Consistently shocked by the idea that people think Bradley Rooster Bradshaw is chill and laid back. He’s actually shockingly unchill. He is the opposite of chill. He did not inherent any of his parents chillness. He’s a loser who’s too invested in everything.

Like ya hi I’m Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw and I cut off my remaining family, surrogate father, and support system for 15 years cuz he pulled my naval academy papers because he didn’t want me to die like my biological father and because my mother wanted me to be free of the navy’s confinements and to exist outside of a system that physically uses me for their own power and political gains— gains I will never experience and feel for myself. A system that sees me as no more than a number, a soldier, something easily replaceable, as a body to be sacrificed in a war that i did not start nor will i finish.

“Bradley's chill.” No he’s not. He’s a beast. He’s a 30 something year old man whose entire purpose revolves around holding a grudge and proving his surrogate father wrong. This beast who literally said this to his surrogate father— "No wife. No kids. Nobody to mourn when you burn in." Beastly. Ghastly thing to say. 15 years and he still hates the guy who's been there for him since day one. He’s a guy who refuses to even begin to understand where Mav was coming from or to even think of what his mother wanted. He’s evil. And I love him.

Hi I’m Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw and when someone brings up a well known, easily accessible fact that my father and surrogate father used to fly together I will try to cause physical harm against them and my friends will have to physically hold me back. I’m Bradley Bradshaw and I was willing to put my entire career on the line (the one in which I put my family aside for) so I can attack and beat this guy up.

I love his big ol’ Bambi eyes… he’s evil and fucked up and he’s not chill. Yes he wears jorts and tropical shirts, but that just means he’s gay and a fucking liar. Just cuz he looks like some surfer dude does not mean that he’s actually laid back like one. He’s lying to himself— trying to convince himself he is something that he is not and never will be. He is unchill. He’s lame. He has undiagnosed anxiety and it physically expresses itself through anger and loserly-ness. He cares so much to the point of self sabotage. He will always be unchill, no matter how much he tries to change that fact.

Y’all ever want to cradle a grown man in your arms? (graphic design is my passion)

Ok, Idk if it's just me but I can't stop thinking about the part in Anthony's letter where he asks if Ian even knows the real Ian... like, I think I'm crazy and tinhatty for seeing Ian as visibly repressed, but Anthony literally sees the exact same thing.

My very detailed thoughts are under the gifs and videos. Buckle up that's a long ass post. I put some of the parts i find interesting in the video.

First of I wanna start with comments like "oh i think Ian is emotionless he doesn't show emotions" he literally did. Watch the video. Don't just listen to his words look at his eyes.

No no no you're not alone. The more i watch him the more I'm like damn this man has a lot to unpack. Like you can see he has so many emotions but also is hiding them. At first people were like Ian is so chill, Ian doesn't care and I'm like HE CARES?? You can clearly see he cares, you can see he's affected by everything happening around, happening TO him. He's just so closed up so withdrawn even he himself doesn't know how to react to things. Just like he said he's the most chill-unchill person. He probably has a hurricane in his mind but he doesn't show it outside. I think it's because he was alone for a long time. He was definitely more open when he's with Anthony but after watching the video I think their friendship stopped being close when Anthony started dating his girlfriend at the time. Ofc there was probably some stuff between them they're friends since 6th grade, but the strings broke and they stopped being best friends probably at that time. And probably after this Ian started to press his feelings. Cause I think he tried to talk to Anthony about that person but it backfired so he stopped it all together. At the time he probably didn't have enough close friends and after Anthony left he was just alone in his thoughts. Ofc he had partners he had co workers, friends, employees but at that point he was already in a state where "it's better if i just shut up about my own feelings/emotions/thoughts cause they're wrong they're the reason my best friend leave me" and everything else, the company, the break-ups whatever it was all his problems, he's the boss, he had to take care of everything and he had to protect his friends/company and everything. He should be the one doing it without bothering others. And that's why he's now "chill" he put on an unbothered person mask to stay strong in the game. He built strong walls around his emotions. He hide them so much that he lost his ability to show his emotions in the meantime. He's an amazing listener, problem solver, perfect boss and friend and best friend probably but he's not good to himself. His feelings are pressed, he has a lot to unpack probably. Idk if Anthony and him talk about everything (i don't think tho i don't think ian could just trauma dump) and i feel like he has to. Not just talking about shit happened before like they say in the video, no he has to talk about his feelings, how he feels about what happened, how he feels now, is he hurt, is he heartbroken. Without a filter. Like he had to leave the labels behind and idk have an open conversation with someone(probably a therapist tbh) and realize that showing emotions is not weak or wrong. And he's not alone. Maybe he felt that way before but he has friends, he has a whole family actually. I really don't believe he's an emotionless person he's just so so introverted in his emotions. And he's lost in his insecurities.

First of all you can see he's emotionally unstable already when he said let's keep going because he's either afraid he's gonna show emotions(god forbid he shed a tear) or so emotional to talk about the subject.

"I don't think I would even recognize if I was being put through emotional turmoil. This is just so sad.

"That doesn't mean you weren't being put through it, that just might mean that you're shutting things off" Anthony explained so well in this sentence.

And this part i definitely agree with Anthony. "How do you know if I'm keeping it to myself?" Cause eyes never lie chico! We can see the sadness showing from them. The fake smile thing is like. Ok yeah I don't think he's fake smiling in every smile but i think when he's actually hurt he just smiles at the person hurting him. Even in this video there are so many moments that you can see he's upset he just smiles and moves on. Not wanting to make things worse or trying to keep everything going. Don't wanna mess up again. But you can't live a life like that. You can't just accept everything anyone is giving and not have a breaking point. Idk him so idk if he had that point already or he'd have that in the future but i know if he keeps ignoring everything and trying to push them aside it's burst. (It's not about Anthony leaving this is not about anyone else I'm talking about Ian's feelings)

And the last part yeah I think we know the real Ian. Cause even if he pushes his feelings aside he's who he is. Him hiding his hurt moments is not gonna affect anyone but himself.

Also wanna add I was so so upset when he said he thought Smosh was his and Ian was just a sidekick to him and even then Ian just smiled and kept going. It's so obvious he knows Anthony felt that way at the time. He's not shocked about this. He probably had his moments about that. I'm so glad Anthony realized that Smosh is not this and that Smosh is them together. And praise him every chance he has for that.

Lastly. I was really sad when Ian said "I forgive you" and Anthony laughed with "for what?" I think this was the only moment we actually see Ian trying to show his emotions and Anthony's joke makes it go away immediately and Ian smiled and hid his emotions again with "just kidding". Again this is all me just putting my thoughts out there but I think Ian deserved an apology or at least a thank you(which Anthony probably did them in private i think) cause he fought to keep Smosh together for years alone. So there was something Anthony could ask forgiveness for. Yes it was the best decision for Anthony and his mental health and it definitely helped him. And Ian could have left with him but didn't. But if he didn't try to stay and fight there wouldn't be a Smosh to turn back to. Wow that was dark.

Anyways this is me overthinking for something I shouldn't at fuckin 2am and I swear I have a life outside this. I just love analysing shit and talking about it ok?

nurseydex to all the boys au

i’m never gonna write this fic so let’s do this.

(one might assume nursey would be the letter-writer, but nursey’s letters would be self-indulgent to the point of unreadability (i say this with so much love in my heart. english major thing).) i’m not going to subject you all to that, so it’s dex. 

he writes them at home, in maine, the summer after freshman year (“This is so stupid. You don’t even like me. I think I miss you. Whatever.”) and the summer after sophomore year (“I feel like we were maybe getting somewhere. But I know I’m not going to survive a year in the same room as you. I wish you lik I wish I didn’t feel this way.”) and the summer after junior year (“Fuck, Nurse. What am I going to do after this? Except miss you, and wish I’d said something. Maybe I’ll tell you someday. You’d think it’s kind of funny, maybe.”) 

near the end of the summer, he decides he’s going to burn all the letters and have a good, fun senior year where he’s NOT stupidly infatuated with one of his closest friend. he takes them out of their box (ofc he was labeling and adding stamps to them as he wrote; he’s dex) and spreads them out around the room and then--shit, guests are here. he goes to deal with that and when he comes back the--the letters are gone. fuck, fuck, what the fuck.

his younger sister lily sent them. “i saw you wrote a bunch of letters to your friend and i was going to the post office and i thought--”

FUCK.

it would be crazy to go to new york to try and intercept them. dex has work tomorrow, and the day after, and he doesn’t even know how long mail takes to get from bumfuck, maine to fucking new york city. weeks, maybe; they could all be back at school by then, and nursey would never see them. or maybe they’ll get lost in transit! that’s happened before, definitely. should he text nursey to say it was all a joke? no, better not to be the one to bring it up. nursey will say something when--if--he gets them, and then dex can come up with a good lie. nursey will say something if he gets them. he’ll say something, and dex will lie, and it’ll all be normal.

nursey doesn’t text.

they go back to school. 

nursey still does not say anything.

dex is... almost disappointed. mostly, though, he’s relieved. nursey never got or never read the letters. dex should really start getting over him. to that end, he acquires for himself a boyfriend.

^^which obviously doesn’t go over well with nursey. probably there’s a dramatic and likely drunken confrontation; nursey brings up the letters (he brought them to samwell with him, even though he has them mostly memorized by now). “was this, like, the weirdest practical joke of all time, bro? because even for you, that’s super unchill.”

“what kind of joke would that even be?”

“i don’t know! ‘s why i’m asking you.”

“it wasn’t a joke. it doesn’t--can you just leave it, nurse. you didn’t bring it up for two months, can we go back to that?”

“no! not until--until you tell me why you did it.”

“my sister sent them, okay?” they’re in their room, and it’s late enough that it’s starting to be early. nursey is trying to pace back and forth but is instead sort of swaying; dex is sitting on the floor, failing to make eye contact. “my sister sent them, and i already said i’m sorry, and i don’t know what else you want from me.” bluffing: “it doesn’t have to be weird.” 

“so they’re... you meant them?”

dex doesn’t answer.

“poindexter.”

“fuck you.” pause. “yes, i meant them.”

“what about your boyfriend?”

“who--oh, brian? that--what? that lasted like a week. i haven’t seen him in ages.” silence. “i hope you’re enjoying this ego trip, nurse, because i--”

nursey kisses him. it lasts for a moment, then dex pushes him off.

“what the fuck?”

“i love you too.”

dex’s heart does this thing where it explodes a little. “i never,” he tries. “what?”

nursey kisses him again. “i love you too.”

“i don’t think i. did i say that?”

“you said almost everything else.”

“i can’t believe you’re chirping me right now.”

“i’m not. i. dex.”

“what?”

“i love you too.”

it doesn’t stop feeling so good it hurts. 

“fine,” dex says. “i love you.”

and then they date and end up living in the same city after graduation and are in love forever the end.

LITTLE BY LITTLE

HI IM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS SILLY LITTLE STORY. it is:

a feel good lighthearted story about a bunch of kids in high school 👍

one half enemies to lovers romance, other half queerplatonic coming of age 🤨

dual storyline following two annoying siblings who will die for each other 🤱

set in chennai because i want to draw the city i grew up in and have a crisis over not having seen it enough 🤯

me deciding to compensate for my non existent final years of high school via fiction because who needs therapy tbh 🤔

BLURB

It’s Sameera’s last year of high school, and everything’s going her way: she’s a student council head, the captain of the girl’s Kho-Kho team, and she’s liked by almost everyone in her grade. Almost. Frigid, uptight Kayalvizhi, fellow council head, is the lone exception. Their first interaction was a nightmare, and while Sameera is told that Kayalvizhi’s just indifferent to everyone around her, she still feels personally attacked. So when the two of them are paired up as the cultural leaders for their school’s end-of-year ceremony, she’s more than thrilled to prove Kayal wrong by outshining her in everything. Too bad the latter’s determined to shut Sameera up by competing just as fiercely. What neither of them expects, though, is to find common ground, or to realise that the other person isn't who they thought they were, or, god forbid, actually start to enjoy each other’s company.

Anbu is a reserved kid, Sameera’s younger sibling by two years and the apple of every teacher’s eyes. Still just getting used to adolescence, Anbu is, to say the least, a bit disoriented. They’re exploring their confusing world, trying out new hobbies, grappling with their gender identity and pushing the limits of the life they’ve led so far. But right when they think they’ve got it all figured out, change hits them between the eyes in the name of Tamizh—their cool, mysterious neighbour who’s come back from Mumbai years after moving away. Anbu and Tamizh were childhood best friends, but that's childhood, and they know better than anyone else that adolescence upends everything with a rage. As the two’s rekindled friendship begins to deepen, Anbu is left questioning whether they see him as a friend, a crush, or something else entirely.

At least one thing’s certain for them all: this will be an unforgettable year.

CHARACTERS

SAMEERA. she/her, bi. annoying ass extroverted jock mf. everyones fave gremlin. needs constant love and validation or else she will perish

ANBU. they/them, trans. former sweetheart now saddled with a growing bloodthirst. going through too much all at once and is on the verge of emotional burnout.

KAYALVIZHI. she/her, trans, lesbian. moody ass introverted nerd mf. hates every single person to ever grace this planet and i love her so much actually

TAMIZH. he/him, aro. Resident Cool Kid™ except he feels very uncool and very unchill, ball of nerves just barely keeping it together. is unlearning a lot of toxic beliefs on gender and he’s doing it with style.

SO WHATS THE DEAL HERE

idk what happened in the last two years but i’ve gone from being a prose hoe to a webcomic bitch and it has been working out great for me. comics are such a brilliant format for someone who’s equal parts artist and writer and recently all my important all-consuming story ideas have been webcomic ideas and im so excited to get to make them!!

there are two parts to this story, two parallel arcs, one for each sibling: sameera’s enemies to lovers story with kayal and anbu’s queerplatonic coming of age thing with tamizh. i think the main inspiration behind this was a) bridgerton season two which was the first time i actually ENJOYED an enemies-to-lovers romance and which made me go hmm yanno what. i’m going to do the same but without british people. b) me realising that as much as i love romance and writing romantic relationships i also would like to write a queerplatonic relationship please and thank you [it is endlessly amusing to me that my favourite genre is romance despite me being aromantic lmao] and i esp wanted to try writing a qpr from the pov of the non-aromantic character, just for that extra spice!

in the very short time ive had these four they’ve taken over my brain completely and i love it so much!! im currently working to on getting the basic prep work done [character turnarounds, uniform designs, bg models etc etc] and i’ll post updates on progress whenever i feel like lmao

hange and levi being a married a couple and going on vacation, because i desperately want for this semester to end and go relaxing somewhere near the sea

usually hange and levi just go whenever hange wants to. levi doesn't really like going on vacations and he's happy to just chill at home, but since he's married to the most unchill person ever, he lets hange choose their destination

last year, they went on a tour to europe, and after that relatively calm vacation (it wasn't too calm, though, after all, hange was there and she was dragging levi from one sight location to another, talking his ear off about history), levi was expecting something crazier like a hike in the mountains or a trip to the jungle

instead, hange told him that he gets to pick this year, because she's too exhausted to think of something exciting

obviously, levi chooses a trip to the sea because a) he'd be able to relax and actually rest and b) the sight of hange in bikini is something he would never get tired of

so it's decided and they pack their suitcases and go to the sea

the first day of the vacation, levi wakes up and hange isn't there. he's disappointed, but definitely not surprised

he takes the sun cream, puts on his swimming trunks and goes outside

hange isn't by the pool, hange isn't in the bar but levi didn't expect her to be in any of those places. he goes to the beach and there hange is, rolling around in sand and looking for god knows what like a total weirdo. people are giving her strange looks, but hange doesn't notice. hange does what she's interested in and doesn't care what everyone else thinks

levi's heart swells as he looks at his weirdo, and fleetingly he thinks that something must be very, very wrong with him, because that weirdo is the one who captured his heart

he doesn't complain though

he doesn't complain that hange is in a swim suit instead of a bikini, but he's a tiniest bit disappointed

still, in levi's eyes, his weirdo looks good no matter what hideous outfit she's wearing

after ten minutes of levi standing there and watching his spouse like a total creep (people are starting to give him funny looks too, but levi doesn't notice. levi is staring at someone he likes, he doesn't care what everyone thinks), hange finally takes note of him

she runs to him, wraps her arms around him and asks if he wants to build a sandcastle

"no," levi answers and proceeds to build a sandcastle

levi constantly warns hange about getting sunburned. he pesters her not to stay in the sun for too long all the time

in the end, he's the one who gets sunburned

his face is all red, and hange can't stop laughing

levi is so pissed, everything hurts and his face feels so hot and the only salvation is hange's sweet kisses

levi gets hit on so much!!!

he'd be chilling near the pool, minding his own business and sipping on some cocktail and women would be all over him, asking him to help with applying the sun cream or simply trying to engage him in conversation

it never works

and then hange shows up, hair wild, in a blindingly bright green swimsuit and crocs, with a bucket full of shells, and levi looks at her like she's the best thing in his life

no one can't understand how that union had happened, but it's hard not to notice how enamored with each other hange and levi are

in the evening, when hange drinks a little too much cocktails, they go dancing. hange puts on a sundress, wraps her hands around his neck, and levi feels like the happiest man in the world

when hange finally puts on a bikini, levi is once again near the pool. he sees hange and literally chokes on his cocktail

as hange frantically pats his back, levi still coughing awfully, he thinks that hange in a bikini is a sight worth dying for

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

3 + nurseydex?

i should be doing chem hw right now but whatever i’m in a writing mood. for the right to the good part prompts (tho i guess i cheated), 3. I just told you I liked you but now I’m shy and say “never mind, forget it” and why are you looking at me like that?

slight warning for underage, not tagging bc fuck tumvlr

“Stop it.”

“Wh– stop what?” Despite his apparent obliviousness, Dex continues to stare back at Nursey with his mouth dropped into a dumb-looking confusion, eyes unblinkingly wide, big ears flushed pink all over and– God, it’s too much to be looked at with everything Dex has.

“Stop it.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“Yes you are, you’re looking at me all–” Nursey flaps a hand in Dex’s face, “–like that.”

“I’m not– how else am I supposed to look at you when you say–” It’s Dex’s turn to flap his hand, “–that.”

Dex has him there. But it isn’t Nursey’s fault, not truly.

What else is he supposed to say, when given a day like the one preceding them now? Waking up in Dex’s childhood room, Dex on the blow-up mattress next to the bed, bumping hips to get more space in the bathroom, making pancakes and stealing strawberries from each other’s plates, watching Dex greet his endless cousins, all of them different sizes right down to the tiniest baby he made giggle with almost no effort at all. Spending the day on the beach, in the water, salt and sun kissing Dex’s skin pink, his smile so constant it must have hurt his cheeks. Sitting, now, alone, next to the bonfire on the same quiet stretch of sand, watching the fire play in Dex’s eyes and understanding how every inch of the day’s love came with a qualifier of silence–

Nursey has spent so long trying to understand Dex, and now that he does, how could he not love him?

(No, that’s not what he said, God imagine how unchill that would have been? No, no, what he said was both worse and better. “I like you here,” he’d said, voice rough from the disuse that comes with observing. Dex quirked an eyebrow, a tacit really? Nursey smiled. “Yeah,” he said, ‘”it makes me like Samwell you even more.” At the silence that stretched from the end of that sentence like gum, sticky and too sweet, Nursey realized his mistake. “Um. Forget I said that.” Yeah, like that wouldn’t make it worse.)

And now they were here– Dex looking at him like that, Nursey broken open and not quite sure what to do with the squishy, emotional insides he’s bared. The space between them grows with the minutes and Nursey’s heart refuses to settle. What if he loses this so soon after he’s found it?

Eventually, Dex looks away. “I don’t know how to do this,” he says, and Nursey hopes “this” isn’t “stop talking to you forever because of your gross too-many-feelings.”

“What do you mean?” Nursey asks, because for all that he’s learned how to read Dex, some things are too complicated for twitching fingers or quirked lips to explain.

“I– love, I guess.”

Nursey swallows hard, but waits.

“You know, this is the beach I lost my– whatever– on.”

Nursey quirks his eyebrows. “Your ‘whatever’?”

Dex darts his eyes at Nursey, at first exasperated, but it quickly gives way to begrudging amusement as he rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, “my whatever.” The smile Nursey caused slowly ends. “I was fourteen. He– was older. He taught me– keep quiet, you know? It was safe. It was– easier.”

Nursey twitches his fingers in the sand, cold without the sun’s warmth. He thinks about being a freshman at Andover, being so eager to fit in, be what everyone wanted him to be. Ready to break off parts of himself that didn’t fit the mold. He still thanks God or whoever for giving him Shitty. Crazy as that bastard is, he doesn’t let anyone be anything less than themselves. Demands it, almost, which can be abrasive, but it’s exactly what Nursey needed, then.

“And I’ve had, like, girlfriends and stuff. Sort of,” Dex says, now, dissipating Nursey’s tentative image of whoever Dex had, instead of Shitty. “But Luke– the guy– he kept coming back, you know, and that was– he was constant. The quiet. The– secrets.” Dex looks down at the sand between his legs, pushing his hands into it.

“Dex?”

Dex shakes his head. “I don’t know how to love right. Love–openly. Fuck, it’s taken me three years to love the team openly.”

“What? Dex, you’ve been a part of the team since the taddy tour, we all have.”

Dex turns and the fire reflects the wetness in his eyes. “I couldn’t love them here, I couldn’t tell my family that I knew Bitty and Jack were together, I couldn’t even come out to the team when I knew they wouldn’t care.”

“Dex.” Nursey reaches out and buries his hand in the sand until it tangles with Dex’s, concealed but together. “Loving people isn’t– it isn’t telling them everything for the sake of it. I don’t know how it is here, but with the team– we love you for the kindness you show, your stupid jokes, the person you are with us. You aren’t the facts of your life. You’re so much more than that.”

“But…”

Nursey shakes his head. “We love you, and we know you love us. Words aren’t everything sometimes.”

Dex huffs a laugh and gives a wobbly smile. “I’m telling everyone that you said that.”

“Do that and I’ll circulate all the pictures of you playing horsey with your cousins.” Nursey gives him a Serious Look. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“Whatever,” Dex mumbles, and looks towards the water. Nursey watches him, quiet, thinking.

A part of him wants to tell Dex how he feels, how he came to feel the way he does, tell him the story of Nursey’s slow and inevitable descent. He wants to tell Dex about the anxiety he brought with him to Samwell, for the curriculum and the people and the hockey, and how easy it was to manifest it in a single person. He wants to share the poems he wrote, angry and deservedly so, and the later sonnets about unwinding vines from the shelter they cling to in order to understand why they grow. He wants to tell him about the darkness of junior year, first term, and the way it festered, and the way it began to dissipate with Dex’s stuttered and determined apology after winter break. He wants to tell Dex how the honesty is a good start, but the person he was so consistently was what sealed the deal.

He wants to tell Dex his own story, and through it, theirs, but the beach is quiet, and the soft summer wind is too fragile to hold the storms–bright and crackling– that live in Nursey’s chest.

“Hey Nursey?” Dex says, and Nursey hums. “I like you too,” he says, and it’s enough, for now. The sand between their palms is cold, grainy, and dwindling.

Tom Cruise Put Top Gun: Maverick Cast Through 'Most Intense Film Training Ever'

Among Tom Cruise’s many identifiers (top-tier on-screen runner, famous couch-jumper) he’s perhaps been best known lately as a famously unchill guy on set.

So, it should come as no surprise that the star would approach training for his new film Top Gun: Maverick just as intensely as he does everything else.  

In a new behind-the-scenes featurette about the sequel to the 1986 blockbuster titled “Most Intense Training Ever,” Cruise reveals the “gruelling” months-long process he demanded fellow cast members go through to prepare for the film. 

“I wasn’t ready to make a sequel until we had a special story, worthy of a sequel, and until technology evolved so we could delve deeper into the experience of a fighter pilot,” Tom explains in the clip, released on Monday. “We worked with the Navy and the Top Gun school to formulate how to shoot it practically. Because if we’re going to do it, we’re going to fly in the F-18s.”

Long before cameras started rolling, the film’s cast, including Miles Teller, Glen Powell and Greg Tarzan Davis, were enrolled in a “challenging underwater programme,” which included being flipped upside down and escaping a submerged aircraft simulator. 

“The Navy says if you eject, you have to be able to survive in the water,” Tom says matter-of-factly in the clip. 

Then, there was an “all-encompassing aviation training” he designed to put the actors with real pilots in increasingly powerful planes “to feel what it was like in a jet.”

And, if that wasn’t enough, cast members also were tasked with operating their own cameras to essentially direct themselves while in the sky. Tom said he took this as an opportunity to “really teach them cinematography and lighting so that they understood what’s going to look good on camera.”

If all that sounds slightly miserable, cast members at least seemed grateful for the experience, which was all in service of rendering more visceral flight sequences for the movie’s audience.  

Tom, of course, has developed a reputation for being a dominating force on set. A clip of the actor berating crew members for breaching pandemic protocols during the filming of Mission Impossible 7 went viral last year.

The pandemic-delayed Top Gun: Maverick, which sees Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell return to teach a new class of pilots, including the son of his late friend Goose, arrives in cinemas on 27 May.

Watch a trailer below...

READ MORE:

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“Do Not Refrigerate”

It is truly astonishing how difficult it is for me to let go and relax. Yes, I know; there is a name for that, and it’s called anxiety. It is also a treatable medical condition. There are therapies, medications, and exercises for it. Breathe deeply, count to ten, write a list of fears and then remind yourself how unfounded they are. Then there is my favorite of all- think positively. Remember how most fears don’t ever come to fruition- this is true- but if you are an Evangelical remember that what Job feared most is what he got, so nip that fear in the bud. Never mind the added pressure that is caused by thinking that being afraid you will fail will make you fail.  

It is a strange dissonance. My mood is still happy and optimistic, but the shadow of anxiety looms heavy in my mind. Today, I was pacing back and forth and talking to myself with the utmost vehemence and urgency. If I were still religious, it would have been a great time to pray, and that was just one of the things that I was “discussing” with myself. That, and going over my plans over and over. I know that no plan is truly foolproof, and that things never turn out exactly the way that you expect them to. That didn’t stop me from continuing to talk to myself all the way up until I had to get out of my car and walk into work.

Underneath all this surface-level worry and concern, is the underlying fear that if I ease my grip on things even slightly, I will lose everything. Never mind that I have been successfully managing my life for the past 5-6 years. My self-confidence is very low. I don’t think that I’m the scum of the earth, I just think that I’m incompetent. I had never taken the time before to stop and think of it, but that is really what I think. My boyfriend snarkily cries “imposter syndrome.” I struggle because admitting that it is imposter syndrome is saying that I really am good at things, but I just can’t see it myself. I’m convinced that I really am one step away from self-destruction, and I just graduated with an Associate degree. Maybe that is the very definition of imposter syndrome; after all, the more you achieve, the worse- not better- it tends to get. It is a vicious cycle that can tear a person apart inside, unless they get outside help.

I know that my anxiety is something that I will have to bring up more in therapy. In my last therapy session, my therapist and I spent the whole session talking about my options for me after graduation and going into the next degree plan. I really was happy with that, but I guess we both forgot for a second that I’m atypical. “Normal” people don’t spend five years in and out of mental hospitals, including one in another state. Also, lots of mentally ill people don’t come back from that. It’s been years, but that past doesn’t really seem that distant. I feel as though I am just holding on unsteadily to the broken pieces of my former life and struggling to keep myself whole. I still feel fraught with fractures. Self-doubt is something I will have to discuss along with the anxiety.

I get reassurances everywhere that I turn, but I still feel unsure of myself. My therapist has praised me, telling me that most people aren’t able to achieve the level of functioning that I have. Here I am, taking my medicine regularly, attending all my doctor appointments, living in my own apartment, working steadily at a job, and now, I’ve graduated community college. My caseworker told me that I am an ideal client. I got good evaluations on the job. My dad told me that he was proud of me before he died. At the time I hadn’t graduated, and he told me that he was proud of me just for getting to where I was. My mom believes the future holds great things for me. My brothers have expressed admiration for how I have managed things up to this point. My boyfriend has told me more than once, “I wish you could just see yourself the way I see you.”

Maybe if I just took the time to internalize all this encouragement, I would be in a much better place with my self-esteem than I’m at right now. The self-critical voice in my head is just so loud. I wish that I had a better way to quiet it. I try my best, but it is an ongoing battle. The voice says that I am not good enough, not smart enough, not clever enough, too old, too sick, and too weak. Somehow, I just can’t silence it, at least not completely. I really am at my wit’s end on how to deal with this.

I really should just wear a sign that reads, “do not refrigerate”, because I could not possibly be more incapable of staying cool. Of course, I maintain my outward composure quite well. I was able to flip the switch from being a psychotic self-rambler into a perfectly component employee in a matter of mere minutes. Most of the time it’s easier to be at work, because my mind is focused on the task at hand. It is familiar territory. Sometimes, though, even though I’ve been at the library for three years, I’m still afraid that I am going to mess up. I am still learning new things and being presented with new challenges. Largely, I am rising to the occasion. I can’t think of any time when I absolutely just “blew it”. Maybe being cautious and staying alert has been what has kept me on my feet.

I have a history of competency now, whether I believe that I am competent or not. It is so established that most people don’t even know that I’m mentally ill, or don’t believe me when I tell them. I don’t try particularly hard to hide that past; I am generally honest about it. During my interview for the library job, when asked about why there was a gap in my employment history, I paused only momentarily before I said, “Well, actually, I was struggling a lot with my mental health around that time.” They told me, “Thank you for your honesty” and they clearly meant it, because I got the job. I wonder what would have happened if I had just tried to fudge or given some excuse. There was only one position open at the time and they chose me over all the other candidates. They chose mentally ill me, and somehow, they’ve kept me all this time.

The thing about mental illness is that even when you know you’re thinking or behaving a certain way because of the illness, it doesn’t always make the behavior go away. Wellness isn’t a switch that we can just turn on at will. If we could do that, we wouldn’t need therapy, medication, and coping skills. We wouldn’t have to be hospitalized because we were a danger to ourselves or others. I have made a lot of progress, but I am far from being “recovered.” I will probably have to take anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and mood stabilizers for the rest of my life, and medicine alone is not enough to fully treat the problem.

When Nicki Minaj says “I’ve got zero chill in me” it’s a great thing, but for me it doesn’t work quite so well. For now, I will continue my journey of becoming a better person, learning about myself and the world around me, and trying to become more independent and self-sufficient. It hasn’t been easy so far, and it won’t be easy going forward, but “the only way out is through”. I’ve been telling myself this a lot lately: “You can use all the positive self-talk in the world, but in the end, you have to just walk through those doors. No one else can walk through for you.” When it comes down to it, you just have to do the thing. You must take the steps towards success, even if you’re the most unchill person out there (like me). I may not feel like a success, but I have succeeded at important things in my life. You can, too, even with a mental illness.  

Would you ever feel like writing a fic with female illyrians ? It's just I was so disappointed that there were no female illyrians in acowar!

I was already drafting this when u asked, friend, i’m glad we’re all on the same page here. If SJM wants to play mythology mashup and pull armies out of nowhere at the last minute, I’ll bite. Let’s put some Illyrian female warriors in ACOWAR. And fix some Mor shit while we’re at it.

It would require a line of setup: something early on about how Cassian’s struggling to do War Stuff because he’s been busy putting out fires in the war camps regarding missing, presumably kidnapped, women and girls. Also that this has been going on for a long time.

(Phrase it so we’re assuming they’re being abducted men in by rival camps, or something else gross, because we’re never more than a page and a half from a reference to sexual assault in these damn books)

So then late in the book, when they’re scrambling to get together the various armies and creatures they’ve cajoled into helping, Someone sees what is clearly a whole bunch of illyrians descending and is like “….. hey cas, which unit is that ?”

Cas is like ???????????

They land and it’s ALL WOMEN. Illyrian women in fighting leathers and siphons and armed to the teeth. Everyone is like o_o ?!

Their leader, whose name is some variation of Diana, because if SJM gets to be blatant af about her mythological inspirations I do too, is like “We heard about Hybern and have come to offer our secret army’s services to the high lady of the night court”

There is some serious tension because Cassian is like “It’s not possible there’s an entire Illyrian army I didn’t know about and also technically I’m in charge of you bc illyrian” and Diana says “I do not answer to you” and Rhys tries to get in there and she’s like “Or you, punk, fucking try me”

That shit is SHUT. DOWN. ABSOLUTELY NO DUDE IS GONNA TELL THE ILLYRIAN FEMALE ARMY WHAT TO DO.

So yeah, none of those girls were kidnapped, they ran away to join what is an entire secret all-female society somewhere in the mountains, some of them to avoid getting their wings clipped, some of them after years and years of abuse they were fucking done with.

(The army has a ground unit too, of women who did not get out in time and whose wings were clipped, who still fight like badasses.)

They only came after great internal debate about breaking their policy of extreme isolationism/secrecy to fight the Greater Fight and the final decision was only made because they respected that Feyre had been made a high lady, that there was a woman on the throne now.

Feyre is who Diana pledges loyalty to and she only works with Rhys and Cassian because Feyre asks her.

So everyone’s like “ok ok cool cool extra army” except Kier, who has decided that it’s a MASSIVE INSULT that his army is being forced to fight alongside Illyrian women and throws a gigantic bitchfit and says he’s going to back out if Rhys doesn’t dismiss them immediately.

He says something extra nasty and Mor just turns to Az and says “kill him.”

And everyone is like “holy fuck”

Except for Az who doesn’t even fucking blink, he’s been waiting on this for 500 years, Mor watches Azriel disembowel her father and it’s cathartic for everyone.

Oh, and Mor inherits control of the Darkbringers :) which is technically why she did it, although it’s also a culmination of the weirdness that happened earlier in the CON and bolstered by the weird confidence/pride/protectiveness that seeing the female illyrian army, who all escaped familial abuse like she did, inspired in her.

Some of the darkbringers are Unchill about this, so Mor demonstrates some of her badass fucking power that we were promised in ACOMAF and is like “DOES ANYONE ELSE WANT TO QUESTION MY AUTHORITY?”

[pointed look at Rhys for what happened in the CON. he will be apologizing for that later because what happened immediately afterwards was NOT good enough.]

No. no they do not. the darkbringers fall in line.

Everything else continues as normal, with Mor commanding her new army and the Female Illyrians being excellent.

Later, it’s Diana who gives Elain a knife, not Azriel.

It’s also seeing them kick ass that makes Nesta feel Weird about her refusal to train to fight and inspires her to do The Thing with her cauldron-magic.

Rhys and Diana and Mor all eventually bond over surrendering the sanctity of their safe places for the greater good. Rhys promises that Diana will have all the help she needs defending the female illyrian society now that it’s no longer secret from the worse Illyrians who would try to tear it apart.

Mor gets an Illyrian warrior girlfriend. Possibly several.

Diana’s origin story is a spinoff novel.

In conclusion: I am filing for custody of this series.

Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month

      If there’s one thing I’ve wanted more than anything else in my entire life, it’s been to be normal. That may be hard to believe for most people in my life, given that I’m prone to living in a manner some might describe as dramatic and “unnecessary”. Maybe a part of me realized a long ways back that on some level I was never going to blend in, that I was never going to be quote unquote normal. Growing up, I was never normal. I was the kid with the big hearing aids, the kid with the lisp. When I wasn’t the deaf kid, I was the twin who ohmygod shared a womb with his sister “and isn’t that awesome do you guys share a psychic connection what’s she thinking right now?” (As we’ve grown up, I have developed a keen sense of her moods - right now, she wants wine and carbs). Neither of those things that made me different were inherently bad - they were just things that I didn’t have control over. I’m big on being able to control things in my life (more on that later).

        Then of course, when I had maybe just become as normal as I’ve probably ever been in high school, where my identity wasn’t wrapped around my hearing aids or my womb-mate since my teachers weren’t all aware of either, I tuned into my emerging sexuality. So then I became the gay kid. I couldn’t control that, either. But if I wasn’t going to be able to be plain jane normal, I was going to control the narrative the best I could. So I was the school faggot who wore six inch stilettos to class because fuck the patriarchy, amiright? I mean, if I wasn’t going to be able to be normal, I might as well be balls-to-the-wall obnoxious. I sure wasn’t going to blend in with the jocks or the gamers or the preppy girls, so there I was making questionable life choices in zebra print jeans and a leopard print purse.  Still, somewhere underneath three inches of caked-on foundation and bleached, blue, green, red, black, damaged hair, all I wanted was to be normal. I clearly wasn’t motivated to put in an effort to make myself normal, because I have all the self-motivation of a sunbathing iguana, but if I’d have woken up one morning with some innate ability to fly under the radar, my dreams would have come true. Nobody said teenage me was good with logic, alright?

       Because none of the above were labels enough and because we live in a society where we worship excess, I further became the kid with the eating disorder, the kid whose life basically just frayed at the seams until I was spending my eighteenth birthday in the hospital, where surprisingly, I kind of felt...normal? I mean, not one of us there was normal - we were all twisted by some unknown force, hiding mashed potatoes in uggs, pouring shots of ensure in the carpet, and splashing urine samples on the poor nurses (poor woman coincidentally retired that same year). We had fixations that bonded us, a common experience in the ridiculousness of being told to lick out jam packets and eat the cores of apples (Laura, I’ve been recovered for a while now and you’re still just wrong on that front). I fit in without trying, and it was oddly comforting. When I left treatment, my life became as normal as I imagine it will ever be. I worked two jobs, found myself in a relationship that didn’t careen off the tracks (bless Joey’s heart), and then went away for school. It was the Canadian dream, and it was wonderful. I adored it. I mean, my roommates in Ottawa shat on the floors and made hash with my hair straightener, but I was normal! It was everyone else who was crazy - a true revelation.

      Fast forward a few years and we get to the point of all this rambling about my life story. I was studying (lol) at Ryerson and I’d met fellow normals who I did normal university student stuff with like the wonderful normal me wanted. Except my one friend kept telling me I needed to get my eyes checked because apparently I couldn’t see well enough. Like, excuse me? I could see just damn fine thank you it wasn’t my fault other people got in my way or things moved into my path or that cars didn’t pay attention to pedestrians or that sometimes it was just too damn dark outside, okay?. “But no seriously”, Mathew said, “you should be able to see more. It’s probably like glaucoma or cataracts or something, just get your eyes tested”. The man works for Lasik MD, so I immediately heeded his words of advice...like nine months later.

      It was now October of 2015, and I was normal, god damn it. I sat with patron saint Joey in an eye doctor’s office with a Louis Vuitton print trash can (I couldn’t make this up, I swear) and a poster of Patrick Dempsey on the wall. “MCDREAMY LIVES” I believe was what Joey said to me. This was a real eye doctor, not just some man my mother, bless her heart, was harboring a not-so-secret crush for. I sat through what seemed like a ridiculous number of tests that featured some eye drops that truly made me unable to see - I haven’t sent so many misspelled texts since the drunken lead up to my hospitalization.

      My first sign that “whoops, maybe Mathew was right” was when I was doing a field of vision test where I was supposed to be pressing buttons whenever I saw a flash of light - the visual version of a hearing test I’d been doing since I was like four and screaming into a microphone at some poor audiologist who deserved better in life because he wasn’t MY audiologist. I digress. Anyways, the lady running the test kept telling me “so you need to press the button when you see the light. Do you see the light? You have to press the button! So you know to press the button? Press the button!” In my mind I was cussing her out - “GURL I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN I HAVE PRESSED THE BUTTON A MULTITUDE OF TIMES I HAVE SEEN LIGHTS” - but in reality, “yes. I understand. Gotcha. *click*. *click*. Want to feel like an imbecile? Sit in front of a machine with your face in a cage and listen to someone dispassionately remind you that you need to press the button blah blah blah.

     Finally at long last, Gentle Male Eye Doctor (GMED) sat down with me to discuss the results of the test I had clearly failed like I had grade 11 chemistry. “So, you see this picture here? That’s your retina. These little lines here are *eye doctor jumble I could not reproduce for the life of me*. Your visual field test reinforces my first thoughts when I looked at these images”. Sure, GMED, tell me all about my cataracts so I can get Mathew to get me a sweet discount and I can get back to my normal life. “It looks like you have retinitis pigmentosa”. Screech. Hands up, y’all, if you’ve ever heard of retinitis pigmentosa before. Zero? Good, we’re all on the same page here.

“It’s a genetic degenerative condition”

“I’m guessing from the look on your face, that’s not a good thing?”

“No.”

“So how do we like, deal with it?”

“There’s no cure”.

“Okay, but like how do we treat it to keep it from getting worse?”

“Well...there’s not really anything we can do. I’m going to refer you to a retina specialist. Don’t google it, okay?”

“Sure.”

So I went to pay, kind of just shell shocked because how exactly are you supposed to fucking process something you don’t know about? Turns out I now get free eye exams because of my condition (it’s all coming up sunshine for #sashagay!).

What’s the first thing I did when I got home? Did I

A) Have a healthy snack

B) Read Great Expectations for class

C) Go for a light jog

D) Google what the fuck retinitis pigmentosa is

The correct answer, of course, is D. (When is D not the answer to everything? - I couldn’t resist)  I remained #chill the best I could, because I had not yet seen a retina specialist, which I still wasn’t sure was a legitimate thing, nor had my diagnosis confirmed.

      That’s a lie. I was #unchill. Before I’d had my formal diagnosis I knew all about RP and all sorts of fun (read: scary) facts about it. And then they confirmed my diagnosis. I am going blind. Retinitis Pigmentosa is, as GMED stated, a genetic degenerative eye condition. In laymans terms, you start with a loss of night vision coupled with a loss of peripheral vision. 

If nothing else, I know now I’m not the only one who hates those damn signs

I wasn’t walking into “caution when wet” signs and TTC station employees and small children and off curbs and into oncoming traffic because of a lack of grace. I had been losing peripheral vision that would have allowed me to see all of the above. Other people didn’t just have superior night vision like some freakshow - they just had normal eyes that saw trees, stairs, and again, small children. (If you take nothing else away from all this, take away the knowledge that small children are the worst). Again as GMED had said, there is currently no treatment. There is no cure. I will continue to lose my vision at an undetermined rate until I am first legally blind, and eventually completely blind.

     In many ways, I am incredibly lucky. My visual acuity - the field of vision in which I can see - is pretty damn good. I can see the world around me and as of yet am largely unaffected by my condition. I have no problem reading, walking around my neighbourhood, or doing my job. I’m pretty much as normal as I was before - for now. I will never be able to drive (GMED looked like he might faint when I told him I’d driven to my appointment until I clarified that Joey was behind the wheel). I’ll never be able to see the stars at night, or go to the movies without feeling like I’m in some sort of Survivor challenge. And I’ll become, eventually, more and more reliant on using assistive devices to get around and do the things I can do uninhibited today. At my last eye exam, a different doctor told me that A) I have a field of vision of approximately 50 degrees, having lost about two-four degrees of vision in the last year, and that B) given a continual degree of degeneration, I will be lucky if I make it to 35 before I become legally blind.

So if you look at the above diagram I have so helpfully provided, you’ll see what my vision loss at this point looks like. I have approximately 25 degrees of vision in each eye - so slightly less than the full thirty degrees of ‘near peripheral’ vision a person with no visual impairment would have. Legally blind is 20 degrees of peripheral vision, so about the triangle you see labelled here as macular vision.

      Retinitis Pigmentosa isn’t a super common condition - something like one in 4,000 people have the condition, but even that isn’t confirmed. There’s not really a ton of research out there, so the information available isn’t totally reliable. General consensus seems to be that those of us with the condition lose the majority of their vision in their twenties (that’s me!) and 90% of us are legally blind by the age of 40, both of which align with what my doctor told me. So that’s what I’m essentially basing my outlook on: having approximately 12 years until I’m considered legally blind, with a steady (or rapid???) rate of decline in my field of vision until then. It’s a weird situation.

      I finished out my last year of university as a “normal”, basically acting as though nothing has changed. Today, I am qualified to tell you I have a bachelor’s degree in English. That’s it - there’s really not much else that degree qualifies you for, in all honesty. Just after that, I finally set up my referral with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. I’ve taken Orientation and Mobility training where I’ve learned how to use my white cane. When I’m out in the dark, in crowded places, or just unfamiliar places, I use my cane to let other people know I’m a public menace (that’s not meant to be a jab at other visually impaired people; my condition truly manifests itself in me being a danger to children and those little wire baskets at Shoppers Drug Mart) and to help me navigate more effectively.

      I should clarify a few things. I’m not ‘normal’ any more, and I won’t be any time in the future. You win some, you lose some, and I’m pretty much okay with that right now. I can still see. I’m not legally blind. If I’m out with my cane, it doesn’t mean I’m 100% blind. I will, sir, be able to see you pulling out your fucking polaroid at the subway station to take a picture of me from three feet away. (True story. I looked damn cute that day, though, so can we blame him?). I’m visually impaired, so I do walk into a lot of things and people. I will miss you waving at me from five feet away, since I can’t see to either side of me and I’m usually focused on trying to see what’s in front of me. I can still beat my face like a RuPaul’s Drag Race reject, but I can’t ride a bike by myself. I can still go to work and do my thing, but I can’t see you handing me something. I can still text, use my computer, put together a cute lewk, and be an internet sensation, but I can’t find anything to save my life. Where’s my hearing aid? Where’d I leave my phone? What did I do with my lighter? 

Trying to help me find something? Keep this in mind so I don’t hulk out on you

Game over. It takes me forever to find anything, because my eyes don’t scan the way someone who isn’t visually impaired would be able to. My boss likes to play a game on her iPad that has her looking for objects in a dark room with a flashlight that only lights up a small bit of said room- it would be a fun game to try out, except that’s my life. Poor embattled Joey and I went to Mexico last summer and he wanted to try out a ‘eat in the dark experience’ - except that was every dining experience I had, because “ambient lighting” really means “#sashagay comes mere millimetres away from impaling himself and/or giving himself a second-degree burn”.

      So, I’ve never been normal. I’m relatively used to being different - it’s just on a bigger scale now. My friends are all graduating university or working their way up in their respective fields; they’re building careers and establishing themselves. For me, that’s a weird thing to think about, because how do I go about building a career when I A) don’t know what exactly I want to do with my life, and B) don’t really know how long I’ll have enough usable vision to work in that career? 80% of people who are legally blind are unemployed - and to me, that’s not unbelievable, because it’s hard to imagine what I’m going to do when I’m blind.

      None of this is to say poor pitiful me, give me a pep talk about how I can do anything I can put my mind to. I’m not giving up on my life or any hope for the future. I consider myself a realist. If 80% of people who are legally blind are unemployed, there is a very good chance I will be in that percentage. If my vision is continuing to degrade, the likelihood of my life changing in a dramatic fashion is pretty damn high. People who say “you can do anything! I know a blind person who’s curing cancer, who’s an astronaut, who’s a grammy-award-winning singer” (hey Stevie Wonder!) are trying to be positive and uplifting. But those people are the exception to the rule. Telling me, unprompted, that I am going to be a force to be reckoned with and that nothing will stand in my way, is not helpful. I’ve never had astronomical aspirations for myself - all I wanted was to be normal. If I wasn’t going to win a nobel prize before, I really don’t see it happening anytime soon. It’s not defeatist, because I know I’m going to be okay. I’m going to work on my goals as they come. I’m going to do volunteer work when I can’t hold down a job. I’m going to be a fucking fabulous uncle to my nieces and nephews when they come around. I’m going to raise awareness and fight for the causes I believe in. I’ll just be adding a splash of Helen Keller realness to anything I do.

      It’s just a weird situation to be in, to be in your early(ish) twenties and know that you’re going blind. How do you plan for that? How do you build a life around that? I said before: I like to be in control. I’m not. It’s scary. But I’ll be okay. I have an amazing family who would move hell and earth for me. I have Joey, who isn’t going anywhere so long as I can dangle a handicap parking spot in front of him. I have incredible friends and colleagues who would never leave me dangling on my own (except when they forget I can’t see them and turn and walk in a different direction than me - oops). I have new friends I’m making in the community - hey Mara! - who show me that I’m going to be okay, that retinitis pigmentosa isn’t game over.

     I don’t have a super cute way to end all this, so I’ll just end off by saying I hope I’ve brought some awareness to y’all with all these words since it is retinitis pigmentosa awareness month. Here’s to not being normal!

yellin’ at songs: 4.1.2017, 3.31.2007

the songs that debuted on the billboard chart this week and ten years ago this week.

3.31.2007

42) "With Love," Hilary Duff

This was thoroughly unpleasant. Hold up, before I check Wikipedia, I'ma guess Kara DioGuardi was in on this one? I think I've listened to enough 2007 at this point that I can recognize Kara DioGuardi's trademark blechery in here. /checks the credits/ OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY IS SHE SO TRASH. Kara DioGuardi has written plenty of bad songs, including the two most disappointing songs I've heard as part of this project. She's given a credit on "Be Good to Me," which you'll recall was a travesty, and she's given a credit here, on this bad imitation of a Timbaland song. I won't do a Worst 10 or anything like that, because why would I think about things I don't like any longer than I have to, but I guarantee, there’d be multiple Kara DioGuardi joints on a Worst 10. I'm not going to look at her Wikipedia page, for the same reason other people find it difficult to watch Hannibal, but also to keep life full of surprises.

68) "Survivalism," Nine Inch Nails

a fun thing about listening to political songs from 2007 is how quaint they seem now. remember when the problems we have today were still problems but like 1% as bad as they are now? say what you will about dubya, he never flew into a rage on a saturday morning and accused bill clinton of wiretapping the texas rangers. there was some shit being pulled in 2007, like f’rinstance remember that one time the president suspended habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants? that was pretty unchill. but at least he wasn't gleefully racist. at least he didn't propose we spend billions of dollars to build a monument to racism.

76) "Get It Shawty," Lloyd

I didn't hate this! This song is incredibly 2007, but it's 2007 in a way that's somewhat timeless, if that makes any sense. Like, in 2014, I wrote about Nico & Vinz's "Am I Wrong?" that, yeah, there's a few things in there that will mark it as being from 2014, but if you wrote this song in any era, it could have blended in with that era's trends and styles with aplomb, and we would have loved it all the same. There's a lot here that's very 2007, but at its core, this song is kind of perfect, could have been released today and sound like a hit from today and still occupy the same space in my heart. It's like "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)," or Amerie's "One Thing," just a solid song which'll make you go "Oh yeah! This! I loved this!" when it comes on.

90) "You Know I'm No Good," Amy Winehouse ft./Ghostface Killah 91) "Rehab," Amy Winehouse

It is uncouth to speak ill of the dead. It is also uncouth to write that sentence in this context, prolly, but let us be known for what we are. I hope she's doing better. (That bass on "You Know I'm No Good," tho.)

94) "Beautiful Liar," Beyonce & Shakira

Listen, team, we need to talk about restraint for a second, because there are a thousand ways this project could have gone wrong. You get two superstars on the track together, there's absolutely the risk of putting something completely overcooked on the market, some showy vocal battle, but everything here is so understated. The Middle Eastern-y sound could have been laid on too thick, but it's doled out in this tiny, almost imperceptible dose, and that sets the tone for the rest of the track. No one belts anything, because it's understood that there's nothing to belt about, just a dumb boy that isn't worth the effort, and Beyonce and Shakira are compelling singers who don't NEED to be belting all the time to get the point across. This is such a fascinating song! You would expect a song from two titans to attempt to set fire to the world, but this merely simmers, doesn't even boil, just simmers, and it's an agreeable choice.

96) "Like This," Kelly Rowland ft./Eve

The synth track on this song kind of, kind of sounds like the main menu theme of Yoshi's Island, at least sounds close enough to Yoshi's Island that I can completely fuck with this, even if I think the drum track is kind of illogical. (Bob! you should be making jokes, what is this music criticism thing.) UGH FINE oh wow kelly rowland follow beyonce much. you know how like you two used to be in destiny's child but beyonce had a much more successful solo career. hey where's the michelle williams one. um, michelle williams much? that's a person also who was in destiny's child as well, also. she's very less successful! how about that! having fun living a full life and hopefully retiring early after having made smart investments with the money you made from your time in a popular music group? what a putz!

2007 Top 20 In Progress, Except Not Really, Because 2007 Is Kinda Over if You Haven’t Noticed? But I’m Still Ranking These Songs as I Go Because I Don’t Know What Else to Do. 20) "Outside Looking In," by Jordan Pruitt (2.24.2007) 19) "Like a Boy," by Ciara (3.17.2007) 18) "Grace Kelly," by MIKA (2.17.2007) 17) "Get it Shawty," by Lloyd (3.31.2007) 16) "Break 'Em Off," by Paul Wall ft./Lil' KeKe (3.10.2007) 15) "My Oh My," by The Wreckers (1.27.2007) 14) "Mr. Jones," by Mike Jones (1.27.2007) 13) "Settlin'," by Sugarland (2.17.2007) 12) "Movin' On," by Elliott Yamin (3.17.2007) 11) "U + Ur Hand," by P!nk (1.13.2007) 10) "Doe Boy Fresh," by Three 6 Mafia ft./Chamillionaire (1.20.2007) 9) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007) 8) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 7) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 6) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 5) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 4) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 3) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 2) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 1) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) Jordan Pruitt, hanging on for one more week! Can she keep the miracle run near the bottom of the chart going? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH I ENJOY “WHO KNEW.”

4.1.2017

14) "No Frauds," by Nicki Minaj, Drake, & Lil Wayne

This was a very boring song, most of which concerns a topic in which I'm not particularly invested? Like I guess it's kind of interesting to drop a diss track where you sound completely disinterested in the beef, the response is perfunctory and you're only responding because your opponent's name carries some weight and people'll give you shit if you completely ignore it. I’m down for a diss track where the participant is hella bored by this nonsense, but that probably wasn't the intended interpretation. I dunno. If there's one thing I learned from digging through just three months' worth of 2007 hits, it's that there are songs meant to be forgotten, and I have a feeling, if there is a 2027 and we're all still free, there's gonna be another obsessive white dude who's made poor life choices and poorer facial hair choices digging through the 2017 vaults, coming across this song, and realizing sometimes things are forgotten because they're forgettable.

61) "Regret in Your Tears," by Nicki Minaj

I'm of two minds on this. The first one doesn't think we put Nicki Minaj on this earth to make Drake songs. But also, I had a good time! It sounded inspiring, and the idea of a Nicki Minaj break-up song is so inherently interesting to me that I'd almost put it in the "down for this no matter what" category. I just think it could've been a touch more creative than "here's Nicki doing a sad song."

71) "Changed It," by Nicki Minaj & Lil' Wayne

That thing Nicki does at 1:45, "I am Billie Jean and the bitch is my SON," that's why we never stop believing. That's why we listen to this nonsense with entirely too much modern-day Lil' Wayne, because Nicki Minaj will ocassionally do things like that with her voice.

72) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky

I DON'T KNOW WHY FRANK DECIDED TO START BEING BREEZY AND MAKE SONGS THAT ARE FUN TO LISTEN TO BUT I APPRECIATE THAT HE'S ZAGGIN' ON 'EM. It feels shitty to give this song a couple of spins and then form a loud all-capsable opinion about it, because that feels like giving the intricacy and depth of Frank Ocean's songs short shrift. But it's his own damn fault for making this song so breezy! It's not necessarily lighthearted, it's not like Frank Ocean is ever gonna take us to his happy place, but it's airy and soft (you know, soft, like air sometimes is), it feels good to just let these sounds envelop you, and I haven't quite yet figured out how to express what I love about the transition to Rocky's verse, but trust that I loved it. (Maybe this doesn't need to go up the date the chart drops?) nah, we’re good

78) "Liability," by Lorde

This feels like a song that's probably going to be really dope in the context of the album, where it can play the supporting role it is clearly meant to play, but as a standalone track, I dunno. It's definitely more interesting than the average piano-'n-strings song, you can really hear that Fun. sound clear as day. It's just not particularly substantive on its own. Though, I suppose if it's being released as a teaser, it performs the job admirably, giving just a hint of what the album could sound like. I'm stoked.

95) "Prblms," by 6LACK

sadness is not the only valid emotion. darkness cannot exist without light. fucking christ, you people won't listen to "Run Up," but you'll listen to a parade of fucking dudes bleat about how shitty their relationships are. i don't get it.

The 2017 Top 20, Which Actually Is in Progress! 20) "Regret in Your Tears," by Nicki Minaj (4.1) 19) "Way Down We Go," by Kaleo (1.14) 18) "Everyday," by Ariana Grande ft./Future (3.4) 17) "Light," by Big Sean ft./Jeremih (2.25) 16) "Draco," by Future (3.11) 15) "Guys My Age," by Hey Violet (2.11) 14) "Good Drank," by 2 Chainz ft./Gucci Mane & Quavo (2.11) 13) "Yeah Boy," Kelsea Ballerini (3.4) 12) "Selfish," by Future ft./Rihanna (3.18) 11) "Slide," by Calvin Harris ft./Frank Ocean & Migos (3.18) 10) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4) 9) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini (2.25) 8) "Shape of You," by Ed Sheeran (1.28) 7) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4) 6) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1) 5) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18) 4) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18) 3) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 2) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) 1) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) “iSpy” is a freshly-minted Top 10 hit, and I’m so excited for that. Light the way forward, KYLE. Show the world it’s okay to be happy and make fun songs.

Who won the week?

Frank Ocean had the best individual song, and that is to be commended, but oh my stars does 2007 ever take it. “With Love” would sink weaker ships, but we had “Beautiful Liar” and “Get it Shawty” on this one, along with the Yoshi’s Island sounds and the bass line in an Amy Winehouse song. “Chanel” took to the seas with one pretty cool Nicki song, two bleh Nicki songs, fucking 6LACK, and a Lorde song not meant to live on its own. It falls to the bottom of the ocean, and future underwater anthropologists (prolly a thing?) will find it in the wreckage and ask how..

Official Standings 2007: 1 2017: 0 (it kinda won last week, but I’m not counting that as a win, because honestly that was more scouting report than battle.)

Rough week for 2017, but hey: Drake made a new thing! If nothing else, at least this week wasn’t that.