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forest-of-stories · 6 years

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The “Evolution” of a Problematic Shipper

[I’ve been working on this lengthy post, which is about my early adventures in X-Men: Evolution fanfiction, for a very long time. So, here it is, friends. Please note a content warning for some discussion of abuse, mostly in fiction. Also, my individual recollections are my own, and extremely subjective; others might remember the fandom differently than I do.]

Quite a few years ago, I wrote about how X-Men: Evolution was “the first fandom in which I participated heavily: watching the show as it aired, obsessing with other fans about the stories and relationships within, and writing reams and reams of (mostly very bad) fic.” I still think that this is somewhat true; XME certainly inspired me to do all of those things more publicly and enthusiastically than I ever had before, especially where my One True Pairing was concerned.

For those who don’t know, X-Men: Evolution, which ran from 2000 to 2003, was essentially an animated High School AU of the X-Men comics in which our heroes lived and trained at the Xavier Institute but attended classes at their local high school. For the first couple of seasons, mutants weren’t public knowledge as they are in the comics or movies, so a few characters used their powers for the first time without understanding what was going on.

The second episode, “The X-Impulse,” introduced viewers to (this world’s version of) Kitty Pryde, a lonely, sheltered fifteen-year-old who was terrified of her newly awakened ability to walk through walls, and to Lance Alvers, a juvenile delinquent whose own powers caused him to make awkward faces and terrible puns (and also earthquakes, I guess). When they met, Lance seemed happy and excited to meet someone else with super-powers, but he quickly developed a plan to manipulate Kitty into helping him in his criminal shenanigans. He presented himself as helpful and supportive, gained her trust, and, when she refused him help him, became aggressive and violent toward her and her family. The episode ended with Kitty recruited by the X-Men and Lance joining the bad guys, and the two of them spent the rest of the season as enemies.

Watching this episode for the first time as a teenager, I knew that Lance’s behavior toward Kitty was wrong and abusive. And yet, there was something about their early interactions that captured my imagination. Maybe it was the fact that, whatever else might have happened, he was the first person to show her how to find confidence and joy in her powers. Maybe it was the hug that they shared, or his line, “Once you own it, nothing can own you,” or the possibility, thwarted though it might have been, that they could have formed an understanding despite very different backgrounds and attitudes. I liked forbidden romances, and I liked flipping the script to make unquestioned heroes seem villainous and villains seem sympathetic, and I liked when characters rebelled against controlling authority figures and communities, which is how I reimagined the X-Men when I first started writing about them. I’m not saying that I explored any of those ideas well, but they were what started me writing: at first in collaboration with a friend from summer camp, who still deserves a lot of the credit, and then on my own. I posted my solo stories on Fanfiction.net, where this fandom would enjoy some remarkable popularity that I’m not sure has ever transferred to any other platform.

I wrote about Lance infiltrating the X-Men (with psychic shields in place), and having to choose between his original mission and his romance with Kitty, whose own commitment to her team and its mission was starting to waver. I wrote about her trying to figure out her identity beyond her friends’ expectations of her, even as Lance tried to be a better and less destructive person. I wrote about Charles Xavier mind-controlling Kitty into dismissing Lance and falling back into unquestioning loyalty, giving way to several well-received sequels in which some of the characters tried to free themselves and each other from Xavier’s telepathic chokehold. I wrote without much direction or concern for established continuity and characterization, and assumed the whole time that the show would never explore what I saw as the unrecognized potential of my OTP. When canon actually went there, I was as surprised as anybody.

After Lance had spent the entire premiere of Season 2, “Growing Pains,” acting like a complete jerk to Kitty and her friends, his destructiveness endangered her life, and he saved her. They became romantically involved soon afterward, and he became noticeably less of a jerk toward her and slightly less of a jerk toward others. The series of fics that I was working on had decisively departed from continuity by this point, but I still incorporated elements of the season premiere into the installment that I was posting at the time. And my fellow Lance/Kitty shippers, believing that canon had vindicated us, were transported with joy.

If XME were popular today, I believe that there would be a lot more pushback against Lance/Kitty, in both good and bad ways. Even at the time, the pairing was not universally beloved. There were probably those who thought that its dysfunctional beginnings outweighed any potential for functionality or sweetness, and there were definitely those who thought that both characters would be better off with someone else. It’s tempting to rewrite history with claims that “in my day, we shipped and let ship,” and it’s true that yesterday’s shipping conflicts didn’t use all of the same weapons that today’s do, but the fandom was still full of snarky, self-important brats who, no matter which side of any given argument we were on, believed that only we understood these characters and this world.

I say “we,” because I was not exempt from these behaviors. I’ve sometimes thought that participation in this fandom brought out some of my worst habits. But a lot of positive things came out of it as well. It gave me the inspiration and confidence to write more prolifically than I ever had before (or maybe even since), and a chance to explore ideas that became deeply important to me: perhaps most importantly, I don’t think I’d written so extensively or publicly about the horrors of mind control. Mutual devotion to our show and its fandom, and mutual conviction that Lance and Kitty were meant to be, connected me with a number of friends with whom I started exchanging emails and IMs and LiveJournal comments, and I’ve kept in touch with a couple of them to this day. And even though I didn’t always respond constructively to attention and validation, XME fandom gave me what I think fandom has given a lot of creative young people: a wider audience for my writing, and a community who cared about the lives and feelings of cartoon characters as much as I did, and in many of the same ways. My experience in this fandom was as uneven and as flawed (dare one say… problematic?), and often as delightful, as the show that inspired it.

And, for me, it had all started with Lance and Kitty. As the show progressed, and for years after it ended, I continued to write more canon-compliant one-shot stories about them: missing scenes or predictions for the future. Their relationship was a given in more or less everything I wrote, whether or not they were the focus, and even when I’d fallen deeply into other fandoms, I still regarded it with nostalgic fondness.

I think that a lot of us have faced an uncomfortable tension between our social consciences and our nostalgia for the uncomplicated adoration with which we viewed our “problematic faves” as children. I can’t provide a one-size-fits-all solution for that conflict. I don’t know if one exists.

“Although I'm not going to say that I never thought that I'd be engaging with XME again in any way,” I blogged in late 2013, as my local cartoon-watching group began the first season, “I was somewhat surprised that I had any feelings about this show left, or anything else to say.” But I did, and I said a lot of it in short ficlets of less than 500 words, which - since I was in graduate school at the time - were usually all that my energy levels would allow.

At around the same time, I started reading fandom-related posts on Tumblr, including the ones that stated or implied that redemption arcs in fiction, and/or shipping characters with people who had mistreated them, were universally bad because they would increase the likelihood of real-life abuse. It’s not like I had never thought about that aspect of Lance and Kitty’s relationship (I’d addressed it more than once in the intervening time), but something about phrasing of those posts - or maybe something about my own mental state when I saw them - sent me into a spiral of self-doubt. I wondered I would have to publicly apologize for and cast aside my affection for a pairing and a narrative that had been so deeply formative for me. I wondered if my friends would consider me an abuse apologist if I didn’t, or even whether I might secretly be one.

One of the reasons why it took me a long time to write this retrospective is that I wanted to avoid too many lengthy tangents or blanket statements about critical consumption of media, the toxic elements of “anti-shipping,” and the relationship between fiction and reality. I do believe that such a relationship exists, but it’s much more complicated than “impure fiction is dangerous, especially if people might be enjoying it in ways that are not politically conscious or wholesome enough.” Anybody who reads my blog knows that I am intensely critical of purity culture, and I do not believe in being unkind to real people on behalf of fictional characters (and I say this as someone who used to do exactly that). Also, if you were going to ask, “So you’re saying you support [taboo and/or illegal act]?” please don’t. I am not saying that, and we are not having that conversation. Not all “problematic” stories are interchangeable or should be talked about in the same way, and all of the issues that surround them are bigger and more complex than any individual character or romantic arc.

So I am not suggesting that Lance and Kitty’s own romantic arc should not have happened, or that people shouldn’t enjoy it, when I point out that was built on some incredibly inappropriate behavior that reflects toxic cultural attitudes even if it doesn’t “normalize” or “promote” them, and I can understand why some people (including at least one of my Cartoon Night buddies) would see it as irresponsible storytelling. In “Growing Pains,” Lance harassed Kitty despite her trying to tell him off, used his powers in publicly destructive ways in order to hold her attention, and tried to keep her from leaving school with her friends. Even when his protective leap caused her to regard him as something besides an enemy, it seemed to be setting up an arc in which her love - or the possibility of her love - would make him a better person.

In reality, of course, it’s unrealistic at best for anyone to expect that they can “change” or “improve” the morality of a partner who has treated them (or others) badly. But it’s an enjoyable and compelling fantasy, as are the “opposites attract” and “forbidden love” aspects of the pairing, all of which we shippers ate up with a spoon. It’s vital for shippers to recognize the difference between reality and fiction, but it is not my place to assume - based solely upon the nature of the fantasy - that they’re unable to do so.

And, in-universe, I can absolutely understand why sheltered, idealistic Kitty might have given in to this fantasy. But it doesn’t play out in the way that she - or I - initially expected.

I’ve seen the Season 2 episode “Joyride” so many times that I didn’t have to rewatch it in order to write this essay. That’s the one in which Lance briefly joined the X-Men, in order to be close to Kitty and, hopefully, to become the kind of person that she might admire. The story was full of cute moments in which they flirted, bantered, and ultimately worked together to solve a crisis. It also spotlighted one of the biggest obstacles to their relationship, and despite what a lot of fanfic - including my own - suggested, that did not come from their respective teams’ objections. Professor Xavier even encouraged Lance’s potential for redemption (which didn’t stop me from reading, writing, and endorsing fic in which he regularly meddled in his students’ love lives), and the other characters reacted to the situation in a variety of understandable, if not always admirable, ways. No, the telling moment occurred when the team was running through aquatic rescue scenarios, and Lance cheerfully broke rank and “drowned” two other people in order to pull Kitty out of the water. Here was his entire approach to redemption and to their relationship, summed up in one gesture: he wanted to ensure her safety and well-being, but didn’t always care what or whom he knocked down in the process. This became even clearer toward the end of the season, when he tried unsuccessfully to chase her (and only her) away from a fight between their two teams, although her friends would still be in danger. This tension exploded in the third episode of Season 3, when Lance and his friends once again attacked the X-Men on school grounds, and Kitty shouted, “This is the real you, isn’t it?” Lance responded, “That’s right! I’m never going to be good enough for you!” (I typed that out from memory, too.)

Naturally, my fellow shippers and I were devastated by this development, and I, for one, wrote lots of angsty fic (often interspersed with the lyrics to late 1990s/early 2000s pop music) in which the former couple pined for each other despite having been Torn Apart By Circumstances. Years later, however, I’m proud of Kitty, and of the writers, for drawing that line in the sand, and for realizing that - although, as Charles pointed out, it would have been a good start - it wasn’t enough for Lance to be good for her. Whether or not this was an intentional writing choice, the later seasons reflected an awareness that he was primarily the one responsible for making himself a better person.

Yes, after Lance and his comrades joined the climactic battle even though he’d insisted at first that he didn’t care, he and Kitty got back together in the series finale. There were probably viewers who thought their reconciliation hadn’t been earned, as well as those who thought it had been. Obviously, eighteen-year-old Nevanna (by then in her first semester of college) was one of the latter. But I appreciate the time that they spent apart, and the fact that it came at least as much from from internal motivations as from external pressure, far more as an adult than I did as a teenager.

To be clear: you don’t have to like Lance/Kitty or pairings like it. When I say that I regard it differently now, I am not trying to assert that “my ship is Unproblematic after all, so there!” because it isn’t. Nor am I trying to suggest, “It’s okay that I had a Bad Ship, because I regret it now, and the rest of you are filthy sinners who should do the same.” I don’t, and you’re not, and you shouldn’t. Or, rather, how you feel about your past shipping, and what kind of person it makes you, is not for me to decide.

I loved and built upon this pairing both despite and because of its problems, and that is one of the reasons why I try not to condemn other people - as long as they maintain that all-important boundary between fantasy and reality - for loving and building upon stories that have similar problems, or different ones altogether.

I was sixteen when I first started writing XME fanfic. I’m thirty-three now. I can easily imagine some of you asking, “When are you going to get over these imaginary fake not-real cartoon characters and get a life, Nevanna?” That is, I hope that my friends, whom I love and who love me, aren’t thinking along those lines, but it’s certainly a question that I have asked myself more than once.

Even when I was cheerfully participating in fandom in my youth, I still feared that my obsessions with fictional characters were bad for me, a sign that I wasn’t equipped to deal with or care about “real life.” In one diary entry, I wrote with certainty that I would have to abandon my fannish interests entirely when I started college. If a large contingent of fans had loudly insisted that my interests were not only bad for me but bad for the world, that I was actively hurting others simply by writing about my chosen subject matter, that I was likely to enable or engage in actual criminal activity… I’m not sure what I would have done, but it probably wouldn’t have been what they wanted me to do, and it likely would have made me an even more unpleasant person to be around.

I tried my best to balance academic obligations with fandom and creativity when I did enter college, and sometimes failed spectacularly, but that owed as much to anxiety and poor time management skills, both of which are still everyday challenges for me, as it did to caring “too much” about stories. I eventually earned a master’s degree, and found a series of jobs, in a field that is just a bit concerned with making sure people get to read whatever they want. If I’m still “getting a life,” which I believe is an ongoing process, then my fandoms are just one part of it. And after all this time, X-Men: Evolution is still one of those fandoms. I find it easy and comforting and fun to write about these characters, and the only person who gets to decide whether I’m “over” them is myself.

The last time I wrote anything that focused specifically on Lance and Kitty was a little more than two years ago, and the fic didn’t shy away from the troubled history of their relationship. I have a preference for stories that at least acknowledge that history and the tension that comes with it, but I would never barge in and assume that because a content creator doesn’t check those boxes, they support real-life abusive relationships.

Would I still ship Lance and Kitty if I encountered them for the first time today? It’s difficult to say. Many aspects of their relationship are still things that I enjoy in fiction. But my early interest in them was based on a specific set of assumptions about the characters, their world, and even the purpose of fanfiction, as well as, yes, some amount of ignorance about how romance and attraction worked. I don’t want to enjoy their story, or others, solely in the way that I did when I was younger. Most of the time, I prefer the all the ways that I enjoy stories now.

As I said earlier, I’m not proud of some of my actions in the XME fandom. I regret sneering at the fanbase for another popular pairing that had dysfunctional beginnings, as if my OTP didn’t. (The two pairings didn’t even have any common characters, so it’s not as if they challenged each other as far as I know, not that my attitude would have been okay even if they had. I think I partly just enjoyed hating what so many people liked.) I regret participating in an LJ community that publicly mocked specific people’s writing. I regret sticking my nose into people’s reviews just to beg them to read my latest chapter, but not as much as I regret leaving at least one hostile review, with a very thin veneer of playfulness, when half of my OTP hooked up with another character in the middle of a multi-chapter fic. And, all of that aside, there is a much longer list of regrettable choices that I made as a writer. But I don’t regret looking at Lance and Kitty in their introductory episode and thinking, “There’s a story there, and I want to find out where it might go.”

#xmen evolution #all our faves are problematic #nevanna life #nostalgic fun times

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equivvitch · 7 years

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Fassathon: A Summary (Part I)

So, this summer, in the year of Our Lord 2017, I decided to do something stupid and unnecessary, as I do, by watching every single theatrically-released movie Michael Fassbender has been in thus far. Every single one. I dubbed it the Fassathon and didn’t rest until I was finished. (I know a lot of his early career was in television and in television movies (trust me I know the only thing I have to type in my search bar is “im” and his IMDb page pops up automatically) and given more time I’ll probably watch some of those but for the sake of not having to watch like seven more movies I granted myself that leniency.)

All in all, I’d say it took about two months. In total I believe I watched 24 movies, having already watched five beforehand (the new X-Men trilogy, Shame, and Jane Eyre) for a grand total of 29 damn movies (full disclosure, one was a bonus which you’ll see eventually but whatever). Some of them were actually ones I needed/wanted to watch but a lot were….not.

In any case, for the sake of posterity and making myself feel better about being a dumbass, I decided to write up some kind of summary piece about it, so that’s what this is. It got fuckign long so it’s gonna be divided into three parts: two just reviewing the movies and one with some summary thoughts.

This is part one, but first, it wouldn’t be a post by me without eighty disclaimers so let’s get that out of the way first:

This is all subjective obviously. Keep in mind I had to watch all of these so a lot of times I tended to compare them more to themselves than films as a whole. I tried to see the big picture after the fact but when you have 28 films to watch you tend to get hyper-focused on the task at hand. Also I’m not a film critic. I’m just an asshole and a dumbass, a dumb asshole if you will. I am interested in film theory but that means about jack since I have no formal education in it.

It should also be noted that a) Fassbender’s performances in these movies were almost uniformly excellent. The man can carry a movie on his goddamn back and often does if required to do so. This was noted consistently to the point of it being funny in the reviews of each movie. b) A lot of these are British movies. They’re not Hollywood. Just…..pointing it out. And c) I’m 1000% attached to some of these films/franchises outside of this “challenge.” X-Men in particular and also Jane Eyre I’m invested in deeply so that might affect my ideas.

That out of the way, without further ado, some reviews, thoughts, and recommendations:

X-Men: First Class (Erik Lehnsherr)

Rating: 8/10

Quick Summary: At the height of the Cold War, Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr meet under unlikely circumstances and form an even more unlikely bond. They end up with a common goal in defeating a ghost of Erik’s past, Sebastian Shaw, who is determined to cause nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union in hopes of destroying all humans and making way for mutant rule. The two set out and put together a team of mutants to help combat him, but push their relationship in the process to an unfortunate breaking point.

Some Thoughts: I have watched First Class so many times you have no idea. Understand, I once did a full rewatch of this movie for the sole purpose of fact-checking a post that was talking about how many times Charles says “Erik” throughout the movie. I sat there and tallied them by rewatching the entire thing. I love this movie to pieces, so I really have no ability to objective over it. Because of that I do know its flaws pretty well, trust me. It has issues (coughs about the ridiculous awful romantic subplots), but I really do think it’s a strong film and an interesting start to this quasi-reboot. Ultimately it’s a movie about the relationship between Erik and Charles, so that is its strongest point. There are some big shoes to fill, considering Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan had the roles first, but McAvoy and Fassbender do a great job with it. It was stated in interviews that McAvoy was cast first and then they made the guys going out for the role of Erik read with him to cast a chemistry instead of a person and it shows. It really is shot like a love story, especially when the B-plot is an explicit romance between Hank and Raven. In my opinion it’s a fun ride, watching everyone meet and use their powers, train together and learn together. The ending is not that happy and I always shake hands with movies that dare to do that, especially big films like this (see GotG 2). It can be silly and frustrating at times, but after Last Stand I feel like we could only go up. I know some people really don’t like this movie which? I guess I’d like to hear from someone who doesn’t to understand why. That being said, Armando deserved better. Fuck his nonsensical death.

Warnings: Montages? Also some violence. Not a ton but what’s there sticks in your head.

Recommend?: Yeah! If you like superhero movies this is a pretty solid one.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (Erik, but this time in the 70s, and with less turtlenecks and more scarves)

Rating: 9/10

Quick Summary: (This plot is so convoluted I’m going to have to be vague otherwise this could take years.) In an apocalyptic future these robots called Sentinels are murdering everyone, particularly mutants because at one point a guy named Dr. Trask got ahold of Mystique’s DNA and used it to make them indestructible. The always wonderful and patient Logan gets sent back to the past to try and stop this from happening. There he finds Charles in a terrible, drug-induced spiral having lost everything and has to attempt to get him out of it so he can help find Raven who’s gone rogue and wants to kill Trask for his experimentation on mutants. In the process they join up with Erik, courtesy of Peter/Quicksilver, which doesn’t go well, which no one could have ever seen coming. The whole thing comes to a head when Raven has to decide whether to become a murderer and risk an even darker future or let Trask walk free and go against what she believes in.

Some Thoughts: I remember so clearly sitting the theatre and seeing the first preview for this, turning to my family and joking about the really stupid title. Like “Days of Future Past? What kind of title is that?” It’s up there with Back to the Future in terms of dumb titles, but is somehow pretty much acknowledged as the best of the current three, alternate timeline movies?? In spite of its ridiculously convoluted plot, it’s a really solid film and has great character development for two of the big players, Charles and Raven. Wolverine acts as a familiar foundation and point of view for the story and grounds it as he often does. Charles has to learn to stop trying to control those around him and move on with his life despite past losses, and Raven has to make a pivotal choice for her character. The scene at the end where it’s flipping between the future and past and all the original cast and the new cast are fighting at the same time is really cool, and the character arcs are strong and satisfying. The only one who doesn’t change much is Erik, but arguably First Class was his platform for character development or, more accurately, regression. He doesn’t do anything that helpful (which is….true to form) but watching him lift an entire fucking baseball stadium, fly it through the air, and drop it on top of the White House is pretty rad. Also Quicksilver is incredible holy shit the way they do his scenes is iconic. Kind of confusing maybe, but it also retconned almost the entirety of the original timeline in a genius move to destroy Last Stand once and for all. It’s usually called the best for a reason.

Warnings: Wolverine gets stabbed by stuff and shot a lot but that’s par for the course

Recommend?: Yep! But you might want to have watched some of the other movies first. Watching it with no background would probably be….too much.

X-Men: Apocalypse (Still Erik/Polish(?) Lumberjack/Poster child for Man Pain™)

Rating: 5/10

Quick Summary: An ancient mutant named Apocalypse (or En Sabah Nur if we’re going to be technical) awakens in the midst of the 80s (because there must be a 10 year gap between each movie it’s a rule). He used to rule but now he doesn’t and he’s mad so now he wants to destroy the world or some shit and rebuild it in his image. He does this by getting together his four horsemen (get it) including Erik who is inexplicably in Poland with yet another family that gets fridged. The X-Men find this out and get together to take him down.

Some Thoughts: I can (and have) ranted about this movie for literal hours. I have some serious personal gripes with it and it annoys me to the point where I’ve blown it out of proportion so keep that in mind. That rating might be a bit low but this movie is mediocre at best. I guess the core of it is because the X-Men conflict is a lot more interesting when they’re up against some government entity or society as a whole rather than just some random villain, at least to me. This movie also does not have a strong foundation like the first two did, no solid grounding point. In XMFC it was Erik and Charles’s relationship, in DoFP it was Wolverine being the POV character, but in this we really have nothing. The stuff with the kids is probably the most interesting and I hope they do more of that in the upcoming sequel. It has a few good moments (Quicksilver’s scene and Erik dramatically throwing down giant steel beams in the shape of an “X” in front of Apocalypse as he switches sides to save Charles and co stick out in my mind) but it tends to drag otherwise. There are about twenty plots going on and it takes forever for them all to connect. The romantic subplot crap is a pain in the ass and dragging Moira back was particularly idiotic when you realize they once again gave her nothing to do in the final act except overlook Charles completely violating her personhood in the first movie by wiping her mind without consent so she can get back together with him. The shit with Erik’s Poland family is stupid even if it’s done well. Magneto of all fucking people does not need more man pain for god’s sake. Lawrence is so checked out she really might as well be a phone recording as Lindsay Ellis points out in her Loose Canon series on YouTube. The only one who really had any interesting development was Storm and I hope they keep on with her because she’s a really good character. There’s just not much there for me, or what is there isn’t of any value. I really hope the next one is better. (Probably a far-fetched hope but a girl can dream.)

Warnings: Lazy writing (and comic-book-movie-typical violence)

Recommend?: I mean you probably want to watch if you’re watching the series. It’s not the worst X-Men movie. I’m probably a little harsh on it. There are the Wolverine sequels. Still, if you’re not that invested, it’s probably not worth it.

Jane Eyre (Rochester)

Rating: 11/10 10/10

Quick Summary: Jane Eyre has lived a fairly unfortunate life, having been put under watch of her cruel aunt after her parents’ deaths and consequently sent to a boarding school that beats its pupils into submission, but remains strong in spite of this. She finds herself a new job as a governess at Thornfield Hall and soon meets its master, Edward Fairfax Rochester. The two begin to talk and form an interesting relationship in spite of their large age difference. Jane begins to fall for her employer, overlooking his rough exterior to the person underneath. Rochester reciprocates, but all is not well. Jane discovers her lover is hiding a dark secret and must decide whether to be true to her love for him or to herself.

Some Thoughts: I WOULD DIE FOR JANE EYRE TBH THE DAY NETFLIX TOOK IT OFF WAS A TRAVESTY. Really, though it’s such a good movie and very loyal to the book. It’s a period piece, but it’s very different from something like Pride and Prejudice, a lot because Jane is such an interesting character. I love her and Mia Wasikowska does a great job. Rochester is a bitch, but…..he’s a bitch with a good heart. Realistically he’s supposed to be kind of….not good looking? So casting Fassbender might have been counterproductive, but it does mean he has to compensate for his incredibly square jawline which can’t be hidden behind that shit sideburn beard with his acting, which he does very well. His charisma kind of helps to smooth over the fact that Rochester can be standoffish to viewers that aren’t prepared for him. He is no Mr. Darcy. The chemistry between the two is great and the story is really enthralling. The music is gorgeous and the ending is satisfying. Well-shot, well-paced, loyal to the original, just a great adaptation all together. It’s not a happy movie, but it has a happy ending. I really have nothing but good things to say about it. Please give it a chance if you’re even a bit interested.

Warnings: You might cry/a little blood

Recommend?: Yes!

Shame (Brandon)

Rating: 10/10

(Quick note: if you’re like “wow you sure aren’t harsh on these movies” listen this was back when I was actually choosing the ones I wanted to watch….so yeah….these are mostly good ones at first. There are definitely some bads on here….don’t you worry…)

Quick Summary: Without giving away everything: Brandon is a pretty normal man struggling with a sex addiction which he basically refuses to acknowledge at the beginning of the movie. His lifestyle is disrupted when his younger sister Sissy comes to stay at his apartment without asking him first. The rest of the film is about their complicated and mildly toxic relationship and Brandon dealing (and not dealing) with his addiction with mixed results.

Some Thoughts: This is one of those movies like Brokeback Mountain that just kind of….sticks on you. I felt that way about Silence of the Lambs too where you watch it and then you can’t really forget about it. Fassbender has worked with Steve McQueen who directed this film three times, this being the second, and they make a great pair. McQueen loves him some long takes and he does them well. His style of directing is unflinching to the point of it being uncomfortable which works well for the type of stories he likes to tell. It’s a very quiet movie, not much dialogue, but it really hits home. This really is one of Fassbender’s best of performances in my opinion. He can do a lot with just his expressions and it really shows here. The dynamic between him and Carey Mulligan who plays Sissy is really poignant. I probably could never do it justice with words alone. It’s difficult to watch, but worth it. It’s one of those movies where the protagonist doesn’t really grow, pointed out very blatantly here. True development hasn’t taken place, at least not yet. Whether or not you think it actually will after this is left up to how optimistic you are for the characters and the story.

Warnings: This is rated NC-17 for a reason. They do not shy away from anything and they do not cut you a break by easing into it. Translation: if you’re disinterested in becoming familiar with some very particular bits of Fassy’s anatomy I’d steer clear. Also strong warning for themes (and fairly graphic depictions) of self-harm.

Recommend?: I would never tell someone to watch this movie, but I would definitely advocate for it. Read the description (that a professional has written, not just mine fff), check the warnings, see if you’re up for it. This is one you need to choose to watch, not be forced to.

Macbeth (Macbeth)

Rating: 6/10

Quick Summary: Oh god, I still don’t remember the plot of this thing…. I swear I read it once but you’d be better off reading the Spark Notes or something. It’s based on the Shakespeare play (obviously) where this dude named Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth go around killing people to gain power because some weird ladies in the middle of a field told him he’d be king. Everyone fucking dies at the end per usual due to really ridiculous loopholes. A grand old time, as always, with Mr. ‘speare.

Some Thoughts: Listen pal I got food poisoning trying to watch this damn movie THE CURSE OF THE SCOTTISH PLAY IS REAL. But really, it’s kind of what you’d expect? All of this is coming from me, an idiot, who doesn’t remember the play super well and is shit at Shakespeare, so bear that in mind, but?? It stuck to the original pretty well. It’s played dead-ass straight, so know that right now. There is no humor in this movie ever; it’s completely serious. Also impossible to understand because it’s Shakespearean English in Scottish accents. You’d be better off with a background knowledge of the play I think. That said, the visuals in this movie are absolutely gorgeous holy shit. The ending fight scene is incredible. That alone made it worth the watch for me at least. Marion Cotillard who plays Lady Macbeth is amazing as well. What a great performance. It’s a solid film. You need to accept its no-nonsense attitude to get into it, but otherwise it’s fine.

Warnings: It gets pretty bloody, but not overly so.

Recommend?: Not really, unless you really like the play or have a good knowledge of it already. It’s beautiful, but a little too serious for the casual viewer. I assume that’s why its reviews are kind of mixed.

Prometheus (David)

Rating: 6.5/10

Quick Summary: Two scientists discover a series of ancient drawings, all of which are very similar despite appearing hundreds of years and thousands of miles apart. They believe this might be a clue as to how the human race came to be, a path to our creators. They set out on the Prometheus to investigate a planet they believe to be the origin of these so called “engineers.” Things go awry as one might expect when they find the planet is already inhabited, but not by any “engineers.” Moreover, several crewmembers have secret motivations of their own for coming along which doesn’t really turn out well for anyone.

Some Thoughts: I feel like a lot of people don’t like Prometheus because it’s a think-y movie. It’s not really an action-packed thriller like other movies in the Alien franchise. This was the first in the franchise I’d ever seen so I didn’t really go in with those kind of expectations which I think was to my benefit. If you go in looking for answers you’re probably going to not like it, but I just sort of went to have a good time and pretty much did. Noomi Rapace as Elizabeth Shaw is really great. I really enjoyed her as the main character. There are some really good actors in this movie and I think they do a good job. I loved Idris Elba’s character a lot for example. It’s a beautiful film as well. Fassbender plays David, the resident android of the ship. It was interesting to watch him play a robot because he is, to me, a very emotive actor and this had to be more restrained. I don’t remember the movie super well which probably speaks to it just being an average sort of film. It’s not great, but it’s not as bad as some people seemed to think it was. Just go along for the ride and it can be a good popcorn flick.

Warnings: There’s one really graphic surgery scene that was hard to watch, but otherwise it’s (compared to the other Alien film on this list) not too bad. It really is more introspective than bloody. Also, maybe obviously, there are aliens in this movie.

Recommend?: If you’re into sci-fi thought-pieces, sure. Just don’t go in expecting a masterpiece.

Alien: Covenant (Walter and David, yes both)

Rating: (completely subjective) 8/10

Quick Summary: A group of forgettable, idiot crewmembers who are all inexplicably married for no reason other than a desperate bid to get you to care about them in any way (you won’t. trust me. they’re so stupid you’ll probably rooting against them eventually) are piloting a ship called the Covenant with 2000-some passengers and a lot of embryos on a colonizing mission. Along the way they intercept a strange transmission coming from another habitable planet they hadn’t noticed before which is much closer and decide to investigate. Once there things take a turn for the worst. After several deaths and the completely avoidable destruction of their ship, they run into David who’s been living alone on the planet for ten years after the Prometheus crashed there. They soon learn that they would have been better off braving the planet and waiting for rescue alone.

Some Thoughts: Listen I went into this movie completely expecting it to be horrible. This really was the one that started it all, where I decided I’d watch all of them. I wasn’t going to watch it because it looked ridiculous, but then it was available to rent and I was curious. In all honesty, I really only went in to see with my own eyes how and why the actual hell Fassbender was playing two characters which at some point kiss, so that was part of it. Ultimately I ended up really liking it. Now mind you, this is not a good movie. It’s not. The cast is forgettable and stupid to the point where you just want them to die already and get it over with. The only person I even slightly cared about was Daniels, the main crewmember character you follow. People die without any pomp and the movie is riddled with clichés. That said, it is a lot more like what I expect an Alien movie usually is. There’s a lot more fighting of aliens and a lot more blood. So what’s with the rating? Really it’s completely subjective, but if you know me and watch this movie you’ll probably understand. Let’s just say I have a very specific type of character I tend to like and this movie delivers.

Fassbender carries this gotdamn movie on his back half the time and somehow pulls off the ridiculous scenario of him being the two different robots. The interactions between Walter and David really were some of the more interesting parts of the film for me, completely ridiculous as they are (“I’ll do the fingering”). If you can just suspend your disbelief and go with it I insist that it can be a good time. My favor of the movie really comes from my opinion of David and I think that’s what will make or break the movie for you. It was a ballsy choice of protagonist, and when you realize that I think the forgettable main crew is a little more justifiable. Big kudos for the ending as well, at least from me. It ended exactly the way I wanted it to, and I ended up being invested in who I needed to be invested in. It’s a stupid movie, but I do think you can have fun watching it if you’re in it for the right stuff (namely the fassbots).

(Also, people are not happy about the fuck-million more Alien movies in the works but hear me out…. I have a great pitch idea….what if with every new movie we just double the number of Fassbenders…… so there’s four and then eight and then sixteen all the way until we just have infinite Fassbenders….. listen this is a great plan Mr. Scott please hire me as script consultant from now on)

Warnings: This is a lot more of a horror movie than Prometheus. It’s bloody and violent, and yes there are more aliens. Also it is really stupid. Also warnings for that sweet, sweet ‘bot-on-‘bot action ;)

Recommend?: I mean….not really. Again my opinion is so subjective here that it’s worth a grain of salt. If you do, you need to watch Prometheus first because you need to form an opinion of David.

Hunger (Bobby Sands)

Rating: 5/10

Quick Summary: Without me sitting here for like a half hour looking up a lot of proper names and dates (which I’ve already done once when I was watching the damn thing), this a movie about a hunger strike led by a man named Bobby Sands. It takes place in a prison in Northern Ireland. A group of people called the Republicans who are fighting against being part of Britain and want one united Ireland are being arrested for political acts and are protesting in any way they can. This begins with bathing and clothing strikes, and eventually leads to a hunger strike when this accomplishes nothing.

Some Thoughts: So this is a critically-acclaimed movie and I know people really like it. I guess I can see why but compared to McQueen’s other films I didn’t think it was super impressive. It’s his first project with Fassbender and in a lot of ways it feels like an early-career film. It has a lot of pacing issues. I read reviews saying it’s two movies in one and it really is. As an American (and therefore a dumbass when it comes to conflicts in other countries because our history classes here are Shit) it was sort of a confusing movie to watch just because I didn’t really have any background knowledge about what was happening. I was doing a lot of googling throughout to catch myself up with the conflict and acronyms etc. It’d definitely strike more of a chord with someone who knew about it beforehand. It is a prison movie and it’s difficult to watch because of that. There’s a lot of mistreatment of prisoners and just kind of gross stuff in general. I was whining at one point about the hunger strike not starting until like…20 minutes before the movie ends but I see now why it didn’t because you’re basically just watching Fassbender starve to death from that point on and it’s Not Fun. There are impressive parts of it. There’s a long take of a conversation between Bobby and a priest where he explains his idea of starting a hunger strikes that is, I shit you know, seventeen fucking minutes long. It’s crazy. There are other long takes in the film but they’re not always used super effectively. This can cause the movie to drag at times. The use of sound in the movie is also really amazing. It’s very quiet usually, but picks its loud moments and picks them well. Overall I didn’t get much out of watching it, but that’s just me. I didn’t think it was worth the difficult watch.

Warnings: It’s unrated but I bet it would be R or even NC-17 if it was. Lots of disturbing shots of violence against prisoners and behaviors of the prisoners themselves tbh. There’s nudity as well, but it’s used as humiliation mostly. As usual, McQueen’s style of filmmaking is unflinching and watching someone starve to death isn’t fun.

Recommend?: Not really. McQueen has better films you could watch. Unless you’re personally interested in the conflict at hand, I’d skip it.

Frank (Frank)

Rating: 10/10

Quick Summary: An untalented aspiring musician named Jon suddenly stumbles across the opportunity of a lifetime to play in actual band when they find themselves out a keyboard player the day before a performance. Jon lends them a hand and is accepted into the group in spite of some friction with most of the members. They invite him back on what ends up being year-long trip into the woods to write a new album. While living with the band, the Soronprfbs, Jon gets to know the members better, as well as their many quirks. Notably, there is Don, the manager who seems level-headed if somewhat depressed, Clara, who doesn’t take Jon’s being there very well, and Frank, the apparent leader of the band. Jon takes a special interest in Frank who appears to be the heart and soul of the group. In spite of wearing a giant fake head at all times, he’s very friendly, encouraging, and strangely inspiring. As they work to write their album, Jon begins to record and post their progress on social media, gaining them a new following of people amused by their bizarre antics. This new popularity ends up landing them a bigger gig than they’ve ever had before, but comes at the cost of risking the band’s identity and solidarity.

Some Thoughts: Frank is an amazing movie. If someone wasn’t interested in Jane Eyre but wanted a Fassbender rec, I would 100% give this one. I love this movie to pieces and I’m so glad I watched it because I was initially on the fence with it. In fact, I liked it so much I watched it twice within my rental period, and have now purchased it. If you’re looking for something close to a comedy on this list, this is it. I kind of describe it as if Wes Anderson directed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, threw in a strong lesson about mental illness, and bumped up the rating a bit. This movie is hilarious and wonderful and poignant. The message is a really good one and one I don’t think we hear a lot. It’s a good commentary on the relationship between art and mental illness, and it’s done respectfully for the most part. Fassbender as Frank is kind of incredible. You don’t see his face for the majority of the film, but he still gives an amazing performance. I think it shows how talented he is as an actor that he pulls this part off so well. You’re intrigued as much as Jon is by him, or at least I was. The humor is a little out there and some of the themes may be off-putting, but I really do think this is one to see. Maggie Gyllenhaal as Clara is fantastic as well. It’s a difficult part but she pulls it off so wonderfully. Domhnall Gleeson as Jon gives a decent grounding point of view character as well. It’s funny and touching and goddammit maybe someday I’ll watch one of these movies without crying but that ending hit me right in the heart.

Warnings: Themes of self-harm and mental illness are present. They’re not played as a joke, but they’re there.

Recommend?: Yes please watch this movie I beg of you it deserves all the praise

Fish Tank (Connor)

Rating: 5/10

Quick Summary: The movie is a coming-of-age story of sorts for the protagonist Mia. Mia has a difficult home life with a neglectful and often abusive mother as well as a penchant for causing trouble. Having been kicked out of school she is directionless which only furthers her spiral downward. Her only true passion is dancing, but she prefers to do this privately. One day she meets her mother’s latest fling, Connor. Unlike the others, however, Connor seems there to stay. Mia begins to interact with Connor and the two form a relationship. Connor is kind to both her and her younger sister, treating them with respect and parental affection they do not receive otherwise. Connor encourages Mia’s hobby and leads her to begin searching for a career in dancing, helping to turn her life around. Things take a turn when Mia and Connor overstep a boundary in their relationship and this leads to Mia discovering that Connor was not what she thought he was.

Some Thoughts: I’m very…ambivalent about this movie, so I don’t probably have a lot interesting to say about it. It seems to me that Fish Tank is a part of a very particular genre of movie about a specific part of the British lower class, making it difficult to relate to for someone who hasn’t experienced that way of life. I watched another movie called Beautiful Thing a long time ago that was part of this genre as well, and that’s what Fish Tank reminded me of more than anything else. It seems to be characterized by poor, crowded living conditions and abusive family dynamics more than anything else. The characters struggle to get by and are generally mean-spirited to everyone they encounter automatically. It can make for a bitter watching experience, even if it is realistic. Mia is a somewhat believable teenager. Since this is a British movie about hip-hop dancing however and the actress playing Mia has…little to no actual dancing skill, any parts of the movie that have to do with this dancing can be embarrassing to watch. You really have to accept that it’s stupid and move past it to watch the thing.

The relationship between Mia and Connor is…troubling which I’m sure it’s supposed to be but it’s never resolved. Some of the scenes in the movie are disturbing as some in Hunger. One of my biggest issues with the movie was there really seemed to be a conversation missing. The end of the film felt like it was lacking a crucial interaction between the two and it made the ending fall pretty flat, at least for me. I know people like this movie and it’s award-winning but I couldn’t relate to it in any meaningful way. It left me feeling conflicted more than anything else. I have no strong or final opinion on this movie. I do respect that it had a female director, but I feel as though I very clearly wasn’t its intended audience, so its impact on me was minor at best and non-existent at worst. There are some nice cheesecake shots in it of Fassbender I guess. I think it still wins for best ass shot afdjks;lj

Warnings: Some disturbing character behavior, especially from Mia. Abusive family dynamics and physical child abuse are also present. Also statutory r*pe. Also some really embarrassing excuses for hip-hop dancing and general cultural appropriation shit that comes from a British movie about hip-hop.

Recommend?: You can try it, but I wouldn’t advocate for it. There are better artsy films to watch unless you’re actually in the target demographic and think you might like this sort of movie.

Inglourious Basterds (Lt. Archie Hicox)

Rating: 7/10

Quick Summary: When she was young, Shosanna’s family was murdered by Nazis hunting down Jewish families who had escaped to France. Now, as a young woman, she finds herself with the opportunity to get revenge. Meanwhile, Lt. Aldo Raine has formed a group of rogue Nazi-hunters called the Basterds, infamous throughout Germany for their lack of restraint and ability to avoid capture. His team is hired by the Allies to help with a plot to hopefully take out all the big political figures in the Nazi party, including Hitler himself, in one fell swoop. It just so happens these two plans are meant to take place in the same place, on the same night.

Some Thoughts: This is the first Tarantino movie I’ve ever seen and I do think it was good for me to at least see one. I was glad to see the movie itself too, actually. It was one on here I just needed to watch outside of this thing. I enjoyed it for all it reveled (as expected) in gore occasionally. I really loved Shosanna. Mélanie Laurent did an excellent job with her and she was easily the best part of the film for me, though I did enjoy Brad Pitt’s shenanigans as Aldo. Fassbender has kind of a bit part in this one which was a little different, since he tends to steal the spotlight otherwise. It really wasn’t my favorite performance of his. It was a little unfocused, though that might be because his character is just a plot device. Kind of a shame but in true X-Men fashion all he did was show-up, fuck things up, and then make his exit. Ah well. It’s well-shot and a good time, if a little long. The blood was there, but not excessive. Maybe a good choice if you, like me, wanted to see one of these movies, but were a little nervous about the violence.

Warnings: Typical Tarantino violence, I presume. Really, it’s just a few focused shots of it, but there is scalping in this movie, as well as some mutilation and gunshot wounds. I whipped my hand up to cover the screen more the once throughout and I’m pretty decent with blood.

Recommend?: Sure. It’s a pretty solid film and last time I checked it’s free on Netflix.

Centurion (Quintus Dias)

Rating: 6.5/10

Quick Summary: In the something-or-other A.D. the Romans are up somewhere near Britain trying to expand the empire, as one does, but are having trouble with the native peoples of those lands called the Picts. The Picts keep decimating their armies, as they do with Quintus Dias’s men. The Picts take him in rather than killing him because he speaks their language, allowing him to escape and meet up with another regiment. Together, they try again to attack the Picts and again are defeated handily. This time the Picts take their general of sorts. Dias and a small group of men are the only ones to survive and attempt to rescue him, but ultimately fail. Afterwards they begin their attempt to escape to safety, all the while being hunted by the Picts.

Some Thoughts: So I fully expected to hate this movie. When I saw this was the other one on Netflix I was Not Happy, but? It kind of surprised me. I think really it did a couple small things well and that turned my favor of it. It really isn’t that great of a movie, with a lot of narration and not a ton to say, but it’s certainly not offensive. It turned into a survival movie rather than a war movie which I greatly preferred. They also weren’t super over the top with the romantic subplot which was….SHOCKING. Usually, in my experience with the Fassathon, if there can be a sex scene there Will Be A Sex Scene, but not here. They meet a cool witch lady along the way who takes to Quintus, but never is it obnoxious, nor does it waste time with it. It was a breath of fresh air tbh…. I’m probably patting this movie on the back for little things too much, but I really do think it could have been a lot worse. It’s fine. I don’t really know who the target audience was supposed to be but it might be good for a night when you’re bored and can’t think of anything else to watch. You get to watch Fassbender run valiantly and stupidly shirtless through the snow if nothing else.

Warnings: It can get bloody, but not overly so. Also mentions of past sexual assault, but nothing shown.

Recommend?: Eh…like I said. Maybe for the night you’re flipping around and there’s nothing on. Decent popcorn flick, probably not worth spending money on.

Trespass Against Us (Chad Cutler)

Rating: 3/10

Quick Summary: Nothing I could write will make this movie’s plot make any damn sense but I’ll try anyway. Basically there’s this family called the Cutlers who are….Irish tent-people and also a weird kind of mob family with a patriarch named Colby. They live in this little trailer park circle and commit crimes to get by. The plot basically revolves around Fassbender’s character Chad Cutler trying to get out from under Colby’s thumb in order to give his wife and two children a better life. Unfortunately, it seems again and again that he’s already dug his grave and there’s nothing to do but lie in it.

Some Thoughts: So this is a weird movie. The whole conceit is weird and another one that you just kind of have to go with to be able to watch it. Its problem is that it doesn’t really have an arc or a narrative that goes anywhere. If it really had wanted to do something it would have needed to allow Chad to make any progress in his attempts to get away. The dialogue is full of slang and really difficult to understand at times. The whole dynamic of the family is sort of confusing and it’s never explained, just thrust upon you immediately. There are some good interactions, notably between Colby and Chad. The parental relationship between Chad and his son is interesting too, but it really just doesn’t go anywhere with itself. I got a little caught up in the emotionality of it watching it, but looking back I can see how flawed it is. I really don’t see what the director was getting at. Also the religious overtones are strange and didn’t do a whole lot. Just kind of unimpressive if still nice to look at sometimes.

Warnings: Animal death. A lot, actually, and often purposeful. Disturbing behavior, especially one scene where a man is stripped and humiliated. It was surprising and difficult to watch.

Recommend?: Hard pass. Skip it.

300 (Stelios)

Rating: 4/10

Quick Summary: Gerard Butler leads a group of 300 dudes against a gigantic, vaguely racist depiction of the Persian army.

Some Thoughts: I have nothing original to say about this movie, I’m sure. I was……not super happy to find it on here honestly, so I did my best to just enjoy it by making fun of it. Most people know what 300 is like. It’s got some interesting visuals, but it’s definitely one that looks pretty and does as little as possible. Mostly it’s a male power fantasy interwoven with quite a bit of racism, particularly in the portrayal of the Persians. It’s saturated with slow-mo shots and rousing speeches that aren’t really that important to anything. It’s a good one to watch on a bad movie night probably if you don’t mind some of the gore. This was Fassbender’s first theatrical appearance if I’m correct and he’s fine. I guess one plus-side of this movie is that everyone’s practically naked the whole time and super buff so that can be fun to ogle if nothing else. It is what it is.

Warnings: Body horror, lots of blood, and war stuff. Tiddies? Racism? Scottish yelling?

Recommend?: It’s your life buddy. It’s probably one to see once so you can rag on it in good conscience.

Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs)

Rating: 9/10

Quick Summary: A movie shot in three parts showing a dramatized version of the events before the release of three of Jobs’s products, focusing in on his relationship with his coworkers as well as past lover and daughter.

Some Thoughts: This is an excellent movie. It’s another one I’d readily recommend to anyone. The scale of the script is unheard of, meaning it’s super dialogue-heavy but you don’t notice at all. It’s completely absorbing. The performances are top-notch all around. This is another one of Fassbender’s best performances. He sinks into the role completely and does a phenomenal job. Kate Winslet is equally wonderful and balances Fassbender’s Jobs well. I really knew nothing about Jobs before watching this movie and I don’t know how much is true and how much is dramatized but I think that shows that even someone who knows nothing can enjoy it and find it interesting. The politics of it all were particularly wild to bear witness to. It’s a great character piece and it deserved the nominations it got in my opinion. I really liked Jobs’s relationship with his daughter as well. I don’t know how they managed to make a movie full of mostly talking so exciting but they did. I also think they did a great job of not idolizing Jobs at all, nor vilifying him. They walked a fine line and wrote him so he seemed truly human rather than a historical figure. That’s hard to do but they nailed it. Once again, I have little bad to say. If you’re not interested in Jane Eyre, Shame, or Frank here’s another good option for you.

Warnings: The IMDb parental advisory page said something about there being some sex/intimacy stuff but I never saw anything which makes me Highly Suspicious

Recommend?: Yes! Give it a chance!

(cont. in pt. 2 / pt. 3)

#fassathon #shut up alice #holy shit an actual post?#that's never happened before #listen i know this is long as shit #and no one's going to actually read this #but i spent a long-ass time on this #and i wanted to actually put it up for posterity #really i'm just proud of how hard i dragged the counselor #i'm sure there are grammatical errors in here but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#i had to wrap this thing up somehow #it's 1000% self-indulgent but....i don't Care #if i had anywhere more appropriate to post this i would but....#where tf else am supposed to put this crap

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lifeisaspade · 7 years

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Hi, hope your well. I’m starting from the beginning, I know this is the logical place to start, but I’m way too fond of starting from the end result and working my way back to the beginning. So in order for you to fully to understand why your actions have affected me for 8 odd years, I’m taking you through the same series of events you experienced too but through my point of view. You violated me. Point blank. Let’s call a spade a spade, and I find that when I speak frankly and blatant, I myself find comfort. I asked you to stop, you refused. Ive replayed the incident over in my head countless times, trying to understand how and why it all went wrong. So I met him on Facebook. We had been talking for around a month, not long I know, but when your speaking to the same person nearly every day, comfortability begins to set in. You literally begged me for like a week straight to see me. This was new to me as I had just come out of a relationship with my first proper boyfriend and we ended because he didn’t want to see me. I was flattered that someone actually thought I was worth the time to beg for. Eventually I agreed to meet up with you. Basically the beginning of the end. We sat I the park and you spoke of how you were a virgin and how sex wasn’t a big deal to you, and my heart lit up because I loved meeting new people. I loved talking to new people and the idea of having a platonic friend that fancied me a little seemed perfect to me. Naive as I was, I invited you to my home. As soon as you stepped foot in the door, it was game over. You asked to kiss me I playfully said no, you grabbed my face and did as you pleased. I can’t lie, I did not feel threatened at this point, I was a little taken back, but I thought, its just a kiss, Lami it just means that he fancies you, and we stood there lypsing. Felt like your tongue was shoved in my mouth for a lifetime. How we moved from the corridor to the bed I don’t even remember, but there I was laying hopelessly underneath you. I quietly asked you to get off, you repeatedly told me ‘it wouldn’t take long’ at this point I accepted my fate and started counting numbers in my head, whilst silently crying. My tears didn’t bother you. When you shoved your nasty penis in my vagina it hurt like hell, I screamed, pleaded for you to let me get up and still you continued thrusting yourself vigorously inside me. I tried to push you, again nothing. I tried several times to catch your eye but you weren’t looking at me you were looking through me. It wasn’t until you felt something on your thigh that you stopped. Blood. There was blood everywhere. You jumped up and told me I was a fucking weirdo for not telling you I was on my period. But I wasn’t on my period. You had literally broken me. My clitoris had been ripped. In my weak, fragile state, I dragged myself off the bed and tried my best to clean up the mess, you were frantically trying to wash you t-shirt in the bathroom. Again staring right through me, not saying a word. You grew frustrated because I was dripping all over the place, and you left. And just like that, I was alone, sitting in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. Instantly the feeling of shame overpowered me and I sat there crying because I honestly didn’t know what to do. My phone rang, I crawled to it, because I thought it might be him calling me to say how sorry he was and he was coming back to help me. It wasn’t him, it was my neighbor, calling to tell me he had just bought his first car and if I wanted to go for a spin. I reluctantly agreed. I put loads of tissue in my knickers and slowly walked downstairs. As soon as he saw me he knew something was wrong, I said I was fine. Then he saw the trail of blood on the floor and shouting 'Lami what the fuck is wrong with you man’ and he pulled me in, He took my to the hospital, shouted at the receptionist that I was dying, and hugged me. He comforted me, without even knowing what had just happened. Looking back this was God using him to save me, but I didn’t come to this realization till later on in life. Eventually I was seen, stitched back up and told that I had to call me parents. I called my mum, she came running. No explanation needed. Called my friends, they also came running, no explanation needed. I had great people around me who hadn’t asked any questions. The road to recovery was quite lengthy. Still no one asked me any questions. No one asked how or why I had found myself in a&e on a Thursday afternoon with a ripped clitoris. I guess because people never asked, I never needed to talk about it. Life just carried on and I never had to think about it. I went on a downward spiral of being promiscuous and inviting the wrong attention because I thought I wasn’t worth anything. I was still Lami on the outside. I was bubbly and fun loving, still loved making friends and talking my life away, but it came at a price and I didn’t care. I honestly lost my mind. I stopped being real to myself on the inside. I justified all my wrong doings on the fact that I was weak. Little things became triggers to me. So I began to be more vocal but in a negative way. I figured if I was really good at talking shit, no one would be able to violate me. Anyways time passed and I had made friends with a lovely girl in Austria. Anushka. Anushka became my pen pal and we had lengthy conversations about life. I told her things that I couldn’t tell the loved ones around me. I spoke honestly and freely. She asked me questions. The questions I longed for those in my immediate space to ask me. I answered, and the conversation started. The conversation of how I had been raped. I think it was easier to talk to her because she wasn’t physically in my space and I felt like she couldn’t judge me. Again I felt like this was another sign from God and she was sent to save my life. I’ve tried to contact him on numerous occasions, but he never replied. I just wanted him to understand how disgusted I was with myself. How weak I felt. How I felt I needed to be such an exaggerated version of myself so that I could believe I was worth more than what I was. If I shouted when I spoke maybe people would be startled and not mug me. Things I had never questioned myself on began to creep up on me and turned into insecurities. Did he violate me because Im ugly? Did he not listen because I’m not worth anything? Eventually he blocked me on everything. I grew angry. Like really angry. And I had violent thoughts of what I wanted to do to him. If only I had hit him when he was on top of me. Maybe it wouldn’t have gotten as bad as it did, maybe he would have realized what he was actually doing and stopped. I went over the scenario over and over in my head and tried to come to an amicable conclusion of what I could have done, but each and every time my thoughts lead back to me being weak, thus me physically getting angry. I began to take my anger out on loved ones, my mother especially. Why didn’t she just ask me what was wrong. Mum I love you. So much. We’re so close, yet distant at the same time. We both struggle with being honest with one another and it’s always at the expense of not hurting one another but then we always end up hurting one another. Its unfortunate you can’t take back how you raised me, you raised me as a friend and then started to pull away when I reached my teens, hence why we’re so up and down now. I needed my friend in that moment and you weren’t present. I appreciated your compassion in the moment but mum why didn’t you ever help me heal? I know deep down you knew what had happened and not once did you console, educate or converse with me about it. I resented you for it. Where was my prep talk about the evil that awaited me in the world. I had to figure out what womanhood was all on my own. Now that I’m older I can’t solely put the blame on you I was (still am at times) hard to deal with but your such a quitter. You always give up. You never try. We’re so alike in many ways, but thankfully I didn’t inherit that trait from you. I talk (too much at times), I ask questions, I like closure and ending things on a positive note. I always show that I care. Fast forward to 2017, Im a mother now. I’ve found a new kind of strength. And my anger is at an all time high. I found myself in a compromising situation with a great love in my life. And I was consumed with the same anger I once felt. As stated before little things triggered me, so I kicked into action and my mouth became poisonous. And when my mouth wasn’t enough I went to the next best thing violence. I didn’t stop till blood was drawn. And instantly the regret set in and the familiar feeling of feeling sorry for myself was back. I had literally lost my mind. I sat in the room with the light off and knew how I had got to this place. It was the anniversary of the rape and I was reacting. As of today, I publicly declare that I was raped, but I’m fine. I’m ok with that being in my past. I ok with the decisions I’ve made in my life because of it. Im a trying Christian and firm believer in love. And right now I have the GREATEST love of all, my son. And because of him I’m choosing to let go of the anger and hurt. I am choosing to not let the circumstances of being rape dictate my future. I choosing to forgive my attacker because he didn’t know any better. I don’t know what trials and tribulations he had gone through in his life, but I do know that he sent me a meek subliminal message on his twitter feed 'Sorry for everything, you didn’t deserve that. I knew you were a great person then and you still are now’. I know it was directed at me because he had liked and unliked my post on tumblr of me loosely talking about it. So I’m at peace. I can’t teach him right from wrong, But what I can do is confess with my heart and mouth that I forgive him and its up to God how the rest of the story goes. I am a better woman than I was then, a better woman than I was yesterday and I can only be as I continue to be honest with myself and the people around me. I understand how and why I love conversing with people, and I also understand that I can’t force people to ask me the right questions if I don’t make myself willing to openly answer then. So here I am writing this letter to everyone in my life that loves me and I’m urging you to ask me all the questions you want, I’m here to answer them. Peace and Love Lami x

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scriptshrink · 7 years

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Borderline Personality Disorder: Intense/Fluctuating emotions, personal experience

Hey there. I have borderline personality disorder, depression and bulimia. Figured I’d put all that time I’ve spent analysing my emotions and thinking patterns to good use and write up how I experience BPD. This relates to how I experience the intense and fluctuating emotions.

Reminder that this is all my personal experiences. They’re not universal amongst people with BPD.

TW for cutting, suicidal thoughts, violent thoughts, violence, eating disorder, depression.

If I’m not feeling something really strongly, I’m feeling nothing. That ‘I don’t know how to like things casually’ post is really accurate. And if I feel nothing I’m really aimless and bored but without the drive to do something. I don’t tend to do anything unless someone else gives me something to do, my usual hobbies tend to be just as boring. Usually I end up sleeping or watching TV shows to pass time. A lot of my day to day life is finding distractions, because I’m bored. Always bored. So bored. To Do lists work really well for me because they give me things to do, rather than make me think them up on the spot. I guess I must have some kind of normal emotional reactions but I can’t think of any times where that happens, I’m bored. When that goes on too long, I’m tired/depressed. If something enjoyable happens, my day suddenly revolves around that or it’s fleetingly good and then I’m tired and bored.

Below are the most common emotions that I have actual ‘episodes’ of. They tend to last at least five to ten minutes up to a few hours. Rarely, a standard high will last overnight/through a sleep. Both the depression moods can go from minutes to weeks.

Highs: Standard, weird. (These are the terms I use to describe/differentiate between the types of high/up moods I experience.)

Standard highs are great. You know when you drink coffee for the first time and you get so wired? It’s a bit like that. My brain gets really energised and I come up with new ideas for things and start planning them out. I also work on existing projects, if I think to direct my energy to them, because the energy doesn’t really mind what I’m working on, creativity and drive is on 100%. Sometimes I talk a lot, in conversations or to myself. If I’m nattering to myself, I find it hard to stay on one topic, everything leads into something else or a new idea comes up and takes over. Physically, my heart sometimes races and I get a weird feeling of anticipation in my stomach. It’s really frustrating because it’s like something exciting is about to happen but nothing is and there’s no reason for it. Uh, if I’m talking to myself I tend to walk really fast, usually I kind of stroll everywhere but during highs I’m really power walking, not quite to breathlessness. I find that if I do the power walk and talking combo, when I stop walking for more than five or ten minutes the high goes away. Sometimes I clean, usually making a resolution that this time I’m going to get my life on track for real, organising everything, setting things up, maybe even cooking. Energy level wise, I feel like I could probably run a marathon but I never do much more physical than cleaning/fast walking.

Weird highs: where I have ideas and weird but funny/important/interesting (at least to me) thoughts that I *need* to tell people. It usually leads to me spamming a couple of friends with FB messages, unless someone happens to be online and engages with something I say. Like, I might send someone thirty messages in an hour or two, starting with an idea for a business, fleshing this plan out, also do you watch Daredevil because I just started and its awesome, why do shows have love interests all the time, hey so I want to touch that body but not in the sex way??? Does that even make sense? It should make sense. Im taking you off the list of people I have a crush on and putting you back square in the friend list because I need room for daredevil. Why are there spiders in my room? This is really freaky. Theres a spider on my bed noopeeee. Never going to sleep again. Hey have you seen this tumblr post. It reminds me of you. Oh did you end up eating anything? You need to eat. Hey, how do you think zombies know to avoid walking though fire? Because they do seem to know in the walking dead, which suggests they have some kind of self preservation instinct. Unless they know there’s food in the fire, then they walk in. So not much self preservation. What part of the brain would need to be functioning for that? New project for holidays: an extensive report on the bodily functions of zombies and the necessary brain areas needed to achieve them, along with the resultant emotions that they could hypothetically be feeling.

And so on and so forth. Usually with degenerating spelling and grammar. If, however, the person responded to say, ‘Do you watch Daredevil?’ with ‘omg yes, who is your favourite character?’ then the weird would probably be focused to Daredevil commentary.

Weird highs tend to simply be less coherent, less productive and with an undertone of anxiousness or uncomfortable energy. Sudden loud noises or shadows or other scary/superstition things feel a lot more frightening. Like, I *will* be afraid the Joker is in my cupboard, especially at night. Think about it like a standard high being the energy that comes from downing a dozen energy drinks and a weird high is when you’re incredibly sleep deprived to the point where you’re past tired to energised.

Anger

Anger was actually the first thing that made me think I might have BPD. I’m not actually sure if it’s triggered by anything or my brain just randomly makes the switch but I go from zero to raging-enough-to-murder-you in like, ten seconds. Like, so much angry energy inside that I have to move. I shake my hands at my sides a lot (I also do that when I’m stressing out), again, lots of power walking and talking. Violent thoughts are really big when I’m overwhelmingly angry, sometimes I’ll self harm or want to self harm to try and let the anger out. I have this idea that I’m full to bursting with this energy and cutting will let some of it bleed out. Alternatively, everything and everyone pisses me the fuck off. Like, breathtakingly angry (for some reason that phrase always occurs to me when I’m mad). Best example is from when I was on a psych ward. There was this lady, A, who did not shut up. She’d talk about herself and her husband (switching between how good he was and how he’d abandoned her), telling everyone that they were beautiful and shouldn’t be on here, getting upset (although she never yelled). She did not stop. No one liked her much because she didn’t listen, just talked. And I didn’t like her either but I work in hospitality, I have an excellent customer service face. But one night I flipped into rage mode and was pacing the ward. Mad about most of the people, about the announcements that were always going on, about not being allowed to leave or being able to get outside. And I turned a corner, saw A at the other end of the hall and was utterly furious with her because she didn’t get the fucking message, she kept talking, just fucking say something A, I fucking dare you, I will rip your head off. I was 100% ready to try and break her neck if she talked to me, my hands were like…phantom urges to do it. And she walked past me and said I didn’t look okay and I said ‘I’m not’, and she obviously realised not to talk to me. So I went three or four laps of the ward wanting nothing more than to physically rip A’s head off and wondering if today would be the day I actually did something because I’m on a psych ward, why not? (Because even when that furious, I know the difference between legal and illegal so I am aware that I can’t actually use an insanity plea. Being borderline doesn’t erase your awareness/knowledge of things.) Then I saw one of the girls who was receiving involuntary ECT and she looked like crap and I started fantisizing about suffocating her, because I couldn’t think of a way to break her out of the ward and my anger had switched to the fact that she was being forced to have ECT.

The anger mood can be good though, I tend to do my more active social justicey things in an angry state. Like letter writing or getting involved in debates. I rarely have the emotional spoons to get into conversations with centre/right wing people about politics anymore, unless I’m in an angry state. But there’s a line, sometimes the anger state becomes too much and tips over into feeling helpless rage and then I just end up spiralling from anger to depression because there’s nothing I can do. So anger can be good but it’s a fine thing.

One other thing. A few of sites I’ve visited suggest that people with BPD can have problems controlling anger. This isn’t something I have a problem with because I’m one of those people who overanalyses everything, which has helped me keep perspective. I think of my brain as split into two parts, subjective, which rules the roost, and objective, which is aware of what, why and how my subjective brain twists things and how I *should* be acting. I essentially logic myself through anger episodes because on one level I realise that my anger isn’t justified/relative to the situation. One of my psychs put it as ‘using intelligence to mitigate borderline personality’. I mention this because it was an interesting idea to me, often in fiction smart characters suffer from mental illnesses of some kind but I have never seen that intelligence used to combat it as well.

Depression: Empty, Painful. (Again, these are just the terms I use to differentiate)

Depression is weird. When I received the diagnosis of BPD earlier this year, the doctors suggested that my depression was less severe than previously thought and was exacerbated by being borderline. I don’t know. Interesting thought about interactions, I guess? Anyway, being depressed works in one of two ways. Empty, which is like…being bored but worse? Aimless, no emotions, not sad, not seeing the point of anything. Not in a suicidal way, just that there seems no logical reason for anything. The thought of suicide is more because I need to *do* something, but nothing really has any point so might as well die. It’s more of a…a logical conclusion to a series of thoughts? Empty depressed is a bit like strapping on a backpack of rocks every time you try to do anything, physically things seem to take more effort. But there’s not really a corresponding emotional heaviness. I feel like I should be sad, and sometimes I *do* get sad (not depressed, just sad), but it really is nothingness. I tend to sleep a lot when I feel like this.

Painful depression is a whole different kettle of fish. That hurts a lot, emotionally. I often feel like there’s something in my chest that’s hurting, but also like a vacuum, and I tend to do things to try and protect that area. Cross my arms or put something heavy on my chest (I love weighted blankets for that). Mostly I’ll go to bed and curl in a ball with my arms/toys/pillow/a wadded blanket/something pressed into my chest. If I cry, I’ll silently scream into the exhalations until I haven’t got any breath left. It’s all trying to dig whatever the feeling is out of my chest. Self loathing really digs its claws in as well, some of which is due to eating disorder thinking. Painful depression and eating disorder thinking like to go hand in hand. Physically, energy isn’t really a thing. Mainly because the emotional hurt makes it feel too hard to do anything. Lots of blasting music when I’m like this. Sometimes I binge watch TV, but usually that’s too hard and I don’t feel like I want to. Painful depression is when suicidal thoughts become a real danger for me, because it’s an emotional drive to make the pain stop, rather than a more intellectual reasoning.

Episodic vs. Everyday thinking.

Something I feel like I need to add, especially after the anger part. None of what I think/feel when I’m in an extreme is different to what I would think/feel normally. They’re just about 1000 times more intense than usual. I always have some level of ‘There’s a monster in my cupboard’ fear or ‘I want to stab this person in the face’ anger because these are things that I, personally, think and feel normally. The difference between the ‘baseline’ emotion and a borderline episode (for want of a better word) is the intensity of the emotion. During an episode, the feeling is dialled right up so the corresponding thoughts become a lot more central and a lot less casual.

Example: Fear.

Scene: I’ve missed a call from my parents. I call back. No one answers.

Baseline thought: What if someone’s died? Haha yeah right. You know, I’ll feel really bad if someone has died and I just laughed. I didn’t mean it.

Borderline thought: What if someone’s died? What if Mum’s been in a car crash or Dad’s had a heart attack? Why isn’t anyone picking up? (I’m probably calling both of my parents and the home phone at this point) Oh my god, I don’t want my dad to die. Why isn’t anyone answering me, what’s happened? What if they were all driving to the city and had a car crash and everyone’s dead? I’ll miss them so much. They won’t get to see me graduate. I’ll never watch tv with dad again. Mum won’t ever make dinner or give me a backstretch again. I don’t have this relationship with anyone else, I can’t do this without them. (I don’t cry much but I’d be feeling very much like crying because by this point some part of me is convinced that my parents are dead. This is also partially me catastophising- imagining the worst possible outcome without evidence.)

Example: Anger

Scene: Someone is walking slowly in front of me.

Baseline thought: I will stab u holy shit, why are you walking so slow? No, be patient, it’s alright. Chillax, life is a journey. I still want to stab him. Yeah, but does walking slowly really deserve death? It’s all good. You aren’t in a rush.

Borderline thought: Fucking fucker I will fucking stab you oh my god, hurry the fuck up. Right in the back, slide the knife in between your vertebrae. (Lots of visualising said stabbing, probably clenching a fist/pretending to hold a knife by my side).

[Thank you for sharing your experiences. - Shrink]

#borderline #depression #eating disorders #personality disorders #submissions #personal experiences #cutting #suicide #suicidal ideation #bulimia #violence #deductionsandmishacollinsinrome #borderline personality disorder #submission

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crumpledjournal · 7 years

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5.2.17

so apparently my school does this program where kids can head out into the woods for a weekend every once in a while and just… talk it out i guess. that was this past weekend, Ma (not my mom, a friend) told me to go. my old history teacher had been plugging for the trip for years, but id never actually gone. never thought id be able to explain wanting to go have a feelings jam with a buncha other kids in the woods to my dad. i didnt really until i came back and recapped a little (honoring the agreement i signed before going to not share anyones story from the trip).

on the one hand, i feel so fucking healthy!!! i feel like i have subsisted for the past year off of nothing but avocado smoothies and kale juice and like i have been doing yoga for 85 hours a day and like i finally met a person or two who i can actually speak my mind to and get more than just a “sure dude.” like, good lord does this feel good

i mean, thats what i told Ge and Di and i genuinely believe it. (both Di and i knew basically nobody other than eachother and we were alone in a sea of strangers for the first few hours.)

dont get me wrong, i feel lots better. i got a lot off of my chest. but there was also a lot left unsaid on my part. out of all the people there (about 90) there were two others who shared that they were genderqueer (and there were only like two other people who brought up the topic at all). one of them i had some p bad experiences with in middle school. the other was a student leader and facilitator of the trip, so Re (the leader) didnt really have a lot of time to talk, and in the discussions Re was mostly asking questions and… well, facilitating. plus, gender came up like once. and Re was not there.

but i was! it was nice to talk a little. i was in a meeting with the school principal about installing gender neutral bathrooms at the school a week or two ago and i talked about that with them, and i told them that being genderqueer goes waywaywayway back and lots of other stuff, i guess. but i didnt say anything about my experiences with being genderqueer, really.

and damn did i want to! idk if yall have picked up on this yet (all none of you) but talking to people about my shit is just so healing for me. thats why i have a public journal! like, talking to equals and feeling heard. i could tell my mom or the school therapist (and i do, often) about my shit and its cool, theyre supportive and shit, but since i started this class ive had no time to keep up old friendships that were based around hanging out. like, were still friends i guess, but… playing minigolf over text is just not the same, man.

there was this thing last night where from like, right after dinner until about 3 in the morning, we talked. people had seven minutes that they could use however they wanted in front of the whole group, and it was just their job to listen. and let me tell you, id been crafting my seven minutes for like, three hours before my name came up. the thing is, i planned like twenty minutes of monologue. i talked about a bunch of the family stuff ive got and that was real cathartic. i also got to talk about my struggles with depression, which was a real common topic. but… ive been thinking about the possibility of myself being a trans girl really, really hard over the past couple of months, and i still havent shared that other than with the people whove read this journal.

which is nobody, other than a couple people browsing tags when i talked about moana a little while ago. i havent told that many people i write this, but. i kinda trusted those who i did to read it i guess.

i dunno. i think im most afraid that im not going to have any healthy girl friendships. i see all these women and girls and they have such supportive relationships with eachother. i see it every day. holy shit, if you havent seen the rage and passion with which girls defend their true friends… Hoo Boy.

and im so worried i wont have that! like. i love being agender, and it’s wonderful to have the ability and the knowledge and the acceptance to be an out nonbinary person and not really have so many problems stemming from that in my life. but i have this fear that that ill be in this purgatory of a questioning period for just long enough that when i finally make up my goddamn mind and trust my conviction enough to come out as a trans girl ill have lost the opportunity to have these wonderful, girl-to-girl relationships. as an agender person i feel like so much of an intruder in these female spaces.

Like, Ha (who I met on the trip) was so wonderful and badass, especially considering the amount of shit shes had to go through. jimminy christmas, shes fucking strong. i try not to gender people here but when the topic is gender itself that kind of context feels crucial… but anyways. she came and sat with me when i was eating lunch alone in the corner and brought a couple other girls and. i mean, some of the body language of the others kind of told me they werent super interested in me being there but… it felt… so good. just to be in a female space, just to be included there for the most part, without cis guys around that i would get lumped with.

but then i think i had a panic attack like, near to immediately after that, because i felt like i was making them incredibly uncomfortable by being an intruder in their female space. and when my female friends were having a hard time during the trip (as often happened) i felt like it wasnt my place to comfort them and that as a natal male i would just make them more uncomfortable and they would doubt their friendship with me because so many guys just take advantage of women when they’re at their lowest emotional state and that’s the last thing i want to be seen as and i tried to hug a few women who were having a really hard time over the course of the trip but i just got this churning in my stomach because i might make it worse if i make them think i just want to hug them so i can feel them aginst my stupid fucking body and if i keep writing this sentence then im going to have another panic attack

i dont know what to do. i dont know who to talk to because despite the number of people who said i could come to them this weekend, nobody else talked about gender shit, and those genderqueer people who i do know have just told me to look into my heart and shit, which doesnt help because thats what ive been trying to do. i feel like i cant talk to women because to them ill just be another guy who’s venting because he feels like he can dump all his emotional shit on the closest woman (especially women i just met on the trip, i couldnt ask them to spend however long it takes out of their day to read this when i just met them). i feel like i cant talk to men because if theyre not transphobic to begin with, they either refuse to talk about emotional shit, or can neither relate to feeling like they wont have any healthy girl-to-girl friendships nor realte to being genderqueer. i know im going to send this little essay to somebody soon because i just need to hear at least one other persons thoughts but i dont know who its going to be

and on top of all of that i keep getting these stomach aches at mealtimes and no other time of day and i dont know if it was the confessions from people with eating disorders or something else but my stomach aches and then i dont eat and then it aches because im hungry until the next meal when it aches again and i cant eat and when youre choosing between not eating or eating and feeling like you want to throw up, do you have an eating disorder already? i dont know anything thats going on with my body and im depressed and i feel so ashamed because there were so many people who had stories that felt so much more real than just a pronoun and a stomach ache and they spent their seven minutes with what seemed like no regrets about not having shared things and here i am writing a fucking dissertation pity paper about myself because i feel like it wasnt enough time to talk about my dumb fucking problems even though what i have aint shit and if i fall into the spiral of ands i legitimately will have a worse panic attack and i dont know who i can comfortably ask to do the fucking weightlifting championship level shit that is required to do the emotional heavy lifting and read bullshit im putting on the page without feeling like im inconveniencing them to the nth degree

so i guess thats where im at

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booksbroadwaybbc · 5 years

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I know I have the potential to be great, and I choose the path of the weak every time. via /r/selfimprovement

I know I have the potential to be great, and I choose the path of the weak every time.

Im so shitty. I dont even know why im writing this. Honestly I see other people post and I wonder if this actually helps. I'm at a point where If there's even a chance it could help, I should try it. Im 29, skinny black guy. I literally weigh about 130 lbs. Live with a roommate and brother. Other brother moving here in bout a week. Im older than all of them. Somehow I've got to this point in my life dropping out of every school endeavor i ever embarked on. Dropped out of High School, got my GED got into college then dropped out of that. Was too busy smoking weed, playing fighting games...just being a fool. Never been in a serious relationship at any point in my life. My love-life is non-existent. My only working background is in grocery stores and call center. I legitimately want to just stop everything. If I have to take calls for another few months that really might be it for me. I'm at the complete end of my lane. Im not here to discuss where my thoughts have gone, but I know for certain I cant keep doing this type of work for the rest of my life...I don't think I'll last to the middle of 2019 before I quit and look for another job. Speaking of that, my last 5 years of work history is just me bouncing between jobs. I got a job at software company doing customer support, but i threw that away too. They wanted to send me to Ireland, a real chance to start over and for some reason i threw it away. I just feel inadequate as hell in comparison to my brothers (one who has graduated college, the other who is going to Lincoln Tech now). I don't have problems talking to women casually, but I dont have it in me to discuss anything romantic with a woman. I wouldn't date me. If I was a woman I wouldn't even talk to me lol, let alone date me. I see my laziness, my apathy, my lack of empathy toward other people, and I know it's' shitty. I hate it, I hate myself and I absolutely must improve. I know that I can, when I actually put my mind to something I excel.

But you know what I hate more than anything? People who look for sympathy, people who want others to feel bad for them, and worst of all people who don't fucking work. So as I make this post, I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. If anything insult me, because well thats what I deserve and probably what I would do to someone else.

So since im literally at the end of my fucking rope, I've been trying to rewrite my life as hard as possible. Dedicating literally every minute of every day to improvement. Literally every --single---minute of every ---single--- day. As i write this now im at work, im doing quite a few things inbetween calls, and decided to visit this reddit because I made this account and subscribed to it a few weeks ago.

I probably sound like an idiot going into detail on this, but as embarrassing as it is I will. I made a plan for myself for the next 5 years. The plan includes my goals and ways to achieve them day by day. It also includes checkpoints every so often for me to check In and make sure im actually focusing on my goals. I need these checkpoints because in the past when I tried to do things like this I would lose focus eventually and fall into loads of weed use and alcohol abuse. My goals are listed below in no particular order:

Improve my overall Health - this multi-part goal. It includes both physical and mental health. I weigh 130 lbs pretty much on the dot. I'm not sure what my ideal weight would be (I don't know how I'd look at lets say 170 lbs for me to call that my ideal weight), but the first milestone is 150lbs. I want to hit this in 6 months, or atleast check in at that time. In terms of how I plan to do that, I've detailed a complete workout regime for me. Of course, I could go into detail on that, but the most important step, more important than working out is just eating more. The hardest part of course is always sticking to the regime, but atleast i've wrote down what I need to do. I don't know why but for some reason I just have trouble getting myself to eat. Even when i'm hungry, i'll smoke or go for a walk or go to sleep or just game - I'll do anything but eat. As of today, I'm changing that. For my mental health, I plan to read recreationally more especially when on public transit which Im on for about 2 hours a day. Why reading? I need to stay away from my phone. I spend so much time on discord, losing myself in non-stop content online through youtube or twitch or whatever. I need to get back in touch with me, and not be scared to be in my own thoughts. As a kid i use to read a lot, I was a creative kid. I think somewhere in the weed use I lost that, I want it back. After doing some research I've also started journalling. I Journal twice a day, once in the morning once at night. I try to spend 30 minutes a day total (15 minutes per night/day) writing down my thoughts from the previous day and goals for that day in the morning, and what I actually accomplished and thoughts for the day that night. After reading what I've wrote for just a few days, turns out I'm actually a very bitter person. Maybe not bitter, but definitely angry and intense. I'm also trying to meditate, but Im not really good at this. What I do is just sit down in my room, light a candle, make some tea, close my eyes and think for 10 or so minutes. Any thought that comes in I try to analyze where it came from and if it's a negative thought or stemming from a negative. Im not good at this yet honestly. Its important to know these things aren't something I want to add in only for a limited time. I think I need to do this for the rest of my life, otherwise I spiral fast. My mom has suggested therapy but, I completely refuse. If I can't fix myself I won't get fixed. I'm not scared to ask for help, but therapy is out of the question until I've done absolutely everything I can to fix myself.

Develop a Skill. Particularly I want to program. I've taught myself abit of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Honestly I'm a complete beginner, but I've dabbled abit. I've made steps to already begin teaching myself in my routine. I've been using codeacademy pro for about a month now and I'm working on deploying my own site (my first project will just be my resume on a responsive one page site, got the idea from a friend). This comes from, I have to develop some type of skill in order to move out of Customer Service. I don't know what else to even do, though IT support comes to mind but I don't want to support anymore I want to create and develop. I'm not trying to avoid work, I just want to avoid working with the general public, and I want to avoid my job being to educate others or fix mistakes they've made. Even though I think that still happens in development, I atleast want a career that pushes me mentally and forces me to improve my skillset in order to stay relevant. Most importantly, I want a job I can be proud of. A job that I myself can be proud of. Even though Customer Service/Call Centers are important for alot of companies, I cannot stand this line of work. It is so mind numbingly tedious and repetitive, and I feel like I am wasting my life and my potential handling these minor inquiries when I know I can use my mind to accomplish and work on something much greater. I don't care how arrogant or fucked up it sounds. It's not that I think i'm better than anyone, I just KNOW that i can achieve more than this. I know that im here because of how shitty of a human i've been. I'm tired of it, I have to change it.

Learn another language. The only other language I've had real interest in is Japanese. Honestly I've been at odds even with myself on this for a long time. Is it bad that I enjoy that type of culture? I'm not trying to be a "weeb" or just say it to sound cool. I've spent time learning to recognize some hiragana/katakana just on my own in the past. I don't think it's a perfect culture or anything, but its the only one that legitimate has always interested me for as long as I can remember. So i've decided to pursue it and fuck it, if I look stupid or like a weeb or whatever I guess I just have to accept that. Again I have my own routine I've detailed for myself for learning, and I have a few people I can actually practice with. I somehow got a friend of mine a job in Japan as a english teacher...but I havent done anything myself to move toward that and I know god damn well I could.

I want to become better at interacting with people. Last few months I've lost myself in just complete self indulgence. I won't go super into detail, but I think we all know what this means. Drug use, alcohol use, long nights on the internet avoiding sleep exploring the most degenerate shit man. The worst is after nights like that you can't look people in the eye, or have normal conversations. It just eats at you knowing youre not only wasting time but spending it on something so shitty and useless. Putting time off with family/friends to stay at home and waste time, I won't do shit like this anymore. When you fall into a rut like this, or whatever it is, all your relationships around you start to crumble. Then I wonder why I havent been in a relationship, lol. Well im done and hopefully by writing this It gives me strength to not fall back into that dark place and keep me on the right path. I will show I can support my family and I can receive their support as well. It will take time to repair these relationships, but If i dont start now I feel like they really will crumble forever.

This is basically my current mental state. I don't know if this even fits this subreddit but I hope it does and if not feel free to inform me. The purpose of this is to show that, I am on the path to self improvement, its all I care about right now. Being better than I've been in the past month. Better than I was yesterday, because if I dont change my life now I'm legitimately scared what I will do or where I will be 5 years from now. If you actually read all this, thanks. If you have any thoughts, please let me know. If I sound stupid, let me know. If I sound like all im doing is crying and complaining, please inform me. You have any videos I can watch on improvement, including mentalities/mindsets/meditation please let me know. Im open to anything. It took me about 2 hours to write this in between calls. As I hit post I'm going back to coding and planning on working on my first project immediately tonight. Guess i'm saying this more for myself than anyone.

Thanks for reading.

-Just

Submitted November 10, 2018 at 11:22PM by StoicJust via reddit https://ift.tt/2z213YJ

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