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- A wide range of Music, mostly Rock and Alternative
- Animals, Canines in particular
- Drawing
- Writing
- Role Playing, but I might have covered that with 'writing'..
- A1 Steak Sauce. I obsess over it, actually..
- Twix candy bars. It..it's like a cracker. I mean a cookie cracker. ^^ And then there's like, caramel an' chocolate.. (Inside joke. oO)
- Any (in my opinion) 'decent' movies. That would be mysteries, thrillers, bloody/gorey, or animal ones. Mix it all up together and you'll probably find my favorite one; but not if it's just plain dumb or the animal gets killed or something. e_e
- Series with mystical-y stuff in them; such as Buffy/Angel, Tru Calling, Charmed, Roswell and so on.
- Taking baths and staying clean. Often. -o; Femenine hygiene - a must. xD
- Most any animals, including snakes; although if I owned one, it would starve to death in a matter of days. XD
- Taking my anger out on people I highly dislike. (I do it whenever possible. =D)
- Drawing very bloody, morbid pictures when I'm ticked off.
- Being in charge and bossing people around. (Who doesn't at least like the first part of that?)
- Holding grudges. My longest one is going on eleven years now; since some stupid ^%&*# at Sunday School (that my grandma dragged me to when I was four) wrote "I love Jesus" on a rock I painted. She WROTE that STUPID thing on MY rock!! I'd just PAINTED it! Into a LADY BUG rock!! And for four years old, that was a damn good lady bug-rock!! x__x Then I had to rinse it all off and re-do it, and now it's not NEARLY as good as it was. -_- She...she...she just should burn. Now she's some drug-addicted idiot with a baby who looks like his head is warped inward. e_e;
- My computer. *Duh* (Well...when it works right. XD)
- Cobalt Bottles, Windchimes, and Dreamcatchers...so pretty, especially with feathers and beads on them.. |3
Huh? Oh, yeah. This was supposed to be a page /about/ me, huh? Like, my life story and all, right? XD Okay, fine, whatever you say...but this will probably take me all day to type out, so it's your fault I'm murdering my hands for you! xD
Anyway...let's start off around sixteen years ago.
I was born in a hospital, like most other kids. No, this was no special event, not even to me, but it was the day I got my name. "Demonica Ember LePenske" was scribbled across my birth certificate, much to the surprise of the nurses and doctors, I'd imagine; but it's a mother's right to name her child what ever she wants, right? Eh..
Anyway, I never met my father, seeing as I don't think he even stuck around for me to be born, but when I was just a few months old, yeah, I was stuck up for adoption, much like a lot of animals are.
Poor me? Nah, don't pity me; it makes me feel all pathetic and stuff.
Besides, that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. ^^
Well, being just a baby, I was adopted almost instantly by the parents I have now. I don't remember a thing about where I was until they found me, and I really don't even remember a thing of this, but I'm going by what the "authority" (who currently owned me) and my parents have told me.
So...I was adopted. Unfortunately, my uberly-pwnsome name was changed to "Shandale Dawn White". Three things I /hate/.
Shandale = Some kind of Flight Maneuver that my dad heard on TV. I /HATE/ heights. x_X;
Dawn = My least-favorite time of day.
White = The opposite of my favorite color.
Aaaanyway...well, not much else happened.
I was adopted and my family already had several other family members -- yes, children. Well, not human children, but the furry and four-legged kind, you see.
My family, other than my human adoptee parents, included Mariah -- a beautiful wolf, german shepherd, rough collie and australian shepherd hybrid; Riffraffs -- a hundred and ten pound Rottweiler/Doberman mix; Ziggie, a long haired jack russel terrier as the alpha male with a rather bad attitude when it came to protecting his family and Puffy, a little white and silver Toy Poodle/Chihuahua cross who lived to be twenty-two years old.
I got a pet rat when I was two, but I think it's an instinct for any child -- I wanted my own dog.
So, not long after on Christmas, my mother adopted a Maltipoo puppy, whom I named Snowball.
Snowball was chosen as Ziggy's mate, and as not even a year-old pup, she became the proud and very kind alpha female who loved nothing more than to get haircuts and dress up in her little doggy sweaters.
Okay, sure, I was only two years old and though I couldn't take care of them on my own, I loved them, and I know they certainly loved me.
When I was about six, my rat died and my dog (the little poodle/maltese mix) had puppies with Ziggie, and there was born Tippy, the oldest dog and animal I own now, as well as his two brothers, Patches and Hobs.
Patches was adopted, though his owner said he was stolen. She was quite a horrible liar; I still believe she just lost him and didn't want to tell us the truth. He looked /exactly/ like a Jack Russel Terrier with a bit of curly hair on his cheeks, more poodle-ish instead of broken-coated-JRT-ish. xD
Hobs was taken by my evil aunt. ...He looks rather horrid and frightful with naturally wiry, matty hair and bulging eyes for some reason, and has an abnormal amount of allergies.
Well..not much else happened, just regular every-day life stuff.
Eventually, mom let me get another puppy, a pure-bred rottweiler which I called Roxi. Unfortunately, since her older step-brother was also bred to her mother and used as her father, she wasn't exactly in the best of health and had to be put to sleep because she got extremely sick in about a month or so.
Anywho, soon after, Ziggie (Tippy's Dad) had to be put to sleep from old age, as he was already blind and deaf, and was beginning to be unable to control when he went to the bathroom.
Not long after Roxi had to be put down, I rescued Peanut from the shelter, and named her as a bit of a joke seeing as even as a five month old puppy, she was about sixty pounds.
We had an entire pack once again, and although I was too young and inexperienced to know this, looking back, I know that it was a very unstable one; and if I knew then what I know about canines now, I might have actually been able to prevent such a terrible event; but...as things turned out, I mistook the frequent dogs fights as nothing but minor arguments -- seeing as they were just simple and over quickly, one of our dogs would jump on the other over something like a bone or whatnot, we would break them apart and it would be done with until the next 'arguement' appeared.
I was only a bit younger than eleven when one of the worst days of my entire life occured, and it was because of this unstable pack that we had -- a very passive and easy-going alpha female, a mildly aggressive alpha male, a /very/ large omega-dog who was bigger than all of them and considered the lowest in the pack, and not to mention a brand new puppy who was already being considered higher in the pack than said omega-dog.
Peanut, the dog I had rescued was now about four years old -- a 100-pound female German Shepherd/Wolf mix -- attacked Snowball and, being a hundred pounds compared to Snowy's eighteen, killed her by grabbing her up by her throat and giving her a few good shakes, then slinging her against the brick fire place, where her skull connected before she hit the ground again.
It was..awful, terrifying, the worst day of my life. Those are the only words I know that can describe it.
I only really remember walking in the living room and sitting down in the chair beside the mantle, only to watch as Peanut (the Wolf/German Shepherd mix) suddenly glare at, snarl at, then leap at Snowball after Snowball returned her stare.
It happened in a matter of seconds.
I had instantly fallen out of the chair to get between and break up my first dog who I loved endlessly, and my young hybrid of a companion.
I was in the middle of it, trying to defend Snowball because she had barely been ready when she was attacked, nor would she have been able to cause much damage from her tiny size either way.
I managed to get my back to Peanut, who I soon learned wasn't interested in hurting me, although would do so if it meant she could get to her goal -- becoming the alpha female from being the lowest member of the pack.
I had Snowball with one arm, and Peanut was snapping at my back and the back of my neck to get me to move.
She quickly stopped when she realized all she could chew on was my hair, though.
I wish she wouldn't have.
I don't even have the scars on my neck anymore..
Instead, she rounded me and went back for my little Snowball.
I was furious, so I did the first thing my human instincts told me to: laid down in front of/under the pouncing wolfdog and held one arm up to try and either shoo her away or to hit her in the face to try and get her to back off and come to her senses.
Well...I succeeded in getting her attention.
She decided to get me out of the way and sank her inch-long adult canine fang into the center of my forearm. It almost went about halfway through, and though I registered that she had bitten me, I could barely feel the pain. I was too scared and too determined to keep her away from Snowball to realize the extent of the damage done to myself. I couldn't believe my loyal friend, adopted sister and pet could be so vicious and cruel to her own family for quite literally NO darned reason other than the desire to rule the pack.
Well, she jerked her head away and jumped right over me, catching the already-wounded Snowy in her mouth by her throat.
I remember it like it was just an hour ago.
Peanut stood up on her hind legs, lifting little Snowball up with her, jaws clenching her blood and curly poodle fur-covered jugular.
She held her up in the air over her head, shook her neck back and fourth, then turned and completely chucked her at the brick fireplace, seeming almost proudly happy as Snowy hit the mantle, cracking not one, but two of her ribs just from the force alone, as well as dishing out some permanent damage to her skull.
Finally, my dad got in the house. Well, sort of finally. He'd obviously heard the commotion even with his hearing-impaired ears and rushed in. It seemed like it took him forever to get in from my point of view, but in reality, it hadn't been but maybe a couple of minutes, if that.
He was still on crutches, seeing as..er, ahem, after whipping my other puppy (who was about two months old at the time) in the face with a metal belt buckle, he "accidentally" got shoved down the stairs by my wolfdog, who would seemingly do anything at the time just a month or so before this.
Well, he grabbed Peanut's choke chain and gave it a good yank, though she jerked away so hard, one of the links in the chain around her throat broke.
I still have the pieces of the chain sitting on top of this very desk as I type this.
Finally, seeing Snowball lying unconcious on the rug in front of the fireplace, I guess Peanut thought she won or something, and actually gave up the fight completely and allowed herself to be thrown outside with extremly little of a struggle.
This was the longest maybe-seven-minutes of my whole life.
I remember grabbing a nearby towel to cuddle the bleeding, unconscious, motionless poodle in my arms as my cousin (who was in our back yard at the time of the fight and didn't even notice the commotion until it was all ready over) rushed in and got us both in the car.
I remember sitting in the passenger seat of her little white car as we quite literally did 80 MPH down main street until we reached the vet. It was closed early for the weekend -- just our luck -- and we had to get back in the car and drive all the way across town to the other vet, which was open all night. [My cousin was only visiting from L.A., so she really didn't know much about our town anyway.]
I remember sitting there, staring down at the poor pooch in my arms who was bleeding all over everything as I tried to practically hold her throat together; the skin that once covered her throat pulled back to reveal a large hole, as well as her torn jugular vein, even if I didn't know what all of those organs in her neck even /were/ back then.
I remember her staring up at me, quivering from shock and - I can imagine - pain, and I remember wondering how she was even alive, much less conscious, even if just barely.
...She knew I was holding her. Trying my best to save her, and doing everything in my power that a kid my age could, despite the large chunk taken out of my own arm and the already scabbing back of my neck.
I couldn't even feel them while I held her...
We finally arrived. It seemed like it took hours, when, doing eighty in a convertible, it only took about three to five minutes.
I dragged myself out of the car once more, holding by blood-drenched maltese mix in my arms, close to my chest. I was even still in my pajama top from lazing around that day.
I hoisted her up on the counter, and in no time, I think two or three vets and I think /all/ of the assistants gathered around me. They grabbed her up and took her in a room just about twenty feet away, and me and my cousin followed.
After a good couple hours of just standing while they tried to get her to come to and repair all of her injuries the best they could, the vet finally let out a deep breath, realizing what had happened.
She could have lived, possibly; with numerous extremely expensive operations and whatnot. She could have come out...alive, to say the least; other than the fact it would take months, if not years or more for her throat alone to heal completely.
..Thing is, when she hit the fireplace, her skull was hit so hard that, thanks to the mild fractures or whatever had happened, it was over a ninety percent chance would have permanent brain damage.
She wouldn't have even remembered us or her own son.
Then there was the fact that two of her ribs had punctured her lungs really badly, and there wasn't too much they could do to repair them on an already stressed out, very seriously injured little 18-pound, eight-year-old dog who still thought she was a puppy and loved to play and roughhouse with her only remaining son.
Chances are, she may have never walked well -- or at all -- again from some kind of trauma. I don't remember exactly what they said had caused all of this, but for the first time in my life, it felt the world was against my closest friend continuing to live.
So, with my cousin having chosen to leave the room long ago to rest in the waiting room, I made the decision.
She was my dog, it was the least I could do for her; to let her go now so I wouldn't have to give her three months just to be physically capable of moving, just to see if she would even be mentally stable or able to eat or even walk correctly on her own again. ..I wasn't doing her any favors by keeping her alive when her body was so beyond recovery.
I apologized to her while I soaked Snowy's still soft, curly blood-coated fur with my tears as I hugged her tightly, kissed her forehead and sobbed my choice to let her go now and not make her recover just enough to tell if I wanted to put her to sleep later on or not.
Having to be carried around just to go outside or go to a food bowl to eat, possibly having such severe brain damage that she wouldn't have made it because of that alone...this was no life I could offer to her, and she deserved so, so much more.
With the injection of a serenge and fifteen minutes as she fought to stay alive past the overdose of euthanization liquid or whatever while I stroked her sides carefully, she finally gave up fighting...like she would have had to do eventually.
I just kept my head against hers, kissing her and petting her as I tried my hardest to make her very last memories be of something other than sheer emotional pain -- thankfully, they'd already given her mass amounts of pain killers to at least numb her while they tried to keep her from suffering and dying then and there.
..And I think she knew that...no matter what, I still think that she knew I was there, trying to comfort her, even though I was so confused, upset and in such pain, both emotional and physical myself. Nothing compared to her, though..
We finally hit the two hour mark, and my mom was also waiting outside. I..I couldn't face her. I physically couldn't look her in the eye and tell her what had happened while she was at the grocery store, getting a few gallons of whole milk and hamburger meat (Yes, I remember her grocery list that she had around five years ago that day) to come home to find our whole living room covered with crimson blood, and my dad waiting on the porch to tell her what happened. ..The milk and hamburger meat never made it into the fridge before she left it on the ground and got back in the car with my dad to find us at the vet's office.
I..I simply couldn't tell her what had happened in that 10x10 square foot operating/emergency room. Not then. Not there.
Later that night, after waiting in the pouring rain as my grandfather came over and dug a grave in our back yard beside Ziggie's, after I lowered Snowy's little wooden box dad pieced together in a matter of minutes into the cold earth and cried, my mom made me get back in the car, just to make sure my dog bites weren't infected.
Well, the doctor made me hold my hand out as he placed some little weird needle-less serenge-like item with half round a plastic cup-thing on the end of it over my dog bite, then sprayed some orange liquid into it to 'clean' it.
I didn't shed a tear when Peanut had bitten me.
I hadn't even made a sound. But such a force of something being sprayed into an open dog bite to "disinfect it" made me scream so loud, I daresay the people in the front of the hospital could hear it. My mom scolded me, as some little boy (looked about five/eight or so, mom said) was walking right past the door and looked more scared from my sudden scream than I had at the time Peanut leapt at Snowy.
I cried myself to sleep that night, while Peanut slept in the garage. I laid there, curled up with my recently-rescued puppy, Akita, an Akita/Australian Cattledog/Dingo mix, sobbing into her fur as I lay curled up on my bottom mattress of my bunk bed.
She kept me company the whole night, knowing I was hurt really bad (and not just physically) while she had taken off and hid under my bed just hours before. I don't know why, but I think she knew I wanted her to get away and hide, just so she wasn't harmed...
Well..we decided to keep Peanut. She seemed..so innocent...so sad...so... ... ...sorry. I stared into her eyes that next morning when I went to let her out of the cold garage, silently telling her "You have one more chance. I hope you've learned your lesson, since you just killed your family member for literally NO reason, and even if you had one, no reason would be a good enough excuse for such a horrible crime you have comitted."
She lowered her head, shame covering her face as she slowly crouched out past me and the door.
I followed her in the house, staring as she turned her head ever so slightly to make sure I was behind her. I was curious as to why. She went through the doggy door, and I slid the sliding screen door open and continued to follow her, watching her carefully.
My mom had called me for..something. I think she wanted to check my bandages or something, I didn't get time to find out.
Before I was even all the way in the kitchen to see what my mom wanted, that's when she did it.
Peanut turned around, looked me in the eye across the room, then turned and lunged at my puppy.
The puppy she had treated like her own daughter for the past three months or more now. Again, I was in shock. I was furious this time.
I later realized why she did this. It's because she had killed Snowball so she could become the alpha female, and, being obviously unstable...Tippy hadn't chosen her as such. She was still considered an omega in his eyes -- lowest of the pack for a good reason.
Instead, he picked a couple month-old pup as an alpha in training; to completely bypass Peanut in pack hierarchy and become the top dog.
So..yes, even though Peanut had treated this little pup like her own the past few months, her friendship was nothing compared to her desire to become the boss.
And little Akita was standing the last female and the only thing standing in her way to do it.
Thankfully, this time, Peanut did not get her way.
Instead, having attacked little baby Akita right next to a recliner, young, agile (and part Dingo) Akita slipped right under the chair and hid, escaping with nothing more than a gash across her eye.
Still, I was across the room, and Peanut was already diving under the chair to drag Akita out and extinguish her from our family. There was nothing I could do to defend her from such a distance.
Once again, it looks hopeless -- like I'm doomed to lose yet another one of my companions and beloved family members, furry and four-footed or not.
This is the part where Akita owes Tippy her life.
If it weren't for him getting directly in the way and attacking her to defend the pup, causing Peanut to willingly back off because she was fighting to be his mate and rule alongside him anyway, chances are she would have killed Akita, who had only begun to live.
That was all the time I needed. I grabbed Peanut by the back of her faded hot-pink nylon collar and gave it a good jerk with every ounce of my might. I managed to pull her backwards and onto me to where she was lying flat on top of me, her back against my body.
She had calmed down enough for me and my mom to drag her by her throat and kick her outside while we rushed back to tend to our injured dingo puppy.
She was fine after that, just having a scar beneath her fur which would heal up in time. Tippy didn't get a scratch on him.
Later that day, without even considering my idea to simply put her in a kennel and keep her there for the rest of her life, and with my mom's okay, my dad took Peanut back to the pound where I first rescued her as an ill little pup on death's door.
Even though Peanut had comitted not one, but two unforgivable crimes and was a truly awful, seemingly soulless animal, I still loved her; and had it been up to me, I wouldn't have gotten rid of her. I would have built her a massive kennel and gotten her a decent sized doghouse and just kept her outside if it meant I could have kept her; even if only the human members of the family were allowed to be around her.
I wasn't like her. No matter what, she was a part of my family, and I still do love her, even though I may not have liked her a bit...
Anyway, not long after all of this, I decided to start going on the computer more often, now that I only had Akita and Tippy to keep me company; Tippy who did his own thing which included roaming around, completely lost in the absense in his mother, and Akita, who was only three months old and already growing into the roll of a fine, stable new alpha female.
That was about the time I got an AIM from some freak called 'AikenShouldOfWon'. Odd screen name, yes, I know, and I made sure to let her know I thought so, too.
Our conversation went something along the lines of this-
Anyway, that's from pure memory. I remember her horrid typing skills and love for excessive punctuation marks, as well as me threatening to block her and such, though I'm fairly sure the conversation's words vary a bit, seeing as I can't remember a random encounter with a n00b on AIM that happened over three and a half years ago.
Well, she /did/ start typing better. Eventually, she turned out to be almost a big a grammar freak as I am, and /that/ is saying something. XD
Well...anyway, I'll skip the boring stuff. We became pretty darned good friends; Me, 'Dipstick' as the girl was called, Stich, and Arfy, my two other friends and "pack mates".
I loved it. They all treated me like I was their leader or something, and I'd never even asked them to. It was fun, despite me being the second-youngest, right above little 4'6 tall Arfy, who I was only like, a few months to a year at most over.
We all played neopets together, my favorite activity being getting them good pets in the pound or just buying them nice items, paint brushes and..well, all in all, things, to give them. I loved getting them gifts, because I loved to see them all happy and pleased with me.
I'd even draw them in our little fursonas. They were the only people who could get free art out of me without even asking (even though I wasn't a very good artist back then), and yeah, I purposely did that just to make them feel a bit more special. I didn't mind; they deserved something for being so kind to me.
Well, then, one day, Arfy IM's me and tells me that she's been frozen on neopets again, this time losing the Halloween Shoyru and very nicely-named purple shoyru I'd gotten her. She said she had sworn on the message boards and decided she would just risk it. Well, she wanted to talk to me so that I would feel sorry for her and tell her how alright it was. I told her that I didn't, and that it was her fault. If she didn't want to lose her 'dream pet', why did she risk him like that? It wasn't my problem; he was her pet, not mine, even though it wasn't easy aquiring him as a gift...
Anyway, that's when she got mad. I don't even remember what she said, after swearing at me and throwing some kind of text fit, I minimized the AIM and completely ignored her little outrage.
So, the next day, I decided to tell Stitch about Arfy's little hissy fit to see if she had done the same to poor Stitch. Well, the response I got was a good mile or more from anything close to what I was expecting...
I told her, but only got, "Arfy wouldn't do that, Demon. I don't believe you."
I remember being all, "...Wait, what? You don't believe that Arfy, queen of conniptions, would do something like that?" "No, Demon, I don't believe that, and I don't see how you could have the nerve to say something like that about her." "You're telling me that you don't believe me, even though you've seen Arfy go off on other people like that for no apparent reason as well?" "No, Demon. I don't. And I can't trust someone who lies to me. I don't trust you."
I was in shock. I simply try to explain that Arfy had some little fit, and wanted to know if she'd done the same to Stitch, or ask if Stitch knew why.
Either way, I had managed to lose both of my two best friends that I had known even longer than Dippy in a time period of sixteen hours.
Man, that was an awful day. I was so confused. Why did she say that to me? Why did Arfy do what she did? =sigh= Oh well. There was nothing that I could do. So, I stopped for a while. I was miserable. Too proud to talk to them whenever I'd see them online, even though I knew they were too proud to talk to "the likes of me" anyway.
So, I finally did the one thing I don't regret doing.
I began talking to Dippy. A lot. Since she was the only one of my friends that still liked me after Rose -- my friend since first grade -- had moved onto her new 'friends' and boyfriends at school and whatnot.
Anyway, I talked to Dippy whenever I could, going to try my hardest to keep this one friendship alive; even though I had doubts.
In short? I made her my everything, and eventually, after quite a long while, she pretty much ditched me -- her best friend who took her side on anything, for her "love", some random guy called Mike that was her new boyfriend.
To make a long story short, after a while, I found out she'd been lying to me for months, avoiding me just to get me to leave her alone, telling me tall tales about her grandmother getting sick and having a heart attack so she wouldn't be online as much.
Then, I learn -- from her cousin, of all people -- that her grandmother's been perfectly fine for ages, and Dippy's just moved onto her new boy-toy who even tells her to her face, "I like another girl better than you, but you'll do for now."
So, I've had enough. I confront her, and after her cherade of "Oh, my cousin must have been lying, you actually believed her??" bull, she finally gave up and admitted that she was just growing bored with me as her willing slave and decided that Mike was fun because she could cram her tongue down his throat and french him until hell froze over..but in different words, obviously. Gotta make out, you know; much better than any form of friendship. Gotta go do what everyone else is doing and let some dumbnut grope you and drool in your mouth like a rabid animal, just so you can be 'cool' and have a boyfriend.
Then, a while later after I've made it clear I no longer want anything to do with her and what she's become, she goes and wants my sympathy because, boo-hoo, Mikey-poo-poo-kins was cheating on her since before she was even going out with him!
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE!?!
The guy /told/ her, to her face, that she was second-best and compared to a few other people, she was just dogmeat that was fun to be used at the time.
After telling her what a worthless loser she was and making sure she knew how badly she needed a life, I high-tailed it on the last note of, and I quote, "You know, the entire time I knew you, you told the truth about one thing, and I didn't believe you every time you told me. You don't deserve me."
Yeah...I know how harsh -- and maybe even unfair -- that was, but now, I've realized that everyone in this world basically exists to complete their goal or goals in life.
If you stand in the way of that goal, then you force them to choose between you and said goal.
Usually, your random friendship isn't that big of a thing.
They can find more friends to talk to and keep them company.
Pretty much, they're just going to use you and lose you.
Well, I'm way too emotional when it comes to being used and lost, so now, I'm not so easy.
I may be a moron who's far too gullable for my own good, but eventually, I catch on.
Now, it's strictly a no "friends" policy, since I need to get on with my life and stay focused.
I can't do that when I go through massive emotional breakdowns just because someone used me and stabbed me in the back when they were supposed to be watching it.
So, I don't let people that close anymore.
I'm not going to be some uber-emo manic depressive chick; I mean, sure, I'll be friendly and put on a nice good show, but I'm not letting anyone close enough to hurt me. It's just a bit too much for me to handle, and sure, I may never have the kind of 'friends' (or 'love', for that matter) that you read about in books -- unconditional, forever and all, but it also means that when -- yes, 'when', not 'if', but 'when' -- they decide I'm no longer all that useful / interesting / essential / whatever, I can just go, "Alrighty, whatever. So long, and don't let the door hit you on your way out of my life."
Either way, maybe I'll type more later. That's enough for now.
If you really want to know about me /that/ badly, then you could try actually /speaking/ to me and /asking/.![]()
Anyway...let's start off around sixteen years ago.
I was born in a hospital, like most other kids. No, this was no special event, not even to me, but it was the day I got my name. "Demonica Ember LePenske" was scribbled across my birth certificate, much to the surprise of the nurses and doctors, I'd imagine; but it's a mother's right to name her child what ever she wants, right? Eh..
Anyway, I never met my father, seeing as I don't think he even stuck around for me to be born, but when I was just a few months old, yeah, I was stuck up for adoption, much like a lot of animals are.
Poor me? Nah, don't pity me; it makes me feel all pathetic and stuff.
Besides, that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. ^^
Well, being just a baby, I was adopted almost instantly by the parents I have now. I don't remember a thing about where I was until they found me, and I really don't even remember a thing of this, but I'm going by what the "authority" (who currently owned me) and my parents have told me.
So...I was adopted. Unfortunately, my uberly-pwnsome name was changed to "Shandale Dawn White". Three things I /hate/.
Aaaanyway...well, not much else happened.
I was adopted and my family already had several other family members -- yes, children. Well, not human children, but the furry and four-legged kind, you see.
My family, other than my human adoptee parents, included Mariah -- a beautiful wolf, german shepherd, rough collie and australian shepherd hybrid; Riffraffs -- a hundred and ten pound Rottweiler/Doberman mix; Ziggie, a long haired jack russel terrier as the alpha male with a rather bad attitude when it came to protecting his family and Puffy, a little white and silver Toy Poodle/Chihuahua cross who lived to be twenty-two years old.
I got a pet rat when I was two, but I think it's an instinct for any child -- I wanted my own dog.
So, not long after on Christmas, my mother adopted a Maltipoo puppy, whom I named Snowball.
Snowball was chosen as Ziggy's mate, and as not even a year-old pup, she became the proud and very kind alpha female who loved nothing more than to get haircuts and dress up in her little doggy sweaters.
Okay, sure, I was only two years old and though I couldn't take care of them on my own, I loved them, and I know they certainly loved me.
When I was about six, my rat died and my dog (the little poodle/maltese mix) had puppies with Ziggie, and there was born Tippy, the oldest dog and animal I own now, as well as his two brothers, Patches and Hobs.
Patches was adopted, though his owner said he was stolen. She was quite a horrible liar; I still believe she just lost him and didn't want to tell us the truth. He looked /exactly/ like a Jack Russel Terrier with a bit of curly hair on his cheeks, more poodle-ish instead of broken-coated-JRT-ish. xD
Hobs was taken by my evil aunt. ...He looks rather horrid and frightful with naturally wiry, matty hair and bulging eyes for some reason, and has an abnormal amount of allergies.
Well..not much else happened, just regular every-day life stuff.
Eventually, mom let me get another puppy, a pure-bred rottweiler which I called Roxi. Unfortunately, since her older step-brother was also bred to her mother and used as her father, she wasn't exactly in the best of health and had to be put to sleep because she got extremely sick in about a month or so.
Anywho, soon after, Ziggie (Tippy's Dad) had to be put to sleep from old age, as he was already blind and deaf, and was beginning to be unable to control when he went to the bathroom.
Not long after Roxi had to be put down, I rescued Peanut from the shelter, and named her as a bit of a joke seeing as even as a five month old puppy, she was about sixty pounds.
We had an entire pack once again, and although I was too young and inexperienced to know this, looking back, I know that it was a very unstable one; and if I knew then what I know about canines now, I might have actually been able to prevent such a terrible event; but...as things turned out, I mistook the frequent dogs fights as nothing but minor arguments -- seeing as they were just simple and over quickly, one of our dogs would jump on the other over something like a bone or whatnot, we would break them apart and it would be done with until the next 'arguement' appeared.
I was only a bit younger than eleven when one of the worst days of my entire life occured, and it was because of this unstable pack that we had -- a very passive and easy-going alpha female, a mildly aggressive alpha male, a /very/ large omega-dog who was bigger than all of them and considered the lowest in the pack, and not to mention a brand new puppy who was already being considered higher in the pack than said omega-dog.
Peanut, the dog I had rescued was now about four years old -- a 100-pound female German Shepherd/Wolf mix -- attacked Snowball and, being a hundred pounds compared to Snowy's eighteen, killed her by grabbing her up by her throat and giving her a few good shakes, then slinging her against the brick fire place, where her skull connected before she hit the ground again.
It was..awful, terrifying, the worst day of my life. Those are the only words I know that can describe it.
I only really remember walking in the living room and sitting down in the chair beside the mantle, only to watch as Peanut (the Wolf/German Shepherd mix) suddenly glare at, snarl at, then leap at Snowball after Snowball returned her stare.
It happened in a matter of seconds.
I had instantly fallen out of the chair to get between and break up my first dog who I loved endlessly, and my young hybrid of a companion.
I was in the middle of it, trying to defend Snowball because she had barely been ready when she was attacked, nor would she have been able to cause much damage from her tiny size either way.
I managed to get my back to Peanut, who I soon learned wasn't interested in hurting me, although would do so if it meant she could get to her goal -- becoming the alpha female from being the lowest member of the pack.
I had Snowball with one arm, and Peanut was snapping at my back and the back of my neck to get me to move.
She quickly stopped when she realized all she could chew on was my hair, though.
I wish she wouldn't have.
I don't even have the scars on my neck anymore..
Instead, she rounded me and went back for my little Snowball.
I was furious, so I did the first thing my human instincts told me to: laid down in front of/under the pouncing wolfdog and held one arm up to try and either shoo her away or to hit her in the face to try and get her to back off and come to her senses.
Well...I succeeded in getting her attention.
She decided to get me out of the way and sank her inch-long adult canine fang into the center of my forearm. It almost went about halfway through, and though I registered that she had bitten me, I could barely feel the pain. I was too scared and too determined to keep her away from Snowball to realize the extent of the damage done to myself. I couldn't believe my loyal friend, adopted sister and pet could be so vicious and cruel to her own family for quite literally NO darned reason other than the desire to rule the pack.
Well, she jerked her head away and jumped right over me, catching the already-wounded Snowy in her mouth by her throat.
I remember it like it was just an hour ago.
Peanut stood up on her hind legs, lifting little Snowball up with her, jaws clenching her blood and curly poodle fur-covered jugular.
She held her up in the air over her head, shook her neck back and fourth, then turned and completely chucked her at the brick fireplace, seeming almost proudly happy as Snowy hit the mantle, cracking not one, but two of her ribs just from the force alone, as well as dishing out some permanent damage to her skull.
Finally, my dad got in the house. Well, sort of finally. He'd obviously heard the commotion even with his hearing-impaired ears and rushed in. It seemed like it took him forever to get in from my point of view, but in reality, it hadn't been but maybe a couple of minutes, if that.
He was still on crutches, seeing as..er, ahem, after whipping my other puppy (who was about two months old at the time) in the face with a metal belt buckle, he "accidentally" got shoved down the stairs by my wolfdog, who would seemingly do anything at the time just a month or so before this.
Well, he grabbed Peanut's choke chain and gave it a good yank, though she jerked away so hard, one of the links in the chain around her throat broke.
I still have the pieces of the chain sitting on top of this very desk as I type this.
Finally, seeing Snowball lying unconcious on the rug in front of the fireplace, I guess Peanut thought she won or something, and actually gave up the fight completely and allowed herself to be thrown outside with extremly little of a struggle.
This was the longest maybe-seven-minutes of my whole life.
I remember grabbing a nearby towel to cuddle the bleeding, unconscious, motionless poodle in my arms as my cousin (who was in our back yard at the time of the fight and didn't even notice the commotion until it was all ready over) rushed in and got us both in the car.
I remember sitting in the passenger seat of her little white car as we quite literally did 80 MPH down main street until we reached the vet. It was closed early for the weekend -- just our luck -- and we had to get back in the car and drive all the way across town to the other vet, which was open all night. [My cousin was only visiting from L.A., so she really didn't know much about our town anyway.]
I remember sitting there, staring down at the poor pooch in my arms who was bleeding all over everything as I tried to practically hold her throat together; the skin that once covered her throat pulled back to reveal a large hole, as well as her torn jugular vein, even if I didn't know what all of those organs in her neck even /were/ back then.
I remember her staring up at me, quivering from shock and - I can imagine - pain, and I remember wondering how she was even alive, much less conscious, even if just barely.
...She knew I was holding her. Trying my best to save her, and doing everything in my power that a kid my age could, despite the large chunk taken out of my own arm and the already scabbing back of my neck.
I couldn't even feel them while I held her...
We finally arrived. It seemed like it took hours, when, doing eighty in a convertible, it only took about three to five minutes.
I dragged myself out of the car once more, holding by blood-drenched maltese mix in my arms, close to my chest. I was even still in my pajama top from lazing around that day.
I hoisted her up on the counter, and in no time, I think two or three vets and I think /all/ of the assistants gathered around me. They grabbed her up and took her in a room just about twenty feet away, and me and my cousin followed.
After a good couple hours of just standing while they tried to get her to come to and repair all of her injuries the best they could, the vet finally let out a deep breath, realizing what had happened.
She could have lived, possibly; with numerous extremely expensive operations and whatnot. She could have come out...alive, to say the least; other than the fact it would take months, if not years or more for her throat alone to heal completely.
..Thing is, when she hit the fireplace, her skull was hit so hard that, thanks to the mild fractures or whatever had happened, it was over a ninety percent chance would have permanent brain damage.
She wouldn't have even remembered us or her own son.
Then there was the fact that two of her ribs had punctured her lungs really badly, and there wasn't too much they could do to repair them on an already stressed out, very seriously injured little 18-pound, eight-year-old dog who still thought she was a puppy and loved to play and roughhouse with her only remaining son.
Chances are, she may have never walked well -- or at all -- again from some kind of trauma. I don't remember exactly what they said had caused all of this, but for the first time in my life, it felt the world was against my closest friend continuing to live.
So, with my cousin having chosen to leave the room long ago to rest in the waiting room, I made the decision.
She was my dog, it was the least I could do for her; to let her go now so I wouldn't have to give her three months just to be physically capable of moving, just to see if she would even be mentally stable or able to eat or even walk correctly on her own again. ..I wasn't doing her any favors by keeping her alive when her body was so beyond recovery.
I apologized to her while I soaked Snowy's still soft, curly blood-coated fur with my tears as I hugged her tightly, kissed her forehead and sobbed my choice to let her go now and not make her recover just enough to tell if I wanted to put her to sleep later on or not.
Having to be carried around just to go outside or go to a food bowl to eat, possibly having such severe brain damage that she wouldn't have made it because of that alone...this was no life I could offer to her, and she deserved so, so much more.
With the injection of a serenge and fifteen minutes as she fought to stay alive past the overdose of euthanization liquid or whatever while I stroked her sides carefully, she finally gave up fighting...like she would have had to do eventually.
I just kept my head against hers, kissing her and petting her as I tried my hardest to make her very last memories be of something other than sheer emotional pain -- thankfully, they'd already given her mass amounts of pain killers to at least numb her while they tried to keep her from suffering and dying then and there.
..And I think she knew that...no matter what, I still think that she knew I was there, trying to comfort her, even though I was so confused, upset and in such pain, both emotional and physical myself. Nothing compared to her, though..
We finally hit the two hour mark, and my mom was also waiting outside. I..I couldn't face her. I physically couldn't look her in the eye and tell her what had happened while she was at the grocery store, getting a few gallons of whole milk and hamburger meat (Yes, I remember her grocery list that she had around five years ago that day) to come home to find our whole living room covered with crimson blood, and my dad waiting on the porch to tell her what happened. ..The milk and hamburger meat never made it into the fridge before she left it on the ground and got back in the car with my dad to find us at the vet's office.
I..I simply couldn't tell her what had happened in that 10x10 square foot operating/emergency room. Not then. Not there.
Later that night, after waiting in the pouring rain as my grandfather came over and dug a grave in our back yard beside Ziggie's, after I lowered Snowy's little wooden box dad pieced together in a matter of minutes into the cold earth and cried, my mom made me get back in the car, just to make sure my dog bites weren't infected.
Well, the doctor made me hold my hand out as he placed some little weird needle-less serenge-like item with half round a plastic cup-thing on the end of it over my dog bite, then sprayed some orange liquid into it to 'clean' it.
I didn't shed a tear when Peanut had bitten me.
I hadn't even made a sound. But such a force of something being sprayed into an open dog bite to "disinfect it" made me scream so loud, I daresay the people in the front of the hospital could hear it. My mom scolded me, as some little boy (looked about five/eight or so, mom said) was walking right past the door and looked more scared from my sudden scream than I had at the time Peanut leapt at Snowy.
I cried myself to sleep that night, while Peanut slept in the garage. I laid there, curled up with my recently-rescued puppy, Akita, an Akita/Australian Cattledog/Dingo mix, sobbing into her fur as I lay curled up on my bottom mattress of my bunk bed.
She kept me company the whole night, knowing I was hurt really bad (and not just physically) while she had taken off and hid under my bed just hours before. I don't know why, but I think she knew I wanted her to get away and hide, just so she wasn't harmed...
Well..we decided to keep Peanut. She seemed..so innocent...so sad...so... ... ...sorry. I stared into her eyes that next morning when I went to let her out of the cold garage, silently telling her "You have one more chance. I hope you've learned your lesson, since you just killed your family member for literally NO reason, and even if you had one, no reason would be a good enough excuse for such a horrible crime you have comitted."
She lowered her head, shame covering her face as she slowly crouched out past me and the door.
I followed her in the house, staring as she turned her head ever so slightly to make sure I was behind her. I was curious as to why. She went through the doggy door, and I slid the sliding screen door open and continued to follow her, watching her carefully.
My mom had called me for..something. I think she wanted to check my bandages or something, I didn't get time to find out.
Before I was even all the way in the kitchen to see what my mom wanted, that's when she did it.
Peanut turned around, looked me in the eye across the room, then turned and lunged at my puppy.
The puppy she had treated like her own daughter for the past three months or more now. Again, I was in shock. I was furious this time.
I later realized why she did this. It's because she had killed Snowball so she could become the alpha female, and, being obviously unstable...Tippy hadn't chosen her as such. She was still considered an omega in his eyes -- lowest of the pack for a good reason.
Instead, he picked a couple month-old pup as an alpha in training; to completely bypass Peanut in pack hierarchy and become the top dog.
So..yes, even though Peanut had treated this little pup like her own the past few months, her friendship was nothing compared to her desire to become the boss.
And little Akita was standing the last female and the only thing standing in her way to do it.
Thankfully, this time, Peanut did not get her way.
Instead, having attacked little baby Akita right next to a recliner, young, agile (and part Dingo) Akita slipped right under the chair and hid, escaping with nothing more than a gash across her eye.
Still, I was across the room, and Peanut was already diving under the chair to drag Akita out and extinguish her from our family. There was nothing I could do to defend her from such a distance.
Once again, it looks hopeless -- like I'm doomed to lose yet another one of my companions and beloved family members, furry and four-footed or not.
This is the part where Akita owes Tippy her life.
If it weren't for him getting directly in the way and attacking her to defend the pup, causing Peanut to willingly back off because she was fighting to be his mate and rule alongside him anyway, chances are she would have killed Akita, who had only begun to live.
That was all the time I needed. I grabbed Peanut by the back of her faded hot-pink nylon collar and gave it a good jerk with every ounce of my might. I managed to pull her backwards and onto me to where she was lying flat on top of me, her back against my body.
She had calmed down enough for me and my mom to drag her by her throat and kick her outside while we rushed back to tend to our injured dingo puppy.
She was fine after that, just having a scar beneath her fur which would heal up in time. Tippy didn't get a scratch on him.
Later that day, without even considering my idea to simply put her in a kennel and keep her there for the rest of her life, and with my mom's okay, my dad took Peanut back to the pound where I first rescued her as an ill little pup on death's door.
Even though Peanut had comitted not one, but two unforgivable crimes and was a truly awful, seemingly soulless animal, I still loved her; and had it been up to me, I wouldn't have gotten rid of her. I would have built her a massive kennel and gotten her a decent sized doghouse and just kept her outside if it meant I could have kept her; even if only the human members of the family were allowed to be around her.
I wasn't like her. No matter what, she was a part of my family, and I still do love her, even though I may not have liked her a bit...
Anyway, not long after all of this, I decided to start going on the computer more often, now that I only had Akita and Tippy to keep me company; Tippy who did his own thing which included roaming around, completely lost in the absense in his mother, and Akita, who was only three months old and already growing into the roll of a fine, stable new alpha female.
That was about the time I got an AIM from some freak called 'AikenShouldOfWon'. Odd screen name, yes, I know, and I made sure to let her know I thought so, too.
Our conversation went something along the lines of this-
Her: hi
Me: Uhm, hello? oO;
Her: do u play neopets???????? :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Me: Uhm..yes... =flinch=
Her: o wow k00l u r neppita rite???????????
Me: Eh...N/i/ppita, yes, and why must you type like such an unintelligent idiot...?
Her: omg wow ur lookup sez dat u hav lyk 300 neopetz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how do u taik cair of dem al???????????? tell mi!!! LOL
Me: .___.; The neolodge works wonders, you know..
Her: LOLOLOL!! u r funny!
Me: Yes, yes, I am, now can you PLEASE learn how to type properly, or get lost and leave me [censored] alone? T__T;
Her: woA!!! y r u so0o0o0o0o0o meen all uf a sudden?
Me: =sighs and hovers cursor over 'block' button=
Her: hey wait plz dun block me!!!!! i juz wanna b ur frend!!!!
Me: Eheh. There is no way on god's green earth that would cause me to be friends with a chatspeaker, so I daresay you're wasting /both/ of our time.
Her: wate wut iz chatspeaker????
Me: You're doing it right now. The multiple lines of punctuation marks, the single letters that are supposed to represent words, the constant lack of grammar..
Her: wait, what?
Me: Well, that's better. Let's see...okay. If you can type /normal/ (NORMAL-normal, not whatever YOU consider "normal"), as if you would on an english report...sure, I'll give you a chance to be my 'friend'.
Her: really?? OMG cool!
Me: Uh..no "omg" stuff. No little abbreviations like that. Would you use "omg" on a paper you were turning in that affected 1/3rd of your grade?
Her: ...
Me: Didn't think so. ..Well, /you/ might, but.. =shrugs=
Anyway, that's from pure memory. I remember her horrid typing skills and love for excessive punctuation marks, as well as me threatening to block her and such, though I'm fairly sure the conversation's words vary a bit, seeing as I can't remember a random encounter with a n00b on AIM that happened over three and a half years ago.
Well, she /did/ start typing better. Eventually, she turned out to be almost a big a grammar freak as I am, and /that/ is saying something. XD
Well...anyway, I'll skip the boring stuff. We became pretty darned good friends; Me, 'Dipstick' as the girl was called, Stich, and Arfy, my two other friends and "pack mates".
I loved it. They all treated me like I was their leader or something, and I'd never even asked them to. It was fun, despite me being the second-youngest, right above little 4'6 tall Arfy, who I was only like, a few months to a year at most over.
We all played neopets together, my favorite activity being getting them good pets in the pound or just buying them nice items, paint brushes and..well, all in all, things, to give them. I loved getting them gifts, because I loved to see them all happy and pleased with me.
I'd even draw them in our little fursonas. They were the only people who could get free art out of me without even asking (even though I wasn't a very good artist back then), and yeah, I purposely did that just to make them feel a bit more special. I didn't mind; they deserved something for being so kind to me.
Well, then, one day, Arfy IM's me and tells me that she's been frozen on neopets again, this time losing the Halloween Shoyru and very nicely-named purple shoyru I'd gotten her. She said she had sworn on the message boards and decided she would just risk it. Well, she wanted to talk to me so that I would feel sorry for her and tell her how alright it was. I told her that I didn't, and that it was her fault. If she didn't want to lose her 'dream pet', why did she risk him like that? It wasn't my problem; he was her pet, not mine, even though it wasn't easy aquiring him as a gift...
Anyway, that's when she got mad. I don't even remember what she said, after swearing at me and throwing some kind of text fit, I minimized the AIM and completely ignored her little outrage.
So, the next day, I decided to tell Stitch about Arfy's little hissy fit to see if she had done the same to poor Stitch. Well, the response I got was a good mile or more from anything close to what I was expecting...
I told her, but only got, "Arfy wouldn't do that, Demon. I don't believe you."
I remember being all, "...Wait, what? You don't believe that Arfy, queen of conniptions, would do something like that?" "No, Demon, I don't believe that, and I don't see how you could have the nerve to say something like that about her." "You're telling me that you don't believe me, even though you've seen Arfy go off on other people like that for no apparent reason as well?" "No, Demon. I don't. And I can't trust someone who lies to me. I don't trust you."
I was in shock. I simply try to explain that Arfy had some little fit, and wanted to know if she'd done the same to Stitch, or ask if Stitch knew why.
Either way, I had managed to lose both of my two best friends that I had known even longer than Dippy in a time period of sixteen hours.
Man, that was an awful day. I was so confused. Why did she say that to me? Why did Arfy do what she did? =sigh= Oh well. There was nothing that I could do. So, I stopped for a while. I was miserable. Too proud to talk to them whenever I'd see them online, even though I knew they were too proud to talk to "the likes of me" anyway.
So, I finally did the one thing I don't regret doing.
I began talking to Dippy. A lot. Since she was the only one of my friends that still liked me after Rose -- my friend since first grade -- had moved onto her new 'friends' and boyfriends at school and whatnot.
Anyway, I talked to Dippy whenever I could, going to try my hardest to keep this one friendship alive; even though I had doubts.
In short? I made her my everything, and eventually, after quite a long while, she pretty much ditched me -- her best friend who took her side on anything, for her "love", some random guy called Mike that was her new boyfriend.
To make a long story short, after a while, I found out she'd been lying to me for months, avoiding me just to get me to leave her alone, telling me tall tales about her grandmother getting sick and having a heart attack so she wouldn't be online as much.
Then, I learn -- from her cousin, of all people -- that her grandmother's been perfectly fine for ages, and Dippy's just moved onto her new boy-toy who even tells her to her face, "I like another girl better than you, but you'll do for now."
So, I've had enough. I confront her, and after her cherade of "Oh, my cousin must have been lying, you actually believed her??" bull, she finally gave up and admitted that she was just growing bored with me as her willing slave and decided that Mike was fun because she could cram her tongue down his throat and french him until hell froze over..but in different words, obviously. Gotta make out, you know; much better than any form of friendship. Gotta go do what everyone else is doing and let some dumbnut grope you and drool in your mouth like a rabid animal, just so you can be 'cool' and have a boyfriend.
Then, a while later after I've made it clear I no longer want anything to do with her and what she's become, she goes and wants my sympathy because, boo-hoo, Mikey-poo-poo-kins was cheating on her since before she was even going out with him!
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE!?!
The guy /told/ her, to her face, that she was second-best and compared to a few other people, she was just dogmeat that was fun to be used at the time.
After telling her what a worthless loser she was and making sure she knew how badly she needed a life, I high-tailed it on the last note of, and I quote, "You know, the entire time I knew you, you told the truth about one thing, and I didn't believe you every time you told me. You don't deserve me."
Yeah...I know how harsh -- and maybe even unfair -- that was, but now, I've realized that everyone in this world basically exists to complete their goal or goals in life.
If you stand in the way of that goal, then you force them to choose between you and said goal.
Usually, your random friendship isn't that big of a thing.
They can find more friends to talk to and keep them company.
Pretty much, they're just going to use you and lose you.
Well, I'm way too emotional when it comes to being used and lost, so now, I'm not so easy.
I may be a moron who's far too gullable for my own good, but eventually, I catch on.
Now, it's strictly a no "friends" policy, since I need to get on with my life and stay focused.
I can't do that when I go through massive emotional breakdowns just because someone used me and stabbed me in the back when they were supposed to be watching it.
So, I don't let people that close anymore.
I'm not going to be some uber-emo manic depressive chick; I mean, sure, I'll be friendly and put on a nice good show, but I'm not letting anyone close enough to hurt me. It's just a bit too much for me to handle, and sure, I may never have the kind of 'friends' (or 'love', for that matter) that you read about in books -- unconditional, forever and all, but it also means that when -- yes, 'when', not 'if', but 'when' -- they decide I'm no longer all that useful / interesting / essential / whatever, I can just go, "Alrighty, whatever. So long, and don't let the door hit you on your way out of my life."
Either way, maybe I'll type more later. That's enough for now.
If you really want to know about me /that/ badly, then you could try actually /speaking/ to me and /asking/.