where everyone was on a Friday night. lnstantly, I forgot my agreement.

We went to join the gang, just for one, or okay, if more than one, we had to stop drinking at midnight. We couldn’t stick to our drinking rules for the duration of making them, but we didn’t notice that. We made a pact to leave the bar at midnight, no matter what.

“Anyway, you don’t need to worry,” she said, conspiratorially en route to the Volunteer Tavern. “Because I’ve solved the problem of getting too drunk.”

“Really? How?”

“The trick is to drink halves.”

I nodded encouragingly, the soft part of my throat twerking at the mention of beer, and we walked from the cold, lamplit street into the warm, yeasty pub to wait for the bar man’s eye contact.

Youngish people sat at wooden tables, playing board games and laughing, checking their phones and swigging frothy pints.

“Two halves of Amstel, please,” I said, and the barman picked up two tiny thimbles of glass, leftover from what I could only assume was some kind of teddy bear’s picnic.

“Sorry, I mean a pint and a half!” I panic-shouted before I could stop myself.

The cold amber liquid ran up the glass, and I swallowed, reflexively, took a swig as soon as the barman handed the drinks to me.

“Drinking halves is daft,” I told my friend as we made our way to where our group sat, drinking pints and smoking in the beer garden. “You’ve drunk the whole thing by the time you get to your table and have to go straight back to the bar. A pint saves you a trip. And sometimes five pee too!”

She shrugged, not really listening, and I felt my last dregs of self-respect drain out the bottoms of my filthy Converse. Who was I saying this stuff for? Even I didn’t listen to me.

The lager was cold and fizzy and as it touched my tongue, I remembered that I didn’t like the taste. Strange since I’d been compelled, only seconds earlier, to buy a larger serving.

Still, I needn’t worry about that now. I needn’t worry about anything: I was drinking and all was well. I forgot my silly dream of sobriety, forgot my broader feelings of dissatisfaction, and my friend and I talked and laughed and shed secrets in our usual breathless, hurtling way. And then it was midnight and she finished her final half and hugged me goodbye — she had writing to do in the morning; a deal’s a deal! — put on her coat and headed home. I watched her walk out, then headed back to the bar to order another.

“Last night was wonderful,” she text the next morning. “Seeing you was so nourishing.”

It is beginning to dawn on me that my current network can’t provide the support I need to give up alcohol. They can’t solve this problem that lies within me because they don’t understand it.

I read books about abstinence (Blackout, Drinking: A Love Story, Lit) and pore over posts on websites (Hip Sobriety, Soberistas) about the same, and I feel so inspired, so excited and determined, until the next time, out of nowhere, a pint sounds like a good idea, and I decide to ‘just have one’ and wake with a hangover yet again. I make the same promise to myself: tonight I won’t drink, no matter what, and then I break it. Over and over and over.

Until I am so tired.

In my circles, alcohol is like water, life isn’t possible without it, and if that is wrong we didn’t want to be right. Popular culture agrees — drinking is fun! — as long as you drink responsibly, which is so easy and intuitive that only the party-pooping government offer any guidelines.

Booze solves your problems: loneliness, boredom, crap TV, aging, ugliness, death. It provides sex and adventure, increases beauty — not just yours, but everyone’s! — the world itself’s. It turns up the colours, adds a coat of hyper gloss to the matte finish of planet E.

Why would anyone give it up?

If I could only stop thinking it was a problem then the problem would vanish. Poof!

So why can’t I stop thinking it’s a problem?

Because I’m an alcoholic?

Three years sober, I’m still ambivalent.

The label is out-of-date, but since I started using it my life is strikingly on track.

Am I a ‘high-functioning alcoholic’? No. No one is. Too much of an oxymoron.

Three years sober, I regularly self-identify as an ‘alcoholic’ but when I do, it is acts as shorthand for this:

‘I have an infuriating brain-twist regarding alcohol which means I cannot remember its negative qualities at the same time as I have excellent, technicolour recall of its positive qualities; and because I hear your stories that describe the same twist, I would love your help in holding a realistic perspective on this substance which made my life painful and narrow, and yet which I often long for with a fervent and inexplicable thirst’.

Is the outdated label starting to make sense?

There is almost no evidence of how my drinking was destructive outside of my own psyche. Which is not the same as saying there is no evidence that my drinking was destructive.

My story has so little drama, and yet, weirdly, that’s why I’m compelled to share it. How many people keep drinking because they aren’t ‘bad enough’ to identify with the 12 steppers? How many keep drinking because their friends smile and tell them that they don’t have a problem?

Women, we need to stop gaslighting ourselves and learn from our experience.

There are so many tools and support networks who want to help: AA, Smart Recovery, Soberistas, Hip Sobriety, This Naked Mind, Recovery Elevator being just a few I’ve used along the way.

Most of the evidence of my drink problem came from the way my life changed after I quit. I wonder how your life would change if you did?

Sign up for more from me at beautifulhangover <3

[thelittlestspider]

💜👻

@mvcreates

💜- top 3 favorite lines

hmmmm. okay forewarning: this is gonna be long. also spoilery. 

1. sage “kills” owen.

[warning(s): car accident, violence, torture, blood, guns, gunshots, and crying.]   

sageis driving when the tires are shot out, causing them to spin out andflip over a bridge. Sage is hella pissed. Like burn the world downpissed. She drags violet and carter out of the vehicle, laying themdown safely out of sight, and then goes to hunt down the fucker thatdared to try and kill them.

Shegoes up to the bridge to see a boy and a girl who she thinks might besiblings, holding guns in their hands. Sage holds up her hands tomake them feel safe.

“whoare you” asks sage, slowly edging closer to them.

Theboy smirks. There’s a look in his eyes sage dislikes immediately,something evil. “hm, nobody you need to worry about.”

sage’smouth quirks. “i doubt that.” she glances at the girl, then atthe gun aimed at her. They are fools, the both of them. She wouldhave thought they were trained better than this.

Sagegrabs the gun out of the girl’s hand, punching her hard enough todaze her. She spins lightning fast to hit the boy with the butt ofthe gun, then slams her hand against his chest with enough force tobreak ribs, dropping him to the ground. When he holds the gun up,wheezing for breath, sage wrenches it from his grasp. He glares ather with a hatred that would be frightening if he wasn’t so pathetic.

“thiswas your idea, wasn’t it?” she asks, voice low, soft. “i hopeyou’re satisfied with what happens to you now.” his sister screamsat the first gunshot, tears streaking her face, her handoutstretched. Sage glances at her. “get out of here while you stillcan. I might not feel so charitable once i’m done with your brother.”

theboy gurgles as blood fills his lungs. His sister cries. Sage watchesthe scene, unmoved by their pain.

“what’syour name?” the girl looks up at her with frightened eyes, lipsquivering against her sobs.

“w-what?”

“yourname.”

thegirl opens her mouth and closes it again, struggling to draw breathinto her lungs. “bella. My name is bella.”

“thankyou. I just wanted to know who i’m dealing with.” sage walks aroundthe boy’s legs to stand next to his side. He gives her that glareagain. She narrows her eyes at him, places her foot on his gunshotwound, and presses down. “Now i’m going to offer you a way out ofthis. You leave him here, I spare your life, you live the life you’vealways wanted free of this cancer.” he screams as she presses downharder, grinding her heel into his wound. “he made you do this,didn’t he? He’s always making you do things you hate.”

“yes,”whispers bella. More tears fall down her face. Bella’s guilt ispalpable.

“go.”

bellastands on shaky legs and walks away. She doesn’t look back.

i mean. it’s gonna have to be rewritten but like sage is so fucking raw in this scene i had to put it here. 

2. nina tells carter about her abusive ex kyle. i really like bc it was one of the scenes i wrote that solidified the bromance between them. 

[warning(s): talk of emotional abuse and gaslighting.]

the party has been going approximately an hour, when they realize nina is nowhere to be found. Violet sends carter to make sure nina hasn’t been kidnapped or eaten, or boarded herself up in the bedroom to avoid an awkward conversation.

Eventually carter finds her sitting in one of the lawn chairs in the backyard, gazing up at the night sky. She looks so serious sitting there, knees pulled up to her chest. Carter wonders if the void would give him the answers to life’s mysteries if he asked, or if it would stare back at him with its vast coldness, as unknowable and everchanging as time itself.

He plops himself into the chair next to nina, deciding nina’s troubles are more important than the void.

“are you alright?” asks carter, copying nina’s sitting position.

“yeah, i’m fine. I get overwhelmed when it’s a big crowd of people. So sometimes I have to go hide away somewhere when it gets too much.”

“um, ever since I was a kid, i’ve always liked going out at night and talking to the moon. I’d tell her about my day, or about the books I was reading.” nina smiles jewel bright in the faint moonlight. “kyle always told me I was weird for doing that.”

“was kyle nice to you?”

“most of the time. I guess.” nina looks down at her hands, fiddling with a thread on the sleeve of her cardigan.

Carter waits for her to speak.

“kyle could be really mean sometimes. He would tell me I was weird and that’s why I had to have the moon as my friend, because I couldn’t get anyone to be friends with me.” nina’s eyes become shiny as she talks, reliving an open wound. “and when i’d cry because it hurt so bad, he told me he was sorry. Then he would um,” nina sniffles, wiping tears away with her sleeve. “he would buy me gifts, take me out to dinner; that kind of thing. He was so sweet that I forgave him, and I’d start to wonder if I had overreacted, like maybe I just blew it out of proportion.”

“but I wasn’t carter, I wasn’t.” nina’s face scrunches up. “he didn’t care about me at all. When the ghosts hurt me, he didn’t believe me. He said I was just making it up for attention.” carter wraps his arms around nina, rubbing her back as she cries. “tiffany was the only person who believed me.”

“i’m going to set him on fire,” says carter, deadly calm. “and then i’m going to use him to light my cigarette.”

“please don’t do that,” nina hugs carter tight, resting her cheek against his shoulder. “but thank you.”

some of this is gonna be rewritten bc of plot related stuff, but i still really like the lines in this.

3. carter confides in nina about a one night stand gone wrong and about his past. nina is heartbroken. 

warning(s): mentioned slutshaming, implied domestic violence and sexual assault. it’s not graphic or anything like that, but still heed the warnings just in case.

nina hears carter take gasping breaths behind the door as he cries, and holds her clasped hands to her chest, a terrible ache in her gut. She recognizes that kind of crying; the kind of sound you make when you try so hard to stop, but you can’t because it’s pouring out of you. All of the hurt comes out in these kinds of moments. Nina closes her eyes, bracing herself for the fallout.

She raps her knuckles on the door. “carter, can I come in?”

“come in.”

carter’s sitting on the toilet seat, lips pressed together against another sob. His face and eyes are red and his nose is dripping. He grabs a handful of toilet paper and wipes his face, trying to look brave for Nina and utterly failing in the attempt. Nina looks back at him, thinking Who did this. Nina sits on the floor next to him, back resting against the cabinet, arms draped around her knees. She waits there looking down at her nails to stop herself from looking directly at carter’s downturned face. The trick to getting carter to open up is to let him talk first. She tried to force it once and saw that naked look in his eyes, before he flew away like a startled bird. Out of the corner of her eye, carter sniffs wetly, tears clinging to his lashes.

“i’m sorry,” rasps carter. “i didn’t want anyone to see me like this.”

nina chances a look at him. “what happened?” carter opens his mouth, then closes it. More tears fall.

“some guy I went out with, we– we were having fun. And um, he asked if i’d go back to his place. So I said, “okay.” but once we got there…” carter blinks, eyes distant. “he started getting mean. He called me a, a slut, and he sounded so much like him, I just couldn’t–” he puts a hand against his mouth, lips trembling. “i left.”

I’m so sorry, Nina thinks, blinking back the warm pinpricks behind her eyes. She clenches her hands into fists, feeling her palms itch with the urge to hurt whoever gave carter these wounds.

“if I ever find him, he’s a goner,” says nina, jaw set.

“bella beat you to it,” replies carter with a watery smile.

i can’t spoil what’s gonna happen, but nina sort of plays a part in owen’s eventual downfall. 

👻- 2 or 3 sentences from something you haven’t posted yet

tiffanysees carter grinning down at his phone during break and it takeseverything in her not to lean over his shoulder to find out who he’stexting. The curiousity is killing her.

“so…”she settles onto the stool next to carter, trying to be cool andfailing miserably. “okay you know I can’t be chill about anything.Who are you texting?”

“there’sthis girl. Her name is nina. She likes ballet and horror andantiques. She’s really cool.”

“likebuddy cool or girlfriend cool?” carter looks at her with such blankconfusion – like the thought of nina being anything more than afriend had never occurred to him – tiffany almost laughs out ofreflex. Luckily she doesn’t. She’d hate to put that red tinged,shamed look on his face he wears when he feels he���s done somethingwrong, only he doesn’t know what and he’s being laughed at for it.It’s a look she’s seen him wear too often.

“well,i’m glad you made a friend. I know how hard it is for you.” tiffanyprobably knows better than anyone how hard it is to find a friend.Especially when everyone knows you’re different.

It’sone of the loneliest things in the world.

[witchyinthekitchen]

This is a Vent Post about my Mother, Please do not reblog

This post is probably gunna be all over the place/time with things that I can remember/recall so bear with me here.

-Being told to make my own food bc mom was too busy with brand new baby (I was between 5-6 so poptarts were about all i could manage. I'd asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.) (my brother was a VERY finniky baby. If you weren't holding him he'd scream till his face went purple.))

-Tried to share interests in Anime/manga with her, when I asked her what she felt about it she said she couldn’t get into it and that it felt like a chore. (13-15 ish)

-Told her I needed therapy bc I was having suicidal thoughts. She took me, but then took me out once I started getting upset about the things i’d been talking about in therapy with my therapist because I'd come home in a bad mood.(15-16 ish)

-Went to Mother Daughter Group Therapy with her (there were other mother daughter combos) and she stormed out in the middle of it saying that we were only attacking her and not my dad too. (was 15-16 ish)

-Got into an argument about who i was voting for in the 2016 election while on vacation at Disney World (Hint it wasn't Trump like she wanted)(24 ish)

-Tried to gaslight me about trying to get everyone together to talk wedding stuff saying how she tried but that it all fell apart. (I have texts of her canceling it the day before we were all supposed to get together.)(26)

-Gets super defensive/upset any time I talk about “other mothers” in my life (MIL, BM)

-Has been super hot and cold with me during wedding planning and making passive aggressive comments about everything: Tell him to buy new pants for the engagement shoot 'bc I dont want him wearing baggy clothes -SO's Lost over 20lbs+ for the wedding and i'm so fuckin proud of him- “I don’t want to pay for hard alcohol for SO and his friends to drink at the wedding.” As if ½ the people invited weren’t all just her friends? ((All our friends live out of state/country so half the wedding is family and HER friends/neighbors.)) "I’m sure H*(SIL) and K*(MIL) have good counsel for you on _____," (Why would you say this when i'm asking for YOUR opinion? If i wanted their opinion i'd ask them.)

-4 months before the wedding she’s trying to talk me out of my venue saying we need to go look at the ones SO and MIL had suggested.

-Wants me to keep (BM)'s relation to me a secret even though i’m pretty sure 85% of the people who know me and are coming to my wedding know i'm adopted.

-Angry that I was moving out of the house at 21 with my SO she told his mother she hoped we’d fail. (In her defense she'd just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I'd done poorly in my last semester of college so parents thought it would be a good idea to take me out of college for a semester so i could live at home and basically be at my moms beck and call while also being expected to work 2 jobs (they'd told me the instant that the semester was over that i was expected to work 2 jobs) -That's at least how I was viewing that whole situation before I moved out- )

-As a kid I remember wanting to run away a lot. (Never away to a friends house but always to a park to live under a bridge like the goblin I am (lol)) (is it obvious I use self depreciating humor to get through things that I'm uncomfortable with? haha)

-I'd always hide things from her, even small things like a puzzle book i'd bought myself from the elementary school book fairs. i even began writing my diaries in code so she couldn't read them. Not that i ever caught her reading my diaries or what not but thats how afraid i was.

-The only things that stopped me from killing myself was the distressing thought that my mother would be more upset with blood on the floor than me being gone. (It was a constant worry of mine when I was having ideations.)

-When i was getting close to graduating high school the librarians told me they had a bunch of excess old books they were getting rid of and one of them happened to be the "Toxic Parents" book i've seen several other posts refer to. I took no other books besides that one. I hid that from her too. Looking back through it i remember there was a checklist in the book and i'd filled some of it out when i was younger. I most definitely am a people pleaser.

-We've never really been able to "talk" about things together like how my dad and i do and i think she's really jealous about it.

-The only way I feel comfortable talking to her is Via Email/Text because then that way i have a copy of all the things she's said. because i often forget things. (I honestly don't know how bad my memory is or if its gaslighting but i hope its just me being forgetful and not the latter...)

-I literally cannot let my SO do the dishes because my Mom would always do the dishes/clean when she was mad and bang pots around loudly and just even those sounds set me on edge.

-Her telling me that the careers i wanted to get into (IE: the Arts/Theater/Music) wouldn't make enough money and that they'd be fine as Hobbies but not as careers.

-She's continually trying to push me into a Customer Service Job because i'm so good at making other people happy. (talked to dad about this and he says i'm a very big people pleaser who doesn't like conflicts -cue nervous laughter about wedding planning-)

-Being around her for long periods of time is so physically/emotionally draining. I know that's probably a result of always being on edge with her and I always feel bad that I feel that way.

-Because she's said she hoped I'd fail (me and my So when I first moved out) I'm terrified of telling her anything personal going on in my life for fear that she'd take it out on me or use it against me (i got super anxious/scared when she came up to see me on my end of town once because we'd be stopping at the mall where i used to work and i hadn't yet told her that I'd quit that job.)

-I want to have a relationship with her. I want us to do fun Mom& Daughter things but at the same time I'm scared of letting her get too close to me again just to have it fall apart again.

-When I moved out (21) i went VLC with my whole family before i even knew what VLC was. I barely saw them (except for certain holidays/events.) I didn't talk to my dad for about 3 years because of this and am just now recovering that relationship with him (been 5 years now since I moved out)

-After I get married my plan is to move to CO. During that time i don't remember if my mom has mentioned if she'd miss me, but i do recall she has made multiple points to tell me that my dad says he would miss me.

-I had to beg for a 16th Birthday Party. She finally caved half a year later after I'd talked to my Therapist about it.

-pretty sure i'm the SG of the family (possibly Cousin 1 being the GC because she went to same University my mom did)

-Other family members on her side have stepped in to provide financial help to me on the promise that i wouldn't tell anyone. (probably to stop any gossip of favoritism)

I Don't know if she's an N or just really bad at expressing herself but her hot and cold attitude really sets off my anxiety that i've done something to piss her off and that she won't talk to me about it for a few weeks and then acts as though nothing is wrong/nothing happened. Planning my wedding is the MOST contact we've had in 5 years since i moved out and went VLC and i've been trying to use this as a way to bond with her better but anytime i think i'm getting somewhere Something happens and she's upset again. A phrase i've found myself come into saying recently is "I can't fix something that I don't know is wrong." So i've tried to take that approach when it comes to her. I know she's an adult and can choose for herself if she wants to talk about whats on her mind. I can't force her to talk if she doesn't want to but the anxiety it causes when she gets into these moods is really debilitating. I'm terrible at letting things go (especially if i think its my fault)

I'm Not Her Therapist, but if she has an issue with me I wish she'd just tell me instead of the Silent treatment for a week.

Trigger Topics that I've learned to Avoid at All Costs:

Anything about "Other Mothers" in my life.

Politics & Racism

Anything in the Past that happened.

My moving out

Anything that paints her as a "Bad Mother"(aka this whole post probably)

This post is a mess and I'm rambling. Thanks for sticking through this Brain Dump while I process. 

-Edit 2:

More things i'm recalling: For Christmas one year in front of my whole family (I was between 8-10 ish) she got me a set of underwear with the days of the week labeled on them and told me in front of everyone that "Maybe this would help me remember [to change my underwear daily]..."

One of my final years in high school I somehow managed to get a Cold Sore. My First Cold Sore ever and my lip where it broke out swelled up HUGE. I woke up the day it appeared ( a weekend thank the gods) and horrified went downstairs to tell my mom about it. I don't recall any words of sympathy other than "Cold Sores are caused by Herpes." I just remember breaking down into tears.

I mapped out a "Quiet Walking Path" that avoided all the creaky floorboards and steps in our house.

I get extremely anxious whenever I would hear my parents footsteps coming up the stairs. It got to the point that I could distinguish their steps on Carpet.

I jump/flinch (visibly) at loud noises, even if I know they are coming (movies songs ect.)

Routinely friended/unfriended me on Facebook before deleting it entirely (due to 2018 spying/hacking allegations)

I don't know if she means for these things to be hurtful but as someone who doesn't enjoy confrontation and is extremely sensitive to others feelings it just hurts y'know?

-edit 3: Attempted to talk to mom about her saying she hoped we'd fail via email. went about as well as expected. =Well, that clears a lot of things up. We only wanted you to be independent and happy, and it appears you are. End of story!

And for what it’s worth, I’ve said a LOT of things over the past 6 years that you didn’t hear about. And I’m not really sure where you heard “I hope they fail.” But I’m sure your source is 100%, and certainly not something you’d want to clarify with me.

I hope you got your apartment all squared away in Colorado. You should be under the 60-day notice by now! Woo hoo!

Let me know when you all are coming to get your stuff out of the house.

I’ll have it packed and ready for you.

-Mom

Am i reading into this too much? because it sounds like she's being hella passive aggressive about this.

-Edit 4: 7-19-18 Been venting about wedding planning being stressful on fb away from my mom since she doesn't have one anymore. I didn't realize she had fms reporting to her about my posts as she just randomly mentions via text that she wants to help me have fun while planning and that she wishes she could make it a happy time for me.

Edit 5: 9-26-18 Wedding is over finally. had our honeymoon and got moved out of our apartment back into my MIL's house. During the move we had to put all of our stuff into storage which includes Wedding gifts and thankyou notes. So Mom has been hounding me about getting them done and i've informed her several times that all of that is in storage and i havent been able to yet. She said not an excuse go buy more thankyou notes and write them all. I asked if Emailing a thank you would work, she says no must be hand written and mailed out (also who's paying for 100+ stamps: Me) Well Tonight she informs me that she's doing all the ones from her/my side and that she doesn't care if we do them for DH's side since SIL didn't send any thank you notes either. Cue big long talk with DH about all of this and he says not to worry about her being passive aggressive like this. Go and check my Email to find she sent an Email to me only with writing saying

"Dear all,

Thank you so much for attending --- wedding. Your presence was so important to me, and I know to the kids as well. Thank you also for the lovely wedding gifts you sent or brought. I know they are appreciated and will be enjoyed by the newlyweds. It was very kind and generous of you!

Unfortunately, --- is unable to send thank you notes, but I did want you to know that your gifts, and your presence at the celebration, were very important to all of us, and very much appreciated.

Fondly,

MOM"

currently I'm choosing not to respond and I wonder how our relationship is going to be going forward from all of this... I was so happy that the wedding was over so i wouldn't have to deal with this petty drama bullshit anymore but I guess thats just too much to ask for.

-She's also unfriended me on facebook again. I'm tempted to just block her to stop this wishy washy stuff from happening again.

[fightingmama-blog]

This is long. Please read it. This is a story of The System and how it fails kids. More than that, it’s a story of how people within The System are complicit in this failure. All year I’ve been saying it feels like I’m living a British sitcom because this stuff is just too crazy to all happen to one person at one time. Everything I’ve written is true. I have permission from my daughter to share it, but I want to do so anonymously. Please share this far and wide. I want the world to know how stupidly difficult it is to simply live when your brain is trying to kill you.

 My daughter is 15 and has been struggling with severe depression and anxiety for the past year – well, for longer than that, but with suicide attempts and hospitalizations in this year.

 None of this is or has been secret, but it’s hard to talk about, to make oneself vulnerable. Mental illness is difficult enough to talk about without also feeling like a failure as a mother (regardless of whether that is logical or not). I have learned this year, though, that all of this is a lot more common than I ever thought.

 I think the worst thing a parent can face is the idea that the child they created doesn’t wish to have been created at all. The scariest thing I live with is the idea that I might wake up one morning to find her body.

 I first learned of the suicidal ideation (SI) last November. Immediately I went to her school for help because not long before we had had a meeting to support her anxieties and I was told they could help in these cases. They did nothing for a full month, despite me calling weekly to check in.

 She eventually began receiving therapy at a place called Nueva Vista (NV), but not until the end of January. Her first psychiatrist appointment was not until nearly a month later and she wound up not making it because of her first hospitalization. The doctors in the hospital started her on meds, though. I could not get another appointment with the NV psychiatrist for almost another month and she wound up missing that one, too, for the same reason. At this point I demanded that they see her sooner and they made it happen.

 Before, I never really understood the need to pull a child out of school for a doctor’s appointment, but now she’s been pulled out on a regular basis. Sigh.

 She was hospitalized once more in April, this time due to a reaction to a new medication they had tried.

 A few weeks later we were told that NV provides services in sets of 13 weeks. She was at the end of her first one, and they were applying for a second, but that she would likely not receive a third. I was a little upset because we hadn’t been made aware of any of this at the beginning of our time there. But they promised us a number of things:

 1. That they would prepare her for the end of services.

2. That they would help us find services to transfer into.

3. Worst case scenario, they could end services, we could wait three weeks and reapply.

 In May we had an IEP finalized for her to help her with this at school. For those who don’t know (lucky), an IEP is a legal document for special education written to provide services, support, and accommodations for a disability.  Her IEP stated, among other things, that she would get a therapist at school. The school wanted to write in 730 minutes per year, but my advocate (a very close friend who is a special ed teacher) would not settle for that, knowing that it wasn’t specific enough. Schools are notorious for not writing IEP’s properly and not following them when they do. There is a whole branch of law devoted to suing schools who do not provide accommodations to their students. Anyhow, my friend insisted that my daughter’s IEP state the therapy be provided at least every other week. This turns out to have been a necessary thing, because they did not actually hook her up with a therapist for 3 months.

 And then that first therapist? She told my daughter, “If you cry all the time, how do you expect to have friends?”

 Other fun things her teachers, school staff, or even her IEP case carrier have said to her, KNOWING her IEP is for depression/anxiety:

-You look too sad all the time. Why don’t you look happier?

-You made me feel like I did something wrong.

-Well, if you don’t talk to me, how do you expect me to help you? (This one in the middle of a panic attack.)

 To jump ahead for a moment, because it will just be easier to get all the IEP stuff out of the way, I requested an IEP meeting at the end of August to revise the IEP and, while they held the initial IEP (and I refused to sign it because it wasn’t complete yet), they have STILL not finished it.

 During May and June I was dealing with my son’s (12 yo) extreme anxiety. He had entirely lost the ability to participate in school, partly due to a new curriculum, but, I think, largely out of the anxiety he felt over his sister’s health. In trying to find him therapy of his own, he was given an eval at a place called Motiva, but they felt he was too severe for their services and they referred him to NV. THAT was a whole damn mess. They didn’t want him and they gave me a whole host of excuses:

 1. He can’t be seen there until autism isn’t his first diagnosis (yeah, that will never happen).

2. He can’t be seen there without a diagnosis (first of all, the referral from Motiva listed a diagnosis, secondly, my daughter didn’t have a diagnosis until they gave her one AFTER she was being seen there).

3. Why couldn’t Motiva just see him, anyway? (Because they don’t do family/group therapy or have access to a psychiatrist)

 Eventually, Motiva convinced them to take him, but I don’t feel like their heart is in it. I really don’t. He hasn’t been referred to the psych, and they are already talking about ending his services at the 13 week mark despite the fact that it took them 8 weeks just to get him to talk to them at all.

 NV is considered a medium-high severity mental health clinic. I don’t see how a child being hospitalized three times in three months isn’t considered severe. I don’t see how a child being unwilling to consider talking to a therapist at all for 8 weeks isn’t considered severe.

 And yet, one day towards the end of summer, my daughter’s therapist told her she had one visit left. I had assumed that they would TRY to get her the third set of sessions, but they didn’t even TRY. They also had not:

 1. Prepared her for the end of services.

2. Helped us to find care to transition into.

 I demanded to speak with the director of the place. This was a terrible idea. The director, Bill Simpson, is a terrible human being. You would think that a director of a mental health clinic would understand how to speak to people, particularly those in crisis. You would be wrong.

 During this conversation, he told me that the reason they could not apply for a third set of sessions is because the county would never approve such a thing unless the child had been hospitalized in the previous two weeks. I mean. That sounds like a thing that might be true, but it also sounds like a thing that a doctor could potentially make a case for more care for a child in a particularly special place (i.e. one who had been hospitalized three times in the past year, and who was not stable on her meds even after more than six months of trying to figure out the right meds for her).  And yet he told me (and he repeated it several times), “absolutely I would refuse to help your child.” He claimed that if he even submitted one request for a third set of weeks without the right criteria, the county would refuse to approve any requests ever. That? I have a hard time believing. And even if it were 100% true, I am certain he could have found a kinder way to convey that information.

 When I tried to convey the promises I had been made by the staff 13 weeks ago, he brushed me off, saying that he couldn’t believe everything everyone says they are told. It felt a little gaslighty.

 He also told me there is no such thing as long-term therapy.  Did I already mention gaslighting? Cause that statement right there is the king of crazy.

 I am not even kidding you when, at a later date, I asked how to complain about the way he treated me and I was directed to their in-house comment cards instead of the proper county forms that the office doesn’t have access to. I’d love to believe that was a simple mistake.

 Every time I try to discuss these things with the staff in the office, they nod at me and say, “I’m sorry you felt that way.” But it is so clearly empty. They don’t actually care, or perhaps they do, but cannot act in any way helpful because of the way the director runs the place. I don’t know. In the end it’s irrelevant because it is simply not helpful. I don’t feel heard and when I try to explain that they are able to say, “Well, I apologized. What more do you want?” It is a very crafty way to dismiss a person.

 I am getting quite good at spotting this sort of manipulation, though, and I refuse to play along. My tactics tend to be reminding them what they said two minutes ago, comparing that with the opposite thing they are telling me now, listing all the conflicting things they have told me during the conversation, and listing all the evidence I have from previous experiences. I am never loud, I am never rude, I never curse or insult. I simply state truths. I am always treated as hostile.

 We tried to find a new therapist for her. We spoke with a place called YES through San Ysidro Health Center and the woman who did the intake was so kind. She told us that they had plenty of kids who’d been patients there for years and that I should come in and talk with her and she’d take care of my daughter. It felt so good to be heard, and to hear the promise that someone would help us.

 They did not help us. They contacted NV who told them that my daughter had “met all her goals” and so they were not able to serve her at YES either. They said they could refer to the general San Ysidro Health Center, but I know (because that is the clinic where my doctor is) that their therapy is not traditional therapy. They only offer 30 minute sessions and most of the work is done at home, alone.  That is not nearly the kind of care my kid needs right now.

 So around this time, my daughter’s psychiatrist was still adjusting her meds so they could not fully close out her case at NV. She continued meeting with her therapist, but just for 20 minute check-ins instead of the full appointment. She had been on Lexapro since April and it was working well, but not well enough. So we tried Wellbutrin in August. It was a kind of a gamble, as anyone experienced with Wellbutrin knows, but it seemed to be a miracle drug for my kid.  She was almost normal for the first time in more than a year! But that only lasted two months. The psych had tried raising it, and then raising it once more.

 We saw the doctor one last time the week after they raised it a second time. Here is where things get really upsetting. My daughter had never been stable on meds. She is proving extremely difficult to treat. The longest period of stability were those first two months on Wellbutrin. The doctor’s nurse had found us a new psychiatrist, but the waiting list to see them was three months long. I kept trying to explain how the math doesn’t add up: three months without psychiatry for a kid who’s never been stable more than two months is not good math.  Further, we kept telling the doctor, the case manager, the nurse, and the therapist that her SI was increasing and that she was feeling worse and worse. The therapist kept responding by saying, “Yes, but you have coping skills now!” They would not listen when my daughter would try to explain that coping skills can only do so much when your brain is trying to kill you.

 The very day she had her last appointment with the psychiatrist, I had to take her in to the ESU. The Emergency Screening Unit is a pace you can take a kid in crisis and have them screened 24 hours a day by a nurse. This is one way to be admitted to a mental health hospital unit, and my daughter had been in the ESU twice already so we were familiar with the process. They kept her overnight, but then they released her, stating that she should continue the services she already had. When I tried to explain that she didn’t really have services, she only had one exit session left, they looked at me blankly and either told me that NV would help her find services (they wouldn’t and didn’t – not for therapy, anyway) or they just repeated the last thing they said before I confused them with things that are happening to us. I mean, believe me, I am also confused. But not helping is, it turns out, not helping.

 Luckily (?) because my kid had been officially suicidal again (it’s not real unless a doctor outside of NV had been told?) they were able to extend her therapy for the third set of 13 weeks.

 But not the psychiatry. Honestly, I don’t know why.

 JUST before we found this out, though, my daughter flipped out one day and had to be taken in again.

 It was a good day. She’d had a good day, and a good evening, and she seemed fine in the night, too. I was tired and trying to talk her into going to bed. She cheerfully, and entirely unsleepily told me she would. And then I heard music. And then she was getting up and going into the bathroom. I knew she wasn’t going to bed, but I had no idea she was in her room self-harming and trying to commit suicide. (For the record, all the medication and sharp things are locked up.) I was trying to just let her be a kid, but finally something in me took over and forced her to answer me as to what she was doing. And she fell apart and started crying. So I knew I had to take her in, but she told me, “What if my brain makes me run away from you outside?” and I knew that she was telling me she didn’t feel safe enough for me to drive her myself.

 Do you know what happens if you cannot drive your own kid to the ESU? You call the police and they take her away in handcuffs. It’s traumatizing for everyone involved. Luckily, we DID know that is what would happen so we weren’t blindsided by it. But it was still awful.

 I followed them to the ESU and it turned out to be a very, very late night. I wound up falling asleep on a couch there and they woke me at 3am to talk with the doctor about admitting her. I believed she would be hospitalized. I didn’t expect what actually did happen, though.

 There is a place at the same facility that ESU is at. It’s called Intensive Respite Program (IPR) and it’s not quite a hospital in that the kids there have more freedom. They can have some belongings, they can have visitors at any time, they can even leave for awhile. We got to have her home with us for Thanksgiving, which was wonderful. It is very small – three kids max and each get their own room. They spend all day doing work from therapy to DBT to sensory experiences (they have a whole room devoted to sensory stuff). It’s really a beautiful program.

 But my favorite part is the people. The director, Hillary, is amazing. The therapist there is, too. They have reacted appropriately to our story. That is to say that they are appalled. They have made the decision to keep my daughter there until her services on the outside are in place (about another week). They have given me the number to a special ed lawyer to help me prepare to talk to the school. They are coming with us to the school. They have already met with us and our wrap team (a program called Families Forward). I am so grateful to them.

 I don’t know where this will lead. Maybe we will get dumped again. I mean, why not?

 But I don’t think so. They’ve already shown us they are with us.

 But here’s the thing. Repeatedly I have had to check on people, to make sure they are doing their jobs, to ask them to do their jobs.  It’s ridiculous. I’m a single mom. I’m quite poor right now. I’m a full time student. I have TWO kids with special needs. I have no family support. I have enough to do without doing the work other people are paid to do.

 I have been praised multiple times by various sources (some genuine and some probably less so) for my advocacy for my children. But that only goes so far. When you face one brick wall after another there’s not a lot you can do.

 I don’t know if this happened (is happening) to us because we are poor, or because this is mental illness we are dealing with (would a physical illness get the same treatment? to the same degree?), or if it’s just the way things are for everyone, but it’s not acceptable. We MUST stand up for healthcare, for mental health, for children. This is just not okay. It nearly broke me, and may still do so. Please. Someone. Fix the system.

[myatuesday]

Honestly tho like...

Do I hate we're going to break up - again?

Yes. Of course.

Of course.

BUT

My self worth, self respect, etc just can't do this anymore.

I'm tired of having the same conversations

For 3 goddamn fucking years

And so is he

But... he's not willing to change. Period.

We've been over it and over it.

And... I'm not going to waste/wait 3 more months or 6 more months or 3 more years on this POS, miserable situation.

He has NO respect for me. At all.

Absolutely none.

And his desire to keep me around does not outweigh his desire to... well, doesn't outweigh his ego and endless endless endless no ceasing in sight fuckboy bullshit

And that's not going to change unless/until

(In no particular order)

He actually gains respect for me and my feelings, my needs, me as a human being, as a partner. Just respect. Period.

He gets the fuck over himself and just is true to himself and his life and his truth and comfortable in his own skin and doing what he wants to do and loving who he wants to love. And not trying so hard to please everybody else and what they think. Or whoever the fuck it is he thinks he should be, etc. Ego ego ego. Just mixed with a lot of growing up.

Do I still think he'll regret what a loss this was and how bad he's fucked up whenever the fuck that day ever comes (say when he's about 35 idk). Yeah. 1,000%.

Most dudes I date, especially in their younger years, come to realize I'm the best thing that ever happened to them and how much they fucked up.

But... I ain't got time for him to figure that out now. We've been over this and it's futile.

Wish we never ever ever ever ever would've dated in the first place. If he wasn't ready and knew he was gonna pull this shit (which, yeah, he knew. You don't cheat 6 months into a relationship that was going fucking perfectly, which it was at the time, unless you had wandering eye all along and no intentions to invest in that person in the first place).

Do I think he'll ever wake up about what a total waste of time Amy is/was and the fact she was never, ever anything but a fucking con artist and he was just a mark? No. Sadly, no.

So he really fucked both of us (himself and me) on that fucking bad bet.

I'm just the collateral damage of the whole (endless) goddamn ordeal.

But, just cause he's not strong enough to wake up and walk away, doesn't mean I need to sit around here making the same damn mistake.

It sucks.

I 100% see what we could've been. If he didn't make all these horrible fucking decisions and fuck everything up so bad.

What we are, when you strip ALL the BS away, is... (see, I'm going to cry now) very, very hard to walk away from.

But the reality is, that's not what reality will probably ever look like for us. If there's any chance for it to, it's no time soon.

So... too late, either way.

It's a missed opportunity.

It's been a giant waste of my time and energy.

And... it really just fucking sucks.

I think it would be easier if so much wasn't right.

But... doesn't matter how right it could be

Or is when we're actually together (as in physically together in the same space)

When the big picture is an absolute dumpster fire of total fucking garbage. From every other angle.

And we're never going to be WHOLLY real

With ALL that other stuff in the way

And that stuff is all him.

It's his doing.

It's his choices.

Setting everything on fucking fire all the time.

Destroying everything.

Us, himself, just... all of it.

I can't control it. I've tried.

All I can control is saying no more

And getting the fuck out of the fire

Am I hurt?

Yeah, of course I am.

But staying there letting him set EVERYTHING on fire constantly, while he swears to god it's raining (smh) ain't gonna do shit, but burn me afuckinglive

And I can't live like this anymore

Maybe it's his Aries moon, that he can't fucking help himself.

Idk. Idc.

I can't put out the fire.

I can only walk away from it

Before I subject myself to any more damage.

That's just where we're at.

I hate it. But... what else can I do?

I've tried. I can't try anymore.

Not with someone so commited to destruction (convincing himself it's fucking growth).

And, honestly, gaslighting both of us, every step of the fucking way.

He's convinced himself I'm not the one (despite what he once said, before he fucked everything up completely) so... he's... idk.

I don't wanna say not even trying. Cause he's trying something. It's just... pretty much a self-serving hail Mary.

He decided, I guess the day he met her, who knows, that I'm not worth putting in what it takes to actually make something work.

Not even, now, temporarily. (Which is really fucking disappointing)

So whatever.

_

It's hard to see how good something could be tho

How easy and natural

But have to walk away

Cause... idk

It's the perfect piece to a very, very fucked up puzzle

And the fucked up part has you outnumbered

Doesn't really matter how well you fit

If the board is on fucking fire

And someone's always standing nearby w fucking kerosene

_

He thinks I'm always "creating" a problem.

I'm like, no.

The goddamn problems NEVER fucking go away

The problem is always fucking there

You just want me to ignore it.

That's not me causing fucking problems, bro.

That's you failing to solve problems

And expecting me to act like they don't fucking exist

That's humanly impossible

And fuck you for even attempting to have shit set up this way. Like all these issues, you refuse to do shit about, don't fucking exist.

Fuck you.

Calling attention to the problem and saying "fix it" and/or "get rid of it" doesn't make me the fucking problem.

Fuck you.

There's a solution to ALL this shit.

You just don't like it.

Walking away makes it not my fucking problem anymore.

So I'm kindof left w no choice.

That's just how it is

Until the problem is fucking solved

But if he's commited to believing there isn't one... that ain't happening anytime soon.

So, clearly, neither can we.

[reesebird]

New Post has been published on https://reesebird.com/2019/02/13/im-debating-burning-bridges-with-blood-family-any-advice/

I’m debating burning bridges with blood family. Any advice?

So, this is a little hard to talk about but I’ll try. I grew up in a fairly “average” household. Mom, dad, 1 sibling, 1-2 dogs, for a total of 4 humans and a pet or two at any one time. Before the ‘08 recession, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and my dad worked. Following the recession, my mom went back to work, and my dad went from working 40 hours a week to 90+ hours a week. Not the healthiest, but not exactly abusive or anything like that. I’m starting with this, because I want to establish a baseline – my family wasn’t a “classically abusive family” like some of my friends and peers.

When I was in elementary school, there were 3 things that stood out. First, I was bullied incessantly by everyone (save literally one student I became friends with, but have since fallen out of touch). This began with verbal bullying, then in middle school escalated to being beaten up on four separate occasions, and finally, being punched in the face right in front of the teacher, who refused to do anything. Second, I wasn’t ever challenged academically. After kindergarten (which I completed at the local public school), I stopped being really taught. I attended a private religious school whose standards were so garbage that aside from handwriting, I learned next to nothing in my 8 years in attendance. Most of the teachers were lazy, and they cared only about turning in the homework. You could have every answer wrong on every piece of homework, and every answer wrong on every test, but by virtue of having turned something in, you were considered a “good student”. Meanwhile, anyone who had a “reputation for being smart” would be berated and belittled by the teachers for being ahead of the lesson plan. I was even handed a failing grade on a science project because the teacher hated me. And my grades slowly suffered. Not being challenged like I would’ve been at a public school, I slowly gave up. I went from a straight-A+ student to a student barely making C’s between 3rd & 8th grade. Not because I didn’t get the material (though I definitely didn’t get Spanish, and I thought religion made no logical, scientific sense), but because the homework just bored me to tears. My mom would yell at me every report card I didn’t get an A+, too. My first B, I was grounded for a month. When I started getting C’s, she told me I was worthless. And, when I failed Spanish my last quarter in 8th grade, she threatened to disown me. The third thing that stood out was that in spite of all of this, I tried to keep learning. I read constantly. Between 6th and 8th grade, I kept a spreadsheet of all the books I read, and what genre they were, and in total, read just shy of 1,000 books between my first day of 6th grade and my last day of 8th grade. I tried out Khan Academy, and did independent research. I even learned how to use the library’s database on my own so I could read engineering journals for free. And, all in all, I still loved academia.

In high school though, things began really breaking. I’d wanted to attend this fairly prestigious public school that had an actual engineering program (that included shop time!). But, my mom, not wanting me to risk getting involved with drugs and alcohol and gangs and underage sex and shit like that, very intentionally didn’t wake me on the day for testing to go to that school (we had 1 alarm clock in the house at the time, which was my parents’). So I missed the test. And couldn’t go. So, desperate for a chance to not fuck everything up, I tested at one of the 2 most rigorous private schools in the area. I got in, and was immediately made aware that I’d not learned anywhere near enough in grade school. I didn’t know enough to pass algebra 1 in math, I only passed English because my teacher gave me extended deadlines for everything, and in Chinese, despite doing extremely well at first, the original teacher left (family emergency) and I failed because the new teacher made no sense to me. And I struggled. And failed. And my mom would berate and belittle me for it. Finally, I was told I had failed out my freshman year. I hated myself. Everything I was taught to value – what I was taught was my only value – had just been demonstrated to me to be nonexistent. And therefore, I had no value.

Nowhere to go, I stayed at home that summer. I was brought to a crackpot psychiatrist by my mom, and diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. He recommended heavy, regulated, and monitored medication, but my mom wouldn’t hear any of it. She finally caved when told about the weakest medication that had the most marginal chance of helping me, but made me figure it out on my own, and with no supervision. She made me enroll in online classes so that I wouldn’t “waste my life being worthless”. I can’t learn online – it’s too detached, with nothing tactile, and no accountability. And it sucked. My depression got worse, and my medication did nothing, and finally, after a massive argument with my mom, I attempted suicide. My mom got home, and found me right before I would’ve died. She called 911, and I was taken to the hospital. My dad rushed home when he heard what had happened. He brought me my childhood stuffed animal, and fresh clothing, and made sure I was given food the moment I was cleared to. He even slept on the floor of the hospital room so he’d be with me. My mom? She didn’t spend time with me. She went, and told everyone she knew about what had happened, even though I explicitly told her that I wanted privacy on the matter. She continuously violated my trust, and refused to own up to it.

Fast forward to the summer I turned 16. I was slowly recovering from depression (and, as had been discovered by the actual psychiatrists I saw in the hospital, PTSD). I’d just gotten out of a relationship where I’d been gaslighted (though at the time, I didn’t know the word for it), and was questioning my gender identity and sexual orientation. I went to the library every day I could, and spoke with the librarians there all the time. They became more family to me than the family I’d been born with. They provided me resources, and helped me understand what I was going through. And when I finally came out, they were the first ones I came out to. When I was 17, I was walking the dogs with my dad one day, when he asked me when I was going to get my driver’s license (I’d not been in a brick-and-mortar school since my freshman year of high school, and I never really did research into driver’s ed). I told him I wanted to wait. He asked me until when. I then, in probably the dumbest move possible, said “until I can transition and change my gender marker.” His reaction was about what was fair, given that I’d never mentioned gender identity in the past to my parents. However, 6 months later, when in a family therapy session, I told my parents I was trans and wanted to medically transition, my dad responded with “let me look into insurance first, please.” My mom? She nearly made me homeless, and were it not for my dad putting his foot down and demanding she treat me with the dignity of a human being, I think that was what she wanted to do.

Over the course of the next year, I was constantly arguing with my mom, who thought my being trans was me trying to “get back at her” for the argument we’d had when I was 15 that led to my suicide attempt. Finally, exhausted, I gave up. I couldn’t take her anymore. I took the GED, got my high school equivalency certificate, and enrolled in community college. I began taking classes right away, hoping that my natural love for learning would be enough. Unfortunately it wasn’t, and I struggled. I took remedials though, and I eventually learned everything I needed. I recently got everything in line to train as a Honda-certified dealership mechanic. This past year, I dipped into my personal savings and began paying for medical transition through my local Planned Parenthood clinic, and got a psych evaluation done that led to a definitive diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum (a psych eval my mom refused to pay for when I was in the hospital)

I’m now 4 months into transition, and have a stable job & classes to take. I have a small network of close friends, and a couple of people who are basically unofficial surrogate family for me. I’m dating a wonderful woman who I’m absolutely in love with. And, I finally have enough money together to move out and burn bridges. Which brings us back to that question. My mom, I have learned, uses gaslighting tactics, is manipulative, and, had I known at a time that I could report it to DCFS, *clearly* qualifies as emotionally and psychologically abusive. My dad, while not a bad person, has this giant extended family (60+ total) that I hate (minus my grandpa & 1 cousin), but that he refuses to cut ties with. My younger brother isn’t terrible, but he’s a bit of an ass at times – standard sibling stuff. When I spent New Years with my girlfriend, I’d never felt safer, calmer, or more happy. Sure, part of that is that the relationship is still relatively young, but the safety? I don’t feel safe with anyone, even with the librarians I’m still in touch with, who I trust enough that I’d be confident in making them authorized medical decision makers in the event of my incapacitation (if not for state regulations making it impossible for that to happen). Is the potential damage worth it, in the end?

tl;dr – should I start fresh, even if I regret potentially hurting my dad?

[emily-jared-zoe-benjamin-blog]

TW: Abuse, rape, toxic houses, abelism, additction. text heavy post below the cut. Please read. Do not comment with anything that is unsupportive. x x x x x x x x x x I ususally dont have the energy or am too ashamed to tell people whats actually going on with me. It has felt very isolating and put me in a bad mental place for a long time. This time I am speaking out. It's hard for me to put this in words without being emotional. I have reached out to some folks in my community. I have direct support from members of MBAC, TWAC, NLG, SURJ. Three or four years ago, I and others started a rad community house to center marganilized folks. I have been the primary person holding down this house (as in emotional labor, physical labor, and financial labor). Awesome friends have lived here. So have alot of shitty, abusive assholes. I've been fucked over beyond anything I feel like going into. Things have deteriorated. The people I currently live with have worn me down to nothing and have turned the house into a toxic environment. They were all friends before moving in and reinforce and enable each others problematic behaviors. They are abelist and abusive. They aren't paying bills or rent. We are getting shut off notices everyday. One of my roommmates raped someone in the house and the rest have enabled this behavior thru appoligism and denial. JARED HUNSAKER BENJAMIN DONOLON AKA JOHN SMITH EMILY KAYE WARNER ZOE SNIK OR ZOE JENKINS TOXIC ENVIRONMENT Since this summer, I have consistently been woken up by rowdy partying every night from the hours of 3-9 AM. They will sleep or drink through the day. There is a culture of drug and alchohol use on a nightly and daily basis. Personally, I dont care what drugs people do as long as it does not negativly affect others in the house. That is the case here. The drugs they are using makes them highly aggressive. Often what wakes me up is barking dogs and sketchy-and-drunk, agro-white-cis dudes getting into fights or raising their voices. People and their dogs have literally stayed at the house for upwards of two months. Typically this is without discussion. Most of them have been physically violent and aggressive and verbally abusive. Most of them have been kicked out after multiple incidents of violence and agression. Most of these incidents arent communicated with other housemates. I finally find out once it's really bad that, oh, they knew this person was agro all along and had expierenced it. Many times these are people my roommates later claim to 'barely know' or just met. All are white cis dudes. I realize a lot of this behavior is deeply imbedded in their community. I have been in a constant state of exhaustion due to lack of sleep. I have chronic pain and I get exhausted everyday just from living and have explained this to them many times. It's disorienting being woken up from a deep REM sleep consistently. And I cant function/think. The last fucking noise I want to be woken up by is either a barking dog or the sound of a white cis dude who probably has dred locks. This is not a punk house. When I reached my limit and asked that we not host folks for a few weeks (especially white cis dudes) they did so anyways and lied to my face that no one was there (even when I saw them). I've also asked for specific people who have been agro not to be back at the house. This has also been ignored. When neighbors began coming to me, they finally took the noise seriously. ANON ROOMMATE - RAPE/ABUSE It is in this toxic culture that one of my roommates raped someone in the house. The entire house apparently knew/or was involved and didnt tell me, nor did they hold this person acocuntable. Why? Because they are denialists, appologists, and enablers. They shamed the survivor to their face as well as blamed them for the abuse because they both had drank. In addition, Emily screamed and violently reacted to the survivor when the survivor went to them for support. The rapist literally said things such as, "she is only saying I raped her because her feelings are hurt." They shit talked the survivor and said they were out to ruin them and not to trust them. These conversations took place in a Facebook chat which I am no longer in and copied and pasted to email form. *some screenshots included.. I reached the limit of pictures that could be posted, however, there is much more* I learned about the rape when rent was due (one month after the abuse) when the abuser didnt have money because he had to pay for part of the abortion. I immediatly reached out to the survivor and offered support. The survivor told me they reached out to everyone in the house to try to hold the abuser accountable and asked that I be told. No one in the house did that. I then sent a Facebook message to the entire house calling out the abuser and the other people's appoligist, enabling behaviors. I asked for accountability. I set up ground rules for this conversation and said I would end the conversation if they were broken (for example, no gaslighting, no survivor blaming, shaming, no aggressive personal attacks, etc). These rules were broken repeaditly as were boundaries the survivor set. They seriously triggered the survivor. I was unable to continue speaking with them because of how disguisting their comments were. I then reached out to the community for support. I arranged for a neutral mediator to meet with us in an effort to hold the abuser and others accountable. At first they were receptive. Then they never responded when the mediator reached out to them. We made more attempts and waited longer. Then said they refused to engage in mediation. I've made many efforts to hold them accountable within the house. This has failed. JARED HUNSAKER white cis male. Jared got in my face while I was in my chair, yelling when I asked him to be quiet at 4 am. He then refused to move out of my way and blocked my path and continued yelling at me until I came back out of my room to talk to him. He says that any request I have is either overreacting or petty. Usually, after I make a request to Emily (as the noise is coming from her room and I dont want to enter a room of people partying at 4 am, especially not after being attacked) for the entire group to be quiet, I will get a nasty text at 4 or 6 am from Jared saying "the whole house thinks it's time I move out" or calling me "petty." This has happened multiple times. Only two of those times are included. It's at a point where I know asking for them to respect basic boundaries or to do things around the house wont happen. I dont feel comfertable talking to them in person, so I have been talking to them over Facebook. At this point, I dont feel talking to them in any form will change anything. BENJAMIN DONLON AKA JOHN SMITH Benjamin is a poc cis male who recently moved here from Denver, Colorado. He used to organize and live at R2D2 and was briefly active in dont shoot. I found out that Benjamin basically fled Coloroado to escape accountability there. He was kicked out of his last house. Benjamin did not inform people in the house any of this information. I found out thru someone else in passing. When I asked him about this and for the name of the facilitator in Denver, he told me he was involved in a mutually abusive, co-dependant relationship where he was being mentally abused and he was physically violent. I asked him for the phone number of the facilitator of the process he went through. I asked four times. He never gave it to me. I thought it was a huge red flag that he didnt tell anyone about his past. I found the number myself. I learned that he was kicked out of a community house in Colorado for being violent towards other people and his former partner. He went through a process and was staying in the house. However, after that process, he chased his former partner into a room and she had to lock the door and trap herself in. He had punched walls before this and this time punched other folks trying to hold him back from punching the door more. It was at that time that he left Colorado. He has exibited the same behavior with me (chasing me into my room, yelling and banging the door down and trying to open it, refusing to leave). When he found out I spoke with the person in Denver, he became aggressive with me. Towering over me in my chair, yelling, blocking my path, hitting walls and counters, he accused me of "talking shit about him to people out of state" and then gaslit me, saying I never asked him for the phone number. Another time he did this to me, he ripped down a bill (in close proximity to my face and body, as I was literally in the act of putting up a shut off notice under the heat control when he ripped it down in my face). I told him to stop touching the heat unless he intended to pay, because it was about to be shut off. He then told me he would continue turning the heat on and to try to stop him (he hasn't paid bills since he moved in or paid full rent - as Emily told him this was okay). He began yelling at me and accusing me of stealing mail (???) and I quickly went into my room and held the door shut (my doors are french doors tied by a rope knot). He continued yelling and tried to break open the door. He left only when I blasted music to drown him out. Every encounter I have had with him since has been super aggressive. I later saw him and Zoe emptying the trash bins outside in apparent attempts to look for mail (?) it was gross and aggressive intimidation. He has harassed me while I was in the bathroom by yelling and threatening me (through a curtain door). He has waited outside my room in the dark for me to come out and mess with me on several occasions. EMILY WARNER: Emily works at Sam's Billiards as a cook (NE Sandy/42ndish). She's friends with people who party alot. She works most nights and parties afterwards until 9 am. Emily recently moved here from Michigan. I dont know where she meets her friends and would often later find out that she "doesn't know them" or just met them. She will also say that she doesnt know who's in her room and she isn't home when they are there. Both her and Zoe will say things are missing from their rooms all the time. Recently, Zoe has accused me of stealing from them, which is a baseless accusation; it clearly is the people they are bringing into the house. Emily has a pattern of abelism and creating conflict when asked to follow thru on basic promised responsibilities. Emily's dogs are dogs that bark at everything and destroy everything unless there are people around. They have been completly neglected. They almost never stop barking. Emily has barely been home these past few months. They may be cared for once a day if that. When she first moved in, she (like many before her) assumed that I would provide free animal care because I am disabled and at the house more than her. I told her after it was becoming apparent that I was not able to do this. She then paid others in the house to do this. My labor is always a free and exploited thing, of course. Then she stopped paying others and the dogs for months have been locked away in her room. Deficating and urinating in there and making a huge mess. They are so unhappy. Most of our conversations are about the dogs or being woken up. I have tried so many times, begging Emily to do something. The non-stop barking and wining every hour on a nightly basis is a nusance. She will say she is sorry and has done nothing to remedy this. She continues to neglect them or have the dogs in the presence of rowdy people and new dogs who rile them up. Others in the house have expressed the same sentiments. Emily generally has not followed thru on the things she has promised to do, and the same goes for most people in the house. Thus, house meetings continued to cover the same things that werent getting done until I finally told them that I refused to participate in house meetings. It was another drain on my labor to facilitate and plan the same meeting without follow through. So I did all the "to dos" and projects myself. Most of this involved physical labor, such as removing large objects, forming a gate, and cleaning the yard of large pallets and their party trash, clearing matresses, and so on. They did nothing to help. Finally, two months ago, I passed on the responsibility for paying rent and bills to Emily because I was at my breaking point. Most of the time people dont pay rent or bills. It's fucking not okay. I'm not a fucking bank. I exist on disability income while they all work/can work and spend their money on alchohol and molly. I've been dealing with this ontop of organizing and ontop of having almost zero will to exist. So Emily was taking our money and didn't pay any bills the entire time. If they took it, if they didnt have enough to cover bills, if they didn't communicate to us they need more money. I dont know and I dont care. I am facing shut off notices everyday and sadled with over $800 past due bills because of this. She continues to lie about paying them and does nothing. The bills she has said she paid are actually not paid. I have actual copies of the bills reflecting that as well as all her texts claiming that she paid them. She enabled the abuser by covering his rent and survivor-shamed by hiding the abuse from others in the house (along with other housemates). Last month, when rent was due, the money I gave her was missing. For 24 hours she wouldnt give me a straight answer as to where it was or if she had it. She strings me along saying things are paid and then I call the utilitiy the next day and find out she hasn't. This pattern has been going on for awhile and is exhausting. She will then spin elaborate stories to create conflict and to confuse the issue (not just about this, but everything). This is something all the folks in the house have been doing. They have been banding together to defend and enable an abuser and their own abusive behaviors. Sometimes I doubt my own reality. Lately I have been refusing to engage in their webs of lies. I've cut off all contact with them. ZOE SNIK- Zoe is someone I know from mutual friends in twac and also from shows. I had the most hope for them and am truelly sorry they are not seeing things clearly. They seemed somewhat supportive initially, but since I have taken action to kick Benjamin out of the house, they have been spreading actual lies about me online. They are best friends with Emily. They told me about the rape. When they did they did so, however, it was in a denialist way of shaming, dismissing, and denying the survivor's story. They and others said, "they were there" and thats not what happened. Or that the survivor was drunk at the time. After one or two initial conversations, Zoe refused to engage in further discussion about the abuse. Zoe has brought over many agro white cis dudes who have stayed for months. They continue to bring over folks who I specifically asked them not to, due to their aggressive behaviors toward me. These folks are always drunk when they are here. It makes me very uncomferable. They continued to bring groups of people over when specifically asked not to on a temporary basis because of how rowdy the house had been. I am the only one in this house who cleans or constantly picks up after the entire house and their beer cans, clearing other people's huge mattresses and yard couches. We havent had any spoons in the kitchen for many months. The past weeks, I've stopped cleaning up after them and no one did anything. During one telling incident (with past people), after we got an eviction notice, I cleaned the entire house and mowed the whole yard by myself as they sat on the porch smoking cigarettes. That literally happened. I've had to post desprate CraigsList ads. I trade my houseless friend weed in exhange for labor now. Recently Zoe dumped a moldy matreess that I specifically asked them not to dump in our yard/freepile, because I knew I'd be the one dealing with it, along with the others, right next to an actual no dumping sign that I made. After asking several times, I of course had to be the one to get rid of it. I empty the trash and do dishes. They virtually never contribute. I've explained how recylcing works a million times and im still having to sort thru our trash constantly because they don't care. With them having so many people over, I've never seen so much trash in the house. In the end, it is me dealing with it all and cleaning up after them all while being told that I'm being 'petty'. I maintain all the basics - I'm the sole person for years getting tiolet paper, soap, staple foods, ect. I have paid rent and bills and been in the constant state of being owed money. At times, two thosand dollars. It has taken me months to get repaid, only to have someone else not pay rent and me have to cover. Why is the one disabled person cleaning up after abelist messes? The air quality got so bad in here that the day has finally come. I am empyting bob myself (aka carrying up huge buckets of water from the basement upstairs). Fuck every last abelist bone in their body. Folks who support me have offered to help with this but asking someone to come do that seems like more time than it would for me to do it. This alone caused me alot of anxiety, then during this Emily felt entitled to take the dehumifier to her room. After spending days of trying to get outside help just to empty the thing, she has made it impossible. I texted her over the span of two days letting her know nicely that it needs to be returned, that it belongs to the house and I am having a real bad pain flare up because of her actions. First she didn't respond, then finally was snippy, and eventually moved it after the point where I lost my calm with her. Community members served a Restraining Order (RO) on Benjamin and are trying to find Jared. We went to great lengths to keep this within the community and not involve the police. If we did involve the police this would have been over already. Emily and Zoe will be evicted thru a community eviction. After serving an RO on Benjamin, both Zoe and Emily made posts on housing forums targetting me and attacking me for supporting survivors and making up lies about the situation. They have refused any accountability for their actions as to why they are being asked to leave. I am extremely worried about the past due bills that Emily has not paid on behalf of the house for months and making rent by April 1. I was planning on giving Zoe a second chance, despite their behaviors, because I saw hope in them working on this stuff. However, due to their lack of accountability and smear campaign against my name, that will no longer be the case.