Every Family Has Its Secrets

[Astral Faery]

Now published on my blog...


Victoria's family had everything money could buy...except happiness

Chapter 1 - Fall's Loneliness

After the birth of her baby brother, Victoria's family falls apart.  Join her as she struggles through childhood, wondering how her life changed so dramatically.

This will be published on my blog, and I'll post updates here.  I have waaay too many photobucket accounts, for one thing, it's hard for me to maintain stories both here and my blog, AND, this story will have adult content later on and I don't want to have to edit it.  I do hope you'll join me there and read it.  It's just a click away.  And if you'd like to comment, you can either do it here or on my blog.

Hope to see you there!!

[Zorom]

Gorgeous...as always...but does this mean you are quitting Weekend Warriors? :O Have not seen an update on that for...EONS

But the story is still wonderful.

[Theraven]

Great start

poor Victoria! If that had been my dad, He'd felt really sorry for himself when I was done yelling at him 

[Astral Faery]

lol, no Zorom.  The Weekend Warriors will be back.  I was planning on taking a long break after I finished Piles of Bones to work on some other things.  I've already started writing the next adventure, though, so it's coming!

theraven - thanks!  I'm thrilled you like it!

I was hoping I wouldn't put everyone off by publishing my stories on my blog rather than here.  But life is crazy and I just don't have the time for both. 

[Zorom]

That's fine, Astral. I mean, it's only one more click to get to a blog instead, since you kindly used a blog that you don't have to register to read the dammed story(which I find SO annoying) Ahem, sorry. Got a bt off-topic there.
You say life is crazy, and you still have time to manage three stories? Woah. Still, BLD is nearly over now.
Poor Victoria! And ***** Erik! Aargh!

[Astral Faery]

Oy - four stories if you count my Avalon legacy, 3 kids, 2 babysitting kids, 4 cats, plus multitudes of stories that I need to read - but thankfully BLD is nearly done so I forged ahead with this one.  I actually started working on this before I even started BLD, but pushed it aside.  So it's been calling me back pretty hard, lol.  I'm happy you don't mind the extra click.  I hope others feel the same way.

[discowhipped]

Well, this is an Astral Faery story so of COURSE I'm going to read it!
Victoria is beautiful, well all the characters are.
And it is brilliant, the writing is very emphatic, I wanted to cry when Erik smashed her dollhouse! How could he do that?! Just when Bradley was making progress. Stupid chauvanistic Erik. >:[

And no, I don't mind the extra click. ^_^

[ghettoblaster]

wow that is brilliant! you are a really talanted writer 
that dad kinda impersonates all the things i really dislike in certain men/people

[Astral Faery]

Thanks, disco!  I'm so glad you read and enjoyed it.  This will hopefully be a little easier to shoot than BLD since it's a real life story instead of a fantasy!  I'm really glad you checked it out.  Erik is, pure and simple, a big jerk.  He can't handle the fact that his family is changing and he has no control over it.  He can't deal with a child with special needs.  Not in his family.  That kind of thing never happens to the VanDorens - always the poor family in some other town.  And sadly, he gets much, much worse!

ghetto - thank you!  Both for taking the time to read and to comment.  I really appreciate it.  I'm a little braver starting a new story than I was last year, but there is always some uncertainty involved - wondering if people will accept it.  I'm happy you enjoyed it.

[Zorom]

Oh my go. Child abuse. He's going to murder the baby! And abuse Victoria! Then her mom! And then Clinton! Her mom will commit suicide and And Victoria gets horrible bruises and...and...social worker comes, Yay!
Ahem. Sorry. School tommorow. Don't like school. Argh.
Sorry, four stories then! But that reminds me, you haven't updated on the legacy either... 

[Astral Faery]

I'm getting there, lol.  Just got kind of burned out on it.  But I'm not going to quit, so I'll get back to it...someday.

[DemonOfSarila]

Ok, I'm only still in like the first chapter, but I have to say that i like this, it's written really well and is very interesting.... and special needs kids are always a big hand full, one of my brothers has autism, and I remember what it was like to baby sit him.... he likes pain, likes to stiffen up his whole body while watching TV, and likes playing with his blood when he hurts himself, but he could read my mom's college level chemistry text book. Now, he's basically a kid, and the most annoy/odd/different thing about him is that he can't re-learn anything, like something as simple as learning to write neater isn't possible for him because they said it was ok to write big sloppy letters when they started teaching him, and the fact that he doesn't like to eat or go to the bathroom, as he thinks they're both pointless.

Anyway, random tangent aside, very interesting story, can't wait to see where it goes, cuz i think it has me hooked, it's nicely wirtten and the pictures are good, and I read/am reading the Between the Light and the Darknes, and I so wanna see how it ends, because I like it. anyway, good job, keep it up

[Astral Faery]

Well thank you, Demon!  I very much appreciate the compliments for both stories.  It's truly an awesome feeling when people compliment my work.  It just pushes me to do more.

Our RL family, too, is touched by autism.  My youngest son was officially diagnosed just last month, though we had our suspicions long before that.  He has a lot of sensory issues, as well, and much of Bradley is based on my youngest son.  He is a treat and a trial all wrapped up in one.  I am extremely fortunate, though, that he does not like being hurt or is fascinated by blood - that must be an incredibly difficult situation to deal with - because no matter how many times you tell him it's dangerous, I'm sure it just doesn't compute.

My son is high functioning, can read several grade levels above where his age, but has a meltdown if he's not the one to put the laundry detergent in the washing machine - among many, many other of his rigid routines.  He eats about 10 different foods total - and will actually throw up if he doesn't like the smells of what I'm cooking.  He has trouble communicating sometimes, or he's chattering nonstop.  And Oh Lord the high pitched noises.  Screaming, squealing, screeching - I'm developing a serious aspirin problem because he manages to hit this horrendously high pitched sound that only dogs should be able to hear - except we can all hear them.  And sometimes he does it all. day.  long. 

Thanks very much for reading and commenting!!

[DemonOfSarila]

Well thank you, Demon!  I very much appreciate the compliments for both stories.  It's truly an awesome feeling when people compliment my work.  It just pushes me to do more.

Our RL family, too, is touched by autism.  My youngest son was officially diagnosed just last month, though we had our suspicions long before that.  He has a lot of sensory issues, as well, and much of Bradley is based on my youngest son.  He is a treat and a trial all wrapped up in one.  I am extremely fortunate, though, that he does not like being hurt or is fascinated by blood - that must be an incredibly difficult situation to deal with - because no matter how many times you tell him it's dangerous, I'm sure it just doesn't compute.

My son is high functioning, can read several grade levels above where his age, but has a meltdown if he's not the one to put the laundry detergent in the washing machine - among many, many other of his rigid routines.  He eats about 10 different foods total - and will actually throw up if he doesn't like the smells of what I'm cooking.  He has trouble communicating sometimes, or he's chattering nonstop.  And Oh Lord the high pitched noises.  Screaming, squealing, screeching - I'm developing a serious aspirin problem because he manages to hit this horrendously high pitched sound that only dogs should be able to hear - except we can all hear them.  And sometimes he does it all. day.  long. 

Thanks very much for reading and commenting!!

Oh no problem on the commenting, i've become highly talkative of late, and I read like whole light/dark thing, and liked, so I figured i should say somethin..... I'm just waiting for updates for both I guess.

I don't know what level of funtioning my bother is to be honest, because he was dignosed with it when I was in like elementary school or middle school, and now I'm in college and he's in elementary school. He had problems learning to talk for the longest time, the therapist actually taught him (and we had to learn some too in order to understand him) some basic sign language to help everyone. Not like the sintax of the langauge or anything like that, just a few words, like I still remember things like I/me, want, cookie, drink, yes, no, boy.... even though I don't really use it hardly at all anymore. I don't think he had sensory issues with foods, he just sees eating as pointless, so getting him to eat was always hard, still is, but he has sensory issues with lots of stuff. And the public school taught him to cry, so after that he cried about so many things, basically anything he didn't like. He used to fallow rules and liked to learn and was very very honest with people. Now he doesn't like to learn new things and has figured out that causing a scene he gets his way. I would just be careful about what teachers and stuff you let your son have, because if you don't handle special needs kids the right way, it can only make things worse.

I guess my point of view on it is a little different, being a sister not a mom, but I still had to baby sit him a lot, being the oldest in the family, since dad works a lot to keep the roof over our heads, and my mom was in college and working most of the time I was in high school.

but yeah, I wish you the best in parenting, and I can't wait to see what happens to Bradly and his sister in that house so I'll be waiting for updates for either story whenever you can update them   oh and i'm not bothered by the actually story itself being in a blog, like someone else said, it's only one more click, and guests can read it, so it's all good. Are you going to post about updates in here or just add them to your blog? it doesn't really matter to me, I just wanna know where to check for updates.

[Astral Faery]

Whether you're a sister or a mom, or anything else, having a special needs child in the family changes the dynamics of that family.  In real life and stories.  Some people cope better than others, and you'll see how poorly Victoria's family copes with it.  But the story is more about her than it is her brother.

You sound like a good big sister.  I know it can't be easy dealing with that.  I'm lucky my guy likes to eat - even though he only eats a few things.  And I agree that if they learn to manipulate the situation it makes it ten times tougher.  Because then you have to watch them to see if they're manipulating, or honestly struggling with something.

Luckily my muse is with me and I've been working pretty tirelessly on all of my projects as of late.  So updates won't take terribly long.  I am juggling four stories plus homelife, so it will take a little bit, but it's better than the last two months when I was burned out and didn't work on any of my projects.  I just uselessly existed, lol, and nothing got posted.  Thanks for all the reading!