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I literally rushed when I was it was ticket time

So I've had this idea in my head for a few weeks and I wanna request it. Apollo x immortal reader, but he didn't know they were immortal. Like, he thought they died 500 years ago (because they were mortal beforehand), and they were his lover before they 'died', but he finds out they're alive and were given immortality, but they were too ashamed to tell him by the time they were given immortality. Maybe angst to fluff?

Apollo doesn't cry often. Once, when he lost you and sometimes when he wants to guilt-trip his sister but most of the time choked sobs stay choked until he can swallow them. He doesn't believe in that endophin-releasing mumbo jumbo humans talk about, because crying is embarrassing and unmanly.

533 days since he last cried (and now Uno isn't allowed in Olympus) and it's all gone because here you are, an unfamiliar glow about you as a gaggle of demigods chat with you. He wonders if accompanying them on their journey to meet this new, beautiful goddess was worth it and then you look up and meet his eyes... and it is. It's worth every tear that springs forth, every vocal rasp as he approaches you in confusion.

It's worth the judgmental gazes the half-bloods eye him with as he sinks into your embrace as soon as you spend your arms. Excusing both yourself and Apollo, you gently guide him away from the group that begins pretending to discuss your gracious strategy and unwrap his linked arms from your neck.

"Apollo.." You start, wincing as a shiny tear reflects your horribly impassive face.

"Where did you go?" He sounds more confused and hurt than you've ever heard him.

"I.. it's a long story."

"I've got all the time in the world, and you do too apparently." Even 500 years later in a devestated state, he's the same quick-witted Apollo he's always been. It makes you ache more, wondering how you could ever tell him about the times you stood by an alter of his and hesitated to call upon him.

"You know I couldn't stay there. I had to leave." You offer weakly, the words crumbling beneath his frustrated furrowed brows.

"Everyone thought you had died. You were told to have flung yourself off a cliff! I talked to you just that morning, begged you to marry me and desert that forsaken place and you said you couldn't."

Your hand finds his face and maybe it's because it's your face miserably gazing at him as the polished, perfected and inhuman object touches him but it offends and weakens him. He jerks away from your soft fingers, missing it immediately but holding his ground with a harsh frown.

"I couldn't.. I couldn't do that to you, Pol. You were Lord Apollo and I was your mortal embarrassment, tolerated because of my eventual death. I couldn't let you ruin what you had built for a poor peasant you'd inevitably get bored of."

"But you can't decide that for me!" And it's the way his voice breaks as his eyes plead for you to understand in their bulging, needy way that makes your eyes begin to water too.

"Apo-"

"No!" He's angry, he hates you for stealing what you could have been from him and he hates himself for believing the humans instead of searching until dawn forced his exhausted body to the sky. And he hates how badly he wants your gentle, smoothed palms on his soaked cheeks again, no matter their lack of your personality and hard work. "No! You were my.. my love, I needed you more than I ever needed validation."

You see a demigod make a face at that out of the corner of your eye and if you hadn't witnessed the pitiful mess he'd been when you rejected him for the third time, you might've had a similar reaction.

But you could feel it, deep in your soul that his was speaking directly to you. Maybe being a god did that, made you understand when someone's soul flowed through their tongue.

"I'm sorry." It sounds feeble only because so much more needs to be said, not because you don't mean it. The softer drag of his eyelids tells you he feels it too. "I never stopped loving you, I just couldn't burden you any longer."

Apollo embraced you then, fast and heated and tight. His curls rubbed your shoulder as his nose dug into your collarbone. "I want you to burden me for the rest of our lives. Burden me. Please."

He was not so subtly begging for you to love him again, and how easy it was for your heart to find the beat his sung to and dance in perfect rhythm.

Yukio Mishima has been trending this week for uh, reasons. He was a world renowned Japanese author and all of his work is overshadowed by his actions on November 25, 1970. You might not want to read more about this guy because he is horrible and disgusting, but he's utterly fascinating and the movie about him is brilliant.

He's a really interesting character, to the point that he sounds fictional. He's gay, obsessed with ritualistic death, a right wing lunatic, led a private militia that was halfway to a cult, and also was a legitimately great author. His life is covered in the film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and it's easily the most beautiful film I've seen in my life. Look at the stills I posted above; every frame of this movie looks like that. It's all just a series of beautiful paintings with people living in them.

The way the film is structured is that it tells the story of his life in three ways. His past is told in black and white flashbacks with static cameras. This is closer to how a movie from the 50's would look like (specifically ones directed by Yasujirō Ozu). The events of three of his books are told with this beautifully stylized look, with sets that look like stage plays. The events of November 25, 1970 is told in an almost normal fashion, with regular colors and competent camerawork. The past is nostalgic, the present is mundane and only in fantasy can you truly come alive.

Through this movie we see the ideology of Mishima coming through. His nationalism, his sexual feelings and his thoughts on beauty and death all come together. Death isn't just a violent and tragic end, it is in itself a beautiful act. Beauty is the only true goal of life and creating beauty brings honor. Growing old and ugly is an act of hate; to die at your peak is to give love back to the world. It is therefore treasonous to live long enough to die peacefully. He pities what heaven must look like now; when men died young and beautiful it was paradise, but now it is filled with old men.

This is an objectively insane way to view the world but it is also fascinating. How much of this was what he believed, and how much of it was just begging for attention? In one instance when asked why he moved to the right politically he said "because the left was full". It was a joke answer, but he clearly wanted to be in the spotlight. His shield society was a paramilitary group dedicated to living a virtuous life of beauty, honor and old ideals. It was also a group of good looking, athletic young men led by a (barely) closeted, conservative gay man. So much of his life could have gone differently but also he was pretty much in control the whole time; he was independently wealthy and revered on the world stage. He could do whatever he wanted, and apparently the way his life went *is* what he wanted.

What's special about Mishima, both in the film and in real life, is that he's a smart and eloquent guy. In films the guy with a crazy worldview is someone like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver or D-Fens from Falling Down. Travis couldn't understand the alienation and loneliness he felt and he couldn't find any healthy solutions. D-Fens was smart enough but not emotionally strong enough to confront his problems or deal with them maturely. These are people that could benefit greatly from therapy (other examples include Joker from Joker, Rupert Pupkin from the King of Comedy, Frank Murdoch from God Bless America, Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, Tyler Durden from Fight Club and so, so many more).

These are either 20 something year olds that are lost in the world, alienated and lonely, or 40 something year olds with a mid life crisis when they realize that everything has fallen apart. People who don't know where to go, or realize it's too late to change things. Travis Bickle had basically no friends, no family, no charisma with women and a lot of rage and anger. D-Fens lost his job, his self respect and was estranged from his ex-wife and daughter. These are people who's lives are shit at best (Patrick Bateman is a bit of a subversion. He is rich and successful, but his life is completely hollow, his relationships are shallow and he personally is very, very pathetic. I need to write about American Psycho later that film is great too.).

Mishima is different. He's smart enough to understand his issues and how to find help. He's got the money and means to do so. He's famous and rich enough that he could basically get away with anything weird or eccentric so long as it was harmless. On the world stage he was a popular author, and at home he led a life of political activism. If he was unhappy he could easily find healthy ways to fix it. His self destruction was the most avoidable of any of them, yet he's the only one that existed in real life. You expect these people to have serious personality flaws and unfixable (or seemingly unfixable) problems, not to be poetic writers that adhere to healthy living and regularly journal about their emotions, while enjoying respect from their peers and fulfillment in their work.

It's a hell of a film. Paul Schrader has not written or directed anything better (he actually wrote Taxi Driver too, so he had some experience with this type of character before) and it stands out as an incredible experience to watch. Like, Mishima's life is public knowledge and you can probably guess how it went, but I've purposefully not said what happened on November 25, 1970 because I don't want to spoil it. It's an event that actually happened but it's better for you to find out via the film than some wikipedia page.

Anyway.

How many works do you have on AO3? 54. Hm. I don't remember writing 54 fics. That's weird. But I've been posting since 2017 so when you THINK about it 54 fics over 7 years isn't weird at all.

What’s your total AO3 word count? 2.4 million. What's your point.

What fandoms do you write for? A fuckton. I write both things I'm hyperfixated on and for random shit that comes in my head. I was into TMA for like two years so I have the most TMA fic (16), but most of my fandoms are 3-5 fics maximum. There's also a lot of random-ass fics for random-ass fandoms that just jumped in my head. Artemis Fowl, Beetlejuice, Animorphs...demons that overtook me for two weeks or so and never bothered me again.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? The Great Gender Heist (Artemis Fowl, no surprise there.), stay out of trouble (Detroit: Become Human, I reliably forget that one exists and I'm still mystefied as to why so many people read it), meek shall inherit (I'm constantly attempting to forget the Be More Chill phase ever happened), someone will remember us (Batman, fic's not great, am still very fond of that au) and dead or alive (DBH, mediocre). Why the hell are the two Detroit: Become Human fics so popular? I hate DBH so much. I was so angry while writing those.

Do you respond to comments? I am absolutely terrible about responding to comments. I am sorry. I do read and appreciate all of them. It's because I always need to give a dialectical so comments take ages to write. If you do want to hear my thoughts on something, my inbox is your best bet for a way too lengthy response.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hope, Etc for certain. I try really hard to write bittersweet at worst endings, and even the sad endings in my fics have hope in them. Hope, Etc definitely ends in a better place than where it began. But it's still very sad. I was thinking about a lot of lost loved ones while writing it. Fishhooks and reel to reel also have downer endings but that is because they are LITERALLY Star Wars.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Uhhhh. The ending of Solitaire (and the MLM/WLW hostility series in general) is very sweet. It's meaningful because it demonstrates so much growth from everybody with very little cost. I almost said Go Straight At The Cul De Sac, because it showcases a happier world where horrible historical events were averted, but the ending will always be a little bittersweet because we understand how much Protag sacrificed to create that better world.

Do you get hate on fics? Sometimes people are kind of weird. The worst of it is usually just useless comments, though. I had somebody get pedantic about how briefly mentioning an SUV would be historically inaccurate, and how I should have mentioned a minivan instead - like, did you read that fic and think I was from the suburbs? Do I look like I know what a minivan is? Lol? If I've received any actual more severe stuff I have no idea, since I delete the comment and delete it from my memory. I've never gotten anything too bad. I've been called ablest like three times, which is objectively hilarious.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? If I could write smut I'd be making bank on Kindle Unlimited right now.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Probably the FE3H/BNHA one I'm writing right now that will never see the light of day. Just kidding. I don't actually think I've posted any real crossovers - I DO write them, I just kind of feel like they're cringe so I never post them. I write a lot of cringe shit that never sees the light of day.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not nearly popular enough for that.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Several people have mentioned wanting to do that, but nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not technically. But I do want to give due honors to all of the friends who are SO instrumental in the building of the AUs, stories, characters, etc, that they've had a huge impact on the story itself. I try to recognize them by name in the fics themselves but my stories would look completely different if it wasn't for my friends. Definitely much worse.

What’s your all time favorite ship? I'll differentiate favorite ships and favorite fictional romances. For ships, it's much less about the ship and more about the role in the story. I tend not to pay a lot of attention to that while writing, but sometimes I get lost in my own sauce and I drive myself a bit nuts. I am very fond of Hanyookim, especially in my own ORV story. For romances? My top ten list of fictional romances is as follows: number one: naturally, Sasunaru -

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? If it's up on AO3, it's done (with one or two very small exceptions - The Ending of Han Sooyoung epilogue I'll get to you I PROMISE). There's plenty of unfinished docs on my drive that I'll never finish, but that's because I decided that they weren't worth finishing.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue and characterization. That's always been the case. I'm also pretty funny.

What are your writing weaknesses? Plotting. Action. Having stories that are not entirely dialogue. Where things happen and it's more than just people walking around talking. You know. Real stories -

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Always valid. I remember reading one Hispanic author talking about how he doesn't like italicizing the Spanish in his stories because it's otherizing, and I agreed enough with him that I don't tend to italicize other languages either. Sometimes I do. I try to do it purposefully, and to convey something that can only be conveyed through the extra language. I'll also only do it if I can have a friend who speaks that language write it out for me, since gtranslate sucks and I want to ask the friend how such a thing would actually be said and colloquialize it. I like using ASL in fics, and I am just in general begging people to a) write it like any other language, and b) understand that it's different from other languages and can't be written exactly the same. If your Star Wars fanfiction has so much gratuitous Mando'a that I can't understand anything the clones or Mandos are saying I hate you.

First fandom you wrote for? Batman Beyond. Yes, I have a FFN account somewhere. Yes, I was eleven. Yes, it was Batman Beyond.

Favorite fic you’ve written? The best thing I've written is Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge. Favorite is New Wave. That sucker took two years to write (INSANELY long for me) and it is exactly the story I wanted to write. Stephanie's a character I've been writing since I was 15, and the feeling of writing Stephanie and NAILING her for the very first time was so satisfying.

Tagging @usaigi and uh any other writer mutuals you all know who you are.

I've been having some gender-confused thoughts recently and I've been kinda hoping you could weight in on this (as i kinda see you as an expert on gender™ stuff), as sometimes i kinda think like "I wonder what it would be like to be a girl" or "I kinda wanna try if I'd like being a woman and percieved as such" but also partly i am unsure, as i got noone to try stuff with irl (like make-up and clothes and stuff like that) and my parents, mainly my dad, aren't really the most open thinking people out there, and also because part of me wonders if part of my brain is still sexualizing women because most/basicly all of those thoughts are connected to sexual stuff or something physical (even if just cuddling or making out) so i dunno what to think. Sorry for venting but i dunno who to ask tbh. (Where's a Vanessa where you need one, eh?)

i don't think there's any sort of a thing like an expert on gender™, and i don't know if i could at all really weigh in on the validity of your feelings or whether you "qualify" for the right to experiment with your gender – you really, really don't have to "qualify" or feel like you're any sort of anything! if you're curious about what it would feel like to present as femme, then - by god, try it and find out. it might feel amazing, and you'll do it again - you might not like it, and never do it again. or, it might just be a thing you feel that week, and not the next week, and then you'll feel it again in a couple of months, then not.

it doesn't hurt to just - treat it as something easy and free. it doesn't hurt to - buy something pretty and try it in front of the mirror. you're not signing a contract or applying for status as a full-time trans... you're just trying something new. just like you'll try a new entree at a new restaurant. you might never go back. or you'll love it so much you'll go there every week. until you find a new, better restaurant. it's not an all-or-nothing sort of deal - it's not any sort of commitment at all. it's just clothes, and words, and feelings. they can change at any moment, and you should let them be strange and inexplicable and unexplainable - don't take it too seriously. it's all play. treat it like play.

everything in life should feel like play. i think it hurts everyone - absolutely everyone, cis or trans, or anyone - to think that they have to be a certain way. like they have to be this much of something, and cannot be anything else. be free, be comfortable, and be as much of something as you want to be. you don't have to be more, and you don't have to be less than whatever it is you want to be. just - just be.

if you think it'll be fun to put some tights on, put some tights on. if you think it'll be fun to put some make-up on, put some make-up on - sure, it'd always be nice to have someone to guide you through that journey, but - ultimately, whether you have someone else or not, that journey is going to be initiated by you. you have to want to take that first step - and you don't have to wait for it to happen. you can do it any time, whenever you're comfortable and ready, and feel safe to do so.

i think, also, if you're sincerely thinking about gender beyond the binary and asking these sorts of questions then the issue of "sexualising women" becomes much more multilayered than you think. but i don't really - i don't know, i don't really understand where you're coming from. i think there's a very harmful argument from terfs and the like where - they demonise transwomen and accuse them of fetishising femininity and coopting it as a way to penetrate female spaces and - i don't know, maybe that's a mindset you're internalising? if so, i'd really ask you to reexamine that - if you're thinking that about yourself, are you thinking that of transwomen and other gnc people? just - something to reexamine. make sure you're not internalising a rhetoric like that. i'm pretty sure you're not that horrible bogeyman that terfs like to conjure to get people to fear transfolk. and i'm pretty sure that you taking the time to explore your identity and ask questions and getting to know yourself and your relationship with the world is a pretty harmless and wonderful thing that you shouldn't feel afraid to do.

good luck anon! and don't feel afraid to slip back into my inbox with any exciting updates, if you do decide to be so bold!

Ooh, do you have any good Jason fic recs?

anon I cannot tell you how long I've been waiting to see those words!!!! yes I have good Jason fic recs in fact I have so many good Jason fic recs that after narrowing it down I still have fifteen links for you

I have read more fanfic for Jason Todd than maybe any other character ever. I do not understand the hold this man has on me but it's simply the situation we're in. anyway

Jason comes home fics

Make a Little Birdhouse In Your Soul is hands down my favorite. I'm talking favorite DC fic, top fics of all time period, not just from this list. I love this fic series. It is actively and regularly updating, thank fuck, because that little boost of serotonin is everything keeping me going I swear

The 70 Days After Groundhog Day is technically from Dick's POV, but it's about the aftermath of a timeloop that Jason was stuck in. it's. oh my god it's so good. just trust me on this one.

Emotional Motion Sickness is the "bruce goes to therapy" fic series we all want. canon get on this level

Retrograde Motion - I never used to like de-aging fics; not for any particular reason, I just never vibed with them. Recently I decided to see what all the fuss was about (bc there's so goddamn many in this fandom) and I'm glad, because I opened this fic and it's just. oh my god. the use of the de-aging trope here is truly incredible. after a whole week of dipping my feet into the trope I never need to do so again, because this fic made me fucking lose it. this is not going where you think it's going. also, for some reason there's not that much rebirth outlaws fic, and I really like what this author did with that team

matching wounds haha just gonna sneak my fic series on here and pretend that it was an accident, wait how did that get there (some jayroy later in the timeline too which can be read on its own if Jason coming home fics aren't for you)

other non-ship

Too Much Fucking Salt deals with the straw that broke the camel's back. I've read all 22k words of this in one sitting more than once. this is the anti "Jason Todd comes home" fic (this is in itself a whole genre of fic too honestly).

take his name out of your mouth (you don't deserve to mourn) is about Jason mourning himself, which he fucking deserves to. also he smokes a joint with Dick

Sown in Winter is about Jason pulling himself out of a depressive episode partially through the power of Stardew Valley. also technically jayroy, but it's honestly incidental to the story for the most part imo

JayRoy

I do read other ships for Jason but unabashedly this is my favorite, so

A Solid Resume - competency kink. that's all I have to say.

Tenderize is a series of oneshots all of which slowly build Jason and Roy's life together and coparenting lian and I just !!! could also double as a Jason coming home au but honestly that's mostly in the first fic. also a lot of discussion of various chain grocery stores in the united states that I will probably never actually step foot in

Dick Grayson and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Two to Three Weeks (But Who's Counting) is so fucking funny I die every time I reread this. there's a scene early on in a coffee shop that just. I don't even know what to say everything about this is perfect. I AM the girl sticking her nose in their business, at least spiritually.

dust devils on the horizon isn't even the only western au I've bookmarked for these two. something about jayroy and horses, man

unity of time: april 27th, 2020 is just,,,, super sad, man, idk what to tell you. it's f!jayroy, but happens after Roy died in sanctuary during the 24h of Jason's death day, so all of it is very fucking depressing. It's also fucking beautiful. I want to reread it now.

Promise After That I'll Let You Go is a poisonivory fic. I was introduced to poisonivory through the daredevil fandom earlier this year and may I tell you when I found out that this author writes for jayroy I lost my goddamn mind. this is my personal favorite, but I almost recommended at least two more aus. Their jayroy sugar daddy au is one of the only sugar daddy aus I've ever truly enjoyed. also really like the one where roy has had feelings for dick since their teen titans days but still starts a fwb thing with Jason. poisonivory can make me into kinks I'm not even into I s2g. anyway this one has lian literally dragging roy back into jason's life

finally, Reciprocation (or: Sex as Violence) shouldn't even really count as a jayroy fic but I feel weird putting it in the other category since it is sort of a jayroy fic. it's ace-aro!jason, which is one of my personal favorite interpretations of Jason (with so much textual evidence wtf), but there's still like... a lot of sex in this. Jason does not have a healthy relationship with sex in this fic. I would describe this as ending in a QPP for jayroy and lian.

honestly there's a lot of good jason and roy and lian fic out there I didn't rec cause this is already long enough

so yeah this is my very VERY pared down fic rec list for Jason Todd let me know if you want more and thank you so much for asking

SO SO SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU BACK

Don't you mind writing Dorian/Inquisitor marriage proposal? We were so robbed at the end of the game please.

Okay, so I haven't played Dorians romance in a while, so excuse me if its a bit OOC here. Tried my best to keep his personality in check lmao.

I decided to do the Inquisitor proposing to Dorian rather than the other way around, bcs our man deserves that. (Altho I do have an idea for him proposing as well maybe.)

Dorian can feel that something is off, it's in the air. It's that odd peculiar shift that sometimes passes by unknowingly and gradually but he can pinpoint the exact moment it occurred, it was two weeks ago during dinner. His amatus, the love of his life, the savior of the world- all that very important stuff, looked up at him with the most peculiar look and ever since it's been off.

''You'd tell me, if the world was ending again, wouldn't you?'' He speaks up from his seat near the open fireplace, his love glancing up from the mabari that had kept his focus for most of the night. Dorian didn't actually mind the dog as much as he thought he would. It's kind of cute, in a saliva slobbering kind of way. ''Yes, I'd like to think so. Why? Am I glowing green again?'' The joke falls horribly flat, Dorian does absolutely not smile whatsoever thank you very much.

''No, you're not glowing green. You're just being weird lately. Weirder than usual.'' Dorian can't help but huff, putting his book on the side-table with a lazy arm, it makes an uncomfortably loud 'thud' sound upon hitting the wood and he can't help but frown. ''I'm not being weird, you're being weird.'' Is the lame counter his boyfriend offers, focusing back on the mabari with a laugh.

Except Dorian knows that isn't it, not quite. ''No. Something is off, what is it? You told me after- after everything you'd be more honest.'' After the arm. After the mark almost tore him apart, he'd promised Dorian wholeheartedly to not keep a single thing from him.

His amatus stares for a long moment, long enough for Dorian to fidget in his chair. He pulls at the fabric of his linen shirt, and pushes a hand through his hair in an attempt to look less nervous at bringing up the promise. ''It's not the right moment.'' He finally responds, soft words that are barely heard over the crackling fire. ''I don't care about it being the right moment, if something is wrong I want to know.'' His words have far more bite in them than Dorian intends and he sighs after a while.

''Nothing is wrong, I promise.'' His lover stands up and makes his way across the room, and Dorian tries to not pout as a warm hand makes it to his knee. It's such a gentle motion he probably would've cried had it been done a few years ago.

''Then tell me.'' Dorian pushes and his love dares to smile that stupidly charming smile and make his chest clench in affection. He'd love this man until he died, well and truly. There was no other way around it.

''Very well, but you can't come and complain to me that I didn't do it properly later.'' He sighs and Dorian perks up, sitting up attentively and ignoring the laughter that makes the smallest hint of embarrassment rear its head.

''We've been through a lot, too much probably. And I honestly wasn't sure if I'd survive long enough to ask this. For a while it seemed like I'd be robbed of the chance to do so before it even seemed a possibility.'' Their hands interlink and Dorian for the millionth time notices all the small scars that cover his lovers hand. They speak tales of battles fought before and after they met, struggles nobody could ever dare to try and understand.

''But there was never a doubt in my mind. Because you are the most brilliant man I've ever met, compassionate enough for both us and snarky enough.'' ''Excuse you, I will have you know-'' Dorian interrupts but quickly gets shushed with a grin. ''Shush, I'm being romantic, love.'' His love laughs, pressing a kiss against Dorian's hand and sure enough its enough to shut him up.

''What I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted. Is that you have enough positive qualities that I could write more than a few books about it. You know, normally people have enough time to write speeches down for these things- but you just had to be so perceptive.'' Dorian should probably be annoyed at that, but he just grins- the most proud smug look that he could manage right now when he feels the need to cry sneak up on him.

''You're tearing up, oh, andraste's tits-'' ''Amatus, hurry up and ask so I can say yes.''

''Dorian, will you marry me?'' The question is barely asked before Dorian kisses him, all giggly and warm and far too eager. They stumble to the floor and their laughter bounces off the walls of the study, Dorian's tears an annoying addition he'd lie about later if asked.

''Yes, I'll marry you. I'll marry you a hundred times over, fall in love with you in every life possible- you absolute fool, I followed you to the ends of the world, of course I'll marry you.''

Dorian followed him to the ends of the world and he'd do it again, but this time he'd much prefer if they had matching rings for the occasion.

Emotional Regulation

So I have CPTSD. Everything I've read mostly points to this being a lifelong condition (yay :P) that is incredibly difficult for all of us whom suffer from it. I know it has been for me. I honestly don't know if I'd have developed it if my parents had been loving, supportive, and understanding like they should have. Because, even if they had been, I would still have likely had many many years of gas lighting from society, them, and my extended family to be a gender other than what I was. And that takes its toll on anyone's psyche.

But who knows, maybe if they'd been really supportive, then I wouldn't have had years of thinking I was crazy or shameful, maybe I would have transitioned really young as soon as I could tell them they were wrong. Then all I'd have to deal with is some body dysphoria. But then even that can take its toll as well. So I really couldn't say if I was destined to have this incredibly difficult mental health condition or not.

Either way, I really wish I'd had the loving supportive family every child deserves. I really wish I didn't find my psyche shattering as I grew up, getting stuck repeatedly at every traumatic event that I can remember, and actively forgetting everything I couldn't along with most of my other memories. Such that now, my memories consist of shattered disorganized shards scattered over the floor, most of those shards long since missing. It's really difficult to live when all you really have is now.

People talk about their childhoods like there's this linear well established timeline in their memories. It was a long time before I realized this was the typical way people remember their past. That for most people, they can remember approximately when such a memory occurred, in sequence with another. Even now, this is so foreign to me. I remember things in disjointed pieces, any one memory is not connected to any other. And few, if any, are connected to a specific time that I can locate.

Then there is the ability to remember what you did yesterday, or last week, or even last month in day to day life. That it's hard to know what's happened and what's been done recently. This was particularly bad when I was dissociating all the time, fortunately, therapy has helped with that part, and I don't do it as much and I can remember more of my day to day life. But even now, there are still significant holes in my memories of adult life. And admittedly as I struggle through my current flare of CPTSD symptoms, I sometimes wish I could dissociate like I used to so that I don't have to feel all of this horrible stuff. It hurts like hell.

If someone created the universe, they must be one of the most sadistic assholes to have ever existed, making it so healing is so effing painful, much less making thinking feeling beings feed off of one another.

In this journey of trying to heal, I've encountered many people talking about how, when we were abused as children we didn't develop our emotional regulation skills like normal loved, unabused kids do. I always found these comments or suppositions confusing. In large part due to the fact that I don't really understand what emotional regulation means. As a child, trying to survive, the only thing that worked, that made things even remotely bearable was dampening down on emotions until I didn't feel hardly anything at all. I wasn't particularly good at this, I still had feelings but they were distorted hazy half hearted things that would escape out, usually as anger, irritability, sadness, often fear, sometimes even joy would get out. But none were fully formed, or fully embraced, because if I did, then the pain would be in full force, the shame, the horror I constantly felt at what I was going through. So I did my best to damp down my emotions to almost nothing, and dissociate as much as I could so that I didn't have to feel or atleast remember feeling all those horrible things I felt. And the plus side to dissociation is that you truly only live in the moment. You can forget so much that way. You can ride the bus to school, but not remember any of it, just one moment you're at home and the next, poof, you're at school, and the next, poof, it's time to go home again and get on the bus, and poof the next you're at home again... you get the idea.

Emotions when all of the above were unsuccessful and I felt them anyway, usually it was the really really bad ones. And they were felt at 120% full blast. It was either 10 mph, or 120 mph. No inbetween. But people who talk about the ability to regulate emotions describe it as having inbetweens. Not having to feel the full blast, but not suppressing it completely either.

For the longest time when I encountered that phrase around emotional regulation, my mind just skittered past it, as it didn't make any sense to me. But I found myself thinking about it a couple months ago. And some kind fellow people with CPTSD pointed me to links that helped to explain the concept... except, those links were mostly just confusing. And unfortunately, my brain interpreted them as, "you are deficient, you're inability to regulate is your fault." Which didn't help. I honestly don't know if those explanations actually implied that, but it's what it felt like. Maybe because I didn't understand what they were saying.

Then... recently I returned to work, full time. And an interesting, if sucky, thing happened. I was fine at work, I could joke, I could laugh and have fun with coworkers and feel empathy for my patients and basically function somewhat like a typical human being in what I imagine is a healthy fashion. But as soon as I left work and went home, I had no energy left to keep the intrusive memories and emotions in check. And I would immediately start to crash. Spiraling down the rabbit hole of all those horrible memories. Nothing had specifically triggered them, it's just I ran out of spoons and they took over. I'd used up all my spoons at work.

Obviously, I'd overestimated my ability to return to full time work, but also it felt like there was an insight here. And it came down to my emotional bandwidth. If I had enough emotional energy, enough spoons, then minor triggers that normally would have lead me back down that lovely negative spiral, wouldn't actually set me off, and I could continue to function. And this was the neat part, I could continue to function without having all my walls slam down and turn everything numb. But, if I run out of that energy, if I run out of those spoons, then any little thing can set me down that self destructive spiral.

And the more I've thought about this, the more I think this is what people mean when they talk about emotional regulation. That most people have a large fount of this emotional energy to buffer against the extremes. And thus can handle day to day joys, stresses and hurtful things without completely falling apart. If this is the case then I guess I've developed some emotional regulation after all, though it's limited.

But why is it so limited? Why didn't I have any before? And the more I look at it. I see it in terms of bandwidth, energy, and/or spoons. Before, when I was having to live in survival mode, all of my emotional energy was being used to just survive. I was constantly in fight or flight. There was no energy to spare for nuance. My bandwidth was incredibly limited because so much of it was taken up with just surviving from one day to the next, with constant vigilance. But when we are no longer in those situations, and just as importantly, when we are not constantly flashing back to those situations, we start to have that bandwidth become available for the nuance. We can start feeling things in between because we have the energy to do so. It's no longer entirely about survive or die.

And that's the worst part about flashbacks. Even though I'm no longer in that constant life or death situation, those flashbacks have me believing I am. And contrary to popular media's depiction of flashbacks, most of the time it's not getting stuck in a living visual memory of an event. No, the vast majority of those flashbacks are emotional flashbacks. Getting stuck in the feelings of the event, the feelings I couldn't suppress anymore, the constant feeling of being in danger, of having my life, my very existence threatened, which brings on the constant sense of danger, of fight or flight. Which means, no emotional energy for anything else, except the extremes. Everything in my life currently can be perfectly fine, safe, wonderful even. But if I'm stuck in an emotional flashback, none of the current circumstances matter, because I'm emotionally back in survival mode, feeling constantly threatened, trying to survive, trying to decide if I need to fight or run. And if I'm stuck there... then there isn't any emotional energy left for anything else.

The really effing sucky part, is that often I don't know I'm in an emotional flashback until after it's gone away, and I can see looking back that how I was feeling didn't fit at all with what was actually happening at the time. I reacted to an outside observer in a rather extreme, or worse in a completely irrational manner. But then when I'm in the middle of it, I guess it's understandable that I have a hard time recognizing it, as all my energy is directed towards surviving, towards keeping the pain and my fears at bay.

So maybe emotional regulation is just having enough emotional energy to filter the experiences you're having into a much more nuanced pattern, rather than having to sort things into binary extremes of bad, not bad. And if that's the case, then maybe, just maybe, I am healing, because I'm starting to free up some of my bandwidth to start sorting out the nuances... even if I can't quite identify what those nuances are yet.

Been thinking about daring to try to get into vidding (but I have zero knowledge about video editing lol) and wondered if there are ship manifestos that are in fanvid-form, so to say. Am shocked that there are only six on AO3. Though I guess it may have to do with videos being taken down because of copyright stuff?

(One of them was by you by the way if I'm not mistaken, ha! And now I want to watch Veritas: The Quest. Your video got me interested.^^)

--

Haha. I was going to say!

Veritas is a fun dumb time. It makes me sad that they never released properly. (And yes, my love of baaaaaad "archaeology" canons full of magical woo and tomb raiding goes way back. Also my love of fake death and fake betrayal plots.)

AO3 is only moderately popular for fanvids, and mostly in a very specific community of people who send vids to the small-scale fancons—the sorts of people who founded OTW and who were vidding on Livejournal. (It won't be because of takedowns. The AO3 work would still be there, just with a dead embed.) That lack of popularity overall is part of why you don't see so many video manifestos, but I think it's more a terminology thing:

I think it's rare for vidders to call their vids "manifestos". I don't think of that one video as a vid that is a manifesto: I think of it as a vid I made to include in a manifesto. Instead, we tend to call them "pimp vids", but you don't tag with that because it's presumptuous. It's something you say retroactively about other people's vids or that you tell a vid beta you're aiming for. You don't get to decide if your vid successfully pimps people in any more than you get a say in whether you go viral, you know?

--

There's a weekly vidders' zoom run by DC Slash (one of the tiny slash cons), and we just had a week where we brought in vids that got us into fandoms. A lot of other people's were ancient, blurry VCR transfers because they've been at this a lot longer than I have, but I can show you some of the vids that have gotten me into fandoms:

Killa's Haven vid Soldier annoyed me so much. What is that one brief flash of a scene? Did that dude die? It's not that sad a vid though? What the hell? So I had to watch just to find out. (Yes, he died. But he got better. Because Haven.)

The fact that I know and like Killa didn't hurt, but it's not like I loved the vid itself: a lot of it was my sheer annoyance at that one shot.

Of course, then, I made my own Haven vid, Captain Kidd, that was supposed to be an angry deep dive into show lore and how the other sanctimonious, fake-moral but actually pretty useless characters were treating my blorbo. (This is a theme with me, it appears.) It was not even 1% supposed to be a pimp vid...

To date, this is by far my most successful pimp vid, luring a whole bunch of people into the show just in time for it to massively jump the shark. (Damn it.) I've never even seen the ending.

More recently, akiv's Beyond Evil vid I'm a Ruler made me fall hard for Beyond Evil. Imagine my shock when what looked like a relatively normal buddy cop series starts with one of them secretly investigating the other as a serial killer. It was so much more intense and fucked up than I realized! Yessss.

After bouncing hard off of DMBJ, it was this Youtube vid Hei Ye falling for the Thorny Flower that got me intrigued again. The tone is so obvious and the dynamic is so clear, which really helped me get interested in a franchise that's often pretty hard to follow plot-wise.

I admit I never actually watched canon, but this Mr. Queen vid by Mozzaphne made me go look up a plot summary so I could read all of the fic. Lots of youtube vidders overuse show dialogue and mix it horribly over songs, but this one was really well done and adds a lot to your understanding of the character dynamics.

I don't think my foray into Detroit: Become Human was entirely because of a single vid, but Figure 8 by Dirty Mind Gene definitely helped. I knew it was a video game with robots. Nobody fucking told me it was a Caves of Steel ripoff with a jaded cop getting his mojo back via getting to know his robot partner.

I of course then went and made one with all of the zillions of deaths in the game because I love that shit. This apparently also got at least one person into the fandom.

Another vid a different person mentioned pimping them into a fandom was Lola's Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty vid ME!

It's a fabulous vid, and it's a fantastic illustration of how the central (canon) ship is supposed to read. Sadly, my personal opinion of the show is that Tang Fan is a perpetual victim and piece of shit who puts his own shallow grasp of morality and his personal feelings over the greater good, often getting characters killed unnecessarily. (I hear this is largely due to some questionable adaptation choices where they swapped who's the hothead and who's the one cleaning up messes.)

I've noticed that fluffy bunnies who watch the show tend to think Tang Fan is ~nice~ because he spouts modern morality instead of a selfish little bitch because he refuses to face the reality of the setting he's in and find the best real world solution instead of holding out for an ideal he'll never attain and thus making everything ten times worse. It reminds me forcibly of tumblr wank where people see themselves as these great moral leaders but lack all grasp of nuance. Their sensitivity extends only to their own feelings.

Yes, Sleuth left me with a lot of rage...

How dare the writing pretend like Tang Fan is the moral arbiter of anything, when my own personal fave, whom half the cast thinks is a villain, is constantly cleaning up after him, trying to keep the body count low, trying to maintain order as everybody else flies out of control...

And then the show made it all better by tormenting Tang Fan in the iddiest way possible. Ohohoho. It's not just that he gets his face rubbed in his own inadequacy and inability to save people. It's the ridiculously over-the-top flashback to "You're my only friend" right in the middle of the death scene. Way to twist the knife!

I, of course, have made my own vid for this fandom, Tiny, Pretty & Angry, and it is absolutely a manifesto, just not a ship one. It's a manifesto about how Wang Zhi is not only the most competent, but also the actual moral center of everything and fuck all of y'all if you don't agree.

In fact, there's probably another reason we don't call them manifestos:

In the oldschool Media Fandom vidding traditions, most vids are video essays and manifestos, really. That's a lot of the point of the aesthetic: making an argument. Partly due to technological limitations and partly due to vidding being innovated by slashers who were constantly challenged about their ships, the pretty visual spectacle styles so common in AMVs and currently on Youtube were largely absent. Meta argument was everything. That's the default.

Here's another one of mine that's pretty explicitly a fuck you to how most people in Untamed fandom see Wen Ning.

Helloooo I have been avoiding posting about this but I think it's reaching a form of denial so I figured I'd better rip the bandaid off 🙃

I got fired the weeks ago!! I am now unemployed!

I'm pretty bummed about it. I liked my workplace a lot, and I liked most of the people I worked with a lot, too! There are several people I've become pretty good friends with, and, while some have shown a willingness to continue being friends, I know it won't be at all the same as casually seeing them at work several times a week.

Finances are a concern, but not a huge concern. I have a little bit of savings, and my family helps me out when I need it. (I can also probably get unemployment if I ever get around to applying for it)

That does bring me to what is possibly the most stressful part of this for me right now, which is that I still haven't told any of my family. At one point, a few months ago, I mentioned to my dad that I'd been written up for attendance, and he was basically like, "yeah, you should stop being late. There's literally no benefit to being late." Which is so frustrating, because obviously i KNOW THAT!!!! I don't have poor attendance because I think it's cool and fun and good!! In fact, almost every shift I was late to or missed, I was hating myself for it the whole time it was happening. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure he's gonna ask what happened, and, if I decide to answer honestly, I'll have to try an explain how sometimes I just do no-call/no-shows in accident, by, like, oversleeping by a LOT, and then lying in bed for six hours, thinking about how I need to get up and get dressed, or, at the very least, call in to say I can't make it, but not doing either of those things because anxiety and executive dysfunction have me by the throat.

And then he's not really going to understand, and it's going to be horribly, horribly awkward and embarrassing. He's consistently demonstrated throughout my life a lack of sympathy for people who struggle with mental illness, or who deems unintelligent. Though it seems like his fatherly love historically overrides such biases, it's still, like, not encouraging. Also I admit that I have an inflated sense of the importance of my father's opinion, but also he, like, pays my bills, so.

My mom's a little less complicated in that my reasons for not wanting to tell her this are the same as for not wanting to tell her most things about myself that I withhold: she always does too much, and she'll remember it forever.

I feel like the best case scenario is that everyone agrees Elise is Unwell and Needs Help, which sounds unbearable and idk how productive help would even be from that quarter.

Anyway, I was gonna say more about this topic, and I'm sure I will later, but I'm getting tired lol. But hopefully, now that I've broken the seal, it will be easier to vent about it here.

To Be Loved | Who's That Girl?

George Russell x Ada Wolff

"George Russel, how the hell did you get into my apartment."

I don't think he was expecting me, given he nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears my voice.

But in my defense, I wasn't expecting to hear music softly playing from my kitchen, the entire apartment smelling like Italian cuisine when I got home from school.

"Oh, Ada, hello," Is his attempt at a response, turning slightly away from the stove and keying me in on the fact he has an apron on. What have I walked in on? "How was school?"

"How was school? George Russell, I walk in my front door and you're in my kitchen cooking dinner?" His face turns pink, hands moving quickly to untie his apron and setting it on the counter.

"I wanted to surprise you," A real response this time, much preferred. "So I asked Toto if I could borrow a key to your place so I could surprise you with dinner."

"My father gave you a key?" My eyes have to be the size of that pot at this point.

But George laughs, a loud exclamation that lets me know that the mere suggestion that Pops agreed to this was wild.

"No, not even slightly. But Susie did agree, helped me plan and everything," He amends, cheeks darkening. "Happy Valentine's day?"

"You- Georgie," I want to cry. "You came over to surprise me with dinner because it's Valentine's day?"

"I wanted to celebrate you," His hand is already moving to turn off the burner as he sees me moving closer to him, tote bag still on. And I wrap him in the biggest hug I can manage, tears in the crooks of my eyes as I bury my face in his sweater.

"I'm not even your girlfriend," I mumble, trying to reason away why my heart feels so full and all the effort he put into making this happen.

"Ada," His voice whispers in my ear. "I've been meaning to ask you this for a while now," He continues, voice as handsome as he is as he puts back, soft smile falling away as he sees my tears. "Please don't cry while I'm trying to ask you to be my girlfriend. Lily will beat me up when I tell her and Alex about this moment."

"You're going to tell them about this?" The idea makes me smile. Alex is his best friend, and he's going to tell him about a moment between us?

"If you asked Alex what I talk about the most it's you," Is his answer, wiping away my tears with the pads of his thumbs. "So, do you want to put the poor guy out of his misery and possibly say yes to my next question?"

"Depends what that question is," I smile, cheeks reddening in anticipation.

"Ada Wolff, would you be interested in being my girlfriend?" His smile could be the sun, and I don't care that I'm biased.

"I'm still in school, Georgie. My schedule is insane."

"I'm a Formula One driver who travels the world racing 4 days a week. I think I can understand and we can make the crazy work in our favor," He can't help but laugh, my only response being a laugh of my own as I nod.

"I think I would very much enjoy being your girlfriend," I assure, his shoulders relaxing slightly as he pulls me in for another hug.

"I was hoping that'd be the answer," He mumbles, "Dinner would have been really awkward otherwise."

And I laugh, because this man has my entire heart, and this holiday may not be as horrible as I usually see it to be.

"Happy Valentine's day, Georgie."

"Happy Valentine's day, Ada."

"I hope you know my father is going to kill you."

"I'll prepare for that."

hi, i'm the anon who told the story of finding out im jewish only recently when an aunt came to visit and told us of how her mother (my grandma's sister) and her siblings came from poland fleeing the nazis because they were jewish. thank you so much for your reply. i kind of cried. learning about this was an Experience for me. It seems my grandma and her siblings didn't exactly want to hide being jewish, but didn't tell anyone. they didn't assimilate into christianity and didn't raise their children as religious. we didn't celebrate any christian holidays, observe any customs, but also didn't practice any jewish ones (obviously). since learning about it, my aunts and mother talked to my grandmother and asked for her story. she fled when she was about 10 around 1940 in an unlabeled merchant ship with a few other family's, only they didn't come with their parents. they dropped all their practices and grandma only broke their pretense to observe shiva when their brother passed away, and now for her sister. my grandma is a very old woman and no one wanted to upset her further, i mean she's already lost both her siblings and her only family from before her marriage, so the whole thing's been dropped by now. our aunt says their older brother actually became a practicing Jew once he moved to the big city and had a few photos of them as kids in Poland that he gave to his oldest son that she can show us, but apart from that there's no connection. It's strange, I've never been antisemitic but it feels kind of prejudiced of me to have mixed feelings on this. It feels like we got all the bad parts of generational trauma and missing stories and none of the good parts like community and a feeling of belonging. Though that does also mean we were never the victims of hate, so for that we should be grateful. It hit my mom much harder though. She's named after my grandma's sister (which is apparently a Jewish custom, to name your children after past family members? all of us are named this way. i didnt know this). I feel reluctant identifying as Jewish, I don't even know if by Jewish law I would be classified as such. Anyways.

i know this is a bit heavy, so don't feel preassured at all into replying. I just wanted to say this whole thing took place since early december of last year and your reply has kind of caught me vulnerable. thank you for your kind words. sincerely

first off thanks for writing back, it was very interesting and people so rarely ever follow up with anything these days.

One I'd like to say I'm touched by how your grandmother and her siblings stayed close over the years and you are connected to their families still. I can imagine 3 little kids from Poland in a ship with only each other, the horrible heart breaking choice their parents had to make to save them. So so many Jewish parents couldn't bare to part with their children... your great-grandparents made the hardest choice imaginable, your grandma was an incredibly brave little girl and it worked, it worked

I certainly understand feeling conflicted about it all, I can only imagine getting news that realigns your view of the world, yourself, your family, world history, and who you are. You wouldn't be human if that didn't leave you with a lot of mixed feelings and I can't tell you what to do with it.

Yes it is Jewish tradition to name children after dead loved ones, my nephew is named for my grandfather who passed a week after he was born. I'm not a Rabbi, or an expert in Jewish law, but by my understanding your mother is almost certainly Jewish since your grandmother is and you likely are as well. I've been assuming you live in America but that might not be the case, here Reform Judaism is the largest movement and tends to be pretty open about "who is a Jew" else where the Orthodox movement is most often the majority and they tend to be more strict but again I strongly think you both would be Jews.

Any ways I keep thinking of one of my favorite monologues, from Angels in America

"You can never make that crossing that she made, for such Great Voyages in this world do not anymore exist. But every day of your lives the miles that voyage between that place and this one you cross. Every day. You understand me? In you that journey is."

whatever you do with this, it is with you, every day that crossing in a boat is a little girl from Poland, that journey that she made is in your soul.

I can't tell you what to do with that, and I think it goes against the grain of my religion to tell you what to do with that. I will say there are times when the candles are lit and I look into them and I say the words I can see eternity, being chosen is not easy the path is hard, and I'm ALWAYS learning more and I will till the day I die, but I wouldn't trade it.

I guess what I'm trying to say in a super disorganized and emotional way is, a door has opened in your life, whatever you do you'll never see your grandmother the same way again, and you'll carry that story with you always. The question is do you want to know more? I think it's clear I hope you do and one day your kitchen might fill with the smells of baking challah the way your great-grandparents in Poland might have done before the war. But I can't make that choice for you and I feel bad even saying what I think.

What I said before stands you and are a miracle, and whats more a testament to love undying, so many children sent away by parents who loved them enough to save them, little pieces of ash in the wind blowing away from fires of Armageddon, really little seeds blowing out of a forest fire to grow a tree in a new world and look at all its branches. I hope whatever happened to your great-grandparents the idea of their children having a future was a comfort in the darkest moments. May their memory be a blessing.

Why not just write a fic of the path u wish they took after thr dark world instead of making a video to tell the world why u personally dislike a movie? Why waste talent?

Anon, I want you to read the next words with as much compassion and gentleness as you can muster from text, because I do believe you're asking this genuinely, but do you have any idea how much time it takes to write a fic? I spend hours on a single chapter. I mean that. Usually, it's about ten, then I have to edit it. That takes another five hours. That's fifteen hours-ish per chapter. I usually average about 10-15 chapters per fic.

I have to plan it. I have to think about it. I have to figure out why the story is going the way it's going. I have to replan it. I replan most of my fics 3-4 times. that takes hours. Then there's usually the demon chapter per fic which takes 1-4 rewrites, which tacks on more time. I spend probably 3-4 weeks of time straight on a multi-chapter fic, which this would be.

Every time I start a fic, I have to be ready to devote that length of time or it gets abandoned or updated once or twice every year because I just don't have the energy.

This is completely disregarding the fact my mental health problems, which often cause set backs and delays as I try to cope with that. Fic writing is fun, but it's exhausting.

And this is just one part of it.

Another is that, anon, I genuinely just don't want to. Ragnarok has been out for almost six years. I've written multiple IW/Endgame rerwites (or at least IW-adjacent things, Porcelain, Drawing Keys With Water, Withering Away, We're A Mess Now, Huh? Empty, We Drown Together, the last half of Append) and almost nothing for Ragnarok except for Discolored. I have Avengers 1-adjacent things.

If rewriting Ragnarok was something I had any interest in doing, I would have by now.

And honestly, I don't know what I would put there instead. I don't hate the concept of Ragnarok. I own the movie on DVD, and have since like 2018? I don't hate it. It's actually really, really hard for me to loathe something entirely. Usually I'm like "I didn't like this part", but "this part was good!" All stories have nuance.

That's why there are a lot of people who like Ragnarok and the Loki series who follow me despite the fact I post anti stuff for both of them. Because I recognize there are good things about xyz and I'm not afraid to talk about that. So this is not going to be a video about everything wrong with Ragnarok.

I can get where you'd get that idea. My 3 part essay about the Loki series was extremely brutal and rarely brought up any positive, and I'm not happy about that. Honestly, I wish I'd taken a different approach with the essay and I probably will make another one about the series. But please have some compassion for me. I've had a YouTube channel for less than six weeks. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm still getting my feet underneath myself and I'm human so it's not going to be perfect.

I can understand why you'd feel really confused about why I'm bothering to make a video essay when, to you, it seems like it would be easier for me to just write a fic and shut up about it. Because fanfiction is often very quiet and private. YouTube is much more public. I get the impression you're a little frustrated with me, if not a little embarrassed that I want to explain why I didn't like the movie publicly, which is fine.

I love Justice League 2017 and it's often regarded to be a horrible movie. I have a Shrek 3 myself. I have a lot of them. It's impossible to love only perfect movies because there are no perfect movies.

Recognizing where stories failed is not passing moral judgment on them. Realizing why other stories work does not mean they're superior in some way. How To Train Your Dragon is a masterpiece, and I mean that genuinely* But WHY. WHY did it work when something like Netflix's Seabeast was less beloved, but had no less heart? The WHY is what I want to address in my video essays and I haven't quite figured out the formula just yet on how I want to go about that. Because, again, it's been like six weeks.

(*and for the record, HTTYD still has a lot of people who don't like it, but that's more so because it's not their type of movie, not because they think that it was written wrong. And YES HTTYD has its' faults because every story has its faults)

There are a lot of unhappy MCU fans who didn't like Ragnarok. WHY? why didn't they like it? Are they not allowed to discuss it just because there are people who liked it? No. You like Shrek 3, but that doesn't mean there can't be discussion about why Shrek 3 isn't a good story. Ragnarok fans and those who don't like it can coexist and it's okay that not everyone likes something. Sometimes a movie isn't for everyone, and that's definitely a factor, but for THIS MANY fans to have not liked Ragnarok, that means that Ragnarok did do something major wrong.

And it's not just og Loki fans who don't like it. It's og Thor fans, too. A lot was done right with Ragnarok, but just enough was done wrong that it bothered a lot of people and I think it's okay to explore what it was. Declaring Thor Ragnarok a masterpiece with no fault is ignoring a lot of people and I don't think that's fair. I'm going to talk about what Ragnarok did wrong because I find it interesting and I think it does deserve to be poked at. What I hope my essay will do is a) provide a little more compassion for people who didn't like Ragnarok and b) offer insight as to what Ragnarok could have done better.

WHAT IF what if Nadia cheated on the mc

BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING o know you don't see it happening but it ain't cost nothing to ask

But she was super mega drunk because of the stress of being a countess and she haven't seen mc lately so she got too drunky yk

She was black out drunk she just woke up with that person in bed and was like 😦

Anyyyways

I know it depends on the mc and and all but I'd like to know what you think about it like if the mc forgives her or what if they break up

-🦭

Oooooo that means drinking a shit ton of alcohol because Nadia definitely built up a huge tolerance during her first marriage.

Also, it seems like drunk af Nadia might do stupid stuff? Like, Nadia married Lucio when she was hella drunk, and I don't think she would have done it if she was sober. So, maybe, just maybe, this Nadia cheating on MC thing would be possible. If she had a crazy amount of alcohol, of course.

Idk if any of you have read/watched The Scarlet Letter. I've recently read the very beginning of the novel for a literature class, and it gave me an idea. So, in that novel, Hester (I feel weird because my name is pronounced similarly) had the letter "A" on her chest because she committed adultery. Well, let's just say, this character feels quite the opposite of how Nadia would. I don't want to spoil anything. Still, I think Nadia would feel like she has "adulteress" written all over her skin.

Anyway, let's get into it now. I wrote a whole oneshot, not headcanons like I usually do. This isn't what I had planned, but I do like how it turned out, and I hope that you will too.

Thank you for the request, Anon! It was so much fun to write!

The Pain Behind Her Eyes (Cheater Nadia x MC)

The whole night was a blur, and the raging headache made Nadia groan in pain. When she moved her arm, she felt someone beside her. The Countess thought that maybe her beloved MC came home while she was having fun with a few bottles of wine, and then they somehow ended up in bed, which would explain the absence of her sleepwear.

What a wonderful night it must have been. It's such a pity that she couldn't remember any of it, but finally, she could be in her lover's arms. She spent the last few weeks with the apprentice constantly on her mind, and she often found herself thinking of more lustful images. 

The Countess would often lay awake at night, thinking of her beloved. Their sweet smile that made Nadia's heart melt. Their laugh that could light up her heart even in her deepest sadness. And their body, their gorgeous, desirable body that Nadia so often wanted. 

But when Nadia tried to touch the person next to her, they didn't quite feel right. Perhaps MC changed their skincare routine while they were away. Either way, it was time for the Countess to open her eyes and finally take a good look at her beloved. 

The most horrible sight awaited her. The initial happiness immediately faded away as she glanced at the stranger tangled in her sheets. She hurriedly grabbed her blanket, pulled it up, and covered her body with it, desperately clutching it against her pounding chest. It stirred the stranger awake, and when they attempted to kiss her, she pulled away and got out of bed while still covering herself. Nadia couldn't look at them. Not without disgust.

Nadia wasn't disgusted by the stranger, no. It was her own body and actions that made her feel such a terrible way. She hurriedly sent the stranger away, but not without making sure they wouldn't tell anyone.

The Countess felt like she was going to throw up. How could she do something so horrible? The filth of the previous night was still lingering on her body, in her bed, in their shared bed. She felt so dirty. She wanted to tear off her skin, but even that wouldn't rid her of the shame and her mistake.

With the blanket still around her naked form, Nadia collapsed onto the floor, the sorrow drowning her heart as she cried.

How? Why? She couldn't understand. MC gave her all their love, and they trusted them. Why did she have to do this to them? Even in her drunken state, how could she betray the person she had sworn to love? 

The servants all noticed. They didn't know what she did, even though Nadia always felt like they knew. The Countess' staff saw that she was deeply troubled, and they all whispered among themselves that their mistress must be terribly missing her MC. 

She was. She really was. 

But she was also dreading the day of their arrival.

MC came too soon because Nadia wished to bury herself in her sin forever. And too late because this might not have happened if they had come home earlier.

The moment MC entered the room, they wore a smile on their face. They walked to the Countess with open arms and wrapped her in a hug filled with love. MC pulled back just enough to look at Nadia's face and saw there was pain behind her eyes. "Are you alright?"

She reassured them with a forced smile, "I am fine, my love." But even a fool could see past her lie. Still, MC didn't force her to tell the truth. If Nadia wanted to tell them, they knew that she would. 

An adulteress. That is what you are. Nadia couldn't stop these thoughts from haunting her mind. And the way MC looked at her. She felt as if she had her sin engraved into her skin, and Nadia was desperate to get rid of the burden. 

She knew that she had to tell them.

So she did. Nadia told MC that one night she had too much to drink. She couldn't remember how much she had or how it happened and as the story progressed, Nadia saw all emotions leaving MC. With their body shaking, the apprentice took a step back, keeping their distance from the cheating Countess.

"You cheated on me," MC whispered. Nadia didn't have to tell them the whole story. The look in her eyes gave it away. 

"I'm so sorry, my love," The Countess said as tears began to roll down her face. "I'm so sorry, MC. I was drunk, and I didn't know what I was doing. It was a mistake! Please, forgive me!" She sounded so weak, desperately sobbing, as she got down on her knees and grasped onto MC's hand. "MC, please!"

But MC pulled away. Shaking and with their own voice giving up, they let go of Nadia's hand. "I need to go." 

They were hurt. Of course, they were, and Nadia couldn't blame them. She didn't expect this conversation to go any better. But it was a stupid mistake. Nadia never wanted it to happen, and MC knew that too. She hoped for their forgiveness, but in her heart, Nadia knew that what she did was unforgivable.

When Nadia lost MC, she lost everything.

Her days no longer contained any joy. Each night she went to sleep, she did it knowing she would lie in the bed of her sin. And each time she woke up, her heart ached because of the reminder of that cursed morning. 

Her bed was her grave, and she was being buried alive. 

She often woke up in cold sweat, troubled by frequent nightmares that made sure she would never forget what she had done. The staff also asked her why MC was no longer in the palace, but Nadia couldn't bring herself to tell them the truth. 

One lonely afternoon, the Countess was getting some fresh air on her balcony. Being inside the palace suffocated her, and she often found herself longing to spend time outdoors. Nadia was leaning over the railing, her eyes gazing at the garden that she once happily walked with MC. She would never find love like that again in anyone else. 

She sighed to herself. The loneliness was consuming her. She felt like a fool for hoping that MC would forgive her. But, at least she had known how love felt like, even if only for a while. 

There was another sigh, but not Nadia's. Perhaps an assassin had come to plunge a dagger into her heart and rid her of the pain. She turned around, expecting a scared servant waiting for their mistress to give them a crumb of attention. 

But it was MC, looking at her with the same expression as when she told them of her crime. 

"Do you love me?" MC murmured under their breath, and perhaps it was only the wind that carried their voice to Nadia's ears so that she could hear it. 

"With all my heart," Nadia answered while anxiously clutching her dress.

Neither of them said anything else. For a moment, they both just stood there. Nadia could see that MC was battling their own thoughts and emotions while they stared intensely into her eyes. Whatever they were to do, Nadia would accept it.

Then MC moved, storming towards the Countess, and before she knew it, the apprentice had her in their arms, nails digging into her back, promising to never let go of each other ever again. 

get to know me ask game

considering i was tagged by 4 different people (@lurkingteapot, @recentadultburnout, @telomeke, @nongnaos -- thank you guys <3) in the last two-ish weeks i think it's about time i finally get to this. sorry i'm late dfkgkldfgkldf

RULES: bold the ones that are true and tag some people to do it.

APPEARANCE

Blonde hair // I prefer loose clothing to tight clothing [it's just so much more comfy lbr] // I have one or more piercings // I have at least one tattoo // I have dyed or highlighted my hair [i had red highlights as a child and i've gone blonde twice] // I have gotten plastic surgery // I have or had braces // I sunburn easily // I have freckles // I paint my nails [sort of -- i used to for quite a while bc it's the only thing stopping me from my horrible nail biting habit but unfortunately i got lazy during lockdowns and now i hardly paint them anymore] // I typically wear makeup // I don’t often smile // I am pleased with how I look // I prefer Nike to Adidas // I wear baseball hats backwards

HOBBIES AND TALENTS

I play a sport // I can play an instrument [i've played the violin on and off since i was 5 years old (currently at 3 years of lessons since my last break), i also played the piano from age 7 to 19 and the recorder from age 6 to 15 (that is soprano recorder, alto recorder, tenor recorder and even bass recorder for a semester or so)] // I am artistic [i'd say so... i mean i'm not the most talented person but i HAVE worked as a professional graphic designer for a year and a half and i sometimes make gifs (if you want to see them then search for the tag meine grafiken on my blog)] // I know more than one language [lmao i mean... i'm not a monolingual english speaker so... ok but in all seriousness: my native language is german/austrian dialect and obviously i know english. part of my family is italian so i know conversational italian as well (plus it's one of my working languages at uni). i can understand conversational norwegian and i'm slowly starting to understand more and more conversational thai (i'm at a point where i can watch a lot of shows without subtitles and understand the main plot, even if i miss some details) i had french in school and remember some basics (like how to introduce myself and some specific vocabulary like colours or numbers) and i've also looked into korean so i can read it and i know some basic grammar and a few words here and there] // I have won a trophy in some sort of competition // I can cook or bake without a recipe // I know how to swim [perks of being part italian means that unlike most austrians i actually learned how to swim in the mediterranean sea hehehe] // I enjoy writing [kinda?? i enjoyed writing stories in school but i never really write in my free time although sometimes i think i'd like to. but then when i sit down to do it i just never have any ideas and so i give up] // I can do origami // I prefer movies to tv shows // I can execute a perfect somersault // I enjoy singing [i went to an elementary school with a music focus which is why i played 3 instruments and my class was also a choir. i also took group singing lessons at the local music school in my teens. if i had the time and the money i'd get some solo singing lessons. i've considered looking into it for the coming winter semester] // I could survive in the wild on my own // I have read a new book series this year // I enjoy spending time with friends [i love them so much 🥺🥺🥺] // I travel during work or school breaks [i love traveling internationally when i can afford it. i also travel within austria sometimes, especially since they introduced the klimaticket which is a ticket that lets you use a whole bunch of public transports from trains to trams to busses all around austria. every few months i go visit my friend who studies in southern austria] // I can do a handstand

RELATIONSHIP

I am in a relationship // I have been single for over a year [i don't really care much for dating and relationships tbh] // I have a crush // I have a best friend who I’ve known for ten years [we met at summer camp 12 years ago and we're celebrating our 10 year anniversary of being best friends this winter -- hi @magsimags ily] // my parents are together [i don't understand how but somehow they've made it work for lthe past 30ish years idk] // I have dated my best friend // I am adopted // My crush has confessed to me // I have a long distance relationship // I am an only child // I give advice to my friends [i mean if it comes up or if they actively ask for it then sure] // I have made an online friend [a few actually, i've made quite a few online fandom friends and then i also have a few online language tandem friends] // I met up with someone I have met online [i've met up with a bunch of language tandem partners irl that i found online first. as for my tumblr mutuals, there are 4 in total that i've seen irl -- you know who you are <333]

AESTHETICS

I have heard the ocean in a conch shell // I have watched the sun rise [let me be clear, it was bc i pulled an all-nighter or was suffering from insomnia. NOT bc i'd voluntarily get up at an insane hour in the morning to watch the sun rise. plus in the winter it's a lot easier to watch the sun rise without meaning to bc if you happen to have class or work early in the morning you might actually get to see it rise while you're on your way there] // I enjoy rainy days // I have slept under the stars [one time during summer camp we spent the night on a field underneath the stars, it was very lovely] // I meditate outside // the sound of chirping calms me [i like spring!! i like summer!! i like warmth!! chirping means it's spring or summer and warm!!!!] // I enjoy the smell of the beach [i spent a significant amount of time at the mediterranean sea when i was a child and i miss the sea so fucking much. unfortunately austria is a landlocked country] // I know what snow tastes like [it snows in the winter in austria, you can bet your ass i've eaten snow as a child] // I listen to music to fall asleep // I enjoy thunderstorms [only in the summer tho and when i'm safe and sound inside and it's not keeping me up in the middle of the night when i'm trying to sleep] // I enjoy cloud watching [kinda!! i mean the sky is so pretty like!!!!] // I have attended a bonfire [not big ones but we regularly had fires at summer camp] // I pay close attention to colors // I find mystery in the ocean [idk if i'd say i find mystery in the ocean but i sure find it fascinating] // I enjoy hiking on nature paths // autumn is my favorite season

MISCELLANEOUS

I can fall asleep in a moving vehicle // I am the mom friend [around certain people i absolutely turn into the mom friend, but not around everyone so i won't make this red] // I live by a certain quote [yeah "wenn's passt, dann passt's". it's tricky to translate, something like "if it's a good fit, it'll work out". the literal meaning is "if it fits, it fits" or "if it works out, it works out"] // I like the smell of sharpies // I am involved in extracurricular activities // I enjoy Mexican food // I can drive a stick shift // I believe in true love // I make up scenarios to fall asleep [sometimes?????] // I sing in the shower // I wish I lived in a video game // I have a canopy above my bed // I am multiracial // I am a redhead // I own at least 3 dogs

since i'm late to the party i have absolutely no idea who's gotten tagged already so if you've done this already or don't want to do it at all feel free to ignore!!

tagging: @solo-silenzio @magsimags @newyearknwwme @killiru @gaym3bo1 @elnotwoods @swabianhotpocket @cornflowershade @gillianthecat

If I listened out everything I've walked through, objectively, this past semester, I think it might seem like the hardest several months you've ever heard from me.

It might sound overwhelming and horrible and that I'm barely treading water, and at the time of writing this, I will admit that it feels like I'm failing in most areas of life and the areas I'm not are so sorely misunderstood, misrepresented, and misconstrued that they feel like added burdens to my troubles.

But I had known some of this burden coming into the semester. I had realized, and accordingly, run to where my strength comes from, and carefully kept connections only to where I knew God's wisdom and grace would come from. God decided that I wouldn't be able to attend church much this semester. He decided to push my confidence in my own skills to the edge. He broke down my pride and slowly builds it into something more solid, firm in humility. And He also put my support systems through some of the hardest, most stressful stretches of life. He overwhelmed and tested people around me, in times where I did not even feel adequate to turn around and support them.

He gave me a warning bell of the final lap my grandpa has on this side of eternity. Label it "dying" if you will, but my grandpa's been "dying" for 15 years and altho he's only just lost his license to drive, can still out talk everyone around him. [Edit before this posts: Grandpa died a month later. We were in his hospital rooms, his final breath literally on my mom's face. We were singing and praying for two hours around his body after. It was sacred and holy in ways I cannot describe. I took an exam and did a final presentation the day after and with my sister and cousin, the three grandchildren gave eulogies that weekend. And then I went into finals week. A series of details that doesn't seem like I should attach the word "precious" to them, but I do.]

My God sounds like He's robbing me, doesn't He? If I list the facts, it sounds like a horrid trial. I don't think that idea had ever crossed my mind until I realized I didn't have the words to explain my last little lifetime without someone looking at me in horror.

So here is my attempt:

I had been talking to my sister, about the importance of giving children solid "affirmations" to hold onto, not just for them in that moment, because they will not understand it fully then, but more for the person they will grow into, small and scared and in a big chaotic world. Let me give an example of a good one:

"My God is so big. So strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do."

Nothing? How often do we think about that I wonder, and what it implies? Nothing? So then the things that I wanted Him to do that did not come to pass.... not because He cannot... and if He will not, and I know He works all things together for His children's good and His glory, and my chief end is to glorify Him... hmm... not something a preschooler thinks, but when we do?

Or how about:

"Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak but He is strong!"

That second one covers the sufficiency of scripture, the power and grace of God, and our inadequacy in our own will. Human depravity, God's sufficiency, Christ's work in justification, sanctification, and glorification, that's a whole theological lecture in there! A rhyme and affirmation the preschooler might declare and believe simply and wholeheartedly, but might make the early adult stumble a little. Faith like a child looks a little harder than it sounds now.

Now for this song I picked and my little life update to finally make sense.

Those truths? Those affirmations and beliefs and intellect? Your brain is a muscle you strengthen or lose, and the intellect of faith is no different. Fighting the good fight and the race well run is a path of God renewing His child, in His child's deepening desire to look to Him and know Him more. Because knowing Him more is going from "My God is so Big" between two little hands, to "My God is so Big" in seeing His handiwork in each and every little detail.

The practice of seeing God weaving Christ from Genesis to Revalation, is to suddenly see it from your birth to death. The study of David and all his sin and God using him to lead a nation He set apart from the rest for His purposes, is to see God working through a sinful preacher's words and a stumbling Church's hands, and building a community of His purposes of reaching to save.

So I entered this semester like that. Knowing I would be stripped and exhausted and stretched thin and lost for words. Knowing that even this moment where I'm struck with the clarity of a thousand words would be rare and far between. Knowing my flesh and weakness would roar an uglier shade than I care to admit, and I would hear myself saying self-pitying loops when I could barely keep my eyes open, or keep my fingers from complaining.

So I did what anyone with forsight does, and I storm-weathered.

I hate complaining. It has no business in a Christian's life. To complain is to question a perfect God's perfect plan and call it imperfect and inadequate, because from who else does all detail flow? It is to claim wisdom over the wisdom-giver. But it is easy, and it is easy in the company of other sore hearts. And where the tongue writes it goads the heart, so that the heart gives black, bloody ink to the tongue, and a vicious cycle of digging yourself to a hole where God is suddenly nowhere in sight is done rather easily. And I personally decided I needed to learn to guard the pattern of my tongue, and till I did, I needed to guard where my tongue had power. Which is why, when I am full of praise, like a child validating good behavior, I make extra effort to pour out my words fully and true-- not because I have mastered any art or claim any pride in it, but because it is a good practice for me to guard my heart "desperately deceitful above all else, who can know it?" And then I fed my heart from a fresh well that promises to never run dry, and my lens of the world grew brighter.

So yes. These past months have been hard, truthfully objective. It has been trying and draining and there are days I have felt like drowning.

But thanks be to the God of wonderous mercies. Who promises to answer when we call, and urges me to call upon Him more. Who carries me when I don't look upon Him. Who weaves a tapestry more magnificent than I can imagine, to be revealed on the other side of eternity.

Job never learned why He was robbed so severely. He never needed to. God showed him something better. He showed Himself. And to see God in everything? What more do I need to see than heaven's light leaving fingerprints and blooming flowers for me to pick?

So I say, having walked these months with my eyes searching and never failing to find My God, that these have been the dearest, most precious months, and lift up a song of thanksgiving, over how He has blessed me, time and time again, in my shortcoming and in my weakness, in my heart and in my testimony of witness, may it be that He was lifted high.