#anyway everything about this story hurts SO MUCH MORE on reread/rewatch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sniper-childe · 3 years

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Hello! I’d like to share some of my notes if I were to Beta-read the most recent Archon Quest. I will be going through what worked, what could be taken out, and what could’ve been better. Note that I’m looking at this through an editor’s lens so I’m going to try NOT to change the plot we were given no matter what my opinions are about it BUT some of the said opinions may slip out.

Also, a bit of a disclaimer: I know that Genshin isn’t an actual literary work but miHoYo is known for its writers’ great storytelling and I’ve always loved their work so it really came as a surprise as to what happened to the mess that is Inazuma Act 3. So yeah.

Contains:

1. What was foreshadowed about the characters and why the payoff of their portrayals felt cheap.

a. About Kokomi and the rebellion.

b. About the Fatui, the James Bond villain wannabe.

c. About Ei and the Raiden Shogun.

2. How Chapter 2, Act 3 could have been the turning point that would have us, as the Traveler, cement our perceptions of the Archons and Gods of Celestia OR what I think the death of Signora was supposed to be but was undermined by this one tidbit.

BONUS: I wrote this before Kokomi’s story quest was released but decided to wait for it before posting. And guess what? I think Kokomi’s Story Quest works better as an Archon Quest. At least, some parts of it.

miHoYo teased us this intelligent leader of the resistance that is well-versed in the Art of War. The end of Ch2: Act 2 showed us a powerful Kokomi. So why was she sidelined all throughout the act?

I actually like the idea of the resistance asking the Fatui for aid. But miHoYo chickened out and made it so that they did it unknowingly. To which I say: how? If Kokomi was so smart she should’ve known better. I figured it was the Fatui within a single sentence, so why didn’t Kokomi?

They should’ve stuck with the concept of the underdogs – or in Kokomi’s words, the little fish – of war in an act of desperation. They could’ve shown a calculated Kokomi “making a deal with the devil” and will do anything to win the fight against the Shogunate.

In her Character Teaser, she was willing to burn the enemies’ supplies – to starve the enemy. She can be ruthless, that’s why Kokomi actively giving Delusions to her foot soldiers would have made much more sense to cause the Fatui to be involved rather than the whole “the Fatui orchestrated everything” schtick.

Which brings me to my next point: when did the Fatui turn into a James Bond villain? I hate that trope so much. It’s like the Deus Ex Machina of villainy. It’s lazy. And it doesn’t even fit the Fatui’s modus operandi.

In the prologue, the Abyss Order corrupted Dvalin and the Fatui was just there waiting to steal Barbatos’ gnosis while the Knights are distracted. Morax decided to retire one day so the Fatui swept right in and offered a test of Liyue in exchange for his gnosis.

The last two locations had their own story to tell while the Fatui was just in the background like the opportunistic antagonist that they are.

It also would have been a stronger plotline to have the already set lore – like the tenuous relationship between Watatsumi and Narukami – be the driving force of the Inazuman Civil War.

The prologue and chapter 1 also delivered what we are told we’re going to get in the Story Preview. That’s why they are satisfying. However, with chapter 2, the way it ended turned out to be more about the Fatui rather than “what do mortals see of the eternity chased after by their god.”

Sure, we got the consequences of the war in the World Quests and some of it in the second act. But making the Fatui the Big Bad in the end takes value away from the actions of the characters that are supposed to be the main feature of this chapter.

How much of the Eternity the Raiden Shogun is pursuing is directly from Ei? How much of it is its own understanding of eternity, coupled with Ei’s memories, and its own response? How much of it is the Fatui’s influence?

I have to say though, I’m fine with the puppet actually. Believe it or not. I have had kinda figured that out with the weird shifting of emotions in and out of the puppet. And the dead glowing eyes. So kudos to the design and animation team for that foreshadowing.

It was also said that the current Electro Archon lost someone dear to her and, while I didn’t think it was a twin, I did figure that the current Electro Archon wasn’t the real Electro Archon. So the whole Baal and Beelzebul backstory didn’t really surprise me. So I guess that was foreshadowed too? But my friends didn’t feel the same way so I don’t know. I’m not touching that.

But I do agree that all of the new lore got info-dumped to us by Yae rather than have us find out about them. To be honest, I would have wanted the backstory of Ei to be in her story quest rather than it be in the Archon Quest. A World Quest could work too.

I just feel like the 2.1 Archon Quest ended up cramming so many themes and subplots when it should’ve been focusing on what was promised: the darkness that is brought by their god.

They already had set up the Visions are people’s motivations/ambitions and that taking them away also takes away their agency.

Then they could’ve played with the idea of the people of Watatsumi looking up to Kokomi as their pseudo-god in-place of Orobashi and so with her actively giving Delusions could fit well in the said theme.

They could’ve made Ei and Kokomi character foils of each other and have the final showdown be about them.

And then it’ll all, of course, end up with the people of Inazuma learning how to work without their “gods” or something like that, which is the overarching theme of the whole series if you think about it.

But as I said, my opinions about the plot shouldn’t matter and I’m only here to make what was already written better.

So let’s talk about something that the puppet has done which didn’t make any sense on the surface level but could’ve been clever if it was done right. Killing La Signora.

Okay. So there is a pivotal moment at the end of the first arc of a three-act story where the main character experiences something that will leave them no choice but to move forward. This usually is a physical thing like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. But it can also be a mental or emotional situation.

Over at Honkai, the first arc ended with the death of a beloved mentor and a shattered world (both external and internal). The characters had no choice but to step up and “to stay alive, bravely” (yes, I won’t stop using this line ever). It was so very well done and even after so many years it still hurt no matter how many times you reread/rewatch the scene.

This reread value is what shows how much a twist is well written.

And that is what miHoYo is known for. So I had high expectations with the plot twist (technically this pivotal moment is called a plot twist because it twists the feel and/or pace of the story). Chapter 2 is the perfect spot to end the first act of a seven-chaptered story. So I’m really preparing myself for the inevitable twist.

But then we ended up with Signora’s death.

Okay. So. They could have used that to show us, as the traveler, how Archons and Celestial beings are unfeeling and not to be trusted. We were told this repeatedly by Dainsleiff and by the Abyss Twin. But it is only textbook writing 101 to show NOT tell.

And Signora’s death could have been this portrayal. Although, to be honest, it would have been more impactful if the one who died is a friend of the Traveler.

Them seeing someone die at the hands of an Archon could have their idea of gods shift. Because there is no turning back once you see the proof right in front of your eyes.

But instead, the puppet did it. So what was the point of Signora’s death if not just a power demonstration? We already knew that the Raiden Shogun is powerful. So why did Signora have to die?

Sure, one can argue that the puppet was enacting the Ei’s will so maybe there was a point. But! In Ei’s story quest, we were told that the puppet would have no hesitation when it comes to killing whereas Ei can show mercy.

Which begs, again, the question: how much of the Raiden Shogun’s actions is a reflection of Ei’s will, and how much of it is a logic response of an artificial intelligence from Ei’s memories?

Honestly? I don’t like that they killed off Signora. It doesn’t feel right. I would’ve taken Beidou’s death over Signora’s no matter how much I love Beidou. There was just no build-up to it and it feels weak. I… didn’t feel anything besides confusion. The anger only came later because of the wasted potential.

But overall, I do think they could’ve made it work if it were actually Ei doing the killing.

So I just did Kokomi’s Story Quest and man. The soldiers wanting to continue the war is what they really should have made the motivations of the actual war rather than have it as a post-war response and then have Kokomi fix their mess.

Seriously. While it was really interesting to see the usual trauma response of soldiers who had only known war their whole life, they wasted this idea, man.

Before doing the Archon Quest I had thought that the Watatsumi had a hand on the Vision Hunt Decree. Because if I were a tactician, I would have made something to anger the people of my enemies and have them have their internal issues. And while the Shogunate is weak, that’s when I will strike and claim Inazuma for my people and my god.

Then Orobashi will rise once more.

Yep.

Obviously, I really wanted Kokomi to be a more active character in the Archon Quest.

Anyways. If you reached the end, thank you for reading this ~1.5k words of musings. Tell me what you think. Or don’t. You do you.

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peaceoutofthepieces · 4 years

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Sink Or Swim

tag list: @cleocc @feeling-kinda-so-so @hopelessromanticvirgo @dreamy-slytherin @adora8 @lockerfivethreefive @painfully-oblivious @poeticinemaa @jjustonemorething @saraben00 @wedarkacademia @coolguyssyndrome @hischbabe @suckerforsobbe @tayspots @starmansander @theah0lt @zoenneforever @invisibleme @chibibanane

~^~

Sunday, 12:40

Song: Peter Manos - In My Head

Lucas is surprised his dad hasn’t come to tell him how pathetic he is yet. He supposes it isn’t necessary. Lucas is more than aware of it himself.

He’d dragged himself out to go to the bathroom and get breakfast and managed to avoid a run-in. Now he’s curled up in his bed with the covers pulled up to his neck, trying not to feel too sorry for himself.

It isn’t easy.

He’s tempted to call Kes, but he’d called him yesterday, and he doesn’t want to be so needy. He’s thought about messaging Isa, but he isn’t really sure what he would say. He’s sure they’re all busy anyway. Possibly even hanging out together. Without him. As is likely the new normal already.

Lucas had been so sure he’d found his new normal already, too, but nothing feels normal about his situation anymore. He feels more stupid than anything. He doesn’t know what he’s been thinking. He doesn’t know how he has managed to mess everything up so massively already.

Jens was offering him friendship, and of course Lucas went overboard with it. Of course he’s a fool.

He’s spent the weekend rewatching the vlogs. He’s already in that deep.

It goes against all his rules, but he can’t bring himself to stop. He can’t get any of it out of his head. He can’t stop feeling Jens’s hands on his hips, or his breath on his ear. He can’t stop remembering the pump of his heart when Jens has done nothing more than smile. He can’t stop imagining what Jens might have done, if Lucas hadn’t pulled away from their dance, if Lucas had made up for it when Jens pulled him down to sit in front of him by leaning right back against his chest. He can’t stop considering all the possibilities that have never been possible in the first place.

He can’t stop seeing Jens with her, looking entirely at home.

He’d avoided Instagram entirely yesterday, resisting the temptation to open Jens’s message or stalk his page or Jana’s for any possible torture. He hates how dramatic his heart is being. He knew not to expect anything, and he’d let himself get much too carried away anyway. Jens had just seemed so close and so possible. Now Lucas is realising the boy is probably even more like Kes than he thought.

Lucas is long over that, but there’s still a leftover sting regardless, even as he cringes at his own thoughts and thoughtless actions. It makes him feel worse, sometimes, now that the feelings have slipped away, to look back at it, but he can’t quite bring himself to regret it.

It’s given him plenty of time to come to terms with everything. With himself. He can’t exactly bring himself to regret something that taught him so much.

It just obviously hasn’t taught him enough.

It’s in moments like this where a little of that self-hate returns with full force, and he can’t help wishing that he was just normal. It wouldn’t feel like this, if he was just crushing on a girl who didn’t return his feelings.

He might have no proof to back this up, but he feels pretty sure of it all the same.

It would be fine, if he thought it wouldn’t mess anything up with Jens. He’s mostly angry with himself because of how much he’s already letting it affect him. He had run from the party without even saying goodbye, and he hasn’t responded to the message that Jens had so sweetly sent him afterwards. Or to the second message Jens had sent him yesterday, saying that he hoped Lucas got there safe and was having fun. He’d laughed at the irony of it. He doesn’t know how to explain to Jens that he’s completely miserable, and that he hadn’t gone anywhere in the first place.

He’s lying in his bed in Antwerp, and he’s giving in and clicking on Jens’s Instagram story.

It’s a video of him at the skatepark, flying up the ramp towards the camera, grinning as he jumps off his board and pushes the person away. The responding giggles sound like they come from Robbe. He looks as beautiful as ever, and Lucas wishes more than anything that he could join them. The pained twist of his heart isn’t entirely strong enough to make him want to stay away. It’s just an additional ache.

He escapes the app in a rush and opens Spotify, hoping to distract himself. His fingers twitch, tempted to draw, but there’s already a cramp in them. It was all he’d done yesterday. He’d needed to get his thoughts out, needed to put his emotions on paper, in something real, and endless sketches had poured out, inspired by the past few weeks. He’d sketched Sander first, stood in the art shop with his camera and his smirk. He’d sketched Luca, taking care with her curls and her glasses, one eye closed in a wink, adding extra details as he refused to pour out his mind’s main focus.

It still hadn’t stopped him from creating a dozen sketches of Jens, most only half-completed, the image lost midway as another one came to the forefront.

He needs a break from feeling like this, for a while. Before he remembers that he has to return to school tomorrow, where it will be unavoidable.

He doesn’t get very far, unable to make up his mind, before a notification pops up at the top of his screen and destroys any notion of forgetting his feelings.

Jens has messaged him again. Undeterred, it seems, by Lucas’s previous lack of response.

hey, you’re probably still busy but I was wondering what time you would be back? I’m at the skatepark with the boys, and we’ll probably be here until late, if you wanted to join for a while

Before Lucas can even take this in, another message appears.

you’re probably staying with your friends until the evening though, so don’t worry about it

Lucas blinks at the message with furrowed brows. At first his heart twists, thinking Jens has changed his mind and is politely telling him not to come after all. But the rushed manner in which it had been sent makes him doubt himself, and he rereads it again, searching for the purpose of it. The meaning behind it. Another thought comes to mind, but he can’t quite let himself entertain it. That can’t be right.

There’s no way that Jens is nervous.

It sounds an awful lot like he might be, though, the more Lucas reads it over. He begins to feel a little bad. He hadn’t thought too much on what his distance might feel like to Jens. He hadn’t considered the idea that he’s being unfair. It isn’t Jens’s fault, that Lucas feels hurt. He couldn’t possibly know. Lucas hopes that he doesn’t know. To Jens, it probably feels like Lucas is ignoring him now that he’s with his friends in Utrecht. That he simply takes a back seat. Lucas is the terrible person for knowingly hurting him this way.

He can’t help but smile slightly, and then his hands are moving on their own, opening the message and typing a reply.

I’m already home

It appears as ‘seen’ almost instantly, and it takes just as little time for the typing bubble to appear.

you left early? is everything okay?

I never went

He watches the texting bubble appear and disappear a few times before quickly typing out another message.

came home to my dad waiting for me. he found my (very small) stash. wasn’t pleased.

The typing bubble doesn’t appear for long now.

shit

grounded? I was wondering why you hadn’t replied

Lucas hadn’t even realised that he was creating the perfect out for himself. It’s that simple. It probably makes sense, that his grounding would include a lack of phone privileges. It isn’t too extreme, especially if it includes the idea that he’d already gotten it back. He could let Jens believe that his father had dished out that mini, extra punishment. He won’t even be lying. Not really. He just won’t be mending Jens’s incorrect assumption. Skipping over a tiny detail.

yep. I am to remain in this house indefinitely

fuck

he couldn’t be convinced to let you out for even an hour?

Lucas blinks.

Could his father be convinced?

Can Lucas?

He doesn’t have to think about it too long.

let’s check

He locks his phone and slips out of bed, suddenly eager. Determined. Still, he’s slow and quiet as he opens his door, and he winces at the faint creak of the hinges. He tiptoes up the hallway towards the kitchen, running through what he should say, giving himself a bit of extra time. He needs to go into this with patience. He needs to stay resolute. His father will shut him down the instant he blows up, so he simply needs to keep his cool. Throw in some persuasion. It’ll be difficult, probably, but not impossible. Hopefully.

Only his father isn’t in the kitchen, or the adjoining sitting room. Lucas furrows his brows in confusion and moves back down the hallway. The bathroom is unlocked and empty, and his father’s door lies open, proving without any doubt that the room is unoccupied. He’s completely alone in the flat.

His heart thrums and his mind races in time with the quickening beat. He’s not the most passive person in the world, and he wouldn’t let himself be walked over, and he’s not a model citizen. This isn’t too far past his realm of disobedience.

His father is already beyond pissed, and while Lucas initially cringes at the thought, he shrugs it off.

Might as well go the extra mile.

He heads back to his room and pulls a sweater on over his t-shirt, a light pastel green Isa had once bought him. He snatches his denim jacket from the hook by the front door and swipes up his keys as he shrugs it on. He hesitates for half a second before returning to collect his skateboard from his room, and then he’s off.

I’m on my way

Jens’s response is instant.

fucking nice :D

Lucas’s lips quirk, and he shakes his head slightly, and feels unbearably fond. Jens is so easy. Everything he does is so easy. He’s a steadily burning flame, bright and warm and sure, and Lucas is another brainless moth. Drawn in and set alight.

He doesn’t even know how he’s managed to develop such a ridiculous crush so quickly. He just hopes he can get rid of it in the same manner. Maybe he should be giving himself more time, especially now that he has a genuine excuse. He could have stepped neatly away from Jens for a while with the excuse of his imprisonment and Jens would understand. Lucas knows he would. He knows that would be the best thing to do. It’s unfair to Jens and himself to indulge these feelings, the excitement and the urgency and the pleasure at the mere idea of seeing him.

But Lucas has been miserable the past few days, and it’s starting to make his head whir in much more dangerous directions. He just needs to appease it for a moment. He just needs to see Jens once and let his heart quiet.

He’ll be pleased, at this stage, to see any of them. It makes sense for him to want to join as many of these outings as he can. He’s just beginning to fit into this friend-group.

The skatepark is relatively full, as to be expected for a Sunday afternoon, but it takes Lucas no time to find them. His eyes seek out Jens automatically and he finds him easily where he’s now sat at the top of the half pipe, laughing at someone Lucas doesn’t bother looking at and occasionally glancing at his phone. Lucas has to pause for a second and gather himself, squashing down the mixed emotions that bubble up and plastering on a smile.

It’s only when he’s halfway towards him that he does a double take, catching sight of white-blonde hair. His smile slips into something more real, and some of his familiar bounce returns to his step as he heads towards them.

“Yo, Lucas!” The cheer comes unexpectedly from Moyo, and Lucas twists around until he can see him, jogging in the same direction to meet him as he finally stops next to Jens, kicking up his skateboard and catching the tip in his hand.

Jens smiles up at him, left eye squinting more than the right against the sun. He’s still wearing just a shirt and a deep red hoodie, but he looks soft and warm and pleased as Lucas sits down next to him. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Lucas returns, feeling uncharacteristically shy, nerves twisting in his chest. The party and the hours before it skim through his mind, and then the hours after and all of yesterday when he’d attempted to purge himself of all unwanted feelings, pushing this boy away in the process. He doesn’t deserve the easy friendship Jens has handed him. He’s taken advantage of such an innocent thing, and Jens has absolutely no idea. He wouldn’t look so fond if he did.

“You got grounded?” Moyo questions him as he swings up next to them, dropping down on Jens’s other side with furrowed brows.

Lucas shrugs, twisting his hands together in his lap. “Pretty much, yeah.”

��What? Why?”

Lucas twists around to look at Robbe, who has finally detached himself from his boyfriend long enough to notice Lucas’s presence and migrate over. Lucas catches Sander’s gaze over his shoulder and Sander brightens, slipping around Robbe to greet him. Lucas allows him to clasp their hands together with a grin, but ducks away when he moves to ruffle his hair.

“My little protégé. I was starting to think these idiots were never going to let me see you again.”

Lucas huffs, shaking his head as Sander simply drops down to sit cross-legged behind him. Robbe looks at Lucas and rolls his eyes fondly, and Lucas watches with a twist in his stomach as he sits down behind Sander, wrapping his limbs around him and letting him settle back against his chest. “You say that like I listen to them.”

Sander raises his brows at this, nodding approvingly, and this is when Jens makes a small noise in the back of his throat, strangled with confusion.

Lucas looks at him to see him glancing between him and Sander in deep concentration. “Have you already met?”

“Yeah, on Thursday at the art shop,” Sander says easily. “We had a very educational chat.”

Lucas snorts, thinking of the mini lesson Sander had given him on all his favourite dead, supposedly-gay artists as he led him around the store and then to an ice cream stand down the street, instantly winning Lucas’s heart. It may not have been the most educational experience, but it had been enough for Lucas to learn that Sander is someone he could get along with.

Jens swivels to look at Robbe. “You knew about this?”

Robbe hums. “Yeah?”

“Since when?”

“That night?”

Sander takes in Jens’s expression of utter betrayal and snorts, and Lucas can’t help but raise his own brow in amusement as Jens turns his pout towards him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lucas tilts his head. “Why was I supposed to?”

Jens struggles to form a response to that, pout deepening, and Lucas really wishes he’d stop doing things like that. He wishes he would stop treating them as if they are so close, the way Robbe and Sander are close, sharing everything automatically and having a sunk-in understanding. He wishes Jens would make it easier for Lucas to let go of this idea of something more between them.

Sander knocks his leg against Lucas’s arm to get his attention, and his expression is dramatically serious. “Jens just gets a little jealous,” he mock-whispers, loud enough even for Moyo to hear him and let out a snort.

Jens’s pout shifts into a scowl and he rolls his eyes, and Sander knocks a leg against him instead in some semblance of apology. He raises his brows at Lucas, however, in a silent ‘told you’.

“What, you don’t seriously think Sander is going to steal me away or something, do you?” Lucas can’t help but tease, raising his brows in interest.

Moyo butts in with a laugh of his own, gesturing at Sander and hitting Jens’s arm. “Sander is basically a part of the group anyway, man. Where would he go?”

“That’s not the point,” Jens mumbles, mostly under his breath. Before anyone can question him on it, he’s turning back to Lucas and asking, “How’d you get your dad to let you out, anyway?”

Lucas shrugs, smiling sheepishly. “I didn’t. He wasn’t there, so I just left.”

“Ahh, a little rebel,” Sander teases.

Robbe huffs a laugh. “A match made in heaven.”

“Don’t encourage them,” Jens protests, leaving Sander sticking his tongue out at him. His gaze turns concerned as he looks at Lucas. “Won’t that make it worse for you when you get back?”

Lucas isn’t sure it can get much worse, but he can say with certainty that this is the happiest he’s been this weekend. It’s bad. This familiar warmth flooding through his chest under Jens’s gaze. It would probably be best for him, to be locked up at home.

But he can’t bring himself to regret this, either.

He gives another shrug, allows himself to smile, allows himself to enjoy how easily Jens returns it when he says, “It’ll be worth it.”

#van der stoffels #vds #wtfock #skam nl #sink or swim #vds season fic #sos clip

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ostrichlady · 3 years

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THOUGHTS AND RAMBLES ABOUT SNK CHAPTER 139 (SPOILERS!!)

Rating of this chapter: Lukewarm tea.

And everyone knows lukewarm tea tastes bad.

I do think the best way to deal with this chapter is to not overanalyze it. Read it once, call it quits and move on. I did that and felt great the next day. But because I spent too many years of my life in this story, of course the thoughts came back and there are a few things I need to say before leaving this story behind.

I never wanted a happy or tragic ending. I never wanted for everything to be solved neither for everything to end on a depressing note. The only thing I ever asked for was that the finale was fair and made sense.

But unfortunately, what happened was the exact opposite.

Everything that happened after the 3 years time skip was a big whatever and the only thing that comforts me is that Armin is alive, and Historia seems happy with her child.

I still don’t understand why Reiner and Annie were so easily accepted. I mean, at least Reiner showed huge amounts of regret and we saw how he dealt with the trauma that everything caused to him (although now he's back to being a creep for Historia? Ew). But Annie? She herself admitted she would do the same shit all over again no problem, and why was she tearing after talking to Eren in the PATHS? Didn’t she say a few chapters ago that if they had to kill him, she wouldn’t hesitate and was almost judging Mikasa and Armin for not thinking the same way? Excuse me Annie, but what made you so emotional all of the sudden?

Then we learn that the world is still a very dangerous place for Eldians and Paradis; the yeagerists are in charge of the military force and will swoop the alliance’s ass very easily if they find them chilling outside. And my question is: killing 80%of the population lead to this? Really? At any moment, Eldians can be exterminated, this is even worst than before!? They don’t have proper military training, the world still doesn’t like them and the alliance ambassadors or whatever are not very liked either sooo...I truly don’t understand the point of this. Now, don’t get me wrong: I never liked the Rumbling plan because as Hange said, "There's never a good enough reason for committing genocide", and I also always believed the Rumbling would make everyone else hate Eldians even more. But if 80% of people had to have their lives taken, at least don’t let it go to waste!?

Anyways, going back to when they’re still at war.

So Eren went around everyone’s mind and now everyone cries for him. A little late, but sure.

Everyone who was transformed into a titan is back, making the previous chapter be even more useless. Imagine reading the volume, get some shock value with Jean, Connie and everyone else becoming titans just to turn the page and they are back. I mean, I thought it was really unfair Jean died (and I hope he’s not arranging his hair for when they meet Mikasa) but having him and everyone else coming back like this is just....dumb?

The fact we had Eren’s intentions explained this way makes the whole situation even messier. From his conversation with Armin to the road trip he did through people’s memories, it was just a big dump of information that did nothing but pull out a wtf from me. I think it would be a lot better if we saw a POV like the one from chapter 131, more honest and raw being that we would be seeing his true thoughts with no outside opinions and questioning. But this whole mess felt so, so displaced that for two seconds I wondered if they were all going crazy, Eren included.

And I will never accept that Eren “killed” his mom for the sake of whatever the heck this became. Just no. Carla was Eren’s most important person, the one who said he was special simply for being born, and you want to convince me she had to be pulled into this mess because of some weird shit Ymir had going on with Mikasa, and Eren had to follow through?? This was cheap shock value that didn’t even shock because of how nonsense it is. The scene in which Eren asks Reiner why did his mom have to die lost all of its value and weight. How can one rewatch or reread snk, see the tragic and emotional scene where a 10 year old kid cries and screams as he see his mom be EATEN BY A TITAN and feel anything at all? Honestly, what a disrespect to Carla. Someone should have told her Yeagers can’t be trusted.

Speaking of Yeagers: Grisha, your kids are a mess. Come take responsibility for this-

Besides the fact that Zeke was killed for absolutely NOTHING, Eren’s character became a joke on a dozen of panels. More than angry, I’m shocked with how Isayama pulled this off. From having one of the best MC in modern shounen to having a pathetic little idiot that doesn’t know wtf he’s doing and has an intense unresolved crush on the girl he’s always had zero chemistry with. Legit I would be less surprised if he said he had a crush on fucking Connie, for god’sake. All of his motives, ideals and determination were sacrificed in sake of complete obnoxious notions of love I’m not even gonna ramble about here. And don't come at me with the whole "Oh bUt hE's JuSt A tEeNaGeR aNd DoEsN't UnDeRsTaNd HiS eMoTiOnS aNd WaS hIdInG hIs LoVe FoR mIkAsA". That's a cheap explanation for a cheap argument for a cheap mess that makes no sense. If you’re an Eren stan, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened but I feel your pain.

Last but certainly not least: Mikasa and Ymir.

I could say so much about these two but to sum it up: what a miserable duo. I’m not head over heels for Mikasa but I thought she had her place in the story and could have had some good character development. But ever since the timeskip, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to happen and it really didn’t. If Isayama chose this way for her because there’s a message between the lines, I don’t care because this was the last chapter and we all wanted answers. So we’re working with what we have laid down plain which is: Mikasa had a miserable ending, can’t let go of Eren and is stuck in the past. Her so called “selfless” love and obsession towards Eren is a very unhealthy response to her own traumas. This connection between her and Ymir just proves even further what I said as both of them are devoted to a love that never gave back and deeply hurt them in more ways than it’s apparent.

And still on Ymir’s topic, I don’t understand why she now has stockholm syndrome towards that nasty, disgusting, waste of human being king when the plot was setting her up in a complete different direction!? That whole talk of Eren finally freeing her from being a slave to the royal family, and giving her the chance of choosing her own path, where did all of that go!? What was that chapter for!? All of this buildup just because she was waiting for Mikasa?

Where has the entire talk about “everyone deserves freedom because they were born into this world” go? Why has a theme bigger than any of the characters gotten reduced to “waiting for Mikasa to decide herself about her feelings ‘cause omg tragic loooovee story”??? This just makes the deaths of everyone, and the scouts look completely useless. That Ramzi kid really died for this...

I swear, what a mess.

Overall, if you read this chapter in one go and then sigh relief as snk is finally over, this ending will probably be okay or just meh. I’m not angry or anything near that. Just disappointed and shocked that these two last chapters were this bad. Again, even if there are hidden messages between the lines, this is the last chapter and we shouldn’t have to be debating that. It’s okay to pull out a bunch of foreshadowing and questioning and whatnot in your story but to leave things in the open with the most weird messages and morals on the surface is just...blergh.

#snk 139 #aot 139 #snk last chapter #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #snk spoilers #aot spoilers

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yunsoh · 4 years

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how would u rank the zodiacs, from fave to least fave?

1. yuki; i don’t shut up abt him so maybe it goes without saying. i love him lmao. his character is so wonderfully complex and funny and heartbreaking. his character arc is the best in the series, full stop the most satisfying to read out of the main cast. his genuine struggles to find himself and understand his place in the world, trying to put himself first when he was never allowed to before, always choosing to be overwhelmingly kind despite literally everything........ jesus wept. love him.

2. haru; LOVE him. i think i love every single chapter that he’s in. his introduction in the series always makes me cry laughing, and overall he just gives this fun, blunt whimsy to so many scenes he’s in. but then he’s also super fucking intense and it’s SO satisfying the few times we get to see him just go off the walls.

3. kyo; in a weird way i think i always forget how much i actually like him lmao? i didn’t like him very much when i read the manga the first time as a kid, but i appreciate him more now that i’m older i think. the oscillating between being super frustrated and easy to set off, versus being so so so genuinely kind and gentle is like...... yeah........ it’s good.

4. rin; another character i didn’t appreciate more until i reread the series in college. i mean her story is kind of just heartbreaking all-around, with the sheer amount of self-sacrifice involved in it, but also her personality is just. spicy LMAO. idk i really like her in contrast with characters who carry very similar hurts (yuki......) but have very different methods of coping and externalizing. a good hurt.

5. shigure; so he’s a character that i actually used to like a lot back when i first read the series as a kid -- i think he might have been my second favorite? but my focus just isn’t on him so much now that i’m older lmao. i think he gives a lot in terms of the series’ intrigue, and i think he’s interesting in that he kind of walks the line of being realistic and relatively grounded, and being very wrapped up in some..... intense interpersonal drama that he literally fucking cultivates lmao......... but i guess i’m not really going back and rereading/rewatching his scenes very much.

6. momiji; kind of a character i feel like i should like more on principle, but one that i don’t focus on very much! which i think is more because his best scenes are very, very early in the series (aside from the chapter where his curse breaks, but i think that has more to do with akito literally seeking him out and absolutely panicking......god....... anyways). i like him. a sweet boy. pure heart. good intentions.

7. akito; i’m not sure if this is actually the right place to put her in this list but tbh, smack in the middle seems perfectly apt. akito is a character that i both love to think about and barely think about at all. she’s hard to ignore, and i kind of love to hate her, and yet when it comes to her chapters i tend to kinda... skim them.... her parallels with tohru i think are probably my absolute favorite thing to consider with her character. that shit i could think about all day. but the rest of it (which? i guess is just her relationship with shigure) i’m not as interested in i guess. her issues with femininity, specifically with mother figures, is super intriguing and it really seeps into the whole of the story, even when she’s not involved (even if it’s kind of dulled by her sudden change to being overtly feminine at the end of the story but whatever. we can ignore it).

8. ayame; he’s just fucking funny. i really heavily appreciate his role in yuki’s story (like, there are a couple scenes they have together that actually make me weepy lmao) but i appreciate that he’s a character who really isn’t bogged down by the family situation almost whatsoever outside of his relationship with yuki. like, thank god lmao. just delightful.

9. hatori; i think the tragedy of his character is interesting insofar as like, showing another way that the curse can absolutely wreck the people in this family, but his character outside of his trauma i think wasn’t fleshed out enough for me to enjoy more fully. when i think of him i think more about how he’s kind of surrendered to the curse in a way, and his disgust of letting cyclical abuse continue while also feeling as though he can’t do anything to stop it -- which i think is a good perspective to include, especially from one of the few older characters, but his individual character i feel wasn’t developed much outside of it.

10. hiro; used to hate him, now kind of like him and think he’s just. trying his best lmfao. i mean he’s literally 11. his involvement in the story after rin’s backstory chapters i think are really nice, which i think is mostly just that he’s growing up a little. the scene where he’s holding his sister after his curse breaks makes me cry, so i guess he gets some points there.

11. kagura; i don’t hate her, but i’m also not really thinking about her. she’s cute, she’s intense. i feel like i don’t have much else to say on her lmao! i think her views on love and romance are stereotypical to the genre, but woven into the story in an interesting and critical way wrt kyo, which i appreciate.

12. kisa; again, cute character, but i don’t really think about her much either. i think her introduction was an interesting way to kind of poke at yuki’s issues long before we actually get to understand what happened with him, but otherwise i kind of see her story as starting and ending with her introductory chapters? very much a set of chapters with a straightforward moral. kind of a one and done deal.

13. ritsu; same as kisa tbh. interesting character, but not given a lot of time to actually flesh out and explore. introductory chapters are set up as a oneshot moral before they’re shunted to the back burner for basically the rest of the series. just not a lot to say on them!

14. kureno; a disappointment. an interesting story and perspective completely annihilated by creepy characterization and a romance that somehow manages to take up the majority of his character arc AND is completely careless in how it’s added into the story. it’s gross, it makes no sense for uo’s character, it sucks big time in comparison to the other relationships that are built throughout the story. like. i really do feel like his relationship with uo was only added because tohru needed a reason to meet him, after which point his involvement with her should have just. stopped? not just because it’s gross but because narratively it makes no fucking sense. uo’s story was done so dirty because of this and honestly i’m still bitter about it ten years after the fact.

#this was fun to do!!#but honestly after listing yuki at number 1 i was like. shit. who else do i like this much GHSHD #fruits basket #answered #fruits basket spoilers #Anonymous

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uzuuzuking · 4 years

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so this started out as just a general post about why i like cinderella adaptations, but slowly spiraled into a ranking/review of all the cinderella adaptations i’ve seen in my short, young life. so strap in for possibly the longest post i’ve ever made on this blog. (look, i never know how much i have to say about something until i really get going lmao)

idk why i like cinderella adaptations/remakes/spinoffs so much? most of them are garbage (especially the ones within the last 10 years don’t @ me) but fuck it i like this brand of garbage. it’s fun to watch these movies and rework the bad plotlines and dialogue in my head as i go along.

i guess i like the source material and some of the aspects of all the different adaptations, but honestly i just like re-imagining them because there’s only so much cringey script-written-for-teens-but-clearly-written-by-40-year-old-adults-who-have-no-idea-how-teens-or-even-people-for-that-matter-actually-talk-and-interact i can take in one excruciating sitting.

anyway here’s my personal ranking of all the cinderella adaptations i’ve seen that no one asked for. (not including stage productions because i haven’t seen any and have no opinion of them. also not including into the woods because that’s not just cinderella, but a spectacular amalgamation of fairytale mishap and shenanigan.) and reviews because apparently i had more to say than i originally thought when i first started constructing this list:

cinderella (1997) - the absolute best cinderella adaptation of all time, hands down, this is non-negotiable. this movie has it all: an excellent and diverse cast, gorgeous costume design, beautiful sets, some of the most dazzling dance numbers i ever witnessed when i first watched it at the wee age of 4, and a positive, progressive message that was accurate for its time yet also so ahead of its time. i cannot praise this version of cinderella enough, it is my all time favorite and one of my top 3 feel-good movies. if you watched it today, the effects might not be as magical compared to what we have now, but keep in mind it was released in 1997. anyway, the cast is truly amazing and so effortlessly inclusive (and honestly the fact that the prince was asian with a black mother and white father and they literally never addressed it was such a power move). i could go on about this movie forever (i’ll probably make a whole post dedicated to it in the future) and what it meant to me and many others as young, impressionable poc. in conclusion, this movie set an exceedingly high standard for me and destroyed the chances of any other cinderella adaptation even hoping to live up to that. i love it! so! much!

ever after: a cinderella story (1998) - tbh i never saw this until i was in college but i immediately fell in love. i love the flow of the story as a whole - i never felt like anything was missing. i love the costumes and i especially love how danielle and henry’s relationship progressed throughout the film. slow-burn comes to mind when i watch their interactions and we all love a sweet, sweet slow-burn. it’s romance babes! it’s Dramatic in a few scenes and all i can say is that it really works because drew barrymore’s performance is exceptional, fantastic, engaging, more adjectives to describe how enthralled by her i was. above all, her character is compassionate - she uses her voice to speak in support for those who are suppressed by the flawed government systems and law enforcers, and influences the prince to use his status and power to better his people who lack the privileges of the nobility. she’s such a strong female lead (emotionally and physically - she literally fireman carries her love interest, who is taller than her and definitely exceeds her own bodyweight) and truly the mvp of this adaptation. watch it. watch it for Her.

enchanted (2007) - amy adams and idina menzel - ‘nuff said. okay but for real this one is so unique with its transition from classic d*sney 2D animation style to the real three-dimensional world and i adore it to the ends of the earth. the music? slaps! the story? slaps! the development of the main character? slaps!! she’s so princess-y and d*sney cartoon-y and struggles in the real world, but she adapts at a good pace and i love that she learns to be realistic while also keeping hope and love close to her heart. also her mother figure / daughter figure bond with morgan is so so precious. the only constructive criticism i have for this movie is the fact that we were robbed of idina menzel singing!!! did they know all along she was destined to play the frozen queen years in the future and decided against her singing in this one?? is that it? ridiculous. it’s been over a decade and i’m still seething over this. other than that this movie is *chef’s kiss*

ella enchanted (2004) - anne hathaway’s back must still be hurting from carrying this film. (no shade to the other cast members, they’re good, but anne is a queen and i forever love her.) this is another childhood favorite of mine. the story itself is a refreshing take - hats off to gail carson levine for the source material! i’ve talked about the differences between the movie and book before in the midst of my reread of the book a few months ago, but i don’t remember how much i focused on the movie. it’s so different from the book that it might as well be its own thing. on its own, the movie is pretty decent! again, mostly because of anne. it’s funny, it’s sad (especially that scene towards the beginning between ella and areida, i’m in stupid tears every time), and it gets weird but it’s a fun time. the chemistry between char and ella is so zesty i can feel it through the screen, i swoon over both of them. tbh i probably wouldn’t like this movie so much if not for the fact that anne hathaway is truly talented and i spend most of my time watching it just looking at her.

cinderella 3: a twist in time (2007) - i genuinely enjoyed and appreciated how the characters were written in this one. they all had clear motives and became much more dynamic through their lines and actions (drizella is arguably the most static character here but she still amuses me so it’s fine i guess). cinderella has more agency since the stakes are higher. prince charming actually has a gotdamn personality and has some of the funniest scenes and dialogue. good for him. i was kind of sad that anastasia’s story with the sweet baker boy was thanos snapped by the stepmother, but she and baker boy get a cute credits illustration together so it’s still canon! maybe i’m more biased on this one because i grew up rewatching it A Lot, but i definitely prefer it to the first and second movies.

cinderella (2000) - this one is kind of weird but i like it? the film has a really interesting vibe that i’m still trying to figure out how to describe even after seeing it like 5 times. wikipedia refers to the aesthetic style as “the glamour of the 1950s” which just might be as close as we can get. it follows the general guidelines of the cinderella plot, but the main differences were: zezolla (cinderella) was already helping with the chores before her father remarried, claudette (stepmother) was actively trying to murder zezolla’s father during their marriage, the stepsisters were much more violent and crass (they hunted zezolla’s beloved farm animals for sport and talked about getting “a man in [their] bed”), zezolla’s father was manipulated by everything claudette did and said and treated his own daughter poorly as a result, and prince valiant is honestly kind of a douchebag but seems willing to improve himself after meeting zezolla (basically his vibes are iffy but he’s willing to learn). this whole movie is pretty niche and i have yet to interact with someone who’s also seen it. and the only reason i’ve seen it so many times is because i just like listening to how the dialogue is delivered. (except for prince valiant’s random song at the ball, i kind of hated that and i skip through it every time lol).

a cinderella story (2004) - the classic hilary duff version. very cliche early 2000s high school romance, but it works for the cinderella narrative. not particularly diverse. a classic nonetheless. in my mind this is the pinnacle of the “modern cinderella movie” type. this is one of the most iconic movies for us zillennials and i’d like to think it’s known well enough for me to not go into a lot of detail about it. basically it was fresh and new for its time, had plenty of memorable scenes, and did i mention hilary duff? the film kind of plays into the “not like other girls” trope - as do a couple of the movies i listed above - but i’m just going to acknowledge that the early 2000s were Wack and simply move on. all in all, i like this movie for the nostalgia, iconic scenes, and hilary duff. also jennifer coolidge is pretty funny as the stepmother.

another cinderella story (2008) - again, an early 2000s classic, but this time with selena gomez. i liked the dancing in this one. i like selena’s quiet, somewhat timid characterization of her character, mary. and jane lynch in the stepmother role is perfection. she’s so fun to watch and is always hilarious. the story is nothing remarkable, but it’s okay and i liked it as a kid. after the hilary duff version, this one still managed to feel fresh because, though it was similar in its modern era approach, it focused more on the performing arts and dance. “cinderella” is an aspiring dancer, rather than the 2004 aspiring scholar. the “prince” is a famous popstar, not a football player. the stepmother is an outdated popstar desperate to stay Hip and Relevant with the kids, not a cranky botox lady. honestly i just love watching this one for the dancing, mary’s genuine and innocent love for the “prince”, and literally everything that comes out of jane lynch’s mouth. that woman is a dialogue gold mine.

a cinderella story: once upon a song (2011) - lucy hale is good. missi pyle is good. they play their roles and lines that they’re given fairly well. over all, it’s entertaining. lucy, of course, has them Pipes and i do like the songs in this movie. the only major downside for me was the “token best friend of color” trope. lucy’s best friend is an asian girl who’s good at sports and is there for one liners and support. the prince charming character’s best friend is a black guy who he only knew for probably a month at the most. he can beatbox, sing, and dj. basically he’s also just there as support. they really don’t do much for the plot but they’re there for diversity and whatnot. this movie is.. fine.

cinderella (1950) - the only reason this ranks so low for me is because i watched it a lot as a child when it was on vhs and it always felt like a fever dream to me. i was just really young and didn’t feel invested in any of the characters. it is a classic, though, and i would watch it again and be able to enjoy it.

cinderella 2: dreams come true (2002) - i liked cinderella’s and anastasia’s stories from this one. jaq’s was meh. it was fine.

dj cinderella or cinderella pop (2019) - netflix knows i like cinderella adaptations so, naturally, they shoved this into my recommended and, naturally, i watched it. twice. which is more than i can say for the following review... so this movie is brazillian and is pretty much the cut & mold of modern cinderella movies. but she wants to be a dj. she stars out living a perfect life as a wealthy girl with a loving family, but turns out her dad is cheating on her mom with his secretary. that’s when she “stops believing in love”. which is actually valid bc if i saw one of my parental figures cheating on the other, i honestly wouldn’t know what to believe in anymore. anyway, cíntia dorella (yes. that’s her full name.) and her mom move into her aunt’s place. a year or so passes. stepmother/secretary/cheating lady is throwing an extravagant birthday party for her daughters and hires freddy prince, a popular musician who cíntia doesn’t really like. meanwhile, cíntia gets a dj gig she’s excited for until she finds out she’s the opener for freddy prince at her stepsisters’ party. she ends up disguising herself as “dj cinderella” and freddy is super into her. it’s pretty generic from there but i was entertained enough to watch it twice. take from that what you will.

cinderella (2015) - ok so we been knew that d*sney’s live action remakes ain’t shit, and this one is no exception. d*sney within the last few years has been like 99% aesthetics and marketing. this movie was visually stunning, especially with the settings and costumes. those were the only 2 things i truly liked. everything else was forgettable. in its defense, i did read a post about the “have courage and be kind” message which is something wonderful to hold onto, especially for anyone in an abusive situation like ella. that’s valid and i respect that. i still lowkey hate this movie tho. i started getting a headache about 4 reviews ago, but remembering how much praise this movie got has reignited my fighting spirit. honestly if you like it, that’s good, you like what you like and that’s that. but this is my review and i hated how proper ella’s posture was (she’s been doing physical labor hunched on the floor for years now, how does she not slump around in exhaustion at the end of the day??), i hated how perfectly curated the whole thing was (again, that’s mostly because of d*sney and their aesthetics), and i hated how hollow everything felt. i can’t perfectly describe it, but i never felt emotionally invested in any of the characters. something about their performance was lacking and yet again i blame d*sney. i actually really like lily james, but something about the way she was directed left me devoid of emotional attachment to ella. i remember nothing about ella’s step family or the prince. that’s how much of an impact this adaptation had on me. also i just remembered the fairy godmother as i type this. i ADORE helena bonham carter, but this movie does a horrible disservice to her. if she liked working on this movie, then i’m happy for her, but even she wasn’t strong enough to sell this to me. i saw this movie in theaters and came out of it lamenting my waste of money that i could have spent on something i would have actually enjoyed. but the thing that enraged me the most, the thing i despised, i detested, the thing i seethed over and rant about to this day was the ONE (1) token black character. i don’t even know if he had a name but he was captain of the guard or some shit. if i remember correctly (but probably not tbh this movie was so forgettable), he was the one who heard ella singing and was the whole reason the prince was able to have her try on the glass slipper. this man, who had zero character development, zero relevance to the plot, an insignificant amount of screen time, is suddenly the reason the main character is able to finally connect with her love interest. um. What. i hate how the writers treated him and i will forever be filled with every last grain of salt over this. anyway he’s my favorite character and everyone else is just eh. to conclude this ungodly long review, i don’t like this movie. i tried to watch it again once but got so bored i quit 10 minutes in. do yourself a favor and watch cinderella (1997) instead. (the only reason this movie is ranked above the remaining 5 is the production quality. but i guess that’s unfair bc d*sney has the big bucks. and maybe i wouldn’t be so harsh if i weren’t sleep deprived and grumpy from a sugar-induced headache, but these feelings still come from my Chest so idk.)

a cinderella story: a christmas wish (2019) - i think we all secretly enjoy christmas-themed movies and this has got to be someone’s guilty pleasure. i was mildly entertained (but again with the cringey dialogue written by people clearly not in high school...) and i do like laura marano. but they autotuned her to hell and back - which i loathed - because the woman can actually sing and she has a lovely voice. she got to sing candidly one (1) time and i relished the experience. my ears thank her beautiful, un-autotuned voice. other than that it was.. fine. i didn’t hate it but i didn’t like it either. laura marano deserves better than this. (can’t say the same for the other actors tho because their roles were unmemorable.) also laura marano was super cute in her elf costume!

not cinderella’s type (2018) - i legit forgot about this one until after i compiled the entire list lol. i saw it on youtube and it was decent as far as i remember. it’s another modern day cinderella. i think the “prince” runs over “cinderella’s” cat or something?? i’m pretty sure it was her mom’s cat so now she has nothing left to remember her mom by. prince boy feels awful and tries to befriend her or do something to make it up to her, but she just doesn’t really like him. i think her aunt and uncle are emotionally abusive to her and prince boy does his best to be there for her without making things worse. if i remember correctly, i liked that aspect of the movie because it’s hard to be there for a victim of any kind of abuse if trying to help them could potentially hurt them more, especially minors still under the care of abusive guardians. anyway i think cinderella girl’s best friend is in love with her or something but she ends up not being into him and slowly gets together with prince boy. she eventually moves out of her guardians’ house and into the spare house at prince boy’s home (he’s rich or something). i need to rewatch this movie tbh i could be wrong about everything here lol.

rags (2012) - not amazing, definitely not memorable because i have nothing to say about its plot or writing, but it has keke palmer which is its one redeeming quality. also it’s the only one on this list where the male protagonist is the cinderella. so that’s solid i guess.

a cinderella story: if the shoe fits (2016) - this was a movie. it happened. i vaguely remember how ridiculous it was and sometimes i felt secondhand embarrassment. i don’t remember what about specifically, but i remember the emotion. sofia carson is a talented singer. i think she’s a decent actor but this script was Bad.

elle: a modern cinderella tale (2010) - i only watched this one because i was bored out of my damn mind and saw it on youtube. i felt bad for all the actors because this script was terrible. i don’t recommend this unless you’re about to sit down with your squad and make fun of it.

apparently descendants is on the “cinderella adaptations and references” list on imdb but i refuse to put it on my list because it’s not a cinderella-specific adaptation and i don’t like the descendants franchise. now, if we’re going to discuss a quality series about the children of fairytale characters, that would hands down be ever after high. but that’s a different topic for a different day.

thus concludes the ranking no one asked for but i felt compelled to make. thank you and goodnight

#summer.txt #cinderella #longpost #if anyone reads through this whole thing congrats!#i'll get u a gold star from the esteemed dollar store and bequeath it to you via uploaded photo #i didn't think i'd be typing for 4 hours straight but apparently i have a lot to say #i started falling apart at the end there lol #and around the middle bc i forgot to add cinderella 1 and 2 #god my head fucking hurts #i had a craving for sugar today but i went overboard and now i'm paying the price

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anneboleyns · 5 years

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I saw the downton abbey movie so now here’s kind of a rambling personal essay, under a cut for spoilers for the downton abbey movie. downton abbey movie spoilers ahead.

once again SPOILERS AHEAD also tw for death, grief, suicide attempts/etc mention.

so, i know probably no one cares but considering how active i was in this fandom and how incredibly important this show and the character of thomas was to me personally, i’m just gonna sit here and write my thoughts about thomas barrow, the show, the movie, what it meant to me, and my critique overall

so basically i always loved the show and thomas but it really took off 2 yrs ago during 2017.

i had just moved out of my mother’s house and i had just finished a rewatch of the show, i remember this so clearly lol it was september 2017 the rewatch had started like june 2017. and i remember when i got to my new apartment one of the “comfort shows” i would put on on my very own tv in my very own apartment was “downton abbey”. i believe the other that was regularly tossed on in the background was “the tudors”, obviously lol

anyways, i was so hyper obsessed. i had also JUST discovered that thomas and jimmy were legitimately shipped in this fandom. i had no idea that was a real thing when i watched it live. and i had never cared about jimmy or thought of them as an actual viable relationship. but with this rewatch they just hit different i guess. i spent hours and hours and hours at my mother’s house before the move (which was an EXTREMELY tense living situation, the month or so right before i left. i’m not getting into all of it now. if you followed me back then you know) watching this show like properly sitting and watching an episode with my sister, and then capping for gifs, which if you make gifs you know is basically spending possibly 3 or 4 hours with the same episode. like it can take that long for me personally to go through it and cap everything i want, then, sorting the caps into folders, especially if i’d capped more than one episode. completely mesmerized with the smallest details, hand and facial movements i specifically wanted to gif or be in a set, clothing movements, emotional moments, like i was just so into all aspects of the show and wanted to gif everything. my fav 4 are thomas, sybil, mary, and tom. i also adore edith and it may be a “fav 5″ now as i think i just love all of those characters equally. so i pretty much giffed every single fucking scene they were in lol. unless they were “ugly scenes” that i knew i could never make work in photoshop. sometimes i would cap it anyway and sort it anyway and open it up anyway and try but would end up deleting all the caps for that set. so all the gifs i have posted, is not even all the ones i capped. anyway

okay and then, there’s the fanfic. reading it, rereading, and writing it. it took me 2 years but i actually read close to every single thomas/jimmy fanfic on a03. at some point i only started opening complete fanfics because i got burned too many times on abandoned slow burns, and if a fic wasn’t my thing i would obviously not finish it. but definitely hundreds of works i read, saved to my phone and reread in google books. works i would think about all day.

so, june 2017 i start the rewatch. i also start planning to move out of my mother’s. a toxic tense living situation. in the past i have used harsher words like “abusive”. i can’t really use that word and apply it to my mother right now even though it is accurate. it hurts to think about. i can’t think about it. september 2017 i actually move.

the hyperfixation is in full swing. hours every night reading. reading 50k word fanfics in a single night. hours every day (or, week, i have a fulltime job) capping and coloring frames in photoshop. eventually i started writing fanfic for them as well.

so, in november 2017 my mother is hospitalized. this was not an unusal occurence. in february 2018 they tell us she’s going to die. 12 days later she died.

i’m not gonna really get into what happened to my mental state. it’s uh. bad. guilt. self hatred. like hatred isn’t even a strong enough word. i wanted to annihilate myself. i believed i deserved to be annihilated. that’s the only word violent enough i can think of to describe the depth of it. suicidal. etc. whatever.

but! i had this piece of fiction, this series, and assorted fan works. it really intensified after this. i can look back at this time last year and i remember how obsessed i was lol.

when i try to articulate what this character and show means to me, i always feel really embarrassed. at some point when i’m talking about thomas it becomes obvious i am talking about myself as well. but i’m gonna really try and objectively talk about my opinion on thomas and why i adore him and why i want what i want for him. it’s probably gonna be obvious i am also talking about myself but. anyway.

here’s the “meta” “opinion on the fictional characters” section.

thomas barrow starts the show as an antagonist. he’s rude, could even be called cruel. a bully, snide, dishonest when it suits him and honest when it hurts him. like, he’s an asshole. what he said about william’s mom. how he treated baxter. his ambition and the underhanded things he does to serve it. overall proud demeanor designed to make those around him feel lesser. feel less able to hurt him. he wants the people around him to feel like they should not hurt him. i think he might be unaware that that is his motivation. because even as he’s afraid of everyone, he craves everyone as well. he’s alone, outside, and he’s been shoved there, constantly, he’s been shoved there politely and he’s been shoved there violently and if they’re gonna shove him here outside, away from them, unfixably different from them, unworthy of them, then he will stay there. like, the meanness and the comments and the attitude. he’s already Not Like The Others. if they already don’t like him, he will make it even harder for them to like him. unless, he can get somewhere safer, which is where his motivation comes in.

i just really view thomas as a character that craves safety.

he wants others to not hurt him. he wants to get from where he is to somewhere safer, somewhere up there, where it’s even less likely for people to be able to hurt him.

so, his motivations: safety, and then, there’s love.

he constantly has this world and these people implicitly and explicitly telling him he cannot love or be loved. it’s not right, it’s not natural, best case scenario is it doesn’t even exist- he’s confused, he’s sick, he’s broken, maybe they can fix it. he’s on the outside, remember, and he just gets to watch thru the window as the others dance and fall in love and have friends and family and be cherished. he can have none of it. this is a really old story that could be told by better people and in a better way.

the loves we get to see him have all have teeth. he’s betrayed by one lover and then abandoned, someone he obviously had feelings for but also betrayed first. then we get a probably one-sided attraction, but still a friend, still someone he can actually be vulnerable with since they’re helplessly vulnerable with him as well due to the circumstances. who kills himself. and then there’s the shameless, stupid hope that almost costs him everything, but he does get a friend in the balance.

he finds a friend in baxter, another character i just adore, because she gives to thomas what he needs even though he objectively does not deserve it, at least not from her, who he has terrorized. baxter’s trauma from her abusive relationship with coyle that thomas knows and uses, the impossible situation thomas places her in, the manipulation, the bullying, some would even term his behavior abusive. baxter would have had every right to ignore thomas, to get him fired, to hurt him back. but she loves him instead. she loves him in spite of. she loves him because. she helps him, she speaks to him softly and kindly. she tells him he’s brave. she remembers him as a child. this especially touches me. the idea of thomas as a child, someone who must have been different from who he is now, and she knows them both and loves him. she looks at the grown, hurt, cruel man in front of her and she speaks to the boy she once knew, and thomas listens. slowly. but he listens. AND she tries to give him advice for finding a lover, supporting and encouraging something the rest of the entire fucking series despises or ignores.

i don’t have enough energy to really go off but, baxter is supreme. i need a baxter.

thomas clearly cannot form self esteem in the environment he lives in. the ground is dead. he can’t grow it himself. he has this ironclad sense that he deserves what the others have, the ones on the inside. it’s immovable. he deserves it, they have no right to keep it from him. maybe he’ll never, ever get it, but in his mind, in his heart, he will never stop believing he deserves it. they tell him he’s nothing, he’s dirt, he’s wrong, and he just nods and keeps walking. they can think that. they can say that. he can’t stop them. but he will not stop working for the future he wants. he will not stop until they have no choice but to let him inside.

but he wants, i think, for them to invite him inside. but he’ll never admit it, and he’ll never ask for it, and he’ll never get it anyway.

so, he tries to change himself. maybe they’ll invite him in then? no.

then, his attempts to form friendships get twisted, and aborted, and he gets tired stereotypical accusations thrown on him.

then, he tries to kill himself in a bathtub with a razor.

then, he leaves his home and spends his days bored and unchallenged and away from all of the friends and half-friends he had.

then, he’s invited back. he’s invited inside!!!! you might say. and yeah i guess. as close as they’ll ever let him. but part of him always ignored and not commented on. part of him always raised eyebrows at i’m sure. and yes, his bad behavior is also to blame for this. but see, the 2 are linked. and you can’t unlink them.

by the end of the show the others still largely tiptoe around him. but due to his now somewhat subdued behavior he’s “likable” now.

i think it’s quite a choice to have this character who is completely sharp edges have them worn away by heartbreak, torture, injury, suicide attempt, ostracisation, abandonment, and present that as a victory, as a happy ending. but guess what? it is. and i’ll take it. he was back among his friends, back home, accepted, celebrating with everyone else, and i adored it, even as the jarring notes i heard in it won’t ever fade from my opinion of it.

anyway, in the aftermath of my grief i fell heavily into this story and the many stories of thomas finding love and safety. and healing, and friends, and peace. lots different from each other and lots the same. again, i relate very strongly to this character. i was not in a mindset where i was able to be kind to myself. or think sympathetically about myself. i think i fixated so much on this character, became obsessed with finding stories where he gets told and he experiences all the things i think i wanted to be told and i wanted to experience. i couldn’t accept it, even the concept, directly. but i devoured and absorbed a billion pixels of a character very similar to me accepting it. it’s the closest the concept could have gotten to me and i’m embarrassed i only recently realized this link and that that was what i was doing considering it is obvious, and common, and normal. maybe not “healthy” but like. let’s not get into healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms rn bec i promise you the fanfic and the fiction fixation is not even at the top of the list lol

FAST FORWARD it’s september 2019. the movie is in theaters.

my mom is still dead. but. a lot has happened to me. i have happened to some people. i’ve been thru some more things now. dipped my toes and eventually completely submerged and perhaps am drowning in the entire Romance/Love/Sex section of human experience. again, let’s not get into it. but it’s a LOT.

i don’t quite have the same relationship with fiction and fanfiction as i used to. it’s been only 2 years since leaving my mother’s house, but i feel as though galaxies could fit in between the girl back there and the one here. but they’re the same! i’m working on understanding that.

i love this character and this show so much. i loved the film. there are problems- the writing and plotting is not nearly as neat and crisp and sharp. it’s more smooth, almost to a loss of definition, and instead of quick-wit it feels just... fast. there’s no time to really dive in in a film, so i’ll forgive all that, but it’s a flaw that should be mentioned. but it’s not a flaw that prevents joy in the film. i was overjoyed watching it. the things i wanted for thomas all happened. all the characters and relationships were... smoothed, i can’t describe it any other way. i feel like the bumps and corners and quirks and hidden pockets of them were just smoothed away. we know they’re there because we watched the show, but the film doesn’t- can’t- show them all.

it was frustrating for me to see thomas smoothed in this way, but also satisfying, because while he absolutely one of a kind, unique, damaged, and layered, and contradictory, really a marvelous character and well-built... he is just like everyone else. and i think he would love and hate that and i love and hate that about myself.

for this reason, i really enjoyed a scene where he refuses to help carson. carson is flustered and overworked, in a crisis, and asks barrow for help, and thomas refuses, with a smile. i adored it. carson is one of thomas’ worst ... opponents, i could say. carson hurls homophobic abuse at and about thomas several times during the series, casts aspersions on him in the film as well, and he can choke. i love that even though towards the end of the show and yes during the rest of the film thomas’ sharp edges got smoothed away, but they put this one in and it catches you right on the bone how it should- an older woman in my theater actually gasped, offended, when thomas refused to help and carson was left to flounder. i, on the other hand, thought, “that’s my boy,” and leaned back in my seat satisfied. it might be my fav moment in the film. surprising considering the AMAZING joy and tenderness thomas gets to experience in the movie (but, i think that’s just my taste right now due to a personal heartbreak i won’t get into). like, they shoved him outside, carson shoved him outside, outside the realm of normal, and this is a moment of carson needing his help and thomas going, “no, remember how you used to treat me? remember how you secretly think of me? i do. i won’t forget. good luck! bye!” and then goes on to have a terrible wonderful adventure, while someone funny and kind finally falls in love with him, he gets to stand up for himself to the crawleys in the beginning of the film as well and i just felt elated watching that scene.

i could probably write essays about the love and romance portion of his storyline in the movie. but i’m just not in the headspace to do that right now super in depth but.

i’m also annoyed he had to experience yet ANOTHER homophobic plotline. he goes out to a gay club for literally The First Time and gets arrested and called a dirty pervert. i remember this being my exact fear for the movie. like “imagine if thomas goes to a gay club and gets arrested? that would suck!!!” and that is exactly what happens. but at least it’s so quick, i genuinely think that entire plot is like 6 short scenes max. why is julian fellowes obsessed with having this character, the ONE main queer character, suffer solely because he is gay? experience so many gay-specific agonies, the depths of which i just really doubt he, fellowes, can understand. it’s really, really, disappointing. but consistent as the show did this as well. smh. at least he gets out, and his lover, richard, goes to bat for him in this movie TWICE!!!!! and stares at him with stars in his eyes, soft and enamoured? while thomas is oblivious?? I’VE READ THIS FIC BEFORE!!!! so yes that was VERY cute and all i ever fucking wanted

it’s just funny how fiction touches us differently depending on what we’re going through, especially for those of us that were lonely, neglected, children, ones who grew up with favorite characters instead of friends. i might be more “normal” i might be more “sociable” i might have more “life experience” than i used to but this fangirl inside is just not going anywhere.

this was just a ramble, i wrote it with no point in mind and i’m not rereading or editing it lol. enjoy this vague update into my life/movie review/character meta lol

#personal #i wrote this #downton abbey #thomas barrow #spoilers #death tw #suicide tw #tp

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onepunchmiss · 5 years

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OPM s2e10 Live Blog

“Justice Under Siege”

ALRIGHT so despite the fact that it is the 1 week anniversary of my death, OPM has forcefully wrenched me from the underworld to come continue with the season. So here I am and I’ve already posted my guess for what this episode will entail so lets see how well I handle it! (see: how much I scream) As always, I’m watching as someone who is up to date on both the Manga and webcomic

ASDFGHJKL I OPENED OPM ON HULU AND IT IMMEDIATELY PICKED UP WHERE I LEFT OFF AT REWATCHING THE ZOMBIEMAN BIT HOW DARE I WAS NOT READY

lets try that again ok

AHA YES OMG we’re starting with this!! I was totally expecting to pick up exactly where we left off, with Destrochloridium at the HA but OK throw me for a loop! Mix it up! “ORA ORA ORA ORA” I love Saitamas VA, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again I laffff oh my god it keeps going in the background as Kind talks I can’t

This is the scariest Saitama face I have ever witnessed wtf??? Why does it look so creepy?? Also, they added quite a bit to this scene huh? I guess They have to amp up the jokes since shit is getting pretty serious otherwise at this point in the series. OH SHIT THE DING ‘NO OTHER WORDS CAME TO MIND” OK Excellently done that got me I cackled fffffffffffffffff

OH MY GOD KING THAT SICK BURN?!?! I dont remember that I guess they’re really making it a point to be like ‘HEY LOOK THIS IS GONNA BE USED!!! IT EXISTS!!!’ but like I dont care cause it was worth it for the joke hhhhhhhhhhhJUST

Yanno, I just realised I think I know where every sing scene in the whole opening comes from down to the omake. Also just realised we are definitely getting Genos/Bang/Bomb vs Centipede cause that joint attack Bang and Bomb use is in the opening. Huh why did that only just now click anD OH MY GOD BB GENOS IM DYING NO

Ok now we’re where we left off and oh dear god I HATE that squish noise please stop no OK Gyoro’s weird Eye twitch was a cool touch. Oh wait Narinki is the highest ranking executive now? I thought he was just the top donor of funds or something? eh anyway- lol wow Gyoro puts on a convincing sob story voice this is so funny?? Cause its Complete BS and I wonder what my reaction would be if I didn’t already know that AHH OK BUT THAT ‘HEHIHIHIHIHI’ LAUGH THO OMG SO GOOD

WHEW ok but seriously just the MENTION of assembling all the heroes is raising my blood pressure asdfghjkl if I may have one thing in life PLEASE LET IT BE A THIRD SEASON PLEASE IM BE G G IN G

AHH YESSS!!!! YYYEEESSSS!!!!! DARKSHINE MY DUDE MAN BRO GUY YESSSS!!!!!!! I LOVE!!!!!!! I JUST!!!!!! HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR THE OTHERWISE NORMAL GUYS WITH OBSCENE MUSCLES LIKE DARKSHINE AND TTM!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!!!

ASDFGHHJKL Did Destrochloridium just shout Itadakimasu?? HULU y u no translate that??? DOI as he gets smooshed pfffffftttttttttttt omg the sound pls ohmigod everyone knows steel is no match for a hardened body i just fukken HEKK I love this show so much pls he sounds so concerned that destro DIDNT know that

“Better step up” OH MY GOD YES DO THE THING

OK WAIT This is actually badass and not just a joke?? Darkshine, er, Blackluster(??) stop u r 2 good I cant handle it rn

oooohhhhHH OH OH OH OH PLS SHOW EVERYONE I WANT PLS THE MONSTER ASSOCIATION!!! PLS!! SHOW ME WIFE?? CADRES?? PLZ?? yo total side note but I LOVE Murata’s monster designs?? Every time I reread opm I just oogle at a new one I never noticed before they’re all so unique and good. Also At least 3 of them in this sequence look like pokemon i swear- lol the silence no applause, if that was a joke in the manga i totally missed it uuuuwaAAAAAAAAAAA SCREAMING SCREAMING I AM SCREAM CADRE YES YES ASDFGHJKL ARE YALL READY TO SEE T H A T FACE FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES THUS FAR???? HUH????

ew oh wait I actually feel bad for Awakened Cockroach, and he twitches after getting eaten oh noooooonono ew oh no dude im sorry no AAAAAAAAA WIFE HELLO oh their voices are so sad when they’re terrified for their lives I dont like it :[ ITS OK UR SAFE 4 NOW ILY PLZ BE CAREFUL AND STAY AWAY FROM PRETTY MEN

YES THIS EPISODE IS GIVING ME EVERYTHING IVE WANTED SO FAR THANK YOU SO MUCH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LOOOOOOOK AAT THEMMMMMM

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMY TRASH SON I HAVE MISSED YOU OH NO MY EYES THERES WATER IN MY EYES HELP ILY

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMYCYBORG SON MY HEART I WEAK GENOS BB PLS BE CAREFUL ILY TOO hey heres a WACKY and TOTALLY LoOnEy IdEa, what if,,,,,,,,,,,,,,WHAT-IFF,,,,,,,,,,, everyone was HAPPY???? Crazy I knowww I just want the best for my sons and babies and children boys wives daughters loves and husband, is it so much to ask???

Oh my god he looks so Sad here please no Genos everything will be ok please don’t be reckless do not be reckless listen to Dr. Kuseno you fool

[SCREAMING] ASDFGGHJKL LOOKIT HIM EATING OH MY GOD MY BOY MY DELINQUENT SON GET BETTER SOON oh my god i started out fine this episode but its KILLING ME there are TOO MANY PEOPLE AT ONCE i CANNOT BREATH

CHILD EMPEROR MY SON I LOVE YOU TOO BOFOI UR AN ASS oh my god please can you even TRY to be a good mentor for the kid???? Thats it Zombieman adopt him pls remove shitty Bofoi influence replace with Best dad man influence. ANYWAY ok that was a tangent huh oops sorry. Ok but look at him. Child Emperor is genuinely adorable and a sweetheart poor kid don’t lose your faith in adults.

Uh, the episode is running late still not to Garou yet either?? hmmmmmmmmm again I’m getting nervous are they gonna rush it?? lol the saitama throwaway OH OH FINALLY OMG MY HEART ISNT READY MY FAVORITE GAROU IN THE WHOLE SERIES OH MY GOD

im… im screaming… i love these two so much it hurts it does really. I was not prepared for how adorable it was possible to make Tareo either can I hug?? I must hugg?? And Garou’s voice is so calming and he’s being so sweet? I was really expecting to sound more… i dont know, whiney? Every time he shows up on the screen I love him more and more ffs

This is such a good shot. Desktop wallpaper material right here.

Oh my god, this moment. And the music is just yanking my heart strings stop.

Oh yeah, they interrupt right. I like these heroes and all, but none of them are particular faves the fact that I think SO MANY OTHER FAVES were are RIGHT before them this ep just kinda overshadows their existence for me. I think this is the ONLY time in the series where Garou goes up against heroes and i cheer for him 110%, don’t even feel a little bad about who he’s beating the shit out of, and that’s kinda messed up of me but thats how impartial I am towards all these guys?

Back to Garou and I love him. hhhhh.

He smak the table

He laughs. Oh no his laugh. OPM forcefully dislocated me from the underworld to watch this episode and has thusly YEETED ME TO HEAVEN THAT LAUGH. I really need Garou to be happy.

Do you see this man? Do you see him? I do and I’m crying thank you

Omg I got really caught up it watching them talk but the sparkles around death gatling whe Tareo was looking at them snapped me out of it. oi I cant handle this. Garou I want you to know that you have successfully turned the bad guy into the one everyone wants to win. You did it boy you did

WOAHMYGOD THIS IS BEAUTIFUL

OH MY GOD AND THE MUSIC IM SCREAMING

GAROU

YOU

ARE

AMAZING SON

like I know how this goes but I’m so anxious anyway the hhhhhhhhhhhhh the fight choreography is a little clunky but I don’t care OH ok cool Glasses actually kept his little spotlight nice but Garou GAROU PLS B CAREFUL OK except WHAT THE FUCK IS HIS MOUTH DOING THAT LOOKS SO STUPID WHAT THE HELL?? HOLY SHIT IM GETTING DIZZY STOP wh- wh- wait no. NO IM NOT DONE WITH YOU YET COME BACK PLEASE I NEED MORE WAIT NO UHG this is my reaction at the end of every episode when will I learn?????????????? never. The answer is never.

NO POST CREDITS STINGER and AS MUCH AS I LOVE GENOS’S FACE I already knew he would be in the episode next week. Yall I am so lost as to where the final episode will land. WTF.

This ep was a roller coaster oh my god. Non stop plot not that the tournament is done, and we saw like EVERY CHARACTER my feeble heart could not keep up. The ONLY thing that bothered me was part of the fight sequence at the end, like it was half drawn beautifully half animated so stiff and blocky ??? Threw me for a loop. But next week is only gonna get more intense??? I’m gonna guess we’ll get through the Elder Centipede fight??? But then what does that mean for the last episode??? I am full of SO MANY QUESTIONS??? I really don’t want the season to end yet, 12 eps is not enough. There’s only 2 more. Just. I’m not ready to let go of my bbs it feels like I only JUST got them… Well! Before I devolve into more of a blubbering mess, thanks yall so much for reading!!! As always, see yall next week!

#opmiss mumbling #i cant believe the season is ending so soon #just as shit is kicking tf up #s2e10 #opm #one punch man #live blogging #garou #saitama #genos #child emperor #metal bat #badd #black sperm #wind and flame

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onewhodiedyoung · 4 years

Text

@rhymaes, not wanting to write papers must be contagious :,) (no, actually they’re just awful) (also, ‘edge of your teeth’ is art and I’m a fan)

fandoms: oh boy, there’s like a million but let’s say that recently Les Miserables (because I love being miserable ha and am reading the book in French and calling it ‘studying’) It (planning to reread the book before I see the movies though but still reading fic), All For the Game (because I’ve just reread the books for the 5th time and ascdfsc), Percy Jackson (because apparently writing about the son of Hades’ emo phase is all I need to be happy) Harry Potter (because Harry Potter is a constant thing in my head whether I want to or not, like one time I literally explained a whole dramatic friendship evolution to my dad by saying ‘I thought they were a Hufflepuff but actually, they’re a Slytherin’ but I’m only in the fandom for the fandom cause like the source material is...... well) Hannibal (rewatching for the third time with my younger brother cause he said he wouldn’t be scared of all the organs and is so far keeping his word, oh corrupting youth... will I go to hell?) and A Series of Unfortunate Events (kind of, not really talking about it online but I would die for this show). I guess Drrr! too but I’m taking a break

tropes: okay, I love love love hate to love more than anything but there might be a trope I love the most of them all, only I don’t know if you can call it a trope and it’s a very specific thing. It’s this carefree sarcastic character that is slowly releaved to have depths BUT hear me out I don’t mean the cliche bad boy sob story ohhh someone hurt me and now I wear a leather jacket and flirt with people and stare attractively out the window, I mean this more specific scenario when someone kind of doesn’t care because they once cared too much and it’s why I am so obsessed with Les Mis because it’s so Grantaire. Like give me a story about an overexcited child-genius who grows up sad and barely passes the year and gets drunk and I’m just a puddle. I don’t know what about it speaks to me so much but it’s my absolute favorite. Also, found family, always. And not romantic, but hate to friendship is awesome, too. and all those cop/criminal aus, I need them ok

(I severely dislike soulmate aus and only read them sometimes when I just can’t stay away because of the writing style)

number of fics: only 21 but the quarantine makes the number grow fast... I have like a million ideas for 20 different fandoms, I swear (even though I should be working on the novels and short stories instead)

fic I’ve spent the most time on: uhhh to be honest it’s hard to tell because I just sit down and write something until it’s done. Usually when I post something I started it the very same day or the day before. It’s probably simply the longer the fic, the more time? ALTHOUGH I’ve been writing this super dramatic Warsaw/Cracow post-war story that is set in this au about city personifications and loosely from Les Mis and I’ve literally already been trying to write it for a month, maybe because the subject matter is so dark, I don’t know, I just really want to get it right

shortest fic: apparently, at 1621 words, “blood spot”, which is a Drarry fic about Harry using unethical spells and trying to care lol (it honestly worries me how much I romanticize the whole sectumsempra thing, it needs to stop) https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794572

longest fic: from completed ones, The Gift of Hands (https://archiveofourown.org/works/21042392/chapters/50051546) but I’m posting an OHSHC fic that’s already longer than that, an original work (so not technically a fanfic but shsh it’s my fanfic of Franz Marc as an artist ok) that’s already longer as well (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463895/chapters/56249917), and a hp epistolary fic that will be. From one shots, The Catalogue of Bones (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20627441)

most comments/kudos/bookmarks: The Gift of Hands (I’m still shooked that people liked this story so much considering Izaya wasn’t present for like half of it lol)

total word count: 187,719 ....... it absolutely terrifies me that this is from less than a year...... I had uni and work and all my wip novels how did this happen what have I been neglecting to write Drarry after Drarry? someone kill me please

favorite fic: is it cheating to mention 3? Cause I can’t pick. So there’s ‘The Catalogue of Bones’ which is overwritten and which I’m scared to open in case after all these months I’ll see right away that it’s shit but I loved writing it and I like the rhythm of it (which probably doesn’t exist) and just like it. Then there’s ‘And Who Can Say if There Are no Frogs on the Moon’ (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631638) which is maybe the sweetest thing I’ve ever written and Hermione/Luna which is a ship I would die for. Aaand ‘the boy who listened to bones’ (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614144) because I just love Nico and love writing Nico and, for some reason, love writing war-trauma

fic I want to rewrite/expand: rewrite? almost all of them but I won’t, because hopefully sometime from now I will reread them in the order of posting and maybe, maybe see progress? Expand.... hmmm.... I don’t really want to expand anything, tbh. When I want to add something I actually always just make it a new separate fic (this sounds like I’m perfectly satisfied with everything I posted but trust me, I’m not... like the Moaning Myrtle/Neville fanfic is all good intentions and eternal cringe)

share a bit of a wip: oh boy......... all I have is like two sentences of a never finished Gilmore Girls fic about Lorelei drinking wine and wanting an inn and a piece of a Drarry story that I temporarily dropped because I liked the concept and decided to use it for a whole novel about lesbians and Paganini instead oops. I really just write one shots the day I post them and I’m not posting a one shot today so... But I guess here’s Drarry with Draco remembering Harry speaking up for him and Narcissa during the trials:

He looked confident, Harry, and he wore grief like something freshly-washed and pressed. He kept his chin up, and his glasses weren’t held together by tape. He was immaculate, even his hair somehow combed into a semblance of tidiness, and Draco imagined it must have taken hours to get it to behave, couldn’t imagine why Harry would bother. By then people would oh and ah whenever he entered the room, no matter the tea stains, no matter the stubble, no matter the falling-apart sneakers, and then this: crispness like Harry was a dollar bill straight out of print, even though he wouldn’t lose anything otherwise, anyway, even though people would love him, unconditional.

It wouldn’t occur to him for months that Harry might have made himself presentable for their sake, that he might have put all the thoughts of countless deaths inside his pocket for a little while to make sure that people would listen as he explained that Narcissa was a mother, and not a bad person, as if the two were mutually exclusive.

He said, after clearing his throat, and to the whole room, his voice echoing, we’re not all good. He said, after a significant pause, and they’re not all bad.

Draco hated him for how he was ‘them’ and he felt c and r and u and c again and i and then o align on his tongue, letters he would voice or swallow, it could go either way.

Once, he crucio-ed himself, writhing in the ground and begging something for forgiveness through the pain, some old gods who must have raised their eyebrows as they watched, or maybe they didn’t bother watching at all.

No wand for a year was the verdict, and Draco didn’t mind because he didn’t want the wand.

What he wanted was the piano.

I have pieces of aftg and Stranger Things fics in my head but not written down yet. Wow this was unnecessarily long and rambly, I’m sorry :,) Not tagging anyone because my brain is scrambled and I can’t think but if you’re writing fic and this looks fun then I’d love to read yours! <3

#i am so sorry for being rambly #i wonder what freud would say about my need to justify and explain every single statement i say #is it narcissism or self-loathing? is it me just being a boring noodle? I bet he'd say it's the penis envy #sorry sigmund i only experience the lack of monthly pain envy

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sobdasha · 4 years

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library book haul

these are all many months out of date

Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee This sci-fi and fantasy short story collection is Good Shit. Plus it includes my favorite short-story-collection thing, aka Author's Notes on the stories, which enhances the experience even more. So: I tried to read this in the previous batch with Lee's other work, but Lee's work requires your full attention and is not suitable for reading in the breakroom at work, where people come up, see you with a book, turn on the TV, and then proceed to ignore the TV the entire fucking time while they talk excessively loudly with the other people in the breakroom. I've been enjoying the fact that they put a real chair in the department so if I don't work the morning shift I can take my break in the department where the din from the customers is, in fact, quieter. And I don't have to walk to the literal opposite corner of the store, wasting time and chronic pain! Anyway. So I waited until I was on vacation, and had large stretches of quite time, to read this, and it was amazing. I did not do the write-up then because I am lazy. However, I am in the middle of rereading now, and I can tell you that these stories only get better the second time around. I was a little worried it'd be like Shakespeare--you have to read several Shakespeares before you finally get into the Shakespeare zone and can actually, like, read the Shakespeare. These stories, on the other hand, remained accessible and are enhanced by having half a clue where the story will go. I like them all, but some of my top favorites: Ghostweight--Lee says this was the second-hardest story to write because it took months to nail the intro/outro of the story. Well, it pays off. The Bones of Giants--Lee says the fantasy equivalent of mecha is to dig up some giant skeletons and apply necromancy. I'm bad at recognizing "zombie" when you don't use the word "zombie", so like the Abhorsen series I don't really consider this "zombie lit which I would hate." Mostly it's just a little soft and when I'm reading I picture big sweeping landscapes, like a Studio Ghibli film or Breath of the Wild. The Unstrung Zither--Lee just talks about the music stuff, but this one feels to me like Gundam Wing if I'd actually finished watching Gundam Wing because Gundam Wing had turned out to actually be anywhere near as interesting as the quantum versions of it I'd imagined. (Thanks to Lee's other stories, I'm now using "quantum" instead of "noodle incident".) Well, now I no longer feel any need to actually go back and watch Gundam Wing. Cool! It's occurring to me that Lee's works mostly fall into the category of: soft; this is the literal cost of genocide and occupation; and both at once. It's a hell of a lot better than ~the glory of war~. Anyway as I said it's all good.

Always Coming Home, Ursula K. Le Guin I actually quit reading this one pretty early on. Not exactly a quit, though. I wasn't in the right mindset; I just couldn't get through it and realized what I was in fact craving was Adventure. So I went on to reread The Prydain Chronicles instead and I'll pick this up again sometime later when I am in the mood for something quiet, reflective, domestic, and not big on plot.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interviews, ed. David Streitfeld This was interesting! Although I always have mixed feelings when I'm reading about authors talking about the craft. IDK I think it's a me-thing. Like, I pick up this essay expecting the author to tell me what works for them, and then I get annoyed because I decided the author was telling me "this is the only way" when that's bs and now I want to rebel??? Or maybe because Le Guin talked about how even a novel ought to be poetry and as someone who understands the theory of meter but has been flunking everything related to meter or stress since grade school in the practical sense, I find that idea Highly Overrated. I honestly don't remember what else was in here, because I waited for many months to do this write-up. I didn't actually hate reading this though so.

The Prydain Chronicles, Lloyd Alexander These are Peak comfort food to me. All I want to say this time around is, I should write some fics as Alexander's penance for making Eilonwy Very Cool but mistakenly doing so by making her Not Like Other Girls. (Crying and having feelings is gender-neutral in these books; what's portrayed negatively about Eilonwy through Taran's view, despite the fact that she's objectively better than him lol, is her ~chattering~. Which is annoying because not only does Eilonwy internalize that into putting down non-sword-women for "clucking like hens", Fflewddur chatters at least as much as Eilonwy, if not more, and because he's a guy it's never phrased that way even though we're all aware he's super flighty. I really wish this had been done with more nuance, because Eilonwy also has internalized misogyny about things like dresses and washing your hair and sleeping in a comfortable bed, and Fflewddur again is always the first person to be like "um but I would like to be comfy tonight though.") Anyway I just think that after Taran is king, if he wants to go someplace and keep his hands busy to think, presumably the gardens and fields are enough out of the way that this would make your king difficult to find. So instead, I propose that he goes to the spinning and weaving rooms, because that's literally in the castle, easy to find, he knows how to do that shit, Dwyvach schooled his ass good about how work doesn't have a gender in book 4, and he did enjoy weaving, and as a bonus he can realize that "chattering" is not bad and gossip is a good way to learn things you, as a king, probably need to know about the working of your castle, and Eilonwy can join him for bonding and realize this is not so terrible after all, and we will all value these women who spend a lot of fucking time and effort making sure you can have some goddamn clothes to wear. THE END.

The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle Everybody really loves The Last Unicorn, by which I think they mean the movie? And I thought that I did as well, even though I remembered exactly nothing from it save for the title when we watched it once in either kindergarten or first grade in place of recess for a week because it was, idk, cold?? raining nonstop??? Anyway I always thought that I loved it and then I finally rewatched it as an adult and it was. Not. Great. And then I forgot and watched it again a few years later and was like Nope, still Not For Me. And now, finally, I decided to get off my bum because for me books are almost always better than the movie, and lo and behold, it is. From what I can recall, the movie is the general plot structure of the book portrayed as an Adventure, stripped of the thoughtful, reflective narration and the deeper narrative themes. Which is 100% why that movie appears to me to be some kind of acid trip. I wish I had read this as an early teen, so that I could have absorbed some of Beagle's writing style, his turns of phrase in simile and metaphor. "His scimitar smile laid its cold edge along their throats," etc. He never really makes it seem like Too Much. (Side note, that's something I notice about Yoon Ha Lee too. Very lush and descriptive similes and metaphors, very much get the job done and are not things you have ever heard before. Although Lee's tend to make me stop and go "wait what???", and catch me off guard. I suspect it's a mix of innovation and cultural difference, whereas for Beagle everything sounds so exactly right and smooth and perfect probably because everyone else has been copying off him for years and I'm familiar with diluted versions. Anyway what I'm trying to say is, I got a bit away from that in my writing, but dang I am gonna have to up my game and purple my prose a little bit more because I really love what these guys are doing!)

Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse Okay so Ann Leckie recommended this book to me, both in a general sense and also in person. And I looked at the description and thought, "Well, it's not my genre but it probs can't hurt me to pick it up and try." And so I finally did. Reading this was an interesting progression (probably most especially for my roommate who gets my live-reading reactions while she's trying to DnD) of watching me go from: "It's not my genre but it's not like the writing sucks so it's not bad" to "Well it is engaging and I do like garbage loner protagonist is a woman instead; I'm not compelled to buy this but I will read the rest of the series as it comes out from the library" to "Oh snap I love it when the critical reviews of a book were actually recommendations for me to read it" to "*weeping* Kai is a soft good boy and I support Maggie and her Emotional Support Shotgun, I will buy ALL THE BOOKS" At one point there was a perfect place, in the midst of a discussion about how you can like flamethrowers and makeup at the same time, Maggie, just because you don't like makeup, etc, to insert a joke about "it's called flaming gay for a reason". BUT in Rebecca's defense the entire scene was great anyway. The whole book was great. It's great. Read it. Oh speaking of the critical reviews, one of them was like "the protagonist claims to be unable to cook and then a few paragraphs later makes a 5 star meal, so this book is garbage." Lol was the reviewer confused because the word "bread" was used, and believes that bread is an art form unable to be accomplished by mere mortals (which, I mean, is how I feel about the idea of babying a loaf of bread all day)? Because bread only has to be "I made a paste of flour and water" which this. Basically was. Fried in a pan. And then the side dish was a can of beans with a can of chiles thrown in for fancy. This is literally the definition of can't cook, because you can't exactly order takeout on the reservation after the apocalypse when you prefer to live in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. I'm just saying, this scene was perfect. Also this was the point in time where I started summarizing all apocalyptic books as "After the events of the year 2020" to my roommate. It. It continues to hold true. Every year for like the past five years we've been saying maybe next year will be better, but I'm gonna be honest, I'm terrified of what 2021 will bring. One final visual: me, unable to pronounce Navajo words to my roommate when reading select passages, and also not being able to spell them on account of not knowing the names of accents in English: "so it's c-h-apostrophe-i accent aigu cedilla-i cedilla-polish l with a line through it…" (not an actual word, I don't remember the actual words, I returned the book to the library long ago, this is for illustrative purposes of my ignorance only)

To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf I tried to read this because Le Guin praised it a lot in The Last Interviews, and it was on the Wizard's Library shelves and I thought maybe I should broaden my horizons. But I quit early on because I, a disaster of run-on sentences, could not parse half of these and I was not invested and if I don't have to read ~classics~ for literature class it probably won't ever happen. Honestly a lot of the contemporary literature I'm reading is better for me anyway.

Sunlight and Shadow, Cameron Dokey This was also on the Wizard's Library shelves and I like fairytale things in theory and despite reading the wiki summary on various occasions I really don't know anything about the plot of The Magic Flute, which is this a retelling of. This book queerbaited me. It's unfair of romances to always put more chemistry between the people who aren't getting together than who are. In this case, both girls and both boys, who were to pair off into het couples. There's literally an entire chapter of Gayna going from "You've ruined everything!" to "I wish I could hate you!" to "Oh no you're hot!" to "And that doesn't actually make me jealous oh shit!" to "Okay I'll help you" to "Oh no she smiled and my heart skipped a beat huhhh!" about Mina. The word gay is even in her name!!! What is the author doing with her choices??? Seriously what is the author doing with her choices, in the author's note at the end of the book I learned Statos (Monostatos) was originally "evil character just because he's a Moor" so Dokey Fixed It by making him just a guy who wanted Things like the rest of the characters want Things and he just happens to come off as bad because he's not aligned with them and also he's very, very white. Noooooo that's not how you do it, that's not how you fix racism, you redeem him while keeping him black. I also, as a rule, dislike first-person-narration-that-changes-each-chapter, especially when you're not skilled enough/don't care to write in such a way that the narrator can easily be identified, so basically for a long chapter and a half I assumed Lapin was a girl and when the Queen of the Night was like "fuck you, boy!" I assumed it was a sick burn and Lapin just ~wasn't pretty~ but it turns out he was, in fact, a boy. Also for a book that points out that you can be perfectly happy settling with a decent person and marrying your not-soul-mate (Lapin's parents and grandparents), it's awfully insistent that the main characters all be properly paired with soul mates. HM. Basically this is marketed as feminist but I think it fell pretty damn short on that mark.

#sobdasha booking

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drink-n-watch · 4 years

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Remember when I was all excited about the fact that it was starting to get warm here? Well that’s all over now! It is hot and I mean humid and sticky and just plain old tough to breathe summertime in Montreal hooooot. I do have air conditioning. I’m not sure why I whine all the time. It’s just a thing we Canadians do. We complain about the weather. It’s our claim to fame. How are things in your neck in the woods, Crow?

Also hot. Also sticky. Glad I recently got the air conditioning repaired. It’d be a real bummer without it. Wait. Why am I bold? I shouldn’t be bold! I stick out too much!

Oh, there will be spoilers.

And so here we are. Can you believe it’s been 4 months already? And we are now finally at the last episode of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Now for me this was a show that started out real strong but lost its footing somewhere at the halfway mark. However, before we get into all that, let’s just quickly resume what the episode was about. Actually no wait before we even resume what the episode was about, Crow, is there anything you want to get out up front?

19,800 meetings seems excessive. Glad we didn’t have to sit through all of them! I’m talking about Catarina’s internal Council of the Wise-ish. They made an appearance in this episode! But seeing them again made me realize how much I missed them. Glad we got to see that 19,800th meeting.

You know what’s always a great sign? When the series decides to, at the very last episode, bring in a whole new side plot with dramatic history to develop. I’m not really sure why we had to bother with the whole Sirius side. Actually, it was kind of worth it just to get the pronunciation of his name down though. This said it was over really quickly and it all seems a bit inconsequential now.

Oh, when you “great sign,” you were being sarcastic! I was momentarily confused. But it’s all good now!

As you may remember, last week, the episode ended on a cliffhanger as Catarina and the gang were about to burst into Sirius’s house just as he was getting consumed by the darkness. Well, this week picks up right there. First, we get Sirius being all like gwaaahhh things are going all wrong. Then we quickly find out through flashback, that Sirius is not in fact serious. Sirious’s mother was a maid who was raped by her master and gave birth to a kid, but then the Master’s wife kidnaped them both and murdered the mother in a Dark Magic Ritual to stick the soul of her own dead kid into not Sirius, whose real name is Raphael and Sirius is the name of the dead kid but the thing didn’t work out and Raphirius only got the memories and he’s just been pretending that it worked all this time so that he could get revenge on the Dieke family who killed his mom. Cause they’re huge Diekes. I’m not sure why he wanted revenge on Caterina or what that was about but you know, I’m sure he had very good reasons. Anyways it doesn’t matter cuz Caterina says his real name out of the blue for some reason and now he’s all better and doesn’t want revenge anymore and all the PTSD is gone. Hurray! That was just the opening act of the episode though…

Now, to be fair, it was only almost all gone! The Entity Within made a “surprise” attempt to come back! But the Power of Friendship banished him. Either that, or not-Sirius was just happy to be holding Catarina’s hand.

And then everybody goes back for a party at school because it’s graduation time. Caterina is right back to worrying whether she’s going to be all doomed so she decides to finally just ask Maria who she wants to… Let’s say… date. In response Maria confesses to Caterina and then everybody else confesses to Caterina and then everybody’s happy then they go to another room and have some more tea and cake because, I mean growing bodies, they need to keep hydrated and sugared up, and not Sirius comes back in and he also confesses to Caterina and everybody lives happily ever after, the end of the series…

Um…spoilers…

I got your back! Mentioned the danger of spoilers earlier. Though really, things went pretty well as expected, so maybe we’re more confirming things than spoiling them?

Is there a difference?

Speaking of growing bodies — did it seem like Catarina was, let’s say, more mature than even just last episode? Just what kind of sweets is Maria feeding her? Maria could build a fortune for her own family if she marketed it!

You always like your busty ladies. She was back to normal in her usual dress, just standard fanservice, I think.

I’ll be honest, although I did not dislike the Black magic plot, I also just feel like it belongs in a different story. It didn’t really, for me, mesh with the rest of the series. And that backstory of Sirius’s was deeply deeply tragic, yet it had this weird cheery music going on. It was all kind of uncanny. The tone was off, the pacing was way too abrupt and it just didn’t add anything to the light romantic comedy we’ve been watching for all these months. What do you think Crow? Did you like it as is, or do you think like me that it wasn’t bad in any way, it just would have been better in a different story that had the same sort of themes and tone that it was going for?

I like how you put it — that it would have been better in another story. It might have worked here if more of it had been foreshadowed, even thematically, earlier. But as is, I agree with you. It felt grafted on. In contrast, how Catarina brought him back was completely consistent with the rest of the show. She basically said that she wasn’t the heroine, so she couldn’t save him. Then she explained that “all” she could do was stand by his side, listen to him when he wanted to talk, and try to cheer him up. Which is to say, “save” him. The baka was strong with this one!

I wonder if there’s a discussion to be had on how Catarina’s view of herself as a villainess contributed to her baka-ness?

I reread some of the things I had said about the series in the first episodes and I was a little sad. After episode one, I distinctly said how excited I was that Catarina seemed to break the mold of the usual otome heroine. She was a little dorky and a little clumsy sure, that’s a romantic archetype that’s super common, but she was also resourceful. Right off the bat she figured out what her situation was by herself, analyzed what danger she was likely to be in based on her own knowledge, and did so really well I should add, then started to put together contingency plans in order to ensure that she would be able to be okay in the future. And she did that by herself and for herself. It was refreshing. I think I’ve said word-for-word that it was so great to have a heroine that wasn’t an idiot constantly relying on the men around her to save her.

I can’t deny that I’m a little disappointed the series turned around and made being an idiot kind of a defining trait of Katerina’s personality. To the point that even the characters in the story refer to her as such without hesitation. And the fans have nicknamed her Bakarina. Even Crow, who really likes the character, uses the Idiotrina nickname because it fits so well. And frankly, I really can’t see the Katerina we got in the last 6 episodes or so, coming up with all the brilliant plans and situation assertions as the Katerina of early episodes.

It does seem like a disconnect. Reaching deep to try to defend what happened (and it kinda hurts!), I could build on the idea earlier about her own view of herself as the villainess degraded her abilities over time. Our abilities are often limited by how we view ourselves. Catarina perceived herself as the villainess who needed to do everything in her power to save herself. She probably thought she was selfish. Over time, that view narrowed her perception of what was possible. By the end, even when the whole harem clearly and concisely confessed their love for her, it wasn’t enough. Was she stupid? Or had her self-perception limited her so much that she couldn’t accept the idea that they honestly just loved her that much, and simply because she was herself?

Even after saying all that, did you notice that before the graduation party, the event that she saw as the final chance for doom to strike, she’d prepared? She had her toy snake, now perfected and looking completely real, ready to throw and distract Geraldo. She had her garden implements packed and ready. As narrow as she had allowed her perception to get, she was still fighting to the very end. It’s an echo of the full coolness we had earlier, but that little Catarina is still there, even if buried deeply!

She’s still a very charming girl, but a much less memorable one as far as I’m concerned. The characters also went through a bit of arrested development which made me realize that I’m not sure why they all like Katerina. I understand why Keith does and potentially Alan. We legitimately see how her presence has affected them and changed them. But Geraldo doesn’t seem to have changed much. He’s different from his game counterpart, but he’s pretty much the same charming and commanding prince he was when we first met him. And Katerina has not been the nicest to him. I guess all the girls fall into the “because of the you were nice” trope. Still, it’s a bit thin. And Nicol likes her because she’s nice to his sister? It’s not that there’s no canon motivation given but we really don’t see it develop much, which is odd since that’s the actual core of the story.

Of all of them, Geraldo’s continued affection seemed the most difficult to understand. Overall, it would have been more fulfilling had Catarina had chances to be good to them more after they entered school. As characters, they really did seem to stall. On the plus side, the show stayed true to its core concept: to the very end, Catarina struggled against her doom, and that was kinda cool.

I still really like those early episodes, I think I’m going to rewatch them.

I noticed that Katerina didn’t end up with anyone (although I suppose she still is engaged). I thought that was kinda cool. I guess very few harems end up in couples but I’m o.k. With that. How about you Crow? Did you want to see a couple form? Who?

Only in my imagination! I still think she and Mary would be a good match. Though maybe I’ve been affected my anime to the point where I wonder, why don’t they all just live together? It’s not like there’s no historical precedent! Well, in this world, anyway… A show where they have to work through the social expectations and legal biases might be fun. I mean, how would you figure out who inherited what estate, if everyone’s mingled?

Will you be watching a season 2?

I think so! I still like the characters, and honestly, I’m curious to see where they’d take the plot. The core concept’s gone. The game’s over. Where’s it go from here?

What about you?

Like you, I’m curious what’s left. I guess it depends on what direction they take.

Well there you have it folks. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom is all said and done. I hope you all had a good time with the show despite whatever flaws it may have had. Are you gin to be watchin a second season?

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! ep 12 – Finale Remember when I was all excited about the fact that it was starting to get warm here?

#anime #blonde bishie #comedy #My Next Life as a Villainess #otome #reverse harem #romance

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organized-chaotic-disaster · 7 years

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I may be gone for a while, and when I am on here I may not talk to anyone

More under the cut, if you wish to you can read it

tw for suicide, self harm, and depression

just venting really tbh

I’ll be honest here

Lately, I’ve been doing really bad

I’ve been getting horrible episodes, and I made a terrible mistake due to some damn misunderstanding on my part, and I’m terrified to talk to the person I wronged again because I don’t want to hurt them anymore, and I don’t wanna make them mad at me, and just, everything, it’s too much

I haven’t heard back from my counselor yet, who said she’d see if she can find a psychologist for me so I can get evaluated. I’m worried about that. I really need to see a psychologist, or, SOMETHING at the very least

On my drive home from work today, I found myself fighting to not drive my car into a ditch or into a truck. I hate myself so much. I just want to die. I’ve felt like this for years now. Maybe, some people just aren’t meant to get better.

Sometimes, it honestly feels like my only purpose in life, is to just be another sad story of a kid who killed herself.

The urges to relapse and hurt myself again get stronger and stronger by the day. I don’t know how much longer I can take it for.

I feel like I have no friends.

I don’t deserve friends.

I don’t want to hurt anyone, and yet that’s the only thing I can do.

In my efforts to avoid making someone mad at me, or to avoid hurting someone, I somehow fuck it up so royally that I end up doing the very thing I intended not to do in the fist place.

It happens

All

The damn

Time

I almost cried at work today, That’s never happened before. To most people, that might not sound like such a big deal. But for me? Well, let’s just say that, when my last grandfather died... I didn’t cry. I don’t remember crying. I feel terrible about it. I didn’t see him at all for the last six months he was alive. He was constantly going in and out of the hospital, and he was acting irrationally. I didn’t get much time with him as a child due to some family drama. I guess that it would make sense, then, that I didn’t cry. But my point is, that I don’t cry easily.

I’ve been spending virtually all my free time watching, rewatching, reading, and rereading Fullmetal Alchemist (FMAB for the anime but still |D;; I tried the 2003 series but, I just couldn’t get into it) because, it’s my escape right now. It’s the only thing besides sleep that allows me to escape from reality. But unlike sleep, it can come to me easily, Sleep? Sleep isn’t coming so easily lately. I watched the entire FMAB series last week, and for some reason I’m finding myself rewatching it again this week. I’m scared for when I finish it. What else can I do with myself? And what about when I run out of the volumes of the manga I have to read? I don’t wanna have to spend so much money so quickly on this. But, I can’t find out where I can download it on my phone, and I’m not using that much data while I’m on breaks at work. And besides, it’d be embarrassing for me to buy so many of them so quickly, because I go to the same place to buy them every time.

I want to cut myself so bad.

I want to kill myself so bad.

I can’t find joy in anything, except for those precious moments in Fullmetal Alchemist that bring me joy lately

I’m a dumbass. An absolute dumbass.

I’m not worth your time. I’m not worth anyone’s time.

I just don’t want to hurt anyone ever again. I hate myself so much.

After I got home today, I wrote out a really shitty last will and testimony just in case I can’t take life anymore. It’s more of a suicide note, really. It’s not like it’s a legal document or anything- it’s literally just a long-ass note on my phone. But still, it’s something.

I’m sorry, this has turned into more of a rambled, disorganized mess of a rant rather than a PSA, huh? Not that anyone would care either way, anyway.

If you’re trying to be my friend, honestly, you should probably just stop. I’m only a waste of your time. It’ll be damn near impossible to get close, anyway. I don’t know jack shit about bonding with people except for dumping my emotional baggage all over them. I’m terrible at casual conversation. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I don’t have anything to live for.

I only fuck things up. I can’t do anything right.

I know I had more to say, but I can’t remember it right now. I’m so sorry. I’m a useless mess. If you read all of this, I’m sorry for wasting your time.

I hate myself for doing things like this. I’m such a hypocrite. I’ll still post it anyway. I’m just searching for pity, aren’t I? Because I’m not worth anything unless something’s wrong with me. That’s the believe I’ve lived on for a long time now.

I’ll leave this with something that really speaks to me lately. It may be a cover of another song, but I really like this cover. It’s also very reflective of how I feel right now.

https://youtu.be/WKj80FDqNsU

#venting #lots and lots of venting #I'm sorry about this #I'm just #in a really really bad place lately #I'm so so incredibly sorry about this

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