#unfortunately we know literally nothing about his mom and his relationship to her

[llumimoon]

glenn and/or scary for the character bingo ? >:]

For Scary:

This one has SO MANY ALMOST BINGOS…. I kept debating whether or not to do ‘LEAVE THEM ALONE!!’ bc it’s like YES she has done shitty things but also she’s my little girl but also it’s justified to criticize her actions but also it’s important to keep in mind she’s being manipulated… etc.

For Glenn:

I think for me a lot of these boxes r like. Affectionate I want to hold and protect you. I don’t want to protect Glenn I think he can do that perfectly fine himself. I DO think he’s the funniest himbo alive who has suffered more than Jesus though

[ohmotherwhereartthou-if]

Sorta bringing this back from the past, but I just saw the MC scandalous painting ask and was laughing for like 20 mins, I really do hope it makes it in to the story😂😂

Buuut, I wanna ask, how would the RO react to their family members looking at the painting after they (accidentally) left it out

(For the ROs who live alone, maybe their and MC kid?)

Haha, I remember that one. Still one of my favorites!

I am also going to write this under the impression it's at the dating stage of the relationship so that it makes more sense.

Cassandra: Does her absolute best to hide the portrait from her dad, only issue is that her dad, being the military man he is, occasionally does routine inspections around the house to make sure everything is in order and nothing needs to be taken care of before it becomes a problem. This has her moving the portrait periodically throughout the house to avoid him coming across it during his inspections. She considered putting it in a lock box but he would probably ask her whats inside and she is a TERRIBLE liar.

So, when the day unfortunately comes and General Guerrero finds a wrapped up portrait of MC's half naked ass in a broom closet; he is so unamused it's not even remotely funny. Well, for Cass at least.

Because while this might come to your surprise Alejandro actually does have a sense of humor. And make no mistake, he finds MC's audacity and utter stupidity of sending this to HIS house, to HIS daughter sort of funny. He comforts Cass by casually asking why does she even find MC attractive when they look so scrawny in the portrait she hid in a closet. Girly is is embarrassed she can't even form a coherent sentence, she just gets super red and covers her face. He can't help but laugh, he finds her embarrassment, punishment enough for her keeping this thing in her house without telling him.

Can't say he or MC will be laughing next time they meet though.

Valeria: Well, we already know Mrs. Torres saw it.

Valeria is so embarrassed, for MC. It's not like she asked you to do something so stupid knowing full well that she is the youngest of 6 with 5 older brothers and that she still lives with them and her parents. Mrs. Torres is just like Valeria in the sense she can't keep shit to herself, although Valeria manages to keep her shut for all of 4 days which is a pretty decent record. Good thing Val already managed to hide it someplace secret only to her by the time her brothers found out about it. They pester her day and night to see it so they can roast MC next time they see them. (as if they weren't already, idk if I said this already but if you romance Val; her big brothers become YOUR big brothers). Her parents don't really care, her dad didn't appreciate it but trusts his sons will harass MC enough about it, just expects MC to not do it again.

Tomás: He legit has nobody that he would really give a fuck about in his family if they saw the portrait. He isn't embarrassed, he's proud. He would be SO happy if his mom saw it, would rub in how scandalous and just how much of a scoundrel he is with MC. Would get a real kick out of how much she would 'clutch her pearls' at him, literally and figuratively. Would get mad if his brothers saw it because he'd get jealous, probably would punch them or something.

Now if you guys had a kid and they saw it in the future, he would get bashful but tell them not to go poking around his things. No, they cannot ask why he had it hidden in a box under his side of the his bed.

-

Ludovica: Also has no family or anybody to discover it. In the future if she had kids and they found it, she would be mortified. Begs them to forgive her for not hiding it well enough and to forget they saw it. She is unamused when she overhears her staff gossiping about the portrait and how one maid long ago had mentioned it existing and how literally nobody had believed her. Chokes on her spit when her kids ask MC point blank why they were barely wearing any clothes in the picture and if they were cold.

Aurelio: ALSO has no family to uncover it, (omg look at all of these pathetic little orphans, having parents must be a rarity in this world ig).

So, when his kids one day are being a little too nosy in his private study and see his half naked portrait of a young MC hanging right beside his desk labeled "Motivation - 1890" they obviously do the logical thing of screaming for their dad to come to his study. When he does wondering if they got hurt or something they ask him right away why tf he has such a picture displayed there and why is it labeled.

He had responds with something like, "Well, can you blame me for wanting to be productive? Knowing that is but a humble glimpse at what will be my reward when I finish my work, does wonders for my morale. And be grateful your mom/dad looked so great back then or you might not even be here." (He is saying that to tease them, MC still looks great in their older age and he would love them even if they weren't attractive.)

Also adds, "Oh, and it's labeled because that's that years edition of 'motivation'. I made sure I got one every start of the year to keep me honest. New year, new happy little wine drinker me! What? Did you want to see the rest? Or maybe the ones I gave mom/dad? Fair warning, I was wearing even LESS than they are in this picture."

His children then proceed to run out of his study screaming and gagging, he laughs knowing that this will keep them out of his study from now on.

Elio: Okay sort of funny because I actually said in one specific post somewhere Elio actually personally knows Aurelio and I actually think the only person close enough to discover it would be Aurelio. Elio would surprising be shocked if Aurelio found it because he made sure it was well hidden in the attic to avoid MC ever finding out he did actually have it.

He drinks tea and admires it from time to time when MC is away for too long. If Aurelio ever found it Elio would actually be frantic shooing him out of the house and swearing that he will never let him anywhere near MC ever again. Because he knows Aurelio is a charmer and he deep down would feel a little insecure if after he has fallen in love, MC got close to Aurelio and fears he would take them away from him. Even though Aurelio would never do that to him, he can't shake the insecurity and does everything he can to hide it.

Aurelio would want to tease Elio about it but knows it would be a very touchy subject so he shuts up, instead he tease MC next time they have a moment without Elio there. Which might be in a few months when Elio calms a bit and lets his guard down thinking Aurelio might have forgotten or dropped it completely.

---

Thanks for letting me revisit and continue this funny scenario! 💙

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Mel Medarda

she is the richest woman in piltover who left her family because she didn't agree with the way they did things (conquering and murdering). she sponsors jayce and viktor, and courts jayce, which makes people upset because, you know, jayvik. she and viktor are CANONICALLY parallels with much of their imagery mirroring the other's and they are literally the same height. and people are so weird and misogynist and racist about her. they argue she is manipulating jayce and doesn't actually love him. i am cognitively disabled and cannot explain things well, but, she is so fucking shouldered

Black woman who has a romantic arc with one of the main characters Jayce. Jayce has a best friend called Viktor and their relationship is pretty important plot wise, shown as a direct contrast to his relationship with Mel even though only one is canonically sexual/romantic. So naturally fandom as the transformative safe haven it is villainized Mel horribly coming up with theories about how instead of being a complex morally grey character she's actually evil and just wants to seduce Jayce for Evil Reasons. Since they couldn't use her as a supportive female friend with no personality, others just ignored her existence entirely or acted like Jayce would ditch her for Viktor. Majority of m/m shippers will reduce her down to her relationship with Jayce and an obstacle in the way of JayVik, ironically writing her as a far worse and less complex version of the character we get on screen. The misogyny reeks and combined with the racism? It's a pretty bad case. Only slightly mitigated due to the fact that the main characters of the show are women (and the lead is a lesbian) so thankfully the male focus of fandom is lessened as opposed to filling almost every inch. Still awful to try and search for good Mel content, godspeed girlies with taste.

She's one of the most interesting characters on the show, a rich politician, smart and beautiful and has a really complicated and intriguing relationship with the city's golden boy inventor. unfortunately golden boy has a sickly twink science partner so she gets sidetracked SO BAD

Nyota Uhura

She's Spock's canon partner in AOS, and I get it because they're not a great couple, but she gets villianized in fic so much. They constantly make her an asshole (which totally has nothing to do with her being black /sarcasm) and abusive just for the crime of dating a man headcanoned as gay. And I mean, I think Spock is gay and her being a love interest was unnecessary but still! She's cool!

Oh my god so in the Star Trek reboot she’s Spock’s girlfriend and the fandom has no idea what to do with her??? Like she is ALWAYS either such a bitch or like the mom friend? And there is so much more to her character than that? But they always break down her character AND find a quick and easy way to break up her and Spock. I’m not even mad at that but at least treat their relationship with some weight instead of just being like ‘it never mattered’. People can love multiple people throughout the course of their lives. You know that right? Just because you loved someone before doesn’t make your new love any less special. And even headcanoning Spock as gay… you realize he doesn’t need to be attracted to Uhura for their relationship to have mattered, right? Even if he confused friendship for romantic attraction, him feeling such strong friendship and openly expressing it is so monumental for him!!! 

she's dating Spock, who people ship with Kirk, so fans have decided that it's horrible writing and "really, they're just defending her, the movies turned her into just a love interests," which is not at all true. The movies do so much more for her to the point that the fans who have only seen the movies think that the main characters are Kirk, Spock, and Uhura instead of the Kirk, Spock, McCoy of the original series. Also having a black women being shown as being desired and loved in mainstream media, particularly by one of the most popular characters of all time, is a good thing, not making her "just a love interest"

[maebyshifting]

my descendants dr!

𓆷 ━━━ background info ━━━ 𓆷

firstly i haven't even watched descendants until last year when my friend forced me to and i absolutely fell in love with it

my favorite movie is def the second one, but my ranking goes two, three, then one. uma's crew brings exactly what it needed and i love them so much

in general my favorite character is evie i love her <3 mwah the older sister figure i never knew i needed

𓆷 ━━━━ about me ━━━━━ 𓆷

my name is raye fitzherbert and i am the child of rapunzel and eugene!

we are 18/19 and auradon is a university instead of a prep/high school

ben and i are basically like siblings as our parents are very close - unfortunately auradon believes we're arranged to be married since we are so close

i have a cat named sunny and she is an actual ray of sunshine i love her so much

here she is :)

i don't have any siblings, which is why ben and i are so close since we're only children

my wardrobe consists of a lot of yellow + lavender + light blue combos

i have a dagger that i have on me at all times just in case and know how to sword fight/use it

i look more like my dad but i have my moms eyes and freckles :)

𓆷 ━━━━━ extra details about my home + auradon ━━━━━━ 𓆷

while there are dorms in auradon, i do not have a roommate right now but i can request one if i want

in my home castle my room is up in the tower and is full of artistic doodles from my mom and i and its a lavender and sunny aesthetic

lots of purple and yellow if that makes sense (yellow is my favorite color even in my cr so it makes sense for me)

speaking of yellow my dorm at auradon is more yellow than lavender because its my favorite color :)

there's a lot of majors but i have no idea what i want to major in yet so i'm still figuring it all out

we actually use magic in auradon! i think magic is so central and our parents definitely passed their magic onto us so we get to use it

also in carona we have a lantern ceremony for my birthday and it is so beautiful i get emotional every time

so we celebrate my birthday and the day my mom was found, there's other festivals as well to celebrate things like harvest and fall <3

𓆷 ━━━━ timeline ━━━━━ 𓆷

i am shifting to the first movie, specifically the day that the vks are coming to auradon!

i love to meet people and experience all of that so i get to meet the vks with ben and help show them around

nothing really changes in the first movie, mal doesn't drug ben because that was wild but ben definitely has had a crush on mal for a while now

i convinced him to propose his vk plan <3

in the second movie i also go to the isle with ben and we both get kidnapped!

i made a tiktok about this but i literally follow him and wind up being taken as well- oops

but hey thats where i meet uma's crew!

and harry but thats not important rn-

third movie i'm with jane for her birthday and meet up with everyone in the woods like in the movie

so yeah other than that its like super close to the movies

i can't wait for after the third movie though timeline was because it's going to be so fun with all the villain kids in auradon with us

especially uma's crew <3 i love uma so much i respect the hell out of her

𓆷 ━━━ relationships ━━━━ 𓆷

as i already said, ben and i are basically siblings auradon doesn't agree rn smh

we speak to each other in french when we don't want others to know what we're saying

also as stated before ben has a HUGE crush on mal

because we've been doing research on the isle so he could propose his idea to his parents

anway

i'm really good friends with jane and my friend sol :) idk if they're on tumblr but they are my shifting best friend and we script each other into our drs so we can meet

anyway sol is chad's twin and they're cinderella and prince charming's kids

her and chad are very close as siblings, brains and beauty frfr

i haven't met any of the vks yet but i hope to be really good friends with them :)

especially evie and uma's crew

but like i'm excited to meet everyone

lets talk about harry hook

i like to script scenarios so if you're not into that feel free to ignore this! i like to jot the ideas down so it finally leaves my head

sooooo harry has a little crush

that's the best way to explain it

so while ben has a crush on mal, harry has a little crush on a certain princess and doesn't think it'll ever happen until the press interview said princess where they state that ben and her are more like siblings not arranged lovers

so yeah :) descendants two is going to be fun

audrey doesn't like me or mal

she thinks i'm in the way of her families plan for her to be queen but i'm literally like go! take him! i don't want ben!

but he has eyes on mal so she doesn't like that either

other than that i'm very close with my parents and ben's parents

also gil and i are going to be best friends. i haven't met him yet but that's my goal because he also speaks french and is so naturally funny

𓆷 ━━━━ extras ━━━━━ 𓆷

in this dr we do still sing and dance which is so fun

my dance partner usually was ben, but after the vks arrived it turns into jay

jay gives older brother vibes idk he makes me feel safe

there's a ton of balls as well where we dress up and wear our crowns since a lot of us are princesses/princes

here's my crown :) its like a mini version of my moms crown but in my mind its more stylized to fit the yellow/lavendar theme i have

i think that's everything i can think of- if anyone has any questions i'd love to answer them!

i love talking about my drs and this one is so special to me because the world is so amazing and i love the music so much

also if you have a descendants dr please tell me about them!

[philtatosbuck]

it’s so gross to me how c*roline stans have been running with this narrative that Elena is a horrible friend to Caroline and attacking her for getting involved with Damon after he r*ped Caroline while giving Stefan a free pass when Damon is literally Elena’s abuser too, and Elena was horrified and outraged by what Damon did to Caroline and did everything she could to protect Caroline when Elena was literally a teenage girl unfamiliar with the supernatural world being preyed on by two 100+ vampires and oh yeah DAMON WAS ELENA’S ABUSER TOO like literally what was elena supposed to do Damon was constantly inserting himself into her life and every time she’d reject him he’d do something like kill her brother like she had literally no power against him. Stefan was the one who could have done something about Damon and constantly chose not to but this gets completely ignored by fandom. also funny how the “elena is the worst” crowd had nothing to say about Caroline sleeping with the guy who killed Tyler’s mom (except for the people attacking TYLER for being upset lmao)

Listen, I'm 80% right there with you. You've hooked me. You're gonna get a whole essay out of me.

There are five (major) issues to tackle here. Let's start with the first one, which should be the most simple to understand.

Damon's Ongoing Assault Issue.

We all saw what Damon did. We all agree that him compelling Caroline removed her ability to consent to it. We are all aware of that. Here's the thing. In character, no one ever addresses more than the feeding and manipulation. Not even Caroline herself. We, as the audience, know the issue. But the issue presented in character is never as clear cut as "Damon raped Caroline, and she rightfully hates him for it." They never go there, and we know why. This also unfortunately means that Caroline never once says that's the reason she hates Damon so much. We're given the "he manipulated me, he fed off of me without my consent" which is still bad, but it's nothing he didn't do to anyone else. He killed Alaric multiple times. He killed Jeremy. He threatened and attacked Bonnie. He's killed Vicki and Mason and everyone else, and this is after what he did to Caroline. If he gets away with all of that, why wouldn't they forgive or tolerate him for something as 'natural' as feeding? By not acknowledging that his compulsion removed Caroline's consent, they never have to acknowledge that what he did was rape. And that means they never have to say Damon did anything worse to Caroline than he did to anyone else. Specifically, we also never see anyone call out the fact Damon compels Andie to be okay with what he is and to let him feed off of her while in a relationship with her as well. Alaric in particular never calls this out despite the fact he's an adult who should know better than the teenagers how wrong it is, because by that point, they've all reached a place where they're damn near complacent in what Damon does. But anyway, without them outright saying what he did and calling it what he is, Caroline seems very... obnoxious with her dislike for him, while everyone else has gotten over it. It kind of leads us into the next one.

The Stefan Issue.

You're completely correct. Stefan should have been the one getting Damon away. Both Elena and Stefan knew what Damon was doing to Caroline, and Elena demanded he deal with it. And he did. To do that, he used Caroline as a way to subdue Damon. While people often talk about how Stefan took Caroline under his wing, it wasn't before he repeatedly used her. Even after that, he uses her when it comes to Klaus and to Tyler. But focusing on the Damon subject, Caroline never once acknowledges that Stefan knew (which she knows) what Damon was doing to some extent or holds him responsible for it, or snarks at him about Damon as much as she does Elena. She all but outright absolves him of any wrongdoing as soon as he becomes her mentor. You see it in the way she personally roots for Stefan whenever it comes to the damned triangle, her own desire to prop him up overriding any and everything. Even after Stefan hurt Elena herself, she was still very aggressively team Stefan. This is partially because she's basically Julie Plec's self insert, and partially because she sees Stefan as the good brother, despite the fact he above all is the one who primarily excused and defended him during that time. People will not admit that Stefan is complacent in Damon's actions because they're obsessed with a 'good brother, bad brother' dynamic. On the flip side, people who do acknowledge Stefan's part of it claim Damon is better because he "owns up to what he is". The truth of the matter is that they're both assholes.

The Elena Of It All.

Like you said, Elena was rightfully disgusted and terrified of what Damon did to Caroline, and fucking immediately told Stefan to deal with that shit. For a bit after that, she (and Bonnie) were doing their best to keep Damon away from Caroline. Here's where the issue lies. Like I said before, we, the audience, know everything, right? Did we ever see a scene where Caroline tells her exactly what happened with Damon? This is part of the issue I mentioned with 'Caroline never outright says it'. All Elena has to go on is bruises and bitemarks. And she is mad about that, mad about the fact Damon fed on her without her consent, but that's all she thinks happened. She does not know Damon is her rapist. And yes, that is enough reason for Elena to hate him and be mad at him, but look at all the things I mentioned above. What did he do to Caroline that he hasn't done to others who, frankly, mean more to Elena? As bad as it is to say it, as far as Elena knows, there's nothing special about what Damon did to Caroline.

Part two of the Elena issue is that while you're right, while Damon was her abuser too, it gets wonky because of the sire bond and because of her eventual feelings for him. At some point in season one, Caroline is asking for the necklace back, and Elena goes "why? so you can give it back to Damon?" which is half a joke, half not. So already, Elena is joking about the situation. Which, Caroline doesn't remember everything. Elena knows that. Look, you can essentially take it one of two ways. One, Elena's trying to make shit seem normal because they haven't told Caroline about the supernatural, while feeling out why she wants it back. Two, she's being cruel. It honestly depends on how you view her character this early on. I'm not gonna debate about that, whatever.

Anyway, later on, in season whatever the hell, Damon jokes "have fun with blondie, I know I did" and Elena laughs. That? Was bad. Even without knowing the full extent of what he did, it was a fucked up thing to laugh at. I love Elena, and it was fucked up. You'll never see me denying that shit. Damon even fucking teaches her to hunt in the same way he picked Caroline out and it isn't called out, in canon.

Primarily, people's issue with Elena, is that it seems like she co-signs all of Damon's bullshit from even before they were together because she gets with him. For them, it's like Elena is immediately acknowledging and approving of everything Damon did because they're in a relationship. Some people acknowledge Stefan and Alaric do this as well. Some don't. Oh well.

I don't ship delena, or stelena. I think Elena and Damon's dynamic was terrible. I think her character changed when she got with him, for the worse. I openly admit all that, and you can take it as I'm biased if you want to. I personally don't think two people getting together means they cosign each other's bullshit, but whatever.

But the main issue lies in season one. They believe Elena should have done something to stop Damon from what he did to Caroline. What, exactly? I don't know. Damon was trying to compel Elena to fucking kiss him in season one and she smacked him immediately. She wanted him dead for what he did to Caroline. She said as much. I couldn't tell you what else people wanted her to do. By the time she had some kind of power against him, he had done bigger and worse things and yet he was one of their only allies with knowledge of the supernatural so they needed him. So, bluntly, Caroline's thing got pushed to the way side. One thing I see people mention is that Elena stopped Bonnie from personally killing Damon when they found out Caroline got turned and you can make your own opinions about that but Damon did not do that. Katherine did. He did deserve to die, but Elena didn't want Bonnie to be the one to do it. Opinions and reasons vary, but she also didn't let Damon kill Caroline (by directly putting herself in harm's way to protect her), so... whatever you want to think about that, think it, do it, bop it, I don't care.

My opinion on Elena being a horrible friend to Caroline is that she's not. At the end of the day, Elena is probably one of the people who treated Caroline best, if you step back and look at the whole thing from an objective point of view. People just do not do that.

I do think there's a certain point where "Elena couldn't do anything" stops being entirely true, but it's long after what happened to Caroline. And it's nothing that Caroline herself couldn't do after she became a vampire (much sooner than Elena did).

The Caroline-Klaus Issue.

Preaching to the choir, dude. People will go on all day saying how dating your friend's abuser is wrong (fair) and then say Caroline is better because she Just fucked Klaus (despite the fact they WANTED them to be in a long term relationship anyway). I, personally, don't see how the fuck that's better. I also don't see a point in "morality" arguments for this fandom, but let's just write it out. Fucking the guy who murdered your boyfriend's mom and his friends is better than dating a guy who manipulated your friend into doing his bidding and feeding on her (which as is as much as Elena knows)? Debatable.

People will often excuse this as "Tyler chose revenge over her" as if Klaus did not murder his mother and the fellow hybrids. If the roles were reversed and Liz had been murdered, there'd be a different talk. But hey.

Finally,

The Caroline Issue.

Caroline not only serves as Julie's self insert, but she's the self insert for a lot of this damn fandom. You see it in fics, where they either change her personality so she's more like Elena or Bonnie, and Elena/Bonnie is the friend who can't keep their mouth shut or is always commenting on their friends' lives or spilling secrets.

The Tyler thing? Caroline's a girlboss for telling Tyler to get over it! after she slept with his mother's murderer. But Elena's a terrible friend and "trying to make it all about her" when she tries to sympathize with Caroline over Liz's death and turning her humanity off. Caroline's a queen when she slutshames Katherine and Rebekah and literally any female character she doesn't like who she speaks about for more than two seconds, but when Elena throws it back in her face that Caroline INTENDED to sleep with Damon before finding out he was a vampire (which she did. It's why he got invited into her house), she's just so awful. This, in addition to the fact that Elena was under a sirebond, and Caroline is just regularly fucking like that.

You see my point. Anyway, make no mistake, what Damon did is an issue, but it's only as big of an issue in fandom because Caroline is the golden girl to them. They completely ignore the fact Elena has no full knowledge about what went down. They ignore that Stefan or Alaric should have been taking charge against Damon. They ignore that Caroline never so much as utters a peep about exactly why she hates Damon besides him being a "manwhore". Anything they can use to villainize anyone, but especially Elena, where Caroline is concerned? They will. Facts be damned.

[thoughtspresso]

Hello, sorry I just need someone to voice my op to since none of my circles read or watch OnK :'(

It's so weird to me how Akane's fans interpret that scene when the girls are filming an MV as Akane only having good intention and care for Kana, 'cuz imo even if there is, what she said was still one of her attemps to get Aqua to stay with her. Look at how things played out to her: her business bf wanted to break up, he even straight up refused sex when she offered, and now she found out that right after that he took Kana on to a proper date, Akane's chances were close to zero. She was grasping at straws when she said that and played it under the guise of being considerate about Kana's safety, just like how she said she's okay with breaking up with him yet cried - showing that she wanted the opposite. Because if she only cared about Kana's safety, then what's with the side comment about how actors have it easier? It's like she was saying "Choose me, I'm the safer choice!". I'm not saying Akane didn't have good intention, but it's more like a two bird one stone typa thing where she wanted Kana to be safe and Aqua to continue with dating her (her own selfish want). It was kinda a dirty move from Akane, consider how she knows very well what happened to Ai and how much that'll affects Aqua. Akane always strike me as a good in nature yet also self-absorbed character: She decided what's best for both Kana and Aqua that also benefits her selfish wants regardless of how the other two would feel (& we all know how miserable both Aqua and Kana was during that ghosting period); She decided what to do to Aqua's father without thinking about how he might feel (again); The signs were as early as the LoveNow arc where she tweeted the apology thinking it was the right solution without consulting with her manager first because she thought she knew what was best for her to do in that situation. Even her acting method also kinda reflect this, where if the character's portrayal clashes between her and the director/scriptwriter, she already has a concrete image of the character from her own interpretation and thus has difficulty compromising and adjusting with the production team.

I might even take a wild guess that she was in love (obsessed) with the idea of saving prince charming rather than Aqua himself because to her, their story literally went/was gonna go like the old classic story of prince charming saving the girl -> the girl learns about the prince's past, decides to help him to repay him saving her -> prince charming defeats the bad guy (his dad in this story) with the girl's help -> happily ever after. Akane being a teen + Aqua saved her + it's her first dating experience caused her to have an idealistic view of dating and probably why she tolerated Aqua dating her despite having his eyes on Kana for he did act like the perfect bf on the surface, and that to her was enough to fulfil her prince charming fantasy. Akane is, actually, not that mature in her relationship with Aqua like how her fan keep praising her for, tbh imo it's more akin to what teens think "being mature" is. I know this is one of the appeal of her ship with Aqua, even though some might deny it. As oppose to Kana who might be a potential obstacle to Aqua's revenge whether good or bad, Akane is narratively there as a bonus reward for Aqua after finishing the main quest of avenging his mom if the ship ever be canon again. Akane and Aqua have unfortunately became perfect self-inserts for those who are into revenge and/or trophy girl fantasy (nothing bad about this itself tho). But perhaps because of looking into those fantasy fulfilment rather than the actual context of the manga/anime, they accuse Kana of not understanding the "real" Aqua (I have alot to say about this, maybe 3 paragraphs at least lol) or how she's useless for not helping him kill a person and ignore the entire other half chunk of the story about showbiz problems, where Kana's own story entangle more.

If you've read this far, thank you so so much.

P/s: My wild guess no.2, rather than being a damsel in distress (being Kamiki's target) for Aqua to come rescue, Kana already has a close relationship with Kamiki prior to reuniting with the twins (maybe a mentor-student relationship?). I've always find it weird how Aka just glossed over Kana's past, like he's holding back important info regarding her past that he can't show the readers too soon. So that's why I have this guess. This explains why Aka's been keeping her out of the revenge plot for so long + better than Kana just being a damsel in distress + raises the stakes for Kana (will she choses the mentor who helped her through her dark days being abused by her mom or the twins who she can see the light and bright future in?) + makes Kana a key player in the revenge plot.

Hey Anon! I'm happy to talk to you about some OnK Character Analyses anytime. Sorry to have taken so long to respond, I really wanted to sit down with your question. I've been thinking about this a lot. And I'm afraid my response might be even longer than your ask hahaha!

I want to summarize your main points for everybody else, so that we're all on the same page:

Akane was manipulative when she reminded Aqua that Kana was an idol, and pushed him to choosing her.

Akane wants to reverse the damsel-in-distress and Prince Charming trope, and decides on behalf of others.

Akane fans accuse Kana for not knowing the "real" Aqua

(Bonus) There's a possibility that Kana already knew Hikaru Kamiki.

So, my responses:

#1 Was Akane being manipulative in Ch. 76?

Well, yes. And no.

I actually had a short discussion (argument?) with Skania (who I will not tag for the sake of their mental health, but mentioning here to credit them.) about this very topic. (And I want to thank them for their time and also apologize to have annoyed them!) We have really different interpretations and disagree each other on this part.

To get the fast answer out of the way: Yes, I believe Akane was wholly aware of what she was saying.

She already knew from the Tokyo Blade arc how badly Aqua can get triggered on the topic of Ai's death.

Put it this way: imagine being a teenage girl who was depressed or bullied, and the boy who saved your life started dating you but admits that it isn't because he likes you that way. You start offering him sex if that would fulfill his wants in a relationship, but he tells you that your relationship is about to end soon. You find out from another girl that they went on a date--shopping for suitcases and Brazilian barbecue--a kind of date he never did for you. Then when he invited you to go on a trip, most of what he did was walk you around his hometown to look for something else, and then watch this other girl be really cute in a dress he was stunned by.

Akane is allowed to be a teenager who would want to nudge her boyfriend to stay with her and away from his other crush.

Akane fans like to argue that she was being completely selfless, and was just looking out for Kana's safety too.

I really dislike this reading of Akane's character, because it strips her of agency. Of course she has personal goals, wants, and flaws. She's allowed to be a teenage girl who wanted her love to be reciprocated. She's allowed to be a teenage girl who gets a little jealous, and try as she might to be professional and civil because all of these people are her work colleagues too, she still does things that fulfill her goals. She is allowed to be self-interested, and act on opportunities that align with those self interests.

I also think that if Akane's fans want to believe in her intellect and her masterful ability in understanding people's psychology and detective work, then it stands to reason that they should also believe that Akane was deliberately aware of the effect of what she said to Aqua. She doesn't always make 100% correct bets, but it's reasonable to conclude she made this bet hoping that it could get him to stay.

Akane and everyone else is already aware that Kana is actually not a person who needs scolding on the dangers of being under public scrutiny:

Under any normal circumstance, if Akane simply cared for Kana's safety, she would have simply responded to Kana when she was bragging about the date. Like, "hey be careful about dating in public spaces okay? I dont want you getting in trouble." Or, if she would talk to Aqua about it, she might say, "Please remember to book a private room next time you eat in a restaurant."

But no. If Akane would remind them of safety tips of dating as public figures, it would just lead them to the advice to do Home Dates:

And she doesn't want that now, does she?

She didn't say something as straightforward as that, and neither did the author write it in a more neutral tone. It was deliberately written with Akane implying that if he didn't want Kana killed, he should just date a fellow actor. (Preferably one that the public is actually cheering on to be together, because they were already in a Love Team due to the show.)

I just don't like ignoring what the Author and the Illustrator clearly put on the page for me to absorb the way that it was. I think pretending she was being wholly selfless is an insult to the writers.

#2 Is Akane motivated by the want to Save Prince Charming?

This is the "and no" part of my answer.

When I think of Akane, I don't think of an outright evil person who manipulated Aqua into doing things, wanting to be a hero for that reason. And just like how Tokyo Blade serves as a parallel for the show, it in turn informs us that it is an incorrect interpretation of Saya-hime (or Akane) to think that she outright wants the violence herself.

This part I agree with Skania on: Akane's main flaw is her low self-esteem.

Akane doesn't personally believe that she is inherently worth any value, and any value that she holds is attributed to her hard work.

People have taken notice to the fact that, unlike Kana's experience of abuse and abandonment, Akane had a really good support system behind her when her suicide attempt happened during the LoveNow arc. She had a loving mother and a really kind-hearted manager that believed in her. Yet she clung onto the validation from the agency President more. She ascribes her personal value to the approval of other people, especially positive feedback from her superiors in the industry, her theater troupe calling her a genius, her fans applauding her.

And, on the opposite side of the same coin, she has immense Rejection Sensitivity that makes her extremely defensive when she received cyberbullying, leading her to want to make a public apology right away and appease people.

This leads Akane to be an extremely hardworking person, but also seeking validation and direction from other people (like the LoveNow crew), unable to voice out her views unless it is supported by an authority figure (like when she wanted something changed in Tokyo Blade), and also why when meeting her personal hero and idol Arima Kana in person, when Kana lashed out at her, instead of simply thinking, "okay she's a terrible person, I'm done with being her fan forever", she rejected that idea and went on to study Psychology in the hopes of understanding people like Kana.

All of this manifests in her relationship with Aqua being okay with receiving bare minimum from him, not complaining when she realizes he has feelings for someone else, and also doing anything and everything for him, whatever he needs whether he asks for it or not.

I'll go a little further into my interpretation of her (which I know Akane fans might be resistant to or disagree with, but I hope you stick with me here.)

I also think Akane has a co-dependency on Aqua, and herself has Inverted Narcissism, with Covert and Cerebral Subtypes.

I agree! I sound nuts! This interpretation is crazytown.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) has several subtypes, including Inverted Narcissism, which is a subtype where the person craves the co-dependency on another narcissist. They are self-sacrificing to their primary narcissist, feel they are not entitled to anything, but seem emotionally level-headed and highly attuned to the primary narcissist's needs but not much empathy for anybody else.

Because of how little they think of themselves, it gives them a feeling of power and control to be with a person who believes himself to be so special, to have a crucial mission whose victory she can partake in. In a sense, Aqua was someone Akane looked up to so much for having saved her from her suicide attempt, and for turning the public's view of her from negative to overwhelmingly popular.

Akane definitely thought, "I want to be useful to him! I want to make him happy!"

And this man had his own amazing detective mission going on in his mind and trauma to solve. And so Akane thinks, "Let me solve that for you! Let me be useful to you even if it kills me! Use me as you need!"

They say true love is unconditional and self-giving so I will aide my enabler in patricide to prove my worth to him!

According to Professor of Psychology Sam Vaknin, the DSM gives us 9 criteria to diagnose an Inverted Narcissist, and you need to have at least 5 to qualify. Here are some that he mentioned that I think fit Akane:

The inverted narcissist is emotionally stable, but her self-esteem is very low. The inverted narcissist devalues herself as an offering, as a sacrifice to the narcissist in her life. The inverted narcissist is compelled to filter all her narcissistic needs through the primary narcissist in her life. The inverted narcissist feels amplified by the primary narcissist's own accomplishments. The inverted narcissist is pre-occupied with fantasies [...] of an ideal love to be accomplished through the narcissistic partner.

The inverted narcissist feels like she is undeserving and not entitled to anything.

The inverted narcissist is indistinguishably selfless. She is sacrificial. She is anxious in her interpersonal relationships. She avoids assistance of others at all cost. She can only interact with others when she can be seen to be giving, supporting and expending an unusual effort to assist. So she is sacrificial, she sacrifices herself, but ostentatiously, in full view.

The inverted narcissist lacks empathy like a classic narcissist. She is intensely attuned to others needs, but only insofar as it relates to her own need to perform the required self sacrifice. She needs to self sacrifice in order to obtain her narcissistic supply from her primary narcissist. But to do so, she must be attuned to his needs. So this is her restricted use or leverage of empathy.

The inverted narcissist displays extreme shyness, lack of any real relational connections, is publicly self-effacing, is highly moralistic and critical of others, is a perfectionist, engages in lengthy ritualistic behaviors that can never be perfected.

I also mentioned that Akane has Cerebral subtype, in that she believes she has superior intellect, and the Covert subtype, where she seems altruistic and selfless on the outside but internally she is driven by a self-serving need to be useful, to be wanted, because she chases after this external validation to fill in the gaps of her own self-esteem and call to perfectionism.

There is room to argue that Aqua is actually the inverted narcissist and she's codependent on Akane who is the altruistic/communal narcissist subtype. I reviewed it, but it seems she's the codependent one in this scenario.

I think this answer entails that Aqua himself also has NPD, and I think he does have Vulnerable Narcissism with Cerebral subtype. Kana actually picked up on it pretty well:

He does tend to think that he is the sole person who can accomplish this mission of revenge, even though it took him 4 years to crack a passcode and he actually didn't solve anything himself. Like, ever.

He thinks that he has some superior ability to read people and manipulate them (and it's not necessarily true, he just believes so).

And he likes bringing it up out loud a lot, like I used you, or haha she's so easy to manipulate, regardless if he actually did anything.

When Ruby points out he hasn't made any friends, Aqua deflects and becomes defensive.

He also initially thought that he was going to make it big as an actor after the one time he did well as a child, and entreated Gotanda to take him in, but when his PTSD was getting in the way of his acting, he just chalked it up to saying no actually I was never talented in that, because he doesn't want to admit to others that he doesn't have the supernatural inhumane acting skills he thought he did. (Note: He's not comfortable showing those old acting videos to Kana, but is okay with showing it to Akane for this reason.)

He truly believes he's everybody's savior. Unprompted he just thinks he's some main character that caused everybody's suffering. His Behavioral Self-Blame (BSB) about the death of both of his mothers is a manifestation of his wish for control over the situation, which is a known coping mechanism for those with PTSD or Major Depression Disorder (MDD)

Vulnerable NPD subtypes also feel uncomfortable being praised, which is why he reacts that way with Kana.

Vulnerable NPD subtypes also hate being asked to compete, which is why during both LoveNow and Tokyo Blade arcs, he keeps out of the way.

Vulnerable NPD subtypes really really hate rejection, and that's why Aqua says that he can't confront Kana without a Pieyon mask because he's too weak to be shot down by her again.

Vulnerable NPD subtypes are quite anti-social, but again if you confront them about it, they'll just deflect you and say things like they had no intentions to make friends or they're busy observing or something like this.

I mean, look at this dumbass intellectualize having feelings for girls his age like Akane and Kana:

Kana gets it though:

ONLY A NARCISSIST WOULD (half-joke)

This is of course a reminder that people with NPD aren't inherently bad people, they also don't come in one shape or form as there are many subtypes, and they can swing in severity. Most of them are a by-product of either a traumatic childhood or an overly doting one. Akane and Aqua just simply happened to be both of these.

I just came to this interpretation when I kept thinking of why was it that it felt like both Akane and Aqua were using each other. They both felt miserable and yet felt necessary and dependent on each other's emotional comfort. They both lie to each other too. I think a lot of people have picked up on the "feeling" that the two are using, manipulating, abusing each other, there's something dysfunctional about them together, and yet they also genuinely care about each other a lot. And people couldn't pick the right words to describe that. Co-dependents and their primary narcissists can heal together into a healthy relationship, they don't have to stay that way forever. But for the most part, nobody really recognizes that that's what was happening, because the dance they do together looks completely synchronized as a relationship. Who ever says no to a sweet and completely self-giving girlfriend? Who would leave their boyfriend to die alone in a revenge plot?

ONLY A NARCISSIST WOULD (not joking)

#3 Does Kana know the real Aqua:

I think a lot of Akane fans love to cite that Akane knew about the revenge, the trauma, the using, the manipulation etc. She also knows what he's like when he's being silly and playful.

And I don't deny that Aqua and Akane cared for each other.

But I also think that Kana knew Aqua even when he was being unpleasant, making crude jokes about her when they were kids. Kana observes Aqua's acting meticulously and understands the fine details of his style. Kana also has actual conversations with him about his interests too. They read the same books and they jog together, and they're very comfortable arguing with each other about anything.

Most of all, of anybody, only Kana has pointed out that Aqua has chuunibyou/grandiose thinking, narcissistic tendencies, and that Ruby has a co-dependent relationship with him (even when she didn't know about their past as Sarina and Gorou, she just picked it up as the core reason for their clinginess).

#4 [Bonus] Does Kana know Kamiki?

I don't think so.

When Kamiki opened his production company/agency, Kana would have been about 11yo. It was around this time that she had been recording Full Moon and her other songs, and her career had been on a decline. Then her company left her and she started freelancing instead.

Kana's acting style is also diametrically opposed to Kamiki's acting. Which as Akane has pointed out is similar to Ai's acting style. Kana's acting is very emotionally honest and is rooted in her personal understanding of her own emotions, whereas Kamiki and Ai act to deceive others based on the calculated perception they know the audience wants of them. Given this, it's unlikely that Kamiki mentored her in any form.

Lastly, I think Kana would have been the first person to point out that Kamiki looks like Aqua if they knew each other, even if he was acting as the Miki-san persona.

But I did joke before that I think if Kana and Kamiki met each other, they'd just traumabond and be friends until the cops haul Kamiki away. And that'd be the funniest thing ever.

That's it! That was a very long rant. Thanks for the question.

[cinamun]

This line from shygirlsimmer "Sean really doesn’t owe him any form of loyalty just like he left Jayce alone cuz he didn’t owe him loyalty either…but Mercy…" has been stuck in my head for a while now and I want to ask this what loyalty does Mercy owe Bishop? Bishop has been treating Mercy like an object from the very beginning, isolating her from her son, keeping tabs on her, checking her phone, legit stalking this woman for no reason. I don't know if he has a valid reason for doing all this and if he does have one I don't give a fuck.

She doesn't owe him loyalty.

HE OWES HER FUCKING PEACE OF MIND!

Mercy shouldn't be looking over her shoulder, she shouldn't be stressing about him showing up like how he did, she shouldn't be worried about herself the way she is with Bishop around. She's allowed to be a grown ass woman and do whatever she wants which is moving on and trying to find herself a healthy relationship that isn't with a toxic piece of shit.

I'm sorry for being so mad but this happened to my mom, and I can't get over it.

Oof, friend... don't apologize at all ever and you shouldn't get over it, that's your mom! But lets get into it though because this level of toxic is very common, we just hide it well.... and I love to write about the secrets we don't tell.

*starts prepping wings for tomorrow morning, hands you a lemon*

To you and to me and to everyone else in the Reading Room™ he doesn't owe her shit but less headaches, stress and manipulation. He owes her peace of mind exactly as you said.

But he's Bishop. He's not a man who will give a shit about that. He cares about nothing but himself and what you can provide for him. He will absolutely throw you away or worse if you can no longer serve a purpose. As for now at least, he might be capable of growth, he's getting older.... I can't call it.....

Remember how they met; her husband had just died in the worst way and Bishop somehow magically escaped prison after 30 years. So imagine the level of codependency there...

So when we say "but Mercy..." its because a man like Bishop will put loyalty over a lot of shit. Loyalty is everything to men like him and will get you killed if you fuck that up. He is absolutely one to expect and demand loyalty from Mercy who HE feels carried him during a time when he literally had nowhere to go but underground. A very vulnerable time for him.

She hit him with the lobster mac, some good pussy and it was a wrap. She even put his needs before her son's (think back to him coming home from college and her basically telling him to buy a house.... shit was wild). She's actually IS loyal to him, honestly.

What we see now is ... well... stay tuned friend.

I'm sorry its heavy for you and you don't have to apologize. Men like this just fucking exist unfortunately, and as frustrating as Mercy can be when it comes to him, I haven't completely given up hope for her..... yet.

[muffinapologist]

Heyo, I just read your detailing of convicted Phoenix au for Ace Attorney and was wondering when you mentioned that Pheonix's personal life being kinda depressing, what did you mean by that? What does Edgeworth discover that makes him conclude that?

Ah, well, this mostly comes down to headcanon! Something that I noticed while playing the trilogy is that even though we play as Phoenix we know surprisingly little about him. Production wise this probably comes down to wanting to focus on the cases themselves and also wanting to leave Phoenix as an average guy the audience can project onto, but from a character standpoint it's odd. The guy seems almost allergic to talking about himself. There's a case during Christmas and he doesn't even mention his family. (there's also a Q&A in one of the art books where the question asks about his family and he says 'no comment') He mentions a mom a couple times but nothing specific about her

Additionally, Phoenix seems to have a tendency to deflect his own grief. When Mia dies he starts investigating the scene immediately. It's not that he's not upset, but he chooses to focus on the situation as a case rather than the loss of a loved one. When Edgeworth disappears, presumably dead, Phoenix reacts much the same way. He throws himself back into his work and rebukes any mention of Edgeworth's name. I think in this way Miles and Phoenix are very similar; they have a tendency to repress big, complex, and complicated emotions. Although Phoenix seems to be better at keeping people at arm's length without them noticing. We also know that beyond Mia, Maya, Edgeworth, Larry, and Gumshoe; Phoenix doesn't really have friends. And at the point where Mia dies Phoenix isn't even friends with Maya and Gumshoe yet *and* his friendship with Edgeworth has yet to be repaired. Larry seems flaky at best, disappearing for long stretches of time when his career and girlfriend changes. This tracks since Phoenix's last major relationship went down in flames in the worst way imaginable, and at that time he decided to double down in his effort to reconnect with Miles. He was entirely focused on earning his attorney's badge and didn't maintain a social life outside of Mia who was helping him do so.

My personal take on his family life is that his father left him and his mom when he was still a baby, and his mom raised him on her own. Unfortunately, when he was still in high school she was admitted to the hospital for cancer treatment and passed away several months later right before Phoenix graduated. So when Edgeworth starts investigating Phoenix's life he notices a distinct lack of personal details. As if the apartment he's rummaging through could belong to literally anyone. And as he digs deeper he realizes just how much Phoenix has packed away so that he doesn't have to think about it.

[memoriescut]

today is sunday and while i don't have anything sexual to say about pudding ( not that we should care since she's literally a teenager, which is always good to remind ) i want to write a little rundown of things involving pudding and the concept of love.

as a child love has always been associated as a reward for being useful, especially because the only source was big mom. as i already mentioned pudding's whole existence is a mean to an end and her usefulness is tied to how fast she will awaken her third eye. we know she was spoiled wich riches but that both her mom and some of her siblings beside her bullies were disgusted by her appearance. even when it comes to the siblings she has a close bond with, it's mostly pudding adapting to their habits so that they will like her better

as a teenager, her concept of love is based on the idealisation of it that lola had before leaving totto land. pudding mentions she wishes to sail and find her true love the way her older sister did, unaware of the fact that it's not that easy... if lola's story is of any testament that is

as we know sanji was the first person who somewhat expressed romantic interest toward her. while his behaviour was bare minimum, to someone like pudding who has never been exposed to anything it feels like gold - with this i'm not saying that it wasn't pivotal to the beginning of her "redemption arc", but the sanji that pudding has seen in the days previous to their wedding is very different from how he presents usually ( due to unfortunate circumstances and whatnot ) in fact we see her have a little heartbreak moment at his reunion with nami upon realising he's just like that with everyone. there's nothing wrong with that and i think the way she managed her jealousy was quite mature despite... everything... heartache is part of growing up and again that was also essential for pudding to evolve her idea of love

pudding feels in extremes, mostly due to the traumas of her childhood but also because she's not balanced with all things yet. explaining herself and putting her feelings into words always feels like too much work - this is where acts of service come. the more she gets in tune with her higher self the less thoughts will feel jumbled, but even then she will never talk anyone's ear off preferring to help / assist them whatever they need instead. words of affirmation are the preferred love language toward her - she needs lot of reassurance and clear communication, hazy situation will bore her quickly and make her feel unwanted, which in turn will end up with her parting ways

pudding's true self will evolve to the point that she will be one with everything. it transcends the body and it's hard to explain to the people she cares for, but the way she feels is so so much different. while she can love people ( especially the ones she shares deep bonds with due to circumstances ) she's not so much physically / sexually attracted to them. she's not opposed to sharing beds and baths and what could come with being in a relationship, but that's it really

due to this, she finds intimacy in much higher things - silence for instance. she's one of those people who loves being in the same room with the person she cares for, doing her own thing or watching them do their things, enjoying those little moments because she's aware of how fleeting they are. the kitchen will forever be the place you'll find pudding to be most vulnerable, the kitchen table being the most sacred space for any type of conversation

while i understand that pudding needs a gag otherwise she'd be too perfect, i personally think she would never have nosebleeds. however, she is absolutely cursed with THREE (3) huge romantic brown eyes who are a literal secret weapon to get everything she wants

[triplexdoublex]

I think wats messing me up about this whole thing is that my parents are going through a very similar situation where my mom was the extremely toxic one who cheated, said some extremely horrible lies about my dad and all of that stuff, then they seperated, and my dad got very suicidal and me and my sis had to watch him just spiral down hill and then like a few months later right when he was getting better, my dad let her just walk right back in like nothing happened and she never saw wat she did wrong and coudint understand why everyone was so upset, and now literally won't face any of our family and is only happy when she's spending his money. And I'm not saying this for sympathy or anything but I'm saying this from experience it doesn't matter how old the kid is when they have to sit there and watch their dad become suicidal and depressed over a women (doesn't matter if they are ur real mom, step mom, cousin, aunt, grandmother idc) but if ur kids watches u become suicidal over a women it not only breaks something inside of them but it makes them become extremely angry and not trusting to that said women. And him staying in this very openly toxic very public relationship is very damaging to Casie and I can almost garentee Casie despises Megan and is just waiting for her to leave/mess up again and I can also almost garentee she isint facing his family (the crew) anytime soon. Hell he's already trying to hide it from his other family (est) so I can only imagine how the crew feels about this

TW// domestic violence, blood, death threats, guns

I’m so sorry you had to go through that I unfortunately know exactly how you and Casie must feel. Growing up my step mother was extremely jealous, abusive and manipulative towards my dad even before they got married and it destroyed my relationship with him. She would take off her rings and have me hold them while she went and beat my dad up over the stupidest things like glancing at the Victoria Secret poster ads in the store window while walking by at the mall, she even once accused him of checking ME out that’s how crazy and jealous she was. One time he hurt his back at work and she accused him of “walking like he just had sex” and broke a small wooden baseball bat over his face , took pictures of him all bloody and then showed them to me and was basically like “this is what’s gonna happen if your dad keeps cheating on me.” My dad wasn’t allowed to attend any life events of mine birthdays, graduation, my wedding. She always had to tag along to every weekend visitation or vacation I had with my dad, and would never let my dad buy me things when we were out because he “already pays enough in child support” ( $55 a week 🙄). He worked as a janitor at my school and she made him quit because she thought he flirted with my teacher. She literally made him tell my teacher “I have to quit because I jerk off thinking about you” and she stood there and made sure he said it. At her and my dads wedding she told me “I’m your mother now and I will smack you” because I wouldn’t give two of her friends a ride home. Eventually they thankfully divorced when she cheated and decided she was done with my dad, but not before having 4 more kids and fucking them all up. Even after the divorce she continued to fuck with him and would claim all the kids on her taxes when the agreement was to split it or do every other year. So one time obviously extremely angry my dad said “I’m gonna kill you” purely out of anger and she called the police ( all of who my dad was friends with because he used to be a firefighter— another job she made him quit) and one of my dads own friends had to come to his house and confiscate all his LEGAL hunting guns and bows because “she feared he would use them to kill her” So after all the shit she put him through now he was the bad guy! I fear Megan’s gonna do the same thing to Kells and push him to a breaking point where he either says or does something violent so then she can spin the narrative and play the Amber Heard victim card and be like “see he was really the bad guy all along this is why you should always believe women, this is why I’m such a powerful feminist” 🙄 Sorry for the rant I can just see from experience how badly this can end for him and Casie’s relationship as well as his already tarnished reputation.

[strawberrydykke]

long post basically about nothing

omg up at night and can't sleep which always leads you to make good decisions. anyway i was looking at my ex's sister's reddit account and she made a comment probably about ME. where she said i was really awful to her and to my ex and that her family only invited me to events because they didn't want my ex to isolate himself from them or feel like he had to defend me. and like idk! everyone has their own memory of things. mine is that she was always super rude to me, talked over me, literally transphobic lol. we got in maybe two arguments over the two years that i dated her brother. other than that i didn't like her, but i think i was usually polite. obviously she would disagree. who's to say.

i don't think i was awful to my ex either. i don't think we were compatible, i think he really fucked me over in some ways. i know that i teased him a lot, but i thought that it was good natured couple ribbing, but he took it more seriously, and never communicated that to me until it all came pouring out like a year in. i feel bad about that but at the same time he never told me it bothered him, so like that just sucks! i think i was also nice to him, waaaaaaaaay too understanding of a lot of things (constantly blowing me off, slut shaming me LOL, generally being kind of sexist and racist toward me/my family). i think i supported him, helped him with school, helped him find a job, etc. like it wasn't a perfect relationship, but we were literally 19 so that's normal lol. maybe he thinks i was totally awful, which would be fair, breakups tend to color your view. i thought he was awful for a long time. now i just don't really care. he's a person, i'm a person, we both made mistakes. i don't really wish him well in life but i don't wish him harm either lol. it just doesn't concern me.

to be honest i think i am SUPER bothered by the idea that his whole family hated me and was just trying to keep me from isolating him or something. like obviously, i wouldn't have tried to isolate him from his family. i wouldn't have been mad if he went to family events without me, and i don't think i portrayed that. it's not like i butted in and insisted that i always be invited, and honestly i went to a lot more things than i wanted to because i wanted them to like me! like i am kind of just hoping that this is his sister being dramatic and extrapolating.

i was never that close with either of his parents and my relationship with his dad was always SUPER awkward but i really cared for his mom. she was really nice to me and i have unresolved mommy issues lol. i would like to think i was nice to her back and that she liked me. it's really hurtful to think that maybe she didn't and that it was all an act.

anyway. I will definitely talk about this in therapy lol but IN GENERAL. i'm not going to spiral about this. i think it's fair to have conflicted feelings on the mom thing but i'm not going to let it convince me that i'm actually an awful person or something and i've only tricked people into liking me. i have plenty of great qualities and i have some that aren't so great! but so does everyone else, nobody is perfect. i have friends and i have had a fair amount of romantic interests since then that clearly didn't think i was the worst person on earth. sooooo many people see value in me and think that i enrich their life and i'm not gonna argue with that. not everyone has to like me for all of this to be true and unfortunately sometimes that might include people i see as maternal figures. it seems like a bigger deal that it is because of my issues but really it's okay.

[weabooweedwitch]

I have seen your previous posts about your sister from like?? Months ago?? And I completely understand that you want to prioritize your own mental health and social life. You do not have to sacrifice yourself for an adult woman who has her own issues, and sooner or later people have to realize sometiems that victims of abuse or trauma survivorrs make their own bad decisions and there is nothing people who are not them can do to help. They are not above critiscim and although bad decisions and self destructive behavior mostly come from trauma, a lot of times their support people are just there unable to do anything because essentially the person does not want to be helped or is inconsistent. No matter how much you love them or want to support them. In the end, you just end up suffering on their behalf while they keep repeating the same harmful patterns despite your support and love. They need to accept the help. It is not easy for anyone, it is mentally taxing.

I feel deep sympathy for your sister and I hope she can find a way to happiness, as I hope you will (I was really happy to hear how positively this trip affected you), but at the end of the day you cannot sacrifice your own life to be at her whim. What do they expect you to do for your sister? Be miserable with her? Become her emotional punching bag? Neither of you are in a position to help each other, and you have your own issues. You do not have to sacrifice your chances of happiness for her. And from what I have read, you really do have some sort of distance in your relationship with your sister, which makes everything more complicated. Abuse victims need help and support but please stop expecting other people (esp. people who also suffer from trauma and abuse) to drop every good thing in their lives to cater to them. I really do not mean to sound insensitive towards your sister. I hope things work out for her and for you to help her as much as you can, but not at the expense of your mental health.

From multiple personal posts, you come across as an isolated person with no support system. You need positive presences in your life, to socialize, to build connections. If you are in a good mental health space you might even be able to offer the emotional support your sister needs, but right now I do not understand why the other anons expect you to sacrifice everything good you got going on (and is positively affecting you) for your sister. It kinda sounds like the anons think her issues and her hurt are more important than your own. They ARE important, very much so, SA and abuse are not to be taken lightly, but they completely ignore posts you made about your own mental health and situation.

Stay safe and I hope everything works out. For both you and your sister.

I'm at work right now so I unfortunately cannot give this the more long thought our reply it deserves but like, really cannot stress enough to these "drop everything for your sister" crowd that me and my mom did that literally just in July for her birthday and you know what she did? She sabotaged the entire trip by constantly complaining about wanting to spend time with her new loser boyfriend, some 35 year pld bike repairman slash drug dealer who still lived in his family home with like 5 other adults, when we had barely seen her over the last 10 years by the way, we've barely fucking seen her for years and shes trying to force us to spend time with her boyfriend after an entire life of prioritizing men over herself and her family, and she had a, sorry, hysterical psycho meltdown when we asked her to put a bra on to go out in public with us because she exposes her nipple piercings through her clothes on purpose which, personally, I think is disgusting for anyone to do.

Like I love her but this is like when families have to leave a family member out on the street homeless because they refuse to get clean and choose drugs and self destruction over being well.

I told her once that I would take a bullet for her and she laughed in my face and told me to go away because she wanted to spend time with her boyfriend and I never really forgot that moment. She called me a level 5 clinger for being an affectionate sister, for wanting her to spend a little bit of time with me instead of her EXISTING for whatever relationship she has barnacled onto this time?

My sister is sick. I am sick. Our mother is sick. Our father is sick. Our little half sister is sick. Our entire family is one big fucked up mess of intergenerational trauma and congenital mental health and addiction issues and it's just. It hurts. It's not that I don't care about her, it's that she makes it so extremely PAINFUL to care about her. One time my mom lightly criticized her boyfriend and she jumped out of the car while it was still moving while she was cruising through the suburbs. My sister is very, very unwell and there are so msny things she has done to hurt herself and others.

I am here for her, I am talking to her, I am telling her I love her and am here to listen, but, I'm sorry, I know enough of our history to know that if I try to put myself on the line for her, she usually just chooses to hurt me instead. Remember how we didn't even know she had been attacked twice until she said, smirking and smiling, "well both of the times I was attacked it wasn't for what I was wearing, so :)"

Like I'm sorry. My sister is a victim but that right there? That's fucking emotional manipulation and she's been doing shit like that her entire life. This is sort of like the same thing with my mom you know? I love them but I hate them too. I love them as my family but they've also tormented me and abused me and I've abused them too. We're all a fucking mess. I am no saint here and neither is anyone else.

I just hope, if nothing else, that she finds a better place to live and some better friends, if she doesn't want her family to be that support for her. But she's been talking to me and my mom and even our dad more so... I'm trying to have hope? But I am so so terrified, legitimately terrified, that we're going to bring her into our home and it'll be just like last time: her throwing absolure fits and yelling and screaming to the point we got evicted, because YES she has gotten us evicted before

I just. I just want her to be safe. And she can't be safe if she's going to bars every night and bouncing from one relationship to another and not taking time for herself. It's tough love. I just don't want my big sister to die when she's more talented and beautiful and motivated than I could ever be.

If I could hit a button that gave my life to save hers, I would do it in a heartbeat. And I shouldn't be made to feel like that.

[sigynsilica]

Mmmm if I may come at this from a vaguely different perspective than what I typically see

Loki was abused by Odin. That's canonical. Frigga is an apologist for Odin's abuse. That is also canonical. If Frigga wasn't an apologist, the line "your father always has a purpose for everything he does" would not exist.

In this scene, Frigga refers to Odin as Loki's father, and Loki sets a hard and fast boundary: Odin is not Loki's father, and Loki doesnt want people to refer to him that way.

He has his reasoning. Odin is not his biological father, Odin has basically disowned him, himself, and Odin was abusive to Loki throughout his entire life.

Frigga doesn't respond to this with any degree of respect. She pulls a guilt-trip, in the form of asking if that means she's not his mother either.

Now we know perfectly well that Loki will estrange himself from whoever he wants to, and he won't from whoever he doesn't. In the script of the MCU, he disclaims Odin and Frigga as his family, but never once does he ever say Thor is not his family.

That's on purpose. Thor and Loki are still brothers.

It is only fair for an adopted child to decide for themself whether they accept the people who adopted him as family, especially if those adopters were abusive.

Frigga, in this scene, is drawing a line in the sand. She's saying that if Loki doesn't want Odin as a parent, he can't have Frigga as one, either. She's picking sides. She's choosing her husband over her son. And Loki lets her.

Why? Probably because this isn't the first time she's pulled this kind of baloney. He's not humoring her. If she wants to go there, she can stay there. It's not an easy thing for him to do. He's close to tears. But he set that boundary, that Odin isn't and shall not be referred to as his father, and he feels he needs to stick to his guns.

Frigga didn't need to go there. She knows she can be an influential person in Loki's life without being his mother. That's not her point. Her point was to be petty and dramatic over who Loki decides to label as his family. Loki could have (and absolutely should have been able to) estranged himself from Odin without leaving Frigga behind in that mix-up.

And then that next line she says makes my blood boil. "So perceptive, about everything but yourself."

PLEASE PAY HEED TO THE FACT THAT SHE JUST TOLD HIM TO HIS FACE THAT HE'S LYING TO HIMSELF ABOUT HIS OWN FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS.

She just presumed to know the contents of his head, and told him she knew him better than he knows himself.

Can I just say that is peak manipulation? She just gaslit him and everyone thinks that was so sweet and tender and sad that she'll never give up on her baby.

That's not what's happening.

She doesn't want her baby to relate to his family on any terms but her own, so she a) forces him into situations and choices that didn't need to be made and b) invalidates him when he makes the choice she doesn't like.

That face in the last gif is not a face of regret. That is a face of resigned irritation. He knows very well that he had to let go of the parent he had a better relationship with in order to let go of the one who was hurting him. He knows that didn't need to happen. He knows that Frigga brought that upon herself and now she's pissed over it.

And unfortunately she literally did die mad about it.

For all the Frigga lovers, I'm not saying Frigga's a bad person, but only because I don't believe in bad people. I think one of the worst things someone can do in Frigga's situation when she saw Odin abusing her children is exactly what she did: about eighty percent A Whole Lot of Nothing, and twenty percent trying to get the Bros to like Odin despite everything. The only reason I bring any of this up in the first place is because on surface level, this does look like Sweet Perceptive Mom Things To Say. So often when Frigga says anything it's that way, because that's how she's written.

But I see a lot of my own mother in Frigga, and not in a good way. Even if she isn't as obviously the bad guy as Odin, she's not a better parent than him. Most apologist parents have better relationships with their kids than the active abuse parents, because that is exactly how the apologist parents want it.

Tldr:

Thor: how do you deal with all this trauma?

Loki: I call my mama ☺️

Thor: that's beautiful man ☺️

Loki: ...call my mama a bitch >:)

“He’s not my father!”

[pokefanbri]

Bri's back story

Little back story, my mom's birthday is Halloween btw lol 🎃 She was a very wild child & couldn't be controlled by grama & grampa rip. Who always compared her to her older siblings who were roudy & eventually became roudy herself. Conceived me & twin bro in New Orleans where she had fun & came back pregnant w/us, Grampa passed in 96 & the fam split, she raised 4 kids on her own, did crack & broke under the pressure, got us taken away is the gist.

We were put in foster care when I & my twin bro (13) & 2 younger siblings were all split up into group homes after twin bro called cps & snitched on her, can't forgive her, paint himself as the victim & says I abandoned the family of which was only his opinion nobody else's. Since I reunited with her I'm unforgivable & discarded by him & my aunt by association. But honestly foster care was probably the best thing for us cuz we struggled to eat at home, whereas actually well taken care of my the government. Twin & I got through our HS careers in separate schools w/the same build blueprint so was like a twin school...thank God he would have cramped my style 😎 We got jobs at 16 to save for apt after emancipation. The only issue was visitations, they wouldn't let us see her cuz CPS is ALWAYS AGAINST THE MOTHER... denied her rights to see us but we could see each other. (cuz drugs are involved regardless if from good homes or not, I had a roommate w/a similar situation w/her kids but she was a good mom) My younger bros got adopted out into & nice family, twin bro naturally got adopted by them as well but at 19 cuz he wanted what they had. Right b4 that he crashed at my earned apartment, that I had in high school. They got all their own cars & everything they wanted, big but messy house. However I went a diff route & not knowing it was an option to be adopted, I did everything on my own & humbled myself on the bottom living my own struggle....... while they floated in a pool & had loving parents & went on cruises without me. But none of them know God, it's a shame really how reverse the world seems. But I understand why He made it this way, for my life to be in shambles is with a relationship with Him & it gets easier after every lesson, more interesting too never a dull moment. He's going to weed out the truly faithful from liars in the end. There's no hiding from God, He's gonna do everything in the perfect order according to His plan. Everything I've experienced is all part of the process & I just have to stay patient

Twin Bro always played video games & ignored everything. Loves Harry potter & looks just like him. Smart, won a bike from a Geography B. Loves Britney Spears (I found out that Britney is the female version of his name 🤣 no wonder) was introduced to a lot of games by watching him play Playstation, & GameCube that we shared but never let me play, so I was stuck playing our N64. Fought with mom a lot about her secret addiction. All we had was each other growing up for a while until our siblings came around. We kind of drifted apart but not my choice. He's the only person in the family that thinks I abandoned them when it's literally an obviously reverse, only cuz I was associated mom at all in the past. He wants nothing to do with her so he wants something to do with me as well. I'm always compared to my mom and I hate it.

Middle child always had a knack for making money 💰 starting young ADHD & had wild ideas to get in trouble. Always high, scheming, has multiple businesses going but seems to always be broke & asking for money, & has 4 kids. Usually only concerned about how he can use u to his advantage & how much he can make off of u. However he may be Fked up the most & may need an exorcism due to antichrist & blasphemous behavior.

Youngest grew up right cuz he was too young & is very very funny, actually cares about me but doesn't know me very well unfortunately.

I've always been quiet ordered around to do the chores and clean the house like Cinderella. Wake everyone up, get the little ones ready for school as well as myself. Babysat my brother's constantly, was mothering them from a young age making sure they didn't get into trouble, while my twin brother played video games the whole time & mom got high. She did the best she could with 4 kids I guess, but gave up, clouded judgement by the drugs. We were quite a few years away from coming back home to Tucson from Iowa & well that's a whole other story back east. I believe when my Youngest brother's abusive dad was in jail it was a chance for us to leave & come home. Actually glad he didnt know his dad, the worst kind of paranoid schizophrenia, not the kind I am...the untreated scary psycho kind with hitting involved 😰 u dont wanna know. So years go by & after staying with my mom's friend & her kids for a while, we got our own place. & Years after 9/11, in 2004 we were taken by cps. I was still ordered to clean every day til I got my own apartment & had no choice but to clean, now I'm ocd to a point lol. Eventually mom went to rehab & everything we own was thrown into the garbage. Me being sneaky, went back to our apt after school during my time at the group home when I wasn't supposed to & stuffed my backpack with my CDs, book collections of rare Pokémon & 95% girly Yugioh cards of which I Eventually gave away which was so stupid of me 😫😓 Took a while to collect em all. The yugioh cards may still be at my church's youth group building where the African intergeated church now resides...wonder if they're still there like in the back room.

Anyway mom spoiled twin more than all 4 of us to keep his mouth shut about her drug use after she told him,fought w/her alot whilst being spoiled at the same time while I cleaned & took care of the younger 2. While twin played video games I was screamed at with curse words & told to do everything for her except cook, traumatized the fk outta me. However paid me to play yazzi with her sometimes when she was high lol. Guys & friends going in & out of the place all the time, they didn't scare me...I learned to be very protective & wary. Misspent youth growing up early couldn't really be a kid so I'm sort of a kid still at ❤️ The group home drilled cleaning into me too 🫤 CindaBri over here. These days I'm very sensitive & am prone to crying since I was a kid. I don't do well with conflict, bullying, negativity of any kind I cannot tolerate. I have a huge heart despite how I grew up, I was a pushover & it took me a longtime to develop a backbone. I absolutely hate it when I'm mistreated, feels like I'm a punching bag for family to take it out on. Well hears something, I honestly do not give a flying rat's ass what they think about me or my mother. I am free from their controlling ways and I'm so grateful to God that he gave me the strength to sever ties on my own terms and not theirs instead. I'm allowed to do the same exact thing & cut people out of my life if its better for me & my health then that's what I'll do. Not because of hatred but because it's the right thing to do. As family oriented as I want to be it's just not possible for my family to get along and it's very sad & pathetic. I have to be able to heal from the trauma even more as I had the worst of it. now broken however beautiful 😊 Mostly independent & very strong/resilient 💪 I have Jesus to thank for saving my life more than I can count. Never learned to drive either to this day & always take the bus. I think I'm 10x slower, I work really hard & always burnt out.

Oh yeah here's the kicker, at 19 I started getting auditory & increasingly visual hallucinations ever since...i have a brilliant mind like I'm fkin Matilda after my trauma or some sh*t. I've been having de ja vu or precognitive dreams of my own life since I was a toddler, one of a week span smashed into 1 dream which was my strongest one while I wad a teenager. Lately I don't remember much of my dreams since late 2023 😓 my gifts keep growing though & I swear I hear passed on or alive family, friends, & even celebrities, & my calico cat of 15 yrs. Whatever it is I believe it's God given, but I don't know how to control it yet. Hallucinating i don't think so, cuz its contant noise for 16 years. Though I know demons can mimic too, they were doing it at the start making me lose my mind, so idk if I've been followed since or what. I use logic in everything, very self aware, I know I'm not crazy. Just cuz others don't experience what I am don't mean it's not real, it is to me. And I don't wanna suppress it either I want to develop whatever it is but for now I have to figure it out on my own. I'm usually very private about what I go through nobody knows this side of me, nor do they understand & just pass it off as (I'm crazy for having voices in my head, so the solution is to fill her with medication, watch her drool on her food & wander around aimlessly in a psych ward for 2 weeks. Later hospital visits were due to suicide attempts but swallowing a bottle of pills never worked. Well luckily who was to greet me at the start of this weird journey than the Queen herself, Mother Mary. She was there to ease my mind it's where I was supposed to be, when I 1st visited the hospital. See I dreamt of her weeks prior, the same scene...her portrait behind the desk where u sit to give blood for testing at the hospital here in Tucson...still there today. Blood is very significant to the story too.

I have an amazing longterm memory I do remember my own birth (that's a good story too) My mind has a lot of knowledge to use but may be overloaded now as I've recently been having issues...Its why I write to get things down & vent. I've hit my head too much & 2 hits have me concerned so I'm trying to get it checked as well as everything else...but refferals for tests are a B** to get. However I should just set a day to spend a whole day at the hospital cuz I know it'll be forever in the waiting room.

I was diagnosed with "paranoid schizophrenia" w/ depression & anxiety, ptsd or conflict sensitive. A lot of fam has mental issues it seems. Think I'm the only one diagnosed with mental illness but the eldest 2 boys should definitely get tested out for it too if they haven't seen a doctor already. There's alot of resentment from my family toward my mother cuz of her behavior in the past. As a God fearing woman I know better & choose to Honor my mom the best of my ability even if our relationship is strained, I know it's not her fault & it's the devil's work. She like my siblings are equally messed up by how our parents raised us, it's an viscous cycle of torture that needs to end, there's no love coming from most family & it makes me sick, family is supposed to stick together but we were left in the dust cuz they don't wanna deal with her. I believe the evil one has a grasp on people in many different ways, whether it be mental illness or hatred he causes havoc in everything he can, has a grasp on the people of earth. But the Father controls the universe, our story is prewritten & is a domino effect. My deja vu I've theorized it's like a time lapse of some kind, parallel universes...I have seen my reflection move without me, hope to God I haven't lived it already over & over that would be hell to me 🫤 Although never a dull moment that's for sure, oh if I could do it all over again ..... idk if I'd want to lol.

Fighting me on stuff & won't listen, u have to have the patience of a saint. Doesn't like being proven wrong, very stubborn, mixed w/bipolar..gets angry. She keeps comparing me to my grandma. Think she's more mentally fked up than I am from her past too but I'm no psychologist. Luckily I raised myself to be better than that in this gen, self aware, I use logic & understanding but do stupid sh*t sometimes lol especially when in love...I wanna break the cycle cuz it's a complete sh*t show. I don't want to be held back & torn down by family again & again just seems like even she doesn't care about me either sometimes, & I'm right back to being a little girl & being screamed or cursed at constantly. How do u heal in that either, theres nowhere else to go..wonder why didnt I want to come back from Vegas. I'd rather be where the action & adventure is lol. Nobody gets me or nobody understands what I've been through and I really want to tell my story because I am always attacked by family and sometimes friends for being too much of this, or too much of that, always shut down or put down. I understand people's opinion but I don't really take opinions as fact, I take facts as facts and what I go through in my mind is facts I don't need someone to tell me that I'm crazy or "off my meds" when I do take meds everyday, because it's an insult to my intelligence. Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

And today I came to a starting discovery.

Seems I may need to check my mom for Alzheimer's/Dementia, think it's worse than I thought. She keeps having fits/episodes of memory loss & blaming me for things, thinks I touched her phone to change it to dark mode today but it's been that way for a month or so already & didn't believe me. Wanna snap her out of it somehow. It's not a gypsy rose situation exactly I actually care I'm just annoyed & trying to get along with her, we do most of the time & we just have eachother when everyone else has seem to be wrapped up in their own lives and more concerned about gossip & lies. She's just mentally ill, like me. And a recovering addict and it's not her fault but nobody's fault but we're still made out to be the bad guys in some way. Idc. I would rather heal and try to heal from my broken past and leave it behind me. God removes people from their life so that you can hear him better, & I'd rather that than straight negativity sent to just hurt me. The devil seems to hate my ass I swear

How to heal from the past when she won't give u room to breathe, thought i was making progress w/her, keeps buying cigs & soda everytime she has stamps or money & when she's out hits me up for money, I just got my 1st check & I'm trying to save, says I can say no but then bitches at me. I honestly don't understand her sometimes. And after the cigs are gone she's crankier which makes things worse. All the cigs she's had over maybe 2 yrs she could've had a car by now & I'm working my butt off for one, & all the food is eaten while I'm gone. Tried clensing the apt but just made her angry, mental illness or demons I can't tell sometimes.

I'm so tired I haven't slept after work yesterday & need it for brain function but I had 3 hrs to sleep b4 church this morning so decided to stay up ..idk how long I've been up actually my eyes hurt, Have 2 hopefully benign tumors in my head & she's stressing me the fk out. Church or sleep, was actually a good day. Was trying to recap to her on what I did today & I just got ready for church this morning, when did I have time to touch her phone? But doesn't listen at all & always threatens to kick me out when she's incapable of being her by herself anymore. And depending on an hour to the next day she fine again & tells me to ignore her. Fking crazy. I already have memory issues wtf happena when we both lose our damn minds. I have the choice between doing laundry to get tf outta here or watch the rewards show & rest my eyes...Bed looks good rn actually 🥱😴

[destinygoldenstar]

💫💛Starting Yellow Gen💛💫 (About Sun Nosobirrie)

Meet Sun Nosobirrie. Our Yellow Generation heir.

Here’s what the gen description is:

Now, so far, the description is followed to a T.

I AM gonna bend the last rule a bit when it comes to pets.

So Sun can have a good relationship with his grandma, his future cat, and the Grey Gen heir.

No one else.

And it says nothing about no enemies. So…

That, and there’s literally no space on our current lot for a rocket. So I’m gonna wait till we’re living on our own. (You bet I’ll make a whole station just for this rocket)

In terms of a SPOUSE…

This is where the rules confuses me. Cause I’ve watched people do this challenge on YouTube, and their yellow gen heirs got spouses. Even LilSimsie did it, so… I guess spouses are allowed???

Regardless, I strongly feel like this my sim will not get a spouse.

It just doesn’t fit for me. And I want Sun to be an aroace sim. Which means he will not be looking for romance. Which means he will not fall in love.

Is that a sad outcome? In my eyes no, cause aromantic means you don’t want romance to begin with. Can’t be sad over not having something you don’t want. Sun’s gonna be just fine.

“So where would grey gen come from? This sim’s a boy, and you don’t plan on getting anyone pregnant. How do you plan on doing that?”

There are multiple options for this, actually:

Adoption; We can just adopt a newborn baby. Simple. Easy.

Science Baby; We get the newborn as a single parent. Again, simple and easy.

Aliens; We could get abducted and have grey gen be an alien… that’d be a fun idea.

Any way we decide to do it, it works for Grey gen’s story to be raised by a single dad. Plus the context of never knowing your birth parents/being born out of literal science/being from another planet.

There is no where in the rules that says we HAVE to get the heir by pregnancy. So I think this is perfectly fine.

Anyway, while we’re waiting on Ruby’s career to be maxed out and her elder age to arrive so she can marry Kaori, Im gonna focus on this gen. As Sun ages up into a teen soon.

(Future me: This is what he looks like.)

About Sun Nosobirrie:

Sun Nosobirrie has NOT had the best of upbringing, unfortunately.

His mom, Ruby, is a rich and ruthless political woman, and she lives with her twin brother and his husband.

Said husband is also her ex. (The first of many.) Laurant was her high school sweetheart and they broke up. Then in their young adult life, the guy hooked up with her brother, Kian, who ALSO had a crush on him. (So we had a love triangle.)

And Ruby caught them doing it in a bush.

Why do I bring this up? Because this is what drove her… a little mad.

She went to a bar to find a hook up out of jealousy. Then she met a near perfect guy for her: Diego Lobo.

They did it. And Ruby got pregnant.

Thus, on Harvestfest, Sun was born.

Why was he named Sun? Because she was so distraught by the idea she had a son that the doctor mistakingly thought she was naming her kid Sun.

And the guy? Diego? He DIED.

So, Ruby never saw him again. And Sun would NEVER meet his father.

As for what Ruby planned to do as devotion to her child?

None actually, cause she put him in the attic.

Yep. Sun lives in the attic. All his life.

Luckily, he didn’t die. As Pepper, his grandma, found him. And she would proceed to be the one to raise him.

Pepper would always be there for Sun. From raising him as an infant to being his company at a mountain vacation as a toddler to motivating his space ambitions as a child.

She was the only one who remembered his birthday one time.

She’s the one who told him “The Sun always rises” when he couldn’t see the sunrise from the clouds.

She’s the one who told him about Sixam and his aunt being from there. That the only ones who find aliens are the ones that look for them the hardest.

And then in his child years, Pepper passed away. Of old age.

So Sun lost his beloved grandma, and the one person who believed in him.

Cause the rest of his family? NOT supportive.

His grandpa? Well Pepper and Salim were falling out at the time (and got back together) so he wasn’t there.

His aunts? Not in the household. One of them mistook him for a painting easel and splattered chocolate sauce and flour on him as a baby.

His uncles? Incompetent. And they adopted a baby of their own, so they’re more focused on that kid than him.

His dad? Dead.

His mom? A really strict, uncaring, neglectful, terrible parent.

This woman not only put him the attic, but she also took no effort to try and understand her son, yelling at him and grounding him for even the smallest of things, arguing with him, forcing him to clean like some servant, and debunking his confidence pretty much.

So Sun’s pretty much taken it all and moved on with his life. He’s searched through junk in the attic and made his own living space out of scraps. And he’s taken a liking in space.

This is because Pepper was a bit of a scientist back in her day. She’s studied space and the tech used to advance studies to space. So she’s casually told him her wildest stories about these inventions and her experience with space.

It’s his special interest. It’s all he cares about. He will do whatever he can to get there.

So that’s the backstory we’re working with here. It’s not a happy one.

Nerd Brain : Sun, in personality, is a huge nerd. A very 2000s stereotype nerd. A loser. Too stressed? He’ll study. He’ll share his knowledge even when no one asks. And no one will care ten to one.

ESPECIALLY if that knowledge of about space.

His attic upbringing also helps him adjust to being the handy type. He reinvents stuff to make his own living.

Loner : This upbringing has also shaped him as an introvert. By choice now. He prefers his own solitude and space. (Get it?)

On top of that, he’s very overwhelmed and overstimulated in crowded spaces and loud noises.

Going back to him only talking about space and most of his knowledge being space related, I have headcanoned Sun as autistic. Somewhere on the spectrum.

Clumsy : Nerd stereotype. He’s a klutz. Like some anime protagonist. He trips over his own feet from seemingly nothing, and sometimes becomes contagious with his clumsy nature in group activities.

Ambitious : He’s DEVOTED to his dreams. He works hard on everything he does and doesn’t stop until he’s able to get to space and explore everything imaginable. This goes for small stuff too, like books or building. It’s this ambition that helped him ace elementary school, despite the outside subjects being boring.

Other :

Sun is aroace. He’s aromantic as in uninterested in romance, and asexual as in uninterested in sex. His mom is a CRAZY romance fanatic. That’s not the sole reason for his sexuality, it’s just an amplifier in discovering that orientation.

He’s a picky eater. Again, autistic trait. He loves pumpkin flavored stuff, and noodles. But he cannot stand seafood or sour food.

He has a bit of a connection to the sun. He’s always waking up with it and most of his mood seems to depend on if the suns out or not. I don’t know if this is relevant or not yet, but I guess that’s why he’s named Sun.

He’s a bookworm. If I could give him that trait, he’d have it. He’s very into literature, even as a toddler. Taught himself how to read.

Stressed? A good book is what calms him down.

Then, as a teen, he’s starting to write his own books as a hobby and a sub career. (Ironically his grandpa was a best selling author, thus also a writer)

So that’s the character. I really like him for our first male heir in this challenge. I love Pepper and Ruby, but they’re both… chaotic people. Sun meanwhile reads to me as a tragic precious bean who needs some love and support and needs help to get a better life and get out of his current abusive household situation.

[insanechayne]

Things to tell Chandler:

~7/28 (12am-6am)

Apparently we have a doorbell somewhere in the ER? I heard it chime but idk who pushed it or where the button is or where the sound came from

My TikTok is kinda boring tonight, not as many fun videos as usual. But I did find one guy that takes suggestions of drinks to carbonate (really awful stuff, like certain types of alcohol or straight up milk) and then he tries them for everyone to see. His reactions are hilarious. Of course he’s from fucking Alabama. Your state is very well represented haha. But I’ve also seen a lot of videos of people dressing up as horror movie villains (like Michael Myers/Ghostface/etc.) and doing silly dances and shit like that, which is just fun

Earlier when Bree was here she was looking for something to show me on her phone and things were quiet for a moment, and through the closed door between us and the nurse’s station we hear Erika just saying “I just want to string profanities!” We busted up laughing so hard. I still don’t know what she was going on about with that

I don’t know if this is actually popular in some way, or if I happened to stumble upon it by being mentally ill, but there’s this specific niche of guys on TikTok (well I actually think it’s only 2 guys, literally) that have been making gay country songs. And I mean very graphic, full of gay sex country songs. But they’re also really good! These guys have a good sound and rhyming ability, so the whole thing is just fucking crazy.

~7/28 (3pm-12am)

Took mom to dinner, we went to this place called Horizon View Restaurant. Food was ok, a bit pricey for the quality. It’s one of those “it’s ok for Moab” type places. Unfortunately that’s most of what’s out here. Nothing is really great or stands out much. Like it’s not bad, it’s just not the standard of quality we’re used to coming from California. But it was still nice to go out for dinner with her. I like being around my mom and talking to her, we have a pretty good relationship despite the issues from my childhood. And I think it helped her to destress a bit, just to be able to go out and talk about all the nonsense and all that. I’ve got leftovers for dinner tonight, and I remembered to bring a cookie from home, so that’s nice. And I bought food for her to take home to my stepdad. She says “oh it’s too much, you didn’t have to buy Robert’s food too, let me send you money” and she just needs to stop 😅 Money will come and go, we only got one life so we may as well enjoy some of it when we can. And of course I had to buy food for Robert, he’s my stepdad and he was busy doing yard work and couldn’t come with us, so he deserves something too. But then we went to get Starbucks and she bought mine there, so it evened out 😂

Work is nice and quiet at the moment. It’s weird though, my doctor is in the ER here. I haven’t actually seen her or gone to her room or whatever, just see her on the board list of all the patients. I hope she’s alright. I’ll talk to her when she goes to leave, I’m sure.

Decided to read an actual book while also working through the short stories book. I think that’ll be manageable, reading one big story and then if I’m bored or tired I can go on to the smaller ones. Hopefully that works out, cause I do want to get through the short stories, but I’m not enjoying it enough to focus solely on them. But the book I grabbed to start was one I just bought when I was in junction, and it’s very highly rated/recommended on TikTok and in the horror community, and I’ve been wanting to read it for a really long time. The plot sounds pretty interesting so I’m very hopeful for it being good. And I think it has pictures, too!

I’m supposed to watch this documentary movie for therapy, something about this one therapist’s theories about mental health or whatever. I keep putting it off, but it’s only like an hour and a half, so I should probably get to it soon. But at the same time one of my favorite shows recently premiered their 5th season, and I’m 3-4 episodes behind, so I wanna get caught up on that too. I technically have plenty of time, but it’s like I just can’t focus these days. I gotta try to get back into all this, maybe just watch stuff little by little. Do 10-15 minutes at a time and then take a break if I have to, or if I feel like I’m drifting while watching. I don’t know.

Urgent Care is pissing me off lately. I think they’ve got some new people down there, maybe people doing training for licenses or whatever, getting experience and all that. And I think that’s great and everything, but half the time they won’t call us before just bringing a patient down to check in with ER. A lot of the time they’re bringing us the most ridiculous shit as it is, things that could definitely be taken care of in UC, so that’s already frustrating for everyone. But lately there’s this one guy who just wheels patients down to me to be checked in and nobody ever calls beforehand or anything, which they’re supposed to do. I know it seems like a small thing, and it kinda is, but the point of them calling let’s me alert my nurses and get a room/chart prepped for the patient while they’re being brought down. And it gives them a feel for what they’re going to be working with, which can dictate what room to put them in or if they’ll need to wait because something more serious is here, stuff like that. This one guy always brings down people who decided not to actually check in to UC, too, which is weird to me. I get maybe someone doesn’t know where to go to get better care, or they’re worried about insurance and copays and all that, but if they decide not to check in to UC and come to ER instead then they can (usually) just walk on over to where we are. Especially if they parked in front, since our lot is in back, and they probably won’t want to walk so far after they get discharged here. I don’t know, it’s not really a big deal, it’s just annoying me lately. Mostly I just want them to call and give me a heads up that someone is coming, regardless of whether or not that person actually checked into UC. But I also don’t want to be rude to this guy who’s trying his best and hasn’t been here very long. He’s always a little nervous/shy trying to give me report on the patient anyway, so I feel bad and want to just be nice. Getting upset with him won’t help the situation for any of us, you know?

Have you ever started a book that you knew immediately you were going to love? A book that felt specifically For You, where so many little details pique your interest and feel like they were written just for you to read them? That’s how I feel about the book I just started. It’s called Hidden Pictures, and yes there are actual pictures in the book! But all these little details are pinging in my brain as I was reading the first chapter, and the author’s style has a very natural and organic feel to it, flows very well. I can’t wait to get deeper into this book, cause so far it reads great.

We got a call from a tour guide saying he was going to bring someone in who wasn’t feeling well in their group, but that she doesn’t speak any English and has a foreign insurance. Not really a big deal overall, but our process for foreign patients is screwed up and nothing is really set in place or fixed. So we’re supposed to charge them after their visit, give them a receipt, and then they call their insurance and the insurance will reimburse them. Which would all be fine and dandy except we still have no way to put charges into the system to see how much they cost, do a total, enter the codes in for billing, or anything else. I don’t even know if that stuff is set up in Meditech yet. We have a “cash drawer” in Meditech that we can open and close and apparently charge things to, or collect money in, but nothing else is set up. So how can I complete this process and get the patient charged and all that if we have nothing set up and no procedures in place? Management keeps saying they’ll fix this and get us a set process, but of course nothing happens. But if we don’t do this shit then I bet you they’ll be like “why wasn’t the patient charged at discharge?” Just frustrating. Most I can do is have the nurses fill out paper charge sheets, which I can then scan and email to my boss who can figure it out with billing. Hopefully that’ll be good enough. I’ll have to mention the fact that there’s no way to put charges in or anything still, too. Ugh.

A lady came in saying she may have been gently bitten or scratched by a bat. Simple procedure, we just check them in for a rabies vaccine basically. But the interesting part of this story is that her husband caught the bat and they put it in a little glass jar and she’s convinced she needs to turn it over to the health department to check it for rabies. Krissy wouldn’t let them bring it into the hospital, for good reason. She kept telling them to let it go outside, but the lady kept saying she wanted to keep it. So her husband just went to put the jar and bat back in their car. Wild times

~7/29 (12am-8am)

So that weird call I got earlier about the foreign patient ended up not coming in, at first. The guy said they’d be getting a ride or an Uber or something but then never showed up. Couple hours later we got an ambulance page for someone who sounded like this patient, but then within like ten minutes dispatch said the ambulance was then cancelled. So we all kind of ignore it for a while, until about 2:30am when we get another page for that same patient, apparently this time they want to come in to the hospital for sure. So they get here and everything is fine, and I can hear the nurses talking about the situation, and apparently there was some kind of miscommunication all those hours earlier with dispatch and EMS, somehow they got the idea that the patient didn’t want to come in before or was going to come in by their own vehicle. So basically this patient was waiting in the lobby of their hotel for hours and hours for this ambulance that obviously never showed up until they decided to call for it again. If that were anyone other than a foreign patient that would be a huge lawsuit against EMS. But since she’s from out of the country I feel like she won’t even think to try to pursue anything, since it’d be a hassle for her. Which is really lucky for them. Just a terrible situation and we all feel awful for this patient having to suffer for so long

It’s crazy, we have no patients admitted on the main floor right now. I don’t know if that’s ever happened before, certainly not while I’ve worked here. I mean it’s great for the community and people not being so severely sick/hurt, but still very odd overall. So you got Med Surg nurses coming over here to talk and hang out (and sometimes jump in to help with patients) because they’re bored. Just got people sitting around doing fuck all over there. I mean truthfully that’s what I do, too, but still at least with my job there’s always the possibility that I’ll have to jump into action and actually do some work. Wild times we’re in here

~7/29 (3pm-12am)

A patient’s visitor had to come in and out a few times, but they were pretty nice, and I have the button now so I didn’t mind. They brought a little doggie in who was super sweet and cute. He held the dog up to the glass at my desk so I could wiggle my fingers under our little slide-through opening, and doggie leaned down to lick my finger 🥰 Anyhow, dude was finally leaving for good and as he was walking by he said he really loved my hair color, which was so nice to hear.

~7/30 (12am-9am)

Idk what all is going on with dispatch right now. Sometimes it’s hilarious to hear what they’re saying over the radios, though, since our police scanner picks everything up. So here’s a snippet I heard while scrolling TikTok earlier: Person A “Ohhh don’t say that out loud.” Person B “we’re all just trying to be more like you, sir.” Person C “L O L” (like they literally said it like ‘ell oh ell’ I’m not kidding)

I’m quite tired, and in my sleepy state I had a rather hilarious vision come to me. I don’t know what the future holds, but should I ever get married (whether to Bree or someone else) then obviously you’re gonna be one of my bridesmaids. We can think of a different title for the position, but I’m still absolutely going to put you in a dress like my other girls. Just for the actual ceremony, and just for the joke of it. It’s something I used to talk about doing with a different male friend of mine years and years ago (he’s gay, and we’re no longer friends, but he always rebutted by saying he’d make me wear a tux to be his groomsman, and I always agreed). So I got an image of you in a lovely satin, emerald green dress, strapless because that’s funnier, maybe some ruffle at the hemline? Holding a lovely bouquet of flowers, of course. Can you imagine? Ohh gave me a good laugh, so I hope it made you laugh too 😋

~7/30 (6pm-12am)

Since Bree and I became official I decided to just bite the bullet and tell dad right away so that I could get it over with. He took it better than I expected, actually. No yelling or screaming or anything like that. Of course I still got a bit of a lecture about it being a sin and how he’s going to pray for me everyday and shit like that. I think he took it personal in some way, saying stuff like “it makes me feel like I didn’t raise you right”, as if being gay is so horrendous, like I’m a murderer or something 🙄 but the whole thing only took about 15 minutes, he was quiet and calm, and then it was over. We agreed to just not talk about it, which is fine by me cause I really don’t care what he thinks anyway. But of course he says that he had a feeling and kind of knew anyway when she’d been over the other day (when we did the day trip to Cortez, she came inside briefly to meet/pet Jess). So if he wants to think he’s so special and observant and knew about us already then whatever, I’ll let him have that. I’m just glad it’s done with and I don’t have to keep worrying about it anymore 😮‍💨

We watched Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage, and that was pretty fun. The Venom movies have kind of a cheesy feel to them, very easy to watch and you don’t have to focus super intently, so even though I was kinda tired I was still able to enjoy it. I do love those big, ridiculous CGI fights, like in Deadpool 2 when Juggernaut fights Colossus, or pretty much everything in Transformers movies ha. So if you haven’t watched the Venom movies I’d definitely recommend them, they’re very fun 😊

~7/31 (7am-12am)

Woke up off and on through the night, couldn’t seem to get very comfortable, and damn cramps in my calf kept waking me up. I woke up for a little while around 7am, moved to the big recliner, took about an hour to fall asleep again, then I was mostly out around noon. Somehow I’m still a little tired 😅 but I’ve got a full day to just do nothing and relax by myself and not even leave the house, so I’m very pleased with that

I saw that the theatre in Moab now has Haunted Mansion, and they’re still playing the Barbie movie. So depending on showtimes this weekend, I asked Bree on a double movie date on Saturday, hopefully that’ll all work out nicely. I also asked my mom about having Bree over for dinner sometime, have my stepdad cook for us. She said it would be a nice idea so we’ll talk to Robert about that this week and see when we can plan something out 😊

Since we became official yesterday, Bree and I were talking about family’s reactions, cause I wanted to let her know about telling my dad. Her family is certainly much more supportive, and I’ve already met her parents since things just worked out that way with the Cortez trip and everything, and they’re both super sweet. So she said they were happy for us, and that her mom was like “I knew it!” 😂 And she said her grandma wants to meet me, so I’ll have to come over for dinner at her house sometime (Bree lives with her grandma and is a part-time caretaker, like how I am for my dad), which is why I then thought about having Bree over to mom and stepdad’s. But the response from almost everyone has been very positive and congratulatory, which is kind of a relief to me.

Bree already said yes to the movie date idea, that was quick 😂 I’ll have to wait for the theatre to post showtimes for Saturday, but the plan so far is to go see Barbie and Haunted Mansion, then go out for dinner after the movies. One of us will pay for movies and popcorn/snacks, the other will pay for dinner, and it all works out great ☺️ this’ll be a fun day, I’m super excited for those movies, but it’ll also be the longest date we’ve been able to have so far and really spend more time with each other, since most often we only have an hour or two because of our schedules. So I’ll write up an update for you after that takes place haha

I have a screenshot to go along with this, cause I think it’s cute, but Bree and I made matching posts on Facebook to announce our relationship 💖 I’ll send the pic at some other point in time, but didn’t want to forget to tell you about it

Going back to the date for a minute, cause I’m a bit excited about it, to say the least. I’ve been thinking about it all day, planning things out (I’m very Type A and need to plan everything down to the last detail basically). I’ve already got my outfit decided on, and a makeup look to go with it. I know I don’t need to like dress up or anything, and she doesn’t either, but it’s like… I kinda wanna impress her a little bit, you know? I know that’s probably kind of silly, since we’re already together and everything, but still. Plus then if we decide to take pictures together I’ll look good for them 😅😂

This whole relationship thing is a little crazy to me, really. I’m still kind of wrapping my head around all of it and trying to get it to set in. I’m just so awestruck all the time, thinking to myself “I have a girlfriend”, and it’s so brand new and it makes me feel tingly when I do think about it. And just how easy it’s been and everything, how we fell into it so naturally, and we both are pretty in tune with each other and are on the same level of intensity about things. I have to keep reminding myself that she likes me, and she already has seen me at times where I wasn’t at my best (like coming to work in pajamas, no makeup, hair up, tired as shit, basically how I am at least once or twice in my workweek anyway ha), and that never changed her perception of me. I still get stuck sometimes, thinking to myself that she can do better and things like that, you know how my anxiety can get. But I’ve found it a lot easier to pull myself away from those thoughts with her, since she did like me for a long time before I got the courage up to ask her out. And even that I can’t believe. Someone liked me? When they saw all the weird, not great parts of me? When I wasn’t wearing makeup or trying to look my best? Someone *still* likes me?? Someone wants to be with me despite all of that?? That’s what’s crazy to me. That’s what I can’t wrap my head around sometimes and I have to keep trying to get it to set in. And her and I have talked about some of this, not necessarily to this level, but I did explain to her that I get really bad anxiety and need a lot of reassurance, that I’ll probably ask her sometimes about still wanting to be with me, etc., and she’s ok with all of that. She has similar issues, and we both know I’m very overbearing in telling someone how much I care about them, so it won’t exactly be hard for me to shower her with kind words and assurances and all of that. It’s funny, when we were just friends I used to say that “we have the same ADHD, and we’re the same type of gay.” Should have taken that as a sigh to ask her sooner, huh? 😅

Sorry for babbling so much about this relationship stuff. I’m sure by this point in reading this huge thing you’re already annoyed. And I can almost guarantee it will get worse as the days go on (six days is a very long time, especially when I’ve not got much of a life and too much time to think). But thanks for giving me the push I needed to actually ask her out, cause it worked out really well for me. I appreciate all your support. You’re a damn good ally 🏳️‍🌈

Onto some not great news, my mom got fired. I don’t know what all led up to it today, but I do what’s been happening this whole time and frankly it just sounds like a lot of discrimination against her. I hope she contacts a lawyer because I’m sure she’d have a good case that she could proceed with. Just hope things work out for her soon, I know she’s been applying to lots of jobs recently anyway cause she was feeling this was going to happen a while ago. So I just hope it works out for the better. There’s not much else I can do, really. I don’t think I could even pitch in for bills, or at least not much anyway, since I still have to pay for my own house and bills and food, etc., and sometimes the budget is kinda tight as it is (not like I’m getting a bunch of overtime every week in normal circumstances). But I’ll talk to her about it when I see her Wednesday, see if there’s a way I can help at all.

~8/1 (12am-1am)

I hope you’re having a wonderful time on vacation. It’s definitely hard not talking to you, since I have less to occupy my time. I have to keep reminding myself not to constantly refresh my tumblr waiting for a message from you 😅 got so used to it, it’s just a habit now, so I’m trying to break out of that for a while. Miss you a bunch already. But as long as you’re having fun and getting to rest and have a break, that’s what’s most important 🙂 can’t wait to hear about everything when you get back, I’m counting the days haha

Dad finally decided to re-watch the Saw movies with me, so we watched the first two today (or technically yesterday, I guess by this time). Hadn’t seen the first one in so long I’d kinda forgotten a lot of the little details, so it was cool to experience it again. I remembered a lot more of the second one, but it was still fun to watch again and relive it a bit. Dad and I were reminiscing about the first time we watched them when I was a kid (since the first Saw came out in 2004, and I was about 9-10 depending on what month we actually ended up watching it). Growing up we always bonded best over horror movies, because it was special getting to see them as a kid when nobody else you knew was allowed to watch that stuff, and if we were watching a horror movie I knew I wasn’t in trouble for anything and we weren’t going to fight, we’d just get snacks and enjoy the bloodshed. I recently came to that revelation in a therapy session a couple months back, that those memories and rare good times are a big part of what contributes to my love of horror and why it’s so special to me. Idk maybe I mentioned that before, I can’t remember. But in any case, watching the Saw movies again gives me those good memories and happy feelings. Which I guess is kinda weird when you consider how much gore there is in them. It is what it is now 🤷🏼‍♀️ and I know they’re not your thing, I’m not saying any of this to try to prod you into watching them. Just sharing the happy stuff, you know

But speaking of Saw, on that first day Bree and I were together when we were driving back from Cortez we were talking about horror and stuff, and I was talking about how much I love Saw, and she said she’s never seen any of them either. I was telling her how excited I was for the new one and she said “so you’re saying I have to catch up on all the others before we go see the new one together, right?” Which was so adorable/sweet, in my opinion. And gory stuff doesn’t bother her at all, so I think she’ll be fine watching them. So yeah I’m pretty sure I can get her to watch them with me soon, too. And frankly I’ll marathon Saw any damn day of the week, won’t ever say no to watching those movies (I really am sick in the head huh? 😂). But this I’m mentioning because I thought it was cute the way she talked about catching up, and insinuating that we’d go see the new one on a date. She’s wonderful 😊

~8/1 (6am-12am)

Didn’t sleep super great, again. I got to cuddle Jess for a while, which was nice, but I woke up pretty stiff/sore. Moved to the recliner but couldn’t really fall back to sleep, mostly just rest my eyes and stretched out there for about an hour and a half. I did have this very silly dream at some point though. You finally said you’d be ok exchanging phone numbers so we could just like text and stuff, and you said “I’ll give you one day to send me as many stupid TikToks as you want, but only one day and then we gotta limit it” so I just went fucking wild 😂 I swear I must have sent you like 150, which you were kind enough to watch and react to all of them. I think it took you like two hours to get through them all, but you did it. So that was just funny

Had my therapy session this morning, which went pretty well. I’m learning to be more positive and have good changes and growth, so he thinks I’m doing great overall. We’re finding that I’m really internalizing the lessons and tools we discuss in therapy, and using them to make changes to my life overall so that I’m living happier and healthier, whereas other patients have some trouble with that and need to focus to get those lessons to become more natural for them. I was doing it without even realizing it, so that’s great news. Sometimes I don’t recognize the positive changes I’ve made until we hold up the mirror for me to see, but at least they’re there. Next week we’re going to do a trauma intensive session where we really go through one traumatic event (in this case we’ll be discussing my homelessness) and work through that. It’s blocked out for 2 hours, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m kinda excited, really, cause I’ll finally get to purge so much of this shit stuck inside from going through all that.

Aside from just therapy I’ve had a rather full day (for me, anyway). I also had a different doctor’s appointment, then had to go to the post office and pharmacy. And at the post office they gave me the wrong package and I didn’t realize it at first, so once I caught that I had to go back in to get the right package instead. Finally home, it’s about 1pm now, and I’m just completely exhausted. Idk why but I feel so wiped out, and my eyes are so tired. I’m gonna try to take a nap in a bit, I think.

I hope you’re out doing a bunch of fun stuff, or maybe just getting to relax for a while since you need some rest, too. Ugh I miss you terribly. Is it Sunday yet? 😅

I took my nap and now I feel much better and more rested. I had some leftover chili cheese fries from the place we went to for lunch, which was even good cold 😋 and dad and I are planning to watch Saw 3 soon. Just gonna try to run through the whole series before the new one comes out, because I know he’s going to want to try to see it in theatres with me if he’s able. Have to see if he loses enough weight to be able to go to a theatre and handle walking around, stuff like that. But he did actually start his diet again recently, so hopefully he’ll stick to it and get healthier here little by little. I’m trying to be as supportive as I can with buying better food and such, so you know. Anyway, I digress, not gonna go on and on 

Speaking of Saw, I got my purse today! I haven’t opened the box yet, so I’ll write up another little update once I do, but at least I got the package and don’t have to keep tracking it all the time now. I’m super excited to switch everything into it now

Also found that if I word things in a certain way with my dad he’s much more receptive/supportive about things (at least as much as he can be). So if I just say something like “Bree and I are planning to go see these movies on Saturday, so I probably won’t be home until Sunday morning”, he won’t get upset about it and will just say “that’s good, you deserve to have fun.” It kind of bridges the gap between us now. We both know Bree is my girlfriend, but not saying it that way makes it easier for him to accept, I think. It’s not a perfect situation, and I don’t know that I’ll ever really get acceptance from him on this, but right now it’s progress and the best I can hope for. Some years ago it would have been a huge fight, and he would have kept prodding at me and bringing it up to yell at me and try to make me breakup with her, so I guess I can be thankful that he’s made enough strides in personal growth that it doesn’t have to be like that. I still do feel a little weird/nervous even mentioning her name, simply because the knowledge of the relationship is out there, and I worry it’ll trigger something and make him huff or say something rude. But so far that hasn’t happen, so I’m trying to let it go.

Oh this reminds me, swinging back to my therapy for a moment, my therapist was at first kinda shocked to hear about Bree. He was like “what? When did this happen? Who’s Bree?” And I had to laugh. I went through the whole thing, and I know I’ve mentioned her before but not like a ton since I’m always talking about myself, of course, so I guess he forgot her name in combination with how many other friends I’ve mentioned before. I had to explain how things just kind of fell together, because he was surprised I’d never mentioned these types of romantic feelings towards her or going on dates or anything. I had to keep being like “it just happened, bro, like a week ago” 😂 but in any case he thinks that is awesome, and a great positive change in my life and something to be proud of for stepping up and asking her out myself, which is really nice to hear

I was thinking about you a bit today (though when am I not, really? 😅), just in like wondering what you’re up to on vacation and stuff like that. I’ve got a vision of my head of you smiling and being happy, and that makes me smile to think of 🙂

I finally opened the package for my new purse and it looks amazing! I’ll send pics later on (when you’re back around here), but I’m really so happy with this purchase. It’s a lot bigger than I expected, since a lot of these novelty bags can be pretty small and barely hold anything inside. But this one has a decently large holding area, with a side pouch inside. I think I might even be able to still fit a book inside along with all my other things. I’ll have to try that tomorrow when I move everything else into it. Can’t wait to walk into work with this creepy ass purse, freak out the nurses 😂

Also got around to washing my hair. I know it’s kinda gross to wait so long, but I wanted to go a full week to let the color really set into my roots and let my natural oils come back into my scalp, since bleaching is pretty harsh. So far there’s been minimal leaking of the color during washing, and it still looks pretty vibrant even after using shampoo and conditioner and all that. The stylist I went to did a great job, I’ll probably go back to her the next time I want to do a color, too. I’m thinking maybe bright purple in November? For my birthday haha

~8/2 (12am-2:30am)

I’m super awake all of a sudden. I thought my warm shower would relax me, since I was doing all my nice skincare and stuff, but it seems to have done the opposite 😬 ah well, I suppose I can stay up a bit since I don’t have any specific time I need to go back to mom’s house, really. As long as I’ve got enough time to pack lunch before work I’m good. But I’ve been finding it so hard to sleep lately, so who knows what’ll happen, regardless of how I try to plan things out. Maybe I should try to go to mom’s early, that way I have time to talk to her about what happened with work and see if I can make her feel a little better or something 😕

Definitely not looking forward to work tomorrow, but then when am I ever? And I like my job, really. I’m just still kinda worn out in general, I think. I was doing so much on my mini vacation that I didn’t really have much time to rest at all. Would have been nice to have had a full day in the hotel, just ordering pizza or other takeout, watchinf something silly on tv, reading, all that good stuff. I’ll have to try to plan for that next time I get to do something like that. Work won’t be so bad, I guess. Only 3 days cause this is my short week, and then Saturday I’ll get to watch movies and have dinner with Bree, and I’m very excited for that, so I’ve got something to look forward to 😊 I’m gonna try to finish this book I’m on, too. I’ve got 3 days, should be fine to finish it out, especially since I am enjoying it. Oh and I should try to get caught up on one of my shows that started again recently… already putting too much on myself, and then I’ll end up doing nothing, so I should stop now and just breathe 😅

Sorry for babbling so much here, and in general. I know none of this stuff is really all that important, some of it’s probably kinda boring/annoying to you by now. It is pretty hard for me not to get to talk to you, so this is the easiest way for me to kind of fill that void. Though maybe expecting you to read all this isn’t really fair of me… but I know I’d forget so much of this if I just wanted to talk to you when you got back, especially with so much to catch up on and wanting to hear all about your trip and everything. And it would definitely be shitty if I were just spamming you all day while you’re off trying to have fun. But I still kinda feel like this big long message is a bit of a burden on you to try to read and respond to (not that I expect you to respond to every little thing, or even most of this, since a lot of this is just me talking or telling you a silly story). The thing is, I know you *will* read it. You’re the only person I can really trust to read everything I send to you, no matter what, which really means a lot to me. You always make me feel heard and appreciated and respected. I hope I do the same for you. And I think maybe because I know I can count on you for that, that’s why I feel a little guilty about doing this. Ah I don’t know. Just stuck in my feelings again, you know me. I’ve come too far now to stop or try to delete all this or anything, so I guess you’ll just have to deal with it 🤷🏼‍♀️

But also, I wanna say thanks for always making time for me. Even when you were super busy cleaning and getting everything ready before the vacation, you still took the time to talk to me every day when you could, and I can’t even really put into words how much that matters to me. Yeah I miss you, yeah I wish I could talk to you more often overall, but the weight of those actions overshadows the other stuff. I really am just glad to be a part of your life every day, and have you in mine. Wish I could hug you for real, but guess this’ll have to do 🫂

Idk why I’m all mushy right now. Though I guess this is how I usually am anyway, so not like you aren’t used to me. But still. I’ve been a little overwhelmed with emotions lately, dealing with a lot of stuff swirling around in my head and all that. I won’t get into it, I know you don’t want to hear about this, just saying it’s contributing to my being a little sweeter right now 😅 you do deserve to hear this stuff, though. You’re my best friend for a reason. You really are such a wonderful person, and I care very much for you.

Alright I’ll stop all that for now before I say something we’ll both regret ha

I’m trying this new sleep mask thing, not one of those ones that goes over your eyes but like a cream mask (skincare thing), it’s meant to be an overnight moisturizer. You apply a thin layer, rub into your skin, let it dry, leave it on all night, then rinse face in warm water in the morning. So it’s all dry and everything by now, and it’s already left my skin pretty soft and smooth. Some parts of my face can get pretty dry, but this makes everything feel evened out, which I really like. And it smells pretty cause it’s lavender and chamomile 😌

I am kinda hungry though, but I don’t have anything to snack on. I wish I had more chips and salsa, but I finished those off yesterday. I don’t really want to get out of bed, but I’m still gonna complain about wanting a snack 😂

~8/2 (1:30pm-6pm)

Ugh I’m so tired. I’ve barely slept at all. Didn’t get to bed until 2:30am, woke up at 7:30am, then was very in and out until about 11:30am. I tried laying around a bit, but it hasn’t worked, and my eyes just want to close. But I have to start getting ready to go to mom’s soon, and then also get ready for work and all that. I want to do some nice makeup today, but I’m also so tired I kinda wanna be lazy about that, so I’m in a debate with myself for it. I’ll probably end up doing it anyway, since I want to be able to use all that stuff I just bought as often as I can. But maybe I’ll do a really simple look today. Like just face stuff (foundation, contour/highlight, blush) and some quick eyeliner and mascara. Eh in any case I’ll take some pics to show you later on

I still have to switch everything to the new bag, too. Didn’t do it last night because I was being lazy, so now I’ll have to do it right before I leave. I guess that’s not so bad, shouldn’t take too long anyway.

I was having some weird dreams about being on Price is Right, probably cause I was hearing my dad watching it in the other room. In the dream I was part of the show, but more in the background? So not like a model presenting stuff directly. But there were these giant water tanks with fake coral on the stage now, behind all the games (or I guess the tanks were stable and the games got moved around in front of them) and me and two other people were hired to be “mermaids” in the tank, I guess to make the games exciting and look fun with the new setup. In real life there are shops where you can buy silicone mermaid tails that you can wear in pools and such, so in the dream we had those special tails to use for swimming in the tank. I remember mine being really colorful but I can’t remember the actual colors now, of course 😅 so basically I spent this dream swimming around a nice tank, waving at contestants and shit. Such a dumb dream, thought it might give you a little laugh

Got to my mom’s house around 3:45pm, so I got to talk to her for a bit. She told me the whole story about what happened with her getting fired, and she’s already contacted a lawyer, which is good. I feel bad, but there’s not much I can do aside from be encouraging/comforting/supportive. Things will work out as they’re meant to, I suppose.

She’s a little overbearing on the support of my relationship though, like she’s getting weird about certain things. Like I told her about me and Bree going out on Saturday and she says “I don’t mind if you bring her over, but you guys can’t be alone in your room together.” What, am I 12?? Not that we’re at that stage yet in the first place, but geez she doesn’t have to act like that either way. And then she says “I just don’t want other people enjoying sex in my house if I’m not able to partake anymore” (cause after her hysterectomy it’s too painful for her to do anything, I know I mentioned that before). I don’t know what to do about her 🤦🏼‍♀️ she’s still more accepting and everything than my dad, so I gotta put up with her, but still she’s bugging me a little bit

I did end up doing my makeup, so I’ll save some pics to send later on. I’m not so tired anymore, so that’s something. I packed up a lunch for work, but I’ll probably go grab something quick from McDonald’s before I go in, cause I’m hungry but too tired to make anything else.

Oh yeah, my mom asked if I had told you about Bree yet, basically insinuating that you might be jealous for some reason. I was like “who do you think encouraged me to ask her out?” which surprised her enough to shut her up. I slipped and told her I liked you one time, now I’ll never hear the end of it 😬

Bree texted me earlier and said people are talking about us at work. Of course the word’s gotten out already, since gossip spreads quick in the hospital. But it’s no big deal since we made it public and everything, so let ‘em talk. Someone told Bree congrats though, which is cute 😂

I did end up getting McDonald’s for a snack. I always order a Diet Coke, right. But at the window the girl’s said it was just Coke, so I politely said it was supposed to be Diet. She took it back and said she’d change it, gave me a new drink, it ends up being Coke anyway 🙄 it’s not a huge deal to have a regular coke here and there, I just really don’t care much for it. So I’m blaming you for this 😋

I wonder if we’re getting a storm coming through. I’m sitting in the McDonald’s parking lot and all of a sudden we got hit with these huge gusts of strong winds, and it stayed windy for about 5 minutes or so. It’s calmed down now, but still that was kinda weird

Almost time for me to go into work, sigh. And knowing I won’t get to talk to you at all just makes my work day that much more boring. At least when I’m obsessively checking tumblr for your messages it makes the time pass quicker 😅 I’m just joking around though, really. I’m sure it’ll be a good day

~8/2 (6pm-12am)

Figure I’ll break this up a bit today, since it was getting to be a long block of text up there before.

As I was walking in I could hear really loud thunder, and the wind picked up again. The sky is all gray and dark, too, I love it 😊 I just saw some lighting and it started to rain a few minutes ago, hopefully the rain will drive everyone away ha

Prudence is covering some shifts now that McKenna is gone. And it’s great that she’s helping out and everything, but at the same time she’s not really used to the way ER works, so there’s a lot I have to check up on to make sure they don’t need to be cleaned up. So far just a few things not done, like labeling the incoming faxes, but that’s really not a big deal. And I know she was frazzled from working something she doesn’t know well, but she said they had 6 patients today and that that was a lot… but I digress

I’m a little annoyed though cause the chair I’d been using has been moved. Tess brought it back here specifically for me, and it had been fine for a while, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t still be here. So now I gotta email Tess and see about getting it back, and hopefully I can get a bit comfortable in this other chairs and not wreck my back today ☹️

Idk why but I’m like burning up today. Maybe I just haven’t had enough time to sit and let my body regulate, cause I’ve had to do some paperwork and stuff already at work here. Or maybe it’s the pound of makeup on my face 😂 in any case, I feel muggy and it’s gross. I’m gonna drink some water and see if that helps.

I hope it’s not too hot where you are right now. Though I suppose if you stayed anywhere in the south then it’s bound to be hot no matter what 🤔 but I hate being hot and sweaty on vacation, cause then I’m just uncomfortable and cranky the whole time, so I hope you’re not going through that kind of thing right now cause that would not be fun. Or maybe you’ve been indoors a lot, and then it wouldn’t really matter how hot it is outside if you’re in nice AC 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m just babbling away cause I’m bored, you know how it goes. Not much to do right now aside from waiting for Bree to come see me after her shift ends. I’ve got half a mind to jokingly ask her if she wants to kiss in the rain 😅 but I don’t want to make her too uncomfortable since we are at work still

Georgia’s birthday is coming up on 8/5, but I’m hearing that there’s already cake somewhere around the ER 👀 I’m gonna have to go hunt it down and have a little piece soon

The whole quitting smoking thing has been going pretty well, for the most part. It’s harder when I’m driving or about to go to work, cause that’s when I’d smoke most often, so that’s when I feel the cravings a bit more. Or if I see someone smoking (like on tv or a movie or whatever; for example, there’s some minor smoking scenes in Saw and that made me want one pretty bad) then I tend to want a cigarette moreso since it’s a visual association. But otherwise it’s not awful. I don’t have too hard of a time pushing those thoughts away and distracting myself from the cravings and such. It is still a bit difficult trying to remove it from my psyche in the sense of it being like such a huge part of my personality and things like that, but I think I’m doing ok with that right now.

Idk what’s going on but I heard Krissy say “I’m sorry, I got seduced by the cottage cheese!” So that’s fun out of context

Speaking of, I don’t know how Krissy is still here. She never seems to have a day off, this one. At this point we should just dedicate one of the rooms to her so she can rest when her shift is done 😂

I was taking care of some things I needed to handle for college coming up at the end of this month, and my student loans don’t cover the full amount of my tuition for this semester. I’m thinking I may need to drop 1-2 classes of the 4 I’m enrolled in, which would make my academic journey take longer, but could be more affordable. Cause how am I gonna come up with $1700 by the 16th?? That’s how much is left over after my loans pay out. My mom suggested looking into payment plans or trying to get a student loan with my bank, so I guess I’ll look into all that this weekend. Just sucks, the way things were estimated when I was first applying/enrolling seemed like the loan would be just enough to cover everything, maybe a couple hundred bucks I’d have to throw in. I suppose if I do have to give up some classes I can put off like Nutrition and Balancing Work and Family, since I wasn’t super excited for those anyway, and they were mostly credit courses to take off some prerequisites for my eventual majors. Not like I can’t just take them some other time. As long as I can keep creative writing and Geology I think I’ll be happy with that, because then I’m still making progress towards what I want to do for my Bachelor’s eventually (well, sort of anyway; Geology isn’t really part of Health Science, but is still a science, so I’m counting it). Ugh I should have been born into generational wealth. Fucking poor parents that I’m stuck with 🙄

Bree came to spend time with me, of course. We had a nice time just hanging out together. We always end up laughing and telling each other silly stories. And we try not to be too PDA at work, for obvious reasons, but we keep the door between me and the nurses closed when she’s here, and try to talk a little quieter, so we held hands for a minute when she’d first come by, and before she left I got a full on hug and it felt so wonderful. Not just the human contact, but the closeness to my partner and the love in the hug. I got some butterflies just from that 🥰 and she knows about my need to confirm things a bunch of times and all that, so she actively talked about our Saturday plans with that positive confirmation, and said she was super excited to go out that day, which really made me feel special. I have a lot of trouble with feeling like I’m bothering people or being too pushy or overbearing or whatever, especially when I have to ask them about confirming plans, and I always have that question of “do they really want to spend time with me” in the back of my head, but she always makes it so clear that she wants to be with me and spend time with me and all of that, and it really just fills my heart with so much joy.

Ah sorry for babbling about Bree again. I’m just having a moment over here 😅 haven’t been in a relationship in so long, and the last person I was with wasn’t all that great during the relationship anyway, so I’m not used to kind treatment. It short circuits me a little bit, because there’s also that part of me that feels like I don’t deserve to be treated so nicely. But I’m starting to work through that little by little. Anyhow, I can’t say it won’t happen again, because we both know that it will. Obviously I’ll be giving you every detail of what happens Saturday, too 😂 but I’ll try to keep it on a minimum until then haha

~8/3 (12am-6am)

Tim’s working this week, and Krissy was only doing a half shift tonight so she left at midnight. She’s finally getting like 5 days off, poor thing has been working a crazy schedule for weeks now. But anyway, the ER is empty and Dr Reay is in the Doc Box, so it’s just me and Tim in here. He’s at his desk at the nurse’s station, but it’s directly behind me, so every so often we’ll just kinda yell something to each other 😂 mostly just hanging around and doing our own thing though, and it’s very comfortable

We were also hearing that search and rescue got called out for someone on a river around here. Idk who was out doing river activities after midnight, but of course they were gonna get swept away 🙄 but search and rescue found them, which is good, and hopefully they’re ok and won’t need to come around here

I think my TikTok gave up on my algorithm cause at this point it’s all just masked dudes 😅 not that I’m really complaining about that or anything, just saying it’s kinda funny that I broke TikTok and turned my page into this. I did discuss these videos with Bree, and she doesn’t mind me watching them still. Which maybe I mentioned that before, I can’t remember now. But it’s nice that she doesn’t care, cause I don’t know how I’d get it to reset at this point 😳

And I’ll say what I’m always saying: I miss you so much. Work really is harder to get through without getting to talk to you, or even just message you with the knowledge that you’ll see my message the next day and I’ll get to talk to you later on. I’m just so bored and have very little to occupy my time. TikTok is fun but it can get boring after a while, too. And I have my book but I tend to get distracted while reading lately. My mind is always wandering and it goes places I don’t always want it to go, so that’s not great. And I have trouble just sitting and watching something. I have to move my hands and fidget in some way, so I end up going on my phone and then missing parts of the plot. So I’m just having a blah kind of time in general. And I’m also jealous cause you don’t have to work this week, and I wish I didn’t have to work because I’d definitely like some more time to rest/relax right now. I’m pretty sleepy right now, honestly. Hopefully that’ll make me sleep better when I get back home, but still. I knew not getting to talk to you would be difficult for me, but damn this is starting to hurt 😅 that means you’re stuck with me forever then, now you’re definitely not allowed to ever leave me or not be friends with me 🤷🏼‍♀️

Ok in all seriousness though, I know the way I’m talking makes it sound like it’s all about me. But I honestly am happy that you’re off having a good time and getting a vacation and all that. You really did need a break, can’t think of anyone more deserving of some time away than you. I just like to talk, and typing this up helps fill my time and keep me occupied/awake. And I guess I’m a little worried that you won’t come back on here or talk to me anymore now that you haven’t had to put up with me for a while. I feel like I pressure you in some way to talk to me every day when you are here, or like it’s becoming an obligation you have to fulfill. I’m always worried that I’m being annoying or overbearing or whatever else I’m being, since I don’t know how to shut my damn mouth. I’m not trying to put words in your mouth or saying that you actually feel that way, I just always have it in the back of my head that at some point you could feel that way, if that makes sense.

Bleh ok enough of this serious nonsense for now. Im not trying to bring the mood down or anything. I know you’re not gonna want to read all this moody crap after a nice vacation, so I’m trying to limit all this. Just get stuck on those 3am thoughts, you know? But we’re moving on.

Tim offered to make us some coffee in a bit here, so that’s nice of him. I don’t know how to use the fancy coffee machines in the break room anyway, since they’re like espresso makers or some shit. Do you think it’s a good idea to have a double shot at 3am? Maybe if I dilute it with enough cream and sugar it’ll be fine 🤔

Tim showed me how to use all the fancy coffee machines, they’re actually not as complicated as I thought they’d be, they just look a little intimidating at first. I don’t really drink coffee very much, but nice to have the option. But Tim found one of Caitlin’s old mugs in the cupboard and of course I’m having to use hers 😂 but we both kinda got to gripe about her, so that was fun. Tim is super nice though, he won’t outright say anything mean about anyone, which is a lovely quality in a person. Anyhow, I did use up a bunch of cream and sugar but the coffee tastes pretty good. A little bitter, but not terrible. And caffeine really doesn’t affect me very much, so I’ll still be able to sleep when I get home. Also they found that person on the river and they’re fine, don’t need medical attention or anything, just need to get somewhere dry. I’m glad that all worked out for the best.

I found some of the good chairs floating around in front of the nurse’s station (and I usually never have to walk around there, so I wonder if they were there all day and I just didn’t see them). So thankfully I’ve got one now, but it’s 4am and my back is already half wrecked. At least I’ve got some relief for the moment

Tim and I got to chat for about an hour, just full on sitting and talking to each other. Which we don’t do super often for some reason. I think we just got so comfortable with each other that we don’t really need to have long conversations often. But he’s nice to talk to cause we do get along really well, especially when it’s just us two around here. After that he had to do stocking in some of the rooms, and I had to do my paperwork. But as he’s stocking one of the big trauma rooms in front of our areas he calls me over telling me to help him count all the outlets in that room. Turns out one of the new trauma rooms has 52 outlets, and the other has 48. For what purpose?? We’re such a small hospital, I don’t think we even have enough machines to plug into those outlets all at one time. And there’s no reason a patient would need that many things at once anyway, so it’s grossly unnecessary. We were laughing about it because we have all these outlets but no bathroom on this new side of the ER. The things that get overlooked in planning, you know? Just wild

~8/3 (4pm-12am)

Woke up with my back basically in shards. That chair I had to use most of last night really did a number on me. And Tess had texted me to ask if we could meet up when I got to work later, so I guess she’s going to come talk to me around 6pm or so when I clock in. I don’t know what she wants, and I usually get along with Tess very well, but I have a feeling that she’s going to bring up what happened with my mom, and I don’t really want to discuss that with someone in management. But we’ll just have to see what happens. Maybe she just wants to see my hair, since she’s one of the only people who hasn’t seen it yet after giving me the ok for it 🤷🏼‍♀️

Bree texted me some cute little drawings/comics of cows, so that was very pleasant to wake up to 🥰

This morning mom told me she had leftover spaghetti in the fridge, so I’ll get to have that before I go to work, which is awesome. I’ve been craving spaghetti anyway so that works out great 😋

Just had the spaghetti and it was really good. Kinda wish there was more cause I’m still a bit hungry 😅

I had to upload on ibuprofen when I woke up, since my back was hurting so bad. And I took an extra Prednisone. I’ve been able to rest in my chair here for a little bit (still at mom’s house) so I feel a bit better now, hopefully it gets better as the night goes on.

I was dreaming about Bree and I going out on Saturday, and I woke up all sad that I still had to wait a couple days to be able to do that 😂

I also got to cuddle Ty for a bit. He gave me some kisses on my nose. He doesn’t really like to be held/cuddled so much anymore with how sick and grumpy he is all the time, but sometimes he likes when I pick him up and cradle him for a few minutes. My mom gets a little jealous though cause he doesn’t really let her do that anymore ha

Pre-season football apparently starts today, which I just found out when I woke up. But the preseason game that’s on tonight has teams I don’t care about, so guess I still won’t be watching it. Unless Erika wants me to bring it up at work so that all of us can wander in and watch while dealing with patients and such. I’ve done that for her before. I just hope I get to see my Seahawks play this season, I didn’t really get to see many of their games last year, or many games in general. So I’m gonna try to stay more on top of it this year if I can. Last year we were so busy around the hospital that even when I could pull up games it was hard to keep up since we’d get so many patients and have to run around doing things. But this year we’ve been oddly slower for several weeks, and if it keeps trending this way then I should be fine to watch most of the games that play during my work week (like Thursday night football).

Tess did come around for a while. We talked very briefly about what happened with my mom. I tried to keep it kinda shut down, just saying we don’t really talk about work much at home and that she’s just trying to move on, stuff like that. But Tess wanted to assure me that my job is secure and nothing is going to happen to me or my stepdad, so that’s something. We also discussed some new processes for the clerks to handle, most of which is just redundant. If our cash box stays at $200 and doesn’t get opened or used or anything during the course of a shift, what’s the point of filling out and turning in a stupid little slip just to say nothing changed? Seems pointless unless we actually do have something change, like taking a payment from a patient or needing to take out money from the box for a cab or whatever, and then those things have other specific forms to fill out anyway, so it just seems like a lot of hullabaloo to me. But I’ll do it anyway, because I’m supposed to 😬

At least talking to Tess took up about an hour, so only 11 more to go now. Tim is working this week, so I can talk to him if I get bored. And Brandi is back, too, and since things were getting better between us last time she was here I might try to start up a conversation about books or something when we’re a bit calmer. I’m pretty sure there’s still cake in the breakroom, too, so maybe I’ll grab a piece later on. So far seems like just a normal day, which I guess is better than an abnormal day 🤷🏼‍♀️

I wonder what you’re up to right now 🤔 I know you’ll tell me later, but I’m still trying to figure out where you went, so my mind is coming up with random images trying to piece it together. Idk why but I kinda have an image of you next to some kind of famous statue, flexing as you lean against it, something like that. Would love to see you in some kind of silly hat. I’m not sure why that’s what came to me just now, but I think it’d be funny to see this big tough guy in like Mickey Mouse ears or something 😂 well wherever you are I hope you’re staying hydrated, wearing sunscreen, all the good stuff. Maybe next time you’ll take a vacation out here in Utah, hmm? 😉 just messing with you. I’d love to get to hang out with you someday, of course, but I don’t know that you’d like it much out here. It’s kinda boring unless you really love hiking/camping/outdoor shit. The only fun you’d really have out here would be getting to see me, but then I’m even more annoying in real life and you’d probably be sick of me after ten minutes 😅 but still, maybe one day I’ll get to see you for real 😊

Ugh just had a patient’s husband come in, saying he was here to pick up his wife. So frankly he should have just waited in the lobby the five minutes it would have taken for her to come out since she was already discharged. But he asked if he could just come back to the room to see her and walk her out, and that’s all fine, so I let him in and show him what room she’s in. And then he gets all huffy, saying like “what kind of hospital is this? You don’t keep track of your patients?” I explained that we recently renamed a lot of the rooms due to construction, so I confirmed which room it was and said that the nurses told me which room she was assigned to. He’s still all upset, “well, she’s not in there. And she was discharged so she shouldn’t be anywhere else.” And then she walks out of the bathroom and comes over to him 🙄 but do I get an apology? Do I get an acknowledgement that we were doing everything right and she was simply using the restroom before leaving? No, of course not. He and his wife just leave, and he still seems to be in a pissy mood. Almost seemed like he was angry with his wife for being in the ER at all, but that’s not my business. I hate these kinds of assholes, so quick to blame us for nothing, but never admitting they’re wrong 😡

Bree came by to see me, but only very briefly cause she was tired. Apparently they were pretty busy in the lab today. So she just gave me a hug and said she was gonna dip out pretty quick. I was definitely a little 🥺 but I understand that she needs time to rest and everything, too. And she said she’ll bring tea over tomorrow to spend time with me at work, so that’s nice. We quickly discussed plans for date night Saturday, about like when we wanted to get dinner around the movies’ schedules, got that all settled. I’m so excited, I get tingly little butterflies just thinking about the upcoming date haha. But the only problem with Bree not staying to hang out with me is that now I have even more time to try to occupy on my own, but not much to do. I am trying to finish this book in the next two days, though, so maybe with this extra time I can get a bit farther in. We shall see

We’ve got a suicidal patient, so the social workers from 4 Corners have to be here, which would be fine if they didn’t have to use my office for things 😬 but since I have an extra computer and more space compared to the nurse’s station or anywhere else at least one of the social workers has to be here in my cubby. So I can’t close the door to eat or watch my shows privately. But at this point I don’t really care so much. I’m too hungry to wait until they’re gone, and I’ve got my show playing very quietly with subtitles on so I don’t bother anyone. Still kinda sucks though, cause I hate not having my own space. But at least that patient is getting help, which is much more important

The show I was watching had some sexual content in it, not like nudity or anything, but talking about getting fucked and such. And with everyone around I thought hmm maybe that’s a bit inappropriate for the work place. So I turned it off, then went through the channels on Hulu to see that Saw 2 was playing, and I put that on instead. Because somehow the gore and death seems more appropriate than talking about sex 😂 and I proceeded to eat my cup of noodle ramen while watching someone try to make a decision about whether or not to cut out their own eye to survive. I think maybe there is something wrong with me after all 🤷🏼‍♀️

~8/4 (12am-7am)

Been a rather boring night. Only had 2 patients all day, thankfully. We do like it quiet around here. I was on TikTok for a bit, but it got boring after a while. Still kind of neglecting my reading, but I did try to get through more of the book. I managed alright, decent enough progress, but my mind wandered away again, so I got stuck in a daydream for a good 15 minutes or so. But earlier I got to sit around talking with Brandi and Tim, which was actually pretty nice, and passed quite a bit of time. And I did get some cake earlier, which was pretty good. The chocolate cake was all gone, of course, so I had a small piece of the yellow cake with vanilla buttercream, and I liked it quite a bit. It was a nice treat. I guess Georgia won’t be here until next weekend, which is why they had all the cake and everything done the other day. I’m gonna see if I can get her a card to give her next week.

I’m pretty tired now, like my eyes just want to close on me. But I know the second I get home I’ll be wide awake, go figure. I’m gonna try to go to bed a bit earlier, but we’ll see how that goes

I know I’m getting repetitive by now, but I’m really missing you pretty badly at the moment. It’s like you’re haunting me, since I’m still thinking about you a lot. Who knew I’d get so used to the constant contact. I kinda feel like I’m withering away over here, just waiting for you to come back. Which sounds really dumb, I know 😅

I say I’m trying not to push it or be overly gushy or whatever and then here I am almost every other paragraph saying how much I miss you and can’t wait to talk to you again. At least you know I care about you, so that’s something right? 🤷🏼‍♀️ But I swear the days feel longer and the hours go slower when I don’t get to talk to you every day. It became such a habit that having it taken away is like having someone put me on a manual reset. Like I’ve just got this ache in my chest.

Alright, have I made enough of a fool of myself for one day? Man, I sound ridiculous, don’t I? I’m sorry. I’ll try to stop now. I just get so emotional all the time and have so much to say. Why’d I have to get stuck with this overly talkative gene? Why can’t I be mysterious and secretive? Nah, I gotta communicate too much, make everyone uncomfortable 😬

You’re just a wonderful person and I value your presence in my life. I think I took it for granted a little bit, always having you around, and I didn’t realize how much I rely on our connection to get me through the day until it was gone for this little while here.

You’re gonna come back to all this and wonder what the hell’s wrong with me, I just know it 😮‍💨

~8/4 (8am)

Extra little tidbit here. I was planning to go to bed early because I really was tired when I got home, but then of course mom and I started talking and hanging out like we always do. Somehow things took a serious turn, something got triggered in my mind, and we both end up crying and holding hands and all this shit, talking about our traumas and whatnot. Which neither of us expected this morning, but I know with her losing her job she’s probably got a lot of emotional issues pent up, and I’ve always got bullshit building up in my head, so I guess we just needed to cry together. We both feel fine now, for the most part

Before the crying, we did talk about relationships and things like that. We talked about Bree and how I’m feeling in the relationship so far, my thoughts about how it’s progressing, all that stuff. And my mom truly is fully supportive of this relationship, so it’s very easy to talk to her about everything in my head. But she then says to me “make sure you clean your car before you go out, that way if you two want to make out later it won’t be gross” so you know I just can’t escape these things 🤦🏼‍♀️

~8/4 (4pm-12am)

Woke up almost feeling like I didn’t sleep at all, even though I know I did because I still remember having some dreams (don’t remember what they were now, but still). I feel a bit better now cause I’ve been moving around and everything. But I’m planning to try and rest my eyes a bit at work tonight anyway, since I won’t be able to sleep much tomorrow before date night. We’ll see how it all works out

I got a hilarious video of my mom singing Slipknot. I don’t know if videos can send, but I definitely wanna try to find a way to show it to you because it’s hilarious 😂 so remind me about that later

Speaking of my mom, she already got another job. Not even a week later and she’s already moving on. She’s gonna be teaching first grade at the local elementary school, which is great because she loves teaching and didn’t want to try to go back into health care. It’s a bit of a pay cut, but they won’t have to leave Moab or commute or anything like that. I don’t envy her having to deal with all those kids, though 😅 and she’s still gonna find an attorney to deal with all the shit that happened at the hospital, which I keep prodding her about to make sure she actually does it.

I cleaned out my car, sort of. I wasn’t able to get like every single bit of trash in the backseat, cause I’d have to move my jumper cables and other things back there, and my back was already starting to hurt from bending and leaning in, so I had to stop after a while. But it looks better than before cause a lot of the big trash items are out now, and it’s a bit clearer overall. I should go try to get it vacuumed or something, since there’s crumbs and stuff everywhere in the front, but I know I won’t have time tomorrow, so it’ll have to just be ok. I don’t think Bree will care or say anything, but still, I feel kinda bad about it. At the very least it’ll smell nice, since I have my scent clip on, and I’ll spray some Febreeze on the seats before I leave tomorrow, so that’s one thing. And I’m still happy with the progress I made on it overall, since I am more limited in what I’m able to do anyway 😊 and Robert helped me put on my new steering wheel cover, which is covered in rhinestones and very pretty, so that’ll be distracting tomorrow, too haha

Last night some guy on here sent me a chat, and I responded, and then they blocked me. So like what was even the point of sending me a message in the first place? Coulda left me alone completely and saved us all a hassle 🙄

Don’t know yet what the day will hold, since at the moment I’m typing this up before work. But lately we’ve only had like 2-3 patients and then nothing all night, plenty of time to just hang out and relax and do nothing. I’m really hoping it stays that way again, since I am not in the mood to be doing shit today. I wanna enjoy my pizza and some shows and TikTok and read and close my eyes for like an hour. Just gotta get through this shift and then I can start my weekend. 4 days off, since this is my short week, and I don’t have much to do on Sunday or Monday aside from help dad with some social security/disability paperwork stuff, so I’ll actually get to just rest for a while. And of course I’ve been talking a lot about how excited I am for date night tomorrow, so that’ll be a great start to the weekend 🥰 and Tuesday I have that intense therapy session, which I’m actually pretty excited for because I just wanna get this shit out of me, you know? But I think now I’m just repeating myself again, since I have nothing else to really talk about yet. So sorry if this has been annoying 😅

Welp, I’m at work now, so far nothing going on. But it’s only like 6:45 so the night is young. Bree said she’s still coming by to hang with me for a while, so I’m getting pizza for both of us 😊 and I’m just listening to Dr Scherer and the nurses talk about bad doctors/nurses who used to work here. They’re all reminiscing and laughing, and while I’m not really part of it (and kinda don’t feel comfortable trying to jump in since I haven’t been here as long as them) it’s still fun to hear about all the old drama haha

We did have one patient come in just now from Urgent Care, but that’s not such a big deal. And since they already got his info in the system I have very little left to do for him, which is nice.

I’m definitely going to try to finish that book tonight. I want to be able to grab a new one this weekend when I’m at my house, and I don’t think I’ll have much time to read tomorrow since Bree and I will be out for a long time, so guess it’s gotta be today haha. I suppose I could try to finish it Sunday, if I have to, but still the goal will be to do it tonight. But let’s see if that actually happens 🤞🏻

Hope you’re having fun doing whatever you’re doing. I’ve been thinking about you (obviously), mostly just to hope you’re enjoying yourself and having a good time. I’m still wishing for a picture of you smiling and looking happy for once, so I hope you didn’t forget to take one 😂 and while I feel bad that your vacation time is almost up and you’ll have to come back to reality soon (cause that always sucks), I am also soooo excited to get to talk to you again soon. I’m damn near counting the minutes 😅

~8/5 (12am-7am)

I’m writing this up after midnight, so figured I’d just break it up a bit so it wouldn’t end up being such a long block of text.

Bree came over to hang with me at work around 8:30pm. I had the pizza and everything ready for us, so that we wouldn’t have to bother with ordering later on. Thankfully not much has been going on today aside from a few things here and there, so we had a long time to just keep the door closed and spend time together. It was really sweet, she brought over her whole traditional Chinese tea set so we could basically have a tea party together 🥹 I have some pics of the tea setup I can send later on. But she showed me how to properly steep the tea, and the traditional practices of brewing and “washing” the tea before drinking, and it was really cool. I also love tea and things like that, so it was awesome to be able to share it together. And those teas can get a lot of steeping out of them. We were using small porcelain cups that don’t hold much tea, since it was more of a tasting type thing than actually like sitting with a whole mug to drink, so we must have had like 20 little cups worth between the two teas we were trying. Both were very good, and very different in flavor, I really enjoyed both of them. Then after we had pizza and watched Bob’s Burgers for a while. She just left a little bit ago, we’re both gonna end up on TikTok for a while ha.

But just the fact that she wanted to have tea with me, so she packed up her whole set and brought everything over to the hospital to set it up and share it with me… I can’t describe at all how special that makes me feel. I can’t believe someone would go to that kind of trouble just for me. And it’s not even trouble to her, since she wants to do it, but still. I’m gonna be a little awestruck for a while 😅

We both have the same kind of like passion and intensity about things, too. In a sense it’s like we’re all in, you know? But it’s just sweet cause I’m the type that loves to take pics and share those memories, and she is too, so when I wanted to take a picture to commemorate our tea time she didn’t even hesitate to say yes. So I have some silly pics of her and I smiling and holding up our tea cups that I shared around. Just one more thing I appreciate, being able to enjoy taking pics and posting them and share my life and happiness, knowing she wants to do the same thing.

She also brought us some little fancy chocolates! She stopped off at a candy store before coming over just so we could have a sweet treat with tea time. So thoughtful I could cry 😭

I don’t think I’ve been this happy… maybe ever, to be honest. And as much as I truly love men (let’s be real, y’all are so damn hot), every day I start to feel more and more like “I’m so happy I’m not with a man.” And it’s nothing against men in general or anything like that. I’m not one of those people that hates men or thinks men are awful or whatever. Idk how to describe it. It’s just like… a guy would never think to bring me a tea party, you know? That kind of thing. Plus Bree is androgynous enough that if she wore a mask for me it would probably translate decently enough to work up my kink 🤔 not the point, just something I was thinking about before 😂

Anyway I’ll try to stop babbling now, sorry. Just been a really great night so far, couldn’t wait to share all the details with you 😅 and tomorrow we have the bigger date so you’ll be hearing all about that, too. I know I won’t be able to keep it on a minimum, so I’ll just apologize in advance.

I did manage to finish my book. Took me about 2 solid hours, I think? Or maybe an hour and a half. In any case, I had a nice block of time to just sit and read it all through, and it was pretty good. I really enjoyed the story and I felt it was decently unique. Which is really nice since I was looking forward to it for a long time, and I’d heard a bunch about it on TikTok and stuff, so I’m glad it was a good one in the end.

I don’t know why, but I’m all keyed up right now. Feel like my heart is really pumping and I kinda just want to move around for a minute. And that’s not great, since I really need to try to sleep right away when I get home (it’s like 5:50am right now, almost off shift), since I have to get up at 1pm to get ready for date night. But the good news is that Bree’s house is only about ten minutes from my mom’s, and it’s a straight shot down one road until I turn onto her street, so it’ll be quick and easy to find. I’m definitely gonna be wound up with nervous energy as soon as I wake up, though. Hopefully I can get my makeup on properly, since when I get these feelings I tend to get a little shaky too 😅

Oh but I dug around in some bags in the closet at my mom’s house and ended up finding my little bottle of my favorite perfume. It’s Romance by Ralph Lauren, I’ve loved this scent for so many years, but it’s super expensive and so I’ve not really gotten to wear it much at all. Dad had bought me a small bottle for Christmas in like 2020 (when I first started my lab job and was getting paid exorbitant amounts of money and the hotel we moved into on a more stable basis was dirt cheap to try to get business in because of covid), and even that was about $60, so I wear it very sparingly. I’ve still got roughly half the bottle left, and only need a tiny bit since it’s a strong scent and lasts for quite a while. Plus now that I’m not smoking anymore nothing will mask the scent of the perfume itself. So I’m definitely gonna wear it today for the date.

It’s absolutely killing me not to talk to you. Look at all this nonsense I’ve had pent up to tell you, and how much I’m still going on 😅 ugh I need feedback and encouragement and support and for you to remind me not to be so nervous with Bree since she already likes me and I have nothing to prove (and yeah clearly I can tell myself that, but it just doesn’t sink as well if it’s not you saying it). Guess I gotta wing it on my own for the date tonight huh? 😬 But I suppose I’ve been doing fine this whole time, so that’s something. Ah I just miss you, I can’t not say it. Hurry up and get back on here already 😮‍💨

Well, writing all my silly little thoughts like this is at least somewhat helpful. Sorry you gotta read it all, but I did warn you about that beforehand 🤷🏼‍♀️

Anywho, I remember some months back I’d told you a little story about how I tried to say goodnight to the nurses as I was leaving one morning and not a single one even looked at me, and it was upsetting. Well even progress has been made in those respects, because today before I left I said goodbye to the nurses at the station (who all happened to be crowded right near the doorway between our area anyway, I think there were like 4 of them there) and instantly Tim stopped talking to them to acknowledge me and say goodnight, which made some of the other nurses do the same thing. Good guy Timmy to the rescue. He’s such a wonderful person to work with and have around, and he treats everyone so kindly. I’m always happy when I get to work with him, and that’s partially for reasons like this. It made me flashback to that moment a couple months ago and kinda smile and feel better to see these small changes. And maybe it’s just because it was Tim, or because they were right next to me and couldn’t reasonably say they didn’t hear me, or whatever other reason. But it was nice all the same.

And I just realized I forgot to take the call sheets down to Med Surg. Even though I still don’t know what they need them for since they don’t use them to call anyone in an actual emergency anyway, that’s the ER clerk’s job. But whatever, I hope Dani doesn’t give me any fuss about it later 🤦🏼‍♀️ ah well can’t do anything about it now anyway. And Dani’s been a lot easier to deal with lately too, much more personable and friendly towards me, so she probably won’t say anything about it. Fingers crossed 🤞🏻

Have you ever known Vitamin D caps to like fuse together? I got a bottle of the gel cap type pills from Walmart, the nephrologist said I need to up my intake to keep my levels up since I have trouble with Vitamin D depletion and that’s not good for the kidneys. I opened them up today since I finished my old bottle yesterday, and I swear all the fucking pills are completely fused together. It’s like the gel is melted to each other or something. Maybe because of the heat? Or maybe that’s normal for these types of pills? It’s fucking weird though. I had to literally stab at the blob with the end of a makeup brush to try and carve one off the top to take with my morning meds. Don’t know what all to do about that.

~8/5 (1pm)

Just woke up to get ready for the date. Fuck man I’m so jittery right now, even though I’m also still a little bit tired. But the moving around and the nervous energy are definitely keeping me awake, so that’s something. Trying to just breathe and take things one step at a time, but I’m so like overly excited that it’s like my spine is tingling 😅 ah I wish you were here for all this in real time, I know you’d be able to calm me down ha. And it’s not even like a big thing, just a couple movies and dinner, normal stuff right? I see her all the time, and was even with her last night, so it’s not like we’ve had absence or distance in trying to build things up. So why am I so shaky?? Ugh this is so new to me. My ex and I would usually just go to bars. I think he had me over to his apartment like one time, and he was over at my mom’s old place one time. We’d either go to bars or hang out in his car, and at the time that was like the pinnacle of dating to me. I was so stupid back then (I’m still stupid now too, but differently). This whole thing with Bree feels so completely different from everything I’ve ever done, I don’t know how to deal with it I guess.

In any case, you’ll hear all the details here later on. But if I take too much time writing this I’ll be late, so toodles for now! 😊

~8/5 (10pm)

Ughhhhh I wish you were here right now my guy. I have so much shit I wanna tell you and it’s gonna take a minute to type everything out and I want you to get hyped up with me 🥺 but I’ll just have to write this up and wait for you to read it to get excited I suppose

Just got back a little bit ago from date night. I would have typed this up sooner, but I had to do my grocery pickup order, which took a minute. Anyway, we had a wonderful time. I met her grandma, and she was very sweet to me. She liked me right away and made jokes and such, so we had a pleasant first meeting. I wanted to see Bree’s cat, but he was hiding for a while cause he’d hurt his paw earlier and was a little wary since I was a new person. Only stayed there for about 15 minutes at first so Bree could finish getting ready before we left.

It was so cute, the first thing Bree said when she opened the door was that my makeup looked so pretty, and the first thing I said was that she looked adorable in the black dress she was wearing. I didn’t know how she might decide to dress for the day, with her being non-binary she has a wide range of styling. So today was a more femme day. She had a black dress and these big jewelry pieces (necklace, earrings, ring) that all matched cause they were like this vintage turquoise stuff. You’ll see when I send pics later. And she did some makeup too, but not nearly as much as me 😅

We went to see Barbie first. Got us some popcorn and sodas, but it was too much popcorn for either of us so she ended up saving the rest for her grandma, which was fine with me because then at least someone was eating it. And we both really liked the movie. It did go a little hard on the feminism angle, but it was enjoyable either way. I ended up crying by the end. Bree was surprised, quietly asking if I was ok, and I had to explain to her that I literally cry over everything, especially if it shows things about the beauty of the human condition and feelings and community, all that good stuff. She put her hand on my leg and I held her arm and we just kinda cuddled together while the movie wrapped up and I sobbed 😂 but it was a cute moment

Went to dinner at this restaurant called The Spoke. She said it would be best to park across the street and walk over, since there’s minimal parking nearby the actual restaurant and it’s easier that way. And she had me hold her arm the whole way there and back (which is perfect since she’s a bit taller than me) 🥰 food was good, I had a pasta dish I liked. It had sliced fresh cherry tomatoes, which I’ve never liked before but decided to try now since it’s been years, and they were actually really good! So maybe I kinda like fresh tomatoes now 🤷🏼‍♀️ but we also got some Oreo shakes for dessert, which was nice 😋

But right as we were finishing up, thankfully had already paid and everything, the power went out for the whole city. At first we thought maybe it was just the one block/street/whatever; but then some updates on Facebook were saying it was a downed power line and took out all of Moab, and it could be like 3 hours to fix it. So no way were we gonna be able to see Haunted Mansion like we’d planned, which kinda was a bummer cause I really want to see that movie. But with the power out she said she had to stop back home real quick to check on her grandma and make sure the portable oxygen tank was set up for her, so we did that. Oddly enough their house had power when we pulled up. Then we just hung around there for a bit to give her grandma some company and let us get to know each other more. Her grandma seemed very happy to have company over, and we got along well. We were sitting at their kitchen table and on the wall nearby her grandma has this big shelved collection of adorable salt and pepper shakers in all different shapes and such, like cows and pumpkins, so we talked about that a bit. And Bree’s cat finally came out to investigate, and then he absolutely adored me. Guess I must have pet him in all the right spots cause he kept coming up to rub against my legs and my hand, have me scratch his little chin and belly. He was so soft and fat and cute, I loved him instantly haha

We were trying to decide what else to do, since it was still pretty early. Settled on taking a little drive around, so we got back in my car and started driving straight down the one road nearby. She was telling me about how to get to some of the hiking trails and other places in the canyons by taking different little turn offs, then suggested driving down by the lake. I’ve never been to any lake before, so that sounded fun, and she told me how to get around to Ken’s Lake. It was pretty full up from some rainfall we’d had recently, and the water looked so beautiful. We got there a little before sunset. Both of us were in sandals and had some leg exposed, so we decided to go walk/stand in the water a little ways down the shoreline. The water was so nice, like a little cool but easy to get used to, felt amazing on the skin. I had the strongest urge to swim, but just wouldn’t have been able to with my outfit and no preparation or anything. So instead I suggested we do a lake date since we’re getting to the end of summer, and she was really excited for that. Figured we’ll try to do it in another two weeks when I have Saturday off again. Gonna do it as an all-afternoon/evening kind of thing, that way we can enjoy the cool water in the hot weather. And we decided to plan it as a picnic! That way we can just hang out all day and not have to worry about food or anything else. I’m really looking forward to it cause I love swimming, and getting to swim in the lake for the first time ever will be awesome. Plus I just get to spend the day with Bree ☺️

Anyway, moving on from my sidetracked babbling, we moved over to where there are this big, mostly flat rocks around the shoreline (they help mark out the parking area on one side) and sat on some of the rocks to watch the sunset over the water. I got some nice pics of that, too.

Earlier she had offered me some lip balm and I teasingly was like “you could kiss it onto me”, not necessarily trying to get her to do it in that moment but rather just saying that I’m open to kisses and things like that. But since we’re both such awkward dorks and there’s been the “are we gonna kiss yet?” tension for a while I decided to just ask about it outright. I didn’t know if maybe she’d be uncomfortable with it since she is Ace, and I wasn’t sure how kissing fell on that spectrum for her. But we talked it out and she said she likes kissing and has just been nervous about it this whole time, wanting it to happen organically but also needing consent and wanting to make sure I’m ok with it too. Amazing how we were both so anxious about something so simple haha

But it was getting dark and I was kinda tired so I was like uhhhh I should go home soon 😅 I felt bad cause it’s not like I didn’t want to spend more time with her, but I really was getting worn out, especially with not having must rest beforehand. So I drove her home, we parked in her driveway to chat for a minute before she went in.

And finally, finally she kissed me! Right before she got out of the car, we were saying goodnight, and she leaned over and we had a nice kiss 😚🥰 it was quick, which is fine. I was joking around, “see now that the first one’s out of the way it’ll be less awkward! Wasn’t that easy?” And we both laughed.

Funny enough the song on my Spotify that was playing in the car when we kissed was Die For You by Starset, which is kind of a romantic song but more intense? I sent it to her to joke about it and she thought it was funny.

So yeah it was a very good night. The whole lake thing was unexpected, but ended up being a lot of fun, and gave way to another good date idea for us, so I’m glad it went that way instead. And we’re thinking of just going to see Haunted Mansion on Tuesday, and I’ll just come down a day earlier, since her work schedule matches mine this week (Wednesday-Saturday, she’s helping cover some people or whatever so we on a similar wavelength). So I’ll probably get to see her the whole workweek too.

Ahh I’m so happy man, like I feel giddy 😍

Well, that’s about enough babbling for now, since it’s the end of the night anyway. I better fuckin hear from you asap tomorrow so we can share in all this joy together 😂

I hope you enjoyed your vacation and had a great time. I hope you got to relax and you feel rested, since you’ve been run down for too damn long. I can’t wait to talk to you and hear all about everything and see all the pictures. I know you’ll read through this soon enough, and then we can talk about all my nonsense too 😋

Hurry up and get on here, please