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yunsoh · 3 years

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s3 episode 3 thoughts and oh boy!!! trio time. disaster siblings + yuki time.

- man have i missed the student council. just wow have i missed them

- tbh my first thought is just how cute kimi is at the start of this ep. also i love that she and yuki have this same problem with the seniors suddenly confessing their love/trying to ask them out before they graduate and while yuki’s sitting here like “i can only hurt their feelings :(” kimi’s straight up like “let them throw a pity party!! whatever” queen

- and of course “what makes a guy attractive is his bank account 💖” fave. and kakeru agreeing with “true facts” god the two of them. mhm.

- the way that kimi decimates nao’s entire life and career in one fell swoop. get his ass. also i find it endlessly funny that nao has a crush on minagawa of all girls because she is point blank the most obnoxious girl in the whole school. like it just seems like he wouldn’t have the patience for her at all LMAO but i guess crushes just do that to your brain sometimes

- the girls calling machi scary for knocking over a bunch of chalk while being dead fuckin silent on haru literally destroying their classroom. actually not even dead quiet the girls literally cleaned up after him. hot privilege.

- i’m endlessly curious about how this rumor about machi trying to kill her little brother even got around like. i have to assume it was something that slipped from either her parents or kakeru’s mom to other parents of kids who go to the same school/adjacent schools. because obviously it did not come from kakeru and he’s the only other person who knows yk.

- kakeru: *sulks*

- machi: *trots*

- ugh man it’s machi’s parents just continuing to put her own feelings in her mouth and never once letting her have control over her own personhood, down to displaying her thoughts or emotions. “you’ll be more comfortable alone.” also her dad saying that he assumed that machi might try to hurt her brother and treating that as the truth because she’s never had the space to become an individual to them separate from what they project onto her. how much can you hate your child actually.

- also find it interesting that kakeru has never fully questioned whether or not machi actually tried to kill her brother. when he says it to yuki, he says “what those girls said is pretty close to the truth.” and when yuki says he finds it hard to believe, kakeru says he “may be right,” since it’s just the version of the story he heard from his parents. but all things considered i don’t think he’s necessarily ever believed it to be true; he’s just never been able to see machi’s side of the story because she’s been fully closed off to confiding in him, which is mostly because she feels as though she won’t be listened to or understood anyway thanks to the treatment she’s had from her parents.

- that said. kakeru go to jail

- it’s about yuki feeling comfortable enough to engage in physical acts of friendship without so much as thinking about it. yeah :)

- i do find it interesting that kakeru remembers this moment of machi making footprints in the snow when they were younger. it’s something that would probably be easily forgettable but it stuck with him because even he found something a little off about it.

- this whole minute is just such a whirlwind. the little arrows pointing to yuki. machi trying to slam the door on them. kakeru dragging yuki in to the point that he’s tripping over his own feet. yuki calling it the sea of decay with sincerity but machi has no idea what the context is. the bra. machi about to throttle yuki. kakeru finally fucking leaving after getting hit and still being a shit. this all happens in like forty seconds.

- her best quality: her squiggles

- oh this visual of her having to walk this tightrope with her mom. interesting

- also interesting how young machi sounds in this scene where her mom is talking down on her to another person. i know she must be in her first or second year of middle school (just because kakeru was in middle school when he finally got out of the inheritance situation) but it really drives home just how young she was.

- also heartbreaking because this is a moment where machi is trying to stand up for herself and asking why her mom is saying those things about her when she’s the one who shaped her this way, and she’s just so thoroughly shut down by her that she can’t cope.

- i thought this shot was adapted well, although i think the scene itself is kind of confusing -- in the manga, it’s insinuated that she has this breakdown moment right after this conversation with her mom, and that it’s the first time she reacts this destructively (in the manga her outfit is the same between shots, and it doesn’t appear that she’s in her own apartment yet -- it’s more ambiguously just a home office). here though they change it so that it’s a more recent event -- more like she’s reacting this way because she’s remembering this conversation, rather than reacting directly after it. the outfit she wears in this scene is the same one she wears when her parents are accusing her of trying to hurt her brother, too; it’s also reasonable to read this as her having a breakdown after being left alone in her apartment for the first time. to the team’s credit her window is also broken in the season 2 ep where we see her apartment for the first time, so we can assume that they made this change deliberately.

- yuki is so genuinely kind as usual, but it’s also because he does have a thread of personal understanding of where she’s coming from. he also suffered from being held to an incredibly high standard and was similarly emotionally neglected because of this, but it’s also something he’s come to terms with and has started to heal and move on from. so he’s at a place where he’s able to give her some comfort. even just the simple act of praise for still being here, and just being herself, is something that is so desperately needed.

- kakeru listening in..... boy take ur notes

- literally yuki is like the epitome of being machi’s senior like this moment is just sooo gentle but also protective i think. like he’s really just taking the helm where kakeru has been unable to all this time. he’s her mentor in a way.

- kakeru’s goofy fucking ringtone and the animation that goes with it. love that

- the chalk-breaking scene did change the game. yuki is just completely on for her to the point that he doesn’t even stop what he’s saying to consider it. he’s just really looking out for her :’(

- rest of the ep under the cut because i know this is gonna be about minagawa lmfao

- oh this new scene is cute? love kyo actually helping out + uo and hana just fucking chilling. also uo hana and yuki only giving a fuck about tohru while kyo falls from like eight feet up.

- yuki literally only coming in for that second lmfao king

- i knew that this would be the minagawa ep and yet when yuki said he had an appointment i was like...... are you....... going to the doctor’s for some reason....... this is a weird reboot addition..............

- the beginning of this scene is weeeeeird what a weird transition to minagawa. also this feels super jarring and i knew this was coming?? like there’s no setup for this being a goodbye to minagawa she’s just suddenly sitting there getting super nostalgic

- i am grateful though that they didn’t split the time these chapters got completely 50-50. minagawa only getting like five minutes of screentime before gong away forever feels apt.

- minagawa really is just here to say “thank you yuki for being the center of my harassment campaign on the general student body here for these past two years” before bouncing. this isn’t even a point of character development she literally didn’t learn anything.

- the pacing of this feels so WEIRD like. on the one hand, glad it’s only five minutes. on the other hand why was it included at all. it really dampers the rest of the ep and just feels super distracting.

- the dramatic music....... the dramatic flashbacks......... i mean it tracks for her but i just cannot take it seriously lmaooo

- wow the way this is delivered just makes this scene with minagawa feel extra undeserved. like even more so than in the manga. that’s pretty incredible.

- am i going to sit here and make mental parallels between the fact that neither minagawa nor machi actually know yuki personally. like they’ve both been observing him from afar this whole time. like is that the parallel i’m supposed to draw this episode that both of these girls have crushes on him but he hasn’t actually divulged anything personal to either of them. idk. like i know the answer is no and that it’s more fodder for him having a romance plot and whatever but. idk!

- what is happening what is happening what is happening

- this departing song + the shots of the empty school feels so fucking weird. we’re saying goodbye to minagawa and takei. what is being imparted emotionally does not match the actual narrative we are receiving. also feels weird to put a scene with this much “goodbye” emotion in the third episode?

- did i just fast forward through this nao and minagawa scene. maybe.

- oh that’s right we also get hiro at the end of this chapter too. and kagura talking about rin. this pacing is weird

- it still baffles me that rin was able to graduate how tf did she manage that

- wow i really wish these last parts of the ep were moved to the next episode or something. they feel really out of place squashed into the end here. this rin bit definitely deserved more time to let the weight sink in.

#fruits basket #fruits basket spoilers #surprisingly felt like i didn't talk too much about this ep #probably because i've talked about all this stuff w machi to death already

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caffeinated-chaos-bean · 3 years

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Mid-2021 Blog Update

Hey guys.

So... It’s been a while. Quite a while... and I want to lay some things out as to why I’ve been gone and the blog has practically been dead in the water for half a year, if not for a whole year.

I want you to know that what I’m going to say will be in heavy detail. I’m comfortable speaking on it, and what information doesn’t just include me will be using either public details that I know I can share or will be put in a short and sweet manner.

This is your trigger warning: If you need to click off or scroll past due to the mention of extremely bad mental health, toxic relationships and households, the mention of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, please do so now.

. . .

First off, I’ve lessened the amount of time I’ve been online due to my mental health. I was put on antidepressants as well as told to take anti-anxiety gummies in November and will be weaned off of those starting this October. A lot of my family and relationship drama on top of the world practically shutting down and going into chaos thanks to COVID-19 just took a major toll on me. With so much on my shoulders, stress from living with said things on my shoulders, unsupportive family members, and an emotionally distant partner, I was at one of the lowest points in the life. I’d never had to be on mood-related medication in my life until last November. I’d always been able to handle what was thrown at me, but mid- to late-2020 was what knocked me down that low for the first time in my life. Suicidal thoughts came and went (they weren’t often, only when I couldn’t bottle my emotions up any longer but didn’t have a way to express them either), but even when they did, I knew that it was just in my head. I never once chose to act on them, because to me, that is not a way to solve a problem or escape your inner demons. All it does it put your personal suffering onto those around you -- your friends, family, and those who cared about you even when you don’t see it -- and it doesn’t do anyone any good. When my doctor asked me about suicide, that’s the very explanation I gave her. Yes, they happened, but I’d never act on them; it’s not a way out and it puts your pain onto others and only worsens the situation for the long-term.

Aside from that, though... I move on to other personal reasons for my absence that helped trigger what was mentioned above. Mid-August of 2019, my then fiancé's mother was murdered by two 17yr old boys of whom she and their family knew. Going off the information that was made public, one boy had mixed meth with marijuana prior to the killing. He claimed that my fiancé’s mother mouthed off and made a derogatory comment about his deceased mother, thus sparking the incident. While he claims to have only stabbed her once, the autopsy report shows that her head/face and upper torso were “hacked, slashed, and chopped” repeatedly with “various sharp, bladed objects”. Not only did they murder her, the two individuals also set the grass around her body on fire along with her home. When we found out about this having happened, I had no idea how bad it would have turned my relationship upside-down. My now ex-fiancé didn’t come from a great childhood, there was abuse and CPS, among other things. But he had managed and was a good person. He could make me laugh and tear up at his jokes, sang beautifully, and did everything to make those around him happy. When he lost his mom, it broke him. It shattered his very being, because not only did he know the two who caused it to happen, he also was unable to reconcile and make amends with his mother for what he went through as a child. He was robbed of being able to forgive and be on good terms with her, and it broke him. He stopped communicating with family, he took bereavement after being pulled from work by family the day it was confirmed to be his mother only to to fired 3 months down the line when he tried to go back (fuck Walmart for that btw), and was slowly becoming a hypochondriac. He stopped talking to me, he would cry in his sleep, and grief made him lash out as was expected. But as the days dragged on, his motivation and care towards finding a new job dwindled. He and my mother would fight endlessly and I was caught in the middle of it, as we all were in one household. There were times in which I would keep my phone on my leg and record for my own personal documentation should I need it due to how bad my own mother would belittle me, belittle my ex behind his back, and just scream and go off. When I’d turn to my ex for comfort, he wasn’t much help due to his own deteriorating mental health. He took to discord, specifically the Vampire the Masquerade community, as his escape from reality. He eventually would hardly talk to me at all, show no compassion, and at times I tried to speak with him about getting a new job or suggesting part-time ones that I felt would be easy and as stress-free as possible for him, I would be shooed away without a word; if I tried to further my attempt to have the conversation, he eventually got an attitude and would just say “Bye!” over and over again while shooing with his hand to get me to leave. There were many days where I’d get off work and sit in the bathroom for an hour and cry because of my frustration and how I felt stuck between two people I cared about deeply (ie. my ex and my mother).

My ex has since moved out and no longer lived with us. He and I are no longer together, and he has cut off all communication to me along with his family. He isn’t living in California anymore, really. He met up with discord friends and is in another state. That’s the last I heard from him. That’s the last his family heard. He doesn’t talk to us or attempt to reach out or respond when his family reaches out. I still very much care about him and want him to get better, but if he has to do so by being away from everyone, then so be it.

While I was letting - or shutting out, rather - the emotions I was feeling once he officially moved out, I relapsed with my anxiety tick; with my trichotillomania. I have a good number of smaller, thinned out spots in my hair from unconsciously pulling out strands of hair when my emotions didn’t know how to regulate. I’m still fighting to get this under control, as I do still catch myself doing it and so does my mother. It currently is not as bad as when my ex first moved out and I had to adjust back into sleeping alone and without someone next to me, but I do still pull. I am looking into trying to get my sister to order me a HabbitAware bracelet for me this Christmas in order to help get my tick back under control. I know its something I will live with forever and go in and out of doing, as there is no cure or medication to curb trichotillomania, but its something to help me be more aware of how often I do pull and to train it to no longer be a muscle memory response.

Most recently, I’ve had to stop taking melatonin. I’ve had bouts of insomnia since my ex left, and eventually I took enough melatonin to not only build an immunity to it but also a slight dependence. I was taking more than I should have been, and I noticed the signs of it and have stopped taking melatonin altogether. Due to this, I have switched to hempseed oil gummies. I take 2 before bed and they have helped wonderfully. But, due to how easy it was for me to become dependent on melatonin, I do plan to take brief breaks from the gummies to avoid a similar situation. I also do not plan on seeking an insomnia medication due to the same reasons. I knew what I was doing was wrong and I knew i was becoming addicted, and due to this I do not wish to risk it happening with a prescription sleep medication. I will deal with my bouts of insomnia as they come.

I also am conquering my insecurities towards others knowing I am a fan of Michael Jackson; a moonwalker. In elementary school (5th grade, 2009), I went through a heavy obsessive phase when he passed. I’d never heard of him, and when I listened to his music that firs time I was instantly hooked. I was ridiculed at school after I performed “Thriller” during a talent show; I had classmates going as far as saying that I must want him to kidnap and r*pe me if I enjoyed his music so much. I didn’t understand the gravity of those comments back then the way that I do now that I’m 23, but I still knew to an extent that what they were saying was in now way a good thing. I shut out his music from mid-6th grade all the way until this year. I hadn’t listened to a single song aside from hearing “Thriller” on the radio during October. For my birthday this year, I had a friend take me out of town and get away for a day. The entire time, she surprised me by playing hours of his music when in the car with her. It has since reopened that connection to his music and I’ve been listening to his songs with a fresh take, with the mind of an adult who can comprehend his words and understand finally what he’s saying for each song. As such, I’ve become more comfortable with others knowing I’m a moonwalker. You can have your opininos of the man, you can choose to believe the tabloids and junk media or make your own conclusions after assessing the details and documents of his life, but I will enjoy the same freedom of opinion.

I know this is getting pretty long, but I wanted to fill those who still might be checking up on this blog for any sort of update or spec of life coming from it in on what’s practically killed the blogs for a good chunk of time.

I do plan to slowly start doing stuff again after Halloween. I have a video made that I plan to post for Halloween and I look forward to letting Kikumi and the others be open for asks again. Until then, may the wind guide you all. I hope everyone can have a safe and wonderful rest of August. I will see you in October.

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dearsubconscious · 3 years

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If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading my very first post on this page before continuing. This story has themes of emotionsl/psychological/narcissistic abuse. This is my true story. Readers be advised.

Sifting Through the Memories: Part One

Dear Subconscious,

6 years. It took you 6 years to tell me the truth. I don’t think you understand how impactful that actually is. Maybe you thought that you were helping me. Maybe you thought that the walls of ignorance that you had built were keeping me safe. I don’t think I will ever really know. However, those 6 years managed to do just as much damage to my life, if not more that the years prior, all because I didn’t understand.

Those 6 years were so confusing. I found the courage to leave her in fall of 2013, senior year of high school, but you waited until 2019 to explain what really happened during that 5-year-long relationship during my most vulnerable years. In the process of waiting all of that time, I had no real understanding of why I had these horrible habits or these self-destructive tendencies that ruined nearly all aspects of my life.

I knew and understood a lot about depression from middle school and high school; from class discussions on the topic; from the people I was close to at the time that suffered greatly from it; from the people that I helped through the dark via deep and open conversations late into the night over text; from the people I care about most struggling through it; perhaps most of all, from my own struggles with it.

I wasn’t really sure at the time why I was depressed, however. I tried to pin it on my apathy for school, which caused my bad grades. Deep down, I always knew that was actually a consequence of my depression, among other reasons, not a cause. I thought maybe it was because of my family situation at home that had been ever changing from around 4th grade on: parent divorces and marriages, arguments, moving houses and changing schools, new step siblings (I was an only child), destructive, alcoholic step parents. These things may have initiated some depression early on, and they may have been contributing factors over time, but I never really felt that any of these events were ultimately what led to my darkest moments in life. I always knew people my age going through worse things than I was, and they seemed to be keeping themselves together better than I was. So why was I having such a difficult time in life? Why couldn’t I keep up with everyone else? Why was my self esteem so low? My parents were always good at supporting me and giving me love and attention, so how could I feel so low? I just never actually knew until recently. Until it was beyond too late.

I was always taught to try to reach out and always be there to help those in need when they need it most and be a helping hand. It could save a life. And I know that I helped save some of my friends lives. I wasn’t looking for praise or to be a hero. I just wanted to make sure that everyone around me was okay. Maybe I was always hopeful that the favor would be returned should I ever need it. I still hold these values today, as I know that so many people just need to be heard to be saved.

Just like me.

Most of my friends knew that I didnt sleep well in high school. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out that was a symptom of my body and mind being in fight-or-flight mode at all times. I was too afraid to sleep for fear of making my girlfriend mad. This still affects my sleep habits to this day. More on that later. This, however, meant that all of my friends also knew that they could text me at just about any time, 24 hours a day, and I would most likely respond. For much of high school, it definitely seemed like I was talking to someone every night, helping them sort their thoughts out and generally letting them vent or open up about their emotions. These talks also, occasionally, had me talking people “back from the ledge” when things got really bad for several of my deeply depressed friends. I always remained anonymous about it for their sake, but I was always glad that I could be there to help in the middle of the night when they were at their darkest. I distinctly remember, in one week, for some reason, three of my friends from three different “walks of life,” unrelated from one another, had all gone through deeply traumatic events and I found myself texting and calling them late through the nights to keep them from making the ultimate decision. All of these years later and I am happy to say that nobody that I knew in high school has taken their own life to this day. It definitely feels a bit miraculous, since I know that my younger step siblings have each lost several friends to suicide during their high school years.

Being young an naive and constantly empathetic toward everyone around me meant that I also left myself very vulnerable and very easy to push around. I never saw it that way at the time, though. Again, naive. I left my empathetic ways open to be used. I didn’t think that anybody could use my kindness against me with malicious intent. Why would they? How could they? I was just being nice.

I suppose that should lead us back to 7th grade, where the real story began. In theater class, an elective I enjoyed in high school, I got to know people better that I hadn’t known before. I had started at a new school where I knew virtually nobody in 6th grade, and the experience of 6th grade didn’t leave much time to get to know anybody yet (though I did meet my best friend in 6th grade). The 7th grade schedule allowed us more time to meet and learn about people in our classes, and theater in particular was a class all about getting to know people so that you could perform characters well together.

This was where I really met her.

We had one other class together, French, but that class had a very strict teacher that allows no time for talking amongst ourselves, so seeing each other’s personalities in theater class meant much more. I remember she always wore the same sweater jacket everyday, just like me. She was small, shy and quiet and she tended to use the sleeves on her jacket to cover her hands. She would wrap her fingers over the ends of the sleeves, gripping tight as if it was protecting her, like some kind of shield. We had to present mini performances often in that class and I could tell that she was very nervous for one of her first ones. She was trying hard to recall her lines and was gripping hard and fidgeting with her sleeve trying to protect herself. I saw a lot of myself in her at the time and I had a lot of empathy for her in that moment. I tried to motion to her to let go of her sleeves so that she could appear more confident. She noticed my sitting in the back motioning, but I think I just looked crazy to her at the time. My use of empathy here should have been the first sign that I was approaching this relationship all wrong. I saw her as someone I could help because I could relate well to.

We started talking a bit in that class. Eventually I managed to convince her to chat with me on yahoo messenger after school so that we could talk more. Our phone plan at the time did not include texting or data, so I was stuck with using yahoo messenger at home on my desktop. We made this work though. I found out quickly that her mom had just gotten married without telling her to a man she didn’t like with two daughters that she did not get along well with. While I don’t entirely blame her for those feelings, even now, her deep apathy for this still probably should have been a red flag at the time, but I was too young and naive to see it at the time. Plus, I was going through something very similar at the time so we had a lot of connection through that. Our conversations were long and we learned a lot about each other. We would trade off asking each other simple questions, like what our favorite song was, or who our favorite family member was. I think this made us feel closer than we were, and at the time we didn’t feel so alone in a strange and lonely life.

She started venting to me about the, supposedly, traumatizing things that she had been going through with her moms marriage and the new people in her house. I should her a lot of sympathy during that time. This probably made her feel like she had someone that would listen to her deepest problems, but it was also the start of her use of my own empathy against me. She would start to use it to trap me in a conversation. Making me feel a little guilty if had to leave for dinner or homework. She didn’t really get angry, but I would always apologize a lot for leaving so she started to get annoyed with the frequency of my interruptions. At the time I thought absolutely nothing about this.

A short time later, I had decided that I definitely liked her because she would connect with and listen to me. I had gotten to know a few of her friends and I had even passed a note to one of her friends that I was thinking about asking her out. Her friend was immediately all over this and wanted me to do it soon. So, one day we were out in groups in theater class, and I remember eaves dropping in her group nearby where her friend was asking her if she likes me. She nodded yes and they discussed a bit. It was a bit of a blur from there, but one way or another I ended up asking her out by the end of that class and she agreed. I was giddy with excitement for weeks, of course. I felt like I couldn’t have asked for things to go better. Puppy love (a term I have come to loath as we called each other puppies for the entirety of the time that we dated. I realized later how she used it as a name to belittle me most of the time). That said, our actual relationship, behaviors and conversations did not change basically at all once we were dating.

Her family was a strict catholic family that taught her to be very uptight about relationships (or so she told me), so we didn’t even hold hands for months. It didn’t even seem like we were in a relationship at all. We were very young anyway, so nobody was really surprised. Summer quickly came around and I was off to see my family in Europe for a month. There was no way for me to communicate with her during that time. With the state of our relationship, that was actually okay. When I returned from that trip, I saw her within the following days and she seemed a bit distant. I asked if we were still together and she agreed, but she seemed a bit apathetic. Our conversations started again on yahoo messenger in the evenings and all seemed normal again.

School soon started again, 8th grade. We only had French class together and we just didn’t seem as connected. I could tell that she was putting some distance on me. I was developing new friends and I became caught up with them more often. Soon (around mid September), she told me that she thought that we should call it off. She felt that we were better off as friends. With the way things were and the fact that we never became very close, I agreed, but it still hurt a little. I had felt good about what we did have at the time, but I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t helped to close the distance in the weeks before that.

I know, this seems inconsequential on my life up to this point and this clearly wasn’t 5 years, so what really happened. Well, it got a lot more complicated very quickly.

Up to this point, I don’t think that you were blocking much or trying to hide any pain. Not much of the damage had been done yet. You couldn’t have seen what was coming next, so how could I blame you. You didn’t do much to keep me from being very vulnerable around that time, though. You were probably sending up red flags that I didn’t understand because my conscious brain was blind and full of emotions that were blocking you out. I was a teenage boy after all.

To be continued.

Thank you for reading. I only write these when I am going through the low days, often after a PTSD trigger, when I have some sleepless time. It helps me collect myself. Updates to this will not be regular, but I hope that you can follow along. Most of all, I hope that sharing my story can help others that are in or have been in similar situations. This situation has had me feeling incredibly lonely for years. I don’t wish this pain on anyone and I hope that you can keep moving forward like I am. We are stronger together and most importantly: you. are. not. alone.

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dreams-of-valeria · 4 years

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F6 and A8 please need !!

A Christmas Chance

F6: Hopper dancing with his girl(s) in the living room

A8: Leaving town

Pairing: Jim Hopper x female reader

Warnings: Heavy themes about self-berating, low self-esteem, language.

A/N: Merry Christmas anon! It was very interesting to write this combo so thank you for that! And to be candid, the original ending wasn't very happy but since it's Christmas, miracles do happen. Hope you enjoy it!

P.S. It might have gotten a little too dramatic and philosophical so watch out for that.

Word count: 3,782

The floorboards creaked underneath their shuffling feet, smooth rock and roll in the air, and a thousand specks of light in their eyes.

You watched them from across the island counter as you sipped on the wine you'd left out the night before, as Hopper swayed El around in his arms in time with the song's beat. They were enveloped in the spirit of Christmas, warm lights and giddy excitement, as Hopper gave his adoptive daughter her first taste of the Holiday season, with a grand feast, gifts and a tree lighting, and just stepped it up a notch with an impromptu dance by the tree.

El giggled as she spun around, holding his hand as she lost herself to the music.

Even from that distance with the dim lighting and alcohol blurring your vision, you could see the bandage around her arm, and it was still stained red from that morning.

A hot lump formed in your throat, and you took a swig of wine, to ease it or make it worse, you didn't know. What you did know was that it was all your fault.

You had assumed that curse that followed you around like a black cloud had cleared when you left home, but after spending only 2 months in Hawkins, you realised it was ingrained into your substance, and there was no getting rid of it.

“Y/n!” El stumbled over to you in giggles, grasping the edge of the counter for support after twirling so much. She then held her injured arm out invitingly, and you could only stare.

It was no question El was an extremely brave and exceptional tween, and had defeated the monster that only showed up after you'd moved there. There had to be a connection. Your father lost his job the week you were born, you uncle got into that terrible car accident and although your mother made no shyness about blaming you for everything, you knew there was something dark festering in you, feeding off of everything joyous.

More recently, it had taken seed in this wonderful girl. You should never have let her out of your sight.

The bandage encircling her arm made your stomach churn, and brought tears to your eyes. But she smiled down at you a sweet smile, eyes bright and merry. She had not once even implied it was your fault, but you knew better.

“Come dance with us,” she staccatoed, pulling the dangling sleeve of Hopper's old shirt back up her wrist, only looking smaller. You swallowed the lump this time and managed a smile.

“I'm fine watching, sweetheart.” You wished to buy her clothes a girl her age would like, but it would have to be someone else.

“That's bullshit and you know it baby,” Hopper exhaled heavily, his face flushed from all the exercise. He took El's side and watched you with a cocked eyebrow.

“Hop!” El complained, staring up at him pointedly.

“What?”

“You said shit.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, hands raised in surrender before turning back to you. You realised you were smiling, like you often did at their conversations. They were heart warming, and you only liked to listen, without interfering. You were afraid of ruining things.

“Come on princess, let me take you for a spin,” he winked, resting his elbows down on the counter. El imitated his action, making you smile again.

“I'm dizzy enough, thank you,” you grinned, holding up your glass in explanation. The wine helped numb you. It was a good feeling.

“That'll just get the turkey drunk in your belly. Come on,” Hopper advanced towards you past dirty dishes from dinner that none of you cleared because Brenda Lee came calling.

“Jim, I'm fine watching, really--” You tried to reason with him, but you were no match for his strength, or his ability to turn you into a melting mess of feelings. That's what scared you the most.

You couldn't possibly fathom you could ever warm the heart of the big bad Chief of the west, certainly not enough for him to show up at the diner you worked night after night to buy you dinner at the end of your shift, but there he was. You figured he must be a true saint to put up with the likes of you, and only a month later, he had introduced you to his daughter no one else knew about, and suggested you moved in.

You took a raincheck on that offer, and let it float away entirely after whatever happened with the Lab. It was a brutal week of fighting and hiding, but it didn't matter that Hopper was smart as a whip and stayed ahead of the bad guys at all times. It didn't matter that El had superpowers. As long as you were around, trouble would always find them.

“Jim!” You gasped as he lifted you up into his arms bridal style, and you clutched onto him tightly until he dropped your feet down in the middle of the living room. Then, he stared down with those same bright eyes full of adoration as he grabbed your hand while the other closed around your waist, and you waltzed around to rock and roll like knuckleheads.

You chuckled at Jim singing all the wrong lyrics and took him in his all his glory. You watched his crows feet wrinkle everytime he smiled, the brilliant lights shining through his brown hair, and the scraggle of his beard speckled with grey and as he flashed you his trademark knee wobbling smile.

You knew he hadn't always been that way. He had suffered demons of his own, and had told you all about them only a month in. He said he felt like he had known you all his life, and that he could share anything with you. While you worked hard to share his sentiment, you couldn't get yourself to bare that part of your past. But you suspected he picked up on bits and pieces; your boyfriend was a very intelligent man.

You smiled at the word boyfriend. It made you feel like you were back in high school in the rat race up the social hierarchy ladder, or simply happy that you had a date to the dance.

But despite your obliviousness to the entire relationship, you knew deep down that what you had was concrete because of what you had gone through together. It bound you together, forcing you into his arms, and you were afraid you wouldn't have the strength to let go before you did any permanent damage.

You looked up at his face, now only a few inches away as the music changed, and he still had those soft eyes as he leaned down to peck your lips.

Only for a moment, you let yourself get overtaken with the emotion. Time was still. You were safe. You were in the arms of a man who risked his life for you. You were home.

“I love you,” Hopper whispered, and that was all it took to shatter the moment. Time unfroze again, and you no longer trusted yourself. You stumbled back out of his arms, looking between him and El as they watched you with concern.

“I just have to . . .” you panted, jerking your thumb over your shoulder at the bedroom before you excused yourself to the bathroom and locked the door behind you.

You gripped the sink and stared at yourself in the mirror, cheeks flushed and eyes frantic as you reasoned with yourself. It didn't matter that he said that. It was just one word. It didn't mean anything. It changed nothing. You had to leave.

You turned the tap open and splashed some cold water on your face, hoping to wash away any new ideas popping in your head. You couldn't entertain any of them right now. You had made up your mind already, and your packed bag sat behind the tree. You wouldn't back out. You couldn't.

Staying there wasn't worth bringing them trouble again.

“Y/n?” Hopper knocked on the door behind you, and for some reason, his voice made you burst into tears. You clamped a hand over your mouth as your sobbed quietly, tears running down your face and mixing into the water.

“You ok in there, baby?” He tried turning the knob but the lock stopped him. You took deep breaths and swallowed, laying a hand across your heart to calm yourself down.

“I'm fine!” You called, hoping the muffled reply across the door also concealed the crack in your voice. He would figure out something was up. But luckily, you were a good liar.

You wiped off any evidences that you'd been crying and splashed more water on your face before opening the door. Hopper was standing an inch outside the door as El hung off his shirt behind him, and it was clear he was trying to listen through the door. You had nothing to worry about because you had mastered the pitiable art of crying without any noise.

“I just felt a little sick that's all,” you waved your hand and made it out to be nothing, and quickly hurried El to bed before Hopper could ask the reason behind it.

You couldn't bear to look at him as he tucked El in, scheming whether to fake a headache so you could go to bed without any talking. And hopefully fall asleep before he spooned you. It was those times that made you question your decisions the most. You felt his gaze linger on your back a moment longer before he closed the door behind him, giving you some privacy. He always pushed for El to have more face time with you; he thought it could be exactly what she needed.

“Can I open my presents when I wake up?�� El asked, and you found your eyes drifting to her arm again. This was who she was supposed to be, a kid whose biggest concern was what presents she would get. You smiled besides yourself and sat down next to her, brushing her hair.

“Of course.”

“Any time I wake up?” She asked, eyes lighting up again.

“As long as there's light outside, kiddo,” you tickled her side and heard her adorable giggles fill your ears. She stopped your hands by holding them in hers, and held that way.

Then, she fell quiet and fiddled with your fingers, staring at the wall behind you. You assumed she was thinking about asking you for a story, and you made it a point never to deny her that one luxury. She had missed 10 years of story telling in that torture chamber, and you were hell-bent on catching her up. Even if she was 15 already.

“Y/n?” She looked at you, eyes all guarded suddenly.

“Hm?”

“Don't go,” she whispered, momentarily gripping your hands tighter. Your breath caught in your throat, and you glanced at where she held you. Could it be she knew?

“Stay until I sleep,” she pleaded, and your shoulders shrunk in relief. You flashed her a smile and nodded, getting into bed next to her. El made room for you and then rest her head in the crook of your neck as you pulled the blankets over you, kissing her hair.

You brushed it gently as she breathed into your neck, wishing you sweet dreams.

You stared at the wall behind her.

If only that were possible.

Ever since the incident, your dreams were haunted by terrible memories and possibilities that could have ensued had it not been for a few lucky moments. Your nerves were wracked from thinking about how you could have lost both of them, in a matter of seconds.

That was when you knew you would rather they be safe than with you. The pain of them getting hurt would be much too profound than leaving them. You would learn to move on.

You sighed and pulled El closer as she breathed in soft snores. You never should have got involved in the first place. Damn Hopper and his kisses.

Like on cue, the door creaked open and his heavy footsteps followed. You closed your eyes and deepened your breath on purpose. Hopper could always tell if you were faking it. You suppressed the urge to blush at that and froze.

“Y/n?” He called softly, and you stayed quiet. You couldn't handle confrontation in such a delicate state. You would break and he would fix you. You didn't want him to. You didn't deserve him.

“You awake?” He whispered behind you, and you heard him get down to his knees. Your heart thud at the proximity, and hoped it didn't show.

“If you can hear me,” he whispered right next to your ear, knowing what that did to you. But you commanded your body not to recoil, even as his beard brushed against your shell. “I meant what I said.”

You nearly broke your stance. It sounded like he was building up to an apology about how it meant nothing and that he knew your relationship wasn't ready for it, but then he goes and does that.

“I love you, Y/n. I've loved you since the moment I laid my eyes on you. And I haven't stopped.”

You realised you had stopped breathing, awaiting his next words.

“It's alright if you don't say anything right now. I'm not going anywhere, baby,” he sighed and kissed the nape of your neck this time. You back tingled but you didn't move.

“Anyway, good night. I'll see you in the morning,” he got to his feet and laid a final kiss to your temple.

You couldn't close your eyes after that, fearful that you would fall asleep and that you would have to stay. You had to leave before Christmas, the busiest day of the year when Hopper would be busy with other work and couldn't go looking for you. Besides, you had to leave before they opened the letter you had written to them, explaining your sudden departure.

You tossed around in bed for the better part of the next couple of hours, making sure not to wake El. That was not a face you had the strength to deny. You watched her clock inch closer and closer to 2 am, and that would be when you would make your exit.

It was the time you woke up from your nightmares anyway and Hopper would be fast asleep, so it was perfect. You unwillingly watched the seconds hand tick closer to the minutes hand as it crossd the 12, wishing you'd had more time.

You stopped that train of thought before it lead to surrender-your-plans town, and slowly slipped out of bed, tucking El in again. You certainly would miss that. You would miss telling her about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you would miss her using her powers to sneak Eggos into her room late at night. The first night you'd spent at the cabin was terrifying because you had just gone into the kitchen for a glass of water and saw the cardboard box float past your head.

You chuckled softly at the memory, amazed that you had so many from only 8 weeks of knowing them. This had always been the plan for you; to settle down and have kids with someone you loved. You had always envisioned a white picket fence and a lush backyard, as time went on endlessly in the company of your family.

But in the real world, dreams didn't come true. Only nightmares did.

You sighed and left El with a lingering kiss, slipping past the door into the kitchen, pretending to get yourself a glass of water as you passed his room. You peeked past the curtain as you sipped from the glass, and saw his form across the bed.

But you couldn't get yourself to approach him, to kiss him one last time. Your fear of waking him outweighed your romantic fulfillment, and you had the sudden urge to cry again.

But you nipped that in the bud and threw your parka and snow boots on, grabbing the keys off the rack. Maybe you would try again after you grabbed your bag.

You crouched to your knees and felt around behind the tree, hoping for your hand to encounter the rough fabric of your duffel bag, the same one you had arrived into town with, but all it met was cold air. Your brows wrinkled as you moved the tree and stilled at the empty space illuminated by the fairy lights.

“You trying to skip town?”

You gasped and jerked, falling to the floor and scrambling to get to your feet. Your heart thud in your ears as your eyes frantically searched the dark, and found Hopper sitting on the couch by your duffel bag.

“God, you scared me,” you sighed, clutching your heart to calm down. But his face was unsettling. Streaks of agony flicked across his countenance, like the ones you'd seen shadow his face when you thought you'd lost El. More reason for you to leave.

“You know what scares me, y/n?” He asked, setting a sheet of paper down on the bag and standing to his feet. You recognised the paper immediately, and the shredded wrapping paper beside it.

The jig was up. He knew everything.

This was the exact situation you didn't want to walk into.

You stayed impassive as he approached you, towering above you with eyes of heartbreak.

“That you think you're a . . . burden to me,” he struggled to say the word, like he couldn't believe it. His form shrunk as he was overtaken by the hurt, which was exactly what you didn't want for him.

“Jim, listen to me. It's not your fault.” You let him know, but he chuckled without humor, swiping his finger under his eye. He was crying. This was another thing you didn't want.

“Are you sure? Because I must've made you feel guilty for what happened at some time.”

“You haven't,” you assured him, wanting to reach out and touch him, to comfort him, but it was not your place anymore. In your head, he was your past already.

“I just . . . don't want to bring you any more trouble,” you strained and ducked your head down, staring at his feet. The tears fell one after another, in the space between his feet and yours. Hopper stayed quiet and immobile for a long time, before he sighed and moved away, giving you the inoculum to look up.

“Then I won't stop you,” he shrugged, cheeks and nose red. And it wasn't the cold this time. You were puzzled by him for a moment, and your heart nearly shattered. As much as you spoke about getting over him, you expected a bigger fight had he known you were leaving.

“If you believe that somehow you were responsible for everything bad that happened to us, leave,” he taunted, handing you the duffel bag. You could feel your insides come apart at the seams.

“But,” Hopper sighed, shifting his weight so his eyes looked directly into yours. “Let me remind you that you are the reason I don't feel lonely anymore. You give me faith that I can do this. That El finally has a shot at a family. That after everything that happened with-with . . . Sarah, I could finally have a fresh start. With El. And with you.”

You stared at him as more tears fell, this time from disbelief.

“But if you're only gonna blame yourself for the bad parts, I can't let you leave, Y/n.” He sniffled, shifting again. “I used to feel like you too, you know? I used to feel like this . . . black hole that sucked everything good and left destruction in my wake. But after El, after you, I don't feel empty anymore, Y/n. For the first time in a long time, I feel complete. A family is everything I could have ever asked for, and now I have another shot at it. So does El. So do you. It's a second chance for all of us, baby.” he sighed again, and moved to lean against the island counter. Your eyes followed every one of his movements, his words giving you strength.

“All I'm saying is, give me a chance.” Hopper shrugged and watched you, awaiting your move. It took you a few seconds to unlock from that position his monologue had captured you in. You had seen this coming, in the event that you'd been caught. You promised yourself you would stay true to yourself and the decision you had made in everyone's interest.

You had to leave.

With the rest of your poor resolve, you dragged yourself over to the couch and slung the heavy bag over you shoulder, bracing yourself for the cold outside that door. It was for everyone's best.

Right?

You looked over your shoulder at Hopper, and your stomach clenched at how devastated he looked. But in his weary eyes and trembling lips, you could see how much you meant to him, and that he really believed everything he said.

You lay your foot forward towards the door, turning away the thoughts of a choice. You were at a crossroads.

But every step you took away from him made your insides shrink lower and lower, almost as if they were pooling together to keep you grounded. This was wrong, you could feel it.

But how could something right feel so wrong?

You glanced once more at him, and at El's door. And then suddenly, something inside you snapped.

You couldn't explain it. It was like a band of constriction around your chest had finally given way, and you could suddenly see clearly.

“Will you promise to give me a chance too?”

Hopper jerked his head up to you, like he wasn't expecting anything other than the closing of a door. And then he listened, really listened to your words.

And then he crossed the room in two long strides and took your face in his hands, and met your lips with his.

It might as well have been the first time you'd met, when you'd agreed to go out with him, and he'd captured you in a kiss that would seal your future. You knew better than to question the way things worked. And if you were the cause for all things bad, you would fight it. As a family.

In the end, maybe you didn't get your picket fence, but you got something much more valuable.

#jim hopper imagine #hopper x reader #chief hopper x reader #jim hopper fanfic #jim hopper #hopper thirst #hopper x you #jim hopper thirst #hopper fanfic #el hopper #hopper x oc #stranger things #david harbour #fanfiction #christmas writing prompts #christmas

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lunawings · 5 years

Text

King of Prism SSS episode 11 commentary (Shin...)

Thankfully at least the Crunchyroll subs weren’t so bad this time. I mean, there was the usual weirdness, but no major mistranslations that effect the plot like that time. So.... great!!

(After last week my standards are so low....)

But anyway. A reminder that the commentary you guys are getting on these episodes now is coming from the place where I am after having two months to digest things. After seeing this in the theater I didn’t really want to talk about anything to anyone. HOW COULD I COMMENT ABOUT ANYTHING REMOTELY CASUAL WHEN SHIN IS SUFFERING. Was my thought. But... eventually............

I should have pointed this out last week, but did you catch that they added Dorachi to the OP?

So yeah, there are a lot of little moments in this episode that it took me weeks to even begin to think about (what with everything else that happens) and this is one of them. Joji leaves Jin so quickly once he’s not cheating at prism shows anymore. Haha I know this is just a gag scene probably but really! When you think about it in the context of that line Joji had last week that was like “He’s changed....” it made me realize that maybe Joji really does love the “do anything to win” Jin.

And since Jin isn’t interested in that right now, here we have Joji kissing Sanada.

Jin doesn’t care about winning anymore. All Jin cares about is Louis.

The relationship between Jin and Louis is something I have a lot of questions about. Why is this a part of the plot? For what purpose?

My only guess is it’s here to show that Jin can still love? Because he seems to really, truly love Louis. (Could you imagine him cradling one of the Shuffle boys after they failed a jump....)

And this is all despite the fact that Louis also reminds him of his worst enemies, Hiro and Hijiri.................

All of my past comments about how Shin changed things for everyone and how much everyone loves and believes in him have all been leading up to this moment.

Even after what just happened, they all run to him without any sort of hesitation. They aren’t afraid of him. They all still love him. Edel Rose.

For people watching this on TV, the titles of the episodes are all spoiled in advance.

But for us watching in the theater, we didn’t know.

When I saw Part 4 the first time, I chose a bad seat in the theater on purpose. Front row, far right. Because I just wanted to be alone, and there was guaranteed to be nobody sitting next to me unless the theater sold out. The theater sold out. And there I was in the right corner craning my neck up at an angle to this GIANT screen immediately right before me. Watching this happen. Small and helpless. Terrible chills washed all over my body and I think it was the most horrified feeling I have ever gotten while watching fictional media. I will never forget it......

When I first watched this, I got the feeling that Shine had been floating in a void for a long time. (Maybe even the 1,000 years they always talk about.) But recently I realized, maybe it was just the amount of time Shin’s Mom was pregnant for? Since Shine wasn’t sealed that long ago (recent enough that Yamada-san knew him) it could be possible that he was sealed the instant Shin was conceived....?

One of my biggest questions about Shin for the longest time was whether he was actually..... born or not. Since the date 2/29/2001 does not exist. But he was. And I am glad about that.

This is the first time we learn Shin’s name is written 新.

Also Shin, when will you accept your megane destiny.

(I guess he did in the last episode lol. But really, does he wear contacts...?)

So this is our Young of Prism reference.

Shin did meet Louis on a night at his grandmother’s house when he woke up and saw sparkling light. But Louis didn’t exist yet at that time. It was Rinne.

FUTURE 4TH PLACE (technically should have been 3rd) IN PRISM KING CUP

....ahh Shin................ I love you......................

His childhood was just so normal..........

(Shine must have been so bored...........)

This answered another one of my long-time questions about Shin. Where was he going? Why would he be out biking at night in casual clothes (not school uniform or sports uniform) in the middle of the night far from home?

At one point I was so concerned about this (and his birth date not being real) that I wondered if he didn’t even exist before he was biking along the river. But he did. Shin had a normal, happy, real childhood. Ahhh........

Christmas live! I already talked about this in my post about Leo’s episode, but yes it’s both an analog for the real life Music Ready Sparking concert, and a big part of the main story on Prism Rush: https://prism-rush.tumblr.com/mainstory

I’m so glad it was confirmed to be canon. (Well, it was already briefly mentioned in Pride the Hero. But still.)

THIS WAS MY QUESTION

Well, we finally got the answer in the last episode: Because the prism gods found out and changed Louis’ mission.

But you can kind of understand why Shine was..... pretty pissed off at Rinne/Louis when he finally resurrected in the last episode...................................... to say the least........

So this was weird. Shine said “Rinne” before Louis said his line from Pride the Hero “we’re the same now”, but the subs make it look like it’s the same line....?

This is honestly the only thing in this episode which I think is flat out wrong though. There is some other weird/inconsistent wording of course but I mean seriously FUCK IT. THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT NOW.

Crunchyroll A++++++++++++++++++++++ job this time.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but.....

Subconsciously, in the back of my mind somewhere.... at that very moment when Ace says CHOU YABEEE..... he became my favorite member of the Shuffle.

Just like..... Look at them. They’re all so happy. They didn’t look like this when they were with Joji. The best part about this episode finally airing on TV is that I can finally watch the new Shuffle’s performance on its own (without having to be forced to also watch.... the suffering....).

I can’t wait for this full song to come out. Even though we only hear it for like 10 seconds it’s actually gotten stuck in my head before.

And I don’t know if it was intentional, but I think having Ace perform in this episode is very ironic and incredibly significant. Because here we have Ace at his highest point while Shin is at his lowest point.

Ace doesn’t know about Edel Rose and why they needed to win this. He’s on the top of the world. This is his moment. He’s finally getting to perform. The Shuffle is finally free from Joji. For the Schwarz Rose boys.... Ace is the hero.

Since I am already on a roll talking about them, I guess I’ll bring up something I forgot to mention in my episode 5 commentary. When Part 2 premiered in theaters, nobody knew what Ace’s color was. People were actually using red, which would make no sense because Kokoro is red. You can’t have two members of the same group with the same color. But gradually people realized, due to the light blue A on his shirt and the light blue wrist band he has in some official art, that Ace is actually light blue. And here it was confirmed.

The interesting thing about this is, up until very recently Tsurugi was light blue. Only since his art for SSS he suddenly became pink.

So when we first saw that SSS concept art.... was it hinting all along at this very performance? That Ace would become the new center?

I don’t know.

What do you think?

What?

No I’m not stalling.

Why would I be stalling?

Well okay.... I guess.... the next scene we have to talk about is......

..................

................................

Where do I even begin.........................

So, a little while after this was shown in theaters I made a vague post containing my raw emotions about a particular prism show in Part 4: https://lunawings.tumblr.com/post/184802787153/okay-i-am-ready-to-talk-a-little-bit-about-king-of

So if you read it at the time, I’m sure now you know I was talking about this.

If you were scared or uneasy about it while watching it on your computer screen, imagine what it was like in the theaters. This performance effected me to the point where I had nightmares for about a week. And I’m not making a joke either. They weren’t the kind of nightmares I could describe, it was just like.... seeing bits and pieces of this show over and over again. I’d wake up panicked and have to watch something on YouTube, anything else, to try and get my mind off of it so I could sleep.

And like I said in my original post, the thing is, I just cannot get over how good this prism show was....... at accomplishing exactly what it was supposed to do. Which I’m assuming is, to make you feel VERY VERY UNEASY. It is just...... I can’t even..... I......................

And of course. The worst thing. The worst thing was coming to terms with the fact that I.... liked..... it..... ?

Because if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t be thinking about it so much.

If I didn’t like it, it wouldn’t have been stuck in my head FOR 24 TERRIFYING HOURS after seeing Part 4.

MAKE IT STOP

GET OUT OF ME

SHINE

GET OUT OF MY HEAD

I DIDN’T EVEN FULLY NOTICE HIS SPOKEN LINES UNTIL THEY WERE SUBBED OH MY FUCKING GOD

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

It’s just it.....

This is so frighteningly real.

It actually worked.

I actually felt like Shine had some kind of power over me which lingered for days and days...........

I guess..... I can understand why Rinne loved him........................

........................

He meant like consecutive jumps.

Shin(e) is not doing a chain of consecutive jumps like Taiga, Yukinojo, etc. did. Instead he split himself and is doing a whole bunch of jumps at the same time.

DONT

So, I gotta take a moment to make this clear. Since, to my horror, people were actually referring to him as Shin in this scene in the livestream chat.

THIS IS NOT SHIN. THIS IS SHINE.

He used Shin’s body and Shin’s voice. But this was not Shin’s prism show.

Shin does not perform in this episode.

SHIN WAS ROBBED

OF HIS PRISM SHOW

BY SHINE

So, people who don’t actually follow me and/or just stumbled upon these posts may not know this. But Shin is (and basically always has been) my favorite.

After Part 4 premiered in theaters, I had multiple friends in Japan send me messages to check if I was OK. It was even the immediate reaction of a girl I just met in the theater after I casually mentioned that Shin was my favorite. Like practically grabbing my shoulders ARE YOU OK.

So.

Am I OK?

No, but..... yes.

By that I mean, I am not bitter that Shin does not get a new solo in SSS. In fact, I can recognize the irony, since up until this point Shin was the only Edel Rose boy to perform a proper show. And now he’s the only one who didn’t perform a new solo in SSS. So it’s even. Technically.

So that is not what upsets me about this episode. What DOES upset me is how this emotionally effects Shin the character, who now thinks this was all was his fault when it wasn’t.....................

I personally have known for a long time that something like this would happen, and have basically been emotionally preparing myself since the Pride the Hero era. No, scratch that, even since the first movie era when I suddenly noticed the dark moon mark on the back of his neck in Over the Sunshine (which took me months). I just had a bad feeling. Something told me that loving this character would someday bring me pain.

So if I truly loved him, I knew would have to be strong.

If you take the good, you have to take the bad.

King of Prism SSS premiered in theaters in Japan after Taiga’s episode aired on TV, and right before Kakeru’s. In that gap, I came back a changed person.

During the week of Kakeru’s episode I was just trying to feel normal again (while all y’all be sending me anon messages about whether we should pave over Africa or not FFS guys......). But from the next week onward was when I began to recover and was starting to want answers. You may have noticed, that was when I suddenly started talking about scores all the time.

Yes, part of it was trying to understand Taiga’s score and hoping it wasn’t lower for mathematical reasons since it later gets cut in half. But the truth is. The actual truth is. All that time I was trying to understand.... this.

This zero right here has been weighing on me for a long, long time. Every time I brought up scores, it was always there. Looming at the back of my mind.

For example, when I wrote “ I guess no matter what someone has to be last………………………….. ” in my episode 8 commentary, I wasn’t talking about Yu.

So. Let’s discuss this. How can someone perform, as actually get up on stage, but end up with 0 karats? Clearly the audience did have a reaction to Shin(e)’s show.....

But Kakeru said there wasn’t a system error. So it’s not that.

According to June, if I understood correctly, it was judged based on Shine himself. There was no heart in his show.

This lead me to question if this could explain some of the other character’s shows. How much does your own heart matter?

(According to this, it’s everything.)

No, I do not know why they still released a periodical update for a discontinued program. I guess there was a miscommunication in the prism IT department.

(But I suppose it’s possible other Shines still exist in other worlds....? But I really don’t want to touch that right now.)

So, in case you didn’t fully understand the gravity of this, with the way the score is now it is mathematically impossible for Edel Rose to win.

Even if they get a perfect score with their unit show.

Edel Rose has lost.

It’s over.

So this was the moment when I forgave my idiot son Taiga.

Even after Shin got a zero, he still blames himself.

And this may be a terrible way of thinking, but... I’m kinda glad they included this debacle with Taiga. Because it made it so this situation is not entirely Shin’s fault. (Technically it’s not his fault at all. It was Shine. But they don’t know that.)

They treat it like everyone’s fault.... oh Edel Rose.....

Also, my favorite moment in this episode and it has nothing to do with Shin.

Kakeru offers Taiga his support....

And Taiga actually takes it.

Also, I may be wrong but, I think this is the first time we have seen Kakeru cry. And not just in the main series, I mean like in ANY King of Prism media.

I find it interesting that he doesn’t mention Kouji here. He goes right to Hiro.

Despite their “rivalry”, he felt Hiro was counting on him.

I can’t believe y’all actually pointed this out in the livestream but it’s so true now that I think about it. There may be intentional symbolism with Hijiri’s hair here.

There are a lot of scenes where Hijiri is trying to pull his hair back. But in this scene he pushes it FORWARD.

He’s finally realized what really matters, and why he’s done all this in the first place.

Oh Shin. Baby. It wasn’t your fault............................

And that’s basically it. For now. We’ll talk about their gay unit outfits next time.

So to answer perhaps your most burning question: Yes, next week is the last episode.

Next week is the finale of King of Prism SSS. Yes. For real.

EDIT: OH MAN. Junta Terashima just confirmed in a Tweet that this is the outfit Leo originally made for Shin’s show. Ahhhhh.......

#king of prism #king of prism sss #king of prism shiny seven stars #shin ichijo #ichijo shin #kinpri

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the-girl-from-number-4-blog · 5 years

Text

My Very First Mistake (II)

Roger Taylor x Reader

On the subject of guilt

Word Count: 2,925

part one

part three

(whoops this took a while. school is busy. hope you like it!)

Keeping his feelings secret from the band, Roger found, was much more difficult in practice than in concept.

Usually, he never bothered hiding anything from his friends; there was nothing about his life of which he was ashamed, or that he felt they shouldn't know. Roger was a naturally open and honest person, fully comfortable with himself and how he was presented to others - and this duplicity was unnatural and unfamiliar.

He was afraid that it showed on his face. Ever since his midnight revelation, every sight of Brian and you together - or of just you - flooded his mind with strange new sensations. He felt a deluge of jealousy and betrayal. To protect himself against the turbulence of his alien emotions, he built up a dam against them. But, as he was not the most experienced at maintaining such a fortress around his heart, other areas of his life suffered.

"Rog, you're off beat," Freddie stopped suddenly in the middle of a recording of "Dear Friends", jarring him from his stupor. "You've been slacking this entire session. What's the matter?"

Roger silenced his cymbal quickly and cut his eyes to Freddie. "What d'you mean? It was fine."

Freddie crossed his arms. "Yes, yes, it was fine, it was good, but it wasn't good enough. You're better than this. Why are you slipping?"

Quite defensive at his blatantly condescending tone, Roger huffed indignantly. "It's no different than it was yesterday!"

John stepped into the recording room, having heard the tensions rise from behind the glass. "Guys, guys," he said, looking sternly from Freddie to Roger, giving them a leveling motion with his hands. "Let's just start this again. Rog, you go a bit slower, and Freddie, cut him some slack, will you? He's obviously tired."

That irritated him even more. "No, I'm not! I'm fine! I don't know what your problem is; I'm playing fine, I look fine, I am fine."

All of his insistence otherwise could not alter the fact of the matter, that he really was tired. Exhausted, even.

The truth was, he hadn't gotten much sleep, recently. He recognized it a hazard of being terminally in love - risky business, whether it's with his best friend's girlfriend or not. He found himself, night after night, lying still in bed, waiting for sweet oblivion to sweep him from the torrent of his imagination - but it came slowly, after giving him ample time to think of every single interaction he had with you or Brian today. It was wasting.

Words no longer came so easily when he was around you. Always guarded, he was afraid to let the wrong thing slip. And the worst of it was, there was nobody around in whom to confide. Sure, if he were only keeping a secret from one or two people, then he could probably do it well; but he couldn't even tell Freddie or John.

What scared him about it was the threat to the band. He could tell how deeply and completely Brian and you were in love with one another. Were he to intrude, a schism between himself and Brian would be inevitable, and that was something the band simply couldn't bear.

But beyond the band, Roger didn't want to lose Brian. They'd been friends for so many years, and though it hardly did justice to the strength of his love for you, he really did love Brian in a different way.

"Roger," Brian said, "we've been here long enough, and you do look tired. Maybe we should continue tomorrow."

Freddie, who wanted to finish up the recording of this song today, huffed and was about to protest, before John elbowed his side.

Roger looked into Brian's eyes, and his guilt doubled. He had to look away. "Fine," he grumbled, swinging his legs around his seat and shoving the drumsticks into his pocket.

He ducked out of the studio and hailed a cab, hating himself all the way back to his flat.

One rainy Saturday afternoon, you had brought the boys lunch in their studio, and when you turned to leave, the rain began to pour quite hard. "Stay a while, dear," Freddie waved his hand. "You're never a bother, but you will be if you catch your death out there."

You eagerly accepted his offer to watch them record. You loved being there when they were playing, but never wanted to impose, so you hardly asked. You set down your coat and settled down on the couch, across from the glass, watching John nail the bass line to "Stone Cold Crazy".

Freddie stood by the console, tapping his foot to the beat. Every time John paused for the assessment of his performance, Freddie buzzed in with his input - which was largely favorable, but still quite particular. Brian paced around for a while, until he decided that John would probably be in the booth for a while, so he sat down on the couch beside you and draped his arm over your shoulder.

"Hey," you said softly. You grasped his hand, holding tightly, and hoped he didn't notice how overly-attentive you had been as of late.

You were dreadfully afraid that you were letting your feelings show; you didn't want Brian to find out that you had fallen out of love with him. You loved him deeply, still, but in quite a different way now, but despite that, it would wound you to see him hurt by your actions.

He just seemed to appreciate your affections. "Darling," he said softly to you.

“Hey, Bri,” you said, leaning appropriately into his touch. You hated how disingenuous you were.

“I spoke with mum last night,” he said. “She was interested in meeting you.”

“Yeah?” You tried not to sound too disappointed, but you also didn’t want to sound too eager.

“Hmm,” he said. “I’ve met your parents several times, after all, and since we’ve been serious for quite some time, mum and dad really want to get to know you.”

“We’ve spoken on the phone,” you say, as though it really matters.

“This is important to her, honey,” he used a pet name that used to fill you with warmth, but now just settled a rock in your stomach. “She’s invited you over next Saturday.”

There was nothing you could say to argue. “I’ll be free.”

Suddenly, the door on the adjacent wall flew open, and a sopping wet Roger stumbled in, huffing and dripping water onto the shag carpet.

He shrugged off his jacket and hung it beside yours, probably getting it wet in the process, and shook out his hair like a hound. You watched in mild amusement, expecting him to turn to you and apologize, or explain, or something. He didn't.

"Hey, Fred," he greeted the singer congenially, ignoring you and Brian. "Where are we at?"

"Very nearly done with John," he said. "You should give it a listen, put it over that track you did yesterday and compare it." Roger nodded.

"What," Brian demanded in false affront, ruined by the grin on his face, "no 'hello' to us?"

Roger froze just so briefly. He turned stiffly back to him, and gave a quick, "Hey, Bri." It lacked the usual bravado with which he did almost everything; you and Brian shared a concerned glance.

He just shook his head at you, a silent 'Just keep quiet'.

You tried to put your disquiet out of your mind and enjoy your time with the band, but you couldn't.

The following week, when you took a cab over to Freddie and Roger’s flat, it was for two very important reasons.

As you walked along the sidewalk at a steady pace, you swung by your side a large clothes bag, containing two dresses. That was the first reason for visiting the household: you needed Freddie’s expert opinion on fashion. In the following two weeks, were going to meet Brian’s parents, and you hadn’t a clue what to wear.

Most of that was the fact that you didn’t want to have to choose. Choosing would imply that it was an important decision to you – which it wasn’t, anymore. You no longer loved Brian.

The second reason was less conspicuous as the first. A part of your mind wanted to see Roger; you hadn’t heard a word from him since that day at the studio, and even then, the words weren’t directed to you. Your relationship with Roger was always very calm and comfortable, so you weren’t quite sure what brought on this odd change.

When you got to their flat and knocked the door, you expected Freddie to answer; he was usually the one to greet guests, after all, since they were usually his, not Roger’s.

You waited for a few moments, wondering if they weren’t home, when the door slid open, and you saw Roger.

Grinning as though nothing were wrong, you said, “Hey, Rog! Is Freddie home?”

He seemed frozen for a moment, then he gulped visibly and answered, “No, he’s out for drinks with Mary.” His voice was tense. You ignored this.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” you said, and you really were disappointed; you needed his advice. Then you took in Roger’s flamboyant colors, which would be obnoxious on most, but seemed to fit him. “Hey. You could help me instead.”

Because you feared that he would refuse (you weren’t sure on what grounds, but he just didn’t seem to be in a welcoming mood), you pushed past him into their familiar flat. It was dimly lit; only a lamp on the far side of the living room illuminated the furniture, and the curtains were drawn.

“Are you ill?” you asked him. You almost hoped that we was; it would be an easy explanation for his odd behavior.

“No, I’m not,” he said, “but I’m not really up for company, if you don’t mind –”

“Oh, I won’t be but a minute,” you set down your bag and unzipped it. You were being a terrible imposition upon someone who clearly didn’t want you there, but being around him was the only way you knew to glean what afflicted him, since the rest of the boys certainly didn’t know.

“Really, Y/N,” he said.

“Please, Rog, I need you,” you insisted. “I have to meet Brian’s mum and dad the weekend after next, and I need to look good, you know? I’m so bad with clothes, and –”

“Why don’t you just ask your boyfriend?” he almost spat the words.

“You know who I’m dating, right?” you laughed. “Brian’s even worse than I am. I wanted to ask Freddie to help me choose between dresses, but he’s not here, so . . .”

“Look,” Roger said imploringly. “I really can’t help you.”

You sniffed, disappointed that you hadn’t gotten anything out of him. “Fine,” you said, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Let Fred know I stopped by, all right?”

“Sure,” he said, trailing after you and closing the door as you left.

As you stared at the two dresses on your bed, your hands at your hips and yet another exasperated sigh in your chest, you seriously considered ending your relationship with Brian.

It wasn’t fair to him to give everything he has to a woman who doesn’t love him. Every time he held your hand, or kissed you, or even smiled – every single thing made you feel such immense guilt that being around him made you physically ill.

One of the dresses, a pale coral that would hang loosely around your hips and shoulders, would suggest a light-hearted, kind personality. That would be the version of yourself you would present to his parents, but as you imagined greeting them and shaking their hands – and probably hugging his mum – the guilt grew. You couldn’t present yourself as the loving girlfriend of their only son; you’d not only lie to them, but you’d lie to Brian.

The other one was a more somber blue, showing seriousness, commitment. The problem was, you’d committed to Brian for years, and you couldn’t hold yourself to that. You weren’t comfortable even thinking of the next step, so acting like you did felt like a betrayal.

You swept the dresses from your bed with one frustrated stroke. They crumbled to the floor in a pathetic pile, the hangers clanging together in the silence of the flat.

That was it.

You went to your phone and rung off a number you knew by heart. The tone sounded for a few moments before Brian’s soft “Hello?” rang across the line.

“Hey, it’s me,” you said.

“Y/N! Are you okay? You sound off.”

“Er, well, I’m fine,” you said hesitantly. “Look, I need to talk to you.”

He was quiet a moment. “Well, you could come by the studio in the morning, I guess – ”

“No, I need to talk to you now. Can I come by your place, or is John there?”

“John’s at Roger and Freddie’s,” he sounded bewildered. “Y/N, is something the matter?”

“Just let me tell you,” your voice broke. Why were you nearly crying? Didn’t you want this? “I’ll be there in ten.”

“A-all right.”

You hung up the phone, grabbed your sweater, and left your apartment complex to hail a cab.

You took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. Brian was quick to answer, looking slightly disheveled and worried. Perhaps, if you weren’t in such a rush to get this done before you backed out, you could have told him slightly more tactfully.

But this was not the time for second guesses.

“Hey,” you said weekly.“Goodness, Y/N, you’re in a right state,” he said. He knew you very well; he could tell by your eyes that you were troubled. Letting him go would be hard.

You just nodded and pursed your lips.

“Would you like something to drink? I can put on tea,” he offered, turning to the kitchen.

You shook you head. “No! No. Don’t trouble yourself. Can we just – let’s just sit down, yeah?”

Brian kept a watchful eye on you as the two of you sat on the couch in the living room. You leaned away from him ever so slightly, because if he were too close, it would make your job infinitely more difficult.

“Talk to me,” he said, looking soulfully into your eyes.

You look down at your lap and fold your hands together nervously. “Brian, I don’t want to meet your mum and dad.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Is that all?” he asked. “If you really don’t want to, you should have just told me earlier. If this is going . . . too fast, or . . .”

You shook you head. “Bri, we’ve been dating for two years,” you chuckled humorlessly. “Now isn’t exactly the time to talk about taking it too fast.”

“Then what is it?”

“God, this is hard.” You had to swallow thickly before continuing. “You know that I love you, right?”

He didn’t like where this was going. “Y/N, of course,” he said softly.

“Well, it’s true, I love you,” you said.

“And I love you too.” He said it almost like a question, because he wasn’t sure where this was going.

“But –” your voice catches, and you feel hot tears welling in your eyes. “But I’m not in love with you anymore.”

Brian’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in concern, and his brows came together in distress. After a long, tense moment, he said, “What are you saying, Y/N?”

You didn’t want to have to repeat it, but you could tell he needed closure, confirmation. Perhaps you did, too. ��I got that call from mum the other day, remember? She asked me – since you and I are so serious, you know – if anything . . . if . . . if you’d ask me to marry you. And it made me think that . . .” You trailed off, trying to find the easiest way to say this, without hurting him too much.

“Y/N,” he breathed out. You couldn’t quite tell what the emotions were behind it.

“I couldn’t imagine being happy married to you,” you said. He flinched and your stomach clenched. “I realized that I wasn’t in love with you anymore, Brian. And it’s been eating me from the inside out, knowing that I don’t love you.” You closed your eyes, so you didn’t have to see his. “And I know you deserve better than me. You deserve someone who loves you like you love them.”

He grasped your hand. “But, Y/N,” he pleaded, “I’m in love with you.”

You shook your head. “Maybe you are,” you reply. “But I can’t do that to you – let you love me when I don’t feel the same way. This guilt, it’ll destroy me. It already is.”

His hands around yours were squeezing tightly. Not so much to hurt – he was ever gentle – but the pressure went straight from your hands to your heart, and you found it hard to breath. “Is there any way that we could work?” he asked hesitantly.

You shook your head. “I care for you, I really do,” you try to console him. “But you’re not the one for me any more than I’m the one for you.”

He huffed. “You know I don’t subscribe to that destiny shit.”

“I know.”

For a while, after your reluctant break with Brian, all thoughts of Roger were far from your mind, but thoughts of you were forefront in his.

taglist: @crazyweirdocalledfriday @anita-e-taylor @iidontgiveafuckuniverse @onceuponadetectivedemigod

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claire-de-macarune · 5 years

Text

Get ready kids because somebody called for all the Hayley Kiyoko asks

sleepover: have you ever liked a friend as more than a friend? did you tell them? if it was in the past, do you wish that you told them?

Ugghhhh yea. I’ve told some and not others. The current one is rough because she’s straight (?) and we talked about her boy problems and i just wanted her to be happy, so i worked some fairy gaymother magic and now they’re dating which is… yeah.

I just kinda sucked it up and made a playlist into which i deposit all my sad gay pining. It’s about three hours long and Sleepover is the first track.

curious: do you drink? what’s your favourite drink? what drink isn’t your thing?

I am a connoisseur of fine juices. ;)

I’m a big smoothie girl, so a mango smoothie bubble tea is probably my fave. I like sodas or bitter things, for the most part. I’m a wine mom type and definitely think that it will be my alcohol go-to once I’m of age,

girls like girls: what’s your sexuality? how did you discover it? or have you just always known?

I’m a lesbean. :)

My first crush was Daphne from Scooby-Doo (i’ve given you that information, now use it wisely. by which i mean, don’t use it. please god.), so that was a landmark. I kind of always subconsciously know, but growing up I didn’t actually know what being LGBT+ was because my parents never made a big deal about it. We have straight friends, we have gay friends, so I wasn’t aware that sexuality and discourse around it was even a thing until I was around twelve.

feelings: how do you think others perceive you? how do you perceive yourself?

People find me intimidating because I’m confident, intentional, verbose, and organized. That’s how I like it.

I alternate between between our class emotional support animal and class cryptid, and it’s the most fun thing ever. I am both mom and monster muahahaha

gravel to tempo: have you come out to anyone? if yes, who was the first person you told? if no, do you want to? who would you tell first?

I don’t actually remember first coming out to anyone in particular. There was one time when my group of friends (3 other girls) and i were having a sleepover and they were all like, “we’re bi” and i was like “what’s that” and they were like “we like girls too” and i was like “cool. i mean, personally i think boys suck and look like potatoes carved by a toddler and when i entertain the notion of kissing or marrying one i would literally rather eat sandpaper for the rest of my life, but cool” and they were like “how are you so comfortable with this? a lesbian GOD!” and i just went with it.

(for the record, it wasn’t a trendy thing and they were really scared and all felt really gross about it bc their religious families taught them that being gay was wrong and didn’t talk about bisexuality at all so i went out and did some research and came back and assured them that everything they were feelign was valid and okay and we were really safe spaces for each other in that shitty middle school time when everything is just awful. nothing but love and respect for my first priestesses and bi babes!)

pretty girl: who was the most recent crush you had? do you still like them? did you tell them/do you want to tell them?

(see sleepover. this song is also on the playlist.)

what i need: who are your favourite gay artists? what are your favourite gay songs?

Well, Hayley Kiyoko (obviously), Janelle Monae, and King Princess are the big ones. I’m always open to hearing more! Honorable mentions to “Know Your Name” by Mary Lambert, “Crimson and Clover” by Joan Jett, and the soundtrack of Fun Home (even though it’s got some problematic things with predatory gays) because I cry every time I listen to it, especially on “Changing My Major”, “Days and Days and Days”, and fuckin “Telephone Wire” (“Come to the Fun Home” is a whole bop. Only gay in that I, a certified gay, enjoy it.)

ease my mind: what makes you feel at peace? what is your perfect future like? what do you do at the end of a long day to unwind?

Reading, writing (in theory lol), drawing, and singing relax me (dance too, but I’m not allowed to do it anymore cuz I’m broken). I also recently started teaching myself the guitar.

I don’t really have a set perfect future, but honestly, I’d take one in which we avoid nuclear winter, world war III, and climate change. The more I think about growing up, the more skeptical I become about whether I’ll actually get to do it and that’s insanely scary.

let it be: who was your worst heartbreak? have you ever been in love? do you even believe in love?

TW: suicide

One of my best friends (⅓ of my nervous bi darlings) ended her life almost two years ago. So that fuckin’ messed me up.

I don’t know. Usually, I’d say I think I’m kind of young to really even know how, but that’s not quite true. I guess I’ll say that I have loved but I haven’t yet been in love. Theoretically speaking, there’s so much of my life ahead of me that the probability of having that experience so early, especially with a limited romantic pool (being a queer poc in the south), is low.

And I’ve just recently fallen in love with myself, thus heightening my standards. I’ve been awful about getting into relationships in the past because i was afraid of saying no and hurting that person’s feelings, but lately i value my own happiness above the appeasement of others to my detriment. I just feel like I’m still learning and getting comfortable in that space, and the opportunity hasn’t really presented itself yet. But i think that it’s possible, someday. I’m a hopeful hopeless romantic.

cliff’s edge: what’s on your bucket list? where would like to travel? what makes your heart race?

I want to try everything at least once. I want to learn how to be the truest, most fully-realized version of myself I can. I don’t have a set list of life, I just hope it will be some kind of spectacular.

I want to see the world. Everywhere. But beyond that, I want to be a part of it. I want to be a true global citizen, experience a life past myself every day. I dream of having the freedom to continuously explore and grow in hopes of doing some good, internally or externally, along the way.

he’ll never love you: were you ever in denial about your sexuality? were you ever in denial of a crush? do you like to talk about your crushes to your friends?

Not denial, per se, I just didn’t know what was going on. It was a pretty straightforward, comfortable call once I had the information I needed.

I’m able to employ logic in most situations and strip myself of an unwanted crush using that, but most i’m aware of and suffer in silence.

Yesss. I’m bad at making those kinds of decisions by myself and having people who genuinely care ask me questions or even just talk to me about it helps me process. Often, this results in being teased about said crush, but I don’t mind.

wanna be missed: how dependent or independent are you in a relationship? do you like a lot of space, or a lot of intimacy? how do you feel about electronic (vs face to face) communication?

Ummm, I kinda tend to lead, just because that’s what I’m accustomed to. It’s a role I fill because everyone else avoids it in the other arenas of my life, so I’ve mostly been independent and directing in my relationships. This last one actually threw me for a loop because the dynamic was flipped; they were so sweet and thoughtful and proactive in romancing me i didn’t really know what to do with myself. I’ve gotten over the initial shock (now, what, 5? 6 months later?) and found that I liked that too.

I like a healthy balance of distance and closeness. Fun fact: my love languages are quality time and physical touch, so when i’m with someone i pretty much just want to cuddle with them all the time. I don’t know, it really depends on the person and the relationship and whatever is going on with me individually.

I’m cool with digital communication, but i’m also a granny when it comes to technology so I can have a little trouble with more nuanced text/social media culture. Also, my phone is always on silent (not even vibrate, because i’m wacky like that) so if you want an immediate answer, face-to-face is better. Also the physical touch thing, also that way i can read expressions better.

Bonus: i can also hold your hand and kiss your cute face!

under the blue/take me in: are you happy where you are right now? if you could change one thing about your life, what would it be? what’s your favourite aspect of yourself?

I mean, I’d rather not be in constant debilitating pain, I (apparently) have some tangling with anxiety i need to do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I’m a lot better than I have been, and I’m grateful for that. I don’t know if true happiness is a consistent, determinable state, but I take what I can get.

I don’t think there’s one big thing I would change. It’s more like a handful of small things. But if I had to choose, I’d fix whatever is wrong with my spine/neck/whatever. I feel like I’m on the cusp of my life finally beginning and I’m trapped by something as trivial as my body. It’s exhausting and I really need it to be over. It feels selfish, but I could do the most good for myself and others if I could put this behind me.

Favorite aspect of myself? That’s like asking me to pick a favorite book! Or child! Impossible: that’s a trick question. Sure, she’s a batshit, messy bitch, but I love myself. She and I are in it for the long run. ;)

palace: who is your favourite memory? what’s your favourite story with/about them? why don’t you two speak anymore?

The first girl I ever loved is mostly a memory now. It’s hard to pick a favorite story about her, but our first kiss story is pretty soft and gay, kind of like something out of a fairytale or a tropey fic, so I guess I’ll say that.

We had just finished seventh grade.

Some background: That April, we went to D.C. for our annual class trip. There were ten of us and only four girls, so we all shared a hotel room (and they were roommates!) We split the beds (we’d all known each other for seven years, it was just like sharing with a sister) and stayed up super late, intermittently playing truth or dare and talking about life. She and I philosophized into the early morning (there was only one bed!!), she told me she liked me, and I fell asleep before I could do anything about it. Apparently, we ended up cuddling, because when I woke up, i was warm because she’d wrapped around me (and drooled down my collarbone, but whatever).

Okay, so, every spring, after graduation, our school had a picnic at the park down by a shallow length of the river where the kids would swim after lunch. We hadn’t done anything about our feelings yet, and I was leaving for another school. She took me around the bend in the river and we swam into the basin there. She wasn’t as strong a swimmer as I was, so she put her arms around my neck, and I held us both up in water deeper than both of us were tall. She said she was going to miss me, and then she kissed me. For a while.

Then, we saw a snake and frantically flailed to shore, laughing until our lungs hurt.

We don’t talk anymore because she became mentally unstable soon after that, and it wasn’t safe for either of us to continue interacting. I’ve seen her a few times since, but I don’t anticipate that we’ll ever be that close again, and that’s okay.

mercy/gatekeeper: what was a difficult time in your life? what did you do/what are you doing to get through it? who has been the most helpful?

molecules: have you ever lost anyone close to you? if yes, how did it feel at the time and how does it feel now to talk about them? do you fear death?

TW: suicide

One of my childhood best friends killed herself in the first month of our freshman year. It was totally out of the blue, and the timing was absolutely horrible. I was just getting everything I wanted, I was having the time of my life and then everything just stopped in its tracks. Except it didn’t. The world kept turning and she was gone and I had lab reports due and she was gone and there were play rehearsal and holidays and deadlines and life incessantly barreling forward and she was gone. I woke every morning with a pit in my stomach, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat. It was like something had been cut open inside me and life was just pouring out behind me but I couldn’t feel any of it. And no one else around me seemed to care. Every day I felt like I was dying. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, and everyone else had a smile on their face and laughed like it was nothing and complained about stubbing toes and bad grades and fighting with their parents.

I don’t really know how I got through it. I mean, I went to therapy, but it didn’t really help. I couldn’t talk to people about it, even when I wanted to. I couldn’t cry for the longest time. I wrote about it some. I left her voicemails. I raged through glass recycling. I guess I just trudged on, dragged myself onward because stopping wasn’t an option. Because if I did, even for a moment, I wouldn’t have enough strength to start again.

I’m better now, I guess. I can talk about it and her and I feel mostly human most days, but it’s still a presence in my life I wish I could escape. I still don’t know where they buried her.

I do not fear death.

one bad night: do you like casual or serious relationships? have you ever done anything illegal, wrong, or stupid for the sake of love?

Hoo boy, I’m bad at casual relationships. I get too attached (*feelings plays in the background*), and it becomes serious. Oddly enough, it doesn’t really scare people away. The older I get the further I’ll probably get from playful dalliances, but every once in a while, as the stakes are low, I’m down for just having fun and enjoying someone’s company.

palm dreams: do you like parties or quiet nights in? would you want to/did you stay in your hometown after moving out? what’s your ideal saturday night like?

I am an introverted smol, and big parties make me nervous. I can handle and even enjoy the odd bash here and there, but too many too often wears me out. Smaller groups are better, but my favorite size is a book or maybe one other human.

Nooooooo, man, I am going to college out of state, far away, and I am not moving back here. I love my city dearly, but I need to find my own corner of the sky. :)

I love a night at the theatre, preceded by a quiet dinner with a couple close friends and followed by something sweet, some tea, and reading a good book with my feline.

#answer #s #wow #that took a minute #here #have my life story and emotions #@cremlim #thank you thank you #this was fun #i may or may not have cried #in other news #i love hayley kiyoko #don't mind my inconsistent Capitalization

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kylorenpunk · 5 years

Note

Do them all. Suffer as I did 😂

Bitch I told you this was our friendship. We force each other to answer all the questions.

1. selfie

Well… I wasn’t dubbed Selfie Queen for nothing…

This one is interesting bc I have zero makeup on. The most recent ones are too blurry. A lot of my fav selfies are full faces of makeup tho.

2. what would you name your future kids?

I feel like that’s a decision for both parents but I really like the names Felicity, Isabella and Dimitri. Yes, all of them are names from various franchises I enjoyed throughout the years. Be glad I’m out of my phase where I thought Vladimir was a good name.

3. do you miss anyone?

I miss all my friends I don’t get to see frequently. Love all of y’all and hope y’all are doing well in life!

4. what are you looking forward to?

Fucking graduating. Jesus Christ it’s taken me five damn years.

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?

From my club it’s Chris, Yara and Josephine. Also my entire friend group from back home. Honestly I love my friends so much.

6. is it hard for you to get over someone?

I feel like every situation is different so that’s a tough question to answer.

7. what was your life like last year?

I honestly don’t remember much from December of last year. It was a good time though.

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?

I’m an emotional bitch. I’ll cry over anything. I cried over fucking Mulan the other day.

9. who did you last see in person?

My parents and brother. Earlier in the day my club.

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?

I’m shit at it. My face gives away everything. The other day my professor was going into her inspiration porn narrative and I just gave her a cold dead look the entire time.

11. are you listening to music right now?

No but I have the Hamilton soundtrack stuck in my head right now since that’s what I was last listening to. If you haven’t heard it I highly suggest it. Man I wanna see it so badly.

12. what is something you want right now?

Sleep but I’m trying not to throw off my sleep schedule right now and am waiting a bit before going to bed. I only got three hours of sleep last night so that’s fun.

13. how do you feel right now?

Kinda tired. Relieved that I got two service projects in a row done today. It’s been a long weekend.

14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?

My friend Sebastian hugged me when I dropped him off. I guess that counts.

15. personality description

I’m a makeup loving nerd who enjoys sitting in pajamas watching anime and superheros as much as she enjoys swatching EVERY lipstick in Sephora. According to my friends I can’t go 5 seconds without mentioning how old I feel and my love for Dungeons and Dragons. I’m also an asshole. (Wow this sounds like a 12 year old writing this)

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?

Yeah tons of times. It’s bitten me in the ass. Oh well live and learn I guess?

17. opinion on insecurities.

Everyone has them? If they say they don’t then they are lying. Mine is mainly related to my appearance or how I speak.

18. do you miss how thing were a year ago?

I miss how things were in the beginning of this year. It started off strong then kinda turned into a shit show.

19. have you ever been to New York?

No but it’s my top thing on my bucket list. My friends and I are highly considering a trip.

20. what is your favourite song at the moment?

Of all time: Get Low by Lil Jon

Currently: “Told You So” by Little Mix (If you haven’t heard their new album I highly suggest it if you love girl groups that preach women empowerment)

21. age and birthday?

22 - June 21st (She’s a Cancer)

22. description of crush.

I don’t have a hardcore crush right now. More like 5 second crushes that are over the second they do something I don’t like.

Edit: Currently “celebrity?” crush is Nathan Sharp. I am seriously considering dropping $55 to see him at a convention this month.

23. fear(s)

Heights, something terrible happening to my loved ones, wild snakes, and the usual common anxiety fears

24. height

Five foot three inches. I’m short. Yes I know it’s not that short but tall people like to put me in the short category anyway.

25. role model

My mom’s coworker who was my internship supervisor. She has a doctorate’s in what I want to do and is amazing at what she does. The amount of knowledge and experience that women has is incredible. She is also extremely funny and knows how to teach with a sense of humor which I appreciate.

26. idol(s)

Celebrity idols? I don’t really idolize celebrities bc humans are humans and have flaws.

27. things i hate

Immaturity, intolerance of differences, demeaning slurs, The Last Jedi, and the new Fantastic Beasts movie

28. i’ll love you if…

Play with my hair, are kind to my friends and family, share common interests, show an interest in what I have to say, basically respect me and those close to me and we’re good

29. favourite film(s)

Hairspray, High School Musical, The Greatest Showman, Stardust, The Harry Potter series, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy

30. favourite tv show(s)

Jane the Virgin, Naruto (fuck off I hate myself too ok), the first three seasons of Arrow before it turned to shit

31. 3 random facts

I’m not artistically talented but I genuinely enjoy makeup and creating looks

I have a nonverbal brother with autism and he’s my favorite person ever

I completely programmed my brother’s communication device by myself

32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?

Now my friends are mainly girls but when I lived in Tampa 90% of my friends over there were guys (Hi Mason). I’m going to say that’s bc of us all playing video games in the Delta lounge (RIP Dirty D). But yeah now it’s mainly girls and 80% of my dude friends are gay.

33. something you want to learn

Sign Language. Ice skating. Hairstyling. Fashion (I’m trying to be better about putting clothes together). Also I’m down to learn more about makeup and techniques

34. most embarrassing moment

Either farting while doing an air guitar in front of my entire girl scout troop

or signing to my friend that I liked her friend at a party and his brother repeated what I had signed out loud in front of everyone

wait. No. When I F U C K E D up in front a super hot guy while volunteering and then chose an 18 year old jock as my wingman. 18 year olds are dumbasses. Don’t use them as wingmen. Fuck you Khaled.

35. favourite subject

In grade school I think it was English or History. It really all depended on the year.

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?

VISIT NEW YORK

Hike the Smokey Mountains

Visit Europe

37. favourite actor/actress

Chris Evans (especially when he is trying to fight orange president on twitter)

Also Mark Hamill is perfect

38. favourite comedian(s)

I don’t watch comedians often. I guess the Fluffy guy?

39. favourite sport(s)

The only time I give a shit about sports is when my university is undefeated or playing my first university in football. Or the soccer world cup if it’s on. However I appreciate the skill it takes to do a sport.

40. favourite memory

San Antonio. It was my first time traveling without family and it was the greatest time. It was such a cool city

41. relationship status

Single - I take my sweet ass time

42. favourite book(s)

Eragon (No, I haven’t finished the entire series. No, I don’t want spoilers bc I will do it eventually.)

43. favourite song ever

“Get Low” by Lil Jon

“Look Through My Eyes” by Phil Collins

44. age you get mistaken for

Last year I got mistaken twice in a row within an hour for a middle schooler. I was 21 at at that time. During my internship one of the parents asked me if I had any kids. I’m either mistaken as a parent or as a 13-15 year old. There is no in between.

45. how you found out about your idol

N/A since I don’t have an idol

46. what my last text message says

“lmao it’s alright” to Joey but the previous one is more funny “thankfully no one threw up this time” in regards to my friend’s party last night

47. turn ons

Well I aint about to talk about my sex life so let’s go with personality

Common interests such as superheros or anime, charismatic, easy to get along with, common goals in life, cares about their loved ones, has passion, and someone I can hold an intellectual conversation with

48. turn offs

rudeness, immaturity, inattentiveness, bad tempers, superiority complex, not being genuine, judging others, treating people like objects, and general lack of care for others or themselves

49. where i want to be right now

Back in the smokey mountains in a cabin watching movies and anime

50. favourite picture of your idol

N/A

51. starsign

She’s an emotional Cancer

52. something i’m talented at

Apparently I’m good with kids Makeup too I guess?

53. 5 things that make me happy

friends, family, nerdy shit, makeup and Kakashi

54. something thats worrying me at the moment

Some shit happened last night that has me worried for some friends but I’m sure they’ll figure it out

55. tumblr friends

A shit ton of y’all I know IRL. I won’t tag y’all bc that’s annoying af

Joey’s my only internet friend @earthschampion (answer my text bitch)

56. favourite food(s)

pasta, empanadas, crab rangoons, taziki sauce

57. favourite animal(s)

Meerkats and koala bears

58. description of my best friend

K @burnitstronger: realest damn friend you will ever have. Will tell you how it is and provide never ending love and support. Never understands my dumbass shenanigans but loves me anyway. Love you boo

J : Will also tell you how it is and forces you to watch Naruto and ruin your damn life. Will happily go with you to eat junk food after class. Will fight anyone who wrongs you and is def still plotting revenge on all my ex’s. Stans Loona

M: Will scream at you in Leo in a frightening but loving way. Has the best damn fashion sense I have ever seen. Is the friend that comes by when I need her to and brings a shit ton of snacks and love (J does this as well).

59. why i joined tumblr

I was bored on fourth of July in 2012 and my friends kept telling me that this website would be fun. Also the avengers “fandom” from back then

60. ask me anything you want

I would say I’m sorry Mason but I enjoy making all my friends suffer. Make sure to give him a follow bc he’s cool. @masonjar828

#ask #me #yikes this took a long ass time

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mintchanniemint · 2 years

Note

hey again :) how are you doing now? let's ignore the fact that i teared up while reading your response. and this is going to be a long-ass message omg.

im currently deciding what to sing for that audition (considering ruby by woozi, but if anything, it's someone you loved). it is, in fact, really sad that by the time i first got into kpop, idols at my current age would be at their first years of training, but nowadays they're already debuting. there's so much about it, but i don't have the energy to discuss :)

feel like im just rambling, but?? im in a moment of my life where i don't have much say in what happens it's so annoying? like, the choices im making usually end up bad, and i know this is part of life and maturing, but... it's just so frustrating.

im currently being pushed to go to a military college (idk how it seems to you or how it is where you live, but here these colleges are really controversial. i was reading their rules and i cannot have piercings? and i just got my ear piercings like 5 months ago. im pretty sure i can't take them off yet, but i'll prob be forced to 😔)

and what you said about age is so true. i do have (fortunately) options of where and what to work with if my main plains don't work, but it is so uuugh that we feel useless when we're actually so young. again, where i live is super common for young adults to stay in their parent's house till they're like 25, or even older, so im luckier in that aspect, but it does feel odd (i get judged by some of my family members for living with my mom and grandma, even if they want me to stay with them? like?)

it's even more frustrating that, because of my age, if my plans of working with music don't go well this year, i'll most prob have to change ways and forget it. it's really painful to see that you won't be able to do what you love the most, it just strikes deep and hard (i've been breathing music for my whole life, but odds are just against me).

anyway anyway let's stop the sadness and talk about good things. i'll def check the manga/anime you mentioned, the description you gave really grabbed my attention, and im predicting tears? is it emotional?

now, a song recommendation from a local artist that i really love. the melody is simple but catching, and the lyrics are about following your own path not agreeing to others orders (kinda like itzy's wannabe message, but a tiny bit more aggressive), emphasis to the chorus that says "i have my fun when they want to hear yes, but i say no". it's called 'não' by clau - https://youtu.be/MGOQdd7Ciuw

im sorry for using your inbox to vent 🤦‍♀️ and sorry for the never-ending and not so fun message too. thank you for the flower, and here, i found another one 🌹 stay healthy and safe, our minty mint, and don't forget to eat delicious food you enjoy! one of the small pleasures of life hehe have a good day/night :) - 🐰 anon

Do not apologize for writing a long message, my inbox welcomes anything and if you feel comfortable enough to vent, it's completely ok!!

Just to connect to what you said, I might mention vaguely some things that have been happening to me: in my country you choose your career path (high school) when you're still in middle school, at the lovely age of 12/13, when you don't even know a thing about life at all. And back then I blindly chose to focus my studies on Sciences, even though I've always been way better at languages and music. I obviously am suffering the consequences now, as I'm in my 3rd year of uni (which is also technically my last year but because of reasons I'm not graduating soon so lol) AND IT HIT ME— way too many similar messages were surrounding me more than usual recently, and, with a heavy heart, I decided to face myself for once and actually listen to what I wanted to do. The conclusion (still working on it rn) is that I'm dropping out in order to start a completely new path in September. Was I actually forced to choose Sciences in uni too? No, but I admit back then I felt quite pressured by the idea of changing fields so quickly and by the idea of being judged by others. Will I be surrounded by students that are a couple of years younger than me? Yes. Will many of my peers graduate while I'm barely on my first year? Also yes. But who cares? I will be doing something I'm good at, something I'm genuinely interested in, and something that will bring joy TO ME.

I know really well society and overall others' thoughts affect us in such a confusing way, but sweetheart, if music is what you're meant to be doing, keep working towards this goal. Don't toss it aside, keep the passion and interest alive and even if it might not be your main field now, who knows what the future reserves for us? You might get noticed by other companies, maybe not in the kpop industry but still in the music one! Keep going sweetie, I'm always cheering for you!!! I know it can be disappointing, frustrating and all (been there many many times) but don't give up as you might be even ONE step away from your goal!

I never heard of military colleges but if you can choose something that might be more of help to you or not that strict then I wish you the best! :(

Thank you for the song recommendation! I'll listen to it right now! And if you're quite emotional like me, you might need some tissues while reading that manga because so many conversations feel like a whole punch in the face hahah

Just a little quote from the manga:

« “Do what you enjoy as just a hobby” - I think that's too much of an adult perspective.»

(this meant a lot to me- as that's exactly the thought I had when I chose my hs path back when I was 13. I remember I kept saying I wanted to keep my passion as a hobby, but I can't even imagine having a whole career and always feeling no satisfaction from it... If something has to happen, it will happen no matter what. Maybe I was supposed to give up on Sciences after graduating hs, but I was too stubborn and scared yet here I am years later finally accepting what I want to do for real and putting my interests and passions right in front of me.)

Stay safe and healthy!! Feel free to pass by whenever you want heh♡

#📬#🐰anon

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undocarly · 6 years

Text

THE INTERVIEW: THE 1975

The 1975 have been a long time coming. The four met at secondary school, started jamming in each other’s bedrooms throughout their teenage years and finally got around to releasing an EP last year – nearly ten years after writing their first song – before signing to a mate’s record label ‘when they were ready’. Their debut album is due out this summer and with 2013 touted as the ‘return of the guitar band’ we decide to get to know the frontrunners a little better.

TALK US THROUGH HOW THE BAND FORMED?

We didn’t really start a band per se, we were friends and we just started picking up instruments and messing about. None of us had picked an instrument particularly, we were all big fans of music and just tinkered with lots of different things. So when we all started playing music together it was a natural evolution, an organic process really. We started playing in punk cover bands and by the time we were 18 or 19 we were supporting our mates who were in more established bands – but we never felt the necessity to put anything out until August last year.

SO AT WHAT POINT DID IT BECOME MORE SERIOUS?

We’ve always believed that we could do it but retrospectively, when I think about it now, we’ve had quite a lot of foresight, we were very aware that there was no rush. We’d seen bands put music out too early and it came back to bite them in the arse. It was just a stage in our lives that felt right, we were signed by an indie label – and before that had been winded and dined by some major labels when we were very young and not ready – and because we had big songs, everyone was very excited. But nobody at major labels has any balls and that was proven to us so we signed to our mates’ label in the UK and Vagrant in America and it just felt right. We had enough material that we were proud of as well. I don’t know if we would have worked if we were signed to a major. We have to pride ourselves on our conviction.

There’s a brilliant Kafka quote that’s: a camel is a horse designed by a committee. If you’ve got the idea of a horse in your mind and you then give it to twelve people you’re going to get a camel back. And that’s very much how I feel about this band. The devil’s in the detail – it’s the intricacies that make us who we are.

THE STORY BEHIND YOUR NAME HAS BEEN QUITE ROMANTICISED – WHERE’S THE TRUTH IN IT?

It’s become quite idealised, yeah. It’s a romantic story though. I was on holiday in Northern Majorca and I went for a walk and met an artist out there. We hung out a bit and I left with loads of literature that he gave me – I was a very impressionable 19-year-old boy. So I got the books home and read them and one had been treated like a diary by the previous owner, covered in scribblings. It wasn’t a suicide note as has been reported but it was obviously the demise of someone, you could tell from the writing, and the note was dated 1 June the 1975. It was the use of the word ‘the’ that stuck with me. I didn’t instantly think ‘oh I’m going to name my band that’ when we were trying to come up with a name I remembered that story.

A LOT OF YOUR MUSIC IS QUITE AMBIENT, AS WELL AS THE INDIE AND POP THAT WE’VE HEARD. HAVE YOU FOUND YOUR SOUND YET?

That’s the question that we’ve become fascinated with, and that has defined us recently. With the Facedown and Sex EP it brought quite a lot of critical acclaim upon us but also a lot of criticism because people were saying ‘do they know who they are’ or ‘what do they want to be’ and we got fascinated by it. We don’t listen to one type of music or consume any media in one linear format so we find it difficult to create in that way. It’s not even a conscious approach it’s just that our musical vocabulary has developed in that way. We’ve been living in each others pockets for ten years so our tastes and influences are the same, which makes it very coherent. The idea of searching within yourself to find what you want to project, or suffering from a lack of identity – everyone can relate to that. It’s a reflection to who we are as people. If you can manage to not have a defined sound over 16 tracks then you’re doing okay. I’m not harboured by that way of thinking.

DO YOU VIEW ANYONE AS COMPETITION?

I haven’t really thought about it you know. I’ve never really worried about the competition, it feels like the pressure is kind of off us a bit because if you are investing in our band you are investing in us – this is the only thing that we know how to do. It’s our only form of expression. We’regrouped in with the usual suspects – Palma Violets, Peace and Swim Deep but I would put us more along the likes of AlunaGeorge or the Weeknd. The people that we know and are close to musically are all in the R’n’B scene like Bareface or Tourist, so we don’t feel that much competition because we don’t see our sound the same as those we’re compared to. We’ve been called guitar ‘n’ B before and I love that.

WHO’S IMPRESSING YOU IN MUSIC RIGHT NOW?

Laura Mvula is great and we love A$AP Rocky more than belief. I met him outside our hotel – he recognised me from the Futures festival which was amazing but weird. And also Kendrick Lamar, Tourist and obviously Aluna George and Disclosure. Our heads have always been buried in R’n’B and dance music so we identify with that.

DO YOU THINK CURRENT R’N’B IS GOING TO MOVE AWAY FROM THIS DANCE SOUND THAT IT’S LATCHED ON TO?

Hopefully there’ll just be a move towards something more organic. But currently I think music moves in waves, something wishy washy always follows something good. Look at what you had after Blur and Oasis – Travis! And then the Libertines came along and then the Arctic Monkeys which was great but then what did you get after – The Hooisers and the Wombats. The David Guetta scene has to die at some stage. We can live in hope at least.

YOU WORKED WITH MIKE CROSSEY ON THE ALBUM – HOW WAS THAT?

He’s now one of my closest friends. He understood how we worked and he understood that it can be quite unsettling moving away from a way of working that you’re used to. We were originally just going to do that album ourselves but he came on board after falling in love with the band and he didn’t steam roll over anything we did, and we listened to him because of that. I learned so much from him about producing. His technical understanding revitalised our creative process.

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE ALBUM?

It’s very broad you know, and very ambitious. It doesn’t sound like the EPs even though ‘Sex’, ‘The City’ and ‘Chocolate’ are on the album. I’m not very good at retrospect, I have a lot more conviction about what I’m saying in the moment so most of my lyrics are quotes, like in ‘Sex’, most of that song was spoken at some point. That song was about four or five different girls, and a lot of them have picked up on it because they remember me saying those exact words to them!

YOU’RE ALSO SIGNED IN THE US TO VAGRANT. DO YOU THINK THE US WILL GET YOU?

I think they’ll get us more. They love the accent so that’s a start. Musically I think our album will work really well in America because even though it feels like a happy record most of the lyrics are not, they’re quite unsettling – like ‘Chocolate’ which is about my relationship with a particular drug and our relationship with the police in a very small middle class town.

WHAT ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR?

I’m hungry for seeing a really emotional validation in people through our music. What we’re starting to get now from people is a direct emotional response which has been quite moving. We’ve been writing music for nine years but before this tour hadn’t really performed our own music to people. I’m hungry to hear a story about how our music has affected somebody’s life – whether they listened to a song to get through something or whether they were inspired by listening to us, I’m hungry for a human connection.

Interview: hunger tv, feb 26th 2013

#interview 2013 #the 1975 #matty healy #adam hann #George daniel #ross macdonald #2013 #archive

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meetmeatthecoda · 7 years

Text

Poison Perfect: Chapter 2

Below the cut, if anyone’s interested! :D Also on FF.net and Ao3! :) Enjoy! <3

Chapter 2

Oh Red.

Here they are, collapsed on the kitchen floor of Red’s Bethesda apartment and Red can’t breathe. Liz had known that the poison had effected his lungs to some extent but she had no idea it was this bad. As far as she knows, Red is not normally asthmatic so he doesn’t have an inhaler, does he? If he did, she certainly would have seen him carrying it on his person at some point, wouldn’t she?

No. No, she probably wouldn’t have. Red is layers upon layers of shadow and indifference, never carrying anything indicative of his real self. Anything he absolutely needs on the go, like guns or cell phones, Dembe carries. Anything that means anything to him is carefully hidden away for safe keeping in apartments like the one she is in right now.

With Red gasping for air in her arms.

Oh, where is Dembe when they need him?

Red writhes on the floor, wheezing, a horrible rattling sound echoing in his chest.

Okay, okay. Sam suffered from asthma as a result of his smoking. There must have been at least one instance Liz was present when an attack started and Sam didn’t have his inhaler.

Or it was empty. And suddenly, she remembers.

When Liz was a teen, Sam had taken her to the movies to see some popular chick flick she had been bugging him about. He had humored her and taken her to a late showing on a school night as a reward for her recent good grades. The parking lot was crowded when they arrived in the early evening and they had to park far away from the doors. But on the way out, the parking lot was deserted and they had had to walk a long way through the dark to find their car. Sam had started to gasp a little but he insisted he was fine. Until he dropped to his knees on the asphalt. Liz had panicked and rifled through his jacket pockets until she found his inhaler while he gasped on the ground but it was empty. So she had squatted on the cold ground in the middle of a deserted parking lot and talked her father through breathing until his lungs let him.

And now she has to do the same with Red.

Okay.

The first step is to get Red into an upright position. Laying as he is, half on the linoleum and half in her arms, this is no easy feat. She pulls and tugs at his arms and clothes while he involuntary struggles against her, panicking. After a minute or two of effort, she is sitting behind him on the floor, his back propped up against her front, with one arm looped around his waist and the other stretched out against his arm to grasp his hand.

Oh, how did that happen? He may be struggling against her hold but he is squeezing her hand and she takes that to mean that he trusts her to get him through this.

“Okay, Red, you gotta breathe. I’m gonna help you, okay?”

The only response she gets is another awful rattling wheeze.

“Okay, sounds good,” she murmurs, running her thumb over his fingers tenderly. “All right, it’s time to breathe in, Red, try and breathe with me, feel my chest move.”

And she begins to breath in slowly, counting out loud as she does so, watching as the motion of her lungs raises Red up off her chest a few inches. He tries to do it with her but breathes in much too sharply in his panic and that starts him coughing again.

“That’s okay, Red, that’s okay,” she soothes, patting his side where her hand rests. “Let’s try again, okay? In. One, two, three…”

And she keeps counting and breathing and Red keeps wheezing and rattling and Liz keeps her voice quiet and low and as soothing as she can until suddenly there’s more breathing than gasping and Red is relaxing in her arms.

“That’s it, Red, there you go,” she whispers to him, resting her chin gently on his shoulder and placing her head next to his, without entirely realizing she’s doing it.

And soon things are mostly quiet again, with an occasional weak cough punctuating the silence, Red laying slumped against her front on his kitchen floor, exhausted, while she cradles him, rocking a little, and humming quietly, eyes closed, relieved to feel him breathing easily again.

And Liz, sitting there with Red, is suddenly aware of a truth. It doesn’t come with a bang or a shock, like some epiphanies do. It just whispered into existence sometime when she was helping Red get air into his lungs. Or maybe it was always there, waiting for her to acknowledge it. She doesn’t know. All she knows is that she is at peace here, with Red, helping him, holding him. And it is a peace she has never known with anyone else, not Nick, and certainly not Tom. Only Sam and Agnes. Love, she thinks, a bit dreamily. Is that what this is?

Her idle wonderment is gently interrupted by the man of her musings gently squeezing her hand and stirring against her.

“Lizzie…”

And his voice is so much worse than before, almost gone now, and it hurts her so much, she wishes more than anything she could make it better but he’s trying to tell her something.

“Thank you, Lizzie, thank you…” he’s whispering to her and what was she supposed to do? Let him suffocate and choke right in front of her? Of course not, She loves h—

Oh, well, all right. What a day of quiet, polite, earth-shattering, life-altering realizations.

But she can’t dwell on that right now.

“Of course, Red, don’t be silly.” She murmurs gently, trying to brush off all the overwhelming emotions. Now is not the time to get swept away. “Look, I now you’re exhausted and, frankly, so am I, it’s been a hell of a day.”

She feels his chest stutter and she almost starts to count again before she realizes he’s chuckling at her. Oh. Well, that’s good.

“Oh, that’s funny, is it?” she asks, grinning, probably a little madly. “Well, in a morbid kind of way, I guess it is. So how about we move this to the bedroom, mister, and we both get some sleep?”

He stops laughing abruptly. Well, that got his attention.

“Staying?” he manages to get out.

“Well, yeah, I think it would be best, Red, don’t you?” she says gently. “Dembe isn’t here – “ She tries to ignore the way he stiffens in her arms “ – and I’m not leaving you here alone tonight. What if you have another attack? I don’t want to leave you.”

(And oh, those last words were maybe some of that tidal wave of emotion forcing their way through her wall of denial and into her words and she certainly didn’t mean for that to happen.)

But she can practically feel the unease radiating off Red but she is not changing her mind because the thought of him here, alone, gasping, nearly sends her into her own panic attack and gee, aren’t they a pair?

“Too bad, Red,” she sing-songs quietly, feeling just loopy enough to tease him. “You’re not getting rid of me tonight. So you’ll just have to deal with it.” She pats his side sympathetically.

He gives the deepest sigh he can manage and, though she can’t see his face, she’s pretty sure she can feel his eyes rolling. She can’t help but laugh a little against him.

The poor little invalid.

He is trying to speak again though, coughing a little as he does so.

“Red, please don’t talk, you’ll just – “

“Agnes?”

Oh. Oh, he is worried about her baby girl and honestly so is she because Liz misses her every minute she’s not with her but she is at home with Tom and if Liz is sure of one thing, it’s that Tom will never hurt their child.

And if she’s sure of another thing, it’s that Red needs her here tonight.

“Tom is with her and I’ll miss her but I’ll see her tomorrow.”

Red is trying to protest, struggling in her arms again, and she wonders if that’s because Tom is with Agnes or because Liz isn’t but she figures it doesn’t really matter right now.

“Red, stop, it’s alright. I’ll text him and let him know I’ll see them both in the morning. She’s probably already asleep by now anyway. Even if I went home right now, the next time she’d see me is still when she wakes up in the morning.”

Red seems to reluctantly see the sense in this and gives up his pointless struggle. Liz grins in triumph.

“All right, now that that’s settled, it’s bed time, don’t you think?” she tries to say this lightly and without a care, as if the thought of getting into bed with Red doesn’t fill her stomach with some strange species of butterfly.

She tries.

The process of extricating herself from underneath Red, getting up off the kitchen floor, and then getting a weak and exhausted Red up as well demands quite a lot of patience and coordination but they somehow manage it without any additional harm to either of them.

“Okay, great.” Liz sighs, making sure Red is safely propped against the kitchen counter before stepping away and pushing a few loose strands of hair out of her face. “Bedroom.”

She takes Red’s arm, ignoring his quiet huff and disapproving look, and guides him slowly towards the back hallway where she remembers his bedroom is the second door on the right.

She knows where Red’s bedroom is, what a strange thought.

Liz finally gets Red to the bed, where he sits down heavily, looking paler than ever from the short walk. She frowns, worried. But her next task is to get him ready for bed and she wishes those stupid butterflies would just curl up and die inside her because she doesn’t have enough energy for this tonight. Pushing them aside as best she can, she reaches silently for the buttons on his vest, intending to at least get him down to his white button-down and slacks to let him sleep most comfortably, but he jerks away from her touch, frowning and uncertain.

Well, that hurt.

“Red, do you want to sleep in a full three-piece suit, sans jacket?” she asks sardonically, raises her eyebrows, trying to hide her hurt.

He looks down at the floor, sufficiently chastised, but raises his own hands to his vest instead, still not wanting her help. She frowns at him and crosses her arms, ignoring the tears clogging her throat because this is not the time nor place for them.

Liz watches as Red quickly and efficiently removes his tie, vest, and belt, placing them neatly folded on the bed beside him. He then attempts to lean over to untie his shoes but he only makes it about halfway before he winces in pain and sits up, his hand going to his chest. Of course, his lungs and ribs are probably aching from the exertion of his asthma attack.

“It’s okay, Red, I can do that.” She says, but she cuts her eyes at him and waits. “Can’t I?” She raises her eyebrow at him.

He rolls his eyes a little and nods unhappily. She snorts, mumbling something about a ‘typical male’ while she drops to her knees in front of him. She makes quick work of his shoes and pushes them aside next to his bedside table so he won’t trip over them if he tries to get up.

“Can you sleep like that? Is there anything else you need?” Liz feels a little like that overbearing mother hen again but she doesn’t really care because she thinks that maybe Red deserves a little mothering after the day he’s had.

The man in question blinks sleepily at her and shakes his head.

“Okay, then. Lay down. I’ll be right there.”

She ignores his suddenly more alert eyes and now open mouth and instead scoops up his neat pile of discarded clothing and places it on the dresser.

“Lizzie, what – “ he asks hoarsely but she waves him off.

“Just lay down, Red.”

After a moment, he relents, evidently too tired to argue, and slowly shifts down the bed until his head reaches the pillow, closing his eyes with something like relief. She stands watching him do this until she realizes how creepy that probably is and decides she should get ready for bed herself. She takes a breath and pulls herself together.

“Be right back, Red.” She murmurs, just in case he is still awake.

She wanders out into the living room, checking the locks on the door and shutting off the lights, feeling strangely domestic and comfortable. She is about to head back to the bedroom when she is startled by something winding around her feet and purring. Red’s cat. She nearly forgot about him. He must have been sleeping all through Red’s episode. Lucky little fellow.

Liz bends down to pet the furry thing and hears it purr louder in response.

“Hey, kitty,” she whispers absentmindedly, lamenting that she still doesn’t know the cat’s name. “I bet you’re hungry, huh? Let’s check your food bowl.”

Liz goes to the kitchen and the cat follows her, excited. Liz looks around and sees the cat’s bowl on the floor on the far side of the small island that she and Red had spent their evening next to. The bowl looks mostly empty so Liz hunts around the kitchen for a few minutes, peeking into cabinets, trying not to snoop, until she finds small cans of cat food in a bottom cupboard. Liz quickly empties a can into the bowl and gives the cat, who is happily chowing down, a final pet before shutting off the last light and heading back to the bedroom.

Red is right where she left him, struggling to keep his eyes open. What an endearing sight.

Is he trying to wait for her? Oh, how sweet.

And suddenly Liz has no qualms about rounding the bed and shedding her jacket, placing it on a chair tucked in the corner, and toeing off her boots to tuck them under the chair. Remembering her promise to Red, Liz quickly takes out her phone and sends a quick text to Tom, telling him she won’t be home tonight and to please give Agnes a kiss for her. She ignores the almost immediate response that starts with her name and trails off into some ominous warning about their relationship. She doesn’t need any more drama tonight. She sets her phone on the bedside table on her side of the bed -- oh, does she have a side of the bed with Red? Oh, she needs to sleep – and climbs as gently as she can onto the bed behind Red.

He stirs lightly and makes to turn towards her but she places a hand on his arm and shushes him.

“It’s okay, Red. Just sleep, honey, I’ll be here.” She whispers and she doesn’t realize until it’s too late that she added an endearment into that statement, didn’t she? An endearment she usually calls Tom, no less. But she felt such a surge of warmth just now, all the way down to her toes, when she said it to Red that she has never felt with Tom, she is sure of it.

Well then.

But it is too late for feelings like this and Liz’s eyes are drooping already and Red has fallen asleep on top of the covers but she won’t bother waking him to get under so, on a sleepy whim, she moves forward until her front is pressed against Red’s back again, and she places an arm over his waist, cuddling up to his warmth.

Well, look at that. It occurs to her, in what must be her hundredth realization of the night, that she is spooning Red. And she is the big spoon, too. Tom is usually the big spoon when they sleep but this, here with Red, is strangely pleasant and she thinks she likes feeling tucked up and hidden behind his larger form while holding him in her arms.

As Liz’s eyes slip closed, that same feeling of peace steals over her that she felt on the kitchen floor and her last sleepy thought is that maybe, next time, Red can be the big spoon.

She thinks she’d love that.

#The Blacklist #Lizzington #mine #fanfic #prompt #@therearenosidesonlyplayers #poison perfect #chapter 2 #out of three #chapter three coming soon #feedback much appreciated #please enjoy #:D #<3

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endmetrash · 7 years

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I was tagged by @1runw1thwolves212

I actually wrote half of this earlier today but lost it, a whole bucket load of fun.

(The) Last (I can make people (@1runw1thwolves212) die by those two words)

1) Drink: Water

2) Phone call: My mother, last week

3) Text message: iMessages - @1runw1thwolves212 and @omggryffindog, text – drama friend, Tumblr - @1runw1thwolves

4) Song I listened to: I Like It by BTS

5) Time I cried: watching a play yesterday, it featured a blind woman suffering from a brain tumour who bonds with a poor art student shortly before her death.

Have you ever

6) Dated someone twice: People do that? No, I’ve never dated anyone.

7) Been cheated on: See above

8) Kissed someone and regretted it: As a result of never having dated, I’ve never kissed anyone either.

9) Lost someone special: Many friends when I moved houses at 8, others when I moved schools a few more times. My father when I was 10.

10) Been depressed: I don’t think I’ve been clinically depressed. But I’ve been in a bad space…about once a day.

11) Gotten drunk and thrown up: Never drank that much alcohol.

List three favourite colours

12) Bluey green

13) Greeny blue

14) Black

In the last year have you

15) Made new friends: Not close ones…

16) Fallen out of love: Again, never really experienced that type of love.

17) Laughed until you cried: Yesterday, my drama group has a whole heap of inside jokes.

18) Found out someone was talking about you: Again, yesterday, but not at drama.

19) Met someone who changed you: I’m a believer of every single action affecting other people, so undoubtedly yes.

20) Found out who your true friends are: I’ve known who they are for over a year, actually.

21) Kissed someone on your Facebook list: I don’t have Facebook, and again, I’ve never been kissed (ah, I remember that movie)

General

22) How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: See 21.

23) Do you have any pets: I have a dog

24) Do you want to change your name: I’m starting to grow attached to my first name, but I still wanna change my last and middle names.

25) What did you do for your last birthday: I had a shared birthday with a friend. A groups of friends and ourselves went to see La La Land.

26) What time did you wake up: Around 8-9.

27) What were you doing at midnight last night: I think I was asleep?

28) Name something you can’t wait for: BTS comeback! It’s going to be amazing!

29) When was the last time you saw your mother: Can I just register the fact that this question is a little weird? My answer is 2-3 months ago, I honestly can’t remember.

30) What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: This is deep. One of two things. I wish I could either change how emotionally sensitive I am or the fact that my family is so disjointed.

31) What are you listening to right now: You Were Beautiful by Day6.

32) Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Weirdly specific question. Yes, I have a step-grandfather named Tom.

33) Something that is getting on your nerves: My family.

34) Most visited website: YouTube

35) Elementary school: 5 different ones.

36) High school: Only one.

37) College: Not certain about degree, but I’m gonna go as soon as I finish high school.

38) Hair colour: Blonde, I think it’s fair?

39) Long or short hair: Just above my shoulders.

40) Do you have a crush on someone: Not anymore.

41) What do you like about yourself: How quickly I learn and how sympathetic and emotionally creative I am.

42) Piercings: I used to have the standard ear piercings, but I let the holes close in.

43) Blood type: I used to be tested a heap, but I don’t have contact with anyone who knows. I’m actually curious.

44) Nickname: Tash, Trash.

45) Relationship status: Single and not really willing to mingle yet.

46) Zodiac sign: Pisces

47) Favourite TV show: I don’t really know…how about…American Hustle Life (BTS TV series)! That was on TV! It’s a series! It counts, right?

48) Tattoos: I don’t have any, but once I’m legally able to get one, I want a pretty reference to a book/movie/anything really. It would probably be one of those deep and meaningful quotes, it would be somewhere I can hide easily but won’t look weird if I show off.

49) Right handed or left handed: Right handed, though I don’t feel uncomfortable doing some things left handed.

First

50) Surgery: I don’t know if I had one earlier, but I had to have tongue surgery because the join between my tongue and the bottom of my mouth was REALLY far forward.

51) Piercing: My ears, I think I was 9-10.

52) Best friend: Jacob, I haven’t seen him since I moved house just before I was 8, I honestly could barely even remember his name, makes me feel kinda sad.

53) Sport: Swimming, I think I started that before horse riding.

54) Vacation: Cairns, QLD, Aus. I was 8 years old.

55) Pair of trainers: Wait, who ACTUALLY remembers that stuff!

Right now

56) Eating: Haven’t eaten for AGES

57) Drinking: I finished a bottle of water just recently

58) I’m about to: Get back to doing my homework, I gotta annotate myself a book by Tuesday.

59) I’m listening to: Fire by BTS

60) Waiting for: As above, BTS COMEBACK ITS GOING TO BE AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL. Also for the next Every Day6 release, Hi Hello is beautiful and makes me feel emotions.

61) Want: My friends, food, sleep, no homework, BTS comeback, all BTS merchandise and music, to meet BTS.

62) Get married: Umm? Not at the moment, and I’m uncertain about making that commitment at all.

63) Career: Frankly, I have no clue.

Which is better

64) Hugs or kisses: Hugs, because I have experience and a good hug is the BEST feeling.

65) Lips or eyes: Eyes, they tell you so much about a person and they’re really pretty to look at.

66) Shorter or taller: Depends on what for. For friendship I’ll say shorter because I’m used to that. For a romantic relationship I’ll say taller, but not by much, probably because of relationship stereotypes. I think I’m slightly traditional in terms of romantic attachments.

67) Older or younger: I don’t care about age specifically, but I internally believe in the stereotype that older people are more mature so might go for someone older for relationship on that basis. I focus on personality more that age.

68) Romantic or spontaneous: I really don’t know, I want a connection with my partner so I don’t really care about romantic gestures.

69) Nice arms or nice stomach: Honestly, I couldn’t care less. I care about how I get along with my partner. Can I answer nice personality?

70) Sensitive or loud: I want someone who is both. I suppose more sensitive as I want someone who really pays attention to me and cares about how I feel. I want someone who can be loud though as I want to be able to have fun with my partner.

71) Hook up or relationship: Relationship, no doubt. I care about emotional connections.

72) Troublemaker or hesitant: I want someone who can do both. I suppose troublemaker as that person would be more confident than the hesitant one?

Have you ever

73) Kissed a stranger: As above, I have no experience.

74) Drank hard liquor: Nope.

75) Lost glasses/contact lenses: Real talk, I am the WORST when it comes to losing glasses. At one time I had THREE pairs of glasses lost AT THE SAME TIME.

76) Turned someone down: Um, no one’s ever propositioned me…so…

77) Sex on first date: No, I despise the thought.

78) Broken someone’s heart: Does my own count?

79) Had your own heart broken: Platonically, yes, almost constantly because of a few bad friendships I’ve been in. Romantically, see above.

80) Been arrested: No.

81) Cried when someone died: When that someone was a fictional character, yes. I am TERRIBLE at not crying, I just feel all the emotions and can’t help myself. When that someone is a real person, yes. Nowhere near as much as a fictional character, but still a lot. I taught drama to young primary school children and one of them was involved in an accident. This was around November last year and I still wanna punch anyone who brings the topic up.

82) Fallen for a friend: I draw a strict line between people I allow myself to feel that way for. Anyone in a position of authority or I am close to platonically are definitely in the DO NOT FALL FOR zone

Do you believe in

83) Yourself: Not really.

84) Miracles: No

85) Love at first sight: That, my dear, is called hormones and is an ATTRACTION. I believe that ‘love at first sight’ will not last unless built up and strengthened over time.

86) Santa Claus: Nope, the only reason I pretend to around my family is so that I get the benefit of presents.

87) Kiss on the first date: Depends on how long you’ve known each other, how close you are and the dynamic at that moment. I would definitely say no to anything too extensive,

88) Angels: Not beyond the comparison to really kind people.

Other

89) Current best friend’s name: I refuse to choose between Tara and Payton, so there you go, you get both (see Tara, one of us is fair).

90) Eye colour: Blue

91) Favourite movie: I really have no clue…

Ok, that’s it. I don’t really have anyone to tag so just feel free to do it. Sorry for the delay in posting.

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meganlaliberte · 7 years

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An Author’s Life for Me Tag

I took last weekend off because it was my birthday. Yay me! 31 feels no different than 30 or 25 and they say you’re as old as you feel. As I’m writing this I feel like I’m 131. I’ve got the flu and I figured while I have some energy I should probably get my post done for this coming weekend. It kind of works out for you guys. You get an early blog and with this week’s topic you get to learn a bit more about me. Yay! Just know the introvert in me is cowering in a corner as I write. Ha just imagine if this was a vlog. I tried that once and yeah there might have been alcohol involved in making those.

So, to get on with this week’s topic. Jenna Moreci recently did a writer’s tag titled An Author’s Life for Me and tagged her fans. This tag consists of 10 questions focusing on an author’s life. She posts these occasionally, but I had never taken part until now. So here it goes:

1. What kind of writer are you?

What kind of writer am I? Assuming this is about what genre I write...personally I’ve done a lot of sci-fi writing. With a Love to Fill for I decided to try my hand at murder/suspense. Now I’m working on an outline for a Fantasy type novel. I don’t mind trying different things but I think taking reality and twisting it a bit is what I like to write most.

2. When did you start writing and what made you want to try it?

I started writing when I was a small child. I’m not sure the exact age but I remember sitting at the kitchen table working on my stories and asking my dad if I spelled a word right. I’m sure I didn’t spell a lot of words right but I didn’t care I was creating characters and writing stories. In elementary school, we got to write stories and they were sent out to be book bound. It was always so exciting when my stories came back hard bound complete with my own illustrations.

In middle school, I started to suffer from depression so I wrote a lot of poetry to work out the craziness that was going on inside me. Later, I discover the world of RPGs online and started to writing fan fiction type stories with others (don’t laugh I enjoy it).

In high school, I started to hate writing because it seemed my teachers never liked it and there was never any advice on how to make my writing better. I think when you put a lot of kids into a classroom to the point that they’re over flowing teachers don’t have the time to provide the feedback that they should. Not all teachers are like this so please don’t think I’m including all teachers this is just my experience. I have heard of teachers who are immensely supportive of their students and provide lots of feedback.

After high school, I still wrote for my RPGs and on occasion wrote poetry but I found unless I’m depressed poetry isn’t so easily written. I guess it was based a lot on my emotions than anything else. I toyed with writing novels before but it wasn’t until recently that I started to get seriously involved in it. Before I would make a character and just jump into writing and not get very far or I would get discouraged and stop all together.

3. What inspires your stories?

I don’t think I have ever considered what inspires my stories. I think this is one of the reasons that sometimes I struggle with what to write about. I find I need to be relaxed when thinking of ideas. I work two jobs and it can put a hamper on my creativity. It’s the shitty part of adulthood. That aside I have noticed that music is a great source of inspiration. I have LOTS of playlists on my computer and on services like Spotify and Amazon Prime Music. I usually have a playlist for each character that I make when I’m planning the characters.

Other than music sometimes ideas just come to me and when I can’t get them out of my head I start outlining them. Sometimes these ideas just pop into my head and sometimes they’re dreams. Some are even inspired by songs or things I’ve read or watched. Not all these ideas get outlined but I write most of them down in my notebook.

Often I find inspiration while driving down the road when I can’t write any of it down. I write my best chapters while driving down the road. #Writerproblems.

4. What themes do you explore in your writing?

I think Jenna said it best in her video. You can’t tell people your themes it takes away from the discovery of them.

5 Are you a plotter, pantser, plantser?

It depends on what I’m writing. There are somethings I can get away with flying by the seat of my pants. Usually if it’s short I have no issue. Like my blogs I can get away with a basic outline of things I want to talk about. When it comes to writing a novel though outlining is the best if only to get your ideas down so they aren’t so jumbled when I write. I could probably pants it but I would go insane or just stop because I don’t know what I want to happen next. When it comes to novels you need something even if it’s just a basic outline.

6. Where are you in your writing journey?

In my writing journey, I’m currently in the early draft phase and planning for my other WIP. It’s slow going working two jobs but I’m trying.

7. Have you entered any writing contests? Did you win any?

When I was in high school I entered a poetry writing contest and won. It wasn’t until later that I realized it was a big scam. Everyone who had ever submitted something to poetry.com got published. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? How about they make you purchase your own work. I don’t think that sounds fair in the least. Then they get you to sign all kinds of papers to allow them to do whatever they want with your work while you see nothing from it not even payment.

Do I think writing contests are bad? No I don’t but always do your homework before you enter one. Read that fine print and then google the crap out of the contest to see what others say about it. It’s the internet, if someone has an opinion on it you’ll find it writing down for all to see somewhere.

8. Who are your writing heroes?

I don’t know if I have any writing heroes but I enjoy works by Diana Gabaldon, JK Rowling, and Paulo Coelho.

9. Have you been to a writing conference?

I have never been to a writing conference but if they have NerdCon: Writers this year I would like to go. My coworker has been a few times and suggested that I go. Who knows this might be the first year that I do.

10. What are your top 3 writing tips?

My top 3 writing tips are:

1. Research

Research everything from what you want to write about to the writing world. Research anything you don’t know about. Your research doesn’t have to go into your book in a clinical manner but it will help you better understand what you’re trying to write about.

2. Be persistent

Create a schedule for your writing and stick to it. Create goals for yourself. Start off with quarterly goals and then make monthly or weekly goals. Do whatever will work best for you and stick to it. Sit your ass in that chair and put some words on the page.

3. Connect with other writers.

Connecting with other writers will help to inspire you and provide motivation. Just knowing you aren’t alone is helpful. A lot of writers are also open to offering help all you have to do is ask. You can also connect via YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms. Just get out there and mingle.

So, that concludes this writer’s tag. I enjoyed doing this and look forward to doing more in the future. If you guys know of any, please let me know. I also want to tag everyone who reads this. Feel free to leave you responses in the comments or post it on your own site and tag others. Until next time happy writing!

#writers tag #amwriting #writerslife

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jessicakehoe · 4 years

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These Celebs Are Destigmatizing Mental Illness

Many campaigns have worked to normalize the discussion around mental health (Bell Let’s Talk and CAMH’s One Brave Night among them). But one thing that really reaches the masses is when a celebrity speaks out about his or her struggle to spread the message that it’s okay to have a mental illness; it doesn’t make you weak.

Anyone who has ever suffered from depression or anxiety—whether temporary or chronic—knows the feeling of wanting to crawl into bed and stay there until things seem okay again. And somehow when these celebrities who seem to have it all come out and say that they actually don’t have their shit together, it is encouraging to us. By focusing on their health, it normalizes the conversation and gives us the courage to take care of ourselves (and be vocal about it).

Below, see the celebrities who are helping to fight the stigma against mental health by being open about their own struggles. Want to learn more about mental illness? Here are 5 myths about anxiety and depression, and information about different types of treatment.

Post Malone

In an interview with GQ Style, the Grammy nominee opened up about dealing with an unshakeable sadness from a very young age. “Middle school, I would cry myself to sleep every f**kin’ day,” he reveals. “High school, the same thing. I tried to drink some beers to get rid of that shit but it just never goes away. And I don’t think that’s anybody’s fault; it has to do with something predisposed in you.” Music has become his way of coping with these struggles, and of processing what he’s going through. “I’m trying,” he says. “It’s difficult. Through my songs, I can talk about whatever I want. But sitting here, face to face, it’s difficult.”

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"Through my songs, I can talk about whatever I want. But sitting here, face-to-face, it's difficult.”–@PostMalone Photographs by @jason_nocito_studio. Styled by @mobolajidawodu. #gqstyle #postmalone

A post shared by GQ Style (@gqstyle) on Mar 2, 2020 at 8:16am PST

Prince Harry

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Day two of #SussexRoyalTour is underway, and The Duke and Duchess have joined young South Africans and @WavesForChange to focus on mental health and take part in ‘surf therapy’. • Hundreds of young people from Cape Town’s townships meet every week at Monwabisi beach to surf, but also share stories with mentors and talk through the daily challenges they face. Their Royal Highnesses were able to hear how the sessions are building trust, confidence, and belonging, and they also got to join in as children took part in ‘power hand’, which teaches them how to keep calm down reflect on strengths. While on the beach The Duke and Duchess met @TheLunchBoxFund – which was one of the charities they nominated to benefit from donations following the birth of their son, Archie. Almost 30,000 meals are provided by the charity every day across South Africa, including for three @WavesForChange projects. And before they left The Duke and Duchess joined the Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP) – which was teaching the surfers about the impact of plastic waste on the ocean. #RoyalVisitSouthAfrica • Photo ©️ photos EMPICS / PA images / SussexRoyal

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Sep 24, 2019 at 5:00am PDT

The Duke of Sussex has spoken out extensively about his own mental health journey, and the trauma he suffered as a result of losing his mother, Princess Diana, at a young age. In an interview with Bryony Gordon for her podcast about mental health, Mad World, the royal said, “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well.”

“I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and sort of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle,” he added.

After seeking out counselling and learning to open up about his struggles with friends and family, the royal co-founded Heads Together, a mental health awareness campaign, with Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2016. While on a recent trip to South Africa with Meghan Markle, the royal couple met with Waves For Change, an organization promoting mental wellbeing through surf therapy, and spoke out about the need to counter the stigma against mental illness in our society.

“I think most of the stigma is around mental illness [and] we need to separate the two… mental health, which is every single one of us, and mental illness, which could be every single one of us,” he said. “I think they need to be separated; the mental health element touches on so much of what we’re exposed to, these experiences that these kids and every single one of us have been through. Everyone has experienced trauma or likely to experience trauma at some point during their lives. We need to try, not [to] eradicate it, but to learn from previous generations so there’s not a perpetual cycle.”

Ariana Grande

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A post shared by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on Mar 30, 2019 at 9:57am PDT

In British Vogue’s July 2018 issue, Ariana Grande opened up on her experience with PTSD after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing. “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”

In November 2018, the singer/songwriter dropped a single titled “thank u, next,” dedicated to all of her exes, including the late-Mac Miller (who died this past September of a drug overdose) and ex-fiancé Pete Davidson, which resulted in fans wondering who her therapist is. “Therapy has saved my life so many times,” Grande tweeted in response. “If you’re afraid to ask for help, don’t be.”

photography via instagram/@arianagrande

In an Instagram story posted on April 11, Grande shared a side-by-side image of a healthy brain and a brain affected by PTSD. She also included an image of what is allegedly her brain, which appears to show incredibly high levels of PTSD. “Not a joke,” she captioned the story. In a follow-up story, Grande posted a selfie containing the captions “life is wild,” “she’s trying her muthafukin best,” and “my brain is tired.”

Selena Gomez

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I have a lot to be thankful for this year.. My year has been the hardest yet most rewarding one yet. I've finally fought the fight of not 'being enough'. I have only wanted to reflect the love you guys have given me for years and show how important it is to take care of YOU. By grace through faith. Kindness always wins. I love you guys. God bless

A post shared by Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) on Nov 24, 2016 at 6:21pm PST

In August 2016, Selena Gomez announced that she would be taking a break from her career to deal with anxiety, depression and panic attacks associated with lupus (an autoimmune condition from which she suffers). She made a return to the spotlight in November that year at the American Music Awards, where she delivered an emotional, heartfelt speech, briefly touching on her battle with mental health issues.

“I had to stop because I had everything and I was absolutely broken inside. I kept it all together enough to where I would never let you down but I kept it too much together to where I let myself down,” she said. “If you are broken, you do not have to stay broken.”

The songstress also opened up about her issues with mental health in the April 2017 issue of Vogue (which she covered). “Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she told the magazine. “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion.”

She revealed she spent 90 days in a mental health facility in Tennessee, surrendering her cell phone and taking part in various forms of therapy. And while Gomez is the second most-followed person on Instagram, she told Vogue she no longer had it on her phone, and an assistant had her password.

“It felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about,” she said. “I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.”

Camila Cabello

Former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello made headlines in September 2016 after she left the stage early during a performance under the guise of a wardrobe malfunction. She later revealed, on Snapchat, that the cause was excessive anxiety, even tweeting, “just wanna sleep for 3 days.”

Cabello had already been open about her struggles with anxiety prior to the incident, however, telling Billboard that 2015 was a “low” for her, personally.

“I was having terrible anxiety, nonstop. My heart would beat really fast the whole day. Two hours after I woke up, I’d need a nap because my body was so hyperactive,” she recalled. “I was scared of what would happen to me, of the things my brain might tell me. I realized the stuff I thought was important isn’t worth my health. Now I write in a diary every day, work out and meditate.”

In March 2017, the Cuban-born star revealed to Latina magazine that she also deals with obsessive compulsive disorder. “It was just totally out of control,” Cabello told the magazine of her OCD. “I would wake up with a super-accelerated heartbeat and really negative, intrusive, compulsive thoughts. I was so inside my head, and I didn’t know what was happening.”

She continued, “I totally understand now, being in it, why there shouldn’t be such a stigma on mental illness, because it’s a pretty common thing for people. But you can get help. If you’re dedicated to making it better, you can—because I’m in a much better place now. I started reading books about it and it really helped a lot when I understood [the illness], and that [the thoughts I was having] weren’t real. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to slow down and take care of yourself.”

Zayn Malik

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A post shared by Zayn Malik (@zayn) on Aug 14, 2018 at 10:01pm PDT

In June 2016, former One Direction member Zayn Malik cancelled a U.K. concert due to anxiety. He made the announcement on Instagram, writing, “Unfortunately, my anxiety that has haunted me throughout the last few months has gotten the better of me. With the magnitude of the live event, I have suffered the worst anxiety of my career.”

Later that year, Malik revealed in his memoir, Pillow Talk, that panic attacks have stopped him from performing on more than one occasion. “I just couldn’t go through with it,” he wrote. “Mentally, the anxiety had won. Physically, I knew I couldn’t function. I would have to pull out.”

And while a member of his team offered to say he was sick, Malik insisted on being open about his struggle. “I was done with putting out statements that masked what was really going on. I wanted to tell the truth. Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of; it affects millions of people every day,” he explained. “I don’t want to say I’m sick. I want to tell people what’s going on, and I’m not gonna be ashamed of what’s happening.”

Cara Delevingne

In 2016, Cara Delevingne took to Twitter to reveal she took a break from modelling due to depression. “I suffer from depression and was a model during a particularly rough patch of self hatred,” she explained. Later that year, she told Esquire she had been struggling with mental illness since she was a teen, more specifically, after she discovered her mother’s drug addiction.

“I was suicidal. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I realized how lucky and privileged I was, but all I wanted to do was die,” she told the magazine, adding a six-month break from school and medication might have helped save her life at 16.

However, Cara stopped the meds at age 18, saying “I get depressed still but I would rather learn to figure it out myself rather then be dependant on meds, ever.”

Adele

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Auckland / Mt Smart Stadium / Mar 25

A post shared by Adele (@adele) on Mar 25, 2017 at 9:41pm PDT

Despite being a 15-time Grammy winner, Adele still experiences stage fright. In March 2017, she admitted to her New Zealand concertgoers that she may never tour again, due to the ongoing issue. “Touring isn’t something I’m good at–applause makes me feel a bit vulnerable. I don’t know if I will ever tour again,” she told the audience. “I get so nervous with live performances that I’m too frightened to try anything new. It’s actually getting worse. Or it’s just not getting better, so I feel like it’s getting worse, because it should’ve gotten better by now.”

Lady Gaga

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I felt like a princess in custom @tiffanyandco made just for me for the #GoldenGlobes 🤗 The Aurora necklace was named after the Aurora Borealis as an homage to #AStarIsBorn 🌟 #TiffanyAndCo

A post shared by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on Jan 8, 2019 at 10:29am PST

In 2016, Lady Gaga revealed she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after she was raped at age 19. “I suffer from PTSD, I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said on the Today show in December 2016. “But the kindness that’s been shown to me, by doctors as well as family and friends, has really saved my life.”

More recently, Gaga opened up about her mental health struggles in a conversation with Prince William, as part of the royal’s Heads Together #oktosay series, which aims to end the stigma with the help of celebrities.

“For me, waking up every day and feeling sad and going on stage is something that is very hard to describe. There’s a lot of shame attached to mental illness. You feel like something’s wrong with you,” she told the Duke of Cambridge via FaceTime. “In my life, I go, ‘Oh my goodness, look at all these beautiful, wonderful things that I have. I should be so happy,’ but you can’t help it if, in the morning when you wake up, you are so tired, you are so sad, you are so full of anxiety and the shakes that you can barely think.”

But despite her hardships, the A Star is Born actress told William “the best thing that could come out of my mental illness was to share it with other people.”

“I feel like we are not hiding anymore, we’re starting to talk, and that’s what we need to do really,” she said.

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato is one of the most vocal mental health awareness advocates in the biz. The former Disney star, who has battled drug and alcohol addictions, bipolar disorder, self-harm and an eating disorder for years underwent rehab in 2010 and in 2013. Now, Lovato is much healthier and is committed to ending the stigma against mental illness. In 2015, she launched the Be Vocal campaign as a way to encourage individuals struggling with mental illness to talk about what they’re going through.

“I think the more people vocalize what they’re going through—their experience or just simply educating themselves so that they can learn more about what they’re talking about—that’s going to be the key to creating a conversation about mental illness and making it more understood,” she told HuffPost. “There’s a lack of compassion for people who have mental illnesses and there’s a lot of judgment. Once you make people realize that mental illness can happen to anybody—and it’s not anybody’s fault—then I think they’ll become more understanding of what mental illness really is.”

Jennifer Lawrence

Photography by Steve Granitz/WireImage

Jennifer Lawrence opened up about her struggle with anxiety in 2013, telling Madame Figaro that she began experiencing symptoms as a preteen. “When my mother told me about my childhood, she always told me that there was like a light in me, a spark that inspired me constantly,” Lawrence told the magazine. “When I started school, the light went out. It was never known what it was, a kind of social anxiety.”

She eventually went to seek help from a therapist and turned to acting as a form of self-therapy. She also revealed to the New York Times that she manages her anxiety with the use of prescription meds.

Emma Stone

Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage

Oscar winner Emma Stone told Rolling Stone in 2016 that she experienced bouts of anxiety and panic attacks as a child. “My anxiety was constant,” she said. “I would ask my mom a hundred times how the day was gonna lay out. What time was she gonna drop me off? Where was she gonna be? What would happen at lunch? Feeling nauseous. At a certain point, I couldn’t go to friends’ houses anymore–I could barely get out the door to school.”

She did reveal, however, that therapy and acting, specifically improv and sketch comedy, is what helped her work through it. “You have to be present in improv, and that’s the antithesis of anxiety,” she explained.

Chrissy Teigen

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My stoop buddy

A post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on Apr 29, 2017 at 6:47pm PDT

Chrissy Teigen is never one to hold back, but she shocked fans when she penned an essay for Glamour in 2017 on her struggle with postpartum depression. “I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role: ‘Maybe I’m just not a goofy person anymore. Maybe I’m just supposed to be a mom,'” she wrote, later adding “postpartum does not discriminate.”

Months later, Teigen finally saw her family doctor, where she got her diagnosis. She began taking antidepressants. “I’m speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone. I also don’t want to pretend like I know everything about postpartum depression, because it can be different for everybody. But one thing I do know is that—for me—just merely being open about it helps.”

Troian Bellisario

In November 2016, Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario revealed via a voting PSA that she struggled with an eating disorder when she was younger. She said it was early detection and mental healthcare that saved her. “If I had just been shunned to the side as not having ‘real problems’, I don’t know that I would be living today,” she explained. “I just want to make sure that everybody has the same opportunity for treatment that I have, and I think that we have to make sure that our government invests in those programs.”

Troian shared her story on her struggles with anorexia in her film Feed, which she wrote and directed. “It was not easy; it was like engaging with an addiction,” she told Interview magazine of revisiting her story, adding that working on the film was “like poking a sleeping dragon.” “One of the things I really wanted the film to explore was that once you have this relationship, once you have this mental illness or this disease, it never really goes away.”

And just like many others who suffer from mental illness, Bellisario said she feels like no one truly understands what she went through. “Still to this day, I couldn’t get anyone—even the people who loved me the most, even my boyfriend or my mother or my father—to understand what that experience was truly like for me,” she said. “It was about my eating disorder, and I found there were so many people who thought that it was about losing weight or being skinny, and I couldn’t quite get them to understand that it was about control on a very, very literal level.”

Gina Rodriguez

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One year after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, there is still work to be done. Thank you @ricky_martin for giving us all an opportunity to continue to contribute to the reconstruction of our beautiful island of Puerto Rico. #allin4pr #miislabonita ❤️🙌🏽 link in bio 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

A post shared by Gina Rodriguez-LoCicero (@hereisgina) on Oct 26, 2018 at 4:12pm PDT

Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez got candid about her struggle with anxiety in a moving Instagram post. “I suffer from anxiety,” she captioned the video, which sees her makeup-free in a New York Yankees cap. “And watching this clip I could see how anxious I was but I empathize with myself. I wanted to protect her and tell her it’s ok to be anxious, there is nothing different or strange about having anxiety and I will prevail.”

Shawn Mendes

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Je t’aime France ! 🇫🇷 x

A post shared by Shawn Mendes (@shawnmendes) on Nov 10, 2018 at 2:31pm PST

It may be hard to believe that Canada’s very own heartthrob has had his fair share of anxious episodes, but he has. In April 2018, the singer-songwriter told The Sun in an interview that he had seen a therapist a few times. “I found I was closing myself off from everybody, thinking that would help me battle [my anxiety], then realizing the only way I was going to battle it was completely opening up and letting people in,” Mendes said.

Said anxiety was chronicled in his single “In My Blood” (Lyrics: Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in, sometimes I feel like giving up, no medicine is strong enough, someone help me.)

“All pain is temporary, and the thing is with anxiety, and why it’s such a hard thing for people who don’t have it to understand, is that it is very random and it hits you at moments you don’t expect it. Sometimes it lasts two hours, sometimes it lasts a day and sometimes it lasts five minutes,” he said.

Sarah Hyland

Back in December 2018, Sarah Hyland opened up about experiencing suicidal thoughts after her body rejected a kidney donated by her dad. The Modern Family star, who has had a slew of health problems her whole life, appeared on Ellen in early January 2019 and spoke about her depression.

“After 26, 27 years of just always being sick and being in chronic pain every single day—and [you] don’t know when you’re going to have the next good day—it’s really, really hard…” she said.

“I would write letters in my head to loved ones of why I did it, and my reasoning behind it, and how it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” the 28-year-old revealed, adding that she was “very, very, very close,” to taking her own life.

When asked how she overcame her suicidal thoughts and depression, Hyland said that she confided in a close friend (“I finally said it out loud to someone… just saying it out loud helped immensely, because I kept it to myself for months and months at a time.”) who urged her to see a therapist.

The post These Celebs Are Destigmatizing Mental Illness appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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emotional-rollercoaster-ride · 5 years

Text

first love

Your first love. It doesn’t matter when it happens, how it happens, or who it is with. It will be beautiful and exciting and sweet, and it will make everything in the world feel like it just makes sense. And when it falls apart, it will be devastatingly, soul-crushingly, hard. And it will take time. But eventually--no matter how impossible it may seem - you will heal.

I met my first love at the ripe age of fourteen. We were kids! My mom dropped me off at the mall for our first date, and--despite how much I begged her not to--she got out of the car to meet him. I was mortified. Little did I know that that first date was the beginning of a four-year-long journey. We fell in love freshman year of high school, and we grew up together. We snuck out to see each other when we weren’t supposed to and we tricked our parents into leaving us home alone together. We went to our first parties together, learned to drive, had our first drinks together, lost our virginities together, and grew up together - until we were suddenly adults and it was all over before we even realized it.

We decided, junior year of high school, that we weren’t going to stay together for college. We didn’t want to tarnish the relationship that we had by dragging it out and letting it end miserably. It was the most mature decision I ever made. It allowed us to enjoy the next year and a half that we had together, because we knew that it was all we had. It got rid of all the pressure and tension. We were together because we loved being together, not because we thought we had a future together. It was heartbreaking, but it was perfect.

A year or so later - a week before we went off to our respective colleges - we went on a road trip together. It was the first step of the goodbye. We had the most perfect few days together - trying to wrap up the past four years in a few days seemed like an impossible task, but we somehow accomplished it beautifully. The song that kept playing in my mind was “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” by John Mayer, because that was exactly what we were doing. We were standing in the middle of the house that we spent four years building, watching it crumble down in flames, but choosing to slow dance right in the middle of it. It was tragic, but it was beautiful.

Saying goodbye to him was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Being so in love with someone and choosing to leave them goes against every natural human instinct. It took every fiber in my being to convince myself that we were doing the right thing.

When we said goodbye, we didn’t really break up. We kept texting. We kept snapchatting. We were convinced that we could stay best friends - how could we possibly cut each other out of our lives? We had been, after all, each other's best friend for four years. This made it so much harder. I texted him when I landed in Boston, I snapchatted him pictures of my newly decorated dorm room, I wore his clothes to sleep. I acted like I missed my boyfriend. Eventually, after suffering through countess fights that two friends should never have, we cut off all communication. I stopped waiting to see his name pop up on my phone screen - I stopped seeing him in my snapchat recents, my texts, my instagram DMs. When I stopped talking to him, I let myself stop thinking about him. I found friends, I did my school work, I met boys. I let myself be me, and I started to become independent for once.

Because we ended on such good terms, it almost felt like we never broke up. I ended up seeing his friend from high school who I now go to college with, for a while. It was a good temporary rebound, but I knew he would find out eventually. And I knew it would hurt him. I was self sabotaging. I think I needed to prove to myself that the relationship was over - I almost wanted a reason for it to actually be over. And oh boy did that work.

Out of nowhere, I broke down. Months after the breakup, I started crying whenever I thought of him. I distracted myself from the pain of thinking of him for so long, until it caught up with me. It all came back and hit me right smack in the face. Like a truck. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I would never be able to successfully function as an adult human being without him. But eventually I did. Eventually I moved on. Again.

And then it was time for winter break. I was so ready. I had so much hope for us. I was in such a good headspace. And then it went absolutely horribly. He treated me like shit, and it hurt like hell. My hopes of he and I ever being us again were completely crushed. By the end of winter break, I was so incredibly emotionally drained. It was rock bottom. The good news was that it couldn’t get any worse. What I think is so important is that I hit the hardest part of the process four months after the actual breakup. Four months! If that doesn’t show you that it is truly a process, I don’t know what will.

Over winter break, I was so angry at myself for letting him have any ounce of control over my emotions. All I wanted was to be over him. I was so sick and tired of caring, and I was pissed at myself for it. I read self-help books. I went to therapy. I journalled. I spent time with friends. I talked to my mom. I talked to my dad. I did things by myself, for myself. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and I couldn’t stop crying. It seemed like I was failing miserably on all accounts. But eventually, it worked. When I finally decided to cut him out of my life for real and truly let myself move forward with no hope or desire for a future with him, I was able to move on.

And then I met someone. It’s early, and I don’t know if it’s going to become anything real. But I know I like him. I know he is the only person other than him that I have ever had real feelings for. And it feels good. I feel like this time, I have perspective. Don’t get me wrong - it’s terrifying and exciting and intimidating and wonderful all at once to have new feelings for someone, and to be starting a new relationship. I’ve finally become able to let myself move on, and it feels good. But I also still think about him. No matter how over him I am, he’s not disappearing from my mind or my heart anytime soon.

Today, six months after we broke up, I actually feel good. This is the first time I have truly felt this way. I’ve caught myself thinking about him less and less. The other day, I was listening to music and got to the last few seconds of the song before I realized that it was a song that used to remind me of him. What really helped me get to this point was realizing that our relationship wasn’t perfect. There were so many things about him that infuriated me. For some reason, I forgot about those things as soon as we were apart. I let myself long for a version of him that didn’t exist. He is not the perfect man that I built him up to be in my head. He and I are not perfect for each other, no matter how great we ever really were together. Reminding myself of all of the bad really helped me get to a healthier place.

I still think about him. But every once in a while I’ll come across something that really takes me back. But now, it’s different. I don’t get sad, and I don’t miss us like I used to. I’ve finally accepted that our relationship is a part of my past. I still have a hard time saying that he is a part of my past, because we are finally able to be friends now. I do genuinely think he is always going to be in my life in some form. It’s a feeling of nostalgia.

But, I know that this process is far from over. I know that one day I’ll find an old sweatshirt that still smells like him buried in the back of my closet at home. I know I’ll pick it up, smell it, put it on, and instantly be transported back to him and to us. I know I’ll find a letter that he wrote me and remember how good it felt to be loved by him so deeply. I know that when he starts dating someone new and falls in love again, a little part of me will be crushed. If I have learned anything from this, I have learned that this process doesn’t just end.

Your first love is never going to go away. They are always going to be a part of you. But you can move on, you can love someone new, and you can love yourself. Eventually, they’re going to become a memory. Thinking of him makes me remember being in love with him. Of course a part of me still loves him and always will, but I mostly remember what it felt like to be in love with him. It’s a sweet, happy, childhood memory that I know will never disappear. One day, you will look back on the heartbreak and the pain and the love, and you will be thankful for the journey.

Life isn’t simple, and relationships are not linear. People come into your life for a period of time, and then they’ll go away. And losing people is hard, but just because you lose them once doesn’t mean that they are gone forever. There will be some people in your life who you will connect with years later, and people who you will never see again. But even if you never see them again, they will still be a part of you. The impact that people leave on you - especially romantic loves - will stay with you long after the person does. In the end, we only have ourselves. People come into our lives to impact us and make us better versions of ourselves, and that is what he did for me.

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