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statusquoergo · 7 years ago

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suits keeps throwing timeline facts at me and i am incapable of leaving well enough alone. so! the revised, revised, revised histories of mike ross and harvey specter. (with one minor reference to rachel zane.)

ETA: a little bit of clarification for how to best interpret the timeline overall

ETA: thanks to @frivoloussuits for the point about mike being on the wrestling team in high school!

1971 Harvey is born HARVEY (to MIKE): You found the one mistake I made while drafting those bylaws a dozen years ago, when I was two years younger than you. (“Inside Track” s01e03)

1981 Mike is born MIKE (to NICK RINALDI): You don't take cases like that? What about your case from 1992? Driver plows into a car after drinking about 1,000 Jack and Cokes, killing a happily married couple? James and Nina Ross? (“Blind-Sided” s02e11)

1987 (Harvey is 16) Harvey catches his mother cheating on his father HARVEY (to MIKE re: LILY): I was 16 when I caught her cheating. (”High Noon” s02e10)

1988 (Mike is 7, Harvey is 17) Mike and Tess meet TESS (to RACHEL re: MIKE): Short story is, we've known each other since we were seven. (“High Noon” s02e10)

Harvey’s batting average is .385 HARVEY (to GORDON): I think you're maybe forgetting I hit .385. (“The Other Time” s03e06)

Harvey injures his shoulder and can’t play in the state championships, but his team wins anyway TRAVIS TANNER (to HARVEY): And I also know that during your senior year, you missed out on playing in the state championship because of your shoulder. … And what do you know? They won without you, Harvey. (“Undefeated” s01e09)

1989 (Mike is 8, Harvey is 18) Mike and Trevor meet, or have known each other for some time MIKE (to TREVOR): You know, that is word for word your offer before I got caught cheating on your math test in the third grade. (“Pilot" s01e01)

Harvey’s mother leaves his father HARVEY (to MIKE re: LILY): The next two years went by, I didn't say a thing, and she went right on just making him a fool. (”High Noon” s02e10)

1992 (Mike is 11) Mike's parents are killed MIKE (to HARVEY): When I was 11, my parents were involved in a really horrible accident. (“Blind-Sided” s02e11)

1994-1998 (Mike is 13-18) Mike attends St. Andrew's High School, and is a straight-A student and on the wrestling team

MIKE (to EDITH): Yeah, and you're not at school and all I do is get As. ("Faith" s05e10 [flashback, nonspecific])

MIKE (to RACHEL): I'm not going to apologize for my lithe physique, okay? And by the way, I was on the wrestling team in high school, so. ("Undefeated" s01e09)

After receiving an F on a history paper for cutting class on parent-teacher conference day, Mike transfers to public school MIKE: You gave that paper an F? It deserves an A. FATHER WALKER: What about the fact that you cut the entire afternoon last Tuesday? … I don't think it's a coincidence that you chose to cut class on parent-teacher conference day. … FATHER WALKER: So you're dropping out? MIKE: No, I'm going to public school. ("Faith" s05e10 [flashback, nonspecific])

1999 (Mike is 18-19, Harvey is 28) Mike’s college GPA is 3.8 MIKE (to TREVOR): But I still have a three-eight. There’s no way Harvard rescinds my acceptance. (“The Other Time” s03e06 [flashback, “TEN YEARS AGO”])

Mike applies to transfer to Harvard and is accepted, and subsequently expelled and his transfer revoked after he takes the fall for Trevor TREVOR: You got into Harvard, dickhead. MIKE: They accepted my transfer? TREVOR: Yeah, they did. … THE DEAN (to MIKE): The young woman you sold the test to was my daughter. They’re demanding my resignation. And as my last official act, I’m expelling you from this school. And then, I’m going to call Harvard. Believe me when I tell you, you’re never going there. (“The Other Time” s03e06 [flashback, “TEN YEARS AGO”])

Harvey drafts the McKernon Motors bylaws HARVEY (to MIKE): You found the one mistake I made while drafting those bylaws a dozen years ago, when I was two years younger than you. (“Inside Track” s01e03)

2000-2002 (Harvey is 29-31) Harvey starts working for Cameron Dennis at the District Attorney’s office (HARVEY [to ALEXANDRA LEEDS]): I worked as an Assistant District Attorney for the County of New York for two years. … An attorney by the name of Jessica Pearson helped me get through law school. And she felt that I could use trial experience. (“Rules of the Game” s01e11)

Harvey meets and hires Donna DONNA: You know, usually when someone wins their first trial, they at least pretend to finish the drink their fellow ADAs bought them. HARVEY: I'm sorry, do we— DONNA: Know each other? Not yet. But today's your lucky day. HARVEY: And why is that? DONNA: Because it's the day you get to meet Donna. (“Not Just a Pretty Face” s04e16 [flashback, nonspecific])

Harvey borrows $150,000 from Charles Forstman and loans it to Marcus HARVEY: My brother needs $150,000 for a new restaurant. … CHARLES FORSTMAN: We’re not a good fit. Because restaurants fail. And when this one does, you'll leave. So, you might as well leave right now. HARVEY: Then how about we bet on it? (“Not Just a Pretty Face” s04e16 [flashback, nonspecific])

Harvey meets Alex Williams HARVEY: Well, I've known him for 15 years, and I'm vouching for him. ("The Statue" s07e02)

2003 (Harvey is 32) Harvey quits the District Attorney’s office and returns to Pearson Hardman as a sophomore associate HARVEY: I decided what kind of attorney I want to be. DONNA: I heard. You quit. … HARVEY (to JESSICA): Instead of thinking about what I want to be doing in ten years, I started thinking about who I want to be doing it with. … JESSICA (to HARVEY): So, let me get this straight. You turned me down before, and now you're saying you want to come back? … Welcome back, Harvey. You start Monday. (“The Other Time” s03e06 [flashback, nonspecific])

MIKE: Where did you go for your rookie dinner? HARVEY: I came into the league a sophomore. ("Inside Track" s01e03)

Harvey hires Rahim “Ray” Benghazi as his personal chauffeur HARVEY: Ray’s worked for me eight years. (”Bail Out” s01e05)

2007 (Mike is 26, Harvey is 36) Mike and Trevor meet Nikki and Jenny MIKE (to TREVOR): Oh, yeah, that girl, Nikki, called me. … I don't know, it's I just felt like I kind of hit it off more with that Jenny girl, that's all. (“Rewind” s02e08 [flashback, "FIVE YEARS AGO"])

Mike and Harvey have their forgotten first meeting

MIKE: Look at this clown. He walks like he’s got a rod up his ass. TREVOR: Nice haircut, guy. MIKE: Man, if I ever look like that, shoot me. (“Rewind” s02e08 [flashback, "FIVE YEARS AGO"])

Mike agrees to take the LSATs for Nikki NIKKI (to MIKE): I want to pay you $1000 to take the LSATs for me. (“Rewind” s02e08 [flashback, "FIVE YEARS AGO"])

Gordon Specter dies

DONNA (to HARVEY): Your dad. He had a heart attack. (“Rewind” s02e08 [flashback, "FIVE YEARS AGO"])

Harvey is a Senior Associate

(“Rewind” s02e08 [flashback, "FIVE YEARS AGO"])

Harvey is promoted to Junior Partner HARVEY (to LOUIS): You know, I just figured I'd treat myself for making Junior Partner. (“Rewind” s02e08 [flashback, "FIVE YEARS AGO"])

2008 (Mike is 27) Mike courts Claire Bowden and lies about being a law student at Columbia; she finds out and breaks up with him CLAIRE: Where do you go? MIKE: Mmm-mmm. You first. Where do you go? CLAIRE: NYU. MIKE: Columbia. … CLAIRE: Please get away from me. Nathan told me everything. MIKE: Wait, please. Let me explain, okay? CLAIRE: No. (“Fork in the Road” s04e13 [flashback, “SIX YEARS AGO”])

Against Edith’s wishes, Mike moves in with Trevor MIKE: His name is Trevor, and he's my best friend. I'm going to do this thing with or without your blessing. But it sure would be nice to have it. EDITH: Okay, Michael. I'm not going to lie to you and pretend I approve. But you're a grown man and I respect your decision. (“Fork in the Road” s04e13 [flashback, “SIX YEARS AGO”])

Rachel is hired at Pearson Hardman JESSICA: I'm hiring you because I like what I see. RACHEL: Hiring me? JESSICA: You start Monday, if that's not too much trouble. RACHEL: I will be the first one in. (“Fork in the Road” s04e13 [flashback, “SIX YEARS AGO”])

2009 (Mike is 28) Mike is broke and banned from a casino in Atlantic City for card counting MIKE: I'm sort of banned from here. HARVEY: For smoking weed? MIKE: Counting cards, I mean, I was smoking weed, but they banned me for counting cards. … It was three years ago. (“All In” s02e06)

2011 (Mike is 30, Harvey is 40) Harvey is promoted to Senior Partner and required to hire an associate JESSICA (to HARVEY): Well, I would, Harvey, except all senior partners get an associate. It's just a rule. (“Pilot” s01e01)

#suits usa #fanfiction #timeline

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prqltothesql · 6 years ago

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XMas Eve Thoughts

Hi all, it’s been a while...

My sister back in June graduated from high school. She was in Integration B classes and had an IEP. She has a “learning disability” and a “speech disability” but has never been formally diagnosed with autism or ADHD or ADD or anything. I think it’s because my dad doesn’t want to face the reality that after having me and me being so smart and successful and “normal” that he has a special needs child. Because she’s been like this since before my mom died, because my mom was pushing for her to get evaluated back then and he refused. Anyways, she had an IEP and everytime we started to make some headway and get Rachel on the right path, the IEP chair would leave and we��d get some new rando in and we had to start from square one. Her last few years in HS, she didn’t have much of a social life. Her social skills were so bad to the point that it was actively affecting her negatively and almost getting her in trouble. My dad, who was totally done parenting after 27 years of doing it and 22 straight years dealing with the school system, was content to push her to just keep her head down, don’t talk to anyone, don’t interact with anyone, just go in and get out. And the school seemed content to do the same. They would put her in classes just small enough to not warrant a paraprofessional. Her senior year, they put her in the bare minimum classes she needed to graduate and she had an every other day schedule. They wanted to just get her out the door as fast as possible (while still raking in her IEP funding I’m sure). So as such, she graduated with a 2.5 GPA, finishing with a D in culinary arts, which was her main career tract at her high school, and so post-HS she has been set up with absolutely no future. She’s not smart/poised/focused enough to get a job or go to college. The only thing she’d really be qualified at doing is being a Walmart greeter or one of the people at BJ’s that clips your receipts. In a perfect world, she’s very bossy and goal-oriented when she wants to be, and very detail oriented with certain things, so part of me thinks she’d be great at somewhere like McDonalds, knowing where everything is supposed to go and how everything is supposed to be done. However, she has no social skills. She is awful at communicating. She has no reasoning skills. She can’t rationally defend anything she does, and she acts irrationally and stupid a lot of the time, so it’s not even like she does something weird (we all do) and explain it. She does something dumb and then gets accosted about it and has no explanation. In the hustle and bustle of a job, there is no way she’d be able to hang. She’d either figure it out or get fired very quickly. She 100% would need someone there with her holding her hand the whole way and she’d have to be committed to getting better. So since June when she graduated HS, she has been home all day every day. She has nowhere to go, nothing to do, so her routine has been the same for the last 7 months. She goes to bed whenever she wants, wakes up between 9 and 10, gets on her phone. Lays around until 11am, then goes upstairs. Sits on her phone for another hour. Comes downstairs and showers around 12. Takes 45 minutes to shower because she takes her phone in the bathroom with her. Then comes upstairs and sits in her robe for another 45 minutes on her phone drying off. Then finally comes downstairs at 1:30ish, 4-5 hours after she’s woken up, close to 4 hours spent on her phone, and then plops down on the couch, pops open a soda, grabs a snack and continues to just sit on her phone. She doesn’t do anything without being asked. She has no sense of forethought. Doesn’t think about anything besides what’s on her phone. When she is asked to do something, her mind is not focused on it. Because she’s so scatterbrained, she messes things up and people get upset. And it’s been months of this. I go a few days of sitting around doing nothing and I feel just miserable and awful and start manufacturing grocery shopping trips just to get out of the house. So I can’t imagine months, or in my dad’s case, years. This ties into my dad. So, he’s been a stay at home dad my entire life. He was a musician so anytime he had to work, it was on the weekends. So he’s never been consistently gainfully employed my entire life. My mom didn’t make a lot of money working as a bank teller, so things were rough but they always made sure I was good and provided for no matter what. My stepmom made a ton of money, and once again, she made sure everything was provided for. Almost to a fault. So he’s had no reason to get a job. He’s been at home raising us, watching the house, recording when he could, playing out when he could, although that dried up, fixing and doing repairs on the house, which he’d been doing since before I was born. So after Nancy left, it was the three of us here. We had 9 dogs, and within 18 months, that number dwindled to 6 and later 4 and now we’re down to 3. My sister received SSI income which was from my mom’s child support. My mom had to pay child support, then got sick and had to stop working so it got taken over by the state as SSI income. When my stepmom left, she continued to support the house for 3 years until finally deciding to file for divorce from my dad and encouraged my dad to file for alimony. She encouraged my dad to take money from her. So anyways, he did that, so for 4 years, he got alimony payments, after 2 years he applied for early retirement and also got Rachel’s SSI. I never pried at how much it was, but I’d like to think it was at least $2000. Since Rachel graduated, her SSI stopped. So now we’re down to about $1300 a month. I agreed when Nancy stopped paying bills that I’d pay all of the bills except my dad would pay the most expensive two. That lasted maybe a month or two before I took over the cable bill, which has shot up $40 since I’ve started paying it. He pays the electric bill, which varies from $200-350 depending on the month/season. So I pay water, cable/internet, in addition to my then car payment, my auto insurance which has shot up since I had to add him as a driver and his truck to my policy, and then also the cellphone bill, which shot up when I got him and Rachel (and later myself) all new phones. So anyways, he always stays at home. He’s worried about the house basically falling down. It was my grandmother’s house my whole life. We lived here while she lived down the beach or at my aunt’s or uncle’s. She lived with us for about a year in 2008-09 and was nuts and very cantankerous, always fighting with my dad. My dad would wake up in a pissy mood as he is want to do, and my grandmother would wake up in a mood and threaten to kick us all out that day, for absolutely no reason. So she moved out after I graduated HS. Let me backtrack. So, this house was one of the first built in this neighborhood back in, I don’t know, the 40s or 50s? Everything done on this house was done way before county codes or regulations or anything. So it was mostly done amateur, piecemealed, done with no thought process, thrown together. The floors are awful. The drainage sucks to the point where anything nearing an inch of rain floods our basement where my dad sleeps and has all of his stuff (and the only working bathroom in the house). The pool is positioned outside HIGHER THAN THE FOUNDATION OF THE HOUSE. So yes, it slopes down to our back porch and water just pours in under our porch to our basement. The patio out back takes up almost the entire width of the side yard and is poured concrete. It is also higher than the house. Before the current swimming pool, they dug one themselves and installed it themselves and it was awful and they eventually used it as a dumping ground for garbage, old cars, etc. When they had the good pool put in, they eventually had to put it in so high because of so much crap and debris in the backyard. So anyways, long story short, this house has a ton of fucking problems. Nothing is up to code because everything was done unprofessionally in the strictest sense of the word. Everything was just done just to do it. So when we lived here and Nancy was making buku money, they never really did anything. They put new windows in out of necessity. They never did anything with the pool. They had a load of stone brought in for no reason other than to put around the pool, which didn’t help anything and has made things very difficult for the last DECADE out back. Their rationale was that, the house didn’t belong to them. They didn’t want to sink money into it and then they wind up not getting the house or something happen and then it’s wasted. So we all just kind of put up with a crappy quality of life in a lot of aspects simply because the ADULTS in the house didn’t want to deal with it. Fast forward: my grandmother left in 2009 and shortly after leaving, asked my aunt to take her to a lawyer and revise her will to remove my dad. He was supposed to get the house and both me and my sister were to each get $10000. Or something like that. So when she passed, they executed the will and we learned we weren’t getting the house. My aunt, doing sort of the right thing, made sure we were able to still stay here. But in doing so, she didn’t revise the will to give it to my dad anyways. The house was to be evenly divided between me, my sister and two or three other family members, that’s what the will stated. To make sure we had sole ownership, my aunt took the money me and Rachel were supposed to get and bought out the other members of the family and put me and Rachel’s names on the house as sole owners. This left my dad with absolutely nothing. This was emotionally and mentally crushing. He’d sacrificed so much and put himself through hell for his parents and his mom and this house and then to be left with nothing for it was just unbelievably tragic. So he basically has all of his stuff here, his music equipment, a garage full of stuff, all of his guitars, and that’s all he has. He tries to protect this house the best he can and tries to take care of it so that we have a nice place to live, even after he is gone. So he sacrifices his life so that he can stay here. So he stays here all day long every day. A thing about my dad that I’ve learned is that he’s a goalpost mover. He’s such a master orator, and I’m so gullible or such a good listener that I believe what he says. On the flipside, he’s a master gaslighter as well. He can make you believe the grass is blue, because he’ll yell, he’ll get emotional and if you disagree, then he guilts you for not agreeing with him. Like when my stepmom up and left after my sophomore year of college, she came around for a few weeks to help and drop off groceries, but a week later when my dad already was sleeping around, she cut off all contact and stopped communicating with us. My dad assumed that she went on a vacation to England. He would spend literally hours upstairs ranting and raving to me about this. She wound up just being pissed at him, and in that time frame, she went to Disney World with her grandkids. But he had me so upset and so convinced. Anyways, he would proclaim incessantly when Nancy lived here that he was “taking his house back.” All the time. Never did anything. All I heard about for years was “When Rachel turns 12″ “When Rachel turns 14″ “When Rachel turns 16″ “When Rachel turns 18″ “When Nancy comes and gets half of these dogs” “When you start paying half the bills in this house.” Things would finally change. He’d repeat these nonstop. Like all of a sudden when Rachel turns a certain age, she transforms into a normal child. Or like, a switch appears on the wall that when you flick it, money will rain from the sky. When Nancy gets half the dogs, we can finally live a normal life. When I start paying half the bills in the house, then I can start having a say at what goes on. Needless to say, none of this has come to pass. Ever. I believed it though. When Nancy left, I thought he’d take over, things would get calmer, we’d get everything back on track. Instead, things got more chaotic. When the first bills started coming in, and I was still in college with no job, he had no job, we had all of these dogs, we had barely any money, instead of going, “Damn, we gotta figure this out,” he opened the bills and broke down literally openly sobbing in front of us on the kitchen floor. Then went downstairs and I could still hear him having a mental breakdown, sobbing. That image and the sound of him sobbing is etched in my memory to this day. When Rachel turned a certain age, he would always say, “Oh when she’s this age, I’ll be able to go out more, I’ll be able to do more stuff on my own.” So I was like, “Cool, I just have to wait things out until then and then everything is gonna be fine and normal.” Never happened. She’d turn that age and the magic switch wouldn’t flip, and he’d get madder and more depressed and things would keep getting worse. When this insane situation happened on my 22nd birthday and Nancy came and took half of the dogs, leaving us with only 4, I thought “Okay good, our lives are gonna be calmer and nicer now.” Nope, on a weekly basis, he’d still lose it and scream about having these dogs. When I got a job and started getting paid and taking care of the bills and buying groceries and helping out, did I suddenly get more of a voice? No, I was still talked down to like I didn’t know anything and my opinion still didn’t matter. The big one was that when Rachel turned 18/graduated HS, things were gonna change. He was going to go out and explore the world, go do more things on his own. And I was looking forward to it. Sure, I have my life, but if that means I need to burn more vacation days or try to figure out working from home, or if I have to quit band or miss band or whatever, that’s fine. If it means that he’s going to have a life and be happier, then great! I’ll do it. But he refuses. His thing he started back in May of last year was this obsession with going hiking and going camping. He wanted really badly to go to Big Meadows/Shenandoah National Park and go hiking/camping on the Appalachian Trail. So he spent weeks, months, hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours outfitting the back of his truck turning it into a camper. Building custom tables, shelving, drawers, storage, buying batteries and supplies and stuff. He went once. The weather was never right for him to go, and the one weekend it was, he couldn’t go because I paid to get a new pool filter put in, and TWO WEEKS BEFORE IT WAS INSTALLED, he thought he had to spend two weeks prepping for it, which included not going away that weekend. Then when he went, he got it in his head that he had to take Rachel because she hadn’t been anywhere all summer and he had to take her to get her out of the house. This of course has been the main plot point this year. He takes her, and she is of course a gigantic problem because she’s not a functional adult. She attempts to cook and neglects to clean a pot and gets sick and nearly gets him sick. She doesn’t eat the rest of the trip. She doesn’t do anything. He’s stuck watching her and can’t do anything. So he’s miserable, she’s miserable, she’s no help. And that’s it. So after the whole blowup with the pool pump, I made the decision, at the behest of my friend, to start attending therapy. I’ve gone once a week pretty consistently since July. I’m not suicidal. I’m not a health risk. I’m not overly depressed. I just need help coping with my family. And I think we’ve recently gotten to the point where we’re figuring everything out and it’s been hitting me over the last two weeks when things have been tense around here. I’m functional and my family is not. My sister is incapable of dealing with anything. She has no concept of turning the focus on or off when she needs to. She has no common sense or critical thinking. She does things and has no ability to justify or explain her actions. When you pin her to the wall, she clams up and doesn’t communicate. She does what she thinks you want her to do, even if that thing is also incorrect, and then she doesn’t explain why she did it. So she’s not a normal functional person. My dad becomes apoplectic at any sign of adversity. Dogs make a mess? Scream and yell. A thing you have to do? Freak out. And granted, he’s been doing it so long, he’s just over it. But yet he refuses to try to improve his station in life. It’s not like these are things he’s doing in addition to his normal life, this is his life. And he’s done it for so long, he’s so engrained and feels like he can’t change it. I’d like to think I’m a normal functional person. At any adversity, I think critically and think of ways I can fix things so that everybody wins and I face the least amount of blowback. I take things in stride and try not to freak out. I work a 9-5 job 5 days a week that involves a lot of interpersonal communication. I teach band 3 days a week which involves managing 12+ HS kids and communicating with other adults. I try to stay active. When things happen around here, sure, I get mad like anyone else, but it’s not these gigantic blowups like my dad has. And trust me, there’s plenty of times where I could just absolutely fucking rage. When I ask my sister not to lock the cat in my room all day, especially with no food or water. And then my sister locks the cat in my room and says “Oh I was gonna put her in there to feed her but then we were out of cat food” and then doesn’t text me saying we were out, doesn’t even give the cat water, and then the cat has nowhere to go to the bathroom so she pees on a pair of my sweatpants, which I wear a lot in my room because it’s 10* colder up here than the rest of my house. And I find all of this at the end of a work day (or god forbid a 13 hour work + band day). So the last two weeks since we’ve kind of hit this breakthrough has been incredibly eye-opening to me. Most of my home experiences have been me trying to be proactive to avoid my non-functional sister fucking something up and my non-functional dad losing it. Constantly living in a state of anxiety, wondering when you’re gonna hear “GOD DAMMIT” or “FUCK” screamed from downstairs and then banging of doors and more screaming and yelling, and your dad screaming awful things. Or you’re just doing something ordinary, maybe even just having a nice conversation, and then he launches into this emotionally depressing speech about how crazy Rachel is driving him and like, the pit of my stomach just drops. And this happens daily, multiple times a day. Something will happen, we’ll ask Rachel a question, we need an answer, she can’t think of what we want to hear, or she’ll be trying to formulate an answer in her head, and he’ll lose patience and snap. Maybe he’ll call her a retard, or tell her she has no hope and no future, and that he hopes she doesn’t get fat because she’s gonna have to marry a rich lawyer if she ever wants to make it in the world. THESE ARE THINGS THAT HAVE ALL BEEN SAID OUT LOUD TO HER, MALICIOUSLY BY MY DAD, HER OWN FATHER. As ashamed as I am to say it, these things come out too. Because if 1/3 of my life is at work and 1/3 is asleep, the other 1/3, I’m being gaslit by him. I’m being influenced by him. So like, another thing we’ve talked about at therapy is how things affect me. I’m always thinking about other people and them, and sure, it makes me feel really bad that these people act this way, but I also feel for them. For Rachel who can’t think for herself, for my dad who’s been shit on his whole life. But I never talk about me and how bad I’m feeling, or I talk and run down my dad and how miserable he is and how miserable it’s making me, and then I have to backtrack and defend him and even put some of the blame on myself for feeling this way. So I guess I’ll be open about me. So, my college career sucked. The first two years of college, I went into Computer Engineering because I wanted to do networking. That wound up not being for me. I did really really bad, because they made you take Physics and Chemistry and I did poorly in both of those classes. All of the math, I aced. The computer science stuff I did well when it wasn’t a class that made me build a video game. I hated that. So after my third semester, two things happened. I took an ELEG205 test that I studied for and got a 0 on. He gave me no credit on the test, and honestly that day I thought about just leaving his office and walking out onto Academy and letting myself get hit by a bus. I did some soul-searching and research and decided to change my major to Computer Science. Easier course-load, more relevant stuff to my interest, more flexibility and diversity in what classes I could take. I was back to taking history, German, stuff I loved and thrived in during HS. Right around that time, my parents also decided that I had to move back home. My grades weren’t the straight A’s they were accustomed to when I was in HS (my final GPA was around a 3.9) because I was irresponsible. When the work got too hard I just gave up. I’d sleep late, I’d spend way too much time goofing off with my friends. I had a tumultuous relationship with a girlfriend who’s parents wouldn’t let her sniff a college campus. Then I had a tumultuous relationship with a girl who I fucked up the whole thing because I was still kind of in an on again off again with the first girl. I did a drumline that rehearsed all day on Sundays, which ate into study time and wound up being cool for networking and getting my name out but nothing for making me better and negatively affected everything to do with me. So my first two years at school sucked and much of it was my fault. My parents thought that me moving home was the best idea because they could get me back on a consistent schedule. I think my stepmom saw it as her way out. Things had been getting worse around the house, I was moving home to help, this was her chance to move out. So I had to take the bus for the next three years. I say three because I didn’t graduate on time. The bus was so awful that even when I was on time for it, it would be late, and I had to take two connecting buses to get to Newark, so one being late would most likely screw me up. And the commute took three times as long as a car. So the normal 20-30 minute drive would be an hour and a half one way. And sometimes the bus would be on time and get there super quick, sometimes it’d be super late. Sometimes it’d be crowded or bumpy. I couldn’t get any studying or reading done. I couldn’t focus on anything because I had to keep an eye on where I was, what stop was coming up, etc. I’d be stepping off a bus into a sprint to get to a class on time some days. Or stepping off of an hour and a half bus ride into a 75-minute lecture. Not only that, Nancy leaving ruined my dad mentally and emotionally, so most of my home life became him trying to recover from this breakup and when it wasn’t that, it was helping him with stuff. I had little to no time to study or focus on school. My grades suffered. I remember I had a final once that my first bus was late, which made me late for my second bus, so I made it into Newark 45 minutes late, which was a day that I had a final. I walked in and the professor said, “No,” and ushered me out into the hallway to yell at me for being late so much and then late to the final. I had to drop a class twice because I was late and not on campus so much and the entire class hinged upon group work and this one big group project that I could never devote time to. My best classes were ones that required not a lot of at-home studying or reading or planning. Just basic homework and basic studying for exams and easy-to-follow lectures. Anything mid-high college level, I was atrocious at. When it became clear I wasn’t gonna graduate, I needed something that summer just to carry me. So I applied for a few summer internships and part-time jobs in my field, just to do something. I wound up interviewing at the same place I’m at now. I got there about an hour early because the bus either got me there an hour early or an hour late for my interview. So I got Dunkin and sat in the park down by my job and ate it, hoping that things could turn around for me. I wound up getting the job. I almost got fired 3 months in because I no-call-no-showed one day. I was having a really tough time adjusting to having a job, having some money, but still trying to have a social life. Things were really hard at home that particular week as well. So I skipped work to go into Newark for something and never got back to anyone and they said they were gonna fire me the next day. They actually told me, “You missed work and didn’t tell anyone you weren’t gonna be there. So Brian is gonna let you go tomorrow. I wouldn’t even come in tomorrow if I were you.” I tried asking for my boss’s number to call him and he wouldn’t give it to me. My team leader asked him to reconsider. I came in the next day and got chewed out but told him I was sorry and that I was having trouble with things and I’d be more consistent. From then on, I never did that again. I wound up staying on and they worked with my schedule while I tried taking some classes and finishing up my degree, and even still work with my schedule of coming in a little later, as long as I hit the 8 hour a day mark, they don’t really care. And I am eternally grateful for that. So with having a part-time job that eventually turned full-time, I was making good money that kept getting better and better. I was hourly at first ($15 an hour) working 25-40 hours a week, and eventually I decided that the money was more important than school. Especially since I didn’t have a car, I was running out of money, and my schedule still didn’t allow me to be on campus much. I had done everything I was supposed to do at that point except graduate college. So I took the job working full-time salaried at ISM. I saw a pay increase and was able to start taking care of things around the house. That’s why when Nancy filed for divorce and slowly cut off my dad and Rachel from insurance, the truck insurance, our cellphone plans, etc., I was able to step in and help. We didn’t have a mortgage cause the house was already well paid for and not sold in the will, just transferred, and no rent. So paying for the bills + my student loans + eventually getting a car, all of that was covered under my salary. While still being a kid in the house next to Rachel, not being on my dad’s level, I was pulling in nearly $50000 basically two years out of college and supporting my family. If I met another person that pulled in a comparable salary, we’d have an incredibly stable household. Instead what I had was someone that made maybe half of that if we were lucky, eventually only about 1/4 of that. I had a house that required work totalling double what I make in a year. A house with no working bathroom upstairs so the only working shower requires going through my dad’s “room” in the basement which he complains about us violating his privacy. A house with an ancient rusting pool that requires a high level of upkeep. A house that floods if you get so much as a heavy drizzle. A house with no central air, so the upstairs is sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter. A house that the ADULTS that lived here for 50 years prior didn’t do a goddamn thing to fix up. A dad who in giving up his life to make sure I had a great one, now is in a molasses-like stubborn state of depression. A sister who got little to no parenting from her dad who was over raising kids. A sister who needed more parenting that anyone because she was developmentally stunted. A sister who now that she’s 18 is not even not helping, but actively making things harder and more negative around here. A dad who requires a high level of assistance and help and another “adult” in the house who is wholly incapable of helping you provide that need and who needs help themselves. Yet me, everything seems to be totally on me. I bought a car, a used 2004 car. Nobody helped me buy it. Nobody guided me to buy the right one. It wound up developing a ton of issues and I tried my best to fix them and fix it up but this year wound up killing me financially because my car had so many issues. So I went basically into debt, taking out loans so I didn’t have to borrow from my dad because he does nothing but complain about money and how tight he is financially. He offers to help with things, but every offer to help is wrapped around a lecture or a giant speech about how he does for others and doesn’t get anything in return. I don’t know what the point of all of this was. It was gonna be about how much I like the stuff I like because my life sucks and the stuff I enjoy gives me solace, but wound up turning into a Reader’s Digest of my last 7 months of therapy. Whoops.

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choirbattlerp · 8 years ago

Photo

QUINN FABRAY • Troubletones • 21 • Junior • Journalism Major

BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN…

Quinn Fabray was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her father was a well respected lawyer and her mother was a top socialite. Quinn was given any and everything she could’ve asked for growing up but it came with a price. She had to uphold a perfect image which wasn’t easy to do considering Quinn wasn’t as perfect looking as she liked to have been. Quinn or Lucy which is her Christian name wasn’t an ugly child but she sure wasn’t the beauty queen everyone was expecting when it came to the child of Judy and Russel Fabray. Still, Quinn did her best to keep up a perfect image. She got amazing grades in school and was part of several clubs but it still wasn’t enough. All the other kids around her with successful parents were better looking than her.

In seventh grade Lucy took up gymnastics and cheer and it started to give her the body she wanted. The summer before ninth grade her dad got a new job offer and they had to move to a new state. Before the move Lucy begged her parents to call her by her middle name and also begged for a nose job. They both gave in, giving their daughter what she desired, and soon Quinn Fabray was born.

Going to a new state would’ve been terrifying for most kids. Being unsure of the area and if they’d make new friends or not but not for Quinn. For her this was an opportunity to be someone new. She was finally beautiful and she was going to make the most of it. She soon joined her high schools cheerleading team and formed a new club called the Celibacy Club. Quinn was the perfect Christian girl and it made her parents proud of her but the pressure to be perfect became even worse. Quinn always had to outdo herself to stay on top. On top of the social ladder and on top in her parents minds. Quinn soon became the youngest head cheerleader in her schools history by gaining the title her sophomore year of high school. A title she held onto and used to help lead her team to National wins every year of her high school career. Quinn won Homecoming Queen every year as well as Prom Queen her junior and senior year of high school. She even dated the Quarterback who was her high school sweetheart.

When it came time to applying for colleges Quinn only applies to the best of the best. Yale, Harvard, and Densmore. Her parents had no idea she applies to Densmore at first. It wasn’t an awful school but it definitely wasn’t as prestigious or perfect as Yale and Harvard. To no surprise Quinn was accepted into all three schools. Her ACT/SAT scores were near perfect and her GPA was a solid 4.2, landing her Valedictorian when she graduated. But the pressure of being perfect weighed heavily on the blonde. It was hard being her and she was scared if she continued on to a school like Yale or Harvard she would burn out before her life could even begin.

Keeping two of the three acceptance letters from her parents she told her first lie to them. She admitted to applying to Densmore as a back up just in case, but she lied when she told them that was the only school to accept her. Her father offered to pull strings at the other schools but Quinn insisted Densmore was fine and she wanted to get into the college the right and honest way. Her parents were still happy she was accepted somewhere and happily agreed to pay for her tuition.

Quinn told them she was going to follow into her fathers footsteps and study law but that was another lie. Quinn took a journalism class as an elective in high school and she fell in love with the idea of being a journalist ever since. She went off the Densmore her freshman year and wasn’t too fond of her first year roommate but she made due with her situation. She mostly stayed to herself and focused on school work. One day Quinn overheard students talking about the New Directions and Quinn thought the idea was hilarious and couldn’t be real. She sat in on a rehearsal once and was instantly captivated. Quinn had no idea show choir existed and she had no idea she’d fall in love with that, too.

Quinn soon auditioned for the show choir and got in. She spent the next two years balancing school, her new job as a cocktail waitress, and show choir. She loved every moment though and then she met Finn Hudson. It was like being back in high school again. He was cute and definitely gave her butterflies. Soon after making the first move they were an item. Quinn felt like the queen bee she once was yet again. Their whole team admired them and every time they sang a duet it was like heaven. But this bliss only lasted for so long. As time went on Quinn noticed Finn looking at Rachel just a little too long, and he started to sing just a few more duets with her than Quinn. Every time Quinn would confront him he’d deny it but she knew better.

Quinn tried to save the relationship. She even went past her morals and offered to go all the way with him but that didn’t seem to work either. Quinn was back to being high school Quinn. Wanting, no, needing everything to be perfect. She had to be perfect and Finn was perfect for her image. Sadly, it didn’t work out and Finn’s obvious heart eyes towards Rachel was getting to be too much. Quinn broke things off with Finn and not even two seconds after dumping him, she quit the New Directions and joined the Troubletones. Quinn claims to be much happier with this show choir and she admits it is more fun to be a part of. Though Quinn mostly did it as revenge to add salt to the wound. If Finn couldn’t be upset over their break up Quinn was going to give him something to be upset about.

Quinn has no intentions of returning to the New Directions and is working hard to ensure another Nationals win for the Troubletones. Quinn will do anything to get revenge on Finn and Rachel, but most importantly, she’ll do anything to be perfect again.

CARRY ME HOME TONIGHT...

* @queenfabray: I’ll never understand why people feel the need to share every little detail on social media. Save some of your life for yourself. * @queenfabray: As much as I hate to say it I’m ready for Pumpkin Spiced Lattes to make their return. They make studying a bit easier for some reason. * @queenfabray: A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep.

CONNECTIONS

➤ FINN HUDSON: Quinn and Finn used to date until a couple months ago. They were the big couple on campus, mostly because Quinn said so, until just recently. While they did appreciate each other in some ways, the chemistry just wasn’t there and Finn did, admittedly, seem to pay much more attention to Rachel than he did to his own girlfriend. So, Quinn dumped him and consequently quit the New Directions. She has since joined the Troubletones, partly as a sort of revenge for the way she was made to feel and partly because somewhere within her, she did enjoy show choir. Their breakup is still fresh and so things range from awkward to incredibly tense, but the physical separation of different choirs does help.

➤ RACHEL BERRY: To put it simply, Rachel infuriates Quinn. It had been obvious to her how much Rachel had been interested in Finn and Quinn wasn’t a fan of losing her boyfriend or his attention to some random girl from show choir. Ever since their breakup, this tension has only worsened, especially with Quinn having joined the Troubletones. Admittedly, she’d like nothing more than to continue to beat New Directions (and Rachel) at every competition and get some revenge.

➤ SEBASTIAN SMYTHE: Due to a similar family background and upbringing, Quinn and Sebastian quickly found plenty of similarities to base at least a casual friendship on. Popular and well-situated seeks its kind, it seems. After Quinn’s break-up with Finn, it was Sebastian who convinced her to join the Troubletones. After all, Quinn does have a pretty voice and, on top of that, stealing members away from their competitors is one of his favorite past-time activities.

#f #*#troubletones #t

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