#when my mom volunteered me i was like ok i will do it for free bc its this particular friend of yours | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

parad-ice-lostandfound · 1 year

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Prompt: How the OM! Brothers shop for groceries and stuff ft. me!

Pairing: NA

Genre: Headcanons, Crack

TW: NA

Lucifer

This old man has memorised the layout of all his favourite stores. He makes a neat little list in a notebook. He will not type his list in the notes app of his DDD. And his list will be in the order of how he walks through the aisles.

Like, if the first few aisles of the store have foodstuff, those will be at the very top of the list. I add stuff to my list as and when I remember them, so if I ever make a list for him he will most definitely forget to buy something and then blame it on my lacking list-making skills (my mom does this).

No matter how many things we need to buy this man will NEVER take a cart. He will take 3 baskets if required, and give two of them to me. Also will not buy anything that is not on his list. Is ice cream on his list? No? Then I guess we're not getting it...

Man speedwalks through the store. Like there's no time to see which brand of chips I want, I take my eyes off him for one second and he's already at the checkout counter-

Gives everyone who takes their time deciding what to buy, yknow, like a normal person, a glare so intense you'd think they offended his entire lineage or something.

Might yell at me like once for being slow or something during our shopping trip, then make it up to me by buying me ice cream on the way home (Lucifer is an Asian parent confirmed)

Overall, I'd give him 7/10 because he does get the job done, but I will not be the first to volunteer to go with him.

Mammon

List? What list? Haha I'm gonna have to be the responsible adult here-

He never makes a list, because 'he remembers it all in his head anyway'. I'd make a list, then proceed to drag him everywhere, making him hold the stuff.

Complains a bit (a lot) about having to follow me around, but will shut up if I glare at him

Remembers what his brothers need, but always forgets stuff that he needs and when we get home he gives me his best puppy dog eyes and goes "Actually..."

With the amount of trouble this dork can get in I'm pretty sure we're banned from at least one store-

Doesn't care what I put in the cart as long as he can do the same.

We end up forgetting a few items and then having to go back to the store before Lucifer finds out. Then we get ourselves some smoothies as a reward :3

People would hate us because we're the kind of idiots to stand in an aisle taking up all the space while arguing very loudly about cereal brands-

5/10, we're both too easily distracted and absolute menaces when it comes to shopping.

Leviathan

My boy gets all his stuff from Akuzon so I dunno how I'd get him to come grocery shopping with me. If no one else is free that day, he might come with me. Though he'd try to convince me to order from Akuzon before placing a foot out the door-

Whose idea was it to let two socially-inept introverts shop without their assigned extrovert/ambivert? If there are no self-checkout counters we would play rock, paper, scissors to determine who makes small talk with the cashier.

We'll end up buying a lot of junk food and soda. Again I feel like I'd have to make the list and Levi would help with carrying the stuff but I'm sure he'd also add stuff that he wants.

Doesn't care much about like, the necessities? Like, it's ok with him if I wanna get fresh veggies or milk but he won't be one to suggest it if I don't.

Levi gets lost at one point because I'm bad at keeping track of people who come grocery shopping with me and I'm gonna get called to the front desk to get him.

On the way home I take him to the bookstore, get him some new manga and me new books for having survived that ordeal.

9/10, he's like a very well-behaved, anxious kid who occasionally tugs on your clothes and asks you if he can get his favourite bag of chips.

Satan

He won't like this, but he probably is like a toned-down version of Lucifer, except he makes the list in the notes app of his DDD.

Pretty flexible with what we can buy, he'd let me get what I want, within a limit though. Knows how to tell what is fresh and what isn't so I let him select the fruits and veggies

He also speedwalks, but holds my hand so I don't get lost <3

Meanwhile I'm trying to keep up without falling and apologizing to all the people I bump into. Ain't my fault I got little legs-

Hates it when people bump into him and don't apologize so my main job is making sure he doesn't blow up and get us thrown out of the store-

Definitely teases me when I can't reach something before being a gentleman and getting it for me

We end up going to a cat cafe before going home

10/10, I would enjoy it. Very much date vibes.

Asmodeus

He would happily follow me on my grocery runs.

Very easily distracted, I'd need to hold onto him so I dont lose him.

Very good at reminding me what needs to be bought. Has his own list of things that are needed.

Spends a ton of time and takes utmost care in choosing the best of everything. He has a good eye when it comes to stuff like this.

Knows exactly what his brothers like or need and makes my life so much more easier.

Will let me buy everything and anything I want because he is amazing like that.

Flirts with the cashier during checkout and gets us a discount. I aspire to be like him one day-

On the way home we end up going to boutiques so he can do his own little shopping~

9/10, as fun as it is going with him, I don't like being dressed up like a doll after a tiring day of getting groceries. Also won't help me put them away when we get home

Beelzebub

Beel is a sweetheart. I can see him always volunteering to go grocery shopping with me.

Another one I need to be cautious about, he might wander off if he finds something particularly appetizing. Will need to have something on hand to satiate his hunger.

He'd be content with following me around while carrying stuff. Occasionally pipes in when he sees something he heard his brothers wanted.

We will buy a ton of snacks. Now to keep him from opening any of those before we check out...

Probably wouldn't let me get everything I want, but will still be willing to let me get junk food as long as I promise to share them with him.

On the way home we go and have a meal at a restaurant, and then once we're home he helps me put everything away.

10/10, an absolute sweetheart as long as he has something to munch on while we work.

Belphegor

This little shit (derogatory).

This sadistic little bastard enjoys abusing his baby of the family privilege. Annoys the fuck out of me while we're in the store because he knows I'll try my best not to lose my composure in a public place.

The kind of asshole to pick something up and put it somewhere it's not supposed to be. Ever found a bar of soap next to rows of cereals? It's his handiwork, and he's so smug about it I swear-

Gets lost on purpose, to the point where I contemplate leaving him in the store and going home on my own.

Has. To. Comment. On. Every. Single. Thing. I. Get. That is until I threaten to not get the detergent he likes, and suddenly he's a good boy helping me by holding everything

Could care less about what I buy as long as I buy enough for him, Beel and me to share, but like I said before, will comment on everything.

We come straight home and this man just leaves me in the kitchen alone?? He won't help me put away the groceries, he goes straight to his bed.

3/10, there is very little chance I won't try to strangle him on the way back home out of frustration.

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marinerainbow · 7 months

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Hey, I have an OC question! ^^ What are your OC's (Or at least- Poppy, Shiny, Terry, Henry, Ben and Moony's) favourite animals?

Oh I like this question! I'm gonna go ahead and do all of my OC's for this one ^^ starting with the WFRR OC's since there are so many of them XD

Poppy: Well, we know she's fond of insects, though I don't think they are recognized as animals? So I'd say she also likes ducks. Especially the ducklings (I blame that one convo we had. You know which one XD). When she goes to the park, she always brings a bag of duck friendly food for the birds- and she almost always gets a flock surrounding her 😂

Shiny Weasel: Hm... I'm gonna say it's a cross between ferrets and cats. She doesn't own any pets, but she thinks some of the strays in her neighborhood have adopted her for free food, and Shiny has grown a soft spot for them XD she'd love to get a ferret someday ^^

Terry Ratt T: Snakes. Not really an explanation, he just thinks they're cute, funky guys, "They don't have arms and legs. They do everythin' with their body. Move, eat... They're pretty funny like that."

Henry Foxworth: Hm... I'm gonna say he likes chickens. Not even because it's a fox thing, he genuinely likes them. I think he might have wanted to start a farm at some point in his life before he took scamming as a career path.

Moony Wolf: Ok hear me out... It's bunnies. Even before he started dating Poppy, he's liked rabbits. At first, it was just a part of his predator mindset. Rabbits = food = happy. And when he started working on himself, he felt guilt and felt like he had to make it up to the little critters somehow (Poppy specifically, but A. He didn't know where she was at the time, and B. He figured non-sentient rabbits could be like a practice run, or stepping stones toward the right direction). So he tried to volunteer at animal shelters around Toontown, and ironically got along best with the rabbits (and the dogs course). One adoption and a relationship with his former co-star later, and it's cemented in Moony's mind that rabbits are the best animal (he named his pet Bunny Cake btw)

Ben Cottontail: Hm... Hard to say in all honesty... I think he might like fish? Like maybe as a kid, Ben had a pet goldfish or something, so he's more familiar with fish.

Ok, onto my other OC's XD

Betty Locera: Dogs. And canines in general. Betty would be the best dog mom. She's already a more outdoorsy gal anyway! (*cough* @marshmallow-biscuit-blog Betty would fricken love Boyyo. Joe can dump the dog on her if he needs a dog sitter. Or just a break)

Detective Sketch: Pigeons. Pigeons have been a constant presence in Sketch's life. Watching them land on their windowsill in the orphanage. Seeing them flying around the city. Pigeons kind of bring a sense of childhood nostalgia to Sketch ^^

Prism: She can't pick just one. There are so many amazing animals in the night dimension, and even more that she's read about in the waking world. How can she choose!? Though I do imagine she has made friends with an eatier, a nightopian creature I invented, named Mercedes (I should post about Eatiers now that I think about it 🤔)

Well, I think that about covers it. Thank you so much for sending this in! I loved it ^^

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b0rtney · 3 months

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ALL im saying is if u gave me fuck u money i'd write a fanfic where, for some reason i will come up w later, katniss doesn't/can't volunteer for prim during the reaping.

so we get prim and peeta in the hunger games, hamish and effie coaching them as best they can. and prim is, ofc tiny and scared and like. 11 or whatever (i forgor ages), and peeta is like ":) ok new plan: make sure katniss gets her little sister back!" meanwhile hamish is like "do i even know a kind of self defense that works for someone the size of perhaps a small potato or large hamster????" and effie is like "oh dear lord. oh jesus. she's just solidly gonna die huh??? oh god i need a career change???" and prim, after the shock has worn off, is like "oh shit i have a sister (and mom ig) to get back to. i gotta live thru this."

so prim is like solidly understanding she's not winning against careers in combat. she focuses on any other skill she can get-- medicine to patch herself up, camouflage from peeta, shmoozing for sympathy points (with incredible success, bc she knows who she is and what she looks like), and once she meets the other tributes she manages to worm some useful info on a few things out of a few other tributes who r like "oh poor thing won't survive the cornucopia" and, most notably, she becomes besties w rue.

and so peeta plays his angle of "i just wanna get back to the girl i love uwu," but doesn't bring prim into it as katniss's sister v much bc he knows that would put a target on her back, he instead paints himself as this big ol' sap that'll be easy pickings (if you can find him) so it looks like district 12 just spat out some softies this year (everyone back home is preemptively mourning). maybe he drops one line abt "i will do anything to get prim home safe" w kinda a looking-directly-into-the-camera-kubrick-stare moment.

meanwhile prim is like "rue. bestie. it might be great for us to play our friendship to the camera a bunch? for ratings?? ppl send us things for free??" and rue is like "aight sure yea lets do it" so they do it-- and if my lesbian ass has her way maybe they have little tiny baby crushes and like. hold hands or somn. idk ceasar would play it up and soon we've got the whole capitol like 'THE BABIES OH GAWD NO' and so the star-crossed lovers thing still happens, but with prim and rue. the capitol loses it's shit, bc they're on the way younger side, with baby faces, who have been playing up how tiny and defenseless they are to anyone who will listen for clout and donations.

with a push from peeta/haymitch/effie, ceasar's little-babies-who-will-never-even-get-to-be-fully-in-love-bc-there's-no-way-they're-surviving-the-next-24-hours shtick for prim/rue gets spun wildly out of control before the games even start and suddenly the capitol is demanding the games be called off since "so many of them are so young!" at most extreme, or wondering if the minimum age for the hunger games isn't too young at most moderate.

district 13 was not ready for such a prime revolution moment to happen so quick, but they make the best of it in a somewhat disorganized way. They sway public opinion into spinning this story up, up, and away from capitol control, which eventually (through difficult to succinctly summarize PR bullshit) has everyone calling for snow to step down, and he can't very well use the cattleprods on the supposed upper crust, can he? not when every other district is already twitching for an excuse to revolt and has been for a while. so he 'gracefully' steps down (repercussions to be written in fic). district 13 is like damn they r fr handing us this one wtf.

coin(? i forgor names lol) is just barely too slow to neatly slot herself into power, bc now the capitol+districts is like "WE should get a say *insert democracy/anarcho-communism/republicanism/alt-govt.png*" idk maybe panem fractures into smaller govts that stop being affiliated w one country idk. i havent written the fic yet bc i dont have fuck u money.

what i DO know is katniss is honestly too involved in watching the games and subsequent bullshit to notice gale breathing, and peeta comes home w prim who is like 'can we go visit rue in the spring?' and katniss is like '....... u just restructured the govt...... sure yea wtvr' and peeta goes back to pining bc i just dont think he knows how to make a move when not on a death-related timeclock. maybe prim throws him a bone and wingmans him in there.

#i have not read the books disclaimer #but this idea lives rent free in my head #but to do a lot of it (ie the hard to succinctly summarize PR bullshit) justice it would need to be 70k+ and i cannot justify doing that #without a money cushion #anyway sign up for my substack #hunger games #fanfiction

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restinslices · 4 months

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I Don’t Even Know

I had a dream about the cast of the crows and I gotta share it. I copy and pasted what I told someone cause I had to get it out immediately. No one asked but imma tell you anyway.

So in this dream I start off by getting out of school (idk why I keep having dreams in school when I graduated but ok) and I'm on the bus with a few people and one of my friends irl. So I'm saying that I wish I wasn't the last stop and my friend suggests just walking home. like, walking out at someone else's stop and going home since it'd be quicker. I leave the bus and start walking, my friend is GONE and so is all my school shit but ok whatever. I'm walking and I see Calahan and he's with a little girl. Probably around like, 5. Apparently we know each other and we're dating. He leaves some of his stuff outside, picks up the girl and says we should go to this shop that they were outside of. I'm like "you're just gonna leave your stuff?" and he says smth about how he can't carry it and her and she can't carry it so it's fine outside. I'm like "why not leave it with the other people out there? have them watch over it?" and he says he doesn't know them well enough. And I'm like, aight. not my shit. I have both hands free and could've held it but ok. So this place is like,,, a rolled ice cream diy place? it looked like play dough but mfs was actually snacking so whatever. at some point I tell Cal imma go outside and check on the shit he left outside.

I go outside and this random Silco from Arcane built bitch is staring at me and the shit is gone. So I'm like "you took it didn't you" and he says yes and starts pressing me like we got personal beef. at this point the girl walks out so I can't swing on buddy like I want to. And I ask why he took our (idk why I refer to it as "our" when it's not mine) shit and BITCH hold ya seat. This mf says "I'll give you back your things when you tell Calahan to give Ben back his daughter".

I BEG YOUR PARDON? For context Cal has been saying this is his niece and I believed him cause she has blonde hair and blue eyes. So I'm like "this isn't Ben's daughter. She looks nothing like him" but he ain't tryna discuss. Those are the terms, good luck and don't fuck it up.

I go inside and see some random ass NPCs that are my friends and I'm like "bitch, I got good news and bad news" and I whisper "good news, this shop's owner won his lawsuit against his old partner so it's now officially his and he can do whatever. Bad news that girl is Ben Barnes daughter. Benjamin Thomas Barnes bitch. And the mom could be-" as I'm saying this, Cal and the girl walk into the hallway so I stop talking and sign that the mom could be any of 5 women Ben fucking around with. Then I leave with Cal and this MF is mad at ME. He's deadass ignoring me. And crazy thing is we pass the store, the silco built bitch is looking at us but we don't say nothing so his stuff is just gone.

We run into the rest of the cast for the crows and we decide to head to Danielle's place. We're going up the hill and Kit brings to our attention that someone is RUNNING at us and instead of us running or jumping brodie, I get volunteered against my will to go and press him. So when he gets close enough I ask what he's doing and apparently he was timing himself on how fast it'd take for him to get close to us. I obviously tell him to get tf on somewhere but as we keep walking, he keeps doing this and only stops when I threaten him with violence.

When we get to Danielle's place I'm tryna ask Cal for Ben's number without saying why I need it and he's still not answering me. I turn around and tell me why Ben is THERE. I turn back around and the kid is gone. These two ain't saying shit to each other so I'm like "you know what, this ain't my business". I look down and Danielle has pet feeders with only shredded cheese so I'm like "Danielle, you don't have cat food?" (does she even have a cat IRL? I have no idea) and she's like "no. she'll be fine with just that" and I'm like "you're going to kill your cat. a little cheese is fine but ONLY cheese, no food no water is gonna kill them".

And the shit irritated me so bad I woke up.

a couple things I thought about when I woke up. 1) Cal how you gonna be mad at ME but you see Ben and you don't press him? And Ben why you not pressing him? SOMEBODY is in the wrong. Either that's Ben's daughter and Cal took her or Ben got mfs in the streets tryna steal Cal's niece for whatever reason. And to add onto that, Cal you are too big not to smack tf outta that Silco looking dude and get your shit back. Just big for no reason.

2) Back to Ben and Cal, y'all should've swung on each other immediately cause somebody either stole or is tryna steal someone's little girl. And I'm just thinking, if y'all was beefing at a wedding, y'all should've been beefing at that wedding. why would you bring it to somebody else club? and by club I mean my life cause this really ain't have shit to do with me. Also Ben was not there during the walk so why is no one concerned this MF popped up like a loan shark finna collect debt?

3) Why am I, a 5'5 girl volunteered to go and talk to this random ass man, instead of the FOUR MEN that was there? That's so unbelievably foul.

4) I'm fr never gonna find out whether that's Ben's daughter or Cal's niece and it upsets me

#Might start a dream journal #six of crows #crooked kingdom #all men do is lie #calahan skogman #ben barnes #danielle galligan #kit young #jack wolfe #amita suman #kit really volunteered me for some shit #Ben got mfs in the streets cause wtf?#Bro was on me like I stole the girl #I’m actually so mad I’ll never know the end #dream journal #Slices Speaks

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mytremendouslydangerousstudent · 5 months

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Stories I Heard Today 11/18/23

My mom's 80 year old aunt told me a story about her mother (my great grandmother) that I had never heard before. We were in the car on the way to a family dinner. She told me my great grandmother had a sister. When they were about 8 they were walking and sat down on a log to rest but didnt realize it had been on fire and was still smoldering underneath. Her sister was consumed by flames and died.

My friend told me they did online dating once, in 2001. The internet was brand new. The guy was in the military. She had been considering joining. He invited her to a bar. She got there and he was with 5 of his miltary buddies. She tried to fit in and at some point went to the restroom down a long hallway. When she came out she ws cornered by 3 of the military friends, physically trapped. She broke free from them, went straight to her date, grabbed the pitcher of beer before him and chugged it. She slammed it down and said to her date Never contact me again. Then got in her car and drove in the wrong direction of traffic. The story ended with saying shortly thereafter 9/11 happened and she lost all interest in joining the military.

Ive been so lost and trying to pursue all avenues of productivity and life that I can to combat it. I'm using a dating app now and am inundated with mediocrity. The only suitor I have considered is a hot mailman who claimed to love cinema and honesty. He reached out to me but did not ask any questions or acknowledge my attempts to insert myself into my replies. He told me he recently lost his drivers license due to a DUI and was waiting to get his hardship license to go back to work. I asked him if he was on the app to pass time while he was off of work since he didnt seem interested in me. His response was: "Mel Gibson got a dui, that didn’t stop him from creating beautiful art."

I will never stop laughing at this. The thing that's broken in me is something so absurd and stupid totally charmed me cause im fascinated by people and wanted to know how this person could be. I fundamentally want to and enjoy wasting my time.

At the farm, a lady told me about how she wanted to see the plants but she was afraid of lizards so wouldn't step foot in the plot. I reasoned with her, saying I hadn't seen any lizards, and anyways that they don't do anything, they're tiny. She laughed and said no, in church someone had tapped her on shoulder from behind and she thought it was a lizard. She said she jumped up and screamed "Lizard!" until her whole congregation was scrambling around in fear and the person who hd tapped her just watched. I had never heard of anyone being afraid of a lizard and couldn't stop teasing her about it. She was sure of her fear and unphased, seeming to find me foolish for not fearing lizards, but pleasantly so.

Similarly, a volunteer marveled that I never wear gloves while working in the dirt. She asked me if I was afraid of disease and I said no I consider dirt to be medicine. She said dirt has made her sick before. I said ok i don't like gloves or umbrellas. She comes all the time and I can't stand her. Later on she said she and her partner were looking at property to buy outside of town. She flashed a zillow ad at me and i zoomed in on the location. I looked at her and said "This is on my street!" and she said "I know!" with a smile. Definitely never told her where I live.

Thanks for reading.

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dynamoe · 1 year

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on AO3 | Pro | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 |Ch 4| Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 ...Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12

Billy describes his mother's passion for the 40th president of the United States. Pete floats a conspiratorial theory as they return to the hotel to face their enemy. save your eyes and read it on AO3.

Billy was staring into the middle distance, drifting off. He sighed, suddenly remembering this great pair of socks he used to have. Whatever happened to those? Lost, probably.

Pete galumphed back into his seat with a clatter with frosting smeared on his face. As he dropped something in a bag under the table, Billy was jostled back to consciousness.

“You ok, fella?”

“Yeah, just remembering something that happened when I was a kid, I think,” Billy muttered, re-situating himself in waking life, “What the fuck were you doing over there?”

“Signing up for the poetry slam,” Pete pulled a stub of a maple long john wrapped in a napkin out of his pocket and stuffed it into his mouth.”

Billy looked around the room groggily, “Just twelve hours ago we were back in the trailer…”

“You, pal, could use another cup of coffee.”

“I just want a shower and to go to bed. Just to take off this fucking horrible suit,” Billy groused, pulling down the short pants hem for the ten thousandth time that day.

Pete’s attention was wandering, he peered over Billy’s shoulder into the back room. “Wow, look at how they networked all the PCs back there. I wonder what kind of router they used”

“Don’t you wanna hear the rest of my story?”

Pete turned back with a patronizing grin, “Sure I do, pally. Absolutely.”

“Dr. Putnam was at our house every Sunday for dinner. He claimed these were “strategy sessions,” but I think he just wanted a free meal. Mom always tried to impress him with fancy food. She never made me Veal Piccata, but for fuckin' Peebo Putnam, we got Veal Piccata.”

On the apple box-sized stage at the back of the room, an MC got up with a mic in a stand. He muttered an announcement that the poetry slam was about to begin and exhorted wannabe poets to get their names in the bucket. Pete clucked his tongue at such inelegant host-craft.

Billy counted on his fingers, “Dinner. Dessert. Maybe one round of Scrabble and then I was sent to bed, but I could hear them laughing and talking for the next 5 hours. My room didn’t have a door. It was just a linen closet with a bed in it.”

“You had to sleep on a shelf with the towels?”

“No, the linens were somewhere else. It was entirely my room … it was just… it didn’t have a door. So I had to hear them… doing things.”

“Ew.”

“By the end of first grade though, Putnam had a rival for mom’s affections. Ronald. Wilson. Motherfucking. Reagan.”

Pete’s jaw dropped. “Talk about burying the lead! Your ma was BOINKING Ronnie Raygun?”

Billy looked stricken. “No, no, no. Nothing like that. She just really, really liked him as a candidate. She volunteered to get him elected. She canvased!”

Pete slumped, “Oh, that’s not even interesting.”

"It was to her. She met him once, I think, when he was governor of California or head of the Screen Actors' Guild or something and just... fell for it. The whole..." Billy gestured vaguely, "The whole ambience of that campaign was just her wheelhouse. That melodramatic emotional 'morning in America' ... standing up for righteous American values in the face of hippies and communists."

A buzz. Pete looked down at his pager.

“She never met a Satanic Panic she didn’t 100% buy into. It was exhausting," Billy said, "She thought rock n’ roll turned you gay. Trick-or-treating and playing Dungeons & Dragons was a gateway to Satanism. Smoking dope once made you into a serial murderer."

"That only happen, like, half... maybe a third the time," Pete smirked.

"She was a great organizer and volunteer. She was precinct captain for our region then our whole state. She worked her way up to be a big fucking deal, I guess," Billy said as he watched two girls with shaved heads decorate the poetry stage with strings of Christmas lights, "All I cared was it meant she was too busy to force me to do dumb pageants and Boy Genius contests for that whole election season. I was a latchkey kid because of Ronnie."

Pete poked the buttons of the pager and got a half-line of text, "It’s the airport beepin' me. Is there a payphone in here?"

Billy shrugged as Pete took off on a quest to check his messages. The MC was back on the stage making vague announcements about weekly events at Harsh Realm Internet Cafe. The first poets were queuing up along the wall with the community bulletin board— mostly squat, angry-faced white dudes in baseball caps. He sighed and looked at his watch. They really needed to get back to the hotel or he was going to fall asleep right at the table and he didn't favor the chances of dredging up his memories inspiring good dreams.

The MC held up his bucket full of names written on slips of paper, shook it up, and pulled one out. He said a name and one of the squat ballcaps slumped onto the stage. He delivered a rant about something that was irritating him, over-articulating certain words, repeating himself and pausing mid-sentence whenever he wanted to. Billy didn't see how this was poetry— he'd more accurately describe it as a monologue with arbitrarily line breaks performed by a man in the midst of a stroke.

White slid back to the table, "What I miss?"

"I figured it out," Billy said, bored, "Slam Poetry is really just an excuse for people who wish they could rap but have no rhythm to get on a stage and speak in incomplete sentences."

The man finished (or maybe just paused for slightly too long). The audience applauded and snapped as the MC ushered him off. He swirled his bucket again and called out "Chalky Snowdrift? Are you here?"

Pete fished the bag out from under the table, removed an oversized black turtleneck sweater, and approached the stage while slipping it on.

"Oh god," Billy moaned with his head propped in his hands, fearing the worst.

"Ode to An Internet Cafe," Pete announced his title into the mic before stepping back adopting a strange angular posture.

"Angle bracket. Aitch. Tee. Em. El. Close bracket.”

White changed to another angular posture, his elbows bent at right angles.

"Angle bracket. Head. Close bracket. Angle bracket. Title. Close bracket.”

White leaned back and screamed at the ceiling, "THIS IS THE TITLE OF MY PAGE!”

He resumed his strange body position but with his arm position reversed.

"Angle bracket. Backslash. Title. Close bracket. Angle bracket. Backslash. Head. Close bracket."

He leaned in close to the mic:

“Angle bracket… Body... Close bracket... Angle bracket. P. Close bracket.”

He glanced left and right and then whispered, “This is where my content goes.”

He jumped back from the mic and rapidly rattled off, “Angle bracket. Backslash. P. Close bracket. Angle bracket. Backslash. Body. Close bracket. Angle bracket. Backslash. H. T. M. L. Close bracket.”

“We ARE connecting. Dial up. Digital Handshake. Upload.”

Pete leaned back and screamed as loud as he could “Bweeeeeeeeeeeeee-GAAAAAA-Wwwhhhhrrrr Weeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh-waaa-WEEE Bbbbbhhhhhhhhhh KEE bungk-uh-bungk!”

The crowd was baffled, but snapped supportively. Pete walked off the stage directly into the crowd and passed Billy’s table.

“The airport found our luggage and sent it to the hotel. Let’s get out of here,” he said without stopping, heading for the exit. Billy hopped up and followed him out.

Trudging towards their hotel on the horizon, it was so late that the streets were entirely vacated.

“I didn’t talk politics with mom. I didn’t have any. I was a little kid, what the fuck did I know?” Billy continued.

“Yeah, sure,” Pete took a small foil packet out of his pocket and flipped it back and forth, only half listening.

“Whatever she did for the campaign impressed Reagan’s people enough that after inauguration, they offered her a job. Something worth moving us down to Washington, DC with no notice.”

Pete ripped the packet and tossed the tablets inside down his throat.

"What the fuck is that?"

"They were selling it in the coffee shop. I bought a couple," he showed the packet labeled "HERBAL ECSTACY (sic)" in a swoopy typeface over a futuristic glowing green grid, "Plant-based. It's a legal high. It's smart drugs."

"It's ephedrine," Billy said sourly, "It's trucker speed with added marketing."

“It’s a perfectly legal, proven, over-the-counter supplement for asthma and weight loss.”

“It’s working wonders for you, fatty," Billy rolled his eye, "You’re going to have a fucking heart attack.”

MOVING DAY

Rose taped up another moving box and wrote across the cardboard with a Sharpie: “KITCHEN.”

She called out, “Water-baby, the movers are coming at 1 PM so we need all the boxes ready.”

“I’m done already,” Li'l Billy’s voice squeaked back.

His mother ducked her head into the closet she had converted into a bedroom for Billy. He pointed to nine boxes of his book collection, each labeled in his tiny juvenile scrawl with a full itemized list of its contents.

Billy lay on his stripped mattress staring at the ceiling, stacking plastic Playmobil horses on his forehead. He had beaten his personal best of four horses, but didn’t look enthusiastic about his achievement. His Rusty Venture doll’s foot lodged in his mouth, he sucked contemplatively like it was a hookah. The plastic texture of the embossed shoelaces was comforting in his mouth.

In the middle of the floor sat an indifferent pile of trophies, framed award certificates and blue ribbons. “Awww. You forgot to pack your Genius prizes.”

“I don’t care about those,” Billy rolled over on his mattress, sending the vertical herd of plastic horses tumbling, “Throw them out.”

“Are you being a sour pickle about moving?” Rose asked, sitting on the mattress next to him and giving his tiny shoulder a shake.

Li'l Billy made a wheezy noise, neither confirming or denying anything.

He never went anywhere that wasn’t directed by his mother or Prof. Peebo. Whether they were in the suburbs of New York or the suburbs of Washington, D.C., his world wasn’t going to change significantly.

“We need to move for Mama’s new job. The President asked Mama to sort out some naughty bad guys in other countries. Mama can’t say no to the The President, right?”

“Do I still have to do the boy genius stuff,” Li'l Billy asked, ruefully.

“Of course, water-baby!" Mom said cheerfully, choosing not to hear the negative lean her son put on the question.

Li'l Billy huffed, this time with more irritation. A new thought occurred to him— Prof. Peebo lived in Manhattan so maybe moving away would mean they’d see less of him.

"We moved to a real house, like something out of a sitcom. I had a bedroom with a door. We had a real dinner table to sit at. I rode a yellow bus to school. She marked my height on the wall on my birthday," Billy outlined, "She wore a power skirt-suit with puffy white Reeboks when she took the Metro to her office. It was all totally normal."

"So what's not to like?"

"She went overseas maybe every month... every three weeks. Something like that. She'd be gone for a couple days," Billy explained, "I later found out she was flying out of Dulles in DC and back into LaGuardia to spend the weekend with Peebo. Then she took the train down to DC after to see me. Sometimes she'd have weird injuries, too. Broken arm. Scratches. "

“Billy, did your mom do Iran-Contra?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re too close to the story. Missing the forest for the trees, right. From where I'm standin' it's crystal f'ing clear she was a bagman for the CIA... Special Forces... Black Ops....

“Are you fucking high?” Billy shouted in shock, “How many of those herbal ecstasy packets did you eat?”

“Maybe more than bagman,” Pete blue-sky theorized, “A little wet work as Ronnie’s personal representative. Lead some interrogations. Sold some weapons. Cut off some thumbs…”

Billy’s jaw dropped. He shook his head to clear his mind before reasoning with his senior partner, “Ok, ok, ok. I get it. You never met her. My mother is basically me minus a Y chromosome and plus a foot and half. She’s a middle-aged suburbanite. She shops at Talbots. She laughs at Cathy cartoons. She’s like… a mom. ”

“A perfect cover,” White said.

“She had no experience telling Contras how to burn down villages. She taught at the Y not at the School of the Americas.”

“She went overseas for her job, right? And brought you back souvenirs from every trip.”

Billy scrunched his face rolling back his claimed photographic memory as he listed off, “A cigar box from Nicaragua. A little pottery egg with a tiny person inside from El Salvador— they call them sorpresas there. A tiny rug from Iran. Hat from Panama. A stuffed penguin from the Falkland Islands—”

“Cross-reference with CIA activity 1981 to 1988.”

“I’m not the computer of the Enterprise, you chode. You can’t issue commands like that.”

“Tea. Earl Grey. Blow it up your ass,” Pete commanded in an awful imitation of Patrick Stewart.

“She was, like, some kind of government PR person. Maybe she coordinated stuff for the USO, entertaining the troops?”

“Not a lot of troops to entertain in Iran in 1981,” Pete said laconically, “If you think about it.”

“For a scientist you're way too quick buy into a conspiracy theory without any proof to support it. Correlation does not imply causation, fuckface.”

“Conspiracy Theory? When have I ever—”

“You were sure Kurt Cobain was a secret albino.”

“He was. And there’s loads of proof for it. He even admits it in chorus of Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“He sang the word ‘albino’ in the lyrics. That’s not the same as being one.”

“You’re just pissy you’ll never be in a song because nothing rhymes with ‘hydrocephalic.'”

“ Teen Spirit doesn’t rhyme ‘albino’ with anything either. Unless you think “my libido” is a rhyme.”

Pete held his head at an angle, “Slant rhyme.” Billy shook his head in disgust.

“If Cobain wasn't an albino why do you think he titled the first Nirvana album Bleach, huh?”

“It was named after an anti-heroin campaign encouraging junkies to clean their rigs with bleach to stop spreading hepatitis,“ Billy quizboyed automatically.

“Cover story. Distraction,” White dismissed, “Loads of movie stars and rock musicians are secret albinos. They're all passing, but Kurt was sick of the deception. The CIA had Cobain killed because he was going to go public and bring the whole house of cards down.”

“And my mom was Ollie North’s handler. Riiiiiiiiight”

It wasn’t until they were within a block they noticed the commotion at the front door. Flashing ambulance lights and paramedics struggling to pull a stretcher through the automatic hotel doors that kept closing on them.

They spotted their previously-unflappable science conference host Dr. Alonzo Superwash in the midst of the chaos. He and his young assistant consulted animatedly with a cluster of medical technicians.

Billy ran up to offer help (and maybe get some hands-on experience to go to his med school book-learning), “What happened, Dr. Superwash? Is anyone hurt?”

“Oh! Master Quizboy,” Dr. Alonzo greeted him as cordially as he could through the worry, “... and his assistant, as well.” He less enthusiastically noted White’s less-hurried arrival, “Ah, no. Nothing to be overly concerned about. One of our more elderly conference speakers had a slight transient ischemic attack. He’s being taken into hospital overnight for observation.”

As the stretcher was being shoved into the back of the ambulance, another paramedic rushed out of the hotel pushing an empty motorized wheelchair to be loaded in after the patient.

“Putnam!” White put two-and-two together.

“Yes, our Professor Peebo Putnam, “ Dr. Alonzo confirmed, “I have no doubt he’ll make a full recovery but at his advanced age any cardiac incident must be fully investigated.”

White eyed Billy suspiciously and muttered under his breath, “Did you do this?”

Billy watched the ambulance pull away, still gobsmacked.

“Well that’s convenient,” White said callously, “Always nice when a problem takes care of itself.”

“Don’t go on any physically-demanding vengeance quests when pushing 100,” Billy stated the lesson-learned, as he pushed through the revolving door of the hotel lobby.

"Master Quizboy," the front desk worker called out, "Mr. White, Master Quizboy!"

They approached the front desk, White picking up a lobby chair en route and sliding it in place for Billy to stand on.

"Two messages. The airport sent your found luggage and we placed it in your room an hour ago."

"Fantastic," White said.

"Master Quizboy, a message from the, uh, Boy Genius Consortium," the desk concierge tried to deliver with a straight face, "An invitation to a meeting in Room 506."

Billy took the note, from several hours earlier, "Shit. I probably missed it. Should I go anyway?"

White considered, "Show up anyway to give your regrets. I'll deal with the luggage."

Billy nodded.

THE CONCLAVE OF BOY GENII

“Ah, Master Quizboy. We had all but written you off,” remarked the host as he opened the door with heavy-eyed amusement. He was an older boy, maybe 14 or 15 with a British Public School accent and attitude— exquisite politeness forced out by the weight of weary perpetual annoyance.

“I only just got your message,” Billy explained, “We were out all day and got caught up in an… ordeal.”

The host let his glance dip down and take in Billy’s fountain-soaked-then-awkwardly-dried, pho-stained suit and clumpy hair. Billy suddenly realized he should have made some attempt to clean up before coming but it was too late now.

“I see,” he whiffed judgmentally, “No matter. Viswanathan Suryanarayanan Semmangudi Chandrasekhar. Call me ‘Nigel.’” He held out a hand. Billy shook it, “Very chuffed to make your acquaintance,”

“The same, I …. Holy Shit, you’re V.S.S.Chandarasekhar @protonhouse.edu from the Alt.Rec.BoyGenius newsgroup!”

“I am. Do I know you?”

He did. Unfortunately. The two had been locked in two-man flame duels that went on for hundreds of posts. Nigel’s flippant cantankerousness, unsubtle marshaling of sock-puppets and lack of netiquette was a thorn in Billy’s side as the senior mod of the board, but as Billy’s online persona was openly a retired Boy Genius Emeritus of advanced age he couldn’t reveal his online persona there.The whole online community celebrated Billy’s birthday online with ASCII art and Monty Python quotations— his online persona was far from 11.

“I read the newsgroup but I’m just a lurker,” Billy lied, “It’s a little intimidating to jump in.”

“Nonsense. They’re just 1s and 0s, emphasis on the ZEROES. As, a bunch of losers,” Nigel winked roguishly.

An empty pizza box lay on the bed and the dregs of potato chips and a few sad M&Ms left in a bowl; the party had petered out long ago.

“Now we finally have the complete set,” Nigel announced to the room to no reaction.

“I’m really sorry I’m so late,” Billy apologized awkwardly to a continued lack of reaction, “I figured you all would have gone to bed.”

“Just taking advantage of all of our jet lag from different time zones. Let me introduce you around.”

Two boys crouched over a tiny magnetic chess set. A third looked on, holding the time clock.

“Oh no,” Billy thought, “Chess guys.”

“Jun-seok Byun,” Nigel indicated the black-haired boy moving his Queen to Rook 5.

“안녕하세요” Billy said with a slight bow.

Jun-seok didn’t even look up from the chessboard, “혀에 무슨 문제 있어? 당신은 바보 같은 소리.”

“Byun specializes in computer science,” Nigel said in an aside, “And Leonid Valeryevich Kitov of Moscow. Chess and Mathematics.”

«Здрасьте,» Billy said.

An unsmiling boy with sandy hair shot a glance over his shoulder, “Извините, ваше произношение звучит отвратительно.”

Billy frowned. Boy geniuses had a reputation for being direct to the point of rudeness, but two insults about his pronunciation in a row was too much for his ego. He made an effort, didn’t that count for anything?

Nigel finally indicated the clock-keeper, a tiny blond boy wearing a World War II-era full-face gas mask, “Nathaniel—”

The blonde boy stamped his foot, “No, I’m “The Heretic.” You have to call me that. I’m ‘The Heretic.’”

“I won’t be doing that, Nathaniel,” Nigel said coldly, turning to Billy, “Specialty: rhetoric and oratory, Biblical prophecy.”

Billy waved meekly to the boy in the gas mask before asking Nigel, “The guestbook said there were six of us at the conference, isn’t there another boy genius here?”

Nigel looked even more sour, “Yes, unfortunately.”

The door to the second room of the suite opened and a jangling contraption rolled rapidly up to Billy. A six-month-old baby in a partially-roboticized highchair approached, bouncing and huffing excitedly.

“Billy Quizboy, may I introduce young Jayden Lee Brandon.”

Billy looked confused, “But it’s a baby.”

“Just as I am the eldest of our number, Master Jayden is the most junior. I am assured that his IQ is so astronomical it puts all of us to shame.”

The baby squeaked and huffed as drool trickled out of his mouth. He kicked his feet in excitement.

“But it’s a baby,” Billy repeated, “How could they know—”

The baby smacked his wiggly hands on a series of dome shaped buttons on his high-chair tray. They reminded Billy of quiz show buzzers but each emitted a pre-recorded sound of a woman’s voice saying a single word: “Hello. Hello. Friend. Yes. Hello. Jayden. Jayden.”

Nigel explained, “I’m told he has a much more elaborate communication device in his home laboratory but is rather limited by technology on the road. Nonetheless, I believe one should wait to make their Super Science Conference debut until after the probability of shitting oneself is reduced to zero.”

Jayden’s puffy face curled into a furious pout. He smacked a button, “Mad.”

“Don’t get stroppy. It’s a medical fact.”

“Mad. Jayden. No. Friend.”

“Someone’s getting cranky. Is it bedtime for Jayden?”

“Mad.”

“Step out on the balcony with me, Quizboy,” Nigel said wearily, “This room smells too much like INFANTS.”

“No. Friend. Jayden. Mad. No. Friend. Diaper. Mad Mad.” Jayden kept pressing as he started to cry.

Billy followed Nigel through the French doors onto the balcony. Nigel sighed over-dramatically as he pulled a clove cigarette from his blazer pocket.

“You don’t mind?” he asked, the cigarette between his lips and lighting it before he got an answer.

Billy felt relieved and took a battered-looking cigarette from his pocket as well, “Can I bum a light?”

“It’ll stunt your growth, don’t you know,” Nigel mockingly warned.

Billy shrugged, “The hypopituitarism already does that.”

“You seem an alright chap, Quizboy. Someone I could talk to. Those other anoraks seem a bit wet.”

“They’re fine. They’re just kids.”

“So are you.”

Billy shrugged.

“I shouldn’t have come to the conference again. I’m definitely too old for this.”

Billy nodded, “Most of us retire at 14.”

“I just thought maybe I could make some connections. I’m finishing school this year.”

“Eton?”

Nigel looked offended, “Oxford. Reading PPE and Classics. Now I have to decide whether to stay on for Law School or go directly into politics.”

“The tabloids love a political wunderkind. You could be the William Hague of the '90s."

“You follow our politics? How amusing.”

Billy shrugged again, “Caught Prime Minister's Questions on CSPAN-2 a couple times. Honestly, I learn more from the Doctor Who/Blake’s 7/Red Dwarf late-night block on PBS.”

“The bigger conundrum, though, has come in the form of an invitation I received quite out of the blue.”

Billy leaned in.

“I’m not sure if I should even mention it but I’m considering turning evil.”

Billy was confused. ‘Evil? Like…intentionally, actually evil?”

“Not conventionally evil— amoral and greedy and corrupt. I could go into politics for that. I mean, to become villainous. Supra-villainous, even. Daring feats of crime and mass conquest. Chewing the scenery and swooping in from the rafters.”

“I didn’t know that was a career option,” Billy offered tentatively, not sure if this was that ‘dry British humor.’

“Nor did I until I received this note under my door this morning. It seems there are villainous recruiters among us, scouting for persuadable bright young thing,” Nigel said, showing Billy a short handwritten invitation on heavy charcoal gray paper with an embossed seal of a dragon in gold at the top, “Seems their side is also having a brain drain and age gap."

“Why would you even want to consider this?” Billy said, disgusted.

Nigel let a slight smile spread over his face, “Oh I don’t know. Seems like it could be a brilliant laugh.”

“There is a signing bonus for genuine British accents,” Billy remembered.

“So you know about it? The Guild?”

Billy cursed internally for letting his knowledge slip, but it wasn’t worth denying it, “There’s a similar bonus for candidates with deformities.” He fanned his mechanical hand towards his missing eye in demonstration, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“You must have made a big impression,” Nigel considered, “ Scouted for evil despite being so young.”

“I’m an old soul,” Billy scoffed, dropping his cigarette and scuffing it out with his shoe, “Sometimes I feel like I’m a million years old.”

“You’re an odd duck, Quizboy,” Nigel said, intrigued, “You’re hiding something, I can tell. I’m going to keep my eye on you.”

“Just don’t tie me to any railroad tracks when you’re a villain,” Billy said with his hands up, laughing it off as he strode casually back into the room.

The chess game must have ended, the players were gone. The baby was asleep in his chair, probably tuckered himself out with that tantrum.

“Are you going?” a small voice piped up from behind him. Billy startled, turned to see The Heretic behind him, watching scrambled pornography with his face pressed up against the TV screen.

“Yeah, this party’s kinda dead,” Billy said, trying to sound far cooler than he was.

“See you at the youth workshop tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I dunno… maybe… I got a lotta stuff going on…” Billy shrugged as he walked out of the room cool as a cucumber. Out of the door and into the hallway, sure that he was out of sight, Billy bolted into a panicked run down the hall to the elevator. He clicked the button over and over.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Billy repeated to himself like an anxiety mantra, “He knows. Dammit. Lord Fucking Snooty figured it out.”

“I got rumbled,” Billy yelped in a panic, throwing the door to their room open, “Shit. He definitely suspects I’m lying about my age. That fucking kid’s gonna out me. Or blackmail me!”

Pete turned around dramatically, wearing a rose-pink taffeta prom dress with a cascading tiered ruffle skirt.,

Billy’s jaw dropped, “What the fuck are you wearing?”

“Got some bad news, pally,” Pete pointed to the bag, “This ain’t our luggage.”

____

on AO3 | Pro | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 |Ch 4| Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 10| Ch 11| Ch 12

Today is my FIRSTAVERSARY of posting Boy Genius. One Year Old today. I'm filled with pride and shame in equal measure. Thank you to everyone for sticking with it, for reading, for discovering it, for sharing it and for commenting.

I write without a plan. I create set ups and then worry about them when I came to them. I decided White was going to do slam poetry (spread widely in the 90s, PBS even did a multi-part "United States of Poetry" special about it). Originally a person-of-color cultural phenomenon (at places like the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe in NY), it had spread out to boring white suburbanites and it really was, like, rap for people with no rhythm.

White's "poem" is just a simple HTML demo document read aloud ending with the sound of a dial-up model. Aka, the most 1990s thing I could think of.

There was a much longer flashback here which lead to the medical exam flashback posted in the previous chapter. I did it out of order because I have no plan!

The main idea to convey is his mom got recruited to some secret government program and now as a double life that Li'l Billy is not even aware of. Or cares about, because he's a little shitty self-absorbed asshole kid.

Still haven't written any of the confrontation with Prof. Peebo. Maybe I never will. The thread will just get dropped, like the real Venture Bros show always does.

Add Korean and Russian to the list of languages Billy can't pronounce but tries anyway. I tried to find phrases that would be mangled by a lisp, rendering them "zchdraschtche" and "annyeonghascheyo"

Nigel is a pretty badly written character. He needs another draft. I've written him more like a guy pretending to be British than an actual Public School posh git. have a life-long stupid love for British comedy AND British politics, which I have awkwardly injected here.

William Hague got famous for addressing the Tory party conference when he was 16. Baby face, old man voice. By 1997 he was bald and leading the Tory party opposition against Tony Blair.

Mentioning supervillainy and "The Guild" is my only engagement with the larger Venture Bros universe. A little forced.

Baby speaking with a soundboard entirely inspired by BilliSpeaks on youtube. (The name "Jayden" didn't exist before 1992 and it was in the top ten baby names by 1998)

End on Pete wearing a dress. Why not? Something for the fangirls

But what else is in that bag? And why?

Save your eyes and read this on AO3.

on AO3 | Pro | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 |Ch 4| Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 ...Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12

Only a bit more story to go before the big finish. I hope. Maybe only a chapter or two more?

#ao3 fanfic #ao3fic #AO3 #boy genius #fiction #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #story #vbros #venturebros #venture brothers #master billy quizboy #pete white

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noro-noro-noro · 9 months

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2 dreams. 1: trying to give my family a "tour" of my "dorm 2: event going on on campus & we try to buy dessert after

had a dream about trying to give my dad and sister a tour of my "dorm" and they picked up somebody from irl that I know but we're not close and they were followung me around kind f uncomfortable. we left my"mom's house" distorted as usual for dreams bc I was taking a nap and my mom's sister showed up and was like talijg to m sister like "your sister sleeps too much smh" & I snuck out when she wasnt looking, but only in the clothes I was sleeping in which did not include pants, and then my dad almost locked me out of the house without pants on and I was pretty ticked off.then we eere on some iind of campus that was closer to a hotel thwn a college dorm. the stairs were a bit mazelike. there was some goinf up to an imaginary 4th floor and then back down immediately since the stairwell was taller. some dude followed me up to try to do the titanic thing with me on the landing & I waslike ok . what.

then some kind of event going on on my university campus, which looked closer to the Y I used to volunteer at. I ran into a bunch of people - some were my friends from irl, some were people I hadn't seen in years from the Taiwan teaching trip, my highschool Chinese class, girl i stopped being friends with in the beginning of 2021, & my old roommate's ex bf. I don't remember what the event was actually about, but this older Chinese lady kept approaching me every time I walked past something to invite me to go there. I think it was library related since there were bookshelves and some author meetings? idk the whole thing took place in an imaginary version of the student center. we got really tired but wanted to stay up or at least get up at 6am when some of the on campus restaurants had a buy one get one free discount, so we kinda snoozed a bit on the couches. felt awkward about hanging out with that girl again specifically - usual when she shows up in dreams we're cool again without any preamble but this time it was kinda awkward.

anyway we got woken up by library staff cleaning up, & I suggested 3 places we could go for like dessert treats! one was one of the on campus coffee shops, one was a dessert shop in H library that only exists in my dreams every time, and one was not actually on campus but down the street outside that has all the restaurants on it. we went to the coffee shop bc it was convenient. nothing they had really appwales to me for $9 snd I was being too indecisive and holsingho the line, but just eventually ordered some tiramisu for $6 discounted. when I ate it it healed hp AND sp. thanks!

#dreams

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andtheliike · 4 months

Text

The Like for Teen People (September 16, 2005)

The Like: It's like Feminine Rock

Get to know three ladies who rock and get some advice on boys, parents and feeling the blues

By Aaron Parsley

Sep 16, 2005 12:00AM EDT

Based on their antique-y, feminine style, you may not guess that Charlotte, Z, and Tennessee are in a band, but it all makes sense when you hear the sophisticated and timeless rock n roll on their debut album Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking.

"I only shop on eBay." says Z Berg, the lead vocalist and guitar player. So that's where they get their "lacey, Victorian," "so Sienna Boho," and "Moddv. MoPunk" attire.

Charlotte Froom, who shops everywhere, plays bass. She and Tennessee Thomas, who pounds the drums in the video for their first single "What I Say And What I Mean" wearing a maroon corduroy jumper over a lace top, met when they were five years old. Tennessee lived in Great Britain and Charlotte lived in NoCal, but they kept in touch until they both ended up in Los Angeles. That's where they met Z, "through a complex web of mutual friends" after sending out word that they were searching for a voice and guitar player for their chick-rock band.

But before they recorded and went on tour with their good friends Maroon 5 and later with Tori Amos, the girls had a spot of trouble coming up with a clever name for their band. We'll let them explain how they ended up with The Like:

[sadly the video is no longer available]

And did they mention they carry their own amps? Having The Like in our offices was the perfect chance to get some answers for TEEN PEOPLE readers. We decided to pull a few questions from the TEEN PEOPLE boards to find out what The Like have to say about life.

TP BOARDS: My friend has drinking problem and every time she leaves home alone she drinks. I'm scared for her cuz I really don't want her to hurt herself. Any advice on making her understand how bad this is?

Z: That's a hard question. I think the most important thing is to talk to her personally and make sure she understands.

Charlotte: Don’t go to her parents first because you should only do that when you've talked to her a bunch of times.

Tennessee: Or you'll only loose your friend.

TP BOARDS: Does anyone else think that 50 Cent sucks? He's stupid and his rap talks about naaaasty things... and he once said he wants to be a good 'role model'... yeah right!

Charlotte: He's a rap artist. Are they really supposed to be role models for children? I don't feel like that's really his job.

Tennessee: The thing is... he's beating the odds. And if he's beating the odds then he's doing something right.

TP BOARDS: I'm really into my boyfriend, and he wants to have sex but I'm still a virgin and he's not! What should I do?

Z: If you really like this guy, just be as honest as possible and just say, "I like you, but I've never done this before and if you care about me, you'll be OK to wait."

Charlotte: If he won't wait, then you probably shouldn't loose your virginity to him.

TP BOARDS: I've recently been having trouble with everything. I take things too personal and I just don't know how to 'brush my shoulder off.' I've have become very depressed and haven't had much peace at mind. HELP ME PLEASE!

Tennessee: My advice is to get really into something and it will open up a whole world. Like with us, I didn't have that many friends in high school and then we figured out what we like doing and somehow this happened and now we have a band.

Z: If it's getting to the point where you're really just feeling down about everything, try to find someone to talk to. Talk to you parents if you can or a guidance counselor at school, which really isn't that bad, or if you have a friend who you know will understand.

Charlotte: There are teen lines too. I know a bunch of people who do it. They volunteer. You call up if you're upset and they give you advice. And it's free.

TP BOARDS: When my mom was little she never went over guys houses! I don't know why but she didn't. Now she wont let me go to guys houses even if me and the guy are just friends! Any suggestions on how to get her to trust me?

Z: Parents have a hard time with their little babies growing up and that's how all parents are. The concept of you going to boys houses means boys, which means sex, which means No, baby girl grows up!

Charlotte: Can't you have him come over and have him meet your mom?

Tennessee: Well, her parents are probably really embarrassing if they're saying this. They'll come out and be like, "What are you doing here. No boys allowed!"

Charlotte: Okay, just lie!

#the like #z berg #tennessee thomas #charlotte froom #interview #press

0 notes

miramise · 10 months

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Family vent, feel free to ignore.

Dunno if I want to scream, cry, maim, or murder. I do know i wish to ever loving fuck this person was gone.

To recap, my brother lost his gahdamn mind got evicted end of last year and I was fucking volunteered to house him because I had an empty half room. I didn't want it. He didn't want it. But my sisters pushed for it and it's been hell since January.

Today though? Today is one of those 'someone take me out' days, and I don't mean a date. For the second fucking time he broke a mug that had sentimental value (was mom's and one of the few things I'd liked to keep of her). And does he say sorry? fuck no. All I get first thing this morning when I walk out. "Watch out for the glass." "What glass?" "There's still some on the floor." Cue a 5 minute wtf are you talking about before I understand he broke a mug, and had the audacity to already have gotten another mug that I would be hard press to replace. And had taken the hook said mug was hanging from straight out because he didn't know it was a latch hook. I took it back and told him use the foam cups until he can go to dollar tree and buy 4 mugs and break them to his heart's content.

Ok. He's legally blind (though he can see video games and porn just fine) and I get it. He can't see everything and that can make getting around a pain in a place that was meant for one person with better sight. But he leans quite heavily into that as an excuse for why he's clumsy. And considering his grandfather and cousin had the same visual issues and were never as bad, I have a hard time swallowing it. "I can't see it." "Then don't put it on the edge of the counter." To which I get how there's no counterspace because he is a fucking helpless baby who can't so much as move something out the way to make space. But he sure didn't mind moving my dustpan so I had to go on a hunt for it.

He has to be on the spectrum. Has to. His inability to communicate, need to report the dumbest shit to me when I'm working, complete lack of empathy, cognitive dissonance, and a slew of other shit I won't list all point to that direction. But also he's a lazy fuck who would do nothing more than smoke weed, look at porn, and play video games all day if he could. He needs either a in-home worker or assisted living--aaaaaannnddd he just called me as I'm typing this insisting I print some forms out for him for an appointment that's not for another 2 weeks.

Before my words are taken out of context, when I refer to lack of empathy I mean the difficulties with cognitive empathy, or recognizing another person's emotional state. Though his affective empathy is lacking as well, but I attribute that to him being a jerk.

I'm so tired. I'm so done. I want off this ride. Permanently.

#family issues #family drama #tired

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mintychristianwitch · 1 year

Text

Blog Post no.1

It’s been a rough week and I need to get some things off my chest so I am going to brain dump here if that’s ok with you. My therapist thinks I should start a blog because my favorite thing to do is wax philosophical about the problems of fundamentalist Christianity. I think, as usual, he is right. I want to document this, I want to let others like me know that they are not alone. I want to examine my walk with faith after being abused by a church that didn’t really care about me and struggling to connect with God the way they told me I had to. I want to talk about why the Rapture is fake but I still get panic attacks about it, or why having a personal relationship with God looks different for everyone. I want you to know, dear reader, that having mental illness isn't a sin and that God does not hate members of the LGBTQIA+ community. I want to talk about the boy who manipulated my love for him at church and the purity culture that was forced upon me. I want to talk about being born a feminist and having to reconcile that with a misogynist church every day. And don’t worry, I’ll also get into homeschooling as well (no shade Mom, I’m talking about the homeschoolers we had to interact with, not you).

I started going to church at a very young age. My mom was raised Methodist and she had always had a deep connection to her faith, and had also always been a raging liberal feminist. The church she picked for us was nondenominational because they were two congregations, Methodist and Baptist, who had merged due to dwindling congregations. We started the same weekend as the new pastor, a man who was very charismatic and eventually became friends with my family.

My father had left his faith when he was young because his parents were religiously abusive Catholics (no shade to Catholics it was more because they had a lot of issues) and eventually this church was the place where he fell in love with God. When the congregation grew so big that the church needed a new building my dad did a lot of construction work for free during a time when my family barely had any money. He and I went on missions trips together every year, he volunteered at the church all the time, and he even started a ministry where he and others from the church would go do home renovations for free for struggling community members.

My parents chose this church because they believed in the importance of being involved with their local community. Even though it is a rural, conservative farming community my liberal-ass parents decided to do their darndest to make a home for us at this church. They were in bible studies with the pastor as his personal friends, they volunteered regularly, and they were the ones everyone called when someone flaked because my parents would 100% show up no matter what. They were some of the most reliable and good people in their church for 20 years.

It started when my parents were in a bible study with the pastor, or maybe before then, but I don’t remember. My mom has never been a “yes-man” and neither has my dad. The pastor had started behaving weirdly and my parents were not backing his bullshit so he dumped them and convinced their other friends to ghost them. They reconciled with their other friends later after a lot of stuff came out but we’ll get to that. After being ghosted by their friend and pastor my parents still had the good grace to be dope ass people and go to church every week, volunteer for everything, and even played nice and were kind to the man who had just yeeted them from his inner circle. I wasn’t so charitable and that was when, after years of struggle and exhaustion, I decided to leave the church. My parents were fine with it because they knew I still loved God, it was just the people and my inexperience and youth that gave me a harder time or whatever. I think it's just because I am a fighter and I was tired of biting my tongue. The church had been slowly getting more and more conservative (in a bad way) and unlike a frog I decided to jump out of that boiling pot early for the sake of my mental health. I lost a lot of friends but I was reborn as a new, confident, free young woman (still had anxiety, still do, but it was better).

A few years after this, right before the Covid-19 pandemic, my parent’s friend who worked as the church secretary was forced to leave her job because the pastor was mistreating her. His attitudes toward women were bad to begin with but this woman in particular was a fighter with a strong stance against lying and that didn’t suit the pastor who regularly lied and micromanaged the whole church in order to get his way. She left. The pastor then lied about why she left and another friend of ours who worked at the church called him on it. This man was then gaslighted, manipulated, and slandered by both the pastor and the church’s governing board until he too was forced to leave.

It wasn’t until a year or two later that the pastor was forcefully yet quietly ejected from the church under the guise of “retirement”. He then immediately went and became the pastor at another large church in the area which upset both congregations. During all this time most people did not and still do not know the full story about this man and his lies, and the culture of lies that he created in the church that refuses to be snuffed out.

This man used to come over for coffee at my house and make jokes with me. He came to visit me in the hospital when I needed surgery and comforted me when my grandfather died. He always remembered my birthdays and he was my dad’s closest friend. He was also a liar, a narcissist, and a master manipulator. He had other issues too like alcoholism and OCD that contributed to his behavior and even though those aren’t in his control they are also not reasons to be a terrible person. My feelings about this man are conflicted even to this day and I refuse any kind of contact with them even though my parents still talk to him a bit.

This winter was the worst of it. My father had decided during the pandemic that he wanted to join the Freemasons because he loves old men, he loves community service, and he needed more friends that weren’t going to betray him at the whim of a church official. He is also on the board of the church. Ever since the pastor left they hired a church consultant and claimed that they were going to create a culture of honesty and accountability between the leadership and the congregation. During all of this the church has been quietly cracking down on “Satanic” things like yoga and women being allowed to teach Sunday school. As much as I love my father he doesn’t always see sexism until it's hitting him in the face but my mother saw the writing on the wall. In 2022 my mother told me that if the church didn’t actually shape up like they promised by Christmas that she was out. Even though I didn’t believe her, I agreed to support her. We didn’t even have to wait until Christmas for her to prove me wrong.

There was a woman on the board at this church who was a raging bitch and my father’s personal nemesis. My favorite way to toy with her was to get her name wrong on purpose because I am petty like that. She belonged to a group (I am being generous, it's a cult)that infiltrates and takes over other churches to convert them to their specific brand of ultra-fundamentalist crazy. During a board meeting she was crying about how she was sad because her father was in a Satanic cult and he wasn’t going to heaven. My dad, knowing she wanted someone to, asked what cult he was in.

“He’s a Freemason!”

My dad, not missing a beat, said “oh really? I’m a Freemason!” That was a mistake. She got really upset and went and complained to her women’s group later that week that the Freemason cult was taking over the church and she couldn’t stay somewhere that allowed Freemasons to run things. When the board initially hedged and didn’t oust my dad at her command she left and we thought the worst was over.

Oh boy.

Not too long after there started to be a lot of “discussions” in the leadership board about Freemasons and whether or not they were evil Satan-worshippers who made people renounce God when they got to a high enough rank. My dad told them that it wasn’t true (it's for a fact not true there are several Freemasons in that congregation, one of whom is a great man and was board president at one point) and that they just didn’t mandate Christianity in their bylaws. The leadership and the consultant then proceeded to harass my dad with books written by “former Freemasons turned Christians” about how evil the group is and how he needs to leave and rededicate himself to the church. My father, a 20 year member of this church, who volunteers everywhere, is on the board, is the only man who helps with children’s church or any childcare, is on the missionary committee, and who built the fucking building for free, was told that Freemasonry was clouding his judgement and weakening his commitment to this church. He was told this by an elder who’s father is also a Christian Freemason and who was, I thought, a friend of our family for years. This elder then helped draft a proposal banning Freemasons from volunteering or being in any kind of leadership position at this church. They can still attend, for now. They also started to distribute propaganda in the congregation, slandering Freemasons. My father prayed for days and after contemplating long and hard felt that God was not telling him to leave the Freemasons. The leaders and this elder then told him THAT HE MAY NOT HEAR GOD’S VOICE ON THIS MATTER BECAUSE GOD WAS SPEAKING THROUGH THEM ABOUT WHAT HE SHOULD DO. A lot of other stuff happened, betrayals, ghosting, manipulation, gaslighting, you name it. I am going to be kind to myself and refrain from writing it all down.

During all of this my parents decided that it was time to leave. This was in early December. The leadership lied to members of the congregation that noticed my parent's absence and said they had Covid (they had Covid earlier but were far over it by then). They then continued to harass my parents to try and get them to come back and still are. During all of this my father had my mother draft a letter for them to send out explaining the whole situation because they knew that the leadership was going to try and bury the truth. They sent the letter to everyone in leadership (there were a few people who were unaware of the situation and my parents wanted them to know everything) and the elder/former friend lied, in front of my father and everyone else, about how they had treated him.

“My favorite elder”, you know who you are, if you ever read this, fuck you and your hypocrisy. I respected you so much the whole time I knew you because you seemed to actually appreciate me for myself, which was rare at that church. I hope that every time you look at the bible that I fixed for you you will feel at least an ounce of shame at the way you have treated my family, especially my mother.

So many more hurtful events led to my exit from this church and I’ll document them all soon enough but for now I need to get back to work, my lunch break has been over for 20 minutes, but I want to let you know that I am ok, or I will be. I am in my mid twenties now. I am happily dating an evil atheist, we live together out of wedlock, and we do yoga or, as I like to call it “Satanic Stretching” every Tuesday. I work as a librarian, I vote Democrat, I make cursed handicrafts, I repair books, I play D&D although that may change if WoTC doesn’t shape up, and I am currently learning how to knit. I am also a Christian witch. Yes, I said it. And to think my dad got all the credit for being the Satanic one! How rude.

I won't introduce myself to protect my family, myself, and the ones at my former church that I still love. For the time being you can call me Minty. Thank you for reading my brain dump, and, as always, please remember to be kind to others. You never know how much dirt they have on your church that could destroy it ten times over :)

#ex fundie #ex fundamentalist #christianity #witchcraft #witch #please be nice #christian witch

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tea-and-nuance · 1 year

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I was a single mom for several years after leaving an abusive relationship. I'm disabled due to chronic health conditions and mental illness. I was homeless for a short period of time. All of which led me to tap into local resources. I try to do volunteer work when I can, I mostly volunteer for a crisis line. I'm involved in 12 Step recovery programs. Naturally friends come to me for suggestions when they or someone they know is struggling.

This is where it gets weird.

One of the first places I often recommend is Catholic Charities. While understandably this is where people get turned off, they hate the idea of a religious organization - fuck Catholicism and religious people, ok I get that. But like, as far as local social programs that can help go, my experience with them has been amazing.

They provided clothing and diapers for the first year and half of my babies life. I also would have been able to access formula and babyfood if I'd needed it. They helped pay for some of my doctors visits while I pregnant and waiting for insurance (through medicaid and later through medicare once my disability case went through). They helped connected me to a pro bono lawyer for disability as well. When I was there they also had immigration programs and lawyers.

They paid for my rent, gas, and electric bills during months when I fell short. When I was looking for a place to live they connected me a realtor who could give me some information. I also valued the fact they many of their volunteers sat with me with a compassionate ear while I sobbed. I'm not Catholic, they helped me anyway.

Kiddo goes to a Catholic school and every month they're doing some sort of donation drive usually connected to a local organization. I don't bring it up to most of my friends because I know the moment I mention that yes it's a Catholic run event they aren't interested.

That's not the only example I have. When the local Ukrainian Catholic Church was asking for donations to support Ukraine - friends opted to ignore it simply because it was a religious organization. Even though all they could talk about was finding ways to support Ukraine.

Seeking ways to help the homeless community? Or having a friend dealing with homelessness? I often recommend the Christian Church downtown. They work closely with a local organization that sets up showers around the city and provides bags with toiletries and other items for hygiene. They're always asking for menstrual products, soaps, toothbrushes, toothpaste etc.

"Didn't that church get in trouble for trying to remain open during Covid?" I mean, kind of? They stop doing Sunday services when it was required but they continued efforts to provide food for the homeless. They have a food truck that goes around the city and offers free lunches. They didn't get in trouble, but they were criticized for continuing to feed the homeless while a lot of food banks were shut down.

"Yeah but Christians! Gross." I get it, but like this one church in our area is doing a lot of good for our community...

Every year they run a food drive for Thanksgiving. They'll deliver entire meals to several hundred families in the area who are struggling and request it. They work with local restaurants and grocery stores and can use support. Or if you're worried about making ends meet you can apply. "I don't want to take anything from religious people." "Ok..."

Struggling with drug addiction, alcoholism, of have a friend that does? I can recommend some great 12 Step recovery meetings. "Omg no, they're a cult and meet in churches..." "You've known me for 5 years, I don't think you know what these programs actually do or what I do." Before covid I had a group of recovery friends bringing meetings to local shelters and the prisons. Maybe you don't like the god aspect, but not every member is religious. Talking to people about how you found help and recovery does a lot of good.

"I don't want to donate to Goodwill because they're for profit backed by religious organizations, and don't actually help people." You can check on the local Goodwill's website to see most of the money they make is donated to community service programs. Like the Walmart program that helps single mothers find jobs. Senior and Disabled Employment programs. Mentoring programs for at risk youth. Programs that help inmates who were released from prison find jobs and get required community service hours.

Like I get questioning ideals and practices but they actually do a lot of good.

I usually recommend a thrift store that donates most of their money to the AIDs foundation and provides free testing. Which by the way the local Unity church makes donations too.

One of the Unity churches also works closely with some of the animal shelters if you're looking to adopt. They've also been making efforts to support local artists and some of the local performing arts theaters. "Oh, yeah but they pray to God... Ew."

When talking about the local women's shelter I'm usually asked what they provided for the trans community and transwomen. I honestly don't know, I just know from personal experience and the experience of women I know from 12 Step Programs how they helped. "But inclusion is so important!" "Yes... but you asked for help as a woman looking to leave domestic abuse..." While the women's shelter isn't a religious organization most of the churches in the area donate to them.

Another local church, I think it's christian, has a program where they build beds for children. A Unity church I used to attend did a teddy bear drive for police and fire stations, money would go to low income families and service workers would give teddy bears to the kids they help. "But it's a church and ugh ACAB!"

The Buddhist community center has free weekly potlucks for anyone that shows up. The Unity church does a wellness event with local businesses and organizations, you can see a doctor, get a massage, a tarot reading, and buy from local artists all in the same date. (Weird flex but it's a great community event.) Our local Quaker church donates to the LGBT community center, and does some political activism (usually left leaning).

I once volunteered for a prayer line looking for people with crisis line experience. They were then able to connect with a crisis line for better training for their volunteers.

Mind you I live in a very progressive city. The places I mentioned are not "fire and brimstone jesus down your throat, middle of no where ignorant our way is the only way," types.

My whole point with this - and my point with a lot of things - is sometimes thinking is soooo black and white people miss the good things that are actually going on. I get being hurt by organized religion and religious people. But I listen to people painting with such a broad brush of just... hate they end up denying themselves and others of, well amazing social programs. So often they talk about the need for the government to provide better social programs, yet they won't support the programs actually going on and being funded by members of the community - because they might have a different belief than them?

And it's always awkward to sit with a group of friends talking about how stupid and evil "believers" are. We can all agree extremist=bad. While I've always leaned more spiritual than religious it's always like, damn, they really don't know me. They really don't know how much 'religious' people in our community helped me. None of which have pushed extremist ideas. It's like they don't talk to individuals outside of their echo chamber. I love jumping around the different churches and seeing what they're doing and connecting with all kind of different people who are trying to do good.

I didn't mean for this to turn into such a long rant. But I've literally not been able to say any of it without weird angry responses. Literally having a conversation with someone on the verge of homelessness, struggling with addiction, and not sure how to provide for their kids. Every suggestion was shut down because, "ew gross, religious people who might not agree with my politics." They even refused a very kind offer for temporary housing because the landlord friend leans politically moderate, I don't get why that was even a conversation. I offered to meet them at a food bank, but because it was at a church they didn't want it. Ok, whatever. I understand, but I don't get it.

#political discourse #religon #religious #social justice #social support #homelessness #activism #social programs #community support #community service #volunteer work

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mapleshmaple · 5 years

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#i. ccant work the day they want me to and im really worried theyre just gonna boot me off #for the volunteer thing i mean. i sent them n email explaingin life shit thats going on and hhopefully??? things'll work out?#maybe???? hgjkgmsgs fuckign. i dunno nothings going right tonight and im burnt the hell out #like i wanted to play later alligator and that. didnt fukcin happen cuz i dont have windows 10 and then when i tried it on c's compooter #that HAS the windows 10 it STILL didnt work and im. really bummed cuz i wanted to play it real bad #and these fuckign old jersey shore grannies showed up at work and when i asked if they needed help #they were like 'no just this thanks' and handed me their Two Whole Things like im some kinda fucking maid #or gonna follow them around the store like some kinda. fucking. customer shopper??? or whatever the fuck the term is???#and when i asked if they were getting something else- while i was wrapping something for them #which we do for free mind you- so i could ring her up sHE LOOKS UP AND IS LIKE 'you can be patient' AND LIKE #OK. ALRIGHT. ILL GO FUCK MYSELF THEN. LET ME NOT FINISH WRAPPING THIS SHIT FOR YOU THEN OK #ALL CONDESCENDING AND SNAPPY NSHIT LIKE. FUCKING. ALRIGHT. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?#and like!!!! right before i was supposed to leave for work i passed out for like five minutes andn then had to hustle my ass into #some clothes and then when i was opening the door to put em back in our room greyosn fukcing BOOKS IT out #and then ginger notices him and proceeds to CHASE HIS TINY ASS AROUND THTE COUCH AND HE HIDES UNDER IT AND SHES JSUT. CIRCLING IT ALL PUFFED #UP AND HHGhgjkms im. so glad c was there cuz wwe had to put her in moms room and close the door so greyson woudlnt get hurt #and he wasnt to begin with thankfully but jsut!!!!! hgjkmhfdmg i dunno im. burnt the hell out

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brostateexam · 2 years

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Could you tell us more about your bfs?

Ok first of all, I love that one of you made an alt to ask me this question cause I have anon turned off. Or alternatively, that an anon was like "I'm invested enough to make a blog for this one." Either way, I find the attention very flattering, so thank you!

Shane and I have been together for three years and three months now, and have lived together for three years. We met through tumblr, which is embarrassing but true. Sometimes you're gay and your mutual is bi and lives nearby and you become buddies, then friends, then confidantes, then boyfriends. Because we were so close, I felt okay with having him move in soon after dating -- it felt like the right thing, even though at the time I was terrified it would be a mistake.

Since Shane is on tumblr, he will read this eventually, but it's basically Valentine's Day, so I'm fine with publicly declaring that I love this man, and expounding on some of the things I love about him. Shane is one of the kindest people I have ever met. He does not talk quickly, but what he has to say is unfailingly supportive of his friends and loved ones. He is automatically in your corner, ride or die, no matter what the decision is. He inspires me, every day, to be more patient, more understanding, more gentle, and more kind.

In addition to being sweet, he is hard-working, and goes about goals that many would find impossible with impressive tenacity. When he moved to San Francisco, he knew he had to land a job and I told him I needed him to make friends outside of my friend group, because I think it's important to have one's own friends. Within a month, he was working two part-time jobs and had connected with a non-profit volunteering to raise money to help homeless HIV+ folks to afford treatment, care, and housing. Through this non-profit, he made tons of friends, and regularly goes to brunch or on picnics or trips to Palm Springs with them.

At this point, he's back in school to finish up his bachelor's degree, which is he doing while working part-time, going to the gym five times per week, being a great boyfriend, a caring son, and a wonderful friend. I am impressed by him every day, and humbled that he has chosen to share his life with me.

Tristan and I met, also online, in November. On discord, actually, and even before I knew his real name, I found him fascinating. Something in me said "you need to get to know this guy. He's going to be important to you." So we ended up talking every day since, sometimes just for a little bit, sometimes for hours.

I am impressed by Tristan's intelligence and level-headedness. It's hard to explain, as well, but we just have a lot of stuff in common. Similar sense of humor, similar interests, similar opinions in video games, even. That never happens to me. As a for instance, today I asked him if he'd be interested in helping me restore furniture, because that's been something I've always wanted to do, and he's very good at repairing stuff. It turns out that his mom ran a stay-at-home business doing that and he helped her with it, so he knows all about it, and loves doing it. Something like this happens between me and him almost every day.

He's funny, an endearing combination of confident and sweet, and kind of woke me up mentally. Seeing him work so hard to get after what I wanted made me realize that I'd allowed the pandemic to stall me out from going after what I want. So beyond just pursuing him, I've been pursuing my interests and dreams again, and I'm a lot happier for it. It helps that he's been nothing but encouraging of these endeavors, as well.

Also, I find them both just like unbelievably attractive. So yeah! I hope that answers your question, Mx Sideblog. Feel free to leave follow-ups if you wish :)

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letarasstuff · 3 years

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Where do you go?

(A/N): This is requested by an anon and based on this post.

Summary: How does Hotch’s daughter, who everyone goes to with their own problems, cope with her mother’s death two years later?

Warnings: Angst. Grief. Dealing with a loved one’s death

Wordcount: 2.2k

✨Masterlist✨ _____________________________

“Hey (Y/N), I really need your help with Tim. Do you have a minute for me?” (Y/N) turns around to see a boy from her science class. It’s not like she knows him that much, they occasionally team up for small projects, there is nothing more behind that.

“Uh of course. I just had my last class, so I got time for you.” She smiles and lets him, Vincent is his name she thinks, rant to her about how his boyfriend doesn’t understand his needs.

This is nothing out of the ordinary for her, to be asked for advice. She simply is a good listener and gives good tips, the best even according to people close to the teenager. The problem is her limited knowledge on relationships. “Coaches don’t play”, Hotch tells her. And he intends on keeping it that way.

“That does really suck. Did you try to talk to him about it?” (Y/N) asks the boy in front of her. Suddenly he bursts into tears, describing how he only sees breaking up as a solution. She awkwardly pats his back and says encouraging words to him. That he will make the right decision, that he shouldn’t rush it and that he has to take his time.

After Vincent, or is it Gordon, calms down he looks up at the girl. “Thank you for listening. You were a great help, (Y/N).” He hugs her and leaves.

As she looks over the parking lot she spots her father’s car. Excitedly (Y/N) walks over and gets onto the passenger seat. “Hey, I didn’t know you pick me up today”, she greets him.

“We finished the case early and I was on the way home and thought giving you a lift wouldn’t hurt. Who was that boy? Is there something I should know?” Hotch looks at her from the side. But his daughter shakes her head. “Don’t worry, he is gay. He just needed a shoulder to cry on about his ruined relationship.”

“You do know you are not the school’s therapist, don’t you? At this point your classmates should pay you.” He tries to joke about it, but as a father he is worried. Since Haley died, (Y/N) took it upon her to make sure everybody is happy, no matter at what costs.

“I know, Dad. I’m fine and Alex feels better.”

A few days later (Y/N) sits in JJ’s living room, watching the mother go from one place to the next. “Food is in the fridge, so help yourself. Henry’s bedtime is in half an hour, please make sure he goes to sleep by then. He should be easy to put down, Will made sure to tire him out earlier. All important numbers are on the fridge. Feel free to watch anything on the TV.”

The teenager volunteered to babysit Henry, giving his parents a child free evening. “Thank you, JJ. We will rock this, don’t we?” She looks down to the boy on her lap, who nods his head.

“Good. Behave for (Y/N), ok?” The mother gives her son a kiss on the head. After Will’s goodbye the couple is gone.

“Ok, how about we get real comfy on your bed and I read you a story?” Henry nods again. He takes (Y/N) by her hand to his room. As suggested they lay down on his bed.

“Which one do you want me to read to you?” But the boy looks unsure all of a sudden. “Can we just talk?” Surprised the teenager nods. “Whatever you like, champ.”

“Uh okay, do you know Mommy is a bit… much? She is like there and the next second she is here and then she isn’t here for days. I- this is sooo annoying”, Henry rants to her. He is only three, so it is kept rather simple.

“Oh man, she must be a handful, champ. But you have to keep in mind that she really loves you and in the end this is the only thing that matters. Do you love her, too?” It hurts her to talk about a mother’s love, since her own passed away over two years ago. (Y/N) still misses her. She is sure it will never go away.

“Of course I love her.” Sleepily Henry cuddles closer to (Y/N), holding his plush toy near him. After that, he falls asleep safe and sound. The teenager waits for a bit, watching him scrunching up his nose every few minutes.

The next day at the BAU a knock is heard on the Unit Chief’s door. “Come in!”

“Hey Dad, I thought a little visit wont hurt”, the daughter enters the room. Automatically a smile appears on Hotch’s face. “Also, I thought a little help from Spencer wont hurt, too”, she adds with a laugh. “Last time I checked he was in Garcia’s lair. You might have a shot finding him there”, he tips her off.

“Thank you Dad, you are the best!” Not long after this she steps into the Technical Analyst’s office and is immediately greeted by the preppy woman being anything but preppy.

“What in heaven’s name do they think I am, do you know it (Y/N)? They want me to work faster and more efficiently and expect me to be all sunshine and rainbows while looking at the most gruesome pictures ever taken on a daily basis! Un-be-lie-va-ble!” The blonde walks back and forth, gesticulating wildly.

The teenager takes her hands in an attempt to calm her down. “Sit down and tell me from the beginning what you are talking about.” This ends in Penelope raging about some superiors for an hour. When she finally calms down, it is like she wakes up. “Oh my, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to load all that up on you. You don’t need that in addition to-” She suddenly cuts herself off.

“I’m fine, really. It’ll be like any other day.” The smile the girl struggles to put on looks pained. “My sweet sweet summer child, the second anniversary of your mother’s death is not like any other day. You are still allowed to grief, you know that, right?” Penelope hugs (Y/N), cradling her close to her chest.

“I know, Penny. Thank you for reminding me. But I have to go, I need Spencer’s help with my chemistry assignment. You know, gotta keep those grades up.” With that she makes a beeline for the bullpen, leaving a stunned Technical Analyst by herself.

Since Foyet Hotch worries about his daughter. He learned many things about her coping mechanisms in the last two years: She tries to do it on her own.

In times like this the similarity between him and (Y/N) frustrates him. Aaron also tends to deal with his emotions alone, in the safe space of his own four walls. With all of his qualifications he knows it’s not healthy and he slowly learns to let his feelings loose around people he trusts, typically his team.

The difference between (Y/N) and Hotch is that he knows when he reaches his breaking point and she doesn’t about hers. So in a situation like right now being a profiler comes in handy with the job as a father.

It’s the day. The second anniversary of a mother’s death.

Hotch already planned the whole day for his two kids. At first he wakes both of them up, a luxus he seldom is able to indulge. But for today he has called into work saying he won't be coming any time before ten.

The mood around the house is suffocating. Even the little boy notices the heaviness of the day and its meaning.

“Are you ready, (Y/N)? I’m gonna drop you and Jack off at school!” Aaron shouts standing at the foot of the stairs. “I’m coming!” The answer is heard faintly.

Not long after this the Hotchner Household is on their way to the youngest’s elementary school. “Behave and remember: If you don’t feel fine it’s okay. Just tell your teachers and they will call me and I will get you, do you understand?” The father looks at his son with a certain seriousness. “Understood”, the blonde boy confirms and gives him a hug.

When he is back onto the driver’s seat, (Y/N) speaks up. “I don’t feel good about letting him to school today. What if he suddenly gets overwhelmed? I don’t think his teachers are able to calm him down.” Hotch gives his daughter a glance from the side. Jack never showed any signs of what she just described.

“They know to call me. I also told him it's all right to let them call me. He is in good hands.” It’s quiet for the next few minutes. “Dad, this is not the way to school”, the teenager tries to alert her father.

“I know. You won’t go today. I called you in sick when you were in the bathroom. I got the day planned, be ready to be surprised.”

The first thing they do is having breakfast in a little niché café. They once visited it regularly with Haley, way long before Jack was born. The two of them sit down at a booth in the corner.

“What can I get you two sweeties?” A waitress asks, her notebook ready in her hands. While the father orders their usuals, (Y/N) lets her eyes wander. So many memories at once crash onto her.

“Do you remember this one waiter, who always got you a hot cup of chocolate for free?” Aaron says after noticing her sad look. The girl begins to smile through the tears forming in her eyes. “Of course. Mom always got nearly a heart attack seeing me down it like it’s juice. I-” Her voice breaks. The tears fall down and make their way over her cheeks.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to say anything. I’m here. For anything you want or need me. Because nobody expects you to be alright, especially on this day.” He takes her hand and looks her in the eyes. (Y/N) nods, leaning against her father’s shoulder. He puts an arm on her, keeping her closer.

“I know. It’s just- It still hurts. So so badly. I feel like she still is here, but that’s just not true and that hurts me more.” Silently Hotch motions the waitress to make the order to go, while rubbing his child’s arm. Because that’s what she still is, a child.

A child that went through much, especially for her age. When (Y/N) calms down a little, they make their way back to the car.

“I thought we are going to the BAU to distract you for a while. But I can call the team and tell them we are going to do a SPA day at home or something. What do you want?”

“Can we go to them? And maybe leave earlier to do face masks at home before picking Jack up?” There is no way the father can say no to her puppy dog eyes. “Of course, Honey. Anything you want.”

As soon as the doors of the elevator open to floor six of the FBI building in Quantico, Penelope Garcia embraces (Y/N) in a big bear hug. “My sweet sweet summer child. You are so strong, I admire you. We are so happy to have you here” she whispers into the teenager's ear. “Thank you, Penny. Thank you so much.”

Over the course of the next few hours (Y/N) visits everyone’s desk. At first she goes into the lair, where mountains of cookies wait for her. Then she sits at Spencer’s desk, listening to cute facts about sloths. But Emily is quick to steal her from the genius, bribing the girl with new pictures of Sergio. Derek takes the teen from there, pushing her through the office on a desk chair with wheels. Her father is able to hear her laughs in his office, which puts a small smile on his face.

After that (Y/N) goes to JJ, who has a drawn picture from Henry for her. “Will had to write ‘best babysitter ever’ for him”, the blonde explains, pointing at the picture. The girl smiles. “Woah, I think you got a little Picasso at home. Tell him I love it.”

Her last stop is Rossi’s office. The older man looks at her with a fond smile. “Do you know that I see so much of your father and mother in you?” Confused, she glances at him.

“You are as stoic as Aaron. You are determined. But you are also caring and loving, like Haley. You are a perfect combination of both of them. Just keep that in your mind.”

As mysterious as this seems, it somehow makes (Y/N) happy. Happy to know a part of her mother is always with her.

Soon the little family departes for their home. Not long after they bid their goodbyes, Penelope receives a picture of the Unit Chief and the teenager with pink glitter masks. The father is willing to do anything to make her smile, even when this means he gets a basket of various masks the next day for teasingly reasons.

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