#that her family at home fights to the death and she marches her own sister towards a different precipice

[isaacathom]

me, holding my primary ttrpg oc in my hands: im giving you so mcuh family trauma :)

[girlactionfigure]

#onthisday, 2018, Sara Ginaite Rubinson z”l passed away. She was a world renowned author and academic, a legendary resistance fighter in Lithuania against the Nazis during WWII. After the war she eventually joined her daughters in Canada and wrote several books in Lithuanian. Her most famous work translated into english was “Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas 1941–1944.”

Sara was born to Yosef Ginas and Rebecca Virovitch, in Kaunas, Lithuania on March 17th, 1924. Raised in a successful Jewish family, Sara was on the verge of graduating from high school when, in 1941, her life was interrupted by the Nazi invasion of Lithuania. Three of her uncles were subsequently killed in the Kaunas Pogrom that year, and she, along with the rest of her family, were placed in the Kovno Ghetto. That was when she decided to fight back and join the Anti-Fascist Fighting Organization, a resistance of fighters against the Nazis. 

After marrying Misha Rubinson, they escaped together in the winter of 1943-44, she created a Jewish Partisan unit called, “Death to the Occupiers.” She would often bravely venture back to the ghettos to rescue people, helping them escape to safety. Both she and her husband participated in the liberation of the Kaunas and the Vilnius ghettos, although the Nazis had already wiped out most of the region’s Jewish population. Only her own sister and brother-in-law survived of the rest of her family. 

After the war she became a professor of political economics at Vilnius University. After her husband died in 1977, she emigrated to Canada where her two daughters Anya and Tanya were already living. Sara became an adjunct professor at York University and was frequently invited to lecture throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Israel. She gave an inspirational lecture in 2013 in Toronto, titled “History and Personal Memory: the Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania.”

On April 2nd, 2018, Sara died in her home at the age of 94, the 17th of the Jewish month of Nissan. May her light and legacy shine brightly for Jews and all oppressed people of the world for generations to come.

onthisdayinjewishistory

[misguidedasgardian]

The Winter Sun (22)

22. Rains of Fire

MASTERLIST

Summary: Your personal sacrifice is not enough to Aemond’s thirst 

Pairing: Cregan Stark x Fem!Targaryen Reader, one sided Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Targaryen Reader

Warnings: Cursing, medieval and asoiaf customs, AGE GAP, Cregan is 12 years OLDER than reader), arranged marriage, incest, hinted non-con, involuntary imprisonment, non con adultery, kidnapping, a little choking, body shaming (Aemond is a c*nt, I imply Reader had chubbier hips from giving birth), death of characters, war and all that comes with it, might miss some warnings

+18, MINORS DNI

Wordcount: 3.1 k

Notes: Ufff this was hard to write. I know I have to update Dragons' mistress and the White Dragon, but I had to write this first, I was just taped to the computer writting this

Cregan hand’s shaked as he read the urgent words of his sister, his eyes filled with tears as he whined, like a wounded animal 

His fist landed on the table on his tent.

He so childishly thought he could protect you, but not even an army of a thousand men could get between a dragon and his desire. He was marching to fight a war, and yet, it wasn’t enough

“How long until we reach Harrenhal?”, he asked his most trusted man, Jon, the second son of Lord Roderik 

“Two weeks Lord”, he whispered shakily

“We need to pick up the pace “, he grunted, “my wife just…”, he looked at him and he straightened his posture, “she tried to take matters into her own hands”

“Is the Lady of Winterfell alright?”, he asked, fearfully, “is the heir…?”

“The heir is fine”, he said shortly, “but the Lady of Winterfell is in enemy hands”, he said shortly, "we need to reach Harrenhal as soon as we are able, and send a raven to Dragonstone for the old gods!”, he said quickly, “we are facing the largest dragon in the world!”

The man that was around his age left the tent in a hurry, and Cregan bit his bottom lip strongly, enduring the need to cry

You had been threatened and flied willingly to the enemy hands

He didn’t know Aemond in his entirety, but… he was a man, a dark man… with dark desires. He didn’t have to be a genius or a wizard to know what that man wanted to do to you

His wife, his beautiful, smart, sweet, loving wife who had fled her own home to marry him, to escape that monster, who trusted him to protect her and care for her and keep her safe.

He had failed

In a rage he threw everything he had atop his desk to the dirty ground

You threw yourself to the jaws of the dragon to spare him, he hasn't been fast enough, powerful enough, to protect you, his own wife.

And he could only pray to see you again

It had to be at night

You had manage to hide a small knife in a gartner around your thigh, but for it to work, Aemond needed to be impossibly close, and impossibly distracted and relaxed for it to work

The mere thought made your stomach turn, but it was the only way, and if it was at night, you had a better chance to escape in the night, with Vhaelar being so close

She was injured but you could hear her sing at nights, missing you, so it was clear she was ready to fly away if needed be. 

You shook in anticipation, he had left to arrange some things, and left you alone to put on a very flamboyant dress and jewelry, like the one he gifted you in Winterfell. You whined, scared out of your mind, but you had to remind yourself that you were doing this for a reason, a good reason, for the survival of your family, your husband, your son, Sara, the North, all of them. 

You were getting claustrophobic in this windowless room, it was beautiful decorated, yes, and the candles lit up the room and their scents prevented you from smelling the burn stone and wood and the moist of something that had never seen the sunlight, but they were there, you knew it, like ghosts

Sometimes in those hours he left you, you felt like you couldn’t breathe.

A shaky maid brought you water, wine, bread, cheeses and fruits to calm your needs, and left you without even looking at you. You knew it would be futile to try and talk to her. You knew what Aemond did, killing everyone in the castle, he probably filled it with people loyal to the Greens. 

You were not proud to admit that you drank the full pitch of wine, out of nervousness, and by the time Aemond walked back into the room, you were tipsy, and on your nerves

Aemond didn’t take long to see that

“I’m sorry for leaving you for so long”, he seemed disgustingly pleased with himself, and amused by your tipsiness, “believe me when I say, I wouldn’t have left at all”

“You are here now”, you said, fighting to make it an even voice. He smiled darkly 

“I am”, he took one step towards you, and you couldn’t help but take one step back, making him smile darkly

“You know why you came”, he said

“I know”, you whined, “but Aemond… I need to know…”, he was bored pretty quickly

“Get on the bed”, he commanded, and you whined

“Please”

“I don’t want to force you”, he said simply, clasping his hands together behind his back, “it will be better for the both of us if you surrender yourself to me”, he said simply, with the edge of his mouth turned upwards, in a sick little smile

“Aemond”, you whimpered.

Of course before you kill him, you wanted to see if you could convince him to retreat, but as you could see, there was no going back on his darkness 

“Do it”, he only demanded. By your count, it was already nighttime, so this was it, this was the time to do it.

You walked towards him, turning off your brain and all your thoughts, and you kissed him roughly. He released his own hand and grabbed you almost tenderly, like he couldn’t believe this was happening. But then he kissed you back, taking control, his hands got rough, grabbing your arms, and then your sides, squeezing your flesh

“I‘m enjoying your initiative”, he whispered darkly and your lips left his, but he wasted no time in kissing you again, biting on your lips, making you cry out. When you realized what was about to happen, you needed to fight with yourself to tune yourself off. You needed to be in control if you were really going to go through with your plan.

So you needed to be in control. 

He seemed to sense your urgency, so as he kissed you roughly he led you to the bed.

You fell on top of it hazardously, a mix of limbs and arms, but you were determined. You manage to be on top of him, and your took a sharp breath, the flimsy fabric of your dress already up your thighs 

He looked up at you with wonder in his eye

This was it

And as you accommodated yourself on top of him, you looked down at his face, and he immediately could see that something was wrong, as you couldn’t hide your anger and your hate any longer, you took your hand under the skirt that was already hunched around your thighs, and uncovered the dagger

You were quick, taking both hands and raising the weapon over both your heads, Aemond opened his eye widely, his arms under your knees, he couldn’t do anything. 

His heart was your aim, and as you were lowered the knife into him, he went in so slow you cursed yourself, that is what it felt like, but as you were lowering the knife with was like incredible speed, you were pulled backwards, as sharp nails grabbed you by your hairs and scalp

You whined in pain as you landed on the floor in what seemed to be slow motion, you tried to protect yourself from hitting the stone floor but your arm landed awkwardly, your leg twisted as well. You were not injured, but hurt. Something or someone kicked your hand, the knife flying over the other side of the room, and as you tried to stand, Aemond had done so, and right by your side, was a woman with long dark hairs, sharp green eyes and her face twisted in rage

Aemond could not believe what his eye was seeing

“Do you think she would’ve come freely if you hadn't threatened her?”, she asked bitterly, “she came here to kill you”

“Fuck you!”, you screamed, your nerves in the edge of your skin, you had failed, fatally 

Aemond looked at the scene developing in front of him, his witch, Alys Rivers, the woman he had taken to bed to assert dominance, he could have never imagined she was the owner of a dark power, and then, the woman he truly wanted, on the floor crying in anger, married someone else and had his child, having tried to kill him after she pretended to wanted to be with him. 

Even though Alys knew what his aim was -you-, she even helped him to get to you, and yet, she, as any person would be, was jealous of you, she believed she was the one Aemond should be with, should want, she could give him a child, she could give him everything you could, and more, she could give him dark powers.

Aemond soon was angry, he had lost control of the situation, he had let himself be blinded by you. 

“It’s me who you should be with”, she said bitterly, looking at you still on the floor, pitifully, “it is me who had been faithfully by your side all these months, and it is me who can give you everything you want”

“Get out”, he said bluntly, taking Alys by surprise

“What?”, she snapped, still not impressed

“Get out”, he was fuming, Alys contained her anger, walking away from the room, closing the door with a surprising strength

“Aemond”, you called, scared of what you were seeing, he was very angry, enraged. He grabbed you by the neck, not squeezing but still you couldn’t breathe, he threw you on the bed and as you recuperated, he went to the door, opening it and barked orders to a soldier on the hallway that you couldn’t hear, and the he turned towards you, grabbing his own dagger from his belt

“Please!”, he threw himself on you, straddling your middle, making it hard for you to breathe but he immobilized you. “Please!”

“You are just a tricky little whore!”, he shouted, you had never seen it this angry, he was usually so contained within himself 

“Aemond please don’t do this, please!”, he sliced the top of your dress and then he ripped it off with your own hands, at once you were completely naked underneath him, and then a shaky soldier entered the room, in his hands there was two thin, short chains

“No”, you whined with tears in your eyes, “NO!”, Aemond trapped one of your wrists no matter how hard you fought him, he was stronger than you in aspect, quicker, smarter…

He closed the other ends around the wooden frame of the bed. 

And one you were immobilized in one arm, he went for the other , and he chained you to the bed like you were an animal

The guard left without even looking at you, but you could tell he looked troubled, but there was no time for you to concern yourself with such things, Aemond was looking down at you with a hunger in his eyes that scared you

“You are certainly looser that the last time I saw you”, he mocked, grabbing your chubby hips, you whined, motherhood certainly had taken a toll on you

“Fuck you”, you spit out

“But no matter”, he whispered, “it is still you”

“Please Aemond, it is not too late!”, you begged, “please don’t do this”

“Why can’t you see?”, he growled, “you had been mine all along, it was a mistake on my part to make you believe you had a choice”, you cried underneath him, once he realized you were tied up nicely and tightly, he separated himself from you to undo his breeches, he didn’t even undressed fully, he didn’t even get his clothes off

“Like I said, you are already married, so for now, you are my whore”, he growled, “But I will not forget what you tried to do, you tried to kill me, and your husband will pay the consequences”

“NO!”, you cried, twisting and turning underneath him, crying bitterly, “you promised”

“You have to understand, that my promise is no longer valid after you tried to stab me in the heart”

“You have no heart”, you cried, “please don’t do this”

“I could have been nice, and gentle”, he growled, “but you are more dragon than lamb, are you not?”, he teased, he released his cock, and you whimpered at the sight 

“You are going to give me real children”, he whispered darkly, “dragon princes”, you only shook your head, but you had to look away as he pushed your legs open and placed himself between them

You couldn’t even look at him as you let him take you.

They weren’t advancing fast enough

Cregan thought bitterly, two weeks had passed since he receive the dark news from Winterfell, he knew Aemond had you in his power and he knew what he was capable off

They had already passed the Crossroads Inn and he knew it was a matter of a few kilometers until they could see the burn and cursed towers of Harrenhal

His army was great, he had met men in all the Northerner cities he went through on his journey South, he had a power of ten thousand men 

He would siege the Castle, he knows it will take the lives of many men as Harrenhal was huge and completely defendable once you could take it, but if he could convince the Kinslayer to come and face him face to face, relying on his hate for him, he could take him in a hand to hand combat

But his plans were… mercilessly destroyed

They came at first light, storming his camp, an army of Baratheons and soldiers from the Royal army as well

The surprise factor did take them by surprise but only for a moment, as they retaliated fiercely, they were the winter wolves, the wildest army Westeros has ever seen.

The battle was brutal, mounted soldiers galloping through the tents and breaking havoc, hard tall men throwing them off their horses with axes of war hammers

Cregan, fueled by rage, cut enemy soldiers in half with the strength and power of Ice, his Valyrian sword, screaming in a rage, seeing red everywhere, the battle was soon pretty even, even though the wolves were being attacked by double the numbers

But Cregan had no space on his mind but for one thing

“KINSLAYER!”, he called, freezing everyone around him, and for his luck, or curse, Aemond answered the call, appearing through the soldiers and smoke, and destruction

“Stark”, he called back, soon they were in the middle of a circle, surrounded by men that had stopped the slaughter just to witness something that was going to be written in the storybooks 

“Where is my wife?”, he asked, on guard, with his sword between his hands

“My whore is in Harrenhal, waiting for me in my bed”, he wanted to jump him, cut off his head, but he had to be smarter, he had to beat him. 

“Release her, and I will march away”, he said firmly, Aemond only chuckled, his own sword on his hand, ready for the kill

“I will carve your heart out and present it to her as a wedding present”, he breathed out

“You will have to kill me first”, he threatened, putting himself in a position for attack

“After you are dead, I’m going to fly to that wasteland you call home, I’m going to take your widow in your bed, and I’ll give her my children”

“You are never going to touch her again!”, he growled

“I already did, make her bleed on my cock”, that was not true, but Cregan didn’t care as that was the last straw, with a war cry he threw himself towards Aemond, Ice on hand

The clash was brutal 

Both blinded, one by power and lust, another for love and desperation. It was a fight for the ages, the single strength shown by both in their encounter made the hearts of everybody who was seeing it clench.

The battle around them also continued, each soldier inspired by their leader, soon Cregan and Aemond both got pushed around by the own fights going around them

“But don’t worry, I don’t care about that little brat, I’m going to leave it there”, Aemond teased, “lets see how long it takes your bastard sister to find him in the snow after I take her eyes”

“ARGH!”, Aemond's sword, that was not Valyrian steel, got split in two by the sheer force of Cregan and Ice, Aemond grabbed a shield from the ground, Cregan was stronger than him, but he was way faster and leaner. quicker on his feet, so he managed to dodge every heavy attack, slower by the size of the sword. 

With a growl, and fighting against himself, Aemond retreated, taking advantage of his soldiers around him, Cregan tried to reach him, but his path was cut by Green soldiers 

“FIGHT ME AEMOND!”, he screamed, “CRAVEN!”, but the silver haired man disappeared between his men, walking away from him.

The royal army with the Baratheons surrounded the Northmen, making them so tightly against one another they could barely move

Cregan could barely breathe, as he looked around in desperation, it was a sickening moment, in which for him, all hope was lost. Jon was by his side on a second

“My father is leading half the army to surround them, we are going to be fine!”, he managed to scream, Cregan had to believe him, but the sheer force of the attack was unbelievable, the worst part wasn't even… Cregan gasped loudly, as he watched frantically for the skies. 

They had placed his camp on a valley, that was their first mistake, even though he had placed watchers on any high point around it, they had been clearly slain without anybody knowing, so they were in the worst place possible 

It was moments that felt like hours, as the Northmen fought their way to make room, to recuperate ground, but they were having a hard time doing so, and that is when… all hell broke loose

“DRAGONFIRE!”, screamed another one

“COVER OUR LORD!”

“NO!”, it all happened so fast, Cregan remembered being pushed to the ground, in the reduced space, in the mayhem, in the midst of battle, someone hit him in the head, it could have been a foot, it could have been a shield of the pointless part of a spear, but he lost himself in the roar of battle.

More notes: THIS WAS INTENSE, I couldn't bring myself to write *that* scene, but still you get the picture... Don't hate me please, you know, or at least some of you know, that I'm a sucker for happy endings... hehe this isn't over yet!

taglist!

@severewobblerlightdragon @missusnora @stargaryenx @poppyreader @chainsawsangel @court-jester-stuff @batprincess1013 @eddiepicker 

@lyannesworld @arujee @kamisunshine @​​mss-nthng @partypoison00 @grimistangel @elleclairez @may-machin @prettykinkysoul @justagurlwithships @champomiel 

@laura-naruto-fan1998 @zoleea-exultant @devotedlythoughtfulanchor @zoleea-exultant @llleon666 @dark-night-sky-99 @bitchigoteverythingissues @harrypotteranna23-blog@esposadomd @ajanauia @phantomtea19 @let-love-bleeds-red @kishie8 @dreamingofyourmoons @esposadomd @sandronebabyy @kemillyfreitas @​​trifoliumviridi @dreamingofyourmoons @darling-jace @biblichorr @ivvypg @mendes-bae @borikenlove @tssf-imagines @praline357 @alitaar @prettykinkysoul @aelora-a @a-mexican-waffle @ateliefloresdaprimavera @alexa4040 @lrboyd @anditsmywholeheart  @weaselyss  @scarlettqueen190 @deeeeexx @cloudroomblog @dreaming-of-the-reality @yentroucnagol @crazymusicgirl104

[theprettylatina]

A tumblr exclusive, I guess. My new main X-Men OC: JADE LIRA.

Some basics include:

Age: 31

Mutation: Mineralogy/Crystallization

Education: B.S. in Geology, minor in chemistry

Alignment: Magneto / Lawful Evil

"Hero" name: GEMINI

Here is the full low down! STORYTIME:

Jade Lira's family moved up the social ladder when her father started his own construction company. She and her sister were sent to a private school where they were one of the few people of color. To make matters more difficult, Jade's mutation hit her the same week her period did, at 14 years old, on day 3 of sophomore year. Her skin fractured, glittered, and dragged her arms down to her knees. Her skin, glinting in the bright lights of a classroom, was now made of diamond. Horrified, Jade ran home where her family hid her for a week while they learned how to hide and control her mutation. Jade never forgets the red puffy face of her little sister Rosa, only a year younger, who weeped "Is that going to happen to me!?" The incident was brushed under the rug officially, but Jade became the target of mutant hate and harassment. Her sister too became a target but was mostly ignored and ostracized. Jade focused hard on her studies to become a geologist. She wanted to learn about her mutation. That did not stop her from getting into fights to fight off bullies or defend her sister. The infamous portrait of the sisters three days after a fight hung over the Lira house mantle for a short time. Things became more difficult to Rosa, Jade's year younger sister when Jade graduated. Jade never forgets the day.

TW: Bullying, murder, discrimination, death, drunk driving

She'd written the date and time on her hand. "Pick up Rosa at 4:30". It was the last day of Rosa's senior year, it was already 4:15, and she was right on schedule! As she neared the corner of the school, the scream of sirens rattled her car. She parked, greeted with a scene of firefighters and cop cars surrounding the school's gated entrance. A tug at her heart and a lurch in her stomach told her all she needed to know. The sisterly bond was severed. She raced forward, screaming, hands clawed and grabbed, but nothing matched her strength and anger and fear. Hands slipped against her gemstone-smooth skin. She followed the path of paramedics and gawking teachers toward the pool. Her sister hated swimming. At the pool's edge, a paramedic stood over a sheet-covered silhouette. At her approach, the paramedic jumped back and teachers and cops crowded closer from behind. With a trembling hand, Jade pulled back the sheet. Her sister's face was bruised to black and blue, her lips looked like rolls, her neck marked in red, and carved across her forehead was the word that sent Jade over the edge. She hurled into the pool. Heaving and breathless. Even with her eyes closed she could see her sister's bloodied face and that word. MUTANT. Rage coursed through her blood. She knew. She knew who did this. A cop shouted at her from the pool's fence. She blinked into a gun muzzle pointed at her. That's when she knew. They were going to get away with it. Those disgusting rich mutant haters were going to get away with murder. Her lips curled back and a bullet bounced off her shoulder. A smoking hole in her shirt and a startled face meant nothing and another bullet bounced off her body. She marched forward and people screamed. Teachers, her teachers, screamed. Not from what had happened to her sister, but because of her. Jade felt her heart crack. "good," she whispered, "they should be." Two days later at a graduation house party, Jade donned all black and made her way in. She spotted them all in a corner. The 5 murderers. Her hands began to burn, her skin boiled and roiled with bubbling magma. She'd been spotted. The sea parted. Lava dripped from her fingertips. Fear spread like a wildfire. Jade grabbed the closest killer, "I think things are about to get a little heated," she smiled, and stuck her fingers into his mouth.

Jade's father became so distraught at the death of his daughter that he turned to drinking. 2 months later, an accident on the road ended his life and the shock gave her mother a heart attack at the door. Jade ended up alone and was now free to remold herself and go on the run.

TRAUMA! Yay! Jade is now a certified killer. Jade has a deep love for mutants, their allies, and the mutant community. She eventually makes her home on Genosha at Magneto's request, with whom she trained and philosophied with for several years after graduating from university under a false name (Magdalena Duarte). Jade's past and crusade made some uncomfortable but Magneto's relationship with her kept them from saying much else. Jade was a survivor of Genosha after the attack.

When asked to join the X-Men in her early twenties this is her response (also seen in the artwork above): "That is why I would never join you! you preach acceptance but accept tolerance and tolerance has gotten you nowhere! Now, I demand acceptance and will tolerate nothing less."

TLDR: Jade kills her sister's murderers, becomes a Geologist, and joins Magneto on his quest to elevate mutantkind.

@fototingobug Here is my terrifying baby gorl!

[atopvisenyashill]

Say Nymeria was also chained up and thus couldn't interfere at the Trident and Joffrey ended up killing Arya (whether it was accidental or not) what happens? What does Robert do if his son just killed his best friends daughter?

I mean Brandon wanted to murder Rhaegar for kidnapping Lyanna, and Ned and Robert went to war over the bad behavior of a king and his heir, so I imagine both of them are like, extremely triggered by this whole thing emotionally.

And like....this one is also just as wild as the "Joffrey executes Sansa" one because like, Arya is a noble born girl and even if she's picking a fight with the crown prince over the honor of her peasant born friend, i'm sure basically everyone can agree that there are easier ways to deal with her, like disarming her and knocking her out, instead of - i'm assuming - just hacking her to death with a fucking sword in front of her screaming sister. This isn't a cat that Joffrey chopped up in a fucked up imitation of his father's love of hunting, this is a human child and daughter of one of the most powerful families in all of Westeros. People on the other side of the damn world know who Ned Stark is, it's not something to take lightly. Not to mention he'll have done this while the entire royal family AND half the Kingsguard is in Tully lands aka if Cat, Ned, and Edmure are feeling pissed off enough, they can make things really fucking hard for the royal progress to get back to the safety of King's Landing's walls.

Anyways, considering we know Robert has no qualms about beating the ever loving shit out of his family, even with Robert's general cowardice when it comes to reigning in Cersei's own temper, I do think it's not unlikely that when Sansa runs back to camp sobbing and screaming that Arya has been murdered by Joffrey, and Ned demands Joffrey get put on trial for murder, that Robert might just ~deal with the problem~ himself by breaking Joffrey's face open, and probably slap Cersei around as well, something Jaime will not take kindly too, and probably Ned is going to be annoyed with as well because like, he doesn't want Robert to physically abuse his kid, he wants Robert to put that fucking kid on trial for murder. If Robert doesn't want to do anything besides just like, beat the shit out of Joffrey, Ned is taking everyone home...and I think Tyrion doesn't get to Winterfell until after the Trident incident which probably means when Tyrion shows up in Winterfell, the Starks may keep him hostage, which is going to kickstart the conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters. But also, if Robert won't do anything about Joffrey, Ned is also taking everyone home, and again, Tyrion is in a not small amount of trouble. I'm sure Cersei would try to have Ned taken before he leaves but they're in Tully lands, and if Edmure and Cat find out that Ned is being held hostage by the Queen, Edmure is just sending a host out to get Ned, Sansa, and the Northern faction.

If Robert does decide to do something....probably he has Joffrey marched up to the Wall, because I imagine it would look bad if Robert executes his own son? And then Tommen becomes heir. But Cersei is not going to be okay with this, and she will start plotting to kill him quicker, and I don't even think that Joffrey facing a consequence would make Ned want to bring Sansa south, even if he goes south to help Robert.

[female-malice]

Opinion | Women are leading a revolution in Iran. When will Western feminists help?

By Masih Alinejad

A new popular uprising is taking place in Iran, and this time women are in the lead. It’s incredibly inspiring to see — for the first time I can remember — unveiled women marching at the front. They have overcome fear and are challenging one of the main pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran: compulsory hijab.

These women are marching shoulder to shoulder with men, chanting against the whole regime. They are facing guns and bullets and demanding an end to a system of gender apartheid.

Mahsa Amini was only 22 years old. She wasn’t uncovered; only a few strands of her hair showed. And yet she was arrested by the so-called “morality police” and packed off to jail. Three days later she was dead. Many Iranians are convinced she was killed —a belief reinforced by countless individual experiences with the brutality of the security services.

The news of her death has triggered outrage throughout Iran. Tens of thousands of demonstrators are defying security forces to ask why an innocent young woman lost her life to religious radicals who merely wanted to show off their militant male power. The compulsory hijab is not just a small piece of cloth for Iranian women; it is the most visible symbol of how we are oppressed by a tyrannical theocracy. Now, by drawing attention to that injustice, Mahsa’s death has the potential to serve as a new turning point for Iranian women.

They deserve the support of their Western counterparts. Yet so far we see little evidence that women in Europe or North America are willing to take to the streets to show their solidarity for a women’s revolution in Iran.

Recent experience has been discouraging. Over the past decade, we’ve seen female politicians from democratic countries — including Ségolène Royal from France, Catherine Ashton from the United Kingdom, and Federica Mogherini from Italy — don hijab on their visits to Iran. All these female politicians are quick to assert their feminist credentials in their own societies — but when it comes to Iran they go out of their way to show deference to the men who have elevated misogyny to a state principle. A regime that abuses and harasses millions of women each year does not deserve our respect. To do so makes a mockery of all our talk of universal human rights.

When the Women’s March took place in Washington, D.C., in 2017, I was happy to join. Along with the rest I chanted: “My body, my choice.” Some women might well choose to veil their faces and bodies in accordance with their religious or cultural beliefs — but that should be a matter of their own choice, not a rule imposed by the whips and clubs of men. Yet Western women seem only too happy to succumb to the standards dictated by the male tyrants in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran.

I don’t consider such feminists to be true advocates of women’s rights. The true feminists and women’s rights activists are those in Afghanistan and Iran who are stepping forward, at great cost, to resist the Taliban and Islamic republic. They are the true feminist leaders of the 21st century, risking their lives by facing guns and bullets. They will go on fighting against the regimes, and we who have the privilege to live in free countries should actively amplify their voices. This is the moment for women in the West to stand with Iran’s mothers, daughters and sisters.

I will not remain silent. I will continue to speak out until compulsory hijab laws are abolished. Like the women now taking to the streets in my home country, I, too, have been targeted by the regime. I have chosen to speak up despite that regime’s attacks on my family, and its attempts to have me abducted or killed. In this, I feel deep solitary with the thousands of women protesting in Iran. I will continue to do what I can to support their struggle, to help them achieve their rights.

My wish is for all of us to be louder than the tyrants. I call on the free world to join the protesters in calling for an end to the murderous regime of the ayatollahs. Iranian women are fighting to recover our dignity and exercise our personal freedoms — so that, one day, all Iranians can finally choose our government in free and fair elections. We shouldn’t be afraid of the religious fanatics and the jihadists. They are the ones who are frightened. It is why they seek to keep women down. Women in the streets are paying with their lives for change. But too many in the outside world are shaking hands with our murderers.

I am asking all Western feminists to speak up. Join us. Make a video. Cut your hair. Burn a headscarf. Share it on social media and boost Iranian voices. Use your freedom to say her name. Her name was Mahsa Amini.

[kingdoms-and-empires]

Lol bunking off the artillery ask, so we can be a completely deranged sociopath queen and (assuming we keep our capabilities on the ruling part) still rise to sit cozily on our blood soaked throne? Dang that's rad 😈

I hate it when stories punish the MC for being ruthless or crazy. Like it so obviously makes it so you have a "bad" ending. Ruthlessness is a quality that isn't expressly malicious in intent. People like Remiel don't wake up going "Mhm, it smells like a beautiful morning to go sicko mode and ruin the lives of others!" Its more like "Ah shit, lets see...whats the best way to get what i want and return the best investment for my effort?"

Ruthless characters in history have always existed and have been successful. Julius Caesar (you know him), Cao Cao (one of the warlords of the Three Kingdoms era), Augustus (first Roman Emperor), Qin Shi Huang (First Unifier of China), and Napoleon Bonaparte (Emperor of France and possibly last historical figure to stand with the men above.)

Is this something only linked with men? Fuuuuuck no. Lemme list some women up in here.

Wu Zetian The only Empress in China's 3,000-long history

Her reign was one of the more successful ones that economically benefited the country, militarily expanded the borders, and had an all-male harem for her own pleasure...home girl died at 81 after ruling for more than half a century.

Catherine the Great, Russian monarch who helped modernize her empire and even introduced vaccination to her people by being the first to try it out.

Hatshepsut, a female Pharoah of Egypt who put all the guys in her generation to shame. She launched a successful invasion, went on a building spree that following pharaohs would try to take credit for, and established new trading routes before dying in 1458 B.C. THATS 3,480 YEARS AGO!!!!! Give or take, i suck at math

Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great. Ima be honest. There wouldn't be an Alex if his momma didn't Game of Thrones the shit outta everyone else. She, "insisted she had a dream just before Alexander’s conception where a thunderbolt ignited her womb with an enormous fire." Supernatural street cred, check. She and her husband Philip II were fighting, baaaadly. So Philip married another girl and oh there popped a new baby boy! This of course meant a rival to our Alex since the baby was a full Macedonian. Now, I'm not saying Olympias killed her husband, buuuuut lets say she was quick with the aftermath. She immediately assassinated Alexander's half siblings, including the newborn baby boy, forced their mother to kill herself, destroyed the rival family, and then said, "Fuck it, it was true, I cheated on my husband WITH ZEUS!" Oh god and that's not even all..when her son Alexander finally did die, guess what she did. She marched on macedon with an army. And when an enemy army lined up against hers, she rode out, said "Im Alexander the great's mom, how bout dat?" and they joined her side instead. THEN with this new double army, she finished up killing another rival of hers; the queen famously sent Adea Eurydice a cup of poison, a noose, and a sword…then told her to choose how she would die. Eurydice chose to hang.

And of course Cleopatra, the one who banged Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony...that also spoke no less than nine languages, and possibly upwards of 12, who was also an author. She wrote a medicinal and pharmacological book called Cosmetics which included, amongst other things, remedies for male pattern baldness and dandruff. (I'm looking at Julius and Anthony...) She killed her brother and sister to consolidate her throne, led a fleet, and revitalized an Egypt that was in the down turn until her death.

Hope ive proven that ruthlessness, something all these ladies had to have in order to survive in a world where men traditional held power, is not the shoe in "bad trait" to have that modern writers portray it as.

[isa-ah]

big long bluhhgg under the cut lol <3

idk i woke up in my feeilngs this morning so i figure its worth like. talking about i guess. i havent really gone over this again in a couple years so like. yknow. my life story or whatever

so my mom was a kid when she got pregnant and bc of that my grandma took over raising me & even as my mom grew up and moved out i staid put bc as far as i was concerned, my grandparents were my real parents. my mom went on to marry a guy and have two other kids, who she treats like her only kids lol she has her family unit, i have mine, fine. whatever.

when i was a little tiny thing my grandfather was a truck driver. hed only be home once in a blue moon but hed always bring back the coolest little things for me from his buddies and travels. (he had a LOT of stories, about long haul truck driving, being a shrimper til his boat capsized and he nearly froze to death, being stationed in okinawa, all the way back to being raised by an incredibly abusive drunk who ended up blowing his brains out. he used to get all starry eyed in a way id never see him otherwise when hed talk about how cool his dad was, taking him as a young boy to all the local bars. hm.)

my grandmother had a plethora of stories to the same. her parents were both prisoners of war; my great grandmother would tell me about eating snails off the toilets for nourishment while she was in the concentration camps, and my great grandfather idealized the american soldiers that liberated them so greatly he ripped his family up and moved to america the moment they were freed. they would eat hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner nearly every night "like a real american family." they had two kids together- my grandma, and her little brother.

her father enlisted in the american military when they landed here and so she was an army brat. she never got to set down roots really, and was deeply bullied by her peers and beaten to the point of having scars to show me in her late fifties. shed detail the horrible things he did to her, and how it pushed her to sitting in a bathtub alone one night, trying to slit her wrists when a warmth brushed up her back and asked gently against her ear; who do you think will have to clean this up? and after realizing it would be her little brother, she picked herself up and marched on.

(its funny. at one of my lowest points i had nearly the same experience.)

her father would go on to cheat on her pregnant mother, accusing her of infidelity and abandoning her with the baby, my grandma and her brother, and marrying another woman the moment the divorce finalized. the children he would go on to sire with her would create a wide rift in my family of in-fightng and nastiness, as his children believed without doubt that my grandmothers little sister was a bastard and not one of his own.

(at my grandmothers funeral, her sister would confront their ancient ninety-something father, lost almost entirely to his alzheimers as he clung to his wife and cried, with a DNA test proving she was always his daughter. it was really bad.)

my family is known for that in fighting now. the hedrics vs the brodeurs vs the nothern virginia family vs the florida family vs the- on and on and on. always fighting, bickering, cutting people off at the arm. nastiness. its how i was raised, to be angry and cruel, and its difficult to maintain sometimes.

so on we go- my grandfather developed diabetes too severe to keep trucking, and so he lost his job. he sat down in his recliner in front of the TV when he got home from work for the last time and in that recliner he sat til the day he died. nearly twenty years, and id say he left the house maybe a dozen times. no friends, no trips, only attending holidays that were hosted in our tiny home and only speaking to people who were there to visit my grandmother. he would wake up around 9pm and the sound of his tv would blare through the wall of my bedroom until nearly 4pm when hed toddle off to bed. i still cant sleep in silence.

my grandmothers diagnosis wasnt far behind; breast cancer. likely from some hormones shed taken decades prior before the effects of such things had been seen. she was scared, but she was strong, and her best friend moved down from massy to live a couple minutes up the road and help us on the daily. his name was jimmy blackbar, but we always called him jimmy black bear because he was a huge man with a frothy mane of black hair. from then on, we did everything as a unit; every errand, every outing, he even joined my karate dojo when i was forced to learn self defense following the abduction of a local girl.

and on life went. doctors appointments, whispered conversations, attending every susan g komen for the cure event in a wide radius around where we lived. we volunteered relentlessly; my grandmother wearing the "survivor" shirts, and me, a tiny thing in third or fourth grade, pushing her wheelchair and wearing the "caretaker" shirt. jimmy always in tow.

there came a week where we hadnt heard from jimmy in a few days and so, upon leaving the dojo to head home, as we passed his house i asked if we could check on him. my grandmother placated me, saying a man needs his space, and clearly he did bc he hadnt been at practice. just let him rest.

now, that was fair enough. while we did nearly everything together- even spending the autumn in massy with his mother once, arguably one of the most beautiful memories i have as my grandmother and i fed the koi out back then laid in a hammock for hours staring up at the orange and yellow canopy above- he had an explosive temper and had lost it frequently on the both of us. i loved him, but god he could be scary, and hed whip shit at you if he was particularly hot. maybe that was all he needed then, a little space.

a week later my mom picked me up from elementary school and burst into tears in the parking lot. "its jimmy, baby. his heart stopped."

hed had an aneurism and they found him face down on the floor of his bathroom. hed been laying there like that for days, clinging to life; hed been laying there, even, when we drove past a few days prior. i never forgot that.

life went on. it felt empty without him, and i started living up to that caretaker role more and more. heavy lifting, picking, moving; echoed even in my late twenties with my crippling sciatica. every doctors appointment, medication change, every cup of coffee. i was on call.

"jo-bear." "lucy." "goose." "trouble." "brat."

like clockwork, eternally being called up. can you do the dishes? laundry? sweep, mop? can you get this for me? can you help me? can you get my meds? and the less enjoyable; my shingles are flaring, can you put this on there? my drainage tubes are clogged, can you help me flush them? my port needs to be accessed, can you administer this?

why, you ask, would a 13 year old be well versed in clearing, accessing, and administering to a port in their grandmothers chest? well, easy. the nurses we paid to drive well out into the boonies to do it for us said it was too far. it fucked up their schedules. it was a waste of gas. and so they looked around at our home, tiny, with only a woodstove for heating, nicotine dripping down the walls and bare cabinets and pantry, and then they looked at me and asked; do you want to know how to do this instead? and dutiful, because i was a caregiver, because thats what everyone told me, i learned.

being poor is hard. being poor and sick is impossible. the cost of chemo, radiation, insulin, the gas to drive back and forth nearly five hours round trip to visit the hospitals, the doctors- we would only go grocery shopping once a month. my grandmother got social security and my grandfather got disability. wed bundle up what money we could and drive out to the nearest city to buy staples in bulk and pray. it meant i spent most of my childhood eating cereal for meals, or scraping together mayo on bread, or just outright nursing ketchup. i honestly can only remember maybe three instances of my grandmother cooking for me, cooking her special mac n cheese, and my mother told me years later that she always wondered how i got enough to eat.

the local food bank helped, i guess. a small church in town would gather the things the stores were about to throw away, like expired or moldy produce and bread, and then lay it out on the tables and have us all stand around them with our hands at the ready. theyd count down, then call "go!" and we would scramble to gather up anything we could reach to take home. it only happened once a month, so we tried to make the best of it.

after years of battling, my grandmother finally got the formal title of "remission." shed done it! it wasnt easy; there was mishap after mishap, infections, complications, her chest was a mutilated plane of ridges and folds that had at one point burst open and sprayed blood across the bathroom mirror as she screamed my name and sobbed for my grandfather. but finally, she was in remission.

for a few months, anyway. she began to grow uneasy, asking doctors for advice, for scans, because she could feel it encroaching. they all told her she had no insurance and was just paranoid from her battle. it took her months to finally find a doctor that took her seriously enough to humor a scan, and by then the cancer was everywhere. her ribs, her spine, her skull; it was everywhere.

the only person who took the news harder than her was my grandfather. he didnt want to watch her die, so he decided to do everything in his power short of killing himself to make sure he died first. his insulin shots were regular, but his sugar intake was not. he refused physical therapy, stopped going to his doctors appointments, and left our house to smell like the decomposition of human flesh as his feet began to rot.

"rot" sounds like a strong word. the decay was really happening; dry and wet gangreen, his toe coming off in my grandmothers hand at the lightest tug, and an extended hospital stay in which he was deeply deeply lucky not to succumb to sepsis. it was bad. but he was alive.

my mental health had at this point deteriorated to such a point i wasnt sleeping anymore. my grandmother was put on ambien, and as such began sundowning; wandering the house like a brittle confused ghost of a woman. she had dropped weight as she went back on chemo, rapidly dipping from 300lbs down to nearly scraping the bottom of 100lbs. she was shaped like a paper doll by then, wide from the front but she would turn to the side and disappear. i could hold my elbows around her. her head was bald and her feet were cold. she had a soft spot on the top of her skull that malformed her head where the radiation had eaten away the bone alongside the cancer. the knot on her forehead persisted.

she would never recall what she did at night, and while at the time i was indignant- i wasnt sleeping because she would call in a slurred haze to cancel taxis that werent due for several more hours but she thought had never shown up at all for doctors appointments she needed; she would fumble with the locks trying to wander out into the snow in the middle of the night, confused; she would yell my aunts name at me and berate me for trying to coax her back to bed; she would pull down what meager things we had in the kitchen and slurry them, ruin them, then blame me come morning; or, worst of all, she would simply find a place to stand. at the oven, by the small yellow light of its hood, staring into space for hours unresponsive- how dare she not remember how hard i had to work, how tired i was trying to keep her safe, and blame me for it too? it wasnt until reflection years later that i realized her denial was probably born of fear.

the ambien was my own waking nightmare, but it wasnt the worst of it. with my grandfathers rotten feet and my grandmothers mindless stumbling, falls were frequent. i had to be alert. i had to be ready. i never know when one of them would fall wrong and crack their head open on a corner. the mental image is as potent to me now as it was as a child, terrified in the half second of bone chilling silence that would come between the staggering of someones steps and the thundering peels of a body clattering sprawled across the floor. id be up and out of my room in a heartbeat to help, lifting people bigger than myself on pure adrenaline alone back to their seats so i could assess them.

the emergency squad, as you can imagine, was well acquainted with us. most falls had to be documented at least, hospitalized at worst, and so they would begin to come out every few months- then weeks- then days. they knew all of our pets by name. they regarded me with warm sadness. i think they must have said something to my grandfather, as in the thick of it hed tried to pack me up and throw me out. "this isnt a place for children," but if i left theyd have no one left. who would pick them up? check their medication? call the doctors, the emergency line, the taxis? who would make their coffee?

and so stubbornly i staid. i was a caregiver, after all, i was trained by the nurses and professionals who couldnt be bothered. i had to stay. i had to stay. i had to stay.

i stopped spending time with any of my friends beyond taylor. i stopped sleeping over with family. i stopped making day trips. eventually, around 13, i dropped out of school entirely.

i was falling asleep at my desk every day, horrified every bus ride home that id walk in to blood and gore and death. i was too distracted to learn anything and too afraid to really enjoy myself anyway. school wasnt an escape anymore when i was needed so desperately at home.

and so i stopped leaving the house really altogether, unless it was to go somewhere with them or to visit taylor (my rock). id thought at the time that her mother was my saving grace, the only adult in the world who understood me, who would drop everything to help me. i found out later that she hated me, and only did it to martyr herself to her peers and daughter.

as my grandmothers health declined over my teenage years, my grandfather became more erratic. he would throw fits, thundering around the house, slamming shit and crying, yelling at me because, "i'm dying too! im dying and nobody CARES! im dying and no one will even MISS ME!" as i sobbed and tried to reassure him. "my WIFE is DYING and theres NOTHING I CAN DO!"

and at the other end of things, my grandmother; wailing behind locked doors that my grandfather didnt love her anymore, that she was hideous, mutilated, she wasnt a woman anymore nevermind a human at all. i would lay against the door and beg her to unlock it so i could hug her, hold her, promise her that wasnt true. she never did let me in.

and so on life went. winters were always the hardest; we only had a woodstove, so my room was nearly perpetually the outdoor temperature. id sleep bundled in layers, wearing three pairs of socks to try to keep the frigid ache out of my feet, bundled up right up to a hat and hood over my head buried under three blankets to try to keep in some of the heat. it only worked so well when i was up and down all night anyway, looking after them. my grandmother was so withered she hardly produced her own heat anymore, and my grandfather had lost all feeling in his feet; often, hed find, they were resting against the broad side of the fireplace and burning, or the dogs were chewing on them. it was bleak.

now, throughout all of this i had tried my best to stay positive. id been raised in a southern baptist church that i had, at the height of my faith, been visiting four or five times a week. if anyone was going to help me save my grandparents, to be a good caregiver, it would be god right? even if no one else on the planet gave a shit, at least he would, right? at least, so long as i was good, and pure, and holy. no drugs, no alcohol, no self exploration, no expressions of sexuality- nothing. i did absolutely nothing, but try to focus on being a good christian and taking care of my grandparents.

at least, until the tension between my desperate dysphoria and my faith hit a breaking point when a gay couple joined our church and the pastor threw his sermon out the window to preach hellfire and death to faggots. they left in tears in the middle of the sermon and i was spun out and listless thereafter.

i dont honestly remember much from the time i dropped out until nearly 18. i was accused often and loudly of being a drug addicted whore, a liar, a slut, of being inappropriate with my grandfather, with my brothers, entirely baselessly, all thrown at me as a confused and hurt child by my family. it was my first real point of contention with my identity. while id gotten away with looking entirely ambiguous and using male names, male haircuts, male clothes, male interests and male friends to soothe my permeating wrongness at being called a girl, puberty was not kind to me. and with the unease over my gender and sexuality with seemingly no out (as who in a small christian town would have informed me of trans mens existence?), and with the deeply seeded feeling of utter failure as a caregiver whos patients were dying in front of them, and with the loss of my faith that had taught me near lethal levels of self hatred, i had no idea who i was anymore. no name felt right. no role. no place. i was nothing and no one.

and then my grandma died.

it wasnt a surprise. shed been declared "dying" twice before, and had survived. and while shed finally been moved to live with her son as he was right up the road from the hospital a good two and a half hours from us, and had been formally enrolled in hospice, and had withered into the skeletal apparition of a woman, i dont know how serious any of us could take the finality of her, once more, being declared "dying." she wouldnt live to see sunday. it was wednesday.

we went to visit her that day. she lay near motionless in bed, her voice soft and airy. id felt sick, nauseous, unsure of what to even do with myself. i laid with her. i held her. i told her how much i loved her. but the reality of it just kept bouncing off of me. i said my goodbyes, temporarily, until we visited again on saturday- i told her wed be back soon. and i walked out to the living room.

my mom and uncle talked a while longer, and so a good fifteen minutes had elapsed before we turned to actually leave. from her room down the hall i heard her calling. "i love you." and i was so exhausted, so callous in that moment, that from the living room i called back, "i love you too!" rather than taking that opportunity to see her one last time. we were coming back after all.

well. we didnt make it in time.

my grandfather had been hospitalized for the last week or so nearby, and his visit the night before ours hed told her gently, kindly, that she didnt have to keep holding on. it was okay to let go. wed be okay. and so she had, only a few hours after he left. i never got to see her again- she was cremated too soon after.

i have never, never forgiven myself for that. for not going back to see her when she called to me. i had no idea then what it would mean for her to truly die. to never see her, hear her, speak to her, hold her again. never. i didnt know any better.

my grandfather didnt find out until twelve hours later. my grandmother died november fourth, 2014, at around 4am. we visited him in the hospital as a family that same day, around 4pm, after wed all figured out what to say. when he saw us walk in the door, grim and pale and together, hed started hitching as if to vomit or sob or both before anyone had said a word.

after they told him he screamed at us, berated us, why would we wait so long to tell him? why wasnt he there for her? why didnt we call? and as he screamed his kids left one by one until it was only me at his bedside as he broke down. i held him in my arms as he wracked sobs and spit and sweat into the crook of my neck and clutched my shirt like he was a dying man himself.

i spent hours in bed with him, and every nurse, and every doctor who came through to check on us thereafter, and every aid at the nursing home he was sent to recover in received the same monotone greeting; "my name is roland brodeur, and my wife is dead."

i was alone for the week after. i didnt know what to think, or feel. relief, more than anything, at the time. it hd been so hard for so long to try to keep her together, keep myself together, keep our family together; no longer did i need to be up every night to make sure she wasnt hurt. no more wailing and vommitting in the bathroom. no more port flushes, or bandages, or wigs, or hair chunks in the food, or laughter, or her smokers cough, or the way shed say my name, or,

my grandfather successfully broke himself out of that nursing home three times in the week thereafter. only once did he reach the street without falling, and while he had no idea how to get home, he began walking anyway. they caught him, of course, but he was discharged soon after.

and so it was the two of us. wed never been exceedingly close, but without my grandmothers boisterous personality to fill the quiet crevices we began to spend more time together. it was slow; her memorial service was very very hard on us as i, 17, had tried to play host to people twice or thrice my age, and hed refused to come then changed his mind too late and missed it entirely; but we began to spend nearly all of our time together in the living room.

finally, for the first time in my life, he began to take his health seriously. she was dead, and he was alive, and i was still here. so our diets shifted, and he began attending his doctors appointments and bringing home small items for his physical therapy. we were going to be okay.

i turned 18 that december. the holidays were solemn; i was driven out to my aunts where my grandfather had promised to soon follow, but he never showed up. i spent christmas crying to myself, surrounded by family, and he spent it alone in our tiny rotting house.

come new years eve, he, taylor and i sat around trying to enjoy ourselves. this would be a fresh start. this would be a clean late. a month out from her death, maybe we could recover. taylor went to bed, he staid at his post in front of the tv, and i found things to occupy myself until i got tired enough to sleep. (it was hard, sleeping).

come 4am, i crossed the hall to get ready for bed and to say my goodnights to my grandfather. even at a distance though, i could tell something was wrong. he was pallid, sweaty, head hung and eyes glazed. i rushed to his side, turning on nearly every light in the house in the process, trying to get his attention.

he replied in garbled quiet syllables. i called my mom. she told me she was coming. he had a seizure. i called the emergency squad.

and so i staid there, kneeling in front of him and holding his hand, promising over and over again that i was here, im here, im here, im here, theyre coming and im here, its okay, im here.

they arrived nearly simultaneously; bursting through the front door to see what was wrong. over the course of their visit they realized his sugars were off the charts and pumped some insulin into him. as the levels came down he came back to himself, his vision and speech clearing until he was shrugging off their concerns and even cracking a joke. the tension began to ease. hes okay.

and then he had another seizure.

there was a beat of absolute silence before he sucked in a breath and the medic in front of him dropped to his knees to check on him. he was okay. a little out of it, but responsive. thank god.

and then he had another seizure.

and this time, the breath didnt follow. the medics voice pitched up as he repeated his name over and over again, calling him, checking his pulse, his pupils, and as a flurry of yelling began my mom started screaming at me to go to my room. i was gutted, breathless, silent, staring at my grandfathers limp body as the medics swarmed back through the front door and began using the paddles to try to bring him back.

i did relent to my mothers keening, stumbling numb back to my bedroom to where taylor somehow slept peacefully. heavy with grief already weighing in my chest, i crawled up her body and fell face down and sobbing into her stomach. i didnt know what else to do.

the ambulance took him to be air lifted. they did everything they could. he was dead before he ever left our property, though.

the image that still stands out to me was of my mother. it had been with my grandmother too- id been sleeping on her couch as she paced through the living room, crying quietly into the phone, and as i woke up, i knew. and here to, she was on her knees on the living room floor, sobbing and begging god not to take both of her parents so soon. i held her while she cried and told her it would be okay, even if i didnt believe it myself.

its a long drive from so far out in the sticks to reach the hospital. the wait seemed even longer once we were there. they stuck us in a quiet side room, isolated, seemingly endlessly. my mother and i had been crying on and off but taylor had remained stony faced and strong for me. it was only when i looked to her, feeling nothing but coldness in my soul and whispered, "i dont want to be an orphan." that a single tear rolled down her cheek and nothing else.

i think in all the time this happened, taylor was the only person who ever held me.

when the doctor finally arrived, it was with the news we all expected. "im sorry," as he handed my mom a box of tissues, "we did everything we could. he was dead long before he arrived here."

he lead us to see my grandfathers body. it was surreal, to see him laying there, tinted purple and bruised all over. his eyelids were ruddy, and the hand id been clutching hours previous was like ice. his skin still somehow pliant, while his joints had begun to stiffen. i just stood there and held it for what felt like hours. my mother told me later he looked like he was smiling, but i never saw it.

and so. on life goes. my mom drove taylor and i back to my empty terrible little home and dropped us off. we milled around, exhausted, but sleepless. she helped me rearrange the furniture to put less of an emphasis on my grandparents favorite places to sit, as they were plainly visible from my bedroom doorway and the torment was endless as my head turned to smile at them every time i left to use the bathroom. it was awful. when taylor had to leave, i was just left there, alone.

i had failed as a caregiver. i had failed as a grandchild. i had failed as their youngest. i had no one in the world in that moment. that winter was bitter, and i couldnt bring myself to be present enough to keep the woodstove lit. the animals and i all froze for it, but i could barely climb out of bed. no heat, no cable, nothing to comfort me left beyond my own meager devices. i had the first two hobbit movies on dvd and so i stuck them into my xbox and they played nonstop on loop for months. it was the only way to fill the silence. the only voices i could listen to. i dont remember eating a single thing. my family just left me there. i was no ones responsibility, and so i would be no ones burden. as an adult i learned they all felt so guilty over what id been put through they didnt want to face what i would have become after that.

it was in this time the nightmares really began. there was one, one specific nightmare, in which i was in my house in the dead of night with nothing but pitch black outside, and i would run door to door trying to keep them locked and the horrible cruel things outside at bay. i never did see them, whatever i was desperately trying to hide from, but it was omnipresent and i was terrified of it.

at every turn the doors would again be unlocked and open. the latches would give at the lightest tug. the darkness would seep through the cracks. the only variables were my grandparents, like props- sometimes they were there in the living room, unresponsive to me as they stared into the television. sometimes only one of them. sometimes i was alone. but over and over again i had this nightmare, every single time i fell asleep. regardless of the time of day, of if i was sleeping or napping or just resting my eyes, i had this nightmare. and i had it for nearly three and a half years thereafter. sleep deprivation was my only solace from it, driven to such an extent that i began having prolonged hallucinations and severe paranoia.

my only solace was after the pipes froze and burst in our little cement basement. they couldnt justify leaving me there much longer, so my aunt told me- just another two weeks. if i staid in the house she would come to get me to move in with her. at that point i was so happy just to have an out that i begged my neighbor to periodically stop in on the remaining animals in the house so i could go stay with taylor until it was time to move.

my aunt called me LIVID when she found out. she berated me at the top of her lungs for disobeying her. maybe that should have been a red flag, but i was so consumed in my own self blame for my grandparents death that i assumed she was right to feel that way.

i got little say in what was kept when we went back to clean the house out after. in fact, i got almost nothing of my grandparents. to this day, all i have is my grandmothers favorite hoodie. somewhere in the process, the cleaning solutions we had been using must have gotten in my eye because the pain was bad, and the effects would be lasting.

living with my aunt was a nightmare. she was unyeilding; scolding and punishing me for not getting out of bed because the infection in my eyes was so bad i couldnt see and it hurt to have any light hit them. insisting it was my fault i was left nearly half blind, and that my lack of recovery was because i wasnt trying hard enough. (i was told later i had had severe chemical burns and infection that have left my corneas riddled in holes and craters, and severely light sensitive. all of it could have been fixed with a single doctors visit in the worst of it.)

and on it went; i had no time to grieve, as she forced me out the door and into terrible fulltime jobs. they became my only reprieve from her, as any time i was home i had a chore list of no less than four hours worth of cleaning that she would accuse me up and down of lying about on the daily. shed gaslight me, set traps, pull gotchas, until i began to believe her. i genuinely thought i was making up the hours id spend working on cleaning, that i was a lazy liar, and that i deserved the slow recession of any right to food in the house she imposed.

my most beloathed of chores was dishes. every night after dinner, of which i was allowed to eat less and less until not at all, i would have to come down to clean up after the families meals. her pampered chef knives were her prized possessions, and her rules for cleaning them were strenuous. the closest ive ever come to killing myself was standing in that kitchen, over her sink, with one of her favorite knives pressed into my wrist as the depths of sorrow and grief id had to pave over to maintain what she wanted me to do began to crumble.

the only thing that stopped me was the gentle realization that if i killed myself here, the first person to see it would be one of my younger cousins. that that would be something he would never be able to forget or move on from. its the only thing that stopped me.

i would go on to climb the railing of an overpass at around 1am in the dead of a december night. i was bitterly cold, having no winter jacket, a two hour walk from home, being punished by my aunt because the job shed hoisted upon me had kept me later than she felt like coming to get me. so i had no choice but to walk on broken feet after nearly twelve hours of standing, with no winter clothes to deal with the whipping icy winds, and no street lights or sidewalks to follow. i couldnt do it anymore. i was so tired, in so much pain, with only blame and alienation from my family. i just wanted to die and be done with it.

two rungs from flipping my legs over the railing, movement caught my eye. at the far end of the dark overpass was the vaguely visible outline of a golden retriever whos owner was walking it down the long road i had to walk to get home. and i thought, maybe, if i could pet that dog, maybe i could keep going. maybe id be okay. the road was across a wide flat area, prepared for development that had yet to start, so the visibility was a near quarter mile in the moonlight. and so.. slowly.. i stepped down and began to trudge on.

yet, when i reached the end of the overpass, they were nowhere to be seen. there was nowhere to go, mind you, but forward; there were cliffs to either side of the overpass that went down into the highway, and then this single stretch of road forward with no trees or houses for the duration. they had simply vanished. i still dont really know what happened.

and on i trudged. nothing else to do but survive day to day under my aunts open hostility. i wasnt allowed to eat family meals, no, but then rules came about keeping my own food in the house. it would be doled out to my cousins and uncle if i dared to, and food in my bedroom was prohibited. the best i could do was hide a few cereal bars between my mattress and the wall for the days i couldnt eat at work. it was miserable.

"just get over it. youre bumming everyone else out." told to me, six months after the death of both of my parents. no one had asked me if i was okay in that time. no one had held me. no one had told me it wasnt my fault. taylor was the only silver lining i had. she was always there for me at a moments notice, she kept me sane, and god i love her so much. i dont think i would have survived it without her.

i managed to scrape by until i met Lo, the man im due to marry next month. this was nearly seven years ago now, but i still remember the nervous jitters the first time i packed a bag and bought a train ticket to make my first solo journey from virginia all the way down to florida to meet in person. id go on to make the 20 hour trip frequently, falling into his arms and having the brightest points of my life, only to be left sobbing and wracked with fear the morning of my return to my aunts home. it was hell. but i was starting to find reasons to pull through.

even if my aunt had outed me as trans and gay while i was visiting him, effectively burning my bridges with most of my family behind my back and then lying to my face about it for weeks after. my mother wouldnt look me in the eye. my extended family has never once spoken to me since. my own brothers wont come to my wedding because im a faggot, rooted in the reaction my mom had to this and how its grown nasty and dehumanizing since.

(i have a very strong feeling that the majority of the years i spent this way are locked up tight in an alter who hasnt fronted in years. i frequently broke down over depersonalization and being convinced i truly wasnt myself then, in a way i have not felt since. i really cant remember most specifics, but the cadence alone would give it away, i think. at the time i was too afraid to face it head on and define what was happening to me, but in retrospect im nearly positive.)

and so on i trudged. my aunts aggressions would gradually grow over time, until a night where id let my guard down around my brothers visiting us and shed gotten me by the nick of my hoodie and dragged me down my the throat to hiss and growl and snarl nasty things to me over an argument wed had days prior. shed blocked me from the internet and ignored my very existence in the elapsing days. it all came to a head with this interaction, a nasty game of parroting that i was lucky to have her, that i love her, that im grateful she forgives me for the things i do, and punctuated with a hug i was forced to initiate. when i told my coworkers the next morning, in tears, i was told if she put her hands on me once shed do it again. i told my mom the next day i needed her to come get me right now.

the day we went back to get my possessions was the last day i ever spoke to my aunt. she was purple in the face, veins stood out against her forehead and screaming wrathful nasty things at my sobbing mother about me as i tried to gather my things- thrown into a haphazard corner of the garage after id pleaded with her to just leave my room untouched and let me organize and gather my belongings.

my mother hyperventilated on the drive home, and told me through gritted teeth that shes worried my aunt may have been abusing me. i told her exactly what she had done to me, and she had to pull over to stomach it. a week later she told me my aunt was trying to get in touch and i should go ahead and give her a call. (the betrayal and fear i felt in that moment was rivaled only by my mom freely inviting her over to visit without warning me first.)

my mother would ask often when i was planning on moving out. she didnt want me there, that was plainly clear, and the raw edges of my recent outing didnt help. i was given a mattress on the floor in the kitchen, in plain view of everyone at all times, covered in ants with the cat box beside my pillow. my only reprieves were times i spent with taylor or lo, anywhere i could find to be that wasnt her home.

lo was already planning a move with his mother to phoenix by this time, as neither of them could afford a place of their own, and so i was invited along. i dont think ive ever said yes to something so quickly in my life.

phoenix ill elapse; i spent two years making a three hour commute to a job that did horrific things to my mental and physical health. my sciatica was so aggressively hurt by the ways in which i begged my managers for accessibility that they refused that i would often collapse off of numb lightning struck legs, scattering anything i was carrying. my longest shift worked there began at 4am and ended at 12:30am. twenty and a half hours. i got two thirty minute breaks, a single compensated meal, and had to work the next day.

tensions with los mother, a deeply traumatized neuro divergent woman who wasnt aware of any of the above, finally hit a fever pitch and over the course of a week we were rendered homeless, sleeping on taylors floor. while her mother welcomed us in with open arms, her nastiness was prevalent and constant. bitter and put upon by our very existence under her roof. we were kicked out later so her transphobic boyfriend would be more comfortable coming over to visit.

from there we landed a disgusting single room in a frat house in maryland that hadnt been properly cleaned in the years preceding our arrival. it was so bad we left within a month to move in with who would later turn out to be an absolute psychopath of a woman in a slightly nicer house. after a year of trying my best to be friends with her she turned on us, blew up our living arrangement, called the cops on us, got the wifi cut for a week, took all the locks off our front door so we couldnt lock her out & eventually got us evicted entirely. why? because i asked her to buy some food for her cats because in the weeks she hadnt been home and id been taking care of all of her animals (not that shed asked me to) theyd run out of kibble.

and that rounds us out to now. los mom drove up to get us, two years out from phoenix and a lot of self discovery later, were now out here in the sticks of alabama. lo and i have been together nearly seven years now and were slotted to get married next month, so life really has begun to look up for me, but man. sometimes its all just so fuckin much. i went through so fuckin much and for what? yknow? my family is still shit. i dont speak to my aunt, my mother and brothers refused to come to my wedding, my grandparents and jimmy are still dead, and so my entire world has been condensed down to a handful of friends- taylor, elliot, ofc my fiance- and really nothing else. i dont really feel like i have any family anymore. its a grieving process still, to accept that, loss after loss like that, but it gets a little easier every day.

& anyway if youve ever wondered why i have a system, i think it oughtta make a little more sense now. lol.

[thejoyoftruecrime]

Brain Britton

 Brian Britton was a 16 year old boy who lived in Poughkeepsie New York. Britton had a mother whose name was Marlene aged 42, Britton also had a father named Dennis who was aged 44. Britton also had a younger brother named Jason who was only 8 at the time and finally Britton has an older sister named Sherry. Britton was a troubled teen, he usually started fights with his family and even sometimes he was very abusive to them. But also during this time Britton got very obsessed with the military and war and became obsessed with the movie Rambo. Britton also learned to shoot guns from his father and he even kept several guns in his room and which his father told him to shoot without his permission, he sadly did not listen to that but I'll come back to that. Britton also told his family that he wanted to join the military and in which the family was happy for him because they thought that would help with all of behavior problems. It was a late day in March 1989 when Brain Britton decided to kill his family. But when the police finally showed up to the Britton house they first walked in the house and  found bones and blood and hair all over the home in disgusting amounts scattered around the house. They had assumed that the killer may still be in the house and so they were very careful searching the house. But when they walked upstairs to the master bedroom they found Dennis Brian's father, he was shot in the face and dead on the bed. They then walked to the living room and found Marlene shot in the chest still in her nightgown which had been bloody but then they found little Jason a few feet from his mother, his head had been crushed in. Police think that Brian used the end of the gun and crushed his head in but Jason didn't die immediately after this they think that he had crawled from where he had been hit all the way to his mom so that he could die with her. He was rushed to the hospital but died of his injuries. They then walked into Sherry's room to find her still alive but barely she rushed to the hospital. She had a gunshot wound straight to the head and she was shot in the abdomen but police think that Sherry wasn't gunned down in her bed, they think and can confirm that Sherry went to the bathroom to wash her hands and was shot there but after 2 to 3 minutes she gained some strength and got herself into her bed to die somewhat comfortably. After Brian killed "everyone" in his family he went to his uncle's house and that was when the police were called. Police were curious why Britton wasn't hurt throughout this whole murder plot and so they questioned him about the intruder and Britton had said that the intruder was masked and broke in through the basement window to kill his family. But what shocked Detective Mittlestaed was that Britton had shown no emotion to the death of his family and he knew almost immediately that he had to have killed his family. Britton, after hearing this, was confused almost immediately and said that his family had been abusive towards him and that they were on his case about skipping classes. But it was very clear that Brian had been planning these murders for a long time. Britton was also asked where the guns were and he told them exactly where they were, the attic. When Brian confessed they finally told Sherry that her family was dead and that Brian had killed them and that he was arrested, after hearing the news Sherry was too stunned to know that her own brother had killed her family and even tried to kill her. The trial of Brian Britton was held in 1990, the prosecution had said that Brain killed his family because he became too obsessed with the Rambo movie and which made him turn to becoming obsessed with war and the military too. Brian's statement was that he was physically and mentally abused by both of his parents and his defense attorney even said that his father forced him to watch military movies. Brain Britton was charged with 25 years to life with the possibility of parole, throughout the trial Britton had shown no remorse for the murder of his family.

[xhatake]

alt!

Send me "alt!" and I'll introduce you to a character I've rped in the past, want to play in the future or are currently playing somewhere else! [ ellis cousland @higheverlost ]

It was supposed to be a good day. Ellis had risen with the sun, eager to stretch the light of dawn as far as he could. Fergus was supposed to march with the majority of Highever’s forces that day & Ellis still had a sliver of hope that he may be permitted to go as well. it was a long shot, but there was an ache in his hear that could only be satisfied with acclaim. It had always been a dream of his to become a hero, sheathed in the blinding light of glory & gore. He was a second son, his legacy would be carved by his own hand. Stories of Grey Wardens riding into battle on the backs of griffons had filled his head since he was a boy. Surely the blight was the single thing that could see these fantasies become reality.

Ellis had shared a quick breakfast with his sister, assuming that their older brother, Fergus was spending time with his family before he marched ... it was then, that he & Lily had been summoned to their father’s side. they had gathered in the great hall with lord howe, who implied that his daughter may be looking for a husband. ellis politely declined. though they had not made it official, his heart belonged to another. Astoria had left only weeks before & Ellis already missed her. he wonders if he'll be a hero by the next time they met. she would get a kick out of that, surely.

There was one man who stood out against the others. In the mix of familiar faces, warriors, lords, he was introduced to someone else.a real-life grey warden, Duncan,  had stood in their halls. He looked exactly as Ellis had always imagined, a stone wall of a man with two blades that had likely seen more battles than Ellis could count... & Ellis could count pretty high.

Excitement had boiled over in his chest when Duncan said that he & his sister were his first choice of recruits. To Ellis’ dismay, his suggestion was shot down immediately. His father needed them here, to watch over Highever while they battled against the blight. Where Ellis opened his mouth to try & fight his father on the subject, Lily was quick to cut him off. She didn’t seem too keen on laying her life down for Ferelden & was already threatened with the loss of Fergus... She needed at least one of her brothers to see the end of this.

Ellis had nearly missed a passing conversation in all the excitement. Howe had made a point to identify he & Lily as Bryce Cousland’s younger children. He had thought nothing of it, distracted by another pressing matter... But in hindsight, he would wish he had taken note of it.

On his way to say goodbye to their older brother, the duo was stopped by their sweet mother. Her silver hair reflected the sunlight, radiating a certain grace. With her was a lady she was supposed to be going north with, away from the greater part of the conflict. Ellis nearly misses their conversation in the eyes of one of her pretty companions but snaps back to reality at his mother's firm voice. He & his sister's hounds had gotten into the kitchens, seemingly to gorge themselves on lard. but things were not as they seemed, as Backup & Fergie had unveiled a grand plan to stop the rats that threatened their home. nan had carried on & on until she heard the word ‘ rats ‘. after that she had been quick to throw the dogs a treat & rush them on their way. They had likely been coming from an old passage in the pantry, trying to invade the kitchens through.

The rest of the day passes like a dream, filled with more emotions than Ellis knows how to comprehend. He had exchanged a tearful goodbye with Fergus & accepted that he would be left behind. When he marched from highever with the bulk of their forces,a sinking feeling ignnited many racing thoughts of death, fears of loss...He had decided to distract himself with a different sort of company, inviting the woman he had met earlier to join him in his bedchambers for the night. His heart may belong to Astoria, but the sentiment did not yet extend to his body. Sleep takes him, providing temporary relief from an uncertain future.

What he does not expect is when he is woken in the night. It's his hound that wakes him; Fergie whines at the sound of steel clashing in the hall outside of his room. Ellis throws on his clothes, collects his weapons & wakes his companion. She doesn't make it very far, as she is killed when he throws his door open to see what's going on. It's a bitter feeling, but he pushes through regardless. He tears through men in armor that reflects the dim light of the candles that lit their halls. Despair settles in his stomach as he realizes their numbers are too great. Every time he dances out of the reach of one sword, another is ready to meet him. He braces himself as a man threatens to bring down his weapon on Ellis' face, but something stops him.

The swift ' thwip' echoes across the hall Ellis has torn was way into, resolving in an arrow through Ellis' opponent's chest. It was a powerful blow & he raises his gaze to see his mother, at last. It is strange to see her in armor. Usually, she was dressed like a proper lady, in the colors of their family. But there was something legendary about the ferocity in her eyes as she defended her son. They tear through the rest of their opponents with renewed faith, stopping only after the last of them stopped breathing. there were still the sounds of conflict echoing all through Highever, a warning of what awaited them when they left this hall. Ellis kicks over one of the dead men, recognizing the men as one of Howe's soldiers.

One of Howe's men. Betrayal. Ellis tries to contain the rage that begins to grow in his chest, coming to a thousand different conclusions of how this came to pass. All he could think was how lucky the lord was to be elsewhere, or Ellis would ensure he ended up in the same pile of gore as his men. Despite his rage, there is one thought that cuts through every assumption.

" We have to go. " Ellis speaks before his mother can react, his mind already racing in regards to the wellbeing of his sister. His mother nods & they come to the understanding that this will be their last night together. What Ellis does not know, however, is how determined his mother is to insure the survival of her children. Ellis mind is already racing, as are his breaths. For all he dreamed of battle, he had never thought it would find him in the walls of his own home, " We have to find Lily. "

[sharkdream3421]

Different - Turian Ryder X Sara Ryder

This poor Turian boy! Love him with all my heart!

Summary: Scott reflects how being a Turian has affected his life of being a Ryder.

Warning: Swearing, and Violence.

Word Count: 1266

“What is that monster doing here in our house?! Get it out of here this instant!” Alec Ryder harshly shouted and pointed to the baby Turian in his wife’s arms.

“No Alec! He is staying here and is going to be our new son!” Mrs. Ryder replied.

“Those monsters killed my friends during the First Contact War! Besides I told you to get a human child not a Turian!” Alec explained still furious over his wife’s stupidity.

”You need to get over there deaths Alec! I couldn’t just leave this poor child in the rain he needs someone to take care of him!”

Alec grumbled, “FINE! But I’m not taking care of it!”

“Mommy, Daddy what’s going on?” A little girl had said.

Sara Ryder stood by the kitchen doorway, rubbing her eyes with a small plushie in her hand.

“Nothing’s wrong Sara, why are you up? It’s getting late shouldn’t you be in bed?” Mrs. Ryder said to her daughter.

“Sorry it’s just that your both loud.” Sara replied.

“Come on let’s go back to bed, but before you do. Look here’s your new baby brother!”

Sara looked to find a small Turian, with a tan skin color. He was wrapped in a small blanket.

“He looks kind of strange Mommy?” Sara questioned.

“He’s from a different race Honey, but that doesn’t matter to us. He will be part of the family now. What should we call him Sara?” Mrs. Ryder said rocking the baby back and forth gently in her arms.

“Oh I know, I know! Scott! I’ve always wanted to have a brother named Scott!” Sara happily told her mother.

Mrs. Ryder chuckled as she looked down at the baby, “That’s a good name. Welcome home Scott Ryder.”

~~~~

Scott was pushed into the citadel's school building. He dropped down from the wall to the ground.

The school bully who turned out to be a Turian. Picked Scott up by his shirt.

"You really think you're one of us just because your a Turian? You were a fool to think that you could be one of us. You know nothing about our culture, our language, and you even have a human name!" The school bully shouted as he rammed him against the side of the building.

Scott fell down with tears coming from his eyes. No one saved Scott, everyone was afraid of the school bully. Except Scott's sister.

Sara marched up to the bully and hit him in the mandible. Turian skin was pretty rough, but enough force could cause skin to bleed.

"You little bitch!" The bully loudly cursed.

The principal who was a Salarian finally came out of his office to access the situation as a C-Sec officer put both the bully and Sara in handcuffs.

No one helped Scott Ryder up from the ground that day. He had to use his own strength to get up. No one helped him.

~~~~

"Sara what were you thinking?!" Mrs. Ryder shouted at her daughter.

She was giving Sara a lecture how hitting people was wrong.

"But he hurt Scott, all because he wanted to be like the other kids! He threw him against the wall!" Sara defended.

Mrs. Ryder was pissed. No one would dare to mess with her children not even a school bully.

Mrs. Ryder sighed deeply as she sat down in a chair, "I'll admit what that boy did was not okay. But that doesn't give you the right to hit someone. You could have gone to a chaperone."

Sara glared at her mother, "What is a chaperone going to do?! Their going to try to avoid the fight if anything. Words aren't going to cut it against some people! What should have I done? Just let him hurt Scott?!"

Mrs. Ryder was going to yell at her once again, but restrained herself. She put a hand on her face as she sighed.

"No, you shouldn't have let him hurt Scott. You did defend your brother, and the bully will be suspended. Just...try to be smarter about a confrontation next time. Okay Sara?" Mrs. Ryder explained.

Sara nodded sadly, "Okay, I'm sorry Mommy."

Their conversation was interrupted by a Turian child crying with many tears coming out of his eyes.

"Mommy, I-I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have talked to them. I'll never be like the other kids. It's all my fault!" Scott sobbed.

Mrs. Ryder picked up her son and kissed his fringe.

"Don't blame yourself for something that you had no control over Scott. I wish the other kids could accept you Honey, just for now stick around with your sister okay?"

The Turian child nodded as he gave his Mom a hug.

Society never accepted him, neither Turians or Humans.

~~~~

Scott sat in his quarters on the Tempest. He laid down on his bed as he raised his arm up to look at his hand. His three talons, were covered by a glove that he wore on his outfit. Turian's talons were pretty sharp and could cut through skin like a saw if they weren't careful enough.

"Why did Dad save me? He hated me." Scott pondered.

"Hey little brother!" Sara Ryder happily exclaimed as she came into his cabin.

Scott leaned up and scooted to the edge of the bed, "Sara, what are you doing here?"

"Just checking on how my brother's doing." Sara replied smiling.

Scott looked down at the floor going back to his deep thoughts about his father and his past life once again.

"Something's wrong isn't there?" Sara said as she put a hand on Scott's elbow.

He looked up at her shocked.

"How did you know?" He asked.

"Come on, I've known you my whole life. I know when you're feeling frustrated."

Scott put his talons on his face in frustration. "I miss Mom, so much and Dad. I'm...I'm so lost. Being the pathfinder 24/7 is so difficult, I'm still trying to get past Mom and Dad's death. Which, there is one thing that's been bugging me. Why did Dad sacrifice himself for me? Did he do it just to get back at me through my childhood years?"

Sara moved closer towards Scott, "Scott, I know that Dad was very...rude back then. Although, I've noticed that he's been trying to change ever since we got on the ark. I think he sacrificed himself for you because he finally understood Mom's intentions and why she loved you so much."

Scott scoffed, "He probably just did it because I was going to be the next pathfinder eventually or something like that."

Sara sighed as she put her hand on Scott's leg. "Scott, look at me."

He refused.

"Scott please."

Scott slowly looked at her with sadness in his eyes. "I think Dad finally moved on from the past and wanted to fix things between you two. He sacrificed himself so he could make up for the things that he'd done to you."

Scott's mandibles clicked in realization. He knew Sara was probably right. He started to cry as he put his talons on his face.

Sara looked at her brother sadly. She rubbed the back of his carapace gently feeling the fabric of his jacket slide across her skin.

"It's okay Scott, just calm down." Sara said.

"Sara...I...I feel like a burden on everyone. You, Mom, Dad, Society, and everyone else on this team." Scott said with tears in eyes.

Sara hugged his brother as Scott hugged her back.

"I promise you Scott. Your not a burden on anyone. We love you so much and I bet everyone on your crew cares about you too. Also, who cares about what society thinks they are just a bunch of assholes." Sara scoffed.

Scott chuckled, his mandibles spreading out slightly. "Nothing scares you Sara, doesn't it."

Sara smiled, "Not even your boogers scared me Scott."

"Ewww!! Please don't remind me about that!" Scott shouted waving his arms around in a small panic.

Sara cracked up, "Come on Scott, I'm just teasing!"

Masterlist

[seykaplan]

❝ unfinished coffee and scattered cups of tea, the dregs of whiskey at the bottom of a glass,  beanies and ball caps, abandoned faith, resting bitch face, “i licked it so it’s mine” mentality always, weekly horror movie marathons, a new tattoo with every mood, naked naps, “i like your dog better than you’, ice cream is absolutely it’s own food group, dark disheveled hair, leather jackets, family rings, double shifts and double shots, unfinished lines of poetry scribbled on a forgotten page, “i’ve done a dumb thing again”, ms. steal yo girl and new battery operated boyfriends, books left on every surface and in chaotic stacks, crop tops, “everything i own is black”.

NAME: Şeyda (pronounced shay-dah) Kaplan, surname formerly Aksoy

NICKNAME(S): Shay

AGE: Twenty-eight

RESIDENTIAL AREA: Downtown

OCCUPATION: Paramedic with PPFD

LENGTH OF TIME IN PROVIDENCE PEAK: Ages 8 to 21, then 26 to present day

BIOGRAPHY | CONNECTIONS | STATS | PINTEREST

basics.

BIRTHDAY: March 27, 1994

ZODIAC SIGN: Aries, and proves it on a daily basis

PLACE OF BIRTH: Ankara, Turkey

GENDER IDENTIFICATION: Cis Woman (she/her)

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexy af

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single

SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP(S): Dominic Baccari

POSITIVE TRAITS: Ambitious, assertive, confident, adventurous, courageous, enthusiastic, passionate, tenacious, compassionate, selfless to an extent, energetic, dynamic, extroverted, spontaneous

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Impatient, prone to mood swings, haunted and grief stricken, possessive, vindictive, argumentative and confrontational, short tempered, holds grudges easily and indefinitely, 

family.

MOTHER: Sanem Aksoy, nee Kutlar (deceased)

FATHER: Fahir Aksoy (deceased)

AUNT / ADOPTIVE MOTHER: Elif Kaplan, nee Aksoy

UNCLE / ADOPTIVE FATHER: Daniş Kaplan

SIBLINGS: Ceylan Aksoy (younger sister, deceased); Lemi Kaplan and Ozan Kaplan, cousins turned older brothers via adoption

OTHER: tbd

tldr.

TW: CAR ACCIDENT / DEATH: shay was born and somewhat raised in ankara, turkey but, after a car accident claimed the lives of her parents and younger sister when she was 8, she was taken in by her aunt elif and uncle daniş. cue the move to providence peak.

it took months, and i mean months, for shay to fully acclimate to this new life in a new town with, essentially, new parents and two older “brothers” to boot. she was withdrawn, damn near silent, and moody af.

eventually she worked her way out of mess, though, and slowly but surely returned to some semblance of the easy going child she’d always been. by the time she reached high school you could almost forget those messy, combative, elif’s gonna rip her hair out years.

enter dom baccari. it was still difficult for shay to let most people all the way in at this point but, somehow, he slipped right through. they dated until midway through their senior year when, to her surprise, dom unexpectedly called it quits.

she……….. did not take that well. he was her first love. the one person she told everything. for the first time since her parents she’d let herself grow attached to having someone around in her life only to, yet again, have it all ripped away.

once shay got the hell away from everything that reminded her of him and started college she made it her mission to forget his name by any means necessary. cue lots of booze, boobs, and dudes until she’d all but slept and partied her way into failing grades.

she lost her academic scholarship to CSU and, unable to pay tuition and board, she had no choice but to leave their pre-nursing program and move back home.

two years later shay got her paramedic’s certification and accepted a position in boulder. she remained there up until about one and half years ago when, very unexpectedly, she got the urge to come back home.

fair warning: is a smart ass 93% of the time and has a bad habit of self medicating with whiskey and new tattoos. probably likes your dog more than you. would fight to the death for the last bite of ice cream. has an unhealthy obsession w/ naps, inventive curse words, taking off her pants, baseball, horror movies, and fantasies involving jeffrey dean morgan’s erm… face.

wanted connections.

her roommate, her cousins/brothers (would require a new chara brought in), other cousins, childhood friends, friends from her short stint in college or her life in boulder, anybody she’s “passed the time” with regardless of how brief or long, co-workers, friends she’s met since moving home, people she’s helped while on the job, etc.

[sweet-vanilla-sims]

Year 1676

TW/CW: Death

The year began with Shayna going into labor in the quiet hours of the night in early January. While Shayna labored with the help of Tala and Gianna, Alessandro waited outside with the children as the two of them took the opportunity of a new family member to avoid sleep. But sleep came to them anyways and by the time Shayna had delivered the baby midday on January 11th, Alessandro was the first one to greet his son named Nicola after his wife's late grandfather.

The birth had taken a lot from Shayna but it was mostly manageable as she loved to dote on her little son but as she started to feel more confident that nothing had gone wrong she felt a brief flash of pain while getting some air and when she didn't return her sister, Antea, found her and there was nothing to be done. She died on March 15th and was buried a few days later.

Nicola grew to be a darling baby who much to Alessandro's deep sorrow looked just like his mother. Thankfully, Marina was delighted to be a sister and he was conflicted about what to do with his wife's younger sister. Gabriella was happy to take in her niece following Shayna's death despite having her own young infant to care for but Antea was also the aunt of Alessandro's son so he didn't quite know what to do but since he was grateful for the help the girl gave in the wake of their shared loss, he was happy to have her for the time being anyways.

In Newcrest, things had been faring nicely for the family as April had brought with it the birth of another healthy son for Antonio and Sarah but sadly that's where the joy ended as Antonio was sad to announce that he had been called upon to fight in the war they had been lucky to avoid so far.

But after Antonio died in the war on the sixth of May, Ashley was taking the loss of her cousin even harder especially as she was stressed about her pregnancy that had gone mostly hidden until around the time her cousin passed. Giovanni Cesare was happy to cheer her up though Ashley felt a little odd being cheered up by her husband's kid brother as she felt she shouldn't be such a mess around someone so young.

But time heals and as the days passed into weeks, it became easier to bear.

Marcello celebrated his thirteenth birthday surrounded by his family though his enthusiasm was dampened by overhearing talks of his grandmother and uncle looking for a match for him. Much like his mother he was well aware of what was expected of him in the future and he had no problems with marrying for the sake of his family but he hoped that if he didn't raise a fuss, they wouldn't raise a fuss when he eventually went to leave for the islands in the future.

Marina also had her birthday growing into a lovely young lady who seemed to be a fairly decent blend of her parents to the joy of her father and extended family. While her grandparents and father fussed over her little brother, she and Antea were happy to play until dark.

As Antonio's youngest grew into larger baby, Sarah was concerned to learn that before Antonio had passed they were going to have another child but now it would be her mostly alone with their three young children and Luisa.

Late August came and with it, Gianna arrived at the Morosini home to help Ashley deliver her baby which turned out to be twin boys who were born in the late afternoon of August 27th. The boys were named Rustico and Ricciardi.

While the family in Tartosa fussed over the new babies, Osana's daughter, Juliette, grew into a darling girl though the festivities over her milestone with her paternal family was quickly overshadowed by the betrothal of her sister to a foreign noble who after some piecing together through notes was revealed to be Marcello and her brother's betrothal to a local young lady.

In the Carlisle-Rossi family, the relationship between all the members was only growing stronger though despite his family's insistence Alessandro was hesitant to remarry once more. Tala felt for the young man's plight after losing both of his wives and being left with the children he couldn't care for himself, she was happy to tell him that as long as she lived she would help out with the kids though she also knew that she was getting older, the relief Alessandro felt at the lack of necessity to remarry was visible.

Ashley and Giuliano's twins seemed to grow in a flash into strong young boys which made the whole household breathe a sigh of relief. Though for their parent's sleep was a thing of the past, they were happy that their four young children were all quite well at the year ended.

[misteriios]

✧.:°｡ — was that 𝗠𝗔𝗗𝗘𝗟𝗬𝗡 𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘? oh no no, that was just 𝗔𝗩𝗔𝗟𝗬𝗡 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗞𝗘𝗥, a 𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗡 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥 from 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗩𝗔𝗠𝗣𝗜𝗥𝗘 𝗗𝗜𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗦. they are 𝗧𝗪𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗬 𝗧𝗪𝗢 years old, use 𝗦𝗛𝗘/𝗛𝗘𝗥, and 𝗔𝗥𝗘 aware that they are not actually from washington dc. too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

basic information !

Full Name: avalyn josephine parker

Nicknames: ava, lyn

D.O.B: march 16, 1976

Age of death: 18

Age of resurrection: 22

Hometown: portland, oregon

family connections !

Parents: joshua & mrs. parker

Siblings: josette, malachai, joey, unamed sister & two unamed brothers, olivia & lucas

Nieces: josette & elizabeth saltzman

personality traits !

+ creative, empathetic, independent, kind

― stubborn, impulsive, sarcastic, revengeful

biography !

― The Past

Avalyn Josephine Parker was born on March 16, 1976. She was the fourth child born into the family. Without understanding what was going on in the family, she was happy to have many siblings. It was always someone to play with when she was younger. Wasn't until 1991 when Olivia and Lucas was born that she for the first time understood something was really wrong. She knew Malachai was different than them, but she didn't think their father had such a huge problem with it. He was a twin, just like the others before them. She saw no difference, but she also did not like the whole merge thing. Ava thought it was a stupid rule they went after to find a new leader. They could have done it in another way. She absolutely loved her younger siblings. Whenever their parents were away, she gladly wanted to babysit them. Although she had a girlfriend she never told anyone about and other friends, she did not mind babysitting. Her partner and friends could she hang out with whenever she had the time. They understood it because they knew she had many siblings. Only her girlfriend knew of the truth, that she came from a family of powerful witches, the reason behind everything. Ava was a kind soul who wanted nothing else but be supportive of others, make sure everyone else were doing fine before her. She cared deeply about herself, but to be there for others was important as well. She was independent, hence why her parents trusted her to babysit the youngest siblings. But she was not the only one who helped out. Whenever she did not have to be around the family or coven, she hung out with her partner and best friends. They were a reminder of that life was not all about magic. She was impulsive whenever she was with them, she could bring out her true self around them. At home she was more hiding, especially about that she one day wanted to move out of Portland, finding her own home and live a normal life. She was very clever for such a young age, almost more grown up than her other siblings were sometimes. Whenever she saw Malachai and Joey play video games together, she often wondered why they didn't do anything else with their life. Happened sometimes that they allowed her to try these games, she did, they were okay, but she preferred to read books about whatever she found interesting and those spell books they had at home. Despite many fights within the family, she loved them all. On May 10th, 1994 four of the siblings life changed. Her oldest brother was not the person Avalyn remembered from their childhood. She saw how he became aggressive, seeked revenge on the family because of the way they had treated him. Or what it was, she could not figure it out. She had done nothing wrong, she didn't see him as a different person. Wicth or Siphon, didn't matter. They could all be powerful in their own way. All powers were unique. But she remembered she had yelled dumb words to him when he had by accident siphoned a little of her magic. Was that the reason he ran after her that day? She saw from a distance when he murdered two of the siblings, then it came down to her. She ran the fastest she could, didn't help. He was faster. Before she could say anything, she was dead at the age of eighteen.

Thirty Years Later

It had gone thirty years since the death of the four Parker Siblings in Portland, Oregon. One of them were Avalyn, an eighteen year old younger sister of the older brother Malachai Parker, the psychopath who murdered his siblings. Three of them got away, his twin sister Josette and the youngest twins Olivia and Lucas. Avalyn has recently returned from the dead. Older, but not a day over thirty. She still looks the same as she did back then, except that she is twenty two and looks a bit older, the same age as her twin siblings were in 1994. She is confused, doesn't understand how she could have returned now. Understanding it has gone a long time since the day of her death.

how long has your character been here?

nearly a week.

what is your character’s job?

not anything at the moment, she is trying to come back to life. get to know the new century.

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom?

from her death.

has any magic affected your character?

yes, she came back from the dead and somehow is older.

[readingforsanity]

The Midwife of Auschwitz | Anna Stewart | Published 2022 | *SPOILERS*

Auschwitz, 1943: As I held the tiny baby in my arms, my fingers traced the black tattoo etched across her little thigh. And I prayed that one day this set of numbers, identical to her mother's, would have the power to reunite a family torn apart by war...

Inspired by an incredible true story, this poignant novel tells of one woman's fight for love, life and hope during a time of unimaginable darkness.

Ana Kaminski is pushed through the iron gates of Auschwitz beside her frightened young friend Ester Pasternak. As they reach the front of the line, Ana steps forward and quietly declares herself a midwife - and Ester her assistant. Their arms are tattooed and they're ordered to the maternity hut. Holding an innocent new baby, Ana knows the fate of so many are in her hands, and vows to do everything she can to save them.

When two guards in their chilling SS uniforms march in and snatch a blond-haired baby from its mother it's almost too much for Ana to bear. Consoling the distraught woman, Ana realizes admist the terrible heartache there is a glimmer of hope. The guards are taking the healthiest babies and placing them with German families, so they will survive. And there are whispers the war is nearly over...Ana and Ester begin to secret tattoo little ones with their mother's numbers, praying one day they might be reunited.

Then, early one morning, Ana notices a small bump under Ester's thin striped clothing...

A gripping story of two women during the years of World War II. Ana is a midwife in Poland, called upon to the woman of the city of Lodz to birth their babies at all hours of the night, and Ester, a young girl, who has fallen hopelessly in love with a man named Filip, and the two of them begin their life together on the very same day that the Germans begin marching into Poland, hellbent to take it over.

Despite being separated despite their friendship, Ana attempts to help Ester, and all the Jews living in squalor within the "ghetto" the Germans have put together in their beautiful city. Families are forced to live in homes with strangers, while non-Jews are forced to move out of their homes to allow German soldiers and their families to live within their walls.

When Ana is suspected of participating in resistance efforts, she, along with Ester, are taken to Auschwitz. While normally they may have taken directly into the crematorium to their deaths, Ana's credentials as a midwife has earned her a place in the maternity ward, Ester alongside her as her assistant. Together, the two women assist those who are with them birth their babies. Oftentimes, those babies either die at the hands of the woman who runs to the ward, starvation, illness and eventually, the babies deemed worthy of life are taken from their mothers to be "Germanized" by having them placed with German families.

Ester, who is going to give birth at any time herself, begins tattooing the babies inside their armpits with the numbers of their mothers, in hope that one day those babies separated from their rightful mother can be reunited. When Ester gives birth to a baby deemed worthy by the Germans, she also tattoos her in hopes of someday reuniting with her.

The war rages on, but there is talk of the Germans being nervous and scared as other countries are now entering the fight, with more willpower. Eventually, Auschwitz is liberated, and Ana and Ester are allowed to return to their hometown. Ana is unsure of what has happened to her own family, along with Ester being unsure what happened to hers. But, the two of them are happily reunited with Ana's sons, who inform her that her dear husband, Bartek, had died during resistance efforts.

Ester is still searching for her father, her mother having died long ago before their arrival at Auschwitz, her younger sister Leah, and the husband she so desperately wants to reunite with. Thankfully, Ester is reunited with her sister, who is newly married and expecting a child of her own any time, who informs her that her father and Filip's father had died after they shot a German officer who had attempted to rape Leah so many years ago.

Ester hears word that Filip has escaped a camp in Chelmno, but otherwise, there has been no word of him. But, eventually, he returns to her as well. Ester is so shocked by his return, but so thankful that they had been reunited. She explains that they had a daughter, and that she was taken from them after only four days, but that there is a rabbi and Ana are working together to find the missing children in hopes of returning them to their rightful families.

In the end, while Pippa hasn't been found for Ester and Filip to reunite with, the two of them end up adopting a young Polish girl named Oliwia, who just happens to be the first baby that Ester had tattooed in hopes of having her reunited with her mother. Unfortunately, Zofia had died, and now they are taking her in as their daughter, with every hope that they will once again be reunited with Pippa. Until then, they will love and accept Oliwia as their own.

[fearsmagazine]

THE BOOGEYMAN - Review

DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Studios

SYNOPSIS: “High school student Sadie Harper and her younger sister Sawyer are reeling from the recent death of their mother and aren’t getting much support from their father, Will, a therapist who is dealing with his own pain. When a desperate patient unexpectedly shows up at their home seeking help, he leaves behind a terrifying supernatural entity that preys on families and feeds on the suffering of its victims.” - 20th Century Studios

REVIEW: Not to be confused with the 2005 “Boggeyman,” THE BOOGEYMAN is based on a short story by Stephen King, first published in the March 1973 issue of Cavalier magazine and later included in King's 1978 collection, Night Shift. The trio of screenwriters weave many of King’s beats into a fresh and terrifying cinematic adaptation.

King's story centers on a psychologist and a troubled patient. This setup is present in the film, as psychologists figure prominently in the tale. The story begins by introducing us to the Harpers, sisters Sadie and Sawyer, and their father, Will. Will and the girls are emotionally fragile after the loss of their mother. Will has resumed his psychology practice, and between patients, a dark and mysterious man named Lester Billings arrives seeking help. Lester's presence in the Harper home creates the link that allows the Boogeyman access to the family. The creature is initially attracted to Sawyer, and the nightmare begins. The writers craft well-written and strong female characters as they spend time developing personalities and the family dynamic. They do an excellent job of presenting the creature's folklore without it simply being exposition that fills in the gaps. The film's dialogue is fresh and feels genuine to the characters. I can't recall any clichéd lines, and the humor is organic as it comes from character interactions and is not related to the creature. If there was any laughter coming from the audience it was of the nervous kind from the audience at the screening I attended. I enjoyed the character arcs, their struggles and relationships, and how the adults are presented in contrast to the children/young adults. I loved many of the touches they brought to the Boogeyman's mythology and how they wrapped the story up with a nice homage that brings the film back to King's story.

THE BOOGEYMAN features an excellent ensemble cast. Sophie Thatcher, who began her career on the Broadway stage, brings strength and emotional intensity to the character of Sadie, while also presenting the character's quieter, more fragile sides. She allows the viewer to perceive the turmoil Sadie is experiencing and believe the strength she finds to fight for her family. Her co-star Vivien Lyra Blair, who was recently seen in the series "Obi-Wan Kenobi" as Princess Leia, plays Sadie's younger sister Sawyer with a force of nature. Blair brings Sawyer to life as a smart, tough kid who can revert to a helpless child when she realizes she is no match for the presence that is haunting her. Sophie and Vivien work well together to create a genuine, sisterly relationship on screen. I was entertained and captivated by the rest of the performances. Chris Messina creates a convincing role of a psychiatrist/father who is distant and can't take his own advice. David Dastmalchian is so hypnotic as Lester Billings that I did not initially recognize him as the actor who played the Polka-Dot Man in "The Suicide Squad."

Director Rob Savage does a masterful job of blending the performances with production values and special effects. The cinematography creates a dark, gloomy universe filled with shadows. There are numerous subliminal aspects to the film that keep the viewer on edge. He judiciously meters out scares to keep the viewer off balance. There are several instances where he allows the characters' expectations as he makes a quick cut into the scene before revealing what they are actually confronted with. The film has gravitas, but does not feel weighed down or drawn out.

I loved Daniel Carrasco’s creature design for the Boogeyman. There is a look to the design that captures a feel of the haunting paintings of the 1700s and 1800s come to life. As it is slowly presented to the audience, they introduce new aspects to it that increase the horror for the viewer. It feels like an ancient entity that feeds on humanity’s fears. I’ve seen a video of a Cuckoo's egg in another bird’s nest hatching and taking over, and this reminded me of that. It’s quite horrifying.

Likewise, I loved Patrick Jonsson’s score. He has his music for the family and their emotional notes, and then there are the pieces for the creature. It adds an air of mystery and tension to the scenes, never overshadowing them. It adds a nice accent to the drama, playing with the viewer's emotional statue as they are lulled into what is unfolding on screen.

In light of recent horror films such as "Barbarians" and "Smile," THE BOOGEYMAN is another solid, mature film with strong characters and a well-developed creature. This allows for an emotionally intense and terrifying film. For King fans, it is a smart and skillful cinematic adaptation that takes the source material to a new level and should appeal to a variety of viewers. It is an excellent example of how to make a truly terrifying film while still receiving a PG-13 rating.

CAST: Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair, Marin Ireland, Madison Hu, LisaGay Hamilton, & David Dastmalchian. CREW: Director - Rob Savage; Screenplay - Scott Beck, Bryan Woods & Mark Heyman; Based on the short story of the same title by Stephen King; Producers - Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen & Dan Levine; Cinematographer - Eli Born; Score - Patrick Jonsson; Editor - Peter Gvozdas; Production Designer - Jeremy Woodward; Costume Designer - Kari Perkins; Creature Designer - Daniel Carrasco; Special Effects Supervisor - Matt Kutcher; Visual Effects Supervisor - Paul Graff; OFFICIAL: www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/the-boogeyman FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/people/The-Boogeyman-2023 TWITTER: N.A. TRAILER: https://youtu.be/YlQ5f8O9uZ0 RELEASE DATE: In Theaters June 2nd, 2023

**Until we can all head back into the theaters our “COVID Reel Value” will be similar to how you rate a film on digital platforms - 👍 (Like), 👌 (It’s just okay), or 👎 (Dislike)

Reviewed by Joseph B Mauceri