#i always say shit like this and nothing changes about me being agnostic/atheist

[fujimen]

GOD IS REAL THE BEST ALBUM (11:11 by Illionaire Records) FINALLY DROPPED ON SPOTIFY

[janiedean]

I really, really love your metas! In "Why a Jaime/Brienne Endgame in the Books Makes More Sense Than One Might Think, Based on Previous Works of GRRM's" you wrote, that you have endless reasons to assume that both, J and B, will survive the whole series - can you please name some? Aside from this mentioned meta I've only read an explantion of the weirwood dream, which can be interpreted in both ways. Or can you link a good meta that explains other reasons? Thank you very much!

hey!

first of all thank you so much, glad that you appreciate my rants. ;) that said, sure I can go in-depth. in order (btw @ginmo has written also some excellent meta about this, just check on her blog), and also counting the weirwood dream which I’ve ranted on at length in that specific meta:

now, the first thing is how grrm strategically placed these two in the narrative, in the sense that:

brienne has spent her life being passed for a joke and she desperately wants for someone to see her worth as a person and she’d about kill herself for the people who manage to get as far as to gain her trust/love, jaime has spent his life loving people without getting much in return and with that trust being used/abused/thrown away and everyone taking it for granted... and we’re assuming they’re not set up to be together when as stated grrm has written them as romantic from the first moment?

(also, jaime’s entire first chapter in asos is basically ‘I find brienne attractive but since I never considered that I could be attracted to anyone but cersei I can’t understand I’m attracted to her so I’ll stare at her and think she’s ugly all along even if I really am attracted to her. brienne’s issues are also rooted in the fact that no one sees her as attractive. jaime does. hmmm?)

both of them start from a miserable situation from which they’re finding their own way up, not down - jaime is more obvious but brienne is too because she starts at the point where she’s so starved for recognition she would die for someone who just was nice to her but didn’t really gaf about her and now she’s... well, becoming a knight because sure af that is happening, I’m sticking with the theory that the knighting is book canon too -, and if they both end up miserable or one of them does it doesn’t work;

both of their chapters have heavy foreshadowing concerning possible marriage/having children/finding love - jaime wants to father his kids and at some point resents that other men are husbands and fathers but not him because he was always the warrior and he doesn’t say it happily, brienne is half-glad her first betrothed died because she thinks she’s not suited to typical feminine things/to fit into a woman’s role in society but she’s also sad at thinking she will never have children, these two are going to get together very soon, and I’m supposed to think they’re set up for failure? k but I can respectfully disagree;

also, this goes back to that meta I wrote in which I said that grrm does not do grim for grim’s sake and he’s actually way less cruel than it seems, likes a good love story and has more than once finished his other books with satisfying resolutions to that kind of storyline, but adding to that: in comparison to whatever calvinist crap message hbo wanted to send, I have to inform y’all that grrm is a currently agnostic lapsed catholic and it’s exceedingly clear in the way he explores/deals with redemptive themes.

now, let me break the jb narrative for a moment to inform you of a few things that as an atheist born and raised in a 99% catholic country whose literature’s funding works are heavily based on catholic themes/on stories rooted in catholicism:

the ‘you need to die to be redeemed’ narrative is 100% bullshit according to catholic morals and on top of that it’s opened to anyone at any time;

like, the basic distinction between catholic and calvinist approaches to the topic (and I can’t believe I’m defending catholicism but nvm that) is that calvinism preys on a narrative where your negative qualities define you and you cannot escape them (which is because calvinism accepts predestination ie the idea that seeing your lot in life you can deduce if you’ll go to heaven or hell, so if you’re poor/unsuccessful/you committed mistakes/a crime and so on you’re not redeemable and it’s proof you’re damned) and that meant that in societies with calvinist background the death = redemption narrative is extremely popular because it’s seen as ‘hey this person is wretched and they suck so they couldn’t have lived anyway and they did something good with it for once and it’s the best they could hope for’. catholicism, at the contrary, works on the basis that as we all have free will we can change for the better and if you repent for your sins/past wrongdoings/mistakes then that’s enough to be redeemed and if you do it on your deathbed.... you can still go to heaven, you’ll just have to atone for your wrongdoings (that’s the entire point of purgatory’s existence ie making people who repented near death or too late to gain heaven atone for their sins before they can enter heaven). and the moment you repent then you’re free to start your new life and do better and gain your place in heaven, which you’ll obtain in virtue of having turned a new leaf;

(again: not to be that person, but in luke’s gospel one of the two thieves crucified with him is like ‘can you save us since you’re the son of god’, the other thief is like ‘please he has done nothing and we have sinned we don’t deserve to be saved just please remember us when you go back to your father’ and jesus tells the second thief I won’t need to remember you because you’ll sit at my right. also, in dante’s divine comedy there’s a guy who had been excommunicated in the middle ages waiting to get into purgatory for having repented on his deathbed and in manzoni’s the betrothed ie italy’s funding novel the character who’s objectively better written is a dude so heinous for his crimes that he’s called THE UNNAMED and the moment this guy gets doubts and wonders if there’s any hope for him left the local arcibishop leaves everything saying that the moment someone like that is in need then they’re more important than his own parish, goes to receive unnamed guy, tells him that just wanting to be better is enough as far as god is concerned and he’s saved as far as he cares. like, as much as catholicism sucks for the entire rest of it and for how much the catholic church is the worst ideologically the fact that everyone can be redeemed is the basic staple of the entire thing.)

now, given the ^^^, this is where I tell you that most lapsed catholics/people who left catholicism for whichever reasons usually grew up catholic and if you grow up catholic you spend your first twelve years in church at least and if your parents/people around you are also catholic you will absorb it, good and bad, so if grrm grew up catholic, he grew up with that background. (I could again rant for hours about how atheist writers who grew up catholic differ from atheist writers who grew up protestant/calvinist because if you compare grrm and idk kurt vonnegut it’s glaring but this isn’t the place for it so nvm let’s go on)

now that I’ve told you this, I’ll get back to jaime and brienne’s canon survival chances. I needed to tell you that because...

all of the stories with redemptive themes in asoiaf (jaime, theon, sandor, whoever) are not by nature calvinist. whatever d&d think or hbo thought, none of them are written in a way where death is their best option/their only way to achieve redemption/to finish their story with dignity. theon has gone through hell and back and left and regained his sense of identity, he’s not built to die now, sandor has freaking gone to rehab and I’m 100% sure he survives the series and gets closure, while jaime is exactly a poster child for the above stuff I described. like, jaime is someone who’s fundamentally good who had the misfortune to spend his entire life jumping in different kinds of abusive situation one to the other (tywin’s parentage in general, his relationship with cersei throughout at least from the moment they were *experimenting* and like hell I’m going back on that sorry not sorry, guarding aerys, being with cersei at *her* terms and being forced to relieve his trauma all over and not having his needs met etc., tywin potentially ruining his only healthy relationship [with tyrion] and so on) who in turn has done exceedingly bad things/taken bad decision/committed heinous deeds that he regrets having done out of his bad reaction to all of that, not treating his ptsd and basically deciding to stop giving a fuck and embrace being the horrid person everyone thinks he is... until he meets brienne, remembers who he wanted to be because she’s posing an example of it and decides on his own to try and be better, which is... exactly... the entire fucking point. the moment he decides to try and be better and reclaims his dreams/the person he wanted to be/tries to do good he has automatically achieved a narrative status where he chose to be better and therefore the narrative is giving him a chance to be that, and usually those stories are meant to.... have the message that you can be better than the bad things you did and you can turn back the page at any point. like. jaime is written to show you that it’s not too late to get your shit together and not letting others/your surroundings define who you are;

on the other side, brienne is presented as extremely sympathetic from the beginning. also, grrm is very good at describing how shitty is your life if you grow up a woman who is not standard attractive, that everyone laughs at and who has endless insecurities for it.... and she’s the paragon of knighthood/everything good about chivalry in the goddamned series. brienne is legit one of the best people in these books and it’s not because I stan her - she’s kind, she’s just, she’s brave she’s everything a knight should be, she’s willing to change her mind when she misjudged people, she’s forgiving and life threw her crap all along and she’s still persevering from it. brienne is written in a frankly painfully objective way to eventually succeed at what she wants. if in affc she’s crying because she feels like she’s too much of a freak to be her father’s heir and she’s not woman or man enough for anything, the entire narrative point is that she has to succeed at both being a knight and a lady otherwise grrm can’t plant hints and believe me he can;

this means that jaime is headed on a redemptive path which in that kind of story when written by catholics or former catholics never ends up badly (also, aside: redemption is good for everyone and it can’t be just ONE character having it, you don’t buy it at the supermarket, so saying that if jaime has it then tyrion or theon or sandor or whoever can’t have it is just poor reading, people change all the time irl and in narrative you aren’t obligated to redeem one and kill everyone else) or in death, brienne has been written to succeed in her endeavors after she suffers a shitton and I think stoneheart has to be the worst and the end of it (in the sense that after that situation is resolved the way for her is down, not up). which if I do the math and we have stated they’re headed for romance, means the both of them should have a chance at a future together;

also, I can go and tell you that their asos road trip ending with harrenhal is bursting with symbolism that includes death and rebirth - not going into the weirwood dream and sticking to the basics... guys, jaime starts as a prisoner, then ends up losing a part of herself he thinks define him but in truth only defines what he thinks he is (and he’s not ie cersei’s double, the kingslayer, the person who has to drive himself crazy to protect everyone else), then ends up almost dying and sitting in the middle of his own filth for the entirety of the trip (and even then he does good things ie saving brienne from being raped *cough*) and then ends up in a scalding hot bath where he confesses his most well-kept secret and source of 50% of his trauma to someone he trusts regardless of how much he likes it or not, faints and then wakes up again when everyone thinks he might be dead. symbolically, I think it speaks for itself. thing is, during the entire thing *brienne* is there alongside him and while she’s also getting her own share of trauma/ptsd (I mean brienne has totally bloody mummers related ptsd and I’ll die on that hill) she physically is the reason he survives it - she cleans him up, she gives him enough pep talks to convince him to live, she hears his confession, she changes her mind about him for it (but imvho she had after he saved her from being raped because that’s where she calls him ser for the first time) and she catches him in the bath when he faints which is.... fairly symbolic in itself, and she is the one who puts him back on his feet after. like, while jaime’s choices after are all his own, his symbolic journey through his own physical/mental filth he has to go through during asos succeeds because she helped him even if she didn’t know she was doing it, and like... guys, there’s a reason why in the weirwood dream the brienne in jaime’s head which he has conjured and who is basically what jaime sees brienne as in that moment, not necessarily the real one..... keeps on telling him all the time she’ll keep him safe/protect him and she basically tells that to anyone he feels threatened by (or his subconscious feels threatened by), and as stated before, jaime lannister has never, until that point, assumed that *he* would be in the position where someone else gives a shit about him to the point where they will defend him rather than in the position where *he* is the person that has to protect everyone else regardless of how much appreciation he gets in return. like, excuse me but if I was writing my own book I wouldn’t put this much work and care and this symbolism in these two’s history if I meant to kill one of them off or to not have them be happy in the end.

like, the point is: grrm is an extremely meticulous writer with an astonishing attention to detail and who put in book two shit that made extra sense when reading book FIVE, see theon saying he wouldn’t go to his death wearing dirty clothing in acok which makes you go like ‘....... why’ the moment you read his adwd chapters. no one, unless they have a penchant for sadism, would put that much work with those themes in that specific kind of story if then it doesn’t deliver. or, in different words, using a character I love as well so no one can accuse me of being impartial: when grrm put the same kind of work in catelyn’s chapters from got to asos and then you read them knowing about lady stoneheart and the red wedding, it’s obvious that he built her up for being an extremely tragic character and that she was destined to die regardless of all her efforts to save her family (same for robb but we’re talking pov characters). but catelyn’s storyline doesn’t have redemptive themes. it’s about regret, loss, loving your children but being imperfect/not being able to be there for them, and so on. catelyn’s storyline never promises you a happy ending from the moment ned dies and probably even before then. catelyn’s storyline promises you endless suffering and that’s fine because that’s her point in the narrative.

on the contrary, brienne’s tells you ‘hey there’s this girl who has had it like shit all her life without deserving it and whose worth no one sees because she’s ugly and who at the same time is actually a genuinely good person who’s trying her best and okay, she’s gonna suffer but she’ll come out on top while getting what she wants which is recognition as both a lady and a knight’ and given that brienne is also an extremely rare rep (say what you want, cishet unattractive women with her issues and her backstory are basically only less rare than unicorns in media) that I’m 100% sure grrm knows speaks to a lot of people (because he writes her too well to not know), if brienne doesn’t get that after all that shit, the narrative would not deliver on a fairly huge promise.

even worse, jaime’s tells you ‘hey there’s this guy who has been an abuse victim to at least three different people who doesn’t even realize it and whose life is so fucked up you’d need fifteen psychology textbooks to even start grasping it and that everyone sees as the worst person ever and who has ended up believing he is out of not managing his trauma well and hey look at him going through an insane amount of extra suffering but coming out of it wanting to be better and sort of succeeding and hey he has setbacks but he’s starting to see himself as his own person and he’s out of his #1 worst abusive relationship and he can decide what to do with his life now and you should root for him’, which means that if he dies or worst of all dies like in the show (but that’s not happening) the narrative doesn’t deliver on a huge promise and gives you the message that you can’t escape your mistakes and the abuse you received...... which is not the message grrm likes/wants to pass. like, I’ll die on that damned hill.

and to finish it, that was for them as single characters, but going back to the beginning: love is a fundamental part of both their storylines. as I said in the beginning, brienne suffered because she wasn’t loved enough and would die for anyone she loves herself without even expecting anything in return because she thinks no one will love her like that, jaime suffered because he loved too much without getting anything in return (or better, getting cersei’s abusive crap for his entire life) and he turned it into something toxic that’s not what he thinks it should be (he sees his and c’s relationship as the best thing ever where they’re soulmates because she sold him that narrative, but that’s not the kind of rship where you *turn your partner’s blows into kisses* which is actual text). at this point, the narrative is telling you ‘oh hey here’s two damaged people who actually would be very good together because their personalities match in that sense [as in, brienne would thrive with someone who loves her that much openly and finds her attractive and respects her for all that she is and jaime would thrive with someone who would appreciate that tenfold and who’d love him back just as much and who’d die for him - canon! -, and it wouldn’t be the kind of rship where anyone’s blows turn into kisses unless they were friendly sparring before] and oh hey look at that they’re in a storyline where they both influence each other greatly and oh wait he’s attracted to her and she thinks he looks like half a god and she’d die for him and he was willing to get mauled by a bear for her and they’re obviously meant to hook up’, which automatically promises a resolution where they both get what they want or you basically spent all your time rooting for it.... for nothing. which would not give anyone reading it satisfaction unless you hate jb that much, but I’m 100% sure that most people reading asoiaf casually would not hate it that much and grrm likes that trope that much to not deliver on it.

so, tldr: if one of them dies or if they aren’t endgame with a reasonable happy-ish ending for the both of them, the entire narrative fails to deliver on the promises of their individual storylines and their shared one, and there’s nothing in grrm’s writing that suggests that he would not deliver on it. I mean, if it was stephen king I’d hold my breath because I love steve but imvho his endings suck 85% of the time and he manages to do 180° turnarounds that have no sense whatsoever, but it’s grrm, not stephen king, and everything of his I’ve read that actually had an ending ended in a way that was coherent with the overall storyline and maintained its promises, so here, the above is pretty much the summary. hopefully I haven’t exhausted you. ;)

[fvckyouimaprophet]

Contrast

Summary: Part 9 of the color verse. You see in black and white until the day after you sleep with your soulmate. (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8) Author’s Note: It’s been over 3 years since I updated. Even though it’s been ages since I’ve watched the show, this has always been one of my dearest fics. So, without further ado, here’s the update. (@like-shipsinthenight I know you’re out of the fandom, but maybe you’d be interested.)

“Hey, sorry about that. I had to go through some case files at the last minute, and it ended up taking way longer than expected.” When no one responds, Connor steps toward the bedroom. “Oliver?”

He’s about to call his name again, but when he opens the door, he sees Oliver splayed out across the bed, fully dressed but fast asleep.

Connor can’t blame him. He was supposed to be home hours ago. He sighs, making quick work of brushing his teeth and getting undressed. When he sits down next to Oliver, and the bed dips a little, Oliver lets out a small whine but doesn’t wake up.

For a moment, Connor takes him in, his heart twinging a little. He’s still dressed in his work clothes — a button-up and slacks. His hair is messy, half on his face, and Connor reaches out, gently pushing it back. “Oliver...”

It takes Oliver a moment to come to, but after a moment, his eyes open. “You’re late,” he croaks out.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Again.”

Connor leans down to press a kiss to his forehead, but Oliver groans and shifts away fractionally.

“I’m really sorry.”

“What time is it?”

Connor looks at his watch. “1:27 A.M.” Oliver doesn’t say anything, and after a moment, Connor can feel him drifting off again. It takes him a minute, but he gets Oliver’s shirt and pants off of him and frowns when he sees the little dip on his stomach where the belt buckle has left a mark. He presses a kiss to it, and Oliver shifts again.

“I don’t wanna have sex,” he grumbles.

“Good thing, ‘cause neither do I.” It isn’t easy to get the blanket pulled out from under Oliver, but he does it anyway and curls up next to him. Typically, Oliver moves back to be flush against him, but this time he doesn’t, and Connor suspects it has little to do with how tired he is. “I love you.”

He’s just met with heavy breathing.

- - -

It’s after ten when Connor wakes up, and it takes him a moment to realize that Oliver isn’t in bed. He stumbles out, still half-awake, to find him on the living room couch on his laptop.

“You left me hanging in there.”

Oliver doesn’t look up. “I figured I’d let you sleep since you came home late.” Nothing about his tone reads as cold, but Connor knows there’s something there.

“You’re mad.” He makes his way over and falls back on the couch next to Oliver. “Talk to me.”

“I’m not mad.” A but lingers unsaid.

“Then you’re upset.” When Oliver says nothing, he adds, “Or frustrated.” Connor’s stomach knots.

“A little yeah.” Oliver takes off his glasses and sets them on his knee before pinching the bridge of his nose. “I think I should sleep at my place tonight.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“I thought I was the one who was supposed to be bad at communication. We can’t both be bad at it.” That finally manages to crack a small smile from Oliver, and he turns to face him.

“You said you were going to be back at ten. Then you texted and said eleven.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just new to the firm, so they’re throwing everything at me.”

“It’s been like that for four months now. I know you can’t help it, but I want to spend time with you. It’s been—” Oliver stops himself from finishing the sentence, and suddenly, despite the fact that they’re sitting right next to each other, the gap between them feels impossibly large.

“It’s been like that with Michaela too since she started at Caplan and Gold. It’s why she’s been spending all her nights with Aiden. Honestly, I think they’re going to move in together any day now. If you moved in with me, maybe that would help.”

Oliver shakes his head, and his gaze drops down to his lap. “Let’s get through this, and then we’ll talk about it.” The knot in Connor’s stomach feels tighter.

“I don’t like the sound of that."

“Why not?” Oliver asks.

“Because it makes it sound like you think there’s a chance we won’t get through this.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Oliver picks up his glasses and slides them back on. “I think we will. We just need time.” He moves his hand on top of Connor’s and gives it a light squeeze. “And besides, what’s wrong with my apartment?”

The small joke is enough to break the tension — for now, at least. Connor knows better than to keep picking at it, and the knot in his stomach loosens a bit.

- - -

“It’s not going supposed to be easy. It’s still a relationship.” Michaela adjusts the pillows on the couch and frowns. “Give and take is still part of the package.”

“But I thought that was the whole point of soulmates! What makes it any different than any other relationship, then?” Connor steps out of the way as Michaela moves past him to the end table and starts flipping through the envelopes.

“Throw these away.” She hands him the whole stack after a moment but continues to talk as Connor makes his way to the kitchen to toss it. “What makes it different is that you’re inherently compatible. That if you both put work into it and nurture it that you’re guaranteed to succeed. And that your souls are connected, which you shouldn’t discount – especially considering how that worked out for you last time.”

Connor comes back and collapses on the couch with a groan. “Can’t something be easy, just for once?”

“Get up!” Michaela turns around and frowns. “I just fixed those.”

“I can get the cushions, Michaela.” He sighs and stands back up, fluffing the cushions before setting them back in place. “Besides, won’t people be sitting when they get here?”

“I thought you came here to help me clean.”

“It was all a ruse to talk about Oliver.”

“Isn’t it always?” She disappears into the hallway for a moment and comes back with a Swiffer. “Please just make yourself useful if you have it in you.”

Connor frowns and starts making work of cleaning her floors. “I don’t know what to do. It’s been seven months, and they still have me working almost twelve hours a day.”

“Tegan says—”

“Oh, here we go with the ‘Tegan says…’” When he turns around and sees Michaela’s withering look, he gives an apologetic half-smile. “Okay, fine, what does Tegan say?”

“Never mind what she says.”

“Oh, don’t do that.”

“Connor, I’m just saying that you need to make some choices and find ways to make that balance happen. No one but you can do that for you.”

“You sound like my astrology app. ‘As Mercury goes into retrograde, beware not to complicate your relationship. Don't get caught up in—'” A pillow whacks him in the face, cutting him off. “Hey! What will your guests think if your couch cushion is on the floor? What kind of a housewarming party would that be?” Although he smirks, he sees Michaela grab another cushion and ducks before that one can hit him too.

- - -

“What do you have against the new place?” Oliver asks. “I think it’s cozy.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t say cozy. That’s code-word for small.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

Connor looks around the boxes and frowns. There’s so much to do, and after several hours of moving, he just wants to lay on the ground. Instead, he turns to Oliver and says, “Thanks for helping.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when Connor Walsh got his hands dirty.”

“Don’t count on seeing it again anytime soon.” Connor knows better than to say anything, but before he can stop himself, his mouth opens. “If we had moved in together, we could have kept the two-bedroom. One of those could have been an office space and guest room.”

Oliver presses his lips together in a tight smile. “It’s just not time yet.”

“You moved in with Matt pretty quickly.”

“Yeah and look how that turned out for us.” He steps forward and kisses Connor’s cheek. “I love you. I do. You just have to have faith.”

Connor knows that he’s not so good at that, as much as he hates to admit it. Faith has never been his strong suit. It’s a large chunk of the reason why he’s been agnostic, despite being raised Catholic – and agnostic not atheist, since he can’t even find the faith in him to not believe in a God fully. But the look in Oliver’s eyes tells him not to push it. He has enough lately, and considering that Oliver didn’t budge before, Connor knows he won’t now.

“Okay, fine. I’m just saying that you don’t need to be cautious with me. I’m not going to disappoint you.”

Something in Oliver’s face stiffens. His eyes become a little glassy, and his cheeks tense. It’s subtle, but Connor doesn’t miss it, and it feels like a punch to the gut.

- - -

“He doesn’t trust me,” Connor whines, throwing back another shot. “It’s been almost a year since we got together, and he doesn’t trust me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re kind of an ass, and you were really an ass to him, so I can’t really blame him.”

Connor isn’t entirely sure why he agreed to meet Laurel at the bar for drinks. Pep talks have never been her strong suit, and Connor isn’t sure if he’d even categorize her as a friend. They only ever spend time together around Michaela.

“What?” Laurel asks.

“I get that I fucked up, but c’mon. I’ve been trying. You can’t say that I haven’t been trying.”

“You’ve ben trying. I just think that’s not always enough.”

“How are things with Kan?” he asks, trying to change topic.

“We broke up.” She grabs her gin and tonic and takes a large sip. “About two weeks ago, actually.”

“Shit, I’m so sorry. What happened?” He flags the bartender and turns to look back at her.

“Nothing. Just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to. I’ve been pretty busy, and I’ve had some family shit lately anyway.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

Laurel takes another swig of her drink and waves her hand dismissively, but Connor can tell there’s more than she wants to share. Before he can ask another question, the bartender comes over.

“What can I get for you two?”

“An Old Fashioned, and—” He looks at Laurel, who finishes her gin and tonic with one more gulp.

“Whiskey Sour,” she says.

“Coming right up.” The bartender looks Connor up and down and smirks before disappearing.

“Well, if things don’t work out with Oliver, it seems like you might have some options.” She elbows Connor, and Connor rolls his eyes.

- - -

Connor (7:09) Sorry I’m running late. I should be there in five.

Oliver (7:11) Ok.

Connor (7:11) Don’t okay me. Are your parents with you?

Oliver (7:13) We got here fifteen minutes ago.

Connor (7:14) Ah shit. Sorry. I’m right around the corner. Please don’t be mad.

Connor tucks his phone into his jacket pocket and smooths down his hair before walking in. He spots Oliver and his parents before the maître d’ approaches him and tells her before walking over and trying to steady his breathing. A quick glance at his watch tells him it’s 7:17.

Oliver stands up as soon as he sees them and smiles anxiously. “Here he is.”

Connor’s heart beats in his throat as he stretches out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Hampton.”

“Oh, you can call me Lisa,” she says, beaming at him as she shakes his hand.

“And you can call me Mr. Hampton,” Oliver’s father says, laughing at his own joke. “Kidding, of course. You can call me William.”

“Dad…”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you both,” Connor says, offering one last smile before sitting down next to Oliver. Underneath the table, Oliver reaches out and squeezes his hand.

“It’s been a while since we’ve met one of Oliver’s boyfriends. But we’re told you’re special,” Lisa says, meeting her husband’s eye before looking back at them. Oliver lets go of Connor’s hand, and Connor doesn’t have to look to know that he’s blushing.

“When he told me you were coming to visit, I didn’t give him much of an option,” Connor teases. “I just made sure to book a reservation.”

“You know, we tried to get a reservation here last time we came, and we saw how fast it fills up,” Williams says.

They make it through dinner without any hiccups, and by the time they order dessert, Connor feels mostly at ease. That ease, however, evaporates with one question from Lisa.

“So, have you considered any next steps?” The implication is clear, even though she doesn’t say it. Connor sees the color drain from Oliver’s face, and he’s sure his looks the same.

“You don’t need to answer that,” Oliver says before shooting a frantic look at both of them. Lisa smiles, but her expression is hard to read.

“I just want to know that my son is being taken care of.”

“I am!” Oliver insists, and when he starts tapping against the table, Connor lays his hand on top of Oliver’s.

“I think we’re trying to take things one step at a time after everything.” He knows that Oliver’s parents know about what happened. He had made sure to ask Oliver ahead of time. He can feel the anxiety bubbling up in the pit of his stomach at the mention nonetheless.

When Lisa doesn’t say anything for a moment, Oliver breaks the silence. “It’s not because of him. I’m trying to take it slow.”

Connor wishes it were possible to sink into the ground. He imagines the chair getting lower until the floor swallows him whole and tries to avoid thinking about how unbelievably hot his face feels.

“We shouldn’t have asked,” Lisa says after a moment, her voice softer than it was moments before. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Connor clears his throat and puts on a smile that he hopes looks more real than it feels. “I’m sure you’d be the first people that Oliver would tell.”

“You know, when Oliver was little, he would ask us to tell him the color of everything in the house. He’d memorize it all, and when we’d have people over, he’d try to tell people that he had met his soulmate. When they’d laugh, he’d tell them they could ask him the color of anything in the house.” She smiles apologetically.

The waitress comes up before anyone can say anything, and Connor feels grateful for the interruption.

The rest of dinner passes smoothly, and despite minor protests, Connor manages to pay for the check. Oliver kisses his parents good night, and this time, Connor gets a hug from them both before they say goodnight.

“Well, that went mostly well,” Connor says. “You know, outside of wanting to die for a brief second there.”

“You were also late.” Oliver shakes his head and presses a kiss to Connor’s cheek. “I had to stall for you.”

“Your mom tried to ask us when we were going to get married, and you’re mad that I was fifteen minutes late?” Connor wraps his arm around Oliver. “You’re lucky that I love you.” As he sighs, he feels the tension start to leave his body. “So, Lisa said I was the first guy she’d met in a while. Matt didn’t make the cut?”

Oliver pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “It was complicated.”

“How so?”

“Well, you see, there was this guy I was also interested in and was hoping things might work out, but he was a bit of a jackass.” He gives Connor a lopsided grin before pulling out of reach.

“And did they?” He feels a strange flutter in his stomach.

“I’m still figuring that out, but I’ll get back to you soon.”

- - -

“She asked you when you were going to get married? And I thought meeting Aiden’s parents was terrifying,” Michaela says. She turns to look at Aiden. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” Aiden calls from the kitchen. He comes out after a moment carrying a Dutch oven. “Coq au vin’s ready. When will the others be here?”

“Soon,” Michaela says. “Connor, help me set the table.”

“Hey, I brought a pie. I did my share.”

“You’re insufferable. Help me set the table.” She gets up and heads toward the kitchen, and Connor catches Aiden’s smirk.

He follows her and grabs the silverware and napkins that she hands him. “So why isn’t Oliver joining us today?” she asks. “Laurel’s bringing her new boyfriend, and I think even Wes might be bringing Rebecca and Lila.” Her nose scrunches as she says it. She’s always erred on the traditional side.

“It’s a friend’s birthday, but he might drop by after he leaves the bar. He said he was going to text me. He was pretty upset about it when he smelled the pie, and I told him that he couldn’t have any.” Connor laughs and moves back to the living room to start setting the table.

Michaela follows shortly with plates.

“He knows he’s always welcome.”

“Sometimes I think you like him better than me.”

“You better be careful what you say, Con,” Aiden says, placing the bread that Connor brought on the table beside the Brussels sprouts. “I think she might.”

They all make their way back to the kitchen to grab glasses. “So what did you say when she asked if you were going to get married?” Michaela asks.

“Oliver said that it’s because of him. That he wants to take it slowly. And I wanted to die because his mom knows what happened between us, so I’m sure that’s probably why she asked.” He sees Michaela open her mouth and cuts her off preemptively. “And before you give me your spiel about how I deserve it and blah, blah, blah – I know. It was still horrible.”

“As long as you know,” Michaela says, handing him three glasses.

- - -

“I’m surprised you didn’t have anything elaborate planned for your birthday,” Oliver says, stretching as he pauses in front of the bed. Connor props himself up and wraps his arms around Oliver, tugging him back down.

“It’s on a Saturday this year, so I just wanted to stay in. Enjoy my day off. What fun is going out when you and I could spend the whole day—” His hand runs down to the front of Oliver’s boxer briefs, and Oliver swats it away.

“Hey! A gentleman always asks.”

Connor rolls his eyes. “May I fuck you, Daddy?” He throws the last bit in as a joke and gets a well-earned look of disgust from Oliver.

“Don’t be gross. But maybe. You’ll have to work for it, though.” With that, he jumps up and runs out of the room. They chase each other around until Connor pulls him down onto the couch and falls on top of him.

They pant for a moment, their noses touching before Oliver bridges the gap and kisses him. Perhaps Oliver tastes of morning breath even though he can’t taste it. He’s sure he does, but since both of them do, he feels like it cancels out.

He runs his thumb up Oliver’s jaw to just behind his ear, and Oliver rolls Connor’s lower lip between his teeth. It’s messy, but Connor can feel Oliver’s cock pressing against his thigh, half-hard, and he can’t find it in himself to care.

His hand drops down again, and he tugs at the elastic as Oliver lifts his hips. They make short work of it, and he tosses Oliver’s underwear to the side before kissing his way down. Oliver whines as he makes it to his hips and pushes upwards, and when Connor laughs, he can’t help but notice the way that Oliver squirms, restless.

“Are you going to blow me, or are you just going to tease?” Oliver asks. His cock strains against his stomach, leaking and red.

“Who’s birthday is it?” Connor asks.

A small whimper leaves Oliver’s hips as he pushes down against the couch. “Yours.”

“And yet you’re making demands like it’s yours.” He presses a kiss to the head, and his breath catches in his throat as he watches Oliver’s face flush.

They wind up back in the bed after Oliver comes, and somehow Connor ends up on all fours, clutching the headboard and rocking as Oliver’s tongue presses in, and his hands runs up and down his cock. It doesn’t take long for him to come as well, and he barely can find the energy to clean himself and the sheets up before collapsing.

Oliver follows suit, and drift in and out, legs tangled together. When Connor wakes up, Oliver is at the desk typing. He watches for as long as he can, taking in all the small things that Oliver does when he doesn’t feel he’s being watched – the way he mouths his words when he rereads his sentences and the hand he places at the back of his neck, rubbing small circles as he thinks.

“You really aren’t attentive, are you?” Connor asks, and Oliver jumps, taken out of his trance.

“Sorry, catching up on some work. I’m surprised you don’t have to today. If you keep it up, this may be the first time I’ve seen you go a full twenty-four hours without it since we started dating.” He turns his chair to face Connor.

“It is my birthday, after all.”

“You worked on Christmas.”

Connor waves the comment away dismissively before sitting himself up and yawning. “I’m pretty hungry. Do you want to order something?”

“I ordered food already. I was planning on waking you when it came.”

“Well, if you don’t already know it, you should know that you’re amazing.”

“I do, but I don’t mind hearing it again.” His eyes run down Connor as Connor stands up and walks over.

“You’re amazing,” Connor repeats. His eyes close as he wraps his arms around Oliver, and he lets out a content hum. His apartment feels quiet, and he’s not sure when he’s last felt this calm, this warm.

“I have presents for you. Do you want them now or after lunch?”

“How about now?” Connor asks.

“Let me go get them. They’re in my coat.” Oliver motions to the living room, and Connor makes his way to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. By the time he’s done, Oliver is patiently waiting on the bed, an envelope and a small box placed neatly in front of him.

“You better not be proposing to me with that thing.”

“Oh, shut it.” Oliver rolls his eyes and pushes them forward. “Open the bigger envelope first and then the box.” Connor sits on the edge of the bed and carefully opens the envelope, trying his best not to make a torn mess. It’s halfway open when Connor can see that they’re tickets.

He fishes them out and lets out a whoop. “Future Islands?”

“You know I had to.”

“Well, thank you.” Connor leans forward and kisses him. “I’m intrigued and terrified what’s in the box. I’m assuming you’re not saving the worse present for last.” He grins and tears the wrapping paper off of the box. The small white box looks unassuming, as if it should have jewelry in it, and Connor gives it a light shake. “Am I going to break it?”

“Probably not?”

“So mysterious,” Connor says, tutting and shaking his head before taking the lid off.

The silver key to Oliver’s front door rests on top of an index card. His head spins as he takes the note out and reads the message.

Connor Walsh, will you move in with me?

[morningstarlucemon]

((So, this is a super personal thing that relates to my beliefs. So if you don’t wanna read cause you’re not interested, that’s totally cool. This is gonna be OOC and stuff. I just wanna post this here cause I don’t feel that I can openly say this anywhere else just yet. It’s not really safe for me in case bio family sees it. But I’m just... really excited and wanna talk about it. So if you’re interested, read more is below. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom if you want.))

So, anyone who knows me personally in any intimate manner might know that I’ve struggled with my beliefs for a really long time. I was raised super, super Christian, and even though my family was non-denominational, and we didn’t have a lot of religious “rules” like in mainstream Catholicism or anything similar, it was still really oppressive to me. Parts of my mental illnesses were blamed on demons and went untreated, and actually aggravated with the methods used to “help,” namely my OCD. To this day I have ticks that were programmed into my thought patters based in prayers I was taught that became compulsive habits rather than soothing mantras. And since I was very young I’ve been in a really precarious place with my faith.

I wanna say first and foremost, I don’t think Christianity is bad. I DO think the way people carry it out is harmful. But I don’t believe the faith as a whole is bad. I think that any religion practiced by someone for the want of peace and personal fulfillment without harming others is good so long as it makes them happy. I’m only saying that Christianity as I was taught it hurt me, and the people who taught it to me hurt me. And I now have a very uneasy relationship with the faith as a whole.

For probably around ten years or so, I’ve been a very... nihilistic person, not out of choice, but out of a compulsively logical mindset. If I didn’t have proof of it, my brain didn’t wanna believe it. It still doesn’t. I don’t claim to have ever experienced any proof of the supernatural. But I didn’t wanna call myself an atheist. I WANT to believe in something, anything. But any time I try, the logic part of my brain steps in and demands proof. And it’s been slowly killing me for several years, choking off my spirituality and adding to my depression. It didn’t help that, although I was too logical to believe in anything, I still had the fear and guilt that came with believing I was gonna be sent to hell. I had all of the guilt of religion, and none of the personal peace or fulfillment.

I have spent the last few years of my life talking to people of other faiths and lack there ofs-- atheists, agnostics, Lokean, Wiccan, Catholic, Voodoo practitioners, Heathens, Jews, Muslims, Hedonists, Multi-Theists, Hellenists, and a lot more, as well as several variations of Christians. But no matter what I tried, nothing seemed to fit. I couldn’t settle back into Christianity, no matter how much I tried to fit myself into more secular and relaxed sections of the faith, it never felt welcoming or comfortable. I could never get away from the guilt. But I also never felt attached to any other faith I dabbled in, either. Nothing clicked. I felt present and welcomed, but I didn’t feel at home.

I’ve been working in therapy to really explore myself, and doing a lot of self-reflecting. And part of that has been looking back on what I’ve identified with through the years. And something I have always gone back to was Dark Angels and things associated with Death. When I was very little and my Mom would watch Touched by an Angel, I’d ask her about the Angel of Death, and she would explain that he was not a bad person, but that he was someone who would come take us to Heaven when we died. And that stuck with me. I’ve always been drawn to characters who were outcasts, logical thinkers, people who thought of things with raw data and not pre-conceived ideas, and, of course, those associated with Darkness. Duo Maxwell, Treize Khushrenada, Lucemon, Violet Parr, Levi Ackerman, Rorschach, Raven Roth, Laura Kinney, Vaal Hazak, Sephiroth, Howl Jenkins Pendragon, Adrian Tepes, Black Shucks, Damien Bloodmarch... I never could put my finger on what they had in common until now. All of them are outcasts who think differently than society as a whole, many of them with dark or complex morality or emotionally injured themes about them. I have always been drawn to the darkness, even since I was a little kid. And I think, because of the fear I was taught, I denied and lied to myself something that I’m fairly sure I’ve known for years.

After really learning what other beliefs are, that they’re not all goat sacrifice and child rape, and learning the actual principals behind them, I think I might finally be ready to choose a title for myself and my belief set. After years of introspection, and debate, and self-exploration, I, for now, when it is safe to do so, will align myself with  Luciferian Satanism.

I have chosen this faith for many reasons. Lucifer expects nothing from me, not even for me to truly believe in them. Do no harm, and take no shit. This faith allows me to still be a kind human being, but also to not let myself be hurt and abused as I’ve been in the past. It is the first thing to slightly allay my fear of death in years. It recognizes that life is sometimes shit, but that we don’t have to live in existential dread all the time because of it. Sure, this life is piss sometimes-- but what the fuck is sulking about it gonna do? I might not be able to change the world, but I can make a few people feel better for a little while. I don’t need to search for the meaning in life-- it doesn’t matter if life is inherently meaningless, cause I am here, so I’m gonna have fun. And I’m gonna help others have fun, too. I’m gonna be kind to people because it makes me feel better to know I’ve made someone else feel better. Yeah, it’s a selfish motivation, but that’s what all acts are motivated by-- the want to feel better. And that’s very much okay. There’s nothing wrong with helping people because it makes you feel good, knowing that someone else’s day was improved by you. I don’t need an entity threatening me to make me do good things, and I don’t need praise from humans. I can worship myself, I can love and care for myself, and that’s not only okay but expected. Things aren’t good or bad just because society says they are. Things are good or bad because of the effect they put out into the world. It’s okay to be weird as long as you’re not hurting anyone else. I don’t have to always speak as others do or move like they do. It’s okay that I’m on the spectrum. I don’t have to pretend to be normal. Whatever comes for me, I’m gonna embrace it with open arms, and will take control and improve what I can, and ask for help when I need it, because I’m alive and I chose to try and be happy. I don’t need the promise of heaven or any afterlife to make me happy. If one comes, that’s wonderful. I hope I’m surrounded by people I love and who love me.

I’m not going to lie and say Lucemon didn’t have a part in me realizing I’m a Satanist, because they definitely did. I don’t think I would have ever been willing to even truly consider it if not for this angel. But I want to clarify one thing, as some of my friends seem to be a bit confused. I do believe I am kin with Lucemon. I do not believe myself to be kin with Lucifer, Satan, or the Devil. I may have a shard of them in me, but I lay no claim to their power except what I’ve been allotted in this life. I will absolutely claim myself and my power and title as Lucemon, Demon Lord of Pride in the Digital World. But I at no time want to claim to speak for Lucifer or have any right to his power.

On a similar note, I am not in this belief for the power. I don’t expect Satan to bestow me with a silver tongue or armies of demons. I do wish to become stronger in magic and charisma and use of my natural abilities to get what I want, but I intend to work for these things, not have them handed to me. I recognize that I have nothing Lucifer could ever potentially want, except possibly, maybe my understanding. I have nothing I could offer that would be of use to them. So I won’t try to barter for something I know damn well I’m not entitled to. I intend to work, study, practice, listen, and learn to grow my power. Lucifer expects nothing from me, I expect nothing from him. I only wish to devote to them my heart and respect because I feel a kindred spirit within them.

I believe Lucifer to be an enlightener, a symbol of progress, logic, exploration, love of knowledge and acceptance, and seeing things without bias. They may exist as a concept, or as an actual entity, or something in-between, or something totally outside my comprehension. Regardless of the nature of their existence, they bring me peace, and I find speaking of and to them to be soothing and helpful to me. I also do not feel that my devotion to them will interfere with my offerings to other gods. Lucifer is not tyrannical. Lucifer is not Jealous. They want only for me to be kind, and be myself. And that’s all I want.

I’m getting super tired, and I’m really rambling at this point. But I really wanted to state all this somewhere. I’m so grateful to finally begin to have something to take solace in. And I intend to accept this and further growth, regardless of where it takes me, openly and thankfully, as holding back has only hurt me. I intend to further research my stance, and potentially am looking into calling myself a Warlock. I understand that term is typically given to you by others as a derogatory term, and is used for those who have been expelled from their covens. But with that said, I HAVE been ejected from everything I knew before. I’ve thrown much of it out in favor of healthier beliefs and practices, and I seem myself as not fitting in with where I was and as something of an “other.” So I feel this term resonates with me and what I am and want to be.

So, yes. TL;DR: I consider myself a agnostic Luciferian Satanist, and am hoping to study and grow fully into a Warlock. This has given me peace I haven’t had in many years, and I am happier with this than I’ve been with anything else since I was a child.

Thank you all so much for listening to me. I love you.

[flameontheotherside]

My Faith/Doubt In God

I grew up as. Jehova's Whitness. I like that the religion follows more of Jesus's teaching and we had Hebrew customs. But I don't like the questionable things that were happening within the church. Plus I love Christmas and I spent so many years not celebrating my birthday that I went crazy with house parties when I turned 20, 21,22, and 23. After that it got kind of old. Instead of parties, I rather go out drinking at a kareoke bar or go on vacation but not actually dedicate a whole day to just me. I don't need gifts or honor or worship just because I was born.

I teeter tottered through my life on his existence. When I was small I was very in to God and I remember sort of preaching about how rainbows was a sign from God that he would never flood the earth again. Of course I got in trouble. I loved to sing in church and if we had a choir I would have been in it for sure!

Around middle school years, I started doubting.

I think it's around here my depression symptoms started. I was bullied, I felt ignored and uncared for, my friends always gravitated to my twin brother. At the time Autism wasn't a common diagnosis for girls but I had to take special classes and see a speech pathologist. Often I couldn't communicate well so it added to my depression and anxiety. I felt like a failure and so I thought how could God let this happen to me? There's no God!

Over time I would be an atheist but then agnostic. Over time I decided to read the children's Bible. I read it over and over. My favorite book is JOB. It reminds me that in my faith in God even in hard situations has its rewards and I can sort of relate to his story where I have literally lost what was important to me since being homeless almost a year now, he has replenished some of my things in to better things. Anyway so with the Bible, I have trouble reading big books without pictures and explained simply for someone like me. So I watch lectures about the Bible and the Bible explained videos. Then I started to look at archeological references of the Bible proving the validity or possibly/prabability of. I became more and more agnostic and I stayed that way under I began to hear the voice of God.

Speaking to God is still crazy to me.

I can totally understand from a skeptical point of view and psychological point of view. That this can be psychosis. This is a schizophrenic thing. But I can't deny how my life has changed from the day I started to listen to him. Great things have happened and when I didn't listen to him, bad things happened. He's like a real father. He's excouraging, loving, patient, very blunt and to the point. He has no problem letting me know when/if I'm slipping! When I do wrong, he can be upset and refer me to one of the ten commandments. But he's not ever never ever angry! I feel the love and it's unconditional. Nothing can fake that and believe me I know damn well.

See when I have doubts, he's not upset. We grow from our doubts. We weren't made to be perfect so God doesn't expect anything from us but our love and devotion to him as our heavenly father! When I have really bad doubt that kind of paralyzes me I immediately ask God for help. He's patient and tells me to give my worries to him and of course.... Please stop worrying!

I like talking to people who belong to religious sects.

My mind is open and I hope I make others think too. I get passionate and upset sometimes when I talk to people who don't believe and of course more upset when I tell someone I rather not choose a religion. I don't need to succumb to that kind of pride. I want to practice humility by not assuming one church is better by joining one specific. I want to remain humble by admitting I don't know Jack shit until I die. Too many religious people have thier heads so far up thier ass they forget about humility.

I'm angry and frustrated with some people who act as though God is like Santa Clause. Because he's not. He's like a parent. You can't ask him for something and expect it to appear to you right away. You have to first tell him your genuinely grateful for the things he's given you. He knows your heart so if you half-assed it, you will get a new phone but it's locked. How would you feel if you gave someone something and never got a thank you note! It's kind of rude. How can you receive if you're not already happy within yourself? You got to be open to allow things to happen in his way and on his time.

I still get angry at God too.

He knows I'm going through a hard time but I don't take advantage of it by saying, fuck you God every single day assuming it's okay. It's not okay. I mean I get angry and in rare cases I even say that I hate him. Later on I always feel bad and ask him to forgive me. He knows in my heart I'm only expressing my humanity and he reminds me that pain is just temporary. I have to give my worries, fears, and shit (well not shit... You know what I mean) to him. So he forgives me and I don't immediately feel better but over time I do because I have renewed faith and sometimes it's not something I get just right away and it's fine.

😘❤️ Good night ya'll I love you!

Check out my store where I offer detailed and credible readings. Please note that pricing is subject to change.

Please visit: Twin 🔥 Medium

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧Don’t forget to take a look at Erik’s blog run by his amazing mom Dr Elisa Medhus. Lots of stuff about his afterlife and 💩 at channelingerik.com.

(◕‿◕)♡ Social: Twitter Tumblr Instagram YouTube Facebook

[callie-the-snarky-geek-blog]

RvB16 Episode 3 Review: Lost Time

(Old Blog Repost)

Wasn’t last week fun everyone? I thought it was fun! But yeah, a lot of shit happened despite Grif’s attempts to not let shit happen… that we can argue caused the shit to happen. Isn’t meta humor fun kids?! But yeah scary alien woman attacked (and converted Tumblr into her own group of worshipers from what I can tell), Donut is a God, and everyone’s been separated ala Season 3. Only this time with time travel… ala Season 3 but the separation happened before that part. I just gave myself a headache. Well.. lets get on with the review while my brain is still intact.

Overview

We begin on… IDK if it’s a planet or not, but someplace with snow! This is where Grif and Doc got sent… so this is the second time a portal sent Grif off to same snowy wasteland. Man, this really is like Season 3 only he’s taking Church’s role as the grumpy one while Doc is… Doc. Well at least he didn’t get hit in the nuts immideatly after this time or thrown in a cell! Anyways, yeah snowy wasteland. Doc is freaked out about the entire thing and what it means while Grif is trying to figure out how the portal gun works so that they can get out before they freeze. He’s also grumpy. But to be fair, if I saw a perfectly good pizza parlor blow up in front of me, I would be grumpy too.

Grif is also refusing to let Doc help or even get near him. Why? Well he’s pissed off cause they got roped into bullshit again, but the biggest thing seems to be that he got stuck with Doc who… you know, is a piss poor combatant, bad at his medic job, and had betrayed them not too long ago. To be fair, Doc… completely understands Grif hating him for that. Heck, he feels guilty for what he did. I’ll get into it more int he analysis portion, but it looks like Joe may be giving Doc character development… or is leading up to a joke later. but hey he’s giving Doc attention. More than I can say for Miles’ run (sorry Miles, I love you but I’m gonna point stuff like that out). Grif ignores the sob story to work on the gun,a nd to his credit he gets the thing to work… on shuffle. Okay, why did God put a shuffle function on the gun? Then again, God has his ways and as a Christian I should know to not question it… assuming that that’s the God we’re refereeing to anyways. Lets just pretend that’s the case for now.

Meanwhile, Tucker and Sister have made the same revelation. The two of them have ended up, to my glee, in Valhalla! Since the Recolleciton Trilogy is my favorite storyline, seeing it again makes me SO happy. IDK what point this is at. It could be before the Reds and Caboose got sent there, could be after the Reds fought Wash and the Meta, I don’t know. But who cares? It’s Valhalla again! I am happy! Also we learn that Tucker is atheist and Sister, like her brother, is agnostic. Good to know!

Tucker tries to figure out Donut’s cryptic warning of ‘the key to fixing the future is to fix the past’ or something along those lines. Sister however wants to hold it off and have a little ‘fun’ with Tucker… boy going through time to bang various historical figures! And Sister is officially more sexually ambitious than Tucker could ever hope to be. Tucker, being Tucker, is unhappy that… you know, she doesn’t want to bang him and all. He also refers to them apparently having had sex in Blood Gulch that… I forgot about I guess. But Sister says it didn’t happen and it wasn’t all that memorable anyways. Ouch… you know, when binging I found Sister pointless all in all and writing her out would have changed nothing. But now that she’s back and Joe is actually giving her attention, I freakin’ LOVE her. Keep it up Joe!

So now over to Simmons and Sarge with Simmons trying to figure the gun out. Him being a nerd, he’s far more confused and nitpicky about it than the others have been. Sarge is more than happy to accept having a ‘magic gun’ though and wants to get on to the ‘fixing the past’ thing. How? Well his first thought is to go to The Battle of Broken Ridge. Apparently it was rather traumatic for Sarge and going back would reopen some old wounds, but he’s willing to face it to fix it. We’ll talk more about this later. Simmons wants to instead go to a lab to get the gun taken apart to figure out how it works since nothing else had made sense and he wants to have something explainable. But Sarge convinces him to just figure it out by actually using the gun, leading us to the Battle of Broken Ridge… so using Ancient Egypt last episode was a total copout so no mummy fights. Damn it!

So yeah, after Gus, I mean Simmons, I mean Gus (come on, you can’t tell me he WOULDN’T do the same thing cause nerds) acts like a nerd by making a log, he and Sarge see the battle in progress. Past Sarge was a lieutenant at the time and sends his men out to make a surprise attack while he covered them from behind the ridges. This ended with them all getting massacred, and present Sarge figures that this is because the went in the wrong direction. SO he goes and tells them to go the other way.. which past Sarge makes them go back and… well, you can figure out how it ends. From the afterlife, I can just see Church laughing at them cause now they know how he felt during his time travel stint (yeah it was a simulation, but still)

Finally, we have Lopez coming back online after his head came off and Caboose fixed him. Shock of all shocks, I think Caboose has understood what Lopez is saying moreso than any other character as he tries to figure out Donut’s warning. He concludes on… universal savings… okay who let Joel write on the scripts?! But yeah, Caboose wants to create savings accounts for everyone in hopes of saving the universe. Too bad that he lost the penny he had on him, but it’s okay! Cause he actually figured out how the portal gun works! Because of course he did!

So the two end up back to the opening scene. Caboose tries to find his penny and… remember when Caboose seemed to lose focus and Grif had to remind him to find Donut? Turns out that it was resent Caboose and past Caboose actually didn’t lose focus. Ah, I love it when jokes come back around like that! So Caboose goes through another portal to keep looking, Lopez resigns himself to the end of the world, and somewhere Burnie is probably wondering how even with Church dead his character somehow always gets saddled with Joel’s. I guess we’ll never know.

Review

This was shorter than last week, but BOY does it leave me plenty to talk about!

The episode seems to exist to explain how the time travel will work, some more character development setup, and just to have some comedic hijinks after last weeks more plot heavy episode. And I thought it was great! Like I said, it reminds me a lot of Season 3 when everyone was separated and the first episode with it jumping back and forth between the pairs, setting up their situations. IDK if this was an intentional callback, but I liked it nonetheless. And everyones current situations and the pair dynamics were done very well. So lets just go in order here:

Grif and Doc: This is the one I’m most interested in, and so far I’m pleased! Beginning with Grif, he’s reacting exactly how I expected him to, ala being angry at the whole thing. t makes sense. Despite his efforts, the universe decided to shit on him again and thrust him and the others into another adventure and one arguably more insane than ever before. He’s also stuck with Doc, who he’s never particularly been on good terms with. Heck when he WAS friendly to Doc back in Blood Gulch and even got validation for using CPR to cure Sarges head wound, Doc threw him under the bus when he realized that Grif was the butt monkey. That was a dick move. Of course Doc has been shit on by everyone far more at this point, but still Grif’s got a bit more of an excuse than the others. Plus again, he was’t there when Doc turned on them and he at least had the dignity to just quit an tell them that he quit before things went to shit instead of just turn his back on then in a dire moment.

But going to Doc… his reaction is good. He actually takes responsibility for his actions, feels guilty that it contributed to everything that happened (Wash getting shot), and that he ultimately couldn’t talk the Blues and Reds out of their plans. He feels that he failed both sides and that in doing so, everyone got hurt. He even completley understands Grif hating him for it since he feels the same way about it. He doesn’t try to make excuses, even when honestly he has very valid reasons to make excuses. He’s been constantly shit on, forgotten about, and even got trapped in another dimension before and everyone just forgot about it and didn’t care. But we could say that betraying the guys when he knows that the Blues and Reds have fallen off their rocker was going a tad too far, even if he did try to use it to convince them to stop and failed. But its a nice look into Doc’s current psyche and Matt did a great job expressing how disappointed in himself he is.

Now will this lead to anything? It might. Normally with Doc, it’s hard to tell. I feel there may be a point where Doc either sacrifices himself to save Grif in a pivitol moment, like shoving him through a portal when one of the villains find him, or he goes all O’Malley to make a sacrifice play so that Grif can escape. IDK, but going off the self-loathing there’s a god chance that something’s gonna happen and this time it may have more of an impact. We’ll have to wait and see, but  hey it’s something. Can’t wait to see what happens with these two next!

Tucker and Sister: Their moment is mainly for comedy but it was good! Like I said, I loved seeing Valhalla again. IDK if they’ll still be there later, but hey I appreciate the callback. It’s also nice to see Tucker being… well, Tucker again. Hes had a lot of character development since Chorus, and it was very well done. But after last season, while I personally didn’t find him OOC, I an see why the way he was written was frustrating for people. Plus after all the events in Chorus and S15, I think we needed to see him in a happier state of mind, and it looks like he is. I said before that it felt like S15 was Joe trying to put the bookend on Blue Team’s problems, and I think it shows. Tucker seems far more relaxed and comedic, like during Recollection. Hopefully he still has his newfound competence, and I assume that when things go to shit again we’ll see that. But he’s in a place where he can be comedic Tucker without him coming across as an arrogant idiot, so this is good.

Then we have Sister… OMG Sister. SO as I said above, I did not care about Sister when I was watertight Blood Gulch. She wasn’t particularly bad, her personality was strong and fitting for the cast of characters she was in. But… she didn’t really do anything. According to Burnie on the DVD commentaries, he had wanted to add her for a while and S5 was the only place he could, but still you could write he rout and very little would change. Her being gone for over half the series since then doesn’t help. But the upside to adidng her back is now they can actually do stuff with her, and so far I’m happy!

Okay so Sister’s so far only expressed wanting to bang historical figures and I kind of hope we can see her do more than make sex jokes. But hey, we can officially confirm her bi now so yay canon bisexual character! Plus the way her and Tucker’s banter was written was very well done. It was really funny and her proving to be far more ambitious with her sex life and finding Tucker not worth remembering was hilarious. Plus her just not giving a shit about Tucker’s advances are both hilarious and make me very happy. Sorry Tucker, but hey at least our probably the only guy who an claim to have had sex with an entire planet… and still paying the lawsuit for it XD

Sarge and Simmons: It was hilarious, Plain and simple. It’s been a pretty good while since these two had one-on-one time and so far I’m pleased with what we have. Simmons wanting to study the gun and have some kind of explanation he can cling to when noting else is making any kind of logical sense is perfectly IC. I’m also glad to see him actually disagreeing with Sarge and trying to get his own point across. Simmons has mostly grown out of the kissass phase, at least tot he extent he was in Blood Gulch, and I’m glad to see that sticking. He feels a lot mroe independent but still the nerd we all know and love. Character development, yay!

Then we have the Battle of Broken Ridge and all the continuity stuff it brings up. If I had to guess, it takes place early in Sarge’s military career before he became an ODST or this was before he got put into Blood Gulch. Considering we don’t completely know how these outposts operate aside form how they use the SIM troopers, I don’t find it hard to buy that Sarge has been on multiple Red Teams before getting recruited for Blood Gulch. But these guys have brown armor so… IDK. But still, it’s good to see some backstory and it was good to see Sarge try to save his men. Sure it looks like he failed, but hey he tried.

Still, it really DOES make me ponder on this whole ‘fixing the past’ thing. Like… what does Donut mean by the past? For the Reds and Blues to fix their own pasts? I’m assuming not since Sarge only inadvertently caused it. Did the villains do something in the past and damage it? Why didn’t Donut just say that though? Or is ‘God’ just using the Reds and Blues to invoke what will fulfill the prophecy mentioned in Episode 1? After all, it’s said they end the world and this may be the catalyst that cause sit, hence why Huggins (where is she BTW?) has to follow them around. But I would hope that the puppetmaster would have made a reasonable explanation about what had to be fixed to provoke that. IDK, it’s way too early to tell and this is a multi-part saga, so we’re just gonna have to see how it plays out.

And finally…

Caboose and Lopez: THIS WAS EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR. Caboose being… Caboose, but also showing that he CAN be competent in his own way. Sure he got Donut’s message wrong, but at least he was thinking about it. Plus he was able to both fix Lopez and actually understand what he said. IDK if Caboose can speak Spanish, but I absolute believe that he can just until what Lopez is saying. And unlike everyone else, except maybe Simmons unless they just used shuffle enough times until they got the right portal (which if that isn’t the case, kudos to Simmons for figuring it out on his own), Caboose is the only one who figured out how to make the gun work. So now hes on a Penny Quest as Lopez continues to regret his own existence. I love it!

I admit I wasn’t sure how this was going to work since Caboose and Lopez are the two most incomprehensible characters int he show. Caboose is random and dimwitted, and no one an understand Lopez at all. But it’s surprisingly really funny so far! Normally having characters together alone like this without someone else to keep it balanced can be annoying very quickly. But in this case, it came off as really funny and not exaggerated. I guess it helps that Caboose can understand what Lopez is saying, but still it’s just the right balance. Which is good since I assume that they’re going to be the comedy relief pair for now. But who knows?

Final Thoughts

As I said, this seems to be here to show us how the time travel will play out and I assume the next episode will either cut to Chorus or focus on one pair for the majority of it. We’ll have to see. Still, this was good! The interactions were really good and I really enjoyed seeing it play out. Everyone felt IC and leaves plenty of setup for their respective situations. It leaves the question of what happened to Donut, but I guess we’ll find out eventually. But overall, this was a fun episode that perfectly sets up what we can expect. Hopefully, we’ll be delivered just what we’re hoping for.

[calliecat93]

RvB16 Episode 3 Review: Lost Time

Wasn’t last week fun everyone? I thought it was fun! But yeah, a lot of shit happened despite Grif’s attempts to not let shit happen... that we can argue caused the shit to happen. Isn’t meta humor fun kids?! But yeah scary alien woman attacked (and converted Tumblr into her own group of worshipers from what I can tell), Donut is a God, and everyone’s been separated ala Season 3. Only this time with time travel... ala Season 3 but the separation happened before that part! I just gave myself a headache. Well.. lets get on with the review while my brain is still intact.

Overview

We begin on... IDK if it’s a planet or not, but someplace with snow! This is where Grif and Doc got sent... so this is the second time a portal sent Grif off to same snowy wasteland. Man, this really is like Season 3 only he’s taking Church’s role as the grumpy one while Doc is... Doc. Well at least he didn’t get hit in the nuts immideatly after  or thrown in a prison cell this time! Anyways, snowy wasteland! Doc is freaked out about the entire thing and what it means while Grif is trying to figure out how the portal gun works so that they can get out before they freeze. He’s also grumpy. But to be fair, if I saw a perfectly good pizza parlor blow up in front of me, I would be grumpy too.

Grif is also refusing to let Doc help or even get near him. Why? Well he’s pissed off cause they got roped into bullshit again, but the biggest thing seems to be that he got stuck with Doc who... you know, is a piss poor combatant, bad at his medic job, and had betrayed them not too long ago. To be fair, Doc... completely understands Grif hating him for that. Heck, he feels guilty for what he did. I’ll get into it more in the analysis portion, but it looks like Joe may be giving Doc character development... or is leading up to a joke later. but hey he’s giving Doc attention. More than I can say for Miles’ run (sorry Miles, I love you but I’m gonna point stuff like that out). Grif ignores the sob story to work on the gun, and to his credit he gets the thing to work... on shuffle. Okay, why did God put a shuffle function on the gun? Then again, God has his ways and as a Christian I should know to not question it... assuming that that’s the God we’re refereeing to anyways. Lets just pretend that’s the case for now.

Meanwhile, Tucker and Sister have made the same revelation. The two of them have ended up, to my glee, in Valhalla! Since the Recollection Trilogy is my favorite storyline, seeing it again makes me SO happy. IDK what point this is at. It could be before the Reds and Caboose got sent there, could be after the Reds fought Wash and the Meta, I don’t know. But who cares? It’s Valhalla again! I am happy! Also we learn that Tucker is atheist and Sister, like her brother, is agnostic. Good to know!

Tucker tries to figure out Donut’s cryptic warning of ‘the key to fixing the future is to fix the past’ or something along those lines. Sister however wants to hold it off and have a little ‘fun’ with Tucker... by going through time to bang various historical figures! And Sister is officially more sexually ambitious than Tucker could ever hope to be. Tucker, being Tucker, is unhappy that... you know, she doesn't want to bang him and all. He also refers to them apparently having had sex in Blood Gulch that... I forgot about I guess. But Sister says it didn’t happen and it wasn’t all that memorable anyways. Ouch... you know, when binging I found Sister pointless all in all and that writing her out would have changed nothing. But now that she’s back and Joe is actually giving her attention, I freakin’ LOVE her. Keep it up Joe!

So now over to Simmons and Sarge with Simmons trying to figure the gun out. Him being a nerd, he’s far more confused and nitpicky about it than the others have been. Sarge is more than happy to accept having a ‘magic gun’ though and wants to get on to the ‘fixing the past’ thing. How? Well his first thought is to go to The Battle of Broken Ridge. Apparently it was rather traumatic event for Sarge and going back would reopen some old wounds, but he’s willing to face it to fix it. We’ll talk more about this later. Simmons wants to instead go to a lab to get the gun taken apart to figure out how it works since nothing else had made sense and he wants to have something explainable. But Sarge convinces him to just figure it out by actually using the gun, leading us to the Battle of Broken Ridge... so using Ancient Egypt last episode was a total copout so no mummy fights. Damn it!

So yeah, after Gus, I mean Simmons, I mean Gus (come on, you can’t tell me he WOULDN’T do the same thing cause nerds) acts like a nerd by making a log, he and Sarge see the battle in progress. Past!Sarge was a lieutenant at the time and sends his men out to make a surprise attack while he covered them from behind the ridges. This ended with them all getting massacred, and present!Sarge figures that this is because the went in the wrong direction. So he goes and tells them to go the other way.. which past!Sarge makes them go back and... well, you can figure out how it ends. From the afterlife, I can just see Church laughing at them cause now they know how he felt during his time travel stint.

Finally, we have Lopez coming back online after his head came off and Caboose fixed him. Shock of all shocks, I think Caboose has understood what Lopez is saying moreso than any other character as he tries to figure out Donut’s warning. He concludes on... universal savings... okay who let Joel write on the scripts?! But yeah, Caboose wants to create savings accounts for everyone in hopes of saving the universe. Too bad that he lost the penny he had on him, but it’s okay! Cause he actually figured out how the portal gun works! Because of course he did!

So the two end up back to the opening scene. Caboose tries to find his penny and... remember when Caboose seemed to lose focus and Grif had to remind him to find Donut? Turns out that it was present!Caboose and past!Caboose actually didn’t lose focus. Ah, I love it when jokes come back around like that! So Caboose goes through another portal to keep looking, Lopez resigns himself to the end of the world, and somewhere Burnie is probably wondering how even with Church dead his character somehow always gets saddled with Joel’s. I guess we’ll never know.

Review

This was shorter than last week, but BOY does it leave me plenty to talk about!

The episode seems to exist to explain how the time travel will work, some more character development setup, and just to have some comedic hijinks after last weeks more plot heavy episode. And I thought it was great! Like I said, it reminds me a lot of Season 3 when everyone was separated and the first episode with it jumping back and forth between the pairs, setting up their situations. IDK if this was an intentional callback, but I liked it nonetheless. And everyone's current situations and the pair dynamics were done very well. So lets just go in order here:

Grif and Doc: This is the one I’m most interested in, and so far I’m pleased! Beginning with Grif, he’s reacting exactly how I expected him to, ala being angry at the whole thing. It makes sense. Despite his efforts, the universe decided to shit on him again and thrust him and the others into another adventure and one arguably more insane than ever before. He’s also stuck with Doc, who he’s never particularly been on good terms with. Heck when he WAS friendly to Doc back in Blood Gulch and even got validation for using CPR to cure Sarges head wound, Doc threw him under the bus when he realized that Grif was the butt monkey. That was a dick move. Of course Doc has been shit on by everyone far more at this point, but still Grif’s got a bit more of an excuse than the others. Plus again, he was’t there when Doc turned on them and he at least had the dignity to just quit and tell them that he quit before things went to shit instead of just turn his back on then in a dire moment. 

But going to Doc... his reaction is good. He actually takes responsibility for his actions, feels guilty that it contributed to everything that happened (Wash getting shot), and that he ultimately couldn’t talk the Blues and Reds out of their plans. He feels that he failed both sides and that in doing so, everyone got hurt. He even completely understands Grif hating him for it since he feels the same way about it. He doesn’t try to make excuses, even when honestly he has very valid reasons to make excuses. He’s been constantly shit on, forgotten about, and even got trapped in another dimension before and everyone just forgot about it or just didn’t care. But we could say that betraying the guys when he knows that the Blues and Reds have fallen off their rocker was going a tad too far, even if he did try to use it to convince them to stop and failed. But its a nice look into Doc’s current psyche and Matt did a great job expressing how disappointed in himself he is.

Now will this lead to anything? It might. Normally with Doc, it’s hard to tell. I feel there may be a point where Doc either sacrifices himself to save Grif in a pivotal moment, like shoving him through a portal when one of the villains find him, or he goes all O’Malley to make a sacrifice play so that Grif can escape. IDK, but going off the self-loathing there’s a good chance that something’s gonna happen, and this time it may have more of an impact. We’ll have to wait and see, but hey it’s something. Can’t wait to see what happens with these two next!

Tucker and Sister: Their moment is mainly for comedy but it was good! Like I said, I loved seeing Valhalla again. IDK if they’ll still be there later, but hey I appreciate the callback. It’s also nice to see Tucker being... well, Tucker again. Hes had a lot of character development since Chorus, and it was very well done. But after last season, while I personally didn’t find him OOC, I can see why the way he was written was frustrating for people. Plus after all the events in Chorus and S15, I think we needed to see him in a happier state of mind, and it looks like he is. I said before that it felt like S15 was Joe trying to put the bookend on Blue Team’s problems, and I think it shows. Tucker seems far more relaxed and comedic, like during Recollection. Hopefully he still has his newfound competence, and I assume that when things go to shit again we’ll see that. But he’s in a place where he can be comedic Tucker without him coming across as an arrogant idiot, so this is good.

Then we have Sister... OMG Sister. SO as I said above, I did not care about Sister when I was watching Blood Gulch. She wasn't particularly bad, her personality was strong and fitting for the cast of characters she was in. But... she didn’t really do anything. According to Burnie on the DVD commentaries, he had wanted to add her for a while and S5 was the only place he could, but still you could write her out and very little would change. Her being gone for over half the series since then doesn’t help. But the upside to adding her back is now they can actually do stuff with her, and so far I’m happy!

Okay so Sister’s so far only expressed wanting to bang historical figures and I kind of hope we can see her do more than make sex jokes. But hey, we can officially confirm her bi now so yay canon bisexual character! Plus the way her and Tucker’s banter was written was very well done. It was really funny and her proving to be far more ambitious with her sex life and finding Tucker not worth remembering was hilarious. Plus her just not giving a shit about Tucker’s advances are both hilarious and make me very happy. Sorry Tucker, but hey at least our probably the only guy who an claim to have had sex with an entire planet... and still paying the lawsuit for it XD

Sarge and Simmons: It was hilarious, Plain and simple. It’s been a pretty good while since these two had one-on-one time and so far I’m pleased with what we have. Simmons wanting to study the gun and have some kind of explanation he can cling to when nothing else is making any kind of logical sense is perfectly IC. I’m also glad to see him actually disagreeing with Sarge and trying to get his own point across. Simmons has mostly grown out of the kissass phase, at least to the extent he was in Blood Gulch, and I’m glad to see that sticking. He feels a lot more independent but is still the nerd we all know and love. Character development, yay!

Then we have the Battle of Broken Ridge and all the continuity stuff it brings up. If I had to guess, it takes place early in Sarge’s military career before he became an ODST or this was before he got put into Blood Gulch. Considering we don’t completely know how these outposts operate aside form how they use the SIM Troopers, I don’t find it hard to buy that Sarge has been on multiple Red Teams before getting recruited for Blood Gulch. But these guys have brown armor so... IDK. But still, it’s good to see some backstory and it was good to see Sarge try to save his men. Sure it looks like he failed, but hey he tried.

Still, it really DOES make me ponder on this whole ‘fixing the past’ thing. Like... what does Donut mean by the past? For the Reds and Blues to fix their own pasts? I’m assuming not since Sarge only inadvertently caused it. Did the villains do something in the past and damage it? Why didn’t Donut just say that though? Or is ‘God’ just using the Reds and Blues to invoke what will fulfill the prophecy mentioned in Episode 1? After all, it’s said they end the world and this may be the catalyst that causes it, hence why Huggins (where is she BTW?) has to follow them around. But I would hope that the puppetmaster would have made a reasonable explanation about what had to be fixed to provoke that. IDK, it’s way too early to tell and this is a multi-part saga, so we’re just gonna have to see how it plays out.

And finally...

Caboose and Lopez: THIS WAS EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR. Caboose being... Caboose, but also showing that he CAN be competent in his own way. Sure he got Donut’s message wrong, but at least he was thinking about it. Plus he was able to both fix Lopez and actually understand what he said. IDK if Caboose can speak Spanish, but I absolute believe that he can just get what Lopez is saying. And unlike everyone else, except maybe Simmons unless they just used shuffle enough times until they got the right portal (which if that isn’t the case, kudos to Simmons for figuring it out on his own), Caboose is the only one who figured out how to make the gun work. So now hes on a Penny Quest as Lopez continues to regret his own existence. I love it!

I admit I wasn’t sure how this was going to work since Caboose and Lopez are the two most incomprehensible characters in the show. Caboose is random and dimwitted, and no one an understand Lopez at all. But it’s surprisingly really funny so far! Normally having characters together alone like this without someone else to keep it balanced can be annoying very quickly. But in this case, it came off as really funny and not exaggerated. I guess it helps that Caboose can understand what Lopez is saying, but still it’s just the right balance. Which is good since I assume that they’re going to be the comedy relief pair for now. But who knows?

Final Thoughts

As I said, this seems to be here to show us how the time travel will play out and I assume the next episode will either cut to Chorus or focus on one pair for the majority of it. We’ll have to see. Still, this was good! The interactions were really good and I really enjoyed seeing it play out. Everyone felt IC and leaves plenty of setup for their respective situations. It leaves the question of what happened to Donut, but I guess we’ll find out eventually. But overall, this was a fun episode that perfectly sets up what we can expect. Hopefully, we’ll be delivered just what we’re hoping for.

[marvelousaddiction]

To be honest…y'all mind if I let some stuff out? Too bad, I’m gonna…

I can’t wait for after the holidays when I can change my icon and banner back to something not Christmas-y

*RANT; READ AT YOUR OWN FREEWILL*

I have just never been one to care too much about all the decorating, honestly they are a bit depressing, as well as the songs. I guess I get that from daddy, folks who ain’t got no worries look at them and feel happy but we look at them and see how good everyone else has it, how they can afford to go all out and all. My family rarely had a tree in my life, maybe two or three times, but there are more reasons this year I am feeling bleh about this season. Not only does Christmas hold very few good memories but it is always bad. Even the good ones. This time of year my family always struggles, stresses, and fights.

My most memorable christmas’ include the one where my aunt had just passed away and my moms side of the family, who fucking hates my guts because of my dad’s side and simply me being related to them, anyway, I woke up on Christmas and there was a decorated tree in our apartment living room and everything I had asked for was on the floor, the couch and under it. Some things I even got two of, just as a reference to time, the Beautiful Soul Jesse McCartney CD and Sweet Escape Qwen Steffani CD. The only reason they did it was so they could look good and to make me forget about her, or try to, trying to play me for stupid, but I was grateful and still have one of those CDs.

My mom had a tradition for most of my life, every year she would get me a shitty CD, and I mean shitty, a pair of socks, and a pack of underwear. We were in Walmart one year and my dad had a bit of extra money so he got pissed. They had a huge fight in the middle of the store and he pulled me off and asked me what I wanted, I was young but said I was happy with what momma got me, he noticed I saw a Bratz makeup set and he grabbed it for me and bought it.

There are all the years when we didn’t have the money so it was constant stress, and our family had nothing to do with us.

There was the Christmas we visited my uncle and aunts, all there kids and grandkids got the nicest, and although my parents couldn’t do that for me, my mom got me some clothes and a pair of cowboy boots I loved but I could see how it made her feel, they only had us over to tease us like that.

There was the one year, my mom and dad together only had enough to get me one thing, I told them they didn’t have to but they insisted. So I found a really nice coat, that was on sale so they could afford it, and for years it was my special jacket.

There was Christmas 2015 when my dad and my sister caused me to have a full blown breakdown and Jimmy had to drive me away from the house, all night I screamed and cried.

There was Christmas last year when Jimmy had to leave.

Now, this year, I’m telling my parents they don’t have to get me anything, like every year, but my dad is feeling bad because bills and my mom have been taking his money. He wants to get me a real microphone, no I didn’t ask for it but it makes me happy, he has one payment left on it and he says around Christmas time the tax people know not to expect anything. But, yes, I said my mom, my dad gives her money, but the past month or two, he has noticed his money running short, turns out she stole it. She sat it aside to get me Christmas gifts because she loves seeing me happy. She is headstrong, but this year more so than others she has become money hungry. Don’t get me wrong both of my parents are amazing good hearted people. My dad because it was for that reason he didn’t mind, but for many other personal reasons I honestly don’t know how much longer they will be together. He has told me, I am the only reason he’s stuck around. My whole life, keeping them together, is one of the few things I don’t think I’ve failed at.

Besides doesn’t spending all the money on decorations and lights and all seem like kind of a silly waist?

Yes, receiving gifts is fun, as well as giving but personally I feel this season is for the well off.

Really the only thing I’m looking forward to this year is my uncles birthday which happens to be Christmas Day but at some point before then I want to cook him something, like he did on my birthday.

Also, this year, I’m really starting to think about how I’m 20. Not too terribly far down the road I want to be a mom. I don’t want my kids to have the feelings that I have had throughout my life at this time of year. I don’t want them to see what I saw. Another thing, lately, for about the same reason, I’ve been thinking about what if my child or children ask me what I am? Religion wise. I honestly don’t know. They will know Jimmy is Atheist. Me, I am more Agnostic. I’m still searching for what my beliefs are, if there even is one religion or belief system for that matter, which I doubt. .So Christmas wouldn’t be right. I guess I will just make my own traditions up for them on this time of year and I would make sure they understand they can do and be who they want, and explain why I am the way I am and why I/we do the things we do.

So overall I’m thinking about the future and the future of him/her/them.

Other things that bother me about this time of year are the fake ass crappy movies. More importantly though, this time of year though families try to pretend they give a shit about each other when they don’t, people go around doing good things for people they otherwise wouldn’t, all in the spirit of Christmas. Why? Just do that all the time, not just one time of year or don’t do it all!

I guess I’m also bitter about not having some of the good traditions and memories that come for lots of folks this time of year….

The holidays and Christmas just really aren’t my thing, I always look forward to when they are over

They are honestly really hard for me to get through and just draining.

I’m seriously not buying anyone anything, I can’t afford it, well no, I may by my mom a necklace, daddy loves when I make him stuff and so does she, Jimmy’s mom loved what I made them last year, so I may somehow still give gifts, but honestly, for me, being with my loved ones is enough, if there is no stress or fighting then that’d be great.

I think another reason this time of year is hard on daddy is because on Christmas Day, I think in ‘75 or '76, my MaMa had decorated a big white tree, covered in Elvis, and she passed that Christmas. That’s just a guess though.

So yeah, can it like be New Years already so I can stop wanting to die or at least stop wanting to punch everything, know what, I’ll settle for just being able to not feel the urge to vomit in my mouth.

Although, Jimmy’s mom loves decorating and I don’t mind, I like seeing her happy.

Fun Fact: In Highschool someone made me try eggnog, I put the tip of my tongue on it, it was disgusting, it was henceforth known as “satan’s sperm”

[constants-et-variables]

My 2017 recap

Wow, what a year. I don’t think I’ve experience so much change in a 12 month span as this past year. Its been difficult re-adapting for sure, and there has been some real tough times, but overall I am grateful to everything I have learned. I finally feel alive, and I’m ready to start this new chapter of my life.

The first life changing moment of this year was calling off my marriage. This... was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I still have the pain of his face burned into my memory, sitting in the bagel shop, while I was trying not to burst into a hysterical cry. I never hurt someone like that in my life, and though it was not intentional, I never want to do it again. A lot of pain on both sides came from that break up, but my personal worst pain came from the thought that I was some place-holder, a replaceable entity in his life, and that everything he previously said to me meant nothing. 4.5 years, and he moves on within months, gets engaged, and then married a week later? Do not mistake this for anger, I am genuinely happy for him to have found someone that makes him happy, and sometimes you just know when you found the one. Things happen really fast when that happens, I heard, not from personally experience yet. Back to why it hurts though, its just being able to move on so fast, completely ready, saying all the same sweet shit that was said to me, makes me feel like it was all a lie. I was never special to him, and all of those memories mean nothing anymore. Though I called off the wedding, mostly because I wasn’t in love with him, he was still special to me. I made a promise to myself that I will not be that serious with someone again, unless I found the one. Lesson learned from this experience - never settle, it hurts not just you but also the person you are with in the end. You will not be happy, nor ever accept them for who they are, and that is not fair to them. 

The next life changing moment was dropping out of my Ph.D. program. My mentally abusive advisor was destroying my mental health, passion, relationships, and overall my will to even live. I love science, and even though my research was less than ideal, I still wanted to get my Ph.D. to pursue my dream work in the future. For awhile I didn’t think dropping out was an option, since you know, who would want to take my as a student who gave up so easily? Not to mention my advisor probably doesn’t have many nice things to say about me. Well guess what, it is an option, nothing is more valuable than your own sanity, and from there you can deal with damage control. No Ph.D. is worth your happiness and self worth, and there are always ways around it. I found this wonderful lady who works at Penn State who just submitted funding to NASA for biomarkers research. I emailed her back in September, and she got back to me stating if she gets the funding, she will be taking on a new student! This honestly reignited my hope. This past week at AGU I tracked her down so I can introduce myself in person, and oh my god, she was a lovely person. So nice, smart, and even cracked a few adorable jokes! After we finished talking she told me contact after New Years to touch base about the funding, and then asked to make sure I applied. On top of that, I explained to her my sitation, about how I used to be in the Ph.D. program at UMN but I didn’t love my research so I dropped down to M.S. and now am ready to pursue what I am passionate about (yeah I didn’t mention the abusive advisor, but thats in poor form. i’d rather keep everything civil since I got Bill to write a letter of rec somehow). Though I wold be happy becoming a teacher too, for a while, I know I would feel some emptiness about my career. I am really hoping NASA funds her and I get into Penn State, because this is my dream job. Lesson learned from this experience - never put up with toxic people. There is always another way, even if the situation is dire to your career. Though its scary and the future seems scare for awhile, you will be happier in the end. Its always worth it.

The third life changing experience was finding what you would call a “soul mate”, but not being able to be with them. I have never this feeling before, and it taught me alot about what love really is. Accepting the person for all that they are, even loving their weird quirks, and wanting nothing more than them to be happy. Everytime just sitting next to them and talking, you think “wow, I would drop anything for them”. On top of giving me a feeling I have never felt, loving them has taught me how to be a better person, not just for them, but myself. Though we cannot be together for a few reasons, mostly religious purposes since believing in God means a lot for him and his future family, I am glad it still happened. Two heart break in one year is hard to handle, but I never felt so sure of what I want in my life until now. I don’t believe there is just one person that is your soulmate, there is quite a few, but being in the right place and time can be hard. I found the right person, but clearly its not the right time, which it may never be. Though I still catch him constantly staring at me, which confuses and frustrates me a bit, soon we can become good friends again, and I cannot wait, because I really miss him. Lesson learned from this experience - how to love, and that real love exists. All that bullshit that I hear in the movies, and even stuff my friends said, and I always thought “hm can’t relate, maybe they’re just being overdramatic”, I was wrong. So wrong. Love exists, and I’ve been searching for this feeling my whole life, and I  finally found it. Though it was coupled with an equally emotionally heartbreak, I ecstatic I can even feel like this. The next time this comes along, and its the right time, I will never let it go.

Unfortunately I am not happy from all my lesson-learning experiences. I once again learned, that people never change. Again, I tried rebuilding a relationship with my mother, and just today it crashed and burned. I really tried hard to keep her in my life, because I do care about her and would love to have her in my life, but its not worth it. I do not deserve to be screamed at, and mentally abused by my mom just becase shes my blood. I even warned her when she called back after hanging up on me, that if she starts yelling or even says anything remotely mentally abusive I’m hanging up. What does she do? Ignore me and start to chip away at my well being. Thought I did not yell back, because I am done with that, I did say “Nope, I am not dealing with this, have fun dying alone”, and I kind of feel bad about that. However, I really don’t want to give it another chance. Every time it ends up like this, and it will never change, SHE will never change. For her sake, I hope God doesn’t exist, because if he does, shes going to have much suffering to pay for her cruelty. The lesson learned from this experience - again, people never change. Especially if they’re older, and stuck in their ways and mindset. 

It feels good to finally have all my thoughts out and visible, though I’m sure no one will read this (at least if they are, not this far). I’m not doing this for other people though, I’m doing this for me, which I’m going to start doing more of. The last thing I want to touch on that my views have changed a bit of this year, is God. To start this rant out, I am still 100% an agnostic atheist, I just want to bring up the times it has shaken a bit. For one, throughout all the hard times I faced this year, I found myself talking to “God” often. Halfway through I’d be like “wtf are you doing Christie, you cray”, but there is a part of my that knows his existence is not impossible, though veerrryyy unlikely. So I think “hey well say it just incase he does exist and can hear you”. The next thing happend just a few weeks ago. I feel like no one will believe me, because I hardly believe it myself, but the night before my ex got engaged, I DREAMED he fucking would. It was detailed too, I was scrolling down facebook and saw it pop up on my newsfeed, then started feeling all twisted up inside. Literally, I then woke up that day so distressed like “shit, did that actually happen? wait, just a dream, whew. That would be way too soon anyway, he wouldn’t do that”. Later that day, what do I see? HES ACTUALLY FUCKING ENGAGED. I found out on snap in reality, but still, the coincidence of that happening is unreal, and though I know it is still a coincidence, i’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me think for alittle bit. 

Well, 2018, I’m ready for you and whatever you have to bring. I doubt it will be as life changing as this year, but I still look forward to this next chapter of my life. 

:)

[girlsfightback]

Spirituality vs. Religion

In a generation of kids my age, many of us ended up being non-religious, or at least significantly less religious than our parents. Of course, there are still plenty of extremely religious people in America and the world, but as we learn and grow and technology/science is developed further, we understand the world on a real level rather than a religious one. Lucky for me, my parents were fleeing the Islamic Republic of Iran when they were in their early 20′s to get away from religious extremism and corruption, so growing up I lived a life pretty free of religion. Of course, there are aspects of Islam embedded in the Iranian culture that my parents grew up with, and I experienced that, but I’ve never related to having a strictly religious family. My parents taught me to be open and accepting, and to learn about Islam, but they never forced anything on me. My mom considers herself agnostic, and my dad is Muslim (but the “modern” kind, as he calls it, who drink alcohol and eat pork). 

But when considering religion, and how it functions in society, it is pretty clear to me (and most other people who have learned about religion in the context of history), that it’s simply something humans use to explain things that cannot be explained otherwise. It’s a comfort blanket for humanity. It gives people a way to go about existing in the world and feeling like they have a larger purpose. It’s a way of dealing with the unknown and death. Personally, I feel like embracing those unknowns, and realizing you are in fact, tiny and meaningless in the larger scheme of the universe can be humbling and helps me not take life too seriously sometimes. But I don’t think any of those things are necessarily bad in and of themselves. In fact, religion can very much be beneficial and good to societies. If it encourages people to do good, and helps them feel oriented in life, then of course it is doing good. If it brings them a community and sense of belonging it, that is great. I have respect for people who are religious but are also open, accepting, and use it for personal meaning rather than trying to influence or exploit others for their own gain. We also know that religion can be dividing, greedy, and a killer force.

So whatever this shit is, it means something to people if it can be so powerful, right? But as a part of the non-religious/atheist sect of my generation, I’ve also learned that sometimes we push religion so far out of our lives that we don’t allow ourselves to have any type of spiritual life. If you don’t follow a certain religion and don’t believe in god, that’s it, right? There’s nothing for you? 

For a while, I believed that. But I’ve also started recognizing how I’m drawn to certain types of spirituality and community. Even as a kid, having a sense of community and spirituality was important to me. I think if we consider the positive aspects of religion and the spirituality that comes with it, we can gain a lot. Personally, the first and main thing still today that made me realize the role spirituality can play in my life is music. Despite how my taste has changed over the years, one thing I’ve always counted on to find a sense of connection with the world was through music. Hearing someone express something artistically that portrayed exactly how I felt was mind-blowing. Music has always given me a sense of identity and been an important part of my life. When I started going to concerts and festivals, seeing everyone smile at each other, make friends, and sing and dance together was one of the most moving and pure things I have ever experienced. Regardless of age, gender, socioeconomic status, or race, a bunch of diverse people in one place, taking time away from the reality their daily life to come together for music. That has to be more powerful than going to church, right? The warmth and energy and kindness I have experienced when going to concerts and festivals always reminds me there is good in the world. And if there is anything that makes me feel hopeful about the world, it’s the soul and creative energy people put into music. Especially in the underground scene I’ve always been a part of, the artists I connect with the most were not ones doing it to sell records and sell out shows to make money and flaunt material things. Of course that’s still how they make a living, but you can feel authenticity with it’s there, and when you get to listen to an artist who’s just doing it because it’s their passion and they want to share it with others, you can feel that shit in your soul. 

Experiencing that has sparked my curiosity about spirituality, because in my eyes, it does for me what going to church does for other people. I feel less alone, I feel free. I’m part of something. From that realization and curiosity, I started becoming more conscious of other aspects of my spiritual life. As with many other aspects of life, your own unique spirituality develops naturally, not by force or by looking for it. Part of spirituality, like religion, comes from developing values and a worldview. My spirituality is open and raw. It believes in honesty and justice. It believes the earth is not ours to own, but to simply coexisit with. It believes we are not better or greater than other beings or anyone else. It believes in equity and equality. It believes there is no right or wrong way of existing in the world. It believes in being humble, but also recognizing the work and effort you put into life. Being proud, but in a way that inspires others rather than bringing them down. Ultimately, it believes in love and balance. 

Approaching all things and people in life with an open heart will draw the kind of people you need into your life. Finding the most authentic and real version of yourself is a process that goes hand in hand with developing your spirituality. Currently I’m at the point in that development where I am trying to connect my mental world to my physical world. Being someone who always felt like an outsider and kind of uncomfortable in my skin/physical existence, this is challenging. Getting so in your brain and busy with daily motions of life is extremely unhealthy, and learning to balance that with yoga, spending more time outside, being in nature, breathing in fresh air, dancing, moving, traveling, having sex, all of those things have helped me start tuning into my physical world more. Of course, this is no revolutionary or new idea, but I feel like it is under appreciated. Especially at an age where in college, and school and work consume so much of my life and brain, sometimes traveling somewhere, kissing someone you’re drawn to, or finding new ways to move your body is more important and will do more for you than working a shift or getting an A on a test. I am working on creating a physical world/existence that matches my mental world, the things that go on in my brain. 

As if I haven’t been cliche enough, let me also bring in how drugs have affected my spirituality. When I first started smoking weed with my friends senior year was the first time in my entire childhood that I felt like I belonged with a group or had genuine fun. It helped me let loose, not be so uptight and anxious, just being able to laugh and eat without caring how I looked or if the people I was with thought I was cool. Smoking helped me let go of a lot of toxic things and people I was holding onto. It helped me loosen up and become a more real and carefree version of myself. It helped me find friends and a community who were not judgemental or on edge, but who craved the same feelings I did. Not to say it didn’t have any negative effects on my life, but I think the positive effects make it well worth it. When it comes to other, more mind-altering drugs, it’s important to approach it knowing exactly what you’re doing and why. I think approaching drugs consciously can bring so many mental/spiritual benefits, but doing them to just turn up and thinking they will make you have fun or seem cool is entirely useless and probably more harmful than anything. If you can’t have fun without drugs, are you really even doing things you enjoy? Do you really even enjoy the people you’re with? If you do drugs with a conscious purpose, to enhance something you already love, to be able to take in more from your senses, to be able to dig farther in your subconscious mind and soul, then it is serving a purpose to you and helping you discover and develop your identity and spirituality. But if you’re doing with no consciousness, or to actually get rid of your consciousness/reality, then you aren’t doing anything good for yourself. I haven’t had a whole lot of drug experiences beyond weed, but I do hope to experiment with them more to aid in my journey of spirituality and open my mental/physical senses to new things. 

I wanted to get these thoughts and ideas out, just letting them flow into physical form. What it really comes down to for me is developing my own unique spirituality, to build the things I need to grow, to connect my physical and mental worlds, strike a healthy balance in life, and to take bits and pieces that I need from religion and reject what I don’t, to really create the best and most real version of myself. And that’s the beauty of following a spiritual life vs. a religious one - it is natural and unique to you - not a set of rules and values that should apply to everyone. Because everyone is different and has different spiritual needs that need to be fulfilled, and a cookie-cutter religion cannot do that. 

[janiedean]

my question is: why are people excited about real people (specifically actors, actresses, singers...) coming out? that make a difference to them? I get it why a fictional character being lgbt+ is important because of representation, but a real person?... I think it's a bit of an intrusive behavior... but that's just my opinion.

well taking it in general it’s more of a question of... if Famous Person X happens to be A Minority then it makes those minorities visible.

like, more generally, I’ll make you an example with people that I don’t give a flying fuck about: in italy there’s this uber famous rapper named fedez who’s married to an influencer named chiara ferragni and they have a kid and the entire thing (marriage/kid etc.) was a media circus that I gave zero fucks about, also I don’t like his music and I don’t give a single fuck about instagram influencers so none of those two people influence my life in any single way... except that then I find out that they didn’t baptize their kid (this is the country where YOU BAPTIZE KIDS SO THE GRANDMOTHERS DON’T GET HURT regardless of whether they will want to undo it later or not) and when people went like OMG HOW WOULD YOU NOT they went like he’s going to do it himself when he can decide and after that they’ve also occasionally said stuff which implies that they’re raising the kid secularly and that they’re most likely atheists. now: what does it change to me? PERSONALLY, shit, but since those two have a huge-ass following in every single field including kids, so... if the kids see their idols actually not doing a thing that 98% of this country does when I spent my entire damned childhood with people asking me why I wasn’t baptized to the point where I actually wanted to do it for peer pressure and I would have sorely regretted it if my parents let me thank fuck they didn’t, the fact that both fedez & chiara ferragni are using their not small influence to show that they’re not baptizing their kid nor have intentions to send him to catechism and so on isn’t exactly *nothing* because it means that to their fans and maybe to their relatives it normalizes that atheists/agnostics don’t baptize their kids. and idk if fourteen year old #1 meets another 14 yo and #2 goes like ‘hey I’m not baptized’, #1 might think OH LIKE FEDEZ’S SON instead of WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR PARENTS.

so like..... it’s not that I’m personally excited that those two are atheists or agnostic nor it makes a difference to me personally, but I’m glad they’re openly doing that because they have enough influence to put a dent in that specific issue.

or maybe idk if famous actor X goes like ‘oh hey in school I was terrible and then I found out I was dyslexic and no one cared but I got help later and I overcame it and OH HEY LOOK AT WHERE I AM’, dyslexic kid fan of actor X might go like ‘oh wait he’s like me and he managed it THEN I CAN DO IT TOO’, like we all project on the people we admire/like to a degree. not to the same point as with fictional characters and so on.

also there’s the part where people are actually influenced by people they admire - like, idk george takei came out at sixty-something. let’s say some people who watched star trek tos and really liked his character and went to a few cons and took pictures with him and went to talk to him and it helped them with stuff also are homophobes. the moment he comes out they go like WAIT WHAT and they have to realize they stanned for years someone belonging to a category they despised. like........ you get where I’m going at, I hope. XD

but like the most important thing is that if people belong to a minority and they don’t know anyone else and that minority is discriminated and so on, seeing a famous person in a position of relative power or privilege coming out and going like ‘oh hey I’m INSERT MINORITY X AS WELL and I got as far as here/I’m happy with my significant other, I have the job I always dreamed of and maybe things were shitty for me before, too, but hey see now I’m famous’ it’s... like, I’m not lgbt but I imagine it would be immensely good for people belonging to minority X, also because it gives them reassurance that there’s other people like them around who are also successful and at the same time makes everyone else see that hey, minority X exists and it’s thriving and it’s not a few unknown people lost in the middle of nowhere. that’s my two cents at least but like real people don’t do rep, real famous people show that those minorities exist and have a life and can do exactly the same things non-minorities do even if they are discriminated/have been discriminated. that’s the point XD

[word-vomit-writing-blog]

Dear everyone or no one,

               I have been at the age for a while now to decide if I want to continue believing the religious stories and teachings of my grandmother and mother. There are many who reach this age and do away with it all in favor of what feels right to them using science to disprove what happened in the Bible or using some other catalyst to do away with Christianity all together. I’ve held onto my faith because nothing substantial has come my way to prove otherwise. Proving that there is a God is just as difficult as disproving God right, so why not go with what you know until something else changes it… right? I believe that every single person on this Earth has a right to do whatever they feel is needed for themselves—save those who want to hurt others—because unless you can come up with a compelling argument, they are going to fight back with the experience and knowledge they grew up with and treat it as absolute fact. I hold onto my faith because things have happened personally to me that I feel proves there is an existence of some more powerful being, that’s what keeps me in Christianity. BUT, that is to say I haven’t gone through and did a check on “human” Christianity and put myself in a spot I believe to be a happy middle-ground. {I’m going to get vent-y and heated in the next paragraph, brace yourself}

               Religion is stupid. Human religion cuts up the Bible and uses whatever it wants to make their point as to why they believe you should follow God. Some religions believe that speaking in tongues is an old way of praising God and that you must be baptized in order to enter Heaven; some religions believe that praying to God out-right is forbidden and you must pray to people who are around God (like Mary or the Saints) and you can only confess your sins to a holy man who got the college degree in prayer or something; some religions believe you shouldn’t eat pork; some religions believe you shouldn’t do anything on Saturday; some religions revolve around money—you get my point. Religion is messed up because there are people who try to run it like a monarchy. “I’m the pastor, and the closest to God, so therefore you should do as I say because I represent him and his grace.” No, fuck that. I’m not going to come to your church and clean your floors because “Almighty and all holy Susan” had better shit to do. No, I’m not going to pay you tithe twice because you feel like the church could use new trashcans or some shit. No one spends $1000 on trashcans so I know what you’re doing, fuck off. “Help us reach our tithe goal and our pastor will kiss a pig!” ... ok, goal for what? Charity? To help fix the roof? To help pay bills? I don’t know because it never said. Just help us raise $2000 because “reasons.” I get there are bills to pay, but how much can they be? You’re fully open only 4 times a month, maybe a room or two is in use in between that, utilities can’t be that high. And if you need to pay 2 grand a month for rent or payments on the building you are using then maybe don’t build/buy the super-dome for your 17 members of congregation. I know what you’re doing, it’s gospel grandstanding. “Come to our church, look at the size of it, we are doing thiiiiiss well. Some of the best churches I’ve ever been to were tiny, sat maybe 40 people (although it was never full) and featured a pastor that looked old enough to have helped write the Bible. Now granted, all these places were out in the boondocks and was a good time if you were straight and white, but the lesson for that Sunday wasn’t driven by greed or the need to expand. Dude just taught the Bible. Church for me has always been a bad time because it featured teachings from someone who has “earned” the obedience of their congregation because they can read a book and give an oral analogy on it every week.  

               Now, let me talk about the Bible for a moment. It’s ok if you feel like it’s something that will help you on your day-to-day, but it’s not a law book meant to be waived around in every argument. If you read the thing you would see that nearly 3/4ths of it is obsolete and not viable anymore. Psalms is cool because it’s a book of lyrics, Proverbs is neat too for daily reading on how not to be a dick, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—the story of Christ—is probably the most important, Isaiah contains my favorite verse, and Romans is a pretty good book to skim through to know how to handle yourself and others. For extra credit, you can read Revelations because that book is a trip and a half. Other than that, the rest of the Bible is just letters to countries telling them to join the Christ club or historical retellings. None of the stuff in Leviticus—which seems to be the favored book of the hateful and the spiteful—matters anymore because of Christ’s death. He paid your bill and every bill afterwards all you got to do is accept that he did it—that’s it. It’s the most famous quote in the Bible John 3:16 which is basically realize what he did and your golden.

               If you’re Atheist or Agnostic that’s your choice. I’m not here to convince others to follow something they don’t feel comfortable with. I’m here to dump thoughts onto a page because that is what a blog is for. Now, why do I still believe in God? There are little moments in my life I feel like it featured the presence of something controlling the scene. I was grocery shopping and only had a $200 budget to get everything me and my roommate food for the whole month. I didn’t get anything but what was on a list. Anyone that’s been grocery shopping knows that the total adds up quick when it involves things that many people need as a necessity. Having $200 and only $200 I watched as the cashier rang up my food and watched the total rise higher and higher until it blew past the $100 mark and I began to get worried. So, I said a prayer to myself. The cashier then began to tell me that because the store was running some sort of “match the price” thing, most of my items were on discount. Milk was half was it was, bread was cheaper, and so on. My total came to $195 dollars. If you are that kind of person that believes in coincidence you could argue that, but I’m lead to believe that because I asked for help from the God I choose to believe in, my back was covered. Recently, I had a court fee to pay and couldn’t pay it until 3 days after it was due. So, I set my alarm for eleven a.m. to call and ask about it. I’m on a “pay-or-appear” order so if I can’t pay I go to court—on a Monday—to explain why, if I don’t a warrant could be made for my arrest for them to take me in, set me in jail for a while, and THEN ask why I couldn’t pay it; kind of a strict way of the courts to make sure they get their money. I was under the impression if I couldn’t pay it I had a week to show up for court, but since today was a Monday I had this feeling that I should call and ask. I didn’t sleep well the night before so I called off plans to help some people, then I reset my alarm/reminder to call to one p.m. so I could get more sleep. My alarm still went off at eleven. I checked all my alarms to make sure another one didn’t go off, but there was none. My phone just stored the eleven alarm and played it on time. By then I figured I could just make the quick call to ask if I could pay it three days late then go back to sleep. The woman on the phone explained to me that I was supposed to be there at eight a.m. to attend court if I couldn’t make the payment. In a rush I got dressed and went to the court house only to find the judge was fully aware I hadn’t paid anything. I told him about paying it later in the week and he agreed and assured me of my next payment. Nothing was said about it, but I believe his knowledge in my late payment the second I walked in meant he might have been ready to issue a warrant. If I had waited until one to call who knows if it would have turned out the same way, but my phone rang to an eleven-a.m. alarm that it shouldn’t have, and because of that things worked out in the best-case scenario. Someone had my back and I believe that someone is God.

               That’s where I stand. I believe there is an all-powerful being that helps people who believe in him and maybe some people who don’t. I’m not a religious person but I would say I’m spiritual in my faith. There are times where I feel like things wouldn’t have worked out the way they would have if I wasn’t so faithful in my spirituality. I chose to hang on to my childhood Sunday school lessons and shape them to better fit my adult life—and I feel like it is paying off.  

-Saq

[a-polite-melody]

Yeah, okay, I’m ranting. My mom just sent me another goddamn text about Spud the cat, and while it was cute at first, it really was one of the cruxes of why my week at home was so shitty, and I need to do what I do best when I feel bad about something and just... throw it all out there. Warning, this is loooong. There’s a reason I put in a cut, and I don’t expect anyone to read this. I’m just venting.

If you’re curious: in short, over the past week I was made feel worthless by most of my family, and on top of that lovely stuff, I found out my dad outed me to my grandparents.

I was home last week because of my university’s reading week. It also happened to be over my birthday.

So, before reading week even begins, I’m making plans about how I’m getting home, and it starts. I’m talking to my mom, and I tell her reading week starts on the 20th, and since I don’t have classes on Fridays, and all of my classes were cancelled for one reason or another on Thursday I could come home as early as the 16th. She tells me that my uncle and my grandma are going away to Cuba on vacation on the 15th and they aren’t getting back until the 23rd, and she’s also house/dog sitting for my uncle. So she can’t come out to get me on Thursday, or any day, and because my dad works, he won’t be able to come get me until Saturday. I’d have taken the train, but because I had lots of stuff to bring with me (read: laundry I didn’t want to have to pay to do) I could do that because there’s a baggage limit I’d have been over.

Okay, not only am I waiting a couple extra days in residence with nothing to do, but my grandma and my uncle are both going to be away for most of the time I’m going to be home, including my birthday. It’s not the end of the world, and they were going to be back before I have to go back to school, so I didn’t really care all that much.

Friday night I sort of lose track of time and forget that dinner’s a thing until around 8:00. I think I already made a post about this, but usually the dining hall closes at 11:00, so I think all’s well. But of course not. The dining hall closed at 7:00 because they’re already on holiday hours, and they didn’t make this well known in advance. So I order pizza. It’s fine.

Saturday morning, I get a text from my dad right around 8:00 - I should mention I’m not even awake at this point - saying he’s leaving and will be here to pick me up at about 9:30. Great. So I have to shower, pack, and eat breakfast in an hour and a half. Again, not too big a deal, but inconvenient anyway. So I shower, I pack, then I go down to the dining hall at what was around 9:00. Turns out the holiday hours also means the dining hall doesn’t open for breakfast. They open at 11:00. So I just don’t eat breakfast that day. It’s fine. Whatever. I’ve missed breakfast before. Usually because I woke up late and needed to rush off to class, but hey, what’s the difference?

My dad and I take the scenic route back, and end up grabbing lunch because we were on the road that long, so I did eat eventually. Got home, dog was happy to see me, but old and arthritic so it was kind of sad because she was following me around everywhere and obviously in pain from moving around more than she’s used to. But hey, I’m home and get to love my dog for a few days!

...Oh yeah, that means I have to live at my dad’s place until my mom gets back from being at my uncle’s. I mean, I guess I could’ve gone over to my mom’s, but it’d have been a little awkward just living with my mom’s boyfriend without my mom around. Again, nothing bad, just inconvenient - the bed’s super uncomfortable; I live in the basement, which is cold as balls; my dad never put in a bathroom down there like he was going to, so I have to go up to the bathroom on the main floor (which doesn’t have a shower, I have to use the shower on the second floor); my dog won’t go into the basement and never has, so I have to hang out upstairs if I want to see her, which isn’t great because I like to hide away in my room most of the time; my dad rather than waiting for me to say “come in” after he knocks will just open the door immediately after he knocks, and I mean, the knock ends and not even a second later the door opens, so if I’m changing, or doing something I don’t want my dad to walk in on, there’s nothing I can do...

At this point it’s all just minor things, but still, I’ve got this feeling of, “oh, if this start is any indication, this week is not going to go well.”

First conversation I have with my dad after I get home and unpacked:

(Background: A couple months ago my dad texted me saying my grandma had wanted to send me clips of someone who came and spoke at her church and that my dad didn’t think I’d be interested. Also note that my grandma’s church is one of these churches that tries to be “progressive”. I don’t know very much about religion, but what I can piece together from what my grandma’s told me, because they’re a Unitarian church they don’t talk directly about god but rather the values out of the bible (again, I don’t really know what I’m taking about, just stuff I got from my grandma), they accept people of all religions coming to their church (which is how my grandma keeps trying to get me to come to church with her even though I’m atheist/agnostic), and they have a bunch of LGBT+ members of their church.)

I don’t remember how exactly we got around to this conversation, but somehow we got onto what I just gave a background about. Turns out the person who came to speak at the church was a trans person(my dad is still really bad with this stuff, so he said a “transgender” but by context cues I think the person who was talking was a trans man, but I don’t know). After that... church meeting, I don’t know... my grandma called my dad and said something along the lines of, “Now I understand Jenn so much better!”

And, uh, I’m not trans. I’m cis. Not only that, but in terms of my family I only came out to my parents. That’s it, mostly because I don’t know how safe it’d be to come out to my grandparents. Sure, that grandma (as well as my dad’s step-father) try to be “progressive”, but end up saying things that are really bigoted, and I just want to stay clear of that.

So I ask my dad why she’d say that. My dad asked her the same question, and she pulls up something that apparently happened when I was seven, which I have no memory of:

We, as a family, went out to a restaurant for dinner. It was a really windy day. As soon as we got into the restaurant my grandma drags me to the bathroom. After I’m done in the bathroom, and once we’ve both washed our hands my grandma pulls out a comb, combs her hair, then hands the comb to me and says, “You’re going to want to comb your hair.”

To which, I apparently said, “Why do you judge people on their appearance so much?”

Go seven-year-old me! I wish I still had that confidence!

I guess this stuck with her enough that she remembers it. And on top of that, she said stuff about how I don’t wear makeup, and don’t wear super nice clothes that compliment my body, and that I’ve never really taken time on my appearance.

Basically, my grandma is upset that I don’t perform femininity to her standards. And when a trans person came and talked about trans issues to my grandma’s church, instead of learning about how things can affect trans people, and how she can be better toward the trans community, she completely misses the point and invalidates what this person is telling her by trying to use it to understand her cisgender, and for all she knows straight, granddaughter.

I say something along those lines to my dad, and he tells me that he’s actually outed me to my grandparents... Years ago actually.

I, ask why, calmly, even though I’m seething inside. My dad says because my grandma asked if I was gay. THAT’S NOT A GOOD REASON TO HAVE OUTED ME. YOU COULD HAVE SAID NO, THAT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN A LIE. YOU COULD HAVE SAID YOU DIDN’T KNOW. YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO FUCKING OUT ME.

So now I’m mad. I’m mad at my dad for outing me. I’m mad at my grandma for using me as an excuse to ignore trans issues. I’m just mad. I stay as far away from my dad as I can, which really is not very far considering there was so much in the way of birthday plans.

Birthday stuff.. Oh boy birthday stuff...

So, first birthday thing was going to see my dad’s step-mother. Ever since my grandpa passed away it’s been more and more obvious that her cognitive abilities are quickly dwindling. She’s had memory tests done, and the doctors after reviewing results have told my dad and uncle (who are pretty much the only people who look after her) that she should either have a full time PSW living with her or she should be moved into an assisted living facility. We want to do that, because we do worry about her being on her own, but at this point my grandma can’t legally consent to stuff like that, and the power of medical attorney isn’t my dad or my uncle, it’s her sister who doesn’t give two shits about her, besides the large amount of money she became the sole owner of when my grandpa passed away. Anyway, we go visit her, and that’s always hard. I get a present of things that no one would ever think to give me because they are so far removed from my interests. I get three different birthday cards. Of course there’s sentiment there, but it shows just how bad her memory is getting.

Second birthday thing, a get-together at my dad’s place consisting of me, my dad, my grandma, my dad’s step-father, and my uncle. Everyone arrives, I open presents, there’s conversation I’m a part of about mostly just school for all of ten minutes. Then, apparently, I turn into a ghost. I no longer exist. Conversation is about stuff I don’t know about, stuff I’m too uncomfortable to join in on, dark and dreary stuff about the future that kind of makes me want to leave the room and kill myself right then and there because the message over and over again is that “the younger generation is utterly and totally fucked”. Finally, we get onto science stuff - mostly medical stuff that shows up in the news - but at least it’s something I can say something about. Except as soon as I open my mouth I’m talked over. Even if I keep trying to talk no one cares. This always happens when I’m around this particular set of family, but I always hope that on my birthday it won’t happen. I’m always disappointed.

Third thing, another dinner with my grandma and my dad’s step-father. Because apparently they haven’t tolerated my existence long enough that they feel like they’ve been good grandparents. It doesn’t go very much differently, I really think the only difference is that my uncle wasn’t there.

Fourth, I go over to my other uncle’s place because my mom is still over there dog/house sitting and I hadn’t seen her yet. I also didn’t get a call or anything from her on my birthday mind you. Just a post on facebook that was more self-serving than an actual birthday message. Now is when I meet Spud the cat. So my mom admits to me that she has to keep reminding herself that she’s there to take care of my uncle’s dog, not the cat. She’s forgotten the dog outside at least once, she’d left his bowl empty for a day (he picks at food so he always needs food in his bowl for when he gets hungry)... As soon as I walk in, my mom covers something up that’s on the table and says, “Sorry, that’s your birthday card. I haven’t signed it yet.” Anyway, I help her with the whole cat thing, get her moved in to her new forever home. Great.

Last (sort of), I go out to lunch with my grandma once she’s back, as well as my mom. That lunch was actually decent. Mostly because we went to a buffet, so there wasn’t a lot of conversation. Plus my mom’s mother is usually pretty benign compared to the rest of my family, so being around her isn’t quite so stressful on me.

Now stuff with my mom.

(Background: My mom’s been off work on medical leave for... 5? years... something like that because of severe depression, anxiety, bpd, and trying to find a mix of drugs to help with all of that that isn’t debilitating. In that time, my mom started drinking more heavily. I didn’t know how bad it had gotten (my mom likes to keep this stuff from me, which of course makes sense, and she’s good at it, considering I didn’t know about the bpd until this past August when she was diagnosed at the start of when she had to leave work) until her doctor recommended she go to a group on depression and alcoholism. She made some friends in the group, one of which was the person who took in Spud the cat.)

So after lunch I head over to my mom’s place. I finally get to stay at her place, which is much less inconvenient for the most part. I finally get my card from my mom. Actually, that was at lunch I believe, but regardless, it took until Friday when I saw her on Tuesday, and my birthday was Monday. Not the biggest deal in the world, but feels kind of bad that I took the back-seat in her mind to a cat.

My mom’s exhausted because of not sleeping well while she’s been at my uncle’s. I’m exhausted because I’ve been dealing with family all week. So we just do our own things. She does suggest we go see a movie because the gift I got from her that wasn’t an early present I got back in January was a 2 for 1 movie pass. I say yeah, totally, because I really do want to go see Lego Batman. So we pick a time for 6:45 on Saturday, which is the next day.

Next day rolls around. I head downstairs to make breakfast and notice the door to her and her boyfriend’s room is open. Makes sense, because her boyfriend would have already left for work, and because of how loud my mom snores, as well as the problems she has sleeping sometimes, she’ll sleep in the basement when her boyfriend has to get up really early for work. I make and eat breakfast, head back up to my room, fart around on my laptop until lunch time, make lunch, eat lunch, fart around some more... All this with no sign of my mother...

Except for a text from her at around noon asking if I was too tired to go to the movie. Now, at first I take this at face value and say that no, I’m good. But then it occurs to me that maybe this is her way of saying she’s too tired to go. So I say if she’s not feeling up to it that it’d be okay if we go some other time. She says no, she’s good to go and is looking forward to it.

At sometime around 3:00, my mom knocks on my door. I tell her to come in, and she brings in the old printer that was in my room at school that I brought home. I didn’t know where she wanted it, apparently in my room, so she brought it in. Fine. Then she asks if we can talk, and it’s obvious she’s drunk.

She tells me that she’d woken up that morning and immediately started drinking. She’d felt bad about it, so she tried calling her friends from the group she was in. None of them answered, so she felt worse, and drank more. At this point, she’s way too drunk to go out to a movie with me.

Now... I get that addiction is a difficult thing. But it’s so hard for me not to take offence to the fact that my mom has given more shits about a stray cat than a daughter who is at home for the week and had a birthday a few days ago so much so that she’d put off something as simple as signing a birthday card - and the time we plan to do something together just happens to be the one time she gets so drunk that she won’t leave the house.

Now, since I’ve been back at school, I just get text after text about Spud the cat. She went with her friend to bring the cat to the vet. She’s spent all day at her friend’s place with this cat. And yet, she couldn’t even spend a day with me.

I’m done. I really cannot take any more of my family right now. I’m so glad I’m back at school, and I don’t think I’ll voluntarily go back home until I’m kicked out of residence for the summer. And even then, I don’t want to live with either of my parents, but I don’t have enough money and can’t make enough money to swing getting my own place for the summer as well as pay for tuition and housing next year. So... fuck.