Arent You Proud Of Yourself For Doing All That Extra Work This School Year And Finishing It? No. I Dont

“Aren’t you proud of yourself for doing all that extra work this school year and finishing it?” No. I don’t feel anything about it at all. I just remember the struggle and now I’m relieved that it’s over.

people say folks with adhd struggle with "delayed rewards" aka long term goals and as such we tend to focus more on short term rewards. what they don't talk about is that at when we Do accomplish long term goals we don't actually feel anything proportionate to the amount of work we did to achieve it. In my head I suffered for a while and then money spontaneously appeared in my bank account.

this is not ok

There are five parts to this story. Five people. Like the points of a star. Five stories. Four families. Five very, very traumatized kids. Though they weren't just kids at the end of it, that's how they started.

Regulus doesn't know when it all went wrong. When everything went to the dogs. Maybe it was when he begged Kreacher to leave without him. Maybe it was when he stepped into the cave with a fake locket in hand. Maybe it was when the Dark lord asked for Kreacher specifically. Maybe it was when he got the mark burned on his arm, more of a brand than a tattoo. Maybe it was when James Potter left and all the light seemed to leave his world. Maybe it was when his brother left their home. Maybe it was before that, when they were just kids. Maybe his tragedy was written far before he was born.

Whatever the reason. He was the first to die. Certainly not the last.

So he should be the narrator. It's something poetic, he thinks. The dead watching over the living. He was the first to go and like idiots, his friends followed.

The first time Regulus Black met Evan and Pandora Rosier, he was four. Sirius was five and disruptive already. He could never sit still. Evan and Pandora could.

And though four year old Regulus held his brother in the highest regard, he also wished for peace and quiet sometimes. He was also a rule following little shit. So if his mother said he had to get to know the children of other pureblood families, that is what he intended to do.

Regulus was fascinated by Evan and Pandora the first time he met them. There was just some other-worldly quality to them. As if they hadn't been meant to live on Earth at all.

And though they shared the same features with the rest of their family- meticulously styles blond hair and blue eyes, they didn't look like they quite belonged there either.

Evan Rosier had always been an enigma, someone entirely impossible to miss even if one was trying. And believe him, at first, Regulus tried. If Pandora was the rose, Evan was the bush. Guarded, prickly, but once he opened up, there was no telling when he would shut up.

Regulus grew fond of his annoying rants about any and every topic.

They never did talk about their parents. that was a forbidden topic. What happened in a family stayed in a family. No matter how close the Rosiers and the Blacks were, no matter if they were actually related.

Evan saw the marks on Regulus' pale skin. Regulus saw Evan flinch when his father raised his voice. Pandora saw Regulus shrink into the corner. Regulus saw her dissociate when it all got too much.

Pandora Rosier, named after a tragedy. She had told him the myth behind her name the first time they met. It felt jarring having a four year old casually say something so tragic without blinking. Regulus grew to like her queer habits, her strange stories and her ways.

Like Regulus, their paths were set in stone. Evan would grow and have to take over from his father. He would be betrothed and marry whichever pureblood his parents chose for him.

Regulus found cracks in his acts sometimes. His father did too. Little flinches, little frowns and scowls. He never spoke up, never said anything, but made it abundantly clear he never wanted any of that.

Pandora would have to marry some pureblood as well. The best suitor their parents could find, anyone that could strengthen their ties and keep their blood pure. She had suggested getting married to Regulus once as a joke and the three of them laughed all afternoon long.

Regulus knew he wasn't normal by the time he was seven or eight. When his eyes lingered on the boys his age at the balls. He would sail though the room with Pandora in his arms, trying his best not to step on her toes as they danced. But his eyes would seek out others. Even Evan at a point (they laughed about it later when they got older).

Regulus had known about the Dark Lord far before he stepped foot into Hogwarts. The wizard was like a dark shadow over him and his family. But merely a shadow, or so Regulus thought when he was younger. A boogey man in the shadows parents told children about to scare them into obedience.

As such, before he was eleven, Regulus had only known one type of people. The ones like his family. Pureblood, racist, rich assholes his brother despised so much.

It had been made abundantly clear to him that he wasn't his brother and he should never even try to be. After the disappointment of him getting sorted into Gryffindor, his parents had started to give up him.

Which still left Regulus in their clutches.

Regulus met Barty Crouch Jr in the line to get sorted. With their names so close in alphabetical order, they ended up right after one another.

But there was something that transcended their meeting. Something inevitable. Like two stars hurtling toward each other across the universe, finally exploding in a fiery supernova.

Barty Crouch jr was insane. That is the first impression Regulus remembered having of him. Even though he was a pureblood, Regulus had been told by his parents he was of the lesser kind. His father, a muggleborn sympathizer, which made him of the same category as the muggles. Filthy and disgusting.

Regulus tried to limit their interaction. But it was impossible to ignore Barty. Not because he had something profound to say or because he was magnetic. But simply because he talked a lot.

It was sometimes like he stole all the light in the room he walked into and put it over himself until there was nothing else to see but him. Until people had no choice but to look at him.

Regulus despised that about him at first. He and Evan gossiped under their covers about him in their first year after they had all been sorted together.

Just because they were all in one dorm did not necessarily mean they would have to be friends. So Regulus and Evan stuck together, with Pandora who would walk over from her Ravenclaw table over to their Slytherin one occasionally.

Barty tried to force his way into their little group, but they were pretty tight knit. Evan took his hatred for Barty Crouch jr as seriously as his father's for muggles.

Until one day when a girl sitting next to them laughed.

Regulus had first thought of Dorcas Meadowes as someone unimportant solely because she wasn't one of them, not from a pureblood family and not rich and certainly not a blood purist.

Sometimes, he thought he wouldn't be who he was if it wasn't for Dorcas Meadowes. She was witty and charming, quick to bite back and poke fun. She never took their insults to heart, going so far as to insult them back.

Pandora befriended her first. Then Evan who got dragged into it by his sister and then eventually, yes, even Regulus.

Barty Crouch jr was the first boy Regulus ever kissed. He promptly turned around and walked out of their dorm the moment they separated, his heart beating so fast in his chest he had thought it would fall out.

He hated Barty, like Evan did. Hated him because he did things like that, wrapped Regulus around his finger with pretty words and batting his eyelashes and then kissed him. He hated Barty because he pulled Regulus deeper and deeper into a hell Regulus knew he couldn't escape.

It was second year when Regulus first saw Barty with a bruise on his jaw that he wasn't bragging about. He was quiet, which was uncharted territory for Barty. And so, despite all his common sense telling him not to, Regulus became friends with Barty.

Dorcas never bought into the whole blood supremacy, her parents weren't like theirs. Regulus was so jealous of her, though he'd never admit that aloud. Dorcas didn't have to pledge her allegiance to the dark lord, never had to suffer through dinner with families like his, never had the fear that perforated every single inch of Regulus.

Regulus and Evan had to join. They had no other choice. It was allegiance or death. It caused the first rift between them and the girls. Barty, Regulus still thinks, just joined to defy his father. Or it might have something to do with the longing glances he shared with Evan, their silent beds at night, almost as if spells had been cast to keep eavesdroppers away, their clandestine meetings, their disshelved looks as they emerged from rooms alone.

In any case, knowing their story doesn't change the ending. Regulus still lost the love of his life. He still went against the dark lord. He still died. All for nothing.

The last time he saw Evan Rosier, he had a feeling his best friend knew. Evan kept the conversation going, bringing random topics as if desperate to keep Regulus talking to him, as if that could delay the inevitable, as if he could steal time to keep his best friend a little longer.

Regulus lingered in his doorway a moment longer than needed.

The last time he saw Pandora, he sobbed in her arms. He clung like she was the only constant in his life. He sobbed in her arms like she was who Sirius was supposed to be for him.

And she held him without complaint. She sobbed with him, begging him not to go.

Regulus did not linger in her doorway.

If there was anyone who could have convinced him not to do what he was planning to, it was her.

The last time he saw Dorcas, they had a fight. Regulus wanted to shake her by her shoulders. I'm going to die. He wanted to yell at her. I'm going to die, please don't let these be my last words to you. Please don't remember me like this.

Coward, she called him.

The word replayed in his head all the way to the cave.

I'm trying to be brave. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell James.

The last time he saw Barty, they got drunk. Just two kids, laughing and giggling among themselves. Regulus was tempted to tell him what he was going to do. He didn't.

He'd find out from the papers like the others.

Barty, eyes half lidded, that troublemaker smile on his face that Regulus had hated at first, sat back and pulled out a box from his pocket.

I'm going to ask him to marry me. He said. I don't care if the preacher doesn't marry us, I'll carve his heart out for Evan. I'll carve my own out for him.

Barty was just the sort of deranged who actually would.

Regulus lingered in his doorway, staring at a passed out Barty. He walked back in, kissed his hair, closed the ring box in his hand and put it back in his pocket before he left.

Barty didn't ask Evan to marry him. Not after Regulus never came back to them. Not after they both kept waiting for their star.

Dorcas wailed like Regulus had never heard her. She clutched her chest, her lover holding her like she could protect her from the evils of the world. And Dorcas collapsed in her arms.

And Regulus knew they were all broken far before that day.

Pandora didn't cry. She didn't laugh from that day on either.

Evan died next. A battle that too. Just the sort of dramatics Barty loved. Regulus watched it all play out.

Barty was too headstrong, too obsessed with going against his father, even if it meant being on opposite sides of the wand.

He was angry, so angry. He didn't know how Regulus died, or what he died doing. Maybe he thought Regulus died because of the other side. Whatever the reason, he took his anger out on others, on anyone not Death Eaters.

He was grinning one moment, using the Cruciatus curse on some ministry employee. He was laughing, oh gods, what had they come to?

He looked away, searching for the love of his life. Evan was halfway across the room, locked in a duel with Alastor Moody. Evan was a strong wizard, Barty knew, so he laughed when Evan blasted the guy's face, blowing nearly a chunk of his face off.

Moody had lost and eye, Barty was so proud of his lover, and Evan laughed as he looked at Barty.

Evan had a ring in his pocket now. Barty's was in a box full of Regulus' things. Maybe in another life, Evan could have asked him only for Barty to pull his ring out. They'd cry and laugh as they slid their rings on.

Instead, in the split second it took for Evan to look at Barty, in love, distracted, Moody sent a killing curse. It hit him straight in the chest. Evan was dead before the grin was wiped off Barty's face.

Dorcas died next. She never did talk to Barty ever again. Not when he came sobbing on her doorstep, on his knees. He lost everything. And so had she.

Marlene had just been killed the week before. Barty pleaded and begged, told her it was Peter Pettigrew who killed her. Dorcas did not believe him.

The Dark lord himself had to kill her.

And then there were two.

Pandora died soon after. Regulus was glad she at least got to have a husband, someone she loved. Her parents were dead, her brother also gone, and her best friends. All dead. She had a daughter, a small bundle of joy with hair so blond it was almost white and with the same curiosity in her eyes Pandora always had.

It was good. Until one day it wasn't.

And Barty was left alone, to wander for years. The only one left.

He didn't join them in the after life. But the Dementor kiss isn't what stole his soul. He had died far before his mortal body did.

He died when Regulus did. He died when Evan did. He died when Dorcas did. And he died when Pandora did. So when it was his time to leave. There was nothing left in him.

Tonight is press night for Macbeth, and Michael is sitting in the second row beaming at David as proud as can be. The two of them looking at each other like that is everything...

can i get an amen?

if no one else got me, i know rosekiller got me

what random city did spotify tell you has your music taste this year pls add in tags

hot girl summer not as in i'm going to be a hot girl this summer. hot girl summer as in i will be appreciating all of the hot girls this summer. which is, of course. all of them