#i’m working on the tl i swear!!! (not convincing in the least)

[deus-ex-mona]

where are you reading Fantasia LOVE & KISS ¿?

hi!

i’m reading fantasia love&kiss (in its original japanese text) via the ebook version (on bookwalker) and its physical copy edition (which can be found on amazon jp)!!

though, if you’re asking about a translation, you gonna have to wait a little longer for that, sorry~☆

thanks for the ask though!!!!

[gubes-sweaters]

Mind, Body, and Soul 5

Authors note: Hey, so it's been a while oops. I’ve been writing one-shots in between writing chapters 4 and 5 only because I wasn’t sure where to take this series, but I’ve figured it out and now I’m back. I still have 3 or 4 one-shots written that still need to be edited. This chapter has a couple of switches of the POV. Sorry if it’s a little confusing, but it’s the easiest way to write the story. Also, I know Gideon and Rossi didn’t work together in the early season, but I’m changing it. I realize the TL of a lot of the members is off, but it’s all intentional for the story.

Content warning: Nothing I can think of, but don’t be afraid to tell me about a warning I should put in.

Word count: 2.7k

Chapter 5: New Member of the BAU

*ring ring*

*ring ring*

I shift under Spencer's grip trying to reach my phone as it's ringing. He’s such a heavy sleeper that by the time I wiggled out from his arms and grabbed my phone he was still sleeping. He just rolled over before snoring very quietly. I look at my phone and see it's my dad! Shit, I was supposed to meet with my dad at ten today and it's already eleven. I'm not even ready this is such a disaster, what am I supposed to tell him? Oh, don’t worry dad I’m just busy because I’m in the back of this guy’s car and I slept through my alarm! He’s going to kill me because I'm supposed to meet some of my dad’s work friends then go out to lunch with him.

“Ciao papà,” I say trying to sound like I'm awake. He can probably see through my bullshit though because I'm a shitty liar, and he's a profiler.

“Where's my bambino and why isn't she at the BAU right now? My colleagues want to meet you.”

“Sorry, I spent all night studying and I must've slept through my alarm I'll be there as soon as possible,” I technically lie to him I did sleep through my alarm.

“Okay...well, I love you. I have a security badge ready for you. All you have to do is tell security who you are and you're here to see me,” He's clearly not convinced but I don't think he cares enough to press the issue.

“Okay, love you too. Bye!” I hang up then turn to Spencer trying to wake him up.

I shake him over and over until he finally stirs. Seriously how the hell does he sleep so heavy. Once I get him up I explain that I’m supposed to have lunch with my dad and I’m supposed to meet his coworkers now that he’s coming out of retirement for whatever reason.

“Okay, yeah give me a second to clean up the back, and we can take you back to your apartment,” He says while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Thanks,” I say before planting a gentle kiss on his cheek.

He blushes at me before signaling for me to hop out of the trunk. We make a collaborative effort to clean out the trunk and sit the back seats back up. We then get in the front and make small talk on the way back to my apartment. Once we arrive I feel that pit in my stomach again, the same one I feel every time one of us has to leave.

“Thanks for yesterday!” I say before turning to open the car door with the bear we made yesterday. When I asked who's keeping the bear he jokingly said we’ll split custody and I guess this is my week. Before I could open the car door he placed his hand on my forearm very gently like I was made out of glass. He has this pained and disappointed look on his face.

“Can I see you again?” He asks just barely above a whisper.

I just respond with a nod and a quick kiss before I hop out of the car and wave goodbye. All I see is a wide grin on his face and a wave before I disappear into my apartment building. I knew Stella and Raven weren’t home because neither of their cars was in the parking lot. That meant I could get ready quickly and slip out of the apartment without any questions being asked.

I set the stuffed bear on the bed and begin getting ready. After I shower, dry my hair, brush my teeth, apply a small bit of makeup, and slip on a sweater and jeans I’m finally ready to leave. It’s only one pm, so I'm not making a horrible time given that I was already late. I then practically drive like a mad man to the BAU. I stop at security and tell them I’m here for my dad David Rossi. I get directions to the floor and where my dad’s new office is. I walk into the bullpen and see two very familiar and comforting faces, but the others belong to complete strangers. I immediately spot my dad’s old partner Jason Gideon and the Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner. I met them both when I was in middle school, but the rest of the team was new to me and my dad as well. He’s been there for a couple of months since his book tour was just now ending. As soon as Gideon sees me he walks towards me with his arms outstretched.

“Hey kiddo it’s been a long time. I may be getting old, but I’ll never forget that face.” He says while engulfing me in a hug. Honestly, I talked to Gideon probably more than my dad growing up. This is odd because he didn’t have the best relationship with his own son, but he was always like a cool uncle. Then the same click happened to me and Aaron Hotchner when we first met. He always wanted kids and some of the only times you would see him smile and laugh was around kids. He and his wife Haley jokingly called me their test run when I would spend time with them. When my mom and dad were both busy I spent a lot of time with Haley because I didn’t want to be with a nanny.

“Hey, guys!” I say before hugging them both once more.

“So, how’s school been? You’re not getting into any trouble are you?” Uncle Jason asks before nudging me as the three of us walk towards my dad’s new office. I can see two people’s eyes on me from the bullpen then suddenly a third when a blonde woman who doesn't look much older than me comes strutting out of her office flashing me a quick smile.

“You know me, I’m David Rossi’s daughter, so I seemingly can't stay out of trouble,” I joked with them as we arrived at my dad’s new office. It had a shiny new nameplate that said “David Rossi” on the front of it. Gideon knocks and I feel a wave of nostalgia. I remember in the 6th grade visiting my dad at the BAU and walking up to my dad’s office hand in hand with Gideon. Now I’m much older and much taller, but much hasn’t changed. After a few seconds, my dad opens the door with a huge grin on his face I swear he hasn't changed since I was a kid. He still wears overly expensive suits and a watch that probably would pay a year and a half of my rent if not more.

“Ah, there she is. Oh, how I’ve missed you,” He says before eloping me in a bear hug.

“Come I want you to meet my other co-workers,” He says as the four of us walk back down the stairs where a small conglomeration of desks are.

“Everybody this is my daughter (y/n),” My dad proudly says while the three people went to introduce themselves. The first being the woman walking out of the office earlier. She is tall and blonde. She looks a little young to be a profiler though.

“Hi, I’m Jenifer Jareau, but you’re more than welcome to call me JJ. I’m the communication's liaison,” She says as she sticks her hand out for me to shake. After a woman with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes also extended her hand out to me. She was wearing a tan leather jacket with a black top beneath it and black dress pants along with tan ankle boots.

“Hi I’m Elle Greenway, it’s nice to meet you these three have been talking about you all day,” She says while gesturing towards my dad, uncle Aaron, and uncle Jason. Lastly, a tall very muscular man walks up to me with an awful lot of confidence. He’s wearing a tight heather gray t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Accompanied by his gun sitting snugly on his hip.

“Well Hello I’m Derek Morgan and you must be an angel,” He says forgetting that my dad is standing right behind me either that or he doesn't care. I shake his hand before my dad clears his throat not amused by Morgan's antics.

“Well, now that you’ve met my team it’s about time we went to lunch. Aaron don’t hesitate to call me if something pops up about that DC hacker case,” He says as we walk away and Uncle Aaron just responds with his usual very stern-looking face and a slight nod.

“DC hacker?” I ask as we exit the bullpen and make our way to the elevator.

“Let’s not talk about work. I want to know about school how are you?”

“I’m doing good I guess I've been a little distracted as of recent but I'm keeping myself on track I promise.”

“Atta girl,” He says before the elevator doors open, and he leads me out to his car.

-----Time Skip----

“So how are Raven and Stella I haven't seen them since I went to sign the lease again last year.” I can tell what he’s doing he’s making awkward small talk, so he feels like he's an integral part of my life. I appreciate the effort and I can’t shit on him too much because at least he’s making an effort. So I’ll play into this and make him feel better for the time being. I’m hoping that he doesn't feel like utter crap because we have nothing important to talk about besides this DC hacker case that I can’t get out of my mind. I haven’t talked about it since we were in the car because he clearly doesn’t want me to know anything about it since he keeps dodging my questions.

“They’re doing pretty good. I mean we don’t have any classes together this year because our majors are somewhat different, but we live together, so we're still close.”

“Oh, how's that friend you were telling me about? Penelope Garcia, that's her name right?” He asks as he leans in close to me. If I didn't know any better I would think he's shamelessly profiling me right now. We continue to talk about school and my friends throughout lunch. For someone who has such an extra and boujee person, he didn't talk about himself at all. Which is not my dad's usual behavior at all.

“Well, that's good to hear. So I was thinking after lunch maybe we-” As if God himself answered my prayers my dad's work cell starting ringing. I can hear small mumbles from the blonde woman I met earlier I believe her name was JJ. I can't exactly make out what is going on but either way, I'm taking whatever excuse I can get.

“I’m sorry sweetheart I’m going to have to cut this short that was a call from work. On the bright side, I’m not going to be on my book tour anymore, so whenever I have a day off we can spend time together.”

“Of course!” I say trying to humor him.

“Well, I’ll drop you back off at the FBI building.” He says before flagging down the waitress to pay for the check.

----Rossi’s POV----

I walk back into the FBI building after dropping (y/n) off. Aaron, Gideon, and I feel terrible for using her to get information. I feel the worst out of the three of us because I promised her after going back to the BAU this time would be different, but she's currently just another pawn in a game she didn't agree to.

“So what do we have Aaron?”

“Follow me to the round table we got all of the information needed from another technical analyst in the building Kevin Lynch.”

As Aaron and I walk into the room JJ is giving Gideon, Morgan, and Emily all of the information we need to know.

“This is Penelope Grace Garcia. She is a 28-year-old female. We didn’t have many people to contact for information on her because her birth parents are no longer alive. Her parents passed in a car accident ten years ago that was caused by a drunk driver. Since then she has seemingly lived a low profile life and has managed to stay under the radar when it comes to the justice system. We have been able to get enough evidence on her because of her close relations with David Rossi's daughter (y/n) Rossi. We are going to bring her in for questioning. She’ll likely have no prior knowledge of interrogations because she’s been able to fly under the radar. That also makes her extremely cocky, and she’ll think that we have no information on her. Our job is to be as docile yet forward as possible. We want to be docile, so she’ll trust. She has so much skill that Strauss approved for us to recruit her into the BAU. She’ll be of more use to us than she would be in jail. That’s all for now.”

As JJ finishes with the profile we all gather our things and mentally prepare ourselves for the interrogation. I was advised to stay out of it just in case she knew I was (y/n)’s father. Given the fact that she’s an elite hacker that isn’t such a farfetched statement.

-Hotch’s POV-

“You have two options either you can serve jail time or you can work for us at the BAU,” I tell her just before Morgan walks back into the room.

I have her make a quick resume, so we can hire her onto the BAU. I think she has potential and that she’s just putting up a tough front. I have to give her props though because I’ve seen grown men crumble a lot easier than her. Once we’re able to strike a deal with her I have Morgan unlock her cuffs. I make sure Morgan knows to tell her that she can’t talk about any of this with (y/n) for a while especially since the case involving her isn’t fully closed.

-(y/n) POV-

I finally make it back to my apartment when I get a text from my mom asking how lunch with my dad went. As I unlock the door to my apartment I text her back and let her know that it was okay, but dad was acting super weird. I told her it seemed like he was interrogating me. She just let me know that it’s out of habit because he’s a profiler and it’s not that big of a deal and to not read too much into it.

I feel like there was something that I had to do but I can't remember. It’s not until I check the calendar on my phone and realize Daisy’s birthday is in two days and I didn’t get her anything. I’m far too lazy to leave my apartment for a second time today which was supposed to be my day off. I also don’t want to go alone maybe I should text Spencer and see how busy he is.

Me: Hey, I have a birthday party to go to on Saturday. I still need to get her a birthday present would you mind coming with me tomorrow?

Spence: Sure, what time should I pick you up?

Me: How about 10?

Spence: Sounds good I’ll see you then :)

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Taglist: @haylaansmi @rexorangecouny

[savrenim]

hi hi hi. so I just got into the Hamilton fandom, I swear I am four years late where did everybody go, and, well. I am apparently a hamburr shipper. bcs that is my life now. anyway I saw your fic ifmlam and I swear it is my favourite of all the fics I've ever read (and trust me I've read literally thousands). I love it so so much, how do you write fics like that??? I cried about four times during the whole thing, I stayed up till 4am reading it even when I had to wake up at 7 because it is just. that. good. I could not stop thinking about it for days afterwards and ifmlam has just ruined me. I can't think of listen to Hamilton without thinking of ifmlam anymore.

on to my qursttion: is it abandoned? of course it's perfectly FINE if it is. don't let anyone tell u differently, your fic is YOURS and u are amazing.

but pls I really need closure from ur fic, it has been haunting me if its abandoned or ongoing and I've read ur other fics and they are just chefskiss and thank you so much for writing them all. thank you thank you thank you, I will never be able to thank you enough for writing this fic and for everything it's done for me. I am probably thousands of miles away but I am sending you virtual jugs through a co.puter screen right now.

(don't feel pressured to reply to this or update it flam, I know how overwhelming it can get with so many messages and after a while u get desensitized to it. u can literally reply "thx. itfmlam is abandoned" and I would still be amazingly star struck. anyway has gotten way too long and I need to sleep and I'm sorry u probably won't see this so I'm just talking to myself right now but bye!!)

and thank you so so much for writing itfmlam.

aaaah hello anon!

thank you so so much???? I am so??? honored??? that ifmlam rates so highly to you, and also that you've read my other fics??????

the answer to the "is ifmlam abandoned" question is probably the worst possible one, which is pretty much "I do want to finish it, both for the folks that still want closure as well as it bothers to me have abandoned projects that are in the public eye/ already partially published, but also, it is last on my current writing projects list"

my current actually active writing projects list, kind of in order of priority, is

I'm literally three chapters away from being Actually Fully Done with the not-quite-first-not-quite-second let's call it 1.5th draft of an actual?? full?? original?? novel?? Opus which of course then goes out to beta readers and then gets who-knows-how-much edited and then maybe beta readers again if a lot does change and then a copyeditor my mom, my copyeditor is my mom, and maybe my little brother he's one of the betas but is very good at catching typos and then I!!! get to publish it!!!! which is the single thing I am most excited for!!!!!!!!! this should be closed up in the next week or two, and then take a while for people to actually read the draft and get back to me.

I really desperately want to finish my open-but-like-90%-written fic, which means we raise it up, the final chapter of to the bottom of the river bc I realized that it was kind of incomplete, and the second chapter of a buried and a burning flame because any more work there will need to wait until the author publishes the next book in the series. this should be closed up in the next month or two.

Speedwrite the draft of the second book of the Opus series so that hopefully by the time book 1 edits are happening, I have an almost complete draft of the second book. this is mostly me side-eyeing myself about taking nearly four years to write the first book, but that is solidly in part because I had so many other open projects which point 2 is about clearing that docket. this should be done in the next year.

And then just have my major projects be, at least until books 1-5 are written and published, books 1-5 of that because that is arguably the first major 'plot arc' of the series, so if I'm looking for a pause point on writing, that's probably where to stop.

There are two or three other short side projects (a weird fun second person short story tentatively titled witch-queen, a collection of four short stories Memoirs about a not-so-evil necromancer and the shenanigans he gets up to trying to rule a kingdom, working title Perfectly Normal Recipe Blog which is a collaborative project about a perfectly normal recipe blog that definitely doesn't include anything out of the normal) that will happen when they happen

There are other projects that are on the backburner -- The Numanok Files, a series of probably 12-15 short novellas about a mercenary/ bounty hunter esque person in space whose specialty is dealing with hauntings, but, like, 80% of their jobs is actually "you are effectively a space home inspector pointing out faulty wiring reacting to solar flares/ there's a weird alien fungus/ it's carbon monoxide okay change your atmosphere filters" and 20% of it is punching ghosts; there's a post-post apocalypse novel that I want to write that I know characters and general pacing and half the setting but need to work out the other half and figure out how much aesthetic I want to commit to; there's Strangeside7 aka spacerace book that is my reaction to how much I love how Redline the anime movie commits itself to "no we are about a race, like 60% of the screentime is just fully going to be an utterly ridiculous sci fi space race"; there's even a ridiculous YA trilogy that I would have to completely transplant the setting but might end up writing because the interplay between angel-physics and physics-physics was one of my favorite things in the world. and I guess the weird ridiculous technically a sequel series to ifmlam that was going to be published as original books that was basically me having fun with 'okay I fucking love star wars prequels old rotting space bureaucracy galactic republic style' except with seers and that also still might happen because it does have some of the coolest sci fi concepts and honestly I thiiiink that's all?

but the tl;dr of that timeline is I'm trying to finish a punch of projects Right Now, so that I can write books 2-5 of Opus, and then when I'm done that (which honestly, my average fiction-writing output is close to 100k a year. if I'm concentrating purely on one project, and writing books that are about 100k, we are talking four years. although my job situation is super up in the air in that period and writing might get put solidly on the backburner as I try to make it in academia, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I will re-evaluate which projects go next, and that's when ifmlam is likely to come up for review.

I do not have any expectations that I will make it as an original author. I'm planning on posting all of my stuff online for free, but, like. it is incredibly difficult to convince people to try out even a piece of free and easily accessibly original work even if one has a huge following, I am a very small fanfiction author, and from what I can tell the majority of the people who are interested in my work are mostly interested in me finishing ifmlam. writing is a hobby for me, and while I'm writing mostly for me--and hence the for me bit at least for the next five years is pretty solidly going to be this series that I am deeply excited about and have sunk my heart and soul into every single aspect of--I'm human, and I don't really like shouting into the void, and I expect if I spend five years publishing to absolutely no response I will either stop writing for a while and do other things gods know my life is busy enough, return to fandom in general to write some other fanfic about whatever I get deeply into, or return to a work that I actually get response to. so ifmlam will probably start getting worked on a bit at that point one way or another. unless, of course, we are in the incredibly rare timeline in which I do make it as an original author, there are people who are deeply hyped for my original works and an actual demand for them, in which case as you may have noticed there are enough ideas there to keep me busy for a decade or two, and they will just get my full attention instead of fanfiction*. in this timeline, I will do what I was considering doing a few years ago, which is officially declare ifmlam otherwise abandoned and make one more giant chapter update which is a full and cleaned up outline of what I was going to write, interspersed with the scenes already written, and have ifmlam be given at least that closure.

*I want to make it clear that I very much love fanfiction and am proud to have been a fanfiction author and in my heart of hearts would keep writing it forever, I just also have a lot of ideas for characters and settings and magic systems and Aesthetics and I have been biting at the bit to write something that is //mine// and all mine and only mine for a while, I don't see original work as superior so much as there are a dozen fandoms that I am currently in and bursting to make content about except oops these fandoms currently only exist in my head, and I want to correct that

of course given how much as writing is my vent activity and I write what I'm in the mood for, there's a chance I'll feel ifmlam cravings before then, just... expect it to take a couple of years for an update, but also for there to be an update one way of another in a couple of years? but as for right now, I'm turning to original writing, because that is what brings me joy.

but I am really deeply honored that it brought you so much joy!!! and while I will never publish spoilers in a public place, if you message me off anon I am perfectly happy to give a run-down of my current plans for the ending, bc I know "wait a couple years and see" is not the most satisfactory of answers! and hey maybe you'll be like me and once you've given Opus a try you'll decide you like it better too, it does have Seers although they are deeply different Seers than in ifmlam but imo it's very gay and fun and at least politics on one side

[gild-and-fire]

Okay so I gotta ask - I can see you’re watching QotS and I’ve always been curious about it. Would you recommend??

I was so excited to receive your ask, Lauren! Thank you so much for sending it (and humoring me)--especially since I could talk about QOTS all day, but try to restrain myself bc I don’t want to be annoying lol. But unfortunately I have allowed myself to be unhinged and thus wrote a 700 word answer :) If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing lol I will refer you to @riosnecktattoo​’s ask which helped me to decide to watch QOTS. But here’s my spoiler-free, long post for why I love Queen of the South!

General

WOC as lead: I am obsessed with complex, badass, relatable women as leads, and i literally go FERAL when woc are leads. QOTS has two woc as leads and both are incredible actresses playing layered characters (Teresa and Camila).

For Camila, she leaves her husband and daughter to follow her ambitions and grow her business (not a spoiler). I think it’s very interesting how the show builds tension between Camila and her daughter due to this choice, and I enjoy that the show doesn’t answer but explores the “can women have it all” aspect and how she’s underestimated in the cartel business bc she's a woman and has to work harder to get where she is. 

For Teresa, I love her fortitude and moral compass, and like Beth, she’s definitely a badass. She is luckily a little bit more sensible/experienced than Beth when it comes to crime lol and actually has long standing success as the Queen of the South (duh, Audrey).

Worldbuilding: If the premise (mexican drug cartels) is interesting to you, then you’ll enjoy how they’ve built the gritty underworld of cartels and all the ruthless players from Texas to Columbia. Also, QOTS includes fantastic moments with magical realism which is such a neat genre overall and it really adds to the richness of the story. One of my favorite parts

Jeresa

It’s the parallels, it’s the trust, it’s the friendship and the way they sacrifice for the other person and save each other over and over again. 

Tropes: I especially love how James is framed as a “bad guy” (assassin in a cartel lol) and Teresa is the “good guy” (victim of cartel violence and thus against it,) but that over the course of the 3 seasons, they grow in different ways because of the other person. I think a lot about the fact that in their line of work it really does pay to be selfish/look out for yourself, and that both of them are very logical and realistic people. And yet! They both actively choose to protect and make sacrifices for the other person. makes me cry every time :,)

James is hot: James is fucking hot in that white henley and Lauren, I swear to god if this other gifset of James in his signature aviators doesn’t convince you, then I might throw this blog away

GG/BRIO

I want to contextualize this show by comparing it to good girls 

Consistency & Parallels: GG does this really well, but QOTS does it even better because there are plots and people from literally the first episode that come full circle and make a difference many episodes/seasons later. It’s clear that the writers really care about and have thought deeply about the development of their characters and plots. True for GG, but a little less so (looking @ you cancer lie and buddy the dog)

Violence: Okay you know how Rio just brings out the gun once in a while as foreplay? And like we have “seen” only one death in the entire series so far? In QOTS, it is impossible to watch a scene without two guns and a corpse lying around somewhere. If we’re lucky, maybe we won’t see a decapitated head being kicked around like a soccer ball more than once. I think if you can stomach the first two episodes, you’re fine.

OTP: brio’s UST is off the charts and im not sure i will EVER find a show that can match it, but jeresa is just so real. Ofc the cartel stuff can feel a little contrived sometimes, but their friendship and relationship is so healthy (given their circumstances), and it really is true love. For gg, I'm in the camp that they don’t actually love each other.  Side note: James is a main character with his own plots that intertwine with Teresa’s, which means we see him more than Rio’s 2min of him per episode. I know. It is truly a gift.

tl;dr QOTS is so good that I am incapable of acting like a normal human being and would like to scream about my love for this show. And if you decide not to watch this show, at least look at some gifsets of James. 

[thesummerstorms]

Rev Recaps Hard Contact (Chapter 6)

CW: Series typical sexist description, I guess. 

TL;DR Recap:  Birhan attempts to chase Etain away but is dissuaded by Jinart. Darman is puzzled by nature and also severely sleep deprived. Hokan is sexist and Uthan is introduced.

Starting Kal Count: 7. Ending Kal Count: 10.

We immediately open the chapter with another Kal quote. And not even an interesting one. But that ups the Kal Count to 8.

The scene we start with though is from Etain’s pov. Birhan our vaguely contemptuous farmer, is throwing clods of dirt at Etain and telling her to “GTFO because this is all your fault” essentially. 

(Etain plays the scape goat a lot. It’s a trend. Realistically though, he’s afraid of what Hokan will do if he’s found sheltering her, given the “militia��� burned people and their livelihoods last chapter.)

Etain still has no idea who Jinart is, but Jinart tells Birhan he’s being stupid. Etain tries and fails to mind influence him with yet another quote about Etain’s lack of control over the Force when it’s most needed. Jinart shoves Birhan around a bit and tries again to persuade him by basically telling him he can either get murdered by the Republic or keep Etain as a kind of human MiracleGro:

This quote is one of the big reasons that I headcanon that Etain was never really going to be happy as a mercenary farmer’s wife living in rural Mandalore with Kal, or happy in a rural/agricultural setting, period. Her strongest associations with agricultural life are the AgriCorps and Qiilura- failure and trauma. The narrative flat out tells us “agriculture spelled failure”. 

And while that might be resolved eventually with a character arc (that she doesn’t get) ag life flat out doesn’t provide the sense of purpose that Etain is so desperate for. There’s nothing dishonorable about farming, but Etain sees it as “life on a backwater planet, talking to grain” and through out the series she strives for the opportunity to make a real difference to other people. Misguidedly at times, I’ll admit, but I don’t think she could have ever been content with what was being offered.

Anyway, Jinart steers Etain back in the direction of the barn. Etain is getting understandably paranoid, but there’s some narration in this scene I just don’t get?

I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about this scene. Enough that I’ll probably make a separate post later. I’m trying to keep my posts brief, I really am, but I pull so much from these couple of pages for Etain.

My first thought is that it’s really, really fucking weird to put Etain’s digression about Jedi values of anti-attachment here, relative to this barn...as opposed to like, idk, a reflection on her life versus the clones’ later. 

Of fucking course the barn isn’t home. It’s a place she’s been hiding from people who want to kill, torture, or rape her while behind enemy lines on a military mission and the owner of the barn just directly threatened her, if ineffectively. “No loves, no attachments” well, yeah, you’re surrounded by enemies and your teacher was just tortured to death. “At least it wouldn’t be hard to tear herself away from here.” Well, no shit. Was that ever even a realistic option?

Then we immediately get the highlighted exchange with Jinart, and again, I’m repeatedly struck by how differently Omega’s grief versus Etain’s is frame. I’m not saying that Etain’s statement is wrong, or even out of character necessarily. 

But it’s super detached, again. Granted, the clones don’t spend time weeping on screen. But their grief at losing their respective squads is brought up repeatedly. The prologue and most of the first chapter are either Darman realizing he’ll never see his squad again or Niner and Fi’s heartbreaking conversation about it. It plays into Niner’s repeated fears for Darman and his anger with Atin. It plays in to Atin’s seeming callousness towards Darman. Etain has a scene later where she asks Darman if he misses his brothers, and he goes quiet and hurt and the weight of the scene rightly falls on her like a hammer.

While Etain... I’m not saying it doesn’t affect her actions; it very visibly affects her paranoia. But it’s never handled quite like grief, if that makes sense? At least not after the initial death.

Speaking of paranoia... Jinart really has no call to be offended that Etain is suspicious, given what’s happened to Etain over the last several weeks and the fact that Jinart spends much of the rest of the novel insinuating she’s naive and useless. Etain has every right to be paranoid, all things considered. But then we get this contradictory mess of a conversation:

The soothing bit doesn’t make sense to me. But I’m biased because I dislike Jinart based on the whole scope of the series. And again Etain grieving and feeling alone and hating being alone in grief makes sense, but the framing of this quote is super weird. Especially as the farmers haven’t demonstrated and “home”-like behavior or even family loyalties on screen.

But we’re finally moving on from this huge ass rant about this scene as we open onto Darman crawling through an open field with his kit and generally being overwhelmed by the sheer openness of everything+ the physical strain when he’s already wounded and exhausted. During the course of this, it comes up that Dar is still desperately hungry, so he starts thinking about what wildlife might be edible, and then about Kal and uj cake.

Kal Count is increased to 9.

Darman is exhausted and fatigued, and most of the section, while interesting, can just be boiled down to him trying to motivate himself to keep going because he’s terrified he’ll miss the rendezvous with the rest of Omega Squad. The same kind of bird that brought down his ship in the first place eats the remote he was using to scout ahead, so he swears at it. There’s another mention of Kal teaching them to build defensive fortifications which ups the Kal Count to 10.

But there’s also a fair bit of fascination as he’s experiencing nature for the first time. He takes his helmet off to smell the breeze, soaks in the stream, and is captivated by his first view of the daywings, which makes you think he is kind of a small-details guy. 

...Dar....

anyway, he falls asleep eventually without much more of note happening in this section. We move to Ghez Hokan introducing the reader to Separatist scientist and would-be creator of the anti-clone bio weapon, Qail Ovolot Uthan. 

I appreciate Uthan a lot as a character, despite her later handling in Imperial Commando: 501st, but this particular introduction still makes me cringe.

I legitimately can’t tell if this is how Traviss thinks of this character, or if this is deliberate characterization of Hokan via his descriptions of Uthan, but ugh.

Hokan: She knows I can’t be seduced, but she still wants to seduce me!

Ugh. The man is also way caught up his own ass in terms of what he thinks other people think of him. He doesn’t want to sit in Uthan’s brocaded chair because it’s “too decadent” but does it anyway because otherwise he would be addressing her while standing like a servant. Dude, you need some therapy. What’s the Mando expression? All helmet, no head?

Anyway, I really, really like Uthan here actually. She’s super ruthless, and even if she’s not a great person, ruthless and somewhat ammoral female characters are a fun rarity. I wish that KT could have kept it up throughout the series rather than making her into “bitter lonely career woman”, but look how casually she decides her work is threatened and then which of her associates she needs to cooly dispose of to prevent that happening:

The smartest thought Hokan has had so far is the recognition that if she’ll arrange to dispose of Ankkit, she’ll do the same to him, honestly. But when Uthan sees him hesitate, she goes right for the kill and presses just the right button to utterly manipulate him. He even recognizes it, but is unable to not be convinced.

She tells him that the clones are clones of Jango Fett. And of course he goes all Death Watch and Mandalorian Honor about it.

Honestly, Hokan. And then we finish the chapter with the thing that really makes me question his intelligence:

“To make them proper men again?”

this is the third time I’ve said it.... but how the fuck do you think viruses work, Hokan?

Honestly.

[prorevenge]

My friend's ex-wife gets his family's business shut down and burns their lives to the ground (not what you may think)

Sorry for the somewhat misleading title, but I couldn't resist.

This story isn't about me but two people I'm friends with. We'll call one Rae and one Justin. I'm posting this with Justin's permission, and he'll probably be reading the thread.

Pretty quickly after they moved, they decided to get amicably divorced, since they never wanted to be married anyway. They still lived together for a while, and basically became something between platonic roommates and each other's only family. Over time, they started dating other people. Some partners were scared off by the weird relationship between them, but most got it, and understood that Justin and Rae had basically bonded though mutual trauma. I also met both of them during this time, and we became close friends.

This whole time, both their families and other members of their community were relentlessly harassing them. People were showing up at their house at all hours, and they had reason to believe people were trying to steal their identities over the years, though they'd fortunately both put a freeze on their credit, so nothing ever came of it.

Then Justin had a bad accident. A really bad accident. He was on his bike and a car blew through a stop sign without slowing down and plowed right into him. He had to be rushed to the hospital and landed in the ICU. Rae was his emergency contact, and I was with her and some other friends when she got the call. I immediately drove her to the hospital with a couple of other people, and she was melting down (understandably). The hospital staff wouldn't let us all in when we got there, but they let Rae in. She came out periodically to let us know what was going on. Justin wasn't unconscious, but he was totally out of it and didn't seem to know she was there, probably from the painkillers, but she was convinced he had permanent dehabilitating brain damage and basically the group of us were just soothing her and reassuring her it would be fine. A friend of ours who worked at the hospital as an MRI tech was also stopping by when she could on her breaks and calming down Rae. We'd been there all night and part of the day at this point, and the medical staff was giving us reason to be hopeful.

But things got worse. To this day, no one knows how they found out, but 14 hours after Justin's accident, his parents, uncles, and grandfather showed up. They immediately had all of us removed from the ICU, Rae included. Unfortunately, as his ex-wife, she was no longer his legal next-of-kin and had no rights against his blood family.

At this point, she was absolutely hysterical and inconsolable. She was convinced Justin's family would hurt him. I'm ashamed to say all three of us that were there with her thought she was overreacting. We all knew Rae and Justin had left a fucked-up situation, but it wasn't like his own family would do anything to impede his recovery. She was getting angry with us for trying to calm her down, and tried to explain that according to their religion, she and Justin deserved punishment from God, and only the greatest suffering could prompt repenting and redemption. She said their families embraced this thinking and wanted them to suffer, because it would prove that they did the wrong thing by leaving, and suffering would drive them back to the fold. She said as long as Justin was with his family, he wouldn't be safe.

Our friend who worked for the hospital came and found Rae at that point. She made Rae swear up and down she wouldn't tell anyone she told her this, because she could get in deep trouble for releasing privileged information to someone unauthorized, but she'd caught wind that Justin's parents were aggressively demanding the hospital release him into their care, and they were involving lawyers. The hospital was currently refusing, because Justin wasn't stable enough to leave, but our friend warned Rae that as soon as Justin got to be stable, or the lawyers scared the hospital enough, it's possible the parents would be able to take Justin.

This shocked the rest of us. Realizing his parents were not only willing to remove Justin from the hospital that had saved his life in the condition he was still in, but were actively trying to do it made us really "get" for the first time why Rae was going out of her head with fear.

At this point, Rae snapped into do-or-die mode. Convinced that Justin was about to literally die if she didn't act, she decided she would do everything in her power to start a fire at home so that Justin's family would want to run back to put it out. And this wasn't too hard, because she had a lot of dirt on the whole community she came from. Like a madwoman, she started blowing the whistle all over Justin's family. She called the IRS's fraud hotline and detailed all the ways that the family business was committing tax fraud. She submitted an ATF tip about how that same family business was illegally selling firearms without a license and without following any of the proper protocols, and was knowingly selling guns to convicted felons. She reported one of Justin's uncles for owning several guns as a convicted felon. She also reported Justin's mom's unlicensed day care "business," which was apparently extremely shady, including having over 30 children packed into one house, with Justin's mom as the only adult and many of the childcare duties being farmed out to Justin's 12- and 14-year-old sisters. She called CPS on Justin's uncles and his parents for keeping their children out of school, and for physical abuse in one uncle's case. In all of these reports, she provided extensive details.

She finished her calls and emails, and then she waited. We all waited for several hours, and nothing happened. Then, miraculously, Justin become lucid enough to understand what was going on and make his own decisions, and he kicked his family out again. From there began a slow but steady path to recovery.

In all the relief and excitement to see Justin on the mend, we'd almost forgotten about Rae's campaign of desperation, until a couple of weeks later, when the screaming voicemails started pouring in to both of them. First, the business was being investigated by the IRS, then it was being investigated for illegal firearms dealing. Then the daycare was getting investigated. At first, Rae felt a little guilty, but then she was like, "You know what? No regrets. They would have killed Justin."

From what they've been able piece together in the year and a half since this happened, the business has gone under, and the daycare is shuttered. The uncle is six months into a new five-year prison sentence for firearm possession. CPS investigated, which scared the shit out of the family, but nothing really came of it, which is especially sad in the case of the cousins being physically abused. That said, the parents are now too scared to keep the kids home from school, and with the unlicensed daycare shut down, the mom's not exploiting her daughters' labor anyway, so she has no incentive to keep them home. So Justin's little siblings are at least getting their education.

Justin and Rae are both happy and thriving. Justin unfortunately will never fully recover from the accident. He has some permanent neurological damage that results in tremors. But he's pumped to be alive, he can work a full-time job, he can still be pretty physically active, and as far as I'm concerned, he wins.

TL;DR: Kooky abusive family tries to remove my friend from critical medical care because reasons (??), and his ex-wife hits the panic button that burns their lives to the ground.

(source) story by (/u/Throwawayallaway4)

[moviegroovies]

so here’s my hot take of the century.

in my last post i kind of detailed the way that time travel works in the terminator movies. (well, the good ones, at least. t1, t2, t:df. anything else is irrelevant.) tl;dr, the first movie, as i’m sure people other than me have pointed out, is a self-contained time loop where attempts on both sides to fix the past only led to the future that kyle and the terminator came from in the first place. the second movie starts out in the same vein, confirming that the undamaged terminator arm found in the cyberdyne factory was being reverse engineered into the system that would become SkyNet, but by the end of the movie, that fate has been subverted, and it seems the apocalypse is off. then, in dark fate, we find out that while SkyNet was indeed destroyed, the same bad future is still essentially in effect, just under a different name... and there’s only one woman who can do anything about it.

in that post, i noted that i was interested first and foremost in the self-contained nature of the time loop most of all, but that the progression from you can’t change the future -> you can change the future? -> you can change the future, was cool from a narrative perspective. i’ve been thinking about it, though, and i’ve come up with an explanation for that stuff which i find a little more satisfying than a gradual paradigm shift in the terminator franchise (even if that is all it might be). 

i don’t think that everyone in these movies can change the future. 

in fact, i think that’s what makes john connor and dani ramos so important, and so much of a threat to their respective apocalypses: they’re the ones who have the power to change fate. both of them, in fact, change the fate of the human race in the future when it’s otherwise doomed. they’re the ones who are supposed to organize scavengers into militias. they’re the ones that the AIs decided were integral to kill off to preserve themselves.

and let’s look at the first movie, huh? the purpose is explicitly to kill of john connor before he’s born, but the terminator isn’t sent after him. it’s sent after his mother, sarah, who (in a deleted subplot at least, but definitely between t1 and t2) cottons on pretty quickly to the idea that you can change fate, and then sets out to do just that. originally, the reason they ended up killing the first terminator in a cyberdyne factory was because SARAH convinced reese to help her blow it up. from the second she figured out the time stuff reese was explaining to her, she said Fuck Fate. 

but fate won. at the end of the first movie, everything’s come full circle, and we’re preparing for the end times. it’s not until JOHN is introduced in t2 that things start to change, and the future becomes uncertain. he’s ultimately killed off by a future that didn’t happen, and from there things go on nearly like they should have, ultimately setting the basis for AI apocalpyse all over again... until dani. 

the narrative parallels between dani and john aren’t subtle. in addition to them both filling what is essentially the same role (the last hope for humanity after the machines take over), sarah connor herself says it verbatim: “she’s john. you’re john.” up until that point, she and the narrative had been treating dani like another sarah connor, destined to have a son that might one day save humanity. dani isn’t the mother of some hero, though. she’s the hero. 

after the terminator pursuing her is killed, sarah is shown ending the first movie preparing to fill the role that was forced on her by the future. after HER terminator is killed, we see dani swearing that the future she glimpsed will never happen. i’d like to think it doesn’t.

[theagentnerd]

Jamais Vu

Fourteen million six hundred and five possibilities. Strange was bound to miss one.

In this universe, they win; but things are different.

Fandom: Avengers/MCU/Spider-Man: Homecoming

Words: 2,330

Chapter: 1/? 

Rating: T

Relationships: Gen - Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers

Read the full story on Ao3

Excerpt:

It was no surprise everyone ended up in medical after saving the world, but that didn’t mean Peter liked it.

He had some superficial cuts and bruises, maybe a bruised rib or two, but honestly, he’d be fine by tomorrow morning, the day after, tops.  It certainly wasn’t the worst he’d ever been injured, but his pride took a sizeable hit when the doctors insisted on monitoring him for a few hours after someone (his money was on Strange) mentioned to them that he’d had a particularly difficult reaction to the snap.  Peter was convinced that the sharp, blinding headache and churning nausea he’d felt moments before vanishing was simply an extreme result of his spidey-sense warning of his imminent demise, but it was pointless to try to explain that to the doctors.  Because he had tried.

After lying in a hospital bed and distracting himself by admiring all of the cool Wakandan medical tech for what felt like eternity, he’d been tentatively cleared with strict instructions to report back if he experienced “any side effects whatsoever I swear to god Mr. Parker” (he’s not sure if that particular doctor had worked with stubborn superheroes before, but he could imagine this single day contained a lifetime of experience).  Peter made a beeline straight for Mr. Stark’s room.  If he had gained anything good from the doctors’ extended fussing, it was that he’d killed enough time for Mr. Stark to get out of surgery and into a recovery room.

“Hey, Spidey,” Rhodey greeted when Peter entered.  He was the only other guest in the room, perched in a single chair next to Tony’s bedside.  He looked remarkably unscathed except for a single cut butterfly-bandaged across his cheekbone.  He stood, leg braces whirring softly.  “I’ll give you some time with him.  I’m starting to think he’s still asleep just to spite me.”

“Thanks, Colonel Rhodes.”

He smiled, “Call me Rhodey.  All my friends do.”

Peter grinned in response and stuck out his hand, “Thanks, Rhodey.  My friends call me Peter.”

Rhodey crossed the room in a couple of steps and shook Peter’s hand, “You holding up okay, Peter?”

“Yeah,” he responded.  “Healing ability.  I’ll be good by tomorrow morning.”

“God, what I wouldn’t give for that.  Well, enjoy his silence then.  It’s a rare gift,” Rhodey joked, and with one last pat on Peter’s shoulder, the War Machine was gone.

Peter sunk down into the now vacant chair.  If it weren’t for the dark purple bruises and scattered cuts across his face, Mr. Stark would have looked almost peaceful in sleep.  Even his arm didn’t look so bad propped up on top of the sheets, wrapped from shoulder to fingertips in clean, white bandages.  The gauntlet had done some serious damage to his arm—Peter had heard some nurses in the hall whispering that there had been talk at one point of possibly removing it—but luckily, they were able to fix him up without doing anything too drastic.  God bless Wakanda.  It was too early to say how much mobility he’d lost in it, but if anyone could pull through and make a full recovery, it was Tony Stark.

Peter had only been sitting there for a couple of minutes when the man himself opened his eyes.

“Rhodey was right,” Peter said without thinking, and Mr. Stark groaned as he dragged himself into awareness.

“Don’t ever tell him that, it’ll go straight to his head.”

“I think he’d say the same about you.”

“Yeah, well.  We were meant for each other,” Tony turned his head to look at Peter.  “Hey, kid.”

“Hey, Mr. Stark,”  Peter had the sudden urge to reach out and—what?  Hug him?  Hold his hand?  Some instinctive part of him craved contact, but he restrained himself.

“How’re you doing?”

“Mr. Stark, you’re the one who just got out of surgery.”

“Yeah, and I’m the one who asked the question.”

“I’m fine,” Peter responded, rolling his eyes.  “Alive.  Thanks to you.  You saved the world.”

“No biggie.  Honestly, it’s becoming old hat at this point.”

“Well, hopefully you won’t have to do it again.”

Tony hummed in agreement, then regarded Peter with eyes that looked only slightly still fatigued.  “It’s good to have you back, kid.”

“It’s good to be back,” Peter took a deep breath.  “I just hope, after this,” he waved his arms around in a vague gesture, “everything can go back to normal, y’know?”

Tony nodded, then leaned his head back in his pillow.  “Don’t worry.  You’ll be back to gym class and burnt tuna casserole in no time.”

That suddenly sparked a worry in Peter, one he hadn’t been able to even think about since he’d launched himself from the school bus in what felt like forever ago now, “May!  How has she—is she—do you know—?”

A dark look came over Tony’s face, and Peter realized he shouldn’t have asked.  Not now, not to the man who had just nearly died to save the world.  He couldn’t take it back, though, and Tony closed his eyes for a moment, took a breath, then explained.  “After you…were gone, she needed some space.  Told me in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want to hear from me again unless I had found a way to fix things.”

“But it wasn’t your—”

“I don’t blame her for feeling that way.  You shouldn’t either.  I mean, she lost her only kid, and it was…rough…for me too, but I couldn’t imagine…” he looked pained.  “Anyway, I respected her wishes.  It was the least I could do.  So sorry, kid, I haven’t heard from her in a long time.”

“I guess that’s okay, then,” Peter said.  He didn’t know what else to say.  “I should—”

Suddenly, the door opened behind him.

“Daddy!” yelled a voice.  Peter turned to see Pepper enter the room, accompanied by a small form that whizzed past Peter and leaped up onto the bed.  Tony let out an audible “oof” as the motion jostled his arm, but his non-injured one still came up to wrap around the little girl, fingers carding through her hair as he looked at her with incredible tenderness in his eyes.

“Hey, pumpkin.  Be gentle with the leaps and bounds, alright?  It’s been a rough day.”

“Uh…” Peter reactively vocalized.  At the realization that someone else was in the room, the little girl’s head snapped up, eyes going wide as they locked on Peter, and she fell to the ground on the other side of the bed, hiding behind it with one hand still clutching the bedsheets beside Tony’s waist.

Peter didn’t need to ask who she was.  Not really.  His mind had made the connection from the instant she entered the room.  Even if she had said nothing, he could see Tony’s eyes, duplicated and staring widely at him from behind the bed railing.  The same brunette hair, though lacking the grey that suddenly, to Peter, was so much more prominent on Mr. Stark’s head than it had been the last time he’d seen him.  He could see the curve of Pepper’s nose, and as the little girl frowned at him, he could see that she had the same little furrow in her brow he’d witnessed being directed at him and Mr. Stark many times when they stayed up working in the lab too late.  She was a perfect mix of both of them.

“Peter,” a sudden vulnerability overtook Tony for a moment, and it looked foreign on his face.  But he pushed on.  “I’d like you to meet Morgan.  My daughter.”

Confirmation.  Instantly and silently, something inside of Peter broke.

In the last few moments of calm they had right before erupting through a portal and into the battle, Dr. Strange had tried to explain the mechanics of the snap with a lot of big words and bigger concepts that were a bit too much for Peter to understand.  Strange had rolled his eyes when Peter asked for a “TL;DR”, but he had obliged and said that basically, while it hadn’t felt that long for them, five years had passed back on earth.

That should have been significant, but Peter hadn’t thought much about it at the time, too anxious to see everyone again and (literally) get back into the swing of things.  When he finally returned to earth, the others had accepted him back into the fray as if no time had passed at all.  He found himself preoccupied with helping save the world, and the details of everything else had quickly disappeared to a place far back in his mind.

They all came rushing back now as five years stared him in the face.

Five years was a whole person.  A person who could walk, and talk, and form complex thoughts.    Did she go to school?  Peter couldn’t remember what age that started.  She was probably smart, anyway, there was no way she hadn’t inherited her parents’ brains.  She was wearing a t-shirt with a Disney logo and a princess on it that Peter didn’t recognize, and he realized that five years meant a whole host of movies he hadn’t seen.  References he didn’t know.  Memories he hadn’t made.

In an instant, he had seen five years, and in an instant they were stolen from him.  The feeling was indescribable.

Read the full story on Ao3

[aloysiusshea]

Did you know that BRENDON URIE has a doppelganger? I swear ALOYSIUS SHEA looks just like them! HE is a 32-year-old that identifies as CISMALE and is a MUSICIAN/RECORD LABEL EXEC for a living. They were born in LOS ANGELES, CA and can be GIVING, but also STUBBORN at times. They hang out around SUNSET BOULEVARD a lot, so make sure to say hey if you see them there!

i am SO EXCITED to be able to play my baby boy again! so i’m kirby and this is my angel, al! his intro is unnecessarily long, i warn you, but all in all, he’s a good, chaotic boy that needs pals. you’ll love him i promise!

it’s pronounced alo-wish-us, and his mother, carmen hale, is to blame for it. she and her boyfriend at the time, luke shea, got pregnant when they were both in their early twenties. they remained together for the first few years of al’s life, but ultimately split up when he was three. they kept in close contact for al’s sake.

al definitely grew up more like his mother. his dad moved to san francisco and coached baseball at a high school there, and fulfilled every stereotype that came with the gig. his mother, though, was a pianist, and taught al how to play at a very young age. he was playing piano before he was even out of kindergarten and oh boy, did he love to brag about it. any time there was a piano anywhere near him, he hopped on to play a tune so everyone in the vicinity knew what a child prodigy he was.

that fascination with the piano led an interest in other music. he learned to play guitar and drums throughout his time in school and was in choir every year, from kindergarten to graduation. he was deeply in love with music his entire life and even went into a music education program in college.

college was fun, though al wasn’t terribly fond of no longer feeling like the most talented one in the room. he and his roommate, jax moretti, clicked wonderfully, primarily over their shared taste and love of music. they often both pulled out their guitars and played together when they had some free time, dorm room door open to invite in anyone that wanted to come appreciate their music. eventually they attracted two other musicians - a drummer and a bassist, and they had the idea to play all together.

all your wishes was born and lived in small, open mic night venues for their first year together. it was all fun, and none of the four thought they’d ever make a serious career out of it. they were discovered by a talent scout though and signed to a five album contract strange music inc by the end of 2007.

their first album took off on a bigger scale than any of the four could have imagined, but they were all deliriously happy. it was a life none of them ever dared to want for themselves. they were on the road before any of them knew it, engrossed and loving tour life. their following albums were just as successful, and their label was lenient enough with them to give them the freedom to explore different sounds and genres. all your wishes prided themselves on not fitting into any one specific genre too well so they had something for just about everyone to enjoy.

even while al was living his dream, it was hard on him. he was very young when all the attention was thrust upon them and he had a hard time handling it. the pressure to remain relevant and interesting weighed him down hard. so al turned to alcohol to keep himself distracted. it never got to the stage where it was a full blown addiction; he always made a conscious decision to do it. he rarely did anything in the public eye without getting a bit buzzed first. it became ninety percent of his personality because he’d convinced himself he wasn’t worth the attention he got without it. he was able to clean himself up before it got to be too much of an issue, but he’s very ashamed of it and very private about it. only a handful of people know about how bad he got.

the contract came to an end at the end of 2015, and though the band had been their entire lives for eight years, the members were all somewhat happy it was over. they all loved one another and their music all the same, but their time as a band had run it’s course.

al considered making music under his own name following the split, and he still writes and features on other artist’s work, but he ultimately decided he was done with that part of his life - at least for the time being. instead, he put all his focus on starting his own record label, genie records, which has been running successfully since september of 2016.

TL;DR: al is a bit of a brat that was the frontman of a very successful punk pop band from 2007 to 2015, and now runs a record label to give other up-and-coming artists the same opportunity he got!

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 14

Author’s Note:  I know it has been a little bit since I posted last.  There is a lot of stuff going on in my life right now, so it has been difficult to focus and give this story the attention it deserves.  The lovely Tyche has sent me her next chapter, however, so I have edited that and am posting it tonight.  This chapter is from Tyche’s perspective and is relaying her story.  Any editing errors are solely my own, and please don’t hesitate to inbox me if you notice something.

If you want to, you can skip down to the story below the cut.  I just want to give everyone an idea of what is going on with my life right now.  

For those of you who don’t follow @ritualistic-raven, my mother has quit two jobs this year with no savings, no safety net, nothing to keep her going long term.  The first job was one she had been in for eleven years, and she quit it as soon as her tax return came in (I think it was February? It was the beginning of the year). She lived off her tax return, without even trying to find a new job, until early June.  She found a new job in mid-July, and quit that one in September.  My sister a full time college student, and had not been working while going to school, so this was the only income they had.  There is also my nephew living with them.

My mother still has not found a job, and we are coming up on December. Toward the end of October, they (my mother, my sister, and my nephew) moved into my spare bedroom...  That’s right.  Me, my spouse, my sister, mother, and nephew all living in a just-a-hair-under 1100 sq ft house.  It is making everyone involved more than a lot bit stressed out.

My sister started a good job last week, but it is currently just seasonal (although there is a chance to go permanent after the seasonal gig is over).  I’m not even sure if my mother is still looking for jobs, TBH.  I work 42 hours a week, my spouse works 40-45, and we both have 45 minute commutes one way.  If she doesn’t, I have no idea when they will be able to get their own place - I feel terrible that my sister is sleeping on my couch or an air mattress in my office, and that my nephew has literally nothing to do at my house because my house is not very kid-friendly.  Fairly kid-proof, but not kid friendly.

I spend an inordinate amount of my time angry, depressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted.  I have difficulty sleeping, difficulty focusing on work, and resent my mother so much right now I could scream at her every time she crosses my path.  Add to all of that the fact that she has apparently forgotten how to cook (which she has done, and done well, for a living, on several occaisions?), we just made it through Thanksgiving here in the States, and Christmas holidays are right around the corner.  I’m also preparing for a business trip, trying to train a new person to help do my job, etc.

All that said, I am trying very hard to still write. I know it doesn’t always show on here, but that’s because sometimes I work on a fanfiction I have not even started posting yet, sometimes I am working on my novel-in-progress (which at this point has become something Brian Griffin would be proud of), and sometimes I am working on Destiel and Sabriel Secret Santa stuff.

TL;DR: Thank you for being patient with me, I have A Lot going on right now, and I promise The Miys is not on hiatus.

I stood on a platform in front of a large number of my fellow humans. The lights were dimmed, for the sake of my nerves, but I could still see several of the front rows thanks to the light from the video screens behind me. I felt like a mega-millionaire with a groundbreaking statement.

There was no form of microphone, no podium, not even a glass of water for my comfort. Everyone would still hear me, however, thanks to the Miys linking the translators.

I don’t know how long I stood in silence, trying to shake the nerves I expertly concealed. My feet were planted, my fingers woven in front my hips, shoulders back, and chin up. I appeared to be taking in the crowd. I was used to preparing any presentations. I was used to having a visual to gesture to or explain factually.

Here, I had nothing but my own history.

“Okay, Tyche. Deep breath. You know how to tell an engaging story. You can do this.” I thought to myself.

I rolled my shoulders in preparation and finally spoke.

“Thank you all for joining me. This hall has been reserved for those brave enough to share their stories of what they experienced after the End began. This is why we are here now. Many of you have met already, but for those of you who haven’t, please allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Tyche. I like dark clothes, fluffy cats, coffee, and swearing.”

A few in the audience chuckled.

“I am a very serious person when needed. When I don’t have to be so serious, I am aloof to those who don’t know me and social to those who do. A bit like a cat, I suppose.

“You may be able to hear an odd French accent when I speak. On Earth, I was born in the United States of America but worked very hard to move to Paris. I spent years learning the language before I ever boarded a plane, and my accent shifted a bit towards French from that alone. I spent several years in France, honing my pronunciation in order to better communicate with those whom I worked with. I worked in executive administration for a very large financial institution after bustin’ my ass to get a middle-level administration job working with my sister.

“A few years after I moved to Paris and began buying my flat, I was approached by a smaller company. The pay wasn’t as good and they weren’t globally known, but I had apparently chatted with a family member of the owner one day and my occupation came up. I had been recommended to help keep this company from going under after a fiasco left them with no one to run the accounts.

“I was reluctant to leave my comfortable job until I could at least straighten out this smaller company’s bookkeeping. I’ll be honest, it was a mess.

“I had drafted my letter of resignation a few nights before the Launch. I was preparing to hand it in; I just had to convince myself I would be happier this way. Everyone was buzzing about who would be leaving Earth and if we would ever see them again, so on and so forth. I knew the CEO of my financial institution was leaving, but I didn’t feel bad about it. It was a corporation, after all, run by a board of directors.  Still, I kept my poor sister up late one night as she talked me into doing what would make me happiest, even if it meant leaving the company we both worked for.

“The night came and everyone was watching the synchronized streaming of the Launch. Twelve ships. Twelve launch sites around the globe. Faster than light travel! And, of course, only the rich could afford to go.

“We saw it. We all saw it. Well, most of us. It was declared an international holiday, wasn’t it? So many of us sat around on our devices, streaming this brand-new technology being launched with paying customers, civilians, on board. It was momentous! It was historical!

“But then when the ships launched… Well, they blew up. There just isn’t any other way to describe it. The ships had been sabotaged to explode in the atmosphere at the same moment. The feeds cut right after we saw the start of the explosions and if you were outside or near a window? You probably saw the light race across the sky, rippling the air as it went. Then everything went dark.”

I paused for a moment. I could hear murmurs which I assumed were people telling their neighbors where they were when it happened.

Struggling to continue, I cleared my throat again. My vision was being overwhelmed by the past. My brain had thrown me into a visual flashback. I forced myself to narrate what I was seeing, telling my story as my brain recalled it.

I had taken my wine glass and tablet out to the balcony of my small Parisian flat. I was four levels from the ground and could see the lights of the city from where I lived. Even the Eiffel Tower could be seen here, as it twinkled in the distance. The view was everything I had worked so hard to achieve.

I was overwhelmed at that moment with the feeling I was finally, truly home. Drinking wine on my Parisian balcony at 4am was what I truly wanted. Having a fantastic job on top of that, allowing me to be relatively stress free? Absolute freedom, aside from the sound of my mother snoring in the other bedroom.  Headphones on, I listened with minor interest until the countdown began. I could hear several of my neighbors counting down as if it was the New Year, making me laugh in delight.

« Dix ! Neuf ! Huit ! Sept ! Six ! Cinq ! Quatre ! Trois ! Deux ! Un ! »

The buildings and streets erupted with cheering as the ships set off from their launchpads, ready to embark on a journey like no other. I had mixed feelings about it. Fantastic new technology is amazing, but the richest of the rich being the only civilians? I was thrilled about this new age of space travel and tried to focus on that, pressing the negative feelings to the back of my mind.

I was pondering what discoveries would be made along their journey and how long we would have to wait to find out when suddenly the crowds fell silent. The screen of my tablet was shaky for a moment before the livestream simply ended.

Something was wrong. What was that color? It only last for half a moment before the stream ended, but it looked like…. I had seen this before. It was a fireball. But there was an odd color to it. Orange and red and white, but there was something else.

Before I could put any more thought into it, a light rippled across the sky, warping any clouds in its path. It was like a shockwave of light. It was unreal and worse than that, unknown. I gazed out in the direction it went and saw everything flicker, then go black.

The City of Lights was dark.

It all happened so quickly. I’m placing my glass on my balcony table with my tablet, sitting down a few minutes before launch, and then watching everything go dark. Less than ten minutes.

A few fearful screams could be heard, but we knew sunrise was soon. There was already panic, however, as more and more people shouted to their neighbors and even strangers that their phones and flashlights weren’t working. Cars wouldn’t start, the metro rail wouldn’t move, and we saw no airplanes flash overhead. We waited for emergency vehicles. Police and firefighters. “Where are they?” we kept asking each other. No sirens, no lights, no sign of help.

As the day went on, we realized more and more things wouldn’t work. It didn’t take long for us to reach the conclusion that anything that had been powered by electricity, even batteries, was useless. Looting began around midday, taking advantage of the lack of police vehicles and security systems. It didn’t matter what the store was, it was at risk. Electronics were especially popular, as people assumed the power would be restored at some point.

We marched on the government buildings. We demanded answers! What the hell happened? When will it be fixed? Tell us!

Our officials were as baffled as we were. No one had answers, because the people who would have the answers couldn’t communicate or travel with ease to let the officials know.

“You have to wait. We have to go to our scientists. We have to go to them to find out why,”

Tension rose higher and higher. Insulin pumps had failed in the flash. Pacemakers failed as well, and families were outraged that there was no help. At any moment, people would die.

The horror struck many who had not considered how much we rely on technology to keep us alive.

“What about hospitals!” Many started shouting to no one in particular.

I remember leaving the scene, in a state of shock from the realizations, and returning to my flat. “France riots at the drop of a hat. I’m not French. I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.” I told my cat as I stuffed a few clothes and some bread and water in a bag. I knew how cliché it was, but I also knew I wanted to pack light. I grabbed my duffel bag to shove more supplies into. Candles, matches, a book, a few knives… “Maybe more food.” A few more bottles of water and a wrapped cut of cheese really weighed it down, but I couldn’t skip nourishment. I was leaving Paris, on foot, not sure how long it would take me to get anywhere in this country. My mother refused to leave. “I’m sixty-four,” she declared like it was some great revelation. “I refuse to let some idiots run me out of my home.”

Technically, the flat was mine, in my name only, but I knew that tone and wasn’t about to try to argue.  She wanted to stay, she could stay.  I was taking Mac and getting the hell out of there. I wrapped in a thick coat and two scarves, put on my good boots, and then clipped the walking harness around the cat before remembering my passport. Just in case.

The click of the door behind me was heartbreaking. Was I ever going to come back? Would life restore itself in a few days? My feeling in my gut said no. It said the flash was catastrophic. It said to not get my hopes up.

“At least there’s still enough Arkansas in me to be able to navigate with the sun and stars,” I told my upset feline companion. He just squawked at me plaintively.

I headed south, toward the country. I’d go south for as long as I could.

I lost count of how many days it had been by the time I reached a small village in smelling-distance of the salty ocean. There had been no power anywhere. I had been able to stop here and there, begging people for a bit of food, just enough to make it another day. Everyone was scared of strangers. That wasn’t the French way, but this new reality made everyone paranoid. We’ve all seen those films.

The last town name I could remember is Millau. I ended up somewhere past that. A kind woman named Sandrine said she saw the flash and had been worried criminals would come.

“I’m too exhausted to hurt anyone who isn’t trying to hurt me,” I told her. I had seen very few people along my trek, but none of them seemed to think the lady with the leashed cat was worth bothering.

Sandrine offered me shelter and food from the gardens that were popular there. Aside from the candles and oil lanterns everywhere, it was hard to imagine that life here ever had electricity. It was peaceful and still very organized. The adults would speak in hushed voices. Theorizing what had happened, but no one could agree on one answer.

I stayed there for several months, never finding out what the source of the seemingly-permanent blackout was. Things were going well. This small village was rustic enough to function with little issue the entire time I was there.

Suddenly, it all came to an end. We had seen smoke off in the distance for a few days, but when we woke one morning, it was to the sound of screaming and panicking. The fire had spread overnight thanks to rough winds. It was engulfing the village.

I never want to see that again. So many people couldn’t escape. Many had been asleep when the fire took them. The sight of it was too horrific. Sandrine told me to take one of her horses and go. She would be close behind. Since I never unpacked all of my things, I grabbed my bags and rushed toward the horse pen. I was shaking as I dressed one of the horses, but managed to get everything cinched up. I ran for another saddle and bit when her house collapsed. A tree nearby, weakened by drought, had caught fire and fallen. Sandrine was inside.

I hate feeling helpless. I fought so much in my lifetime to that point so that I would be stronger, more capable, but in that moment, I knew I was helpless against a burning home. And I was terrified beyond screaming. In panicked silence, I mounted the horse and took off to the east.

This repeated for years. Find some people to huddle down with, something would destroy our home, we’d all take off in different directions for safety. Lather, rinse, repeat. The longer it went on, the more hopeless we felt. Many gave up. Many stopped caring. Many begged “why,” even though we had no way of truly knowing what caused all of this.

Sure, we saw the ships explode, very briefly, before everything went down. Around many fires we would discuss what this meant on the global scale. Nuclear reactors, medical necessities, agriculture… How long could we keep going, when everything we knew before was so tech-heavy?

After a handful of years, I quit trying to make allies. I was tired of seeing them die. I went off on my own to try to live like a hermit. I wanted isolation. I knew I could find it if I went back to one of the destroyed villages in the mountains. I knew I could stay there for a while, since I had learned how to scavenge for food and make minimal supplies last.

What I didn’t know is that I would get too comfortable in my solitude. I didn’t know that when approached by some fool stronger than myself, I would panic. He was bigger than I am, and the look in his eyes was one of true insanity. He rushed at me. All I could do was try to lose him in the woods I spent years casually learning, leaping over fallen trees and ducking under low-hung branches. This man…this man somehow kept up with me. He cornered me at a cliff, one that looked as if it overhung a flooded quarry.

I’m small. I’m perceived to be female. And I was alone with this terrifying man who’s lost his mind. I was not going to risk finding out what he wanted. Maybe to kill and eat me. Maybe worse. I wasn’t going to find out.

So, I flung myself, arms spread like wings, over the edge of the cliff, expecting death.

Instead, I woke up on this ship. I woke up with a few injuries from the chase, severe malnutrition, and a ringing in my ears.

Simon was there, and though we got off to a very rough start, he helped me by explaining the Ark and the Miys. He did have to sedate me a couple times, as violent as I was trying to be. He helped me get settled onto the ship and understand what the Miys were here. Simon was the first human I met here. And while he is, erm, awkward, I will say it was nice to see someone who hadn’t been through what we had.

A few people clapped, sensing that I had wrapped up my story. I snapped back into reality and wondered how long I had monologued, a bit embarrassed. I took another deep breath. Time to truly wrap myself up.

“Thank you for being here and being patient enough to listen to me go on. I hadn’t put much thought into how much I would share, to be honest. We all went through a lot. That’s why we share. Through our experiences, we can feel more comfortable with those around us. Hopefully, sharing my story will help show that I am an entire person, not just someone who tells you where to go and what to do. Again, thank you.” I found my way off the stage area as I tried not to cry. There were reasons I put this off for so long, and my caretaker was about to find out first hand what I am like when I break down. I needed to find him.

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[teaganpls]

sms: teagan taylor

@augustuswill.

Augustus: We might grew up on the different side of the world but we're still both just normal person like any other person. And yes, it was quite an experience having to be independent on a very young age. Haha I would definitely convince you to finish school! First time to hear that you want more polite people rather than rude. Augustus: That stung me a bit, I find myself normal and boring! So I guess you wouldn't want to hang around with me. :)) I hope I get to meet Tierney too! Augustus: Nice! Maybe you could make her drunk and let her dance weirdly on the middle of the street, video and post it online! A promo stunt before your new music release party! That was a joke, by the way! Don't make her drink! Augustus: Can you remind me of what's the asshole name is? I think I got to use calling him as a dick, asshole, that I forgot his real name. So you get my point why I'm furious of that guy huh? I'll tell her that. Alex had been so nice to everyone and doesn't deserve to be treated like that by your friend. Augustus: I can handle another more. Work and taking care of my sister is not so handful anymore. So, try me. Augustus: I am. I will sure will! Should I bring some coffee over?

Teag: That is definitely true. People are people, and we should all respect each other regardless of background. I get that. My siblings and I had to be independent at a young age, too. It was different circumstances. My mother was... kind of a trainwreck honestly, and didn't look after us (to say the least. It was a pretty abusive situation) so we had to learn really young to provide for ourselves. I would like to once I figure out what to go for. I'm a musician and I love making music with my whole heart and soul, but I just can't see myself going on a tour again and being away from my daughter for so long when most headlining tours could last anywhere from 6 months to a year. I respect people who are full-time musicians and have families because that balance is just crazy. Not to mention all the temptations on the road. It just isn't a good lifestyle for me. Which is basically my long ass way of saying I'm gonna need a new career which is why I opened the shop with my sister. I'd probably go back for Business that way if Tierney ever wants to tour (she has a business degree), she can knowing that I have everything under control.

Teag: Wait... people seriously want others to be rude to them? Wtf.

Teag: Aw I'm sorry!! Please don't take offense, my new buddy. If it makes ya feel any better, I need more normal and boring in my life. If you're close with Presley then I'd definitely say you're bound to meet Tierney soon. I'm biased bc she's my twin buuuuut she's pretty amazing

Teag: Hahaha don't worry, I won't. I actually just finished rehab myself 2 days ago... so drinking wouldn't be good for either one of us 🙊

Teag: Before I tell you, I just want to be clear right from the beginning that I don't want to be in the middle of any drama. I have enough going on in my life at the moment and as much as I understand why you're upset because cheating is a huge no-no, I don't want to be in the middle. I hope you can understand and respect that. No offense at all meant I just needed to say that sooner rather than later.

Teag: Wow, we're gonna be good friends already if you're offering to bring me coffee AND listen to my problems. it's a super long story. 

Teag: TL;DR i’m a “bitch” and outcasted too. so if alexis wants someone who can sort of understand, please send her my way. i need all the friends i can get lmao.

Teag: as i mentioned above, my mother (or as i like to call her, she who must not be named) was abusive. she had a lot of boyfriends throughout my childhood and they were all abusive as well. physically, sexually, verbally, mentally... you name it, it was there. she who must not be named was also heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. So I grew up seeing that behavior... and started drinking when I was really young. I did drugs for the first time when I was 14. I loved it immediately and it was the perfect way to escape all of the torment that was going on at my house. at the same time, i had a childhood best friend dj who i met when i was five. he knew all about the abuse and his family opened their doors to me and my siblings. his parents were like the parents i always wanted but never had. i mention this because it comes up later dsjndjnfsdhbfdshsdj this is seriously such a long story I’m so sorry in advance

Teag: so i turn 18 and as i mentioned, i didn’t go to college. frankly i always thought i’d be dead in a ditch so i never like... planned a future for myself? the only thing i was good at was music so i followed that to los angeles. to make a long story as short as possible --- went to rehab, fell back into drugs, found out i was pregnant and went to rehab again to get sober for real. i was doing really really well up until about a month ago. everything in my life went to absolute hell all at once. i found out who my daughter’s father was and it was one of the friends from la, and at first things were perfect and i was really relieved (still am, don’t get me wrong) that her father was a close friend instead of a random hookup while high. but things with dj got really rocky out of jealousy it was a whole mess and as things were getting rocky with him, danny was really there for me buying me flowers and supporting me and it was just. a confusing mess. so dj breaks up with me after him and danny fight on the booze cruise (sure alex told ya all about that booze cruise) and then i found out from my best friend that she also had a confusing thing with baby daddy and there was another girl involved too.

Teag: god i swear i’m trying to make this as short as possible, i’m sorry, just so much fucking shit has happened and i haven’t talked about my side much bc i don’t want people in the middle. so i got into a huge fight with danny because i felt really blindsided and hurt by all of this, where i said shit i shouldn’t have said. i told him he needed to grow up and be the father our daughter deserved. i regret that, i do, i know he loves blake and would do anything for her but in the heat of the moment, i was just so hurt. he said some pretty nasty shit back that isn’t worth repeating bc i’m trying to not dwell on them. and then i found out that dj’s mom, lisa, who was like the mom i never had died and i just.... fucking lost it. i had a complete break down and relapsed. THIS LONG ASS STORY IS ALMOST OVER FUCK. so i did 2 weeks of inpatient rehab back home in dallas and then came back home and finished my rehab as outpatient to be back with blake, my daughter. the last thing danny said to me was never to contact him again so... naturally, i didn’t contact him when i came back because i was focusing on staying sober. god okay i feel so bad about how long this is getting, the short of it is danny and i have been fighting pretty much ever since i got home, even when i avoided him specifically to avoid fighting. i only see blake on weekends, everything is tense with my former friends bc of things that should’ve stayed between danny and i but didn’t, on top of all this i’m trying desperately to stay sober and still grieving. okay, that’s it.

[raphaelsplinter]

|| Get to know RAPHAEL SPLINTER who’s TWENTY-TWO years old and a SENIOR in college majoring in LAW. He is from NEW YORK and is often times mistaken for ARON PIPER while others say he reminds them of RAPH from TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. ||

heyo all, my name is pepper, and after spending way too long getting distracted and watching jenna marble videos sdjksdjk Here I Am to introduce my grumpy problem child, raph ! a bit about me i guess, i’m a pinterest addict and a big fergie fan, i can only wink with both eyes (still counts tho right?) and i love b99, the good place, and umbrella academy. alright down bellow will be a bit about My Boi and some wcs i have for him ! please * youtuber vc * sMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON if you’d like to plot and i will come running okay? okay 

tl;dr for those who don’t want to go through this whole thing, he’s the raph you loved and knew from tmnt except he’s bifurious, been to juvie, and had a period of his life where he was a vigilante. 

to start before i forget here is his pinterest board ! blood tw though !

Raph has always used his fists to solve his problems. Violence was as natural to him as breathing, something he’d been turning to since before he can remember, and truly never really learnt how to stop. From punching kids who bugged him on the playground to picking fights with jerks who looked at him funny, Raphael was, and likely always will be, a bit aggressive. Quick to anger and even quicker to throw a punch because of it.

It was his adopted father who decided to help him channel this anger into something constructive. At first Raph thought it was stupid. After all, he already knew how to punch somebody, he didn’t need to know how to do it with gloves on. But at his father’s patient insistence, Raphael tried it, and unexpectedly (at least to Raphael) it helped. Yes, Raph was still eternally in a bad mood, but now when it all got too much and his anger felt like a noose around his neck, he had something to turn to rather than the first person who ticked him off.

But it wasn’t long until Raph didn’t just have boxing to turn to. Not just karate and taekwondo either, no, somehow Raph accidentally stumbled into an even more unexpected outlet. You see, Raph’s sense of justice was almost as strong as his anger, and that was maybe the one thing he and his family all shared, the one thing they all had in common, even his father. None of them could just sit back and allow someone else to get hurt, and it was that sense of justice that led Raph into some light pseudo vigilantism. It wasn’t anything big or, hell, organised. Honestly, the way it started was with Raph hearing something suspicious in an alley, going in guns-- or rather fists-- blazing and taking care of it himself rather than calling the police. But the thing was, it became a pattern. It became a choice. It got to the point where Raph would go out at night and roam the streets, waiting to see if anything was going down, waiting to step in. And it was New York, after all, it was the cesspool of the earth, something was always going down. Almost every night through most of his teenage years Raph would come home with bloodied knuckles and bruises, hurting like hell and having to hide it all from his family but… he felt good. He felt lighter. Doing what he was doing then, it felt better than just punching someone to punch somebody. It felt like he was actually helping people, like he was using his anger that only ever seemed to hurt people to actually do something good for once. For a while Raph thought that he was truly doing what he was supposed to be doing. That he had found his calling (although he would die before saying that out loud. Too damn cheesy).

Until of course, predictably, everything went downhill. Using his anger as a tool seemed like a great idea, and it would have been, if he knew how to control it. How to wield it like his dual daggers or his fists. But he didn’t. And because of that he slipped up, let his anger get the better of him, let it overflow one night and went too far. It didn’t matter than Raphael was stepping in between the guy and the girl he was harassing. It didn’t even matter that the girl defended him. The police didn’t care. He nearly put the guy in a coma, and he was pressing charges, and those charges landed Raph in the slammer for a whole year.

Luckily Raph was spared being charged an adult by the fact that he was seventeen at the time. While he did get a record, and lost a year of his life to the incident, it all really could have been much worse. He was able to see his family every once and a while when he had visitation. And he was able to continue school from in there. Juvie, as horrible as it was, was almost like the wake up call he needed. It was the push he needed to realize that he couldn’t let his anger control him. He needs to learn to control it.

So he’s learning. Slowly and grudgingly through mandated anger management. In all honesty, he hates it, and he slips up all the time, but he keeps going to his appointments. He keeps coming back, and he figures that must count for something.

Getting into university with a record wasn’t exactly easy, even with Raphael’s grades. Yeah, Raph was no Leo or Don but there’s not much else to do in juvie but workout and study, so that’s what Raph did. Found out he was actually pretty decent in school when he actually put the effort in and had no other options. Not that most universities or colleges even cared. Raphael had stubbornly convinced himself that he didn’t even want to go (after all, he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to do with his life, whether that be opening his own boxing ring or becoming a personal trainer, so he might not even need university in the first place) ( and because being angry was so much easier than being disappointed) until he got the offer from Corona. And yeah he thought it was stupid, and kind of shady, but... he didn’t really have any other options, and his brothers were going too. So he figured why not.

Raph decided to study law because again, why tf not. He minored in italian language and literature because-- well you get the drill. Honestly, if you were to ask Raphael about his major he would simply shrug, grumble, or give you the finger, but after being on the wrong side of the law for so long he wants to know it. In all honesty, Raph doesn’t trust cops or a lot of law enforcement, he thinks a lot of them are incompetent and stupid, and if he has his way, he’s going to be apart of changing that and maybe show these morons how it should be done.

HEADCANNONS

I have a headcannon that Raph took up italian when bored out of his mind in juvie, actually didn’t find it that hard, and he’s just been continuing to learn it and find it pretty damn easy here in Corona. I will say though, Raph isn’t the best student. He isn’t the best with authority figures who aren’t his father (the single and only authority figure he respects) so he tends to be rude in lecture, and ditch a lot, but he aces all his assignments so the professors can’t complain.

Raph is a smoker (both weed and cigarettes) and he doesn’t really care what anyone has to say about it. He figures they’re his lungs to ruin.

Raph has a sleeve at tattoos down his right arm, and an earring in his left ear.

Tends to work out/spar while he’s stressed.

Is a kind of impulsive and aggressive drunk, but also very loose and warm too if that makes sense, he can go from happy to angry at the drop of a hat.

He’s very protective of his youngest brother Mike, and that protectiveness can sometimes extend to other people younger than him. He doesn’t care for the most part, but Raph will always stick up or look out for the little guy, even if he does so grumpily.

The biggest potty mouth in the world omg, like it was hard for me not to curse while writing this while in his head space. He needs a swear jar.

Has some abandonment issues and identity issues due to the whole adoption thing but yk it’s chill he’s trying to chill dkjdfjk

THICK new york accent love this for him

WANTED CONNECTIONS ;  literally almost forgot to put these oof sorry y’all i’m a fool

friends ; raph is hella antisocial so i’d say there’s maybe two spots for these but i would love for him to have some people he actually like Semi likes to be around yk that would be cool (4/4) vanellope, merida, shego, dipper !

annoyance ; someone who bugs him. this is pretty self explanatory but this could be like a big brother/younger sibling kind of situation or it could just be someone who gets on his Last Nerve mabel !

someone he looks out for ; someone raph is protective of! this could be because he thinks of them as a younger sibling, or because he just feels the need to watch out for them and he doesn’t know why. we can plot this out ! rosetta & daphne ! (2/?)

an ex ; raph despite his moody ass, does tend to date even if it’s kind of rare. this could be someone who dated raph for whatever amount of time and maybe it well or maybe it went horribly. 

a past hookup ; self explanatory i think but raph has more hookups than actual relationships so if anyone is interested this is open to f / m / or nb! (1/?) angelica !

a fwb ; again self explanatory and open to all genders ! shego !

a soft spot ; someone who raph has a soft spot for for reasons that can be plotted. this grump is just a little less grumpy around them for reasons idek yet i just figure this could be fun. (2/2) rapunzel & boo !

a sparring partner ; someone who raph turns to when he physically wants to fight. friends with benefits except the benefit is fighting lmao flynn & vanellope !

enemies ; someone who raph hates, and it’s mutual, or maybe it’s one sided ! slightly !

stoner buddy ; coraline !

i think that’s it for now but i’m always willing to brainstorm tbh hit your girl up !

[tallshipandstar]

Why are people still supporting weapo?

Anon, I have started answering this over and over but I never get very far, partly because I spent far too much of January in the office with my stress and anxiety running at about an eleven out of ten for work related reasons and had to disengage for my own sanity, and also because I don’t want to come across as though I’m dismissing other people’s concerns or feelings or trying to talk over other people.

I also can’t talk for ‘people’, only myself.

And for me, I get where people are coming from but where I get stuck is on context. We’re talking about an immensely messed up system here and that’s not news to anyone. We’ve known that for years. But then what becomes of the people who grew up in that system, with a single minded focus, living life in the ‘bubble’?

I don’t intend that to be an excuse for abuse or deliberate cruelty or anything like that. i’m talking about the ‘ordinary’ (for lack of a better term) people who are just trying to get through life as best they can.

But there’s a lack of perspective that comes from being enmeshed in a system. How many people do you know, for example, in a toxic work environment who can’t see that fact, and sometimes don’t realize until years after? When it’s all you know and it’s normalized, how do you know when something’s wrong and needs to be fixed? That’s a legitimate question, at least in my head. It’s easy enough to say ‘learn better’ or ‘do better’ but how do you even know to start? Or where to start? I was basically raised by the internet. I read a lot and I read fast and I remember the long slow painful process of having to confront some of my own biases and the ideas I’d grown up with, and I didn’t have to rely on those ideas to make my lifelong dreams come true. I didn’t go looking for it, I stumbled across it. if you don’t have that and you don’t have anyone to tell you, how do you know?

I don’t know where to find the balance between meeting people where they’re at and having an expectation that they can do better. I definitely think both is possible, but I’m not sure we can do that by assuming that everyone comes to the starting line of this particular marathon with the same knowledge and experience and the same emotions. it’s like we have people who were prepared for the start gun to go off and are a few hundred metres down the course, and people who are still getting their heads around the idea that there even is a race, let alone with figuring out how they’re going to run the damn thing. Especially if this is the first real serious challenge to their worldview.

I’m also not convinced that anyone owes us, as a fandom, any kind of insight into what’s going on for them. Maybe they’re burying their heads in the sand or maybe they’re in that re-evaluating stage that comes when you find out that someone you knew and liked and trusted is actually a child sex abuser. (BTDT. 19 years on I still remember the world-falling-away feeling of it, and he wasn’t a friend but a respected adult in my life, and he also wasn’t dead, and he also admitted it very early on. And it was still hard to readjust and reassess and wonder if I’d missed something I should have seen and what to do with all the good memories.) 

it’s early. They’ve been in this world since they were small children. I can’t expect them to bring the same kind of perspective to the table that I have. (Which includes the knowledge that anyone, no matter how much I like them, could be an abuser. At an old job I had to give ‘evidence’ in an abuse investigation against a co-worker (unexplained bruising on a non-verbal child). I wanted to swear that he didn’t do it or at least not intentionally, that he would never hurt a child. My gut and my heart said that was the case. My brain said there was a 0.1% chance he did, and so there was no way I could definitely say “there’s no way he did that on purpose.”)

I guess, in the end, in the years I’ve been following them I haven’t seen anything that makes me say they don’t deserve to be liked or appreciated or admired for what they bring to the table. Obviously they have a lot of their own privilege and they live in a bubble and maybe that means there’s a lot missing. But I can’t assume they’re not thinking or processing or reassessing just because they’re not doing it publicly. 

Anon, this is probably tl;dr and I don’t blame you if you didn’t read it. But I guess I just don’t want to put the idea out there that I haven’t thought about this or that I’m not still thinking about it. If you, or anyone else, wants to come off anon (or stay on anon, whatever) and talk about it, go for it. I am about to go to bed (maybe) and I have to work tomorrow, but I’ll get back to you when I can.

[awed-frog]

1. Cicero vs Caesar

Caesar. 

No question about it. 

Tl;dr explanation: they were both huge assholes, but at least Caesar was fully aware of his occasional lapses into murderous psychopathy, while Cicero was - I believe - genuinely convinced to be the best & most decent person who’d ever walked the Earth. Like - let me hyperbolize this a bit, otherwise it’s just not fun, but Caesar never murdered someone just for the hell of it, you know? In fact, he was famous for his mercy and his habit of giving anyone a second chance, and that’s a huge part of what got him killed. Cicero, on the other hand, was a petty schemer who’d rouse up mobs and off-duty soldiers so they’d go and kill people he didn’t like while also befriending the most corrupt men in Rome and defending them in a court of law whenever needed (and lining his pockets in the process).

I mean - some people could argue Cicero was still the better man because he defended democracy and all that, but those people would be wrong. That dick didn’t give a fuck about democracy - which was never a real democracy anyway, but a well-crafted oligarchy. And the whole thing would have collapsed with or without him, because the crisis Rome was going through couldn’t be solved by a bunch of inbred idiots and greedy in the Senate. Cicero prevented Catilina from having a go at it, and if he hadn’t - now, that could have changed history (or not) - but he ultimately lost against Caesar who not only was as whip-smart as Cicero, but had everything that Cicero lacked: a reckless streak a mile wide, cast iron balls and the ability to make people care about him and believe in him.

(Ciarán Hinds was perfect, by the way. Outstanding work.)

He’s definitely a problematic fave because he basically slaughtered all of Gallia (we’re talking about one million people, so I’m not going to defend that) plus he was your usual Roman person who ate human baby burgers and fucked his slaves and whatever else, but I think he gets a lot of bad rap over that whole ‘creating an empire’ thing that’s not fully deserved. 

Plus, he survived a string of persistent (and believable) rumors about liking it up the ass, so that’s another tick in his column.

Anyway, I promised you guys I’d live-tweet this biography of his back in the Pleistocene - that’s still a thing I want to do, I swear. I liked that book so much that I went and bought it after reading the first chapter in the library, and since I’m almost finished with the geopolitical book of doom, I should be starting on that project soon.

history: make me choose

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Pondering: “How did we (the U.S.) get here?”

[Putting the conclusion first, for TL;DR reasons (repeated, in proper prose, below):

The Republican Party is symbiotically bonded with Evangelical Christianity, and, through the vehicle of the GOP, Evangelical Christians are trying to impose Christian religious law across the board;

Evangelical Christianity started its mass infiltration of government during Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign.

Ronald Reagan was the first Republican elected to the presidency since Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment.

The Impeachment proceedings against Nixon, in the Senate and the House, were proof that the checks and balances put in place by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, can actually work.

And (personal opinion, here) I fear the Republicans are trying to make sure the Constitution never works again.]

And I’ll also put this above the line (copied from below):

Therefore: if the Republicans retain control of all branches of government -- especially the House and Senate -- after November 6, this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if 45 tries to revoke presidential term limits. After all, he’s already praised Xi Jinping for doing the same thing. And I don’t have any faith that fellow Republicans would try to stop him.

Vote!!!

(Links to sources and Wikipedia articles on the history embedded in the post below the cut)

As I was getting up, yesterday morning (28 June, 2018), listening to NPR’s reporting on Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court, I was thinking about the comment I made to @inthedayglo, in this thread:

I haven’t felt this pessimistic about the future since Reagan – and back then, I high key believed the world – or at least, the majority of human civilization – would end in a global thermonuclear war.

…So that’s saying something.

And realizing that, no -- that’s not hyperbole.

Now, when Reagan was first elected, I was sixteen, going on seventeen -- just like the archetypal (if not the actual majority) blogger of Tumblr, today. And just like today’s teens, I was full of angst and passion.  I thought it very likely I, and much of my cohort, would die before we reached the age of our parents.

So, here I was, listening to the news, and puzzling through why the dread I’m feeling now is worse than the dread I was feeling almost 40 years ago. And then, it dawned on me:

Back in the day, our greatest fear was someone starting a nuclear war by accident.

But ever since 45th’s ascension to the White House, I’ve been increasingly convinced the Oligarchs are pushing us to catastrophe on purpose: Denying Climate Change, starting trade wars, alienating our allies, trying to repeal healthcare, repealing Net Neutrality (And passing Article 13 -- it’s all part of the same trend).

What I couldn’t understand is why. Why would you lock yourself inside your house, and then set it on fire?  Undoing Obama’s legacy out of spite could be a mighty motivation. But you can’t exactly enjoy your gloat if you’re dead. What about all the potential grand-babies the old, white, surviving Baby Boomers are wringing their hands over?

And then, two weeks ago, @ok2befat said this in her video response to Jeff Sessions’ and Sarah Sanders’ claim that stealing children from their parents at the border is the Christian thing to do:

"[Evangelical Christians are] in a literal Death Cult. Like, they want the world to end, and everyone to die -- including themselves -- so that Jesus can come back. [. . .] They don't care if the whole thing goes off a cliff.  [. . .] If we were headed for a metaphor cliff, they would be the ones stomping on the gas, 'cause they want to go off the cliff sooner!" (Source: cued to 16:11 in a roughly 18 min. video; cw for swear words)

As she points out, there are more Evangelical Christians in 45′s cabinet than any previous administration.

So... yeah: it’s not just my imagination. They’re doing this on purpose.

But it didn’t start with 45. Evangelical Christians made their first mass entries into politics, through the so-called “Moral Majority,” in Ronald Reagan’s first campaign (and we come back, full circle, to the start of this post). And they’ve been bonded with the Republican Party, and growing in power, ever since. 

...The demise of the Carter administration, and the way Reagan came into power, is an effin’ trip, and probably deserves at least two posts of their own, just for ranting. ...

And Carter was the only Democrat president between Nixon’s demise via the Watergate Hearings and Reagan’s election. 

Jimmy Carter was far from a perfect president, but among the things he did right, were:

Pardoning all Vietnam War draft dodgers

Presiding over the establishment of the Departments of Energy and Education

(And promoting green, renewable, energy -- we got our solar panels for hot water in those years, with a tax break to help pay for them)

And, even though he, himself, is an Evangelical Christian, he respected the separation of Church and State, because he knew he was President to everyone, not just those in his branch of his faith.

And part of me daydreams about an alternative history, and where we would be today, if he’d gotten elected to a second term, and gotten credit for the freeing of the Iran Hostages.

Maybe we’d still have ended up with Nuclear War... ‘Cause he did escalate things with the Soviets in Afghanistan, and started the gears turning that linked Oil and Capitalism with “national security.” But also maybe his policies to encourage solar and wind energy would have taken root, and the Doomsday Clock would still only be counting down to nuclear war, and not nuclear war plus global warming.

But ever since Nixon’s resignation in shame, Republicans had been saying that the Impeachment Hearings ruined our country, and destroyed our democracy, and I’m convinced that they were so willing to link up with the Moral Majority because allies in the churches would help them make sure the Constitution, which brought down one of their own, wouldn’t ever bring down another.

(In other words, if the Republicans retain control of all branches of government -- especially the House and Senate -- after November 6, this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if 45 tries to revoke presidential term limits. After all, he’s already praised Xi Jinping for doing the same thing. And I don’t have any faith that fellow Republicans would try to stop him.)

[harimaron]

Can you post a recap of how Drag Con went? I've never been and would love to hear how your time was spent/ if it was any fun

Yes, definitely! I’ll do it directly onto this post (cause why not?). Warning: This is way too long and wordy. I apologize in advance. Tl;dr: Drag Con was great.

Drag Con was so much fun, though very painful to the feet after a while–but when is drag not a pain in the feet? I don’t remember everything, but I guess I’ll mention the highlights (probably way too much).

Day One:

I didn’t go to drag con looking to stand in long-ass lines for two hours at a time, because I figured that would be a waste of time for me. As much as I love everyone’s faves, I’d rather get as much out of the experience as I can. So, sorry fan faves (besides Detox and Laganja).

The only ‘long line’ booth that I regret not attending was Haus of Aja because their booth looked cute AF! (In fact, I exchanged a word with Kandy on day one while I was passing by, but I was awkward af and felt like I was breaking some kind of con protocol by talking to a queen out-of-line even if she spoke to me first. (God, I wish I’d actually said something, like at least acknowledge that I knew who she was? Lol but welp.) I’d also have liked to see Shangela, but I’m sure there’ll be other chances that don’t involve an hour wait.

The first thing we did on day one was go to Sugar Pill because my friend wanted to buy makeup (and I was really tempted but I didn’t buy anything). Saw Shrinkle there and took a picture with her. (And just NOW I realize what I should have talked to her about instead of being quiet and awkward.)

I think the first two queens I saw on day one were Gia and Laganja (speaking of fan faves–assuming she’s one). I got lucky with them because we ran into a friend who was already on line for them and were able to get in pretty quickly. I felt a little guilty, but hey… Gia looks fucking gorgeous and I wish I’d talked more with her, especially since I’m helping a friend organize an event for the trans community at the moment. Unfortunately I was still in my awkward just-got-here phase at that point (not sure that the phase ever went away). Now… I’ve been on the hunt to meet Laganja for ages now, so I felt very accomplished actually!! 

Wandered around a bit after meeting Team Too Much, then ran into Jiggly’s booth. Cool, quick line, no hassle. Jiggly has the CUTEST lollipops in her merch. Highly recommend. Don’t know if I’ll be able to ever eat mine cause it’s way too cute. I’m not sure why I’m always so shy around Jiggly.

After Jiggly I ran into a drag queen named Astala Vista and she is my new fave cause she’s a crazy cat lady. (Her look won me over.)

After that I saw Ongina. Her merch was cheap on day one and more expensive on day two. (I guess cause they did well and a lot of it was almost sold out.) I also had a sketch of her that I got her to sign and she was one of the queens I was hoping to see!

After that I went for Phi Phi O’Hara, because obvious reasons. I dressed up to match her booth so this was bound to happen. I cannot stress enough how she’s like my favourite person ever?? I didn’t buy anything from her on day one and she was the first queen I saw who didn’t require you to buy something first. (Don’t worry, I more than made up for this on day two.) I gave her a bag of cookies that I baked but her husband ate them all. Dammit Mikhael, stop eating everything I give Phi Phi! (Unless Phi lied to con me out of more cookies, which I’m okay with too.) The cookies I made I designated to give to Phi, Jiggly, and my good friend CoCo De’Ball, and the rest I was going to give out at random but they all ended up going to Phi Phi on day two somehow.

Wandered around, I think my friend and I split up for a bit at some point to do our own thing. Found CoCo De’Ball and her bf took photos that I still need to get my hands on. Chatted with her for a while, then wandered some more. Walked by Ginger Minj’s booth and took a photo from outside in the passing (cause you can do that). Also took one of Shangela cause I had a feeling I wouldn’t end up meeting her anyway. Ran into some New York girls I know by the bathroom lines. Ran into Biblegirl and took pics with her.

The only panel I went to all weekend was the one where Ginger did Lactacia’s makeup. I met up with @maladymesser​ there! :) So cool. At the end of the panel, Ginger asked Lactacia to be her flower girl because she and CJ were going to get married right there and then. Michelle Visage married them right there at DragCon??? I think we were all DYING.

After the panel we split up again and I wandered around and wound up going back to Coco’s booth. Ran into some girls I hang out with at the bar regularly there and we all walked around with CoCo for a bit. I saw someone dressed AS A BUG WITH SIX LEGS, STILETTOS ON ALL OF THEM, CRAWLING ACROSS THE FUCKING FLOOR!!!!!!! WHAT THE WHAT! That might have been the best thing????? Like???

Ahem… anyway. I ran into Jade Jolie’s booth. Super easy photo op. Then I found Ivy Winters and her line was also pretty short at the time (I think there were two lines or something?) While waiting for her I saw Terra Hyman roll by on roller skates (genius) in a Pokeball dress and I stopped her cause c’mon, Pokemon! I didn’t actually realize it was her right away until she told me to add her Instagram. She’s my new friend tbh, we just bonded, okay? I shared my Starbucks with her on day two, and that means friends for life in my book.

Anyway… back to the Ivy line, cause I was still in line for that. While waiting, Manila runs up to the booth to take pictures with Ivy. (Manila and Raja’s line is like 5 hours long, so hey! Cool!)

The last two I believe we saw on day one were Vivacious and Tammie Brown. Vivacious was one of my favourite experiences of the day. Took photos with an Ornacia on our heads. Vivacious was the nicest person ever and was really concerned about my lacefront wig when taking Ornacia off (not very Ornacia-friendly). I told her it’s fine and that I can put it back on but she was not having it and said that no one’s wig was coming off at drag con. Wow. Somehow very touching that she cared so much. And it was just a wonderful experience overall, and I recommend for everyone to meet Vivacious. My friend went to another panel at six, but I decided to go home because I literally got zero sleep the night before (not even exaggerating).

Day Two:

My best friends all came out on this day and it was just an overall blast. My game plan was to hop right onto the Detox line upon entering and get the long wait out of the way. (I know, I said I didn’t want to do any long lines, but Detox is my exception.) Our group split up because two of my friends had to go to a panel. (They did end up going to Detox later, but more on that later.)

Detox has the best merch, so I’m okay with her $20 minimum purchase. She has a lot to choose from and I wouldn’t mind having most of her things. We got in for Detox, took our pics. I got to kiss her for a pic and that already made my day!! (Plus my friend got it on film for me! Exciting!)

We split up and I went (surprise surprise) to see Phi Phi again. The panel friends were just finishing at the panel so they joined me on Phi Phi’s line. :) I chatted with her husband while on line about the dogs situation, bought merch cause I like supporting her, and then met with Phi. My friend caught this interaction on video and I died a little when I played it back at home. Took some family portraits–I mean, fan photos, but c’mon… Let my friends go and then took a group shot together. (Don’t even remember who has that photo tbh.) I probably hog up too much of her time and people probably hate me for it on the line, but too bad, I love her and she claims to love me so I’ll have my moment.

(Let’s be real, I bought my Drag Con tickets after she personally convinced me to go and the thought at the forefront of my mind was always that I’ll get to see Phi Phi there.)

After that we split up again and I wandered around. Saw Dida Ritz. I ran into Terra Hyman again (about 50 times tbh, I swear she’s everywhere and I’m A-okay with that) and she recognized me from the day before so I’m officially her bitch. (Not really, but I’m okay with thinking that.) Later saw Laila McQueen. We took a quick Starbucks break and then went to wait for Pandora to return from her break. (Terra’s booth was right there next to Pandora’s so ended up sharing my drink with her and that’s how that happened.)

All five of us were in one place for the first (and only) time for Pandora. Pandora was super sweet and we all had a blast with her. She’s my best friend’s fave so I’m really happy this worked out. We took a huge group photo together and everyone was really friendly and not rushing us. After that I went with the other half of my friends to see Phi Phi (those who hadn’t gone yet) and that was my excuse to go twice. (Please, I would’ve done it anyway!)

Wandered around and found Stacy Layne Matthews in the passing, observed Milk’s booth from the outside (amazing booth but didn’t want to do any more lines), and then found Joslyn Fox.

After that I just got really lucky???? Because I got to see Detox a second time without having to wait out the line because my friends who didn’t see her yet went and I joined them when they were practically done. I actually originally intended to just chat with them while they waited, even told the person coordinating the line that I wasn’t on it, but then somehow got ushered into it with my friends and when I asked if it was alright to go in with them, they said yes. Like ????? Wow. Okay. Cool. I felt kind of bad for the people behind us cause they probably hated my guts for it? But it wasn’t like I went in there alone. So… yeah. I saw Detox again. He remembered me from earlier. Super sweet. The person taking pictures did an interesting job because there’s no normal pics of us and instead it just looks like we were making out the entire time (we weren’t! They were just cheek kisses and that’s practically all he captured, from a very convincing angle). Oh, and Detox signed the shirt that I got. We took a really cute group photo around Detox’s tub and then left. (Seriously, I started and ended my day with Detox. What could be better?)

—

Anyway, 10/10 recommend. I had the regular pass. I’m sure VIP had its perks but it didn’t really interest me personally, especially with the price. (Even if it had been cheaper, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it.)