#overbearing parent

[damneddualities]

I’m just gonna vent because when I get this frustrated and stressed I go pretty much nonverbal but keeping it in doesn’t help either. Also I can’t afford therapy so Tumblr it is.

I recently adopted a cat to be my ESA as petting and cuddling with a cat has always helped calm me down and is almost stim like. I had to leave my elderly cat back home partially due to his age but also because my sister would have thrown a fit if I took MY cat with me down south while I was in school. Mind you she adopted a kitten a couple months ago. Part of the reason I did t fight it was because she also needs animals for emotional support. Yknow she has her dog but whatever I’ve mostly moved past that.

Last year I lost the last kitten I had adopted to the FVIP which is basically kitty COVID and has a 10% of becoming a neurological issue that is almost immediately fatal. My partner is living with me in our apartment while I finish up my last year of college. Before coming down my mom made them promise to not let me get a cat. Mind you she didn’t communicate this with me, my partner did. They have recognized however that our cat greatly improved my mental health and my stress based compolusions. However I have not told my mom yet about our cat.

This is for a few reasons. One being the aforementioned “promise”. Another is that I recently lost my job because I was apparently hired on as seasonal despite being hired before seasonal started. I still don’t have a job and it’s been almost a month. So my mom who is a co-signer on our lease has been helping with rent and groceries because inflation is a bitch on top of being without a job.

Mind you I only adopted this cat because I had gotten hired somewhere. Only to be immediately ghosted on when I would start (then never even sent me the onboarding information). So now I have no savings, no job income for at least another three weeks (working on getting hired somewhere else) and suddenly my cat is shitting blood.

Took her to the closest vet I could because I didn’t have money for a carrier yet. The internet and reviews said they were good and adorable. The first visit is even free! I get there and the tech that comes in immediately starts talking about money and cost. They barely even looked at my cat.

Anyway I explain what caused me to come in (part of it being trauma from suddenly losing my last cat) and they advise me that they’ll probably have to do blood work and give her meds and the price tag just keeps upping. I tell them the most I could possibly pay that day (as they didn’t have any payment plan options and my deductible on the pet insurance hadn’t been paid yet anyway) was $200

So the tech takes my baby back and I sit alone in that room for upwards of twenty minutes. When the tech comes back the vet is with him. She has a type of tapeworm-adjacent intestinal parasite. They tell me they’re putting her in three medications: a probiotic to help with the diarrhea, an antibiotic for the inflamed anus cussed by the excessive shitting (which was where the blood was coming from) and the meds for the parasite itself. Only the Rx for the parasite isn’t on hand and I have to order it through chewy. (So another $20-40. That prescription isn’t even expected to arrive before the 1st so it will have been a week since the appointment that the meds arrive. )The vet leaves and I pay the $147 (an extra $12 for the cardboard carrier they used) and go home.

The next day she is shitting everywhere with seemingly no control. Luckily we had quarantined her to the bathroom so our dog wouldn’t get infected from eating her poop. Now she has rectal incontinence from the parasites. And on top of that she’s bloated from it as well. None of these symptoms/side effects were things the vet told me to expect. So I’m panicking and thankfully was able to get in touch with a vet through online chat for free as I’d gone completely nonverbal in my panic and stress.

All this leads up to me having an emotional breakdown in bed the other night because one of the things I struggle the most with is feeling like a burden, especially a financial one. And I feel like an awful pet owner because our cat loves cuddles and being around the rest of us and now she’s quarantined in the bathroom and I can hear her meowing for attention that I can’t give her for longer than like five minutes.

My partner comforted me and helped me get out of my head and I finally felt like I was doing a bit better. Then my mom calls and because I was taking a depresso nap I didn’t answer so she texts the both of us. To my partner she texts her questions and to me I get the anxiety inducing “call your mother now” text.

I call her. Immediately I’m being berated for using DoorDash to buy McDonald’s the other day. Sorry my depression is chronic and makes it hard to find motivation to cook lunch let alone eat. Then she moves on to my use of Cashapp. A use which I’ve told her in the past it to get money into my own account through another bank which doesn’t have branches near where I’m currently living. Money which needs to be in there for my bills such as my medications and reoccurring subscriptions to be paid. Also it was how I was paying for the vet visit without her finding out I have a cat.

Yes I know I should tell her but I know that when I do it will be an endless barrage of how I don’t know how to save money or so finances and how I shouldn’t get an animal if I can’t afford it and basically implying that I am a financial burden. A concern I have shared with her in the past and she has assured me I’m not. She may say it but her actions and the way she talks to me say otherwise. And if I tell her I got it becuase I had been hired but then was unexpectedly ghosted she’ll give me shit about not confronting the people who “hired” me, knowing that I don’t do well with confrontations with authority and that I don’t communicate well when I’m upset or stressed.

She also started in on why the hell was I needing to take a nap. And rather than have to explain my mental disabilities ((adhd, chronic depression, anxiety (and undiagnosed autism)) tax on me physically I just told her I had a headache (another thing I deal with chronically). She immediately goes into well, and I quote, “prepare for the headache to get worse” and that’s when she starts laying in about the expenses on my account that she has access to. I’m fucking 25 I don’t want to be treated like a child who doesn’t realize how the world works.

Mind you this woman spent at least 2/3 of her teaching career working with disabled kids as a special needs teacher. But would she ever admit her own daughter is autistic and has periods of being nonverbal? No. And I learned not to rely on others because my older siblings always seemed to be of a higher priority growing up than I did. My middle sister is medically diagnosed as “mentally retarded” (yahoo /s for the medical industry 30+ years ago not knowing what the term developmentally delayed is -_-) so she was mentally younger than I was by the type I was ten. My oldest sister is practically a narcissist who I was constantly compared to and I saw how she took advantage of my mom financially (she’s 35+ and has a well laying career but my mom is still the one paying her student loans).

This has probably made no sense and is all over the place but I’m too tired to edit it to be more cohesive and I warned y’all it was a rant. I’m just tired of being treated like an idiot and a burden. Not to even mention the fact that I’m supposed to have access to the money my grandfather set aside for me in a trust (RIP Popop) but my mom won’t confront her younger sister about why she hasn’t handled it yet. Which brings up my partners concern that if the trust wasn’t set up before my grandfather death and is only stipulated in the will then my aunt as the executor can just say fuck you to all of us and keep everything for herself. With her being the most well off out of all of us.

My Popop vaguely told me about this money before he passed because he saw how the world was going financially. He knew I would struggle as the youngest. My middle sister will likely always live with my parents. My eldest sister is married with kids and has a well paying career and owns a home. I’m relying on grants and scholarships and federal loans to pay for college and worked (including my schooling, and my internship) over 75 hours a week last semester just to get by. Plus I know that when my parents go I will be responsible for my middle sister. We do not get along. She resents me for not having the same difficulties as her and for having thing she doesn’t as her younger sister. But my narcissistic eldest sister is a fucking cunt who would probably just blatantly refuse to help out. So I get to be implied to be a burden who is incapable of managing their own money while also being blasted with the pressure of knowing that should anything happen to my parents I will become responsible for my middle sister.

TLDR: moms are fucking nosy and incredibly ableist despite being a former special needs teacher who’s students still remember and send her gifts and I’m out of a job with a shit ton of sudden expenses

If you’d like to help out my Cashapp and Venmo are both lexmars42 and you could even buy something from my redbubble (same as my tumblr handle). Literally a fucking dollar or two would be appreciated.

[bixels]

Taking the current topic as an excuse to ask you to tell me all the reasons you love Rarijack. Your art for the ship is so sweet and intimate I'd love to hear any in depth thoughts you have.

Breathes in.

I think what makes their dynamic really strong is that they have opposing personalities but aligned values. It's deeper than just "opposites attract." Rarity's fancy, prissy, and femme while Applejack's modest, rough, and "masculine." But both value hard work (to the point of being workaholics), their families (both have guardianship over their little sisters), running successful businesses, and eventually each other. Their relationship can be boiled down to, "Despite our differences/disagreements, I still like you because we value the same things."

We see their relationship develop so much. In the first season, they can't stop bickering about surface-level differences. By season four, they still bicker, but will mend their relationship because they can't help but do nice things for each other. In Trade Ya, they start off arguing over personality differences (Applejack likes old junk and Rarity likes useless crap). Then they pivot and start arguing that they value their relationship more than the other. In the end, they mend things by sacrificing their needs and buying each other a gift. Even if they don't understand it, they know it'd make the other happy. And that's all that really matters. It's a genuinely sweet moment that shows how arguing can be healthy and necessary for relationships to strengthen.

We even see them dropping their hang-ups about each others' personalities. In Made in Manehattan, when Rarity runs off in dramatics about someone's fashion, AJ doesn't roll her eyes or scoff, she smiles. Oftentimes, their conflicts are very common domestic conflicts romantic couples face. Applejack's Day Off is about a woman's inability to balance work and life and find time to properly spend with her partner, causing her partner to feel neglected.

By season seven, they're actively participating in each others' interests. Any problems or conflicts that arise are dealt with, and they come out the other end stronger and closer. In Honest Apple, AJ pretty much spells out why their relationship works so well: even though she doesn't understand fashion, she can recognize and appreciate how much work it takes and wants to respect that. When she realizes her mistake in the episode, AJ goes above and beyond to fix things and apologize to Rarity. They care about each other so much.

The two go out of their way, sacrificing their personal desires and beliefs and doing things they normally wouldn't, to make the other happy. That's just love.

There's Simple Ways, where AJ gets stuck in an unwanted love triangle between Rarity and her hipster crush. And her frustration and anger can be so easily interpreted as AJ finding herself in a terrible position; the girl she loves wants another man, and that man wants her.

I dunno. I've always had a preference for opposites attract ships, but Rarijack's stuck with me like a brain worm because they have the perfect chemistry. The way they show they care, or do things for each other, I've always read it as the truest representation of romance in the show.

[joznii]

her shenanigans take 10 years off his life

[sqtorux]

guys im having a moment reading all the backstory about gojo i think ... im way too attached to him omfg this is so bad *sits in judgmental silence*

[makorragal-312]

The Diaz parents are gonna be in for a rude awakening when they realize that Chris is in Texas with them for the sole purpose of getting space from his dad, not to fulfill their long-awaited familial fantasy.

[incesthemes]

there's something so deeply erotic about this exchange. dean bites out a snarky comment, and sam immediately tenses up, waiting for his brother's disapproval. he expects it, he's waiting for it, because he's never good enough and he never does anything right.

but it doesn't come. dean tells him he's done good, he offers him whiskey in celebration, even, and it gives sam pause—he hesitates, like he doesn't know what to do, looks up at dean for confirmation, then accepts the offering. like he's proud of himself for gaining dean's approval, but he hardly knows what to do with it. how long has he been waiting for this anyway? how many years has he been trying and failing to get this simple, no-strings-attached praise out of him?

[feroluce]

Belobog was my fave main quest but a lot of it is so. Contradictory. It's like they had multiple groups doing different shit and none of them checked in with each other for consistency. And you see this so much in Gepard's profile.

So in the main quest, they made him unfailingly, unquestionably loyal to Cocolia. Gepard's character arc is him learning to question authority etc etc. And this isn't even a bad thing; that's a story worth telling! It makes good conflict between him and Serval! And I love that we got Gepard as a boss battle and I get to see him all the time in SU!

But then you look at his character stories and it's like. The complete opposite.

According to his profile, Gepard has already HAD this awakening, long before the Astral Express, and he'd already decided Cocolia sucks. Even outside of his stories, there's a pretty damning readable between him and Pela.

He even disobeyed direct orders right in front of her- he has been disobeying orders for a while now!

So I've decided I'm marrying the two different sides of this into a 1.5k fic-ish thingy, because I think there's some fun potential there with Gepard not trusting Cocolia, but still having to pretend to be a good obedient little soldier.

Anyway. I love to think of it as like. Gepard knows Cocolia has sunk into her apathy. He can see it in her eyes every time he looks at her. She doesn't care. Not about him, not about Pela, not about all his soldiers on the frontlines giving their lives to protect the citizens. And that's... It makes him bristle a bit, but ok. Gepard can deal with this. Even if Cocolia no longer cares, as long as she does her job then it's fine. Having compassion behind an action doesn't matter as much as the action itself. If Cocolia's heart is no longer swayed, then he'll just have to care twice as hard to pick up the slack. He considers it part of his duty as a captain of the guard anyway. It's fine. Gepard can deal with it.

And then, Cocolia starts coming down to the restricted zone. Issuing direct orders.

And Gepard realizes he is in way over his head.

Because Cocolia orders him to stay back and issue commands from the ramparts, away from all his comrades, away from where he can protect them.

Gepard had thought nothing could be as bad as watching a fellow guard die right next to him. But the first time he watches someone struck by a killing blow, so far away, it hurts. Every defensive scar across his arms itches, his fingers curl in want of a weapon, the cold cannot numb his hands enough as they desperately ache for his shield. It hurts.

Gepard tries to find any reason to stay. Because surely... He knows Cocolia has lost her love for her people, but surely... She wouldn't...

One day, Cocolia orders for their gunners to advance 20 yards. There are no survivors. She almost looks like she smiles.

Gepard doesn't sleep that night.

Pela brings him the report at the end of the first month; and then the month after that, and the month after that. A significant uptick in losses, and all of it started on that first day Cocolia started overriding his authority and issuing her own orders. The ends of Gepard's pens have all been nearly chewed off. Pela outright calls Cocolia an idiot, and Gepard corrects her. Cocolia isn't an idiot. Gepard had known her through Serval, knew her through all her college years and then some, and he knows how intelligent she is. It's not that she's stupid, and it's not that she's inexperienced, it's nothing of the sort.

Cocolia knows exactly what she's doing.

She must, there's no way she could make such a horrible mess of things so badly by accident. And Pela, quick as a whip, sharp as a tack, always too smart for her own good, catches onto the meaning behind Gepard's correction without any further prompting. The tent goes deathly quiet, nothing but the wind howling outside.

"...She's trying to kill us," Pela whispers, her voice swiftly suffocated by the silence.

Gepard swallows. He can't bring himself to correct her this time. There is nothing he could say that he would actually mean.

His gaze drops, back down to his desk and the reports on it. The names aren't listed, just the numbers, but Gepard knows them, knew them, and there must be something wrong, something he's missing, because why, why would she-? What could this possibly accomplish-?

“Gepard! Focus!” Something snaps right under his nose, and Gepard startles, eyes instantly honing in on Pela's irritated face as she leans over his desk. She holds his gaze for a moment before she huffs and begins to pace, wedges a knuckle between her teeth and bites like Gepard hasn't seen her do since cadet school.

Pela angrily strides from one end of his tent to the other, words hissed between her grit teeth. “What are we going to do?” In the dim lighting, Gepard can just barely see the damp spot of blood weeping under her gloves. “We need a plan.”

“A plan?”

“Wh- Yes, a plan! Unless you want more people to die!” Pela rounds on him then, all the wrath of a blizzard, winds roaring and snow sharp enough to cut.

“We don't even know-”

“What does it matter?! She killed-!!” Pela cuts off with a garbled noise when Gepard leaps up from his desk, hastily shoves his hand over her mouth. The prosthetic, not the flesh one, because he knows better than to assume Pela won't seize the opportunity to leave teeth marks in his skin.

“You're right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry; you're right. But you need to keep quiet.” Pela quirks an eyebrow at him and Gepard can read the question in her face. “Because we both saw what she did to Serval,” he hisses.

It's amazing the snow plains haven't thawed out yet, the amount of heat Pela can put behind a glare. The mere mention of Serval, and the smoking ruins Cocolia had made of her life and career, have her bristling up like a riled cat. The sudden hot breath she takes fans fog across his metal skin, and Gepard wisely keeps it in place until Pela finally sighs and reaches up, taps her fingertips against the back of his hand.

The second she's free, Pela bats him away and then her knuckle is right back between her teeth again, Gepard leaning back against his desk with his arms crossed to watch her resume her pacing. “If we spread the word, she'll have us discharged and make sure we can't even touch the frontlines,” Pela's voice seethes like an open sore. Gepard nods but keeps his silence. He knows better than to get in her way.

“And if you and I are both out of the picture, Belobog is fucked.” A little harsher than how he would have put it, but there's no denying that they're both important to the city's survival. Pela has the restricted zone running as efficiently as ever, and Gepard had become the youngest captain on record for a reason. “We need to keep this tight under wraps, at least for now… It can't leak to anyone higher up the chain.” Another nod. “Serval might know other discontents…” Another n-

Gepard's head snaps up. “No.”

“No what?”

“No. We're not involving Serval in this.”

Somehow, even the same tone that leaves entire squadrons shaking in their boots has never worked on her. “You're not deciding that for her, Gepard.”

Pela hadn't seen the worst of it, though, back when his sister had just been banned from the Architects. Serval's pride hadn't allowed it. Pela wasn't the one to find her passed out bottle still in hand, hadn't been the one to wash the sick out of her hair or carry her to bed. 

Serval still has trouble thinking clearly when it comes to Cocolia, still can't quite bring herself to be objective. And Gepard maybe doesn't want her to be purely objective- but he would worry a lot less if she thought twice before she acted more often.

“At least let me be the one to bring it up to her.”

“Whatever, fine,” Pela gestures affirmatively at him as she paces past, and Gepard sighs. Good, at least that's one thing he can help.

From there, it's a lot of hemming and hawing and frustration. Cocolia has them under her boot, and Gepard and Pela both know it. Even with the way she's been cracking down on freedoms lately, Cocolia is still, overall, liked by the people. It's unlikely anyone would believe them. They don't even have solid proof, because most people don't know Cocolia as well as they do and won't see the clues in the same light. 

The Fragmentum has been ramping up in recent years, too. Everyone is struggling just to survive as is, they can't afford a fight on two fronts. Gepard is a damn good captain, one of the best for that matter. But they're at a massive disadvantage, his experience is narrowed to fighting a defensive battle against monsters, that's all he's ever done. That's all anyone there has ever done. He has no way of finding first-hand knowledge for taking the offensive against a human opponent, and if he goes at this blind, there's no way he'll get everyone out unscathed. He's going to lose people. He's going to lose a lot of people.

He'd never thought before that Cocolia would have it in her to have someone killed. And with this new knowledge, he has no guarantee she won't go after Serval or Lynx if she decides to retaliate.

Gepard has to remind himself to breathe when he realizes this.

Pela writes down every name the two of them can come up with. Lists and lists of names and groups and anyone they can think of who might be an ally in all of this. They memorize every bit of it, make their plans of who to talk to and when. Gepard watches the sparks reflect off Pela's glasses as they burn the evidence together.

Pela finally leaves, far too late to make it home, but says she wants to stay in the restricted zone anyway to investigate. Gepard watches her make her way in the direction of Dunn's tent, watches her back until she's out of his sight and squashes down the urge to follow and keep an eye on her. His tent feels empty.

In the morning, Gepard is up before the wake up bells. He drags himself out of bed, leads his soldiers through their morning training. The same people gravitate to each other everyday. Friend groups and training partners. There's an ongoing rivalry between a few squadrons that everyone bets on. Some of them have lockets around their necks, keepsakes, mementos. Some of them wear wedding rings.

Gepard is suddenly, painfully aware of something acidic clawing at the inside of his throat, of a heavy weight low in his chest that blooms, takes up room until it threatens to spread his ribs. His mouth tastes of bile and blood.

He rearranges the schedules. Puts himself down for every open patrol into the Fragmentum, makes sure he'll be on the frontlines every single time Cocolia visits.

He only hopes that it's enough.

[zaacataac]

my favourite things about Hello from the Hallowoods is that you can tell what someone’s trauma is just based on who their favourite character is

[eddiegettingshot]

Like literally we need to change the narrative around eddie's control issues. it is getting dire. why does nobody want to get him out.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok & Seven of Nine should have been overbearing co-parents to the borg children

[apple-spider-vinegar]

I don't know if Harry Osborn drives but if he did he would be in his car scream-singing to "Caught Myself" by Paramore

[alrightbuckaroo]

owen "my son really hates when i do this" strand and andrea "you wouldn't know my son is my son by the way he hasn't hugged me already" reyes planning a wedding with their respective sons we are about to feast

[prongsmydeer]

I finally got around to watching Elemental (2023) and I do think those that were describing it as an immigrant story were accurate. It is also a love story, like the marketing said, but you can't disentangle Ember's experience in the story from her family being diaspora.

But what struck me most about the film is that it's one of the only recent pieces of media I've seen, both in Disney and outside of it, that depicts generational trauma in a way that is fundamentally kind to the previous generation (parents, grandparents, etc).

In most other versions of stories like this I've seen lately, for the (immigrant, usually some variety of Asian, and it is clear that the Lumen family is inspired by multiple Asian cultural influences) parents/grandparents, even if we understand why they behave a certain way, it usually frames that generation as restrictive, oppressive, and perhaps even knowingly upsetting the younger generation. And yes, there are parents that do that. I understand the benefit of telling that story.

However, there are also immigrant families like Ember's. Where you have a family that supports you, that treats you kindly. But even still, you carry the weight of what has happened to them, an indebtedness that you can't ever repay. Bernie, Ember's father, doesn't want to force Ember to do anything. But he carries his hopes for her future, and Ember in turn responds by behaving in the way she thinks would make her parents most happy. So though they have this loving dynamic, the conflict is not in their personality, but in that weight they are both carrying. And that is a story I find relatable as an immigrant, and one that I thought was a standout point in this film.

[surrealsreal12]

Ok maybe there is a pattern with ships I like

[smallestflowtree]

Najuma, soon after you meet her: My mother taught me the basics about explosives and I worked out the rest for myself

Me: Fair enough

Najuma, once you get to know her better: So my mother died when I was five

Me: Leta Pavel what the fuck

[weewoo911]

Me when I don’t necessarily disagree with a Take but I think it’s Important to acknowledge that it’s a headcanon and Not Explicitly Canon: