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bellatrixobsessed1 · 7 months

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Messy/Jumbled Thoughts On Azula in the Spirit Temple

Obviously my initial reaction to it was not particularly glowing and excited to say the least. But after some discord chatting and discussion with my IRL friend I have come to conclude very solidly that I have no idea how to feel about this one. And I'm genuinely not sure if Hicks was trying to make Azula sympathetic or trying to make her completely irredeemable.

So one of the things that makes it confusing to me is how Azula declares that she does not want redemption because it is for the weak. And how she chooses to end by saying that she'd just find new followers to control. Off the bat to me that just felt like a nail in the coffin. A solid she's not getting redeemed.

But then my IRL friend pointed out that she started the comic by declaring that she was going to take revenge on her ex-companions. But ended up finding them and choosing to leave them alone instead.

To me this kind of felt like a massive cope on Azula's end like the equivelent of "fine, I didn't need you guys anyways! I'll find new *~better~* friends!" Like a way of masking how upset it made her to see them having fun without her. Or that she's in denial about how much it hurts.

But my IRL friend thinks that her choosing to just let them be is a sign that there was some progress made despite her declaring that she didn't want redemption.

Which leads to some of the discord discussion that I found insightful. Someone (let me know if you want me to name you) pointed out that pretty much all of the comic was the spirit showing Azula her own inner thoughts; in other words Azula was calling herself a monster and a bad person and what not.

Which, honestly, could be why the comic felt so confusing and disjointed??? Azula is confused and conflicted and we're seeing this through her eyes so it's conflicting and disjointed.

Azula has enough awareness to know that she's not a good person and that some stuff is her fault but she also acknowledges that she's not entirely to blame. I'm talking about 'Ursa' asking Azula what she is and Azula responding "alone, betrayed over and over..." and declaring that it's basically not her fault vs 'Mai' saying "maybe you're a terrible person who gets what she deserves."

Baring in mind that this is a manifestation of Azula's thoughts; she simultaneously sees herself as a victim and as a bad person.

And honestly I can actually see that making sense; people tend to be their own harshest critics. All abuse cases are different but many abuse victims blame themselves while also acknowledging that the abuser is to blame at the same time.

I feel like it's actually not entirely off base for someone in Azula's situations to have conflicting thoughts. Facing yourself for who you are, including (and especially) the worst parts of yourself is not easy. It is embarrassing even in ones own mind to admit wrongdoing. Almost everyone has that one embarrassing memory that still makes them blush when they remember it while lying alone at 2AM. It's sort of like that but worse. It is hard to put aside pride and ego even in privet. Now try doing that with a spirit watching and judging you.

Azula is facing down the worst parts of herself in an almost physical sense. And I think that she doesn't know who to blame or how to portion out the blame. Like she has difficulty telling how much of it is her fault vs how she was raised. Out of her mouth is all of the stuff about how its everyone else's fault. But then the manifestations of her thoughts say the exact opposite. She is literally at war with herself.

And she's scared and she lashes out when she's scared. She covers fear and insecurity with either anger or nonchalance. So when 'Zuko' asks her to repent so to speak, of course she says no. She's effectively being backed into a corner. She's on the defensive. And also 'Zuko' has taken on a monstrous and terrifying form. I wouldn't not shoot lightning at that.

Not to mention that, the entire time Azula is talking about how the spirit is manipulating her and that none of it is real. I imagine that, that makes it that much harder to face herself because she's effectively being gaslit in a sense. Like it doesn't feel real to her, she doesn't trust it--rightfully so tbh. She says that she thinks she is being lied to. Of course she isn't being open minded to what she is being shown. It isn't being done in good faith.

I think that my biggest hang up is how she was 'offered redemption'. Putting that in air quotes because was that really a chance at redemption? The spirit didn't put her in a situation conducive to meaningful change. To me it was almost just one more added trauma on top of what she was already dealing with. It's basically similar to Azula going to see a therapist but the therapist is terrible at their job and digs up trauma while offering no coping skills nor advice.

Instead of giving her advice or support this spirit tries to terrify/shock Azula into changing. This spirit put Azula massively on the defense and wondered why she was getting defensive. Literally all of her traumas, fears, and triggers were being thrown in her face and she was supposed to make something of it?

I'm no therapist but I'm pretty sure that that's not how change works.

Azula was getting yelled at and shamed for not wanting to change or acknowledge that she needs to. But the spirit who was trying to 'help' didn't give her ANYTHING to work with. No words of encouragement or coping tools. Nothing but showing her things that terrified and upset her.

It's like trying to teach someone who is afraid of water to swim by throwing them into the ocean and getting mad when (after being pulled out of the water) they come out more terrified than they were prior.

And this is what confuses me about how AitST is supposed to be interpreted. Are we supposed to see the spirit as the asshole or Azula as stubborn? I know how I see it, but how did Hicks intend it to be portrayed?

This was supposed to be the 'see if Azula is going to start her redemption path once and for all' comic. But was she TRUELY even offered a redemption? Because I don't think so. To me that was just Azula getting another layer of trauma to work through. And nothing about that situation she was in could even be remotely conducive to meaningful/long term change.

Speaking on my own experience alone; change and habit breaking, becoming one's best self while facing down their worst requires a few things; comfort, encouragement, support, enthusiasm, and stability.

Azula was terrified, alone, uncomforted, antagonized, and cornered. She was in a setting exactly the opposite of what is needed when someone is trying to make a change or do some hard introspection.

And now I'm left wondering if Hicks meant for the spirit to be seen as the asshole or if the comic was trying to say, 'look she chose not to walk the path to redemption.'

Right now it feels like they're gonna take the easy way out and leave her as the villain and point to the comic and say, 'see, she had her chance.' To which I say, "Did she? Did she actually?" But who knows maybe we are supposed to see that spirit as an unhelpful and evil. Maybe her walking away and not taking the vengeance she vowed is a good sign.

TL;DR: How the hell is this even supposed to be interpreted. What is the tone??? Is this Azula sympathetic or anti-Azula. Because I genuinely can't tell.

Never have I been so confused about a thing I have read.

#avatar the last airbender #azula #azula in the spirit temple #azula meta #spoilers

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dmclemblems · 2 years

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Some super quick explanations for some of them included!

Love A Lot:

Miklan: for those of you who may new be here/have not seen many of my posts about him: had a lot of headcanons confirmed in Hopes that I held from Houses. he needed someone/people to steer him in the right direction. when he had someone/something to fight for, he was loyal. his behavior growing up and afterward were a result of being given no direction on top of overwhelming jealousy and spite that turned into hate. even if he wasn’t able to entirely forgive his family/the system, he did get over it and find a goal for himself that he really wanted to reach and more or less moved on (see: fuck you, Gwendal).

Rodrigue: see: my rodrigue tag that’s all i can tell u or this will be an essay also i adore him

Sylvain: his writing is WAY better in Hopes than Houses. he has genuine relevance to the plot itself and is extremely important to Faerghus’ army and politics it in all routes. I love him in Houses but in the main story his relevance is honestly abysmal and there are way too many offhand flirtatious comments on a constant basis. he matured, but not even remotely like he did in Hopes. Hopes’ Sylvain is everything I would want and expect from his character (Felix is basically in the same boat).

Love:

Sothis!fused Byleth: more development to her personality at this point and she’s actually very cute! I love her sassy little crossed arms lean thank u. also, I really feel like her and Dimitri (in AM) really worked well together as characters and grew together. seeing them both grow emotionally with each other’s help was really sweet.

Ingrid: much more development for her in general, and her relationships are expanded upon (not just scolding Sylvain, is good friends with Dedue, doesn’t have an utterly crappy friendship with Felix that survives off nothing but childhood friend willpower, actually has conversations with Rodrigue that are both about and not about their shared history and show more than one side of their relationship, etc). much less bland of a character in Hopes.

Gilbert: BOISSSS HAVE U SEEN THIS MAN IN HOPES MY GOD HE IS THE MOST LOVING AND DOTING FATHER THERE DO BE OUT THERE shit man im jealous like my parents didn’t dote on me like that when i was in my early twenties ajkfgsgjs also, he’s actually a well written character with a good past and present in both games. I’ll write up a long post another time probably. I do like him a bit more in Hopes, but I’ve always liked him a lot at the very least in Houses.

Rhea: it was between Like A Lot and Love, and since Seiros!Rhea is below her for reasons explained below, I had to bump up her a bit.

Like A Lot:

Male Byleth: idk why i like female byleth more, maybe bc i just like girls more irl and she’s rly cute when she gets more development like i don’t dislike byleth but u kno there is just somethin else about titty teacher

Serios!Rhea: she’s really cool in the opening cutscene! I like her generally speaking, but I feel like they made her batshit in CF just to excuse making her out to be a villain (kinda like they did in SB’s bad ending for Claude). I like her in Hopes in GW a lot though - it’s just the CF nonsense that makes me like ???. I get Edelgard pushed a lot of buttons, but Rhea has always been about protecting innocent people. setting Fhirdiad on fire is so out of character for her. she’s vicious and violent at times when it comes to people who attacked the Church, harmed innocents, etc, but she never otherwise harms citizens for any reason. what happened in CF just felt like an asspull to make her a villain.

Thales: I like him as a villain, not a person, but Hopes also gave us more insight into him. he’s just an interesting villain to me, really. most of them in this universe are pretty eh to me as villains, which leaves me to base my opinions off who they are/their character, which... most of them are lolz. not even much to go by. Kronya is just some kill obsessed clown lady who was afraid to die in Houses and was just in denial about it in Hopes and that’s... that’s it. Solon just has a grudge against the bloodlines I guess.

Like:

that’s abysskeeper and baron dominic not generic npcs lmao

Claude: it was really between Like and Like Slightly because a good half the game is just normal Claude, and we did get a lot of good background info on him, Almyra and his family relationships (even if indirectly, like when Nader is talking to the Almyran soldier about how Claude is the favorite child). the things about Claude that I didn’t like in this game (especially bad ending SB which is massively just ??? wtf ??? eh wot nani the fucc fuccies mcdoodles ???) I have very strong opinions about, but I think the bullshit parts are outweighed by both normal Claude and a slightly differently characterized Claude who didn’t get to spend a year at school (there are still bits and pieces of that difference in him even in AG, though they’re a lot more subtle and he’s more on the fence about what to do after everything is over in comparison to GW/SB).

Hilda: way more character and actual growth as a person. she grew a little bit in VW, but overall there wasn’t that much change. she didn’t feel like much of a character and it felt like she never had anything useful to say that didn’t involve being lazy and wanting people to do things for her. she’s lost a lot of that behavior and attitude in Hopes and actually has humane dialogue in Hopes.

Mask!Jeritza: just less characterization overall. he’s still funny tho. still funny.

Monica: idk, I feel like she kinda lost of the cool parts of her character with what little bit we did get in the prologue chapters (any route). I still like her and it’s not even about her devotion to Edelgard being a little (read: a lot) overboard, and let’s face it, I’m beyond overjoyed that a ship I shipped long before the existence of Hopes actually sailed and it sailed so hard it’s on the other side of the world now. idk what it is tbh that really makes me prefer her in the early chapters (not counting Kronya!Monica in Houses, who I left out since it wasn’t really Monica).

Shahid: good villain, some background detail, and useful for drama. that’s uh that’s it tho really lol

Like Slightly:

Cornelia: an actually good villain aside from Thales, which is a rarity in this universe. terrible, horrendous, nasty person, but sometimes you need that! she’s/he’s (i.e. not really Cornelia) also actually smart and not so kill happy that she’s just stupid about it. she has a lot of contingency plans and backups, and she managed to convince Faerghus for a good long time that she was still the real Cornelia. it’s rare in this game that we get an actual villain with a brain.

Erwin: lbh Hopes saved his purple ass. he’d be down in dislike-hate otherwise LOL. Hopes really did do a LOT for him though imo regarding characterization. all we really hear about him in Houses makes him sound like a horrendous asshole and makes you wonder what Lorenz even sees in him to respect him. Hopes gave him an actual personality/character and showed us intellect. I think he’s done some pretty crappy things and he’s been shady, but in Hopes his assessment of Claude isn’t really that wrong or far off, so I can’t hold that against him the way I do in Houses. he’s also a very caring and loving father, whereas in Houses I was more under the impression that Lorenz was just his heir and that they didn’t necessarily have much more than a respectful relationship. I feel like in Hopes there’s a lot more to unpack with his character and it did him a lot of good for me. since of course Houses is also the “main” canon and whatnot, I can’t really say I like him all too much, but Hopes definitely gave him a lot more to work with.

Lonato: Good dad vibes, but I think it’s super questionable that he’s willing to fight/kill Ashe out of his desire for revenge for Christophe. What I would’ve hoped they’d have done with Lonato is that like in Radiant Dawn, if two characters were on opposing sides but had a strong relation, they would refuse to fight each other (an example of this is Brom and Meg, who are father and son but won’t fight each other. Even though you have control of Brom, you can’t use him to attack Meg because he just won’t do it). He did so much for Ashe and basically saved his life by taking him off the streets, even despite that he’d be taking in three kids, and yet... he’s now willing to kill this kid he took in just because this kid is enrolled at the school at the monastery headed by the archbishop he hates. Couldn’t really put him higher because of that. They always talk so highly about him in the game, so he seems like a generally good dude but then... I also don’t like he’d kill Ashe for Christophe, and tbh I don’t think he’d do that the other way around and kill Christophe for Ashe fi the situation was reversed.

Matthias: Not a bad character and definitely loyal to Faerghus. Heavily in politics and is a good person to have helping run the country. Rodrigue says he changed after his first wife died so I guess that’s where he got his argumentative and more practical side, though I feel like he tends to be practicality above emotions at all times and definitely doesn’t have a balance for it (to the point where Rodrigue has to be the one to tell him to go to apologize to Sylvain to something he said to him instead of Matthias choosing to do that on his own). Not gonna bother talking about the whole “bad did” stuff because... that’s general knowledge lmao.

Rufus: He’s a semi-good villain, and I’m not sure how I’d feel if he got more time in the game. As for who he is as a person, he’s a pile of trash to be taken out into the dumpster to await the trash trucks. I am putting that lightly.

No Opinion:

Aelfric: A pretty low-tier villain imo. I like the way he planned things out and how he got everything together, but his overall goal and how single minded he was about it was kinda lame.

Anna: Sometimes she has pretty nice things to say, especially regarding the war, but otherwise... she’s just eh in the boring sense.

Kostas: Tbh we don’t really know much about him or why he’s a bandit. We know Ashe used to be a thief because of his situation, so I don’t want to assume Kostas is just scum of the earth based on being a bandit since it seems like he just takes jobs for money. The guy you meet in Abyss who is hiding there and says he has a family waiting for him at home also insisted they didn’t know the real details and all that, so I don’t really... hate Kostas? I more wonder if he wouldn’t turn himself around if given the chance. I don’t like him or dislike him since we don’t really know enough about him personally.

Tomas: I’m assuming the persona Solon had of him was as close to the real thing as he could get if he wasn’t detected all that time, so judging by that I guess I’m like sure why not about him. Not super interesting but a nice dude.

Eh:

Caspar: This version of him is literally totally brainless and he doesn’t do anything except fight and care about fighting. He literally has no morals or care for anything and it’s baffling to go from Houses Caspar (either version) to this Caspar. He’s worse than Raphael in that sense because Raphael at least has times when he’s shown to have other traits, but this version of Caspar just doesn’t feel like Caspar to me.

Hegemon Husk Edelgard: Not enough information. Just a husk! At least the name in and of itself proves a whole lot of my points about her...

Ludwig: He actually cares about the Empire, so... kudos for that. Obviously he wasn’t super terrible to Ferdinand and the Empire at large if Ferdinand grew up idolizing and respecting him. He’s not like Bernadetta who is actively afraid of her father but wouldn’t want him to just straight up die, and is in fact sad in both games about Ludwig dying. He can be pretty shitty and be involved in shitty things so he doesn’t really get a pass from me, but he gets above the hate scale.

Marianne: I get she has the whole issue with her Crest and thinking it’s a curse, but jesus christ if she’s not annoying about it. When people just want to have a conversation and not even really get involved with her she’s too quick to push people away and leave them thinking they did something wrong. Overall I just found her response to a lot of things very annoying. I don’t hate her but I’m too annoyed and bothered by that stuff to say I’m neutral.

Myson: Not enough information on him as a character. He kinda ended up with Sandima (FE4) syndrome where he was a main lackey and not much else. You see him, you get used to him being there, but you don’t know enough.

Randolph: He’s lucky Hopes happened or he’d be one tier lower or worse lol. That whole nonsense conversation he had with Dimitri in AM would’ve kept him a tier or two lower, but he had at least some semblance of a character in Hopes. Putting the two together, I just don’t really like him. Like, yeah, sure, he’s kinda a nice dude... but wanting to distinguish yourself and your house so much that you’d take live on a battlefield and be grateful for the war for that purpose doesn’t sit right with me. Also, being part of the force that initiated the war makes me see it with an even more critical eye. Imo he’s way too deep into wanting to be a distinguished name and it seems like he doesn’t really... have any morality in doing so. As far as Houses goes, YIKERS. He really had the audacity to say he was fighting for his sister and home (as if other people aren’t also doing that???) and so he didn’t want to die. Y i k e r r r r r s. It’s like, when HE’S on the verge of death he wants mercy, but he’ll cut down any number of other human beings to have his name known/have a (political) house and won’t spare their lives just because they have families waiting for them. He’s a hypocrite who’s hyperfocused on his own deeds at war, and the fact that he thought he could spew insults at Dimitri and act like he was A Pure Bean would have kept him on the shit list forever if not for Hopes. He’s one of those people where he’ll do bad shit and keep doing it until what goes around comes around and when it’s finally his turn, he begs for it to not be his turn. At least Dimitri owned his shit in their conversation. Randy here did not, refused to and literally thinks that fighting for his supposed good cause is justification for his actions. Big yikes, yikers, yikees. No want, no like.

Raphael: I just kinda threw everyone in alphabetical order so it’s not that I like him less than Caspar as I brought him up briefly in Caspar’s description. My main issue with him is that also largely lacks morals in this game. Marianne is the one who keeps questioning all the killing, and Raphael doesn’t give half a fuck most of the time. He just wants to fight and they wrote him like he’s too stupid to understand having morals while at war. It doesn’t feel like Raphael to me. He was great in his paralogue, but other than that he was just... devoid of character outside of his overblown traits. It’s like they took Houses Raphael and just stripped away any characterization except for two of his traits and went “ah yes, much better”. He’s still a kind guy, just... kind of a shell of Houses Raphael.

Male Shez: Idk lol he’s just like... more childish and brainless to me than female Shez? For sure I think it’s the delivery in their English lines, but there’s just something about him I’m not really caring for.

Sothis: Lord almighty did I find her annoying. In Hopes I’m super eh about her because she’s kinda... bad/mean/evil/what have you? But just in general in Houses I didn’t really care for her. I didn’t hate her and I definitely don’t think she deserves to disappear or something, but her attitude just typically bugs me.

Dislike:

Arval: He’s just... annoying lol. Annoying, smug and tries to pressure Shez into things that they clearly don’t want to do.

Bernadetta: I hate that she’s played for laughs, but I also hate that characters can’t even speak to her without her screaming something completely unrelated. She has issues because of her dad, sure, but to be afraid of every single stranger and all her classmates to the point where she didn’t even remember what Claude, a house leader, looked like? To the point that nobody can even speak to her because she never listens? Annoying. Literally the most frustrating character I’ve ever seen in any franchise. She’s better in Hopes, but in Houses, especially in at the first half... Y I K E S.

Gwendal: Bad adoptive dad, traitor, also killed Miklan in Hopes. 0/10, I have Yuri kill him in Houses in every time.

Ionius: Him being a seemingly good dad is the only thing that kept him from being any lower tbh.

Leonie: Rude, annoying, and not a personality I’m into. Got better, but like Bernadetta I can’t stand her in the first half of Houses.

Dislike-Hate:

They all suck but I don’t feel burning rage of hatred lol.

Hate:

Fleche: Basically her handling of revenge in AM knocked her to rock bottom for me. Nothing in any other route in either game could save her from that lol. Let’s be clear: Byleth killed Randolph. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter if it was a mercy kill. At the end of the day Fleche clearly did not know who exactly killed her brother. She just wanted to kill someone for revenge, regardless of whether or not she targeted the right person. Now mind you, not ONLY did she target the wrong person, but she murdered a man totally uninvolved in her revenge. MIND you, she went on about boo hoo revenge for her ONLY LIVING FAMILY BEING KILLED and then murdered a man’s ONLY LIVING FAMILY because she TARGETED THE WRONG PERSON in her revenge. Yes, Dimitri wasn’t all there mentally, but no, he did not kill Randolph. My issue with Fleche is that this told me she wasn’t really in it to get actual revenge on the person who killed her brother (like she did in Hopes in all routes). It’s that she didn’t care WHO she killed or HOW MANY people she killed in her path to revenge. To her it never mattered who died. She’s selfish, apathetic, and doesn’t care about other people outside her own family and their standing in the Empire. She doesn’t care about the truth or who did what. She just wants to murder people. That’s her revenge. She attacked Dimitri and attacked like a literal pos toward him with that sarcastic shit, again, not her brother’s killer, just off the assumption that he did it merely because he was... the leader of the army, I guess. He was going to capture Randolph, and honestly from there someone could have convinced him (someone: Rodrigue) not to torture Randolph because they could have used him as leverage or gotten information or what have you. This isn’t to say Byleth was wrong for killing Randolph - it’s to say Fleche did not give two whole hoot hoots as to who actually killed her brother and just wanted to cause havoc regardless because boohoohoo someone killed your brother AT WAR when you all know what the consequences could be AT WAR during the war your uwu emperor started.

Really need to write a fanfic one day where she gets away and then Felix seeks her ass out and slaughters her and goes “uwu u killed my only living family during war so i wanted revenge uwu and hey at least im killing the right person for it instead of being a lil baby and killing whoever the fuck just bc im uwu mad” because FCKN D A M N Y’ALL THAT WOULD BE THE 👌 CATHARTIC 👌 SHIT I NEED. ...don’t worry he’s not gonna say uwu that’s just the implication of a mocking tone so felix’s mocking is the last thing she hears because he slays her

being a rodrigue fan is hating fleche’s entire being alright xoxo love u roddyrod

Edelgard: we’re not getting into that LMFAO it’s all over my blog anyway if you can find it among my love and affection for other characters

#JD Tiers #I didn't include everyone while talking about my reasons for placement #so if there's someone specific not listed that you're curious about I don't mind talking about 'em #MAYBE AFTER THIS I CAN START DOING GOOFY TIER LISTS :D #I just wanna use the portraits for goofy shit bc everything is so colorful shjfgasjugd #ALSO if I have a character listed in a bad spot above hate (which is only two characters I won't budge on lol)#I don't even mind ppl talking to me abt them or telling me their hcs and why they love them #I'm not immune to those characters and don't necessarily have a be all end all opinion on them #the only ones I'm solidified on are the two down in the hate bin and anyone else is fair game #nobody can go down but you might be able to make them go up!#also nobody is really placed by the order of how much I like them #like Annette is just at the front of her row bc I went in alphabet order the way they're listed before placement #and it might have been a bit more tricky to place them in a more concise way

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jewpacabruhs · 4 years

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hi guys! so this post is gonna be a rambly mess but fuck it, here ya go. if u dont wanna read all of it, u dont have to; skip down to underneath the tl;dr in bold text for the important bits :)

(there’s a brief & non-graphic mention of a triggering topic in the next paragraph. please be sure to skip this next paragraph if the thought of suicide is going to upset you.)

alright. so i didn't share this originally, but i spent some time in a psychiatric unit this month. suicidality related. 1000% unrelated from anything online, i've just struggled with depression for a very long time & shit happens. i didn't intend to share that at all & i certainly don't want pity; i'm telling u guys bc my time in the unit was extremely eye-opening, and i have some insight to share. since i've gotten out, with the help of my newest anti-depressant (fourth time’s a charm lol), i'm seeing the world in a better light & i finally have the energy to and the interest in exploring what it has to offer, which frankly i've never had before.

with that has come the realization that i’ve come to do something very unhealthy, and i want to break out of it. and that’s how much i’ve come to rely on my fandom life. i don’t want to get too candid publicly, but mental illness took a lot from me, and i lost most of my life, my future, and my options in the last few years. next year will involve a lot of working on rebuilding things. but in the time that i let things fall to pieces around me & i absolutely couldn’t get out of bed, i had a phone and i had a laptop. so when i couldn’t get up and physically face the world, i built up a new world online.

and i don’t think that’s a completely uncommon experience. most people are able to better manage things, and evenly juggle real life with an internet life (like i did back in middle school), because most people can’t abandon their real lives entirely like i managed to; but i do think a lot of people nowadays rely on their fandom life and their fandom friends when their irl situation isn’t ideal. and that’s an excellent coping mechanism in theory, but i think it’s debilitating in the long run.

forgive me for sounding like an old person, but i’m a heavy nostalgist and a bit of an anarcho-primitivist in that i resent modern technology's influence on society - but that hasn't stopped me from letting it be a big part of my life out of accessibility. the internet kept me occupied during my low points, and i became dependent, but i've realized i don't wanna live like that anymore. i’m vaguely grateful that it usually kept me busy enough that i wasn’t thinking the bad thoughts as frequently, but more than anything, i’m resentful that my grasp on reality got lost somewhere along the way, and i let time get away from me, too. because, again, an internet life should be a fun hobby, but when it’s a lifestyle and it becomes an excuse to avoid dealing with our real lives, bc our real lives aren’t as rewarding or as exciting, then it’s unhealthy.

everything’s at our fingertips these days, but i deeply believe human interaction, fun, and fulfillment shouldn't be spoon-fed to us through a screen. it's easy access, sure, but at the end of the day, is it any way to live? compared with how much world there is to see, i’m no longer satisfied with the thought of sitting behind a screen for another five years. i used to be, when i had no hope and no drive, but not anymore. i’m not gonna let myself settle for staying busy with the thing that takes the least amount of work & movement. not only because i’m a whole ass adult who needs to start sorting my shit out for the long run, but also because i deserve better.

and it’s fucking hard! especially for those of us who are neurodivergent. i dropped out of school three fucking times due to crippling social anxiety and utter lack of ambition and energy. i lost all my friends through that (making friends post-school is hard af); the thought of having to go out and remake friends makes me wanna fucking cry. i have a hard enough time making friends online, i’ve even come to struggle with correspondence thru text & email. phone calls? outta the question. but that’s therapy shit, and i know i’ll get there. i just have to stop putting life off by staying in a comfort zone.

and it’s interesting; depression and anxiety really took everything from me, and while i was dwelling in my own misery, my adhd worsened and decided to make my entire brain revolve around my fixations, so i didn’t have to deal with my own life. can’t think about how much you wanna die and how much you can’t function in society if you’re busy thinking about a ship you like or a character you find interesting. so i latched onto the safety of that. aggressively. problem with that is that once you let your “happiness” (as much of it as you can feel in the midst of your depressive episode, anyway) revolve around an interest, that’s all you have. so you become dependent and reliant, and that’s never good, especially if you’re someone like me who feels pathetic & ridiculous when you realize it’s all you can bring yourself to care about.

and i think that’s what i realized in the psych ward (where there’s legitimately nothing to do; i did soooo much more thinking than usual, and i already think too much haha); mental illness will try to fuck up your lifestyle, so you have to eradicate the things that’ll let that happen in the first place. for example, like i said, my adhd tries to counteract my depression by making me hyperfixate and/or hyperfocus on something else to protect me from bad personal thoughts, and that’s good in theory (doing something you enjoy when you feel bad, to distract urself, is the number one most basic coping skill you learn), but i can’t do it in moderation, i let it run my life, and that’s made me worse in the long run. so i have to force myself out of that completely and not let myself fixate on things that make me happy in the short term, but don’t ultimately further me as a person. having fixations helped me through some awful times, but now i need to force myself to grow up, you know?

and while tumblr and other social media is an excellent way to indulge those fixations, it’s an aggressive enabler, in more ways than one. what i mean by that... okay, so while i’m the type of person who self-destructs while unhealthy, i do occasionally lash out. and i know some people completely explode rather than implode when they’re not doing well. and that’s how you get discourse, i think. because when mental illness makes us care much more about our interests than we ought to, and someone has a differing opinion about that interest, the instinct is of course to attack, if you’re that kind of person. i don’t think i am, but depression and boredom go hand in hand, and i might be inclined to care more about discourse than i would if i were healthy, purely because it’s entertaining and something to do.

that’s a long winded way of saying, while i stand wholeheartedly by my past positions, i do regret starting shit in the first place. i’m not the kind of person who genuinely cares about much and i have little to no sense of morality (im a chaotic neutral bastard), so the fact i was bored enough to start shit really goes against my character and says a lot about how bad i’ve been. so i apologize for all that. but, again, i think that's just what happens when something is truly your everything. and i think the chronic negativity of modern fandom is a result of how damn seriously we all take it, because we care so much and we’re so dependent. fandom’s supposed to be fun, but it’s just too damn stressful this way.

idk my point in sharing all this, but i do think it'd be cool if this kinda got yall thinking. even if you don't engage in discourse, if fandom is just one of your only consistent sources of happiness, that's not healthy either. we all gotta break out & exist more & louder & more positively. and unfortunately i think tumblr fandom (and maybe all modern fandom) is no longer a place that encourages positivity and health.

but for all my criticism, i do just wanna say how eternally grateful i am that i was fortunate enough to meet the people i call my best friends through tumblr. they're my family, truly, and all the bullshit in this fandom has been worth it simply because it brought them to me. i love them to death and i always will, even if interests change, even if we grow apart, even if we quit speaking entirely in the next few years, i love them with my whole heart in a way that transcends a simple fandom friendship and i'm so glad we bonded over sp in the first place. that’ll never change.

i will also always love south park itself. now that the cat's outta the bag about my hospital visit, i can brag about my most pathetic and obsessive accomplishment; the fact that i've never let circumstance stop me from watching a new south park as it airs, and i've now watched sp on 1) an airplane, and 2) in a psych ward. i win for most dedicated fan tbfh. dsjkf & i'll keep that tradition, and i'll still watch this stupid show til it ends! it'll always hold a special place in my heart, & kyman's still my most meaningful & long-term ship. i'll never stop loving it.

tl;dr

so, to recap; for 2020 i'm making myself step back from fandom (not just sp fandom, but fandom in general) and quit letting my world revolve around my fixations so i can enjoy the outside world a little more, mental illness be damned, and the first step is gonna be quitting tumblr. this blog won't be deleted and i may occasionally post (maybe when next season airs) but you're absolutely free to unfollow bc this'll be a mostly inactive blog. i’m also unfollowing everyone, so mutuals, please don’t take that personally.

i will, however, try to write more prolifically, bc fic writing is something i'm able to do in moderation & enjoy, and i hope to get back into it. so if you'd like, you can keep an eye out for any upcoming fanfic i may post - my ao3 is leere. i also have snapchat, instagram, & twitter my mutuals can ask for asap (bc ill be logging out for good by the afternoon of the 31st, which is tomorrow) - though i'm not very active on any of them. still, if you wanna have access to me, i’ll be there.

i want some connection to the fandom still, albeit without letting my life revolve around it, so i'll be starting a new open-to-the-public kyman discord server! the post with the invite for that will go up soon. nvm im too anxious

thank you for reading, thank you for the good times (thnks fr th mmrs), and i hope everyone has a good 2020!

#txt #mine

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alphabees-writes · 4 years

Text

Glee - S1 E4 (Preggers)

And from this moment onwards, Kurt Hummel proceeded to steal every single damn scene he was in. I’m actually unironically excited for this one. I didn’t think that could still happen! Here goes!

I will always love this Single Ladies scene. I will always love season 1′s Tina/Kurt friendship. Also, Brittany’s here, inexplicably. Did he pay her for this? In Pixie sticks, perhaps? Or Monopoly money?

“Kurt’s Superstar Playlist” is the most adorable name his playlist could possibly have. All we get to see on it are 4 Beyonce songs, and 1 Gwen Stefani - but it’s a cute little insight.

God sometimes I forget how cute Jenna Ushkowitz is and then this scene really slaps me round the face with it huh!!!

WHY are you filming this, Kurt? What are you using this for? I’d love to know. I’d say it’s just to check out his own dancing technique but it’s in black and white… Where are you posting this!!!

I want that swingy-suspended chair thing he has in his room sooooo bad

Ok now the fact that this is being filmed is giving me fic ideas…

BURT HUMMEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BURT F U C K I N G HUMMEL BABIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God the look of fear on all three of their faces when they see Burt??? Don’t you worry kids he’ll come around real soon…

Burt’s approving nod when he yanks on Kurt’s unitard… God I love this man.

The LOOK on Kurt’s FACE when Brittany says he’s on the football team… I can hear his inner monologue like “bitch we may be in the basement but I will make a window to throw you out of”

Kurt just wants to relate to his old man so bad :( Baby boy he’s already so damn proud of you!!! Also that LAUGH.

He really just slapped Tina’s ass! And she completely rolls with it, the absolute champion. Also, the subtitles Netflix provided me with were (smacks bottom) and I just love that.

Oh god it immediately cuts to the WORST scene. Terri learning to give birth. William Schuester trying to help. Just let me perish, RIB?

Shout out to Kendra’s actress for somehow managing to make her character even more despicable than Terri!

Actually the shit she says to Will here is almost valid… All three of them are fucking awful huh!

Seriously why are Kendra and Terri the best actresses on this whole show? It’s the only reason I care about this fake pregnancy arc anymore…

The teacher’s lounge is always either an arid, desolate wasteland, or the only watering hole within 100 miles where all the thirsty ass teachers congregate. Take your pick.

Why does Will pretend to hesitate before going to sit with Ken and Emma? They’re the only people we ever see you talk to dude!!!

Ken with the psychoanalysis, wow. Just hit her right there buddy!

THAT’S HOW SUE C’s IT!!!

Rachel really just EXPECTS every solo… I almost forgot how bad she was when she started. “Maria is MY part!” Not anymore!! Kudos to Lea Michele for managing to make Rachel really sound like she thinks she’s the victim when she really isn’t.

Tina’s face… She was seriously happy. Season 1 Rachel SUCKS for even trying to take this from her. She IS talented. She IS ready!

Everybody else knows it’s a fat load of BS… Kurt lowers his sunglasses to look at her like she’s a bug beneath his shoe. Also, Kurt, why sunglasses? You don’t start getting hangovers ‘til next episode, sweetie!!

“You’re trying to punish me” I think being a total martyr might be one of Rachel’s worst traits early on in the series. I get that performing is her deal, but she can’t even take a second to at least fake being happy for Tina? Unreal.

Everybody else just moving straight on with it is hilarious. They’re all so happy for Tina and don’t give a shit about Rachel’s melodrama, which I’m living for!

I wanna be all “Finn’s an arrogant bastard for assuming Kurt wanted to ask him to prom, grr!!” But then I remember Kurt’s canonically in love with him at this point, so I’ll let him off this time

Kurt’s devious little smile when he asks Finn for a favour… I love one (1) boy!

AHHH THE TRYOUT SCENE. INCREDIBLE. This might honestly be my favourite scene from season 1. It’s definitely up there, anyway.

Cute brotherly Furt moments. Finn putting that helmet on for him. “Red’s your colour!” And they DON’T make Kurt get all giggly about Finn just being nice to him? Kurt just telling him he’s really cool? Pure.

“Rehearsing–” “PRACTICING!”

Finn tells Kurt he’ll be murdered if he uses his music and Kurt comes straight back with that rum chocolate souffle line. This show would be NOTHING without Kurt.

And THIS is what I mean when I say Kurt was a Gryffindor from the get-go. Even now he’s refusing to be anything less than himself for anybody, even the jackasses that harass him every day when he’s on their pitch.

Shut the fuuuuuuuck up, Puck!

“Hi, I’m Kurt Hummel and I’ll be auditioning for the role of kicker.” What did we do to deserve him?

His starting pose… His hips… The footwork… “That was good, right?” His whole ATTITUDE. THE ROYAL WAVE.

As if the TV network would cancel Sue’s news segment for having a few Cheerios in the glee club?

Oh god. Quinn telling Finn she’s pregnant. The fucking cinematography here… The camera work, the audio mixing…

“Think of the mail… Think of the MAIL…”

Did Quinn seriously just say “Ask Jeeves” told her the hot tub could knock her up? I mean, I know she’s lying, but ASK JEEVES? That should’ve tipped Finn off more than anything else…

Damn. Season 1 really had the power to get me shook, laughing, and then crying in the span of 30 seconds? Or maybe it’s just because I can’t stand seeing Diana cry…

Sandy lets his kettle whistle for far too long, it stresses me out

Sue just… Offers this fired man a job? I know she’s got Figgins by the balls over the stockings commercial, but come on, surely the council would get involved or whatever???

Rachel sucks right now but god damn it Taking Chances gives me chills every time I hear her sing it… And she’s so cute when they tell her she got the lead!!!

If musical stuff is so frowned upon socially here, how are they expecting to get a full cast for Cabaret? Especially if NONE of the other glee kids are interested?

And there’s no funding for the arts but they have a whole ballet studio on school property…?

Sign #12 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: He just straight up tells Rachel that he’s the only person that likes her, which is wrong for so many reasons

He does have a point about Rachel needing to take a step back sometimes though. I hate that she’s so awful sometimes that I have to agree with Schuester.

He’s not HURTING you Rachel, he’s giving a chance to grow to somebody else!

Jenna did a beautiful job with this solo… Tina’s so cute too! I love her singing this sweet song with her goth aesthetic

This scene between Mr Schue and Tina was almost sweet BUT:

Sign #13 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: He did NOT need to touch Tina’s shoulders, or get that close, or whisper to comfort her.

Don’t take one for the team, Tina! Take one for YOURSELF!

I’ll let him hugging Finn slide because, wow, Finn’s breaking my heart right now…

However I will not let it slide that he’s seemingly taken him off campus for lunch…???? Dude, take him to your office. This is creepy as all hell even if he has good intentions…

“I got this at the school library. Did you know that you can just… Borrow books from there?” Protect him. Protect him at ALL costs. He was so genuinely inspired by watching Kurt make those goals that he went to a library for the first time in his LIFE oh my goodness

Oh god. The camera panning from a random father and his young son, over to Mr Schue looking at Finn? HE’S NOT YOUR SON MY GUY, HE IS YOUR PUPIL. PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES!!!

Terri and Will are both brushing their teeth with no toothpaste… Freaks…

Have I mentioned how much I adore those little background choir soundbites between scenes? They did so much for this show…

SHUT! UP! PUCK! Drink your fucking character development juice already!!!

Kurt just casually dropping in Sun Tzu’s Art of War… He just knows that. He’s prepared to just drop that in conversation. Son, why are you so ready for combat,

Also the way Kurt commands their attention? They can rag on him all they want but they all know he’s legit…

Look at all these doofuses in their football gear busting a move. Look at Kurt sat at the front just watching, judging, as he was born to do

MIKE! KILLING! IT! I love that they let us see a sneak peek of his moves… Serious HC that Kurt making the football team dance is the first time that Mike really got to show off his skills

Kurt shooing Mr Schue away like that gives me life!!! Sit down old man

“All right boys…” And they all look so concerned behind him lmao… “Oh– SNEAK ATTACK back to the ring…” Mike’s trying so hard to keep in time. I love him. OH and there’s Matt! Most valid glee club member simply because he never says anything.

“Comb through the hair… SLAP THE BUTT!” And they’re all trying so hard… 10/10

“I’m your best friend,” says Puck, to the boy he has been consistently fucking over for four (4) episodes, and presumably many years prior…

I really do hate Puck for the first part of this season but god damn does he have some lines. “’Sup, MILF?” “Well, CALL the Vatican! We got ourselves another ImMaCuLaTe CoNcEpTiOn!”

I remember the first time I heard the term “Lima Loser” but I didn’t know the show was set in a place called Lima (I would’ve been, like, 9) and I thought it was lime-a-loser. Like he was going to have limes thrown at him. And it was this big, serious threat…

How the FUCK did Terri get into Quinn’s car? Why is that never addressed? Like, ever? Quinn doesn’t even ASK?

Do this many people turn up to American high school sports events irl??? And do they really play the national anthem? That must get old

Why are all these football players 30… I’m so thirsty for realistic casting…

BURT’S HERE TO SEE HIS SON!!! We love a proud dad.

“I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU!!!” And now he’s doing high kicks. Kurt’s doing the absolute MOST.

I will never understand the rules of American football… And I mean NEVER.

“Ring on it on three” I love that it has a code name. And they were all too busy being dudebros to call it Single Ladies…

The one dude on the opposite team who starts boogying along is the real MVP

NEVERMIND. BURT BOPPING IN THE STANDS IS THE MVP!!!

“Can I pee first?” Legendary

Burt just going “he’s so little…” In the middle of the silent crowd…

MY BOY NEEDS HIS MUSIC!

BURT’S SO FUCKING PROUD I’M ACTUALLY CRYING??? YOU CAN HEAR HIM SHOUTING “THAT IS MY BOY!!! THAT IS MY SON!!!” THROUGH THE WHOLE CROWD!!!!

I feel like Puck seeing Finn and Quinn kiss and then the crowd going silent as he walks away is meant to make me feel… Bad for him…? But we’ve only ever seen him be mean to Quinn, really. You’ve got to earn those moments!

Ah… The skincare routine. He’s thriving.

Burt! Hummel! Is! Proud! Of! His! Son!

Burt… I’m pretty sure he assumed you wished his mother was alive. As opposed to her corpse being at the big game.

Oh boy here it comes…… Chris looks SO young here. So scared. So vulnerable. The way he slightly stutters… He nailed this scene. So much.

He’s gay!

He knows.

Do they make sensible heels in sizes for three year olds…? Asking for a dad

The raw EMOTION on Kurt’s face. It’s killing me.

This is the starting point… “I’m not in love with the idea, but I love you.” And it only gets better from there…

And he THANKS his SON. He’s sure. He’s so sure, Burt, and you are going to be so proud of him forever.

Finn gives Quinn that blanket his dad gave him when he was a baby… Did she give it back? I fucking hope so…

You tell him, Finn! Puck IS an asshole!

MIKE’S IN GLEE!!! SO IS MATT!!! And Puck’s here I guess, yay… He’s got a season or so of sucking to go before I can get excited about that.

“Regionals” here we come? My guy, let’s get through sectionals first…

Rachel’s big, cruel smile when she thinks she’s going to be handed Tina’s solo. Why would she presume that it’d just get handed to her??? I mean, I know why, but like, why… And she has the audacity to look like she’s been betrayed. Not even slightly, hon! You deserve nothing if not getting one solo is all it takes for you to quit!

This Sue’s corner genuinely gets me through some shit. “There’s not much of a difference between a stadium full of cheering fans and an angry crowd screaming abuse at you - they’re both just making a lot of noise. How you take it is up to you. Convince yourself they’re cheering for you. You do that, and someday, they will.” Hits me hard!

This one was longer. Primarily because of Burt, I will admit, but it can’t be helped. Perhaps it’s the best episode of season 1 because of Burt! Now that’s a break through…

#Glee #Glee Season 1 #Rosie watches things and then says things about the thing

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serenagaywaterford · 5 years

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Hello, I really don’t know who to talk to but I’m realizing I’m a lesbian after identifying as bisexual since 2016, I came out to my parents and they’re both supportive and happy for me. I’m a highschooler and it’s awkward being gay and no one knowing as ppl tease me to date my guy friends. Any tips or advice in general on being a lesbian? It’s still so weird to talk about but I wanna grow to be very open with my sexuality

Been there. (I used to insist I was straight (for YEAAAAARS I was with the same guy), then bisexual cos I thought I had to be since I was “straight” and not particularly conflicted about it for so long. So it’s a process and a journey getting here no matter what, and everyone takes different routes.) And I’ll be honest, you’re way ahead of the game already. Good for you and you should be proud and happy with yourself for being so self-aware and in touch with yourself. That takes a lot of insight and courage.

I think generally… people will say a lot of things but until you are comfortable being around your friends and family as yourself, it’s never going to be easy. It’s not easy when you’re out either but at least you’re not stuck hiding who you are and adding that level of tension to every interaction. To be honest, I was never particularly comfortable with myself. Not even when I got married to another woman. (My issues with the institution of marriage aside…) But in my job I basically am forced to come out daily to complete strangers, constantly, with the words “my wife”. It gets way, way easier and I’m lucky enough to be in a place and a position that affords me that freedom. Not everyone is.

Are the people teasing you your friends? I mean, high school fucking sucks. I don’t even care how people want to romanticise it after the fact, or in media, or whatever. Even the best experiences are littered with a bunch of drama. We’re all idiots in high school and we all treat our friends like shit half the time, even our best friends. I didn’t have a bad time in high school. In fact, I’d say it was pretty good overall. (I wouldn’t do it again, mind you.) But still, the shit you put up with from friends is just excessive, and also the shit you give friends–or at least the shit I gave my friends lol. It’s just so… ugh.

So, I mean, without knowing much more about the situation, I would confide in my good friends. Unless, for some reason that endangers you in some way. And yes, unlike some hardcore people, I do think social ostracization in high school is damaging. I don’t buy into the whole “Well, if they don’t like it fuck them, all you need is you!” cos that’s bullshit. You DO need friends in high school, even if they’re not perfect friends, even if you won’t stay friends with them in a few years. Having social support is incredibly important and to be alienated completely is lonely and leaves you vulnerable, and you miss out on stuff too. I mean, if your friends are complete total assholes, then by all means, drop them cos that won’t help and you may be better off alone, but if they’re only sort of annoying, well… That’s life, lol. Until you get out of the fishbowl of high school and people being to calm the fuck down about every tiny drama, there aren’t a lot of options. I found my best friends annoying af sometimes, and some of them had views on certain subjects that fucking pissed me off. But hey, at the end of the day, we still got along and had a bond, and worst came to worst almost all of them would be there for me, and me for them, despite some differences.

Are those the type of friends you have? Or do you think your friends would turn on you if you confided in them?

It’s so lonely to hold onto a secret like that, and constantly put up with what I’m sure they think is harmless teasing about boys. It can hurt you, and god, it’s fucking irritating on top of everything else. And, I hate to say this, but that sort of thing NEVER ENDS. It gets less and less, but I’m literally married to a woman for like 2 years now and a dude friend of ours just last week asked us if maybe we both just hadn’t found the right men yet. And on the subject of sex, he said, “Well, how do you know if you haven’t tried it?” to my wife. Interestingly, she is not a gold star and knows very well what hetsex is like (she fucking HATES it on every imaginable level), but she’s just never volunteered that information for public consumption. Still, as you can see, you’ll always have stupid imbecile friends who say stupid ass comphet shit to your face, even when you are blatantly a lesbian. Unfortunately, it one of those things you just have to… learn to deal with. I hate that we must.

I know that’s not exactly helpful or hopeful, but it’s reality. So these dumb friends of yours, maybe they’re not doing it to be hurtful or annoying, they just genuinely think you like boys. There’s only really one solution to get them to stop (and even that isn’t going to be a guarantee) and that’s to come out to them–only if you can. Tell them how it makes you feel. Share with them what you’ve said to me. It’s hard enough to exist as a lesbian right now, let alone having to hide and be shamed for it. Friends should get that. But all of them may not…

I had one friend who was super open with her “sexuality” (she’s an attention whore, lbr.) who, when I told her finally that I think I wanted a girlfriend, she was super supportive. Then when the group of them were going to a gay club, I said I’ll tag along and she told me no. And her exact words: “You look too straight. Nobody will talk to you and I don’t want people to think I’m straight too.” (SHE IS STRAIGHT, just for the record. But she likes to steal girls’ boyfriends by doing threesomes, pretending to be into girls, threesomes, and poly, and then manipulating the boys into dumping their gfs. She also likes to breakup girlfriends just to prove she can. She has NEVER been in a relationship with a woman, only breaks lesbian couples up and then fucks off. She tried it with me and my girlfriend once. Nice friend. Just so we all know what she’s like.)

Note: These were my high school friends, and I was in my mid-20s at this point. We’d been friends for over a decade. And they still said shit like that. (And I mean, in some way, I get it cos when we’d go out to non-gay spots I’d get picked up by men CONSTANTLY, and women never looked at me that way. It was super aggravating.)

Which, it turns out, was her way of saying “You’re competition and I don’t want you around.” (and she’s obsessed with stereotypes), cos when I started going to gay clubs and parties with other friends who weren’t douchebags about it, NOBODY judged me like that. And I remember meeting my wife for the first time and telling her that story and she was just like “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR FRIENDS?! You do look super straight but I like you and I’m super gay”. And then she took me to a lesbian bar, and I didn’t change a thing about myself, and was picked up by all sorts of girls, and really hit it off with the cutest butch girl I’ve ever seen to this day. (It didn’t end up going anywhere but still, it was nice to learn that sometimes your friends are just insecure assholes.) It really is dependent on who they are, where you live, etc. etc. And those are only things you know. I can’t comment on what the best course of action is without knowing the nitty gritty.

SO, that’s a long way of saying, people suck. Even your friends sometimes. It’s going to be difficult for a while as you weed those sorts of people out of your life. Being an open lesbian is rocky, especially at first when everything is sorta all over the place. But it does settle down, and you make better friends. And since your parents are supportive that is a HUGE hurdle you don’t have to deal with, which is absolutely AMAZING :) It’s so nice to hear.

But if you’re not able to come out and get support IRL, that’s fine too. My advice is what you’ve already done :) Come online and reach out to older lesbians. They’re the ones with the experience. If it wasn’t for the older lesbians in my life (either online or IRL that I met, including my wife), I’d be so much more insecure. I would probably still be walking around feeling a lot of shame, embarrassment, anxiety, shyness, confusion, etc.

But there’s something comforting about talking with women who have lived the same struggles, and hear about all the paths they all took and the ways they’ve dealt with specific issues. And they’re generally more calm, more realistic, and more compassionate than other baby dykes who aren’t in a privileged, secure position yet. Not that there is anything wrong with bonding with others of the same age. That is also INCREDIBLY important because those experiences will directly reflect your own, and there’s built-in support with peers. The things older lesbians have been through may not translate as well for you. A lot of us didn’t have the same pressures of social media, etc. But we also didn’t have the same online resources available either. So, it’s an interesting balance. I will say my friendship with my best friends from university (one is a lesbian too, one is straight as an arrow but a huge ally) are just as important cos age is a factor.

You can get insight from older women, but you need peer bonds too.

Online I think is very important nowadays, especially when you’re not able to go to spaces like gay clubs and bars yet. And surround yourself with positive lesbian representation. If that whole soft cottagecore thing does it for you, keep that in your orbit. But also never be ashamed or fearful of the sexual part of your sexuality. Just like it’s natural to romantically love women, it’s natural for lesbians to physically love them too.

I feel like as toxic overall as tumblr is, there are corners of it that have been incredibly supportive and nurturing even to me. Especially lesbian positivity blogs and women’s arts, etc. Poetry written by lesbians is beautiful and inspiring to me. It’s a whole genre I had no idea existed, and that has given me a great deal of peace because I can finally relate to words. Music, written and performed by gay and bisexual women is the same. It may seem trivial or cheesy, but it’s powerful to hear about women like you in songs. I have to say Mary Lambert, for one example, helped so much. I remember listening to Alix Olson in secret too when I was much younger (maybe that should have been something of a hint to myself, lol.) King Princess and Girl In Red are current faves, Saara Aalto, Shura and Brandi Carlile are a constant faves I always love (not that I even knew that about Brandi’s sexuality til recently cos I apparently live under a fucking rock lol), but I have whole lists now and it’s wonderful to have taht access.

When you’re all alone, seeking out lesbian musicians and writers can make so much difference in easing that isolation, and confusion, and fear. They speak to you and about us, as a whole. It’s affirming and less lonely.

Same goes for well-written fanfiction. Things that avoid the drama of fandom (cos there’s so much drama even when you have canon f/f pairings), because fandom is really just microcosms of society at large with all the same morons in it. But fanfic was such an escape where I could learn and explore all the things that most everywhere wouldn’t show me. TV shows touched on it (especially back 10 years ago there was like nothing), but fanfic made it real.

Even when you’re feeling secure, I think it still helps to have all the representation we can, and just… you know, revel in it.

Do not watch porn. Don’t. It’s awful and horrible and not at all realistic. A well-written fanfic by actual gay or bi women is way more helpful. Avoid porn at all costs. It will never teach you anything your body doesn’t already know about how to be with a woman (although I’m sure for you this isn’t a pressing concern at the moment). I just know that I made the mistake of it, and also stupid ass magazine/how to articles. Ignore ALL that junk. When you get a girlfriend there’s only ONE thing you need to know how to do, and that is communicate honestly. Everything else falls easily into place.

When you say it’s so weird to talk about it, I feel that. It took me YEARS to even really be able to comfortably say the word, especially in relation to myself. That feeling will pass. It’ll take time and don’t push yourself into any sort of thing you’re not ready for. You’ll feel weird about it probably, and that’s on society, not you. “Lesbian” still does have a stigma attached to it that a lot of people are afraid of or dismissive of. Just… try your best to tune that out. That’s all you can do. You’ll feel comfortable eventually. :) Give it time. You’re already doing well. The fact you can say it to me, even as anon, is beautiful.

You’ll be very open one day if that’s what you want and being a lesbian, and being seen as one, will be second nature. I mean if I think about myself at 20 and now, there’s a very big difference. I used to shy away from so many things, and dress particular ways to avoid things, now I’m definitely not giving nearly as many fucks. Also, I’ll say here that I own a bar. It’s not a gay bar, but almost every day we’re open, at least one lesbian couple will come in. And honestly my heart grows so big and warm every single time. (Gay men come in too, ofc.) But there’s something particularly ecstatic in me that I get to see that everyday. (I don’t actually have many gay friends at all.) I love the openness and acceptance and comfort. And I love telling people there that I own it with my wife, and see people’s faces light up. (Some don’t… but, meh, that’s real life too. I’ve had a few shitty fucking people come in too.) There are a lot more lesbians and bi girls around than we probably know. :)

You are not alone. Even if it’s only talking to people online, you’re never alone.

And never get discouraged that other people seem to having an easier or better time at it. Everyone moves differently, and for some it is easier, some it’s way more difficult but that doesn’t mean you need to pressure yourself, or change. I took my way exceptionally slowly and awkwardly, but ya get there eventually if you surround yourself with genuine people.

It sounds cliche but it does get easier talking about yourself as a lesbian as long as you surround yourself with positive lesbian content/people, and it takes practice (sometimes a lot of it as I’ve learnt), especially dealing with internalized stuff. But you’ll get there. You’re still super young and you have so much ahead. :D

I don’t have specific personal advice about how to handle it all in high school cos I didn’t have to deal with that. Just that there’s a whole world outside high school, even though it may not feel that way sometimes. If you’re in a small town or in a country where it’s not accepted, you’ll have a harder time finding love but it is ALWAYS possible, somehow. Never feel like there is nobody at all. There is. There’s some cute, hot, smart, interesting girl somewhere that will be into you as much as you’re into her. It’s just a matter of time til you find each other. If nothing else, in the mean time, you can form friendships and bond with people online in various ways.

I wish somebody had told me in my teen years that it’s possible to be in love with a woman, that I’m going to kiss girls one day and suddenly everything else is going to make sense and feel right after so long of things not quite fitting together, that it’s just as possible to be fulfilled with a woman as it is with a man. I wish someone would have told me I’d be loved by a woman in ways that nothing else would ever match. That I’d touch women and feel at peace with myself, and being intimate with them will change my whole life, and it’s something I was meant to do and feel. That loving women will help me love myself in a way that I never realised, and that just goes back and forth forever cos if you love yourself, loving other people is so much easier. And not to fight that cos I’m too scared to face the not so nice parts about being out. Bad shit is gonna happen no matter what, but better stuff will make up for it. I wish someone had told me that “lesbian” isn’t a bad word (I grew up with a lot of homophobia everywhere, including my family), and that I will cringe when people call me that initially but that should force myself to use it at first, cos it’ll get way better and feel right the sooner that happens. It is what I am, and I can’t avoid it forever. Own it. Cos as soon as you do, the sooner they can’t use it against you the same way anymore. But nobody said any of that to me.

And never, ever let anybody ever guilt, shame, manipulate, or pressure you into anything you don’t feel is right for you or your body. You’ll feel it deep down what you want and need, and what you don’t want and don’t need. Don’t ignore that. Don’t let anybody talk, guilt, scare, or shame you out of that. It may be hard but you already seem very strong and self-aware.

You’re not thinking wrong, you’re not made wrong. There’s a lot of that around in our society and lesbophobia is very alive still, everywhere.

You don’t need to find the “right man”. Ever. There’s no perfect high school boyfriend waiting for you if you’re a lesbian. There’s a girlfriend waiting for you. More than one, probably! You’ll love many women throughout your life and they’ll return it back to you. You’ll have friends that love you and support you. And when you say, “I’m a lesbian” it’ll roll off your tongue as easily as your name. Or your wife’s name. :) And you won’t feel any twinges of awkwardness or shame.

I wish you nothing but love and kindness, anon. Xx

And, also, anybody can ask me anything, btw. I generally really fucking suck with advice but my askbox is always here, if anybody needs it.

#Anonymous #baby lesbians are my fav precious beans and i am here for you 100000%#tho i am hardly an expert tbh. just an idiot finding her way through it all too.#long post

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just-ornstein · 6 years

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Update on Life

Hey guys, I think an explanation to what has been going on lately might be a good idea for a lot of you. I’ve been rather inactive on a lot of social media and sometimes it might have even felt to some of you people that I ignored you, which is far from what I want. So here are a few things I want to make clear so all of you get a bit of an insight in what has been keeping me busy lately!

Intern has lately been the top priority of my life. I’ve been working a lot, sometimes even overworking to get things done because I want to have some things finished for when the next intern takes over for me. My intern has been very pleased with me and my work and I will continue to do small tasks for them whenever they need a helping hand. Working in the game industry is a dream come true and I couldn’t have asked for anything better, but to get a job in this industry or heck, even an intern, you need to be at the top of your carrier. You need to be hard working, assertive, a good team worker, willing to do extra things and of course be very good at art. They’re fine if you still need to learn things, but they most definitely expect you to be very motivated and have at least basic skills with everything. Keeping up to with the game industry is A LOT of hard work, what you learned today is already old by tomorrow. Besides, I’m keeping in contact with a lot of the artists and writers from really big companies, because connections are very important and can be very useful as well. Sending them my work for feedback and getting plenty of feedback back can be very useful. Especially when the companies genuinely want to see you grow. My intern takes up almost my entire weeks and so does the work that comes with that which is: Connections with other people, sending letters for my second intern, asking for feedback, working on my portfolio, improving my art, long travel hours. And with this all together I’m only left with so much free time to spend, especially since in this 5 months, I only took 1,5 week off for myself. My summer break starts at the end of next week, so from then on out I’ll have more time to focus on some things. I still need to get some work done this and next week and besides that I need to hand in my essay next week as well, so eh, I need to do a lot of stuff for that too.

Due to most of this I’ve been focusing a lot on in real life stuff because it’s just so much more important. I got this wonderful opportunity to make from my hobby my work and I want to work as hard as I can to get there. Right now I have 3 companies who are interested in my in the second school year, next week I have another intake conversation, and as anxious as I am I’m also super excited because this is one of the biggest game companies of the Netherlands. The other two are smaller companies, but also very interesting. And I can’t wait to hear what they have to say so I can make a choice.

Besides that, the last couple of months haven’t been too good when it came to my mental health either. I won’t go to deep on about it because I don’t feel like this is the right place to do such thing but it got to a point where I even took other people in that feeling, not the right people for that matter. I started to talk less to my irl friends, to my partner, my family and I did some things that I deeply regretted. While they should have been the people to hear about that first. Eventually things went wrong, mistakes were made from all sides and everyone got hurt in the process. I felt like a mess for an entire week and things got especially bad, especially since nothing seemed to be going as planned either for a while. But due to this I started to focus on the things that really did matter, I became more active, I started to speak more to the people who are close to me, I started to work even harder than I already did. And as exhausted I am now and as much as I can’t wait for summer break, it was all worth it in the end. I learned some very important lessons and oddly enough... It worked. I don’t ask questions about everything anymore, neither do I take everything as personal anymore. Often I just stare at something, maybe it affects me for a couple of hours and then I move on. A bad taste can continue to remain in my mouth but often it’s fine.

Besides that, as much as I know it’s impossible, my head kept telling me that everyone should like me and due to that I tried to talk to every person that I met all the time. You can imagine how draining this can be, because no one can be friends with everyone. Most of these events made me realize that as well and to a big extend I just stopped caring. In the end we are all just people chatting behind a laptop, we will never get the same intimate friendships one can get with an irl person because we’ll never hear each others voices, see our faces, body language or be able to hug each other. It’s not impossible, and I do deeply care about a few of the people I met online, but those are a handful and most of them I’ve known for a while, long enough so we both understand how we work. I started to be less online where it’s not necessary and started to focus on the people and things that do truly matter, even more than before. And it worked to a great extend.

I don’t like to ignore people when they send me messages, but just know that when you send one and I do not reply for a while, I’m either very busy with focusing on these things or I’m just socially drained and need some time to think of something and sometimes I can’t. But I do always read the messages that I get!

Keeping a negative mindset is very easy compared to a positive mindset and it can be extremely draining to do so. But I noticed in the past few weeks that when you think positive, try positive things and work as hard as possible on improving yourself and sharing that positivity with people, you’ll get a lot more back for it, a lot more satisfaction as well. Those are some very important life lessons that I learned and I’m glad that I did sooner or later, because sometimes you have to get a serious wake up call to be able to do that... And I’m glad that, that happened to me when I was at the deepest point in what felt like an endless pit.

I’ve had an art trade running with @nightmaredaisy and @mamoon26 way longer than I wanted to work on things. But often things and stress just got to my head so I couldn’t really focus on my personal art because I already draw so much for my intern. But soon I’m done with my essay and my intern for this year and then summer break starts and I can finally put all my attention on those long awaited pieces of you two! I’m sorry that it took so long and just know that I didn’t forget about it, just a lot of these things have been going on lately that made it nearly impossible for me to focus. If you want to change the idea for the trade, you can still send me a pm, I don’t mind. If you want me to still do the same idea, I can do that as well! :)

For the people who read this entire text, thank you for listening haha.

#lizzy speaks #long post

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schwinns2ndlaw · 7 years

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listening through a new brain (2015)

prologue: frogs have so much spring:

homeless lady/grace singing in the prologue reminds me about how she, being homeless and really having nothing, ties together this theme of mortality, and life’s strangeness, and being grateful for what you have despite the circumstances.

gordon hasn’t “finish[ed] one song,” so i wonder how long he’s been employed with mr bungee

rhoda and gordon’s bickering/conversation feels really familiar between them. i wonder how long they’ve been friends; i hope since college,,, i have a lot of love for rhoda being the pillar of Work Ethic and advice and support and being a little bit bossy

prologue: 911 emergency/i have so many songs:

from the second song bill finn sets up a picture of normal gay culture (ex: the reality of having to worry about hiv, “mr bungee’s homophobic”) and i have so much love for how candid and unapologetic he is about telling lgbt stories. he is gay and jewish and goddamn his work is gay and jewish and that’s beautiful

heart and music:

i love what they did with the transition from i have so many songs to heart and music with the pulse ox.

also i gotta love the classic bill finn rhyme of horses & divorces. fucking iconic

one thing here that distinguishes anb from his other works, is, i think, how the songs are structured as an album. though falsettos and a new brain are both sung through, a new brain’s core songs are much more apparent, the first of which being heart and music. also bc they’re the only ones on the obc album but still. it’s interesting to see how he handles transition songs in a new brain. imo, the transitions in anb are weaker than his other shows: falsettos is more continuous, and 25th annual putnam county spelling bee has a different format (there’s dialogue), plus has transitions for comedic purposes (the goodbye songs)

mother’s gonna make things fine:

mother’s gonna make things fine has a manic comedic quality to it and ana gasteyer pulls it off really well. i esp like her blocking for that part

trouble in his brain:

“the invincibility of gordon michael schwinn” is a really interesting line to me. mimi and rhoda both say it — it’s a well known thing among those who know gordon. i wonder if this ties into gordon’s well-known desire to have a [musical] legacy or if it’s applied to other parts of his life?

be polite to everyone:

be polite to everyone is kind of a jam for a hallucination. i like jonathan groff’s acting choices in it (in the boot) that further clarify that he’s hallucinating because im dumb and found anb at like 1am a while back and didn’t get things at first. i just… accepted that mr bungee was there tbh

i’d rather be sailing:

the instrumentals in i’d rather be sailing are so soothing. it’s 11pm and aaron lazar is singing me a lullaby and all is right in the world. god, what charming, gorgeous voice, and what stellar execution. i have such a soft spot for aaron lazar after his performance in a new brain; it’s a charming role and he pulls it off with such decorum and sincerity. also i just fucking love roger. okay i was going to analyze this bit but it’s just a really sweet love song and i sometimes think about how this is the closest thing that william finn has written to a love song for his partner, and like,,, Y’all I Love This Song

(also. the piano [though it’s not marked as a specific dynamic in the sheet music] high note he sings at the end is stellar.)

family history:

family history is honestly really funny. that’s all

gordo’s law of genetics:

i love the slight changes to this arrangement in the revival recording but i will not rest until “why is the smart son always the gay son?” “schwinn’s second law” is put back in the recording. i wonder why they cut that?

also the blocking in this part is super cute i love the rolling chair and jonathan’s conducting and “air drums”

and they’re off:

i binge listened to and they’re off and then set it as my alarm and now I’m a little tired of it and that makes me sad :’(

STILL it’s a BOP and i love the rhyming in it and everyone sounds so good. this song is overlooked in its exposition of mimi; it gives insight to the circumstances that shaped her as a person. and they’re off gives an explanation behind her anger at gordon’s fatalistic behavior

last note for and they’re off: groff’s vocals are great here - i can feel the love he has for this song and this score

roger arrives:

i love roger arrives for all of the character dynamics it brings

roger is: -loved by all (“hallelujah” - mimi, which, like, same) -looking fit -damned appropriate -a strong emotional pillar -a dreamboat, and that’s the tea!

roger and gordon’s first irl interaction is so comical and quirky and real. i’m a little peeved they omitted rogers “no” (and a few other phrases from the performance) in response to gordon asking if he left after he found out. the first time i listened through i thought roger might’ve actual left afterwards and was ready to throw hands

roger rolls with gordon’s insanity with such stride and :’)

the whole “he looks good”/“he looks pale”/“he looks better” showcases everyone’s different outlooks on the situation and god knows i live for characterization through song

ROGER’S LITTLE STINT/IMPLICATION IN “GO GET DINNER. ROGER HAS ARRIVED” IS FUNNY HONESTLY. there was a youtube performance i watched where the roger - idr which video - emphasized this joke more. it was hilarious and i wish aaron lazar had leaned into that a bit

just go:

i love how unique roger and gordon’s dynamic is. it feels quirky and unique and real and honestly. also the two get some gorgeous melodic lines and harmonies

“sometimes when you talk, i feel so damn woozy” roger wins at romance

tl;dr gordon: you will get these hands if you stay roger: love you too

mri tomorrow:

LET ME JUST TALK ABOUT “time to go to sleep. you’ll be brave as zorro” I HAVE NO IDEA WHETHER BILL FINN USED ZORRO AS A DESPERATE RHYME (PROBABLY) BUT I LOVE THE IDEA THAT ROGER IS AN OLD SCHOOL COMICS NERD

also in the boot, gordon just gives roger a /look/ after saying this and i love it. he probably uses outdated phrases of speech too

poor, unsuccessful, and fat:

JOSH LAMON IS A COMEDIC FORCE

“my sister is a receptionist” bill finn. where is gordon’s sister? what is she doing (besides being a receiptionist)? her brother’s in the hospital c’mon

“thank you for coming/ thank you for going” another example of this sort of underhanded humor. i like the sort of theme around Visitors in the hospital room and the people you surround yourself with in crisis

sitting becalmed in the lee of cuttyhunk:

sitting becalmed in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in the lee in

i desperately need someone to make an edit where “in the lee” never ends it’d be so unsatisfying and i’d love it

“oh yeah fuck it i hate the sun” jonathan groff does a really good job of portraying sarcastic characters,, this role suits him so well

HOW MUCH COMPLAINING DO YOU THINK ROGER HEARS ON THE DAILY THOUGH

“we got the picture” “i get the picture!/that wasn’t bad at all” i actually like this though??? like the first inklings of gordon’s epiphany at the end & him valuing life for what it is

this cast all has such great voices

crainiotomy:

I LOVE THAT FUN HOME WAS THE SHOW THE DOCTOR WENT TO IN THE REVIVAL. MY LESBIAN ASS IS SO HAPPY ALSO HOW OLD ARE THE DOCTOR’S KIDS IF THEY’RE SEEING CHICAGO

an invitation to sleep in my arms:

one of my favorite songs on the album.

the orchestrations behind it are really soothing and there are the most gorgeous harmonies at 2:27. desperately need someone to duet this with

whenever “mr music” is mentioned i think of like some 7 year old running around in a magician’s hat using a magic wand as a conductor’s stick

rhoda means so well

“i get distracted so damn easily” cut to gordon not being able to write a note of a song as soon as roger walks in. also cut to gordon forgetting what he was supposed to be writing also imo gordon probably has adhd

give roger and gordon more duets, or at least treasure the ones they get… that’s all i ask

ALSO I LOVE HOW FAMILY ORIENTED MIMI IS, like she is such an advocate for the belief that life is worth living and worth treasuring the important people in your life

also, the interactions between rhoda and mimi are some of my favorite

change:

such a good solo for high voices??? super fun and belty

i love that bill finn writes women just as dimensional as his other characters (though i wish he wrote more female-headed works i suppose. that’s just a hope of mine in general though)

the yes song:

the yes song takes me on like 7 different emotional arcs

“or when someone says “would you like to lose your virginity”/someone with whom you have no affinity” sondheim is SHAKING

“yes i will go to my grandparents to israel” is a line that can only really be appreciated by watching it goddamn

WHERE IS HIS SON??????

in the middle of the room (part i):

sometimes i think about how jonathan groff got into a car accident during the lyric “and i’m waiting for a car to come along and kill me”…. like how ICONIC???

ana sounds so concerned and on the border of falling apart in the recording i love talent

throw it out:

throw it out is a really versatile song,, like the tenderness at the beginning, the later comedic aspect of mimi desperately trying to find something to blame for gordon’s illness.

“‘HOW TO MEET A SAILOR’ GOOD SON” IM GENUINELY CRYING WITH LAUGHTER IG WE ALL KNOW HOW ROGER AND GORDON MET I LOVE A LYRIC

in the middle of the room (part ii)

this bit is so frantic. also it scared the shit out of me in the production when they brought out that drill oh my god

a really lousy day in the universe:

HEY THIS IS ILLEGAL ESP IN THE BOOT HE LOOKS LIKE HE’S ABOUT TO CRY

that aside, it’s a very pretty song

also, the fact that a new brain is partially autobiographical is wild??? like, bill finn’s partner had a therapy session with a homeless lady. what a wild conversation to relay back to him tbh

brain dead:

more commonly known as the resident banger of the anb ost

i don’t have a ton to say about this but lesbians (myself) do love a song that slaps

jonathan groff NAILS the phrase “what i am” it’s Gorgeous

the music still plays on:

mimi is such an incredible character don’t sleep on her wtfff

i think that the music still plays on gives a really interesting perspective both into mimi’s life, especially with the lines, “i was brash; i was bold,” and “married too young, and divorced far too old”

“the music still plays on… as my men depart” i think this line is interesting in that it emphasizes that mimi doesn’t want to be left alone. her divorce really affected her — it’s mentioned several times and she’s regretful. and right after it she feels stupid for feeling vulnerable. we see that later in the song, and the theme shifts into moving on, as the music (& life) still plays on

don’t give in:

hey so don’t give in is so fucking cursed both because of the beginning and jonathan groff mumbling “spaghetti”

you boys are gonna get me in such trouble:

RICH IS UHHH UNDERRATED

love the sound effects

title is Too Fucking Long

i’d rather be sailing (reprise):

“i choose to live” is such a powerful statement. it actually reminds me of the foreward to one of our choral pieces, named after the poem “invictus”

the lyrics “i am the master of my fate. i am the captain of my soul" from “invictus”, and the remark “just as death is inevitable, so is life” remind me so strongly of this reprise

the homeless lady’s revenge:

“i feel about eight”/ “don’t hyperventilate out on the street, normal, lively, and sweet” i love A Dynamic

“the life is wonderful”s are so nice… their voices blend so nicely

“half these books with my name on the cover”/“some with the name of your lover” i can’t believe mimi threw out ROGER’s books too oh my god. also a shared library…. sweet

roger’s attempt to persuade grace is very charming and her reaction is priceless and i love it so much. grace is such a chaotic force (insert prayer hands emoji x100)

also gordon’s “what!?”

the vocal arrangements in this is really nice in that everyone has in character, funny reactions, but the song still has lovely melodies and still feels like a song, not a filler. william finn really out here writing conversational theater at its peak. i definitely like these songs of his (like roger arrives, an invitation) because they don’t really get old and are so full of character

time:

“i give you time to value what you’ve found”

also let roger say “my love” not “my friend” oh my godddd

time and music:

yet again, a new brain showcases the beauty that is jonathan groff’s and aaron lazar’s vocal blend

and wow the vocal arrangements during the last half of time and music! holy shit! and it doesn’t even let up during the end of i feel so much spring!

i love the end of this show; its message is so hopeful honest

tl;dr listen to a new brain and talk to me about anb i have so many thoughts

#a new brain #william finn #musicals #jonathan groff #anb #mine #nobody asked for this but here i am.... desperate for anb content so im making it myself

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mmtruooao · 6 years

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So my gf has been increasingly aggressive lately. Like picking fights over nothing and perpetuating them when I try to concede and let her have her way. She used to be physically abusive, and I’m afraid she’ll start again again if I can’t learn to defuse her anger when she gets like that. I don’t have a any friends I can talk to about it (I’m a guy and my closest friends would just tell me to “Nut up”) I’m know I have to leave, but I’m just not in the headspace to do that rn. Advice?

I've never been in an abusive situation, but my girlfriend speaks from experience, her advice is "get the fuck out". I'd rather like... Say something that might impact y'all a bit more and offer more insight. If you can, I would try to get into therapy (online or in person), which can be expensive, but it can help a lot with building coping mechanisms, support networks, and just generally be a safe place to talk, explore your feelings, and learn about yourself.I would suggest trying to get a few close people, and keeping them around you a lot, but since your friends would be rude... Make more? Generally, girls are more open to feelings talk, so, tell some friendly girls about your situation, or ask them if they would like to hang out. It doesn't have to be a date or whatever, but totally go to a park or a store and dick around. It's really not weird at all for opposite genders to be friends.It can also act as a transitionary period. Spend time building relationships so that you're not around your partner and take more time building your support network. Go to your friends when things are bad, when you need company, when you need a hug, and be there for them when they need emotional support. If your family is supportive, you can talk to them about it too. (This could be online peeps, in my experience it's hard to build as strong of a relationship online but there's definitely people that will support you and help out, if it's not something you can find irl. Betterhelp is a fairly cheap therapy app, but if you can't go to a therapist at all, find another way to get your feelings out. Rant in YouTube comments, talk to old people (I asked some kind of like, old people advice blog whether I should stay in my first relationship, I didn't get the answer for a while, but it helped me feel better when they said no, you shouldn't be with someone that much older than you as a kid)Now... There's a billion ways you could leave her, but please, please, please recognize that you need to. I believe you have potential to be a lovely person, and being physically+emotionally abused will do nothing positive in your life. The longer you stay, the less resistant you feel, and the more power they hold over you. A relationship should be a thing where you can relax, have fun, laugh and explore, and there are rough spots in most relationships, but that needs to be solved by open, friendly communication, not by manipulation or anger.Storytime: There was a dude I knew in high school, we weren't close, but he was just a generally super nice person. He started dating this girl I think, a year or two before I even met him, and they were still dating when they graduated high school. But then I met a friend (my current girlfriend) who knew them better and talked to them regularly, and I found out his girlfriend was abusive. She had plenty of excuses, that it was her mom's fault, that she had mental illness, but none of it could have excused her behaviors. She never tried to get help to leave her mom or get therapy or medication for her shit. She just wanted to use the boyfriend. He worked a full time customer service job to support an apartment so that the daughter and the mom could live with him, along with their (way too many, I think like 6 or 8) animals, and several of them were aggressive to him, so he never even felt safe in his apartment. Eventually (after about six years) he left her, and then they got back together, and broke up, a few times, but eventually they broke up permanently.This shit is not just some high school romance gone bad, it is genuinely life ruining, and it happens every single day. You need to get out so you don't end up feeling permanently stuck with your abuser. I understand that it can feel horrible, like you're making some massive mistake, like you're never going to be happy if you leave. Thing is, our brains are real funky and oftentimes, we get dependent on people, whether they're shitty or not, just because they're close to us. After you leave, that feeling of sadness will pass, and you'll be left with a space in your life. Utilize that space. Pick up a hobby, a job if you're old enough, explore your passions, work on staying alive and healthy. Listen to a lot of songs to keep your brain busy, different styles, fun and sad music.It's not easy, trying to leave someone, even if you know you need to, but it is generally necessary. You're never going to be happy with someone who shouts at you, blames you, guilts you. Do what's best for your life and future.

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captainjackssingalongblog · 7 years

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And then you let me down. Unlike IMDb, I give this one a solid 6. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. It’s a solid OK. There are a number of reasons for this, including but not limited to having something great and not using it to its fullest potential.

Always Watching is an adaptation of Internet creepmeister Slenderman. That has potential right? Except it’s an adaptation of Marble Hornets, which is an adaptation of Slenderman. This can be like playing a screenwriting version of Chinese Telephone.

Something that got garbled between scripts was the creep factor of Slendy himself, called the Operator in the Marble Hornets universe. Being that Slendy came to be in a photoplasty, his initial iteration doesn’t move--or at least his initial iteration doesn’t give us insight into how he moves. Sometimes not knowing is 12000 times more terrifying than knowing. Well, Always Watching imagines him as a sort of blip; that things that moves way faster than it should and when you’re not watching. Like a weeping angel. This is definitely creepy, but my qualm with it is that you bothered to put Doug Jones under that suit and failed to his potential range of motion. Jones has the ability to contort in ways many actors can’t and this can make watching him move absolutely terrifying. The Operator that we get, though, could’ve had anyone under that suit because he doesn’t really do much moving that we get to see. It’s not that their choice was a bad one. Like I said, it’s still a creepy method of locomoting. It was just disappointing knowing Doug Jones was under there and we didn’t get to really see him do his thing. I spent the whole moving waiting for Doug Jones to scare the crap out of me and it never really happened. He also goes from being freakishly tall and thin to only being Doug Jones tall and thin. Now don’t get me wrong, if you have to pick an actual human height to be eerie, Doug Jones is your guy, but the bizarre proportions of the original Slenderman could’ve been achieved. It’s not like he hasn’t done stilt work before. And it would’ve certainly added to the creepy factor.

So synopsis time! A cameraman meets a reporter at a New Years’ party. They hook up. I’m not sure why we needed this information. Somehow months later they end up working together at a news station. A new guy shows up and tells them they’re going to work on an otherwise lame story about home foreclosures when they discover a box of family videos tucked inside a crawl space in an eerily quickly abandoned home. New guy decides they’re going to use this to put a face on the housing crisis and show the lives of people affected by the constant string of foreclosures. Instead the cameraman finds fucking creepy shit on the tapes. The Operator--who never gets a name but has one in the credits--appears to have been stalking this family. In their fear they fled their home, leaving most of their possessions and also this box of creepy tapes behind. Once invested in these tapes, The Operator starts to fuck with the cameraman IRL and integrates himself into the lives of Reporter Girl and New Guy while he’s at it.

Like Marble Hornets, they opted to present Always Watching as a found footage piece, which can easily go horribly wrong. I don’t normally like found footage, but this one worked for me. Of course, they had to give Cameraman a creepy fixation with Reporter Girl to explain why he’s filming literally all the time even before finding a creepy mother fucker in his camera viewer. This creates some added character relationship issues during our adventure but more about that later. Unlike Marble Hornets, The Operator in Always Watching can only be seen in a camera viewer. In my opinion, this makes him creepier because whoever sees him in the camera can’t point him out to anyone without handing over the camera and losing sight of him. Also it makes them look crazy when they try to convince somewhere there’s a 6 foot guy in a suit with no face in their yard.

One thing I really appreciated about this movie was that there was a sense of the characters being genuinely scared. Something I miss in a lot of horror movies is what fear does to people in the dark. If something fucking creepy is going on, pretty much everything starts to scare you. If you’re afraid of the dark, every shadow is creepy, every unaccounted for sound scares the shit out of you. That happened in this movie. Cameraman is wandering around a dark garage and something falls, he freaks out. His power goes out, he starts talking himself through finding the breaker while reminding himself that he’s not going to die. I was really happy to see that.

[SPOILERS]

So now that Cameraman is fully terrified, he goes to Reporter Girl, who has now hooked up with New Guy, to inform them that the previous homeowner was not in fact crazy and that there really was a creepy mother fucker in his yard that has now started to live in Cameraman’s yard. Of course New Guy thinks this is a way to get back into Reporter Girl’s pants so he breaks into Cameraman’s house and discovers his stash of stalker videos. So this creates a whole new problem that’s only resolved when The Operator makes an appearance, as if to say “Hi guys, remember me! Oh, sorry, you wet yourself.” So they all crash at a hotel together, recording every moment so they can go back and look at it eventually I guess. The Operator brands them all without anyone noticing it until after the fact and New Guy gets some help from a friend at the FBI to track down the runaway homeowners. Then they road trip to Colorado with Cameraman’s dog to track down the owners and see how they escaped the clutches of creepy guy.

On the way, Reporter Girl wonders what would happen if they just turned all the cameras off. The answer is someone kills the dog. Slendy makes the statement that he will be watched creepily through video cameras. Dammit. More tension builds in the group, but they continue on their trek. They reach their destination and find a smouldering pile of nothing. And also a bunker. The bunker reveals video footage of Runaway Dad murdering his child and trying to kill his wife, who bashes him in the head and sets the house on fire. They track down Murder Mom at a local psych ward where she flips her shit because “fucking shit, you brought him back”. They then crash in a cabin, set up their cameras and try to decide what to do.

Clearly their only option is death or death. The Operator’s end game is to make everyone kill each other. The downside to this reveal is that it comes too late. The build up to this discovery doesn’t have the sense of impending doom you want to see in this kind of story. Up until we see Runaway Dad do the deed, The Operator could just get off freaking people out. We don’t find out that he’s more sinister than that until about 15 minutes from the end of the movie. If his end game had remained to drive his victims mad, I might’ve been more satisfied with it. Anyway, the Operator appears and Cameraman decides to take one for the team. Since Runaway Dad’s death seemed to end the Operator’s hold on the family, maybe offing himself will save his friends. He hangs himself amidst protest from Reporter Girl, but not from New Guy.

Apparently the Operator is able to take over dead bodies, so he takes over dead Camerman and beats New Guy to death. Then he beats Reporter Girl to death. Then he just sort of re-dies. Then we find out that the footage will probably re-release the Operator when someone new watches it. Yay! A Revolving door of death.

So aside from my disappointment with their use of Doug Jones, the acting was pretty ok. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t “sold my soul to SyFy years ago” either. It was solidly ok acting, especially for the genre. Unfortunately, lower budget horror movies have a tendancy to get stuck with shitty actors. This didn’t suffer from that. The camerawork worked for the found footage idea, but there were times I really hated the angles. Found footage also gets no score, which had its ups and downs. You didn’t know from the score when the Operator would make an appearance, but you did know based on the “distortion” his appearance caused in the camera. The upside to that was that you didn’t have a startle reflex based on the score, you had it because he fucking showed up. They didn’t trick you into being startled when he wasn’t actually making an appearance.

#Always Watching #Horror #Movie Review #The Captain Watches Movies

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startalesxx · 7 years

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So ahh, where to start aside from?? I’m soRRY because I honest to goodness am so dense that, i uhh, genuinely had not even the slightest ideA YES I KNOW BUT I REALLY AM GENUINELY THAT BAD i’ve actually been in this similar situation in several instances x-x I’m beyond hope to that end, sorrY. I had no idea you were dealing with all that ;; (and sorry if this is a bit messy and I ended up missing stuff because?? i ended up only being able to reply at 8am in the end anyway eheh)

It’s not as if your feelings were completely one-sided, but at the same time, for me it’s…difficult ;; I may have felt a similar twinge of emotion on a few occasions, but I tend to have the bad habit of brushing it off and not allowing it to grow beyond that (probably because our relationship can make me feel a bit nostalgic towards my first real experience with heartbreak which might have made me subconsciously put up a bit of a barrier)

You know to some small extent that I have a bit of a difficult irl situation, which affects everything from how often i’m around, to not wanting to allow myself to be in a relationship. We had a small discussion about it before, but it’s hard to understand the full extent to which it affects me and why i’d never want to drag anyone into it.

The only real way to allow you to understand would be to write a massive wall of text, so to avoid that, i’m skipping it entirely. If you want more details so you can better understand to gain some form of insight, i’d be willing to give it, but only if you’re braced for something that massive. I may have given you some form of an idea before, but it goes far beyond that. ;;

Aside from realizing how much you’d been dealing with because of me, I admit it sorta made me happy to read your feelings haha ;; To me, you’re someone special, in the same sense of ‘i’ve never met anyone else i can talk to on this kind of level’ sort of way. It makes me genuinely happy to stay up late chatting with you whenever I had the free time. I also admire how you can see your flaws and try to work to become a better person. And your dream of hearing many people’s stories and sharing them amazes me. Overall, I think you’re an amazing person and I want you to be happy–

That’s why, as i’ve had to tell many others, i’ll say you should move on and find someone who can give you a happier future then being with me could ever possibly lead to. I’m someone who’s struggling to live through every day, knowing that there’s no good future ahead of me. It’s not that I don’t want to at least see what a relationship could be like, but I just don’t feel that I have the energy needed to put into a relationship right now when I know that %90 of it is going into taking care of my family.

You could already see this coming ever since you started reading this, i’m sure, but i’m genuinely sorry ;; Seeing you happy would make me much happier, so i’m going to have to be selfish on this one eheh.

I may not have typed everything the way I wanted to or needed to, but I didn’t want to make you wait any longer, or take the risk of not being able to reply for a few more days. But hopefully I was able to write coherently enough ;;

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male-emporium · 7 years

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Editors’ Picks: Our 10 Favorite HSS Posts of 2016

from He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

Our favorite posts aren’t the most popular – does that mean we have bad taste?!

While we enjoy writing each and every post on the site, there are always some posts that are simply more enjoyable to write for one reason or another.

A subject that scratches a creative itch or allows us to dig deeper into a bigger editorial idea. A scope of work that challenges us to go above and beyond in both our written and visual storytelling. Or a newfound passion that reignites the flame of curiosity.

These are the things that keep us energized because we don’t write because we have to, but because we want to.

We don’t write because we have to, but because we want to

If there was ever any doubt about that statement, I would respectfully ask you to take note of the fact that none of the posts included on our “favorites” list appear on our list of most popular posts of 2016. Do we wish some of our favorites would be your favorites too? Sure. But that’s not what it’s all about.

To that end, we’re thankful to have an audience that indulges our more creative and long form side from time to time. You are known by the company you keep. And we’ve got some amazing readers.

So here are our 10 favorite He Spoke Style posts of 2016 – in no particular order – and the stories behind the stories.

1. Speaking Style With Edward Sexton

A huge highlight. It’s not every day that you get to sit down with – and get measured by – a living legend. And Edward Sexton is about as legendary as they come in British tailoring. In addition to hearing all of Edward’s amazing stories and meeting the house’s exceptionally astute Creative Director, Dominic Sebag-Montefiore, this was a big moment for us in terms of content creation.

As a bunch of perfectionists dedicated to producing the highest quality product all the time, we can sometimes paint ourselves into a corner and induce paralysis when it comes to the actual execution of a high-level project.

The fact that we shot this on two cameras in the span of about three hours and produced an immersive, image-rich post along with an insightful video interview that generated a ton of positive feedback, gave us an immense amount of confidence in our ability to be light on our feet, mobile and create exceptional content even when time and resources are less than ideal.

Read the full article here.

2. Some Thoughts On Embracing Luxury

We’ve made very clear our position on transparency when it comes to our brand partnerships. As I know you’ve heard me say before, we are fortunate to be in a position where we can be selective with the brands we choose to partner with. We’ve worked with brands in the very distant past who have been incredibly prescriptive. And we’ve learned from those experiences that those arrangements never turn out positively for anyone – especially for you, our readers.

We want to work with brands who respect our editorial voice and vision, who know that we know our readers and brands that we are honestly very passionate about. In other words, brands who get it.

IWC is one of those brands. As part of a three-part content series centered around the release of a limited edition Portugieser (see below), we were turned loose and allowed the freedom to dig into a bigger cultural idea. I can tell you from experience that being given that sort of latitude by a brand is exceptional and is one of the reasons why we truly love working with IWC.

Read the full article here.

3. A Menswear Meet Up With Fabio Attanasio

Via the medium of Instagram, I’ve been able to discover and connect with like-minded and passionate people all over the world. And also via Instagram, one day in NYC I saw that one of those people, Fabio Attanasio, was in town as well. Though we were members of a mutual admiration society and had engaged online a bit, I’d not met Fabio in person. Until this day.

Our meeting was short – much too short, honestly – as Fabio had to catch a plane back to Italy later in the day after a successful trunk show in the city. But it was great to finally make a real life connection. Most important, however, was learning that Fabio IRL was the same Fabio I “knew” from Instagram. That’s not always the case these days and it was refreshing to know that there are some truly genuine folks out there.

Read the full article here.

4. HSS At Three: The Lost Art of Blogging

This was a big one for me. Did everyone like it? I don’t think so. I ruffled more than a few feathers – which I honestly intended to do in a free advice/teachable moment kind of way – and got called out for swearing. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. Why? Because it started a conversation.

In the past I’ve seen some of my favorite websites have some serious head-eating-the-tail moments so being self-reflective – even if it happened to be in a public forum – and honest about the space we work in was important. It allowed me to be up front with all of you and to reinforce to you and ourselves by laying it all out there, why it is that we believe we do it “right”.

Read the full article here.

5. The IWC Portugierser Tourbillon Edition “D.H. Craig USA”

I enjoyed writing and creative directing this post immensely. It was something completely new for us. Styling and shooting watches is not easy. It’s tedious. It requires excellent light. And it’s time consuming – no way around it. You shoot with a macro lens on a tripod and hold your breath while you’re making video files to turn into cinemagraphs. But it’s all worth it when you know you’re delivering a finished product of a quality that few others will actually take the time to produce.

Here’s an extremely interesting tidbit. If you’ve read the post – or just happen to be a watch nerd and/or IWC fanboy – you know that there were only 27 of these $57,000 pieces made. However, what we discovered after the fact was that the particular watch that we had been given to shoot and play around with was actually one-of-a-kind.

When we submitted our post to IWC for review, someone in the company noticed a small, but important, detail on the dial. Recently, IWC updated the font used for “Schaffhausen” from one with a serif to a sans serif font. Our watch, which was actually a prototype, had the serifed font. The watches available to the public used the new font. Don’t believe me? Check out the actual dial on the watches that were sold!

Read the full article here.

6. Remembering Bill Cunningham

When Bill Cunningham passed away on June 25, 2016, Instagram was awash with people posting photos of themselves that had been taken by Mr. Cunningham adorned by captions expressing how “honored” they felt to have been photographed by him.

Within this sea of ambulance chasing narcissism, our own Robin West penned a heartfelt, respectful and very sincere personal remembrance of a man – the progenitor of modern street style photography – who inspired her (and countless others) to express herself through the medium of fashion and to pursue a career in the industry.

This is the kind of relevant and affecting content so in line with our “don’t look at me, listen to me” ethos that we wish was possible to post three times a day.

Read the full article here.

7. A Rare Experience: The Macallan Rare Cask

One of the pillars of advice from our guide to drinking whiskey like a gentleman is “friends first”. So when the opportunity arose to partner with The Macallan to highlight their Rare Cask offering, inviting my buddy (and HSS whiskey editor) Chris Sarangoulis to experience it one afternoon was a no-brainer.

As someone who has pretty much tasted it all, Chris can be something of a skeptic when it comes to trying something new. And since up until that point, scotch hadn’t piqued his interest the same way that bourbon and rye had, he was doubly dubious of this NAS offering. While the food and the company were fantastic that afternoon, my favorite part of the experience was Chris saying, “Wow, that’s really awesome scotch!” And now he’s really into scotch…

Read the full article here.

8. A Guide To Buying Your First Rolex

This was a personal post. But one that turned out to be very useful to more people than I thought. Luxury watches are not cheap. In fact, they’re extremely expensive. And buying one is not an activity to be taken lightly. It’s a big deal. As I note in the post itself, it took me the better part of a year to research and decide which exact Rolex I was going purchase as my first. I thought by sharing my personal journey – both the good and the bad – that others in the same situation could benefit from that experience.

We have a set of three questions written on our white board in the studio designed to guide everything we do and every decision we make. We revisit them constantly. The first of those questions is, “What is truly unique about He Spoke Style?” And one of the answers to that question is the personal connection we’ve created with our readers.

We are not just another mostly voiceless editorial publication that is beholden to advertisers and the perpetual fashion calendar cycle, publishing boilerplate editorial because we have to. Over time we’ve nurtured a relationship with our readers to where you want to know what I – what we – think about this, that or the other thing.

I’m extremely proud that this particular article took nearly an entire year of actual, real-life research to write. I think it shows. And it is what, in my opinion, makes it stand out amongst the many similarly styled pieces – many from larger, “big league” publications – that exist out there on the interwebs. I wrote this because I had something I was passionate about and wanted to share with others who may share that passion, not because we needed this piece of content in our portfolio.

Read the full article here.

9. Italian Prep: Going From Polo To Pellegrino

Amidst a slew of posts focused on higher-level editorial ideas and personal and team achievements, a single outfit post might appear to be something of an interloper. But for a very simple reason, I like this one. A lot. For many guys, especially those just beginning their personal style journey, Italian style can seem a little advanced and very flamboyant. In keeping with our idea of approachability, the aim of this post was to demonstrate that this is not always the case. With a few simple tweaks, we showed you how to transform a classic preppy look into something a little more European – no excessive flair necessary.

Read the full article here.

10. What’s It Like To Drive a Ferrari?

This was a favorite (and absolutely amazing) for obvious reasons. Driving a Ferrari up the PCH on a pristine late-spring day is the type of once-in-a-lifetime experience that will never be forgotten. It was also a whirlwind. In less than 48 hours, I was on the east coast, in Big Sur and then back on the east coast after an overnight flight.

Aside from the apparent, there were two other personal highlights I’d like to note from this trip. First, connecting with a select few on the trip who I deeply respect and admire for their work. Second, having the opportunity to work with the photographer Michael Shaffer.

I rarely – hardly ever, actually – work with anyone other than Rob. In fact, it gives me great anxiety to step in front of someone else’s lens, especially for a high-profile project. Are they going to get it? Do they know how we regularly shoot? It’s scary when you’re required to create something without the person you create with 99.9% of the time.

But on this trip I had Mike. Lucky me. You’ve likely seen his photos gracing the pages of magazines like Motor Trend and for big advertising campaigns by luxury auto manufacturers all over the world. So it should be pretty easy to understand why I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to work with him.

Read the full article here.

What were some of your favorite HSS articles of 2016? Chime in below!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stylishly Yours,

Brian Sacawa He Spoke Style

Photography by Rob McIver Photo

The post Editors’ Picks: Our 10 Favorite HSS Posts of 2016 first appeared on the men's style blog He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

First found here: Editors’ Picks: Our 10 Favorite HSS Posts of 2016

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