#SKYPE CALLS AS WE DISCUSSED ...
oct 13
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let me love you | Leah Williamson x Reader
a lot of angst, ending in fluff, themes of eating disorders, depression and alcohol abuse, 5900 words
please keep sending request yall i need something to feed my brainnn
i’m stuck on a blurb for this so basically just what happens after a rough moment in r and leah’s relationship, can they fix it? can they learn to love each other again? the photo i’ve used says it all lol
it’s piecy and i think u can see my sleep deprivation in this one but hope you enjoy!
I’d known going into camp that I was in trouble. That as soon as the team doctor did our pre camp exam that I was going to be fucked. With the extensive weight loss I knew that it was only a matter of time before I was approached but I hadn’t expected it to be the first night.
I’d been lying in my bed, in my room by myself. I was rooming with Keira this camp, but luckily enough she spent most of her time in Lucy or Leah’s room so I didn’t see much of her. I’d had the tv playing in the background, to fill the room with something other than the sound of my breathing and the sound of me scrolling through my phone. Then my little bubble, my perfect barrier that I’d created was broken by the resounding noise of someone knocking at my door.
“Y/n, it’s me.”
Sarina. Fuck.
“It’s open.”
It was probably the polite thing to get up and open the door but I was comfortable in my bed and while Sarina was terrifying I couldn’t see her getting mad at me over something so minor. The door cracked open and I switched the tv off out of respect for the manager who had closed my hotel room door behind her. Her face was unsteady, like she was unsure how to approach the conversation, something that I’d never seen on her.
“You missed dinner.”
“I feel asleep, the jetlag has tossed me around a little bit. I didn’t even realise until I woke up twenty minutes ago.”
It wasn’t a lie, I had travelled an obscene amount in the past twenty four hours. I’d flown from Cabo to New York, then spent 20 hours in New York with Kristie and some of the Gotham girls before getting on a plane to take me to Barcelona, where I’d spent a very short eight hours with Keira and Lucy before we got on a plane to London to bring us to camp. It had been hectic to say the least and had resulted in one of my suitcases being lost and me being in a very lengthy back and forth discussion with British Airways about how my luggage had ended up in Austria and that no, I didn’t have the time to go to Austria to retrieve it.
“I think we need to have a talk.”
Sarina’s foot was tapping nervously at her side, it was her tell, she was about to have a hard conversation that was not going to be easy to go over.
“Okay.”
She nodded at me.
“Meeting room 2, five minutes?”
I gulped, fuck, a meeting room. It had gone from informal to a little bit to formal for my liking. I nodded regardless, too scared to reply in any other way.
“Yes Ma’am.”
As soon as Sarina had left my room I was throwing myself out of the bed to throw on some proper clothes and make myself look a little bit more presentable. I threw on my light blue tech fleece and puffer jacket that we all had and then very haphazardly threw my hair into a greasy high pony. I pushed some mascara through my eyelashes and some moisturiser on my skin before coming to the conclusion that no amount of makeup was going to be able to disguise the purple bags under my eyes. Once I was done making myself look a little bit less dead I picked up my phone and keycard from my bedside table and left the room, making my way down the hallway towards the meeting rooms.
The meeting rooms had a multitude of purposes, zoom calls, skypes, video review, contract signing. Business stuff mainly, not a talk with your coach. That was what had me trembling a little bit as I made my way closer to the meeting rooms. When I got to the door of the second one, the one I’d been told to go to I waited outside of it for a few seconds before lifting my fist and knocking twice on the door. I didn’t have to wait long for a reply, Sarina was at the door opening it for me in a matter of seconds. I stepped into the room quickly, my eyes recognising all the faces in the room.
I was directed to a seat at the table, sitting directly across from Sarina, Leah, Millie and our team doctor. Lucy and Keira were seated on either side of me and the whole vibe of the room was enough to tell me that I was royally fucked.
“We are all here to have an open conversation about your recent medical exam.”
I kept my eyes on my own hands, which were resting on the table, playing with the rings that adorned my hands. I couldn’t look up, couldn’t bear to look into the eyes of a woman who a few weeks ago I had loved so intensely and now couldn’t even think about without crying.
“You're here to tell me that I’ve dropped a dangerous amount of weight considering my normal weight class, that I should get some further tests done even though we know that there is nothing medically wrong with me. We’ll beat around the bush a little bit, try to ignore the fact that we all know that you can’t allow me to play when I’ve dropped this much weight and then you’ll send me home.”
Sarina’s jaw was set firmly, I could make out that much as my eyes darted up to the older woman quickly to catch a look at her facial expression.
“Do you want to die Ms y/l/n.”
I was taken aback massively by the question, because who asks a person that question, especially in this context.
“I don’t feel comfortable having this conversation with certain people in the room. I don’t want to die necessarily but living right now isn’t exactly ideal either. I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, I’ll admit that, I’m aware. I’ve neglected my body, prioritised other things. I knew walking in here that I’d dropped 2 stone and I wasn’t proud of it. I just went through an intense break up though, I’ve been in Cabo for three weeks, most of which I don’t remember. I know that it’s bad, I know that as an athlete we have expectations but I need some wiggle room, I need you to give me a shot to make this better. Because I honestly believe that in this environment I can fix it, I’ll get the weight back, I’ll get back into therapy or whatever. I’ll give up the bad habits, I just need a period of grace.”
I couldn’t look at Leah, couldn’t let myself out of fear that my brave face would fall and I’d be left in shambles sitting here. I just needed to convince Sarina that I could get my shit together.
She was in front of my brooding for a few minutes, leaving everyone in the room in an awkward silence.
“Everyone out besides Leah and you.”
Fuck.
I watched as everyone else slowly got up, Lucy giving me a reassuring pat on the back before exiting the room.
“I’m giving you both five minutes to explain what the fuck happened between you two, because as much as you both want to make it sound like nothing it isn’t. Everyone can feel it and obviously it's affecting the both of you.”
I still couldn’t look at her, it just hurt.
“Seems like I’m the only one who’s suffering.”
“That’s not true nor fair y/n. Leah’s having her own struggles.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes at the table.
“She’s the one who caused the problems in the first place so I’d call that karma.”
The tension in the room was thick, like a cloud laid over us.
“That’s not fair, you had a part in it as well.”
“I had a part in you kissing Jordan at a party?”
“Jordan kissed me first off, drunkenly, she apologised profusely to both of us when she was sober. You soberly made the decision to kiss fucking Alexia.”
If the tension could have thickened anymore, it did.
“You cheated on me with your ex, I think I can cheat on you with my ex situation.”
“Do you realised how fucked up that whole ideology is? I didn’t want to cheat on you, anyone who was there that night will tell you that I physically pushed Jordan off of me, I didn’t want it to happen. I know it hurts you, but you wouldn’t even hear me out, you didn’t answer my calls or texts. I didn’t know where you went, just heard from Lucy that you’d decided to go abroad for a few weeks and you were turning your phone off. I spent 3 days sitting in Keira’s apartment balling my eyes out because I missed you so much, I haven’t slept properly ever since, I can’t fucking live without you y/n/n.”
Leah was sobbing and it hurt a part of me that I didn’t know existed. I wanted to hug her, wipe the tears from her face and apologise for my stupidity, to make it all better. But I was stubborn as shit and I also hadn’t really forgiven Leah. I hadn’t forgiven myself either.
That night had been the worst one of my life. Seeing Leah making out with Jordan had broken my heart and before I knew it I’d been running out of the bar we’d been celebrating in and calling Ale because she was my person and then she was picking me up and taking me back to my apartment and she was comforting me on our sofa and then we were kissing and Leah was walking in, mascara smeared and tears down her face and then Ale was running out of the apartment. I ended up waiting for Leah to fall asleep before I’d fled. I’d been terrified, my fear response was flight, when I was scared I fled, so that was what I’d done on that godforsaken night.
“I don’t really give a shit who did what. You both fucked up, that’s evident. We have the olympic coming up, Leah you are coming off of an ACL injury and you are going to be our captain, y/n, we need you on top of your game for us to win. I won’t deal with this team being torn into shreds because the both of you are too stubborn to talk about your feelings. Am I understood?”
Both Leah and I nodded meekly at Sarina, the both of us equally terrified of the dutchwoman and the tone of voice she was using towards us, like we were six year olds.
“Y/n, I’ll give you a grace period, two weeks. You’ve got two weeks to show that you can make some improvement in your habits, but there will be conditions if you wish to continue training and playing during those two weeks. You will eat every single meal, with the rest of the team. You aren’t going to work out beyond our team scheduled gym sessions. You will go back to talking to a therapist on a weekly basis. You are going to socialise with your teammates instead of holding yourself up in your room by yourself. You and Leah will room together until you can prove to me that you can be civil. If any of these conditions are broken you will find yourself sidelined, am I understood?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
Sarina nodded at me, her blue eyes staring intensely into my own, I was trying to get away from this situation, away from the confrontation that was only bound to get worse the longer Leah and I were stuck in a room together.
“You are free to go, I expect to see you at breakfast tomorrow morning.”
I’d given Sarina a quick nod before bolting out of my seat and straight out of the room. I was pretty sure I’d had the worst 96 hours of my life. My whole body felt like it was on fire, my hair and face were still greasy from all of the airplane travel and my eyes just hurt. I half jogged my way back to my room, slamming and locking the door behind me almost as soon as I’d closed the door behind me. I slowly slid down against the solid wood, this whole situation was so fucked.
Not only did I have to focus on being fucking civil with a woman who I hated, I had to fucking turn my whole life around in a matter of two weeks, which right now seemed pretty fucking impossible. I wasn’t a person who cried very often, I wasn’t in touch with my emotions like that. But right now, fat, warm, wet tears were dripping down my face and my lip was wobbling between my two front teeth trying to suppress the sobs that were coming up from my throat. Love hurt. Loving someone and being loved is one of the hardest things that I’d ever done, because it’s not easy to spend every day loving a person, it fulfilling but it also is so fucking painful.
I could hardly make up the energy to get off the floor, so I didn’t. I sat against the door, crying, shaking and trembling as I let out the feelings that I’d built up for the last month. I was a person who didn’t cry very often, when I was drunk, when someone died, when I was really hurt. That was the extent of my emotional release. Leah was similar, that’s why we’d hit it off, neither of us were over emotional, we didn’t read into things and we didn’t over complicate anything. At the end of the day neither of us had to worry about the other one getting offended by a joke or drunken words. I’d honestly believed we were soulmates, for a long time, but that night had wrecked it all.
Both of us had been stupid, it had been the celebratory night of our win in the Nations League, we’d beaten Spain, it was a big deal. Everyone was completely wasted and I didn’t remember much of the night until Leah had been on the dance floor with Jordan, Chloe, Millie, Rachel and some other teammates and one moment Leah is motioning for me to join me and the next Jordan is making out with her and I’m running out with Lucy following me. Then Lucy called Ale because I’d locked myself in our hotel room ensuite. Then Ale was there and she was comforting me and hugging me and I was pissed off at Leah and then I was kissing Ale and she was telling me no and the Leah walked in to comfort me and it was just a fucking mess of alcohol and emotions.
Just thinking about that night had hurt, I hadn’t let myself in the last month. Not when I’d been in Cabo drinking all day and night, clubbing and partying and spending all of my spare time trying to push my emotions away. Then I’d gotten the call from Sarina, I’d been expecting it but it had still shocked me for some reason. In a matter of 24 hours I’d been packing up all my shit and hopping on a plane back to the one place that I couldn’t have been more desperate to avoid. I’d contemplated turning down the call up, but a call from my agent had told me that I couldn’t expect an invite back if I turned one down now. The Olympics was a big deal as well, it was something that I did want to do but the overwhelming anxiety I had felt being faced with the reality that I was walking into a group of people that worshipped the ground that my ex girlfriend walked on.
My thought pattern was interrupted by the sound of knocking directly above my head. The sound pulsated against the wood and across my body, seeping deep into my bones. It was a resounding knock, loud, echoing across the room.
“Y/n, open up.”
It was the voice that I least wanted to hear at that moment and I tried my hardest to ignore it but the sound of the knocking repeating made it harder.
“Y/n/n, c’mon, open the door, I know you're in there.”
It was the nickname that only she called me, a nickname I hadn’t heard in a month and it hurt my soul hearing it. It made fresher tears fall from my eyes that I rubbed at furiously with the sleeve of my jumper. I wiped as much of the smudged mascara and tears from my face, I knew subconsciously that my eyes were red and puffy and Leah would one hundred percent be able to tell. For my dignity though I rubbed it all from my face before standing up and opened the door.
Before I could say anything Leah had slipped past me and into the room, making herself at home and sitting down on Keira’s bed, resting herself at the very top so she was leaning against the headboard. I pushed down any thoughts that I had about Leah being in the same position in our own bed, except with a lot less clothes covering her body.
“You’ve been crying.”
It wasn’t a question, a statement, but it held a question in it somewhere. Leah wasn’t used to me crying, so the fact that I was crying was probably a little bit of a shock to her.
“What do you want?”
Leah pouted at me, sarcastically, it pissed me off how confident she was when I felt like I was tearing at the seams.
“In case you didn’t remember, we’re roomies now. I wanted to talk, I think we both have stuff we need to get off of our chests. I love you y/n/n and I’m worried about you.”
“Go worry about Jordan.”
I was leaning against the dresser, trying my hardest to keep my shit together in front of the woman that was making me feel so many things that I had been denying myself for a month.
“That’s fair, but also not necessary. I didn’t kiss her y/n, I didn’t even get as close as a metre’s distance from her, anyone there could tell you that. I pushed her off me. So yes, she kissed me, without my consent or my desire for her to do so. I love you, not her. I promise you that. She means nothing to me beyond being my friend, I don’t love her.”
I didn’t really know what to say. Leah wasn’t really the root of my anger, because I knew that it had been Jordan all over Leah, and at the end of the day she’d come to my room that night to apologise instead of going back to Jordan’s, I was her priority.
“She loves you, and I can’t do anything about that. That hurts and I know that it shouldn’t, I have no right to be jealous but it hurts.”
Leah looked contemplatively at me, like she was trying to understand what I was saying but knew that she couldn’t really.
“Do you love Alexia?”
I gulped, that was a fucked up question that I didn’t have a answer for. My immediate silence gave enough context to that.
“That’s not a fair question.”
I was deflecting and also furiously toying with a loose thread on the edge of my jumper.
“I think I deserve to know if the woman I love loves me the same way.”
It was hard hearing those words come out of her mouth as well.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t love her. I dated her for six years, I thought I was going to marry her. I don’t love her like I loved you. We broke up because we couldn’t love each other that way. It was a surface relationship, but we both knew at the end of the day that we couldn’t get married or have kids or get old together, we didn’t love each other like that. We didn’t have a messy break up, I didn’t have a phase where I hated her and I wanted nothing more than to be away from her. We just stopped physically loving each other. She’s still my person Leah, you know that. I regret kissing her, I was so drunk and I was so fucking upset and she was so familiar to me in that moment. So maybe I do love her, in some fucked up way, but I don’t love her long term. She’s not the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life loving, not the person that I want to wake up next to, not the person that I want to write vows for, not the person that I want to be with every minute of every day. I don’t yearn for her.”
I realised now that there were tears in Leah’s eyes, which shocked me a little. Leah never cried, I could count the amount of times I’d seen her properly sob on one hand. Four times. When we won the Euros, when she did her ACL, when she woke up from ACL surgery and that night when it had all happened. Apart from that she was a brick wall, she wore a facade everyday, that very little people got to see broken down. I considered myself very grateful to have been able to see past it, to see the side of Leah that not a lot did. She’d let a stray tear go every once in a while, but proper crying, proper emotional, vulnerable crying was very rare to see.
“Do you love me long term?”
“Leah, that's not a fair question either.”
Tears were running down Leah’s face, similar to the tears that had been falling down my face less than five minutes ago.
“It's not fair? I’ve been here for the last month y/n, wondering if we still stand a chance. Wondering if you still love me, wondering if I should wait around for you? I want to know if you still love me as much as I love you.”
I could feel more tears coming to my eyes, Leah was sitting not even three metres away from me and yet it felt like we were oceans apart.
“I don’t know. Does it really matter?”
Leah was wiping at her face, she detested vulnerability and it was clear in her actions.
“Does it matter? Y/n/n, I am trying to figure out if I am going to spend the rest of my life fucking mourning losing the love of my life. I want to know if I stand a chance, if there is something here that we can salvage, something here that we can try and fix. I will spend everyday making it up to you if I have to, anything you need us to do I am down to do it.”
I shifted from toe to toe in my spot standing, Leah’s words were so genuine, they had so much power over me, sent shivers down my whole body.
“I love you. I love you enough though to tell you that I’m a fucking wreck, some of it’s because of this, some of it is just me. Leah I’m trying to fucking sort myself out now and I love you but I’m not going to tell you that your my priority right now, I love you but I also am trying to learn how to love myself and I’m also trying to learn how to love my sport again.”
Leah pursed her lips, wiping the last of her emotional admission tears from her face. She looked so raw, her blonde hair was thrown up in a messy high bun, an unusual look for her, her face was stripped bare of any makeup and her jumper looked a tad bit too big on her. She looked stripped, stripped of her dignity, stripped of her facade, stripped of everything that made her Leah motherfucking Williamson. I wasn’t looking at England’s captain, I wasn’t looking at Arsenal and England’s world class defenders. I was looking at just Leah. The Leah who would wake me up with forehead kisses every morning, the Leah who would give me foot massages after a rough training, the Leah who would only look at me in a room full of people.
“I’ve worried about you so much that I started to get scared I was praying. You took off and I didn’t know with who or where. I mean I know that I fucked up but y/n/n, we could have talked it out, or we could have tried to. You fled and you didn’t even give me a goodbye. I didn’t know if we were done or if I was ever going to see you again and it fucking broke me. I stayed in bed for a week, I didn’t eat, I didn’t leave. Keira and Lucy literally had to drag me out of bed to get me to do anything. I cried, non stop for a week, it was horrible and I felt like shit. Then Lucy got Alexia to come over and we talked it out and she told me that she didn’t mean for it to happen and all she wanted was for us to be happy and it broke me because how am I supposed to be happy when the woman I love is nowhere to be seen.”
A sob echoed from her chest and it broke my heart, because I hated seeing Leah in pain, I hated seeing her hurt. When she’d done her ACL it had been the most gut wrenching thing I’d had to witness. The only difference was that now I was the source of pain and it hurt ten times more.
I pushed myself off of the dresser and towards the bed. Leah’s head was buried in her hands, her elbows resting on her knees as her palms rubbed furiously at her eyes. I sat down onto the bed and pushed myself up against the headboard beside her, putting one of my arms down on her shoulders and gently nudging her head into my neck. It was uncharted territory but also felt so familiar and right. Hearing Leah’s sobs hurt my soul, but my contact seemed to calm her a little bit. She flinched away initially, unsure but then she was seeking it out, leaving into me and everything about it felt right.
“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry for what happened with Jordan, I’m sorry if I didn’t make you feel loved, I’m sorry if I didn’t treat you well enough, I’m sorry if I’m not good enough. I’m trying to work on it, I’m trying to be better,” I stopped Leah before she could say much more.
“It’s not your fault Leah,” My voice came out with exasperation, because I hated that Leah felt that way,
“You made me feel loved everyday, you treated me perfectly. You are perfect Leah, you were a perfect girlfriend, a perfect captain, a perfect person. We had our moments but you are a good person, you don’t need to be better. I’m the one who can’t fucking handle herself, who had to flee the country when it got rough and I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry that I ran when it got hard.”
Hearing Leah hiccup on her breath was so painful for me, painful enough that I reached my hand down to her face to try and wipe some of the tears off of her cheeks.
“C’mon, you're too pretty to be crying.”
It was a weak compliment that died with the mood of the room, Leah let out a depressing laugh that honestly just made it all worse but her sobs did quieten down a little bit and I noticed that the tremors that were haunting her whole body had slowed down and had become less of a repetitive pattern.
“You haven’t been eating, you lost two stones, did I do that to you?”
Leah’s voice was so shaky, so insanely innate for her.
“Me not eating has nothing to do with you and I won’t have you taking the blame for it. Not everything is your fault Leah and you don’t have to take the blame for it all. I know how your brain works, that you are going to take the blame for everything that has happened between us, but it’s not your fault, a lot of it is mine, my eating habits though have nothing to do with you.”
My voice was a mixture of steady and stern, I had a point to get across and I needed Leah to understand that, I needed her to know that. She wasn’t as fearless and brave as she constantly tried to prove to anyone, she was always the first to blame herself for anything, always getting down on herself and I knew that, I knew that Leah could send herself into a downward spiral.
She pulled her head out of my shoulder and locked eyes with me, her dark brown eyes felt like they were violating me, I felt like I was naked under her gaze, like I was so incredibly vulnerable.
“Why haven’t you been eating?”
I felt like I was under a magnifying glass, like Leah could see every single part of me and could see into my brain. She always worried about me, always. To the point where sometimes it was concerning, I had as much as a sniffle and she was doting over me like my mother.
“I’m fine Lee.”
“If you were fine you wouldn’t have lost two stones.”
She could read me too easily and she knew that I was pretty much putty in her hands as soon as she started talking.
“It got dark for me when I left, I needed to leave but then I was gone and I realised that I was so alone and I was partying to try and avoid my feelings and it worked but you know how I am when I’m depressed, I stop eating, I stop functioning. I lived off of alcohol for three weeks and then I got the call from Sarina and for the first time in three weeks I was completely sober and it hit me like a freight train. I realised how bad it had gotten and I was in shambles.”
Leah nodded at me, she knew how I worked, knew that when I was starting to spiral I tended to push it all down until it got so bad that I had a nervous breakdown.
“You need to eat, we need you playing, I need you on the field. It broke my heart when Sarina came and told me, when she asked me if I’d seen any of the warning signs or if I’d noticed and I couldn’t give her an answer.”
I brought my hand back up to rest on Leah’s face, she was still shaking, still hiccuping with every word that she said. I pushed the tears that were pooling on her face away with the pad of my thumb.
“I couldn’t even tell her anything.”
Leah’s words were thrown out between choken sobs and hiccups, it was so strung out and painful that I felt it in my chest.
“I’m sorry that you had to go through that, I’m sorry I deserted you. I’m so sorry I hurt you Lee, you deserve better, you deserve someone who has their shit together.”
Leah pulled herself out from beside me and scooted herself so she was sitting in front of me, between my legs looking at me directly.
“I want you though, I want to love you and I want you to let me.”
I couldn’t do much more than look at her, look at her eyes, look at how heartbroken they were. They were full of so much pain, so many sleepless nights and a part of me wanted to fix some of that.
“Let us be happy, let all of this devastation come to an end and just let us be happy. We’ll work through what happened, we can try therapy, or something else. I want you though y/n/n, I want you forever and I don’t want us to give up on that because of some stupid shit that happened when we were drunk.”
Those fucking eyes, they held the sun and the moon, they had the power to make me do anything.
“I want to try, for us. I still think that you are my forever Leah. I just don’t want either of us to get hurt in the process.”
“Love hurts, we work through it. Please just try it for me.”
Her lip was wobbling in between her teeth and it took every single piece of self control I had to not take that lip in my own and just kiss the woman like I wanted to.
“Okay.”
Leah’s face lit up almost immediately, like a kid in a candy store. She leant in towards me, her lips hovering centimetres away from my own and her eyes looking into my own and it took literally every piece of my self control not to initiate anything.
“Is this okay?”
Leah’s voice was calmer this time, less rough on the edges, less broken. I nodded eagerly at her and relaxed into her body as she pressed her lips to mine. It was soft, tender, relaxing, so perfect.
“How about this?”
It was murmured against my lips, a small smirk forming along Leah’s lips.
“So good, but I think we are both overdue for some sleep.”
Leah frowned against my lips but nodded, we were both tired and it was obvious in our actions. She plopped herself down next to me, relaxing into my body and laying her head against my chest.
“Flick the lamp of love.”
The term of endearment sent a shiver down my back, it was so normal and yet so shocking to me. I obeyed her immediately, turning over to the bedside lamp and flicking it off so we were left in the dark. I shrugged my jacket off before relaxing down into the pillow. Leah shifted around for a few seconds, finding a comfortable spot on my body before stilling herself. She looked so small curled up against me, I tugged her hair out of its bun and rubbed her roots just the way I knew she liked me too and rubbed her back the way I knew sent her straight to sleep. It probably took not even a minute before Leah’s body relaxed fully and her breaths evened out and when they did I smiled a little bit looking at her exhausted form. I leant down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead before relaxing myself fully against the pillows and preparing myself for my own sleep.
“I love you Leah, always.”
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Jack Jeanne Complete Collection - Interview with Ishida Sui and Towada Shin Translation
This interview is from the Jack Jeanne Complete Collection art book, it’s available on CDJapan and Amazon jp. You can also purchase a digital only version on bookwalker jp. I encourage anyone reading to purchase the game (if you haven't already) or the art book itself to support Ishida and Towada directly. 💕
This is a VERY long interview so I apologise for any typos or errors I may have missed.
~ ~ ~
An interview with Ishida Sui and Towada Shin, who both worked on writing the story of Jack Jeanne. In this interview they reveal what went on behind the scenes during production, rejected story ideas and much more. This interview was conducted remotely on the 9th of February 2021.
Interviewer: Yui Kashima
How did Ishida Sui end up making an otome game?
—How did the production of Jack Jeanne begin?
Ishida: It was sometime around Autumn 2015 I think… On an old personal site that I used to run, I received an email from the company Broccoli to an email address that I no longer use. It was a commission request for character designs.
—In 2015 Tokyo Ghoul was still being serialised wasn’t it?
Ishida: Yes. Usually job offers like that go through Shueisha first, so I contacted my editor asking why this one was sent to my private email… At the time, in addition to working on Tokyo Ghoul, I was also drawing illustrations for a tear-off calendar and very busy with various other things, so when my editorial department heard about the offer they seemed very shocked like "What!?".
—Why did you decide to accept the offer even though you were so busy?
Ishida: I would often receive offers asking for me to draw manga or illustrations, so I figured that this one was a similar case. However, some words in the email caught my eye. Like ‘Gender Swap’, ‘Takarazuka’ and ‘All Boys Opera'. When I saw these concept ideas, a dream began to swell in my chest and I felt like giving it a try.
I think if it had just been a normal character design job, I would have turned it down. However just from reading the short brief in the email my interest was piqued. While in discussions with the Young Jump editorial department, I also casually mentioned the kind of offer I’d received to Towada-san.
Towada: Yeah, Ishida-san asked me for some advice. I was also drawn to the ‘Gender Swap’ and ‘Opera’ concepts. I could easily visualise the setting of the story. Additionally, it seemed like it would be a story that included many different themes such as gender. When I thought about that, I figured that Ishida-san would be a good fit, since I knew he would be able to draw something that went beyond all genders.
Ishida: I’ve been drawing androgynous characters for a long time, so Towada-san and I talked and wondered if that's what they must be looking for. After that, I created my own proposal and submitted it to Broccoli.
—You created your own proposal, Ishida-san?
Ishida: When I looked at the original proposal that Broccoli had sent me, a lot of it differed from my personal tastes. It was a very upbeat and dazzling story. It would’ve been hard for me to match my art style to that, so in my proposal I noted things like ‘if it were me, I’d do something more like this’. I was interested in this unpolished gem of a story, so I thought it would be a waste to turn it down altogether. I wanted to at least try throwing my own ideas into the ring, so I spent a week creating the six main characters and sent them in.
—At that time, I heard that the game wasn’t titled ‘Jack Jeanne’ yet, but was instead called ‘Jiemarie’.
Ishida: At first, I wanted to try creating a word that doesn’t exist. So using French as a base, I came up with ‘Jiemarie’ as the game's provisional title. But then a month later when I was reconsidering the title, I looked at it again and thought, damn this looks lame. So I hurriedly called Towada-san on Skype and we entered a discussion that lasted about ten hours over what the title should be.
That’s when we decided on ‘Jack Jeanne’. The male roles take the name from the knight, or the ‘Jack’ in a deck of playing cards. And the female roles ‘Jeanne’ take from the word parisienne and Jeanne d’Arc. When these two terms are put together, I feel like you can comprehend what the game is about with a bit of nuance. Plus you can shorten it to ‘JJ’… That’s also the title of a magazine though (lol).
—Taking on another job whilst your manga was being serialised sounds like it would be tough on you both physically and mentally.
Ishida: I think I must’ve been a bit unwell (lol). My body was fine, but being able to work on something other than a serialised manga was a lot easier on me mentally. I may have seen it as a way to escape, so I didn’t feel that working on two projects at the same time was difficult. When it comes to game development, I can only create what I’m capable of, and there was no set release date yet. Of course, I would work on and submit things whenever I could though.
—What kind of things would you submit?
Ishida: I would sketch character designs, discuss and create story elements with Towada-san and try to put Univeils history into chronological order. Then I would share the progress with Broccoli and have meetings and such with them. In the beginning, rather than having to draw anything yet, it was mostly just brainstorming and planning. That’s why I think I was able to do it all concurrently with the serialisation of my manga.
~ ~ ~
How Ishida Sui and Towada Shin know each other
—Do you chat with Towada-san often?
Ishida: Well yeah, she is my older sister after all.
Towada: We talk a lot. When we both have the time we chat over Skype.
Ishida: Once we start the conversation can last up to five or six hours. We mostly talk about things that happened throughout our day. When I’m talking to someone I often bring up something that’s happened to me and ask their opinion on it. She became someone that I could chat with whilst working on my manga. Ever since my student days we’d talk until early morning, I usually told her about storyboards I’d drawn.
—At the Ishida Sui exhibition it was revealed that Towada-san had even given you advice on some of your earliest works.
Ishida: Yeah that’s right. It was a work I’d prepared for a 'bring your own work along' induction course in Tokyo that I attended back in my student days. It was a manga about two characters who eventually became the prototypes for Tsukiyama and Hori Chie in Tokyo Ghoul. It was only about 30 pages long, however when I showed it to Towada-san the day before the presentation, she told me that she thought my linework was too thin.
Towada: Yeah, the overall linework of the manga was thinly drawn. Once I told Ishida-san this thought, he began tracing over his linework and making it thicker. And then when he looked at it again, he said “Yep, I need to redraw the whole thing”.
The linework being too thin was only my personal opinion and the presentation was in Tokyo the next day, so in horror, I began hastily telling him, “You won’t make it in time, stop, stop!”
Ishida: All I could think about was that the lines really were too thin, so I wanted to redraw it. All of the screentones had already been affixed to the panels, but I didn’t want to bring something along with me whilst knowing it wasn’t the best that it could be.
Towada: Ishida-san handled the linework and I helped with redoing the screentones. We worked throughout the night and finished redrawing the whole manuscript. Once it was done, it wasn’t even comparable to the previous version, the lines were powerful and the characters' expressions conveyed a lot. I was seriously worried though (lol), I didn’t know if we’d complete it in time.
Ishida: I couldn’t think about anything other than the lines being too thin, so I wasn’t even worried about whether I had enough time or not.
Towada: I fell asleep halfway through, but you continued and boarded that Tokyo bound flight without having slept a wink, didn’t you?
Ishida: Yeah. I let Towada-san sleep and continued applying the screentones myself right up until the very last minute. I was still applying them whilst on the plane and also after my arrival in Tokyo. I used screentone number 10 a lot, so I remember the scenery around me gradually began to look grainy like the screentone. It felt as though I was hallucinating.
—Sounds like it was a tough manuscript to complete. Towada-san was also the author for the Tokyo Ghoul novels, has your relationship always been one akin to work partners?
Ishida: When it was decided that Tokyo Ghoul would be getting a novelisation, I was given other authors' works to look at. However, none of their styles really clicked with me, and they didn’t seem right for the series. I knew that Towada-san wrote, so I tried reaching out to her.
Although back in the days of Tokyo Ghoul’s serialisation, Towada-san and I didn’t talk as much as we do now. If I had any concerns I would just try and sort them out by myself. We’d always gotten along as brother and sister, however we didn’t really start to have a ‘work partners’ kind of relationship until we started working on Jack Jeanne together.
Towada: That’s true. Back then, we only occasionally conversed regarding the novelisation of Tokyo Ghoul. Before :re we only spoke once every few months over Skype. As Ishida-san said, it wasn’t until I started working on Jack Jeanne that we really started properly talking to one another.
—How often would you contact each other?
Towada: Depending on what stage we were at, we would bounce ideas off each other once every three or so days. Ishida-san would make a request like “I’d be happy if this part of the script was done within the next two weeks.” And then I’d present what I’d written and we’d discuss it and then I’d return to writing again. This process was repeated until Jack Jeanne reached its completion.
—Was Ishida-san the one that reached out to Towada-san to write the script of Jack Janne?
Towada: He didn’t ask me specifically to write the script, early in development he’d ask me to help with some research like “I’d like you to look up some information on this, could you help me?”. I’ve always liked ikusei games and within that genre I also enjoy romance and otome games. So I think that’s why it was easy for Ishida-san to consult me about it. We’ve had a common interest in games ever since we were kids.
Ishida: I played games like ‘Pinnochia no Miru Yume’ and ‘Angelique’. I wanted to try and conquer Marcel in Angelique but it was one difficult game, so it was a tough task. Before I could even raise any flags with him, the training aspect of the game was so hard that no matter how many times I played I never got any good at it.
Towada: I’m that type that loves playing games, so after talking with Ishida-san, I went on to play every popular otome game that had been released around 2015, as well as every Broccoli published otoge. I completed every single character route in those games. I began analysing otome game trends and Broccoli’s brand identity and relayed my findings to Ishida-san. After that, I went along with the Jack Jeanne production team and Makasano Chuuji-san from Shueisha, who was the scriptwriter of the Tokyo Ghoul anime. We all visited the city of Takarazuka for research.
Ishida: I was also supposed to be there for the Takarazuka trip but since I had my manga to worry about, I had Towada-san go and take in the atmosphere in my place.
Towada: I did have to gather material but I think I visited Takarazuka a total of five or six times. From morning I would watch the Takarazuka theatre from afar and simply watch the guests move about, soaking in the atmosphere of the city.
Along with the Takarazuka plays, I also watched student plays, in total I probably went and watched one hundred shows. Theatre shows that are performed by professionals are fully realised and flawless. So getting to see the contrast to student plays, where they progress and improve until the show is complete was a very helpful reference.
I’ve always enjoyed watching plays, so everything I had to research overlapped with my own hobbies. I still shared my own input with Ishida-san though.
Ishida: I’d never formally been asked to write a script before… I felt like a fraud (lol). I think it’s because I’m not very good at being considerate of other people. I don’t think I’d be able to work with anyone other than Towada-san on something.
—Why is that?
Ishida: Well, for one I don’t want to talk to anyone for long periods of time (lol). Because Towada-san understands what aspects of a story are important to me, she’s also able to comprehend what I mean when I talk in abstract concepts. We could save time by not needing to have any pointless discussions.
Towada: Back then Ishida-san was still very busy publishing his manga, so bringing in all sorts of new people to work on the project probably would’ve put quite the burden on him. That’s why I wanted to help him out in some way.
After researching all sorts of things, I ended up participating in a production meeting for Jack Jeanne, but I was not expecting that I myself would end up being in charge of writing the script. Rather, I was more just looking forward to getting to play a game made by Ishida-san. As things progressed though, I was asked to try plotting things out, or to write part of the script to be used temporarily. Eventually I came to think, why don’t I just write the scenario myself?
I’d never written the script for a game before though, so that’s what had been holding me back. Unlike novels, it’s commonplace to not have to write descriptively. Novels are made up of dialogue and descriptions, like describing the setting and characters' expressions or emotions. So I had to spend a lot of time working out how to write to properly convey a story through dialogue alone.
When I first started getting the hang of it, I tried writing a script that still included descriptions but I quickly stopped. Jack Jeanne is about theatre, so I figured that it would be easier to convey the presence and narrative of the story through conversation. I usually write novels, so I was uncertain, but since Jack Jeanne has sprites of the characters on screen, I thought that I could do it. I suppose it’s closer to writing for a manga rather than a novel.
~ ~ ~
The rejected character routes
—Before Tokyo Ghoul was completed, what kind of things did you work on?
Ishida: The first two years were mostly spent creating the game’s world and mechanics. Like deciding how many performances there would be, how the plays would be presented. Would it be a dialogue drama? Would there be mini games? Things like that. We also had to decide whether summer break would be included or not, how raising affection would work and how the choices would be presented. Those are the sort of things that were talked about first.
—You got to watch over the entire game’s development then.
Ishida: At first, I got carried away and envisioned a stage play game full of skill mechanics that I personally enjoyed. A busy game full of specs you can raise and improve in mini games, however when I explained these details to a friend of mine, they were like “You’re just imagining a game that you would like, right?”.
They asked me if that’s what the eventual players of Jack Jeanne would be looking for. That same friend said that since it’s a story that deals with the theme of theatre, it would be better if the player could witness the performances themselves. So I took that advice and the prototype of the current Jack Jeanne was created. I told all of this to Towada-san and had her handle the script.
Towada: You can’t write a script without knowing how the game’s system works after all.
Ishida: Now that I think about it, before Tokyo Ghoul was finished, rather than build the game's foundation, all I was really doing was scattering the sand to prepare for said foundation.
When Tokyo Ghoul entered its endgame especially, I really had to concentrate on it, so I took a six month break from Jack Jeanne. Ending a story requires a lot of energy and attention, so I left the practical work of Jack Jeanne to Towada-san and only supervised the music production and attended any important meetings.
—So during serialisation you were making preparations to jump right into it afterwards?
Ishida: Yes exactly. I wasn’t able to do much practical work, so I had Towada-san prepare the script in advance for me. And for the time being, create one character route.
—Which character was it?
Towada: It was Shirota. I wrote about the equivalent length of a short book and it was more or less complete. In the end, we scrapped the entire thing though… Because the atmosphere in the beginning was quite dark.
Ishida: It was dark because I was too used to Tokyo Ghoul. It included issues like a troubled household and severe bullying. Reading something like that wouldn’t put the player in a happy mood.
Despite it being a story about the theatre, my attention drifted to other topics which didn’t fit. And it was me who had asked Towada-san to write something like that… A couple months after the Shirota route had been completed, I read over what Towada-san had written for me once again and realised that it was a bit too gloomy. I’d forgotten what prompt I’d even given to her in the first place (lol).
The first character portraits and CGs that I created were for Shirota too. The reason being that Shirota is the only second year student and he was already a complete individual, so he was easy to create for. As for the third year students, there’s three of them, Fumi, Kai and Neji. Along with Kisa, Suzu and Yonoga are also first years, so continuity and character relationships need to be taken into account in order to create them, so they were a little more complex.
—How did the other characters come to be?
Ishida: At the proposal stage, the first character that I created was Kai. It’s a game where characters will be falling in love and confessing to one another, so first off I wanted a character that was handsome. Then I made Fumi who would be Kai’s partner. After that, I think Shirota was next.
Towada: At first you created the characters by basing them on plays didn’t you?
Ishida: I’m a fan of Yamamoto Shugoro’s work ‘Kikuchiyosho’ so Shirota was created using that as a base. In Shirota's case the genders are swapped, but Kikuchiyosho is a story about a girl who is born into a samurai family and raised as a boy. It has an element of androgyny and portrays the confusion and anger concerning gender quite well.
—How did you select the plays to base the characters on?
Ishida: I chose plays that lots of people are familiar with and would be easy to assign characters to. Kai is ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, Fumi is ‘Salome’, Neji is ‘Faust’ and Yonoga is ‘Shintokumaru’. Kisa and her classmate Ootori are ‘Don Quixote’. Ootori ended up becoming a side character though.
—So Ootori was originally meant to be a main character?
Ishida: Yeah. If I were to compare it to Tokyo Ghoul, Ootori is in the same position as Tsukiyama. I wanted a pompous character like that in Quartz. However I may have made him a little too unique (lol).
I received feedback from Broccoli that they want the main six characters to be an elite group, so a more easy to approach character would be better. So I moved the bright and cheerful character that I had originally made as Onyx’s Jack Ace over. That character was Suzu.
Making the characters personifications of plays started to become difficult to stick with though, so I abandoned the idea entirely halfway through.
—Despite appearing glamorous, the characters are all dealing with their own issues, like certain complexes and family troubles. I think that they’re all conflicts that are easy to sympathise with, how did you decide what the backbone of each character's conflict would be?
Ishida: First I created the character's appearance and then decided what personality would match them. Like with Fumi, when I began to think about making his story about the unique struggles that come with being born into a respected family, if becoming a successor was going to come into question, then he needed to have a brother.
In this way, I worked backwards from the vibe of his appearance and created his home life. I did the same with the other characters too, thinking things like ‘to have a personality like this they must not have parents, or they must struggle with expressing themselves’.
I think that if you let your characters do human-like things, then aspects of them that are easy to sympathise with will be born.
Jealousy, setbacks due to failure, inferiority complexes… Each and every character naturally ended up having some form of theme attached to them.
—I feel as though Kisa had a different sort of personality than that of a typical heroine.
Ishida: To put it simply, I want my protagonists to be fighting something. If they’re not giving it their all, then it’s no good. If they’re just standing around, then you can’t empathise with them.
—There’s times where she draws others towards her or supports those around her. She also has some masculine aspects to her.
Ishida: I think that I’m moved by characters who make me think “This kid’s really admirable”. That’s why I made Kisa a girl who works hard no matter the difficult situation that she’s in. I like Kisa and I’m sure Towada-san feels the same way.
Towada: She’s the result of both of our preferences. While due to the game’s setting, she of course has struggles related to being a girl, I was careful to write the main thread of her story in a way that transcended gender and instead simply showed her charm as a human being.
—Regarding gender, I was impressed by how neutrally it was portrayed.
Ishida: Yes. Originally, I was going to make Shirota a character with a feminine personality, but I ended up scrapping the idea. In the end, he ended up having more of a masculine mentality. The premise of Jack Jeanne is that boys also play the female roles on stage, but it’s not a metaphor for anything and I didn’t want it to raise any questions. I simply wanted to give it my all creating plays with that setting and create something new and refreshing.
I don’t struggle with any gender related issues myself, so it’s not like I can fully understand what it’s like, but in general I’ve never considered gender to be a very big deal. If someone born male were to tell me “I have the heart of a woman” then I’d just think ‘ok cool’.
To me it feels strange to place so much weight on such an issue. I don't see why others need to be bothered by someone else's gender, I'm not since I myself am not able to speak for such experiences.
Towada: At first, it was possible to take that direction with Shirota but as I continued to write, I came to realise that there was no need to exaggerate any emphasis on his gender identity.
To those looking from an outside perspective, it may seem like a unique identity such as that is a person's defining trait, when in reality it's only just a portion of their whole self. If you consider it to be all they are, then you end up denying the other aspects of that person.
Whilst considering the individually of each character, I kept in mind to write them in a way that seemed natural for them.
—The side character, Tanakamigi Chui of Amber, had a very striking presence. How did you go about creating him?
Ishida: I wanted someone that’s easily understood to be the antagonist, so I went ahead and tried to draw someone who looked like an unstoppable genius. Despite being a second year, it’s as if he controls the school. I wanted an enigmatic and intriguing character like that. Once I named him Tanakamigi Chui I felt as though he was complete and his inclusion in the story was quickly decided on.
—On the flip side, were there any characters that you had a hard time creating?
Ishida: I had to think a little harder about the other members of Amber. They needed to have the aura of the enemy but since they’re only villains in the context of the stage, they’re not actually bad people. So it was hard to find that balance between them.
Visually they’re edgy and have a talented vibe, but they also have their own individual quirks, they’re not all homogeneous. I struggled with Kamiya Utsuri especially, I wanted him to visually look like he could be a Jeanne while also still looking like a boy, so it was difficult to get him right. I didn’t have to do many redesigns though and all the other characters came to be without much trouble.
What I actually had more trouble with, was the fact I made the cast too large. I initially created almost double the amount of first year characters, but when I looked back over the script that Towada-san created, I told her “There’s way too many characters, please cut some of them out.” To which Towada-san replied, “Ishida-san, you’re the one who created them in the first place.” (lol).
Towada: That’s because the cut characters had already appeared in the script (lol).
Ishida: I feel that when there’s too many characters a lot of them get wasted, so just like that I end up creating and scrapping a lot of my characters. I think even Broccoli were surprised by the amount of times I’d suddenly tell them “Oh that character doesn’t exist anymore.”
—Apart from characters, were there any other aspects of the game that were abruptly discarded?
Ishida: The performances I suppose… Originally I had wanted there to be a larger variety of shows, but if you were to put all of them in the script it probably would’ve ended up being three million characters long.
In the beginning of development, I had originally planned for each character's route to have a different final performance. There’s six main characters, and including Kisa’s route, that would total to seven unique shows.
Before that there’s the newcomers, summer, autumn and winter performances, so I arranged to have a script written for each. Basically I wanted to include more shows and increase the amount of sub stories, but that would be confusing to play through and development would never end. The game engine has its limits too, so I decided to keep it simple.
Towada: It would’ve been difficult to play through all that as well (lol). For the final performance, we settled on it being one show and letting the player enjoy it from each character’s perspective instead. And even then, there’s still over 20 different endings to the game, so it still took a long time until everything was fully complete.
—Newcomers, summer, autumn, winter and the final performance, were these five show’s scripts all original?
Towada: Yes. However at first, like the characters, we had planned to base them on famous productions. Like Shakespeare or fairy tales. We figured that players would find it easy to get immersed in plays that they were already familiar with.
Ishida: For the newcomers' performance, I thought we could have a show called ‘House of Biscuits and Candy’ based on Hansel and Gretel. I had also originally planned to use each character's motif to base the plays on.
Towada: Like Shintokumaru, right?
Ishida: Yeah yeah. I even went as far as getting permission to use it, but if the show were to be following a story that already exists, then the script would be bound to it. Once I understood that it would make it difficult to relate the stories to Univeil, we decided to create the plays ourselves.
Since I acquired the permission to adapt Shintokumaru though, maybe I’ll have to make a manga about it someday…
By the way, the one who was saying “Let’s do this” and then changing it to “Nevermind let’s not” was all me. I’ll start on something wholeheartedly thinking that it’s the right choice before realising halfway through that I can’t actually take it anywhere and stop. Jack Jeanne’s development was full of trial and error.
Whenever I’m about to start something, Towada-san will express her concerns with my ideas but I always end up pushing on with them only to ultimately scrap it.
I probably have at least ten books worth of scrapped drafts alone. I had no real knowledge of how to properly craft a story. I hadn’t drawn anything other than Tokyo Ghoul, so even though I had no idea what the fundamentals of storytelling were, I misunderstood that I could write other kinds of stories too. This time around I studied and revised each time… I really learnt a lot.
Towada: You learn things by doing them, so I think I just got used to it (lol). Also, you don’t commonly see stories presented within stories, I thought that it was a rare case for a game especially.
~ ~ ~
The story behind ‘Lyrics: Ishida Sui’
—You also wrote the lyrics for each of the songs used in the performances didn’t you, Ishida-san?
Ishida: Yes, that’s how things ended up. It goes without saying, but no one, including myself, thought that I’d be the one writing the lyrics.
Originally Broccoli brought in several professional lyricists and had me look over what they’d written. However I couldn’t help but feel that they were lyrics I’d heard somewhere before, or they at least didn’t leave a unique impression on me. I did feel the finesse of a professional, and they were beautiful lyrics that fit the story in one way or another… But the words used didn’t touch on the core of the story.
The songs in Jack Jeanne are stage songs that Neji wrote for the members of Quartz. So unless you’re familiar with the setting and understand how the characters are feeling, then you won’t be able to write lyrics that perfectly fit the scenario.
While I knew that my lyric writing technique would be far from that of a professionals, I thought that no one understands and loves these characters more than me, so I approached Broccoli about it. I’d poured my heart into not only the character designs, but also the story and system of the game, so I didn’t want to compromise on the lyrics and have them pale in comparison.
So, to the best of my ability, I wanted to at least try my hand at writing them. I had Broccoli check whether or not what I’d written was viable and asked them “If there are no problems, then please let me write the lyrics.”
—Did you sing the temporary vocals for the songs too?
Ishida: When I submitted the lyrics to Broccoli, I got the normal response of “Thank you, we’ll leave the temporary vocals to you.” Along with this message they also wrote “You can hire a professional vocalist if you’d like, or you could record the temporary vocals yourself.”
Because of this I started thinking that maybe I should record them myself. Similar to how one wouldn’t be able to write lyrics for the songs without a deep understanding of the story, if you weren’t the one who wrote the lyrics, you wouldn’t know how they’re supposed to be sung either.
So, after deciding that I had to be the one to do it, I made preparations to acquire some audio recording equipment and downloaded some editing software. I divided up the parts and harmonised with myself and over the course of three days, I finished recording the temporary vocals. That’s more or less how I did it.
—When recording yourself singing, being self conscious about it can interfere.
Ishida: I don’t think I was possessed by anything, but… When I tried to go all out, as expected I felt a bit hesitant, so I began recording whilst imagining I was Neji.
In the game, Neji is the one who writes the scripts, so surely he would also write the lyrics and subdivide the song and do everything himself. So I got through it thinking like that. In that pumped up mental state, I sent in the temporarily recorded songs but all Broccoli said back was “Alright, let us know your upcoming schedule”, I got so carried away that I was somewhat bewildered by the cold response (lol).
~ ~ ~
Recruiting via DM, gathering specifically selected creators
—It appears the creators you gathered to handle things such as the concept art and music are all people whose work you enjoy.
Ishida: Yes. Almost everyone was sent a targeted offer. For example, I’ve always loved the concept artist Lownine-san’s work ever since I was a student. I suppose you could say I was jealous of how high quality their artwork is… They’re someone who I thought I'd never be able to beat in my entire life. Lownine-san is an amazing artist who is especially good at blending characters into their backgrounds.
When we were creating Jack Jeanne, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull something like that off, so I definitely wanted to recruit Lownine-san for the job. After getting permission from Broccoli, I reached out to Lownine-san myself through Twitter DM’s. I had only appreciated Lownine-san’s work from afar, and we’d never actually interacted before, but we did both follow each other. I received a reply that Lownine-san was fully on board to accept the job.
Towards the end of Jack Jeanne’s development, I got the chance to speak with Lownine-san, so I asked them “Could you teach me how to draw?” They gladly accepted this request and taught me how to draw whilst screen sharing over Skype. However, in about 10 minutes, they’d already drawn such an amazing piece that I felt I should just put my pen down (lol).
Towada: You were a little down after that, weren’t you?
—Had you been a fan of Kosemura-san, who was in charge of music, since you were a student as well?
Ishida: Yes, I’ve listened to Kosemura-san’s music a lot since I was a student. When I was brainstorming what kind of music would fit Jack Jeanne, Kosemura-san’s ‘Light Dance’ immediately came to mind, since it fit perfectly. Because I didn’t have any personal connections to Kosemura-san however, I didn’t know how to get in contact with him, so I made the request through Broccoli. I only found out about this recently, but apparently Kosemura-san almost turned the offer down*, I was quite shocked to hear that (lol).
*When the initial request was sent, it was under wraps that the game was being made by Ishida Sui, and since Kosemura-san didn’t have much experience in writing game music, he wasn’t optimistic about the offer. However, later, when he learned that it was a game being made by Ishida Sui, he readily accepted the offer.
—How did Seishiro-san, who was in charge of the choreography, get chosen for the job?
Ishida: A very long time ago I saw the group Tokyo Gegegay appear on a program called DANCE @ HERO JAPAN and I remember thinking ‘this group is crazy good’ and I was immediately charmed by them. After that, whilst I was looking through more videos of Tokyo Gegegay on YouTube, I happened upon a studio workshop video and discovered Seishiro-san.
—What about him caught your eye?
Ishida: Whilst first and foremost his dancing was super sexy, it also had a certain strength to it. I remember thinking that he danced in a way that embraced the best elements of both masculinity and femininity. And that had stayed in my memory ever since. When Seishiro-san was recording motion capture for the game, he allowed me to interrupt and even taught me some of the choreography.
(note: you can watch Seishiro dance here, he is also the choreographer behind this RADWIMPS music video!)
—I hear you’ve known Gyudon-san, who was in charge of making the movies, since your Tokyo Ghoul days.
Ishida: Yes. Around the time volume 13 of Tokyo Ghoul was set to be released, we held a still image MAD (Music Anime Douga) contest. The grand prize winner of said contest was Gyudon-san, who at the time was still only a student. The way they made a video by manipulating the manga panels to move so fluidly was really cool and stood out from the rest.
Around when Tokyo Ghoul had ended and :re was about to start, I had Gyudon-san make a minute long video for me. After that, Gyudon-san grew in popularity and became someone whose work is in high demand, so they seemed very busy.
However when Jack Jeanne was announced, we were able to have them create a promotional video for us. Since I’ve known them since Tokyo Ghoul, I figured I couldn’t go wrong entrusting the job to Gyudon-san. They didn’t just deliver their finished work without a word either, Gyudon-san also made a variety of suggestions and worked on the project with a positive attitude. For the videos used in the performances, I was asked to provide materials and became very involved in the process. I think it took about two weeks… Despite the really tight deadline, Gyudon-san allowed me to catch up and was super helpful.
I was also the one who reached out to Touyama Maki-san, who was in charge of creating the in-game chibi characters and the 4koma manga used for promotional purposes. During Tokyo Ghoul’s publication, Touyama-san would draw short comics for the series as a hobby, I thought they were a nice person for doing so. Their art was great too and I was very thankful. So when it was decided that we’d be displaying chibi characters during the game’s lesson segments, I wanted to leave it to Touyama-san and sent them the offer.
(note: this is the MAD that gyudon won the contest with, they now regularly make moving manga CM's for jump titles, they make the Choujin X ones too!)
~ ~ ~
The winter performance moves into Quartz’s ending, and the divergence in the story since the beginning of the year drastically branches off
—The performances, packed full of each of the character’s skills, continue for a year and pass by in the blink of an eye. Once the new year breaks, it feels as though the atmosphere of the game drastically changes. What were your intentions behind this?
Towada: That’s when the character route specific endings begin. So we packed all the needed material to set them up into the winter performance.
Ishida: The winter performance is like an ending for Quartz as a whole, so we packed it full of good lines and scenes without holding back. I may have used up all of my cards but by using them all without compromise, we were able to make the story reach a nice peak. After that, the story switches to focusing on each character's individual ending.
Towada: We used a lot of great material in the winter performance, which meant the final performance would have to be even better still. In a good way, it gave us a higher hurdle that we now needed to overcome.
—So you needed to create even more anticipation heading into March?
Towada: From January to March, each character’s route is completely different. From the new year onwards I needed to create seven different scripts, so it was very challenging. The amount of text for the last three months of the game alone just about eclipses the amount of text from up until the winter performance. There was so much to write that I began to fear I wouldn’t even be able to finish it.
Ishida: Having more choices that drastically change the ending of the game makes the player feel more involved. So, despite it making things tougher on ourselves, around the time we were working on the autumn performance is when we began thinking about how the game’s big branches should work. Along with the main routes, we also planned for there to be the option to deepen your bonds with the side characters.
—How did you go about creating the confession scenes?
Towada: Before the winter performance, to some extent each character has already grown closer to Kisa, so I kept in mind not to disrupt that flow. Since if I didn’t make it a confession that respected both Kisa and her suitor’s feelings, then I felt it would spoil the fun.
—Is that how you approached the ‘realising Kisa’s a girl’ scenes as well?
Towada: Yes, I suppose so. As I was writing the script, I knew that a point was going to come where Kisa would have no choice but to acknowledge the fact that she’s a girl. There’s characters that realise her true gender once their bond deepens and on the flip side, there are some who don’t realise it at all. There’s also the case of Yonaga, who knew Kisa’s situation from the beginning. I guess you could say each reveal followed one of these three patterns. Those who came to realise it, those who didn’t notice anything and those who knew from the start. I think they ended up being nice variations and I put careful consideration into writing them to make sure none of the realisations felt forced.
Also, the beginning half of the story is akin to that of a sports drama about teenagers putting on shows together, so the room for romance to be added is limited. That’s why, when I first started adding romantic elements to the character routes, it felt strange to me, so I discussed it with Ishida-san. I wasn’t able to effortlessly soak the story in romance. I think I had to rewrite Shirota’s ending at least three times…
Ishida: Shirota was who you tried writing an ending for first after all.
Towada: Shirota and Kisa aren’t the sort of people who’d be all flirty, and Shirota’s initial route was already muddy, so it was difficult to pull everything together. However, once I stopped trying to write in a way that forced romance on them and instead wrote them becoming closer as partners, things went more smoothly.
It may not be a stereotypical sort of love, but it was a human love. I thought that the natural way these two would be drawn together wouldn’t be through whispering sweet nothings to one another, but instead by coming to understand one another without having to exchange words at all. Once I’d completed Shirota’s route, to some extent, I continued writing the other routes in a similar way.
Ishida: While it’s true Shirota acts like that, the other characters all act differently. To the point some aren’t even comparable. In contrast to Shirota, Suzu’s route ended up being more of your stereotypical kind of romance. I thought that it would be nice for each character to have their own unique form of love.
Towada-san’s strong suit is writing a love story with your more classic otome guys like Suzu and Kai. I have no idea about that kind of thing, so I left Towada-san to pour her own ideas into their routes. On the flip side, characters like Fumi and Neji were dyed more with my own ideas. Neji’s way of flirting especially were mostly lines that I requested.
Towada: He’d say “Make him say something like ‘Try seduce me!’ Because I want this CG to appear.” (lol).
Neji especially plays with his words a lot, so unless Ishida-san told me what wordplay to write, I wouldn’t have been able to expand on it. Ishida-san has a very unique way of phrasing things, so I asked him for advice a lot to make sure I was making Neji speak in a Neji-like way. I then arranged the lines and created events in order to reach the intended goal. I constructed the route in a way that wouldn’t disrupt the flow of the story. As for Fumi, Ishida-san wrote his route himself.
Ishida: Yes, I wrote it all myself.
—Well isn’t this quite the exciting plot twist?
Ishida: I turned into quite the young maiden myself (lol). Even though I’m clumsy at it… I began wondering why I ended up loving writing it so much. I added some lines that have more of an adult and deeper meaning to them, so when I played the route myself I was like “Woah!”.
Towada: It’s more interesting if at least one character is that way. From the early days of production, I’d quietly wanted Ishida-san to write a character himself, so I was happy. I was unsure how to deal with Fumi too, so it was a big help that Ishida-san took him on. His route ended up being a lot sweeter than I’d been expecting though, it got my heart racing (lol).
Ishida: I was also the main writer for Kisa’s solo route. There’s no romance in it, but it’s an ending where long lasting friendships are born and it ended up being the kind of story you’d see in an uplifting shoujo manga.
Towada: It’s full of Ishida-san’s flair, I loved it.
Ishida: If love is a lie, then how do you face that lie? That’s the sort of thing I thought about. Kisa is lying about her gender and pretending to be a boy, but Neji, Suzu, Fumi, Yonaga and so on, are also hiding lies within themselves.
The fact they’re all hiding their true motives is something that they have in common with Kisa. Whilst hiding, the two grow closer. I think that a confession is a scene where all these lies intersect and burst open. Everyone is lying, and I thought that was like a play, without realising it I think that slowly became the theme of the work.
As people, we meet others whilst lacking something and some people end up becoming a necessary part for someone else. I wanted to see a drama like that. Despite it being a game with confession scenes, I wanted it to be a story that both women and men alike are able to identify with.
~ ~ ~
From thorns to rounded edges, how the style of work transformed
—If there was a small novels worth of rejected material, then how many books worth of words made it into the final game?
Towada: In terms of paperback books, probably about twenty volumes worth.
—Because as well as the main scenario, there’s also the sub scenarios and the stage plays?
Ishida: As much as time allowed, I put my all into creating the game. However there was a deadline for things like the voiceline recordings, so I was working both day and night to get things done in time.
Towada: I was only getting around three hours of sleep. I feel like at one point Ishida-san didn’t sleep for four days.
Ishida: I was in a serious pinch so I don’t remember it well, but when I was writing the script I would hole myself up in a manga cafe for around thirty hours at a time. Multiple times a month. Once I felt as though I’d written to a good point, I’d go home only to return to the manga cafe again. Why? Because I was sleeping in the manga cafe. I mays well have been living there…
Towada: Once Ishida-san had finished writing his part of the script, he’d have me check it. So at the same time, I’d have Ishida-san check what I’d written.
Ishida: For a period of time it seemed like Towada-san was always awake. Whenever I would send a check request she always responded right away regardless of the time, so I figured she must not be sleeping.
So that my productivity wouldn’t be affected, I made sure to sleep at a regular time, however I’d be awake for like 30~40 hours at a time and then sleep for 10 and then be awake again for another 40. My sleeping patterns would repeat in this cycle. During Tokyo Ghoul’s serialisation my sleeping patterns were similar, so to some extent I might’ve gotten used to it.
—That’s just like Neji-senpai, isn’t it?
Ishida: Yeah yeah, I worked in a similar way to him. However in Neji’s case, he can complete a script just one day after coming up with the idea for it, so he works way faster than us. It took us around two months to write parts of the script, so Neji really is a genius isn’t he? I was writing whilst wishing I could be like Neji.
After experiencing writing a script, I’ve come to have a lot of respect for authors. Writing is completely different from drawing. When writing I need to really concentrate on it, I can’t multi-task or think about anything else. Whereas with drawing, there are some things that can be done as long as you can move your hand, so I can talk to someone whilst drawing or watch a movie in the background or work whilst thinking about other things. I can’t do that when I’m writing though, I was starting to wonder if I really had to think so deeply about everything I wrote.
—During the production of Jack Jeanne, as you worked on the script or the lyrics etc, did you notice any changes in how you worked?
Ishida: For Tokyo Ghoul, I was always consciously adding things, meaning I would draw everything that I came up with. I thought that it was fine to only put 20% of my output into the characters and dialogue. However, when I was working on Jack Jeanne, I began to think that my method of just adding things was incorrect and that I should also consciously remove things. It’s ok to just be left with what’s necessary. My way of thinking ended up being the exact opposite to before.
—What brought about this change in thinking?
Ishida: It was early in production, when I had asked Towada-san to write Shirota’s route for me, I got concerned about the ‘sharpness’ of the story. As I mentioned earlier, I ordered Towada-san to add this and that and sent her walking on a long journey. Except, what lay completed at the end of that road was such a painful story that even I myself was shocked by it. When I looked down at the world I had created it was as if I’d received a psychological shock. I think I even smelt the faint scent of blood.
—From thorns to rounded edges. I still remember the comment you made during a press conference saying, “I was careful to not kill off any characters”.
Ishida: Stories where characters die are usually fast paced with high stakes, however, the kids at univeil are living a different kind of story. I had to consider the best way to create drama in that kind of setting. I thought about it a lot and it may have only ended up being possible because of the fact it was a game.
—Why is that?
Ishida: Because of the flow of the dialogue, backed by Kosemura-san’s music while it's being read out by all of the voice actors. It all comes together as one… That’s what I think at least. Writing and illustrating are Towada-san and I’s main domain of expertise, but I think that it was thanks to all of the other various creators involved that we were able to create something new.
—Do you think anything about yourself changed, Towada-san?
Towada: It came down to the fact I wanted to create something for Ishida-san whilst there were also things that I wanted to add myself. This dilemma caused me trouble at times, however when I started to consider what components I should add, or which ones I should remove, I began to discover what elements I liked and what my own skillset was.
The way that Ishida-san and I go about creating stories is different. I came to understand that Ishida-san’s strong point is creating impactful scenes, whilst mine is plotting and world building. Ishida-san being in charge of the pivotal scenes would make things more exciting, so I concentrated on writing everything else whilst keeping the balance in mind. Through working on Jack Jeanne, I’ve become able to say that my strong suit is being able to create a story that flows well.
It may be true that by working with other people, you come to understand more about yourself. Starting with Ishida-san, I also looked at what the other creators were doing and thought ‘so this is how they interpret the story.’ Seeing what they came up with made me notice different approaches that I hadn’t thought of.
I’d write whilst listening to Kosemura-san’s music and decide which way to take a scene. Or I’d watch Seishiro-san dance and think about how I could make the performances more exciting. We were all connected in some way. Novels are usually written alone by one person, so I came to learn the thrill of working on something in a team.
—The way you all came together as gears to create a single work sounds similar to the story of Univeil.
Towada: True. I never thought I’d experience something straight out of my youth again at this age. Being helped by other team members or being supported by them, being motivated by simple phrases like “It was great” or “I like this idea”.
For example, when I was working on the final phases of the story, I was just writing and writing with no end in sight, I couldn’t take it anymore and my pen just stopped moving. During this dire moment so close to the end, my proofreader messaged me saying, “You’re almost done.” And with that simple message alone, it was as if a burst of light appeared before my eyes. Everything had gone pitch black, but they lit everything back up again. Ishida-san also wrote some of the script, so I didn’t feel as alone.
Ishida: At that time I left all my drawings alone and decided to solely focus on the scenario.
Towada: Yeah, because I hit a point where I wasn’t able to write it on my own anymore… When Ishida-san sent me the script he’d written, it was interesting and I let out a breath of relief. I felt the joy of being able to see someone else's work. I was the same as the Univeil students who find joy in performing with others. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it if I was alone.
Ishida: You’ve got that right. I think that if anyone was missing from the team, it wouldn’t have worked out. Not to mention that in my case, everyone’s contributions were directed to me, and they were all people that I’d personally gathered.
With manga, even if it comes to the worst case scenario, at the very least it would all just fall on me. However this game isn’t just something I made on my own, I need to contribute as much as I can or the efforts of everyone around me will go to waste as well. There was a moment where I felt afraid of having such a heavy responsibility placed on me. However, if I had tried to do it all on my own, I think I would have given up.
By listening to wonderful music, reading interesting scripts and moving forward together with everyone, I was inspired. Coming together with fellow creators to make one work came with a lot of challenges, but it was fun. It was refreshing being in an environment working alongside other people, and because of it I was able to experience something new.
—Has working alongside other people changed the way you work at all?
Ishida: Right now I’m still in the state immediately after being swept away by the raging waves of a storm, so I’m not sure how I really feel yet. I’m in the phase of just watching what becomes of Jack Jeanne as the waves subside.
Even though the script and illustrations were done, like bonus stages lots and lots of new tasks kept popping up. So I was still busy with work up until the beginning of October last year. When I looked at some of the thoughts people had on the demo version of the game, it felt as though what we’d all been working so hard on had finally taken shape, and I was relieved.
Working on this project I’ve come to learn both the hardships and the fulfilment that comes with creating something with others. So, I suppose I’ve started considering working on something by myself again… I’m not trying to say that it’s in my nature to want to work alone, I think I’m just experiencing some kind of aftershock. I think the waves are returning.
Towada: I’m still working overtime and supervising Jack Jeanne (lol). Like checking content that will be posted on social media, as well as the 4koma manga. Content is still being released and there have been bug reports from some people who played the demo… Meaning that my journey is still not over yet. I think that things should calm down once the game has been released for a while.
Ishida: Yeah, probably after around five months (lol).
—After their final performance, the members of Quartz all threw a party to celebrate. Did you and the rest of the creators do the same upon the game's completion?
Towada: I celebrated with Ishida-san as siblings. And then afterwards we got swamped with work again (lol).
Ishida: Yeah, we didn’t end up meeting with the other developers or the voice cast. Big project after parties aren’t as common these days, but I do want to hear everyone’s stories of any struggles they had.
Towada: There were way too many people involved in total for me to be able to speak with them all, but I’d still love to convey my impressions to them. Like letting them know what I thought was good, or letting them know that a certain thing really helped me out.
Ishida: Ideally I would like to gather everyone and really have it feel that ‘this is the team of people that created Jack Jeanne’ and I’d like to express my gratitude to them all in person. I hope that an opportunity like that will come one day.
~ ~ ~
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ANONYMOUS PLEASE <3 I’m at my wit’s end with my mother. I wanted to complain about her fatphobia, and I also wanted to you thank you for how reading here has helped me and my sisters.
I’m a small fat in my 40s. I’ve been a bigger fat, and I’ve also been very, very skinny. I developed anorexia at about age 6 due to the usual issues one develops that from and was thinner than thin until I finally started to actually recover. I got very fat very quickly on the drugs I was put on, then dropped down in size to small fat once I stabilized and didn’t need them. No idea what my “comfortable” or “natural” size would have been without so much damage, but I’m going to guess “about this”, since it’s what I am when I’m neither restricting to the point of heart damage, nor on drugs that also made me sick in many other ways. For me, a comfortable size is the size I have when I’m not actively altering it in ways that hurt me, so I’m not going to question it.
My next younger sister, however, is a bigger fat, and pretty much always has been. In her 30s, she’s fat in a way that does restrict her clothing options and employment (she once told me that an interviewer had given her “feedback” on a job interview, and it was that she looked “sloppy”. She was wearing perfectly nice, clean, pressed, professional clothes- and expensive clothes of course, as that’s the rule for bigger clothes as we know. She was just fat in them.) Being “healthy” doesn’t really matter to this - and indeed if it did I wouldn’t have half of this rant - but she is. Fit and strong, great at physical things like endurance sports in a way I never have been. She is also perhaps the most self-aware and level-headed person I have ever met about stuff like this. When what people say bothers her, she will discuss her feelings and not try to hide them or their impact, but she will also deconstruct, and conclude that what the person has said is stupid. So it’s like she neither tries to pretend she’s immune to harm, nor allows others to be right in hurting her.
And she eats exactly what she wants, and since we’re both autistic this also includes pickiness on sensory stuff - she doesn’t eat what she doesn’t want to, and does eat what she does. She was a great person to be around during my recovery, even though I never even mentioned to her at the time that I was in it (I didn’t tell anyone in my family about it until years later,) just because she made food such a non-issue.
And our mother will not shut up about her size. Our mother is also fat, we’re a fat family, but my mother decided years ago that I am the one to make my sister “address her weight.” I literally left the country to get away from my family (not related to this specifically) and she STILL emails me about it. I don’t respond to those emails. I DO have lovely chats with my beloved sister on Skype though.
I have tried all your scripts with my mom before - the team here have SO many great scripts that have worked wonderfully for me in other situations, like work or friend groups. I have told my mother I don’t agree, many times backed up with sources (sources thanks to you!) I have told her I’m not interested in the conversation and have hung up or walked away when she has persisted. I’ve called her out when she tries it on in public on multiple occasions. She will not stop. She is convinced that my extremely wonderful, fit and thriving, very happy sister is at death’s door. She’s also convinced that I, a person who has been repeatedly hospitalized for ED and the mental complications that caused it (which she now knows all about, and in fact did visit me in hospital the last time I was in, which was only a few years ago by the way) am the person to talk to her about it and make her see the error of her ways. My sister and I talk quite openly about this, and we’re both agreed our mother is full of shit and we’ll both be ignoring this. We both have also decided to persist in having a relationship with her, though with BIG boundaries around it. (Trust me, this fat bullshit is the thin edge of the wedge with her, and we’re both VERY exacting about when we will talk to her and what about. But we also both love our mother, and she’s the only parent we have.) The thing I’m most struggling with I think is that as I said, our mother is also fat. I actually feel some real sympathy here as I’m aware she’s clearly projecting her own issues on both of her daughters, but god is it mean. She couldn’t see how sick I was when I was skinny, even though I was very literally beginning to die (in fact, all she had to say to me was to mention my weight when I got fat) and she can’t see how happy my sister is in her life, because she’s fat so can’t possibly be happy, and she’s still, now, as perhaps some last gasp of control, attempting to make us fight each other over it.
It hasn’t worked, thankfully, and it never will.
My mom has many other issues, I’m sure, but my god, it is sometimes quite astounding to look at what hell fatphobia hath wrought on my mom’s psyche and ideas of being a parent. I’m grateful my sister(s) and I instead read blogs like this so we’ll hopefully pass a lot less of this on. So I guess this rant is half a complaint and half a thanks. It’s been really helpful to be able to come here and read, for both of us (and our younger sisters as well, who we are steadily converting), to remind ourselves that mom’s wrong. My sister is fat and an exceptional person. I’m fat now too, and the world didn’t end (and in fact actually got a lot better.) Our mom is just plain fucking wrong. Anyway, thank you. I know you’re not planning to be as active with new posts lately, but please know that you’ve been wonderful this whole time, and keeping your archives up is of immense help to at least this one group of sisters. It's been awesome to relay one of the younger ones to an older post from time to time (actually quite a few times!) Note: I wanted to tag ED as I do mention it but I don't see it in the list of tags under submission. I tagged "trigger warning", "Weightloss", and "food" to hopefully cover it.
Apologies for the first post of this.
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Two Different Worlds (Jasper Hale Fanfic)
A/N: Hey guys it has been FOREVER since I wrote fanfic and I completely forgot my old Tumblr stories, but I am back at it fellas, please feel free to give any feedback just please be respectful. Also I prefer writing using my OCs instead of using y/n stuff)
Word Count: 2,022
The gentle drumming of raindrops melodically dropping onto the windshield lulled me into a peaceful half-sleep in the back of my father's police cruiser. I was vaguely aware of the light conversation between my father Charlie and my younger sister Bella.
The awkwardness between those two was palpable in the air, for two people who hardly got along they truly were unbelievably alike. I let their uncomfortable discussion pass me by and focused on the other issues that were running rampant around my mind. The first was the fact that I was halfway through my senior year, and now I had to transfer to a new school. Well, I didn't have to per se, but considering I was still freshly 18 and the only job I held back in Arizona was a retail warehouse job that paid 7.15 an hour-- and I still had to buy my own car and pay for my own college-- I wasn't exactly in a situation to move out on my own back in my sunny home of Pheonix Arizona.
Not that I hated Forks, it was definitely a quaint little town that held a certain charm to it. Truthfully, I don't quite understand my mother Renee's and Bella's pure hatred for this place was, but to each, there own I suppose. I was just disappointed to leave Arizona, so close to graduation, my two friends Liv and Abbi, and my now ex-boyfriend Mark, had to stay back in Arizona.
A throb of pain ripped through my chest and tangled itself around my heart when I thought about Mark, more guilt than grief. We had only been dating casually-- more so for the fun of it than due to any real feelings we had shared-- or so I thought. When I had ended things with him a week before my departure, He revealed he harbored much stronger feelings than I knew. Our breakup was still amicable however, in the end, he agreed long distance was not meant for us-- well more so, me.
I had also promised to call him, Liv, and Abbi, as much as possible and Skype at least twice a week. The guilt-ridden thorns pressing into my heart tightened a bit as I remembered his hopeful expression when I left, Liv later informed me that he was harboring hope that he'd be able to convince me to try long distance with him once I was settled in. It wasn't out of the question I supposed, but I never saw our little 4-month fling lasting longer than the end of senior year-- but who knows where life will take me--
"Cali"
I hope I can at least make some new friends here, even if they only last a short time.
"Cali wake up, Sweetie."
Scratch that-- I hope my sister can make some friends. She's always alone. We lived in Arizona for years and she never made any real friends, that's not healthy. I hope--
"Calliope Swan!"
My father urged, shaking my shoulder gently. My eyes snapped open, my body jerking forward as I took in my surroundings. My father had parked his beat-up cruiser in the driveway of my second home. A sense of nostalgia washed over me unexpectedly, I had very few memories of my time living here but some microscopic part of my brain still recognized this home as my childhood home; I did spend the first 2 years of my life calling this two-story rundown house as my home.
"Sorry," I sighed groggily, "I didn't realize I had fallen asleep."
"It's alright." My dad smiled, his endearing awkward smile, "I already brought in your bags, so why don't you go make yourself at home."
"Aye Aye Captian." I joked, mock-saluting him before I climbed out of the back seat, grabbing my over-stuffed backpack and messenger bag. Charlie showed me up to my room-- completely unnecessary considering I've spent two weeks of my summers and all of my spring breaks here for the past 16 years-- and I had spent the first 2 years of my life living here.
My room was just as I had left it last summer, with the same sage-green walls and dark oak floors. My stormy grey curtains were slid open, the sun illuminating the room to the best of its abilities despite the gloomy weather outside. My full-sized mattress draped in a deep blue cover and covered with small stuffed animals I had collected over the years was shoved into the far left corner in front of one of the two windows. At the foot of my bed was my old wooden storage chest, the small metal latch holding down the lid was the only thing holding back the absurd amount of clutter I knew it contained-- all those distant memories.
The rest of my room was pretty simple but cluttered. A bedside table was tucked next to my bed, and a llama-shaped lamp sat on it with photos and books stacked upon it. On the opposing side of the room was my comfortable but old faded emerald green plush chair, and a matching ottoman. My dresser was overflowing with clothing and I cringed at the idea of having to go through all of them to make space for the new clothing I had brought. The mirror attached to the dresser has polaroids of me and all my friends, from both Forks and Arizona. Directly next to the door was my hooded desk, again more random items, and my ancient computer decorated it. In the final corner was my sauder wooden shelves, stocked full of all my worn-out second-hand books.
I breathed in the sweet-- slightly dewy scent of my room and let out a relaxed sigh. This won't be so bad, this is just as much of my home as Arizona was.
Taking note of my plethora of bags stacked in the corner next to the bookshelves I decided I should probably thank Dad for taking them upstairs for me, There really was a lot of them. However, when I turned around I saw my dad's back as he made his way down the hallways toward Bella's room
Oh well, I'll tell him later.
The rest of the day passed by swiftly and without much incident, other than a very swift visit from the Black family where Charlie had very graciously bought my younger sister her first car. Then, very sheepishly informed me that he'd go 50-50 with me on a used car-- that definitely stung a bit but I could understand. Bella was not the fondest of our dad and it was an obvious way of trying to get her to warm up to living in Forks, and to his credit, it did work. She was practically bouncing with excitement when she explored her new car, little Jacob Black following her around like a puppy while she did.
Jacob Black was adorable and sweet, he'd make a good friend for Bella. She would just have to open up to him, he's a few years younger so she used to gravitate toward his older sisters Rachel and Rebecca although they've both moved away from Washington. Last I heard Rachel was away at college and Rebecca was married to a Samoan Surfer. So Bella would have to make new friends, and the twin's nerdy little brother looked like he would do; he certainly seemed eager enough to befriend her.
Other than that though, the day was mainly uneventful. Charlie ordered some celebratory pizza and wings from a local joint, I made some idle chit-chat with Charlie as we ate, but Bella mainly stayed quiet; Stewing in her self-pity a little more than I would've liked.
I helped Charlie pack up the leftovers for his lunch at work tomorrow, making a suggestive comment that perhaps he should consider eating a more healthy lunch, which was quickly shot down by him.
"I'm as healthy as a horse, Cali. I wouldn't be sheriff if I weren't."
"Okay, Okay, Whatever you say Pops. Just don't want to have to rush you to the ER one day due to a heart attack. I get enough ER time because of Bella."
This elicited a small chuckle from him, "That girl sure is a magnet for trouble isn't she?"
"I don't know where she got the clutz gene from, but I think we single-handedly kept the Pheonix ER in business. It was just a month ago we had to take her in 'cause she burned the crap out of her arm on a tea kettle." I laughed, remembering the look of horror in her eyes when the doctor had to inform her that she needed to keep her arm bandaged up for the next week-- and in that AZ heat that would get rather sweaty and uncomfortable quick.
When I noticed Charlie had gone silent while washing up a few dishes, I looked over at him. His face was pinched up in deep thought and from what I could tell concern. "Hey, you good dad?"
"Huh?" He looked over to me and met my gaze, looking a tad embarrassed he had been caught zoning out, he dried off the last dish in his hand and looked over to me seriously, "Can I ask you a serious question, Cali?" He asked, taking on the voice of a worried father.
"Ya, go ahead."
"Do you think..." He paused and thought for a moment, sorting out whatever thoughts were running around his mind. "I know, me and you are very different people. Everyone always says me and Bella are a lot alike but... I know you. I know you're gonna be okay here even if it wasn't necessarily what you wanted."
I opened my mouth to object, I didn't not want to move to Forks. I just was hesitant due to almost being ready to go off to college. He continued on before I had the chance to interrupt though.
"But Bella, she's so quiet, and I can tell she doesn't want to be here. I hate seeing her so upset... I know I'm not the most fun person to be around and I'm going to try and change that but do you think you could look after her? Let me know how I'm doing... If she is happy? Make sure she's doing okay at school and stuff."
"Of course, Dad. I'll keep an eye out for her." I smiled cautiously. This was the first time in a long time I had seen him this worried; the last time was when I came out to visit one year, and it was the first year Bella had decided not to come to Forks to see him. He talked to me back then, asking if Bella was okay and if he had done something wrong. My heart throbbed when I imagined what it must be like for him, loving a daughter so much and feeling so hopeless; as if nothing he would ever do would be the right thing to do.
"Thank you." He said with a timid smile, we both continued to clean up the kitchen in relative silence. I suspected he was doing a bit more cleaning than he would typically do on account of me and Bella being here-- although Bella had already excused herself up to her room.
Once the Kitchen was practically spotless, I took it as my turn to excuse myself into my bedroom. I finished what I could by unpacking my room, opting to leave all my bathroom supplies in a small basket on my dresser, instead of taking up the limited bathroom space. My new books were put away on my shelf, my make-up on the desk next to my small popup mirror. My shoes were lined up on the wall beside my door. The only thing left to do was go through my clothes and that was a challenge to tackle another day.
As I lay in my bed, listening to the gentle sounds of rain hitting the rooftop, I tried to envision what this new chapter in my life would hold for me; however brief it may be.
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Arsonist Neil au for wip Wednesdays please I’m so invested
WIP Wednesday (9/13) | Arsonist Neil / Firefighter Andrew AU
“Damn Andrew, you look a little rough,” Nicky says as soon as the Skype call connects later that afternoon. “You okay?”
Aaron seems to study his appearance as well and Andrew considers turning off the webcam. But doing so would only be proof that he looks like shit.
“Had a long night.” He offers with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Oooh,” Nicky beams and wiggles his brows. “Tell us about it.”
“Do not tell us about it.” Aaron says with a grimace. Andrew rolls his eyes. He would never discuss his rare sexual exploits with anyone, especially not these two idiots.
“We had a fire at two o’clock in the morning. And I couldn’t get back to sleep after.”
“Oh.” Nicky pouts. “That sucks.”
“I hate late night calls,” Aaron says as he picks up his hamburger. “We had an old lady the other night. She apparently thought flying off her daughter’s balcony was an excellent way to meet Jesus.”
Andrew holds in a laugh, but Nicky doesn’t. In fact, he cackles. “Well, that would do it I guess.”
<- previous | first | next->
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Naked HypnoCon 2023
This year, HypnoCon was located in Palm Springs, California. Friday we first gathered at The Toolshed Bar which was incredibly packed with men. Everyone was eventually found and we sat outside for a few drinks as friends and new attendants met. After that, we went to dinner at Grand Central. Then some of the people went to other bars, the rest decided to stay at resort, the El Mirasol Resort, a clothing-optional resort with a hot tub and a couple of pools. I thought I would be self-conscious about it, however THAT quickly went away.
Saturday morning, we met at the LBGT Community Center. And for introductions we gave the name we preferred to be called, how many HypnoCon’s we’ve attended, and if we were a hypnotist, subject, or switch. There were a few new faces. The learning session began at the very beginning, hypnosis 101. From Pre-talk, to Induction, to Deepening, to Suggestion, to Reentry, to Post-talk, each step of a typical hypnosis session for recreational purposes was discussed and demonstrated. Some very good subjects sat in the front of the group and experienced each part firsthand. I did deepening, which included convincers. I ran out of different deepening techniques, so I made a new one – silence.
The group moved on to some of the history of HypnoCon, how it started, and the reason it keeps moving around. From the @gayhypnosis channel in the past, a few names stood out as pillars of that channel. One of those people was Hypnojob (his handle now) AKA EnTranceU (his handle in the @gayhypnosis channel). He talked about those days and moving to newer forms of electronic communication such as Discord and Skype. He does have a Skype Hypnosis Chat Room. I just joined it and it does bring back memories of the @gayhypnosis channel. If you want to explore, first be very interested in hypnosis, and second reach out to @Hypnojob on Skype to request an invitation to the group. Some great questions regarding the typical session and recreational hypnosis in general flew as we concluded, took the “wish you were here” photo, and then went to lunch. Most of us went to Denny’s – this was not a high point.
HypnoCon continued after lunch with an exercise to demonstrate fractionation. People who want to experience fractionation as a subject sat in a circle facing outward. The people that wanted to show fractionation as a hypnotist proceeded to induce trance and then fractionation. Since we had about 30 people, the process took a bit of time, however, there were some people who experienced deep trance. I got to be the subject for a demonstration of the “Yes” induction method. I think I got through seven or eight “yeses” before collapsing into a deep trance and then being brought out of the trance way too quickly! Some toys that hypnotists can use are shown next from pendulums to pocket watches, to a “mind machine” that uses flashing LED lights at specific frequency of flashes to bring trance. Some of the participants played with the toys. We then departed to get ready for dinner, which was at Billy Reeds. Dinner tasted wonderful and we then disbanded for the evening. I personally took more naked time at the hot tub where a couple of fun things happened. First, I got into a staring contest with a fellow hypnotist. I started to wonder who the hypnotist was, until he said, “You are getting very relaxed.”
“Oh, I guess, I’m the subject.” I thought and proceeded to go into a nice deep trance where the water relaxed me even more. The other wonderful thing is that a subject proceeded to be hypnotized by me using a non-verbal induction for the first time. That was quite the ego boost!
The next morning, we ate brunch at Sherman’s Deli. We, and by “we,” I mean most of the people who organized this event, decided to forgo the usual discussion on which city to go next and opted instead for a different approach. Searching cruise vacations, we found the from Boston, a cruise that travels north so that people can watch the foliage turn colors, departs the Sunday of Hypnocon. So, the proposal became that HypnoCon goes to Boston next year, and have the usual Friday and Saturday. On Sunday though, the gathering continues as it does with an informal group setting at the host hotel so that more specialized topics can be discussed and shown in small groups or begin the above-mentioned cruise. The idea was ratified by a general proclamation (nobody complained too loudly), and we then went back to the resort for some small group discussion and generally be laid back and, of course, naked.
Now I come to you dear reader, if you are interested in helping organize the next HypnoCon in Boston, please let me know by emailing me at
[email protected]. HypnoCon has an operating budget of zero dollars, assistance in contacting venues for dinners and entertainment, asking people of interest to come to the gathering, and fresh ideas are greatly appreciated!
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What’s ur thoughts on the dcamu version of dickory?
One of the actual highlights of that continuity. :)
You have to understand, there had not been any kind of significant DickKory content for ages. And then all of a sudden she's name-dropped in Batman vs. Robin, and a contact on his phone, and calling him to try and... *ahem*... get something started.
And then in Batman: Bad Blood we actually get to hear her voice and watch them openly flirt with each other.
And then in Justice League vs. Teen Titans they're skyping and co-parenting and clearly adorable.
You get the picture. Things just kept getting more and more blatant until the gloriousness of Teen Titans: Judas Contract. (Frankly the rest of the movie is mid at best, the DickKory parts are the only scenes worth watching.)
I have zero complaints. They were portrayed pretty much perfectly. Comfortably intimate, mutual care and concern for each other, openly discussed their problems and feelings... It was just a delight.
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Nice to Meet You (Again)
(Oh hey - it’s my first scene log in… a long damn time! Also, Daisy? Put the card for this away while you read.)
First, a confession: my thing with memory play is that it kind of pisses me off that people are able to do it. I mean, I’m happy for them, but it’s always been kind of elusive for me. As a result, I’ve always had kind of mixed success with it as a hypnotist.
So when my friend Daisy, who I’d been talking with since last summer and doing online trancy things with since the fall, mentioned being sort of curious about it, I was happy to play around. She’s a really good subject - someone who just inherently “gets it” - so I felt pretty good about the possibilities.
So, over a few weeks, we played with some simple things and over time we built a metaphor I really love. The idea is this: our brains are reference libraries, our memories are books, and there sure are a ton of books there, right? Too many to keep up with. So we all have a card catalog we can flip through to find the right one. The books never leave (it’s a reference library, obviously) but if you lose the card that tells you where it is? Then it’s essentially impossible to find.
I learned that Daisy would be arriving to Charmed a day before I’d be able to get there, but since I live nearby, I had an idea. What if I picked her up on Wednesday evening and had her forget I’d done so, giving us two chances to meet for the first time?
I threw out the idea during one of our conversations and it was quite well received. I believe the response was just “HOT. Hot.”
A couple of weeks before Charmed, I had her in trance and walked through the particulars of the plan, and let her know that there was no need to remember that we’d even talked about it. Her (very excellent) brain did the rest and over the ensuing days she knew that we’d discussed… something, but there was no clue as to what.
So there I was, pulling up to the airport on the Wednesday before Charmed, and there she was, waiting on the curb. It had been a long time since I’d had that kind of moment–the one that comes from months of conversation and phone calls and Skype trances and that joy of finally meeting someone who felt like an old friend in the flesh. All joy, all around.
We got into the car and started driving and chatting, but I looked at my GPS and realized I’d totally overestimated the drive from the airport to the hotel. I quickly asked her if I could do a thing, and she agreed; I put her into trance as we drove and reminded her about the plan:
I’d take her to the hotel and get her settled, but as soon as I left, she’d forget how she got there, remembering only a lovely rideshare ride with a very nice driver. She’d know she’d gotten there safely and it would all make good sense in her mind. I also planted some other Easter eggs for the weekend, and helped reinforce some safety suggestions we’d built over the time we’d be playing.
We got to the hotel and she checked in, I went up to her room with her and got her settled, and then headed for home. Friends, it was *audaciously* hard to pry myself away. But I knew the payoff would be worth it.
She actually texted the next afternoon to see when I’d be arriving with my merry band of carmates, who I’d told about my plan, but when we arrived, she was engaged as a demo bottom and eager learner in Wiseguy’s first-day class! It was hilarious because I’d rounded up most of my covid pod for the weekend to watch the big reveal, and they were… slightly impatient as we awaited her getting out of class.
But when she arrived from class? It was pure, unmitigated joy, again. I knew it would be fun to meet her twice for the first time, but I can’t overstate how cool it was.
The look on her face to “finally” meet was so real, so joyful. It was as close as one could get to perfect. I introduced her to my friends, and then leaned in to ask… “is there anything you need to remember?”
Y’all. Y’ALL. It could not have been better. Her eyes rolled up and fluttered for what seemed like a minute, but was probably just a few seconds. Seeing the memories return to her mind in real time was unlike anything I’d ever really experienced. She turned to me, said “... you little shit.” (a term of endearment - take my word for it) and then just collapsed into a squat for… a while.
It was so fun, so exciting, and so incredibly cool to do this, and I’m so grateful to Daisy for letting poke around in her brain (which is a truly excellent co-conspirator in all of this). What a great way to start a great weekend.
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Finding My Self in "We're All Going to the World's Fair"
originally posted on goodfeed
content warnings for discussions of depression, suicidal ideations, and predatory relationships
Sometimes I still think about Erick. At least, I think his name was Erick. His email is still in my contacts, though it’s been a decade since we last spoke. Back then, I was a junior in high school, on my first antidepressant, and doing everything I could to distance myself from me. There was no big trauma, no life altering mind fuck to inspire the absolute hatred I had for living in my body. Just a suffocating loneliness. That’s when I found the tumblr roleplay community. I was raised on fanfiction and had written my fair share, but there was something different about roleplaying. I became that character, immersing myself in that fictional world. The numbness I felt about my own life was replaced by the intense wants, fears, grief of someone else. The emotional connections that my depression had severed became usurped by the relationships my character had with other characters. It was all text on a screen, but it was a life when I didn’t feel like living my own. In high school, I was a ghost. But when I wrote as my character, suddenly there was something solid to me. At the very least , I was solid enough to make contact with keys on a keyboard.
Erick was one of my writing partners. He wrote my character’s best and oldest friend, something I, in my real life, had lost not too long prior (Sometimes people grow apart. Sometimes you love people more than they love you). We would talk “out of character”, mostly about plot stuff, but with sprinkles of real life. Hey, what’s up? How was your day? This person whose face I only ever saw in a selfie he posted became someone I spoke to daily. Then, one day, he didn’t respond. A couple days of silence, then he wrote that he’d been in a car accident, but he was recovering and doing okay. We went back to frequent communications, just not as frequent as before. And then a little while later, he was gone. I like to think that he’s fine, just got bored of the game we were playing or stopped caring about the character he wrote. Maybe something bad happened during his recovery. Maybe there was never a car accident at all. Who knows? Not me, that’s for sure. And while I still think about him every so often, he's not really on my mind much.
Then today, I watched We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Written, directed, and edited by Jane Schoenbrun, the movie follows young person, Casey, as she takes part in this online game called the World’s Fair Challenge. It’s a roleplay viral challenge where people film themselves saying “I want to go to the world’s fair” three times, draw their own blood, smear it on their computer screen, and watch a strobe light video. After that, people would film their "progression" of going, essentially, crazy. After initiating the "ritual", Casey seems to disassociate from her body, losing control of herself and her actions. But it’s a roleplay game. A horror one, but it isn’t real. None of it is real. Until it is. Or is it? On the other side of Casey’s screen, there’s a man in his 40s who just goes by JLB. He watches and responds to her videos, though Casey never sees his face. It’s part of the game, too. But that line between reality and fantasy begins to blur and at the end, he’s scared that it’s no longer a game for her. Via Skype, he asks to speak out of character, asking if she’s okay, if she’s really going to kill her father or herself. At first, she seems confused. This was a game? But then there’s a switch, and of course she knows it’s a game. None of it is real. Why is he getting scared? She ends the call and tells him to never call her again. Calls him a pedophile. We fast forward and he's making a video about how he saw Casey a year after that Skype call. That she was doing a theater program in Manhattan now. That she apologized for how she left things and after that night a year ago she'd gone to an inpatient care center for a couple months. According to him, at the end of the night they hugged and parted ways. But we don't see it, we only see JLB on his end of the screen, speaking to no one.
In the end, we’re left with uncertainty and no clear answers. We don’t even really know who the two characters are. Is Casey her real name? Were any of her moments of disassociation real? Did any of the events JLB described really happen? Was the man a pedophile, or just lonely? Does it even matter when the dynamic was inherently predatory? I’ve seen critiques of the film that point to the lack of answers, the ambiguity. But ambiguity is the only thing that's certain online. We don’t know who is on the other side of our screens. And sometimes, we don’t really know our own selves in front of it.
Right before the film’s climax, there’s a line Casey says in the midst of what seems to be a breaking point. “I swear, someday soon, I am just gonna disappear and you won't have any idea what happened to me.” Yes, I thought of Erick and how one day he was there and the next he was gone. I thought about how I’ll never have any idea what happened to him, or if anything he shared with me was real. I thought of the fleetingness of that connection, and so many more that I made over the years behind that screen. I thought of all the lies I was probably told without any way of knowing they were lies. But I also thought about myself. My own phantom of self. I often cite roleplaying on tumblr as something that saved my life, and a part of me still thinks it did. I was self harming, suicidal, isolating myself from everyone in my life. Roleplaying was my life jacket. But when I finished watching We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, the only "review" I could put into words was that when you’re drowning within yourself, sometimes your life jacket only offers the illusion of safety. Did becoming so disconnected from who I was save me, or did it just enable my deep desire to disappear? It’s been a decade now and I still haven’t fully found that kid I used to be. When I think of my life as a series of portraits, I am translucent for so many of them. Or I am painted in the style of people who never existed.
Or did they?
Maybe we'll never know.
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These are all totally genuine questions, I'm not trying to be rude or snarky at all, just trying to clarify and learn! This subject has always kind of confused me... But just curious about your tag about the last time net neutrality came around - wasn't it kind of always around unofficially/there were no rules really before being solidified in 2015 and then they repealed it a couple years later? Do you mean you lost 3k followers in 2015 or when it was repealed? And how does net neutrality make you lose followers - isn't it basically just about all sites being treated without discrimination by internet providers? Again, genuinely asking!
Hi anon - you haven't followed me long enough have you? hahaha :) I don't want to talk too much about it (especially since, well, I lost a lot of followers, the most I ever had in my life), but I will answer, since I think it's an important topic and that well, it brings up an important discussion about what content is "allowed" by the masses especially when you're a blog that isn't fandom or random.
TL;DR is that when Net Neutrality was threatened (idk, 2017? 2018? can't remember, it's late at night here so I can't be bothered to google when exactly, but you get the gist), I posted a lot about it, trying to bring awareness and showing that YES this is an important topic and people should be aware - I don't want to pay a premium internet service to get on Facebook, or have my connection drop because I want to go to tumblr and tumblr didn't make an agreement with my internet company to provide faster service. This was especially important for me, since I was long distance with my boyfriend at the time-now husband, and the only way to connect with him (for free, as you know long distance calls - phone calls - are insanely $$$$ and I was a poor grad student) was over the internet - we used Skype and Facebook and I couldn't imagine being in a position to have to pay extra to access the websites I used to connect with him. I did post a lot about it. Unfortunately, and obviously, that didn't go over well, because I'm a Fitblr™ who is only allowed to post Fitblr™ Things™. I'm not a person, only a curator of Aesthetic™. So, yeah, LOTS of people left and unfollowed me around that time. 3k worth. In fairness, I did post quite a bit (well, I was anxious about it! I'm sorry!), but it wasn't more than a few posts a day for a couple weeks? Idk. Didn't seem like a lot at the time, but perhaps it was. Since I wasn't a random blog, I had a Blog Theme™, and in hindsight that's definitely why people unfollowed - they didn't want to see or hear anything that wasn't my theme- fitblr. They wanted fitness and health and food content, they didn't want to see some political(?) BS. I don't blame them at all, yet on the other hand I guess people have to realize the people running these different themed blogs are... people? And at the time, it was absolutely an outlet for my anxiety and stress. I was being overworked and burned out in grad school, and the thought of losing access to my person - was unbearable. And the way to feel more in control? Post about it. I couldn't donate money, and I didn't want to protest or sign petitions (shit, I didn't have time tbh), but at the bare minimum I could post about it on my blog to gain awareness.
I was being snarky the other day when it was trending again, so obviously I needed to reblog the Destiel meme and add my snark tags because, that's how we tumblrians do it. Because, well, good riddance, people suddenly agree five years later it's an issue and are suddenly actually in support of net neutrality!!! I was mad so the snark came out, and honestly I shouldn't have posted that. But I was snarky. Good riddance. I was right all along. And, I'll even say that in the body, not the tags.
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Been talking to a girl and she's talking about moving in with me, moving from a different country even. Up until now these were just fantasies I had, but now that it might be reality, I think I am getting cold feet. wtf gives?
What do you mean talking to a girl? Just talking and she wants to move in with you from another country? Yeah, lose her number.
Or is this a long distance relationship that has been established? How long? How well do you know her? How well does she know you? If this has been purely online, most people are on their best behavior in these situations. Have you two ever met in person? You could click very well with someone online and then meet in person and it's completely different. Even visits don't give an accurate representation of a person, because again they are on their best behavior so to speak. Vacation time, type of stuff.
Moving in together is huge even for relationships that are in the same area. And you should think about what kind of a person this is that she is willing to uproot her entire life to be with someone in a different country that she hasn't even visited or moved to. IF that is the case. Seems weird to me, seems like something is off, your cold feet could be your instincts telling you something is not right. Or your cold feet could be you simply being nervous of such a huge step, which is very understandable. Or your cold feet could be you realizing that whatever was going on was actually a mere fantasy for you and now it's getting too real. There is much for you to think about and discuss with this woman, and there is too little information here for me.
Years and years ago I was in a long distance relationship with someone from another country where we met online and the bulk of our interactions were online, phone calls, and Skype. He came to visit and while it was an intense connection online, in person it was very different. We ended up breaking up a few months later, but we really never had a chance because we weren't in person.
You definitely have to live with the other person or live near the other person to see if a relationship will work, to see them as they truly are in their day to day life and for them to see that of you as well. If you feel this relationship is worth taking it seriously and you feel there is a future with this woman, go for it, because you both need those answers. The only way to get those answers is to be around each other and get beyond that honeymoon-type phase. Because you said it and it's true, this relationship (if there even is one) is a fantasy at this point. And again, if you have just been causally talking and she wants to move in with you, that is a major red flag.
Anyone have advice for our lovely Anon here? I know some of you have met your spouse on Tumblr even.
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15 years ago when I was half the age I am now, on 23 December 2008 I made an account on a forum. It was bulbapedia's forum, called BMGf for short, to discuss all things pokémon on. While I initially only made my account to win a fanfiction contest with what must be the most cringe story ever written (needless to say I did not win the contest), I started posting regularly and must have been an active poster on there for about 5 years. I feel like by the time XY rolled around I wasn't that active anymore. I made over 10 thousand posts, was personally responsible for popularing the mafia forum game, got made a mod and made over 200 friends if my friendlist was to be believed. They were some very formative years for me on the internet before the advent of social media.
I thought it would be a fun excercise for myself to see which people I am actually able to remember from that website. What impression did they leave on me looking back, who can I even remember from that long ago? Maybe 2 of my followers will read this and not know any of these people, maybe no one will read this at all. But I still feel like it's more fun to post this online on the off chance one of these persons actually reads it than to just keep it in a word document where I know for a fact I will be the only person to ever lay eyes on it.
I will go on an alphabetical order for readability, though this is not the order I started recalling in.
Aladar - I don't know his first name. He was a regular in a chat thread I frequented, he loved star wars and I think we had the same brand of humour. Though he must have become inactive on the forum years before I did and never played mafia with me, it's interesting he left an impression on me nonetheless.
America - Killi, I think this was her username but she'd change it so much I don't remember. I think we mostly bonded over the forum game mafia, but we also watched all of fmab together and were pretty close for a while, chatting often. Apparently she was manipulative and a bit of a gremlin to other people (called abusive etc.), but she was normal around me so I didn't let it bother me. I guess she felt a bit like a younger sister to me in that regard.
Archaic - Liam, as the website owner I was never really close with him but I've spoken with him a few times and in hindsight he was the most normal person on the entire site. He would host contests on the websites that I'd win, over the years I've gotten like three pokemon games from him.
Baron Brixius - an enigmatic kid with an odd sense of humour which overlapped a bit with my own, I liked egging him on. He ended up breaking the forum by naming himself <undefined> and got permanently banned when he did it a second time. He clearly had some issues going on but was never too open about it.
Buoy - don't recall his first name. Some of my friends were obsessed with him for his really weird sense of humour (and the fact he was a few years younger), though in mafia games he could be surprisingly sharp. I think we never really liked each other but we could get along if a mafia game needed us to.
Crackfox - Hayley, I feel like she was a bit mischivous in personality on the forum, but Hayley was brought into a chatgroup I was in a bit later so I remember her more from that. To me it seemed like she always felt like she was a bit of an outsider. I feel like she felt closest to me out of anyone else, I at least dm'd with her a lot on skype. In mafia games on the forum we would also team up almost always. In hindisght I feel like I maybe never truly understood her, one day she just upped and disappeared and I lost a close friend.
Croag - Emily, I guess she came across as kind and a bit reserved? I was in a skype group with Emily for multiple years and got to know her a lot better thanks to that, making it harder to remember my initial impression. Emily presents herself a bit distant with an ironic sense of humour in these group chats but I've met her irl and she where is very genuine and kind. I still talk to her to this day, though not as much as I maybe should.
Emi-chan - Another sister-I-never-had to me as she was a few years older, I really looked up to her and her artistic skills when she started frequenting the chat thread. Though we got along just ok, unfortunately I always felt some distance between us and couldn't really get close to her, before she moved on from the forum. She was into a touhou-esque series called .hack and to this day I've never encountered another fan of that.
Falcon Doveowl - Cara, another person who frequented the chat thread that I got along well with but was not super close to I think. I feel like I may be mixing her up to some extent with Luminosity in my mind, though I chatted with cara a bunch on skype as well I think which I don't think I did for luminosity.
Feralize - I forgot their name, they were always really calm and a force to be reckoned with in mafia games. I think I talked to them a few times on tumblr but I can't recall if they're still active.
FinalArcadia - Haley. I think she was the older sister of two twin girls one of which liked me and the other didn't, but I don't remember their usernames. I believe we got along ok. Someone who frequented a thread where people were all hetalia obsessed and would also play mafia occasionally. We're still mutuals here!
Gaskhan - or was it Ghaskan? I don't remember her name but she was from Portugal, she was a bit of a wallflower whose calm demenure got her promoted to supermoderator. She played mafia a bunch and posted in the chat thread occasionally, but in hindsight I wish I had gotten to know her better.
Gatorage - Axel was generally cocky, though I was in a chat group with him for years I don't recall his personality beyond that all that much. From what I recall while we weren't that close we barely ever got into arguments with each other either, which was rare for me at the time as I got into arguments with everyone.
Ghetsis-Dennis - The most obnoxious person I ever met online, he had a very strong belief system about what characters would be added to the next smash bros (Dawn and Zoaroark among others) and would not shut up about it. The only person I blocked on skype because he would not leave me alone.
Ghost - don't know his name, I feel like he looked up to me as I was a bit older. He was always rather stoic in how he expressed himself but as a chat thread regular we became friends. We both got really into gpx+ at the same time and would talk a lot about that, but I think eventually we just sortof stopped interacting as much even though we were both still active on the site.
Greece - Erin. Was her username actually Greece or am I mixing people up? I think she was a bit demure and we chatted sometimes, but I don't remember her that well. There was a lot of hetalia fans on the website who would change names and avatars so much I wasn't always able to tell them apart that well. I still feel like I'm forgetting someone I talked to a lot on this list, but I can't remember them. Maybe it was Erin, who knows.
Hellion - Don't remember his name. Incredibly cocky know-it-all guy during mafia games, was made a moderator together with me and seemingly always disgreed with me. Awful personality really, I still don't really understand how some people liked the guy.
Humonity - Ruben, from Malta. I felt like he looked up to me for a while, perhaps for my stylish way of playing mafia? He could be a bit eccentric at times but still very fun to talk to, I still talk to him about eurovision every year.
Hunter Blade - don't recall their name. A chat thread regular with a good sense of humour that I got along well with, they're one of the few people from this website that still follows me on here and reblogs my posts occasionally. I should talk to him again sometime.
Hurristat - David. Someone I got along really well with unti he became a moderator and went mad with the power. One day in a skype chat unrelated to the forum (it just had a lot of people from the forum in it) we got in an argument and he tried to to use his authority as a moderator to get me to shut up, which the angry teen I was I refused to give into and caused him to have a meltdown over his own powerlessness. Served him right, jerk.
H-con - Hakon from Norway. Someone from the chat thread I was befriended with, but I can't recall too much about them. I still have them on my switch friendlist (imported from the 3ds friendlist) as I do with some others on this list, and see him online playing games sometimes.
Ino-chan - Tony. Frequented the same chat thread I did. Had a unique deadpan sense of humour which I thought was hilarious. Posted a picture of herself once, and never again. Had a male first name and a male mii on the 3ds and wiiu. I still wonder once in a while, is she trans or did she catfish us for all those years. I think I was sort of close with her, but her distant personality made it hard to really get to know her.
Insana Dana - Dana, I don't think I was that close with her but we got along in various skype groups. I feel like she's one of the few persons who despite being in various fandoms would never get into arguments with others.
jda995 - Joel. Funny guy that I played some mafia games with but mostly know from being in a skype group together with. Very sassy, sense of humour comparable to Croag.
Leafeon800 - Alex is my bff to this day. On the forum we got paired up once in a program meant to introduce new people to each other. I thought our conversations were a bit shallow, and eventually we both got put in a skype group for people who owned mario kart 7 on the 3ds to race together. At first Alex was one of the people in the group I felt least close to, but as hormonal teens the people in that group (including me) were constantly creating drama and fighting. One day the drama was among the other members and I messaged Alex along the lines of "get a load of these guys", starting a trend of us dm'ing each other more and slowly becoming the best of friends. I can't even really remember what caused us to have such a good connection with each other, but I'm really glad it happened.
Leggo - don't remember her name, leggo was always very kind but a bit enigmatic in how she presented herself. Like she was both full of quirky personality but also rather stoic at all times. Such an odd combination. I wonder if she's still like that.
Luminosity - Not Clara, did I ever know her name? She didn't stand out too much, but enough for me to remember her. I think she was older than me and got along quite well with themissingno. I may have gotten some older sister I never had vibes from her, but my memory is fuzzy. I played mafia with her a few times.
Mariowie - Mario? A pretty reserved personality, I chatted with him in the chat thread a few times and the main things I remember is that he's Dutch and lives on an ostrich farm. I still interact with him on twitter, where he often ends up being the only person liking the single tweet I make once every 6 months.
Midorikawa - Ariana, a girl with such a strong personality that we would constantly argue with each other. However when we were on the same side arguing together with someone else I would feel a rush like nothing else. Almost developed a crush on this girl, but thankfully we disagreed more with each other on things than we agreed. She was very conservative.
Mintaka - Hyemin or Min was one of the people I felt closest to on the forum, a girl a few years older than me. She was a student in Seoul, very kind and a bit quirky sometimes and I actually feel bad I don't remember as much about her as I feel like I should. I met her and her family irl when they were on holiday in the Netherlands.
Neonsands - don't remember his name. A lot of mafia board frequenters would eventually start talking to each other on skype but I think neonsands was never one of them. I mostly talked to him during mafia games and he was either an opponent to fear or my favourite ally, a game where I was mafia with neonsands and sourcandy remains one of my favourite and most succesful ones ever. In hindsight I wish I had gotten to know him better.
Neosquid- I don't remember his first name. Neosquid was a bit of a weird kid who was a few years younger than me and appeared to look up to me. I chatted with him a lot and I think we shared similar humour, but unfortunately it's not the clearest in my mind anymore. I think he was dealing with some mental stuff, like how when he was 16 he dated someone 8 years older than him who then broke up with him because he was allegedly being abusive. Hope you're doing ok neosquid.
Paperhorse - Claire, she was like everyone's mom friend. Very warm and kind, but unfortunately I can't remember that many specifics about her. She loved harry potter I think and got married a few years ago, if she has children now I'm sure she'd be a great mom to them.
Phoenicks - a young republican who loved debating more than anything else and therefore also mafia games. We liked each other but weren't really friends, I think he respected me as a player but did not really show it a lot during games. Would write the longest post indicting someone as mafia which annoyed me a lot. It still annoys me when people are making arguments in really lengthy ways when they could be much shorter about it tbh.
pkmngreen - Frank, another person who I chatted with so much I don't recall my initial impression of them. In chats he was a bit cocky and I got into arguments with him sometimes. Thinking back I think Frank was more emotional than he'd like to let on and the jerk that I was I would sometimes take advantage of that to push his buttons. All done with love of course.
Pokemoll - Molly was 10 years old when she joined the forum and got made a moderator at 11, insane in hindsight. After I left the forum I followed her on tumblr and twitter a bit (and still do), watching her grow up in that sense made her a bit of a distant little sister to me. She's kind and not afraid to stand up for herself and while we don't talk to each other that frequently I think we have a mutual respect for each other. I always like seeing that she's doing well when I happen to catch a glimpse of her social media once in a while.
Pichuboy - don't recall his name, he was like the rival of buoy and I didn't like buoy so I liked pichuboy better. He was cocky but in a more serious way than buoy, but I never got that close to him. He was a bit younger I think and babied by some staff members.
Rayne - don't know his first name, rayne pushed for me to become a moderator which I could not hold onto long due to my online anger issues. But it was nice to have a guy trust in you like that. He was older than me and always came across as very chill, apparently he is a hardcore furry.
Revolvingscott - Scott, this guy must've been on the forum for a year at most with only around 800 posts (noob numbers) but as he posted in the chat thread I frequented he left an impression. He was gay and flamboyant about it and I loved his sense of humour, I think we liked egging each other on. One of the few people who would compliment my selfies which did wonders for my self esteem.
Ryuutakeshi - I feel like his name may have been Kevin, but it may not have been. He was a theater kid and though he was a few years older than me I never got older brother vibes from him. It was ok chatting with him but I don't think we ever got that close. He ended up dating someone from the forum who I also chatted with sometimes but wasn't that close to, I think her username was kayori-chan.
$aturn¥oshi - Steve, this guy was like 30 years old moderating the chat thread, always stoic and chill with seemingly almost no sense of humour of his own but happy to go along with the flow set up by others. He was gay, lived in a basement, owned two cats and was obsessed with michael phelps to the point I thought those were pictures of him. I wonder if I ever knew what his day job was.
Secretive Trainer - Danny, whose personality I don't remember that much on the forum, I think just pretty normal and down to earth in general. I've chatted with him more directly and I remember he's gay and loves all things nintendo, so we get along just fine. He reminds me a bit of my brother.
Shiay - Don't remember he name, didn't interact much with her but am including her for the female represntation of this list. She was obsessed with Morty from pokemon gold/silver, a big fujoshi and into brother/sister incest despite having an older brother herself. One of the first persons that made me realise there are some weird people on the internet.
Shiny celebi - Brenna was a lot older than me and always rather demure on the forum, like she had no personality of her own at all. I think that was a symptom of her autism. She seemed rather fond of me, as she would often send me messages on discord with her concerns about sjw-ideology making me hate myself for being a man. It felt a bit smothering.
Sourcandy - Don't recall her name if I ever knew at all, Sourcandy was feisty and a truly genius chaotic mafia player. I would often clinch with her during these games and people on the forum would jokingly ship us for it. I think we were rather fond of each other and could've been good friends, but due to mental health issues she would unfortunately often disappear for months at a time and we could never really become close with each other.
System Error - This guy used the blog add-on of the forum like social media before social media existed, writing multiple short blogs every day. Meanwhile I put effort in all of my blogs, making them all funny like some sort of amateur stand-up comedian and I'd consider my blog failed if it got less than 7 comments on it. These blogs truly were the social media of its time.
TheCapsFan - I chatted with him in some threads, he played mafia sometimes, and now he pretty much runs the forum I think. Unfortunately my final few years on the forum are a bit fuzzy to me and that includes what I talked about with Caps.
Theflamingbooger - Zach, I think. A chat thread regular, I idolized this guy for reasons I can't quite recall. Maybe a brother I never had kind of deal as he was like 8 years older older than me. He had a bad webcomic and became really into mlp later. He didn't really have a great sense of humour from what I remember, but was just averagely himself in the chat thread which was a nice chance of pace from the other whackos who posted there.
Themissingno. - Steve, a regular in our chat thread on the forum. Steve was truly like the older brother I never had, often teasing me, egging on my emotional outbursts (which would cause the mods to warn me to his enjoyment) with an odd sense of humour. But I don't think he ever did these things in bad spirit and was actually very fond of me. When I was whisked away into a skype mario kart chat he was actually a bit jealous which is pretty cute in hindsight. I met him irl once which was very fun.
Unown Lord - Guy who would only be in speculation forums for new games and post entire essays about how the next games should be prequels featuring apricorn pokeballs. If you told him his ideas were insane he'd write another essay on why you were stupid for disagreeing with him. He must've jizzed his pants when arceus legends was announced. Wish I didn't remember this guy.
Zeb - Liam, this guy hated my guts. I don't know why, I think he had issues. But by hating me he just gave me considerable power over him, any argument he started with me would inevitably lead to him having a meltdown. He was added to a skype group chat I was in and left after some time, probably because he couldn't take being around me any longer. I doubt he got far in life.
Zenax - a good mafia player who had the same age and birthday as my brother. Unfortunately I don't remember much else about him, I think he was a moderator at some point as well.
Zima - Zima might be the most wildcard person I've met on the site, obsessed with hetalia and I'm pretty sure she had some mental issues. They'd leave, come back, leave, changed her name constantly. She frequented a different chat thread than I did where I think people disliked her, but I was always quite fond of her.
While it's surprising to see I still remember a lot of people, it's also sad to see how many memories of those people have faded away. Some people have even blended together in my mind, making differentiation harder.
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Short introduction, Rules and Fandom List
Hello all, My name is Luna, or Ki or Ohara; whichever you may prefer to call me. I am a multi-ship; multi fandom roleplayer thats fairly new to the world of Tumblr roleplaying. BEen at the roleplaying game for a few years so I do have experience. I will try and keep this short so we can get to the fun bits, haha I gladly double/triple and play whoever you may want for your muse in return for my chosen favorites.
As I myself am in my 20s+ I much prefer to have a partner of at least 17+
However, if we truly click or it's a fandom that's- shall we say on the rare side {Example being; Yugioh, Shadow and Bone, etc} I may be willing to make an exception to this rule.
IV. RULE : Triggers & such are to be discussed. Personally I only have a few; the whole ‘Daddy’ thing, and a few others we shall discuss in more detail…
VII. RULE : I have more than a few platforms I am able to go over; though my main preference would be Discord if we move offsite; I also have google Docs, Email, Skype, and Telegram.
X. RULE : Doubling, Tripling, Poly, LGBTQ++; there is /no/ judgment on my side. I am open to anything, though I do feel it’s only fair I warn you I am a bit inexperienced in the world of roleplaying out the more- intimate bits of LGBTQ and so on; so you may have to help me with parts. As I said I have NOTHING against- love is love; and I am a proud Ally; I just do not have a ton of experience *Writing* such things yet
**= Characters I'm looking for
I will give just about any canon of FC a shot and double as them for you; just ask.
Fairy Tale *Loke* -only seen the first few seasons; just started-
Sherlock *BBC* *Sherlock*
Yu-Gi-Oh! *Classic* *Atem *
Vocaloid *Gaku*
1/2 Prince *Guii*
Great Mouse Detective *Basil*
Labyrinth *Jareth*
The Originals *Elijah*
Celebrities *See Clone plot; Tom Hiddleston,Tom Ellis, David Tennant, Matt Bomer, Ben Barnes or Benedict Cumberbatch*
Black Butler *Grell and/or Sebastian*
Hetalia *France*
White Collar *Neal*
Once Upon a Time *Rumple*
Rocky Horror Picture Show *Frank*
Brother's Conflict *Hikaru*
Demon Detective Neuro Nougami *Neuro*
Marvel *Loki*
Kamisama Hajimemashita/Kiss *Tomoe*
Assassin's Creed *Ezio*
Magi *Sinbad*
Kpop; Multi-Stan; Ask about a group
Youtubers *Markiplier/Damien/Dark* -Also open to something WKM based with his characters-
Lucifer
Good Omens *Crowley*
Hazbin Hotel *Alastor
Yuri On Ice *Viktor*
LoveLink *Liam Park, Min-Jae lee, Sheng Zhao, Julien Alexandre*
Shadow and Bone *Aleksander*
Bonely Hearts Club *Nox or boss*
Undertale -AU or otherwise; Mettaton *original*-
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okay, no one asked, but before i start rewatching the actual season two, my pitch for the ideal season two (pt. 1 of 2 because this got long) -
2.01 “…had dating prospects”
- keep most everything up to the making of the pros and cons list, save for the mohan voicemail
- we follow that up with a scene in dr. ryan’s office, where dr. ryan is like “devi, i wasn’t expecting to see you back, but i’m hoping the fact that you are means you’ve talked with your mom.” “yeah,” devi says. “she insisted i bring you this.” [sets new tiny vase on the table] [dr. ryan’s chuffed] “while i appreciate that, i do hope that’s not all you discussed.”
- and then devi tries to brush off the india move and the fact that they released mohan’s ashes in favor of asking dr. ryan who she thinks devi should date. to which dr. ryan is reasonably like “devi, you can date whoever you want, but please just don’t ignore your emotions about a big potential change in your life.” and devi gets all defensive and says “i’m obviously better now, i don’t have to worry about that.” [ominous music cue]
- then we get parallel scenes where, obviously more affected by dr. ryan’s words than she wants to be, devi brings up the fact that she’s moving soon and can’t have anything too serious with both ben and paxton. ben can keep his wonderfully obnoxious line about having access to a pj, and paxton would shrug and be like “we can just hang out, that’s cool.”
- kamala and devi see nalini off to the airport, and devi’s talking up how cool it’s going to be that they have the house to themselves and “let’s turn on the air conditioning tonight!!”
- at home, with the air conditioning running, kamala has her skype call with prashant (the bones of her storyline would stay the same, no notes)
- we end with devi having a nightmare about being on a plane with her mom only for her mom to have a heart attack while sitting right next to her. she wakes, sweaty and gasping, and we would pan out to see the unused grief journal sitting on her desk.
2.02 “…been an insomniac”
- next morning, devi attempts to broach the subject with kamala, but in a talking-around-it kind of way like “so. you flew here from india kinda recently. the flight was, like, super safe, right?” but kamala’s too preoccupied with lab stuff to really engage
- still needing comfort, devi runs into ben at their lockers before class and brings up that she didn’t sleep very well the night before. “spoiled by the accommodations at my place, huh?” he’d ask, and they’d have a cute little round of banter that ends with them holding hands on the way off to class and some mcenroe narration that’s like “dr. ryan was totally wrong. devi wasn’t ignoring her emotional needs at all.” [catch me looking into the camera like i’m on the office]
- we see nalini arrive in india, and it more-or-less goes the same way as in canon, no notes
- hallway/atrium scene where we establish fabiola’s conflict over identity for the season with eve. maybe they’re having a cute, happy conversation until they sit down at the couches with eve’s friends and fabiola gets visibly less comfortable in her own skin as she tries to head off to her robotics meeting and eve’s friends mock it
- devi’s heading home for the day and is intercepted by paxton, who offers her a ride that she obviously accepts. he asks her how long she has before the move, and they get to talking about what it’s like to not feel connected at all to a place that’s supposedly so important to your identity, which makes devi a little morose until paxton says, “at least no matter what, we’ll always belong here in sunny socal.” and she’s like “wait, you think i belong here?” and paxton shrugs and is like “no one does YOLO better than you, devi.” which is, like, the most romantic thing devi’s ever heard.
- smash cut to nalini feeling very much disconnected in india, but then, of course, finding comfort in nirmala
- we get a scene where prashant contacts kamala, who’s stuck working late in the lab and that storyline rolls on
- meanwhile, devi has another nightmare and wakes up distressed once again. we see her pace her room until her eyes fall on the pros and cons board. happy for the distraction, she snatches up her notecards and marker and adds a pro each to the board: KNOWS HOW TO MAKE ME LAUGH for ben and MAKES ME FEEL LIKE I BELONG for paxton
- next morning, nalini brings home nirmala and the news that they’re not moving
2.03 “…been to a crush-crashed sleepover”
- deciding they need to celebrate that devi’s not leaving, fab and el pitch a classic gang slumber party. devi’s hesitant at first because what if she wakes them up when she has another nightmare and everyone starts treating her like a bomb about to go off again? then again, maybe being surrounded by her girls will keep her calm and distracted and she’ll sleep like a rock
- scene with fabiola and eve, where fab brings up the sleepover and eve is like ‘oooh, what if i crashed?’ and fabiola starts to panic about the possibility of her mom and eve interacting
- back at the vishwakumar house, nimala has unearthed mohan’s tennis bet ledger, fondly referred to by him as the Vishwakumar Serve. “oh, my god, where did you find that?” devi asks, coming to sit by nirmala on the couch and reaching out to gingerly trace her dad’s handwriting on an entry where he bet her a mall day with fab and el that she couldn’t best him in a game. “it wasn’t hard, kanna, there are several labeled boxes in the garage full of his stuff.” the news is clearly a shock to devi, but even as she casts a look over at the door to the garage, she doesn’t move for it
- at fabiola’s house, we get a scene where fab tells her mom about the sleepover, and trying to be a hashtag Supportive Mother, elise starts asking all these questions about where they’re sleeping and it’s totally fine if fab has the girls over but maybe leave the bedroom door open at all times and fab is like “oh, my god, mom, i’m not dating devi or eleanor they both have boyfriends” and then, thinking of devi’s situation, adds “kind of.” to which elise nods sagely and is like “i know about they/thems” and fabiola perishes from embarrassment.
- it’s once again therapy time! devi brings up that she can’t sleep and dr. ryan should probably prescribe her some ativan or xanex to help out with that. and dr. ryan’s of course like, “devi, i’m not writing you a prescription. let’s talk about the reason you’re having trouble sleeping, instead.” to which devi’s like “i dunno. guess it probably has something to do with the nightmares.” and dr. ryan brings up maybe writing them down in her grief journal, like asking her dad for the comfort he always used to provide, but devi’s like “nah, doc, we’re past that, remember?” [dr. ryan frown of disapproval]
- as devi’s leaving the session, she checks her phone to see two texts: one from paxton asking if she wants to come hang at the garage for video game night and one from ben asking if she wants to compare notes on the gatsby reading for english. she definitely considers taking one of them up on it for a beat, but then texts them both back that she already has plans to sleepover fabiola’s (you know what that is? growth.)
- at said sleepover, the girlies are in fabiola’s room. fab’s painting devi’s nails sherman oaks high colors while she runs lines with eleanor. they’ve hung up a banner in the corner that says ‘happy homecoming’ but the coming has been crossed out to instead read homestaying.
- while this adorable tableau is unfolding, we hear a tapping at the window. a wild paxton appears! with an eve clinging to his back because he just gave her the world’s most perilous piggyback ride up the tree outside fab’s bedroom window. “what happened to video game night?” devi wants to know, throwing open the window. and paxton shrugs “trent and marcus went on a food run, and I didn’t really feel like helping them pick what trent’s gonna shove whole into his mouth. so here i am.” hashtag romance, cue the swooning.
- across the room, fabiola’s not giving eve nearly as warm a welcome. she’s all “i told you not to come!!” and eve’s like “i just scaled a building on paxton hall-yoshida’s shoulders can we please appreciate how iconic that is?” and fabiola, though still fretting, is forced to concede this point. if she had an instagram, she’d totally post about this
- eleanor, now a fifth wheel but spirits not easily dampened, suggests they sneak some alcohol from fab’s parents’ stash and play some spicy truth or dare. she volunteers herself to get the alcohol because even considering it makes fabiola guilt-spiral. eve helps! we get a cute scene of them evading elise and eve being like “haven’t i seen that woman before? isn’t she at, like, a million school events?” to which eleanor would be like “yeah, she’s a pta queen”
- while they’re gone, paxton points to the sign and is like. “so what’s that about?” and devi’s like “oh yeah, i’m not moving. surprise!” and paxton blinks and then gets this soft as heck smile going. “cool.”
- [imagine the kids being cute and silly and a little cringe while playing truth or dare here]
- anyway, the boys eventually start blowing up paxton’s phone so he leaves the slumber party with a kiss and a “glad you’re staying” and shortly after, fabiola’s like “okay, eve, your turn to go before my mom sees you here”
- which is of course the exact moment elise comes in with snacks and is like “who’s this?” and eleanor and devi giggle in the corner while fabiola suffers through the embarrassment of getting scolded in front of her girlfriend and THEN having to endure the pain of elise getting too enthusiastic about finally meeting eve
- throw in a scene where the girlies chat sleepily in the dark and devi fighting falling asleep because she doesn’t want to have a nightmare (spoiler alert: she does not succeed, either in resisting sleep or sleeping nightmare free)
- we end the episode with devi paying ben a visit, because if paxton knows she’s staying now, it’s only fair to let ben know, too. he wraps her up in this huge hug and is like “oh, thank god. flying actually makes me really uncomfortable.” and devi shakes her head and is like “wealth is wasted on you.” to which he shoots back, “give it a week as my official girlfriend, and i promise you won’t be complaining about how i utilize my wealth” *winky face* and she laughs, but then it dawns on her ... oh, my god, devi has two boyfriends!
2.04 “…been under scrutiny”
- we open with the girlies debriefing in devi’s room. she ping-pongs from excitement to anxiety over the fact that she’s dating two people, and fab and el are like “obviously you can’t actually do that, you have to choose. let’s consult the board again!” but no matter how hard they look for a solution, devi remains steadfastly torn. she decides it’s not actually wrong of her to date them both for a week, so long as she picks one after that. [fab and el facepalm in unison]
- cue montage! it probably looks similar to the canon montage from 2.02, but with flashes of devi returning to her list to add new notecards with pros/cons
- the day before devi’s week is up, nirmala brings home none other than aneesa and noor, who she got chatting to at the home depot. they’re new in town and wouldn’t you know it? aneesa’s starting at devi’s school maybe devi can show her around! wouldn’t that be lovely? finally, some desi friends! [live devi reaction: 🤨]
- at the same time devi’s meeting aneesa, nalini’s having a run-in with dr. jackson (you’re on thin freaking ice mr. common sir, but i do like what this storyline does for exploring nalini’s grief so.) probably he makes an obnoxious comment about her very expensive and desirable roster, which she pretends to ignore but he can tell he’s gotten a rise out of her anyway and they have this moment of intense eye contact that leaves nalini a little shook
- what the heck, we’ll make the title apply to all three of our leading ladies and make this hypothetical episode also contain a continuation of the kamala storyline where we officially meet her lab partners, who are lazy and lording the possibility of meeting dr. peters over kamala’s head to get her to do all the work
- back at the vishwakumar house, devi and aneesa are in devi’s room, having an uncomfortably polite get-to-know-you conversation. devi learns that aneesa is sporty and is like “hmm, can’t relate” and aneesa learns that devi loves riverdale and is like “ah, i like my television to actually make sense :/” and all the while, the cork board looms in the background
- devi meets up with aneesa the next morning and they head inside with some uneasy small talk. on the way to the guidance office to get aneesa’s schedule and locker assignment, they pass trent, who’s like “yo, devi, this another hot cousin of yours?” which of course makes devi grumpy. aneesa smiles and giggles.
- they find out that english is the only class they have together, so devi promises to meet her there later, flashing aneesa and thumbs up and saying “good luck” before straight-up ditching her
- kamala has her big discovery while the other guys are planning their next karaoke night. main lab nerd man dismisses the work.
- back at the school, it’s english class time! mr. kulkarni my beloved!! him and aneesa bond over soccer while devi watches jealously
- in a ooh, foreshadowing move, the class is discussing why it’s so important to gatsby that daisy disavow her attachment to tom and ben is super on gatsby’s side but devi passionately argues that not even the narrative endorses this
- they have an intense after-class moment, which aneesa witnesses, and she’s like “oh my god! you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend that’s really cool!” and ben looks all dopey and hearteyes when he says, no small trace of irony, “oh, yeah, that’s devi. the coolest.” and we get a “shut up, ben!” because this is my dream season and you can’t stop me
- at work, we see nalini leaving for the day, and she’s listening to the eight separate voicemails nirmala has left her over the course of the workday and mr. common sneaks up out of nowhere to say “dr. vishwakumar in a smiling mood? it’s a good look for you.” flustered nalini? also a very good look
- in the school parking lot, aneesa catches up with our girl gang, and fabiola and eleanor are asking polite questions about aneesa’s first day while devi’s noticing everyone else notice and whisper about aneesa. and then paxton comes by and is like “i heard a rumor you’re an evil twin?” and as devi’s getting all worked up, paxton steals a kiss and is like “don’t sweat it, vishwakumar. evil twins are always hotter than the good ones.”
- and aneesa, sweet and innocent aneesa, blurts “wait, i thought you were dating that ben kid” at the exact moment shira and zoe are passing their little group
- we end the episode on devi’s expression of dawning comprehension that she’s screwed
2.05 “…been the new kid”
- whaaat? aneesa-centric episode? yes, i think so. narrated by megan fox because that feels right for some reason.
- we kick off before aneesa’s first day at sherman oaks, getting the classic mirror-shot narrator introduction/monologue
- as the day unfolds, we see aneesa getting uncomfortable with how interested everyone is in her arrival. unlike the cool and collected person we see from devi’s POV, we get the sense that aneesa’s actually really shy. this manifests in her agreeing with/saying some contradictory things to various cliques just to blend in. (whaaat? aneesa has an unstable sense of self and her and devi might find common ground about it later? yes, i think so.)
- we also see how devi looks interacting with both ben and paxton from an outside perspective, and that distance makes it hard to see all the anxiety and grief and genuine affection that goes into her choice to date them both. it seems like she’s enthusiastically leading two people on.
- back at aneesa’s house, we get a scene between aneesa and noor, where we learn that aneesa’s transferred because of bullying re: eating disorder. the mother-daughter relationship is full of tension and love. (whaaat? aneesa having a complicated relationship with her mother like devi, something else they might find common ground about later? yes, i think so.)
- noor shuttles aneesa off to therapy, where she talks about how she might have already messed up her fresh chance and her therapist is like “instead of punishing yourself for this, i urge you to tell this devi how you’re feeling.” which is advice aneesa totally ignores (whaaat? …i’m not gonna do the bit again you guys get it)
- we end the episode with aneesa sitting awake in her bed, logging her food for the day in a journal and stressing about what the next day will bring
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To continue on the topic of being scammed, and fraudulent people on the internet; a few days ago, someone from tumblr wanted to pay me weekly for daily, hr long video chats. I was interested. He wanted to pay 200-400 i believe (can’t remember) a week for this service.
Now, he went on to discuss how he’s been effed over many times by girls who’ve taken the money and disappeared without a single video chat so asked for a single hr long video chat before he paid me the weekly amount required for the service.
‼️We should all know, it’s always payment before service, in any adult entertainment/content making type of industry/business‼️
But for once I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and agreed to do one chat and then receive my full payment. Of course, we know how this story ends. I do the full hr long video chat, very sexually explicit, and at the end of the call he blocks me on tumblr and disappears off skype.
Basically lesson learned for me, and a warning to all you out there, never EVER give in/allow service before payment. No one is trustworthy. It is not worth it. Always require payment first. Period.
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