my dad's best friend

My dad lost his best friend Darnell to Covid-19 yesterday, and it looks like Darnell’s wife might not make it either.

My dad has lost well over 50 friends Covid-19.

He’s in his 70s, and most of his friends are over 40, but Darnell was in his 60s. My dad is a very social person, and he has friends worldwide associated with racing, which he’s been involved with since his teen years.

Darnell was in New York to attend a funeral of another friend of theirs who died of Covid-19. Within 1 day of getting to New York, Darnell was in the hospital, and as of 4 days ago he went on a ventilator, 2 days ago dialysis because his body couldn’t keep up with all the meds they were giving him to try and save his life.

The day he went to the hospital in NY, his wife was admitted to the hospital in Florida. They both got it at the same time and didn’t realize it. His wife is about five years older than him.

Their son was updating my dad twice a day on how they’re doing, but he’s asked that no one mention anything about his dad’s death since his mother isn’t expected to live, and he’d rather she die believing Darnell was getting better.

Darnell was a very healthy guy who was extremely social, caring, and was the type of guy who would help out anybody and everybody because he was just a really good guy.

My dad is terrified to leave the house, and I don’t blame him. Losing over 50 friends to Covid-19 this past year and a half can be scary, but Darnell pushed it over into flat out fear because he was so healthy and full of life.

My Uncle Charlie hasn’t lost any friends. He’s in his late 50s, and that age group is doing well, so Charlie is out there not wearing a mask and thinks we’re all insane for taking Covid so seriously.

My age group (which is also Charlie’s wife’s age group) is doing well with it too, so she’s going around without a mask and thinks we’re being too paranoid.

They’ve also both had Covid, and they barely noticed the symptoms, so it’s not a big deal to them. They also think they can’t get it again even though I’ve tried to tell them otherwise. They keep asking why they can’t at least come over and hang out with us on the back porch because “outdoors is completely safe!”

If you’re in the right age groups, you might not see this much devastation (especially if you’re like Charlie and never watch/read the news).

Even my mom, who is 10 years younger than my dad, isn’t seeing friends die off like this, and none of the people I grew up with have even been hospitalized.

fic writer questions

Kinda stealing this but not really because @oddsocksandstuff​​ said it was open to everybody :D

1) How many works do you have on AO3?
167 (39 more if you consider Tumblr Ask Box Requests is 40 separate fics)

2) What's your total AO3 word count?
1,449,494

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?
9 but most of them are crack/crossovers for challenges

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Tumblr Ask Box Requests 

Alpha House 'Verse

Resonance

Best Brother Ever 

CONventional Psychopathy Part 1: Primary Deviance

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
I used to respond to every one, but life gets in the way, and then I get all weird about responding to comments older than a couple months so I’m being all weird.

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?
Probably Lifeforce, but it was written as crackfic for SPNCH, so does that count?

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've written?
I do, but mostly for SPNCH - Crack would be the stupidest one. I’ve got a lot of fusions and crossovers in my files, but I never seem to finish and post them.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?
Yup. Quite a lot. I either delete right away or leave a confusing gif. Depends on my mood.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?
*laughs in a throaty and smuttysmutty way*

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Just recently CON ‘verse was used to make a series of books the “author” is getting paid for on multiple platforms that refuse to take it down.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes. People ask all the time, but I only said once yes. It was for Twenty-Four Hours and daskopfino translated it.

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Kinda. Souf and I did one for SPNCH. Also my beta, Kim, is so involved with my two biggest ‘verses it kinda feels like she co-wrote them.

14) What's your all time favorite ship?
I can’t say I have a favorite. I might have favorites in each fandom, but pinning it down to one out of all them is impossible.

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?
Rewritten in the Stars. It involves a lot of time jumps and piecing things together to fit in with canon, so unless I have a lot less real life stuff going on, I won’t be able to get it together.

16) What are your writing strengths?
I’m comfortable with dialog, smut, and hurt/comfort. I’m comfortable being dark and describing/creating horror and violence.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?
Description and filler. I get anxious adding detail to my fics because I worry a reader will get bored even though I love description and heavy detail. When I reread a fic, I realize it goes much faster than when you’re writing, so I go back and add more detail, but it’s still not enough.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I haven’t tried it. English is the only language I know well enough to be confident with it, so if I ever had to write someone who spoke another language, I’d probably just put it in italics.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?
When I was a kid, I wrote some Hardy Boys fanfics, but it wasn’t until Stargate SG1 that I posted a fic online.

20) What's your favorite fic you've written?
My favorite ‘verse is CONventional Psychopathy but Dreamweaver was pretty fun too!

my neighborhood

I grew up in bad neighborhoods that weren’t even that safe during the day and everyone had to have a big scary dog growling at their side just to answer the front door.

Friends from the other side of the city wouldn’t even come to visit us later in the day for fear they’d be there when the sun went down. One woman wouldn’t even come during the day without her husband.

There’s worse neighborhoods out there, of course.

About 10 years ago my mom, dad, and I sold our houses and moved into this neighborhood. It took us a couple years to relax a bit and get used to a safer neighborhood.

I regularly take a walk with my dog at 10pm, and there are other single women, teenagers training for sports by jogging or exercising at the park, and bicyclists who are out at that time too because it’s quiet, cooler (I live in the desert), and just nice!

In the last year and a half people have gotten really ridiculous, and the neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods have gone downhill quickly.

more whining below the cut

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I changed my walk time to 6pm back in February after getting fed up with people in pickup trucks and modified cars and crotch rockets screeching around the neighborhood and narrowly missing us, people screaming at us and following/chasing us, drunks stumbling along and nearly puking on me or falling on me, loose dogs coming after us, and more than one group of people who regularly began smoking crack at the park and using needles to shoot up at the school.

It was a severe and quick change, and we all realize it was coming eventually, but that it was hurried along by world events including people getting pissed about lockdowns.

Last night I was busy and didn’t make it to our walk until 8:30pm. It was fully dark out, but I figured we’d be fine. I hadn’t been out after dark around here in 7 months, but maybe it got better, right?

Wrong.

By the time I got to the park, we had already gotten out of the way of two cars racing down the small street between my neighborhood and the park and had to change our route because of a loose dog.

I got to the park with Roo and she started doing her thing only to have a couple pickup trucks come screeching into the parking lot and start chasing each other around (pickup truck tag anyone?), crashing over medians, taking out a tree, and spraying rocks all over as they went.

I grabbed Roo and I took her up to the community building to make my way around to the other side of the park, but when I got there, another pickup truck was screeching its way through the long rounded driveway for dropoffs.

In the truck were the same guys who screamed some very confusing racial slurs at me and chased me earlier this year. They must have decided it was time to go again.

They were too drunk (again) to follow me quickly as I made my way to a house kitty-corner to the park where a guy was out front working on his car, and once they saw me getting close to the guy, they drove away, nearly hitting the other two trucks who had finished playing tag in the front parking lot and who were coming out onto the main street.

I hurried home, but the whole time we were out I could hear people street racing, vehicles screeching along everywhere, and people screaming and yelling.

I looked spooked by the time I got home and my mom was like hey are you okay?

And yeah it was scary in that I don’t want people to do anything to me, but I was more disappointed and disheartened. For several years we got to enjoy a laid back, safe neighborhood where I was able to walk around at night.

When I walk during the day, it’s hard to find an area where there aren’t any people because this is a really outdoorsy neighborhood, so even though I wear a mask, I’m still worried I’m going to get too close to people, especially with Delta variant so easily transmissible.

I kinda wish I hadn’t experienced my awesome neighborhood for those few years, because now I know what I missed out on growing up and I’m sorely missing 10pm walks in a quiet neighborhood with people who give each other space.