#tag how

[catella-ars]

Wow, what a brat!  I can’t wait to mess him up learn more about him.

[cat-arsenal]

Good & Bad Thoughts About Friendship & Moms

Contains: Found family, mentions of illness, mentions of abuse, mentions of mothers, mentions of religion, Me Being Angry and Incoherent

My best friend and I have been best friends for Two Actual Decades.  We’re planning an “anniversary” trip to Marfa, Texas, home of spooky desert lights and apparently a lot of other cool stuff you never hear about because spooky desert lights take precedence.  They have a big hatchback van and I have a standalone GPS so we don’t have to spend cell data.  We’ve been planning this trip most of our lives, and sometime this year, we’re actually going to go (once our cars and health and jobs are in order.)

Their mom sucks.

She’s not a 100% evil horrible malevolent person.  (People aren’t simple.)  There are times she has meant and done well.  But most of the time, she’s been neglectful if not downright abusive, manipulative and irreverent in a Bless Your Heart package.

Their other relatives aren’t much better.

But because of appearances, and because of split-second judgements based on their jobs or their church or their clothes or their business sense, my family didn’t realize for a long time how terrible they are.  “But they’re church folk!”  “But he’s so smart!”  “But she teaches!”

But they subject their children to physical, emotional, religious trauma.

Their children are grown now, mostly out of the house, and some are just now learning to cope with their fucked-up childhoods (and learning to become less fucked-up adults.)

My upbringing wasn’t perfect.  I didn’t, and don’t, always get along with my parents.  But they never hit me, never misled me, never called me names or sent me to “therapy” that only made me more miserable.  And to this day, when I can swallow my pride enough to ask for help, they do everything they can to help me.

My best friend is currently bedridden with a complex infection and a high fever.  What began as a seemingly innocuous vocal strain has evolved into multiple emergency visits, stacks of meds, blood and tears and so much pain.  When it suddenly worsened, when they couldn’t get out of bed or see straight, their partner was three hours away and I was at work, away from my phone.

So they texted my mother.  And my mother dropped what she was doing, packed a bag with medicine and Gatorade, and drove to my best friend’s house, stopping on the way to pick up their favorite fast food, then stayed with them for hours until I could come take over.

When I thanked her, she replied simply, “They’re mine, too.”

My family, too.  My kid, too.

As I was feeling guilty for thinking their own mother wouldn’t do this, my best friend took my hand and whispered, “My mom wouldn’t do this for me.”

It’s midnight and I don’t remember where I was going with this, but basically: family is the people who love you as yourself, who support you and and protect you and bring you Motrin and McDonald’s in the middle of the night.  My friend has long considered my family theirs.  I’m glad that the feeling is mutual.

[archivedstars]

Happy Birthday Akiko!! Akiko is an OC in a friends cover group, links will be posted later!

[vesuviaistoodamnhot]

More of the OT3, some of which are based on OT3/Poly memes and one of which is a redraw of a Castlevania(?) screenshot.

3rd pic - Person: So what are you two doing later? Both: *gesture towards Julian who I did not draw* Him.

4th pic - Thyme: I found a whole box of spells about...penises.

[astrakiseki]

Tag how you take your greens, your roots, and your fruits

[leg0joker]

How tag work am I shitposting what counts as shitposting I don wanna upset anyone by accidentally posting a not meme on the meme tag

[unfsys]

some eldritch nightmare emerged from the depths to creep into the crevasses of my mind- slithering through my neurons- clawing its way to my brain's Broca's area- with the sole purpose of calling This Man* "my pookie" when I least expect it.

*Man in question