#i always get such a feeling from old posts i lost my whimsy i lost my euphoric love and joy
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Can't believe I missed the 2 year anniversary of L.L.'s first bloodline kill. I wish I had the time when they killed their mother down too. Siiigh.
#💟.txt#i always get such a feeling from old posts i lost my whimsy i lost my euphoric love and joy#tske me BACK
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Short Reflection: Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
I have not watched much old anime. It’s an oversight I know I need to correct; there’s plenty of great stuff to be found in anime’s long history, and I’d be doing myself a disservice if my only experience with this medium’s past came in the form of Miyazaki movies (as fantastic as those movies may be). But I tend to drag my heels on it because, well, me and old anime don’t always get along. As many excellent shows and movies as I’ve seen in the years before the new millennium, a lot of stuff from back then has just not aged well. At least not for me. Maybe it’s a disconnect with the visual and thematic aesthetics of the time compared to how modern anime looks and feels. Maybe it’s the difference of growing up in a post-Evangelion world and finding it hard to return to anime that were made before that franchise’s overwhelming influence. Or maybe some of this stuff just straight-up sucked and we were too young or inexperienced with the medium to realize. I want to like old anime, and I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff I’ll love that I just haven’t found yet, but a lot of the time, engaging with anime’s history means running into barriers that I’m not always able to overcome. And sadly, that’s exactly what happened with Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
If nothing else, the circumstances of Nadia’s creation are fascinating enough to engage with on their own. Originally a pitch from Hayao Miyazaki himself, it was eventually picked up to be directed by Hideaki Anno, a man who’s creative sensibilities couldn’t be farther from Miyazaki’s if he tried. The show’s tumultuous production was so destructive to Anno’s mental health that he stayed away from directing another project for years. And when he finally returned to the director’s chair, he channeled those mental health struggles into his new project, resulting in the absolute game-changer that was Neon Genesis Evangelion. So in a weird way, Nadia and its creation is responsible for the shape of the modern anime landscape. Anime as we know it wouldn’t exist without Evangelion, and Evangelion wouldn’t exist without the executives at Gainax forcing Nadia’s creators to shoehorn in an entirely new story arc mid-production because the ratings were so good. So, uh, I guess the legendarily terrible Island Arc wasn’t a total waste after all? I dunno, silver linings and all that.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The premise is, fittingly enough, classic Miyazaki, by which I mean it’s basically just Castle in the Sky again. You’ve got a mysterious girl with a magical pendant who teams up with an ordinary boy to find a lost civilization the pendant is important to, that civilization is a metaphor for the sin of hubris and the need for humans to live in harmony with nature instead of trying to subdue it, the bad guys are a fascist-coded cult seeking to monopolize the old civilization’s power for themselves and rule the world, and there’s a secondary bad guy team of bumbling Team Rocket-esque criminals who eventually end of on the side of the good guys (The Grandis Gang is the best part of this show and I appreciated every moment they were on screen). There are some differences, of course- the setting is the late 19th century instead of a post-apocalyptic pastoral paradise, the ancient civilization is buried under the waves instead of hidden above the clouds- but the broad strokes are basically identical. But hey, Miyazaki’s never been shy about recycling ideas before, and if the execution of these ideas here had been as great as Laputa, that’s what really matters.
Except, of course, this isn’t a Miyazaki show. It’s a Hideaki Anno show. And the clash between the very Miyazaki premise and the very Anno execution of that premise is easily the biggest reason to watch Nadia. It’s fascinating watching this all-ages fantasy adventure take sudden turns into death and darkness. It’s fascinating watching Miyazaki’s trademark whimsy and lush portrait of reality filtered through Anno’s fascination with jagged edges and even more jagged characters. Violence is intense and shocking. Body horror, though rare, is genuinely gruesome. The depictions of ancient cultures are steeped in cryptidian menace and existential mystique. Nadia herself is a far more jaded protagonist than Miyazaki’s ever written, a girl who pushes the world away out of fear it’ll just hurt her to engage with other people again. There’s even a lot of the experimental direction that would come to define Evangelion’s final stretch of accidental art-house brilliance. It never stops being a whimsical adventure first and foremost, but Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is far more willing to engage with the darker, edgier side of its adventure than Castle in the Sky ever did. If you enjoy tracking the careers and styles of specific artists, this show will be like catnip to you.
Unfortunately, I can’t just enjoy Nadia on the basis of its eclectic blend of storytelling sensibilities. I have to judge it as a show. And even putting aside the infamous Island Arc (Don’t worry, we’ll get to that mess in a moment), this is a deeply flawed product of its time. And sadly, Nadia herself is one of its biggest issues. Or rather, the issue is in how she’s treated. Despite her name being in the title, Nadia barely gets to do anything besides mope, get captured, get rescued, and be ferried along by plot forces that tell her she’s The Most Important Thing(tm) ever. It’s the same problem last year’s Fena: Pirate Princess had, where the protagonist is supposedly the most special amazing important person ever, but it all manifests as the plot pushing her around rather than her getting to take charge of her own story. Now, Nadia’s emotional growth as a person is central to the show, so it’s not like it completely ignores her. Her journey of learning to accept other people and let go of her past feeds directly into the show’s thesis on humanity, and how we all need to support each other as one people instead of isolating ourselves through arrogance or fear. But it would still be nice if she actually got to do something on that journey instead of the plot mostly unfolding without her influence.
And sadly, that’s far from the only way this show lets its female characters down. There’s the expected fanservice, of course, all of it very groan-worthy whether it’s “accidental” pervert moments or the men just straight up leering at the girls around them. But what’s even worse is... okay, look, remember back in Gunbuster how that one girl fell in love with her much older coach out of nowhere? Remember how gross and completely nonsensical it was? Yeah, I’m starting to think Anno had a bit of an Electra complex in his early days as a creator. Quite literally in this case, because Electra is literally the name of one of the characters in this show, and her big emotional breakdown comes from being in love the man who basically raised her as an adoptive father, only to succumb to jealousy when she thought his biological daughter was stealing his attention. No, I am not making this up. This is literally in-universe how Electra describes her feelings. And then they eventually have a kid together! Yes, really! And believe it or not, that’s not even the only time this show pulls an Usagi Drop on you! Christ almighty, at least when Evangelion went full Freudian psychosexual drama with Misato and Ritsuko, it was fucked up on purpose.
As for the Island Arc... yeah, it’s exactly as horrendous as you’ve heard. It’s a pointless diversion that only exists to kill time because the studio ordered more episodes, all the characters are Flanderized to their most annoying selves, the story’s tone takes a bizarre diversion into Looney Tunes territory, the animation takes a serious nosedive because there wasn’t enough time to make the episodes on such short notice (on the bright side, the majority of Nadia does still hold up and look great), and it basically butchers everything this show had going for it. For all my issues with The Secret of Blue Water, I can at least respect its sense of adventure and commitment to its complex themes. But the Island Arc isn’t just bad on its own, it feels like a deliberate insult to the show it’s supposedly a part of. In particular, it shits all over Nadia with some of the worst character assassination I think I’ve ever seen, and it turns her romance with co-protagonist inventor boy Jean into an absolutely agonizing slog of pointless conflict and convenient progress-backtracking that makes Zero no Tsukaima look like Kaguya-sama. Whoever was responsible for how this arc turned out, it feels like they just hated Nadia, and they used their time in charge as an excuse to play out their weird misogynistic fantasies of putting her in her place. It’s honestly more degrading than any of the fanservice moments.
And since there’s actually some big important plot developments in the middle of the Island Arc, you can’t just skip it like your average Naruto or Bleach filler arc. You either have to track down a fan edit of this arc that cuts out all but the most important bits, suffer through it in its entirety, or just skip all but the most relevant episodes and be content missing the connective tissue that would otherwise tell you how certain characters got to where they are. It’s a no-win scenario no matter how you slice it. I could honestly spend an entirely separate review just breaking down all the ways the Island Arc sucks, that’s how bad it gets. But at that point I wouldn’t really be reviewing Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water anymore. If there’s one consolation, it’s that outside that handful of important plot beats, everything in this arc matters so little that its terribleness doesn’t impact the rest of the show. You might as well be watching an entirely different show with entirely different priorities, and when things finally get back on track for the final five episodes, you can slip right back into Nadia Proper as if nothing ever happened, the characters still untainted by whatever madness took hold of them for the past twelve episodes. Not that it really dulls the pain of having to sit through them in the first place, but still. Again: silver linings.
I realize I’ve been negative for a lot of this review, and I wish that weren’t the case. Because there were things I really liked about Nadia! I liked the overall animation and art design! I liked its willingness to engage with death as a thematic concept and give it some real gravitas! I liked the Grandis Gang’s antics! I liked how weird and out-there it was willing to get with its pulp sci-fi! I even really liked the English dub! Yeah, it took some getting used to, and Jean’s voice actor really shouldn’t have been forced to do that terrible French accent, but it’s got so much charm! It’s not hard to see why this show became a classic; even despite its obvious inspirations, it’s got so much originality, so much passion. It’s the kind of singular work that you just know nothing else will ever quite duplicate again, and I respect it for that. But time has not been kind to Nadia. Watching this show over three decades later, its warts have only grown more cancerous, its flaws more unavoidable, its missteps less forgivable. There’s plenty of good to be found in here, but on the whole, too much of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water feels like it’s better off being left in the past. And in the end, I’m forced to give it a score of:
4.5/10
God, I’m really sad about this. I wanted to like Nadia so much, but I just couldn’t get past some of those issues. Hopefully whichever show you choose for me to watch next will be a little more up my alley!
#anime#the anime binge-watcher#tabw#nadia: the secret of blue water#fushigi no umi no nadia#nadia the secret of blue water#pre 2000 aniwatch
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SO i just finished wonder egg priority and i think that with confidence i can say it has been one of my favorite animes like... ever ?? and not even from hyperfixation or obsession over it just... its so fucking real yet so simple in a way that i havent rlly seen shown in any other shows you feel ??
but first i wanna talk about how sexy the art and animation is real quick... HOMIE ITS SO GOOD LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT JUST... serotonin... the characters are all so unique and iconic and fun but not over the top in their designs yknow ??? they seem like regular every day girls but they stand out and theyre all sO CUTE !!!! also i love how the style is like this soft bubbly slice of life lookin stuff with bright happy colors and the most beautiful scenes you could find but they also have the SICKEST fight scenes complete with whimsical animal helpers and terrifying villains and crazy weapons unique to each character. and the animation. god DAMN shawty i am obsessed with everything in this show. i might make a post solely about the art later lol bc i wanna get into the other stuff.
so the themes in the show right ?? it starts just as this cute lil magical girl kinda deal but within the first episode we see that like.. oh damn... thats kinda heavy... tbh i was a little shocked and thought about stopping bc yknow bad mental health BUT i was so intrigued that i had to keep going and i am SO GLAD that i did. because this show just so beautifully discusses all these heavy topics in such an eloquent and artistically expressive way. and also like, , the juxtaposition of the charming childlike vibe with bright colors and 14 yr old girl protagonists against the dark themes of suicide and so much else,, i think is just perfect. bc a lot of heavy animes are more of the seinen genre and have some middle aged dude as a protag or make the entire color palette dim or offer little relief to the pain of these heavy themes right ?? but NO not wonder egg bitches B) because these problems arent just things that ppl face later in life or just problems that need to be talked about among adults or the edgy seinen watching squad,, these are REAL problems that face people of every age, gender etc and i think its awesome that wonder egg addresses that. some may cringe at the thought of their high schooler watching animes that discuss sexual harassment, suicide, abuse, self harm, eating disorders etc,, but in reality it is the most comforting thing i have ever come across and is basically jsut free anime therapy. because not only does wonder egg present these themes to the viewers as something real that happens to all kinds of people (making said people feel heard in a way that maybe they hadnt before), but it also makes sure to vanquish all of these forms of trauma. and the way the trauma is vanquished isnt always beautiful and it isnt always just magically gone with a poof. the struggles of overcoming or living with that sort of thing are shown in such a real and relatable way that addresses every hardship trauma survivors have to go through. and i just. god i cry bro.
oh m y GOD and the lgbtq+ rep in this show ?? like shawty... as soon as i saw episode one i was picking up on some gay/lesbian themes but then again im sapphic and project that a lot so i tend to see that sort of stuff like... everywhere... but NE WAYS... episode ten made me FUKCING CRY BRO LIke i cant believe there was a whole trans character with a whole trans pride hoodie like LKGHKDGH my heart is just so.. so fucking full thinking about him. bc like yeah i know there are trans characters in anime but i feel like theyre always very ambiguous about actually being trans or not or erased or portrayed as a harmful stereotype or theyre constantly misgendered and still refered to as their assigned gender at birth and i hate it. HOWEVEr... Kaoru.. *chefs kiss* it was so amazing to see a character straight up say “yeah im trans” in such a casual yet powerful way bc i personally have never seen that before. and i love love loved how he went into his backstory and talked to momoe about gender bc i think thats what she rlly needed and that it helped her find herself and it makes me so happy oh my god,, and the way they talked about it never seemed forced or like it was the focal point of his existence yknow ?? like yeah he existed to help momoe overcome some of her trauma but he also just existed to be HIM yknow ?? also... personally, i headcanon momoe as a trans girl even though i dont remember it being explicitly stated plus the school scenes of her and stuff would seem like they suggest otherwise ??but,,, SHAWTY THE AMOUNT OF SUBTEXT and her complicated relationship w gender is... something i feel like a cis girl would not go through so harshly yknow ?? with all of the questioning and feeling detached from femininity or feeling like ppl dont see her as an actual girl and only like her as a guy or for her masculine traits,,, but dont take my word on this bc i myself am a cis girl but that was just my take on it as someone in the lgbtq+ community trying to educate myself on the transgender community :) either way,, wonder eggs portrayal of momoe and kaoru and the way that momoe becomes so passionate about expressing herself the way she wants to as a girl is just... good lord im gonna cry its so perfect,,,.so ... i just love this show way too much. i also am honestly super lost about the relationship btwn acca and ura-acca ?? bc i was gonna mention ura-acca as a canonically gay guy bc when i was watching i interpreted ep 11 as him being in love with acca and being jealous of Azusa (bc i mean,, they lived together (i swear to god there was only one bed in that apartment) and had a daughter together and def loved each other and also when Frill said they were husbands and then when ura-acca said he wasnt attracted to azusa but he was def jealous of their relationship ??) but then i saw somewhere that theyre brothers ?? which would make sense ig since they look kinda similar and accas daughter called ura-acca “uncle”.. but at the same time its ANIME SO THEY ALL LOOK SIMILAR and referring to gay couples as siblings is an EXTREMELY common euphemism soooo... IM JUST LOST HERE... but yeah i tried doing research and found different things so i cant say anything for sure >:( however,,, if they are canonically a lil fruity for each other... when frill refered to acca as ura-accas husband i imploded dude you never hear that sort of wording in anime.. but if theyre related i am so sorry.
god this is so much longer than i planned it to be oops but i also love the theme about like.. relying on friends to help carry your weight but at the same time not becoming completely dependent on those friends and using their support to learn how to love yourself and rely on yourself yknow ?? bc that is exactly what healthy friendships look like. bc i think ai sort of had a codependency thing goin on with koito maybe ?? but now she has a whole squad of funky friends that are so so different but all struggle with different kinds of trauma and although they fight over it, they always get through it with each other together. and they push each other no matter what to be the best versions of themselves and they teach other that getting hurt is okay because theyre always gonna be there to pick up the pieces no matter what happens. they can give each other space when they need and adapt to meet each others needs but theyre always able to balance it out with their own needs and thats such a beautiful thing in friendships especially at their age like damn i wish i had that maturity when i was 14 but no all i had was depression. another thing is that through these friendships you get to see all the different sides of each girl; you get to see them being strong or a shining light to their friends when theyre hurting but you also get to see them being hurt and weak and allowing themselves to be on the receiving end of the comfort. their friendships allows them to have weaknesses but it also allows them to highlight their strengths and thrive off of each others. I LOVE FRIENDSHIP DUDE
next i wanna briefly mention some of the themes connected to suicide that ive noticed. a big one is the survivors guilt that ai feels once koito is dead. several times she screams that she wishes she couldve gone with koito and she dreams of a “perfect world” where they committed a double suicide. one of the main reasons for her troubles is that she blames herself for koitos death and feels like it should be her thats dead... but at the same time she feels like too much of a coward to do anything now that koito is gone. she just has all these complex and contradicting feelings that wear away at her in ways that ppl that havent gone through the suicide of a loved one could never imagine. a lot of the times when things like this are portrayed in media i feel like its more in a way thats meant to guilt trip those that have taken their own lives and paint suicide as this selfish sin thats unforgivable but... not only does wonder egg reject that idea and instead portray it as a heartbreaking tragedy with,,, so so many terrible reasons, but it focuses on the feelings of ai separate from koito without blaming her in any way. not once did i feel like the show antagonized koito or that ai blamed koito for doing any of this, but they simply mourned her loss and touched on ais reaction towards the event but separate from koito herself if that makes sense. and i think that discussing survivors guilt without painting koito as the bad guy is something so beautifully done in wonder egg that can really resonate with those that have lost a loved one to suicide and have struggled with these same things.
okay i think this is the last thing ill mention,,, but HOMIE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE BIT AT THE END. I AM. OBSESSED. i am such a whore for anything about the multiverse okay n e ways...,, not only did this make a super epic trippy ending of season one and add a little bit more magical girl whimsy to the show,, but it had such a powerful message. from the perspective of og ai,, finding out that you killed yourself in another world is... i mean its definitely not a surprise but at the same time it rlly makes you think how close og ai herself couldve been to that point and what decisions led her out of that dark place in her life. if i were in her shoes i would be terrified and id cry bc the thought of going back to such a dark place and actually going through with something like that is my worst fear and probably something that ai fears too. but at the same time,,, think from the perspective of ai two !!! like yeah its true that theres this awful terrible version of ai that dies but theres also a whole version of ai that is a superhero magical girl fighting off monsters to save countless ppls lives !! and she has a badass lizard and a gang of awesome friends !!! at first i was worried that ai two would be jealous of og ai and compare herself to her and feel inferior but like.. THEYRE LITERALLY THE SAME PERSON AND CAPABLE OF THE SAME THINGS !!! and ai two realized that !! just within the span of one episode, she went from the version of ai who took her life,, to the version of ai jumping in front of a friend to take a bullet for them and save their life. and that just inspired THE SHIT OUT OF ME. i think that ai was sent another version of herself to sort of beat her own worst enemy yknow ?? those doubts and fears that shes no good or that shes that same bystander from episode one and that she hasnt changed at all. but getting to interact with her parallel self and see her grow was just what she needed to realize that while yeah sometimes the worst thing can happen and things can be terrible but on the other hand sometimes the most wonderful thing imaginable can happen because she has the power to do either.
so im gonna go ahead and stop rambling bc i got all my thoughts out that i wanted to for this post :D but yeah lol i might make another if i feel like it sometime. long story short: this show is perfect and it is going on my favorite of all times.
#wonder egg priority#wonder egg spoilers#ai ohto#rika kawai#momoe sawaki#wonder egg priority neiru#i forgot neirus name#anime review#wonder egg ai#lgbtq anime
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𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚗𝚎
𝓷𝓮𝔀𝓵𝔂 𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓻𝓸𝓶𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓬𝓼
𝓉𝓌𝑜 𝓋𝒾𝓃𝓎𝓁 𝑒𝒹𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈
wonderstruck & dancing all alone (left)
every night with us is like a dream (right)
+ a collectable lithograph to match !
𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓇 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈
she breezed past the threshold of betty’s rose garden, turned left at the hedges, and went deep, deeper, deeply.... back into the folklorian woods, where a magnificent tree reached ancient branches up towards nearly perpetual lavender skies; some called it a wonder, some called it a miracle, others called it a warning. that didn’t stop her from reaching out two fingertips & opening up the tiny hidden door, painted in swirls of teals and bright pinks, beckoning her towards a pandora’s box named freedom... and with a tumble, she promptly fell right down the rabbit hole.
she found wonderland & this time, she wasn’t getting lost in it.
welcome to fae land’s mistywood high, home of the bullfrogs! once dilapidated school buildings brought back to life by thickets and weeds, swathed in a new coat of pastel pollen paint; teeming with life through vines and ivy, wisteria and lavender and baby breath filling every crack along concrete hallways. plums of roots, shoots, and flowers blooming out of lockers as birds chitter and crickets sing, binders labeled in floral washitape: Large Wing Anatomy Vol.156, ALCHEMY OF RARE GEMSTONES, the encyclopedia of rules and ramifications of ingesting fae food. sneaking out into the mushroom fields and having your first kiss over bioluminescent fungi, all your love immersed in neon blue. a world of neverending youth, dizzy drunk with nectar juice and the splendor of puppy love, each one as intoxicating as the one before. the cafeteria is teeming with political warfare, lines drawn along cliques and conformity. the maddening spin of petals and popularity, crying tears of mascara in the bathrooms... oh honey, life is just a classroom.
how exciting it can be, to dream up new worlds & wonders as the taylor’s version remasters release, and sparse them across new chapter eps, to revel in the majesty and whimsy of our hopelessly romantic inner youth. i hand picked these songs because i think they embody the whirlwind rush of high school, exacerbated under the conditions of nearly endless youth for my fickle fairy friends.
collaboration continues as my good friend, jack antonoff, returns to my side once again to help with production, this time with his iconic indie-pop sound from bleachers alongside him. every song is remastered under his touch, and you might hear the fluttering beat of fairy wings, the twinkle of their magic, the cry of the bullfrog, the chorus of the crickets, and the endless wistfulness i feel when i think back to this journey we started on. lover, state of grace, and daylight got special attention from the both of us, as i wanted to recreate vibes and aesthetics of mistywood to the deepest of my heart’s desires, and as always, jack thoroughly delivered. also joining me again is hozier, who took complete creative liberty with his remaster, which will bring you to your knees with wonderment and hope. maren morris also joins this chapter for a feature, lending her gentle vocals to create an echoing, beautiful rendition that’ll haunt as much as it hopes. when i started this project, i knew i needed troye sivan to join me on at least one track, and he helped spin a gossamer-light tale of sparkling first infatuation, and helped elevate the track with the original demo lyrics from my days at nineteen. brendon urie rejoined my side for a heart-stopping, strings & piano only rerecord of ME!, a titular pop track from the past two years that’s been passed over by many, so i decided to present it in an incandescent, softer light. lastly, the wonderful kacey musgraves lends her voice and songwriting talent to help combine two iconic songs to create a whole new story - you belong with // betty finally brings the james/august/betty love triangle to fruition, after inez accuses august of actually having feelings for betty, and the titular night of prom that changes everything.
this album is a love letter to love itself. // these songs are open letters. // no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. you have to believe in love stories & prince charmings & happily every after. that’s why i write these songs. because i think love is fearless. // fearless is walking into your freshman year of high school almost immortally at fifteen. // an endless seventeen-year-old standing on a porch, learning to apologize. lovestruck kids wandering up and down the evergreen High Line. // the purple-pink skies of the soccer field on the walk home; the dazzle of opal necklaces i couldn’t afford gleaming from a department store jewelry case. // crowds of loving, vibrant people in the bleachers, watching acorn lacrosse. // daydreaming on parchment and mused about who might ask who to the dance or how nervous i was singing the anthem at the local fairyball game. // // they are the moments you saw sparks that weren’t really there, felt stars aligning without having any proof, saw your future before it happened, and then saw it slip away without any warning. // a single thread that, for better or for worse, ties you to your fate. // wonderment. intrigue. romance. i noticed things and decided they were romantic, and so they were. // creaks in the floorboards and ultraviolet morning light. // we crave romance. we long for those rare, enchanting moments when things just fall into place. above all else, we really, really want our lives to be filled with love. // love, wonder, and whimsy they deserve // being young and needing someone so badly, you jump in head first without looking. // real love shines golden like starlight, and doesn’t fade or spontaneously combust. // opening the curtains to see the clearest, brightest daylight after the darkest night. // their secret admirer looks at them and sees an elaborate sunset of brilliant color and dimension and spirit and pricelessness. // all the angles of the kaleidoscope that is you. // i don’t think you should wait. i think you should speak now.
𝓉𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓀𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉
enchanted
ivy
i know places
wonderland
daylight - whimsical world version
out of the woods (hozier remaster)
invisible string
new romantics (bleachers remaster)
ours (remaster ft. maren morris)
state of grace - twinkling fireflies version
you need to calm down
we are never ever getting back together
shake it off
blank space
stay stay stay
the way i loved you
i wish you would
miss americana & the heartbreak prince
lover - midsommar night version
𝒷𝑜𝓃𝓊𝓈 𝓉𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓀𝓈
you belong with // betty (kacey musgraves remix)
ME! piano remix by kitty committee studio (ft. brendon urie)
sparks fly (original demo lyrics ft. troye sivan)
op notes: hello & welcome to mistywood! thank you so much for everybody’s interest in this!!!! in my mind, all of these “chapter eps” occur after the release of all of taylor’s versions. this was a very self indulgent project, as you can see, and i can guarantee the rest will be as well!! as you can probably tell, the first two portions of liner notes were written by yours truly, while the last paragraph is a scouring off all of taylor’s to thoroughly ~capture~ the prologues she always provides. please enjoy! i take zero criticism lmao too busy being absolutely unhinged!!!
please remember that likes are appreciated, but reblogs beat the tumblr algorithm! support content creators!
keep an eye out for next week’s creation, forever & always are the sweetest con (chapter two) - just as a sneak peek, they’re gay, they’re cowboys, they’re werewolves, and i’m thrumming with excitement over getting started!! i’m aiming at having them posted by next weekend :)
tag list: @tscreators, @networkthirteen, just ask to be added to the next one! credit: coloring (@maxiresources #1, @suunflowerx foodie, @bbyhyuck summer’98), vinyl mockup purchased
#tsedit#ts edit#taylurking#taylornation#networkthirteen#tscreators#taylor swift#taylor swift edit#taylorswiftedit#myedit#taylors version
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Six Sentence Sunday
I'm behind on so much due to life in general, LOL. But to show that I am working on things here is a sneak peek into the next parts of Delicate (which this should be the last chapter of this short series), And Then I Left You, and a few drabbles I have in my WIP folder.
tagging a few that might be interested @jooous @krsnlove @nomadics-stuff @twinkleallnight @motorcitymademadame @gkittylove99 @darley1101 @kingliam2019 @texaskitten30 @yourmajesty09 @mom2000aggie @ofpixelsandscribbles t @lodberg @my-heart-beats-for-ya @aworldoffandoms @flyawayboo @trappedinfanfiction @everythingmarvelsherlockspn @sophxwithers @esmckenzie
Delicate
This might be the first ball in the history of Drake's years in Cordonia to actually cause a certain excitement. He usually put up with the pomp and traditions to simply be with those he cared about. For years it was to support Liam, then going meant he could hang out with Riley, Hana, and Maxwell.
And then there were his activities in secret for a year with Olivia.
He knew she would be arriving soon. Her absence from Cordonia had been one he felt more acutely than any other. His failure in telling her how he felt about her, his inability to have a civil conversation, even his voicemail had kept him fixated on this date.
He intended for this new year to involve a new relationship with Olivia. He simply needed to find a moment alone with her.
Which as he entered the drawing room Riley and Liam used frequently for their closest friends, he realized that was going to be more difficult than he originally thought. All their friends had come home for the ball.
"I can't believe they gave us that ridiculous moniker." Thomas shook his head.
"The press isn't always known for their intelligence." Liam said, fighting a smile.
"Thomanda." Amanda laughed just saying it. "It sounds like some weird foot fungus cream."
"The press have had five years to come up with anything better than that." Thomas wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulders. "They should have combined our last names. Brunt is more tolerable than Thomanda."
Maxwell rolled off the couch laughing. "We now have to come up with crazy couple names for all of us!"
"We were given Riam." Riley replied. "Personally I prefer Liley, but Riam stuck."
"Naxwell or Madia." Amanda said between giggles while pointing at Maxwell and Nadia. "That's your possible couple's name."
"Naxwell sounds like a snack cake or cookie." Riley added with a chuckle.
"We are sweet." Maxwell responded, cuddling Nadia close.
Hana sighed at seeing them all so happy together. "What would mine and Rashad's be?"
"Rashana?" Riley offered.
"Oh I like that so much better than what I thought." Amanda laughed. "I at first thought Hahad."
The group burst into laughter while more couple names were bandied about.
"So what do we dub Olivia and Ethan?" Liam asked.
"Ethalivia?" Hana offered.
"Olithan?" Maxwell added.
"Oooh! Olithan!" Riley exclaimed. "Sounds like a sea monster. Olivia will love it!"
**************
And Then I Left You
Thomas had worried that first day how they would handle the hotel situations he believed they were bound to encounter. He had gotten used to Olivia's secret passageways allowing him to see Amanda whenever he wanted.
He should have known that the intelligent lady he adored had already solved that problem.
Pulling onto a gravel road, she drove him toward a cottage that sat alone in a rolling meadow dotted here and there with trees. The two-story, thatched roof building sat amidst large Cordonian oak trees. Roses twined around a drain pipe while wisteria grew in wild abandon adding even more beauty to the rough stone walls.
"I know we could stay somewhere different with each place we visit," Amanda explained. "But then I thought we could stay our entire time somewhere in the middle of it all. It will mean more driving each day, but we will have nothing but privacy here."
Thomas stepped out and followed her inside. The cottage was just as charming on the inside as it was on the outside. Much of the furniture was designed strictly for comfort and a few for whimsy. The wooden floors creaked with each step as he explored the different rooms.
Upstairs, there were two bedrooms directly across from one another with a bathroom dividing them.
His lips curved at knowing he wouldn't have to find a way to sneak around and see her whenever they weren't out in public.
"What do you think?" She asked, a bit nervous from his silence.
"It's charming." He set his arms around her waist. "And perfect for our needs."
******************
This next sneak peek is a second part to the Liam angst I posted earlier 😬 So sorry how dark that went. Since many wanted to see how Liam is after losing Riley, Drake and Maxwell, here is some of how it is going for him. Let’s just say it isn’t easy and will take some special persuasion from those left behind to help him.
Liam ignored all of it. He went to his chambers and remained secluded from the world for days. He refused entry to anyone who knocked. He simply sat there staring at the few mementos he had of those he had lost.
He flipped through the photographs Maxwell had insisted on taking of the three of them through the years. He paused at the few his mother was in, wishing she was here now to tell him how to move on from something like this. She had encouraged his friendships with Maxwell and Drake, knowing he would need them to face life in the public eye.
And now he would never have them again.
Setting the old album aside, he reached for the key chain Riley had given him the night of the Coronation. Thinking of that night and their confessions of love only to be cruelly parted...his head dropped as he carefully set it back on the table. Next he picked up the pearl he had given her. The plans and hopes they had while meeting in secret. It had helped him through every moment he was kept from her side.
He then lifted the photograph Anna had taken of them for their engagement. Liam's fingers trembled as they brushed against the image of Riley. Her smile so warm. Her eyes so filled with joy.
Reaching for a decanter, he attempted to metaphorically drown his sorrows. In one night he had lost everything he had held dear. How was he to go on from this? There was no enemy to slay, no way to find those he loved and rescue them. Nothing. Nothing except funerals to attend. Nothing but giving them to the cold, unforgiving dirt.
All he had ahead of him was visits to graveyards. He knew his father didn't have much longer to live. It would be just one more loss in his already devastated heart.
Death was what his life had become. He had feared that when his mother was poisoned. Many a night he would wake up crying at the thought of being completely and utterly alone. This long forgotten fear rose up within him, showing that it hadn't been a mere nightmare. It had been a premonition.
Dropping his head in his hands, he sobbed into the void that had become his only companion.
****************
This next peek is a miniseries idea that will be called, Mixed Signals, that hit after that last Open Heart Chapter. It will focus on my MC Chris getting closer to Tobias (and gah, I am wishing now she could dump all the LI's and be with him. His humor and confidence have won me completely over). It will take place in both books 2 and 3 and focus on her frustration with Ethan and Bryce never committing or saying how they truly feel about her. Since, especially in the chapters before the Hawaii trip, they both would randomly act romantic towards her then friend zone her in the next scene, I'm letting this series show her choosing to step back and see what she wants and needs from a significant other. This begins after the attack and Chris has yet to return to work. She goes to Mass Kenmore to thank Tobias for coming to help find a cure for her and ends up opening up to him a bit.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Tobias asked softly, gently squeezing her close.
"Not really." Chris admitted. "Everyone keeps telling me to give myself time and all." She eased back. "I wish they would leave me alone."
He kept his hands on her waist while studying her. "Then tell them."
"Ha. You've met them." She snorted. "They don't take orders like that well."
"True." He replied. "You want me to do it?" His smirk brought a grin to her face. "Ethan already considers me a pain in his ass. What's one more mark against me?"
She laughed, while dabbing at her eyes and nose. "After what you did for me? No way am I letting you continue to be the bad guy."
"Aww shucks, Valentine." Tobias teased. "You're going to give me a big head."
"As if it wasn't already big enough." She teased back. Tilting her head, she pretended to study him. "How do you lift it?"
"I work out." He winked then stood up. "I'm glad you came by."
"Me too." She held her hand out.
He shook his head. "You already hugged me. I figure that could be our thing."
"Our thing?"
Tobias pulled her back into his embrace.
"Yeah." He hugged her close. "Now that you won't let me be the big bad guy, I think this means you want us to be friends."
"Whoa. I'm merely a girl coming to thank a guy for saving her life." She teased. "Don't be thinking this means more than that."
"Sorry. Thought is already there." He countered, letting her go. "You're stuck with me now Chris whether you like it or not."
"Ugh, fine." She playfully grumbled. "I already deal with so many ego maniacs. What's one more?"
He opened his office door for her. "I knew you would agree."
"Just because you won this round doesn't mean you'll win them all, Dr. Carrick." Chris warned.
"Allow me to let you in on a little secret, Dr. Valentine," he leaned down close to whisper. "I win all the rounds that are important to me." Swiping up the folder he had previously been studying, he saluted her. "See you soon."
***************
And finally another miniseries "What if" for Thomas Hunt and my OC. I've been inspired by rewriting And Then I Met You and decided to do the same with their story in Second Chances. Here's a peek of Amanda actually telling Thomas she is pregnant instead of storming out of his office. I've yet to come up with a title I like for it, LOL, so we'll just wait on that.
Amanda ignored the words Thomas was saying. She didn't want to hear that he had fallen for an actress. All she could focus on was her pain turning into fury. How could he have moved on so quickly?
She wanted to hit him. Never in her life had she ever wanted to hurt someone so much as she did Thomas.
She felt sick to her stomach thinking about him and Kara. The nausea reminded her that she couldn't give in to her desire. She had someone else to think of. Someone who deserved every sacrifice she knew she would have to make to keep Thomas in their child's life.
"...and that's why I am sending Kara flowers." Thomas stepped closer to her when he noticed how pale she was. "Amanda?"
Her eyes lifted to his. Taking a deep breath, she blurted out the reason she came to his office.
"I'm pregnant."
She watched as her words slowly registered. The shock of her announcement caused him to collapse in the chair she had been sitting in.
"Pregnant." He breathed. "Are you certain?"
"Yes." Amanda clasped her hands in front of her. "I wouldn't have come here if I had not had it confirmed by a doctor."
Thomas knew she wouldn't have darkened his door for anything. If there was one characteristic they shared, it was pride. Neither ever wanted to appear foolish.
He got up and took a step toward her, uncertain how he was supposed to react. "What do you intend to do?"
Tears sparked her eyes. "Well, I am going to keep the baby and I hoped..." She bit her lip while lowering her eyes. Seems he had no intention to get back together with her. "I hope you will want to be a part of our child's life."
Thomas reached for her hand. Just because he wasn't sure whether or not to try a romantic relationship with her again, it didn't mean that he didn't want to be there for her.
"I will." He promised.
Her head jerked up and she noticed that there was no condemnation towards her reflected in his expression. Though the surprise announcement had knocked him for a loop, he was at least trying to do the right thing.
Though she had hoped to hear that he wanted to try again, she was vastly relieved to hear his promise.
"Are you planning on staying in L.A. for a while?" He asked.
"I could stay a few days." She wiped her tears with her fingers. A nervous laugh escaped her. "I wasn't sure if you would want me to after I told you about the baby."
"I would like to discuss how we will work this out." He squeezed her hand before urging her to sit down. "I have some meetings that I don't think I'll be able to get out of, but how about dinner tonight at my home?"
"I don't want to interrupt your date." She struggled with the word. "I can--"
"I'm not dating anyone." Thomas explained. "That's why I told you the flowers were more of a professional courtesy than romantic in nature."
"So you and Kara Bennett?" Amanda felt a brief spark of hope. "You're not--"
"No. She's one of the actresses on an upcoming film I'm directing." He replied.
"I see." She mumbled.
"Does 7:30 sound good?" He asked.
"Yes, of course."
"Should I pick you up?" He remembered she was staying at a hotel.
"No, I'll call for a car." She got to her feet again and held her hand out. "I know you have work and a lot to think over." Her lips curved into a sad smile. "But thank you for meeting with me and hearing me out."
He came around his desk and pulled her into a hug. Realizing how hard it was for her to come here, touched something within his heart. She seemed so fragile that he felt the need to comfort her.
Hugging her was the safest way in his opinion.
She trembled in his arms before returning his hug. Struggling with her tears, she laughed.
"Forgive me. I haven't had control of my emotions these last few months. These pregnancy hormones have a mind of their own."
Thomas handed her some tissues. "No need to apologize."
She thanked him as she dabbed under her eyes. "If I'm not crying then I am losing my temper. Poor Maxwell. I practically jumped down his throat for drinking the last Sprite on the way here."
His eyebrows lifted. "Maxwell came with you?"
"Everyone came with me." She shook her head in exasperation. "They were worried that you--" she winced. "They came to support me."
"I see." He replied. Reaching out, he gently grasped her arm. "I hate to rush you, but--"
"Of course." She gathered her things. "I'll see you this evening."
He smiled at her. "I look forward to it."
#six sentence sunday#delicate#and then i left you#olivia nevarkis#dr. ethan ramsey#tobias carrick#thomas hunt#king liam#choices open heart#choices the royal romance#choices red carpet diaries#choices crackship#a second chance#what if#long post
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simblr asks v2
here are my answers! find the questions here.
i wrote soo much ahaha. like however much you think i wrote, i wrote more than that. imo everything i write is gold though
1. are you going to buy the new pack (cottage living) when it comes out?
no, it looks really nice but i legit never ever buy packs at launch, especially cause this one is a expansion and it will probably go on sale at some point
2. do you p*rate your dlc or buy it legitimately?
buy it legitimately 👌
3. what’s your favorite world?
brindleton bay, it gives like seaside cottage vibes. willow creek is good but it’s boring.
4. if you use a queue, how many posts per day do you set it as?
3 or 4. i used to do like 12 lmaoo what even was wrong with me
5. do you watch sims on youtube?
yes, i watch mainly malixa, oshinsims, and msgryphi
6. what are your thoughts on the most recent pack? (dream home decorator)
those sectional couches look good! but honestly im kinda annoyed because now it’s even harder to have all the items filled in when i place lots from the gallery. like i’m just saying like a lot of builds will use that pack probably and if i don’t get it then i can’t really use builds/save files
7. how many packs/kits do you own?
lemme count
expansion: all - 10/10
game: 5/10
stuff: 9/18
kits: none xo
24/38 - 63%
8. what’s your origin id? is it the same as your url? 🤗
it’s in my title, it’s celeschul. it doesn’t look that nice in my title but i use celeschul in my package files and i’m guessing people search things like, “celeschul penny hair” or something like that in order to find my cc- so i keep it in there so the search results are easier. i do want to change it though..
but no it’s also not the same! well i mean it’s the username i use for cc. my origin id used to be an0nymousghost but i changed it. i wonder if anyone’s taken that one?
9. is your simblr your sideblog or main blog?
main blog ✌️ my old blog @stardze is a main blog as well.
my old old simblr was a sideblog but it had like 1 follower and it literally a bot so i don’t think that counts. i have a multifandom sideblog though
10. do you have a cc finds blog?
i wish. i was thinking bout it earlier and that would be sooo neat but sometimes i download stuff that doesn’t have a tumblr post attached to it, and also it’s stressful to keep up with so nah
11. are you wcif friendly?
yes sir. in fact i bring the trouble of wcifs onto myself but doing them even when nobody asked.
12. what’s your favorite sized household to play with? (ex. 1 sim, 4 sims)
gonna have to think on this one, honestly 1 sim is really fun and stuff goes by so fast. doing stuff with astrid when she was on her own, it was much more efficient.
for families, i haven’t done that in a while actually. 5, 2 parents and 3 kids is cute tho. why did i write this this is honestly such a hard question
13. if you have c&d, do you play with pets?
i feel like i haven’t played with cats and dogs in forever. honestly i just have no paitence. noelle fae was supposed to get a cat (there’s a food bowl + cat bed in her house) but when summer vacation started, the amount of time i spent playing ts4 decreased a lot. (this doesn’t really make sense, i have a lot more time. honestly it just has to do with my recent obsession with a certain anime/manga and some other personal thing)
i did random nightmares in may though and i had pets frequently. g5 didn’t because sofia scarlett lived in an apartment, but g2/3/4 had cici, and g1 had all the cats. but that was back in march so it’s been a while.
14. what lifespan do you use?
i really want to do aging off but then i feel like it drags on. but aging legit stresses me out, sometimes i just want to sit down and do some cas stuff but i only have 2 hours in real time and there’s like 4 days left till one of my sims’ birthdays.
15. if you own a lot of packs, how many of them have you actually played through?
just so everyone is aware this question was made for me
i feel like eps require a specific save made for testing them out, but the only save i’ve ever made for an ep is noelle fae’s get famous save.
that is literally a lie - i made a save for island living with one of my 100bc kids, maisie acapella. i did actually post it on tumblr BUT then i deleted all the posts BUT i reblogged them on my alt account BUT i privated my alt account so i honestly forgot about it
i have never played through discover university or watched anyone do it on youtube, i’ve read gerbits’ story about it so i think i’m pretty qualified. i’ve always wanted to do one with periwinkle acapella but i never got around to it
another ep i know nothing about is get to work
i tried doing a eco life playthrough but i hadn’t watched any videos and i was like..what is going on. so i quit lolx d ;;;;; i mentioned it but the whimsy stories legacy was the first time i had played with the eco lifestyle features so technically i think i know what im doing
i got outdoor retreat literally on monday of this week so i haven’t played through it yet.
jungle adventure i still don’t know what’s going on. i remember last year before i bought the pack i was brainstorming, and wanted to do a ja playthrough with luna and cedar, who are a couple who i did a random legacy with and it was all queued to post when i deleted everything (if you’re wondering why, it’s because my queue was literally 200+ posts). except this time i didn’t save them to my sideblog so i lost them.
i still havent had a restaurant in dine out
also never did the vet thing from cats and dogs
i have no idea what that rock climbing thing is from snowy escape but i did most of the other stuff because rn g5
city living i did through psc stage 5 and also it was the first pack i bought anyways
the rest of them are either stuff packs or i ended up playing them through casual gameplay (seasons, parenthood)
16. what do you do as you play sims? (ex. listen to music)
i listen to music most of the time, or listen to commentary youtube videos because i am an alpha chad. i also used to talk with my friends on voice call but i don’t do that anymore 🥲
17. which sims challenges have you tried?
random legacy, whimsy stories, perfect sim challenge, 100 baby, legacy (just the plain get-to-10-gens one), random nightmares, berry zodiac, astrology legacy, apocalypse
i feel like im forgetting some.. honestly most of the stuff i did before simblr was either 100 baby (i love that challenge) or random saves that lasted for 2 seconds.
18. do you like the new(ish) hair swatches?
nah.
i do appreciate that most cc hairs have a true (ish) black, thank god! and the fact that the hair update is what inspired me to update and fix a bunch of hairs with different issues is pretty nice. but will i use them? no.
plus it takes up like 5 gb? depending on how many packs you have.
19. post the latest screenshot you took 📸
i live in cas
20. what is the cc/ingame hair that looks the most like your own?
i think that dream home decorator side part hair looks a lot like my hair. honestly i havent see much like my hair but that one is kinda-? close
21. who is your favorite sim of yours and what is their story?
noelle and alari fae i think!
link to post
noelle is blonde and has blue-grey eyes. she wears purple contacts pretty often though (because she wants to 😌)
alari has light brown hair that is kinda curly, and she’s got pretty vibrant blue eyes.
they’re sisters, alari is 3 years older than noelle. noelle was 19 and alari was 22 when they got spotted
they worked as models when they were young adults. their jobs involved dyeing their hair blue/pink, and they would model like clothes and stuff. anyways, they were pretty successful. like not ultra famous but they had enough money to not work for the rest of their lives.
their modeling group was made of 4 girls, the others were named paisley autumn and they were green and red, respectively. some things are:
paisley and alari started dating during this
autumn was a single mother to a little girl named destiny
noelle dated many people during this but never ended up finding the one <3
when their contract ended after like 6 years, paisley and alari went to go live together and noelle decided to get into acting. so thats when get famous playthrough started!
there’s more but basically they’re like oc’s with sims on the side. xoxo
22. if you use cc, are there any cc creators that you have like ALL of their items?
this is such a good question! i hoard hair very heavily (my folder is 11gb) i so i have like 97% from most of the popular hair creators.
i think i had legitimately EVERYTHING from simstrouble though, i went through multiple times to check and i also have all of her retired stuff.
i have everything from ridgeport i think-? because of the fact that she uploaded all her stuff in one big zip.
i think that’s it.. for a long time i also had everything by clumsyalienn, but then i ended up deleting it and only keeping my faves.
and looking at my collection, maybe ah00b? i might be missing a couple but i at least have like 99%.
23. what’s one pack you think is underrated?
dine out, it’s laggy af yes but it’s such a nice thing for my sims to do.
24. what are your favorite sims stories/legacies?
melons by gerbits always and forever
this question was inspired by this ask anyways so
25. if you could change one small thing about ts4, what would it be?
most of my suggestions are pretty complex but literally just - when you add tray files, they appear at the top. my life would be so much easier
this took me literal hours to answer
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Leviticus, Chapter 23
1. Substitute day, and a return unto
A sender of something, as to another place,
That hasn't the wherewithal to get there either;
I will open it again and learn
That which is already known to be such
As isn't so much.
2. And it's not mine, but a,
And is the right way round.
For as I set the seasons,
I reprise, reply, replay;
It's substitution day.
3. And Sabbath is the seventh,
Whence the lord, in all thy dwellings,
Is up for doing nothing;
Or Sabbath is the sixth;
I don't care.
4. And welcome to my channel,
It's great to have each of you still with me-
A man who speaks of people
By their purpose,
Himself as his own singer,
With- such are the seasons,
Even, holy convocations,
For want to be sure of a constant,
It's Senhal,
An obscure term
For an old friend.
5. Love, love, lo, this is not
Of a cloven love, Leviticus,
I will speak of it
Unto sundry strangers and neighbours,
As just one more month's dusk
Then it'll be passover,
Not once.
Not twice,
Not once.
Love.
So we can still imagine a time
When all of this will go again;
6. But a day will approach
When, if there is something
That can look back,
Could think that 'here' and 'then'
Are really very close;-
And I wonder if they saw
The strings of direct attachment,
Lining their behaviours;
Just flour and water,
But I don't think so;
Still, anytime was closer to history than this one,
So what do I know?
7. If I were to put the onus
On to the impossible,
Then what was light-hearted and playful,
Would be wont to become ridden and surly;
Lord, being an influencer is a serious endeavour,
For how many unsuccessful oblations are there
That are out there? Lo, state your appreciation;
Don’t just wing it. Plan it out in kalends,
Of which are reckon'd to be backwards; so,
To start, do nothing.
8. After a week,
Let's go-
Gift your influencers' grift,
For, when you so do this,
It strokes the ego of the flames,
Who then add unto the savour of sacrifice,
Thus, get me it up;
Make it smolder,
Then, use its fatal nature
To activate the future.
9. And simple:
These are nacks,
To muster control
Over gods;
Are junk and have been;
That we all have interest vested-
Let ignorance of it control
Hereafter, same, so anon and amen.
10. Crowdsplain-
First fruit the priest
Hard and long,
Find the tunnels,
Writing what's impossible
For the brain to conceive,
That it may then be read back of,
To supplant and supersede;
So become possible.
11. And thither, the Wheatchief
Will wave the sheaf
Tomorrow-
See how it goes?
Ol' Cathode Ray, and
Non-mathmatical aesthetic identities,
The spirit of the radio take her.
12. That once the sheaf
And all the while
Be specific unto thy niche-
Nativize unto thy platform,
For, the experience shall follow
The rhyzome's swerve and function,
So that the user-expectation be wrought
From whence the contents be placed- In this case,
Add in a lamb shank ponzi scheme to my platform;
Smells wonderful.
13. So unto the titular character,
Exerting such low level leverage as
Begetteth me of an ephah cake,
And a quarter hin of wine;
I don't need the free stuff,
I am a successful influencer,
But shouldst you want me to advertise for suckers
On my platform that I have built myself for free;
Well, we're all getting along so good.
14. Then it's me first,
And simple: see-
That our boldest endeavours,
And most exciting adventures-
They have not yet even begun;
That, in spite of all the detritus,
In the teeth of all that we've done, my boys,
I tell you: The best
Is yet
To come.
15. Then, 49 days later,
Seek whence
Thought might come in sequence,
And I'm really so blessed and thankful to you all for being here;
So, as thought comes in sequence
And thus, it wasn't known where
We are going here as we begun.
O tensions, retensions-
I use to used to run.
16. Know, influencers, I am the hype;
So on-brand that I can give unto you,
And through you, the trick-
Pyramid that still stands
For the thousands-
Round it up;
So nice.
17. And, super relevant-
Optimize continuously, also,
Compensate me handsomely; while
Sacrifice may seem like a quick-success marketing strategy,
It isn’t so.
Such are the things that keep not happening;
More food please.
18. Lots more,
This is why the burden of proof for rhetorical claim
Shall falleth shortly
As among the Open Wounde who should maketh of such a claim;
It is not upon the world to provide him a fallacy,
But he, who's to prove the world its truth; which,
Across all channels,
He, rerewise, hath been completely unable to do.
19. So suffer him his own precarity;
And then some;
Think back to when,
Twirrup twipip,-pwiwip,
Suwee, psu, swoo swsoo,
So sweepeth they in song,
As we, quiet,
Through our blossom comedown,
That hideth our tiny singers,
And the bulgence behind the wiltage,
In the verges,
Be of burgeoning seed.
20. And everyone wave;
All this- so good as is it to be;
And though under a hail
Of black tormentors,
Our torment,
And through its over-drone,
With no one remembering it happening,
But, who'll remember the photograph?
21. Sit back;
You've lost everything,
So lo, olah, you remember how mother died-
Bringing cow parsley into the tent of meaning;
For she went by the umbels as we'd walked on the plain,
And they had reminded her of those lace cushions
That her ladies-in-waiting had carried,
And so gave them the name.
22. Embassadors,
Leave thy corners to disillusion;
A true influencer ideally keeps doing
What they genuinely gain of a passion for.
They know their value and their need is not to shew it,
So spend a lot of time reading news and sharing opinions with others online.
By buying-up dozens of potential plots,
They help to plot the exodus to less,
And stake an astronaut over the shape of a woman.
But politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude,
So his words became their actions.
23. Is it worth your time
To try and ignore that, if,
What you are listening to
Is the most effective form of advertising-
A babbling of a technique
That hath impostulated language,
Then, should things go well,
We may even be able to rend a cross-paracleation
With phantom trust-collaborators,
Interested in guest-posting for backlinks and exposure,
Thus, marrying into micro-influencers,
And so tap into our y.
24. But be consistent:
For my favourite casts come out the same-
Here, crowdplain how a seventh month is a
Sound the trumpet month;
See how it goes?
Lo, but half of me struggles with the whimsy
Of the other side that's yet so entranced;
No, I'm not sure why, it's just the way I feel.
25. Down tools, more please.
Gnaw your own head off.
All things positivity- and
It is always negotiation;
Not:
You bring it to the tabernacle,
I sing-
There is no shortness of spirit
In opinion
To be cut down.
Equal positives, so unto
Those things that keep not happening.
26. There are voices you hear of,
As quoted as begetters of insightful opinion,
Who art themselves never made extant,
Being only reported hereto as sources,
And lo, that they are the influencers.
And I'm super curious as to know what you guys think;
Please be sure to leave your comments amid the margins.
27. Thence, afflict thy souls,
For, tis atonement day-
We're ten into the seventh,
And the snap's back when I was
An offensive lineman,
And the pass sent over-
The big lie, long, long to the long deceiver,
Ah, burnt offerings-
How original,
Best look unto the analytics,
And if they give you not access there unto ,
Verily, you are going to have to fight,
Fight as peaceful as Sheol,
Down, deep down and dirty-
I'm not going to call it off.
28. Down tools;
Atone to the dial tone,
No one calls;
Let Ladder Capital
Createth of the sponsored post-
Like many on the medium,
To use an ode-
I used to play the role;
To laugh and laugh;
Laugh til I despised all there was to laugh at,
And then I stopped,
And in the silence, saw what I had done.
29. But laughing is not so bad.
We've been a good wee band.
Yes we have.
No one is coming after us.
And if you're alright, mack,
You'll get cut off.
30. So workers got destroyed
That day,
And Aaron was frustrated,
And livid. Reach round;
Feel thy spine.
The way people stop you
From being helpful
When you are helpful,
So that you cannot be helpful,
So that they can cut you
From your people.
31. Tardiness in perpetuity,
Aye, today, it is Yplangenday-
Well, I'll have to put myself
Through some more adamantine
Paces than god allows, else
I'll never get enough done.
32. And be bold,
For, you'll need to deracinate;
Chancers are toxic vocations
Within the tent of meaning;
It's content; it's all content-
Divide and game, so-
Focus and grow.
I mean to make sure
That you are a consistent-
Start of the ninth evening ,
End of the next.
33. God doesn't eat though,
That I can see-
For all that we give him,
God doesn't eat.
34. Crowd, 15/7, and tabernacle feast week;
Still his words became their actions,
Shrill, until the doctrine of laches,
When the searched-after
Faithless elector went libertarian,
Like many on the medium,
Clade unto such bolled and novel obstacles
What stretched where chance was slim,
And slim was still in quarantine.
35. To start again, down tools,
For, lo, if you want to be in a prison camp,
You needst allow yourself the luxury
Of being stupid enough to get captured.
36. Sacrifice? Spluttereth the LORD:
But I'm fed up with so much burnt rubbish,
I wish for forced fresh rhubarb,
So shunt and jive; I've
Optimized, and optimize continuously.
37. Drinks break; take life indicting,
Gratify all at a local craven hire scheme,
Go abroad singing, so merrylike,
To slough off the whole
As one enormous rhyzome.
Deus Hic!
God is drunk!
I heard that, Brian Leg-Coverall.
38. O well done Jehus,
And good to be with you,
Yes you,
Who are good in a crisis;
A reminder-
I'm working with mischief.
39. Wait, rest again,
To live is to live through
An embarrassment of times,
Damarkated as meaningful riches,
That will not be well remembered.
Really, I am so blessed.
40. But try to ask of a question;
So that thy congregation
Might make communion in answer,
See how it goes? Say,
But why, isn't it
A bit like palm sunday?
The stream changeth its name
As it passeth through each neighbourhood.
I knew it as;
Well it doesn't matter-
You're not reposting, nor liking my banal repartee,
So, unfollow.
41. And it goes; for
I have giv'n unto them a scapegoat,
But they cast it not out;
So shall there be a reaving that will follow, and
Themselves, they shall be cut off from.
42. Then all ye home-born booth dwellers
In dwelling booths,
Shall dwell in booths seven days and know
That you are living in the rhyzome..
43. And everyone will know that I made you do this-
The old booth dwellers, needing my rescue out of Egypt,
So weakened, the Open Wounde stayeth open;
And remember to tell us what you think,
Way down, deep down, down in the margins.
44. And Mose went about with the crowdsplaining
Old loud-haler;
A simple fellow out of storybook glen,
From the tent of meaning,
From the twilight men,
He ran and told-
And the thing is,
They were too clever
To not know what they were doing-
So the target becomes bios;
Is the common psychle,
The answer- How would you like it? Is
- 'I didn't'.
And that therein has a hold and salience,
As before tends to be the best time to regret-
It is a kind of nonsense.
I'm so merry
I'm so merry and sad.
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a million nights i've lived this quiet (i need to know if you hear this too) — 1/1
Summary: “That looks dangerous.”
“I eat danger for breakfast,” he snits, tone dry as a desert and the effect just as unpleasant.
She raises an unimpressed brow.
“You’ve been spending too much time with Toph.”
He smirks.
“That one’s on your brother, actually.”
“Figures,” she mutters with a roll of her eyes.
zutara + haircut
Ratings: General Audiences
Words: 2.8k
Warnings: unbeta'd, fluff, fluff without plot, haircut, hugs, hand holding, canon divergence (i think?), sozin's comet, set somewhere in the old masters (because as usual, we throw canon in the blender), generally a lot of wholesomeness all around, gratuitous use of sun and water metaphors (as you do when it comes to zutara), basically zuko and katara share a quiet moment before canon hits the fan lol
AN: i see a lot of zutara post agni-kai but what about zutara pre-agni kai huh?
Title from: wanna know by sabrina claudio
Other song inspirations include: frozen also by sabrina claudio and this version of chasing cars originally by snow patrol, covered by the wind and the wave. highly recommended listening.
Also on: ff.net | AO3
Other writing
Tagging: @jerkbend by request! hope you enjoy this one bb <3
-//////-
"That looks dangerous."
He doesn't chuckle, but neither is he quick enough to suppress the tug curling at the right corner of his lips—his mirth incontestable even through the warped looking glass from which she views him, stood as she is at the opening flap of his uncle's tent.
By the time she fully steps into the living quarters, his face is schooled into the deeply discontented, partly pained-to-be-alive glower he so favors.
"I eat danger for breakfast," he snits, tone dry as a desert and the effect just as unpleasant.
She raises an unimpressed brow.
"You've been spending too much time with Toph."
He smirks.
"That one's on your brother, actually."
"Figures," she mutters with a roll of her eyes. "What with half his brain being in his stomach..."
The laughter that the gibe yanks from the firebender is biting and brief, but Katara's breath hitches at the sound all the same. She latches on to it, holds it somewhere between her throat and chest, not too distant from the pitifully hollow space in her heart that she isolates from the bitter, ugly parts of her that are forged in battle and conflict.
"Should you…" is there a delicate way to phrase such a question? No, judging by the dirty look he throws her way, guessing at her thoughts, no there is not. She stifles the giggles bubbling at her throat with herculean effort, before remarking rather bluntly, "Are you qualified to handle that?"
He maintains his glare a second more before bowing his head and releasing a hot huff of air towards the ground in resignation. He places the mirror—from which the whole of their interactions had been exchanged thus far—atop the low table in front of him, then shifts so the entirety of his figure faces her. When he lifts his gaze, the veil of gloom that so frequents his visage has dissipated enough to allow a brittle smile to peek through.
"Probably not," he concedes with an amiability uncommon to his appearance. "Will you help me?"
But she likes the way the expression settles on him. It quells the ragged contours of his scar, somehow—his eyes seemingly unburdened by the sorrow he often declines to share, for once. As if in putting breath and voice to the request, he's quieted the ghosts of his troubled past for the moment to be fully present, here.
With her.
So when his metal-ladden hand falls almost shyly towards her, his stare gentle but no less piercing in its signature, sun-blessed intensity—obscured as they are by his unruly, ebony tendrils—she smiles. It is a fragile thing, muscles straining as they pull from the recesses of memories she also staunchly refuses to be tainted by war, but there—its sweetness shaped after her mother's loving lullabies, built in her father's effervescent embrace, and fashioned from each of her friends' unconquerable spirits.
She catches him, fingers winding into the shears in his grasp, and there is nothing for her than to accept.
"So what do you wanna do," she starts, eager to dispel the solemn atmosphere. "Some more layers? A buzz cut? Oh!" she nicks at the air experimentally, gleefully. "How about we just cut everything off?"
"You look way too happy to have an excuse to point that thing at me. That very sharp, very death-inducing thing."
"Shut up!" This time she lets her laughter loose, shoving at him playfully so that he's once again turned to the wooden chabudai. "Seriously," she cajoles until he picks up the mirror and through it, she glimpses his sedate mien. The levity in her demeanor fades, pitch dipping instead to match his contemplative stare. "What do you want?"
"I've been asked that a lot this past year," he sighs, bending his legs into a lotus position before slumping in on himself. "Yet I don't think I've ever really given a straight answer."
Task temporarily forgotten, she abandons the scissors at her feet to squeeze both his shoulders in reassurance. "Well whatever it is, I won't judge, if that's what you're worried about."
"I know. You're a great friend," he leans into her touch, and she beams at both the declaration and the rare show of guileless affection. "Fortune rarely sees fit to favor me but I'm really lucky I get to call you so."
The gravity of his proclamation has distress roiling like a tsunami underneath her skin, tempered only by the tinge of whimsy that weaves itself into his articulation. More curious than concerned now (although the stale taste of it lingers on her tongue), she lets her alarm abate at his unexpected resonance. She folds into a seiza at his left, fingers trailing the stalwart line of his back as she goes before placing them serenely on her lap, in absolute symmetry to their figures from last night. And just like she did then, she does so again now, ears at the ready and heart wide open so she can be the friend he needs, someone deserving of his reverence.
(Someone, she thinks as flickers of retrospection—of fighting against him slowly evolving into fighting with him—burst into brilliant clarity, worthy to be at his side.)
"You asked what I wanted," he rasps, low and tenuous.
He meets her stare and she hopes the encouragement in her chest burns soft like an ember through her eyes, enough to fuel the feeling of safety that ignites all too easily the more they orbit each other's presence. He inhales deep in a way that is familiar from his meditations then releases, a surrender in the exhalation—as if his apprehensions could drift away in the warm gale.
"Peace," he whispers, breaking their connection to look down at his fidgeting hands. The revelation is wrapped in such unfettered fear, as if in admitting the longing he has secured its impossibility instead of the inevitability she knows it to be, and she aches for him. "I want to put a stop to the bloodshed, an end to the suffering of both my people and yours and the rest of the nation. I want there to be a place for my soldiers to come home to. I want my mom," he sighs shakily, "and for no child to ever feel what it's like to lose a parent and for no parent to have to fear for the lives of their children as they're forced to this—this—needless slaughter. I want Toph's parents to see her for the capable woman that she is and for Suki's fellow warriors, her family, to be okay. I wish Sokka's plan succeeds, whatever it may be, and that I could guarantee your father's safety and that of your tribe. I wish my sister wasn't so messed up and that I didn't have to keep relying on my uncle to clean up after me when he's already lost so much to this fight. I wish the Spirits weren't so cruel as to put the fate of the world on the shoulders of a twelve-year old. I wish—I wish I could take back the past year, the past hundred years. I wish I could make up for all of it. I wish…" his gaze darts to her neck, digits hovering just shy of the luminescent pendant there, but not touching.
"I wish I could bring her back for you." He drops his fingers before he can make contact. His whole body wilts with the motion before he tightens his hand to a fist at his thigh. He shakes his head, craning it towards the ceiling where he directs his smile, devoid of any humor when he adds, "But yeah, a trim should do it."
Her heartbeat is loud in her ears in the wake of the silence his confession inflicts. The weight of his monumental aspirations sits heavy on her chest yet strangely enough, it doesn't leave her shaky. If anything, it strengthens her, grounds her, lends fire to the ice in her veins so when she moves, it's with the lofty grace she knows she possesses but doesn't always feel—the skill of a master and the experience of a hardened soldier encased in her fourteen-year-old bones.
But she is grateful for it anyway, when she positions herself at his back and the scissors don't tremble in her grasp when she loops her fingers around it.
"Yeah," she murmurs right back, smoothing her digits through surprisingly silky locks. "Yeah, I can do that."
She doesn't deign to push her skill given how dim it is—both inside and out, the sun sequestered by its billowing companions like it's taken refuge because it knows the blazing, celestial wildfire to come—and that there isn't much to cut in the first place. His tresses are at that awkward length of too long to be considered short but too short to be tied up into a bun or tail. So she merely evens out what she can, tidying stray tufts and snipping at scraggily ends, grappling at any excuse to keep her hands on him. And when that same excuse runs thin—because there's only so much she can cleave before she makes good on her drollery and indeed hacks it all off—she summons the dew drops hugging the blades of grass from outside the former general's tent. She glides the ribbon of water where her hands cannot reach, siphoning the severed hairs from his person and his clothes, before discarding the soiled glob completely.
"Thank you, Katara," he mumbles, though his focus remains on the distortion his image projects on the once cast-aside mirror, particularly on his marred skin. She wants to do something about the melancholy etching his warped effigy—a stark contrast to the hue of near-tranquility that had painted itself beautifully across his pale, elegant features—so she resumes her place at his left, sitting side-saddle with her left hand propping her up and her legs curved comfortably behind him. She narrows her vision onto his profile—the pucker of his mouth, the acuate bridge of his nose, and the graceful sweep of his jaw—then lays down her query with dogged finality.
"Will you do something for me?"
"Name it," he vows in that inordinately earnest manner of his, his countenance brightening enough to keep the deceitful umbrages at bay, that she feels almost bad for asking. "Name it and it's done."
She tuts. "I can't promise it will make up for everything, and it certainly won't be easy."
"I'm used to the fight." There is no arrogance in his enunciation, only a steeliness and determination that is uniquely Zuko. "I'll do whatever it takes."
"You promise?"
"I swear it, on my uncle's life—my mother's, wherever she may be—my nation—"
"Your honor?"
He chuckles—a little broken, a little watery and not enough amusement—but does accede. "Especially on that."
"Then forgive yourself, Zuko." He drops the looking glass in shock, head abruptly swiveling towards her in a dazzling collision of blue and amber, though she does not cower—her own renowned stubbornness stoking her fortitude when she simply holds his scrutiny. "And live. Live to see your soldiers come home. Live to reunite families, to find your mother. Live long enough to create the peace you seek, and to revel in this new world you will help rebuild, help heal. Because Aang's going to save the world. But you? You're going to change it."
I hope I'm there with you when you do, she wants to say, for he may not be able to alter the past but the future—
The future will be his to shape.
So she blinks back the mysterious haze in her eyes and swallows against the lump in her throat, and teases him instead, "I mean, you're not half as useless as I thought you were after all, so you could definitely do it."
"Your vote of confidence is astounding," his inflection is wry, but she is an excellent student and he had fast become her favorite subject. She knows him, and sees the carefully cultivated rancor for the barrier that it is, hoarding all the anguish and the grief but all that overwhelming love, too, that he is so hesitant to give. And who could blame him? When he's been shunned to darkness for every moment he's attempted to part with his vulnerability. All that radiance too afraid to shine, and she wants to tell him to let the light in.
(If Aang won't kill Ozai then she will convince—not that it would take much—Toph to dig the deepest, murkiest, most rodent-infested hole for the monster who dared to smother his own son's flame.)
"And I guess," she toys with rescinding, then thinks better of it, trading banter for sincerity when she unfurls his still-clenched fist and slides her fingers in the spaces between his. "Maybe I like having you around."
And, oh, but there it is—the soaring of the dawn, and all the exaltation of new beginnings it brings with it, in the exquisite harmony of his golden gaze.
"So," he hums, twirling the tawny ringlet right by her collarbone round his pointer before tucking it behind her ear. She reels with the gesture, tilting into his space. "Forgive myself, huh?"
"And live, of course," she miffs, albeit wetly. "If not for yourself, then for your uncle who loves you dearly." She tips her chin up defiantly, daring him to contradict her. "For all of us, who love you dearly."
"Is that all?" He rolls his eyes but that elusive, frolic quirk toils with his lips. He inclines his head until their noses are but a scant few millimeters apart, buzzing impishly, "Anything else I can do?"
"Actually," she hems, stroking at a badly-hewn strand by his cheek with just a pinch of regret before resolving not to volunteer for the act of cutting his hair again in the foreseeable future. "There is."
She bites her lip, wondering if she should request it at all before ultimately throwing caution to the wind. "We still have some time. Can we just pretend for a little while…" but no, the thought of ignoring the war even for a few minutes reeks too much of Lake Laogai so she amends. "Just stay here with me, please? Just—"
She brings their joined hands to his chest where she can sense his heartbeat, as strong and as steady as the soul it vivifies. With the tip of her finger from her other hand, she traces the frame of his too-tense lips until it is slack with repose, trails a featherlight pathway to the outer ridges that make up the border of his scar.
"Be quiet with me."
Those scorching orbs dance about her visage like the flickers of a candle—except he is more wax than flame when she cups his scabrous flesh, and he melts into her caress.
"I would do it just because you asked," he utters in the most dulcet of notes, and she is honored, for she recognizes the tenderness for the offering that it is. "Whatever happens out there, I'm glad it's you," he sighs, just once more. "I'm glad it's you with me."
"Together," she agrees, chin slumping onto his shoulder for purchase at the alluring giddiness his words incite. She is whirling, unmoored, until the digits of his own free hand anchor at the downy arch of her waist. He nudges, and she ebbs into a pool of untouchable calm on his lap, awash as she is in the current of him.
She closes her eyes, and when he follows suit, content to flow at her pace like he always does in return, a piece of her she hadn't even realized was aslant slots right into place.
They are hours away from the most important battle of their lives, one in which its outcome could very well destine the course of the next hundred years. Katara will not know the caliber of her entreaty, the importance of his promise, until the comet is at its zenith and her life is a paroxysmal brand seared across his middle like a supernova.
But for now, foreheads touching and their fingers seamlessly twined right above his vibrantly thrumming heart, she stows this moment beneath her ribcage, right in that war-untouched trove that pulses to the rhythm of his heart.
They are steeped in stillness, disrupted only by the din of the busy camp, and even that fades away as their breathing syncs.
Somewhere outside, the sun coasts along the heavens, beams of brilliance wrestling against its adumbrate prison.
The clouds part, feeble rays snagging at the canvas archway of their shelter.
The light pours in.
The shadows recoil.
And together, they shine.
-//////-
AN: okay this was supposed to be an exercise in brevity and restraint but uh, i don't think i succeeded?? but given that my goal was less than 2k and we're clocking this in at 2.8k, all things considered, i see this as an absolute win lmao so if you would be so kind as to let me know if you liked it, that would be stupendous!
come say hi to me!
#zutara#zutara fanfiction#katara#zuko#zutara fan fiction#zutara ff#zutara fluff#zutara friendship#swishandflickwit ff#ngl im so sleepy rn#i posted this instead of sleeping#its all about the forehead touching and the HANDS#zutara owns my life#this is the proof
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sometimes i make posts like months after i say i’ll make them and that’s okay. . .
re: flowers in their gardens.
or meta regarding the repeating motif that is flowers in albi’s development as a character up until the end of 5.0, so shadowbringers spoilers will be mentioned, for a more-on-the-nose title.
before he was ever a warrior of light or blessed with the echo, albi’to was a keeper of the moon raised in the traditional way in the black shroud. his people were disliked and persecuted by gridanians that believed their hunting practices were little more than poaching and would upset the elementals that dwell within and protect the forest from outsiders that wish to plunder its resources. his tribe, however, being very small in number, often complied with gridanian law out of necessity to survive, which meant nature was something albi always regarded as sacred and to be respected. but even as a small boy, he would sneak out and about, find himself in clearings with single flowers growing beneath the dense boughs that would otherwise block out the sun, and he couldn’t help himself.
he’d pick them and take them back to camp as his little treasures, somehow convincing himself that the spirits of the forest wouldn’t notice if he was stealthy enough. & the first one he ever took was a pink brightlily, the flower that would later be constantly tucked into his hair. a little memory, a little reminder: that life flourishes in unexpected places, that softness is not weakness.
throughout arr and hw, that was the extent of it. he wore pink brightlilies in his hair in spite of being a paladin who was supposed to stand steady on the front lines. he’d get distracted, wander off the beaten path to smell the flowers regardless of the situation’s demands of his time. sometimes, maybe, he’d give flowers out to raise spirits or earn smiles where people were convinced to find rage or sadness, but the heavy armor never complimented flowers. he was constantly replacing the ones in his hair because they’d lose their petals, burn, get crushed, what-have-you incidents that come with fighting primals and the like.
into sb when he swaps to samurai after getting beat down by zenos (that’s another post, but there’s symbolism galore there, too), he finally gets to express himself a bit better now that he’s not being weighed down with the clank, clank, clank of armor. he can wear lighter clothes with floral embroidery, and even his attacks leave the afterimages of petals in the wind. his weapon blends with the nature he holds to be holy, and even after he pushes zenos back (with the weapon zenos beat him down with, even), when he looks around himself at the royal menagerie...
there’s a sea of red and white flowers. red and white like himself, gently waving in the breeze.
patch 4.5 is, of course, where everything really changes — even here. the last time albi wears flowers in his hair is in the ghimlyt dark, as they burn up inside the battlefield. it’s hard for him to build up his usual spirit while he feels helpless from watching his friends, the people he considers family after losing his real one, fall into comas without a solution in sight, but that’s when life pushes another guide in front of him, ushering him onto the path that he was always meant to walk (ya know, dancer), with some very familiar words.
flowers are his treasures, his inspiration for their gentle resilience. and at this time where he’s so lost, not only does he find himself watching a show of a passion he’s held since he was a child (other post, lol, ‘cause you see how long this one is), but she’s using words that seem so cherry-picked to address him and only him at this specific time. he’s the bud struggling to find its way to the sun in the bleakness of the situation, and he has to survive this somehow.
which gets mirrored, funnily enough, once he’s in norvrandt via yet another handy mirror: feo ul. of course, i can’t go into terrible depth in this post regarding how much albi relates to the pixies of il mheg, from how they live their lives, to how they’re feared by outsiders, to their love of whimsy and fun, as they are beings born of the souls of children, partially because i already have, but know it’s there. from the get-go, however, feo ul addresses the warrior of light as such:
yes, more nature. as a sapling, as a young tree that still has room to grow.
and grow he does. after all, he starts 5.0 with the blind hope of optimism carrying him, believing that he has to maintain the appearance of strength and hope that everybody believes him to be no matter the toll on himself, always carrying the burden of saving everyone and, while aware that he needs to rely on others more, finding it harder and harder to actually do that and break old habits. he is actually tempted to take the offer of being the next titania, because il mheg is everything he’s ever wished for in a home, but he turns it down as the people he loves and cares for so much still need him. he loses bits of his innocence as he’s forced to grow up, confront the possibility of his own death, and he smiles just a bit less. instead of running headlong into danger without a second thought, he considers things, and he learns to care about himself, too.
and near the end of 5.0, his growth, subtle as it may be, is recognized, since feo ul finally calls him something else.
the one word that means so very, very much to him: flower. one that’s bloomed and is coveted.
of course, fast forward to the current patch and... while he still hasn’t put a flower back in his hair in some time (it hasn’t stopped others from placing them, though, and y’all know who you are.), it’s quite a common sight to see him with bushels of brightlilies or tending to little gardens. he’s been incorporating glamours of flowers into his dances instead, mostly to make it look like they sprout where he steps, or well, look at crimson lotus, but he’s so much more free now than he was before.
he’s a dancing flower in the huge, huge garden that is the universe. (◡‿◡✿) thank u for coming to my tedtalk abt how i sometimes cry cuz i know the textboxes aren’t written explicitly for me and alb but sometimes they just hit me like they are
#🏶: bloom in the dark. ( headcanon. )#[ is it really me if i dont write essays about meta points that dont need this much info#i forget how long ago i promised to write this really i just remember i came across the caps of the textboxes recently and was like#oh yeah that was a post. SO HERE WE ARE#knee deep in me. crying bc alb is such a good boy. so round. much friend shape. ]
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Our Legendlore KS only has days left to run, and actually ends on Thursday this week, so as my final push for folks to check it out, I’m not going to try and convince you like last week. I’m going to let two excellent writers do that!
Here’s a great description of Legendlore, written, as only he can, by our own Matthew Dawkins:
But why should you back it? Well, in this time where some gamers are clinging on to the notion that “all orcs are evil from birth”, “disability has no place in fantasy adventures” and “there’s no such thing as a good drow” (they haven’t heard of Drizzt), Legendlore says the opposite.
Legendlore is a fantasy setting where diversity is a strength, we don’t shy away from complex societies and cultures, and where you can damn well buy yourself a wheelchair especially designed for dungeon crawling, or sit on a bloody floating disc! This is a game that embraces the fact that it’s magical, it’s wondrous, and yes, there’s evil out there in need of vanquishing, but there’s also a brilliant world to discover and enlightenment and wisdom to be found.
I’m in love with the art, the writing, and skilful design of this game, which uses the 5th Edition system to amazing effect. I’m impressed by the effort and energy Steffie De Vaan and her entire team of writers have poured into it. It’s a game I want to play, and if you feel orcs are better only as black and white villains, I invite you to read the manuscript – which is available as a free download from DriveThruRPG.com – and feel as impressed as I do.
And here’s developer Steffie De Vann’s excellent take on why she loves the game:
Legendlore offers a rich and layered world. No one is born good or evil, nor does it have ‘evil races.’ People come in all colors, genders, orientations, and alignments. You can be a black trans feminine elf & be right at home in the Realm. Our iconics put our ‘money where our mouth is’ – our elf is a trans black woman, our pixie a non-binary person, our dwarf is a combat veteran in a wheelchair, and I could go on. This is a game that believes diversity is strength. It’s an isekai/portal game, and we created Backgrounds ranging from ‘Activist’ and ‘RPG Aficionado’ to ‘Working Poor.’
The world of Legendlore is home to a sentient 1974’s Ford Mustang, parasite mushrooms that try to kill you by YELLING VERY LOUDLY (trust me, it’s effective), sacred Chipmunks, and the descendants of Amelia Earhart running an aviation nation. It pairs this whimsy with a genuinely complex world. For example, the orcs used to live in what’s now the nation of Drohm. Orcs ambassadors are petitioning the other nations to recognize their sovereignty, but doing so would give Drohm the excuse it needs to go to war – and make no mistake, Darkoth the Darklord *wants* to go to war. Are the orcs right? YES. Should the other nations help them out? HECK YES. Is it understandable that the nations are dragging their feet because war is good for no one except the Generals? Also yes. If that sounds like a conundrum you want to tackle, and sway the fate of Azoth, this is a game for you.
If that sound good to you, go check us out on KS. And if you’re still on the fence – there’s a link in there to a free preview manuscript.
In fact, Steffie has been posting examples of the Legendlore characters she mentions above:
This is Aaliyah, our elven iconic. She’s a Black trans woman who uses a mix of ASL and forestspeak signs to communicate. She’s a peaceful ambassador foremost, but doesn’t back down from a fight when it comes to that.
This is Najda, our dwarven iconic. She is a Muslim army vet who was wounded during her tour in Afghanistan. She now works in a Los Angeles comic book store, where she discovered a crossing into the world of Legendlore.
Here’s Jada, our pixie iconic. Pixies are born agender, and choose a gender as they grow up. Feminine pixies have 2 antenna, masculine pixies have 0, and non-binary pixies have 1. Pixies are as fierce as they are small, they love laughing and hate bullies.
There you go, and here’s the link to the Legendlore Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/legendlore-rpg-setting-for-5th-edition-fantasy-roleplaying-0
Let the Streets Run Red art by Oliver Specht
Besides Legendlore, What Else?
Just a warning, and it may just be a short-term issue, but right now it seems that we can’t ship anything to Canada or Mexico. We haven’t yet heard whether we can receive packages from those countries, but since our most prolific printers are based in Canada, we may experience some delays in our traditionally printed projects.
Right now, we’re only having issues with getting the physical printer proofs sent back and forth for approvals, and not the actual books themselves.
You’d think after all the panels and Actual Playing I did during the Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Con a few weeks ago that I’d be all talked out. Well, that does not seem to be the case. Ever.
Naw, I love telling folks about what Onyx Path is and the game worlds we make! I just can’t help myself, we have so many exciting and fun things going on!
Last week, Mike and the gang over at the This Week In Geek podcast interviewed me about WW and Onyx Path, and it turned into a sort of oral history of how the companies transformed into each successive version, and just where game lines branched off to different companies and editions.
If that sort of stuff is interesting for you, here ya go: http://thisweekingeek.net/news/interviews/fan-service-interview-rich-thomas-onyx-path-june-2020
Then this weekend, I sat in on a retrospective of the Art of Mage at Ascension Con 2020 along with Satyros Phil Brucato and artists Mark Jackson and Echo Chernik. Echo took on the slideshow duties and we all discussed the Mage art that came up as it appeared.
That was pretty great, and it was certainly a treat to chat with folks I haven’t talked to in years. Hopefully, that recording will show up on YouTube soon and we’ll get you all a link.
Cults of the Blood Gods art by Thomas Denmark
What wasn’t great last week were a couple of issues that we needed to deal with. While we dealt with them as best as we could, we realized that at core our little crew of folks here are simply not HR experts. And more importantly, we shouldn’t try to be.
We need to concentrate on making great games and amazing worlds, like we do.
Which means that tomorrow, I’m interviewing our current best prospect for an HR point-of-contact for the company. Someone who is HR trained and has worked in HR at other companies. And very important for us, someone who is unconnected to Onyx Path and has never been a gamer or in the TTRPG business.
We need someone who doesn’t have the connections or baggage that might make it hard to be objective when they review HR concerns. Hopefully, my interview is the one, and once everything is good to go we’ll include info concerning them prominently on our website so folks know who to contact.
I mean, it’s important that our worlds are all about excitement, and fear, and victory, and defeat. What our creators and community go through in the real world shouldn’t also require all those moments. We want everyone playing our games and reading our books to be safe while they explore our:
Many Worlds, One Path!
Blurbs!
Kickstarter!
The Legendlore Kickstarter is in its last few days and ends this Thursday, and now we’re really building towards Stretch Goals: the GM’s Screen, and starting the Legendlore Companion book PDF!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/legendlore-rpg-setting-for-5th-edition-fantasy-roleplaying-0
Grab your friends and escape to another world!
You’ve found an enchanted portal — a transition point — between worlds. The portal, called a Crossing, takes you to a world you thought only existed in novels and films: a magical land where dragons roam the skies, orcs and hobgoblins terrorize weary travelers, and unicorns prance through the forest. It is a world where humans join other peoples such as elves, trolls, dwarves, changelings, and the dreaded creatures who steal the night. It is a world of fantasy — of imagination.
It is the Realm.
It is Legendlore.
Next Up On Kickstarter: They Came From Beyond the Grave!
Onyx Path Media!
This week: the return of the return of the Scion Actual Play as Eddy and Dixie’s characters dig further into the machinations of the gods!
As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/
All our panels and games from Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention are still available on twitch.tv/theonyxpath! All you need to do is head on over to the website and subscribe. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can do so for free and access our entire catalogue of videos!
Legendlore‘s Kickstarter is coming to an end, but Jen Vaughn’s actual play is still going on our Twitch channel every week on Friday night! Lost in the Crossing is an amazing story played through by a fantastic GM and excellent roleplayers, and handles the Legendlore world from the perspective of visitors and native inhabitants of the Realm! Make sure you’re tuning in every Friday or catching up afterwards by subscribing.
That’s not all for Legendlore, as we have actual plays by Steffie de Vaan and Corinne McCrory over on our YouTube channel, which you can find here https://youtu.be/UaQXSlEatDw and here https://youtu.be/RRvnJOrmNzM! Please give our GMs some support and tune in!
This week on Twitch, expect to see:
V5 – Chicago by Night
Realms of Pugmire – Paws & Claws
Legendlore – The Metal Scourge
Dystopia Rising: Evolution – Thieves of Old York
They Came from Beneath the Sea! – They Came from Devil’s Reef!
Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale
Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous
Legendlore – Lost in the Crossing
Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds
Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth and Claw
Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale
Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games.
Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:
Legendlore – The Metal Scourge: https://youtu.be/ECRrErPLm64
Storytellers with Coffee – Safety Tools: https://youtu.be/FjG-YbG_Q1k
Mage: The Ascension – Technocracy Reloaded: https://youtu.be/9Al7ZdkLGiM
Even more Legendlore – The Metal Scourge: https://youtu.be/RRvnJOrmNzM
#OnyxPathCon | How to Write for TTRPGs [Panel]: https://youtu.be/UKmJQEhInP8
Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!
Occultists Anonymous continues right here with their excellent Mage: The Awakening chronicle:
Episode 108: Car-V Heist
While Songbird prepares for a dangerous summoning, Atratus and Wyrd hit the junkyards with an overly elaborate plan to make an overly elaborate gift. How very Mage of them…
https://youtu.be/wSy3c74jkfM
Episode 109: Crown of Blood
Wyrd and Atratus enjoy the joy of a well-made gift and the good vibes that comes with that. Songbird joins together with Hadramiel to summon an Angel of Death to anoint a Vampire Prince in power.
https://youtu.be/QxB6Ml6uStY
A Bunch of Gamers continue their actual play of They Came from Beneath the Sea! and conclude it with a mini review: https://youtu.be/qIMwcOZmR8k
The Botch Pit have released a wonderful new guide for Changeling: The Lost right here. Do give them a like and a subscribe: https://youtu.be/Bd0UZQZt2OM
Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!
Electronic Gaming!
As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)
On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!
You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).
If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!
Our selection includes these latest fiction books:
Our Sales Partners!
We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire
We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game
Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost
Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online
Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/
And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!
As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!
On Sale This Week!
Available this Wednesday, we present Dystopia Rising: Evolution shirts and posters on our RedBubble store!
Conventions!
Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:
PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/
And now, the new project status updates!
Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):
First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)
Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)
Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)
The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)
Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)
Trinity Continuum: Anima
M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)
Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)
Redlines
Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)
CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)
Second Draft
Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)
Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)
Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)
The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)
V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)
V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Development
TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)
Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)
V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)
Manuscript Approval
Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)
M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
Post-Approval Development
Editing
Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)
Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)
Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)
TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)
Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)
LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)
Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)
The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)
They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)
Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)
Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)
Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)
Post-Editing Development
City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)
W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)
Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)
Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)
Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
Legendlore core book (Legendlore)
Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)
Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)
Indexing
Art Direction from Mike Chaney!
In Art Direction
Tales of Aquatic Terror – Handing off to Meredith to AD.
WoD Ghost Hunters (KS) – Prepping KS assets.
Aberrant – AD’d. Sketches from HIVE in.
Hunter: The Vigil 2e
Mummy 2
Deviant
Legendlore – KS running.
Technocracy Reloaded (KS)
Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.
Scion: Dragon (KS) – Waiting on art notes.
Masks of the Mythos (KS) – Pinging potential cover and fulls artist.
Scion: Demigod (KS) – Art rolling. KS assets AD’d.
They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – Prepping KS assets.
TC: Adventure! (KS) – Shen Fei cover art finishing.
Geist: One Foot In the Grave – AD’d.
In Layout
Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad
Vigil Watch
TC Aeon Terra Firma
V5 Let the Streets Run Red – working layout now.
Pugmire Adventure
Scion Titanomachy
Proofing
Trinity Aeon Jumpstart – Errata gathering.
Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Page XXs.
Contagion Chronicle – Backer PDF out to backers, gathering errata.
Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs
Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)
Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)
Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet
At Press
Scion Companion – Awaiting errata from devs.
TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – PoD files uploaded.
TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.
They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Press proofs signed off on, PoD files uploaded.
Creature Collection 5e – PoD proof ordered. Traditional files sent to printer.
Pirates of Pugmire – Files at press. PoD proofs ordered.
Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.
Pugmire Buried Bones – PoD files uploaded.
Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Dark Eras Compilation – Creating PoD file.
Today’s Reason to Celebrate!
This coming week is a big one for our household with the birthdays of two of our widdle kiddies (really not widdle at all any more), and the July 4th celebration of the American colonies’ independence from Great Britain! “And just as Tom here has written, we say To Hell With Great Britain!” Sorry, Matthew…
In sadder news, we acknowledge the passing of Jim Holloway, noted artist for Paranoia and Star Frontiers and many early issues of Dragon Magazine. Personally, I very much enjoyed his style, and he brought a technical expertise and a sense of humor to the early TTRPG business that it sorely needed.
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For the fic ask meme, 4, 16, 24, or 28
I will answer 16 now, because No Reason, Just Whimsy, but stay tuned as I’ll probably end up answering 4, 24 and 28 at some point anyway, because like. No Reason, Just Whimsy. *Shrugs*
16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?
I can’t tell you, see, because I would simply make that one pairing endgame and everything else leading up to it like, contain all the other ships I could not bear to be without. (Hahahaha this is why I could never be a romance author, I can not abide by the rules of HEA or HFN in relationship stories to save my LIFE). So, y’know, SPOILERS.
No but also I’m completely aware that this is cheating and not the point of the question. But I can not choose though, that is the point, like, have you met me? I am the original poster child for ADHD. I’m THAT old.
So instead I will simply say that in the realm of Teen Wolf, Scanny is very very very important to me, which like, surprises no one. But also I would still fight someone who tried to take either Scira or Scallison from me, I remain obnoxiously fond of Scackson’s potential, and I’m still out here being like, the sole Scosh (Scott/Josh Diaz) shipper in all the land, I’m pretty sure, lmfao.
And I mean, also there’s Scyle, of course. I could never give up the Scyle.
As far as Marvel goes, like, I am going to be riding the high of Bobby/Christian being canon for quite some time, as anyone who has known me long knows that I have been shipping this ship since Christian was first introduced and then written offstage like two issues later….seventeen years ago.
(I have a lot of issues with straight writers making gay characters’ gay-specific tragedies and traumas like….someone ELSE’S angsty back story, while they themselves are just shuffled off the page and considered irrelevant. For those who don’t know, Christian is Emma Frost’s gay older brother who she adored and when their father had Christian institutionalized against his will because he was gay, this was what made Emma break away from the rest of her family for good and set her on the road to becoming the White Queen of the Hellfire Club.
And then, despite like, this being life-defining for her, not a single writer in the next fifteen damn years ever thought to ask themselves…..hmmm, why would Emma Frost, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world and someone whose personal morality in no way makes her above using those powers, her wealth or Hellfire resources however she damn well pleases in the name of protecting herself, those she cares about, and advancing her agendas…..why would this woman who has never let anything stand in the way of what she cares about before like….simply just…never once in all the years since she was a teenager think to herself….hmm, what if I simply go to the institution where my beloved brother is kept against his will, and just…..made them release him?)
So, aside from always thinking Bobby/Christian would be a great ship with amazing potential given Bobby’s unique history and dynamic with Christian’s sister and the fact that Christian shares a lot of the same traits, backstory and other elements that make Emma an amazing and multi-faceted character and he’s just been sitting there in Limbo for fifteen years with all this untapped potential just waiting to be mined….
I’m always going to be gleeful about this ship and with a special fondness for Sina Grace for bringing Christian back from comic book Limbo and laying the foundation for this ship, like, just because like……I feel its long overdue and the only way to ACTUALLY make anything decent out of the bullshit that was mining his oppression for the sake of another character’s angst: by finally giving HIM the chance to be a character who is affected by all that, developed and moved forward from all of that, is the FOCUS of all that…..and even more importantly, now after being left offscreen for fifteen years by writers who considered his narrative nothing more than tragic filler….he finally has a chance to be an example of a gay character who gets to come BACK from all of that and move FORWARD from it, and like…find healing and happiness with another character, like Bobby.
So Bobby/Christian is actually hugely important to me for a variety of reasons, especially right now since this is all just happening recently, and I will love them forever and in defiance of the inevitable bullshit some future writer pulls that will piss me the hell off. Y’know, just going off of Vegas odds or whatever.
Aside from Bobby/Christian I’ve also always had a weakness for Bobby/Johnny Storm because they are the most iconic ice and fire characters out there and I am basically twelve. I also have blogged at length in the past about all the reasons I’m a huge fan of Bobby/Bishop and not just because their ship name would make them a literal bop. Again, I refer you to the thing where I’m basically twelve. But yeah, there’s a whole history there where when Bishop first came back into the past and met the X-Men who’d all been legends in his time, he kinda fanboyed a little over Bobby because of Bobby’s future legend, and then was kinda like….oh, that’s it? about him once he got to know Bobby and Bishop became like, the physical embodiment of underwhelmed.
And ever since then Bobby’s always low key been like, a hyper-active puppy around Bishop, like, trying not to SEEM like he cares an awful lot about whether or not he’s managed to impress Bishop but because he can’t be subtle to save his life, mostly just coming across as “am I living up to the hype now? how about now? am I legendary NOW? What about now?” and I dunno. Its just kinda cute and a fairly unique dynamic, and Bishop has this deliberately bland, blink and you miss it sense of humor with the right writers and that I’ve always thought has a ton of potential for him to be privately amused by this tendency of Bobby’s, enough that he’s unwilling to confess to him that Bobby actually earned his respect years ago by this point, and he just doesn’t want to let Bobby know because then he’d stop.
And then in terms of DC, I’ve posted a lot a lot a loooooooooot about my love for Dick/Kory in canon, and how they - and by extension we - were robbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbed, and if DC doesn’t give me my canon Mar’i and Jake Grayson one of these days, I don’t care if they have to import them from another universe and then have this universe’s Dick and Kory awkwardly try to co-parent them while living their own lives separately before finally coming back together and falling in love all over again and then becoming a single united family unit forever and ever in the most ridiculously complicated comic book version of the Parent Trap ever, like…..
I can’t even think of an over-exaggerated threat creative enough to convey just how badly I want and need this, DC, give it to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee plzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
And then also, I’ve actually posted a lot a lot a loooooooooooot (though not in a few years, probably, so those posts are all super old, lol) about how I think Kyle and Donna are a criminally under-rated canon couple and were actually really really good together because they went through so much together and Kyle literally grew so much as a character specifically on the things Donna called him out for the first time they dated, like, literally so he could be BETTER, and then with how anticlimactically they ended...because the thing is, they never actually even broke up! It was this thing where like, when Donna went to LA with Kyle for his high school reunion and to literally MEET HIS MOM, like HELLO, that is not a basic relationship step, that is Advanced Dating, like…..that is where they were at in their relationship when Donna literally got the call then and there that her ex-husband and her son had just died in a car accident.
And Donna was devastated of course, and Kyle was devastated too - for her, and also in his own way, because he’d adored Robert and like, there were these issues where they were super cute and took him to the zoo together and Kyle was bonding with him and just like, melting over this kid, and Robert and Terry were killed by a drunk driver, and like, there was a later story where Kyle just went apeshit on this drunk driver he encountered because he had all these repressed feelings about Robert’s death and how it had hurt Donna and he’d made sure not to show any of that to her or even let on that he hurt for Robert’s loss in his own way, because he didn’t want to make it about him, he KNEW better…
And anyway, the point is…they never actually broke up in the sense of either of them at any point being all, oh we no longer love each other or think this can work, we need to end it. Instead, Donna said that she needed to take some time away from Kyle and everyone else and just…come to terms with what she’d lost and figure out who she even was now in the wake of that….and Kyle totally understood, didn’t argue or try and change her mind, he just said take as much time as you need, I’ll be here when you’re ready, and oh btw, here’s this lantern construct of a locket that I want you to keep because as long as it exists you’ll know that a part of me is still thinking about you and wanting you to be happy, wherever that is.
And then like…..less than a year later, DC did their super weird Dark Angel story where Donna was erased from reality and then had to be ‘recreated’ from Wally’s memories, and for awhile just existed in the form and identity she’d been recreated from, which was based entirely on what Wally knew of her and thought and felt about her, and so there were huge gaps in her identity where she was missing stuff she should have known but didn’t now because WALLY didn’t know about it.
Such as how when Donna met Kyle’s subsequent sorta-girlfriend Jade some time later - I say sorta because she and Kyle were still figuring things out at that stage, and Jenny-Lynn in part didn’t know if she wanted to actually get into a relationship with him because she thought he was still in love with Donna - well anyway, when Donna and Jenny-Lynn met in a later issue and she said all this to Donna, Donna reassured her not to worry about it, she was reading more into it than actually existed because she and Kyle had never been that serious anyway.
Which. SCREECH! Brakes please. HOLD UP.
Like, I’m sorry JAY FAERBER YES I REMEMBER IT WAS YOU WHO WROTE THAT ISSUE UGGGGGH, but like, in what UNIVERSE is “dated, broke up, then got back together later because she thought Kyle had matured a ton since they first tried dating and now they were so much stronger as a couple that she oh I dunno, introduced him to her son and they went on playdates together, went with him to meet his mom, had a never-vanishing lantern locket construct that signified just how much he would always love her” uh…..’never been that serious anyway’? I’m. What? Does not compute.
BUT WHATEVER.
LOL. Anyway, point is, so things like that actually make sense when you factor in the role Wally’s memories and perspective played in who Donna literally WAS for awhile (and the understandable existential crises she went through as a result). But like, at the point in time when Kyle and Donna were most serious, Kyle was still fairly removed from a lot of the rest of the DC universe, he wasn’t a core member of the JLA yet and usually operated independently, and he and Wally were NOT close at all yet, let alone friends….in fact, for as long as Donna and Kyle dated, Wally pretty much still actively hated and resented Kyle for just existing, since he’d always been close with Hal since he was a kid and Hal was his Uncle Barry’s BFF-and-homosexual-life-partner-in-all-but-name.
Like, it was only after Kyle became one of the core JLA alongside Wally that the two of them finally worked out their mutual antagonism and became friends, but before that, Wally was NOT shy about expressing he hated this new GL guy and wanted nothing to do with him, even though it was for unfair reasons, sooooo……like, its not really that shocking that even though Wally and Donna are two of each other’s oldest friends and super tight, like, he was never going to be the friend she called up to let him know how great things were going with her and Kyle these days, lol, y’know?
So it makes sense that when Donna was first magically reconstituted thanks to Wally’s memories/view of her (btw, this was because Wally was out of phase with reality and was in the Speed Force at the precise moment that Donna was erased from reality by the Dark Angel’s magic, and that’s why he alone remembered her and was the template for undoing what the Dark Angel had done). But anyway, it makes sense that she would for a time have had very little memory or even knowledge of her and Kyle’s prior relationship, and basically just know/remember what little Wally actually knew of it. So from her perspective then, it could very well have seemed that they were never that serious, and everyone but Kyle like….kinda just nodded and figured okay, you would know after all, and just…..everyone ended up walking away with the idea that they were just this brief fling and neither had ever had strong feelings for each other, let alone love.
The problem I’ve always had is that eventually Donna DID regain her full memories and her own sense of self, and like….she was Donna again, through and through, existing as she always had without being limited to just Wally’s view or memory of her.
Soooo, at THAT point, she should have been perfectly aware of what her and Kyle’s relationship had ACTUALLY looked like, in its entirety, and I mean, I can understand them not getting back together at that point. It’d been years, they both were in very different places, Kyle had eventually gotten together with Jade after it was expressed by Donna herself that there was no reason not to, given that its not like they were ever that serious….so by the time Donna herself would have realized otherwise, I can totally understand her feeling that the moment had passed for them, that Kyle had moved on (just as Kyle had only ‘moved on’ once he felt there was no longer a chance of them returning to what they were). Like, all of that is super weird and complicated even by ridiculous comic book soap opera standards, so I mean….lol, how do you even BEGIN that conversation, y’know?
Buuuuuut, it just kinda sucks that at no point after that Faerber issue has any later writer ever had either Donna or Kyle discuss their previous relationship(s) in terms of what it ACTUALLY was, for BOTH of them, rather than just this trivial, ancient history fling that neither had ever been super invested in….even though for several years in the nineties they were one of THE major hero couples in comic books.
So. Yeah. As evidenced, I have a lot of unresolved Donna and Kyle feelings lol.
And then of course, there are and always will be my epic “OMG DICK AND KYLE COULD BE THE GREATEST SHIP AND END ALL THE SHIPS LIKE COULD YOU EVEN IMAGINE” feelings, but like. That’s a thirty pound tome in and of itself, so. Like. Just picture the two of them standing staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and then me, creepily fixated on them twenty feet away, chin propped up on my hands and going awwwwwwww while my own eyes like, sparkle anime style but also are the heart-eyes motherfucker meme at the same time.
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LIFE NUGGET: Don’t Miss Out On The Little Things
Another ugly but necessary note: I've always wanted to post about the simple things I learn whenever I achieve a milestone in my life, because I feel like we could all pick something up from every experience we get. In an effort to do so, I decided to make LIFE NUGGETS, which will be a series of life lessons (or nuggets, if you please) that we can pick up and apply to our day to day lives! This is so we can utilize all of our days as chances to learn and grow in improvement! I hope you give this much love! Thank you!
I recently turned twenty last July and, to keep it simple, I’ve never minded my age more so in the life I’ve lived so far than then. And it wasn’t even intentional. Turning a year older, for some, isn’t that big of a deal; in fact, for a lot of us, our birthdays are the special days of the year we get to feel more special about ourselves and celebrate the years we’ve accumulated as we know them, like it truly is for me. But, apart from that, our birthdays are also an intimate and personal time to look back and reflect on how your journey has been so far navigating this world as a small speck of a human being like everybody else, and then, if you’re anything like me, let the realization that you’ve been alive for two decades now, and that you’ve already wasted that much time being an idiot in this world, hit you like a bus.
And I realized, up to the darkest crevices of my soul, that I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I was an adult, of mature (sort of) age, and it was so weird, because I’d been used to the fact that I was still in my teens for quite some time waiting for my life to start that the minute my age said otherwise, it was seriously disorienting.
That’s the funniest thing about life and our general, insanely human concept of time: they’re nothing more than a whimsy breeze that prances by so quickly that the moment it all ends stands out so much more to you than when it actually was there. Now that I’m in college, where nothing almost ever stays constant, whether it be the schedules I attend for my classes or the faces I see on campus, I’m finding out that life for a budding adult (especially a budding adult that strives to be academically competent in their tertiary education) is a cycle of keeping one’s head above water, a repetitive scheme of waking up, eating, studying, and going to sleep in various patterns throughout the weeks. And if I hadn’t realized it sooner, I wouldn’t have known that this was consuming my attention for more than I had bargained for, and I was actually caught up in the waiting game that is expecting when to expect my life to actually begin, whatever that truly meant. It hit me quite hard that I had spent the eight years I was a teenager, in the words of Trixie Mattel, queen of quotations, waiting for the life I wanted to begin in my teen years, so I could celebrate it with balloons and cake and maybe a small pint of booze as it came, but now that I’ve just entered my twenties in glorious quarantine, I think I may have missed it. And if I didn’t stop to think about how old I was getting, I would have realized all of this by the time I was thirty, after I’d thrown my roaring twenties away.
Life is a whirlwind of amazing things that move so fast, one after the other, that if you don’t stop to look, you just might miss your chance at enjoying the life you’ve always wanted.
At our age, we’re all caught up in what we all want to achieve in the future, simply because we want a better life for ourselves and the people we truly care about. And I understand; I have pretty much the same goals, like many of you, and working towards those goals, especially given the fierce circumstances in today’s modern day and age, isn’t necessarily easy. Pre-med students like me have to work hard to prove ourselves worthy of even entering the med school of our dreams through our grades and scholastic records, and the work only starts when we do get in. And I’m pretty sure, no matter what career path we strive to take one day, we all have the same current, troubling struggles, because we want to be the best we can be in the line of profession we have chosen, and our college education will open the doors for us that will lead us to the way we have yearned, the ways we know we’ll do better and keep improving. It may not matter now, but it will soon enough, which is why we have to keep pushing ourselves to do our best. This is a mantra that I’m pretty sure a lot of us are familiar with, because it applies to almost every aspect of our lives, especially in the lives in the future we wish to establish for ourselves.
But in the process of working towards these goals, we sometimes voluntarily forget about something much more valuable than the future — the present. Much of the colors of life happen in the now, and your life will never stay the same way as it was in the very moment you’re in right now, so it’s all the more regretful when you move on and they all become things of the past, things that you never even experienced in your lifetime.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you let go of the goals that will define your future, if that’s what you’re thinking; these types of goals are the most major thing in our lives, the cornucopia we’re all working towards that keeps our lives in balance and keeps our work in check. Achieving our main goals keep the lines of our lives moving forward, allowing us to set our priorities straight enough that we can work towards a set goal. But that doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to step out of that line every now and then. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned recently, one that my lolo has taught me, is to never be afraid of living in the now, because life is shorter than how we all think it is, and it only gets shorter if we don’t take the time to stop and live a little. Sure, we have things to take care of that may or may not define how we are in the future, but then again, nothing is ever certain, and you still have the power in your own hands to change how everything is going to turn out. Life isn’t always about the bigger picture — sometimes it’s about the little things that make it more worth living, the small things that keep you smiling that you never even expected would come your way, but you ought to keep forever. And that, in my opinion, will be a bigger loss when we do start working again to working towards our usual goals, because it’ll be a missed chance by the time we do look back from where we would be by then, and it’ll slowly shift into nothing but a regret.
And the last thing we want is to regret our way into those goals, now wouldn’t we?
Take it from me: nothing is wrong with letting go every once in a while. Whether you’re in college, still waiting for the best time to break out of your shell, or starting at a university and still quite new to the whole setup, still testing the waters and estimating your moves, or maybe still in secondary school trying to figure out who you’re going to be a few good years from now, let me tell you something: live your best life while you still have time. I know I’m a little too young to technically be giving you advice like this, and I’m not even halfway through college to be well-equipped enough to say this at all, but trust me, I know how it feels to miss a chance or opportunity to have fun or cool down. At this age, we can't afford to waste our time, because it comes and goes so quickly and at most times we don't even get the chance to grasp it before it zooms away. Never take your time for granted, do the things and go to places you know you’ll never go to again and attend things that are once in a lifetime. Take this as a sign to finally take a break from all the constant work that can be almost too jarring and discover yourself outside of academics, let loose and do the the things you’ve always planned on doing while you still have time. Join that club or organization. Learn that song or that particular dance choreography you’ve always yearned to know. Audition for that play. Read that book or go to that party. Let loose for the time being and get yourself an ice cream without ever thinking that it’s a distraction.
And something just as important would be to take the time to do things that you’ve always wanted to do with the people that you love. Check up on your families, and have a nice, relaxing meal with them. Go out with your friends to a fast-food joint or treat yourselves to a karaoke night on some Fridays, and maybe have a drink or two every once in a while. I can list a hundred thousand more things for you to do, and it’ll all be worth trying, because all of them will help you discover the part of yourself outside of your work, and time spent discovering yourself is nothing more than time well-spent. We should never worry about our time running out, but instead, figure out when the right time would be to take that first step, because we don’t get chances at everything in life, and a missed opportunity in time will be lost forever.
Ask yourself, "If you’re not going to do it now, when? And if so, will there be another shot at it in the future?"
There’s so much to life than what we know of it. But a lot of the time we don’t see how much more worth it it is to live our best lives because we’re all too afraid of making mistakes and how these mistakes will affect us and our own goals, hence branding taking to the sidelines and sitting everything out as the safer option. Mistakes are just regrets waiting to happen, and that’s solely why we should never leave room for any errors. But I think that’s wrong on so many levels, because not only are mistakes the bumps along the road that help us learn what it means to grow, they’re also all part of the plan. You don’t learn how to ride a bike by mounting on it like a pro the first time and zooming on it easily like a champ, riding for miles and miles at a time. You don’t improve your dancing by sitting every performance out and watching from out back. And you most certainly do not learn how to swim without conquering your fear of drowning.
Mistakes are not meant to be regretted, but instead, are meant to be hounding sources of growth and improvement.
The negative repercussions or a decision play a big part in our decisions, and for sure, a higher chance of a setback just equates to a greater amount of fear that causes us to step back. We don’t fear the decisions themselves, fear the bad things that may happen when we take our first steps in things, and base our previous experiences on how it may all end up in our heads. But to be able to take a chance for yourself, for a thing that you know in your own will be so much more worth it when it comes your way, you must be willing to take risks. Life is nothing less than risks waiting to be taken, because if you’re willing to take a leap of faith to see what you want to see, or do what you want to do, there’s no stopping you from doing anything, and there’s no telling how far you’ll be able to go. Grab every chance you can by learning to take risks and letting go of the fear that comes with it. Give it a try, find your way, and make tons of mistakes, then learn a lesson from all of them.
And most importantly, never regret anything, and never look back.
You don’t live the highway that is life by sitting by your own in a park bench by the side of the road as everything runs by in front of you; you mount your own vehicle and find your own way, go as fast as you’d like, and reach as many destinations as you’d want. Don’t wait for some kind of sign from the heavens that ensures you that it’s just now okay to start doing the things you know in yourself that you were meant to do, but instead, start finding your way as early as you can. Don’t wait for someone else to write your own life for you — make it happen for yourself. Because trust me, the biggest regret you may ever have is to have what probably would have been the best thing to ever have happened to you happen in front of your very eyes while they were glued in front of a textbook.
And in this house, we don’t do regrets, and we live life the best way we possibly can.
It feels so nice to be back writing! How has everyone been? I apologize for posting a day late, it's so hot to work during the day that I end up working at night! And what are your biggest fears and qualms about life? Let me know by reaching me through the Inquiries page, or through my social media here I'd love to hear from anybody!
And, as usual, I wish everyone utter safety and security and good health! I hope everyone is taking care of themselves by santiizing and garnering a healthy lifestyle! It means a lot to me that you're here reading. Thanks for staying, and I’ll see you on the next one!
#hacking through life#hacking#through#life#nuggets#life nuggets#don't miss out on the little things#don't#miss#out#on#the#little#things#off the beat#off#beat#lesson
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Hindsight is 2020
Just one of many posts taken from and funded by my Patreon.
This is a piece of writing about some things that I do know and some things that I do not know. It also is a piece of writing about another piece of writing which no longer exists, a sort of obituary for a document. It is also a confession.
I wonder where it is that good drafts go to die. Those half-finished pieces of work that are simultaneously salvageable and yet also surplus. There are times when words come easy and, if a writer isn’t careful, those words grow like a jungle, sprouting energetically in every direction until they destroy the view, ruin the perspective and reduce those caught amongst them to a sweaty, flustered mess.
I don’t want you to wade into my work to find yourself a sweaty, flustered mess. Otherwise, I’d be in the sauna business.
I throw things out. That’s good. Not everything we make or do will be up to our standards and it’s a wise idea to aggressively cull that which doesn’t work. It’s brutal, sure, but the fact is every writer you know is regularly hurling paragraphs down a secret trapdoor in their home, which they occasionally flip open empty their machine gun into. You have to kill your darlings.
And it's a luxury to be able to murder your mistakes.
But sometimes there’s one that you rescue. There’s one that comes back. There’s one that is pulled from the brink, thrown on the gurney and shocked back into being. "It’s alive," the writer screams, as it twitches once again. Watch it stagger out into the world, walking as if for the first time. Look at its cute little hyphens.
This piece of writing is one of those. It began, more than a month ago, as an attempt to reflect on December. It started like this:
“It’s difficult for me to write about December without also writing some kind of a retrospective for an entire decade. This month has been a hugely reflective one for me and it’s been impossible not to get swept up in the general trend of looking back and taking stock, something that I initially resisted but which has become a positive, enriching exercise. The past has been on my mind in part because it’s infinitely more concrete than the present or the future. It’s so much easier to hold on to. Hopefully it will also be something solid to leap forward from.”
I hope that you feel this way. That your past is something to leap forward from.
I wonder, too, where it is that good drafts are born. I’m not quite sure exactly how much control I have over what I write and I don’t know where the words come from. I know that I don’t wait for inspiration. I chase it. I chase it and I’m armed. It’s not a pretty sight and I’m neither glamorous nor gainly in my pursuit. Sometimes I catch it in lofty places, at the shining peak of a million-year-old mountain. Other times I pull it from a dumpster at three in the morning, scraping off the gunk. But I never understand quite how this catching happens and what the process is that follows. I seem to mostly just stumble into accidents. Just after writing that paragraph that I showed you above, everything went kind of off the rails. It all veered sideways. I wrote this:
“The 2010s were a period of almost constant change and now I’m looking at the possibility of a far more settled future. That feels very unusual indeed. I can’t get my head around it. Even before I gained residency here, my life in Canada offered me so much more stability than anything in a long time and I’m not sure quite what to do with that. While there might be some things I have to worry about going into 2020, there are so many others that have melted away into the past.”
And as I tried to find a way to document and describe some of the transience of that last decade, I began pouring over maps. I'm a very visual thinker and I find that sights and spaces spark my imagination, but the task got away from me very quickly, transforming from something that I was doing to something that was happening. I tried to find something in north London and, by chance, Google Maps dropped me right by a bus stop I could easily have been waiting at ten years ago today, way up Holloway Road and close to an ex-partner’s place.
I don’t know what the logic or whimsy is behind this behaviour, but sometimes Google Maps shows you a place as it looks in summer or in winter, right now or three years past. There’s usually a slider you can drag which pulls you through time and, as I wasn't looking at the Holloway Road of today, I went to try to pull myself back into the present. But it was then that I found I could also jump back almost exactly a decade and see how things looked on any of so many winter mornings or afternoons, as I stood waiting to travel home or to work. With one click, I could hurl myself back almost exactly a decade.
I can’t tell you how powerful that single click was. It demolished a nearby building, it switched out all the road signs, it reopened the old café. It summoned a bold, red 43 bus which loomed nearby and who’s driver would have no patience if I wasn’t about to climb on. I hated that damn bus. The 271, too. They lurched and retched their way north and south, never on a reliable schedule. There was no way of knowing when the next one would come. I’d better get on board.
But I didn’t. I turned on my heel and retraced my steps, winding and squirming my way down routes that weren't just streets I hadn't seen for a decade or more, but often streets that no longer looked this way. Estates have been built, businesses have moved, and while one thing in London can look the same after a hundred and fifty years, whatever sits next to it might change three times in a decade.
I wonder what Google will do when routes themselves change. When they have not only old images, but old layouts that no longer correspond to streets and paths and places that exist. I wonder if we'll still be able to walk through them. I wonder where they’ll go.
It wasn’t difficult to retrace my steps all around each of my old London neighbourhoods, recreating journeys I'd taken countless times. I walked streets just as they looked at the time, took the same shortcuts, remarked at the same details I would've noticed at the time. There was one neighbour's stroller outside their house. There was the same front door, faded before they repainted it. I roamed and I roamed until I found myself looking straight at the face of a building I might easily have been inside at the very same moment that imagery was taken. Like any other, its windows were black holes, its walls were blank, its doorway was featureless. Yet some past version of me could be just beyond. Right then. Right now.
What am I doing in there, I asked myself, and what am I doing in any of these other places I now revisit? The people there aren’t ghosts or memories, they’re living their lives at this moment while this phantom from the future glides back toward them, unable to reach out or to communicate or to leave even the tiniest trace. I could circle these places and their people infinitely. It had never before occurred to me to try to visit the past in this way.
And then I wondered this: If I could step inside, if I could pass through those black windows and blank walls to meet the me of a decade ago, and if I could speak to him, what would I say?
I know the answer.
“Stop being so stupid,” probably.
And also “Keep going and get ready to do an awful lot of things.”
It occurs to me now, as I write this, that the me of a decade ago had a lot going on. He had a lot to juggle. He was sometimes having a much tougher time than the lazy literary bum who types out these words with one foot on the floor and one foot hanging on the sofa. I don't know if he'd appreciate the perspective of someone like me. "Stop being so stupid," he might say. And also: "I hope you've kept going and that you're still trying to do an awful lot of things." The younger me never wanted to waste opportunity.
Other things I wrote in my abandoned draft included this paragraph:
“I’m really bad at relaxing. Really bad. There is always something to be done or something that *can* be done. Most of the last decade I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck, earning enough to get by but rarely to save. I think this has created a constant sense of urgency and an ever-present feeling that I should be doing something. I also think I wasted too much of my teenage years or early twenties and should’ve achieved much more, much sooner. I should be making up for lost time.”
I think now that the me of 2010 would agree we have to find some way to go back further, to the me of 2000, and kick this person into shape. I think we would say "Stop being so stupid," and, particularly "Oh my GOD be more grateful toward your friends, your family and the people you date," which would help us pretend that we don't still need to listen to that advice ourselves. But we do. I know this.
Through most of my life I've watched a British science fiction show called Doctor Who, which tells the story of an eccentric alien who travels through time, going on adventures and solving mysteries. In the course of those travels, the Doctor sometimes meets a past version of themselves and inevitably clashes with them, ending up somewhere between baffled and irritated. But that bit sure doesn't sound like science fiction to me.
I first watched Doctor Who when I was very, very young, at just about the same time when several British organisations worked together on a famous educational undertaking called the Domesday Project, a digital documentation of Britain that existed on collections of enormous laserdiscs, fed into the school computers of the time. They showed you pictures and videos of places all over the nation, letting you take virtual tours around cities or wander in the countryside. My strongest memory of it was of a friend and I getting lost in a field after walking through the most painfully generic and nondescript landscape. We couldn't get out because everything looked the same. To the adult me writing this now, that feels like an apt metaphor for how I felt about much of England, a country I found stagnant and sterile.
The technology used to create the Domesday Project was soon out of date. The media it was stored on was soon out of date. Its images of a country that clearly wasn't always stagnant and sterile were soon out of date. Where is it all now? I don't know. I do know that this makes it very obvious Britain did change, even if to me it didn't, and I can't deny that.
Now come all the coincidences. They start with one more paragraph that I wrote, but then discarded. It is the hardest one to share. It is the confession.
"I will be forty years old soon and I am embarrassed by my age. I know people older who feel so much fresher and people younger who are more capable and more mature. My life is not the way I imagined it would be at forty and I cannot reconcile the reality of who I am with the half-formed expectations that I had. There were things that I wanted to do and things that I meant to do and then an awful lot of other stuff happened along the way. I handled some of that with varying degrees of readiness, resilience and regret, while failing the rest."
I left this paragraph to gain dust and now, by coincidence, I am forty years old at this very moment. Who let this happen? This is unacceptable. Who's fault is this and who can I blame?
And in another act of ridiculous randomness, on the same day I began redrafting all this, a note almost exactly one year old and that I thought I had lost fell out of my notebook. The note pulled me back into the past with all the power of a black hole. HERE YOU ARE AGAIN, said the note, with words that deafened my ears, blinded my eyes and plugged my nose. IT IS 2019 ONCE MORE. I couldn't see or hear or smell anything except for the past, but this time I was armed with all the tools of perspective and perspicacity. I was better equipped to understand everything while also able to change nothing.
I flailed at the past with all the effectiveness of the phantom I had become.
In the third moment of curious concordance, just a few days ago I found myself walking past the first place I lived in Vancouver. It was late. It was cold. I could've decided to head straight home. The night bus was about to come. I’d better get on board.
But I didn’t. I turned on my heel and retraced my steps, winding and squirming my way down routes that weren't just streets I hadn't walked in years, but also streets that no longer looked quite the same. New houses had been built, businesses had moved. This wasn't unusual. While one or two things in Vancouver still look the same after a hundred and fifty years, it's a shockingly young city to a person like me and it regularly rebuilds so much.
It wasn’t difficult to retrace my steps all around my old neighbourhood, recreating journeys I'd taken countless times. I walked streets just as they looked at the time, took the same shortcuts, remarked at the same details I would've noticed at the time. There was one neighbour's bike left on their balcony. There was the same front door, furnished with a new intercom. I roamed and I roamed until I found myself looking straight at the same first apartment I'd rented. Like any other, its windows were black holes, its walls were blank, its doorway was featureless. Someone else lived there now, but someone else had also lived there in the past.
Everything that night was both so familiar and yet also so forgotten. So much had fallen out of my memory so soon and I rushed to gather it all once more. It was then that I realised what true nostalgia really is: It isn't just revisiting the past, it's rediscovering it. It's finding the things that surprise us again even after they've already happened. I know this now.
It brings a very particular kind of feeling. A kind of joy. A kind of reminder. A kind of reinforcement. And I think that's important.
I think it's important to be that phantom from the future, gliding occasionally through the past, because we can forever rediscover and reevaluate that which has already happened. I'm not sure there are many pasts more important than our own and it serves us well to reappraise them sometimes. History is an open book, not a closed one, one which academics continue to re-write, and our lives are the same.
The eternal lesson has always been not to dwell on the past, not to fixate on what has already happened and not to be dominated by what cannot be undone. I don't disagree and I think it's essential that I tell the present version of myself things like “Stop being so stupid,” and also “Keep going and get ready to do an awful lot of things,” and also "Keep chasing inspiration and make sure that you're armed" and a lot more personal, private and emphatic maxims. But it's vital to me to look back from the fresh perspectives I constantly give myself. Our past does not disappear; it is not a draft that we can throw away. It instead forms the ever-growing foundations of what we are and, whether those bricks are made from hope or anger or pride or guilt, we must at times acknowledge them all.
I know this: As we inspect it, we see where it is solid, where it best serves us. That is how it becomes the foundation that we leap forward from.
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Signs You May Be Watching a Hallmark Movie + Christmas Edition
Hey all, your friendly neighbourhood aroace here who is Tired of This Shit™ and needs to rant. I have been exposed to far too many of these movies for my own good and I am doing this to maintain my sanity, especially given the rampant Christmas season.
For those who may not know, a Hallmark Movie or W (Women’s) Network movie is a general term for the generic schlock they call romance movies played on these eponymous channels, targeted towards middle-aged straight women and they are always terrible from a story / character / everything standpoint. These are genuinely some of the most predictable, generic, cookie-cutter pieces of media that I’ve ever seen and I’ve been itching to rip them apart for years so NOW’S THE TIME.
If you genuinely enjoy these movies, ironically or not, I promise I’m not trying to take that away from you with this post, but please understand: you deserve better movies than this, even for passive entertainment. They genuinely make me uncomfortable and this post is to tell you why.
I’ve done my best to make this an exhaustive list, but feel free to add more yourself (lord knows I’m not researching it).
ALRIGHT HERE WE GO
The Stale White Bread Main Leads
- almost exclusively a white female protagonist who cannot be distinguished from any other generic white woman, usually with medium length blonde or brown hair, an hourglass figure and perfect teeth (only has glasses if she’s supposed to look Smart™, but she can take them off at will)
She is a:
- Business Woman™ of two flavours: a struggling small business owner (usually a bakery, especially in the Christmas movies) or a high tier executive in a stuffy city job
OR
- hokey small town woman who is randomly prettier than every other person in this town because the rest of them are 50+ or are decidedly “less attractive” than her so it is clear to the audience that they are not supposed to be after the affections of the equally attractive love interest
OR
- journalist / writer who is lacking in Inspiration™ and just needs someone in her life who can give it to her again ~siiiighhhhhh~
OR
- an extremely efficient wedding planner who can make everything work for everyone else but *~Can’t Seem To Find Her Own Prince Charming~*
———
- the love interest is a generic white man who cannot be distinguished from any other generic white man, usually with swept back hair, a chiseled jaw and a punchable face (seriously look it up)
He is a:
- well-meaning mild-mannered guy who Just Happens To Bump Into the Protagonist at her business or festival because he’s new in town, sometimes in the form of being the Misunderstood Starving Artist Type™ (and if so he is a painter with a fine arts gallery, no exceptions)
OR
- Business Man™ stuck in his dead-end office job, but only if the protagonist is not (though sometimes you get the rare Double Business plot and that is a ride of 75% business meetings during the film’s run time)
OR
- single dad whose previous wife left him / died, making him a lowkey Sad Boy and he has at least one child from the marriage (see the kids section for more on that plot device)
OR
- the friend of the groom in the wedding movies who always gets with the wedding planner protag at the end
The Sidekick
- usually a co-worker or a friend of the protag that somehow appears more often than the others
- The only POC characters to appear in these movies (if any appear at all) are exclusively the protag’s supportive friend
OR
- the quirky (and usually old) townsperson who periodically appears to bring the protag and love interest together in a plot thread thinner than my patience
- two flavours of sidekick: laid back and chill compared to the nervous protag but gets to say “I told you so” when the leads end up together, OR the impulsive one who pushes the protag to “chase her dreams” with the love interest
- “Come on, live a little!” / “You only live once!”
- the first time the protag interacts with the love interest, the sidekick swoops in like a fucking peregrine falcon to call them out on it
- “OOOOooooooooh who was that guy????? Do you like him????? Ask him out!!!!!!”
- sometimes the love interest has a male sidekick and when he does, either he or the love interest are Chads
- sometimes the male sidekick is an inexplicably old co-worker that tells the leads to “fall in love while they still can” (because he didn’t and regrets it)
The Parents
- one or both are dead for either the protag or the love interest to give the Tragic Backstory™
- this is usually used as a Bonding Moment at around Act 2 of the movie after the protags know each other well enough, but sometimes comes up on the first date for that first bout of ~Awkward Tension~
OR
- both parents are alive and old and are exclusively used to tell the protag that they will find The One™
- the protag has a Look about them after they first meet the love interest, and the parents call them out on it immediately (similar to the sidekick)
- the father will tell the protag that she is being too stubborn for not pursuing the love interest, and the wife will chime in to say “just like you were”
- sometimes the parents are replaced with grandparents, though usually just one and it’s a grandfather for the female protag or grandmother for the male love interest
Kids or Cats
- either of these are used as plot devices to periodically bring the two leads together in the background without anyone noticing (seriously none of the characters notice that they are there for this purpose until at least halfway through the movie or later)
- if there is a cat, that cat must be held in a person’s arms for at least 50% of the shots with the two leads because GET IT THEY BOTH LIKE CATS THEY’RE DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER YOU GUYS THE CAT IS THERE IT’S GOTTA BE TRUE
- that cat will conveniently get lost at least once, leading to one of the leads finding it and bringing it back to the other, or they search for it together
- if both of the leads like cats, the previous girlfriend of the love interest (or boyfriend of the protag) conveniently doesn’t like cats (that’s how you know the love interest is legit -wink wink-)
- these cats (or dogs even) will inevitably cause mischief that inconveniences both of the leads, but then they make eye contact, laugh about it, and go “Oh, [pet’s name]”
- kids exist to do two things in these movies:
1. “innocently” ask if the protag is gonna get together with the love interest after seeing him once, and often will do things throughout the film to make them see each other more
2. show to the protag whether or not the love interest is “a good guy” by being good with kids*
* being good with kids is a prerequisite, because all relationships in these movies HAVE to be the lead up marriage + kids guaranteed
The Music
- flutes are used for added *~Whimsy~* when the two leads are spending time together
- All music to denote awkward situations contains exclusively clarinets and harps (you know the ones)
- said music flares up when one or both of the leads says their love out loud when they “weren’t supposed to”
- sparkle sound effect when the leads touch hands or give each other The Look™
- bonus points if they do the thing where one of them drops something and they both go to pick it up, only to touch hands “by accident”
Other General Shit
- these movies are peak Straight Energy™
- every character and setting in these movies are impossibly saccharine, to the point where they don’t speak or act like real people (almost like a HALLMARK GREETING CARD HAHAH GET IT)
- central visual themes exist for incredibly flimsy symbolism, anything from butterflies to rainbows (YES RAINBOWS)
- bonus points if the child in the movie is interested in this central theme and it somehow connects to the two leads (example: the daughter of the love interest has butterflies on her walls, and the protag just HAPPENS to be baking butterfly shaped cookies in the next scene)
- extra Sad Boy points if a dead character in the movie used to love the central theme before they died (it’s usually a mom or grandma for extra Contrived Sincerity™)
- every title of these movies contains “Love” or “Heart” in the title, or involves the central theme in the name
- if any of these take place during Valentine’s Day HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS because everything I mention here is amped up by 10 in those ones
- if families with children is central at all in the plot, you are guaranteed at least one (1) pregnant woman / expecting father in the movie
- the love interest is introduced almost immediately after the protagonist, and you know who the couple will be by the end of this train wreck by about 5 minutes in
- the camera work focuses on the side eye looks that everyone else gives the two leads when they’re in love but Don’t Know It Yet
- obligatory walk in a park / sitting on a bench scene, to establish nostalgia or longing or both
- “Huh, that’s weird.” (said after a very obvious romantic advancement is shown, OR when the flimsy symbolism just happens to appear somewhere)
- scenes pause frequently when an awkward moment happens, supplemented by the clarinets farting in the soundtrack
- any time the two leads are seen together, there is always ONE PERSON who mistakes them for a married couple (usually a concierge at a hotel or an oblivious friend), to which they awkwardly reply with the following:
- “I’m not looking for marriage right now!” / “we’re just friends!” *
*fun fact if you want me to rage instantly, use this line anywhere and I will be out for blood
- “I’m fine with being single!” followed by a “suuuuure you are” look from the sidekick or parents*
*you know what add this one to the “out for blood” list too
- if there is a restaurant scene the entire staff will retroactively try to make the scene more romantic well before the leads have any feelings for each other
- the waiter of the restaurant will side eye both of them like “okay lovebirds”
- “he’s just a friend, a boy…. friend, a friend who is a boy. Friend boy.”
- “Did I just say that out loud?”
- the “act natural” scene where the love interest is coming over and the protag spends too much time messing with her clothes, hair and posture before he arrives
- The Misunderstanding™ that usually takes place before or during a party and drives a wedge between the leads for a maximum of 5 minutes
- the obligatory “I’m sorry” scene after the misunderstanding, consisting of the love interest standing in front of the protag’s house while she stands on her porch with her arms folded. As he explains himself, he slowly walks closer until they meet and he proposes / professes his love to her, then they kiss as the camera zooms out and fades to credits
- if they kiss during a festival scene, you’ve got at least a 50% chance of fireworks going off in the background
- Flowers. There are always flowers, given or received.
If the movie takes the Business angle:
- the “too busy to live life happily” plot is a prerequisite
- every business job is automatically an office job with board meetings, and it is always portrayed as a dull or negative experience
- the protagonist is assigned to the hokey small town and travels reluctantly from the city
- her reluctance is punctuated by getting stuck behind a tractor or a bad encounter with the townsfolk that would Only Happen Here
- she has a previous relationship with a guy in the city who is Very Clearly An Asshole but she takes the entire movie to realize this
- side eye glances from the locals, especially if the protag is in heels / a blazer / a short skirt
- “you’re not from around here, are you?”
- the love interest is, at the start, the only friendly person to the protag
- said asshole boyfriend continues to call her about her business duties, until later in the movie when she decides to ignore him / dump him without so much as a warning
- there is usually a conflict of interest between business advancement / capitalism and The Passion For The Job™
- “are you really going to give up all we’ve worked for?” (this is the final straw for the protag to dump the asshole)
- literally it’s like “fuck you i’m out” -hangs up-
- obligatory scene where the protag ignores her family / relationship opportunities for a business phone call, paralleled by a scene at the end where she ignores the call instead
- eventually she decides to stay in the small town and run a farm / bakery / antique shop with the love interest
If the movie takes the Wedding angle:
- the protag is ALWAYS too distracted by her wedding planning to think about romance for herself, something that the sidekick / parents will point out ad nauseum
- the love interest is ALWAYS the friend or the brother to the groom
- there are very rarely bridezillas, usually the protag is insanely good at her job to placate this anyway
- there IS, however, the stuck-up mother-in-law who must test the skills of the protag because Reasons
- the groom sweats nervously 24/7 (can you blame him really?)
- if the bride and groom have any disagreements whatsoever it is always at the cake tasting or the flower / decoration phase
- the “everything goes wrong right before the wedding and then it all works out” plot is compulsory
- the bride’s dress doesn’t fit, the groom loses the ring, the catering is late, the gang’s all here
- the protag has to navigate all friction with the bride, while the love interest does the same with the groom, thus bringing the two leads closer by proxy
- whatever relationship issues between the bride and groom resolved by the two leads automatically translates to their own relationship as well
- solving this bickering can also lead to a “maybe I was wrong” scene between the two leads directly after if they are fighting at this point too
- the bride’s mother or father will give something important to the bride / groom every time, and the protag has to find a way to implement it into the wedding
- the protag will always have a “window shopping” scene with the sidekick, and that window will ALWAYS have a wedding dress or ring in it
- the day is saved by the love interest coming to the rescue last minute, solidifying the protag’s love for him
- during the ceremony, the protag and the love interest have that Knowing Look as the bride and groom are celebrating
- if there is a child present at all they will always be the flower girl / ring bearer for the two leads at the end
- if the child is a little girl, there is prince / princess imagery all over the damn place
- bonus points if the sidekick also hooks up with the only other named character in the entire movie by the end
- extra bonus points if the only way you know they hook up is if they give each other a look like “yeah I’d tap that”
BONUS: Signs You May Be Watching a Hallmark Movie - Christmas Edition
- ambiguously placed mistletoe (someone has to kiss that’s just the rules my guys)
- if you don’t hear jingle bells in the entire soundtrack then you’re doing it wrong
- either the protag or the love interest are Not in the Christmas Spirit and the other makes them get back into it by the end
- “but what about your faaaaaamily” (used when the lead(s) are disillusioned about the holidays, can also lead to Tragic Backstory™)
- the “too busy to live life happily” plot is still a prerequisite, but just about the holiday season
- town festivals and Christmas parties
- turtleneck sweaters and scarves everywhere, not for the cold weather but for the protag to lift over her face when she’s embarrassed about liking the love interest, and then the sidekick notices and goes “OOOOOOHHHHHH”
OR
- the protag conveniently leaves the scarf or some other object behind thereby forcing the love interest to return it to her in person
- there is always an old man character who either plays Santa at the mall or is an allegory for Santa in relation to the protags
- the leads will go skating, one will be reluctant and one will always fall on their ass immediately
- bonus points if they fall on each other, and have a moment of staring into each other’s eyes before they’re like “oh shit” and frantically apologize as they get up
- “let me show you how” *~holds hands as the music chimes~*
- if kids are around, the love interest will skate while the protag watches, and him falling on his ass is supposed to convey how he’s an easygoing goofball who can laugh at himself (this is usually used if the protag is the stuffy business woman with a sidekick telling her to lighten up)
- obligatory snowball fight followed by hot cocoa scene
- the protag and love interest are dressed in red and green respectively for that sweet, sweet Symbolism™ (*~because RED is the colour of PASSION~*)
- angel symbolism for a dead parent or a “guardian angel” watching over the protags to make sure they get together by the end
- bonus points if either the parents or the sidekick mention this guardian angel multiple times throughout the movie, until the leads kiss and they look lovingly at said symbolism somewhere else in the room at the end
- other symbolism in anything from deer to snowflakes (yes really)
- the struggling small businesses are almost exclusively bakeries and / or a family business that was owned by one of the leads’ now dead grandmother (insert Grandma’s Famous Cookie Recipe here)
- finding the right Christmas tree or perfect present is used as an allegory for finding The One™
- bonus points if either the protag or love interest awkwardly state the words “how do you know it’s the right one?” in the context of the tree and the other responds with “I’m sure I’ll know, in time” in a different context, and then they look at each other suggestively before the scene ends
- house / room decorating montage that features some kind of upbeat Christmas song over it (Jingle Bell Rock, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, etc.), and always features the two leads who just happened to end up decorating together, usually with a child accompanying them
- the two leads get snowed in and are Forced To Spend The Night Together
- there are still always flowers but because Christmas they’re poinsettias every time
——–
- honestly if I can recommend anything go watch the murder mysteries that the Hallmark channel has now (YES THEY EXIST)
- seriously they still do the stupid romance and will-they-won’t-they with the two investigators, and then one of the hokey townspeople gets shot or poisoned and the sheer tonal whiplash that causes makes it a fucking riot from there
- make a drinking game out of these movies if you want to die instantly
#there you go folks#katie has had enough™#-cracks knuckles- my salt will flow tonight#this is my magnum opus#nothing will top this#text#long post#hallmark movies#really terrible romance movies#my soul just leaves my body whenever i'm in their vicinity
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My Nerdy Best friends
I wrote an essay for one of my writing classes on something that changed my life, and for me it was about critical role. Here is an abridged version, because I feel like it could resonate or help a lot of people struggling how I have.
When everything is dark, sometimes it’s hard to find a light. For me, the light came from a very unexpected and seemingly trivial place, the show Critical Role. Now, it may seem like just a silly show where “a bunch of nerdy ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons,” but for me and so many other people, it has been a life saving experience (Mercer). It entered my life at just the right time, and helped my brother and me more than we could have ever imagined.
To understand my position at a life changing point, it’s also important to know that my brother, Nate, is the person who introduced me to Critical Role. My brother is 6 years older than me, an absolute dork, a kind and loving person, and severely agoraphobic. Over six years ago, he got in a serious car accident on his way to move into college that stopped him in his tracks. He had always had anxiety, but the accident left him more afraid than before. He stopped driving, which eventually turned into him stopping going out, which eventually turned into him not even stepping foot into the dangerous world. His only way of communication with others for the last six years has been video games, social media, chat rooms, and Twitch streams. As his anxiety got worse, it was harder for him to survive. Aside from the friends he had made online, he had nothing, and felt like a failure. Getting better seemed out of the question for a long time, and there were many times when we worried we’d lose him. Him finding Critical Role helped him find new friends, many of whom understood his situation more than the friends he’d had before. Some even started to come over and spend time with him. He got so excited about it, and spread the word to me.
Around six months ago, I got out of the second of back to back long term relationships. While this relationship had been overall healthy, the one before it was not. My ex girlfriend was emotionally manipulative and very controlling, and she had taken a lot from me. She stomped out any ounce of self expression I had, so long as it didn't fit her image of what her S/O should be. I stopped drawing, watching cartoons, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and anything else that she teased or mocked me for. Starting my next relationship immediately after one that damaged me so heavily didn’t allow me time to grow or readjust to who I was, so I continued the unhealthy mindset of living fully for another person. During my second relationship, my new girlfriend and my brother both attempted to get me back into the things I used to love, but it was a difficult transition to make when I didn’t know who I was. It took a long time for any of it to seem possible, and that all started with watching and listening to shows again. When the second break up happened, I felt shattered and empty. Unsure how I was going to put the pieces of myself together again, I reached out to my family and the friends I still had, and I dove myself back into the world of fantasy and whimsy that I had spent too long avoiding.
I was alone in an all new city, with most of my old friends many miles away. I was recovering from a pretty serious and life threatening disease, worrying about the bills and repercussions, and unable to talk to the person I had kept by my side for so long. On days when I couldn’t move, or days when I had nothing to do, escapism was the only way I knew how to deal with the depression and anxiety I was feeling. Without escapism, I only had my thoughts- and those thoughts were telling me I shouldn't even be alive. To silence those thoughts on the bad days, I started watching campaign one on top of my weekly episodes with the Mighty Nein. I started posting about it on social media, and even started drawing again. It allowed me to meet new people, and brought my closer to my brother than I had been in over five years.
What started as escapism became genuine passion for something. Passion for drawing, cosplay, passion for gaming and writing. When I would have days where I felt hopeless, and considered the darkest possibilities for the first time in years, I would turn on episodes, or interviews with the cast. It made me feel surrounded by friends, even if I had never met them. The theme song in the new introduction opens up with the line “The adventure begins, we were always beside you. Your nerdy best friends, and the DM to guide you,” and those lines really resonated with me (Riegel Bailey et al). These people may not know me, but they are my friends. They saved me on multiple occasions from sleepless nights, or days alone in bed with my pain- whether those be physical or emotional. Not only that, but they also allowed me to meet new people. A group of wonderful fans and supporters called the Critters. Never in my life have I been in a group as supportive and enthusiastic to reach out and help others than the critters. Through this show, I got a new group of friends to play Tabletop Games with in Chicago. Through this show, I’ve met groups of cosplayers to go to conventions with and take photos with. Through this show, I’ve met fellow artists who have encouraged me to keep drawing, even if I felt behind. Through this show, I’ve rekindled a relationship with my brother after years of feeling somewhat estranged. Through this show, I've found a family. Later on, it would even be a key factor in Nate going to get help and conquer his agoraphobia.
The things that change our lives can come in many forms. They can appear in the form of a person, a song, a moment, an opportunity, or something totally and completely unexpected. For me, it was Critical Role. If this show hadn’t entered my life, I’m not sure where I would be. Quite honestly, I’m not even sure I’d be alive. Certainly, I wouldn’t being drawing, interacting, writing, and cosplaying again. Our own identity is so important, and I lost that completely because of the circumstances I fell into. Critical Role gave me hope. It gave me a place to go, and a way to hone my creativity and passion. And I know I’m not the only one. I’ve met hundreds of critters who share similar stories, whose lives were changed greatly because of those 8 nerdy voice actors. It may seem trivial or insignificant to those who don’t understand, but without it I wouldn’t be the person I am. My brother wouldn’t have sought out help, I would have never gotten close to him again, I wouldn’t have had a creative outlet, I wouldn’t have started playing D&D again. This show has allowed me to be myself again; that’s about as life changing as it gets.
TLDR: After an unhealthy, manipulative relationship I lost a lot of my identity. My brother was also going through very tough shit, including severe agoraphobia. He found and introduced me to critical role right before I went through another huge breakup and the beginnings of recovery from many severe physical illnesses. The show saved me, and helped me find new friends and passions that have gotten me back into the things I loved before everything happened. The show kept me alive, and the amazing other people who enjoy it helped me find friends and believe in myself. Thanks Critical Role, and the wonderful other people who enjoy it.
If you're struggling through any of the things I mentioned, or anything at all- whether that be money, depression, anxiety, lack of creativity, abuse, sexuality or gender identity, stress, or whatever else, know there is always a place where you can find home. I found it here, and there's always room for more critters! Don't give up hope, don't quit your passions, always find what brings you joy and cling to it. Life is short and happiness is hard to find in dark places, but I promise there's a place for you. 💙 -K
#long post#text post#writing#essay#suicide tw#abuse tw#agoraphobia tw#critical role#cr#critters#crs1#crs2#vox machina#the mighty nein#m9#om9#kara speaks#community#family#critter community#tldr#love#Cr1#cr2#critical role text post#crit role
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12.30.19
Though this won’t be my final blog post, it is my first one written while being back in the United States. In recent months, the writer within me—who sits at a desk that is covered in post-it notes, half-empty coffees gone cold, and pages of unfinished thoughts—has only wanted to stare off into the distance. Ironically, that distance has been me. While many variables combined have created the perfect situation for some high-quality introspection, my instinct always has been to document the maelstrom of thoughts that run through my mind in large volumes. At first, this took place as fiction, then I turned to poetry, but as of late nothing else seems quite right to write except for my own life. I do value introspection highly, but never before have I felt inclined to share so much of my life with any other living soul, so count yourself among the lucky few, dear reader. It feels entirely wrong to do so, but at the same time, it seems like such an extraordinary waste to keep it to myself.
It is presumptuous to assume anyone is even reading this, which I think makes it easier to write when my audience is more of an apparition than actuality.
All of that to say, however, that part of my process is writing random bits here and there, and that ultimately these blog posts become Jess's monster, one big body (paragraph) built of many different parts. This will likely be a mixture of things because returning to the United States has, emotionally, been a mixture of things.
Written 12.26.19, in reflection on 11.28.19
I was pondering my trip to London today, particularly the day that Lindsay and I saw Phantom of the Opera. That day has such a glimmering quality in my memory. We were both giddy on anticipation for the theatre, and we were all dressed up as we walked arm in arm, our music split between us in our knockoff AirPods. It was one of those powerful days where nothing could really go wrong if it tried. As we sat in the theatre, drinking overpriced Prosecco and basking in the sophisticated and somehow imposter-ish feeling of being in an ornate theatre in London, I could feel a strange sort of shifting around me, like everything was changing and undoing and becoming all at once. I was realizing, I think, that nothing would ever be quite like this moment again. I would never be in London, with Lindsay, on the cusp of everything ever again.
Between the theatre and the DLR, as we trotted through the city at London speed, the crisp air and bustle of a populace that is always up to something, I kept getting hints of it. Catching my unquenchable joy in the reflections of the windows we passed, my full moon cheeks aglow with my smile. Our reflection showed Lindsay facing what was next resolutely, while I looked into the present and attempted to hold it there in my mind.
On the DLR, as we watched the city shift from old to new and back, black water glittering with nightlife, side by side as the present flew past us, I was filled with some inexplicable settling within my chest. It was a sudden and rapid, heavy but not in an unpleasant way. It was just a falling in love, or a re-falling in love, with my life, and with the present, and the past that had somehow led me right up to the brink of what was to come. Lindsay, on this evening, paid me one of the loveliest compliments I think I've ever received.
"You've taught me to see so much beauty in the world that I never saw before,", she told me as we looked out over the diamond cut cityscape.
Such a simple, perfect day.
I think I was settling into the knowing that the near and inevitable future would not be easy. That I would come home and feel the initial surge of excitement over what my heart had missed for these months, but that a hollow and aimless feeling I am so accustomed to would creep in around the edges. I would feel the siren call of the city in the soles of my feet. Knowing that feeling would come, I still pushed my heart into the hands of those I loved, even though trusting people who have the power to hurt me has gotten me before, and would again. Because others have taught me that there is no point in bottling yourself up and pretending to be someone you’re not. My soul, in all it's wild and whimsy, will always be spilling over, and why not free it.
12.14.19
I feel that my time abroad was a transformative experience, I just don't quite know how to sum up what changed. I feel different, not in the way that I expected. London, sleek, elegant, historic, magical London left its mark on me in a new way. I saw so many real aspects of it, the hidden places that aren’t the ‘London’ that we imagine.
It all began with me accepting that my depression was too much for me to carry alone, which didn't magically solve my depression, but when I say that it felt like a fifty-pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders, I am not even kidding. Dealing with the scope of my complex and often confusing chemical imbalances and how they manifest in my every day, well that was a whole other beast. I am still on that path, and will always be. Sometimes I don't feel like getting out of bed, sometimes I feel nothing at all, sometimes everything all at once.
I stepped through a looking glass and into Ireland, where I met a cute stranger, and things immediately fell into place and then promptly apart again. In London, I moved in and became very close with two very lovely and wise Norwegian ladies, and I found my feisty personality doppelganger from Iowa, and nothing ever really went according to plan, or exactly as I imagined, but it was right, and it was one of the best semesters I've ever had. The last week was one of the most bittersweet moments of my life. As we wandered around the flat, we all felt a bit lost. I don't think any of us were quite capable of figuring out how to transition to not seeing each other every day. We ate most of our meals together, sometimes in companionable silence, just to be near each other. Lindsay essentially just moved the rest of the way in. On our final evening together, we had the last supper, and then we had our own small Christmas. When all the gifts had been exchanged, and the dinner tidied up, we dragged their beds into my room and had a very large slumber party.
On the way to the airport in the morning, as the four of us struggled to carry two people's worth of luggage from flat to bus to tube, we laughed to push back tears. At the airport, tissues were passed out, goodbyes were attempted, final words were choked on, and then we parted. Just like that, it was over. I felt a bit numb as I moved through the airport, alone. A full heart is a heavy burden to bear. All I could think as I sat on the plane as we taxied was, 'I feel very lucky, to have met such amazing people'.
As every mile between myself and London increased, I took deep, calming breaths, feeling a bit lost and very found, and every glance out of the window reminded me that life is magical and that castles seen from the sky are magical and oceans of clouds are magical, I really couldn't seem to do much else aside from sit in awe of what I had experienced in the past three and a half months.
It sounds like an exaggeration, or too good to be true. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of mistakes, screw-ups, awkward times (did I tell you about how I fell down some castle steps, or completely forgot my ID the one time I tried to get into a club? Not me at my best, but me all the same).
But, those were all the pinches for the moments that often felt like dreams.
I learned a lot about my own mind, which I couldn't have done without the wildly intelligent, kind, and intriguing people that I met along the way. I learned a lot about the world too, and about how I interact with it. I learned a lot about kindness and the Universe. I learned valuable lessons about confrontation, which were stressful, and upsetting, and so very necessary. I learned a lot of Norwegian words, which I was not expecting. What I did not learn a lot about, was creative writing, at least not in the academic sense. Actively writing did teach me endlessly though.
Just a few nights ago, I saw a shooting star in a sea of other celestial bodies. I have gotten to play with my chickens on the farm, and with our baby cow, who is very hungry all the time because he is a growing boy, and with our baby goats, who are absurdly tiny and very vocal. Also, since I arrived at home, our cat, Tabitha, a proper aloof feline in all regards, has decided that she thoroughly enjoys my company, and will often stretch herself out on the floor next to me for rubs. This is a very large win because she is an adorable, fickle creature.
Now, as a new year looms before me, although 'looms' isn't the correct word, because looms sounds scary, and while change is nerve-wracking, I have so much to look forward to, as I keep reminding myself, and so much to look back on. So, as the future dawns before me, I feel apprehension, of course, but also great powerful hope and excitement, because there is so much unexpected goodness stored there. I know that it is not always sunshine and even if it were, that I cast my own shadows. Yet here I am, showing my shadows that if I dance, then so must they.
Until the next time, or perhaps, until next year,
jess
P.S. I’ve decided to grow my bangs out. If getting bangs signifies a mental break, does growing them out mean I’m starting to figure things out?
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