#and mostly just tried to support dakota even if they didn’t understand what was going on like. fuck dude

[magpigment]

finally got to episode one season two of prime defenders! my thoughts so far ^^ :

dakota :(

mallard >:((

[outlaw-apologist]

The Gang Catching Feelings For You (RDR2)

The gang catching feelings for you! (Mostly GN) Characters: Arthur, Charles, Trelawny, Hosea, Micah Warnings: Micah’s story contains mentions of gender Note: This one was written for @onceuponadie sorry it took me forever to bang this out. :’) AO3 Version Arthur At first you thought you might be annoying Arthur. He always seemed really awkward when you tried to help out or when you stopped him to make sure his satchel was filled with new supplies before he left camp. Arthur becomes stiff when you’re around. Half of the time he could hardly hold eye contact. It made you feel bad. You were only trying to make his tasks easier. Everyone always had such huge expectations of Arthur. No one cared if there was enough stew leftover for him when he returned to camp, or if the supplies were rationed out to him. You took notice of this quickly, their behavior was beyond you. The man doing the most work for the gang should be supported.

“Thank ya’ kindly.” He usually responded whenever he caught you in the act, tipping his hat down to cover his eyes. It wasn’t in a rude way… just… awkward. It was hard to decode exactly how he felt about it and you assumed he’d speak up if he wanted you to stop and so you kept on doing your thing. You hadn’t seen Arthur in a few days. According to Hosea he went out hunting to replenish the camp’s food supply. Not something unusual. The day was lovely, naturally you decided you wanted to get away from the gang for awhile – in need of some serious space and fresh air – and help out by bringing something in. Fishing sounded nice! Not so close by, as you didn’t want anyone bothering you. You took your horse to a beautiful area you had heard so much about. Cumberland Falls. What you didn’t expect was to see a familiar outlaw fussing with his horse near the bank of the Dakota River. You slowed your horse to a walk, heading his way. Arthur’s voice carried was over the water in the cold spring breeze. “You’re alright girl. Just let me take a look at it. Easy now-” “Is she alright?” You called out. Arthur’s head snapped up and he gave a shrug. “Got ambushed by some O’Driscoll boys. Shot her leg pretty good. Hope she don’t go lame on me.” You could hear the upset in Arthur’s voice even as he tried to act casual. He had a close bond with his horse, something you had always admired. Dismounting your own, you rummaged through your satchel while approaching him. “Here- this might help until we can get her looked at.” You gently pushed a bottle of horse tonic into his palm. Arthur was slow to take it, interlocking your fingers together as he wrapped his much larger hand around the glass bottle. His eyes were on yours, gaze electric and intense. “Thank you.” His voice wasn’t shy this time. He wasn’t turning away from you as he usually did. “You look exhausted.” Your words were gentle, not meaning any offense. “Take my horse, I’ll lead yours so you can rest.” “That’s really not necessary-” Arthur trailed off as you took the reigns from him. He could tell there was no room for argument here. With a small grunt he turned to give his horse the tonic. In truth, Arthur was feeling pretty upset about his horse. Maybe it was the stress of everything. The weight of Backwater on his shoulders. His mind was racing yet, calm, at the same time. How was that possible? He didn’t know. The only other time he felt that way was with Mary. But you? Your actions were so genuine. It made him feel… better. Unexpectedly this was hard for him to accept. Why was someone treating him with so much empathy? Maybe you pitied him, an old man that had no value outside of stealing and shooting for dollars. However, he thinks he understands now. It wasn’t pity. Pity doesn’t make someone manifest from thin air when he wishes they were there. And yeah, it probably was coincidence this time, but damn did it feel natural. It felt… right… As if you two were being drawn to each other like magnets. You see him for who he is and you accept him no questions asked. “Somehow… You always know where to find me when I need you. What would I do without you?” “I guess we’ll never know.” Arthur’s stomach fluttered with butterflies when you flashed him that brilliant smile of yours. Maybe it was time for him to move on and find love again. ___ Charles You liked Charles. Being around him was peaceful. He, like you, enjoys the serenity that comes with nature; and so you two were often found in proximity of each other working on your respective crafts or doing a quiet activity while taking in the day. You didn’t know much about each other. He was a quiet man and you… well, you tried not to talk about yourself unless asked. Over time you observed things about him. It was hard not to. Charles is a dedicated man. Always would his brow furrow when concentrating on his work. He would give a little grunt of victory whenever something came out particularly good that he was proud of. You noticed he would stop to admire a beautiful feather on the ground, or an interesting rock. If animals wondered by your hang-out Charles would put down his work to watch them with a small smile. Fondness for Charles began to grow in your heart. You had feelings for Charles first. You never said or did anything to convey this, of course. It was hard to tell how Charles felt about you and… You know he wouldn’t be unkind towards you if he knew, but you didn’t think he’d feel the same way. Instead you carried on as normal. As time went on this became a little difficult. Every time someone in camp had something to say about him, you were either defending Charles or singing his praises. Not obnoxiously so, but enough to make a few of the gang members suspicious. Despite an odd look here and there, no one said a word. Not even Charles himself. Charles too had wondered at times what your words would mean when you would tell Bill to shut up because Charles was the best hunter they had. Or when you would threaten Micah’s life whenever it looked like he was about to say a slur. It couldn’t be- right? Charles knew he made himself too boring and unassuming… You were probably just being a good friend. “Hey Charles.” You greeted, sitting beside him by the fire in front of Shady Bell. “I know this really isn’t your thing but I have a lead in Saint Denis and I… Well, I need a husband so I can get into this party.” You flashed a shy but goofy grin. “Find someone else.” You blinked in surprise. You knew it probably wasn’t personal but his cold reaction did sting a little. “C’mon.” You gently nudged him. “It’s not really my thing. I don’t think I can help you.” “I know, but I need someone who’ll keep their head. I don’t trust the others not to ruin it.” Charles turned to study your face. You didn’t usually go on jobs like this, nor did you normally ask for help. The mission must have been worth it. “Alright, let’s go.” Charles looked stunning. Trelawny called in a favor from someone in the city and was able to pull together extravagant outfits for the both of you. Charles tied his hair back and… damn did the man clean up well. It was unnatural seeing him this way. It didn’t suit him at all, you loved his usual look more than anything. But hey- you could admire Prince Charles for one evening. Heads turned as you both walked into the small garden party. It wasn’t anything over the top. Mostly it was rich women chatting together. You had met them previously and pretended you were married to a rich man in an attempt to gain access into their society. It worked… A little too well. They were eager to meet your husband. Charles was certainly not who they had expected. “Oh-” One of the women’s faces fell. Judgment danced in their eyes. “You’re married to…” Her mouth opened and closed. Immediately you spoke up before something unsavory was said. “This is my darling husband Charles Wilson.” “Mr. Wilson” A younger woman extended her hand for Charles to kiss. “Y/N tells us you’re quite the talented agricultural tycoon.” “Is that so?” Charles shot you an amused look. “I try to be humble but in plain terms, you can say that.” “How wonderful it is a man of your stature could be so… influential.” “Oh come now Mrs. Jones. I’d love to hear all about it. Our husbands aren’t half as interesting.” A third lady giggled. You gave Charles an apologetic look. You hated leaving him here but the thousands of dollars worth of jewelry weren’t going to steal its self. “I’m afraid, ladies, I feel a bit ill today. May I excuse myself?” “Of course, dear. We’ll keep your husband company. The powder room is upstairs to your left.” You slipped in and out easy enough. The jewelry wasn’t hard to find. Upon returning you rejoined everyone. Charles did look a bit bored and you could only imagine what these women were saying to your sweet handsome husband. “Thank you.” You turned to Charles as you both left for the night.  He had an arm wrapped around you, supporting his ‘ill’ partner. “I know they were terrible and I feel bad for dragging you into this.” “Not at all. I’m used to it. It doesn’t help that I’m not exactly husband material.” Charles tried to make fun of himself to lighten the mood but it only made you feel heavier. “Don’t say that.” You squeezed his shoulder. “That’s not true at all.” Maybe it was the drinks you had at the party, but suddenly you just couldn’t keep it in anymore. “Charles you are one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met. You’re compassionate and considerate. You’re so appreciative of everything around you. You don’t speak much but when you do you’re so damn articulate. I could listen to you talk for days and days and still be in awe of how brilliant your mind is. You’re just…” You ran your fingers through your hair while sucking in a sobering breath.  “So beautiful. And handsome, but that’s a story for another time.” A nervous laugh erupted from your lips. You probably went too far this time. “It’s an honor being seen next to you.” Thick awkward silence blanked the evening for the longest time. How could he respond to something like that? It sounded…. It sounded as though you genuinely liked him? “You really mean that?” Charles’ voice was filled with doubt. You were probably only saying those things because you felt bad for putting him in such a position. Though, it was nice to hear someone point out good things about his character and not just what he was useful for. No one had ever said anything like that to him before. It made his heart skip a beat. “I do.” Charles hummed with happiness. He believed you. “I’ll be your husband again. Maybe not for a party of rich white people, but we make a pretty couple. I’m sure we can find a way.” His gaze met yours fondly. Maybe one day being your husband won’t be an act but a reality. ___ Micah “There you are dead-weight.” You could have groan as the voice of none other than Micah Bell reached your ears. You were having a nice afternoon reading in the trees not far from camp. Ever since the gang left Colter Micah’s been on your back – for whatever reason – and it was getting on your last nerve. Dead-weight was his new favorite thing to call you. If it wasn’t that then it was probably ‘piglet’. You eat Pearson’s stew at camp around him one time and he was enraged because you ‘didn’t do enough to earn it’. He wasn’t every creative. It wasn’t that you didn’t pull your weight, because you did. You’re a real hard worker. But you also value your alone time and Micah… Well, he caught onto that real quick. Every damn time you wandered off for a moment to yourself he managed to find you one way or another. You were at the end of your rope. “Shouldn’t you be makin’ yourself useful? Go make money on your back or somethin’ like the other girls.” You looked up at him over your book while he scoffed at you. All you could do was snort in amusement. “Maybe you should go make money on your back, Micah. Though, I can’t imagine anyone would want to fuck your grimey unwashed ass.” Micah’s face twisted up in both confusion and rage. How dare you insinuate something so… Queer? So disgusting? He didn’t know what to say and you watched as he struggled to come up with a response. “I bring in the money, I don’t wash the clothes.” “And what money have you brought in?” Your voice was calm and measured. “Only Arthur and I’ve been bringing in the big bucks.” “I’ve been out workin’ real jobs that’ll bring in more than you and cowpoke have scrounged up in weeks.” You simply shut your book. “Sure you are, shit-ass.” Oh- a huge smile crossed your face. That’s what you’ll call him for now on.   Micah seemed to catch on, realization flashing across his face. He suddenly threw his head back with a hearty laugh. Never had he thought you’d return his energy. Not many people did. Arthur probably would but that man was beat into the ground and no fun in his opinion. But you? Hilarious! “I like that. I’ll remember that next time.” He loved it. He picked on you because he wanted to stare at your ass while you work around camp. He didn’t like it when his entertainment left his sight. To be honest Micah didn’t think anything would develop between the two of you. He considered you just as pathetic as Molly… But now… Maybe you did have a bite to you. An inkling of suspicion crept into your thoughts when you caught the joy in his eyes. Oh god- this was just the beginning. Micah was going to have his fun. ___ Josiah Josiah couldn’t help himself. He had to flirt with everything and anything he found beautiful. You were no exception. He didn’t expect anything to come of it. Nothing ever did. You laughed at his magic tricks and scolded him whenever you and Arthur had to get him out of trouble. You were just… Ordinary in his life. Like anyone else. You liked Josiah well enough. The two of you would talk about a show you’ve seen or a book you’ve read. However, you found yourself drawn to him as if there were a magnetic field pulling you in. Whenever Josiah would pop back up or walk into camp you seemed to jump up and greet him before anyone else could. Immediately you’d ask him how he was or where he’s been. Josiah thought it was amusing the first few times. You must have felt bad because no one else really cares if he’s there or not. “What’ve you been up to Mr. Trelawny?” You ask every time, leaning forward with an interested smile. He enjoyed you humoring him. “Well my dear, you see, there were these wolves-” always would he reply with some fabricated story with half-truths. You didn’t seem to mind. When Josiah had his face smashed in by bounty hunters in Rhodes the sting of embarrassment was greater than the pain. All because of you. It felt almost humiliating, letting you see him that way. Half expecting you to scold him or roll your eyes like usual, he was shocked as you gently took his chin and turned his head so you could examine him. “Does it hurt?” “Don’t worry about me, dear friend.” “You didn’t answer the question.” You pursed your lips in frustration. Josiah ran a hand through his hair. He squirmed under your concerned gaze, not used to gentle eyes being turned his way. It was weird. Truly strange. You carefully wiped the blood from his face and for once Josiah remained silent. Had you genuinely cared for him this whole time? His heart fluttered… Maybe… It’s silly to think, in his mind, but just maybe… He could start caring for you in the same way. ___ Hosea You follow Hosea around like a puppy at times. If a job had to be done, you were right there with Arthur to company him.  Fishing? Your pole would be out with bait on the hook or you’d sit beside him with a book in hand. You simply wanted to enjoy peace of his presence as he fished. It wasn’t annoying by any means. You’re not loud or presumptuous about it and it seemed as if you always knew exactly when he needed alone time or when he wanted space. Hosea enjoyed it. His boys were all grown and doing their own thing. Everyone now saw him as an old man. For awhile he did jobs on his own. Seeing who’s house he could slip into to make their pockets hurt. Now? He had a partner in crime who always understood his vision. It was fantastic! You two swap books when you’re done reading them and talk in length about philosophy. There was a certain deepness to your relationship. At first, Hosea saw you as a kindred spirit. You were someone who matched him like a puzzle piece. He spilled all of his heartaches to you as well as his hopes and dreams. Bessie was a big one. He’d speak of her when the gang was huddled around the fire at times. But there were things he couldn’t tell anyone. Not even Dutch who understood the loss of a woman he loved. When Hosea gave in, letting the emotions and memories of his dearly departed beloved spill from his lips like knocked over ink, you listened carefully. Offering empathy in ways Hosea didn’t even know he needed. In return he listened to your own heavy thoughts, offering his arms to cry in when needed. The whole gang knew about you and Hosea before you and Hosea figured it out for yourselves. “I think we should also bring Y/N to the party.” Hosea proposed in the midst of hashing out details from the mayor of Saint Denis. “Of course you do.” Ditch rolled his eyes, causing Hosea to cross his arms offensively. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “C’mon, look at’cha. I haven’t seen you like this in a long time, Hosea. Just ask them out already.” Hosea’s moth opened in protest but no words escaped. It took several seconds for Dutch’s words to properly click. All he could do was lean back against his chair. “You don’t think it’s too late for me?” His old friend shot him a weary smile. “It’s never too late for love.” For once Dutch was right. Hosea hummed to himself, conjuring a picture of the two of you together as an official couple. It did feel right. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

[mcheang]

A new girl aloof and distant doesn't pay attention to Lila(she knows she lies but is smart not to expose her without proof) Lila gets annoyed and confronts her about the new girl says she doesn't care and wonders why Lila cares so much that one person doesn't give her the time of day Lila snaps(verbally) exposes herself and Chloe livestreams Lila defeated

Dakota North

Maybe it’s because I’m currently reading The Tyrant’s Tomb, but this character is definitely inspired by Piper McLean. Her name is copied from the Dakota North character from True Jackson. It was originally going to be Piper North but it’s late and I kept using Dakota so...Dakota North it is.

Here’s what you need to know about Dakota North.

She dresses shabbily for someone who looks really, really hot. Not such a surprise once you find out who her parents are.

Anthony North is a movie star, ranked along the likes of Orlando Bloom and Dwayne Johnson. He divorced his Wife when Dakota was 6, and switches girlfriends on a regular basis. However, he loves his daughter dearly, spoils her, and spends time with her every summer at his Beverly Hills mansion.

Brooke Song is an Asian Victoria’s Secret Angel and currently has custody of Dakota. Her main residence is New York but she travels frequently because of work. (Anthony travels too but he stays overseas longer). She adores Dakota and tries to give her a normal life.

This leaves Dakota with a lot of money and absent parents. Sound familiar?

Unlike Chloe who bullies with her father’s name and cash, or Adrien who tries to please his Father, Dakota causes trouble to get her parents’ attention.

She specifically enjoys stealing things.

Dakota also refuses to mention who her parents are so she can identify who her real friends are. Brooke supports this and thus lets her agent handle school matters to ensure confidentiality.

But Dakota’s thieving streak has finally gotten her kicked out out of all the good schools in New York and then some.

Exasperated, Brooke decides to send her Daughter to Paris as she signs with a French modelling company there.

When Dakota introduces herself to her new class, she says her name and that she is from America, that is all.

Her new seat is next to Ivan, behind Marinette and in front of Lila.

Ivan introduces himself. Dakota is agreeably pleasant.

Marinette introduces herself as the class president and invites Dakota to ask her if she needs help. Dakota responds politely.

Then Lila jumps in and mentions how she was in America too. She had met all sorts of superstars and describes how she knows a few of them.

Dakota actually knows those stars thanks to her parents letting her attend their celebrity parties. She knows Lila is lying but doesn’t really care.

Lila just got labelled as part of the “them” crowd.

Lila is perturbed. This is the first time someone has shown a lack of reaction to her tales. Usually there was awe, with the occasional sprinkling of anger and jealousy. But Dakota just looked bored by her.

Dakota soon begins her thieving spree but this is difficult because the Parisians are already wary of thieves.

The first time she succeeds, she is caught by Marinette.

Instead of immediately scolding her, like Dakota expected, Marinette asked for her reasons.

Dakota admits she doesn’t really care about this laptop. She just wants to cause enough trouble.

Marinette is silent, intuitively sensing Dakota isn’t mean, and offers a confession of her own. “I steal handphones.”

Dakota is shocked her class president is capable of such an act.

Marinette defends herself that she only stole phones because she had to correct an error or to delete incriminating evidence.

Sensing a kindred spirit, Dakota finally opens up and asks Marinette if she is Chinese.

They start bonding over their shared kleptomaniac issue and heritage. Marinette even invites Dakota to her bakery.

When Lila tells tales, Dakota now joins Marinette and Adrien on the sidelines to talk about actual reality.

The latter asks why Dakota isn’t enthralled like the rest of the class.

Dakota admits she knows Lila is lying. She isn’t calling Lila out because she’s seen girls like her before, and they aren’t worth her time.

One day, Brooke and Audrey meet and decide to let their daughters play together while the grown ups chat. Chloe is surprised that Dakota is Brooke’s Daughter.

Audrey assures Brooke that her Daughter can keep a secret. The two aren’t convinced after hearing how Chloe outed her hero identity.

Audrey pressures Chloe to keep silent. Chloe quickly agrees.

Meanwhile, Lila is annoyed. She assumes from Dakota’s position with Adrien and Marinette that she knows Lila is lying. The problem is that Dakota never called her out for it. The new girl just ignores Lila as if she were thin air.

No matter how ridiculous her tales got (that Marinette had to bite her tongue just to stop pointing out the holes), how exaggerated her “disabilities” were (that Adrien sighed in dismay), Dakota never showed the slightest hint of emotion.

It infuriated Lila so much that this American actually showed emotion to those 2 goody-goody, pompous duo, and actually ignored her.

If Lila had a pet peeve, it would be someone calling her out on her lies. But a close second would be lack of attention.

When Dakota and Lila were alone in the locker room, Lila asked sweetly, “Dakota, can we talk for a bit.”

Dakota looked at the clock. “You have 3 minuits.”

Lila feigned shyness. “Right, right, of course, I don’t want to waste your time.”

Dakota just gave her a deadpan stare. You’re already wasting it. Just say what you have to say already. I’m already tired of your endless blathering.

“It’s just...do you hate me, Dakota? I’ve tried to reach out to you, but you just ignore me and decline invitations.”

“I decline invitations from other classmates too, Lila. Don’t worry. You’re not the odd one out.” You’re not special.

Lila’s nostrils flared, but she kept her voice soft. “I’ve noticed. But I also...I also think you don’t like me.”

“That’s not exactly true. I don’t like you, yes. But I don’t dislike you either.” You’re nothing to me.

Lila stammered, “But...but why? I’ve been nothing but nice to you.”

“More like babbling my ear off,” Dakota’s tone was painfully blunt. “All the time you say me, myself and I. Can you even talk in a conversation without mentioning yourself? You’re like a parrot. Colourful and talkative, but you don’t know when to shut up or talk sense.”

Lila flushed. “Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.” Dakota turned, finishing the conversation.

“We’re not done here!” Lila yelled, catching up to hold Dakota’s arm in a tight grip. “Who do you think you are, talking to me like that? As if you’re better than all of us. I’m the one with the connections. You’re just a walking fashion disaster.”

Dakota just stared at Lila, unimpressed and unafraid. “I believe the real question is, why do you care? Because honestly, you’re just proving my point. You’re a parrot spouting nonsensical lies.”

Lila finally snapped. “Because no one ignores me! Not that insufferable Marinette, not Adrien with all his naivety, and especially not the rest of our idiotic class! At least your self-righteous pals react when I lie to the class. But you sit there all unimpressed and uncaring.”

At last, Dakota felt she understood Lila. Wanting attention is understandable. But Lila’s reasons and methods were all wrong.

Dakota calmly pried Lila’s arm off her, walked away and flipped a rude gesture behind her without even turning her head.

Lila shrieked.

Neither of them had noticed Chloe standing behind the lockers, video recording their confrontation and live-streaming it to Audrey and Brooke.

True to her word, Chloe didn’t spill the beans. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t tried to cozy up to Dakota. Mostly because Audrey actually respected Brooke. But too little, too late. Chloe had been labelled as “them” too.

Now though, Chloe had very juicy gossip to share and she didn’t make a promise regarding this!

Next period, Lila reported a missing phone and accused Dakota. Dakota and Marinette exchanged glances, confirming that neither did this.

But the class was getting riled up by Lila’s accusation and Dakota’s uncaring non-reaction. They ignored Adrien and Marinette’s defenses.

“ENOUGH!”

As one, the class turned to stare at Chloe. The blonde frowned. “I’m tired of all this drama. If you’re all worked up about this simple theft, I wonder how you’re going to react when you see this.”

Chloe plays the video.

The class is an uproar. Lila is cornered and runs away. Marinette calms the class down and sends Adrien to retrieve Lila.

Dakota just watches all this and waits.

Lady Wifi returns and was defeated. Lila’s disabilities are looked into and she is in trouble.

Brooke and Audrey are so proud of their daughters. Chloe is basking in her mother’s praise while Dakota enjoys her mother fussing over her for any bruises left by the Italian and simultaneously praising her for her composure.

Dakota invites Marinette and Adrien to stay with her for the summer. Adrien can’t attend but Marinette makes it. She is the first friend in Paris Dakota introduces to her parents.

I had fun writing this 😋

[chicagocityfclanspromoblog]

Dakota English → Summer Bishill → Rat Shifter

→ Basic Information

Age: 36

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Born or Made: Born

Birthday: October 11th

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Religion: Deism

→ Her Personality Dakota is a beautiful, strong-willed, powerful, highly intelligent, and self-made woman, who does not allow the world to stand in the way of her ambition. She is considerably powerful and influential. Dakota swings way above the depression and anxiety line, having her work and social life in order despite having to routinely deal with incredibly dangerous missions and warlocks. She is fierce and she always stands her ground no matter the circumstances. She gives a feminist element to the pack in the most cunning and intelligent way. Although at first sight, she may seem superficial, Dakota is a keen observer; whose specialties are gossip, competition, and drama. Dakota has shown to be the most rational of her teams during stressful situations, often being mistaken for cruel and bitter, when in truth she is pragmatic, focusing on what needs to be done instead of her emotions.

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Team member of BOND and GOLD

Scars: Missing her right eye

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Morning after Mission Breakfasts and Gold jewelry

Two Dislikes: Warlocks/Witches and Jameson

Two Fears: Watching someone she loves hurt/killed while she can do nothing about it and being eaten alive by fire ants

Two Hobbies: Archery and Tai Chi

Three Positive Traits: Loyal, Daring, Pragmatic

Three Negative Traits: Standoffish, Calculating, Cut Throat

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Rina English (Mother): They have a perfect mother, daughter relationship. She confides in her with everything, from bad days at work to her struggles with West’s addiction. Rina was the only person who had an inkling West and Dakota were eloping when her daughter asked for something old and blue from her. Dakota can’t keep anything from her mother, and wouldn’t want it any other way.

Michael English (Father): Dakota has always been a daddy’s girl; his pride and joy. Michael believes that she deserves only the best and it’s what made him decide to take West under his wing. He knew that his head strong little girl was set on the gangly boy and decided to shape him into a good, respectable man.

Sibling Names:

None

Children Names:

None

Romantic Connections:

West Freemen (Mate): Dakota married her best friend. They fight and argue, smile and laugh, irritate and cry for each other. West loves her and she loves his weirdness and the man he has become. She wants to spend her time with him and respects his decisions. His drug habits annoy her but they’re a two person team that no one else is allowed to join. But she refuses to let that habit stop them from being together. They resolve their problems and bounce back to normal after every misstep.

Platonic Connections:

Louis Martin-Rovet (Head/Friend): Louis is her “at-home” head and stake out partner. He’s incredibly smart, and Dakota has learned a lot from him. Louis is the only one of her bosses who has treated her like she’s still capable, and allows her in the field.

Neaera Jayweed (Acquaintance): Dakota really likes Neaera and her complete and utter confidence in going against Nick. She thinks she’s probably fun and wants to get to know her more.

Jo Floyd (Confidant): Jo is the only rat who knows she’s looking into trying to find a way to get her eye back. She has been cautiously supportive and has even investigated links with her, but a part of Dakota knows she’ll tell Nick as soon as it gets serious.

Judson Clerigh (Only Lead): Judson mentioned to her in passing he could make her a new working eye, but Dakota is terrified of the consequences. She knows Louis would not be ok with her doing that and she knows the dangers of accepting magic and the hidden costs that come with it. Still it’s been the only thing she’s found that’s an option.

Hostile Connections:

Flower Hanes (Dislike): Dakota kept getting tripped up and caught in vines one day, only to find Flower and Belle laughing.

Roman Clerigh (Dislike): Roman Clerigh is like a necessary evil to her. His potions are safe for West, but she wished that West wasn’t hooked on them. And it’s easier for her to blame Roman than address the actual problem.

Minsky Edison (Scared of): There is something truly horrifying about mind control to Dakota. She’s head strong and unwavering in her beliefs, and to have someone be able to take that from her is incredibly frightening to her.

Nick Hamelin (Annoyed with): Nick has banned her from BOND missions since she lost her eye. She keeps trying to convince him to let her back in the field, but she’s pretty sure that now he’s keeping her out due to spite.

Pets:

None

→ History Dakota was Michael and Rina English’s miracle baby. With both having high stress teams (her’s GOLD, his BOND) the likelihood of Rina getting pregnant was slim, but right before they were about to stop their aging again, she began getting sick. Both knew she would be their one and only and strived to give her the best life they could. Immediately they began reading parenting books, and strategize how to best bring their child up. When Dakota finally arrived her parents became dedicated to teaching her how to be the smartest and strongest person they could.

Her cleverness became evident when Dakota was in second grade. She’d seen one of the rat kids getting bullied. She collected as many rocks as she could carry and started her assault. The bullies quickly scattered quickly after the rat boy did. She found him later and introduced herself, and from there the greatest friendship of her life began. Dakota and West became inseparable that Summer and spent most of it getting back at the bullies in rat form. From that year West became a part of the English family, with Rina taking care of him like he was her own son. Unfortunately that didn’t mean he was immune from his own parents’ comments, and Dakota felt him slipping away from her in their teen years. She tried supporting him the best she could, keeping his secrets and helping him hide his hangovers from the older rats. When he was 16, West got caught. He told her everything that had happened with Jalissa, but it wasn’t until his parents outed his problem to the whole pack. Rina and Michael eventually heard and pulled their own daughter aside, wanting to know how involved she was in everything. When she finally broke down and told her she had to make a choice of whether she cared about West’s health or his friendship. It woke her up to what could happen to him and the feelings she had for her best friend. She began actually helping keep him safe. Making sure she was always there if he went too overboard, or couldn’t protect himself. Their friendship quickly blurred the lines into a relationship, and her parents caught them. Michael decided to train West to take a spot in BOND, while Rina offered to train her for GOLD. Dakota knew she’d be good for BOND and begged Ray to train her. He took her under his wing, after months of bothering, and by the time she hit 18 she was team mates with her father and boyfriend on BOND. She and West went to the University of Chicago together and after graduation became mates.

She and West became a reliable team for BOND, being capable of taking on most of the “couple” assignments, as well as just having a good understanding of each other. But West fell back into drugs, and especially potions, and began taking larger risks. During a mission in Prague, West needed a fix and got his supply from a random witch, who wanted something way more than a usual payment. Dakota offered her own sacrifice for him, and gave up her eye to protect him from the witch’s magic. After that mission West mostly cleaned up his act, but alternated babying her while endlessly apologizing, and sinking into a deep depression spurred on by the comments from others in the pack, especially his mother. The wrath and rage that had come from losing her eye was released onto those who felt like her lost eye was their business. She got him to eventually see her as the same woman she was before, and they came out in the end stronger.

→ The Present It’s been about a year and a half since Dakota gave up her eye for West. She’s gone through most of the stages of grieving over it and is finally looking into fixing it. She’s looked all over for any kind of remedy. Since it is a magical wound, it’s never going to heal naturally. Which means she’s stuck looking for a magical source to fix it. She’s currently looking into witches or warlocks both locally and out of town for solutions but her sources are not readily forthcoming with that kind of information. Dakota’s also making great strides to hide it from her pack, parents, and especially West. She wants to put on a brave face for them, and it took West months before he trusted himself again. She’s accepted it the way she looks now, but still yearns to have both eyes back. Jo stumbled upon her researching at a cafe and got her to spill, and is now trying to assist in her search. Ultimately Dakota is aware Nick is going to find out, and so will the rest of the pack, but she wants to have a plan to show before that happens.

West and Dakota recently were outed as married by an accidental opening of mail. She knows the pack was thrown by it, and that Nick is pissed, but she is waiting to let someone else pick the fight. She has something bigger to fight. Dakota would really like West to stop relying on potions and try out therapy to deal with his inner emotional turmoil. His parents truly messed him up and Dakota knows how he could be even more incredible if he didn’t have their criticisms hanging in her head. She’s gotten the higher ups in the pack to approve of sessions for West and is now trying to think of how to pitch it to him.

→ Available Gif Hunts (we do not own these)

Summer Bishil (Dakota English) [1][2][3][4]

[bom-bombon]

Texas?

Yeehaw

Name: Sebastian Inglesias

While Texas does have a second last name because he’s Hispanic, he decided to drop it. I know many Hispanic who have either both of their parents’ names and of only their fathers’ last name with the former being more common. Those with one last name has less complications with paperwork, applications, etc., than with those with two last names. Considering all this, I think that Texas would drop the second last name to make his life more easier.

Age: 27-29

Gender: Cis male

Ethnicity/Race: Hispanic (Mestizo)

Siblings: Coahuila (perhaps Chihuahua and Nuevo Leon too but it’s still a wip)

Height: 5′11 (180.34 cm)

He’s sad that he’s not 6′0. He may be taller than some of his fellow Mexican brethren, but he gets reminded that he’s not the tallest in the Union, or at the very least, he’s not 6′0. This annoys him to no end.

Relations:

-Arizona: They’re buddies. They both share a love for guns, have similar conservative ideologies, and they love a/c. No matter how much New Mexico tries to discourage Arizona from talking to him, Arizona just doesn’t care. He thinks that Texas is cool (which fuels his already big ego)

-Arkansas: They get along. That’s it. I suppose that sometimes he does call her Ar-kansas and she don’t talk to him for a whole day after that, but they’re cool nonetheless.

-California: They don’t like each other. He finds her annoying and thinks she’s an idiot. When she was first introduced to the states, he thought that they could be together and be some sort of duo. But they thought different things and it upset him. To him, it almost felt like betrayal because he thought he knew her and she supported and admired him. So why doesn’t she support him now? Today, they just bicker and often start arguments. Both of their egos will never let it go and make up.

-Coahuila: It’s complicated. Coahuila was enraged when Texas broke away from her and even more so when the US helped. While I’m not sure their relationship was during this time period, I do know that they didn’t talked for a while. Texas believed he was doing the right thing in following his own dreams. Though that is debatable at best. Nowadays, they get along well and Coahuila sometimes invite him to parties. Sometimes…

-Louisiana: They chill with each other. Louisiana, although criticizes him on some occasions, think he’s a nice guy. He has helped her in the past and she no doubts never forgot about it, so she helps him whenever she can. They’re also dumbasses together so that’s fun too.

-Minnesota: They’re together! Minnie is like 6’2 so she calls Texas cute for being tiny and he loves and hates it!! They are both tough as nails. For example, Minnie surprised him by beating him on a mechanical bull, Virginia complained about how strong Minnesota was during the Civil War, and Montana always remarks about how Minnie was the only other state who can keep up with her in the World Wars. And Texas is Texas. They are both incredibly sweet in relationships. Minnesota is known for being nice and it’s tru. Texas in relationships is sort of like the Latin Lover, excluding the constant need for uhh bedroom stuff. They are both gentle to each other out of respect and always get each other meaningful gifts. Not to mention the daily reminders of “you’re beautiful” or “you’re my sunshine”, they’re too pURE. They both like similar hobbies such as watching and playing football, taking care of animals, and roasting the hell out of people. Texas helps Minnie into confronting problems and people

Minnie: Idk how to tell them

Texas: It’s easy, I’ll show you how

Texas: Hey New York!

New York: I’m not listening…

Texas: New York!

New York: *looks up*

Texas: I like your shirt but I don’t like you!

She teaches him about considering other’s feelings. Sometimes Texas is too caught up about himself to realize how he’s affecting others around him and she knows this. She reminds him that people that not everyone will understand him emotionally and might take offense. Slowly, Texas thinks more often. Minnesota and Texas also love having adventures together. They would go and snowboard (though Texas has fell off a mountain one time). No matter what they’re doing, they always seem to compliment each other and have fun together. 

-Montana: They’re cowboy buddies. I would imagine them talk to each other about animals, particularly horses and cows. Since Montana is also a tough person, she and Texas loves to have small competitions with lifting or who has the most power. He sees her as a buddy and likes to talk to her, which is good because Montana herself has trouble fitting in when all people know about her is just cows and nothingness.

-New Mexico: New Mexico hates him. From what I can remember, Texas tried to claim parts of New Mexico three separate times. The last attempt was the Civil War, and with the attempt to take Santa Fe, New Mexico won’t let it go. Texas doesn’t really care about him nor seem to remember that he even exist. He mostly focuses his rivalry with Oklahoma. Plus, he think New Mexico is a bad driver.

-Oklahoma: They’re rivals. The extent of this rivalry, I’m not too sure and admittedly haven’t delved into much. What I can say is that he always honk his horn at her because she’s a terrible driver. At some point she called him Baja Oklahoma and he cried

-Tennessee: They’re friends. Tennessee is gay for him. So when the Texas Revolution was starting and the US helped out, a good chunk of the people were from Tennessee. So Tennessee helped Texas out wherever he can and that was his first friend from the US. They love to go hunting and talk about guns and stuff. Tennessee really admired him and is glad that he’s consider to be close friends with the big boi of the South. They also play music together and have nice country vibes.

-Wyoming: They’re Yeehaw buddies. They also had a relationship is perhaps early 1900s but I’m not too sure yet.

Things I don’t know how to title but it exists:

-Texas has tattoos of all his state symbols on his arms and back

-They played a “special” game of Truth or Dare. In the end, Texas threw up and vowed to never go to Vegas or hang out with Nevada for 9 months.

-Texas gave some of his friends in the Midwest and South (who aren’t Hispanic mind you) the “spicy” Mexican candies and almost all of them are more cautious about Mexican candies. Plot twist: they’re not spicy at all; they’re just weak

-Yee in the streets, haw in the sheets

-He’s bisexual

Some things about her (development? idk):

Texas has this arrogance that kinda makes it unbearable to work with at times (his closest friends can attest to this). But to be fair, this arrogance would be provoked by someone either messing with his lovely state or someone who’s just curious. Besides that, he is actually pretty charismatic, confident, and charming that attracts people despite his (non intentional) brash behavior. (It’s a joke that he purposefully made Tennessee gay). He’s also intelligent as he’s musically talented, exceeds surprisingly well in mathematics and sciences, and fluent in a couple languages such as English, German, and Vietnamese. He worked hard to be where he is and he can be closed minded in some parts but that’s because he likes to stay relatively the same. He doesn’t like a lot of change; you can say he’s afraid of it and what it might bring because he doesn’t want to lose who he truly is deep down inside. (It’s kinda funny because with this new influx of Californians, he’s stressed and upset at her more than ever).

Some quotes,, things?: 

New York: I’m hot shit and that’s the only thing I’ll take away.

Texas: Didn’t you hear her? I’m also hot shit. And that’s the power of the Texan charm ;) Checkmate, liberals.

New York: Yeah well why don’t you shut up.

Texas: You shut up

–

Northern Mariana Islands: *gives everyone a glass shot of tequila*

Everyone: *downs the shot and put their shot glass on the middle of the table*

Delaware: More please!

Ohio: No more please…

Arkansas: What the fuck was that??

Utah: Ugh, that so strong what the heck-

Texas: Can we do this every night?

–

Priest: You may now read the vows you have prepared.

Texas: I think I misunderstood the assignment.

Minnesota: Just read what you wrote, dear.

Texas: Ok *deep breath* A E I O U

–

Texas, drunk: SI YA SABEN COMO ME PONGO PA QUE ME INVITAN???

–

South Dakota: But it’s couples like you that give hope to the rest of us. Minnesota, you deserve the best, and you found it.

Texas, don’t you dare hurt her.

Everyone: *laughs*

Texas: I won’t.

Michigan: Don’t laugh. She means it.

Texas: Okay, I-I won’t

.Nebraska: Seriously, don’t hurt her.

Texas: Okay, I’m not planning on hurting her.

Indiana: You better not be

Texas: I’m not!

Ohio: Hey, Texas, you best be watching yourself

Texas: Why would any of you think I would hurt Minnesota? Y’all my friends too.

Illinois: Nah

–

1945

Tejas, a los otros estados: Me das una úlcera cada vez que me despierto y tengo que venir ‘pa trabajar para ti, para ti!

–

Texas, grabbing a toy police car: Coahuila! Can you buy me this?

Coahuila: No.

Texas: You never buy me anything!

Coahuila: You’re over 300 years old!

–

Texas: Yee in the streets, haw in the sh-

Oklahoma: No.

–

Texas, drunk: You’re so pretty,, are you seeing anyone?

Minnesota: Yeah, I’m married

Texas, crying: To.. to who?

Minnesota: You, you smol idiot *kisses his forehead*

[that-shamrock-vibe]

TV Review: Crisis on Infinite Earths (Spoilers)

Part Two: Batwoman

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the day after the episode airs in the U.S. so if you haven’t yet seen the episode or are waiting to watch the crossover all in on, don’t read on until you have.

Overview:

I was right, and I’m so annoyed they couldn’t keep the high momentum of the first episode here. Where Part One felt like an epic and grand high-stakes crossover opener, Part Two feels more like the typical and somewhat formulaic Arrowverse episode. The problem with that is, it’s supposed to be both! I don’t quite get how the episode that had the most elements I was looking forward to fizzled this much.

But now with the true enemy finally revealing himself, and the promise of more Paragons to find, can Crisis save itself while it destroys the Multiverse?

Avenging the Fallen:

So the episode opens with the three main women of the Arrowverse, Kara, Sara and Kate, drinking in memory of Oliver. I have to say, I know this is a Batwoman episode and these three women in particular do often preach girl power and all that, but the fact Ray isn’t there at least does just make it seem like they wanted this girl power moment, and as Kate said, the Multiverse is still in danger.

As I mentioned when talking about Batwoman in my Elseworlds review, there were problems that fortunately have been fixed by Batwoman the TV series mostly, I still don’t like the fact she’s not a red head, I still don’t like how similar Ruby Rose and Erin Richards look because it’s distracting to me. Even a choppy bob style as Kate has in the comics would differentiate the two more for me.

That being said, Ruby Rose sold the dry cynical humour here as she does in her own series. I loved how she left the drink here but later wished she hadn’t, in that same scene when the Monitor reveals Batman’s secret identity how she demands discretion from the team was funny, Kara finding Earth-99 Luke Fox attractive and Kate finding it weird I thought was hilarious and Ruby Rose sold that very well for me.

Also, for all Kara’s mourning about her lost planet, there was no confirmation on where Alex, Brainy, J’onn, Nia, Kelly or Lena were after the climax of Part One. I know Brainy and I think J’onn are in future parts of this crossover but it would have been good for a side comment saying where they are.

Speaking of mourning, my god Mia goes hard here. It’s funny because in last week’s episode of Arrow, Oliver was all for Diggle finding a way to get Mia and William back to 2040, yet Mia is still around and making understandably emotion-driven but drastic decisions and both Barry and Sara, who are supposed to be older, wiser and more level-headed particularly in this area, are going along with it.

Barry especially, I believe, feels that if he can help Oliver cheat his fate then maybe he can as well considering that Iris has now got the idea that with The Monitor being wrong about how Oliver died maybe Barry won’t die either, that’s just stupid to give someone who has already accepted his fate and has been known to make the stupidest decisions going (Flashpoint) when he feels he can change it. 

Mia decides to use a Lazarus Pit to resurrect Oliver and, like I said, both Barry and Sara agree. Sara does need some convincing I grant you and Caity Lotz does sell that she is never fully on-board with the idea, and why would she be because she knows first hand what the pits do.

I did appreciate the Nyssa mention, I just wish she had been their guide to the pit on Earth-18, instead we get a mini-fight between Mia, Sara and an unaltered Jonah Hex.

I did kind of guess Hex would appear as soon as the location was revealed as North Dakota, and to be fair I didn’t really see where Jonah Hex would fit into this crossover, so I am glad they found a space for him.

I also like that Constantine has something to do finally, because I am tired of just seeing Sara and Ray, as much as I love Sara and tolerate Ray, it’s called Legends of Tomorrow and currently I think has the biggest main cast out of these shows...so why am I being drip-fed Legends with now the addition of Constantine and Mick...again I do enjoy both of them but give me the god damn team.

Barry and Constantine bring Oliver to the Lazarus Pit and, as expected, Oliver emerges as an out of control rage monster that Stephen Amell does not sell quite as well as Caity Lotz or Willa Holland previously have.

I guessed Oliver would somehow be brought back, because while the Arrowverse execs try to say “We killed him off in part one to show no one is safe”, it was an eye-roll for me because you’re not going to kill the original main star of the Arrowverse in the first part.

My only issue with it is it happened so quickly, there was no time really to miss him because he was dead at the end of part one and suddenly they’re talking about bringing him back.

Sara had an entire season between death and resurrection and Thea’s resurrection came with great sacrifice on Oliver’s part joining the League of Assassins. Here, we had Constantine saying that the antimatter was making him lose his magic so he couldn’t bring back Oliver’s soul like he did for Sara, which only makes me wonder why they’re wasting time trying to bring someone back rather than stopping existence from dying.

Paragon Pursuit - Bat of the Future:

Okay so, apparently The Monitor has recently discovered seven Paragons across the Multiverse that can come together to defeat the Anti-Monitor. He knows this from retrieving the Book of Destiny from the timeline which was the McGuffin in Elseworlds last year.

Fortunately four of these paragons are known to The Monitor, the Paragon of Hope is Kara Zor-El and the Paragon of Destiny is Sara Lance. I got why this worked because Supergirl’s main brand is all about hope and she’s from a parallel world while Sara is of Earth-1 tying into the fact these seven Paragons are spread across the multiverse.

The Monitor tells the team that two more Paragons are to be found on different Earths, the first is the Bat of the Future on Earth-99 which Mar-Novu name drops as Bruce Wayne, much to Ray’s surprise and Kate’s annoyance.

Again I am actually enjoying Brandon Routh in this crossover, and cannot understand why he isn’t at this level on his own show.

Kate and Kara go to Earth-99 where they come across a dilapidated Wayne Manor, which looks more dishevelled than the one from the DCEU, and meet Earth-99 Luke Fox...who I had to double-take to ensure it was in fact Camrus Johnson partly because of how different he looks not geeked up and also because he is the only other main character of Batwoman to appear in this Batwoman episode.

Now I get that none of the other supporting players are vigilantes at this point, but not even Earth-1 Luke Fox making an appearance is slightly unfair, and you could argue that during Invasion! None of Supergirl’s supporting players were involved, but Supergirl still had an episode in that week which featured its main cast.

Again also Kate’s reaction to Kara finding this Luke attractive was probably my favourite moment in the episode.

Once forcing their way inside, Kate and Kara meet Earth-99 Batman, Mr. Kevin Conroy. I was so looking forward to seeing this veteran Batman voice actor in live-action and when you don’t see him talking, he sounds a lot like Batman of the DCAU, the only problem is I was promised Kingdom Come Batman and didn’t really get that.

I don’t know Kingdom Come that well but I thought Batman was supposed to be the main force of good left in the world, yet not only is he killing his rogues as displayed in his trophy case, including a Riddler cane which I also own, but he also killed Superman.

It’s at this point that Kate and Kara realise that this Batman is not the Paragon of Courage they were sent to retrieve and at that point Batman turns on Supergirl apparently hating Kryptonians.

Now this is where it gets interesting because before this, there is actually some good character moments for Bruce and Kate where Bruce tries to make Kate see that where he is in his mindset is where she should be, not trusting anyone, not believing in anything, just becoming the night basically.

It echoes similarly to what Lex Luthor tried to install in Lena last season which eventually worked as we know and it apparently maybe worked here because, even though Kate saved Kara from her doppleganger cousin, she still kept that Kryptonite wrist strap of his...what does she plan on doing?

Anyway before the Kryptonite reveal, we see Kate and Kara return to base where they tell The Monitor they failed retrieving the Paragon, but The Monitor reveals that the Bat of the Future and the Paragon of Courage is in fact Kate herself.

I don’t know how to feel about this, I love the fact Batwoman is being spotlighted even though she is the new girl, however, it does seem like the only reason she is the Paragon is because this is her show.

Also to have two Paragons from the same Earth? Not exactly far spread out.

Paragon Pursuit - Reign of the Supermen:

While Kate and Kara are on Earth-99, Earth 38′s Clark and Lois, and Iris for some reason, scourer the Multiverse for the Paragon of Truth, which is revealed to be a Superman...but which Superman.

Well just before they head off a spanner is thrown into the works in the form of Earth-38s Lex Luthor. We knew Jon Cryer would be back, I thought he would have returned in the Supergirl episode but we also see at least three other versions of Superman here so why not.

Anyway Lex steals the Book of Destiny because the Monitor apparently brought him back to be duped by the supervillain, shocker, and Lex travels the Multiverse killing off Supermen.

Clark, Lois and Iris first arrive on Earth-75 where they are too late because Earth-38 Lex has already killed this version of Superman who lies dead on the big screen with his Lois mourning the loss.

Their second attempt sees them arrive on Earth-167, which is the vaguest Easter-Egg reference going as it refers to Smallville co-producer Al Gough’s year of birth 1967...

When Tom Welling said he and Erica Durance were only in one scene they weren’t kidding, however I loved it. I am a massive Smallville fan, it was my proper Superman introduction, these versions of Clark and Lois are my Clark and Lois and that’s not going to change.

The decision for Clark not to have powers here is a weird one because they highlighted the fact that the Smallville Comics which followed the TV series would count as canon, yet aside from returning to the Kent Farm nothing we learn about Clark and Lois here was mentioned in the comics.

Also Clark and Lois have daughters, I’m not sure who they’re supposed to be but I’ve only ever known them to have a son...Jonathan...and since when did all the Supermen need to be Superdaddies anyway?

Anyway Earth-38 Lex shows up and Clark has the great confusion of wondering why Jon Cryer doesn’t look like Michael Rosenbaum, it is again sad that Rosenbaum didn’t reprise the role, but to have a Lex Luthor going up against multiple Supermen was still quite cool.

When Clark reveals he gave up his powers, most likely to be a father and family man, it did just seem like a cheat way for the writers to say “Yeah we have Smallville’s Clark Kent, but he won’t be part of the action”. Which as a Smallville fan is painful because I wanted to see Tom Welling in the tights, flights and action!

Also once Lex and the heroes disappear, Smallville’s Lois arrives and I have to say, she looks exactly the same as she did back in 2011 but different to how she looks as Alura Zor-El. Maybe it’s the choice of farm clothes as opposed to regal dresses but this is Lois Lane I had through my teen years, everything from the fashion to the hair, to the voice. I wasn’t crazy about the laugh because it seemed a bit forced, but she called him Smallville straight after and spoke in her high-energised way so I was happy.

The final stop was on Earth-96 which is a reference to the year the Kingdom Come storyline came out, it was confirmed that Brandon Routh would be Kingdom Come Superman but also the version of Superman from 2006 Superman Returns which Routh starred in.

We meet, or are reacquainted with,Routh’s version of Clark Kent. I have to admit I never much cared for Superman Returns, possibly because Smallville was on at the time and that version had already won me over. But I do know that Brandon Routh drew a lot of inspiration from Christopher Reeves and his portrayal of the character and you can clearly see that in both his fashion and acting.

I want to say it’s sad to see that pretty much all of Superman’s supporting staff at the Daily Planet are dead, Sam Huntington in my opinion was a decent Jimmy Olsen, but if this was Smallville’s Daily Planet staff all killed I’d be distraught.

Again I am comparing a lot but they are literally scenes apart from each other here.

Anyway, just as it’s confirmed that Brandon Routh’s Superman is the Paragon of Truth, Lex Luthor appears and decides he’s fed up with killing Supermen...we’ve only seen him kill one but there you go, and decides to turn Kingdom Come Superman against Earth-38 Superman in order for his now puppet to kill the other one.

I have to say, this was another weak battle sequence, I know it’s really CGI with two Supermen flying around, but neither Brandon Routh or Tyler Hoechlin have really sold flying as Superman to me that well anyway.

Lois finally does something and knocks Lex unconscious while she and Iris, who I cannot understand why she even came along at all, try to use the Book of Destiny to fix Kingdom Come Superman.

Eventually Lois gets through to KCS by appealing to his love for humanity and for his lost Lois. This breaks him free of the book’s control just in time before he snaps Earth-38 Superman’s neck.

With Lex detained, the heroes all return to base where they set up a machine to search for the rest of the Paragons. 

Harbinger’s Headache:

This sounds stupid but genuinely is what happens, since the start of the episode when Mar-Novu reveals the Book of Destiny, Harbinger starts to get headaches, this does alert her to the fact Lex Luthor is stealing the book but also puts her in the pathway of the Anti-Monitor.

Yes we finally see the big bad of the crossover in all his...glory? He looks ridiculous! His concept artwork does make him look like Oscar Isaac’s Apocalypse but the actual thing we get just looks ugly.

I will give a minor positive and say it is better to see him in the show than he looks on the promotional images because I get the feeling lighting is not this guy’s friend and we meet him in what looks like the hallway of S.T.A.R. Labs.

Mick Rory, Baby Whisperer:

Again, this sounds stupid, but I wanted to highlight this for a couple of reasons and to spotlight Legends of Tomorrow because it doesn’t look like this crossover is doing that.

Firstly, this Mick Rory isn’t our Mick Rory, this is in fact the Mick Rory of Earth-74...why is it called Earth-74? I don’t know because originally there were only supposed to be 52 Earths, then Earth-X came about and now we have Earth-167 so I’m making my peace with them making it up as they go along.

Anyway, Dominic Purcell has grown on me since he was first introduced on The Flash. I think once you accept the fact that DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is essentially a piss-take because that is what it’s become then you accept why the characters do what they do, and not only turning a Flash rogue into a hero/legend is understood but also having him be a writer, have a rat as a pet and be good with babies is also understood.

We see that Earth-74 has a Waverider and did have its own version of the Legends before they all disbanded, Mick has taken command of the Waverider as seemingly his home where he is a struggling writer and his only companion is the Waverider’s A.I. Leonard...Wentworth Miller is back! As a disembodied voice, I would have liked to have at least seen his floating blue head but no we get the voice which is fine by me to be honest.

Once Harbinger commandeers the Waverider ad brings it to Earth-1 with Mick on board, he seemingly becomes the only person on board who Jonathan won’t cry for...not his mum, not his dad, not his aunt...a gun wielding alcoholic hot-head...great choice kid.

It is the lowest form of comedy side-story going but it is still nice to see them at least attempt to include the Legends and particularly Wentworth Miller in some form.

Easter-Eggs:

Superman III:

Alright so this is a clever throwback as this version of Superman Brandon Routh is portraying may be repackaged as Kingdom Come Superman, but he is also the same Superman Routh portrayed in 2006′s Superman Returns, who in turn is the same Superman Christopher Reeve played during the 80s, one movie Reeves was in was Superman III where Superman’s human and Kryptonian sides physically fought each other.

This plot point has also been done in Smallville briefly during the opening episode of Season 4 but not to the same degree as here or Superman III.

Smallville:

So many Smallville Easter-Eggs in one small scene, the first was the mention of Smallville’s Lex Luthor being the President of the United States of America. In a vision of the future Lex Luthor was indeed president and during the flashforward epilogue of the Smallville finalé he was running for president.

I also appreciated the time joke that Lois made when she said that it’s taken about a decade for Clark to “make a funny”. In real-time it has been almost a decade since Smallville finished as it was 2011, whereas now it is 2019.

Captain Cold:

Some things never change and whether he’s a doppleganger of the original or an A.I. version of the man, Wentworth Miller’s charm oozes out.

When Harbinger arrives on the Earth-47 Waverider, she notes that she is aware of who the A.I. is and he responds with his classic line “Always pleased to meet a fan”, this he has said a couple of times firstly in Season 1 of The Flash and then again with the Legends.

This was a great episode on reflection but in terms of ramping up the drama and grandeur of the crossover it did need work. Hopefully it’s only a minor bump before tonight’s third part, which promises a sizeable cliffhanger before the Christmas break.

So that’s my review of Crisis on Infinite Earths: Batwoman, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more DC TV Reviews as well as other TV Reviews and posts.

[pixie-mask]

So I was planning to make this post to just gush over how much I’ve fallen in love with Milo Murphy’s Law, but then I remembered that I’m not that good at writing coherent thoughts, so I apologize for this rambling mess if anyone reads this.

The Show Itself

So, yeah Milo Murphy’s Law. I remember hearing about this show last year and of course saw that amazing peach clip, but other than that I didn’t look much into it and just let it be. 

However on the one time youtube actually gave me a good recommendation and I ended up in a loop of MML clips. (namely clips of Dakota >.>)

In the end I’m so happy to have finally given the show a proper try because it is amazing. The animation is really nice and at various moments there’s these really amazing bits of really fluid animation for certain movements.

Also I tend to be kinda meh to iffy about shows where there’s songs involved especially continuous shows but the songs in MML are so enjoyable. They’re either catchy, funny or both and actually an enjoyable treats to listen to.

However all of this is even more enjoyable due how fantastic and the setting and characters are. 

I mean I’ve seen characters or similar things where a character/the protagonist has some sort of “affliction” that causes trouble for them routinely and the show typically focuses on the characters ups and downs, struggles to make friends, their hardship of being accepted and other things. So it was so nice to come into a show where Milo is just a walking chaos magnet but he’s already has friends, is well liked and no one is ostracizing him from the community or from activities. It’s like so nice to see a story where all of that is avoided to focus on what adventures and mishaps the characters can get in and out off. 

At the same time it’s nice to see that Murphy’s Law is understood with a healthy dose of realism (as far as cartoon can get) in this show. Milo understands Murphy’s Law can be a problem and doesn’t get offended when people want to be cautious around him and others aren’t all that jumpy around him. I mean they glance around their environment every now and then but they aren’t constantly panicking 24/7.

I also love that that there is a generation of Murphy’s. Like despite the curse like nature of Murphy’s Law the Murphy men have been able to find wives that dearly love them and carry on a family. I constantly think about it whenever I see Brigette and Martin or Milo and Amanda interact.

Speaking of interacting I love these characters. All of them are really enjoyable. Even characters that aren’t really set to be all that pleasant; Mr. Block, Elliot, Savannah, Brick, Bradley; I find to be really enjoyable. I like that Melissa is allowed to be this tough girl without the show trying to go frequently out of its way to mention how she isn’t girly, but then she’s also got fears that aren’t mocked and is a nerd who works on making sure her grades are always good and is just so sure of herself. I like how Zack is this ex-boy band member whose allowed to be on the cowardly side and more sensitive without being criticized and is willing to try to turn situations around and grow through his experiences with Milo.

The rest of the cast is golden as well. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a show where the school faculty was actually really fun to see and not overly stupid, neglectful or constantly angry. It’s nice to see that the school staff has actual personalities and are capable of getting along with their students. The other students are pretty fun to and really help round out the characters. Also the Murphy family is just so sweet. I love that Sara can be so geeky without being mocked, that both parents are successful but also very caring and supportive off their children and that they don’t let Murphy’s Law hinder them in being around one another. I’m not going to go into too much about them (running out of energy) but I have to give alot of props to Amanda’s character. While she’s set up to the be this tightly wound perfectionist its nice to see that she’s able to be silly and have fun and I was so thrilled that they didn’t try to make a long standing story thread about her being a perfectionist and Milo being being basically an embodiment of chaos get in the way of their relationship developing.

Even the more minor characters really fun. I genuinely enjoy Trucker Ted’s whole gag and get a little excited whenever I see a truck on the show. Seriously I regret getting into the show so late, but I’m glad I finally did.

My Favorite Characters

Since I’m running out of energy I’m just going to list my favs and bullet point why I like them.

Vinnie Dakota

His build/design

He’s so short, like what only a foot or so taller than Milo and co

He’s adorably chubby and yet light enough Cavendish (or Cav is just really strong) can easily lift him up or hold him

The fact that he’s just had the hair for his entire life just in varying sizes

And thanks to Cavendish we also know he’s got a decently squishy face apparently.

His Personality

Like he’s played mostly like a typical laid back guy but he’s surprisingly grounded. I seriously did not expect for him to point out Cavendish’s flaws and make some solid arguments given their season 2 predicament. Like how Cavendish needs to stop gunning for trying to save the world and how they can’t risk their jobs because they can’t time travel and fix things like they used to and they have to pay for rent

He’s also genuinely nice. I seriously love how him being nice made his disguise work for him during the second Pistachion take over and how that never came back to blow his cover.

Also despite how things are going he does try to make the best of things. 

Give this man his action moment.

I’m serious about that previous statement btw. He made a one liner, slid over the roof of a car, did a dramatic dive and tried to ram an airboat through a steel grate. Just give him his successful moment

He’s clearly being set up to be one of the more action oriented characters and overall he’s pretty good at it

Extra things

The fact that he’s a near bottomless pit when it comes to food

He was utterly adorable as a child

He loves animals and the zoo

And speaking of which I think it’s a shame that we haven’t seen Dakota eating animal crackers in this show

He’s an absolute angel of a best friend

Milo Murphy

His personality

I love that Milo is a sweetheart who understands peoples caution around him at time, but I love that it doesn’t stop with him being nice until he hits the usual dramatic breaking point

It’s nice to see that he can have a healthy level of sarcasm or frustration with both other’s and Murphy’s Law itself

It’s to see a character like this with a nice but also rounded personality instead of the whole nice until a breaking point or nice with no concept on how to be mean and when someone is being mean to them.

Murphy’s Law

Yeah Milo’s past and current events are hilarious. You can never tell how things out of control and as such it brings some fun when we get to see how they resolve themselves or what Milo will use to fix the problem.

Diogee

I don’t have much to say about Diogee.

He’s one of the (or the given my memory) cutest designed dogs that I have ever seen

I thought I would get sick of the “go home” gimmick but I ended up liking it

And his episodes are surprisingly fun

And yeah. Like I said I’m love this show but lack of coherent thoughts and running out of steam has made it difficult for me to continue writing more for this post.

[thedespondent]

Crown Jewel 2022 Review

Sold my soul and morals out to watch an infamous youtuber have his third wrestling match. In many ways it wasn’t worth it, viewing such a thing feels like a co-sign on a lot of dodgy shit, specifically pertaining to the Saudi prince, but my understanding is at least that I’m not contributing to this horrific deal that hands over the WWE, just… observing it. Match by match reviews follow, rated on a five star scale. No half stars, no decimal points, that's the coward’s way.

Oh and as it wasn’t a match, loved Bray’s promo. Wish I could hear half of what Uncle Howdy said.

Match 1: Bobby Lashley vs Brock Lesnar

One of the two matches I explicitly tuned in for. Unfortunately the two being the opener and main event meant I couldn’t just check out in between. But yes, I had to watch it. I love Bobby Lashley, a formerly mediocre big man who went to Impact, became a top performer there, and returned to WWE and kept that energy going. He’s my fave WWE guy right now, a smooth-skinned adonis who can pop you like a grape. Enters a good dominant performance, a strong opening salvo before the bell showing how much he needs to beat Brock, and how to beat Brock you have to be a bit of a shit, even if that ultimately fails here due to a bit of turnbuckle kicking to fall back into a pin. Makes Lashley look a bit of a mug, but puts over the hurt locker huge! Brock couldn’t deal! Long may the feud continue. A solid three stars, mostly for the hurt locker and Brock’s suplexes, and hurt a little for some just okay spears.

Rating: ***

Match 2: Asuka/Alexa Bliss (champs) vs Damage CTRL (Iyo Sky/Dakota Kai)

This match was for the women’s tag team championship.

It sounds like, from the promotional packages, that the women’s tag belts have had a bit of a funny time since the tournament tried to raise their prominence. The roster can scarcely support them, but they DO feel more important for having had an actual tag team with a name hold them, lose them to a pairing that, while kind of flavourless, are two of the most notable women’s champs on the roster, and then lose them back again. Feels competitive, especially with a handful of long reigns with other belts making hot potato-ing the tag belts kind of novel.

The match was decent. Asuka is one of the best women in WWE, maybe only second to Bianca Bel Air, and Iyo Sky is always thrilling to watch. The other two did good work. But I just don’t know what to make of ropey put-together tag champs. Hopefully Damage CTRL winning them back now leads to something more, against stronger pairings. Two stars, just because I didn’t feel much.

Rating: **

Match 3: Drew McIntyre vs Karrion Kross (w/Scarlett)

This match was a cage match.

I told my wife as this match started that I hate WWE cage matches. Escaping the cage is a terrible win condition, outside of a weaselly heel getting out of receiving their comeuppance in the middle bout of a multi-match feud.

So naturally the face Drew wins by escaping, but escaping FASTER than the vicious heel Kross. After their Extreme Rules strap match this felt kind of stupid as a next step. But then Kross is great (with hair. Hated him before he remembered he could grow it. No idea why), McIntyre is a favourite, Scarlett is like a leather Dolly Parton in this, so… I didn’t hate it? But I’m opposed to the format, so one star.

Rating: *

Match 4: The OC (AJ Styles/Karl Anderson/Doc Gallows) vs Judgement Day (Finn Balor/Damian Priest/Dominik Mysterio) (w/ Rhea Ripley)

I fell asleep watching this. It was only mid-afternoon, but I was in front of a fire and was getting over a bad allergic reaction to a couple of dogs. I was knackered. Woke up in time to see Rhea interfere, agreed with my wife about how hot Rhea is, and that’s about it.

It feels like a mean dunk on the Good Brothers (Anderson and Gallows), who get this sort of shit regularly from people who don’t like them, but to be fair if they were more exciting and less bald I might have fought harder to stay awake.

I can’t rate this, that’d be unfair.

Rating: N/A

Match 5: Braun Strowman vs Omos

Big men! Having a match! Making little impact on me while doing so! Omos is finding a groove, which is a significant development for a guy who was NOT ready to hit the main roster, and Braun is way more appealing now than he was before his release, but the whole thing lacked a hook to make me care enough. One star, you gotta make me care who wins.

Rating: *

Match 6: The Usos (Jimmy/Jey) (champs) vs The Brawling Brutes (Ridge Holland/Butch)

This tag team match was for the undisputed tag team championships.

The Usos are a great tag team. They’re no MCMG, but who is. I can see why people argue who’s the best tag team ever between these guys and the Young Bucks (the answer, of course is the MCMG. Pay attention.). Ridge Holland and Butch (the former Pete Dunne) are two good singles wrestlers who make for a surprisingly cohesive tag unit, the sort of surprise that redefines careers. I feel we’re at a bit of a dead end for who takes the tag belts off of The Usos, and these guys could do it. But not here at Crown flipping Jewel, so a banger match that could be run back again some day is fine by me. A solid three stars, just because I see a high ceiling for these four together.

Rating: ***

Match 7: Bianca Belair (champ) vs Bayley

This was a last woman standing match for the Raw Women’s Championship.

Bianca Belair is the best female wrestler in WWE, and honestly in the top three in the world right now. Bayley is one of the biggest deals in the company, and as such can make Bianca in a match like this, and does. Bayley takes some hellish punishment, while giving an imposing character or Bianca to overcome, highlights are definitely in that painful table spot and the finish, but in general everything from when Bayley escapes up the ramp is gold on top of the finest silver that came before it. Last person standing matches need clever finishes now and then to keep them from being stale slugfests, and this was that and then some.

Rating: ****

Match 8: Roman Reigns (champ) (w/ Paul Heyman) vs Logan Paul

This was for the undisputed WWE Universal Championship.

I wish I hated Logan Paul more. I really should, for many valid reasons. But by God can this man fucking wrestle. It helps that he’s had three matches against amazing opponents, but he clearly takes this stuff seriously and learns his stuff, and ACTUALLY LANDS IT WELL. The story here of Roman underestimating him and Logan needing one lucky shot to win was oversold but delivered upon well, with Roman doing everything he can to make a star here, and succeeding. Logan gets to get so much cool shit in simply because Roman isn’t ready for him, and Roman gives him a bunch of 2.9 counts as a reward. Logan’s frog splash? Rules. Selfie crossbody? Rules. Buckshot lariat? Amazing sense of momentum, should be a finisher from this dude. And he sells well! A few too many one counts, but he takes his lumps well! Interference just kinda exists because fans expected it, but Jake Paul’s awkwardness made Logan look all the better, and Solo Sikoa coming out as an enforcer, looking every bit as hard as his Dad, was a hell of a thing. That kid has the look. Actually, if Logan ever goes full-time I’d love to see them feud. But for now having his third match be against Roman himself in a competitive match that burned the house down? That’ll do nicely. Five begrudging stars, you bastard.

Rating: *****

[chicagocityofclans]

Dakota English → Summer Bishill → Rat Shifter

→ Basic Information 

Age: 36

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Born or Made: Born

Birthday: October 11th

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Religion: Deism

→ Her Personality Dakota is a beautiful, strong-willed, powerful, highly intelligent, and self-made woman, who does not allow the world to stand in the way of her ambition. She is considerably powerful and influential. Dakota swings way above the depression and anxiety line, having her work and social life in order despite having to routinely deal with incredibly dangerous missions and warlocks. She is fierce and she always stands her ground no matter the circumstances. She gives a feminist element to the pack in the most cunning and intelligent way. Although at first sight, she may seem superficial, Dakota is a keen observer; whose specialties are gossip, competition, and drama. Dakota has shown to be the most rational of her teams during stressful situations, often being mistaken for cruel and bitter, when in truth she is pragmatic, focusing on what needs to be done instead of her emotions.

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Team member of BOND and GOLD

Scars: Missing her right eye

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Morning after Mission Breakfasts and Gold jewelry

Two Dislikes: Warlocks/Witches and Jameson

Two Fears: Watching someone she loves hurt/killed while she can do nothing about it and being eaten alive by fire ants

Two Hobbies: Archery and Tai Chi

Three Positive Traits: Loyal, Daring, Pragmatic

Three Negative Traits: Standoffish, Calculating, Cut Throat

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Rina English (Mother): They have a perfect mother, daughter relationship. She confides in her with everything, from bad days at work to her struggles with West’s addiction. Rina was the only person who had an inkling West and Dakota were eloping when her daughter asked for something old and blue from her. Dakota can’t keep anything from her mother, and wouldn’t want it any other way.

Michael English (Father): Dakota has always been a daddy's girl; his pride and joy. Michael believes that she deserves only the best and it’s what made him decide to take West under his wing. He knew that his head strong little girl was set on the gangly boy and decided to shape him into a good, respectable man.

Sibling Names:

None

Children Names:

None

Romantic Connections:

West Freemen (Mate): Dakota married her best friend. They fight and argue, smile and laugh, irritate and cry for each other. West loves her and she loves his weirdness and the man he has become. She wants to spend her time with him and respects his decisions. His drug habits annoy her but they’re a two person team that no one else is allowed to join. But she refuses to let that habit stop them from being together. They resolve their problems and bounce back to normal after every misstep. 

Platonic Connections:

Louis Martin-Rovet (Head/Friend): Louis is her “at-home” head and stake out partner. He’s incredibly smart, and Dakota has learned a lot from him. Louis is the only one of her bosses who has treated her like she’s still capable, and allows her in the field. 

Neaera Jayweed (Acquaintance): Dakota really likes Neaera and her complete and utter confidence in going against Nick. She thinks she’s probably fun and wants to get to know her more. 

Jo Floyd (Confidant): Jo is the only rat who knows she’s looking into trying to find a way to get her eye back. She has been cautiously supportive and has even investigated links with her, but a part of Dakota knows she’ll tell Nick as soon as it gets serious.

Judson Clerigh (Only Lead): Judson mentioned to her in passing he could make her a new working eye, but Dakota is terrified of the consequences. She knows Louis would not be ok with her doing that and she knows the dangers of accepting magic and the hidden costs that come with it. Still it’s been the only thing she’s found that’s an option. 

Hostile Connections:

Flower Hanes (Dislike): Dakota kept getting tripped up and caught in vines one day, only to find Flower and Belle laughing. 

Roman Clerigh (Dislike): Roman Clerigh is like a necessary evil to her. His potions are safe for West, but she wished that West wasn’t hooked on them. And it’s easier for her to blame Roman than address the actual problem.

Minsky Edison (Scared of): There is something truly horrifying about mind control to Dakota. She’s head strong and unwavering in her beliefs, and to have someone be able to take that from her is incredibly frightening to her.

Nick Hamelin (Annoyed with): Nick has banned her from BOND missions since she lost her eye. She keeps trying to convince him to let her back in the field, but she’s pretty sure that now he’s keeping her out due to spite.

Pets:

None

→ History Dakota was Michael and Rina English’s miracle baby. With both having high stress teams (her’s GOLD, his BOND) the likelihood of Rina getting pregnant was slim, but right before they were about to stop their aging again, she began getting sick. Both knew she would be their one and only and strived to give her the best life they could. Immediately they began reading parenting books, and strategize how to best bring their child up. When Dakota finally arrived her parents became dedicated to teaching her how to be the smartest and strongest person they could.

Her cleverness became evident when Dakota was in second grade. She’d seen one of the rat kids getting bullied. She collected as many rocks as she could carry and started her assault. The bullies quickly scattered quickly after the rat boy did. She found him later and introduced herself, and from there the greatest friendship of her life began. Dakota and West became inseparable that Summer and spent most of it getting back at the bullies in rat form. From that year West became a part of the English family, with Rina taking care of him like he was her own son. Unfortunately that didn’t mean he was immune from his own parents’ comments, and Dakota felt him slipping away from her in their teen years. She tried supporting him the best she could, keeping his secrets and helping him hide his hangovers from the older rats. When he was 16, West got caught. He told her everything that had happened with Jalissa, but it wasn’t until his parents outed his problem to the whole pack. Rina and Michael eventually heard and pulled their own daughter aside, wanting to know how involved she was in everything. When she finally broke down and told her she had to make a choice of whether she cared about West’s health or his friendship. It woke her up to what could happen to him and the feelings she had for her best friend. She began actually helping keep him safe. Making sure she was always there if he went too overboard, or couldn’t protect himself. Their friendship quickly blurred the lines into a relationship, and her parents caught them. Michael decided to train West to take a spot in BOND, while Rina offered to train her for GOLD. Dakota knew she’d be good for BOND and begged Ray to train her. He took her under his wing, after months of bothering, and by the time she hit 18 she was team mates with her father and boyfriend on BOND. She and West went to the University of Chicago together and after graduation became mates. 

She and West became a reliable team for BOND, being capable of taking on most of the “couple” assignments, as well as just having a good understanding of each other. But West fell back into drugs, and especially potions, and began taking larger risks. During a mission in Prague, West needed a fix and got his supply from a random witch, who wanted something way more than a usual payment. Dakota offered her own sacrifice for him, and gave up her eye to protect him from the witch’s magic. After that mission West mostly cleaned up his act, but alternated babying her while endlessly apologizing, and sinking into a deep depression spurred on by the comments from others in the pack, especially his mother. The wrath and rage that had come from losing her eye was released onto those who felt like her lost eye was their business. She got him to eventually see her as the same woman she was before, and they came out in the end stronger. 

→ The Present It’s been about a year and a half since Dakota gave up her eye for West. She’s gone through most of the stages of grieving over it and is finally looking into fixing it. She’s looked all over for any kind of remedy. Since it is a magical wound, it’s never going to heal naturally. Which means she’s stuck looking for a magical source to fix it. She’s currently looking into witches or warlocks both locally and out of town for solutions but her sources are not readily forthcoming with that kind of information. Dakota’s also making great strides to hide it from her pack, parents, and especially West. She wants to put on a brave face for them, and it took West months before he trusted himself again. She’s accepted it the way she looks now, but still yearns to have both eyes back. Jo stumbled upon her researching at a cafe and got her to spill, and is now trying to assist in her search. Ultimately Dakota is aware Nick is going to find out, and so will the rest of the pack, but she wants to have a plan to show before that happens.

West and Dakota recently were outed as married by an accidental opening of mail. She knows the pack was thrown by it, and that Nick is pissed, but she is waiting to let someone else pick the fight. She has something bigger to fight. Dakota would really like West to stop relying on potions and try out therapy to deal with his inner emotional turmoil. His parents truly messed him up and Dakota knows how he could be even more incredible if he didn’t have their criticisms hanging in her head. She’s gotten the higher ups in the pack to approve of sessions for West and is now trying to think of how to pitch it to him.

→ Available Gif Hunts (we do not own these)

Summer Bishil (Dakota English) [1][2][3][4]

[s1xthhouse]

gwenkota 11, percabeth 20 bc i thrive on drama

[send me writing prompts using this]

ask and u shall recieve, drama hoe

11. things you said when you were drunk

For the first time in Gwen’s life, she had actually cut loose and let herself get roaring drunk. The senorio was perfect; Dakota invited people over to the little house he rented for a party, plenty of poisons and chasers and even a keg. Togas, plastic goblets, laurels, and very, very loud music. It was a classic rager and Gwen a thrown herself to it, letting the atmosphere lure her into drunkenness. As the host, Dakota made sure everyone was having fun, but he found himself playing games with Gwen the whole night; beer pong partners, mates during king’s cup, and just narrowly avoiding each other every turn of spin the bottle.

By 1 AM, the party had already hit its climax and people were either drunkenly walking home or had passed out somewhere in Dakota’s house, save for his room. If it wasn’t for the fact that the housing community in New Rome was small, people walking home would’ve seen questionable, but it gave the neighborhood police something to do if someone ended up streaking down the street. Despite all this, Gwen was still up and swaying slowly to the music playing, she was nursing a solo cup in hand. Dakota was pretty drunk, he was comfortable in his foggy headedness, it was enough for him to feel different and yet still conscious enough for him to get a head start cleaning.

“Can I help?” Gwen offered, but Dakota just waved it off, telling her to sit at the counter while he capped all the booze and threw out all the empty cups. They talked quietly in the kitchen, with Gwen still taking sips from whatever was in her cup. “Mm, I had a good time.” She sighed.

“Yeah?” Dakota tied a full garbage bag up “That’s a first.” Gwen stuck her tongue out. “I mean you don’t really let yourself have fun.” Dakota walked over to the counter she was sitting on, he leaned on his hand propped next to her, not quite leaning into her. He swayed a little in intoxication, but she was actually nodding off a little. “You’re a spectacular beer pong player.”

Gwen started to play with the laurel in Dakota’s hair, a big goofy smile on her face. Her freckles were drowning in her flushed face, her cheeks looking like fresh apples. Gwen was softly humming the song still playing on the stereo, and she wasn’t pulling her hand away from his face. “I think you should get some sleep.” Dakota suggested, before he let himself do something stupid. Gwen’s hand dropped. “You can sleep with me in my room.”

Gwen nodded, slipping down off the counter, stumbling a little into Dakota’s chest. She giggled, rattling his heart in the process. “Oh, I’ll sleep with you.” Dakota shook his head at her attempt at drunk flirting, chuckling slightly. Gwen finished her drink and walked with Dakota into his room, one of her hands absentmindedly played with his toga. A dark part of Dakota secretly loved this; he loved that Gwen was being open like this, that the drunk version of herself was flirty towards him. He would never take advantage of this, which is why his want to be intimate with her remained in his fantasies.

She flopped into Dakota’s half-made bed, her toga coming up to reveal the short-shorts she was wearing underneath the bed sheets. Dakota went back into the living room to turn off lights and the music, saying goodnight to some of the people passing out on the chairs and couches. Before going back into his room, he grabbed what was left of a handle of vodka. Gwen had settled herself into bed, she had taken off her laurel and put it on the bedside table, her red hair in a sort of tangled mess. Dakota sat up in bed, Gwen cuddling with his arm. Every now and then they would cuddle after a party, mostly because Dakota was very cuddly, but the shoe was on the other foot and Dakota suddenly didn’t know how to feel.

He took a swig from the handle, burning his mouth. If her drank enough he would pass out soon, he’d forget that his heart was beating fast because of Gwen. “Hey,” She mumbled. Dakota looked down at her, her eyes were closed but she still seemed to be awake. “I wisshed we hab kished duurin spbin th boddle.” She slurred, her face squished against the blankets. “You neber remmemm our kishes.”

What did that mean, he thought. When they were twelve they were each other’s first kiss, but that was just so they could say they had been kissed before. Since then, nothing. Gwen must’ve been talking about someone else, Dakota decided. There was no way in one of his stupors he had kissed Gwen… Dakota drank some more.

20. things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear

Percy was having yet another existential crisis, far more than he should be having in the span of one month. A normal person probably has one about three times in their life, Percy clearly was an outlier. With his mom pregnant, Percy found himself thinking a lot about his own future, which wasn’t something he should dwell on too much. Much of his life consisted of near death experiences, any demigod could relate, so the thought of thinking any further than the weekend was the last thing people like him should be thinking about.

Right now he just needed to get through school; his finals had kicked his ass, but he had done well enough in summer school that he could spend the next month and a half at camp. He didn’t want to think about Annabeth’s plans for them to go to university across the country, how at some point he had seen himself living in California for his whole life. That had been before his mom told him he was going to be a big brother, before he felt obligated to help his mom out despite her telling him it wasn’t necessary.

A buzz went off in Percy’s pocket, speak of the devil. “Hey, mom.” He answered. A while back, Leo had managed to invent a cell phone that was monster-tracking proof (within reason) and worked well within camp. The Iris Message was still the prefered mode of communication, but for practicality the lPhone worked better. He had just put his duffle bag under his bunk in Cabin 3, he sat down into the freshly made bed.

“Hi, Percy,” His mom greeted back. “I was just checking in, did you make it to camp alright?”

“Yeah,” He replied. “Argo’s bringing the car back now, I think.”

“I don’t know why you didn’t call to be picked up, you had to drive there yourself.”

“You know me, I like to make things harder on myself.” Sally sighed on the other line, Percy gave a half hearted smile to himself.  It was as if she saw it when she asked if he was alright. “Yeah,” he replied. “I just have a lot on my mind, nothing new.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?” His mom asked. “Is it about school?”

“Kind of,” Percy rubbed his face and sighed. “I was just thinking about Annabeth, what she wants to do in New Rome. It’s not like I don’t want to be with her, it’s just I did a lot of work to try and catch up with her and I feel like my brain is fried from all the studying I did. I just… I don’t know if I want to go to California and do it all over again, and to do it so far from home.”

Sally was quiet for a moment, but Percy could still hear the faint sound of her breathing. “I’ve never once thought about what I wanted to do with my life,” he continued. “Because I didn’t think I was going to have one, so many of my teachers just see me as a failure-”

“Percy,” Sally tried to console him, tell him it wasn’t true.

“In the past,” Percy corrected himself. “In the past, but I still think about it. No matter how much support I have between you and Annabeth I still doubt myself and I doubt this future she has planned for us.”

Again, Sally didn’t say anything, then a beat passed and she spoke: “I know you feel this pressure to make up your mind soon, especially since you’re going to be a senior, but you still have time to decide what you want to do with your life, Percy.”

Percy felt his heart clench with anxiety, he felt his mom didn’t understand, that she didn’t understand that he felt pressure from Annabeth more than anything. Percy loved Annabeth, he could see himself with her for a long time, but he also didn’t want their lives to start together immediately after high school.

“But I think you should talk to Annabeth about this,” His mom continued. “I know you think it will be the end of everything if you disagree on one thing, but she needs to hear how you feel. She doesn’t want to feel like she’s trapped you into this life that you don’t really want.” Percy felt himself choke up a little, all the stress from school and his mental turmoil had built up and released. He had to tell Annabeth, he had to own up to his insecurities.

“You’re right,” Percy sniffed. “Yeah, I gotta do that.”

“I have to go now,” Sally said. “But call me soon, okay?”

“Yeah.” He sighed, trying not to cry. A wave of catharsis had crashed on Percy, a feeling he only ever got from talking to his mom. “I love you, mom.”

“‘Love you, too.” Percy hung up, gently tossing his phone onto his pillow. Percy looked up for the first time since he answered the phone, and Annabeth was standing in the doorway to the cabin. The sight of her made his heart jump out of his chest in more ways than one; she was beautiful as always, but the question still stood: how long had she been standing there.

Percy’s head blanked from fear, he sighed every imaginable curse he could muster. Annabeth didn’t look angry, but her eyebrows were knitted together at the center, her mouth turned downwards slightly. Percy stood up and was about to go over to her but she beat him to it, she wrapped her arms around him tightly. Maybe she hadn’t heard him, Percy thought for a moment. If she hadn’t that would be a huge weight off his chest, but she would need to know sooner or later.

Annabeth looked up at him, her chin resting on his chest. Her grey eyes were filled with concern, almost glossy with tears herself. “I didn’t know you felt this way.” She said, nearly whispering. “I-I didn’t mean-”

“Annabeth,” Percy laid her head back down, his hand petting her blonde curls. “It’s not your fault your boyfriend is a pushover.” He felt her chuckle a little. Percy took a deep breath, a much needed deep breath. “I want you to know I haven’t been doubting your plans for a long time, I was just thinking about it recently.”

She stepped away a little, her arms still around him and his hand still cupped the side of her face. “I’m sorry,” Annabeth turned her head so she could kiss the inside of his hand. “I know you’ve worked really hard in school, and I don’t want you to do it just because I want you to.” Percy felt himself tear up again, and he kissed her.

Kissing Annabeth always felt right, there was no doubt about it. Her hands gripped the back of his shirt, and she leaned back into him. Percy then kissed the tip of her nose, and then under her eyes, and then her forehead, peppering her with little kisses, making Annabeth giggle a little. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I still have part of a year to get my shit together.”

[outsideangle]

The Expat’s Dilemma: Reckoning With a Trump Presidency From Abroad

Waking up in my foster home of Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday, November 9th, I felt a mix of hope and certainty that my country would come to its senses. Judy Woodruff and co. looked bright and cheerful on the PBS NewsHour live stream as the polls on the eastern seaboard closed 16 hours behind me and tallies began coming in, and with the previous week’s polls showing an almost assured victory for Hillary Clinton—some being so bold as to predict with 90% certainty or more—the crew had good reason to be. I was excited, bordering on proud: my country was about to elect its first female president and show the world that yes, actually, Americans do happen to do the right thing eventually. Eventually has turned out to be much further off than predicted.

It’s a curious feeling, being the only American in an office of internationals, watching as Florida falls, your birth state of Wisconsin flips, and your home state of Pennsylvania fumbles under the crushing weight of Appalachia, and all the while trying to plan a lesson for your evening class. I started receiving texts from friends everywhere—American and not—as the poll closings rolled west and our hope gave way to panic and fear and frustration. Some of my co-workers tried making jokes, and I nearly snapped at one of them, but channelled that anger into a Facebook post proclaiming that now was not the time for humour. My ex-girlfriend and I, both Americans living in Australia, traded messages of outrage and heartbreak—hers worse, as her parents had voted Trump—as we realized what was happening at home; she ended a Tinder date early that night so we could drink whiskey and beer and wallow in our powerlessness from across the Pacific. We shared an awkward kiss goodnight when I went home, born of uncertainty, but it fit with the new world we’d been hurled into. Uncertainty is a frustrating emotion, but after the election nothing was stronger than my sense of powerlessness. I’ve felt it subtly for years, but didn’t begin acknowledging it until the killing of Michael Brown and the events that followed: continued deaths at the hands of police who never faced consequences, one mass shooting after another, and watching the government slowly be taken over by ultra-conservative politicians who not only didn’t care about any of it, but also wanted to limit the rights of minorities by strengthening the institution that kept them repressed. I was living in South Korea as an elementary school English teacher through most of that, and in my rational mind I knew that being home and joining movements wouldn’t really change anything, but my geographic inability to take part in activism and grassroots participation exacerbated the feeling—even then, I sometimes wonder if, were I home, would I have partook at all, or was it looking in from the outside that made me long to engage. Watching your home burn from afar, stuck, awakens an entirely different set of emotions than having the flames around you. That was a different time, though, and nobody could’ve predicted Trump’s ascension to the Republican nomination—he’d only been a contender for two months when I returned to the United States in August of 2015. When I left again, this time for Australia, in February 2016, nobody could believe his hate-filled campaign was still running, and with such success. As I watched him clinch the nomination and somehow hold his own in polls with Hillary Clinton, I began thinking, “I should be there. I should be fighting this. I should help.” All I could do from abroad was send in an absentee ballot and sign petitions, and these felt like hollow actions. Hate is not passive; it is aggressive and threatening, and passive resistance will not stop it. I tried to be active and assert my power in Melbourne the Saturday after the election, where I joined a march through the city protesting Donald Trump. A few days prior, I had posted on the event page, “I’m an American living here, and I cannot WAIT to protest this demagogue my country has somehow chosen,” and was met with numerous critics telling me to “get over it” or “get out of Australia.” One sad soul with a lot of time on his hands (he commented at around 3 AM on a Friday night) went through my old profile pictures, found one of me dressed up in a sports bra as a female jogger for Halloween and posing with my female friend grabbing my boob, and overlaid the sentence, “I WONDER IF SHE’D FUCK ME WITH A STRAP ON AFTER THE TRUMP PROTEST.” The photo was deleted, but he posted it again the next day telling me I was a “seppo cuck,” and still people are saying “you lost, get over it.” Regarding the cry of “you lost,” I can understand the criticism of protesting, especially outside the United States. However, to call out protestors for that is to miss the point: we protest not because we lost the election, but because we will not tolerate the rhetoric that elevated Trump to office—we protest to show we will not let human rights go quietly into the night. Many people don’t have the luxury of “getting over it.”

The march turned out a few hundred people, mostly socialist student activists, and while it felt good to be in the streets, it was too soon after the election for anything to come of it. The sense of powerlessness quickly returned.

In other attempts at effectiveness, I’ve not stopped reading analysis and action plans, even going so far as to give myself a Christmas gift in the form of a subscription to The New Yorker. The day before the inauguration, David Remnick wrote how it’s our duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from Trump and his cronies in the Cabinet, referring back to 1787 and that the Constitution’s ratification alone did not “guarantee [its] endurance and health,” and that it’s the “constant work of citizens, collectively and individually,” to maintain it. At The Washington Post, Linda Hirshman urges us to take cues from abolitionists of the 1850s when it comes to achieving a goal after a disastrous setback. These are great ideas, but once again leave little opportunity for expats to participate.

One piece of reading that did help temper my seething fury was “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda,” which pulled from the methodology the Tea Party used to gridlock the country. It presented some direction and concrete ways to affect change, and this essay wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t read that guide—I’m ecstatic to see all the local action groups it’s inspired. Still, though, all I can do is write or send emails, but I can’t be there in person to confront my Members of Congress or march in protests, and that pains me.

At least I’m not the only expat who feels this way; there are several million of us living outside the country, after all. I’ve asked other Americans living abroad how they wrestle with this sense of inefficacy, and nobody seems to have a perfect answer yet. Laura Hagy, who works in Haiti, and Kathleen Phelan, an Australian/American dual citizen, both agree that “having open and honest dialogue” with Trump supporters and people they disagree with is the cornerstone of resistance. I admire the optimism, but from my travel experience I have not once met an American Trump supporter, and face-to-face discussion would probably be the only way to sway opinions—our comments on Facebook posts and message boards are useless and, for me, an unrelenting wave of frustration at the hands of obvious trolls. Bob Kennedy, who lives in Korea, thinks the most effective method is to “lobby the DNC to never again play kingmaker for a candidate,” and I’m inclined to agree with him.

When people on my travels ask me how Trump won, I tell them he didn’t; I tell them that the Democrats lost. The DNC is a hollowed-out husk of a party that needs to be restructured and find its base again. Since Obama’s 2008 victory, the Democrats have lost more than a thousand statehouse seats, 12 governorships, nearly 70 House seats, 13 Senate seats, the presidency and the Supreme Court—that is failure on a colossal scale. If Democrats are going to be the party of resistance, then they need to get it together and demonstrate that they can be effective again.

Ms. Phelan’s final thoughts on best resistance are a little morbid, but no less accurate: “Just survive.” That’s almost all we can do from outside the country, though Ms. Hagy shares my feelings that “[being] far away doesn’t mean I have an excuse to be inactive,” and it’s something both of us are still grappling with. It’s the crux of the expat dilemma this election has posed: reconciling the love for travel and residing abroad, and the internal drive to fulfil one’s civic duty.

Every day since the election, that predicament has been kicking around in my head. My first idea was to start a non-profit organization where expats can donate money and, depending on the amount donated, have a “surrogate” represent them—that could be marching at a protest in their place, or perhaps reading a letter to their Congressperson on their behalf. I also toyed with returning immediately, joining the Democratic Party to try and shake it up from the bottom, and running for office in 2018. Ms. Hagy, for her part, is seriously considering a return to the US to take a more proactive approach. For myself, I decided to put my ideas on hold and move to Singapore for a few months to give the organizations in America some time to figure out a plan of attack, then move back and join the most effective, but still the waiting nags at me. Several weeks into Trump’s presidency and he’s taken a hard-line on immigrants as I’ve moved from one country I’m not a citizen of to another.

The beginning of his time in office has had me reconsidering, though. Since taking office he’s written horrific executive orders on immigration, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and—most frighteningly—restructured the National Security Council and given renowned white-supremacist Steve Bannon even more power. Then there’s the fiasco with Russia that forced Michael Flynn’s resignation, and it surely won’t be the last scandal this White House sees. We’d been preparing for the worst, and a shred of me hoped, “maybe it won’t be as bad as we’re expecting.” But here I am, and there they are.

The day after the inauguration, the Women’s March on Washington took place, and my parents and some of their friends went to DC to protest—my mother even knit a plethora of Pussy Hats—and my brother marched in Philadelphia; I could not be more proud to have a family that’s ready and willing to take a stand, especially when I’m not there to join. For my part, I participated in Melbourne’s solidarity march. I arrived expecting a few hundred people, much like the protest the Saturday after the election, and was astonished to discover more than 6,000 crowded around the steps of the State Library of Victoria, all despite a massacre down the block that claimed six lives the day before.

That crowd, and those all over the planet, showed me that I am not alone. It demonstrated that there are expats everywhere—and non-Americans—who are prepared to stand up to Trump and his vitriol. I wrote postcards to my Senators as well, as per the Women’s March action plan; I’m writing this essay, and intend to write more; I’ll keep sending messages to my representatives. All I can hope is that people do more than protest—that they get involved by donating time and money to organizations that need it and participate in our democracy.

So far the signs are positive, and it’s the most important thing friends and family can do for me back home: send the hope on. Me and other expats only ever see the news, and the news is rarely ever good; we need the good stories from home to keep us going—to let us know that change is in the works. I still don’t know what the best course for me to affect change is—maybe this blog will help, at least in a selfish sense—but perhaps I do have a unique power as an expat: in my travels, I can be an example, and show the world that Americans are many things, but that we are not our president. We will, eventually, get it right.

Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty (via The New Yorker)

[thefaeborn]

I never would have married if I’d understood Mental Illness.

When I met my ex-husband, I was just 20 years old. I was just out of a long-term relationship with an abusive partner—well, to be fair, we were abusive to each other. We were young, and stupid. (For those wondering, we’ve actually become close friends over the intervening years.) But that’s neither here nor there. When I met my ex, I was vulnerable and scared.

I have always had low self-esteem, so when I ran into him in the break room at the call center we both worked for, I figured I didn’t stand a chance with him. So I didn’t bother trying to make a good impression. I just launched into a rant about my (then) ex-boyfriend and how ridiculously stupid he was. This new guy was understanding, charming, funny, intelligent, and offered me some good advice—to get away from the ex.

We exchanged numbers just prior to my very first mental breakdown. I took a month off work and expected to never see him again. At the time, we didn’t know what was wrong with me, so they diagnosed me with depression and anxiety, and that was that. I got pills, went to some classes, and thought I was ready to take my bruised psyche back into the workforce.

I couldn’t have been more wrong, and neither could my doctors.

We reconnected, my ex-husband and I, and we got to know each other. We talked a lot on the phone, and tried to meet up whenever we could line up our breaks at work. I thought I was doing better, but I just couldn’t get in the swing of things at work, so I eventually quit. It was around this time that he and I became more intimate, and I had a huge fight with my ex-boyfriend (who was still living with me at the time—I told you it was dysfunctional). I stayed with my new boyfriend for a week, hibernating in his room while he went to work so as to avoid his roommate, whom I never actually got to know.

At the end of that week, he moved in with me as my ex moved out. I literally never spent a single night alone in that apartment. If I’d known then what I know now about my mental illness…but again, that’s neither here nor there. This is the story of how I learned, not lamenting the fact that I didn’t know to begin with.

So he moved in with me. I suppose it’s about time I give him a name for all of you, we’ll call him Sam. That’s not his name, not even close, but I don’t want to write this to blast him. I want to write it for myself, so we’re going to call him Sam.

Sam moved in with me, and we got closer. A few weeks (yes, weeks) later, he proposed one night while we were lying in bed. I accepted (I was terrified of being alone, as if that wasn’t painfully obvious yet), and I was excited. Remember, I’m only 20 at this point. I think this is going great, because this was where I had wanted to be with my ex—engaged and planning a wedding. I figured I could just replace him with Sam, and everything would be fine. No, that’s not fair. At the time I didn’t think that, I’m just reflecting on it now with my new knowledge.

Things were confusing at that time. I’d been close to my mother, but after I’d left home at 17 (that’s a WHOLE ‘nother story), we’d been tense. That’s a nice way of putting it: tense. She didn’t approve of Sam, because she’d heard (from me) that he’d been married once and engaged another time and I thought he would be a bad influence. (In the joy that is retrospect, I should have stuck to that assessment, but impulse control being what it was…I’ll get to that.) So she didn’t approve, and when I told her we were engaged, she basically said “Don’t want to know, don’t care, don’t bother inviting me to the wedding”, but in more words. I don’t remember exactly what she said because I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.

We didn’t speak again for two months. Dear reader, you need to understand what a huge thing that was for me. I didn’t fight with my mom when I was growing up; we were thick as thieves, as they say. I had always been very close to her, and this devastated me. I started planning my wedding, sure that I would be happy in my marriage because that’s what people my age did. Normal girls my age were dating, getting engaged, getting married. My own cousin, a little younger than me, was getting married soon.

I don’t remember how things got patched up with my mother, but I remember it involved her seeing a car parked out front of her house and having a sudden, irrational fear that I’d run off, eloped, and was now coming to tell her that she’d missed my wedding. (Pro-tip: It wasn’t our car.) We worked on repairing the damage, which we didn’t realize at the time stemmed all the way back to me leaving three years earlier, and she and my family tried their hardest to get to know this man I was planning on spending my life with.

I should have known something was amiss when I had to buy my own engagement ring from eBay, for $25. That really should have been a sign, but I was (again) young and stupid. We originally planned this huge, grand affair in San Diego, with all of the families present. Then, when that proved to be outlandishly expensive, we changed it to Las Vegas, at one of the resorts. It was still going to be big, but not nearly AS big as the Hotel Del Coronado on a private beach for $35,000.

Sam left his job when I found him a better one. When I say “I”, I mean I. I fixed his resume, sent it out, fielded the phone calls for potential interviews, scheduled them for him, and got him ready to go. All he had to do was walk in and show them he knew computers—which he did. With this better job, we planned our big day.

Then I panicked. I attended a very short wedding at a casino in Reno, and freaked out at the idea of having a 5-minute ceremony where I was bustled in and out to make way for the next blushing bride. So I called off the Las Vegas wedding. My family was understanding, his was not. His stepmother gave us grief about the “non-refundable plane tickets”. Because, as you know, your in-laws’ cost to fly from Sacramento to Las Vegas (when they already owned three homes) was supposed to be your biggest concern surrounding your wedding, right? No, I didn’t think so either, but at the time all I felt was guilt and shame.

So we rushed it. We planned, in 14 days, our entire wedding for Tahoe. My mother bought my dress, and his suit, and we reserved the chapel. We got a package deal, where for less than $2,000, we could have our wedding AND honeymoon! We thought we were so smart, taking that deal. We rushed to get rings (they were horribly disfigured from resizing them at home and almost breaking the nickel bands), and got all the extras we thought we would need. We invited his mom’s family (Bakersfield) and my grandparents (Reno), his dad and his wife, and my parents. That was it. My maid of honor was my best friend, who had to stop at a thrift store on the way to Tahoe to get a dress, because she didn’t own one at the time.

This was how we started our lives. I didn’t know it at the time, but the reason for all of this was two-fold. I was manic, and he was terrible at keeping a rein on me when I got like that. He avoided conflict, and I was a walking conflict-o-matic when I got like that. So we got married in Tahoe, and for a few weeks, we were fine.

Then the panic set in again. I had no idea how to be a wife, or what I was supposed to do. I knew it somehow involved supporting him in what he did, and I was happy to do that. My own mental health was deteriorating, and I had no idea because I was on the inside. In a healthy marriage, this would have been the time for my spouse to take matters into his own hands and get me in to a psychiatrist, but my marriage was not healthy. To be fair, neither was my spouse.

He quit the good job (where I was receiving medical insurance, something that wasn’t easy for me to obtain at the time, this was the early 2000s), because he wanted to start a business. Okay, I’m supposed to support him, so I went along with it. In a healthy marriage, this would have been the time for me to stand up for myself and my health and tell him he couldn’t quit his job until the business took off on the side. My marriage was not healthy, and neither was I.

For a little over a year, we tried to make the business work. There were good times and bad times, but we stayed afloat (mostly because my parents supported us by throwing as much work our way as they possibly could, computer or otherwise). After a year or so (I’m a little foggy), it became clear that we couldn’t support ourselves on just the business. So it was decided that we needed to get outside jobs.

I got a part-time job at a very small call center, and that was when my family realized something was wrong. I was sick constantly, I was a nervous wreck, and there were mornings where I wanted to wrap the car around a tree to avoid going to work. This should have been warning signs to my husband, but he didn’t know what he was looking for, so his only response was “We need you to keep this job.”

I quit the job. I couldn’t handle it, and as my mental illness emerged more and more clearly, everybody but Sam could see it. They just felt, as I did, that it was our job as adults and a married couple to handle it. We were all wrong.

He was having difficulty finding work, so in a moment of desperation (it’s scary how many of those I had in my marriage), we decided to move out of the area. Again, I was manic and we didn’t understand that. I got the idea in my head to move to South Dakota, where my best friend had moved, because at least there we knew someone. Stupid, stupid, stupid. We didn’t know anything about the area, we had no real support network there, and it was a terrible idea. But I had it stuck in my head, so I was going for it.

He moved first, stayed with my best friend, and I stayed with my parents. The idea was for him to find work out there, and get into a place, and I would join him. Now, I will say this with the hindsight of many years and much more understanding: somewhere in my mind, in my heart, I wished my parents would take over at that point and tell me to stay. I longed for them to sit me down and say, “Jen, you’re not moving to South Dakota. We’re getting you help, and you’re going to stay with us. We’ll file for divorce, and put this behind us.” I ached for that to happen, but it was buried so deep under my sense of duty to my husband, I didn’t know it was there. So I started this nasty pattern of hiding how I felt, and trying to pretend that I was okay.

This was the worst thing I could have done, because I’m a fairly decent actress. I pulled it off, at least for the six weeks I stayed with my parents. They thought I was missing Sam, that I wanted to be with him, and that I was excited for this adventure in life. And I thought, in turn, that I was supposed to be, so I tried to force it.

He finally got work (six weeks after leaving), and a week later I was heading out there. We found a place that weekend, a nice single-wide trailer with a landlord that wouldn’t ask for a deposit. We knew we wouldn’t find better with him working for Wal-mart and me just moving there (we were both still under the delusion that I could work). We moved right in and tried to make a go of it.

Two months later, he lost his job. They didn’t want to pay benefits, so they fired him after commuting his employment to “temporary” and claiming his contract had ended. At least, that’s what he told me, but looking back, I sometimes wonder… I started my process of finding him work again, and in the meantime he did day-labor work, making ends meet with some help from my friends and family.

The seven years we spent in South Dakota are difficult for me to write about, because so much and so little happened there. My time felt endless as I descended into my mental illness without support or care. He went from job to job for a while, finally settling at a call center that paid him decently but not impressively. I went outside less and less, being unable to leave on my own and him not being willing to go anywhere with me in tow. My days were spent on the computer, making friends with the pixels and words coming from the other end of the internet, occasionally emailing him at work to ask him to pick something up on the way home—milk or my cigarettes or dinner of some kind.

There were a few moments that stand out to me, but most of it is a blur. The first of those moments was when I tried to kill myself. I had been to see a psychologist, who diagnosed me with bipolar disorder, and the resident psychiatrist started me on medication. I didn’t understand how many different factors went into treating mental illness—neither did Sam—so we thought this would resolve it. I would remain on medication and that would treat it. We thought that until I took too many pills one night, trying to escape what was turning into my own personal hell.

I was admitted to a mental hospital for a few days while they tried to adjust my medications and generally just kept an eye on me. During the time I was there, I was permitted to call Sam in the evening, which I did every day. He seemed…annoyed with me calling and I turned that inward. It was my fault, I was bothering him, he was tired from work and I was interrupting his “decompression” time.

I know I’ve talked about the Voice before, but South Dakota is really where it took hold in my head. It has always been there, making me suspicious of the people in my life, but being unsure if your husband actually cares about whether or not you die is definitely a way for it to take control. I didn’t know what it was at the time, didn’t know it was my illness whispering lies to me, so I didn’t know to talk about it. It wasn’t a hallucination (I knew it was in my head), so the doctors didn’t give it a lot of thought. They thought it was me saying those things to myself… If we’d only known then what we know now…

I got out, went through a month of CBT group therapy, and finally admitted some things about my past that I’d had locked away in my head for years. The abuse when I was a child, the abandonment I felt, a lot of things. I had to admit that I suffered from PTSD as well as my bipolar, and the doctors amended my diagnosis to Bipolar Disorder II. This meant that I didn’t have standard “mania” episodes, but rather episodes of “hypomania”, a lesser form. For the record, this diagnosis is somewhat incorrect, but more on that later.

We discovered that my bipolar was rapid-cycling, meaning that I would be manic or depressed more than once or twice a year. There is no word for how rapidly I cycle. I will cycle sometimes on a weekly, daily, or hourly basis (usually dependant on what medication I’m taking and what stressors are in my life at the time). I was very stressed at the time. My home life was a wreck and I had no idea how to fix it. My husband’s paycheck was being garnished for medical bills we couldn’t afford to pay, and he refused to drive to the capital to get a form that would exempt him from having to be garnished (he didn’t make enough, and he was the sole provider in our home).

I descended further.

The next instance of something I remember clearly was the night I was so hungry (Sam hadn’t been able to get us groceries for a few nights), I went dumpster diving for a burger tossed out by my neighbors. I remember being freezing that night, and I remember smelling the burger smell coming from the dumpster. It didn’t occur to me at the time what I was doing; all I thought of was how hungry I was and how stupid it was to throw out an almost complete burger. It wasn’t until later, when my friend brought it up, that I realized I’d just taken a burger from a garbage bag in a dumpster in the middle of the night.

Now, during our marriage (of 10 years before we decided to separate), Sam and I had been only mildly physically intimate. At first it was because I was uncomfortable with sex (a LOT of back-story there), and I thought he was just being supportive. That opinion changed when we went two years without being physically intimate at all and then seven more in South Dakota with literally two instances of sex. One of which was a traumatizing blow job when he “finally” got an erection.

Sam had a porn addiction, but wouldn’t admit it. He’d hide the videos, I’d find and delete the videos, he’d pretend he didn’t notice and go download them again. I want to be clear here, I didn’t care that he was watching porn. Well, I cared that he could get hard for porn and not for me, but I was glad that his plumbing at least worked! What bothered me was the way he would hide it, making me feel like the villain any time I would bring it up. He was the innocent victim (one time he tried to blame it on the size of his hard drive, saying hackers were illegally downloading porn to his drive because it was so big—I’m not kidding), and I was the harpy shrew because I was accusing him. I didn’t understand (or even know) the term “gas-lighting” back then, but boy do I understand it now.

I would try to initiate intimacy, he would pull away. I would try to talk to him about it, about how it was a need of mine and I wanted to know what I could do to help him, he would deflect and blame his blood pressure medication or his stress at work. That isn’t to say that these couldn’t have been factors, but he didn’t care enough to discuss it with his doctor, or me, or anyone. He didn’t care enough to tell me that he just wasn’t interested in me sexually. He couldn’t be bothered.

I tried to approach the idea of having an open marriage, but he said that was “no marriage at all” and refused. In short, he kept me tied to his sexless lack of desire. And that wasn’t the only thing Sam kept me tied to.

I remember my mother coming to visit on the last birthday I had there. We stayed holed up in the hotel room all weekend because I was too afraid to leave. Clearly the medications weren’t working for me, but I was still a great actress. My mom had an idea that something was wrong, but she’d been trying for years to let me live my life the way I kept telling her I wanted to live it. It wasn’t her fault I was great at lying about what I wanted.

See, Sam had convinced me that I didn’t have any option outside of him. He made sure to reinforce this thought by reminding me that my family had stopped helping us financially, and that my friends didn’t care about me as much as he did. With the help of the Voice, he had me convinced that I couldn’t go anywhere, because no one would take me in, and I was clearly unable to support myself. I needed Sam. He was the only one taking care of me, and I couldn’t afford to lose that or I’d be on the streets and arguing with the sidewalk.

After that visit from my mom, in November, I didn’t leave the house until I left South Dakota, 11 months later. Picture that for a moment. Through FOUR DIFFERENT SEASONS, I didn’t leave the trailer. It was a wreck, because I was so tied up in knots that I couldn’t even leave to take out the trash by myself. Sam would tell me, “If you ever want to go somewhere, just take me to work and you can have the car for the day.” But I was too afraid to go somewhere alone. I couldn’t be alone, that was crazy talk! And he knew it was, the bastard. He knew damn well that I wouldn’t leave the house by myself, that I needed him with me, and he conveniently managed to always be too tired or too worn out or too stressed or too something to go anywhere with me.

*deep breath* I’m okay. This gets me a little riled up sometimes, but I’m okay.

I smoked a lot during that time. I wasn’t telling anyone in my life how stressed and alone I felt, so I turned to my cigarettes for comfort. At one point, I smoked a whole carton in less than a week. These aren’t menthols, either. Cloves. Hard stuff on the lungs. I smoked 160 of those in 4 days. Every time I turned around, I was smoking or eating, because I had nothing else to do and I felt like I was trash. Sam would bring home fast food rather than go to the store (he was too tired after work), so I lived on McDonald’s McChicken sandwiches for a few months at a time.

Even when I finally worked up enough courage to move out, it was with the understanding that Sam would follow me at some point (a reverse of the move to South Dakota). I had someone I had been seeing online for a few months. He and his mother offered to rent me a room in her house for less than $200 a month, something I could afford with the help of a good friend. Sam would join me when we found him work out there (in western New York), and we would hit that giant reset button again, only this time there would be a little bit of a support network.

I moved out in October of 2013 or 14, and that was the last time I saw Sam in person. I almost didn’t make my flight out, because he was dragging his feet that day. I think something in him knew that this was the end. Something in me knew it, but I didn’t want to listen to that part of me just yet. I went to New York and settled in, then started looking for work for Sam.

He didn’t know that the person I’d moved to be with (we’ll call him Mike, but again—that’s not his name) was my boyfriend. He thought it was just a friend. Or maybe he did know and just didn’t say anything. It doesn’t matter at this point. Mike’s mom helped me sort out possible jobs for Sam, because when he moved out there with me, we were going to be renting the other side of her duplex, and she’d get more than $200 a month from us. So she was totally on board. Funnily enough, the one person who wasn’t on board…was Sam.

When I tracked down a job for him and told him to send me a copy of his resume to forward on, he said no. He didn’t want to leave the job he was at (that was garnishing his wages and had caused him two strokes), because he’d put in so much time there, he didn’t want to lose seniority. I told him I wouldn’t be moving back, we had a barely-there argument, and I told him I would talk to him later.

Sam had been taking out paycheck advances from our joint bank account for a long time. We were informed by the bank that they would be halting that program, and everything needed to be repaid by X Y Z date. We had talked about it, he had agreed to work extra overtime to help pay for it so the bank account didn’t have trouble, and I thought that was the end of it. When I first moved to New York, I was still using the joint account, but none of Sam’s money. I had my own, from little bits of online work and help from friends, and I would simply use the account as a way to route the money to Mike’s mom for rent, or to my credit card bill.

I went to pay my rent one month, and realized that the bank account was overdrawn—by $800. Sam hadn’t worked the overtime, this I’d come to expect. Or he had, and just decided to fritter away the money on something else, like fast food and video games. Either way, the money wasn’t there, so the bank had taken its piece of flesh, including MY money. This was followed rather closely by seeing a repossession on my credit report. Sam had lost the car, because he had stopped paying for it. He had stopped paying for it because it stopped working and he didn’t feel he should be paying for something that didn’t run. (Again, I’m not kidding. This was actually his logic.)

I panicked once again, but this time I did something I’d never done before. I reached out to people in my hurt and frustration. I posted on Facebook (not my finest decision, but I had nowhere else to turn by then) that I was so angry by something “someone” had done. Sam’s response to this was to take personal offense and tell me that if I wanted a divorce, he wouldn’t contest it.

That was it. That was his FIRST response to me reaching out for help. To end our marriage. But not even that; if he’d had the balls to ask for a divorce himself, this would’ve all been over more quickly and with less pain. No, he avoided the blame yet again by saying that if I wanted a divorce, he wouldn’t contest it.

Of course he wouldn’t. That would require effort on his part, same as filing for the divorce himself.

It took me several months to even get my fingers to type the words “I want a divorce.” Thankfully, Mike’s mom had an ex-husband who had treated her pretty raw when he left, so she understood. We worked out the missing money (again, with the help of a great friend), and I finally started opening up to my family about Sam.

They were shocked. True, they’d known something wasn’t quite right, but for the past 10 years, they’d had no idea the isolation and psychological abuse he’d put me through. I started talking about it with my closest friends, apologizing profusely for not sharing sooner, and their only admonition was at my assuming they wouldn’t have taken me in. I felt like a fool, like a complete idiot for believing Sam all those years.

Mike and I eventually moved across the country, back to where my family was on the west coast. That was when I finally felt safe enough to tell Sam that I wanted a divorce. I also told him not to try to contact me directly, to send all correspondence (and my belongings) through my mother. He never made an attempt except when he thought he could get her “on his side”, something he never really managed. I started talking more candidly with my mom about everything that had happened, about how it had messed me up, about how he never had a clue what to do with a mentally ill wife. It took me a while longer to realize he knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it quite well.

Even after I filed for divorce (admittedly, a long time after everything—I suppose part of me was hoping he would do this one thing for me, after everything he took away, and file himself), he is still being the same selfish, lazy, unmotivated jerk. When he was served with papers, he had 20 days to respond. The response form is easily obtainable (along with instructions) from an easy-to-find website. He even told my mother he’d get right on it. That 20 days ran out the beginning of this year. It’s now almost February, and Sam never filed his response with the courts. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he’s not even printed the form.

Fortunately, Mike and I have some of the same issues to work through, so we get it. We know how to care for each other most of the time, and when we don’t, we fight. It sounds like a bad thing, but we get our emotions out, the deep-rooted causes come to light, and we can talk about it and work through it. That’s healthy, surprisingly. I live no more than ten miles from my mother (after 7 years of living 1700 miles away, it was truly hell for me), and I’m getting the help I need.

Sam still lives in that trailer. He works for another call center (the one he was so determined to keep laid him off a few months after our fight about it), and as far as I know, his life is the same. As far as I care, his life is the same. Literally the only thing I miss from that decade of my life is my cat.

[ginnyzero]

Not All Strong Female Characters are Warriors: Pt 2

Honestly, as I write this blog, I never know what is going to make an impact in my spaces. (Facebook I accept is pretty much dead right now.) But my Sunday Okami post made a bit of a splash (at least for me) over on Tumblr. As I was catching up with my weekend dashboard, I ran across this post of Writingmastery's back from June 2016 about "Strong Female Characters."It's a list blog post about the type of female characters he'd like to see, girly, funny, supportive of  other women, queer, POC, women who define men instead of the other way around and so on. It was an interesting list for me as I tried to check off those against the female characters I have in my head.

And this weekend at the Cannes Festival, Jessica Chastain made a powerful speech about the female characters she saw in today's movies. (Because let's face it more people watch movies than read books.) Calling it "disturbing" with a "few exceptions." And she hopes that with more female storytellers will come more female characters like she sees in her everyday life, female characters that are more proactive with more agency that don't just react to the men around them. "They have their own point of view." Unfortunately, I can't find a video of JUST the speech on YouTube. Here is a link to my tweet on Twitter with the video. It's very moving.

I've talked about strong characters before and how Hollywood in particular associates strong characters with the male traits of being stoic, unemotional (except when they are using it to fuel righteous vengeance,) aggressive and with low tolerance for authority. And how that these characters technically aren't strong because they don't grow. Their flaws aren't really seen as flaws.

But the title of this post is that Strong Female Characters don't have to be warriors. Even though there aren't a lot of strong warrior characters on the big screen either, with Wonder Woman coming out this weekend we can hope that Hollywood may get the message that if you give us a good story about a female superhero, people will watch it.

Now this may feel a tad hypocritical of me to be talking about. My female main character in the Lone Prospect is Savannah and she's a fighter of sorts. (She's a Vice President of a Motorcycle Club and a mercenary/private security operative. She can throw a punch if she needs to.) And Roxana in the Dawn Warrior is yes, a warrior Princess. She's got a sword, she fights evil magicians and tries not to bash the heads of clueless princes. But I hope in my stories that there is a lot more to them than just throwing a punch.

And I try to pepper my stories, at least the Heaven's Heathens with other types of female characters. One of my favorite characters is Esme. Esme is the "den mother" of the Club. She's in charge of making sure everything runs socially and emotionally smoothly. She has an important job of keeping the club socialized, offering advice and mentoring and emotional support, and figuring out which fights need to be smoothed over and which fights need to be fought. Hope is a Doctor. Brier owns a day spa and can't fight for beans. Dakota and Flossie own their own businesses. Yes, I have a lot of female warriors that range from perky, to cranky, to bubbly and girly, to stoic and sporty. I also write action adventure stories.

Strong female characters can be a broad range of personality traits and occupations. I love Evie from the Mummy because she's smart as a whip. In the first movie, she couldn't throw a punch, but it didn't matter. She's the one with the knowledge to defeat the Mummy. Sure, Rick threw a lot of punches. Without Evie, he'd still be fighting the monster.

I love Angela Montenegro from Bones. She's an artist, a dreamer. She understands human relationships and she is there constantly supporting Temperance. She has her own story and her own dreams and there are a lot of times she questions the work she's doing at the Jeffersonian and if she should be there or out pursuing a free artistic life. She makes her peace with her decisions though and finds happiness where she didn't expect it. (Angie and Hodgins is one of my favorite love stories.)

I like Maura Isles from Rizzoli and Isles. She's logical and analytical and once again, smart. But she makes bad man choices and isn't exactly socially aware. But she's there for Jane and for Angela, Jane's mother. She's a good manager and yes, she has a bad habit of diagnosing herself. (I know that last season arc was controversial with Maura and Kent trying to treat her. Doctors should not diagnose themselves. Period.) I also loved that when Maura tried her hand at something new, like writing, she didn't always get it right off the bat. It was refreshing.

I have mixed feelings about Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. She's a strong female character who became a lawyer who stopped caring about getting into Harvard to get back the boy and instead cared about the profession as a whole and the people she was representing. (Mostly, I dislike the way they stereotyped her as a 'fashion' and 'sorority' person. I'm a fashion designer, those stereotypes make me cringe because yeah, fashion school is not like that!) She was unashamedly girly. She wore pink as a power color. She liked shopping. She grew as a person through the movie.

I loved all the women in Hidden Figures. They had families. They had to struggle to be taken seriously. They were smart women working on an important project and they didn't get the credit they deserved. But through their gracefulness they were able to influence the minds of those around them at NASA and change came. There were obstacles and they overcame them. They were also not all the same body type! (I know this shouldn't have to be pointed out in this day and age, but it's still another problem in the movie industry and the fashion industry.)

I love all the women in Chocolat, Vianne fighting against the spirit of her mother and how hard it is to live a nomadic life. Eventually, she breaks down and admits how horrible things are and how she hates it and wants to stay in one place. Josephine struggling to stand up against abuse and how Vianne helps her. Armande choosing to live the last of her life as she wants it, drinking hot chocolate and having a party, standing up to the mayor of the town just by being herself. I even love Caroline, who is trying so hard to do the right thing and have the proper image that her family is slipping away from her even as she tries to hold onto them.

These are the strong female characters that I can think of off the top of my head that aren't warriors in media. They are there in our lives, they are doctors, nurses, scientists, mathematicians, linguists, artists and yes, lawyers. They are mothers, daughters and sisters with their own hopes, dreams and opinions.

I don't know if more female voices in the film industry or in the book industry is really going to give us more strong female characters. I can hope that with more female voices, there would be a larger breadth of female experience and more attention paid to female issues in media.

Female characters don't have to throw punches and hold in their emotions to be strong.

[chicagocityfclanspromoblog]

Dakota English → Summer Bishill → Rat Shifter

→ Basic Information

Age: 36

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Born or Made: Born

Birthday: October 11th

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Religion: Deism

→ Her Personality Dakota is a beautiful, strong-willed, powerful, highly intelligent, and self-made woman, who does not allow the world to stand in the way of her ambition. She is considerably powerful and influential. Dakota swings way above the depression and anxiety line, having her work and social life in order despite having to routinely deal with incredibly dangerous missions and warlocks. She is fierce and she always stands her ground no matter the circumstances. She gives a feminist element to the pack in the most cunning and intelligent way. Although at first sight, she may seem superficial, Dakota is a keen observer; whose specialties are gossip, competition, and drama. Dakota has shown to be the most rational of her teams during stressful situations, often being mistaken for cruel and bitter, when in truth she is pragmatic, focusing on what needs to be done instead of her emotions.

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Team member of BOND and GOLD

Scars: Missing her right eye

Tattoos: None

Two Likes: Morning after Mission Breakfasts and Gold jewelry

Two Dislikes: Warlocks/Witches and Jameson

Two Fears: Watching someone she loves hurt/killed while she can do nothing about it and being eaten alive by fire ants

Two Hobbies: Archery and Tai Chi

Three Positive Traits: Loyal, Daring, Pragmatic

Three Negative Traits: Standoffish, Calculating, Cut Throat

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Rina English (Mother): They have a perfect mother, daughter relationship. She confides in her with everything, from bad days at work to her struggles with West’s addiction. Rina was the only person who had an inkling West and Dakota were eloping when her daughter asked for something old and blue from her. Dakota can’t keep anything from her mother, and wouldn’t want it any other way.

Michael English (Father): Dakota has always been a daddy’s girl; his pride and joy. Michael believes that she deserves only the best and it’s what made him decide to take West under his wing. He knew that his head strong little girl was set on the gangly boy and decided to shape him into a good, respectable man.

Sibling Names:

None

Children Names:

None

Romantic Connections:

West Freemen (Mate): Dakota married her best friend. They fight and argue, smile and laugh, irritate and cry for each other. West loves her and she loves his weirdness and the man he has become. She wants to spend her time with him and respects his decisions. His drug habits annoy her but they’re a two person team that no one else is allowed to join. But she refuses to let that habit stop them from being together. They resolve their problems and bounce back to normal after every misstep.

Platonic Connections:

Louis Martin-Rovet (Head/Friend): Louis is her “at-home” head and stake out partner. He’s incredibly smart, and Dakota has learned a lot from him. Louis is the only one of her bosses who has treated her like she’s still capable, and allows her in the field.

Neaera Jayweed (Acquaintance): Dakota really likes Neaera and her complete and utter confidence in going against Nick. She thinks she’s probably fun and wants to get to know her more.

Jo Floyd (Confidant): Jo is the only rat who knows she’s looking into trying to find a way to get her eye back. She has been cautiously supportive and has even investigated links with her, but a part of Dakota knows she’ll tell Nick as soon as it gets serious.

Judson Clerigh (Only Lead): Judson mentioned to her in passing he could make her a new working eye, but Dakota is terrified of the consequences. She knows Louis would not be ok with her doing that and she knows the dangers of accepting magic and the hidden costs that come with it. Still it’s been the only thing she’s found that’s an option.

Hostile Connections:

Flower Hanes (Dislike): Dakota kept getting tripped up and caught in vines one day, only to find Flower and Belle laughing.

Roman Clerigh (Dislike): Roman Clerigh is like a necessary evil to her. His potions are safe for West, but she wished that West wasn’t hooked on them. And it’s easier for her to blame Roman than address the actual problem.

Minsky Edison (Scared of): There is something truly horrifying about mind control to Dakota. She’s head strong and unwavering in her beliefs, and to have someone be able to take that from her is incredibly frightening to her.

Nick Hamelin (Annoyed with): Nick has banned her from BOND missions since she lost her eye. She keeps trying to convince him to let her back in the field, but she’s pretty sure that now he’s keeping her out due to spite.

Pets:

None

→ History Dakota was Michael and Rina English’s miracle baby. With both having high stress teams (her’s GOLD, his BOND) the likelihood of Rina getting pregnant was slim, but right before they were about to stop their aging again, she began getting sick. Both knew she would be their one and only and strived to give her the best life they could. Immediately they began reading parenting books, and strategize how to best bring their child up. When Dakota finally arrived her parents became dedicated to teaching her how to be the smartest and strongest person they could.

Her cleverness became evident when Dakota was in second grade. She’d seen one of the rat kids getting bullied. She collected as many rocks as she could carry and started her assault. The bullies quickly scattered quickly after the rat boy did. She found him later and introduced herself, and from there the greatest friendship of her life began. Dakota and West became inseparable that Summer and spent most of it getting back at the bullies in rat form. From that year West became a part of the English family, with Rina taking care of him like he was her own son. Unfortunately that didn’t mean he was immune from his own parents’ comments, and Dakota felt him slipping away from her in their teen years. She tried supporting him the best she could, keeping his secrets and helping him hide his hangovers from the older rats. When he was 16, West got caught. He told her everything that had happened with Jalissa, but it wasn’t until his parents outed his problem to the whole pack. Rina and Michael eventually heard and pulled their own daughter aside, wanting to know how involved she was in everything. When she finally broke down and told her she had to make a choice of whether she cared about West’s health or his friendship. It woke her up to what could happen to him and the feelings she had for her best friend. She began actually helping keep him safe. Making sure she was always there if he went too overboard, or couldn’t protect himself. Their friendship quickly blurred the lines into a relationship, and her parents caught them. Michael decided to train West to take a spot in BOND, while Rina offered to train her for GOLD. Dakota knew she’d be good for BOND and begged Ray to train her. He took her under his wing, after months of bothering, and by the time she hit 18 she was team mates with her father and boyfriend on BOND. She and West went to the University of Chicago together and after graduation became mates.

She and West became a reliable team for BOND, being capable of taking on most of the “couple” assignments, as well as just having a good understanding of each other. But West fell back into drugs, and especially potions, and began taking larger risks. During a mission in Prague, West needed a fix and got his supply from a random witch, who wanted something way more than a usual payment. Dakota offered her own sacrifice for him, and gave up her eye to protect him from the witch’s magic. After that mission West mostly cleaned up his act, but alternated babying her while endlessly apologizing, and sinking into a deep depression spurred on by the comments from others in the pack, especially his mother. The wrath and rage that had come from losing her eye was released onto those who felt like her lost eye was their business. She got him to eventually see her as the same woman she was before, and they came out in the end stronger.

→ The Present It’s been about a year and a half since Dakota gave up her eye for West. She’s gone through most of the stages of grieving over it and is finally looking into fixing it. She’s looked all over for any kind of remedy. Since it is a magical wound, it’s never going to heal naturally. Which means she’s stuck looking for a magical source to fix it. She’s currently looking into witches or warlocks both locally and out of town for solutions but her sources are not readily forthcoming with that kind of information. Dakota’s also making great strides to hide it from her pack, parents, and especially West. She wants to put on a brave face for them, and it took West months before he trusted himself again. She’s accepted it the way she looks now, but still yearns to have both eyes back. Jo stumbled upon her researching at a cafe and got her to spill, and is now trying to assist in her search. Ultimately Dakota is aware Nick is going to find out, and so will the rest of the pack, but she wants to have a plan to show before that happens.

West and Dakota recently were outed as married by an accidental opening of mail. She knows the pack was thrown by it, and that Nick is pissed, but she is waiting to let someone else pick the fight. She has something bigger to fight. Dakota would really like West to stop relying on potions and try out therapy to deal with his inner emotional turmoil. His parents truly messed him up and Dakota knows how he could be even more incredible if he didn’t have their criticisms hanging in her head. She’s gotten the higher ups in the pack to approve of sessions for West and is now trying to think of how to pitch it to him.

→ Available Gif Hunts (we do not own these)

Summer Bishil (Dakota English) [1][2][3][4]

[chameleonwife]

Marriage

I never would have gotten married if I’d understood mental illness at the time.

When I met my ex-husband, I was just 20 years old. I was just out of a long-term relationship with an abusive partner—well, to be fair, we were abusive to each other. We were young, and stupid. (For those wondering, we’ve actually become close friends over the intervening years.) But that’s neither here nor there. When I met my ex, I was vulnerable and scared.

I have always had low self-esteem, so when I ran into him in the break room at the call center we both worked for, I figured I didn’t stand a chance with him. So I didn’t bother trying to make a good impression. I just launched into a rant about my (then) ex-boyfriend and how ridiculously stupid he was. This new guy was understanding, charming, funny, intelligent, and offered me some good advice—to get away from the ex.

We exchanged numbers just prior to my very first mental breakdown. I took a month off work and expected to never see him again. At the time, we didn’t know what was wrong with me, so they diagnosed me with depression and anxiety, and that was that. I got pills, went to some classes, and thought I was ready to take my bruised psyche back into the workforce.

I couldn’t have been more wrong, and neither could my doctors.

We reconnected, my ex-husband and I, and we got to know each other. We talked a lot on the phone, and tried to meet up whenever we could line up our breaks at work. I thought I was doing better, but I just couldn’t get in the swing of things at work, so I eventually quit. It was around this time that he and I became more intimate, and I had a huge fight with my ex-boyfriend (who was still living with me at the time—I told you it was dysfunctional). I stayed with my new boyfriend for a week, hibernating in his room while he went to work so as to avoid his roommate, whom I never actually got to know.

At the end of that week, he moved in with me as my ex moved out. I literally never spent a single night alone in that apartment. If I’d known then what I know now about my mental illness…but again, that’s neither here nor there. This is the story of how I learned, not lamenting the fact that I didn’t know to begin with.

So he moved in with me. I suppose it’s about time I give him a name for all of you, we’ll call him Sam. That’s not his name, not even close, but I don’t want to write this to blast him. I want to write it for myself, so we’re going to call him Sam.

Sam moved in with me, and we got closer. A few weeks (yes, weeks) later, he proposed one night while we were lying in bed. I accepted (I was terrified of being alone, as if that wasn’t painfully obvious yet), and I was excited. Remember, I’m only 20 at this point. I think this is going great, because this was where I had wanted to be with my ex—engaged and planning a wedding. I figured I could just replace him with Sam, and everything would be fine. No, that’s not fair. At the time I didn’t think that, I’m just reflecting on it now with my new knowledge.

Things were confusing at that time. I’d been close to my mother, but after I’d left home at 17 (that’s a WHOLE ‘nother story), we’d been tense. That’s a nice way of putting it: tense. She didn’t approve of Sam, because she’d heard (from me) that he’d been married once and engaged another time and I thought he would be a bad influence. (In the joy that is retrospect, I should have stuck to that assessment, but impulse control being what it was…I’ll get to that.) So she didn’t approve, and when I told her we were engaged, she basically said “Don’t want to know, don’t care, don’t bother inviting me to the wedding”, but in more words. I don’t remember exactly what she said because I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.

We didn’t speak again for two months. Dear reader, you need to understand what a huge thing that was for me. I didn’t fight with my mom when I was growing up; we were thick as thieves, as they say. I had always been very close to her, and this devastated me. I started planning my wedding, sure that I would be happy in my marriage because that’s what people my age did. Normal girls my age were dating, getting engaged, getting married. My own cousin, a little younger than me, was getting married soon.

I don’t remember how things got patched up with my mother, but I remember it involved her seeing a car parked out front of her house and having a sudden, irrational fear that I’d run off, eloped, and was now coming to tell her that she’d missed my wedding. (Pro-tip: It wasn’t our car.) We worked on repairing the damage, which we didn’t realize at the time stemmed all the way back to me leaving three years earlier, and she and my family tried their hardest to get to know this man I was planning on spending my life with.

I should have known something was amiss when I had to buy my own engagement ring from eBay, for $25. That really should have been a sign, but I was (again) young and stupid. We originally planned this huge, grand affair in San Diego, with all of the families present. Then, when that proved to be outlandishly expensive, we changed it to Las Vegas, at one of the resorts. It was still going to be big, but not nearly AS big as the Hotel Del Coronado on a private beach for $35,000.

Sam left his job when I found him a better one. When I say “I”, I mean I. I fixed his resume, sent it out, fielded the phone calls for potential interviews, scheduled them for him, and got him ready to go. All he had to do was walk in and show them he knew computers—which he did. With this better job, we planned our big day.

Then I panicked. I attended a very short wedding at a casino in Reno, and freaked out at the idea of having a 5-minute ceremony where I was bustled in and out to make way for the next blushing bride. So I called off the Las Vegas wedding. My family was understanding, his was not. His stepmother gave us grief about the “non-refundable plane tickets”. Because, as you know, your in-laws’ cost to fly from Sacramento to Las Vegas (when they already owned three homes) was supposed to be your biggest concern surrounding your wedding, right? No, I didn’t think so either, but at the time all I felt was guilt and shame.

So we rushed it. We planned, in 14 days, our entire wedding for Tahoe. My mother bought my dress, and his suit, and we reserved the chapel. We got a package deal, where for less than $2,000, we could have our wedding AND honeymoon! We thought we were so smart, taking that deal. We rushed to get rings (they were horribly disfigured from resizing them at home and almost breaking the nickel bands), and got all the extras we thought we would need. We invited his mom’s family (Bakersfield) and my grandparents (Reno), his dad and his wife, and my parents. That was it. My maid of honor was my best friend, who had to stop at a thrift store on the way to Tahoe to get a dress, because she didn’t own one at the time.

This was how we started our lives. I didn’t know it at the time, but the reason for all of this was two-fold. I was manic, and he was terrible at keeping a rein on me when I got like that. He avoided conflict, and I was a walking conflict-o-matic when I got like that. So we got married in Tahoe, and for a few weeks, we were fine.

Then the panic set in again. I had no idea how to be a wife, or what I was supposed to do. I knew it somehow involved supporting him in what he did, and I was happy to do that. My own mental health was deteriorating, and I had no idea because I was on the inside. In a healthy marriage, this would have been the time for my spouse to take matters into his own hands and get me in to a psychiatrist, but my marriage was not healthy. To be fair, neither was my spouse.

He quit the good job (where I was receiving medical insurance, something that wasn’t easy for me to obtain at the time, this was the early 2000s), because he wanted to start a business. Okay, I’m supposed to support him, so I went along with it. In a healthy marriage, this would have been the time for me to stand up for myself and my health and tell him he couldn’t quit his job until the business took off on the side. My marriage was not healthy, and neither was I.

For a little over a year, we tried to make the business work. There were good times and bad times, but we stayed afloat (mostly because my parents supported us by throwing as much work our way as they possibly could, computer or otherwise). After a year or so (I’m a little foggy), it became clear that we couldn’t support ourselves on just the business. So it was decided that we needed to get outside jobs.

I got a part-time job at a very small call center, and that was when my family realized something was wrong. I was sick constantly, I was a nervous wreck, and there were mornings where I wanted to wrap the car around a tree to avoid going to work. This should have been warning signs to my husband, but he didn’t know what he was looking for, so his only response was “We need you to keep this job.”

I quit the job. I couldn’t handle it, and as my mental illness emerged more and more clearly, everybody but Sam could see it. They just felt, as I did, that it was our job as adults and a married couple to handle it. We were all wrong.

He was having difficulty finding work, so in a moment of desperation (it’s scary how many of those I had in my marriage), we decided to move out of the area. Again, I was manic and we didn’t understand that. I got the idea in my head to move to South Dakota, where my best friend had moved, because at least there we knew someone. Stupid, stupid, stupid. We didn’t know anything about the area, we had no real support network there, and it was a terrible idea. But I had it stuck in my head, so I was going for it.

He moved first, stayed with my best friend, and I stayed with my parents. The idea was for him to find work out there, and get into a place, and I would join him. Now, I will say this with the hindsight of many years and much more understanding: somewhere in my mind, in my heart, I wished my parents would take over at that point and tell me to stay. I longed for them to sit me down and say, “Jen, you’re not moving to South Dakota. We’re getting you help, and you’re going to stay with us. We’ll file for divorce, and put this behind us.” I ached for that to happen, but it was buried so deep under my sense of duty to my husband, I didn’t know it was there. So I started this nasty pattern of hiding how I felt, and trying to pretend that I was okay.

This was the worst thing I could have done, because I’m a fairly decent actress. I pulled it off, at least for the six weeks I stayed with my parents. They thought I was missing Sam, that I wanted to be with him, and that I was excited for this adventure in life. And I thought, in turn, that I was supposed to be, so I tried to force it.

He finally got work (six weeks after leaving), and a week later I was heading out there. We found a place that weekend, a nice single-wide trailer with a landlord that wouldn’t ask for a deposit. We knew we wouldn’t find better with him working for Wal-mart and me just moving there (we were both still under the delusion that I could work). We moved right in and tried to make a go of it.

Two months later, he lost his job. They didn’t want to pay benefits, so they fired him after commuting his employment to “temporary” and claiming his contract had ended. At least, that’s what he told me, but looking back, I sometimes wonder… I started my process of finding him work again, and in the meantime he did day-labor work, making ends meet with some help from my friends and family.

The seven years we spent in South Dakota are difficult for me to write about, because so much and so little happened there. My time felt endless as I descended into my mental illness without support or care. He went from job to job for a while, finally settling at a call center that paid him decently but not impressively. I went outside less and less, being unable to leave on my own and him not being willing to go anywhere with me in tow. My days were spent on the computer, making friends with the pixels and words coming from the other end of the internet, occasionally emailing him at work to ask him to pick something up on the way home—milk or my cigarettes or dinner of some kind.

There were a few moments that stand out to me, but most of it is a blur. The first of those moments was when I tried to kill myself. I had been to see a psychologist, who diagnosed me with bipolar disorder, and the resident psychiatrist started me on medication. I didn’t understand how many different factors went into treating mental illness—neither did Sam—so we thought this would resolve it. I would remain on medication and that would treat it. We thought that until I took too many pills one night, trying to escape what was turning into my own personal hell.

I was admitted to a mental hospital for a few days while they tried to adjust my medications and generally just kept an eye on me. During the time I was there, I was permitted to call Sam in the evening, which I did every day. He seemed…annoyed with me calling and I turned that inward. It was my fault, I was bothering him, he was tired from work and I was interrupting his “decompression” time.

I know I’ve talked about the Voice before, but South Dakota is really where it took hold in my head. It has always been there, making me suspicious of the people in my life, but being unsure if your husband actually cares about whether or not you die is definitely a way for it to take control. I didn’t know what it was at the time, didn’t know it was my illness whispering lies to me, so I didn’t know to talk about it. It wasn’t a hallucination (I knew it was in my head), so the doctors didn’t give it a lot of thought. They thought it was me saying those things to myself… If we’d only known then what we know now…

I got out, went through a month of CBT group therapy, and finally admitted some things about my past that I’d had locked away in my head for years. The abuse when I was a child, the abandonment I felt, a lot of things. I had to admit that I suffered from PTSD as well as my bipolar, and the doctors amended my diagnosis to Bipolar Disorder II. This meant that I didn’t have standard “mania” episodes, but rather episodes of “hypomania”, a lesser form. For the record, this diagnosis is somewhat incorrect, but more on that later.

We discovered that my bipolar was rapid-cycling, meaning that I would be manic or depressed more than once or twice a year. There is no word for how rapidly I cycle. I will cycle sometimes on a weekly, daily, or hourly basis (usually dependant on what medication I’m taking and what stressors are in my life at the time). I was very stressed at the time. My home life was a wreck and I had no idea how to fix it. My husband’s paycheck was being garnished for medical bills we couldn’t afford to pay, and he refused to drive to the capital to get a form that would exempt him from having to be garnished (he didn’t make enough, and he was the sole provider in our home).

I descended further.

The next instance of something I remember clearly was the night I was so hungry (Sam hadn’t been able to get us groceries for a few nights), I went dumpster diving for a burger tossed out by my neighbors. I remember being freezing that night, and I remember smelling the burger smell coming from the dumpster. It didn’t occur to me at the time what I was doing; all I thought of was how hungry I was and how stupid it was to throw out an almost complete burger. It wasn’t until later, when my friend brought it up, that I realized I’d just taken a burger from a garbage bag in a dumpster in the middle of the night.

Now, during our marriage (of 10 years before we decided to separate), Sam and I had been only mildly physically intimate. At first it was because I was uncomfortable with sex (a LOT of back-story there), and I thought he was just being supportive. That opinion changed when we went two years without being physically intimate at all and then seven more in South Dakota with literally two instances of sex. One of which was a traumatizing blow job when he “finally” got an erection.

Sam had a porn addiction, but wouldn’t admit it. He’d hide the videos, I’d find and delete the videos, he’d pretend he didn’t notice and go download them again. I want to be clear here, I didn’t care that he was watching porn. Well, I cared that he could get hard for porn and not for me, but I was glad that his plumbing at least worked! What bothered me was the way he would hide it, making me feel like the villain any time I would bring it up. He was the innocent victim (one time he tried to blame it on the size of his hard drive, saying hackers were illegally downloading porn to his drive because it was so big—I’m not kidding), and I was the harpy shrew because I was accusing him. I didn’t understand (or even know) the term “gas-lighting” back then, but boy do I understand it now.

I would try to initiate intimacy, he would pull away. I would try to talk to him about it, about how it was a need of mine and I wanted to know what I could do to help him, he would deflect and blame his blood pressure medication or his stress at work. That isn’t to say that these couldn’t have been factors, but he didn’t care enough to discuss it with his doctor, or me, or anyone. He didn’t care enough to tell me that he just wasn’t interested in me sexually. He couldn’t be bothered.

I tried to approach the idea of having an open marriage, but he said that was “no marriage at all” and refused. In short, he kept me tied to his sexless lack of desire. And that wasn’t the only thing Sam kept me tied to.

I remember my mother coming to visit on the last birthday I had there. We stayed holed up in the hotel room all weekend because I was too afraid to leave. Clearly the medications weren’t working for me, but I was still a great actress. My mom had an idea that something was wrong, but she’d been trying for years to let me live my life the way I kept telling her I wanted to live it. It wasn’t her fault I was great at lying about what I wanted.

See, Sam had convinced me that I didn’t have any option outside of him. He made sure to reinforce this thought by reminding me that my family had stopped helping us financially, and that my friends didn’t care about me as much as he did. With the help of the Voice, he had me convinced that I couldn’t go anywhere, because no one would take me in, and I was clearly unable to support myself. I needed Sam. He was the only one taking care of me, and I couldn’t afford to lose that or I’d be on the streets and arguing with the sidewalk.

After that visit from my mom, in November, I didn’t leave the house until I left South Dakota, 11 months later. Picture that for a moment. Through FOUR DIFFERENT SEASONS, I didn’t leave the trailer. It was a wreck, because I was so tied up in knots that I couldn’t even leave to take out the trash by myself. Sam would tell me, “If you ever want to go somewhere, just take me to work and you can have the car for the day.” But I was too afraid to go somewhere alone. I couldn’t be alone, that was crazy talk! And he knew it was, the bastard. He knew damn well that I wouldn’t leave the house by myself, that I needed him with me, and he conveniently managed to always be too tired or too worn out or too stressed or too something to go anywhere with me.

*deep breath* I’m okay. This gets me a little riled up sometimes, but I’m okay.

I smoked a lot during that time. I wasn’t telling anyone in my life how stressed and alone I felt, so I turned to my cigarettes for comfort. At one point, I smoked a whole carton in less than a week. These aren’t menthols, either. Cloves. Hard stuff on the lungs. I smoked 160 of those in 4 days. Every time I turned around, I was smoking or eating, because I had nothing else to do and I felt like I was trash. Sam would bring home fast food rather than go to the store (he was too tired after work), so I lived on McDonald’s McChicken sandwiches for a few months at a time.

Even when I finally worked up enough courage to move out, it was with the understanding that Sam would follow me at some point (a reverse of the move to South Dakota). I had someone I had been seeing online for a few months. He and his mother offered to rent me a room in her house for less than $200 a month, something I could afford with the help of a good friend. Sam would join me when we found him work out there (in western New York), and we would hit that giant reset button again, only this time there would be a little bit of a support network.

I moved out in October of 2013 or 14, and that was the last time I saw Sam in person. I almost didn’t make my flight out, because he was dragging his feet that day. I think something in him knew that this was the end. Something in me knew it, but I didn’t want to listen to that part of me just yet. I went to New York and settled in, then started looking for work for Sam.

He didn’t know that the person I’d moved to be with (we’ll call him Mike, but again—that’s not his name) was my boyfriend. He thought it was just a friend. Or maybe he did know and just didn’t say anything. It doesn’t matter at this point. Mike’s mom helped me sort out possible jobs for Sam, because when he moved out there with me, we were going to be renting the other side of her duplex, and she’d get more than $200 a month from us. So she was totally on board. Funnily enough, the one person who wasn’t on board…was Sam.

When I tracked down a job for him and told him to send me a copy of his resume to forward on, he said no. He didn’t want to leave the job he was at (that was garnishing his wages and had caused him two strokes), because he’d put in so much time there, he didn’t want to lose seniority. I told him I wouldn’t be moving back, we had a barely-there argument, and I told him I would talk to him later.

Sam had been taking out paycheck advances from our joint bank account for a long time. We were informed by the bank that they would be halting that program, and everything needed to be repaid by X Y Z date. We had talked about it, he had agreed to work extra overtime to help pay for it so the bank account didn’t have trouble, and I thought that was the end of it. When I first moved to New York, I was still using the joint account, but none of Sam’s money. I had my own, from little bits of online work and help from friends, and I would simply use the account as a way to route the money to Mike’s mom for rent, or to my credit card bill.

I went to pay my rent one month, and realized that the bank account was overdrawn—by $800. Sam hadn’t worked the overtime, this I’d come to expect. Or he had, and just decided to fritter away the money on something else, like fast food and video games. Either way, the money wasn’t there, so the bank had taken its piece of flesh, including MY money. This was followed rather closely by seeing a repossession on my credit report. Sam had lost the car, because he had stopped paying for it. He had stopped paying for it because it stopped working and he didn’t feel he should be paying for something that didn’t run. (Again, I’m not kidding. This was actually his logic.)

I panicked once again, but this time I did something I’d never done before. I reached out to people in my hurt and frustration. I posted on Facebook (not my finest decision, but I had nowhere else to turn by then) that I was so angry by something “someone” had done. Sam’s response to this was to take personal offense and tell me that if I wanted a divorce, he wouldn’t contest it.

That was it. That was his FIRST response to me reaching out for help. To end our marriage. But not even that; if he’d had the balls to ask for a divorce himself, this would’ve all been over more quickly and with less pain. No, he avoided the blame yet again by saying that if I wanted a divorce, he wouldn’t contest it.

Of course he wouldn’t. That would require effort on his part, same as filing for the divorce himself.

It took me several months to even get my fingers to type the words “I want a divorce.” Thankfully, Mike’s mom had an ex-husband who had treated her pretty raw when he left, so she understood. We worked out the missing money (again, with the help of a great friend), and I finally started opening up to my family about Sam.

They were shocked. True, they’d known something wasn’t quite right, but for the past 10 years, they’d had no idea the isolation and psychological abuse he’d put me through. I started talking about it with my closest friends, apologizing profusely for not sharing sooner, and their only admonition was at my assuming they wouldn’t have taken me in. I felt like a fool, like a complete idiot for believing Sam all those years.

Mike and I eventually moved across the country, back to where my family was on the west coast. That was when I finally felt safe enough to tell Sam that I wanted a divorce. I also told him not to try to contact me directly, to send all correspondence (and my belongings) through my mother. He never made an attempt except when he thought he could get her “on his side”, something he never really managed. I started talking more candidly with my mom about everything that had happened, about how it had messed me up, about how he never had a clue what to do with a mentally ill wife. It took me a while longer to realize he knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it quite well.

Even after I filed for divorce (admittedly, a long time after everything—I suppose part of me was hoping he would do this one thing for me, after everything he took away, and file himself), he is still being the same selfish, lazy, unmotivated jerk. When he was served with papers, he had 20 days to respond. The response form is easily obtainable (along with instructions) from an easy-to-find website. He even told my mother he’d get right on it. That 20 days ran out the beginning of this year. It’s now almost February, and Sam never filed his response with the courts. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he’s not even printed the form.

Fortunately, Mike and I have some of the same issues to work through, so we get it. We know how to care for each other most of the time, and when we don’t, we fight. It sounds like a bad thing, but we get our emotions out, the deep-rooted causes come to light, and we can talk about it and work through it. That’s healthy, surprisingly. I live no more than ten miles from my mother (after 7 years of living 1700 miles away, it was truly hell for me), and I’m getting the help I need.

Sam still lives in that trailer. He works for another call center (the one he was so determined to keep laid him off a few months after our fight about it), and as far as I know, his life is the same. As far as I care, his life is the same. Literally the only thing I miss from that decade of my life is my cat.