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rainybubbles · 1 month

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Silent- Gaz x plus size reader

Summary : Finding a way to relieve the stress of work in a DnD discord, Gaz meets Silent. A player whose microphone is always turned off, using chat only. Maybe he'll find a way to break the silence with them and finds why their mic is off…

(Sorry in advance, English is not my first language, so sorry if it's bad or OOC.)

-TW social anxiety.

-"What a quiet kid you've got there. I wish mine was as calm at home."

-"Oh, you know, they're pretty mature for their age."

-The laughter faded into distant murmurs as I glanced over at the other kids.

-Yelling, chasing, breaking a vase or two—my eyes couldn't look away from them.

-They seemed to inhabit a world entirely different from mine.

-A world where scraping by at month's end, nightly dinners, locking up the house, solo bus rides, laundry routines, and helping siblings with homework simply didn't exist.

-Because, after all, they were just eight years old.

- But so was I…

-So why didn't I have the right to have fun, yell, chat, ask for sweets, act immature, or doodle on walls?

- My hand reached out briefly, hoping for a connection, but my mom's glance quickly reminded me to stay put…

-Being silent seemed to be the key to earning praise and keeping peace.

-So, I stifled that urge, withdrawing into myself, standing alone behind her legs, engulfed in a heavy silence.

____________

"Silent, huh?"

-My gaze drifted slowly to the chat.

-"Yeah, dude, they're usually a regular on Thursdays. Never says a word, their mic's busted, can't afford to fix it," one of the guys responded.

-The tone carried a hint of disdain.

-I felt out of place.

-Yet, I stayed put, unable to leave the server.

-It was the only place where I felt I could express myself.

-Through words, carefully chosen, controlled, retyped, erased, and sculpted to bring a story to life—a space where my imagination, so often overlooked, could finally roam free.

-By chance, I'd become enamored with Dungeons and Dragons.

- The only snag, of course, was the void in my social life.

-So, like figuring out how long it takes to cook broccoli, I scoured the internet.

- Discord groups organized sessions. I panicked at the sound of mics, voices.

- What would they think of me? What should I say? What could I do? And then someone asked if my mic was broken.

- Ever since, I'd stayed that way, and the nickname Silent stuck.

"Hi Silent, then :) I'm Kyle aka Gaz."

-Usually, I ignored introductions.

- People interested me little, their characters were the interesting ones.

-However, Gaz hadn't spoken those words aloud.

- He had written them. It was stupid honestly, but few people wrote back to me, few people responded to me in writing.

-Everything was done orally.

-Suddenly, someone was on my turf, reaching out.

-The campaign proceeded as usual.

-My thoughts were focused on my actions, the dice rolls, and the resulting outcomes.

- Yet occasionally, I let my eyes wander over Gaz's profile.

________________

-"Hello guys, I don't know if I've played with some of you before or not. "

-"Don't worry, we accept everyone. The days are rarely fixed."

-Gaz was back. It was Friday. It was my favorite group, the game master Ylias really managed to transport you.

-"Well, I'll start then-"

-Ylias started rambling, I followed the story when I noticed a notification in the discord. My finger brushed it, and then ignored it.

-What would he think if I clicked now? that I'm a friendless attention-seeker? But if I wait, they'll think I don't care about the campaign?

-So I waited 5 minutes, trying to find the right balance between the two.

-"Hey, Silent. I missed a campaign without you, the others keep on rambling about their athletics, last time I even had a guy mimicking a goblin with his mic, I'm glad to see you back in text :) !!!"

-Pressure flooded over me. What should I reply? A heart? Thanks? Ignore it? Tell him he's nice too?

-"Thanks."

-Too cold, too short. I thought it wrong, I should delete it, rephrase it, add a smiley, make it warmer, he must think I'm a monster.

-"I think we should try opening the door, are you coming with me? I don’t feel like going into the forest with the rest of the team."

-Oh. Usually in campaigns, I go with the flow, I heal and stay in the background. I never-

-"You need a score of 13 for that, folks". Ylias said.

-"Come on, Silent, roll the dice." Gaz replied

-Nervously, my mouse hovered over the virtual dice. With a score of 15 showing, I heard Gaz's laughter.

-"I knew we had to do it! Let’s go, plus with your stealth, impossible to get spotted. "

-"We'll see about that." Ylias replied, laughing.

-And just like that, Gaz made me smile. It was probably one of the worst campaigns, but it was the first where I could finally choose my actions.

__________________________

-"Back again :) ?"

-" Yes."

-Dry, too dry.

-"I was waiting for you. "Gaz replied.

-" Why? "

-"I don’t want to play a campaign without you, you bring me luck."

-" I'm not sure about that. "

-"Yes. I tried a campaign with colleagues, we died blowing up. "

-"Probably because of your colleagues. "

-"Okay, maybe my colleague set fire to a mystery barrel. But it was their first campaign. "

-"You're recruiting? "

-"Introducing them. He's trying to quit smoking, and I thought DnD could occupy his free time."

-I stopped myself.

-Curiosity, imagination, everything overwhelmed me.

-What was it like to be close to colleagues like this, to freely discuss your passions, to laugh…

-"And then?"

-" It's not his thing, he's more into action. "

-"I see. "

-"It's not for everyone. "

-"Is it your thing? "

-"What? "

-"To let off steam? If your colleague needs it, so do you, right?"

-Stupid. Too personal a question. Invasive.

-"Yes. It allows me not to think, to be someone else."

-" Me too."

-" Plus, being an elf is great."

-" You say that because I am one."

-" Maybe. "

-"Thank you. "

-"For? "

-"Talking in chat. People usually ignore me outside of campaigns, they don't respond by text."

-" They ignore the sexiest elf?"

-" There's no image, you don't know what I look like"

-". Hm, exactly! I imagine your elf tall, muscular like the Rock, hair like Gordon Ramsay's, and maybe makeup like Ru Paul's."

-" I'm not sure about the result. "

-"Sexy."

-I snorted at my screen.

-"Ok."

-" How do you imagine me? "

-"Your wizard? "

-"Yes. "

-"With long hair, maybe dreadlocks, white eyes, and a smile. "

-"A smile?"

-" Your voice sounds soothing. "

-"Really? "

-"Yes, sorry, it's weird to say that, I shouldn't have."

-" No. No. I've never been told that, I was just surprised, that's all."

-" I see. "

-"So, a sexy elf and a smiling mage.

-"Sounds like the beginning of a weird porno."

-He responded with a meme.

_________________________

-"So, what do we decide, Silent? Honestly, I don't want to raid the goblin but the vampire to face, I'm sure the score will be high." Gaz asked through his mic

-"It's your choice, not mine."

-"they're right, Gaz, this one's all on you," Ylias said.

-"Can't I even ask for help?"

-"Score of 15 in insight to spot an ally." Ylias announced.

-Gaz scored a 10. No one addressed me throughout the campaign.

________________________

-"Back, Gaz?" someone said.

-Three weeks of radio silence.

-My mind had been looping, wondering if my refusal to break the rules had driven him to find a more interesting group, a more exciting duo.

-But there he stood, his username glowing green.

-"Yeah, I finally got some days off."

-"Good for you, man."

-"So spill, I see some new names and all!"

-Strangely, his voice had become grating to me. I didn't understand why, so before he could reach me, I disconnected.

- Alone in my apartment, I held my knees to my chest.

-Why am I reacting like this? He's entitled to a life, damn it.

-I fet like he...gave me up.

-Shit it's stupid.

-I didn't understand. I tried to calm myself, but the deafening silence of my apartment seemed to slowly engulf me, and before I knew it, I found myself in a new spiral of anxiety.

____________________________

-There were no campaigns. I just liked reading. Reading what had happened. Living vicariously, imagining their voices, their reactions.

-"hey :)"

-The off-campaign tab was blinking.

-He was addressing me, I knew it, I was the only one online with him.

-My thumb grazed the notification, but I ended up entering the chat.

-"hey."

The period was too harsh, too dry.

-"It's been a while! Something happened?"

-"Work." I answered.

-That's a lie.

- But lying is like oxygen, it's easy to come up with excuses to avoid others.

-But harder to let go of it to face the potential risks of social suffocation.

-"I know quite a bit, just got back from mine."

-"At 1 am?"

-"Yep."

-"Cook?"

"Soldier."

-A shiver ran through me. Uniforms had never been positive in my life.

- As the long seconds passed, I hesitated.

-"Not a fan?" Gaz asked.

-"You could say that."

-"Military family?"he asked.

-"yes."

-"I see."

-"Sorry, that's stupid."

-"No, I understand, I mean, we all have red flags." He said.

-"It's not a red flag."

-"You'd been quiet for 5 minutes."

-"With everyone." I answered.

-"Everyone?"

-"I'm not the best at socializing."

-"Really? Yet when you blew up a castle instead of talking to the princess in a campaign, it seemed normal to me." He joked.

-A laugh escaped.

-"And you?" he asked.

-"Me?"

-"Your job?"

-"Proofreader."

-"For books?"

-"Yes, I read, annotate, and correct."

-"No humans."

-"Exactly."

-"Would you like to add me? I'm not super comfortable with everyone seeing this."

-"Why?"

-Stupid. I should have accepted without questioning.

-"To prevent everyone from knowing the secrets of the sexiest elf on the discord."

-Always there to catch my blunders.

-I accepted it even though suddenly there was added pressure, what to say when there's a pause?

_____________

-"A dragon arrives and—"

-My eyes glanced at my notifications. Kyle was in the campaign but—

-"The narration is terrible, isn't it? The guy has been stuck on the dragon for thirty minutes while Théis killed it."

-He was writing to me. Like someone whispering in your ear during class.

-"Yes, Roxanne is a beginner, but she'll get there."

-"So kind."

-"Not really, one day I insulted a game master."

-"Oooh, a gangster among us?"

-"Never, besides, you'd arrest me, wouldn't you?"

-The ellipses seemed to linger.

-"I wouldn't mind."

-Oh.

-"I don't want to end up in a secret government cave."

-"Caves are old school, we have containers now."

-"I don't know if you're joking."

-"Classified."

-"Gaz…"

-"I'll keep the secret, I think you won't have a choice but to be arrested by me someday."

-"… it won't happen."

-"Why?"

-"I haven't committed any crimes."

-"Not even indecent exposure? I thought you were 45 years old and hiding in bushes naked."

-"For that, I'd have to leave my house."

-"Quite the homebody?"

-"You could say."

-"I'm the same, I don't like going out much."

-It's different. I didn't know what to add, so I let him continue the conversation.

-----------------------------

-"Still into your nerd stuff?"

-Gaz looked up at Soap.

-"It's not nerd stuff." Gaz said.

-"Dragon, princess, elf, discord all mixed together. It's nerd stuff. "Ghost replied

-"Dressing up as a skeleton at Hot Topic too, L.t."

-"Ooh, I wouldn't have liked that. "Soap laughed. "But seriously, don't you think about doing it for real? I mean, gathering around a table."

-"They think about it, but we all live in different parts of the world."

-But it would be amazing. Maybe he could even hear Silent's voice, see them…

-"Hm." Johnny said with a smirk

-"What?"

-"It sounds like you have someone in mind."

-"I don't have anyone in mind."

-"Not even an elf you get along with, Garrick?" Ghost retorted

-"I- we're a duo, it

-"It's different."

-"I mean it, we just get along."

-"So if you check discord in a military bar at 11 p.m., it's not to reply to him second by second?"

-"Shut up," Gaz said as the two laughed.

__________________________

-"You're not participating anymore?"

-I ignored his message.

-Three months.

-Three long months of descent, of confinement, of discomfort, of crises.

-Everything was too much.

-Crowds, outside, errands, people.

-My lungs constricted at the thought of meeting someone's gaze. My eyes avoided every contact. My lips were dry from lack of words.

-"I admit that campaigns suck without you," he had written.

-That was two weeks ago.

-"I refused to play with Théo, he wanted to take your place," he had sent.

-That was three months ago.

-"The office GIF."

-Three weeks.

-He… Gaz had never stopped.

-No matter the views, the winds, his boldness didn't stop.

-I was confused.

-Usually, people quit after a month.

-They had better things to do, and I understood. The burden of my social anxiety was mine and shouldn't inconvenience them.

-So why was Gaz standing there carrying this burden unknowingly? Coming back every day, bearing a heavier load…

-"hey."

-Three letters.

-Too short.

-Too dry.

-"Sorry." I continued.

-For what?

-I didn't deserve his forgiveness, I knew it.

-"Glad to see you're back :)" he replied.

-A tear rolled down my cheek.

-"thank you." I replied by text.

-For staying.

-For not asking questions.

-For welcoming me.

______________

-"Sorry, I was at the hospital, do you think I can join the campaign or not?" he had sent.

-My eyebrows raised.

-"No. Wait, you're just out of the hospital and your concern is DnD?"

-"I should really stay by my favorite elf's side."

-"Gaz, seriously, are you okay?"

-"Fractured ribs."

-"Ouch."

-"Broken arm."

-"Wait, what—"

-"And a bullet in the thigh."

-"Wtf."

-"But I'm fine."

-"No."

-"I assure you, I've had worse."

-"And???? You need to rest, not focus on rolling dice to defeat Mindflyers."

-"…but I have no distractions."

-"I'm here."

-"You're in the campaign."

-"No."

-"Wait, what—"

-"I- I saw you were absent so I didn't…join that one."

-"But you only play on that day."

-"I know. But it's not the same without you."

-I didn't know he was currently smiling like an idiot.

-"Thanks, Silent."

-"No worries. Besides, I was also coming out of the hospital."

-"WHAT?! Why didn't you start with that?!"

-"It's ridiculous."

-"No, are you okay?"

-"It's awkward."

-"Oh, serious awkward or-?"

-"No, I'm used to it. I- I took the tram and I couldn't handle it, the crowd was too big, I passed out inconveniencing a hundred people, embarrassing."

-"That's not embarrassing."

-"Yes, I made people late, Gaz."

-"And??? It was for your health."

-"No, I should've known I couldn't handle taking the tram. It's been two years since I couldn't do it, I shouldn't have tried again."

-"Two years?"

-Shit. I said too much.

-"Forget that."

-"Wait, no. You help distract me when I'm on base, I can listen to you in return :)! "

-"There's nothing to say, I don't handle social stuff, that's all."

-"So, your mic, that's it?"

-"Yes."

-"My sister has it too."

-"Has what?"

-"Social anxiety."

-"I see."

-"I know it's different for everyone, but don't give up. Honestly, it's a huge step, right? Taking the tram after two years. Surely you wouldn't succeed all at once, I mean it's like rolling a 20-sided die hoping for a 35."

-I snorted.

-"Nerd."

-"You're a nerd too, Silent."

-"yes, I- I just thought I could succeed, tell myself I could do it."

-"You did it."

-"I passed out."

-"So what? next time can't be worse."

-"Yes, if I have another one."

-"Then you'll have another one, I'm sure you'll manage. Look, I can even show you a tutorial."

-I furrowed my brows and saw a video. A man in an apartment, a cast on one arm, his face cut off from the frame.

-"Quick tutorial for falling on a tram. So lesson 1, stand next to a tall person. We want a good pillow when we fall, so tall people are perfect. Then manage the fall. Fall on the person, not forward. We want to avoid a bloody nose. Especially if there are vampires on the horizon." Gaz said in the video.

-He lay on the ground pretending to fall.

-"Step three, play dead to see sexy firefighters and avoid stares, and step 4 get taken home while flexing in the truck."

-I snorted.

-"Wow, thanks for the tutorial."

-"I know, I know. Passing out pro here."

-"Do you often fall on fridges?"

-"Hm, considering the build of my colleagues, you could say that."

-"Are they as tall and wide as a fridge?"

-"My L.T. yes. With Soap, we even thought he was an android, I mean it's not human to be that built."

-"You look fit too."

-"Oh, a compliment?"

-"Gaz, I-"

-"But yes, honestly, I try to do his routine but I think his genetics play a big part."

-"Shame, no Fridge Gaz then."

-"No, you'll have to settle for Normal Gaz."

-A smile slowly spread across my face.

-"Thanks for the video, it was funny."

-"You're welcome. Plus, if I can flex with my favorite elf."

-"I'm not an elf."

-"Nothing proves me wrong."

-"Gaaaaaazzzz"

____________________________

-"Who are you posing for? "

-"No one."

-" So shirtless, sunlight, flexed arms for no one? Damn, don't tell me it's for your mom. "

-"SOAP!"

-" I'm just asking, man."

-" It's for Silent. "

-"Oh, your magical voiceless elf."

-" It's not— "

-"Yes, yes, not a magical elf, I know, no need to give me another DnD lecture."

-Gaz sighed.

-His selfie was good.

-Shirtless, in the sand, sun rising.

-He looked good.

-But he was nervous.

-What if it was too much?

-After all, this little game of sending each other sunrises or sunsets had started by chance.

-Silent had told him the view was beautiful and sent him a sunset from their window.

-Gaz replied with one from Las Almas, and eventually whenever he went to a new country, he would send a photo.

-But now… maybe it was too much?

-Sending his face.

-Price would kill him.

-But he wanted to progress the relationship.

-Maybe his face could appeal to Silent, they would send him a voice note or even a selfie back?

-"Is this too much? "

-"Hm? "Soap asked confused.

-"This photo, is it too much? "

-"For a thirst trap?"

-" To say hello."

-" It depends on the hello. "

-"Hello as in "I'm showing you my face for the first time." "

-"Oh, maybe. I thought it was a "hello, did you sleep well because look what I could bring to your bed" kind of thing. …But if I received this photo, I'd be happy. "

-"Soap. "

-"I mean, man, you're handsome."

-" Soap. "

-"Plus, who would say no to your abs? "

-"No need to- you know what, I'll send it. "

-"Also, you—"

-Gaz ignored him and sent it.

-Damn, he hoped everything would be fine.

________________________

-Beautiful.

-Too beautiful.

-My eyes scanned that smile not knowing what to do.

- How could someone like that end up playing DnD?

-I closed the conversation.

-I am…. Out of his league.

-So much.

-I could barely bring myself to look at my mirror.

-I knew what I would see there.

- My rolls, my thighs, my stretch marks, my horrible hair, this disproportionate face.

-I'm not ugly.

- But I'm not…I'm not like him

-. I'm the second choice, I'm aware of that.

-I don't get free compliments.

- Nobody turns back to look at me. I'm just…there.

-And him.

- He seemed so radiant, so kind. Damn, I wasted his time.

__________________________

-"So? " Soap asked

-"It's been two weeks with no response."

-" Ouch. "

-"It's not— Sometimes it happens, I think they are doubting."

-" Doubting what? "

-"Themselves. They…before every message, they take 5 minutes to rewrite it, every syllable is thought out and then I send this out of nowhere, I didn't handle it well."

-" You couldn't have known, Kyle. "

-"Yes. YES, I could and I messed up. They told me about their anxiety and then I send them a half-naked photo when I've never even heard their voice. "

-"Try to talk to them then. hmph."

_____________________

-"hey."

-My eyes hesitated.

-"hey." I finally replied

-" For the selfie, I can explain. "

-"No, I- it's not your fault."

-" Yes, honestly, I screwed up" he texted back

-". No, I've been looping again. "

-"You- "

-"seeing you, it was…good, really, but too good." I answered.

-" Too good?"

-"I feel- Illegitimate to talk to you. "

-"what- "

-"You're so- beautiful, and smiling and nice, and the only thing I do is disappear for days and turn up out of the blue. I-"

-" And it's okay, we talked about it." he said.

-" But you deserve better as friends."

-" I decide what I deserve, Silent. And no one beats you. "

-"…I- I don't know what to say. "

-"Send me your sunset :) I haven't had mine."

-Damn. A tear rolled down and I took my phone and sent my sunset. How can someone be so adorable?

-"Perfect." he replied

_________________

-He had continued to send his face on the sunsets. It was stupid, but I waited every time he could and I rewatched them.

-However, it had been three months of silence. I wasn't worried, he was probably on a mission somewhere.

-By a stroke of courage, I had put my phone down to take a photo with the sunset.

-He wouldn't see it. I would delete it.

-But for a moment, I felt beautiful. The sunlight on me warmed me, my outfit was cute, my curves were beautiful.

-I sent it. I would delete it tomorrow. After all, Kyle had said it could last four months.

___________

-"Hey, everything alright, mate?"

-"They're amazing."

-"Lasswell or tony ? For Lasswell of course, why do you think her wife is—"

-"Look."

-Soap raised an eyebrow and glanced at Kyle's phone.

-"Oh, oh."

-Kyle couldn't tear his eyes away from his screen

-. During the mission return, he had picked up his phone and seen a notification. Clicking out of habit, he saw it.

-their smile, their hair, their body. My god.

-"Lucky bastard." Soap said.

-They were perfect. And their belly, their hips, everything was beautiful. Kyle had always preferred curvy people, it was a fact.

-Sure, he had imagined that silently they could be one, but the fact that it was true… It filled his heart with joy.

-"They… damn. "he murmured, zooming in on every detail.

-Mole or freckle, he observed every pixel.

_____________________

-"So the elf wasn't the only one sexy." he texted.

-I raised an eyebrow at the notification as I woke up.

-"Hm?"

-"The photo. "he replied.

-Oh fuck.

-"You saw it?"

-"Yes, I shouldn't have?"

-"I thought of deleting it before, I—"

-"Oh."

-"But did you like it?"

-"Yes. you— I— honestly, I can't stop looking at it. you look radiant."

-He was lying. -No?

-"And that outfit is amazing on you, really."

-It hugs everything, why… why is he complimenting that?

-Usually, people say "those jeans make you look thinner than you are" "you look better in loose clothes" "hide your rolls".

-"Thank you."

-" I have to admit I'm so relieved. I mean if you ended up being a 40-year-old, I wouldn't have been so confident I think."

-"Oh really, wrinkles and gray hair aren't your thing?"

-"No, I'm more into curves and people my age."

-"Damn, I was about to confess that I was 70 years old". I joked.

-"I can make exceptions, but only for elves."

-"I'm lucky then."

-"Very. I— I hope to have more, or occasionally."

-"Of?"

-"Photos of you, it's more beautiful than a sunset."

"-oh."

-A warmth spread to my cheeks, a smile settling in.

-"ok."

-"ok?"

-"Okay."

___________________

-"Do you think I'll hear your voice someday?"

-It was late, or early for him and late for me.

-"I don't know."

-showing my face in a photo…

-I could control that, take back the photo, delete it, edit it. But talking…

-Talking is taking up space.

-"I imagine it smooth."

-"My voice?"

-"Hm, like a stream, it rocks slowly."

-"I might have a smoker's voice."

-"That would suit you too."

-"Maybe one day then."

-"I'm looking forward to that."

_____________________

-Those were the last words sent from him.

-No more contact.

-His absence wasn't due to missions, he had confessed to me that he was off the day before.

-So he had decided to stop.

-I tried to find excuses, before accepting the reality of it.

-Days passed and I hoped he would come back.

-Maybe he was like me, needing time to recover.

-Maybe he was hurt.

-Everything was silent.

-When four months had finally passed, I understood.

-He had grown tired of the silence. I held back a sob and closed the discussion.

-A stab wound would have been better I think.

-To ease the constant pain and intense questions in my mind.

-What had I done wrong? Was I too much? Did I ask the wrong question? Should I have kept quiet?

-Everything was spinning and I finally closed the app. damn.

_____________________________

-My feet led me to the publishing house.

-Today I had to make the final corrections for Madame Lasswell before her vacation with her wife Kate.

-Hesitant, I knocked on her door.

-An "enter" was heard and I entered the already crowded room.

- A mustached man in a beanie, a masked man, a mullet, Kate, and Gaz were watching me.

-My eyes betrayed my surprise at his presence. What was he doing here? Why now? How should I react?

-"Y/n, sorry for the crowd. I guess you have it."

-"Yes ma'am."

-My voice barely above a whisper was usual for Jocelyn. I handed her the manuscripts.

-"We're going to drink at the bar downstairs, do you want to come?"

-Come? To a crowded place, surrounded by drunk people, constant noise, blinding lights with the icing on the cake being a guy who blew me off for the year?

-"No, I'm busy tonight, sorry."

-"No problem."

-Slowly my heels turned, I took the elevator but I heard footsteps. Kyle was with me.

-"I was on a mission."

-"hm."

-"I know I told you no, but he… there were quite a few problems and I had to leave, I didn't have time to warn you, it dragged on, Ghost broke my phone by sitting on it with his stupid hard ass, and we just got back from the airport actually. Lasswell, Kate finally— she works with us so that's why I'm here"

-A silence stretched, he took a breath.

-"you didn't have to explain… I mean after the word mission, I understood I was wrong."

-"I wanted to be clear."

-"I should have asked and sent you messages."

-"No, it's okay, it must have seemed suspicious. I ask for your voice, you say no, and I disappear. The conclusion was logical."

-"but it wasn't the right one."

-"It's okay, we're here, aren't we?"

-"yes."

-The elevator rang, the door opened. Hesitant, I watched him.

-"I love it." -"hm?"

-"your voice."

-"Oh."

-"I… you're really busy tonight or…"

-"No, I just don't like…"

-"The crowd."he guessed

-"Hm."

-"I— I can invite you for dinner? At my place, we'll grab takeout, no crowds, no one to see us."

-"That sounds like the pitch of a serial killer."

-He widened his eyes. I snorted.

-"Okay, you got me." he chuckled.

-" At your place sounds good. Better than a restaurant." I admitted.

-"Cool, so…"

-"Shall we go then, yes". I murmured as he finally released the elevator button and we stepped out of the elevator.

_________________

-At his place, everything was calm.

-Not me.

-How should I stand? Too close? Too far? What to talk about? And what if I'm boring in the end? What to order? Does he like seafood or is he allergic? My eyes focused on every detail and…

-Everything's fine.

-His hand on mine, he took the initiative for the restaurant to order, asking me my preferences, and we waited for the delivery guy.

-Slowly, he asked questions about my work. I mastered it.

-And slowly everything unfolded naturally.

-Sitting on his couch, his hand not letting go of mine, he drew circles with his thumb while talking.

-I liked that. In groups, I liked… listening.

-People like to talk about themselves and I like listening to that, not participating, and Gaz understood that in such an impressive way.

-Occasionally, he asked questions in return, gauging my desire to speak, I answered and this back and forth held until the food arrived.

-Maybe everything would turn out for the best.

-Standing in front of his door, I didn't know what to add to this evening.

-A not-so-stranger, three years of virtual chat and now I was unable to figure out the right goodbye on his doorstep.

-Hesitant, we observed each other.

-"I hope we'll do this again."

-"Yes. "I replied.

-He stepped forward.

-I remained still, his face close to mine. -Kiss? Cheek? Goodbye? Whisper? -Which action would he choose? -I wished for a dice to decide, a title, or a "Gaz approves".

-"May I?"

-Oh. -I nodded. -His hands on my hips, he placed a brief kiss on my lips. -"I'm glad we managed to break the silence." -"me too."

-Perhaps, after all, I wouldn't return to my solitary silence tonight. His hands guiding me back to his apartment and the door closing behind us.

-I could easily guess that a die had just been thrown for a long evening and we both seemed to have the right score.

If you want more my COD Masterlist

#cod x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #gaz x reader #kyle garrick x reader #kyle gaz garrick x plus size reader #cod x plus size reader

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live-laugh-lenney · 12 days

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i extensively think about george having a swiftie gf and not only does he sit and listen to her explain the backstories behind each song and the parallels in lyrics but he surprises her with eras tour tickets and his ig story the entire night is just videos of his girl having the time of her life screaming the lyrics to lover to him <3

this is so cute, oh my-

in the weeks leading up to the show in london, she's preparing outfits for them.

she's scouring the internet for inspiration, saving ideas on a pinterest account that she made specifically for her eras show she was going to attend with george, looking on every single website she can find online when she had a spare moment to get an idea for more than 1 outfit. sending screenshots to george to see what his opinions were, what he was planning on wearing and whether she could alter his outfit so it seemed fitting to the theme of the eras tour.

and when the day comes, it's like a second christmas day for her.

she's up early in the morning so she could enjoy the whole day, she's blasting taylor swift songs around the flat which wakes up the rest of the boys which they couldn't be mad at, for too long, because she was having so much fun singing and dancing around the kitchen as she made breakfast and she was so excited for the show that night that they could dampen her spirits, speaking about nothing else but the night to come.

george has a whole day planned out for her, too.

they spend all morning getting ready together. she plays her music during her shower (which george shares with her because it's the one thing he enjoys doing knowing the boys can't really hear them over the sound of the water), she laughs when george sings along to some of the music because he had definitely been learning a few of her songs so he didn't seem out of place at wembley, and she even goes to town on decorating his face with glitter and some fancy patterns so he really looked the part. and once they're dressed in their almost matching outfits, lots of sequins glistening in the sunlight filtering through the windows and a cowboy hat for both of them on their heads, they get arthur to take photos of them before they disappear out the front door for the day.

they go out for an early dinner where they consume cocktails and she posts it online because she's really having the best day of her life with the one guy she truly loves. the one guy she wanted there with her. in her eyes, he had truly given her the best gift and she was thankful for the effort he had put in to make sure she had a great time. so by the time they're in wembley, they're a little buzzed and she's even more excited when she realises he's got floor tickets for her... which was more than she ever imagined.

and people recognise them, once they're seen inside of the venue, of course!

so lots of friendship bracelets are shared and exchanged with his fans and photos are taken; she even agrees to be a part of someone's tiktok video that george finds absolutely hilarious to witness. where yn wasn't someone well-known or on social media as often as he was, it felt ironic for him stand back and watch his girlfriend take his place on the app. and it made yn feel loved and included amongst those who love george for his content.

there's one photo posted between the two of them...

... and it's on george's instagram. a photo of yn with her back to the camera, arms in the air, as she's mid-dancing to one of her favourite songs playing on the setlist. a photo that george wanted to keep forever because she was in her element. and he felt pride to know she was truly enjoying herself.

"that was the best night of my life," she cries softly, cheeks absolutely sodden with tears of happiness once the show had finished, standing in the middle of the almost empty floor space with confetti littering the floor, her arms wrapping around his neck as she presses a kiss to his cheek, "thank you, george."

"you're welcome, rascal," he grins widely, wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her close to his chest, her cheek resting on his clothed shoulder, "i'm glad you had the best night, babe."

"it was even better spending it with you," she admits and looks up at him, "seriously, i have no idea how i'm going to top a surprise for you."

"i'm not expecting anything in return, silly girl," he laughs and shakes his head, "just seeing you happy is enough for me, yeah?"

she nods and looks around as the fans around them start to make their way to the exits of the venue, "we should start heading home. as much as i'd love to stay here all night, i can feel my throat has been ripped to shreds."

"let's go," george unravels his arms from her waists and slips his fingers between hers, "plenty of tea for you over the next couple of days." xx

#george clarkey #george clarkey imagines #george clarkey fics #george clarkey headcannons #george clarkey blurbs #george clarke #george clarke blurbs #george clarke headcannons #george clarke fics #george clarke imagines

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meimi-haneoka · 11 months

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Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Chapter 74: Comments + JP-ENG translation differences

Here we are, welcome back everyone!! End of the month, time for another chapter leading us into this exciting finale for Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card!! I want to start this post with a little foreword before diving into the chapter itself and the eventual translation differences ✨ I just wanted to say that I write this post with a sense of pride but also with even more sense of responsability compared to the previous months. You've probably stumbled upon my recent report of the latest CLAMP Space, where the authors have talked about CCS Clear Card, and their support/blessing to "people addressing the translation differences in their monthly posts on their blog, because they felt uncomfortable about them". Although they never straight up gave names, I certainly feel like they were talking about blogs like mine. And so I'm humbled (and even a little nervous) to be able to keep doing this, since I've wondered multiple times if it was even proper for me to write these posts every month, as if I was leading a crusade against the official English translation. In fact, I'm not. And I hope that's clear enough. When the ENG translation respects the vibe and original intention coming out from sensei's words in the manga panels, like this time around, I always make sure to say positive things about it. But try to understand me, the irritation runs deep because these are years of translation differences accumulating and at times even changing the perception of the story. And then, you stumble upon English speaking fans on the internet who got the gist of the story wrong or disrespecting/failing to appreciate it because of such translation mistakes (we go from Sakura calling Syaoran "Li-kun" in one of the earliest volumes, to Kaito saying that he wanted to give magic to Akiho, wtf??). And I think it's such a pity. It's not fair. The fandom deserves to know what the script is trying to say with a meaning as closer as possible to the original one. I hope I'll be able to help in that regard, for what's in my possibility and with my limited skills, till Clear Card will be over. ✨

OKAY, now let's cut the chatter and see what happened in this chapter!! I'm happy to say that this time around, translation-wise, we don't have anything impairing the correct understanding of the plot, just nuances! As usual, before starting, we can't skip the gif of the month!!

The Color Page

Oh my gosh! Sakura! You look amazing here!!! Such a fierce stare!! She looks just like a powerful and respected magician and OMG THEY GAVE HER A BLACK OUTFIT!! JUST LIKE I'VE BEEN ASKING EVER SINCE THE BEGINNING! I don't know, maybe the veteran followers of this blog can remember, but I've always wished to see Sakura in a black costume/dress in Clear Card 😊 She looks stunning...and what's more, she's once again with the gears and clocks decorations, just like in the period of the Clockland play. But, heheh, this time the clock looks different. The big clocks that were featured during the Clockland chapters (with Sakura + Syaoran, Akiho and lastly Kaito) were often "strange". They all had the same design, the one with SyaoSaku was "regular", but the ones next to Akiho and Kaito had their numbers either in messed up order, or straight up wrong (what kind of clock got '0' as the only number?). I had already assumed by then that they had a significance we had to decode along the development of the finale. This one in this color page, however, really looks like the most classical clock with roman numerals. The order of the numbers and their position seems correct. So could this be a sign that Sakura is about to restore order into this mess that Kaito's desperate wish created? The text on the JP version is the classic incantation to release the Dream staff from the key (we haven't heard it in a looooong time because she manifests her staff immediately, by now!) I also want to point out that we *still* don't have any announcement of "Clear Card ending in next chapter" or "Clear Card ends in 2 chapters!" like it's custom in these serializations, so I can say with confidence that Sakura won't surely be over in chapter 75 (at the beginning of July) but probably not even in chapter 76 (at the beginning of August). Are they aiming at chapter 77 (beginning of September)? Double 7, it's a lucky number for CLAMP ✨ For those worried about "3 chapters aren't enough to finish this!!", please consider that it's not so much about the number of chapters, but the amount of pages. This chapter for example is already longer than usual, 35 pages. That's what really matters, and we could get even an epilogue or some additional pages in the volume version! And now onto to the actual chapter!

An Important Discussion

Yukito, Nakuru and Touya are leisurely spending time at Yukito's home, with a funny scene of Yukito feeding some mikan to Nakuru (and she seems delighted by the cozyness of Japanese kotatsu!). Suddenly, Touya announces that Sakura is coming over. Yukito worries about how it's getting dark and that maybe it'd be better to go pick her up along the way, but a grumpy Touya says there's no need for that: along with Sakura are also coming Syaoran, Akiho and even Tomoyo. Yukito and Nakuru can't help but being surprised, and Nakuru wonders "The all-stars are coming? What's going on?" 😂 I found so hilarious the use of the term "all-stars", which in Japanese usually indicates a whole cast of a performance composed of famous actors, and sometimes it's applied to sports team too. But the room temperature drops immediately when Yukito looks at Touya, with a very pensive face, and it's immediately clear that something serious happened and Sakura is coming to discuss that. Touya might not know exactly what, but as we can see, he's already got a feeling.

Sakura and the kids arrive, apologizing for coming so suddenly, and they sit down, all with very serious faces (save for Tomoyo. Tomoyo never loses her calm composure 😆). Sakura starts dropping the bomb immediately: "I want to talk to you about something very weird" and "I want everyone who knows about the Cards and magic to hear this". Sakura is dead serious, and she informs Syaoran (sitting at her left side) that she's just told everything to Akiho shortly ago. She also tells Kero and Suppy to come out of her purse, for the second time (since the first was halted by the rewriting of the forbidden magic) putting an end to the farce of Kero constantly needing to act like a plushie in front of Touya!! Remember when the fandom used to point out that it was weird that Kero kept hiding from Touya, despite saying himself at the end of the Sakura Card Arc (after Touya gave his powers to Yue/Yukito) that he was perfectly aware that Touya knew everything about them? That really felt like a "plot hole" (maybe at this point the only REAL plot hole) for the longest time, and I am honest when I say that I had already given up hoping to see an explanation for it, wanting to treat it like a "glitch" in the narrative and using suspension of disbelief to overcome it! Well well well, CLAMP surprised me again! Cause in this chapter they actually tried to give an explanation to that "discrepancy"! And of course, being this about Kero, the explanation is rather silly (confession - I didn't understand Kero's reasoning very well, but I'll give my interpretation of what he said): Kero saw that even after that event, Touya didn't try to interact with him and thought that maybe he didn't consider him a cute and gorgeous magical creature, but rather something else....(was he butt-hurt?) Suppy of course is spitting fire cause why the heck did we need to keep pretending to be plushies?? and Kero's reply is "Because I thought it'd be fun pretending to be plushies together when you came over!". Now, if you remember how difficult and taxing it was for Suppy to force himself to stay still, you can understand why he's so mad! 😂 Touya says, quite annoyed, that he simply didn't try to interact with him because he thought that Kero was getting a kick out of acting like a plushie! I feel like sensei have quite reached and almost broke the 4th wall with this scene, because Sakura here says something that I'm pretty sure many of us have thought in regard to this "discrepancy": "I did wonder at some point why you kept that up despite I was telling you multiple times that I had the feeling my brother was onto you". And it's true, we've seen that in volume 4! Well, to me it felt like a stretch, but eventually we got an explanation for that situation so I guess it's better to leave it behind us! 😂

Cause we have more important matters at hand. Sakura places her phone on the table, showing Eriol & Kaho in videocall!! NOW all the "stars" of this show are present! 😂 So Sakura starts her recount of the most recent events, saying "It's really weird...but I swear it happened". After everyone listened to Sakura, of course they're all surprised. Nakuru wonders if there's any magician who can really have the power to "rewrite" a world...Eriol says that as far as he's heard, there isn't any magician among the living ones who has that degree of power. However, if said magician had access to a "medium" able to use the "forbidden magic", then it's another story. And that's the Book Sakura told them about. Sakura confirms that the one who told her all of this is the Guardian of the book herself. And then, to Akiho: "The plushie shaped like a bunny that you cherished so much was the temporary form of that Guardian. You named her 'Momo' ". Here I have to point out that the way the ENG translated it infers that Akiho remembers about Momo ("You know that stuffed bunny you loved so much?"), but actually in the JP version it's mostly Sakura informing Akiho that she used to cherish a bunny-shaped plushie, cause Akiho has no recollection of it. In fact, right after, she answers "But that's the title of a book I really love so much!". THERE IT IS! I've mentioned this many times in my social media accounts, and even lately in my "literary references" post here on Tumblr, but it turns out this simple answer by Akiho kinda confirms that she might really have named Momo after that book. And it's not only a beloved book because of its story, but also the one she was reading when she met Kaito for the first time. I've always thought that having her most beloved plushie named that way, and having precisely that book when they met for the first time couldn't have been unrelated. So I'm really happy for this scene here and I hope it'll get eventually confirmed better later.

Sakura takes Akiho's hands (she'll do that a lot this chapter and I simply love it) and reassures her about something that I was SURE she was going to say:

JP: "The fact that we became twins is an effect of the rewritten (world), but the fact that you are an important person to me didn't change at all, Akiho-chan"

I've preferred putting the JP version here because once again we have the usual stuff that I complain about lately: Sakura in JP used 大切なひと (important person) to describe her relationship with Akiho, and this is absolutely coherent with all the previous times. In ENG they used "you're special to me", but the adjective "special" in Japanese (特別な) in relation to a person has been consistently used in the latest chapters to describe the person Sakura is in love with (and not only Sakura). So they shouldn't have used that adjective in particular. They should stick to the literal translation. Especially cause that "special person" will come up in a few pages. I know I sound pedantic with this separation between "important person" and "special person", but I mean, CLAMP sensei are consistently keeping that distinction so I'm convinced the translation should do its best to keep it, because it's a guide to lead the readers among the relationships of CCS. Which sometimes can be quite complex.

Touya teases Sakura again with the sis-con joke, and Yukito teases him back by saying "Are you talking about yourself now?" (I love how Yukito always teases the big and grumpy Touya 😂they're really made for eachother). Tomoyo comments that it's been "a sight for sore eyes" (the term used in JP is 眼福, ganpu, and it's used when you see something precious) to see Sakura in the role of the big sister and Akiho in the one of the little sister. Akiho is moved by the fact that, despite everyone knowing the truth now, nobody shunned her or rejected her presence, and exactly like I imagined, I'm 100% sure Sakura will keep thinking about her as a sister (not a blood-related sister maybe, but surely with the same importance of one) even after everything will be solved later. Cause the bond between her and Akiho was never a fabricated thing, but always been genuine from day 1. Even if they got close in such a short period of time, it's just what happens normally in real life too. Sometimes you bond very tightly with people over a short period of time, cause you feel you're so compatible.

So Sakura continues. She says that for this reason, she wants to bring (someone) back. She's convinced that what the Record Card showed to her is not everything. She feels like there is someone who is missing from both what the Record Card had shown to her and from this rewritten world as well. Syaoran is confused, "they're missing, and yet you're sure they're there?". Sakura understands that confusion and says "It's weird, right? I can't really explain how I know it, but I just do." And then, towards Akiho: "That person....is your special person, Akiho-chan". There it is, the infamous "special person" again. It's clear what Sakura is meaning here. "This is the person you're in love with, Akiho-chan". Of course Akiho's face cannot be any other than a dismayed one at hearing that. And then the pain comes, all at once, piercing her heart and leaving her speechless. Sakura says that the Record Card wasn't showing anyone with Akiho in one of the scenes, and yet she saw her extremely happy. That was enough for Sakura to know that someone was indeed there with Akiho.

I'm Always Searching For Someone

We're shown one of the most important scenes for anyone liking Akiho and Kaito (and their bond), the night that Akiho was so brave to confess her feelings to him through a covert (and very local) way, claiming that "the moon is really beautiful". And in the same occasion he accepted to spend some time strolling and talking to her. It was clear from the moment that scene happened that it would've become important later. And the readers who know what happened and what we lost are feeling probably the same pain Akiho is feeling right now, only that she's unaware of what is causing it. Akiho says "I'm really happy to live with you, Sakura, and everyone in the Kinomoto household, but...I've been in pain. Because I'm always looking for someone who's not there...". So Akiho did feel the effects of that void. The void that only your most important person can leave when they're gone. It's just that, we've seen her being so happy with her "new" family, and yet exactly like most of the fandom imagined, that didn't really work to fill the void Kaito left. It's impossible to fill that void because that person is just irreplaceable. This scene of course stabbed my heart but I had imagined that we would've seen it sooner or later. Sakura gets more confident with the confession of what Akiho's been feeling, and tells her that she thinks the one she didn't want to lose and the one who rewrote their world are the same person. "So I'm going to bring them back". Sakura announces with a smile, but Kero just wonders in dismay how she's going to do that. Sakura believes that the pocket watch in Akiho's possession will show her how. As if on cue, Akiho takes it out of her purse and places it on the table in front of Sakura's phone, where Eriol and Kaho can see it. They recognize it's a magical artifact specialized in time magic, but they also recognize that in order for a magician to be able to use it, they would need to have a tremendous amount of magical powers. Akiho suddenly panics. It dawns on her. I think the mental connection she's made is "if Sakura wants to use this to bring my special person back, she would need to achieve an amount of magical powers that could put her in harm's way". Aside, of course, from all the other dangers that a "mission" like that could pose to our heroine. And of course she'd never be okay with that. But Sakura reassures her. "You aren't making me. I want to." Sakura explains that both when she was dealing with the Clow Cards (and we see a scene of the Final Judgement, the one where Kaho gives her the Moon Bell) and when she was transforming them into her own Cards (they show us a scene from the last battle with Eriol), she was able to overcome her troubles thanks to all of the people who loved her and cared about her.

Sakura, JP: "Therefore I want to do what I can for my important person, too"

Again the use of 大切なひと (important person) in relation to Akiho. I think this panel in particular is pretty important (and the big font indeed suggests so). I feel like it's the core, the heart of Clear Card Arc. Sakura, whom until now was accustomed to be cherished and pampered in a protected environment by her loved ones, is starting to take the first steps towards self-assertiveness and maturity. Sometimes those loved ones would overdo it with the loving, and ended up depriving her of her own agency. Sakura is finding herself, she's starting to trust her instincts and capabilities more and more, and that leads inevitably to a question: "what do I want to do with these gifts life gave me and blessed me with? What can I do to give back to the Universe all this love I'm receiving?" Searching for her self-identity will inevitably make her step out of her comfort zone. She'll take risks. Even on herself. She'll need to assess situations, make decisions. And here she decided that she wants to use her natural gift (her magical powers) to help someone in need. Someone important to her. Someone dear who lost someone irreplaceable and lacks the means to bring him back. Sakura decides to step in, help her "sister", doing exactly what she herself told her during last chapter: if I happen to be good at something that you can't do, I'll help you out. That's the beauty of being all unique and different.

I've seen people often wondering what's the purpose of Clear Card Arc, if we really needed to this arc and such. Well, to me the answer was made manifest in this chapter. 🙂

But back to our story, Tomoyo understands that moment has finally come, so she says that maybe she can't use magic, but she felt it was best to bring along with her a certain big bag (that we all know what contains, right??). She also says that she had the feeling she had made an asymmetrical costume before, but when she went to check, she realized she hadn't made it yet...

Listen to me well, because this is the solution to the mystery of the cryptical thing Ohkawa sensei said in relation to one of Sakura's costumes, during the latest CLAMP Space! Basically, she hinted that there was a reason why we hadn't seen Sakura wearing officially (for a Card battle) this costume yet, and that we would find out why soon. I know the ENG translation here talks about "complementary outfits" (referring probably to how Tomoyo will later reveal complementary outfits for both Sakura and Syaoran), but that only shows that they misunderstood the word アシンメトリー (lit. Asymmetry). Tomoyo here was literally talking about asymmetry because the "costume she thought she had made, but didn't find in the end" was precisely the one Ohkawa was hinting at during the latest Space, the one Sakura was trying on in chapter 36 and 37! Tomoyo had a sense of deja vu, about having made an asymmetrical outfit before, but actually couldn't find it because...well, the forbidden magic had removed any reference to the Clear Cards! (including, apparently, the costumes!) So that goes to show that Tomoyo, despite not having a crumble of magic, was also subjected to the deja vu and weird feelings of "discrepancy" that such rewriting of the world would cause. But hold on tight, cause another reference is on the way!

Tomoyo continues saying that while she was sewing the sleeve of the outfit, she had the strong feeling that this costume would turn into a very special one. And what do we have here? OH YES, it's THAT sleeve, the one we've been waiting for so eagerly! The one that Sakura saw in a dream with MCF once! Sakura back then asked to MCF if they would meet outside the dream when she'd be wearing that outfit, and MCF only cryptically said that it would be "the beginning of the end". Considering now we know that MCF has been mostly a byproduct of Lilie trying to communicate with Sakura and inadvertently messing things up, I do wonder about that MCF. Was Sakura, by any chance, actually was supposed to see Kaito and she saw the robe instead, because of Lilie? Or is that an actual member of Akiho's clan? Only this finale can tell us the truth. Sakura will certainly meet someone, with that costume.

Sakura thanks Tomoyo, always so ready to show her support, and she does something very sweet, as a result of regaining all of her rewritten memories: she tells Tomoyo that she'll do her best to come back without getting the costume dirty, but if it eventually starts fraying, she knows that Tomoyo will be there to repair it.....yeah....doesn't it remind you of something?? Of course I bet any Tomoyo fan knows very well what scene Sakura is referencing with this line....

When Sakura told Tomoyo she repaired her torn costume with the Repair Card in chapter 40, Tomoyo expressed the wish to be her the one repairing those costumes, with her own hands. Because she had created them specifically for Sakura, so she would also want to be the one to repair them in case they'd get damaged. Basically telling her "I made these with all my love for you, and I'd prefer that a Card didn't take my place even when needing to repair them. I want the costumes that you wear to be made completely by my own hands". Always reminding us that making something with your own hands for your loved one is the greatest proof of love for any character in CCS (which is something I find truly wholesome and beautiful). Sakura here shows to have understood and accepted that wish fully, therefore acknowledging Tomoyo and her feelings. Tomoyo is uncharacteristically surprised for a second, and then with the happiest smile she confirms that of course she'll be there to repair it!

Sakura looks at her brother Touya, who only grumpily tells her to respect the curfew. Sakura is confused because they never had a curfew time at home, but her brother replies "Come back before dad gets worried. That's our curfew". (in ENG there's an additional part here, I guess to fill in a bubble that would be left empty) Sakura confidently replies "Got it".

Nakuru is all giddy, excitedly announcing that they decided to go to war and they need to decide the formation!! Suppy mocks her, telling her she's talking as if she were playing one of her warring states games (in JP the term used here is 戦国ゲーム - sengoku game - and I've found there's a specific game called indeed Sengoku, but it seems the same term extended to indicate all the war games set in the Sengoku era), but that doesn't deter Nakuru, who says that if she gets chosen, she will certainly participate actively (here the ENG uses game language from what I can see - not an expert - but good job!)!!

Sakura's plan is different, though. She says that tonight she'll be going only with Syaoran. She knows that if everyone could go with her, she'd feel more confident and reassured, but...

Sakura, JP: "If I want to find Akiho-chan's most important person, I have the feeling that it'd be better for me to go with my most important person"

Here we go. We temporarily leave aside the "special person" terminology to go back to the more famous and loved "my most important person" term, to indicate THE ONE person someone loves the most. 一番大切なひと (ichiban taisetsuna hito). The term we all learned because it's been so crucial to indicate the person someone was in love with during the old arcs of the story. The term Sakura eventually used for Syaoran at the end of CCS volume 12 to finally give a "definition" to the love she felt for him. Now she uses it to define Akiho's feelings for Kaito. This is "the" term that takes precedence over all the other terminology used, and also goes to show how important and solemn the moment is. Sakura's intuition tells her that in order to find Kaito, Akiho's most important person, she should go with Syaoran, her own most important person. This is probably because her magical intuition (let's remember that Sakura got the power to see the future) grasped that her bond with Syaoran will be absolutely pivotal in order to have a positive outcome for the mission they're about to embark on. They will probably have to put that bond at work....maybe to explain, show, help someone understanding something that he still doesn't seem to grasp perfectly? Or rather, a stubborn refusal to understand it, which caused them all to be in this situation they're in right now? What's for sure is that if Sakura and Syaoran manage to find Kaito, and if they'll also manage to free him from the Seal of D. + the artifact with all the magical books that Akiho had engraved in herself, their job won't certainly be over like that. Kaito needs to talk to someone. He needs to understand many, many things. Some of those things, Sakura and Syaoran can at least try to introduce them to him. Because while it's true that Sakura wants to bring him back for Akiho, she also needs to make sure that coming back is also Kaito's wish. Because they can't force him if he isn't 100% convinced himself. I'm sure this is a very important thematic for CLAMP, respecting someone's self-determination. And since his state of mind, last time we saw him, was that he was perfectly expendable and that he was absolutely not necessary in Akiho's life, they need to change that perception. And there's also the fact that, despite being so different, Kaito and Syaoran are pretty similar in several aspects too. So maybe the role Syaoran can have in "communicating" with Kaito could be very important and impactful. Maybe that's what Sakura's intuition was trying to tell her.

Here, the ENG translation decided to translate that "most important person" with "favorite person". I have definitely turned up my nose at seeing that (why not leaving the iconic term?) but in the end I decided to relax because, at the end of the day, the result is similar. It indicates a person for whom your preference and importance is above everyone else. What really *mattered* in this scene - and lo and behold, it seems ONLY the English and Portuguese versions got it right (let me know about the Chinese one, cause I can't read that one) - is that Sakura used the same term to describe what Akiho feels for Kaito, and what SHE feels for Syaoran. "I am aware that this missing person is for Akiho an existence of the same importance Syaoran-kun has for me. Therefore, I will do everything in my power to bring them back, because I fully understand that kind of bond and I understand the void they leave in your life when they're not there" She knows, to some degree, what it feels like to miss your most beloved person, due to the period she had to spend apart from Syaoran. And they could still have phone calls and writing letters. Akiho's situation can only be worse. Sakura's understanding of that bond is also what causes her intuition to suggest her to go only with Syaoran. It's all connected. So it's of utmost importance that the translations use the same term when both talking about Akiho and Sakura. Then, about this scene, we could also say that it was a beautiful demonstration of how much Sakura (but also Syaoran) has grown up, now fully confident to declare in front of everyone that Syaoran is THE most important person in her life. Without blushing and without any drama. It's just a fact. After all they've been through, I think Sakura can feel confident enough in her relatinship with Syaoran, and there's no shame nor embarrassment in stating that aloud.

The people present here can only accept and show their support, and Eriol encourages Sakura to follow her intuition (remember the whole discussion about listening to the stirring of your heart, the so-called intuition? Yeah, a great lesson from Mama Yelan which will also be applied to another character soon). Sakura tells Kero that if she needs him, she will certainly call, and the guardian beast reassures her that he'll certainly hear his master's voice, same for Yue.

Then, lastly, Sakura takes Akiho's hands and holds them tightly. They share another sweet forehead touch (seriously, I love them so much ❤️). Akiho is worried, so worried, but also very resolute. She wants this as much as Sakura does. Sakura tells her that there'll surely be a moment when she'll request Akiho to do something only she can do, and asks her to please wait here with everyone till that time comes.

I'll admit it, I was really disappointed when I've read this scene the first time around. Not only because I had imagined all kinds of scenes in my head (included Akiho wearing one of Tomoyo's costumes) and they shattered that possibility (but oh well, I am prepared to that), but also because I feel like this isn't a good choice from a character development POV. I understand it, I really understand it, this is Sakura's story. She's the one who gets to shine in the finale. And we've talked about it before, there's no doubt that Sakura in this story goes through a journey to find her identity and what she wants to do. So now it's time to let her do that. But Akiho has been slandered for the whole manga, accused of all kind of things because of prejudice, and one of those was "she's weak and passive, she does nothing". Seeing her "on the sidelines" once again, when we're talking about rescuing her most important person, feels extremely off. Letting someone else do "the job for her" doesn't even feel like Akiho.

Then, as hours passed by, I thought...

Maybe Sakura wants to take care of the first part of the mission, because it'll certainly be the one where it's most likely to encounter some magical danger (dragon-chan???). And Akiho wouldn't be able to defend herself from that, devoid of magical powers as she is. She could potentially end up risking her own life. And then all of this would've been for nothing. And then I thought, wait, maybe Akiho knows that. She knows it very well, since she's a girl with a pretty good understanding of herself and her own limits. And this is certainly a limit she does have. So what she can do is to wait safely at home, as hard and painful as it can be, for the REAL, big moment when her presence will be absolutely necessary. Sakura said it with great confidence so it's 100% sure it will come. Therefore, as an Akiho fan, I will swallow this pill and wait together with her. 🫤

But the chapter isn't over yet, as Touya and Yukito go outside in the garden while Sakura and Syaoran get dressed for their departure! Yukito teases once again Touya, telling him that his face is scary and that Sakura's earlier statement ("most important person") must have caused him "damage" (still seemingly talking in game language). Touya of course doesn't reply, so Yukito continues, giving finally confirmation to the suspicion I've been having ever since this "rewritten world" started: Touya did notice something was off. He didn't know precisely what, but he knew it had something to do with Sakura. Yukito also gives us the opportunity to see just how kind and generous Touya is: he purposely didn't go back home often because he wanted to reduce his presence around Akiho as much as possible. Not because of negative feelings, quite the contrary: he was worried she'd get even more hurt if she established a bond with him, only to end up finding out that they weren't really brother and sister. (Meanwhile, we see a very cute panel of Akiho talking to Kero, Suppy and still in videocall with Eriol and Kaho!) And then, to follow the leit-motiv of this chapter, very centered on calling back stuff that had already happened in the original world, Touya says that he won't allow anyone to hurt his close ones (they used "family" in ENG, but the word 身内 can indicate also friends and such, the common characteristic is that they're very close). Got the feeling you've already heard these words, especially with the use of the word 身内 ? Yes, of course, it's vaguely the same threat he made to Kaito back in chapter 54, during the double date! 😂 Hmmmm, I have the feeling that if they manage to bring Kaito back (of course they will!), someone will want to have a word or two with him....let's hope he'll just stick to words! 😂 Jokes aside, it's very heartwarming to see how even Touya warmed up to Akiho, and took her under his protective big brother's wing! In fact, Yukito can't just miss the new opportunity to tease him (stop flirting so shamelessly in front of us, Yuki! 😂), telling him he's so overprotective for his sisters!!

The two lovebirds have finished changing their clothes, and we're all left staring at them agape, together with Nakuru: they look stunning, in their complementary outfits!! Sakura even got heels ❤️ And yes, dear readers, as already hinted when Tomoyo was speaking, this is IT, THE costume with THAT sleeve that appeared in Sakura's dream! It is the biggest indication that it's finally time for the last confrontation. Both Sakura and Syaoran look so resolute and ready to make a mess of space and time to bring Kaito back!! 😂 As many have noticed, Sakura got her Dream Staff with her, despite the Clear Cards have disappeared: my theory is that the Key was never removed by the forbidden magic, only the Cards, or maybe that the key came out now that Sakura got her memories back.

And this is where the chapter ends, with another huge cliffhanger!! Will we see Kaito, next time? Being a chapter number ending in -5, and being in the very last volume, I expect big things from it! Chapter 75 will be published on CLAMP's Youtube channel on July 1st, while the relative Nakayoshi magazine will be released on July 3rd (by the way, we'll have Sakura ONCE AGAIN on the cover and ANOTHER Sakura furoku!!). As usual, when I have less translation mistakes to talk about and more space for my feelings towards the chapter, I go overboard! Another freaking long post 😂😂 So I'll just leave you here, as usual I'll wait for your asks in my inbox! Bye Bye!!

#card captor sakura #cardcaptor sakura #clear card arc #ccsakura #ccs spoilers #translation differences #chapter 74 #Sakura Kinomoto #akiho shinomoto #Syaoran Li

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uh-velkommen · 8 months

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Scandinavian Things to Watch

Somebody asked me for some recommendations in regards to Swedish and/or Norwegian T.V. shows so I figured I'd scour the internet for every show and movie I've ever seen and compile a list.

Now I will note that half of these I wouldn't really recommend. A thing about Norwegian shows, you'll always end up in one of these genres: Crime-Drama, A show about an awkward person or immigrant family navigating Norwegian culture, or an uneventful slice of life adult/family show and somehow, more often than not, some environmentalism plot line is threaded throughout each genre. I'm very used to fast paced dramas featuring teens so Norwegian series are quite the opposite. This is me admitting that I think most Norwegian shows and movies are so slow and boring. Also I hate Crime-Dramas. With that being said, I do try to get through the first couple of episodes/minutes and can recognize when a show is potentially good but if it requires my full attention to keep up, I'm not finishing it. I can't say if this crosses over into Swedish shows and I'm only just starting to get into Danish shows. Some of these are still on my To Be Seen and I definitely forgot to list others but it's been years since I've seen them so...🤷🏽‍♀️

Where To Watch: Most of these are on Netflix. Some were and are now gone, others have been added once I moved to Sweden. Some are on NRK which I used mostly when I was in Norway. You could get by with a VPN but NRK knows when you're using one and you'll have to restart it every two episodes. Viaplay is a Nordic streaming service that's only like 5 bucks a month, accessible anywhere but again, the selection varies depending on location.

Norwegian Movies:

Blasted (Netflix) TBS - Comedy, Two dudes fight aliens

Royalteen (Netflix) Drama, An average girl gets a prince to fall in love with her. In Royalteen 2, we follow the prince's sister who's working through personal issues.

Thelma (Netflix, Viaplay) TBS GAY - Horror, Something about romance and magic powers?

The Man Who Loved Yngve (Idk) TBS GAY - Drama, Romance

Norwegian Dream (Idk) TBS GAY - Coming of Age, Drama

The Trip (Netflix) TBS - Comedy, An old couple fights to see who can kill each other first instead of just getting a divorce

Troll (Netflix) - Drama, Action? A government team and Archeologist(?) try to stop an old troll from destroying the town

Troll Hunter (Netflix) - "Found Footage" People chase a troll idk

The Wave (Netflix) - Action Drama, People run from a massive wave

Battle (Netflix) - Drama, Featuring Lisa Teige who played Eva in Skam as a ballet dancer battling for the top spot I think, I never finished it.

Disco (NRK) - Drama, Which features Noora's(Skam) actress Josephine Frida Pettersen as a dancer juggling religion and passion.

Det Norske Hus (Netflix) - Comedy, A man crosses the boarder to attend a school that will teach him how to be Norwegian

The Lion Woman (Used to be on Netflix) - Whimsical Drama, A man protects a young hairy girl from being the town freak

The Affair (Viaplay) - Dark Drama, featuring Tarjei Sandvik Moe or Isak from Skam, A student gets dirty with a teacher and then stalks the teacher

Kitchen Stories (Idk) - Comedy? I had to watch this for school. I found it boring but Norwegian people like it. An Anthropologist(?) watches over a Norwegian man to study how Norwegians use kitchens

Norwegian Shows:

SKAM GAY for a season- Come on, you can't be on Tumblr and NOT know this show. This listing includes EVERY remake. Especially the American one (it's on NRK you nords) Every non-American only hates it because our culture is so different from Europe's, its giving xenophobia. Find the shows yourself, it's a rite of passage.

Ligga (Discovery+) TBS GAY- Comedy, featuring Ulrikke Falch, Vilde from Skam, A girl gets dumped and discovers casual sex. To be seen because I think it's only on Discovery Plus in Norway.

Ragnorok (Netflix) GAY for like 2 minutes - Mythology, featuring sexy babes from Skam Magnus, P. Cris, and my gf Sonja. The story of Thor versus the Giants. Fun Fact I actually don't care about this show, mainly this genre of show, but I challenged myself to watch it entirely in Norwegian without subtitles since season one and it's done so I win.

Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes (Netflix) TBS - Dark Comedy, Funeral directors get up to some morally corrupt shenanigans. I got half way through the first episode and gave up.

Øyevitne TBS (Eyewitness U.S. version on the USA Network) GAY- Crime Thriller, I haven't seen the original yet bc I can't find it anywhere. Also I said I didn't like this genre but the Scandis do know how to make 'em. Two boys witness a murder that could solve a massive crime ring but are too scared to come forward bc they don't wanna be outed as ~lovers~ The acting in the American version is a little rough but don't let that stop you! This is the only English speaking show on this list.

Ida Tar Ansvar (Viaplay) - Ironic Comedy? A girl who is just terrified of the real world befriends an Incel in hopes of changing him/saving women. The main actress is also in Royalteen and the main actor is actually Kasper from Skam!

Lillyhammer (Used to be on Netflix) - Crime Comedy, An old American gangster moves to a small part of Lillehammer, Norway to hide and life ensues. This was actually the first Norwegian series I watched post-Skam. There's speaking parts in both Norwegian and English but it's an American show. I still recommend it.

Norsemen (Netflix) - Mockumentary, It kind of feels like a Viking Version of The Office. I've seen a few episodes but the humor is very Norwegian and it didn't stick for me.

Beforeigners (Amazon Prime Video) - Drama, Time travelers from the Viking/Stone Age era end up in Modern day Norway. We follow a Detective Traveler Woman solve crimes. I never finished it bc I forgot it existed lol.

Exit (Viaplay, NRK) - Drama, We follow as a bunch of rich people be absolutely terrible human beings. Tbh, I only got to like episode 3, they're just too long.

The Architect (Viaplay) TBS - Drama, I couldn't tell you shit about this show. I got through the first episode and had no idea what was going on but it's filmed very stylistically and I can see it being enjoyable for someone out there.

Delete Me (Viaplay) TBS - Dark Drama, A sex tape gets out and causes problems for many students at this school. I haven't seen it yet bc the plot doesn't interest me but someone else highly recommended it.

Lik Meg (NRK) - Teen Drama, Two girls' friendship gets tested when they enter the 7th grade. I tried watching this when I was in Norway to fill the Skam void but it's definitely geared towards younger audiences so I didn't get far.

19 (NRK) - Same as above, Each season follows a character of a different age so the title of the show changes too I think. I don't know, here's the Wiki. This show focuses on third culture kids.

Skitten Snø (NRK) TBS - Dark Drama, again featuring our child Tarjei Sandvik Moe as he struggles with friendship but in a creepy way? It's hard to find a good description of this one.

Peppa Gris (NRK) - I literally just watched Peppa Pig in Norwegian for language learning purposes. That, Shrek(DVD), Frozen(Illegally) and also Vivo(Netflix).

Klassen (NRK) - Teen Drama, again really geared towards younger audiences. It's a very Disney-like show. I never finished it.

Pørni [or Pernille] (NRK, Netflix, Viaplay) GAY for like 2 minutes - Family Drama/Comedy following a social worker and mother navigating life after her sisters death, her father coming out, and her kids getting older. The characters are all genuinely funny in an endearing way to watch, and it shows genuine/sweet love between older people.

Swedish Movies: (I haven't seen these but they look good)

Black Crab (Netflix) TBS - Dark Drama, A solider has to cross a frozen sea with precious cargo to stop an apocalyptic war.

Låt Den Rätte Komma In (It's online free somewhere & on Swedish Netflix) TBS (Let Me In U.S. version) - Thriller, Something about a vampiric killer kid. I really like the American version so I wanna give the OG a shot.

A Man Called Ove (Netflix, Viaplay) TBS - Drama Comedy, A grumpy old man is mean to his neighbors after the death of his wife, he learns how to enjoy life again, I think.

JJ+E (Netflix) TBS - Teen Drama/Romance, A third culture boy and a Swedish girl fall in love. Will they make it?

Kyss Mig (Viaplay, Used to be on Netflix) TBS GAY - Drama, A young woman who is engaged begins an affair with her future stepmother's lesbian daughter (Can we consider that incest?).

Swedish Shows:

Sjukt (NRK) - Drama Comedy, Loosely based on the life of Young Royals Creator, Lisa Ambjörn. A young women finds a new lease on life after beating Ovarian Cancer. I enjoyed half of it but would rather finish it on a site that isn't NRK.

Young Royals (Netflix) - Teen Drama, beautiful amazing talented show stopping never been done before... A young prince gets sent to a boarding school to tighten up his act when jealousy causes things to fall apart all around him. Obviously recommend.

Gåsmamman (Amazon Prime Video) - Crime Drama, Featuring Young Royals star, Edvin Ryding, as one of the sons to a widowed mother caught up in a crime ring left by her husband. Turns out it goes deeper than what she was expecting. Brace yourself for this intense 6 season, 46 episode long show.

Kontoret (Swedish version of The Office) TBS - Exactly what it sounds like. I haven't bothered to look into it further but it could be fun to see the cultural differences and Swedish nuances.

Quicksand (Netflix) - Dark Drama, also a good one, After a school shooting we follow a girl who was somehow involved. As the plot unravels we find out exactly how. Features Felix Sandman if you're a fan of him.

One More Time (Netflix) TBS - Comedy, I literally just added this to my list. It's "17 Again" mixed with Disney's "16 Wishes."

Thunder in my Heart (Viaplay) TBS - Coming of Age/Family Drama. A lot of these Swedish shows on Viaplay don't have English subtitles so, dead end.

Älska mig (Viaplay) TBS - Drama/Romance, Familiar faces: Edvin Ryding of Young Royals/Gåsmamman! Little stories about people finding and navigating romance.

Ej Kjem (NRK) - Scandalous Drama, A show about a girl navigating life and SEXuality. I couldn't get far with it because it's only in Swedish with NYNORSK subtitles??

Clark (Netflix) TBS - Biography/Comedy? Bill Skarsgård! The unbelievable story of Clark Olofsson, the man who inspired the phrase "Stockholm Syndrome."

Danish Movies:

The Bombardment (Netflix) TBS - Wartime Drama, Based on true events, a WWII bomb hits a school in Copenhagen. (Also if you didn't know, there was A LOT happening with Sweden, Norway, and Denmark during WWII and so there are TONS of good Scandinavian movies set during then. I didn't list them because I'm just not that big a fan of the genre but the history's crazy.)

Danish Shows:

Seaside Hotel (Viaplay) GAY for like 2 seconds but idk if more happens I'm still watching - Drama, set some time in the 1920s. Various kooky guests check into this hotel every summer and life happens, drama unfolds. I was just starting to really get into it but for some reason Viaplay in Sweden doesn't have it 😡.

The Rain (Netflix) - Survival Drama, Toxic rain falls from the sky wiping out almost all humanity. One boy is the cure. Does he save and restore all humankind? I don't know I never finished it. This was when the survival genre was at an all time high. It's a good show but I just couldn't take it anymore.

Rita (Netflix) - Drama Comedy, Rita is an independent girl boss mother who has funny relationships with everyone around her. It's been years since I've seen it but it was pretty popular to the Danes.

Elves (Netflix) TBS - Horror Drama, It's evil elves at Christmas time. I haven't seen it yet but it doesn't look like it's gotten good reviews.

The Chestnut Man (Netflix) TBS - Crime Drama, A creepy chestnut toy links together murders and might be the answer to a politician's missing child.

One of the Boys (Viaplay) GAY - Coming of Age, short drama series. A boy gets sent on this "How to be a man" retreat and flips between changing himself to fit in and accepting his oddball self with this other outsider who is "totally not gay" but I literally don't believe that and it's total queer baiting but there's a kiss scene and it's such a short and easy watch that why not give a chance.

And finally: @notachair asked for this so here you go :)

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soleminisanction · 1 year

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Hi! I love your blog and I love Tim’s character in the Batfam. I keep on getting Tim Drake hate on my dash and you are right the fandom is mean to him. Like I think the reason why the fandom hates him so much is because he started out normal. Like No intriguing backstory or trauma like the rest of his siblings but he was a kid who cared and got involved. But over Tim he got traumatized and yes, it did change him but that’s what’s interesting. He is relatable because he is normal like the rest of us. He could have had a normal life (though debatable. Also I sort of compare him to Peter Parker) He got involved because he did not like the fact that Batman was destroying Gotham in his grief so someone had to step up. And that person is Tim. The only person who could do something and come out in the end despite trials and tribulations. The person who do not know when to quit. Sorry I decided to do some Tim Drake Appreciation in this blog! This is way I play Gotham knight because that was the Tim I grew up with.

Heh, no worries, I appreciate the ramble. I'm the same way! I was so excited to play GK precisely because I could play as my favorite boy and the game delivered full-tilt.

Honestly though, I don't think normalcy has anything to do with the hate Tim gets. You didn't use to see vitriol like this aimed towards him during my first run in the fandom, during the 00s. Nah, the vitriol stems from the way that "Robin" has been twisted in the eyes of fandom to be treated less as a job or a specific narrative role and more like a golden apple with "to the bestest character" written on it.

It started with Steph's publicity-stunt, when DC made it such a big deal that "OMG this one has BOOBS" that it wound up biting them in the ass, since it made the whole storyline more important than they'd ever been intending to treat it (or her). That planted the seeds, which then started to spread thanks to the rise of standom and their tendency to refuse to allow their blorbos to ever be in the wrong or have negative traits.

So when Jason and Damian started their respective in-universe rivalries with Tim, instead of reading them as intended (as external expressions of Jason's struggle to deal with the world moving on after his death and Damian's insecurities about securing his father's affections, respectively), the stans twisted it into, "My blorbo can't possibly be wrong! So clearly the problem is with him!"

It is extremely annoying but, all you can really do about it is block frequently and curate your own happy little corner of the internet where those people just don't exist.

#tim drake #my blorbo #dc comics asks #tim drake defense squad #standom critical

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thegreenleavesofspring · 8 months

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I kicked my husband out in the beginning of December '21 when he finally went from just taking a swing at me to taking a swing at the four-year-old for the crime of asking for help. Earned myself a broken nose and broken glass that day but he was finally out. Moved back in with his messed-up family.

For the year after that until December 31st 2022, he came over on the weekends to take us to the store (the car was entirely in his name and he took it with him. He also never permitted me to get a driver's license, so) and to see the boys. I told him all year that he could move back in if/when he got counseling and shaped up. He always had an excuse why he couldn't.

On December 31st he was physically abusive to me and the boys in the self-checkout corral of Walmart. Police were called. CPS got involved. As of January he is not permitted to have any contact with me and the boys at all.

This has been a massive improvement in our day to day lives (his abuse wasn't limited to only the physical.) My children are more stable, happier, and learning more effectively.

But it also left us without transportation and also he took it as permission to entirely cut us off financially. No phone, no internet, no renters insurance, no rent, nothing. All in one day. And I went from not being permitted to have a job to being solely financially responsible for the boys - I have been trying and trying to get child support but none of my filings have come to aught.

And too my severely disabled mother has needed me to take care of her as best I can a city away without transportation every single day, which is its own kind of wearing...

A very dear out-of-state friend purchased us a Walmart membership so I could order food and diapers. Another very dear out-of-state friend proposed an arrangement where I work online for her and her husband.

All of which is just background and lead-up. I have been struggling with depression and overwhelm and sometimes suicidal tendencies for eight months now. Like I have been slowly sinking into a black mire and all my thrashing is just barely keeping my head above. And I have no one else to whom I can reach out for help. Every time I try it's... it only makes it so so much worse.

But the depression and overwhelm are morphing. Into misandry (men are useless, men are incapable of love, no man will ever protect a woman, men are faithless and cruel and selfish and violent and and and - SHUT UP SHUT UP IT'S LIES I KNOW IT'S LIES THEY'RE NOT ALL MY HUSBAND SHUT UP--) into distrust and disbelief of God (servant and slave of Jesus Christ but not a beloved daughter, He does not want you happy, He is displeased with you, the best you can hope for is to sneak around unnoticed in a corner while everyone else receives their crowns) and that one... I can't shake it. I read the Bible and I sneer. Those promises are for other people. Not me. I can't even justify that mindset (because it's unjustifiable) but I believe it with my whole heart anyway and I can't... help it. I can't help it.

...anyway that was depressing, sorry.

Anyway I was flopping around angsting last night, the usual sulking Nobody loves me, I'm so tired, I'm so bored, I'm so tired of being trapped inside, I am the worst mother ever and my children will hate me and follow the family tradition of moving out the minute they can, I am sick of living in a cluttered mess and not having real furniture, I am no Daughter of God but only a reject from the church, pushed out the house, no place for me at the Communion table blah blah blah. And I went and made a bunch of reckless impulse buys online.

Now, ordering from Walmart is a bit like playing Russian Roulette. Will you get someone picking out your food who is awake, cares about their job, and is competent? Or will you get someone who is half-asleep, just doesn't care, and/or is a flaming idiot? So normally I order the same few things that can survive sleepy careless idiots over and over.

But I went a little manic last night and ordered a whole bunch of produce (apples and a cantaloupe and spinach and Stuff) as well as a new pair of earbuds that are usually $20 but went down to $18 for back to school (I have a pair of the same kind I got years ago and they still work 90% of the time but that 10% is Annoying and also the volume controls and the replay/previous song functionalities don't work anymore.)

A little treat. ^_^

And it all came first thing this morning and... whoever picked my produce out was a literal angel. The apples are pristine and the spinach is bright green and not slimy and the potatoes are perfect and the cantaloupe is GORGEOUS and - it must've all just come off the truck? Because Walmart produce NEVER looks this good anyway?

And it was like a little whisper. Of course I care about you, even when you can't see it. Of course I can provide fresh produce for you if you'll have faith in Me. Do you think that getting good produce from Walmart is impossible for Me? I love you. I love you.

And I still can't quite believe it. Even with the evidence right in front of my eyes. I still can't make myself believe it. But I am trying oh I am trying...

Anyway I hope nobody actually read this pity-party riddled angst fest. XD

#Screaming into the void

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justtelling-shinobuisthebest · 6 months

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Well, just a little rant of this precious little baby♡

Manga spolers

Her difference

I'm not making rules here, but she is one of the most well-written characters of the show. Literally.

Yeah, I know, I don't need argue in the comments. She doesn't have the most tragic backstory in kny. It's a fact, buut. But, her backstory is great because of how good Gotouge plays with it. In series we have a trop:

Happy family - All dead - Demon slayer Corps.

Wihtin hashiras we have 3 of them, which got through this and now have to be all alone(no family, I mean) Giyu, Muichiro and Shinobu. (There is only they 'cause, Tengen, Obanai never had a loving family, Sanemi by a start of main plot has Genya, Gyomei, Rengoku and Mitsuri have a completely different types of stories) And among this 3, Shinobu is the only one who choosed revenge.

Yup, she didn't completely forget or burry this trauma. No, on the contrary, she developed this trauma into something more. Suicidal thoughts and actions.

That's one the reasons why she's my favorite. Because, they don't say it out loud , but you can guess, her death was a suicide. I know, she didn't do it by her own, but still she prepared and led to it.

Her writing

A little girl, lost in this world, developed into the greatest hashira,boiling of rage and grief.

I adore character with facade. Honestly. So, from the very start her smile had something off to me. And when I got to the climax of her story, I knew she isn't just favorite kny character, she is my everything. The way how step by by step we get into the world of demons-hatered and self-insecurity.

While with demon-hatered everuthing clear. I want to turn your attention to the main problem of her character. Insecurity.

It's crazy how in her first fight with spider-sister she asserts that her shortness is her advantage, but deep down she always wonders why she is like that, what would happened if she might grow taller. I love the fact that this is her last moments. I mean, there already was noone to help her in this situation, and it could end here but...

Do you even relise that the reason why Shinobu stood up was not her own will, but a belief that Kanae believes in her. It's crazy, that earlier moment

Led to the most beautiful and meaningful come back.

Do we still have time? Can I continue?

Her rage. Yup, it's continuation of her writing.

It 's kinda pisses me off that mostly we completely forget this even exists

Like, there's the second reason why I even started this rant. Do I need to say more? Her anger leeding us to a fight with Douma, where she manages to turn the tables, and victory over Muzan, her helping Tamayo.

I adore the way how author from one trop gets completely different emotions. But we have to get to the last point.

Her smile

I know, it may look strange that I need whole paragraph just to say that I love it, but can you blame me?

JUST LOOK AT HER

Being so cute, loveable and gorgeous need to be a crime. Because, I would be able to kill for her.

---------------------------------------

And, just thoughts that didn't knew where to put...

1. The fact, that in Kanae's chiring up monologe, Shinobu thinks of Kanao, making her the last person she ever thought of.

2. I don't know from where people gor that Shinobu still hates Tamayo, because it literally was written in manga, that she respects her.

3. Just want you to recall her last words "Burn in Hell" , that personifies her inner world and anger towards Douma

4. Love how Shinobu and Kanao's relationships changes through chapter. Like, in the last moment Kanao shouts "Master!", and at the end she talks of her using "Sister"

5. I can't even go a day without concluding that her fanbase, at least at Tumblr is one the reason why I still see hope and joyment in this world. Want to thank every Shinobu-lover in the internet, you may be a the reason why I still breath.

Loving Shinobu. Day 3

Don't stay up late. Good night.❤️

#shinobu week #loving shinobu #shinobu kocho #late night post

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oh-my-damn · 1 year

Note

you’re weird and obsessed. the truth is, all of you actually are insecure and jealous that he finally has a girlfriend, and how do you cope? you dig up any little thing about her and convince yourself she must be a horrible person and therefore he is too. please go outside and touch grass and socialize with normal people. this obsession with celebrities and not treating them like humans and feeling like you’re entitled to them being the perfect version you’ve created in your head is fucking absurd. i looked for the racism and the only thing i could find where her friends tweets from fucking 2012. People do change and this whole internet mob mentality and constant witch hunt over who has said fucked up things in their life is so fucking tiring. And then you attack him for his looks as if you aren’t thirsting over his characters which are… him. get. a. grip. you’re 28 and too fucking old for this shit. A grown ass woman throwing a fit on the internet because the man she finds hot has a girlfriend. Literally all your posts are about him, you can’t stop talking about him and you label it “holding him accountable” please, what in the fake activism is going on. This whole account is so cringe as well, not you role playing with “andy” anons (which was filmed like two three years ago?? but yet you insist that he’s not hot anymore because he’s old LMAOOO). Genuinely hope you get well soon sis.

Hey there.

I apologize for the slow reply, I was at the gym. What were you doing? Perhaps hiding on the internet behind the anon button because you're too scared to say it to peoples faces?

Yeah, thought so.

Anyway, messages like this are so interesting to me.

You see, the people who, like me, do not support this thing, we make our opinions known on our blogs here but that's where we keep it. I can't speak on behalf of others, but I have never sent a hateful message to the real people involved in this, nor have I ever gone on anon to send a hateful message to someone who disagreed with how I felt.

What I have done, is post it on my own blog, and if you'll go back and read the post, it said I was disappointed. And then I turned it around on those people who love to call us crazy and obsessive and jealous.

Which is what's so funny to me; you can't even see that the person you're talking about in that message to me, is yourself. You actively sought me out, wrote an OBSESSIVELY long message about how obsessed I AM, all to defend the middle aged white man that you claim I SECRETLY WANT BUT YOU DON'T.

You call me a fake social justice warrior while legitimately doing the same thing I am, except yours is worse because you can't even stand by your words.

I said what I said. I stand by what I said. I don't give a shit when cowards like you come for me.

And regarding the Andy nonnie thing; that is something my followers do for me. They come in and pretend to be anons. It's a fun thing we've done for a while, and it's because they like me and want to interact with me in a fun way.

Do you have any people following you who'd ever do that for you?

I'm gonna go with probably not, considering you're hiding right now. But let me put it into perspective: you people, who claim WE'RE the insane ones, are hiding and losing followers and acting ridiculous in defense of this man, while the rest of us stick with the people who have the same point of views as us.

And considering I gained over 100 followers yesterday ALONE, I'd say there are quite a few people out there who agree with what I have to say.

This blog is full of Chris because I used to be a huge supporter of him. I used to be a big fan. When shady things came to light, I took a look at them, and I didn't like what I saw. You may not think that saying and doing racist stuff on the internet ten years ago is no big deal; I think it is.

In fact, wasn't it just in 2020 when people were getting fired for tweets they'd written over 10 years earlier?

Yes, yes it was.

I am just giving the same energy to your toxic fave as I did to those people.

And regarding the jealousy.. It is such a lazy insult. Please come up with something better.

Maybe try something like this:

You're pathetic for coming into my inbox ranting about how obsessed and crazy I am, when you legitimately sought me out to spew hate and couldn't even be brave enough to be held accountable for it.

Pathetic.

And maybe you're the jealous one because people are supporting what I say and how I think, and no one is doing it with you. Yes?

Okay. Goodbye.

Have an entirely toxic day.

#mandy answers #hateful anon #salty anon #chris evans

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awigglycultist · 1 year

Text

Random How the Grunch Cribbed Christmas thoughts/fav things/live blog/ect. Look you know the drill probably.

"Jinkles Christ what an embarrassing way to start!"

"shake your asses!"

Also Esther with the lights on them djdjjd

*farts into mic* "L'Chaim"

Why is Gwen flossing oh god

The applause sign nddbbd

Esther showing everyone a qr code for everyone to give them money ndjdn

"I can't believe you trust the internet with your money, I keep mine where its safe, irl in the unlocked glove department of my van parked out front... Theres cameras! Jesus Christ!"

"in your hometown where you would revice no attention or fame :)"

"and we're out!" "glad I don't have to listen that" "oh you know what sorry now we're out"

"I got an appointment out back with Jolly Ol Saint Dick"

The whole bit with Scrags interrogating Rudy nfjdd

"she knows we have a special bond. And I think her husband knows that too"

"Keith Swanson you puckish imp!"

"yeah we all agree she's trying to pig out on that Keith beef in thr sheets right?"

I think I would die if I was Ace

Poor Scrags

"it's also a waste of my stage time"

There he is. There's the grunch.

"I do not want to look like one of those amateur shows where there's a long blackout and people judt stumble around like idiots"

Ah yes non denominational Santa

"how old are you supposed to be in this song?" "six" "six?"

"Santa" "what?" "boner" "fuck"

Buddy they seem like they wanna fuck you bc of the song

"baby J, papa G, and... The third one"

"or join us on the naughty list" "I totally fucking will" "Keith"

"project"

Esther not being able to read the card is so funny

I love how fucking excited Esther is the moment they see Kirk

Rip Scrags

"my absolute. Best. Friend."

The Esther and Kirk handshake is incredible

I immediately absolutely love Kirk also so I get where Esther is coming from

"happy... Christmas everyone!"

Orlando's entrance is absolutely wonderful

"oh hey uhmm" "it's like the reindeer" "reindeer"

"and that's my childhood trauma.. Being privileged."

"do what my family did, celebrate both" "pft okay. You can do that!?"

"aren't you a sight for whore eyes"

I'd love to know if this would take place before or after ep1 of sisbib bc of Rhoda's Ark being one of the sponsorships

The absolute tension between Gwen and Lisa

"move on!"

Scrags has no idea what he's doing

"will the squad ever come to Florida?" "absolutely not"

"as the only Christian in the squad uhm... It me" "okay, holy spirit doesn't equate to holiday spirit dipshit" "oh my god can Christians just come out on top for once?"

Omg Nick Gage could write an awesome rock song about Christmas

The bit where Esther is on the floor seemingly about to fall asleep only to go right back into the song is great

Honestly incredibly rude if the grunch to knock everything over after Scrags just cleaned up, I don't even care about him stealing presents or....pissing into the diffuser

"if Gwen was giving anyone a handjob I would know about it!"

"do we have any fuckable singles in the audience?"

"I'm joking! I'm half joking"

So who's gonna do the math to figure out how many lawsuits he has against him and how many years he was in prison

I love Orlando

Also. I shout this out all the time but absolute shout out to the background acting in this show

Are they allowed to use this song?

Keith absolutely ROCKING OUT

Scrags screaming omh

"oh I don't know maybe a vengeful monster wHO WE JUST BEETLEJUICED INTO EXISTENCE"

"OH YEAH EAT SHIT ACE!"

Ah finally. Brian playing a women

"multi-generational ogies with the neighbours"

No he's right Pirates are super cool

:( Scrags <3 beloved poor guy

Joey saying bye to that person getting up in the middle of a song djdndkdb also that person left for the bathroom at the wrong time. Like they left right around the start of the song and then came back at the very end of it when everyone was absolutely going crazy applauding for the song, they really missed the best song

We definitely need more Joey and Corey duets

"what do you want Scrags?" "DAAADDD"

"Scrags what were you thinking?" hey it's not his fault you went live right as he had an emotional song with Orlando about his daddy issues

Omg didn't know Brian could play violin

Scrags just. Sulking. In the background.

Scrags putting up the applause sign for the show getting cancelled ndkdndnd

Keith having these signs prepared to ask for a threesome. Omg.

Brian quick changes!!

Honestly tho what a fun uplifting song

Their step forwards djdndn

"to get over this whole sad boy routine..."

"a threesome with her and who else?" *gets down on one knee and presents himself*

"this is a really long black out"

Joey nearly knocking over the mic sjdndj

"hide your kids hide your wives hide your presents!"

"maybe finally this year the grunch will finally take me and this nightmare will be over"

"he thinks moses is like the Santa of Hanukkah and I thought it was too funny to correct"

Yeah this really is terrifying

Keith you idiot

Yeah go off Gwen

Scrags and Esther doing hand motions in the background for the notes and make faces while Gwen misses her notes kdnddn

"his stink glands you see... We're.. So... Fucking bad"

Wonderful accent Scrags

The slow no fighting ndjd

Oh boy there's three grunches now!

Scrags finally held the sign up right :)

How dare they not give him a song

"Orlando, you remember!" "absolutely not."

Keith yelling "this is what I do when I'm happy!" when Esther tells him to stop flossing sjdbdn

Rip Rudy

YEAH WOO ESTHER

"some random y2k spy wear I had lying around"

"EFFECT ALTRUISM BITCHES" FUCK YEAH ESTHER

YEAH THEY SURE ARE THE MIRACLE

The fact Keith's first wet dream was too one of Esther's parents....

"yeah I got a lot of guilt" "ah yethe one thing you Catholics and us Jews have in common" "pretty sure the Jews call it 'gelt'" "nah that's chocolate coins" "no it's not"

"how many nights of Hanukkah are there??"

Reprise time!

WOO ACE!!

This show really is great and I Iove the music and really wish more people were watching it and talking about it

#tin can bros #tin can brothers #how the grunch cribbed christmas #htgcc #solve it squad #solve it squad returns

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sofoulandfairaday · 9 months

Note

For choose violence: 6, 23 & 24

[i've gotten so many of these -- thank you so much guys, this actually means the world to me that someone cares about my thoughts!]

from: choose violence ask game

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

It really depends. Nowadays, probably wolfstar. Some of them are pretty fucking annoying. But it's far from what it used to be. I was here during the gold old ship war days, and I remember dramione and harmione (?) stans being the most annoying people on the face of the earth. 2012 dramione fandom anyone? the ron bashing?? 2016 jily stans with the anti-snape posts??? *shudders*

Not to say the Marauders fandom isn't toxic now but my policy is to: block block block whenever I see people who say atrocious things with 100% conviction.

Also, I just can't stand, as a general rule, people supporting wildly fanon ships over canon ones, and trying to unironically argue why they work better... There is literally nothing wrong with liking a crack!ship, I could argue that's the point of fanfiction, but don't insult my intelligence. Sometimes I see takes where the only possible solution would be for the author to read the source material again.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

Unwillingly is a strong word... I have read some good Tomarry fics in the last year (but. like. literally three (3). don't get excited) which is something that I would have rather gauged my own eyes out than do in the past. But then again only under very specific conditions for themes/setting/length/etc. It's not something I would ever look for, it's something I read if I know the author from other works and think “let's give it a try”... so, probably, I'm actually more in love with those authors' writing ability than the actual ship. You can tell if you actually like a ship in the following way: mediocre stories still make you swoon. You can tell if you like an author in the following way: I would rather get slapped in the face than read this ship but you make it interesting/enjoyable.

Jily is another, not because I disliked it in the way I dislike Tomarry but just 'cause it bores me a little. After exhausting any and all Snape character studies where he mopes about Lily (happy-ending Snily is not something I've ever liked) I thought meh, why not.

Oh! And you might be absolutely shocked to hear this but Belladolphus was one of these too. I was (and always will be) a Bellamort shipper, for my first few years in the fandom I was indifferent to Rodolphus at best. The man doesn't have a (1) single line in the books and we don't even really know what he looks like, but he's my angel and my baby and my darling and I accept no Rodolphus Lestrange slander in this house. Now, they're one of my favourites.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

In canon or out of canon? Because I feel that's different.

In canon probably Snape. The world isn't split into sexual assault apologists and Death Eater apologists, we all have some functioning brain cells and critical thinking skills, it's important we choose to stay in the fucking middle.

Out of canon... come on, you don't need me to tell you what it is. Personally, I think that pointing out the flaws in a book series is important and useful to the general public (and so many criticisms of the series are incredibly valid), but clutching your pearls because the kids decorate for Christmas in Grimmauld Place and *gasp* “I cannot believe JKR wrote her characters putting christmas decorations on the disembodied heads of slaves and thought "yes. this is good. very cute and charming."” (yes, this is a real comment someone made on the internet, i didn't write this. yes, it has hundreds of likes.)

Guys. It's not that deep. It's played as grotesque in the same way the Addams Family is. The Blacks are spooky ha-ha that's the joke. It's played for dark giggles, literally not that fucking deep. Although maybe I'm wrong and insensitive for this, but come on. Feel free to correct me.

Also, something that most people don't get about the Blacks: they weren't unkind to their house elves, or at least not in the way we think. Again, the Blacks are a bit like the Addams family in this scenario, they have a macabre way of doing stuff: their elves were all very devoted and thought it was an honour to be beheaded (which happened when they were too old or weak to carry the tea tray) and Kreacher even hopes that that will be his destiny when his time comes, like his mother before him. Dumbledore also says that "Mistress Cissy and Mistress Bella" were probably kind to Kreacher in their own way - Sirius was the one who was cruel to him, actually. They all saw elves as their natural slaves (which is bad), but they were part of the family just as much as servants were for an aristocratic family of the 1700s/1800s.

#answered #asks #choose violence ask game

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fratboykate · 2 years

Note

Have you ever tried to get CFAU out there? We need that as a show ASAP.

Lol...no. And the possibility of it (or anything like it happening in general) becomes grimmer every day. Listen, I'm probably about to POP OFF, but if you want to know how the internet is ruining rep in the industry, then give it a read. If not, godspeed. But you guys should know what you're doing every time you fuckos yet outraged about even the smallest bullshit.

The vast majority of straight actors are now passing on every queer role they get offered because they're terrified of being “canceled”. Apply the same thing to non-Jewish actors playing Jewish roles. Or this and that and that other identity. Y'all have turned this into a climate where people are not allowed to act anymore. The point of acting is inhabiting someone else's body and story, but y’all seemingly want things to go down to specific nationalities. "How dare this non-French person play a French character?!" That's where we're headed at this point.

You guys fail to fucking understand that, whether you like it or not, films and shows don't get made until they have recognizable talent attached. Even then, there are SO MANYYYYY projects with prime fucking packages that aren't selling right now. Series and movies with ensembles of A+ listers as stars and famous showrunners and directors that legit won't find a buyer. That's the market we're currently in.

How many famous, openly queer women do you know? I'm talking face and name recognition that would get a film or show easily made??? Little to none, right? There are VERY FEW (openly) queer actresses in the industry in general and even less so in that A/B Lister level that can actually get things funded and greenlit. What you guys have done is created a hostile fucking environment where actors don't want to take queer roles anymore and what happens if you can't find bankable talent to star in your movie or show??? IT DOESN'T GET FUCKING MADE. The project dies and never sees the light of day. So, as a result of your fake outrage machine, you will create LESS rep on screen instead or more.

I, for example, write projects that are intrinsically queer and from which you can't extricate the inherent queerness. That shit isn’t going anywhere because it’s in the DNA of the script. What do you think is going to happen/is happening when a show or a movie can't find an actor to play a queer character if the script doesn't entirely revolve around their queerness? The character will be rewritten and turned straight or cut out altogether. What do you think will happen when you're clamoring for XYZ ship to become canon on a show and one or both actors say "I'm not comfortable playing a queer character because I don't want to get canceled."??? It's not gonna happen. YOU guys are fucking representation over, not helping it.

It's a veryyyyyy real problem. I'm seeing producer friends trying to put films together right now going through it. No one they've sent scripts with queer characters this year to will touch them. And it's not homophobia. It's literally actors telling them directly "I won't play queer characters anymore because I'm afraid of the backlash." That's the culture you've created, one which will only affect us in the long run.

Hell, I know it first hand. We're trying to package one of my scripts right now and we've already had two prominent actresses pass. One was literally THIS WEEK. I met with her and she outright said to me - TO MY FACE - that she was scared of the internet's response. She said she didn't think "She could sit in press interviews and justify taking this role when it's not her story." She and I talked for an hour and about 20-25 minutes of that was she expressing how uncomfortable she was BECAUSE of the internet. I did my best to assuage her fears during the meeting and she still passed days later. Both she and her agent love the script, which is why she even took the meeting in the first place. But, at the end of the day, when she was weighing risks, she didn't think it was worth enraging the online mob and possibly getting vilely attacked over it.

Let me bring up a tangible example of how your outrage kills projects. Do you remember the biopic where Scarlett J. was supposed to play the lead as a trans man from the 1800s-1900s? Y'all grabbed your pitchforks and got her to back out of the project. Where is the movie now??? The film didn't get made, did it? Because without a name like Scarlett fronting it, that movie was never going to get made. Ignore Scarlett's past. Ignore her altogether for a second and pretend this was any other A-List actress. Let me ask you: would you rather have the actress play the role with genuine respect for the project/character and have a movie that could've put the life of an iconic trans man out there for people who needed to see it...or would you rather have it die and get fucking nothing? In one scenario, you potentially get a film with a major star that would've been watched by a large swath of the general population, could've touched on important queer issues, and probably have a slew of other queer performers in the film as supporting actors. It might have been imperfect rep by the internet's standards, but it would've still been exposure for potentially more than one group in the community. On the other side, you have the reality of what happened now: no big name, no movie, no story being told, no rep AT ALL. Think about what you prefer with your big girl and boy brains.

Truthfully, I don't know that Hailee would've signed up to do Dickinson in today's climate. Dickinson helped Ella figure out she was queer, but she was also a straight woman coming into it. Imagine what a loss that would've been. If they were casting Lexa in 2022 and told Alycia upfront that Lexa would be limp wristed, I doubt she would've taken it. Think about all the iconic queer ships of the last...ten years and ponder how many of them involve actual queer women. Now think about how most of them wouldn't happen with those actors that brought the stories to life because they're terrified of the vitriolic faux outrage mob. Would you rather a straight woman play a queer character, or would you rather have no queer character at all?

You can scream till you’re blue in the face about "WELL, THE INDUSTRY SHOULD CHANGE AND THEY SHOULD CAST UNKNOWNS TO PLAY THESE CHARACTERS". Sure sure, that's all fine and dandy in your fantasy land, but that’s not the real world. When you ask an investor/company/studio to put millions of dollars on the line, they want guarantees that they're getting their money back. You can only even remotely attempt that by putting faces people recognize on the screen. This isn’t a game and it isn't charity. They're not doing this shit out of the kindness of their hearts. These are real investments of cold hard cash that people are making and in their minds, the easiest way to ensure those investments is by having talent audiences are going to watch. Especially when their competition is your favorite thing in the world: Disney/Marvel and franchises. Fewer and fewer movies get made every year. Why? Because investors and studios would prefer to pour money into a "guaranteed" thing like a pile of hot garbage, 300 million dollar budget, superhero movie with a bankable name, over making ten 30 million dollar movies that they don't know if they're going to lose money on. Some actors still do things outside tentpoles, but who is left to play the queer roles if they're running from our stories BECAUSE OF YOU? Who is going to be the thing that attracts investors? No one. Then we get jack shit. And that, that is a problem of your own doing.

So when someone writes a really fucking fantastic project with...idk...a queer Jewish lead (or just something in the vein of CFAU) that you would've loved to watch/would've been wonderful for the community and no actor will touch it because you've made any type of diverging from one's specific identity a crime then you have no one to blame but yourself. You'll never know the project existed because you killed it and it didn't get made, but trust meeeeeeeeeee...y'all are killing outstanding projects every day with this shit.

LET.PEOPLE.ACT. That's the whole goddamn fucking point. As an actor, you're supposed to act like something other than yourself. You're supposed to embody and explore different experiences. If you can only play EXACTLY what you are, then what the fuck is the point. What are we even doing?

Cut all this shit out.

#also don't reblog this #leave it here #rants #hollywood #anonymous #answers

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becaexists · 1 year

Text

Gonna vent for just a second because I literally have no one to talk to about this so y'know turning to the internet as one does

All over my social medias like Twitter and tiktok (I know they're bad but sometimes they're designed to trap you) everyone is talking about Brianna Ghey, the 16 year old trans girl that was murdered on Saturday. She was a year younger than me, I have friends that are the same age, and all I have seen all day because I've been travelling thus had nothing better to do than to stare at my phone, is so much of the same thing, the same kind of posts, just talking about how this sweet young girl was murdered, potentially out of hate for our community but they're "not sure", and it is really fucking getting to me.

I know it sounds selfish as hell to because it sounds like "oh there was a trans girl murdered and I have to complain about seeing it everywhere" but it's not that, it's the things people put in and under the posts about it. So many of the people trying to spread awareness are trying to be reassuring by saying shit like "to trans youths, we stand by you, this should not be happening" but that doesn't help, because I'm terrified out my fucking mind that if I start trying to be myself, I might get fucking murdered too. What's worse is all of the horrible things transphobic people are saying, like "she's a boy", and "she deserves it" and "example of what should happen to all those trans freaks" because those are actual things I've read today.

And it's not just her case specifically, it's the constant despair I feel as a trans person where my right to exist are constantly being questioned by the only government I've ever known. I open twitter and see stories of how trans rights are being stripped back all over the western world, how people were abandoned by family after coming out as trans, about how being trans is so incredibly awful with little silver linings of "at least you're yourself". So I open tiktok to distract myself, where I see more people talking about the same things, about how the people in government hate us so fucking much. This whole corecore thing is important to highlight the awful shit but when that's the only thing you're seeing with maybe a few cat videos and stupid family guy or movie scenes while someone plays with slime makes to split them up it really makes you feel nothing but despair.

I just wanna get away from it all. I want people to stop talking about it but that's not exactly what I want? I want it to have never happened. I want to live in a world where these things don't happen. I want to live in a world where I can leave the house without being terrified of being hatecrimed or murdered for being who I am. I didn't come out as a trans guy until this year even though I knew for ages I wanted to be a guy, I didn't come out because if I came out in high school, my "all girls" high school where I was already severely bullied for being autistic and queer, I would be fucking dead right now, either from being murdered like she was or from suicide, which I was so so so fucking close to doing after some girl publicly berated me for asking one of my teachers to not call me my deadname (I was going for a fem NB approach to my transness at the time and thought that Bee was the start of something much more fitting for me) because she was right, no one would ever see me as anything other than some pretty but unpopular girl trying to somehow both escape the torture of womanhood and make myself more intriguing

If I could choose anything else, I would. I would not be trans. I would be a regular teenage girl who likes parties and stupid roadmen and skipping lesson to smoke and vape. But I'm not. And my mum, my own mother, has said "if you would choose not to be this, why don't you? Why don't you just go back to being my girl?" And I want to. But I need to be a boy to live. If I don't transition, I might just die from all the self hatred of what I have to pretend to be. I just can't do it.

Sorry this was long, I just have many many emotions and if I said this anywhere else I might just be on the receiving end of some of the same stupid shit people are saying about Brianna. I hope she finds peace somewhere where there isn't so much hatred.

#I just want it all to go away #I want to exist #I've ingrained it into as many things as I can so I don't forget it #I am beca #and I exist #personal vent #trans vent #vent post #again sorry for the long post #nowhere else I can say this #parents don't care #brothers are dickheads as most teenage boys are #my friends are all miles away and asleep #so yeah internet #Idk how to tag these things so if you want me to add a tag just message me or ask me or smth idk #don't worry I'm not gonna kms #gotten pretty good at self regulating this shit so I'll be fine in the morning

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ishibishie · 1 year

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ops on zinnia

ohohoho character opinion ask! i love stating my useless opinions on pixel people on the internet

what are my opinions on zinnia? i personally think she's a super interesting character! and i absolutely LOVE how "grey" her morality is simply depending on how you view the delta episode's story...... if you believe her about the "oh yeah there's another hoenn" thing she's the hero (and by extension making STEVEN the villain. can we get steven onto sexypedia yet?) but she can just as well be the villain if you don't. and i do love how they expanded on her story in masters! i'm gonna be one of those hard to please bitches and say that masters doesn't really DO much to expand on the franchise's characters and instead only play off their established gimmicks, but seeing the waifu collecting gacha game actually continue her story from where the delta episode left off and ultimately conclude her arc in the hoenn villain arc by FINALLY giving her the mega rayquaza she had dreamed of...... mmmmm chef's kiss

though on a side note i'm kinda scared of her fans because i remember when the masters 2nd year anni was revealed i saw some of her SUPER diehard fans literally try to cancel steven over getting a mega rayquaza and calling him a racist colonizer which is equal parts so funny i can't take it seriously and genuine concern that people could get so tilted over a fucking gacha game but. unlike the other character i got an opinion ask over it doesn't really affect how much i like the character. nothing that brings up bad memories. it just makes me laugh now

uuuuh tldr i like zinna and she's def one of pokemon's most interesting characters in terms of lore and the source of one of the very few dubs i will ever give for masters with their writing. ALSO HER THEME GOES SO FUCKING HARD IT'S SO GOOD

#not art #asks #she's from oras i legally can't say anything bad about anything from those games duh #i actually pitched an idea of her for a zine i joined a while back! rule of thumb if i'm willing to draw them i like them :)

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letterstodreams · 15 days

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The Relativity of Goals

Really, so much is relative and subjective, and that seems to hold me back sometimes, but other times it frees me and helps me surge forward. And other times, it leads me to get so lost in the wrong direction (as opposed to getting lost in the right direction, like some internet quote I read). I have a hard time seeing what is left that works and is reliable, after you try to account for what is relative and subjective.

Or rather, even if things are relative and subjective, they're still true to the individual, but only if you can see what's true for you. And, for that matter, what's true for an individual can change over time, even over the course of months, weeks, or even days or hours. If those changes were predictable enough, following some kind of cycle I could prepare and adapt to as needed, then it still might be ok.

But if I can't even see what new stage I'm in or what I need when I enter a new stage, then I'm always getting lost. What if I can 't even recognize that I have entered yet another new stage? What if each new stage is a whole new creation, different than all the rest?

What if the stages are so different from each other, and so hard to assess or recognize that I'm always being unmoored again? Tossed out deep at sea, or underwater, a lazy, dizzy mermaid who dwells deep in the deepest, darkest, dankest and most desolate ocean. Woah, my spontaneous alliteration kicked in there- a sign of my neurodivergence, so it warms my heart, just a little, and also makes me feel a little tired and reminds me of reasons I seem to get so lost sometimes.

Yes, but my neurodiversity also contains reasons and ways I can be found too, sometimes. The cure is particular to the illness, the order that works for me is particular to my variety of disorder. And so even if I never discover the order that puts me together again, I even still cherish this disorder because I know it's got precious clues to what would work, if I could ever find it.

And it's not all bad and dark. Yes, neurodiversity is particular for each individual, to varying degrees, and many who are neurodiverse thrive. But some don't thrive, and struggle to even survive, it seems, with these conditions. As for me, I don't know how much of my issues stem from neurodiversity, and how much are due to other mental health issues, and how much are due to physical illnesses, as well as my unusual personality and temperament, which might be something else altogether.

Times like these, for however long it lasts, I feel a little to a lot lost. I feel I'm having such a hard time finding my bearings and seeing what I need. Times like these I sometimes take on a whole other scale and scope with my goals and hopes. They go deeper, danker, and more depressing, but only because I'm trying so hard to hold on to anything that actually seems to be really there, really real, reliable, stable.

Since what is reliable changes, so do my goals have to change. Sometimes just getting out of bed is an accomplishment. Sometimes staying in bed most of the day is an accomplishment, because I just look at uplifting things or read uplifting things, and I get up to eat something decently healthy, and I do the homeschool things I need for my daughter. And I get up if she starts talking to me, or if she asks me to play games or do crafts or read with her during the day, here or there. Then we read bedtime stories at night, even though she's a teenager. And thus does my mind usually feel soothed and ready to sleep at proper hours.

Where would I be without our homeschool and feeding and interacting with my daughter? It gives me some manageable level of effort, meaning and order in my life. The goal becomes to raise my daughter without her needing therapy from my parenting, as I've read people say online. Yes, that is something. Maybe she won't need therapy from anything about the way I raised her. If she does ever need therapy it might be for things that I didn't know how to teach her, things that I never learned myself in many cases. Or things I know but don't know how to explain or put into words, or teach to another person.

But those are the sorts of things that I have struggled with, all throughout my own life, too. Those things have hindered and burdened me much more, I think, than the bad parenting of my own parents. And they did have narcissistic behaviors and some really bad parenting, but my own mental and physical health and personality weirdness seems to just be a part of me, not their doing.

My own weird personality and illnesses are the things that I think make my life so hard for me, much more than anything else they ever did. I don't feel that I fit in this world, and nowhere can I seem to find the answers I need, and yet, I do find some answers I need. I keep searching. I have found so much, and I see things and sense things others don't see, and it's only perhaps because of my own weirdness and challenges that I've been able to see things like that, to know and sense things like that. Not in all cases, but in some ways, I think my weird perceptions are due solely to my peculiar and outrageous entanglement of challenges.

Then too, I saw a quote today that said something like, "how can you let yourself ignore all of the blessings that you have today, knowing how much you wished and longed and struggled to get where you are? And knowing how much you dreamed and would die for this level of peace and wellness, and now your wishes have come true?" Well, I think I might have changed the wording a lot and perhaps added a lot of extra ideas in there. But I'm not going to try to look up the original quote right now. Maybe later, if I feel like it, just to see how ideas and feelings evolve and memories distort and get embellished in my mind, without me realizing it.

And that is so true for me, all that I wrote about that quote is true for me now. There are so many things I can be thankful for, enjoy, take refuge in, grow with, learn from, shelter in and lean upon. Who knows where my future will go thanks to all of these amazing, incredible blessings. I guess it's times like these that is the most important thing. Sometimes you can't move past something, and you have to move up. That is an idea which I got from the book 'The Lightmaker's Manifesto', by Karen Walrond. Sometimes things are just too complex and overwhelming, but sometimes you can still uplift yourself anyway, despite all that.

Maybe you cannot possibly even see it all or understand it all and process it all, much less deal with and take care of all these worries, crises, and problems that loom ahead of you. But maybe you might often be able to find a higher perspective, some good thing to hang on to and grow from or learn from or try with, and then see what comes from that. One day at a time, no promises, and yet, maybe it will trunk out far better than the more predictable and guaranteed path. Or if not, then well, it's not where you're going, it's what you've been through. You deserve so much credit just from struggling through life, for keeping going, for trying the best you can, or see how and feel able to do.

when it comes to my life goals too, I think maybe there is a hint of what I can make of myself, of my life, in all of this too. Maybe what I want and need to do with my life is not what a lot of others would expect. And maybe many would not approve of or understand what I need in life, overall. But maybe it's all that I can do with my life, and what I need, what I want, what moves me and calls me, what I should do, what fulfills me. Maybe it's what I can really believe in and live by, when it comes to my values, my goals, and my life path.

The disorder and disease holds clues for the cure, but if not the cure then it holds abundant clues for what will work, and what I can cope with, how and where to find hope. How to define and picture what is realistic for me to hope for. The disorder and disease hold clues for the shadow side of myself that I have to work with or compromise with, lest it take me over while I'm blind to it. Lest it destroy and distort and contort my self-concept, and worldview and moral self.

That is what it might easily, quickly do, I fear, if I just take the most obvious course of ignoring it. If I let myself be in denial of it. That's what happened before, so many years of my life trapped in such twisting, contorting, lost and blind cycles.

But now I don't know how far down it could go. Maybe a certain amount of my current hard-won self-awareness will always be persistent and indestructible. Like an eye that can never be closed again, third eye, sixth sense, awakened heart, I can't unfeel, unsee, undo some of this inner process.

But even now, a great amount of damage can still be done, a huge, incapacitating amount of damage, quickly and perhaps irreversibly. I think that I can sense this, quite clearly and logically, though I can't express the why and how clearly in words. And I have to be very careful and attentive, work hard and sometimes work lazily, intuitively to follow the impulse and feeling, to keep myself safe from all that decay.

I'll do all I can to stay safe from all that decay. I will do what I can, as long as I can have the freedom, space and conditions I need that let me do so. And I'll fight hard or intuitively, seizing the chances as they alight and I sense them, doing all I can to preserve my freedom and space and conditions that let me do this, too. It might not look like much to others, might look like bad choices, wrong priorities or even some moral failures. But they don't know what I need, and what I'm capable of doing, nor what I'm incapable of doing, or incapable of even learning how to do, at this time, or perhaps ever.

Since to know one's weaknesses gives you a certain strength or at least a certain safety, and the ability to protect and care for your real needs, even if that looks shameful, or wrong, to those that do not understand. My shadow makes me real and lets me dwell within reality.

The shadow side of the personality, a concept from Carl Jung, has also been elaborated and expanded upon and sometimes revised by others. One way of defining the shadow is that it is a part of our minds, our souls that holds unconscious or half-conscious aspects of ourselves. And these tucked away shadow aspects can sometimes be good, sometimes bad, or sometimes it depends on how you use it, or manage it.

The shadow contains sides of ourselves that are unaware or denied or misunderstood or minimized, distorted, or confused. Despite not understanding or seeing these sides of ourselves, they still run the show sometimes. They can take over, even without us realizing or seeing it. Cognitive dissonance or dissociation block our conscious awareness and we act out in all kinds of ways, driven and unaware. The shadow can also be repressed because of society, cultural norms and relationships, when others don't hold a space for us to be, to see, to know our explore who we are, how we feel, or what we are experiencing. Sometimes there is no language or concept that expresses who we are adequately, and sometimes we can't see it clearly ourselves, either. In an effort to find words, ideas and ways to deal with it or work with our own feelings and experiences and urges, sometimes we find labels and boxes that fit very poorly. We may just need to have a name and a framework that we can use to address our reality. Sometimes we do damage to our own selves this way, even when others don't do so, because in the desperation for answers, we find or create ones that don't fit. But a bad answer might work better than no answer at all.

That leads me to where I feel like I am now, in my journey to try to find my purpose, my goals and how to live my life, what to expect or aim for in my own life. In this journey, I lean on a crazy quilt of coping mechanisms. It's made of many cut-out pieces of many religions and different moral and philosophical systems and psychological systems. But there have been pieces of myself that didn't fit with any of these systems. And I couldn't make them fit or work with anything I could come up with on my own, yet, either.

Pieces of me that I didn't know how to manage, so these shadows wreaked much damage. And all I could do was try to minimize or control the damage it as much as possible. I could neither see them clearly nor see where they fit, nor could I see how to keep them from doing harm. But I kept trying to see them, somehow, any way that I could. I have kept trying to see what could reach them or help me to understand them, and how to place them into some sense of sanity and rightness, order and goodness.

I needed something to make me feel like I have a place in this world where I can function and maintain an acceptable level of safety and goodness in my life. I didn't aim to be any saint, but I needed to feel like my life belonged and I was worthy as a person.

And, yes, I know. Many people say that everyone is worthy, just because they exist, and I believe that myself, I guess, I think, even with the most extreme examples of dysfunction and decay. And yet, worthy of what? And how? And even if they're worthy, in theory, it's one thing to know we're all worthy, and it's another thing to feel that you are worthy, and to not feel torn apart by grief and emotional confusion and cognitive dissonance.

But parts of my shadow have been like a fire for me, sometimes like a fire that I couldn't control, so sometimes I killed it entirely for a while, or kept it very small and hidden, useless. But that fire might have contained my spark of life and joy, pieces of my deepest self, if I could reach and maintain it.

These shadow sides of me are like a fire, something that isn't inherently wrong or harmful in itself. Or like a disease that causes symptoms both physical and mental symptoms, that can harm me greatly, and harm others in the ripples it makes in my life too. Unless I can clearly see how to manage the illness, and what it even is, then wrong labels and wrong treatments can only go so far, and sometimes can do far more harm than good.

But I'm starting to sense how to make it fit, and how to treat it. I'm starting to sense the right labels and treatments, and to free and tame and train the beast. I hope that I am starting to see this, at least. I think I am. I just haven't yet put it into words, so I'm still on hold, here in my brain. But books are helping me too. Words and ideas I couldn't' find the words for are hinted or unfolded in books. So I'm waiting and digging and excavating and piecing together the next piece of my crazy quilt religion, and crazy quilt worldview, or maybe just my crazy quilt self.

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