#so she IS still fairly conservative she’s just had life experiences that have made her pro marijuana

[clanoffelidae]

Me when I was turning like 15 and my parents brought a cake to my church youth group so I would be the center of attention: nononononono-

Me when I was turning 21 and my parents told the waiters of the restaurant we were at so they could embarrass me but I promptly got out of my seat and put one foot on the chair: Give me the hat. I am conducting this performance.

[torchwood-99]

Modern AU Headcanon

(This basically turned into a soap opera)

Faramir is low contact with Denethor. Denethor isn't outright abusive (not like in the films) but they have a strained relationship. In some ways they're very similar, and in others ways very different. They both have very firm senses of right and wrong, and struggle to meet in the middle. In particular, Denethor believes very much in filial obedience, but feels like Faramir is judging him, which Faramir probably is at least some of the time, and this creates antipathy between the two.

It wasn't too bad during Faramir's childhood (except that Denethor's work and mental health meant he wasn't always present, but Imrahil and his family made sure Faramir and Boromir had a supportive family unit), but when Boromir died their mutual grief and the lack of Boromir as a buffer meant that things got very bad with them.

Before they could still be prickly and disagree over stuff, but they could also spend pleasant time together, discuss mutual academic interests, etc... But after losing Boromir the strain between them grows worse, and in the end they have to step away from each other.

So they're still in each other's lives, but their communication is limited, and has a degree of formality. Even after the worst of the antipathy has passed, there's a mutual discomfort between the two, to avoid arguments they maintain a certain coolness, which they're both a bit sad about.

Eowyn is no contact with her family, and it happened quite drastically from their perspective, but for Eowyn it was building up for a while.

Eowyn pretty much ran away from home.

Theoden had an ongoing condition that lasted several years, which left him with limited mobility and on a fair bit of medication, meaning he required near constant care. And through a mix of being the youngest and a girl, the weight of his care fell onto Eowyn's shoulders.

Their family horse farm, Edoras, is in quite an isolated area, which is also fairly conservative in terms of gender roles and has a stigma around mental health and disabilities.

Theodred and Eomer did everything they could to keep their farm (horse breeding/training?) going, and the work certainly had a toll on them, Eomer perhaps giving up on his career in the army. However the work was work they both genuinely cared about, and found fulfilment in. They also had clocking off time, to go down to the pub and hang out with friends, and their work did give them the chance to travel and meet with other people.

Eowyn was stuck in the house, tending to Theoden 24/7. She had no clock off time, except for when one of the boys offered to watch Theoden so she could have a couple of hours to go for a ride or go to the cinema. Because this wasn't "their job", they saw this as them being very generous to Eowyn, and naturally during that time laundry wasn't done and dinner wasn't prepped or anything like that.

Eowyn's academics struggled because of this, and because her family's work was either the farm or the military, academics wasn't particularly prized and it was just accepted that Eowyn had no future in it. Eowyn might not have considered herself the academic type, but the lack of degrees severely limited opportunities for work and experiences elsewhere, no university, less chance of a career. Her life would be wedded to the farm, but as doing the housework and support stuff so Eomer and Theodred could focus on the farm and the horses. She also only got housekeeping money and the odd the bit of pocket money, but as the profits from the farm are handled by Theodred and Eomer, she had to depend on them for cash. She didn't get a regular wage or anything like that, nor was she getting a profit from the farm.

During this time, she was also groomed by Grima, a family friend of Theoden who helped with money and the farm and visited regularly to keep Theoden company, something Theoden depended on as he was isolated. Grima started off trying to offer Eowyn a shoulder to cry on, commiserating with her on her lack of opportunities, trying to drive a wedge between her and her brother and cousin, offering her presents and trying to make her feel dependant on him. Eowyn disliked Grima so she always held him at arm's length, but she didn't speak up about his creepiness because she thought her uncle needed his company.

Eomer eventually saw Grima crossing a line with Eowyn, touching her hair perhaps, and he didn't care for him either but stuck up with him for Theoden's sake, but after seeing that he made it clear he was to stay away.

Theoden did eventually recover, but Eowyn's position in the family remained unchanged. Theoden was anxious to be in his old position as one of the guys, so he threw himself back into the farm work, and all the domestic work stayed on Eowyn's shoulders. It was also left to Eowyn to ensure Theoden continued with his treatment, taking his medication, going to appointments, which Theoden, in his discomfort at being seen as sick or frail, spun as Eowyn being a typical fusspot, and treated his accepting treatment as him humouring her. He joined the guys down at the pub, while Eowyn was left alone at the house.

Eowyn finally called it quits after hearing Theoden having a heart to heart with Eomer about how he loved him as much as a son, thanking him for all the work he did keeping the farm going while he was sick, and declaring him and Theodred his legacy, assuring him he trusted them with looking after the farm after he was gone.

By this point Eowyn did have access to some of the family cash, mostly so she could do the shopping and see to other domestic costs, and she took out a decent portion, what she saw as her due for years of being an unpaid housekeeper/carer, and then got a train to Minas Tirith, (the big fancy city filled with opportunities).

There she meets Merry, an PHD candidate/lecturer on herblore, who lives above a pub with his boyfriend Pippin. Pippin owns the pub, but lives off his trust fund. Their roommate, Frodo, recently moved in with his boyfriend Sam, and Sam's girlfriend Rosie, and Eowyn meets them while looking for a cheap place to live. She ends up working the pub, getting double pay as bartender/bouncer, because she knows a lot about self defence.

Eowyn struggles a bit adapting to her new freedom and independence, and apart from work mostly hides in her room, overwhelmed by the culture change. Merry and Pippin (especially Merry) encourage her to be more social and take advantage of all the opportunities the city has to offer.

Of course the Fellowship, Sam, Frodo, Pippin, Merry, Aragorn, Gandalf and Gimli are still just as much of a gang as in the books, as was Boromir before he died, and Pippin's pub is their regular meeting place. The Fellowship "adopted" Faramir after Boromir died, and through them Eowyn and Faramir meet.

Faramir is going through a career change, deciding to do a PHD in History, which he wanted to do all along, but he gave up in favour of working for the family business. Eowyn is looking for a purpose after leaving home, and she and Faramir get chatting about university courses (the universities in Minas Tirith don't charge fees). Eowyn wants to retake her school exams (GCSEs equivalent) and Faramir offers to tutor her.

After passing her school exams, Eowyn is still by nature very outdoorsy, and wants to do a degree that gets her outside as much as possible. She ends up pursuing a career in conservation, actually following in Aragorn and Arwen's footsteps, who do conservation work and start Eowyn up with trying a bit of volunteering, then helping her to get onto an apprenticeship scheme.

Back at the farm, Eowyn's family is blind sighted by her disappearance, especially Eomer who is panic stricken in case something happened to her. (He actually tracks down Grima and threatens him in case Grima did anything to her.) Because Eowyn never said anything they had no idea she was so unhappy, although as the housework starts piling up they do start to get an idea of just how much work Eowyn did, and how little free time she had.

Eomer becomes obsessed with finding Eowyn, not entirely convinced she wasn't kidnapped, and manages to track her down to Minas Tirith. Eomer knows Aragorn through his army days and through Boromir, but because Eowyn switched her last name after moving to the city and is cagey about her past, Aragorn doesn't know she is Eomer's sister, and when Eomer comes to the city and looks him up, Aragorn offers to help him find her. He brings Eomer to the pub, where Eowyn sees him and panics, and gets Faramir to help smuggle her out.

She and Faramir open up about their past together. Faramir doesn't push Eowyn to respond to Eomer's arrival in a certain way (even though his grief over losing his own brother makes it tempting for him to do so), but his understanding of the situation encourages her to give it a go.

Eowyn and Eomer's reunion is difficult. With a lot of anger and blame on both sides.

Eomer is angry at Eowyn for making him and the family worry so much, and for leaving without a word. Eowyn is filled with residual fury for how she was treated over the years. Eomer accuses Eowyn of not being loyal to the family, which infuriates Eowyn as she gave up her identity for the family.

Eowyn asking Eomer when they first noticed she was gone, when breakfast wasn't made or when they saw that last night's washing up hadn't been done, and that hits a little close to home.

When Eowyn does open up about she felt all those years, and how it felt hearing Theoden call Eomer and Theodred his legacy, all the while treating her like a crutch it embarrassed him to use, Eomer initially responds with explanations and excuses and an insistence that they "all had to do their bit" and that "Theoden didn't mean it like that" or Eowyn was "taking it the wrong way". He also thinks Grima the root of most of Eowyn's problems, and while Grima made things a lot worse, Eowyn is frustrated that Eomer can't see she was unhappy without him.

Eomer eventually asks Eowyn why she didn't just say anything. Eowyn struggles to explain, and Eomer struggles to understand, the pressure Eowyn felt to do as was asked of her, how Eowyn never felt like she had a choice and how she was just expected to do the "women's work", and how that choice was made for her, especially in light of her youth and her dependence on the family, the suffering of her schoolwork which was dismissed as her being "not book smart" and only good for working on the family farm, and any attempts of hers to speak up being waved away as young adult's grumbling and moaning, making her feel guilty for not being happy with her lot.

All of this is a massive blow, as he and Eowyn were very close as children, and he always saw the two of them as a team, and always expected that Eowyn would just come to him if she had a problem.

There's a lot of shouting, a lot of tears. This all takes place in the flat, and the Fellowship (Faramir included, honourary member) are downstairs, trying to eavesdrop on it all. Some (Aragorn, Faramir, Arwen, Frodo and Sam) are trying to act like that they're just there in case Eowyn or Eomer need them afterwards, and insist they're not listening in. Merry, Pippin, Gimli, Legolas and Rosie are shameless about trying to here everything that's being said, and at one point for a human pyramid on the bar table so that Pippin can be lifted up high enough to put his ear against the ceiling.

Eomer is devastated after the meeting, and is left reeling that his sister, who he thought himself very close to and always on the same side as him, had been unhappy for years, and nurtured resentment towards him and the family he adored, and the farm he made his life's work. Aragorn and Arwen take him home to cool down, and let him stay with them while he and Eowyn try to figure things out.

Eowyn does eventually begin to reconcile with her family, but stays in Minas Tirith, while Eomer goes back to their farm.

Eomer and Theodred occasionally come up to meet her, but Theoden isn't up to travelling. Eowyn's relationship with Theoden is very slow to heal in particular, due to Theoden's own lingering demons regarding his years being dependant on Eowyn, and Eowyn struggling to disconnect her (understandable but unfair) resentment of Theoden being sick and needing to be taken care of, and her (very fair) resentment of how he treated her following his recovery.

Faramir and Denethor's relationship still has underlying strain, but Eowyn and Faramir's growing closeness improves it a bit, as she and Denethor actually manage to establish a bit of a rapport, both being spiky tongued, (Eowyn all the while having Faramir's back), and Eowyn also acts as a buffer between them, as Boromir did. Denethor and Faramir's relationship has to be managed carefully, but they see more time with each other, and the time they share is spent more comfortably. Denethor is very happy (in his way) when Eowyn and Faramir become official.

Eowyn doesn't go back to Edoras for several years. When she does go, Faramir goes with her. Partially as emotional support, but also to introduce him to Theoden as her fiance.

[konniesreality]

Hi Konnie! I am fairly new to the manifestation/law of attraction community, I've been using subliminals on and off again for about five years but that's pretty much it.

I'm sending you this ask in hopes for some advice. I am starting school on August 29th and as of right now, I am going to be doing school online. I really don't want to do school online, I really want to go back to in person school. I'm going to be a senior this school year and this is my last chance to go to actual high school. I've been doing school online ever since the pandemic first shut everything down and ever year I was told "maybe next year" when it came to going into in person school, yet it never happened.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful here. I know that I am lucky to be able to do school from home when many aren't but it's just not for me. I want to experience high school, even if it's just for one year. I want to see my old friends again, friends I haven't been able to see since before school shut down all the way in 2020. I don't want to spend my days sitting down at home while everyone I used to know is out having fun and socializing.

My mom has her reasons for not wanting me to go back. First of all, she's pretty conservative and doesn't like some of the stuff that is being taught in schools as of right now and she doesn't trust teachers/school staff in general. She also doesn't think school is a very safe place right now even though I live in a pretty good area. I also have type 1 diabetes and she feels like it can be better managed at home, even though there's not much of a difference between how I would have to take care of myself at home vs at school. She doesn't like the supposed commute of taking me to school, even though the school is like five minutes away from our house. I was a little troubled in middle school because I got mixed up with the wrong type of people and made some poor descions and got bullied.

Mostly I think the way she is thinking is based off her high school experience. From what she's told me, she ended up dropping out of high school in the 11th grade because she had no friends at school. I think she's afraid that I may have the same experience but I feel like she should be glad that I actually want to go to school. I know all her reasons for wanting me to stay home are valid and while I love my mom a lot, I feel like she is too controlling. It's like she wants me to stay with her for the rest of my life. She told me I could go to in person community college classes this year because I only have two classes to take for high school and then when it was time to sign up for classes, I ended up with having to take online college classes. She's against me getting a job but wants me to take over her job working for my grandfather so she can go get another job that pays better. She's always telling me that many kids don't ever move out of their parents' house and I feel like she's trying to install the idea into my head that I should never leave. I don't have any plans to leave my mom, I just want some freedom and independence. I am 17 years old and I still feel like she treats me like a child.

Sorry for ranting but I just think that having some context may help with giving advice.

I was wondering if it was possible for me to manifest going back to in person school. I found a subliminal on YouTube that is for going back to inperson school and I'm going to use it starting tonight. I just don't know if the subliminal alone is enough for me to be able to go, seeing that I have about a month and a half before school starts again and as of right now, my mom believes that I am going to stick with online school. Plus I should probably know a month before school starts if I'm going to in person school so I can prepare to have a good school year.

I know this is kind of last minute but I really want to go back, it's the main thing I've wanted for the past three years. Is there anything else I can do to ensure that I will go back to my in person high school or do you think adding the subliminal I told you about to my playlist is enough? I know it's not good to obsess over results but I just want to know this is all right so I can manifest going back. I'm hoping once I get some advice that I'll stop obsessing and relax.

I'm sorry this is so long but if you have any answers or advice for me then I'd love to here it! Have a great day!

-Rose 🌹

I think the subliminal in your playlist is enough. Remember all you need to do is assume and assumptions create reality you can go to sleep and wake up having everything that you want and remember it is OK to doubt because you will get your desires and it will happen so stop worrying about what you don’t have and start focusing on the fact that you do have them and then when you wake up you’ll have everything that you want 💗

[likeabxrdinflight]

I don't want to talk about this too much, but given there's been a recent escalation in the transphobic nonsense and, frankly, a flirtation with alt-right fascist sympathizers who agree with said transphobic nonsense, by the author who shall not be named, I'm wrestling a bit with the issue of my 11 year old cousin.

she's my first cousin's child, and I'm fairly close to her. she loves harry potter. she started reading the books several years before you know who went off the deep end, and at the time, I encouraged it and encouraged her parents to support that love of harry potter because I know from experience that harry potter is a gateway into a love of reading. and to some extent I was right- this kid is now reading the wicked books. she's so smart, and so capable of digesting these more complicated novels, and I can't bear the idea of anything ripping that love of reading away from her. nor would I ever want this kid to lose something that might give her comfort or an escape- god knows I remember how much fantasy and fiction, but harry potter especially, gave me a home when I felt lost and confused and alone.

and I know this kid's been having a hard time recently- she had to switch schools and, according to her grandmother (my aunt) she's had a hard time making new friends and is even being bullied a little. she might still need these stories.

...but she's getting older, and eventually, she's going to find out about what's been going on with the author of her favorite books. she's going to find out who this woman really is. her parents have kept her off social media this long, but I don't think they'll be able to do it much longer. kiddo turns 12 soon, she's in middle school...they (and I) can't shield her from the truth forever.

In many ways it's not really my place to have a conversation with her about transphobia and how to reckon with enjoying a piece of art without financially supporting the artist- that's her parent's job, maybe her school's. or it should be. I know I don't want to go over her parent's heads, I don't want to discuss this with her without their knowledge- not at this age, anyways. but I don't know if I trust her parents to have that conversation, or to really even know how- they're not exactly the number one LGBT allies in my family. I don't believe they're actively hateful, just...very cis and very straight and not particularly in the loop. and I definitely don't trust the public schools in a state that's very likely to try and pass a version of florida's "don't say gay" bill to do it.

if I was closer to her parents I think it would be easier to talk to them about this- but I'm really not, this girl's mother and I barely have a relationship (she's my actual first cousin, we barely speak.) I'm close to this child because I made an effort at larger family gatherings and I know how much she wanted a big sister/aunt figure- so I stepped in. and I love this kid, I really do, she's very sweet- but it's kind of awkward being close to her without having much more than a cordial relationship with her parents. so I have no idea how or when this should be addressed. just that it should, and I would like it to happen before her classmates or the internet makes her aware of the problem.

confounding all this is the reality that trans issues are about to become a whole conversation in my family as my brother's partner transitions. everyone met this partner when he was simply performing as a drag king and primarily used she/her pronouns in regular life. but now that he's coming out as a trans man, I'm expecting that to become an issue with some of the more conservative members of the family. I want to keep the kids from believing in any of that transphobia as best as I can- all the kids, not just this particular one- though she's the oldest and most likely to fully understand.

...I don't have a larger point here it just breaks my heart. the whole thing breaks my heart. I hate to be the one to have to explain to her that the author of a book series she loves would hate and oppose my brother's partner simply for being who he is. I hate it.

[stitch-n-time]

Can you explain how the US housing laws work? You have me interested

Short answer: they don’t.

Longer answer (because I have to work tonight and truly don’t have like 8 hours to write the thesis, because you bet your ass I could):

There is actually an internal structure that the low income housing system has been built around that makes it nearly impossible to navigate, difficult to get into, and specifically works against the people that it was supposedly built to help.

I’m actually not quite sure where to start with this, so it’s going to be all over the place and bouncing back and forth, but that’s also kind of on brand for the low income housing system.

The system as we know it is very much a post WWII thing, so the info here will be from after that point. A lot of this will be in kind of broad, sweeping terms. But since the US is like 60 different states in a trenchcoat trying to sneak into an R-rated movie, very little of it actually covers the entirety of the country. There are also state and city levels of bullshit that people have to wade through. Most people don’t make it.

I’m going to use my own experiences as an example. But know that my experiences are NOT typical. When I started down this rabbit hole, I was a 30-ish year old white woman, a part time student, presented as a professional female on a daily basis, had a fairly stable income from a job I had held for years, and a vehicle (though making payments). All of this put together meant I had it pretty easy.

Some of that caused problems, though. The vehicle was a problem. It was a newer model gently used vehicle. According to the dealership, the previous owner had traded it in because it was a manual transmission and they wanted an automatic. When I bought it, it had less than 60k miles on it and was in excellent condition. In the eyes of the people who approve the paperwork and rubber stamp applicants for low income housing, I could get rid of that vehicle, and the moneys spent on the payments and insurance could go toward housing. Which would be reasonable, except most of the US doesn’t have public transportation at all. What public transport does exist is sketchy, rarely runs on schedule, and often does not go into residential areas. I COULD have gotten rid of the car, but that would have meant a 2 mile hike to the nearest bus station, 4 hours on a bus to get to class and 5 hours on the return trip twice a week, then a 2 mile hike home OR a 2 mile hike to the nearest bus station, 4.5 hours on a bus, another 2 mile hike to get to work, and the same on the return. At that point, I would have been spending more time on the bus than either at work or school, and might as well just live on the damned thing, since all I would have time to do at home is shower and MAYBE eat a sandwich?

But that’s also typical. Part of the laws as they are written specifically state that a person or household can not own physical properties that are over a certain value, because those properties could be sold in order to elevate the person/family’s lifestyle. That also makes household absolutely reliant on public transportation, which is simply not available in many poor areas.

Which goes into redlining, and systemic racism, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

The fact that I was a student also worked against me. If a person can afford to go to school, they can afford housing. So why would you want/need help from the government? I’m just thankful that I was a part time student when the need for low income housing arose… If you’re a full time student, you are automatically denied on any application for low income housing. There are different legal designations for “low income housing” and “student housing”. They can not exist in the same housing complex for legal reasons. So if I had been taking one more class that semester, I would have been denied, and would have been homeless.

That in itself doesn’t sound terrible. And there’s reasons for the legal differences. But think about it… What if I had been in the last semester of school and something had happened? What about the people who are both enrolled in school and are working, trying to make ends meet, trying to be able to do something better, and either their lease is up or they get evicted or… I don’t know… their house burns down or a tornado hits or suddenly medical bills? If a person fills out that paperwork while still a student, even if they say “I’m graduating next month and want to move in the month after that” they still count as a full time student and would get denied. Which means leaving school and being spit out into the post graduate world probably without a job, while being denied help with keeping a roof over their head, when it’s absolutely necessary to have a physical address while searching for a job.

Which goes into the anti-homeless way of thinking, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

I’m going to lump the “fairly stable income from a job I had held for years” and “presented as a professional female on a daily basis” into one, because they are directly related. I had worked my way through a trade school, and had been working in the medical field for nearly 4 years. The practice was open 4 days a week. I was there 2 days, the male counterpoint was there the other 2 days. If a client preferred one of us over the other, either they scheduled appropriately, or the doctor asked us to come in for that client’s appointment time. Because a large portion of the clientele were middle aged and older, as well as conservative, the dress code reflected accordingly. Since I actually REALLY liked the job, and the doctor and his family were pretty awesome people, I dressed and styled accordingly, on a daily basis. But because the number of hours on the clock varied with the number of clients scheduled for therapy appointments, there were times when those paychecks got mighty thin. There were absolutely trends of busy seasons and light seasons. Sometimes during that light season there were days when I would go to work for a couple of hours, go home until about 3PM, then go back for 2 or 3 hours. It was hard to pin that down.

Having to explain that I could not pinpoint an amount of annual income with any accuracy while filling out the application worked against me. And just about anybody who works in retail, food service, etc. - all the jobs that people with low incomes tend to have – will tell you that they suffer the same thing. Go  into work, put in a couple of hours, and have the manager come tell you to go home because it’s not busy enough to justify having people on the clock. But without having an accurate estimation of annual income (that could be verified by their calling your employer) means that the application is denied. The general consensus is that if you can’t pinpoint your annual income, then you’re lieing on the application, which means you’re untrustworthy, and therefore don’t deserve to get the help you need to keep a roof over your head.

That conservative professional look helped me here, though. I went into the office dressed well, in khakis and a nice blouse, to fill out the application and speak to the people. While I was there, another lady came in to fill out an application. This is somebody who I happened to know personally. She was also a professional, who was arguably in a slightly better place than I was because her income did not fluctuate (though it was low, as she was recovering from a divorce and most of the family income had come from her ex husband), but she was “dressed down” in shorts and a t shirt. We made the same arguments. I ended up in an apartment, and she did not.

Honestly, I was actually lucky to get into an apartment. A lot of people don’t realize it, but even with things being classified as low income housing, it takes a LOT of money to get into places. Just like every other rental in the US, before you move in, you have to pay the first month’s rent. And a deposit. And if you have pets, another deposit. And the cost of having the electricity and water turned on. And depending on the specific details of the contract you have to sign, possibly trash pickup. And if you want internet, either you pay for that and get a modem through the ISP, or you pay extra on signing the lease. And if you want to do your laundry in your home (if there’s even a hookup), there’s an extra rental fee for a washer and dryer, unless you bring your own.

I got lucky. When I applied and was approved, this particular housing development was running a “special” - if you sign a lease, you get one month rent free to use within 12 months of signing. I had to use it immediately. With all the extra fees and everything else, I could either pay for the rent OR the deposit, but not both – so I paid the deposit and laughingly told them I’d like to use that free month on the first month, immediately, right now, please and thank you, now where’s my key? They almost turned me away at that point.

I honestly believe that if it hadn’t been for my professional clothing and the fact that I could point to a couple of scabs on my face, that I would have been denied at that point. (The scabs were from a dog. I had been renting a room from a “friend” who is no longer a friend. Her dog bit my face, and instead of punishing the dog, she decided I needed to move out that weekend. Note: this is literally the ONLY time I’ve had a dog bite me, despite having been around them most of my life, and this particular dog had snapped at multiple people before.)

Which goes into classism, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

Now the thing that has been on my last nerve for a few years now is a good one. The laws state that if your household changes in any way, you have to fill out the application again. Doesn’t matter if you literally got approved the day before: you fill it out again. Because there have been household changes. It doesn’t sound terrible at all, but I know somebody who got evicted from low income housing and ended up homeless because his wife left. Suddenly the household size was smaller, but had the same income, and it was over the limit for the household size. Sorry not sorry you have to go. I know somebody who was evicted for “falsified paperwork” because she had a baby and was in the hospital for 2 weeks, so didn’t get the paperwork in on time. They ended up in a homeless shelter (in this city, homeless shelters are more expensive than a lot of low income housing). Now she’s in debt that she’ll probably never get out of, due to that.

What’s more is that the eligibility requirements to be able to pass those income thresholds change constantly. Out of curiosity, I tracked the changes over the course of a year. Just checking on the first of the month. In a single year, the income requirements changed 10 times. It’s not easy to keep track of, and there’s not much reason to track it unless it’s literally part of your job, in order to keep in compliance with the laws.

My own personal gripe is much less severe than that. I can’t get married. Technically, my fiance can’t live with me. On paper, he lives with his parents, miles away. But he spends most of his time in my apartment, which is under my name only, because I’m disabled (but ineligible for disability) and need his help. We’ve been together for a decade. We’ve been engaged for over 5 years. But if we get married, then the household changes, and we have to fill out the paperwork and get approved again. The thing is: if we put together our incomes into one “household” income, we would never be eligible for low income housing. Which means we would have to move out.

Moving out comes with it’s own difficulties. Because of the paperwork you have to sign to lease low income housing – and depending on where you are because 60 states in a trenchcoat – there are hoops to jump through. The lease in this particular development,  you get a choice. If you break the lease you either a) pay the full amount of rent on the apartment through the end of the lease term or b) pay two months’ rent on the apartment after termination of the lease. So not only would we have to find other housing that we could afford (with all of the move in fees, deposits, transfer of service fees for utilities, bla bla bla), we would also have to pay 2 months’ rent on top of everything else. Which means either borrowing literally thousands of dollars from an individual – banks won’t do loans for this – or having to decide which bills get paid and which don’t while surviving off of ramen noodles for months at a time. Which… uh… would not work well with the man-thing’s diabetes.

Which all goes into respectability politics, and deciding whether or not poor people deserve to have stability and emotional fulfillment, which is a huge part of this, but is a whole ‘nother essay.

Now this may sound like a whole lot of personal whining. And it kind of is. But I can’t speak for anybody else. This is my personal interactions with these people and with the laws behind their behavior. But it’s the laws themselves that are written to be exclusive of the people that need help the most.

Homeless people can not apply, because they don’t have a current address.

Unemployed people can not apply, because they don’t have an income.

Full time students can not apply, because of the legal definitions of the different types of housing.

People with “disposable” property (such as cars) are often denied because they could turn those assets into monies.

People who rely on that “disposable” property for work are unable to take advantage of low income housing due to the above.

People of color who have been relegated to specific neighborhoods where public transportation is not available due to the redlining of the last century are unable to take advantage of low income housing due to the above.

People who do not have thousands of dollars readily available are denied because they can not pay both the deposit and rent.

People who face employment discrimination (even though it’s illegal) are denied because they can not provide proof of steady income.

People who have bounced from employer to employer are often denied for the same reason.

People who have successfully gained low income housing are often unable to change anything about their household.

People who have successfully gained low income housing are often unable to get out of it if their situation improves.

All of it is written into the laws surrounding the housing itself.

So…. Yeah. It doesn’t work. But if you want me to actually get into the nitty gritty, I can start actually researching. But somebody’s gotta pay me for it.

[bean-na-farraige-agus-foraoise]

Please info dump about your magical traditions! I would love to hear more about them 😊

Yes! So. I’ve got.... a fascinating family to have received these traditions from. So I have a weird mix of Northern Appalachian folk magic and Braucherei (also called “Pow wow”). There’s definitely some overlap between the two because of the region of Appalachia I live in (hello being an hour from Lancaster, PA) but in general I’m still piecing together which aspects of the traditions I was raised in are magical and then from which side of the family did they originate. So it’s all very muddled over here at the moment- in large part because my grandfather won’t give me a straight answer on anything despite very clearly knowing the answers I’m looking for. Story time under the cut because this got LONG.

The area I live in is primarily German. And I mean this in the “they literally taught us basic German in elementary school so that we could pronounce road names and we have our own Oktoberfest” sense. One of the more interesting aspects of the area I grew up in is that it’s about 50/50 descendants of German Lutherans and German Anabaptists (predominantly Old Order and Conservative Mennonites). The area is so densely populated with Mennonites and PA Dutch culture that our public school art curriculum included how to design a hex sign.

But Mari, you’re asking- why is this background important? Fear not, we’re finally at my actual relatives.

My great grandparents grew up as neighbors. My great grandfather (Russell) was for all intents and purposes a German Lutheran. My great grandmother (Ethel) was raised in a Conservative Mennonite family/church that leaned pretty close to the Old Order customs. They both grew up speaking German in the home. (Ethel is my inspiration in life and everyday I aspire to be more like her will probably post a big thing for ancestor veneration on her soon).

Them getting married was..... to put it mildly, something of a problem. Russell was well liked by her church and her family but he wouldn’t convert to their denomination. Ethel refused to submit to the church leadership and married him anyway. She was subsequently excommunicated from the only faith she ever truly believed in. They had three children, Ethel sent her daughters to college and made my grandfather stay home and learn domestic things and it’s fairly obvious that he learned Braucherei from her.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that her family practiced Braucherei, I grew up on that same road that she did and her siblings’ descendants still live there and they and many of my former neighbors were not at all secretive about the fact that they practiced Braucherei- there’s a sort of awe to it, the use of it reinforces their belief because it requires calling on a higher power, so when it works it is evidence of that power at work.

When I was younger I was relatively friendly with one of the neighbor boys, and one of the big examples of Braucherei that he was told growing up was actually that of my great grandmother. When Ethel was born she was three months premature and weighed just around two pounds (I have in fact verified this to be true), it was a home birth, and she was not taken to a hospital as they feared that the ride to the hospital (over an hour over rough terrain) would kill her- but her mother was a braucherin and through her work and prayer Ethel was saved and lived and grew into a healthy child and then an adult. For several months they carried Ethel around on a pillow because they were afraid that she would break otherwise- and as she had eleven siblings they had a rhyme to remember everyone’s name and hers was “Ethel Irene small as a bean.”

Russell’s family was (and still is) very odd. Yes they were German Lutherans and thus also brauchers to an extent but their family had been in America for a much longer time, having arrived in 1789 as opposed to 1856. And thus their practices while still distinctly Germanic had garnered something of a twist through exposure to local indigenous populations, the enslaved and free African populations, the Scotch-Irish, and the English who settled and moved through the area, at times intermingling or cohabitating with the family. In essence they are more what most people think of when I say “Appalachian folk.”

This magical tradition is harder to nail down, particularly as it is still primarily Germanic and there are a significant number of brauchers within the family who have no Mennonite or Anabaptist ancestry. Basically the essence lies in the understanding that many of the spells or rituals that I’ve been able to attribute as being magical and coming from this side of the family do not necessarily require a Bible or a prayer to work. The opposite is true of Braucherei.

Ultimately I’m still figuring it out, families are bad at communicating, especially mine. But I was raised to view the Bible as both a charm and a spell book on top of being y’know the Bible, in the Beaucherei I was taught hex signs can have talismanic properties (though some really are just for decoration), what is and is not a spell is hard to quantify, and I’m in the process of piecing together an understanding of how Ethel used fiber arts as a medium through which to express her Braucherei (spurred on by the pressing question- why do we have so many identical homemade lace table cloths?).

I do urge everyone to look into Braucherei because it’s SUPER COOL. And I’m experimenting with replacing God and the Bible with my gods and the lore to see if the premise works. But yeah, it’s horrifying trying to dig through all of this when not a single goddamn member of my family could spell things in English until the lates 1940s-early 1950s. They straight up just ran around spelling English words as though they were German words, and while I respect the hell out of that, most of them also didn’t speak English that well but insisted on writing in it anyway so a fair amount of this is just gibberish, or names followed by dates that then don’t match anything I can find in their census records 🤷🏻‍♀️

[the-scottish-costume-guy]

JK Rowling, transphobia and a hopefully helpful post.

A few days ago I posted on my Facebook (yes I have one sue me) debunking some of the things Rowling has been saying on twitter. Since she made a statement I felt the need to make another one... but this time Im sharing it here. Please note this is long, it is fairly opinionated in places but her statements have felt so insidious I want to share something in depth. If you are cis I implore you to read, but I understand this is long and a lot of people wont want to. No judgement. 

Jk Rowling’s latest statement is a mess of valid concerns and fear mongering. At this point there can be no claim she doesn’t know what shes talking about - she herself has said shes been researching this for years. She throws in token acknowledgements to “real” trans people while framing the rest of her statements as concern for confused teens.So first things first - and something that might not be popular with some of my trans friends. I agree that teenagers should not be able to medically transition. It is a choice that should be made when the brain is fully mature. Hormone blockers are something I trust - and that are reversible. I have seen enough detransitioned people hurting to feel like we do need to be careful - especially with children who are trying to find themselves. I dont know about other people but during my teens I was coming to the crushing realisation that I wasn’t special. I was learning that no matter how well I painted someone else did it better, no matter how badly I hurt someone had it worse - I was learning about the wonderful mediocrity of life, and having anything that made me stand out gave a brief reprieve from learning to be okay with all these things. For me to be fair it was dying my hair outrageous colours and dressing in black leather during 30 degree summer heat - but its still something we cant forget. I KNOW a lot of kids claiming to be trans are - and I dont want to keep that from them, however I dont want to cause harm to the kids that are wrong. Continuing on, I’d like to address her comments about TERFS. Terfs are Self Described Trans-exclusionary-radical-feminists and the term does get thrown around a little too liberally at times. Terf is not and never will be a slur. No more than “White” is. It is about a group of people who have taken it open themselves to segregate another group - and calling that what it is, is not a crime. The reason Terf and transphobe have become synonomic is because the ‘radical feminists’ that subscribe to this have lost focus on nearly all other issues of feminism and sit squarely on “dropping the T” from the lgbt community and “keeping men out of womens bathrooms.” Terfs are overwhelmingly women - this is sadly simply a fact. Terfs are reviled because of how much it feels like a betrayal to the community. A group that fights for rights - except ours. A group that wants equality - except for us. Its different to the conservatives who hate us all equally - with Terfs we are singled out. Terfs are not, as Rowling claims, inclusionary to Trans-men. I’ve been met with a combination of pity, loathing, mockery and revulsion by people within this group. I’ve been told that I shouldn’t let homophobia push me into transitioning - only for all correspondence to abruptly drop when I mention Im marrying another man. I’ve been told my old body was beautiful - only for stunned silence when I agree. I was beautiful - I was curvy, I was a dancer and had a body to match - but I wasn’t Me. When their usual arguments against me fail - I’m met with hate. Im called anti-woman, traitor, homophobic. I even have some such comments saved on my blog. I have yet to meet a Terf who was pro-trans-man. Rowling claims that had she had the ability, as a confused teen, she may have sought to transition. I hate to tell her but she did have the ability and trans people didn’t pop into existence in the twenty-first century. I’m actually looking to do my dissertation topic in my final year on lgbt presentation throughout history - and in my overeager way I’ve already started researching. James Barry has been becoming a common name for years - a transgender surgeon who died in 1865. If Barry was able to at least socially transition from 1790 to 1860, I am fairly sure Rowling could have in 1980 - over a century later. Rowling also claims that groups of friends in schools all suddenly identify as trans at the same time. Speaking from my school experience - the queer kids group together. We seek out others like us, and we take strength from each others bravery to come out - often around the same time. We almost get a rush of resolve when one of our group musters the courage and strength, and some of us use that rush to bite the bullet ourselves. Its one of the beautiful ways the lgbt community is here for one another - and the influx of people identifying as trans is partially a factor of more people knowing the name of their feelings. Survivor bias will ignore the trans people through history without the knowledge or means to transition - and will claim they were never trans at all. Her initial statements about charities worry me in particular. As I said last time - we know sex is real, we just dont really like to be defined by it. She is worried that we’re going to “rebrand medicine” and ignores that medications for years have had warnings in their leaflets about “If you are or become pregnant” regardless of if the person receiving it has a dick or a vagina. We dont advocate for ignoring the differences in how people respond to heart attacks - and I for one would like research to be done on how hormones effect that. I dont actually know if I would respond more like a cis gender woman or a cis gender man if I were to have a heart attack or a stroke. But where possible we do want to change the language around some of these things. I have had a double mastectomy, but some Cis-men have these as well. This is not a gendered term. Why should a period be called anything else? Why call it a “womens problem.” I and Im sure many other trans people, support the research into how different medical and mental issues affect different sexes. I just think that should be extended further - and we know it should, as some medical issues affect people of different ethnicities in different ways and we don’t know how. I am truly sorry that Rowling has experienced abuse and assault of any nature. I am truly sorry that she has felt unsafe. But her feelings do not invalidate others experiences. Of the trans people I know, a saddening number have been assaulted, have been abused and in particular have experienced these things domestically. There is much work to be done on this in the UK. There are nearly no mens shelters for sufferers of violence to my knowledge. I, a trans man who have experienced some of these things in my teen years, would Not want to be around cisgender women even if I could be. A cis woman was responsible for much of the pain I personally suffered - and in fact one of the acts of violence she carried out against me was directly after I came out as trans to her. Trans women, even if they could go to male shelters, should not have to be surrounded by a group that put them in danger - in a place that is detrimental to them physically and mentally and is frankly degrading. The belief that allowing trans women into shelters for those escaping abuse is dangerous is sad. To be so afraid is deserving of pity. To let fear blind you to the suffering of others - to think its better that a trans woman face homelessness or a return to an abusive household because you personally would sleep better at night is the kind of passive evil we should be aware of in this day and age. It comes from choosing to see the word “trans” before “person.” Its from choosing to see a persons genitals before their humanity. Trans people are not dangerous - and cause no greater risk than any other demographic.  Her claims that she can empathise with this fear are empty. A gender recognition certificate is not a ticket into womens bathrooms. Funnily enough you dont actually require a piece of paper to go almost anywhere. I do not have a gender recognition certificate and use male bathrooms, can enter male spaces as I please. All a gender recognition certificate does is change the letter on your birth certificate. It doesn’t even affect other forms of identification - my passport, my student id, my drivers license all already say male. I am not sure why so many people have chosen this as their hill to die on because its the least relevant thing to them on the planet. How often have any of you seen another persons birth certificate? Rowling says she and other ‘gender critical’ (a terf dogwhistle) people are concerned for trans youth. Well… she can take her condescending concern and direct it to matters that are relevant to her. Trans people want to be left alone. Its a simple request, and yet people endlessly seem to trip over the dirt level bar.

[deathbydarkelves]

I decided to make playlists for Cathala and Tarinne plus explanations for why I chose each song because I entered one of those ADHD fugue states and if I didn't finish this task I would die

Anyway here are the two links (they're youtube playlists because I don't have spotify. I would obviously recommend using an adblocker if you're just gonna watch on youtube) and the explanations for each song are below the cut :) Each playlist is about an hour long.

For Tarinne’s:

1. Foggy Nights: I consider this her theme so putting it first as a sort of intro only makes sense.

2. Here’s a Health to the Company: I think this works as an example of her general disposition. She’s a people person, and always a fan of singing these sorts of songs in taverns, on ships, or what have you. It also kind of feels like a sendoff to soldiers, which I imagine symbolizes her joining the Sentinel Army and quickly thereafter fighting in the Third War.

3. Wartime Prayers: Somewhat self-explanatory, this is symbolizing her seeing war for the first time, but I also included it because the last line transitions SO WELL into the next song.

4. The Hollow: This song is an intro to an album I've never heard so I don't know the context, but I really love it because it sounds like someone praying to their deity and like I mean c'mon. Elune. Tarinne's praying to Elune to guide her through the war. Do I need to elabo-

5. Wave Walker: KILL DEATH MAIM AHAHAHAHA

6. Isil Elun’falo: Just a super rad fan-made night elf song that's basically "wow we sure do love Elune" said in twenty different ways for four and a half minutes. But it ROCKS and I LOVE it.

7. Chewing Cotton Wool: This song is about losing a loved one (I did have to check but yeah that's what it is) and I use it to symbolize Tarinne losing her mom during the war. The last line, which includes the song's title, I especially like. It's referring to how morticians (apparently) put cotton gauze in a corpse's throat and mouth to keep body fluids in and make the face look more natural. So there's a fun fact for you.

8. See U Soon (Song for Dad): Just a short lofi piece to rest a bit, and it was also chosen because the title's in reference to Tarinne growing closer to her dad after losing her mom. She still visits him at his leathers and furs shop in Stormwind fairly often, especially after dangerous adventures. She just wants to make sure he knows she's alright ;-;

9. No Lullaby: Right back into it with a song that I use to represent Tarinne's general feeling of not being able to go home because it's not there anymore. She's felt like this since the end of the Third War, but it's especially strong since the whole Teldrassil thing. But I like the ending, "who said you're on your own," because it contrasts the repeating of "alone" in the rest of the song. And it's kinda like "hey, listen, you're not the only one who feels like she can't go home." I mean that's probably how basically every single night elf feels right now skxnks

10. The Moss: This song juxtaposes classic fairy tales with scientific facts about the world and I love it to BITS. I'm using it here to represent both Tarinne's love for storytelling but also her sort of... part-time historian/archaeologist/conservator career.

11. Rasputin: I just associate this song with her for some reason and this was the best place to put it.

12. Electric Feel: Moving on to focus more on Tarinne's relationship with Cathala now. This is an extremely great and somewhat 😏 song that I also included because the electricity theme is appropriate because Cathala has lightning powers and y'know it's from Tarinne's perspective or whatever.

13. Bedroom Hymns: You know why this is here.

14. Movement: I can't talk about love songs without talking about Hozier, okay. This is just a nice, slower song to relax a bit with.

15. Never Let Me Go: I have an entire goddamn music video in my head with Cathala and Tarinne for this song and it’s very dramatic and emotional and I had to include this song or I’d die. Basically just listen to near the end of this song when she's repeating the title over and over, and imagine the two of them seeing each other at opposite ends of a battlefield after the dust settles and they rush towards each other and fall to their knees holding on as tightly as they can because they got separated early on and each thought the other was dead. Then you'll know how I feel when I listen to this song.

16. Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control: First of all I love the title, and second of all there's a big section in the middle (1:49 to 2:47) that I like to interpret as the two of them grappling with the fact that they're not really quite sure who or what they're fighting for anymore. Their people, yeah, but there's so many alliances and semi-permanent enemies and only-on-every-other-thursday-enemies all intertwined and the world is just so very confusing and they're trying to make the best of it. Elf school didn’t include international, interracial politics in its curriculum. It did however include how to properly plant trees, and AP calculus (this is a joke).

17. In Dreams: I like to imagine this song is something the two of them would say to each other, as a way of saying “even when everything we know is gone, even when the world ends, I will still be by your side. And if I’m not, don’t fear, for I will find you.” It makes a nice note to end on :)

For Cathala’s:

1. muse: Just a nice lofi intro to get us into things :) I don't see this song as her theme, like I do with Tarinne and the first song in her playlist, but I like it quite a bit. I don't actually really have a theme for Cathala yet, I'm currently going with a version of Way of the Monk from WoW's OST but I'm still looking for something better.

2. Frogs Singing: I included this because it's about just appreciating nature, which works because night elf and also mindfulness and meditation is a whole thing.

3. Tongues: This is a song about feeling distant from your peers which is like Cathala's whole existence! She's this weird mix of two cultures and ultimately she feels out of place regardless of where she is or who she's with. Also the theme with not understanding what people are saying works because the poor woman had to learn Pandaren from scratch and that shit ain't easy. I think blizz said somewhere probably that Common is just a language that EVERYONE knows inherently because Video Game but that's bullshit in my opinion. I'll allow spells that let you understand foreign languages to an extent (Comprehend Languages from D&D lets you understand the LITERAL meaning only, which I like), but every culture and species in the universe knowing Common is silly if you think about it for more than two seconds.

4. Kung Fu Fighting: I'm legally required to include this song. Also I prefer the Kung Fu Panda version, I'm sorry.

5. Harder Better Faster Stronger: I vicariously experience having a great work ethic through Cathala and that's why this song is here because she has 999 Determination and does Too Many push-ups every day or something idk. I was gonna say "every morning" but I have a headcanon that elves only need to sleep every couple of days (sort of a nod to "elves don't need to sleep at all" from D&D, and to explain why NIGHT elves are active at all hours of the day) so that doesn't work.

6. What's Up Danger: This song is Cathala's whole Vibe. Almost zero threat assessment skills in this woman's brain. If it can be punched, she will punch it.

7. Eye for an Eye: Fairly self-explanatory, it's a song about wanting revenge so... yeah. Checked that box. It was this or The Vengeful One by Disturbed but ultimately The Vengeful One's religious symbolism probably makes it fit better as a Tyrande theme lol ("I'm the hand of god, I'm the dark messiah." Did you mean: the Night Warrior)

8. Survivor: Cathala's survived a lot of shit and this could kinda be her making fun of herself for it because "Gods, man! Don't I deserve a break!"

9. Ashes: Really the reason I include this song is the last chunk (2:42 to the end) because holy shit. Listen, if I was gonna include a song with fire motifs, it was gonna be a somber one like this.

10. Into the West: This can kinda represent Cathala just trying to fucking breathe and recover from Teldrassil. Also works because I dunno it has stuff to do with the elves in LotR, I haven't seen those movies in a while. It sounds nice and is melancholy so I included it.

11. Like Real People Do: Cathala loves Tarinne a lot you guys have I ever menti-

12. Into the Wild: Tarinne changed Cathala's world for the better and she's super fucking grateful she has her by her side. Kinda goes without saying but you know.

13. Chasing the Moon: I have a vague music video in my head for this of them falling in love and it's very cute so there's that. Also it's in this specific spot because hey she may be deeply traumatized but she's still got a fair number of things/people in her life that make her happy so :)

14. Follow My Girl: I've got a theme going in my head that while Tarinne is fairly certain of her place in the world, Cathala is still trying to find hers. She outlived all her connections on Pandaria because Elf Lifespans(tm) and the only members of her family still alive are distant relatives she never knew very well.

15. Wish That You Were Here: This works both to represent Cathala on Pandaria feeling super homesick, and for more recently after Teldrassil. Either way, it's a message to her parents and sister.

16. Mr. Fear: She does her damnedest to hide it but she's absolutely terrified something like Teldrassil's gonna happen again! That fear drives her to do everything in her power to protect who and what she can. As long as they're not Forsaken, cause she's still got her biases, that compassion even extends across faction lines. She never really got the whole Alliance/Horde thing anyway. Innocent people shouldn't have to die, regardless of who or what they are.

17. Ordinary Day: Not to get super out there but I think this song works as symbolizing Cathala really trying to hold on to her faith in Elune, but ultimately feeling pretty abandoned. I mean she can clearly see Elune's influence everywhere. But Elune sure ain't doing Cathala any favors as far as she can tell! It also ends the whole playlist on maybe a bit of an uncertain/open-ended note, because this "losing faith" aspect is a new thing with her and will definitely be something she continues to struggle with for a while. On a related note, I should say Tarinne is still very much devout but she gets what Cathala's feeling and doesn't force anything on her, and vice versa. And Cathala wouldn't become atheist, the night elves aren't monotheistic and she still worships all the other deities, it's just specifically Elune she's a little :/ on.

[queenjunoking]

Wolf Taming Pt 50

CW: Noncon - Pain - Abuse - Torture

Briar

I spent the next few hours watching Z. Rayne was undoubtedly upset with my methods, but I felt it was more important to have a method that worked than something entertaining that didn’t. I have given their slaves a list of things to do, I couldn’t go any further without it being done. I needed something to unsettle Z and to throw her off her game entirely.

I knew exactly what I needed. The slaves were bringing it out of it’s stasis. Hopefully they could get it to function.

Z did very little during the wait. She quickly realized the position she was in and seemed to want to conserve her energy. She had no idea I was part of this yet. I could only assume how confused she was; Rayne wouldn’t have thought to put her in this position and Flora hadn’t shown interest in getting her hands dirty. She rarely wanted to be directly involved in anything she could make someone else do.

I watched the occasional movements as she tested her bondage. The only sense I left her was her hearing right now, the mask and attached gag took everything else away from her. She shifted every few minutes, obviously uncomfortable. That was the point of course, Z was strong mentally but her body was weak. Her legs started to shake from the strain fairly quickly, but she had no choice but to endure it.

Part of me couldn’t help but fantasize a little about using Z’s own methods against her. I couldn’t help but smile a little when I thought about putting her through a full sensory overload experience like she liked to do to her own victims.

But those were unfortunately the kind of methods Z could withstand.

No, I knew what Z couldn’t withstand. I needed to take a two prong approach to break her. I had days until Sasha would be taken back from Eos, I could waste a day making sure Z was as exhausted as I could reasonably make her.

To break someone you have to make them unable to cope or reject the reality of their situation. I needed her to be as exhausted as possible so she had no choice but to pay attention to what was going to happen to her.

The second prong was more important and needed to be as sharp as possible. The first attack simply broke her armor, the second one needed to decimate her. Unfortunately for someone like Z, she could do that to herself better than most people could. With her senses cut off she had nothing to do but feel her body ache and think.

Think about why she was doing this. Think about how she got here. About how it could go wrong. About how she couldn’t tell how much time was passing. How much time was left. If she had made a mistake.

Little thoughts of paranoia that naturally sprung in her mind. I knew they were there. I saw the amount of security she had on her bedroom door. The look in her eyes when she had tried to taser me in her den.

Z was extremely dangerous. She was great at putting on a neutral face and showing apathy to anyone she was breaking. But deep down Z was scared of a lot of things. Fears culminated in the dark.

I sat down in Flora’s chair and kept looking at Z. Her legs shaking even more from the strain as the stress position drained what little stamina she had. I almost felt bad. But ultimately I was doing this for her. The Society was no place for someone like Z and once she lost her membership she would never have to worry about all the stress it brought her.

No more worrying about who had tried to kidnap her. No more paranoia about someone coming after her again. No more indulging in her dangerous urges. No need to worry about the Society anymore. She can live a nice, calm and lovely life with me.

I just needed to get her to crack first.

My thoughts were eventually disrupted by the door opening. A maid walked in and curtsied, waiting to be addressed. Given the scars that covered her body, she had long ago learned that she shouldn’t disrupt Rayne or Flora.

“Have you done the job yet?” I asked, peeling my eyes away from Z.

“We’ve gotten her functioning, Miss Briar.” She stood up straight, but looked at the ground. “Unfortunately…” I watched her swallow hard as she prepared to deliver bad news. I had no doubts Flora enjoyed shooting the messenger so I understood her hesitation.

“Did something go wrong?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well… t-the slave you requested has been locked in stasis for over a year. She’s primarily been used as a mannequin and has no been capable of moving or talking during that time.”

“I take it that it hasn’t been able to adjust yet then?”

“No. Well yes. Um….” I watched her struggle for words.

“Take a deep breath and just tell me what is happening.” I tried to be as gentle as possible. Getting angry wouldn’t help anyone.

“The slave has… physically adjusted well enough. After a few hours of working with her she can walk and respond to commands. But…”

“But?” I asked as she paused again.

“The slave reacts and talks. When prompted. Physically she’s fine, but I’m not sure she’s mentally there anymore in any meaningful capacity. She needs directions or she’ll stand there and stare off into space.”

That did throw a few kinks into my plan, but nothing I couldn’t have expected. You don’t really expect a slave that went through the kind of breaking it did, followed by a year of being unable to move to be mentally around anymore. But I just needed her to do a few small things.

I looked at Z one more time before I reluctantly left the room. As much as I didn’t want to leave, I needed to sharpen the prong or else this was pointless.

Z

Everything hurt.

I woke up in darkness, my arms wrenched upwards behind me and my legs chained in place to the floor.

I was forced into an awkward squatting position. The bar my arms were attached too didn’t allow me to lower myself into a less stressful position. The chains on my legs forced them to stay in place so I couldn’t stretch. I was stuck at the height that placed the most strain on my muscles.

Any attempts at moving sent waves of pain through my body. Adjusting pulled at my arms. If I squirmed I felt the wounds left from Rayne’s whip. During particularly bad spasms I could feel some of the cuts bleeding again. The gag in my mouth silenced any involuntary sounds that came from the pain. Fortunately it in of itself wasn’t big enough to cause pain at first, but as time went by I felt my jaw getting sore.

This wasn’t something Rayne would do, she was far too impatient to just leave me tied up like this. I doubt Flora wanted to be the one to try and break me. I was supposed to be a gift to her, I didn’t see Flora being the one to try and break her own gift.

They must have hired a new breaker to come in while I was unconscious. Unfortunately I had no idea how much time had passed while I was out. It could have been minutes or hours for all I knew.

That problem very quickly became the focal point of the darkness I was in. I had nothing I could focus on beyond the pain. There were no sounds to distract me. No sight to let me see time passing. Minutes felt like hours as I was trapped inside of my mind and surrounded by pain.

I could feel my legs burning and shaking as I remembered why I was doing this. I was doing this to get Sasha back. I had no idea what Eos was doing to her. She could be hurting her. Breaking her into something she shouldn’t be. She said she wanted to turn Sasha into a pony, but what if she turned her into something worse? What if she made her a cow? Or a decoration.

The thoughts made me angry. My body shook with anger as well as from the strain of the position I was locked in. Eventually being trapped in the same position this long was getting to me. I wanted to move. I hated being stuck in one place.

To my own embarrassment I trashed in my bondage, trying to pull something loose. Bending a piece of metal. Breaking a chain. Something. Anything.

But nothing gave. I was just even more exhausted than I was before. All I could think about was the many slaves I had broken and how they had done the same thing. The difference was that I had been trying to help them. This was just being done to hurt me without any real purpose.

Eventually I just let my head hang. My struggles had open up more of the whip wounds. The only reason I was still on my feet was because I had no choice. My lack of leg strength meant that my arms were being wrenched upwards as they were forced to hold up my body.

I wasn’t sure what else to do. Was this going to be my next few days? I had seen the strongest slaves last weeks before they finally broke. I was stronger than any of them. I could last through a few days of pain.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been hanging there before I heard the door slide open. Even if I could see, I didn’t have the energy to look up. All I heard was the sound of high heels reverberating around the room. Whoever it was walked in front of me and placed a box on the floor before they knelt down in front of me. It was either a first aid kit or torture instruments. Possibly both depending on how they were used.

I thought I was prepared for what was coming.

But then she spoke.

“Hello, Miss Zoey. I have been asked to treat your wounds. I will do so as quickly as I can.”

My blood ran cold as I recognized the voice. One I would always recognize. Someone I never thought I’d hear again.

It was Bridget.

[quaintqueer]

I don't know what you think about labels, maybe you are the kind of person who watches shows like Marie Kondo where they organise people's houses and put sticky labels on everything so that you can easily identify the contents. Maybe you're the kind of person who does not like to be labelled or stereotyped. Maybe you prefer to be just yourself.

I have had a very complex relationship with labels and identity. You could say that I started off on the wrong foot. My mother went to a Baptist church on Sunday morning and a Charismatic/Pentecostal hands-in-the-air, shouting and screaming, spiritual warfare kind of church on Sunday night. And my dad had his Holy Communion as a kid and then went to mass on Easter and Christmas.  So to begin with my labels were numerous and incongruent which did cause some issues for younger Zoe.

And I want to share with you about where God has led me through the understanding of this topic. I am not entirely sure where to start and I'm not sure how vague to be here but let's just say that at least the draft will be an explicit and partly chronological one.

12 year old Zoe I went to church most Sundays with her family and she was very very lucky to have a wonderful Christian friends in her life and at this point the label attached to her as a daughter was the unproblematic child and at school she was the sweet and friendly member of the God Squad or Singing Christians depending on how you asked. But those were the kind of labels that existed around that time.

What happens though to 12 year old Zoe is that she falls madly and instantaneously in love with her best friend. And almost immediately she thinks ‘am I in love with this girl? that must make me gay.’ And being a part of the circles that I was in a fairly conservative Christian family and a fairly conservative Christian School with Christian friends in that Christian school, I said ‘absolutely not. I don't want to have to deal with that.’ I was never hateful towards gay people in general I just thought I just didn't want to deal with it myself. My mum and I had had conversations about it when the plebiscite happened, and whenever we spoke about it, it was very much about ‘the gay people’ as opposed to anyone we knew or loved, let alone a Christian person, and so this whole gay thing wasn’t really thought about. Ao a few times over the next 2 or 3 years so I would ask, ‘am I in love with this girl’ And I always concluded ‘no no no you can't be in love cos you're not gay’.

By the time I’m about 14, I’ve been awoken to all different kinds of social justice movements, I took sociology, I’m going to save the world. THe labels I proudly wear are things like left wing, passionate, an ally to many different communities, in particular the lgbtq+ community.

Zoe at one point goes ‘frick frack, I'm definitely in love with this girl’. and because of the way that this world really loves labels, this was completely synonymous in my mind with being gay. My first response was probably because I'm bisexual so now that is an importand confusing label Zoë is wearing. I have somewhat fond somewhat mortifying memories of sitting on the Shinkansen, the bullet train, from Tokyo to Kyoto next to my dad doing every single ‘Am I gay’ quiz I could find online. Throughout this trip to Japan, I’m really testing the waters and every single younger woman I saw I was like ‘Is she cute? Am I attracted to her? Would I kiss her?’ and so that experience made me very nervous because I had still grown up with the mindset that if people were gay it was ok but they weren't Christian. And I was a Christian, so I just ignored it really. And this turned into a time of me hypersexualising sll of the boys that I had ever thought I had a crush on. I can quite confidently say that I didn't actually have a crush on many of them, I just thought that that was something that I should do. So there was a lot of ignoring this feeling.

We then reach year 10, 2020, a glorious year. In the first Lockdown, I finally caved and downloaded Tik Tok. The thing about Tik Tok is that it comes with its own world of labels, and I really would enjoy the kinds of conversations about what side of Tik Tok you are on. I loved that your For You Page automatically gave you certain labels to wear as a Tik Tok user, and I loved that those applied to real life. I quite quickly ended up on gay Tik Tok, among other things. I was also very firmly on Black Lives Matter Tik Tok, on disablrf Tik Tok, on Indigenous Tik Tok, so on and so forth. But much of my content was about the lgbtq community and this opened a ahole can of worms. I, at this time, carried a lot of shame for my attraction to women. For a bit of a backstory, I had been so severely heartbroken by this girl - not by her own intentional actions, I think that she was never going to feel about me the way that I felt about her and that was not her fault - but I was so seriously heartbroken that not only did I hold this moral shame but also this like emotional shame of my attraction to women. I felt like it was not a good thing morally and it didn't feel good emotionally because I had to still been really hurt about this girl and I have never really gotten over that. So for the first time on gay Tik Tok, I saw queerness and same-sex attraction as a positive thing not only in terms of ‘hey look these are women loving woman relationships that are working well’ but also ‘whether or not you're dating someone, queer identity is good for you and it's fun to talk about’. And as a type 4 on the enneagram, I love to feel special - not to say that I fabricated these feelings or that any queer person is queer for attention - but I think a big part of me felt validated or special because of my feelings and my queeness. It was like a new club that I could join. And so the labels that 15 year old Zoe wears largely consisted of queer. We had it dropped bisexual a little bit because at this point I was not sure if I like men at all and so we identified as queer or sapphic or bi or lesbian or gay - many of these words along with the left wing, Pro Black-lives-matter, pro-feminism, pro-lgbtq+, anti-colonialist anti-capitalist etc. etc. And I don't want to demonize any of those things - they are not at all negative things, I'm just painting a picture of the different labels that I wore.

Through out starting to come out to my friends and existing for longer periods of time not only on gay Tik Tok but now really searching all through the Internet for more LGBTQ+ identity - as I tried to confirm my traction for women, as I tried to decide about my attraction to men, about what label I should wear, and what it's like being in the LGBTQ+ community different, spaces where we interact, different identities and labels and experiences of queerness. So I really tied myself to this identity and it is I think so much because of the way the world sees labels as I said and so my first response was ‘well if I like girls I must be gay and if I'm gay I must identify that way and that has to be the most important thing about me’ because all the people I was seeing online really loved being gay. They were proud of their identity in their queeness. In the world as much as I think that we like to think we’ve got this ‘your sexuality or your gender identity doesn't matter. Gay and straight and bi and pan and whoever you are, we’re all human’, I think it often the world does like to draw those lines on both sides. Within queer communities there was - obviously ironically and satirically - this heterophobia honestly. (I'm joking!) But there was a real pride in this identity of whichever specific label you wear as well as the wider lgbtq plus label which led me to believe my sexuality was who I was. And that proved really quite awkward because I knew that my church and my family and many of my Christian friends believed that same sex marriage and romance was sinful. Because of the strong connection between my identity and my sexuality, if my sexuality was sinful, that meant that I was inherently and completely sinful and I didn't like that. It wasn't a fun feeling. After all of the years of learning about God’s gift of grace to us, kind of I lost in the crevices of my mind and whenever I thought about God I was met with feelings of shame and fear and dread and resentment sometimes even anger and I grew to be so despairing.

Eventually I tried the various progressive Christianity movements that teach that ‘God doesn't actually say the being gay is a sin, the Bible is pro queerness and don't even worry about it, God made you exactly the way that you are and he loves you the way that you are, go forth and have that lesbian relationship that you so desperately want’. But that never really sat right with me. It brought up other questions of ‘well if the current translation of the Bible says things like marriage is between a man and a woman, God made man and woman, any sex outside of marriage is sinful, or even the parts that say that ‘homosexuality is sinful, or man lying with man in certain translations, is sinful what happened to that part of the Bible?’ And of course I heard the response about how at the Bible was written by man and not by God and that it is fragile and can be manipulated and basically King James ruined the whole Bible when he wrote that translation and you don't have to listen to it. But that really didn't work for me. If that part of the Bible had been mistranslated how could I know that the rest of the Bible hadn't been mistranslated? If words like homosexuality weren't in the original text and they had been added there or mistranslated how could I understand the words like grace and love and hope and patience and kindness and peace and righteousness and holiness and justice? What if they were mistranslated? What if the whole Gospel was not how it was written in the Bible because the Bible was man-made? Pretty immediatelyI decided I couldn’t really understand a Christianity where homosexuality is not a sin because Christianity is written in the Bible and the Bible says that quite clearly. I believe that the Bible is directly the Word of God, that it is perfect, that the way that it is translated - obviously different translations vary - but that it is right from God’s mouth so imediately was like I can't believe in it Christianity where homosexuality is not a sin and so I've got to pick Christian or Gay.

And I didn’t want to choose Christian because I had this point has grown quite fond of being gay and I mean, I was truly just attracted to women, right, like I wanted a girlfriend and so I tried really hard to ignore God. I was still going to church, twice or three times a week and all that, and I could not shake the existence of God. I knew God existed. I knew that He created the world, that He was good and that they was the thing called sin that separated us from him. I knew that sin led to death. I knew that He had sent His Son to bridge the gap between himself and sinners. I knew that Son was Jesus and that He died on the cross and he rose again and I knew that if you believed in him you would spend eternity with God which was a really good thing. I could not shake those feelings, all those beliefs, and I absolutely praise God for that. I'm so beyond grateful that God did not leave me, even when I hated him and resented him and felt so much anger towards him. Praise Jesus!

All this left me thinking, well some people could go to heaven, but God hates me because of my feelings. He does not want me part of His kingdom if I'm gay. I can't ever go to heaven because I'm a sinner, and sinners don’t go to heaven. I truly don't know where all my years of learning about the grace of God had gone. This led me to a really distressed position, probably one of the lowest ever my mental health had been. I was just not coping and I ended up being kind of forced to tell my mum. I don't really want to say too much on this part of the story but by the middle-ish end of year 10 I ended up coming out to my mum and she told my dad, ‘cause I refused to do it myself, and then I got a therapist. Finally, now that my mum knew, I could ask her what I had so desperately wante to ask her - if she could please buy me some books about being gay and Christian. And so she did. And I slowly but surely started to read them, I started to read my Bible more and I started to really search for what it meant to have faith trust in God’s grace and not in your own work, not in your own actions or thoughts or words. The first book I got in particular was really hard to read it was based more on specific Theology and not on personal experience and I needed that foundation in what God really said because I had just had conversations with my mum and she had reminded me ‘God is real and he loves you and he sent his son to die for you and that is an option for you as much as it is for anyone else, your queerness does not separate you from Christ's death and resurrection’. There is a wonderful bible verse that became very important to me at this time. Romans 8, the very end of the chapter, says ‘for I'm convinced that neither death not life neither Angels not Demons need of a present or the future and or any Powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in All Creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord.’ So with this in mind, I decided that I could trust God and now I just needed to learn how. so I worked away through different books, through different parts of the Bible, praying really hard, searching online and asking really hard questions to some really awesome Christian women in my life, and asking God to reveal to me exactly what he thought about me and about queerness and so eventually we get to the present moment. I by no means know everything that I wish I knew, but now I can say that I wholly trust God with my next life - I trust that he has the power and the strength and the holiness to overcome even my sin which sometimes feels like the biggest there is. and I trust him with this life - that life with him is so much better than any lesbian affair I could ever experience.

I want to personally apologize to any one who the church or the world has ever made believe that they are somehow exempt from God’s love because of who they are or what they've done or how they’ve felt. That is false. There is no one that does not sin, no one that is not inherently separated from God. And there is no one who is too far from Jesus' power to be saved from that sin. God is bigger than your sin, I promise you.

I want to take this time to mourn for the lives lost and the joy and peace forfeited because of the way people who claim to know God treat queer people. I'm sorry if you have been made to feel less than because of the church. In the process of overcoming of guilt and shame that I have felt over the year, one more verse that I found really important. 1 John 1 says that ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.’

So for me, I don't identify with my sexuality. I don't want to say that I'm straight now, that's not really true. but my sexuality is not what makes me who I am. I am a person fearfully and wonderfully made by God and I am a daughter of God in Christ. I am not ashamed of my feelings. I do think that it is worth mentioning that an attraction or a desire or an impulse is not the same as a sin. The Bible tells us that Jesus himself was tempted in every way and the Bible also tells us that Jesus is blameless and never sinned. And so I think it's worth the clarification that same-sex attraction or anything like that is not sinful itself and also that being gay is never worse than anyone else's sin, and it is never ever bigger than God.

I just want you all to know that there is nothing that you have done that makes you exempt from God’s love for you, to know that he is trustworthy, that the Bible is trustworthy, and I encourage you that your value is inherent as a person made in God’s image and that with Jesus, you can have identity in his son alone. When he sees you, he sees the goodness and perfection of Jesus if you believe in him.

[arcticdementor]

A reader writes:

I’m writing to you today because I have some information to share with you (and your readers) who may still be skeptical that this LGBTQIA+ gender-identity craze is coming for their kids.  Some recent interactions online have made me more aware than ever that the movement is spreading in wild and unpredictable ways, and also made me reflect on how, in my own life, even someone like me could have fallen victim to it.

I want to start off by saying that recently, (and ironically, in an attempt to try not to be sucked into the internet as purely a source for doom and gloom: you will see how this backfires on me) I decided to rejoin a fan community surrounding one of my favorite franchises on Twitter. I won’t go into too much detail about which community and the exact specifics, but just know that it’s a popular franchise that’s appropriate for older kids, teens and adults (nothing 18+, nothing for really little ones).  As a teen myself I was fairly active in a similar branch of this community on another social media platform (Facebook), and enjoyed it immensely before the platform eventually went more or less defunct as a hot-spot for fan content. Most of the content was fan-created work (like fan-art or fan-fiction) with a little interaction and lots of “DID YOU SEE THE LATEST” kinds of posts.

…

Anyway, to keep it to a minimum, that was then. If you’ve been on the internet any time in the last five years you know that spaces where people just talk about an interest and don’t mix it with politics and activism are becoming few and far between. Even though I knew this, and knew that I wasn’t going to have the same experience in a different place, something sparked an interest in me to go try to reconnect with my internet roots in a different setting.  So, I followed some hashtags, quickly found some new followers and settled back to enjoy at least marginally some discussions online that didn’t have to do with Covid and All The Ways We Are All Going To Die.

Then came the teenagers.

Much like when I was a kid, this franchise attracts a lot of younger people.  So it was hardly surprising to me to find that many of my new followers were in the 14-18 age range and that people like myself (mid-older 20s) were a sort of senior majority. That was fine- Twitter’s rules after all are 13+, so it’s not unreasonable to assume if you’re part of a popular group that you’ll interact on occasion with minors. That wasn’t the part I found strange. The part I found strange was that all of them, and I repeat, all of them were fans of two things- the franchise, and gender identities.

You can actually almost pinpoint the age range of the 18 and under crowd by how many of them have the following: 1. Pronouns in bio and in username.  2. Gender identity or lack thereof displayed in bio or username. 3. LGBTQ+ sexual orientation displayed in bio or username. etc. etc. etc. I’m not going to dive into it too much, because some might be saying “isn’t that just normal nowadays? Even politicians do that?” Well, you’re not wrong if that’s what you’re thinking. And that’s not the part that disturbs me.

What disturbed me was that, a few weeks after I joined the group, I started noticing an unsettling pattern among many of these teenage users (and many over-teen users, but I’m trying to make a point about the young ones specifically). For a few days, after an interesting bit of news or a trailer or some other thing that unites franchises, the posts in my feed would be primarily things like what I remembered from past experiences: posts about the franchises, theories, speculations, fanart, etc.  But, every time things would settle back down into a quiet, normal week, the feeds in my post became almost entirely about one thing: Gender and LGBTQ talking points.  I’m going to diverge for one second and say that many people in this group aren’t using a personal, front-facing account for their interactions in this fan-group. They’re mostly using alt-accounts with no real names and faces attached (myself included).  And yet, every time the discussion in the feeds died down to where there was just no new stuff about the franchise to talk about, all the conversation slowly but surely shifted back to sexual orientation and gender.  From fan-ships of perfect LGB couples to ‘hey I drew this person but as a trans-female!’ to even forgoing pretending to talk about their interests and just discussing their own gender and sex presentation with their other online friends, it became quickly very clear to me that A. I no longer really belonged here and B. Every single one of these kids was obsessed. Every. Single. One.

…

I’m going to digress and talk about myself for a minute to explain just why these examples, particularly that last one, burn a hole in my soul.  From the minute I was old enough to remember, I’ve never been one of those typically presenting females. When my sisters and I played dress-up as kids, they played princesses and I played a prince or a witch or whatever was more interesting. In addition to the dolls and barbies I had being one of three girls, I also had an assortment of boy-oriented toys, including action figures, a remote control car and this really cool nerf bow-and-arrow set that I still secretly wish had survived my playing with it because man, my kids are gonna miss out someday. My hair was short because I hated wearing it up and the solution was a bob, and when we spent time with relatives I could be found as far away from my female cousins as possible, hanging out with my male cousins and talking about Legos and Lord of The Rings. I spent 90% of my time reading books and ignoring reality, and didn’t put much effort into my appearance until probably age 13 or later.

And I wished I was a boy.

It wasn’t an all-consuming thought, but I thought it. I wished, many times, when my parents would fuss at me to please stop attempting to climb trees in your Sunday clothes and when my sisters never talked about anything but dolls and tea-parties around their friends that I could be one of the boys. I had always liked the boys and their world better, and I fit into better, and yet there was that little problem (that I was still a girl) that kept me from being accepted into the boy group.  The reality was, I was already probably very intelligent for my age (too-well read children can relate) and I took that big-headedness a little too far at times. I was also a very emotional person (still am) and just passionately felt that being a girl and being expected to do girl things was hideous and unfair.

The saving grace? My mom was the same. She’s never been a typical female either, and though as adults we have some clear differences (ironically, I have more stereotypical female interests/talents than her- like a hidden passion for interior decorating and a love of baking and so on) she was there for me, to be able to tell me that no- I didn’t really want to be a boy, I was just a girl who liked sword fights and grass-stains more than ballgowns and tea parties, and that was okay!!! She was proof that there were other girls like me, and that I would find more of them eventually (I did) and, even though we never said so in so many words, that stereotypes and how we fit into them has nothing to do with our innate female and male selves. And so, reassured that I could be female and still be however I wanted, I eventually grew out of those thoughts, and as I matured, found that there were ‘female things’ I connected with that my past self was too young to appreciate.

But, think about all this in a modern context. I’m a happy adult female now, and I was never truly gender-questioning. I just thought, for a while, that boys had more fun than I did, so I wanted to be one.  But that, in it of itself, is a thought that’s deep enough for modern gender activists to insist I be transitioned immediately and put on life-altering hormones, never given a chance to grow up or grow out of questioning, and affirmed in my presentation instantly! If I, like that young girl online, had been handed a ‘gender-affirming’ flag and an identity that ‘made sense’ out of why I was different from my peers, I might have jumped on it, especially without the presence of a wise older person to tell me I wasn’t anything different than what she’d been as a child. This is the problem, this is why this kind of thing is so dangerous and toxic and wrong.

[himbo-buckley]

what are your thoughts on what maddie says about her and buck's parents, that they were "good people, bad parents"? bc idk if it's just me but I can't get my head around that lmao, I can't understand how they can still be good people if they're bad parents, the two just can't go together for me, so another perspective would be interesting!

Hello friend 🥰

Oh, that is quite a question, isn’t it? Damn I just got out of work but you’re making me think deep thoughts here…

I think that is actually a question were we cannot find a unifying answer to - because like you said for you being a good person and a bad parent aren’t compatible, but for me they are. And I think we’d first have to define what everyone thinks constituents a good person and what constitutes bad parents!

For me a good example of that is Shannon Diaz who, in my opinion, is a good person. She means well and she tries hard but she is quite frankly an awful mother. Yes, she was put in horrible situation after horrible situation and she broke on that - which is something human and cannot be begrudged - but she left her child for several years and while she did try to reconnect and she was learning, she wouldn’t haven contacted Eddie on her own. She came back because the opportunity arose not because she tried to get back to them. (She could have become a good mother but she never got the chance.)

In the same vain I think Bobby pulled a lot of shit back in Minnesota but he still seemed to be a loving and kind father - so my question to you, friend, would be: do you consider Bobby a good person (the Bobby prior to Season 1 mostly)? Despite being the type of person who went to work drunk and / or high and by this endangering others and himself? Because I don’t think so yet the show frames him as a good person despite his downfalls (and I am not saying being an addict makes someone a bad person but I am saying knowingly endangering others does) - and if you think someone cannot be a good person but a bad parent, can someone who is a bad person also not be a good person?

See, one thing I learned working with children is that some people just aren’t made to be parents, and I am not talking about my time with child services, i am talking as a kindergarten teacher. Some people are very nice and they try hard but damn, parenting does not come natural to them and I worry how this will develop in the future. Like one of my mom’s is severely depressed and she might have Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy which doesn’t make her a bad person - but a bad parent at times.

And now, this is were I make you regret asking me specifically about this topic (or maybe not, who knows what your interests are) because I do have a bit of an expertise in what constitutes good / bad parenting and I will talk about it at random whether I am asked or not (and hopefully my language won’t fail me as most of my theoretical knowledge is in german, so please excuse any mistakes in technical terminology because I have to find the english equivalents and you know all those untranslatable german words? Yeah. Someone finally figure out how to translate the difference between Erziehung and Bildung please because both cannot be education and also it doesn’t really fit either):

So let’s get into it, shall we?

What makes good parents?

First up: parental relationship and parenting capabilities: several years ago the german department of family, seniors, women and youth (BmFSFJ) released a paper on what skills parents need to become good parents. There a four main skills (and I hope I translated everything correctly):

child-corresponding skills (ability to respond to the individual needs and features of the child, be it in terms of recognising potential or setting boundaries or sth else)

context-corresponding skills (ability to recognise developmental opportunities but also hinderances for the child and acting accordingly)

self-corresponding skills (being able to reflect their own behaviour as well as being willing to learn new things; also ability to regulate one’s emotions)

action-corresponding skills (trust in ones own ability and effectiveness; being consistent, both in their own actions as well as in response to others actions)

You might have heard of Kurt Levin or Diana Baumrind or someone else doing research into parenting styles. Generally there are four main ones, which, if we use Baumrind, differentiate on the aspects of control and demand 

(here is a graph from wikipedia on this)

(I consider this fairly self explanatory but I will get into it in a bit a little more, soooo)

Now of course parenting isn’t just about the parents and what they do - children also have needs (and yes there is a lot of overlap but I am doing this right, okay?)

To quote my government again (because the paper was actually quite good, okay?) children want autonomy (a chance to do things themselves), expertise (a chance to develop their own skills) and relatedness (that one was very hard to translate but this came the closest; the idea is children strive for social connections, a sense of trust in themselves and reliability)

Also Urs Fuhrer defined 5 basic needs children have which are:

feeling of shelteredness and reliable love (I won’t explain this further except: google Harry Harlow and try not to cry like I do every time I am reminded of this monster of a man)

physical security and intactness (self explanatory, right?)

individual and developmentally suitable experiences (yes, children need to be socialised but it needs to be based on the individual child and how it learns best and all that)

boundaries and structure (CHILDREN WANT BOUNDARIES!!!! ALWAYS!!! CHILDREN WANT YOU TO TELL THEM YES OR NO, they need adults to help them navigate the world! Part of feeling secure is having someone who will tell you no and don’t do this; boundaries protect from danger, they represent support and orientation, they protect someone’s dignity (both the child’s and the parent’s), they give something to chafe against on our way to adulthood (because listen, Erikson wasn’t wrong, a lot of development happens in adversity, we find out who we are in contrast to other people)

a secure attachment (most people have heard about Bowlby and his theory of attachment, right? There are several types, though we are born with certain abilities for attachment and then learn how to attach from our parents, we model relationships on this, attachment determines our feeling of security and our thrive for exploration as children)

And I’ll leave the theoretical at this and go on to talk about the Buckley’s now, okay?

(and try to figure out if any of this has an actual point, uuups)

As for the specific situation of Mr and Mrs Buckley, let’s first see what we know of them, okay? (It’s barely anything) (half of it is assumed)

they are both alive

they are (probably) still married

they warned Maddie about Doug (meaning they somewhat cared)

they weren’t physically abusive and most likely also not emotionally

they probably live on the east coast in Pennsylvania

Buck may still be in contact with them

Maddie considers them good people but bad parents

they accepted losing contact with at least one of their children

Maddie doesn’t want them to know about Doug

That’s it!

Now, I personally think they might be very conservative, possibly unsupportive of their children. They might have had plans for their children’s life Maddie and Buck didn’t agree with, they might have been the types to not listen to their children, maybe they worked a lot. Probably fairly impatient, possibly disinterested in their children. Not good at the parenting capabilities.

Based on their children’s issues I’d say authoritarian or neglectful parenting style (though not abusive because it would be a redcon of Maddie’s background), meaning most definitely unresponsive though I cannot make up my mind whether they were demanding or undemanding, as both these styles - even when not so bad they are abusive and / or endangering to the child - make insecure, dependent and unhappy adults (like the children turn into those once they grow up), which does kinda fit with Buck specifically, right?

Though tbh I don’t think the Buckley parents were that horrible. I know fandom has taken the idea and run with it, mainly because after three seasons we know virtually nothing about them aside from some throwaway lines and all the issues we see in their children.

Now, why do I say this?

One, Maddie is a fairly capable adult despite everything that happened to her and even being as resilient as she is, she still has too few issues for how horrible fandom thinks the Buckley parents are

Two, while Buck has a lot of issues, being cocky and having problems with intimacy and being a bit directionless and still needing a parental figure in your mid-20s doesn’t seem that uncommon to me? Like the only really deep issue I’d say he has (that have to be caused by something deeper) are his abandonment issues (and connected to that intimacy). And it’s been implied they are caused by Maddie leaving to go to College which does paint the picture that he doesn’t have a good relationship with his parents but honestly, that sometimes happens, right?

(Also, and this is where my professional background comes in, I don’t like how everyone jumps to the worst possible conclusions about them, simply because I feel it sends the idea that only if the worst things happened to you, you have certain issues which is wrong. Sometimes small things will trigger something way larger in us and that should not be invalidated.)

And okay, I am getting off topic again (but again, my profession lies here) but what I am trying to say is this:

I do think Mr and Mrs Buckley were bad at parenting because they demanded too much but gave too little (emotionally) and I don’t think Buck is really in contact with them but I also don’t think that makes them necessarily bad people. (just bad parents)

I think Maddie and Buck weren’t as close back when they were children as they are now (at least not after Maddie moved to College) because the Buck we know would not accept a sister he is very close to simply no longer having contact with him for three years without trying to figure out why.

I do think they can’t have been that bad mainly because of how good Maddie and Buck are. Listen, I believe in resilience and already being born with a certain personality and traits which shapes how our environment reacts to us, but which is also influenced and changed by our environment ! (Nature vs. nurture, ya’ll) Now I know I said we find and develop ourselves in adversity but not just. We also need someone to foster and support and reward certain traits or we lose them and this is especially true for being kind and heroic!

Buck especially has shown way to little anger or capability for violence for how the fandom likes to write his parents, which considering his general character and also the way he looks - just doesn’t work! (Because generally especially boys raised in abusive families emulate this behaviour and Buck just - doesn’t! Which considering how “fuck toxic masculinity” Buck is most of the time doesn’t make sense because being tall and buff would make the opposite easier for him and would make it the better strategy for survival, so this would be the behaviour he would have learned)

(unless our writers say fuck being realistic and fuck psychology)

His parents had to have done something right, because Maddie will have left for College by the time he was 12 / 13 probably and we know they consider this her abandoning him meaning they probably weren’t really in contact then and while the first years of your life ARE VERY important for who you become later (urgh, yes, I’ll admit it, Sigmund Freud, the most overrated theorist did get SOME things right) they aren’t everything and you develop for longer and also a young girl like Maddie would have been would have not been self-reliant and stable enough to raise her literal baby brother in a way that made him resilient enough to become the person Buck has become despite her leaving him twice

Not to mention: considering the person we know Maddie is - if their parents really were that horrible she wouldn’t have left Buck with them, she would have taken him with her!

 ANYWAYS!

Okay, tbh, I have no idea if any of that answered your question, but I did spend nearly two hours on it so enjoy?

I really don’t have a good answer to your question because we really don’t know enough and what we know doesn’t fully gel with each other and urgh, I don’t know friend despite this being the one thing I actually have some knowledge on!

I’m not even sure any of this makes sense and I am so sorry about that! I was trying, friend, but sadly an answer eludes me

Guess I should have just ended after saying: we cannot find a unifying answer to this because we each have individual definitions of good and bad in regards to people?

(Now, for everyone who read all of this? I love you and thank you and sorry! Please have a great day while I go cry in the shower now because I this ask drained me and also Harry Harlow)

EDIT: I wrote attachment issues when I wanted to say abandonment issues, shit!

[nymphadoratonqs]

heheh of cOURSE I'm asking 002 for nymohadora tonks😍💖💖💖😂with that beautiful username change of yours!!!!!

AAAA i’m finally making my 15 year-old self’s dream come true and unashamedly becoming nympahdora tonks in my spare time  😂

002 | Give me a character & I will tell you

• How I feel about this character:

As you can probably tell, she’s my favourite. 😍  I mean, I love Remus Lupin and I will protect him with all I’ve got, but Tonks is my main girl and it’s time I’ve let the world know all about it! haha

• All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Mainly Fleur and Remus! But, as I said when I talked about Fleur, I don’t think those are necessarily mutually exclusive. I think there are multiple possibilities and I truly believe people can love more than one person at a time, and that sometimes monogamy and a bourgeois family unit are not the way to go to make someone truly happy. 

• My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Tonks and Charlie are my friendship OTP! My headcanon is that they were friends at Hogwarts and had a great time taunting one another over their House’s Quidditch matches. In the best “queers band up together” spirit, I think they would have had some experiences to share since I see both their mums as fairly conservative in their own ways, too.

• My unpopular opinion about this character:

Where do I begin? 😂 I disagree with a lot of people in the fandom, especially other fellow Wolfstar shippers, about a great load of things when it comes to Tonks and Remadora. I don’t see her as a manipulative person who “forced Remus into a relationship he didn’t want to be in”, as I’ve seen people put it before, and I think that there’s a misogynistic and a biphobic tone to that interpretation of her character. 

It’s also unfair to Remus to assume that he could be conned into a relationship because she was shown as the one who pursued him (and because of that scene in HBP where they argue about it in front of Molly), or that she “hooked him by getting pregnant” (!!!!). The way I see their relationship, Tonks saw through Remus’ deep insecurities and self-loathing and called him out on his bullshit. The “too old, too poor, too dangerous” speech is the essence of his character to me. He really thinks he’s not good enough for her, and that he would be harming Tonks by being in a relationship with her, as much as he wanted it. This only gets confirmed later on in DH when Harry calls him out for wanting to ditch his wife and unborn child to go on a mission. To me, that is Remus trying to cover his urge to punish himself for having gotten something he wanted and didn’t think he deserved by denying himself love and a family. It’s almost a suicidal move (no one can convince me he wouldn’t be out there jumping in front of hexes if he had gone out to fight with the trio), and I don’t think he was thinking clearly/coldly when he decided to leave. 

I mean, no one concludes that Sirius is deep down a murderer who was just dying to go out there and off Peter when he went after him and ended up getting all those Muggles killed (even if he wasn’t the one who exploded them) – which was a very bad decision he made while highly emotional and, arguably, out of his mind. So why would a big chunk of the fandom collectively decide that Remus didn’t love Tonks and was just dying to break free of that “forced relationship” when he’s the one to make a decision out of fear, anguish and guilt that stems from his own self-hate? (Misogyny, that’s why.)

• One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I really fucking wish she would have lived. There was no good narrative reason for her to die, only shock value, and honestly fuck that.

• my OTP

This one is hard! I do think that Remadora had great potential. I truly think that they could have worked through their issues with time and therapy (which I can dream about because everyone deserves time and therapy to help them have a better life) because I think she would have brought out the best in him. Tonks is a bright, clever, skilled and overall badass person. She’s also kind and loving (hello, Hufflepuff) and FUN and Remus is a Marauder, ffs! I can see him slowly learning that he deserves to be loved, and feeling freer and freer to be himself around her. They could have been so happy together, and having them both die in the end was shit. I’m still bitter about that.

BUT here’s the catch: no woman has to stick with a man while he takes his (well deserved) time to work through his issues. Tonks doesn’t have to be his Manic Pixie Dream Chick and lovingly guide him to a land of stable mental health where he can be the partner she deserves. 

And that’s where Flonks comes into the picture. Fleur may have her issues (like every human being on the planet does), but they wouldn’t get in the way of them making each other happy. I think they are both awesome witches (brave and bright and talented) and they would make a great Auror & Curse Breaker team. They could build each other up and have an amazing life filled with love and gay things and I would absolutely love that.

• a headcanon fact:

Throughout the years, the idea of Tonks being non-binary has grown on me. With the ability to morph your body, having to stick to what society expects from a female or a male body to look like and what that means to your own gender identity doesn’t seem like something Tonks would ignore, to me. As someone who’s seen rebelling against what’s expected from her (which, in canon, sounds a lot like “Not Like Other Girls Syndrom”, but I digress), I can see it as something she would want to explore about herself. 

Still, I think I still would have a lot more to learn before I could write a story that featured this headcanon. As a cis person, I believe I’m at a point where I still need to hear a lot more, rather than speak myself when it comes about gender non-conforming.  

Oh, and by the way, I was gifted a Flonks fic that features NB Tonks this year for Femme Fest and I really loved what Isa did with the headcanon. It was so meaningful for the story and it also shook me a bit out of my comfort zone in the best of ways. I really really recommend it!

[howtobeapersonwithfibro]

Disabled Sci-Fi: Internship-seeking Veronica

Here (below the cut) is the next short story in my Disabled Sci-Fi series. It centers around Veronica Lee, a wheelchair user living on a colony spaceship. She’s just finished high school and is looking for an intern position in her favorite field: science.

Feedback (and suggestions for future stories) always welcome :) I just really enjoy writing about disabled characters using the knowledge I’ve picked up about experiences from spoonie/disability tumblr and being disabled myself. 

*****

Veronica takes a deep breath. She adjusts her position in her wheelchair to be a bit more comfortable. Tries to resist the urge to strangle the woman across the table. 

“As you know, Ms. Lee,” the woman in the stiff, gray clothes continues, “Everyone has a role to play on the ship. We begin to look for career matches at age sixteen so that everyone can find their ideal role. I just imagine that our choices will be… limited… given your situation.” 

Inwardly, Veronica rolls her eyes. Sometimes she may as well have three heads, for the way people struggle to talk to her like a normal person. Like being unable to walk is a situation and not just another detail of her life, like having straight hair. “I know why you might think that,” Veronica replies, choosing her words carefully. This woman is the only career counselor for the entire ship, so she doesn’t have the option of pissing her off. “But I think that accommodations can be made for most of the jobs around here. It’s not like I’m asking to be a zero-gravity engineer. And my chair can get almost anywhere, with all the ramps.”

The gray woman gives a small, forced smile, and says, “Alright then. What are your areas of interest?”

“I’m most interested in biology,” Veronica says, relieved to be talking about something else. “Whether it’s working in the medical wing or in a lab, I’m just really interested in those kinds of things.” 

“Hmm,” the woman mutters, scrolling through a document on the screen in front of her. “There’s an open trainee position in the botany lab. Job description includes… let’s see here… working with microscopes and other various tools to alter plants and fight disease…” 

“Sounds great. I was good with microscopes in my classes.” Maybe this is actually going to be fine, Veronica thinks. 

“I’m looking over the images of the lab,” the woman goes on, “and all of the counters are standard-height. I’m not sure if you’d be able to reach everything you needed to--”

“Adjustments can be made,” Veronica interrupts. 

“It’s just that the lab has very strict rules about what kind of furniture can be present, due to cleaning procedures, and…” she sighs. “I’m sorry. The system is quite inflexible sometimes, but the procedures are important for optimal plant growth.”

“The system is only as inflexible as we make it,” Veronica argues. “Please, just put me down for the trial position. I can talk to my trainer about making things work.” 

The woman sighs. “I suppose I can do that. If it’s not a good fit, we can always try something else. I hear the food service wing has a variety of opportunities.”

Yes, Veronica thinks, because my perfect grades and area of interest just scream “food service”. But she’s getting a shot at what she wants, so she’s going to do her best to tolerate this prejudiced woman. “Um, thank you. I’ll see how the botany job goes first.”

“Wonderful,” the woman says, in a rehearsed, not-very-wonderful tone. “All of the information has been sent to your messages app. The position starts next week, but you’ll want to look over everything to make sure you’re prepared.” 

***

The next day, Veronica has an appointment to meet her training supervisor and talk with him about the lab and the work they do there. When she arrives at the lab wing and wheels through the sliding doors, she is faced with a bored-looking receptionist who barely glances up from his screen. Once he sees her chair, he looks up again, muttering, “Can I help you with something? Are you lost?”

Lost, she inwardly huffs, desperately trying not to roll her eyes. Because they’re not used to seeing someone who looks like me around here. She takes a breath, then says, “Um, actually, I’m here to meet with Dr. Stonecroft about the trainee position. Veronica Lee? Meeting set for 10:30?”

The young man takes a moment to process this, then says, “Oh, right, I see it in here. I’ll send a message to Dr. Stonecroft that you’re here.”

As she waits, Veronica mentally steels herself for the argument she expects will come. She spent most of the night lying awake thinking of her rebuttals to various questions, and obsessing about it via messaging with her friend Lila until she fell asleep and stopped responding. 

Veronica wanted this job so badly. She couldn’t imagine being stuck somewhere like food service her entire life, not when she had such an interest in science. 

A door behind the receptionists’ desk slid open, and through it walked a short, brown-skinned man with round glasses and a lab coat. “You must be Veronica,” he said, greeting her with a smile and extending his hand down to shake hers. “Herman Stonecroft, glad to finally meet you. Please, come with me.”

She followed him eagerly, squeezing carefully through a narrow doorway that barely allowed room for her fingers to move the wheelchair without getting squished. When it widened into a hallway, Dr. Stonecroft slowed to walk by her side, guiding her first into the greenhouse. 

It was one of the most beautiful places Veronica had ever seen. Most of the places on the ship were dull shades of gray, sparingly decorated because supplies had to be conserved. But this room was alive with color: Red tomatoes and berries hanging on vines, nearly ripe enough to pick; yellow peppers and another plant that Veronica couldn’t identify; and green, green everywhere, from the early sprouts in their hydroponic rows to the leaves of fruit trees and tall corn stalks. 

“This is amazing,” Veronica said. “I’ve never seen so many plants in one place. And it smells so… fresh,” she added, trying out a word she hadn’t had much cause to use before. Little in life was fresh when you lived in space.

Dr. Stonecroft smiled. “I remember thinking that the first time I came here too. The greenhouse is lovely, of course, and very showy, but most of our work is done back in the labs. We’ll come to water the plants, but other workers harvest them. We spend most of our time managing disease and keeping our plants strong. Our effort is vital to maintain food supply.”

“Right, of course,” she replied, not discouraged. “It’s just a privilege to be able to see all of this. They let us each grow a bean plant in science class, and I thought that was cool.”

“I’ll show you to the labs now,” Dr. Stonecroft said, leading her through a large set of double doors at the back of the room. They led into a hallway with a few other doors, and she could see through the glass walls that each contained lab benches with microscopes and other instruments. 

He scanned his badge at one of the doors, and it slid open to allow them through. Veronica noticed that all of the countertops were slightly above eye level for her; she couldn’t imagine getting her arms up there to work productively, let alone looking into a microscope that sat even higher. But Dr. Stonecroft didn’t seem to notice the disparity. He continued right on with his enthusiastic introduction as a few scientists turned from their work to stare at her. 

“We start most of our interns out with basic microscopy - slide preparation, cell counting, studying images to learn signs of abnormal growth. You’ll help tend some of the plants as well. And of course you’d be led through this by another team member when I’m not available. You wouldn’t be expected to do anything on your own for some time - I know that the school’s science department was a bit lacking in resources.”

“That sounds great,” Veronica said. “I thought microscopy was really cool, but we only had two microscopes for the whole class to use, and they were pretty old. So I’ll be happy to learn as much as possible here.” 

Dr. Stonecroft smiled. He was fairly soft spoken, and Veronica had decided already that she would enjoy learning from him - if this worked out. “I’m glad to hear that, Veronica,” he began. “I wish more students had your interest in this area. I’ve had several trainees think that they were here to water plans and pick fruit, and decided to quit when they learned it was much more.”

Veronica nodded. It seemed like this was a really promising opportunity. “Right. But, Dr. Stonecroft, we should probably talk about -- I mean, I’m sure you noticed. I’m in a wheelchair. I can’t exactly reach the lab countertops, or the ground-level planters. The lady at the career center mentioned that sometimes regulations don’t allow certain furniture, but--”

“Veronica,” he said, stopping her. “Let me tell you something. I have never turned an interested student away, and I don’t plan to now. I will saw the legs off of some lab benches myself if necessary.” He gave her a small but knowing smile. “As long as you like it here, we will be lucky to have you.”

It felt like a weight had been lifted off of Veronica’s chest. Sure, she could still see a couple of the scientists side-eyeing her as they pretended to get on with their work. Sure, not everyone would be used to her at first. But her mentor was open-minded and friendly. And everyone else would get used to her and her chair, especially once she showed them the kind of work she could do. 

She hadn’t met someone like Dr. Stonecroft in a long time - someone who just treated her like a person, instead of a person in a wheelchair. She felt pressure behind her eyes, excited and happy tears, and hurried to wipe one away before he could notice. “Thank you so much, Dr. Stonecroft. I’m so excited to start here.”

Dr. Stonecroft escorted her back to the entrance. “We will see you Monday, Veronica.” 

Once the sliding door to the lab wing closed behind her, she let her smile break open wide and wheeled as fast as she could down the quiet hallways, barely able to contain herself. When she was finally home, the door closed behind her, she screeched with delight. “Yes! I did it!” she yelled to no one in particular. For once, she thought with a contented sigh, something finally worked out. 

[schantzscribbles]

Okay, but imagine the DEH parents in high school and college.

Heidi was a total hippie and still is.

Bell-bottoms and flower crowns she made herself.

She probably smoked hella weed and didn't really know what she wanted to do with her life, she just wanted to help people.

She volunteered for shelters and nursing homes a lot and on top of that was a crazy activist for women's rights (among other things).

Is still a total hippie, but has responsibilities.

Decorates her house with funky tapestries and all sorts of plants and flora.

Used to be a DIY queen before she had to start working more.

Cynthia was a punk.

Like, shaved and dyed mohawk that she kept styled high with glue and egg yolk (the old fashion punk way, of course).

Was definitely in a band and huge in the underground punk scene of Rochester.

Probably had a stylized stage name like "Cynister Cynthia."

Face full of piercings. Surprisingly enough, a few of the holes didn't close and she could deck her face out in metal once again if she wanted to.

Also a huge activist because true punks are activists.

Straightedge, with maybe a little weed here and there.

Dropped the look shortly after college, but once a punk, always a punk.

Connor assumes the collection of punk CDs he found were his dad's. He has no clue.

Larry, baby, I love you, but you're a square.

Band kid. A percussionist probably on the big bass drum.

He did do a few sports here and there, mainly baseball and track and field, but he wasn't really a jock.

Total book nerd. He would practically read a book a day, having it fully bookmarked and annotated as if it were as simple and automatic as breathing.

Was always quoting random books and authors at any chance he got.

Definitely from a wealthy and conservative family. Grew up rather sheltered and wasn't sure exactly who to be.

He was well liked, fairly intelligent, good in band and sports, but was kind of a loner. He didn't really have a group of kids he stuck with because the ones from his status were vain and vile and he didn't know how to interact with any other social groups.

Too scared to experiment until he met Cynthia.

He never really changed much about himself, but he let loose just a little, just for her.

Cynthia pierced his ears one night in a Hardy's parking lot.

If he could remember who he was back with Cynthia when they first met, then it would be so much easier for him.

But he's dumb and old.

And Mark Hansen.

Lmao fuck that guy who cares.

Probably some jock who thought Heidi was his manic pixie dream girl but he just wanted a lay.

I'm just gonna say him and Heidi hooked up randomly at a young age, then she got pregnant. He wanted to do the "noble" thing and stay with her for Evan, but he really didn't care for her.

So he couldn't fake a relationship and rather than just being real about it, he marries her, plays house, makes her life and his own life miserable, then fucks off after some years.

Fuck that guy.

[asocier]

          now we’re gonna talk about leah’s family life/dynamic bc :^) i never get to but it’s so pivotal to her character so i gotta put this out there:

          leah’s considered second-generation vietnamese, which means her parents were born in vietnam and immigrated over to the states. history lesson aside, they basically came over during the 80s and made a life for themselves in california. leah’s mom is a nail technician while her dad is uhh -- he’s kind of had a lot of different jobs over the years, his most current one being the manager of a convenience store. lowkey though, her dad works a lot of different kind of informal jobs for those in the community like being a handyman or cutting other people’s yards, so he’s always busy.

          leah’s family is pretty tight knit; she’s an only child, so she got a lot of attention from her elders growing up whenever they visited, but she’s didn’t grow up in an intergenerational household ( meaning her grandparents/other relatives didn’t live with her and her parents; this type of home situation is fairly common in asian households due to filial piety, where the children take care of their parents for life essentially ). i guess you could say circumstances worked out such that leah’s parents were allowed to have their own home, though they both continue to play active roles in providing for their parents ( leah’s grandparents ) when necessary. leah isn’t the only young adult in her family though, nor is she the youngest -- she has plenty of cousins, though not all of them are in america. 

         i could go into a lot of depth about leah’s grandparents and her other relatives, but she doesn’t really talk about them a lot in threads because, well, they’re not as big of a part in her life as her parents. HOWEVER -- despite them not being directly influential in leah’s life, most of her extended family members share a very strong belief in very traditional catholicism, so what goes for her parents sort of goes for most of the family too. but it’s important to note not everyone in her family is catholic; some adhere to buddism and others are agnostic or atheist. again, not super important, but it’s something to think about since it allows leah to have some outlets if she needs different perspectives from those in her family. anyway --

         catholicism is something leah was exposed to since before she understood what it was. she was baptized as an infant, had her first communion, has been confirmed, and of course, has attended those catechism classes as a kid. there’s plenty of religious imagery and symbols in her house, and her family has made it a routine to attend mass every sunday along with obligatory services during certain times of the year. all in all, her family is devout and do a lot of things they do because of their faith. 

       while faith plays a big role in why leah’s parents are on the conservative side, it’s not the only reason. they hold very traditional views partly from growing up in a different culture, partly because of generational differences. it’s also important to note that saving face drives leah’s family dynamic quite a bit, and it’s a big reason why leah’s parents placed very high demands on her while she was growing up. how she dressed, what she did in school, who she hung out with, her romantic life ( or rather, her lack thereof ) -- all of this was dictated in part by her parents one way or another. 

          it’s really important to note that this isn’t because leah was a slacker in school, dressed in a way that was too revealing, hung out with bad people, had too many failed relationships -- it could be argued that her parents were just trying to look out for her, and in a way, that might be the case. but leah was a straight a student, dressed moderately most of the time, and had good friends. she wasn’t like cedric who was actually going out doing things and rebelling. leah was a good kid, but her parents still found things to nitpick. 

         she couldn’t wear jeans with holes in them or crop tops, couldn’t hang out with friends ( don’t even think about hanging out with platonic male friends ), was criticized for partaking in seemingly frivolous extra-curricular activities, had a strict curfew, was ( and still is ) forbidden to date -- the list goes on. one thing i really want to emphasize is the fact that leah’s parents aren’t abusive: they’re oversolicitous. this all stems from a genuine concern about leah’s safety, about wanting her to have a good reputation and her well-being. but also, her parents want to maintain their reputation as well, so in a way, it’s also selfish. whatever the driving force really is, by the time leah was in high school ( and still now in her canon timeline ), she feels suffocated by the fact she lacks the independence that her peers have. it became incredibly apparent in high school when her friends were able to drive by themselves to parties or outings and were beginning to date and experiment with their sexuality. it’s safe to say that by age 18, when leah was a senior in high school, she was not considered an adult by her parents. 

        a big, big, big thing i really wanted to talk about in this post is how leah’s parents played a role in the development of her sexuality and, for those interested in shipping with her, how much anxiety leah has about moving a serious relationship forward due to her parents in a true canon timeline. 

         leah, as mentioned earlier, isn’t allowed to date in her true canon. period. not until she has finished all of her schooling at least, whenever that may be. thus, anything romantic or sexual that has happened to her since her first relationship ( unless plotted otherwise ) is something she would keep to herself and a close group of friends. she doesn’t tell her parents anything about her love life let alone her sex life, so everything is bottled up tightly and kept under lock and key. sometimes i overlook this aspect of her character for the sake of ship development ( since it’s hard to really develop any kind of ship if leah is straight up just like “no, sorry, my mom said no” ), but to put it out there, this is how things would really be. 

        essentially, realistically, there would have to be a point in time in which leah gives your muse “the talk” about her parents, about how she keeps her relationships private and a tight secret. not because she’s ashamed, but because she doesn’t want her family to attack the relationship, nor does she want her family to consider her to be a disappointment for being disobedient. it’s an incredibly difficult subject for her to talk about, so by default, she never brings it up until she has to ( especially since it’s awkward af ). but yeah, dating is a risky game with leah in the long run. 

         also important is the fact that leah identifies herself to be pansexual, which, ( unsurprisingly ), would not fly with her parents. so any relationship that wasn’t heteronormative would cause a lot of tension between leah, her partner, and her parents. but i can tell you right away that when leah loves, she loves hard, and she’d be willing to drop everything for your muse. she doesn’t think the teachings of the catholic church is fair in that regard, so she’d fight her parents until the bitter end if your muse sticks beside her during it. 

       uh, uh, uh i think that’s all i wanted to talk about right now. i guess i really wanted to put out there that while leah is out here living her best life in the short run with interesting sexual encounters, lots of flirting and dating, and all that good ( and not so good ) college hook-up culture, in the long run, she’s incredibly anxious about letting her family in on her love life, so any serious ships would have to keep that in mind since i don’t think it’s realistic for things to be smooth sailing 100% of the times in ships.