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irreverent-dobermans · 1 year

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When You Ask Your Local Dog Expert For Help Finding A Breeder

Within the dog community I’m seeing this happen a lot right now, so I thought I’d write a post about it. With regards to asking a local dog expert for help finding a puppy (assuming you’re searching for a good sport or competition prospect or just a responsibly-bred pet). This is a brief idea of some of the things they MIGHT do in an effort to help you achieve your (perceived) goal of a responsibly sourced, well-bred puppy.

There are a ton of layers to each of these general steps I'm going to offer up, and even more pitfalls and red flags that can be stumbled across at each stage. Novices in the Purebred Dog World can certainly find themselves a great, responsibly sourced dog if they keep some of these steps/techniques in mind. BUT the most important thing is to have patience in your search. Most likely your responsible breeder of choice is going to have a wait list, and that's a GOOD thing! If you can turn around in a hot minute and land a dog, take a moment to really investigate that gift puppy. It might come with a price tag beyond a monetary level.

These steps are easier to navigate with a Dog Expert in your pocket or in your corner, but I'm breaking this down to show you that it can be done by a dedicated novice too! It's just going to take time and effort in this search. If you DO ask an expert and then completely disregard their advice in favor of the fast option, that expert probably isn't going to be too happy with you. If you ask me for help and I invest days or weeks in helping you on this path, using my expertise and possibly also my reputation to introduce you to responsible breeders producing stunning dogs, and then you turn around and buy the first puppy you can get near town because it's available RIGHT NOW and for cheap... well, I'm going to be annoyed. And I might not help you next time you ask.

When it comes down to it: If a FAST puppy is the goal, it probably isn't going to be as well-bred or responsibly sourced as one that you might have to research and wait for. (Can you strike it rich with that golden puppy? Absolutely. Is it less likely? Most certainly.)

Notice I am using the vague term of 'dog expert' because you could be asking a breeder friend, a local trainer, possibly someone in charge of boarding, maybe someone affiliated with a local club or vet, or just a known competitor/participant in the dog world. Any of these people could be considered experts, depending on one's personal definition. They can probably connect you to some absolutely AMAZING dogs, if you're willing to spend the time, do a little research, and pay what the breeder is asking for in order to take home a piece of their hard work.

Pretending I'm your local Dog Expert, I'm a known trainer and handler that participates in HELLA dog sports. (There's maybe 3 or 4 I haven't done OR don't regularly compete in.) You likely see me at shows for at least three different Registries, a multitude of sports, usually running or handling a string of dogs; and I’m a member in good standing of eight or so Breed Specific/All Breed/Sport AKC Clubs and so on. I'm also canine transport and can deliver a puppy. So we run into each other at your location of choice and you wind up asking: "Hey Toni! Can you help me find a responsibly bred puppy of [breed]?"

Step 1: Owner Interview/Initial Conversation

I surely can! But first we're likely to have a conversation about what you want. What are you looking for in your new canine companion? Sport or Show expectations? SD or Pet potential? General expectation/goal for activity level and what home looks like? Puppy vs Adult Dog? For an Adult or Jr Handler? Etc. We're establishing your goals and expectations! If you don't have a local expert, you can skip THIS part and move on to step 2, doing the next steps on your own. (I mean, you should get an idea to the answers of these questions for your own search, but that’s just my two cents.) Sure it will take a bit to learn what you need to be looking for, but these are steps that ANYONE can follow to get started in locating a responsibly and well bred puppy (or adult dog) for their needs!

Step 2: Breed Research.

We're going to assume you're looking for something that isn't what I would claim as "my" breed. If it's not something I've got a finger on the pulse of (and even if it is), my first steps are probably to swing by the official Breed Club resources to review standards, health testing expectations, recommended breeders and so on. In this stage I'll probably swing by a couple different responsible registries to see how the standards vary, and if there are different resources on those pages. (If you are doing this yourself, you've jumped past Step 1 and can get into this by asking yourself a few questions/doing some research!) Since I'm In America, we'll start with: Is it an AKC Breed? Yes?: https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/ Hmm How About UKC? Yes?: https://www.ukcdogs.com/breeds Your breed doesn't turn up in those OR you want a lower pressure Show Environment? IABCA: https://www.iabca.com/showinfo.html ICKC: http://www.internationalcaninekennelclub.com/ (Already seem like a lot of work? This is only Stage 2!) For the second part of Stage 2 (the Breed Club) I'm going to pick one of my random (rare) breeds, as I'm part of the official Breed Club. Obviously for this part you sub in your breed of choice and search for a [Breed Club] for [Country]. Example Breed: Curly Coated Retriever Breed Club: https://www.ccrca.org/ The Breed Club's Breeder Directory Page with Additional Links: https://www.ccrca.org/breeders.html

Step 3: Health Testing Research.

The Breed Clubs typically have a list of preferred health testing for the breed. Those that meet this testing criteria would be considered more responsible breeders than those that don't perform the health testing. As health testing requirements vary by breed, you can look up the requirements on your breed club page OR on OFA.org, through their breed section. OFA: https://ofa.org/chic-programs/browse-by-breed/ Once you have your list of health tests by breed, you can search OFA by breed to see dogs that have been tested and their results recorded. Keeping an eye out for Kennels with a concentration of testing or full on CHIC certification will give you an idea as to who actually has performed the health tests, and give you an idea of breeders to check into.

Step 4: Checking Into Breeders

Now we get to the actual stage of finding breeders in your breed of choice. Since you've looked at your Breed Club/OFA and presumably found some breeders that meet the health testing requirements for the breed, now you look for those breeders to have a Social Media or Website presence. Hopefully they have information about themselves and their program, their breed, contracts and their process to get a dog or puppy.

Red Flags:

Because the steps above can have any number of red flags, we're going to stop and touch on those for a moment! There are less than reputable Registries (like the Continental Kennel Club or ConKC), non-responsible/non-reputable breeders and more. If someone claims to Health Test but won't give you full registered names for you to double check their health testing, be wary. If they claim to health test and not turn the info into OFA, that's also another flag. Why isn't the information being officially recorded? If they health test on an international level there should be records of the health testing (PennHipp rather than OFA, perhaps) and documentation should be able to be provided. If they don't want to give you health testing info until you've paid a deposit, well, then you have to decide how you comfortable you are with the idea of proceeding. The same for if they don't want to release any information on the parents until you're already on the hook with a deposit or fully paying off the pup. I personally feel that those demanding deposits before any real agreement is reached should be considered a warning sign. Those breeders that charge more/less depending on: gender, breeding rights, colors or patterns, etc may also be a flag depending on nuance. These things are easier to spot if you've been in and out of the sport/competition world but can get an idea of it even as a novice. Just be open to the idea of critical thinking, carefully reading contracts and website details and so on. If this is an AKC/American based club or breed, and the website reads as something poorly translated through Google, maybe be wary.

Step 5: Make Contact!

So you've found out everything you can, found a breeder you're comfortable with, and now? It's time to contact the breeder. Try reaching out with a general idea of what you're looking for, how you found their information, and if you're active in clubs/sports with current dogs to give them some background on you. Don't just email asking "pups, price, etc" in an abrupt fashion. Try to start a dialogue! Ideally, this is someone you're going to at least be a casual aquaintence of for the next 1o or so years! Remember many responsible breeders have a waiting list, be prepared for this!

Note: If your local expert is doing this work for you, they may be using their own reputation in the show/sport world to help with their introduction to the breeder/breeders and trying to locate the perfect show/sport/breeding prospect for you. Try to honor their hard work, references, friendship what-have-you. If circumstances change, be forthright. And remember, if you ask someone to do this for you, and then run out to buy the first local BYB you find because it's cheaper/faster... well, don't be surprised if they don't want to assist you in the future.

Anyway, I hope this post gives you an idea as to what goes into trying to locate a responsibly-sourced, well-bred dog!

#Irreverent Dobermans #Locating A Well-Bred Dog #Finding A Breeder #Asking An Expert To Find A Breeder #Responsible Dog Ownership #Responsible Dog Purchasing #Blog Post #How To Find A Puppy #How To Buy A Puppy #Buying A Show Dog Prospect #Buying A Sport Dog Prospect #Irreverent Blogging

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leos-regression-cove · 2 years

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Hey I was just wondering if you were willing to promote a small agere discord? My friend and I created an agere discord for the people in the community that feel like they don't fit in.

It's an inclusive discord where you can talk about any and all interests, where you can show your writing and read fics from other members, where you can show art work and agere gear.

Both adults and minors welcome. Systems are welcome too!

This is the link if you were willing to. https://discord.gg/rkwT5ex2

It's totally okay if not!

I'll put this ask out, and publish it but because I do not use Discord, I can't say I am or am not promoting this and take no responsibility for what's on the server.

This is a relatively small blog, and you're not going to reach a lot of people with this, but I wish you luck.

#asks

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grunklestanofficial · 2 years

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Hey I got genshin brain rot and for that I am infodumping every thought I’ve had about my personal AU where everything is the same except Kaeya is a teenager. Like around Bennet & Razor age.he is teen bro

Main Story Bits

Kaeya gets found by Crepus when he is actual baby, does not have any memory of Khaenri'ah save for very vague infant memories of the aesthetic. For a while everyone’s best guess for his origins is that a group from Sumeru had a really unfortunate fate, based on the general wreckage he was found in.

Your usual fluffy headcanons about a happy Ragnvindr childhood. Kaeya never doubts himself as part of the family but he does have this desire to learn more about where he originally came from. He’s real into learning about Sumeru culture and customs and Crepus and Diluc do their best to support it!

Actually doesn’t wear an eyepatch for most of his early life. Crepus took him to a pediatrician and it was like “yeah I guess it’s weird but he doesn’t seem to have vision problems so let’s say heterochromia”

The brothers still have estrangement issues in present times because that’s what happens when you’re like eleven, your dad dies, and your older brother/only living relative leaves to go on a vengeance quest

But also there’s estrangement because on the night of Crepus death /something/ happens. A something that Kaeya can’t fully remember other than it gave him a vision and that clues Diluc in that his baby brother has more intense origins than he thought. Kaeya’s eye is more for just looking pretty, And the Abyss does not need someone to know they are a spy to make use of what they can see.

This doesn’t mean Diluc /blames/ him but it’s definitely sort of a “I have to keep my distance while I’m looking for information to help him to protect Kaeya from the Abyss order” kind of situation and both of their communication is pretty shit

Dilic comes back with the impression that his baby brother has entered his angsty teen phase from how he behaves around him. Kaeya also thinks Diluc is in his angsty teen phase.

Kaeya holds an honorary knight position like the Traveler rather than being an official captain in the Ordo, both due to his age and because he feels he has a bigger duty of being responsible for the winery as the only member of his family in Mondstadt for three years (and there’s no theoretical emotional hang ups for taking up that responsibility like with canon Kaeya) If you are a snooty wine tasting businessman saying he doesn’t know anything about wine when he can’t legally drink it he will humiliate you.

Still has sort of an information network going on but it’s mainly sourced on him publicly being a Good Good Boy and all the grannies in Mondstadt want to give this Nice Young Man the hot goss. Dorothy thinks she’s all that with her prize winning Ceclias but did you hear her grandson is looking into being a Treasure Hoarder? smh smh

Maybe he finds out about the Darknight Hero and forces Diluc into doing some Batman and Robin shit idk.

Other Extra Tidbits

Kaeya and Fischl are besties, eyepatch solidarity. Kaeya had a chunni pirate phase and that’s why he wears the eyepatch.

No one has told him that Grandpa Ragnvindr was not actually a pirate.

Barbara and Kaeya are also friends in a “we had to hang out while our siblings hung out” kind of way

Rosaria is considered by Kaeya to be the coolest person in Mondstadt (and he’s right) and sees her as a role model. Rosaria’s def aware that she should probably be a responsible adult to keep him from going down a similar path as her but she is not. The best. At role modeling. She will let him have cigarettes if he asks is all I am saying.

Actually he and Bennett are also ride or die. Oh you can’t handle being part of Benny’s adventure team? Sad. Kaeya’s built different. Bennett will also be brought along to ask Rosaria for cigarettes behind the church.

If anyone does wanna do anything with these ideas you can totally go for it as long as there’s proper crediting. I sort of have a plot hook idea of “ Canon Diluc goes into a funky domain, comes out and learns he swapped places with his alternate self and has to Deal With It and uncovering what sort of research Alt!Diluc was doing.”, but that is also open because me gathering enough spoons together to write a narrative story is a pipe dream.

#genshin impact #kaeya alberich #diluc ragnvindr #genshin impact au #genshin headcanons #kaeya #diluc

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latetaektalk · 3 years

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(he)art thief | jjk [i, preview]

“jungkook is charming, kind, smart, and funny. jungkook is the guy to fall in love with. he is perfect in every sense, except that he is also a member of a notorious heist group and only getting close to you to steal from you. but what does he do when he starts to fall for you? who does he choose? his brothers or you?

genre: heist! AU, thief! jungkook, art curator daughter! oc, ocean’s! AU, fluff, angst, sexual themes/implied smut (in later chapters)

pairing: jungkook x female reader

estimated word count: 35 to 40k

warnings: cursing/swearing, a bit of alcohol consumption

a/n: this is loosely based off the ocean’s film! to be added to the taglist, shoot me an ask/message! also, gureum is jungkook’s dog! and thank you to movie club for helping me come up with this amazing title!!

coming sunday, may 30th 2021

Jungkook avoids playgrounds.

Does so because when he was at the tender age of just seven, he fell off a swing. He ended up in the hospital (his first but not last visit); seven stitches, his mother told him, but he could swear it was a million.

Needless to say, Jungkook has been avoiding playgrounds like the plague ever since.

But here he is, in the middle of one, dog leash in his hand, and heart pounding in his chest so violently it might just explode.

A mob of boys runs past him, all of them no older than six—which means that, for the most part at least, they’re harmless—but still, Jungkook flinches. It’s embarrassing, even more so because Gureum turns and stares at him. If one of them should flinch, it should be Gureum, with him being a dog and Jungkook a full grown adult, but God, today is just not his day. He’s stressed! Out of it! Nervous! A wreck-

“Did you just flinch?”

Jungkook feels his heart drop. Fuck, he thought he walked out of sight!

“No, I didn’t, Tae,” he hisses, pressing the earpiece further into his ear.

“You flinched! We can still see you- ah, okay, not anymore. But we saw that-”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I definitely did not flinch-”

“Denying it is pointless. We all saw it. Back me up here, Jimin.”

“You definitely flinched.”

Jungkook stops dead in his tracks, is about to walk back to the car and tell them that they must be hallucinating because he definitely did not flinch when-

“Can you see her already, Kook?” Namjoon asks and for a moment, Jungkook forgot why he is here, you.

He looks around himself, and it doesn’t take him long to find you, sitting on a bench, under a big tree, soft shadows dancing on your skin.

“Yeah, I-I see her,” Jungkook says under his breath.

“Okay, good. I’m gonna need you to focus up then,” Namjoon continues, and Jungkook nods like Namjoon could see him.

“Yeah, if you screw this up, it’s your fault if we end up in jail-”

“Tae!” Namjoon warns, and judging from the ‘ow’ that follows, someone punched him. Jungkook’s guess is Jimin.

“What? I’m just saying-”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you come,” Namjoon mumbles and runs a hand down his face. “Hey, Kook, don’t listen to Tae, yeah? He’s just messing with you.”

“Yeah… I know,” Jungkook mutters, and he means it. He really does know that Taehyung is messing with him, but there’s a part of him that takes it to heart, that is worried sick about how he’s going to fuck this up and be the reason for why they all end up in jail.

“Don’t worry, Kook,” Jimin cuts in, taking the phone from Namjoon. “We’ve got your back. All you have to do is repeat after me, say what I say. You’ve got this. Remember what I taught you?”

“Always smile and laugh and never talk about yourself. Keep the conversation about the other person because people love talking about themselves,” Jungkook repeats, and looks at you again, heart heavy in his chest.

He shouldn’t feel like this, wishes he wouldn’t. But he can’t help it. This isn’t how he imagined he’d meet you. Jungkook thought he’d meet you at some fancy event, sipping expensive champagne, or at some luxury clothing store maxing out your parents’ credit card—after all, your mother is a world famous art curator. But instead you spend your time at playgrounds, babysitting.

There’s actually no reason for Jungkook to be this nervous. Jimin did practise with him this exact scenario, but he can’t help but think that with a flute in his hands and some alcohol buzzing through his system, he’d feel more comfortable. But here he is, in the middle of a sea of children.

“Kook, do you copy?”

“What? Sorry, I wasn’t…” Jungkook pauses. He shouldn’t admit that he wasn’t listening.

“Get your head in the game, please,” Namjoon tells him over the earpiece.

“Sorry, you’re right. I’m here,” Jungkook says and starts to walk again even though he still feels fucking lost as a goddamn adult at a playground. Gureum follows him when he tugs on the dog leash.

“Okay, good. Just- just try your best,” Namjoon says, voice a bit muffled. “You’ve got this.”

Jungkook could swear that there’s a waiver to his words.

“Don’t worry. We’re here,” Taehyung tells him before Jungkook can think about it too much, distracting him from the quiver he heard.

He stops behind a tree, close enough for Gureum to spot you, but not close enough for you to spot them. His knees crack when he kneels down to stroke Gureum’s ear.

“Hey, Gureum? I’m gonna unleash you in a second and then I’m gonna need you to run towards,” Jungkook points as discreetly as possible to you, “her, yeah? Just like we practised? Remember? Remember how you ran towards Seok and Yoongi? Do it exactly like that again, okay? If you do, I’ll get you your favourite treat.”

Gureum doesn’t run away instantly when Jungkook unclips him because he’s trained, but when he points at you and whistles, he’s gone.

You react surprisingly calm to a dog barreling towards you, barely flinching. You lean down and greet Gureum.

“Approaching target now,” Jungkook mumbles quietly and can only faintly register how Namjoon tells Taehyung to be quiet from now on, all of his attention on the mission now.

With the leash in his hand, Jungkook jogs towards you, heaving extra hard to sell the act of a dog-owner-who-has-been-chasing-his-dog-for-the-last-ten-minutes to you.

You look up to him when he stops in front of you, eyeing him. Jungkook stands there, bend over, his hands on his knees, breathing like he’s struggling to catch his breath.

“Uh…. hi,” you start, brows pinched together.

Jungkook puts on his most charming smile, ignoring his thumping heart to the best of his abilities.

“Hi.”

“Oh, we’re starting- okay, showtime: I’m sorry, are you okay? My dog- he just ran and I couldn’t stop him. I’m so sorry,” Jimin says in his ear.

“I-I’m so sorry.” There’s a quiver to Jungkook’s voice, and it isn’t on purpose. “Are you okay? He just ran and I-”

“It’s fine,” you tell him with a small smile, still petting Gureum who has clearly taken a liking to you. During practise with Seokjin and Yoongi, Gureum always ran back to Jungkook, but now he’s staying at your feet, relishing in your pets. “Is that your dog?”

“Yes, yes, it is. I’m so sorry. I just unleashed him for a second, but then he ran away and I couldn’t catch up with him. Are you okay?”

“Yes, and I’m so sorry. I just unleashed him for a moment, thinking it was okay, but-”

“Can you prove it?” you interrupt and Jungkook pauses. “I mean that it’s your dog. It’s just that he isn’t really reacting to you, you know?”

Jimin’s response comes a bit late. “Oh, yes, I can. His name’s Gureum and he is- what’s the breed of your dog again? I don’t remember. If you look at his collar, you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

“Oh, yeah, I can,” Jungkook smiles, wiping the non existent sweat from his temple. “His name’s Gureum and he’s a white Maltese dog. If you look at his collar, you’ll see that I’m not lying.”

You actually look at the collar and part of Jungkook is offended that you don’t just believe him. Does he look like a liar to you? “Actually, I have pictures too-”

“No, no, it’s fine. I believe you,” you say before gesturing for Gureum to go back to Jungkook. He does, but somewhat reluctantly and Jungkook doesn’t know how to interpret this.

“Ask her if she’s okay again.”

“Are you really okay?” Jungkook says and offers you a smile the way Jimin taught him to. “I really am sorry about-”

“It’s fine,” you tell him and wave him off. “Nothing happened. Don’t worry about it. Just leash your dog.”

And then, you turn away from him. Jungkook stands there awkwardly for another moment before kneeling down to Gureum, absentmindedly petting him, mind filled with questions because what now? How does he communicate to the others that you turned away from him? That the conversation has ended and he has no idea how to start it again?

“What’s going on Kook? Is she smiling-”

“Ah, Gureum, no,” Jungkook cuts in. “Don’t turn away- I can’t leash you if you do that. Don’t turn away.”

“Oh, shit, she turned away, huh?”

“What now, Jimin?”

“Shush, Joon. Let me think, yeah?”

Jungkook fiddles with the leash like he has a problem clipping it, hoping that maybe you’re going to offer him your help. You don’t. And why would you? He’s an adult after all.

Before Jimin can come up with anything though, the solution to the problem presents itself. It comes in the form of a girl running and tripping right next to Jungkook and him catching her just in time before she can faceplant in the dirt and scrape her knees open.

“Oh, hey, careful here!” Jungkook brings the girl back up on her two feet. She stares at him with big eyes, and he recognises her from the pictures. It’s Siyeon, the seven year old girl you babysit regularly, the reason why you’re spending your afternoon at a playground today. ”You okay?”

“Kook, what’s happening right now?” Namjoon asks.

Siyeon looks at you, and you’re already kneeling beside her, fixing her hair.

“Siyeon, I told you not to run. See, you almost fell now!” You say it the same way a mother would, less strict though. “If he hadn’t caught you, you would have hurt yourself, wouldn’t you have? Now, what do you say?”

“T-thank you,” Siyeon mumbles, and Jungkook isn’t sure if she’s staring at her hands because she’s embarrassed or just about to cry.

“Who’s that? Who are you talking to? Who’s he talking to?”

“Was that a kid?”

“Are you okay?” Jungkook asks Siyeon, ignoring Namjoon and Taehyung to the best of his abilities.

“Y-yes, thank you.” She won’t look at him.

Jungkook smiles. “Well, I’m happy that you didn’t get hurt there.”

“Kook, answer please. Do you need help?”

“Should we interfere?”

Jungkook’s about to snap. Does it seriously sound like he needs help? He’s talking to a seven year old, for fuck’s sake! Sure, he didn’t practise this scenario, but God, he was capable of improvising!

“Thank you. She’s really clumsy,” you say to Jungkook.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I’m like that too. After all, I let,” he looks down at Gureum and finishes his sentence by gesturing to him and then you. You laugh.

And that’s when Siyeon seems to notice Gureum for the first time, eyes growing big at his sight like she has never seen a dog before. A chance.

“His name’s Gureum. You wanna-”

“Do you think we should go over there? See if he’s okay?”

And with that, Jungkook snaps. Yoongi is going to give him an earful for destroying his oh so precious equipment, but he can’t do this any longer with Jimin, Namjoon and Taehyung in his ear. So in one smooth movement, Jungkook digs out the earpiece and crushes it between his fingers, hiding it in his hand.

“Sorry, a fly, I think,” Jungkook says, swatting at his ear, and before you can think about it, he moves on. “Do you wanna pet Gureum, S- Is it okay if I call you Siyeon?”

Siyeon stares at Jungkook like he can’t believe he just asked her that. It’s probably the first time an adult has asked her for permission to call her by her name, and she seems to appreciate it immensely because she beams at him and gives him a huge nod.

“Okay, Siyeon, do you maybe wanna pet Gureum? He doesn’t bite, I promise.” Jungkook can feel your eyes on him. He’s doing it, charming you!

Siyeon turns to you.

“Can I-?”

You hum. “If Gureum is okay with it-”

Siyeon kneels down. “Hello, Mr Gureum. Sir, can I please pet you?”

Jungkook melts, and so do you.

Receiving no response from Gureum, Siyeon looks back up to you. Jungkook quickly takes his paw and waves. “Hello, Mrs Siyeon, if you promise not to hurt me, you can pet me. I like it especially if humans pet me at the back of my head. Just, please, be nice to me.”

In all of the years he has had Gureum, Jungkook has never tried to imagine what his voice would sound like, but he knows for a fact that he doesn’t sound like a chain smoker. It’s a questionable choice, but he doesn’t regret it. Because not only does it make Siyeon laugh, it also elicits a chuckle from you.

You look at him with a grin. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself yet, have I?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Jungkook says, and you two rise to your feet when Siyeon starts to pet Gureum and he doesn’t bite her.

“Well,” you stretch out your hand, “I’m Y/N.”

Jungkook swallows the ‘I know’ that wants to slip him and takes your hand. He has to stop himself from bursting with pride, only allowing his smile to grow into a blinding grin.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” he says, and he means it. It’s really nice to meet you. “I’m Jungkook.”

coming sunday, may 30th 2021

#jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #bts angst #bts fluff #jungkook x reader #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #bts x reader #jungkook #bts #linh.preview #(he)art thief

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angelhummel · 3 years

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Honestly Brittany is underhated in my opinion lmao. Like I was literally waiting for ages for someone to make a negative thread about I am unicorn on reddit so I could hate on her. Last time someone made a thread about that episode said "Kurt was an asshole to yell at Brittany. He could have kindly explained to her to remove the posters" like he did? But Brittany went to ahead and hung the posters anyway. :/

Oh hey we just watched that ep! And I hated it! I don't know if I'd call it the worse episode, but it made me more uncomfortable than Asian F and Pot o Gold, which we watched right after. Like I've never had that bad a reaction to that ep before but wow

KURT: Look, I don’t just want to be know has Kurt Hummel: Homo.

BRITTANY: What’s wrong with that? Look - 99% of the kids at school are either freaks or closet freaks. The captain of the football squad - he gets the job, but he doesn’t represent the people. That’s why we need a unicorn.

My sister asked me if I agreed with that sentiment (being sure to say "If it wasn't Brittany saying it, how would you feel?" bc that makes a difference lol) and my response was "What did she say? I just tune her out now"

I mean obviously the sentiment isn't wrong. How often do we say that almost any one of the glee clubbers would be a better leader or representative than flop hudson. I just feel like Brittany is feeding into a larger problem that I have with season 3 in regards to Kurt

Which is just how they make so many jokes about Kurt being more flamboyant and girly than he actually is. Rachel saying she wants to see Kurt in a bridesmaid’s dress. Finn saying "What's with the sparkly jacket i thought you were kurt" but then he also has a comment in s2 about "sequined riding pants". but when has kurt ever wore sequins or sparkles outside of mercedes's dreamgirls fantasy number?? and having actual adults talk about how he isn't sexy enough (call the police) and laughing him out of an audition bc he's sooo fucking gay ha ha. i kinda talk about it here if you wanna read more unrelated angry rambling

Anyway all that to say. Kurt is not straight passing! He doesn’t need to be! He’s bold, theatrical, he loves fashion, he loves Broadway, and that’s great! But the pink sparkly unicorn stuff is something Brittany tried to force on him.

Kurt loves Judy Garland. He wanted to pay tribute to her with his campaign posters, hearkening back to her Blackglama fur coat ad. Something that references a beloved icon of the queer community, and fashion history at the same time. Two things that are very Kurt

But with Brittany, all nuance and clever reference is gone. She puts ruby slippers in the goody bag, just because they’re sparkly and flamboyant. They reference Judy in the most cliche and obvious way possible. Even if someone wants to claim it was her own version of a clever reference, she still has more pointless stuff in there as well. Unicorns, a teletubby, hair bands?? What does any of this have to do with Kurt or what he likes or represents?

And obviously there is nothing wrong with being the most flamboyant gay person you want to be. Pink and sparkles and rainbows obviously aren’t bad on their own. Not trying to sound like the shitty old “Gay people I respect vs gay people I don’t respect” meme. It’s just. Every gay person is more than their sexuality. No matter how flamboyant they are, how they dress, how many rainbows they wanna slap on everything. That’s still a whole person. Just bc all YOU see is a giant rainbow flag, that doesn’t mean that’s all they are

Brittany thinks being gay is nothing but pink unicorns and rainbow glitter. How is that any different from the shit Karofsky or Azimio or any other bully says about Kurt?? At the end of the day it’s just someone trying to cram him in a tiny little box that he is far too big, too bold, too nuanced to fit into

I mean god fucking forbid, but imagine if Brittany was “helping” Mercedes run for president like this. Telling her that being black should be her main personality trait, and filling a goody bag with items that are Brittany’s idea of what being “black” means to HER 💀💀 (I mean anybody with common sense could see it was insane, but her stans would react the same way and make Mercedes the bad guy when she reacted poorly bc what else is new lol)

And all her dumbass unicorn talk literally made Kurt start to dislike that part of himself! Like he’s always been bullied for it but he was still unapologetically himself. But Brittany’s campaign idea contributed to Kurt thinking he needed to change himself, and saying he was tired of being a unicorn. And in s3 he starts wearing more drab colors and all these sweaters and capes and he’s bundling himself up like he’s protecting himself and it makes me sad. And they bring in a completely new character that looks like Kurt just to call Kurt ugly and a girl and make fun of him. It drives me up a fucking wall! Season 3 is so awful to Kurt i literally can’t stand it. And it all starts with Brittany :) Thanks for that. Girl power!

And after dealing with the pain and humiliation of literally being laughed out of an audition BY MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY for being “too gay” Kurt is faced with the bright pink unicorn posters with his face on him that say “This is your box! This is all you will ever be!” and wow i can’t imagine why he’d be upset with Brittany for that!! Who’da thunk??? Brittany was a selfish idiot for hanging them up. Kurt had every right to be upset. And Santana was an idiot for invalidating Kurt’s feelings and just boosting Brittany up when she was obviously in the wrong. But that’s Br*ttana for you :)

I’m not even happy about Kurt “accepting” the posters and hanging them up himself and making that his campaign theme. That’s the version of Kurt that someone else made up in their head. That’s not him. He is so much more than Brittany’s tiny little brain could ever even comprehend lol. So yeah. I hate her :)

#glee #kurt hummel #season 3 #asks #answered #my thoughts #anti brittany pierce #lol brittany pierce #ghostpavarotti #long post #anti brittana #lol brittana

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transgenderteensurvivalguide · 4 years

Note

hey :/ i started to realize that i was a trans man around the same time my ex realized he was, too. we came out to each other and he thinks i’m copying him. advice??

Lee says:

We’ve gotten versions of this question from folks on both sides in the past. People have said things like “I came out and then my little sister came out, I think she’s copying my gender/identity and I don’t like it!” and folks who say stuff like “My friend came out and then I came out, and now she thinks I’m copying her gender/identity and I don’t like it!”

Indeed, it’s common for one person to come out and then another person follows suit! But this doesn't mean that the second person is “faking” their identity and copying the first person because they were jealous of the attention the first person got for coming out.

It’s common for LGBTQ folks to be friends with each other before any of them realize that they’re LGBTQ. Somehow, we just seem to attract each other! And a lot of trans people only start identifying as trans once they learn more about the trans community and spend time interacting with trans people, whether it’s online or IRl, so someone spending time with a trans person and then identifying as trans doesn’t mean that being trans is contagious, or that the person is faking it- it means they just learned more about being trans and realized it fits them too.

Using myself as an example- I had a friend who came out as non-binary, and the next year I came out as non-binary too. I wasn’t “copying” my friend per se. But I wasn’t really aware of being non-binary before that, so them coming out made it something on my radar. It made me realize that being non-binary is something that exists and something that a person can be and choose to identify as.

Seeing them take that path planted that little seed in my mind and eventually (after having folks as me if I was trans) I realized that yeah I’m non-binary too. I came out after they did because they helped me question my own gender which made me realize that I’m also non-binary, so they did influence me in a way, and seeing them come out gave me the courage/inspiration/motivation to come out myself.

Now of course it’s been several years... and I’m still non-binary! And so is my friend! Just because they came out first and I didn’t know I was trans for a while, it didn’t make their gender “realer” than mine is now, or any more valid.

That’s why friends, family members, and partners tend to come out around the same time. The first person comes out, and that makes the second person question their gender because they didn’t know as much about being trans before, and then they come out too. Or maybe both people knew they were trans already, but one person came out which helped lay down the groundwork for the other person to feel comfortable coming out too because they had a better idea of how someone would react. Or both people realized they were trans and came out at the same time independently- that happens too!

Regardless of how things happened, you both identify as trans and that’s something that needs to be respected. Even if someone was “faking” for some reason and copying someone’s gender, using a different name and pronouns for them until they get tired of it isn’t really going to hurt anyone- and you don’t know if they’re faking, so you should give them the benefit of doubt. Nobody can peer into someone’s head and figure out their gender for them- if someone says that they’re trans, you have to take them at their word because there’s no “Trans Test” that you can take to determine if they’re truly trans.

You can talk more about why you identify as trans if you want, but you shouldn’t ever feel like you have to “defend” and justify your identity; you don’t need to share more than you feel comfortable sharing. And even if him realizing he was trans had any influence or impact on your realization, it doesn’t mean that you’re copying or any less trans- there’s no shame in that, and it shouldn’t be something you have to hide or pretend isn’t true.

If you feel like he’s a good friend to you otherwise and you want to invest your emotional energy into trying to maintain a friendship with him, you can tell him you need to have a serious conversation with him and then explain that you genuinely feel that you are a man and you were hurt that he’s accused you of pretending to be trans/faking your gender/copying his gender, and remind him that it’s never okay to misgender you or say something that invalidates your gender identity.

If he keep saying shitty things after you’ve had a talk with him, then you need to just move on! Stop wasting your time and emotional energy engaging with this guy. Tell him that you can’t be friends with someone who won’t respect your identity and you won’t be spending any more time with him until and unless he changes his behavior.

Then actually do it! Block and unfollow him on social media and block his phone number and delete his contact if you have to. Hang out with different friends instead!

If you have a shared group of friends, make it clear to them that you’re uncomfortable when people misgender and disrespect you. Make sure you tell them what this guy has said to you and how it’s hurt you, then explain that you don’t want them to hold any group get-togethers with this guy because he’s creating a hostile environment for you (or at least tell them not to invite him to events you’ll be at too unless they’re going to take the responsibility of actively calling him out and correcting him).

Personally, I’d advise just blocking/ignoring him and moving on. While some people can be friends with ex-partners, I have the feeling things aren’t going great between the two of you from the connotation of you calling him your “ex” and not your friend. It can be hard to move on (trust me! I know! I never get over things or move on from anything, ever!) but sometimes you have to remind yourself that this person isn’t actually making your life better and you need to take care of yourself and disengage from them.

Breakups and ending relationships/friendships:

How should I end a relationship?

Ending unhealthy relationships

6 steps to ending a toxic relationship with a friend or partner

How to break up gracefully

wikiHow to Break Up

How To Break Up Like a Grown Up

How To Break Up With Somebody In 7 Steps

How To Dump Someone (Like An Actual Adult)

Fire Your Friends: Drop The Negative People In Your Life

6 Ways To Cut A Toxic Friend Out Of Your Life For Good

3 ways to end a toxic friendship

What to do when one of the friends in your friend group is bad to you

After a breakup:

10 Tips on How to Work Through Feelings of Social Isolation

5 ways to beat loneliness

Coping with a relationship breakup

7 phrases to help you get over a breakup

Dealing with a breakup

Help for when a relationship ends

Beyond codependency

It’s okay to be alone

5 things to remember when you still love the emotionally abusive partner you left

5 helpful things when you end a relationship

How the 7 stages of grief apply to breakups

7 ways to cope with post-split stress

How to deal with losing a friend

Letting go of someone who’s not good for you

What if my ex starts outing me as trans?

Followers, any advice for an anon whose ex-partner accuses them of “copying” their gender identity?

Followers say:

lesbean-on-ice said: I don’t really have any advice, but i can really relate to this post. my best friend, who I’ve known since kindergarten, and I started to question our genders around the same time, and we both went through multiple labels to find the right fit for us. she ended up landing on agender, and I thought I was girlflux at the time, but after reading up on the agender label, I realized that was my gender (or lack thereof, lol) as well!

am-anyone said: It can also be gained confidence that causes people to come out at the same time. I knew I was trans and when my friend came out to our friend group it gave me enough confidence to also come out in short succession afterwards. It wasn’t cause of copying but simply I felt less nervous knowing someone had successfully come out already.

#Lee says #faking #copying #trans #friends #Anonymous #transgender #nonbinary #lgbtq #lgbt #transgender teen survival guide #transgenderteensurvivalguide #TTSG

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pparkerpoetry · 4 years

Text

Face Reality (Part 4)

Title: Set the Past Aflame (and in the ashes let memories linger)

Summary: He wakes up feeling warm. He's not in the End anymore, but will this world be any kinder?

Maybe for once, it'll let them be kids. Maybe it'll let them forgive everyone. Maybe it'll let them heal. Maybe it'll let them be a family again. But then again, Ranboo's always been a dreamer.

Part 1 Part 5 Masterlist

Ranboo woke up on a bed. A bed? He hadn’t had a bed in years. Not since the little shack in the cold, but surely he wasn’t there. No, it was too warm to be there. It was too loud for him to still be in the End, though. Far too loud. Where was he?

Opening his eyes might tell him, he figured.

It took more work than it probably should have, and he seriously considered just letting them fall back closed and sleeping for another few hours, but his mind was already up and ready to go. His body would follow eventually, but for now, it was sluggish and unwilling to do anything.

“Hey, Ranboo, you up? Or are you just moving cause you’re having another nightmare?”

The sudden noise made his eyes snap open, to stare at who was at his bedside. It was Tommy, of course. He opened his mouth to respond, and only at the last moment remembered to speak in English.

“Why are you so loud?” His tongue felt like lead, heavy and irritating. His throat hurt, but he didn’t think he could bear to look at water right now. “Where am I?’

Tommy scrunched his eyebrows together. “You’re at the cottage, I had to carry you back because you slept the whole time. Big man, I’m whispering. Are you alright?”

Ranboo wanted to laugh, but it’d been so long he wasn’t sure if he knew how. “You carried me? How’d you get through the portal? And I’m fine.”

“Some guy with wings opened it. Are you sure you’re okay? You were super light, You’ve been having nightmares and stuff and speaking all enderman-like and we have to make sure to be quiet around you. It’s fine if you’re not okay, I get what being alone can do to you. You just gotta communicate with me.”

Ranboo exhaled slowly. He wouldn’t cry. It would be useless.

Tommy must’ve sensed his reluctance to answer, so he changed the subject. “Phil’s on his way back now with Techno, they left this morning for a trip because they figured you’d be out for a little longer. I stayed behind, and messaged them a few hours ago because you were sleeping lighter.” There was a heavy silence after that, until Tommy broke it again. “Say, why’d you leave? Did it all just get too much, or did you not want to stay here?”

Ranboo swallowed thickly. He didn’t want to answer, to tear the family apart, but Tommy needed to know. “I think I just snapped. I’d lost my only home, and when Phil brought me here, I thought I’d get a new one, but... “ He paused, fingers fiddling with his sleeve. “I overheard something that I wasn’t meant to. It changed my perspective, and in the heat of the moment, I just… I left. I was going to just run away, but I thought of the End, because that’s where I came from originally, so I went there looking for… comfort.”

It went unsaid that he didn’t get it, but Tommy didn’t need for it to be spoken. He’d seen the city of endermen, angry and disgusted by the hybrid.

He hesitated to ask, but something told him he needed to. “What’d you overhear, Ranboo?”

Tears welled up in Ranboo’s eyes again and he closed them as he spoke. “Technoblade and Phil were talking about their new syndicate, and what new members to include. I was going to just go in the house, but then Technoblade mentioned me, so I waited. He said they should include me, use my memory issues to their advantage, and let me go feral and all endermen-like on whoever they wanted, so that the blame couldn’t be traced back to them.”

“That’s awful.” Tommy whispered.

“And Phil…” Ranboo smiled ruefully. “He just agreed. He didn’t bother to mention that the man who was mad at his younger brother for using him as a weapon was going to do the exact same thing to a teenager. I realized that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted there, I knew Fundy hated me, I knew Niki was still consumed by grief, and Tubbo, well… Tubbo had you. And you had Tubbo. You just needed to know it, and I would get in the way of that. So, I left.”

Ranboo had opened his eyes by the end of it, and Tommy opened his mouth to say something, but the door creaked.

“Boys? We’re home.”

Ironic. They weren’t boys anymore. They were boys when the wars raged on, raised in the midst of screams and pain. They weren’t boys now, once the white flags had been put up, once the sound of explosions stopped ringing in their ears. They were men, now, but the adults that had watched them grow had yet to acknowledge it, had yet to notice how badly they ruined their childhoods. Would they ever? Would they ever take responsibility for the long nights that were spent awake because their dreams were haunted by death and famine? Would they?

“Hey, Phil.” Tommy said dully.

Ranboo turned towards the door, and his gaze met the eyes of the man that he hadn’t seen since the day he left. The man that was part of the reason he left. Not that he knew it, though. Why would he?

“Hi.” Ranboo said, barely noticeable.

“Hi!” Phil responded, smiling. “You doing alright? You’ve been out for a while.”

Ranboo didn’t answer. He just looked at his hands, which were still red and raw, the skin uneven and bumpy. His face was better, the marks from his sorrow now only raised lines after having longer to heal. They were pink and grey, depending on which side they were on. But his hands- his hands still ached, they were still new wounds, a constant reminder of how badly he was doing. How much he had suffered, all on his lonesome, not even an animal companion to spill his feelings to. He was forced to face his failure, every single time he looked down.

He could’ve said something about how badly they hurt, all the time, but he didn’t. Phil didn’t care enough, it’d be useful to pretend that he did. That’s what got him into this mess in the first place. So, instead of saying how he felt, he lied.

“I’m okay.”

Tommy gave a slight huff, but got up to say hi to Technoblade anyway, leaving the other two alone.

Ranboo stayed as quiet as possible, flinching at all of the noises that Phil made as he made himself busy in the kitchen. If the older man noticed, he didn’t do anything about it. The silence was tense and uncomfortable, but maybe it was all in his mind. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Not much happened until dinner came around, and though Ranboo saw all of the food placed out, he couldn’t bear to eat it.

“You gonna eat something, big man?” Tommy asked, mouth full of food.

He hesitated. “I, uh. Haven’t eaten in a while. Endermen don’t really… need it.”

All movement stopped. Though it felt nice to his ears, Ranboo could feel the pressure of the eyes on him.

“Hm?” Tommy asked. “Say that again?”

“Well, I mean, I was there for a while, I was gonna run out of food eventually,” he stammered. “I discovered I just, I just didn’t need food.”

There was nothing for a moment, then Tommy moved some food to his plate and continued his meal. Ranboo did his best, but he could only bear to eat a few mouthfuls.

The only noise for a while was the clinking of forks on the plates, until Tommy’s communicator buzzed. He took it out to look at, before humming and standing up.

“What is it?” Technoblade asked.

“Tubbo needs me back. C’mon, Ranboo, we gotta get going.”

Phil made a small noise. “Maybe it’d be best if Ranboo stayed behind…”

Tommy glanced between his family members and spoke tensely. “No, I think he’ll come with me, you okay with that, Ranboo?”

He didn’t want to be left behind with Phil. Or Technoblade.

“Yeah. I don’t have anything with me, so I’m all set.”

“Oh,” Tommy said, “I actually brought some of your stuff. I couldn’t carry all of it, but I grabbed some of it.” He motioned to a small bag in the corner near where he had woken up.

Ranboo got up awkwardly, and took a hold of the bag. He didn’t look in it until he and Tommy were on borrowed horses on their way back to (what he assumed was still) Snowchester. In it were four collars, each with a different name from his pets, his old mis-matched gloves, his old memory books, and his crown, which he hadn’t even noticed was missing. He closed the bags, and noticed his hands again.

“Hey Tommy, do you have any bandages to cover these, so everyone doesn’t have to see them?”

Tommy nodded and tossed the bandages to Ranboo, and chuckled a bit. “You know, I haven’t told anyone else that you’re back. Tubbo knows, but I’m not sure he’s expecting you to come with me.”

Ranboo didn’t have another response, and just wrapped his hands. It hurt a little bit, but he couldn’t find the strength to care.

Maybe Niki would.

As buildings came into sight, he finally let his tears fall that had been hidden for so long. He never thought he’d see them again, and though more than a few of them were singed from wars past and maybe a few that he hadn’t been a part of, he couldn’t help but feel that he was finally home. Everyone had said that L’manberg wasn’t a place, but a people, and Ranboo couldn’t help but feel that it was the wrong sentiment for him. The people didn’t care about him. The trees, the foliage, the bricks that had been faced with such love, they did.

Ironic. Like everything was in his life, nowadays.

When he had stopped crying, they finally reached the other snowy biome after going down a long highway that he barely remembered. There was a lone figure standing at the end of it, as if waiting for the arrival of Tommy.

Tubbo looked older. They all did, to be fair. However, whereas Phil’s hair was just a bit more grey, Technoblade moved with a bit more caution from old wounds finally catching up to him, and Tommy had lost his signature loudness, Tubbo had gained a reckless sheen to his eyes. Ranboo wasn’t sure if he liked it, but when he clambered down from his horse, Tubbo smiled at him.

“Hey Ranboo, glad to see you back. Did you get even taller?”

Ranboo smiled, a bit awkwardly, after having gone so long without any sort of positive expression.

“Maybe, I mean I was kinda… embracing my enderman side a little more.”

He made sure to slouch a little more than he had been.

They all entered one of the buildings, and Tubbo took something out of a chest. “Here, Ranboo, I figured I’d make this for you for whenever you came back.” In his hands, he held out a beautiful leather journal with a delicately made quill, a much better quality than the raggedy ones in the small bag that he clutched.

“It’s for me?”

“Yeah.” Tubbo said, and pulled Ranboo into a hug after the journal was safely stashed away. “You know, I’m really glad you’re okay. I thought for a minute you might not be.”

Ranboo gave Tubbo a wary smile, mind going back to the feeling of a sudden pulse of electricity hitting his body. “No problem? I don’t really know what to say.”

They had a good stay in Snowchester, but it only lasted a couple of days until Tommy decided to message everyone else that Ranboo had been found. He didn’t know what he expected, but utter silence wasn’t it. Maybe he expected at least one shocked response, maybe a tearful one, maybe… well, at least something, after being gone for who knows how long. Ranboo still wasn’t sure the exact amount of time.

It didn't matter. Niki was on the wooden path, and when she turned to look at the sound of horses approaching, her face became pale. Ranboo noticed that her hair was a different color than he remembered it, but then again, he remembered different times.

“Tommy wasn’t kidding?” was her first question, when they dismounted and walked closer. She placed the basket she was holding down and went over to Ranboo, one hand taking his and one moving to cup his face. “Oh, Ranboo, what happened to you?”

Ranboo didn’t like how his eyes closed when he felt her fingers against his scars, how he leaned into her touch. He’d missed his older sister. Did she miss him?

He didn’t notice when he gave off a soft enderman chatter.

Niki’s gaze fell to Ranboo’s hands, covered in bandages. “Boo, you need to do these differently, these aren’t going to do anything-” and, as she unravelled them, “Oh, Ranboo…”

She looked at his fingers, or claws, that should have been long with the time he’d been gone, if not for how he broke them. He hated how disappointed she was, looking at the red and maroon skin that was still sore and sensitive. He hated that she didn’t bother to ask why he did it. He hated that she had left him all on his own right when he was at his lowest just so that she could exact her revenge, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t hate her.

She pulled Ranboo into a hug, and as much as he wanted to just stay in her arms forever, she let go first and said that she had to hurry home to Puffy. Perhaps that was another story that he’d never learn.

As he left to follow Tommy, he probably wouldn’t’ve heard her last words if not for the way his hearing had changed.

“I’m sorry I gave up on you.” Her sweet voice, full of sadness that would never be fixed, filled with a fire that had been quenched. She’d had her revenge, but it left her cold and full of regret. Not for what she’d done, but for the hurt that she’d caused because of it.

Ranboo wasn’t sure which hurt more- the fact that she acknowledged that she’d given up on her younger brother but did nothing to fix it, or that she thought that he didn’t need to hear her apology. At that point, he would’ve given anything to hear her apology, but instead of turning around, he flicked his ears forward and kept walking.

She’d given up on him long ago. He was starting to give up on them.

“Hey, are you alright, man?” Tommy asked. “You’re going all misty-eyed and shit.”

Ranboo managed a weak grin. “Yeah. Just a lot of memories.”

He’d thought that they’d go home after that, but a shock of orange fur occupied his peripheral vision. When he turned, Fundy stood there, and neither could tell if he was shaking with sorrow or rage.

“So you’re back?” Fundy started. His fur was more vibrant, now. He’d gotten taller, more sleek. His eyes a little beadier. “You just couldn’t leave well alone?”

“I guess not.” Ranboo said. He didn’t want to fight with Fundy. He didn’t hate Fundy- he was just tired. Not tired of something specific, just tired of everything. Tired of it all.

“You were better off gone, Ranboo. You left, and I finally- I finally wasn’t left behind or forgotten, because they all figured it’d be easier to forget about you, instead.”

“Was I?” Ranboo chuckled, ignoring the scratchiness at the back of his throat. “I was going to die there, Fundy.”

The fox bristled at the blunt words, and hesitated, but he was stubborn. Just like his father. “Just yell again. Leave me again. I thought we were friends, Ranboo, but then you left? What kind of selfish, shit friend does that?”

Ranboo ignored the pressure building up behind his eyes. “I think we both have issues to resolve before we make things better between us, Fundy. Don’t make me fight with you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Fundy turned to re-enter the forest. “Yeah, well, that’s what they all say, isn’t it. I suppose I’ll see you around at some point, though, if you aren’t gonna disappear again. Bye, Ranboo.”

Ranboo couldn’t muster up a response to his once close friend. It was too painful.

Tommy watched the whole interaction. “You got some baggage too, huh?” The pair rode their horses a little further and in the distance they could see the gaping crater that by now was old and settled. Tommy sighed, almost wistfully, but with a hint of something else. “Don't we all, buddy.” He patted Ranboo on the back, and kept going.

In hindsight, it was pretty remarkable how mature Tommy had gotten in the time Ranboo was gone. Where was the impulsive, reckless child that Tommy once was?

Was he shivering in an old, rickety bed in a ravine as the lanterns creaked and arguing could be heard from down the hall?

Was he still holding his breath next to one brother while the other threatened his best friend’s life?

Was he facing withers after seeing his brother murdered by his father’s hand, wondering if they ever even were a family?

Was he still staring down a pillar in exile, wind whipping through his hair as the cold air struggled to make it through his lungs, losing the hope and will to keep breathing?

Or, maybe, was he standing in a dark room, ceiling far above him, watching his abuser put a sword to his best friend’s throat, for good this time, completely unaware of anything other than the way that their eyes met, one accepting and one horrified?

Ranboo didn’t know about half of those events, but sometimes it makes you wonder. It makes you wonder what would’ve happened if the children, now adults, would’ve gotten their childhood.

Ranboo shook his head to clear it of thoughts and hurried to catch up with Tommy.

“You know, it really is okay to be all sorts of messed-up.” Tommy said, seemingly out of nowhere. “It really is. I mean, take a look at me, and I’m still kicking.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah!” Tommy grinned, steering his horse off of the wooden path and over to a space of rolling hills. “Hey, follow me.”

Curiously, Ranboo got his horse to obey.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of a hollowed-out hill, wooden door still there but slowly rotting away, cobwebs living in the dark crevices that he could barely see. It was an old house, if you could call it that, abandoned and lonely. Kind of like himself.

It was George’s old cottage, from long ago. “This is where it all started huh?” Ranboo asked, a smile finding its way onto his face despite all that had happened.

Tommy nodded, digging in his pocket for something. He pulled out a black lighter, slightly rusted along the edges but still functional. “For old time’s sake, yeah? What d’you reckon?” With a laugh, a genuine laugh, from Ranboo, Tommy handed over the lighter. “I did it last time. It’s your turn.”

“We’re not gonna be in trouble?”

“No. I don’t think anyone really cares for this place anymore.”

With steady hands, not shaky ones, Ranboo took the lighter and moved it so that it lit a small flame. “Are you gonna want this back, or can I be dramatic with it?” He was starting to feel the adrenaline, a giddy feeling spreading through his body.

“Ah,” Tommy said, “I only kept it ‘cause of you being gone. But now I’ve got you back, I don’t need it.”

Ranboo’s hand found its way into Tommy’s, and he stepped forward slightly to drop the flame, a whoosh going before the past was set afire. They stood there for a moment watching it, though it was pitiful compared to the first one, because it meant everything to them. It meant their freedom, it meant their safety, it meant that they could revisit the past without it spitting in their faces. Tommy pulled his hand away from Ranboo’s roughly.

“Tag, you’re it!” He yelled, pushing Ranboo’s shoulder and running off quickly. He was tall, but his long legs would be no match for Ranboo’s.

The hybrid only laughed. “How old are you?” He retorted, before breaking into a sprint and trying to tackle the blond.

Amidst their roughhousing, they failed to notice as others would step up to see the fire and two men, the ghosts of their childhoods standing and watching the cottage burn, although this one a meager one, and smile fondly. It wasn’t the right time now. They’d make amends later.

For now, they’d let the friends play and enjoy the peace that they’d sacrificed so much for.

#ranboo #tommyinnit #technoblade #fic #dreamsmp #phil #philza #niki #nihachu #fundy #angst #hurt/comfort

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rechoired · 4 years

Text

A problem with the Tales Of Arcadia community

First and foremost, I’d like to ask anyone taking the time to read this to please read the post all the way through before commenting on the matter. There is a lot of dirty laundry to unpack here, and some points will be building off previous ones.

I’ll get right to the point. Most everybody in the Tales of Arcadia fandom will have heard of the blog imthegingerninja / ginger-le-gay. She is one of the most well-known ToA-centric blogs, after all. (If you’re wanting to avoid her on Twitter as well, her account is Margaret Bell, or @The_Book_Bell.)

This is your PSA, TOA fandom: Ginger is a toxic, manipulative person.

This is not a claim I like to make lightly, but it’s long overdue that this issue is properly brought up within the fandom.

I’ve seen so many people wonder why the Tales of Arcadia fandom is so small. Well, I and many others very strongly believe that Ginger is one of the main reasons for that, if not the main one. To make matters easier, I’ve tried to break this down into some main points. So let’s take a look at how Ginger falls under this category.

Disclaimer: Please DO NOT look at this post as an excuse to harass Ginger or any other blog mentioned here. This sort of behavior is NOT acceptable. The point of this post is to educate those who may not know the extent of her harrowing behavior, nothing more.

1. Dishonesty and Death Threats

[EDIT: Shortly after this post went up, she started blatantly lying about me to try to cover for herself. You can see those lies being easily disproven here]

Ginger has been kicked from at least three Tales of Arcadia servers, all for similar reasons of violence. While I cannot provide screenshots as I am no longer part of the servers they were in, there are multiple witnesses that can verify the disgusting behavior she engaged in. The one I saw specifically was her saying that certain members of the fandom should be gathered up and hunted for sport, among other gross things. (Elaboration of why can be found in point 3, though it still doesn’t excuse this kind of talk)

Here is some points made by another blog that also sums up similar issues with Ginger, though:

While there were multiple instances of her inciting violence towards others, this is unfortunately one topic I cannot provide specific screenshots for at this time. But I will add them in as I can find them. That being said, I want to move to the dishonesty, something I do have a screenshot for.

While you could argue that people sometimes notice the similar things, this is far too close together to be considered an “original find”. The reblog button is there for a reason, but she instead decides to steal the OP’s premise and present it as her own original thought.

There have been a couple other blogs that have confirmed that their theories and analysis posts were often stolen and presented as Ginger’s own as well, to the point where they stopped bothering even making such posts, as the above blog points out. (Out of respect for their privacy, I will not be naming these blogs. Say what you will about that possibly weakening my point, but if she’s willing to so blatantly steal from that person shown above, it shouldn’t surprise you that she’s so willing to do it to others.)

Theory-making and analysis posts aren’t as solidly “original content” as a piece of art or fanfiction, sure, but it’s still common fandom courtesy to give credit where it’s due. Ginger has intentionally avoided extending that courtesy far too many times.

2. Hypocrisy

Most of this is going to be about past Merlin vs. Morgana drama, though there are also words to be said for the incredibly shaky relationships she forms with “friends”.

But first let’s talk about those wizards.

This is a topic I’ve tried to approach with Ginger before, but she borderline refused to acknowledge any of the points I was trying to make, and when she did, I don’t know if I just wasn’t being clear or what, but it honestly looked as though she was purposefully trying to misunderstand what I was saying in her bizarre responses. (To be fair, I was sending messages out of anger because she vagueposted about a blog I admired, calling them a “disgusting creep” because of them simply saying they’d hoped Jim and Merlin would be able to actually bond at some point... Not really a justifiable reaction to such a harmless thought, in my opinion. But my point is, I recognize that the circumstances may have clouded my ability to vocalize my thoughts clearly.)

That aside, we should first acknowledge this post Ginger made to save face after having gotten some backlash about hate-train related things (Side note: I couldn’t find the original post, so this is a screenshot I got from someone else. I did not add the writing. The text underneath it should still be slightly readable, I hope.):

Taken at face value, this is a very reasonable post. I think everybody would and should be able to agree on it. Hate-meme him for fun, sure, but don’t actually harass or insult others over a fictional character. Simple, right?

Apparently not, because Ginger’s done loads of that to others. Probably why the “LOL” was added in, I bet.

This post confused me. First of all, exploring dark topics (”angst”, as you put it) has never been a rare occurrence, every fandom has that content, most in heavy abundance. I’ve noticed no staggering difference in volume of this fandom compared to others I’ve been in. People enjoy angst not because they think the character “deserves to be in pain”, they enjoy a fictional blow to their own emotions. There’s lots of different reasons people like angst, but it’s barely ever been out of a genuine hate for whatever character’s the focus, from all the things I’ve seen. Your own friends have indulged in Jim angst and body horror posts before, does that mean you think they’re awful people? I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain something like this.

Also, way to basically admit you think all Merlin stans get off on child torture. So much for “If you like Merlin as a character, you’re valid”, am I right? God, what a mess of a post. (It’s been very recently deleted, which makes me wonder if she got more backlash on it, but just... wow.)

Let’s look at another one.

Again. Vagueposting about someone specific, I’d wager, since most of the people I’ve seen comment on this topic either think both characters are morally gray, or hate both.

But of course, when it comes to Morgana, suddenly excusing bad behavior can be justified. Ginger can call someone a disgusting creep because they want a familial bond between Jim and Merlin, that’s just wrong, but pushing the Mom-gana narrative with the genocidal abuser and Toby is completely fine, folks.

(Note: I would like to point out that I really don’t care about what theories and hopes people have for Morgana. You should be allowed to love that character in any way you want, same as I would say for Merlin. My issue with these examples is the completely brazen hypocrisy in which these two characters are treated. You’re obviously allowed to love Morgana without consequence, but the same should be said for any character of the show, and yet it’s not.)

The most obvious instance of this double-standard is well observable here, I believe:

... I think this mostly speaks for itself. Sorry, but this is very blatantly trying to excuse Morgana’s actions, here.

Oh hey, remember that post about Ginger saying that liking Merlin must mean you want to see Jim in horrible pain?

Say anything similar about her with Morgana, and suddenly she takes issue with this line of reasoning!

I’m sorry, but if you can’t take this sort of thing, then you shouldn’t be dishing it out. One of your own friends is still getting hate over the simple fact of liking Merlin, and all this mentality is exactly why.

Let’s look at one more.

Fun fact! Morgana horrifically abused somebody for centuries, tried to kill multiple kids, took horrible advantage of Claire (probably traumatized her), and canonically wanted to genocide humanity, not to mention all the OTHER murders she's committed, both directly and indirectly.

But somehow pointing any of this out “doesn’t count”. This is why the fandom keeps saying more and more things like this:

And this:

I could be going through her constant hating on Merlin and people who like Merlin for days straight, but I hope you all get the idea by now.

Again, I would like to just reiterate: You can like whatever character you want for whatever reason you want. The problem with this case is the hypocrisy and mistreatment of others, not your taste in characters.

Now interestingly enough, she’s lately been singing a different tune about the guy, switching from the “I hate Merlin I hope he dies!!!” mentality to “Oh he should get a redemption arc too :)” sort of thing.

I’m highly convinced that the only reasons for this “change of heart” is because of the constant backlash she was getting for the obnoxious amount of hate posts being thrown around all the time, but also because Aaron Waltke keeps tabs on the fandom more lately, and has spoken himself about Merlin not being a villain.

I could go on about this point forever, but I think I’ll just leave the Merlin topic with this post going through the hypocrisy of the Merlin Hate Train. In fact, here’s two just for fun.

Now onto more real-world focused areas of hypocrisy. One such instance can be found in Ginger’s Janus Disorder server.

Just take a look at this post.

While the offender in this case isn’t Ginger specifically, it still takes place in her server, and she made no moves to enforce her “No discourse” rule. All over... what? A random kudos on a fanfiction that’s not even about anything controversial since all characters involved are adults? I immensely don’t understand the point of why this ever had to be an issue, or why nobody spoke up about how ridiculous this is.

I’d also like to point out a certain user called firecat17. For some quick context, waaay back in the Kung Fu Panda fandom (around 2018), this user had been harassing people and saying incredibly vile things, a person of which Ginger had a bit of a feud, but firecat’s anon threats had gotten to the point where Ginger ended up having to block their IP.

Obviously, the user firecat was the one in the wrong, here. (Also, the irony in this comment is through the roof...)

Interesting point there, Ginger. Sure would be nice if you practiced what you preached.

Why am I bringing this random old drama up, you may ask? Well, it just strikes me as strange that someone who was so vile to Ginger is suddenly on her okay-list again, sending her asks and getting casual responses as if nothing ever happened.

To be fair, there is the possibility that they worked out their differences in private. But given the severity of the kinds of words being exchanged, I would still find that rather suspicious.

When someone who’s said things so vile can be so easily forgiven, yet something as harmless as leaving a kudos on some random fanfiction is considered grounds for harassment, it’s obvious there’s no stability or room for trust among this group of people. Unsurprising when there’s been several instances of this “friend group” turning on each other.

If you think you’re somehow different, that your “friendship” with Ginger or the others is more valued than that, then I’m sorry to burst your bubble but it’s likely not true. She’d throw you under the bus at the hint of you doing something she deems problematic, as it’s happened to multiple blogs before you.

3. Demonization of and insensitivity towards s*xual abuse victims

(This topic is one that’s hard for me to talk about, being a victim of CSA myself, so I’ve gathered some different sources to do most of the main talking for me. I tried to form more commentary on this myself, but I get too emotionally charged in my responses, and I don’t want that to cloud any reader’s perception of what I’m trying to communicate here, so I’ll try to keep most of my comments brief on this one.)

One thing recently brought to my attention about Ginger and her squad that especially bothers me is their rashness in labeling people p*dophiles and p*do apologists. If these claims were true, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

But these people are accusing others of these horrible things and threatening them on the sole basis of fictional content.

Now before you fly off the handle at me, let me be very clear: I absolutely understand that there are gross people out there who use the “It’s all just fiction” argument to hide their actual, pr*datory behaviors. (We’ve all probably seen at least one or two neckbeard memes of that caliber)

But like it or not, exploring traumatic themes through a fictional lens is something that has been studied and proven to be a genuine coping mechanism for some. It’s not something that works for me, but I knew a few people from past therapy groups that it worked surprisingly well for. Bringing a trauma into a controlled environment and processing it through fictional means can and does help some victims deal with what they went through.

It’s important to understand that not everyone processes their experience in the same neat, little boxes you have laid out as the only “acceptable” ways of coping. Trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy are commonly used by victims, and it does help some people, whether you like it or not.

I’m already dragging this on too much, so here are some sources for better-worded information on the topic (Warning: Most of these deal with highly sensitive themes such as gun violence and s*xual abuse.)

Source 1 - Source 2 - Source 3 - Source 4 - Source 5 (pages 61 onward, specifically) - Source 6 - Source 7 - Source 8 - Source 9 - Source 10 (and believe me, if those all don’t satisfy you, I can easily supply more.)

And this quote from source 9 I think sums it up best:

“Fiction works differently. My imagination gives me a framework to process the grief and terror and the consequences, even when I myself have not found any resolution. It allows me to enter my own traumatic experiences sideways and linger inside them, if I know I can give them to characters who might be lucky enough to find the antidote: love, connection, community, family. In other words, I can enter — and exit — the trauma loop through stories that are not exactly the same as mine.

This goes for the reader also. Recent studies periodically assure us that stories — literary fiction, hardcover books, even the simple act of reading — promote empathy. We rarely have identical experiences, so fiction is how we practice linking our similar or parallel realities so we can feel them. This seems particularly useful in our current society, where we are all so separated, and are working so hard to block the violence that keeps happening to us from our minds.

Fiction connects us, and it can also contribute to our healing. When we see ourselves in worlds we don’t live in, like The Handmaid’s Tale or The Color Purple, sometimes, that very different violence helps us finally process our own. Because as much as our memoirs and testimonies are brave and validating, fiction does not just mirror our truths so they are safe to experience; it also helps us endure the aftermath. Because long after the immediate experience is over, survival struggles onward, in every moment of our daily lives.”

While most professionals have in the past advised that victims keep their trauma-related works more private, to only show it to your trusted friends or family, the fast-growing use of the internet has led more people to sharing it in an online platform, which is not unexpected behavior.

I unfortunately don’t have the screenshot of the original post, but there was a post made some time back literally telling a fandom member to go and hang themselves over this garbage. A survivor of s*xual abuse, no less. And to top that off, one of Ginger’s squad @emmy-puff commented in support of that violent post, as well as blatantly misgendering the target of it. While, again, I was unable to get screenshots, there are multiple witnesses to this instance, one Anonymous even having called them out on it back when it happened. (I suspect that Emmy deleted that answer due to how bad it made them look.) If anybody reading this has screenshots of the initial post or the ask that came of it, please feel free to share.

I don’t care who you are or who you’re talking about, if you use misgendering someone as a way to hurt them, then you are an insult to the trans community. That is an awful thing to do, and you lose so much credibility if that’s the only thing you can fall back on when getting in a fight with someone. While this post isn’t about Emmy specifically, this is exactly the kind of hateful rhetoric that’s being encouraged in the environment Ginger’s made.

Another thing I would like to point out on this matter is an instance that happened in the ToA fandom a couple years back. I, again, don’t have screenshots available (I believe the original post ended up deleted) but the post in question caused enough of a fuss that I’m sure a few people must remember it...

A while back, there was an artist that posted uncensored, untagged r*pe art of Aaarrrgghh, Gunmar, and Jim in the main Trollhunters tag. As you can imagine, this infuriated many people. Many of which are among the list of those who’ve been labeled “p*do apologists”. Almost the very minute that post showed up in the tag with no trigger warnings of any kind, the fandom immediately got on OP’s tail about it, because they all shared that basic understanding of “This is a traumatizing subject for many people and they should have the ability to avoid it”. If the people you’ve labelled as pr*dator supporters were really as awful as you say they are, they would’ve jumped to that person’s defense, too. But they were completely against OP’s horrible lack of consideration of survivors, right alongside the rest of the fandom.

Am I saying you have to like trauma fiction? Absolutely not. Are there people that make trauma fiction that are actual pr*dators? I’m sure there are. But those people would be that way whether trauma fiction was out there or not. Gross people have existed and will always exist regardless of what media is out there.

I deeply understand the controversy, uncertainty, and stress that surrounds this topic, I promise you, I do. But the fact of the matter is, some people actually do use trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy as a way of coping, as has been observed in people even from ages as young as 5. To say otherwise is blatantly untrue. This isn’t a matter of opinion or morals, this is plain, studied facts that you cannot change about human psychology.

Nobody should ever have to go through something as horrible as s*xual abuse of any kind, and I know how deeply upsetting it can be to see certain images or stories with those themes in play. Those users with a sense of decency and understanding for fellow victims will tag their posts with the appropriate warnings. After that, it’s up to you to filter out what you don’t want to see. You curate your own internet experience, and it’s just plain irrational to try and harass everyone into conforming to your rules. While it’s an 18+ blog’s job to make sure to tag and label their content appropriately, it is your job to block the things you don’t want to see, whether you’re an adult or a minor. It is YOUR job to blacklist content that you know will upset you, because it is always going to exist on the internet, and any internet user needs to know and understand that. Multiple times I’d seen people going off about posts that were already appropriately trigger-tagged. If you don’t have those upsetting tags blacklisted by now, then the fault is mostly on you in that kind of case, not the OP.

Before I end this topic off, just one more example of blatant disrespect towards victims:

I’m sorry, but the absolute nerve of comparing some random fictional character you’re petty over to an actual pr*dator who’s terribly hurt real children is just awful. Imagine how insulted one of Onion’s victims would be if they saw that. Lord.

Ginger claims to care about victims, but she’s made it abundantly clear that she only cares about those that behave the way she think a victim should.

4. Ableism

I’m going to just show a couple posts here and let them mostly speak for themselves.

Just... my God. You looked at the definition of psychopath and decided that was enough to give you qualification to speak like this about it? Do you realize the extensive work and study of human psychology goes into the diagnosis and understandings of psychopathy? Not to mention, you just admit to thinking people deserve hate because of a mental disorder they legitimately have no control over? I’m sorry, but that is just cruel. Demonization of the mentally ill is not cute or funny. Next.

While I’m still annoyed with Emmy’s transphobic treatment of another user mentioned earlier, they make a very solid point in this instance. (The first post they referenced has since been deleted, but here’s the second one speaking out against the ableism.) I feel I don’t need to add much to this, as these points have already been argued very well by users better qualified to speak on the subject than I.

5. Manipulation tactics

This part is more observations of two kinds of abuse tactics Ginger appears to demonstrate, using the above as points of reference.

First, there’s DARVO.

Then, less formally, there’s this good point about online cult mentality.

Before you say anything, obviously I don’t think Ginger thinks of herself as some sort of deity. While it could be argued that she considers herself a point of authority within the TOA fandom maybe, I haven’t seen enough of this to say for sure how far that goes. So that point can be ignored, because it mostly doesn’t apply in this case. (The “Dictating parts of your online life” might also not apply, but I can’t say for sure as I haven’t gotten any confirmation of that sort of thing in Ginger’s group.)

But there are grains of truth in the other four points, especially that last one. Plain and simple, she’s made people afraid to speak their minds about even harmless things such as character analysis.

Ginger is someone who can’t seem to comprehend different viewpoints and life experiences. She’s extremely unsympathetic towards people she doesn’t understand, as can be observed in above examples. Assuming malicious intent from everybody you can’t understand is a dangerous and hurtful mindset to have, for both you and those who you unnecessarily scorn.

There are a few outcomes I’ve speculated should she ever come to see this post.

1. She will ignore this post completely, pretending as if it doesn’t exist

2. She will dismiss me as being some sort of horrible person, a p*do apologist or something of the sort (despite being a victim of that myself, clearly she doesn’t care about who’s actually been hurt by real p*dos or not if they don’t conform to her narrow worldview), and claim nothing I’ve said bears any meaning, despite the extensive evidence I’ve provided.

3. She will get people to try and attack me.

4. She will actually address these points in a tactful, mature, and serious manner instead of her usual act of trying to dismiss everything at the slightest hint of non-conformity. (The least likely outcome, but one can dream.)

I could add to this post all day, but it’s long enough as it is and my focus was on getting the main points out of the way. I understand that I lack some of the receipts necessary to back myself up in a few parts, but I know that many other fans have bared witness to those things, so I know there will be at least some people who’ll know what I speak of is true, and that’s good enough for me.

That being said, if anybody has screenshots of the instances I wasn’t able to provide for, it would be greatly appreciated if you could add them into the conversation.

!!!-If you have screenshots, but are too uncomfortable to get involved in this, then you can private-message them to me and I would be grateful and more than happy to add them in while keeping you completely anonymous.-!!!

(I've removed the section with all the tags, as I recognize it was probably going overboard. My goal was just to spread information, not to try and involve those tagged, but I understand how that may have gotten lost in translation and made people uncomfortable. Also, it apparently was showing up multiple times in people’s notifications when I only tagged people twice, so I’m not sure why that glitch happened, but I apologize for that annoyance as well.)

Now, to end us off, my responses to questions or angry comments I’m probably going to get:

You don’t even have all the evidence! How are we to know you’re not just lying about some of this?

Admittedly, I don’t have as much screenshot proof as I would like, that’s true. But for most of the instances I couldn’t provide for, there were other witnesses to her bad behavior. I don’t really have the need to lie when there’s already a lot of knowledge out there of the bad stuff she has done. Nor do I really have the emotional investment in this fandom anymore to lie for the pointless reason of causing drama.

Why post this on a throwaway account if you think people are on your side?

I just don’t really want my main blog associated with TOA anymore, to be frank.

You tagged a bunch of people, so you must be trying to get them to attack Ginger!

No. I tagged a bunch of people because I think this information should be heard on a wider scale, considering the position Ginger has in the fandom. I don’t want her or anybody else to be attacked, but her negative impact on this fandom deserves to be acknowledged.

Again, I don’t think Ginger or any of the others deserve harassment or cyberbullying or anything of that manner, that’s kind of what this whole post is against. And it just hurts the situation more than it helps it. What bothers me is how she’s never apologized for or even once acknowledged the gross way she’s treated people. While she might be more low-key about it now, she still treats people who don’t deserve it like garbage. There are still several people upset about the damage she’s caused to this fandom, rightfully so. I wouldn’t be so loud about making this post if I didn’t think it was something worth drawing attention to.

Thank you for reading.

#TrollHunters #3Below #TOAwizards #Tales of Arcadia #TOA

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alatismeni-theitsa · 3 years

Note

FYI athenawasamerf is a vocal TERF.

Oh hey! Thanks for letting me know! I am against TERF rhetoric. I found their reblog in the comments of a post on mobile, so I just went there and I pushed the reblog button, without checking further. I saw a pro-lgbt+ post and assumed the person was ok. I haven’t heard of them before. **I don’t follow the person or similar rhetoric and I would kindly advise everyone to do the same.**

In a casual, conversational tone, I would like to say some things on that. Sometimes I don’t get why this type of situation becomes a big deal. It’s not that I wanted to do it, but now that it happened, I can’t take it back (this is the internet). I am wondering this because:

1) Whatever this user said in that particular post was real and important information. Most importantly, their comment didn’t have anti-TERF rhetoric (as far as I was able to detect).

2) “But you are spreading their influence”, someone will say. No, I don’t. “Spreading their influence” means “helping them gain more followers”. But how? For someone to follow then, they need to see some of their content first. Anyone who likes that content and ends up following the blog, is already a TERF or supports TERF rhetoric, and not because of me. (And does a TERF have difficulty finding TERF blogs on Tumblr dot com? I don’t think so. And they certainly don’t come to me to point them out to such blogs.)

For me to push people towards blogs like this, it would take me to post/promote this content myself and/or urged people to follow these blogs. I don’t do these things. Reblogging one thing from them about lgbt+ people’s hardships in Egypt doesn’t give them a platform. “Giving a platform” is something else entirely.

In case a follower of mine is a minor and easily swayed, I am sorry but I can’t take responsibility for them (that should fall to their parents), as I can’t take responsibility for the posts about slavery, genocide, sexual assault and murdering of lgbt+ people they see in this blog. Needless to say, I am not responsible for adults, either.

----- That’s not to say I will be deliberately reblogging from people of this ideology!! I am not happy to reblog from people of this ideology!! On the contrary, I do check blogs but you realize this is not possible each time.

Again, anon, this is not to antagonize you. I understand you care and want to spread awareness about TERF rhetoric and how to combat it. I am 100% with you and we agree that we are both against this ideology. It’s good that you told me of this user, so I know in the future.

I just really don’t get the thought process in a situation like this. This mindset gets really close to “guilty by association”. You, anon, were able to understand that accidentally reblogging from a TERF about an irrelevant thing doesn’t make me a TERF. But not many in this blog have that common sense. You sent me a message to let me know but others would just spread the news “theitsa is a terf” without a second thought. (and as you know, even if I erase my reblog it still stays on the platform or someone could have a screenshot)

But in reality, I don’t think these kinds of accidental reblogs about irrelevant things (irrelevant to the theme of the other’s blog) matter that much after all. And, usually, people reblogging from a thread that happens to have a terf in, don’t check all the blogs in the thread either. In case they check, if they are not already a terf, they will know to stay away.

Not to mention that aggressively cutting off any bigot or creating fear around their name makes them more of a bigot, strengthens their bubble, and gives them a martyr-complex - aka “the whole society is against me so I am sacred and correct”. (No, I don’t mean go hug those people). That’s why reblogging something from someone who later learn is a bigot shouldn’t be - in my opinion - treated as something of big significance and as if a rite of cleansing must be followed. As I said, this strengthens them more. (At least as I see it).

Thanks for reading all this and if you want to talk, share your opinion, or have further questions I am here. I just want to say again that every member of the lgbt+ community is welcome here.

#anti-TERF #this blog is 100% anti terf but some accidental actions in ignorance cant be erased #that's why I got into this process of explaining things #like even if I erase my reblog now someone has already reblogged and it will be found by someone else in the future #answered #anti terf #also yes now that i know the -merf could have been a sign but I didnt see it at the time because my attention wasnt fully to the username

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newhologram · 3 years

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I've been doing some thinking and realizing just how far back this all goes. Those of you who know me and my family IRL may have a hard time believing the emotional abuse and gaslighting because whenever you've met them, they seemed fine. They may have even bragged about me to you which made you think that they thought very highly of me. They also may have neglected to inform you that I have been disabled by chronic illness the past 10 years (many of my other family members had no idea until they spoke to me personally. It's... really fucking weird? To just not tell anyone that your offspring is in bed all day in horrible pain and constantly at the doctor/ER?). Unfortunately this is also part of the gaslighting, putting on a persona of parental perfection so that no one believes me when I try to talk about it. Instead people, even within my family, make excuses for the abuse and say that I should just be grateful. Behind closed doors it's always been very different. In the event that me processing this in private spaces gets out to them (which WILL endanger me): This isn't about *~exposing~* or *~revenge~* or *~punishment~*, it's about putting the pieces together and saying, yeah, I'm right to finally put my foot down about the way I have been treated. This is my experience. This is my trauma. I'm finally claiming that after a lifetime of being told that these experiences and my pain around them are apparently "not real" (gaslighting). By talking about this, I am not victimizing myself, but empowering myself. Because none of this treatment was ever my fault. None of it was ever deserved. And none of this is to be blamed on my "response" to abuse. I hope that by talking about this I can paint a picture of the dynamic and inspire investigation into the health of your own family dynamics too. "But they're family" is literally what enables this kind of abuse to continue. And I'm done. My health and survival is more important than upholding a toxic family system. They're learning that the hard way, finally. I don't think my family members are bad people. I truly do love and care for them. They have some amazing qualities. They love animals and they've come a long way to now being LGBTQ+ allies even if they don't always use the right words. But they have a lot of flaws that most likely come from their own trauma... But these aren't just self-contained flaws. Because I am the one who will be undoing the damage for the rest of my life. I don't know if they will ever go to therapy themselves, but I certainly won't be waiting around for them to work on themselves if it means I'm going to continue to be mistreated and re-traumatized. - It's always been this way but things definitely got worse in my home when I became disabled (possibly bc it triggered insecurities in them?). Both parents ignored me to my face all my life. I'd say or ask something, and there'd be no response most of the time. If I said, "hey, I'm talking to you, that's rude" they would blow up at me about "WHAT. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY. I HAVE THINGS ON MY MIND OKAY I HAVE MY OWN LIFE". This happened even when I was a literal child. I grew up believing that nothing I had to say was worth hearing and that if they ignored me that it was because I was unimportant and annoying. But if I ignore them or take too long to respond because I'm thinking, they scold me me about being rude, that they are my parents and I need to respect them. My emotions and pain have been invalidated since I was a child too. I would get picked up from afterschool care, or my bully's house, and of course I'd be crying from enduring a day of bullying. I would say, "I didn't do anything to them, it's not fair." And my dad's response was always, "WELL GUESS WHAT LIFE'S NOT FAIR. WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE AN ADULT IN THE REAL WORLD." He has continued to say this to me on a regular basis whenever I am struggling, either with work, friends, relationships, a death, or my chronic illnesses. I wonder why he has never considered my world to be real? Why is my reality not real to him? What

makes that even more painful is that I was still sent day after day to the school where I was bullied, to afterschool care with my bullies, and to my bullies' homes. No matter how much I was always crying when they picked me up, they just kept sending me back. And then a few of my dad's girlfriend's had children who bullied me too. I literally could never escape it. If it wasn't that, his response to me crying about something would be, "YOU HAVE NOTHING TO CRY ABOUT. YOU'RE LIVING THE LIFE OF LUXURY HERE, YOU DON'T PAY RENT! JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE OUT THERE HAVING REAL PROBLEMS!" Again, he said this to me when I was a 24 year old who was suddenly in the span of a year so disabled that I could barely work. I was scared for my future, because I had taken the time to educate myself about my illnesses, and I knew that things were going to be hard for me. What I needed was support, not "tough love" and emotional invalidation. I was also scared of the situation I am in now. I was scared that I was going to be too sick to afford to move out and that by age 30 I would still be stuck at home with a parent who did not see my reality, my pain, as real. I am living that and it's not fun. Whenever I tried to talk to him about this invalidation, it just turned into a fight, because he refuses to admit the things that he said, and says things like "That's a You Problem" which he has said since I was a child in response to him hurting my feelings. I have always thought it was worth the effort to communicate to my loved ones this sort of issue, because that's what I was taught at school. If there's an issue, you talk about it. But my family doesn't believe that I guess. - When I first got sick, I was throwing up a lot. It had built up over several years since I was 19 but then after I was officially diagnosed with my Big 4 (colitis/fibro/ME/narcolepsy) I started having really dangerous vomiting attacks. The first attack I had lasted 6 days. I lost 12lbs. I overheard my dad complaining on the phone to a friend that I was keeping him up all night throwing up. I felt so bad for bothering him, I had learned to value his comfort over mine. But after the third day of nonstop vomiting, I told my dad I needed to go to the ER, that something was wrong. He sighed and rolled his eyes and said I didn't need to go. He was so annoyed with me for being sick. I was completely pale. I hadn't eaten anything. I could barely keep water down. I argued but he wouldn't listen. I went back to throwing up, at this point just dry-heaving. A while later I said, "I'm taking myself to the ER." I grabbed my car keys and my dad stopped me. He said, "That's ridiculous, you aren't driving yourself to the ER, I'll do it." But he still wouldn't take me for some reason. I don't know if he just didn't want to pay the copay or what. But I was literally trapped. I tried to fight it and said, "If you're going to take me, then take me. If not, let me take myself." I kept throwing up for three more days before he finally agreed to take me. The ER was packed so I ended up going to urgent care, where the nurse scolded me. She said I really should've gone to the ER after the third day of vomiting. She said that if I had gone a 7th day I could have collapsed. I didn't know how to tell her that I had tried. She asked where my family was and I said my dad had to go to work so he had just dropped me off. She had tears in her eyes and she held my hand. She said, "he should be here with you." THAT is how sick I was. That year, I went to the ER three more times. Each time I would be sobbing and ashamed of myself just for bothering my dad and for him having to pay the copay since I was too sick to earn the money myself. Again, that's how little I had learned to value myself and my health. By my birthday that year, I was suicidal from this shame. A few months later, in the new year, I started having vomiting attacks again. My dad stood over me while I was hunched over the toilet gagging and he said something I will never be able to forget, "You need to snap out of it

because I can't go through this again." He was the victim of my illness. He was the victim of my pain. This year was when my dad told me that he and his gf had been "talking" and that they had decided it was "time for me to be independent". He said they'd even help me find an apartment. I cried and said, "Dad, I'm sick. I've been so sick the past year. How am I supposed to afford even splitting rent with a roommate when I'm in bed in a neckbrace all day long?" and his response was, "But your dad needs his bachelor pad." I couldn't even identify what I was feeling. I was so shocked. Did he really think having the apartment to himself so he could have girls over was more important? But he was always telling me that I was the most important person in his life. I was so confused.

He gave me a time frame to move out and I was terrified. I thought my life was over. But most of all, I thought, "it's not fair to my dad that I'm sick." I thought so little of myself and my pain because that is what I learned as a kid. I blamed myself for not being "strong enough" to power through these debilitating illnesses. I blamed myself for my dad's money troubles. I literally could not live with myself knowing that my dad had to support me. I was so ashamed that I learned to vomit quietly so that he wouldn't notice. I was in a constant state of suicidality for several years after this. And it's no wonder, because year after year my dad has barged into my room to harass me about "it's time to be a Real Adult! It's time for you to Contribute to the household! You need to Make Money! I'm HEMORRHAGING money supporting you! I'm having to use my savings!" and because I was too sick to do this, I felt like a complete failure who did not deserve to live. I was self-harming constantly because I hated myself for "doing this" to my father. He had convinced me that I was the villain. I would start freaking out about money, forcing myself to work even if it meant vomiting literally on set (and almost being sent home bc of it, but I insisted I was fine to work). But I still couldn't make enough to afford my medical expenses. So I would shame-spiral and be suicidal again and then suddenly the story would change. My dad did a complete 180 and said, "Why are you even worried about money? We're doing fine. Even if I didn't have to support you, it wouldn't make that big of a difference in the money that I spend on this household. Don't worry about it." And then as soon as bills were due, he was back to telling me that I needed to make money. Back to saying we spent too much money on food despite me not eating that much. Back to refusing to try shopping somewhere cheaper when I suggested ways to save money. When I brought this up to my therapist back then, she said, "He's giving you mixed messages. Maybe you should bring this up to him so he realizes he's doing it." But when I did bring it up, of course my dad denied doing this and called me ungrateful even as I worked two jobs. When I eventually got a third job (fucking up my health more) to pay off my medical debt, my dad patted my back and told me how proud he was. When I told my therapist that he denied it, she suggested I bring him in so she could help us communicate. When I asked him to come with me to therapy, he got angry and said, "I am NOT going to therapy with you, that is ridiculous." But even with those 3 jobs it still wasn't enough and I was constantly being pulled between "YOU HAVE TO MAKE MONEY RIGHT NOW END OF THE WORLD" and "uhh why are you even worried about money, you need to work your mindset..." When bugged about money I would ask, "What else do you want me to do? I'm working 3 jobs. I'm not hiding money from you. I'm sending you everything that is leftover after I pay my own bills. I've even been buying a lot of my own food, I've been living off ramen and cans of ravioli." And he never had an answer except "just make more money." -- Now to the dynamic I'm currently living in. My dad moved his gf and her dog in without talking to me about it to see if it was going to impact my health. She was only supposed to stay here for maybe 4-5 days while she figured out a new home situation. But when I asked my dad about it in the days leading up to her arrival, suddenly the answer was "oh, she's staying indefinitely." I had no say in it. But we had a talk about what I needed to make this work. I said to my dad that the most important thing was that I have some scheduled quiet time. If I'm recording content or editing audio, I'm going to need quiet that morning so I can get my work done. If I'm resting, I need there to not be shouting or slamming doors happening in the house. He assured me that this was fine and that it'd all be easy for the three of us. The first weekend she was moved in, I let my dad know that I was editing audio that morning and needed

some quiet. He was cheerful and said, "No problem!" I thought wow, this is different. This is nice! This is going to be great for my productivity and health. As soon as I started editing, his gf was blasting music in the kitchen (right next to my room) and they were both laughing and talking loudly just a few steps away from my door. I thought, okay, we talked about this. But I'll just power through. When I was done, I went to my dad and said in a calm manner, "Hey, so this morning I let you know ahead of time that I was editing audio but there was still a ton of music and stuff in the kitchen, so it made it take a lot longer for me." His eyes immediately went dark. He put on an angry parent voice and said, "Okay, I am about to pop. I have enough going on without worrying about making too much noise for you." I said, calmly still, "We talked about this, though, and you assured me it wasn't a problem that I needed this quiet time for editing. So I'm not sure what to do. I'm just letting you know that there was still loud music right next to my room even though we had talked about it." He responded, "Then you need to be more specific because I don't know what you're doing in there." I corrected, "But I told you this morning that I was going to be editing audio and you said it was no problem to have some quiet in the kitchen while I did so." He got more aggressive, "No, you need to be more specific." Again, "I was specific. I told you the time frame that I was going to be editing audio in. You said you understood. I don't know what else to do to fix this other than by openly communicating to you about it." I started crying because--I mean, uhh?? This is gaslighting. I couldn't believe that mere hours after I had specifically told my dad that I was editing audio and that he had assured me it was no problem to have some quiet, that he was accusing me of not telling him what I needed, and that he had not agreed to it or something. Like wtf. He got nastier and blamed me for his stress. But me crying triggered his guilt so he tried to soothe himself by hugging me like he does and I pulled away. I tried to emphasize to him that I'm not just making content for fun. I'm literally trying to make money and contribute to the household like he has told me I need to do for the past 8 years. And when he disrupts my editing process, it just makes it take longer, and it makes it harder for me to earn extra money. His gf was also super rude to me when I tried to be friendly and have a conversation with her. I was telling her about how great it felt to have my sister initiate a conversation about my gender identity and she interrupted me (like she does constantly) to say, "YOU KNOW YOUR SISTER DOESN'T ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT, RIGHT?" (wtf...) After this, I didn't speak to them for three days. I was feeling the urge to self-harm that whole weekend and all I could do was stay in bed crying after that. I knew if I spoke to them I would just get triggered so I was protecting myself. My dad felt guilty and tried to talk to me in my room. I tried to explain how triggering this whole situation is for me and he said he would do anything to make it easier for me. I had told him what I needed but that he had gaslighted me about it. - This next and last part is going to illustrate the priorities in this household. A few years ago, I started having problems with hives. I spent almost a whole year having very painful breakouts all over my body. It kept me up all night and caused me so much discomfort during the day. I kept telling my dad about it (no response, or annoyed responses), I went to the doctor several times about it (useless ointments), and suffered month after month. I tried so many things, I thought maybe it was bugs, spiders, etc. My asthma was also acting up and I remembered that an ex-neighbor had been suspicious of mold because of their health issues getting better the second they moved out. They had told me back then that we should test for mold. I brought it up to my dad that I had been suffering from this for

long enough and that we should do something about it (mold also makes fibromyalgia and ME way worse). He angrily snapped, "What do you want me to do about it?" I suggested we ask the landlord to mold test the apartment. He refused bc he doesn't like to bother the landlord. I said that I would just order a mold kit myself and he said, "No, let me do it, I'll pick the right one." But he wouldn't even after I kept reminding him. Even after I sent him links to mold kits that we could order. After I got rid of my mattress, my hives got a lot better but I still have issues every now and then. For years I have just lived with this because I couldn't get him to even care about the fact that I was spotted with these big pink hives. When his gf moved in, we had a random rainy day, which seems to have activated the mold. His gf got one tiny little hive and the sniffles. She said to him once, "Hey, I think you have mold in this house." Want to guess what happened after that? You're right. He immediately ordered several mold test kits. I said to my therapist, "How am I supposed to feel about that? Is it really unreasonable, am I really in the wrong to feel hurt by that?" My therapist said, "I mean, I would feel completely invalidated and like I didn't matter." This isn't the first time empathy has been withheld from me obviously (above examples during my flare ups), but sometimes even when it's right in front of him he just can't bring himself to care for some reason. One time a big piece of glass was in my thumb. I said, "Ahhh, glass, help! Glass!" He was eating snacks in the kitchen and just glanced at me, didn't move or say anything. I realized he wasn't going to help, so shaking and bleeding, I managed to pull the glass out with tweezers very painfully. It bled so much and I stood over the sink trying to stop it. My dad just kept eating his snacks, not asking if I was okay or anything, he didn't even look at me. After 5 minutes I still couldn't get the blood to stop and asked my dad if he could help, maybe get me some gauze. He put food in his mouth and sighed, "Just put pressure on it" and walked away. It feels like he's just disgusted with me. I know that he does love me and that he's trying the best he can with all of his mental/emotional/personality flaws but he thinks that just because he puts a roof over my head that he can treat me however he wants and not work on his issues, that it's my fault for being hurt. He thinks that his issues are all on me to learn to endure and it's not right. I know that he resents me for getting in the way of him having a relationship because that's the only message I have gotten since childhood, with every woman he's brought into my home. But in the end his relationships always fall apart because the woman ends up realizing, and stating to him, that he is "emotionally absent". And every time, I comfort my dad through the break up. When he has tried to blame his ex I said once to him that therapy can really help him with his emotional issues and relationships. But he refuses, so. That's on him. But I refuse to believe that I am in the wrong here for saying enough is enough. But he's going to keep trying to make me believe that the problem is just me and my feelings, not his behavior. Nope. Boundary is up. I just have to keep to myself and do what I need to do to stay safe until I can move out. Because I guarantee you he's going to realize he doesn't get enough validation from his gf and then come running back to me as always and then be angry that I'm still holding my boundary strong. I know that this will hurt less as I get distance from it, but I don't like the idea of my pain being my fault when I grew up with this toxic stuff. I'm working so hard to make it hurt less but I can't heal if it keeps happening, so all I can do is back away from what is hurting me instead of being surprised when I'm hurt again. THAT is on me 100%. Hopefully he doesn't grab my desk and slam it against the wall again like in 2014 when I first tried to set this boundary. And of course when he

"apologized" he accused me of "punishing him" by not spending time with him. Jee-zus, dude. Get therapy. I can't be the only one in this family bearing this weight and working on my shit.

#teku #personal #do nut re bagel

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evesbeve · 4 years

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Hey there, you said your ask box was open for Justin Min's whole thing? I guess I just slept through the whole thing, honestly - could you just go over a gist of everything that happened? I get that it seems like a PR team didn't know how to use twitter (which, mood) and f-ed things up for him, but what were they "cleaning up" in the first place, who's Anna what did they do that warranted such a bizarre thread from the PR team, etc...? 😳

Hey! Okay so this is going to be a lot, so buckle up.

Right off the bat, I just want to say that Justin isn’t cancelled. The situation has been mostly resolved right now (more on that later).

So around a week ago, Justin Min started deleting his replies to fans. Depending on whether you’re on Twitter or not, you might know that Justin is one of the most interactive people of the cast. He knows a lot of fans by name, he has inside jokes with us, and he just interacts a lot with his fanbase. So you can imagine why him suddenly starting to delete his replies was a bit upsetting. There was nothing we could do about it though.

And suddenly, two days ago, Justin deactivated his account out of nowhere, which caused all kinds of drama to go down.

People started pointing the finger at specific accounts saying it was their fault that Justin deactivated (don’t even get me started on that logic; why a grown-ass adult deactivate because of a few teenagers is above me, it literally made no sense), even sending death threats. Others suspected that he got suspended because Twitter’s algorithm saw all these tweets get deleted and was like “welp, bot time.” Long story short, lots of misinformation was going around.

And then out of the blue, Justin’s account was reactivated, and he made a thread directed at Anna.

Now, who is Anna? Anna is a stan on twitter, whose @ I won’t be sharing for privacy, but here’s how they’re relevant in this:

Remember when I mentioned the inside jokes? Well, one of them was between a fan called Matt and Justin. Matt kept commenting on Justin’s tweets asking him to say trans rights. On the one year anniversary of Matt asking Justin to say trans rights, Justin finally said it. Then, Matt made a poll asking other stans what he should have Justin say next, and lesbian rights won.

Around a month ago, Matt replied to one of Justin’s tweets, and Justin responded with something along the lines of “haha, i know this is just an attempt to get me to say lesbian rights,” referencing the inside joke. People started commenting that the way he phrased it was a bit :/ so then he replied to his own tweet with something like “well, i’ll delete this before i get cancelled,” and that’s when things spiraled.

[id: Justin Min’s tweet #1: i see that you are trying to butter me up to say lesbian rights, nice try, matt. nice try.

Justin Min’s tweet #2: oh, here we go. this is an inside joke between myself and matt, if you’ve been a part o fthis fandom for more than a few weeks. but alas, i will have to delete this now before i’m cancelled by the end of the day. keep loving, everyone.]

Lesbians get spoken over and looked down upon not only by straight people, but also the LGBT community. So when Justin tweeted that, lesbians were like “this sounds as if you care more about your own self image rather than our community.” Then, non-lesbians got involved and started either a) calling Justin lesbophobic (which lesbians never did) or b) blindly defending Justin and saying he did nothing wrong.

(Side note: I am not a lesbian, and I’m not trying to speak over lesbians in this situation. But I did talk about this to some of my friends who are lesbians, and they told me that what Justin did wasn’t as big of a deal as Twitter made it out to be. These are their words, not mine. All I know is that it was definitely not bad-intentioned, just a huge misunderstanding.)

Anyway, Anna made a thread explaining to Justin why him defending himself came out as harmful towards the lesbian community, and then Justin apologised and that was it.

Which brings us back to yesterday (26/9/2020).

Everyone is freaking out, posting misinformation, panicking. I don’t exactly,,, know how, but the #justinminisoverparty hashtag started being used for actual hate towards Justin for deactivating, and some people (including Anna, though I think their tweet was in the context of a joke? please take this with a grain of salt though. update: it was in the context of a joke) mentioned that Justin is a lesbophobe.

A few hours later, Justin reactivated his account, tagged Anna, and said this (though it was actually his PR team, more on that later):

[id: Justin’s Tweet: @ [redacted] quickly jumping back on here from my twt break because i’m receiving messages that you’re continuing to spread misinformation, so i want to clarify.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 1. all of my interactions with you were deleted because of the need to set clear boundaries due to the fact that your incessant messages and replies from multiple accounts over the last several months were veering into stalking/harassment.

2. for someone who appears to pride themselves on reminding their friends/followers on a daily basis to be careful of the language they use on this app, you seem to be fine with flippantly labeling someone as homophobic/lesbophobic as if they’re cute little adjectives to give to someone, not realizing that such labels have real-life consequences.]

[id: Justin’s Tweets: 3. also noting here than in your original thread, you stated that you neither considered me nor my words to actually be lesbophobic, so a bit confused as to why your story has suddenly changed.

4. i realize you’re young, so i’m genuinely hoping you use this opportunity to learn and grow andbe a little more mindful the next time you decide to tweet.]

The next twenty minutes were pure chaos. Justin deactivated again, everyone started freaking out because that was very out of character for him. People were cancelling him because this could have easily been resolved in DMs, or tweeted without the mention of Anna (a minor) from a mainstream Twitter account.

And then, Justin Min DMed another fan on Instagram (her name is Em) about the situation.

Who is Em? For starters, I’d like to say that I personally know Em and that she’s one of my best friends. I’ve known her for more than a year now, and I can personally vouch for her. Everything that she posted is 100% true (if you want the thread where she posts proof of the DMs, please send me a different ask because I’m scared tumblr will not post this in the tag if I include it here).

The reason Justin DMed her out of all people is because he also kinda knows her? As I mentioned, Justin interacts with us on Twitter a lot, and Em is the one person he’s responded to the most, so he knows who she is. (He’s tagged her more times than other cast members, at least before all his tweets were deleted by his PR team.)

Anyway, this is what Em tweeted:

[id: Em’s tweets: please read this !!!

justin dmed me on instagram and basically the gist of it is that he hired a pr team and they tweeted the thread at anna without knowing everyone could see it. all of the tweets being deleted/ him deactivating was also them.]

Below is the image Em attached to the tweet:

[id: Justin’s DM to Em: hey. this is justin. i’m just hearing about what’s happening on twitter right now. for context, i was asked to work with a team of people to “clean up” my twitter in the past few weeks. they’ve taken the liberty of deleting a bunch of my responses and posts in order to safeguard me (whatever that means) as well as deactivating my account to comb through other things.i believe they accidentally sent anna a message and mistakenly believed the function for her to comment only would mean that she would be the only one to see it as well. needless to say, i’m no longer working with this team and want to personally apologize to her. do you know any way i can get into contact with her?]

And then, in a follow-up tweet:

[id: Em’s text at Justin: sorry for dming you again. is there any other way i can help? i just feel really bad about this whole thing and i know how quickly this stuff can spread if it’s not taken care of

Justin’s text: i mean, i guess you can share the information i’ve given you? it’ll take a bit of time for me to take back ownership on everything as i sever ties with that team, so maybe the sooner the better people know.

Em’s text: okay ! is it okay if i tweet a screenshot

Justin’s text: sure.]

Then Justin’s account got reactivated an hour ago (almost 24hs after Em’s tweets), and he tweeted this:

[id: Justin’s tweet: hi. it’s me. thank you for all your messages. this has been an incredibly tough week for me on multiple fronts. some things you might already be aware of; many other things you don’t know about.asking for a bit of privacy as i take sometime to unplug. hoping to be back soon.]

And that’s all, I think? There’s lots we don’t know about what happened yet, so please please please try not to spread misinformation. This is a stressful situation for us on Twitter, and especially for Justin, and misinformation going around is the last thing we need right now.

tl;dr: Justin Min hired a PR Team that started deleting all of his tweets and deactivated his account. Misinformation started spreading, people started cancelling Justin for no reason. The PR Team decided to respond to Anna, made the response public, deactivated again. Justin DMed Em and explained the situation, and an hour ago, he reactivated and said he’s taking a small break to sort things out.

If anyone has any other questions/clarifications, my askbox is open! Hope this shed some light on the situation <3

UPDATE 28/9/2020: Justin has DMed and apologised to Anna for the situation, and Anna has accepted the apology. Anna posted all of it on their account, but again, if you want a link, send me an ask!

#im gonna go to bed now so ill respond to any follow-up asks tomorrow #i hope this made sense #ask #anon #evelina nonesense #the umbrella academy #tua #tua cast #justin min #justin h min #justin h. min #ben #ben hargreeves #tua ben #the horror #tw: drama

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olliedollie1204 · 4 years

Text

for future reference

Virgil works at the reference desk. Logan is looking for a very specific book.

Pairings: Platonic Virgil and Logan

Word Count: 3,613

Tags: Librarian Virgil, Kid Logan, (very loosely) implied but not shown romantic Moceit

based on that one tumblr post that is maybe the cutest thing i’ve ever read? also, Logan mispronounces some words because he’s Babey, so I included a guide at the end to clarify what he was trying to say.

also i meant to make this short and simple but i tripped and came up with an entire new AU, so hopefully if y’all slam that mf like button I will find the energy to write the sequel

(Read it on AO3!)

Working at the reference desk was cool. When you walked through the main door of the library, you’d never suspect that nestled beyond the rows and rows of adult nonfiction, far away from the busyness of the community room or the chaos of the children’s section, was a neat and well-tended desk, behind which sat just one man.

That one man was currently alternating between scanning the sea of tables and chairs in front of him, and reading a cheesy romance paperback under his desk. Listen, he had an image to maintain, okay?

Virgil had always liked the solitude of a good library, almost as much as he’d liked the books themselves. Despite spending many long hours hidden away among dusty shelves when he was younger, he'd never thought about actually working in a library. He wasn’t a people person, and libraries, unfortunately, tended to attract people; so when he found out there was a position where he could get away with isolating himself behind a computer monitor all day long, where his main form of social interaction was helping patrons fix the printer approximately nine hundred times a day, where he could read or play Temple Run or just sit still and daydream for hours on end? He was sold.

He supposed he had to thank the library’s set up for his lack of work; truly, most people never made their way this far into the building, and those who did were usually just looking for a place to sleep for a few hours, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to go an entire shift without speaking to a single person.

It had looked like today was going to be the same, with Virgil halfway through his shift and having only spoken to one patron who was looking for the bathroom. He had just gotten to the part in his book where the farmhand and the farmer’s son were trapped together in the barn during an unexpected thunderstorm, shirts dripping wet and faces flushed from humidity and passion (and maybe Virgil had read this one once or twice already, don’t worry about it).

It was a perfectly normal day. Until the kid showed up.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Virgil certainly did not jump about a foot into the air at the kid’s sudden appearance, but it was a close thing. The librarian quickly sat up in his rolly chair, dog earring the already well-worn novel and shoving it back under the desk.

“Uh, hi,” he replied, gazing down at the child in front of him. He was small and scrawny, with wildly scruffy hair and a large pair of glasses on his face. As Virgil sat up taller, he was able to see that the kid was actually tiny, his chin barely reaching past the edge of the desk. Despite his small stature, he had an oddly serious look on his face.

“How can I, uh, help you?” Virgil asked haltingly.

“I need to find a book about baby names,” the child informed him plainly. His quiet, high-pitched voice felt completely at odds with the grave importance he seemed to place on his request.

“Oh?” Virgil said for lack of a better response. He quickly scanned behind the kid, looking for an adult that might’ve misplaced their incredibly somber toddler, but he quickly brought his attention back to the child in front of him as he nodded.

“My dads told me that I’m going to be a big brother soon and I need to find the names for my baby twin brothers who we are taking from a woman in the city because she is a sugar-ette and she is giving us her babies to keep,” the child replied in one long breath. Virgil blinked at the sudden influx of information.

“Ah,” he replied, absolutely nailing this conversation with this random, unaccompanied baby. “Let me… look that up for you.”

He paused for just a second before jerkily turning on his monitor, opening to the library catalogue’s search engine. Instinctively he opened the filter and clicked ‘search for keywords’ and typed ‘baby names’, until he looked down at the… really small child in front of him, like damn, were all kids that small?

“Um. How…”

How old are you? How many letters of the alphabet do you know? How stupid am I gonna look if I send you to the checkout desk with an armful of dense, high-level books about etymology?

“How high is your reading level?” he settled on. To his surprise, the child puffed out his chest in pride.

“I am five and three quarters years old and I will be going into kindergarten in Set-member and Dr. Picani says that I am reading like a kindergartener and I even can read first grade books, too.”

Okay. Virgil didn’t know who Dr. Picani was, but that wasn’t important. Kindergarten to first grade reading level. He switched the filter to adjust for that new information, but he was quickly met with the realization that the kid was looking at him for… some sort of response, because that’s how conversations work, Virgil, come on.

“That’s cool,” he replied lightly. Lucky for him, the kid didn’t seem to mind his lack of social graces. He just nodded, rocking back and forth on his heels as he watched Virgil type.

“And my Daddy gave me a bunch of chapter books for my birthday and I already read them all because that was last year and he and Papa said that for my next birthday I can get some more chapter books but I hope they are mit-sery books because I like the mit-sery books most of all. Dr. Picani told me that’s because I like to collect and organize information. I like it when Papa reads the mit-sery books to me, even though I can read all by myself, because he is always bad at solving the mit-sery and I have to explain it to him every time.”

At first, Virgil had merely been listening with a polite interest, nodding a little as his eyes scanned the page for what books they had checked in, but as the kid continued to talk (and Virgil was seriously starting to wonder if he ever ran out of breath), he realized he was now listening with a genuine interest. This kid seemed pretty smart for his age, even with his tendency to mispronounce words in his rush to get them out of his mouth, and it was honestly kinda endearing. This coming from Virgil, who was running out of excuses as to why he couldn’t help out with any of the children’s programs that the library hosted in the community room twice a month.

He pulled his eyes back to his computer. “Okay, so, um, it looks like we’ve got a couple books that you might want.” They had more than a couple books about baby names, of course, but Virgil really didn’t wanna hurt the kid’s feelings by giving him a book that was too difficult for him.

“I’m gonna write the titles down on this piece of paper,” Virgil continued, pulling out an index card and one of the weird tiny golf pencils that were at every desk in the library for some reason. “Here’s what the book is called, here’s the last name of the person who wrote it, and here is the number of the shelf where you can find the book, okay?”

He finished writing and slid the paper across the desk to the kid, who hesitated for a moment before taking it.

“... Thank you,” he said stiffly, turning on his heel and marching away. Virgil wasn’t gonna look away until the kid was out of his sight, but to his surprise he stopped just about ten feet away from the desk, looking between the paper in his tiny hands and the tall rows of shelves.

Virgil stood up suddenly, feeling like an idiot. He’d just told an infant to go look for one specific shelf in a giant room of identical shelves. Alone. Fuck.

“Hey, kid,” he called softly, moving around his desk and hurrying to the child. The little boy turned to him, eyes wide behind his glasses lens.

“How about I help you find those books, okay?” Virgil asked, trying not to tower over the tiny child. The kid looked around for a second before nodding quickly.

“Okay, I think that is a good idea, because I know where the books are in the playzone but I think this li-berry is really big and— and maybe I’d get too lost and my dads are scared of me being lost and so I don’t wanna make them scared,” he finished, looking down and scuffing the toe of his shoe against the carpet.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at the end of the kid’s sentence. “Do you know where your dads are?”

The kid nodded quickly. “They’re having storytime in the group room!”

Virgil nodded. He knew there was an adult book club happening in the community room that day, so that definitely made sense. But still, he leaned down, catching the boy’s eye with what he hoped was an appropriately stern face for the circumstances.

“Do your dads know where you are?” he asked. As he expected, the kid began to look slightly guilty, scrunching the hem of his navy polo in his hands.

“Um…” he started. It was the first time Virgil had heard him pause between his words. “Well, technically, they told me to stay with the li-berrian, and they thought I was gonna stay in the playzone with Ms. Dot, but technically, if I can stay with you then I am with a li-berrian and so I’m not in trouble.”

There was a note of self-satisfaction in the kid’s voice, like he’d just solved a riddle as opposed to trying to explain why he disobeyed his parents. Virgil got the feeling that this was a kid who knew how to use his words to his advantage.

“Okay,” Virgil replied, gently pulling the paper out of the kid’s hand and scanning what he’d written. “We’re gonna go look for some books, but then I’m taking you back to the children’s section— uh, I mean the playzone— and Ms. Dot is gonna watch you until your dads are done, deal?”

The child nodded, watching Virgil with intensity, and the librarian gently ushered him to the side and led the two of them down a row of books.

“What’s your name?”

“Logan,” the little boy replied, running ahead a little and turning to wait for Virgil to catch up. “What’s your name?”

Virgil reached Logan at the end of the row just as he answered, “Virgil.”

Without warning, Logan darted ahead again, reaching the end of the next row before turning around to face him. “Daddy says I should call the li-berrians Mr., Ms., or Mx. What are you?”

“Mr. is okay,” Virgil replied, a little bemused by his childish bluntness. “And be careful, okay? I don’t want you to trip and hurt yourself.”

Logan trotted back to Virgil, walking backwards for a minute so he could look at Virgil while he talked. “I’m sorry for running, but I really want to find a book about baby names because my dads are busy making the babies’ bedroom and buying all of the baby clothes and toys and ex-cetera and I want to be a good big brother and I want my baby brothers to have names that are good but my dads are really busy and they don’t even know what they want to name the babies yet!”

Virgil smiled at the indignation in Logan’s little voice. Of course, he knew there were far more important preparations to make when expecting a new child (let alone two new children at the same time), but to a child as young as Logan, the name was probably the most important decision to be made.

“Well, they should be on the next shelf over, so let’s—”

Logan took off before Virgil could finish his sentence, running halfway down the row and looking at Virgil expectantly.

Virgil scoffed, an amused smile on his face. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

As he entered the row, he began scanning the numbers on instinct; he knew these stacks pretty well, but he didn’t have them memorized.

“Okay, 929.4,” he muttered to himself, bypassing books about genealogies before coming to the section for baby name books. “Here they are.”

Logan came towards him, standing on his tiptoes as he reached his arms up high.

“Mr. Virgil, may I please have the biggest book, please?”

Virgil looked back at the shelf, immediately seeing which book Logan was talking about. He pulled it out, holding it in both hands as he scanned the cover.

“‘Ten Thousand and One Baby Names For You’,” he recited, passing it down to Logan. “Is that enough names to choose from?”

Logan’s eyes were wide, struggling to open the heavy book while still keeping it in his arms. “I never even knew there were ten thousand and one names!”

“Same,” Virgil replied, helping Logan open the book without damaging it. “I think this book has lots of names from all over the world, plus some super old names from the last century.”

“Like the 1990s,” Logan said, nodding seriously, and Virgil had to pretend to cough to avoid laughing outright at the kid’s earnestness. He turned back to the shelf, pulling out a thinner yet still dense book.

“And this one is called ‘The Story Behind the Name’,” Virgil explained, holding it down to show Logan. “It tells you more about what the names mean, where all of the names came from… stuff like that.”

He held the book out for Logan to take, but to his shock the child was looking at him with something akin to distress.

“Do names mean things?”

Virgil blinked. “Oh! Uh, sometimes? Not really. But some names have things that they used to mean, a long time ago, but a lot of people don’t know what they meant. Like—”

He hastily flipped the book open to the ‘L’ section, skimming the page before he found what he was looking for.

“Like, ‘Logan’, for example, is an Scottish name,” he explained slowly, “and it apparently means… uh, ‘from the hollow’? Which, I don’t even really know what that means, so. It’s not that important nowadays.”

He looked back at Logan, who was looking into the distance with a pensive look on his face.

“But what if I give them a name that means something bad,” he pondered slowly, and Virgil’s stomach swooped at the idea that he’d just given this kid something to worry over.

“Well, here,” he said hurriedly, holding the second book out to Logan. “If you take this one, you can check that the names you pick mean good things. Some people like to choose names that remind them of something good, like nature or history or— or their favorite book characters.”

That perked Logan up, causing him to eye the book with a new interest. “Really?”

His gaze flicked between the second book, and the much larger book that he still held in his arms.

“I think I should take both,” he said after a long moment to think. “Just in case.”

He smiled up at Virgil, who literally couldn’t stop himself from smiling back if you’d paid him. Logan was just too darn cute.

“Well,” he said, “how about I carry your books and take you back to the playzone, and you can get started reading these before you check them out?”

Logan nodded, somewhat reluctantly handing Virgil his large book as the two made their way out of the nonfiction section. “That is a good idea, because I am already checking out a lot of chapter books and my book basket is full and so I think my dads will help me carry these books to the checkout counter because they’re really big books.”

“They sure are,” Virgil said conversationally, holding a hand out to stop Logan as another librarian walked by with a cart. Before he could take another step, however, he felt something small and soft wrap around his free hand. Virgil looked down to see Logan holding his hand in his own tiny grasp.

“Papa says I shouldn’t hold hands with strangers,” Logan informed him, idly swinging their hands together, “but I don’t think we’re strangers because I know your name and you know my name and you’re helping me carry my books because you are a nice li-berrian.”

Virgil felt an inexplicable surge of protectiveness over this child he’d met only fifteen minutes ago.

“Sure,” he replied softly, letting Logan continue to talk as the two walked hand in hand back to the populated side of the library.

He almost didn’t want to interrupt Logan when they did finally arrive at the playzone, but he wanted to make sure this kid got back to where he was supposed to be before his dads found out he’d left. Dot looked at him from behind Logan, her eyebrows raising at the sight of Virgil a) not behind his reference desk, and b) attached to the world’s chattiest five year old.

“Hey, Lo,” he gently interjected when Logan took a breath, kneeling down to be on the young boy’s level. “I’m gonna set your books down with your book basket, okay? Where is that?”

Logan paused, eyes flitting around the colorful rug. “Um… it’s… oh! It’s right there!”

Virgil’s eyes followed where Logan was pointing. There, on the ground next to one of the large plush sofas in the reading circle, was one of the library’s book baskets. From here, Virgil could see at least a dozen junior chapter books poking out of the basket.

“Oh!” Logan exclaimed, darting forward and grabbing the handle of the basket in both hands and tugging it back over to Virgil. “Mr. Virgil, look, I raised my hand and asked Ms. Dot if I could please have the storytime book to check out for a little bit because I liked it a lot, even though it’s not a mit-sery book, but it is about cephalopods and those are octopusses and squids and ex-cetera, and she told me to turn around and the shelf behind me had tons and tons of books about cephalopods, and I picked out this book because it has pit-chers but it’s not a pit-cher book, it has chapters, too—”

Logan flopped onto his butt in the middle of the carpet, pulling out each book one by one and explaining to Virgil exactly what it was about and how many chapters it had and how he couldn’t wait for bedtime so he and his dads could read them all together. He chattered on and on and on, and Virgil didn’t even realize when he joined Logan in sitting cross legged on the floor. He didn’t have to talk much, but every now and then Logan would actually pause to breathe, and Virgil would ask another question that set the young boy off onto an entirely different spiel that lasted another ten minutes.

It was so different from working at the reference desk, quiet and hidden and isolated. Different, but not bad.

“Mr. Virgil?”

Logan’s voice was suddenly quieter, and it snapped Virgil back to reality. He looked at the kid, who was looking at his own tiny hands folded neatly in his lap.

“Yeah, Logan?” Virgil asked. “Are you okay?”

Logan nodded. “Yes, thank you, I’m okay. I think you are maybe the nicest li-berrian ever.”

The sincerity in his little voice nearly made Virgil reel back in shock.

“Really?” he asked, and normally he might be embarrassed about how insecure his voice sounded after receiving a compliment from a five year old, but Logan nodded immediately.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Ms. Dot and all of the other li-berrians are nice but I think you are the nicest because I broke the rules and you didn’t tell my dads and you gave me the name books for my twin baby brothers and you let me hold your hand and I like talking about my books and you liked hearing me talk about them. So I think you are— I think you are the best li-berrian I ever met.”

Logan fell silent, looking down at his lap and fidgeting with his shirt hem, and Virgil was honestly a little speechless.

“Oh,” he said slowly. “Um, thank you, Logan. I think you are… the best reader I’ve ever met.”

No sooner were the words out of Virgil’s mouth that Logan looked up at him with wide-eyed shock.

“Really?” he squeaked. Virgil was literally going to get a cavity from all of this sugar.

“Yep,” he replied. “You’re smart and kind and you care a lot about your baby brothers. Your dads must be very proud of you.”

Each word of praise was brightening Logan up bit by bit, and he switched to sitting on his knees and bouncing up and down.

“Will you play checkers with me?” he asked, hands flapping in excitement. “I always want to play checkers but Ms. Dot says I’m not old enough, but you’re definitely old enough, right?”

Virgil laughed outright at that. He thought about his reference desk, sitting unoccupied on the other side of the library. He looked at Logan.

“Sure, kid,” he replied, standing up with Logan’s book basket. Logan grabbed his free hand, and Virgil let him lead them both to the game table, Logan already explaining the rules in anticipation.

Yeah. Different, but not bad. Not bad at all.

Post notes: As promised, here's the guide to Logan's incorrect words!

Sugar-ette: Surrogate Set-member: September Mit-sery: Mystery Li-berry: Library Li-berrian: Librarian Ex-cetera: Et cetera Pit-chers: Pictures

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #virgil sanders #logan sanders #my writing #my posts #for future reference

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years

Text

34. Ivory

Previous Trigger Warnings for mentions of underage/revenge porn, mentions of eating disorder Word Count: 8388

Between Grace making that post of her rapping along to Captain Hook, her saying "aye aye" to Simon in comments, and this photo of Simon's D print in the gray sweatpants, I'm starting to think he's packing a curve 👀

Simon Laurent "liked"

Commenter: He is! Did you never see the old sex tape?

Poster: The WHAT? No… But, wait… I thought that they dated in school. You mean like something that happened after that?

Commenter: They were in school, but it was online for the longest time before she snitched, so I’m sure somebody still has it out there…

Poster: That’s gross. I’m not that desperate to see it that I wanna look at some kids doing it. No thank you.

Simon Laurent “liked”

Commenter is blocked by Simon.

Grace was in the grocery store with her mother and brother, and Zasha, a white samoyed puppy that Mrs. Monroe had purchased from a breeder… to potentially train to be in competitions, and Zasha’s handler. Why did Mrs. Monroe bring Zasha into the store, just to have someone else hold her? For the same reason that the nanny was also there, tending to Montanus. “Because, that is literally what I pay them to do.” But… we’re at the grocery store and didn’t even have to BRING them! Grace didn’t argue.

However, she did wonder if she was suffering from some type of weird mid life crisis, or just a rich, bored woman whose husband was working more and more all of the time, despite supposedly getting closer to retirement. Then, she wondered if they weren’t doing so well. But, she kept those wonders to herself, as it would frighten her to know whatever the truth was if it was anything other than her mother did whatever she wanted because she could afford to.

Plus, she wanted to get out of the house, and apparently that had been reduced to tagging along with Grace at the grocery store, in case she needed help. “You’re almost 6 months, correct? How has it been? Online, one would swear that you’re Diahanne Caroll in her prime. You’ve rarely broken a sweat. Is that for your fans?”

Grace shook her head and read the label of something before putting it into her cart, “I haven’t had any problems, except for eating way more than I used to and getting gas, but those calcium chews usually help with that and I bounce right back. You know, I’ve always taken really great care of myself, think things through and pay top dollar for the finest self care. I guess that the baby is pleased with their temporary temple.” She smiled at her mom and noticed the woman looked leery. “I know… you had a very rough pregnancy with me. Believe me, I remember this fact, but I haven’t been having that experience, personally. In fact… Did you know that I’ve gained THOUSANDS of new followers since they’ve seen that I was pregnant. Pregnant people have been asking me what I use for this and for that and I’ve been plugging my brand, since we’ve got the pregnancy line now. It’s been sensational. I’ve had a blast!”

Grace had been working on a blog about her pregnancy, which she began with a video addressing all of the questions to all of the people who were not her.

“Hey, Those That Are Graced!” She’d cheered into the camera, “Happy New Year! I know that I’ve been unavailable to reach out too, and believe me, I do miss interacting with fans and followers, but I am currently not working on my career, to focus on other things in my life. Just to touch base with everyone, I feel like we’ve had this discussion before and those of you who actually respect me would definitely not need it repeated, but there have been so many new faces of possibly unfamiliar followers that I am revisiting notes that I have in all of my bios…

First, my professional life is one thing, my private life is another. I extend myself professionally, and over the past few months, even though I have not actually been working, I’ve still been spending time providing everyone with content. Please do not send messages, comments, or questions for me to any of my friends, and especially not to my family members, Hazel in particular. She is 12 and shouldn’t have adults bothering her for information that not only isn’t her concern, but isn’t your concern. She wants to be able to enjoy the limited hours of screen time that she’s allowed. That becomes difficult for her when people are asking her hundreds of questions that literally are related to her mother’s sex life.

Second, my professional life is offered at my discretion, as well. Whenever there is product that I think you should try, I will announce it. If I’m not familiar with a product or no arrangements have been made for me to try a product or I’m unaware of a product… my comments is not the place for said product. That is including everything from your all natural care supplies, book recommendations, your demos, your dance videos… Like… I LOVE receiving those things, but whenever I open my comments back up, that is not where those things go.

I have links for email addresses for avenues of business, entertainment, etc on my website, and if nothing else, my website is featured on every form of social media that I have. I am the person who goes through those emails. I am NOT the person who checks my social media messages, so you will never get a response from me through those and run the risk of me not seeing something if you send it there instead.

Third, my spaces have boundaries and moderators to enforce those boundaries. Whenever you’ve been allowed to be a guest in any of my spaces or my child’s spaces, you treat that shit like Afropunk - “No sexism, no racism, no ableism, no homophobia, no fatphobia, no transphobia, no hatefulness.” And then, since I’m not Afropunk and I have even greater needs, and can’t believe I have to say this much else: No pedophilia, no inappropriate interactions with a minor, no incestuous ideation, and no nudity. My moderators are quick, but not perfect. Your fellow guests and neighbors in my spaces should never have to see jokes about my mother and I engaged in sexual acts together, or worse, my UNDERAGE daughter, and no - Hazel and I posting a dance video is not an invitation for someone to make comments that because she might be fluid in her movements that it is sexually suggestive and if ever we find one of those headass posts where you put a photo of my beautiful daughter up, say something obscene or rude or ask, “Thoughts?” Simon finds out your IP address, sometimes more than that and he doxxes your ass. Ask around. If threats of violence or suggestions of harm are given… he might show up at your house and I don’t know what to even tell you about that one, because I’m not at liberty to say, according to the lawyers.”

She smiled, relaxed, unclenched her teeth that she realized had been clenched since she began her greater needs.

“Fourth, leave Hazel alone. She isn’t going to add you, because she is not allowed to add adults that she does not know. If you follow her public figure pages, those are for her poetry, her brand, her rapping, her artwork, her theater program, and whatever announcements she wants to share with her fans about her personal life, which is usually vague and innocent. If Hazel posts that she had a great time at the premiere of some movie, that is not the place to ask her personal questions. The place to ask her personal questions is nowhere! We don’t have a space created for strangers to ask her personal questions. She sometimes will be allowed to grant an interview, in which she will answer a professional about appropriate questions that have been approved.

Fifth, shut up about Simon! Shut up about Simon! I swear to you… In the past few years that Simon and I have been in communication and the ones that we’ve been in close communication, I KNOW that you realize that we are communicating, but that falls under my private life, which I have not created a space in the public for.

Now… you may speak with Simon about whatever things he speaks about in his private life, I can’t control that, but what I can control and do control is what he will or won’t say about me, even in HIS space. Yes. I got it like that, and what will happen, is Simon will be seeing this, and he is very good at remembering details and he will memorize everything that I’ve said here and he will respect that and enforce it, even in HIS space.

Which leads me to my last thing… There’s a lot of Esmoroth fanfolk in my spaces now and you all act a certain way in your little Esmoroth corner of the Internet… but in here, in Grace’s space, you better act like you’ve been tossed to the feet of the Idol Princess when her pheromones are igniting the internal flame of servitude. Because, we stan the Idol Princess in this space, and you’d better act right.”

After the release of the 3rd book and return of the Idol Princess aka the Future Queen, several fans were disappointed and had called Simon out for “pandering.” But, several MORE fans came around. He was competing for top spots with the YA novel greats after the 3rd book. But… that also meant more fans to be in Grace’s business.

Her New Year’s announcement remained pinned at the top of her page and the next post was text, “Oh, yeah. Last but not least, you may have noticed that I’m pregnant. I’ll be featuring some of my favorite findings on my maternity journey here, so please stay tuned if you’re pregnant, expecting, or planning, for what I think and hope will be some helpful tips for your journey!”

Most of the Esmoroth fandom didn’t like her very much, but they also “just couldn’t stay away. Aside from the Grace in Maternity blog, she still didn’t have social media open for commentary, though she did sometimes pass through Simon’s or Hazel’s comments and engaged a little bit with them. She pinned the video to other sites and then just didn’t really visit them again much.

“I could barely walk whenever I was six months pregnant. I had the finest of everything, too,” Mrs. Monroe broke into her thoughts. “Then again, I had what they now call an eating disorder for several years. I… wasn’t completely… well whenever you were announced…” she looked guilty, like she did whenever she faced her own failures as a mother. “We had to get a 24 hour nurse to keep me… healthy. By seven months, I could hardly get out of bed.”

Grace furrowed her eyebrows, “Mom… you’ve never told me that you had an eating disorder. Did you ever get help for it?”

“Help? Oh… like… whenever I had to be rushed to the hospital multiple times? Yes. I got help.”

“MOM… Did you ever heal?”

“Wait, are you asking me if I have disordered eating now? Heaven’s no, Grace. I was trapped with your father by the time you were born. I eventually realized that I had to be more… alive and well than I did flawless. We hired a nutritionist and personal chef.”

“Mom… a lot of people need psychological help for something like that.”

“And I come across to you as ‘a lot of people’? Hmph. It’s pathetic enough that I allowed myself to be so weak. I wasn’t going to beg someone to give me the strength I needed.”

“That’s not what it’s like at all…” Grace cupped her mother’s face and said, “There may be things that people need to help you with, Mom. That doesn’t make you weak or whatever else you’ve convinced yourself of. It didn’t make me weak when I needed to get help. It doesn’t make Hazel weak when she needs help…”

Mrs. Monroe waved Grace’s hands off of her face, “As long as you’re fine, have no other concerns.”

“Mom…”

“Were you done with the shopping?” Grace sighed and continued moving.

Simon was pacing, clenching and unclenching his fists. Several of the message boards, every one of his social media platforms, and even at least one of Hazel’s. He’d taken her devices away, but now she was angry and he certainly couldn’t find the words to explain beyond, “You can’t be online right now.” She was scribbling aggressively in one of her paper journals, and fuming. They both were fuming from different but related reasons.

Grace came in with her little shopping entourage and Hazel rushed to her, furiously.

“Your BOY TOY took my devices DURING screen time and REFUSES to give them back!” Grace’s eyes went wide and she turned to look at Simon, who was pacing and didn’t even seem to hear the accusation, notice that she came in or to see Monty. Something was absolutely wrong here.

“Help get the groceries and I’ll get your devices, okay?” Grace said and cupped her chin. Hazel was still breathing heavily as she stormed out towards the groceries and Mrs. Monroe settled on the couch. Grace took Simon’s hand and he was startled by her sudden touch. But, the moment he realized it was her, he let out a deep breath and wrapped her up in a tight hug. “Hey. Let’s go talk, okay?” She suggested, rubbing his back. He nodded his head, but didn’t move from the spot or lessen his hold on. She squirmed a little bit and said politely, “Oxygen, Gray Eyes..” He let up and rushed out of the room. Grace followed and watched him flop on the bed and cover his face with his fists. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“We’ve been doing SO well…” He said, shaking his head.

“We have.” So, this is something that he did wrong? “And the only way that we continue doing well is to be open and caring with each other.” He slicked back the wild hairs that weren’t pulled into his ponytail. He appeared to be in a lot of pain, but she had to get whatever this was settled. “Should I go online? Will I see what happened, if I do?” She pulled out her phone, mumbling, “I’m guessing that’s why Hazel’s stuff was confiscate-” He snatched the phone from her hands and she let out a yelp, both at the audacity and the fact that she didn’t even see him get up.

“No. I have to tell you. You can’t find out on the Internet. SHE can’t get on. She CAN’T!”

“Why can’t she? Because, she’s pretty pissed and it IS her screen time…”

“Because, the internet is relentless and unkind, and she’s too young to have to deal with how much. Not today. She’ll… I’ll… give her extra time once it's died down.”

“Tell me what’s going on, Simon.”

He frowned, “Someone brought the tape up.” At first, she was confused. Was this something about the movie? Why would he be so upset as to take Hazel’s… “And it’s recirculating again. I’ve been reporting it and fans have been reporting it and it gets taken down, but more and more people have seen it now and it’s just… too much. I don’t want her to run into it…” NOW, she understood. That tape… which… technically… it was done with a webcam, so it was never a tape, it was a recording, but… “I saw it again… not watched it, but you know, saw a portion of it whenever I was reporting it… God…” He sat down on the bed, “You’re a kid, Grace. You had the rounded face and everything…”

“Ummm… You’re a month and a day older than me, Dude.” she said, sitting down, trying to pretend that she was more calm than her heart was allowing. She could barely breathe, thinking about the feelings that just mentioning that used to bring up for her. She wasn’t sure how she might react to seeing it come up somewhere. But, maybe she should try…

She gently took her phone back, despite his struggling. One stern look and he let it go, realizing that she was determined and he was probably already in a lot of trouble, if something had been triggered. She nodded, “Yep, looks like a few people have tagged me, asking me if I saw that somebody posted it…” She went to the video and he clenched the bedspread, moving his legs uncontrollably and looking straight ahead. “You know, a lot of people used to say that you couldn’t see your face in it, that it was out of frame, but it does come into frame a few times…” she said. She paused, “See?” He shook his head. “Simon, you’re not even gonna indulge me a little bit at a time like this?”

His frown deepened and he took another long breath. She was right. SHE was the victim in this. The least he could do was take a look at his disgusting handiwork. He saw himself and he recoiled. “You were a kid, too,” she said. “Sure, at the time, this hurt more than anything my brain can recall. But… I do know, as a grown ass woman, you were wrong and also were a child. Both of those things can be accurate.”

“We’re only a few years older than Hazel, there. If some kid did something like this to her… I would…”

“I would hope that you’d remember that you were their age once and just as bad.”

“Is… is that how you would react?”

“Oh, hell no. I’ve never done anything like this. I’d kill that fucking kid. But, you would have to be the adult that fucking pulls me off of him…” She laughed and scratched at his beard, “But, nothing like this will happen to Hazel. She’s a good judge of character and we know all of her friends.”

“Your parents knew me too, and I think that they’re pretty good judges of character. Your mom at least. She always knew that I was rotten.”

“No she didn’t! She knew that you weren’t rich, and in her head those two things were the same thing. She knew that you were controlling, and she thought that I was going to sacrifice myself for you, but she didn’t think that you were going to straight up try to assassinate my entire character.” He looked away from her, “And NOW, you are very diligent in making sure that you aren’t crossing any lines, with me and with Hazel, my mother, my father, and I think people in general. This wasn’t long enough ago that it’s not hurtful to think about… but it was long enough ago to not beat yourself up over. But… It is a burden that you designed. So, it’s only right that you explain to Hazel exactly why she shouldn’t be online right now.”

Hazel took it so much better than she had taken him taking away her computer and phone. “Are you serious? I’ll just avoid social media. You KNOW I don’t wanna see anything like that, myself, but I already knew that it existed out there somewhere.” She shook her head, “I don’t like the way you look with clothes ON, think I’d run the risk of seeing you without them?”

Grace suggested, “Is there anything else you want to say to him? Maybe about how you broke the news to me when I got home?”

“Oh..” Hazel flared her nostrils and rolled her eyes, “Sorry I called you Mom’s Boy Toy… You kinda are, but I shouldn’t say it…”

Simon laughed, mostly because he was relieved that she wasn’t scarred by him having to talk to her about this video resurfacing. “You kidding? I’m gonna put that on a t-shirt.”

“No cap? Because I have SO many where that came from.”

“We’ve gotta brainstorm.”

“Simpsona T-shirts can be your new thing…” And just like that, Grace watched them be best friends again. Hazel could get mad and stay mad for a long time, but she didn’t like to argue, so even whenever she got mad, she tended to stay to herself until she wasn’t. The two of them left to go sit on the swing set outside of the house they were renting, and Grace sat by her mom on the couch.

“I don’t even want to know what that was about.”

“Cool, because I wasn’t gonna tell you.”

“You don’t have to. One of your “boy toy’s” fans will.” Grace laughed and then threw her head onto her mom’s shoulder. The woman gasped at first, taken aback by the show of affection, but then placed her hand on Grace’s. “You’re a very good mother to both of them. You’ll be a good one to that one too.” she pointed her free hand at Grace’s belly.

“Did you just…?”

“Come on, you’ve been raising yourself a man since you met him and I’ll stand by that forever. Might get it engraved on my headstone.”

Grace cackled, “I absolutely AM NOT raising him!”

“He is literally a life sized puppy that went through a rebellious phase where he kept biting you!”

“Well, I finally realized that I have the power to curve that behavior… and trust me, Mom… It’s not something you’d do with somebody you’re raising.” Grace stuck her tongue out.

“Get off of me you scoundrel!” Her mother joked. Grace just laughed and held on tighter. The woman put her arm around her. “Are you okay, Darling?”

“Whenever I was hurt or scared as a little girl, I was more afraid of admitting it to you and Daddy. I would be more hurt by the thoughts of how little you would think of me if I openly showed imperfection. Not feeling that way took a long time and a lot of work. So, now, if I have a hard day, I’m not too proud to lay on my mommy and say so.” She looked to gauge her mother’s reaction. She was always speechless whenever Grace got emotional.

She’d never learn past those suppressing ways and it amazed Grace that her mother didn’t realize how much her and Simon were alike in that way. Simon had to work really hard at it and her mother was too proud and pampered to put in such effort. But, whenever Grace booped her nose, the woman’s eyes flickered amusement, ever so slightly. Now, she pushed Grace off of herself and opened her arms to receive Montanus. “Take a photograph of me with my children,” She told the nanny. “One with the two human ones, then we’ll add the new fur baby…”

She still hadn’t made any announcements about her status with Simon, nor had she spoken about her pregnancy outside of the maternity blog by the time Valentines’ Day rolled around. But, one thing that she did was allow for Simon to share maternity photos. That was her “gift” to him.

There. Were. Tons.

Simon took photos of everything. He had a copy of every ultrasound. He had an electronic journal of every detail that came up. So, whenever he posted the album “Countdown to Ivory’s Arrival,” he had more photos than most of the fans were probably going to look through. Therefore, he left many of them private, with only close friends able to view, and the ones that were public were his favorites of the candids of Grace being pregnant and gorgeous, some of the ones from photoshoots that she would post, and the professional maternity photos that they had taken so far. They took some each trimester, as a family.

The ones at her three month mark were taken in New York, early November (around their anniversary, whenever he was in town. They had fall colors and all three of them were absolutely stunning. Hazel was impressed with how well that Simon cleaned up, so much that whenever he showed her older photos of himself, she thought he was a different person. She had no idea how right about that she was. Simon being both subservient and also a mega diva himself was absolutely salivating every time Grace did something, but also, it was him who insisted, "We have to have a photoshoot each trimester, each with a different theme.” She agreed on the trimesters, but wasn’t feeling the theme part so much. She told him that they could simply have the season be the theme.

They had three changes of outfits for each set. Grace had a gown made much like the one that she had worn to the fall festival in 9th grade (the one that the Idol Princess’ gown was very heavily based on, the one that Simon had taken photos of her in, getting her first beauty deal underway), one that Simon saw her in and immediately began crying. “You’re… gonna ruin the photos,” Hazel told him.

There were candid ones of him crying. Her favorite was one where he was crying, Grace was trying to comfort him and Hazel dropped in front of them, bombing it with a prison pose and her tongue out. She had on a yellow pantsuit with fall leaves in her hair, her signature look being wearing leaves in her hair. Simon’s yellow suit was similar to hers, but way more expensive and the red accents, instead of the orange ones that Hazel elected.

The orange outfits were Hazel in orange overalls, Grace in a romper and Simon in a jumpsuit that Hazel insisted was “the most expensive prison wear in the world.” The red ones were regal matching dress attire, Grace in a two piece dress to show off her belly, Hazel in the same floor length evening gown, but one piece, and Simon in a red suit, made of the same material. Hazel’s hair was down and flowing. Grace’s was gathered up, with most of her afro pulled forward, cascading out of the jeweled red head dress she wore, and Simon’s usually (these days) flowing hair was pulled into a ponytail, with the undercut showing. He was generally self conscious about it, but Hazel put little red jewels over his scar, so even though he was still anxious about his hair, he was proud of her accessorizing enough that he wanted to confidently show it off.

The six month ones were taken in January, and done in all white, which Hazel said, “Looks fabulous on mom and me, but you look like the abominable snowman,” to Simon, on the day of. They were in California by that time, but took a little trip to the mountains because the Monroes had property there that Simon remembered had beautiful scenery that he wanted to have family photos at.

They did all white shots and winter blues.

Whenever Simon posted them on Valentines’ Day, Hazel joked in the comments, “I still say that we need to crop your face out.”

People loved the maternity photos, noticed that Grace did NOT have any on her page and she didn’t comment or react to any on Simon’s page. (Yes, these people pay entirely too much attention to the lives of celebrities that they didn’t even KNOW), but someone did some investigating and found Grace’s pregnancy blog. So… even though that was mostly a completely different following, others stormed into the space, thinking that FINALLY, some place where Grace has actually been interacting and will interact with us. She literally ignored anybody that wasn’t asking about helpful tips for their own pregnancy or giving her helpful tips and the title changed from, “Grace in Maternity” to “Y’all Can See This is a Mommy Blog, Right?”

A few people were seething, but funny enough, Grace’s faithful mommy following were more along the lines of, “Wait… You’re FAMOUS, Monroe Mommy???” After that, she had a hoard of moms check out her other life. She enjoyed having more of them in her fan base, though she also had a lot of ones who had always known being like, “Y’all seriously didn’t know Grace Monroe?” and her favorite quote ever on that blog, “Hell, her album is the reason I AM pregnant!!!”

Meanwhile, Simon had been less likely to play around with any of the fans ever since the video thing. He’d made that very clear, and then sort of stopped interacting with them. He didn’t even go through to like people’s comments anymore. Some of them would say things like, “Whoever resurfaced that video, if we find you, it's on sight for making Simon hate speaking with us!”

Sometimes a person would “Lol” and contend, “He’s too busy working on the Esmoroth movie. He’s not here because of the movie not some fuzzy sex tape from years ago.”

Those were the only ones that he’d respond to just to say, “No, they’re right,” and nothing else.

He wasn’t as busy on the Esmoroth movie as he intended to be. He was working on more tech and models for the movie than any other movie things. For one thing, the script was being adapted, and casting was hard. The casting director wanted to get a different type for the Idol Princess, but Simon was extremely firm and clear that the Idol Princess HAD to look exactly as described in the book. “There are parts of the story that are directly related to her looking the way that she does.”

“We can adjust those parts,” the director had said, hoping to appease him.

“The Idol Princess looks like my childhood best friend. Her look is non negotiable,” he had told them. They didn’t believe in non negotiable, apparently, because the girls that were being considered were all much too light. Whenever Simon had rejected them all, they informed him of those girls’ filmographies and their agents and other people said agents represented.. “Maybe they have that type of record because people are hiring them for roles that were meant to be for someone else. Just… give me all of the call sheets for girl characters who auditioned.”

He went through and disqualified half on looks alone (not to say that they weren’t pretty children or whatever, but they didn’t look like the Idol Princess). Whenever he had the stack of dark skin girls, he went through, checking their filmographies and auditions.

He asked Hazel for her opinion and she suggested a name that he recognized from his rejected stack. He pulled it back up and looked at the light skinned girl in the photo, "Do you mean this girl, Hazel?" He wondered.

"Yes! She's a really good actress!"

He furrowed his eyebrows and pointed out, "But she doesn't look like the Idol Princess. The Idol Princess has dark brown skin, tightly coiled hair, full nose and lips, and dark brown eyes. This girl has none of those things."

Hazel shrugged her shoulders, "She's really good though."

"Well… maybe some of these other girls are really good and people just don't want to see them in stuff like this."

Hazel frowned and she asked, "Are you accusing me of favoring her because she's got features like mine?"

"No. I'm just saying that she doesn't look the part. You're usually really good about that kind of thing, Haze."

"Well… I don't know anybody in the age range that looks like the description of the Idol Princess." She folded her arms, "But like you said, maybe that's because people take the easy way out and just get the pretty Black girl that they know of to play a part instead of being true to characters. I've definitely read more books with dark skinned girls than I've seen in movies…"

"Here are some of my choices," he said and spread the sheets out before her. "I think this one has the look, but I think this one had a better audition. BUT, she was auditioning for a background character and this one was auditioning for the Wicked Heiress. Maybe she just didn't have that role in her and should audition for the Idol Princess, so we can know for sure.."

"I think that maybe they should all audition for the Idol Princess again. What if they just didn't believe it would be realistic that they'd get offered a job like this, especially if bigger stars are being considered? Sometimes, I have to talk kids into auditioning for our productions because they're worried that the same actors will win out anyway."

He gave her a side smile, "I think you're onto something, Haze."

Hazel sent out the invites for Grace’s baby shower. Unfortunately, all of Grace’s friends lived elsewhere, so it would be an expensive trip. Fortunately, they had money, so the Monroes could foot the bill for everyone who didn’t just have the means to travel across country for an event.

Meta flew in with Damita from New York the previous week, but he made some business plans to collab with a Cali artist that week, so he was working, as well. Meanwhile, Damita and Grace were spending the week reconnecting and chilling. Shana and Iza came in from Atlanta the night before. Gharrisahn was already in LA for work, so she would swing by the day of. Grace’s parents arranged for Mikayla and Tulip to come down. They were in coach on the same flight that Lucy’s and Lindsay’s moms and they were in first class, so they’d all meet the driver upon landing.

Hazel had on a headset, along with Simon’s assistant and Grace’s assistant, because Hazel had arranged the shower and she wanted to make sure that things went how she meant for them to.

Grace was in a custom made gown that was inspired by Book 3 of Esmoroth and Simon had been at her side simply staring at her for the entire time she had it on. It had been a surprise. A very nice one that he apparently loved. She hired the costume designer for the movie to make her several pieces, but this one was like the one that the Idol Princess resurrects in. Grace was now hip to the lore enough, mainly from paying attention to Hazel’s ravings, and her and Simon’s movie chat.

For the most part, Grace didn’t want to have a shower. All of her friends lived elsewhere, the baby was due sort of close to Hazel’s birthday and she still wanted Hazel to be able to have a party - which she doubted would be able to happen if she waited until after they were born, so she wanted to have Hazel’s birthday party, INSTEAD of a shower and Hazel said, “How about you just worry about slaying everybody in your peak perfection pregnancy, and I’ll take care of the shower?”

With the financial backing of GlamMother, her dad’s big brain, and her own penchant for moments and aesthetics, Hazel tended to be very good at making things come together. She even produced some choreography (Doereography, as she called her pieces), for her and her mother to perform, because, yes, Grace was good and swollen by May, but she also could still do mostly everything that she was doing before with that additional bundle. It did throw her balance off a little and she couldn’t lift Hazel at the moment, but she kept up with every step of the Irish step dancing that Hazel put into the choreo, and she absolutely could still nail every Haitian movement. Hazel wanted to make a birthday choreo with ties to her heritage, and Grace was always very supportive of her doing anything that made her feel connected to her identity.

For good measure, Hazel looked up cultures from Grace and Simon’s heritages too. She was most accustomed to American jazz/hip hop and ballet. She started at 6, with Grace and when they were apart, Grace used to make instructional videos and post them just for Hazel. Whenever she was 10, she started to tap, and all of the other things in between, she and Grace perfected, and whenever she really wanted to nail something, they’d call in a world class trainer.

Hazel felt that a world class trainer was needed for the baby shower. Grace very much so disagreed. So, Hazel got her grandmother to get them. “Next time, simply come to me first,” the woman had said.

Hazel opened up with one of her raps. Her mom’s friends (as always) got their entire lives whenever she would flow - which was possibly the reason that she honed her talent, if she thought about it - and even Simon would be into the groove with things. He didn’t have the best rhythm, but he certainly always looked way taken up with her talent. Grace bouncing around with a round belly was everything in the world to Hazel, and when she was done, she waddled over to hug her.

They played games, did some traditional shower things and some new things too, that Hazel consulted with celebrity event planners for. When it was time for gifts, Grace froze, looking at the way that everything flowed. It was like her 16th birthday again and she felt like she might have a panic attack. “Grace… It’s okay,” Simon said. She looked at him on the other side of the tete a tete and he smiled, “I learned my lesson. This is straight up simply tribute.” He kissed her on the forehead and she calmed down to receive gifts and cry about everything, but manage to not look ugly doing so, because no matter how comfortable she had gotten over the years, that was still engrained in her as a huge no-no.

Winding down from the party, she found Hazel and her friends at the photo booth, having switched out their baby shower outfits for their birthday party outfits. “Where’s Simon?”

“Bullying people about their gifts,” Hazel said nonchalantly.

“Oh God…” Grace raced over and smiled, “Hey… what’s uh… what’s going on?”

Mrs. Monroe stood behind Simon with her arms folded and Mr. Laurent was in front of them. Simon answered, “Well, I’m giving people things back that went against the specifications for the list.”

“I don’t remember making specifications for the list.”

“You wouldn’t, because you didn’t, I did. You aren’t particularly great at meticulous things and you don’t pay attention whenever I’m telling you plans like these,” Simon said.

“We’re not gonna send a gift back with the person who gave it to us.”

“What are we gonna do, donate it to charity? Because I am not putting this together for our baby. This company uses…”

“Thank you, Mr. Laurent. Thank you for coming and thank you for this gift.” She gave the man a pat on the hand and smiled at Simon. He was still frowning, along with her mother. “You’re backing him up, now?” She got flashbacks of whenever they used to gang up on her and she was very salty that she had to defend MR. LAURENT of all people against the devastating team and Simon and her mother could be.

“He specifically said nothing from that company ON THE LIST,” her mom said, beginning a tirade against this man, with her and Simon taking turns on letting him know exactly how he’d fucked up.

“Their product is cheap and substandard.”

“They’ve decimated the supply of the people in the area they harness things from TO make cheap product.”

“And they use slave labor!”

“Child slaves.”

“OKAY! Okay… That’s a good company to boycott. But hear me out… Mr. Laurent is a simple man who shops at like three places and definitely doesn’t look up things like that,” Grace said.

To which Simon and Mrs. Monroe both reminded her, (loudly) “It was on the list!”

“I made it clear which companies we weren’t accepting gifts from!”

“It’s already bought.” Simon was going to continue complaining, but Grace took his hands and placed them on her belly and he immediately softened up and stared at it. “This is the most important thing, right?”

He looked up at her and cupped her face, shifting himself to touch foreheads with her. Hazel appeared out of nowhere to bomb the photo that they weren’t even expecting Lucy to take.

“Wait, that was it?” Grace wondered. Let’s be clear… she did go through a lot of pain and it was a tough time in the birthing house, even with Simon right beside her and Hazel, her mother and her best friend nearby. But… it felt like there should be something else happening or that something was missing, that she had neglected something, or like something didn’t happen that was supposed to.

She supposed that she had simply set her expectations so deeply into the thought of pain, struggle, blood, sweat and tears, that when it came… her imagination had actually run wild. Simon had kept telling her she was doing well and how he was proud of her and other affirmations. He was holding the baby now while she was being cleaned up.

“Did everything happen?” Grace asked.

Hazel went over the checklist with her. Yes. Everything happened. “Did I pass out?” No. She was awake. She was there for every grueling minute. It just was a different experience for her than what her mother described, than what she read and interpreted.

The professionals explained to her how her birthing went relatively well, what to do next, etc. Charlotte, from the center, even talked to her about how it’s not only different for everyone, but how all four of her own pregnancies and births were different from the last. Grace was expecting something terrible to happen within the first few days, just because it didn’t seem like everything had happened! The paranoia died down on day 3 and she simply was back to cuddling with her new baby.

They looked like her, so far. Hazel made them a stuffie of a potato in a diaper… the baby just looked like a potato. She didn’t know how else to express that. Simon worshipped them. He was constantly holding them whenever Grace wasn’t. He was close by whenever she fed them. He took so many photos on his phone that within days, he surpassed all of the ones he had of Monty from the past several months.

NONE of those were going online any time soon. Grace had only posted a few days after giving birth her experience with having done so. She bounced back so quickly and looked so effortlessly beautiful that some people were claiming that she had been trolling and was never actually pregnant. She found that funny, but it also was her cue to duck away from the Internet for a while again.

The first month of Ivory’s life, they were for the most part a quiet baby. Simon frequently worried that something was wrong, checking, rechecking, then coming back and checking again that they were breathing, awake, happy, etc. Grace was more like, “You’re so gross. Look at you! Drooling all over everything. Little slobbery monster!” She spoke in a high pitched voice that made Ivory smile and kick their little legs around.

“GRACE! Don’t say that!” Simon insisted. “You’re gonna make them feel bad.”

“No way! Ivory’s a tough little cookie, like their Mama. I gonna bite you, Cookie! Mama gonna bite you!” Then she playfully nibbled at their feet and hands.

Simon studied the baby for a while and determined, “They seem to be enjoying it.” He would then relax a little.

Hazel was the only person allowed to post photos of Ivory, and comments were always closed. The first one was on Hazel’s birthday. She was in a sundress, tanned a little more than usual and Ivory and she had on matching rompers and sunhats. “Ivory came 13 days before my 13th year. They really said, “I’ma be 13 too, Sis.” Look at them. Tiny. Tiny Potato. Sis has your back for life. #taurustribe #jk #idcboutthat #MonroeSibs #Doetography #HouseLaurent

And there it was. All that anyone needed to see. You honestly couldn’t tell what the baby looked like, but how could anybody doubt Hazel’s hashtag “House Laurent?”

Simon sort of liked having a private family. He wasn’t sure why he had been so eager to have people acknowledge things before. Even one year ago, he needed for somebody, anybody to know that he slept in the same bed with Grace Monroe. He needed for her to say “I love you.” He needed to hear Hazel call him “dad.” He still loved those things, but he had everything he could have ever wanted… it just looked different than he thought it would.

Why did he want to “take care of” Grace for so long? She was caoable of taking care of herself, probably better than he was of himself. She had talents (was ALREADY back to working on new dances with Hazel and new music), qualities… God… that smile made him weak… She had several other things too, but if he sat there making a list, he’d be there for a while, and he COULDN’T be there for a while, because Ivory was six weeks old and Grace told him that he could take them with him to work.

He began strapping the baby into the stroller… “Are you… where are you trying to take my baby?” Grace asked.

“My calendar says that they’re six weeks old. I can take them to work with me.”

Grace put her hands on her hips and Simon frowned. “You said it. I have a recording of you saying it.”

“Well, I said that we shouldn’t take them anywhere before six weeks…”

“And I set my calendar,” Simon completed the thought and pulled the diaper bag onto his shoulder. “Abigail is bringing Monty, so they’ll have a play date.”

“Oh, she is?” Grace asked, toweling herself down. “Hold on. I’m coming.”

“Grace, I’m gonna be late!”

“I’m not letting you go be a Daddy sized snack with TWO cute babies on you with a cute, perfect bodied nanny with no friends!”

“I don’t think she’s all that cute and I have no idea what her body looks like!”

“It doesn’t look like she pushed a baby out of it six weeks ago!”

“NEITHER DOES YOURS!”

She came into the room, changed up and smiling, “Awww. That’s so sweet.”

“How did you?” She looked perfect. She looked perfect and she couldn’t have taken any longer than five minutes. And she thought she had anything to worry about? But, he wasn’t complaining. If he had Grace and the baby around, that was just better, all around.

“I’m staying here,” Hazel told them and continued dancing in the mirror.

Grace was standing on the scooter, with Simon behind her, sporadically kissing her on the neck every now and then, making her smile and gush. Whenever they pulled into the studio Simon took the baby out, which Grace noticed was wearing an oversized heather gray, “Proof he got lucky with Grace Monroe” onesie. “Simon! What did you…?” She gasped and saw that he had a shirt, the same color that read, “I got lucky with Grace Monroe.”

“In my defense, you weren’t supposed to be here today!” Simon told her.

“How many shirts and onesie sets did you buy?”

“Not a lot. I bought WAY MORE t-shirts than I did onesies.” She fell behind a little and the back of that man’s shirt said “Grace’s Babydaddy.”

“Simon…”

“In my defense… You were right there whenever I walked out of the house wearing it.” She laughed. “It’s just in the studio. I’m working on some mechanics. There’s not gonna be cameras on me or anything.” She was still pouting. “I know that you’re super secretive, but I’m sure that most of the people who give a damn about what we do already know that this is indeed my baby…”

“It’s not that.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Ugh. I wanted to do this whole reveal thing for you on Sunday! I was gonna make this long, sweet post and open my comments and EVERYTHING. Now, I feel like it won’t have the same effect…” His eyes were already all watery, just from her THINKING about doing so.

“Sunday is Father’s Day…”

“Yeah. I can keep my own secrets. Not tell people about my pregnancy or who I bone or how I share time with my daughter or whatever, but I didn’t plan on making you stay in the shadows of my spotlight for the rest of our lives, especially when it comes to this. You’ve been an immense pain in the ass, but you’re a wonderful father and I figured it’d be a good… coming out of sorts for me to acknowledge that on that day.”

He cradled Ivory closely, “You can still do that.”

“Well, you’ve announced it all over your clothes and also… I just told you the entire plan!”

“I love knowing plans!” Simon said. “Here.” He took off the shirt and threw on his hoodie, which it was too hot for and then they changed the baby’s onesie too. “I sort of want to eat it up whenever people actually find out from you that I am indeed, who you bone.” She laughed. “This is the best spoiled surprise that I’ve ever had!”

“Well… I didn’t tell you ALL my plans, so there’s still stuff to look forward to.”

“Yeah?” He asked, casually as they walked inside.

“Mmm hmm.”

“Can I have a hint?”

“Something that starts with the letter P.” Simon turned red and she smiled brightly.

“Uh. Didn’t put THAT on your calendar, did you?”

His lip dropped, “I DIDN'T!” He frowned, “In my defense… we don’t really do that enough for it to have been something I was counting down to.” He smirked, “But every time we do…” He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her. She bit her lip and shook her head, “Nope. Sunday. You aren’t gonna beard break me, Mr. Laurent.”

#If They Didn't Get on the Train #AU Infinity Train #Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics

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