There's always a danger of caring too much about a story, and then getting paralyzed by the need to do it justice, so it never gets written.

I've solved this problem in the past by writing stories so fast that I don't have time to get too invested, or writing stories that I'm not that attached to.

But maybe the trick is to love the story so much that I want to share it any way I can, even if it's imperfect. To feel that any version of this story is better than the story never getting written at all. To get out of my own way and stop worrying about what other people will think of my writing, or even what I think of my writing, and love the story for its own sake, love the readers enough to want to have the joy of sharing the story with them.

Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. But so far it feels like a much better approach.

oh no! more ginhiji

i am always filled with so much dread

It would just be so easy for Steel to start behaving overtly controlling and War-minded at literally any point (seeking control and owning up to what that means) and at that point it would become easy to dislike her and her sway over Suvi but that's not the POINT, she is GENUINELY wise and so, so brilliant and she loves Suvi so truly and she is infuriatingly level headed and sincere in her efforts to help and so very kind, and I love her character more than I can adequately put into words and the inevitable clash of ideals, the rift that will and must develop, is going to destroy me. Because I genuinely don't know if Steel could choose Suvi over the empire and in fact I think it's pretty clear that she wouldn't, but that does not diminish the love she has for Suvi and the two things being true simultaneously have me biting the air. Steel is a goddamn masterclass in examining characters who act from fundamentally kind intent within a twisted framework of lifelong indoctrination and beliefs that have taught her a distorted view of what that should look like. Bringing the empire's light to the world is the ultimate kindness to her, and she wants nothing more than to be a key part of the mechanism by which that will happen. Because it will happen. And we're not told this, we're shown a brilliant and devoted mother figure who will stop at nothing to make a better world in the image of the empire her life belongs to.

Every single time something goes wrong with Ame and/or Eursulon (and even Suvi) I brace for the kind of overbearing "us VS them" mentality that never comes. She genuinely wants collaboration and answers so she can help. she very much means well, as do they all. It compels the absolute hell out of me.

i can change my profile description thing back i guess, should i go back to "these are the cliff's notes of pain" or the other one i've been tempted with sometimes, which is... where ok there's a lot of variations to what amounts to a semi-facetious existential comparison to henry darger while ducking certain key attributes/having very stark differences besides, but, i have yet to optimize the best one, and i don't if that's slightly too obscure a cut for people to take as a joke or not,

.

can well-written shows please stop ending on tragedy before a hiatus? i’m literally sitting here with a box of barbecue wings in front of me that i can’t eat because that tragic sulemio breakup has twisted my stomach up in knots.

Summary of Aşk-ı Memnu I found on storygraph:

"Bihter hepsini unutmak isteyerek, kandili hala bütün bütüne yakmadığı için birtakım karartılar yansıtan aynanın karşısına geçiyor, çıplak gövdesine bakıyor, nergisçe bir tutumla hazdan sarsılıyordu. Başkaları ne düşünürdü bilmem, ama bu, kendi kendine tatmine giden yol, Bihter'i büsbütün yalnızlıkla sarıp sarmalardı. Hazlarda söze dökülemeyecek uçurumlar hissederdim. Romancı, Bihter için, 'Evet bu vücudu seviyor...' diye yazıyordu. Genç kadın ayna karşısındaydı, vücuduna sevgiler, vurgunluklar duyuyordu. Gülümsüyor, aynadaki aksinden sevda umuyordu.

(...) Çünkü Bihter, hayatında bundan böyle aşkların karşılıksız kalacağını, daha da yalnızlıklarla dolup taşacağını, kendisinden o kadar yaşlı Adnan Bey'in ne aşka, ne ihtirasa yanıt verebileceğini sezinlemişti. İşlemeli, dantelalı yatak örtüleri, bu gece ve her gece, Bihter'e bomboş süsler, düzmece incelikler sunacak, ama Bihter süslü döşeğinde hep ihtirasların, genç tenlerin hayalini kuracaktı..."

...It's the mirror scene. I haven't payed much attention to this scene the first time I read the book but I want to examine it now, since it seems this is taken from the Turkish version of the book.

Bihter sits in her dark bedroom, admiring  her body and her image. Looking at herself naked in the mirror fills her body with indescribable sense of pleasure.

'Yes, she loves this body...' The young woman was in front of the mirror, feeling love and admiration for her body. She was smiling and hoping for love from her reflection in the mirror.

Bihter soon realizes that her much older husband cannot give her love nor passion, not the kind that she desired every night. The love she feels towards her body is of narcissistic nature. She loves her own body and hopes to be loved back by her own reflection. The reason for that is because Bihter is a lonely woman, who despite marrying an older man, secretly dreams of younger skin on her decorated bed. She seeks for love that will fill the void of loneliness.

When she found herself in her room alone in the dark with that thing that resembled a delicate toy, she trembled. Her strength gave away suddenly. Really, was she going to do this? So young, so beautiful, without yet having had a chance to live.

She wanted to light her candle first. She would not die in the dark. To die without seeing herself one last time... So everything would end after she was dead, she would end, never to live again? She would a shadow in a darkness, an endless darkness?

Bihter's decision to kill herself wasn't something that immediately crossed her mind. Seeing Beşir watching her with vicious pleasure made her realize that everyone was going look at her the same way. She couldn't live under such foul gazes and thought that death was the only solution.

Oh! She would not be able to open it, she would not be able to go out to face that man, and in her hand that delicate, little toy's black muzzle kept turning, bending, seeking her in the dark, and saying in a persuasive voice, 'yes, young, beautiful, delicious woman, this is the only thing for you.'

It's as if the gun had a mind of its own, that had threatened to take away Bihter's youth with its persuasive voice. Bihter's whole mind and body was trembling with fear, trying to overpower the gun, to shake it off so she would be able to live. Bihter had started to hesitate in her hasty decision to end her life. She's a young and beautiful woman maybe she still had a chance to redeem herself?

I think there might've been a chance for Bihter to survive if Adnan bey hadn't tried to forcefully break the door down. She was scared of what he would've done to her which lead to her ultimate death.

kpop is. a really really fucked up industry man. it really is

not to Shakespearepost on main but romeo and juliet is just such an insane play. every time i watch it or read it i feel such raw emotions that i don’t think any other piece of media really gets out of me

just saw something so disgusting on twt about a utd fan n hillsborough ... god like how can people be so cruel and absolutely devoit of compassion? like what do you even get out of being a complete asshole? are you happier when you get to mock the death of almost a hundred people? is that it? how little and pathetic do you have to be

was told a couple months ago by one of my orthodontists that I’d most likely have my braces off by the end of the summer. asked another orthodontist today when he thought that would be. he said I have two or three months left to go, and then started me on rubber bands.

I allowed myself to read some about the end of Sandman and now I feel sick. I do not understand how an author who is usually so kind and well spoken could make an ending so twisted and honestly bad narrative wise. It's not even the CD that bugs me, it's the conclusions the reader is to make out of it. Yikes. I hate it wow. Wow.

Okay I can’t not say something…

… I dunno what’s going on in Geats. I’m not watching it. Sounds like my man Michianga is getting some shit which sucks, when will Takahashi treat the purple guys right???

I say, not even sure I’m spelling his name right.

But I genuinely cannot believe people are still trying to come for Horobi on this.

So let’s clear some things up.

1) Horobi was absolutely set up. Probably wasn’t the Ark’s plan from the start exactly, but she knowingly made him dependent on her and psychologically abused and manipulated him for years. Disconnected from her, Horobi was unstable and trying to grapple w/ trying to think for himself. He was heavily traumatised and easily manipulated, making him the perfect patsy. All she had to do was poke Izu’s blind devotion to Aruto a bit and have her use her usual brand of insensitive, socially unaware ‘help.’ That situation was absolutely orchestrated.

2) Is two things. Izu could easily have dodged that shot and choose not to, and Horobi had no reason to think she had no backup (which was ridiculous to begin w/). He’d made it very clearly he considered backups to be a form of immortality for ai, and we have no clue how he would have reacted if she dodged bc she choose not to. Obviously Horobi ‘shouldn’t’ have resorted to violence to ‘end’ that interaction, but he was not in a mental place where he could make that distinction. It’s all he’s ever known, it’s predominately the only way anyone has ever treated him. He was panicked and she was harassing him. He was desperate to end the interaction in anyway possible, and he’d already tried walking away. But there is no way he ‘knew’ he was ‘killing’ her (and, well… He didn’t). He actually seems genuinely shaken that she just took the hit, being unable to respond to Jin’s question (which he always has before). He wasn’t planning on ‘killing’ her at all, he just needed her to stop. She also choose to go in there in the first place. That’s like… Not to compare any of these characters to dogs in that way, but that’s like a domesticated Pomeranian walking into a playpen w/ a recently ‘rescued’ wolf that’s been abused and used in fighting rings and trying to play and being shocked it got bitten.

3) There were so many people who could have done something. Jin, who’s been so ready to take hits for people he barely knows before, just stands there. There were plenty of humans around! Fuwa and Yua, who started this whole damn thing, were nowhere to be seen, and Fuwa had an opportunity to stop the fighting and fucked it up. Like I absolutely believe there’s a correlation between Fuwa shooting Horobi for asking him that question and Horobi shooting at Izu to get her to stop provoking him. Aruto himself is more busy trying to force the HumaGear outside to go back to how he thinks they should be then dealing w/ the actual root of the situation. If he actually cared as much as he claims, maybe he’d realise how much suffering Horobi is going through and actually try to address the situation, rather than leaving it to his secretary who is in no way capable of doing so?

Basically, the fact of the matter is that this was not Horobi killing Izu in cold blood, it was more equivalent to a wounded animal trying to defend itself. She choose to go in there, back him into a corner, and choose not to back off when she saw he was becoming agitated. She choose not to dodge. He fired back in an attempt to end the interaction, bc she was doing more harm than help. Ultimately, I’m not trying to pin this on her, either, although I have Issues w/ how she was portrayed. Izu was never going to be able to help Horobi there bc she just could not understand what he was going through. In her mind, devotion to Aruto makes everything right, Aruto is the absolute best thing ever. And that’t not her fault, that was how she was made, and he inadvertently groomed her into that. But let’s not get me started on Aruto. The fact of the matter is that this was literally everyone’s fault. Well, it’s Gai and the Ark’s fault (bc the Ark is Gai’s fault), but if Horobi and even Izu herself had done nothing different but someone else present actually used their common sense for five seconds, this would never have happened.

Literally, this is saying that a traumatised, abused child soldier lashing out bc they feel backed into a corner and scared out of their minds is deliberately aggressive. Horobi was protecting himself the only way he knew how, Izu was (unintentionally, like she meant well but meaning well does not equate to doing well) harassing and provoking him and randomly decided not to dodge for some inconceivable reason, and everyone else decided that clearly, the sheltered ai w/ limited world experience and knowledge was obviously the right person to deal w/ the traumatised, abused, unstable one.

Also Fuwa and Yua started it and Fuwa had a chance to stop the fighting and fucked it up. An in character fuck up, maybe, but a fuck up. Aruto was more bothered w/ getting his free labour back than helping the traumatised child soldier. Jin randomly decides to be useless.

Edit: bc I realise I forgot them, Naki and Ikazuchi aren’t even there, they just show up to talk shit later like what the fuck guys maybe actually make and effort before you start badmouthing your supposed family member who you know has been horribly abused and mind controlled all his life.

GAI AND THE ARK.

Aaaaand… I’m not talking about after bc I think I’ve ruffled enough feathers.

Basically, while the situation in Geats does sound much more straightforward, I will not stand for people depicting Horobi as some knowingly malicious killer when he was very clearly not in a space where he could or knew how to make those calls. The man had only just gotten disconnected from the Ark, he was just learning how to make decisions. He didn’t ‘choose’ to ‘kill’ Izu, he acted on an instinct to protect himself out of fear and then he himself did not understand his actions.

My biggest complaint about red white and blue is the cover ToT

(Don't take me too seriously dhdhf)