#beck you hypocrite. sort of

[stealingpotatoes]

reason #820 why Yori should have been in Uprising: she would've said what we're all thinking

(more uprising yori)

#tron #beck tron #yori tron #rinzler #tron uprising #tron 1982 #tronzler #tronblr #my doods #comic #beck you hypocrite. sort of

[maggicktouched]

This is officially the stupidest thing I've ever written. A while back @bokketo and I talked about this sort of thing in passing and this is where my brain rot took me. But it's honestly kind of adorable and I love it.

~~

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been on the roof. She’d burned through six cigarettes, but she was so out of it she’d wasted half of them. At first she’d been crying, it was the least destructive way to release the ever-rising pressure in her chest that city life inspired, but the tears had died a while ago. In their place was a numbness that was only occasionally broken by the desire to take a drag off her cigarette, only to find it had burned to cinders since she stopped paying attention.

The door to the roof opened behind her and shut loudly; whoever it was didn’t want to startle her. Half of the residents of Stark Tower walked around like cats—completely silent unless they wanted to be heard—and she did too half of the time, so it felt hypocritical to be angry about it, but she wasn’t used to people being able to sneak up to her. She was too overwhelmed here. That was her whole problem with New York. 

Sound proofing and privacy spells could only go so far in soothing her spirit. The only true balm to her extended overstimulation was Natasha’s presence. And Natasha was gone. Again. It was the fourth time in a month, and Beck was going to lose her mind.

The person behind her was getting closer, and even though she tried to swallow it back, her tears threatened to reemerge. She just wanted some space to breathe. Beck could see Clint’s growing shadow approaching to her right, and she flicked the butt of her cigarette down onto the roof and crushed it under the toe of her shoe.

“There you are!” He sounded too happy for how utterly miserable she felt. Beck tried to force the smile she’d gotten so good at over her life, but this time it didn’t come. Clint sat next to her anyway and lightly bumped her shoulder with his. “I got something to show you.”

Beck shook her head. Looking at him properly felt impossible. Below them, a chorus of cars started to blare their horns, followed by a symphony of swear words from angry drivers. Beck winced.

She didn’t have a lot of serious moments with Clint, but he was silly, not stupid. He had to have noticed she was wearing thin. In the corner of her eye she saw him cautiously lift up his hand, and it came to rest on her shoulder.

“Beck?”

“Clint please. I just–I’m really not in a great mood right now.” She couldn’t help the tremble in her voice. 

Clint squeezed her shoulder gently, and scooted closer to wrap his arm around her in a hug. It felt nice, but somehow it only made her miss Natasha more. He sat with her for a few minutes in comforting silence until his phone buzzed. 

“I know you said you aren’t feeling great but—what if I told you I had a surprise for you?” He asked, carefully, as to not upset her.

Clint didn’t understand, and Beck didn’t have the heart to explain it to him. The right thing to do was humor him, wasn’t it? He was trying to help her. This time when she tried to put on her fake smile, it worked. “What sort of surprise?”

He looked down at his phone, twisted his lips, then shrugged. “Well I, uh, I can’t exactly tell you, can I? Then it wouldn’t be a surprise!”

Beck narrowed her eyes a bit at him, but took the hand he offered and let him pull her up onto her feet. They made it just to the door before he cut her off. 

“Wait! It’s a secret surprise. We’re not supposed to tell anyone else about it. Let me cover your eyes.”

This time Beck’s laugh was dry, but genuine. “Fine. But I’m not getting into your white van to help you look for your lost puppy. You only fall for that one once.”

One of Clint’s hands hovered over her eyes, and the other rested on her shoulders, winding her up and down the halls of the tower as if he were trying to purposefully disorientate her. They passed Tony at one point who had stopped, then proclaimed he didn’t want to know, before leaving them alone again. Finally, they stopped and Clint pulled his hand away.

“Tada!” They were standing at the end of the hallway.

Beck glared at him. She wasn’t sure if this was funny or annoying. “...This is just the door to my apartment.”

They weren’t even at the door—just lingering near the fire exit because Beck refused to go on the elevator.

He nodded. “Yeah but Natasha told me if I came any closer she’d have to encase me in ice for a hundred years.”

“Natasha—Nat’s home?” Her heart skipped a beat, and the smile instantly became more genuine. She turned to the door, turned back to Clint, caught sight of herself in the elevator doors down the hall and swore. “You prick! My hair is a wreck. You could have told me!”

“She told me I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone she was back until eleven am tomorrow morning under threat of the whole ‘encased in ice’ thing. Just you. As a surprise.”

She couldn’t even be annoyed with him. With hurried fingers and a bit of magic, she attempted to tame her mane of unruly golden curls before pulling them up into a ponytail. Why the secrecy? Why hadn’t Nat called? She was meant to be away for another few days. Was she hurt? No. Nat wouldn’t hide that. Was this a…

Maybe that’s why Clint hadn’t brought her into the apartment.

She turned him around and pushed him gently toward the elevator doors. “Well, it’s been lovely. You have to go now.”

He said something after her as the elevator closed on him, but Beck was not at all listening. A weight had been taken off her chest. Natasha was back.

She unlocked the door with a bit of magic rather than a key, but the apartment beyond was totally dark. Beck’s brow furrowed. If this was Clint’s idea of a prank it was not funny. Maybe she was in the bedroom.

Beck stepped into the apartment and fumbled for the light. The switch clicked, but nothing happened. Beck let out a silent curse.

“Natasha?” She called.

“Shut the door.” She heard Nat say from deeper in the room. She sounded dead serious, but Beck’s heart skipped a beat all the same. She kicked the door shut behind her with her foot.

The second the light from the hall was gone, the apartment flooded with dim, multicolored light that was shining from a cheap disco lamp that had been hastily stuck to the ceiling. If she hadn’t been confused before, she certainly was now.

Nat stepped out from behind a chair, and Beck’s crumpled look of confusion changed in an instant as she burst into laughter.

“What. The fuck. Are you wearing?” She asked, unable to stifle her idiotic grin. She couldn’t even give Nat time to answer. “Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god. Is what I think is happening happening right now?!”

Natasha didn’t look nearly as enthused as she did. “Yes.”

Beck squealed with glee. 

“But if I have to dress up, so do you.” Natasha said it as if Beck didn’t have an outfit in the back of her closet waiting for this very moment. She was wearing one of the most ridiculous shirts Beck had ever seen, bedazzled with a thousand tiny rhinestones and horrible fringe pads on the shoulder. On her head was a black cowboy hat, and she had matching boots to go along with it that her jeans were tucked into.

“Give me five minutes!” Beck called, bolting toward the bedroom and finding the equally ridiculous outfit she’d bought herself when she’d tried to convince Nat to take a country line dancing class two months ago. Hers was an obnoxious, shimmering pink shirt with a pair of cut off jeans and boots that were completely and totally covered in rhinestones. “I can’t find my hat!”

She couldn’t hear her from inside the closet, but she swore she felt Natasha sigh. “It’s in here.”

Beck ran back into the room and came to a sliding stop only inches from Nat who, albeit reluctantly, laughed before plopping the hat onto her head.

“Ground rules.”

Beck stood to attention. “Yes!”

“You never, ever tell a soul about this.”

“Check!”

“Three pictures maximum.”

“Check check!”

“This is the only time I’m doing this.”

“Check check check!” She was bouncing up and down on her heels, and she could tell it was getting harder for Natasha not to smile. “Do I get to pick the music?”

“...You already have a playlist don’t you?”

“Yup!” She nodded. “Oh! And between good dancing songs can I hit on you like you’re the root’nest toot’nest cowgirl I’ve ever did see at this here hoedown?”

This time Natasha did laugh. “I hate this so much. Yes.”

Beck stood up on her tiptoes, kissed Natasha on the lips, and then ran off again to get her phone. Nat gave one last perfunctory sigh and connected the device to the tv. A second later Brooks & Dunn started singing about the Boot Scootin’ Boogie.

“Oh my god is this a tutorial?” Natasha was shaking her head, but she couldn’t suppress a smile as she watched Beck’s eyes intently lock on the screen. 

“They all are! I couldn’t take the class by myself! This was the next best thing.” 

“I regret this already.”

“Heel toe, Natasha!” 

They both began a clunky, heel-toe dance side-by-side. To their credit neither of them completely fell or stepped on one another, but what else did she expect from Natasha? Still, half of the moves were improvised as they swirled and stomped around one another. Every now and again Beck would stop singing along to give an audible “yeehaw!” that made Natasha both cringe and laugh every time.

“Bartender asks me, say, ‘Son, what’ll it be?’” She pointed her finger at Natasha as she sang. “I wanna shot at that redhead yonder looking at me!”

Nat raised an eyebrow, then rolled her eyes for the thousandth time. “God. Stop!”

This time it was Beck who laughed, almost tripping over her own feet. Natasha snatched her to keep her upright and their lips met again. 

“This is the worst song I’ve ever heard.” Nat grumbled, when she pulled away. Beck was so thrilled she felt like she was floating.

Two more dances went by before the music slowed and Beck held out her hand. “Pardon me, ma’am-”

“Absolutely not.”

It didn’t dissuade her or the terrible southern drawl she was putting on. “How’s about you let me russell you up somethin mighty tasty to drink?”

Natasha let her take her by the hand and lead her into the kitchen. She turned on the light and reached into the fridge for a pitcher of strawberry lemonade she’d made earlier that day. She poured them each a glass and tried to keep a straight face. It was extremely difficult. In the full light of the room they looked even more ridiculous than before.

“I hope this ain’t too forward, but you look hotter than a tin roof in August.” She wriggled her eyebrows. Natasha made a face as she took a drink. “No? Ok how about this one: how’s about we mosey on back to my home on the range and I’ll show you how the deer and the antelope play?”

“Cowboy you is kind of a dog.” Nat snorted.

“I know right? I’m not sure I like him.” She said with a laugh. Beck perched herself on the side of the counter and finally dropped the accent. “Ok but seriously-”

Beneath the music, Beck heard the click of the door. Natasha must have heard it too, because she gave her a wide-eyed look. 

“Hide!” She whispered frantically, pushing Nat’s head down behind the counter. A heartbeat later, Bucky rounded the corner. Much like her, he looked completely confused at first, and then he erupted into fits of laughter.

“God. Tony said you were struggling but this is—what am I looking at here?” 

Beck frantically tried to motion for Nat to get down on the ground, and Natasha swatted her hand away lightly. 

“Bucky! My good pal Bucky! Uh… uhm.” How in the hell did she explain this one. “Why didn’t you knock?”

But she already knew the answer to that question. She was famous for leaving the door unlocked and expecting people to let themselves in. Half the time when Natasha wasn’t home, she didn’t even close the door at all.

“I did.” His brow furrowed and he frowned. “Are you ok?”

“I’m great! I’m fine! Things are great. Really, really great.” She rambled, trying to shoo him away. He gave her a suspicious look, then glanced around the room. His eyes landed on the two glasses on the counter.

“Do you have company?”

He was trying to skirt around her even as she was trying to shoo him.

“Yes! I mean—yes. This is uh, mine and Jari’s country line dancing class.” She managed. “He’s in the bathroom. He has a very tiny bladder. Like a squirrel.”

“Oh. The buff guy with the glasses. The one you keep trying to set Maria up with?” She could see the mischievous glint in his eye. Beck nodded, and Bucky shrugged. “Alright. Mind if I hang out for a bit then?”

“Bucky I swear if you don’t leave I will stab you!” She heard Natasha call from behind the bar.

“Natasha?” He was holding back laughter. “Well I guess you’d have to come out here to stab me, huh?”

He took a quick few steps to the right, but Beck stomped her foot on the floor and the enchanted floor runner under his feet only slid him further to the left.

“Get OUT Barnes!” Nat managed to find a ball of yarn that Boda must have knocked out of her basket and blindly chucked it over the counter. Bucky caught it easily, but he was too distracted by that to notice Beck had taken off her hat. She gave him a good whack with it, knowing it wouldn’t hurt, but he still looked shocked.

“Did you just hit me?” He laughed, even as Beck was gearing up again. This time she put the hat back on her head and held up her fists like a boxer in an old timey cartoon. Now Bucky was red in the face from laughter. “Beck Tandy–you’re gonna swing on me?”

He sounded like he didn’t think she’d do it, and honestly, she wouldn’t have really, not if she wasn’t positive he was going to dodge it. 

Her horrific southern drawl was back, “I’m a cowboy, Bucky. And if there’s anything I learned from the two John Whinny movies my ukki watched on repeat when I was a kid, it’s that cowboys always protect their women folk.”

“No!” Natasha snapped from her hiding place. “That is absolutely where I draw the line!”

“Look you can teach cowboy me about modern feminism later, Natasha, right now I have to defend your honor!”

She threw a punch at the still laughing Bucky, who easily blocked her and pushed the hand aside. She tried three more times, and each one he dodged or blocked her, looking more amused than anything. Once he even gave her advice on her stance, and Beck tried to kick him in the shin.

“That is not very cowboy like.” Barnes snorted. They had backed up until he was almost to the door, and Beck opened it with a flick of her wrist.

“Neither is this.” She put her thumb and her middle finger in her mouth and gave a whistle. This time the floor bucked beneath him like a bronco, and Barnes fell on his ass into the hall before she promptly shut the door in his laughing face.

When she turned around, Natasha was sitting on the arm of the couch, scowling, “That’s it. He has to die.”

“He didn’t even see you!” She giggled, falling into Natasha’s arms.

“Still.” She huffed, winding a strand of Beck’s curls around her finger. “---Did you call me womenfolk?”

“Honestly, this outfit is doing things to me.” She defended, shrugging.

“You’re taking it off, and I’m burning it in the morning.”

Beck rolled her eyes and laid her head in the crook of Nat’s neck, taking in her scent. Without any sense of the manic silliness that had possessed her the entire evening she whispered. “I missed you so much… How did you get back this early?”

Natasha plucked the hat off her head and tossed it to the floor so she could play with her lover’s hair. “I knew you were upset when I left. And then Tony called.”

Beck frowned and pulled back, giving Nat a puzzled look. She sighed. 

“So did Clint. I think they were a little worried about you. Said you had an—incident in the elevator?”

Beck winced. “I didn’t wanna carry my groceries up all those stairs, and the doors malfunctioned. I—thought I was trapped.”

Natasha frowned, then pressed her forehead to Beck’s, holding her close.

“So you came home and did all of this to cheer me up?”

Natasha smirked and gave her nose a peck. “Officially the worst mistake of my life. Now I have to kill the Winter Soldier because he thinks we have a cowboy kink. That’s gonna make it a rough weekend.”

Beck erupted into a fit of giggles at that. 

“Well—you did say you wanted me to take this outfit off.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Natasha grinned and took her by the hand to lead her back into the room. “But we’re turning this awful music off.”

#;;my drabbles #this is so stupid but i kinda love it

[plan-d-to-i]

This fandom is so weird and backwards... MDZS reflects real society classism + standard of being men in power as opposed to women in power vs men in low social standing. Idk why people don’t get what the novel wants to tell you when when we have the English counterpart of these novels (like Pride and Prejudice or other period typical novels with classism and such). Men in power is always gonna be in power, it’s true irl about rich white men in high social standing in the world. People claim YZY is girl boss, but there is Madam Jin who is undermined by her husband having kids from his affairs, Mianmian who doesn’t have position in the clan while during before she died YZY just thrived. And the sect leaders are hypocrites but it’s not really new 🤧🤧

Haha this fandom can definitely be very weird and backwards...esp in the way they use the societal hierarchy established in the novel setting to try to excuse immoral acts, and demand that Wei Wuxian, the moral ideal, just stay in his place; when he’s the mc and the hero of the story precisely because he prioritizes his morality.

But I would add that I think people forget that for all his philandering Jin Guangshan is in fact scared of his wife. Remember he only broke the engagement because JFM brought it up & insisted. Even though he was against it himself he didn't want to piss of his wife.

This engagement had never been the intention of Jin GuangShan. If he wanted to strengthen his sect’s power by a marriage with another sect, the YunmengJiang Sect was neither the only choice nor the best choice. It was only that he had never dared to go against Madame Jin.

He can't stop his philandering but he certainly does his best to hide it and lets JGY get beaten up making up excuses for him when he's off. Madam Jin has a lot of power and renown herself as a cultivator.

Jin GuangShan was the last leader of the LanlingJin Sect, having already passed away. On the topic of this man, one sentence could not tell the whole story. He had a fierce wife from a prominent family and, in fact, he was known for being scared of her.

YanLi gets to give Jin Zixun a talking to and he doesn't take his ire out on her, neither does his little band of assholes, precisely because of her status as jiang cheng's sister and a fav of Madam Jin, and instead goes off on Jin Guangyao because he will always be "the son of a prostitute".

If the one currently saying these words wasn’t Jiang YanLi and instead some random person, Jin ZiXun would probably have come at them with a slap already. His face was almost black, but he kept his mouth shut.

Mianmian who does not have her status has to suffer all sorts of slanderous comments.

YZY gets to do whatever the fuck she wants. She's still called Madam Yu instead of Madam Jiang and lives in a whole separate place w ppl she brought from her own Clan, instead of integrating into JFM's. On the other hand Madam Mo's husband exists at her beck and call:

In the middle of the hall sat a middle aged woman of good complexion, wearing very fine clothing—Lady Mo. Beneath her sat her husband, who had married into her family and thus had lower status than his wife. (Chapter 3)

"Suppressing the bile in her throat, she said to her husband, “Who let him out? Put him back!”

Her husband smiled obsequiously and rose. With a face cast in shadow, he stepped toward Wei Wuxian and prepared to haul him out..." (Chapter 3)

He literally only stands up to her when he's possessed by NMJ's arm:

Following her habit of ordering around her husband, she grabbed him and said, “Call everyone in! Every single person!”

Perhaps shaken by the loss of his only son, he pushed her without warning. Lady Mo toppled to the floor, stunned.

In the past, she hadn’t even needed to touch her husband to make him follow her orders. If she only raised her voice a little, he would do whatever she wanted. But today, he had the temerity to strike back!

All of the servants grew white with terror as they saw Lady Mo’s expression.

There's sexism in this world for sure, but classism is king. Wealth, power and status can trump a lot, and so it manifests itself most strongly against those who are already vulnerable, like A Qing, like the sex workers... But that's just one facet of the novel.

#just like real life #mdzs #answers #Madam Jin #Madam Yu #Jiang YanLi #Madam Mo #Jin guangshan #Wei Wuxian

[demonsandco]

Hey, darling! When you have the time, could you please write some HCs for Lucifer, Diavolo and Satan with a fem!S/O who is prone to overworking and neglecting herself around the time for exam sessions, and gets easily panicky and depressed, saying she doesn't remember anything she studies and she's constantly afraid of failing because she always aims high, but she thinks she's never smart and hardworking enough?

Sorry, I hope it's not too specific or anything, but gosh, exams, especially practical ones, are ruining me 😂😂 But I was the one to choose Vet medicine, so in the summer when I get to take care of animals, it's always worth all the pain😂

I hope your exams went well! I can’t imagine how difficult Vet medicine must be! My uni courses are child’s play in comparison, but exams still mess me up. I kept these all gender neutral, but I hope you still enjoy it!

Lucifer

Lucifer is a huge hypocrite when he sees his S/O neglecting themselves to the point that it affects their health. It’s not uncommon for Lucifer to overwork himself to the point that he passes out, yet he can’t stand seeing his partner treating themselves like that. He’s very proud to see how hardworking they are, but he values their health as well. He’ll offer them praise, letting them know how wonderful and talented they are in his eyes, and he won’t stand for any sort of negative self-talk, immediately shutting them down and reminding them of how hard they’re working and how much effort they’re putting into learning. He also takes the time to give them gentle reminders to take care of themselves, encouraging them to get some sleep, so they can study better the next day, or bringing them some easy to eat food, often accompanied by a little note reminding them of how smart they are and how much he loves them.

Satan

Satan tries to be practical in this situation. He doesn’t like seeing his S/O so distraught and he wants to do what he can to make it a bit easier on them. He offers to help them study right off the bat. Even if he doesn’t know much on the topic himself, he can still help them organise their work or quiz them on topics that they feel unsure about. If they don’t want help, he still stays close by, hoping that his presence may at least feel comforting and make them feel less overwhelmed. He’s always quick to give advice or encouragement when he feels it’s needed, and he’s pretty good at telling when it’s a good time to speak up or if it would be better for him to stay quiet. Throughout their studying, he’s a stable and supportive partner, and he’s more than ready to treat them to a relaxing evening once the exams are finally over. He’ll pretty much be at their beck and call for a while, hoping to ease their worries and stress.

Diavolo

Diavolo feels so helpless when he sees how stressed his partner is. He knows how important studying and working hard is, but it can’t be healthy for them to be so tense. He tries to play it by ear and figure out what would help them most in the moment. If there's still time before the exams, he tries to pull them away from their studies, at least for the evening. He wants to give them a chance to relax and think about something other than work for a time, and hopefully they’ll feel more rested and have a chance to return to their studying with a fresh eye. If taking a full break isn’t an option, he still tries to distract them a bit through conversation, but he keeps the topics related to their studies, asking relevant questions and giving them a chance to explain their work to him. After all, one of the best ways to learn is to teach someone else, and he hopes it’ll make them realise how much they actually remember and how smart they are.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me satan #obey me diavolo

[daily-dose-of-imagines]

hello helloooo~! i hope you guys are having a wonderful day !! i was wondering if you guys can whip up something about Oikawa, Noya, and Akaashi with a s/o that has weak ankles and tends to sprain it, and they come to school in a boot instead of a brace because they fractured it instead of spraining it? (hehe if that makes sense) cause I have weak ankles, and last school year, i sprained it at the beginning, and then towards the end, we realized that it was actually fractured and i had to go in a boot and my teachers stared at me like 👁👄👁

Hello hello~! We are-- or well I kinda am LOLOLOL I’m just getting through the motions of work SKSKSK anywho, I can most definitely do this for you~! I hope you enjoy this as much as I did with writing it~! As always, thank you so much for your love and support~! We really appreciate it~!

» » Admin Ko

ᴅᴇʟɪᴄᴀᴛᴇ, ʙᴜᴛ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ʙᴀᴅᴀꜱꜱ | ᴏɪᴋᴀᴡᴀ ; ɴɪꜱʜɪɴᴏʏᴀ ; ᴀᴋᴀᴀꜱʜɪ | ʜᴄ

ᴏɪᴋᴀᴡᴀ ᴛᴏᴏʀᴜ

It’s without a doubt that Oikawa can relate very well with what his s/o is going through. Though he should definitely ease up on the amount of strain he forces on his knee, he acts somewhat like a hypocrite when he spots them playing hooky. 

Practically every day, he’ll try to at least weasel his way into carrying them from place to place-- and unsurprisingly wins each and every argument that comes out between the pair.

When he spots the boot after a weekend where he’s unable to properly keep an eye on them, he literally jumps into a full panic mood. 

Running over to them, he’ll literally scan their whole body before interrogating them with what they’ve done and how long they’ll need to keep the boot on. 

It’s without a doubt that he won’t only carry them from place to place, but attempt to get a wheelchair for them. Ever the dramatic person he is, he’ll make a grand entrance with you every single time. Whether it be to a volleyball practice or a quick class they need to attend.

Overall, he’ll be a drama queen; but a loving one who’ll be at their every beck and call.

ɴɪꜱʜɪɴᴏʏᴀ ʏᴜᴜ

Chaotic in his own right, Nishinoya will undoubtedly be at least one of the causes of their sprains. It’s not that he means to-- he’s just a bit forgetful. Though he does make up for his mistakes by treating them out to meat buns, ice cream, snacks, all the assortments that the love of his life desires.

It’s without a doubt he’s protective to a fault, and won’t take a moment’s hesitation in putting someone in their place if they happen to accidently harm to them or induce any sort of unnecessary pain to his s/o.

He’ll try his best at carrying his s/o from place to place, but in the end it just ends up with him standing by their side as a crutch. Though they usually say the right words to bring his spirits up if he feels as though he’s lacking.

When he spots them with the boot he’ll immediately jump the gun and demand who caused the upgrade of their brace. When he finds out that it was a self made injury he’ll calm down only lightly and vow to walk them from place to place all day whilst being a touch over protective.

Despite practically messing up a handful of times, he’s loyal and obedient to a fault. The sheer laughter that bubbles out of their chest when they see him go into a mother hen like mood is worth almost all the pain they go through.

ᴀᴋᴀᴀꜱʜɪ ᴋᴇɪᴊɪ

As someone who’s constantly observing others, Akaashi can tell almost immediately about his s/o’s weak joints. He may not outrightly say or do anything, but it’s the little things that he does that just adds a little more joy to their heart.

Whether it be an extra brace or extra icy hot, Akaashi will always have a small first aid kit specified for his s/o’s needs in case the situation arises that he needs to make a clumsy version of a boot.

It’s painfully obvious how protective he is of them, as he’s usually looming within the area to ensure their safety. He doesn’t want to be overbearing-- as he trusts them to take care of themselves -- but he can’t help but feel a strong sense to safeguard them whenever he can.

The moment they mention a pain or limp he’s already lifting them up into his arms and carrying them to the nearest rest station.

The one day he sees them with a boot instead of a usual brace he’s literally up and in their business. A full on mother hen, he’ll ask multiple questions whilst cupping their face to ensure that they won’t look away or attempt to lie to him.

Overall, he’s one of the calmest to take care of his s/o, but won’t hesitate on being a mother figure if he has to be one.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu!! #oikawa x reader #oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa tooru #nishinoya yuu x reader #nishinoya yuu #nishinoya x reader #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi keiji #hq! x reader #hq! #hq imagines #hq nishinoya #hq oikawa #hq x you

[mor-beck-more-problems]

All That’s Known || Morgan & Deirdre

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @deathduty & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Ruth Beck’s box of junk had been haunting Morgan since she had moved in with Deirdre. She hadn’t mentioned it during the initial haul, and left it tucked in the corner when she made a home for her things in Deirdre’s closet and dressers. When Morgan had sold or smashed the bulk of her old stuff, it had stayed, untouchable in its hiding place covered by stacks of winter wear. But with more people staying over and the memory of Constance prickling her neck every time there was a noise in the house, Morgan knew she had to get on it sooner rather than later. 

WARNINGS: Discussions of past emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, and self-harm

Ruth Beck’s box of junk had been haunting Morgan since she had moved in with Deirdre. She hadn’t mentioned it during the initial haul, and left it tucked in the corner when she made a home for her things in Deirdre’s closet and dressers. When Morgan had or smashed the bulk of her old stuff, it had stayed, untouchable in its hiding place covered by stacks of winter wear. But with more people staying over and the memory of Constance prickling her neck every time there was a noise in the house, Morgan knew she had to get on it sooner rather than later. She had been telling herself that she would ask Nell to see if they could find something useful in all the clutter. The young witch had a good heart and she knew how to keep a girl distracted from getting too caught up in her emotions. But with everything that had happened with Nell’s own mother and the coven, it didn’t seem like a very kind thing to request. So Morgan sat alone in the room, unpacking one stack of things after another until the worn bundle of cardboard stood empty.

Anything that looked remotely like alchemy sat on a pile at her left, junk that Ruth had acquired just beyond it: a stuffed bunny, a rose quartz beaded bracelet, a friendship chain, smudged photographs tossed loose or jammed into cheap frames, and an assortment of stationary supplies, candles, ticket stubs, and browned paperbacks. Most of the books were mystery novels that were out of print now, but there was one romance novel with a pirate ship on the cover that had been read well enough to have frayed white cracks along the spine. Morgan grimaced with resentment and recognition. Her mother had never passed up the opportunity to judge her taste in books, and here she was this whole time, hoarding worse trash novels than Morgan has ever brought home. Anything that had to do with her mother’s academic work was piled behind her. Something about cell regeneration that Morgan didn’t care to look into. Then came her mother’s notebooks.

Of course Ruth beck was a workaholic even when she didn’t have to be. Morgan couldn’t sort them from lab notes and personal stuff. There was some color coding, a clumsy stripe of blue here and orange here, but the entries were dated the same, and the words flowed with just as much detail and precision. Some entries spanned ten pages or more, words after words, switching from some kind of alchemy theory that looked a lot like human transmutation, to notes on what tiny Nisa Vural had done that day. And there was this gem, nestled into the mess:

Nisa’s an elemental genius. I don’t know why she thinks I’m fun to be around with, but it feels nice. It’s almost enough to make a girl think about what it would be like to have one of her own. But I don’t really think I have the stomach for being anyone’s mom. I have too far to go with my research and even holding babies makes my skin want to fall off and crawl away. Besides, I’d probably get her killed as soon as the curse decided she was fair game, and manslaughter is generally frowned upon in polite societies.

Morgan set the notebook down, palming away a tear at the corner of her eye. She had known before she’d opened it that there wouldn’t be any warm, fuzzy secrets in Ruth’s past, besides how happy she was without her and her dad to demand attention or, stars, the odd home cooked dinner once a month. But Morgan hadn’t expected her to be so much of a hypocrite that she’d have a cursed baby she never even wanted in the first place. Maybe she should’ve thrown it all away without looking. There was still time, right?

Morgan reached for more notebooks, gathering them up in her arms when she noticed Deirdre’s shadow in the room. She followed the shape with her eyes until she saw the woman herself, lit gold all over by the late afternoon sun, her hair glowing as it hung down around her face at the front, a pre-raphaelite fairy masquerading in comfort wear.

“Oh, hey,” Morgan sniffled, smiling weakly. “How long have you been there? I didn’t hear you come in.”

Deirdre hadn’t meant to watch, even if it was quite pointedly her role in life, but once she saw Morgan, she felt far too much like an intruder to say anything. She had fallen asleep going over documents for work, and awoke to find Morgan no longer in the great room. It was natural to seek her out, her nap was admittedly much shorter than they usually were, but Morgan was always close by when she woke---easy enough to coax into some cuddling as her senses slowly woke up. But how could she, leaning against the frame of their bedroom door, ever think to disturb Morgan among her relics? Her girlfriend was lost in memories, and Deirdre dared not intrude. Even as she ached to ask what each thought was fluttering across her mind with every furrowed brow and frown, for all she burned to run to her side as she wept. It all felt too private, even for the two of them---or, perhaps, it had been her knotting guilt talking. Every day she spent training Regan, she felt less and less worthy to share in these moments with Morgan.

“Oh, some decades. I’m old and weary now, watching my love have all the fun with her old cardboard box and none with me,” Deirdre pushed off the frame, striding across the room to Morgan. Her hands were filled with books, and in lieu of holding her, Deirdre reached out to lay her hands on her hips, smirking. “What’s a girl to do in these troubling times?” She smiled softly as her sentence withered away. “You were just...a little occupied, I suppose.” Lifting a hand, she wiped away some lingering wetness on Morgan’s face. She looked over Morgan, having a closer look now at the array of items scattered on the floor of their room. She caught sight of what looked like a romance book--complete with a shirtless pirate captain at the helm of his ship--and smiled a little wider. “Is this all of your stuff?”

Deirdre cupped Morgan’s face and leaned over the stack of books in her arms to press a quick kiss in between her brows, and another against the tip of her nose. “Do you...want me to leave? I was going to, before you noticed me. It just...looked a little personal and I---” she swallowed, dropping her hands back to Morgan’s waist. She left the sentence alone. “You were crying, and then I couldn’t leave.” Deirdre’s smile fell away to reflect more of the concern that shimmered behind her eyes. “Are you okay, my Morgue?”

Morgan laughed tearfully at Deirdre’s teasing and smiled up at her. “It’s um, not mine, actually. It was..” Her throat dried up suddenly and she sniffled again. Slowly, she set the notebooks down and let them slide over each other on the floor. Some of them leafed open, revealing a handwriting that was just as self-consciously careful as hers when she wrote her letters. “I love it when you call me that, you know,” she whispered, sliding into her lap and tucking herself in. Morgan could still remember the cascade of ice water tingles Deirdre’s touch had once sent though her, how she had sparked at each brush of contact, squirming with delight under her skin. Though coldness no longer registered to Morgan any more than the tickle of a light kiss, Morgan’s spirit leapt with relief. Deirdre’s softness was in her eyes, in the curve of tentative, searching smile. Maybe it was her girlfriend’s unearthly sense of timing, or lingering anxiety over how this new training regimen and how much of Deirdre’s self it would claim, but the touch was enough to soothe her. Morgan sighed against Deirdre, home and comforted.

“You’ve seen me die, I don’t know if there’s anything you can see that’s more personal than that.” she mumbled after a silence. And then, more earnestly, “I want you to stay. Please?” She looked back at the stacks, which looked so much less organized now that she was removed from her initial spot. One section bled into another, nothing inside the piles was stacked or organized in any way. Her mother would have been so angry to see her treating someone else’s things with so much...disrespect. Morgan cringed, stiff against Deirdre’s body until she reminded herself that her mother’s voice wasn’t going to come calling from the other side of the hall. No one was going to take away her books or lock her in her room for being so callous as to leave a mess like this. She was safe, and Deirdre was hers.

Morgan relaxed slowly. “They’re my mother’s things. From when she lived here with the Vurals. She um...left all of it behind when she left here. She never wanted me to know about it and I…” Morgan shrugged. “I don’t know what made me sick enough of having it just waiting in the closet. It’s been watching me since I got it, and whatever work she was trying to do on the curse is completely moot now, but… well, so far all I’ve found besides an incredibly hypocritical taste in books is some photos, more sentimental keepsakes than she ever kept of me, her stupid research and all these notebooks where she liked to write in her free time about how she never wanted to have kids.” Tears trickled from the corner of her eyes again. She’d been able to hear her mother’s low, pensive tones in her head while she was reading, but it was more awful, more real now that she’d said it out loud. “She um…” Morgan shrugged, unable to make the words come a second time. “She just didn’t, I guess.”

Deirdre stepped back, taking a seat on their bed’s edge, smiling as Morgan settled against her. She held her close and tightly, the way she always did. “Mhm, I can call you many more things, mo ghrá. If memory serves, you have a few favorites.” She pressed her lips to Morgan’s neck, raking her teeth against cold, soft numb flesh before trailing up to her jaw. “I watch everyone around me die. It’s no more personal to me than their faces. You could still want some time alone,” she mumbled against her, knowing none of that really mattered. As long as Morgan wanted her here, she would stay. “But I’m here, I’ll always be if you want me.” She felt Morgan stiffen, always a strange sensation to her—her Morgan was always far more giving to touch than she was, Deirdre adored the ways she would dissolve under it, where their bodies would fall in tandem. She eased her the best she knew with firm touch, traveling along her skin until she felt Morgan relax, and then they settled as she held her closer, tighter. “Of course I’ll stay, always. With you is the place I want to be most.” Which was a fact that hadn’t changed, that would never. “I’m here.”

Deirdre turned her attention to the stacks scattered about, watching them with new understanding. She leaned down and picked up a stray photo from one of the stacks and regarded it curiously. “You two look—well, I suppose she is your mother.” But they looked so similar in fact, that Deirdre only picked the picture up thinking it was her, even despite knowing these things belonged to the Ruth Beck that didn’t know Morgan. The same blue eyes, fluffy brown hair, and expression. The more she looked at it, the more she could see the places where they were different though; Morgan’s eyes were bigger, and her lips always turned up at the end when she looked off somewhere as her mother was doing in the photo. It was undeniable, however, that they were related. Deirdre frowned and set the photo aside, feeling the same sort of twisting in her stomach that she got looking at pictures of her own mother or when someone mistook them for the same person, turning back to the stacks. If she didn’t know better, which she hadn’t just a couple of minutes ago, she really would have mistaken these things for Morgan’s.

Her eyes grew with surprise as Morgan continued. “She never—“ Deirdre swallowed the lump in her throat, looking up at her girlfriend. She, of course, couldn’t be mad at the hypocrisy but she found herself understanding it. So she changed her mind about children and ventured to have Morgan, or perhaps she never planned it, Deirdre didn’t have the right to say. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, lifting her hand to comb through Morgan’s hair, tucking strands behind her ears and watching with simple bliss at how they fluffed back out. She moved to thumb away Morgan’s tears, leaning over to kiss her in the places they stained. “Your mother she—“ Deirdre swallowed and glanced at the notebooks. “Was she raised the same as she did to you?” Her own mother never spoke of it, but Deirdre knew in the way she acted that her actions were a reflection of what had been done to her. She spoke of how much worse it could be sometimes, when trying to coax Deirdre into thanking her. “Not that it changes anything, not that it makes it better. I’m sure she thought what she did was right, anyway.” Deirdre sighed; she knew nothing about parenting. “I’m sorry,” she turned back to Morgan, “do you want to talk about it? How are you feeling?”

“I always want you,” Morgan assured, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re  mo chuisle.” My pulse. She slipped her arms around her love and pressed them tight. Maybe someone else would have thought she held her place too long and the rush of affection flooding her at Deirdre’s tender words had lasted a couple of seconds at most. But Morgan’s spirit was still alight with love and fondness way past the ten second mark. She whispered a small, “Thank you,” and almost fluttered her way free from pain until she saw the picture in Deirdre’s hand.

Deirdre didn’t finish her thought out loud, but Morgan knew what she meant. The photo had caught her eye too when she first started unpacking. It was like a postcard from another dimension, some world where she’d been born decades earlier and prettier, without off-puttingly large china doll eyes and with enough inches to not be mistaken for a twelve year old from a distance. But Ruth’s hair wasn’t as wild as Morgan’s, and her nose stuck out a little straighter, and there were hardly any lines along her mouth as she smiled at all, like maybe Ruth was afraid of getting caught with it. Morgan would have thought it was just the kind of picture her mother would hate, too candid, not even labeled with the date or the occasion. But she’d kept it with the rest of her things, so maybe she hadn’t. Did it really matter one way or the other.

“People would ask sometimes if we were sisters,” she admitted quietly. “Sometimes she’d play along. It was a little funny, sometimes…” And other times, Ruth’s teasing would take a sharp turn when she said things like, ‘love her to death, but I wouldn’t have chosen her if ma had asked me.’ At those times, Morgan knew it was her part to say something similar back, but she never could, not in a way that would convince anyone. She wanted to be chosen too badly to hide it. “You don’t have to pretend like… I hate it, but I know how we look.”

Morgan curled herself up tighter in Deirdre’s arms, unable to tear herself away from her or the scab she’d peeled raw by bringing Ruth’s mess into the open. She shook her head at Deirdre’s question. “It was a little different. Not like...it wasn’t good. My mother didn’t like to talk about it, but there were snippets she told me. Her mom, Barbara, would hit when she was bad, hard enough that she tried to sleep standing up some nights. And she’d give her nice things she wanted, or nice for what they could afford, and destroy them in front of her a little later. Sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes minutes. It was never the same. She wanted to show her not to get attached. That anything she cared about was going to get ruined whether she liked it or not. She moved them around a lot too for the same reason. And she um...she told my mom, from the start, about why it had to be that way. The family curse. And one time my mom asked her why she—” Morgan smirked with painful recognition. “Why she bothered having her at all, if life was just going to be this way. And Barbara said she didn’t. She said Ruth was a mistake.” Morgan laughed through her tears, bitter and angry. “That’s not something anyone needs to hear, ever. But it’s not something you want to find out in a book either. It’s just not. Did you know I used to think—when I thought it was me, that I’d been born so wrong I only brought my parents pain, I thought about if it would be better if I just...wasn’t. If I really loved my parents, I would just…” Morgan gestured a slice through the air, meaning an end. “And she could tell. And let me think that. She said I should try harder, that I should listen to her, but she never said anything about why I was like this until I asked outright. And I thought later, maybe she was scared, maybe she didn’t know how, maybe she wanted to but she just couldn't. But for all I know, I was just a mistake too. She couldn’t even say if she loved me on the beach, Deirdre. What if she never did? She loved Nisa Vural, she kept her freaking friendship bracelets! At least a third of these pages are about how great she is—” Morgan grabbed one of the notebooks and spilled the pages over. There was a brown smear of blood on one of them that had made the paper warped and stiff as it dried. Morgan knew she should look, it was so unlike Ruth Beck to be anything less than immaculate, but her eyes were clouding with tears again and she sagged back against Deirdre.

Deirdre smiled, leaning her head against her love. There was far more she wanted to say about the ways she loved Morgan, how endless and how expansive. What new metaphor made her think of Morgan today, or how much she adored everything she did. She wanted to sing her ‘thank you’s and caress her apologies. But she knew the moment wasn’t about that, not with Ruth’s artifacts scattered around them. “You don’t have to thank me,” she mumbled into another kiss she pressed into Morgan’s cheek. “I love you.” Later, she would remember to list the ways and detail the reasons. For now, she hoped her sincerity spoke enough for her.

“I wasn’t pretending like---I just,” Deirdre swallowed, frowning as she looked back at the photo. “I just hate it when people tell me I look like my mother. I didn’t think you’d appreciate it either, so I didn’t want to finish my thought. I’m sorry.” She apologized again by way of pressing a kiss to Morgan’s shoulder. She knew too little of what mothers were supposed to be like, what good parenting was or even the things that must be learned from curses. She didn’t know what to say, exactly, with no wisdom to apply to the weight surrounding Morgan. But she held the woman she loved close and tight, and she knew much about how to care---and what she didn’t know, she wanted desperately to learn. Deirdre glanced at the photo again, remembering the hours she wasted seething at family portraits and the blonde and red hair that marked her other family, but skipped her and her mother. She passed days horribly, frowning at her reflection. She couldn’t think to say anything else but: “I’m sorry.”

She sat up a little straighter, trying to scoop Morgan in her arms better--to hold her close enough where there was no space between them, as if they might sink together into the giving earth. She recognized enough of her own childhood in Ruth’s to know now, with her new education, that it was abnormal and wrong. But what she could never understand, exactly, was how she could look at Morgan---the way she clung so tightly for love, the ways that she pleaded for it and brightened under attention---and then deny love to her. Even as she knew the horror of watching the things she loved be destroyed, even as she herself held fear for losing Morgan because she loved her too much, couldn’t fathom what Ruth Beck had been thinking, exactly. But she wasn’t a mother, and she’d certainly never been cursed. Not that any of that mattered in the face of Morgan’s pain. She had been hurt, it didn’t matter what the reasons were, the outcome was egregious. Deirdre winced at Morgan’s admittance, her heart fluttering with fear before she remembered the desire was no longer there---still, she couldn’t help but try to anchor Morgan against her better.

“Maybe she was just...afraid,” Deirdre said, glancing over the notebooks. “Maybe she thought you were something else that could’ve been taken away; I don’t know. I wish you could have had better closure with your mother. I wish she would have been better to you in the first place. Her reasons might have made sense to her, but they’re not an excuse.” Deirdre’s eyes scanned the notebook as Morgan flipped it, far too fast for her to read for any kind of answer, but the smear caught her attention and she pressed a finger against the page to stop Morgan from flipping past it. She lifted her other hand up and began wiping tears away, kissing over her face. “I’m sorry, my love. You don’t have to go through these things right now, but if you want to, I’m here. Or we could move everything to the basement, if you want it out of sight. Anything you need, just tell me.” She glanced down at the blood-smeared journal page. “If you want to read more, I’ll sit here with you. There might not be anything to help you in these pages, it might all just be hypocrisy but…” Deirdre smiled softly and leaned in to pepper more kisses on Morgan’s skin. “She is your mother, and I understand if you’re curious to understand her now, to give more meaning to your relationship than she ever did by herself. I understand if you don’t want to. She is your mother, and she hurt you.” Deirdre trailed her affection down to the tips of Morgan’s fingers, eventually moving her head back and pressing her hand to Morgan’s in its place. She held her firm, steady. “I’m here. I’ll be here. You’re okay.”

“I love you too,” Morgan whispered. “Always.” Resting in Deirdre’s arms, it wasn’t that her grief dissipated, but that something else rose up in her with it, something that was strong and soft at once, something beyond casual affection or comfort. It was like being lifted up, the world expanding around her so there was room for something besides the hurt. She lapped up every word Deirdre said, even her misplaced apologies. “I know. You don’t have to be sorry,” she said softly. “If I ever meet your mother, I’ll make sure to tell you that you look nothing alike. It’s so...I just get so scared that it’s not just the color of my eyes, or the hair or the shape of my face. I start to wonder if the things she did are in me, if I’m someone who could do that and I just don’t know it. And there’s already so much I can’t feel. What if it’s just waiting for the right excuse? But I don’t want to be like she was. If I ever have a--” she stopped herself, not wanting to bring up the idea of children so soon after Regan’s request. Deirdre had to be holding the same fears, and now that she had agreed to this gruesome regimen, she would have to make a place in herself that was almost that horrible, and try like hell not to let it take root. “It scares me, when I see us like that now. I know rationally, I can make my own choices, but it...you know.”

She glanced sidelong at the picture again. Maybe it was just the years between this moment and Morgan’s first memory of her mother, but Ruth didn’t look like someone who screamed herself hoarse at crying children or threw them into dark rooms for not being studious enough or breaking rules about too many friends. Everything she’d read from this Ruth’s notebooks made it seem like she was tentatively happy, somewhere on her way to becoming well-adjusted. What had changed?

“I don’t know if I can work up the nerve to sort these out a second time,” Morgan said. “I’m sorry I made a mess of the bed, none of these are even stacked right, I know, but I can fix them as I go or right now if--” She stopped herself, realizing it was not really Deirdre she was trying to appease with these offers. Ruth wasn’t even here and her presence was so heavy, Morgan couldn’t help but want to do something right for her. “Sorry. I know it doesn’t actually matter.” she rasped. “And you can look or ask or know whatever you want. I don’t want any big secrets like this between us. This is all...part of the ‘me’ package.” She scoffed dryly and pressed into Deirdre’s kisses, giving back a few of her own: firm, lingering ones that she hoped conveyed her gratitude and sympathy. It felt like they couldn’t go two steps without running into some ghost of their traumatic pasts, literal or not. It wasn’t the kind of life she wanted for Deirdre, or them, but it was what they had, and Morgan dreaded to think of how much heavier it would all feel if they were doing it alone. “At least everything’s better when we’re together,” she murmured.

Morgan reached for the stained notebook, it was nearest her anyway and she didn’t want to leave Deirdre’s arms. She opened it in her lap for both of them to see at once and started skimming the pages.

I was aware that my formula wasn’t perfect when I started a preliminary trial today, but I didn’t expect to wind up in the hospital over the backlash. There was some burn treatment along with some other lovely, painful patching up, and I am being watched in case I prove to be a danger to myself. Because these are plain souls with plain expectations of the world, I can’t bother to explain that technically I am always a danger to myself (though more so to other people) and a little mutilation is a small price to pay for being so no longer. If magic can alter a being, it must leave a trace, and if that trace can be excised from the body--

Magic is all about possibility and will and trade. I don’t know how to bottle the look Nisa had when she found me in my room, but if I could, I think I’d have enough to trade for anything. I don’t know how that child is ever going to trust me again.

“Mother of Earth…” Morgan swore, shaking her head. She flipped to the back, but the notebook had been abandoned long before the last page. The writing ended a little halfway through the pages with just a scrawl saying:

I don’t even know if it’s worth telling them I’m sorry. Nothing good can come from me. Except, sometimes, my work.

Morgan let the book fall through her fingers.

Deirdre chuckled, “remind me to show you a picture of my mother then.” She pressed her lips to her love again, trying to summon back her humor from the place it crawled away hearing Morgan talk of motherhood---but she swelled with dread, and something else, something she couldn’t name that twisted with eagerness in her stomach. “You’d be a good mother, Morgan.” Deirdre said, finishing Morgan’s train of thought with her own confident answer. “I know what you mean, anyway. And how you’re feeling.” The same fear choked her every time she looked at herself in the mirror, or thought of the girl from Morgan’s vision. It scorched her insides every time she trained Regan, and every moment she delivered penance to herself by way of remembering what she’d done. “But you’d be a good mother. There’s a girl in some magical mirror somewhere that’ll agree with me.” She smiled softly. “You have so much love in your heart, and you carry far more understanding than you ever give yourself credit for. There will always be mistakes you’ll be afraid of making, but if it ever comes to it, I don’t think being a mother will be one. I believe you’re good, my love. I believe you know how.”

Deirdre reached her hands up, working lines of worry out of her girlfriend’s face, pressing away sadness where it bundled in her body. “It’s okay,” she mumbled like a promise against her skin. “And this isn’t some big secret, Morgan. You’re not hiding anything away from me. I mean--your mother is a complicated woman, and your relationship with her isn’t something for me to poke and prod at your wounds about.” She glanced around at the stacks on their bed. She could ask any number of questions, and she knew Morgan would answer them as best she could. But the point she was trying to get at, though she struggled to find the words for, was to say she thought Morgan should be afforded the time she needed to understand her mother. It didn’t feel like some burning curiosity Deirdre needed to satiate, but like a daughter trying to navigate a complex relationship with her mother. This wasn’t like knowing Morgan’s favorite TV shows. “I want to know everything you want to tell me, however you want to say it.” She turned her attention back to her girlfriend. “I like your ‘you’ package, as I know it right now, as I’ll know it tomorrow or a hundred years from now. I told you that I love you because I want to know you, and then because I do.” She gestured at the memories around them, quickly to ensure her hand wasn’t kept away too long from holding Morgan. “It’s not like you’ve been hiding a secret obsession with tablecloths from me--and even if you were, that’d be fine--this is your mother. I know there are things you can’t tell me, things you don’t know how to say, things you don’t want to. I-I know what you mean I just...I don’t want you to feel like you need to tell me every difficult thing all at once. Or even that I’d ever love you any less for not telling me something, or keeping your mother away in a box, if you need to. I love you, Morgan. All of you, your past included. Scatter as much of it around us as you want to. I’ll love you just the same.” Deirdre laughed softly, shaking her head as she pressed them together for one more kiss--always one more. “Sorry. I know what you’re saying but there was just--well, maybe it was something about the way you said it, like I might find any of this unpleasurable. I don’t, by the way. I’m happy you share yourself with me, happy that I get to share your life with you, always, whatever way that may be. And everything is much better when we’re together.”

But for all Deirdre could comfort, she couldn’t exactly stop Ruth Beck from being the worst kind of hypocrite. She frowned to read the lines, burning to tell Ruth that she was wrong, that she had been wrong in so many ways. Deirdre repeated the line over and over again in her head: nothing good can come from me. And with each repetition, she answered: but something did. She was holding that something as tightly as she could, aching to whisk away pain. The Ruth that had dissuaded Morgan from searching for her curse ending miracle, had also chased her own. Shouldn’t she have known better? Shouldn’t she have helped Morgan better? Shouldn’t she have given her the chance? Deirdre didn’t know a thing about being a mother, but it didn’t sit well with her. “Hey,” Deirdre scooped the hands that couldn’t hold the book any longer in her own, holding them where they lacked the will to hold their own. She pressed them against her lips, a kiss for every trembling finger. “Are you okay?” A silly question, she knew, but what she meant was what are you thinking right now?

Morgan turned away from the mess to hold and kiss her girlfriend better. She twisted her arms and legs around so she wouldn’t fall from Deirdre’s grasp even if she stood up and tried to leave the room that moment. Her body, clenched tight with held in sobs and more distress than she knew how to dispel at once, melted for Deirdre. Every touch released some valve that had been waiting to burst. She relaxed slowly, bones popping all the way down her back. Her tears rushed out like they couldn’t wait to leave and Morgan sewed fresh kisses into her love’s skin where her head lay.

“You are so good to me,” she whispered. “I don’t know how you do it, how you love me so much. I’ve never had-- even just the idea of someone who really is always there for you, who isn’t even afraid of all this absolute batshitery, I thought it was just something for other people, you know? And that’s not why I love you, you could decide this was a really terrible idea tomorrow and I’d still love you, but Deirdre--” She shook her head and kissed her up to her cheek, welcoming the wide grinning mouth that gave her so much tenderness into her own. Morgan held her lips a moment, then a moment more. “...I forgot what I was trying to say,” she mumbled when they parted. “But I love you, and us, and that is so much better, and so much more important than some hand-me-down legacy of awfulness. I know it’s not the same, but I think you’d know how to be good too, if that’s something we really did want in a hundred years. I think we’d figure it out, if it ever happened. I think your heart is still kind, and we’ll make something different from what we both had, whatever we do or don’t become.” Morgan spoke all of this urgently, as if the words would abandon her if she didn’t give them out at once. “It’s all just...so clear with you that I don’t feel so scared.” She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Maybe not un-scared completely,” she admitted with a grimace. “But--am I making any sense?”

Morgan looked back at the mess, at her mother’s notebook, so cold and tragic, and all of these pieces of herself she left behind and never missed, or let herself miss. “You can ask me for anything. I’ll tell you whatever I can, whatever you want. I know you want to give me whatever I need, but I don’t really know what that is right now. I even don’t know how I feel about all this. I don’t understand how she could… I mean, she had all of this. She got away from her mom and she was learning to be kind and she just left it all. Well, that part I can actually understand,” she admitted, her expression falling and turning bitter. There was a panic attack in the library after some cursed deer had run through their home and destroyed everything burning in her mind. Burning hotter was the night that followed, sobbing in Deirdre’s arms until she hyperventilated about how sorry she was and how she didn’t know what to do and would she please, please, please forgive her for wanting to be with her so badly and forgive her for whatever choice she made, whether it was to stay in the hotel together or go back to Cece’s. Morgan understood how a curse could make you run from everything you wanted to keep perfectly. “What I don’t get is why she pretended it never happened. She just stonewalled me and made me feel like I was doing the unthinkable for even wanting to make my life different. And maybe she was exactly as defeated and sad as I thought, but making me feel like I was stupid or awful for wanting the same thing didn’t make anything better or different.  I don’t understand how she could bury this so deep. And I know some terrible, cursed thing must have happened to make her leave without saying anything about it. I know how that feels, I know how ashamed and terrified she must have been. It’s just...spreading that around, making it worse…”

Morgan unfurled herself enough to pick up another notebook, this one flopped open along bulky pages heavy with pictures taped and pasted in. The adhesive had gone dry after so many years and they peeled out of their places mournfully. Morgan picked some of them up, most were of a young, sun bronzed Vural family, one had Ruth waving sheepishly next to the little girl at the beach. Another showed her gasping and smiling as some guy with surfer hair kissed her cheek.

“I hate her,” Morgan whispered. “Constance,” she clarified, a little louder. “I don’t care how old she was when she died, I can’t imagine what anyone could have done to justify this--” Morgan ripped the paper off the page, lips trembling as she held it up for Deirdre to see. “I could’ve had this. This was in my mother and she let it out for people and-- somewhere there’s a world where my happiest memories of her aren’t her just indulging me or humoring me or tolerating me like I’m some benign growth she didn’t ask for! She could’ve been like this! But her mother killed it, and Constance killed it and I know I wouldn’t exist if she’d gotten with this surfer--flipping Jade--” She rolled her eyes, exasperated and sad as she consulted the caption on the back of the picture. “But maybe she wouldn’t have left in the first place if she hadn’t been so tormented by her own awful mother and so ready to change she’d put herself in the hospital trying to break this fucking curse she had nothing to do with. And who knows what happened to Grandma Barbra. I never met her, my mother was very adamant about that, I’m not even sure how long she was alive for! I can’t even find out what kind mommy trauma she got saddled with. They didn’t even treat women like people back then in the first place! It’s just so fucked and I hate that selfish, weak little bitch for making us like this.” Her voice hiccuped as the anger peeled off and the sad ache beneath revealed itself. “I was never going to have a real mom. She was never going to love me. Everything I ever did to try to make her love me, to even be good enough to deserve her love in the first place was so wasted… but I could’ve. I could’ve had someone like this. I hate how fucked that is…” Deflating, she brought her head to rest against Deirdre’s as a new wave of tears bubbled in her eyes. “Do you think it’s bad, that I want to torture Constance for this? That I want to make her hurt over what she took from me?”

Deirdre always liked questions with simple answers; loving Morgan, caring for her, was both the simplest question and the most straightforward answer. “I want to be good for you, to you, my love.” Because she loved her. Because her love made her believe reinvention was possible. Because she wanted to be, and because Morgan deserved it. What else was there to be but good to her? She smiled into their kiss, reager to share her own gratitudes and affections. “You make perfect sense.” Deirdre reached up, tucking back fluffy strands of hair, eyes softened to regard her love as she was. She pressed her palm firmly to her cheek, thumbing away whatever errant teardrops Morgan hadn’t gotten. The bed beneath them was soft, giving to their weight, and it was these simple moments just looking at Morgan that she could have forgotten that there was anything to cry about in the first place. Her pinky brushed against one of Ruth’s books as she adjusted herself, but their world--happy--remained steady for her. She didn’t know much about being good inherently, and only a little about being good by practice, but optimistic ideas always felt more true coming from Morgan. “We would figure out how to be good, wouldn’t we?” The idea fluttered in her heart; the more she thought about it, holding Morgan in her arms, the more solid it became. “It feels real, when you say it.” But the fragile gem of hope dissolved in the acid of what she knew, and what she remembered of training Regan. Before the defeat could read on her features, she pulled Morgan into another kiss and chased the expression away.

“I know you’d tell me anything, but this is a hard thing to talk about, and, admittedly, I don’t know what I should be asking.” Her own relationship with her mother was far too complex to begin trying to understand another’s properly, and she was uncomfortable with the way burgeoning conclusions about her childhood knocked against her as she tried to comprehend the horror of Morgan’s. But that feeling was one she could quickly disregard in place of trying to ease Morgan’s pain, and aid her navigation of her past. The only thing painful to Deirdre was how clumsy she felt at it. “She almost killed herself to undo the curse,” Deirdre considered it for a moment. “She could have been embarrassed, she could have thought it was better to keep from you for your safety. I don’t...know.” She turned her head, flushed and furrowed. “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s an easy answer. I wish you could just ask her; I wish she’d answer.”

Lost in her thoughts, watching the pages of Ruth’s life flip in front of her, Deirdre almost missed Morgan’s whispering. “Maybe,” Deirdre replied in a whisper of her own after a moment. “But your mother made her choices too. She was every bit as capable of being good, being different, as you are. She made her choices.” Deirdre shut the journal slowly, urging Ruth to let her daughter go, just for now. “You trying to earn her affection wasn’t wasted, you weren’t wrong to try.” But for the pieces that were Ruth’s fault, there were a thousand more that led back to Constance. Deirdre only caught a glimpse of Morgan’s cursed life, learning the rest through heart wrenching retellings, but even she could see how insidious the curse was. Constance’s declaration of true suffering every third year felt all the more calculated when Deirdre considered how deeply pain took root. She knew a Morgan that was fearful of happiness, even as she craved it. She knew one that carried guilt with her like it was her favorite coat. The curse was evil in every way it manifested, especially those that weren’t explicitly the curse at all. It alone cultivated an environment that created more pain in the name of lessening it. There was something uncomfortably familiar about it all. “Fates, no.” Deirdre exhaled, a quivering laugh leaving her lips. “She should be tortured. She should be...something. Anything. What she did to you, to your family, it’s---” Deirdre grimaced. “I’ve seen so many shards of people’s lives. Some of the worst evil as humans know it...and not a thing like that. She wanted to ruin your family, and she would have succeeded if…” She gulped, slumping against Morgan. “If you hadn’t come back, she would have gotten away with all of it. I bet her spirit would have dissipated once you died for good, that sounds like the kind of thing that would happen. And she’d get to rest. And none of that is fair. She should be tortured, I just wish it would bring your life back. Justice is a screwed concept, you should get more back from her. But there’s nothing, is there?” Deirdre leaned in to kiss Morgan, lingering as she tried to summon whatever great gift her mother touted they had, to make everything okay. But she had no such magic, and Deirdre would’ve traded her screams for the power in an instant. “I don’t think it’s bad, my love. It sounds logical, all things considered. Is that what you want to do to Constance?”

“I don’t know either. I’m never going to. She never said while she was here, she didn’t--” Care enough to? Think to? There was no telling one way or the other. “She just didn’t. And it’s the fucking worst. I know I’m free now, but I had to fucking die to do it! And not even then. And she could have said something about how to cope or what it would be like. She could have tried. Apparently she wasn’t always so allergic to trying, so--” Morgan struggled to hold all the versions of Ruth Beck that were spreading around her. There was the Ruth that pushed her away, sometimes with force, when she clung to her for too long. The one who approved of her only with slight nods or a twitch of her lips. The one who made friendship bracelets with little girls. Who went out with a surfer and kept a polaroid of him kissing her. A Ruth who was so desperate, she didn’t care that her experiment to end the curse might kill her. A Ruth who read silly books and put stickers on her notebooks. A Ruth who would rather run away than hurt anyone else. A Ruth that loomed over her and put a deadlock on her door so even her emotional outbursts wouldn’t accidentally pop it open. A Ruth as young and scared as Morgan had once been. A Ruth who ran to White Crest in search of hope. A Ruth that insisted disappointment and underachievement was all Morgan should expect from her life. There were too many of them, and Morgan exhaled with relief when Deirdre closed the book. She reached out a hand blindly and swept as many papers off the bed as she could. She burned under her skin at the wrongness of it, but she already hurt in too many directions at once, and all she wanted was for Deirdre to reach into her sternum and take all of it out, stick it in another box for later. Ruth wasn’t here to answer any of it, and her ghost, however corrupted or half imagined as it might have been, hadn’t deigned to answer when she got the chance. She didn’t get a vote in how Morgan felt about her anymore.

When the last sheet of paper had rattled to the floor, Morgan turned back to Deirdre, the desperation in her eyes fading as she found solace in her understanding. She nodded along, seeing the pieces of her thought stitched together and mirrored back. Morgan didn’t know what miracle allowed Deirdre to understand her so well and articulate her tangled up feelings so perfectly, but her words ran over her like a salve. Yes, that’s it exactly, yes.

Morgan caught Deirdre as she slumped against her. She wrapped them up together tight and tucked their faces in so the world was only as small as each other. She submitted readily to her girlfriend’s kisses, angling for more as they parted. “I guess being a zombie was pretty inconvenient across the board,” she scoffed, sniffling. “But I’m a hard girl to keep down. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” Her voice was thin and soft as she said it. She wasn’t quite sure, but she needed it to believe it. She needed it to be true. Morgan pulled back just  so she could look at Deirdre with adoration and relief. Maybe she wasn’t so sure about herself today, but she was sure about what she said next and her voice built up with confidence as she went on. “I’ve started looking for a way. There’s exorcisms that are meant to torture a ghost as they destroy it. They’re ‘to the pain.’ I don’t know much more yet, the overview books say they’re dark or something. Sometimes the cost of doing it is too high, or something can go wrong, but I don’t care what it takes. I was willing to destroy her before, and I’ll do it for real this time. I’ll throw however much money I have at whatever exorcist willing to do this I can find. It won’t bring back my heartbeat, and it won’t make me feel you like I used to, or make you warm, or give me real gray hairs or take away the hard days you’ve carried with me. But at least I won’t be running or freezing in fear like I have for so much of my life and everyone else before me. I’m done with that, Deirdre, I’m just so done. And it’ll be over for good. Because of me, for once. And I want that. I want her to know she doesn’t have any more power over me or anything in my life. I want that to be the last thing she understands before she’s destroyed.”

Morgan squeezed Deirdre gently and brought their foreheads together to touch. “I won’t go places alone, and I’ll be careful. I’ve been good about that already, right? I’ll promise whatever you want to make sure I stay safe, okay? And you don’t have to do anything about this at all if you don’t want to. Or you can do more, whatever you feel right about it. It’ll be okay; I’ll protect us. And when this is all over, I want us to be able to go on a whole week long vacation or a picnic, or whatever we feel like. We’ll celebrate like the world is all new, okay?” She kissed her, pressing in hard enough that their bodies threatened to topple over into the pillows. “We can make it different this time.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Morgan.” Deirdre couldn’t think of anything else to say, she felt like she was begging the world to take Morgan’s pain away. Or for Ruth Beck to materialize out of these pages and explain herself; offer closure to the daughter that deserved that and so much more. “Maybe she thought it was some mercy if you didn’t know. She knew and she–“ Almost died in the name of reversing it, fled a happier life, was treated just the way she was by her own mother. It had to have been hard for her, undoubtedly. With ignorance, there must have been some hope of finding happiness between bouts of pain. But Morgan must have known that, and what did it matter exactly, if she tarnished much of Morgan’s childhood in the name of protection? What was supposed to matter more to a mother then: immediate happiness or long-term safety? Did she make herself into that version of a mother on purpose? Did she know what she was doing? Even as Deirdre tried to figure it out, she became saddled with more questions, and that was just her. She couldn’t imagine what must’ve plagued Morgan’s mind. “Whatever she was trying to do, she was wrong. Your emotions are so plain to see, she must have known what effect she had on you, and she must have made the choice to continue. Maybe her motives don’t matter so much, when you consider how deliberate her actions were.” Deirdre shook her head, she was just speculating about a woman she knew from stories alone, but she wanted to offer Morgan some peace—clueless as she was. “But you’re okay now. You’re okay here.”

Just like that Ruth clattered to the floor, and Deirdre put the woman out of her mind. There were things she would rather focus on, of course. And her hands were busy trying to find the secret pattern of pressing and trailing that would lift Morgan’s anguish. Or maybe it was some system of kisses? Some on her cheek, along her jaw, move up to her lips? She spread affection like a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough; just a few more, maybe something here. It was a fervour of care that flushed through her, every bit as eager to soothe as Morgan leaned into her. “Good,” she rasped, “I happen to like you very much. I don’t want you going anywhere.” The idea would always tremor in her body, she imagined, but she embraced the fear—knowing it was worse to run from it. Ruth Beck was wrong in many ways, but Deirdre learned quickly that she would never be so afraid of losing something that she wouldn’t love it wholly. She would sooner die than ever withhold her love for Morgan, there was far too much now to be stuffed back in its barrel. It grew and flourished, thick and steady as an old tree. No axe would meet its trunk. Her body sang with determination, and her eyes were stalwart as they met Morgan’s: come back to me.

“I don’t need to be warm,” Deirdre shook her head, “and the days after your death are no bother to me, caring for you is never an ounce of trouble—never anything I want taken back.” It was Morgan alone that she worried about, her warmth and the revival of her lost days. “Okay,” she smiled softly, then she laughed and shook her head again. “You don’t have to promise me a bloody thing; I trust you know what you’re doing. I trust you want to stay with me as much as I want to stay with you. I trust you’ll do whatever you have to. I don’t need a promise, I’ll worry for you anyway—promise or not.” Deirdre allowed them to lean back slowly, relaxing the muscles she was using to keep them upright. “Revenge is a fine thing to want, I trust you won’t let it cloud your judgement either. Would you worry if I was involved too much? As much as it pains me, I can stay safe right here for you, where you’ll have more peace. And I can wait, until this is over. And, for the record, the world is always new with you.” She smiled, pulling Morgan tighter in her arms as her body fell against the pillows below—and an errant book, which she pulled out from under her back and laughed at, respectfully tossing it towards the foot of the bed, where it wouldn’t bother them yet. “Oh, we do kind of have to make it different this time. There‘ll be nothing left if it isn’t.” She smiled as if it wasn’t a worry at all. “It will be different. Mostly because I know you’ll stay away from ice cream this time.” With all her strength, all of the determination she brewed into her words, she leaned in and pressed her lips to Morgan’s. Her assuredness was all she could offer in between her love, and she offered it with desperation. Her confidence was a practiced ruse, but it was an optimism she knew she could imbue Morgan with. ‘Hope’ was a thing spoken with love, in the foolish absence of rightful fear. “I love you,” she mumbled as they parted, “come home safely to me.”

“What a coincidence. I happen to like you very much too,” Morgan said, smiling as they fell back into the pillows, falling happily on top of Deirdre. She wriggled her hands under Deirdre’s clothes, skating the ends of her nails along her love’s stomach and chest. She reveled in the sound of Deirdre’s laughter and stole a kiss from her, looking down with amazed affection. “I love you, Deirdre. Of course I’ll worry a lot. You are magnificent and fierce, but you cannot regrow limbs and I can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt because of me. But that doesn’t mean you should stay home while I’m getting bookshelves pushed down on me or running from flying debris. If we’re both going to be worried sick no matter what… why not do more of it together this time?” She brushed back the soft waves of Deirdre’s hair that had fallen into her face. The brown of her eyes were so soft, they put Morgan in mind of honey and cinnamon, bright and tender at once. Staring into them, it seemed like there was nothing else to do but win.  “I don’t need you to be held up here like some 1950’s housewife. I don’t need you to force yourself into going against your better judgement or your desires. I just need us. And we--can keep--each other-- safe.” She punctuated each phrase with a sweet kiss, silly flutters of affection that gifted hope and confidence. “And definitely no ice cream,” She giggled. “Hate the stuff.”

Morgan welcomed Deirdre’s desperate kiss of affection, pulling on her until they turned over in the bed and she was the one resting on their mound of pillows. She had enough spark in her to power them both, and as she dragged her fingers through Deirdre’s hair and down her back, she hoped she could pass the feeling on. They would be okay. “You’re my pulse, and my world, and my love,” Morgan said, bringing her hand back around to rest against her heart. It beat in steady flutters, spurred by the sudden outburst of affection, the excitement of being safe and known. Morgan pressed firmly against it in a silent promise. “I will come back to you. We will come back home to each other no matter what we’re up against. We’ll find a way.”

#wr deirdre #wr chatzy #wr deirdre chatzy #emotional abuse tw #suicide tw #(ideation) #self harm tw #self-harm tw #//i guess ruth's theme is spring awakening now don't @ me #wickedswriting

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1981

Under the cut.

Blondie -- "The Tide Is High" - January 31, 1981

I have problems trying to figure out what to say about Blondie. This song is reggae-ish, as it's a cover of a 1967 rocksteady song. The song itself is really good, and Blondie do interesting things with it without changing it much or being disrespectful. Of course, it has a lot more icy determination and a lot less vulnerability than the original, because Debbie Harry. It's enjoyable, but now that I've heard the original, I prefer that one. Nothing against Debbie Harry, but I usually prefer more warmth in music, especially when it comes to love songs.

Kool & The Gang -- "Celebration" -- February 7, 1981

I've heard this song way too much, and it's not a song that particularly rewards hundreds of listens. It's a good party song and all, but I'm never going to listen to it again if I have a choice.

Dolly Parton -- "Nine to Five" -- February 21, 1981

Having a steady 9 to 5 job that makes you a living sounds like a dream in the gig economy. But it did suck. They had no idea how much worse things would get, though. It's still a rich man's game, and you spend your life putting money in his wallet. As it's been since Babylon at least. This is a really good song, and the music is upbeat, and Dolly Parton is a world treasure, but my current 2020 mood means it depresses me too.

Eddie Rabbitt -- "I Love A Rainy Night" -- February 28, 1981

I'm trying to remember all the songs about rain I can. There's "Here Comes the Rain Again", "Purple Rain", "November Rain", "It's Raining Men", "Have You Ever Seen the Rain", "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", "Rainy Days and Mondays", "Set Fire to the Rain" -- they're always about something else. Rain sets the stage, or it's a metaphor. This song is more like "Laughter in the Rain," which is simply about enjoying walking in the rain with someone you love and nothing more. But this is even less than that. He loves a rainy night. That's it and all and entire. And he is going to tell you he loves a rainy night 24 times. I counted. There's no musical variation either. That's the bulk of the song. Other than that, he loves lightning and thunder. It's no wonder I'd never heard this song before, because it is deadly dull.

REO Speedwagon -- "Keep On Loving You" -- March 21, 1981

It was the thing to denigrate 80s power ballads when I was a teenager because we'd had more than enough of them as children, thank you very much. We'd had more than enough of the 80s generally (they sucked, actually, no matter what those day-glo colors tell you. Reagan was an atrocity.) But power ballads didn't deserve the ire, and so they've been embraced again. This is one of the classics. It's about the narrator -- and the singer Kevin Cronan, in reality -- forgiving his wife for cheating on him. I didn't know that until now, because I never really listened to the song. It's far from my favorite power ballad, as how hard Kevin Cronan hits the consonants bugs me. Yeah, I'm from Michigan, I say "r"s like a pirate too, but not to that extreme.

Blondie -- "Rapture" -- March 28, 1981

Debbie Harry sort of raps on this. I dunno, I'm too distracted by the lyrics. The singing part makes sense, as it's about dancing causing rapture. But then the rap (?) part starts. "And you drive all night and then you see a light/ And it comes right down and lands on the ground/ And out comes a man from Mars/ And you try to run but he's got a gun/ And he shoots you dead and he eats your head/ And then you're in the man from Mars/ You go out at night, eatin' cars." It goes on like that. They're some of the weirdest lyrics I've ever seen, and I was a teenager in the Beck "Loser" era. They're probably supposed to just be weird, but... what? That's my opinion on this song.

Daryl Hall and John Oates -- "Kiss On My List" -- April 11, 1981

This is another 80s song I've heard a ton but never really listened to the lyrics. It is a love song, but I'm not quite sure what the narrator's getting at. "If you want to know/ What the reason is I'll only smile when I lie/ Then I'll tell you why." He says it's because your kiss is on his list, and he misses it when he turns out the light. He also seems to be hiding you from his friends. Is he cheating with you? Or maybe he's not with you but wants to be? I don't know, and I'm putting too much thought into what's really a slight but enjoyable pop song.

Sheena Easton -- "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" -- May 2, 1981

What a boring, repetitive beat. This is the opposite of Dolly Parton's "Nine to Five." The narrator in this one stays home while her husband goes to work on the morning train. The whole day, all she does is sit around thinking about him. Nothing else at all. I've nothing against one partner staying at home while the other goes out to work -- I'd be a hypocrite if so, because that's what I do. But I do have something against pretending any woman's brain is so utterly empty that literally all she can think about is her husband. She's not even trying to make a nice home or anything. She apparently just sits around obsessing over her husband. Maybe they've been married for two days, but even so. Also Sheena Easton doesn't hit the high notes she goes for, so that was an unpleasant nails on a chalkboard surprise. Terrible song.

Kim Carnes -- "Bette Davis Eyes" -- May 16, 1981

I love Bette Davis. I do not like this song. In fact, I hate this song. It's Kim Carnes' voice. She sounds like she's been smoking 3 cigars a day for 40 years. Worse, the way she chooses to sing is completely off the rails. She sounds like a cartoon character. I like Jackie DeShannon's original. I can't stand this version.

Stars on 45 -- "Stars on 45" -- June 20, 1981

Baby Boomer nostalgia is the most powerful force in the universe. Which doesn't mean all, or most, baby boomers are drowning in nostalgia, but the ones who are (like my father) are sure a profitable demographic. This "song" is a medley of a bunch of hits to make them go "I recognized it so I clapped." Incredibly bad.

Air Supply -- "The One That You Love" -- July 25, 1981

It's an almost power ballad song that sounds vaguely Broadway-ish, or would if Russell Hitchcock were a good singer. He's about as good a singer as me, except with a weaker voice. That is not good. He doesn't give me a headache or anything, and he does manage to hit the notes right (barely) and to put emotion into his voice, but the guys who sang the leads in our musicals in high school were better. Anyway, he's trying to get his lover not to break up with him, insisting over and over that he's "the one that you love." The lyrics aren't exactly great, but they're not horrible either. But this guy does not have a strong enough voice for power ballads. Yet again, I am wondering what Barry Manilow would have done with this.

Rick Springfield -- "Jessie's Girl" -- August 1, 1981

I remember people going kinda nuts for "Jessie's Girl" some years back, and being like... really? It's fine, but nothing special. He can't even seem to remember the name of the girl he wants. I dunno, whatever, I have no real problems with it, and it does have a nice beat, but it comes and goes without making an impression on me.

Diana Ross & Lionel Richie -- "Endless Love" -- August 15, 1981

Drowning in glop, send help.

Christopher Cross -- "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" -- October 17, 1981

The movie Arthur is rom-com about a man who was born rich, has never grown up, has never faced any consequences, and treats women like garbage. Fuck aaaalllll the way off. We have reason to be particularly intolerant of this stuff nowadays, and we never should have tolerated it. Romance novelists are smart enough to give their rich heroes some trauma in their pasts, and nowadays the heroes rarely treat women badly either (Christian Grey being an exception. And even he at least has a tortured soul.) The song basically lays out the main character's personality, or lack thereof. There is the neat line, "When you get caught between the moon and New York City." And I woke up with that line -- and nothing else from the song -- in my head, so I can understand why it became a hit. But if I want a movie about the moon and New York City, I'll take Moonstruck.

Daryl Hall & John Oates -- "Private Eyes" -- November 7, 1981

This sounds like Scientology's theme song. Except the "private eyes" are metaphorical. He means he can tell you're hurting even when you try to hide it. "Why you try to put up a front for me/ I'm a spy but on your side, you see." Still, boundaries dude. It's musically fun enough, but the lyrics... eh...

Olivia Newton-John -- "Physical" -- November 21, 1981

This is an aerobics song. Technically it's supposed to be about sex, but Newton-John's in aerobics gear on the single cover, the music video is at a gym, and the beat is for exercising to. Not even dancing. It's not seductive in the slightest. Aerobics in the 80s led to a lot of hip replacements in the 00s. As a song, all I hear is background music for a workout, so... yeah, not interested.

BEST OF 1981 -- "Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton. WORST OF 1981 -- "Stars on 45" by Stars on 45

#billboard number ones

[beckbeckett]

WHO: Beck & open @crhqstarters​

WHEN: a nondescript day of the week, 7:30pm

WHERE: McKinley High, Outdoor eating area 

It was late enough to be weird that Beck was still hanging around the grounds of McKinley High, but with the lack of rehearsal that day, he was left with few options on where to go. Home certainly wasn’t a place that he was looking forward to heading toward for a while - he didn’t feel like texting someone for refuge after rehearsal - so, instead he found himself perched on the steps outside. The dusk turning slowly to night around him as he listened to the music running through his headphones. It wasn’t long, though, until movement caught the corner of his eye and he found himself jumping out of his trance; a nervous sort of laugh spilling from his lips at the action of it all. “And here I thought it would be safe after hours!” Beck smirked, raising an eyebrow toward the company. “At the risk of being Lima’s biggest hypocrite -- what are you doing here so late? I thought I was the only one who crept around these halls at night.” 

#crhq:starter

[askbohemiancompany]

A Profile On Beck Bejmajick

Niquix Art Trade Interview With the Curator

“Thank you so much for sitting down with me Ms. Bejme...Bej-”

“It’s Bejmajick. Bej-ma-jick.”

“Thank you for clarifying.”

This was not a normal day for museum curator and explorer Rebecca Bejmajick. She was giving an interview for the Unovan-Sol, a publication that focused on up and coming Pokemon entrepreneurs that were making an impact on society for pokemon living in human dominated cities.

Sitting in a cozy chair eye to eye with her was Yeroc Bleumire. Despite being a wigglytuff, he had a reputation as a stern journalist who was good at getting people to open up, including in ways that would get them to admit some truths they would not admit otherwise. The fairy type barely flinched at how massive his subject was in front of him. His one regret was not getting the pronunciation of her last name right.

If hybrid had to be honest to this pink rabbit talking across from her, she would tell him that she was busy and he could take his questions elsewhere. Except Beck could not do that. The publisher paid her a lot of money in order to do this interview. Not to mention she had sources there that could let her know of any potential treasures to add to her ‘collection’. The PR it would give also helps gain more attention for her.

“Before we begin I want to thank you for sitting with me today to do this interview.” Yeroc said adjusting his glasses before pulling out a pen and paper.

“I figured I would make it worth your wild. Let’s get this over with. I have work to do.” Beck rested her head on her left arm and gave him a neutral look.

“Fair enough.” Flipping to the first page, Yeroc prepared his pen to write his first question. “I’ll start with an easy one. What got you into artifact hunting and curation?”

That was surprising. Usually the first question was about her background, her family life, all of the softball level questions. What version of the story should she give this guy?

“Well that actually stemmed from my background with my parents.” She straightened herself from her slouched position and positioned her arms as if to display herself. “As you can see, I’m a hybrid of a gardevoir and gengar. Both species with connections to the supernatural. So I grew up around magic.” The gardevoir sighed as she had to come up with a convincing lie about her parents on the spot. “They were eccentric and honestly a bit embarrassing in hindsight, but I still give them all the credit in the world for leading me down the path I have.”

Writing as swift as the wind, Yeroc jotted down what was relayed to him before moving on. “Did they come from a position of wealth or were they wild mons?”

Implying that she came from money was offensive to Beck. “If you are to imply that I got some sort of payout from my parents you are wrong. All of the wealth I have amassed was through the hard work with my team.”

“That was not the nature of the question. I only ask that because readers typically like to know if it is a case of a mon coming from outside the major cities into pokemon civilizations.” The wigglytuff did not sound apologetic, but he did not convey any hostility. 

“Oh.” Beck felt slightly at fault, but his neutral tone did not help his case. “Well to answer your question it was more in the middle of those two extremes. We grew up outside any of the human cities when I was younger, but we eventually moved to the inner city. My family only had access to what I would call human scraps. Basically any junk they tossed out or anything we found before anyone else tried to claim it.”

Quick as the wind, the rabbit was writing down everything that was being relayed. “Kind of going back to a point you brought up earlier, you said you have a team. Can you elaborate on that?”

“Yes my team is composed of my secretary and assistant Mariposa, who you spoke with to set up this interview. Also one of my best friends Asa who lives out in Victory Road with her family and clan, including the alpha-scrafty of the mountain.”

“I see. Just curious by why does this Asa not stay with you here in the city? Have you offered her a chance to move her here?”

“Trust me I have tried. She doesn't like being out in the city too much. Iit has caused me more problems than I can count.” Asa sighed thinking of how often that lizard has made her late for important meetings. Yet. “She does care for me and her family though so I respect her wishes...but I also wish she could be more punctual.”

Both mons chuckled at that joke. “Well then. One thing I need to address is the wailord in the room.” The fairy type turned a page. “Some have criticized how you have obtained particular artifacts-”

“Which ones?” Beck cut him off before he could even finish it. “Name me one artifact that they think I have obtained improperly.” She was not in the mood for this type of crap. The accusations of ill-gain of her artifacts were always abound but she got accused of stealing the most out of all the curators in her perspective. As reliable as that was to anyone not her.

“I can name two that caused the most controversy recently. The Gaian Manuscript and the Weave of Tapulele statue.” Flipping to another page in his notebook, Yeroc returned his gaze to her. “According to some members of the Gaian Order you are holding an item of religious import and that the original manuscript should go to their head priests.”

“Which one? There are multiple sects of the Gaian Order.”

“That’s not my position to decide. Back to my question regarding that criticism; what would you say to those of the Gaian faith?”

This was agitating to Beck, who at this point was leaning back in her chair. “I’d say if they really wanted it then they can pay me to give it to them.”

Yeroc wrote that down. “Regarding the statue of Tapulele, that was an idol that was used in an active shrine that was lost due to the UB incident. Is that considered fair game?”

Beck rolled her eyes. “If that was the case they should have made it known to the public and put out a search for it.”

“They did.”

“Well I will be sure to address those community leaders.” The giantess lowered her glasses to give the rabbit mon a stare. “You’ve got one more question. Make it count.” She was making her contempt known as she continued giving an intimidated glare at her interviewer.

The fairy type saw this glare and flipped to the next page. “Sorry if I agitated you. But very well I can move onto the final question. There are rival museums, more specifically the Hoenn Oceanic Museum. They claimed you have stolen documents regarding fossil locations, and potential buried treasure. What do you say about those accusations?”

“Now this is something I have no problem answering.” The gardevoir leaned forward. “I know the Stone family has obtained multitudes of artifacts and beyond through some questionable means. Lest we forget what happened with Deoxy’s Meteor. So for them to accuse me of that is massively hypocritical and they can kiss it.”

Beck raised from her chair, casting a large shadow over the smaller fairy type. “That should be enough for your story. My secretary will see you out.” A slow pink miasma appeared around the hybrid as her eyes glowed bright red before disappearing into the miasma, leaving the fairy type alone in the room.

(This was my end of an art trade for @niquixarts relating to her blog @ask-nacrenetreasurehunters. This was a fun piece to do.)

#art trade #ask-nacrenetreasurehunters

[himawari-haebalagi]

If you don’t want to see me rant and vent my frustrations just scroll past this.

I am so tired. I’m the black sheep, my family doesn’t respect me, they’re hypocritical and every time I try to meet them half way they don’t put in their share. People are gonna say I’m just being a teenager and that’s fine, but when I’m the one genuinely trying to compromise and talk things out like an adult only to be yelled at and blamed in return, it’s kind of hard to think I’m overreacting.

My mental state is fucked up. I have ADHD, anxiety, aspergers syndrome, OCD, depression, bipolar disorder, and those are just what’s been diagnosed. I’ve been on more prescribed medications than I can count, and my mom keeps telling me generic shit that doesn’t help and trying to convince me that if I try I can be normal.

They’re hypocritical. I only ever try and act in ways that I can fit in and yeah I’ve been a brat before and I’ve done stuff that people don’t want to deal with but I’m maturing and trying to have a genuine relationship with my family only to have everyone poke fun at me.

I’ve been homeschooled since sixth grade. I’ll be graduating high school in a couple years I want nothing more than to go back to public school to experience things and get social skills that I just don’t have right now. I’ve essentially been in quarantine for the past five years save for church, weekends with my friends, appointments, and volunteering at the library. I brought it up to my mom and- in her typical cold fashion- she seemed very disapproving and doubtful. She wasn’t supportive or encouraging.

I’m used to that. My mom’s always been that way. Very cold, stiff, almost like a mannequin trying to appear as this picture perfect person. She’s a Karen. I love my mom, I do, but she’s never been what I’m sure most would label as a good one. We’re Catholic. I’d consider myself and many other Catholics to be very accepting, open minded people, but my mom is one of those people that drive people away from Christianity.

I’m perfectly fine with lgbt+, people of other culture, race, and ethnicity, those who have different beliefs than me, etc. I’m not straight myself, so I’d be more hypocritical than my mother to be homophobic. My mom tries to be this picture perfect Christian by being overly strict, pushing her beliefs onto everyone and their mother, is judgemental, scolds me when I express my opinion in places I should be considered, and yells at me for talking about anything remotely lgbtq in front of babies. etc etc. I’m a Christian, my faith is important to me, but I see why people want nothing to do with us when my mom acts the way she does.

I get along great with my stepdad. However, today he’s been in a very grouchy mood it seems. We have actual conversations and he treats me like an intelligent human being, which I appreciate. We were supposed to go back to Kentucky (my home town) to help with a baby. Not sure how good of an idea it is with everything that’s going on, but I’ve learned over time that anytime I try to speak up I just risk getting my ass whooped and my ear drums busted. I was going to stay with my dad, but a couple days ago he called and said Tuk (his girlfriend who is the sweetest person on earth) wasn’t so comfortable with it at the time because of this covid19 thing, which is completely understandable and valid. A couple hours ago, maybe, my stepdad was ranting about how he was happy I was going with them but how stupid of an excuse my dad made. That the reason he provided wasn’t sensible at all. He asked me how many times i spend the night at my dad’s. Not that often, but I don’t normally have a reason to and he’s often very busy with work. I hang out with him most saturdays with the exception of this pandemic and bond. He said that it’s because my dad doesn’t want me there. That stung. A lot. I know it’s not true and I figured he must be in a really bad mood because he wasn���t really all that reasonable like normal, but it still hurt to hear someone I’m close with say with so much conviction that my dad doesn’t want me.

I’ve been studying super hard in school and even working on weekends just to please my mom, but it’s not enough to her. On top of that, I’m an emotional doormat. Whenever my friends need an outlet of any sort be it for ranting, venting, advice, and/or help it’s me that tend to be their go-to. I’m stressed. I love my friends and it’s just the kind of person I am to try and carry the weight of the world on my shoulders but I always do it until I snap and I can’t being myself to tell them or say no in fear of not being wanted.

I’m just being swallowed whole. The people that I love are all indeed human and have their flaws, it just seems that I’m the outlet that has these flaws lashed upon. I feel like my only source of comfort is reading, YouTube, fictional characters, and my dog. I’m tired all the time. I eat a meal a day and snack the rest of the time and barely have the energy to even read. I’ve just been doing my homework, attempting to read, answering to my friends’ beck and call, dealing with my family, and sleeping more than I’m happy with. I’m just emotionally and physically exhausted and the chances of anyone reading all of this are slim and the chances of those people actually caring are slimmer. I don’t want pity or anything, I just needed an outlet to vent because my life really sucks right now and I feel so selfish in saying that because there’s so many others that would kill to have my life and privileges but I’m just so exhausted. One of the only ways I can explain how I feel is that I want to go home. I know it doesn’t make any sense because it’s not like I’m away from my house or family or anything but I just want to go home. I feel exposed and suffocated and empty and stressed all at the same time.

[rosalind-of-arden]

Ash and Quill Reread Chapter 5

Once again, looking for interesting details involving Morgan, Wolfe, and Santi. And whatever else. Like Thomas.

“Jess. Grow a brain.” Glain gets the best lines in this book.

Wolfe and Santi in the workshop. Just adorable. “Oh, stop hovering like I’m broken,” says Santi the hypocrite. And Wolfe, “I know all your glorious war wounds.” Just give me a whole book of banter between these two.

“Santi was pushing himself. And Wolfe was trying to hold him back, for his own good.” Is he though, Jess? It looks to me like Wolfe just helped Santi push himself to walk across town. Jess really, really wants to see himself in Wolfe, but in many ways, he actually has more in common with Santi.

Jess thinks half-naked Thomas looks like a Greek god. Why do I ship these two, you ask?

Jess does not, however, notice any scars on Thomas. Granted, Thomas is very dirty, and Jess is oblivious. Still, interesting.

Jess is disturbed by Santi’s “calm acceptance” of what the Library did to Wolfe. Jess really, really misunderstands Santi here. Santi is not accepting anything. He's dropping an uncomfortable subject.

Another reason why Wolfe forgives Jess in the next book? Here he is unintentionally teaching Jess to be a scheming chessmaster who doesn’t tell everyone involved the full plan. He has very good reasons for doing this, but Jess is learning from Wolfe’s example. Wolfe can’t hold a grudge against Jess for doing exactly what he just did.

Morgan when she’s overdone it on power use: exhausted, shaking, crying, cold to the touch, thin (I don’t think it’s just lack of food: it’s only been a few days, and while Thomas calls Jess skin and bone, I’m inclined to think that’s an exaggeration), dead eyes, black mixing with gold light. And here’s more evidence of what a compassionate person she is: part of what has her so devastated is the fact that she just destroyed the town’s food supply.

Morgan is also gloriously sneaky. How to get around Jess’s objections to donating blood to the Codex cause? Just stab him with the needle while kissing.

Brendan says Zara questioned Burners in London to find out where the pack went. And that she got the company sent to Philadelphia. He claims she switched sides after the Artifex executed some of her soldiers. How much of this is truth, how much of this is what they’re telling Jess to cover up a Brightwell-Library conspiracy?

Wolfe and Santi, bickering over Zara. “I know how you feel about her, but-” “Nic! This isn’t some petty jealousy.” They have definitely had this fight before.

Jess is so focused on Morgan, it really limits us to seeing this plan only from his point of view. Notice how he’s completely forgotten everyone else, and accused Wolfe just of using Morgan? “Really? And what’s your part, Scholar? Because from where I sit, you’ve done nothing but use her.” He’s completely forgetting Khalila, Dario, Glain, Thomas, even himself. Yes, Wolfe has been very focused on Santi, but he’s also been coordinating everyone’s efforts, and possibly continuing to draw Beck’s attention away from the kids. Jess just isn’t thinking of any of that, and that means we don’t get to see what everyone else was doing.

Wolfe and Santi already know Philadelphia is fucked when they talk to Jess about the hole in the wall. They know Morgan destroyed the crops. But of course they don’t tell Jess. Jess has just demonstrated that he can’t handle that sort of information, and they’re short on time. But whether they mean to or not, they’re teaching Jess to keep secrets and manipulate people, and that’s going to come back to bite them.

Key difference between Wolfe’s plan in Philly and Jess and Dario’s plan later in the book? Everyone involved in Wolfe’s plan knows their own role and consents to their own risks. Wolfe isn’t telling Jess about Morgan’s role in Philly, but he and Morgan have worked together to plan her part. But Jess, with his relatively immature and self-centered worldview, doesn’t see the distinction there. To him, because he doesn’t know the full plan, that means Morgan was used and not a fully involved participant. And those feelings have a big influence on how Jess develops his own plan.

What is this power source, anyway? They don’t have batteries. Some Obscurist-created thing?

Brendan: “You’ll live to bury me.” This is absolutely heartbreaking to read now, knowing what happens.

There is, apparently, a proud tradition of Archivists making their Artifexes do their dirty work. Especially where printing press inventors are concerned.

#The Great Library #ash and quill reread

[you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus]

((You got it! Sorry it’s taking so long, school is kicking my butt. :P 86. “I should never have trusted you.” ooh! my writer’s instinct is gonna make people cry, watch out y’all))

If you were to tell Cyrus Goodman that by his freshman year of high school, he’d be dating Jonah Beck, he would have laughed in your face and called you out for being a liar. But he would have been flattered at your statement.

If you were to tell Cyrus Goodman that Jonah Beck was cheating on him, he would have laughed in your face and called you a liar. He wouldn’t have been happy with what you said; he trusted Jonah with his life, practically.

Cyrus was only told one of these things, and he never thought he’d be told any of them at all.

“Just one look, quickly!” TJ urged, slipping on his basketball uniform and gesturing to Jonah’s phone with a quick nod of his head.

“I can’t! I won’t!” Cyrus refused defensively, crossing his arms and taking a seat on the bench. “I’m not going to check his texts, he’s my boyfriend and I trust him. That’s how this kind of relationship works,” he snapped a bit too harshly, evident from TJ’s missing.

“Mm, a nice reminder that I have no expertise in the field,” the taller boy clipped, shutting his locker with a louder than needed slam, and slinging his towel over his shoulder. “When that boyfriend of yours isn’t as loyal as you say, I’ll say I told you so,” he muttered before pushing through the oak door and heading into the gym, the sound of sneakers squeaking against the gym floor greeting him.

TJ’s words hung in the air; Cyrus could easily reach over and grab Jonah’s phone, peek through, and turn it back off. He had frisbee practice for another fifteen minutes at least, and that was more than enough time.

Hesitating considerably, he took Jonah’s phone and turned it on, greeted by a selfie of them for the lock screen. Immediately, he turned off the phone, feeling guilt rise in his chest. Jonah, sweet and caring Jonah, wouldn’t do anything to hurt him! But TJ’s words still lingered; should he just make sure? Before he truly processed what to do, his fingers found themselves wrapped around Jonah’s phone, typing in the pass code (Jonah put 1234 because he was worried he’d forget if it was anything else).

Clicking over onto the messages, he saw nothing out of the ordinary; the Good Hair Crew group chat, his biology group chat, text from Gus asking about frisbee practice, and texts from Andi, Buffy, and himself, of course. In Jonah’s phone, he was ‘Cy-Guy <3′, which just made Cyrus melt, but the guilt lingered. How could he think Jonah would do anything wrong? Just as he was about to put the phone back down on the bench and leave the locker room, Jonah’s phone buzzed in his hand; a text from Andi.

Andiman: let me know when i should buy cyrus taters to soften the blow. and also try to keep aaron out of his line of sight

What was this feeling? It was like he’d had the air knocked out of him, and there was no more to go around. His eyes were glued to the message and he didn’t want to scroll up to read the rest, but he gave in.

Andiman: so you’re breaking up with cyrus? because aaron asked you out? Me: not just because of that. i’ve always liked aaron, since like elementary school, and even though i said id gotten over him, i didnt. i never did. even when i was with cyrus.

Cyrus has to pause for a moment to compose himself; his hand was shaking so violently he thought he might drop the phone. It hurt, oh it hurt so badly. Especially the last part; on all those dates, he’d still been thinking about Aaron in the back of his mind?

Andiman: fair point, i guess. i hope he doesn’t take it too hard. Me: i still care about him, but...i don’t know i guess i never felt like how i felt around aaron around him. Andiman: let me know when i should buy cyrus taters to soften the blow. and also try to keep aaron out of his line of sight.

That was the end of his texts with Andi, and the end of Cyrus’ relationship all in a few texts. He swallowed thickly, feeling like he almost couldn’t breathe. This could not be happening to him?

“Cyrus?” Jonah’s voice broke though his runaway train of thoughts. Cyrus emitted an involuntary squeak and fumbled with the phone before gripping it tightly.

“Is it true?” Cyrus’ lip wobbled as he spoke, feeling the blood pulsing against Jonah’s phone case.

“Is what true? And why do you have my phone?” Jonah asked, wiping the sweat from his hairline and approaching his boyfriend. Well, sort of boyfriend. Sort of ex. Soon to be ex? Soon to be ex.

“Irrelevant,” Cyrus muttered through gritted teeth. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be sad or angry, so he opted for a mixture of both. But no tears, not now. “You’re breaking up with me?”

Jonah looked like he’d been hit in the chest with a frisbee, the remainder of oxygen left in his lungs long gone. “What?” he coughed out, his cheeks burning a deep red, “why would you say that?”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Cyrus hissed, opening Jonah’s phone and waving Andi’s texts in his face, “you told Andi before me? I’m your boyfriend!” he shrieked, before lowering his head, “at least, I used to be. I never should have trusted you,” he added.

Ouch. Jonah really didn’t like Bitter Cyrus; hurtful. Hypocritical, he knows, but hey, he’s a kid.

“You’re right, I should have told you first, but-”

“No!” Cyrus demanded, slamming the phone down on the bench, “no buts, no nothing. You needed to tell me that first, period,” he grumbled, taking a seat and rubbing his temples, “Look, I understand if you don’t feel that way about me, okay? I get that. But talking to Andi about it first? Why didn’t you just tell me that you like Aaron and you haven’t gotten over him?”

Jonah hesitated to take a seat near Cyrus, opting to put more space between them. “I-I didn’t want to hurt you,” he admitted, earning a hearty scoff from Cyrus.

“Way to go, you really succeeded in that department,” he groaned, letting out a breath he was holding.

“I’m sorry, Cy, I really-”

“Don’t say anything, save your breath for Aaron. I’m sure he’d love to listen to you go on and on about whatever it is your current obsession is right now. Breaking hearts? Hiding things? Shielding the truth? Let me know when I’ve got it,” he barked, rolling his eyes and getting up.

“Cy, please,” Jonah croaked, reaching for the boy’s arm, but it was swatted away.

“No. Don’t talk to me. Don’t bother texting me, I’m not going to respond. Good luck with Aaron, Jonah,” he called, walking out of the locker room, tightening the strings of his hoodie. Now that he was out of side and earshot of Jonah, he allowed a few tears to slip out, trickling down his face. Few was an unfortunate understatement because by the time he’d reached the swings near the curb, he was all but sobbing, hiccuping with each thump of his feet. He knew his babysitter wouldn’t be there for another half hour; after all, Cyrus usually stayed after frisbee practice to do extra practice with Jonah. They usually ended up stopping a few minutes through for a break, which turned into a hug, which ended up being them being silly together for half an hour. Now, the idea of Jonah left a bad taste in his mouth.

Gripping the chains of the swings harshly, the cool metal stinging his hands, he began to sing and swing. “Legs go up, legs go down, that’s how we make the swings go r-round,” he croaked, dragging his feet to slow himself, burying his head in his hands. How could he be so stupid? So oblivious? Before toxic thoughts could corrupt his mind, he recognized a familiar figure take the swing beside him.

“Go ahead,” Cyrus choked out, swiping at his tears, “tell me. You told me so,” he chuckled weakly, his laughter dissolving into more tears.

TJ grabbed one of Cyrus’ swing chains and pulled him closer to him, an arm around you. “You know I would, but you need a friend right now more than I need to boost my ego,” he murmured, “you don’t need to talk, but I’m here if you do,”

Cyrus latched onto TJ’s sweatshirt like a koala and buried his head into the boy’s sweatshirt, soaking it with salty tears. It felt like hours before he came up for air, gasping for air between hiccups.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier,” Cyrus mumbled through sniffles, dabbing at his eyes with his thin sweatshirt, “You were right,”

TJ smiled softly, ruffling Cyrus’ hair. “Don’t worry about it. I just had the best practice ever. Like, I’ve never played that well. You need to get under my skin more often,”

Cyrus scoffed, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Do you wanna have a sleepover tonight? My parents are away for some anxiety conference, and they won’t be back,” he offered, “it’s the least I could do to make it up to you,”

TJ pretended to think it over for a moment before agreeing. “I’ll be there around 7?”

“Sounds like a plan,” the smaller boy replied, torn from TJ’s arms with the honk of his babysitter, “that my babysitter, but she’s just here to drive me home. She’s going back to whatever college she’s enrolled in. I’ll see you tonight!” he said with a wave, jogging over to the car and taking the passenger’s seat. TJ waved as he drove off into the distance, watching the car shrink into a small dot. As soon as he was alone, save for the gentle sounds of the rustling leaves, he headed off for his house to pack for the sleepover.

A/N: this ended up being a lot longer than I imagined, but I like how it turned out.

tag list: @shortstackofpeaches @seanna313 @geekingbeautytx @heavenlybyers @ghostswasp @wlwandimack @giocondasstuff

#asks #my asks #anon #answered #andi mack #andi mack asks #tyrus #tyrus prompt #tyrus fic #tyrus fanfic #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #jyrus #jonah beck #angst fic #my fanfic #theo says stuff

[gryffon]

gonna post that thing i wrote about my abusive ex, this isnt a callout but its just like, all the shit ive been wanting to say and havent felt like i could. gonna namedrop people, gonna not give a fuck, i cant cw for everything but there are rape mentions, physical assault mentions and like. general feelings that happen the wake of emotional abuse.

i dont check often but my ex has deleted the blog she was currently using, (@windowpainter or somethng. she was @hamgubber before, previously @miniaturehorse if anybody remembers from when we were totgether and would post on each others blogs nonstop lol) she has a history of lurking around and worming her way into befriending popular people in online subcommunities i am part of or adjacent to. i have not spoken to her since i realized she was abusive and started to try to pull out of our codependent dynamic. she panicked when i realized actions speak louder than words and her long winded apologies, excuses, and textbookish tripe about DBT and getting better or whatever meant nothing in the face of months of repeated lying, breaking of promises, degradation, disrespect to me as a person, disregard of my physical disabilities, insults, patronization, manipulation, multiple instances of cheating, antagonization, neglect, extortion and overall emotional abuse. when she caught wind that i was going to leave her she wrote me a series of emails totaling over 30,000 words, all varying from "i love you please dont leave me we can work this out. breaking up with me is weak." to "you are not a victim. you are not a victim. here is a categorized list of the ways in which you are abusive while i downplay my own behaviors and patronize you. here's an ultimatum and you are not allowed to respond with more than one sentence." to which i disregarded and wrote up a long, thoughtful reply and chose to never send, ending contact with her for good. this was like, 2013 or 2014.

she never called me out, and i never called her out despite giving very serious consideration to it. i was listening to the advice of my therapist at the time, who told me that she thrives on drama and spends her life constantly creating it, and to give her that kind of attention was exactly what she wanted and would only engage her more in my life and be more degrading to my mental health. the best course of action was to give her nothing, and not give her any more power or influence over me, any footholds or any more of my time, consideration, energy or thought. if anybody reading this has endured emotional abuse from somebody you love, you know it is extremely difficult to totally ignore somebody like this, especially when that person has isolated you from the majority of your support system and friends and you have shaped your entire identity around your relationship with your abuser. but i have followed my therapists advice. i have been working on moving on.

still, over the past few years ive had my mutuals contacted by her friends and told to stop talking to me. ive had people i follow put her and her friends on my dash, which up until recently would send me into a panic that lasted several hours. i have a lot of people in the lesbian/commie/leftist/trans/etc/whatever circles on tumblr who just like randomly have me blocked for no reason (since i dont give a fuck and im going for a spirit of total honesty here, ill name drop @butchcommunist, who she dated for a period of time iirc. a lot of my followeds and mutuals reblog from her. i made a point not to check either of their blogs after finding out but it was upsetting since i would see julia all over my dash. that connection still exists in my mind and its pretty upsetting.). ultimately, and rationally i know that these things do not matter that much. i have a vibrant, healthy and loving circle of friends outside of the internet/tumblr and some randos on the internet having me blocked doesn't really mean anything in the scheme of things. still, when this shit happened it felt terrifying and i was horrified, my emotions magnified by the effects of emotional abuse. despite my VERY intense urge for closure, i try to keep as far away from her as possible.

i gave this woman a year of my life that in my memory is defined by her. i was very madly in love and i spent countless hours at her beck and call, countless hours in calls and in text conversations with her, countless hours supporting her through breakdowns, countless hours talking through her fears and worries, countless hours defending her when she stirred up drama, countless hours defending her horrible behavior to my friends, countless hours rationalizing her abuse to myself and people who approached me with worry, countless hours loving her and wondering why it felt so horrifically painful to be with somebody who told you they wanted to spend the rest of their life with you. almost all the money i was making at the time was spent on her. i helped her move across the continent. i had her at my house for weeks. she fucking took out a loan from my mom. despite how big a role she played in my life, over the past 3 years since our falling out i have only checked her blog less times than i can count on my fingers, usually in moments of distress and in the spirit of self-destruction.

i know for a fact she has convinced her friends to check my blog for her god knows how many times, telling them about her fear of me as a 'dangerous person', that i’m going to call her out, her "fear" that im obsessing over her and am quietly plotting to ruin her life. she's scared for a good reason, but not because i'm an abusive bitter ex out on a smear campaign to slander her innocent name and ruin her life in the name of revenge. she's scared because she knows i have some undeniably serious receipts on her. i have receipts of her sending me a horrifying letter her ex had written her describing a graphic instance of a time my ex had raped her, and of her admitting outright to the rape. i have logs of her checking her rape victim's blog and telling me how exasperated she was her victim was still angry with her even after she apologized, and couldn't understand why her victim was stuck on her and wouldnt move on, going on to blame modern feminism and its tendency to portray abusers and rapists as incorrigible. i have receipts of her admitting to perpetrating emotional and physical abuse in her previous relationships, like an instance where she describes losing control of herself and beating her ex senselessly. i have talked with exes, who confirm stories she had told me where she would cut her arms in her presence, deep enough that her life was at risk, and then refuse to go to the hospital, leaving her girlfriend to either bandage and tend to her wounds or else my ex would bleed out and die. those are just the more horrific ones. i have many receipts that document her emotional abuse towards me as well, which im barely even getting into here. i know plenty of other people have experiences with her and accounts of interacting with her that undeniably portrays her as a serial abuser, rapist, and extortionist and exposes the falsehood of her charming and intelligent persona.

several times i have considered calling her out because she has proven herself beyond a doubt that she is a serial abuser who leaves a trail of burning bridges in her wake. i have no doubts that the evidence i have against her is completely solid, and her claims of my status as an abuser that she perpetuates to her friends are built on pillars of sand. i am not afraid of anything she could bring to the table anymore. i have spoken quite a bit with exes and ex friends (some of which sided with her during our breakup and who eventually ended up cutting off, and we reconnected with years after), and they all suggest the same shit. she is manipulative to her very core and will not stop hurting and using people until she dies.

these are big claims and again, this isn't a callout and the reason im not providing the logs is because im just trying to get out my thoughts in an honest way and im not trying to make a case about anything. this is cathartic. im so fucking tired of feeling like its a secret. i dont even know what blog shes using or whatever and while that scares me, i don't care anymore. people who are still semi-big names in the online communities i drift around in still have me blocked and a lot of times i wish i could message them and tell them "hey, you know she's wrong, and i have absolute proof." but my self worth is high enough that i dont need to go around convincing every single rando who doesn't like me that im a good person, not to mention the risk of indirect contact through those who's lives she is still present in.

for a long time the way i coped was by holding onto the idea that she would apologize to me, and i could finally have closure. she apologized to the ex i mentioned earlier, and because of that i hoped she would grow enough as a person to realize that there is literally no way any rational being could look at our relationship and say that, yeah, i was the one hurting her. apparently thats too much credit to give her, and i realize she only apologized to her ex because she wanted me to think she was changing, growing and a good person at heart who just had a rough past. after enough time, enough conversations with people who she was previously close to, i have accepted that she will never truly dedicate herself to getting better. she will always be using people, always be hurting people, always lying, always hypocritical, always disingenuous and always covering her ass by hiding under the language of victimhood, trauma, recovery, self-improvment, DBT, and therapy to convince her victims that her offences are missteps in her journey to improvement. 

this isn't a callout, this isn't meant to be circulated as a warning, this isn't meant to be any sort of vengeance or crusade. i dont even think shes fuckin on tumblr anymore lol. i don't care anymore. i dont care what people take this as. this is me writing an honest, open, reflective, cathartic processing of the scenario that impacted my teenage years so severely.  this isnt concise or well written and i dont need it to be. i've spent too many years wanting to talk about this, needing to process it more openly, but being riddled with horrific anxiety and fear, worrying about her and her social influence and her ability to impact my life. but its been a long time. ive worked hard at this. ive worked hard to get past this. ive worked hard to learn how to be with people who will treat me with kindness. i needed to write this and i needed to post this without editing every sentence a thousand times. this is largely unedited. i dont care if this makes me look pathetic or obsessed with her ive been letting these feelings stir for years and im just ready to breathe again.

if you want to talk about this post DM me or whatever. if you know her and think its all bullshit and you want logs, sure. i dont have anything to hide anymore. her name is viv and she is the worst person i have ever met and i feel sorry that i gave her so much of my love. thanks.

[paoulkaye-blog]

The Shame Recession

               For as long as I can remember, I have always had some stupid thing I’ve done or said to be embarrassed about. We’ve all been there, that one thing you did that when you think of it, you squirm. ‘How could I have been that stupid’ crosses your mind. And this thought will pop up randomly, without provocation, in the middle of an otherwise good day. Maybe it was a mistake at work, a confidently delivered but incredibly wrong answer in the classroom, a stupid car accident you got yourself into, or you said just that little bit too much to someone and they ran and told everyone you both know. Maybe it was something no one else was even around to see, but it still makes you screw up your face involuntarily when you think of it.

                And while that sucks, that feeling is a good thing. It’s an indicator of one of humanity’s greatest social checks: Shame. To feel shame about a thing, justified or not, ensures that you will take extra care to avoid a similar situation in the future. Shame can make you a more cautious driver, it can make you open your mind to the perspective of another person because you were just oh-so-shitty to them the first time you met, and it can help an ego keep from getting out of control, so it’s a valuable thing.

                And you just don’t see it much anymore, do you? Shame is a learned reaction to a situation. Public nudity is a good example here: In a lot of the western world, getting caught outside without pants of any variety can lead to an embarrassment so profound it might actually kill you. But National Geographic has shown us that such brevity of clothing is the norm for many tribes in the parts of the globe far from civilization as we know it. That’s to say nothing of the French and their whole bag of sexually related nonsense, but it’s another good example. Shame is cultural.

                 And in the most visible echelons of American society, we’ve managed to somehow surgically remove shame from the equation. I do not know how this happened, but I can hazard a few guesses. Most often, nationally known older white men are caught in compromising situations. Predicaments, if you will, that would destroy the marriage or career of one of us mere mortals, and they somehow keep their job. And they do it with a non-committal smugness that just physically hurts, don’t they? Sure, they get lambasted in the public forum by comedians and the occasional opinion pundit, but Mel Gibson still makes movies, Kristen Stewart still makes movies, and don’t even get me started on this complete fucking embarrassment of a President.

                So what happened to shame? Truthfully, it’s in a recession. Ostensibly, many of these people who fly in the face of it and keep their lucrative jobs and somehow do not get attacked with torches and pitchforks while they vacation at private estates grew up in an environment much like yours or mine. Presumably, a parent or adult in their life at one point pointed out that they were being a dumbass and they felt bad about it. That’s why it takes so long for these details to come out, after all: They know they’re doing something wrong, so they hide it, or have someone else sweep it under a rug for them, and even when these things become public knowledge, the backlash has been lackluster at best. Well, until yesterday.

                This was the case of an Irish gentleman who hosted a rather popular show on Fox News. The Factor’s host was an exceedingly white, religious male who was old enough to be raised in a time and place where certain behaviors would not fly. Five separate women, thirteen million dollars, and how many years it took for his bosses to decide that enough was enough? And to make matters worse, it wasn’t even shame that factored into the decision, it was finances. The only role shame played in all of this was on the part of the many, many advertisers that pulled their money out of the show after years and years of predatory behavior in the workplace became readily apparent. These businesses were more ashamed to be associated with this man than the network that spent more money that I will probably ever have in my lifetime to pay off his habitual sexualizing of pretty much any woman nearby.

                And you know it isn’t just TV personalities. We all know at least one, probably a half-dozen assholes that never grew up, that act like they could never do anything wrong, or are blatantly hypocritical of everything around them. Remember when being called a hypocrite, when having that double standard revealed to the public was enough to invalidate a person’s opinion and make them shut up and sit down? God, weren’t those just the best of days?

In all of this reversal of progress that Republicans seem to be so dead set on, can we get THAT back, please? If you’re going to use your political clout to accomplish nothing except rollbacks, cuts, and the removal of protections and entitlements, can we also get rid of this ridiculous environment where no one is ashamed of anything anymore? If you seriously think we need to outlaw gay marriage again, and prevent any woman from having an abortion or even just pre-natal care, and return to the glory days of depression-inducing economic policies, how about you also get your house in order and go back to feeling shame over the crap you do that hurts, marginalizes, and embarrasses the rest of us, you spineless fucking boys club?

Okay, wow, that… huh. I’m a little angrier about this than I thought, apparently. I don’t normally type that hard, now my fingers hurt. My keyboard survived, don’t worry. But the point remains: You want to end a recession for a change, Republicans? End the Shame Recession.

If there’s one thing that has given me hope over the last few months, it’s been a resurgence of disgust over the behaviors and habits of people in visible positions and the power of their focus-grouped soap box. Enough people in this country are ashamed, not just pissed off or angry that they didn’t win, ashamed of the behavior of not just our President but of a myriad of elected officials on both sides of this circus that we’re seeing a rise in protests and resistance nationwide in a way we have not seen in quite some time. We are, slowly, coming out of this dearth of public shame, and the American populace is starting to show a real disapproval of these childish antics.

It was born of the Internet, in all honesty. The ability to say what you want with total anonymity was too much for a lot of us to handle. I’m guilty too, I admit, of saying something in a comment thread or forum that would have probably made me melt into a puddle of shame had I said it out loud to a person’s face. But at some point, the celebrities and the famous and the TV talking heads picked up on this vibe and we just sort of let them. I mean, god, why does CNN even let Jeffery Lord (the most douchebaggy name for a white guy I have ever heard) open his mouth, never mind appear on television? How are opinion ranters like Limbaugh and Beck, who are routinely proven wrong and in olden times would have been exiled from the village as a pariah for their lies, find the strength to get the hell out of bed in the morning? And who here doesn’t know, just know that O’Reilly is going to be just fine with his millions of dollars and his books and his generous severance that frankly makes me want to punch someone in the face?

The only way out of all of this, I believe, is to bring shame back in a big way, and end the recession of decency and common courtesy that we’ve all accepted as commonplace for the last twenty-ish years. If there’s a cause to march for, this is it for me: End the Shame Recession. Thanks for reading.

[wrongthink-radio]

For those of you who don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter, I will cover why you may be seeing discussions about Hollywood defending pedophilia. Unfortunately the media coverage has been dismal on the subject, dismal isn’t a great word for it, they’re flat our covering up what’s happening, but we will get you spun up. This all revolves around the firing of James Gunn, the former direct of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

James Gunn was fired by Disney based on some tweets that were brought to light by the efforts of Jack Prosbiec and Mike Cernovich both on Twitter and their respective sites (listed below). The summation of those tweets are several jokes that Gunn makes referring to child rape, molestation, or just sexualized statements about children in general.  Does that mean that Gunn is a pedophile, no, but it doesn’t exactly cast a good light when you’re repeatedly making hyper sexual statements about children.

In a staggering hypocritical swing the Hollywood Left has come with a full throated defense of Gunn, in what will go down in history as the Right’s greatest troll in recent time. The collective Left in Hollywood decided that the best defense of Gunn is to make their own pedophillic jokes as well.

The reason why it’s so hypocritical is that almost every one of these people, to include Gunn himself demanded Rosanne Barr be fired from ABC after her tweet about Valerie Jarrett looking like planet of the apes and Hamas had a baby. As was stated on my program before, ABC has the right to fire Roseanne, just as Disney has the right to fire Gunn, just as the NFL has the right to make their players stand for the anthem. That’s the simplicity of a business having the right to maintain a certain image, as much as you have a right to not work for that business.

What is alarming to me is that some Conservatives like David French and Glenn Beck have rushed in to defend Gunn in some sort of “take the higher ground” garbage they made up in their own head.

Suddenly the country club Republicans we’ve come to know and love as being completely tone deaf on the real world are going to defend James Gunn even though, as many of you remember, these same personalities levied absolute condemnation of Milo Yiannopoulos after remarks surfaced where he said the age of consent was “not this black and white thing” and that relationships “between younger boys and older men … can be hugely positive experiences”, which he defended regarding his first homosexual relationship with an older man aided him in discovering himself. Granted, we know their hatred was more to the point that people like Beck, French and their lot just didn’t some some god damn faggot headlining at CPAC. Here was their defense of Milo, or rather, lack thereof:

So for those of you keeping score, a liberal Hollywood elitist deserves a second chance and shouldn’t be judged by old statements, but Milo must be burned at the stake for his crimes and thrown into the dustbin of history. In case the Milo aspect of this doesn’t show you the blatant hypocrisy of these men (and they are only a couple of many) here are their responses to Roseanne’s tweet and firing:

It appears that being a Trump supporter makes you so toxic to these people that they would rather throw their hat in the ring with a raging leftist who jokes about child rape then show the same compassion toward anyone who supported President Trump. It is truly an interesting timeline.

You can get more information on Mike Cernovich and Jack Prosbiec at: http://www.cernovich.com and https://t.co/Z00IoIMQGf

Why Hollywood is Defending Pedophilia, and Why Some Conservatives are too. For those of you who don't spend a lot of time on Twitter, I will cover why you may be seeing discussions about Hollywood defending pedophilia.

#david french #glenn beck #james gunn #james prosbiac #mike cernovich #milo

[mdye]

"What does it mean that the lout in the white house got there despite boasting about his sexual misdeeds while two fox news misogynists behind his rise have now been brought down by theirs i don rsquo t know but it vexes me perhaps culture rides ahead of politics nonetheless let s celebrate the end of the career of bill o rsquo reilly bully alleged serial sexual harasser and creepy hypocrite who preached against sexual liberation gender equality and racial justice while possibly harassing an entire rainbow generation of women together o rsquo reilly and his former boss roger ailes created a white patriarchal television oasis for the aging holdouts against a rapidly diversifying america one where white men were again safely in charge and women even talented ones were for decoration most of them leggy blonde and deferential the two shaped a paranoid right wing political culture that demanded the creation of a character like ldquo president donald trump rdquo ndash even if ailes was said to be anxious about his creature rsquo s rise in the gop last year and o rsquo reilly supportive while also a bit condescending and paternalistic sometimes seemed jealous of him but ailes is gone and today o rsquo reilly is getting the door slammed on his ass fox finally dumped them both after spending tens of millions of dollars paying the multiple women who came forth with accounts of harassment including the latest mdash an african american clerical worker who says o reilly called her quot hot chocolate quot and would never speak to her except to grunt at her like a wild boar but even as we mark o rsquo reilly rsquo s downfall let rsquo s grapple with the damage he s done in greasing a path to the white house for trump of course but also in the lives of individual people in the culture of bullying and violence he leaves behind i rsquo ve faced a lot of criticism even abuse on social media over the years but the only time i was genuinely afraid for my own safety and my daughter rsquo s was after i debated o rsquo reilly in june 2009 about the murder of dr george tiller mdash lutheran deacon husband father grandfather and abortion provider mdash in the hallway of his wichita kansas church o rsquo reilly had trashed tiller usually as ldquo tiller the baby killer rdquo in 29 segments of the o rsquo reilly factor over four years i rsquo d suggested on msnbc that o rsquo reilly ought to ask whether his violent rhetoric might have contributed to tiller rsquo s murder he had said that tiller ldquo destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for 5 000 rdquo was guilty of ldquo nazi stuff rdquo and that anyone who prevented the state of kansas from stopping tiller ldquo has blood on their hands quot i stupidly went on o rsquo reilly rsquo s show to defend myself i rsquo m just going to leave the link here i just watched it for the first time in seven years and it was still harrowing his mounting rage plus the repetition that i had blood on my hands too at the time at first it was all in a day rsquo s work for me mdash i rsquo ve debated a lot of misogynists on msnbc then the emails poured in and the snail mail too many men had violent suggestions as to what i might do with myself they had many creative ways to dispense with me and with my daughter too that was my first experience with the underground of men who were mobilizing against women rsquo s freedom all of them apparently galvanized by the election of barack obama which made little sense unless you knew the history of racist misogyny that came together in fear of miscegenation in the 19th century there was new danger on the loose i had noticed the guns at obama rallies i had seen a black man murdered by a white supremacist at the holocaust museum in washington d c i had heard about the pittsburgh police shootings by a white supremacist whose friends told reporters ldquo rich like myself loved glenn beck rdquo the obama hating fox host who rose to right wing glory that year i had written about all of it but it had never before been aimed at me nothing happened i lived mdash thrived in fact as did my daughter but nothing acquaints you with the notion that your ideas are more than just intellectually dangerous than people telling you they want to hurt you i did have to learn that what i got weren rsquo t ldquo death threats rdquo in order for something to be a death threat i was told they have to say they intend to kill you not merely that they want you dead the powers that be at twitter have essentially told me the same thing when i report violent tweets to them but still tweets of violence don rsquo t feel as threatening as either email to your personal inbox or snail mail to your office no one ever wrote these threats to my home for which i am grateful and as i write that i realize i rsquo m wanting to minimize the threat i felt or should have felt at the time i didn rsquo t calm myself by saying none of this violent male mail came to my home at the time i was scared my friends told me to call the police and alert them instead i went on vacation to arizona where my daughter worried at the airport ldquo mom this is a sort of conservative state do you think someone will recognize you rdquo no one did there are a lot of democrats in arizona too and not all republicans are o rsquo reilly reactionaries and even of those very few of them are violent still i stayed a little bit on alert that week here i am almost eight years later if i didn rsquo t have plans tonight i rsquo d go celebrate outside of fox news in midtown i can observe however that the aforementioned glenn beck hung on to his show at fox spewing poison to retirees at 5 pm even after advertisers ditched him because alleged serial sexual harasser roger ailes did not want to give his critics the satisfaction of seeing beck canned mdash until he finally had to can him the murdochs took one look mdash or maybe two mdash at their loss of more than 50 major advertisers plus more sexual harassment complaints we should acknowledge and concluded that o rsquo reilly rsquo s april vacation should be permanent ailes protected o rsquo reilly too of course i rsquo ll never forget the night salon rsquo s beloved executive editor gary kamiya came out of his office reading the deposition of former o rsquo reilly employee andrea mackris about the loofahs and the falafels and o rsquo reilly rsquo s abhorrent abuse mdash until we told him to write it up as a story and i was the one who had to read it to him in 2004 we didn rsquo t have scanners or any way to just lift the passages from the smoking gun i still won rsquo t use a loofah so we have been watching this serial misogynist and alleged sexual harasser this angry white patriarch for a long long time ailes protected him even after he dumped beck even after gawker revealed o rsquo reilly had lost custody of his children when his ex wife showed evidence that his son and daughter watched him drag her downstairs by the throat mdash and understandably the kids didn rsquo t want to spend time with him anymore ailes dumped beck but o rsquo reilly got to stay it rsquo s clear there was a double standard beck lost his show because his overall crazy hurt the brand but o rsquo reilly rsquo s angry white man shtick mdash including his abuse of women and children mdash in fact was the brand now the younger murdochs are trying to change the brand and they are about to cut o rsquo reilly loose political activists outside and to their credit women inside fox have made both this and ailes rsquo s departure happen the ever knowing fox chronicler gabriel sherman at new york magazine had earlier reported that rupert murdoch and his son lachlan were against dumping o rsquo reilly while lachlan rsquo s brother james wanted the high rating bully to cease darkening the doors of 21st century fox but now sherman reports ldquo lachlan murdoch rsquo s wife helped convince her husband that o rsquo reilly needed to go which moved lachlan into james rsquo s corner rdquo so women have prevailed against o rsquo reilly and earlier against ailes we failed to stop trump mdash especially we white women as i rsquo ve mourned since november 9 trump must be next but for now let rsquo s celebrate the departure of his enablers trump now has power ailes and o rsquo reilly never did but women mdash and men of conscience mdash now know what the stakes are o rsquo reilly taught some of us the hard way but many of us have learned from those lessons let rsquo s make sure we all take in the danger of the white male patriarchal paradise ailes and o rsquo reilly created so we can make sure trump can rsquo t spread it beyond the confines of one loathsome cable channel Keep on reading: Bye-bye Bill O’Reilly